Chapter 6
The flight from New York to Arkansas passed quickly as I mulled over what I had learned. What was I to do with this information about Ben and the gold? As far as I was concerned, the gold should remain in its secret lair. The only one who knew its hiding place was Ben’s daughter and I wanted to keep it that way. Skye evidently didn’t need it; she had her dad’s oil land and her own private practice. Something about the history of the gold seemed almost sacred and I didn’t feel that it should be disturbed. Somehow, that gold was entwined with Ben’s murder. My only interest was that Ben’s killer be caught, quickly, before he murdered anyone else in his pursuit of riches.
Mom was waiting for me at Aunt Bet’s in Fayetteville and as we drove back to Levi, I filled her in on what Arlen Templeton told me.
For a time, she was silent as trees and streams rushed past the Passport’s windows. “There’s someone in Oklahoma City who knows about the medallion?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered, “a Jason Allred.”
Her mouth set in a determined line. “Then we must go see Mr. Allred.”
“No, that might not be a good idea. The more we know about the gold, the more dangerous it becomes for you. Already, Ray Drake thinks you know more than you do.”
Glancing at Mom’s expression, I had the sinking feeling that soon we would be making the trek to our state’s capital. At the moment, the only trip I wanted to take was to the bathtub for a long soak. Why had I become involved in such intrigue?
My first thought, the next morning when I awoke, was that I must tell Jake about my trip to New York, then, with a sharp pain through my heart, I realized anew that I would never talk to Jake again.
Tears blurred the scene from my bedroom window. Mom’s front yard was awash with the colors of peonies, azaleas, and lilacs. How could nature keep to its eternal cycle while my heart was breaking? Again, I asked the Lord why He had taken Jake from me. How could I trust a God Who would do such a cruel thing? The morning offered no answers, so I wiped my eyes and slipped into my old blue robe. Tempting aromas of breakfast drifted up the stairs.
Mom sensed my mood. “Try these blueberry muffins,” she said. “I’ll pour your orange juice and coffee. Things will look better after you’ve eaten.”
I sank down into a dining chair. “I don’t know, Mom. Sometimes life itself is a mystery. How should we deal with all the bad things that happen?”
“Trust God, Darcy. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows all about Jake and He knows who killed Ben. That person will not escape the Lord’s justice.”
Biting into a muffin, I mumbled, “Maybe I’ll drive out to Granny Grace’s place today. It’s always so peaceful out there.”
“That’s a good idea,” she said. “You need some thinking time, and while you’re doing that, I’ll check in with the church thrift shop. They may want me to work today.”
After washing the breakfast dishes, I went back upstairs, pulled on my blue jeans, a green knit shirt, and my hiking boots. Sometimes snakes hid in those rocks along the Ventris River, and I didn’t intend to be bitten by one as I walked through the land that once belonged to my grandparents.
The phone rang just as I started out the front door. Grant’s deep voice came across the wire.
“Is everything all right out your way, Darcy?”
How ridiculous and fickle of me that, even after intervening years, hearing Grant still brought back memories of soft spring nights and young dreams. Dangerous thoughts, those, and I determined to put them behind me.
“Everything is fine, Grant,” I said. My investigation into Ben’s murder must remain a secret for a while. Grant, I felt, would not approve of it.
“It’s nice that you are close again, Darcy,” he went on, “but be careful. I’m working on finding out who killed Ben Ventris, but so far it’s a no-go, and bad as I hate to think it, you might be in danger. Everybody in town knows you and Miss Flora are the ones who found Ben. The killer might think you know more about his death than you do.”
“I realize that, Grant,” I said. “Thanks for being concerned but Mom and I are okay. We’ll call if anything scares us.”
“Promise?” he asked.
“Promise.”
As I hurried down the front steps to my car, I glimpsed a dark blue vehicle disappearing around the corner. Could that be Ray Drake in his Buick? Why would he be lurking about? Perhaps I should have told Grant about Drake’s visit. But the day was too beautiful to let my suspicions spoil it. Backing out of the driveway, I pointed the car out of town.
Turning onto the road toward the river, I glanced in my rearview mirror. That same blue car was following at a safe distance. Were two people in the front seat and was the car really Ray Drake’s? Just to be on the safe side, I would do my best to lose him. Instead of going southeast, I headed west, then pulled a quick turn onto a narrow paved lane. Braking, I eased behind a thicket of sumac that bordered the road. From my hiding place, I watched the Buick creep past, Ray Drake at the wheel. He had a passenger but I could not see clearly enough to determine whether it was a man or woman.
Fear rose in my throat with a metallic taste. How dare this man stalk me? And why? He must know something about the gold, but how did he know it? Tales of buried treasure abounded but those old stories had been around for a long time, and why should Ray Drake connect my mother or me with the story of Ben’s hidden gold?
Anger replaced my fear. Nobody knew the back roads of Ventris County like a person who had grown up here. Nobody from out of town, as Ray Drake evidently was, would have heard about a shortcut to Granny Grace’s old home place.
Putting my car in gear, I drove back onto the pavement. If Drake could follow old wagon roads and rocky creek beds, more power to him!
After winding my way around tree-covered hills and across spring-fed streams, I turned onto the dirt lane that led to my grandmother’s land. Below me stretched part of the lake that was formed when the U.S. government dammed Ventris River sixty years ago. My parents used to talk about how the free-flowing river looked in the days before the dam—a different channel and different depths. At that time, the fertile river bottomland grew wonderful crops, but one of the hazards had been flooding. Sometimes water covered a whole season’s worth of corn, and all my grandparents’ hard work went for nothing.
Now that the land near the river belonged to the government, access to our own acres was harder. Straddling a sagging, rusty fence, I walked downhill toward a creek that splashed through land that was once Granny Grace’s and now belonged to my mother.
Mom had told me some months ago about a rancher farther up the creek who had dammed the stream for his own use. Of course, that slowed the creek to a trickle and made it harder for farmers who depended on it for their cattle.
The scent of water, damp earth, and wildflowers mingled with a fragrance I could only call the essence of springtime. Filling my lungs with the fresh air, I thought of one of my favorite Scriptures from the fifth chapter of the Book of Job: “For you shall be in league with the stones of the field; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.” That was my feeling about this beautiful chunk of nature.
One of the many dreams that died with Jake was of someday building a house on these acres that had belonged to Granny Grace. We would have retired here and enjoyed our sunset years in my ancestral home. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Oh, Jake, where are you now?” I whispered. “Heaven is so very far away.”
A hard knot of grief began in my chest and spread throughout my body. I lifted my face to the sky and screamed, “Why?”
As the echoes of my voice bounced from hill to hill, I heard a muffled, hoarse exclamation and a splash. Running in the direction of the sound, I pulled branches apart, jumped over briers and there, in the deepest part of the creek stood a large young man. He was in waist-high water, in a still pool under a bluff that jutted out like a prominent nose. Startled eyes jerked in my direction and his mouth dropped open.
r /> “I’m sorry I scared you,” I said. “Were you noodling for fish?”
Without a word, he scrambled downstream, splashing water and slipping on rocks until he gained a foothold on the bank. Out he clambered and galloped over the hill.
Had I sounded that frightening? I wished this boy had let me explain. I didn’t object to his noodling, even if he was trespassing. Dad told me about noodling, how he had tried it once, feeling under rocks in the creek for fish. Nearly putting his hand on a cottonmouth snake instead of a fish cured his desire to noodle.
Shrugging, I walked upstream, on the lookout for any possible hiding places that might contain the fabled gold. The creek separated my grandmother’s land from the farm of Ben Ventris. Through the years, the stream had cut different channels and neither it nor the Ventris River followed the paths they once took. Sycamore trees towered along the creek, some as high as 160 feet. During the days when Ben’s ancestors walked Ventris County, those trees would have been much smaller. Did one of them contain a hollow where a treasure could be tucked away? Caves, some small and some large, pockmarked the bluffs. Did one of them harbor a trove of Georgia gold?
Something fanned past my shoulder followed by a loud zing and a pop. Holding my breath, I froze. Another crack, and dirt sprayed in front of my feet. Gunshots! Someone was shooting at me!
Dropping to the earth, I lay there, my heart fluttering like the leaves overhead. Two bullets from an unseen gunman had come chillingly close. I pressed my face into the mossy ground and tried to pray. All I could remember were the words, “Psalm Ninety-one.” I whispered this phrase again and again. The rest of the Psalm had vanished from my memory.
Would the hidden gunman shoot again? Could he see me through the trees? Minutes ticked by while I lay frozen in place, afraid to breathe, my ears straining for the sound of approaching footsteps. Would he find me and shoot me point blank?
After what seemed like years, I decided I could not lie here forever, or at least I hoped I would not lie here forever. Maybe the shooter thought he had hit me and I was dead.
In the distance a crow cawed, and from a nearby tree a blue-jay scolded. The sounds of nature were returning to normal. Hopefully, that meant the gunman was gone.
Cautiously, I raised my head and looked around. Nothing moved except the creek and the leaves. I eased up to my knees then stood. Expecting each moment to hear another shot, I trotted downstream until reaching the sagging fence and my Passport, parked on the roadside. Scrambling over the wire, I yanked open my car door and, with a hand that shook badly, turned on the ignition.
“Thank You, Lord,” I breathed. Dust and rocks flew under the tires as I stomped the accelerator.
I hadn’t wanted to tell Grant about Ray Drake or the trip to New York or what Mom knew about the gold. Now, I had no choice. What if it had been Mom instead of me that the cowardly person had tried to kill? And, if the would-be assassin was Ray Drake, how did he know where to find me? Not many people ventured this far out of Levi on unpaved roads. I had felt certain that no one had followed me, but I was wrong. For the first time in my life, I wished a patrolman would stop me for speeding as I barreled down the road back to the safety of Levi.