Ghost on Black Mountain (27 page)

“Unless she wrote in there that she killed Hobbs, the book wouldn’t have done anyone no good.”

I didn’t tell him about the last paragraph. I couldn’t. He reached out and touched my hand. “You are a real good person, Rose Gardner.” His fingers were warm on my skin. A change floated in the window and sat down at the table with us. While I still hurt for Hobbs, the stirring in my chest was caused by this man sitting across from me. And I wasn’t so sure I liked it.

“I hope Hobbs never killed anyone.” The words sat in front of him.

“He killed, Rose. He killed. I wish I could tell you something different, something sweet and nice that you could rest in, but Hobbs Pritchard killed at least one man. I know this because I was there. And maybe he killed more than that. No way of knowing for sure.” The words were soft but full of hidden anger.

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry too.”

I finally understood who Hobbs could be.

Someone chopped Hobbs’s head off and stuffed it in a tree. The action was filled with angry violence, the kind that could only be committed by someone who both loved and hated him. The sheriff came up the mountain on Monday afternoon. Everything about him was slow. He huffed and puffed as he studied the skull in his hands. “It’s human, all right.” A wrinkle formed on his forehead. “It’s the real thing.” He flicked his thumbnail over the smooth bony surface as if he handled human remains every day.

“It probably belonged to Hobbs.”

The sheriff kind of smiled. “Yeah, I figured it might. Unless someone else up here has come up missing.”

“Just Nellie, but you knew about her.”

He nodded. “I remember it well. Caused quite a stir.”

“Who do you think killed Hobbs?” Jack took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. I was learning he did this when he was deep in thought.

The sheriff turned the skull upside down. “Ain’t no telling who put an end to this man’s life. He had enemies all over. I heard that he had a man out of Atlanta looking for him.”

Atlanta. Hobbs had men from as far away as Vicksburg, Mississippi, looking for him, but I kept my mouth shut. What good would speaking out do? I knew who killed him.

“His wife disappeared about the time he did, right?” The sheriff looked at Jack, but I could have sworn he was watching me out of the corner of his eye.

“Folks searched a good bit for her but didn’t find nothing.”

The sheriff held the skull out to Jack.

“Yep, nothing was ever found.” Jack’s voice was a touch sad, or maybe just tired.

“Well, if his wife killed him, she was damn good at what she did. That truck of his had nothing in it.”

For a second Jack was still and then he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the wedding band. “This was found in the truck a week or so ago.” He looked at me and back at the sheriff. “I know for a fact it belonged to Nellie.”

The sheriff looked at it. “Looks like a man’s ring to me.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Hobbs was just like that. He’d win something in a card game and pass it off as a gift.”

The sheriff laughed. “No wonder she killed him.”

“If she killed him, it was because no one would help her.” Jack didn’t look at me.

The sheriff tilted his head to the side. “What you getting at?”

“He beat her bad. I didn’t know that, but it seemed everybody else on this mountain knew. No one would help her cause they was all afraid.” His look was cool.

“Sounds like self-defense to me. But you know a sheriff can’t do a whole lot about a husband beating on his wife. That’s a private affair. It would never have held up in a court.” He held his hands out. “She did herself and the whole mountain a favor by putting a end to him. I’d just like to know how she did it. How in the world did she cut his head off, Jack? Pritchard would never have stood by and let that happen to him.”

“Maybe he was drunk.” Jack said this in his quiet manner.

“Yep, but then that is plain-out premeditated cold blood.”

“You’re right about that.” Jack looked at me.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned the case is closed. We’ll never know and I ain’t going searching for a woman who may or may not be dead.” He nodded at the skull. “Put him to rest.”

Could Hobbs rest? I really doubted it.

That night after Lonnie was asleep, I lit a lantern and went to the hollow tree. Now was the time to close what had been between us.

There wasn’t a star shining. The air was crisp and the wind
still. “Hobbs?” My voice echoed off the forest. Only the river answered. “I came out here to tell you to leave Lonnie and me alone. It’s over. I’m better. I can see what you did to Nellie. I know you killed Jack’s mother. Jack says you killed another man. I think you had something to do with Jack’s girlfriend dying so long ago. Remember, I’m smart. I know you. I don’t blame you for my pain, because I didn’t listen. You told me once you were bad.”

A cold wind popped a branch in the tree.

“I’m a grown woman now. I know you took advantage of me that day I met you. Can you hear me?” I listened. “Well, that’s all I have to say. I’m starting a new life. I think I might really like your stepbrother.”

Again the cold wind whipped the tops of the trees.

“I know you don’t like it, but honestly it doesn’t matter what you think. She killed you, Hobbs, because you beat her so bad. I bet you didn’t see that one coming. That little girl you picked over me, the one you had no intentions of ever leaving, killed you. She was smarter than me. Just leave Lonnie alone. Let him have the life you never had. I’m going now.” I walked toward the house but turned back for one last look. There stood the shadow. “I brought you back to Asheville. My spell brought you back. Bet you didn’t know that either. You probably never would have come back looking for me if not for that hoodoo spell.” I walked back to the house without looking at the tree again. Let him stand out there for eternity. I was finally finished.

Forty-six

F
rom that day forward I found it easy to care for Jack. He was plain and would always lead a quiet life, but my idea of excitement had changed. We ate supper together most nights, and he put Lonnie to bed with a story. We’d sit and talk for the longest. I told him all about me, everything, even the hoodoo part. He never laughed when I pulled out my book and bottles.

“You’ll have to compete with Amanda if you keep practicing.”

“Isn’t she Pastor Dobbins’s maid?”

Jack grinned. “Yep.”

Hoodoo had served its purpose and now I was finished. A person had no real control over the powers of magic.

Jack told me about how he was tied to the mountain out of love and respect; how it would always be his home; how he thought he would live out his life in a quiet way.

Lonnie told Jack one night that he heard music in his head all the time. So Jack brought him a guitar. My little boy picked it up and began strumming it like he’d been playing it his whole
life. After that he carried his guitar, nearly as big as him, around with him everywhere. I loved Jack for giving him something of his own, a way to make him feel special. Things were good with the three of us. It was fine with me if life stayed just like it was forever. But sometimes I caught Jack studying my face. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Then one day Jack came into the kitchen, took off his hat, and looked at the floor as if there was a piece of lead on his shoulders. “Could you have a seat, Rose?”

I had let my guard down and begun to enjoy my days. That was the stupidest thing I could have done. My throat closed. I sat in one of the kitchen chairs.

“I got to talk to you.”

“What’s happened?” I stilled my voice. “You’re scaring me, Jack.”

He looked startled. “Oh, I didn’t mean … Well, you see, Rose, I was thinking and …”

My head roared. He was going to ask me to leave. How had I relaxed into him?

“Well, would you think about being my wife?” He even squatted down on one knee in front of me. “We’ve been spending so much time together and I think you feel the same way I do. I don’t know if it’s love but I like being with you. Lonnie could take my last name too, if that’s okay.”

He wanted me to marry him. Jack Allen wanted me to marry him.

He pulled something out of his pocket. “Here, this was Mama’s. If it’s big, I’m sorry. She wasn’t a little woman. Maybe we can take it down to Asheville and have it made smaller.”

Did I love him? I knew what I felt wasn’t like my feelings for Hobbs, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe my love for Jack was quiet, steady, calm like him.

“Will you marry me, Rose?”

I looked into his green eyes and lost my mind. “Yes, Jack, I will.”

He kissed me for the first time; finally I had my fairy-tale ending.

We married on Christmas Eve at the foot of the waterfall. A light snow fell. I wore a white lace dress the women of the mountain made for me. Mama even came up to the wedding. She brought the judge to perform the ceremony. I was the happiest woman in the world.

I never told Jack what the last paragraph of Nellie’s diary said. What was the point? The sheriff had closed the case. No one was looking for her. For all I knew she was dead somewhere. But there were times way later I wished I had told Jack the whole story, that I wished he had hunted Nellie until he found her and brought her back to the sheriff. Had she paid for her actions, my life would have been a happily-ever-after.

That spring the government urged us to plant victory gardens. America was at war with Japan and Germany. Jack insisted on enlisting in the army. I won’t lie, I was scared. He didn’t have to be a hero for the country. He kept our little family safe. We needed him. How could he leave? But for him it was about being an honorable man with a sense of responsibility. And wasn’t that why I married him?

I turned a larger plot of ground out front. The thought of digging up the rest of Hobbs’s bones somewhere went through my mind, but I only laughed at myself. And then the hoe hit a hard object. I knelt down and saw the sun reflect off of something. It couldn’t be a bone. A canning jar completely intact was half out of the ground. Goose bumps formed on my arms. I brushed the dirt away. Inside was more money than I’d ever seen. Hobbs’s treasure.

“Jack! Jack!”

He came running from the barn and stopped. “What’s wrong?”

I held up the jar.

His eyes lit up. “Lordy be, the treasure.”

“What do we do with it?” The money could make a lot of difference to the people on the mountain.

“I think we got to spread our good fortune around.” He was thinking the same as I was.

I laughed and looked at the woods. A man stood there. He wore a cap and round spectacles. He watched me with a steady stare.

“I think we should go buy you a new dress.”

I looked at him. “A new dress sounds nice.”

Jack smiled. “You’ll be okay while I’m gone to war.”

I buried my face in his chest. “I want you to be okay.”

“I will. I’ll come home. I promise.”

The man vanished. I wish I could say I gave him a lot of thought, but the truth was I was praying that Jack wouldn’t die. I prayed that he wouldn’t even have to go.

Years later I would think of that man staring at me, but by then it would be too late. Not that I could have changed anything that happened. Some things are out of our hands.

Part Five

Iona Harbor

Forty-seven