Heart of Gold (21 page)

Crystal had come to see her after dinner yesterday, and the boys had, too. They knew about her parents getting separated and told her everything would be okay, but having her business in the street and wanting to scream that nothing would be okay again left her embarrassed and angry. At least Devon had the sense to stay away. When she went back to school, if he had one smart thing to say about what was happening in her family, she'd knock him into next week. Guaranteed. She didn't care if Mr. James suspended her for the rest of her life. In fact, she owed him another pounding anyway. Amari told her what he'd said at the town meeting about her painting the fence. She supposed he'd conveniently forgotten who stood up to the adults last year to help him paint it when he was busted for stealing money.

The pain meds she'd been given with some juice a short while ago were making her woozy, so she snuggled beneath the covers and let them carry her into sleep.

In her dream she was walking down Main Street. She knew she was in Henry Adams, but some of the places looked like Miami. She saw Reverend Paula's old church and the place beneath the highway where she and her mother Bonnie used to live. Up ahead by the Power Plant, she spotted her dad. He waved at her to join him, but then for reasons unknown he started running away. She ran after him, calling for him to stop and wait for her, but he kept getting farther and farther away. Soon she was in the open field near Ms. Genevieve's place. She could see her dad running toward the horizon, and then the dream shifted. She was back under the highway.

The place looked just as it had on her last day there. The old bare mattress where she slept was in its spot, and beside it the big brown shopping bags that held her and her mom's stuff. Cars sped by overhead, and there in the shadows lay something that made her scared. Newspapers, just like the ones she'd placed over Bonnie's corpse, were covering something. She didn't want to look at whatever they were shrouding, but she couldn't make herself stop walking toward it. Kneeling down, her hand shook as she moved the paper aside, and there lay Mr. Patterson. He was dead. His shotgun was across his chest. Then the rats came. Thousands of them. They were big and made of gold and had sharp gold teeth. They jumped on him and began feeding. She grabbed the gun and tried to beat them back, but there were too many. When they turned on her and knocked her down, she woke up screaming.

Then her mom was there. “Zoey! What's wrong? Are you okay? I could hear you screaming from downstairs.”

Still shaking with fear, Zoey said, “The rats! They came back!” Another part of the dream floated to the surface, and she went still. “Mr. Patterson's dead!”

Her mom's soft hand brushed the sweaty hair away from her face. “Sweetie, you just had a bad dream. Remember the doctor said the meds could have that effect?”

“No, Mom, he's dead! The rats were eating him, then they jumped on me. Please call Tamar. Please!”

“Okay. Calm down, honey.”

“No, no. She needs to go to his house.”

“Okay, okay. I'll call her. Take a deep breath.”

“Hurry, Mom!”

“Let me get you some water—”

“No! Call Tamar!” Zoey felt hot tears running down her cheeks.

Her mom pulled out her phone and went out into the hallway to make the call. Shaking, Zoey fell back against the pillows.

Her mom came back into the bedroom. “Tamar's at the rec, but she's on her way there.”

“Thank you.”

“So, do you want to tell me about the dream?”

“Dad was in it. He was running, and I was trying to catch up, but he kept running faster. Then he disappeared, and I was back in Miami in the place where my mom and I used to sleep at night. And Mr. Patterson was laying beneath a bunch of newspaper, then these rats showed up, and they were made out of gold.”

“Gold rats?”

“Yeah.”

“No idea what that means.”

“Me neither, but I was so scared.”

She was pulled close by her mom, who also placed a kiss on her forehead. “You're safe now.”

But she wasn't safe from the awful memories. “They had big, sharp teeth, and they were huge. I don't want to take that medicine anymore if it makes me have dreams like that.” Zoey hated that she was so scared, but she couldn't help it.

“I'll talk to the doctor and see what she says. Maybe she can prescribe something different.”

Zoey hoped so. “Did Tamar say she'd call you back?”

“She did. While we wait, are you hungry? You want something to eat?”

“No. I just want to wait for Tamar to call back. You can go back to doing what you were doing. I'm okay now.”

“You sure?”

She nodded.

“Okay. I'll let you know what Tamar says when she calls.”

Her mom left the room, and Zoey took in a deep breath in an effort to rid herself of the terrifying dream before settling back to wait.

Bernadine dropped her overdressed sister off at the store for her interview and was on her way back to the Power Plant when Tamar's voice came over her sync. “Bernadine, are you in the office?”

“Nope, but on the way there. What's up?”

“I need you to swing by Roni's first.”

“Something happen? She okay?”

“She and Zoey are fine. Cephus Patterson passed away at some point in the past twelve hours.”

She wondered what this had to do with dropping by Roni's place. “Sorry to hear about his passing, but what's this got to do with Roni?”

“Just stop by Roni's. Something here you need to see.”

“What is it?”

But Tamar was gone.

Sighing because this was Henry Adams, and lord knew what this was about, Bernadine turned Baby toward the subdivision.

Roni answered the door. “Hey. Thanks for coming. You're not going to believe this. Come with me.”

Roni led her upstairs to Zoey's bedroom. She expected to see Zoey in bed, but not with her lap covered by a pile of gold coins.

Zoey's eyes flashed excitedly. “How sick is this, Ms. Bernadine? There's two hundred and fifty of them. I counted them. Aren't they beautiful? I think this is why all the rats were made out of gold.”

Having no idea what that meant, she asked, “Where'd they come from?”

“Mr. Patterson.”

Bernadine walked over to the bed and picked one up. On one side of the coin there was a woman wearing a coronet. On the verso side was a fancy eagle. “They aren't real, are they?”

Tamar said, “I think they are.”

Bernadine was so confused, her head was beginning to spin.

“They're double eagles,” Tamar added. “I was going through Cephas's things to see if he had a suit to be buried in, and this saddlebag was on his kitchen table.” She handed Bernadine a bag similar to the ones used by the cowboys in the Hollywood westerns her daddy always enjoyed. It was old, though—from the crisp feel of the dried-out black leather, very old.

“This was inside.” Tamar held up a cellophane bag yellowed with age. “And in the cellophane was this—”

Bernadine took the folded newspaper from Tamar's hand. The banner read “Nicodemus Cyclone.” That she was holding an original Exoduster newspaper was enough to add to her swoon, and the date beneath the banner almost made her faint. “Eighteen eighty-five!”

Roni chuckled. “And as they say on the television game shows, There's more! Take a look at the story at the top of the page, and at the drawing with it.”

Bernadine read aloud: “Colorful outlaw Griffin Blake”—she glanced down at the ink drawing of a man wearing a weathered cowboy hat, then resumed reading—“also known as Kansas Red, Oklahoma Red, and a slew of other aliases too numerous for this journalist to recount—has struck again. His latest victim, the Kansas Pacific Railroad.”

The article went on to say that Blake made off with a mine company's payroll worth $5,000 in gold. Speechless, she looked at the gold again.

Zoey smiled. “Awesome, right? Tamar said the Henry Adams gold was just an old myth. Guess not.” Using her good hand, she threw a handful of coins in the air. “Ms. Bernadine, do you know anyone selling a go-kart track? Because I want to buy one, if this is enough money.”

The request drew Bernadine up straight. Staring at Zoey and then the gold, she put one and one together and almost had a heart attack for real. “He left all this gold to you?”

“Yep,” she replied proudly.

Bernadine's eyes widened.

Zoey continued, “Tamar said there was a note taped to that saddlebag. It had ‘For Raymond' written on it.”

“Raymond?”

“He thought that was my name.”

“Okay, I need to sit down.”

Roni dragged over a chair. Bernadine sat, set her purse down, and peered quizzically at Zoey's beaming face. She had so many questions she wasn't sure where to begin, so she started with the obvious. “Why'd he leave the gold to you?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders beneath her NASCAR pajamas. “Maybe because I took him some cake.”

“Cake?”

She nodded. “The first time I left him an apple.”

Roni suddenly interrupted, “Wait. Hold up. Are you saying that last Friday, when you had the accident, wasn't the first time you'd been out there?”

Zoey's eyes dropped to her lap.

“How many times?” her mother asked.

“Twice,” she confessed softly.

“And this first time was?”

“Early last week.”

Tamar asked, “What did I tell you about visiting him?”

That garnered a whispery, “Not to.”

“Was I speaking German or French or Ibo?”

“No, ma'am,” she said, smiling, but the censure in Tamar's eyes erased that immediately.

“Just checking,” Tamar replied.

Bernadine now had a clearer explanation of Zoey's role, but not Patterson's. “Where'd he get the gold?”

“No idea,” Tamar admitted. “Maybe he dug it up while putting in fence posts—who knows? But he's been ranting for decades about keeping folks away from it. We've all heard the rumors about Griffin Blake supposedly burying the gold here somewhere, but I never believed it.”

“Can I keep it?” Zoey asked.

Bernadine responded honestly, “I don't know. I'll have to make some calls, but in the meantime it needs to be in a safe place. Was anyone with you when you found the bag, Tamar?”

“Just Trent and Mal.”

“Roni, do you have a safe?”

“No.”

“I have one at the Power Plant, but if word gets out about the gold, everyone and their mama is going to storm the place.”

“I can put it in my safe,” Tamar offered. “Shotguns tend to discourage everyone and their mamas.”

Bernadine thought that was a good idea. “Zoey, let's get your coins in a box or something so Tamar can take it with her.”

Zoey looked disappointed.

Roni produced a small tablecloth and a box. The coins were placed in the cloth, the cloth in the box, and then the box was given to Tamar.

Bernadine took in Zoey's despondent face and promised, “I'll let you and your mom know as soon as possible about whether you can keep it.”

“Okay,” she said gloomily.

“Cheer up. You have a fifty-fifty chance.”

“I guess.”

Roni walked them back down the stairs. “This is nuts,” she said. “I can't imagine how much it's worth.”

“I can't either, but I'm sure my friend Tina will know.” Tina Craig was the financial adviser for the Bottom Women's Society.

“I'll take this and lock it up good and tight,” Tamar said.

“Thanks.”

As Bernadine got into her truck and drove back to see if Diane had finished her interview, she thought about some of the jaw-dropping things that had happened in Henry Adams during her reign: Crystal's kidnapping; the visit by the outrageous Oklahoma Julys; Riley Curry and his hog Cletus going on the lam after the death of Morton Prell and subsequent court trial that past summer. She decided that Zoey being presented with Griffin Blake's gold had to be near the top of the list.

When she reached the grocery store, Diane was standing out front. Bernadine hoped the interview had gone well. “So?” she asked once her sister was in the passenger seat.

“I got the job. Happy?”

“Doesn't matter. When do you start?”

“Tonight at ten. I get off at six
a
.
m
. Any idea how I'm supposed to get there and back?”

“We can go look at some cars tomorrow if you want, but I'll drive you tonight and pick you up in the morning.”

“And how am I supposed to buy this car?”

“I'll make the purchase. You pay me back.”

“Oh.”

“And once you get a couple of paychecks under your belt, you can find a place to stay.”

Silence.

Bernadine said into the breach, “You can't stay with me for the rest of your life, and I'd think you wouldn't want to.”

“Believe me, I don't.”

“Then good. We agree.”

“Isn't that house across the street from you empty?”

“For now, yes, but someone will be moving in in a few days. You may be able to take one of the trailers out by Tamar.” She wanted that house to go to Gemma and Wyatt, so he could bond with the kids.

“I'm not living in a trailer.”

Bernadine glanced over, saw the mutinous face, and wanted to remind Diane that she didn't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, as the old folks used to say, but she kept it to herself. Silence reigned for the rest of the drive home.

C H A P T E R

17

R
eggie flew to Charleston, South Carolina. His parents lived on the outskirts of the city, but he checked into a hotel to give himself a few days of time alone. He needed to think.

With his room secured, he drove his rental car down to the Battery, famous for its restored antebellum mansions overlooking Charleston's bay. He found a place to park and took a slow walk along the promenade that ran along the seawall. On weekends the area teemed with tourists and locals jogging, pushing strollers, and walking dogs, but at midafternoon on a workday he had the area pretty much to himself. The chilly gray day mirrored his mood. A strong breeze ruffled his jacket and stirred up white caps of foam on the waves. He found it somewhat ironic that he was standing in the spot where the Civil War began. South Carolinians had been willing to fracture the Union to preserve their way of life, and in some ways his leaving Henry Adams mimicked that notion. In truth, his quest was proving just as futile as the Confederacy's had been.