Mystery of the Sassafras Chair (3 page)

When bedtime came Timor went eagerly to his room and closed the door. Slowly he approached the new chair Wiley had made and stood looking at it wonderingly. It seemed to glow almost as if it were alive. If it had spoken to him at that moment, he would not have been surprised. Finally he sat down in it, and rubbed his hands over the polished wood.

For the first time he realized it had a pleasant, aromatic smell—the same smell that had always been in Wiley's shack. The aroma of fresh sassafras roots and shavings. As he thought of the shack and all he'd seen there, questions crowded his mind.

Was it the ginseng hunter who had brought the chair into the cabin last night, and left the key? And why had Wiley borrowed a hundred dollars from the colonel when he could have sold his ginseng for far more than that amount? What had happened to the roots? Were they still in the shack?

Suddenly he wanted very much to see the shack again. There were secrets there, and perhaps he could uncover something that would help explain the puzzle that everyone thought was solved. Not that there seemed to be any connection between Nathaniel Battle's tin box and old Wiley's ginseng—but the ginseng itself was a puzzle.

Last summer, when he'd first come to the mountains, everything had been so new and unknown that he'd given little thought to the value of Wiley's ginseng. The shack was always full of drying herbs and roots, and in the beginning he'd supposed most of the roots were sassafras. Now he knew they were not. He'd smelled only the sassafras. But ginseng has no aroma, and there had been pounds and pounds of it. Strange …

Timor's head began to nod. With an effort he managed to get undressed, and crawled wearily into bed. His last thought before sleep poured over him was the wish that he could talk to old Wiley again, if only for a few minutes.

3

Visitor

S
OME SMALL SOUND in the night brought Timor awake. He lay motionless, listening, not at once remembering where he was. For a moment everything seemed strange—the odd mustiness of the bedding that hadn't been aired, the blackness of the room, the steady rushing outside that was like heavy rain. Through his mind flashed a vision of his home in Malaya, with the myna birds chattering in the great banyan tree shading the yard. But this was not the tropics—there were heavy blankets over him. He was in America, and back in the mountains. The rushing he heard came from the wild stream below the cabin.

What had awakened him? Surely it wasn't the stream. There'd been something else, something on the edge of consciousness he couldn't quite recall.

Vaguely uneasy, he raised up on an elbow and tried to identify the sounds around him. From somewhere in the tangle up the slope came the cry of a whippoorwill. Nearer, in the surrounding hemlocks, he made out the soft bubbling of an owl. Mice scampered through the cabin walls, and crickets chirped beyond the window. Though the bedroom doors were closed, he was aware of the faint snoring of his uncle across the hall. Odessa, in the next room, slept quietly.

Reassured, he settled back on the pillow and closed his eyes. He was drifting away on the edge of sleep when someone seemed to call faintly from a point near the window.

“Hey, Timmy! Can you hear me, boy?”

The voice, though very faint, was familiar. He had heard it many times before in this very place, a friendly conspiratorial voice that always awakened him in the early hours when a fishing trip was planned. The best fishing came at daybreak—and only old Wiley Pendergrass knew the secret pools where the biggest trout lay hidden.

To Timor, half asleep, the voice was like a magnet. Without thinking, he rolled out of bed and pressed his face against the window screen. “Mr. Pendergrass,” he whispered, “are you there?”

There was no answer. Nor could he see anyone in the vague moonlight that dappled the rocks between the trees and the creek.

Then Timor remembered. It couldn't possibly have been old Wiley. He would never see Wiley Pendergrass again. Unless, of course, people sometimes came back for some reason, as Nani had said they did.

Troubled, and more than a little upset, he crawled into bed again. Maybe he'd only dreamed it. But no, it wasn't a dream. He was sure he'd actually heard old Wiley's voice. Could it be a trick of the imagination? There had to be some explanation for it.

Timor sat up and turned on the light above the bed. His questioning eyes moved from the window to the new chair beside the table, and he thought of the day last summer when he'd seen Wiley at work on a piece of yellow wood in his shop.

Wiley had said, “Know what kind of tree this come from, young feller?”

“It—it smells sort of like camphorwood,” he'd answered, sniffing the aromatic shavings on the work bench, “but that's an Asian tree. I don't suppose it grows around here.”

He could feel again the stab of old Wiley's sharp blue eyes, which glittered like sapphires. Wiley was a little man with a small foxy face, deeply lined, and a heavy thatch of dark hair that, in spite of his age—he was way past seventy—was only beginning to gray.

“'Tain't camphorwood,” Wiley had told him. “I've heard tell of it, but it don't grow here. They say it's right special—but it couldn't be half as special as this. This is
really
special—more so than witch hazel. It's sassafras.”

“Sassafras? The same tree whose roots you use to make tea?”

“The same.”

“Those roots sure make a wonderful tea—but what's so special about the wood?”

“Ha! D'you think the tea'd be worth drinkin' if there wasn't a heap of magic in the tree itself?”

“I—I hadn't thought of it that way. Still, there are trees back home, like the ilang-ilang and the banyan, that have all kinds of properties. So I guess you're right.”

“'Course I'm right!” Wiley had said emphatically. “Near everything that grows has a little magic in it, though some has a heap more than others. Take wild plum in bloom—it puts a spell on folks at night. An' witch hazel—everybody knows you can find water in the ground with it, an' even gems. That is, if you got the power. The same goes for willow, though it ain't near as strong. As for hawthorn, it's full of good luck—so long as you don't cut it. But sassafras, well, it's the most special of all. It's got life in it—a sort of spirit, mebbe.'

“It has?”

“By Dooley, you'll find out! I'm going to make a chair out of this sassafras wood—and it's goin' to be your chair. You'll learn how special it is when you start usin' it. But there's just one thing you gotta remember.”

“What's that?”

“All the magic in the world don't do nothin' for the feller that don't believe in it. It's really believin' in a thing that does the trick.”

“Oh, I believe in it,” he'd told Wiley. “In Malaya everybody knows the truth of that.”

Now, in the small hours of the night, Timor looked curiously at the finished chair, wondering what special properties it might have. There was something almost magical in the way it seemed to glow. Maybe, if he sat in it again and concentrated, it would help to solve some of the questions that were puzzling him. The colonel, of course, would say it was nonsense. Still …

In the next instant he forgot the chair as his ears again caught the faint sound of his name.

“Timmy!” came the familiar voice, pleading. “Can you hear me now?”

“I—I hear you!” Timor exclaimed. “But just barely. Where—where are you?”

“I'm right here, ding blatt it, shoutin' my head off! Can't you
see
me, Timmy?”

The voice did seem a trifle nearer, though it was very faint.

“I—I can't see you at all, sir, and I still can't hear you well.”

“By Dooley, there must be some way! I gotta make myself plain to you. I just gotta!” There was a pause, then the faint voice said, “Timmy, watch the chair. If I sit down in it, mebbe the sassafras will help.”

Fascinated, Timor stared at the chair. The curious glow brightened, and a vague form began to take shape in it. Suddenly the shape became real, and there was Wiley Pendergrass sitting hunched before him, gnarled hands clutched nervously together, sharp blue eyes intent upon him and glittering with hope. The old man was wearing faded overalls and a patched jacket; he was wheezing a little as if he were out of breath, and his wizened face was puckered with worry.

It was several seconds before Timor could get over his astonishment and find his tongue. Then he burst out happily, “Mr. Pendergrass, you—you've come back!”

Old Wiley's fingers tightened and he leaned forward. “You see me now?” he gasped between wheezes. “You hear me good?”

“I sure do! How—”

“Thank Pete an' bless Joe,” the old man muttered, and sat back with a sigh of relief. “I near lost my cackle trying to get here. I been shoutin' an' shoutin', movin' from one sassafras tree to another tryin' to make you hear me. If only I'd thought of the chair earlier—lemme get my breath …”

Timor was bursting with questions. He started to speak, but Wiley held up his hand.

“I better do the talkin', son. I dunno how long I can keep myself visible tonight. It takes some doin', an' I ain't rightly got the hang of it yet. Anyhow, I ain't got much time—only till the end of the week, just three more days.”

“Three more days?” Timor repeated wonderingly.

“Yep. I got special permission to come back—promised I'd give up my glory crown if they'd give me five days. Now two days is gone already, so we gotta work fast. Timmy, I need your help bad!”

“Of course I'll help you!” Timor said quickly. “I know you're innocent—and I'm going to prove it.”

“You ain't gonna do nothin' of the kind!” Wiley exclaimed. “Think I'd go to so much bother for a fool thing like that? I didn't come back here to slap whitewash on a no-good reputation! Anyhow, I ain't got time.”

“B-but don't you want your name cleared?” Timor persisted, gaping at him. “Everybody's blaming you for what happened to Mr. Battle.”

Old Wiley pounded his fist on the chair arm. “I don't give a fiddle-faddle what they think of me! It ain't important. The important thing is to find Nathaniel's tin box an' get it back to him fast. You got no idea the trouble that box—”

Wiley suddenly stopped and put a finger to his lips. Timor heard footsteps in the hall, then a soft tapping on his door.

Odessa whispered, “Timmy? Is—is anything wrong?”

“I—I'm all right,” he managed to say.

She opened the door and peered in at him, her large dark eyes wide with concern and curiosity. “I was sure I heard you talking to someone,” she said in a low voice. “Your light was on, and I was afraid maybe … Timmy, what are you doing sitting up in bed at this hour? It's after two in the morning. Did you have a nightmare?”

Timor glanced worriedly at Wiley, then back at Odessa. He was expecting her to give an incredulous gasp at the sight of the chair's occupant, for now she was looking directly at Wiley. But she seemed entirely unaware that a third person was in the room. And there was Wiley as plain as day! Couldn't she
see
him?

For a moment Timor hardly knew how to reply to her. Then he managed to stammer, “I—I guess I've been dreaming. Th-there's so much I don't understand. Everything is so—so strange. About the chair, I mean.”

“Well, it is rather odd,” she admitted, not understanding all that he meant. “But it's nothing to have nightmares about. Put out your light and try to get some sleep.”

He turned his light off and waited until Odessa had gone back to her room and closed the door. Then he whispered cautiously in the dark, “Mr. Pendergrass, are you still there?”

“Sure I'm here, ding blatt it—but my juice is gettin' low. Leave the light off. Mebbe I can talk to you longer.”

“But—but why couldn't Odessa see you?”

“Because she's like most other folks—she ain't got the power. And you have. You're the only person that can see an' hear me—which means you're the only one that can help me. But mind, Timmy; don't let on to nobody about this, or they'll just say you're cuckoo an' batty in the head.”

“Odessa will understand,” he whispered. “And I'll need her help.”

“Don't tell her too soon. Kinda work up to it first. Now, the main thing you gotta do is talk to Nathaniel, quick as you can. The only way to find out what happened is to get everybody's side of it—”

“Don't you
know
what happened?” Timor burst out. “You were there!”

“Sh-h-h-h!” Wiley cautioned. “Keep your voice down, or you'll wake your uncle. Sure I was there, Timmy, but I don't know what happened either.”

“You must have seen
something!
Where were you before the deputies started chasing you?”

“Well, it's this way, Timmy,” came Wiley's voice from the chair. “I had some business with a feller down at the Forks, so I drove there about dark an' parked my truck in them pines behind Nathaniel's place an' the diner. I didn't see a soul when I got out the truck. Near everybody was in Fritz Grosser's store, an' their cars were all out front. I slipped in the back of the store, found the feller I was lookin' for, an' had a quick private talk with him. Didn't take but a minute—but that was the very minute Nathaniel was being robbed. You see—”

“Mr. Pendergrass,” Timor interrupted, “who was the man you were talking with?”

“Can't tell you, sonny. Wouldn't be right. What I mean is, there's a heap of complications in this, an' they don't have nothin' to do with the robbery.”

“But he could clear you!” Timor protested. “You can't be in two places at the same time, and if you were talking to him when—”

“Sh-h-h-h!” said Wiley. “You trying to wake folks up? Ding blatt it, I done told you I ain't got time to get cleared. We gotta find that little box, an' find it quick!”