Necessary Evil (2 page)

Early September

Oppressive humidity weighed heavily on my
chest as I pounded along the riding trail, the last hurrah of a long hot
miserable summer. My running shoes hit the hard-packed dirt, and I winced as I
felt pebbles and variations in the ground through my now-thin soles. Only two
months old and already I needed a new pair, my fourth this year alone.

Tree frogs and early morning birds sang as
I jogged through the wooded trail. The sun lit the eastern sky on my right,
glowing faded gold through the tall pines and scrubby bushes. Two squirrels
chased each other around the base of a grand old oak, pausing briefly as I passed.
My iPod played on, but my earphones dangled over my shoulders, so all I heard
of the music was rhythmic squeaking and tapping. I had been listening earlier,
but even my favorite rock songs couldn’t chase the anxious thoughts that
whirled around my head. The cheerful sound grated on my soul, and I had to pull
them out just to get a grip on myself.

Anxiety is a good exercise partner. It
runs alongside of you, a relentless drill sergeant who shouts in your ear the
whole time, “Can’t you go faster? I’m running circles around you. I’m getting
bored here, soldier. Next time you want a stroll, take your grandmother.”

I’m not much of a runner, really. I can
sprint, but even after loads of training, my long distance running skills are
still decidedly sub-par. My legs are sturdy, but thick, better suited for
riding. I’m short, too, which I like to think has something to do with it, but
my biggest handicap is that I don’t like running at all. While clear days
aren’t too bad, most mornings I feel like I’m running through soup, fighting a
losing battle against gravity. Some runners talk of “runners high” and extoll
the relief they feel after a run. All I feel is tired and sore.

Nevertheless, I rose every morning before
six, tied on my sneakers, and hit one of the several riding trails we have on
the farm. I varied my route - decades of constant use has left a network of
trails snaking all throughout the farm and the wooded areas.

We still have decent acreage for a New
England farm. Back in the 1800s, the Chase family owned about a third more, as
well as having family members on the Chester town council, the state
legislature, and Congress in DC, all before the outbreak of the Civil War. Our
fortunes have ebbed considerably since then, both in land and in influence.

The trail I had chosen wove in and out of
woods and fields. Through the breaks in the trees, the paddocks lay quiet and
shrouded in morning mist, a lovely view of old New England countryside. I’ve
had photographer friends stage shoots here, and gotten inquiries from local
reenacting groups to use the land. It’s beautiful, but I hardly noticed. It’s
one thing to visit the property – it’s another to be responsible for it.

As I ran, I automatically noted where the grass
was thinning, scanned the fences for breakages, and gave the simple summer
stables a glance to determine their upkeep. We have some paddocks devoted to
training, equipped with defined tracks and jumping tools, but these so-called
summer paddocks are out of sight of the main house and used only for pasturing.
The stables are clean and I keep them in good condition, but they’re only used
in the summer months, unless really pressed for space. Since Uncle Michael
died, space hasn’t been a problem.

As I passed one of the paddocks, I saw
that two horses had been let out. Lindsay Khoury waved to me as she secured the
gate. Her dark hair, pulled up high on her head, swung jauntily as she walked
along. Only seventeen years old and a devoted equestrian, Lindsay was my right
hand on the farm. She arrived before school every morning to prep the horses
for the day and came back most afternoons for lessons and chores. During summer
vacation, she helped run the summer camps, becoming the mother hen and adored
riding instructor for over a dozen well-to-do middle school girls.

Next fall she’d be off to college and as I
ran, I worried about what I’d do without her. Even with two years of experience
under my belt and business as slow as it was, running such a large farm by
myself was a daunting prospect.

On paper, the farm was run by both my Aunt
Susanna and myself, but in reality, Lindsay and I did the work. When Uncle
Michael died, Aunt Susanna quickly became overwhelmed, so I stepped away from
school to help out. I’d thought it’d be simple. After all, I’d spent most of my
childhood here, being raised by my aunt and uncle and learning the business.
Now, two years later, I was deeper in debt than ever before and I was running
out of ideas.

I worried about Aunt Susanna, too. My aunt
used to be the type to make up ridiculous songs on the spot or take cha-cha
lessons just for the fun of it. She was interested in everything to do with the
farm, adored the horses, and rode like a pro, winning prizes all over New
England.

All that changed with Uncle Michael’s
death. She’d aged decades in a day and sunk into a deep depression that lasted
more than a year. Where once she never let a day pass without riding, usually
bareback, now she shuddered at the very idea.

“I’m too old,” she’d say. “Riding is a
sport for young girls, like you and Lindsay.”

I’d learned better than to argue with her.

Now she spent hours alone, chain-watching
sad movies and going for long solitary walks, often coming back in a dither
when she found some evidence of trespassing.

We used to be troubled with that a lot,
until the article about the Beaumont letter was published. Then as interest in
the farm died down, Aunt Susanna began to recover - so slowly at first that I
hardly noticed, but it was steady. I was still too jaded to believe in the
progress when she shocked me in August by saying, “I think I’ll go for a ride.
Does Sunshine need exercise?”

I don’t remember answering. I ran to the
paddock to bring the pretty mare in for her. I was outside when Aunt Susanna
slipped and fell down the narrow back staircase. She was still lying there when
I came in to look for her.

Her face was gray and she was breathing
heavily. I stood over her, fighting back panic - my mind automatically flashing
back to the morning of my uncle’s accident - when she spoke.

“Maddie,” she said, and every syllable was
an effort. “Maddie, I can’t get up.”

The doctor at the hospital said she’d
broken her hip, bad enough that she would need replacement surgery. Thus began
a month of seemingly never-ending appointments, check-ups, and tests, from
which they concluded that not only would she need the surgery, but that one of
her knees was ready for replacement.

“But that can wait until she recovers from
her hip,” her doctor assured me.

Despite the doctor’s reassurances that
she’d make a full recovery, my aunt slipped silently back into depression.
Although we never spoke of it, partially because I wouldn’t allow us to, I knew
she felt guilty. Even with insurance, caring for an invalid is time-consuming
and expensive and my workload didn’t allow me a lot of time to take care of her
myself. I found myself relying heavily on our neighbor and good friend, Darlene
Winters, who appointed herself as Susanna’s part-time caregiver.

Farm work is never ending: there are horses
to groom, exercise, feed, and care for, lessons to give, stables to muck out
and supplies to haul, lawns to mow, and crops to take in, as well as all the
paperwork, social media, and phone negotiations that a business requires. With
the bills piling up and lessons dwindling with summer’s end, I’d starting
asking my boss for extra work at the office just to keep us afloat. I work
behind the receptionist desk at the veterinary office - a rather ironic twist
of fate, considering I was in veterinary school until my uncle’s accident.

The path took a turn, leading me away from
the bright fields and deeper into the woods.

I slowed to a jog and kept going. My legs
were feeling better, the morning stiffness loosening with the exertion. The trail
unwound before me, arcing out to the east until it touched the bank of the
Pocatague River, a tiny offshoot of the Exeter.

I paused, bending over to catch my breath
and taking stock of myself. I wasn’t a supermodel, but I was in good shape and
I prided
myself
that I could more than pull my weight
on the farm. Work and worry had taken its toll on me, though: my face was
weathered, my hands unusually strong for their size. I was capable, but I
didn’t often feel pretty or attractive – not that it really mattered. There was
little time for that sort of thing anyway.

I didn’t stand still for long. I’d
forgotten, as I usually did, that insects like the moisture around the boggy
river’s edge. They swarmed, I swatted, and then I started to run again.

I’ve been running since last summer, and
even I have noticed a marked improvement in my endurance. I run for my health,
my figure, to relieve stress, and to give me time in the morning before I have
to face the day. It’s not the only reason I run every day, but I didn’t like to
think of that other reason, so I would put that aside, too, and run on.

Sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t trying to
outrun my past, if the punishment I took on the hard-packed trails wasn’t some
form of penance for crimes committed but unwritten, a forgotten neglect of
duty, or a violation of a social custom. Perhaps it was a form of bargain, a
sacrifice on the altar to the God of the Old Testament – I will flagellate
myself in this way every morning and
You
keep the
tenuous balance of my life from shifting back into chaos.

That was blasphemy and I knew better. I’m
a Roman Catholic and we don’t believe in bargaining with God. He knows best and
we, as good and willing servants, do our duty with hope and joy and
expectation. I told myself that’s what Aunt Susanna and I were doing: our duty,
looking with expectation towards a bright future.

Yet every morning, I tied my sneakers and
worked out my penance on the unforgiving trails.

I first learned that Maddox was dead when I
came into the kitchen from my run that morning. I was beet-red, drenched in
sweat and early morning fog, and ravenous.

The kitchen was large, silent, and clean.
Decorated in shades of gray and cream, it looked almost institutional in the
mornings, but there were so many warm memories here that I felt both at home
and alien at the same time.

Aunt Susanna was sitting on one of the
stools at the counter, so quiet and still that she was nearly lost in the
palette. Her blonde and white hair was pinned in the usual milkmaid braids
around the crown of her head, only a little mussed by a night’s sleep. Her gray
silk robe with the pink and black Asian print had aged well, but it was too big
for her now. Folds of fabric spilled on the counter as she crouched over her
laptop, emphasizing her recent, involuntary weight loss. Engrossed in her
reading, she didn’t look up to acknowledge me, but there was an extra mug of
steaming coffee on the counter beside hers.

Her walker was parked within easy reach,
but under the lip of the counter, out of her line of sight. She hated it almost
as much as I did, and I felt a twinge of sympathy as I skirted around it. The
walker was used. Our doctor had procured from a woman who, he assured us,
recovered just fine from the same surgery. He thought it would help, but it
didn’t. The walker offended my aunt’s sense of autonomy, and the cheerful bunny
stickers that the previous owner decorated it with only made things worse.

I tossed my iPod on the counter, and took
the mug of coffee gratefully. You’re supposed to have something healthy after
an intense workout, like water, juice, or something with electrolytes. I always
rebelliously opted for caffeine, as though striking back against a strict
coach: You can force me to run, but you cannot control what I drink.

I took a sip and recognized the bitter
brew of Dark French Roast, too strong for my tastes. I added milk, then reached
past my aunt for the sugar shaker. She noticed and shifted a little to make
room.

“Sorry, I forgot,” she said.

“No worries.”

I glanced at her breakfast plate as I
shook crystal granules into my cup. Toast, unbuttered, and burnt again. There
was a time when she would have turned up her nose at such fare, calling it a
poor excuse for a meal. Had she come upon Uncle Michael or myself eating that,
she would have rolled up her sleeves and whipped up one of her famous omelets,
or - if she was feeling particularly continental - French Toast dipped in
rum-based batter and dripping with butter and real Vermont maple syrup. You could
protest about your waistline all you wanted, but she would have her way. She
had been lively, youthful, and unstoppable in those days. But she was a
different woman now. She was a woman who had quite simply stopped.

I was too accustomed to this new way of
life to feel more than slight regret. As I put the shaker back on the shelf and
checked my watch, Aunt Susanna turned to me with wide, blue eyes. She looked so
alert and so
alive
all of a sudden that I was startled.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Did you hear about Professor Maddox?” she
asked.

My heart jumped and I started, hot coffee
sloshing over my hand and onto the spotlessly clean tiles. I shook the hot
liquid from my hand, then reached for the paper towels, wishing I had better
control of myself. As it was, I was barely able to keep my expression placid
under my aunt’s keen gaze.

“Something happen?” I asked, as I dabbed
at the floor. I was praying,
Please
, please,
let it be something normal. Please, please…

She turned back to her laptop and waved at
the screen.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“
Dead?
” I leaped up to stare at the
screen. Relief washed over me, followed quickly by guilt.

It wasn’t an obituary my aunt had found,
but an article about the funeral. It briefly informed the reader of Professor
Maddox’s accomplishments as an eminent scholar, author, lecturer, father,
husband, and long-time professor of American History at Braeburn College in
California. He died at home, surrounded by his loving family. The eulogy was
read by his colleague, the respected Professor Joseph Tremonti, on loan to a
Massachusetts university for the year.

My heart beat faster at that line. Joe was
back on the East Coast?

Not now, Maddie…

“Such a nice man,” Aunt Susanna said, as I
followed a link to Maddox’s college, where his list of accomplishments was more
thoroughly outlined. “We should send a donation and a card to his wife, don’t
you think?”

“Mmm hmm…”

I found what I was looking for in the
second to last paragraph: “Among his significant finds were the 1862 Beaumont
letter and the Carignan diaries, both of which shed light on little-known
aspects of the American Civil War.”

It was inaccurate – Maddox hadn’t found
the letter, only authenticated it– but the mention was mercifully brief and
unlikely to cause harm. I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned the computer
over to Aunt Susanna. I didn’t know what I was worried about, really. The
matter, so important to us, was unlikely to interest the college or the media
very much, not when compared to Maddox’s other, considerable contributions to
historical knowledge.

Aunt Susanna was looking at me curiously
and I realized that I hadn’t responded to her question.

“What did you say, Aunt Susanna?”

“I was saying, we ought to do something
for Mrs. Maddox. They were both so kind to us about the letter. What do you
think?”

I picked up my mug again and took a sip as
I tossed the paper towel wad into the trash can. “Yes, we really should. You’re
thinking of a donation to the scholarship fund?”

Mentally, I brought up the checkbook and estimated
how much we could spare. Even with my income from the veterinary office and the
lessons split between Lindsay and me, we ran the farm on a frayed shoestring,
and the number I was comfortable with contributing was embarrassing compared
with what Maddox’s university colleagues were likely to give.

There’s no shame in being poor,
I reminded myself,
but the twinge remained.

The Chase family hadn’t been wealthy since
the 1800s; but still, Uncle Michael had been well able to keep both himself and
his wife comfortable while contributing to my college fund. That I was barely
keeping the place open spoke volumes, I thought, of my inability to husband the
farm he’d so carefully built up.

There was some consolation in the idea
that the financial trouble had started before Uncle Michael’s accident. Ever
since the debut of the
Lost American Treasures
episode featuring the
mythical (in my opinion) Alexander Chase treasure, our respectable family farm
had been inundated with treasure hunters and curious tourists who frightened
off our clientele and, worse still, left the marks of their search behind them,
with devastating effects.

The Chase Treasure story itself is a
fairly typical buried treasure myth: Alexander Chase, the black sheep of the
respectable Mayflower family, stole money and goods from his employer, merchant
Jasper McInnis of Charleston. It was just before the Battle of Fort Sumter, and
it included a box of prized silver Kirk spoons, intended as the wedding dowry
of McInnis’ daughter, Mary Anna. Local lore has it that he buried booty
somewhere on the Chase property when he came home for a brief visit in April of
1861, just before he joined the 3
^rd
New Hampshire Voluntary
Infantry. The location of the treasure was lost when Chase died after the
Battle of Sucessionville in 1862. “Treasurists” - a term invented by my Uncle
Michael - believe that the McInnis treasure is still on the property somewhere,
proof that Chase family counted thieves among their members.

Family members and some historians
disagreed.

Anti-Treasurists bring up the fact that
Alexander Chase’s reputation was fairly clean, aside from occasional bouts of
drinking and gambling, and insist that he was as ardent an abolitionist as was his
father. They maintain that the thievery charges brought against him by the
McInnis family after the war’s end were just another case of so-called ‘lost
causers’ trying to recoup their wartime losses.

A third theory, one that I subscribed to,
is that Alexander Chase did steal from the McInnis money, and then lost it
gambling in one of the seaports that he frequented. These people believe that
he was a thief and probably indifferent to slavery, a position that my Uncle
Michael found repugnant in the extreme. A mild-mannered man, he was known to
actually argue with people about Alexander, holding until his dying day that
the private died a slandered but essentially good man.

Those who believe in the treasure have two
pieces of evidence to support their theory. One is that Avery Chase,
Alexander’s half-brother, spent his entire lifetime searching for the treasure,
even while refuting the McInnis’ claims. The second piece of evidence comes
from one of Alexander’s own letters, which was discovered by my uncle in an old
box in the barn several years ago. Written to his mother just weeks before his
death, Alexander commended his “earthly” treasures to her care, and reminded
her of his favorite hymn, ‘no. 29’. Chase’s step-father, Obadiah, was a deacon,
and Alexander and Avery were practically raised in the pew. On page twenty-nine
of
Psalms and Hymns
, an 1853 hymnal that Alexander would have been very
familiar with, are two songs:
Come, Ye Thankful People,
Come
, and
Gather the Golden Grains
. Treasurists are adamant that this rather
benign sentiment is actually a clue to the treasure’s location.

As Mark Dulles, the handsome Ivy League
host of
Lost American Treasures
, pointed out, both are songs of
thanksgiving that speak of the fields.
Come, Ye Thankful People, Come
,
even specifically mentions corn and wheat fields. Since Obadiah Chase was a
conscientious log-book keeper, who recorded every ear of corn that ever grew on
his farm, this clue led generations of hapless treasure seekers to search
particular fields on our land, some of which we still use for haying now.

While filming, Mark Dulles and his crew
worked in the fields, demonstrating with the latest equipment that there was
nothing buried there. They were forced, reluctantly, to conclude that there was
nothing to find, something that should have ended all further attempts.

However, in the closing scene of the
episode, Mark Dulles looked out over the fields of tender green shoots, and in
a voice-over, said, “Whatever our conclusions today, one thing remains: the mystery
of Alexander Chase and the McInnis treasure remains unsolved, an intriguing
footnote in the tragic history of America’s Civil War.”

I can still remember Uncle Michael’s
satisfied tone when he called me at my dorm that night after watching the special.

“This will get people talking,” he said.
“Only now, they won’t be so focused on the treasure - now they’ll be talking
about Alexander and what really happened during the Civil War.”

Even before finding the letter, my uncle
had been Alexander’s fiercest defenders. A quiet, peaceable man by nature, he
surprised Aunt Susanna and me by allowing Dulles to film on his property. When
we asked, he’d explained, “I’m getting nowhere with my own research. I want to
bring this Chase treasure business into the public eye, then maybe someone else
will take on the project.”

The night of broadcast, he was sure that
someone would.

“They cut out most of my interview, but I
think there was enough left in there to intrigue people,” he said.

I was in veterinary school at the time, a
straight-A student who thought a little too much of her own intelligence. I
felt obliged to point out that people didn’t often react in the ways we wished
them to.

“It’s more likely we’re going to get a few
more treasure hunters trespassing,” I said – prophetically, as it turned out.

He snorted. “After Dulles and his team
failed? No one will be looking for that nonsensical treasure anymore.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said, sincerely.

But he wasn’t.

Not long after the episode aired, we
started finding people wandering about our fields with metal detectors,
shovels, and copies of
Come, Ye Grateful People, Come,
or
Gather the
Golden Grains.
They were a nuisance, leaving test holes when we didn’t
catch them in time. Uncle Michael felt sorry for them, while I was only
annoyed. While he spoke sadly of their disappointment, I would rail about
destruction of property.

At first, the incursions were few; but as
time passed, the story began to permeate. All over the web, Treasure Hunter
websites spread word about the special, and the siege began in earnest. Hunters
from across all fifty states, and even beyond, flooded our small town and
congregated on our front stoop.

These visitors ranged from passersby who
wanted their picture taken in front of the house, to Civil War enthusiasts
looking for more information, to invasive hunters with metal detectors who
often forgot to ask for permission before they started digging up likely sites,
leaving pockmarks in the fields, paddocks, and trails.