TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) (11 page)

Chapter 11

Sunny Finds a Recipe

After Sunny watched the how-to video on YouTube for a third time, she thought she could give it a shot.

She’d read an article in the latest issue of the newsletter, The New Gaian, entitled “An Earth Recipe for Health.” The article examined the spiritual and physical healing powers of Vidalia onions, as well as those of the Korean fermented cabbage concoction known as
kimchi
. The article, written by someone who called him- (or her) self Uranus Aphrodite, extolled the miraculous curative and prophylactic powers of the Vidalia onion as a stand-alone snack. According to Uranus, the Georgia onion would not only prevent or cure arthritis, shingles, migraine headaches, bowel disorders, and genital herpes, but would also ward off most known evil spirits. In addition, the onion was very high in vitamin C and potassium. Uranus also wrote about the history and medicinal attributes of
kimchi.
The article’s conclusion stated that the Vidalia onion, when used as an ingredient in the making of the Korean side-dish, would add a synergistic healing effect for a good number of normal and paranormal adverse conditions.

Sunny, in the midst of a head cold and a bout with winter depression, decided that this was exactly what she needed. She made a trip to an Asian food market in Tulsa to gather all the ingredients to make
kimchi
—the cabbage, the large Korean radish, the garlic, ginger, sea salt, the ground red pepper, the leeks, the Korean fish sauce, the oysters, the large plastic container to mix it in, the rubber gloves, the goggles... and, of course, two big Vidalia onions. She spread all of the items out on the kitchen table where they awaited her assault at the conclusion of watching the how-to video.

Besides her cold, the other part of Sunny’s motivation to make this
kimchi
had been Gale (a.k.a. Punch, but she refused to call him that)... and her depression, which always seemed somehow intertwined. She, for the life of her, couldn’t understand what it was about that man that drew her to him. She’d almost convinced herself that it had to be some evil spiritual influence.

While she went about the slicing and dicing of the vegetables, she thought about her relationship with Gale. It’d been almost three years since their first accidental encounter out by the lake. At that time, she had an immediate dislike for the man. She considered him uncouth and obtuse then. Her opinion hadn’t changed much since. He hunted, fished, drank beer, dipped snuff, and only bathed and shaved once every two or three days. He would go two months or more without getting a haircut. Politically they were poles apart. Sunny considered herself an enlightened social progressive, and she considered Gale a Nazi. He would disagree vehemently whenever she called him that; which, of course, she felt proved her point. As for his spirituality, well, there were tree stumps with more spiritual energy, unless you wanted to count NASCAR and football as religious followings, which he did.

He somehow still connected himself to that Jo Lynn woman, his two-time ex-wife. Sunny didn’t understand that relationship at all. Oh, from her own perspective, she understood why the woman had let the lout stay around. There was that mysterious attraction about Gale. Jo Lynn must’ve felt it, too. She found herself a little... jealous and resentful of Gale’s continued attention to Jo Lynn. Sunny wanted everything in her power to be rid of Gale, but at the same time, she didn’t want any other woman to have him either. The thought angered her. It gave her even more reason to want to shed him like a snake would dead skin.

Yet, she just couldn’t rid herself of him. He seemed to have pheromones that drove her wild. He could be sweet. Like the time he brought her a hummingbird feeder after she went ballistic on him when he told her he’d been quail hunting. Another time he had come to her door with an armful of yard gnomes, he and all of gnomes grinning stupidly. That occurred after they’d had a big fight over Igor, Hermione, and Cornflakes—her cats—and their right to jump onto the dinner table. Gale was against it, and had physically demonstrated his position.

Oh, yes, he hated her cats, and he teased her relentlessly, the big brute. He made constant fun of her dream-catchers and wind chimes.

“What,” he’d asked one time when she showed him her spirit garden and tried to explain it, “...you afraid the boogie man might get you?” She thought back to the day they first met in the woods. He tried to scare her with all that silly Hill Man talk. Anybody who’d lived around Tsalagee for any time knew all that creature nonsense, and she knew what he was trying to do.

Gale reminded her that no bunch of strings and feathers hanging from the porch, or tinkling things, would stop the Hill Man if he decided to come and carry her off. A couple of times when she was by herself she’d heard some kind of ruckus around the barn. It was late in the night, and it set her chickens and goats to squawking and bleating something fierce. It did scare her, but she didn’t own a firearm at the time, and wouldn’t have known how to use it if she did.

After one such incident, when Gale came by to have some coffee, as had become his habit, she told him about it. They sat at the kitchen table sipping her freshly brewed coffee made from the Columbian Supremo Organic beans Sunny had ground that morning. (Gale told her, much to her gratification; that he preferred it to Jo Lynn’s brew down at Arlene’s.) He listened raptly for several minutes, but eventually couldn’t contain himself from bursting out laughing.

“Was that YOU?!” She stood up with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. Gale couldn’t answer he was laughing so hard, but he did manage to nod and throw up his arms to fend off the blows Sunny had started directing at his head.

“You big jerk!” she yelled at him as she flailed her fists at him. “I thought it was a prowler. If I’d had a gun I would’ve shot you!”

After that, she bought a gun, even though she didn’t much like guns. But living in a somewhat isolated location, residing more or less as a single woman, she thought it would be prudent to own one. In the back of her mind, Goat’s past and some of his old associations gave her a tinge of worry... well, more than worry, more like the willies. She didn’t think they could trace her out there, but you never knew.

She sought out White Oxley, because she knew he had an extensive knowledge of firearms. When she went to his house and told him she wanted his advice on buying a gun for protection, he looked at her, and asked, “You know anything about guns?”

Sunny shook her head “no.”

White nodded. Finally, he said, “Believe I got just what you need. C’mon.” From the front door, he led her through the house to a room at its center.

White paused to unlock the door and led Sunny across the room to a five-foot tall metal cabinet on the opposite wall, unlocking it. He looked over the shelves for a minute then pulled out a wooden box. He opened it and lifted out a silver-ish revolver with a walnut handle, holding it up so Sunny could look at it.

“This here’s a replica of an Army 357 six-shooter. It’s made by Beretta. Has a seven and a half inch barrel.” He handed it over to Sunny.

“It’s kind of heavy,” she said as it sagged in her grip.

“Yeah, that bad boy’s heavy, awright. I’m gonna have to teachya how to shoot it. Lessons is included in the price, of course.

“You say you want protection,” he went on. “This ’un will give you that. Not like some of them peashooters most gun stores like to sell to your women. And he’s loud. He’ll sure ’nuf stop anybody comin’ after ya. But I figger, even if you don’t hit nothin’ the noise’ll scare the piss out of ’em  and run ’em  off.”

Sunny bought the gun and took the lessons. She kept the gun in the top of her closet, when she wasn’t taking target practice, until about a year later. At about two one morning in early March, another commotion out around the barn awakened her. The chickens had started squawking and the goats bleated frantically.

Sunny got out of bed in a fury. “That damn Gale,” she muttered and went to the closet for her pistol. Gun in hand, she stomped to the back door and went out onto the wide porch.

“Hey!” she shouted standing there barefooted in her flannel nightgown. She held the revolver with both hands pointed at the ground in front of her.

The banging noises and fracas of the person or persons near the barn ceased, but the animals kept it up. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to shoot!” Sunny yelled. She waited. After about two minutes, the rummaging noises started up again. Sunny raised the revolver over her head and fired.

The boom from the pistol in the dead stillness seemed to crack the dark sky. Its echo rolled off into the night. Despite the ringing in her own ears, Sunny thought she heard the heavy footsteps of someone’s hasty retreat. Satisfied she’d gotten rid of the intruder, she returned to bed, but kept the gun on the nightstand next to her.

At their morning coffee she said to Gale, calmly, as she poured his cup, “I just want you to know, I’ve bought a gun, and the next time you pull that stunt, I’m going to shoot you. The first time you did this it scared me. Last night it just pissed me off. Can’t you just grow up?”

Gale had looked across the table at her with real alarm. “What happened last night?” he asked.

“Don’t give me that,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“You bought a gun?”

“Yes, I bought a gun. White Oxley sold it to me and he’s been teaching me how to use it. What do you think that was last night? I could’ve shot your sorry butt, but instead I just fired into the air. When are you going to stop with these juvenile pranks?”

“Sunny, I swear to God I wasn’t out here last night. I was at the casino ’til midnight. Then I went home and went to bed.”

Sunny looked at him with doubt, which started to fade a little when she saw the genuine concern in his eyes.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Same thing as last time. Lots of noise from the chickens and goats, then some rattling around out by the barn.”

“You been out there yet this morning?”

“No.”

“Let’s go take a look.” He got up from his chair and started for the door. She still wasn’t convinced of his innocence, but she got up and followed him out the back door.

They found a few things strewn about the barnyard—an old washtub, some hand tools, overturned planter boxes. A sack of chicken feed had been thrown onto the ground spilling its contents. The chickens, all eight of them, had gathered around the spilled feed feasting and chatting contentedly. Both the goats, on the other hand, cowered in the far corner of the stock pen attached to the barn. They remained skittish and nervous, their eyes wide, “blaaat”-ing with fear.

“Oh, Gale, look at this,” Sunny said as she knelt by the frightened goats and stroked their heads. “Why would you want to do this to these poor creatures.”

Gale/Punch, thirty feet away from her, looked around near a corner of the barn. “Sunny, I swear I didn’t...” he stopped and bent down to look at something on the ground.

“Dang,” he said in wonder. Then he said to Sunny, “Hey, come here and look at this.”

Sunny gave the terrified goats a few more motherly pats, then went to see what Gale had found. He squatted next to his find staring down at it.

“What is it?” Sunny asked.

Gale pointed to a very large bare footprint in the damp ground. Gale wore a size thirteen, triple E boot, and when he stood hovering one of them over the print, it outsized his booted foot two inches in width and some six inches or more in length. By the depth of the depression it appeared the owner of that foot weighed quite a bit.

Sunny crossed her arms across her chest and looked at Gale. “Did you do this?” she asked once again.

Gale looked downright frightened when she looked at him. “Sunny, I swear. I ain’t had no part in doin’ any of this.” He looked in the direction the footprint pointed and saw more evidence with the smashed foliage in the middle of Sunny’s herb garden. He looked off into the misty woods sixty or so yards from the back of the barn. “By God,” he said. “I think you really did have a visit from the Hill Man last night. Did you shoot at it?”

Sunny shook her head. “Well, if it wasn’t you, I bet it was that White Oxley. I bet you put him up to it.” She looked up at him with skepticism. “Or was he with you at the casino?”

* * *

White pulled his cell phone from a pocket of his flannel shirt and flipped it open with his right hand, keeping his left on the steering wheel. “Yea-low,” he said into the phone.

“White, this is Punch,” came the voice from the other end.

“Dang, boy. Why you calling me so early on a Saturday. I thought you’d still be in bed.”

“Where was you last night?”

White switched hands and ears with his cell phone. “Well, now, I don’t recall signing anything that said I’uz supposed to tell you my every move, but in the interest of neighborliness I’ll tell you I spent a quiet night with the missus watching TV.”

“What’re you doing right now?” Punch asked.

“I’m headed in to Arlene’s to have some breakfast. Why?”

“You think you could swing out here to the Buchanan place? I got something to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Just come on out. I’ll show you when you get here. Don’t think you’ll want to miss this.”

White looked at his watch. “Well, awright,” he said with a sigh. “If it’s that important to you. Sunny got any coffee made?”

“Oh, she’s got coffee awright. You just get over here.”

“Awright, son. Be there in about ten minutes.

When White pulled into the drive, Sunny waited for him with a big white coffee mug in her hand. He slid his window down as he stopped his pickup next to where she stood. “Mornin’ Sunny,” he said.

“Mornin’ White.” She handed him the mug, handle first. “Gale said you wanted some coffee.”

Well, now. Thankee,” White said. “This some of that fancy Co-lumbial stuff Punch is always goin’ on about?”

Sunny smiled and nodded. White took a slurp and sighed loudly with gratification. “My, my,” he said, then squinted out through his dirty windshield. “Where is that boy? He said he had something he wanted to show me.”