Beyond the Cherokee Trail. Lisa Carter
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bushy eyebrows furrowed. “You talking a criminal background check?”
“Yes, I am. What do you know about this woman?”
Ross drummed his fingers along the armrest. “Graduated from UVA with a communications degree. Worked for a New York City firm for three years before leaving and returning to Raleigh to start her own PR company.”
Walker pivoted. “Why’d she leave? Fired?”
“You read the papers lately?” Ross sniffed. “Oh, I forgot. Your generation only gets its news from the Internet. Laid off in a sluggish economy, not fired.”
“Laid off? You know that for sure?”
“Her former boss spoke highly of her work ethic and character. We examined her portfolio and the ad campaigns she created. Not that we needed those other references. Marvela Birchfield’s was plenty.”
Walker resolved to do a Google search on this Birchfield granddaughter as soon as he got home.
“Do you know Marvela Campbell, boy?”
Walker cut his eyes over to his uncle at the wistful note in his voice. “Just in passing. From church. She’s only been back a few months, but keeping the local carpenters in business remodeling that house of hers.”
“She’s still a stunner, I’ll bet.”
Walker shrugged. “I guess. She’s old.”
Ross punched him in the muscle of his arm.
“Ow!” Walker took one hand off the wheel long enough to rub his arm.
“I repeat, love and I don’t know what-all,” Ross’s nostrils flared. “Is so wasted on the young.”
Passing the Mercantile and his mother’s quilt shop, Walker veered onto a side street that jutted off Main and into a recently blacktopped driveway. He stopped the truck beside the shaded, deep porch that ran the length of the three-story Victorian home.
Walker shifted the gearstick into park. “Yeah, it’s the ‘what-all’ that gets me every time.” He opened the door and thrust his jean-clad legs over the side.
“Don’t you dare . . .” Ross growled.
Walker swiveled.
Ross’s face flushed to an interesting shade of apoplectic purple.
A sudden sympathy for the Vietcong caught in one of his uncle’s crosshairs surfaced in Walker’s mind.
Ross stalked over to the driver’s side—pretty good for a man of his advanced sixty-plus years, Walker reckoned—and jabbed a pointy brown finger in the region of Walker’s ribs.
Walker inhaled. Sharply.
“Don’t you dare, young man, embarrass me in front of Marvela Campbell. You hear?”
What in the Snowbird had gotten into the old guy?
“I hear.”
But he didn’t have to like it.
***
“Sarah Jane, the daughter of a medical missionary to the Cherokee . . .” Linden flipped back a few pages and huddled closer to the late afternoon sunshine streaming through the attic window. Dust motes danced in the air.
“Uh-huh.” Marvela rummaged in the trunk.
“She mentions a green trunk.” Linden raised her head. “Like the one you’re determined to excavate today. But it says here,” she tapped Sarah Jane’s journal with her finger. “The trunk, if it’s the same one, belonged to a Cherokee girl named Leila Hummingbird.”
Marvela’s penciled brows inverted into a V. “Never heard of her. And I assure you, neither the Campbells nor the Birchfields have a drop of Cherokee blood in them, although not for lack . . .”
Crouching once again, Marvela plunged the upper half of her body inside the trunk and emerged with several sepia-toned daguerreotypes in one hand.
Linden smiled. “Wouldn’t it be something if there was a false bottom to the trunk and more treasures yet to be revealed?”
She returned to her perusal of the journal. “Sarah Jane drew a picture of the quilt she mentions in the diary. A pattern called Carolina Lily.”
Marvela foraged around, one hand inside the depths of the trunk’s confines. “Old North Carolina pattern. With the local connection you’ve discovered, maybe we should include that pattern alongside the others planned for the Cherokee Quilt Barn Trail.”
“Wait . . .” Marvela grunted. “Found . . . something . . .”
Linden scanned the drawing. “I like the quilt guild’s idea to paint local barns with quilt squares. And featuring patterns associated with this part of North Carolina and the Cherokee is even better.”
Marvela set her jaw as she thrust both hands around the perimeter of the trunk bottom. “Irene Crowe’s spearheaded that committee.”
Linden thumbed through the book. “Here’s another quilt of a Cherokee Rose pattern. The Campbells or Birchfields own any quilts, Gram?”
“Only the ones my granny stitched during the Depression. Not a Carolina Lily or a Cherokee Rose among them. I’ve given a Sunbonnet Sue to Quincy for the display on white Appalachian history in Cartridge Cove. Hope it wasn’t damaged in the attack.”
Linden glanced at her watch. “Don’t forget that ga-gadoo—”
“Ga-doo-gee is an old custom. The Cartridge Cove Community Development Club has embraced gadugi as part of its mission to foster a Cherokee spirit of goodwill. They chop firewood in the fall for the elderly. Help the needy. Raise money for the volunteer fire department and local athletic teams.”
Marvela’s once pristine French-manicured nails scrabbled across the trunk upholstery. “Irene’s son, Walker, rotated into club leadership this year. He’ll supervise the actual painting of the barns if, between the two of you, you can get those stubborn old coots—Cherokee and non-Indian alike—up the mountain to agree to having the quilt billboards affixed to their property. Almost . . .” She heaved and pried. “Almost . . .”
“Shouldn’t we wrap it up here?” Linden frowned at the current state of her own appearance. “It’s going on four now. But you know me with a book . . . I lost track of time. You, too, once another adventure has gotten hold of you, Gram.”
A ripping sound.
“We’re on Cherokee time here, darlin’, not like New York.” Marvela fell back upon her designer-clad haunches. But in her hand she gripped a small, oval portrait of a beautiful Cherokee woman.
“Ta-da!” she crowed. “Maybe that Leila Hummingbird you mentioned?”
Laying the journal aside, Linden caught the sound of a vehicle door slamming. She scooted closer to examine the oil painting.
She whistled in admiration. “Sarah Jane was right. If this was Leila Hummingbird, she wasn’t only beautiful, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Would you look at those cheekbones?”
Marvela wasn’t listening, though. She’d returned to her trunk diving. “And what do we have here?”
Clutching a wad of cotton batiste, she rose, one hand gripping Linden’s arm for support. “These knees aren’t as young as they used to be, my darlin’ girl.”
Marvela unfolded the yellowed fabric. Two silk ribbons dangled. “A bonnet?”
Linden’s fingertips brushed the once-starched cap.
“Oh.” Marvela’s eyes widened. “It’s—” She jerked the tiny hat behind her back.
At a sudden, quick memory, the familiar weight settled upon Linden’s chest. A smothering ache. She tried, like all the other times, to swallow past