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LIGHTNING CREEK
Author: Holly McClure
Original Title from Bella Rosa Books

Excerpt:

Present Day

Sunday Evening
Ataga'hi

A shovel gouged through rocky soil, breaking silence that had lingered for centuries in the hidden burial ground. The elder stood aside, watching the desecration. Thin rays of evening sunlight filtered through sparse foliage, casting the digger's shadow against the mountainside. The big white man's sculpted muscles rippled as he tossed shovels full of black earth from the grave. A little apart, propped against one of the straggly pine trees that survived at this elevation, the third member of the party watched the digger work.
     The elder directed the digger to move further uphill, then bent close to the excavation, straining his eyes to see anything the shovel might unearth. "Easy, easy," he said when he heard the rasp of metal against stone. "Can't risk breaking anything now. Best use the trowel." The years had roughened his voice but when he stood to fetch the trowel, his back was as straight as the digger's.
     "It would be in a coffin, wouldn't it?" The digger asked.
     "Nope. Didn't use them back then." The elder dropped to his belly and reached down into the hole with the trowel. When a smooth surface appeared, he cleared the soil with his hands exposing an ancient soap stone pot, sealed tightly against the years.
     "Here, help me with this." The elder's voice broke, betraying his fear. The digger stepped into the hole with him. It strained both of them to lift the heavy pot free of the grave and set it down on a patch of mossy ground. The third accomplice left the tree and came to peer over the digger's shoulder at their find.
     The elder ordered them both to stand back while he squatted beside the ancient pot and cleaned it with a red cotton bandana. He could feel their eyes on him as he ran his finger around the rim until he found a seam. With a hunting knife the digger handed him, he worked at it until he loosened the seal. Laying it aside, he shielded the pot with his body so only he could see inside.
     Ancient buckskin, dry and brittle with age, filled the interior. Holding his breath he inched it free of the container and laid it on the ground, then teased the bundle apart to reveal the grave goods the tanned hide and stone pot had protected for hundreds of years.
     Centuries of lying buried with the mortal remains of their owner had left the relics in much better shape than he expected. Taking out an ancient war axe, he tested its heft in his hands. It fit his grip like it was made for him. The skill of its creator was evident in the every detail, from the finely knapped stone to intricate markings on the handle.
     He heard the greed in the digger's voice. "This is what we're after. Right?"
     Ignoring the digger, the elder examined the relics. Lifting them one by one he searched for the marks that would tell him what he needed to know. There were two graves here. One held what they had come for. The other meant nothing. It would have made things easier if they had opened the right one first but it didn't take him long to realize he had made the wrong choice. Their work wasn't done yet. The elder felt sick. He'd hoped this would go quicker and they could get out before dark. He averted his face, so the digger couldn't see how troubled he was. "Wrong grave. Help me put the pot in the ground, then I'll cover up this one and his goods and let him go back to his rest."
     When the pot was in place, he told the digger, "Start digging where I showed you, before we lose the light."
     The elder stood in the open grave and watched the digger. The big white man looked like he could dig all night if need be, but he made it obvious he didn't want to. The elder suspected he'd rather be back at the gym, getting his exercise lifting weights. He repeated his order. "Get busy now, boy."
     The digger grumbled as he walked uphill to the piled stones that marked the second burial site. "Are you sure this is even a grave? Looks to me like it could be a natural rock formation."
     The elder answered, "It was meant to look that way. Two men came here to bury their dead in secret over three hundred years ago. One of them left this mountain alive. The other was in the grave we just opened. Since that time, only one man in any generation has known what they buried here, or why. Start digging now, boy."
     The digger gave him a stubborn look, then drove his shovel into the second grave.
     When he was sure the digger was too busy to notice, the elder crouched beside the open grave and positioned the relics and buckskin in the pot. When everything was in its place but the war axe, he ran his thumb across the razor-sharp obsidian of the blade. A sudden impulse made him set the axe aside while he replaced the seal on the pot. He climbed out of the grave and went to the canvas knapsack he had left propped against a lichen covered boulder, taking the axe with him. The digger was hard at work on the second grave and didn't see him slip the axe in the knapsack.
     The third accomplice came to help cover the pot and saw what he had done. The elder was ashamed, but he didn't try to explain. There was no excuse for it, but what did it matter. He shrugged away his guilt. With the list of transgressions already on his conscience, stealing from the dead was a minor thing.
     The elder accepted the offered help and the two of them worked in silence, scraping the loose earth back into the grave and tamping down the soil. Scattering handfuls of pine needles over the raw earth erased the evidence of desecration.
     The digger had made progress. The elder picked up a shovel and went to join him, walking slowly, trying to settle his nerves. His hands still shook as he worked. At about three feet down, his shovel met resistance. When the digger spoke, it startled him.
     "Must not have buried him real deep."
     The elder agreed. He put his foot to the edge of his shovel and leaned into it. Something hard met the blade.
     Strange. He hadn't expected this. They worked faster. When it wasn't safe to use the shovels, they troweled away the dirt, revealing a long narrow object. The digger stood back amazed. "Two men, you say?"
     The elder grunted an affirmative.
     "They must have had the strength of a couple of bull elephants to lug this thing all the way up here." The digger wiped his brow on his sleeve and bent over the grave. Its occupant had been buried in a full size canoe.
     The elder inspected it. The canoe had been buried right-side-up to serve as a casket for the man and his grave goods. It had been treated with fire to preserve the wood.
     The sun was just a dim glow leaking from behind a distant mountain. Shadows lengthened across the burial ground. The third partner took a flashlight from a pack and directed its beam into the excavation.
     The elder worked alone now, not trusting the digger with what he expected to find.
     The digger sat on a fallen log, fidgeting so badly it was becoming annoying. The elder suggested he try to settle down.
     The digger snapped back, "I'll settle down when we get out off this mountain. Why is this place so damn quiet? This is getting on my nerves." He got up and paced beside the grave.
     The elder let him pace. He understood how the white man felt. Every sound they made exploded in the silence like a firecracker at a funeral. He knew why there was no sign of life in places like this, and it still made him nervous. Anywhere else in the Smoky Mountains, there were sounds of birds, crickets, frogs and other noises of nature. Perhaps he should tell the digger about the Nunne'hi and why nothing intruded on the places where they lived, but thinking about it made it even harder to go through with the plan. Now that he was here, it was too late to lose his nerve and reconsider his plan. He kept his mind on the job at hand, glad the digger wasn't pestering him with questions the way he usually did.
     The body in the canoe had been wrapped in layers of cured hides and bearskin robes. What was left of them fell away under the elder's careful work with the trowel. When the round dome of a skull appeared, the digger wanted to help. The elder rejected the offer. He had to do this alone.
     With the tip of the trowel, he worked the remnants of wrappings away from the ancient bones. The skeleton lay intact in the bottom of the canoe. There had been times in his life when the elder had wondered if the man in the grave was a myth. It was a lot to ask a rational man to believe the stories told about him. He no longer had any doubt.
     Beside the bones sat a round pottery bowl, somewhat smaller than the one in the first grave.
     The digger saw and grunted an obscenity. The elder ignored him and bent to encircle the bowl in his arms. His whole body trembled with the effort it took to maneuver it to the graveside. In the glow of the flashlight, he wiped away the dirt. His hands felt the markings before his aging eyes could see them. This was the one. In a quaking voice he muttered something in his own tongue that could have been a prayer, or the primal utterance of a man lost in emotion that threw him back to the days before he learned to speak English.
     A round disc sealed the mouth of the bowl against the ages. He needed the digger's help to work it loose. As soon as the seal broke, the elder said. "I'll take it from here," and sent the digger to wait beside the grave. The big white man squatted on his haunches, eying the bowl. Even in the dim light, he couldn't hide the greedy look in his pale blue eyes.
     The elder lifted out the first bundle, checking for the markings that would confirm what he needed to know. When he found them, he had a fleeting moment when he almost wished he had been wrong. If this grave had held an ordinary man and nothing more, he could call the whole thing off and go home. But this was no ordinary grave, and its occupant, no ordinary man. He had gone too far to turn back.
     The elder could feel the digger's intense gaze as he worried the bindings loose from the bundle. Having him see what the wrappings concealed compounded the desecration, but he would have to show them to him sooner or later.
     The elder examined each of the relics, glad that both of his accomplices kept quiet. They stayed out of his way as he secured them in their wrappings and laid the bundle beside the desiccated skeleton.
     When he spoke, he saw them startle. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded as brittle as the bones. "Bring the bags. This is what we came for."
     The third partner brought a couple of crushed canvas bags to the digger. He smoothed them out against his thighs and handed them to the elder. "This is all I could find but if we use them both, there should be room to hold it all," he said.
     Distaste evoked an uncharacteristic profanity from the elder. After all the years he had planned this day, he had nothing better than a couple of old gym bags to hold something that would change the world. He'd spent years spying on his closest friends. He had violated the trust of the Snake Dancers, and by bringing his two accomplices together, involved them in something they could never understand. After all that, he'd overlooked the simple detail of appropriate containers. The gym bags would have to do.
     When everything was back in the bowl, the digger helped him put the bowl into the largest bag. It filled the canvas, making an awkward, heavy burden. The white man did as he was told and gathered the bones. The elder watched him line the second gym bag with a dingy towel and place the bones inside, glad that he didn't have to touch them. He'd avoided looking at them any more than he had to. It didn't seem to bother the digger. The elder grunted in agreement when the digger commented that they were in good shape considering how long they'd been in the ground. With the towel folded over them, the skull bulging against the terry cloth. It was done.
     The third accomplice walked away and bent over behind a pine. The elder understood why. He hated the desecration, but it had to be done. There was no other way. He had no remorse about getting the digger involved. The white man had his own reasons for helping, but the third followed out of loyalty. If things worked out, they would all be better off, but if not, he would take the guilt to his grave.
     By the time the bags were filled and ready to go, darkness mingled with the eerie silence to make the old burial ground feel even more threatening. The digger was in such a hurry to leave the silent mountain where no life intruded, that he would have abandoned the scarred earth and the opened grave and hiked back down the trail. The elder handed him a shovel and told him to go to work. They didn't stop until every trace of damage was repaired. The elder worked as hard as the digger.
     One more thing to do, then they could leave. It might be a useless gesture but the elder hoped it would relieve the uneasiness they all three felt. He took an abalone shell from his pack and filled it with herbs from a leather pouch, then held it out to the third partner who struck a match to the herbs. When the flame died and fragrant smoke swirled from the shell, he waved it toward his face and around his body, and then held the shell for the others.
     The smudging was meant to make them feel cleansed but it didn't. His accomplices waited impatiently while he made offerings of tobacco to the Nunne'hi, who were said to inhabit this mountain. He feared the immortal guardians were no longer around to appreciate his gifts. The silence that lingered around their dwelling places remained but he saw no sign of their presence. If the Nunne'hi were still guarding this sacred site, they would have shown themselves by now. And if they had left this secret mountain where no one ever came, how could he hope they still lived anywhere else in the land?
     With sadness so profound it pierced his soul the elder walked away from the graves. He had spied on a friend who was closer than a brother to find this place, and betrayed that friend with theft and desecration, and there was a chance it was all for nothing. He pushed the growing pangs of remorse from his mind with the thought of the vanished Nunne'hi and steeled himself to go through with the plan he had been working on since he came back from the war. It was the only way he knew to save his people. Perhaps he was already too late, but he had to try.
     The others followed in silence, staying close enough to give him the benefit of the flashlight's glow in the gathering darkness. An hour's walk through the pathless forest brought them to an old Ford Pinto, waiting at the end of a road that was barely more than two ruts through the brush. The compact car wasn't built for this kind of terrain but it would get them where they needed to go.
     The elder held the door and flipped the driver's seat forward so the third partner, the smallest one of them, could crawl into the back seat, then got behind the wheel.
     The white man stashed the bags in the back then folded his long legs into the passenger's seat. Slamming the door he asked, "Where to now?"
     The elder was bone tired and didn't want to talk to the digger any more, but there were things the white man needed to know in order to do his part. "Home," he said. "We need a good night's sleep. First thing in the morning, I'll do what I have to do at Tatham Gap, and then I'll come for you so we can start the preparations. Tuesday, we'll be ready. Don't eat anything or drink anything but water before that."
     "I've been fasting like you told me to," the digger said, then as if an afterthought, "I'll keep the bags with me till Tuesday. They'll be safer."
     The elder's eyes were hard and cold in the darkness but the digger couldn't see that. "They stay with me." His voice was as hard as his eyes. The digger didn't know he was a pawn. He had to be kept under control or none of them would live through the week ahead. That's where the one in the back seat came in handy. He couldn't do this alone.
     The digger said nothing more, but he didn't have to. The elder could smell the cold clammy sweat that gave away his fear. It had worried him at first, but he had come to know the digger's ambition outweighed his anxiety. The promise of power that would allow him to be what he already claimed, was too good to resist. He'd promised the white man a life that wasn't a lie.
     The winding dirt road demanded the elder's attention as he maneuvered the old Pinto around the curves. It would be easier once he reached the parkway. Here, the mist that gave the Smoky Mountains their name obscured hairpin turns so thoroughly he had to be careful not to slip off the sheer drop along the narrow shoulder. Later, there would be time to worry about the streak of independence the digger was beginning to show. He was sounding less like an awed pupil and more like he had a mind of his own. That wasn't good. Not for what he had planned.
     Down the Blue Ridge Parkway and on the other side of the mountain, he pulled into the parking lot of Mingus Mill. The restored old grist mill attracted a fair number of tourists, even this early in the year. The Sunday crowd had already cleared out, except for a young couple sitting on the footbridge, their feet swinging over the stream. He parked beside the dark green Mitsubishi Montero his passengers had left there earlier.
     The digger reached over the seat and shook their sleeping partner awake, then they both got out of the car. "Where do you want us to meet you tomorrow?" He asked the elder.
     "I've got some things I need to do by myself." The elder kept his eyes averted to hide the mistrust he knew would show. "I'll get back to you when I'm done." From the corner of his eye, he saw how the white man looked at the bags in the back seat, like he might just take them, with or without permission. In a burst of anger he shifted into first and stomped on the accelerator.
     The white man's yell gave him a feeling of satisfaction. He watched him in the rearview mirror, staring at the Pinto as he wheeled back onto the parkway.
     When he was alone he tried not to dwell on what he carried in the two gym bags. It was his responsibility now and he had to go on with the plan. The die was cast. There was no hope that the Snake Dancers would agree to act, and come over to his side. He was on his own, ready or not. This was what he had been planning for years, following the guardians of the relics the Snake Dancer Society protected until he learned their secrets. Then he'd brought the white man in and taught him what he needed to know. The hardest part was the way he'd used their third partner. He didn't like to think about that. All the while, he had hoped the Snake Dancers would come around and realize they had to do something. For as long as he could remember, they talked about the Nunne'hi and their relationship to the Cherokee. They all said the number of the immortals and the number of the Cherokee was the same, and when the Nunne'hi left the world, the Cherokee would soon follow.
     The Nunne'hi had lived near the burial ground they'd desecrated at Ataga'hi long before mortals came to the Smoky Mountains. Now all that was left of them was the silence that lingered near the places they had lived. The immortals were leaving the Smokies. Who could blame them? The very air was unfit to breathe and even the rain was poison. Too many people crowded in, trampling through lands where they didn't belong. If this kept up, it soon wouldn't be fit for human beings, much less the Nunne'hi.
     It saddened him that the young people thought the Nunne'hi were only mythic beings, kept alive in old stories told by their superstitious elders. He knew better, and so did the Snake Dancers, but they still wasted time talking. While they talked, the places where the immortals lived were desecrated and they left the homeland. His heart ached to think about it.
     He drove past flashing neon lights advertising motels with names like Redskin Inn or Warrior Lodge. This whole tourist town was part of the trouble. The Snake Dancers had been entrusted with the power to change it all and take back what rightfully belonged to the Cherokee, but they'd grown soft. Always too afraid of what would happen if things went wrong. Well, it couldn't get much worse than it was already. Time was running out, and they kept saying wait. He'd waited as long as he could. What he had to do would probably kill him but if he had to die he'd go down fighting. It was his nature. His clan had supplied many of the great war-chiefs of old and their blood was strong in him. This Wolf Clan Warrior wasn't born for talking and waiting. He had honored the duty to protect the Ulunsu'ti and the place where it was hidden on Tatham Gap, but the guardianship of the crystal included the responsibility to see it was used when the time came. His ancestor, who first accepted that sacred duty, and all his fathers who followed, would have done it if they were in his place. He was sure of it.
     He hadn't expected to be so scared or to taste sickness at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and spoke aloud into the darkness. "I have to do it, before everything is gone. If I don't, somebody else will. Somebody who's too weak to handle it." He knew who that would be and it pissed him off to think of how the old fool had sided with the others against him, agreeing to wait and see. Well, if Walker Copperhead wanted to wait, let him. He was too old and soft anyway. Couldn't he see that when their generation passed, it would be too late? The Nunne'hi would be gone by the time their grandsons took over. Then, there wouldn't be any Cherokee people to save. When the big white man came to his trailer, willing to learn and do whatever he had to do, it was time to act. He wasn't perfect but he was strong and had the desire. And he was a damn sight better than that lazy-assed weakling of a white boy Walker Copperhead had his eye on ever since he married into the Copperhead family. For a moment, a hint of suspicion teased at the back of his mind. What if Walker was planning something without telling any of the rest? Wouldn't that be just like the old fart? He hated to admit it, but for all their differences, he and Walker were a lot alike.
     He drove past the Qualla Boundary sign on 441 and steered the Pinto off to a side road for a few miles, then up a gravel driveway for the half mile to his trailer. The house he had lived in since the day he was born stood behind it, leaning precariously against rotting porch posts. His wife had wanted something more modern to live in so he bought her the trailer. Two years later she had gone and died and he was still making payments. He parked under the big beech tree and went inside.
     With the bags stashed under his bed, he stretched out and tried to sleep. It might be his last chance. In the week ahead he had to face a nightmare. The white man was the only one around to face it with him and he couldn't waste any more time worrying about the flaws in the digger's personality. It would have helped if he could figure out what Walker Copperhead was up to. What if he was planning to strike out on his own and do something himself?
     Sally, his wife's old cat, cuddled up beside him. He'd gotten used to talking out his troubles with her since Lena walked over. Sally purred while he fretted about an old Snake Dancer who lived on Snowbird Creek, and a white boy who'd married into the family. He confided his opinion to Lena's cat. "If that boy knew what Walker had in mind for him, he'd haul ass out of Graham County and as far away from all them Copperheads as he could get."
     An owl hooted somebody's death call outside in the beech tree. It took his mind off the rest of his worries long enough for sleep to overtake him. His dreams were as bad as his waking thoughts. A snake as big around as his leg surfaced from the shadows of a mountain creek and looked straight into his eyes, forcing him to return the gaze. He had no choice but to stare deep into the very human eyes of the serpent and try like hell to wake up.

Excerpt from the book LIGHTNING CREEK by Holly McClure
©2006 Holly McClure

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