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Ella Pope was sitting on her front porch, fanning herself with a folded newspaper and sipping from a glass of iced tea when she saw her niece coming up the drive. She set her glass aside and waved as Annie pulled up at the front gate and got out.
“Evening, girl! Good to see you!” Ella said.
“You, too,” Annie said. “I brought blueberry muffins.”
Ella beamed. “You know they’re my favorites. Would you take ’em in the house for me and get yourself a cold pop before you come back?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Annie said, and went inside, returning moments later carrying a cold can of Mountain Dew, then sat down in an old cane-back chair beside her and slipped the strap of her purse over the arm of her chair.
Ella leaned back in her old rocking chair, smiling as she watched Annie take a drink.
“What’s botherin’ you, girl?” Ella asked.
Annie sighed. “You know. You said it yourself at the meeting when we learned Brendan’s Meg was lost. I heard you say it under your breath. You said, “Thecrying woman.” Do you think what we’ve been hearing all these years is Meg’s spirit wandering this mountain, wanting to be found?”
Ella’s smile faded.
“I can’t know a thing for certain. I can only feel things.”
Annie reached inside her purse and pulled out a worn and faded blue velvet pouch, and laid it in Ella’s lap.
“What’s this?” Ella asked.
Annie shrugged. “It was in my Granny’s trunk. Will you ‘see’ it for me?”
“What if it tells me nothing?” Ella asked.
“Then it will keep its secrets just like this mountain,” Annie said.
Ella nodded, and then dumped the contents into her lap.
The necklace was obviously Native American and old, very old, made of trading beads and bear claws, strung on a thin strand of rawhide.
“Meg’s,” Ella said. “I heard the elders talk about it when I was little, but I didn’t know this still existed.”
Annie sighed. “Granny said it was hers, but I wasn’t sure. If you held it, would it talk to you?”
Ella picked it up, then held it loosely in her palms, letting the claws fall between her fingers as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Annie’s heart was pounding. Waiting like this was worse than waiting for Christmas when she was a kid, and then Ella started talking.
“Mist on my face. Taste of berries on my lips.”
Annie froze.Oh my God!
Ella shuddered. “Many men. Afraid. Begging.” When Ella made a sudden grab at her own chest and cried out in pain, Annie jumped, afraid Ella was having a heart attack, but then Ella shuddered and relaxed. One minute passed, and then another before she opened her eyes.
“They shot her, just like that man shot Charlie. And like Charlie, she was still alive when they put her in the dark. Wherever she is, she died alone, calling for Brendan.”
“Could you see where she was?” Annie asked.
Ella shrugged. “In the dark. They put her where it was dark. That’s all I saw.”
“Had to be a cave,” Annie said.
“But they’re everywhere,” Ella said.
“It had to somewhere near Big Falls, because the soldiers wouldn’t have been there unless they’d gone there to hide the gold. What I don’t understand is how soldiers, people who didn’t grow up here, even knew where Big Falls was, or that there was a place to hide something like that?”
