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  Fear rose in my throat with a metallic taste. How dare this man stalk me? And why? He must know something about the gold, but how did he know it? Tales of buried treasure abounded but those old stories had been around for a long time, and why should Ray Drake connect my mother or me with the story of Ben’s hidden gold?

  Anger replaced my fear. Nobody knew the back roads of Ventris County like a person who had grown up here. Nobody from out of town, as Ray Drake evidently was, would have heard about a shortcut to Granny Grace’s old home place.

  Putting my car in gear, I drove back onto the pavement. If Drake could follow old wagon roads and rocky creek beds, more power to him!

  After winding my way around tree-covered hills and across spring-fed streams, I turned onto the dirt lane that led to my grandmother’s land. Below me stretched part of the lake that was formed when the U.S. government dammed Ventris River sixty years ago. My parents used to talk about how the free-flowing river looked in the days before the dam—a different channel and different depths. At that time, the fertile river bottomland grew wonderful crops, but one of the hazards had been flooding. Sometimes water covered a whole season’s worth of corn, and all my grandparents’ hard work went for nothing.

  Now that the land near the river belonged to the government, access to our own acres was harder. Straddling a sagging, rusty fence, I walked downhill toward a creek that splashed through land that was once Granny Grace’s and now belonged to my mother.

  Mom had told me some months ago about a rancher farther up the creek who had dammed the stream for his own use. Of course, that slowed the creek to a trickle and made it harder for farmers who depended on it for their cattle.

  The scent of water, damp earth, and wildflowers mingled with a fragrance I could only call the essence of springtime. Filling my lungs with the fresh air, I thought of one of my favorite Scriptures from the fifth chapter of the Book of Job: “For you shall be in league with the stones of the field; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.” That was my feeling about this beautiful chunk of nature.

  One of the many dreams that died with Jake was of someday building a house on these acres that had belonged to Granny Grace. We would have retired here and enjoyed our sunset years in my ancestral home. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Oh, Jake, where are you now?” I whispered. “Heaven is so very far away.”

  A hard knot of grief began in my chest and spread throughout my body. I lifted my face to the sky and screamed, “Why?”

  As the echoes of my voice bounced from hill to hill, I heard a muffled, hoarse exclamation and a splash. Running in the direction of the sound, I pulled branches apart, jumped over briers and there, in the deepest part of the creek stood a large young man. He was in waist-high water, in a still pool under a bluff that jutted out like a prominent nose. Startled eyes jerked in my direction and his mouth dropped open.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” I said. “Were you noodling for fish?”

  Without a word, he scrambled downstream, splashing water and slipping on rocks until he gained a foothold on the bank. Out he clambered and galloped over the hill.

  Had I sounded that frightening? I wished this boy had let me explain. I didn’t object to his noodling, even if he was trespassing. Dad told me about noodling, how he had tried it once, feeling under rocks in the creek for fish. Nearly putting his hand on a cottonmouth snake instead of a fish cured his desire to noodle.

  Shrugging, I walked upstream, on the lookout for any possible hiding places that might contain the fabled gold. The creek separated my grandmother’s land from the farm of Ben Ventris. Through the years, the stream had cut different channels and neither it nor the Ventris River followed the paths they once took. Sycamore trees towered along the creek, some as high as 160 feet. During the days when Ben’s ancestors walked Ventris County, those trees would have been much smaller. Did one of them contain a hollow where a treasure could be tucked away? Caves, some small and some large, pockmarked the bluffs. Did one of them harbor a trove of Georgia gold?

  Something fanned past my shoulder followed by a loud zing and a pop. Holding my breath, I froze. Another crack, and dirt sprayed in front of my feet. Gunshots! Someone was shooting at me!

  Dropping to the earth, I lay there, my heart fluttering like the leaves overhead. Two bullets from an unseen gunman had come chillingly close. I pressed my face into the mossy ground and tried to pray. All I could remember were the words, “Psalm Ninety-one.” I whispered this phrase again and again. The rest of the Psalm had vanished from my memory.

  Would the hidden gunman shoot again? Could he see me through the trees? Minutes ticked by while I lay frozen in place, afraid to breathe, my ears straining for the sound of approaching footsteps. Would he find me and shoot me point blank?

  After what seemed like years, I decided I could not lie here forever, or at least I hoped I would not lie here forever. Maybe the shooter thought he had hit me and I was dead.

  In the distance a crow cawed, and from a nearby tree a blue-jay scolded. The sounds of nature were returning to normal. Hopefully, that meant the gunman was gone.

  Cautiously, I raised my head and looked around. Nothing moved except the creek and the leaves. I eased up to my knees then stood. Expecting each moment to hear another shot, I trotted downstream until reaching the sagging fence and my Passport, parked on the roadside. Scrambling over the wire, I yanked open my car door and, with a hand that shook badly, turned on the ignition.

  “Thank You, Lord,” I breathed. Dust and rocks flew under the tires as I stomped the accelerator.

  I hadn’t wanted to tell Grant about Ray Drake or the trip to New York or what Mom knew about the gold. Now, I had no choice. What if it had been Mom instead of me that the cowardly person had tried to kill? And, if the would-be assassin was Ray Drake, how did he know where to find me? Not many people ventured this far out of Levi on unpaved roads. I had felt certain that no one had followed me, but I was wrong. For the first time in my life, I wished a patrolman would stop me for speeding as I barreled down the road back to the safety of Levi.

  Chapter 7

  Feeling like a child who is forced to confess a misdeed to her parents, I walked into Sheriff Grant Hendley’s office.

  His receptionist looked up from her computer. “Yes?”

  “Is Grant in?” I asked. “I really need to talk to him. I’m Darcy Campbell.”

  The receptionist’s hazel eyes lit up. She evidently had heard about me, which gave me a qualm or two.

  The only spot of color in this small space was the bouquet of fresh flowers on the desk of—I squinted at her nameplate—Doris Elroy. Otherwise, the room seemed drab, with brown paneled walls.

  Grant opened the door to his inner office before Doris could answer me. Jim Clendon peered over his shoulder.

  Swallowing, I said, “Grant, um, I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  The deputy frowned and stalked through the receptionist’s cubicle and out the door.

  Smiling, Grant said, “Come in, Darcy.” He indicated a heavy, wood chair that faced his desk. “Have a seat.”

  I sat and drew a long breath. “Somebody just shot at me.”

  Grant’s smile vanished. “What? Who? Where?”

  So, I began my story with Ray Drake’s visit, progressed to my trip to New York, and finished with the gunman at my grandmother’s place on the river.

  For a long moment after I finished my recitation, Grant sat silently. At last, he asked, “Are you sure you are all right? Did he hurt you in any way?”

  I shook my head.

  Grant leaned toward me. “Do you think this Ray Drake fellow is the one who shot at you? It sounds to me, Darcy, like he came too close for it to be anything but attempted murder. My question is why he would want you dead?”

  Someone would want to murder me? To hear it spoken sent a chill down my back.

  Grant’s blue eyes narrowed and a muscle along his jawline twitched. “What else are you not telling me, Darcy?” />
  Looking down at my hands, I asked, “What makes you think there is something else?”

  “Darcy Tucker . . .” he began.

  “Campbell,” I corrected him.

  “Darcy Tucker Campbell, when I talked to you this morning, you said everything was fine. That was an out-and-out lie. Don’t you trust me anymore?”

  My face felt hot. “Sure. Of course I trust you, Grant, but I wouldn’t trust your deputy any farther than I could throw him. Besides, I didn’t want to worry you.”

  Grant’s voice was soft but he spoke as if he were biting off each word. “I already explained about Jim. Now answer me. What else should I know?”

  So I told him what Mom had said about the gold and the legend of the cache, hidden somewhere in Ventris County.

  Pushing his chair away from his desk, Grant swiveled around to gaze at the maple outside of his window. “I’ve heard about that gold all my life, but I never put much stock in it. Maybe there’s something to that old story after all.”

  He turned back and faced me. “I’ll have a couple of deputies watch your place, twenty-four/seven. Whoever shot at you must know by now that he missed, and it stands to reason he’s going to try again.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want you to do that. Mom would probably distract your man by bringing him coffee and apple pie and she would worry that he was too hot or too cold. Besides, I know how to shoot and I can take care of myself. Mom too.”

  “Like you did today?” Grant asked.

  “Okay, but today I wasn’t expecting anybody to follow me. Besides, I surprised a young fellow who was noodling for fish. Maybe he was the shooter.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  “He was young, in his early twenties, I’d guess, blond and heavyset. He seemed very shy and ran off when I tried to talk to him.”

  “That sounds like Jasper Harris, Pat Harris’ boy. Jasper doesn’t have a job and likes to prowl through the woods and along the creek. I don’t think he would harm a flea. He’s not quite right; or, maybe he’s just different than most of us and we’re the ones who aren’t quite right in his eyes. No, I can almost swear that Jasper Harris didn’t shoot at you.”

  Pat Harris was the secretary/treasurer of Goshen Cemetery’s governing board. She and Mom had several phone discussions about putting the cemetery in shape for Decoration. I remembered seeing Jasper years ago as a shy little boy, but hadn’t recognized him all grown up. But if Jasper wasn’t the shooter and Ray Drake hadn’t been able to follow me, who had shot at me?

  Pushing my chair back, I stood up. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans so Grant couldn’t see they were trembling.

  “Thanks for listening, Grant. I promise to be more careful. Mom will be fit to be tied, but I’ll have to tell her about this so she can be watchful. She’s entirely too trusting.”

  Grant walked to the door with me. “I’m glad you decided to let me in on your investigation,” he said, “but don’t withhold any more information that might be helpful in solving Ben’s murder. That’s actually a crime, Miss Tucker-Campbell. We still haven’t found Ben’s body. Someone, maybe the killer, for some reason, took him away and hid him. A person who would do such a thing is unpredictable and dangerous.”

  “And maybe he’s the person who shot at me?” I asked.

  He cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms. It was time to leave. Grant didn’t have any more answers than I did. In addition to trying to solve a murder and find a body, he now had two meddling women to worry about.

  Driving home, weary with the day’s events, the realization of how nearly death had touched me brought tears to my eyes. Promising myself that from now on I would be cautious and suspicious, I, nevertheless, was more determined than ever to find out what was going on in Ventris County. Solving this murder was the only way my mother and I could be truly safe.

  Chapter 8

  How does one tell a parent that her child has been shot at? I tried to break the news to my mother gently, but wound up just blurting out the fact that I had come perilously close to death on Granny Grace’s acres.

  She listened in silence but her complexion grew visibly paler, and when I finished my story she got up from her chair, came around to where I was sitting, and hugged me. Her voice trembling, she asked, “Could it have been some hunter shooting at rabbits or squirrels?”

  I shook my head. Sparing her worry was important, but she needed to know that the person or persons we were dealing with was dangerous and she should put her eternal faith in human nature aside.

  Wiping her eyes, she said, “Oh, Darcy, this is all my fault. I wanted you to come back home and you have had nothing but danger since you got here. You could be safe and sound in Dallas now instead of worried that somebody is going to shoot you.”

  “No, Mom, that’s not true. This stuff would have happened, but I wouldn’t have been here to help you. You would have found Ben out there at Goshen whether I was with you or not. And Ray Drake would still think that Ben told you the hiding place of that unlucky gold.”

  “There’s no such thing as luck, Darcy,” Mom said automatically. All my life she had reminded me that belief in luck was superstitious and Christians were to have nothing to do with it. She went to the cabinet and pulled the coffee canister off a shelf. To her way of thinking, in all times of stress, coffee helped.

  “Did you talk Grant out of sending us bodyguards?” she asked as she measured coffee and water.

  “I think so. We will just have to be aware of everything and everyone that’s a little out of the ordinary. From now on, wherever one of us goes, so goes the other. I don’t think it’s safe to leave you alone again, Mom.”

  “Seems to me I wasn’t the one who got shot at,” my mother retorted. “I should be the one in danger since supposedly Ben told me about the gold, not you. I just can’t figure out why anybody would shoot at you.”

  “Maybe the bad guy thinks that you told me where the gold is hidden or maybe he just wants to scare you into being cooperative because you fear for my safety,” I said.

  The only sound in the kitchen for the next few seconds was the old yellow coffee pot working its magic. At last, Mom stopped pleating her place mat and smiled. “I have an idea! We’ll just take a trip, a short vacation to somewhere or other, maybe back to Bet in Fayetteville.”

  Getting up from the table, I took two cups from the cabinet. “No, that’s not far enough. We’d only put Aunt Bet in danger too. If Drake is watching us, we should go farther than Fayetteville.”

  “Well, where, then? Timbuktu? Honolulu?”

  Pouring steaming coffee into our cups, I said, “Sounds good to me.”

  Mom paused with her cup almost to her lips. “Is Grant any closer to finding the murderer?”

  “He didn’t say. He was too busy being mad at me to say anything else. He wants us to stay out of any investigation, but I don’t know how to do that. We are not asking to be involved; we just are.”

  “Darcy, I think the only way we are ever going to be safe again is for that killer to be brought to justice.”

  “I agree. But how long is that going to take?”

  Mom gazed at the rose bush outside her kitchen window. “I keep thinking about the antiques dealer in Oklahoma City, Jason Allred. I’m wondering if Ben went to see him and maybe told him where the gold is. Do you think Mr. Allred could be so greedy that he killed Ben, in order to recover the gold for himself?”

  That was an angle I hadn’t thought of. “It seems unlikely. Dealers in antiquities are used to priceless items. Integrity and discretion are their stock and trade.”

  “But what if we talk to Mr. Allred, and find out what Ben told him? Now that Ben is dead, I don’t think Allred would be sworn to secrecy, would he?”

  I put down my cup. “And you want us to go see Allred.”

  Mom smiled. “I like Oklahoma City. That would be a mini-vacation. We could stay for several days, and maybe while we’re gone Grant will arrest the killer and
find Ben’s body and get this whole thing cleared up!”

  Catching some of her enthusiasm, I said, “If we could leave before daylight, Drake wouldn’t know we were gone. He has to sleep some time, just like normal people! And we would be together so I could keep an eye on you. Let’s pack tonight and leave bright and early in the morning.”

  “Good idea,” Mom agreed.

  Sunrise was only a rosy promise in the soft, gray east when we drove out of Levi the next morning. Mom and I were in a holiday mood. Maybe the trip out of town, seeing different sights, having lunch in a nice restaurant, would be good for her. She had looked tired since finding Ben’s body. Leaving Levi with its dark secrets behind us was a relief.

  We headed west. The sky was cloudless and promised a perfect day. A niggling memory of another day that began much like this one passed, like a shadow, through my mind. The day we found Ben started out sunny and warm too, full of promise. Mom had predicted a storm the morning we left for Goshen, but the weather had seemed to belie that and I hadn’t believed her. Glancing at my mother, I asked, “You don’t have any warnings or premonitions this morning, do you? Any aches and pains in arthritic joints?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Not a one! Besides, I listened to the weather forecast last night and rain isn’t predicted.”

  Her confidence reassured me. This little jaunt would be what we both needed. People were already stirring in the farms and ranches we passed. What would their morning chores be, I wondered. What particular defeats or victories would fill the days of the strangers along the way?

  Each person was a walking story with his or her own personal tragedies and hopes. The surface of life often masked triumphs or hurts that casual observers never knew. As for Mom and me, we were trying to restore normalcy into our world that had come smack up against an ancient secret. The horror of finding Ben would forever haunt us. Sometimes Mom would pause in the middle of mixing cornbread or pulling clothes out of the dryer and stare out the window as though she were looking fifty years into the past.