Sisters’

Treasure

Mary Jane Russell

Sisters’ Treasure

© 2012 by Mary Jane Russell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

ISBN 13: 978-1-935216-35-3

First Printing: 2012

This Trade Paperback Is Published By

Intaglio Publications

Walker, LA USA

www.intagliopub.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

_____________________________________________

Credits

Executive Editor: Tara Young

Cover design by Tiger Graphics

Dedication

For the Harvey women: Ada Harvey Gibson and Mildred Harvey Warters, two of my grandfather’s sisters; Alma Harvey Russell, my mother, and especially Nancy Harvey Floyd, my favorite aunt (Nancy always reminds me that she’s also my only aunt).

Acknowledgments

As always, many thanks to Kate Sweeney and Sheri Payton, those fabulous women of Intaglio Publications.

To Tara Young, what can I say but “bless your heart” and thank you for your editing expertise and patience.

To Joyce Coleman, my BFF, your support and advice over the years have been immeasurable.

Any time I write about family, I think of my parents. I miss them more with each passing year. They instilled in me an appreciation of books and a love of my sister that have endured a lifetime.

Finally—Aunt Nancy, this one’s for you, a small token of thanks for decades of love. There is no richer treasure than you.

CHAPTER ONE

“That’s my girl.” Tracey Stephens raised her can of Coke in a salute to the television screen. She was a creature of habit—as soon as she entered her apartment after a day’s work, she turned on the television for background noise and went to the refrigerator for an ice-cold Coca-Cola. She was fortunate that her metabolism was such that she burned off the sugar and caffeine with no ill effects to her weight or ability to sleep. She still wore the same size jeans as when a senior in high school seven years earlier. It didn’t hurt that she played golf every weekend unless there was drenching rain falling or snow on the ground.

She set the can on the end table next to the sofa and pulled her hair back in a ponytail using a wide elastic band from an ashtray that had never been used for smoking. Her hair stayed a light blond year-round, thanks to her time outside playing golf, and reached midway down her back. She faced the sofa and pushed aside the pile of laundry that needed folding. If clean clothes stayed on the sofa too long, Tracey simply washed them again.

She purposely kept the living room furniture to a minimum so there was no interference with the treadmill set against the back of the kitchen cabinets that divided the room or the golf clubs and water skis propped against the front wall. Her nonfiction books were in stacks on the floor of what was intended to be a second bedroom that had two folding tables piled high with papers instead of a bed. She considered herself a historically minded jock. She settled onto the sofa to watch the local evening news. Once the news ended, she’d switch to Netflix and her obsession with BBC programs. She tolerated cable television for The Weather Channel and ESPN. She refused to pay for premium channels yet hated sitting through commercials. She was halfway through Doc Martin, fascinated by how obtuse the main character was as she crushed on the schoolteacher. A typical winter evening was spent glancing at the television while reading a book or cataloging documents from the previous two centuries, or both.

Ginny Daniels stood with microphone in hand, leaning toward Alese Walthall with genuine deference that emphasized a stark contrast of different generations of black women. Ginny was twenty-three, slim, and not born in Virginia. Alese was seventy, plump, and a native of Danville.

“You’re a retired schoolteacher who now works at Southside Museum and volunteers at local historical sites?” Ginny asked. She nodded attentively during Alese’s summary of her careers and current activities.

“You’ve no idea.” Tracey shook her head and sipped her drink, waiting.

Mrs. Walthall had been one of Tracey’s elementary school teachers. She’d retired after three-and-a-half decades of teaching. Retirement bored her, so she joined the Southside Museum at its inception as its first museum educator. She’d been an excellent teacher, more so for riding out the first wave of soft integration in Virginia. She’d also been the first black professional woman Tracey’s mother had experienced when placed in her classroom in 1965. Alese survived the system to be Tracey’s teacher thirty years later. She was a gentle taskmaster who made her pupils work for the knowledge that lasted them a lifetime.

Tracey credited Alese with her decision to be a history major. Tracey’s mother teased her that the only surprise was when Tracey decided not to follow her mentor’s footsteps and become a teacher. Tracey had been thrilled to reunite with Alese at the museum when she was hired as its curator three years earlier.

“I hope you did your homework, girlfriend.” Tracey felt herself tensing as she sensed that Ginny was about to make the point of the interview—Black History Month justifiably came across as a double-edged sword in the South. Especially poignant was the impending anniversary of the start of the Civil War. So far, Virginia was the only state to appropriate funds for commemorative events. The NAACP was already cautioning members and organizing demonstrations against celebrating slavery.

Ginny was an anomaly to the area and Tracey’s life. She was born and raised in Ohio with a strong family and upper middle-class neighborhood support structure. Her childhood friends were a mixed bag of Toledo’s population where no one paid much attention to last names. Both her parents had earned doctorates.

Tracey lived in the shadow of generations of tobacco farmers who passed land but not money to the next generation. Danville had briefly served as the Confederate capital during the closing days of the Civil War. It was a city strongly rooted in country music, tobacco auctions, textile production, and its adjoining county’s annual cantaloupe festival. Tracey’s parents had been the first generation not to attend racially separated schools.

Tracey had never had a black girlfriend. She’d been too shy during high school to be anything more than friends with anyone and had watched the girls she grew up with move away for college and careers. Tracey had been too focused on her golf scholarship and college curriculum to seriously date anyone, knowing her parents couldn’t afford the cost of another daughter’s undergraduate education.

Once home and employed by the museum, Tracey concentrated on work. She’d been interviewed a little over a year before by Ginny and hadn’t been able to get her off her mind since. She’d thanked Ginny for the increased foot traffic to the textile exhibit by taking her to dinner and been delighted to discover that Ginny had an ulterior motive for the interview that had begun with a nudge from a mutual friend who thought they needed to meet. They’d been a couple ever since, traveling to North Carolina’s nearby metro areas for concerts and women’s basketball.

“Was there Underground Railroad activity in this area in the decades before the Civil War?” Ginny held the microphone toward Alese.

“None that has been documented this far inland. The Tidewater area had churches linked to steamship routes.” Alese folded one hand over the other, clearly displeased that research was lacking or she was being manipulated.

“My ancestors fled Virginia in the eighteen fifties and served the North during the war. Yet here you are, a native, working on the preparations for theone hundred fiftieth celebration of the beginning of the Civil War as part of Danville’s tourism effort.” Ginny held up a recent brochure from the state office of tourism.

Tracey groaned.

Alese stiffened. “I’m a guide at the National Cemetery where the federal soldiers from Danville’s Confederate prisons were buried and at the Freedman’s Cemetery that once was part of Green Hill Cemetery. I work at the museum to bring to light the wealth of African-American artifacts hidden amongst family collections. We’ve commemorated the pain and suffering of the labor force, as well as the strides made since the time of Abraham Lincoln. Some of us stayed here to make it easier for successive generations rather than being lured away from our heritage by anonymity and paychecks in Northern factories.”

“Danville—a contradiction to itself.” Ginny walked with the camera as the adjoining cemeteries were panned. The newscast went to commercial break.

“She did not just say that.” A man’s voice was raised to be heard through the dividing wall of the duplex.

“Oh, yes, she did.” Tracey went to the refrigerator for two more Cokes, then dashed from her front door to the adjoining unit without a jacket to ward off February’s chill.

Adam Bruffy held the door open. His apartment was as sparse as Tracey’s was cluttered. He resisted all urges to decorate after his divorce other than adding a bar in the corner of the living room to display his beer bottle collection. It also served to hide empty liquor bottles en route to recycling. He’d amassed a collection of bean bag chairs that he piled together in the middle of the living room. His bed was a mattress thrown on the carpet of the master bedroom. His one furniture purchase had been a race car bed for the second bedroom. Adam lived for his visitation rights with his son.

Tracey handed off the cold Coke to Adam, continuing into his kitchen to transfer groceries from bags to cabinets. He was as bad about food as she was clothing, often leaving plastic bags along the wall until the contents were used. Tracey made it a habit to check the contents—laundry didn’t spoil.

“Wonder how many people are watching this.” Adam directed his voice to the kitchen while his eyes focused on the screen. “I haven’t seen that look on Mrs. Walthall’s face since I mooned the audience of the sixth-grade play.”

Tracey chuckled. “I forgot she was your teacher also. I just remember you being the star high school quarterback that most of the girls, including my big sister, had a huge crush on. I was so jealous.”

“Who’d have ever thought I’d end up as the divorced land surveyor who drinks too much?” Adam set the Coke aside in favor of the bottle of beer he was half through. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m older and of the same romantic persuasion as you.”

“I wonder how many people are looking for the parent station’s telephone number in Lynchburg. Ginny’s days as a one-woman affiliate may be numbered.” Tracey held up one of the cans of chili. “I’m assuming you don’t have any hot dates in your future.”

“Lesbian buddies and pay-per-view are my bestest friends.” Adam flashed a toothy smile at her, then waggled his mustache.

“Eww.” Tracey shook her head. She teased Adam about being a throwback to a Burt Reynolds wannabe. His black hair was shaggy on his collar, and his mustache was heavy on his upper lip and corners of his mouth.

Adam laughed. “I’m betting you won’t be taking Ginny home to meet the parents this weekend.”

“I’m not closeted, just very private about my social life. I had enough of a don’t-ask-don’t-tell reaction from Paula to learn my lesson.”

“I never would’ve guessed your sister was so uptight.” He tried the Coke again and made a face. “I think this needs more sugar. How do you chug these things?”

“Paula went to college to nab a husband and earn a degree she had no intention of using. Poor Ashton built her a huge house and fathered her prerequisite—and I love them dearly—two children, so she could climb the ladder with the Baptist Young Women and support the Republican Party.” Tracey shuddered. “Don’t waste any of that Coke. At least my addiction is legal.”

“I heard that.” Adam crushed the can and threw it behind the bar.

“I’m hoping Alese won’t hold this against me. I introduced Ginny to her to set up the interview.” Tracey took her cell phone out of her pocket and hit the speed dial for Ginny. She waited through the voice mail prompt. “You looked great on the news tonight as always, sweetie. Isn’t Mrs. Walthall something? Don’t forget dinner Friday night.” Tracey closed the phone with a snap.

“Chickenshit.” Adam was engrossed in the five-day weather forecast that determined how much he’d be able to work.

“You betcha. That’s chickenshit with a date, thank you.” Tracey thumped Adam on the crown of his head in passing.

CHAPTER TWO

Tracey wore exam gloves at work as second nature. She’d nagged her boss into ordering a box of smalls shortly after being hired so her hands weren’t engulfed by the powdered latex.

Southside Museum had been initially funded by the proceeds from the national tobacco settlement administered by the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission. The thirty-one-member body was responsible for economic growth and development in the communities dependent on raising tobacco. The commission was nearing the end of payment to farmers or quota owners who once depended on flue-cured or burley tobacco for their livelihood. To date, and Tracey followed the grant awards closely, the commission had doled out almost $800 million above the nearly $300 million in indemnification payments over the past eleven years.

Tracey would never forget meeting the museum’s executive director, Mitchell Wilkins, at her interview.

He’d leaned so far back in his chair that Tracey feared he’d topple over. “First of all, call me Mitch. Secondly, how do you feel about being part of a museum that glorifies the three dead Ts—tobacco, textiles, and trains?”

Tracey had sputtered through an answer based on growing up outside of Danville. She knew the museum’s disciplines firsthand.

Mitch had ended the interview by congratulating her on her new job and consoling her. “At least we didn’t completely sell our souls for the funding—we don’t have to dress in period costumes.”

Tracey loved the square, three-story building that had begun as a tobacco warehouse, been converted to a Civil War hospital, survived the fire of 1890 that decimated the adjoining city block, and been renovated for the museum with large, high-ceilinged open rooms.

She adjusted the angle of the diary she was attempting to read and wished again that the diarist hadn’t experimented with a purple ink that faded worse than the usual sepia. She pulled the swivel arm of the light clamped on the edge of her table so the fixture was centered over the book and straightened on her stool to look through the round magnifying glass surrounded by a fluorescent tube. Last resort would be an ultraviolet light that was often more trouble to connect than it was worth to use.

Tracey adored the drafting table that she worked at more comfortably than her desk. It was fifty years old, solid oak, and a whopping three feet by six feet with drawers large enough for blueprints and family tree charts. The top surface was a mint green board cover preferred by draftsmen for ease on the eyes. Tracy was thankful for the Internet shopping sites that allowed her to replace the cover once a year.

She wondered if any draftsmen continued to work by hand on paper—another form of dinosaur heading to extinction—rather than hunching before a computer terminal. Drafting tables in engineers’ and architects’ offices were abandoned for metal desks and large monitors. Adam had salvaged hers from the auction pile where he worked after hearing her wish for a surface big enough to actually spread her documents out on. “Their loss, my gain,” Tracey said.

The telephone warbled. They had far too many choices for ringtones. Tracey looked over her shoulder, debating letting voice mail take the call.

“I know you’re in there,” her boss shouted from the next room. “It might be a blue hair who won’t leave a message regarding a huge donation.” Mitch had lost no time in delegating calls from elderly women to Tracey.

As two-thirds of the full-time staff, she and Mitch worked out of offices on the first floor of the museum, dividing an interior room that was between the two galleries on the rear of the building behind the large main gallery room that spanned the entire width of the building. Alese worked from a classroom on the second floor. Part-timers and volunteers shared space in the second floor or basement workrooms. Their secretary was beside the front door in the large gallery, so she managed ticket sales between answering the telephone and turning Mitch’s scribblings on legal pads into Word documents—a task Tracey thought worthy of any archivist.

Tracey sighed and carefully placed the diary on the table before dashing for the phone. She didn’t have a chance to speak.

“Just don’t say it. I had no choice but to call you at work to get you to talk to me. I need to hear an actual voice now and again to verify that you’re among the living. You never answer the phone at your apartment. I’m tired of leaving messages that are ignored.”

Tracey rolled her eyes. “Mom.”

“Don’t start on me with that tone of voice. You’re the one who won’t answer. I even tried your cell phone, but no, you use caller ID to avoid me. You brought this on yourself.”

“Okay, Mom. Point made and taken. I’ve been busy lately.” Tracey began rearranging the piles on her desk.

“And I haven’t? I work full time, as well as plenty of overtime when we’re running large cases, remember? As does your father.” Harriet was a paralegal with a firm that practiced criminal law. Rory was a self-employed contractor who always overbooked renovation projects.

Mitch paused in the doorway connecting their offices. Tracey willed him to summon her for a meeting, raising her eyebrows hopefully.

“Tell Harriet ‘hello’ for me,” he whispered.

Tracey tried to hand him the handset, but he neatly sidestepped away from her.

Mitch and Harriet had been in the same class through primary and secondary school. Mitch was 5’7” tall, barely able to hold his own if Tracey wore anything other than flats. He was stocky and kept his hair in a neat shingle cut and his face covered by a gray speckled beard. He wore reading glasses on a chain around his neck. His style of winter clothes had changed little in the last decade. Corduroy trousers, plaid shirt, sleeveless sweater vest, and wool sport coat. He looked at Tracey, shrugged, and waved. “Meeting with the commission.” He rubbed his fingers together, signifying money, and fled their offices.

“At least come by the house this weekend and do your laundry,” Harriet said.

“Adam and I already made plans to hit the Laundromat on Saturday afternoon. We hang out and get to see our friends. Besides, twenty-five is a little old for you to be doing my laundry.”

“We could hang out while your clothes wash and dry. You could do all the work yourself.” Harriet made it sound as though it would be a huge sacrifice on her part.

Tracey made herself take a mental deep breath. She put her mother on speaker so she could go through her inbox while at her desk. “How about if I come by Sunday afternoon this weekend or next and bring a DVD for us to watch?”

“Don’t expect your father to do anything but doze through it. I’ll make us a nice lunch. Bring your friend Adam if you like.” Harriet sneezed. “You’d best be alone in the office if you’re broadcasting our conversation.”

“Adam’s just a friend, and he has plans with his son most weekends.” Tracey looked longingly at her drafting table. “I’m alone.” She knew how much her mother hated speakerphones and used the ploy to speed up their conversations when both were at their offices.

“I’m not the only one who misses you,” Harriet said.

“Don’t go there. Paula has the girls scheduled with so many activities outside of school that she never gives her kid sister a thought, which is okay by me. We’ve always been too different from each other to be friends.”

“Shame on you for dismissing your only sister, but that’s not who I meant.” Harriet’s other line beeped. “All I ever hear from Agnes and Marian is that they never see you anymore. Honey, when you live in a small town, you can’t very well avoid your relatives. I should know.” The last was muttered rather than spoken.

“Since when do you care what Granny’s sisters think?” Tracey only broached the subject of the long-standing feud when she had to push back against her mother’s need to micromanage all their lives.

“They’re both in their seventies. I stop by once a week to check on them. It’s my duty since Mother isn’t here.” Harriet had been named for her mother, the baby of the family affectionately known throughout her life as Harry.

“Uh-huh,” Tracey said.

“Okay, so you’re smart to stay away from those two crazy old women. There, I’ve said it.” Harriet sighed.

Tracey chuckled. “You almost pulled it off.”

“They’re my mother’s only two surviving siblings. I feel an obligation toward them. They’ve just worn out my patience over the years, but there’s no point going into all that now.”

“I’ve heard what you’re willing to say about them many times before.” Tracey winced as she sliced her fingertip opening an envelope.

“They do love us.”

“In their own peculiar way.” Tracey grinned. She had a special fondness for her two widowed great-aunts. They lived on and continued to work the family farm after losing their husbands and older brother. She often wondered if she and Paula would end up doing the same but just couldn’t see that version of the future. The sisters had introduced Tracey to homemade wine and beer when alcohol was forbidden in Harriet’s house and Tracey’s socializing.

“I’ll see you soon on a Sunday when you guys are home and drop in on them one night during the week,” Tracey said.

“Thank you, honey. Love you. Bye.”

“Love you. Bye.” Tracey repeated the words but didn’t know if her mother stayed on the line long enough to hear them.

“There’s nothing like a mother’s ability to employ guilt.” Alese Walthall stood in the door leading to the hallway beside the drafting table.

“No, ma’am.” Tracey stood and returned to the diary. She glanced at Alese. “There’s also nothing quite like a teacher’s disapproving stare, either.”

“I’m not going to criticize your friend.” Alese shrugged off her coat. As the school liaison, she usually spent half the morning in a classroom and left the museum early for late afternoon programs at area community centers. Other times, Alese used the classroom on the third floor when she brought in field trip groups.

Tracey froze. Oh, Lord, she thought, Alese knows.

“But she’s the very reason I continue to work. Why do young blacks dismiss those of us who work inside the system?” Alese was on her way to the basement. Her current project was verifying the cataloging of the stored collections while keeping an eye out for items that her predecessors might not have known the significance of.

Tracey knew no answer was expected.

“I’ve made a lunch date with her. I’m going to work on her. I see something in that girl that warrants nurturing and educating to our ways.” Alese nodded for emphasis.

“Ginny is very special to me,” Tracey said.

Alese hesitated. “Just be careful. We aren’t that far removed from the old ways of thinking. Being around children for thirty-five years made me change what I was brought up to believe—that’s one of the reasons I loved teaching even after I became tired of fighting the system.” She turned to leave.

“Mrs. Walthall.” Tracey reverted to speaking as though a grade school student again. “Alese. How about lunch? My treat.”

“You owe me for not bitch-slapping your girl on camera.” Alese imitated a former pupil.

Tracey laughed so hard and so suddenly that she choked. “Now that would be worth the price of admission. You’d have the museum staff on one of the reality programs.”

“Humph.” Alese disappeared around the corner.

Tracey returned to her work on the diary, reading through the chronicle of eighteen hundreds farm life for mention of local families or current events. She had a new exhibit in mind when she wasn’t thinking of Ginny.

CHAPTER THREE

Ginny leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “It’s not considered a romantic restaurant just because there’s only one television located discreetly in the bar.”

Tracey met her in the center of the table and whispered back, “I don’t care because right now I’m looking down your bodice at an incredible view.” Tracey grinned. “I can’t believe I used the word bodice in an actual sentence.”

They had both dressed up—an effort on Tracey’s part—and ventured to Oita’s, the local Japanese steakhouse and seafood restaurant, for a real date. Oita’s was named for the city in Japan the original owner emigrated from in the seventies. Change in ownership had included keeping the name when a local businessman bought the restaurant a few years earlier. Usually, they took turns picking up takeout food and alternating apartments so they could eat dinner, watch television, and go to bed early but to sleep late.

Tracey and Ginny didn’t want to live together, not yet anyway. They worked long hours establishing careers and enjoyed their privacy and the newness of having their own place. They had admitted as much early on and giggled over the relief of feeling the same about cohabitating even if letting down the lesbian stereotype.

Ginny wore the same dress as for the evening news report done live for six o’clock and played back at eleven. There had been yet another series of layoffs at the Goodyear plant that quelled the resurgence of the furniture industry. Danville struggled as did so many small Southern cities with the transition away from manufacturing.

Tracey wore tan wool trousers and a pink pullover—the closest she came to being girly. She was fortunate that her eyelashes and eyebrows were a dark blond rather than as light as the sun kept her hair. She refused to give in to the time that makeup required.

“You’re so full of it.” Ginny sat back in her chair.

“I can only hope.” Tracey smiled and raised her wineglass in a toast. “To beautiful views and bodice ripping.” Thank goodness Ginny had selected the wine, Tracey thought. Her sense of taste was geared to light or dark beer, both of which she enjoyed on special occasions. Left on her own, Tracey would’ve ordered her usual Coke.

Tracey swept her hair behind her ears, bothered by the residual static electricity created by winter’s heating systems. She envied what she normally teased Ginny about—a plethora of hair products used daily so that Ginny’s long hair hung straight and perfect no matter what she was doing. Tracey fought the urge to pull hers back in a ponytail.

Ginny smiled. “I’m sensing there’s something you want to talk about.”

Tracey shook her head. She’d promised herself not to go there. She raised her eyebrows and whispered. “No televisions around the room and linen tablecloths—that’s fancy in my book.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Come on. Say it. What about the interview is bothering you?”

Tracey took a deep breath. “You know I greatly respect your work.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Alese was a groundbreaker in her day.” Tracey stared at her plate of food just served from the grill in the center of the room. She’d lost her appetite.

“And you idolize her, that much I know already.” Ginny’s face tightened.

“Yes, I do. Fresh out of Hampton Institute, Alese was sent here to teach to pay back her student loan. She earned respect from her students and their parents with her demeanor and hard work. It was a big deal then for a black teacher to have a classroom with a majority of white kids.”

“Okay.” Ginny frowned. “As compared to me thinking I’m entitled to respect?”

Tracey briefly covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t say that.”

“No, but the implication’s always there. Speaking my mind, thinking my opinion matters, and not holding anything back—I can’t help the way I was raised.” Ginny attacked her meal.

“My point exactly,” Tracey said. “Neither can Alese. Neither can I.”

“Oh, God, here we go again. I wasn’t born in this area so I can’t possibly understand its culture and politics.” Ginny took a gulp of wine.

Tracey raised her hands, palms upturned.

“Well, shit fire and save matches, let me go home and order a pair of overalls.” Ginny set the wineglass down with enough force to make Tracey wince.

Tracey decided she was too far into the conversation to let it drop. “Slavery is a touchy subject—there’s resentment from those whose ancestors were and guilt from those whose forefathers owned Negroes. Southern families lost fortunes and future bloodlines over a trade carried out by Northern businessmen. Danville was the last capital of the Confederacy—Sutherlin Mansion housed the Confederate president for a week. Jefferson Davis conducted his last meeting with his Cabinet there.”

Ginny covered her mouth to yawn.

“Okay, forget all of that.” Tracey waved her hand. “Danville rebuilt on industry—textiles, furniture, and tires—and counted on tobacco growth and auctions. Tell me what all those manufacturers have done in our lifetime.”

“Tanked?”

Tracey nodded. “Throw in the past few years’ economy, and most people around here don’t sleep too well at night.”

“So Danville’s finally recognized the need to join the twenty-first century.” Ginny’s tone implied an unspoken so there. “That’s why the state funded the big glass-walled think tank that sits empty most days. Don’t get me started on the fallacy of that plan.”

“People behind the scenes—like Alese Walthall—have pushed change for decades. Progress is slowly taking hold, but we are what we are.” Tracey reached the same exasperation point as always when having this discussion with Ginny.

“Using cemeteries as a tourism draw.” Ginny couldn’t resist the dig.

Tracey growled. “I hate it when you do that. When you minimize us just because we have such a rich history. Don’t belittle the Crossing at the Dan. Who else has taken an old rail yard and turned it into an outdoor amphitheater? We have a science center. We have Amtrak service from New York to New Orleans. We have baseball, skateboarding, and bike trails. We have new tech companies locating in renovated historic buildings. Southside Museum consistently grows its visitation numbers.”

“When did you go to work for the Welcome Center?” Ginny asked.

“Okay.” Tracey held up her hands in surrender. “I officially give up. We’re a bunch of rednecks who only listen to country music and date our first cousins.”

Ginny chuckled. “I’m yanking your chain. I love to get you fired up. You usually manage to be so damn polite with everyone.” She reached for Tracey’s hand. “I know what you’re saying. I like the changes in the city, or I’d never have moved here even if my parents think I’ve lost my mind. If I could just be assigned a decent story, I’d be in line for moving up with the network. There’s definitely a big city in my future. Do you really think all I want from a career is my face on camera reading local news? I dream about bringing real stories to light. I want to make documentaries that compel people to stop what they’re doing to watch. You’re the historian. You know how much is out there that isn’t public knowledge, even about your precious Danville.” She squinted across the restaurant. “But you might be right about the first cousin thing.” Ginny stared.

Tracey looked over her shoulder. “Oh, my God.”

Adam was on the far side of the dining area, facing a woman older and larger than him. His only effort was raising and lowering his highball glass.

“She’s a potential client?” Ginny raised her eyebrows.

“He made an error on a land survey and has to marry the farmer’s old-maid sister?” Tracey was at a loss with Adam’s dinner partner.

Ginny kicked Tracey under the table. “Blind date?”

“Someone would have to be blind to set the two of them up.”

“How much has he had to drink?” Ginny refilled their glasses.

“Not nearly enough.” Tracey pushed her chair back.

“You’re not going over there?”

“He’s my friend.” Tracey looked across the room. “She looks like she’s ready to lead him out to the parking lot and beat the crap out of him.”

“Might not be a bad idea.”

“He wouldn’t abandon me if the situation was reversed.”

“Are you kidding? He’d be searching for a video camera.” Ginny waved Tracey off.

“I’ll be right back.”

“You’re on your own. I’m not rescuing you if she turns on you.” Ginny focused on her meal of chicken, shrimp, and fried rice.

“At least run for the car and start the motor if you see me dragging him this way.” Tracey grinned.

Ginny considered the request. “Okay.”

Adam looked up as Tracey crossed the dining area. His face turned red. He gestured toward his date. “My boss’s sister is in town for the weekend.”

“And he’s the only single guy at work. I’m Liz Rosas.” She waved one hand. “But, hey, I got a decent meal out of the evening. That’s all I expected. I hate going to a restaurant by myself.” Liz was in her early forties, olive skinned, wore at least 2X clothing, dyed her hair an unnatural black, and was heavy handed with makeup. Tracey blinked—the look worked when the details were observed at close range.

“And I’ve had enough drinks not to care.” Adam raised his glass.

Tracey smacked him on the shoulder. “Shame on you. Be glad she’s willing to put up with you.”

Liz smiled, causing her dark eyes to sparkle. “I’d be even gladder to buy you a drink.”

“Oh, ho!” Adam waited for Tracey’s response.

“And I’d take you up on it if my date wouldn’t kick my butt for it.” Tracey nudged Adam. “You’ve had enough. Liz, I’m assuming you drove.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Want me to take him off your hands?”

“I’ll owe you that drink sometime when you’re not on a short leash.” Liz gathered her coat and bag.

“Deal, on both accounts. Come on, Burt.” Tracey tugged Adam’s sleeve.

Liz snapped her fingers. “I’ve been trying all evening to figure out who he reminded me of—the Smokey and the Bandit actor.”

“Sad but true.” Tracey pulled Adam to his feet and nudged him.

“Thank you for a lovely evening.” He smiled at Liz for the first time.

Tracey snorted.

“What? I was channeling your technique.” Adam frowned at Tracey.

“Liz, nice to meet you. Don’t judge us all by him.” Tracey winked.

“You sure you’re leaving with the right ones?” Liz asked, looking from Adam to Ginny.

Tracey grimaced.

Ginny watched them cross the room. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Afraid not.” Tracey seated Adam at their table as she signaled the waiter for the check and fished in her pocket for a credit card. “I need a box.” She’d barely touched her dinner.

Ginny finished the last bite of her meal and glowered at Adam.

“I guess a threesome is out of the question?” he deadpanned.

“Not in your wildest dreams,” Ginny said. “Or yours.” She looked at Tracey, then across the room. “You can drop me off on the way to your place.”

“Burn!” Adam said.

Tracey glanced over her shoulder at Liz and was ashamed of herself for wondering about that drink.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’m so glad you answered the phone.” Tracey relaxed and leaned back against the sofa cushion.

“Hi, honey. How are you? Is everything okay?” Rory asked.

“Are you alone?” Tracey lowered her voice.

Rory chuckled. “No. Want me to whisper and take the phone in the closet? We could pretend to be teenagers.”

“Dad!”

“Well, that’s what you sound like. What’s the big deal?”

Tracey huffed.

“I know what that means, and I didn’t teach you to do it, by the way.”

“Ha, ha. Okay, I’m avoiding Mom. Happy now that I’ve admitted it?”

“I’m happy most of the time all on my own. You called me, remember?”

“Can we start over?”

“Excellent idea, honey. Ring, ring.”

“Well, at least I come by my sense of humor honestly.” Tracey cleared her throat. “Hi, Dad. I’m having a problem with the bathroom sink faucet. Can you put me on your repair schedule?”

Tracey rented half a duplex built and owned by her father. Her rent was slightly less than Adam’s since she did most of the maintenance on the two units as far as the lawn and painting.

“How about if I come over this afternoon? I finished up a job this morning and came by the house to restock my van. I don’t need to be home for good until dinner. I was going to catch up on estimates.” Rory worked nonstop. He overbooked jobs, managed to assuage irate property owners, and was willing to be called out all hours without charging exorbitantly. He liked being busy, and he still liked working with people. He didn’t like sitting around his own house. As a rule, Sunday was his only day off.

“It’s not that urgent, but sure, this afternoon is fine.”

“See you in an hour or so.”

Tracey glanced about the living room. She folded the treadmill and propped it against the back of the kitchen cabinets so the path to the bathroom was clear. She returned all the golf clubs to the bag and folded up the indoor putting green. She closed the door to the second bedroom that served as her office. Even she realized that having to sidle through a room was not a good thing. She went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, lingering at the Mark Twain biography she had begun reading with her morning cereal.

The tap was followed by the opening of the door. “Are you decent, kiddo?”

Rory entered the apartment carrying a plumber’s bag in each hand. He grinned as Tracey walked across the room to meet him.

Tracey stretched up and hugged her father. “Did you eat lunch?” She looked at him closely. “You never gain any weight.”

Rory Stephens was not quite six feet tall. His clothes hung loosely on his body. His black hair was streaked with gray that showed even with the buzz cut he claimed kept him cooler. His skin stayed tan year-round. His baseball cap sat on the back of his head. He walked with a slight limp from an injury when a teenager. He’d never attended college but read and created floor plans for projects, easily calculating materials in his head and generating invoices by hand.

Rory glanced about the apartment. “I don’t think I brought enough tools to fix all this. No wonder your mother doesn’t like coming over here.”

Tracey punched him in the upper arm. “I like things out where I can see and use them. It’s neat enough in its own way.” She followed his gaze to the clothes, equipment, and files brought home from work.

“I’m glad you think so, honey.” He picked his way across the carpet, avoiding stepping on any of the magazines or shoes strewn about.

Tracey took one of the tool bags from him and went into the bathroom. She glanced down at the contents and spied a box of miscellaneous washers. She already had the valve to the cold water tap turned off and the handle removed. “I’m hoping not to have to replace the entire faucet.” She searched through the washers, trying two before finding the right diameter and thickness.

Rory leaned against the door casing. “You could’ve gone to the hardware store for that.”

Tracey glanced over her shoulder. “But then I wouldn’t get to see you. Besides, I don’t take any repair for granted. I’ve seen too many lines disintegrate when touched not to have backup around.”

Rory nodded. “You’re wasting your time at that museum. You should come to work with me.”

Tracey snorted. “I don’t have your patience with the general public. That’s why I enjoy working with artifacts.”

Rory glanced around. “It’s almost spring. Have you thought any more about what we talked about last time?”

Tracey frowned. “I’m not sure I’m ready to sign my life away to a thirty-year mortgage.”

“Rates are low and material prices are holding. Plus people are selling off lots bought as buffers because they need the cash now. We could do a sweet deal on a house for you. I’m willing to do the work at cost. We could do a duplex like this if you want extra income to help with the mortgage payments. I can chip in on the loan down payment or co-sign.”

“I know, Dad, and I really appreciate the offer. It’s a great deal. The holdup is me. What if I need to move in a year or two?” Tracey flipped her ponytail over her shoulder.

Rory set the second bag down. “You mean away from Danville?”

Tracey tightened the screw in the faucet handle. “It’s a possibility.”

“Because of someone you’re dating?” Rory asked.

Tracey didn’t look at him. “Yes, sir.”

“Honey, one of the most important things you’ll do as an adult is find someone to share your life with. I was hoping that would happen here since you came back home after college. If it means moving, then you have to move.”

Tracey stared at her father. “It depends on if she gets a promotion and has to work out of a major metropolitan area.” She watched her father’s reaction.

He didn’t drop his gaze. A gentle smile crossed his face. “I always liked having a tomboy daughter.”

Tracey was embarrassed by the tears that came to her eyes. “Oh, Dad, how long have you known?”

“It’s not exactly something we talk about, is it? Known for sure—thirty seconds. Suspected—ever since you were in high school. Did the possibility cross my mind when they first put you in my arms as a baby—no. Does it change anything between us—absolutely not.” He processed his daughter’s coming out as though a project. “You and Paula are so different. You always wanted to be outside with your basketball or golf clubs or in the workshop using tools with me. The boys who came around always treated you like a buddy. It drove your mother crazy that you never went steady in high school.”

Tracey reached under the sink and opened the valve. “Does Mom know?”

Rory shook his head. “If she does, she’s not talking about it, and your mother’s not one to hold anything inside.”

Tracey turned on the tap. No water leaked from the base of the faucet. “That’ll do for a while.”

“I’ll pick up a new one the next time I’m running a big project through the books.”

Tracey studied her father. “Are you and Mom okay?”

Rory sighed. He glanced over his shoulder. “Do I smell coffee?”

Tracey set the plumbing bags down in front of the treadmill and cleared off a stool at the cased opening with a narrow countertop separating kitchen and living room. She went into the kitchen, rinsed out two mugs, and poured them each coffee.

Rory sipped and made a sound of contentment. “Harriet’s all about planning for her early retirement and filling her time away from the office with Paula’s girls.” He shifted on the stool, adjusting the position of his leg. “We’re slowing down, even though neither of us wants to admit it. Heck, I’ll be the first to claim title to old and boring.”

Tracey quickly did the math. “You’re only fifty-five.”

“I can feel a difference, though. I think Harriet and I are both going through menopause.” He glanced down at his cup. Tracey topped off the coffee. “I’m content enough, though. Heck, I’ll work like this until I drop. Your mother has always worried about things and opinions too much. She still hates it that I was a promising football player who suffered a bad enough injury my senior year to lose my college scholarship.” He blew air between his lips. “Big whoop. I’ve done just fine without college. I’d have gone nuts sitting in some office for thirty years. I don’t know how guys wear neckties every day. Our house is paid for. We have rental property for extra income. We’ve had no major illnesses. And we have you and your sister and the girls. I’ve got it made.”

Tracey finished her coffee. “Is Mom going to blow a gasket when she figures out I’m dating a woman?”

Rory considered the question. “If you tell her you’re planning on having kids in a serious relationship, I don’t think she’ll mind who you’re with.”

Tracey did a double take. “I won’t be that serious about anyone for years.”

Rory chuckled. “That’s what we all think in the beginning.”

“You never mentioned college before, Dad.” Tracey tilted her head.

“It was a long time ago. The best you can do is go along with how your life takes you. Fight it and you make yourself miserable. If you think you can control anything, you have another think coming.” Rory stood. “I’ve time to run by and quote a job. Everything else around here working okay?”

Tracey nodded. “Will you check the lawnmower in a week or two? It’s almost time to start yard work.”

“I already have a new blade for it. Make Adam mow this year.” He drained his cup and shook his head when Tracey held the pot up, offering a refill.

Tracey snorted. “Not if you don’t want the shrubs ruined. He only mows with a beer in hand. I learned my lesson from the one time I asked for his help last year. Besides, I like having an excuse to putter around the yard. I can’t play golf all weekend.”

Rory stopped in the doorway. “I’m sure you have something or someone to occupy yourself with.” He grinned and touched the brim of his hat.

“Thanks, Dad. Love you.” Tracey waved from the doorway. She hoped she still had Ginny in her life. Their conversations had been polite and brief this past week. They’d taken a break this weekend with Ginny traveling alone to cover a network story and hoping for airtime. Tracey kept thinking about Ginny’s wistful tone when talking about working in a big city. Tracey was afraid she was leading her on. Danville had a strong hold on her. Tracey knew there was something here that she was meant to do. She didn’t expect Ginny to understand what she couldn’t articulate.

Tracey sighed and unfolded the treadmill. Maybe a few miles would help clear her mind. “Kids,” she said. Rory had given her yet another major life choice to consider.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tracey perched on the edge of the sofa cushion as though ready to bolt and willed herself not to fidget. She wished she hadn’t worn a sweater. She longed for pants rather than the skirt and pantyhose she’d felt obligated to wear. The weather had taken a spring-like lurch with March daytime temperatures uncharacteristically in the sixties. The owner of the house had not adjusted her thermostat accordingly.

Sara Lukens was in her early eighties yet carried herself as erectly as though twenty years younger. The bright red Mini Cooper parked in the driveway attested to her state of mind. She was taller than Tracey, thin, and immaculately dressed and coifed. She lived with the ease of old money. Her husband’s family had made their profits in tobacco warehousing and sold out before the market bottomed, making wise investments overseas. Her husband had been a well-respected attorney. Her only child had been killed in Vietnam.

Tracey smiled and held her hand over her cup, declining more coffee. She was close enough to breaking a sweat without drinking anything hot. This was one part of her job she didn’t think she’d ever become used to—glorified begging.

The forties-era house had the appearance of large sums of money being spent on the services of an interior decorator. The walls and furniture were all in blending pastels, the window treatments sheer to allow daylight, and the floors covered with a rich mahogany laminate. The furniture was without dings and screamed high-dollar antiques.

Mrs. Lukens had shown Tracey to the conservatory on the front corner of the house for their chat. If her intention had been for a more informal setting to put Tracey at ease, the strategy hadn’t worked. To reach the conservatory, they passed the library. It had taken all of Tracey’s willpower not to detour into the room and roam the floor-to-ceiling shelves for books long out of print and no longer available to anyone on a budget. The entire contents of the house were a treasure trove as far as Tracey was concerned.

Tracey tugged at her collar. She wore a golf shirt under her sweater, both a shade of blue to accentuate her eyes. She had pulled her hair back into a chignon, trying to appear older and more feminine. Mitch had snickered in passing all morning before she left the museum for the appointment after accusing her of playing dress-up.

She’d reminded him that the reason she was making the call was to broaden their dead industry base with a genealogy room. Mrs. Lukens was the perfect sponsor of such an endeavor. If she supported the project, others in the community would follow her lead.

“Do you mind if I turn on the television?” Mrs. Lukens asked.

“By all means,” Tracey said.

The flat screen came to life with women’s college basketball.

Tracey blinked.

“I have to keep up with my girls from Old Dominion University—my alma mater.” Mrs. Lukens turned the sound down. “When I attended, it was the Norfolk division of the College of William and Mary.”

Tracey grinned. “I had no idea you were a basketball fan, or I wouldn’t have asked for an appointment during the tournament.” She felt herself relaxing.

Mrs. Lukens’s gaze didn’t leave the screen. “You played in college, didn’t you? I love seeing the girls swishing their ponytails up and down the court.”

Tracey chuckled—she could do ponytail. “I was too short and ended up in too many shoving matches to play anything but intramural or pickup basketball games. I was and still am a golfer.”

Mrs. Lukens nodded. “That’s right. I remember now that you played in the country club tournaments, winning when you were still in high school. Our garden club awarded you a small scholarship when you were accepted at UNCG.”

Traced smiled at the thought of the University of North Carolina Greensboro. “I greatly appreciated all the help I received. I’m so fortunate to have a degree and no debt.”

“I haven’t missed a Greater Greensboro Open yet.” Mrs. Lukens referred to the annual PGA tournament. “Sam Snead won there eight times.”

Tracey caught herself before she bounced with the excitement of making a real connection with her prospect. “I’ve played the course. Fuzzy Zoeller and Davis Love did wonders with the Forest Oaks greens.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t turn pro after college.” Mrs. Lukens turned off the television, satisfied her team had a strong enough lead over their dark-horse opponent.

“I came close, but I didn’t want to play professionally at the cost of losing my love of the game. I enjoy the amateur tournaments too much. Golf kept me out of trouble through high school and paid for my college education. I still play on the weekends. It was always about bettering my technique and last score, not beating someone else.” Tracey took a sip of cold coffee. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble.”

Mrs. Lukens settled back in her wing chair. “So what brings you to see me today?”

Tracey nodded. “I’m on a mission.” She smiled.

Mrs. Lukens waited.

Tracey eased back on the sofa, finally comfortable with her request. “I’ve approached my boss, Mitchell Wilkins, about adding a genealogy library to the museum. We’ve so many family papers in our archives that never see the light of day. There’s such an interest nowadays, particularly with collections that are scanned and made available on the Internet. My pet project has been an inventory of the family and county histories that were vanity published. The museum has acquired the publication rights to a few and plans to reissue special editions for fundraising.”

“I knew Mitchell’s parents well. He comes from good stock. I’ve always felt very reassured with him being in charge of our museum.” Mrs. Lukens nodded at her own statement. “I called in favors eleven years ago when the museum was created.”

“I’m fortunate to work for him. He’s taught me well and much in the three years I’ve been with the museum.” Tracey never missed an opportunity to sing Mitch’s praises—all well deserved.

“I know your family also,” Mrs. Lukens said.

Tracey held her breath. Whenever anyone said that to her, it was as though waiting for the proverbial second shoe to drop. Which of her family members was she about to have to defend? She was descended from extremes—Quakers, as well as slave owners. “I never forget that this is a relatively small community.”

Mrs. Lukens laughed. “You can relax. I worked at Dan River with Agnes and Marian before I married. Those two were the life of the party, always trying to get me to go to some speakeasy with them. I was almost arrested with them once, but Agnes talked our way out of it. No one could dance, drink, or curse like those two.”

Tracey gulped. She had heard it said that back in the day most Danville adults either farmed or worked at the textile mill. Her great aunts had been no exceptions before marrying and settling down.

“You’re not like either of them. You’re more like your grandmother Harry, who worked on the farm rather than at the mill.” A smile passed quickly across Mrs. Lukens’s face at the thought of the youngest of the Martin girls of her generation. “You’re certainly nothing like your sister.”

“You know Paula?” Tracey tensed again.

Mrs. Lukens nodded. “She’s after me to sponsor her for the presidency of our garden club. She can’t climb the ranks of the Baptist Young Women fast enough—too many ahead of her. All that misplaced ambition.” She glanced out the row of windows toward the street, letting her thoughts drift. “We called your grandmother Harry instead of Harriet. She liked the nickname. She was the baby of the family, a tagalong to Agnes and Marian. They kept her in gum in exchange for running errands for makeup and cigarettes for them. Even as a child, she was serious and, simply put, good—the same traits I see in you. I know your family was devastated to lose her.”

Tracey nodded. “I was only four, but I’ll never forget the way my mother wept for days. I think losing her mother is partly why she has a difficult time being around Agnes and Marian.”

Mrs. Lukens started to speak, then stopped herself.

Tracey had heard the stories about the sisters before—never a dull moment around the oldest Martin girls. “Well, we all have different strengths and weaknesses and frankly don’t know who will be left behind as stewards of our families. So many collections are lost when executors don’t realize the value of letters and diaries or musty-smelling old books that estate specialists put little value upon.”

“Were you around Agnes and Marian much growing up?” Mrs. Lukens clearly wasn’t following Tracey’s attempt at changing the subject.

Tracey made herself shift mental gears. “Weekends and holidays. I’d go with my dad when he’d help Uncle Lester with chores about the farm. I thought Agnes and Marian a hoot and so different from each other and nothing like my mother.”

“Your father would go there but not your mother. How interesting. Rory is a surprisingly tolerant man.” Mrs. Lukens idly refilled her cup but didn’t drink.

Tracey frowned. She wasn’t here to talk about her family. What did Mrs. Lukens mean about her father?

Mrs. Lukens stood. “I’ll keep in mind what you’ve said. I admit that I’ve been trying to sort through things but making little progress.”

Tracey knew she was being dismissed. Saying more would jeopardize all hope of a donation. “I appreciate your time, Mrs. Lukens. I’ll give your regards to Agnes and Marian the next time I see them.”

Mrs. Lukens gestured toward the hallway and walked with Tracey to the front door.

“You strike me as taking after the Quaker side of your family—such an ideal religion for strong-minded women. Mitch is lucky to have you at the museum. I’ll be in touch. I want to look through the papers one last time. Best to make sure there’s nothing in writing that should remain private. My guess is that’s why some collections disappear. The past is not always as glorious as we’d like to convince ourselves. I owe my husband that much.” She held out her hand.

“We all do what we have to for our families.” Tracey was not surprised by the strength of the older woman’s grip.

“Those of us who are cursed with being responsible anyway.” Mrs. Lukens closed the door.

1917

Susanna glanced at the large oval mirror mounted on the low three-drawer oak chest and wondered who the old woman was staring back at her. She touched her hair, feeling the brittle white strands covering her head, and fondly remembered the soft chestnut mane that she’d taken for granted as a girl.

“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised at the toll that seventy and seven years takes on a body.” She looked at herself appraisingly. She wore a muslin dress, hem resting on her shoes, and a bleached white half apron to keep her skirt clean. She added a tatted collar to each dress to hide the folds of skin around her neck. Hard work about the farm kept any extra pounds at bay. One of her schoolmates who had adopted city living as a young mother had admitted in her letters to gaining better than forty pounds over the passing decades.

She glanced out the window, looking toward the barn that was twice the size of the main house. The boards covering the log structural members looked a dull gray in the sunshine. “Those boys should have painted last fall as I asked them.”

She laughed at herself. Her so-called boys were in their forties—middle-aged men, if they were fortunate enough to have lives as long as their parents. Her youngest seldom helped with the farm work except to appease her.

She caught sight of movement in front of the barn and squinted in the direction of the double doors. Her husband eased around the lumbering workhorses with the dexterity of a reel dancer. He’d been raised a Methodist, so dancing was allowed him. She’d remained true to her Quaker upbringing, even though the Meeting House had sat silent for decades after most of the families she’d known as a child migrated west. She didn’t place much value on foolishness in any of its forms. “Both of us look like we should be mounted on poles and set in the cornfield.”

John Martin was over six feet tall and as thin as the skinny boy she’d first met seventy years earlier. His clothes hung loosely on his lean body. His trousers were held up by wide suspenders. Close inspection would reveal that his shirt cuffs were frayed with threads hanging loose. His hair was a tousled shock of white atop his head, and his long white beard obscured his shirt collar. “I never thought my husband would have the appearance of John Brown.”

Running across the pasture to join her husband was their grandson James. At eleven years old, James already showed a strong affinity to his father and grandfather’s love of the farm.

She reached forward and touched the windowpane, following the boy’s movement with her fingertip. That child was the essence of the farm—what greater reward for daily toil than passing land forward to the next generation?

She looked at the chest and nodded at the sight of her Bible. She and James read together in the evenings. He would know to look through her Bible if John didn’t when the time came. The corner of the three-inch-by-six-inch envelope protruded slightly above the back cover. She wanted to make sure John had the correct directions. It would be his decision which of their sons to pass the information along to.

Susanna left the bedroom and crossed the hallway toward the stairs. On second thought, she detoured by the small room at the far end of the hallway. She looked about the room dwarfed by her spinning wheel. The smallest room in the house had become the collection point for the trunks used for travel and the stacks of books outgrown by her boys.

Her oldest son, William, and his wife along with James shared the house with her and John, waiting for their turn to take over the farm. Her youngest son, Robert, and his wife rented a house in the neighboring city where he practiced law, mostly wills and property transfers.

It was difficult for her to believe that so many years had passed. Who would have thought that John would end up with the land his father had divided among his three sons. John survived his brothers—one killed at The Seven Days Battle, the other grievously wounded at Cold Harbor only to survive and linger through five years of agony. John had worked constantly to support his sisters-in-law with his brothers’ businesses, managing the farm, as well as the sawmill and wagon works. “How in heaven’s sake did we do all that?” Susanna whispered. She’d had many serious conversations with the Almighty over the challenges they’d been given.

To think it all came about because John’s father married out of faith and adopted the ways of the Methodists, as well as taking over his wife’s land holdings. Yet John was brought up with the old beliefs of his father even after the Quaker meeting was abandoned. She believed that was the reason for their friendship enduring their marriage.

Susanna opened the round-top trunk that had been hers since she was a girl. In a corner of the top tray were the tax receipts for the family land she’d inherited. Not many women of her generation owned property outright, at least not in Virginia. She’d never understood why she was allowed to own property and pay taxes but not vote. Yet Nancy Langhorne, a Danville native now married to an Astor, was poised to rise in British politics. There was no point in thinking about that now, she reasoned, as she removed the tray and studied the contents of the bottom of the trunk.

She knew herself as well as she knew the seasons. This spring would be her last. She was comfortable with that knowledge. She felt a longing to be free of the body and mind that struggled to function. It was as though she sensed what awaited her after death and was anxious to be there sooner rather than later.

She returned her attention to the trunk. She had to make sure her letters and diaries were in place beneath the last coverlet she’d made. Quilts padded the rough wooden bottom of the trunk. She peered under a corner of the heavy blanket and was satisfied. Would her boys understand her early life? “I have no regrets.” Susanna touched the quilts that had been hidden away for several decades.

She closed the trunk, running her hand over the curved rib of the lid. She turned the key in the lock and returned the key to the board behind the door. A round tag identified which key went to its respective trunk. Her boys’ trunks for college were nearly twice the size of hers and had flat tops.

Susanna was out of breath by the time she made her way down the stairs to the parlor. She sought the warmth of the fire burning in the grate. She never seemed to stay warm for very long unless directly in front of an open fire.

Even though she’d packed the quilts away, she kept the painting hanging over the mantel, suspended by heavy wire from the narrow picture molding. She knew it was vanity that kept the painting in plain sight. It portrayed the front of the house on a bright sunny day and showed the quilts she’d made as a girl hanging over the railing. She was proud of the quilts and the painting that had been done as barter for food and clothing by a man too proud to accept what he perceived as charity. “It’s not true vanity if I acknowledge it,” she reasoned to herself.

She took the periodical from the seat of the rocking chair and opened last week’s issue of Collier’s after she eased into the chair. Her mind spun with the articles she’d read several times, more troubled with each reading. “We’ve entered yet another armed conflict.” She stared at the article that recapped the United States’ declaration of war against Germany, entering the nation in what was being called Great War, albeit three years behind the other nations involved. “At least my boys are too old to be called up unless this goes on too long.” She said a silent prayer of gratitude that she and John had waited until late in her childbearing years to conceive.

Susanna turned the page. If a world war and the prospect of U-boats and aeroplanes weren’t enough, there was revolution in Russia. She tossed the periodical toward the kindling on the hearth.

“No more,” she whispered. She had witnessed too many wars in a lifetime dedicated to peace and the inner light within each being—wars with Mexico and Spain, as well as the war that had defined her generation and pitted families against one another. She had never forgotten the struggle of living in Virginia after a childhood spent in Ohio for proper schooling among her cousins. So many Quaker families had followed the opening of Western lands to escape the dark cloud of slavery. She had done the best she’d been able to given the circumstances.

“I have no regrets.” Susanna repeated the words, closing her eyes for a brief rest.

CHAPTER SIX

“Mrs. Lukens sends her regards.” Tracey was seated at the Formica-topped table against the wall of the kitchen of the Martin farmhouse.

Agnes stood at the stove. One hand stirred a pot of homemade soup, the other held an unlit cigarette. She refused to admit she’d given up smoking, even though she hadn’t lit up in months—there would be no concession to her doctor being right and her old habit wrong. She wore a loose tunic over sweatpants.

Marian was on the screened porch off the kitchen, placing fresh blankets in the dog beds. She bred Boston terriers and currently had three adult females and two male puppies. She wore an apron over her cotton housedress and heavy white socks to prevent her work boots from chafing her feet and legs.

Both sisters were shorter than Tracey. Agnes, the oldest—who’d married Patrick Goode—wore her hair bobbed and dyed a rich brown. Marian—who’d married Archie Duke—allowed her short Dutch boy cut to go gray. Each had gained weight over the years, going from Tracey’s size to making almost two of her.

Marian glanced at Agnes, and both women burst out laughing.

Agnes returned to the butcher’s block in the center of the room and diced the remaining vegetables for the soup. “How is Sarry?” She made the nickname sound like “sorry.”

Marian laughed all the more.

“Oh, God. What did the three of you do?” Tracey still couldn’t picture Sara Lukens consorting with the Martin sisters.

The sisters exchanged looks.

Marian shook the old quilt that she’d just taken from the dryer. “Our escapades were mild compared to what most kids do today.”

“We realize you’re the exception.” Agnes directed her comment to Tracey.

They burst out laughing again.

Agnes tasted the soup, then checked the cabinet to her left. “Reach me another can of beef broth, will you, honey?”

Tracey went to the hallway and pressed the corner of the door incorporated in the wainscoting. The four-foot square sprang open, revealing a set of shelves under the stairs. She searched the dry goods storage for the broth and returned to the kitchen.

Agnes used a church key to punch a triangular opening in the can. She added the contents and tasted again. Satisfied, she returned the lid to the Dutch oven and joined Tracey at the table while trying to catch her breath. She wheezed and pressed her hand against the small of her back. She looked about the table as though searching for matches.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Tracey asked.

“No.” Agnes and Marian answered at the same time, setting them off in another fit of guffaws.

Tracey held up her hands in defeat. “Quite all right. I probably don’t want to know anyway.” She took a long swallow of beer; she’d brought a six-pack of Heineken. She drank beer to avoid the hard liquor that Agnes pressed upon her if she only sipped Coke. She’d learned her lesson about allowing Coke as a mixer the hard way. She’d also never use moonshine for anything other than lighter fluid, thanks to Marian insisting she try it.

“Don’t let her get ahead of you.” Agnes gestured toward the refrigerator. No one stayed in her kitchen for long without making herself at home and partaking of something to eat or drink, or both.

“My doctor tells me one beer a day is good for me. I don’t argue with that type of advice,” Marian said.

“But you’re not supposed to build it up as a reserve, either.” Agnes motioned to the two empty Miller cans on the counter.

“Mind your own business.” Marian took the last sip from Tracey’s bottle. “I thought so. You’ve nursed that one so long, it’s warm. Let me get you a fresh one.” She took a bottle and can from the refrigerator.

“Don’t stop with two on Tracey’s account.” Agnes topped off a neat whiskey. “You two don’t know how to drink properly.”

Tracey loved the old farmhouse. The kitchen had always been her favorite room. She looked at the wall in front of her covered with bird’s-eye maple cabinetry that Rory had installed. The sink centered in the long countertop was directly beneath double windows overlooking the barn lot and outbuildings. The butcher’s block in the center of the room was three feet square and had been salvaged from a local restaurant; its surface was a collage of knife cuts.

Agnes swore by the gas stove beside the door to the screened back porch and refused to cook on anything else. She had paid to take out the electric stove when she moved back home. The wall behind Tracey was built as an alcove for refrigerator, upright freezer, washer and dryer, and water heater. Everything was within easy reach in the sixteen-foot-square room. The remainder of the first floor of the house was a living room and bath with dining room and parlor converted to bedrooms for the sisters. The rooms were large and high-ceilinged. Wide steps led to a second floor that had provided bedrooms to Agnes and Marian, their brother and sister, and parents when the four children were growing up.

Marian started toward the porch.

“That’s a nice antique quilt to be going in the dog bed,” Tracey said.

“I know. Our mother would have a fit.” Marian held up the twin-size quilt in the wagon wheel design. “The material in the pattern pieces is dry rotting. The thread in the stitching is popping loose. We used this one hard as kids for a tent or picnic blanket, I’m surprised it’s still around. It was made by our great-grandmother. Better to let the dogs get the last use out of it than throw it away.”

Tracey shook her head. One of her favorite things in the living room was the oil painting of the farmhouse showing quilts lining the railing of the front porch. “I guess you’re right.” One look told her the material was beyond salvage.

“I don’t need your permission, missy.” Marian tucked the quilt in the dog bed and rolled her oldest terrier around, then opened the screen door. “Come on. You need to be out in the pen with the others and get some fresh air.”

Just across the driveway from the door off the porch was a twelve-foot square of woven wire fence that opened to half of a shed shared with chickens. Marian treated her dogs well but recognized they were animals on the farm just as the cows, horses, and chickens. She brought the dogs into the house at night during the winter, and they somehow ended up sleeping with her and Agnes. They were a substitute for the children Marian had never been able to carry to term.

Tracey listened as Marian carried on a conversation in the driveway. She turned to Agnes and raised her eyebrows.

“Fred’s packing up for the day,” Agnes said.

“Mr. Morgan still hangs around here?” Tracey asked.

“I could set my watch by him, if I still wore one.” Agnes chuckled. “Do you think I could smoke one cigarette a day and my doctor not know?”

Tracey frowned. “I think it’d be similar to saying you’re a little bit pregnant. You either are or aren’t. Give your lungs a chance.” She crossed the room to the window. “What’s all that equipment Fred’s packing in his Blazer?”

“He uses a metal detector some days and carries a surveyor’s level along with assorted shovels—that’s why he started using the cart. I think the metal detector saved his marriage after he retired.” To combat her fidgeting, Agnes returned to the stove and tasted the broth of the soup, adding a few more herbs to the mix.

Marian returned to the kitchen, making a halfhearted attempt to wipe her shoes on the rug inside the screen door. “You two must be talking about Fred.”

“Uh-huh.” Agnes added the last of the vegetables to the kettle.

“He was our grocer for years, before all the chain stores took over. He sold the store to his son after he had his first heart attack, don’t know if that was doing Eddie a favor or not. Poor Joyce didn’t know what to do with him under foot all the time,” Marian said.

Agnes interrupted her sister as was her custom. “He actually goes back further. He was Lester’s friend. Lester took him under his wing when he first opened the store and brought him into the Ruritan club. Then Fred started coming out here, helping with the farm when Lester slowed down.”

Marian jumped in when Agnes took a breath. “Lester passed in 1999, after my Archie and before her Patrick.”

“I never thought we’d end up back here,” Agnes said. “After Paddy died, I didn’t have the heart to live alone, so I came back to Marian.”

“It wasn’t right that Harry went first.” Marian emptied her beer.

Tracey felt as though her head was going to explode. “But what about Fred and his metal detector?”

Marian laughed. “We do take side tracks, don’t we? Fred retired, and Joyce bought him a metal detector for when they went to the beach. Fred fell in love with the thing and asked if he could try it out here.”

Agnes returned to the table. “That was three years ago. He’s been coming here several times a week ever since.” She slid a glass of whiskey across to Tracey.

Marian sat at the chair on the long side of the table. She reached across for the rectangular box against the wall. “Are you ready to take us on?” She slid out the electric card shuffler and loaded the deck. Their favorite pastime was rummy.

Tracey downed the shot in a single gulp and thought she’d seared her esophagus. “I can only stay for a few hands.” Agnes refilled Tracey’s glass.

“Did my mother ever drink and play cards with you two?” Tracey asked.

Agnes choked on her drink and wiped her face. “I haven’t blown whiskey out of my nose for a long time.”

“Harry would have skinned us alive.” Marian leaned back in the chair. “Your mother hasn’t had much to do with us since she was a teenager.”

“And no one will tell me what the big fight was about,” Tracey said.

Both sisters avoided Tracey’s gaze.

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Tracey looked at her cards and tried to remember the proper strategy. She wanted to win at least one round before going home.

“Betty comes out on Sunday afternoons,” Marian said. “I’m trying to give her one of the pups to keep her company.”

“Excellent idea.” Tracey was genuinely fond of her only aunt and knew her divorce had been difficult. “What exactly is Fred looking for?” She asked the question casually, knowing the door she was opening.

Agnes studied her hand before discarding. “Oh, you know. Lester told him all about what was buried on the farm when the war was nearing its end.”

Marian pounced on the discard. “The railroad parallels our back property line. When the train derailed near South Boston, it only makes sense that part of the load was buried here. No one knows where.”

“Although enough have searched over the years.” Agnes returned to the stove long enough to turn the burner down to stop the bubbling of the soup.

“Richmond was evacuated. The treasury had to be moved. Several of the banks threw in with them.” Marian kept her gaze on her cards.

“Cotton had just been sold to Mexico. There were all those kegs of Mexican silver dollars, as well as the gold ingots and coins.” Agnes poured another shot for herself and Tracey.

“If Lee had just held Petersburg.” Marian said it as though it happened the past week.

Tracey stared from one sister to the other. She had been weaned on the Civil War stories told by the Martin sisters when Rory left her with them while he worked with Lester. She had equated the stories to the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. They had heard all of it as passed down from the original Martin to farm the three hundred acres to his son. “Surely you two aren’t still trying to pull my leg with all that. Civil War gold and silver are long gone.”

The sisters exchanged glances. “You’re the historian,” Marian said.

“And what does it hurt for Fred to look? He’s very dedicated. It gives him a reason to get out of bed each day, just as it did Lester.” Agnes laid down a string of clubs.

Tracey threw her cards up in the air. “I concede.”

“You’re like Harry. You’ve no head for keeping track of cards and playing to your strengths.” Marian gathered the deck and used the shuffler again.

Agnes studied Tracey. “You’re a throwback to Harry. I wish you’d known her.” She stopped herself, pushing her glass away.

“I vaguely remember her. I was four when she passed away. I mostly remember how hard Mom cried for what seemed like weeks. I finally comprehend that dying at fifty is dying young.”

“Our grandfather always claimed that Harry was a throwback to his mother, Susanna, the last of the Quakers in this area,” Marian said.

Agnes raised her glass in a toast. “I just remember that she was nothing like us, never in any trouble. What type of trouble do you enjoy, Tracey?”

Tracey drank to her grandmother and felt the comfortable fuzziness of alcohol descend on her brain. She wasn’t clear-headed enough to explain to them that Ginny’s parents had come in for the weekend, hence her freedom on a Friday night. “I can’t keep up with you two, that’s for sure. I hope you made up the couch for me.”

Marian laughed. “I put the sheets and blanket on it this afternoon after you called.” She dealt another round of cards.

“I had to go on a treasure hunt myself. Maybe you two can put a good word in for me with Mrs. Lukens. Or tell me what you three did.” Tracey leaned forward, resting her head on her arms. “Or not.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tracey woke herself up, running her tongue across the roof of her mouth. “Bleh.” She blinked as she stared at the fieldstone fireplace. “Oh, boy, I’ll never hear the end of this.”

She glanced at the coffee table. The contents of her pockets were in a neat row. She squinted and focused on the screen of her cell phone. She’d missed calls followed by text messages from Ginny and Adam. Tracey typed by rote, sending the same message to both. “I’m fine. Stayed over at great aunts’. Sorry if I worried you. Haven’t forgotten about plans.”

She glanced up at the oil painting over the sofa as she threw back the knitted afghan. Shown hanging over the porch railing were quilts of shoofly, log cabin, and wagon wheel patterns. Tracey had learned the names of the patterns as one of the litanies of her childhood. It was amazing to realize that Marian casually used the remnants of one of the depicted quilts for her dogs. “I guess it’s better to let it end with a practical use than just be discarded.”

She sat up on the sofa and waited for her head to clear. She was in yesterday’s clothes—jeans and a UNCG sweatshirt. There was only a slight dull headache nagging her about how much she drank the night before. “My own dumbass fault,” she said to herself.

Tracey tested herself further by standing. Her head actually felt better. “I’m okay.” She returned her belongings to her pockets.

She heard a chorus of yips with one of the puppies escalating into a howl. “That’s the one Betty needs.” She chuckled as she walked across the room and opened a French door onto the wide porch that wrapped around the side of the house.

Tracey stepped onto the porch and looked toward the front of the property. A shiny Lincoln SUV was idling in the driveway. Marian approached, stopping at the break in the hedge that buffered yard from driveway leading to the highway. Tracey glanced over her shoulder and quick-stepped to the sofa for her shoes, not taking time to tie the laces of the Skechers. She hurried back to the porch in case Marian needed backup. She looked at her phone—9:20.

A man in his early thirties with long blond hair rolled down the window of the SUV. “Morning, ma’am. Is this the Martin farm?”

“I’m Marian Duke.” She crossed her arms over her denim chore coat.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Kevin Powell. Is this the Martin farm?”

Tracey heard the front door open and close. She peered around the corner of the house. Agnes stood on the porch, tying the sash of her heavy cotton robe.

“Who is it, Marian?” Agnes raised her voice to be heard.

Marian looked over her shoulder. Seeing Tracey, she winked. “Some fella looking for the Martin farm.”

Tracey almost felt sorry for the intruder, but then he’d brought this on himself.

“Mind if I get out?” Kevin opened the door but made no move to disembark.

“If I mind what you do, I’ll have my sister call the sheriff’s office,” Marian said.

Agnes reached into her pocket and held up the cordless handset.

Kevin raised his hands as he stepped down from the seat. “I mean no trouble. I just stopped downtown at Dewey’s for breakfast. I heard talk about the Martin farm and Confederate treasure. I was curious.”

“You should know that small-town folks love to gossip,” Marian said. “That’s what the officials back then counted on.”

Kevin looked puzzled.

Marian continued. “The value of the treasury and the bank reserves leaving Richmond was inflated by federal commanders to keep troops patrolling in the Carolinas and Georgia after the train stopped here. Think about it. Thirty-nine kegs of Mexican silver dollars that weighed about nine thousand pounds. I’m talking a hundred sixty thousand coins.”

“Oh, Lord. Here goes Encyclopedia Brown,” Agnes said.

“Shush.” Marian glanced over her shoulder. “All that silver from the sale of cotton to Mexico just sitting in the Confederate treasury. Then there were gold ingots, gold double eagle coins, silver coins, and silver bricks.”

Tracey watched as Kevin leaned against the door of the SUV in shock.

“One boxcar suffered a partial collapse of the floor from the weight and went off the tracks—that’s the men who were buried in a mass grave near South Boston. Some think the silver is buried with them, and who’s going to disturb their grave? When the rest of the train reached the end of the tracks in Danville, all of it had to be off-loaded onto wagons.”

“Our great-grandfather ran the wagon works,” Agnes said.

Marian frowned at Agnes. “Federal troops were already in the area, patrolling the route from Danville to the mint at Charlotte, North Carolina. The load was disbursed and hidden in any kind of container available—sugar, coffee, ammunition tins.”

“Do you really think they had time to shuffle thirty-nine kegs?” Agnes asked. “It’s in the cemetery, not here.” She pointed vaguely to the west.

Marian nodded. “Who would’ve done any digging back then looking for it among fourteen hundred federal troops who’d been warehoused here after capture only to die from smallpox and dysentery?”

“So is this the Martin farm?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” Agnes said.

“Yes, it is.” Marian took a step closer to the shiny SUV. “It’s a working farm with animals that need to stay within fences, so don’t be traipsing around trying to sneak on the property by cutting my wire or leaving a gate open.”

A dented dark green Chevy Blazer pulled in behind the luxury SUV. Fred opened his door and slid out. He was over six feet tall and carried the bulk of a sedentary career near food. He walked with the rolling gait of bad knees as he approached Marian.

“Everything all right here?” Fred asked. His coach’s jacket was wrinkled from spending as much time thrown behind the seat as worn. His khakis were held up by suspenders and a belt.

“He just stopped with questions about Confederate gold, thanks to loose lips downtown,” Marian said.

“Oh, jeez, not another one.” Fred pulled up his trousers by the back waistband. “Son, there are Web pages with info, and the bookstore has copies of Frank Carroll’s book if you’re willing to pay big bucks. Don’t bother these ladies. I’ve been looking for years and found nothing. Do yourself a favor and get into geocaching if you want to treasure hunt.”

Tracey was amazed. She’d never heard Fred talk about anything beyond the weather or the horses he rented pasture for from Marian.

“Where are you from?” Agnes asked.

“I’m driving through from upstate New York to Florida. I was just looking for a break in the trip.” Kevin climbed into the SUV and closed his door. “If you reverse it, man, I’ll do the same and leave.”

“Go by the Welcome Center on Route 29,” Tracey said. “They have a map for a driving tour of Danville and brochures for the Civil War cemeteries and the area museums.”

Fred backed up his Blazer and waited for the SUV to leave. He then pulled up even to Marian. “Want me to stay about here for a while to be sure he’s gone?” He squinted as he watched the SUV return to the highway. “I don’t trust strangers not to be KGC.”

Marian shook her head. “He was polite enough. I’d have let him walk around if he’d pushed it.”

Fred huffed. “You don’t take the Knights of the Golden Circle seriously enough. Those men were fanatics. Membership passed down to the next generation of families. Jefferson Davis himself made the KGC responsible for the Confederate gold and silver. You’re too easy on strangers. You’ll have someone sneaking in with a Bobcat and digging holes again. Remember when Lester was in the hospital? I still haven’t filled that crater since it’s all the way at the dividing line with the railroad.”

Marian yelled over her shoulder to silence the howling puppy. “I’ll sic my dogs on any trespassers.”

“Very funny.” Fred drove around the house to his usual parking space beyond Agnes’s prized Crown Vic.

Marian turned to the house. “I was just trying to decide if I could get twenty dollars off of that boy for the chance to walk on a treasure site.”

“I’d ask for fifty dollars from someone with a vehicle like that.” Tracey rubbed her hands over her face. “You guys never change.” She followed Agnes and Marian through the front door.

Agnes stopped in the hallway to write in a composition book next to the telephone base. “I was hoping he was from Canada.” She scrolled the pencil along the page. “He’s visitor number seven for this year.”

Marian looked at Tracey and rolled her eyes. “She keeps track of all the curiosity seekers.”

“How much do you bribe the waitresses at Dewey’s to reel the suckers in for you?” Tracey asked.

Marian didn’t hesitate to answer. “I tip well. Treasure hunters are such interesting people. Some are scholars who’ve done very extensive research.”

Agnes jumped in. “Some are quacks who consult crystals or Ouija boards.”

Marian regained control of the conversation. “Remember the man who paid to come in and do a sweep with ground penetrating radar?”

Agnes chuckled. “That money is still in our bank account.”

Tracey followed the sisters into the kitchen. “This is too much too early in the morning. I don’t even remember what time we stopped playing cards. Coffee, please.”

“Some of us fell asleep pitifully early around one this morning.” Agnes filled a mug and handed it to Tracey.

“You’re a lifesaver.” Tracey took a seat at the table. “I work a job. I’m not a night owl.”

“The luxury of being retired. You owe me $10.50 from last night’s game, by the way,” Agnes said.

“I’m surprised I didn’t wager my car.” Tracey patted her pocket for her keys.

Marian held up her hand for silence and went to the screened porch. “I hear a vehicle.” The puppy howled again until Marian admonished him. “It’s okay. It’s Paula.”

Tracey shot a look at Agnes. “You couldn’t have told me she was stopping by?”

Agnes raised her eyebrows and feigned innocence.

Tracey pushed back her chair.

“Keep your seat,” Marian said. “She’s only picking up a box of mysteries I’m donating to the church’s spring rummage sale.”

The engine remained running.

“And she’s too good to come in and lift a box?” Tracey asked.

“I heard that, little sister.” Paula entered the kitchen. She was an older version of Tracey with short hair, heavy makeup, and a crisp business suit. “Been engaging in an evening of debauchery with the old ladies?” Paula whispered as she bussed Tracey’s cheek.

“You ought to try it sometime. It would do you a world of good to loosen up a little.” Tracey pulled away from the attempted air kiss by her sister.

“I’m in a hurry.” Paula smoothed the sleeve of her jacket. “Ashton has the girls long enough for me to do a collection round. He needs to go into the practice this afternoon. His caseload is so heavy these days after winning that personnel suit against the city.”

Tracey made a face, mimicking her sister. Paula never failed to remind Tracey who had the most disposable income. Tracey also had no doubts why Ashton Jackson had married her sister—perfect blond wife and two perfect blond children. The latter Tracey was truly grateful for; the former she was still on the fence about.

Agnes poured another mug of coffee and held it toward Paula.

Paula waved her hand dismissively. “I’ve already had my allotment of organic decaf this morning.”

Marian returned to the room with a box that fifty pounds of dog food had been shipped in.

Tracey jumped to her feet and took the box from her great-aunt. “I’m glad these are paperbacks.”

“She’s always reading Dick Francis or Agatha Christie. I tell her to try using the library, but she doesn’t listen.” Agnes reached for her can of Maxwell House—her coffee of choice for decades.

“I have to scoot. Lunch plans.” Tracey shifted the weight of the box. “I just do have time to go home to shower and change. Paula, it’s been real. I’ll put this on the backseat for you. Ladies, love and thanks as always.”

Tracey left Paula standing in the kitchen to make her own exit. She turned the key in the ignition of her sister’s Volvo, killing the engine. Tracey chuckled, knowing she had just taken away her sister’s excuse to leave. It would take Paula at least a half hour to disengage after answering all the questions Southern family etiquette required. Tracey whistled happily as she ran toward her Nissan.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Behave yourself!” Tracey jerked her hand free of Adam’s grasp. “I should’ve known bringing you along was a bad idea.” They walked into Dewey’s together.

Adam placed his hand on the small of Tracey’s back to guide her through the crowded downtown diner.

Tracey fixed a pleasant expression on her face as she slapped behind her. “That’s so not funny!”

“I’m just trying to be a good escort and earn the free lunch you promised me,” Adam said.

“In two seconds, I’m going to punch you,” Tracey said.

Ginny looked up from the group at the two tables pushed together in the center of the room. “You made it.” She said it with a questioning tone. She quickly stood and moved around the table to hug Adam, then linger with Tracey.

“I thought I’d give you an out in case you wanted to introduce us as your friends,” Tracey whispered.

“This was her idea,” Adam said under his breath.

Ginny turned to face the table. “Mom, Dad, this is Tracey and Adam.”

Adam waved to the group of Ginny’s parents and two younger sisters.

Tracey went around the table, shaking hands. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Daniels.” She pointed to each of the sisters. “Melanie and Trinity.” The girls nodded in turn. “Ginny has such good things to say about all of you and home.” Tracey was amazed. Ginny’s family looked as though they belonged on a poster for an African-American success story. They were all attractive, tall and thin, and glowed with health and intelligence.

“Please call me Bill.” Ginny’s father looked over the newest arrivals. “Ginny has spoken of you at length, Tracey. I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend. She made no mention of Adam, is it?”

“I’m Felicia.” Ginny’s mother spoke quickly, cutting off her husband.

Tracey smiled at her. “I see where Ginny gets her looks from.”

“And brains,” Bill said.

The waitresses came to a standstill as the introductions blocked the aisle from the kitchen.

Ginny motioned to the chairs. “Let’s sit so we don’t hold up the servers.” She waited until everyone was in a chair. “Adam isn’t with Tracey, Dad. I am. I told you that earlier.”

Tracey coughed down the swallow of water she’d taken at the same instant that Ginny spoke.

“I stand corrected. I thought I’d misunderstood.” Bill didn’t look up from his menu.

“No, you hoped you’d misunderstood,” Ginny said.

“I’ve tried to tell them what they’re missing,” Adam said. He winked at Bill.

Bill stared.

Ginny’s sisters giggled. At fourteen and sixteen, Trinity and Melanie thought it cool that their sister had a girlfriend and didn’t hide her from their father.

“You can show us around, Adam,” Melanie said.

Adam grinned. “I’d be happy to. We’ll ditch the grownups tonight.”

Tracey kicked him under the table. “He’s such a flirt. You better be careful what you wish for, Mel.”

“I’m glad we could take a break before making the last leg of the drive back to Toledo tomorrow,” Felicia said. “We wanted to see for ourselves that Ginny’s settled here.”

“They think you’ve had a nervous breakdown,” Trinity said. She looked at Adam. “My name’s easy to remember. I’m named for being the third daughter.”

“Which makes her the youngest,” Melanie said. She frowned as a bluegrass selection started on the jukebox. “What do you do around here?” She directed her question to Ginny.

Ginny smiled. “I’m like a stringer on a newspaper, only I do video reports from a one-woman office near here for the ABC station about seventy miles away.”

 “She’s covered a little of everything.” Adam beamed. “The cantaloupe festival in Halifax, the tobacco auctions, the Goodyear plant safety award, the opening of plants by Nestlé and IKEA. The last singer she interviewed who played here is on CMT now.” He leaned over and whispered the name in Melanie’s ear.

Melanie looked at Adam as though he’d spoken a foreign language.

“I think Ginny’s trying to give us a taste of the local color.” Bill looked about the crowd in the diner, unused to being part of the only black group seated in an establishment.

The adults ordered variations of barbecue and sweet tea; the girls ordered salads and diet sodas.

Tracey leaned over to Ginny. “Why on earth did you bring your family here? We have nice restaurants, you know.”

“You told me to!” Ginny hissed the words.

“But I was kidding.” Tracey’s sentence faded toward the end. She looked at Ginny’s parents. “How was the conference in Raleigh?”

Trinity and Melanie yawned in unison.

“Girls!” Bill gave his youngest daughters the parental look of warning.

“It was fascinating,” Felicia said. “The breakthroughs that are being made with nanotechnology are mind-blowing—sensors that track heart attack damage, lasers grown on silicon chips, superfast grapheme transistors.” She stopped when Trinity rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I get carried away.”

Tracey looked at Adam. “Both of Ginny’s parents are scientists—biochemist and microbiologist.” She nodded to Ginny’s father, then mother.

“I’m a land surveyor,” Adam said. “I work mostly with dirt—metes and bounds and precise calculations.”

“Museum curator,” Tracey said with a shrug.

“Old shit specialist,” Adam mumbled.

“Ginny tells us you’re both locals,” Bill said.

“Yes, sir.” Adam beat Tracey to answer. “My folks are schoolteachers. My dad’s parents worked at Dan River—the textile mill.” He looked at the girls. “They worked without air-conditioning in a mill that was filled with cotton lint. The pay was low and the work physical.” He turned to Ginny’s parents. “Retirement meant a poverty-level pension. Most of the people who worked there all their lives, my grandparents included, didn’t graduate from high school. They lived all their adult lives in the same tiny frame house. They worked six or seven days a week and thought nothing of the hours. At one time, the mill employed thirteen thousand workers—nearly half the city’s population number. The mill closed in 2008, leaving behind a population of older, unemployed workers. Most everyone our age,” he nodded at Tracey, “can’t leave here fast enough. My mom’s parents followed the only other employment opportunity—they were farm laborers. Not like Tracey’s family.”

“Oh, really?” Bill looked over his reading glasses at Tracey.

Tracey smiled brightly. “I love this area, and my job encourages me to connect past and present. Southside Museum focuses on tobacco, textiles, and trains. We were initially funded with proceeds from tobacco indemnification. Danville is one of the largest tobacco auction centers in the world—six warehouses that have total area of one million square feet. Yet in today’s market, Danville shares a single set of buyers with South Boston. Millionaires Row is now a historic district—tobacco built those Victorian mansions. A warehouse reopened last year after being closed since seventy-one. Most farmers contract with companies for a certain poundage. It’s just not the same as when the auctioneers walked the aisles with a crowd of buyers. Lady Nancy Astor’s father, ‘Chillie’ Langhorne, devised the chant and the method of auctioning tobacco along the warehouse floor as each farmer’s crop was passed. It’s a matter of re-educating the public. One of tobacco’s first uses was as a poultice by Native Americans. Recently, a study showed that the chemicals in tobacco may help prevent Parkinson’s disease. Low doses of nicotine help control Tourette’s syndrome.” She read Adam’s mind and elbowed him. “Don’t you dare make fun.”

Adam shrugged, then jerked his shoulder.

Tracey ignored him. “The sad thing is that we’ve regulated ourselves out of what could’ve become a legitimate market. Cigarette consumption is down, which is good, but cigarettes manufactured in the United States contain fifty percent foreign tobacco.”

 “That’s not what I meant. Tell them about the farm.” Adam sounded like a petulant child.

Conversation was put on hold as plates heaped with food were set in front of everyone and glasses refilled.

“My mother’s family has owned the same land for seven generations—no adventurers among my ancestors. To my understanding, the Martins paid for day labor well before the Civil War.” Tracey cleared her throat.

“The past is nothing to be ashamed of,” Bill said. “We have no control over what came before our time. Take us. My great-great-grandfather was born into slavery but escaped to Canada only to find no work and strong segregation. He came back to Ohio and blended in with a community of freed slaves who lived in a largely uninhabited area. He used the trade he’d learned while in Virginia to buy land—he was a cabinetmaker. He made sure his children were educated and that they passed the importance of education down to the next generation.”

Felicia nodded. “I bet Ginny hasn’t told you that she was named Virginia for this state as homage to the first of both our families living here.”

“As slaves,” Trinity said.

Tracey choked on her tea.

Adam patted Tracey on the back. “Isn’t that a coincidence? Tracey’s family…”

Tracey leaned back in her chair and pinned Adam’s knuckles against the rungs.

“Whoa!” Adam drew his hand back, shaking his wrist.

“One branch of the women in my family goes back to the Quakers in this area who moved west to avoid being involved in a conflict with their religious beliefs.” She stared at Adam, daring him to speak. “My great-to-the-third-grandfather was a major employer in his own time. He bred horses, grew crops, and ran a sawmill and a wagon works. Some of the other branches of the family did own slaves.” She finally conceded the obvious. Her discomfort with the admission was apparent.

Adam concentrated on his plate; the others followed suit.

“I’m so looking forward to seeing the Freedman’s Cemetery. Ginny has promised to take us this afternoon,” Bill said. “Will you two be accompanying us?”

Adam deferred to Tracey.

“No, we have other engagements.” Tracey had already had a long discussion about this with Ginny, holding her ground about a brief introduction at lunch but not imposing herself on a family reunion. Tracey pushed her chair back and tugged at Adam. “That we need to be heading out to, as a matter of fact.”

They hugged with the precision of a square dance reel until all had passed each other.

Tracey whispered in Ginny’s ear. “At least my family doesn’t think I’m crazy for being here.”

Ginny frowned at Tracey.

Adam started for the door. He mimed making a phone call to Melanie and Trinity, then pointed to himself.

“Behave yourself. We’re making a clean getaway,” Tracey said.

“You’re no fun at all,” Adam said.

Tracey sighed. “Like that’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

CHAPTER NINE

Tracey slowed her car, easing alongside the tall curb of the downtown street. She looked through the plate glass window into the news bureau and wondered if she should go inside. She preferred having the motor running in case she needed to make a quick getaway.

Ginny came to the main door of the office, stood for a moment with hands on hips staring at Tracey, then went back inside.

“That means she wants me to wait,” Tracey said to herself. “Or she’s going to her desk for something to throw at me.”

Ginny returned to the main door, this time wearing a suede jacket and carrying an oversize leather tote. She slammed the door and continued to pull on the handle as she used her key to engage the deadbolt. She walked across the sidewalk and leaned down to the window. She motioned for Tracey to roll the window down.

Tracey braced herself as she pressed the button for the power window.

“I’m so pissed at you. I don’t know whether to get in the car or kick the door panel,” Ginny said.

“I vote for getting in.” Tracey leaned across the passenger’s seat and slightly opened the door.

“Adam. Seriously? You brought Adam with you to meet my family.” Ginny tossed her briefcase and coat on the backseat and climbed in. She punched Tracey in the arm. “Even I could smell the alcohol coming out of his pores. What kind of impression were you going for? Not to mention introducing him to my little sisters.”

“Crap, I didn’t think about that at the time. He wasn’t really that bad, was he?” Tracey almost pulled out in front of another car while the passenger door was open.

“I understand he’s your friend, but that guy is always a little bit high on something.” Ginny slammed her door.

Tracey flinched. “Easy on the car, honey. Hit me if you have to take it out on something.”

Ginny visibly regrouped. “Since when did you become such an expert on tobacco?”

Tracey grinned sheepishly. “I did rattle on a bit.”

“You think?”

“Did I do anything right?” Tracey pulled into the flow of traffic.

“You knew better than to spend the rest of the weekend with us.” Ginny slumped in the seat. “Trin wasn’t kidding. My parents think there’s something mentally wrong with me for taking this job and moving south.”

“Then you show up with a white, blond girlfriend and her drunken best friend?”

Ginny shook her head. “My parents have known since I was in high school that I’m gay. My dad was just being a jerk.”

Tracey shook her head. “He wasn’t a jerk. You have a great family.”

“He all but patted you on the head because you were self-conscious about some of your ancestors owning and using slaves. He can be a pretentious son of a bitch when he puts his mind to it.” Ginny pointed right at the next intersection.

“Virginia!”

Ginny laughed. “I really hadn’t told you where my name came from?”

Tracey started humming the state song, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.”

Ginny punched Tracey’s upper arm again.

“Ouch! That one had some sting to it.” Tracey recentered the car in the lane.

“I hadn’t realized what a cultural Mecca I was living in until I visited all the cemeteries Saturday afternoon,” Ginny said.

Tracey giggled. “Invite them back when the cantaloupes are in season.” She braced herself for another hit and didn’t waste the effort. “I’m going to have a serious bruise on that arm if you keep hitting the same spot.”

“I’ve only just begun.” Ginny settled against the seat and finally relaxed. “I’m saving the best for last.”

“Oh, Lord, what?” Tracey glanced at Ginny.

“The lost Confederate gold and silver.” Ginny waited.

“Uh-oh.” Tracey winced and wondered how quickly she could stop the car and flee on foot.

“Yes, ma’am.” Ginny nodded to herself. “We had such a nice waitress at dinner at that nice expensive steakhouse I should have taken them to for a nice lunch.” Ginny punched Tracey one more time for good measure. “She wanted to know where my parents were from and what we’d spent the afternoon seeing. Then she told us all about the Martin farm and the legend of the lost shipment of gold and silver that people think is buried there. My father was amazed that it was the same farm he’d heard mention of at lunch. He expected me to tell him all about it. Fancy me not having the scoop on something newsworthy. I’d have dropped my parents off at your apartment that evening for a long discussion if Adam didn’t live next door to you.”

“I just don’t think of it as a possible treasure site. I think of it as the family farm,” Tracey said.

“That your great-aunts Agnes and Marian live on. Sheri—our waitress and my new best friend—thinks they’re a hoot-and-a-half, by the way.” Ginny did her best to imitate the local accent. “I take it that’s quite a compliment.”

“Something on the same level with a triple dog dare.” Tracey tried for humor by quoting from their favorite Christmas movie.

“So tell me about them, and keep driving until we sort this out.”

Tracey headed north on Route 29, figuring it might take them until Charlottesville to talk through her family.

“Agnes and Marian are my grandmother’s surviving sisters. There were four Martins in the last generation to carry the name—Lester, Agnes, Marian, and Harriet. Lester lived on the farm all his life, had lady friends but never married—that’s how Mom always explained him. He died in 1999 after collapsing in the barn. Agnes married in her twenties and moved to North Carolina. She never had children. She retired from the telephone company and lost her husband a few years later. She moved back to the farm. Marian married and moved to Pennsylvania with her husband. They came back to the farm when he was no longer able to work at the steel mill. He died a few years before Lester. Marian miscarried twice. My grandmother, Harriet, married and lived here with her husband who worked at…” Tracey held her hand palm up, giving Ginny the cue.

“Dan River, of course.”

Tracey nodded. “Harriet, known as Harry, was the baby of the family. She died when I was four. Her husband just shut down after he lost Harry, totally withdrawing from the family. Mom looked after him until he passed a few years later. Funny that I remember Granny Harry better than her husband.” Tracey pulled into a crossover and headed back to Danville. She could always continue into North Carolina if Ginny wasn’t as appeased as she appeared.

“The farm is down to about three hundred acres. Marian still has dairy cows and chickens. She also raises Boston terriers—wait until you see a litter. She rents barn stalls and pasture to several local guys with horses but no land. Agnes runs the house and cooks.” Tracey passed a slower vehicle, then returned to the outside lane.

“You haven’t said a word about buried treasure.”

Tracey sighed. “I don’t believe in any treasure. It’s Agnes and Marian’s hook to reel people in, their retirement boondoggle to prevent becoming so isolated in their surroundings. Yes, Jefferson Davis moved the Confederate treasury along with the reserves of several banks from Richmond near the end of the war. There was a derailment and a transfer to wagons that led to its disappearance, but Virginia was a war zone then. It had to have been disseminated into the communities it passed through. People in Georgia were tortured over it, and no one ever admitted culpability.”

“But it’s a possibility?”

Tracey made herself count to five before answering. “Most anything’s possible. It’s probability that needs to be weighed.”

“I want to meet them.” Ginny folded her hands in her lap.

Tracey cut her gaze at Ginny.

“I want to meet them.” Ginny was adamant. “I want to see the farm.”

“I’ve never mixed my personal life and my family,” Tracey said. “I always go to family functions alone.”

Ginny sighed. “Because of Paula?”

“Yes. I tried to talk to Paula when I first knew I liked girls. She slammed the don’t-ask-don’t-tell door in my face.” Tracey slowed for the ramp into Danville.

“But you had such a good conversation with your dad recently. Paula is just Paula. She’s jealous of you.”

It was Tracey’s turn to blow air between her lips.

“I’m betting that if your great-aunts are cool enough to scam people about lost treasure, they’ll like me. They probably watch me on the news. They might even be fans.”

Tracey frowned. “Do you want to meet them because they’re my eccentric family members or because they might make a good story?”

Ginny looked at Tracey innocently.

“My family stays private and between us. Okay?” Tracey slowed the car. “Okay?”

Ginny pointed. “Want to call a truce and go Dutch at Oita’s?”

“You just want to talk to Sheri again.” Tracey pulled into the parking lot. “How old is she anyway?”

“Ha!” Ginny slapped the dash. “You’re jealous. How precious. Don’t worry. She told us all about her Bubba husband—for real, that’s his nickname.”

“I’ll Bubba you.” Tracey parked the car and killed the headlights.

“That’s what I’m counting on later, baby.” Ginny leaned across the seat and kissed Tracey.

Tracey felt her willpower abandoning her.

CHAPTER TEN

Tracey stretched as she stood from her desk. She patted her pocket to make sure she had change, then walked to the wide hallway separating the front gallery from the rooms on the back of the museum’s first floor. Tucked into an alcove en route to the elevator were a small janitor’s closet and several vending machines. She often wished she had the convenience of a vending machine at home instead of a refrigerator. She bought a Coke and package of crackers.

Tracey popped the top on the can and looked down the hallway to the window on the back wall of the building. It was dark outside. She glanced at her watch. “Good grief.” It was almost nine o’clock. She returned to her office.

“Indulging the habit?” Mitch called from his half of the divided room.

“Supporting the slush fund.” Tracey sipped the soft drink, momentarily content, and burped softly.

Mitch chuckled.

“Excuse me. Sheesh, you have good hearing,” Tracey said.

“For an old guy.” Mitch finished the thought for her.

It was Tracey’s turn to laugh.

She returned to her desk. The grant proposal she was working on was a legitimate reason to stay late at the office. Crafting the substantiating exhibits to accompany the application was tedious enough without juggling constant interruptions of the workday. Putting the right spin on all the information in the return packet would make or break her idea for a genealogy center in the museum. There was no funding in their currently approved budget. Mitch had some wiggle room with their board but not that much. Tracey knew they were lucky to keep the museum’s doors open much less expect a sudden windfall of contributions, not unless they cracked a DaVinci code somewhere in their collections.

“Who am I kidding?” Tracey said to herself. She looked around her office and recognized the small room for what it truly was—her sanctuary. She wasn’t at home with the grant material spread all across her half of the duplex because she was avoiding Ginny. Tracey didn’t want to deal with the three-hundred-pound gorilla that had overshadowed her childhood—the so-called Martin treasure.

“Everything okay?” Mitch called.

She and Mitch fell into the habit of working evenings with too much regularity. Consequently, they knew each other as well as if their lives were more than professionally connected.

“Yes,” Tracey said. “Girlfriend problems.”

“At least you have one.” Mitch had been divorced since his college-age daughters were in elementary school.

“Sometimes it’s a mixed blessing.”

Tracey’s cell phone rang as if on cue.

Mitch gently closed the door connecting his office to Tracey’s.

“How come I’m at your place and you’re not?” Ginny asked.

“Had we made plans?” Tracey pushed the pile of papers off her desktop calendar.

“Nothing set in stone. I just assumed it was our usual Tuesday pizza and movie evening. I brought pepperoni and the first season of The Real L Word.”

Just what I need, Tracey thought uncharitably, more lesbian drama. “I can be home in twenty minutes. I finally got into the grant application late this afternoon and kept going.”

“No, don’t stop on my account. Adam has already offered to fill in for you.” Ginny hesitated. “I was waiting for a laugh.”

“Sorry. My mind’s still on the grant.”

“Okay. I get the message.” Ginny started her car. “It’s because I asked about your great-aunts, isn’t it? I’ve felt you pushing me away ever since my parents were in town.”

Tracey sighed.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is. It’s a great story—a war ending, your family land in the path of retreat, and two old ladies who like to repeat family legends. There might be a fortune hidden on that farm you love so much.”

Tracey closed her eyes. “I don’t love the farm or those two old women because of a cache of imaginary gold coins.”

“It might be silver from Mexico,” Ginny said.

“You’ve been researching it, haven’t you?”

“Do you know how much information’s online about this?  There are also professors at Virginia Tech and University of Virginia who are well respected experts on the subject.  They’ve published volumes about the waning days of the Confederate government.  Those guys are incredible and an easy drive from us.”

“Then you should’ve read that most experts attribute the bulk of the treasure to paying troops.  Have you scheduled an appointment with anyone yet?”

Ginny’s silence told Tracey all she needed to know. “Unreal. You know how uncomfortable this makes me, yet you’re going after a story as though it would land you on the network news.”

“You’re making too much out of this. Forget I ever brought it up. It’s not worth stressing you out.”

“I wish I believed you meant that.”

“Okay. Timeout. We’ll talk about this face-to-face sometime, not when you want to pick a fight you can hang up on.”

“So now it’s all on me.” Tracey rearranged the order of exhibits.

“Good night. Don’t work too late.” Ginny ended the call.

Tracey stared at her cell phone, then returned it to her pants pocket. She walked around the corner of her desk and opened the door to Mitch’s office. “Do they make vending machines that dispense beer?”

Mitch looked up from his desk, studying her over the bifocals resting on his nose. “I’m sure they do, but we’d be fired for having alcohol on the premises.”

“Humph.” Tracey leaned against the door casing.

“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. I can’t help what I hear.” He leaned back in his chair and tossed his wooden pencil on the desk blotter.

“Do you realize that you’re the only person I know, other than my dad who uses carpenter pencils, who still uses wooden pencils?”

“I’m a creature of habit.” Mitch rested his arms on those of the chair and waited. He raised his eyebrows.

“Ginny, the local news reporter on Channel 6, is on the trail of the gold and silver hidden on the Martin farm.”

Mitch grimaced. “One of your favorite subjects.”

“Exactly.” Tracey turned one of the chairs at the round table in the corner to face Mitch’s desk. She slumped in the chair and finished the Coke.

“Want me to get you another?”

“Not unless you can pee for me also.” Tracey set the can on the table, idly tapping the Formica.

“That’s outside my realm of expertise.”

Tracey chuckled. “You understand what it was like growing up here with not only a large tract of land, but whispers about treasure hanging over my head. The other kids thought we were rich. My parents worked hard to give Paula and me a good start.”

“Land rich and money poor.” Mitch nodded. “I watched the same with your mother and her sister when we were in school.”

“People in general are such dumbasses.” Tracey huffed. “The Martins have been chasing treasure hunters away for five generations. Don’t people stop to consider that so much of what went on record about the Confederate government at the end of the Civil War was misdirection and outright bullshit?”

“You’re giving benefit of the doubt about collective intelligence.” Mitch tossed Tracey a stick of gum. “I remember all the commotion when a Colorado company was brought in by a private individual who paid your great-uncle to allow a geophysical survey and pulse induction instruments to check for silver specie.”

Tracey nodded. “My dad said Uncle Lester allowed it to prove once and for all that the hard currency was on city-owned land in the cemetery, not on the farm. The city wouldn’t allow even the smallest of test holes for fear of the liability of disturbing an unmarked grave. Dad said it backfired on Uncle Lester, that people thought he gave access to locations he already knew were just dirt.”

Mitch tapped one index finger with the other. “The first train was filled with officials. Imagine the frenzy of abandoning Richmond.” He extended his middle finger and tapped it. “The second train was the special cargo—gold ingots, gold double eagles, silver coins and bricks, and those pesky Mexican silver dollars. The second train was guarded by a Navy captain, William Parker, and young midshipmen pulled from the James River. That’s how desperate the times and understaffed the president of our glorious Confederacy was.”

Tracey crushed her Coke can. “The tracks ended at Danville. Everything and everyone transferred to horseback or wagon. Talk about frenzy.”

Mitch continued. “Federal cavalry was patrolling the entire area by then. The wagons had to stay on the roads, such as they were. It’s amazing that any of the specie made it farther south than Virginia—there is documentation of some of it turning up years later in South Carolina and Georgia. It had to have been scattered to troops’ pockets all along the way.”

“On top of hearing all of that mess with a schoolchild’s twist was that if I brought it up at home you’d think I’d said four-letter words. My mother wouldn’t allow any discussion of the Civil War. My dad would try to sneak me out of mom’s range of hearing and answer my questions. Then I had to remember not to let on to Mom that I knew anything. We only went to the farm when Harry was there. Then when Mom lost her mother, there was yet another taboo subject. I would come in from school and find Mom sobbing over her mother’s photograph. It was my dad who’d drop us at the house with Marian while he helped Lester on the farm.” Tracey threw up her hands. “Thank God for Aunt Betty. She’d talk to me about growing up in the shadow of the Martins and reminisce about Harry.”

“That was when Betty was having a hell of a time herself,” Mitch said.

“Betty talked to me about what was going on with her husband when Mom wouldn’t. Mom said it wasn’t her story to tell.” Tracey shook her head. “Betty caught her husband cheating, called him out on it. He tried to make her take him back and give him another chance, then turned her boys against her when she wouldn’t. My cousins are morons if they think any less of their mother for not tolerating their father’s poor choices.”

Mitch nodded. “It wasn’t the first time he strayed.”

Tracey cut her gaze at her boss. Sometimes, she forgot just how well he knew her family. “Betty’s a trouper, though. She’s made her own way after telling him what he could do with the pittance of alimony he maneuvered the judge into awarding. She’s left the door open to her sons. She’s never belittled her husband, just explained why she didn’t want him in her life any longer. I thought my dad was going to end up in prison after he heard what Betty had been through. He’s very protective of his sister-in-law.”

“Betty’s doing well these days?” Mitch asked.

Tracey nodded, catching more than a casual interest. “Five years single and going strong. She has a good network of friends, dates occasionally, and stays busy with work or volunteering. How anyone teaches six-year-olds is beyond my comprehension.”

Mitch listened carefully. “I vaguely remember Betty from school. She was younger and not on my male radar. She always struck me as Harriet’s opposite.”

Tracey chuckled. “Is that a polite way of saying Mom’s always been a talker and Betty an observer?”

“Exactly. Your mother always liked being the center of attention. I still remember the report she did before our entire class about the Martin treasure that had us all rushing to the hardware store for shovels.”

Tracey stared at Mitch. “You’re kidding.”

Mitch crossed his heart.

“Okay, you have to tell me the rest of that story.”

Mitch started to speak, then cocked his head to listen as the side exterior door opened.

Alese Walthall came into Mitch’s office, carrying two plastic bags. “I thought so.” She set a bag before each of her coworkers.

“What’s this?” Mitch asked.

“Leftovers from a church supper for two fools who don’t know when to go home much less prepare a decent meal for themselves.” Alese held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear excuses. I knew you two would still be here. Eat, before it cools off. I’m going home to my husband and comfortable bed, and I know what to do with both, unlike some people.”

Tracey choked on the smart-ass remark she was on the verge of making.

Alese waved and was gone.

“She keeps me humble, as well as fed. What more could a man want?” Mitch asked.

Tracey inhaled the aroma from the bag that promised fried chicken and yams, two of her favorites. She spotted meringue on the slice of pie resting on top. She idly wondered if Betty was ready for more than one of Marian’s puppies to come home to.

1903

Susanna lingered in the doorway of the shop. As she looked about the inside of the crude outbuilding, it was difficult to believe that when she and John married, this was their first home and they’d felt fortunate to have it and land of their own. What a time that had been when she was fresh from her schooling in Ohio and there were still Quaker families in the area. Susanna sighed with all the memories flooding her mind. At sixty-three, she noticed a marked change in how much she looked backward instead of forward.

She glanced toward the barn in search of her husband. Instead, she saw their oldest son in the distance at the wagon works. He was as tall and thin as his father. The main difference in the two men was that William’s hair was coal black and cut short as opposed to his father’s long white beard and hair. She watched as William talked to a crew of men as they inspected a long, low-sided farm wagon that was their trademark. She was so proud of William, who had taken to working all facets of the farm just as his father had done when taking on the work of both his brothers. The western tract housed the wagon works; the center tract, farm and stables; and the eastern tract, the sawmill and lumberyard.

Susanna returned her gaze to William. “Like father, like son,” she whispered. William didn’t see the color of a man, he saw the way a man worked and the skills he possessed or was willing to learn. William had also welcomed his wife taking over the business ledgers and managing accounts. Susanna openly encouraged him to continue that practice after they had children.

Susanna had a difficult time recognizing her sons as grown men on either side of thirty, yet she respected their work and was fond of their wives. They were still her boys in the recesses of her mind, forever small tykes in saggy coveralls. “I’m a foolish old woman.”

John was nowhere to be seen. She nodded to herself and returned to the interior of the small log building. “Fortunate for me, he keeps this place such a mess.”

She looked around the perimeter of the building at the odd collection of wooden crates and discarded oak splint baskets. Very little of the flooring was visible. There were two workbenches littered with bits and pieces of farm equipment. Hand tools hung from the joists. Abandoned and rusting scythes hung on the log walls after replacement by horse-pulled equipment. The rear half of the building had a ceiling height of seven feet due to the storage loft above.

John had yet to repair the broken spoke of the wheel on the wooden wheelbarrow made by his father. Rakes rusted in the corner for lack of a complete handle. Axes were propped in the corner, too dull to be of use anymore and past holding a sharp edge.

“I’ll wager he never comes in here anymore.” Susanna worried about her husband, not for the first time—he always had to be working with something, a habit acquired with the overwhelming responsibilities placed on him during the war years. She knew John had every intention of restoring every item set aside in the shop. The trait had passed forward to William, as well. Susanna sighed, knowing she was guilty of the same. They’d inadvertently taught William by example. She sincerely hoped that her son fully enjoyed married life. He had yet to produce a child, though his wife seemed willing and capable enough. One thing about working about the farm—there were always more chores than hours in the day. There was a deliberate timelessness about how everything truly important managed to be done despite day-to-day angst.

“Each thing in its own time,” Susanna reminded herself. She’d been thirty-two when she gave birth to William. “But we had to wait to have children,” she said. “Not knowing if we’d survive the war or if we’d have a roof over our heads if we did.” Their saving grace had been John’s ability with horses as a breeder and wagoner.

The farm had prospered in their lifetime. Susanna never minded hard work as long as she saw results. They’d begun their life together on the farm by building the shop in the weeks before their wedding. John’s father split the acreage of the original Candler land granted by King George between himself and his sons soon after he was widowed—the land had been passed down in his wife’s family. It was unspoken that part of the reason for their marriage was to procreate land stewards—John’s mother had been the oldest of four sisters.

They were fortunate to receive an equal amount of cleared and forested land. John and his brothers had taken turns building houses on each of the parcels. John had raised enough tobacco to build barns within two years of having his own farm. John was the farmer; his middle brother, the carpenter; his oldest brother, the timber expert. Then had come the secession of Virginia from the Union.

Susanna shook her head, dispelling the memories fresher than what happened last week. “Such a frightening time.”

The small log building would always be special to her for so many reasons. She looked up at the loft. “Why not? I may be in my sixties, but I can still climb.” She smiled as she held up the hem of her dress so as not to entangle her feet. The L-shaped stairs built into the corner were narrow in tread and steep in riser and barely two feet wide.

Susanna held on to the rough logs of the side of the building as she emerged on the planks of the loft floor. She remembered how John hit his head on the rafters every time he forgot and stood to his full height from the pallet they had slept on. She had always laughed when he struggled not to use coarse language in her presence.

Crates of farm records lined the back wall of the building. The records must survive for future generations so they would understand at what price the farm had endured. She knew that William tolerated her request to check the roof of the shop for leaks after heavy storms just to humor her. She didn’t care what he thought as long as the records were preserved.

Susanna tilted her head and listened to the passing train. She shuddered as she thought of the scandal surrounding the recent crash of Southern Railway’s Train No. 97, forced to make up lost time to deliver mail on schedule. The train had plunged into Cherrystone Creek after its speed on the downgrade catapulted it from the tracks on the Stillhouse Trestle just outside of Danville. Nine men had perished.

Trains had been so important during the war, transporting the supplies to the front lines and bringing the wounded to the hospitals in Lynchburg and Danville. She and John never discussed one of the last Confederate trains that had been under direct orders from Jefferson Davis because of the treasury relocation. It was why they would never tell their boys, never burden them with the farm’s role in the Confederacy. They had produced more than their share of food for troops and the families left behind because they were used to working on their own, never relying on the bondage of the blacks brought from their home country. The other activities that had taken place on the farm were no one else’s business, and her sons should not have to bear any repercussions because of their parents’ actions.

She carefully climbed down the steps and dusted her skirt off as she left the building. She glanced at the sky and thought of the newspaper headlines from North Carolina—some foolishness about two brothers and an airborne contraption on the dunes off the ocean. “Those winds blowing in from the sea can make anything lift off the ground for a few seconds.”

Susanna waved to John as he emerged from the woods, carrying a large basket he’d made the previous winter. “I hope he found the persimmons before the squirrels. They don’t stay on the ground long after first frost.” She had a hankering to make a pie from the fruit of the tree on the far back corner of their property, the tree that was a landmark for so many.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tracey decided immediately after accepting the so-called date to take the day one step at a time and be very mindful of her expectations. Ginny had called to defer their standing Friday night dinner and sleepover to a Saturday morning shopping trip. Tracey knew they were both taking a step back and a second look at their relationship. She was upset but not in panic mode—not yet, anyway.

Ever since they met, they had purposely kept their relationship casual. Tracey was firm about staying in Virginia. Ginny was clear that Danville was a steppingstone. Neither of them wanted to be alone, nor did they want to U-Haul and move in together after a few dates. They were more than friends with benefits and considered each other a girlfriend but had carefully avoided a serious discussion of love and partnership. Tracey was thinking now they likely never would have that talk. Still, she knew Ginny meant more to her than casual sex. All it took was one look at Ginny and her inner defenses and usual logic melted. Tracey issued a prolonged sigh.

“Oh, Lord. Is it that bad already? I warned you what I needed to do this morning.” Ginny frowned at Tracey over the rack of swimsuits.

“I was just thinking,” Tracey said. “So I have to ask.”

“I’m in trouble now.” Ginny leaned on the rack and waited.

“Did you go out with someone else last night?” Tracey hated how insecure she felt. She also knew that once the thought was in her head, she’d best ask the question and have it out in the open.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I was paying you back for standing me up the other night, not dumping you for someone else. Do you want to be here with me this morning or not?”

Tracey held up her hands. “Me, pass up an opportunity to see you model these?” She pointed at a suit that seemed to be mostly strings entwined on a hanger.

Ginny nodded as she examined the suit. “Model? Hell, I have to figure out how this goes on first. Does it come with instructions?”

“I could come along to the dressing room to help.” Tracey grinned.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon not be banned from the one decent department store in this city.” Ginny threaded her way between the racks to the dressing room and smiled up at the security camera.

Tracey felt better. She accepted that she had pissed Ginny off and had to pay for it. She milled around the clothes, thinking about where to go for lunch. She seldom shopped in stores as her Web accounts at L.L. Bean, J. Crew, and Lands End would verify. Her body remained constant, and she knew which size to order at each site for a fit she liked—neither tight nor baggy, just comfortable. Trying things on in stores made her hyperventilate. Saleswomen always talked her into something more girly than she would ever buy left to her own devices. She’d even resorted to ordering two pairs of shoes in different sizes and returning the worst fit rather than stand around in a store waiting to be sized. But for Ginny, she would kill time at the mall; that must count for something in their relationship, and Ginny knew it.

Tracey glanced across the wide aisle separating departments and spied two little blond girls seriously studying the clothes that would make them appear years older. She started to move on to the men’s department, then cut her gaze back to the girls. Tracey squinted to be sure. It was Aurora and Ashley, Paula’s daughters.

Tracey smiled as she crossed the aisle. “I thought Hannah Montana was on the way out.”

Rory looked up at her aunt. “I keep telling Mom I’m more into Lady Gaga.” She dropped the pastel dress with ruffles as though it was contaminated and flung her arms around Tracey.

“I like Pink,” Ash said. She waited her turn for a hug. She smiled, sans her front teeth, and held up a mauve dress.

Rory pushed her little sister. “Pink doesn’t mean the color, dummy. She’s a way cool singer.”

Tracey shook her head. What happened to Barney and Dora the Explorer? Had she been this aware at eight and six years old? She thought not unless it was about PGA stats. Rory may have been hobbled by a bad leg, but it had turned him from football to a love of golf that had clearly passed to his youngest daughter.

The girls reminded her so much of herself and Paula, even though two years separated her nieces and seven years separated her and Paula. Both generations possessed blond hair, piercing blue eyes, skin that tanned easily without freckling, and an innate ability to grate on each other’s nerves. What else was there to being sisters?

Tracey glanced about. “I know you’re not here alone.”

“Mommy went for a coffee,” Ash said. “We’re not to leave this area of the store. But that’s okay because it takes Rory forever to pick out anything.” She held on to the pink dress, satisfied with her first choice.

“Ta da!”

Tracey turned to see Ginny in the bathing suit that could just as easily come off a spool. She shook her head frantically, directing her gaze from Ginny to the girls. She motioned her away. If Paula had freaked at the concept of Tracey being a lesbian, she’d flip out at the sight of a sexy lesbian girlfriend wearing next to nothing.

“Have you been trying to learn dance moves again, Aunt Tracey?” Rory stared at Tracey, mortified, then followed her line of sight. “Hey, I’ve seen her on television. Do you know her?”

Tracey picked up Ash and twirled. “I thought I was getting pretty smooth with my moves.”

Ashley giggled. “Aunt Tracey is a dorkus.”

Tracey hugged the child against her and looked at Ginny again, pleading with her not to be angry.

Ginny’s face tightened. She glared at men passing by who nodded their approval of her suit. She spun on her heel and stomped back to the fitting room.

Paula strolled into the store from the mall’s common area. She frowned at the sight of Tracey. “I thought I told you girls not to talk to anyone strange.”

“I’m not the only dorkus in the family,” Tracey whispered to Ashley. Paula was dressed for tennis that she never played—short white skirt and tight white sweater. Tracey was amazed at Paula’s colored socks and clunky cross trainers.

Ash wiggled to be released. She ran toward her mother holding out the dress.

Paula’s frown deepened as she looked at the price tag. She shook her head. Ashley was crestfallen as she returned the dress to the rack.

“I’ve already overspent my allowance. I can make a case for Rory’s new dress because she has her first party at the club next weekend.” Paula angled her head as she studied her youngest. “You can have Rory’s old dress. It should fit you about right. All you have coming up this month is a birthday party I haven’t decided if you’re attending or not.” She looked at Tracey. “It’s for the child of one of Ashton’s associates.”

Tracey cringed. Paula was thrusting her girls into the status melee already. All Tracey knew of the country club was the golf course. Why shouldn’t Ash go to a birthday party?

“What are you here for—the sneaker sale?” Paula sipped her coffee.

“I shop occasionally.” Tracey glanced repeatedly at the changing room area.

Paula frowned, then pushed the girls ahead of her. She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell me this is where you pick up women. I’ll have to find a new place to shop. I have to live in this community, you know.”

“Nice to see you, too. I haven’t made the neighborhood notification list yet.” Tracey watched Paula walk away. Ash looked over her shoulder and waved.

Tracey took the pink dress from the rack. Why shouldn’t she buy her the dress? What was the point of being an aunt if not doting? She found the nearest register and dug her credit card out of the pocket of her cargo shorts.

Ginny walked up beside Tracey. “Thanks for making me feel totally insignificant in your life. I take it that was your sister and nieces.”

Tracey nodded. “It wasn’t the right time for introductions.”

Ginny all but snarled. “You need to loosen up around your family, and your sister needs the stick taken out of her butt.”

Tracey glanced around them. Other shoppers were keeping their distance. “This isn’t the time or place for that discussion.” She saw the nearest exit and walked away from Ginny.

Ginny caught up with her and passed her on the way out of the store.

Tracey jogged along to catch up.

They faced each other on the wide sidewalk that encircled the big box stores of the mall.

Ginny jumped in with both feet. “How can you hide me from your family after I made such an effort to introduce you to mine?”

“Our circumstances are different. You’ve been out since you were a teenager.” Tracey broke out in a sweat, even though the April day was cool.

“So not only are you ashamed of me, you’re embarrassed to be a lesbian?” Ginny yelled the last word.

Tracey couldn’t help looking around.

Ginny’s body went rigid as her hands formed into fists resting on her hips. “I don’t believe it. Look at you. Honey, it’s the twenty-first century. Believe me when I say most people don’t give a damn about your sexual orientation. People who know you likely wouldn’t be surprised if you showed up with an L tattooed on your forehead. They know. They know you. They don’t care. Didn’t you just have that conversation with your father?”

Tracey nodded.

“Weren’t you the one who was all wrought up, not him?”

Tracey nodded again.

“Nobody’s in the closet anymore. It’s cool to be gay, even in Hicksville.” Ginny looked around, challenging any takers to contradict her.

“I’m not closeted. I’m low-key. I prefer my private life remain private.” Tracey spoke in her normal tone.

“You can tell yourself that all you want to. I don’t buy it.” Ginny stood poised as though ready to throw a punch.

“You’re snapping my head off for the way I choose to conduct my personal life.” Tracey was ready to punch back.

Ginny tucked her bag beneath her arm, then held up her hands signaling a timeout. “I’m picking at you because you let your sister walk all over you. Stop being such a wimp.”

“You want me to rub Paula’s face in what’s going on between us, fine. We’ll go back inside. I’ll introduce you.” Tracey stopped. “Wait a minute. That didn’t come out right.”

Ginny chuckled. “But what a visual image.” She made a horror movie face. “It’s not your sister I want to meet.”

Tracey rolled her eyes, wondering why she put up with Ginny. Was she too complacent to find someone else, or did she cave because she simply didn’t want to spend their time together fighting? A relationship shouldn’t feel so much like work, should it? Hell, did she even know what a relationship was? Why did she have the sensation she was midway into a book she didn’t want to admit wasn’t worth reading? “I’ll set the intro up for next weekend. They’ll be thrilled.”

“You won’t be sorry. I promise not to embarrass you.” Ginny crossed her heart.

It wasn’t Ginny’s behavior that Tracey was concerned about.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tracey smiled contentedly. Sara Lukens had come through for her. Well, not for her specifically, Tracey realized. “Sarry” had come through for the museum. Tracey was betting that the Mitch Wilkins factor had been the swing vote.

The entire collection of Lukens family papers sat stacked before her in large plastic boxes with flip tops. “I wouldn’t have pictured Mrs. Lukens as a Lowe’s shopper,” Tracey said. Of course, she still couldn’t picture Sara Lukens as a buddy of Agnes and Marian, either. “What do I know about anything anyway?” Tracey opened the first box after pulling on her latex gloves. She glanced at the clock. Mitch had allowed her the morning to make a quick visual inventory. She’d brought her laptop along so she’d be able to send Mitch updates upstairs without running back and forth.

Tracey was worse than a child at Christmas when it came to any type of old family papers. Whether the collection was letters, diaries, or photographs, it told a story. Fitting the components into a portrait of lives was no different than working a complex puzzle. She had to at least open every box and riffle through the contents to assure herself that the donation was for real. She had commandeered half of the smallest workroom in the basement of the museum and pleaded her case for no one else to venture into the contents of the boxes. Alese assured her there was plenty in the stored collections to keep everyone else busy.

“I know I’m being obsessive-compulsive, but this is it.” Tracey had paced as she talked with Alese and Mitch. They watched as the museum’s van was unloaded by former students Alese had called in favors from. “This will be the cornerstone of the genealogy research library once I have this information online.” Tracey managed to overwhelm herself.

“Take deep breaths,” Alese had advised.

“This is your baby.” Mitch had grinned and held up his hands, backing away from the growing stack of storage boxes.

Tracey checked the postmarks of the letters received by the Lukens family from England, as well as the other colonies during the Revolutionary War era. She glanced at the first pages of the diaries kept by the male members of the family starting in the mid-seventeen hundreds and continuing through the Depression. She stared at the quartermaster journal from the Civil War written by one of the Lukens brothers wounded in the first battle of Manassas—or Bull Run as some called it—too severely to return to active duty. His notation was that he’d been reassigned to Danville to manage the supplies that came into the city by train to be dispensed across the countryside to troops.

Tracey scanned the pages, fascinated by the logistics of a bustling Danville that had supported multiple prisons for captured federal soldiers, hospitals for the overflow of Confederate wounded, and served as a supply crossroads. The prisons and hospitals were converted tobacco warehouses. The most famous prisoners were the black troops captured at Petersburg’s Battle of the Crater.

“Bunny trails, Tracey, bunny trails.” She made herself focus on the book in her hands as her mind wandered to all the incidents connected by one family’s records. The possibility of exhibits spawned from this material was ad infinitum.

She was amazed at the list of wagoners employed. “Think about the railroads, Tracey.” She reminded herself of the male logic that had witnessed the success of the Richmond and Danville Railroad to the war effort, then built tracks of a completely different gauge for the Piedmont Railroad linking Danville and Greensboro, North Carolina.

Her finger stopped midway along a page. “John Martin.” She read her great-great-great-grandfather’s name aloud and shivered. “I’m such a dumbass.” She knew he had served the cause by raising horses and produce. So much so that he was one of the founding members of the Corporation Store that had distributed food and firewood to soldiers’ families and those decimated by the war. “If he raised horses and crops, he had wagons.” Tracey smacked herself on the forehead. Sure enough, there were line items for purchases of wagons from the Martin Wagon Works. There was also a casual reference that stunned Tracey and sent her to a website for Confederate service records. Two hours later, she stared at the deferment given John Martin as the youngest son and overseer of the family farm, stables, wagon works, and sawmill—all vital to the Confederacy.

Tracey thought of Agnes and Marian. Their grandfather would have told them the stories of his father’s efforts during the Civil War. It was entirely possible that John Martin moved freight for those nine trains out of Richmond carrying officials and the treasury of the Confederacy, as well as several of the capital’s banks. “Oh, my God.” Tracey stared at the bare wall on the far side of the room. “What if the stories have never been a boondoggle?”

Tracey sat abruptly on the stool at the work table. She was stunned. She glanced at the clock over the door. It was past lunch. Where had the last four hours gone? She patted her pocket. She’d remembered to bring her cell phone with her.

Tracey punched in the number for Agnes and Marian.

Marian answered. “Hello?”

Tracey’s throat was suddenly so dry she couldn’t speak.

“Hello?” Marian repeated her greeting with a tone of annoyance in her voice.

“Marian, it’s Tracey.”

“Are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I’m fine. I’m at work. Marian, those stories you and Agnes tell—they’re not bullshit.”

Marian burst out laughing. “Honey, you’re the historian in the family and that just dawned on you? The old ladies aren’t cranks after all.” Marian laughed until she wheezed.

Tracey felt her face flush. “I’ve already called myself six variations of dumbass.”

Marian put her hand over the phone, muffling her voice from Tracey’s hearing. “Agnes, come here, you have to hear this. Agnes.” The hand was removed. “Damn, she must be outside. Now she’ll think I’m pulling her leg, not as though I could bend over far enough to reach it.” Marian cackled again. “Whew, you’ve made me cry. Stop before I wet my drawers.”

“Are you done?” Tracey asked.

“Nowhere near it.”

Tracey held the phone away from her ear and counted to ten.

“Okay, I’m trying to stop laughing. What brought this revelation on?”

“Your old friend, Sara Lukens,” Tracey said. “One of her husband’s ancestors worked for the quartermaster of the Danville Depot during the war.”

“I remember her mentioning him. There should be a bound copy of his memoirs, about half concerns the eighteen sixties.” Marian was all business now that books were part of the conversation.

“What haven’t you read?”

“Not much. I’ve always despised television.”

“I feel like a spotlight has gone off in my face.” Tracey groaned with frustration.

“Sweetie, you should’ve known Lester. He was the true guardian and the one who convinced me and Agnes.”

“Go on.”

“Lester was worse than Fred about patrolling the property. Something special is hidden here—that much I’m convinced of. Lester brought Fred into it because Agnes’s husband was gone and mine was from Pennsylvania. Harry’s husband was busy with his family and paid Lester no mind. Lester tolerated my Archie but always held on to a little resentment that I married a man from a state to our north.”

Tracey was silent.

Marian continued. “Lester always referred to Fred as one of his brothers when he had no one but us girls by birth. He was always so secretive about the farm and so adamant that the land and buildings be maintained and kept in the family. Such a big damn secret that he never shared it with me, and I ended up managing the farm. I hope Aurora or Ashley has an interest in it, but I’m not counting on it.”

“May I come over this weekend? There’s someone I want to introduce to you. I had meant to call even before my head imploded,” Tracey said.

Marian laughed gently. “Honey, you’re always welcome here as is anyone you want to bring with you. See you Sunday afternoon.” Marian hung up, no doubt in a hurry to find Agnes.

Tracey stared at the telephone. “Me and my infinite wisdom. All my degrees. I’m such a dumbass.”

“And you talk to yourself when you’re alone in the basement. Not a good sign.” Alese Walthall stood in the doorway of the workroom.

Tracey looked at her former teacher. “It’s true. Agnes and Marian’s stories. My family could’ve been involved with the missing Confederate gold and silver.”

Alese studied Tracey and clucked her tongue. “Child, you don’t begin to understand your family’s legacy.” She looked over her shoulder. “My tour group’s ready to go. Mitch has been looking for you for the past hour.”

“But…” Tracey looked from the open boxes she needed to secure to Alese’s back as she walked away. What was it Winston Churchill had said about Russia—a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Who knew it also applied to a retired schoolteacher?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Tracey couldn’t wait until the weekend to go to the Martin family farm. She pulled on her favorite blue jeans and pale blue polo shirt and laced her hiking boots snugly around her ankles. She dialed Mitch’s personal cell phone as she left her duplex. “I’ll be a little late coming in today.”

“How much is a little?” Mitch asked. Old-school country music played in the background, each twang emphasized.

“No later than lunch. I’m doing some fieldwork for myself this morning.”

“Alese told me you had an epiphany yesterday. I thought she was kidding.” Mitch turned off the music.

“I wish.” Tracey waved as Adam drove away in his company truck.

“Do what you need to. All the extra hours you work here never show up on a time sheet.”

“Thanks, Mitch.”

“Hey.” He caught her before she disconnected. “If you need help, call me. I mean it.”

“I know. Thanks.” Tracey nodded to herself. She might just take him up on that. As far as she was concerned, and she wasn’t alone, Mitch was as much an expert as the leading professors at Virginia Tech with his knowledge of Virginia’s Civil War history.

Now that Mitch had put the tunes in her head, she listened to country music as she left Danville proper and drove east along Route 58 into Pittsylvania County. In less than fifteen minutes, she was leaving the highway and driving onto Martin property. Fred’s battered Blazer was parked out front of the house, next to the empty space usually occupied by Agnes’s Crown Vic, prized because it was the last automobile Paddy bought for them.

Tracey continued around the ninety-degree curve of the driveway and parked beside the dog lot. She climbed out of her car and reached into the backseat for her walking stick. The gnarled oak limb had served her well since she was Ashley’s age and left to her own devices to roam the farm. Four puppies lined up to bark and wag their tails at her.

Fred peered out of the shed, holding an egg basket. “Were they expecting you?”

“Not until the weekend.” Tracey approached him while murmuring to the pups. “They put you to work this morning?”

“They left here, cussing at each other about who in their right mind made such an early doctor’s appointment.” He shook his head. “I was glad to take over the chores.”

Tracey laughed. “You’re as good a friend to them as you were to Uncle Lester.” She reached through the woven wire fence and scratched each puppy’s head.

Fred’s face registered no reaction to Lester’s name. “What has you thinking about him?”

Tracey looked out over the farm. From the vantage point of the knoll that the main house and small animal shed had been built upon, it was a long sweeping panorama of the barn and outbuildings that led to fields and pastures that ended at the railroad tracks. She just could see the rusting tin roofs of the tobacco barns that John Martin had built close to the back property line.

“I’ve always loved this place without really thinking about it. It’s like my last name—something I was born with that’s simply there and in place. Know what I mean?” Tracey asked.

Fred nodded.

Tracey continued. “This land has always felt like our family’s center. It drew Agnes and Marian back, Harry stayed close. Mom used to drop Paula and me off for afternoons here under the guise of our needing fresh air. Marian taught me the love of animals and books. Whatever differences my mother has with Agnes and Marian, this land’s always spoken of with reverence. Was that born in us or taught by the previous generations?”

“Likely a little of both.” Fred understood. “Lester felt like that, too. This place was his life. He left it a few times, but he always came back to it. He felt a deep-seated responsibility for it. Do you feel that stewardship?” He studied Tracey carefully.

“I’m a curator aka archivist. It’s my second nature to preserve and protect. I just never realized where I got it from. Who’s next in line here, Fred?”

He frowned. “I don’t want to speak out of turn.”

“I asked you.” Tracey fell in step with him along the hard-packed dirt lane that led between the outbuildings.

“Your sister is campaigning for it. Either for the farm to be left to her since she’s the oldest and involved in the community, or to be left for her girls with her as the trustee since you don’t have any children.” Fred clearly didn’t like being the bearer of bad news.

Tracey stopped and turned away from him. She approached the old shop building and ran her fingers along the hand-hewn log. “Amazing that wood could be worked this smoothly with only an ax and a froe.” She struggled to collect her thoughts. Of course, Paula would make a play for something as much of a local landmark as the Martin farm. Yet Paula was the one who when left at the farm as a child sulked in the house watching the three channels of television available while Tracey explored the outbuildings and land.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Fred walked toward the corner of the woven wire fence he and Lester had replaced the split rails with. The fence contained the horses, starting at the back wall of the barn, making a corner short of the lane, and following the lane to the top of the slope before the land gave way steeply toward the railroad tracks.

“No, I should’ve known. If I did right by visiting with Agnes and Marian, I would’ve known without asking you. Sorry to put you on the spot.” They continued along the lane.

“What do you think should be done with this place?” Fred gestured across the landscape. They stood at the top of the slope before the lane went into a series of switchbacks to reach lower ground. A crater the size of a dump truck bed gaped opposite the fence corner. It was one of several dug by trespassers before being run off by one of the Martins.

Tracey had thought about the future of the farm—it was an inevitable part of her planning nature. She just didn’t anticipate anything needing to be done for a long time. Accepting that there would someday be no Agnes and Marian was inconceivable to her. “There are so few family farms in situ, it should be preserved. It’s bigger than just Paula or me.” She smiled. “I taught myself to play golf here. I found an old set of clubs in the attic. I collected balls at the country club’s driving range for a cut of the take. I’d stand along this ridge and hit toward the crater down there on the back property corner next to that old stump. I hate to think how many golf balls are down there along the track, buried in the ballast stone. I used to have a crazy notion of turning these fields into a par three golf course for kids, a cross between the cookie-cutter putting play areas and a full-blown course.”

Fred nodded. “Leaving the farm buildings?”

“Having an attraction that’s a mix of old and new.” Tracey shook her head. “Like I said, crazy, huh? The investment numbers would likely never work.”

Fred shifted the egg basket to his other arm. “You’d need a draw. You’d need to use the right numbers.”

Tracey studied Fred and waited for him to finish the thought.

“There’s something here, something special about this farm.” Fred set the basket down and removed his coach’s jacket, tucking it under his arm. “Lester searched for clues. He was convinced there was something either here or in the cemetery in town. That’s why he went to South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas for his working vacations, as he called them. He was convinced there had been a huge cover-up about the Confederate treasury. Nine trains, each with their own sets of guards, followed the rail line from Richmond to Danville. When ground escort tried to take the payload on into North Carolina, there were federal troops everywhere. So they diverted. Some of that gold and silver paid off troops. Some of it stayed in the communities it passed through. Lester was convinced all of it didn’t leave Danville. He was sure old John Martin would’ve left a map or a diary about his work as a wagoner, but all Lester ever found were old farm records. Think of it—thirty-nine wooden kegs of Mexican silver dollars and the gold reserve from six banks.”

“I’m just beginning to understand John Martin. He was deferred from active duty and ran the farm, as well as the wagon and lumber businesses.” Tracey reached down and threw a rock along the trajectory she used to hit golf balls. “You and Uncle Lester thought there was some sort of conspiracy?”

Fred dismissively waved his hand in the air. “Don’t say it like that.” He glanced around them until Tracey felt his paranoia.

“Never forget these three letters—KGC, meaning Knights of the Golden Circle. They left sentinels behind. Today, they’d be labeled fanatics and tracked by Homeland Security.” His voice dropped until Tracey strained to hear him. “What they left behind is all around us. Signs carved in trees or incorporated into landscape or architecture—cross, bell, horse, bird, numbers. They were masters of misdirection so that someone would chase down everything but the actual location they were sworn to protect. The membership hands down by generation.”

“Signs?”

“To tell distance or bearing or to go with a map overlay or just to follow the lines of intersection. Look how far you can sight back into Danville from here.” He waved his arm.

“You’re freaking me out.”

“They carved symbols into tree trunks. Ghosts to send you looking for a grave. Numbers to signify sides of a building. A concentration of symbols carved into a dogwood was their Bible tree. They were big on Bible references, as though it would justify what they were doing. They were charged by Jefferson Davis himself to be the caretakers of the treasury.”

“But for what? The war was over.”

Fred pointed before him. “Look at how easy it is to access the rail line from the hidden side of the farm.” He scratched his head. “Honey, they were all about the South rising again. They schemed to take over the entire Caribbean as a base of operations. They intended to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and send parts of him back to Washington. They had a huge following in Pennsylvania.”

“Get out of here.” Tracey turned to Fred. “Wait a minute. Marian lived in Pennsylvania.”

Fred nodded. “Lester never trusted Marian’s husband. Archie ruined his lungs working in the steel mills, but Lester was convinced he was a KGC sleeper who married Marian because she was a Martin.”

“No way!” Tracey punched Fred in the shoulder. “So Uncle Lester pretty much went nuts with all of it?”

Fred rubbed his arm and frowned. “I’m not saying that.”

“But you are saying we might be sitting on the funds for an uprising. Should I be on the lookout for white hooded robes?” Tracey didn’t like the sinister spin this put on the farm.

“I always am. I promised Lester I’d look after his girls, all of them.” He put his arm around Tracey’s shoulders as they watched a freight train pass. The engineer waved as though used to seeing someone on the promontory.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tracey loved simply being on the golf course. Nothing else compared to walking about with her clubs and trying to better her last round. She still preferred the public course she’d grown up playing to any of the more lavish country club courses in the region. Part of any vacation or business trip was trying out the nearest links. Rory had been the same way during her childhood. The few times they had the money for a family vacation, Rory and Tracey ended up on the golf course while Harriet and Paula went shopping or sunbathing.

Tracey set her body in the proper stance as second nature. The first thing she’d learned about golf was not to overthink it; the second was that just when you thought you had your swing figured out, a slice was as likely as a long blistering drive. The sport was all about keeping the ego in check, and Tracey liked that. She also liked Saturday morning on the rambling, public course, recognizing and waving to her usual crowd of early risers. Her tee time was always during the first hour of scheduling; that way, she could play again in the afternoon or begrudgingly have time for chores.

She kept her head down, her butt up, and swung at the ball teed at the men’s markers. She watched the pink ball sail across the water hazard and onto the green of the par three hole, eight feet from the cup placement. “Now that’s what it’s all about.” She wiped down the club face and returned her iron to the proper section of her bag. She shouldered the nylon bag, never forgetting how heavy her first leather bag had been. The weather was so nice that she’d not considered renting a cart. As long as the temperature was below ninety or over forty, she enjoyed walking the course as much as playing it.

Tracey turned to look at the cart approaching the tee area. She knew the type with a glance—four women in their early thirties who were more concerned about their outfits and accessories than their score. They hooted as they approached.

“Lovely,” Tracey said to herself.

“You don’t mind if we play through, do you? We can all hit before you have time to walk around the pond and up the hill.” The driver of the cart smiled charmingly, clearly used to getting her own way.

Tracey tensed, realizing that the relaxation she’d hoped the round would bring had just disappeared.

“She doesn’t mind.” Paula spoke from the backseat of the cart as she twisted so that Tracey saw her.

“This ought to be worth the price of admission,” Tracey said under her breath. She waved her arm, telling them to play through. She crossed the cart path and set her clubs down.

The women climbed out, taking sips of their coffee. “Can’t drink too much. I’m not peeing behind a bush.” The driver winked at Tracey.

Paula approached her sister. “Thanks.”

“Since when do you abandon your family this early on a Saturday for some girl time?” Tracey watched the first drive plop into the pond.

“You’re not the only one Dad taught to play.” Paula winced as a second ball was lost. “I just wasn’t as cute in a golf outfit as I was as a cheerleader. I also didn’t want to devote all my free time to a sport played with other girls. Golf served as a means of maintaining my tan that Harriet didn’t nag me about.” It drove their mother crazy that Paula called her by name.

The third stroke was the charm. The ball landed on the far side of the pond in the rough far short of the green but in play.

Tracey felt as though her head would explode with all the possible responses to Paula. She calmed herself down. “So is golf part of your plans for the future? Have you started the girls on lessons yet?”

“I need time with friends. We’re all in the Baptist Young Women’s Association. My girls are more into ballet and gymnastics.” Paula looked at her sister sideways. “Since when do you care what my activities are?”

“I hear you may be branching out into agriculture.”

Paula frowned. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

“I was at the farm earlier this week.”

Comprehension passed across Paula’s face. “I bet you had a long talk with good old Fred. He’s a worse gossip than any little old lady I know.”

“Fred’s a lot more involved with that farm than you’ll ever take the time to find out.” Tracey watched the second golfer line up and hit a ball twenty yards short of the green. “Nice lie. That’s an easy on.” Tracey applauded.

The woman curtsied in Tracey’s direction.

“Don’t you dare flirt with my friends,” Paula said under her breath. “Someone has to inherit the farm. Why not me? I’m the one who has children to pass it on to.”

“Would you? Would you preserve the land and the buildings or search for a way to turn a quick profit through massive development?” Tracey watched as the third player received coaching from the second.

“Quit looking at her that way.” Paula hissed the words. “Since when are you my social conscience?” She walked away to ready her club and ball.

The third player’s lie was close to that of the second without a loss of a ball in the water.

Paula placed her tee and ball, then took several practice swings. She had the mechanics of the game down. She swung and landed a shot on the edge of the green. She turned to Tracey. “I’m guessing you’re closer to the cup.”

Tracey nodded. “I’m playing pink today.”

The other women walked toward the cart. Paula tossed her club to the designated driver and walked ahead to Tracey. “So you’re going to make a play for the farm?”

“I’m sure Agnes and Marian decided long ago what’s to be done. I’ll respect their decision, whatever it may be,” Tracey said.

“And I’m just the greedy bitch trying to take over?” Paula waited for her friends to drive by and pick her up.

“You know, the differences between us are just like how we think of golf,” Tracey said. “To you, it was a game that wasn’t quite worth your while, not enough return on attracting guys and dates. To me, it was applying physics—azimuths and bearings, trajectories, calculations of force, spin and torque—to how my body moved.” She watched Paula’s frown deepen. “I’d like to teach your girls to play, as Dad did me. It built such a strong bond between us. Golf is a sport that can be enjoyed their entire lives.”

“And have them exposed to your usual gallery of followers? I don’t think so. My girls are going to grow up girls.” Paula left no opening for further discussion.

Tracey felt as though she’d been sucker punched.

“See you.” Paula climbed into the cart.

“You can hitch a ride.” The front passenger patted her lap.

“Absolutely not.” Paula tapped the driver’s shoulder.

The women were gone.

Tracey remained as though rooted to the spot. She turned her bag on its side and sat as she watched the women continue to play out the hole.

She wasn’t aware that anyone else was close by until she heard the familiar cacophony of clubs jangling in a bag. Adam approached her on foot.

“I saw what looked to be an odd-numbered hen party and hung back until they were gone.” He stood on the cart path, looking down at Tracey. “Of course I couldn’t sleep on a morning I didn’t have to get up for work.”

She held her hand up to him. He gripped her wrist and pulled her to her feet.

“Was it that bad?” He shielded his eyes and watched the group finish on the green. “Is that Paula?”

“In the hateful flesh.” Tracey reached for her towel and wiped her face and hands. She took a deep breath.

Adam studied her. “One of those conversations that feels like a twist to the nuts?”

“If I had balls, they’d be in my back pocket.” Tracey set her bag upright. “I need a drink.” She looked at the bottle of sports mixture in disgust.

“If it was that bad, allow me.” He reached into the deep side pocket of his bag and offered her a beer.

“It’s still cool. How do you do the things you do?” She grinned at him.

“Easy. I put the six-pack in the freezer the night before, then stick an ice pack in the pocket with it. If I’m lucky, none explode. Chilled to the last can usually drunk on Hole 12.”

Tracey took a long swallow.

“Want some company while you finish the round?” Adam asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Tracey fell into step with her friend and tried not to think of Sunday’s excursion to the farm with Ginny.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tracey felt as though she was having an out-of-body experience. Or maybe she just wanted out of her own body badly enough to imagine it so. Ginny was hitting it off famously with her great-aunts. They had clicked the instant Ginny set foot out of Tracey’s car onto Martin land.

Tracey parked in what was becoming her usual spot at the end of the paved driveway next to the dog lot. Ginny opened her door and squealed at the sight of the Boston terrier puppies. Tracey had only heard that sound come out of Ginny a few times in the dark.

Ginny saw Marian as she came down the back steps. She gestured toward the large pen attached to the shed. “May I go in with them?”

Marian looked at Ginny’s outfit of crisp white capri pants and open-toe sandals topped by a lavender polo. “If you’re sure you’re dressed for it.”

Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “Who cares about clothes? I must get my hands around one of those little butterballs.”

Marian held the gate open and spoke reassuringly to the adult female dog.

Ginny went to the mother first. “What is mama’s name?”

“Sugar.” Marian said the word with two neatly clipped syllables as she looked at Tracey. “Named by someone who will go unmentioned, more for the thought of me yelling endearments out the back door than the dog’s nature.”

“Guilty, but she’s supposed to say it with a few extra letters.” Tracey giggled and raised her hand.

“I lived in Pennsylvania too long, is that what you’re saying?” Marian asked.

“Shuggar.” Tracey looked at Ginny and drawled the word while batting her eyes. “You have to add an h and roll the g.” She burst out laughing and continued in normal inflection. “This is my great-aunt Marian, who swears she’s forty-seven.”

“How do you put up with her?” Ginny gave Tracey a shove. “Say what?” She tucked her chin and looked at Marian in her usual cotton housedress and men’s work boots, giving the appearance of little foolishness about her.

Marian kept a straight face as she explained. “When I reached sixty, I started counting backward at birthdays.”

Ginny calculated. “Seventy-three. No way.”

“Way.” Marian nodded. She motioned to the dogs.

Ginny knelt before the female and held her hand out, palm down, for the dog to sniff. She was allowed to rub her head as the puppies waddled around her feet. Soon, Sugar’s rear end was gyrating with pleasure.

Ginny looked at the small dog. “May I?” She scooped up the nearest puppy and held the squirming body against her heart. The puppy calmed and licked Ginny’s neck and chin. “How in the world do you let anyone drive away with one of them?”

“Recognizing that I can’t afford the vet bills if I keep them all,” Marian said.

Agnes stood in the doorway. “Let her come in the house.”

Ginny nestled the puppy against her chest as she rubbed the others with her free hand.

“You can bring her in if you want to.” Marian went through the gate.

Ginny followed with the puppy.

“What did I warn you about?” Tracey asked.

“I went to Pet Smart yesterday. You know I’ve been hinting for a dog every time a major holiday rolls around,” Ginny said.

“I’ll give her to you, and shame on you.” Marian hugged Tracey. “Be glad she has good taste in choosing her bitches.”

Tracey stopped and stared at Marian.

“What?” Marian asked. “She’s a cutie. I like her already.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it doesn’t bother you that Ginny’s black?” Tracey asked.

“No more so than it bothers me to be white. We are what and who we are. I’m just glad you’re with someone. I was afraid you were into celibacy—that’s bad enough at my age, much less yours.”

“Aunt Marian!”

“Come on.” Marian pulled Tracey toward the house.

Tracey had recovered her manners by the time she entered the kitchen. “I take it you’ve met my great-aunt Agnes.”

Agnes hugged Tracey tightly, smothering her against her chest as Ginny did the puppy. “I think of this girl as my own. I never conceived, but it wasn’t from the lack of trying.” She waved her unlit cigarette for emphasis.

Tracey freed herself. “You two are in rare form today.”

“Well, we’re in the presence of a celebrity. We have to bring our A game,” Marian said.

“We only watch the ABC channel to see your coverage of the local news.” Agnes pointed to the small television on the counter.

They took seats at the kitchen table. Agnes set tall glasses of iced tea in front of them. “It’s the hard version.”

Tracey knew to sip.

Ginny hadn’t heard the warning and choked on the rum-laced tea. “Yowzer. No wonder everyone around here loves tea.” She let the puppy down on the floor to stretch.

Agnes chuckled. “We don’t drink it like that all day, contrary to what some people may think.”

“Just for special occasions,” Marian said. “Otherwise, I’d never make it out of the house to do anything.”

“Like me.” Agnes glared at her sister.

“Girls.” Tracey forestalled a long-running argument.

“Thank you for having us here today. I’ve been after Tracey to meet you two,” Ginny said.

“You must be special to her because you’re the first she’s brought home, so to speak,” Marian said.

“We love you on the evening news. Even before we heard that you two are involved,” Agnes said. “Doesn’t that have a nice sound to it?”

Rory, Tracey thought. Just as well.

“As opposed to shacking up?” Ginny asked.

Agnes and Marian hooted, more so when they saw the look on Tracey’s face. They laughed so hard, they leaned closer and hugged each other to stay upright in their chairs.

Marian wiped her eyes and nose. She patted Tracey on the shoulder. “It’s all right. We didn’t think you two were making potholders.”

This set Agnes off again. Her laughter turned into a fit of coughing. “I may puncture a lung, but it’s worth it.”

“How long have you two known that I liked women?” Tracey asked.

“Ooh, it’s a big secret.” Marian placed her index finger across her lips.

Agnes smacked her sister’s arm. “We suspected there was more to all that golf than hitting a tiny ball with a long stick, as in all those short skirts.”

“You two are terrible,” Ginny said. It was clear that she meant the opposite.

“Honey, we were just waiting for you to bring it up.” Agnes topped off Tracey’s glass. “I think you need to drink more.”

“That’s what I always tell her.” Ginny nudged Tracey affectionately. “Loosen up, girlfriend.”

Marian held her hand up to Ginny for a high five.

“It doesn’t bother you a bit that I’m gay?” Tracey asked.

“Good heavens, it’s not like you invented it,” Marian said. “We’ve bowled with a lot of the girls over the years.”

“We just didn’t take them up on the camping offers,” Agnes said.

“I did enjoy their bonfire parties. I could always count on lesbians to have good beer.” Marian scooped up the puppy. “She’s going back with her mama for a little while—time for her to feed.” She was out the back door before Tracey could ask all the questions that came to mind.

Agnes waited until Marian left the room. “We decided a long time ago to have fun in our lives and not judge others. You’d best enjoy yourself while you’re able.”

“I hear you still do,” Ginny said.

Agnes looked at Ginny and smiled. “Oh, I have my moments. Let me show you around the house, at least this floor. I don’t go upstairs anymore. Bring your glasses.”

Tracey took a long gulp that almost came back up and refilled hers before leaving the kitchen.

“Marian’s bedroom.” Agnes pointed to her right. “Bathroom.”

“Let me show her my favorite.” Tracey didn’t wait for Agnes to agree. She pushed her knee against a slightly discolored spot on the wainscoting and stood clear of the panel that sprang open.

“Cool,” Ginny said. “What a neat pantry.”

“That’s not the half of it.” Tracey tugged at the fully loaded shelves and swung the unit out against the wainscoting panel.

Ginny squatted to look at the storage area beneath the steps. She looked at Tracey and raised her eyebrows.

This time, Agnes was quicker. “We were told it was a safe room during the war, for the wives to hide in.”

Tracey interrupted. “Oh, yeah. Let me hide here while the house is burned down around me. Must’ve been a man’s idea.”

Agnes huffed. “Don’t be such a drama queen. Danville was isolated during the war. I think Grandpa was pulling our legs about a cupboard that made use of what is normally wasted space.” She pushed the shelves and panel back into place.

They walked alongside the open stairs. “My bedroom is on the front corner of the house so I’m able to see the driveway.”

Tracey looked up the stairs. She loved the upper rooms that were the original bedrooms in the house. Her favorite was the small sewing room with the rack of farm keys and old trunks stored since at least the twenties.

“If we’re not in the kitchen, we’re in here.” Agnes led them into the large living room with fireplace, television, sofa, and recliners. “Tracey sleeps here when she loses at cards, which is every time she plays us.”

“That’s only because you ply me with alcohol,” Tracey said. “I also suspect that the cards are marked.”

Agnes chuckled. She pointed to the oil painting over the sofa. “We think this was done after the war, likely in trade for food or lodging from someone passing through. See, it was done before the porch wrapped around both sides.”

Ginny leaned forward. “And before there was a clothesline? The quilts depicted on the railing are beautiful.”

“Would you believe Marian’s getting the last use out of those quilts with the dogs?” Tracey asked.

Agnes led them through the French doors leading to the side porch. They walked around the front of the house to the far side. “Clotheslines have been there as long as I remember. We think Susanna Martin aired her quilts on the porch so they’d be seen from the road. She must’ve been vain about her handwork.”

“I doubt that,” Tracey said quickly. “She was a Quaker, born here but educated in Ohio after her mother died. She came back to Virginia and married a Methodist. John and Susanna lived here in the eighteen hundreds.”

“Newlyweds during the Civil War.” Marian was out of breath as she joined them. “The Martins paid day laborers before and after the war. The jobs on all the Martin farms were vital to the soldiers who came back and the freed slaves who stayed in the area.”

“It was bad enough in Virginia during the war years if you embraced all that went on. Imagine living here and opposing slavery and war,” Tracey said. “I don’t think their neighbors ever really understood that Susanna had to remain true to her faith, even though she didn’t migrate west with the rest of her family.”

“Was John in the Civil War?” Ginny asked.

Tracey shook her head. “He was given a deferment by the state to raise crops and horses, supplying troops and neighbors. He also ran a sawmill and wagon works.”

“His brothers’ businesses,” Marian said.

“It was his ability with horses that involved him with moving the treasury when Jefferson Davis abandoned the capital of the Confederacy in Richmond,” Agnes said.

“It’s thought that gold and silver was disbursed along the route. But who knows? There was such looting at the end of the war. John and Susanna were lucky to survive their beginning here much less riding out a war.” Marian motioned for Ginny and Tracey to follow her. They went down the steps at the end of the porch and walked out toward the lane.

Marian pointed toward the first log outbuilding that sat on raised stone pilings. “The corn house where they stored grain grown here for the horses.” She motioned to the next log building. “The shop that was the first building on the farm. John and Susanna lived there about half of their first year together while establishing the farm. They built outbuildings first and then the house—that was the reason for the oldest of the brothers setting up a sawmill. The eighteen fifties were a busy time on this farm. There were three tracts—one for each of the three brothers, oldest son shared the original homeplace with his father after the subdividing. The lumberyard was to the east, wagon works to the west. The wagon works was abandoned when automobiles took over. You can still see the stone foundation of what must have been a huge shed. The sawmill closed during World War II when building materials were so scarce. The hardwoods had been depleted by then.”

“What about those craters?” Ginny pointed to a deep hole the size of a dump truck beside the barn and one beyond the dog pen.

“Where fools have hunted for buried treasure.” Marian shook her head. “Even our brother Lester was convinced there was something hidden here.”

“Do you have photographs of the family?” Ginny asked.

Marian smiled. “Of course. I haven’t given all the family papers to Tracey yet.” She emphasized the last word. She hugged Tracey and lowered her voice. “Don’t you worry. We’ll do as the original Martins and divide the land between you and Paula. She wants acreage to try her hand at development. You’ll have the buildings to preserve. We know you girls.”

Tracey’s eyes filled with tears.

Marian pulled herself up the steps to the porch using the handrail. “Let me get those photographs out so you can put names with faces.”

Tracey never missed an opportunity to hear an oral history of the family. She kept meaning to bring a digital recorder to capture Marian’s stories.

Agnes had set the kitchen table for dinner. She also had her copy of the book about Danville as a treasure site. She tapped the cover. “This is out of print. The bookstore on Main has the nerve to charge over a hundred dollars when they have a copy. I thought you might like to borrow mine.” She handed the book to Ginny. “Of course, I’d have written it a little differently, but I’ll tell you about that after you read a scholar’s version.”

Ginny looked as though she’d rather devour the book than the food.

Marian chuckled. “There’s plenty of time for stories. You’re welcome back here any time.”

“With or without your girlfriend. You might have more fun on your own next time.” Agnes winked.

Tracey thought her great-aunt’s words held a worrisome ring of truth.

1890

Susanna watched the highway, pacing through the house and glancing out of each front window in passing. So much for settling in with the sewing she needed to be working on.

“No fool like an old fool,” she said. She wrung her apron to keep her hands occupied without realizing what she was doing. “Me included.”

John had been summoned after midnight to bring a team of draft horses into town to run the pumper back and forth to the river. A fire had broken out in several of the warehouse buildings abandoned after their conversion for war use as prisons. She knew that as much as John prized his horses, he’d not let the team out of sight in the smoke she saw rising in the early morning light.

“Fifty is too old to be keeping up with the young men on the volunteer fire brigade. It was different during the war when he was one of the few around able to do it.” She tried not to think about John rousing their sons and taking them with him to help the previous night. It didn’t matter that her boys were eighteen and sixteen, they were still her boys. She’d witnessed too many blazes in her lifetime and knew how quickly flames took over dried wood. She’d not been able to eat breakfast nor enjoy her usual pot of English tea that was one of her few indulgences.

Susanna checked the biscuits in the warmer on the top of the woodstove. She saw movement at the barn. Had John returned without her knowing? Was he back with the boys without stopping at the house to eat before launching into chores they were already behind on? “Impossible.”

Susanna reached for her walking stick as she left the kitchen. She studied two men with pick and shovel, busily working at the side of the barn farthest from the house, a large pile of silty clay evidence of a night’s digging.

“Pray tell what you two have done to the corner of my field?” Susanna stopped fifteen feet short of the men. Instinctively, she knew they would look dirty even when they hadn’t spent the night on the business end of a shovel.

The men stared at her. They were dressed alike in chambray shirts and denim trousers.

“We’re just passing through.” The tallest of the men spoke first, without removing his hat or introducing himself.

“We heard this place was abandoned and treasure buried hereabouts.” The short, round man held the pick poised to swing.

Susanna gripped her staff tighter. “Does this farm look abandoned?” She glanced around. “Did you cut the fence when you came in from the tracks? We have stock in that pasture.”

“Why aren’t you at the fire with the rest of the townsfolk?” The tall man spoke again.

“If you know about the fire, why aren’t you there helping?” The answer occurred to Susanna as soon as she asked the question. She took several steps backward.

The men dropped their tools as they looked past her.

Susanna heard her name being called from the house. John and her sons walked along the lane, leading an exhausted team of horses that needed brushing down and feed buckets.

The men bolted toward the back property line. William and Robert gave chase. Susanna noticed as they passed that both boys were covered in soot and ash.

“Are you unharmed?” John came to Susanna’s side and watched the boys give up chase as soon as the men were off of Martin property. The men disappeared into the underbrush lining the railroad property.

Susanna nodded. “You arrived just in time.” She leaned against her husband. “More importantly, are you unharmed?”

“Except for being tired and filthy. You’ll soil your dress,” John said. He made no move away from her.

“I don’t care. Thanks to the Almighty that you and the boys are safe. How much damage was done downtown?”

John shook his head. “The old train station and two of the warehouses used as prisons are gone, several more buildings severely damaged. The owners may be as well off taking them down as repairing. There’s a watch on to see if the walls collapse. I pray no one will be caught watching the ashes from the wrong place.” He coughed and turned away from her to spit. “Excuse me. I’ll be doing that all day.”

“Pity,” Susanna said. “Why are people so foolish as to labor over something they have no real proof of?” She stared after the pair of men as they clamored over the railroad tracks to slide down the opposite embankment. “Do they not give any thought to the size of the pit required for thirty-nine kegs of silver dollars—the time to dig it and move the barrels was a luxury those Navy lads would not have had. Those men could use the same effort to work jobs as day laborers that would pay them a wage.”

“They left behind new tools.” John gathered the pick and shovel. “The boys need breakfast.”

“Food’s in the warmer of the stove. I waited to eat with you,” Susanna said.

They turned and started toward the house, listening to the boys whooping and hollering as they raced up the hill from the fence.

“Leave those clothes on the back porch and wash while I plate your breakfast. I’ll not have that smell all through the house.” Susanna tapped William with her stick as he passed. Robert was too quick for her.

She waited until the boys were out of hearing. “I think those men started the fire to distract everyone from here. What have we done, encouraging reminiscences about the treasury train with our neighbors?”

John unbuttoned his shirt as they passed through the opening in the hedge encircling the house. “The same as always—what we had to.” He sounded as tired as he looked.

Susanna followed the flagstones to the back door. “I pray the farm’s secret does not arise and destroy our sons someday. The memories of those dark days during the war are still too much a part of everyone’s lives.” She needed to distract herself with her usual routine of chores.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tracey fidgeted with the straw in her iced tea and wished the glass contained Agnes’s special blend. She should’ve ordered a Coke, but tea and summer just seemed to go hand in hand; there was a disloyalty associated with not drinking sweet tea when out in public. During the height of summer at Dewey’s Downtown Diner, tea was set on the table rather than the customary glass of ice water. If she added another packet of sugar to the brew, she was afraid the straw would stand upright on its own.

“Sorry. I made the mistake of answering the telephone when I should have been leaving the house.” Betty slid into the booth on the opposite side of the table separating bench seats.

“I knew you didn’t oversleep.” Tracey smiled. Her aunt was many things, all good, and none of them involved being a slacker.

Betty Farris was fifty—only three years younger than her sister—yet more akin to Paula’s generation than Harriet’s; at least that’s the way Tracey had always thought of her aunt. Betty appeared calm and able to handle any situation; Harriet reacted first and thought about it later. Betty had always reminded Tracey of the actress Lee Remick—cool, thoughtful, intelligent, and someone who listened when spoken to in confidence. Her demeanor served her well in the classroom, calming children not yet used to being away from home all day.

Tracey wondered just how much of Sunday’s visit with Agnes and Marian had been passed along to Betty. Tracey had never had “the talk” with her aunt, any more so than the rest of her family until recently. Her private life was simply private; it wouldn’t have mattered whether with male or female. She was prepared to defend her relationship with Ginny. Betty had called Tracey midmorning and asked to meet for lunch in the middle of the week for a reason.

“It takes me a while to get used to summer break. I still wake up at the same time as when leaving for school. I just take a cup of coffee and the newspaper back to bed with me—an unheard of luxury. I feel so decadent.” Betty smiled.

Tracey greatly admired the way Betty had handled her divorce. Betty had finally had enough of her husband’s philandering and denials. She initiated a divorce, trying to explain the situation to college-age sons without speaking badly of the father they loved. She then watched her sons turn against her when she wouldn’t give their father another chance. Little did they know that second and third chances had been violated years earlier. Tracey had watched her aunt immerse herself in work and volunteering with the local library and hospital—church had gone the way of her husband. Betty never gave in to self-pitying, forging ahead on her own.

Tracey tapped her spoon against the tabletop until Betty reached across and stilled her hand.

“How much sugar have you added to tea that’s already heavy on the sweet side?” Betty asked.

“Sorry.” Tracey blew air between her lips. “Look. I’m just going to say it. I’m dating Ginny Daniels, the television reporter.” She waited.

Betty patted Tracey’s hand. “That’s great, honey. I hope it works better than the traditional route did for me.” She studied the menu. “I don’t know why I look. I always order the same thing when I come here.” She nodded when the waitress asked if she wanted a Greek salad.

Tracey asked for the same to compensate for all the calories already in her system from the tea.

“I wanted to talk to you about something that happened at the hospital over the weekend.” Betty removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She had the same brilliant blue Martin eyes that Tracey had inherited. Her hair was cut just below her ears and used to be as light as Tracey’s. Harriet’s and Betty’s hair had turned almost a light brown after their children were born.

“Not about me taking Ginny to meet Agnes and Marian?” The question popped out of Tracey’s mouth.

“I have to paraphrase a comment I heard credited to Dolly Parton—gays should have the right to be as miserable as married straight people are.” Betty raised her glass in a toast. “And I can vouch for the miserable part.”

Tracey tapped her glass against Betty’s.

“I wanted to talk to you about Mitch Wilkins,” Betty said.

Tracey struggled not to grin. She slapped her free hand against the table.

Betty gave Tracey her strict schoolteacher look. “That’s what I thought.”

Tracey held up her hands in surrender. “I haven’t been talking smack. I sing your praises to anyone.”

Betty shook her head. “You’re not right.”

“So? Tell me more.” Tracey waited.

“I was volunteering at the front desk of the hospital Sunday when Mitch came in to visit a friend. He lingered, chatting, and asked for my phone number so we could continue the conversation sometime.” Betty actually blushed.

“Great!”

Betty finally smiled. “I think so, too.” She leaned forward. “I feel so foolish. I had a crush on Mitch when we were kids in school. He was part of Harriet’s crowd and too old for me then. Now he seems just right.” She chuckled. “He told me he didn’t pay any attention to me when we were kids because he thought I’d talk his ear off like Harriet did.”

Tracey made a face. “What can I say? She’s my mom and I love her dearly. She’s never met a stranger.”

Betty nodded. “I always envied her ability to talk to anyone without knowing a thing about them. She never pulls punches with anyone. She was right about me marrying too young while I was a college student, so she didn’t cut me any slack about going through a divorce twenty-five years later.”

“That’s awful.”

“But that’s our Harriet.” Betty frowned. “What are you doing taking a girlfriend to meet the aunts, anyway?”

Tracey sighed. “Think about it—a reporter who hears about the Martin treasure. I didn’t stand a chance. They were very sweet to us.”

“The only prejudice they have is against people who don’t bother to know their family’s history,” Betty said. “Please tell me you’re not getting caught up in their foolishness.”

Tracey shrugged. “I hadn’t taken any of it seriously until recently. I’ve read about John Martin in the Lukens collection just given to the museum. I also talked to Fred about Lester. I had no idea about some of it.” It was her turn to lean forward. “KGC.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Leprechauns. Bigfoot.” Betty’s tone mimicked Tracey’s in seriousness.

Tracey leaned back in the bench seat.

“I shouldn’t tell you this. I know Mitch hasn’t.” Betty looked around the restaurant. There were just enough people seated to maintain a noise level that insured privacy. “Agnes made such a fool of your mother when Harriet was in high school. The others went along with it. It was all part of their growing up. Harriet’s never forgiven them for getting her head full of Civil War stories that she repeated to her entire class. She paid the price for her moment of glory. Rather, Rory did.” Betty stopped. “This just isn’t my story to tell.”

“You know Mom never will.”

Betty shook her head. “She will, when the timing is right. I think that’s when we both made the conscious decision that when we had children, we wouldn’t raise them on old stories of gold hidden by soldiers.”

“But,” Tracey said.

“Maybe I should ask Agnes to call my boys and fill them in.” Betty finished her salad and looked at her watch. “Will you be in trouble with Mitch for taking a long lunch?”

“Not at all. I’ll tell him who with.” Tracey reached for the ticket. “Is this the old station building that the nefarious train came in to? I need to pull the old Sanborn maps and familiarize myself with the downtown buildings at the time of the war.”

“Shame on you. I’ll tell Mitch you asked me that.” Betty looked around at the high-ceilinged room with exposed rafters, miniature streetlights, and terrazzo floor. “This was the Southern freight house built in 1912, very modern for its time. Dewey renovated it to look like one of the passenger stations. The one for the Richmond and Danville Railroad burned in the late eighteen hundreds. Some thought the fire was arson to clear the area of abandoned tobacco warehouses that had set empty since the war. There was such a stigma associated with the buildings used for prisons and hospitals. Three members of the volunteer fire brigade were lost.”

“That’s what the statue at the Green Hill Cemetery is for.” Tracey smacked herself in the forehead.

“John and Susanna Martin were substantial contributors for the statue and donations to the families of the men lost. I remember Marian showing me a newspaper clipping she had found in with the old books.” Betty finished her tea and refused a refill. “What was your college major?” She teased her niece.

“Golf.”

Betty laughed. “I heard you and Paula had a run-in on the course.”

Tracey’s face tightened. “It turned ugly very quickly.”

Betty stared across the room before speaking. “Martin treasure? I think it’s more aptly the Martin millstone.” She motioned to the waitress to come over. “It’s too early to drink. Let’s do dessert.”

“You’re my kind of woman.” Tracey grinned.

“Just find one like me your own age.” Betty winked. “I want to meet Ginny, by the way. I’m very happy for you, sweetie.”

Tracey nodded. She made a mental note to encourage Mitch to make that follow-up phone call. She ordered a Coke to go with her cheesecake and felt that all was right with the world.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Tracey awoke confused about her surroundings. She blinked at the canvas overhead and sensed the small compact space that was about the same size as the air mattress she was prone on. She smiled.

“You’re looking proud of yourself.” Ginny lay on her side, facing Tracey.

Tracey sighed contentedly. “I am, now that you mention it.” She rolled over and faced Ginny.

Tracey didn’t know why she’d suggested camping. She had enough equipment to go when any of her friends cajoled her into taking time off. She usually simply preferred day-hiking in the mountains, then either driving home or staying at a lodge, either place supplying too many creature comforts to turn down. But she’d felt Ginny slipping away. The land and Agnes and Marian had once again stepped into her life as a safe harbor. So she had asked Ginny to camp out at the farm with her. They were on the same site she and Paula had pitched a tent on as children. “I wonder if Aurora and Ashley will ever be allowed to wrestle the pup tent out of the attic and camp here by themselves.” She doubted it.

“Don’t go there, sweetie.” Ginny brushed the hair from Tracey’s face. “Stay focused on us and enjoying this time together.”

Tracey nodded. She flipped over and slid her body back to spoon against Ginny’s.

A passing train sent vibrations through the ground and blocked all other sound for several minutes. Tracey loved the sound of trains—the clatter on the rails and the soothing echo of the whistle.

The site was just off of the twisting path used by livestock that led from the pasture behind the barn down to the creek. The path passed through a stand of pines left to give the animals shade. The creek was on Martin land with a fence on the far side delineating the railroad right-of-way. If Tracey stood at the corner of the small clearing, she could see the property corner.

In retrospect, Tracey recognized the site as a deer wallow—a small clearing amid the pine trees where the tall grass was occasionally flattened by deer ridding themselves of mites. Of course, Marian had told her and Paula that it was where the wood fairies danced and to sleep there might turn them into the same. It was near enough to the fence running perpendicular to the creek to see the tobacco barns and fields beside the creek that were gravity irrigated.

Tracey had found an old reel mower in the tobacco barn and knocked down the tall grass in a seven-foot square. She’d gathered rocks and built a two-foot ring, digging out the center. She’d also sprayed a repellent on the campsite and the nearest large bush where she set a shovel with a roll of toilet paper on the handle. Then she’d propositioned Ginny. Tracey still couldn’t believe that Ginny had never camped before. Ginny couldn’t believe that Tracey had done all the prep work before inviting her just in case her offer was accepted.

Agnes and Marian were thrilled to have them for dinner guests with the understanding that they’d tarry long enough to eat, then hike to the back of the farm and not be lured into playing cards all night. They agreed to save that for the next time.

The night had been just what Tracey and Ginny needed. They’d built a fire and talked until after midnight, reconnecting on why they were together and what their expectations were. They continued to agree that they cared about each other but wanted to skirt any commitment for the time being. Tracey was clear about her ties to Danville; Ginny reiterated her desire to climb the network ladder to a better job. Once they were done with talk, they rediscovered each other’s bodies and pleasure points and made love until the wee hours of the morning.

“Do we have to go back?” Ginny asked.

“Yes.” Tracey pumped her arm in the air. “That’s how you know a camping trip was a success—you don’t want to leave.” She turned over and faced Ginny again.

“Well, it’s not so much the camping part.” Ginny looked at Tracey innocently.

“We forget to focus just on each other.”

Ginny nodded.

Tracey ran her hand along Ginny’s body. She hesitated, angling her head to listen. “Truck’s coming.”

Ginny reached for her clothes. “I’m not streaking.”

“Damn.” Tracey snapped her fingers in disappointment.

They stepped outside and dressed quickly, then wove their way among the thick stand of pines to the fence separating woods from open field. Tracey used her oak walking stick to gently part and hold tree limbs for Ginny.

Tracey spied Fred’s battered Blazer. Two pickups were parked beside the Chevrolet.

“Looks like a convoy,” Ginny said.

“What the hell?” Tracey guided them parallel with the fence, then pulled Ginny farther back into the trees so they could watch the men. “I’ve seen at least one of those guys here with Fred before, tending the horses.”

The men’s voices traveled across the clearing where the lane ended at the tobacco barns. Fred was the leader.

Tracey was amazed. “Blue shirt and green shirt are waiting for Fred to tell them what to do.”

Fred took a small handheld device larger than a cell phone from the passenger seat of the Blazer and held it out as he pushed buttons. He rotated slowly and let the device guide him to a spot near the corner of the barn closest to the tracks.

“GPS?” Ginny asked.

“I didn’t think Fred had it in him,” Tracey said.

Blue shirt reached into the back of the pickup for a cardboard box. He broke the seal and shook the Styrofoam peanuts off of what appeared to be a twelve-inch diameter rock and handed it to green shirt.

“What are they up to?” Ginny asked.

Tracey moved slightly to see better. “We’re going to find out.”

Green shirt held up an oval object for the others to see. “I found this in the antique store, another of the fakes that was made for commemorative issue. The dealer was none too pleased to find out he overpaid for it.”

Fred glanced at the object. “How do you tell?”

“When the CSA manufactured the original belt buckles, there was no lead to fill in the back. If you turn one over and see the CSA in reverse, chances are good it’s the real deal. This one is lead filled, likely made in the late eighteen hundreds. All the lead that the Confederates had was being used for ammunition, not belt buckles. Since it’s filled, it’s also just right for a travel bug.” He pressed a small medallion against the back of the buckle and placed the buckle in the rock that slid open into two pieces.

“Don’t forget the notebook. They all want to sign their names.” Blue shirt held up the small logbook from the bottom of the cardboard box and tossed it to green shirt.

Fred rubbed his shoe against the ground, marking the spot. “Thirteen miles due east from the holly just outside the cemetery.” He waited for blue shirt to fetch a shovel. “Come on. I don’t want to set it on the ground. It has to look as though it’s been here a while.”

“Won’t someone think the treasure is here as an offset cache?” Blue shirt started digging.

Fred huffed. “We used the clues Lester planted in the tree just beyond the cemetery. He aligned it with the first holly, the gazebo, and the grave. He carved thirteen, a sun, and a bird knowing that it’d come in handy later. Now that the rest of it’s been on the History Channel, we’re going to make use of Lester’s plant—thirteen miles, due east, as the crow flies brings you right here.”

“What’s our clue?” Green shirt held a clipboard ready to write.

“Rot thirteen. Send them on to South Boston, to the graves from the crash. The collapse of the boxcar floor always made more sense for the coins to be buried there anyway.” Fred glanced toward the fence as he did a visual sweep of the area. “Anybody else hear something just now?”

Tracey placed her hand over Ginny’s mouth when she started to speak. She held Ginny against the tree trunk with her body. Tracey was distracted by how much she was enjoying dominating Ginny and that Ginny allowed it.

“This ought to be just enough to satisfy the ones who’ve done a little research and want a quick thrill,” Fred said. “We misdirect to this area of the farm and dangle evidence that there’s already been a find. First one here has something to put their hands on and continue on to South Boston.” He pointed how he wanted the rock seated in the shallow hole. “Appreciate the help. See you guys later at the club.”

They returned to their vehicles with Fred leading the way out.

Ginny arched her back to nudge Tracey. “Did you set that up as part of the camping trip?”

Tracey shook her head. “No way. I was all for continuing what we fell asleep doing this morning.” She pumped her hips against Ginny.

“That was unreal,” Ginny said.

“I know. I lost track of how many times you came.” Tracey grinned.

Ginny frowned. “What?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Those men. That was unreal. They don’t strike me as your usual geocachers.”

“Geo what?” Tracey stepped away. Work-minded Ginny was back in control.

“They were setting up a geocache.” Ginny returned to the tent and found a reporter’s notebook in the side pocket of her backpack. “I have to jot all this down before I forget. I’m sneaking over to take a few photos with my phone.”

Tracey broke camp as Ginny became absorbed in her notes.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tracey needed something mindless to do to calm her brain activity. If not, her head was going to explode. Leave it to the Martin treasure to spoil what had been a perfect weekend. She just wanted this one to be over with.

“Mom’s been right all along.” Tracey grumbled to herself as she opened the doors to the small shed on the back corner of the lot. She had just enough gas in the plastic storage can to fill the tank of the push mower. She stuck her earplugs in, depressed the primer, and pulled the cord to start the mower’s engine.

In the forty-five minutes it took her to mow the grass around the duplex, she worked up a good sweat and sorted her thoughts. Why did she think she could change things with Ginny? A brief respite, yes; change her ambition, no. She had to admit that was as it should be. She hadn’t caved on her own determination to stay in Danville with the museum.

“Fair’s fair.” Tracey hosed the loose grass off the housing and blade, as well as her shoes. She rolled the mower back into the shed and felt satisfied with completing something useful while stewing instead of just stewing.

“It does my heart good to see such dedication to chores, as long as I don’t have to do them. So many better things to do with a Saturday afternoon.” Adam stood on the small deck off his back door and held up a can. “Nothing like mowing grass to make you appreciate a cold beer.”

Tracey waved. While her deck had a gas grill and table with umbrella and four cushioned chairs, Adam’s was comfortable enough with two plastic Adirondack chairs and a hibachi that a neighbor had left out on garbage collection day.

“A cold beer would be much appreciated.” She wiped her face across the sleeve of her T-shirt.

Adam brushed off the chair for her and popped the top on the can. “Allow me.”

“You’re in a good mood.” Tracey sank into the chair and took a long swallow. “Yum.”

Adam nodded and sat beside her. “I’ve had a full week of work and my son is here tomorrow. All’s right with the world. How about you?”

“The weekend started out great. Ginny and I went camping Friday night,” Tracey said.

“Whoo hoo.” Adam looked about the backyard.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the U-Haul truck. Is it out front?” He put his hands on the arms of the chair as though to rise.

“Smartass.” Tracey held the cold can against her forehead.

“My handbook says that’s the last step before you girls move in with each other.” Adam flipped through an imaginary book.

“My handbook is missing quite a few pages.” Tracey burped. “I’m not excusing myself. We’re outside.”

Adam chuckled. He threw the imaginary book over his shoulder. “What happened?”

“How much do you know about geocaching?”

“I know what it is. It’s a spinoff from the electronic surveying equipment I use. Latitude and longitude establish waypoints. Internet sites direct all but us muggles to cache locations. It’s for people who are really into the whole treasure-hunting experience. It can be done with GPS like most people have in cars now, even with smart phone apps.” Realization dawned on his face. “Oh. I get it. You two were at the farm. Who did you see?”

“I just understood a fraction of the terms you used. This involves Harry Potter?”

Adam grinned and shook his head. “Just one of Harry’s terms. Muggles are nongeocachers like you and me.”

“How do you know so much?”

“I’ve used my survey equipment to set points for the Boy Scouts. It made my son look good to his buddies. He actually bragged about what I do for a living.” Adam finished the beer. “So who did you see?”

“Fred, of all people, along with the two men who board horses on the farm.” Tracey stared at Adam. “I’m starting to think the horses are just pets used as an excuse for Fred and his buddies to have the run of the farm.”

“What exactly did you see?” Adam reached into the cooler between the chairs for another beer. “You ready for another?”

“One’s enough for me.”

Adam gasped and gripped his chest as though having a heart attack.

“Drama queen,” Tracey said.

“Drama, yes, queen, no, thank you just the same.” He settled back in the chair.

“They drove down to the tobacco barns and unpacked what looked like a hollow rock.” Tracey wiped her face again.

“A cache container.”

Tracey nodded. “They had a reproduction CSA belt buckle and talked about something called a travel bug.” She paused for him to interpret for her.

“It’s what they consider a hitchhiker to an item. It’s a tag with a chip in it that can be tracked by the Internet sites. It’s a big deal then to pass the travel bug on and see how many places and people become involved with it.” Adam closed his eyes against the sun.

“And some people think I spend too much time on the golf course.” Tracey huffed.

“We all have our poison of choice.” Adam held up his can.

“Then Fred said something about rot.” Tracey was still mystified by the reference.

Adam chuckled. “Rot thirteen. It’s a simple encryption code. The alphabet is split into two groups of thirteen letters in usual order. Then the letter above equals the one below or below above. Boy Scouts, remember?” He offered the last before Tracey asked how he knew.

Tracey frowned, picturing two lines of letters. “Okay, I get it.”

“I bet they started at Green Hill Cemetery,” Adam said.

“How’d you know that?”

“Where have you been lately? Didn’t you read the headlines when Brad Meltzer had his show’s crew here, interviewing us squirrely locals about Confederate treasure? They were all over the cemetery with the guy from Arkansas who claims to be a KGC descendant.”

“Get out of here.” Tracey shook her head. “Am I the only one not in the loop on all this? Fred said they were thirteen miles due east from the cemetery.”

“He meant the last of the symbols found on the holly tree beyond the gazebo. That was all the buzz at Dewey’s for weeks—they didn’t go outside the cemetery for the last clues. They made such a big deal about the misspelling of Saylor’s Creek—it’s spelled both ways on the signs along Route 307 where the battlefield is when you cut between Route 460 and 360.”

“Gibberish. This is all gibberish,” Tracey said.

“The show is good but a stretch of the imagination, to say the least—history with a fiction writer’s spin. It would make you crazy. It explained symbols carved in trees and what went on here and throughout the South when the train left Richmond with all the gold and silver. They mentioned your aunts, but for once, the old girls must have been tight-lipped. A lot of people were pissed that there was so little local involvement. The Arkansas guy and his sidekick had everyone convinced that the cemetery was the cache location. They used a token interview from Mitch’s rival across town that made us sound like the second wave in waiting.”

“Fred’s coded message was to go to South Boston,” Tracey said.

Adam nodded. “One of the boxcars derailed and five soldiers were killed, only two known. The mass grave for the other three has stories to go with it.”

“Treasure buried there instead of men?”

“You bet.” Adam scratched his beard. “But knowing Fred, he’s setting that geocache like the obvious errors I used to leave on drawings for engineers to find to make themselves feel justified in checking a plot. The errors easy to spot kept them from looking at the drawing too closely.”

“Aren’t we pitiful in the crap we let ourselves believe?” Tracey stood. “Enough. My head is feeling like it’s going to explode again.”

“You know Fred and his buddies have watched the farm ever since your great-uncle brought them into it?”

“I know that Lester and Fred were good friends.”

Adam crushed his beer can and threw it toward the trash can, missing. “Fred ran me off one of my first survey jobs on the tract adjacent to the farm when I was trying to find the corner of the property identified by a tree that’s no longer there.”

“Creative metes and bounds?” Tracey asked.

“Don’t I know it on some of the old properties that have never conveyed—references to rocks or trees, even creeks that change alignment with time.” Adam picked up Tracey’s empty can and made the basket. “Those old guys think they’re protecting something.”

“Either that or their wives kick them out every morning so they won’t be underfoot in the house all day.”

“That too. I call them the rogue Ruritans,” Adam said. “They’re like a sleeper cell.”

“Oh, please. Don’t start that conspiracy mess. I’m looking forward to quality time with the weed eater on that one.” She stepped off the deck.

“I’m just saying…”

“See you. Thanks for the beer.” Tracey waved without looking back. She gave no thought to what Ginny might be doing.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Many more days like this, and I’m going to need a bigger house.” Tracey stood in the living room after repeatedly pacing between the kitchen and living areas like a cat kept indoors when in heat. She didn’t include the bedrooms in her circuit. Hers was too cluttered with laundry; the guest room was too cluttered with books.

Another weekend. Another two days with time on her hands to wonder why work was the only thing in her life that truly satisfied her. Another Saturday when it was raining and she couldn’t play golf. She didn’t know what to do with free time and felt too restless to settle in with a book.

She glanced out the window. It was a good thing she’d mowed grass when she came in Friday. It was the time of year when mowing had to be repeated in less than a week’s time or yards looked like hayfields awaiting a baler. The forecast was for rain off and on all weekend. Adam’s truck was gone. He’d already succumbed to cabin fever and headed out to sit in a bar all afternoon.

Tracey found her phone on the coffee table under the previous day’s junk mail. She waited as the number she dialed rang.

“Hello?” Marian was out of breath.

“Sorry if I caught you at a bad time.”

“Not a bad time at all. I was just changing into a fresh dress and had to hurry to catch the phone.”

“Special occasion?”

“You bet, or rather, I’m going to. The boys at the Ruritan Club are throwing in a casino night with the usual bingo game. They’ve collected some fairly decent prizes from what Fred’s told us. We’re going to give it a whirl.” She covered the phone and answered the questions coming from the background. “It’s Tracey. I don’t know. I’ll ask her.”

“I won’t hold you up since you have plans.”

“Meet us there. Or we’ll swing by and pick you up.” Marian’s offer was genuine. She loved to gamble and had taken advantage of county-sponsored bus trips to Atlantic City and Memphis. She was satisfied as long as she won enough to cover the cost of her trip. She didn’t understand why more people didn’t escape through gambling as long as they set themselves a loss limit.

“I’ll pass, thanks all the same,” Tracey said. As bored as she was, she was not yet at the point of spending the evening with the Ruritans.

“If you change your mind, come on over,” Marian said. “I can tell you’re at loose ends. Have to go or Agnes will leave me.” She disconnected.

“Have fun.” Tracey knew Marian wanted to ask why she wasn’t spending the evening with Ginny.

Tracey sighed. She wasn’t spending time with Ginny this weekend because Ginny was on a story she was convinced would catch the attention of network executives. Beyond that, Ginny wouldn’t tell Tracey what she was so engrossed in editing to perfection.

“Okay. Enough of getting on my own nerves.” Tracey grabbed her slicker from behind the door and dashed to her car.

She loved going downtown on the weekends when there was not the normal business day traffic. Just since she had begun working for the museum, she’d noticed an increase in weekend foot traffic of shoppers. Downtown was slowly coming back to life. Despite the rain, people were out on the sidewalks with umbrellas.

Tracey parked at the rear of the museum and readied her key before leaving the car. She knew to watch her step on the bluestone sidewalks surrounding the building, notoriously slippery in rain and impassable in ice. She entered the hallway and shook like a dog, leaving her jacket in a heap on the floor beside the exterior door.

She went to the workroom she had commandeered for the Lukens papers and glanced about. No one had bothered the collection. She settled on the stool before the tall table that had been in the original court clerk’s office and felt her restlessness slip away.

Tracey raised her head from the table and listened. Her imagination had a tendency to play tricks on her when she worked alone on the bottom floor of the museum. It was still hard for her to believe the old accounts she’d read of how the original building had been used to jail runaway slaves—it had to possess the karma of a Native American burial ground. She tried not to think of the misery of the men and women who’d missed their connection with the Underground Railroad. Alese swore that slaves had perished in captivity, chained in the downstairs rooms of the original building. No amount of remodeling could completely eradicate that history.

Tracey read the page of the journal again, jotting notes on the legal pad she’d left on the table the last time. She was keeping a running list of what she called bunny trails—places and names mentioned that she’d conduct additional research about later. She was engrossed in the early nineteenth century. Finally, she felt like the cat that’d just had a large bowl of milk.

“Pitiful, that’s what we are.” Mitch spoke from the doorway into the room.

Tracey jumped and almost lost her balance on the stool. She dropped her magnifying glass. “Whistle or something when you move about in the building, will you?”

Mitch chuckled. “I didn’t know you were down here. I parked in the alley and came in the side door. I’ve been upstairs since noon. How about you?” He entered the workroom and picked up the stool at the other table and joined Tracey. He wore his usual spring workday attire of dress shirt, tie, and khakis.

“I managed to stay at home until midafternoon. I didn’t realize you were in your office.” She sat up and stretched her back. “We are pitiful, by the way.” At least, Tracey thought, I was relaxed enough to come in wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. She didn’t consider the shirt work-related just because it was given to her at a recent conference.

Mitch shrugged. “Or it could be that we’re fortunate to love our work.”

Tracey rolled her eyes. “Half empty versus half full.”

Mitch grinned. “If we didn’t do so much of this on our own time, who would?”

Tracey nodded. “I know. It’s the nature of the beast. We preserve the past, but most funding is directed toward all the shiny new fields. Grants are so competitive these days.”

“I’m still trying to use my inside track with the state to find out what your chances are for the genealogy library.” Mitch folded his arms over his chest.

“They just like to torture us.” Tracey consolingly patted his arm. “I don’t envy the judges having to weigh the entries and choose. I’m betting ninety percent of the proposals are great ideas.”

Mitch nodded. “Try sitting through budget meetings with the board.” He shivered. “For all the crazy rumors there are floating around about Danville, be grateful we’re in a prime Civil War area that contributes to our endowment.”

“I know. We need all the publicity we can get. I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Why did you not participate when the History Channel was here filming for their show on lost Confederate treasure?”

“Damn!” Mitch slapped his thigh. “How’d you finally hear about that? I was so careful not to let on about it.”

“I stumbled on it in a roundabout way. Trust me, you don’t want to know. Television is sports, weather, and BBC as far as I’m concerned. What gives?”

Mitch let his feet slide from the ring near the bottom of the stool to the floor. He leaned slightly forward. “I’m like an old mongrel dog. I learned many years ago not to poop where I sleep.”

Tracey felt her head tilting sideways even before she voiced her next question.

Mitch held up his hand. “It all goes back to my childhood. I’ve too much respect for your family to stir that pot, and I won’t encourage the crazy-ass people who look for an excuse to desecrate cemeteries and private property. I told the producer that I was more than willing to discuss the closing days of the Civil War as long as they wanted me to, but I wouldn’t discuss the treasury funds supposedly abandoned in this area. So they went elsewhere and baited an answer about a lost cause and the South rising again. No, thank you. I saw that one coming.”

“I’ve got to find this episode on the Internet,” Tracey said.

“Don’t waste time better spent elsewhere. The reviews have not been kind.” He ticked off reasons for not watching on his fingers. “It’s been called a formula show with a heavy-handed writer. Time better spent researching directly on the Internet. A waste of forty-four minutes. But, hey, everybody’s a critic.” Mitch reached for the journal Tracey was reading.

“Oh, no, not without gloves you don’t.”

“My hands are clean.” Mitch teased her.

“You do look rather respectable. Do you have a date or something?” Tracey grinned with her suspicion.

Mitch’s cheeks turned pink above his beard.

“Dog!” Tracey said. “With Betty?”

Mitch nodded.

Tracey slapped his shoulder. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I’d just about given up on meeting anyone I could maintain interest in. I’ve had more than enough dating disasters. I’m getting too old for all of that mess.” Mitch adjusted his tie.

“Are you kidding me? Early fifties—you’re in your prime.”

“Try telling that to my back and knees.”

Tracey blew air between her lips. “You and Betty are too decent to be alone. Both of you deserve someone special in your lives.”

“Well, don’t have us walking down the aisle before we’ve had our first dinner together.” Mitch actually looked worried.

“You know what I mean. I’m just glad you’re both willing to try again, gives me hope.” Tracey frowned. “You know I’m obligated to say that if you hurt my favorite aunt, it’ll be the quid pro quo thing.”

“I’d expect no less. My intentions are very honorable. I always liked Betty. The timing was never really right, though. Know what I mean?”

Tracey crossed her eyes. “It’s always about the timing. Ginny and I can never seem to be as serious about a relationship as we are about our careers.”

Mitch looked at the table covered with papers. “I’m afraid I know where your heart lies.”

“You and me both.” She sighed and gave him a push. “Go, before I drag you into something, and we lose track of time.” She snapped her fingers. “Stop and buy Betty a bag of really good coffee beans. Maybe you’ll wake up in the morning to grind them with her.”

Mitch covered his ears with his hands. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m telling you ahead of time that I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Just so long as you kiss.” Tracey enjoyed being able to tease her all-too-serious boss. “I’ll just leave it to my imagination.” And call Marian first of the week, Tracey thought with a smile. Her great-aunts always kept up with the latest gossip.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“I’m glad to see that you do occasionally venture out of the basement.” Mitch stood beneath Tracey in the large gallery on the main floor of the museum. She straddled the top of a twelve-foot stepladder.

Tracey looked over her shoulder. “Isn’t this amazing? Alese found a treasure trove of World War II items donated by local black veterans. All branches of the service are represented. I didn’t even know the boxes were in the collections room.”

Mitch looked at the half-dozen cartons, opened to display uniforms, flags, and Allies and Axis personal effects. “I’m ashamed to admit that the boxes were in a corner behind items that had been catalogued when I took over. I assumed all of it had been accounted for in the database when the job was handed over to me. My bad.”

Alese joined them. She wore an apron over her street clothes. “See there. You thought I was taking naps down there. I knew my father and several of his buddies had given away their collections brought back from Italy and Japan. My mother was superstitious enough not to allow possessions pilfered from dead soldiers to stay in the house after they married. She wasn’t the only wife of a veteran to put her foot down. My father never saw anything wrong with having pocketknives and medals taken as spoils of war.” She held up an elaborate compass. “These are going the way of the slide rule.”

Tracey studied the uniform jacket she was hanging—a short Eisenhower jacket favored by many of the men. “Do you have any photographs of your father? This is going to make a great exhibit to mark the sixty-fifth anniversary of the end of the war.”

“I’ve a few packed away. I’ll check with my brother.” Alese sighed. “There were so many of us to divide my parents’ possessions among that it’s all scattered far and wide by now. I’ve forgotten who ended up with what, and much has been handed on to the next generation, I’m afraid.”

Their conversation paused at the sound of approaching high heels—a faux pas for those who cherished the oak floors of the museum.

“I know what you’ve forgotten.” Harriet stopped short of Mitch, who remained standing protectively at the base of the ladder.

Harriet was dressed for work in a smart linen suit and pale lavender blouse. Her hair was cut above her collar, ends flipping under slightly. Little gray showed in her blond gone to brown hair. She was a stickler for being liberal with hairspray so that not a strand moved out of place during the day. Rory teased her that she didn’t have to worry about him smoking in the house for fear of combusting the remnant aerosol.

“Hey, Mom. What’s up?” Tracey glanced over her shoulder but continued to concentrate on her work.

“Where’s your cell phone?” Harriet asked.

Tracey patted her pocket. “I left it on my desk so I wouldn’t chance crushing it against the ladder. Sorry.” She shrugged.

“I’m sorry, too. I needed to talk to you, so I had to take an early lunch.” She stared at Mitch and Alese. “Mrs. Walthall, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Same here, Harriet.” Alese smoothed her apron. “I’m going to check downstairs to make sure you have all the boxes.” She left the gallery.

Mitch stood his ground.

“Mitchell.” Harriet raised her eyebrows.

“I’ll wait until Tracey climbs down to leave you two to talk.” Mitch stared at Tracey as he spoke as though willing her down the ladder so he could flee.

“Ever the gentleman, aren’t you?” Harriet made it sound like an insult.

“Mom!”

Harriet focused on Mitch as Tracey finished mounting the jacket. “Aren’t you just the sly one, waiting all these years to make a move on a Martin girl? I thought we weren’t your type.”

Mitch’s face turned red as he steadied Tracey by placing his hand against her back. “This ladder’s almost as old as the museum. I think one of the original contractors left it behind because it wasn’t worth it to him to move it.”

Harriet shifted her attention to Tracey. “I’m guessing you’re the matchmaker.”

“Mom!” Tracey faced off with her mother. “Are your hormones completely out of whack or what?”

Harriet looked as though she was on the verge of having steam shoot out of her ears. “Why thank you so much for reminding me that I’m middle-aged and menopausal.”

Mitch held up his hands in surrender and walked away. “TMI.”

“How dare you embarrass me in my place of work?” Tracey said. “That was your mantra never to do to you as Paula and I grew up.”

“How dare I?” Harriet stomped her foot. “How dare you become involved in the Martin treasure foolishness? What were you thinking, introducing a television reporter to Agnes and Marian?”

“I was thinking that I wanted my family to meet my girlfriend. Agnes and Marian couldn’t have been any more cordial. Would I receive the same from you?” Tracey ended her rant with her hands on her hips, reflecting her mother’s body language.

Harriet stared. “Girlfriend?” She looked about and spied a long bench against the wall. She sat abruptly. “You took her to them before me?” Harriet’s rage suddenly switched to despair. Tears escaped from the corners of her eyes. “Damn these mood swings. Maybe I am losing my mind.” She motioned Tracey to join her on the bench. “Please, sit. Honey, you’ve always been welcome to bring anyone home you wanted to. I knew you were hiding something from me. I’m not out to judge anyone. I’ve made too many mistakes myself.” She sighed.

“Sometimes, you’re not the easiest person to talk to.” Tracey kept several feet between them.

Harriet looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve always known. I just wanted you to be happy, not miserable like the girls I knew who had to hide the fact that they liked other girls.”

“It’s not like that anymore.”

Harriet nodded. “I watch television. I see all the gay and lesbian couples and dalliances. It’s chic at the moment.”

“It’s just the way I am.” Tracey cocked her head and looked at her mother. “What really has you so upset this morning?”

Harriet took a deep, calming breath. “Do not become involved with this Martin treasure nonsense. You’ll regret it the rest of your life. No good will come from it. Agnes and Marian should have learned their lesson about perpetuating such foolishness long ago.”

Tracey slid closer to her mother. “They really did a number on you in high school from the little Mitch has said.”

Harriet almost smiled. “I’ve always liked Mitch. I had such a crush on him back then. He wouldn’t give me the time of day if he’d worn a watch on each wrist.” She shook her head. “Those old women should be ashamed of themselves.”

“What did they do to you?” Tracey reached out and touched her mother’s shoulder.

Harriet closed her eyes. “I was so impressed to think my family had played a role in the closing days of the Civil War and the move of the capital of the Confederacy to Danville. I checked out books at the library and read local history such as I’d never done before or since. I had the perfect opportunity—my sophomore term paper. I filled my classmates’ heads with trains pulling boxcars of gold and silver that stopped in Danville. I made such a strong case for treasure being hidden on the Martin farm that there was a run on tools at the hardware store. Kids snuck onto the farm from all directions. Lester was furious with Agnes and me. He and Marian tried to round everyone up as soon as they started digging. The football team hijacked a backhoe from a construction site. They dug trenches on a Sunday morning while everyone else was at church. One of the trenches collapsed, burying a senior alive. They managed to dig him out, but his legs were crushed. He lost his football scholarship and was lucky to recover enough to walk.”

Tracey felt her mouth go bone-dry. She stared at her mother. “Daddy?”

Harriet nodded. “I felt so guilty. I spent every minute my mother would allow with him, first at the hospital, then at home. I learned what exercises he needed to do, and I made him do them. I’ve never stopped feeling guilty about ruining his life. I don’t want anything like that happening to you.”

“And you fell in love with him,” Tracey said.

“That I did. He never once blamed anyone but himself for being in that trench. He always said it was his hands that gripped the shovel. His teammates weren’t quite so forgiving. Their example carried over with the rest of the student body. I finished high school as a pariah. My last two years were miserable except for the time I spent with Rory.” Harriet wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “Honey, if you allow the Martin legend to take over your life, you’ll never get it back and you’ll never be the same. Too many generations have been affected by it already. It’s a black cloud that hangs over the family, ready to descend and engulf at the slightest provocation.”

Mitch returned to the gallery carrying two cans of Coke. He handed the cold drinks to Harriet and Tracey. “Peace offering?”

Tracey sipped the drink, knowing she had been lost to the past long ago.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“You’re kidding.” Ginny had listened in silence as Tracey recounted her mother’s revelation.

Tracey took another sip of wine—maybe there was more to drink than Coke after all. “I’m serious as the caddies at the Masters.”

“What an incredibly romantic story.” Ginny glanced about for her shoulder bag, forgetting she’d left the massive tote that carried everything from laptop to lipstick in the car. She left her seat long enough to retrieve the parchment dinner specials flier from the adjoining table. “Do you have a pen?”

Tracey stared. “Now you’re kidding me, right?”

Ginny tapped her finger against the table, watching for their waiter. “Maybe Andre has one. Do you think his name really is Andre, or is that the alias all the male waiters use? Where the heck is Sheri?” She glanced around Oita’s Steakhouse and Seafood, referred to by Tracey as Danville’s fancy restaurant. They were seated at a corner table, discreetly screened from the rest of the dining pit and the booths along the front wall and small tables along the side wall.

Tracey did a mental count to ten. “I didn’t tell you about my parents so you could work it into a human interest story. I told you because I just found out what brought my parents together—my mother almost getting my father killed, all because of this damned family legend. Mom’s right. Agnes should be more careful stirring this pot again.”

“But your parents might never have hooked up if not for the treasure, if not for your father’s accident. That’s the beauty of it.” She waved to their waiter. “Do you have a pen I may borrow?”

He accommodated her. “Your entrees will be out shortly.”

Tracey mumbled under her breath as he walked away. “There goes a portion of your tip, aka Andre.”

“Oh, relax, will you? Of course, I’d check with your parents first, but this might work nicely into a piece I’m putting together,” Ginny said.

Tracey frowned. “Just what is this piece about?”

“Oh, just a little local color.” Ginny spoke absently as she concentrated on jotting on the sheet of paper she took for granted that the restaurant would not mind her using.

“Why did I bother?” Tracey said. This had seemed like such a good idea—a romantic dinner in a really nice restaurant, a rekindling of their relationship. How many strikes was she allowed before the head of the match broke off?

“What do you mean?” Ginny paused writing and looked up.

“Do we really even like each other?” Tracey asked. “Is our relationship just a convenience because we’re each too lazy to look for someone else? Are we too caught up in ourselves to be with anyone? Are we wasting each other’s time?”

“Why don’t you say what’s really on your mind?” Ginny sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Are we going there again?”

“We never really left, did we?”

“Okay, let’s do it. I’m a year out of college. I’m still paying off loans, still trying to find my voice as a reporter. Yes, I have camera time here. No, this isn’t the job I really want. You’re lucky to have had a scholarship, so you’re not carrying a huge debt. But you’re carrying the load of proving yourself in your hometown. You’re twenty-five and you’ve already found the career of your lifetime. I can see you staying here, working for Mitch until he retires, then stepping into his job.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.” Tracey had to admit that the possibility had crossed her mind.

“You’d be content here, without ever trying to live in a major city? And I stress the word live. The things we could do, the museums you could work at, are endless.” Ginny reined in her anger. “You protest the Martin legend, but it and your family hold you here. You’ve already given your life over to it.”

Tracey was stunned. Ginny had already recognized the reality that was just dawning on Tracey.

“If you had to choose being here with me or in a big city with a network chair, which would you take?” Tracey asked.

Ginny leaned forward. “Don’t you get it yet? I want it all. I want you in a big city. What a life we’d make together without this cloud of the South and your family hanging over us.”

Tracey shook her head. “You don’t know me at all if that’s your expectation. Hell, I don’t know me at all.” She drained her glass of wine and Ginny’s. “At least be mindful of the undercurrents of this place. Fred’s serious about not disturbing the sleeping dog of the KGC.” Tracey lowered her voice even more as she said the initials.

Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “Pooh.”

“I can’t believe you used that word in a conversation.” Tracey smiled slightly. “Speaking of sleeping dogs. Did I ever tell you about Uncle Lester’s claim to fame?”

Ginny shook her head.

“Lester taught one of Marian’s Boston terriers to smoke.” Tracey chuckled.

“That’s awful,” Ginny said. “That’s animal cruelty.”

“Consider the times. This was back in the early sixties. Cigarettes were everywhere. Lester loved that dog, called him Alfred. He’d light the cigarette and the dog would take it in his mouth and puff away on it. They did an ad for the Danville tobacco consortium that was seen by a talent scout. They went on Jerry Lewis’s primetime black and white variety show. Jerry gave the dog a smoking jacket that was worn until it was in tatters. Lester made appearances at the state and county fairs. They were all the craze for a while.”

“Crazy is more like it.” Ginny motioned the waiter to refill their glasses.

“That too.” Tracey couldn’t argue. “But that was the point. It was a bizarre thing that everyone loved. Lester mourned the loss of that dog for years. That’s what fame and fortune usually amount to—a quick fire that burns itself out and leaves you missing temporary warmth.”

“Lung cancer?” Ginny asked. “Cause of the dog’s death?”

“Alfred was run over by a dairy truck.”

“I give up.”

“We’re just too different, aren’t we?”

Ginny sighed. “I thought diversity was the beauty of our relationship. What’s wrong with what we first decided—date, sleep together, and have a little fun? Why does there have to be more? We’re too damn young to be serious about a relationship.”

“I thought it felt like more,” Tracey said quietly. “I feel for you as I do for this place, very deeply, not just a knee-jerk reaction.”

“Do you want to call us off?” Ginny asked.

“I’m like Lester. I’d miss the entertainment factor too much.” Tracey attempted to lighten the mood with a grin.

“You guys must be inbred somewhere back in your family tree.” Ginny returned Andre’s pen after he set plates on the table.

“No doubt. All those repressed Quakers.” Tracey stared at the ridiculously huge serving of food.

“It skipped at least one generation.” Ginny peered around the screen behind Tracey. “Look who just came in.”

Tracey glanced over her shoulder. Mitch was seating Betty at a table in the center of the dining pit. Tracey pushed her chair back.

Ginny looked at their food, then followed suit.

“You stay here,” Tracey said.

“Is that an order or a request?” Ginny asked.

“It’s a preference.”

Ginny scooted her chair closer to the table. “Go ahead. I’ll try not to eat both our dinners.”

“Help yourself. My appetite’s gone.” Tracey shook off her hurt feelings as she approached a very happy couple. “Hey.”

Betty looked up from her menu. “Hey, yourself.” She looked in the direction Tracey had come from. Ginny waved.

Mitch pulled out a chair for Tracey. “You guys are welcome to join us.”

Tracey shook her head as she sat and leaned her elbows on the table. She looked at Betty. “Mom told me.”

Mitch looked from one woman to the other. “I repeated nothing. That’s for you two to sort out.” He raised his bifocals to his face from the cord dangling around his neck. “It was all I could do to keep Alese from jumping into it.”

“I can imagine,” Tracey said.

Betty nodded. She reached for Tracey’s hand. “Harriet called me.”

Tracey looked over her shoulder. “Ginny thinks it makes good copy. I’m feeling like one of Faulkner’s characters.”

Mitch chuckled.

“No wonder Mom was so angry,” Tracey said.

“She had to be angry with Agnes to defray her guilt about Rory,” Betty said.

Mitch smiled ruefully. “You should have seen your dad play football—offense and defense. Coaches couldn’t keep him off the field during a game. He was magical. All he talked about was finishing his senior year so he could go on to college. He couldn’t wait to study engineering. Football was the only way he’d ever make it through undergraduate school.”

Tracey wiped her cheeks. “It’s so not cool to cry in public. All of this just makes me so sad. Ginny’s right about one thing—the Martin legend had control of my life before I was born. Every generation has paid for the Civil War’s effects on the family in their own way. I’m to be no different.” She rested her head on her hands. “Sorry to be a party pooper.”

Ginny approached the table, carrying Styrofoam boxes. “Come on, old poop. We’ll go home, get comfortable, and see if our appetites return.” She nodded to Mitch and Betty.

Tracey smiled. “Betty, Mitch, this is Ginny.” She looked at Ginny. “My favorite aunt and my favorite boss.”

Betty rolled her eyes. “Your only aunt.” She held out her hand to welcome Ginny.

Mitch didn’t miss a beat. “I’m the only full-time boss you’ve ever had.” He nodded to Ginny.

“Damn, nobody gives me a break anymore.” Tracey stood and hugged Betty, then Mitch. “We’re not at work, so I can get away with this. Enjoy tonight. You two have waited long enough.” She followed Ginny out of the restaurant. “And so have I. You’re my favorite girlfriend.”

“I better be your only girlfriend.” Ginny bumped shoulders with Tracey. “It’ll all work out. Trust me.”

Tracey involuntarily shivered as the first cool breeze of the summer day blew their way.

1880

Susanna arched her back as she leaned on the handle of the hoe and looked up toward the sky. If there was not a drenching rain soon, they would have no choice but to plow the cornfield under. The stalks protruding from the ground were turning brown and drying out already. She thought about the money she and John had put aside for the winter and wondered whether it best to buy corn from someone in the county who had more rain hence better yield, or try to replant the field and take a chance on early frost.

She continued through the field keeping an eye out for weevils, pondering what they would do for grain for the stock for the coming winter. She was ashamed of the longing she felt for the lush fields of corn usually produced on the land. She’d taken prosperity for granted, and she knew better.

Susanna stopped and stood stock-still, listening. Something was wrong. She sensed it before she saw the source. She gazed across the farm, looking for telltale movement. She saw her boys trudging along the lane.

“That’s peculiar.” Susanna shielded her eyes with her hand. The boys looked as though returning from a heinous chore rather than a gathering at the marble yard.

She taught the boys their lessons at home. Scholarship was a part of their daily routine as were chores, cleanliness, and Bible study. Her education served the boys better than that of the teacher at the nearby private academy attended by local children. It also secluded them from the other children.

Susanna sighed. She knew she was too protective of her boys. If she had any lingering fear of the farm’s wartime activities, it was reprisal directed at her sons.

When William begged for time to go to the marble yard, with Robert echoing his pleas, Susanna had allowed John to talk her into the dalliance. John had reasoned that there could be little harm in their eight- and six-year-old sons taking a shortcut through the woods to the clearing where all the boys gathered to shoot marbles.

Susanna knew playing marbles was one of the few frivolous activities her boys engaged in, but there was still too much of an air of gambling associated with taking possession of the small ceramic and clay orbs that bothered the Temperance phase of her life. She agreed to the activity only if the boys came home with no more marbles in their bags than when they left. The boys had wanted to join their comrades badly enough to agree to her terms.

She continued her sweep of the farm, then returned her gaze to the boys. They were slowly walking toward the house rather than playing tag to see who reached the porch fastest. Something was amiss.

Susanna hurried by the shop and corn house at a half-run and passed the corner of the chicken house close enough to rip her apron on a protruding nail. She arrived at the house at the same time as the boys. She gasped when she caught clear sight of them.

Robert’s hair held a reddish tint from his bright red baby hair. One cheek was scuffed as red as his hair. His shirt tail hung out of his trousers. “It wasn’t our fault, Ma.” He sniffed back tears. “I dropped my drawstring bag.”

William shushed his brother. “I told you I’d share my marbles with you.” His hair was as black as his father’s had been when Susanna first met John. He wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand onto his knickers.

“Don’t do that. You’ll ruin your trousers. Wash off in the basin on the back porch.” Susanna held her apron against his face.

William allowed her to lead him onto the porch. His knuckles were skinned and red.

“I take it you landed a few punches?” Susanna asked her eldest son.

“Yes, ma’am. They caught Robert and were pushing him around, teasing him about all the money we have hidden away.” William’s eyes blazed with anger. “They were all bigger than him and wouldn’t listen.”

“I told them we were poor as everyone else.” Robert hiccupped.

Susanna sighed. She didn’t know most of the other families other than by familiarity with last names. They were of a different generation than she and John. She’d delivered the boys when in the earliest stage of her third decade. At four score, she and John often as not felt more like grandparents than parents.

“You’re right about us being poor.” Susanna washed the boys’ faces and gave William a compress to hold to his nose. “Why do they think differently?”

“They heard about that train with gold and silver. Everyone knows Pa drove the teams for the railroad when no one else had thought to hide their horses deep enough in the woods.” William pestered his father to tell the stories to him nightly.

Susanna knew the rumors would outlive her. She accepted it because it was a good distraction. However, she didn’t want her boys to pay for her actions all their lives. There was price enough to pay for simply being a Martin.

“Some of the boys were angry because Pa hires so many of the Africans,” William said.

“They were just mean.” Robert fidgeted with the attention from his mother.

Susanna felt her breath catch in her chest. “We do not fight. We do not owe anyone an explanation for our actions. We work hard on the farm and at the brothers’ businesses.” She straightened the boys’ clothing. “Go play a bit. You’re already dirty, might as well make the most of it.” She hugged first William, then Robert to her. “There’s no treasure hidden hereabouts except here.” She touched William’s chest, then hers, then Robert’s. “The greatest riches are having each other and living a life of your own choosing. Don’t ever forget that.”

The boys looked at her strangely, then ran to play in the creek—no doubt re-enacting one of the battles that had taken place in Virginia.

Susanna thought that little did they know that the hardest battles were waged within.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Are you awake?” The woman’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

Tracey lowered the cell phone from her ear and stared at it in her hand. That seemed like an extremely stupid question given that she answered the call. “Yes, Paula.”

“Are you alone?”

Tracey tapped the phone against the nightstand. “Are you taking some sort of homophobic poll? Yes, I’m alone.”

“Don’t use that tone with me.” Paula cleared her throat and spoke more distinctly.

Tracey looked at her bedside alarm clock—six a.m. She was fairly certain it was Saturday. “Why are you calling me so early?”

“Why do you think?” The words were hissed into the telephone.

“What?” Tracey now wanted to drive across town to smack Paula.

“How dare she use what you’ve told her about our family?” Paula’s voice gained strength and volume.

Tracey heard traffic noise in the background and assumed that Paula had stepped outside to be able to speak freely.

“What and who are you talking about?” Tracey sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “Start this conversation over now that I’m fully awake.”

“You really don’t know what I’m talking about?” Paula’s voice was shrill with the question.

“I still haven’t figured out why you’re up so early and so upset.” Tracey stared at the ceiling. “I really am going to hang up if you don’t start making sense.”

“I’m having restless leg problems again. The Internet is wonderful for anyone who can’t sleep and is trying to be quiet in a household, unless, of course, you find a posting about your own family. She even included some foolishness about how Mom and Dad fell in love.”

Tracey felt as though someone had snapped her butt with a towel. “Ginny?”

“You do know. I knew it.” Paula reined in her volume, knowing she had close neighbors in her McMansion subdivision. “There’s no way she could put together all that without your help. How could you? This affects me, too, and my girls. Those idiot old women need to be committed.”

“I’m hitting the end button,” Tracey said.

“Fine. Check your e-mail. I sent you the link. Watch the clip on YouTube. Look at the number of hits already. She’s ruined my reputation and yours.” Paula included Tracey as an afterthought.

Tracey punched the button with more force than necessary to end the call. “She wouldn’t do this to me, to all of us, not without asking our permission.”

Tracey went to her office and waited impatiently as her desktop computer warmed up and loaded her Internet homepage. She went immediately to her e-mail without scanning the news headlines as usual. She opened the message from Paula and clicked on the underlined link. A video clip loaded with the Martin homeplace as the background to the play arrow. She started the clip and listened to Ginny’s deliberate voiceover—Diane Sawyer couldn’t have handled the interview better.

Tracey’s jaw dropped as first Agnes, then Marian appeared in the clip. Agnes was interviewed in the kitchen; Marian walked about the farm with edited commentary. They discussed the legend borne in the waning days of the Civil War, their brother’s theories, and the effect on Harriet and Rory. Only Fred held up a warning hand and refused to speak on camera.

Tracey blinked back tears and hit the image to replay the clip. She was beyond Paula’s indignation, feeling no more betrayed if Ginny had videotaped and posted them making love. Ginny led Agnes and Marian through the interview, knowing enough, courtesy of Tracey, so the women felt comfortable discussing all the family secrets with her.

Tracey looked at the counter below the clip frame. It was already over one thousand hits and the clip had been uploaded only twelve hours prior. It took her a moment to realize there was someone knocking on her front door.

Tracey didn’t give a thought to answering the door in the old sweat shorts and thin T-shirt that were her pajamas. She stared at Adam.

He held up two Styrofoam cups of coffee.

Tracey threw herself at him and hugged her friend tightly as he tried not to spill the coffee.

“One of my buddies called me. I picked this up on my way home.” Adam stepped inside the apartment. “I haven’t been to my place to see the video yet.”

Tracey used his shirt to dry her face. “Nice perfume.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry for being such a girl. Paula called and woke me out of a sound sleep. I just watched. It’s horrible.” She took the cup of coffee and motioned him to follow. They went to her office.

Tracey refreshed the page. The hits had climbed to over fifteen hundred. “Oh, shit. It’s going viral.”

Adam watched the video as Tracey paced the room. He looked over his shoulder at her. “You had no hint that she was doing this?”

“I knew she was working on a freelance piece she hoped would capture network attention. I also knew she was too interested in what brought my parents together. But I didn’t have a clue she’d post something like this directly on the Internet.” Tracey finished the coffee. “I’ll make us a full pot.”

“I think we ought to smoke pot instead,” Adam said. “Kidding.” He winced at Tracey’s glare. “Paula must be totally whacked out.”

“This time, I have to agree with her, as much as it pains me,” Tracey said.

“Ginny did a helluva job with the information.” Adam braced himself, waiting for Tracey’s response.

Tracey stopped short of the doorway. “What?”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, and she’s totally wrong in how she posted it without your blessing, but Ginny did a helluva job putting that piece together. It’s interesting and it tells a story with enough history thrown in to make it credible. Agnes and Marian are a total hoot. They’re so genuine. They’re like down home Golden Girls.”

“And they make us sound like a cross between Hee Haw and The Waltons as written by Stephen King,” Tracey said.

“Exactly. That’s a good description. Ginny would love that.” Adam closed his eyes, trying to burn the sentence in his memory to use later.

“I’m a little past caring what Ginny loves at this point.”

Adam whistled. “Look, over two thousand hits. I wish I had an ad for my surveying embedded in it. People are going nuts over this.”

Tracey returned to her bedroom and pulled clothes from the chest of drawers. “Stay in there while I dress.”

“You’re no fun,” Adam said.

“Like that’s a news flash.” Tracey hit the speed dial for Ginny’s cell number. She waited, only to be dumped directly into voice mail.

“What about the coffee?” Adam said.

“Help yourself. You know where everything is.” Tracey pulled her hair back in a ponytail as she crossed the living room. She dialed the next number as she left the duplex. “Dad, I’m so glad you were the one to answer. Dad?”

Rory was silent after his initial greeting.

“I didn’t know. I would’ve stopped her.” Tracey leaned on her car.

“Your sister’s here. She and your mother are crying in the living room.” His voice was totally flat.

“I’m so sorry.” Tracey felt the emptiness of her words as she spoke. What good did being sorry do now? Why hadn’t she pressed Ginny harder about what her secret project was? Tracey had felt a gnawing suspicion about the content and had just hoped it would go away. She knew better than to ignore her nagging inner voice.

“Your mother told you about us to put an end to your curiosity. We left all that drama behind decades ago, or so I’d hoped. How could you confide in her, honey, knowing she’s a reporter?” Rory’s tone of voice tore Tracey apart.

Tracey backed out of the driveway. “I thought I was talking to my girlfriend who would help me sort through what I’d just found out about my parents.”

Rory sighed. “I know you didn’t do it deliberately.”

“But Mom doesn’t and Paula doesn’t.” Tracey finished the thought for him.

“Exactly. I’ve got to go, honey.” He hesitated. “I don’t recommend coming over here. Not for a day or two, anyway. For once, your mother doesn’t want to talk to you. She’s barely talking at all except to say that she won’t ever leave the house again.”

“Don’t worry. I’m headed downtown. I’ll see what I can do about having the clip pulled.”

“Your mother has already called one of the lawyers she works with. This is going to get ugly.” There was resignation in Rory’s voice.

“Rightly so,” Tracey said. “I love you, Dad.”

“You, too, honey.” Rory was gone.

Tracey forced herself to drive within the posted limit and not the same speed her brain was going.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Tracey slammed on her brakes, sliding the car against the curb as she parked across the line of the two parallel parking spaces directly in front of Ginny’s office. She gave no thought to the consequences to her tires. She looked across the wide sidewalk at the storefront. Lights were on inside the news bureau. “What a damn joke.”

The news bureau consisted of fifteen hundred square feet of renovated retail space in a block of small commercial buildings. Ginny was the only full-time employee. She used a local videographer on a flexible contract for a few hours of work each week. Often as not, Ginny shot background video herself or fixed the camera on a tripod for a studio interview. Tracey couldn’t keep up with the changes in technology as more video was streaming and done via computer thanks to the Internet. Clearly, Ginny’s videographer skills were improving.

Tracey slammed the door of her car and glared at the approaching driver. The man had patiently waited for her rather than clip the door opened with no regard to approaching traffic.

“You’re welcome.” The driver spoke through the open window as he passed by her.

“Screw you!” Tracey shouted.

The driver was shocked and sped away.

Gaining momentum as she crossed the concrete, Tracey bounced off the locked door to the office. “Very funny,” she shouted. Several people slowed, then sped up their passage along the sidewalk after deciding against stopping to inquire what was wrong.

Tracey cupped her hands to diminish the glare off the glass and looked inside the newsroom. Ginny was at her corner desk, with her back to the storefront, holding the handset of her land line against her ear.

“Open the damn door!” Tracey rattled the handle.

Ginny looked over her shoulder and waved. She held her hand with palm toward Tracey as though telling her to calm down.

Tracey rattled the door again. “Screw this,” she mumbled to herself as she walked to the corner and along the side street and followed the alley to the back of the building. Ginny’s car was parked at the steel door marked with the street number of the building. Tracey tried the door and walked into the small storeroom next to the even smaller restroom. She listened to Ginny’s side of the conversation before entering the main office.

“Yes, ma’am, it’s authentic. Aren’t they wonderful local characters? It was completely unscripted. They’re for real just as you saw them. No, I didn’t realize we’d hit five thousand views already. Next week? You bet another piece can be ready. Thank you so much. I won’t let you down.” Ginny hung up the land line.

“Let me take a guess?” Tracey said.

Ginny jumped in her seat and spun the chair around to face Tracey. “Sheesh, I hate it when you do that. I thought you went to get us coffee. I was going to let you in as soon as I was off of the phone with New York.” She shouted the last and clapped.

“I’m so happy for you.” Tracey’s tone said the opposite.

“Don’t take it that way. I know I should’ve told you what I was posting, but the story seemed to have a life of its own. When Mike came in to help me with the final edit, he flipped once he got over being hurt because he didn’t shoot the footage. He loved it and raved about your great-aunts. He offered to post the video at all of his sites while he was here, and I took him up on it. It’s crazy. People are stopping by already this morning to tell me they’ve seen and enjoyed the clip. I had to lock the door to take all the phone calls coming in. The New York exec called my cell from her home the first time we talked this morning. Her teenagers showed her the video late last night. She checked my credentials and couldn’t believe I’m already sort of her employee. She wants a national follow-up early next week. We’ve gone viral and your great-aunts wouldn’t even know what that means. There’s already an Agnes and Marian fan page on Facebook. They’re being discussed in chat rooms and blogs.” Ginny actually giggled.

“How in the hell could you?” Tracey leaned on the monitor that ran a constant news stream, resisting the urge to lift the monitor and throw it to the floor. “Pull the damn piece!”

“What?” Ginny looked as though she’d been slapped.

“How in the hell could you?” Tracey repeated the question, drawing out each word. “Pull the damn piece!”

“But it’s local news, and they’re wonderful on camera,” Ginny said.

“They’re my family. You’ve exploited them and our relationship. My mother’s devastated. You’ll be hearing from her lawyer, by the way.” Tracey paced between the desk and the front counter. She fought the urge to throttle Ginny.

“You’re really upset.” Ginny blinked repeatedly with the realization.

“News flash.” Tracey swept all the papers off the counter. “Shit, yes. How could I be otherwise? Have you listened to nothing we’ve talked about ever since we met?”

“That was uncalled for.” Ginny stood and faced Tracey, looking at the files emptied of contents. “You just better get over it. This will draw visitors to your precious museum like none of the marketing you’ve paid for.”

“All that matters to you is that this will get your face on a national feed on the morning news show. This is it, your big break, at my expense. Paula was beside herself when she called me at six a.m.” Tracey went to the front door and waved away the crowd on the sidewalk.

“Since when do you care about Paula? She’s only your sister who tries to horn in on carrying the family burden, which your lifestyle makes you a part of.” Ginny reached for the ringing telephone.

“Don’t answer that. We’re not done.” Tracey reached across the counter and yanked the phone cord from the wall jack. “Pull the damn piece!”

“Bitch!” Ginny said. “Absolutely not!”

“Hoe,” Tracey responded automatically. She almost smiled at their favorite ragged T-shirt depicting a dog and garden tools, then realized a shared punch line was likely all she and Ginny had left.

Ginny sighed. “Do you want to be included in the follow-up interview or not?” She connected the telephone and waited for the ring before picking up. “This is Ginny. Please hold for a moment.” She placed the receiver against her chest.

“Do I what?” Tracey stood with her back to the front door.

“Do you want to plug the museum on the follow-up interview? Never mind. I’ll ask Mitch. He’d be great on camera. He’d come across as much a character as your great-aunts.” Ginny made a mental note to herself.

“Someone else to exploit, so I’m just being dismissed?” Tracey asked.

“Rant and rave all you want to. It’s done. I’m going national next week. I’ll kiss this place goodbye before you know it. I have a Facebook page also and you should see the likes I’ve received in the past twelve hours.” She made a slight curtsy. “I’ve already been given a heads-up about a major station in Ohio that has an empty MMJ position.” She made a face at Tracey’s blank expression. “You haven’t paid enough attention to my career to know what a multimedia journalist does—write, edit, and deliver my own stories, anchor newscasts, interact with the community. All on the large scale of a major metropolitan area instead of some hick tobacco town.”

“You know, the difference in you and the aunts is that I’d be willing to bet that you created your Facebook page, and you’ll do whatever it takes for a climbing hit count.” Tracey fumbled with the thumb lock on the door. “They just like having an audience for their stories and enjoyed talking with you.”

“So you’re not going to help with all the fan mail that’ll soon be pouring in?” Ginny asked. “There’s a real merchandising opportunity with them, but it’s likely a small window.”

“I’ll see what I can do to come up with a letter bomb. You’re right—it’s amazing what can be found on the Internet.” Tracey slammed the door open. She looked about at her neighbors gathered on the sidewalk. “Don’t you people have anything better to do?” She was photographed for the local newspaper flipping off the Baptist minister.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Tracey had not calmed down any by the following week when the majority of the Danville community looked forward to Ginny’s appearance on the national morning news. The write-up in the local newspaper with their archival history of the Martins sent Tracey over the edge. Lester and Alfred were featured from their fair days. Mitch and Alese had given Tracey space all week. Her neighbors, including Adam, cleared a wide path for her when she moved between car and duplex.

Paula was so ashamed of her aunts and her sister that she wasn’t leaving her home any time soon. Aurora and Ashley were not allowed to answer their telephones. Agnes and Marian were the toast of the town, accepting lunch and dinner invitations and agreeing to host the next meeting of the historical society. They joked that they hadn’t had this much attention since they were teenagers. Harriet went to work and refused to discuss her family. Rory rolled with the controversy, as usual.

Tracey sought solace with her parents after Harriet finally agreed to see her. Harriet expected Tracey at the breakfast table with her and Rory when Ginny faced the nation about the Martins. Tracey was not surprised to have heard nothing personal from Ginny since their throwdown at the news bureau.

Rory sat in the chair closest to the mudroom and stared across the table at Tracey. He raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward the back door.

Tracey allowed a grin to pass across her face. She was at the far end of the trestle table from him, with her back to the window. Her father was right. If they were smart, they’d duck out the side door while Harriet was finishing her makeup for work.

“More coffee?” Tracey stood and went to the coffeemaker that ground beans just before brewing the pot.

“Oh, yeah. Guess it’s too early for anything stronger.” Rory fidgeted in his chair, used to being on a job site by this time of the morning.

“That’s debatable.” Tracey brought the aluminum carafe to the table.

“She’s almost done.” Rory cocked his head and listened to the hairspray being applied.

“Helmet head,” Tracey said. “I don’t see how she manages. Hairspray makes my scalp itch.”

“That’s beside the point.” Betty eased in the back door and took the seat between Rory and Tracey that was against the wall. “Harriet’s all about appearing perfect.”

“Misery loves company.” Rory slid the small lazy Susan holding napkins and condiments to the center of the table, giving Betty room.

Tracey went to the cabinet over the stove for another mug. She poured coffee for Betty.

“How is she?” Betty asked.

“Livid,” Rory said. “I never fully appreciated that word until this past week.”

“I’m amazed she’s speaking to me,” Tracey said. “I thought it would take until Christmas.”

Rory shook his head. “I think she just wants you here when the interview airs because she knows you’ll avoid her by telephone. I told her I thought it was a good idea—I didn’t want this festering between you two.”

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” Tracey said.

Betty punched Rory in the upper arm.

“If that’s her reasoning, she’s right.” Tracey stopped pacing and rejoined the group at the table.

They took turns glancing at the television built into the door of the refrigerator. Rory ended up with the high-tech fridge as payoff for a kitchen renovation when the couple divorced before their bill was paid.

Harriet entered the kitchen. She wore a black cotton suit and white blouse.

“Whose funeral are you going to today?” Betty asked.

“Good to see you, too.” Harriet went to the counter and rinsed out the mug she drank from. She always had the last of her coffee as she dressed. She turned and stared at the television, glancing down at her wristwatch during the commercial break. “Should be soon.”

Ginny had mass e-mailed everyone on her contact list that the interview would air in the eight o’ clock hour of the show—perfect for catching people just before leaving for work.

Rory turned his chair rather than looking over his shoulder. “Here they come.”

Betty and Tracey followed his gaze. The clip that was still gaining momentum on YouTube was introduced and played. A live feed was opened with Ginny as she sat with Agnes and Marian on the front porch of the Martin home. Choruses of “Good mornings” were exchanged.

“Look at those two,” Harriet said. “They’re as relaxed as if it was just us on the porch with them.”

Marian and Agnes chatted with Ginny off-microphone and waved. Agnes hastily concealed her unlit cigarette in her pocket.

“That’s their charm,” Tracey said. “They’re natural hams.”

“Ginny looks great,” Betty said. “She really has an excellent camera presence.”

Ginny guided the national host through the background of the trains leaving Richmond and off-loading in Danville with John Martin being the lead teamster.

Agnes and Marian interrupted with details and corrections of each other. A polished script and portrayal by veteran character actresses wouldn’t have made them any more engaging.

“We’ve had eighty thousand views so far.” Ginny held up her smart phone for emphasis. “The public’s reaction to you two is incredible.”

“What’s it like on the farm this morning?” The network host leaned forward in her chair, using perfected body language.

The remote camera panned from the porch to the driveway.

“Oh, no,” Tracey said.

Fred had positioned his Blazer diagonally across the intersection of the driveway and lane leading to the barn. His buddies who leased pasture for their horses were with him and formed a barricade to keep anyone from advancing any farther onto Martin land. Cars lined the driveway and were parked in the outside lane of the highway. Hands were raised in the crowd as people realized the camera had turned. Who among them didn’t want to be on national television? Signs to family members were waved overhead.

“We’re hoping some of the local civic organizations send out boxed lunches,” Agnes said in the background.

“Damn those two old biddies.” Harriet’s face had lost all color beneath the makeup.

“This will blow over in no time, honey. They didn’t mention us in this go-round,” Rory said.

“I tried to tell you,” Harriet said to Tracey. “But you haven’t listened to me since you were ten years old.”

“Honey, don’t take it out on her.” Rory stood and crossed the kitchen to his wife’s side.

“Who brought this on us?” Harriet held her hand up, stopping him from embracing her. “I’d expect you to take her side. You always have.” She took her mug from the drainer and threw it to the floor, watching as the ceramic shattered on the tile. “I can’t even sue that damn reporter because she had those old fools sign release forms. This is high school all over again.”

“Only now, there’s way more than a bunch of teenagers out to explore the farm.” Tracey studied the crowd shot. Ginny chatted with Agnes and Marian in the background as the congestion on the highway worsened. “This is only going to bring more people out.”

Betty stood and placed her mug in the sink. “Tough it out, Harriet. Ignore it long enough and it will all die down again.” She pecked Harriet and Rory on the cheeks. She lingered over Tracey, giving her a long hug. She whispered in Tracey’s ear. “I’ll let Mitch know you’re running late.” Betty left the house.

Tracey dialed Fred’s mobile number. She watched him pat his pockets, searching for his telephone.

“Fred, it’s Tracey. Is it as bad there as it looks on the news?”

Fred glared toward the house while his buddies fended off a crowd of a half-dozen men and women who had abandoned their automobiles to crawl over or through the fence. “Cars are lining the highway shoulders. Everyone’s slowing down as they pass. It’s not the ones I can see that worry me.”

“I understand. Let me see what I can do.” Tracey looked across the room at Rory. He shook his head and led Harriet toward the far end of the house. “Call in a vacation day, honey. They’ll understand.”

Tracey heard her mother sob and dialed again. “Hey, are you booked today?” Her telephone vibrated with text messages and voice mails.

“I should finish by noon,” Adam said. “I’m stuck in traffic right now. Can you believe I’m saying that? You want me at the farm?”

“Mind reader,” Tracey said.

“I’m watching it live.” Adam rolled his window up so he could hear Tracey. “People are going nuts. The rescue squad is setting up tents in the median between crossovers. My guys called to tell me to eat breakfast at home—fast-food joints and diners have lines waiting to go in already, just from the YouTube curiosity seekers that have figured out where we are.”

“I’m heading out there now before Fred mobilizes the Ruritans.”

“Might not be a bad thing. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Adam ended the call.

Tracey dialed one more number. The answering machine at Ginny’s apartment clicked and finally beeped so that she could leave a message. “Recant the story. Those two old women are pulling your leg on national television and having the time of their lives. They’ll make a fool out of you just as they did Mom.” Tracey had no doubt that the Martin legend was going to bite all of them in the ass.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tracey didn’t attempt to drive onto the Martin farm. There were too many on-camera wannabes parked on the shoulder or stopped in the outside lane of the highway already. She pulled off the highway just short of the Martin property corner, parking well away from the congestion of curiosity seekers. She took her walking stick from the trunk as she locked her car and trotted toward the driveway. In vain, she motioned cars to move along on the highway as she glanced over her shoulder for the possibility of being forced into the ditch by anyone rubber-necking and not seeing her. She spied Adam standing next to Fred as his buddies directed cars to circle through the upper field and out across the culvert spanning the ditch near the far property line once they were turned back at the fork in the lane and driveway to the house.

The sheriff’s department had already sent two cars. One officer managed merging those turned away back into the flow of traffic. On the far side of the highway, the other officer wrote tickets to leave under windshield wipers of cars abandoned while owners tried to access the farm on foot.

Adam cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled over the throng when he saw Tracey. “I rescheduled my job. I couldn’t drive by without stopping to help.”

“It’s crazy.” Fred motioned across the expanse of the crowd as Tracey worked her way through the thirty or so people gathered along the driveway on either side of parked cars. “People are wandering all over the farm. I don’t recognize anyone—locals are staying away. As soon as more of the club members arrive, the boys are going to patrol on horseback and try to clear the stragglers out.”

Tracey nodded to the geocachers. Wouldn’t they all like to go back to that? Blue shirt and green shirt wore orange safety vests over Ruritan T-shirts.

Adam caught Tracey’s eye. “Ginny’s inside. She can’t get out. Your aunts went inside thirty minutes ago. The crowd went wild when Ginny came out of the house a few minutes ago to take the camera down.”

“Perfect,” Tracey said. “I’ll show them wild.” She was almost to the intersection of driveway and lane.

“Hey, how come she gets through and none of us do?” a man shouted from the front of the line. “I’ve been standing here since seven a.m.”

“She’s related,” Fred said without thinking.

The crowd turned en masse toward Tracey. She’d never felt such a surge of people or the ensuing panic attack as a dozen people advanced toward her as though one. She heard requests for money, for help for children, and offers to dig the entire place up.

Tracey focused on moving and brandished the walking stick as a last resort. The gnarled oak limb was pulled out of her hand. Tracey was knocked to the ground. She did her best to dodge feet and hands.

Adam dove into the crowd on the verge of becoming a mob and pulled Tracey to her feet. He shielded her as best he was able as he walked her through the people and past the line created by Fred and his cohorts.

“Are you all right?” Adam asked.

“Damn if that wasn’t my favorite stick,” Tracey said. “What the hell just happened?”

“I’ve only seen it at rock concerts,” Adam said. “These people have bat shit for brains.”

Tracey climbed the steps to the porch and looked back. More people had joined the swell, nearing the crowd count to over a hundred.

Marian opened the door. Her expression was glazed. “Is this really happening?”

Tracey looked at her scuffed palms and knees. “I’m afraid so. Where is she?”

Ginny sat in the living room, cell phone to her ear as she juggled her laptop amid the bric-a-brac on the coffee table.

Tracey walked directly to Ginny and grabbed the cell phone, tossing it to the far end of the sofa. Agnes stared from the recliner nearest the front window. She looked as though if a match were within reach, she’d finally light her cigarette. Her hands shook.

“There are people lined up out there with metal detectors and shovels.” Tracey looked at Agnes as Marian returned to the recliner nearest the fireplace. “You two are going to be housebound for a while.”

“I unplugged the phone,” Marian said, “and brought all the dogs onto the back porch.”

“The rescue auxiliary women called early this morning and wanted to know if they could use the kitchen or should they bring their own grills,” Agnes said. “I told them to bring their grills or just prepare box lunches with cold sandwiches.”

Ginny stared as Agnes and Marian crumbled.

Tracey looked at her disheveled clothes. “No, I didn’t leave home this way or Mom’s. Mom’s staying home today, by the way, not that any of you care about anything other than this foolishness.”

“I need to get back to my office,” Ginny said.

“Well, good luck with that.” Tracey’s words were clipped. “If you manage to find a way off the farm, downtown was swamped even before this morning’s production aired. Who’s going to pay for the deputies’ time for handling crowd control? Did any of you think of that?”

Agnes and Marian exchanged a quick glance, then looked to Ginny.

“None of you thought through any of the fallout from this little stunt, did you?” Tracey peered out the window. “Judas Priest, there’s even more people out there since I came in the house.”

“I need to get back to my office.” Ginny packed her laptop in her tote and stood. “I’m hiking out the back way, past where we camped. I’ll follow the railroad tracks into town.”

“We can only hope for a passing train,” Tracey said.

“Ladies.” Ginny spoke to Agnes and Marian. “I’ll be in touch. All of this will make for yet another follow-up story.” She left the house, setting off a chorus of dogs barking as she passed through the back porch.

“What should we do?” Marian asked.

“You don’t think they’ll break into the house or the outbuildings, do you?” Agnes glanced about worriedly.

“Now’s a fine time to think of that,” Tracey said. “They all want souvenirs.” She stood at the window, thinking out loud as she watched Adam prevent Fred from being knocked down. “We have to address this some way, before someone’s really hurt, again.” She frowned over her shoulder. “You two wait here.”

Tracey went onto the porch and called Fred.

He walked across the yard, looking as though crossing a minefield. “This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re going to think me the craziest of all,” Tracey said.

Fred waited.

“Can you get the club members out here, spread around the perimeter of the farm at access points?”

Fred nodded. “Several are already on the way. I can put the word out to the rest and ask that they bring their wives.”

“Let’s charge admission and take down names and addresses for a mailing list,” Tracey said. “Twenty dollars a head to walk around on the farm.”

“A lot of them want to dig,” Fred said.

“Fifty dollars if they break ground. I’ll get a finder’s fee agreement from where Mom works, not that there’s anything to be found. We’ll issue permits, of sorts, and keep a close eye on the outbuildings and animals.” Tracey paced along the porch like a duck at a shooting gallery.

“Some just want to meet Agnes and Marian, maybe get a photo or autograph,” Fred said.

“Ten dollars, cash only.” Tracey turned toward the house, knowing her great-aunts were listening. “Showtime, ladies. We’ll at least try to cover the cost of fines and damages.” She felt like a barker at a side show.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

During the first four weeks after Ginny’s nationwide appearance on the morning news, the visitor numbers to the farm climbed steadily. Agnes and Marian were contacted by the county to file for a permit and obtain a business license as an attraction. The county also decided to forgo charging for the deputies’ time since the increase in meals tax was projected to cover their hours—Danville was suddenly a destination.

As nice as the revenue stream was for Agnes and Marian, Tracey hoped that the approaching winter would slow the interest in the farm. She felt as though her favorite season of the year—fall—had been a blur of babysitting her great aunts, not that she hadn’t enjoyed the time with them. Especially since she had so much free time on her hands these days, sans Ginny.

Tracey glanced at the deciduous trees, amazed that all the leaves had turned and dropped except for the oaks that carried shriveled brown carcasses all winter. “Damn, it really is November.”

She felt foolish approaching the farm by such a circuitous route, but it served the purpose of checking the back acreage. “Me and my covert ops,” she mumbled.

Tracey waited for the car to pass out of sight before stepping off the shoulder of the secondary road and into the trees. She wondered if she was talking to herself too much.

“Well, I’m not answering myself…yet. Or does saying this aloud count?” She parted branches of the scrub trees and watched the narrow path for loose rocks before taking each step. She listened carefully before venturing onto the railroad tracks after being cautioned about taking passing trains seriously all her life. That was one of the things she enjoyed most about the farm—the clatter of trains on the tracks.

She slid on the ballast stone covering the embankment of the tracks and almost tumbled to the bottom of the slope. “I must be losing my touch.” Stone surfing had been one of her favorite teenage pastimes.

At the toe of the slope, she again entered underbrush. This time, she followed what appeared to be no more than a deer track to the short section of stone culvert that spanned the creek. She separated the strands of wire and stepped onto Martin land. She was on the bottomland near the tobacco barns at the juncture of pasture and lower fields. She crossed the clearing to the end of the dirt lane that began on the front of the farm off of Route 58.

Tracey glanced to her right. She was near the campsite. How had she allowed the so-called treasure situation and Ginny to get away from her? Had she ever been in control of either? “Shit, no,” Tracey said aloud, startling a covey of doves.

She followed the lane, looking to the pasture for the paint and appaloosa that boarded on the farm. She passed the shop and corn house and continued to the barn. She searched the fields and spied Fred in the distance, watching three groups of treasure hunters.

New excavation sites pockmarked the land, joining the previous guesses at buried treasure locations. She had to admit that the serious treasure hunters fascinated her with how they deduced clues in any pertinent document—it was all akin to reading tea leaves as far as she was concerned. She had learned long ago that data were subject to imaginative interpretation and very often results followed the original line of thought only because the amateur cryptologist wanted it so.

Tracey followed the lane to the driveway to the house. Just a few cars were parked in an orderly row in the front field. She waved at the owner of the paint, trying not to smile at the sight of his orange jacket and cap usually worn while hunting. “These guys take all of this a little too seriously.”

As Tracey approached the house, she saw that Agnes’s Crown Vic was absent. It hadn’t occurred to her to call ahead and make sure her great-aunts were home. “My bad,” she whispered.

She stopped and petted the terriers. Only one puppy was left—the one Ginny had taken and decided to return when she was sure about moving soon. She had told Marian that she wanted to cut ties before she became too attached, and vice versa. Tracey picked the puppy up and hugged her. “If Betty doesn’t take you soon, I will, sweetie.” The terrier wiggled to be released.

Tracey entered the house by the screened porch. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d gone in through the front door and have fingers left over.

“Who’s there?” Marian sat at the kitchen table. She looked up, as embarrassed as if she had forgotten to dress. Come to think of it, Tracey had never seen her in anything other than a cotton housedress and men’s work boots.

“It’s just me. I didn’t think anyone was here.” Tracey removed her fleece jacket, immediately feeling the warmth of the house. She looked closer at the kitchen table. “Dang! When did you get one of those?”

Marian made no attempt to hide the dark blue netbook. She grinned sheepishly. “I’ve had one ever since the price dropped on these little ones over a year ago. I love being able to download books and look at Internet sites.”

Tracey’s chin dropped. “You’ve been holding out on me all this time.” She glanced about. “Does Agnes know?”

Marian chuckled. “I tried to tell her about it when I bought it, but she has no interest in technology. She just complains about the cable bill taking such a sudden jump and doesn’t realize she’s paying for Internet service.”

“I should’ve known. I’d noticed your bookshelves were staying the same but assumed you were going to the library or watching more television.” Tracey leaned on the butcher’s block in the center of the room. “So you had some idea what a clip on YouTube meant?”

Marian nodded. “Don’t be too hard on Ginny. She’s a writer. She heard a story that she had to tell. We could’ve refused to be interviewed. There’s been enough sidestepping the fact that something’s hidden on this place. None of us, your mother included, should try to deny the past. Paula just needs to get over herself and accept her family.”

Tracey frowned as she walked around the butcher’s block and sat at the opposite end of the table from Marian. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. She was about to speak when she heard a car in the driveway and no barking from the dogs. “You’d better return that to its hiding place. Agnes is home.”

Marian nodded and gathered the netbook, wrapping the power cord and telephone line around the case. She rested her hand on Tracey’s shoulder before leaving the room.

“What else are you hiding from me?” Tracey asked as Marian walked away.

Marian’s step faltered, then continued toward her room.

Tracey went to the back door and held it open for Agnes, relieving her of two plastic shopping bags.

Agnes looked at Tracey. “It’s okay. I just made a quick run to the grocery store. Paula’s stopping by with the girls later.”

“I’m glad she’s finally venturing out of the house again.” Tracey followed Agnes to the kitchen counter.

“Don’t be hateful to your sister,” Agnes said to Tracey over her shoulder.

Tracey rejoined Marian at the table, raising her eyebrows.

“She’s right,” Marian said. “We’ve had enough falling outs in this family.”

Tracey shrugged. “I know Mom has issues with you guys.”

Agnes waved her hand. “I’m talking further back than that.”

“Grandpa?” Marian said.

Agnes nodded. “Grandpa and his brother had a falling out and never recovered from it. Grandpa William was the oldest and took over the farm and farm businesses. His brother, Robert, took to town and politics. Robert’s son never connected with the farm—moved away never to be heard from again.”

“Get back to the feuding brothers,” Marian said.

“They’d meet each other on the street and not speak. I remember Mama trying to explain it to me,” Agnes said.

Marian frowned. “Pa never understood exactly what happened. It was something about their mother’s letters and diaries. Grandpa had them here on the farm with her other things. His brother borrowed them and destroyed them.”

Tracey gasped.

“And he was a lawyer,” Agnes said. “He knew better. Grandpa was furious. Uncle Robert died without Grandpa ever reconciling with him.”

“You mean Susanna Martin left behind letters and diaries?” Tracey asked.

“Of course,” Agnes said. “She was a Quaker. It was part of her upbringing to write letters to her family in Ohio, and she saved all their responses. Her diaries were from her girlhood and when she first married. I remember seeing them and wondering what language they were written in—I couldn’t decipher the script handwriting.”

“Evidently, Uncle Robert could,” Marian said. “And didn’t like what he read.”

“Good heavens,” Tracey said. “It’s all connected.” She studied Agnes, then Marian. “Is the treasure legend for real?”

Agnes looked over her shoulder at first Tracey, then Marian. “What did I walk in on?”

“I think we’re busted,” Marian said.

Tracey waited.

Agnes sorted the groceries and placed items in storage spaces about the kitchen. She rolled up the plastic bags and stuffed them into a drawer. “We use them for trash can liners,” she said.

“We had it drilled into us during the Second World War to make use of everything,” Marian said. “People talk about recycling like it’s a new concept. I was four years old when that war was declared. Its shortages are one of my first memories.”

“Is the treasure legend for real?” Tracey asked again. “Or are you two running a con at my and Ginny’s expense?”

Agnes poured them each a drink and set the shot glasses on the table as she joined them. “I remember hearing the stories about John Martin and Confederate treasure when I was younger than Paula’s girls.”

Marian nodded. “Always had the sound of the fairy tales we were read at night.”

“I never believed any of it,” Agnes said. “But it was such fun to repeat and watch people’s reactions. You can tell a lot about a person by how they listen and process information.”

“Our grandfather died the year that World War II ended,” Agnes said.

“It was Lester who took the stories to heart. He was the oldest and heard them from the perspective of a boy who loved history classes.” Marian downed the shot.

“Lester never married, never really left the farm. He became convinced and obsessed—a dangerous combination.” Agnes smoothed her dress.

“Harriet was born the year I married,” Marian said.

“I married three years later.” Agnes sipped her drink.

“We didn’t really see your mother or Betty except when we came home for holidays.” Marian looked longingly at the bottle on the counter.

“It started because we were bored and took pleasure in getting a rise out of Lester,” Agnes said. “He had tormented us so about hanging on Grandpa’s every word while he was old enough to see through the fable part to the actual facts.”

“It was the seventies when Harriet really put all of it together.” Marian rubbed her face.

“Things had changed so much. We were housewives in an era of young women taking on careers and living openly with someone without marriage,” Agnes said.

“So you used the story to connect with your nieces?” Tracey slid her glass over to Marian. “It’s too early for me.”

Marian blinked back tears. “We never intended for your father to suffer from our carrying on.”

Agnes nodded. “Though I didn’t mind yanking Harriet’s chain.”

“We didn’t speak of it for years after that, but it stayed on those kids’ minds. It would pop up in conversation or in the local paper every so often. Rory recovered and held no grudges.” Marian sighed.

“Then Fred turned up. He was so good for Lester, listened to him while helping him with chores.” Agnes smiled.

“Fred was the only friend I remember Lester having,” Marian said. “Our brother knew people but wouldn’t let anyone close for fear they’d find something on the farm before he did.”

“Then Lester died.” There was a catch in Agnes’s voice. “Fred retired not long after and was at loose ends. He came by every few days to check on us. I think he started treasure hunting out of respect for Lester.”

“We enjoy the way it brings people here who’ve heard about us in passing. We didn’t see the harm in allowing it,” Marian said. “When Ginny came back without you, we were so flattered. We went along with the interview, never thinking anyone would care or pay attention to us.”

“You have to admit that the past few weeks have been pretty amazing.” Agnes sounded hopeful that Tracey would agree.

“It wasn’t a complete boondoggle.” Marian reached for Tracey’s hand and pressed a round object into her palm.

Tracey looked down at the Mexican silver dollar stamped 1861.

“Lester swore he found it near the tobacco barns,” Marian said. “He gave it to me several years after Archie and I moved back here but waited until after Archie died.”

“I always thought he was paying us back for winding him up when we were girls.” Agnes leaned over to the single drawer in the butcher’s block and reached inside. She held up a matching coin. “He made each of us promise not to tell the other that he’d given us a coin.”

Marian chuckled. “It was a year or so after Lester died that we realized we both had Mexican dollars.”

“Fred still won’t admit where the one he carries all the time came from,” Agnes said.

“Well, at least we know who got the last laugh out of all of this,” Tracey said.

“That’s the beauty of treasure hunting,” Marian said as Tracey stood to put her jacket on. “Figuring it out for yourself.”

Tracey welcomed the long walk back to her car. Had either of the aunts actually answered her question?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Only I would use my day off for something as lame-ass as this.” Tracey gave a signal and slowed to make the turn onto Lee Street to the National Cemetery. It was first on her list of sights to see in Danville. She almost asked Marian to ride along with her but decided she wanted to keep this excursion unbiased. She was trying to get her mind around the true nineteenth century history of Danville.

She knew the basics about National Cemetery. It served as a location for the mass grave of federal soldiers who died as prisoners of war in Danville. After the surrender, the bodies were exhumed and either returned to their families or buried individually with headstones. Danville’s six prisons had lain to rest over thirteen hundred soldiers. “Staggering.” Tracey felt the same sense of being overwhelmed as when viewing Arlington National Cemetery, just on a smaller scale. She registered no sense of conspiracy or ciphers as she toured the grounds. “Rest in peace,” she whispered as she left the cemetery.

Freedman’s Cemetery was located behind National in 1872 for the emancipated slaves and other black citizens. “In death, we’re all equal.” She continued to whisper rather than speaking in a normal voice. Again, Tracey saw the monuments and felt nothing more than respect for those who’d passed.

Lastly, she entered Green Hill Cemetery. It was the original component of the three connected cemeteries created on the Green land. It was typical of its era with narrow, winding roads and carefully planned landscaping. Danville’s quartermaster, Major William T. Sutherlin, was interred here. The monument raised to honor Confederate soldiers was here. Because of the layout with twists and turns accentuated by granite obelisks, it gave notion of Bible trees and symbols carved into trunks. It was also aligned with the Martin farm. She saw numerous stones inscribed with the Freemasons square and compass. “Okay, this cemetery makes me feel a little creepy.”

She’d finally bought the episode of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded from Amazon and found the premise fascinating if flawed. Her reaction went back to her theory of interpretation of information influenced by the subconscious—simplified as “garbage in, garbage out.”

She was determined to be open-minded about all that she saw. She drove past former Prison No. 6 on Lynn Street and tried to imagine the building as a tobacco warehouse hastily renovated for confinement of federal troops. “No wonder so many died from illness rather than actual wounds.”

She toured the Sutherlin mansion and tried to imagine the single week it had served as the base of operations for the Confederate government in 1865. She was impressed by the auditorium currently used by a local repertory company.

She drove around Danville and ticked off the historic districts, trying to think of her hometown as it had been one hundred fifty years ago. She slowed in passing the block of buildings that housed the news bureau. A quick glance revealed an office with boxes lining the counter. The rumor she’d heard about Ginny accepting a job in Cincinnati must be true. “Bon voyage.” She was beginning to feel more disappointed than angry with Ginny. She had to admit that if roles were reversed, she wasn’t sure she could’ve resisted telling such a story, either.

Exhausted, she pulled into her usual parking space behind the museum. She walked around the building and entered through the front door used by visitors, trying to see the museum not as an employee but as a tourist. Danville had such a rich and multifaceted history—from tobacco to high-tech.

“Want me to give the usual spiel and take you on the official tour?” Alese stopped in front of Tracey, glancing at her watch. “The last group of the day has already started.”

Tracey shook her head. “I’ll ask you the same thing I did Agnes and Marian. Is the legend of the lost Confederate gold and silver for real?”

Alese clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Lord have mercy, girl. Do you know nothing of your family’s history? The gold and silver are the least of it.”

“I need to sit down.” Tracey entered the small office with no ceiling that served the receptionist who doubled as a tour guide.

“You need to think about the origin of your family—Quakers. The Johnson, Douglas, and Candler families were Quakers who intermarried in the seventeen hundreds. Candlers married into the Martin family when they were first-generation Methodists after giving up Quakerism. All of that influenced the Martins of the eighteen hundreds to be the first landowners in this area to pay wages to freedmen, to chide their neighbors for owning slaves, and to hold fast to their beliefs in a time of war. Quakers treated their women as equals, educating them and giving them responsibilities in the community and meetings. Do you think those people were concerned with concealing earthly riches?” Alese looked as though she wanted to threaten Tracey with a ruler across her palm as she had when her teacher. “Not only did they not believe in slavery, they stayed here because they loved their native commonwealth and wouldn’t abandon her to move west.”

Tracey rubbed her eyes. “So you’re saying I’m a complete idiot and looking at all of this the wrong way?”

Alese puffed her cheeks. “I’m saying you’re too smart for your own good sometimes. You’re overlooking the obvious to focus on the shiny penny.”

“Well, it’s more likely Mexican silver dollars,” Tracey said.

Alese threw up her hands. “I give up. Figure it out for yourself.”

“That’s more or less what Marian said. Why do I feel the same as always when we talk about the Civil War times in Danville—that you know way more than you let on?” Tracey was clearly as frustrated as Alese.

Alese hesitated in the cased opening to the small room. “Some things you have to learn the hard way and for yourself.”

*******

Tracey took Alese’s words to heart. She began using her lunch hour not for extra work for the museum but for herself. She began with the Lukens papers and read every paragraph looking for any reference to the end of the war, no matter how obscure. She learned far more than she thought possible about the logistics of everyday life in war time. Any army was only as good as the food in its bellies, the clothes on its back, and the ammunition in its guns.

Danville had been isolated from the war itself, but because of its rail lines became an epicenter for moving supplies, wounded, and prisoners. There was no doubt in Tracey’s mind that gold and silver left Richmond by rail and was offloaded to wagons in Danville. There was also no doubt in Tracey’s mind that John Martin had been involved as a teamster throughout the war years and had served as indispensable a role as any foot soldier. It was also clear to Tracey that more had transpired than had been recorded in the quartermaster’s account books.

Mitch stopped in the doorway to her office. “Are you ever going out to lunch again?”

Tracey looked up. “I make a mean peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat.”

“Washed down with a Coke?” Mitch asked.

Tracey held up the empty can she’d take home to recycle.

“Have you talked to Betty lately?” Mitch didn’t look Tracey in the eye as he asked the question.

Tracey studied him. “You haven’t gotten her pregnant, have you?”

“You can be such a smartass. This isn’t an easy conversation for me.” He actually tugged at his shirt collar.

“What?” Tracey leaned back in her chair.

“We’re moving in together.” Mitch grinned. “Neither of us can say the m word, but living together makes sense.”

Tracey jumped up, knocking the stack of papers from the corner of her desk, and reached to hug her boss. “It’s lunchtime. It’s okay if I cross the line.” She kept the embrace brief, then stood back and extended her hand. “Congratulations!”

Mitch accepted the handshake easier than the hug. “Let me help you.” His knees popped as he knelt and collected the fallen papers. “Are you still on the trail of the Martin treasure?”

“I can’t get it off my mind. Thank goodness, the in situ treasure hunters have all but given up on us. Some days, Fred has the place all to himself again.”

Mitch held up his hand. “Hang on a minute.” He went through the connecting door to his office and rummaged in his desk. He returned with a thick, battered manila folder that looked older than Tracey. “Betty asked me not to do this, so I waited to see if your obsession was a passing fad and hoped you’d let it go.” He handed the folder to her.

Tracey tested the weight of the papers in her hand and looked at him, raising her eyebrows.

“Harriet’s school report is what hooked me on history all those years ago. I’ve saved everything I ever came across about the end of the Civil War and Danville. I even tracked down the minutes of the local Quaker meeting and the meetings in Ohio that most of the local families transferred to. I couldn’t afford Hinshaw’s volumes, but I copied information like a monk in the Dark Ages. Hopefully, you can read all of it.”

“And?” Tracey asked. “Acknowledging that you’re going to tell me to read this for myself and draw my own conclusions.”

“Something was going on at the Martin farm. I don’t think it involved pieces of silver. A cover story was very carefully developed and passed down. I’m guessing if a cover story was fabricated and carried forward into each following generation, so was what was being protected.”

“It wasn’t revealed to Agnes or Marian,” Tracey said.

“What about Lester? If he wouldn’t confide in his sisters, for whatever reason...”

Tracey had to interrupt him. “Who else would he have told?” She picked up her cell phone and found the number in her contact list. “Will you meet me on the farm this weekend? We need to talk.” Tracey nodded as though her head motion would translate through the phone. She looked at Mitch as she returned the phone to her pocket. He covered his ears with his hands.

Tracey chuckled. “Remind me to tell Betty that you’re the real treasure around here.”

Mitch snorted and walked away. “What I don’t know, I don’t have to keep from Betty.”

“Exactly,” Tracey said.

1869

Susanna stood in the middle of the field and looked about at the corn that had been bundled into shocks to dry. Each shock represented about one hundred hills. They’d been able to cut before the first frost this year, avoiding the sudden cold turning the leaves into razors that sliced face and neck like a knife through warm butter. The hard part was over. The shocks could remain in the field until well into the winter before husking. What a relief. Finally, they had a decent amount of grain to take the animals through the winter.

The larder below the house was packed with dried goods. She was tired of being hungry; the past four years since the war’s end had been lean on the farm. She’d finally given in to John’s logic about planting tobacco in the lower field. She didn’t hold with the use of the leaf but couldn’t deny the profit from growing the plants. They had compromised enough about the farm, deciding not to use slaves before the war changed circumstances for everyone. Now, they worked the farm on shares with the small community of Negroes who had settled just north of John’s family land. “Family,” she said longingly.

Her family was scattered to the winds in Ohio and Iowa, weathering the war years in the Western territories. They had urged her and John to join them, but John was too connected to his family farm. The Martins had thrown in with the hireling Methodists after deciding to stay in Virginia when slavery first became a bone of contention. They considered it better to convert than be disowned by their meeting.

She had no regrets about remaining in Virginia during the war. She just hoped that what she and John had done was enough. Everyone, in some shape or form, had paid a price for the conflict that had torn families apart and destroyed so many lives, on a large and small scale. She had been disowned for marrying out by the very meeting started by her grandmother. It made no matter. Susanna had readily accepted that her faith, like her children, would be blended. She would always hold true to her Quaker tenets.

Susanna was mindful of politics. She had to be. How else could they have survived the destruction of the war as far as stripping livestock and crops for worthless script and the nightmare of reconstruction as imposed by the federal government? She still could not believe that Abraham Lincoln had been killed for his efforts to reunite the country and that stumpy little general, Ulysses S. Grant, was now their president. It was all a bitter tonic to swallow and best not dwelled upon.

Grant had been the cause of great misery to John’s middle brother, Daniel. Daniel had been severely wounded at Cold Harbor in 1864 as part of the company sent to stop Grant’s progress. Daniel’s wounds had never healed. He’d fought fever after fever as his leg rotted with infection. Her poultices brought him back, but repeated high fevers ravaged Daniel’s body and mind. He had finally succumbed to the last bout three weeks earlier. If Susanna knew anything for sure, it was that he was now in a much better place. He’d entered service a healthy twenty-six-year-old who thought he’d be away from home a few weeks and passed at thirty-four with a body wracked by pain for five years. He’d looked twice his age when he came back to Danville.

“I simply cannot fathom that they’re both gone,” Susanna whispered into the breeze. She was used to being alone and having only herself for company.

John’s oldest brother, William, had been killed during the Seven Days Battle a year after war was declared. His company had been assigned to Richmond’s defense. And for what, Susanna thought—Richmond as Virginia’s capital and with proximity to the East Coast shipping had been decimated.

John was now left with the burden of the farm and his brothers’ businesses, as well as their wives. Susanna wanted to add more to that load—she wanted children. They’d been so careful during their married years, she was fearful that her body was barren. Maybe she could convince John by reminding him it was now up to them to provide the next William in the family. It would be bad luck to break the line of descendants named for the first William Martin to set foot in the colonies.

It was a miracle enough for any child to make it through infancy. Both of John’s nephews had succumbed to lack of proper food and distressed mothers—at least that was Susanna’s diagnosis. It took husband and wife to nurture a child into adulthood.

“What if we’ve waited too long and are too old?” Susanna looked across the expanse of the field at all the rows of corn she’d nurtured through the summer and fall. Surely if she could manage a field of corn, she could manage at least one child.

She squinted at the bright blue November sky. In the distance, she saw the dark cloud of steam from the approaching locomotive. The days grew gradually shorter and the temperatures lower. Maybe this winter, if conditions remained favorable, she and John would conceive. She said a silent prayer for as much. “Next year, we both turn thirty, Lord,” Susanna said as a way of ending her plea. Some of the girls she’d gone through schooling with were anticipating grandchildren in the next few years. All seemed to be driven by the urge to procreate, to do their duty as stated in the Testament, and try to make up for the thousands lost, no matter the color of the uniform buried in.

Susanna sighed. How foolish people as a whole were. She stared at the passing freight train and thought back to the wagons commandeered for the treasures evacuated from Richmond. Men actually thought they could set off across the countryside in a land overrun with unpaid soldiers, destitute widows, and starving families and keep the treasure of a lost cause intact. How could trained military men think such a cargo would be kept secret? What folly they had all labored under.

“I might as well admit this, as well,” she said to herself. She had to believe that a child of theirs would be safe before she would convince John it was time. The realities of war would always be a factor of their lives, but most in the county were so focused on survival that already some of the innuendo of those years was fading. People were much too concerned about themselves to have time to resurrect questions about whispered activities suspected a decade ago. Her resolve strengthened. It was time to move on. Surely, the past would not bear unduly on a child of hers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Wow,” Tracey said. It was the first time since Ginny turned the farm into an overnight sensation that Tracey had arrived to see only Agnes’s Crown Vic and Fred’s Blazer parked on the property. As she’d hoped, by early December, the treasure hunters were fast losing interest. “That cold snap last week was probably just the right motivation to send most packing.” She nodded to herself.

Tracey followed the lane past the turn to the house, past the turn to the tobacco barns, and on to the barn. She stopped beside Fred’s Blazer and climbed out. She raised her voice. “Are you on KP duty today?”

Fred stood in the open passageway of the barn watching the horses consume their portion of sweet feed. He turned her way. “All week.”

Tracey stopped beside the paint and patted his side. The horse cast his eye her way as his snout moved across the packed dirt for the last kernels of grain mix.

“You know you’re welcome to ride anytime you take a notion.” Fred crumbled hay onto the ground. “The boys would appreciate their horses being exercised. I draw the line at feeding them and getting them in their stalls on cold nights.”

“Not a horse lover?” Tracey asked.

“Never understood the fascination.” Fred nodded toward his Blazer. “Always preferred something with a motor.”

“This one is a sweetie pie.” Tracey went to the storage box for an extra handful of feed for each of the horses. The appaloosa snapped at her open palm while the paint gently took the treat. “See what I mean?”

“Goats are better for keeping the pasture clean.” Fred led the appaloosa into a stall and covered him with a rug. Tracey followed suit with the paint, brushing him down before draping him with a soft blanket.

“I know you didn’t come out here just to watch me work,” Fred said.

Tracey kept her smartass retort in check. They faced each other in the passageway of the barn. Fred waited.

“I’ve been reading about the Quakers,” Tracey said. “They considered it a compliment if a visitor to their home simply asked what it was they wanted.”

“I’ve never heard that.” Fred rubbed his hands together. “I forgot my gloves in the truck.”

“Me too. I’m not used to wearing them yet.” Tracey kept her hands in her jacket pockets so she wouldn’t fidget. “Did Lester pass along any sort of directions for whatever it is that’s concealed here on the farm? He didn’t share any clues with his sisters.”

Fred blinked. “He did with one of them.” His words were chosen very deliberately. “He told Harry. She wasn’t supposed to die before Lester.”

Tracey did the math. “Lester had almost ten years to tell someone else.” It had not occurred to her that her grandmother, being the youngest of the siblings and separated from Lester by eleven years, would have been his confidant.

“He waited to see how Betty’s boys turned out,” Fred said.

“Not impressed?”

Fred shook his head. “Betty never showed any interest, so why would she pass down any? He never completely forgave Harriet for stirring up her school about it.”

Tracey took a deep breath. “He ran out of family?”

Fred nodded.

“And told you?”

Fred closed the doors to the barn, sliding the hand-hewn pole across to secure the large plank panels in place. He turned and faced Tracey. “Lester swore me to secrecy until he decided on his successor—it had always been passed down father to son, according to the promise old John Martin made his wife. Lester finally decided he’d do the same as Jefferson Davis had with the KGC—turn it over to an organization.”

“The Ruritans?” Tracey couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“Careful,” Fred said. “We’re serious about applying our slogan—‘Fellowship, Goodwill and Community Service’—to our daily lives.”

“Sorry, Fred, I’m such a dumbass.”

“No, you’re not, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He glanced at the sky. Daylight was quickly disappearing, bringing with dusk a sudden chill.

Tracey shivered.

Fred continued. “I’m doing you no favor. Lester bought a theodolite and tried to figure it out with no success. I’ve asked the guys at the club, and they look at me like I’m crazy.” He stopped short of his vehicle. “I truly love this place, always felt drawn to it. Lester understood. He was a good friend and brother Ruritan. He struggled with telling me.”

Tracey waited, knowing this was a huge leap of faith by Fred.

“You might want to write this down.” He reached for his door handle, ready to make his escape.

Tracey went to her car for the notepad suction-cupped to the dash. “Okay.”

Fred closed his eyes and repeated the phrase as though a nursery rhyme, pausing between each line so that Tracey might keep up.

      “Starting at the tree that bears hair:

      5 times 10 Günter’s plus 5,

      45 opposing to merestone,

      60 30 to double white,

      45 twice to provenance.”

Tracey stared at what she had written. “Gibberish.” She looked at Fred. “I’m no good at riddles.”

Fred shrugged. “I gave up several years ago. I just walk the place with my metal detector, making sweeps.” He reached across the driver’s seat of the SUV and picked up a rolled drawing. He unfolded the USGS map of the farm. “I located the property lines as best I could by terrain, then overlaid a grid. You can see how much I’ve covered.” Half of the map had slashes through the small grid boxes.

“Fred, you never cease to amaze me. I had no idea what you were doing, neither do Agnes and Marian.” Tracey moved her head slowly from side to side.

“That was the point.”

Tracey stared at the stanza again. “A hairy tree? There is no such thing, at least not around here, is there?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen.” He hesitated. “I may as well tell you the rest. Lester bought the Mexican silver dollars when he ran across them in antique stores and buried them at odd places about the farm. I continued that as well as laying false trails with GPS.”

“I have a confession, too.” Tracey shrugged. “I watched the belt buckle placed at the tobacco barn. I was camping in the woods.”

Fred grinned. “I felt like I was being watched. I thought it was Lester disapproving of modern technology.” He started chuckling and Tracey joined in.

“I wish I’d had more sense of history when I was a teenager,” Tracey said. “I never really tried to talk to Lester about any of this. By the time I was old enough to pay any attention to him, I thought he was a little batty.”

“He was a little off those last years, and I say that with no disrespect intended.” Fred returned the map to the Blazer.

“Same here,” Tracey said.

Fred hesitated before climbing behind the wheel. “You’re going to think me batty, but be careful who you tell about this. I mean it as just a friendly warning.”

Tracey nodded. “If I walk around mumbling this,” she held up the pad, “I know who everyone will think is a little off.”

“Welcome to my world. Remember that you asked to be told.” He rolled down the window so he could talk as he started the engine. “No one else has ever asked me point-blank.” Fred turned the Blazer and drove away.

Tracey climbed into her car but didn’t hook the seat belt. She tolerated the beeping until she parked beside Agnes’s Crown Vic.

“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.” Marian left the shed, carrying a bag of chicken feed.

“It’s my night to observe farm chores,” Tracey said.

“I saw you at the barn with Fred. It looked like a serious conversation. I didn’t know Fred had it in him.” Marian handed the bag of feed to Tracey to carry.

“I’m done making fun of Fred and the Ruritans.”

“That is serious.” Marian looked at Tracey sideways as they walked.

“Fred has been a caretaker for Lester’s obsession all these years.” Tracey followed Marian into the house, leaving the sack of feed on the back porch.

“The treasure?” Marian attempted sarcasm.

“Fred is searching this place according to a grid on a map.” Tracey shed her jacket as the warmth of the kitchen embraced her.

Agnes stood at the stove with a can of beer in her hand. She looked over her shoulder, holding up the can. “There’s more cold beer in the fridge. You both look as though you could use one.”

Tracey sat at the table while Marian went to the refrigerator.

“So Fred is our own version of Indiana Jones?” Marian asked.

“Looks that way.” Tracey accepted the can of Heineken. “Nice.”

“Don’t get used to it. It was a bribe,” Agnes said. “Young fella stopped by this morning to look around and didn’t have cash. So we bartered.”

Tracey laughed. “It’s always a trade-off of some sort.”

Marian folded the morning’s newspaper and tossed it in the recycling bin. “What has you so perplexed?”

Tracey closed her eyes and quoted. “Starting at the tree that bears hair.”

Agnes looked at Marian. “Were you two smoking something out there?”

“Maybe we should’ve,” Marian said. “What she said would make more sense.” She set three plates on the table.

Their usual dinner conversation was off-kilter. It was as if their timing had been disrupted by the clue. They were each distracted with the possibilities of what the words meant or why Lester had thought it so important. They kept talking in circles, coming back to the hairy tree.

“I always thought Lester was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.” Agnes took a fresh cigarette from the pack on the table and rolled it between her fingers.

Marian huffed. “He was just used to being outside working. Staying inside those last months was hard on him.”

“I thought he died in the barn from a sudden massive heart attack,” Tracey said.

Marian cleared their plates. It was her turn to wash dishes. “He died in the barn lot, but he’d had several small heart attacks. He was supposed to be resting. My guess is that he was out treasure hunting one last time.”

“Good grief,” Tracey said.

Agnes frowned. “When we were little girls, walking about the place with our grandfather, didn’t he tell us the things his father had built or planted?”

“Yep, because I remember Lester making fun of us for listening to every little detail that was important to Grandpa about his parents. He called us little girls like it was something bad.” Marian ate the last biscuit rather than waste it. She closed her eyes, thinking back in time.

Tracey watched them and wondered if she and Paula would end up sharing a house together in their old age. Somehow, the image didn’t convey.

“Wasn’t there something about a persimmon tree?” Agnes asked. “I need something stronger than beer for all this thinking.” She went to the cabinet for a bottle and shot glasses.

Tracey held her hand over the glass. “None for me. I’m driving home tonight.”

Marian finally spoke. “There was an old persimmon tree on the property corner.”

“That Daddy cut down after the railroad sprayed pesticide too wide and killed it.” Agnes picked up on the thought.

“Shush,” Marian said. “I’ve almost got it.” She held her hand up to keep them quiet. She smiled. “Grandpa told us about it because of his father’s horses. His father was John Martin.”

Agnes snapped her fingers, dropping the cigarette. “They had worn one side of the tree smooth because they liked to rub against the rough bark.”

“Leaving strands of hair stuck to the tree.” Marian slapped her hands together.

“Holy shit,” Tracey said. “Sorry.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Agnes said. “Sister, you’re something.”

“You both are,” Tracey said. At least she had a beginning. She couldn’t help but think what a difference it might have made to Lester if he had confided in all of his sisters.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Tracey sat in her car and stared at the stoop of her apartment. She’d never seen anyone look so dejected. She’d certainly never thought of her sister as being depressed.

Paula sat on the steps leading to the side-by-side front doors of the duplex with only the weak bulb of the porch light to fend off the December darkness. Her knees were close to her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins. She wore blue jeans and a high school letterman jacket that Tracey hadn’t seen in years.

Tracey stood beside her car, making sure she had all her notes from the conversations with Fred and her great-aunts. She reached inside for her backpack, then locked the door. She stopped short of the steps.

“I didn’t realize you had plans for the evening. I thought you’d be here sooner.” It wasn’t a complaint, just a statement. Paula raised her chin and looked at Tracey with a tear-streaked face.

“Are the girls okay?”

Paula nodded. “They’re with Mom.”

Tracey instantly pushed everything aside but the memory of her and Paula as children, when Paula had time and inclination for a sister. “You must be freezing. Are you okay?”

Paula shook her head. A single tear escaped. “Ashton told me he’d had enough of me trying to be a Stepford wife. He also said five months was long enough to be embarrassed about the YouTube video. He loved it, by the way. He told me I’ve been worse to live with than Mom.” Tears flowed freely.

Tracey tried not to grin. “That was low.”

Paula took a deep breath and stared at Tracey’s growing smirk. A glimmer of amusement passed across her face. “Yeah, that was the one thing he said that really kicked me in the butt.” She looked around the yard of the duplex. “You really are the smart one—single, career, being yourself, making your own way.”

Tracey nudged Paula over and sat beside her. “Oh, yeah, call me Einstein. I sat back knowing Ginny was working on a piece I had suspicions about the content of, then went off the deep end when she did such a good job with it that she was able to skip several rungs on the career ladder. Now I’m trying to get up enough nerve to call her and tell her I was a jackass. So what if our family had its ten minutes of fame, again. Maybe it’s all part of finally finding out what happened on the farm during the war.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m as bad as the aunts about wandering off topic. Here’s the real news flash—I’m only a few years away from thirty and want to be in a committed relationship.”

“Is that all?” Paula took a deep breath. “You don’t even come close to taking the jackass award.”

Tracey reached over and felt Paula’s forehead. “You’re not running a fever.”

Paula shrugged off Tracey’s hand. “Who did I think I was kidding? I’m a carpenter’s daughter. I barely squeaked through college because I was husband hunting—what a throwback. Now I’ve driven him away.”

“Has he moved out?”

“Just into the guest room.” Paula stretched her legs. “I don’t even know myself anymore. The things I’ve said and done. I’m setting examples for my children, for God’s sake.” She paused and shook her head. “I don’t even know our parents as people.” She touched the jacket. “This was Dad’s.”

Tracey nodded. “I thought so. You’re as bad as me, hanging on to things from the past.”

Paula bumped Tracey’s shoulder. “I always knew I had the coolest little sister of anyone. Bear with me, kid.”

“Why do you think what you say bothers me so much?” Tracey stared at her hands. “You totally freaked me out when you wouldn’t accept that I’m a lesbian. I thought if anyone would understand, it’d be you.”

Paula reached for Tracey’s hand. “I wanted the perfect life. Remember how Mom used to praise me for being the perfect daughter. It was her control method.”

Tracey shrugged. “She gave up on that line with me. I just didn’t fit the mold.”

“See, you’ve always been smarter than me. I wanted to hear that phrase from her.” Paula stomped her feet against the tread. “I wanted everyone to be normal and my life perfect. God, what is normal, anyway? Perfect is an abstract theory. Who am I to judge anyone or anything? All I’ve done with my life is priss around and look down my nose.” She squeezed Tracey’s hand. “From now on, I’m looking you in the eye.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You know your boyfriend has been watching me the entire time I’ve been here.”

Tracey chuckled. “We have a hot date tonight.” She held up the loose papers. “I’m on to something at the farm.”

Paula held up her hands in surrender. “I’m going home and attempt to have this same type of conversation with my husband—it’s called long overdue groveling. I felt I owed you first dibs.” She stood. “I want my sister back.”

Tracey faced her and held her arms open. “You know I’m not big on hugging, but I do make exceptions.” She whispered in Paula’s ear. “I’m here for you.”

“Why do you put up with me?” Paula tightened her embrace.

“You’re my favorite sister.”

Paula snorted in Tracey’s ear.

Tracey watched her sister walk away and climb into her Volvo. She pulled her cell phone out and hit Adam’s hot key.

“Is she gone?” he whispered.

“You could’ve let her into my place.”

“Hey, I offered mine or yours and she preferred the steps. I offered a hot or cold drink, and she turned me down. I took the hint and left her alone.”

 “Where are you now?”

“In bed watching football,” Adam said.

“Alone?”

“Thanks for the compliment.” He turned the sound down.

“Alone. Great.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Mind if I come in?” Tracey said. “And not to talk about Paula. All I’ll say is, I feel as though I may have my sister back—something I never expected.”

“Whoa. That’s big. Painful for her. This is one strange night. Paula’s being decent, you’re out past your bedtime on a work night, and I’m still fairly sober at midnight.” Adam yawned.

“You’re sick, you know that?”

“I’ve heard it before. Use the spare key. I don’t feel like getting up.” He coughed.

“Okay.” Tracey reached under the doormat. “Such an original hiding place. Why not just leave the door unlocked?”

“For insurance purposes. I’ve hidden keys better, then not been able to find them when my eyesight and depth perception are impaired.” He grunted. “I’m pulling on sweats in your honor.”

“Uh-huh.” Tracey slid the key beneath the mat after opening the door. She followed the narrow path of clear floor across the living room to the bedroom. She climbed into the bed beside Adam and took a moment to see who was playing and what the score was.

She held the notepad for Adam to read. He moved her hand forward to focus on the neat printing. “You write like an old-fashioned typewriter. This is supposed to tell me what?” He offered to share his popcorn.

Tracey munched a few kernels, then waved the bowl aside. “I’m stuffed. I had dinner with Agnes and Marian after Fred told me this. He has no clue what it means. Agnes and Marian figured out the first line—there was a persimmon tree on the western corner with the railroad right-of-way.” She was proud of the crude map she’d sketched.

Adam frowned. “I can tell you what Günter’s is—it’s an old method of surveying measurement equivalent to sixty-six feet or four poles.” He yawned again. “And please don’t make any ethnic jokes.”

Tracey bounced on the mattress on the floor. “Cool! That’s two pieces of it solved already. How do we do the rest?” She stopped bouncing. “What do you mean—ethnic?”

He rolled his eyes. “We, Nancy Drew?”

Tracey smiled. “It’s a puzzle that only a surveyor can solve from the sound of it.”

Adam sighed. “I was hooked before you came through the door to reel me in, wasn’t I?”

Tracey nodded.

“Okay. Copy it down for me. Let me sleep on it. It’s too late to get into it tonight.” He read the disappointment on Tracey’s face. “If it’s waited this long, it’ll wait a little longer, trust me.”

Tracey couldn’t argue with his logic; after all, he was the one doing her a favor. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Promise?”

Adam crossed his heart. “Goes without saying. I also won’t breathe a word about Paula possibly being amongst us humans again. Want to spit in our palms and shake?”

“You’re so weird.” She kissed him on the cheek and went home. An hour later, she would’ve been amazed if she realized she was asleep.

*******

True to his word, when Tracey arrived at Adam’s apartment the following evening, she was duly impressed. Adam had found his old file on surveying the property adjacent to the Martin farm, as well as the original land grant descriptions, the railroad easement map, the highway right-of-way plat, and a current topographic map. He spent two hours before pleading brain death and bleary eyes from entering the plats and descriptions into his laptop software to create a plat of the Martin property by default of all that surrounded it.

That night was their first attempt at breaking the actual code.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you pulling me into this.” Adam sat in the middle of his living room floor surrounded by plats, deed descriptions, and his laptop. All the bean bag chairs were covered.

“How long have you been working?” Tracey stood in the doorway, not sure where to set down the bag of fast food. She tossed him the six-pack.

He made the catch with one hand, only glancing at the incoming projectile. “Ever since I was rained out from a job this morning and had time to go through the office archives,” Adam said. “Now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Tracey handed him a hamburger and patted him on the back. “You know you love a surveying puzzle. Besides, what else could you be doing that’s more fun?”

Adam looked up at her and crossed his eyes.

Tracey settled onto the floor amid all the papers.

“Okay, the traverse is fairly straightforward,” Adam said. “Günter’s chain is sixty-six feet. Five times ten Günter’s means five shots of six hundred sixty feet. I’m thinking the plus five means a line of three hundred thirty feet. That’s the easy part.” He brought the property boundary map on screen. His fingers flew across the keyboard. He caught Tracey watching him. “What? You thought I was a hunt-and-peck guy?”

“You’re truly a Renaissance man,” Tracey said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Read me the next line again.” He motioned her to hurry.

“Forty-five opposing to merestone,” Tracey said. “I looked that up, by the way. A merestone is a stone marking a boundary.”

“Or a traverse point,” Adam said. He looked up from the computer. “Where one line ends, an angle is turned, and another line begins. Think of playing a dogleg.”

Tracey nodded.

“The numbers mentioned are basic angles, like on the old triangles everyone used to draw with.” He dug into his briefcase. “I kept mine.” He held up two yellowing Plexiglas triangles. “Forty-five-, forty-five-, and ninety-degree angles, sixty-, thirty-, and ninety-degree angles.” He studied the screen. “Okay, if we begin at the corner, hoping that there’s a tree stump close by to start from, a forty-five-degree angle would bisect the property corner and head toward the house.” He entered a bearing and distance for the first line. “If we go forty-five in the opposing direction, that takes us on a line parallel to the railroad, just shifted over.” He entered the data.

Tracey studied the screen. “From the USGS overlay, that looks as though it would have us close to the woods. That would make sense for a stone left undisturbed.”

“It will also give us a way to verify our traverse—very smart. Read me the next line.” He took a long swallow of coffee.

“No booze tonight?” The six-pack Tracey brought remained untouched.

“I’m having too much fun, remember?” Adam grinned at her like a young boy with a decoder ring.

“You and me both. Beats moping about the house,” Tracey said.

“No word from Ginny?” Adam asked.

“We’ve talked a couple of times and texted. She’s back in town this weekend to get the last of her things.” Tracey sighed. “Sorry, it’s a reflex.”

“It’s okay. You’ll meet someone else,” Adam said. “Hear any more from Paula?”

“She and Ashton are talking.” Paula had sworn Tracey to secrecy about the counselor she’d made an appointment with. “Sixty 30 to double white.”

“Okay, I get it. Enough of the touchy-feely.” Adam pointed to the screen. “We have to keep going into the property, so it must be clockwise angles. Watch.” He used the six hundred sixty feet as distance and turned the angles.

“We’re still in the woods. Think double white is a tree of some sort and not something racist?”

Adam snorted. “There are a lot of white oaks in those woods.”

Tracey snapped her fingers. “You’re making this too easy.”

“We have the benefit of modern technology. I wouldn’t want to be a nonsurveyor blundering around on foot trying to do this.” Adam stretched and yawned, squinting at the time on the taskbar.

“Another thirty minutes, and I promise to leave,” Tracey said.

“Next line.”

“Forty-five twice to provenance.”

“This is where it gets tricky. It either sends us to the middle of the pasture…” He laid out forty-fives clockwise using six hundred sixty feet and three hundred thirty feet tangents. “…Or into the wheat field out from the barn lot.” He went forty-fives counterclockwise. “This is where we need to do the fieldwork. Come over tomorrow night, and I’ll give you a crash course using the EDM system.”

Tracey looked at him blankly.

“Electronic Distance Measurement measures the time it takes for a laser light to bounce off a prism. You’re going to learn how to be a rodman and set the prism for me to shoot off of.”

Tracey thought about it. “Like the dummy end of a tape measure when laying something out?”

Adam patted her on the head. “Exactly. You have a great future in land surveying.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Tracey hoped she wasn’t going to regret this telephone call. Surprisingly, Ginny answered almost before the ring bounced back.

“Hey,” Tracey said.

“Hey, yourself. You remembered that I’m back in town this weekend.” Ginny sounded pleased.

“I did.” Tracey felt as awkward as the first time she’d called another girl for a date in high school.

“How about dinner tomorrow night?”

Tracey blinked. This sounded like the Ginny of old. “How about an adventure in the morning?” She felt herself blush.

Ginny laughed. “Well, that’s one way to describe it. Don’t I at least get a drink first?”

“This is easier for you than me.” Tracey felt herself break a sweat.

“It certainly doesn’t sound that way.” Ginny lowered her voice and added a breathy quality.

Tracey cleared her throat. “I’m on to something at the farm. I thought you might want to be part of it.”

Ginny was silent. “So this isn’t about us. It’s about your famndamily treasure?” Reversing the first two letters had been their signal of enough about each other’s family.

“Adam and I may have figured out a location from something Lester passed along to Fred.” Tracey paced her apartment as she spoke.  “Look, you’ve set something in motion with your video. You should be here for the next round. I overreacted. Can we call it even that you breached a confidence and I lost my temper?”

“Wow, I didn’t see this one coming.” Ginny sighed. “Are you sure you want us to go down this path again? I was letting all that drop and hoping for a fresh start.”

“A long-distance relationship?” Tracey’s voice squeaked.

“Don’t sound so surprised. We knocked heads over your family. That doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you. It was just time for me to change jobs and cities. A little separation has helped my perspective about us,” Ginny said.

“So does that mean you’ll meet me at the farm tomorrow?” Tracey asked. “Adam and I are starting near the railroad at eight if you want to come to the house midmorning.”

“Have I ever turned down an invitation from you to come?”

Tracey managed a guttural sound.

Ginny chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Did you happen to bring your small video camera?” Tracey braced herself for the response.

“I never go anywhere without it. Hey, this isn’t a payback prank, is it? Are you and Adam punking me?” Ginny’s tone remained light.

“Us? Are you kidding? We’re not that creative or bored,” Tracey said.

“Gee, thanks.”

Tracey sputtered her words. “I didn’t mean it that way. Let me try again. How about spending the morning with me on the farm? We’ll go to lunch and take the rest of the day from there.”

“Fair enough,” Ginny said.

*******

Tracey tossed and turned all night, first thinking about Adam’s map of the Martin farm, then thinking about seeing Ginny again. She hoped she hadn’t set the perfect storm in motion.

The morning was a crisp thirty degrees with a cloudless, deep blue December sky. Tracey and Adam stopped at their favorite Krispy Kreme location and bought coffee and doughnuts for twice their number.

“I don’t want to jinx us.” Tracey looked across the bench seat at Adam. “I finally believe in the treasure.”

Adam glanced at her and grinned. “I can’t wait to see if my map points work.”

They parked off of the secondary road that paralleled the railroad and back property line of the farm. Tracey carried the rod with the target, Adam the total station and tripod. They each wore a backpack with supplies—Adam’s topped off with the thermos of coffee, Tracey’s with the box of doughnuts.

Tracey motioned to her lip. “You’re wearing confectioner’s sugar.”

Adam blew air into his mustache.

“That got it.” Tracey laughed at him.

They followed the path amid the underbrush to the railroad right-of-way, crossed the ballast and tracks and ballast again, managed to stay on the steppingstones of the creek, and negotiated the wire fence at the Martin property line. Fred’s Blazer was parked at the tobacco barn. He and Marian climbed out and met Tracey.

“Ready for a hike?” Tracey asked.

“It’s about seventeen hundred feet to the property corner,” Adam said, pointing. He ducked his shoulder so Fred was able to reach the coffee. Marian shook her head at the offer of a doughnut.

They all fell into step, walking single file, following Adam.

The pasture was kept clear by the horses with an occasional wild rose bush surviving the elements. The adjoining property had been subdivided into a large lot housing development a decade ago with original trees left at the rear of the lots.

Adam watched the tracks as they walked. “At least we’re following a straight flat section of rail, makes it easy to see.”

“I forget how gradually any changes in horizontal or vertical alignment had to be designed,” Tracey said.

“It makes our start easier since Southern Railway bought right-of-way perpendicular to the side property line.” Adam adjusted his grip of the equipment case.

“Do you two always talk like this?” Marian asked.

Tracey chuckled. “I’ve enjoyed my crash course in surveying. It ties in with how I always played golf—doing math and physics in my head as I walked the course.”

Fred’s breathing wheezed. “I thought golf was just about a tiny ball and skinny stick.”

“And goats are better for keeping pastures clean.” Tracey enjoyed teasing him.

They approached the property corner. Adam eyed the thicket as he set his backpack on the ground and reached toward the side pocket. He grinned as he held up a machete.

“Whoa.” Tracey stepped back from the collection of brush.

“This is the fun part.” He waded into the brambles and bushes, cutting a swath clear, then probing the mass. “I’ve hit something firm.”

Fred helped Adam pull the brush away. He peered over Adam’s shoulder. “It’s a tree stump.”

Tracey hugged Marian.

“We’re in business,” Adam said. He cleared around the remnants of the tree trunk, then returned to his equipment. He set the tripod over the stump, then took the total station from its case. His motions with the equipment were meticulous.

Tracey was amazed. She’d never seen Adam work in the field before.

He set the instrument on the plate and turned the bolt on the bottom center to tighten it against the tripod. He used the level and the optical plumb to guide, adjusting the tripod’s legs. “It’s trial and error, using the crosshairs and the bubble to stay over the center of the stump and keep the instrument level.” He fussed with the adjustments until he was satisfied. “Watch, when the instrument spins freely on the axis, it’s set up okay.” He demonstrated. “Power on.” He motioned Tracey forward. “Go, girl, I’ll direct you with hand signals.”

“All polite ones,” Tracey said to Marian.

Tracey watched as Adam turned the first forty-five-degree angle from the property corner. She watched his line of sight and used a rusty spot on the ridge of the barn roof to strike off across the pasture. When the distance felt about right, she turned and held the rod steady and waited for Adam’s directions.

They completed a widely separated dance until Adam was satisfied and signaled her to drop the tip of the pole to mark the spot. She moved the pole slightly and set a traverse cap to mark the vertex. He then directed her on the line parallel to the tracks for the second forty-five-degree angle and six hundred sixty feet.

Tracey saw the small rock outcropping before she turned for Adam’s final directions. “Holy shit.” She felt as though she ought to kneel before the rock as though it was the famed Irish Blarney stone.

Adam sighted Tracey to a slight indentation in the center of the merestone. She marked the point with a nearby pebble and gestured excitedly as Fred and Marian caught up to her. Adam reversed the setup process to move the station.

Tracey didn’t give Adam time enough to set his equipment down before she wrapped her arms around him. “Look!” She pointed to the stone and the carefully marked center.

He glanced upward, along the path through the trees on the slope. “Get your butt in motion for the top of the hill. Look for a big twin tree. I know you wanted to be a purist and set every vertex in the original alignment, but we’ll skip the intermediate point because it’s hard to get a line of sight through here.”

Tracey saluted and all but skipped along the path. Fred moved beyond the tree line into the pasture to relay Adam’s signals.

Marian slowly climbed the hillside.

Tracey thought about the next line of the clue—60 30 to double white. Adam turned clockwise angles so they stayed on the farm and combined two legs of six hundred sixty feet each.

She was so focused on walking sideways so she could watch Fred that she slammed into a massive tree trunk. “You’re shitting me,” she whispered. She stepped back and looked up.

The twin tree had light bark and a few rounded tip leaves dried on the branches thirty feet above the ground. The combined trunks on her eye level were at least eight feet in diameter. The tree easily stood over a hundred feet tall. It would have been a sapling before the Civil War.

Fred approached Tracey. “Good wood in that. ‘White oak, you can put in the ground, red oak, don’t lay it down.’ At least that’s what my grandfather always said.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Some of the early settlers learned to eat the acorns from white oaks as the Indians did, supposed to be the sweetest. Deer will leave other acorns on the ground as they eat the ones from these trees.” Fred rested his hand on the trunk.

Tracey felt as though she wanted to pinch herself. Could this get any better? She looked toward the house and saw Agnes approaching with Ginny.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tracey knew as she did it that she was caught up in the moment. She handed the rod to Fred and quick-stepped to meet Ginny, openly embracing her in front of everyone. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered in her ear and reveled in the combined scent of perfume and hair treatment.

Ginny held on to her. “You too, sweetie.” She kissed Tracey’s cheek.

Tracey returned the kiss on Ginny’s lips.

Adam clapped and shouted from his spot down the hill, “About damn time you two did that.”

Fred studied his shoes.

Marian motioned Agnes to look at the tree, winking at Tracey. “Lester was on to something. Adam’s calculations have worked so far.”

“This is where the alignment gets tricky,” Adam said.

Ginny reached into her bag for her video camera. “I need background.”

Tracey looked at Fred. He nodded. She recited the stanza of clues into the camera and explained what they’d done and found so far.

“And that brought you here?” Ginny panned the tree and Adam’s equipment.

Adam explained the logic of the survey as he factored an offset for the tree into the next set of points. He entered data on what appeared to be a handheld calculator that directly dumped into the total station. “We’re going to try forty-five-degree angles twice to the right, or clockwise, first.” He motioned Tracey to proceed with the rod. “Get your walkie out.”

Tracey nodded as she pulled her walkie-talkie out of her pack. They’d charged the Talkabouts the previous night as part of loading their backpacks.

Ginny stayed beside Adam, catching his commentary and occasionally panning to Tracey. Adam directed Tracey in direction and distance. “We’ll skip the intermediate point and go to the ending coordinates of two forty-fives at six hundred sixty feet and three hundred thirty feet.”

Tracey backed across the pasture as she neared her destination, looking to each side of her feet for any identifying marker or landmark. “All I see is grass,” she said into the walkie-talkie. She stopped on the coordinates. “Nothing that I can see to tell me we’re in the right place, certainly no visible provenance.”

“Mark it with a cap,” Adam said.

Tracey stuck the bright yellow plastic disc into the ground, noting its location to recover later so the horses wouldn’t be tempted by it.

Adam motioned her back to the group. “There was a fifty-fifty chance of that being correct. Don’t be discouraged.”

“I’ll check the spot later with my metal detector,” Fred said.

Tracey followed Adam’s sighting for forty-five-degree angles turned to the left. As she neared the shop, she turned for his final adjustments to her position. Her back was to the door of the outbuilding when he was satisfied with the position of the rod.

Marian approached, careful not to step between Tracey and Adam. “Talk about ‘round Robin Hood’s barn.’”

Tracey looked at the building and the barn opposite.

Fred joined them. “Look at the hand-hewn logs and the pegs holding this building together. Construction predates the Civil War.”

“It’s the oldest building on the farm,” Marian said. “Grandpa said this was where his parents first lived when the original land grant was divided between his father and uncles.”

Tracey waited until Ginny was beside her to open the door. Marian and Fred hung back, staying out of the video. Adam gathered his equipment to catch up with them.

The door resisted the operation of its hinges. Tracey pushed her shoulder against the planks and almost fell inside when the rust gave way. She squinted at the dark interior. She’d looked inside the small outbuilding many times as a child but had been forbidden exploration because of the tetanus haven of the contents.

She saw a narrow L-shaped stairway to her left, leading to the loft. Workbenches were against the opposing side walls. The loft covered the back half of the floor space, condensing the ceiling height and making Tracey feel as though she should duck even as short as she was. Tools dangled from the joists supporting the loft floor. She glanced over her shoulder. “Would someone toss me the flashlight out of my backpack?” She waved her hand before her to clear the cobwebs and spiderwebs as she advanced.

Fred pitched her a CSI-style flashlight. “I can get to the one in my pocket quicker.”

Tracey explored the ground level. Floorboards with wide separations revealed packed dirt and rock outcroppings. Everything abandoned in the building had a thin layer of dirt covering it. There were remnants of farm tools and rusty paint cans strewn about the floor with cardboard boxes tossed on top. “When was the last time anyone actually used this place?”

“Lester,” Agnes and Marian said in unison.

“How about upstairs?” Adam asked.

Tracey looked at the questionable stairs. “I was afraid someone was going to suggest that.”

“Man up, for real,” Adam said.

The others chuckled.

Tracey turned and was about to stick her tongue out when she saw the camera in Ginny’s hands. She smiled sweetly. She climbed the steps, feeling like a surfer balancing on a board in the water. The treads creaked alarmingly. The stringers moved with each step. She held her hand up to Ginny. “You might want to wait down there, or at least until I get off before you get on. I don’t want you taking a tumble.”

“Be still my heart,” Adam said.

Ginny followed Tracey up the stairs after waiting her turn.

Tracey stood on the upper platform and coughed. At least the loft felt sturdy.

“See anything?” Marian called.

“More dirt. Trunks and crates.” Tracey squinted at the far wall. “Empty baskets, I hope. At least nothing’s moving.”

“Grandpa used to weave baskets in the winter,” Marian said.

“Well, I think we found the basket graveyard,” Tracey said.

“What’s in the crates?” Fred asked.

Ginny eased onto the platform, mindful of the open side.

Tracey stepped over and around the accumulated mess on the floor. She looked inside the first crate. The flashlight dimmed. “How old are these batteries?”

“Same that came in it,” Fred said.

Tracey carefully removed a legal-size, leather-bound notebook. She juggled the book and the fading light. “Old ledgers for anything bought or sold on the farm.” She thumbed through the pages. “Bugs have eaten little holes in the pages. Looks as though they documented all the details of day-to-day expenses. I’d love to have these for the museum.” She looked at the other crates. “Seems to be more of the same.” She walked to the edge of the loft and looked over the interior of the building once more. “Whatever might have been hidden here is long gone.”

Ginny turned off the camera and returned it to her shoulder bag. “Swear to me you hadn’t already been through this building.”

Tracey looked at her and crossed her heart wordlessly. “Why did I allow myself to believe?”

“Come on, sweetie.” Ginny motioned her to follow her down the steps.

Tracey watched Ginny. The real treasure was right before her eyes and always had been. She went down the steps, treading as lightly as possible.

Fred looked around the building. “Some of the tools might be valuable.”

“This was never about farm equipment.” Tracey hated feeling that she wanted to go home and have a good cry. She moved the debris about on the floor with her foot. “Nothing but dirt and cobwebs.”

Adam filled the doorway. “It’s okay. It was fun solving the riddle.” He sneezed three times in quick succession. “Sorry, allergies.”

Tracey sighed. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I should’ve listened to Mom instead of wasting everyone’s time. Sheesh, it was so easy to get caught up in it.” Tracey kicked a rust-eaten paint can.

“Let’s go,” Ginny said from outside.

Agnes and Marian stood side by side in the barn lot. For the first time, they looked their ages.

Tracey went to them and initiated a group hug. “Hey, it’s okay. We tried. It’s a beautiful day.” She lowered her voice. “It gave me a good excuse to call Ginny.” She winked.

Fred started toward his Blazer. He looked at Adam. “Want a ride to your truck?”

Adam nodded. He looked at Tracey. “Are you coming?”

Ginny spoke first. “She’s with me.”

Adam grinned and waved. He stopped before Agnes and Marian and set his case down. He held out his arms to them. “Too many good-looking women are standing around not to have at least one hug.”

Ginny linked arms with Tracey. “You look like you could use a good meal and a hot drink.”

“How about fast food and a hot woman?” Tracey asked.

Ginny laughed. “Consider it done.”

Tracey considered a lot of things done. “I’m sorry about losing my temper. I knew when I took you to the farm that the story had caught your attention. You’re a journalist. What else would you do with a story? Besides, what Agnes and Marian do or say is not mine to try to control.”

Ginny was equally thoughtful. “I should’ve shown you the piece first. I was caught up in a scoop on a great story and two natural storytellers. I really had no idea it would catch more than local or maybe state interest. I thought it might get me a transfer to a Richmond station, an easy commute.”

Tracey grinned. “Anything can be easy if we make our minds up for it to be.”

Ginny nodded. “Oh, Lord, are we finally joining the ranks of the grownups?”

“And being semi-committed about our relationship?” Tracey managed a gasp before giving in to giggles.

Making up was a lot more fun than fighting.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Does anyone ever get tired of watching this movie?” Tracey had kicked her shoes off upon entering the house and sat with her feet tucked under her on the sofa next to Marian.

Marian leaned back on the middle cushion, sock-covered feet resting on the coffee table and work boots under the table in case she had to go outside for the animals.

Agnes was on the opposite end of the sofa from Tracey, poised to return to the kitchen when the timer went off for the casseroles in the oven. The ham was already plated and cooling.

Paula sat in the recliner usually in the corner, moved closer to the sofa so she could see the television.

Harriet sat in the other recliner near the fireplace. Betty was on the ottoman.

Aurora and Ashley had gathered the throw pillows and made a nest on the floor in front of the television. It was their first time included in the annual soirée.

It was tradition for the Martin women to gather on the day after Christmas. Festivities were over. Trees and decorations were already being eyed for repacking. Paula’s girls were satiated on presents. School and church programs were history.

“We’ve seen it every time it’s been on since it was released in theaters,” Marian said. “I was only two, but I remember.”

“You remember what the rest of us told you about going,” Agnes said.

“That’s amazing.” Paula gave the girls the look that settled them on the pillows.

“Amazing that what everyone calls classics, like this and The Wizard of Oz,” Agnes began.

Betty interrupted. “Don’t forget It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“How could we? You make us watch that every year, too.” Harriet gave Betty a playful push.

Agnes stared them down. “Isn’t it amazing that classic movies are ones we took for granted when they opened for a normal run in theaters and have survived through decades of yearly runs on television?”

“We have them on DVD,” Ash said.

“Mom lets us play them over and over between Halloween and Christmas,” Rory said. She’d caught on quickly to the sister tag-team method of conversation.

Paula nodded. “I catch myself watching with them most of the time.”

“Wait, wait.” Tracey motioned Paula to stand as she jumped up from the sofa. “Come on, let’s do it. Hurry.”

Paula rolled her eyes but actually smiled as she gave in to Tracey.

Tracey and Paula stood side by side and mimed along with Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby through their rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Sisters.” Tracey was the cut-up, Paula the straight man. They were barely able to mouth the words by the end of the song for wanting to laugh. The others clapped and whistled. Rory and Ash rolled on the floor at the sight of their mother being silly.

Tracey hugged Paula and returned to the sofa, wiping her eyes. “I kill myself.”

“And others with you.” Marian patted her leg consolingly, setting Tracey off on another fit of giggles.

“Whew.” Tracey stared at the screen. “Watching Rosemary Clooney in old movies is when I realized I was a lesbian.”

Marian didn’t miss a beat. “Well, if she wouldn’t make you join the other side, I don’t know who would.”

Tracey held her fist out to Marian for a knuckle bump.

“She was a beautiful woman,” Paula said. “What a voice.”

Tracey couldn’t believe her ears.

“What?” Paula asked. “I can acknowledge that another woman is attractive.”

“I think it’s cool that you like girls,” Rory said.

“What’s to like about boys?” Ash finished the last of the afternoon’s bowl of popcorn as the others howled at her innocence. She chalked it up to adult idiocy.

Agnes heard the timer sound. “I hope you two didn’t ruin your appetites.” She climbed over everyone to make her way to the kitchen. “Don’t bother to offer to help. Everything’s on the table except what’s in the oven.”

“They never eat much.” Paula inclined her head at the girls. “But they’re both in their age percentiles in height and weight.”

Tracey leaned over and pulled Ash’s hair back for her—ponytails never lasted. “That’s all right. We do power snacks.”

The girls giggled without taking their gaze from the movie.

“Dinner in fifteen minutes,” Agnes called from the kitchen.

Paula snapped her fingers. “You two go help Agnes set the table.”

“She said everything was done,” Ash said.

“Well, she lies,” Paula said. “Scoot.”

The girls looked at each other, silently deciding to do as asked.

“Damn, you’re good at that mother thing.” Tracey watched the girls bounce out of the room.

“You’re their buddy. I’m the authority figure. It sucks but comes with the territory,” Paula said.

Harriet snorted. “It makes a difference when there’s just two years separating your children. They’re both into similar things. You two are seven years apart and more like different generations.”

“I just always thought it was Paula’s nature to be bossy,” Tracey said.

Paula threw the pillows at Tracey as she straightened up after the girls.

Betty leaned back against her sister. “We didn’t do too badly for three years apart.”

Harriet snorted again. “You always wanted the same as me.”

“Keeping up with you helped me stay ahead of my classmates in school,” Betty said. Her tone implied that she wanted to know the rest of what was on Harriet’s mind.

“I always set the pace,” Harriet said. “Perfect example—am I dropping you off where I picked you up this morning?”

Betty hesitated. “No, I’m going to Mitch’s tonight. He’s coming back today after spending Christmas with his daughter.”

“You finally got him. I knew you had a crush on him in high school because I liked him.” Harriet gave her sister a push.

“Guilty,” Betty said. “Isn’t it crazy how life works out?”

“Amen to that,” Marian said. “Circle of life.”

Paula sighed and looked at Tracey. “We may have our differences, but I’ll always see you like Ash—a cute little girl with a ponytail going in all directions.”

“Agnes still thinks of me that way. We’re two years apart.” Marian lowered her feet to the floor.

“I hope you know I want you to have a relationship and children and be happy,” Paula said. “Whatever the relationship. Ashton and I are working on saving ours. I’m in therapy, trying to get my head straight—not that straight is the only way to be.”

Tracey looked at her sister. She felt her head going slightly sideways as the dogs when making sure they heard something correctly. Tracey knew that Paula was being genuine. “Who are you and what have you done with my Republican homophobic sister?” she teased.

There was complete silence in the room.

Paula took a deep breath. “I was grossly wrong. I’m sorry. I’ve learned my lesson during all the treasure craziness of the past few months. My true friends have stuck by me through the video and the story about you, Mom. Ashton made me see it as my wake-up call to lighten up. Family is what’s most important—all generations, warts and all.”

Tracey pinched herself. “Damn, I want some of what you’ve been drinking.”

Paula held her glass up in a toast. “Virgin eggnog. I’m driving with my girls.”

Marian held her glass up. “To Lester and Harry. I miss them being here on the farm.”

Everyone drank.

“To sisters,” Tracey said. She was almost overcome by the sense of loss of a protective older sister all the years that Paula had distanced herself.

Paula clinked her glass against Tracey’s. “I promise to do better by you. You’re my favorite sister.”

“I’m your only sister.” Tracey grumbled as she reined in her emotions.

Marian turned to Tracey. “Are you giving up so easily?”

Tracey raised her eyebrows.

“On Ginny?” Betty said.

“We’ll see each other for New Year’s,” Tracey said. “I’ve already made reservations for a flight and a downtown hotel for us. This is likely TMI, but as much as I’ve pushed her away, there’s something about her that continues to draw us back together.”

She was surprised by the round of genuine applause.

Harriet was the only one who abstained. She looked at Tracey. “I’m sorry. I’m not there yet. I never wanted to have the Martin farm as the center of attention again. Rory keeps trying to convince me that the air needed clearing.” She looked at Marian. “There’s no doubt that the treasure foolishness brought Rory and me together, even though it damn neared killed him. I can’t imagine my life without him.” It was as close to mending the rift with her aunts that Harriet could manage.

Marian took and released a deep breath. “What about Lester’s legacy?”

“You mean his fallacy?” Tracey said.

Marian shook her head. She glanced at Harriet. “I don’t mean to irritate old wounds.”

Harriet shook her head and left the room. Betty shrugged apologetically and followed.

Marian continued. “Did one false trail end it for you? Or are you going to treat it as you have Ginny and keep trying?”

Paula left the room to break up a fight between her girls.

Marian held her hand out to Tracey to pull her up from the sofa. “No wonder whatever’s here hasn’t been found. You’ve missed something.” She left the room.

Tracey stared at the movie. Misdirection was a common ploy in any story, as was hiding something in plain sight. She stretched and stared at the painting over the sofa of the front porch of the house with quilts over the railing. What had she missed that was right in front of her?

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Tracey looked around the room and was satisfied. The booking agent had delivered as promised. The room was furnished with a king-size bed that she’d best not think about too much, a desk with telephone, an armoire with television, and an overstuffed chair that could seat two very comfortably. The color scheme was a mix of soft blue, maroon, and brown. The holiday package included a pre-midnight delivery of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, as well as brunch for the first day of the New Year. “Perfect.”

She glanced at the face of her phone. Only three more hours until Ginny was done working for the day. Tracey looked longingly at her phone, wanting to send yet another text. “Borderline creepy,” she warned herself.

Tracey wanted this weekend to be special for Ginny. She couldn’t begrudge anyone taking a job in a big city close to home. Cincinnati was certainly that for Ginny even though it meant two hundred miles along Interstate 75 to reach the suburb of Toledo where her parents lived. Ginny was in her home state and close enough to family and friends to stay connected but make her own way, now that she was a feature reporter in a city of over three hundred thousand with the Greater Cincinnati metro area combining parts of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana into a population coverage of over two million.

It was mind-blowing to Tracey to think that a viral video timed when a fresh face was sought by Hearst Television had catapulted Ginny into the spotlight. It had given Ginny an instant portfolio that bypassed the five-year experience requirement as an MMJ. “Multimedia journalist,” Tracey reminded herself.

She decided to pace somewhere other than the room. She was intrigued by the Duke Energy Convention Center but not crazy about large crowds. The evening was to be spent at Fountain Square with Ginny hosting a feature on young professionals partying.

“Young professional,” Tracey said with a sneer. “That implies an obligation to be a hooker.” She smiled at her company in the elevator. “Sorry. I’ve a bad habit of mumbling to myself.”

Tracey browsed the tourism information in the vestibule. She had to admit that Ginny was right about a big city and how much there was to do. Yet Tracey caught herself thinking of the gathering of her clan for Christmas. She was as satisfied with her family as she was with crazy nightlife, more so. She was only in Ohio for face time with Ginny.

“Try the one on bottom row center,” the desk clerk spoke across the counter.

Tracey followed his direction and reached for the brochure from the National Underground Freedom Center. She looked over her shoulder. “How’d you know I was a history buff?”

The young black man grinned at her. “I was dealing funk because of your shirt.”

“Like I’m supposed to know what that means,” Tracey said.

He laughed at her expression and thought for a moment. “I was pulling your leg because of where I assumed you’re from.”

Tracey glanced at her chest. She was in the habit when she traveled of wearing clothing with the state’s logo. “Virginia is for Lovers” had made a comeback, and she’d bought a new fleece jacket. Tracey smiled back at him. “Busted. I’m from Virginia. To make it worse, I work as a museum curator.”

“Seriously? You’d like the NUFC. We get rave comments when we send tourists over. Take the shuttle, though. Crossing 71/50 is taking your life in your hands.”

“I heard that.” Tracey read the leaflet, noting the displays. “What will Fountain Square be like tonight?”

He busted a dance move and mimed taking a drink.

Tracey returned to the room to change clothes. She was to meet Ginny at the Square.

*******

Tracey blinked at the mass of bodies filling the half-block square. The fountain topped by the woman with arms outstretched was gorgeous and had to be over forty feet tall. She leaned against the water boy at the corner of the fountain base closest to the hotel. Tracey waited ten minutes, then heard a familiar voice.

“Girlfriend!” Ginny called.

Tracey turned and was swept into a hug and kiss given no mind by the revelers. “I’ve missed you. This is spectacular.” She gestured at the fountain.

“Thirsty?” Ginny nodded at the boy holding a goose. “When this was built in 1871, the water was chilled below ground with ice. People still drink from the stream of water. Dogs love it. Too bad it has to be shut off for the winter.”

“Not a problem.” Tracey looked at the four corners of the base. “I was hoping for something a little stronger to drink.”

“They don’t run Coke through it.” Ginny hugged Tracey again, laughing in her ear.

“I love it anyway. I see why you want to work here.” Tracey shouted to be heard over the crowd noise.

“This place is one of my favorites. Officially, this is the Tyler Davidson Fountain. Originally, it replaced a butcher’s market. They hold over two hundred events here each year.” Ginny linked arms with Tracey and led her around the fountain. “JFK spoke here during his 1960 campaign. Civil rights demonstrations took place here.” She frowned and looked at the people closest to them. “The KKK wanted to place a cross here at Christmas. I had fun covering that story, or not.”

“Don’t get me started,” Tracey said.

Ginny took on her professional tone. “Fountain Square was renovated in 2005 at a cost of forty-three million dollars as the hardscape plaza featuring the famous fountain.” She made the appropriate hand gestures. “The purpose was to revitalize the downtown center and reclaim being the heart of Cincinnati, as well as anchoring downtown revitalization. The lady on top is nine feet tall and made of bronze, the base of granite.”

“You’re so full of crap,” Tracey said, “but thank you for more to add to the ‘useless shit’ section of my brain.”

“Now you know how I felt listening to all the Danville propaganda.” Ginny circled her finger at the side of her head.

Tracey looked at the surrounding buildings. “I can’t get over all the stores, hotels, and restaurants.”

“And offices. I guess you learn to ignore the view and people watching.” Ginny waved to her approaching camerawoman. “Another sister,” she said to Tracey.

“Cute too. Should I be jealous?” Tracey asked.

Ginny smacked Tracey in the shoulder.

Tracey watched Ginny work the crowd, interviewing their generation of workers deemed the target market for living and working downtown. She knew the game—a city was as relevant as the youth of its work force. “Blah, blah, blah,” Tracey said to herself.

The countdown to midnight loomed. Ginny made sure to stay close to Tracey. She didn’t shy away from her videographer, who filmed Tracey and Ginny’s kiss, then kissed each of them in turn.

“That was one to write home about,” Tracey said.

“I’ll make you a copy of the tape.” Ginny kissed Tracey again, then broke away to confer with her co-worker.

Tracey finished the plastic cup of champagne and decided to hold off drinking more. She didn’t want to be asleep on her feet when they returned to the hotel.

Ginny danced beside her. “Did you really get us a room at the Hyatt?”

Tracey followed Ginny’s moves. She didn’t consider herself much of a dancer, but everyone moved with the music blaring from the band on the stage of their choice. “You bet. Easy walking distance.”

“I’m done with work, but I want to blow off this past year.” Ginny moved with the music in a way that had Tracey ready to agree to anything.

“I heard that,” Tracey said.

They partied with the crowd of strangers until first light began to break across the sky.

Ginny leaned close to Tracey. “We need a room.”

They returned to the Hyatt. The horizontal dance in the large bed was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

*******

They slept well into the morning—it was inherent that Tracey awoke before noon no matter what time she’d dropped off to sleep. Tracey awoke first and called room service for brunch. She hoped they’d stay in for the day. She checked her text messages as she waited in the bathroom, close to the door, for the order to arrive.

Tracey glanced at the papers she’d gathered from the day before and left on the vanity. She might have time for sightseeing before she caught Tuesday’s flight home if Ginny worked Monday. She looked again at the NUFC brochure. Her eyes were drawn to the quilt display scheduled as a traveling exhibit for the spring. Quilt patterns held a special significance to the Underground Railroad. She thought of the women in the Danville area who continued the tradition of quilting passed down by their mothers. She idly wondered how many of the original families’ descendants, like Marian and Agnes, had the remains of Civil War-era quilts. “What a neat idea for a display,” she whispered.

“Tell me you’re not in there thinking about work,” Ginny said. Her voice was muffled by the pillow covering her face.

“I can’t help it if you inspire me,” Tracey said.

Ginny groaned.

Tracey opened the door to sign for the tray of food. She’d think about quilts when she was back in Virginia. Today, all she wanted to think about was Ginny.

1862

“I’m going with you.” Susanna left no room for discussion. She stood in the kitchen, blocking the back door, feet spread wide and hands on hips.

John faced off with her. He clutched a wide-brimmed hat in his rough hands, smoothing and turning the hat by its brim as he pondered his situation. “It’s far too dangerous.” There was no real argument in his voice, just calm reasoning.

John Martin was as tall as the framed doorway opening. He worked too hard to carry any excess weight. At twenty-two, streaks of gray had already appeared in his black hair. He was meticulous about Susanna keeping his hair clipped short and using a straight razor each evening before bed.

Susanna didn’t budge. “That’s exactly why I need to be in the wagon—to make it appear like a normal route. It will look odd if I don’t make use of the opportunity to ride into town with you.”

“Everyone’s always surprised to see us out in public at the same time. We stay to ourselves so much.” John chuckled.

“Everything for a purpose. Let our neighbors think us standoffish and me peculiar to my religion if it means privacy.” Susanna relaxed. “They all think you might as well announce yourself a Quaker—that my ways have taken over this household.”

John placed his hat firmly on his head. “I cannot help that I took to the old ways that my father renounced. If only my brothers had.” The trace of humor left John’s expression. He glanced at the crumpled letter on the mantel that he’d recently received from William’s company commander relaying word of his oldest brother’s death in battle.

“You all agreed that you were the logical choice to stay on and keep the farm going.” Susanna took her cloak from the peg by the door.

John nodded. “I would not have carried arms, and my brothers knew that.”

“And respected you for it.” She opened the door.

John sighed and followed her out of the house to the barn lot. He’d already prepared the wagon and hitched the team. He held his hand out to help Susanna. He tapped the enclosed frame of the wagon seat and waited for a response.

They were barely a mile from the farm when stopped at a checkpoint. John had their passes in his coat pocket. “I only recognize one of the men.” He kept his voice low.

“Mr. Martin, good day.” The soldier walked around the wagon. “I thought you loaded the warehouse yesterday. Has another train come in that I missed?” Two other men blocked the road into town.

“It’s my day to take supplies to the outlying families. Mrs. Martin came along in case any healing is required.” John evenly met the young man’s gaze.

Susanna nodded and held up her basket. She carried an assortment of herbs and barks found in their woods.

“I’ll be late returning.” He inclined his head toward the ax and maul in the wagon bed. “I’m cutting a load of wood while out to bring back for one of the town families.”

“You work harder than anyone in our barracks. I don’t think you were done any favor with deferment from service. At least I have a day to rest now and then.” The soldier waved them on.

“Let me know when that day is, I can keep you busy.” John tipped his hat to the men in passing.

“The arsenal has spoken for my off-duty labor already.” The young soldier shook his head as he watched them drive away. “Queer folks, those Quakers.”

Susanna spoke with her head tucked. “We’re clear. That should be the only checkpoint. Just a little longer until we reach the rendezvous spot.” She settled on the board seat, resting her hand on her husband’s arm as he guided the team.

Susanna knew they risked all they held dear, but their consciences would allow them no lesser action. Surely, the war would be conceded before long and their actions no longer necessary.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It took Tracey two weeks to come back down to earth after welcoming the New Year in Cincinnati. She went through the motions at work, unable to get Ginny off her mind. She knew she needed to settle back into her usual routine if she and Ginny were to make a distance relationship work. Tracey finally distracted herself by blocking out exhibits for the next several quarters and trying to come up with a new spin on any of the collections they had featured before and found to be good draws.

Tracey was hunched over her desk using a small viewer to look at a collection of Norfolk and Western Railroad slides recently donated to the museum. By all rights, the collection belonged in Roanoke—N&W’s headquarters in Virginia—but it just so happened that the donor had retired outside of Danville before passing away and leaving his wife with the quandary of what to do with her husband’s belongings.

“We could do a traveling exhibit, maybe lend those to the O. Winston Link Museum.” Mitch stopped in the doorway separating his office from Tracey’s.

“Don’t you know they covet these? What a collection from the past forty years. This guy was obsessed with every sign and signal along the tracks,” Tracey said.

Mitch yawned.

Tracey giggled. “Careful. One man’s trash is another’s treasure.”

Mitch raised his hands in surrender. “So you’re just going to post them online and go for a very professional nyah?”

Tracey straightened in the chair and stretched. “Kinda sorta.”

Mitch gave her a thumbs-up and returned to his desk.

Tracey stared at the wall beside her desk where she’d pinned a poster of Cincinnati’s Fountain Square. She smiled, thinking again about New Year’s Eve. Something else about the trip nagged at her. She reached for her briefcase. Her receipts and ticket stubs were still in the side pocket. She pulled the papers out and sorted through the pages. As soon as she saw the brochure for the National Underground Freedom Center, she remembered. “Damn!”

“Excuse me,” Mitch said.

“Sorry.” Tracey reached for her telephone. She kept her voice down. “Do you mind if I detour by your place on the way to work in the morning?”

Tracey listened. “Thanks, sweetie. See you for coffee.” She went to explain her mission to Mitch.

*******

Tracey yawned as she parked beside Agnes’s Crown Vic. Why hadn’t she done this after work instead of before?

The dogs howled in greeting.

Tracey returned the sound.

“Don’t encourage them.” Marian stood on the front porch in a heavy cotton bathrobe and usual work boots with thick white cotton socks showing above the tops.

“Love the outfit,” Tracey said.

“I was midway through dressing.” Marian flashed her slip at Tracey. “Agnes is still in bed.”

Tracey followed Marian into the house.

“What has you out and about so early?” Marian asked.

Tracey wiped her feet on the mat at the door. “I’m so scatterbrained these days. If I don’t do something when I actually think about it, it’ll be six months before the thought pops in my head again.”

Marian snorted. “Wait until you’re my age. The thought doesn’t come back at all, or if it does, you think it’s a totally new idea.”

Tracey chuckled.

“I’m serious,” Marian said.

“You’re also smarter than any two people I know.” Tracey took a deep breath. “Bless you. I smell coffee.”

“Love those modern conveniences. I program the coffeemaker the night before so it’s ready when I reach the kitchen the next morning.” Marian already had three cups on the counter. “I’ll be right back. I’ll set Agnes’s on the nightstand for her.”

“You’re a good sister,” Tracey said.

“I know what needs to be done to have her in a decent mood in the morning. Trust me, it’s worth it.” Marian balanced the thermos cup carefully.

Tracey reached for the mug. “I’ll take it while you fix two more of those.” She walked softly along the hallway and tiptoed into Agnes’s room.

Agnes lay on her back, wearing a sleep mask, with a dog on either side of her. The dogs looked up, moving only their eyes and brows.

“We’re not really awake yet,” Agnes whispered.

“Got it,” Tracey said. “Shh.” She raised her finger to her lips and spoke to the dogs, then set the mug down.

Tails wagged in unison.

“Thank you,” Agnes said.

Tracey tiptoed out of the bedroom. She glanced into the living room and went in to turn the Weather Channel on sotto voce. She waited for the local report, then turned to leave.

The painting over the sofa caught her eye as always. She studied the patterns of the quilts draped over the porch railing—all three were fairly plain, using basic square, rectangle, and triangle pieces. Tracey used her cell phone’s camera to take a photograph of the painting. She whispered the litany of the pattern names without thinking. “Shoofly, log cabin, and wagon wheel.”

Marian came into the room carrying two mugs. Tracey gratefully accepted one, careful not to spill any coffee on either of them during the transfer.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Tracey said.

“So what can I do for you this morning?” Marian asked.

Tracey blew on the coffee, then sipped before speaking. “Do you have any more of your great-grandmother’s quilts besides the one in tatters in the dog bed?”

“Possibly.” Marian inclined her head to the stairs. “Go up to the little sewing room and look in the trunk with the rounded top that belonged to Susanna Martin. As best I remember, anything of hers that survived the brothers’ feud ended up there.”

Tracey took the coffee with her. She climbed the stairs, trying to step lightly on the nails to avoid making the treads creak. She wondered what it was like to have more house than what was lived in. The entire upstairs of the Martin home had the feel of the museum—storage of things that belonged to people no longer of this earth.

She went into the smallest room and found the trunk easily. The rounded top, or so she had been told, had been popular with travelers who didn’t want other trunks stacked on top of theirs.

Tracey tugged the lid open and leaned back from the strong odor of mothballs. “Whew.” She held her breath and leaned forward. She pulled aside tissue paper and carefully removed a worn woolen coverlet. She spied quilt batting on the bottom blankets.

Tracey gingerly removed the quilts, marveling at the tiny, uniform stitches that showed through the backing. She unfolded the first of the quilts and was amazed to see the same pattern as the one depicted in the painting. “Shoofly.” The second quilt was from the painting also. “Log cabin.” She ran her hand over the blocks of fabric reverently. “Oh, wow.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do than feel up old quilts?” Agnes asked.

Tracey looked over her shoulder as her great-aunt entered the room. “Marian sent me up.”

“I know. I heard you two. I just wasn’t quite ready to get up until I heard you on the stairs.” Agnes sat on the larger, flat-top trunk in the corner. “What’s up?” She sipped her coffee.

“I saw mention of quilts at a museum in Ohio. It brought to mind the ones here. I want to build an exhibit around antique handwork by local farm women.” She held the second quilt up. “How in the world did she do all of this by hand, without electric light, after working a full day in the field?”

Agnes shook her head. “It had to be a labor of love and necessity. All scraps from clothing were put to use. There was little waste on a farm then.”

“May I take these with me and research the pattern and the dyes?” Tracey asked.

“Of course, they’re your legacy.” Agnes helped Tracey refold the blankets. “Treat them well. They’ve been well cared for to survive this long. Lester passed them on to Harry. Your mother brought them back here when she finally went through her parents’ house after her father passed. I’d all but forgotten they were packed away.”

“They match the painting,” Tracey said. “It’s very difficult to authenticate routine piece work that people never expected to last past their lifetime.”

“My point exactly.” Agnes handed her the quilt. “You go downstairs first. Marian wants to see you outside before you go.”

Tracey nodded, thinking she fully realized the treasure she was entrusted with.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Tracey stood on the front porch and looked about for Marian. Subconsciously, she always followed the ingrained superstition of exiting a building by the same door as entering, even though she knew the likelihood of Marian being out front was slim. Tracey made a quick detour by her car to place the quilts entrusted to a fresh trash bag in the trunk. She walked past the dog pen and looked toward the barn.

Fred’s Blazer was parked midway between house and barn. Marian leaned in the passenger window, talking to Fred and his companion. Tracey approached Marian and was relieved to see her in usual cotton housedress with a hooded sweatshirt thrown on for warmth. Marian looked over her shoulder and waved for Tracey to join them.

Tracey looked inside the SUV and smiled. “Hey, Joyce.”

Fred’s wife was bundled against the cold in a sweater and parka. Not a hair was out of place in the modified upswept beehive that had served her since her first days as an employee of the local telephone company. Her makeup was subtle but flattering. Her smile was genuine.

“Tracey, I haven’t seen you in ages.” Joyce held out her hand.

Tracey gripped the warm glove briefly.

“He’s been lonely out here since all the hullabaloo died down. I thought I’d keep him company.” Joyce patted Fred’s leg. “And make sure he eats his lunch.”

Fred beamed at his wife.

Tracey was touched by the genuine love and companionship between the two. “How’s Eddie?” Fred and Joyce’s son had taken over his father’s grocery business before Fred retired.

“Struggling like all small business owners,” Joyce said. “Damned Walmart.”

Tracey blinked and felt her head pull back slightly in surprise.

“Excuse me,” Joyce said. “The two words just seem to go together for anyone in independent retail.”

“I understand.” Tracey made a mental note to be more supportive of local businesses when her finances allowed.

Fred gunned the engine slightly.

Joyce smiled at Tracey and Marian. “I can take a hint. We need to get started. He’s halfway through his grid and determined to keep working this winter.”

Tracey watched them drive away.

“I was like that with my Archie,” Marian said. “He was my partner and best friend. When you find that, hold on to it.”

Tracey nodded.

“When you find anything you truly believe in, you have to hold on to it,” Marian said, turning to Tracey. “Just as Lester did.”

“Don’t start with me about Lester and his mission in life,” Tracey said. “I’ve moved on.”

Marian shook her head.

“Don’t.” Tracey held up her hand. “I’m not purposely setting myself up to fail again. It’s all a nice story. You can charge admission to the treasure hunters again next spring.”

Marian turned Tracey to face the shop building. “Lester’s rhyme led you there. Did you really see everything to be found inside?”

“Have you lost your mind?” Tracey asked. “It’s an abandoned outbuilding full of crap that should be thrown away.”

“So clean it out. What do you have to lose?” Marian asked.

Tracey looked from Marian to the building and back again. “On one condition. I’ll come back Saturday with Daddy’s truck. I’ll clean out the building, which I suspect is your goal to begin with. Then I don’t want to hear another word about Lester.” She held her hand out to Marian, and they shook on the deal. “Agnes agreed to let me take the two quilts from Susanna’s trunk. Are you okay with that?”

Marian nodded. “I didn’t know any others were up there.”

“I’m planning a spring exhibit of local women’s antique handwork. It should be a good icebreaker for approaching more of the women in the community, like Mrs. Lukens.” Tracey glanced at her watch. “I’m late for a meeting. I’ll see you Saturday.”

*******

As promised, Tracey arrived at the farm before nine a.m. Saturday driving Rory’s oldest pickup with Adam following in his truck. They took turns backing up and parking with tailgates close to the door.

She slid off of the bench seat and pulled on an old pair of Rory’s leather gloves as she walked toward Adam. “There’s another pair behind the seat if you need them.”

Adam yawned, holding up his own gloves. “Tell me again that this isn’t a Tom Sawyer deal.” He mimed using a paintbrush.

“Of course it is.” Tracey shrugged. “Besides, it gives us something constructive to do today.” She slapped him on the shoulder of his aging letterman jacket. “Marian wants the building cleaned out now that we forced the door open. I know when to admit defeat.”

Adam mimed jiggling a cigar in his mouth. “I think this is going to take more than da feet.”

Tracey groaned. “At least snakes and bees aren’t in season. I’ve too many clothes on for a spider to be able to bite through to skin.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Adam asked.

“In Cincinnati,” Tracey said.

“Touché.” He looked around once they were inside the building. “Why don’t I take the downstairs?” He made his way to the back wall of the building, kicking through the rubbish. “There’s actually good metal in some of these tractor and truck parts that could be sold for salvage. Metal on Rory’s truck, landfill stuff on mine?”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll go up.” Tracey pressed her hand on the siding of the building as she climbed the stairs. “I think I owe you two twelve-packs instead of one for this.”

“Not to worry,” Adam said. “It all evens out.”

Tracey examined the pile of handwoven baskets. “What a shame.”

“What?” Adam stopped in the doorway, carrying an abandoned disc for a cultivator.

“These baskets have sat up here so long that the bottoms have rotted out.” She held one large perfectly round basket up for him to see her face through.

“Trash?”

“I’m afraid so.” She tossed the baskets down toward the door.

She turned to the corner of the building and studied the flat-top trunks. She leaned down to read the stenciling on the side of each. “Wow!”

“What? You’re freaking me out doing that, by the way.” He grunted with the effort of moving the axle from a power take-off unit from one of Lester’s tractors.

“Trunks belonging to,” she ticked off generations on her fingers, “my great-great-grandfather and his brother—Susanna Martin’s sons born after the Civil War.”

“Didn’t your family ever get rid of anything?” He tossed the old paint cans that were more rust than metal onto his truck to have them out from underfoot.

“Doesn’t look like it.” She opened the closest trunk. “Empty.” She moved to the other. “Empty.”

“Figures,” Adam said. He sneezed twice.

“Bless you,” Tracey said automatically. “They’ll sell to an antiques dealer. People use them for coffee tables after spray-painting them some awful color.”

“Even I’m not that hard up for furniture,” Adam said.

“Folk art or antique—all in the eye of the beholder.” Tracey jerked her fingers back as the trunk closed with a snap.

She glanced at the flooring that was covered with a mixture of leaves, dirt dauber nests broken loose from the roof above, and years of dirt blown in between the slight cracks separating the siding planks. “Guess we should’ve worn masks.”

“You think?” Adam said. “I’m trying to breathe only when outside.”

“Good luck with that.” Tracey made her way to the crates in the corner. “Do you have a hammer?”

“Only if you sing the song.” Adam was on the way out the door.

Tracey stuck out her tongue and blew air.

Adam returned. “Catch.” He tossed a hammer up to her.

Tracey used both hands and caught the claw hammer by the handle rather than let it fall back on Adam. She worked on the wooden crates, carefully removing the boards tacked over the tops so she could examine contents of all three. All contained the same—leather-bound, legal-size journals with yellowing paper and fading brown ink.

“What a shame,” she said.

“What now?”

“Even though these journals were crated, bugs found their way in. A lot of the pages in the decade before the Civil War have tiny holes.” She flipped through the books, two per year. “The ones after the war are intact. If someone sneezed, it was recorded.”

Adam sneezed three times in succession. “You just had to use the s word.”

“Sorry. Bless you again.” Tracey heard dogs grumbling at one another and ducked her head to look out the door.

“Hello inside.” Marian stood between the two trucks. She held up a thermos and Styrofoam cups.

“Come in out of the wind. It’s safe,” Adam said. “Most of the trash is on the trucks, so no problem for paws.” He leaned on a push broom.

Tracey piled one crate’s contents in a stack and carefully made her way down the steps with her load. “These are fascinating. Merchants and purchases are listed, as well as income from tenants renting land.”

Adam yawned. “No baseball scores?”

Tracey smacked his arm.

Marian set the cups in a row on the workbench closest to the door and shivered not with the cold. “It’s claustrophobic in here. Imagine working on farm implements in here by lamplight.” The terriers sniffed and sneezed as they examined the flooring.

“And, of course, you still have the original lamp.” Adam ducked his head. “Landfill or antique?” He reached for the oil lantern.

“Landfill,” Marian said.

“Antique.” Tracey spoke at the same time as Marian.

They all laughed.

“That’s what I figured.” Adam flipped a pretend coin and tossed the lantern on his truck for the dump.

Marian sipped her coffee and looked about the building. “You two have done a great job. I can actually make out each wall.” She reached into her pocket for a flashlight and looked into the lens as she turned it on. She looked at Adam, blinking. “Why do I always do that?”

“It’s like dropping something when you’re seated. Instinct is to close your legs to catch no matter what it is,” Tracey said.

“Maybe for you. Yowzer.” Adam cringed.

Marian aimed the light at the steps, examining the treads from loft floor down.

Tracey looked at the stringer supports—rotting wood posts set on dirt. “That makes me feel much better about using the steps.”

“Just don’t think about it.” Marian continued her sweep, aiming the light at the wall beyond the steps. “What’s that?”

Tracey followed the light. She crouched down and crawled beneath the workbench opposite from the one Marian stood at. The dogs kept her company. Tracey stared, then held her hand out for Marian’s light.

Adam dropped to his knees beside Tracey. “What the hell?” He used the broom to clear away the cobwebs from the log footing.

Chipped into the hand-hewn timber was a pattern of ten carved Xs.

Adam sat back on his heels and looked at Tracey. She leaned forward and ran her fingertip over the carvings. He reached for her hand. He traced the pattern beginning at the upper left and continuing to the upper right.

Tracey looked at him. “I don’t get it.”

Adam sighed. “I forget everyone doesn’t have basic surveying knowledge.” He pointed. “It’s one of the most recognizable of the star groups—The Big Dipper, used for finding north.” He pointed to the last star.

Marian leaned over. “The North Star on the north wall of the building.” She held out her hand for the light. She turned and examined the wall behind her. “Nothing.” She repeated the illumination of the wall to their right. “Look.”

Adam and Tracey rotated on their knees and crawled closer to the lowest log of the wall.

“This one I get,” Tracey said. “A ship.” She traced the crude flat boat, mast and sail carved into the log.

Marian nodded. “On the east wall.”

Adam stood, knees popping.

Tracey pulled out her phone. “Shine the light on them, please.” She took photographs of each carving.

They walked outside into the fresh air, speechless for a moment.

Marian whistled for the dogs, then looked as though ready to speak.

Tracey held up her hand. “Let me research this at the office. I’m not speculating about anything again.” She returned to the building. She placed the stack of journals on the passenger seat of the truck and hooked the seat belt across the books. She looked at Marian. “Don’t say anything.”

“I know nothing,” Marian said. “I swear.”

“But,” Adam said.

Tracey covered her ears with her hands. “Let’s just finish cleaning. I want to think about this. I’m doing proper research Monday.”

“Spoilsport,” Adam grumbled.

“Once burned, twice shy,” Tracey said. Her mind was not to be changed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Tracey went to the museum long enough Sunday afternoon to drop off the stack of ledgers. She’d needed the morning to rest up from loading the trucks all day before. “I’m not staying.” She coached herself as she opened the back door. She recognized the itch to pore through the farm records. Knowing how she was once she started new work, she knew the only way to give it another day before beginning an immersion in the project was to put the ledgers out of sight. As an afterthought before locking up, she made one more trip to her car and placed the quilts on the end of her drafting table to remember that she had textile research, as well.

Once back home, she called Ginny and was oddly relieved to find her alone. Not that Tracey didn’t trust Ginny; it was simply nice to have that trust reinforced. She made no mention of the findings inside of the shop building, not yet.

Tracey walked into her office Monday morning, having already detoured by the vending machine for a cold Coke. Mitch stood at her desk with one of the journals in his hands. He looked up as though caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

“Where did you find these? The detail is incredible.” He made no effort to hide his fascination or put the journal back on the top of the stack.

“In an outbuilding on the farm.” Tracey tossed her backpack and coat in the corner beyond her drafting table. “Do you mind if this becomes my priority project for the week? Marian and Agnes will donate all volumes to the museum.”

Mitch looked at the stack of twenty. “You mean there are more?”

“Try several more decades’ worth.” Tracey sat on the stool at her drafting table. “The eighteen fifties were on the top, in a box partially opened, so I wanted to check the integrity of those pages first.”

“Other than these pinholes, they look good,” Mitch said. “Follow your instinct.” He reluctantly returned the journal to the stack.

“That’s not all.” She opened her phone. “I’ll transfer these photos to my computer later, but look at the carvings in the log footers of the old shop building.”

Mitch took the phone from her hand. He peered through his reading glasses at the photographs for several minutes. “Forward the downloads to me, will you?”

“You bet.” Tracey e-mailed the photos to herself. She’d enhance the images on the desktop computer software.

Mitch paused at her drafting table and peeked in the bag. “Nice handwork.” He unfolded the quilts enough to glimpse each pattern.

“My great-great-great-grandmother made those,” Tracey said.

“Hmm.” Mitch closed the door separating their offices.

Tracey opened her e-mail, improved the images as much as possible, and forwarded the photos to Mitch. She printed enlargements and stuck them on the wall over her desk. She opened the first ledger and began reading the entries for 1850. When she took a midmorning break, she glanced through each of the other books. The handwriting changed in 1858 to a more feminine script.

Tracey opened her Ancestry account and looked at her family tree. “No wonder,” she said softly. John Martin had married Susanna Candler in 1858. She studied the later book again. “This must be Susanna’s handwriting.” She flipped between books again. Only the books in what she believed to be Susanna’s handwriting had the small, random holes.

“It’s true then.” Harriet’s voice from the hallway made Tracey jump in her seat.

“Sheesh, Mom, clear your throat or whistle, something to let me know you’re walking up on me.” Tracey leaned back in her desk chair. “What’s true?”

Harriet nodded at the stack of books. “You’ve discovered more nonsense on the farm.”

“No, historical records of the farm. These are from the eighteen fifties and give a detailed portrait of day-to-day living.” Tracey held the top volume out to her mother.

Harriet glanced at the open book, then waved it away. “Nothing to do with the Civil War foolishness?”

“Not yet. I’d be fascinated to have a spreadsheet set up and see a true comparison of assets in 1858 versus 1863.” Tracey looked at her computer longingly. “But, no, this is not part of a treasure hunt.”

“That’s okay then,” Harriet said.

“Well, I’m glad you approve of my work.”

Harriet shook her head. “It’s not that. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t trying to find that damn treasure by a back door of old farm records.”

Tracey crossed her heart. “These records are the equivalent of a curator’s lottery winnings.”

Harriet clearly couldn’t care less. It was as though everything about the farm was an anathema to her. “I never saw their like. The outbuildings were forbidden territory to us as kids.” She hesitated.

“What, Mom?”

“I don’t want you hurt by being a Martin descendant as I was. Stay with what you know, with the treasures in the collections downstairs.”

“I know. We’re both singing off the same sheet of music.”

Harriet glanced at the recently printed photographs over Tracey’s desk. “I would offer some decorating suggestions, though.”

Tracey smiled but didn’t tell her mother where the photographs had been taken. “Some days, I’m more archaeologist than curator.”

Harriet looked at her watch. She came close enough to kiss Tracey’s cheek. “Behave yourself. Don’t give Adam a hard time for telling Rory about the journals. He came by to offer to take the scrap metal to the recycling center since he filled up the truck bed with it.”

Tracey nodded. “Not a problem.” She couldn’t fault Adam for much of anything after all the help he’d been recently. She rubbed her eyes. “I’m going to have to find a magnifying glass.”

“I can take a hint. Come by the house this weekend for a decent meal and bring Adam. He can always be my quasi son-in-law.”

“He’s quasi all right.” Tracey waved as her mother left. She stared at the ledger again, then felt as though a lightbulb had come on over her head. She’d try scanning the pages and reading the entries on her computer monitor where she’d be able to adjust the size and contrast. Maybe she’d finally appreciate the huge monitor that the IT consultant had insisted they all have.

Tracey pulled on a pair of latex gloves and woke the scanner up. She painstakingly held the pages aligned as she eased the book facedown on the flat glass surface of the scanner. The entries were written on front and back. She knew she’d have to adjust the image to keep the layers of writing from double exposing.

“Is your mother gone?” Alese stood in the hallway.

Tracey jumped and bit back the curses at having the journal misaligned when the scanner made the first pass. “Yes. Are you two in cahoots to give me a heart attack?”

Alese stepped into Tracey’s office and pushed the garbage bag over so she could lean on Tracey’s drafting table. She watched as Tracey repeated the process with the book. “I just wanted to check on you but not be engaged in a long conversation. I saw your car here Sunday.” Alese frowned. “I thought you were doing better about working on weekends.”

“I only stopped long enough to drop off a few things I came across at the farm.” Tracey stared at the computer screen as she spoke, making sure the image was automatically saved in her scan folder.

Alese waited until Tracey looked at her to raise her eyebrows.

Tracey nodded at the drafting table and her desk. “Two quilts and a collection of farm journals that are mind-blowing for their detail.” She pointed over her desk. “Oh, yeah. We also found some carvings in one of the outbuildings.”

Alese crossed the room to Tracey’s desk and studied the photographs.

“X repeated ten times on the north wall, the boat on the east.” Tracey continued to study the journal image on the screen, playing with magnification and contrast. The small holes appeared to line up over letters on the previous page. “Weird.”

“You fool,” Alese whispered. “Why are you wasting your time on farm expenses?”

Tracey was shocked by Alese’s tone. “Excuse me?” She looked up at her former teacher, then quickly stood and helped Alese into her chair.

Alese sat heavily. She reached toward the photographs. “I have to see these for real.”

Tracey unpinned the images and handed them to Alese. “It’s the Big Dipper, part of the Ursa Major constellation.”

“You fool,” Alese said again. She traced the image. “It’s the Drinking Gourd. The two stars on the cup’s outer edge always point to the North Star.” She said the name of the star with reverence.

Tracey shook her head.

Alese huffed. “The North Star was the only sure way to navigate from anywhere in the South toward freedom.”

Tracey felt as though her breathing had stopped.

“There’s never been any proof of a route in this area, just stories passed down,” Alese said. “Why do you think I’ve made such an effort to go through the collections?”

Tracey looked at the garbage bag on her drafting table. “You’re going to thump me on the head for sure.” She withdrew the quilts from the bag as though the fabric was made from eggshell and placed them side by side on the board’s surface. “Mrs. Walthall, what do these mean?” She reverted to grade school protocol as she folded back a corner of each quilt to reveal the patterns.

Tears ran down Alese’s face.

Mitch came through the connecting door with a book on the Underground Railroad. “I thought those patterns had significance.” He pointed to the square surrounded by triangles. “Shoofly identified conductors.” He pointed to the square surrounded by rectangles. “Log cabin meant a safe house.”

“These are the actual quilts depicted in the painting of the original Martin farm house that hangs over Marian and Agnes’s sofa,” Tracey said.

“Your great-whatever-grandmother was one of the last Quakers in this area,” Alese said. “The story that came down in my family was that she always put others first—us during the years before the war, her husband and sons afterward.”

Tracey stared at the poster of Cincinnati on the wall behind her desk. “I’ve got to call Ginny.”

1860

“Everything is sheer madness.” Susanna talked to herself as she made herself focus on chores she could perform with little thought. She made her rounds of the chicken coop, spring house, and woodpile by rote. “Too many people giving up and moving away. That’s no way to bring about change. That’s no way to protect the innocent. That’s hiding behind the woodpile when the robbers come.”

Her father and brother were finally moving to Ohio, and it bothered her more than she had thought possible. Her father had not been the same since her mother passed from consumption over ten years earlier. Her memories of him as a happy man playing with his children were dim, more like dreams than reality. Her brother had become an old man managing the farm and their father. Her father’s spirit had finally broken when the last of her sisters joined her mother and two other sisters in the church cemetery during the past winter. Her father viewed Virginia as one grave after another.

Susanna was used to fending for herself. She’d taken over first her father’s household, then John Martin’s. She paused midway in taking eggs from the roosts. Even with only two years of marriage, she feared that she depended on John too much.

“How will I manage if he’s called into service?” Susanna knew that war was imminent and all anyone talked about anymore. John was assured by local politicians that one of his family would be allowed to stay on and act as overseer of the farm—a word that Susanna abhorred.

She glanced toward the barn and watched John working with the horses, training them to harness. He had such a gift with animals and the ability to coax crops from the poorest soil. He even designed his own wagons, with his middle brother running a crew of men to build them on the farm. Wagons with a compartment beneath the seat or a false floor if more than one person needed to be hidden from view. His oldest brother harvested trees and planed trunks into lumber for use on the farm and for sale.

“I’ll find a way to continue our work if he’s taken into service. I must.” She picked through the woodpile for kindling and thought of the runaways who passed through the farm, sometimes stopping for only a kerchief of food and directions, sometimes hiding beneath the stairs in the house all day, sometimes sleeping a few hours in the shop during the night. How did they know what to do—some went north with faith that they could cross the Ohio River and continue on to Canada, others went east for the steamships along the coast.

She’d heard that there were churches sympathetic to helping escapees, but no one used proper names. They all relied on language normally used with train travel and symbols of the quilts. No one wanted to know any more than necessary nor risk leaving any permanent evidence. They’d all be imprisoned and relieved of belongings. John was never able to turn away anyone with children. He kept a supply of laudanum in the wagon to dose the children during the cramped rides north or east.

“It’s all madness.” Susanna approached the kitchen door. They lived in an area whose livelihood depended on tobacco, the growing and the warehousing. The population of the county said it all—better than thirty thousand souls, half were free and half were slaves. The passion about the impending war was the threat to the tobacco industry, not the injustice done to an entire race of people or to the lives that would be irrevocably changed. What might secession do to the ties that held together the tobacco industry? “It all needs to crumble and fall,” Susanna whispered.

She stared at the Collier’s magazine, still not quite believing the main story—Abraham Lincoln had been elected president. She carried the weekly about the house with her, unable to let the story go as she did her morning cleaning once John was in the fields. They had been under a real roof for almost a year. After she and John married, they lived for six months in a crude log building that continued to serve the farm well. She felt old, having recently turned twenty.

Her grip of the weekly tightened. “This is the beginning of the end.” She knew in her heart that her home state of Virginia with Washington City on its northern border might be able to weather the new president, but the states farther south so ensconced in a plantation way of life rather than the business of farming never would.

John had forbidden her to follow politics after the fiasco of John Brown’s actions at Harpers Ferry. Susanna had done so covertly. She was familiar with the small community as it had served as her gateway to Ohio all the years of her childhood. She still could not comprehend the extreme actions involved first by Brown in Kansas, then in Virginia. How could anyone believe that the path to ending slavery would be solved by arming Negroes? “We all want the same—land, work to provide for our families, and families.” She’d never forget the artist’s rendition of Brown dangling from the gallows.

They were remote enough from the politicians in Richmond that Susanna grasped what their role would be in a conflict—the breadbasket. “War will be waged based on our toil.”

Susanna knew she was part of a minority. She credited her formative years in Ohio, living with her aunt and uncle while attending school with her cousins. She’d never forget being given her own copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial novel for her twelfth birthday. She kept the two-volume set of Uncle Tom’s Cabin carefully packed in her trunk.

She wondered what this day might bring as she carefully aligned the quilts on the front porch railing so their bright patterns were seen from the dirt highway traveled between South Boston and Danville proper.

How many nights had she pinched herself to remain awake and vigilant, to watch for the small groups of Negroes approaching the house, only to hurry them into the outbuilding and make sure they saw the North Star carved into the log footing so they would know which direction to head to the eastern shore? How many times had she hurried out to change the message of the quilts when word reached her that patrols were changing routines? How much longer would there be enough food to share with the groups who barely spoke English?

The tenacity of the Negroes was what always impressed her the most. As long as there was food in her larder and breath in her body, those who were going on to freedom would be provided for and protected. John was willing to risk the loss of farm and life for their shared convictions. She prayed they survived the war looming on the horizon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Tracey paced the limits of the area she was allowed access to at the airport. She strained to see past the wall of the building through the plate glass for sight of arriving airplanes. As usual, the announcements were almost but not quite clear enough to understand. She often joked that she listened, as well as spoke, with Southern slowness. She quick-stepped to the monitor scrolling flight information. The plane she was waiting for was on the tarmac.

“Please don’t let this turn out to be another bad idea with good intentions,” Tracey whispered to herself as she fidgeted from one foot to the other. She had slept little in the past week and couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten a full meal. Her waking hours were filled by work to substantiate what Alese and Mitch had said in her office. Her only phone calls were guarded inquiries to colleagues and the appeal to Ginny to make a leap of faith to Virginia.

“You know what they say about people who talk to themselves?” Ginny stood behind Tracey and waited.

“Not to sneak up on them?” Tracey turned and embraced Ginny. “Mine is the only voice I hear rattling around in my head, so I take that as a good sign.”

Ginny traced the dark circles beneath Tracey’s eyes. “What are you working on? Not that I can’t guess that it has something to do with the farm.”

“Provenance,” Tracey said. “I have facts this time or I wouldn’t have asked you to make the trip. You have to do the follow-up piece to your original story.”

“My boss took a gamble on me. If I flop, I’ll be checking to see if my old job’s still available.” Ginny held up her baggage check. “Let’s do it.”

In a matter of minutes, Ginny’s bags were loaded in Tracey’s car, thanks to the mixed blessing of a small regional airport.

Ginny cut Tracey off from the left side of the car. “How about if I drive? I dozed on the plane. An hour’s catnap would help you more than me.”

Tracey deferred to Ginny’s judgment without protest, surprising them both. She also managed to close her eyes on the drive south along Route 29.

The next thing Tracey was aware of was soft lips on her cheek. She was sure she was dreaming.

“We’re here and your posse awaits,” Ginny said.

Tracey looked out the window. Alese chatted with Adam in his truck while Fred and Joyce kept Marian and Agnes warm inside the Blazer. They were parked in the lane between the turnoff from the barn leading to the shop.

Tracey pulled out her cell phone and called Mitch. “We’re at the farm.”

“Betty and I are on the way. Your parents are waiting at home when you have time to stop by and tell them what you’ve discovered.”

Tracey nodded and ended the call. “Mom won’t come here even for this.”

Ginny nodded. She pointed to the trunk of the car. “I can be ready to roll tape, so to speak, in a matter of minutes.”

Tracey reached into the backseat for the expansion folder containing the hundred pages or so from the ledgers that she had worked through so far. She crossed the barn lot and stood before the shop building. She cleared her mind of all that had been processing in her head during the past few days. She looked about and waved the others to join her.

Ginny closed the trunk, assembling her camera equipment and explaining the light bar to Adam.

Tracey cleared her throat and began on Ginny’s signal. “As best we’re able to surmise, this was the first building constructed on the John Martin portion of the original land grant. It was built around 1858, the year John Martin and Susanna Candler married, from logs cut and shaped here on the farm. Susanna was disowned by the South River meeting for ‘marrying out,’ as well as participating in a ceremony by a ‘hireling priest,’ otherwise known as a Methodist. The newlyweds lived here until the original portion of the farmhouse was constructed in 1859.”

Ginny panned from the twenty-foot-square log structure to the main house and back.

Tracey turned toward the outbuilding, then looked over her shoulder. “I think we can all fit inside without compromising Ginny’s footage.”

They followed her into the building.

Tracey crouched down and used a wooden pencil to point to the north wall of the building as she continued her monologue as tour guide. “Recently discovered below the workbench is a carving in the bottommost log. The pattern of ten Xs is recognizable as what was referred to in pre-Civil War times as the ‘Drinking Gourd.’” Tracey traced the pattern and lingered at the upper right X. “The North Star that guided escaping slaves to freedom.”

Agnes held on to Marian.

Tracey stood and pointed at the sill log perpendicular to her first location that formed the base of the east wall. “On this log is the carving of a boat. Traveling due east took escaping slaves to the ports of Hampton Roads—Norfolk and Portsmouth. There, several of the local churches close to the waterfront operated as station homes, hiding runaways behind the organ, watching patrols out of bell towers, and operating tunnels that led to the wharves.”

Tracey set her folder on the workbench. “All of that is documented history, even though the ties are largely circumstantial. What our area has lacked is any proof of human trafficking.” She opened the folder, revealing printouts of the digital copies made from the farm journals.

She looked around the room at her immediate audience. “This work is painstakingly slow. I’m likely speaking too soon, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”

Mitch and Betty joined the group. Mitch placed a ring binder beside Tracey’s file.

“So far, we’ve linked three references,” Tracey said.

Adam focused the light on the workbench.

Tracey used her pencil to point as she spoke. She began at the top of the sheet and followed the small holes that revealed a letter from the previous page. “Brent, Toby. 24 August 59.” She thumbed through Mitch’s notebook containing copies of wills from the courthouse. “Achilles Brent, died July 1857, bequeathing one African male named Toby to his son as part of the transference of the family farm.”

She went back to her file and brought out a transcript sheet. “This is from an oral history gathered as part of a WPA project. Toby Brent is recorded as a passenger on a steamship bound for the North by one of the stewards who worked as a UGRR conductor.” She withdrew the final paper. “From the 1870 census records, we’ve located Toby Brent in upstate New York.” She looked around the room. “We’re ninety percent sure that we’ve linked one case. We have provenance. I’m working on tracing his descendants through census records, but it’s slow going.”

“I need a drink,” Agnes said.

Ginny continued filming.

“Let’s regroup at the house,” Tracey said. “One last link, and I’ll stop theorizing.”

*******

Ginny waited as everyone settled around the living room. “Is this on the record?”

Heads nodded.

“Have fun with the edits later.” Tracey carried a large white garbage bag. She went to the coffee table and took out the two quilts from Susanna’s trunk upstairs.

Tracey pointed to the oil painting over the sofa. “The quilts were Susanna’s signals. The shoofly identified her as a guide. The log cabin made it clear that it was a safe house.” She held up the tattered quilt most recently used by Marian’s dogs. “I had to fight Sugar for this and promise to bring it right back—wagon wheel, meaning transportation. What did John Martin make here on the farm?”

“Wagons,” Marian whispered.

“I’ve found references in the journals to the making of the quilts while they lived in the shop building. It all connects.” Tracey gestured around the room.

Alese touched the quilts with tears running down her cheeks.

“And that’s only one instance.” Mitch held up his index finger. “If we can do the same, or anywhere close to the same, with the rest, we have a major historical find on our hands.”

“A true treasure,” Marian said.

Agnes entered the room with a bottle of scotch and shot glasses to pass around. “I don’t care what time it is or who sees me take a drink.” She addressed Marian’s unspoken reprimand.

“And to think,” Fred began, “Lester thought about knocking those outbuildings down since they weren’t used any longer. He thought the treasure might be buried beneath the shop or the corn house.”

Paula came in with Ash and Rory in tow. She stood to the side of the room and silently waited to catch up with what was happening.

Tracey looked at Paula and nodded.

Paula walked to the open doorway from living room. “Ginny.”

Ginny turned the camera and followed Paula into the hallway.

Paula pressed the spring latch of the wainscoting and revealed the hidden shelves. She opened the shelves to reveal the small space beneath the stairs.

Tracey stood behind Ginny. “There’s no proof, but what a convenient design for a safe house to incorporate.”

Ash and Rory explored the small space as the adults returned to the living room.

“This is all priceless,” Alese said. “It puts this farm on the map from this day forward.”

“There are seventy-two journals with the pinprick patterns—each book has at least one of the pattern pages, most have four or five.”

Marian spoke. “I wish I remembered more of what our grandfather told us about his parents. Susanna was born in Virginia but schooled in Ohio. John knew her all his life. His family had renounced Quakerism early in the eighteen hundreds. They married when she came home for good. Susanna held on to her Quaker beliefs, even though the local meeting finally closed because so many of the Quakers moved west or blended into other families here.”

Agnes picked up the thread. “No wonder they waited until after the war to have children. They risked their home and their lives helping field hands.” She looked at Alese. “No offense intended.”

“None taken. You’re stating facts,” Alese said.

“It’s also no wonder she was thought to be standoffish,” Marian said. “She died in 1917 when our father was eleven. He used to say she always had to be working about the farm or with her handwork, that there was little foolishness about her, and that she kept to herself.”

Tracey smacked her forehead. “Think about how inherent all of this is. She was a practicing Quaker. She didn’t participate in organized religions. She held close to the tenets of inner light and silent witness. Everything’s connected.” She looked at Ginny. “Maybe it’s why I was so drawn to you. Okay, the camera needs to turn off now.” She rubbed her face. “My brain’s going to explode.”

“Eww,” Rory and Ash said in unison.

Everyone embraced the children’s comment for a chance to laugh and break the overwhelming sense of destiny that filled the house.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

In the month since Tracey’s revelation at the farm, she’d connected the trail of one more escapee. She accepted that the material she’d found on the farm might well be her life’s legacy. She and Mitch worked furiously to have enough raw data to convince a trust or grant program for an endowment. She’d begun the two-step process of being listed on state and national historic registers. It was all a matter of time. Already there were tentacles reaching out from the other communities involved wanting in on the work. Some help would be accepted and welcomed, but Tracey could no more relinquish Susanna Martin as a major part of her life than Ginny.

Alese stopped in the doorway of Tracey’s office. She placed the DVD case on Tracey’s drafting table. “I love it. I watched it six times.”

Tracey looked up and nodded. “That’s only a rough promo. Ginny’s still fine-tuning the script and finalizing shooting locations and interviews. She’s going to show a marketing teaser at the tech center for their black history celebration. They invited her to be their keynote speaker based on her success as a black woman who used Danville as a steppingstone. They didn’t even ask about her current work status or projects. She’s really kept the lid on this, wanting to have the treatment perfect before anyone sees the entire proposal. It’s a massive amount of work. She hasn’t completely pissed off the network—the exec in Cincinnati knows enough to ask Ginny for a right of first refusal on her film and has already mentioned a distribution deal.”

Alese shook her head. “I still can’t believe she’s walking away from that network job in Ohio to make a documentary here.”

“We’ll be living in half the duplex for a long time,” Tracey said. “I don’t care. This all just feels so right.” She chuckled. “I think back to Ginny’s interview with you and her play on contradictions.”

Alese frowned.

“That’s part of how I feel about all of this. Susanna used the supposedly lost gold and silver as a dodge. She allowed the purported funding of the second wave of the Confederacy to shield what she had done on the farm prior to the war. Think about it. How clever and perfect was that? What intelligence she possessed.”

Mitch spoke from his office. “She’d been nurtured to think the same as boys. The Quakers were decades ahead of the rest of society with their education practices. Within the meetings, the women were given duties and responsibilities the same as the men.” He made his way into Tracey’s office. “Betty’s going to divorce me before we’re ever married. I can’t stop working on those journal trails. I’m even taking my laptop home at night.”

Tracey grasped her chest. “It’s lost its status as a paperweight on your desk?”

Mitch waved her off.

Alese gathered her thoughts. “I grew up hearing bits and pieces about the Martins. I knew that something very special had taken place on that farm, but no one really talked about it or passed it down specifically. Yet the name Martin was always said with such respect. It’s as though the secret was kept too well—none of us wanted harm to come to the few in Virginia who helped. Runaways couldn’t risk leaving anything behind. They had little or nothing to take with them anyway. There were such bitter times after the war. Your family wouldn’t have been safe for several generations if word of their UGRR work had come out.”

“It all makes sense now,” Tracey said. “Once again, all it took was that cosmic thump to the back of my head.”

“No wonder you have headaches,” Mitch said. “How about a Coke?” He held up a handful of change. “I’m buying.”

“I can’t turn that down,” Tracey said.

Alese nodded. “I’ll indulge.”

“Mrs. Walthall!” Tracey grinned.

Alese managed a dance step and twirl. “Best find something to make jokes about. It’ll keep us from feeling completely overwhelmed. I’ll say one more thing, then let it drop for now.”

Tracey leaned back in her chair, waiting.

Alese crossed her arms over her chest. “Think of the validation those ledgers bring to this area. We were a stronghold of tobacco farming and slavery, yet a pocket of the Underground Railroad with a station and conductor moving runaways to the coast for freedom. I’m all about statistics. Forty thousand runaways escaped to Canada through Ohio. There were over seven hundred safe houses and depots to aid runaways. Ohio alone had three thousand miles of routes used for UGRR network. Winter was the most active time—Uncle Tom’s Cabin wasn’t an exaggeration in depicting crossing the Ohio River on large pieces of ice. Any way you look at it, it’s incredible.”

Tracey nodded. “It balanced out. Isn’t that all we can ever really hope for with anything?”

Tracey thought of her parents finally openly discussing what had brought them together in high school. She thought of Paula finally accepting Ginny in Tracey’s life. She thought of herself finally knowing why she’d stayed on at home—she had a legacy to carry forward into the twenty-first century that she’d spend all her waking hours cultivating. Well, almost all.

*******

Tracey ducked behind the sofa and texted Ginny. She heard Rory counting in the background. Ashley giggled from behind the fire screen. Tracey motioned to Ash to be quiet.

Paula and Ashton were at the beach for the weekend to welcome spring. Tracey had been entrusted with the girls. They all piled in with Agnes and Marian since Tracey’s apartment resembled a combination dormitory and film editing studio.

Tracey loved her nieces. What’s more, she loved bouncing ideas off of them. She was working with a local landscape architect to design a children’s golf course on the farm, incorporating the buildings as a historical attraction. It would take years to guide the property through the process of accreditation as a historical site, but Tracey had all the support needed for both of her projects.

Mrs. Lukens had gone to bat for her with local organizations to fund the discovery phase. Tracey had contacted her golf coaches for help with approaching the LPGA.

Ginny was in Portsmouth for several weeks, researching the ships and WPA transcripts for destinations of runaways.

Once Paula returned, she was going to tackle the census data. Mitch continued his work in the Virginia courthouses for old wills with family names and human chattel. Betty assisted Mitch rather than fight his need to research, making what she referred to as their history getaways a mix of research and pleasure. Harriet used her legal contacts to trace ships’ registries and cargo listings. Rory built shelves into the duplex to hold all the information being collected.

The entire family had come together.

Agnes and Marian maintained their registry of curiosity seekers now that word of the farm’s true history made its way out of the community. They allowed no more digging for long lost caches.

Tracey felt hands on her butt.

“You’re it.” Rory shrieked and ran to her safe zone.

Ashley giggled from the fireplace as Tracey started for her, doing her best drooling hunchback imitation.

Later that evening, Tracey gathered the girls after their baths for their book hour. She peered about the room as though expecting someone else to appear. “Do you know what people used to think was hidden on this farm?”

“Gold and sliver,” Ash said.

“Silver,” Rory corrected.

Tracey nodded. “What was really hidden here was freedom. A man and woman, your great-great-great-great-grandparents, helped people escape being slaves.” She hugged the girls and wondered if Adam would freak if asked to be a sperm donor. She’d like to have a child with Ginny—or maybe two. Sisters were the true treasure of the Martin family. “That stash of gold and silver never was accounted for.”

The girls’ eyes were round with wonder.

“Ask Marian tomorrow. She’ll tell you all about it,” Tracey said.

1850

Susanna wiggled in her seat as she glanced about the classroom of the No. 10 School. She loved being among so many students—there were fifteen others in her class. This was nothing like it had been at home with Pa and Will after losing Ma during the past winter—Virginia was so somber. She liked the chores and bustle of her aunt and uncle’s farm. There were sleigh rides to church in the winter, croquet parties in the spring, and so much food to put by in late summer and fall that the time and chores just flew by. Before she knew it, summer was over, and it was time to begin academics again. She loved her studies—algebra and French were her favorite subjects. She hoped that Oberlin College was part of her future; of course, there was her promise made to her best friend John Martin that she’d return to Virginia.

She knew her aunt and uncle were generous to take her in with their own brood. She didn’t mind the chores nor the evening hours expected to be spent with her schoolbooks. They were close enough to go to weekly, monthly, and quarterly meetings. She had no idea there were such large gatherings of Quakers. The topics discussed in meeting were open to any that moved the speaker to engage the rest of the group.

There was a quiet air of determination among the community to be a safe haven for slaves seeking freedom. Ohio was so different from Virginia. Ohio was a free state—slaves couldn’t be owned. Bounty hunters crossed the line between the states hunting down runaways. Ohio itself rewarded those who turned in fugitives, yet Mount Pleasant hosted the Antislavery Society convention in the Quaker meeting house. Blacks were forced to register and pay a fee to the court. Whites were encouraged not to employ blacks who had no proof of freedom. Freedmen were not allowed to be part of court cases involving whites. Negroes were not allowed an education. Trackers kidnapped free Negroes and sold them south. The National Fugitive Slave law had just been enacted—putting in place fines and prison sentences for anyone helping runaways. Yet Mount Pleasant remained true to its tenets.

Sometimes she was allowed to help with the visitors who came through at all hours of the night. She had quickly learned not to be disturbed by a knock on the door after dark. The Negroes who came through the house were so grateful for food and clothing and directions to the next station that a little lost sleep seemed a small price to pay on her part. Even though in Ohio, the Negroes continued on to the northern area of the state to be sure to avoid the long arm of patrols sent over the borders from Virginia.

Susanna believed with all of her being that no man should have the right to own or abuse another. She saw the efforts of her Ohio Friends and family and had no doubt that when her father summoned her to return to Virginia, she would emulate the practices learned in Ohio. She already knew the first quilts she’d make from the scraps she saved from her dresses. Her faith reinforced that there was no reason for a woman not to live her life any way other than she believed within herself. She hoped that was the legacy she’d pass forward to her own children someday, and it would continue forward to future generations.

About the author

 Mary Jane Russell is a native Virginian—the sixth generation to be raised on the family farm. She retired from local government after thirty-one years of service, during which she set a series of firsts—first female draftsman, staff engineer, project manager, and first female director of economic development.

Her lifelong love has been books and reading; her dream since a teenager was to be a published writer. This made her second career an easy choice. She is encouraged by her Cardigan Corgi, Winnie, and ignored by her cats. She lives with her partner at Smith Mountain Lake in Hardy, Virginia, and is discovering the joys of being an honorary grandmother and late blooming boater.

She is also the author of The Arcanum of Beth, Murder in City Hall, and Just a Little Romance from Intaglio Publications.

You may also enjoy...

The Arcanum of Beth

by Mary Jane Russell

ISBN: 978-1-935216-01-8

Beth Candler’s life is good.  She finally realizes there is more to living than working all her waking hours as an accountant. She finds a new love, Louise Stephens, and moves into a home in the country. The death of Beth’s mother brings her brother and sister-in-law back into her life. Beth has it all, and her sister-in-law wants it. Lou is only too willing to oblige. When Beth dies in a tragic accident, her best friend Janet Evans takes charge.

Murder In City Hall

by Mary Jane Russell

ISBN: 978-1-935216-13-1

Molly Hamilton is a dedicated public servant. She consistently out-thinks the men she works for and with. As Molly’s department director, Jack Sampson is a boss from hell. Jack routinely abuses the tightly knit group of men and women who work behind the scenes in local government.

Christine Miller meets Molly by chance while struggling to find help in City Hall. As a police investigator, Chris finds Molly to be a person of interest personally and professionally after murder is committed in City Hall. Was Molly involved? Will Chris be able to save her new relationship with Molly by solving the crime? Or is Molly fated to be yet another victim of City Hall?

Just A Little Romance

by Mary Jane Russell

ISBN: 978-1-935216-25-4

Samantha Moyer is a confident, successful businesswoman stuck in midlife dating misadventures. Undeterred by her consistently bad choices in women, Sam searches for just a little romance in her life.

Abetting Sam are her best friends—Paul, whose relationship is with a closeted family man; Ava, who’s facing giving up her home and independence; and Haley, whose partner practices spousal abuse.

Follow Sam through the year spent finding the elusive right woman, as well as the true meaning of romance while helping her friends survive a violent death in their midst.

Published by

Intaglio Publications

Walker, La.

You can purchase other Intaglio

Publications books online at

www.lgbtbookshop.com,

Amazon Kindle

 or at

your local bookstore.

Visit us on the web and read excerpts from upcoming novels

www.intagliopub.com