Mystery of the Sassafras Chair

By Alexander Key

To the memory of a very special tree I knew, with curious leaves and scented roots

1

Inquiry

TIMOR, hurrying across the narrow mountain street to the courthouse, felt as if he was being drawn by an invisible string. This was not an unusual feeling for Timor—his mind worked in odd ways, so that one part of it often made him do things before the other part was quite aware of the reasons. He had never been in the courthouse before, and he hated to enter it now. The ugly old building repelled him like a yawning trap. But the invisible string tugged at him, pulled him up the worn steps, drew him past a knot of farm­ers in the hall, and left him dangling in a dingy room on the right.

Now that he was here, speech and confidence sud­denly deserted him. It was hard enough to face strangers, even when he knew what to say. And at the moment he didn't. Of the three people in the room, not one gave him the assurance he needed.

The two men at the nearer desk merely scowled at him, and went on talking as if he did not exist. The third person, a tall angular woman with a beaked nose, studied him with cold eyes as he approached, then turned as her telephone rang and snatched up the receiver. She was dressed like a man in old corduroy trousers and jacket.

"Sheriff's office," she announced in a harsh voice.

"Yes, this is Maggie McBane. What's your trouble? Umm . . . Stop shouting, Henry—I hear you. Yes, I’ll send somebody out.

She slammed down the receiver. "Brad," she ordered, "take a run over to Henry Shope's place and check on his timber. Somebody's been stealing it."

The younger of the two men, a stocky fellow with a large jaw and a protruding chin, grunted something as he reached for his hat and strode from the room.

Timor, feeling like a frightened minnow out of water, was aware of the woman's stony blue eyes studying him again. "You want something?" she snapped.

"I—I just wanted to talk to the sheriff," he began hesitantly.

"My husband's sick. I’m running the office for him. Anything wrong?"

"Not, exactly, ma’am." Timor swallowed, searching for words. "It—it was something that happened here in the mountains last month, up on Blue Gap Road past the Forks. You see, we have a summer place up there. But we've just got in town, and all we know is what we read in the county paper. We—we have it sent to us down on the coast.”

"Well?"

Timor suddenly wished he had sought information from anyone but this formidable woman. "It—it's about Wiley Pendergrass," he managed to say. "He lived near us, and took care of the cabin."

"Oh, him," Mrs. McBane snorted. "What do you want to know about him?"

Timor fought down his resentment. "Everything you can tell me, ma'am. You see, we were friends. He was one of the best friends I ever had."

"He must have sold you a real bill of good, sonny.”

More than ever, Timor regretted his smallness. People treated him as if he were younger than he actually was. He shook his head. "Old Wiley wasn't as bad as he seemed, ma'am."

"He robbed Nat Battle and put him in the hospital!" she retorted. “Wouldn't you say that was pretty bad?"

"Is there any real proof?" he asked stubbornly. "I mean, did anyone ever find that little box they say he took?"

She frowned irritably Suddenly she said, "If you read the paper, you ought to know the facts. Why don't you face them?  Nat caught the old skinflint in the back of his shop that night. Wiley broke his head, and ran out to his truck. There were plenty of witnesses around, including two deputies who were at the diner next door. They chased Wiley up the valley, and saw him throw the box from his truck just before he crashed. What more proof do you need?"

"The box, ma'am. With everything still in it."

Her eyes sharpened upon him, then she shrugged. "We roped off the area and put men to searching. Even had the forest rangers out. But everyone knew what Nathaniel Battle had in that box. Next day the valley road up there was jammed. You can guess what happened. Now, does that satisfy you?"

Timor wet his lips. "No ma’am. How can you he sure what it was that Wiley threw away?"

"Two good men saw him," she flung back, her voice rising. "You trying to tell me two experienced deputies can't recognize a bright tin box at fifty feet when they're holding a spotlight right on it? I think, sonny, that you’d better run along and forget about Wiley."

Timor wished he hadn't come here. "I—I'm sorry I bothered you," he muttered, and started to turn away.

"Just a minute," she ordered. "What's your name?"

"It's Timor, ma'am, though I'm usually called Tim. I—I'm Timor Hamilton."

"Oh. You're that foreign kid Colonel Hamilton adopted?"

"I'm not adopted, ma’am. The colonel is my uncle,"

"You don't say! I thought he'd found you and your sister in the Philippines or some place."

"No, ma’am—and Odessa isn't my sister. She's my cousin, though we were raised together."   

"You were? Where?"

At her frank curiosity Timor smiled. Some of his resentment faded. She was still formidable, but at least she was honest and human.

"We were raised in Malaya, ma am. My parents worked in the Orient for the State Department. When—when they were killed by the Communists, Odessa's father retired from the army, and we came over here to live with him."

She grunted. "So that's how it was. What do you think of America?"

Timor swallowed. Secretly he still found America strange and frightening, and he hated it. It was so big and rushing and cold, and no one had time for anyone else. No one except persons like Wiley, whom others looked down upon. But he couldn't come out and say such things. One had to be diplomatic.

"Everything is so—so different here," he replied cautiously. "It's hard to get used to it all."

"H'mm." She scowled at him. "Maybe that explains it."

"Ma'am?"

"The way you look and act."

"My mother was Indonesian—if that's what you mean.”

"So. That's partly it. I've heard your cousin, Odessa, is an artist. Are you one too?"

"I'm trying to learn."

"You're sure an odd one. And," she suddenly thrust at him, "you're the first person to come in here and ask questions about Wiley. Why?"

"I explained why ma'am. He was my friend."

"I want a better answer than that," she snapped. "I'm no fool—and you don't look like one, though you may be. You're pretty young.”

Timor clenched his small hands in his jeans and glanced uneasily around. The remaining man at the other desk was watching him, and slowly chewing a match. The man had pale eyes in a flat, expressionless face. Something about the pale eyes brought a prick­ling at the back of his neck.

"When you know a person well," he told her, "you know there are certain things he won't do. It's like knowing water won't run uphill."

She snorted. "If you're so sold on Wiley, you'd better go talk to Nathaniel Battle."

"Yes, ma'am. I intend to."

Again he started to leave, but she said, "Wait. Didn't you tell me you'd just got in town?"

"Yes, ma’am.”

"You haven't been to your cabin yet?"

"No ma'am. We had to shop first. Odessa's at the market now." He looked at her curiously, but she dismissed him with a frown and turned to her phone as it rang again.

Timor went out and crossed the street slowly, wondering what was in her mind. Something wasn't right.

Around the corner he caught the flash of Odessa's green dress. She was heading for their station wagon with a sack in each arm. He hastened to catch up with her, and took one of the sacks.

"Timmy!" she exclaimed, seeing the look on his face. "What in the world have you been doing?"

"Asking some questions."

"And you got the wrong answers. You look tida senang.

"I can't help it. I feel tida senang—about everything

She wrinkled her nose at him, concerned. She also was a small person, very slender and dark. Though her mother had been French, she was so much like Timor in many ways that she might have been his sister. No one would have guessed she was half again his age.

Without realizing it, they began talking rapidly in the simple Malay they had learned before English—discussing old Wiley, arguing about him, and going over what Tim had heard in the courthouse. They were interrupted by Odessa's father, who appeared suddenly behind them and tossed a shopping bag into the car beside her painting equipment.

"Will you two stop yapping that jargon and use English?" he grumbled. "You're like a pair of natives. Can't you ever remember you're in America?" The sound of Malay, which he had never learned, always irritated the colonel. He was a gaunt, gruff man, a professional soldier who had spent more years on distant firing lines than at quiet posts of duty. Odessa, who hardly remembered her mother, was still almost a stranger to him.

"Yes, Daddy," she said meekly. "Did you get your trout flies and your license?"

He nodded and crawled into the wagon. “Let's go. I’d like to do a little fishing before dark."

They slipped into the front seat beside him. Odessa said, "You may not have much time for fishing. The place will be a mess. Don't forget Wiley isn't there to have everything aired out and ready for us.”

The colonel grunted and started the motor. He drove slowly through town. "Weren't you yammering about Wiley when I came up?" he asked. "I thought I heard his name mentioned."

"I was telling Dessa about going to the sheriff's office," Timor admitted. "I—I was sort of hoping they'd learned something new.”

"Are you trying to make a fool of yourself?" his uncle grumbled. ''Why can't you accept the truth of what happened and forget about Wiley?"

"I can't help how I feel, Uncle Ira."

"Nonsense! You can't go through life just feeling your way along."

"Timmy's like Nani," said Odessa, speaking of Timor's mother. "She believed in her feelings. In all the years she was taking care of me after Mother died, I never knew her to be wrong about something."

The colonel shook his head. "You've lived in the East too long Good grief, everybody knows what Wiley was like! In and out of jail on liquor charges.  And light-fingered…”

"He never stole anything from us,” Timor insisted.

"Hmp! He was always borrowing money he never repaid. Talked me out of a hundred dollars last fall before we left. I'll never see that again."

Timor hid his smile. Old Wiley had certainly had a tongue. "Oh, he'd have paid it back in some way, if he'd lived."

"Well, he's gone now," snapped his uncle, "and it's all over. So let's forget it."

It was impossible for Timor to forget Wiley. And it wasn’t over. He knew this with a certainty that was beyond explanation. In his mind, old Wiley was still alive, and as full of cackle and chatter as ever. Oh, the flesh and bones were dead, but, as Nani had often told him, the real you isn't your flesh and bones. The real you never dies.

Beyond the town the station wagon gathered speed, and moved swiftly through a winding valley walled with high blue mountains. They were at the Forks almost before Timor realized it.

As they crossed the bridge where two rushing streams came together, Timor looked quickly at the cluster of buildings on his right. There was the familiar old country store, with a filling station on one side and a diner on the other. Beyond the diner rose a small new structure of carefully fitted logs that hadn't been there last year.

Over the door of the log building he glimpsed a sign that read: GO TO BATTLE FOR GEMS. A battered jeep was parked near the entrance, but no one was in sight.

Timor wondered about Nathaniel Battle, whom he'd never met. "Folks call him Nat," old Wiley had said. "But his real name's Nathaniel, which he likes better. Ain't nobody like him. Knows more about gems than any feller in the Carolina mountains. Part Cherokee, same as me—only he's got more o' the blood an' a heap more temper to go with it."

The colonel swung into a smaller road, and they began to climb. Crowding hemlocks met overhead. Tangles of rhododendron hid the rocky stream that clattered below them. Timor shivered in the gray mist that was now creeping through the trees.

It was up here somewhere, not far from their cabin, that Wiley's ancient truck had crashed. He was watch­ing for the place when Odessa's fingers pressed his

“Behind us," she whispered. "That car—it's been following us all the way from town.”

He looked back, suddenly uneasy. It was hard to see over the pile of luggage and supplies in the back of the wagon. But presently, rounding a turn far behind them, he made out a black car with a spot­light on the driver's side.

The black car kept its distance until they slowed for the narrow private road that wound down to the stream. Then it shot forward, followed them over the little bridge, and parked behind them when they reached the cabin.

The colonel got out, frowning. Timor stared as the driver of the black car strode up to them. It was the man he had seen in the sheriff's office, the one with the pale eyes who had been chewing a match.

The man was chewing a match now, but he spat it out before he spoke. "Colonel Hamilton," he began softly, displaying a badge, "I'm deputy Rance Gatlin from the sheriff's office."

The colonel raised his bushy eyebrows. "Eh? Yes?"

“If you don’t mind,” came the curiously soft voice, "I'd like to have a look inside your place."

The colonel's eyebrows went a bit higher. "Why, may I ask?"

"Want to check for a few things. Didn't Wiley Pendergrass have a key to your cabin?"

"He did. He was the caretaker."

"Well, there were no keys on him when he died, and there were no keys hidden in his shack."

Timor, listening, remembered how Wiley was about locks and keys. Wiley disliked keys and made trick locks for nearly everything, even his truck. He started to say something, but remained silent as he remem­bered how Mrs. McBane had questioned him.

The colonel said, "What do you expect to find in our place? Surely not Wiley's keys!"

"I don't know what to expect," Rance Gatlin replied softly. "Late last night Mrs. McBane—she's the sheriff's wife—was driving by here, and she saw a light in your cabin. She supposed you were back, and thought nothing of it until this afternoon—that was when this boy of yours came in to ask some questions. Then she found out you'd just reached town."

Timor caught a sharp glance from his uncle. The colonel drew his keys from his pocket, selected one, and started grimly up the cabin steps.

"Wait a moment," the deputy purred. "I think you'd better let me go in first."

2

Gift

TIMOR followed his uncle up to the porch, and peered about him with troubled eyes while the deputy tested the door and inserted the key in the lock.

The sprawling cabin looked very different, with Wiley not here to greet them. They had made several trips up here last year, and each time they had found the grounds tended, the floors swept, the rooms aired, the refrigerator working, and the water from the spring higher on the mountain turned on. And Wiley had never failed to have a fire laid in the fireplace, and a bouquet of wild flowers on the table. Neglect showed everywhere now. In the creeping mist the place even seemed haunted.

The heavy door creaked open, But Rance Gatlin did not enter immediately. Timor saw him place another match between his teeth, and begin chewing it thoughtfully while he studied the dim interior. Finally he took a few steps inside then beckoned to the colonel.

"See anything different in here?" he asked.

"So far as I can tell," the colonel answered, "noth­ing's been touched. The only things of value we leave here are a few guns and fishing rods—but they are in that corner cabinet yonder, and it's still locked."

"Someone was in here last night," Rance Gatlin said. He pointed to vague muddy footprints outlined in the dust on the cabin floor. "He came in after the dew had fallen, and he must have used Wiley's key."

Odessa, peering over Timor's shoulder, said curiously, "if nothing's been stolen, why would anyone want to come in here?"

The deputy shrugged. "I can think of one good reason. Please stay outside until I've taken a few shots of these footprints. I'd like to have them on file."

He went back to his car and returned quickly with a small camera and some flashbulbs. When he had snapped several of the clearer prints, the colonel asked, “Wasn’t Wiley mixed up in moonshining?"

"He's been caught with illegal liquor," the deputy admitted. "And can you think of a better place than this to hide the stuff?"

The colonel made an angry sound deep in his throat. "That explains it! Some rascal's been storing liquor in here, and he came in last night to get it. He's prob­ably taken it all out, but we'd better search the place."

They searched the cabin carefully, looking in closets and even under the beds. They found nothing that did not belong there. And nothing, it seemed, had been disturbed. Yet Timor could not get over the feeling that there was something about the place that wasn't quite as it had been.

"Confound it," muttered the colonel. "I’d like to know who was in here last night."

"So would I," murmured the deputy, his pale eyes still roving about, curious and secretive. "Do you know anyone Wiley might have lent his key to?"

The colonel shook his head. "The old fellow was pretty sly. He must have had friends, but he never talked about them—unless it was to Tim here. Tim, did Wiley ever mention the name of anyone he might have had any dealings with?"

"No, sir," Timor answered truthfully. He could have enlarged on this statement and given an exact description of at least one person he had glimpsed at Wiley's shack. But something warned him to silence. As Wiley had once said, "Ain't always wise to tell everything you know. It's like usin' up all your ammunition before you track down your b'ar."

Timor, by now, was convinced that he had a very sizable b'ar to track down, and that he had better proceed cautiously. He had learned little enough at the courthouse, but at least his visit had started something—and he had met Rance Gatlin.

He was relieved when the deputy left. There was a great deal to be done before dark. The colonel said, "If you kids will take care of things here, I'll go up to the spring and turn on the water."

The colonel departed up the misty slope with tools and a flashlight. While Odessa cleaned, Timor con­nected the refrigerator and turned on the lights. The water heater, which had been drained for the winter, would have to wait until it was safely filled before he plugged it in. He was closing the fuse box when he noticed a fresh smear across the dusty cover. It suddenly occurred to him that whoever had turned on the lights last night must know the cabin well—for the fuse box was hidden in a cramped cabinet where no one would have thought to look for it.

He was puzzling about this as he brought in then' luggage from the station wagon. Odessa said, "Do you think Mr. Gatlin was right in believing someone stored liquor here?"

"No."

"Then why would anyone come in last night?"

"I—I don't know yet, but there's a reason. Some thing's different here."

"I don't see anything different."

"Well, something is."

She shook her head. "Honestly, Timmy, I don’t know what to make of you at times. Are you still con­vinced that Wiley didn't have anything to do with what happened at the Forks?"

"I'm absolutely sure he didn't."

She sighed. "It doesn't make sense, but I know you too well to say you're wrong. If you feel a thing, then that's that. Timmy, wasn't there something in the paper about Rance Gatlin?"

"Yes. He's one of the deputies who chased Wiley that night. He drove the car.

"Oh. Wouldn't he be able to give you some information if you had a talk with him?"

He shook his head. "That man wouldn't tell me anything."

"Why not?"

"He's the kind that never says what he’s thinking.”

"How about the other deputy—what's his name?'

"The sheriff's wife called him Brad. I believe the paper said his last name was James. I saw him in the courthouse. He wouldn't be of any help—not to me, anyway. When you're a stranger, and sort of a foreigner…”

"I know. Some people up here are friendly, but others just stare at you. It was that way when I was shopping."

She shivered in the growing chill. He said, "I'd better get a fire going."

It was nearly dark when he went outside for wood. He brought in several loads and soon had a fire blaz­ing cheerfully in the big stone fireplace. It transformed the cabin.

"Water’s on,” Odessa announced. "I'll fix something to eat. It'll have to be out of cans—I'm too tired to cook anything tonight."

Timor set the table, then stood frowning at the chairs flanking the fireplace. "Dessa," he asked sud­denly, "how many ladderback chairs do we have here?"

“Only two. Don't you remember? I bought them in Asheville when Daddy first brought us to the cabin. One went to your room, and I put the other by the fireplace."

"Well, we've got three now.”

"But that's impossible!" She came in from the kitchen and looked quickly at the two chairs. "Those are the two I bought. One of us must have brought your chair in here last fall. How do you make three out of it?"

"Because there's a chair in my room. I thought it was the one that had been in there all the time—until I noticed these."

He hurried down the hall, suddenly excited, and switched on the lights in his room. The room was too small to contain anything but a bed, a chest, a table and a single chair. And there was the chair—a polished ladderback, placed by the table where a chair had always been.

Timor stared. Earlier he hadn't looked at it, or he would have noticed how different it was, even in the dim light. He had merely accepted it because it was there. This new chair was lower, broader, and made of a much paler wood than the others. The wood had a deep golden gleam. In fact, it almost seemed to glow

“Tabe!” Odessa exclaimed behind him. "What in the world-“

"Why—why, that’s the chair Wiley was making for me!" Timor burst out.

"He was making you a chair?"

"Yes. Last fall. Out of sassafras. See how yellow it is, and how it glows?"

"It's beautiful! But why sassafras? I mean, I’ve never heard…”

"Well, it's sort of a special wood. You see, people up here won’t cut it for firewood, even when it's dead—they think it's bad luck. Wiley had found a small tree that had been knocked over when the road was being fixed, and he hated to see it go to waste. You know how he was. Always making something out of pieces of wood he'd saved."

"I know," Odessa said. "He was a wonderful craftsman. He could make anything. But why a chair for you—and out of sassafras?"

"It—it was just an idea he had. We were talking about woods one day, and how some kinds have properties that others don't have. Sort of magic properties, I mean.  Apple is one, if it's old enough, and holly is another. Then there's hawthorn, and some kinds of willow. Witch hazel is very special, and so is sassafras. Wiley said a chair made of sassafras ought to be really-"

Timor stopped. He had been so interested in the chair that he had failed to hear his uncle come back into the house. Now he turned as Colonel Hamilton appeared in the doorway and said wearily, "If supper's ready, how about eating? What's keeping you two?"

Odessa pointed to the chair. Before she could explain about it, Timor saw something he had not noticed before. It was a small loop of rawhide on the back of the chair. He lifted it off and held it up. To the loop was fastened a brass key.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "It's Wiley's key to the front door!"

Odessa took it, frowning. "It is! Daddy, this explains how someone got in the cabin last night. He used this key, and left it with the chair Wiley made."

"Eh? What's this about a chair?"

Timor explained. The colonel stared at the chair and shook his head. "I'll be doubly hanged," he muttered. "Who on earth could have done that?"

They discussed the mystery while they ate supper. "It had to be one of Wiley's friends," said the colonel. "Tim, didn't you ever meet anybody up at Wiley's place?"

"No, sir. Not exactly.”

“What do you mean by not exactly?" his uncle demanded. "Either you met someone or you didn't."

"I—I never actually met anyone, Uncle Ira. I do know he had visitors at times, though he never told me who they were, or talked about them. I saw one leaving once, but Wiley said he was, one of those seng hunters that lived over the gap.”

"Eh? What's a seng hunter?"

"Ginseng hunter. They call it seng up here in the mountains. You know, it's that little plant whose roots are worth so much. Dessa and I have seen it for sale in the drug shops back home. The Chinese pay awful prices for it."

"Oh," said the colonel, "I didn't know people still bothered to look for the stuff. Isn't it pretty scarce?"

"It sure is. Sort of like gold, but twice as hard to find."

And those who hunted it, Timor knew, were secre­tive people who never told where they'd found it, or how much. Old Wiley, he suddenly remembered, always had bunches of ginseng roots hanging in his shack to dry. Quite a lot of it, in fact. At thirty dollars a pound, Wiley should have had plenty of extra money without being forced to borrow from the colonel or do any of the other things people said he did. As for trying to steal Nathaniel Battle's gems…

When bedtime came Timor went eagerly to his room and closed the door. Slowly he approached the new chair Wiley had made and stood looking at it wonder­ingly. It seemed to glow almost as if it were alive. If it had spoken to him at that moment, he would not have been surprised. Finally he sat down in it, and molded his hands over the polished wood.

For the first time he realized it had a pleasant, aromatic smell—the same smell that had always been in Wiley's shack. The aroma of fresh sassafras roots and shavings. As he thought of the shack and all he'd seen there, questions crowded his mind.

Was it the ginseng hunter who had brought the chair into the cabin last night, and left the key? And why had Wiley borrowed a hundred dollars from the colonel when he could have sold his ginseng for far more than that amount? What had happened to the roots? Were they still in th...