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Beverly drove her rental SUV down Maple Avenue—couldn’t they have come up with a more original name?—and marveled at the relative lack of traffic. Not a car horn to be heard. The smallish town of Ironwood Junction, population seven thousand except during leaf-peeping season, was a far cry from her recent big-city haunts.
No building was taller than three stories. And all were of the stereotypical stone or red Vermont brick style, standing proudly, but slightly tattered, like old soldiers in a Civil War reenactment. There was even a town square in the middle of the downtown with a cannon perched in the center. The cannon sat on a granite base, and the cannon’s rusted bore, weeping an orangish-brown liquid down the side, made it look like a hemorrhaging tombstone.
She headed north where the town soon turned into forest. It should be unsettling for someone not accustomed to the country to be traveling alone in the boonies, shouldn’t it? She hardly passed one car per mile, and with only the trees and birds for company, it was amazingly quiet.
In some ways, she felt safer here than in the big city with all the crime. She’d been mugged and nearly sexually assaulted in large towns, and she’d rather take her chances with a black bear. Or perhaps her courage came from the gun she always kept hidden in the purse slung across her shoulder—positioned diagonally across her chest, naturally, to make it harder to steal.
Beverly turned the rental SUV off the main road and down a washboard unpaved lane. It was getting closer to twilight, so she dare not dawdle if she wanted to see anything. Time to stop for a moment to check the map.
She knew the route would take her into the back end of nowhere, but this was slightly to the back of the back end of nowhere. She rolled down the window to take in some fresh air, with its hints of dried leaves and acorns smelling like an herbal tea.
The image of tea made her think of her meeting with Detective Dutton. She smiled at how wrong she’d been about him, especially his appearance. Neither did he seem the dim-witted type. And no wedding ring. Her smile turned to a frown as she pushed away the image of the attractive Adam Dutton. She needed to stay focused on avenging her grandmother’s death, and right now, Dutton was just another obstacle in her way.
A small cabin rose into view as she pointed the car along a curve to the right, and she steered the SUV in front and parked. The cabin looked abandoned, but just in case, she forced herself to concentrate on every sound, every slight movement in a circle around her.
According to her interpretation, this was one of the possible spots Kornelson referred to on his treasure map. Which is to say, she hoped it was. They didn’t have GPS back at the turn of the twentieth century when the map was drawn up, so she was learning fast how to translate compass points and map coordinates. Magnetic declination, azimuth—she should have taken an orienteering course.
Beverly headed toward the cabin and peered inside the windows. The place looked empty. She held up a hand to the window. Cool to the touch. No signs of heating or a fireplace. She gave a quick look toward the forest for any signs of being watched, and then she tried the door latch. It opened with a groan.
Pushing her way inside, she examined the interior. Rustic didn’t describe it. Something akin to what Currier and Ives might have created in the throes of a nightmare. An old potbelly stove graced the middle of the room, but that was about the only furnishing save for one string-and-wood bed frame. Rotting wood in one corner reeked of mold and stale animal urine.
She paced around the room, looking for cracks in the floor or any sign something might be buried there, but it appeared to be a bust. The notes she’d taken from Kornelson’s hints had mentioned a monument, hadn’t they? This was certainly far, far from that. Surely she hadn’t read the map wrong?
Then, she spied a dark clump where a wooden beam intersected the ceiling. She dragged the bed frame over to the wall and stood on it. The bed was wobbly, and her pulse rate climbed a few notches when she teetered and came close to falling off. Sliding a pencil flashlight out of her pocket, she shined it up toward the clump.
Without warning, a cloud of gray and black flew at her, surrounding her with an ear-splitting peal of swishing, flapping, and squeaks. Her pulse soared off the charts when something shot right at her and almost got tangled in her hair. She swatted at it, and it managed to avoid her and fly off with the other creatures through the open door. Bats.
Beverly checked her hands, looking for bites. None, thankfully. Realizing how lucky she was and how much of a huge disappointment and waste of valuable time this had turned out to be, she followed the bats in escaping outside.
She’d only stepped one foot out the door when a dark figure lurched around the corner of the cabin. Beverly wasn’t aware she’d pulled the gun out of her purse until she realized she was pointing it at a man wearing earbuds and sporting a raven-haired ponytail.
The man gaped at her. “Whoa there, missy.” Then he raised his hands up in the air. “If it’s loot you’re after, I’ve got fifty dollars in a back pocket and this,” he slowly lowered one hand and eased a small device out of a shirt pocket. An audio player. The motion of maneuvering the device turned up the volume, and Beverly heard music coming from the earbuds.
“Is that Mozart?”
He grinned. “Symphony thirty-nine. Most people say forty-one is the best, but I like the minuet and trio in thirty-nine. What didja think it was, Johnny Cash?”
“I don’t meet too many mountain-men types who listen to Mozart.”
“Didn’t have TV growing up. Only a radio with three stations, including Vermont Public Radio. And just how many mountain-man types have you met, little lady?”
Beverly lowered the gun and then shoved it back in her purse. She hoped her instincts were as sharp as usual. They’d certainly saved her neck on more than one occasion. “You remind me of a song from my childhood. ‘In a cabin in a wood, a little old man by the window stood.’”
She studied his ponytail, where she now spied a few strands of gray hair woven through it and hints of crow’s feet around his eyes. “Though you’re not terribly old.”
“Older than you by half, I’d say. Now, are you going to tell me what a lovely young creature like you is doing way out here in the boonies with a gun like that?”
“Would you believe looking for a retirement home to buy?”
He laughed. “Nope. But I’ll take the hint. You passing through or do you live around here?”
“Neither. I’m staying in town, in the Junction.”
“If it’s leaves you’re hunting,” he waved his hand around, “We got plenty of ’em. Pick your color. They’re all there.”
“What’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t. And it’s Zachery Storich, but people call me Stork.”
“Is this your cabin?”
“I can’t say it is, or I’d be lying. I’m a handyman. This cabin belongs to a gentleman I do some work for. I was checkin’ up on it.”
“That’s not very exciting. I was hoping for something more thrilling, an escaped convict, or a real mountain-man type.”
“I do descend from Rogers’ Rangers. Or so the family story goes. You familiar with them?”
Beverly tried not to let her excitement show on her face. “Yes, it’s ringing that faint bell. Something about a raid and a treasure?”
Stork snorted. “Don’t you go around believing everything you hear, certainly not that treasure. The raid part is sadly true. Can’t say I’m proud of my ancestors for that. But those were different times. Like my friend Adam, for instance. His great-grandfather was a slaveholder in the South, but his ancestors, disgusted with that lot, moved up here.”
“Adam?”
“Adam Dutton. He’s a cop, but I don’t hold that against him. We go way back to childhood. He’s had some hard knocks, but he turned out okay.”
Beverly hid her surprise that this man knew Dutton. “That’s good to know. This area is full of noble souls. I feel safer already.” She smiled up at him.
“You don’t strike me as the type to get lost, but is there something you were looking for in particular?”
Beverly thought of the map in her car but wasn’t about to tell him that. “Just getting the lay of the land.”
“Lots of land around here for that.” He turned and pointed. “North, ya got Phantom Lake State Park. South, it’s Putney State Park. Then there’s east, which takes you to the edge of the Junction and some other state park. West, is, well you get the idea. In-between, we have this little cabin here, built around nineteen ten.” He chuckled. “Parks, trees, grass, and cows. That pretty much sums up Vermont.”
“Don’t forget the maple syrup.”
He grimaced. “I hate maple syrup. It’s heresy, I know. But to me, it tastes like burnt bark.”
“Do other Vermonters, like your friend Adam Dutton, secretly hate it, too?”
“Adam’s got a sweet tooth, but if you should run into him, don’t tell him I said so. He’s been on more of a health kick the past two years, ever since . . .” Stork gritted his teeth. “Let’s just say he’s wicked fond of maple fudge.”
When Beverly noticed the late-afternoon sun angle and felt a cool breeze, she decided she should start heading back. But first, she apologized to Stork again for the gun.
Stork waved his hand in the direction of the road she’d driven down earlier. “One tip, then. On the way back, be careful to take the right-hand side when you get to the ‘Y’ in the road. The right’ll take you back to the main drag, the other’ll head off to an area it’s best you stay away from. The souls there ain’t all that noble.”
He started to head into the cabin but turned around to add, “Oh, and you might want to take the safety off that gun next time if you plan on using it.”
She stared after him before climbing back into the SUV. Her shooting instructor at the Castleman Range in Hanover would have flunked her if she pulled that during his course. She was slipping. Maybe it was the constant looking over her shoulder, maybe it was the long succession of nights in cold beds in strange rooms getting to her. She shook off her gloom and pointed the car back toward the main road.
When she came to the “Y” that Stork mentioned, she slowed down. She was more confident now that nothing had happened at the cabin. The left fork didn’t look all that threatening. Perhaps Stork didn’t want her to discover something valuable the locals kept to themselves. Should she give it a try?
Tempting though it was, she needed to do some more research. Her treasure map obviously wasn’t complete, and it was long past due that she speak with an expert. Time to talk to Harlan Wilford, owner of the Tossed Treasures shop, in person. But that would have to wait until tomorrow.
She turned on the radio to find some soothing music to steady her pulse, which hadn’t returned to normal after the bats and bumping into Stork. As she passed the intersection, she heard what sounded like a gunshot followed by the wail of a wounded animal.
Stepping on the gas, she made it back to the main road twice as fast as when she’d traveled in the opposite direction. Most likely, a hunter. But she kept a close eye on the rearview mirror as she sped away.
