way you do, besides, since you’ve made it sound so awful, if I don’t go, certain people will never let me hear the end of it.” She nodded meaningfully in Bill’s direction.
“Just tell me where you want the Red Cross parcels sent,” Bill remarked.
“Sarvice Valley,” said Milo. “In care of Mr. Stecoah, our host.”
“Stecoah?” echoed Elizabeth. “Amelanchier Stecoah?”
“No. I think this guy’s name is Humphrey. No, that’s not it. Comfrey, maybe.”
“Comfrey! Hold on!” Elizabeth began to rummage through her tote bag from folk medicine class. She pulled out her spiral notebook and leafed through the pages, skimming her notes with her forefinger. “Comfrey is the name of a plant,” she told them. “That’s why I think… ah! Here it is: ‘One of the best-known Appalachian herbalists is an Indian woman, Amelanchier Stecoah, whose folk medicines and reputation as a storehouse of mountain lore have made her the subject of numerous articles and one documentary film.’ Why, she’s famous! And I’ll bet she’s one of the Cullowhees. Do you suppose I’ll actually get to meet her?”
Bill, who had watched his sister’s outburst with weary amusement, turned to Milo and said, “Well, I know what I’m going to do while you’re gone.”
“What’s that?”
“Move. And leave no forwarding address.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Don’t be silly, Bill. What would you do without letters from me to brighten up your tedious existence? Now, I haven’t got time to cook because I have to talk to Milo about the dig. Weren’t you going to order a pizza?”
CHAPTER FOUR
SARVICE VALLEY, named for the white-flowered trees which covered the hillsides, had been optimistically named by its pioneer discoverers. Strictly speaking, the area was not large enough to be a valley; in local terms, it was merely a “run,” which is the bottomland carved out by a small creek. The encircling mountains formed the community’s boundaries, limiting its population to several dozen families farming a few acres of rocky hillside. A one-lane road turned off the main highway where tiny Sarvice Creek emptied into a stone-studded river, and it paralleled the creek up the run, turning to a dirt track long before it reached the creek’s source: a trickle from a spring in a wooded hollow six miles from the mouth. At the end of the run, where it joined the main road, the hills arched up on either side of the pavement, crowding road and creek into a sliver of land. There was no room to live or farm for the first mile of the run, but after a few rises and turns the land began to level out, revealing frame houses and cornfields on either side. In the widest stretch of bottomland at the center of the run, the community had built its main street: a one-room post office and a general store. Any less basic transactions would have to be carried out in the nearest incorporated town, Laurel Cove, which was eight miles up the highway.
Although Sarvice Valley’s population was 98 percent Cullowhee, there were no souvenir shops or other concessions to tourists. The area was not on the path of the Appalachian Trail and was sufficiently remote to be largely ignored by the sightseers, who confined their interest to the Blue Ridge Parkway or the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest. Those in search of Eastern Indians found the Cherokees conveniently situated to both, so that few outlanders even bothered to investigate the Cullowhees. It was just as well: seekers of colorful Indian folkways would have been disappointed by the Cullowhees, who were indistinguishable from their Appalachian neighbors. Those tourists who did risk their cars’ suspension systems in Sarvice Valley were drawn there by the hand-lettered sign by the side of the main road.
“There!” cried Elizabeth. “Did you see what that sign said?”
“I’m not stopping at any more
Elizbeth pointed to the weathered board, marked in slanting free-form lettering: AMELANCHIER-WISE WOMAN OF THE WOODS-6 MI. An arrow pointed toward the Sarvice Valley Road. “I told you she lived around here,” said Elizabeth.
“This is our turnoff,” nodded Milo. “Be on the lookout for a white frame church.”
“I want to go and see her. She’s supposed to be over eighty, and she knows everything about root medicine. I brought my notebook. Do you suppose she’ll take me out gathering with her?”
“Maybe. But first you’ve got to get moved into the Sunday school room, do your K.P. assignment, and go to the diggers’ meeting that Alex is having after supper. Remember, I’ve vouched for you on this dig. Don’t let me down.”
Elizabeth was surprised at Milo’s serious tone. She had never heard him so businesslike. “I’ll do my job,” she said meekly.
Milo didn’t answer. He seemed intent on the winding road in front of them. It lurched through oak groves and banks of mountain laurel, which parted now and then to provide a glimpse of the creek below. The only sign of human habitation was an occasional mailbox nailed to an upturned log and surounded by clumps of Queen Anne’s lace and tiger lilies. Milo, oblivious to the beauty of the summer woods, wondered why he was so edgy. This was a routine excavation, after all; surely there was less at stake here than there was when he assisted the medical examiner in criminal cases. Why should he be more nervous now? He told himself that it would turn out to be two weeks on a hot, dull job. The glamour of grave robbing was vastly overrated. With an effort of will, he made himself concentrate on the routine tasks ahead.
After a few more miles of gradually broadening bottomland, the road opened up into fenced pastures, and finally to a cluster of houses comprising the community of Sarvice Valley. The church was easy to spot: it sat on a wooded hillside overlooking the village and was actually several miles farther off than it appeared.
Elizabeth looked at the weathered frame houses, whose sagging porches and battered roofs testified to their age. “It doesn’t look like an Indian village,” she said doubtfully.
“Very true. I think the Cherokees mostly have brick homes with carports.”
Elizabeth made a face at him. “You know what I meant!”
“Something out of a John Wayne movie, I expect. The interesting thing is that with the Cullowhees, this isn’t just the effects of civilization on their culture. Apparently, they’ve always lived and talked like everybody else. It would make an interesting study.”
He drove onto a dirt side road, across a narrow wooden bridge, and steeply uphill toward the white church, which flashed in and out of their line of sight as they curved through the woods. On one side of the hill a small meadow had been cleared on the creek side of the church, for picnics and baptisms. Two cars and a van had been parked in the meadow just off the road. Milo pulled in beside the van.
“Everybody’s here already, I guess. Let’s get our stuff unloaded and take it up to the church.”
“I thought we were excavating a cemetery. I don’t see one.”
“It’s behind the church, but that’s not the one we’ll be working in. Those graves with the granite headstones are pretty recent-1930 and on. The old burying ground is farther up the hill, past a little stretch of woods.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No. Dr. Lerche came up here earlier this week with Mr. Stecoah, and he did some preliminary work. He’ll cover that in his lecture after dinner. Do you need any help carrying anything? No?” He slammed the trunk. “Let’s go.”
The Sunday school room had a plank floor, walls of unfinished boards, and a smeary copy of the
“Hello, there!” said Milo, more loudly than necessary.
“Hello yourself, stranger,” called out Mary Clare. “What took you so long?”
“Well, that road was no picnic. I never tried to drive over a washboard before. And then I had a passenger who wanted to stop at every tourist trap on the highway.” He nodded toward Elizabeth. “Mary Clare, this is Elizabeth MacPherson. She’s… uh… a friend of mine.”
