A crackle over her handset, “Tell ‘em to stuff it. I’m busy.”
Forte walked to the porch and took the walkie from Mrs. Wilson. “Not gonna happen, Gabby.”
Crackle, “Chief, is that you? What the hell do you want?”
“Need to talk to you, right now.”
“Got a warrant?”
“Right now, Gabby.”
“Shinola on a stick. Man can’t go a day without being bothered. Okay. Come on down to the north pasture. You’ll see my Jeep.”
We climbed into the Tahoe and edged around the house toward a small open gate leading to the pasture. Sheep lazily munching the tall grass. People picture sheep as cute white critters, but the reality is they’re usually dirty, grungy from the hips down and smell bad – especially in winter when the rain hits the wool and entire fields smell like wet dirty sweat socks. Worse still, walking through a sheep pasture is, well, that’s the reason boots are called “shit kickers.”
The Jeep was at the north-west corner of the 500 acre pasture. Topless, rusty, hauling a small equally rusty utility trailer, both probably were a dozen years old and unlicensed since neither ever touched tires to a paved street. Pure farm-bound transportation.
Billy pulled the Tahoe behind the Jeep and the four of us climbed out.
Wilson – closer to 60 than 50 -- was leaning against the Jeep, a long-bar chainsaw rested on the hood. Rubber field boots, dirty jeans and a plaid wool shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. His eyes squeezed near-shut as he watched the four of us approach.
“Whatcha need, Chief?”
Billy circled to the right and stood a few paces to the side of Wilson. Standard cop procedure “just in case.”
“We came to take a look at your trees, Gabby.”
“Asked before. Got a warrant?”
Forte reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sheet of folded 8-1/2 by 11 paper. “Don’t make me give this to you, Gabby. You know how a small town is. I hand this over and it becomes official. Goes into the police reports. Newspaper picks it up. Then everyone starts talking about how Gabby Wilson got busted for dope or worse. Child molesting is the hot topic these days. Tell ‘em you’re cuttin’ down a 100 year old Madrone – I saw the chain saw -- and you’ll be up to your ass in Department of Environmental Quality bureaucrats, Coquille and Confederated Tribes people looking for their ancestors’ sacred burial grounds, dope-smokin’ environmentalists and just plain gawkers. You want that?”
Gabby’s face went pale. “Guess not. Put it away, Chief.”
Sal and I cut a glance at each other.
“The Madrone is back here,” he said, turning and walking into the wooded area bordering the field. We followed.
About 100 feet in through some brambles and pines, where the sun was barely able to cut through the canopy of branches, stood a massive Madrone, its pale bark flaking, thick limbs flared in all directions. The tree was deeply rooted, massive legs spreading out from a core trunk measuring at least 12 feet in diameter. Old, gnarled, looking like something in a sci-fi movie.
About six feet from the ground was an opening maybe a foot wide and the same dimension tall. Wilson pointed.
“Where’s the lid, Gabby?”
He reached around the back of the tree and held up what looked like a large cork plug. “Fits in like this,” he said, pushing the plug into the hole. Once in, unless you were looking for it the trunk appeared unscathed. Take your eyes away from the tree for any length of time and you’d be hard pressed to find the cover at all.
I walked close to the tree, pulled on the edges of the lid. It took a bit but wiggled out. Glancing in the hole it was obvious why Sarah Cavanaugh’s brother was startled. Peering back at me was a skull, the dim light giving the alabaster bone a haunting, menacing stare.
Turning to Billy, “Got a flashlight?”
“Sure do, coach.” He pulled a nine-inch Maglite from his belt and tossed it to me.
Clicking it on, I played the beam into the hole and across the skull.
“What do you see, Sal?” I said, handing him the Maglite. The big man took my place in front of the opening and played the beam.
“Looks like a scrap of leather around the neck.”
Forte was next, bending his head close to the hole, “Sure seems like it.” He reached through the opening, cheek against the smooth bark, fumbling around for a second before pulling his arm out. In his hand a medium-length of tattered thong. Thin, fragile with age, obviously leather.
All of us stood around Forte as he stretched it to its full length – about 10 inches. One end had the remnants of a knot; the other was broken as if someone had tugged at it until it snapped. Considering the condition it was in, not much pressure would have been necessary to fray the leather.
“Think that’s where the clay egg was?” Sal asked.
“My guess,” I said.
“What clay egg?” Wilson was as mesmerized by the leather as were we all.
He deserved an answer. “This piece of leather was used, I figure, to hang a clay ball around the Tree Man’s neck. Don’t know exactly why, but we have an idea of what was in the egg based on what we found in the Madrone at Bandon Dunes.”
“Treasure?” he asked. “It would be mine, I reckon since it’s on my property.”
Shaking his head, Forte answered, “You’re gonna have to discuss that with, I don’t know, somebody. Or a whole lot of somebodies.”
Stepping back in front of the opening I asked, “Anybody got a mirror?”
Billy half jogged to the Tahoe, opened the rear hatch and popped the top on a plastic tub. He rummaged around for a second then returned with small polished metal oval, a hole in one end. “For looking under cars for bombs,” he said. “You need the broom stick that attaches to it?”
My eyebrows raised, “Bombs? Bandon? Expecting terrorists, Billy?”
He gave a shy grin and shrugged.
I tipped the mirror into the hole and simultaneously aimed the flashlight at it, successfully casting the beam down into the hidden darkness of the trunk. Unlike the other Madrone, this one had grown independent of the skeleton leaving a void while the first grew into and against the skeleton. The beam reflected off of the rib cage, pelvis and leg bones. The bottom of the casket-like well had a small piece of cloth, shards of what appeared to be another clay egg and a ripped page from a magazine. Playboy, I’d guess if the Cavanaugh boy used the tree as a hiding place for “boy stuff” as his sister Sarah had suggested.
“Got a chunk of wire in your rig?” I asked Wilson who grunted and tromped back to the Jeep returning with a coil in one hand and what appeared to be a straightened coat hanger in the other.
“What do you see, Nick?” Sal asked.
“Miss October. Maybe June.”
I bent the end of the coat hanger into a hook and wrapped some wire around the other end. Repositioning the mirror and handing the flashlight to Sal who aimed it at the polished metal, I slid the hook into the opening and lowered it with the wire.
Playing the wire one way then another, the tip of the hook finally latched onto the small eyelet that once was the top of the clay egg. I pulled it up, detached it and handed it to Forte who took a quick look and slid it into a jacket pocket.
“And you said you don’t know how to fish,” Sal muttered.