C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

for my father-in-law, Gary Lee

(why, yes, Joannes Gary is named after him, in fact)

Friday, March 24, 4:15 p.m.

I came home to North Carolina just shy of a decade after promising Id never go back.

Home was a funny word. Id lived in Qualla Boundary during high school. That was longer than Id lived anywhere else up until then, but in the intervening decade Id lived exclusively in Seattle. But North Carolina still twigged as home, maybe because it was where my father had been born.

It was where hed gone missing from, too, and that was why I was back.

Driving up from Atlanta was a slow immersion into memories. I had the windows of my rented Impala rolled down, and the rich rotting scent of winter collapsing into spring made a hungry place at the hollow of my throat. Of course, everything made me hungry right nowI hadnt yet recovered from a weeks worth of exhaustive shape-shifting fueled by my bodys resources instead of food. But that slightly sweet smell of death begetting life had always made me hungry, and Id forgotten that until now.

The low hills with a haze of new leaves lining the roads; the roads themselves narrowing as I pulled away from interstates; the way strangers stopped along the roadside would nod a greeting as I passed by: those things I remembered more clearly. Then again, Id spent an awful lot of my formative years in cars, crisscrossing the country with my father. Things I could see from a vehicle were most likely to stay with me, maybe.

Like the sign welcoming the world to the Qualla. It was smaller than I remembered it. I was taller than Id been fourteen years ago when Dad had driven us past that sign for the first time, but mostly its size was relative to its importance in my life. Back then those carved white words on a brown road sign had been the most important thing in my life. Welcome: Cherokee Indian Reservation. At thirteen, going on fourtee">

It had been, too. Just not the way Id expected it to be.

I slowed the car as I drove into the town of Cherokee. It was equal parts bigger and better than I remembered it, and exactly the same. The main street was four lanes rolling through town, no sidewalks to mention, just road, then parking spaces, then tourist shops flush up against them. A lot of low brown buildings with statues of headdressed Indian chiefs or protective gleaming black bears in front of them, andnew to mesigns making sure everybody knew which way to drive to the casino. It had opened the year before I left the Qualla, and the bigger-better aspects of Cherokee probably had it to thank. Thered been tourism money half the year before that, and unemployment the other half. That was the Cherokee I remembered, but I was just as glad it had moved on.

I got out of my car in front of the sheriffs station. Wind came down off the blue mountains and caught the skirt of my white leather coat with cinematic flair. For half a second I wished I was as cool as the woman reflected in the car window looked. Somebody that cool, though, probably wouldnt have a stomach full of butterflies, and her hands wouldnt shake as she took off her sunglasses. Id burned bridges, mentally if not actually, when Id left the Qualla. Coming back scared the crap out of me.

A man about my own age stepped through the stations open front door, leaned in the frame and said, Ill be damned. Joanne Walkingsticks come home.

All the butterflies got squished as my stomach clenched. Id Anglicized my last name the minute I left Cherokee, calling myself Walker. Excepting a handful of magic users, nobody had called me Joanne Walkingstick in ten years. Id somehow forgotten thats who I would be, back here.

You havent changed, the guy said, which was wildly untrue, although in physical terms he was right. I was still six feet tall with short-cropped black hair, and ten years wasnt enough for most people to lose the youth theyd had graduating high school. I looked like me, albeit better-dressed.

The fellow in the door looked like himself, too, though it took me a good twenty seconds before I said, Lester, and even that I said slowly. It took another moment to finish with You cut your hair. And youre a cop?

Who better than the local troublemaker? Figure I at least have a clue what the kids are on about. I hear youre a brother in blue, too. Lester Lee pushed out of the door and stepped forward to offer his hand. I shook it automatically, still trying to get past the silver badge on his chest and the tidy police haircut. Last time Id seen Les, hed had hair to his ass and had been smoking pot during our graduation ceremony. Other than that, he did look like himself: pleasant dark eyes, wide cheekbones, reasonably fit and about four inches shorter than I.

I was, I said a bit absently. I just quit. Ive had othe Who told you that?

Sara.

Shes here. Of course she was here. Sara Buchanan, now Sara Isaac, was the one whod called to tell me my father was missing. Wed been best friends about half a lifetime ago, right up until I blew it by sleeping with the boy she liked. In my defense, shed said she didnt like him, and my social skills hadnt been well enough developed to recognize the lie. Either way, the friendship had ended. But wed reconnected, if that was the hihat wasright word for an encounter over half-eaten dead men, about four months earlier. When that case was over, Id never expected to hear from her again.

Lucas came with her, Les said, watching me.

My stomach went to knots again, though I wasnt surprised. Lucas Isaac had been the boy, back then. Hed gone home to Vancouver before my pregnancy became obvious, but he and Sara had kept in touch and eventually got married. Id always refused to answer questions about who the father of my twins was, and had thought nobody knew. Judging from Less expression, if everybody hadnt known then, they did now. That was awkward, so I ignored it.

Im more worried about my dad. Les, whats going on? Sara called and said he was missing, but she wouldnt say anything else. That wasnt exactly true. Shed said it was my kind of thing, which I took to mean it appeared to be something paranormal in nature.

She wouldnt Les broke off with a cough, then jerked his chin toward the station. Come in and sit down a minute, Joanie. We

Joanne. Or Jo, please. I dont use Joanie much anymore. Actually it had only just struck me in the past few days that Id left the little-girl nickname behind, but Les didnt have to know that.

He lifted an eyebrow. You hated being called Jo. With that observation he went inside, leaving me to look at the dark square of doorway with a blush mounting my cheeks.

We hadnt been particular friends, Lester Lee and me. I hadnt been particular friends with much of anybody, truth be told, because Id had a chip the size of Idaho on my shoulder. I had my Irish mothers pale skin, which made me unnecessarily self-conscious about coming to the Qualla, and the only long-term companion Id ever had was my father. Coming into a high school of kids whod known each other since birth made me horribly uncomfortable, and Id mostly been a complete jerk through my adolescent years. I could not for the life of me imagine why Les knew I didnt like being called Jo, when I couldnt even remember talking to him more than five times in the years Id been here. But he knew it, and I was once more smacked in the face with the realization that if Id been less of a jackass, Id probably have had a lot more fun in school. I sighed and followed Les inside the cop shop.

Last time Id been in there it had been to hack my personal files in their computers, changing my last name from Walkingstick to Walker on my drivers license. By the time it propagated to the state system Id left North Carolina and Joanne Walkingstick behind.