Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(14)
“Last autumn I visited Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England. It’s much smaller than in the days of Robin Hood, only a little over one acre now instead of the thirty miles by ten miles it was in the old days. But it has a tree called the Major Oak, which is supposedly between 800 and 1000 years old. I think they said it weighs about twenty-three tons and has a trunk circumference of thirty-three feet. I could not believe how much ground its spreading branches covered. And according to legend, the tree was Robin Hood’s main hideout while he robbed from the rich to give to the poor. That part about it being his hideout reminded me of the tree house you and Brad used to share in your special tree.”
He nodded, his gaze distant, instead of on her. “So maybe someone sees taking that tree of mine as robbing from the rich to give to the poor. You know, growing up, Brad and I, Gabe, Todd and Paul used to play there all the time.” He looked at her again. “You’ve helped me, Kate. You’ve made me face up to the harsh reality about people’s possible motives, but it lifts my spirits just to know that there’s a Major Oak out there for every bird’s-eye maple or golden spruce some bastard cuts down.”
They went back down to the mill floor. Todd had come back after the wedding to work for a couple of hours. Grant asked him to show her around while he talked to some of his workers about keeping their ears to the ground for any word of someone selling bird’s-eye maple. As she and Todd went outside amid the mountains of stacked wood waiting to be cut, they turned a corner and ran right into Bright Star Monson.
5
“Oh,” Kate blurted out. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Bright Star. And Lee!” she cried when she saw her cousin standing behind Bright Star with two other men. “So good to see you since you couldn’t come to the wedding.”
Lee nodded, but he didn’t smile or step forward until Kate went past Monson to extend her hand. She was tempted to give Lee a hug, but who knew what punishment this leader of the pack doled out when someone disobeyed his rules. She could not fathom that Lee and spunky Grace had been taken in by this man. And to have their two kids reared in that repressive atmosphere was tragic.
Lee took her hand, shook it and quickly released it. “We hardly expected to find you here,” he said. “We came to buy some wood for an addition at the Hear Ye home.”
Home. That word stunned Kate. At least Lee and Grace had a home. And, really, she didn’t.
Todd spoke up. “We have salesmen who can show you around, depending on what you need, Mr. Monson. We deliver and can even put you in touch with architects or builders if you want.”
“Oh, we’ll do all that ourselves,” Monson said. “Brother Lee and others are very skilled at all that. Quite a family we have, talented and diverse for all our needs.”
Kate knew she should keep her mouth shut, but this man really riled her. “Lee is from the Lockwood family, also talented and diverse before he changed his life so radically,” she said.
“It seems to me,” Monson replied in his calm, quiet, infuriating voice, “that your two sisters follow life paths to help the living, whereas you seem to be fixated on the dead. The pagan dead. Don’t think we are so primitive that we cannot research people. I know a bit about you and your pursuits.”
“You like to seem all-knowing, all-wise, don’t you?” she challenged, despite the fact Todd kept clearing his throat and had edged his shoulder between the two of them. “To keep an eye on people, don’t you?”
“His eye is on the sparrow, and mine also,” Monson intoned. With a nod he moved away down the aisle of wood, with the others following like robots. Lee did not look back.
“Sorry about that, if I lost you a sale,” she told Todd. Unlike Grant, whom she had to look up to, Todd was just her height, so she looked at him eye to eye. He seemed very fit, strong but agile, a serious man with bright eyes and a beard to balance his shaved head.
“We’re the only lumber mill for miles around,” he said with a shrug. “I know he’s weird, but, in a way, we all are.”
“Yes, we all have our eccentricities. But no one stands up to him as if it’s forbidden, and I can’t help disliking him. He’s been reading up on my work, which makes me wonder why.”
They strolled toward the front of the mill, occasionally avoiding forklifts moving huge pallets of lumber. “I guess you’ve heard they call me Tarzan around here?” Todd asked with a grin.
“Tarzan? Of the apes? Not because you oversee all these strong men who—”
“Not that. In my spare time I climb trees. I mean way up, sometimes swinging from branch to branch on mountain-climbing ropes. Started that in the days I cut down trees, before Grant took over from his dad and hired me as foreman. There’s nothing like a view from a tall tree.”
“So you’re in mourning for his bird’s-eye maple, too.”
“And on the lookout for who did it.”
“Then consider my feelings toward Guru Monson this way. He’s cut down four of my family members. But I’d love to see you climb someday. Did you ever take Grant up with you?”
“Naw, not his thing, though he loved the tree house.”
“Did I hear my name?” Grant said, appearing around a pickup truck in the parking lot with his car keys in hand. “I put out the word that everyone’s to watch for anyone selling bird’s-eye maple. You can’t pass that off as something else.”