Tecumseh’s Artifact

Chapter 2 Four days later Ronnie was back in the attic. It wasn't punishment this time. He just couldn't get it out of his head that somewhere in the attic was something ... Last night he’d dreamed that the bear had come and taken him by the hand and led him up the stairs to the attic and pointed to a pile of wooden boxes in the furthermost dark corner. In the dream it seemed some great secret was hidden there. He’d begun to pull at the boxes that were piled so high they went through the roof and disappeared into the sky. The first tug tilted the pile and it started to fall in slow-motion toward him. It was going to crush him. He’d screamed for the bear and jerked awake. Great Grandad was out of the house and Josie, the woman who came to clean and cook, had finished and gone home. Ronnie closed his eyes and relived the dream. It had seemed so real when he woke up, but standing here now, nothing was the same. Many of the objects were just dark shapes because it was raining today and very little light got in. They’d stood by the far small window because he remembered it there in the dream. Funny, in the dream he wasn’t afraid of the bear. It was only when he was awake that the idea of being haunted by a bear bothered him. Ronnie carefully made this way between the piles of stuff until he stood with his back to the window. A wall of old boxes with rope handles reached to the rafters above his head. Where to start? He would need a ladder to reach the top one and there was no way he could get a ladder up here without being seen. He might have tried to climb them but the memory of their tumbling towards him in the dream nuked that idea. He told himself it was crazy to believe in dreams. Then he noticed that the boxes were piled on top of an old hand-made dresser. Its drawer pulls were rope, like the box handles. That was why he’d not seen it at first in the dim light. Ronnie squatted and very carefully put a hand under each rope of the bottom drawer and pulled gently looking up to make sure the top boxes wouldn’t fall. The drawer was stuck fast so Ronnie pulled harder. With a puff of dust one rope broke. Ronnie tumbled backwards against the dresser behind him. It was stacked with china dishes and glassware so draped with cobwebs and dust that one could barely tell what was what. For a second he thought the whole thing was going to come down and bury him, but although the dusty glasses struck together with a warning chime, nothing fell. “It's OK, nothing happened, nothing happened,” Ronnie whispered, more convinced than ever that whatever the bear wanted him to find was somewhere near. Standing up and dusting off his hands he checked that nothing was broken among the dishes on the dresser. There near the front, as if it had been put out for him alone, was a sturdy knife with a short blade and a bone handle. Sliding the blade inside the edges of the drawer at the corners, bit by bit, he worked it open. When he could get his fingers in he hauled it out onto the floor. So far so good, he congratulated himself, pushing and tugging it over to where the dim light from the window fell into it. His heart pounding, Ronnie leaned forward and reached for the piece of cloth covering the bear’s secret. This must be it. Sweat beaded his forehead. Through his excitement, a dart of fear stopped his urge to tear aside the covering and discover the mystery! Inch by inch he pulled aside the faded cloth. As he bent over to look inside, he felt an odd sensation in his chest, pain and a sting in the back of his nose as if tears were pushing to get out. It came and went in a second. At first he couldn't make out what was there except for the smell of old dust. He lifted a leather bag, cracked and discolored as if it had been soaked in some black liquid. There were two wide cylinders of a once shiny metal, blackened now with age. They reminded him of a pair of Egyptian bracelets his mother had worn to a costume party in Paris. Under another covering, which felt like leather, Ronnie’s hand traced a wooden circle woven across with narrow strips of a material as hard as wood. It reminded him of the dream-catchers, fake Indian stuff, you could see in cheap tourist shops. He lifted it out. Then with a yell, he flung it away, scrambled to his feet, raced down the aisle and out the door. With the door still dancing on its hinges, he tore down the stairs and collided with his great-grandfather on the bottom step, almost tumbling both of them to the floor. He grabbed Great Grandad around the waist and buried his head in the old man's shrunken chest. “Whoa there, Young Feller,” Great Grandad exclaimed trying to get his balance and his breath back. “Where are you go’n like the devil wus after you and gain’n every jump?” Ronnie realized he was hanging on like some little baby and loosened his hold. He still held on to the sleeve of Great Grandad’s shirt as the old man steered him into the living room where they could sit down. “Come on now, what were ya doing in the attic, and what scared ya?” Great Grandad’s voice for once sounded as if he really cared. Ronnie expected he was going to be in trouble again but his experience with whatever he had seen was too awful to keep to himself. He could’ve sworn he’d heard someone scream when he lifted that thing. But no one would believe that, so he would have to lie. “I opened the drawer of that old dresser in the back of the attic,” he began to feel a little foolish. “Remember how Mom loved old things and she taught me a lot? For a moment these two people so far apart in age, pictured the lovely person they’d both loved. “Yes. And -?” Shaggy white eyebrows squirmed on a forehead as furrowed as a plowed field. Good, Ronnie thought, he doesn't sound mad yet. “Well, I thought maybe some of her stuff from when she was a kid, might be in there, books or something.” He was making this up as he went along. That sounded like a good reason to be snooping in dresser drawers and it never hurt to remind people that you were an orphan; well, half a one anyway. People always feel sorry for an orphan. “There was this, this thing. A wooden circle with leather laced like a snowshoe, but there was something living on the back of it, an animal with long black hair.” The tiny shiver of the fear he’d felt in the attic ran up his back. Old crooked fingers, on a hand mapped with wrinkles, slid around Ronnie’s shoulders and squeezed. “Yep, seeing your first scalp can be pretty scary.” A cackle of laughter escaped his shrunken mouth. “Scalp!” Ronnie yelled, almost as loud as he had in the attic. He jumped to his feet as if he were going to run again. “What’s a scalp doing in your attic?” “Well now, Boy, that thar’s a story, and not for everyone to know. Family secret. Let’s go look at the scalp and the other things and I’ll decide if you’re a good enough person to be told. There's only one Rielly boy told every fifty years or so. I told your grandfather. He had a son who died and his daughter only had you. Lucky she gave you the family name, ain’t it? By the way, ever seen a bear?” He’d turned and headed for the stairs. Ronnie stumbled on the bottom step. “Bear, what bear?” he croaked. “I never saw him myself but my Grandad swore his father never a-feared anything because a ghost bear kept him safe. Other people's cattle died, his got fat – neighbours got fever, his family never. Every house around here wus burnt by the Americans, this house weren’t! Maybe ya’ll have the Rielly luck!” Another snort and crackle of laughter floated back over his shoulder. I’ll need it, won’t I? Ronnie thought, living with a crazy old coot like you.