The Shaman’s Daughter

The Musician 
At times in this morning light, Hank saw things or thought he saw things that were not really there. Another morning he had come early, he thought that he saw a goose tangled in the bush; but when he went to free it, it was just a plastic bag from the Belo. He must talk to Jack again about littering. 
The sun barely showed over the mountain when he pulled his truck next to the trailer. It was a shadowy time of day. Trees and figures could be discerned in the gray light, but the full spectrum of color would not be visible until after the sun’s full rising. 
As he walked to the trailer door, he thought that his eyes were deceiving him again. On the west ridge where the crew had been excavating last week, he made out what could be a silhouette against the pink gray sky, a slim body, maybe, standing on a mound of dirt on the edge of the big hole. 
First he thought, “I wonder what that really is?” He doubted his perception even more as the figure turned and lifted a long round tube from its mouth toward the sky as if making an offering to the emerging sun. Ever practical, “Get to work, man,” he told himself. He especially needed to plan out this day carefully. The crew had fallen behind schedule. 
The Department of Transportation would not smile kindly on further delays. Moving the graveyard had eaten up too much of their schedule already. And it had been a Public Relation’s nightmare. Now that exhuming and tagging the bodies was well underway, he hoped the crew would be able to return to some semblance of a normal routine. 
Hank Lucas had left the boardinghouse earlier than usual that morning. But Jenna was back in Charlotte, and their routine would have to wait until the weekend when they saw each other again. He couldn’t sleep, so he drove to the work site. He could go over the excavation plans and assign the crew their daily duties. He would be relieved when the highway was finished. Traveling the narrow country road to the site irked him. This had been one of the more complex jobs of his career. Every time he passed the small, abandoned clapboard church he felt guilty. 
Stepping up into the work trailer he heard the first thin sounds of what might have passed for a primitive flute. Stopping, he stepped back unto the ground and cocked his head. He knew he sometimes “saw” things at dawn, but was he “hearing” things, too? No, the music was faint but clear and enticing, like the Pied Piper must have sounded luring the children away from Hamlin. 
It was his duty, he guessed, to investigate the sound. For a moment he lost sight of the figure as he took the short cut through the trees to the excavation. He resented having to use his time like this. But when he emerged from the clearing, the sun poked up over the mountains and he could see the shape of a person, standing on that mound, playing some sort of pipe. Hank walked in closer. He didn’t want to disturb this fellow just yet. He thought if he stayed still a little longer he might get a real clue as to what this mysterious figure was up to. If he moved in too quickly the guy could jump behind the huge dirt pile and get away. Traveling up that mound would take Hank longer than it would take the strange musician to run down the hill. Hank watched as the man lifted his pipe to the sky and then pointed it down toward the hole. 
“What the hell?” Impatient by nature, Hank could barely contain his silent investigation. Within seconds he was bounding up the slope to get to the bottom of whatever the devil this interloper was doing there. 
But his first instinct had been right. The piper saw him coming, stopped, turned and escaped down the other side. When Hank arrived at the top, the mystery man and his pipe were too far away to catch. Hank caught sight of him just before he ran into the woods. 
“Hey! Hey, you? What do you think you’re doing?” But the question met only the cool morning breeze. If the piper had heard it, Hank doubted seriously that he would have responded. “Just one of those weird, mountain people,” he observed. Didn’t look too odd, though, just a typical, pony tailed farmer in a flannel shirt and jeans. He had seen dozens like him in Marshall when he and the crew went into town for lunch. 
As Hank walked back down the hill to the trailer he was in a real quandary. He didn’t know what to make of what he had seen. Complicating the matter was that whole Public Relation’s issue. Should he call the police? The cops were locals, too, weren’t they? They loved to stick together. But he couldn’t have people just wandering onto the site; he knew that. Safety issues. OSHA would have his butt. But then again, what harm was this guy doing? Maybe none. Maybe plenty. Hard to say with these hill folks. 
He put the whole issue on the back burner, though, because he had to get his priorities straight. And he knew where his paycheck was coming from, after all. The Highway Department, that’s who he needed to focus on, not these townspeople, bullheaded as they were. He did admire them some, though, for that, and he had to admit he’d be upset, too, if he were them. Still, he had a job to do and figuring out what to do about this mystery man could certainly wait until later in the day. 
“I’ll call Worth Evener,” he decided. “He’ll have a good angle on tackling this.” Hank stepped into the trailer and laid out the day’s schedule, finishing just in time for the first crew member’s arrival.