Chapter 1

Crazy is as crazy does . . .

Caleb Peachey jogged along the road, his eyes on the log cabin up ahead. It sat nestled in the thick woods on the banks of the Little Juniata River, almost hidden from view. He hoped to find the crazy woman at home this early in the morning.

Crazy Claire, that's what she was called by some of the locals. Dr. Claire Cassidy, historical archaeologist, by her colleagues. PhDiva, by him. Actually, he was beginning to feel like the crazy one as he attempted to make contact with the elusive woman. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if she even existed. Crazy Claire is gonna be Crazy-Friggin'-Dead Claire if she doesn't stop hiding from me.

Five miles back and a half-hour ago, at dawn, he'd left the Butterfly Bed & Breakfast in Spruce Creek, where he and his team from Jinx, Inc., a treasure-hunting firm, would be staying. He'd arrived here in central Pennsylvania yesterday morning. The rest of the team would be here this afternoon, but the project itself couldn't start until Dr. Cassidy was on board, per orders of the National Park Service, which made sure no historical artifacts were disturbed. Now, he could understand the government being worried about metal detecting on a battlefield, trafficking in relics, defacing previously undiscovered prehistoric rock wall art, that kind of thing, but dammit, they were just going to take some pearls out of this cavern . . . a privately owned cavern, to boot. They weren't exploring King Tut's tomb here.

Stopping in the clearing before the house, he bent over, hands on thighs, and breathed deeply in and out to cool down, not that he had broken a sweat or anything. Hell, he'd been a Navy SEAL for ten years, up till two and a half years ago, and they ran five times as far before breakfast, wearing heavy boondockers, not the two-hundred-dollar ergonomically designed Adidas he had on now.

He knocked on the door. Once. Twice. No response except for some cats mewling inside. Same as yesterday, except there was a battered station wagon here now, which he took as a good sign. The woman hadn't responded to the messages he'd left on her answering machine, either. Hi! This is Claire. Your message is important to me. Blah, blah, blah! Caleb mimicked in his head. Apparently not that important.

A fat calico cat—probably pregnant—sidled up to him and gave him the evil eye, as only a cat could do. Then she sashayed past, deeming him unworthy of her regard.

With his side vision, he noticed another cat approaching, but, no, it wasn't a cat; it was a rat. Okay, it was a teeny-tiny dog that resembled a rat, and it started yip-yip-yipping at him as if it was a German shepherd, not a rat terrier.

Caleb couldn't fathom people who wanted such itty-bitty things for pets. But then, some people even took slimy creatures into their homes. Like snakes. Having a fierce aversion to snakes, he shivered.

The dog stopped yipping and gave him the same you-are-so-boring look as the cat through its beady eyes and sauntered off, around the side of a modern addition to the old cabin.

He decided to follow.

The back of the cabin was a surprise. While the front was traditional log-and-chink design, the back was all windows facing the river, down below some fifty feet. Cushioned Adirondack chairs had been arranged on a wide deck. An open laptop sat on a low wooden table.

You-know-who must be home. Ignoring my calls. Son of a bitch! Oooh, someone is in big trouble.

He turned toward the river. And inhaled sharply at the view. Not just the spectacular Little Juniata with the morning sun bouncing off the surface, creating diamond-like sparkles, fish actually jumping out of the water to feed on the seasonal hatch of newborn insects hovering above. He was familiar with this river, having grown up in an Amish community about ten miles down the road in Sinking Valley. What caused him to gasp was the woman standing waist-deep in the middle of the river. She wore suspendered waders over a long-sleeved white T-shirt. Her long dark-red hair was pulled up into a high ponytail that escaped through the back of a Penn State baseball cap. Auburn, he thought her hair color was called.

Could this possibly be the slippery Dr. Claire Cassidy? Crazy Claire? For some reason, he'd expected someone older, more witchy-looking. It was hard to tell from this distance, but she couldn't be much older than thirty, although who knew? Women today were able to fool guys all the time. Makeup to look as if they were not wearing makeup. Nips and tucks. Collagen. Boob lifts, ferchrissake!

The woman was fly fishing, which was an art in itself. Caleb was the furthest thing from a poet, but the way she executed the moves was pure art in motion. Like a ballet. Following a clock pattern, she raised her long bamboo rod upward with her right hand, stopping abruptly at noon to apply tension to her line. Then she allowed the rod to drift back slowly in the forward cast, stopping abruptly at eleven o'clock, like the crack of a whip. The follow-through was a dance of delicacy, because the fly should land on top of the water only for a few seconds, to fool the trout below water level that it was real live food. Over and over she performed this operation. It didn't matter that she didn't catch anything. The joy was in the casting.

And in the watching.

Dropping down to the edge of the deck, elbows resting on raised knees, Caleb breathed in deeply. The scents of honeysuckle and pine filled the early-morning air. Silence surrounded him, although it was not really silence if one listened carefully. The rush of the water's current. Bees buzzing. Birds chirping. In the distance, a train whistle. He even saw a hawk swoop gloriously out of the mountains, searching for food. He felt as if he'd been sucker punched, jolted back to a time and place he'd spent seventeen years trying to forget.

The Plain people, as the Amish called themselves, were practical to a fault. Fishing was for catching fish. No Lands End angler duds or fancy Orvis rods or custom-made flies. Just worms. But his Dat had been different. As stern as he was in many regards, he had given Caleb and his four brothers an appreciation for God's beauty in nature and the heavenly joy of fly fishing. Much like that minister in the movie A River Runs Through It, Caleb's old man had made fly fishing an exercise in philosophy, albeit the Old Order Amish way of life. Caleb smiled to himself, knowing his father would not be pleased with comparison to an Englisher, anyone not Amish, even a man of God.

And, for sure and for certain, as the Amish would say, they didn't believe in that wasteful "catch and release" business, which the fisherwoman in front of him was doing now with a twenty-inch rainbow. How many times had Caleb heard: "To waste is to destroy God's gift"? No, if an Amishman caught a fish, he ate it. With homemade chowchow, spaetzle oozing with butter, sliced tomatoes still warm from the garden, corn fritters, and shoofly pie.

Stomach rumbling with sudden hunger, Caleb shook his head to clear it of unwanted memories, stood, and walked down the railroad tie steps to the edge of the river.

Copyright © 2007 by Sandra Hill.