News from Dead Mule Swamp

By Joan H. Young

In News from Dead Mule Swamp, Anastasia Raven is running from the pain of a failed marriage, and hopes to hide from the world in an old farmhouse she has purchased at the edge of Dead Mule Swamp. When a hundred-year-old newspaper she finds inside a wall is stolen by Cliff Sorenson, and then Cliff disappears, Ana is convinced that the paper holds the key to the mystery. But what old news could be important enough to put Cliff in danger?
(Anastasia Raven Mysteries #1)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joan H. Young
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9780976543251

Joan H. Young

Joan Young has enjoyed the out-of-doors her entire life. Highlights of her outdoor adventures include Girl Scouting, which provided yearly training in camp skills, the opportunity to engage in a 10-day canoe trip, and numerous short backpacking excursions. She was selected to attend the 1965 Senior Scout Roundup in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, an international event to which 10,000 girls were invited. She has ridden a bicycle from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean in 1986, and on August 3, 2010 became the first woman to complete the North Country National Scenic Trail on foot. Her mileage totaled 4395 miles.She has recently begun writing more fiction, including short stories and cozy mysteries.

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What Others Have to Say about News from Dead Mule Swamp

Descriptions and sensory details are vivid and put you right in the scene.

Joan Hall Hovey

author of The Deepest Dark

The story drew me in from the beginning, and the dialog was very natural.

Aaron Paul Lazar

award-winning author of three mystery series, and more...

This is a work of fiction. With the exception of references to some obvious brands, authors, or movies, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To

Ellen, who dragged me, kicking and screaming to the West Side Gang writers’ group. I wouldn’t have done it without you.

Chapter 1

I bought the house at Dead Mule Swamp in the early spring. Here in the North that means April. The snow was still rotting on the sand road and a crust of dirty rime covered the swamp. Shelves of ice clung to the trunks of trees at the winter high-water mark, while six inches lower the surface of the slushy water hunkered down. Perhaps it was hiding from spring.

I was hiding from other things. My name is Anastasia Joy Raven. I’m forty-two and experiencing new freedoms if you look at it from one perspective. From my point of view, however, it’s hard to see much beyond the facts. My husband of twenty-two years, Roger, has decided that he wants to trade me in for someone new. Someone named Brian. He and Brian got the house. I got my walking papers, and a rather large settlement, spread out in monthly payments. Fortunately, Roger (why did I ever marry someone whose name sounds like half of a pirate flag?) has a good upper-level management position with S-Mart. He thinks this gives him the right to make decisions for all those under him, including me. But he’s going to be entertaining his new housemate with quite a bit less money. I’m buying a serious fixer-upper, but it won’t talk back.

Dead Mule Swamp begins 2.3 miles down East South River Road, and it’s another mile farther to my new house. It’s a decrepit old farmstead, one of those with a two-story ell set at right angles to a one-story section, with a slab porch. It’s going to be a great place for me to do my hiding, at the end of the road.

Despite being unlucky for some historical mule, the swamp isn’t as ugly or dangerous as it sounds. In fact, for most of the year, it’s a lovely backwater of the Petite Sauble River. From my bedroom window I can watch the herons catch fish in the shallows, and hear the kingfishers rattling cries as they swoop between the cedars. Some day I hope to add an upstairs porch to that side of the house. For now, I just hope to make the roof stop leaking.

East South River Road leads to Cherry Pit Junction; I kid you not. There’s nothing at the Junction any more, but it’s where the Indiana & Northern Railway once met the Chicago-Sault Line. Both are defunct, the tracks gone. If you are a careful observer, you can follow the old berms and find odd conical mounds about a tenth of a mile south on the I&NR. Stick a shovel in one of those hills, and you’ll find a core of cherry pits. The old canning factory processed tons of cherries in its heyday. It had to spit all those pits out somewhere, and the name stuck. Cherry Pit Junction is also in the dead center of Forest County.

I am kidding you about one little thing. My last name really isn’t Raven. But I like how it sounds, and that way I can pretend to be anonymous. The truth is, if you drive into Cherry Hill one day, the town where West South River Road reaches US 10, and ask for Anastasia, anyone can tell you how to find me.

So, that’s how I ended up standing on a ladder and wielding a crowbar on a surprisingly hot April day, ripping out old lath and plaster.

Chapter 2

I should have been working on the roof, but I wasn’t, and I’ll tell you why. The old house actually has an indoor bathroom, upstairs, near the room I’m making into my bedroom, but the plumbing isn’t exactly new either. When I figured out that the damp and flaking corner of the living room ceiling was directly beneath the toilet, I covered the floor and the furniture, and started pulling down the old plaster. I soon revealed an oozing soil pipe. After that, I just couldn’t stop ripping.

The rubble was starting to pile up, and my nose was getting stuffy from the dust. I hauled a couple of wheelbarrow loads of the mess out to the driveway, figuring it would help to fill some ruts. I could burn the wood later. My destructive binge had nearly taken me to floor level on one side of the room. I pried loose a couple more pieces of lath board, and as I pulled them away from the wall, a brown newspaper fell forward onto the heap of rotten plaster.

I can’t resist anything with printed words, so a newspaper was an exceptionally fine reason to take a break. The banner read: Cherry Hill Herald. I glanced at the headlines above the fold: London: Remarkable Photography of Human Bones by Professor Roentgen, Local Business Team Develops Promising Product, High School Thespians to perform Twelfth Night. The dust made me sneeze, and I realized how dry my mouth was, so I put the paper down and headed for the kitchen to get some iced tea to sip while I read. Before I had navigated half the distance, there was a knock on the screen door frame. The main door was open already, to let out the dust.

Hey, Ms. Raven!

Oh, hi, Cliff. Come on in.

The man standing at the door was in his mid-thirties. He wore jeans and a large red plaid shirt that hung loosely from his wide shoulders. Cliff Sorenson was one of my neighbors, as country neighbors go. His house was about five miles away, on Grover, off Centerline, just south of Cherry Pit Junction. I’d talked with him briefly at the lumberyard one day when the truck driver commented that we both lived in the same direction for deliveries. We weren’t yet well enough acquainted to be what I would consider friends. Just call me Ana, I added. It rhymes with on-a, like ‘on a roll,’ which I think I am. How do you like the wall?

You’re sure taking things apart real good. Can you put ‘em back together?

Oh, sure. I’m pretty handy, and I’ve got all summer. I just can’t bust it up faster than the checks from Jolly Roger come in to pay for the damages. I was getting myself some iced tea. Would you like some?

That would be great.

Uncover that couch, so we don’t have to sit in the dust, and I’ll be right back.

I headed for the kitchen, and Cliff started to peel back the sheets I had draped over the couch and the chair where the old newspaper lay.

In just a few minutes, I was back with two tall glasses of tea on a tray, and a couple of cookies. Sorry, they’re store-bought cookies. I’ve been a little busy.

Cliff folded himself into the chair. He was probably under six feet tall, but a life of hard work had made him thick and solid. As he took a cookie, I noticed that his hands were rough with calluses.

Oh, no problem, Ms. Ra... uh... Ana. I like them just as much. Actually, I came over to see if there might be anything I could help you with. I mean, Sherri asked me to see if you had any odd jobs. I can’t seem to get anything regular, and her job at the café don’t bring in as many tips as it used to.

How many children do you have, Cliff? I’ve met Sherri, of course, but I don’t know your kids.

There’s three of ‘em. Hunter is eight and he’s doin’ pretty good in the second grade. Amy’s in kindergarten, and little Ruthie’s still crawlin’ around the floor. Sherri’s glad I’m home to watch the baby while she’s workin’, but she’d like it a lot if I could bring in some dollars too. Her sister could watch Ruthie once in a while.

Well, Cliff, I don’t think I can afford much help right now. But when I get all this mess pulled down, I’ll sure need some help getting the sheet rock up, especially on the ceiling. I’ll keep you in mind. The truth was that I could have hired him to haul stuff right away, for a few hours a week, but I wanted to do as much of the rehabilitation on my house as I could. Alone. It was very therapeutic to smash holes in things with a large iron object. I didn’t need to have Cliff observe my rage level.

OK! I’d sure appreciate that. I’d better get back home before Sherri needs to head into town. Thanks for the tea.

I followed Cliff to the door and watched him start up his old Chevy truck. It misfired a couple of times before kicking in, but soon Cliff was backing the twenty-year-old heap out of my driveway and rattling his way toward home.

With the dishes back in the kitchen and the covers replaced on the furniture I was soon smashing more holes in Jolly Roger’s head, um... the walls.

Chapter 3

Twilight came, and since it was only April, the air cooled quickly. I was definitely ready to rest after a day of smashing and hauling. I made a mental note to buy some pipe sealer at the hardware in Cherry Hill, stacked the tools in a corner and headed for a hot bathtub to soak. That’s when I remembered the newspaper. It was possibly too brittle to read in the tub, but if I located it, then I could browse its pages over a mug of soup after I was clean. Where the heck was it? It had been on the chair before Cliff peeled back the sheets, so it must have gotten tangled in the cloth. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t under the chair, or on the couch, or anywhere else that I could see.

This was curious. Would Cliff have taken an old newspaper? What on earth for? Oh, well, it was just an old local paper... I turned up the heat and headed for the bathroom. On the way, I grabbed a Crichton novel to read, instead of the news from some bygone decade. The last thought I gave to that paper for a while was that I didn’t even know in which decade it belonged.

Chapter 4

The school year was drawing to a close, but I didn’t exactly care, having no ties to the local district. I do have one son, Chad, but he’s a junior at Michigan Tech, studying Wildlife Ecology. His plans for the summer had been set for months—he was heading for Isle Royale to study the famous, most-studied moose in the world some more. I wasn’t even going to see him till mid-August.

On a whim, I purchased a ticket to the Forest County