This is Chapter 5 of *Echoes Under the Canopy*.
This chapter shifts the perspective back to 1993, moving from the starkly calm, brightly lit underground autopsy room to the Greycliff tavern, filled with the smell of cheap beer, hormones, and gossip. This is the first time the book focuses on the town's residents' xenophobia and malice, and it's also the moment when the key motive (financial crisis) in the suspense storyline surfaces.
Chapter 5: Whispers of the Town
[October 15, 1993, Evening]
At six o'clock in the evening, the rain in Greycliff showed no signs of stopping.
At the end of the main street, the neon sign of the tavern called "Rusty Saw" was no longer lit; the remaining red letters flickered with a sickly red glow in the rain and mist.
Sheriff Brody pushed open the heavy, riveted oak door.
A harsh scraping sound came from the door hinges, followed by a complex stench—a mixture of cheap liquor, aged tobacco tar, damp wool coats, and fermenting sawdust—that assaulted the senses like a heavy wall. The tavern floor was covered with a thick layer of absorbent sawdust, the patrons' muddy boots crunching underfoot like chewing coarse grains.
There were about thirty people in the tavern. Most were lumberjacks just off their early shifts and idle townspeople.
The moment Brody walked in, the previously boisterous laughter, the crisp clatter of billiard balls, and the country music playing from the jukebox seemed to be abruptly pulled in half by an invisible hand. Those at several tables stopped what they were doing and, in the dim yellow light of the wall lamps, looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and inquiry.
They all knew. In a town with a population of only four thousand, news of Julian Carter's death in the abandoned mine on the north slope spread faster than the most virulent fungal spores in the rainforest.
Brody ignored the stares. He went straight to the bar, pulled out a high stool, and sat down. The bar's surface was covered in a greasy lacquer, worn smooth by countless glass bottoms.
"A black coffee, plain," Brody said, draping his still-dripping waterproof coat over the empty stool beside him.
The bar owner, Jack, was a man in his fifties with a huge beer belly. He wiped his hands with a not-so-clean rag and turned to pour the coffee. "No need to pay, Sheriff. With this happening in town, this is on me. Poor Julian…" Jack pushed the coffee towards them, deliberately lowering his voice, but it was still loud enough for the people around to hear, "Old Carter had a heart attack in the hospital. This damn weather, and… that damn place."
Brody picked up his mug, feeling the warmth of the rough clay, but didn't drink. "Was Julian here yesterday afternoon?"
"Yes." Jack stopped wiping the glass, his gaze unconsciously drifting to the largest booth in the corner of the pub. "Around four. He was wearing that blinding orange hunting jacket, and as usual, ordered a large glass of bourbon."
Brody followed Jack's gaze. The booth was empty now, but there were still a few undried liquor stains on the table.
He remembered a few hours earlier, when Pathologist Harris had cut open Julian's stomach on that cold stainless steel counter. Large amounts of undigested, expensive steak and strong bourbon. It was an extremely lavish, nouveau riche-style last supper. But in his stomach, besides these, there were no hallucinogen residues that could have produced that chilling smile.
The poison, in the form of tiny dust particles, was inhaled directly into his alveoli through his alcohol-laden breath.
"Did he have an argument with anyone?" Brody turned his gaze back to Jack's bloodshot face.
Jack's expression was somewhat stiff. He rubbed his hands together, then picked up a rag and began frantically scrubbing the already clean tabletop. "No argument. You know, young master Julian's temper is actually… he's just a bit impatient. He seemed to be in a terrible mood, constantly cursing the forestry bureau people, saying they were holding up his North Slope logging permit."
"Just because of the permit?" Brody's tone was flat, but uncompromising.
A suppressed murmur came from around a round table behind Brody. Four lumberjacks in plaid shirts sat there.
"I knew that place was weird." A lumberjack with a thick beard didn't bother to lower his voice; rather, it sounded like he was deliberately speaking to the sheriff. "The bark of the trees around those old greenhouses on the north slope, within a half-mile radius, is black. Last time I drove my lumberjack there, the machine stalled three times for no reason."
"It's not the machine, it's that bitch." Another skinny man took a big gulp of beer and slammed his glass on the table. "That crazy woman. She can smell how many matches you have on you from five steps away. Old Jim just went near her greenhouse while picking mushrooms two years ago, and came back with a high fever for three days straight, covered in blistered red rashes. The doctor said it was an allergy, screw allergies, it's witchcraft!"
"I heard she makes tea with dead rats and rotten poisonous mushrooms."
"Julian must have accidentally stumbled upon some kind of trap or poisonous plant she set while hunting. Or maybe that crazy woman just pushed him down it. She's a savage, and savages know how to kill without shedding blood."
The men grew more and more excited as they talked. Fear and ignorance fermented rapidly within the closed community, eventually solidifying into a pure, venomous malice directed at marginalized outcasts. It was a collective climax. For the people of Graycliff, who had spent their lives logging natural resources, a woman dwelling deep in the forest, refusing assimilation, and seemingly possessing deadly botanical knowledge, was far more terrifying than any ferocious grizzly bear. Even though none of them had ever truly been harmed by her.
They needed a monster to explain Julian's bizarre death.
Brody listened to the buzzing rumors without turning back. This was exactly what he feared. Without any concrete evidence, based solely on a few milligrams of purplish-brown spores under a microscope, the town's public opinion had already convicted Rowan.
He put down his coffee cup, stood up, and walked towards the corner booth Jack had pointed out.
It was a semi-circular red faux leather sofa, its edges cracked from age, revealing the yellowed foam inside. On the table was a glass ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts and a few chewed toothpicks.
Brody pulled out the sofa and sat down in the spot Julian had sat yesterday.
From this angle, the tavern's entrance and bar were clearly visible. Julian had sat here, sipping bourbon and eating his freshly delivered ribeye steak. What had he been thinking before that fatal fall?
Brody's gaze fell on a crevice in the table. In the corner between the faux leather sofa back and the solid wood tabletop, there was a crumpled ball of paper.
It was tucked so deep that it was easily overlooked as ordinary trash.
Brody took out a pair of tweezers and carefully removed the ball of paper, placing it on the table. The paper was stiff, not ordinary napkins.
He put on extremely thin latex gloves and slowly unfolded the paper.
As the paper unfurled, the creases revealed that it was a bank statement, crumpled with extreme force. The letterhead of the Graycliff Community Bank was printed on the paper. The ink had blurred slightly at the edges due to the spilled liquor, but the red numbers in the center stood out starkly, like knife-cut lines.
Loan Overdue Notice.
Lender: Julian Carter (Personal Guarantor)
Overdue Amount: $574,000
Deadline: October 20, 1993 (Facing Foreclosure).
Brody's pupils contracted sharply.
He understood immediately. This $574,000 shortfall was a fatal time bomb for Julian, who always considered himself a rich kid in town. Old Carter's lumber mill had already suffered a significant drop in profits last year due to state environmental regulations, even starting to lay off older workers. To maintain his glamorous image and for his extravagant wedding next month, Julian had secretly not only transferred funds from the lumber mill but also mortgaged Old Carter's property.
The only lifeline to fill this enormous hole was securing the full logging rights to the North Slope this month—that undeveloped forest teeming with countless extremely valuable century-old redwoods.
But the core area of the North Slope, that priceless virgin land, was precisely where the old commune ruins stood. It wasn't just Rowan's territory; it was her only safe haven in this cruel world. If large-scale logging machinery were to enter, her greenhouses, her rare fungal specimens, would vanish instantly.
In other words, yesterday afternoon, when this young man, driven to desperation by debt and half-drunk, took his hunting rifle and headed into the depths of the forest, he wasn't going hunting.
He was going to "clear the area."
Brody folded the crumpled overdue notice and put it in the evidence bag. He stood up; the whispers of the loggers around him about "how witches kill with their eyes" still echoed in the tavern.
This wasn't some mysterious witchcraft murder at all.
This was a primal, silent, and deadly battle between two wild beasts driven to the brink of desperation, in a lawless primeval forest, for the last vestiges of territory and the right to survive.
According to the forensic report, the survivor's weapon was quieter, but also more terrifying than a shotgun.
Brody, still chilly in his waterproof coat, scanned the excited, flushed faces of the pub patrons with an extremely slow but overwhelming gaze. The crowd fell silent as if doused with cold water, leaving only the hoarse baritone voice from the jukebox.
"If any of you think you're tougher than a thousand-foot-deep abandoned mine shaft," Brody said coldly, "then you can go catch ghosts on the north slope yourselves. But from now on, any non-police officer who approaches within half a mile of the redwood forest will be handcuffed to the back bumper of a police car and dragged back to the station for obstruction of justice."
He pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped back into the rain.
The door slammed shut behind him, shutting out all the noise. Brody walked to the mud-caked police 4WD Dodge and opened the door.
"Sheriff, where to?" Officer Falkington in the passenger seat sat bolt upright.
"To the mayor's office." Brody started the engine, the headlights piercing the thick, gray-green rain. "We need a warrant for the North Slope Greenhouse ruins. If the judge asks why, tell him it's because Julian is a damn bankrupt."
The Dodge's tires screeched through the flooded main street as it sped into the depths of the rainy night.
From this moment on, the roles of hunter and prey were completely reversed.