Chapter Five: Lore Master

"I didn't know you could inject this stuff."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

" . . . that'd better not be a pick up line."

"For you? Honey, banging you would be one of my greatest pleasures."

Nami held the syringe in her hand like a dagger, about ready to gouge Zoro's eyes out with it. Our reluctant doctor, whose primary concerns were officially keeping Luffy on his feet and out of explicit pain, was watching this spectacle with wide, nervous eyes.

Chopper hadn't been eager to put riddlin ( as he described it, "a powerful psychiatric drug" ) in the hands of a known drug user. And knife fighter.

I thought it was midly entertaining that he and Zoro recognized each other on the spot. There were a few 'no ways' and then eye-rubbing, but it was undeniable. Seems a while back, Zoro got almost busted for fighting with those ever popular knives for cash. He'd lost, unsurprisingly, and came away from it all with a huge gouge spanning his chest ( he has the scars to prove it and rather morbidly enjoys showing them off ). Chopper had been there when they sewed Zoro shut.

Since the riddlin Chopper had been paid to bring was in pill form, well, there was just no luck getting it down Luffy's throat. Zoro, being adept with drugs as he is, managed to come back half an hour later with an injectable form of those pills. Nami supervised, not quite ready for Luffy to get high again. Now all the we had to do was hold him down.

I felt bad for the kid, really. He was sick, and it showed now and again. I began to wonder if he was getting worse, if there was anything we could do. The riddlin was the new experiement.

Riddlin, as many people know, is normally used to treat attention disorders. Nami was hoping it would give him a good sharp kick in his scrambled, pirate-filled brains and bring him back to a more sane place.

He was struggling frantically as Zoro pinned him and Nami checked the syringe before she drove it into his arm. When it was done, he was sullen, retreating to the tent to probably skulk. No worries here though, he'd be out and merry as the day is long as soon as lunch rolled round.

That wasn't stopping me from feeling bad. I caught up with him and asked him if he'd like to see something cool.

o-o-o

Bezner's Shooting Range is on the town limits. It's also one of the dustiest, most depressing places you could possibly imagine, that was, until they gave you a gun, then it was suddenly a very neat place.

They also had this kid, a local cracker jack, who could shoot anything, and I do mean anything. Of course, he wasn't good at much else. He was terrible at sports and not the sharpest tool in the box when it came to school. Oh, but did he love to talk, and he lied straight through his teeth without a second thought. He was a junior ( well, a senior now, I guess ) who was often on the receiving end of trouble and had a detention record as tall as I am. It was hereditary, seeing as his father's upstate ( his mum's dead ), leaving him the hands of his grandparents.

I hauled Luffy along as he sneezed through the dust. If you were lucky, Usopp, Mr. Ace Gunman, would let you fling the clay pigeons as he let off the shots.

Luffy waited as I found the boy in question. They both just kind of blinked at each other, until I stuck the twenty dollar bill in Usopp's hand and told him to show off. The boy smiled widely and told Luffy to follow him out onto the range.

I watched from the air conditioned office as Luffy threw odds and end into the air, all, of course, were hit. They went at it for a good hour before they stopped and began talking. I leaned forward and watched in utter horror as Luffy smiled, nodded and made a big motion with his hands.

Nooooooooooo . . .

o-o-o

"Only you." I muttered as I brought out lunch.

I turned to Usopp, who was scrounging in his pockets for what little money he had. I put a plate in front of him, piled high. He was thin, I have an unnatural edge in seeing someone thin . . . I'm pathetic.

"Don't worry." I told him. "It's left-overs, but it's still good."

He bowed his head and picked up a fork, shoveling everything down as fast as he could. I raised an eyebrow, but walked back to my place at the grill, adjusting the temperatures before bobbing around the rest of the diner to take other orders.

The rest of the "crew" crashed through the doors unceremoniously. Zoro took his usual stool in the middle of the counter, Nami and Chopper on either side of him. Chopper looked thoroughly frightened and Nami looked thoroughly disgusted. Zoro just twirled something black and fuzzy on his index finger.

Oh Lord -- they were handcuffs. Black, fuzzy handcuffs.

I crushed his hand over them hurriedly.

"As interesting as your sex life might be, I don't think the eight year old at booth four want to know about it. Or his parents for that matter."

Zoro gave me a pointed look. "They're Robin's."

"Yes." I waswhispering rapidly, "But it's still your sex life. Your kinky, twisted, private-"

"You're still a virgin aren't you?"

I snatched the handcuffs and pocketed them.

"Ahaha, I knew it!"

Horny bastard.

o-o-o

Nami was in the tent, pouring over her research fervently, linking pieces and maps together. She wanted to completely certain when we ventured into the woods again. According to last official survey of the property, the buildings would take at least a twenty minute hike to reach, that is, if we could find a way.

I "knocked" on the tent door, food in hand for her. She grunted in response and I found her up to her eyeballs in paperwork. She looked tired and strained as she noted something on a black and white copied map. Luffy was sleeping soundly in the portion to her right and Zoro to her left. I tugged the papers from her hands.

"You can't kill yourself over this, it's only a game. Like when you're little, make believe." I said, easing the plate towards her. "Just a-"

"Stop it!" She spat. "You stupid country boy, all dressed up and speaking nice! What would you know about anything? Just a game? We're humoring a dying man. I think. I don't know, I can't afford a doctor or anything. But I don't think he's ok! He should have snapped out of it by now."

I drew back. She was breathing heavily.

"You haven't seen hell 'til you've trained for gymnastics with a Romanian." She sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm worried and . . . "

"S'ok . . . "

"But, anyways, there's a problem with some of these records." She unfurled a map in front of me, pointing to the central buildings. "The north slave quarter is here when the property is surveyed in eighteen thirty, but missing when it's again surveyed in eighteen forty two."

"Well, there were uprisings."

"But no noted uprisings until the Civil War. If these people were going to destroy something, it wouldn't have been their own buildings. See," She tossed me a list. "The number of slaves owned by the Cole family increases during that fourteen year period, making that quarter all the more necessary."

"And you're saying?"

"I'm saying that between eighteen thirty and eighteen forty two, the twenty six people living in the north quarter vanished." Her eyes lit up. "I think the ghost stories go farther back than white records, we need someone with old roots here, preferably of black heritage. They'd probably know the myths."

I rubbed my eyes wearily. "Oh, that's just, peachy . . . met the new crew member yet?"

o-o-o

Usopp, the the first time in his life, was put on the spot and told to tell tales.

He was in shock. This was also probably due to the fact that it was too early in the morning and a pretty girl was hanging onto his every word.

"Now, you said your family has been living here since the Emancipation?"

He nodded.

"Now, do you know anything about the Cole Estate?"

He looked at me as I jerked the coffee pots around. Two months and two weeks until real cooking!

"Hainted holla up th' lane." I drawled for his benefit. Usopp nodded and pressed his fingers to his temples, collecting his thoughts.

"Back in the days, when there were masters and such, the ole Cole Estate was the biggest plantation to ever exist. Over a hundred slaves, very rare you know.

"Back in the old, old days when there were the uprisings, the Great First Fights for Freedom 'round here, of course, they stood to be punished. The master's said to have wiped out an entire quarter . . . no one knows for sure anymore, it's just a myth.

"So far as it goes, it all burned down whilst they were sleeping. Funny thing is, the north quarter was house slaves, real loyal and high up. To burn them sent a big message . . . there was only a rising in the works.

"Now, them woods are haunted by those people. They were faithful and some pay they got for it, killed in their sleep. It's also a local legend that the woods are haunted by the master and mistress who got burned down in the War of Northern Agression.

"And, so far as I know, that story ain't allowed in town. This is making me a mite nervous miss . . . "

Nami paused. "How many people would you say know about this arson?"

Usopp shifted. "I think my grandparents might be it, their great grandparents stayed while everyone else moved West. Supposedly."

She smiled at him. "I think we might have a use of you yet."

I choked on my coffee. Now she had him talking. And now he wasn't going to shut up.

Good thing she's pretty.

Note: I wasn't really planning on Usopp, but it worked out that he'd known all those local legends and more.