The Mystery of the First to Find Society

by Mark Hall

  EIGHT

  I was in a dead run now as the kid hit the tracks. On leg landed flush on the gravel while the other hit the actual track and he folded up between the two. I ran across the gravel and grabbed him by the back of his pants and his arm and drug and pulled him clear of the train. The horn blew and the sound rang in my ears. The kid and I hit the ground as Cory got to us with the other kid I’d left down there.

  4:06. The locomotive was three or four cars past the bridge now and I was cut off from the easy path up to the south side of the bridge. The way up on this north side was a steep climb over big pieces of gravel. I didn’t know what Chris was doing with those guys on the bridge, if he had tried to stop them fighting or was trying to keep the others from going over like this guy who fell. Cory was looking over his leg and yelled at me over the rumble of the train, “Get up there!”

  I started climbing the rocks. It wasn’t straight up but it was gradual, either. Many of the rocks stayed put but some would give way and I would have to put my hands down and practically crawl up them. I got to the top, huffing, and puffing, and took a few steps up the walkway toward the bridge. I saw Dean with the two fighters on the south side by the bench. Three of the remaining guys were scaling the fence, trying to get over the top. Chris was grabbing them by the legs trying to pull them down but suddenly turned and ran toward the mother with the stroller. He grabbed the stroller by the handles and yanked it from the woman.

  “Chris!” I yelled as I ran toward the trio climbing over the fence.

  “U.S. Marshal!” I yelled over the roar of the train, “Get your butts down off the fence”.

  Either they couldn’t hear or ignored me, either way they kept climbing. I didn’t know what Chris was doing to that poor girl but I had to keep these idiots from killing themselves. I grabbed a pair of legs and snatched him down.

  4:07

  Empty gravel cars were passing under the bridge. I couldn’t keep them all off the fence; as soon as I would pull one down, the others kept climbing all while the deafening roar of the train came from under the bridge. I could hear Chris yelling and I turned. He was fighting over the stroller with the woman! He was twisting and fighting with the front wheels like he was trying to shake the baby out. I turned to stop him when a green box fell from the stroller and skidded to the fence where the boys were climbing.

  “First to Find!” Chris yelled. “First to Find”!”

  It was enough to get their attention. Once they saw the metal box on the bridge below them, they jumped down off the fence and ran off the bridge away from us. One of them stopped at the box and looked up at me as he grabbed it and picked it up. He cradled it like a football and ran behind the others toward Chris, the girl, and the bench side of the bridge.

  By now, Chris was standing over the girl who was sitting on the bridge with her back on the left side fence. He stood in front of her, still holding the stroller out in front of her to hold her where she was. He looked up and saw the kid running with the ammo box toward him. In one motion, he swung away from the runner in a circle and threw the stroller down in front of his feet, tripping him and causing him to drop the box. The runner tumbled and fell then got right up and kept running without the box that had fallen to the bridge floor. He ran past Dean on that side and the two fighters now bolted and ran as well. The train had now passed the bridge and was on its way. Cory was now walking up with an arm of the falling climber over his shoulder, helping him walk up the easier path on the bench side. He sat him down on the bench for Dean to watch then walked over to us.

  4:08

  The girl was sitting with her hands folded across her stomach and her head down. Long brown hair fell over her face and I immediately realized she was not a woman with a baby but rather a younger girl, maybe college age. I was out of breath and so was Chris.

  “This”, he said, “is Fran Feesh. She was a registered camper at High Falls where she planted a cache then watched a man die trying to get it. She also planted the cache around the bull’s neck that almost killed Landon”. He paused to catch his breath.

  “And she was going to throw that cache,” he pointed at the green ammo box lying on the bridge, “down into one of those empty gravel cars thirty feet below this bridge that could have caused any one of those other guys to get killed trying to jump in after it. And almost killed you, Mark”.

  “A girl” I said. “We were thinking guy the whole way”.

  “She did this to my boy?” Cory asked. “Why?”

  “Ma’am?” I asked.

  Seering, hateful, eyes and a frowning face looked up at us. She didn’t say a word.

  “Fran Feesh?” Cory asked.

  “SHUT UP” she screeched.

  “She hates her name”, Chris grinned, “and that makes her angry”.

  “SHUT UP” she screeched again, “I want my lawyer NOW!”

  We helped her up and Cory handcuffed her and took her away. As they walked back over the bridge and down the path, a few times we heard screeching. I guess Cory was trying to ask her questions.

  We helped the guy from the fall to the museum office while we waited for the ambulance. He was just a young guy, 20, and a student at Mercer who enjoyed geocaching. Legally, there wasn’t much for us to do to him or the others other than disobeying my direct orders. That, and breaking the law of not smart behavior. While he rested in the office, Chris, Dean, and I walked into the hallway. Cory walked up, having passed Fran Feesh off to a patrolman to take in.

  I couldn’t help it. “What was her name?” I asked Cory.

  “Screech owl is her new name” he answered with a smile. He reached out and shook hands with Chris, then me and Dean. “Chris, I appreciate you working on this thing and figuring it out. You might have saved one of those boys from something horrible”.

  Dean, who’d seen the whole event open in front of him as he was at the bench with the two fighters, asked Chris, “What made you think it was that girl?”

  “None of the guys we had eyes on seemed to be spectating. I realized that at 4:07, the train would be passing under the bridge, plus the part of the cache message that said ’30 under’ led me to believe that the cache was going to be on the train, not on the tracks or on the bridge. That meant the cache was either already on the train or was going to be placed. Since it was the size of an ammo box and not a canister or something smaller that might miss the train car, it had to be thrown into the car. All the guys were on the bridge watching the time and trying to get over at the right moment, except the girl with the stroller. After I looked at the list of campers again, I saw the name Fran Feesh and knew it was her and that the ammo box and not a baby was in her stroller.”

  We looked at Chris like we were third graders in a physics class and not one of the fun ones if there are any.

  “Fran Feesh. Shane Reff. Anagrams” he said. “She was going to throw it over into one of the gravel cars right at 4:07 and God help those boys trying to jump down off that bridge into one of the cars.”

  “Just mean” I said.

  “Mean” Chris replied.