Mustard looked at Cedar. “Musta got the wind knocked out of ’im.”
I flailed around trying to get up. “No. Look.” And I pointed.
They looked, all four beams went up at once, and there it was: a big old tree house covered in pine straw, almost thatched. It was built at the nexus of two huge branches.
I guess it could have been anybody’s tree house, up in the air a good twenty feet. But we all knew — especially since we wanted so much to know — it was the object of our search. Or maybe it was the red jumpsuit we could all see hanging halfway out the door.
Dally’s voice was thick. “Is that what I think it is?”
Cedar was already headed for the ladder. “I hope to God it is.”
The ladder was only a series of flat boards nailed to the tree at kid-sized intervals. When Cedar put his big old boot on the first one, it let go of the tree right away, and the cop took a tumble.
I got to my feet. But before I could suggest anything else, Dally was flinging herself up the ladder. She was the best one for the job and we all knew it. The two local boys were just carrying too much excess baggage — too much Miss Nina’s.
Dally made it up into the tree house in a snap. We had our flashlights trained all over the place.
She scooped up the jumpsuit on her way in — poked her head out a second later. “Nobody home.”
Mustard looked down. Soft. “Nobody home.”
I hollered up to her. “What’s it like up there?”
“There’s a bunch of stuff.”
Cedar was itching to see it. “Like what? What kind of stuff?”
Dally disappeared back into the hut. “Want me to toss it down?”
He answered quick. “Yeah. Toss down the jumpsuit at least.”
I took a deep breath. “I think I got to try to go up.”
I had a shot. I was smaller than the other two, and I thought maybe I could levitate part of the way up or something. I was thinking how, less than twenty-four hours before, I had seen Dally outside Mary Mac’s and it’d made me think I could fly. All I needed to do now was fly straight up a couple of feet in the same direction: toward Dally.
“I’m coming up.”
But she had already started her evacuation of stuff from the joint. The jumpsuit came raining down.
Cedar picked it up.
Mustard came over. “Is it hers?”
The cop checked. Nodded. “Got her name on the label. It’s hers all right.”
Mustard looked at Cedar. “Why you reckon she took it off?”
“Feel it. It’s soaked. Rained a little last night, remember?” He called up to Dally. “There’s other clothes up there?”
From inside she answered right back. “Lots.”
I shoved myself up the first rungs. They shifted, but stayed. I was trying to think light thoughts.
About halfway up I had one foot on one board and another foot on another, and one of them gave way. Lucky for me the one I was holding on to with both hands stayed in place.
I made short work of the rest of the ladder and joined Dally in the little log-cabin home in the sky.
“Hey.”
She turned around. “This place ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
“Says you.”
“I swear to God, Flap, if this thing breaks and we go crashing to the ground and die, I’m never speaking to you again.”
“Fair enough.” I sprayed my flashlight around the place. It was really quite sophisticated for a kid’s tree house. Somebody, or several somebodies, had spent a lot of time and effort to make it a home. There were little kid lawn chairs and boxes for tables and three sleeping bags that I could see. There were pictures up on the walls, pictures some younger person had drawn. Sure, the place had walls. The wood was old, like barn wood, the cracks stuffed all through with pine straw. When I tapped the wood, it knocked solid. Same with the floor. Somebody had really put some work into the thing.
I couldn’t stand. The ceiling was only five feet or so. I reclined on one arm and surveyed. “This is really something.”
She pulled over a cardboard box full of clothes. “Look.”
Sweaters, shoes, coveralls, hats, a scarf, and four or five mittens, all different, no pairs. I shuffled through it all. “Nice merchandise.”
Mustard’s voice interrupted. “What’s goin’ on up there?”
I answered. “Looks to us like the kid was here and got some better clothes.”
“Better clothes?”,
Dally stuck her head out the door and looked down. “There’s a whole box up here. Want ’em?”
Cedar called up. “Yeah, toss down the box.”
But before she could, Mustard interceded on behalf of the box. “Wait a minute. That’s the … that stuff belongs to the kids, who-some ever fixed up the place. We best to leave ’at stuff be. You see how it helped out Ginny.”
You had to admit he was right. This wasn’t just a playhouse — it was a rescue station. Before Cedar even answered, Dally slid the box back where it had been.
I was still looking around. “Wonder how long this place has been here.”
She sat still. “Think it’s the place the Lost Pines girl came to?”
“You mean you think this could be the place?” Shrug. “Could be, couldn’t it?”
I didn’t want to admit it. “I guess, but it sure looks well preserved.”
“Why the reluctance, Mr. Coincidence?”
“I am not Mr. Coincidence.”
“Really. Then who are you tonight?”
I was rubbing my hands to try to get some feeling back in them and thinking about borrowing some of the mittens. “I’m Mr. Coffee.”
“You wish. Cold?”
“No thanks, I think I’m already gettin’ one.”
“Ah. Third-rate repartee. Like that's going to warm you up.”
I blew on my hands. “Can I go home now?”
She was more serious. “No kiddin’, how come you got reluctance all over you?”
I couldn’t look her in the eye. “I got a bad feeling — I mean bad like … strange.”
“How strange?”
“Strange enough to make me think there’s lots more at work in this neck of the woods than a missing little girl.”
She headed for the door. “Aw, you’re just spooked by the skull thing.”
“You’re not?”
She turned to me. “When we were kids, if we’d found a cool skull, you’re telling me we wouldn’t have done something like that, the little altar or whatever?”
My voice built. “If we were playing Lord of the Flies, maybe.”
Again with the shrug. “I don’t know. When you’re a kid, skulls are just cool.”
“Yeah, maybe … but it wouldn’t have been enough to start me inventing my own religion.”
Then she hit me with her sly look. It’s so good she’s got it patented. “So what was it that did start you inventing your own religion?”
She headed out the door.
I followed. “You gave me a book when we were kids, remember? A book, not a skull.”
“That’s all it took? That’s all there was to it?”
I was crawling out onto the branch that went to the ladder. “Plus a trip to Asia and three songs by Van Morrison.”
“Really. Which three?” She’d started down the ladder.
“Can’t tell you — until you’ve gone through our initiation rites.”
Mustard was impatient. “You’uns hurry on down. Ain’t it cold up there?”
I answered. “Why, now you mention it — yes, it is cold up here.”
Dally looked up. “There’s nothing warming you up?”
I looked down. “Like?”
She looked away again, getting her footing. “Smell of pine straw.”
And like it was a hurricane, a rush of a memory nearly knocked me out of the tree house. When Dally and I were kids playing in the woods, I happened to see her without her clothes on once. We wer
e both about nine or ten, and she was about to go into a still part of the river where we used to play. I saw her, she saw me. Neither one of us moved. Then she smiled. “Want to go swimming?” I got out of my clothes before she was even finished with the sentence. We swam and splashed each other and threw each other around for maybe a couple of hours, then got out and let the sun dry us, lying in a bunch of pine straw. Ever since then the smell of pine straw … got to me. Can something be enticing and innocent at the same time? Anyway, I made the mistake of telling our Ms. Oglethorpe about the feeling once, and she’s not one to forget.
Now that she’d reminded me, though, and I looked down at the tangle of her curly brown hair — the middle of the woods in the middle of the night with the temperature in the teens — and what do you know, I did stop shivering for a minute.
12. Lonesome Road
Down on the ground again we all just stood around a minute. Mustard was leaned up against a tree smoking a cigarette.
He was what they call downcast. “I really thought we’d find ’er here.”
Cedar offered a little consolation. “We found her suit. We know she’s all right.”
He wouldn’t have it. “Or was — when she changed out of it.” He looked up. “We close to anything?”
Cedar looked around, trying to get his bearings. “We’ve got to be kind of close to the old logging road, don’t we?”
The big boy thrust himself away from the tree, tossed his smoke into the snow. “That’s right.” He nodded his head in a northerly direction. “It should be over there.”
I did my part. “Logging road?”
Mustard started walking. “It’s pretty rough, but we could follow it down the mountain. Lets out near the hospital, I b’lieve.”
But Cedar had other ideas. “Abernathy, how long you been up — at this point?”
Mustard stopped and looked around at nothing in particular. “Couple days.”
“Uh-huh. Don’t you think you ought to get on back and rest up? You got a new baby coming home sometime soon.”
He grinned. “I surely do.” But he was stuck.
I could see then that he was so tired he was having trouble thinking what to do next. I shot a look to Dally.
She got it. “Hon? Why don’t you an’ me an’ Flap just go on in now? Let the nice policeman do his job.”
He still hovered, his eyes unfocused. “I … reckon I could sit down for a minute.”
And sure enough that’s just what he did, right in the snow, right where he was.
It took Dally and me tugging at him like a cartoon mule before he finally got up again.
He grinned. “I guess I’m a little more tired than I thought.”
Dally patted his shoulder. “Let’s go home, sugar.”
“No. Take me to Sissy. Take me to the hospital. I got to see her an’ the baby.”
I let go of him. “Can you get the big boy there by yourself? I’ve got a powerful need to follow that logging road.”
She stopped. “What?”
“I’ve got a feeling.”
She nodded. “About what?”
“I don’t know. But it’s down there.”
She squinted. “What’s down there?”
I looked in the direction Mustard had pointed, toward the logging road. “Don’t tell me you all of a sudden quit believing in my brand of intuition.”
Cedar sidled up to us. “I can’t let you go down that road — not by yourself. You’ll get lost. And if we’re taking Mustard to the hospital, I’ve got to drive. The Jeep is police property. So what we’ve got to do is all pile into it and let me drop you off. I’ll finish up by myself.”
But I wasn’t listening. “We lose time that way. Why don’t you take Mustard and Dally, I’ll follow the road down to the hospital, you pick me up at the bottom, and we’ll … see what we’ll see. How lost can I get? I walk down, right?”
“Well …”
“I swear, if I start to walk up or sideways, I’ll stop.”
Dally looked at the policeman. “He gets like this. You just got to go with it. He’s got the idea he knows something.”
Cedar stared at me. “Does he?”
I stared back. “That’s right, I know something.”
There was a second there when I saw the cop look, the look in his eye that said he was going to cuff me and take me into custody. I have, alas, seen such a look on several occasions. As luck would have it, this look passed. It turned into another look I’ve seen a lot. It’s one that says, You’re an idiot; what do I care if you get yourself into a whole lot of trouble?
I smiled at him. “So, I’ll meet you at the bottom of the mountain, by the hospital?”
“Don’t go off the road for anything.”
“Right.”
“Don’t touch anything you see.”
“Check — unless it’s Ginny.”
He didn’t think. “If she’s still alive.”
Dally and Mustard swiveled their heads toward him, and you could see right away he regretted saying it that way. Too late — and besides, it was what we were all thinking anyway — even though we hated thinking it.
I tried to save the day. “She’s alive.” It sounded certain. I wasn’t — but I often win at poker. The others seemed fairly convinced I had a good hand.
Dally gave me a softer than usual look. “Take care. I don’t feel like drivin’ back to Atlanta myself.”
Mustard was pretty far gone. “Where’s Flap goin’?”
Cedar took his other arm. “To the hospital.”
He nodded. “Okay. See you there, bud.”
I nodded. “Check.”
They started back for the Jeep.
I had to stop them. “Uh … just one thing?”
Cedar just shouted back without looking or stopping. “What?”
“Which way exactly is the logging road?”
He flashed a look that nearly collapsed the whole deal altogether. Then he made with the big sigh, and zoomed his flashlight in the direction away from the tree hut and the baby skull. “Over there. I’m going to stand here until you get on it.”
I followed the beam of light over a little rise, and there it was: big, wide, deep-rutted; rough.
I called back. “Got it.” Then, because I had to: “Now … I go down, right?”
He said something to Dally, but I couldn’t hear what it was. Probably just as well. His light swung around, and I was on my own.
Just for laughs, I switched off my light. I wanted to see how things would be for Ginny. I thought my eyes would adjust after a minute. They didn’t. It was so black, I was actually afraid I might run into a tree. No moon, no stars — at least the snow was letting up. Yeah, there was snow all around, and you’d think it would lighten things up a little, but, see, white only reflects light if there’s actually light to reflect. I mean, it was almost as hard to see the ground as it was to see the forest. And the ruts in the road were big enough to park a foreign car in. I gave up after a minute, flipped the flash back on, down that lonesome road.
The trees were tall, I could tell that. Old trees, they’ve got a certain kind of feeling about them, a particular smell, maybe. The snow stopped, the wind seemed to die down. My feet were numb. I was wearing shoes you go to the nightclub in, not shoes to take a gambol through the primeval.
The fresh snow skunked any chance of seeing tiny footprints anywhere. All I could do was follow the road down and see where it took me.
Then, like flicking a switch, the clouds stepped aside and there was all kinds of moonlight everywhere. It was like somebody’d turned on a big silver searchlight. My flash seemed a little puny, so I popped it off. And before I could think to myself how beautiful and clear it all was, I saw two guys in business suits skitter between the clumps of trees off to my right, up the slope.
I ducked behind a pine myself, and peered out from behind it. Nothing. Maybe it had been a deer, or some hunters, or … maybe I was just getting nutty — cold-wacky.
I tried not to breathe. The air made little vapor ghosts every time I did. I was just about to step around in front of my hiding place again, feeling a little foolish in the grander scheme of things, when the two guys came slipping down the slope they were on. I think one of them was cussing.
Then I got the idea that maybe these were two more Samaritans, out looking for the little lost girl themselves. Only they didn’t look very much like citizens of the locale. They looked like low-life street types — you know: they looked like me.
Dressed in suits and one guy had a fedora like mine, they both ended up sitting in the snow on their amusing little journey down the decline to the road. Down they were, and the smaller guy popped the other one pretty good in the arm. That guy shrugged, like he hadn’t even felt it. Then he went into his coat pocket and pulled out a really big gun. Something automatic was all I could tell from where I was — not that I know much about firearms, truth be told. It’s just that it wasn’t a revolver.
He checked something, then slipped it back close to his heart. They both turned my way. They craned their necks, looking — then started toward me. Maybe it was just the way they were going.
Then: “Hey. Hey, buddy? Give us a hand, will you?”
Sure. I’d seen them, they’d seen me. Silly to hide like a kid, under the circumstances.
So I left the shelter of my hiding place. “Evenin’, gents.”
Even though I was a good twenty or thirty feet away, I startled the guys. Enough so that the bigger lug went for his pistol again.
I quick made with the international sign for surrender, hands halfway up. “Whoa back, pal. You asked me for help, remember?”
The smaller guy whacked the big guy again. “Put that damn thing away.” Then he eyeballed me. “Hey … you ain’t a local, are you?”
I put my hands down. “What gave me away? Was it the shoes?”
He cracked a smile. “Naw. It was the attitude.”
“Right. I’m told I got to watch that.”
He was all business. “So, the deal is, we’re lost, we’re tired, and we want to go to bed — and all kinds of ‘show me the way to go home’ comes to mind, do you get me?”
“Absolutely.”
He turned to his companion. “See? At last a guy up here that speaks English.” He turned back to me. “So what are you doin’ up here, mind my axing?”
Easy as One Two Three (A Flap Tucker Mystery) Page 7
