Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff Read online

  Maybe if you didn’t pick your nose and wipe it on your pants, I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t. I actually found myself liking him a little.

  “Anyway,” Arnie went on, “Donna says your father, like, ruined things for her whole family, but that they’re rich again, and they’re going to get back at you.”

  “Don’t believe everything Donna says.”

  As the dance came to an end I stepped back from Arnie and gave him a nice smile. “Thank you,” I told him. “And if Donna treats you like dirt, that’s her problem, not yours. You’re a nice person.”

  As I walked toward the rest of the girls I glanced back. Arnie was looking at me, and for some reason his face had turned as red as a boiled lobster.

  Ten

  On Saturday morning I woke up in the dark an hour before my alarm, but thinking I could use the time to get the barn closed up the way Daddy wanted, I got out of bed, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, then crept down to the kitchen. While Rufus smacked his tail against the wall hoping for an early breakfast, I turned on the television but kept the volume low and listened to the weather forecast while I ate some cereal. I didn’t need sound to understand the threat of Dominique. It was still a tropical storm, but it was moving again, and now the TV weather map showed an arrow pointed straight at Leadenwah Island.

  Everybody knows hurricanes are scary, but people who live on coastal islands really understand. Just your basic tropical storm can mean winds as high as seventy-four miles an hour. When that happens things like lawn chairs and branches start flying around, going as fast as cars on a highway. If they hit you, they can knock you out or worse. When you sit out a tropical storm or a category-one hurricane, which Daddy and I had done a couple times, the rain comes sideways and the wind howls like something huge and dark and evil that is tearing away at your house, ripping off shingles, trying to lift the whole roof, driving water into places where you never had leaks before. If a person wasn’t scared when they heard that sound, they didn’t have a brain. If a hurricane was going to be more powerful than category one, everybody went inland to higher ground and safety.

  I knew that Dominique might turn out to be nothing, but the fact that it was sitting right to our east meant it could also get to be a big something and then come ashore very quickly. That was why it made sense to take all the precautions and get the horses and ponies off the property and headed west.

  I turned off the television, and Rufus and I went out into the yard and headed toward the main plantation drive. The air was humid and only slightly cooled from the day before. The leaves of the live oaks and the Spanish moss hung dead in the unnatural stillness. The birds were quiet, which meant a lot of them had already flown inland, because animals know about storms. I saw stars in the west, but in the east the coming dawn was nothing but the barest smudge of light behind heavy banks of dark clouds.

  Rufus didn’t seem to care about the storm. He gave a couple of happy barks then chased three wild turkeys out of the soybean field. The turkeys did what they always do and disappeared like magic. One second I could see them, and the next second they were nearly invisible. I couldn’t help but wonder what they would do in the storm and how they would survive.

  Thinking about the turkeys made me wonder about Yemassee and where she was, whether she had decent shelter, whether her puppies had been born yet. I started to imagine her curled up someplace with a litter of baby Boykin spaniels huddled around her while waters rose and a hurricane lashed and tore at the world. I kept seeing all those horrible images in my head playing over and over.

  Bee and I had checked out almost every inch of Leadenwah, but there was one place left where we hadn’t looked. The odds were probably lousy, but if I could get most of my work done before sunrise, I might have time to sneak away, take one more look for Yemassee, and still get back in time to help Daddy put the horses and ponies on the trailer. I was already grounded, but when I thought about Yemassee and her puppies trapped in a terrible storm, there wasn’t any amount of extra punishment that was going to keep me from looking one last time.

  I went into the barn and flicked on the lights, then went around the outside locking down the covers on the stall windows.

  When I finished and walked back into the barn, Bee was in the tack room moving all the saddles and bridles to the highest pegs in case we had flooding. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I woke up thinking about Yemassee.”

  “Me too.”

  We worked hard and fast, mucked out the stalls, got everything we could off the floor, and brought in every loose item from outside, like hoses, tools, and wheelbarrows. When we finished, the sun was just barely rising, and even then because of the heavy clouds in the east it looked like twilight.

  “You know,” I said, saying what had been on my mind the whole time, “I think we have time for a quick ride to the other side of the island. We could take one more look.”

  “We’re grounded. Besides, I need to help Grandma Em.”

  “We’ll be back before they even have their coffee. They’ll never even know we left,” I countered.

  “Abbey—”

  “If the storm gets bad, what happens to Yemassee? What if she’s had her puppies? What’s going to happen to Judge Gator if they all die? He’ll be crushed.”

  Bee let out a frustrated sigh. “This is crazy, and you know it.”

  I knew she wanted to go as badly as I did. She just needed another push. “It’s not crazy. The reason we have to go is that I have hunches about all this stuff. Okay? That’s what happens when you’re a detective, you get hunches.”

  Bee shook her head. “What hunches?”

  “Okay, Mr. LaBelle tried to sneak around the law once already. Donna’s been telling people he’s going to make a lot of money on something, so I’ve got a hunch that she’s talking about Hangman’s Bluff. We’ve seen all the dirt trucks, and then the mean guard threw us out of there, so that gives me another hunch. Also we know there are strangers at Hangman’s Bluff, and strangers stole Yemassee. And,” I said, holding up a finger, “all that other weird stuff with Willie Smalls and the two robberies is like . . . like salt and pepper on the meat.”

  Bee rolled her eyes at the last part, but she said, “You really think Yemassee could be there?”

  “I don’t know, but think about how you’re going to feel when that storm comes in. You’re going to be thinking about Yemassee and her puppies, and you’re going to be feeling really guilty that we didn’t try.”

  We saddled our ponies and rode out the drive, and we were just trotting down the dirt road toward the paved county road when we spotted Mrs. Middleton out in her yard. She was still living in her old trailer while her new house on Felony Bay was being fixed up. She was leaning on her walker and looking up at the eastern sky with a scowl.

  “Morning, Mrs. Middleton,” we both said.

  She looked at us and screwed up her face. “Now what in blazes are y’all doin’ out here on your ponies?” she demanded. “Don’t y’all know there’s a storm comin’?” She looked back and forth between us, and her eyes narrowed. “Your daddy and your grandma know you’re out here ridin’ around?”

  “We already packed up the barn,” Bee said. “And we have someplace we need to go. It won’t take us very long, and I just checked the weather forecast. They say it’s still stalled offshore.”

  Mrs. Middleton held up her arm. “And these old bones say they wrong. They say it’s coming fast and getting worse.” Her brow wrinkled, and she looked back and forth between us. “And by the way, where do y’all need to go?”

  I shook my head. “No place really.”

  “Y’all still looking for that dog?”

  I shot Bee a sideways glance to warn her not to say any more.

  “I asked you where y’all going.”

  Mrs. Middleton is a little tiny lady and she’s old, but when she got that tone, we didn’t have any choice. “Hangman’s Bluff.”

  Mrs. Middleton picked up her walker and
slapped it down for emphasis. “Y’all stay away from that place!”

  She said it like she knew something. Bee and I shared a look. “Why?” Bee asked.

  “There’s spirits over there, and I think they likely be riled up with all the bad things that’s been happening around here. And now with this storm coming, they be even more upset.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked, but Mrs. Middleton didn’t look a bit like she was kidding.

  “What spirits?” Bee asked.

  “From the gallows, child,” Mrs. Middleton said. “They used to hang people there.” Then she turned her eyes on me. “You don’t think there are spirits, girl, you go there sometime—not today, but sometime—and just listen. You tell me what you hear.”

  “You think people are doing bad things over at Hangman’s Bluff?” Bee asked.

  Mrs. Middleton shook her head. “I wouldn’t know ’bout what’s happening there now. They got it all chained off so you can’t go in, but probably both of us got people who were hanged there.” She nodded. “But what I do know is you girls need to get home. Right now. Don’t make me call your daddy and grandma.”

  On a small place like Leadenwah Island, every old woman acts like your own grandmother some of the time. “Yes, ma’am,” we both said.

  Mrs. Middleton turned away and started to hobble back toward her house, but then she stopped and looked toward us again. “I know how bad you girls want to find the judge’s dog, but y’all stay off that Hangman’s Bluff land, hear? I’m not kidding about things not being right over there. Y’all know that some bad things have been happening around here, and the spirits know that, too. They’re stirred up, and they’re angry. I can feel it.”

  Eleven

  Knowing we couldn’t ride to Hangman’s Bluff, Bee and I headed home at a fast trot and put the ponies in their stalls so we could get them again quickly when the horse van came. When we walked back out of the barn and looked at the eastern sky, the sun was still just a dull blur behind the growing wall of clouds. Even so, the increasing light showed the clouds for what they were: green and black and yellow, clouds that looked like pus, clouds that would kill dogs and puppies that weren’t protected.

  The storm was like a cottonmouth or a big mama gator, something I wanted to stay away from. At the same time, I kept seeing Yemassee in my head, a brown ball curled around a squirming mass of frightened, hungry puppies.

  Bee must have been seeing the same things in her head, because she glanced down at her watch. “It’s barely seven o’clock. We can’t ride the ponies over there . . . but how long would it take us to kayak to Hangman’s Bluff?”

  I blinked, not quite believing what I had heard. It took me a second to think about it. “Maybe a half hour.”

  “So if we hurry, could we get there, maybe find Yemassee, and be back by nine o’clock or a few minutes after?”

  I nodded, my eyes going wide as I thought about what she was suggesting. Even though they were getting ready for the storm, both Daddy and Grandma Em would probably sleep a little longer. If we were wrong and they got up early, they would be worried and angry, but I thought again about Yemassee and the puppies and poor Judge Gator if something happened to them. “Yes,” I said, doing my best not to think about Grandma Em and Daddy. “And even if that guard and Leaper are watching the gate, they won’t be looking for anybody coming by water!”

  I held up my hand, and Bee gave me a high five. “I know Yemassee is there!” I said. “I feel it in my guts.”

  I glanced upward at where the wind was starting to tear at the tops of the live oaks. I thought again of Yemassee, locked in a dark shed or tied to a tree, looking at the sky and feeling the coming storm the way animals can feel those things. “We gotta hurry,” I said.

  Down on the dock, Bee went to get us life vests and paddles while I went to the two-person kayak that lay upside down on racks and slapped the bottom all the way from the bow to the stern. It was a precaution, in case a snake or a big spider had managed to get inside or some wasps had started building a nest.

  When nothing hissed or buzzed out or dropped out, I turned over the kayak and carried it to the edge of the dock. It was going to be a tight fit if we had to bring back Yemassee and a litter of pups, but I thought we could make enough room down by our feet to fit the dogs. Bee had pulled out life vests and paddles from the equipment chest, and we both zipped into vests and chose a paddle. Just before we slipped the kayak into the water, she gave me a look that told me she was having second thoughts.

  “What if Grandma Em or your dad wake up early and come looking for us?”

  I was working to smother the same guilty thoughts. “Which is worse,” I said, “maybe scaring them or letting Yemassee die?”

  Bee nodded. “I guess when you put it that way . . .”

  We lowered the kayak into the river. I steadied it to the dock while Bee climbed into the bow seat, and then she held us in place as I slid into the stern.

  The tide was coming in, moving in the right direction so it would help us make a fast paddle out to Hangman’s Bluff. That was a good thing, because the day was starting to feel different, as if the air pressure was changing and something big and ugly was coming at us from behind the trees to the east.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Bee nodded, seeming surprisingly certain.

  I shoved my guilty feelings down one last time and pushed us out from the dock. Right away the current grabbed the kayak and started to move us upriver. We paddled to add speed as we let the river take us.

  Noting the current’s speed and the strength of the gusts in the branches of the live oaks, I had an unsettling thought that the storm was already moving toward us and pushing water inland as it started to come ashore. I sure hoped that wasn’t the case, but one unmistakable sign of the storm’s approach was the absence of shore birds. Herons and ibis would normally be stalking the mudflats while anhingas would be perched on branches that arched out over the water with their black wings stuck out to either side. This morning there wasn’t a bird to be seen.

  We paddled hard for about twenty minutes and finally came around a bend in the river that gave us our first glimpse of the end of the island. We dug harder on the paddles and swung around the end of Bishop’s Point then paddled hard again as we made our way toward Hangman’s Bluff on the end of Sinner’s Point.

  I could feel the current beginning to slacken, and I let out a sigh of relief, taking it as a sign that it hadn’t been storm surge after all, and the tide was operating by its usual rules and would soon reverse course and begin to flow back out toward the ocean. Just like it had helped bring us inland, I hoped it would give us a fast paddle back to Reward.

  By now we could see Mr. LaBelle’s property, where it sat across the bay formed by the two rabbit ears of Bishop’s Point and Sinner’s Point. From here Hangman’s Bluff didn’t look like much, certainly nothing that should have been worth putting up big No Trespassing signs and hiring a private guard. A small bluff at the very end gave the land its name, and its shoreline was thick with tangled undergrowth that looked nearly impossible to walk through.

  “You think that guard’s still on duty?” Bee whispered.

  “I bet not,” I said, thinking of all the reasons the guard should be long gone. Who would need him there at seven twenty in the morning with a big storm just offshore?

  We paddled close to the land then drifted as we tried to spot a place where we could pick our way through the thick mass of bushes, vines, and trees that grew almost on top of one another. As we moved along the bank Bee’s hand shot out, pointing at something. “What’s that?” she asked as I back-paddled trying to keep us still.

  I looked where she had pointed, but I couldn’t see anything but more tangled undergrowth. “What?” I asked.

  “There’s an opening there. Look as far in as you can.”

  We backed the kayak another couple feet until I spotted what she was talking about, a narrow channel that cut through the trees
and vines. It led back to something wooden that was set into the dirt embankment and looked an awful lot like one of the old rice impoundments from colonial times that still dot the banks of low-country rivers.

  “It looks like a rice gate,” I said. “But that’s weird. I’m pretty sure this was never a rice plantation.”

  Before I could say any more about how it didn’t make any sense at all to find a rice gate here, a gust of wind cut across the water and shoved the kayak several feet toward shore. We both glanced up, and there was no question that the ugly clouds that had been offshore were looming much closer. I felt a tremor of anxiety.

  “You still want to go ashore?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  We nosed the kayak into the narrow cut and found that the water was deep enough to paddle right up to the wooden thing Bee had spotted. To either side I could see the same big mound of dirt running all the way along the shore. I couldn’t tell how far it went, because all the trees and vines and undergrowth made it pretty much invisible from the water.

  “Is it a rice gate?” Bee whispered as she dug her paddle into the mud and brought the kayak to a halt with the bow just inches from the ancient wood.

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “What’s it do?” she whispered.

  “Rice gates were dams people used hundreds of years ago to let freshwater into rice fields,” I said. “The slaves brought the knowledge with them from Africa and taught their white masters how to build them. This one looks like it’s about to fall apart, but this dirt’s been dug up recently, so it doesn’t look like it’s been here long.”

  “Why would somebody put it here?”

  I shook my head in confusion. “Haven’t got a clue.”

  Without another word, Bee put her paddle across the kayak and boosted herself out of her seat. She put one leg over the side as if she meant to stand up. I think she was expecting the water to be just a couple inches deep, but it was a lot deeper. She stumbled, struggling to keep her balance.