Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff Page 6

  “Could Custis check on it?”

  Daddy shook his head. “He’s helping me with this new case, and he’s still at the office even as we speak. I’ll get to it in a couple days. I promise.”

  I nodded and said good night and went up to finish my homework. Afterward I got Rufus on the bed and tried to dream about Yemassee, but instead I had a nightmare about Donna LaBelle.

  The next day was Thursday, the first afternoon of the week when neither Bee nor I had after-school sports, which meant there was free time for riding. Grandma Em picked us up after school and brought us out to Leadenwah. We had no chance to make plans in the car because we weren’t supposed to go looking for Yemassee anymore, and also because Grandma Em had the radio turned up pretty high, listening to reports about a tropical storm.

  The announcer said the storm had stalled off the coast, and its direction had become very difficult to predict. Even so, conditions were excellent for it to strengthen into a hurricane. He warned that people all along the East Coast should make sure they had plenty of batteries and fresh drinking water in their homes and to keep their car tanks filled with gas.

  I wasn’t very concerned from hearing all this stuff, because it seemed like every year in the late summer or fall we had at least one close call from a hurricane or tropical storm. When I looked overhead, all I could see was typical South Carolina blue sky, which made it even harder to get very worried. The day was sunny and perfect, and I was excited to go riding.

  As soon as I got to the house, I let Rufus out to pee, then changed out of my uniform and into riding clothes, loaded a day pack with water and snacks, and headed to the barn. I saddled Timmy, and then because Bee hadn’t shown up yet, I also saddled Buck. I was finished with both horses by the time Bee walked into the barn.

  At first she didn’t say anything, just walked over to where I had rested my day pack on top of one of the tack trunks. She lifted the flap and saw that I had put water and snacks in there for both of us.

  She turned and gave me a look. “Grandma Em just gave me a whole fresh lecture. She says we’re not to go looking for Yemassee.”

  I gave an innocent shrug. “I just thought we’d explore a different part of the island. No problem with riding the roads, is there?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “One dead body wasn’t enough?”

  “We’re not going near where we found that guy.” As I said it an involuntary shiver ran down my back. “That would be way too creepy. I thought we should ride over to Sinner’s Point.”

  “We?”

  I shrugged and smiled. “I got you snacks and water.”

  One of Bee’s eyebrows shot up. “You want to go looking for Yemassee,” she said.

  Knowing Bee’s instinct was usually to do exactly what she’d been told, I said, “We’re not going to go snooping around looking for anything. I just want to, you know, go down some of the roads we never go down.”

  “Just ride? No trespassing? No creepy dirt tracks? How far from Reward?”

  “Not far.” I held up my hand and put two fingers in the air. “Scout’s honor.”

  Bee finally gave in, and we mounted and rode across the island toward the farther of the two rabbit ears that form the island’s points. Each fork is fairly narrow, with just a single paved road running down the center and dirt roads cutting across and heading toward the water.

  The main paved road had little traffic, just a couple pickups and SUVs that had drivers I knew. It was typical Leadenwah, except for another one of those huge tractor trailers full of dirt that went past. Just like the other day, the truck was going fast with loose dirt blowing from the top.

  It got into our eyes and our mouths and made us cough, and it struck me suddenly that all this dirt had to be coming from a place where somebody was doing a lot of digging. And who would be digging except somebody who was building something? And weren’t they building something pretty big to haul this much dirt? And wasn’t there just one person I knew of who’d tried once before to build something big on Leadenwah? Mr. LaBelle had gotten stopped the first time, but what if he was trying to sneak some kind of building project in and get it done before Daddy and other people could stop him? If that was the case, it meant Donna LaBelle might be back on Leadenwah. My stomach clenched at the thought.

  My mind had started to race, and I was wondering when Daddy would have time to try and find out who was doing all the digging, when Bee said something that stopped my thoughts dead, almost like somebody shoving a stick into the spokes of a bike. “What did you just say?” I asked.

  “I just asked if your family doesn’t have some old journals and other stuff about the plantation. I was thinking I’d like to look at them.”

  I turned and looked at her. “Why?”

  “Remember that paper we got assigned today in history?”

  Earlier that day we’d been given an assignment to write a biography about someone in our family. We had to research it, either through interviews with the person if they were living or through journals, letters, or other sources if they were dead. Most of our classmates were going to write about their parents or grandparents, because it was easier to do someone who was alive, but Bee’s mother and brother had been killed in a car accident just a year earlier. Doing a biography on either of them would mean digging up a lot of painful memories, and I knew she wasn’t ready. Maybe even researching her father or Grandma Em would be coming too close.

  “Daddy gave them to the Historical Society.”

  “Do you think they’d let us look at them? I was thinking about all those graveyards Grandma Em and the professor have been protecting, and about my ancestors who are buried there. I’d like to learn anything I can, like where they came from in Africa, what year they came here.”

  My stomach clenched at the thought of going through those old records, because they talked about when members of my family bought members of Bee’s family like they were cattle.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to sound a lot more comfortable about it than I felt. “I’ll help you. Maybe I’ll find an ancestor of my own to write about from the same time period.”

  I glanced at Bee, who had the kind of look on her face that people get when they’re about to go into the doctor’s examination room and they know that what’s about to happen is necessary but also that it’s going to hurt. It was exactly the way I felt, because I was pretty sure it was going to hurt both of us.

  We rode for nearly two more hours that afternoon, trotting the dirt roads, skirting the large plantations, but I kept my word, so we no longer snuck back along the property lines. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as the poking around we had done the previous times, but there were no dead bodies, either.

  Riding on the roads, we saw nothing but distant houses and fields and barns, intermixed with woods and an occasional swamp. The sun was starting to drop low in the sky, with deep pools of shadow gathering under the live oaks. We were going through the motions of looking for Yemassee, but I knew in my heart that we probably weren’t going to spot her. Even so, riding a pony beats doing homework any day of the week.

  We had covered almost all the roads on Sinner’s Point, and it was getting toward time for dinner. Bee was yawning in her saddle, and I expected her to suggest we turn around and head for home, but she surprised me.

  “That horrible girl you talked about last night?”

  “What about her?”

  “Was she really that awful? You don’t usually let people get under your skin that bad.”

  “Just close your eyes and imagine a wicked witch with blond hair, pink bows, and flouncy dresses. Also, she’s got a pretty little smile that hides her snake fangs.”

  Bee laughed.“Did she live around here?”

  “You mean at Hangman’s Bluff?” I shook my head. “Nobody lives there. It’s out at the end of Sinner’s Point on the only road we haven’t explored yet.”

  Bee shrugged. “We’ve come this far. Let’s check it out.”

  I
nodded eagerly, and we turned and trotted the ponies to the last dirt road on the point. It was narrow and shaded by the overhanging branches of ancient live oaks. Turning into it, we went past a few double-wides set close to the road and several small houses, then a long space of empty woods with no houses at all. Finally we came to the end of the road, where a length of shiny chain lay in the dirt between two old gateposts. A sign said trespassers would be prosecuted. A padlock hung from one of the gateposts, and a bunch of heavy tire tracks had churned up the dirt, as if big trucks had been driving in and out of the property recently.

  “That’s Hangman’s Bluff?” Bee asked.

  I nodded.

  “How did it get that name?”

  “They used to hang people here.”

  “What kind of people?”

  “Like runaway slaves and criminals,” I said, my voice low.

  Bee looked at me for a long moment, and I knew she was wondering about her own family.

  “Then it used to be a tomato farm, until Mr. LaBelle bought it,” I continued.

  Bee pointed to a rotting wooden sign on a nearby tree. The paint was nearly worn away, LaBelle Vista just barely visible. “This is where he wanted to build the condos?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “He sounds like a real jerk.”

  “Yes, but not half as bad as his daughter.”

  Knowing my tendency to exaggerate, Bee cocked her head. “You’re talking about a kid, not Adolf Hitler.”

  “Pardon me,” I said. “Donna was nice . . . if you like two-faced, stuck-up blond-haired jerks dressed in pink and green who go around school telling people that your father is a monster who’s trying to destroy her whole family.”

  Bee laughed, but then her expression grew serious, and she nodded toward the tire marks. “All those trucks full of dirt, you think they could be from here?”

  I shrugged. “Daddy always said he wouldn’t trust Mr. LaBelle any farther than he could throw him. Maybe we ought to ride in a little ways and see.”

  “We promised your dad and Grandma Em we wouldn’t trespass anymore.”

  “But that was on plantations. This isn’t a plantation, right? It’s not the same thing.”

  “What about the No Trespassing sign?”

  “That’s probably been here a long time,” I said, even though I thought it looked pretty new.

  I was talking braver than I felt, and as I took a long look down the dirt track that disappeared into the thick trees of Hangman’s Bluff I felt an involuntary shiver, and this time it had nothing to do with Donna LaBelle. There was something about the place that gave me the willies. The drive that led into the property was narrow and deeply shaded. Even the trees seemed spooky. Hung with lots of Spanish moss, their massive old limbs drooped low, as if the evil things that had happened out there centuries ago had dragged them nearly to the ground.

  It was getting to be dusk, that time of early evening when everything, even the breeze, becomes dead still for a few moments. With night coming this particular spot at the end of this nearly deserted road suddenly felt even creepier. Still, we had come all this way. It seemed a shame just to turn and leave.

  “I bet, even if people were here, they’ve gone home,” I said, trying to talk my way through my jitters.

  “Then why isn’t the chain locked?” Bee asked.

  “Just in case I’m wrong, we’ll tie the ponies here and go in on foot.”

  We were about to dismount when we heard an engine, and a second later a pickup truck appeared, coming toward us along the dirt track. Bee raised her eyebrows and gave me a look. “Everybody’s gone home, huh?”

  The truck came to a stop a few feet short of the chain. My heart went into my mouth as the driver got out. For a second I was afraid it might be the fat man who had stolen Yemassee, but he was someone I had never seen. He was tall and heavyset, with swelling shoulders and a lump for a belly, the kind of man who looks like he has a lot of fat over a lot of muscle. He had thick lips and a gnarled old peanut shell of a nose, and heavy black stubble covered his cheeks. He walked toward the chain with his head down and, guessing he was about to lock it back in place, I kicked Timmy and rode toward him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I called out.

  The man raised his head and gave me an unfriendly look. His hair hung in a greasy mullet beneath an Atlanta Braves cap. More tufts of black hair poked out all around his collar, and when he opened his mouth, his teeth were crooked and yellow.

  “Whatta you want?” he demanded.

  “I wondered if we could ride our ponies out to see the water.”

  “They teach you to read where y’all go to school?”

  “Yessir.”

  He pulled the chain out of the dirt and pointed at the No Trespassing sign. “What’s it say?”

  I shrugged. “I just wondered.”

  He turned back toward the pickup truck and gave a whistle. A second later a big Doberman pinscher shot out the open driver’s side door and came trotting toward us. Maybe it was my imagination, but its eyes seemed locked on me. My stomach started to flutter. Both Timmy and Buck tried to wheel, because the dog seemed to be picking up speed as it came. Part of me wanted to let Timmy run, but the other part of me was frozen in disbelief. We were on the county road. This man wouldn’t dare let this dog attack us. I hoped.

  The dog didn’t make a sound, which made it all the more fearsome. The man waited until the Doberman had almost reached us. “Halt!” he commanded. The dog stopped on a dime, but then it raised its lips to show its fangs, a dog message that said it would like nothing better than to rip out my throat.

  “You still wonder, girlie?” the man asked.

  My heart was thumping hard. I was angry as a stepped-on cottonmouth, but there was nothing I could do. “I guess not,” I said in a tight voice.

  “Good. Now git ’fore Leaper here gets too excited to hold hisself back.”

  Bee and I turned and started for home, neither of us saying much. Bee was smart enough not to give me a lecture about how dumb I’d been to want to sneak into Hangman’s Bluff. For my part I was still boiling mad, but I also knew how lucky we had been to see the man and the dog before we were on the property. I sure didn’t like the idea of having Leaper try to tear off my leg.

  We were only about halfway to the county road when we spotted a car. It was facing toward us, and even though the daylight was getting dim beneath the heavy overhang of live oaks, its lights were off. Since it hadn’t been there when we rode in, it must have come in after us.

  The car was sitting on a slant, and one of its front tires was flat. The driver’s door was open, and a woman was standing beside the car. She wore a dress and high heels, and she was talking into her cell phone, waving her free arm as if she was very angry. She was having a hard time walking in her heels in the uneven dirt, and I saw her stumble a couple times.

  The woman stopped talking after a few more seconds and listened, but whatever the person said on the other end of the phone only made her madder. “You get here right now!” she said, her voice getting loud enough for us to hear. “I don’t care what you’re doing! Nothing is more important than getting this tire fixed!” She paused, looked at the phone, then yelled into it, “Don’t you dare hang up on me! Hello? Hello?”

  She glared at the phone for a few seconds, then started jabbing the buttons with angry pokes. When someone answered, I knew it must have been the same person she had just been speaking to, because she started right in shouting, “Get here now! Do you hear me?” She punched a button, then took her phone and threw it down in the dirt. She tried to give it a kick, but she missed and almost lost her balance.

  Bee and I looked at each other, uncertain. The woman hadn’t yet glanced in our direction, but she would any second. Normally we would have tried to help without even thinking about it, because that’s what people do in the country. But this woman seemed so crazy-angry that it might be smarter to sneak around her.

  We sat there another
moment. Finally Bee said, “We can’t just leave her here, can we?” She didn’t sound any more eager than I felt.

  “I guess not,” I muttered.

  We nudged our ponies forward. As we got closer I could see that the car was a Mercedes. When we were still about twenty-five yards away, the woman turned her head so I could get a good look at her profile. I felt a shot of cold dread, and as I reined Timmy to a stop I knew all my evil premonitions had been spot-on. “Oh, no!” I whispered.

  Bee looked at me in surprise. “Wh—” she started to say, but I shushed her and started to turn Timmy around.

  “Quick! Let’s get out of here,” I whispered.

  “Why?” Bee asked.

  It was already too late, because the woman had turned toward us. For a split second she appeared relieved, but then her eyes focused on my face, and her lips curled into a sneer of recognition.

  “You,” Mrs. LaBelle spat, like it was my fault her tire had gone flat. “What are you doing here?”

  In the South certain people liked to say that “breeding trumps all.” I’d never liked that expression because I thought it was snobby. It sounded to me like people were being compared to dogs or horses, and a lot of fine dogs and horses probably should have been insulted. According to that “breeding” baloney, the way a person, especially a kid, was supposed to show “the quality of their bloodline” was through their manners. Therefore, a “well-bred” kid would always be polite to an adult, even if they thought the adult was a stupid, rude idiot.

  People who believed that stuff would never have mistaken me for “well-bred,” because I had always been lousy at faking what I felt. And I wasn’t feeling too happy about being sneered at by somebody I thought had moved far away but who was suddenly right in my backyard.

  “We’re just riding our ponies,” I said. “No law against that, far as I know.”

  “Don’t you give me your smart talk, young lady,” Mrs. LaBelle snapped. “Just keep on moving.” She opened her purse and pulled out a cigarette. She lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, then closed the purse with a loud click.