Cherry Ames 22 Rural Nurse (14 page)

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Cherry visited a few other cases. Her last call of the afternoon was at a county boarding house, to advise the pleasant woman who owned it on a minor health problem. This section of the county was not familiar to Cherry; she had made only one call around here, much earlier, with her nursing supervisor, Miss Hudson. The roads were still muddy from the rains. Cherry consulted her map to locate the paved highways back to Sauk.

She drove past woods and river, thinking about her patients, and did not notice a parked or stalled car until she was nearly on top of it. Two men were standing in the muddy road beside the car. They hailed her, and Cherry stopped.

“Hey, miss! Do us a favor?” one man said to her.

His manner was almost insolent.

Cherry looked quizzically at him and the other burly man. They had hard faces, hard eyes. They wore fl ashy, expensive sports clothes, brand new. It was obvious that they were city men dressed as sportsmen. Cherry glanced at the license plate on their shiny car, and recognized it as a St. Louis plate.

“Excuse me, miss—” The second man made a clumsy effort to act polite. “Excuse me, miss. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble to help us out—” For an instant Cherry thought they wanted her to minister fi rst aid here at the roadside. But they gave no sign of recognizing her as the county nurse.

“We got stuck in the mud, see?” the second man continued. “So if you’d stop off at the nearest fi lling 130
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station and tell the guy there to come over with his tow truck— Say, tell him we’ll pay him plenty, so he should hurry up.”

“All right, I’ll tell him,” Cherry said. She waited for them to say thanks. They did not. The pause grew into an embarrassment among them. The fi rst man said uneasily:

“Tell him to hurry up, because we’re going fi shing, see? Uh—we’re having ourselves a little vacation around here. Staying at Mrs. Moody’s boarding-house, getting in a little fi shing.”

“Oh, yes,” said Cherry. She did not believe that they were going to fi sh. They evidently had some other business around here. Their sports clothes were like a ludi-crous disguise.

“I’ll tell the man at the fi lling station,” Cherry said, and she drove off. Whew! She wanted to get away from the two strangers as fast as possible.

The road followed along the river about a mile to the fi lling station. Cherry turned in there. The place was spick-and-span, the sign said it belonged to George Huntley. He was a brisk, cheerful young man who wiped off Cherry’s windshield for her while she gave him the strangers’ message.

“I know the two you mean,” the young man said.

“Sure, I’ll haul them out of the mud.”

“Who are those men?” Cherry asked.

“I don’t know. Beats me what they’re doing around these parts. I never saw them before. Neither did

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Mrs. Moody, their landlady.” George Huntley fi nished with the windshield. He said thoughtfully, “They
say
they’re fi shing. I hear they’re gone all hours of the day—
and
night—but how come they haven’t brought home any catch?”

Cherry admitted, “I don’t much like their looks.”

“Neither do I, miss. Neither do any of us. In fact, folks around here think those two are suspicious-looking characters. Criminals, gangsters, for all we know. Mrs.

Moody’d like to get them out of her boarding-house, but she’s afraid to start any trouble with them.”

“How long have they been here?” Cherry asked.

“Came here Monday. Late Monday. Wait—I said no one around here knows those two men, but I was mistaken. Now mind you, this is only hearsay, and
he
denies it, but— Gosh, maybe I shouldn’t repeat things like this.”

“I’m the county nurse, Mr. Huntley,” said Cherry.

She showed him her credentials with her name. “I take an interest in everything that goes on in this county.

Please tell me whatever news you have.”

“Well,” the young man said reluctantly, “don’t repeat it, but a farmer near here said he saw a fellow named Floyd Barker with those two men. They all were close to the river, on this farmer’s land, sort of hiding in the trees and talking. When the farmer rode close by on his tractor, they all ran off like turkeys. Guess they had their car nearby, or Floyd had his jalopy, because one, two, three—they were gone!”

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“So Floyd Barker knows those two men,” Cherry said. She felt a little sick.

“You know Floyd?” the young man asked Cherry.

She nodded. “Well, Miss Ames, maybe I’m saying something untrue about a friend of yours. I only have this farmer’s word for the whole thing. Some of us happened to bump into Floyd yesterday, and we jol-lied him about what’s
he
doing with those two characters? Why, Floyd denied up and down that he knows those two men. Swore he’s never even seen them. So maybe the farmer is mistaken and Floyd’s telling the truth.”

“Maybe,” Cherry said, trying to conceal her doubt.

“Maybe.”

She asked George Huntley whether he knew anything about Nature’s Herb Cure, or had seen Old Snell around here. He had not. Apparently the pedlar—the only man selling the stuff—had not reached this area yet. Cherry thanked the young man at the fi lling station and drove away.

She thought about the two strangers as she drove home toward Sauk. Their presence here meant that the racket was not as local and limited as she and Hal had assumed—not if the two St. Louis men were here to talk to Floyd. For that, evidently, was the real reason for their visit: to talk with Floyd. Was it about the ginseng remedy racket?

George Huntley had said the two men arrived late Monday. Cherry thought back over recent events.

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On Saturday the ginseng roots had been stolen from her car. On Monday she and Hal had learned the results of the laboratory investigations, and had issued their fi rst warnings. So! . . .

Could the two men possibly have other business with Floyd? If so, why did they have to confer at a secret place at the river’s edge?

It was a long drive across the county. The river road led her past the abandoned farm. Cherry looked sharply for any sign of life in the house or around the grounds.

She saw no one, no lights in the house, although it was dusk. But that was as usual.

She headed for home. She felt discouraged. With the two hard-faced men here, working with Floyd to promote the remedy, the job of the Food and Drug inspector could be harder and more dangerous. Undoubtedly the two men were working with the pedlar, too.

It dawned on Cherry why Old Snell suddenly was brazenly selling the remedy in the towns, why he was boldly returning to his shack—now that the two St. Louis men were here! Why, those men must be backing Snell up with money, even with a promise of gangster force.

Cherry wondered whether Snell would be alone tomorrow at the shack, or whether Floyd or the two men might be with him. Sooner or later Mr. Short would have to encounter Floyd and possibly the two St. Louis men.

She only hoped that she and Hal could be of some help.

She arrived at Aunt Cora’s feeling very tired.

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“My, what a long face, Cherry,” her aunt said. “You look as if this has been a hard day for you.”

“It’s been an exciting day, Aunt Cora.” She wished that she could tell her aunt about the entire situation, about the Food and Drug man’s plan, about the suspicions centering around Floyd and the old farmhouse. She had not confi ded in her aunt, nor in anyone but Jane; this was on Dr. Hal’s advice. He felt that if talk spread, it might reach the makers and distributors of the fake medicine. Once alerted, they could fl ee, and escape prosecution. Of course Aunt Cora, like everyone else for miles around, had heard of Nature’s Herb Cure, and the medical warning against it. That much Cherry could talk with her about. Even so, Cherry decided she did not want to talk or even think about that upsetting problem for a few hours.

“It
has
been a hard day, Aunt Cora,” Cherry said. “If it won’t keep you waiting too long for supper, I’d like to take a warm bath.”

“It won’t keep me waiting at all,” Aunt Cora said. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s take the evening off. Let’s go out for supper, and go to a movie, or go visiting. You think about what you’d like to do while you’re taking your bath.” Cherry smiled at her aunt. “You’ve put me in a better humor already. Thanks!” She went upstairs, with her aunt calling after her not to hurry.

Cherry soaked herself in the bathtub, not thinking about a thing. As she relaxed, a fresh idea came to her.

“The cave! Why didn’t I think of that before!” c h a p t e r x i

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“the cave—why didn’t i ever realize before that the cave is close to the abandoned farmhouse?” Cherry asked herself. “That cave was blockaded. Suppose the blockade has some purpose? Is there any connection between the cave and whatever is going on in the old house?”

Cherry dressed quickly and ran downstairs to ask Aunt Cora whether she knew, or had heard, any tales about the cave.

“I did once hear that some caves or hiding places around here have a long history,” Aunt Cora said.

Cherry recalled Jane’s saying that the old farmhouse was reported to hold a secret—a secret over a hundred years old.

“Is there anyone around Sauk who would remember?

Anyone interested in local history?” Cherry asked.

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“Yes. Phoebe Grisbee’s old uncle. He’s a scholarly old man, and his forebears were among the fi rst settlers in Iowa. But he’s old and frail, I don’t know whether he receives many visitors.”

“It’s important,” Cherry said. “Please don’t ask me any questions.”

“Well, really! I must say—” Then Aunt Cora smiled.

“No, I won’t say. I’ll go phone Mr. Marquette and ask if we may pay him a call.”

After a telephone conversation, Aunt Cora returned to say that the old man would see them this evening, if they could conveniently come right away.

“We mustn’t keep him up too late,” Aunt Cora said.

“Let’s skip supper until later, shall we?” In an old house at the end of town, Cherry and her aunt found a more vigorous old man than they had expected to see. He was, in fact, delighted to have company. Cherry thought she saw traces of Indian as well as French descent in his long, narrow, hawk-nosed face, fi ne black eyes, and lean fi gure.

“Yes, ladies, there are indeed some woods and houses with a history in this part of Iowa,” Louis Marquette said. That’s because of our Des Moines River, and our proximity to the Mississippi River. The two rivers meet near here, as you know.”

Cherry asked what specifi c history a century-old farmhouse, or a cave near it and near the river, might have.

“A century ago. Or longer, you say.” The old man thought for a moment. “That would take us back to
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the days just before the Civil War. In those days, or rather, nights, runaway slaves from southern planta-tions secretly followed the Mississippi to escape to the North and freedom—”

He began to tell them stories of the Underground Railway. There never was an actual railroad; he explained that was a code name for escape routes, on foot. “Stations” were hiding places along the way for runaway Negroes. “Conductors” were sympathetic Northerners who opposed slavery and helped smuggle the fugitives northward to free Canada. Slave hunters, men on horseback armed with whips and guns and bloodhounds, scoured the North, demanding that the slaves be returned. The law of the land, the Fugitive Slave Act, was on the slave hunters’ side, and big rewards were offered for the runaways.

“Anyone who undertook to hide a fugitive or two or three, and pass them safely farther northward,” Mr. Marquette said, “had to fi nd, or build, safe hiding places. That’s why you still can fi nd houses and barns with secret rooms, and concealed routes of various kinds. Now, I’ve heard of a cave near here located at the river’s edge, at a narrow point in the Des Moines River—”

Cherry felt the back of her neck tingle with excitement. The cave in Riverside Park was near the Des Moines River. And the river narrowed there! At the picnic the Sunday before Labor Day, some of the boys had easily swum over to the Missouri shore and back.

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“—where it was easier, being narrower,” the old man was saying, “for the runaways to cross by skiff. They crossed the river by night, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Iowa. When they reached this side, a ‘conductor’ hid them somewhere and kept them for a few days, or overnight, until the next ‘conductor’

farther north signalled that it was safe to smuggle them along to his station.” Old Mr. Marquette paused. “We had only a few conductors and stations around here.

Rare, here. Most of the escaping slaves, after following the Mississippi northward, turned east rather than west and followed along the Ohio River. But we had a few ‘stations.’ ”

“About the cave, Mr. Marquette,” Cherry said. She noticed her aunt observing her excitement. ‘‘Where is that cave, please? And you said some houses had a secret room—where is there such a house around here?”

Both the old man and her aunt smiled.

“I’d gladly tell you if I knew,” Mr. Marquette said.

“In a hundred years people forget a secret. Mind you, only a handful of persons ever knew such secrets in the fi rst place. Houses get torn down. Old trails are overgrown, or paved over now.”

“But a cave!” Aunt Cora said. “A cave remains.” Mr. Marquette shook his head and said the only hiding places he’d known about no longer existed.

Cherry was disappointed—but excited at learning this much. Houses with secret rooms! Cherry recalled how she had seen the shadow of a man’s fi gure in the
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