Deadfall (2 page)

"Come on, let's get a better look." Callie cut off the trail and started through the trees, Frank and Joe close behind.

Even though Callie had described what a clear-cut field was, Joe was shocked by the sight. The barren area was hundreds of yards across, littered with tree stumps and almost nothing else. No animals were in sight. Joe heard nothing but an eerie silence.

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"It's like being on the moon," Frank said as they trudged across the huge expanse of wasteland.

'*And this isn't the biggest strip/' Callie muttered. She paused on the far side of the field. "That's Horizon Lumber down there." She pointed toward a collection of sheds, mammoth lumber piles, and heavy equipment beside a fast-moving river. "Buster Owens's mill. They carve a chunk this size out of forest every other week."

Joe peered at a lone vehicle sitting in the mill's parking lot. "Isn't that your uncle's truck?" he asked.

Callie said with surprise, "Yes, it is. I thought he had some more business to do in town. I wonder what he's doing over there?"

"Especially since the mill's shut down at the moment," Frank pointed out. "I don't see anyone moving around down there."

"And look," Joe exclaimed. "See that red truck pulled off the road behind those bushes? It looks somehow familiar."

Frank followed his brother's gaze down the river about a quarter of a mile from the factory. "It looks like Buster Owens's truck," he said. "Why would he park off the side of the road instead of at the mill?" He glanced at the others. "I think we should go see if either of them needs help."

Callie hesitated. She didn't want to ask too

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much of the Hardys, but she was worried about her uncle.

"Come on," Joe said. ''There must be a way across the river."

"There's a path that leads to a bridge." Callie took the lead.

Callie started down the mountain at a brisk pace, but within a few steps the three of them broke out into a run. Then, only a few minutes after that, Joe heard the sound of an enormous explosion. The great force of the blast almost knocked him off his feet.

"What was that?" Callie cried after Joe helped her to her feet.

"1 can't see anything down there now." Joe stared out over the river. "But it sounded like Buster Owens's mill just blew up!"

Chapter

'*Uncle Stan!" Before Frank could stop her, Callie had run past him toward the river. She stumbled over a tangle of roots as Frank and Joe ran after her.

"Hold on, Callie!" Frank cried, catching up with her as they broke through the trees at the edge of the river. He stopped dead in his tracks the instant he saw the mill directly across the river. Enormous flames were consuming the center of the large main building. It was the size of a football field—designed, Frank knew, to swallow trees at one end and spit lumber, plywood, and toothpicks out at the other. Surrounding it were a number of wooden warehouses, all as frighten-ingly flammable as the mill.

Through the thick, black smoke Frank could just see that the roof of the mill was about to cave in.

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As they stared, another explosion rocked them. The flames shot even higher, and then one of the nearby warehouses burst into flame, too. They winced at the heat that reached them even across the river. ''It's burning so fast! It looks like a chemical explosion, or dynamite maybe," he shouted over the roaring of the fire.

"Do you see anyone?" Callie demanded, trying to peer through the smoke. She called her uncle's name, but Frank was sure no one could hear her from where they were.

"We're at the wrong angle to see the parking lot," Frank pointed out. "There's no way to know if he's still there."

"Let's cross the river here and try to find him," said Joe. "That fire isn't getting any smaller."

"We can't cross without a bridge," Frank said. "The current's too strong to swim, and it's too deep to wade across."

"We don't have time to go to the bridge. Look, over there!" Callie pointed to what looked like a floating forest that ran from one bank of the river to the other. "That's a log raft. When the loggers cut trees down upriver they float the logs down to here. A chain strung across the river catches them and holds them like cattle in a pen."

"You want to cross on that? It seems like a great way to end up getting wet." Frank eyed the enormous logs floating in the coursing river. There were chains on bright red floats lashed to

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thick posts on either bank, but the logs themselves appeared to be slick and would be dangerous to step on in the fast current.

*'It's our only chance," said Callie, flinging off her pack and starting on ahead of the Har-dys. ''Uncle Stan could be hurt!"

Frank glanced at his younger brother. Joe shrugged. "We'd better keep up," he said, ''or she'll go without us."

The brothers tossed their packs down next to Callie's and hurried after her to the edge of the river. The logs bucked and tossed on top of the rushing water. "Uncle Stan showed me how to do this last summer. I'll go first," Callie shouted over the noise of the river. Before Frank could stop her, she had half-stepped, half-slid onto the first enormous, algae-covered log. For a terrible moment Frank watched as she lost her footing, but she instantly caught herself and jumped lightly to the next rearing log.

"The secret is to keep moving," she shouted back over her shoulder.

"I'm next," Joe announced, sliding recklessly down the riverbank and barely landing on a log. When Callie was halfway across the river with Joe a few feet behind her, Frank slid down the bank to land unsteadily on a log.

This is like dancing on ice, Frank thought.

Moments later, muddy and wet from the spray of river water, Frank joined the other two on the top of the far bank.

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"Let's not waste time," Joe said. 'The fire's bigger. And I still don't see Stan!"

As the three of them ran toward the blazing mill, they heard a siren approaching. A moment later they spotted a fire truck through the trees. Men in everyday clothes and yellow helmets were hanging on to the sides of the truck. They looked as though they'd dropped whatever they were doing to come to fight the fire.

As the teenagers neared the mill, the parking lot came into view. "Stan's truck is gone," Frank said, relieved. "He must have left before the explosion. But wouldn't he have heard it?"

"No time to worry about that now," Joe pointed out. "This is a volunteer fire department—just the local townspeople. They could probably use our help."

"There're more volunteers coming," Callie said, pointing down the road. "In a little town like this, everybody has to pitch in." Behind the fire truck were several cars with flashing red lights stuck on to their dashboards. The drivers and passengers were staring, awestruck, at the growing blaze.

As they jogged toward the parking lot to meet the fire truck, Frank could hear the siren wailing in Crosscut, far down the mountain. At the same time another siren sounded and Frank spotted a police car racing up the mountain from the opposite direction. He wondered whether it would be the Sheriff Ferris that Stan had mentioned at the general store.

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The volunteer fire fighters had piled off the truck and were unwinding the enormous fire hose and heading toward the blaze with it. Frank approached one of the men, who was already sweating under his yellow helmet. **Anything we can do to help?" he shouted over the noise of the sheriffs siren.

''Sure. Line up and help move the hose," the man commanded. 'Tell the others to do the same. We think somebody might still be in there."

Callie's face went pale in spite of the incredible heat from the blaze.

Frank put an arm around her. "Remember," he cautioned, "Stan's truck is gone. There's no reason to think it's him."

Before Callie could respond another car pulled up beside the trio and a man and woman in jeans and T-shirts leapt out. "How can we help?" the woman demanded, her eyes switching from Frank to the enormous, frightening blaze.

"Help with the hose," Frank told her. "We'll need all the volunteers we can get."

By now the fire had spread throughout the mill. Two warehouses and one of the huge piles of lumber that lay at the edge of the property were also burning. More cars and trucks had arrived from town. The instant they stopped in the parking lot, loggers and other locals leapt out to help.

The sheriff was kept busy giving orders to the volunteers, Frank noticed as he fought to hold

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on to the bucking hose. The loggers were so organized, he had a feeling they'd been through all this before.

'They found someone!" Callie shouted just then. ''Look! They're bringing him out now!"

The volunteers surged forward as three men emerged from the flaming mill carrying a blanket-covered body. Frank heard another siren over the noise of the crowd and swiveled around to see an ambulance arriving.

Almost instantly a pair of paramedics worked their way through the crowd with a stretcher and a portable oxygen tank. Frank strained to see who the victim was, but smoke and the crowd blocked his view. He knew Callie was even more anxious than he was.

Fifteen minutes later the paramedics passed through the crowd on their way back to their ambulance, this time carrying the body of a huge man, now completely covered with the blanket.

"It's Buster!" Frank heard everyone murmur as the stretcher passed by them. "Buster Owens! Burned in his own mill!"

"Oh, no." Frank turned to Callie. Her face revealed a mixture of horror at Owens's death and relief that it wasn't her uncle. Suddenly she began to cry. Frank put an arm around her.

"He must have died from smoke inhalation," Joe shouted to them, dazed. "I wonder what started the fire?"

Before anyone could answer, they were interrupted by Stan Shaw. "Callie!" he was shouting

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as he jogged toward them from the parking lot. '*Are you okay?"

"Uncle Stan!" Callie broke free from Frank to run to hug her uncle. Stan Shaw looked perfectly fine, though he was obviously stunned and confused by all that was going on.

*'I don't believe it," Stan said when Callie told him what had happened. *'I was talking with Buster less than an hour ago. Poor guy."

Just then, another explosion sounded from the mill. Glass from several windows was blown out, and a few of the people near the front of the crowd cried out as shards dug into their skin.

''They've been cut!" someone shouted. "Stop the ambulance!"

The ambulance carrying Buster Owens had already disappeared up the road, though.

"Stan Shaw!" Freddy Zackarias, the skinny, loud-mouthed logger from the general store, shouted. "You've got a first-aid kit in your truck, don't you?"

"Right!" Stan turned to the teenagers. "Come on! I have some blankets, too. Let someone else take over that hose."

Frank, Joe, and Callie quickly transferred the hose to waiting hands and followed Stan at a fast jog to his truck on the edge of the lot.

"Hey, Stan," Frank called as he caught up with the older man. "I meant to ask you something. We saw your truck here earlier. What were you—"

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''Yes?" Stan's hand froze as he opened the back of the truck. "What was I what, Frank?"

Frank leaned into the truck to pull blankets out. ''What were you doing here? We thought maybe Buster Owens was—" Frank's words died on his lips. The blanket he was holding had been partially concealing something.

Frank stared at what had been hidden beneath the blankets. There, beside a first-aid kit, was an open crate. In the crate lay more than a dozen sticks of dynamite!

Chapter

''What's up?" Joe asked, reaching past his brother for the first-aid kit. When he saw what was inside he gasped out loud.

"Excuse me, Stan. What are you doing with a truck full of dynamite?"

"A what?" CalHe demanded, peering around Frank and Joe. As she saw the dynamite and took in the situation her mouth dropped open. "Uncle Stan," she said in a deadly calm voice, "what's that doing there?"

"I don't know," her uncle said, sweat forming on his forehead. "I've never seen it before. I swear!"

"Your truck was here eariier," Joe said quietly, almost as though talking to himself. "We saw it. After the explosion we noticed it was gone."

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He was interrupted by the screech of a walkie-talkie, and spun around to see a sheriff approaching with a radio in his hand.

"Uh, Sheriff F-Ferris!" Stan stammered, turning his back on the truck. "Can I help you?"

''You sure can, Stan," the sheriff said, nodding briefly to Callie and the boys. "I heard you have some first-aid supplies we can use. My deputy took my kit out and forgot to replace it. They've got all the injured folks laid out in the parking lot right now, but the nearest ambulance is thirty miles away. Looks hke we're going to have to fix 'em up ourselves."

"Right. Uh, you know my niece, Callie." As Joe watched, Stan pulled Callie in front of him and used her almost as a shield. "And these two boys are friends of hers from back East. Frank and Joe Hardy—their dad's a detective!"

"Pleased to meet you," the sheriff said hurriedly, touching his hat to the Hardys. He hesitated midgesture. "Your dad's not Fenton Hardy, is he? The guy who solved that big show-business case down in Los Angeles a few years back?"

"Yes, sir," Joe said.

"Well, well! It's a shame he's not here now to help investigate this catastrophe," the sheriff said. "There must be half a million dollars' worth of damage here so far, and that's just to the buildings alone. We can thank our stars the place was closed today."

He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his

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brow. When he took it down it was black from soot and sweat. '"Vd better get those supplies. You don't mind, do you?" he asked Stan as he edged past him to the truck.

Stan, Callie, and the Hardys watched helplessly as the sheriff leaned inside.

He froze. Behind him, Stan coughed.

'*Stan,'' the sheriff said gravely, straightening up. "What's this dynamite doing in here?"