Mystery on Blizzard Mountain (3 page)

Jessie jumped up and righted the chair. Then she put the sugar packets back in the bowl.

“Thanks,” said Chuck. Then he began to limp awkwardly toward the bathroom in the hall between the restaurant and the general store.

“If you ask me, he broke his ankle just being plain clumsy,” said Bobcat.

“Ghosts. Bad luck. Phooey,” said Maris, who’d just come in. “The only reason people still talk about that old story is because nothing ever happens in Blizzard Gap. The last big crime around here was when someone painted the doors of the firehouse blue!”

“No, it wasn’t,” Rayanne said suddenly.

Everyone looked at Rayanne. She said, “Remember the burglary at the Seven Mountains Museum over in the county seat?”

Maris said, “How did you know about the robbery, Rayanne? You didn’t move to Blizzard Gap until after it happened.”

“Heard about it,” Rayanne said. “All the news in town goes through this diner and a waitress is just naturally going to hear most of it.”

“Folks around here are saying it was the work of professionals,” said Bobcat. “I mean, look at what the robbers took. Gold bricks. You have to plan a robbery to haul away gold bricks. They’re heavy!”

“The museum didn’t have much security,” remarked Rayanne. “It couldn’t have been such a hard place to break into. They say there was no sign of a break-in.”

“Doesn’t that just prove the burglars were professionals?” asked Chuck, who’d come back in and settled again at his table. “Probably a whole gang of thieves. From a big city somewhere.”

“What else did the robbers take?” asked Henry.

“Nothing else except a purple velvet cape. But it was historically priceless,” said Rayanne. “It was worn by Jenny Lind, a famous singer who visited the town once. She left her cape behind with the owner of the old opera house as a memento.”

“Maybe that’s what the robber used to escape!” said Chuck, and several people snickered. “Put on the velvet cape and flew away.” Chuck flapped his arms, enjoying the audience.

Maris rolled her eyes. “Time to go,” she said to the Aldens and Bobcat. They finished their hot chocolate and got up to go.

“Let’s not forget the robbery wasn’t actually in Blizzard Gap. It was all the way over in Millpond,” Bobcat reminded everyone as they walked out of the diner.

“That’s about as close as we get to crime these days,” said Maris.

But then she stopped so quickly that Bobcat bumped right into her. “Oh, no!” she said. “What happened to my truck?”

The red pickup truck was just where they had left it. But now it was tilted to one side, like a sinking ship.

“Look,” said Henry. “Both tires on one side are flat.”

“Great!” fumed Maris. “This is just great!”

“It’ll be okay,” said Jessie. “We can fix the tires.”

“Better yet, I’ll get Lulu the mechanic to come over from the gas station. She can patch and pump those tires in no time flat,” Bobcat said.

“Oh, okay,” Maris said grumpily.

While Bobcat was gone, the Aldens all examined the tires very carefully. But they couldn’t find a nail or a piece of glass or anything that would have made a hole in the tires so they would go flat.

“Someone must have let the air out of the tires,” said Henry at last.

“That’s what I think,” Maris agreed. She folded her arms. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone was out to get me.”

“But why would anyone do that?” asked Violet.

Just then, a big white tow truck pulled up. Lulu got out of the tow truck, along with Bobcat.

“Bad luck,” said Lulu, raising her eyebrows. With that, she went to work pumping air back into the tires. “No leaks,” Lulu reported when she finished. “Looks like someone played a mean trick on you, Maris, and just let the air out of those tires.”

Maris sighed. “Let’s get going,” she said.

“Or we won’t even be able to start today.”

“I just hope we don’t have any more bad luck,” said Violet in a low voice.

Jessie frowned. “Bad luck? No. I think it’s more than that. A dead battery. Two flat tires.”

“And all that talk about ghosts on Blizzard Mountain,” said Henry. “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want us to go to Blizzard Mountain.”

“Is it a mystery?” asked Benny eagerly.

“It might be, Benny,” said Henry. “It just might be a mountain of a mystery.”

Bobcat had picked up his truck at the park ranger office in town. Now he led the way in his truck, while Maris and the Aldens followed. The narrow winding mountain roads seemed to get bumpier and narrower with each passing mile. At last they came to a bare patch of dirt along one side of the road. Bobcat pulled over. So did Maris.

“Where’s the trail?” Benny asked.

“Right there,” Maris said, pointing.

Benny squinted and frowned. He didn’t see anything but trees.

They put on their packs and reknotted their hiking boots and they each took a drink of water. Then Maris led the way toward the trees. She stepped between two trees and over a small boulder, and there it was: a faint trail threading through the trees.

Jessie could see white blazes of paint on the trees before them now, marking the trail ahead.

“It’s almost like a secret trail,” said Violet.

“There’s been a rough trail here ever since I can remember,” Maris told them. She made a face. “People using it to look for Stagecoach George’s treasure, I guess.”

They were passing a spooky-looking group of twisted dead trees. Jessie couldn’t help asking, “Has anybody else ever seen the ghost of Stagecoach George? Besides Chuck?”

“People
say
they have,” said Maris.

“Like that couple that got lost on Blizzard Mountain a couple years back,” Bobcat said. “When the rescue team found them, they both said they’d seen a ghost.”

“They’d been lost in the woods for three long, cold days,” said Maris. “They were so scared they thought
you
were a ghost at first. Ghosts don’t exist, Bobcat. Keep that in mind.”

“Some of the other rangers have seen and heard strange things in these mountains,” Bobcat argued stubbornly.

“But not ghosts,” said Maris.

“I’d like to see a ghost,” said Benny. “Then we could catch it. And if it was Stagecoach George, we could make him help us find the treasure.”

Maris looked over her shoulder in surprise at Benny. “You’re not afraid of ghosts?”

“No!” said Benny. “Boo to ghosts!”

Everyone laughed.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” said Bobcat. “It’s always good to have brave company in the mountains.”

They walked quietly after that. Bobcat pointed out red squirrels that dashed up trees as they went by. Jessie saw a crow flapping heavily through the branches above them. Something slid into a stream with a splash when the hikers scrambled across the rocks in the streambed.

After a while, Violet said, “It’s so quiet. And empty!”

“Oh, animals are everywhere around us,” Bobcat said. “They can see us. Hear us, too, probably from miles away.”

“I haven’t seen any animals except squirrels and crows,” Benny said.

“But they see you,” said Bobcat. “Right now, they’re sitting back and saying, ‘Now, who do you suppose that is, walking right through our front yard?’”

Jessie laughed. “We’ll have to be good guests and not make a mess,” she said.

“Right,” Maris said over her shoulder.

They hiked, stopped for lunch by another stream, then hiked some more. It got later and later.

Benny’s feet began to hurt.

Suddenly Henry said, “I see a house!”

“The lean-to,” said Maris. “Good. We’ve got just enough daylight left to set up camp.” She led the way off the trail to a rough low building that looked like half of a triangle made of logs. A slanted log roof and log walls ran down to meet a log floor on the sides and in the back. The open front of the lean-to faced a stone fire pit.

“We’ll camp here tonight,” said Maris.

“Do we put our tent inside?” asked Benny.

Bobcat laughed. “Nope. The only things you put inside are balsam tree branches. You put those on the floor and put your sleeping bags on top. I’m going to put my tent right over there, and I’m going to put balsam tree branches in it, too.”

Henry shivered. “It’s getting colder,” he said. “Let’s build a fire right away.”

“We need to hurry,” Maris said. “It’s getting dark.”

Quickly everyone went to work. Soon the lean-to was piled with soft, sweet-smelling balsam and a fire was roaring in front of the lean-to. They sat down on the edge of the lean-to in front of the fire and made a dinner of soup mix cooked with boiling water over the fire, cheese, fruit, and bars of chocolate for dessert.

After dinner, the Aldens and Bobcat set out to explore the woods around their campsite. They had gone a little way when suddenly Jessie held out her hand. “Look! It’s snowing!” she cried.

“Time to get back to the lean-to,” Henry said.

They hurried back to camp. As they got closer, they saw Maris standing at the edge of the light cast by the fire. She turned a big flashlight in their direction and said, “Bobcat? Is that you?”

“It’s us,” said Bobcat.

“What is it?” Jessie asked. “You look worried.”

“We weren’t lost,” Benny said.

“It wasn’t that.” Maris smiled. “I thought I heard something.”

Everyone stopped to listen. They heard wind whispering in the trees. They saw shadows made by the fire leap up in the darkness. They felt the cold touch of snowflakes.

But nothing more.

At last Maris said, “It must have been an animal.”

“That’s about the only thing that would be up here,” Bobcat said.

“True,” said Maris. “Okay. Let’s get some rest.”

Maris banked the fire so it would stay hot through the night. Then everyone got into their sleeping bags on top of the sweet-smelling balsam branches.

The night grew still. Through sleepy eyes, Benny watched the snow falling through the dim firelight.

He was almost asleep when Violet sat straight up and cried, “What’s that?”

Everyone woke up. Maris, Henry, and Jessie switched on their flashlights.

The beams poked holes in the darkness. But nobody saw anything. “I heard someone walking!” Violet insisted. “Over there.” She pointed.

Bobcat came around the side of the lean-to from his tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Violet heard someone,” Henry told him. He pointed.

“I’ll check on the food,” Bobcat said. “Maybe that’s what you heard, an animal doing a little grocery shopping.”

They watched Bobcat’s flashlight bob away from the lean-to. A few minutes later, he came back. “Nothing,” he said.

“I
know
I heard something,” Violet said.

“It must have been the wind,” Maris told her. “Or some small animal.”

Everyone lay back down. One by one, the campers began to fall asleep.

Until Violet sat up once more. “There it is again,” she cried.

This time, Maris walked to the edge of the clearing and shone her flashlight beam into the darkness all around. Everything was still and quiet. Bobcat called from his tent, “Everything okay. Maris?”

“Okay, Bobcat,” she called back. To Violet, she said, “Nothing’s here. Or if it is, it’s run away.”

“I know I heard something,” Violet repeated.

Jessie put her hand on Violet’s arm. “It’s just some animal,” she told her sister. “The animals won’t hurt us.”

“It didn’t sound like an animal,” Violet said. “It sounded big. Like someone walking.”

“A deer, maybe,” said Maris, yawning.

“Or a bear?” Benny asked.

“If it was a bear, it’d make a lot more noise. It’s no bear,” Maris told him. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Everyone lay back down again. This time, it took longer for them to fall asleep. But at last, only Violet was awake. She lay with her eyes wide open, listening hard. She listened and listened.

But the woods were silent except for the creak of branches in the cold wind.

Then she heard a sound. She sat up, but she didn’t say anything. She strained to hear.

The sound stopped. Violet began to relax. She lay back down.
Just a raccoon or something,
she told herself sleepily.

At last she fell asleep.

“Oh, great! That’s just great!”

Bobcat was shouting. Violet sat up and blinked. A thin frosting of snow decorated everything. Tracks made patterns in the snow.

Maris stood by the warm fire heating a pan of water. “What is it, Bobcat?” Maris called.

A moment later, Bobcat came into sight. His hair was wild and he looked upset and angry.

Benny and Henry were right behind him. “It was a bear!” Benny said gleefully, before Bobcat could answer Maris.

Jessie came trotting around the other corner of the lean-to, holding her toothbrush. “Where’s a bear?” she asked.

But Bobcat was shaking his head. “If it was a bear, I’ll eat my hat,” he said. “No bear is that neat.”

“Did something eat the food?” asked Maris.

“You guessed it,” Bobcat said. “About half of it is gone. Clean gone. No broken-open packets of soup, no dried noodles scattered on the ground. Just gone.”