The B Girls (12 page)

Jane abandoned her attempt at humor. "So what
exactly are we looking for?"

Lucy didn't really know what to expect but she
tried to look encouraging. "Something that looks like it might have been a
clearing for a cabin or a homestead. Maybe a pile of rocks that used to be a
chimney." She shrugged. "Could even be a chimney."

Mae was doing a little dance-shuffle in place while
they talked.

"What's wrong with you?" Jane asked.

"I have to pee," Mae said as she crossed
and uncrossed her legs.

"So go," Jane said with a wave toward the
underbrush.

Mae's eyes widened and she shook her head. "I'm
not going in there. There could be snakes."

"So pee next to that tree over there. We
promise not to look. Right Lucy?"

Lucy nodded. "I'm sure we'll all have to go
sometime."

"But what about toilet paper?"

"Biodegradable in your pack," Jane said.

"But I think you're supposed to carry it out
with you. I think I read that somewhere in the rules of the wilderness
area," Lucy said.

Mae shook her head more violently. "I'm not
taking dirty toilet paper with me!"

"I thought Girl Scouts knew all these
rules," Jane said.

Mae just continued to dance and shake her head.

Lucy loved Mae dearly but she tended to be very
concrete. Thinking outside the box wasn't her strong suit. "Then just
scratch out a little hole and bury it."

Mae stomped over to a tree with a relatively clear
spot beneath the lowest branches. "You two better not watch."

"We've seen it before. We're not
interested," Jane said.

Mae made a disgusted sound and went about her
business.

Jane and Lucy discussed which direction to begin
the search.

"I'm not sure it makes that much
difference."

"I'm sure you're right but it looks like
easier going that way," Jane said as she pointed.

"Suits me."

"Have you two decided which way we're
going?" Mae asked as she pulled a wet wipe from the package to clean her
hands.

"Along this ridge to the south," Lucy
said. "The trees thin a little in that direction."

In this case, thin was a relative term. The trees
were far enough apart for larger, thicker, underbrush to take over. There
wasn't even anything like the pitiful excuse for a trail they'd followed to
this point.

"What I wouldn't give for a machete wielding
mountain man," Jane said.

"With or without teeth?" Lucy asked.

"Okay, maybe not a mountain man. How about a
wilderness guide with an Australian accent and a nice ass?"

"Dreamer."

"A girl can hope."

Lucy pointed to the wipe in Mae's hands. "That
you have to take out with you."

Mae reached into a side pocket of her pack.
"Never leave home without Ziplock bags."

Jane vibrated in a mock shudder. "That's just a
scary philosophy."

"Well, they came in handy didn't they?"
Mae said.

Lucy put up a hand to stop them. "Let's see
what we can find."

They slogged through shin-deep leaves, tripped over
snaking brambles and pushed past waist-high shrubs. To make things worse, they
couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. Lucy had never been in woods like
this. Hard to believe they were only a couple of hour's drive from Atlanta. She
led the way and paused every time a break in the trees gave her an opportunity
to check the GPS.

"How far are we going?" Jane asked.

"I have no idea. It's hard to judge distances
when you can't see more than ten feet in either direction." Lucy pushed
her way between the latest set of bushes blocking the way and stopped dead.

Mae bumped her in the back. "What?"

Jane stepped up behind them, looking over their
shoulders. "I'll be damned. I think you did it Lucy."

Lucy stared in disbelief for several seconds before
pushing forward.

They stumbled out into a clearing, roughly square
and fifty yards across. The most amazing part was the remains of a fireplace.
The chimney was mostly gone. Only a small stub remained but the fireplace
looked almost whole.

"So you think this is the right place?"
Jane asked.

"Pretty sure. Belle's notes were pretty
detailed."

"Well then, let's check it out," Jane
said as she squeezed past Lucy into the clearing.

Lucy followed and Mae brought up the rear.

Up close, the fireplace wasn't as intact as it
appeared from a distance. Weeds grew up through the shattered chimney and there
were large stones missing from the surface of the fireplace.

Lucy stepped up and put her hand on the chimney.
"Amazing. I can't believe we pulled it off." She turned to Mae and
Jane. "Now if we can just find a clue about the Declaration or Belle . .
."

They walked around to the far side of the chimney.
The view was spectacular even with the trees in full summer green. Lucy was in
awe thinking about how it would look in October when the fall color peaked. In
winter the view wouldn't be colorful, but without the foliage you'd be able to
see forever.

"You have to hand it to Paul and Molly Morris,
they knew how to pick a spot," Jane said.

"This must have been the back of the cabin.
Why not have the front facing the view?" Mae said.

"Who knows?" Lucy said. "But look
over there, across the valley."

Jane and Mae followed Lucy's pointing finger to a
rock formation on a hillside across a small valley.

"It looks like two people hugging," Mae
said.

"Looks like a pile of rocks to me," Jane
said.

"Don't you have any romance in your
soul?" Mae asked.

"Romance is for suckers," Jane said.

Lucy shook her head. "That is not a healthy
attitude. Even after what Gary did to me, I still believe in romance." Well,
in theory anyway, and compared to the fear that Belle was in physical danger,
Lucy's Gary troubles were barely a blip on her personal radar screen.

"And I don't think
that
is a healthy attitude." Jane turned away from the view
and walked back toward the fireplace.

"Wait," Lucy said. "Remember the
letter? The reference to Lover's Cave? I bet it's over there somewhere."

Mae stared at the formation. "You're right. I
don't see a cave but I bet the opening is there."

"So we need to find the map or clue that Paul
Morris hid under the hearthstone," Jane said.

Lucy turned back to the fireplace, dug around with
her toe and quickly found the hearth. Obviously Belle hadn't been here before
them so she was hopeful they'd find the map Paul stashed. "This hiding place
must be a family trait."

"Let's get busy," Jane said. "The
sooner we find that map, the sooner we get back to air conditioning."

Lucy wasn't ruling out the possibility they'd have
more searching to do after they found the map but she'd break that news to Jane
if and when she had to.

After pulling up weeds around the hearthstones,
they found one marked with Paul's initials.

"Well, don't just sit there! Let's pull the
stone up," Mae said.

They tried to pry the stone loose from its dirt
bed.

It refused to budge.

"We'll just have to dig," Mae said.

"With what?" Jane asked. "Our
whistles?"

"A stick or a rock." Mae stood and walked
around to the other side of the fireplace. She dug through the weeds with the
toe of her shoe looking for something to use.

It didn't take her long to find a palm-sized rock
with one pointy corner. "This should work. All I have to do is scrape
around the edge of the stone."

Jane and Lucy watched her for a few seconds,
exchanged a look, and went to find primitive digging tools of their own.

Lucy scraped dirt away from the edge of the stone
and tried not to get her hopes up. Between Gary leaving and Belle going missing
it didn't seem her stars were exactly aligned in a positive way at the moment.

They managed to scrape a one inch deep trench
around the two exposed sides of the hearth stone, but they still couldn't pry
it loose.

"Damn," Jane said. "I think we need
real tools. Like a shovel and a pry bar."

"If we can just find the bottom edge and get a
gap underneath I think we can do it," Lucy said. No way was she leaving
without finding out what was under this stone.

"I think I see the edge," Mae said a few
minutes later.

Jane crossed her fingers.

Lucy leaned close and squinted at the stone.
"You're right." She assaulted the area with her rock and before long
had a gap large enough to get a grip on the stone. "Let me see if I can
get enough leverage to pull it up."

The other two moved back. Lucy stood and put one
foot on either side of the stone, crouched down, slid her fingers into the gap
under the stone and pulled. She put her whole body into it, using her legs the
way a weightlifter does.

Just as she started to wonder if she was going to
tear a muscle or burst a blood vessel, the stone moved. Just a tremor at first
and then it tore free with a sudden soundless pop. She toppled back and wound
up on her ass with the stone teetering on her left thigh.

Jane and Mae leaned over the hole to get the first
look and cracked their heads together.

"Ouch!"

"Damn it!"

"That's what you get," Lucy said. She
pushed the stone off her leg and got to her knees.

At first glance, she thought the hole was empty but
then she caught a glimpse of blue. Blue painted metal to be exact.

She reached out and brushed away more dirt. It was
a square, scratched, and battered, cookie tin. Lucy pulled it out and worked
the top off. Inside was a folded paper that turned out to be a hand-drawn map.

"This has to be the map of the cave where Paul
hid the Declaration--at least I hope it's the Declaration," Lucy said as she
examined the map. She looked back across the narrow gorge to the rock
formation, even more convinced that Lover's Cave was there. "Do you think
we have time to check it out today?"

Jane shook her head. "No way. If we try to
hike over there from here it could take hours and from the look of that map,
the cave is pretty big."

"So, we come back tomorrow if Belle doesn't
turn up?" Lucy said.

"Let's just pray she shows up. I'm not the
outdoor type," Jane said.

"Well, I hope she shows up too but even if she
does I want to find that document," Mae said.

"Then we're agreed," Lucy said. She
prayed Belle would turn up with some wild story by way of explanation but the
more time that passed, the less likely that seemed.

"Yeah, if we make it back to the van in one piece
before dark," Jane said. "I don't like some of the sounds coming out
of the bushes around here. It's creepy."

"But-" Mae started.

"She's right. We-"

"Shhh!" Jane cut them off.

"What?" Lucy whispered.

Jane gestured to the underbrush on the far side of the
clearing. "Listen."

They all looked in the direction Jane pointed,
straining to hear.

A rustling sounded and a laurel bush five yards
into the woods shivered.

"Probably a squirrel," Mae kept her voice
low. "Chip says sometimes when he's hunting they sound like a whole herd
of deer."

More rustling. The shivering underbrush was
rippling in their direction like a wave.

"I don't think that's a squirrel," Jane
said.

The wave of green rolled to the edge of the
clearing and a black nose appeared followed by a broad head.

"Shit," Jane said.

"Aw," Mae crooned. "It's just a bear
cub."

"Exactly." Lucy could practically see the
light bulb flash above Mae's head as she put the rest together.

A bigger wave and a louder rustling came in the
wake of the first.

"Mama," Mae whispered. "What do we
do?"

"Don't ask me," Jane said. "You're
the Girl Scout leader."

"Brownie leader and we didn't get that far in
outdoor skills."

"Ladies, now isn't the time," Lucy said.

Mama bear stepped out of the brush, front legs
stiff, teeth bared.

Lucy didn't think it was a smile.

No one moved.

The bear lifted her head, opened her mouth wide and
snapped her teeth together.

"I think we should back up toward the trail.
Very slowly." Lucy kept her voice low.

The bear snapped her teeth again.

All three of them straightened out of their
crouches.