The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (18 page)

I liked to play games, but I had a better
idea. I said, “Have you ever been to Ralph’s place?”

She shook her head.

“Let’s go there. I’ll show you the barn and
everything. It’s got a great hayloft with a basketball court.”

“I’ve heard about the court. Some of the
members of the team have practiced there.”

“Change into old clothes. The hayloft is full
of hay—which when you think about it is appropriate.”

“Give me five minutes.”

She ran upstairs. She was actually gone ten
minutes, but I let it pass because she was a girl and girls take
longer to dress than boys. I was getting more considerate of others
as I grew older. She returned wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt
that said “University of Rochester” on it.

It took us five minutes to drive to the farm.
I pulled into the driveway, turned around, and parked on the
street, since I would be driving Sylvia home later. Aunt Dorothy
was teaching at Atherton High today and wasn’t home yet. I wanted
to introduce Sylvia to her.

I led the way to the barn. We walked through
the ground floor to the old metal ladder that led to the hayloft. I
went up first, pushed the heavy trapdoor to its vertical position,
and secured it to the hook on the wall. I turned on the floodlight
and helped Sylvia exit from the ladder as she clambered up.

“Hey, this place is all right,” Sylvia said,
looking around. “Can we shoot some baskets?”

I was surprised at her request, but I grabbed
a basketball and passed it to her. I was even more surprised to see
that she had a good two-hand set shot. We played a couple of games
of HORSE.

When she beat me in the second game, I said,
“Don’t you know you’re always supposed to let boys win?”

“Sorry,” she said, giving me an impish grin.
“I guess I’m just too competitive.”

I pointed out the other forms of recreation
available in the hayloft. To my increasing surprise, she wanted to
slide down the haystack. We did this several times. I was the one
who suggested that we go down in tandem. Since I had done it with
Kate, somehow it didn’t seem fair that I not do it with Sylvia.

She enjoyed this, yelling on the way down. I
found myself enjoying it, also. I felt a spark between us, but
without the guilt. That was good news. I took her up on the hay
bales on the other side of the hayloft and pointed out the fort
that Kate and I had made, although I didn’t mention Kate.

She crawled inside, so I crawled in after
her. We snuggled together in the dark and it seemed the right thing
to do. Then Sylvia started to talk.

“I don’t know how I would have gotten through
the last ten days without you. Most of my so-called friends seem to
have been fair-weather versions.”

I thought of Natalie but didn’t say
anything.

She talked more about her feelings. Feelings
of betrayal and feelings that she must have done something wrong. I
could see tears glistening in her eyes in the dark of the fort,
even though she was trying to hold them back. She looked so sweet
that I kissed her. It felt good, and she was a whole-hearted
participant, so we continued to kiss.

When we paused for a moment, she said, “I
hope you’re not just taking pity on me.”

“I hope you’re not just taking pity on
me
.”

We both laughed.

I needed to say something more. “All
seriousness aside, you’ve shown a lot of…courage standing up to
everybody.”

“Thank-you,” she said, softly. Then her tone
changed as she said, “You don’t have a girlfriend stashed away back
in Atherton, by any chance, do you?”

I could truthfully reply that I didn’t. We
kissed some more. I found myself mentally comparing Sylvia to Kate.
They were both good looking, but Sylvia was more mature, a more
fully formed person. And she had guts. Kate was a cuddler and a
clinger. I had made the right choice.

After a while, we came out of the fort. I
walked over to the northwest corner of the barn to see if there
were any gaps in the hay bales.

I said, “Are you aware that Ed is also my
cousin?”

“No. You’re always keeping secrets from
me.”

That made us laugh. Everything was amusing
now.

“Well, I think he’s my fourth cousin, so he’s
not that close, but there’s a legend that involves both of our
families. I can’t tell you the details, but I may need assistance
from somebody who isn’t a relative.”

“Does this have some connection to
Ralph?”

“Yes, it does. Anyway, it’s the old story of
buried treasure. The treasure is supposed to be in this hayloft,
buried underneath these bales. I want to see if there’s a way to
get to the bottom.”

I moved several bales away from the corner.
There was a small gap between the next level of bales and the wall.
I figured it was over fifteen feet to the floor of the hayloft from
there. I went to where the end of the rope that came across the
length of the barn, under the peak of the roof, was coiled on top
of the bales and dragged a section over to the corner.

“Gary, are you about to do something
dangerous?” Sylvia asked.

“I just want to see if I can lower myself to
the floor. I can use the rope to help me.”

I snaked the rope down into the crack between
the bales and the wall.

“This is not a good idea,” Sylvia said. “I
didn’t sign on with you to watch you kill yourself.”

“I heard a car drive up a while ago. That
means Aunt Dorothy’s home. If I get into trouble, you can go and
get her.”

“Great. That makes me the messenger. And you
know what they do to messengers who bring bad news.”

“Okay, I’ll only go down a little way. I just
want to see what it’s like.”

I took hold of the rope and carefully lowered
myself a few feet into the crack. I could see already that it was
going to be a tight fit. The roof of the barn slanted, so I wasn’t
going straight down, but each layer of bales was offset to utilize
the extra space.

“How are you going to die?” Sylvia said. “Let
me count the ways. One, you might suffocate. Two, the bales might
shift and crush you. Three, you might get stuck and not be able to
get out. How many others do you want?”

I lowered myself a few more feet until my
head was about even with the top of the bales. I started to sweat.
I didn’t think of myself as being claustrophobic, but the fear of
being trapped almost overwhelmed me. I edged sideways a few inches,
with difficulty, to where there appeared to be more room, clinging
tightly to the rope. There wasn’t any more room.

“I’m coming out in just a minute,” I said. “I
just want to check one thing.”

I didn’t want to admit that Sylvia was right.
I had placed a small flashlight from the car in my pocket before
coming up here. I had been thinking about doing something like
this. I needed a better foothold, so that most of my weight
wouldn’t be held by my arms. I found a small crack in the boards
supporting the roof shingles and wedged a shoe into it.

I let go of the rope with one hand and fished
the flashlight out of my pocket. I turned it on and shone it
downward. I tried to see all the way to the floor of the loft, but
the slant of the roof and the offsetting bales prevented me from
doing that. I ducked my head to see better.

“Gary, what are you doing?” Sylvia’s voice
showed panic as I disappeared from view.

“All right; I’m coming up.”

I was defeated for the moment. As I raised
the hand holding it, the flashlight knocked against the roof and
fell out of my grasp. We could hear it bounce off the wall several
times on its way to the floor. Sylvia screamed an almost silent
scream.

“That could have been you,” she said.

That was an exaggeration, of course, but I
was sufficiently chastised. I was ready to come up. I grabbed the
rope with both hands and pulled, while pushing with my foot. I
didn’t budge. The sweat was streaming down my face.

Sylvia lay on a bale, reached down, and tried
to wrap her arms around my upper body. She couldn’t get a good
grip, it was an awkward angle, and besides, her hundred pounds
weren’t enough to offset my greater weight. When she pulled on me,
she started sliding down the crack. I made her stop.

My arms were getting tired of supporting my
weight. If I let go of the rope, I would slide down out of sight.
Then Sylvia’s fears might come true.

“Go get Aunt Dorothy,” I said.

“I’m not going to leave you. If I could move
this bale,” she said, indicating the one next to the one I was
wedged against, “then we could move that one away from you.”

“There should be a hay hook on a rung of the
ladder that leads up to the window,” I said.

The rungs were actually pieces of wood nailed
to the studs on the side of the barn. I hoped that’s where I had
placed the metal hook after Kate and I finished building the
fort.

Sylvia scrambled over to the ladder and found
the hay hook. The problem was that I didn’t think she had the
strength to lift a bale vertically that weighed as much as she did.
Especially since it was surrounded by other bales. She dug the
point of the hook into the bale and pulled upward.

At first, the bale didn’t move. Sylvia placed
one foot on each bale adjacent to the offending bale and, using all
her weight, gave a superhuman pull. The bale came slowly to a
vertical position. With another show of strength, she shoved it out
of the way.

Now I pushed against the bale that held me in
place. I didn’t have good leverage. Sylvia grabbed the wires
holding the bale together and pulled at the same time I pushed. It
rolled out of the way, and I was able to get my elbows on top of
the bale below it and with a supreme effort scramble out of the
crack.

We both lay panting. We looked at each other.
Her face was red, and, of course, she was covered with hay.

“Wonder Woman,” I said. “You must eat rivets
for breakfast.”

“Yeah, and it’s a good thing I do. Promise me
you won’t try anything stupid when I’m not here.”

“That was a good flashlight.”

“I hope I don’t look as bad as you do.”

“You look worse than I do.”

She attacked me but ended up brushing me off.
I brushed her off. We brushed each other off. And then we
kissed.

“I’d like you to meet Aunt Dorothy,” I said
when we had finished the job.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I want her to meet you. And see what a nice
girl you are.” And, hopefully, pass that information along to my
father before he heard about Sylvia from Dr. Graves.

***

I introduced Sylvia to Aunt Dorothy as the
person who had shown me around when I arrived at Carter High and
made me feel at home. I also mentioned that I had been driving her
to school. Better to hear it from me than somebody else.

Aunt Dorothy was very cordial. She asked
Sylvia questions about school and didn’t say anything about
communists. I was hopeful that she would give a good report to my
father.

I looked out the kitchen window and saw the
Drucquers’ old car sitting in the driveway. I pointed to it and
asked Aunt Dorothy, “What’s that doing here?”

“Oh, Edward is here. He asked if he could
walk down the lane. I told him I didn’t know where you were, but to
go ahead.”

“Did he say why he wanted to walk down the
lane?”

“He said something about looking for the
bubbles in the creek. I’m not sure why this sudden interest in
bubbles.”

“When do you have to be home?” I asked
Sylvia.

“Not for a while. Let’s take a walk down the
lane.”

Once outside, Sylvia asked me, “Why is Ed
looking for bubbles?”

“You tell me, and we’ll both know.”

We walked hand in hand. It felt natural.
There was a cool breeze, but, still hot from our recent exertions,
we weren’t bothered by it. It was usually windy in this part of the
country. The windy city, Chicago, had nothing on Buffalo.

Fences made of crisscrossing wires ran along
both sides of the lane, held in place by wooden posts. In the field
on one side of us, green shoots from a crop of winter wheat showed
above the ground. On the other side was the stubble from cornstalks
that had been cut up for silage. An oak tree down the lane still
had colorful leaves, although many of them were on the ground.

I stopped Sylvia and pointed to a bare patch
of earth in one of the fields. A movement had caught my eye. I
directed her gaze to the furry, brown woodchuck that was sitting
beside his hole, fat and sassy in preparation for winter.

“If I had Ralph’s .22 I’d take care of him,”
I said. “He eats the crops.”

“Oh, let him alone. This is his farm,
too.”

The woodchuck sensed our presence and
scurried into his hole. We walked on toward where the lane crossed
the creek on a concrete bridge. I knew the path the creek took
through the fields and was the first to spot Ed, about thirty yards
from the lane. We turned into a bare field through an opening in
the fence and walked toward him. He was intent on watching
something in the water and hadn’t seen us yet.

As we approached, he took a cigarette lighter
and held it to what looked like a small branch of a tree wrapped in
a page of a newspaper. The newspaper flared up and Ed held it over
the water. There was a whoosh of flame that seemed to come from the
water. Ed jumped backwards onto the bank of the creek, and the
flame went out. He landed on his back. As he recovered himself, he
saw us and looked sheepish.

“Hi, Gary. Hi, Sylvia. What are you two doing
here?”

“That’s just what we were going to ask you,”
I said. “Are you trying to prove that water burns?”

“Not quite. Look at this.”

He pointed into the creek. As we came close
to the bank, I could see bubbles coming up out of the meandering
stream.

“Is there a fish down there?” Sylvia
asked.