Part 12 (1/2)
”Jump, Arminda! Now Now!”
And I pitched off the bicycle and rolled onto the shoulder of the road just as I saw the rope snap taut less than a foot in front of me. Clawing at air, I grabbed the first solid thing I touched, which happened to be a pine sapling, and clung to it, trying not to look down at the ravine that yawned below.
Chapter Fifteen.
I closed my eyes and smelled pine, felt resin sticky in my hands. closed my eyes and smelled pine, felt resin sticky in my hands.
”There's a root just above you to the right,” Augusta said. ”Grab it-hurry! Now put your left foot on that rock.... Can you feel it? Good! No, don't look down!”
I reached for the root just as the sapling broke with a loud crack, and the pine tree gave way in my other hand. Fear sliced through me, cold and sharp, as if I'd been stabbed with an icicle.
My foot found the rock about the same time my heart found its rhythm again, and I slowly pulled myself up to lie dizzy and breathless on a mat of dead-looking vines. Kudzu, I hoped, but with my luck, they were probably poison ivy. Augusta stood above me and had the grace to look at least a little worried.
”Playing it a little close, aren't we?” I said, still gasping. I dug my toes into the rocky soil and did my best to burrow into the earth. Earth is good. Falling to it is not.
”I suppose it was feel and go there for a minute, but you're going to be just fine.” Now Now she reached down to give me a hand up. ”Let's don't make a mountain out of a gopher hole.” she reached down to give me a hand up. ”Let's don't make a mountain out of a gopher hole.”
The part of me that wasn't still trembling was grateful to be alive. Both parts were confused. ”I guess you mean touch touch and go.” I crawled painfully to my knees and noticed for the first time the bloodstained tear in my pants. ”As for the gopher hole-” and go.” I crawled painfully to my knees and noticed for the first time the bloodstained tear in my pants. ”As for the gopher hole-”
”Never mind that!” Augusta skirted my bike where it lay beside the road and propelled me to the other side. ”Somebody wanted to kill you, Arminda. We have to get you to safety before they try something else!”
I looked back to see the rope, now slack, still attached to a tree on the side of the road where I'd fallen. Somebody had waited until I was almost upon it and then pulled it taut with a sudden jerk. If Augusta hadn't warned me, I would almost certainly have gone over the side and into the rocky ravine. Thankfully I patted my helmet. I hated to wear one, but this time it-and Augusta-had saved me from a severe injury or worse.
”Thank you, Augusta. Didn't mean to seem ungrateful. I'm just glad you came along.” However late However late.
I felt her hand on my shoulder, still rus.h.i.+ng me. ”It's my job, Minda, but please remember I don't always know what's going to happen.”
And I'm not sure, but I think she winked at me. ”Sometimes, like you, I just have to wing it,” Augusta said.
”Did you see who it was?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at brown leaves scattering across an empty road.
She looked a little sheepish. ”I'm afraid I lingered longer than I meant to at the Fosters'. Maureen's quilts are lovely, aren't they? I believe she does them all by hand.”
”I didn't know you were there,” I said.
”I felt I might be needed. Your cousin was murdered, Minda. This is not a game we're playing, and you're going to have to be more careful. You humans think you're invincible, and I can only do so much!”
Her cheeks were bright pink, and a silken strand of hair fell over her forehead. Augusta shoved it out of the way and marched ahead of me. I had never seen her so annoyed.
When I heard a car coming, I darted into a clump of trees and underbrush, snagging my already-ruined clothing and scratching my cheek on briers, but I didn't recognize the car or the driver, and it pa.s.sed without incident.
Maureen must have heard me limping up her drive, because she came outside to meet me. ”Minda, my goodness, what happened? Is anything wrong?”
It was, and I told her.
”I need to use your telephone to call the police,” I said. I hadn't thought to bring my cell phone along.
Maureen had cleaned my cuts and abrasions and brewed another pot of tea by the time the police arrived, and I was glad for the tea and the sympathy. Augusta is long on tea, but she's sometimes short on the other.
This time Chief McBride himself showed up, and I led him to where my bike had skidded into a signpost by the side of the road. ”I jumped when I saw the rope across the road,” I said, standing well back from the edge of the ravine, ”and if I hadn't grabbed a root, I'd have gone right over.”
He knelt to examine the broken sapling, the warped front wheel of my bike. ”Now, where was this rope?” he asked.
”Just ahead, tied to that tree on the right.”
But of course, it was no longer there. ”It went all the way across the road and into those trees on the other side!” I looked all around the tree, tramped about the ground, and then checked out the ditch on the opposite side. ”It was right here! Somebody must have come back and taken it while I was at Maureen's.”
Chief McBride shook his head. ”Something spooked you for sure. Heck, you're doggone lucky to walk away with sc.r.a.pes and scratches!” He lifted what was left of my bike into the trunk of his cruiser and leaned against the side of the car. ”Do you know of anybody who would want to harm you?”
”Not really,” I said, ”but my cousin Otto probably didn't know of anybody who wanted to harm him, either.” My knee stung like crazy, my head ached, and I still felt a little dazed. ”Somebody strung a rope across that road and it was less than a foot from my face.” I pointed to the wooded area across from us. ”It looks like there's some kind of trail back in there that would be wide enough for a car.”
The chief shook his head and frowned; then he opened the pa.s.senger door and bowed me into the front seat. (I was glad I didn't have to sit caged in the rear!) He was still frowning when he spoke to his nephew over the radio. ”Rusty, better get out here,” he said. ”Meet me at the water tower soon as you can. Something's been going on up here, and we need to check it out. And hurry. I've a young lady here who might want Doc Ivey to take a look at this b.u.mp on her head.”
But the two men found nothing when they investigated what looked like the remains of an old logging road a short time later. ”Ground's too hard and dry for car tracks,” the chief said, ”but it does look like somebody might have been in there recently. I found a limb broken off and the gra.s.s has been trampled. Did you notice any cars?”
I started to shake my head, and then remembered the two cars that had pa.s.sed me earlier.
”Don't suppose you'd remember a license number?” he asked.
”No, but one of them was a beige Honda-an Accord, I think.” Just like the one that belonged to Flora Dennis's grand daughter, Peggy O'Connor! Just like the one that belonged to Flora Dennis's grand daughter, Peggy O'Connor!
”Would many people know this was here?” I asked his nephew, who volunteered to drive me back to town.
”Oh, sure. Not many who wouldn't. I used to hike up here all the time with the Boy Scouts. Kids still play up here some.” He grinned. ”It's just far enough from town so your mama doesn't know what you're up to.”
”Surely you don't think this might've been some kind of prank?”
His smile vanished. ”No, I don't. Besides, this is a school day-but I'll check the attendance records just to be sure the absent ones are accounted for.
”Did anybody know you were riding up here today?”
”No, not that I know of. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I said.
”Then somebody must have followed you. Any idea why?”
”I think it has something to do with Otto's death,” I said. ”I think he knew something.”
He frowned at me as we waited for the light to change. ”About what?”
”I'm not sure, but I'd like to find out.” I came close then to telling him about finding the pin in the ladies' room at Minerva Academy, but Augusta had warned me not to mention it. To anybody, she said.
”Looks like somebody thinks you might know something, too,” Rusty Echols said. ”I wouldn't go on any more bike rides if I were you-at least until we find out what's going on.”
At the chief's insistence, I let Rusty Echols drop me by the local clinic and was relieved to learn Chief McBride had called ahead and asked them to take me right away. The young doctor who saw me was the same one who had admitted Mildred the week before, and it surprised me when he asked how she was. Doctors see so many patients now, I can't imagine how they keep track of them all.