by Fred Hunter
* * *
The passengers had to make their way down the dock to the back of the general store, which had large barnlike doors that were closed to keep in the air-conditioning, and bolted from within. There were a pair of windows on either side of the doors. A walkway circled the building in both directions, and the passengers split into two groups and started around it. When the group that had gone to the left reached the side of the building, the Millers stopped in their tracks. A narrow, deserted beach stretched north as far as the eye could see.
“Look at it!” Laura exclaimed delightedly. “Look at all the deadwood!”
“Make for some great pictures!” her husband agreed.
There was a two-foot drop from the walk to the sand below. Martin jumped down, then Laura took a more tentative leap while her husband held her waist. As he lowered her to the ground he spun her away from the walk. Laura giggled and the two of them embraced, then they hurried away up the beach.
“Sort of like a wrinkly ballet, isn’t it?” said Driscoll.
Emily couldn’t help laughing openly at this.
“If I didn’t know better, Miss Charters, I would think I was winning you over!”
“I wasn’t aware you were trying to.”
Their group came around the front of the store just as the rest appeared at the opposite corner. They converged in the middle, where they lost another member when Stuart Holmes disappeared into the store.
“He said to go on without him,” Jackson Brock explained. “He wants to make some calls.”
The group stood there for a moment getting their bearings. The store was on a two-lane paved road, the opposite side of which was bordered by a thickset forest. A handful of shops were nestled among the trees, and a pair of hikers were peering into the window of one of them—a small wooden building above whose door was a slab of driftwood on which the word Leatherworks had been burned.
“That must be the visitor’s center over there,” Brock said with the tentativeness of someone who doesn’t want to be viewed as trying to assume command.
They all looked to the right. Beside the general store was a small parking lot, and beyond that a wide, solidly worn path leading up to an octagonal, gazebolike structure. They moved toward this in an untidy mass.
“This is really an odd place to bring an elderly tour, isn’t it?” Rebecca said, keeping her voice low.
“Why?” Lynn asked.
“It’s mainly nature trails. All that walking…”
“I’m surprised at you, Becky.” She fell into using the nickname without a thought. “None of these people are infirm. You’ve seen them shop!”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Lynn was treated to the sound of Rebecca’s laugh.
“But seriously,” Lynn continued, “I think being out in nature is very healthy, and the Farradays seem to have chosen this stop with a lot of care. They picked a place with benches and facilities and people all around. Everything will be fine.”
When they reached the visitor’s center, Driscoll propped open one of the screen doors and struck a comic salute as the group passed through. Inside, the building was devoid of furniture save for two rustic benches. The walls were covered with slots containing maps of the trails, schedules of summer activities in the area, and brochures advertising everything from fresh fruit to hay rides to guided nature tours.
Claudia Trent, clad in a mint green suit, a pair of dark green sunglasses, and the inevitable sunhat, marched across the room to the rack, grabbed one of the trail maps, then turned on her heel and strode out of the building without a word to anyone.
Driscoll and Brock watched her leave, then Driscoll gave the remainder of the company a quiet once-over. Emily, Lynn, Rebecca, and Marcella were looking through the brochures. On the other side of the room, Muriel Langstrom’s lips were moving as she surveyed a notice about campground safety.
“Well, Jackson,” Driscoll said as he gave him a genial slap on the back, “looks like it’s you and me.”
As he said this he unceremoniously ushered Brock toward the door, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.
“Oh! Oh! Mr. Driscoll! Mr. Brock! Are you going on a walk?” Muriel sputtered.
“Why, yes, Miss Langstrom,” Driscoll replied, not quite covering his dismay. “That’s the general idea of comin’ here.”
“Could I go with you? I’m terribly timid about going into the woods! I’m sure I couldn’t do it alone.”
“Well, we’re going to walk pretty fast, I think—”
“Oh, that’s fine!” she cut him off eagerly. “I’m a very good walker. I walk all the time! I know I could keep up. It’s second nature to me!”
“Don’t you think…” Driscoll gave a nod in the direction of the other four women.
Muriel glanced at them, then stepped closer to him and said in a spirited whisper, “I wouldn’t feel safe going out into the woods with only women. I would just be too frightened. There’s no telling what could happen to us. I’d feel much safer with a man.”
Inwardly crestfallen, Driscoll had no polite way to refuse, so he acquiesced. “Sure, ma’am. You can come along with us.” He called across to the other women. “Emily? Ladies? Would you like to go with us? Make up a good team!”
“Oh, no,” Emily said pleasantly. “Thank you for asking, but you go ahead. We’re going to take our time.”
His puttylike face fell. “Oh. Well. Okay.”
He held the door open again, and Muriel took the lead followed by a suitably bemused Brock. Driscoll shot Emily a resigned grimace before trailing after them, closing the door behind him.
Lynn had been looking at one of the trail maps. She said, “One of the trails starts right across the road from here. Why don’t we try that one, and just have a short walk this morning? After lunch we can see if we want to try a longer one.”
“Sounds good,” said Rebecca.
Emily agreed, and Marcella grunted as if she saw a secret flaw in the plan but was unwilling to point out what it was. However, she was happy to be on the move. She led the way, banging out through the screen door and coming to a stop at the edge of the road.
“There it is!” she exclaimed happily when the others caught up with her.
On the opposite side there was an opening among the trees marked with a green shield-shaped sign that said Trail Three.
Marcella started to charge across the road but Rebecca grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Wait! I hear a car.”
They looked to their right where the road inclined and crested. Driscoll, Brock, and Muriel were walking up a path alongside it toward its top. An olive green sedan came into view and whipped past the three on the path, then past the four women. It stopped quite suddenly when it was even with the parking lot for the general store, then pulled in.
“Now, that is very curious,” said Emily.
“What is?” Lynn asked.
“The driver. It was the same man I saw talking to Mr. Holmes yesterday. The one we saw on the dock last night.”
“It’s all right now,” Marcella said irritably as she pulled away from her niece.
“Yes, Auntie,” Rebecca replied.
“There’s nothing like a good walk, I always say!” Marcella exclaimed as she went briskly across the road toward the trail.
“Aunt Marci, wait! Slow down!” Rebecca called out as she chased after her.
As Lynn and Emily crossed the road, Lynn was struck with a sensation she’d never felt before: it was not foreboding but rather a sense that something significant was happening. Perhaps it was the sudden awareness of the total quietude around them, or it might have been the fact that everyone within her view was disappearing simultaneously: As Marcella plunged between the trees followed by Rebecca, their three fellow passengers descended out of sight on the other side of the rise in the road. Out of the corner of her eye Lynn was aware that the driver of the sedan was passing through the doorway into the general store. She also noticed that the two
young hikers had gone as well. It gave her the disquieting feeling that everyone had just been sucked from this dimension. She thought for a moment of telling Emily about this weird sensation, but decided against it.
She’s had her own misgivings, Lynn told herself, I’m not going to make it worse by going all fanciful on her.
When they reached the opening of the path, Rebecca came running back to them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Aunt Marci seems to think we’re on a forced march. I’ll try to slow her down.”
“It’s all right,” said Emily. “If you can’t we’ll all meet back at the boat for lunch.”
Rebecca took off down the path. Lynn called after her, “Don’t worry. According to the map there’s a campground a little over half a mile ahead. She can’t really get lost.”
Before Lynn could get this out, Rebecca had disappeared around a bend in the path.
Emily and Lynn continued on at a leisurely pace. The path was about four feet wide, very flat and easy to walk. The trees were thick with leaves and the woods smelled pleasantly of musty bark and damp earth. Emily would occasionally stop by a particular tree or plant, examine it, and emit a “hmm,” and like any good tourist could not resist stopping and reading the helpful plaques describing the area’s plant life.
After about twenty minutes they came upon a bench and decided to have a rest.
“Do you know much about plants?” Lynn asked.
“I remember a bit about them, very dimly, from my ancient past,” Emily said with a smile. Her right hand absently went to the gray bun at the back of her head and shifted it slightly. “When I was a girl at school they used to teach us about plants, the various kinds, the different types of leaves, which were poisonous and so on. Of course, back then people communed with nature on a more regular basis, so that kind of information was rather important. I don’t know what they teach nowadays.”
Lynn wrinkled her nose. “Probably how to buy CTA fare cards.”
They fell silent. A warm breeze stirred some of the upper leaves of the trees, which caused a wet rustling sound. From somewhere farther up the path they could hear what sounded like the laughter of a pair of small children, muffled by the natural soundproofing so that it seemed it was reaching them through waves of cloth.
“I’m surprised we haven’t caught up with Becky,” said Lynn. “I didn’t think they’d get that far ahead of us.”
Emily’s thin brows elevated slightly at Lynn’s use of the familiar. “Given the speed with which Marcella was moving, I’d be surprised if her niece has caught up with her yet.” She paused, then said, “You like that young woman, don’t you?”
Lynn flushed and looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe I do. It’s hard to tell how much is liking and how much is sympathy.”
Emily produced a vague shrug. “Sometimes one can grow out of the other.”
Lynn cleared her throat. “Do you want to go on now?”
“Certainly.”
They got up from the bench and continued along the path arm in arm. The sounds of children at play grew nearer as the woods began to thin out. The path then opened into a camping area, where the ground among the trees had been cleared somewhat. A handful of tents of various shapes and sizes were pitched at wide intervals. The noise they’d been hearing came from a little boy and girl who looked to be under the age of ten and were gamboling among the trees in a rowdy game of tag.
On the far left side of the campground was a narrow, heavily rutted dirt road. The hiking path continued in a more or less straight line along the right border of the clearing, then continued into the woods through an archway formed by a pair of drooping trees. Lynn and Emily followed the path. As they neared the far edge of the grounds, there loomed to their right, partially obscured from view by a particularly dense knot of trees, a ramshackle wooden structure that housed communal showers and toilets.
“Typical of Americans,” Lynn said with a cluck of her tongue. “Roughing it with all the comforts of home.”
Emily started to laugh but was cut short when Rebecca came hurrying toward them through the natural archway. She was even more out of breath than before, and perspiring heavily.
“Have you seen her?” she gasped as she reached them.
“What?” replied the startled Lynn. “You mean your aunt?”
Rebecca nodded. “She got away from me.”
“How?”
“We stopped here to use the bathrooms. We both went in, but—I don’t know if she was finished first or if she just … when I came out of the stall, she was gone! I figured she’d gone on, and I ran and ran that way.…” She pointed toward the arch. “But I couldn’t find her. I’d gone a long way … and it didn’t seem possible that she could’ve gotten that far ahead of me, so I thought she must’ve gone back instead of going on!”
“I’m afraid she didn’t do that,” said Emily. “She would’ve passed us, and we haven’t seen anyone.”
“Don’t worry,” said Lynn, “there’s people all around out here. We’ll find her.”
“I’m going back to the boat,” said Rebecca, “to see if she went back there! It’s the one place around here that she’d be familiar with.” She went away from them not running but walking very fast, and was quickly swallowed up by the woods.
Emily watched her with eyes narrowed with concern. “You should go with her. I don’t think she should be alone.”
“Are you kidding?” said Lynn. “I’m not leaving you alone in the woods!”
“I’m perfectly capable of making it back to the boat on my own.”
“That’s beside the point! I wouldn’t leave anyone alone in the woods.”
“Very well. But I do think we should go back.”
They followed Rebecca as quickly as they could. The timbre of Emily’s voice when she’d said “You should go with her” disturbed Lynn, bringing back to her the unease she’d felt as they’d entered the woods.
“Are you all right?” Lynn asked when they finally emerged from the woods.
“Quite all right,” Emily replied, though she did seem a trifle winded.
They crossed the road, and as they reached the other side the captain and Samantha came over the crest of the hill, strolling hand in hand. Emily and Lynn stopped and waited for them.
“Ladies,” said the captain, a row of straight furrows cutting across his forehead, “is something wrong?”
“It’s Miss Hemsley,” said Lynn. “She seems to have gotten lost.”
Samantha said, “Oh, my.” She’d tried to sound sympathetic but couldn’t manage to erase the note of inevitability from her voice.
“How long has it been since she was seen?” the captain asked.
“Within the last half hour, I think,” said Lynn.
“Don’t be concerned. She can’t have gotten very far away, and there’s enough people around here that she’ll be safe. She’s probably just lost and wondering around. We’ll find her.”
“Shouldn’t we—”
Lynn’s question was interrupted when Rebecca appeared from behind the general store and sped in their direction.
“She’s not on the boat,” she said. “I checked her cabin and all the decks. I kept calling her name. She wasn’t there.”
“Had anyone seen her?” Emily asked.
She shook her head. “The only one there was Mrs. O’Malley, and she hasn’t seen anyone—she’s been busy in the galley making lunch. And Miss DuPree was on the deck, but she was asleep.”
“David and Hoke weren’t on board?” the captain asked, the furrows growing deeper.
“I couldn’t find them. What should we do?”
“Fan out and look for her,” said Lynn.
“No,” the captain said with calm authority. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t want anyone else to get lost. Why don’t you ladies go back to the ship—”
“No!” Rebecca exclaimed.
The captain was shaking his head. “Saman
tha and I know the trails. We’ll look for her and ask the campers and other hikers—someone’s bound to have seen her.”
“No! I’m coming with you! I have to! She may not—” Rebecca broke off and choked back a sob. “She might not recognize you, and it would scare her.…”
The captain glanced at his wife, who shrugged with resignation.
“All right,” he said. “Why don’t we head the way you came first?”
“Shouldn’t we notify the local sheriff?” Emily asked.
He gave her a deprecating smile. “I don’t think there’s any need for that. We’ll find her.”
Emily and Lynn watched as the other three crossed the road and started down the trail. With his wide, loping stride, the captain managed to appear unhurried even though he was moving fairly rapidly. Samantha, almost as tall as her husband, easily kept pace with him, while Rebecca had to walk briskly to keep up.
“The captain is a very strong presence,” Emily remarked. “He should be able to keep Rebecca from panicking.”
“I guess,” Lynn said doubtfully.
Emily considered her for a moment. “We’re almost back to the boat now. You really can go with them if you like.”
Lynn shook her head. “Becky’s aunt would probably be more afraid if a mob came after her in the woods.”
Emily slipped her hand back through Lynn’s arm and they started toward the general store. They hadn’t gone more than a few feet before they heard Bertram Driscoll calling.
“Miss Charters!”
They stopped and turned around. Driscoll was coming toward them down the roadside path he’d taken with Jackson Brock and Muriel Langstrom.
“How’re you doing?” he asked as he reached them. “You heading for the boat?”
“Yes,” said Emily. “Where are your companions?”
To Emily’s and Lynn’s surprise, Driscoll turned deep red and looked to the ground, apparently trying to hide his smile.
“Uh … you mean Brock and old Muriel? Well … I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Lynn asked. She really didn’t like the look on his face, or his forced coyness.
He made a show of shuffling his feet. “Well, me and Jackson, I’m afraid we’ve been naughty boys. But, I mean, after all, we didn’t ask her to come along with us.”