Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 31-36

by Paul Hutchens

  I felt so excited in my mind, I was like a saucy little whirlwind spiraling across a pasture full of new-mown hay. At the top of my lungs, I yelled for Old Red Addie and all the world to hear, “Boy oh boy, and double boy oh boy!”

  Dad, who was out in the middle of a bee yard battlefield, heard me and called back, “You all right? You in your right mind?”

  “My mind is always right!” I shouted with the best sense of humor I’d had in a long time.

  All day long it was more or less like that until it came time for me to get started to meet the gang at the sycamore tree for our hike to Old Man Paddler’s cabin. I had been such a cooperative boy all day, seeing more things to do than I ordinarily saw and waking up a lot of the sleeping splendor everywhere around the place.

  At the grape arbor, I stopped, thinking how much I wanted to take my .22 along. But when Dad said, “No,” it was with a very firm voice. “No, and no, and double no!”

  Making a last desperate effort to show him how important I thought it was, I reminded him, “But you remember we killed a bear and a wildcat and—”

  “I do remember,” he said, “and now that they’re both dead and have been for some time, you won’t have to worry about them anymore. See?”

  Seeing the beech switches on the lower horns of the gun rack just below the .22,I saw a lot more than I saw and was glad that right then the phone rang two long longs and a very short short.

  The call was for me, and it was Poetry, telling me to be sure to remember to bring along Old Man Paddler’s letter. “I just thought of something important,” he told me. “I think maybe we are the ones who are supposed to be smart enough to solve the code and find a treasure in a tin box.”

  As though somebody turned on a light in a dark room, my disappointment at not getting to take along my rifle was gone, and I was cheerful again.

  I quickly ran back upstairs to get the letter, which I’d left on my bedside table, where I’d been writing to thank the old man for the seven pictures of George Washington. When, a little later, I joined the gang at the sycamore tree at the mouth of the cave, that letter was safely in my shirt pocket again.

  7

  One thing that made me feel so cheerful all day was the news we got on our party-line phone about ten o’clock in the morning. Circus was feeling fine again, the swelling in his vocal cords was all gone, and he was going to be able to holler and give loon calls as he always does when we’re out in the woods together. And that goes to show how fast a boy can get well—or almost well—when he keeps his body and mind in good condition. Now the whole gang would be together for our overnight in Old Man Paddler’s cabin.

  Poetry was so sure the old man wanted us to solve the code and find a treasure in a tin box that he was bubbling over with excitement. He was also sure of something else, which he asked me to keep a secret.

  “It’s what I dreamed last night,” he whispered, while he and I were alone near the sycamore tree.

  I looked all around to be sure nobody else was listening, and this is what he said to me: “You know how in real life the criminal returns to the scene of the crime, and that’s where the police or the detectives wait for him and capture him?”

  It was a worrisome idea, especially when my detective-minded friend added, “I dreamed the vandals broke out of custody and they are using the old man’s cabin for a hideout.”

  “Anybody can dream anything!” I answered him.

  He scoffed at my doubts. “All right, you wait and see. Here, let me take another look at the code.”

  He unfolded the letter, turned it over, and squinted at the ABCs on the back. Then he let out a whistle, which different ones of the gang heard and came running to see what was going on.

  With that, Poetry gave me his secret wink, yawned, and tossed the letter in my direction, saying, “Bill answered the letter this morning. Hey, everybody, hadn’t we better get going? We want to get the old man’s lawn mowed and all the other chores done before dark!”

  The path through the swamp, as always, was one of the most interesting places in the whole Sugar Creek territory. So many important things had happened there. One of the most important I remembered when we passed a certain narrow place near the muskrat pond. It was the rescue of the Till boys’ father, John Till, who, when he was drunk one night, wandered off the path and sank all the way down to his chin before we heard him crying for help and rescued him.

  “Right out there is where we saved Bob and Tom’s father’s life!” Dragonfly called out as we went panting past.

  John Till and his two boys were about the only other people who knew the safe way through the swamp—except, of course, our fathers.

  In about ten more minutes, we were through the swamp and up in the hills and inside Old Man Paddler’s clapboard cabin. The late afternoon sun was pouring in through the dusty windows, which we decided we would have to wash the next time we came up.

  We stood looking around at different things—his cookstove, the firewood in the woodbox, and a bed in a far corner. Above the kitchen table was his prayer map with all the different colored pins in it, showing where the old man’s missionary friends were and for whom he prayed every day, whenever he happened to look at the map.

  Poetry and I kept stealing secret glances at each other, each of us thinking what if the vandals had come back and were using the cabin for a hideout? If they were, there’d be some evidence of some kind somewhere.

  “Bill,” Poetry right then said to me, “want to run upstairs with me to see if the rain’s been coming in the windows or anything?”

  And that’s when I began to get the shivers. At the window that looked out over the old man’s backyard and the woodshed, Poetry let out a gasp.

  “What?” I whispered from behind him.

  “The window’s unlocked. I’m sure I locked it the last time we were here.”

  “We’d better lock it again,” I said and started to do it, but he stopped me. “Leave it unlocked so he can get in tonight while we’re asleep.”

  It was a scary thought—six boys asleep on the floor and somebody climbing into the window upstairs, then sneaking downstairs like an Indian looking for scalps and—

  I must have had a worried look on my face, because Poetry said, “It’s all right. I was just fooling. As you said back there at the sycamore tree, anybody can dream anything. I slipped the latch on the window myself when you weren’t looking.”

  Downstairs we went, and all of us flew into the work outdoors—mowing the lawn, pouring water into the circular, funnel-shaped holes around the newly planted trees, carrying drinking water from the spring for ourselves and for the birdbaths on the patio, refilling with red-colored sweetened water several long slender bottles hanging from the porch ceiling for the hummingbirds.

  I was now trying to give up the idea Poetry had planted in my mind about the vandals returning to the scene of the crime, but it wasn’t easy. My mind and I kept looking for clues to prove I was right or that he had been right in the first place.

  When Little Jim called us to say the wind had blown down the old man’s telephone line and broken it in two, I rushed over to study the ends to see if the line might have been cut-but it hadn’t been. It was easy to see that a tree branch had fallen on it and pulled it loose from where it was fastened to the house.

  After quite a while, the chores were all finished, our campfire supper was over, and it was dark. It was time for six boys to go to sleep.

  First, though, we had our garden time. Big Jim had Little Jim read the Twenty-third Psalm. Then we had about two minutes of silent prayer, each one thinking his own prayer to God before Big Jim himself made a prayer out loud for different things. One of the requests was for a boy named Lawrence Bowen, who had the same name as Old Tom the Trapper’s great-grandnephew.

  Pretty soon we were all in our nightclothes and ready for bed. The moon was still up, so there shouldn’t have been anything scary about sleeping alone in a cabin in the hills away from our fol
ks.

  For quite a while we lay there in our sleeping bags on the floor and told each other stories. And then, because even a boy on an adventure like ours gets sleepy, I drifted off into what somebody once called the land of Nod.

  Did you ever all of a sudden in the middle of the night wake out of a sound sleep to imagine you’d heard a noise of some kind in another room or a sound like somebody prying open a window?

  That, all of an eerie sudden, is what happened to me. I jumped awake as though I had been shot at and stared into the black darkness of the cabin, listening with tense nerves and muscles.

  And then, as plain as lightning, I saw in the other room a light go on and as quickly go off again. I pinched myself to see if I was awake, and I was. The moon must have gone down, because it was pitch-dark now—or else the sky had clouded over. But what on earth—in the middle of the night—and why and who and how come and—and what does a boy do at a cringing time like that?

  Now there was a crackling sound like pine boards burning in a fireplace. Or like a key being turned in a rusty lock.

  My right arm reached over to touch Poetry awake—and he wasn’t there!

  I sat up then—straight up—and looked around in the black dark to see if the rest of the gang were there, and they were. At least there were shadows on the floor all around me like boys under blankets. Also there was the sound of Dragonfly’s crooked-nose snoring, which I tried to tell myself was the sound I’d thought was of a key turning in a rusty lock.

  Except for the breathing of the rest of the gang and the sound of pine trees outside soughing in the wind, everything now was as still as the mouse the night before Christmas.

  Still, that is, until I heard a crackling sound again in that other room. The light also went on again, and this time it stayed on. And then I was startled half out of my wits, because I heard Poetry give a surprised whistle.

  A second later I heard his whisper as he said, “Bill! Come here. Quick!”

  I crawled my trembling self into the other room, where he was. He had the flashlight focused on Old Man Paddler’s secret code.

  “I’ve got it!” he whispered. “I’ve figured out where the tin box with the treasure in it is.”

  We listened to see if we had wakened the rest of the gang—and we had.

  In less time than it takes me to write this, there were six boys in different-colored pajamas in a semicircle around that flashlight-lit letter, listening to Poetry explain the code.

  “It’s as simple as ABC,” he said. “You take the first letter of the third row of letters, which is h. You look for the h in the second row, and the letter right above it in the first row is s. That s is the first letter of the word we’re after.

  “Now,” Poetry went on, “take the second letter in the third row, which is z. Find the z in the second row, and the letter straight above it in the first row is a. That a is the second letter in the word we’re after.

  “Keep on doing it, and you have the answer. I’ve already done it, and here is the message:

  “‘Sawdust woodshed!’ That,” Poetry finished with a proud flourish, “is where we’ll find the treasure—in a pile of sawdust in the woodshed!”

  It made sense—the kind of sense that made six boys decide to steal out into the midnight shadows and move stealthily along the row of newly planted trees, following the little circles of light made by our two flashlights.

  I don’t know why we were keeping so quiet—or why we decided to creep along in the shadows of the row of evergreens, unless it was that we felt we were sneaking up on something or somebody. We often did that in make-believe adventures, when we were imagining ourselves to be ambushing an enemy camp or a robbers’ hideout.

  In a little while we reached the woodshed’s only door. Big Jim had his key out and was about to push it into the lock, when he stood stock-still, his hand poised with the shining key.

  “Sh!” he cautioned us. “Lights off!”

  Both our flashlights went off, and, I tell you, it was dark!

  I didn’t need anybody to tell me to shush, either, because whatever it was, I heard it, too. There was a sound of some kind on the other side—on the inside—of that woodshed door.

  Something or somebody or a ghost without a body was in the old man’s woodshed.

  8

  If there had been any time to think or to listen, I might have figured out what kind of a sound it was and who or what was making it. But right then, Big Jim’s very brave trembling voice shouted, “Who’s there? Come on out with your hands up!”

  Now, how in the world could anybody come out with his hands up when the only door there was was still locked?

  When nobody came out, on account of nobody could anyway, Big Jim unlocked the door, and we all stepped back. He swung the door open and again ordered whoever was inside to come out.

  “We’re going to count to ten!” Big Jim barked, for some reason there being less tremble in his voice than there had been.

  “One—two—three—four—five—six—seven-eight—nine—ten!”

  But still nobody came out, and there wasn’t any sound. We pushed our flashlights in ahead of us and looked inside, and the woodshed was as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard-bare of people, that is. Of course, the old man’s garden tools were there, and his workbench, and his carpenter’s tools, such as a saw, a square, chisels, a hammer, and a level, arranged very neatly on the wall above it.

  Also above the workbench was an open window.

  “How come the window’s open!” Poetry asked. “It was shut the last time we were up here!” I couldn’t tell whether he meant it or was only fooling again.

  And then all of sudden, there was a flurrying noise from somewhere up on the ledge near the woodshed roof, and a feathery something with spread wings, grayish white with dark specks, went swooping through the air with the greatest of ease, straight through that wide open window and out into the night.

  “Barn owl!” Little Jim cried excitedly and also very happily. “We got one nesting in our barn. Did you see his heart-shaped face and the dark streaks on his tail and wings?”

  Well, that was another that! We had all heard something while we were still outside, but now that I knew what had caused it, I remembered it had been the same kind of sound I’d heard barn owls make many a time—a trembly voiced cry like the sound a screech owl might make if it had a bad cold and somebody was trying to choke it with his hands.

  That being settled, we brought our minds back to Old Man Paddler’s code. Finding a pile of sawdust in the corner under the workbench, we began to dig—that is, Big Jim did—and in much less time than it takes to dig a hill of sweet potatoes in our garden, we had unearthed a green tin box about six inches long, one inch deep, and three or four inches wide.

  In the box was a folded sheet of paper, which, when we had unfolded it, we read—all of us crowding in close, with our heads together and one flashlight shining on it:

  A bright young boy, as smart as a fox,

  Studied a code and found a tin box;

  And in the tin box, a treasure so rare,

  Nor silver nor gold with its worth could compare.

  We quick looked in the bottom of the box for the treasure, and there wasn’t a thing. Then we spied something printed at the side of the piece of paper, which looked like another code. I’d got as far in my reading of it as “Pr. twenty-two, one—” when there was another sound behind us, perhaps another owl taking wing. I swung my flashlight around to see what it was.

  And it wasn’t a what! It was a who!

  Somebody about Big Jim’s size, dressed in gray jeans and a bright T-shirt, streaked out from behind a large box under the other end of the workbench and headed for the wide-open door!

  Well, I’d seen six hounds that had been on a coon trail, bawling, barking, and full crying, all of a sudden swing aside from the trail and go bellowing off in another direction after a jumped fox. They’d left the coon trail to get cold, while they galloped thr
ough the creek bottom, the woods, and along the fence rows after the fox.

  It must have been something like that, the way we left the poem and the tin box and the treasure that wasn’t there. Anyway, we took off through the woodshed door toward Old Man Paddler’s cabin, running pell-mell after the boy in the gray jeans and T-shirt.

  Running, panting, dodging brush piles, jumping over a lawn mower, skirting the row of evergreens, splashing up the little brook to the old man’s spring, leaping across—with our flashlights following him—that boy ran straight for the swamp.

  “I knew I dreamed the truth!” Poetry puffed behind me. “The criminal returns to his crime scene.”

  Truth or not, I didn’t care right then. One worry that was bigger than that in my mind was putting wings on my feet, and l was flying faster than a barn owl after a runaway field mouse. I was remembering that there was only one safe way through the swamp, and that was the one the Gang took. To get off the path on either side was dangerous, but to get off to the right, on the other side of the pond, would be to get out into the quicksand!

  If the boy we were chasing was one of the vandals—maybe Lawrence Bowen himself—then we’d better help answer our own prayers by saving his life.

  A crazy thought came to me right then. And maybe I ought not even tell you about it, but it was this: If I had had my .22 I could have ordered him, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  But, then, maybe I’d have been so excited I would have pulled the trigger, and we’d have had a dead boy on our hands.

  And then, all of a shadowy sudden, there was somebody else running—not with us but away up ahead of us. My flashlight spotted a pair of overalls with a boy in them shoot out from behind a papaw bush at the edge of the swamp and go streaking after our runaway.