Lost in Gator Swamp (9 page)

When they opened the door to the trailer used by Barney Quick and his team, they discovered the place in a shambles, as if there had been a struggle.

Makeup and clothing were thrown everywhere.
One of the pairs of baggy overalls on the floor suddenly moved, and the boys heard a groan.

Joe picked up the overall, revealing Barney Quick, dazed, and with his hand over a large bump on his head. “What—” he said, then saw Joe and Chet. “Why'd you hit me?”

“We didn't hit you, Mr. Quick,” Chet explained. “It was someone else.”

“I was at my makeup table. . . . ” Quick trailed off, not fully conscious yet. “What did they steal?”

“My guess is the only thing they stole was your identity,” Joe replied.

“Huh?” Quick asked.

“Your wig, your hat, and your costume,” Chet clarified.

“What's in your hand?” Joe had spotted a piece of blue-and-white flannel material in Quick's left hand.

“That's right,” Quick recalled. “I fought with whoever it was, ripped off their pocket before they clunked me on the head.”

“Did you see who it was?” Chet asked. Quick shook his head.

“Do you recognize this material?” Joe wondered.

Quick shook his head again. “A lot of cowboys wear flannel shirts.”

“His pocket!” An idea struck Joe. “If there was anything in the pocket, it could have fallen out when the pocket was ripped off.”

Joe scanned the floor of the trailer. He spotted a folded piece of paper.

“What's on it?” Chet asked as Joe picked up the paper.

“A note,” Joe replied, and read aloud the words scrawled on the paper: “ ‘The kid can't be trusted. Take care of it.' ”

“What does it mean?” Quick asked, confused.

Joe shared a solemn look with Chet. “It means that someone was trying to get Randy Stevens out of the way.”

Joe quickly figured out a plan. “Chet, stay here with Mr. Quick. I'll send some help.”

“Where are you going?” Chet asked.

“I have to track down the phony rodeo clown before he gets away!” Joe called over his shoulder, as he rushed out the door of the trailer.

As Joe ran toward the bunkhouse, he heard Melvin Deeter on the public-address system telling the crowd that the bull-riding competition would be postponed until officials could investigate the circumstances of Randy Stevens's accident.

Joe ran into Dusty and a few cowhands in front of the bunkhouse, and he told them about Barney Quick.

“Well, whoever the phony is, he zipped through the front door of the bunkhouse and out the back before anyone got a look at him,” Dusty said to Joe. “We're headed for the main tent.”

Dusty and the others hurried on. Joe decided to think before he moved, trying to imagine where he would hide on the rodeo grounds if he were a criminal.

His eyes settled on a huge dark building looming near the far edge of the rodeo grounds. “The barn!” he said aloud. Near the corner of the barn, Joe saw a figure beneath a hanging lantern, kneeling over something.

Joe sprinted toward the barn. The figure beneath the lantern rose to his feet. Joe recognized the multicolored woven jacket. It was Reuben.

Joe was still fifty yards away when Reuben walked cautiously inside the barn. Reuben didn't seem to be in a hurry, like someone trying to escape. In fact, Joe doubted Reuben could have seen him approaching because Reuben's back was turned.

Joe stopped at the corner of the barn, wanting to see what Reuben had been kneeling over. It was a red ten-gallon hat and a clown wig. Barney Quick's costume, Joe thought to himself.

Peering into the open door of the barn, Joe saw nothing but blackness. He stepped up onto a nearby barrel and grabbed the lantern hanging on a hook above him and ventured into the vast two-story structure.

Joe could hear the breathing, snorting, and whinnying of some of the broncos in their stalls. The
horses' names were posted on signs beside each stable door.

Joe walked past Diablo, Pecos Bill, and Thunderbolt. Ahead, he recognized Volcano as the name of the horse Reuben had ridden in the competition. As Joe passed Volcano's stall, he heard a small jingle.

Moving toward the sound, he discovered a set of spurs hanging on a nail beside Volcano's stall. They were moving slightly, as if someone had just passed by.

Suddenly Joe heard the crack of a bullwhip. He winced in pain as the whip lashed his right hand, forcing him to drop the lantern. The lantern broke on the ground, setting the hay-covered floor on fire.

Before he could smother the flames, rough hands grabbed Joe from behind and pushed him into Volcano's stall.

Volcano reared up, whinnying and lashing forward with its front hooves. As Joe held up his arms to shield his face, he could feel the intense heat from the fire raging just outside the stall.

With no room to maneuver inside the stall, Joe thought the safest place for him now would be on Volcano's back. Grabbing Volcano's mane, Joe tried to hoist himself up, but the horse reared and kicked again. A hoof struck Joe directly over his right eye and knocked him down.

Lying on his back, stunned, Joe was barely aware
of the blurry orange flame creeping underneath the door into the stall.

Suddenly the stall door swung open. Joe rolled to the side, dodging Volcano as the horse raced by him. Someone grabbed Joe by the wrists and began dragging him across the barn floor.

Joe coughed, trying to get oxygen. The smoke was so thick that he could hardly breathe, and he could not see the face of his rescuer. The last thing Joe saw before he passed out was the multicolored sleeve of a woven jacket.

•  •  •

“Joe?” came a voice.

Joe opened his eyes, regaining consciousness. “Chet!” he said to his old friend kneeling over him.

“Are you okay?” Chet asked.

“Yeah, I just breathed too much smoke,” Joe replied, looking around to get his bearings. He was lying outside the barn, propped up against a saddle.

Dozens of rodeo riders and spectators were running in every direction, releasing the horses trapped in their stalls, dragging hoses, filling buckets with water, and doing anything they could to douse the fire in the barn.

“What happened to your head?” Chet asked.

Joe felt the cut over his eye where the horse had kicked him, and he told Chet about seeing Reuben standing over the stolen clown costume and following him into the barn.

“I was thrown into Volcano's stall,” Joe continued,
“then someone else came in and pulled me to safety.”

“Who?” Chet asked.

“I don't know who put me in there, but I think it was Reuben Tallwalker who got me out,” Joe replied.

“Reuben?” Chet echoed. Then he added, Wow.

Joe got to his feet and looked around. “But where is Reuben now?” Neither he nor Chet could spot him among the people fighting the fire.

“Over there,” Chet said, pointing behind the barn. At the edge of the fire, Joe saw Reuben running across the meadow toward the wooded swampland.

“We're following him this time,” Joe vowed. Borrowing flashlights from two cowhands, the pair headed off toward the swamp.

The pitch-darkness was broken only by the narrow beam of Joe's flashlight. After a moment's pause at the edge of the woods, the two teenagers plunged into the eerie darkness of the vine-tangled swampland.

Joe heard sucking noises up ahead. He thought they sounded like someone walking through thick muck. He picked up the pace, shining the flashlight beam ahead of him, catching glimpses of Reuben zigzagging through the thick underbrush forty yards ahead of him.

Joe had been pursuing Reuben for ten minutes before it struck him that he hadn't heard Chet's voice in a while. “Chet?” he called quietly, turning back to look and listen. No answer.

Joe wondered whether he should stay on Reuben's trail or backtrack to find his friend. Before he could decide, he heard the voices of two men approaching from the opposite direction. Joe turned off his flashlight and ducked behind a tree.

“He's following us,” came a deep voice, shining the beam of his flashlight across the dense underbrush. Joe recognized it as Zack Platt's voice.

“Double back that way,” the second man ordered. It was a high-pitched voice that sounded familiar, but Joe couldn't immediately identify it.

Joe pressed himself against the tree and held his breath. As the men were passing, Joe caught sight of Reuben Tallwalker, crouched beside a fallen tree not more than five feet from Joe.

Reuben put his finger to his lips, signaling Joe to stay quiet. Twenty feet to their left, Zack Platt hacked through the underbrush with a machete, looking for Reuben, Joe, or, Joe thought, both of them.

After Platt was a safe distance away, Joe crawled over to Reuben, not sure whether to hit him or shake his hand.

“You want to explain all this?” Joe whispered.

“After the accident at the ring, I saw the rodeo clown throw off his disguise at the barn, then race inside,” Reuben began. “So I followed him.”

“Who threw me into Volcano's stall?” Joe pressed.

“Two men,” Reuben explained.

“Did you see their faces?” Joe asked.

“No. It was dark and I was too far away,” Reuben replied. “But one of them had a red beard.”

“Zack Platt,” Joe said. “He's posing as an alligator
trapper, but we think he may be a bank robber as well.”

Reuben nodded. “The other man wore a white hat.”

“With an orange-and-black feather?” Joe asked.

Reuben nodded again.

“It couldn't have been Randy Stevens. He's in the hospital,” Joe said.

Joe saw Reuben looking at him quizzically. “I'll explain it to you later,” Joe said.

“Zack Platt is the man who has been snooping around Twin Cypress Key?” Reuben asked with anger in his voice.

“Probably. But I wouldn't mess with him, Reuben,” Joe warned. “Zack Platt is as strong as an ox.”

Suddenly two hundred pounds of muscle fell on Joe's back. “Oh, I'm
stronger
than an ox!” Platt laughed.

Reuben got up to help Joe, but he was tackled to the ground by a man in a white hat.

Platt pulled Joe up by the hair and held a machete to his throat. “What do you think you're doing out here, boy?”

Joe answered with a hard elbow to Platt's stomach, doubling the larger man over, allowing himself a chance to escape.

Joe didn't want to leave Reuben, but he knew the smartest move now was to get back to the rodeo grounds and find help.

Moving as fast as he could through the swampland,
Joe spotted a tree stump in his path. He hurdled over the stump, but his foot did not hit solid ground on the other side. Instead, he sank up to his thigh in muddy water. As Joe sank another foot down, he realized he had not landed in mud or in water. It was quicksand!

He knew he only had seconds to think of a way out of this jam. He tried to pump his legs, hoping to slow his descent into the quicksand. About three feet overhead, he spotted the low branch of a mangrove tree.

Undoing his belt, Joe tried to hook it over the top of the branch. His first attempt failed. On his second attempt, he got closer, but the buckle bounced off the limb.

Joe sank another few inches. With all his strength, he stretched out and swung the belt one last time. It hooked over the mangrove branch above him.

Stretching up with his other hand, he grabbed the buckle and slowly began pulling himself out of the quicksand.

A flashlight beam suddenly blinded him. “Help me!” the younger Hardy shouted in desperation.

The figure holding the flashlight stepped up to the edge of the quicksand pit. The direct beam in his eyes made it impossible for Joe to make out who it was, but he did catch a glimpse of moonlight reflecting off a white hat.

Without a word, the figure grabbed the mangrove
branch with one hand. Joe reached out to grab the man's free hand.

Instead, the man pulled the branch with his full weight until it snapped, then dropped the branch into the quicksand pit.

“Wait!” Joe pleaded.

But the man in the white hat simply dusted the dirt off his hands and walked away.

Joe tried to use the broken branch to drag himself out of the pit, but it wasn't long enough to reach the solid ground. Joe sank down to his shoulders. He pushed the branch deep into the quicksand, hoping to prop himself up, but the branch never touched bottom.

The quicksand was up to his chin now. As he sank deeper, Joe Hardy was out of options and he knew it.

•  •  •

“His name is Randy Stevens, and he lives right here on Frog's Peninsula,” Frank informed the admissions nurse at the hospital.

“And you're his brother?” the nurse asked.

Frank felt uncomfortable about lying again. “Well, I'm . . .
like
his brother. I'm a good friend.”

“The doctor says he has some deep bruises and possibly a mild concussion,” the nurse explained. “You shouldn't worry. By the way, how old is your friend?”

“Eighteen,” Frank replied.

The nurse punched in Randy's name on her
computer to see if the hospital had him on file. “Yes, here he is. Randy Stevens. Seven Manatee Lane. He had his tonsils out last year.”

“Last year?” Frank asked, puzzled, remembering that he and most of his friends had had that operation as children. “He had his tonsils removed when he was seventeen?”

“No,” the nurse replied, “when he was thirteen.”

Frank and the nurse shared a quizzical look. “Does it show his birth date on your records?” Frank asked.

“Uh-huh,” the nurse responded. “According to his file, Randy Stevens will be turning fifteen one week from today.”

Frank's brain scrambled, trying to figure out this latest twist in the deepening mystery of Gator Swamp. “Thank you,” he said to the nurse. “Where's the nearest pay phone?”