Panther Mystery (4 page)

Jessie was certain Melanie knew something she wasn’t telling.

I
rene Osceola was waiting for the Aldens when they pulled into the Miccosukee Village the next morning.

“The canoe ramp is this way,” she said. Today she wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and sneakers.

“It’s good you all wore pants and long sleeves,” she said as they approached the landing. “It’s very buggy in the Glades.”

“We’re practically coated with insect spray,” Jessie said. “Plus we brought along extra, just in case.” She held up a pack that contained water, sunscreen, insect repellent, and other supplies.

Three lightweight fiberglass canoes bobbed in the water at the dock. The canoes looked odd, Henry thought. These were nearly flat-bottomed and wider than canoes he had paddled on lakes.

“Our people used to make dugout cypress canoes,” Irene explained, “but we have to conserve the cypress trees.” She grinned. “Also, these are easier to handle.”

Grandfather assigned the canoes. “I’ll take one with Benny. Irene, you go with Jessie. And Henry will take the third one with Violet.”

Henry was looking around. “Where are the oars?”

Irene giggled. “No oars. We don’t sit down and paddle these canoes. The sawgrass and lily pads are too thick. We stand up and pole the canoes through the water.”

“Well, I’m game,” said Grandfather, stepping into a canoe. He helped Benny in, then took the pack Jessie handed him.

The others climbed into their canoes and found poles in the bottoms. Irene untied the ropes and hopped into her canoe.

“Stand at each end,” she instructed them, poling her and Jessie’s canoe away from the dock first. “These boats won’t tip over easily, but it’ll take you a while to get used to poling instead of paddling.”

“We aren’t going anywhere!” Benny called back to Grandfather.

“That’s because we’re not poling in the same direction,” Grandfather said, laughing. “I’m trying to push the canoe forward and you’re making it go backward!”

Irene came alongside their canoe and gave them a push. “Now you’ve got it, Benny! You guys are doing great.”

As the three canoes moved slowly downriver, Irene explained that they were heading west into the “river of grass.”

“Why are we going this way?” Henry asked Irene.

“This is where I see Ranger Beldon a lot,” Irene answered. “He has his own canoe.”

“Apparently he hasn’t been to work in the last several days,” Grandfather said. He and Benny were finally catching up to the others. “Do you think he might have come into the Everglades alone and is lost?”

“It’s possible,” Irene said. “Ranger Beldon knows the Glades pretty well. But there are still places no one has ever seen, so even someone who knows the hidden places can get lost.”

Jessie remembered what Melanie Harper had said. “Do you know anything about an ‘obsession’ Andrew has?”

Irene wrinkled her brow under her baseball cap. “I’m not sure. Maybe the Florida panther,” Irene said.

“Panthers!” Benny said with awe. “Those big wildcats?”

“Yes,” said Irene. “Not too many people know about our wildcats.”

“We read about panthers in our nature book,” said Violet. “They only live in the Everglades, right?”

“Which are shrinking every day,” Irene said, shaking her head sadly. “Hear the cars? We aren’t very far from the highway. That highway and the canals men dug to drain the swamp have made the Glades smaller. Houses and stores and farms steal land from the Everglades.”

“And less land means fewer homes for animals and birds,” Grandfather put in. “That’s why the Everglades National Park is here, to protect and preserve what’s left.”

Henry wanted to get back to the missing ranger. “You say Andrew Beldon is interested in the Florida panthers?”

“Ranger Beldon worries about the panthers. He’s afraid they will disappear altogether. It’s happened before — other animals have become extinct,” said Irene. “Crocodiles are also very endangered.”

Benny glanced excitedly around the still water. “There are crocodiles in here?”

“Very, very few,” Irene informed him. “It’s rare to see a crocodile and even rarer to see a panther. My family is of the Panther Clan. The Miccosukee belong to different family clans, like the Bird, Wind, or Otter Clans. We members of the Panther Clan understand the beauty of the panther. Ranger Beldon does, too.”

Just then they came upon a small island. White herons stood in the shallow water near the island, stalking small fish and frogs.

The trees that grew on the island were the strangest Benny had ever seen. One tree seemed to stand up on two legs out of the water.

“Those trees look like people!” he exclaimed.

“My ancestors thought so, too,” Irene told him with a smile. “They are mangrove trees. My people called them ‘the walking trees.’ The roots are like legs.”

Then she explained that the island wasn’t really an island, but a “hammock.” A tree would take root. Seeds drifting downstream would cling to the mangrove’s roots. Over the years, dirt gathered and more plants and trees grew until a humped mound rose out of the water.

They poled close to the mangrove hammock. Violet stopped to take pictures of wild orchids growing right on the sides of the trees.

“Oh, look!” Jessie declared. She pointed to a colorful snail on a tree. The conical shell swirled in shades of gray, blue, beige, and lavender.

Bullfrogs leaped among the lily pads. Bottle-green dragonflies skimmed over the surface. A harmless water snake swam between Henry’s and Irene’s canoes. Benny could hardly keep still. He didn’t want to miss anything.

Grandfather took his hat off to swat at the mosquitoes. “You’re never alone here, are you?” he joked.

“Not for a second,” Irene agreed. “Though sometimes your companion is too small to see!”

As long as they kept moving, the insects weren’t too bad. Irene had told them to expect bugs, but Jessie couldn’t believe the dense clouds of mosquitoes and tiny no-see-ums.

“Is this a place Andrew might stop?” Henry asked Irene.

She nodded. “Since he came this way, he probably stopped here often. Ranger Beldon was always looking for any sign of a panther.”

“Have you ever seen one?” Benny asked, awed that wildcats could be lurking in the tangle of undergrowth.

Irene shook her head. “People look for years and never see a panther. My father saw one once, when he was a little boy about your age, Benny. But only that one time.”

“Let’s tie up our canoes and walk around,” Grandfather suggested. “Maybe we’ll see some sign that Andrew has been here.”

Irene directed them to a mangrove tree with extra-long roots. They tied up their canoes and waded in the shallow water to the hammock.

“The water is so warm,” Violet remarked. “I could take a bath in it!”

“That’s because it’s summer,” said Irene. “In the winter and during the rainy season in the spring, the water is cooler.”

Benny scrambled up the side of the hammock, using a vine like a rope. “This place is neat!”

It took the others longer to make their way through the Caribbean pines, saw palmettos, and live oaks. Henry was amazed at the variety of ferns growing right in the bark on the trees. The Everglades was a truly magical place.

“What is this?” he asked Irene, pointing to a plant with yellow and orange flowers.

“We call that
coontie
,” Irene replied. “We grate the root and make flour after it’s dry. Then we add water and make a kind of cereal,
sofkee.
It’s really good.”

Jessie looked up at the sky and watched a huge bird lazily circle overhead. The bird could see a lot better than they could.
Where is Andrew Beldon?
she asked the bird silently.

Then she thought of something.

“Irene,” she began, “do you know a ranger named Melanie Harper?”

Irene frowned slightly. “A little. She’s blond and pretty, isn’t she? I think she and Andrew were dating.”

“That’s what I thought,” Jessie said. “But whenever we talk to Melanie, she acts as if she doesn’t care about Andrew at all.”

“They are not really friends anymore,” Irene said. “Andrew came to the village one day with my books. He looked sad and I asked him what was wrong. He told me about what had happened with Melanie Harper.”

Not paying attention to where she was going, Violet tripped over a mangrove root. She caught herself before she fell. Then she saw it.

“Hey guys!” she cried. “Look at this!”

In the soft, squishy mud was part of a shoe print.

Grandfather leaned over. “Good work, Violet. That’s the heel of somebody’s boot.”

Benny poked his finger into the spongy mud. “What is this stuff?”

“It’s called muck,” Irene said. “Sometimes the muck can be dangerous if you fall into it. It’s hard to climb out.”

“This might be a clue,” Henry stated. “Jessie, did you bring our casting kit?”

“Right in the pack,” she replied, digging out the small sack of plaster of paris, a tin dish, a jar of petroleum jelly, and a metal ring.

Benny got water to mix the plaster in the tin dish while Violet greased the inside of the metal ring with the petroleum jelly.

Irene watched in fascination. “You are like real detectives,” she said as Jessie carefully placed the ring around the print.

“We’ve done this before,” Jessie said. “On another mystery case.”

Henry stirred the plaster until it was thick. Then he poured it over the ring, covering the heel print. “This stuff dries pretty fast,” he said.

They waited until the plaster had set, then Violet lifted the ring with a perfect cast of the print inside.

She stared at it. “That’s odd,” she said. “There’s a mark like a V on the sole.”

“A clue,” Benny declared. “Maybe this is Andrew’s shoe print. We might be on his trail!”

Violet gazed into the wild, noisy Everglades. She hoped Benny was right.

B
y the time the plaster cast was dry, Grandfather decided it was time to get out of the midday heat.

They all climbed into their canoes and poled back to the Miccosukee Village.

“Thanks for your help,” Henry said to Irene as they walked up the dock. “We wouldn’t have found that print on our own.”

“Glad I could help,” she said. “Ranger Beldon is a good friend. I hope you find him soon.”

Jessie came up just then. “Grandfather says we’re stopping at the information center, since it’s on the way back to the hotel. Thanks, Irene. You were a great guide.”

Irene walked the Aldens to their rental car and waved as they drove down Route Forty-one.

“If no one has heard from Andy today, I’m going to speak to the head of the Park Service down here,” Grandfather said, pulling into the parking lot of Shark Valley.

“At least we have one clue,” said Benny. He held the odd-looking plaster print in his lap.

“Maybe,” Violet said. “This heel print might not have anything to do with Andrew’s disappearance. It could belong to any tourist who stopped to explore, like we did.”

“You could be right,” said Benny. But deep inside he felt the heel cast was part of the mystery.

For once, the information center wasn’t very busy. Melanie Harper was at the front desk, straightening a stack of maps.

Her face showed she recognized the Aldens, but Jessie couldn’t read any expression. She couldn’t tell if Melanie was glad or irritated to see them.

“Before you ask,” Melanie said, “we heard from Andrew. He called in about an hour ago.”

Grandfather sighed with relief. “That’s wonderful! Where is he?”

“He’s sick,” Melanie replied, dusting the counter with a rag. “He won’t be back for a while.”

“Sick?” queried Henry. “What’s wrong with him? How long will he be out?”

Melanie shrugged. “He didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I’ve been doing both Andrew’s and my work for almost a week now. Our supervisor has noticed what a good job I’m doing.” She smiled smugly. “I’ll probably get a promotion!”

“So you’re saying Andrew won’t have a job when he comes back to work?” Jessie asked. She didn’t like Melanie’s tone. The other ranger acted as if she was
glad
Andrew was sick.

“Oh, he’ll have a job,” Melanie replied. “But not
this
job.” She picked up the microphone and announced briskly that the film would start in five minutes. It was clear she wasn’t going to talk to the Aldens anymore.

The few tourists wandering around inside headed for the door. The Aldens followed. Outside, it seemed hotter than ever.

In the parking lot, they were amazed to see an enormous alligator stretched out. He yawned mightily, showing several rows of pointed teeth.

“Wow!” cried Benny. “Look at that!”

Violet snapped several pictures from a safe distance.

Henry gave a low whistle. “I bet he’s at least nine feet long!”

“Can we go now?” Jessie said nervously. She didn’t like alligators in parking lots. They were scary enough in the water.

Grandfather opened the car door for her. “I’m not crazy about them, either,” he said to her. “Besides, the alligator was taking up two parking spots!”