Ten Little Bloodhounds (8 page)

I held both ropes with my left hand and my right clamped around her collar in a death grip. I pulled her clear, and with water streaming off her like she was a sodden mop, I started cramming her into the front of my suit. She fought me tooth and nail with energy born of desperation.

I’d get a leg inside and zip an inch, only to have a paw appear to swipe at my face. Sweat was stinging my eyes and the rope was cutting into my thigh. I couldn’t talk to her, my teeth were clutching the flashlight. Her tail was impossible. Even soaked with water, she managed to slap it across my face numerous times.

She wanted to climb up on my head, and almost succeeded. I finally had to pop her on her nose and twist her tail to get her body parts inside the zipper. Her head was still out and she continued to strain upward. I was scared that she would notice that the Ace bandage around my throat had worked loose and my neck was a very close and inviting target. Her limbs were safely inside, but her teeth were only inches away. I could almost feel her jaws closing on my windpipe, the little vampire! I tucked in my chin and pushed on her nose the whole intense climb up the rope. I’d rather have a scar on my face than my jugular vein opened.

I clutched the top of the well casing, and pulled us up and over the edge, and then slumped on the ground. I hooked my left finger in her collar so she couldn’t
wiggle free, and just sat there. My arm muscles were screaming abuse, and my back was throbbing. Amelia had calmed down. She had finally gotten the message that she was out of the cold water. She was warming up within the airless suit. I pulled off the Ace bandage and wiped my face, and then used a section to gently wipe hers. She flinched once and then closed her eyes. Her battle to survive was over. Defiance disappeared and exhaustion took over.

As I moved around packing the items I had used, I was poised to drop everything and grab her if she tried to wiggle free. I worried unnecessarily. She had fallen into a deep sleep, and her head was nestled into the hollow of my throat.

All during the rescue, Ivanhoe had whined and quivered and wanted to smell his prize. Before I donned my backpack, I put a hand towel in my pocket, and sat beside Ivanhoe to feed him several pieces of deer jerky. He gave Amelia several friendly licks on her head, which made him content. Amelia wasn’t aware of his display of affection; she was in the Land of Nod.

We headed back to the mansion. I was tired but the journey was all downhill, so my heart was light. I was proud of Ivanhoe. He had done exactly the opposite of what we had tried to train him to do, and had done it well. Some dogs are completely untrainable. They have the natural instinctual ability, but somehow they can’t or won’t conform to our training. If animals and humans had a common language and worked together, I believe we could civilize the planet.

It was half past seven when Ivanhoe and I strode
across the cultivated lawn leading to the mansion. We passed several groups of three and four servants, standing or sitting under the trees near a nightlight. As I passed each group I held the hand towel to my chin, so it hung down and covered Amelia’s head. My shape under the rescue suit might have looked a little more chestier than when I left, but the bulge wasn’t obvious, and I didn’t believe they could tell that Amelia was snoring away on my chest. My hands held only Ivanhoe’s lead and the towel, and that is where they looked, before lowering their glances.

I wanted Mrs. C to know the details before everyone knew that Amelia was found. When I reached the front door, I took off my backpack and propped it against the wall before I rang the doorbell. The door was opened by another Filipino woman, only slightly younger than the one I saw earlier. I brushed past her and headed for the stairs. Celia entered the foyer from a hallway to my left. I reached the stairs before she could stop me. I sailed by her, wiping my mouth with the towel.

“I know the way,” I called over my shoulder, “stay here!”

“Did you find—” I turned at the landing, and that cut off her question. I made one wrong turn on the second floor and had to retrace some of my steps, but I succeeded in finding the correct door. I rapped twice, and walked in.

As I marched to Miz Cancannon’s desk, I saw two heads swivel around their chairs to stare at me, one blond and one brunette. Obviously, two of the nieces. I patted my chin with the towel, and I spoke to Miz Cancannon, ignoring the two women.

“I need to speak to you. Alone.”

I heard a startled gasp from behind me, but I didn’t react.

“Please wait in the library,” Miz Cancannon told them.

The blond woman stood, walked around the desk, and placed her hand on Miz Cancannon’s shoulder.

“It may be bad news, Aunt Alyce. I think we should stay.”

“Get out!” Miz Cancannon hissed at her, brushing the hand away. “At once!”

The blond’s jaw dropped, and she left without uttering another word. The brunette was right on her heels, and softly closed the door behind her.

I held a finger to my lips and tiptoed to the door. I jerked it open. They were just turning into the main hallway, and didn’t see me checking on them. I closed the door and returned to the desk, unzipping my rescue suit. I saw her eyes widen when she spotted Amelia. I pulled her limp form from the warm interior of my suit, wrapped the hand towel around her, and placed her in Miz Cancannon’s arms. Amelia didn’t stir a whisker.

“She’s wet and exhausted. She slept the entire trip back. I wanted to get her back to you and explain what I found before anyone knew she had been rescued.”

I glanced at Mrs. Cancannon, and tears were coursing down her checks as she held Amelia cradled in her arms. I walked over to the fireplace and stood with my back to her, staring up at a large portrait over the mantel. I didn’t recognize the name of the artist. It depicted a woman in a blue dress holding an ivory fan.
I wasn’t admiring the picture, I was giving her privacy.

“Ms. Sidden, I’m fine now. Tell me what happened.”

I came back and sat down in front of her.

“I’m warning you, it’s brutal, so brace yourself.”

I described the cistern, and told her about Amelia having to climb back so often after falling off whatever she was clinging to in the cistern.

“It’s a galvanized water pipe, about three inches in diameter,” she said softly, remembering. “Papa had it put there with an extension coming up higher than the edge of the cistern when the well was dug. It was for a hand pump so we could have fresh cold water, when we went there for picnics. He preferred taking us there instead of the beach. We had a sandy play area, and he said he didn’t have to worry about us drowning while he was taking a nap. We had a large cabana there, and beds for all of us. A hurricane destroyed it in nineteen fifty-three. We were grown then, my two brothers and I, so he didn’t have it rebuilt.”

She gave me an intense look.

“Was there anything around to indicate who did this?”

“Nothing. The lid is rough cement and crushed shell. It wouldn’t take prints if you sent anyone out there to try. There are strong wind currents on the dune. It scoured the area clear of leaves, debris, and footprints. I don’t believe a woman could have opened and replaced the lid by herself. I’m a little stronger than the average female, I’ve tugged on leashes pulled by strong dogs for the past six years. If Ivanhoe hadn’t been available, I might have removed it eventually, or
could easily have failed.”

“The dog helped you move it?” She sounded doubtful.

“All the dogs are trained to pull a rescue sled. It’s like a body bag with a smooth galvanized rubber bottom. I hook it to their harness when I have to move an injured person or a body out of the Okefenokee.”

“And your dog led you right to Amelia?”

“Yes’m. Miz Cancannon, you have an enemy who wants to hurt you. This first attempt has been thwarted. The hate could escalate, and you could become his next target. I wanted to warn you.”

“Thank you for bringing Amelia back safely. Here are your checks.” She held them out to me.

I took them from her, tore them in half, and put the pieces on her desk.

“Mail me a check for five hundred.”

“Can you afford this contemptuous gesture?” She had her haughty look firmly in place. She seemed amused.

“I’m still gouging you,” I said with a smile. “In Balsa City, I’d only ask for fifty.”

“The money is yours, take it!” she insisted.

“No, it’s not,” I said firmly. “Keep an eye on Amelia. This is where we part company. I won’t be back.”

“Not even if I ask Judge Dalby to call you?” She sounded full of herself, and back in complete control.

“Not even then,” I said with confidence.

This time I closed the door without making a sound.

W
e were over the mainland, flying home. Ivanhoe was wedged between my knees and we both had our noses pressed against the window. I was watching the small points of light that signaled a house, or several houses in a clump, down below in the darkness. We passed over Highway 301, which I recognized by the yellow-hued vapor lights at the main intersections of connecting roads. Very light traffic, and long stretches of darkness with tiny red taillights going south, and white headlights heading north. A single light emitting a lonely tiny spark always drew my attention. I wondered who lived there and if they enjoyed the isolation or longed for crowded streets.

Most men in this part of the state were hunters. They made their living in a mill, a factory, or worked in timber for the large paper companies. Bored with their
repetitive job routine, they would convince their spouses that pulling a trailer on a couple of acres in prime hunting territory was the best of all places to live, at least for them. They could shoot a deer on the way home from work, take long drives in their trucks on work-free stormy days, and have conversations on backwoods deserted roads with other hunters.

The trailers sprang up like mushrooms in the isolated locations. Suddenly the land was cleared, a single brave nightlight lit the ebony woods, a septic tank installed aboveground encased in tons of dirt because the water table was too high for burial, and a well was dug. A trailer would appear like magic.

Then the wife would discover that no other wives ever dropped in for a cup of coffee, and neighbors didn’t visit because there were no close neighbors, and she had to drive twenty miles for a loaf of bread and gasoline for her car. The only people she saw were her husband and kids. The Georgia Power meter reader and a propane gas truck driver came by once a month. Within six months to a year the trailer would disappear and the grass would grow tall.

If they were lucky they would sell the land to another hunter with dreams of living in paradise. A different trailer would appear, the grass would be cut, and the never-ending cycle would begin again. I believed the wives’ isolation wrecked more marriages in South Georgia than infidelity and money problems combined.

Rand startled me out of my reverie.

“What are you two looking at?

“I can’t speak for Ivanhoe, but I was reflecting on isolation and marriage.”

“The two can’t be mentioned in the same sentence, they are grossly incompatible. For instance: Did you hear why Dick and Jane got a divorce? He had no income and she wasn’t patable. Get it?”

“I got it,” I groaned.

“Do you know what I’d like? When we get to your place I’d love to have dinner. I’m famished. I’d like to go to a bistro that stocks good wine, has soft lights and flickering candles, and dine on some good French food. Sound good?”

“Sounds impossible,” I said wryly. “To make that happen you’d have to turn this bird around and fly over a hundred miles to Jacksonville, and by then everything would be closed. Thank God you didn’t say you wished you had a quote, good home-cooked meal, unquote, because if you had, this budding acquaintance of ours would die on the vine. I don’t cook.”

“You don’t cook? Of course you cook! All Southern women cook!”

“Not this one. I’ve traded in my frilly apron, Aunt Minnie’s cookbook, and having my arms up to my elbows in dishwater scrubbing greasy pots and pans three times a day. I prefer the simple life.”

“What do you eat?”

“Takeout. Pizza, burgers, or maybe baby back ribs.”

“You know what I’d like?” He laughed. “I’d like a well-lighted diner with indigestible cheeseburgers, greasy French fries, cold beer in a can, and a jukebox so loud the vibrations make your teeth ache. How does that sound?”

“A lot more obtainable,” I said with false enthusiasm. “There are five such locations in Balsa City alone,
with lots more in the county. You’re in luck!”

“There’s no middle ground?” He sounded wistful.

“Nope, it’s goll-dern country, or there’s a place you can land behind Hardee’s and pick you up a burger to munch on your flight back to Little Cat Island, where a cordon bleu chef awaits to fulfill your every wish, twenty-four hours a day. Bon appetit!”

“I was just kidding!” He seemed surprised when he heard the anger in my voice that I hadn’t taken the trouble to hide.

“Rand, lesson number one: When living in the South, don’t make fun of the natives, they may get restless.”

He lowered the helicopter slowly downward to rest near the paper towel X that was almost still in place. Only in two or three places had the paper pulled free of the Coke cans that were supposed to anchor it down.

We sat in silence while the blades slowly finished their rotations and stopped. I saw Wayne and Donnie Ray start out to help me unload. The five nightlights on the property gave us adequate light.

“I guess this means that we won’t have dinner together tonight. How about Friday, about six? We’ll get an early start and make Jacksonville in plenty of time for a little restaurant I discovered recently. You’ll love it.”

“Not hungry.”

He seemed to act as if I had a couple of loose screws for refusing to go along with his plans. I’d have to state it plainer.

“I don’t think so, Rand. At least not in this lifetime. Thanks for the ride home.”