“THE CAVE—WHY DIDN’T I EVER REALIZE BEFORE THAT the cave is close to the abandoned farmhouse?” Cherry asked herself. “That cave was blockaded. Suppose the blockade has some purpose? Is there any connection between the cave and whatever is going on in the old house?”
Cherry dressed quickly and ran downstairs to ask Aunt Cora whether she knew, or had heard, any tales about the cave.
“I did once hear that some caves or hiding places around here have a long history,” Aunt Cora said. Cherry recalled Jane’s saying that the old farmhouse was reported to hold a secret—a secret over a hundred years old.
“Is there anyone around Sauk who would remember? Anyone interested in local history?” Cherry asked.
“Yes. Phoebe Grisbee’s old uncle. He’s a scholarly old man, and his forebears were among the first settlers in Iowa. But he’s old and frail, I don’t know whether he receives many visitors.”
“It’s important,” Cherry said. “Please don’t ask me any questions.”
“Well, really! I must say—” Then Aunt Cora smiled. “No, I won’t say. I’ll go phone Mr. Marquette and ask if we may pay him a call.”
After a telephone conversation, Aunt Cora returned to say that the old man would see them this evening, if they could conveniently come right away.
“We mustn’t keep him up too late,” Aunt Cora said. “Let’s skip supper until later, shall we?”
In an old house at the end of town, Cherry and her aunt found a more vigorous old man than they had expected to see. He was, in fact, delighted to have company. Cherry thought she saw traces of Indian as well as French descent in his long, narrow, hawk-nosed face, fine black eyes, and lean figure.
“Yes, ladies, there are indeed some woods and houses with a history in this part of Iowa,” Louis Marquette said. That’s because of our Des Moines River, and our proximity to the Mississippi River. The two rivers meet near here, as you know.”
Cherry asked what specific history a century-old farmhouse, or a cave near it and near the river, might have.
“A century ago. Or longer, you say.” The old man thought for a moment. “That would take us back to the days just before the Civil War. In those days, or rather, nights, runaway slaves from southern plantations secretly followed the Mississippi to escape to the North and freedom—”
He began to tell them stories of the Underground Railway. There never was an actual railroad; he explained that was a code name for escape routes, on foot. “Stations” were hiding places along the way for runaway Negroes. “Conductors” were sympathetic Northerners who opposed slavery and helped smuggle the fugitives northward to free Canada. Slave hunters, men on horseback armed with whips and guns and bloodhounds, scoured the North, demanding that the slaves be returned. The law of the land, the Fugitive Slave Act, was on the slave hunters’ side, and big rewards were offered for the runaways.
“Anyone who undertook to hide a fugitive or two or three, and pass them safely farther northward,” Mr. Marquette said, “had to find, or build, safe hiding places. That’s why you still can find houses and barns with secret rooms, and concealed routes of various kinds. Now, I’ve heard of a cave near here located at the river’s edge, at a narrow point in the Des Moines River—”
Cherry felt the back of her neck tingle with excitement. The cave in Riverside Park was near the Des Moines River. And the river narrowed there! At the picnic the Sunday before Labor Day, some of the boys had easily swum over to the Missouri shore and back.
“—where it was easier, being narrower,” the old man was saying, “for the runaways to cross by skiff. They crossed the river by night, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Iowa. When they reached this side, a ‘conductor’ hid them somewhere and kept them for a few days, or overnight, until the next ‘conductor’ farther north signalled that it was safe to smuggle them along to his station.” Old Mr. Marquette paused. “We had only a few conductors and stations around here. Rare, here. Most of the escaping slaves, after following the Mississippi northward, turned east rather than west and followed along the Ohio River. But we had a few ‘stations.’”
“About the cave, Mr. Marquette,” Cherry said. She noticed her aunt observing her excitement. “Where is that cave, please? And you said some houses had a secret room—where is there such a house around here?”
Both the old man and her aunt smiled.
“I’d gladly tell you if I knew,” Mr. Marquette said. “In a hundred years people forget a secret. Mind you, only a handful of persons ever knew such secrets in the first place. Houses get torn down. Old trails are overgrown, or paved over now.”
“But a cave!” Aunt Cora said. “A cave remains.”
Mr. Marquette shook his head and said the only hiding places he’d known about no longer existed.
Cherry was disappointed—but excited at learning this much. Houses with secret rooms! Cherry recalled how she had seen the shadow of a man’s figure in the old farmhouse and how it had vanished, seemingly into the wall. Could there be a hidden room in the old farmhouse?
And the blockaded cave! The cave had seemed to hold a passageway, blocked by a pile of dirt. Was there a passageway or secret route? Did it, by any chance, lead from the cave to the nearby old farmhouse? If so, to where in the farmhouse?
Cherry wanted to go first thing tomorrow to the old farm and explore. But with the two strangers from St. Louis in the vicinity, would that be too dangerous? She asked her aunt to wait a few minutes on Dr. Clark’s porch while she stopped by to tell Dr. Hal what she had learned.
“I’m not sure you’ve really learned anything,” Hal said kindly. “Don’t get your hopes up too high. Local lore might be factual, or it might not.”
“If I could ever get mad at you, Hal Miller, it would be now!” Cherry said.
“Well, I notice your old Mr. Marquette couldn’t show you a map, or name names or locations,” Hal said.
“Hmm. Still—listening to him talk makes the old hiding places awfully real. Hal, do you suppose there’s a secret route near that farm?”
“Cherry! All you have is a hypothesis.”
“My dear Mr. Scientist, do you suppose Floyd and the others are making some special use of the house and cave for their Nature’s Herb Cure racket?”
“It’s possible. I’ll tell you this,” Hal said, “I’d rather not enter the cave or farmhouse again if we can avoid it.”
“S-sh!” Cherry said. “Aunt Cora is outside on the porch, and I don’t want her to hear and worry.”
Cherry and Hal exchanged good nights, and Cherry went out to her aunt.
“You’re so patient to wait for me,” Cherry said. “You must be half starved by now. I know I am.”
“Well, yes,” Aunt Cora confessed. “Let’s go to Smith’s Restaurant. It’s never too late to go there.”
It was growing close to ten P.M., which in a little farming town like Sauk was very late indeed. Most people were in bed by now, because they rose at sunup. The few blocks to the town’s only restaurant were dark and deserted.
The lunch counter at the front of Smith’s was serving all-night truck drivers. Cherry and her aunt went on into the back dining room, where they sat down in one of the booths. It seemed empty here, as usual.
The waitress came and they gave their order. At first Cherry thought she and Aunt Cora were the only patrons. Then she heard a low murmur of men’s voices. She looked over her shoulder and saw them. Floyd Barker and the two hard-looking strangers were sitting almost out of sight in the farthest booth. They had their heads together, talking in low, urgent voices.
“Aunt Cora,” Cherry whispered, “don’t call me by name in here.” She slid into the corner of the booth. “Please! Let’s keep quiet.”
Aunt Cora was astonished, but cooperated. Cherry did not want Floyd and the St. Louis men to see her—to see that she had observed them together, to realize that now she would link the three of them in her fight against the fake drug. That would force them into stronger, more devious tactics.
Cherry half rose to go, to hurry out. Or was it safer to sit tight and be inconspicuous?
The waitress came with the first of their food. That settled it. If she and Aunt Cora walked out leaving their food untouched, and the waitress asked questions, that would be noticeable.
Cherry, somehow, got through a miserable meal. Floyd and the two strangers left first. They walked rapidly through the room looking straight ahead, not talking. Had they seen her? Cherry thought they had. She heard a car start out in the street.
“Now can you tell me what’s wrong?” Aunt Cora asked. She looked terribly worried.
Cherry slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Aunt Cora. Not yet. Soon, though—”
That Wednesday night Cherry’s dreams were troubled. She woke up far too early, impatient for a decent hour to telephone Dr. Hal. She told him about the incident in Smith’s Restaurant.
He was as alarmed as she was. “I’ll tell Mr. Short and the sheriff,” he said. “I’ll probably see them before you do, today.”
“Yes, I’m going right out on nursing calls this morning,” Cherry said.
“I’d better tell them, too, about those stories of caves and hiding places that you heard last evening from old Mr. Marquette,” Hal said. “No, on second thought, I won’t. They’re vague, and anyway, Mr. Steeley is bound to know all the local hearsay.”
There was a pause in their conversation. In the face of last night’s ugly development, neither of them knew what to say.
“Well, Cherry,” Hal said, “keep your eyes open on your visits for a sample—just in case Snell tricks us this afternoon.”
“I will. See you late this afternoon. I wish us luck.” Cherry hung up, conscious of her aunt trying not to overhear, but worried all the same.
Cherry paid quick visits to six trustworthy former patients. Every one of them, acting on her and Dr. Hal’s earlier instructions, had thrown away Nature’s Herb Cure. No sample there for Mr. Short to collect. Nor had these persons seen the old pedlar. They thought he must have changed his route.
At noon Dr. Hal notified Cherry at her office that he had driven across the river to Missouri that morning, and talked with the Swaybills’ cousins. Neither they nor their neighbors had kept any of the fake remedy. They had not seen the old pedlar, either. No other pedlar sold the stuff.
Cherry heard something interesting from one of the other doctors in the county when she called him to report on one of his patients. Dr. Boudineau, who travelled all over the county, said he had not observed ginseng growing anywhere except on the abandoned farm. And he told her that the pedlar had been seen in Red Oaks two or three days ago. It was a small town in an area where, so far, Cherry had no patients. Old Snell had tried to persuade a druggist there to stock and sell Nature’s Herb Cure, and had offered profitable terms. The druggist would have nothing to do with the plan.
So the pedlar was trying to expand the racket in several new places! He was changing locations in order to evade her and Hal’s public warnings!
Unfortunately, her afternoon’s schedule took her not to individual patients who might have a sample of the stuff, but to one of the county’s rural high schools, in a far corner of the county. Dr. Rand, one of the county’s physicians, had asked her to assist in giving inoculations against typhoid.
Cherry assisted with the immunization clinic at the rural high school. Her work took up most of the early afternoon. Afterward, she spent a few more precious minutes talking to the teenage boys and girls.
Many of them belonged to the 4-H Club, sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture, and told Cherry they hoped to win awards at the fair. The boys were raising fine bulls, hogs, colts, and were growing prize corn and vegetables, here in the richest soil in the nation. The girls grew flowers of all kinds, did fine baking, breadmaking, canning, and preserving, and sewed everything from clothing to curtains and quilts.
The girls asked Cherry whether she would head a 4-H Club project for them in health, nursing, and first aid. A good many of the boys wanted to take part in that, too. Cherry was happy to say yes. She left it to them to decide, and notify her, when and where they would hold their meetings. It was all she could do to break away from these friendly boys and girls.
Cherry left the school building and started back toward Sauk. On the way she stopped at a highway telephone booth and called Jane Fraser. Both Hal and Mr. Short wanted to learn from Jane where Floyd was today.
“Between this party line and that talkative parrot, I’ll have to choose my words carefully,” Cherry thought. She listened to the operator ringing the Barkers’ number and hoped Floyd would not answer.
Jane’s voice came on. In a kind of double talk, Cherry conveyed her question. All Jane was able to reply guardedly was: “I don’t know for certain. I think our friend went rabbit hunting.”
Rabbit hunting in the woods? Near Snell’s shack? Cherry said, “I’ll be in touch with you soon again. Right now I have an appointment with a patient.” She wished she could tell Jane that the “patient” was herself.