Chapter 19

 

From Turtle Lake it was just over ten miles to Hammer Bridge, and we encountered only a few other cars.

“I’m glad we’re coming in from the east, so we don’t have to drive past the Leonards,” I said.

“Stop worrying. They aren’t wasting time watching the traffic on their road. It’s a busy route.”

“Probably, but I don’t want to take a chance of annoying DuWayne. They might be outside on a nice day like this.” I felt like we were being chancy enough, snooping around just a mile from the trailer.

When we reached the bridge, we pulled onto a wide shoulder on the southeast side. Obviously many people had parked here.

“That box is going to be long gone,” Cora predicted.

“We’ll know really soon,” I countered.

As it turned out, it wasn’t so easy to complete our quest. The embankments beneath the bridge were really steep, and had grown up with berry bushes since the pictures had been taken. It was almost twenty feet down to the water. In fact, it was hard to figure out just where we should be hunting. I had thought the pictures were taken looking to the east, and that the box was up under the bridge on that side of the creek. While I was trying to figure out how to scramble under the beams on the steep slope, Cora wandered off along the creek on the north side of the road. Paddy had already found a way down the steep slope and was splashing in the stream, trying to pull a branch from a pile of jumbled brush that had hung up on a fallen tree. The water was low and flowing gently, so I figured it was safe enough to let him play.

“Come see this,” Cora called.

I wasn’t having much luck finding any access, let alone an easy one, and brushed the dirt off my jeans as I walked across the road, then pushed through some saplings, to join her on a small pointed bluff of land that defined an eastward bend in the creek.

“I think this is where those pictures were taken,” she said. “Look at that rock. Isn’t that in the photos?”

“Yes it is. The box should be over on those beams, then. Do you see it?”

“It’s all covered with nightshade vines and nettles. That won’t be much fun to crawl through.”

“I’ve got a jacket in the car.”

We crossed the bridge, but I stopped first to pull my nylon windbreaker from the back seat, slipping it on as we walked. On the northwest side of the bridge the vegetation was lush, but not as thick with berry bushes. With the jacket on to protect my arms from the stinging nettles it was fairly easy to slide a short way down the bank, where I discovered a narrow benched area in the slope on which I could stand. It led directly to the underside of the bridge. Making my way carefully so that the vines didn’t trip me—it would be a nasty fall to the bottom—I continued until I could reach up and grab the metal of the bridge supports. The area where the box should be was so obscured with weeds that I couldn’t tell, even yet, if the box was there. I searched for a stick to push the nettles aside, but couldn’t find one.

Reluctantly, I pulled the sleeve of my jacket down over my hand, and used my arm to sweep the vines and stalks out of the way. There it was, a small rusty tackle box, pushed back against the concrete of the abutment. The round shape we had seen was a combination padlock, slipped through the hasp. Eagerly, I stretched on tiptoe to reach for it, and lost my footing just as my fingers closed around the corners of the box. I began sliding and crashing through the brush.

“What’s happening? Are you all right?” I heard Cora call. I couldn’t answer her. I was busy. Busy twisting so that I was sliding on my back instead of with my face against the bank. Busy holding the box so we wouldn’t lose it. Busy trying to see where I was going to land. I caught a glimpse of Paddy looking up at me with an expression of absolute surprise on his face. He gave a sharp yip and leapt out of the way.

Where I landed, not surprisingly, was in the creek. The bank had been steep, but not sheer, and there were a number of small bushes that slowed my descent. I hoped I might just get wet shoes, but no such luck. My feet hit the water first, but the creek bed was uneven and I couldn’t get my footing. I continued to slide until I was sitting flat on my bottom in the cool water, clutching the rusty, dusty box. I began to laugh. I laughed so hard I almost cried.

Cora apparently thought I was making sounds of distress. “Oh no,” I heard her say. “Is anything broken? Can you get up? Shall I try to stop a car? Ana! Answer me!”

“I’m fine,” I finally managed to call between gasps. Paddy had come to my aid and was busily licking my face. “Just wet. And I have our treasure box. Help me figure out how to get back up the bank.”

Paddy also found the solution to that problem. When I told him to “Go find the car,” he walked upstream in the water around the bend. Since I was already wet I simply followed him. There, we found a wide gully that met the creek, and we easily climbed up to the east bank.

“I’m over here!” I yelled as I emerged from the woods at the road edge, and Cora came back across the bridge to meet me. Now she was laughing. I crossed to the car and stood there dripping, causing small muddy puddles to form below the hem of my jeans.

“Oh, my! I haven’t had so much fun in a coon’s age. I mean... you are all right, aren’t you?” She covered her mouth and tried to stop laughing, but we both ended up giggling like junior high schoolgirls.

Except for a few scratches on my hands and one ankle, I really was fine. It was a good thing I had packed two towels and two blankets since both Paddy and I needed them for the trip home. I handed the box over to Cora.

“Let’s go to my place first, so I can get some dry clothes,” I suggested.

“Of course,” Cora agreed. I headed west, and she added, “I thought you didn’t want to go past the Leonards.”

“Too bad! I’m not stopping to visit, so for all they know I’ve been shopping in Emily City.”

I kept my eyes on the road, but I was quite sure I heard Cora trying to stifle more chuckles.

After reaching my house, I headed upstairs to change, and told Cora to make herself at home, and pour us some lemonade. When I returned to the kitchen the box was cleaned off and sitting on some paper towels in the middle of the table, flanked by two glasses of lemonade loaded with ice.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Of our box?” Cora shrugged. “It could be something interesting, or it might be full of fishhooks and old bubblegum wrappers. Although I’m not sure little boys would have put a hefty combination lock like that on a tackle box.”

“I was thinking that too. Should we break it open?”

Cora stared at the box as if it were radiotransmitting answers. “I think not just yet. Let’s hold on to it for a while and think about it. I’ll try to recall some other children who lived in that area in 2004. You have to wonder why it was left there, never reclaimed.”

“Kids forget about things.”

“Things they’ve locked up with a big padlock?”

“Good point.”

We finished the lemonade, and I showed Cora around my house. She’d never been there, since she left her home very seldom. We chatted about colors and curtain styles, and she concluded that the house was going to look much nicer than when Jimmie Mosher had lived there. I suggested we might as well make the day complete and have an early dinner. We settled on the shabby but reliable Pine Tree Diner, in Cherry Hill, but Cora refused to let me pay for her meal. However she did agree to attend the memorial service for Angelica. And she took the padlocked tackle box when I dropped her at her home on Brown Trout Lane. I wondered if she planned to lock the box in the old bank safe where we had stored evidence about the Sorenson case.