Mandie Collection, The: 8 (23 page)

“He say wagons missing,” Uncle Ned told Joe. “Do not leave cart alone.”

“Wagons missing?” Mandie repeated, holding tightly to Snowball.

“Yes,” Sallie said. “Dimar came by the schoolhouse to tell us this morning that three wagons are missing. His mother’s disappeared from their barn yesterday. Last night Jessan, father of Tsa’ni, could not find his wagon in their yard. Also, your uncle Wirt, father of Jessan, lost his wagon while it was in his barn.”

Uncle Ned had been listening from where he sat on his horse and now he said, “We go my house.”

The three young people discussed the missing wagons as they rode behind Uncle Ned to his house.

“As big as a wagon is, I don’t see how anybody could steal a wagon and hide it,” Joe remarked.

“But Dimar says he and Jessan have been searching all over the mountain and have not found one yet,” Sallie said.

When they arrived at Uncle Ned’s house, Morning Star, his wife, was not home. Uncle Ned said she had gone to visit sick people in the Cherokee hospital.

“I wish I had time to go to the hospital and see everything,” Mandie remarked to Sallie as they waited in the cart for Uncle Ned and Joe to find clothes in the house that they could wear in the river.

“Perhaps the next time you visit you will have more time to see it,” Sallie said.

“Don’t forget we need to discuss with your grandfather our plans to visit each other this summer. You said he would help us,” Mandie reminded her.

“Yes, he will do that,” Sallie said. “As soon as we have time.”

Joe and Uncle Ned came out of the house then, and Mandie noticed that they were wearing old clothes and carrying the ones they had had on. Uncle Ned hitched up his wagon so Sallie would have a way back home without Joe having to bring her back.

They traveled back to the slope and parked where they had before. This time Mandie carried Snowball with her when they went below to look for the mica. Uncle Ned was an expert in tracking anything. The others followed him as he found traces of the mica along the way.

Mandie smiled at Joe who kept rolling up the legs of the trousers he was wearing. Evidently they were made for Uncle Ned’s long legs.

“They were the shortest ones he could find,” Joe remarked, grinning at her.

“I hope you don’t drown in them,” Mandie replied with a laugh.

They had worked their way back to the river where Uncle Ned had brought them before.

“Now we look in water,” the old man told Joe. He stepped out onto a large rock at the edge of the water.

Joe followed him, and the girls watched them as they stepped from
boulder to boulder and waded in the water between. They bent down now and then and scooped up silt from the bottom where it was shallow. Uncle Ned closely examined each handful and stooped occasionally to peer into the water.

“I don’t believe they are finding anything, or Joe would be yelling at us about it,” Mandie said, letting Snowball down to walk at the end of his leash.

“No, there is no mica in the river,” Sallie said. “I can see that my grandfather has not found any and he is puzzled.”

Soon Uncle Ned and Joe gave up and returned to the riverbank where the girls were waiting. They were both dripping wet and could hardly walk in the soaking wet clothes.

“No mica,” Uncle Ned declared as they joined Mandie and Sallie.

“Let’s go back to the cart so we can change into our dry clothes, Uncle Ned. It’s not exactly warm enough today to go swimming,” Joe remarked with chattering teeth and a big grin. He ran up the slope and the others followed.

As Uncle Ned and Joe retrieved their clothes from the wagon and the cart, Uncle Ned told the girls, “Sit in cart. We go back here, change clothes.” He motioned to a thicket behind the place where they were parked.

Sallie and Mandie waited in the cart, and when Uncle Ned and Joe came back, they were dried off and wearing their clothes. They threw the wet clothes in the wagon. And to Mandie’s surprise, Uncle Ned took a large basket from his wagon and brought it over to the cart.

“Now we eat,” he said, stepping up into the cart.

Joe quickly followed, grinned at Mandie, and said, “Uncle Ned thinks of everything. I didn’t remember to bring any food.”

“I think time to eat,” the old man said, opening the lid on the basket. He pulled out a folded tablecloth and spread it on the floor of the cart. Then he brought out the food—biscuits, fried chicken, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes.

“My goodness, Uncle Ned!” Mandie exclaimed as she watched. “Where did you get all this food in such a hurry?”

“Morning Star leave food,” the old man said with a big smile.

“My grandmother cooked before she went off today because she
knew my grandfather would be back,” Sallie said, passing around tin plates from the basket.

Snowball went wild when he smelled the food. Uncle Ned picked the gizzard out of the bowl of chicken and handed it to Mandie. “Give white cat,” he said.

Mandie took it and looked around. She didn’t want Snowball to grease up the floor of the cart. Spotting a folded burlap bag in the back, she asked Joe, “Is it all right if I put this on that bag so Snowball won’t drag it all over the place?”

“Go ahead,” Joe agreed. “He won’t hurt anything.”

After the cat got his dinner and everyone had settled down with food, Uncle Ned told them, “Mica not here. Mica traveled downriver.”

“But I thought y’all didn’t find any mica in the river,” Mandie said in surprise.

“No mica in river. Mica ride on raft or boat downriver,” the old man explained.

Mandie’s eyes opened wide and she said, “My goodness, it would take one of my grandmother’s ships to haul all that mica down the river.”

“Maybe some by river, some by wagon. Schoolman say wagons missing,” Uncle Ned replied.

“Oh, I see,” Mandie said. “But it sure would take a long time to move that mica by any means, wouldn’t it, Joe?”

“Yes, that’s what I told Uncle Ned. It was a huge pile,” Joe agreed.

“We find missing wagons, we find missing mica,” Uncle Ned insisted.

“So what do we do now?” Mandie asked between bites of fried chicken.

Uncle Ned paused from eating the corn off the cob and replied, “We look for wagons.”

“Mr. O’Neal said he might join us later today, so maybe he will show up and help. This is going to be an awfully big job,” Joe remarked, digging into a baked potato.

“We have done bigger jobs before,” Sallie reminded him. She was also eating a piece of chicken.

Joe looked at the two girls, grinned, and said, “Here we go again!”

“We haven’t found a mystery yet that we couldn’t solve,” Mandie reminded him. “It’s just that we don’t have a lot of time for this one, because I have to go home Saturday. We’ll have to hurry.”

Mandie began thinking of possibilities for the solution of this mystery.

CHAPTER SIX

THE STRANGER IN THE WOODS

After they had consumed most of the food in the basket, Uncle Ned put the remaining food in a pouch with his bow and arrows. The young people waited for Uncle Ned’s suggestions as to how to begin this search for the missing wagons as they all sat in the cart.

“Three wagons missing, three different parts of country,” Uncle Ned told them. “Jessan live Deep Creek. Uncle Wirt live Bird-town. Dimar live up mountain betwixt. Take long time to steal from all three people. Take long time to hunt all three places.” He paused to think.

“Uncle Ned, maybe we should split up and go in three different directions at one time. That way we’d get finished quicker,” Mandie suggested, holding the end of Snowball’s leash as he prowled around the inside of the cart.

“No, no, too dangerous. Must stay together. We nearer Dimar now. We go find Dimar,” he spoke decisively, standing up and jumping down from the cart.

“Are we going in two different vehicles?” Joe asked as he, too, stood up and stepped down.

“No, only to Dimar house,” Uncle Ned told him. “We leave cart with mother of Dimar.”

Uncle Ned led the way up the mountain in his wagon. Joe, driving the cart, followed with the girls and Snowball. When they arrived at Dimar’s house, they found Jerusha Walkingstick at her home, but her son, Dimar, was not there.

“Dimar gone look for wagon,” Jerusha told them as they stood at the front door of her cabin in the mountain woods.

“We go look for wagons, too,” Uncle Ned told her. “Dimar come home, tell him we search. Need him help.”

“He went to look in woods by house of Uncle Wirt in Bird-town,” the woman replied. “Not gone long.”

“We go look by Uncle Wirt’s house. Find Dimar maybe, too,” the old man told her.

“Dimar told us your wagon was in the barn yesterday and then was not there last night,” Sallie said. “Did anyone come this way yesterday?”

“No, no one I see,” Jerusha replied.

“We leave cart here and go in wagon. Be back for it,” Uncle Ned told her.

Jerusha nodded and said, “Leave cart front where I see.”

Mandie spoke up. “What color shirt is Dimar wearing?”

Everyone looked surprised at that question. Jerusha frowned as she replied, “Wear color brown shirt, with deerskin jacket.”

“I wanted to know because we might be able to spot him at a distance in the woods by the color of his shirt,” Mandie explained.

Joe smiled at her and said, “Yes, I remember how we were followed one time by someone in a white shirt, and we were able to identify him later by the shirt.”

“We go now,” the old man told the young people. He started down the front path and waved his hand back at Jerusha in the doorway.

Joe rushed to the cart and got his rifle, which he had brought from home. Everyone followed and scrambled into Uncle Ned’s wagon. Joe had already tethered the horse and cart in view of the front door. Mandie held on to Snowball.

Uncle Ned usually drove at a slow pace but today he was in a hurry. He rushed over bumps and ruts in the dirt road, causing Mandie’s teeth to chatter. She looked at her friends. They were also being shaken about as they clung to the side of the wagon. Joe was riding on the seat beside Uncle Ned and grasping the side rail. Sallie smiled at Mandie
and held on with both hands as she sat on the floor of the wagon bed. And Snowball, with his leash tied to a hook on the rail, was loudly protesting as he looked at his mistress.

“One thing for sure, going at this speed we’ll soon be at Uncle Wirt’s house,” Mandie said to Sallie over the rattle of the wagon.

Sallie smiled at her and agreed. “Yes.”

When Uncle Ned pulled the wagon up into the front yard of Uncle Wirt’s house, they were immediately surrounded by Mandie’s Cherokee kinpeople. Her grandmother had been Uncle Wirt’s sister and had died many years before Mandie was born, but these people knew Mandie and loved her as one of them.

“Welcome, my daughter,” Uncle Wirt said, embracing Mandie as she stepped down from the wagon.

Mandie knew the Cherokee people did not classify kinpeople like the white people do. She was really Uncle Wirt’s great-niece. And most of her relatives called each other brother or sister. It had been confusing for her to learn this, and even now she had to stop to think what the exact connection was with all these kinpeople.

“I love you, Uncle Wirt,” Mandie said, standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on the old man’s cheek. Then she turned to his wife, Aunt Saphronia, and hugged her.

The little old woman probably had a million wrinkles that increased as she greeted Mandie with a big smile.

After everyone had been greeted in the yard, Uncle Wirt led the way into their log cabin. “Sit,” he told them.

Uncle Ned remained standing and said, “We come, look for wagon. Look for Dimar to help.”

“Yes, wagon leave barn. I not see,” Uncle Wirt replied with a frown as he, too, stood nearby. “Dimar look, not find.”

“Where is Dimar now, Uncle Wirt?” Mandie asked as she perched on a handmade chair.

“Dimar here this morning,” Uncle Wirt explained. “Go up to woods. Look for three wagons. Puzzle. Not figure out.” He shook his head and his long, silver-streaked hair swung about his face.

“We go find Dimar, help together,” Uncle Ned replied. The young people stood up as the old man turned back toward the front door.

“We do have to hurry because my mother expects Mandie and me back home for supper,” Joe reminded everyone.

“Me go?” Uncle Wirt asked Uncle Ned as he pointed to his chest.

“No,” Uncle Ned replied. “Stay here. Wait for Dimar. We go to woods, tell him. We not sure we find him, but we look for wagons in woods.”

“Yes, we tell Dimar,” Uncle Wirt agreed, and turning to Mandie he said, “Come back, see Cherokee kinpeople.”

“As soon as I can, Uncle Wirt. I have to go home Saturday, but I’ll be back when school gets out for the summer,” Mandie promised.

The young people piled back into the wagon, and Uncle Ned headed toward the thick woods on the mountain. Mandie knew that at some point the wagon would not be able to get through the dense forest and that Uncle Ned would leave it parked somewhere and they would proceed on foot. She had been through many mysteries with the old man and was familiar with the fact that the countryside had very few roads that were passable for a wagon.

Shortly thereafter Uncle Ned pulled the wagon into a clearing among the thick chestnut trees. The road ahead didn’t look wide enough for the wagon to pass through.

“Now we walk,” he told the young people as he tethered the horse to a bush nearby.

Everyone jumped down. Mandie looked around. She could see an old log cabin through the trees above them and wondered if anyone lived there. Then Uncle Ned answered that question.

“Red Bird live up there. Know wagon, watch wagon,” he said to the young people.

“Hadn’t we better go tell him you’re leaving it here?” Joe asked.

“No, he see. He see everything,” the old man said, starting to climb a path in the opposite direction. “Now we walk, round, round, look at everything. Maybe see tracks from wagons.” He was watching the ground as he walked. “Maybe see Dimar. All look.” He glanced back at the young people.

Everyone immediately began watching the ground as they walked. Mandie had learned a little about tracking from the old man, and Sallie was an expert at it, but Joe had never been able to figure it all out.
He would know a wagon wheel rut when he saw one, but he wouldn’t know what kind of wagon or how fast it had been going.