Ghost Stories, #2 (Nancy Drew) Page 10

She pulled a key from a pegboard. "Come on. We'll chat on the way."

  They left the office and walked down a line of small cottages, stopping in front of number nine. "This is the nicest one I have," Mrs. Johnson said and opened the door to a pleasant, colonial-style room.

  "Now, you want to know about the lake?" she asked as the girls walked past her. "It's ghosts!"

  "I told you!" Bess said, throwing herself on one of the beds. "Are there any restaurants open this late?"

  Mrs. Johnson shook her head. "I can whip up a few cheeseburgers, though, and put them on the bill."

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  "Sounds like heaven." Bess sighed.

  *'What about Lake Oolagah?" Nancy persisted.

  '*An old Indian came into town a couple of years ago," the old woman said sadly. "His name was John Bearcloud. He went around telling everyone that the lake and surrounding area was an old Delaware Indian burial ground and that we were all cursed for desecrating it. He built a lean-to out there and started performing what he called 'manito magic' to bring out the spirits of the dead to defend their holy ground."

  "We saw them," Bess said, sitting up and staring.

  "We laughed at him," Mrs. Johnson continued. "We even ran him off the property several times, but he always came back. We couldn't police it twenty-four hours a day. Then we saw the ghosts. And everything started dying. This used to be a thriving community because we had lots of people come to the lake. Now everything's gone. The only reason I'm still here is that this is my home and I have nowhere else to go. Mr. Johnson passed away many years ago."

  "Isn't that government property?" Nancy asked. "A state park, if I remember correctly?"

  The woman nodded. "We had the government people come out," she said. "They saw the ghosts, too. But you can't put that on an official report."

  "That must be why the road is still open," Nancy said. "No one could come up with an official reason for closing it."

  "Sad but true," Mrs. Johnson said. "I suppose you'll be leaving in the morning?"

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  "Absolutely," Bess said.

  "I'm not so sure," Nancy said. "This may be too good a mystery to let stand."

  While Mrs. Johnson made dinner, the girls got ready for bed. When the woman returned, she brought with her not only the cheeseburgers but also a large bowl of salad and three slices of steaming homemade apple pie!

  The young detectives ate ravenously. Nancy was far hungrier than she had realized. But she couldn't get the ghosts of Lake Oolagah out of her mind. As they finished the last of their pie, she determined that they would not leave the area until they had gotten to the bottom of the mystery.

  Nancy awoke early from a restless sleep. She dressed quietly to avoid waking George and Bess, then slipped outside to make a phone call. By the time she returned to the cabin, the girls were awake.

  "Are we really staying around this creepy place?" Bess asked as she combed her blonde hair.

  Nancy perched on the end of the bed, looking fresh in her yellow shorts and blouse. "Well, we have to get the gear that you didn't want to take last night. It wouldn't hurt to poke around the lake a little while we're there."

  "Does that mean yes or no?" George asked.

  Nancy stood up. "It means, let's go down to the office and have a nice breakfast with Mrs. Johnson and see what the day brings."

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  Bess frowned at her reflection in the dresser mirror. "It means, we're staying."

  An hour later, they were back on the secluded road to Lake Oolagah.

  "This looks just as spooky in the daytime," George said.

  Nancy's attention was caught by a cloud drifting overhead. It was a strange-looking cloud, brighter than any she had ever seen. She wondered what it was.

  When the girls arrived at the spot where they had begun to set up camp the night before, they gasped.

  "Our gear's gone!" George exclaimed.

  "My dad's going to kill me!" cried Bess, thinking of the new Coleman stove and lantern she had borrowed.

  "Don't worry," Nancy said. "I think I know where the equipment is."

  "You do?" George stared at her.

  "I do." Nancy smiled. "And this is the break I've been looking for."

  Without another word, she turned the car around and headed back up the road, stopping near what she figured was John Bearcloud's shack.

  "Come on," she said, getting out. "Let's meet the man who brought the curse to Lake Oolagah."

  "You must be kidding!" Bess said. "Suppose he decides to have us for dinner or something?"

  "We'll let him eat you first," George replied sardonically.

  "Very funny," Bess said, and made a face.

  As they moved through the bleak landscape to the

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  tumbledown shack, the strange white cloud was still drifting overhead. Nancy had an uneasy feeling about it, but she could not explain why.

  They closed in on the shack. Its appearance was even more ragged when they came up close.

  "There's our gear," George said, suddenly, pointing to a pile of camping equipment near the front door.

  Just then, a large man wearing a plaid flannel shirt stepped out of the hut. His long black hair was tied back at the nape of his neck and his angular face was filled with deep creases. "What do you want?" he boomed.

  "You must be John Bearcloud," Nancy said.

  "What do you want?" the man demanded again.

  "That's our gear," Nancy said, pointing to the stack. "We left it last night and came to get it."

  "Why did you leave it?" he asked harshly.

  "We saw the ghost lights and got scared," Bess said. "Please give us the stuff back. My father will be really mad it I don't bring it home."

  "This is Indian land," Bearcloud declared. "Whites must stay away."

  "Someone told us it belonged to the Delaware Indians," Nancy said, "but we didn't learn which tribe."

  John Bearcloud just stared at her. "Leave," he said after a moment.

  "What about our gear?" Bess persisted.

  "Take it and go!"

  "That cloud," Nancy said, pointing to the bright white nimbus. "What is that?"

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  Bearcloud barely glanced up. 'The Manito," he said. "The Great Spirit protecting this land."

  "You never told me what tribe is buried here," Nancy said.

  "Cree Indian," he said. "Now go!"

  The girls grabbed the equipment and retraced their steps through the woods. Bess was panting when they arrived at the car.

  "Nancy Drew," she wheezed. "Why do you get us into these things. That man was frightening!"

  "Well, now that you're acquainted," Nancy smiled, "you won't mind going back."

  "What?" Bess looked dumbfounded.

  Nancy got in the car and began pumping the gas pedal.

  "What are you doing?" George asked.

  "Flooding the engine," Nancy replied.

  "But then we won't be able to leave!" Bess protested.

  Nancy nodded. "That's the idea."

  After pumping the pedal for several moments, she tried to start the car. It whined loudly, but wouldn't turn over.

  "Do you think John Bearcloud can hear this in his shack?" she asked George over the noise of the crying engine.

  "Sure," George replied. "But why are you doing this?"

  "I want him over here helping with the car so I can check out his shack," Nancy said.

  "What do you expect to find in there?"

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  Nancy shrugged. "I won't know until I look."

  She climbed out of the car. "Go up and ask him for help," she said. '*1 won't need any more than five or ten minutes." She disappeared between the trees. Bess looked unhappy. "Do we have to?" she murmured. Then she got out reluctantly.

  From a distance, Nancy watched her friends approach the shack. There were many large rocks in the woods, and she kept out o
f sight hiding behind one of them.

  Finally, she heard Bearcloud's voice loudly telling the girls he knew nothing about cars. But George insisted and finally persuaded him to take a look. Nancy watched them walk past her vantage point, then ran to the shack when it was safe.

  The front door was open and she slipped inside. It was a dismal place, containing one small table with a lantern on it, a sleeping bag on the floor, and a tiny dresser made of unfinished wood.

  On the table lay a savings book. She opened it to find John Bearcloud had an account of twenty-five thousand dollars!

  Putting the bank book back on the table, Nancy moved to the dresser and pulled out the drawers. The first contained canned goods. In the second were clothes, mostly jeans and flannel shirts. The third drawer was filled with hundreds of clear plastic trashbags and candles. The bags were large, industrial ones, and had D.E. printed on them in red letters.

  All at once, Nancy heard the Indian's voice coming closer.

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  "I don't care how you get it out," he said. "Just leave!"

  She quickly closed the drawers and looked around. If she went out the front door, he would see her! Turning, she noticed a place where the uneven boards had been cut through for ventilation to the outside.

  She ran to the makeshift window and squeezed through it just as the Indian came through the door!

  There was a gully behind the shack. Nancy scurried to it and jumped down to hide. When she was sure it was safe, she walked along the gully away from the house, then moved through the woods to join her friends, who were already in the car.

  "We were afraid he'd caught you!" George cried in relief.

  "You were supposed to keep him here until I was finished!" Nancy said, climbing into the driver's seat.

  "He wouldn't stay," Bess said. "I think he suspected something. He kept asking where you were."

  Nancy turned the ignition without pumping the gas pedal. The car whined for several seconds, then roared to life. She drove off.

  "Did you find what you were looking for?" George asked.

  "I don't know," Nancy said, and described what she had discovered in the shack.

  "That's a lot of money for someone who lives out in the woods," Bess said. "That seems suspicious."

  "Not necessarily," Nancy said. "Where John Bear-cloud chooses to live is his own business. John Paul Getty was one of the richest men in the world, yet he

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  rode to work on the bus and brought his lunch in a paper bag. Right now, I'm more interested in the things I found in the drawer."

  "The candles and trashbags?" George asked.

  "Anyone who doesn't have garbage pickup and electricity would have those things," Bess pointed out.

  "But he had so many," Nancy said. "Also, the trashbags were industrial ones, not the kind you buy in the supermarket."

  "Maybe he has a friend who works for a company that makes them," Bess said.

  Nancy passed the road they had turned down by mistake the night before and suddenly stepped on the brakes. "D.E.!" she exclaimed. "That's it."

  "What's it?" George looked dumbfounded.

  "The D.E. that was printed on the garbage bags stands for Dunbar Enterprises!" Nancy responded excitedly.

  She checked the road behind her, then backed up and took the road to the factory.

  "Where are we going?" Bess inquired.

  "I want to look at the company again," Nancy explained. She stopped the car about twenty yards away from the guard station, prompting the day-shift guard to walk out and stare at them.

  "That's no cloud at all," Nancy said to her friends, pointing to the bright white fluff overhead. "Bearcloud called it Manito, but it's smoke, and it's coming from that odd-shaped building over there."

  She indicated a structure that looked like a large

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  cylinder squeezed together in the middle and bulging out at the top and bottom.

  "What's this got to do with anything?" Bess asked.

  "I'm not sure," Nancy said, "but I bet there's a link between Bearcloud, Dunbar Enterprises and the death of Lake Oolagah," Nancy declared, and turned the car around to drive back to the motel.

  Mrs. Johnson was waving to them from the office door when they pulled into the parking lot.

  "Nancy Drew!" she called when they had parked. "Your father phoned while you were gone."

  "Oh, good," Nancy returned. "He must have something to tell me."

  "How did your dad know we were here?" George asked.

  "I called him this morning while you were still asleep," Nancy told her. "I asked him to check on a few things for me. Go on down to the room. I'll join you after I've returned his call."

  When Nancy phoned her father, he did have news for her.

  "You were right about the Delaware Indians," he said. "They were a loose confederation of what are known as the Algonkin tribes that traveled the hunting trails in the Northeastern United States and Southern Canada."

  "Could they have come this far South?" Nancy asked.

  "It's not impossible," her father returned. "But remember, they were nomadic wanderers who spent

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  much of their time on the trail. They would have no set burial ground."

  'That's what I wanted to know!" Nancy exclaimed. "Thanks, Dad. What about Dunbar Enterprises?"

  **I checked with the Environmental Protection Agency on Dunbar's Cleveland plant. The reason it moved to Lake Oolagah is that it was in trouble with the EPA over pollution."

  "Pollution?"

  "That's right. There is dangerous waste connected with the making of plastics, and Dunbar Enterprises was dumping this waste into the Ohio River. When the company was caught, the owners claimed their plant had been built many years before the environmental standards had been established."

  He paused a moment, then went on. "The EPA told Dunbar no charges would be pressed if he built a new, safer plant. Apparently he did, near Lutherville. When it was finished, the EPA approved it as far as pollution emissions were concerned."

  "Sounds as if I've run into a dead end on that one," Nancy said. After a few more moments, she said goodbye to her father and hung up.

  She was confused. The damage to the lake had begun right after Dunbar Enterprises had moved into the area. Yet, its EPA monitoring proved that wastes were properly disposed of.

  She walked to the cabin, where Mrs. Johnson was putting new linen on her bed. As Nancy watched the woman flick her wrist and snap the sheet out to let it

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  float gently down onto the mattress, she had a thought.

  "That's it!" she cried out.

  ''What's it?" George stopped brushing her hair in midair and stared at her.

  *'I have a plan," Nancy said, and quickly explained her idea to her friends and their pleasant hostess.

  There was no moonlight that night when the three young detectives parked near the turnoff path to the lake. Nancy turned the headlights off.

  "Now we wait," she said.

  "I hear someone coming!" George said after about ten minutes. A moment later, the girls saw headlights bumping slowly along the road.

  A white Dunbar truck passed them without seeing their car and disappeared in the direction of the lake.

  "What'U we do now?" George asked.

  'T'U drop you off before we get to the lake," Nancy said. "Go to Bearcloud's cabin. He shouldn't be there. Grab the candles and bags and come down to the lake, okay?"

  George sighed. "Okay."

  After letting her friends out of the car, Nancy continued to the lake. When she came to the spillway, the Dunbar truck was already backed up and a man in a protective white suit opened a valve protruding from its rear. John Bearcloud stood next to him, watching.

  When the Indian saw Nancy, he ran toward her, his face contorted with anger. "Get out of here!" he roared.

  Instead, Nancy stepped out of
her car and went up to

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  the truck. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said.

  The man in the white suit stared at her. 'Tm just dumping septic tank water in the lake," he said.

  "Water it may be," Nancy said. "But it contains radioactive waste!"

  "What?"

  "Get out!" Bearcloud screamed again. He tried to grab her arm, but she sidestepped nimbly.

  "I figured out your scheme," she told him calmly, even though she was shaking inside. "The Delaware Indians were wanderers; they never had burial grounds. I also checked with the EPA on Dunbar Enterprises. They gave the company a clean bill, but I saw that white cloud coming out of the odd-shaped building next to the Dunbar plant. It made me wonder."

  Bearcloud stared at her, his mouth open. "So?" he finally prodded, unsure what to do.

  "It occurred to me that the building might be the cooling tower for a small nuclear reactor," Nancy went on, "which provides the electricity for Dunbar. It also produces nuclear waste that must be disposed of. Reactors are not checked by the EPA. It would be up to the NRG, the Nuclear Regulatory Gommission."

  "Listen, kid!" Bearcloud fumed. "You just turn around and forget you saw anything if you know what's good for you." He stepped up to Nancy once more, his hands outstretched.

  "Look!" the man in white shouted all of a sudden.

  Ghost lights were moving through the woods, lots and lots of them!

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  "What's going on?" the Indian screamed.

  "I'm getting out of here," the man in the white suit yelled and jumped into his truck. But Nancy's car was blocking the road!

  He got out and ran up to Nancy. "Give me the key!" he ordered.

  She pulled it out of her pocket and threw it in the lake!

  "You—" the driver began when a voice called out from behind them. "Hold it!"

  A man in a blue suit flanked by two police officers walked up to the group. "I'm George Macklin from the Nuclear Energy Commission," he introduced himself. He turned to the truck driver and Bearcloud. "You two are under arrest for dumping radioactive waste into LakeOolagah!"