“Is it everything you need?” she asked her husband.
Havemeyer nodded. “I’m all set for now,” he said.
“Good.” Anna took a paper from the truck driver and examined it. “It is right?” she asked Havemeyer.
“I checked it,” he told her. “The bill’s correct.”
“Good.” She turned to the truck driver. “I do not have the money here today,” she told him. “It is all right with your boss if I pay for the cement next week?”
“Oh, sure, Miss Schmid,” said the man.
“Mrs. Havemeyer,” Anna corrected him.
“Sorry, Mrs. Havemeyer. If you’ll just sign the bill so we have a record that you received the cement, we can — ”
“Sign the bill?” For the first time, Anna seemed a bit uncertain. Her whole body had gone tense.
“It’s a rule,” said the driver. “If we don’t get the money, we get a signature.”
“Oh,” said Anna. “All right. I’ll take it in the house and sign.”
“No need to go to all that trouble.” The driver took a ball-point pen from his shirt pocket and handed it to Anna. “Here Just sign anywhere on the bill. Want to lean on the fender?”
“Oh.” Anna looked at her husband, then back at the driver. She handed the dish towel to her husband and put the bill on the fender of the truck. With the driver’s pen she wrote something on the bill. It seemed to the boys in the kitchen that she was a long time about it. When she finished, she handed the bill and the pen to the driver. “That is all right?” she asked.
The man barely glanced at the bill. “That’s fine, Mrs. Havemeyer.”
“Usually I write more neatly,” said Anna. “Today I am baking bread, working with the dough. My hand shakes.”
“We all have our shaky days,” said the driver cheerfully. He folded the bill and tucked it into his pocket, climbed into the truck, and backed out into the road.
“Idiot!” snapped Havemeyer when the truck was gone.
“I told you I did not want to do that,” said Anna. “You could have signed.”
“It’s Anna Schmid who’s the old customer with the building supply people, not Joe Havemeyer,” he said. “You didn’t have to run off at the mouth to that driver. He’s not a penmanship teacher.” Havemeyer was silent for a second, then repeated, “Idiot!”
Anna whirled around and started back toward the house. She had gone only a few steps when she stopped. “You are the idiot,” she said to Havemeyer. Her voice was low and very intense. “You and that stupid hole in the ground. I think you see things that are not real.”
“It’s real, all right,” declared Havemeyer. “I saw it up on the meadow and it’s been down here.”
“I do not believe it,” said Anna.
“You don’t believe anything you can’t taste or touch or count and put in a bank,” declared Havemeyer. “You’re a plodder. You wouldn’t know an original idea if it came up and bit you on the lip. Without me — ”
“I know. I know. I know all about that. You have the vision, hah? You have the imagination? Without you, where would I be? I think without you I would be better off. I am the one who takes the risk, and you are safe, you and your vision.”
“You’ll see,” said Havemeyer.
“I had better,” Anna snapped. She started again for the kitchen door.
“Cheese it!” whispered Pete.
The Three Investigators retreated from the kitchen to the living room and arranged themselves hastily in chairs. A moment later Anna stomped into the room, then stopped abruptly when she saw the boys.
“Oh,” she said “I did not know you were back.”
Jupiter put down the magazine he was pretending to read and stood up. “We were down at the campground this afternoon,” he told Cousin Anna. “We had an interesting talk with Mr. Smathers.”
Anna nodded. “He is a strange little man” she said.
“He claims he can talk with animals and they understand him.”
Anna shrugged. “Men!” she said. “Their heads are filled with cotton — all of them.” She went past the boys and up the stairs, and the boys heard the sound of a door slamming.
“I think,” said Bob, “that the honeymoon is over.”
Pete scratched his ear and frowned. “I don’t get it,” he said. “She didn’t want to sign for that cement and she lied to the driver. She’s not baking bread. And what risk is she talking about?”
Jupiter Jones leaned against the fireplace. “Cousin Anna thinks her new husband is seeing things. She doesn’t believe it’s real — something Havemeyer saw-up in the meadow, something that’s been down here.”
Pete got up and began to pace back and forth, his shoulders hunched and his head down. “Could it be,” he asked, “that there is some truth in Gabby Richardson’s stories?”
“A tranquilizer gun,” said Jupiter. “A tranquilizer gun and something Havemeyer saw up on the meadow. Fellows, I think we know why Havemeyer has that gun!”
There was dead silence for perhaps half a minute, then Bob said softly, “He’s hunting a monster.”
“That’s… that’s wild” said Pete.
“Utterly insane,” agreed Jupiter, “but I think that must be what he’s doing. Now listen, we’re on vacation. Why don’t we go for a hike up on the meadow tomorrow?”
“A hike or a monster hunt?” asked Pete.
“A tracking expedition,” said Jupe. “If there is something strange wandering around up there, we should be able to find traces. There should be tracks.”
Pete looked rather pale. “Maybe it isn’t the kind of thing that leaves tracks,” he said.
“Certainly it leaves tracks,” declared Jupiter. “Joe Havemeyer swept the yard this morning so that no one could see its tracks. It isn’t a bear — there’s nothing special about a bear — so it’s something else.”
Jupe grinned. “Mr. Smathers knows what it is, but he’ll never tell. But for the first time that swimming pool makes sense. I know what that hole in the ground reminds me of — one of the animal pits at the San Diego Zoo!”
9
The Beast in the Woods
The Three Investigators were up at daybreak the next morning. They rolled up their sleeping bags and stowed them in the closet under the stairs, then left a note on the kitchen table to inform Hans and Konrad that they were going on a hike. After a quick breakfast of toast and milk, they were out of the inn and working their way up toward the higher country beyond the ski slope. Jupe carried a knapsack, and Pete had a canteen of water slung from his belt.
At first the boys climbed in the cleared area of the ski slope, but the loose stones kept rolling under their feet. After Bob had stumbled twice, they took to the firmer ground under the trees that grew alongside the slope. There they made better time.
After twenty minutes, even Pete was panting for breath in the thin air. He stopped climbing and leaned against a tree trunk.
“From the inn, this mountain didn’t look awfully high,” he gasped.
Bob laughed. “Is the great athlete out of condition?”
“My lungs are spoiled,” said Pete. “They’re used to operating at sea level.”
Jupiter stood still and breathed in and out for a second or two. “It shouldn’t be very far now,” he decided.
“Keep telling yourself that,” said Pete.
Jupe nodded and the boys climbed on, sometimes pulling themselves up by grasping tree limbs. It was another ten minutes before the ground under their feet was level. The trees grew more sparsely. Then they were out from under the pines and standing at the edge of a mountain meadow.
“Beautiful!” gasped Jupiter, when he got his breath.
The wind made ripples on the long, green grass, and here and there a boulder thrust up, sun-bleached and white. Huge trees rimmed the meadow on three sides. On the fourth side, the side which ended at the top of the ski slope, the boys could see for miles. The towers of the ski lift marched down the slope from the meadow to the road and Anna’s inn, far below. Beyond the inn were stands of pine, and way beyond that, the dry, sandy stretches of the Owens Valley. Behind the boys, to the west, rose the rocky summit of Mount Lofty, flanked by other, higher peaks of the Sierras. On some of the mountain tops were glaciers which never melted, even in midsummer.