Sydney and the Wisconsin Whispering Woods (11 page)

“Sydney!” Alexis screamed when she saw her friend lying there helplessly.

The big, black dog lifted its head and looked Alexis straight in the eyes.
Wuf!
Its jowls shook like jelly when it barked.

“Nice doggie,” Alexis said, standing still.

Sydney stayed on the ground, not knowing what to expect from the big animal stretched across her back.

“Sydney,” Alexis said softly. “I think he’s friendly.”

She took a few steps toward the dog with her hand extended, palm up. The dog sniffed the air, perhaps wondering if she held a treat.

“Get it off me,” Sydney demanded.

“I’m trying,” said Alexis quietly. “Nice doggie. Follow Alex now.” She kept her hand extended and took a few steps backward.

The dog stood. Its belly was at least three feet above Sydney’s back, and she felt as if she were under a table. As it walked away from her and toward Alex, Sydney noticed its long, gangly legs.

“What
is
this thing?” she asked.

“It’s a very nice doggie,” Alexis said sweetly as she coaxed the animal to come near to her.

“And it has a head the size of a big pumpkin,” she continued, “and spooky brown eyes and sharp teeth, and the closer it gets to me, the more scared I am. But I’m going to save you, Sydney, no matter what. Now, while I’m talking real nice to the doggie and have its attention, why don’t you get up very quietly and get out of here? Nice doggie, come here…. Nice doggie.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with it,” said Sydney, getting up on all fours. “We’re in this together.”

“It’s all right,” Alexis replied. “I’ll be fine.” She shivered as the dog’s black nose, at least the size of a baseball, thrust into her hand and sniffed. “I wish I had a dog biscuit or something.”

Sydney stood up. “I stuck one in my waist pack. Oh my, he’s huge!”

Now that she was standing, she could see just how big the dog was. The top of its back was higher than her waist. It had a thick, muscular body, a long tail that curled upward, and short, floppy ears.

“Sydney … I think the doggie wants a biscuit
now,”
said Alexis. The dog was eagerly licking her hand.

Sydney unzipped her waist pack and found one of Biscuit’s dog treats on the bottom.

“Here, dog,” she said. “Hungry?”

As soon as the dog saw Sydney pull the biscuit out of her pack, it stopped licking Alexis’s hand and rushed toward her. Before Sydney could get out of the way, it stood on its hind legs and plopped its paws squarely onto her shoulders, knocking her backward into a tree trunk. She stood there, pinned between the tree and the dog, its big head looking down at her.

WUF!

“Oh Alex.” Sydney gasped. “He’s way taller than I am!” “Maybe you should give him the biscuit,” Alexis suggested.

A voice in Sydney’s head whispered,
Stay calm. You’re in charge. Tell him to get down
. “Get down!” Sydney said, firmly.

WUF!

“I said,
get down!
“ Sydney repeated. The dog dropped his paws from her shoulders and stood in front of her, looking her straight in the eyes. “Now,
sit,”
she said.

Surprisingly, the dog sat. Sydney tossed the biscuit to him, and he scarfed it down in one big gulp. Then he sat there waiting for another. “Now what?” Alexis asked.

Sydney took the mini-microcam out of her pack and snapped a quick picture of the animal as it sat there. “I don’t know what to do next,” she said. “I think this is what we heard howling and barking in the woods. I’m pretty sure its Fang—
his
dog. Let’s see how well he follows commands. Fang,
stay!
“ she said. The dog didn’t move. “Great. Come on, Alex. Let’s go.”

The girls started to walk. They only went a few yards before Fang got up and began following them.

“Go back!” Sydney commanded.

Fang sat down and whined like a puppy.

The girls started off again, and once more Fang trotted along behind them.

“Sydney, I think we’re going to have to take him back to the campsite,” said Alexis. “Otherwise, he’s going to follow us all the way to the cabin. We can’t risk the mountain man discovering that we’ve been snooping around.”

Sydney sighed. “I guess you’re right. Come on, Fang. Let’s take you home.”

The girls turned and walked in the opposite direction, with Fang playfully romping at their side. As they approached the campsite, they were keenly aware that the whooshing noise had disappeared. Once again, the forest was quiet except for the buzzing sound deep within the cave.

“Wait,” said Sydney. She stopped in the bushes at the edge of the clearing. “You stay here with Fang. I’m going to circle around and make sure the mountain man hasn’t come back yet.”

Fang was happy to have Alexis pet him while Sydney explored the campsite. She made a wide circle around the grounds, careful to stay hidden among the trees. Everything was silent—the mountain man hadn’t come back.

Then Sydney made a strange discovery. In the forest floor was a large rectangular-shaped hole covered with a metal grate. When she got closer, she heard the buzzing sound deep inside the earth. A hazy, purple light shined up through the grate and lit the tops of the pine trees nearby. A tall cyclone fence with a gate surrounded the hole, and a big padlock secured the gate. Sydney was curious. She wished that she could get closer and look down through the hole into the earth. Something mysterious was going on down there. She was sure of it.

Sydney was so quiet when she came up behind Alexis and Fang that they didn’t hear her. “All clear. He’s not there,” she said.

Alexis jumped. Fang whirled around, and his lips curled up in a growl.

“Nice doggie!” Alexis exclaimed. Then she said to Sydney, “Don’t scare him like that, or me either.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexis said. “I wasn’t thinking. Come on. I found where the light comes from.” She led Alexis to the hole in the ground.

“Well, what do you make of that?” Alexis asked.

“I don’t know,” said Sydney. She took a picture with the mini-microcam. “But I’d love to get a closer look.” She handed the camera to Alexis. Sydney put one hand into the wire mesh of the fence, then the other. Carefully, she lifted one foot and stuck the toe of her shoe into the mesh. Then Sydney began to climb.

“No!” said Alexis. “Syd, don’t you dare! You don’t know who or what’s down there. It might be dangerous!”

She grabbed on to Sydney’s leg and kept her from climbing any farther.

“Alexis!” said Sydney. “Let go.”

“No,” Alexis said firmly. “We’ll find another way.”

Reluctantly, Sydney got down.

Alexis sniffed the air. “Something smells different here,” she said. “Did you notice? It smells earthy, like after a spring rainstorm.”

“You’re right,” Sydney agreed. “It smells like wet dirt. Maybe an underground stream flows through the cave.”

“But it wouldn’t have dirt around it,” Alexis countered. “Caves are made of rock.”

“You’re right again,” said Sydney.

The Wonder Watch on Alexis’s wrist began to jiggle. M
ESSAGE WAITING:
M
CKENZIE
. A message scrolled across the watch’s face.
I’M THE ONLY ONE IN THE CHAT ROOM LOOKING AT THESE PICTURES.
WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?
AND WHERE’D YOU GET THE BERNADANE?

Alexis spoke softly into the tiny microphone. “We’re sleuthing in the mountain man’s campsite in the forest. We saw him row his kayak to the other side of the lake, so he’s not here. We found a cave. Near it, there’s a hole in the forest floor with a fence around it. What’s a bernadane?”

McKenzie’s reply flashed on the screen. A
BERNADANE IS A CROSS BETWEEN A
S
AINT
B
ERNARD AND A
G
REAT
D
ANE
. I
SAW ONE AT OUR STATE FAIR LAST SUMMER
. T
HEY’RE HUMONGOUS!

“Tell me about it,” said Alexis. “The bernadane is standing next to us. His name is Fang, and he’s the mountain man’s dog. He’s friendly. We can’t talk now. The mountain man will be back soon, and we have exploring to do. More later.”

H
IS NAME IS
F
ANG?
B
E CAREFUL
. T
AKE LOTS OF PICTURES
. A
ND SHOUT IF YOU NEED US
.

The screen went black.

“So, he’s a bernadane,” said Sydney. “That’s comforting. At least he’s not part wolf.” She reached over and patted Fang on the back of his thick neck.

“Sydney,” said Alexis. “You don’t think Fang killed that coyote on the beach last night, do you?”

“I’ve been wondering about that, Alex. But if he did kill it, then why? He doesn’t seem like a mean dog. Maybe he was just defending himself. “

Fang ran circles around the girls, wanting to play.

“Mr. Lumley saw something big run off into the woods,”

Alexis said. “They thought it was a bear. But think about it, Syd. If you saw Fang running in the dark, you might think he was a bear. He’s black and big like a bear. Maybe Fang has a dark side.”

Sydney didn’t even want to think about that. “Well, right now, we have the problem of getting Fang to stay here so we can go back to the resort. Any ideas?”

“No,” said Alexis. “Unless we tie him up.”

“If we do that, the mountain man will know that someone was snooping around here,” said Sydney.

“That’s right,” Alexis answered. “But he won’t know who it was. I don’t know what else we can do, Syd. Otherwise, he’ll follow us.”

“Let’s go inside the cave,” Sydney suggested. “Maybe Fang has his own room or something, and we can leave him there.”

“But what about that horrible sound we heard and the whispering?”

“I have a feeling it won’t hurt us,” Sydney told her. “I think the mountain man made it as a trick to scare people away. And since the mountain man is nowhere around, I’m not going to be afraid to go inside.”

Sydney and Alexis hurried toward the cave’s entrance with Fang romping ahead of them. He trotted inside, and the girls followed. Alexis linked her arm through Sydney’s. The only light in the cave came from daylight seeping through the entrance—and it was rapidly fading away.

Ahead of them lay nothing but a faint purple glow.

“Do you remember in
The Wizard of Oz
, how the scary wizard turned out to be Professor Marvel, an ordinary man?” Alexis said. “He was hiding behind a curtain making things work to create a vision of the wizard. It was all done with tricks.”

“I remember,” said Sydney.

“Well, maybe the mountain man is like that. Maybe he’s not scary at all, but a very nice man like Professor Marvel.”

They were about a dozen yards inside the cave now.

“Maybe,” said Sydney. She stopped and took a flashlight from her waist pack.

“Hey, what’s that?” Alexis asked. An old canvas knapsack was propped against one of the cave’s stony walls.

Sydney went to check it out. “Shoot! The flashlight batteries are almost dead. I see something written on the knapsack, but I can’t read it.”

“Hang on a minute,” Alexis said. She pulled out her cell phone.

“You’ll never get a signal in here,” Sydney warned.

“I’m not going to call anybody,” Alexis answered. “My phone has a built-in flashlight.” She pushed a button on the phone, and the light lit up. She pointed it at the canvas sack.

“J.C.” said Sydney. “It’s the initials J.C. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Jesus Christ,” Alexis said in almost a whisper.

“No! Although I’m sure Jesus is here protecting us. J.C., as in Jacques Chouteau. This thing is old enough to be his,” said Sydney. “This must be the cave where he hid his stuff.”

“Maybe the mountain man is a thief,” Alexis suggested. “Maybe he found Jacques’s money and furs in here, and he’s selling them for his own profit.”

“You might be right,” Sydney agreed. She shined the light around the rough, rocky wall. “Check this out,” she said, focusing the beam on a series of lines.

“There must be a hundred or more lines carved into this wall,” Alexis said. “It looks like someone is keeping score.”

“Or keeping track,” Sydney said. “Maybe Jacques Chouteau was trapped in here and kept track of the days. Remember? Duncan said that he got trapped in a cave and died there.”

“But that’s a legend,” Alexis told her.

“But maybe the legend isn’t a legend,” Sydney said. “Maybe the story is true. Jacques Chouteau died here, and the mountain man found his body. Maybe the mountain man has been excavating this site, digging away at the debris from the avalanche and searching for buried treasure. Maybe that place in the woods where we found the shovel is where he buried Jacques!”

“Ewwww, do you think so?” Alexis asked.

Sydney snapped pictures of the knapsack and the etchings on the wall.

Meanwhile, Alexis counted the marks. “One hundred twenty-six,” she said. “Do you think Jacques could have stayed alive in here for one hundred twenty-six days?”

“Only if there was a source of air and water,” Sydney answered. “If that was the case, then he probably starved to death.”

GRRRRRAH, pant, pant
. Fang trotted toward them holding something in his teeth.

“What do you have, boy?” Alexis asked. She took a closer look. “He has a bone, Sydney.” She gasped. “Maybe it’s human!”

Fang dropped the stubby, white bone at their feet.

Sydney inspected it. “It could be from an animal. At least, I hope so. On the other hand, I still wonder what’s buried in the forest near those mushrooms we saw?”

“Oh Sydney!” Alexis exclaimed.

Wuf! Wuf! … Wuf! Wuf …

“I think he wants us to follow him.”

Reluctantly, the girls accompanied Fang deeper into the cave toward the purple light. After a few minutes, they entered a small room filled with stalactites and stalagmites. The formations glistened in the neon purple glow.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, like an ice castle!” said Alexis.

Fang led them around, sniffing as he went.

“Ack!” Alexis squealed.

A cold drop of water had dripped from a stalactite on the cave’s roof onto Alexis’s face.

In the corner of the room, they found a door made of thick, wooden planks. Its heavy iron latch was padlocked shut. Cut into the bottom of the door, there was an opening about a foot square. Fang lay down and sniffed it. Then he whined and started digging at it with his paws.