The Ghost of Cutler Creek (10 page)

L.J. was out the driveway and heading down the road as soon as Allie and Dub appeared at the front of Dub's house, and they had to pedal hard to catch up with him. He led them on a familiar route, and at first Allie thought he was taking them back to his house. But he slowed down at the entrance to the old bean packing plant and turned into the driveway. He stopped right there, and moved his hand up and down in a signal to Allie and Dub to be very quiet.

“The teacher's dog's here,” he said in a tense voice. “There's a bunch of other dogs, too. My old man's home. He's pretty drunk, but his hearing's great. If all them dogs start barking, the sound's gonna carry up the hill on a night like this.”

Allie was trying to take in what L.J. had said, and figure out what it meant.

“What are we supposed to do?” Dub asked.

“I'm gonna get the old man's truck and come back here,” L.J. said.

“You're going to
drive
?” Allie asked in amazement.

“Yeah,” L.J. answered impatiently.

“You know how to
drive
?”

L.J. shrugged. “I figured it out. Sometimes the old man gets too blasted to see, forget about driving. So I take over. It ain't so hard.”

“Oh.” Allie tried to hide her astonishment, as if having to take the wheel because her father was too drunk to drive were something that happened to her every day.

“So listen,” L.J. said urgently. “You two stay here till I get back, but you can't make
any
noise, you got it?”

Allie and Dub both nodded.

“Then we'll start loading the truck.”

“With what?” Allie asked, but even as she said it she knew the answer.

“The dogs,” said L.J. “Nine of 'em, plus a litter, plus that one of yours.”

“But—” Allie began.

“I know it,” L.J. said, his dark eyes growing even darker. “The racket'll be enough to wake the dead, and my old man, too, probably. But I'll have his wheels, and he don't run so fast anymore. We drive to the police station, and it's all over.”

Allie nodded. L.J. had clearly thought the whole thing through. He was going to turn his father in to the police. She could hardly believe it. It struck Allie as a very brave—or very foolhardy—thing to do. But then she had a thought.

“L.J.,” she asked, “if you want to stop what your father's doing, why didn't you say something when we came to the house with the police? Or call the police sometime when your father was out?”

L.J. shook his head. Allie didn't know if he considered her question too stupid to answer or whether he just didn't feel like explaining. In the faint light, he looked tired as he pushed the pink bicycle forward with his foot and rode away.

She and Dub looked at each other, too dumbfounded to speak and afraid, now that L.J. was heading home, of alerting the dogs and waking Mr. Cutler just as L.J. was taking the truck.

Allie's brain buzzed with all the things that could go wrong. What if Mr. Cutler had gotten up to use the bathroom and found L.J. missing? What if he heard L.J. start up the truck? What if this was all a trick, and L.J. was setting them up?

She began to feel very frightened. She strained to listen for any sound coming from Dundee Road, but the night was quiet except for an occasional hollow tap, when the loose flap of metal on the old roof of the bean plant lifted and fell in the slight breeze. Now she knew: that was the sound she and Michael had heard in their heads, a message from the ghost dog. They must have heard it at the very moment when Mr. Cutler was moving the dogs, including Hoover, to the bean plant so they wouldn't be discovered on his property.

There was so much she didn't understand about what was happening. First of all, what had made L.J. decide to help her? But right behind that puzzling question were others. What would happen to L.J. if his plan failed? Mr. Cutler would be furious.

Then Allie realized that it was just as frightening to imagine what would happen to L.J. if his plan succeeded. Either way, he was certain to be in big trouble with his father. Allie had seen Mr. Cutler's anger over a bad cut in a piece of plywood. She didn't want to think about what he would do to L.J. for this.

Dub's face looked troubled, and she figured many of the same thoughts were going through his head. The wait seemed to be taking forever. Where was L.J.? Shouldn't he be back by now? Had he been caught? Did he really know how to drive? She closed her eyes, focusing every nerve and muscle on listening. Then, there it was, the sound of the truck slowing at the corner and turning. Lights out, it approached the place where she and Dub stood, still straddling their bikes.

“Ditch the bikes for now,” L.J. said softly through the open driver's side window. “Hide 'em someplace and come on.”

Allie and Dub hid their bikes in some overgrown bushes and made their way back across the parking lot, where weeds poked up through the buckled asphalt. L.J. had parked the gray pickup close to what Allie figured was the old loading dock. He jumped out of the front seat, leaving the door open, then reached into the truck's cab and took out several lengths of rope. He handed them to Dub, and gave Allie a wad of rags and an empty burlap sack. L.J. held a flashlight and another sack with something in it. He motioned for Allie and Dub to follow him.

Inside the walls of the plant, L.J. switched on the flashlight for just a moment, allowing him to get his bearings and giving Dub and Allie a chance to get a glimpse of the layout. After the flashlight went out, Allie was surprised to feel L.J. take hold of her arm. She, in turn, grabbed Dub's arm and the three of them inched their way silently through the solid blackness.

Since she was unable to see, Allie's sense of smell seemed stronger than usual, and the dank odor of decay that had wafted from the plant during the day was almost overpowering. Beneath it was the smell Michael had identified as “poopy.”

Allie hoped that Michael was deep in sleep at that moment, and not experiencing a frightening dream or ghostly sensation, especially without her there to comfort him. But she couldn't think about that now. She had to concentrate on shuffle-stepping silently behind L.J. through the blackness, and keeping her grip on Dub. Suddenly, there was a loud metallic clang as L.J. walked into something lying on the floor. He fell, letting go of Allie's arm in the process.

In the quiet afterward, Allie heard L.J. swear softly. Then there was a whimper, followed by a sharp bark, then another, and another. The sound echoed through the empty plant, seeming to tear right through the black fabric of the night. L.J. swore again, and turned on the flashlight. He stood up, disentangling his foot from between the rungs of an old aluminum ladder.

“We gotta be quick now,” he said urgently. Leaving the flashlight on, he began to run, and Allie and Dub ran along behind him through one huge, yawning room and down a corridor to another room, where the barking had risen to a howling chorus.

There were the dogs, some in wire cages, some chained to posts driven into the earth floor, all of them barking, whining, and yelping in earnest now. At first, in the wildly swinging beam of the flashlight, it was hard to tell how many there were—the noise was so deafening it sounded like hundreds!

Allie saw scattered about a few aluminum pie plates, which must have been used for food or water. The smell here was strong, as the dogs had been forced to relieve themselves where they were. It was the smell Mr. Cutler had worked so hard to hide in his barn.

The flashlight shone for a moment into a corner and Allie let out a cry. She raced to the wire cage, felt for the latch, fumbled with frantic fingers until it opened, and threw her arms around Hoover. Hoover bathed her face in kisses.

Allie's joy was interrupted by L.J., who came up behind her and said angrily, “There's no time for that! Give me some of those strips.” Allie held out her hand and he took some of the pieces of cloth. “Get going. We gotta muzzle 'em all, quick,” he said, “before they make any more noise.”

At Allie's uncomprehending look, he took one of the strips of cloth, looped it over Hoover's nose, twisted it under her chin, and tied the ends behind her neck, making it impossible for her to bark.

L.J. had propped the flashlight on the ground, and in the arc of light that spread across the floor, Allie could see that he had taken biscuits from the sack he'd been holding and scattered them about. The food kept the dogs quiet while he and Dub busily tied the cloth strips around the muzzle of one dog after another.

Allie helped, noticing that the dogs were of different breeds and different sizes. Most were noticeably pregnant.

“Take that empty sack,” L.J. ordered Allie. “Wait until I get the mother muzzled, then put her puppies in it.”

Allie saw that beneath the dog L.J. was muzzling was a litter of tiny, squirming puppies, so young their eyes weren't yet open. “Put them in the sack?” she repeated uncertainly.

“Do it!” L.J. said, sounding exasperated. Allie, realizing this was no time to be overly delicate, lifted the tiny, warm bodies and placed them inside the sack. The mother pawed frantically at L.J. as she watched her puppies being taken and, even muzzled, she was able to whine her distress.

“Where's that rope?” demanded L.J.

Dub pointed to the floor, where he'd set the rope while putting on muzzles.

“Okay, tie a piece around each one's neck,” L.J. said, handing three lengths of rope to Dub, three to Allie, and keeping the rest for himself.

When all the dogs were leashed, L.J. spoke again. “I'll take four dogs and the sack. You each take three dogs—you, take that one,” he said to Allie, indicating Hoover. “We'll head for the truck as fast as we can and load 'em in the back. Let's go.”

L.J. had his hands full with four dogs and the sack of puppies, so Dub led the way, holding the flashlight. This time, they made no attempt to tiptoe quietly. They moved as quickly as they could while herding ten confused, frightened, and uncooperative dogs in a tangle of leashes.

If Mr. Cutler had heard the dogs barking, he was already on his way. There wasn't a moment to waste.

The parking lot was empty except for the gray pickup. The bed of the truck was covered with a cap, making it a little like a small camper. L.J. opened the tailgate, lifted the first dog, and put it inside. When he turned to pick up a second dog, the first jumped out of the truck.

“We don't have time for this!” L.J. muttered furiously.

Allie listened for any sound of Mr. Cutler approaching, but couldn't hear anything except the shuffling and muffled whining of the dogs. She moved forward to block one side of the tailgate opening and Dub moved to the other, so the dogs L.J. loaded couldn't jump out while he was loading the others. It seemed to take forever, but finally all ten were squeezed in.

“You hold the pups on your lap,” L.J. told Allie, thrusting the sack into her arms. “Come on, get in.”

Allie climbed into the front of the truck, sitting awkwardly in the space between the two seats. She opened the top of the sack so the puppies could breathe, and balanced it as gently as she could on her lap. L.J. and Dub got in on either side of her. Then, as if he'd been driving all his life, L.J. threw the gearshift into reverse, and they were backing away from the loading dock.

They had done it! They had the dogs and were on the way to the police station!

L.J. stopped, put the truck in forward gear, turned the wheel, and began heading for the parking lot's exit onto the road. He leaned forward, feeling for the headlights, and switched them on.

Suddenly, as if he had materialized out of the night itself, Mr. Cutler stood directly in the path of the truck, hands on his hips, head back, eyes narrowed against the glare. Behind him, the pink bicycle lay on its side in the gravel. Allie gasped, Dub shouted “Hey!”, and L.J. slammed on the brakes.

Nobody moved or spoke for what felt like a long while. Then Mr. Cutler's voice came through L.J.'s open window.

“Just what you think you're doin', boy?” He spoke slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. His words were slightly slurred, it seemed to Allie, but he stood steadily on his own two feet. He was shaking his head mockingly, as if he already knew the answer to his question and found it pitiful.

“You know what I'm doing and you better not try to stop me.” L.J. sounded as if he was choking, and Allie was horrified to see tears running down his face.

Mr. Cutler let out an ugly laugh. “You gonna run me down?”

“If I have to.”

“Look at you. You're cryin'. Ya got snot all over your face.”

“Get out of the way,” L.J. warned, his voice shrill.

“Your mother tried to pull something like this one time. She didn't get away with it, and you won't, either.”

“But she got away from
you
, finally, didn't she, old man? And I aim to, too.”

“This is about that dog, isn't it? Your precious
Belle
?” Mr. Cutler said the name as if it tasted nasty in his mouth. “I am so tired of this crap. How many times I told you? If we're gonna eat, I gotta work. My business is dogs. Sometimes dogs die. It's the way it is.”

“She didn't just
die
!” L.J. screamed, sobbing now with fury. “You
killed
her!”

“You little pain in my butt. That's it.” And then, so quickly Allie didn't know how he did it, Mr. Cutler had moved from the front to the driver's side of the truck. His arm snaked through the window and around L.J.'s neck. With his other hand, he seemed to be struggling to open the door.

L.J. stomped on the gas pedal with all his might, and the truck lurched forward. There was a crunch of metal as they ran over the bicycle. Mr. Cutler's arm still encircled L.J.'s neck, and he was forced to run along next to the truck, his neck bent to the side, while L.J., his own head halfway out the window, steered crazily with one hand and pushed at his father's face with the other.