The Madman of Black Bear Mountain (2 page)

Jim was starting to worry me. From the way he was gnawing on a fingernail, he looked like he was giving the suggestion serious thought.

“But what about meeting Dr. Kroopnik?” I asked.

“Yeah!” Mandy and Randall chimed in.

“I suggested the same thing,” Casey told Steven, “but they don't want to miss out on their research trip.”

Steven tugged on his beard and stared off into the distance at Black Bear Mountain like he was trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

“Hey, tell you what,” he said after a minute. “We've got a buddy who's a wildlife ranger right here in the valley. I bet he'd be happy to have you guys tag along for a day or two. It would be just as educational as some stuffy scientist and a lot more exciting, but without all the hassle! What do you say? I'll get on the radio and let him know you're coming.”

Steven gestured back at the lodge, where they kept their two-way ham radio. We were far enough up in the mountains that there wasn't any cell phone service, so sometimes the only way to reach people deep in the backcountry was still by radio. Jim had never even talked to Dr. Kroopnik; they'd coordinated the whole trip by sending letters, like in the old days!

The rest of the Geccos and I looked anxiously at our teacher. I don't think any of us were thrilled about getting on a plane with Commander Gonzo, but we didn't want to miss out on the trip to Black Bear Mountain, either.

“No, we've already gone to a lot of trouble to make arrangements with Dr. Kroopnik,” Jim finally declared. “He's expecting us, and I don't want to let him or my students down.”

“Are you sure?” Steven frowned. “That far up Black Bear Mountain is practically the middle of nowhere. Once you get out there, you're stuck for three whole nights until
Gonzo comes back for you. And the weather at that elevation can turn on you real quick. It can be rough camping if you're not used to it.”

He eyed Randall, who'd been busy trying to defend his cardigan from bugs.

“I'll be fine, thanks,” Randall said sarcastically. “Putting Kroopnik's name on my college applications is the only reason I let my parents talk me into coming back to this place.”

“You sure?” Steven insisted. “You don't usually go in for all the outdoorsy stuff when your family comes up.”

“You're right, we could always just call the trip off, and then I could just tell my parents to cancel their check.” Randall fixed Steven with a chilly glare. “I mean, it's not like you guys need the money or anything, right?”

“Randall!” Jim snapped.

“What?” Randall asked fake innocently.

“Nobody is canceling anything,” Jim sighed. “We came here to see Dr. Kroopnik and we're going to see Dr. Kroopnik. If Casey says it's safe to fly with this Gonzo guy, I believe her.”

Steven was about to say something else when Casey placed her hand gently on his shoulder. “Come on, honey,” she said. “Let's load up the plane and get the Geccos on their way before they start losing daylight.”

A few minutes later all our gear was on the plane and we were about to board when a familiar voice bellowed, “Stay out of trouble, Hardys!”

We turned around to see a familiar figure trudging toward
the river in a very unfamiliar outfit. Bayport's top cop looked downright goofy wearing a floppy fishing hat and rubber waders instead of his chief-of-police uniform.

“Looking spiffy, Chief Olaf,” Joe chirped, unable to hide his smirk.

“If you're half as good at catching fish as you are at catching criminals, then those aquatic vertebrates won't stand a chance, sir,” I added, causing Joe to nearly spit on himself trying not to laugh.

“I should have known better than to take my vacation in the same place as the Hardy boys,” Chief Olaf grumbled. “As if you two don't get in my way enough already in Bayport!”

The chief likes to gives us a hard time—and, to be fair, our stellar detective work does kind of tend to make the police look bad—but he's actually a nice guy beneath the grumpy exterior.

“You're the reason I need a vacation in the first place!” The chief's fishing rod wiggled as he jabbed it in our direction. “You boys do anything to disrupt my fishing trip and you'll be going back to Bayport in cuffs.”

“Happy hunting, Chief!” Joe called after him as the chief plodded toward the water, sighing and muttering to himself.

• • •

It wasn't long before we were buckled in and ready for takeoff. Commander Gonzo had taxied the little plane right up next to the lodge so there'd be enough room to take off using the field as a runway.

“All right, kiddies!”
our pilot shouted to be heard over the plane's engine and whirling propeller. “I gotta run back in to use the little boys' room. Anybody forgot anything, now's the time to get it. You don't want to get out in the bush and find out you left behind your tents and toilet paper.”

“I'm pretty sure we have everything,” Jim said meekly as he checked and double-checked his seat belt.

“Wait!” I shouted. “I forgot my research journal!”

After reading Dr. Kroopnik's last article, I'd come up with some field research ideas of my own that I was eager to share with him.

“Please hurry, Frank,” Jim pleaded, looking more and more green by the minute. “The sooner we take off, the sooner we can get out of this sardine can.”

“I love sardines!” Commander Gonzo declared in nonsensical delight as he hopped off the plane and marched back to the lodge ahead of me. I ran back inside to the room Joe and I were sharing, grabbed my notebook, and was on my way back to the plane when I heard the muffled sound of a whispered argument through a cracked door at the back of the lodge. With the noisy plane right outside distorting and drowning out the words, I couldn't tell who was talking or understand much of anything they were saying. It sounded like only one voice talking, though. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but, well—I am a detective, after all.

I put my ear up to the door and strained to decipher what the hushed voice was saying. I could just barely piece
together one angry whisper—and I immediately wished I hadn't.

“It's too dangerous,” the voice mumbled. “No one knows about the crazy hermit in the woods. . . . I don't want anyone else getting hurt.”

A
LL RIGHT, FOLKS, BUCKLE UP
and brace yourselves, because this bucket of bolts is about to go airborne!” Commander Gonzo announced as Frank climbed back on the plane, looking nearly as ill as our teacher.

I figured Frank was just as nervous as everyone else about flying in the tiny plane with the Commander—with only one propeller, seven seats, and a crazy man in the cockpit, this definitely wasn't a first-class flight. I couldn't help being a little excited, though. I mean, talk about a thrill ride!

Frank tried to get my attention from his seat next to Randall, but Commander Gonzo piped up before he could say anything.

“Let's see if this old puddle jumper still has any hop,”
Gonzo shouted as the plane started rumbling its way across the field on two wheels.

The plane picked up speed, bouncing us around in our seats like jumping beans with every bump in the ground. If it weren't for the seat belts, we'd be ricocheting all over the cabin.

Jim had his eyes shut and his face was white; Mandy and Melissa had a death grip on each other's forearms; and Frank was looking out the window back at the lodge with that
I hope I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the world is coming to an end
 look he gets sometimes.

“This better be worth it,” Randall whimpered.

The wooden fence at the edge of the field closed in on us so fast, I started to wonder if the plane would have enough room to lift off. I wasn't really worried, though.

At least not until our pilot shouted, “We're not gonna make it!”

All seven of us screamed at the same time as the plane's wheels lifted off the ground and the tin bird took flight, clearing the fence by mere inches.

“Whoo-hoo!” Commander Gonzo shouted. “I love that part!”

He turned around in his seat with a big grin and held out a can of peanuts. “Anybody want a snack?”

We were all so relieved to be alive, we started laughing hysterically. Although I'm not totally sure about Jim; it was hard to tell if he was laughing or hyperventilating.

“So is ‘commander' just a different way of saying ‘captain'?” Mandy asked, scooping out a handful of peanuts.

“Lieutenant, actually,” he said, pointing to the military insignia sewn crookedly onto his floppy hat. “Flight Commander Gonzo Gonzales, US Air Force, retired, at your service. But you can call me Doc.”

“Wow, so you're a doctor as well as a pilot?” Melissa asked.

“Nah, the boys in my squadron used to call me that because of all the bones I broke flying for Uncle Sam. Said I spent so much time in the infirmary getting patched up, I might as well have a medical degree.”

“Uh, is it normal to break bones flying an airplane?” Jim asked shakily.

“It is when you fly the way I used to!” Gonzo replied proudly.

Jim groaned.

“Don't worry,” he reassured our teacher. “I haven't crashed in decades.”

Doc tipped back the can of nuts and chugged a mouthful, talking as he chewed. “Can't say that for some other pilots around here, though. Flying this mountain range can be tricky if you don't have skills like mine. A little Cessna—the exact same model as this one—went down on Black Bear Mountain right near where you folks are going, as a matter of fact.”

“I'm never flying again,” Jim muttered.

“You're talking about that Russian guy, right?” Randall asked, perking up. “My parents told me about him.”

“Yup, it was big news around here when it happened about thirty years ago. Aleksei Orlov. Guy had a huge ole mansion with miles of exotic gardens and his own private zoo and stuff downstate. Big-time player in the Russian ‘Mafiya,' they said. Died in a ball of flames on the mountainside before the Feds got a chance to take him to trial. Turned out he was a better mobster than a pilot, I guess.”

“I heard that he—” Randall began, but Frank cut him off.

“Does anybody actually live on Black Bear Mountain? Besides Dr. Kroopnik, I mean,” he asked Gonzo, speaking up for the first time since takeoff. From how nervous he sounded, I guessed he was probably still feeling a little queasy about the flight.

“You mean like are there any crazy old mountain men stalking about in the woods up there?” Doc Gonzo asked.

Frank's eyes went wide. “Um, yeah, kind of.”

“Sure are!” Gonzo exclaimed.

All our eyes went a little wide at that one.

“You hear all kinds of stories about hermits spending their whole lives living off the grid out here because of how remote it is,” he explained. “I wouldn't worry about it too much, though. I haven't heard about them eating any campers.” He paused to pick a peanut from his teeth before adding, “At least not for a few years.”

I was about to ask Gonzo to elaborate when the plane
crested a ridge and Black Bear Mountain rose into the sky ahead of us. The mist-shrouded summit loomed over all the other mountains below like something out of a storybook. I almost wouldn't have been surprised if a dragon had appeared and started shooting fireballs at us!

“Thar she blows!” Doc Gonzo called. “If you had reclining seat backs or tray tables, I'd tell you to put them in their upright and locked positions, because we'll be on the ground in just about a minute.”

Gonzo swept the plane down toward a large clearing high up on the mountain. Even higher than that, we caught a glimpse of an old cabin perched atop wooden stilts on the edge of a ravine, overlooking a gnarly set of river rapids rushing down the mountainside below.

“That must be Dr. Kroopnik's research station,” Frank said.

“Yes, that's the old ranger lookout cabin he's using,” Jim said. “You see how it has windows all the way around? That gave rangers a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view, so they could spot any forest fires.”

Luckily, Commander Gonzo's landing was less terrifying than his takeoff, and we were safely back on the ground in no time.

“That's the trailhead there where you're supposed to rendezvous with your scientist,” Gonzo said, pointing to a path through the dense forest at the edge of the clearing as we finished unloading our gear. “I'll be back for you in seventy-two
hours. In the meantime, if you need anything—well, don't, 'cause you're on your own for the next three days.”

Gonzo climbed back into his plane and was about to close the door when he spun back around. “Oh, I almost forgot. Whatever you do, don't feed the bears!”

Commander Doc Gonzo slammed the door, fired up the Cessna, and took off, leaving us Geccos to conquer Black Bear Mountain on our own.

“Bears?” whimpered Randall.

“Well, that was interesting,” I said cheerily.

“I'm just glad to be back on the ground in one piece,” Jim said not so cheerily. “We've still got a few minutes until Dr. Kroopnik is supposed to meet us, so we—”

He was interrupted by the sound of a horse neighing from the woods beyond the trailhead.

“Huh, I guess that must be Dr. Kroopnik now,” Jim proclaimed. “I bet he's just as eager to meet us as we are to meet him. He . . .”

Only
he
wasn't. I think we'd all been expecting the esteemed field biologist Dr. Max Kroopnik, PhD, be to your typical nerdy middle-aged scientist guy. But the person who appeared before us, well . . .

“You must be Jim and his conservation club,” said the beautiful young woman who came riding out of the woods to greet us. “I'm Max Kroopnik.”