Eddie had hoped that the following day he and Teena could make the trip
to Cedar Point with the Geiger counter. It had been in the back of his
mind ever since his dream of locating radioactive ore on the rocky
point. But by the time he finished mowing his lawn and doing the few
other chores lined up for him, it was too late to attempt the long trip.
Besides, the only sensible way to get to Cedar Point was by boat across
Moon Bay. It was a two-mile row each way. Yet, protected by sand bars,
the bay usually remained quite calm. By taking it easy, it was no great
job rowing out to the point.
Still, you had to have a rowboat. To rent one cost money. With so many
things going on during summer vacation, Eddie simply hadn’t been able to
save out of his allowance.
He knew of a way to get a boat, though. He had done it a couple of times
before. There were more than two dozen rowboats at Anderson’s Landing.
Seldom were they all rented at once.
On this particular Saturday, a gray blanket of high fog hung in the sky.
Eddie had an idea that quite a few of the boats would still be tied up
at Anderson’s Landing. Right after lunch he hurried over to Teena’s
house.
“How would you like to go down to Anderson’s Landing,” he suggested,
“and see if we can’t earn a day’s rental on one of the boats? Then maybe
next week we can take that trip out to Cedar Point with the Geiger
counter.”
“You want to earn the use of a rowboat again?” Teena asked.
“Yep. It’s not so hard,” Eddie said. “Want to come?”
“I’ll ask mother.”
Soon Eddie and Teena arrived at the beach. Mr. Anderson was midway out
on the wharf which jutted a hundred or so feet out into the smooth water
of the bay. They trotted out across the rough planking to see him. The
boatowner was a small, wiry man with deep wrinkles around his eyes from
years of squinting against the reflection of sun on water.
“Hi, there,” he greeted. “Where are your fishing poles?”
“We didn’t come to fish today, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie said. “Do you have
any odd jobs we can do?”
“Need a boat?” the owner guessed.
“Yes, sir,” Eddie said. “We’d like to row out to Cedar Point one of
these days.”
“Quite a row.”
“Oh, Eddie’s a good rower,” Teena said. “Sometimes I even help with one
of the oars.”
“Well, now,” Mr. Anderson said, rubbing his bristly chin, “you’d need a
boat almost a full day to row out to Cedar Point and back. At fifty
cents an hour, that’s quite a bit of money.”
“We don’t have any money, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie explained. “That’s why we
hoped we could work it out. Remember, I’ve done it before.”
“I remember,” Mr. Anderson said. “And I remember that you’re a pretty
good worker, too.” He glanced along the wharf at the rowboats tied up to
a row of cleats. “Tell you what. You clean out what boats are in, and
you’ve earned yourselves a day’s rental on one.”
Eddie counted the boats quickly. There were fourteen of them not in use.
Depending upon how messy various fishermen had been, he and Teena should
be able to clean them up in about three hours.
“How about it, Teena?” he asked.
“All right by me,” she said.
“It’s a deal, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie said. “And thanks a lot.”
“Just when do you figure you will want the boat?” the owner asked.
“Maybe next Saturday.”
“All right. You do the job, and I’ll save you one. Make it a good job,
mind you.”
They started with the boat near the far end of the wharf, and worked
shoreward. They wiped off the seats with a damp rag and coiled the
anchor ropes neatly near the bow. The biggest job, though, was cleaning
up the junk which had gathered in the bottom of each boat during the
week. There were candy wrappers, smelly chunks of old bait, snarled bits
of leader, occasional fishhooks, even dried-out sandwich crusts and
other odds and ends which had collected in each boat.
While they were working, two more boats returned. Eddie checked their
numbers when they came in. Then, after he and Teena had finished
cleaning up the fourteen, they went back and did the two new arrivals.
“Well, I’d say you’ve earned a boat for next Saturday,” Mr. Anderson
said, glancing approvingly at their work. “And thanks for cleaning up
those extra two that came in. They weren’t actually in the bargain, you
know.”
“We were glad to do them,” Eddie said, feeling a bit proud that they had
done more than the bargain called for. “I guess we’d better be going
now.”
“There comes another boat,” Teena said, pointing to one of the
orange-and-white Anderson’s Landing rowboats about a hundred yards out
from the wharf.
“Well, now,” Mr. Anderson said, smiling, “don’t you be staying around to
clean that one up. I’ll take care of it.”
“Teena, look,” Eddie said. “It—it’s those same two men we met at the
cove last week. You know, the tall one called Simms and the chubby one
called Roy.”
“Roy Benton,” Mr. Anderson said, consulting his rental slips. “He signed
for the boat this morning. Second Saturday they’ve rented one. Hope
they’re steady customers. I can always use the business. Don’t know how
long they’ll stick with it, though. They didn’t catch a thing last
week.”
“Bet they didn’t catch any this week, either,” Eddie said. “Not if they
fished over the sand bar again.”
“I tried to tell them about good fishin’ spots,” Mr. Anderson said, “but
they didn’t seem to be listening. Didn’t even ask me what kind of bait
was best around here. Well, there are all kinds of fishermen. One thing
I’ve learned in this business is not to go around giving advice when no
one asks for it. Fishermen can be mighty touchy about that. Best to let
them use up their own pet ideas, even if they don’t catch fish.”
“I can’t figure why they would want to take trout rods out with them to
do ocean fishing,” Eddie said.
“Trout rods?” Mr. Anderson asked. “They rented poles from me. I didn’t
see any trout rods.”
“Well, remember that metal tube they had last week? About two feet long?
If that wasn’t a carrying case for a jointed trout rod, what else could
it be?”
“I don’t recollect them having anything like that,” Mr. Anderson said
thoughtfully. “And I sure would have noticed it. I helped them get
loaded in the boat. All they had was a small box which I figured was
their lunch. Same thing this morning. No metal tubes with knock-down
trout rods or anything like that.”
“Let’s go, Eddie,” Teena prompted. “I’d just as soon not have to meet
them again. They were pretty cranky.”
But the tall man at the oars already was maneuvering the boat clumsily
up to the wharf. Mr. Anderson leaned down, took the painter from the fat
man’s hand, and snubbed it to the dock cleat.
The tall man, Simms, shipped oars and turned around to hand them up to
Mr. Anderson. He spotted Eddie and Teena.
“Well, so it’s you two again,” he said with no show of friendliness.
“You keep turning up, and we’ll think you’re spying on us.”
“We’ve been helping Mr. Anderson,” Teena defended.
“No fish again today?” Eddie said, looking into the empty boat.
“Snagged a couple whoppers,” the portly man said, “but they got away.”
“Did you hook them over the sand bar?” Eddie asked.
“Why not?” Simms said sharply.
Eddie glanced at Mr. Anderson. You just couldn’t hook big ones over the
sand bar. The boat owner shrugged at Eddie’s inquiring look, but he said
nothing.
“We’ll get them next week, though,” the man, Roy Benton, said. “You save
us a boat for next Saturday, huh?”
Mr. Anderson made a note of it.
Before Eddie nodded to Teena that they should be leaving, he noticed
that there was no metal tube lying in the bottom of the boat. Had he
been seeing things last Saturday? After all, even Mr. Anderson claimed
the men hadn’t brought anything along except a lunch of some kind.
Eddie was quite sure it hadn’t been imagination, but he didn’t know why
the vision of the round metal cylinder kept coming into his mind. And
anything he couldn’t explain bothered Eddie a lot.
At the foot of the wharf Teena said, “It’s early yet, Eddie. Let’s take
a hike up the beach, shall we? Maybe we could even go as far as the
lighthouse and say hello to Cap.”
“Suits me,” Eddie agreed. He never got tired of walking along the beach.
There was always something new to see and do. The fresh ocean breeze on
his face and the soft sand underfoot made him feel good. Nor did he ever
tire of picking pebbles off the beach and skipping them across the
smooth water of the bay.
A little while later they were almost to the cove when a piece of green
material caught Eddie’s gaze. It was being gently buffeted up and down
on the sand by the small lapping waves. He trotted over and picked it
out of the water.
“What’d you find, Eddie?” Teena called from nearby.
“Just a piece of rubber,” Eddie said, holding up the four-inch length of
green material. “Looks like part of a strap off someone’s swim fins.”
“Boy, you’re some beachcomber,” Teena teased. “An old strap off
someone’s swim fin is some treasure.”
Eddie drew back his arm and was about to throw the scrap back into the
water, when some printing which was molded into the rubber caught his
eye.
“Hey,” he said, looking at it closely. “It’s got some kind of foreign
words on it.”
“So what?” Teena said. “I guess they make swim fins all over the world.
Probably some tourist from another country brought them. There are quite
a few tourists around here during the summer, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Eddie admitted, but he stuffed the scrap of rubber
into his pocket and walked on.
In a little while they arrived at the cove where they had come across
the two men a week earlier. Owing to the rocks and the rather poor
beach, the cove was seldom visited by bathers. There was really little
reason for fishermen to put into the cove, either. That was why it had
puzzled him to find the two men at the cove the previous Saturday.
However, they might simply have been exploring the cove.
Eddie and Teena continued across the rough beach. There was no one in
sight at the cove. As they walked, they picked up bright shells which
sprinkled the sand before them.
“Look at these tracks, Eddie,” Teena said, as she pointed down at deep
grooves in the sand. They were long and wide—the kind a boat dragged up
onto the beach would leave.
“They look fresh,” Eddie said. “Couldn’t have been here more than three
or four hours, or the tide would have wiped out the marks. Wonder if it
was the same two fellows?”
“Funny that they would rent a boat to go fishing,” Teena said, “and then
come in here to the cove first. There aren’t any sand crabs to dig for
bait.”
Eddie was thinking the same thing. Then he saw footprints which led from
the place where the boat had been beached to the base of the bluff
rising above the cove. “Now why would they go to the foot of the bluff?”
Eddie said, puzzled. “There’s nothing to see over there.”
Curiosity gripped him. He started following the twin sets of footprints.
“Eddie,” Teena said, “we’d better go on if we’re going to visit Captain
Daniels.”
“This won’t take long,” Eddie called back over his shoulder. Teena
followed as he went on toward the foot of the bluff.
“Hey, look,” Eddie said. “There’s a kind of path that zigzags up the
bluff. I’ve never noticed that before.”
“It’s not much of a path,” Teena said, looking up the steeply winding
trail. “And I don’t know why anyone would want to use it to get to this
cove. It’s much easier coming up the beach.”
“But someone’s been using it,” Eddie said. “See how the ground’s stirred
up. I can’t figure why anyone would want to land a boat in this cove,
then climb up and down that bluff before going fishing. Can you?”
“Guess not,” Teena admitted.
“Might be worth finding out,” Eddie said. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Up the path. I’ve never been up top. Might be something really worth
seeing.”
“I doubt it,” Teena said. “There used to be some fishermen’s shacks up
top. But I don’t think anyone lives there any more.”
“Just for kicks, let’s see,” Eddie insisted, starting up the winding
path.
The dirt of the bluff was sandy and soft, making hard climbing as it
shifted and slid underfoot. It took them several minutes to climb the
slanting palisade which was only some seventy feet high.
“Phew,” Teena said, after they had scrambled up the last few feet. “You
sure get some wild ideas, Eddie.”
Eddie didn’t answer. He stood looking around. It was easy to see why so
few people were acquainted with that part of the coastline. Although
there were no trees of any size, the rolling land which extended back
from the bluff’s edge was covered with a dense tangle of brush. Only a
foolish person would try clawing his way through it to get to the cove.
The beach route was the easy way, as Teena had said.
Yet there was a faint path winding inland from the top of the bluff. It
disappeared quickly into the brush. Fresh footprints indicated that it
had been used recently.
“Now, why do you suppose anyone would go that way?” Eddie wondered
aloud.
“I wouldn’t want to try it,” Teena said. “That brush would scratch my
arms and legs.”
“Maybe it leads to that shack over there,” Eddie said, pointing.
He could see only the upper half of the small building. Probably it had
once been a fisherman’s house. The other fishermen’s buildings must have
rotted away and fallen into the weeds. The dampness of the seashore
could rot timbers out if they weren’t kept up properly. Even the
structure that still stood about two hundred yards away was badly
weather-beaten and without paint. The shingles of the roof were crooked
and partly blown away, leaving gaping holes.
[Illustration: “_Come on, Eddie, let’s go back._”]
“Well, I don’t know why anyone would want to go to that place,” Teena
said. “Surely, no one lives there. It—it almost looks haunted. Come on,
Eddie, let’s go back. It’s getting too late to visit Captain Daniels,
anyway.”
“I’d like to get a good look at that shack,” Eddie said.
“But why?” Teena insisted. “I can see enough of it from here.”
Eddie didn’t have a ready answer for wanting to look more closely at the
shack. He couldn’t even explain it in his own mind, let alone give a
good reason to Teena. Still, a lot of things seemed to be in need of
some explanation. Why did the two men named Simms and Benton come to the
cove? Why did their footprints lead up the bluff and disappear into the
brush? Did they lead to the old shack? If so, why? And what about that
disappearing metal cylinder which Eddie had seen in their boat last
Saturday?
Maybe none of it meant a thing. Even if it did, he certainly had no idea
what it was. Eddie shrugged. Sometimes his curiosity got the best of
him. Anyway, why bother Teena with it?
“All right,” he said, “let’s go back.”