The B Girls (11 page)

Jane cast a wistful glance back toward the parking
area as it disappeared from view. "Breakleg Creek? That doesn't sound very
promising."

Mae frowned at her. "We're not doing this for
fun."

"Ouch! Damn it," Jane stopped and hopped
on her right foot muttering more curses under her breath.

"What now?" Mae asked.

"I stubbed my toe on a rock. I think it might
be broken."

"It's not broken. You'd still be yelling if it
was broken," Lucy said.

Jane gave her the evil eye. "Well it
hurts."

"Just sit down for a minute," Mae said.

Jane looked around at the foot high weeds on the
track and the dense forest on either side and shuddered. "No thanks.
Anything could be crawling around in there. I'll just walk it off. The
throbbing is slowing down."

"Next time we should probably wear hiking
boots," Mae said.

"There isn't going to be a next time,"
Jane said. "If we had any brains, there wouldn't be a
this
time."

"Let's just keep moving, before we change our
minds." Lucy was already starting to miss the air-conditioned van. But
she'd gladly put up with some sweat and a stubbed toe if it meant finding Belle
in one piece.

They trudged on for another fifteen minutes before
Jane started muttering under her breath.

Lucy didn't blame her. Mid-August in the deep South
is hot, humid, and generally miserable even up in the mountains. Today seemed
especially stifling without a hint of a breeze. Pushing through the heavy,
still air was a chore.

"How far was the fork supposed to be?"
Jane asked.

"A little less than a mile from the parking
area."

Jane stopped and slapped at a mosquito.
"Shouldn't we be there by now?"

"We should be close," Mae said.

Lucy's tee shirt was starting to stick to her body
and she had a sick feeling her deodorant was going to fail soon. She eyed her
companions.

Jane didn't look any better, her blond hair was two
shades darker with sweat and plastered to her head.

Mae didn't exactly look fresh but she didn't seem
to have as many working sweat glands. Her hair still had some shape to it and
her high-tech tee shirt wasn't sporting sweat marks under the arms.

Chances were huge they were in way over their heads
but she didn't see that they had a choice. Waiting until Wednesday and relying
on the cops wasn't an option.

Jane slapped at another mosquito. "What the
hell were we thinking using Skin So Soft instead of Off?"

"We'll live," Mae said. "Aunt Belle
needs us and I'm tired of being boring and predictable."

"Didn't you tell me you actually went deer
hunting and killed a deer?" Jane said. "I hardly call that boring or
predictable."

"I was twenty-two and still trying to convince
Chip we were compatible." Mae paused, looking smug. "I'm still a
great shot. We go skeet shooting every once in a while. It makes Chip crazy
when I outshoot him."

"So why not try out for Olympic skeet shooting
or something?" Jane slapped another bug and made a face as she wiped the
remains on the back of her khaki camp shorts.

Lucy stepped on something hard and sharp and felt
it through the sole of her tennis shoe. No wonder they made hard-soled boots
for hiking. "I'm not sure they have skeet shooting in the Olympics. But
I've seen it on ESPN."

Mae nodded. "I've seen those women on ESPN
too. They wear pretty cute outfits even if they are plastered with sponsor
logos."

"So you think you might actually try some
competition shooting?" Lucy asked.

"Who knows? A woman with a tattoo is capable
of anything," Mae said.

Jane looked at Lucy. "What're the odds this is
a wild goose chase?"

"I have no idea. I assume the map of the cave
is still hidden where Paul put it unless Belle already found it. Either way
we'll learn something."

Jane didn't say anything.

Lucy gave her a quick pat on the shoulder.
"We'll get through this. You'll see. Maybe we'll find Aunt Belle
and
the Declaration."

Jane bared her teeth in the semblance of a smile
and kept trudging.

They reached the fork in the track five minutes
later and stopped to look for the best way to head through the woods to the
creek.

"Time for you to dazzle us with your compass
skills," Jane said.

"I don't need skill. That's the beauty of GPS.
I'll just get it to remember this place." Lucy tapped the screen.
"And then find the homestead coordinates I put in earlier . . . And
presto, an arrow pointing the way we need to go. That way," she said. The
arrow pointing to the right.

Jane walked to the edge of the track and looked
down. "This is such a bad idea."

Lucy stepped up next to her and saw what she was
worried about. The land dropped off sharply for fifteen feet or so and then
rose again for twenty. The ravine or dip or whatever you wanted to call it, cut
across the direction they wanted to travel. The underbrush was so thick you
could hide an elephant. Of course you'd never be able to get an elephant in
these woods to begin with.

"They aren't kidding when they call this a
wilderness area."

"Didn't you ever play in the woods when you
were a kid?" Mae asked with determined cheer as she stepped up next to
Lucy and looked over the edge.

Jane just stared for several seconds. "This is
crazy. I don't think this place is for amateurs. I'm not even sure we can get
down there without a rope."

"It's not that bad," Mae said. She paced
several yards in either direction before stopping and pointing. "There's a
trail right here."

Lucy and Jane looked where Mae was pointing.

Calling the narrow, ill-defined gap in the trees
and brush a trail was giving it way too much credit. It did seem to meander in
the general direction they wanted to go, but the terrain still looked
dangerously steep.

Jane rolled her eyes. "Maybe a rabbit would
call that a trail. I call it an invitation to disaster."

"We have to at least try," Mae said.
"I'll go first." She was looking a little pale, but before Jane or
Lucy could object, Mae took one sidestep over the edge.

"See," she said, "you just have to
take it slow," she lifted her second foot, "an----OH!"

Her foot slipped out from under her and she started
sliding down the hill on her side.

"Shit," Jane said.

"Double shit," Lucy said.

They stared for the several long seconds it took
Mae to slide to a halt in an awkward sprawl on top of a laurel bush two thirds
of the way down.

"Are you okay?" Lucy called down. Just
how guilty would she feel if Mae had something broken?

Mae managed a weak wave but it looked like she was
having trouble catching her breath.

Seeing her in distress made Lucy wince. "We
have to get down there." She tried to act confident, but she figured they
were all going to break their damn fool necks.

Jane nodded. "Let's go." She followed Mae
over the edge.

"Be careful. You don't want to wind up on top
of her." Lucy stepped off the road. What was a broken neck between
friends? Besides, they deserved whatever they got for not being better
prepared. Of course, getting better prepared would have taken precious time.
Time that Belle might not have.

It wasn't possible to walk down the hill, it was
too steep. It required a combination of sliding, crawling and sidestepping, but
they finally made it down to Mae's side.

She was struggling to get her limbs back in the
right places so she could sit up. Jane gave her a hand and she managed to
flounder her way upright.

"Guess I should have been a little more
careful." She reached up to brush leaves and dirt from her hair. "At
least we're almost down the first hill."

"You've got to be--"

"Are you sure you're not hurt?" Lucy
overrode Jane.

"Just a few scratches and a bruised dignity. I
got a little dizzy looking down the hill. I'll be ready to go on in a
minute."

Jane looked at the two of them as if they'd lost
their minds. "You two do realize one of us will probably wind up with
something broken?"

"I'm willing to take the chance," Mae
said. "No more taking the easy way out. Giving up at the first bump in the
road."

Jane snapped the nails of her thumb and ring finger
together, an impatient, annoying habit she fell into when she was nervous or angry.
"This might be the most insane stunt I've been a part of since the
unfortunate testing of the no nudity rule on Panama City Beach my Junior year
of college."

She stopped clicking her nails and smacked herself
in the forehead. "Oh wait, how could I forget, Saturday night when I was
old enough to know better, I got tattooed."

Lucy watched as Jane's expression changed from
sarcastic to stunned surprise. "What?"

Jane blinked and shook her head.
"Epiphany."

"About?" Lucy prompted.

"I'm such a shit sometimes."

"And your point?" Mae said.

"No, I mean I hate to admit it but sometimes I
feel a little smug about the fact that I never turned into a soccer mom. No
Junior League. No ALTA, tennis. I convinced myself I was different. Braver,
more independent. Now I realize I just fell into a trap of a different kind.
I'm my own stereotype. The hard-charging, driven real estate woman complete
with two hundred dollar haircut, expensive suits and dramatic make-up. And
let's not forget the manicure. I'm just as boxed in as every other woman I
know. Or at least I was until I left the reservation with you two."

"Glad to be of help," Lucy said.
"But I think you're being way too hard on yourself."

Jane stood up and offered Mae a hand. "Let's
get this over with. I suppose I can climb and slide a quarter mile if I have
to."

Lucy took Mae's other hand and they pulled her to
her feet.

They scrambled the rest of the way down into the
narrow gap and half-climbed, half-walked up the far side.

Jane cringed every time she put her hand down into
the weeds and underbrush. "I don't even want to think about what might be
hiding in these deep leaves."

"Nothing too dangerous I hope. Just keep
making noise to scare off the wildlife," Mae said.

They reached the top of the rise. It was a relative
high spot and gave them their first decent view of the quarter mile they had to
cover.

It wasn't good. It also wasn't as bad as the twenty
yards they'd just walk-crawled. The land continued in steep ripples, but not
quite as steep, so they made more forward progress with each vertical foot they
covered.

Lucy tried hard not to think about the fact they
were going to have to do the whole thing in reverse to get back to the van.

At least, there were no witnesses to the ridiculous
spectacle they made.

Mae had on tailored khaki shorts and a white high
tech tee shirt designed for gym workouts. She even had little white pom-poms on
the back of her socks. Lucy knew because she'd spent the better part of two
hours almost face-to-face with them. Who knew you could still buy socks with
pom-poms?

Jane's camp shorts and silk tee shirt were better.
At least she didn't have pom-poms on her socks.

Lucy figured she was the one closest to being
sensible in her old comfortable jeans and her five dollar navy blue Fruit of
the Loom tee shirt. She only wished she owned a pair of hiking boots.

They topped yet another rise and finally--thank
God--heard the gurgle of water below. The creek wasn't visible but there wasn't
any doubt it was there.

What wasn't there was a clearing or any other
indication there'd been a cabin or homestead nearby.

Mae looked worried. "We're lost."

"Of course we're lost. We're idiots."
Jane pulled out her water-bottle and plopped down on a fallen log. "At
least the protein bars will keep us from starving for a day or two."

Lucy pulled out a Power Bar. "We're not lost.
That has to be Breakleg Creek down there. The GPS says we're in the right
spot."

"Maybe we're not lost yet. I give it another
fifteen minutes tops." Jane pulled the sport top of her water bottle open
with her teeth, sucked in a mouthful of water and swallowed. "I say we
turn back now."

Mae looked appalled. "We can't turn back! What
about Belle? I didn't do all of this just to give up this easy."

"You should know by now when to take her
seriously," Lucy said. "We're doing fine. I'll mark this spot in the
GPS and then we'll search along the ridge for the site."