Hardy Boys - Cult Of Crime Part 7

Chapter 10.

IT WAS TOO late for Frank or Joe to move. The Jeep smashed head-on into the wall.

To their surprise, it kept moving. The wall had come down, and it was flapping on the front end of the Jeep.

Rosie chuckled. They had run through a canvas sheet that had covered the mouth of the cave. "I've had that up for years, to keep people from seeing where I live. From the outside, it looks just like a moss-covered rock." He laughed again. "Riding through it gets them every time."

"Them?" Joe said. "You've done this before?"

"Back during the Vietnam War, I'd drive draft dodgers to the Canadian border," Rosie replied. He stared wistfully at the sky. "We'd go all the way to the Saint Lawrence on back roads and off 81.

roads. A guy ran a speedboat out of Morristown into Canada. I wonder what ever happened to him. Those sure were the days."

He reached out the driver's window, grabbed the canvas, and pulled it back over the hood until it was all inside the car. The Jeep whipped between and around trees as if it were a dirt bike. It bounced over rocks and ditches. It was evident that nothing fazed Rosie, and he would stop for nothing. .

"So what's your story?" Rosie asked. "Run a stoplight in Keller's county?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Joe said. "We rescued Holly from a commune this evening."

Rosie c.o.c.ked an eyebrow, and his face filled with a new respect for the Hardy boys.

"The Rajah's spread, huh? Mean guys up there. They took some shots at me once just for hunting within a hundred feet of the place." He leaned over to Joe and winked. "I had to crack a few skulls over that one."

Then he straightened up, tilting his head back to talk to Frank and Holly. "How'd you get hooked up with that mob, missy?"

"You're mistaken," Holly said. She suddenly sounded cross. "The Rajah doesn't believe in guns. He'd throw anyone using them out of the commune. "

"Wise up, Holly," Joe said in disgust. "Those 82.guys took shots at me, and someone killed Vivasvat. They didn't do that with prayer."

"Joe," warned Frank.

"Get real, Frank," Joe shot back. "She sounds like she still believes in that creep."

"I don't!" she insisted. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I just want to go home! I just want to go home. . . ."

She buried her face in Frank's shoulder and sobbed. He slipped a comforting arm around her; softly smoothing her hair.

"Look what you've done," he scolded Joe. "Hasn't she been through enough?"

Joe scowled, but Rosie just grinned. If he had heard the conversation, he showed no sign of it.

Steering the Jeep through the trees, he was lost in the fantasy world of his memories, dreaming of a life that had vanished more than a decade before.

"Thanks for getting us out of there, Rosie," Frank finally said. "I'm sorry you'll get into trouble for it."

"What?" Rosie drifted out of the daydream. "Oh, don't you worry about that. Keller never saw you in my place, and there's no evidence you were even there. If they shot up my cabin enough, I'll even get some money from the county out of this."

"How long before we hit the highway?" Joe asked.

Rosie laughed. "You don't know much about 83.

being on the run, partner. The cops'll be allover the highway, waiting for you. You'll never get where you're going that way. You're getting out right about here."

Joe peered into the night. The woods had thinned into meadow, but they were still in the mountains. There were no signs of civilization there. "There's a road around here somewhere, right?" Joe asked.

"Nope," Rosie said. "Better." The Jeep screeched to a stop at the edge of a sloping cliff. "Look down there."

Joe climbed out of the Jeep and stared down the cliff. Far below was a rus.h.i.+ng torrent of water-a river. But Rosie was wrong. It was too far below. There was no way to reach"

the river, and no way to travel on it if they did.

Rosie had led them to a dead end. Frustrated, Joe kicked a stone down the cliff side and listened to it roll. It hit something flat, bounced twice and rang as it bounced, then rolled the rest of the way and splashed into the water.

It rang! Joe thought excitedly. But it's stone. There's something else down there, something metal. He squinted. Partway down, almost hidden in the darkness, ran a set of train tracks.

"Where do they go?" Joe called.

The others left the Jeep and joined him. Holly's eyes widened in horror. "You don't expect us to walk back to Bayport, do you?"

"If you want, sure," Rosie said with a chuckle.

84."Or we could wait for a train, couldn't we?" Frank said. "These would be cargo train tracks, since no pa.s.senger trains come through here. The train would slow down around this bend, to avoid throwing itself into the river. If it's going slowly enough, we should be able to hop on with ease."

He turned to Rosie, whose mouth dangled open with surprise, "That's why you brought us to this particular spot, isn't it?"

Rosie smiled cunningly. "You're pretty smart, all right. Except I bet you don't know when the next train's coming by."

"Nope," said Joe. "When?"

From the distance came a faint rumbling and the ground began to quiver.

"In about two minutes," Rosie said, laughing. "Come on!" Frank shouted, grabbing Holly's hand. "We've got to get down to the tracks.

Quick!" They scrambled down the slope, sliding instead of staying on their feet. "Thanks again,"

Frank called to Rosie.

"Anytime, sport," Rosie called back. "If you're ever in these parts . . . "

His words were cut off by the roar of the train. It rumbled toward them, slowing as it hit the curve. They threw themselves again t the hill as the train drew near.

Then it was pa.s.sing them. Frank tried to yell orders, but the noise drowned his words.

He strained his eyes, looking for the right boxcar to jump. Two cars filled with cattle pa.s.sed, followed 85.

by cars full of coal and corn. Then he saw what he was looking for. .

Coming up was an open, empty boxcar.

He grabbed Holly's wrist again and pulled her along. From the corner of his eye, he could see Joe on the move already, heading along the tracks the other way.

Nimbly Joe grabbed the handles on the side of the empty car as it eased past him, He was in his element, moving the way he had learned in the gym, pulling himself up the row of handles the way he would pull himself up a rope. It was child's play for him. With the grace of a trained gymnast, he swung from the handles through the open door. He was inside.

As the boxcar caught up to Frank and Holly and pulled past them, Joe held the frame of the door and stretched his arm out. Holly's fingers touched his and slid off.

"I can't do it!" she cried. "I can't! I can't!" She stopped, clenching her fists. She started to curl up like a child.

Frank clutched her around the waist and lifted her into the air. Without pausing to think, he tossed her bodily into the boxcar. She smacked the floor and rolled across it, dazed.

The boxcar moved on, leaving Frank running beside the train.

Joe howled and leaned out of the car again, hoping to give Frank a hold it was no use.

Frank stopped running and tried to catch his breath.

86.Throwing Holly aboard had used up the last of his strength. It was too long since he had slept.

Moments later, the last car in the train, a caboose, pulled alongside him. It's now or never, he thought, gritting his teeth. He took a deep breath and leaped. His hand caught the back steps of the train.

Gasping for breath, he pulled himself aboard and collapsed on the caboose's back platform. No one else was aboard the caboose. It was being used for storage, with big sacks of grain piled inside.

Frank leaned out over the edge of the platform and looked along the train. He could see Joe in the open car, smiling and waving. At last they were safe. They could rest.

A bullet splintered the wall above Frank's ear. At the sound of the shot, loud even against the roar of the train, Joe leaped back to the door. Figures lined the hilltop they had just climbed down. Flames spat from their hands as the thunderclaps exploded.

It was Keller and his men. Rosie hadn't lost them after all, and they were shooting at Frank.

The train rounded the mountain, allowing Joe a view of the back of the caboose. He could see his brother trying to stand and get a view of the shooters.

"No!" Joe cried.

A shot rang out, driving the' figure on the caboose platform backward. It swayed on the oppo 87.

site side for a second and then plunged off the train.

Joe scrambled to the" other side of the boxcar and wrenched the door open. He saw the moon reflected in the water below. Next he saw a cloth covered lump bob twice in the river, then sink beneath the swirling waters.

Frank was gone.

Chapter 11.

"HE WAS THE only one who loved me," Holly said through her tears.

Joe looked up wearily and shook himself awake. He sat crouched over his knees against the wall of the boxcar; he had been sitting that way for hours while Holly cried herself to sleep on and off.

"I don't want to talk about Frank anymore," he said. A lump about the size of a fist rose in his throat and choked him. He had always known that danger might one day take one of them. But not yet, he thought. It shouldn't have happened yet.

Holly was so grief-stricken, though, that she couldn't see how upset Joe was. "I know he loved me," she repeated. "If he didn't love me, 89.be wouldn't have gone into the commune after me. Poor Frank."

"He didn't love you!" Joe shouted in exasperation. Holly sat up stiffly and stared at him, pain and doubt in her eyes, and Joe softened. She's not to blame. There's no reason to yell at her.

"That's just the way he was," he said gently. "He knew you were in trouble and he came to help."

She smiled. "You're a lot like him. Not in the way you walk or dress, of course. He was quieter than you are, and a lot less physical. But both of you believe in the same things, don't you?"

"Yes, I guess we do," Joe said. "Or did. Look, I'd rather not talk about Frank anymore.

Not until I have to explain to Mom and Dad."

"So what do you want to talk about?"

"I'd like to sleep," Joe replied, "but if you want to talk, then let's talk about you."

......"Me?" Holly said in surprise. "I'm. . . there's nothing to talk about."

She's hiding something, Joe realized suddenly. It was in the way her voice trembled, the way she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "Let's talk about the Rajah, then,"

he said, playing a hunch.

"What about him?" Holly asked coldly, and he knew he was on the right track. She didn't want to talk about the Rajah.

He had to coax the information out of her. How would Frank have handled this? He wondered. He 90.

smiled and bent his head so she would not see. When he raised his head again, his expression was bland, as if he weren't really interested in their conversation.

"What made you run to the Rajah?" he asked.

Her relief at his question was noticeable, but there was still a darkness in her eyes and a chill in her voice that bothered Joe. "My father," she said slowly. "1 had to get away from my father."

"Why?" Joe asked. "He seems like a nice enough guy to me. Did he hit you?"

"No. He never laid a hand on me. He never even touched me. That was the problem."

"I don't understand."

Holly's eyes flashed angrily. "You've got a family! You hug, don't you? You do things together, like a family should."

"Sure."

"We didn't. My father and I, I mean. Not since Mom died. He didn't love me much before that, but afterward, he never had time for me. I didn't even see him at meals.