Carolyn Keene - White Water Terror

“Looks like we’ve made it-finally,” Ned announced, turning off the ignition.

“Fantastic!” George exclaimed. She got out of the car, her concern about the trip momentarily forgotten. “Listen to that river!”

“I hate to tell you guys this,” Bess remarked, “but I hear roaring. Loud roaring.”

“Right,” Ned said, opening the trunk and beginning to pull out their gear. “Sounds like a pretty big falls not far away.” Grinning, he handed Bess her duffel bag. “That’s what white water rafting is all about, you know, Bess. Water falling over the rocks. It always makes a noise.”

Bess took the bag, shaking her head.

Nancy slung her backpack over her shoulder and followed George to the river. She was wearing khaki-colored safari shorts and a red knit polo shirt, a sweatshirt tied around her neck. The sun felt warm on her shoulders.

“Hi!” George said, hailing a tall, thin-faced young woman who was standing beside one of the rafts. “I’m George Fayne. Can you tell me where to find Paula Hancock? She runs White Water Rafting.”

The young woman looked up. Nancy couldn’t tell whether she was surprised to see them. “I’m Paula,” the woman said. She was in her early twenties, Nancy judged, wiry-thin and tense, like a nervous animal. “You’re late. We expected you last night.”

George bristled. “Yeah. Well, you might say that we’ve been victims of circumstance. That map you left for us at the airport took us on a wild-goose chase, and then we-”

Nancy stepped in. “Then we got lost,” she interrupted smoothly, leaning her backpack against a tree. She threw George a warning glance. There wasn’t any point in alerting Paula Hancock to their suspicions. If she had anything to do with the warning phone call or the missing barricade, Nancy didn’t want to put her on her guard. “I’m Nancy Drew,” she said, holding out her hand and studying Paula. “George invited me to come along.”

“Glad to have you,” Paula replied brusquely. She ignored Nancy’s hand. She had odd amber eyes, Nancy noticed, cold and remote.

Nancy shivered as though somebody had dropped an ice cube down her neck. “Have we… have we met?” she asked hesitantly. Those eyes-where had she seen them?

Paula straightened up. “I don’t think so,” she said more casually. “Not unless you’ve been up here before.”

“No,” Nancy said. “This is my first trip to Montana.” She was sure she had never met Paula, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew those eyes.

Paula turned to a dark, good-looking young man in a faded blue denim work shirt and jeans, who was loading a radio into one of the rafts. “Max, come and meet our grand-prize winner, Georgia Fayne. Max is an expert river-rafter,” she said, turning back to George and Nancy. “He’ll handle one of our rafts. I’m taking the other.”

“It’s not Georgia, it’s George ,” George said, shaking Max’s hand. “This is my friend Nancy. And Bess,” she added as the others came up, “and Ned. We’re really looking forward to the trip. Ned’s been on a raft trip before, but the rest of us are novices.”

“Glad to meet you,” Max said. A long, hairline scar cut across the corner of his square jaw, giving him a lopsided look. He smiled at Bess as he shook her hand, his dark eyes glinting appreciatively. “Real glad.”

Nancy looked at Max closely. The voice on the phone could just as easily have been a man’s voice as a woman’s. In her experience, it was better to consider everybody a candidate for suspicion. And Max looked like a likely one. But then, so did Paula. Since she was the owner of White Water Rafting, she must have been responsible for the contest-and for that killer map. Nancy decided to watch both of them closely.

Paula glanced at the sleeping bags and packs that Ned was carrying. “Go ahead and stow your gear in Max’s raft,” she commanded. “The sooner we get started, the better.” She frowned at Max. “Did you check the batteries before you loaded the emergency radio?”

Max nodded. “Sure thing,” he said carelessly. “Can’t be out on the river with a radio we don’t trust, can we?”

“Hi! Let me show you where to put those.” A pretty girl walked over to Ned and took one of the sleeping bags from him. She was petite and willowy, and her ash-blond hair swept softly over her shoulders. “I’m Samantha,” she told him in a soft southern drawl. “But my friends call me Sammy.”

“Well… sure,” Ned said, with a shrug and a quick glance at Nancy. He followed Sammy to the raft. Paula went along, too, calling out instructions for stowing the gear.

Nancy looked at George. “Maybe we should meet some of the others,” she suggested, pointing to a group of kids standing beside one of the rafts.

“Okay,” George said. “I’m looking forward to-”

George didn’t get to finish her sentence. Suddenly the air around them exploded in a series of sharp, staccato sounds, like gunshots fired in rapid succession. Somebody was shooting at them!

“Get down!” Nancy yelled, pulling George with her in a wild dash for the shelter of a nearby tree. The gunshots continued, echoing through the trees. Crouching low, Nancy waved frantically at several other kids who were still standing beside the rafts, out in the open. “Get down!” she yelled. “Somebody’s shooting!”

“Oh, come on,” one of the girls called back. “That’s not a gun. It’s just Tod and Mike shooting their dumb firecrackers.” The explosions stopped suddenly and there was absolute quiet, except for the sound of the falls.

“What?” Nancy stood up and looked around. “Tod and Mike? Firecrackers?”

“Those two clowns love practical jokes,” the girl explained, coming over to them with a smile. “Firecrackers under a trash can. They’ve been at it all morning.” The girl was short, thin, and dark-haired, and she had a nervous intensity that reminded Nancy of Paula.

Nancy let out the breath she’d been holding. She felt her pulse slow down to its normal rate.

“Hah! We sure scored one on you, didn’t we?” The boy who came running to Nancy and George looked very pleased with himself. He was short and stocky and wore a pair of faded cutoffs and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “I’m Tod. And this is Mike.” He pointed to the boy who had followed him over. The accomplice was tall and thin, his legs looking like pipestems in his frayed cutoffs.

“Listen, you guys, I don’t think it was funny at all,” George protested, coming out from behind the tree. “You scared us to death!”

But Nancy just said mildly, “Yeah, you sure scored one. We were pretty scared.” Were Tod and Mike really immature enough to think it was funny to frighten people like that?

“Well, I’ve got to say this,” Mike observed, looking at Nancy appraisingly. “You sure think fast and act fast-for a girl.” He grinned and shuffled his feet. Maybe, thought Nancy, he was shy.

The dark-haired girl spoke up. “I’m Mercedes.” She pointed to two others who had come up behind her. “This is Linda and this is Ralph. I guess you’ve already met Sammy,” she added, looking toward the raft, where Sammy was standing close to Ned, talking animatedly with him.

Nancy followed her glance. “Yes,” she said wryly, wondering if Sammy was going to be another Sondra-or worse. “We’ve already met Sammy. She seems very… friendly. And helpful.”

“Yeah, that’s Sammy, all right.” Tod nudged Mike. “ Very friendly. And very helpful.”

Linda was a delicate, fragile-looking girl with a narrow, pointed face that reminded Nancy of a princess in a fairy-tale book. Ralph, slender with intense black eyes, was probably the scholarly type. He seemed a little out of place next to Tod and Mike, both of whom looked as if they’d grown up in the woods. Nancy listened carefully to them as Mercedes introduced them, trying to detect any trace of the voice that had made the phone call. But the week-old memory of a muffled voice wasn’t much to go on.