Marc Brandel - An Ear for Danger

It was still dark when Jupe woke up. The fire had gone out and for a moment he was too sleepy to understand what had wakened him. Then he heard it again.

A protesting braying.

Blondie.

He scrambled stiffly out of his sleeping bag and felt his way between the trees to the spring.

As he entered the clearing he saw a streak of light. It moved up and down and around in circles. At first all he could see in the waving light beam was Blondie. She had reared up on her hind legs and was plunging wildly.

Then the light stilled for a moment and he saw the figure of a woman. She was holding a flashlight in one hand and tugging on the burro’s rope with the other, trying to drag Blondie away into the trees.

Blondie brayed again. She reared still higher, ready to stamp on this stranger who was pulling at the rope around her neck.

Jupe knew how the burro dealt with rattlesnakes. He was more scared for the woman than he was for Blondie.

“Let her go,” he shouted.

Running forward, he tried to calm the little burro. “Blondie. Steady, Blondie,” he called in a soothing voice. Instantly the woman dropped the rope. Released, Blondie settled back on four legs. She turned to Jupe. He stroked her nose, looking at the woman.

The flashlight went out.

In the sudden darkness Jupe heard the sound of running. The woman had plunged away into the night. The next moment Pete and Bob joined Jupe in the clearing.

“What’s going on?” Bob asked. “Blondie woke me up.”

“Someone just tried to steal her,” Jupe explained. “A woman. ”

“Uh — oh,” Pete said. “That blonde again. The one who tried to drown you. Is she after burros now?”

“No.” Jupe shook his head. “I only saw her for a second in the flashlight. But I’d know her anywhere. She was that Mexican woman from the bus. The one with the purple shawl and the long black pigtails.”

The next two days were like the first. Hour by hour, mile by mile, they traveled deeper into the Sierra Madre. The mountains seemed to go on forever. As soon as they climbed to the top of one rise, they would see another one ahead.

Narrow valleys separated the ranges. For a few miles the Three Investigators would be surrounded by pine trees. Then, as they climbed again above the tree line, they would have to clamber up bare rocky gulleys until they were over another range.

“Lucky for us it’s summer,” Pete said as he and Bob scrambled over the rocks. “In winter we’d be up to our necks in snow.”

“Doesn’t sound that bad to me,” Bob grunted. He was dripping with sweat.

Their day began as soon as the sun rose. They ate hot beans and rice for breakfast, cold beans and rice for lunch, hot beans and rice for dinner. It was boring and it was starchy but Jupe’s guilt meter was on low. He was determined to solve this case and see where Blondie was leading them. Everything else — even watching carbohydrates — was on hold. Anyway, he never wanted more than one serving of Dusty’s glop.

Three or four times a day Blondie would stop to graze. The Three Investigators welcomed these halts. It gave them a chance to stretch out and rest. It also gave Dusty and his horse a chance to catch up. Although the rancher fed his horse plenty of oats, she seemed to get more tired each day. Sometimes she lagged a mile behind Pete and Bob.

At one of these rest stops, the Three Investigators lounged in the grass while Blondie munched.

“I want to know why these women have it in for us,” Bob said. “First a blonde tries to deep-six Jupiter and then a brunette tries to steal our burro.”

“Maybe the Mexican woman’s burro went lame,” Pete guessed, “and she needed something to carry her stuff.”

Bob didn’t buy it. “You’d think a Mexican would be sharper about burros. She’d know that you can’t drag one off against its will.”

“I wonder,” said Jupe, “if she really wanted the burro for herself. My hunch is she just didn’t want us to have her.”

“Huh?” Pete said.

But Jupe had no more to say. The guys moved on.

Every evening before sunset Blondie found a place with water and firewood where they could camp for the night. They never saw another human being. Now and then they did see adobe huts with thatched roofs in the distance. But if anyone lived in them, they never showed themselves.

After the second day, Jupe’s legs lost their stiffness. They developed muscles he never knew he had. On the third morning he made a wonderful discovery. His leather belt was too loose for him! He had to take it in a notch.

“It must be all this exercise, riding Blondie,” he told his friends proudly.

That made Pete laugh. “No wonder you’re losing weight,” he said. “No chance for pigging out between meals.”

Jupe didn’t care about the teasing. Whatever the cause, he was thinner. And maybe he had a hope for a date before summer vacation was over. He started to whistle.

That day as they were moving along a ridge the three guys saw a plume of white smoke billow up from beyond a range of mountains ahead. They stopped and watched it.

“That’s all we need,” Bob said. “A forest fire.”

“It’s a long way off,” Pete reassured him. “And maybe if we’re lucky, the wind’ll blow it the other way.”

Jupiter looked thoughtful as they continued on.

That night Dusty arrived in camp an hour after the Three Investigators. He looked worried as he ate.

“I’m going to have to give the horse a day’s rest before it goes lame,” he said when he had finished his meal. “You push on without me. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

“Sure you can find us?” Pete asked.

“Don’t worry about that. It’ll be easy enough to track you in this kind of country. Two guys on foot and one riding a burro leave a pretty clear trail.”

The next morning after Dusty had divided up the supplies, the Three Investigators set off on their own. Blondie didn’t seem to mind being loaded with the food and the cooking pot as well as their sleeping bags. Jupe joined his friends on foot. They kidded and laughed as they camped that night, relieved to be away from Dusty.

“Let me guess what we’re having,” Bob said to Pete as Jupe made dinner. “Rice and beans?”

“Wrong!” Pete answered. “It’s beans and rice.”

“Actually,” Jupe intoned nasally, “beans a la rice is the selection for this evening. Please prepare your dining utensils.”

After dinner they were sitting around the fire when Blondie suddenly brayed with excitement. They all jumped to their feet, listening.

As usual, they didn’t hear anything until long after Blondie had. Then they caught the sound of footsteps approaching out of the darkness.

A moment later the campfire lit up a large burro slowly ambling toward them. It was obviously much older than Blondie. It wasn’t saddled, but there were several packs roped across its back.

The woman with the black pigtails was walking behind it.

Blondie stopped braying. She seemed delighted to see another of her own kind. She trotted forward and the two animals rubbed noses.

The Mexican woman came closer.

“Don’t worry,” she said in Spanish. “I haven’t come to try to steal your burro this time. I want to talk to you. My name is Mercedes and I know who you all are. But before we talk, please give me something to eat. I’m hungry.”

Jupe gave her a plate of rice and beans. Mercedes sat down by the fire. She obviously was hungry. She didn’t say another word until she had finished.

Jupe had seen her only at a distance on the bus. This was his first chance to study her. He watched her guardedly while she ate.