The Madman of Black Bear Mountain Page 8

  When I looked up from the water, I saw cabins and a small country road off to the right. We were still surrounded by beautiful mountains, but there were also signs of civilization—and I recognized them!

  “Keep following the river!” I shouted. “We’re not far from the lodge! We can get help there! They might even have made it back!”

  The mobster-turned-hermit mumbled something to himself, his brow furrowed deep in thought. It suddenly struck me that I hadn’t merely asked Aleksei to fly me back to the lodge. I’d asked him to risk blowing the cover he’d gone to such great lengths to protect—and maybe even go to prison for it.

  “Aleksei, I know this is a lot to ask, but my brother . . .”

  “Shhh,” he commanded, gripping my shoulder firmly. “I know what you are going to say.”

  My whole body tensed. Who had I been kidding? There was no way the fugitive was going to take me to the lodge. It wasn’t like he could just drop me off without anyone noticing a giant mountain man landing a helicopter in the backyard. What was I supposed to say when he left—that I called for a chopper? Even if I could somehow leave him out of it, Black Bear Mountain was going to be crawling with search teams as soon as I told everyone what had happened to Frank and the Geccos. Either way, taking me back to the lodge meant the possibility of Aleksei getting caught. If Aleksei decided to turn the chopper around and save himself, there was nothing I could do. I didn’t stand a chance against the big hermit, and I couldn’t fly a helicopter myself even if I did. Aleksei’s grip on my shoulder tightened.

  “It is to great lengths I went to make Aleksei Orlov disappear. Nearly twice as long as you have been alive I have spent keeping my identity a secret,” he rumbled. “I have had much time to think. I did many bad things in my old life, but I am a different man now, and I do not want to give up my freedom.”

  He paused, and my gut sank.

  “But Max is my friend, and you too are now my friend,” he continued somberly. “I cannot allow more people to be hurt because of me. For Max and your brother, I will take you back. I will stay by your side until they are safe, even if it means I never get to see my beautiful mountain again.”

  “Thank you, Aleksei!” I cheered. “That’s a really heroic thing for you to do.”

  “Hmm.” He grinned. “The Heroic Hermit of Black Bear Mountain. I like!”

  Bear Foot Lodge came into view around the next bend. With horses grazing serenely in the pasture and Chief Olaf wading into the river to reel in a big fish, it looked like a picture straight out of a travel brochure. You’d never know it was the source of so much danger.

  “There it is!” I said. “Can you put us down in the field behind the lodge?”

  The propeller blast from the chopper pounded the river’s surface with wind, sending Chief Olaf’s fish flying off his hook. I had a feeling I was a lot happier to see the chief than he was going to be to see me.

  The soaking-wet chief stomped up, holding his fishless line, as Aleksei landed the helicopter behind the lodge. “What in the world is going on here? Do you have any idea how long it took me to land that trout? I—” Then he saw me. “Joe? I should have figured . . .”

  “Have you seen Frank?” I leaped out of the chopper, cutting him off.

  He looked at me like I was nuts. “Why would I have seen Frank? I thought you boys were supposed to be camping up on Black Bear Mountain.”

  “Something terrible has happened,” I explained. “We have to get a search team upriver now! Frank’s raft went over the falls, Jim is hurt, and the rest of us are still stranded on the mountain!”

  The chief’s annoyance instantly turned to concern. “Slow down, son, and tell me exactly what happened.”

  “I’m still trying to put the pieces together, Chief, but—”

  A female voice cut in before I could finish.

  “What is that helicopter doing on my property?” Casey came running out of the lodge, sleeves rolled up, exposing the bear-paw tattoo on her forearm. “Joe? What are you doing here? Who is this guy?”

  She looked up at Aleksei, towering silently by my side.

  “As if you don’t know,” I spat before turning to Chief Olaf.

  The chief looked just as stunned as Casey. “Her sister impersonated Dr. Kroopnik to deceive us as part of a conspiracy to commit theft,” I informed the chief. “And my brother and Dr. Kroopnik are still missing or maybe even worse because of it.”

  “M-my sister?” Casey stammered. “Is this some kind of joke? I haven’t seen Lana in weeks.”

  “I saw your family crest tattooed on her arm right before she pushed me off a bridge,” I seethed.

  Casey’s jaw dropped, and she reflexively rubbed at the bear paw on her forearm. “But that’s crazy! Lana’s off camping somewhere out west. She isn’t even in the state!”

  “Let’s slow down a second, Joe.” Chief Olaf put a hand on my shoulder to calm me down. “Now, I’ve known you long enough to know you’re being straight with me, but let’s not be hasty. I’m out of my jurisdiction up here, but even if I wasn’t, we need to gather more facts and make sure we’re not just jumping to conclusions. And if you’re right, I’ll do what I can to step in until the local authorities get here.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. Seeing Frank’s raft torn up like that had my emotions running high, and I’d let my heart do the detecting instead of my brain.

  “You’re right, Chief,” I conceded. “A good detective stays objective and doesn’t rush to judgment, but I know for a fact that the woman responsible for this has an identical tattoo on her right arm.”

  “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Casey pleaded. “My sister wouldn’t want to hurt any of my guests. She knows how much the lodge means to me. Are you sure it wasn’t a different tattoo? All kinds of people have tattoos up here.”

  “Bear paws with squiggly lines down the center that match the path of the river through the valley?” I asked.

  “Oh,” she said meekly. “But I don’t understand.”

  Either Casey was a great liar or she was genuinely clueless about my accusation.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” I asked, wondering if the Geccos hadn’t been the only ones duped by her sister.

  “Maybe two, three weeks ago,” Casey said. “She’s always off on some outdoor adventure somewhere or another. She was supposed to stop by the lodge for a visit after her last trip up Black Bear Mountain, but she called at the last minute to cancel. She said she found this great expedition she wanted to go on with some famous mountain man or something. I don’t know why she would have lied to me.”

  One of the things you learn in detective work is that sometimes the most believable lies also contain a bit of truth, and I had a pretty good idea which “famous mountain man” Casey’s sister had been talking about. I glanced back at Aleksei, who had retreated to the helicopter in an attempt to eavesdrop without drawing attention to himself—and for a giant hermit with a woolly beard and buckskins, he was doing a pretty good job. Casey seemed to have forgotten about him and the helicopter altogether. If she knew who he was, it sure didn’t show.

  She seemed totally bewildered and blindsided by everything I’d said. I thought about how cool of a host she’d been the day before and found myself wanting to believe she’d been conned by her sister along with the rest of us. But Frank had overheard someone at the lodge arguing on the radio about the crazy hermit in the woods before we left, and if it wasn’t Casey, then who?

  Chief Olaf continued to question Casey, but I was already searching for answers somewhere else. I rewound my memory to the day before. We’d been standing behind the lodge in pretty much the same place, getting ready to go meet Dr. Kroopnik, when Jim had freaked out about flying with Commander Gonzo—and the person who kept trying to talk us out of going to Black Bear Mountain hadn’t been Casey. It had been her husband.

  “Where is Steven?” I asked, interrupting the chief.

  “Steven?” she repe
ated. “I . . . I’m not sure. He got a call on the radio earlier and said he had to go upstream to check on the fence in the north pasture, but he should have been back by now. Why do you . . . ?”

  The sound of someone screaming like their hair was on fire reached us from upriver before she could finish. I knew that voice! I’d heard the same distressed cry yesterday after I’d talked my brother into riding the zip line.

  “Frank!” I yelled, and took off running for the riverbank with Chief Olaf, Casey, and Aleksei right behind me.

  A riderless horse stood on the bank farther upstream, watching as Frank struggled to pull Dr. Kroopnik’s thrashing imposter to shore. My brother and I both had lifeguard training, but a panicking drowning victim can drag even a strong swimmer down with them.

  “Lana?!” Casey gasped. “She never learned to swim! She’s terrified of water!”

  All four of us sprinted for the water’s edge. Before we could reach it, we realized Frank and Lana weren’t the only ones in the river. Steven was already swimming toward them.

  20

  RESOLUTION RIVER

  FRANK

  LEAPING OFF THE ZIP LINE into the river turned out to be the easy part. I’d jumped in to save her on impulse, and it wasn’t until I splashed down beside the flailing mystery woman that I remembered one of the basic rules of lifeguarding—don’t let one drowning become two! You only approach a drowning swimmer in open water as a last resort, because of the risk that they’ll unintentionally take you under. Which is exactly what was happening!

  I tried to swim ahead of her so I could pull her back to shore, but she wouldn’t stop trying to climb on top of me in a desperate attempt to escape the river. Even with my life vest still on, I had to fight to keep my head above water as she struggled. I wanted to tell her I was trying to help, but it’s hard to talk with a mouth full of river water.

  I’d started to think we both might wind up as fish food when I saw a pair of long, skinny arms and a beard slicing through the water toward us. Steven! I was so happy for the help, I didn’t stop to think what he was doing there. Max’s imposter actually calmed down a little when she saw Steven, and together we were able to swim her back to the shallows.

  What I hadn’t been expecting was a welcoming committee waiting for us on the riverbank! Seeing Joe next to Aleksei “Mad Hermit” Orlov and Chief Olaf in his fishing getup had to be one of the most welcome, not to mention strangest, sights of my life.

  I gave Joe a big, soggy bear hug. “Man, is it good to see you!”

  “Likewise, bro,” he replied with a grin. “You’ve spent so much time in the water today, I think you’re starting to sprout gills.”

  “You are Frank, yes?” the big hermit asked. “You have seen my friend Max? He is okay?”

  “He’s okay,” I assured him. “We wiped out on opposite sides of the river and he’s got a long hike ahead of him, but he isn’t hurt.”

  “What about Jim?” Chief Olaf asked. “You said he was hurt?”

  “He sprained his ankle pretty badly, but we splinted him up and left him resting near the old ranger station with some water,” Joe said. “He should be okay for a while at least.”

  Steven carried Maxine, or whoever she was, the rest of the way onto the bank, where she crumpled to the ground, coughing water and gasping for breath.

  Casey immediately ran to her side. “Lana! Oh my God, are you okay?”

  I was about to ask how Casey knew our mystery woman when I saw the matching bear-paw tattoos on both their arms. “ ‘Don’t Call Me Maxine’ is Casey’s sister!” I blurted out.

  “And I have a hunch Steven here is who you overheard talking on the radio with her before we left for our little misadventure.” Joe fixed the lanky lodge keeper with a glare.

  Steven gave a panicked glance from my brother to the very mad Mad Hermit standing next to him and turned to run. The look on Casey’s face stopped him in his tracks. She was a bundle of fear, surprise, and hurt all in one.

  “Steven?” she said softly. “Why is Lana here? They think we’ve done something to hurt the Bayport High kids, but it’s all just some kind of big misunderstanding, right?”

  Steven looked away. “We were trying to help. No one was ever supposed to get hurt.”

  “Trying to help . . . ?” Casey repeated. “But I don’t understand.”

  Unable to look his wife in the eye, Steven turned to us. “Whatever happens next, Casey didn’t know anything about any of this. She never would’ve let Lana and me get ourselves into this mess if she had.”

  “Any of what?” Casey and Chief Olaf demanded at the same time.

  “Kidnapping Dr. Kroopnik, stealing his identity, stranding a bunch of kids in the wilderness, and throwing Joe off a bridge, for starters,” I said when neither Lana nor Steven spoke up. Lana was still on the ground, recovering from nearly drowning, but Steven had that panicked look in his eyes again like he might try to run.

  Aleksei growled and Chief Olaf fixed Steven with one of his patented “bad cop” glares. “Are you going to cooperate? I’d really rather us not have to restrain you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Steven said, the fight draining out of him. “Just so long as Casey isn’t blamed for anything we did.”

  He looked over at Lana, who nodded meekly. Casey stumbled away from her sister like being close to either her or Steven might burn her.

  “Speak for yourself next time,” Aleksei said to Chief Olaf in a thick Russian accent. “I would very much like to restrain them.”

  “I’m sorry, but who are you again?” Chief Olaf asked, apprehensively eyeing the big, burly, bushy-bearded, buckskin-wearing mountain man.

  Aleksei hesitated and looked down at Joe.

  “Chief, this is my friend Aleksei,” Joe said proudly. “He saved my life on the bridge.”

  “And he fits into this whole thing how?” the chief asked.

  “Well . . . I . . . uh . . .” Aleksei cleared his throat. “You see, it’s . . . uh . . . mmm . . .”

  “He’s Aleksei Orlov, sir,” Steven explained timidly. “Lana found out he was hiding on Black Bear Mountain on her camping trip a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to get proof to take to the FBI so we could collect the reward.”

  “Aleksei Orlov?” The chief mulled the name over. “Wait, isn’t that the name of that Russian mobster who crashed his plane up here all those years ago?”

  Aleksei smiled guiltily.

  “But you’re supposed to be dead!” the chief exclaimed.

  “If I am dead, then it is okay if I go?” Aleksei asked hopefully.

  “What? No!” Chief Olaf looked from Aleksei to us. “Leave it to the Hardy boys to go camping and come back with a dead Russian mobster!”

  “He faked his death.” Lana spoke up for the first time, her voice hoarse from nearly drowning. “I stumbled on his hideout in a cave and saw a newspaper clipping about a reward for information leading to his capture from before the plane crash.”

  “She called me when she got back and I looked it up,” Steven added. “They never got around to taking the reward off the books after the crash, so we thought we could still collect it if we told the police.”

  “Only they just laughed at us,” Lana said bitterly. “Like we’d told them about seeing a flying saucer or something.”

  Steven nodded. “We figured if we could get proof and show them we were telling the truth, they would have to give us the reward.”

  “So I went back with my camera to get his picture and maybe some kind of DNA evidence or something,” Lana said.

  “You what?!” Casey looked from her sister to her husband with her mouth wide open.

  “We did it for you, honey,” Steven said sheepishly. “I know you wanted to make Bear Foot Lodge work without having to ask anybody for help, but we were so far behind on our bills. We thought if we used the reward money to pay off all the debt, then the bank would have to leave us alone.”

  “Hard work is what’s going to keep Bear Foot Lodge runni
ng, not some risky get-rich-quick scheme,” Casey scolded.

  Steven hung his head. “We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d say it was too dangerous.”

  “Of course I’d say it’s too dangerous!” she shouted. “Look at what happened!”

  “But we almost did it!” Lana defended herself. “Everything was going perfectly until . . .”

  “Dr. Kroopnik caught you trying to snitch on his friend, so you knocked him out, tied him up, and stuck him in a cabinet?” I added up the missing pieces for her.

  Casey gasped.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Lana squeaked. “I just kind of panicked.”

  The whole puzzle was starting to come together now that we had Lana and Steven talking.

  “And then you radioed Steven from the research station to tell him what happened, and when he couldn’t talk Jim out of taking us to Black Bear Mountain to see Max Kroopnik, you showed up in his place pretending to be Dr. ‘Maxine’ Kroopnik so we wouldn’t know the real Max was missing,” Joe said, reconstructing their plot. “Only we wouldn’t leave when you canceled the field trip, so you tried to scare us off with the story about the Mad Hermit.”

  Aleksei growled in Lana’s direction.

  “Pretty clever, the way you mixed fact and fiction to really frighten us with that campfire tale, but Jim still wouldn’t budge,” I said, picking up where Joe left off. “So you cut down our food to lure the bear into camp, figuring a hungry black bear would scare us off for good.”

  I guessed at that last part, but Lana just stared down at her soggy boots, letting me know I was right about the identity of the bear’s accomplice.

  “But Jim messed up your plan by wandering off and getting lost, which left you stuck with a second missing person and five stranded teenagers,” I speculated. I really hoped I was right, because there was still the unpleasant possibility that our teacher was mixed up in this somehow. I breathed a sigh of relief when Lana nodded.

  “I guess I scared myself with that story too,” she admitted. “I really thought the Mad Herm—uh, I mean Mr. Orlov—took him. Besides that, I’d somehow ended up with your teacher’s backpack. So I just kind of improvised to buy myself some time until I could get my own bag back, because it had all the stuff in it.”