Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
20/20 Investigations, Inc., Missing! Chapter 7.
Hmm, I wonder where Karin and the cats went? I need to check on Karin, I said to Harvey. Yeah, she seemed really shook up, he replied, maybe she went back in the house. Perhaps, I said, hoping that was the case. But I was getting a bad feeling about this. Suddenly there was a loud roar and Harvey’s boat exploded into a huge fireball! My thoughts started flying. Did Karin and the cats go down to the boat? But right then they came running out of the house. Poor Karin was still pale as a ghost. I thought you might be on the boat, she said with a quaking voice. Meow, meow!=Wow, that a big explosion, bigger than watching fireworks! Meow!=Yep, we almost on boat for trip on river! Hey, that’s right, I said, if the cats hadn’t found Betty we would all have been on the boat somewhere on the river. We would never have survived that explosion. It hit Harvey at that moment too. Ma wants us all dead, he said quietly. And she will keep trying until she gets us, he added, and there is nowhere to run either.
There’s another town not far down the road, I said, we saw it on the map. That’s right, said Karin excitedly, we need to get going right away! Not so fast, said Harvey, for one thing that river is in our way. There’s no bridge?, I asked. There was at one time, but Ma had it destroyed to make it harder for people to get in or out of here. No one ever came that way anyhow so no one has missed it. That was done a few months ago, he added. Do you have a canoe or something we could use to cross the river?, I asked. We could probably walk to that town today, said Karin. It wouldn’t do any good, said Harvey, that was a mining town and when the mine shut down 40 years ago the whole town shut down, there’s not one person living there now, it’s just a ghost town.
Meow, meow?!=Ghost town? That mean ghosts! We not go to ghost town, not want to meet ghosts! We stay right here. Meow!=Ghost town mean fun Muffin! Always want to go to ghost town and explore. Oh, so much fun there! Meow, meow!=No way, forget it! Meeting ghosts not fun, no want to see ghosts! We stay here. Muffin, I said, if we stay here we’ll all end up as ghosts. Meow=That right, too many people for us to fight this time. And ghost town always have lots of mice too! Meow, meow?!=Lots of mice? Why you not say so before? Let’s get going, human people always so slow. Not so fast Muffin, I said, Ma likely has someone watching to see if we were killed in that explosion. That’s for sure, said Harvey, Ma isn’t stupid, she will have someone watching and they are likely close by. I send the cats around to the front of the house to watch. Soon a car drove by heading back to town the cats told us, and Earl was driving. Makes sense, said Harvey, Earl is great with explosives. Hmm, learning more all the time, I wish Harvey would just tell us everything so we would know better what we are up against.
But he still seems a bit hesitant, or is all this just a show for us? Is Harvey really still working for Ma? Maybe he’s the one that killed Betty, somehow I don’t think we will ever find out who killed her, but Ma would have ordered it done anyway. Now that Earl is gone, let’s get in the car and drive down to the bridge. I’ll just grab some stuff and be right there, he said. I went in the garage to see what I could find that might help us then joined the others in the car. Hmm, Harvey is taking a long time, I don’t like that, makes me nervous. Finally Harvey came out with a backpack and off we went. It didn’t take long to reach the bridge site. There was 4 dead pine trees that were still solid which Harvey and I quickly cut down with the axes I found in the garage. Then we tied them together into a kind of raft. Hopefully it holds together until we cross the river. Fortunately there was a couple of paddles in the garage too. I just hope we’re doing the right thing.
End Of Part 1, On Wednesday We Start Part 2, The Chase!
The picture of Mr. Cat provided by his human, Nina.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #260.
Good morning everyone! I am really late this morning I see, but this was my shopping day and I like to go early before the stores get crowded. I don’t exactly like shopping and I like it less when stores are crowded. Speaking of crowded, this has nothing to do with it at all, but it’s interesting anyway. In an odd kind of way. Over the last few years living here there have been odd things happen on my deck. Most are easily explained, to a point, other things are not. The other night I awoke to the sound of someone/something tapping on my living room window. I got up to check it out. I kept the lights off though since I didn’t want to scare whoever is doing this until I saw who it was. It was a regular tap, tap, tap, then a pause, then tap, tap, tap. Muffin was on the floor looking at the window. Okay, I unlock my door quietly and there it was again, tap, tap, tap. Got him this time, I turned on the deck light and quickly opened the door and…nothing. No human, no animal.
It was a calm night, there is nothing that could tap against the window anyway, even with wind. But the tapping stopped. Anyone out there would have to run past my door to get off the deck, but there was not a sound of anyone running away. After I opened the door Muffin was brave enough to jump up and look out the window. But she wouldn’t do it before. She was scared. That was weird. This was about 2am. I don’t know of any animal that can tap like that, so regular. And it wasn’t a person. So what was it? I have no idea. I was looking out the window one evening, there was no wind, the birds had gone off to bed, I was just going to go and get the 2 hanging feeders and bring them in for the night. They were hanging there perfectly still. Then they start to swing back and forth, just a little, in perfect unison with each other, until they were really flying back and forth. Then they started to slow down, but quite quickly until they were perfectly stopped again. That one at least has a logical reason behind it, though I haven’t figured it out yet. Odd things. There’s one more from last night, but I will keep that one for tomorrow.
The featured image shows some of our fall colors along Rabbit Lake, a small lake on the north edge of town. And in the pic above is Baxter, one of my 10 regular blue jays. Happy Monday everyone, and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 