The Ghost of Schafer Meadows Read online

  Hank Cooter staggered past me with an officer on each arm. I yelled, “Hey Cooter. It’s okay if you don’t like me, but my dog doesn’t deserve bad treatment. You thought you could outsmart her, but in the end you got what was coming to you. Mom calls that your ‘just desserts.’ I’ve got one thing to say to you.”

  All my pent-up anger finally found a release. I stomped up to Hank Cooter and looked him straight in the eye.

  “Dogs rule! Thieves drool!”

  N I N E T E E N

  Top to Bottom

  That night I again saw a man with a stubbly beard and torn clothing standing at the foot of my bed. He didn’t stay long but smiled at me and touched his hand to his old felt cowboy hat in salute before he left. When I awoke I had the feeling that I’d never see him again.

  Two days later we were all at breakfast—my parents, Jed, Charlie, Jim, Pete, and the trail crew—when the sound of a plane engine tore us away from our conversation. The Forest Service radio squawked in the office at the back of the cookhouse, and we heard the plane’s pilot telling Spotted Bear he was on the ground at Schafer Meadows. We all abandoned our breakfast and spilled out the cookhouse door. Don had returned.

  Casey jumped out of the plane and raced toward Oriole. The two dogs ran around, bowling each other over and playing like they hadn’t seen each other in years.

  I couldn’t believe who else got out of the plane with Don. “Will! Allie!” I shouted, running toward them. “Wow, it’s great to see you!”

  “Yeah, you, too,” Will said. He was even better looking than I remembered. “Dad said Allie and I could visit you now that the danger is over. I can’t believe you caught those crooks!”

  “Yeah, and I can’t wait to hear the rest of the story from your dad.”

  ******

  In the cookhouse, Don said he wanted a cup of coffee. Casey and Oriole squeezed through the door just before it closed.

  “I know you want the entire story,” Don said, “but there’s so much to tell. Let me start by saying we now know the identities of both the jewel robbers and the thieves who took food from Spotted Bear. As you know, Les and Doug were caught red-handed with jewels and food, and when the sheriff convinced them that it was to their benefit to talk, they told the whole story.”

  “Yeah, all right!” Jed slapped hands in a “high-five” with Celie, who sat next to him.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” Mom asked.

  “Sure. It’s a long involved story, but I thought you might like to have some questions answered. This may take a while, though.”

  “No problem,” Dad said. “No one’s talked of anything else since this all happened, and the only way I’m to get any work out of my crew is if they hear the story from top to bottom.”

  “Okay then, here’s what I know. Les and Doug moved to Montana a year ago after having gotten in trouble with the law in another state. They both had criminal records for theft and couldn’t find jobs, although they didn’t look that hard. One night, Hank Cooter sat in a bar where Les and Doug had also gone. Cooter heard them talking when they thought no one was listening. In low voices they laughed about stealing horse saddles and blankets from a store at night and how easily they had gotten away with it.

  “Cooter already intended to rob the jewelry store in Kalispell but needed a good alibi and a way to steal the jewels without anyone being able to pick up his trail. He approached the men. He told them he heard their conversation. He said he could help them make big money if they wanted, or he could help the police solve a horse equipment robbery, linking the two men to the theft. Needless to say, Les and Doug listened to Cooter. Over the next few months, Cooter convinced them that they could pull off the robbery. Desperate for money and afraid of Cooter’s hold over them with the police, they agreed to help him.

  “On the day of the robbery, the jewelry store was full of people for a huge sale. The three men waited until the store had more people than the clerks could watch. When the owner went into the back of the store, Doug, Les, and Hank slipped in behind him. The owner had his back to them when they grabbed him. They blindfolded and gagged him and tied him up. Then they filled little pouches with as many jewels as they could grab fast. By the time the store clerks went to see why the owner was gone so long, the men had left by the back door and hurried to the parking lot where one of the local businesses was selling horse trailers.”

  “What about surveillance cameras?” Charlie asked. “Surely they would have caught the men on tape.”

  “The men disguised their looks in case they got caught on camera. They did a good enough job that even now, knowing what the men look like, the sheriff’s officers who reviewed the tape couldn’t identify them among all the other shoppers.”

  Pete looked up from his glass of juice. “Pretty cool trick. Okay. So they got out of the store without being caught, but don’t tell me those guys bought a new trailer just so they could get away with the jewels.”

  “No, no. They already owned one. It was almost new and the same make as the trailers being sold, so it looked like they’d just bought theirs at the sale. No one would think them out of place driving away. Doug and Les had already given Hank Cooter their jewel pouches. Cooter took the gems and drove off to the county airport where his plane waited.”

  “Let me guess,” Mandy said. “He flew into Schafer.”

  Don walked to the coffee pot for a refill. “Right.”

  “And that’s when I met him,” I said. “When he was so mean to Oriole and me before we even had time to say hello.”

  “Yep.”

  “But why did he pick Schafer?” Charlie asked.

  “Cooter thought the best way to keep the police from finding the jewels was to keep them moving. He also figured everyone would be looking for a getaway car or truck. No one would suspect a plane or a couple of people on horseback. And he thought the police would search the towns in the area, not the Great Bear Wilderness. He knew Schafer Meadows had an airstrip and a lot of buildings, so when he flew into Schafer, he came to find a place to stash the jewels.”

  Dad looked confused. “But why pick the cook stove in our house? He had all sorts of places to choose from—the woods, other buildings that wouldn’t have people coming and going all the time—lots of places.”

  “Actually,” Don said, “your house wasn’t the first place he chose. You know the ‘bear boxes’ in the campground? The ones campers use to store food so bears can’t get to them? Cooter first thought of hiding the jewels there. The metal boxes open from the top down, and there’s a lip that would hide the top of the box when opened. He thought of using duct tape to hold the pouches up under the top where no one could see them.”

  “So why didn’t he do that?” Mom asked.

  “The night he stayed in the campground, he ran into someone who told him about the pilots’ work weekend.”

  Jim, who had sat quietly during Don’s talk, said, “That’d be me. Remember I invited him to dinner that night and he didn’t come? He asked all sorts of questions about the work weekend. He didn’t seem like someone interested in helping out, so I thought his questions were a bit strange.”

  Don nodded. “Right. He had no intention of helping. He really wanted to know how many people would be around, and when he found out there might be 50 or more, he decided leaving the jewels in the bear boxes might be too risky.”

  “And leaving them in the cook stove in our house wasn’t?” Mom said.

  “It was. His second choice was someplace in the woods, but he didn’t think Les and Doug were bright enough to figure out how to find them, so that was out. Then he thought about putting them somewhere else around the ranger station, like the cookhouse or bunkhouse, but too many people come and go from those places.”

  “But I’m usually in the ranger’s house working on my book. You’d think that would scare him off going into our house.” Mom said.

  Don shook his head. “You know, sometimes crooks do things just for spite and because th
ey think they’re above the law. When Cooter first flew into Schafer and met Tom and Charlie at the cookhouse—”

  “—And ate so many of Cody’s cookies—” I added.

  “Yes. Anyway, Cooter hates anyone with authority, so he took an instant dislike to everyone here. As ranger, Tom’s in charge, so putting the jewels in the ranger’s house, right under Tom’s nose, was his way of getting back at all of you, showing how funny and clever he could be. You know, some crooks get so arrogant they think they won’t ever get caught.”

  “Yeah,” Jed said. “Look at Billy the Kid in the 1800s. He got into all sorts of trouble where we lived in New Mexico. I bet he never thought he’d end up behind bars.”

  “And he never thought he’d get shot later,” Don said. “Cooter had that same overconfident attitude as Billy the Kid. He believed he was smarter than everyone else. To him, all of you were just a bunch of dumb government employees. He felt he could easily outsmart you. But he finally got caught.”

  “How’d he hide the jewels?” Charlie asked. “There always seemed to be someone around the cookhouse or bunkhouse. And like Kate said, she usually worked at the ranger’s house. He’d have had a hard time getting past her unseen.”

  “Remember the night Jim invited everyone over for steaks and Cooter didn’t come? That’s the night he chose to hide the jewels.”

  “But we all saw him at the campground that night,” Jed said. “He had his tent set up near his table and he sat with his back to us while we had dinner. How did he get in and out of our house unseen?”

  “Did anyone remember seeing him leave the table?”

  We all shook our heads.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I remember going to the outhouse. He was gone from his table but there was a light in his tent.”

  “Well, the police said Cooter waited until it was dark and you were all sitting around a campfire talking about the stars. He left his flashlight on in his tent hoping you’d think he was still in there. His tent door faced away from you, and he slipped out and walked as fast and far away as possible, hoping no one would see him. He walked in the dark, carrying a spare flashlight and not turning it on until he reached the house.”

  “He must have moved my CDs around in the house while looking for a place to hide the jewels that night,” Mom said.

  “That’s what happened. Cooter first looked around your computer, but it didn’t seem like a good place. He had to find somewhere else fast. He saw the cook stove in the kitchen, could tell from looking inside that it hadn’t seen any use in ages, and made a quick decision to put the pouches of gems in there. It seemed like a safe bet at the time. It was summer, and he figured no one would fire up the stove until fall, if at all.”

  “He did like taking risks, didn’t he?” Dad said. “Any of us could have walked back and seen him.”

  “I actually did,” I said. “That was the night Oriole and I went back to the house alone and saw the light moving in the living room. I was so sure it was the ghost.”

  “Right,” Pete said. “You came back and got me and we searched the house. Remember how Oriole’s hackles went up and she growled?”

  “Yeah. Now I know that she’s only done that when Hank Cooter’s been around. She must have smelled him. But how’d he get back to the campground unseen?”

  “Same way he came,” Don said. “By walking in the darkness and slipping unnoticed into his tent. For all you knew, he’d been there the whole time. All he had to do was wait until morning to fly out. No one would know a thing about the jewels.”

  “And he flew out to meet Les and Doug who were waiting at the airstrip at Spotted Bear?” Dad asked. “What was that all about?”

  “Cooter’s plan was to hide the jewels at Schafer, fly to Spotted Bear, and tell Les and Doug where to find them. Then he’d fly to Great Falls and wait.

  “Meanwhile, Les and Doug would go to Schafer by horseback, get the jewels, and ride out to the east side of the mountains where their horse trailer was waiting for them. It would take them a couple of days to get out, but it didn’t matter, because the jewels would still be on the move. Once Les and Doug got to their truck and trailer, they’d drive to Choteau. Cooter thought it would be better to meet them there than in Great Falls where they had more opportunity to run into the law.”

  “Why didn’t Les and Doug just disappear with the jewels when they got them? Why did Cooter trust them to meet him?” Mom asked.

  “By the time the robbery took place, Les and Doug knew how dangerous Cooter could be. He’d turn them into the police for their last robbery if they didn’t follow through. They didn’t want to mess with him, so they carried out their part of the bargain.”

  Pete reached for a banana in a bowl on the table. “Geez, what a complicated plan,” he said, pulling back the banana skin.

  “Yeah, but it didn’t work out as expected,” Don said. “Les and Doug weren’t the most reliable people, and they caused some problems that led to their discovery.”

  “Like what?” Cody asked.

  “Well, for starters, they got bored waiting for Cooter at the Spotted Bear airstrip, so they went to the Spotted Bear Ranger Station just to look around. There had been a huge grocery delivery that day, and the two men watched box after box of food going into the cache. They decided to help themselves to some of it.”

  “How did they do that? There’s always someone at the food cache when it’s open,” Celie said.

  “True, but they waited until night and broke the lock on the door. They really made a mess when they were in there.”

  Don pointed his thumb at me. “Jessie, do you remember taking pictures after they wrecked the cache? One of your photos showed a partial boot print. It had a distinctive small circle near the tip of the boot. We later matched it to a pair of boots that Doug wore.”

  “Wow! I’m really glad I took those pictures.”

  “And there’s more. You know the note that Oriole found? The one telling them where to look for the jewels?”

  “You mean the one she chewed so badly I could hardly figure out what it said?” I looked at Oriole, who was stretched out by my feet.

  “That’s the one. Doug and Les had gone fishing and weren’t at the Spotted Bear airstrip when Cooter flew in to tell them where the jewels were hidden. It was okay, though, because they had an alternate plan in case the men weren’t there when he arrived. He would leave a note for them in their horse trailer parked at the edge of the airstrip. What he didn’t know was that the note got wedged into a place where Les and Doug couldn’t get it out without tearing it. It tore so badly that all they could read was ‘Look in _oo___o_e’ and then ‘in the______house.’ So Oriole really didn’t damage the note, Jessie.”

  Mandy laughed as she looked at me. “Oh, so that’s why you wanted to look in the woodstove in the bunkhouse that day. It had nothing to do with never having seen a stove like that before.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t true, but I had no idea what I was looking for and didn’t want to involve you in some wild goose chase.”

  “Les and Doug had the same problem,” Don said. “They thought it was going to be a piece of cake to find the jewels. They rode into Schafer from Spotted Bear and almost ran right into the trail crew.”

  “So they left the mess on the trail that we had to clean up?” Celie asked. “It’s a good thing we didn’t catch them in the act. We were all so mad, especially Cody.”

  “It was their mess all right. And if Oriole hadn’t found the meat wrapper with Schafer written on it, we might never have made the connection.”

  Dad pulled his chair back from the table and stretched his legs. “What I don’t understand is why Les and Doug set up their tarp at the campground and just sat around the whole time they were there.”

  “With so many people around they had to look for the jewels when no one would see them going into places where they shouldn’t be. That meant spending a lot of time just hanging out, watching. So while the crew w
as camped out doing trail work, they searched the bunkhouse.”

  “Oh, no! You mean they’re the ones who went through my stuff? They handled my underwear? Eeeww!” Mandy shuddered in disgust. “That really creeps me out!”

  “Yeah, but at least you weren’t there at the time,” Don said. “Jessie wasn’t so lucky. The day she went down in the basement of the cookhouse to get a snack, she found the outside door open. Les had waited until no one was around and slipped into the basement through that door. When he heard Jessie upstairs, he didn’t have time to go back outside, so he hid under the stairs below a tarp.”

  “You mean Les locked me in the food cellar?” I asked. “I was sure it was the ghost.”

  “He’s the one who locked you in the cellar, and he’s the one who spilled the grain in the grain shed. He thought he might as well help himself to some of that, too—you know—free feed for his horses.”

  “I’m glad to know Les did it and that I hadn’t been sloppy putting the grain away,” Jed said.

  Don reached down and scratched Casey behind the ears. Casey moaned contentedly and flopped down on the floor.

  “That’s about it, I guess.” Don looked at me. “You know, Jessie, you and Oriole solved this case. If it hadn’t been for the two of you we might still be looking for the jewel robbers.”

  I felt my face redden. “It was really mostly Oriole. She’s the one who found the note, helped Casey keep Les and Doug from escaping, and grabbed Hank Cooter before he could get in his plane at Choteau. She was incredible.”

  Don nodded. “She was, but you’re the one who deciphered the note, don’t forget. You solved the mystery of the jewel robbery.”

  I grabbed Oriole and hugged her. “We solved the mystery.”

  T W E N T Y

  Home

  Later that morning, Dad and I sat alone at the kitchen table in the cookhouse. Oriole slept on the floor next to me.