Page 17 of Tied to Trouble

“What exhibition? What’s going on?”

Mandy looked over at the bewildered girl and realized that Beverly was trying to follow the gist of her remarks, but her bitter, short jabs at Az weren’t gelling for her. So, she explained everything in detail that had been said and done, and in a calmer tone, as they made the short drive to the lake. When she finished, they were both silent for a few moments.

“Mandy, maybe there is a good reason for us not to come up here,” Beverly replied, looking around uneasily as Mandy pulled her small truck into the gravel parking lot above the beach and butted the back tires up against a railroad tie.

“What reason could there possibly be? Other than him being bossy?” She flung open the truck door and dropped to the ground. “Are you coming? I brought lunch.”

Beverly opened the door a bit hesitantly. “Well...there have been those cattle rustlings, you know. What if he knows something about it and it involves the lake area?”

“Like what?” Mandy scoffed, looking around her. They were the only people here as far as she could see.

Possum Lake was quite extensive, but this was the main beach and her favorite spot. It was a little early in the year for sunbathers and swimmers, so that would give them plenty of privacy to start their tans. Beverly’s words had made her feel a little uneasy, though, so she surveyed the wooded edges of the forest carefully. The beach was in a broad open area with two parking lots. They could easily see if anyone were to drive up the road or walk out of the trees.

The dam was three hundred yards off to their right, the noise from the giant sluiceway giving off a gentle roar as the water fell through it for two hundred feet. A metal grate walkway stretched across the dam, and people could cross to the other side of the lake if they wanted to. The walkway was lined with six-foot, see-through metal walls on both sides. It wasn’t a place for small children to be alone, but adults could open the gate latch and walk out over the lake easily enough.

Beverly shrugged. “I don’t know, but since he’s working for the sheriff’s office, it stands to reason they might know something.”

“I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be here,” Mandy replied stubbornly. “Besides, we have Mags. If anyone comes within a hundred yards of us, she will let us know about it.”

Mags woofed in agreement and shot Beverly a doggie grin.

Beverly stared. “You know, sometimes I think that dog understands everything you say.”

“Of course she does.”

Mags just stared back.

The girls walked down to the beach and spread their towels out on the sand while Mags roamed around, sniffing and snuffling at everything in her path.

They were feeling relaxed as they stripped to their bikinis and chatted amiably while they ate their picnic lunch. After clearing away the mess, they had just lain down on their towels when Mags began barking and dancing at the water’s edge. Mandy and Beverly both shot up, the dog’s frantic movements making them uneasy again.

“What is it, Mags?” Mandy asked, running down to the dog and looking out over the water. She shaded the sun from her eyes with her hand as she searched for the source of Mag’s concern.

“I think she is barking at that wooden thing in the water,” Beverly said, shading her eyes and pointing out towards the middle of the lake where something that looked like a round piece of wood was floating slowly towards the dam. “What is it?”

Mandy studied the wood, finally realizing that the majority of it must be underwater. It was slowly spiraling in a circle as it floated. A small wave bobbed it sideways, and when part of it popped up from beneath the water, she recognized it. “It’s a barrel.”

Mags sniffed the air, whining and running along the shore, following the slow progress of the barrel.

The girls followed her, also intrigued by something that seemed to be floating out of the barrel from a hole in the side.

Mags sniffed the air and barked, putting her front paws in the water along the edge as she paced herself with the moving barrel.

As they came closer to the dam, the lake narrowed, and the barrel moved in closer toward the shore. Another fifty feet and it would enter the downward pull of the sluices.

“Come here, Mags.” Mandy grabbed Mags’s collar, worried that the frantic dog would jump in the water. It was at that point that the barrel twirled again in the faster moving water and let go of the protuberance poking out from the hole. When the object popped fully up, the girls let out a gasp.

“Oh my gosh! It’s part of a cow’s leg with the hoof attached,” Beverly shrieked. “That is so gross!”

Mandy was having a difficult time holding onto Mag’s collar, but they watched as the tumbling barrel took in more lake water now that the bovine leg had unplugged the hole. When it turned upside down, she could see the letters stamped across the lid in bright fluorescent green.

GENETICO.

Then it disappeared into the sluice where it bobbed against the rush of the water behind it, trying to push the barrel through a too small opening.

The girls watched in horror as it burst open. Mags too-small, but she stopped pulling at her collar. For an instant, what was parts of a cow, including the head and the escaped leg, bounced and bobbed against the sluices before being inevitably sucked in.

The clang of the gate banging shut broke the stillness of horror that had settled over them at the macabre sight, and the girls looked up to see a man just coming off the dam, headed in their direction.

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