The Mandie Collection (37 page)

Everyone laughed. The old woman always wanted everyone to eat, even the cat. And Snowball, sensing where the food was, immediately went to rub around Morning Star's ankles as she filled the plate for him.

“Eat,” everyone chimed in as Morning Star set the plate down by the stove for the white cat.

Finally everyone rose from the table, and Sallie said, “We must get coats. It will be cold later tonight.”

She led the young people upstairs, where Mandie and Celia took out coats from their luggage. Sallie took hers from a peg, where it was hanging. Dimar had walked upstairs with Joe, saying, “I have my coat on my horse.”

“I'll get mine,” Joe told him.

As the girls were leaving the bedroom upstairs, prepared with their coats, Mandie glanced back and was shocked to see that the extra valise containing the quilt was no longer in the corner. She quickly stepped back and looked around the room. There was no sign of it.

Sallie and Celia were going out the door, and Mandie had to follow them.

“Maybe this will not take long,” Sallie was saying. “Perhaps we will find Tsa'ni soon and we may not need the coats.”

Joe and Dimar were leaving the other room and followed the girls downstairs. Mandie kept trying to get Joe's attention, but he was busy talking to Dimar. She looked at Celia, and she was busy talking to Sallie.

Oh, what was she going to do? Someone had taken the quilt, and Mandie couldn't even let Uncle Ned and Sallie know that she had brought it with her. How would she ever find it when the only ones she could mention it to were Celia and Joe?

Mandie frowned and stomped her feet as she went down the steps into the yard behind the others. Well, someone must have known she had brought it, but who? She didn't believe Uncle Ned had been upstairs since they came, and not only that, she didn't think he would do such a thing.

Then there were Riley O'Neal, who had probably never heard of the quilt, and Dimar, who had come in the kitchen and stayed there while they ate.

But someone had taken the quilt. And how was Mandie ever going to get it back?

CHAPTER FIVE

UP THE MOUNTAIN

Everyone gathered in Uncle Ned's yard, preparing to begin the search. Mandie couldn't keep her mind on their plans as she thought about the missing quilt. She had brought a cloak with her from home, and she pulled the hood up over her blond hair as the evening chill settled over them. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and she was not paying attention to what they were saying.

“Dimar is getting Uncle Ned's cart for us to ride in up the mountain, and then at some point we'll get out and walk where the bushes are too thick and there is no trail,” Joe was explaining to her.

Mandie blinked her eyes and whispered, “Joe, the quilt is gone. I left it in the valise in Sallie's room, and when I went back to the room just now it had disappeared. What will I do?”

Joe looked concerned as he replied, “I suppose nothing right now. We are expected to go on this search since everyone is going. We'll look for it when we get back.” Then he added loudly, “Here is Dimar now.”

Dimar drove the cart into the front yard, and Sallie beckoned to them. “Come on. We will ride in the cart for a while,” she said, walking over to the vehicle.

Mandie followed Sallie, Celia, and Joe into the cart. They sat on the floor, which was covered with several blankets. She quickly
looked around, but there was no quilt in the vehicle. She would be looking at and searching everything until she found the old quilt. She had thought maybe someone had taken it for cover in the cart, but even that idea didn't make sense. Why would anyone take it out of her valise and put it in the cart? And what would they have done with the empty valise anyhow?

“I'll ride alongside the cart with you,” Riley O'Neal was telling Dimar as Mandie settled her long skirts and looked at the adults who were all mounting horses, even Morning Star, who rode astride and could keep up with any of the men. Mandie noticed two young Indian braves who had evidently just joined the party.

Uncle Ned straightened up in his saddle and gave instructions. “We go to mountain. We take east side, young ones in cart take west side. We meet at top. We shoot gun to sky two times if we find Tsa'ni.”

“Where do we meet Mr. Wirt and the others?” Riley O'Neal asked, trying to steady his horse.

“Wirt lead search up north side. We on south side now,” the old Indian explained. “Who get to top first must wait. Go now.” He shook the reins and led the way out of his yard.

Mandie had been out with search parties before, and she knew how thorough the Indian people were. They wouldn't miss a single thing, not even a broken twig left to mark the trail. Dimar drove slowly because the road to the mountains was bumpy. There was not much conversation among the young people until they finally arrived at the base of the mountain and everyone got out, prepared to climb the mountain trail ahead of them.

The three girls raised their skirts and jumped down from the cart as Joe tried to assist all of them at once.

Riley O'Neal dismounted and tied his reins to a bush while Dimar tethered the horse pulling the cart.

“We must walk now, and we must take the lanterns and guns with us,” Dimar explained as he reached for two guns from under the seat of the cart. Turning to Joe, he handed him one and said, “This is for you.”

“I can carry a lantern, Dimar,” Mandie said.

“And I will carry one, too,” Sallie added.

“Since there are only two lanterns, what will I carry?” Celia asked, looking around the floor of the cart.

“Here, the bag with supplies for injuries,” Dimar said, handing her a small cloth bag.

“And I have another supply bag,” Riley said as he walked over to join them. “Only mine is full of food.” He held his lantern, slung the bag over his arm, and then balanced his gun on his shoulder. He looked directly at Mandie and smiled.

Mandie, catching his eye, felt herself blush for some reason, and she quickly stepped over to join Sallie and Celia, who were already following Dimar toward the trail. Joe was checking the ammunition in the rifle Dimar had given him and he hurried forward to join them, leaving Riley O'Neal to bring up the rear. Uncle Ned and the others had gone in the opposite direction.

Mandie was deep in thought about the missing quilt when they began to ascend the mountain and she suddenly heard a very loud
meow
behind her. Stopping to turn around, she yelled, “Snowball, where did you come from?”

Everyone else paused as they turned back to look. There was the white cat daintily picking his way through the brush toward his mistress.

“He must have been walking behind us all the time. We weren't riding very fast,” Mandie said with a loud moan as she waited for Snowball to catch up.

“I'll carry him for you, Mandie. I only have this little bag and you have the lantern,” Celia offered, stooping to catch the white cat as he passed her. She put him on her shoulder as she had seen Mandie do.

“Thank you, Celia, but I'll take him now and then. You'll get too tired, because he is heavy,” Mandie said.

“And I will help carry him,” Sallie added.

“I don't think I want to carry that white cat, because he gets excited and scratches sometimes. But I will carry anything else anyone wants to get rid of,” Joe said, looking around the group.

“So will I,” Dimar said.

“That's a smart cat. He doesn't speak our language, but he certainly knew we were going away and leaving him behind, and he just decided to join us,” Riley O'Neal teased Mandie.

“Oh yes, I'd even say Snowball is a mind reader,” Mandie joked back. “He always seems to know when I am going somewhere. He's been on searches before with me in these mountains.”

“We go now,” Dimar called from the front of the line as he continued up the mountain.

Now and then Mandie noticed other young Cherokee men evidently searching the bushes along the way. Dimar always held up his hand in silent salute to them. So there must be quite a few people combing the mountain for Tsa'ni, who never seemed to care how much time and trouble he caused other people.

As they got deeper and deeper into the mountain, it grew darker and darker. Finally Dimar halted the group. “We rest five minutes and light our lanterns now,” he told them as everyone gathered around a fallen log and sat down.

The light from the lanterns made eerie shadows through the trees, and Mandie shivered.

“Are you cold?” Joe asked, sitting next to her.

“Not really,” she replied as the others stopped talking among themselves to listen. “I think it's fright, just thinking about all the wild animals who could be lurking out there in the dark.” She shrugged her shoulders and pulled her cloak closer around her. Snowball, who had been allowed down, jumped up into her lap.

“Do not be afraid. We have guns,” Dimar reminded her.

“Perhaps we will soon find Tsa'ni,” Sallie said.

“Who last saw Tsa'ni?” Mandie asked. “What was he wearing? What color clothes are we looking for? No one has explained all this.”

“He came by the house of my grandfather last Friday. He was wearing a tan shirt and breeches, something that will not be easy to see in the woods,” Sallie explained. “Everyone thinks that is the last time anyone saw him.”

“What did he have to say? Was he planning on going anywhere else?” Mandie asked.

“He did not talk at all. He came into the kitchen, and my grandmother gave him a cup of coffee. He sat on the back doorstep and drank it, and he disappeared while my grandmother was in the kitchen for a few minutes. No one saw him leave.”

“That sounds about like him,” Joe remarked. “He is always trying to seem mysterious and aloof from everyone else.”

“He was at school that morning,” Riley O'Neal added. “When everyone came back inside from recess at noon, he was no longer there.”

“His grandfather Wirt said he had asked to go to Asheville with his father, Jessan, that morning, but his mother would not allow him,” Dimar said. “Jessan was going for supplies and would not return until later this week.”

“Did anyone see him between the time he left school at recess and when he came by Uncle Ned's house?” Celia asked. “Maybe he told someone else where he was going.”

“Time up, we go,” Dimar said, picking up one of the lighted lanterns and standing up.

“Now that it's dark, I will bring up the rear to be sure no one gets lost along the way,” Riley O'Neal told the group, rising with his lantern, rifle, and bag.

As they slowly climbed the narrow trails up the mountain, Mandie tried to focus her mind on Tsa'ni, to figure out why he disappeared and where he had gone. She figured he was probably angry at not being allowed to go to Asheville with his father and had deliberately disappeared to cause worry among his people.

The group walked a long way up the mountain without seeing any of the other searchers. Dimar kept them at a slow pace because now that it was dark, the ones who had lanterns flashed their lights to either side as they went. Since the leaves were not fully out on the trees and bushes, it was possible to see quite a distance into the woods. Several deer scampered away from them, and now and then there were rustling sounds of other animals.

Mandie thought about New York, and then she suddenly realized that the plans for Joe's parents to come visit the Cherokee people with them were going to be ruined because Mandie and her friends had come here first. They were walking single file, and she was immediately in front of Joe. She turned back and said, “Joe, your father said he would bring your mother to my house when we came back from New York so they could come out here with us, remember?”

Joe scratched his head and said, “That's right.” He thought for
a moment and added, “Maybe my mother will want to go to New York with us.”

“I'm sorry, but I forgot all about them,” Mandie apologized.

Celia, walking ahead of Mandie, looked back to say, “Mandie, your mother might have sent word to Joe's parents that our plans had changed.”

“I hope someone let them know,” Mandie replied, and then she leaned forward and said in a low voice, “I'll be glad when we get done with this search. The quilt disappeared out of Sallie's room.”

“What?” Celia exclaimed, slowing to look back. “How do you know?”

“When we went back to get our coats, it was gone,” Mandie continued whispering. Snowball, on her shoulder, started meowing loudly, and she couldn't say any more.

Suddenly a shot rang out faintly through the woods. The entire group froze in their tracks to listen. After a couple minutes Dimar motioned to them. “Come on. That's not a signal for us. We arranged that if any of us needed help or found Tsa'ni we would fire twice. That was only one shot,” he explained.

Mandie shifted Snowball to her other shoulder and moved on behind Celia. The cat was heavy, and she was tired. She wondered how much farther they had to go to reach the top and meet the others. In her opinion this was all a waste of time. Tsa'ni would show up whenever he got ready. He always did—most of the time, anyway. Maybe if the people would stop organizing search parties to look for him every time he decided to run off somewhere, he would quit disappearing. And why did the search have to be at night? Why couldn't they have waited until morning to do this?

Their group was the first to reach the top of the mountain. Dimar knew their plans as to where to wait. He led them to a large clearing where the moon was shining through the few trees there. Mandie could see several fallen logs and a stream nearby glistening from the moonlight.

Riley O'Neal stepped forward to set his bag on one of the logs. “We will have a bite to eat while we wait for the others,” he told the group as he opened the bag and began withdrawing the contents.