Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff Read Online Free PDF

“So?”
    â€œGonna be hard to see a truck if it’s parked all the way in the back.”
    â€œYup,” I agreed.
    â€œSo we’re gonna trespass?”
    â€œCan you think of any other way for us to spot that truck?”
    Bee thought about that for a long moment. “I guess not,” she said at last.
    We rode out the plantation drive, then turned left on the township dirt road. We went past several of the neighboring properties without even turning our heads, because we knew the people who lived there and the people who worked for them.
    When we hit the paved road that ran down the center of the island, we turned left. A big tractor trailer overflowing with a load of freshly dug dirt passed us heading toward the mainland, and we had to close our eyes and turn our heads away from the blowing dust. That was the only vehicle we saw until we came to the Y intersection and went left, heading toward Bishop’s Point. After that we saw an SUV or two and some pickups. None were white, and besides that I recognized the drivers and waved. A tractor with a big cutting bar passed us on its way to mow someone’s fields, and we waved at that driver, too.
    Once we were on the point, we stayed on the main road and then turned down the first of the narrow dirt roads that went toward the water and started to search for the white truck. We checked the small places close to the road and skipped past the first couple big places because, again, we knew the owners and the people who worked there. The third large property was one we didn’t know anything about.
    Old families still owned a lot of the larger properties on Leadenwah, but increasingly, as people would pass away, strangers from Atlanta or Charlotte or New York would buy them. Some of the newcomers spent a lot of time here and really became part of island life, but there were some, like the owner of this plantation, who didn’t seem to care much about getting to know us locals.
    â€œReady to do some exploring?” I asked.
    â€œOkay, but if somebody comes out and starts screaming at us, you’re doing the talking,” Bee said.
    Bee might have been the worst liar who had ever been born. I’d figured out pretty soon after we’d become friends that whenever we had to fib our way out of a tough spot, I was the one who had to do it. “No problem,” I said.
    The property where we stopped had a couple fancy gateposts marking the entrance. A pair of wrought-iron metal gates would have been closed if the owners were away, but today they were open. We turned our ponies into the drive and started down the long allée of live oaks. The branches formed a high canopy over our heads, and Spanish moss hung from them and waved in the breeze.
    We rode in silence for a ways, but then Bee asked, “So what are you going to say if the owner threatens to call the police?”
    â€œEasy,” I said. “We’re going to say that we thought one of our classmates lived here.”
    â€œAnd what if we run into those two men?”
    I shot her a sideways glance but didn’t say anything because I’d been worrying about the exact same thing. We were getting farther and farther away from the township road, and I was growing more and more nervous.
    Plantation is a Southern word that basically means “big farm.” In my opinion plantations are the most beautiful places in the world, lush and green with fields of crops, and pastures full of animals, and ponds that twinkle in the sun, and pretty houses, and lots of flowering trees. A plantation is the opposite of a suburb. There aren’t any nearby houses or neighbors you can run to for help, and once you get far enough away from the road, people driving past in cars wouldn’t be able to see you at all.
    Therefore, if you went riding up the driveway of a plantation where someone wanted to hurt you, it could be real dangerous. It hadn’t even been four months