CRACK.
The blade of his right oar broke off.
Jupe saw it float quickly away from him. He was left pulling a useless pole. He couldn’t catch the water with it. He hurriedly jerked it into the boat and fitted the other oar into its place.
Now it was impossible to row the dinghy in a straight line. It kept spinning around like a dog chasing its own tail. Jupe tried switching the oar from side to side, but that was too slow and cumbersome. Finally he took the oar out of the oarlock and used it like a canoe paddle. Pulling desperately, first on one side and then on the other, he managed to force the boat unsteadily across the lake.
He was still less than halfway across when the second blade broke off.
Jupe was at the mercy of the current now. He tried poling the boat with one of the broken oars. The water was too deep. He couldn’t reach the bottom.
He thought about shouting for help. But even if Bob or Ascención heard him, what could they do without another boat?
He was powerless, drifting rapidly toward the river that surged out of the lake.
Jupe was a good swimmer. He could dive in and try to swim ashore against the current. But he remembered what Ascención had told them. Dipping his hand in, he found the Mexican had been right. The water was ice cold. He wouldn’t last more than a few minutes in it.
At least he was still in the boat. If he stayed in the dinghy he would float on down the river. But for how long? The road up to the ranch had been a steep climb. The river back down would drop quickly. There would probably be rapids.
He thought of the village hidden on the other side of the lake. Maybe someone there had a boat.
“Help! Help me!” he yelled in Spanish. But the lakeside was deserted in the midday heat. A dog barked but no one responded.
Jupe tried to keep cool. To form a plan. Maybe he would find shallow places in the river. He might be able to pole himself to the bank.
He would soon find out. He wasn’t far from the mouth of the lake now. He could see where the water disappeared.
Disappeared!
Jupe knew what that meant — the top of a waterfall! He crouched in the boat, bracing himself for the shock, the sudden plunge over the edge.
“Jupe!”
He raised his head. Pete was standing on the bank of the lake, waving his fishing rod.
Pete didn’t know about the broken oars. But he realized at once how much danger his friend was in. Unlike Jupe, he could see the thirty-foot drop where the lake narrowed and spilled into the river below. He had been fishing around the bottom of those falls. He had seen how powerful the rush of icy water was there. It would pound the wooden dinghy to pieces against the rocks below. And Jupiter.
Pete ran at full speed along the bank away from the falls. He stopped at the point where the land reached out farthest into the lake. He judged Jupe would have to pass within sixty feet of him before he was swept over the falls.
Pete released the catch on his reel and brought the rod back over his head. He had one chance. One only. There wouldn’t be time for a second try. He braced himself, waiting until the dinghy was almost directly in front of him.
Using all the strength of his wrist and forearm, he whipped the rod forward and cast the lead sinker as far as he could across the lake.
It was the best and longest cast Pete had ever made. The sinker landed in the water just on the far side of the dinghy.
Jupe grabbed the line as it fell across the bow of the boat.
“Don’t pull on it,” Pete shouted to him. “It might snap. Hold on to the sinker.”
Jupe pulled the lead weight out of the water and held it carefully with his right hand.
Pete began slowly and cautiously to reel in the line. Taking advantage of every inch of slack, he put as little strain on the nylon thread as possible.
He didn’t try to pull the dinghy, in toward the shore. But when the line was taut, he saw with a surge of relief that the boat began slowly circling in toward him as though held on a leash. He managed to reel in another few feet of slack.
As the dinghy came closer to the edge of the lake, the current grew weaker. Pete reeled in again, shortening the leash. The circle grew smaller. The boat was heading to shore. It was almost free of the current. Jupe was almost safe.
He was still ten yards from the bank when the line broke.
He kneeled on the seat and snatched up one of the broken oars. Leaning over the side, he plunged it as deep as he could into the water. Down, down it went. Then it suddenly struck bottom. He pushed on it, poling as hard as he could.
With terrible slowness the boat lurched a few feet toward the bank. Jupe poled again. The dinghy heaved toward the shore once more. He was in less than a foot of water now. Jumping over the side, he grabbed the bow of the dinghy and waded the last few yards to the bank.
Pete ran to him and helped lift the boat ashore.
“Thanks,” Jupe said. What else was there to say?
“Biggest fish I ever caught.” Pete smiled. “I’ll ask Ascención to grill you for lunch.”
“I just don’t want to be a frozen fillet.”
They both heard the sound of quick footsteps as Bob came running around the edge of the lake. After Jupe had left him, he had wandered down to the shore to see how Jupe was making out. He had seen Jupe drifting toward the falls but there hadn’t been a thing he could do to help him.
“Good casting,” he told Pete. “Any Hollywood producer would be proud of a piece of casting like that.”
Pete grinned. “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, not Jaws! Besides, there’s no way I’m going to be the one to tell Aunt Mathilda the bad news.”
Jupe laughed with them. “Some pals!” He sat down and tugged off his wet sneakers and socks. After only a few seconds in the water, his feet were blue with cold. Lucky he hadn’t tried to swim for it.
While Pete reeled in his line, Jupe quickly explained what had happened. The phone call. The broken oars.
“Both blades snapped off?” Pete asked. “Just like that?”
“No, not just like that.” Jupe was looking at the smoothly broken ends of the oars. “They’ve been sawed through. So the blades would break off after a few minutes of rowing. Looks like someone was hoping I’d have a fatal accident.”
He looked at Bob.
“Did you see anyone?” he asked. “Anyone on the other side of the lake?”
Bob nodded, sitting down on the stern of the boat. “Yeah, just for a second,” he said. “I got a glimpse of a woman on the opposite shore. She seemed to be watching you, Jupe, as you were heading for the falls. Then she split.”
“What did she look like?” Pete asked. “No, don’t tell me. See if I can guess. A Mexican woman with long black pigtails and a purple shawl over her head.”
Bob shook his head. “No, she looked like an American to me. She was wearing blue jeans and shades and — ”
“And she had blond hair,” Jupe interrupted him.
Bob looked startled. “Have you got ESP or something?”
8
Leave It to Blondie
The next morning the three investigators set off into the mountains.
Dusty had brought a horse box back with him from Lareto, hitched on to the back of the Jeep. Ascención caught one of the horses in the lower field. Pete helped him bridle and saddle it. The horse had been well broken in and made no trouble as Pete led it up the ramp into its new trailer home.
He stayed with it, brushing its coat, while Jupe and Ascención went to get Blondie. Jupe was glad to have a little time alone with Ascención. He wanted to try to get some more information out of the wary Mexican.