Children of the Gates Read Free

wore thong sandals on her feet. He was not usually so aware of a girl’s clothes, but these fitted her as if to complete a picture.
    Nick shouldered one of the melons Ham pointed out and took a second under his arm, carrying them out to the waiting jeep. Ham was busy stowing in Coke.
    “Wait ’til I get some sacks,” he told Nick. “Shake those melons around and you’ll get them stove in.”
    Linda Durant had followed them out. “That sounds,” she commented, “as if I have a rough road ahead. You’ll have to give directions, Jane’s are vague.”
    For the first time Nick realized that she meant to travel the Cut-Off. He glanced at Ham who looked sober. After what Ham had just been saying—to send a stranger, and a girl, down the Cut-Off—But if there was no other way in now—only Nick had a queer feeling about it.
    There was one thing—he could take that way, too. It was really shorter to his own cabin when you came to think about it. And it had been almost his whole lifetime since Ted and Ben had disappeared. This was broad daylight and these Ridgeways must have been up and down there maybe a hundred times since they moved in. So, why look for monsters that did not exist?
    “Look here,” Nick suggested as Ham reappeared with sacks and newspapers and proceeded to wedge in the cargo. “I’m heading that way. It’s rough and we’ll have to take it slow, but if you’ll match your speed to mine”—he motioned at the waiting bike—“I’ll guide you in. I’m Nick—Nicholas Shaw—Mr. Hodges here knows me. My people have had a cabin on the lake for a long time.”
    Linda gave him a long, intent survey. Then she nodded and smiled.
    “That’s fine! From what Jane said the road’s pretty rough and I could miss it. I’m very glad of your company.”
    Ham packed the last of the papers in, and Nick gathered up his own purchases and bagged them in a bundle he could tie over the saddlebags. Several indignant yowls from the storeroom brought an instant sharp response from the Peke.
    Linda adjusted her sunglasses and got behind the wheel. But Ham spoke to Nick in a low voice.
    “Take it easy now. I have a funny feeling—”
    “Not much else we can do if she’s going to get to the Wilson place,” Nick pointed out.
    As he gunned the bike to life he wondered what looming danger one could watch for along the Cut-Off. No one who had ever met whatever peril lurked there had ever returned to explain what he or she had faced. No, Nick was not going to let his imagination take over. He’d end up seeing a UFO or something lurking behind every tree, he waved to Linda and swung out. She nodded and followed.
    They turned off the highway about a half-mile farther on and Nick cut speed, concentrating on the rough surface ahead. He had come this road enough times to memorize every rut and bump, but the heavy rains last week would have done damage, and he had no intention of being spilled through carelessness.
    A mile and a half to the Cut-Off. In all the years he had been coming up here he had always looked for the overgrown entrance to what had become a sinister road to nowhere. Could she get the jeep in there at all? But they had been using it, so they must have cleared a passage through. July 24, 1970—he’d been too little then to realize what had gone on. But he’d heard plenty about it ever since. All that searching—the neighbors, the sheriff and his deputies. And not so much as a track to tell them why two young men in the best of health had vanished from a half-mile strip of road one sunny morning.
    They had been seen entering, had stopped and talked to Jim Anderson about the best place to fish. Jim had been going into the store. He had watched them turn into the Cut-Off. But they never came out at the lake where a couple of guys were waiting to join them.
    Mouth of the Cut-Off—like a snake with jaws wide open to swallow them down.
    Nick took firm control of his imagination. If he did not see Linda to the