Free The Beast of Blackslope by Tracy Barrett Page B

door.
    â€œWhat’s on the other side of town?” Xena asked her brother.
    Xander thought back to the map of Blackslope and all the brochures he had seen. “Just the herb walk. I don’t remember anything else being in that direction.”
    â€œStrange.” Xena shook her head. “Whatever. It’s going to get dark soon. I want to try to listen in on one more conversation before we go back to the B and B.”
    It was fortunate she did, because this time
she got lucky. Two middle-aged women wearing sweaters and squashed-looking hats were standing near the real estate agency, and something about the way they clutched their purses and leaned in close to each other intrigued Xena. She signaled to Xander to stay away.
    When she heard one woman say “rustling in the bushes” and “ran all the way home,” Xena knew that she had struck gold. She pretended to study the map that showed where the houses for sale were located, and inched closer and closer.
    â€œRight next to where the lane turns in to Gilder’s farm,” the woman was saying. “I didn’t see anything, but what else could be making all that noise?”
    â€œJoseph said he saw something strange down at the bottom of the hill,” said the other woman. “That’s not too far from there. He said it might have been a cow, but all the fences around there are good and stout. And nobody’s reported a missing cow. I think it was the Beast!”
    â€œOh my,” the first woman said. “Seven feet tall, I’ve heard it was, with horrible long claws and fangs and—”
    â€œHere’s our bus,” the other one said. The bus pulled up and the two of them stepped on.
    Xena reported back to Xander.

    â€œSeven feet tall?” He swallowed. “Let’s go back to the B and B.”
    On the way home Xena remembered that she had run out of shampoo. They stopped at a store that said CHEMIST on the sign (they had learned this was the English way to say drugstore), and the teenage boy who took their money hardly glanced at them. He was too busy talking to a boy with spiked hair who was hanging around the door.
    â€œSomeone’s going to shoot it,” he said. “Mark my words. With the number of hunters around here, it’s only a matter of time before someone with a gun will sight it, and that will be that. Old Man Whittaker”—Xena and Xander pricked up their ears at the name—“says that if it comes on the estate again, he’s going to take care of it.” Xander glanced at Xena, and the clerk seemed to notice them for the first time. He rang up Xena’s shampoo. “Anything else?”
    â€œUm, yes,” Xena said. “Can you tell me where Gilder’s farm is?” He gave her directions. “Thanks,” she said.
    â€œIs that where people have seen this Beast?” Xander asked.
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the clerk. The phone rang then, and he picked
it up and began to discuss a football match.
    â€œCome on,” Xander said. “Let’s go look at that map again.”
    They stopped at the Realtor’s window. Xena pressed her finger on the glass. “So here’s Gilder’s farm.” Her finger left a smudge as she moved it to a spot a few inches away. “And I guess this is the lane the lady was talking about. There’s only one hill around here that we’ve seen, so that must be the one, and it’s not far from Blackslope Manor. Those guys said that Mr. Whittaker said something about it coming on the estate again , so it must have been there already.”
    â€œWhere was the footprint we found?”
    She moved her finger. “There. And here’s the B and B.”
    They studied the map. “So what can we conclude?” Xena asked at last.
    â€œWell,” Xander said slowly, “except for a few random times, like when it was near our B