Missing on Superstition Mountain (2 page)

“Jack!” Simon warned. He looked at Henry and shrugged. “Josie doesn't know her way around here. She might get lost.” He ran after Jack, calling over his shoulder, “You tell Mom.”

Henry scowled. He was often put in the position of breaking bad news to one or the other of his parents, because Simon considered it beneath him to relay information and Jack couldn't be relied upon to get the message right. Henry yanked open the sliding glass door and yelled in the vague direction of his mother's study, “Mom, Josie ran away and we're going after her!” He slammed the door to her faint, “You boys stay close to the house.”

Henry crossed the yard, then trotted up the rough slope of the foothills. Giant saguaro cactuses rose from the sandy ground, their prickly arms held upright, like soldiers saluting. The reddish brown peaks and bluffs of Superstition Mountain loomed in the distance. Henry could see Simon and Jack—and Josie far ahead, a black streak against the light earth. Where
was
she going? That was the thing about Josie. You never knew what she was thinking. Sometimes when Henry stroked her head, she'd purr with lazy pleasure and then, a minute later, hiss and bat his hand with her claws.

He caught up with his brothers, who'd stopped running. June in Arizona was fiercely hot, not like Illinois. At least there was a wind today … even if it blew dry dust in their faces. Simon and Jack were yelling for Josie, but Henry couldn't see her anywhere. She never came when they called anyway.

“Where'd she go?” Henry asked, squinting into the hills, past the spiked grasses and bright yellow clumps of wildflowers. The strong sun made crisp shadows on the ground.

“She climbed over those rocks.” Simon ran his hand through his hair till it stood up even more. The boys gathered in an uncertain huddle, staring at Superstition Mountain.

They all knew Superstition Mountain was off-limits. But it wasn't clear why. Their mom had said something about mountain lions and rattlesnakes. Their dad just said they could get lost.

Jack scrambled on top of a boulder. “I see her!” he said. “She's way up there. Come on!”

CHAPTER 2

UP THE MOUNTAIN

H
ENRY HESITATED.
“Do you think it's okay to go up the mountain?”

Simon considered for a moment. “Look, there's kind of a trail. We can break off branches from the bushes and stick them in the ground so we can find our way back.”

That sounded like something Uncle Hank might have done in his army scout days, Henry thought. Reassured, he began breaking branches off the brittle shrubs and propping them in the ground as they walked, avoiding the sharp spines of the prickly pears and giant cactuses.

“They look like big, skinny people,” Henry told Jack.

“Yeah, needle people,” Jack said.

“Think if your skin was covered in prickers like that,” Simon said. “Like a porcupine. You could scare people away just by brushing against them.”

“Cool!” Jack said, and proceeded to pretend he was covered in prickers, bumping into Simon and Henry until Simon threatened to push him into a cactus.

When Henry turned back, their house had sunk from view. But the zigzag line of sticks poked up from the dirt, as certain as mile markers on a highway.

Soon the slope became steeper and rockier. Jack still ran ahead, but Henry could hear him panting from the effort. Lizards skittered across the sandy ground. Henry grabbed the sharp edges of boulders to pull himself up, the sun hot on his back, sweat coursing down his forehead. The trail turned back on itself. It faded into thickets of brush, then reappeared. They kept climbing.

“Look at that funny rock,” Jack said after a while, pointing to a narrow spire that stood alone in the maze of bluffs.

Simon nodded in recognition. “That's Weaver's Needle. Dad showed it to me. It's a landmark.”

“What's a landmark?” Jack wanted to know.

“A part of the land that stands out,” Henry explained. “You can use it to tell where you are.” That's what scouts did, didn't they? They remembered landmarks so they could guide people in the wilderness. He tried to memorize the position of Weaver's Needle.

“So where are we?” Jack wanted to know.

Henry looked around at the twisty, boulder-strewn landscape. “I don't know.”

They climbed on. Behind them the flat land stretched, speckled with the distant houses of Superstition and divided by a thin stripe of highway. Ahead lay the tangle of cliffs and peaks.

After a while, Jack asked fretfully, “Do you see Josie?”

Henry shook his head. Had she really come all the way up here? It seemed like they'd left home a long time ago.

Overhead, a large dark bird wheeled against the blue sky.

“Is that a hawk?” Henry asked Simon.

“Yeah,” Simon said. “Or a vulture.”

Henry shuddered.

Simon kicked at the dry ground, scattering pebbles. A fat gray toad jumped out from under a rock.

“Look!” Jack cried, pointing. None of them were used to the strange desert creatures, so different from the squirrels and robins of Chicago. It reminded Henry of
The Swiss Family Robinson
, a book he'd read about people marooned on a Pacific island who were always bumping into exotic wildlife.

Simon, who would usually have been intrigued by the toad, barely glanced at it. “We should have brought water,” he said, staring at the cloud of dust where his sneaker had been.

They kept climbing. There were a few trees now, and the sunlight filtered through, dappling the ground. The boys stopped to catch their breath. The mountain's loneliness filled the air with small, mysterious sounds … the high twittering of birds, the rustling of branches.

Jack poked through the brush, and Simon snapped, “Don't go off the trail, Jack.”

“But I can't see Josie anymore.”

Henry collapsed against a boulder. The sun had shifted in the sky. “I don't like it up here,” he said. “It's … it's
eerie
.”

Simon turned to him. “What are you scared of? Mountain lions?”

“No,” Henry protested. He
was
a little scared of mountain lions, not to mention rattlesnakes, but it was more than that. The quiet was creepy. It felt like they were being watched. Like the mountain was holding its breath.

Simon climbed up on Henry's rock for a better view, shading his eyes with his hand. He looked like a real explorer, Henry thought enviously. “There's no sign of Josie,” he said after a minute. “We should go back.”

“And leave her here by herself?” Henry was horrified. He wanted to go home, but how could they abandon Josie?

“Yeah!” Jack ran down the path to where they were sitting. “We can't do that! Mom says there are mountain lions! What if she gets
EATEN
?”

“Eaten?” Simon snorted. “What's going to eat Josie? She can take care of herself.”

“Back home she could,” Henry said. “But here is different. She's not used to it.” Henry thought about how he'd feel if his brothers left him alone on the mountain when it was getting dark. Despite the heat, he shivered.

Simon looked exasperated. “Hen, we don't have any water. That's what people die of in places like this, not mountain lions.”

Jack started to climb the boulder. “Make room for me.” He pushed Simon's leg.

Simon frowned at him. “No. It's too crowded.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

“Is
NOT
.” Jack's foot dug into Henry's back as he crawled past him.

“Hey!” Henry complained.

“Jack, stop—” Simon said, trying to keep his balance.

“Move over,” Jack insisted.

“Watch out,” Henry cried, as Jack slammed into his shoulder.

But it was too late. Simon took a step to the side just as Jack tried to give him another push, and Jack went tumbling over the top of the boulder.

Crunch!
He disappeared in a dense thicket. Then there was a fast crackling sound, and to their horror, Henry and Simon realized Jack hadn't just fallen to the ground—he was rolling down a hill.

“Heeeyyyy!!!” Jack cried.

They could hear his body bumping and thumping against the hard earth.

CHAPTER 3

THE HIDDEN CANYON

H
ENRY AND
S
IMON
quickly climbed over the boulder and slid down the other side, grabbing at branches so they wouldn't fall. The ground pitched sharply into a narrow canyon, well hidden from view by the rocks and brush.

“Jack?” Henry called.

They stared into the ravine. Its rock walls were steep and reddish brown in the fading sun, with stunted shrubs growing here and there. The ground was sixty or seventy feet below, a thin strip of pebbles broken by gray-green bushes and small trees. It looked as if there'd been a stream down there once, but now it was only a dry, stony path. The wind whistled forlornly through the narrow chute.

“Jack!” Simon bellowed, his voice echoing off the canyon walls.

Finally, Jack's voice drifted up to them. “I'm down here!”

Henry could see sunlight flashing off Jack's sandy brown hair several yards below. He was huddled on a ledge.

“Don't move!” Henry yelled. “You look like you're …
precarious
.”

“No, I'm not!” Jack yelled back. “But I might fall.”

“That's what it means,” Henry answered.

“Oh,” Jack said. “Say it normal. And I'd better not fall, or I'll be all broken up in pieces. It's a long way to the bottom.”

“Hold on, we're coming.” Simon began scooting down the canyon wall. “Are you okay?”

Henry gingerly followed, gripping one tree branch, then another, to keep from slipping.

“I think so,” Jack mumbled. “But hurry up!”

A minute later, they were together on the ledge—a slab of rock, jutting into the air high above the canyon floor. When he peered over the side, Henry felt sick to his stomach.

Jack, meanwhile, was covered in dirt, with bits of twigs and grass strewn through his hair. “Owwww!” he moaned. “That hurt.”

“Yeah, well, serves you right for trying to knock me off,” Simon complained.

“Simon,” Henry warned, seeing the look on Jack's face. That was the thing about Jack; he could go from fine to furious in less time than it took to call him a baby. He was kind of like Josie that way.

“We should head back,” Henry said quickly. “It'll be dark soon.” He glanced at the sky. If the sun went down, they wouldn't even be able to see the sticks that were meant to guide them home.

Then something caught his eye. A few feet away, on the edge of rock hanging over the canyon, there were three round, white objects, like very big softballs, plunked in a row.

“What are those?” he asked, leaning forward on his knees.

Simon stood up slowly, pressing one hand against the rock wall. “Yeah, what
are
those?”

Jack crawled over and picked one up.

“It looks like a—” he began, turning it over.

They all gasped.

It was a skull.

A human skull.

CHAPTER 4

WHICH WAY?

T
HE SKULL WAS BLEACHED
from the sun, with yawning eye sockets and a single crowded row of teeth. Henry froze. Jack was so startled he almost dropped it. Wide-eyed, he set it gently on the ground, where it grinned fiercely back at them.

Henry had seen the skulls their mother drew for medical textbooks and journals—pale shadowy orbs with vacant eye holes and grim, toothy smiles. But somehow seeing one for real was different.

“What's that doing here?” Henry's voice quaked.

“I don't know,” Simon said. “But look … there are three of them.” He walked carefully to the edge of the rocky outcropping and lifted another of the skulls, turning it over in his hands. “Mom would love this,” he said softly.