Norton, Andre - Novel 32 (11 page)

"Pinto did say something about that." Neal
chewed away thoughtfully at a sandwich. "I
remember now. But it must be ours now or we
wouldn't have moved here."

"How come you wanted to be here anyway?"
Toliver
asked.

"Well, Dad lost his job in Mayfield. His com
pany was bought out by another firm. And Dad
always wanted to live out here. You see, when
he was in the army a couple of fellows in his
outfit were Navajos. When the war was over
he
visited them out here, and he liked the coun
try
a lot. But there wasn't any sort of job he
could do here then. He kept talking about it,
showing pictures he took and reading a lot of
books.

"Then he heard about them opening the new
park and building the highway. He
was going
to buy a
motel, but the down payment was too
big.
Some real estate man wrote him about this
place.
He sent Dad pictures and a Mr. Colby who was in the army with Dad was willing
to
go partners. Dad's to run the
station and Mr.
Colby is going to
manage the publicity—"

"Dad had to borrow a lot of money for it
too,"
Parky
suddenly piped up. "He worries
about that."

"
Parky
!"
Christie demanded. "How did
you—"

"I heard him telling Mom—with my own ears
I heard him. So did Perks, didn't
you?"

His twin nodded. "He said it was awfully
important to get the place ready fast
and yet
not spend too
much. Christie, you said maybe
Lady Maude is worth a lot of money.
Could we
sell her and give the money to Dad, and then
maybe he
wouldn't.worry
so much."

"She really isn't ours—yet," Christie an
swered. "If we could use her
to show people,
make
them want to come to the station to see
her, that
would help. But she belongs to
Maude
Woodbridge,
not to us, and we'd have to give
her back if we were asked."

"That Maude Woodbridge must be dead,"
Libby said. "Why, she'd be
over a hundred!
I
don't think she'll be asking for Lady Maude,
I really don't."

Christie
thought about the long time between
1875
and now and felt a little safer. Maybe they
could claim Lady Maude. Christie hated to
think of selling her. She had so plain in her
mind a picture of a big glass case standing at
the station house with Lady Maude and all her
lovely little things arranged carefully in it. She
just knew people would want to see her.

"G.T."
—
Toliver
was back to his own
thoughts—"is
going to be awfully mad that
your father got the station. I don't see how he
was able to get it either. G.T.
must have had
a real
estate man all ready to grab it as soon as
it was up for sale. He's wanted it for years."

"Maybe he doesn't know anything about it," suggested
Libby. "He went east to get Marlene
from school, remember? If they were home
they'd both be over here by now. Marlene likes
to show off her mare."

"You don't like her, do you?" Christie
asked.

Libby shrugged. "You don't get to know her
enough to either like her or not
like her. We're
Indians—that's
all the Toners know."

Toliver
scowled. "Sure. Indians are
like
some kind of
zoo animals as far as the Toners
are concerned."

"G.T. called the sheriff once to make us
move on when we camped here. Only
for once
he was
wrong." Libby smiled. "Father's second cousin married the
sheriffs
nephew and
Sheriff Wylie himself has a half-Navajo grand
mother."

"So Wylie came over in the
jeep."
Toliver
took up the story.
"Had him a real solemn face
on.
G.T. came down to watch us being
pushed
off. Then
Wylie, he looked at the paper Dad
carries—it's from the old treaty and it says that
any Navajo has the right to stay
at the station
'as
long as the spring there runs', 'cause they
helped
out when the Apaches raided. So Wylie
tells
G.T. that the treaty was signed by the Pres
ident himself and is law."

"Then"—Libby's smile grew wider—"Pinto
said that G.T. himself was
trespassing and
wanted the sheriff to
warn him off. And Sheriff
Wylie said that if
the legal caretaker—that's
Pinto—registered
a complaint, he had to listen. And Pinto told Mr. Toner he
was
trespassing."

"Old G.T. started up his station wagon so
fast,"
Toliver
added, "we thought he'd never
make the turn out and hit smack into a wall.
He just scraped by."

"His face was as red as the cliff. He didn't
come back all the time we were
here," Libby
ended.

"That doesn't mean he'll give up wanting the
water rights,"
Toliver
warned. "Perhaps he'll
be after your father to sell out
to him."

"Dad won't," Neal said confidently. "Hey,
the
rain's
stopped." He stood up. "We can't
do any more here until we get something to
open the strongbox. No use just
sitting around.
I
vote we go home, come back tomorrow with
some tools."

Christie was putting leftovers back in the
basket. She glanced longingly at Lady Maude's
box. Shouldn't they take that with them? Now
that
Toliver
had broken through the sealing and
they had opened it, perhaps one of those rats
might get in, drag off Lady Maude to the big
nest. However, when she suggested taking it
along,
Toliver
shook his
head.

"The lid's too tight down.
Opening
it up
made the things inside expand.
Nothing's going
to get in there. We might as well
leave it for
now.
With the rain just over, walking may be kind of hard, water holes and such, and
we
wouldn't want to
drop it into one of those."

Christie had to agree against her will. Shan
had gone to the entrance to the
cave and was
now shaking his forepaws
vigorously, one after
the other, uttering
loudly his dislike of a dripping-wet outer world.

"Here." Libby emptied what remained in
her tote back into the
Kimballs
' basket. She
lifted Shan and dropped him into the bag.
"You'd better carry him this
way. As
Toliver
said, the walking may be hard and you can
manage him better."

Toliver
was
right. The flood of
rain had left
pools
along the floor of the small side canyon.
The girls splashed ahead, leaving Neal and
Toli
ver
to reseal the cave. At last they
had to sit
down on
still-wet rocks and take off their san
dals, roll up their jeans as far as they could,
and also see that
Parky
and Perks were simi
larly prepared to wade on.

Christie
went slowly and carefully. The drifts
of
sand were soft enough under her feet, but
she cried out once when she stepped on a rough
piece of gravel.

Libby said quickly
,/
"Look
out for cactus bits, Perks,
Parky
—keep away from
those.
Give me your
hand, Perks.
Parky
, you go with
Christie. We'd better leave the
basket here and
the
boys can carry it. Now—go slow and watch
out!"

Twice Libby stopped them all until she could
pick up and throw away a spiky
piece. Christie was very glad when they were able to squeeze
between the entrance rocks and
see the meadow
ahead.

In spite of rolling up their jeans, those were
wet as far as their knees. And it
was hard to get their sandals over wet feet to which the
sand now stuck like a queer sort
of socks.
Parky
refused
to try wearing foot covering until Libby
held
up a cactus spike right before his eyes.

After the desert the meadow was very green and
rain-washed. Susie, Old Timer, and two
Navajo horses were grazing as if the fall of water had
not bothered them at all, though
patches of wet showed on their hides. Christie
suddenly remembered what Father
had said
about
washouts on the road when sudden rains
came and hoped Mother would not have trouble
driving.

"What about the car?" she asked Libby.
"Mother and your mother.
If they were coming
back
from town—"

"Washouts?
No, I don't think so. This really
wasn't a bad storm.
You don't need to worry,
Christie. It smells clean now, doesn't it?"

Christie, surprised at Libby's question, threw back her
head and sniffed. There was
a fresh
ness
in the air, and she thought she could smell
flowers. Shan wriggled and kicked
in the
bag. His head
appeared at the open top and Christie was just in time to prevent his jump
ing out.

They swished on through the tall grass and
passed the
Wildhorse
van, making for the sta
tion house. When they arrived there they discovered that the men were no
longer working.
Rather
they had gathered around looking at a
big
station wagon. Christie had thought that the
Kimball
car, meant to carry all of them and
camping
gear, was large. But this one was even
bigger,
newer—shiny where the rain had washed
off
the dust. On the nearest door were big red
letters: G. T.
Ranch.

"Mr. Toner," Libby said. But there was no
one in the driver's seat.

As they came closer, a girl looked at them
through the other front window.
She had red
hair tied back with a bright green ribbon that
matched her green shirt. Most of her face was
masked by big, dark sunglasses. The glasses
had
bright green rims, too, which made, Chris
tie
thought,
their
wearer look rather like a
grasshopper.

The girl swung open the door and slid out.
She also had on pale tan slacks
and small, high-
heeled riding boots.
Facing the girls, she stood with her hands on her
hips,
staring at them and
the twins as if this were
her home and they
were the
trespassers.

"You the Kimball kids?" Her voice was
shrill and high, and she did not
even glance
toward
Libby. Nor did she wait for Christie
to answer. "Tough luck, having to move
again—"

What did she mean, move again? Perhaps the
stranger read the bewilderment in
Christie's
expression, or else she was
full of news she just
had to tell.

"Your Dad made a bad bargain. This sta
tion's part of the G.T. spread
now."

Christie was so startled she must have hugged
Shan too tightly, for he gave a
loud hiss and
flattened
his ears. What did the girl mean? She
must be crazy—the station was
their own
!
Father had said so
and he had meant it. She
caught her breath again and now determined
that the girl was not going to
frighten her with such a big lie.

Ignoring the stranger, she spoke to Libby.
"Come on in, I'll get some
towels and we can
dry
off." With her shoulders straight back, and her head firmly up, she
marched by the Toner
girl,
her lips pressed tightly together.