Norton, Andre - Novel 32 (5 page)

Libby and
Toliver
had gone off
to help with
their
own settling in, and the four young Kim-
balls found that there was certainly plenty to do. At
last, right after a hasty lunch, Mother took
Parky
and Perks, whose help was often
closer to hindrance, and drove off in the station
wagon for supplies. Pinto and
Father went back
and
forth, transporting boxes, prying open
crates, and Christie and Neal carried until their arms
were tired, usually putting things in the
wrong places so they had to be moved again.

There was a lot that had to be done to the
station house, as
well as having motel cottages
built
as soon as workmen would come. But there Lucas
Wildhorse
was a help.

In the late afternoon he saddled up his horse
and rode off cross country to
locate Navajos
who
were willing to work. None of the
Kimballs
at this time had much to think
about except
getting
their new home in order, and the Plan
had to be pushed to the back of both Christie's
and Neal's mind.

It was harder work than they had ever
known,
this
getting things
into order. Christie
made sandwiches and heated coffee on the
stove after Pinto had stopped long
enough to
light it
for her. She was very tired and more than glad to see the station wagon
returning
near
sundown with Mother. Everything still
seemed
to be in a dreadful muddle, she thought as she sat down thankfully, Shan draped
across
her knees. It certainly was going to
be a long
time before everything was in place. Even then, she wondered,
would the station ever seem like
home?

"If you really want to be a help, Christie, you
can take the twins, and
Baron—and Shan—and
get
them all out of here." Mother was tying on
the scarf that kept the dust out of her hair and
looking about the big room of the
station at the
same
time early the next morning. There was
a frown line between her eyebrows, as if she were seeing
a great many things that ought to
be done all at once.

"Take our lunch maybe," Christie sug
gested, "and have a
picnic?"

"Now that's a good idea, Chris. There is
enough peanut butter and jelly
and those big buns left over from last night to make sand
wiches. I'm sure there're bananas
and—just
take what you
can find. But remember—don't
go too far. And don't let the twins out of your
sight! You might
ask Neal to go with you—if
Father
does not need him."

Christie gathered food supplies and went to
work. Buns were spread, and there were apples
as well as bananas. On another shelf she found
half a box of cookies. All could be packed into
a basket. Nor did she forget the dry cat food
in a sandwich bag, and she dumped the contents
of
an opened can of dog food into another such
container.
There—she had everything. Basket
secure on her arm, and Shan scuttling
ahead on
his leash, she went to round up the
twins.

There was plenty of noise and confusion out
in the yard. Shan tried to get
back into the
house
again, and Christie got several new claw
scratches on hands and arms before she fixed
him firmly under one arm. The men
who had
come out from
town this morning to begin the
job of changing some of the outbuildings into
motel rooms and to lay the
foundations for cot
tages,
plus some Navajos, doing all sorts of
odds and ends of unpacking and getting ready
places for the building
materials, the first of which were to be delivered today, were every
where. Christie found the twins by
almost fall
ing over
them where they crouched watching.

"Come on—"

"No!"
Parky
did not
even look up at her.
But
Perks saw the picnic basket and pulled at
her brother's arm until he shook off her hold.

"Where, Chris?" Perks asked.

"On a picnic—" Then an idea struck her—
one that might make even
Parky
come will
ingly. "We'll go and ask
Toliver
and Libby about hunting arrowheads
— "

Parky
did look up now. "You mean
that?"

"If they can come.
Let's go and see. Bring
Baron too." She looked for
Neal, but he was
nowhere
to be seen. Better not wait to hunt
him up—
Parky
might change his
mind again.
Perks caught
at Baron's collar and towed the
big dog toward the meadow where the Wild-
horse van was parked.

There was Neal with
Toliver
.
Libby was sitting on the wide driver's seat of the truck, sew
ing. She laid aside her lapful of
material and
slid
down when she saw Christie coming.

"We've got a picnic." Christie held the bas
ket for them to see. "Mother
says we ought to
keep
away from the station right now while everybody is working. Could we go and
hunt
arrowheads, if
the place is not too far away?"

"Taking the kids, too?" Neal demanded.

Parky
stopped, his lower lip pushed out
a
little as he
scowled up at his brother.

"
Me'n
Perks, we can look
for arrowheads
just
the same as you! Maybe a lot better—so there, Neal Kimball!"

"Mother said—" Christie began.

"Oh, all right. What about it,
Toliver
?
Can
we all go there
or is it too far?"

"Not
far," the Navajo boy answered. "Libby,

TEN
  
MILE
 
TREASURE

get
the canteens. We'll need to carry
water-
none up there.
Take some grub, too—"

When they set out on their promised expe
dition,
Toliver
took the lead as guide. He wore
a small camp ax at his belt, as well as his ever-
present knife, and carried two
canteens strung
on
straps over his shoulders. Neal had two
more canteens and a flashlight—though why he
bothered with that in daytime,
Christie did not
k
_now
—except
it was his big camp one and he
was proud and careful of it.

Libby had added more food to the basket that
she and Christie now carried
between them.
The
twins were in the middle, where their el
ders could keep an eye on them.

They crossed the meadow where Old Timer,
Susie, and all the visiting
Navajo horses were
grazing.
Then
Toliver
turned into a narrow way
where big rocks had fallen from
the top of the canyon wall, so that they had to twist and turn
to get around these.

Baron suddenly flashed ahead, barking loudly.
Christie hoped he was only after a
rabbit—not
anything larger. What had
Pinto said about "big
cats"? The
dog was hidden by the rocks now
and
his barks echoed loudly. Ahead was a very
narrow space between two huge boulders and
Toliver
disappeared that way, Neal right behind
him.

"Is that a cave?" Christie slowed a little.
"No," Libby told her.
"It's open beyond.

My
father thinks someone was blasting back in
here
a long time ago, maybe trying to open up
a way to a mine. It's narrow, but you'll see— it comes out all
right."

It was difficult in some places to wriggle
through, and they had to tug once
or twice at
the basket. Shan pushed and
kicked so in Chris
tie's
hold,
that
she had to let Libby take both handles while she controlled him.
However, once they were through that rocky part there
was another wide-open space before them.

This was different from the meadow—more
like the desert. There were clumps
of narrow,
swordlike
leaves gathered around tall stalks
that carried weights of cream white flowers.
Farther on was a barrel cactus
that stood nearly
as
tall as Father, and nearby were two -
saguar
oes
, also in bloom. The ground underfoot was dry and
crumbled when you walked on it. Just
to look around made Christie suddenly
feel
thirsty.

Baron
was standing with his front feet braced
against
the canyon wall, still barking loudly at
a crevice several inches above his head.
Toli-
ver
swung up on a rock and
leaned over to peer
into the same break in
the stone.

"Just an old
chuckawalla
,"
he reported.

"What's a
chuckawalla
?"
Parky
wanted to
know.

"Big old lizard.
You chase him into a hole
like this one and he puffs himself up so he fills
all the space. Then you can't pull him out. He
won't hurt you—all he wants is to be left
alone."
Toliver
slid down from his perch.
"Now—" He turned his head slowly,
studying
the rocky walls that
stretched out in a wide
curve from the
entrance way. "We found our
points
about over there. They might have been washed down in some flood, though."
He ges
tured to the right.

Christie made Shan's leash fast to the han
dles of the basket Libby had
already set down
and
let him go, sucking the last bleeding scratch
he had left across the back of her hand. He
crouched there on the sand
staring about him
in
dark suspicion, wearing what the children
called his "goblin look."

The boys shed their canteens,
Toliver
stop
ping to test
the corking of each carefully, mak
ing a pile with the basket.
Parky
and Perks
started to
dart away and Christie had to move
fast to catch up with them.

"
Toliver
," she
called, "what about snakes?"

"Never saw any here. You kids"—he turned
and faced the twins, his face as stern as Father's
could be sometimes—"don't you go wandering
off now. You stick with us, understand?"

For just a moment
Parky
looked
as if he might
argue
as he usually did. But, perhaps because
it
was
Toliver
and not Christie or Neal who had
given that order, he did not protest. He even
walked instead of ran to reach the stretch
of
gravel and sand that might once
have been the
bed of a stream.

The Navajo boy squatted down on his heels,
studying the gravel closely.
"We found those
points right about
here. They get mixed up with
the stones, so
you have to look hard to see
them."

Christie sat down, took off her glasses, and
mopped her hot face. Here the sun
beat down
seemingly
twice as hard. She wished Baron would stop barking at that
chuckawalla
thing.
His noise
hurt one's ears.

"I found one! I found one!" Perks cried
,
fan
ning one arm in the air, her hand closed tight
about her treasure.

"No! You let me see it! I bet you didn't. I
just bet you didn't!"
Parky's
jealous protest
drowned her out as he sprang at his sister and
tried to catch her hand.

"It's mine! I found it! Chris, don't let him
take it! It's mine!" Perks
threw
herself
back to
elude her twin and jumped a drift of gravel to
reach her sister. Once at
Christie's side, she
opened her hand to
display a triangle of reddish
stone.
Toliver
came to inspect it critically.

"It's broken—
see
— It could
be the end of
a
spear point, maybe, or an extra-large arrowhead. But you're right, Perks, it
is a real find!"
"Huh,
just an old broken one—"
Parky
snorted.

However, Perks refused to be disappointed. "I found
it first and it's real!" she repeated.
Rubbing it back and forth across the leg of her
jeans she brushed the last grain
of sand from
it and
then stowed the piece away in her shirt
pocket.

Neal made the next discovery—a perfect ar
rowhead this time. But
Toliver
turned up some
thing else—a piece of black cord that broke in
his hand. From it fell some white
objects. He
poked at
them with one finger but did not pick
them up. Libby bent over to look closer.

"Teeth!"
She was startled.

"Teeth?"
Christie echoed. What were teeth
doing here?

"Cougar, maybe."
Toliver
still poked at
them.
"And that—that's from a deer.
I think
this must have been a necklace.
See? They
were all
strung on this rotted cord."

"Let's have a look!" Neal crowded
in"beside
him. "Say, that's great. How many are there?
Be sure we get them all—we can
string them
again."

But
Toliver
made no move to
pick them up.
Only
Neal started grubbing away in the gravel
to collect the scattered teeth. A moment later
he looked up wonderingly at the
Navajo boy.
"Hey,
don't you want these?"

"No."
Toliver
stood
up and walked back a
pace
or two. "They are medicine things."

"Medicine things?"
Christie asked. "You
mean like pills or
measle
shots? How can teeth
be medicine? You swallow those and they would hurt
your stomach."

"The Old Ones"—
Toliver
had a strange look
on
his face now—"they believed differently from the way we do. They had
things they
thought
gave them power—good luck. If a war
rior killed a cougar, then he might wear its
teeth. He felt he was stronger,
like some of the
animal's
power was now in him. It was a sign
of his bravery, but also of the cougar's courage
and cunning. When a man went on
the war trail,
he
wore necklaces like this one to make him
braver."

"Yeah."
Neal sat back on his heels, still
holding the teeth he
had gathered.' 'I read about
that. Indian boys went out by themselves to
have dreams. They weren't allowed
to eat until
they
dreamed about something—an animal,
maybe. Then this animal was to help them
somehow."

"Some tribes did that, yes. Others had dif
ferent ways,"
Toliver
answered. "But a neck
lace such as this—it was truly a
medicine thing."

Neal juggled the teeth from one hand to the
other. Christie could tell that he
wanted them
very much. Then he glanced up
at
Toliver
, who
stood
there quietly as if he were waiting for
something important to happen.
Neal got to his
feet quickly and walked over
to where there
was a deep bank of
sand. Scooping a hole in
that, he
dropped the teeth in and covered them
over
with a sweep of his fingers.

He did not say anything, nor did any of the
others. They just went back to picking
over the
gravel and
soon found two more arrowheads.
To his delight
Parky
chanced on
a well-shaped
whole
one. Then Perks asked for a drink and
said she was hungry. So they went back to
where they had left the picnic
basket in a small
shaded
pocket. Baron had given up trying to
frighten
the
chuckawalla
out of hiding and had
gone off exploring, once sending a bird squawk
ing angrily out of a hole in a saguaro.

Shan was lying in the shade, watching the
dog lazily as if he knew Baron
was never going
to catch
anything interesting. Christie fastened
the cat's leash to a rock and put out food and
water for him.

It was getting a lot hotter and she began to
feel as if she did not want to go
back and grub
in the
sand. Then Baron started barking very
loudly and urgently once more, and
Parky
and
Perks ran to see
what he was after. Christie,
mindful of needing to watch them, followed re
luctantly.

The big dog was circling around a huge untidy
mass on the ground, a mound
almost as tall as
Christie
herself. It looked like a rubbish heap.
There were pieces of dried cactus, bits of
bleached wood, some twisted
strings that might
have been leather that had
laid
out in the open
a long time, hunks of
withered grass. Scattered
all over it
were spikes of cactus, as if set there
on
purpose to warn off any investigation.