Revenge of Superstition Mountain Page 10

  “And I’m usually right,” the librarian said.

  “Well, I don’t hear anything,” Officer Myers retorted, and from behind the massive monument Henry could hear the rhythmic crunch and scrape of the shovel as he resumed digging. Finally, there was a dull thunk.

  “This is it,” Officer Myers said excitedly.

  Richard Delgado’s voice chimed in, “It looks like some kind of box. Shine the flashlight over here, Julia.”

  “We have to see,” Jack whispered, struggling to raise his head.

  “Okay,” Simon answered. “But be careful and stay quiet.”

  The children again untangled themselves and peeked around the edges of the monument. This time they could see all three of the treasure hunters gathered around the lip of the hole that Officer Myers had dug. Now Richard Delgado was using the shovel to pry something loose from the dry ground.

  “I’ve got it,” he said, panting. “Try to pull it out now.”

  Officer Myers and Julia Thomas bent over the hole, arms extended, tugging and straining. They managed to lift something dark and rectangular. Henry saw it was a small wooden box that they struggled with … as if the earth were pulling it in the opposite direction, reluctant to let go. Finally, they placed it on the ground next to the hole.

  “See?” Richard Delgado said triumphantly. “It’s not a coffin. It’s a chest.”

  “It’s locked,” Mrs. Thomas said, her voice high with excitement.

  “Stand back,” Officer Myers ordered. Henry watched, breathless, as the policeman took his gun from the holster and aimed it at the padlock on the box.

  Jack nudged Henry. “He’s going to SHOOT it!” he whispered, just as the cemetery’s stillness was shattered by the loud crack of a gunshot.

  The children all dropped to their stomachs in terror. What if he hears us, Henry was thinking, and turns that thing on us?

  “Great!” Mr. Delgado exclaimed. “Let’s open it.”

  Delilah and the boys scrambled back to their feet, peering over the top of the monument.

  “Allow me,” Julia Thomas said. “It is my aunt’s grave site.” She knelt next to the box and slowly lifted the lid.

  CHAPTER 19

  PRECIOUS BEQUEST

  WHAT CAME NEXT happened so quickly that Henry could hardly make sense of it.

  The lid of the old box creaked open, and the tense anticipation among the three grown-ups suddenly shifted.

  “What?” Mr. Delgado said.

  “Ugh,” Officer Myers grunted.

  Mrs. Thomas gave a cry of exasperation. “It’s nothing but a bunch of bones.” In the blurry darkness, Henry could see her lean over the box with the flashlight. “They look like animal bones.”

  But as she was saying this, something fast and black and furious—a whizzing ball of fur and claws—sailed through the air and landed in the open box.

  At first, Henry couldn’t understand what was happening. But then he saw a telltale patch of white.

  “Oh!” he gasped. “It’s JOSIE!” He felt himself pitching forward, around the side of the monument, instinctively rushing to save her from the grave robbers. But before he could, Simon grabbed his shirt and held him back.

  “No, Hen,” he whispered.

  Josie was in the box, her body fully covering whatever lay inside it, her fur raised, her ears flat against her skull, and her wrath-filled golden eyes glowing in the darkness. She yowled and spat, striking at Mrs. Thomas’s outstretched hand.

  “Ouch!” Mrs. Thomas screamed, jumping back. “It’s that cat again, the same one!” She turned to Officer Myers. “It’s vicious. Shoot it.”

  Henry’s heart seized. Now all the children scrambled to their feet—Josie? Shoot Josie?—but before they could do anything, Officer Myers said, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a stray. I don’t know why it doesn’t like you, but I’m certainly not going to kill it for that.”

  Henry was trembling with panic. What if the policeman changed his mind? They wouldn’t be able to reach Josie in time to save her. Simon motioned for the others to crouch down behind the monument again, and Henry reluctantly ducked.

  Delilah turned to Henry, her eyes huge. “What is Josie doing there? Did she follow us?”

  Henry shook his head in wonderment. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her. There’s something about Mrs. Thomas that she just hates. It’s the same way she reacted at the library, remember?”

  “But then why did she come here?” Delilah asked.

  “We need to see what’s in the box,” Simon whispered.

  “That creepy librarian wanted to kill Josie!” Jack whispered, his eyes huge.

  Near the open grave, Mrs. Thomas recoiled in disgust, rising from her knees while Josie continued to yowl and hiss at her. She brushed off her trousers and said coldly, “Then we’re done here. Richard, you can clean up this mess in the morning.”

  “Animal bones!” Mr. Delgado said. “I don’t get it. Why would someone bury an animal in a grave marked with the name of a person? Do you think this was a pet?”

  Henry felt an icy realization prickle beneath his skin. A pet.

  “Who knows?” Officer Myers replied. “And who cares? It’s not what we’re looking for.”

  Julia Thomas backed away from Josie’s enraged, hunched form. “I told you we should be focusing on the mine,” she said. “We need to figure out how to get our hands on that gold.”

  Still grumbling over their disappointment, the librarian and the two men collected their tools and strode out of the cemetery, while Henry, Simon, Jack, and Delilah huddled behind the monument, too frightened to budge.

  As soon as they heard the wrought-iron gate clank shut, they got up from their hiding spot and quietly crossed the grassy distance to the open grave. Henry could see the backs of the three adults receding toward the house and hear the fading murmur of their voices.

  “Keep your voices down,” Simon cautioned, leading the way. “Let’s see what got Josie so riled up.”

  A small, splintered wooden box, dark with dirt, was sitting on the ground. Its lid was toppled to the side. Josie huddled inside it, filling it, her body covering whatever it contained.

  “Josie,” Simon said. “Here, Josie.” He snapped his fingers. She lifted her head and stared at them. Henry noticed that her fur was smooth again, but her ears were still flat against her head, signaling her distemper.

  “Why won’t she move?”

  “I think she’s protecting it,” Henry said.

  “I’ll pick her up,” Jack said. He reached down and grabbed Josie, hoisting her in the air, at which point she turned rigid, hissing and spitting, trying to break free. Jack held her fast.

  With a quick glance in the direction of the caretaker’s house—which looked quiet, its door closed—Simon clicked on his flashlight. An assemblage of delicate bones flashed whitely in the dark contours of the box. Henry saw a small, elongated skull at one end. He shivered, watching as Josie tried to lunge toward the box again.

  “What is wrong with her?” Jack complained, clamping her against his chest.

  “It’s an animal,” Simon said slowly.

  “It’s a cat,” Henry corrected him. “The black cat from the saloon. Julia Thomas’s cat.”

  “The one from the picture, that looks like Josie?” Jack asked. “How do you know?”

  “Because I know,” Henry said, and he saw Delilah’s stricken face in the soft glow of the flashlight.

  “That’s why Josie is so upset,” Delilah said. “And why she hates the librarian … who’s trying to act like the real Julia Thomas, but isn’t. Josie can tell.”

  “Oh, come on,” Simon said. “She’s a cat. How can she tell that?”

  “Because there’s a connection, Simon,” Henry said desperately. “This proves it! Josie is Julia Thomas’s cat, reincarnated.” He reached for Josie, who was still struggling and hissing in Jack’s arms. “It’s okay, Josie,” he said as he held her, stroking the silky top of her head. “We’ll put it
back in the ground.”

  Delilah knelt and swiftly settled the lid over the skeleton, thumping it down with her palms. Just as abruptly, Henry felt Josie relax. Her ears twitched.

  “Wait a second,” Simon said. “Even if what you say is true, even if Josie is some kind of … reincarnated cat from the 1800s, we can’t close up the box and bury it again. Then they’ll know we were here. We have to leave things just the way they were.”

  “No,” Delilah said. She was already dragging the wooden box back toward the hole. “It’s a grave! No one should ever have touched it.”

  “She’s right,” Henry agreed. “We should put the box back, even if it makes Mr. Delgado suspect something tomorrow morning.”

  “Even if it makes him suspect something?” Simon held up his hands in exasperation. “Of course he’ll suspect something! Delilah, stop.” He stomped his foot in front of the box, blocking its path.

  Delilah whirled around, and despite the darkness, Henry could see her eyes flashing. “You cut that out!” she said. “I’m putting it back!”

  “No, you’re not,” Simon said sharply. “That’s insane. If we were going to do this, we might as well not even have bothered to hide! We should have announced we were here and helped them.”

  “I would not have helped them,” Jack said staunchly, missing the point. “They are the bad guys. And Josie doesn’t like them.”

  Josie slipped free of Henry’s grasp and slunk noiselessly into the shadows, where she sat watching them.

  Delilah bent over, tugging on the box. Simon planted his foot on top of it, holding it still.

  “Argh! Let it go!” Delilah protested.

  “You’re making too much noise,” Simon said. “They’ll hear you. Is that what you want? Do you want them to catch us?”

  “No, she doesn’t.” Henry intervened. “But we have to bury the box. A grave is”—he hesitated, searching for the right word—“sanctified.”

  “What does that mean?” Jack demanded.

  “Holy,” Henry said. “Sacred ground that shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  Jack looked around nervously. “Does that mean the ghosts might get mad?”

  Simon groaned. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.” He turned to Henry beseechingly. “Hen, it’s the grave for a cat,” he said, but Henry could feel him giving up.

  With a final ferocious pull, Delilah yanked the box out from under Simon’s foot and toppled it back into the open grave, where it landed with a thud.

  “There!” she said, standing. She brushed her hands off. “Now let’s put the dirt back.”

  “This is crazy,” Simon muttered in resignation. “They’ll know we were here.”

  “Well, they don’t scare me!” Jack declared. “Nothing scares me”—he frowned—“except that curse.” He turned to Henry. “Promise me we’ll put my gold back! We have to do it SOON.”

  “We will, Jack,” Henry said. “I promise.” In the faint moonlight, he could see the dark mass of Superstition Mountain far across the desert. They were destined to go back, Henry decided. The question was, were they destined to return home?

  Cupping their hands, they scooped the loose earth from the pile and covered the box. Then they used their sneakers to kick the rest of the dirt into the hole.

  On the edge of the grave site, Josie sat as still as a statue, only her tail twitching. She watched until the last clump of dirt had filled the grave, then turned and darted off into the night.

  Delilah crouched and patiently patted it down, smoothing the surface.

  “There,” she said. “That’s better.” She sat back on her heels and stared at the dark, crumbling tombstone at one end of the grave. “Huh,” she said. “Simon, shine the flashlight over here.”

  Simon directed the beam over the tombstone, where they could read the faded block letters JULIA ELENA THOMAS across the rough face. “What’s the matter?”

  Delilah pointed to the dates at the bottom of the stone. “I thought it said 1825 the last time we were here, but it says 1875, doesn’t it? 1875 to 1896. So that could be the lifespan of a cat.”

  “Twenty-one years? That seems really long,” Simon said skeptically.

  “Well, they’re supposed to have nine lives,” Henry said. “I hope Josie lives that long.”

  “Where did Josie go?” Jack asked.

  “She’s probably home already,” Simon said. He swung the flashlight over the ghostly landscape of tombstones, pale in the moonlight.

  Then they saw her.

  She was only a few yards away, stretched across the top of a headstone. Her body looked calm and relaxed, in stark contrast to her furious pose earlier. One paw hung down, over the face of the stone where a name was etched in large block letters.

  Henry stiffened. “Hey,” he said. “Isn’t that…”

  Delilah stood and gently touched his arm.

  Without saying a word, Simon directed the beam over the letters they all knew would be there.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE GOLD MINE BECKONS

  BARKER.

  There beneath the arc of white light: the familiar letters of their name, etched in the stone.

  They walked slowly toward the grave. Josie pricked her ears, watching them steadily, her tail curled in a question mark.

  There was still something so shocking about it: their name—their mother and father’s name!—written on a tombstone here in this desolate place, in the middle of the desert.

  “At least it doesn’t have dates,” Delilah said. “That would be really creepy.”

  “If there were dates, we would know the grave was for someone else,” Henry contradicted.

  Simon shook his head. “It is for someone else, Hen. Calm down.” He shone the flashlight over the granite face, illuminating each letter. “You know what’s strange?” he said. “This one isn’t old like the others. Look at the stone.”

  Henry saw what he meant. Though it was composed of thin, light lines, the inscription was crisp. The granite was smooth and clear, not pocked and stained like the other headstones in the area. A tombstone that said BARKER, that was new, with no dates … it was beginning to seem worse and worse! But just as his heart was pounding so hard he thought it would burst from his chest, Henry realized something.

  “Wait,” he said. He shoved his hand in his pocket, scrabbling his fingers till they grazed the folded cemetery map. “I think…” He pulled out the creased paper and shook it open. “Shine the light over here, Simon,” he said urgently. “Look at the map. I think this is where…”

  “It’s Uncle Hank’s plot!” Simon understood instantly. He grabbed the map from Henry and flattened it against the tombstone. “Here’s the grave of Julia Thomas,” he said, jabbing one of Henry’s ballpoint circles and shifting the orientation of the paper. “So that means…”

  Delilah shouldered next to him. “There are three graves in between. Here, here, and here.”

  “Look,” Henry cried. “Those are the three graves in between, and that means this must be Uncle Hank’s plot.”

  “We found it!” Jack shouted jubilantly.

  “SHHHHHHH,” the others hushed him.

  All the excitement disturbed Josie, who leapt from her perch and streaked off into the night.

  Frowning, Simon directed the flashlight back at the tombstone emblazoned with BARKER. “Uncle Hank bought a cemetery plot when he planned to be cremated. He even bought a tombstone. And he put our last name on it. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Unless…,” Henry said slowly. “Unless he did it for us. Maybe he left us something here.”

  Simon was nodding in the darkness. “And this was how he planned for us to find it. It had to be something he couldn’t leave in his will. Or something he thought somebody might try to steal before we got here. So he buried it in his cemetery plot and put our last name on the tombstone.”

  “But why would he expect you guys to come to the cemetery?” Delilah asked. “Once you knew he was cremated, you would never t
hink to look for a grave.”

  “Because of the note he left for me,” Henry said. “He said our name would outlast death, and here it is.” He gestured at the tombstone, noticing again the strange finality of their name in the granite.

  “Well, we came to the cemetery before we found that note,” Simon amended. “’Cuz it’s an interesting place to look around.”

  “Yeah,” Jack agreed.

  They stood in a small shrouded semicircle around the grave, with the pale tombstones unfurling on all sides.

  “I don’t want to dig up any more graves,” Delilah said.

  Henry looked at her pinched forehead and wondered how she felt, standing here in the graveyard, when she, more than any of them, knew what death really was.

  Simon, however, was undaunted by her protest. “It’s not a grave,” he told her.

  “Yeah,” Jack declared. “It might have buried TREASURE in it!”

  “That’s what you thought about the other grave,” Delilah said, unfazed. “And it had a dead cat in it.”

  “The other Josie,” Jack added.

  “No, Jack.” Exasperated, Simon glanced at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock. We should get going.”

  Henry turned to him in surprise. Only nine o’clock? It felt like they had been in the cemetery for hours. With the sliver of moon in the night sky, the stark rows of gravestones, and the pulsing silence, it could have been past midnight.

  “We’re just going to leave it here?” he asked, shocked.

  “The grave?” Simon snorted. “Uh, yeah. It’s not like we can take it with us. And we didn’t bring a shovel to dig it up.” He cast a quick glance at Delilah. “But I think you’re right, Hen. He left something for us here.” Henry thought of Uncle Hank buying the plot, having a granite stone carved with their last name, and then writing the note for Henry to read after he died. What had he buried there? Was it the gold he had been searching for? The deathbed ore of Jacob Waltz?

  Simon swung the flashlight in the direction of the length of fence they’d climbed. “Follow me,” he said. “We’ll have to boost each other over.”

  They all trailed after him, stepping softly over and around the grassy graves until they reached the path. The night air had turned chilly, and the distant rustlings of desert animals reverberated in the silence. What was out there? Henry wondered.