Leppard, Lois Gladys - [Mandie 02] (8 page)

Uncle Ned pointed to cracks in the walls and ceiling and kept muttering, “Dangerous! Cave not good!”

“But Uncle Ned, these cracks look like they have been here a long, long time,” John replied, examining them closely.

“Long time. Ready to fall now,” the old Indian said.

“John, if this thing started caving in we’d never get out,” Elizabeth fretted.

“This is a huge cave, Elizabeth, and the walls look like pretty solid rock. Even the floor is mostly rock,” John said. “Anyway, we’ll hurry.” He put his arm around her tightly.

“John, I wonder where the children have gone,” she said.

“Papooses not lost,” Uncle Ned reassured her as he continued on through the tunnel they were in.

“I would like to know what happened to Tsa’ni,” John remarked.

“Tsa’ni—bad Indian,” Uncle Ned repeated.

They wandered on through the tunnel, searching for the pile of rocks that might be covering a pile of gold.

In another tunnel Joe was leading the way with the lantern when he yelled, “Here’s the room with the hole in the floor!”

The girls joined him to look at the place. There it was—the hole in the floor of the cavern where they had found the gold.

“Now, our opening must have been over there,” Joe said, pointing across to the other side.

At that moment the three heard a low moan and then a weak cry, “Help!”

They stood absolutely still with fright.

“W-w-w-wh-what was th-that?” Joe whispered.

“It may be the spirit of Tsali,” Sallie replied.

“But Charlie didn’t die in this cave,” Joe said.

Again there was a call for help, this time a little louder.

“Sounds like it came up from that hole in the floor,” Mandie said, not moving an inch.

“Who is it?” Sallie called in a loud voice.

“It is me, Tsa’ni. Please help me!” he answered, more clearly now.

Mandie was suddenly seeing another day, another call for help. She was remembering the panther and her terrible predicament. Tsa’ni had turned and left her alone. But she couldn’t do that to him. No matter how mean he had been, she would have to help him now.

“Where are you, Tsa’ni?” Mandie called to him.

“I fell in the opening in the floor. I am down here at the bottom of it,” the boy said.

“Tsa’ni!” Joe ventured to the edge of the hole, and swinging the lantern he could faintly see something at the bottom of the pit. “Why should we help you after what you did to us?”

Mandie hesitated, fighting with her own feelings.

“No, Joe, we must help him,” she said, coming to his side.

“He must have come back here looking for our gold.” Joe frowned. “He’s not honest. I won’t help him.”

“Oh, but Joe, the Bible says we should return good for evil,” Mandie reminded him. “You know that.”

“Well, anyway, there’s nothing we can do to help him. The hole is too deep,” the boy argued.

“Are you hurt, Tsa’ni?” Sallie called down to the boy.

“Yes, I cannot move,” he answered in a weak voice.

“Joe, let’s tie our rope around that stalagmite over there and I’ll scoot down to see what’s wrong with him,” Mandie suggested.

“Are you crazy? There’s no telling what’s down in that hole,” Joe argued.

“I will help,” Sallie told Mandie.

“You can’t climb down a rope,” Joe reprimanded.

“I can so. It’s not much different than climbing a tree, and I’ve climbed quite a few trees in my life,” Mandie said, as she put Snowball down and began to pull the end of the rope from Joe’s shoulder, “Come on. Unroll the rope.”

Joe set the lantern down and did as Mandie asked. They fastened the rope as tightly as they could knot it and pulled it over to the hole as Mandie prepared to descend.

“Go very slowly,” Sallie warned.

Pulling up the slack in the rope, Mandie finally wriggled around on the edge of the hole so that she was swinging down. Joe held the lantern as far out as he could over the hole.

Snowball, watching Mandie slide down the rope, reached over with his paw and started to claw at it.

“Snowball, stop that!” Mandie commanded, looking up at him.

Sallie picked up the kitten. “I will hold him. He might fall.”

Mandie slid on down until her feet touched the bottom. She looked around in the dim light until she saw Tsa’ni lying on his back watching her. She let go of the rope and bent over him.

“What’s wrong, Tsa’ni?” she asked. “Where are you hurt?”

“I do not know. I cannot move,” he said.

The girl saw a stream of water near where he lay. She took off her apron and dipped it.

“Here, let me wash your face,” she said. “But I’ll warn you. It’s pretty cold.”

She wiped his face gently and he didn’t move.

“Tsa’ni, we have to figure out a way to get you out of here,” she said.

“Please, go for help,” he begged. “Get some strong men to help me.”

“Uncle Ned and Uncle John and your grandfather are all in the cave somewhere,” she told him. “You just lie still and we’ll go find them. It shouldn’t take very long.” She dipped her apron into the water again, squeezed it out, and placed it across his forehead. “There, I’ll leave that right there. Maybe it’ll help. Now I’ll go back up the rope and get help.”

“Please hurry,” the Indian boy moaned.

“We will,” Mandie called back as she caught the rope. By pulling it tight and bracing her feet against the wall of the pit, she was able to work her way back up to the top. Sallie and Joe pulled her onto the floor at the top.

“Well, what’s wrong with him?” Joe asked.

“He can’t move, Joe. We must find the men as fast as we can.”

Mandie picked up Snowball as they hurried through the tunnels and caverns calling the men’s names. It was a few minutes before they finally got an answer.

“Here, Papoose. Stay there. We come,” Uncle Ned called from somewhere out of sight.

“That’s Amanda,” Elizabeth said.

“Maybe they’ve found the gold,” John said as they followed Uncle Ned in the direction of the voices.

Turning a sharp corner they were met by a flood of light from Mandie’s lantern.

“Uncle Ned, Uncle Ned, we found Tsa’ni! He’s hurt—bad. He’s in a deep hole. It will take some strong men to get him out.”

“Show us, Mandie,” Uncle John said, and turning to Uncle Ned, he added, “So he came back here looking for the gold.”

Uncle Ned nodded his head and grunted. Then he
gave his whistle for help. Uncle Wirt and Dimar were not far off and came on the run. Soon they were all in the cavern with the hole in the floor.

“There!” Mandie said, pointing. “He’s down there. I went down to see what was wrong with him. He can’t move.”

She showed them the rope still fastened in place.

“Papoose good Indian,” Uncle Ned said, putting his arm around her.

Mandie, pleased beyond expression by the compliment, looked up in his face with a big smile. “Thank you, Uncle Ned.”

“This is the room where we found the gold,” Joe told them. “I think it was over there where all those rocks are spilled all over the floor.”

“Over there?” Uncle John was trying to distinguish the rocks he was talking about in the dim light from the lanterns.

“But first we have to get Tsa’ni out!” Mandie reminded them.

The two Indian men were already making a rope ladder to get down inside the pit.

“If he can’t move, Uncle Ned, it’s going to take some doing to get him out,” John said, helping with the rope.

“Make basket. Put basket down hole,” the old Indian replied. He was busy weaving the rope they had been carrying into a crude basket. Wirt and Dimar were helping, evidently knowing exactly what he had in mind. Uncle John finally understood. He walked around the hole to the other side, carrying the end of the rope from which they were making the basket. The other end stayed on the other side. The rope was fastened on each side to the basket so it could be lowered into the pit and then pulled back up.

Dimar volunteered. “I am young and strong. I will go down and put Tsa’ni in the basket.”

“Go,” Uncle Ned told him, and he slid down the rope Mandie had used.

“I am at the bottom,” Dimar called. “Send down the basket.”

The crude basket was lowered and Dimar pulled it flat on the rock floor of the pit. He and Tsa’ni were about the same size, and it was no easy job to lift the other boy and lay him on the rope basket. Neither spoke a word.

“All right, pull! He is in the basket,” Dimar called.

The men carefully pulled on the rope from either side of the hole, and soon the basket with Tsa’ni in it appeared.

“That way,” Uncle Ned motioned to the men on both sides to walk to the far end of the pit, holding the rope taut as they went. Then they lowered the basket carefully to the floor. Uncle Wirt bent to examine the injured boy.

“I cannot move,” Tsa’ni told his grandfather. His face was pale and he looked frightened in the lantern light.

“We take Tsa’ni to wagon,” Wirt told the others.

Tsa’ni turned his head away.

Joe protested as they prepared to leave. “What about the gold?”

“We’ll have to use the wagon to get Tsa’ni to a doctor. We’ll just have to come back tomorrow,” Uncle John told them.

Mandie sighed. “Oh, me. All this work all over again.” She was feeling hatred again toward Tsa’ni for interfering with their plans. After all, he had fallen into the pit because he was trying to beat them to the gold.

“Yeh, all because of that stupid boy,” Joe said.

Sallie looked at the two, “He will be sorry.”

“I hope he is,” Joe said. “First thing you know,
someone else will get the gold, and we’ll never know what happened to it. So many people know about it now.”

Mandie and Sallie agreed. Too many people knew about the gold. They must hurry back the next day.

Chapter 8 - The Broken Wagon Wheel

Uncle Ned pulled the wagon to a halt in front of his cabin and motioned to the others. “Wirt and me take Tsa’ni to doctor. You stay here. Morning Star make food.”

“Are you sure you won’t need any help?” Uncle John asked as he helped Elizabeth down from the wagon. “No. You watch papooses,” Uncle Ned said, laughing.

“I don’t think they’ll go anywhere. It’s past supper-time and I know they’re hungry,” Uncle John told him.

Mandie, Joe, Sallie, and Dimar jumped down and headed for the cabin. Dimar had told his mother he would be gone for a day or two, so he decided to stay at Uncle Ned’s house for the night.

Morning Star had the food cooking and Elizabeth helped her finish. The four young people sat on the doorstep with Snowball.

“Where are they taking Tsa’ni to a doctor?” Mandie asked Sallie.

“To Dr. Carnes. He is a white doctor. He lives between here and Bryson City,” the Indian girl replied.

“He probably won’t find anything wrong with him. I
think it’s all put on so he won’t get into trouble for trying to steal the gold,” Joe remarked, as he drew lines in the sand with a stick.

“But, Joe, he didn’t say a word all the way back. He had his eyes closed,” Mandie said, secretly thinking the same thing as Joe. She was desperately trying to rid her mind of the mean thoughts.

“Well, I could do that, too. Saves answering a whole lot of questions,” Joe chided.

“I do not think so, Joe,” Sallie disagreed. “I really believe he was hurt. He looked pale and weak.”

“Well, he sure slowed things down for us.”

“You’re right there, Joe,” Mandie said.

“Your uncle said we would return tomorrow,” Dimar reminded her. His eyes never left her face. His admiration was plain to see, but Mandie was not aware of it.

“But, Dimar, we have to go all the way back up there to the cave and then all through those spooky rooms until we find the right one again,” Mandie said.

“That will not be hard this time. I think I can remember exactly which way we went.” Sallie was confident.

“Yeh, like that.” Joe drew a rough diagram of the cave in the sand. “Here’s the entrance, and we went this way.” He pointed. “Then this way and that way.” He sketched a line through the outline.

“That is right.” Sallie was watching.

“But there’s still the problem of actually finding the gold. It’s buried somewhere under all those rocks, and they all look the same,” Mandie reminded them.

“That should not take long with so many people to help dig,” Dimar said.

Elizabeth came to the doorway. “Eat!” She laughed.

“Eat! That word is good in any language!” Joe exclaimed
as they stood up and hurried to the table for their evening meal.

“Amen!” agreed Mandie.

Dimar managed to sit between Mandie and Sallie with Joe on the other side of Mandie. Joe was beginning to notice Dimar’s behavior around his friend. He didn’t say anything, but kept a watch on the two of them during the meal. Mandie still did not seem to notice the extra attention.

Uncle Ned returned after a while, alone. Everyone looked up, anxious for news of Tsa’ni.

“Tsa’ni go home. Wirt go with him,” the old Indian told them as he sat down to eat. “Doctor say—stay in bed.”

“Well, did he think it was serious? I mean, can Tsa’ni move now?” Uncle John asked.

“No,” the old man replied. “Hurt back, legs.”

“Well, I hope he doesn’t have a
bad
back injury. He may never walk again,” Elizabeth said.

Everyone became serious. Mandie was fighting elation over the fact that Tsa’ni really was injured. In the back of her mind she knew she should feel sorry for him. But she couldn’t help feeling he deserved it.

She spoke up to clear her thoughts. “Can we go to see him tomorrow?”

The old Indian nodded. “Yes—Tsa’ni bad Cherokee.”

“You mean because he tried to get the gold?” asked Joe.

The old man nodded again. “Gold bad for Cherokee. Tsa’ni bad, too.”

Mandie turned to her Uncle John. “Are you still going back to the cave tomorrow?”

He turned to Uncle Ned. “What do you think? Should
we go back up there tomorrow?”

“Go tomorrow. Be done!” the Indian grunted.

Uncle John laughed. “You still aren’t happy about looking for the gold. Uncle Ned, the Cherokees could use the gold for a lot of things they need—a hospital, a school closer by, even a new church. Depending on how much is there, the gold could buy lots of things which would take years and years to get otherwise.”