Missing on Superstition Mountain (11 page)

“Okay, let's see what it says,” he said to Simon and Jack.

“Yeah, what does it say?” Jack cried. “Read it!”

Henry cleared his throat. “The last one I read was 1947, right? The guy who was decapitated?”

“With no head!” Jack said enthusiastically.

“Jack, not so loud,” Simon warned. “Do you want them to come out here and ask what we're talking about?”

“No,” Jack whispered, chastened.

“Okay, listen,” Henry began. “‘1951 … body of Dr. John Burns found. Cause of death: gunshot wound to chest. 1952 … skeleton of Joseph Kelley found near Weaver's Needle—'”

“Again, it's by the landmark,” Simon noted.

“Keep reading,” Jack urged.

“Okay, okay,” Henry said. “‘1952 … skeleton of Joseph Kelley found near Weaver's Needle. Disappearance of—'” He stopped. His eyes widened.

“What?” Simon asked. “Disappearance of what?”

Henry lifted his head slowly, his finger pressed to the page like a dart stuck to a bull's-eye. “‘Disappearance of three Texas boys. Presumed dead; bodies never recovered.'”

CHAPTER 16

TELLING SOMEONE

N
OBODY SAID ANYTHING,
not even Jack. To Henry, the silence was deafening.

Simon took the booklet from him and read the line to himself. His eyebrows knit together. “What should we do?”

Henry was so startled to be asked that by
Simon
, he could only stare at him.

Jack bounced forward on his knees. “It's the skulls!” he whispered fiercely. “We found them!”

“Well,” Simon ventured, “it might not be those same boys. Just because we found the skulls together doesn't mean they belonged to people who were together on the mountain.”

That could be true, Henry realized. But deep inside, he felt that it wasn't. “We should have brought them back with us,” he said, turning to Simon. “I wanted to, remember? You said no.”

Simon looked down at the page. “I didn't think it mattered. I mean, they'd been up there for such a long time! And I was right about that. You said the Texas boys went missing in 1952.”

Henry bit his lip. He knew there was no point in blaming Simon. “Okay, okay. What do we do now?”

“Tell someone, I guess,” Simon said reluctantly.

“Let's call Delilah.”

“I meant a grown-up.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Why would we tell her? She doesn't know anything about those skulls.”

Henry hesitated. “But she knows about the other stuff, and she's … she's part of it now.”

“But—” Jack started to complain again, but Henry glared at him. “Okay,” he said glumly. “You'll be sorry.”

Simon shrugged. “Fine. I don't care—tell Delilah. But that doesn't solve the problem. I think we have to call the police. Those three guys have been missing for, like, sixty years.”

Henry said slowly, “Their parents probably aren't even alive anymore.” For some reason that seemed too sad to contemplate.

“What if their parents are alive and have wondered all this time what happened to them?” Simon asked softly. They were silent, staring at the page.

Jack sat back on his heels, looking worried. “What if we can't find the canyon again?”

This was a good point, Henry had to admit. What if they told the police, led them up the mountain, and then couldn't find the skulls? Nobody would believe them. And they'd have to admit they went up the mountain in the first place, which would cause all kinds of trouble with their parents.

Simon looked grim. “If we tell Mom and Dad we were on the mountain, they'll probably ground us for the rest of the summer.”

Henry thought for a minute. “What if we go up the mountain again and get the skulls ourselves? We could bring them back here and … maybe we could say we found them in the desert?”

Simon frowned. “I don't know. That's probably the same as disturbing a crime scene.” He wavered. “But it's been so long. I don't think that ledge where we found the skulls is where they died. There were no other bones there. And the skulls were lined up in a row.”

“So what are we going to do?” Jack demanded. “We can't be grounded! That is so
BORING.
”

“But if we go up there again…” Henry faltered. “What if something happens to us?”

He looked across the yard at the hulking shadow of the mountain, far in the distance. He thought of the tree branch crashing to the ground so close to him. His heart quickened. “Like whatever happened to that Sara Delgado girl that Emmett Trask told us about?”

“You mean the ‘fugue state'? That sounded pretty bad,” Simon agreed. He rubbed one hand over his hair. “I think we should go talk to her and see what we can find out. Then we can decide whether to get the skulls.”

Henry felt a small wave of relief. It was beginning to seem like they had a plan.

“What else does it say in the book?” Simon asked. “How many more people are on that list?”

Henry smoothed the pages. The purplish dusk made it difficult to see the print.

“‘1956 … body of unidentified man found, cause of death: gunshot wound to head. 1960 … skull of Austrian student found; headless skeleton found at foot of cliff.' Here's the last entry … ‘1961 … body of Utah prospector found—'”

“What's a prospector?” Jack interrupted.

“Someone who's looking for gold or silver,” Simon answered. “A miner.”

Henry continued, “‘Body of Utah prospector found, cause of death: gunshot wound to back.…'” He scanned the page, then turned it. “That's the end of the list. The rest of this is just stuff about the historical society.”

“Okay,” Simon decided. “We'll go see Sara Delgado tomorrow. Then we'll figure out what to do.”

*   *   *

That night, right after the boys went to bed and Mr. and Mrs. Barker had disappeared into the family room to watch television, Henry snuck into the kitchen and took the phone out of its cradle. He sat on the cold floor, whispering 555–3233 to himself. Carefully, he dialed the number.

“Hello?” A woman answered.

Henry sat up straighter. “Um, is Delilah there?”

“I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Who are you trying to reach?”

Henry cleared his throat and glanced down the hall in the direction of the family room, where the television droned. He said a little louder, “Is Delilah there?”

“Delilah? I think she might be asleep. Who's calling?”

“Henry. Henry Barker.”

“Oh, the boy with the cat! Hold on, let me see if she's awake.”

A minute later, Henry heard Delilah's voice. “Henry? Wait,” she said quietly. And then, louder, “I'm just going to take the phone in my room, Mom.”

He heard rustling on the other end of the line and then a door latching shut. Delilah's voice was breathless and eager. “I'm so glad you called! I have something to tell you. But first, did you look at the rest of the book? What did you find out?”

Henry took a deep breath. “In 1952, three boys from Texas disappeared on the mountain. Their bodies were never found.”

“Hmmm,” Delilah said. “Well, plenty of people have disappeared up there. At least it's not anything gross, like the heads chopped off.”

Henry didn't know what to say. He knew Delilah was waiting for him to go on.

“What is it?” she asked impatiently.

“Well…” Henry paused. He peered into the darkened hallway again, making sure his parents hadn't heard him.

“What?” Delilah persisted.

Suddenly the phone call seemed like a mistake to Henry. What if she told her mother? They would all get in trouble then.

“You're not telling me something,” Delilah complained. “After I helped you look through the newspapers and the books! After I went with you to Emmett's house! That's not fair.”

“No, I am telling you,” Henry said. “That's why I called.”

“Then what is it? C'mon, just say it.”

Henry took another breath. “We went up the mountain. Simon, Jack, and I did, a few days ago. Josie ran away, and we followed her, and we went up there, and Jack fell off a rock down into a canyon, and when Simon and I climbed down to get him, we found him on this ledge with three”—he gulped—“with three skulls.”

The other end of the line was so quiet that Henry thought maybe she'd hung up. “Delilah?”

“Are you sure they were real? I mean, human?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” Henry said. “It was
unnerving
.”

“Wow,” Delilah said. She was quiet again. Finally, she said, “So you think they're the skulls of those three Texas boys? And they've been missing all this time?”

Henry nodded, then remembering the phone, said, “That's what we think. And now we can't figure out what to do. Simon thinks we have to call the police. But if we go back up the mountain with the police, and the skulls aren't there, it will be a
catastrophe.
”

“Yeah,” said Delilah. “And your parents will be really mad at you. I guess you can't know for sure the skulls are from those boys, right?”

“No,” Henry agreed.

“But if they're not from those boys, they're from three other people.”

“Right,” Henry said. “So then we were thinking maybe we should go see that Sara Delgado girl, the one Emmett told us about, who lives near the cemetery. And try to figure out what happened to her on the mountain.”

“Why?” Delilah asked. “How will that help?”

“Well, depending on what she says, we can decide if it's safe to go back up there.” Henry thought it sounded like a stretch even as he explained it.

“I don't know,” Delilah said. “She sounds pretty messed up.”

“Yeah.” Henry felt bleak.

“But okay,” Delilah said quickly. “That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I want to talk to her.”

“Me too.”

“So then we should go to the cemetery and see what she has to say.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed. “Hey—you said you had something to tell me. What was it?”

“Oh, right, I do.” Delilah took a breath. “It's nothing compared to yours, but I was reading that library book I brought home, the one on Arizona legends, and it has some true stories too—or at least, the true stories the legends are based on. And one of them is about this guy, Adolph Ruth.”

Henry had clamped the phone so close to his ear, it felt hot. “That name…”

“It was in the historical society booklet, I'm pretty sure. One of the first disappearances on the mountain.”

“What happened to him?” Henry tried to remember.

“Oh, the usual. He was missing for six months, then his skull was found with two bullet holes in it,” Delilah recited calmly. “But here's the interesting part: he was a treasure hunter, and he was looking for the Lost Dutchman's Mine.”

“Did he find it?” Henry asked eagerly.

“Nobody knows for sure. But a year after Adolph Ruth's skull was found, they discovered more human remains with a lot of his belongings, including his checkbook. And there was a note inside, which said he'd discovered the mine! At the bottom, it had the words ‘
veni, vidi, vici.
'”

Henry listened blankly. How could there still be so many words he didn't know? “Is that a foreign language? What does it mean?”

On the other end of the line, he could hear the door unlatch and an impatient, “Delilah! Are you still on the phone? It's past your bedtime.”

Delilah's faint apology followed. “Okay, I'll say good-bye.”

“Now, please.” The door clicked shut.

“I have to go,” Delilah said reluctantly.

“But what does it mean?”

“It's Latin for ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.' But listen to this: everybody at the time thought it meant he'd discovered the gold.”