Missing on Superstition Mountain (17 page)

Jack bounced on his toes impatiently. “Let's go!”

Delilah turned the compass in her hand, stroking her thumb over it. “It's getting late. I guess we don't have a choice.”

“You go first, Henry,” Simon decided. “Then Delilah next, then Jack. I'll hold on to the backpack and be last.”

“Okay,” Henry said reluctantly.

He began to inch along the wall of the canyon, stepping sideways, feeling for grooves and footholds with his sneakers. He kept his eyes glued to the top of the cliff. He glanced down once, but the bottom of the gorge was so far below it made him dizzy. When his sneakers slipped against the side, loose stones sprayed into the air, tumbling through space until they disappeared. It was all too easy for Henry to imagine what would happen if he lost his grip.

“Are you guys there?” he called over his shoulder. He didn't want to risk turning around.

“Yeah,” Delilah answered, not far behind him.

“We're here!” Simon yelled. “Try to go a little faster, okay?”

“I'll try,” Henry mumbled. He reached out his hand and felt for a purchase, crouching against the rough rock. The sun burned his back. Sweat trickled behind his ears and dripped inside his shirt. Far below, a large bird wheeled over the crooked chute of the canyon. It looked like a vulture.

“Hey!” Simon called. “I think that's the ledge.”

“Yeah!” Jack shouted. “I remember!”

Henry glanced up, following the direction of Simon's finger. Some distance ahead, just beneath them, he could see a rocky shelf jutting over the ravine.

“I don't see the skulls,” he said.

“You can't from here,” Simon answered. “We're too far above it. We should start climbing down.”

Henry grumbled to himself. Climb across, climb down … Simon acted like it was as easy as steering a bike! He began to lower his body against the wall of the canyon, dangling one foot and tapping tentatively for anything that felt sturdy enough to step on. He shook damp strands of hair out of his eyes.

“What time is it?” Jack asked.

“Hang on, I'll check,” Delilah began, then cried sharply, “Oh! The compass!”

In an instant Henry turned to see the silver compass hurtling through the air, with Delilah grasping frantically after it.

It bounced against the side of the canyon and started to roll. Delilah leaned way out, taking another swipe at it.

Henry reached for her. “Delilah, don't—”

“It's my dad's!” she cried. She lost her hold and began to slide, clutching futilely at the canyon wall. Stones rained through the air all around her.

“Hold on!” Simon yelled to her. But it was too late. They watched in horror as she bumped and tumbled down the side of the canyon, desperately clawing at rock.

CHAPTER 23

INTO THE CANYON

“A
HHHHHHHH!
”

Delilah's piercing scream was followed by a faint, sickening thud when her body finally struck the canyon floor, some sixty feet below.

“Delilah! Delilah, are you okay?” Henry cried.

He could see the pale square of her T-shirt far beneath them.

“Delilah?” Simon echoed. “Can you hear us? Are you hurt?”

They strained into the silence, but no sound came back to them.

“Do you think she hit her head?” Jack asked. “Maybe she's knocked out.”

Henry turned anxiously to Simon. “What are we going to do? What if she's really hurt?
DELILAH
!” he yelled again.

This time, they heard a moan, and Henry saw the T-shirt move.

“Ohhhh!” Delilah cried, her voice catching in a sob. “My leg!”

“Can you stand on it?” Simon called.

“Owww! No! It hurts! It hurts!”

“Hang on,” Simon told her. “Don't move.”

He looked at Henry, his face pale beneath the spiky crown of his hair. “We need to get help.”

“But we can't leave her here,” Henry protested.

Delilah squirmed on the ground below. “Where's my compass?” she wailed.

“Forget the compass,” Simon said. “It doesn't matter.”

“No, I need it! You have to find it. Henry? Please.”

“Okay, okay,” Henry answered. He peered at the slope below. He could see the dusty smear where Delilah had lost her grip and begun to slide. “I'll find it.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt.

“Listen, Henry,” Simon said. “I'll climb down and stay with her. You take Jack and go for help. Can you find your way back?”

Henry swallowed. “I think so. I don't know.”

“What about the skulls?” Jack asked. He scrambled closer to Henry, nimbly gripping the rocks.

“We can't do anything about them now,” Simon said.

Jack groaned. “See? I told you it was a bad idea to let her come. She's ruined everything!”

“Shhh,” Simon said. “She'll hear you. It doesn't matter now. We have to get help.”

Henry shook his head slowly. “You're the one who should go,” he said to Simon. “You know the way better than I do.”

Simon looked at him, hard. “But that means you'll have to stay here with Delilah. On the mountain.”

“I know,” Henry said. His lungs felt so tight in his chest he could barely breathe.

“Henry…”

“Just go,” Henry said. He squared his shoulders. “I'll climb down and stay with her until you get back.”

“Henry,” Simon said again, “I don't know that we can make it back here before dark. We'll go as fast as we can, but—”

“It's okay,” Henry told him. “Just hurry.” He scanned the slope below him. Where was the compass? He longed for the shiny clarity of its arrow, pointing steadily in a known direction. He looked down the funnel of the gorge to where Delilah lay on the canyon floor.

Simon thought for a minute, then nodded grimly. “Okay, maybe you're right. Here, you take the backpack. You need it more than we do.” He took out a bottle of water, then zipped the backpack and carefully looped it over Henry's outstretched arm. When he took his hand away, Henry felt a pang of hopelessness, as if he were losing his last defense against the mountain's strange magic.

“Don't worry, Henry,” Simon said. “We'll come back as fast as we can. Jack, let's go.”

Henry slid the backpack over his shoulder and watched as his brothers scrambled along the cliff above him, with Simon calling instructions and Jack reaching for foot- and handholds, crawling and hopping from one to the next.

“Hurry,” Henry said, mostly to himself.

But Simon heard him. “We will,” he answered.

“What's going on?” Delilah called. Henry could barely make out her pale upturned face. “Did you find the compass?”

“No, but it's probably right below me. I'll look for it on my way down.”

“Your way down? You're coming down here?” Delilah sounded shocked.

“Yes,” Henry said, making his voice firm and loud to compensate for the quaking in his stomach. “Simon and Jack are going for help.”

“Why doesn't Simon stay here with me?”

Henry scowled. Of course Delilah thought Simon would be the better one to stay. Truth be told, he
was
the better one to stay. He wouldn't be scared. He would know what to do in an emergency. And he knew the kind of science-y stuff that could be helpful when you were out in the middle of nowhere, with rocks and trees and wild animals all around.

“Because Simon will be able to get help faster,” Henry told her, beginning to climb down the side of the gorge.

Delilah watched him skeptically. “I don't think this is such a good idea,” she called. “We'll both end up stuck down here.”

Henry didn't think she sounded sufficiently grateful. Or at all grateful. Also, she seemed to have an annoying excess of opinions about her pending rescue. “This never would have happened if you hadn't dropped the compass,” he yelled back. “Would you rather be down there by yourself?”

Silence from the canyon, and then “No.… Hey, look for the compass!”

“I told you I would,” Henry answered. He continued his descent into the canyon, feeling the watchful eyes of the mountain all around him.

CHAPTER 24

LOST AND FOUND

H
ENRY PICKED HIS WAY
down the slope, avoiding the loose dirt where Delilah had slid. He stopped twice, to wipe sweat out of his eyes with his shirt and to take another sip of water. He didn't see the compass anywhere.

Delilah watched from below. Every once in a while, she called out, “Watch that root,” or “Go to the right—it's not as steep.” More often, she asked, “Did you find the compass?”

Henry could see her clearly now, propped against a boulder. Her clothes were covered in dust, and her left leg lay stiffly in front of her.

Finally, the pitch of the ground changed, flattening. Henry half stood and scrambled the rest of the way to the bottom of the gorge.

He brushed off his pants and ran over to Delilah. “Does it still hurt?” he asked, leaning over her.

She cringed and nodded. Her leg was red and swollen, the knee scraped and dark with blood.

“Hey, you're bleeding,” Henry said, awed.

“I know!” Delilah said, wincing. “Good thing we have Band-Aids.”

Henry unzipped the backpack and dug around in the bottom until his fingertips brushed the paper wrappers of the Band-Aids. He handed her two and watched somberly while she opened them and tried to orient them on her knee to cover the blood.

Finally she gave up. “It's too big a cut,” she said dejectedly, wadding the Band-Aids into a sticky ball. “And you know what else? I can't stand up. I already tried. My leg is killing me. And”—she covered her face with her hands—“I lost the compass.” Henry was suddenly afraid she might cry.

“It's okay,” he said quickly. “You can get another compass.”

“It's my dad's.”

“I know, you keep saying that. Is that why you're so upset? Do you think he'll be mad at you?” Henry reached into the backpack again and took out the granola bars. He wasn't really hungry, but it was something to do, and it might make Delilah feel better. He handed her one.

Delilah tore open the foil and took a bite. “He can't get mad at me.…” She stopped. “He died.”

Henry stared at her.

“It was a long time ago,” she said quickly. “When I was six.”

“Oh.” Henry didn't know what to say. He'd never met anybody who didn't have a father. He thought of all the photographs in Delilah's living room, the man with the crinkly brown eyes. “What did he die of?” he asked finally.

“A car accident,” Delilah said.

“Oh,” Henry said again.

She didn't say any more. But Henry immediately understood why she couldn't lose the compass and why she couldn't replace it with another one.

“I'll keep looking for it,” he said. “Maybe it rolled all the way down to the bottom.”

Delilah was quiet.

“Do you want some water?” He fished around in the jumble of wrappers and bottles.

“I guess.” Delilah took the bottle without enthusiasm and drank a little. She shifted against the rock. Her face crunched with the effort.