Missing on Superstition Mountain (18 page)

Henry glanced around. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, blazing into every crevice of the ravine. The crooked, pebble-strewn path that must have been a creek wound through the canyon floor, flanked by a few squat trees, gray-green shrubs, and patches of yellow and blue wildflowers. The walls of the canyon seemed even steeper from down here, rising sharply on either side to the woods at the top. Henry saw no sign of Simon and Jack. Good: they must already be on the path down the mountain. Suddenly, he caught his breath.

“Look!” he said, touching Delilah's shoulder. “There are the skulls!”

On a ledge high above them, three white globes flashed in the sun, neatly lined up along the rock.

“Wow, that's pretty spooky,” Delilah said, her eyes wide. “It's like they're watching us.”

“Yeah … watching the whole canyon,” Henry agreed. Like
sentinels
, he thought to himself.

“Why would someone have put them there?”

“I don't know. To scare people?”

“That's what I was thinking,” Delilah said. “But why?”

Henry shrugged, feeling an urge to change the subject. “What time is it?”

“Almost three.”

“There's plenty of time for Simon and Jack to get home and back here with help before it's dark.”

“Yeah,” Delilah said softly.

Henry wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was. What if Simon and Jack got lost? Then who knew how long it would take them to get down the mountain? And what if they couldn't find their way back? There were so many paths, and the mountain was full of canyons. But it didn't help to think that way. Henry shook his hair out of his eyes and stood up.

“I'm going to look for the compass.”

“Okay,” Delilah said. She squinted up at him, shielding her eyes with her hand. “Thanks, Henry.”

Which made Henry feel bad for what he'd thought about her before, that she was bossy and ungrateful. He set off along the creek bed, his sneakers crunching against the loose stones. He heard a bird call, a sharp, echoing cry, and he looked up to see the dark shadow of something passing overhead—a hawk or another vulture, he wasn't sure. The canyon floor was a maze of boulders and rocky inlets. He kept scanning it for a flash of silver or glass, but he saw nothing. He was almost directly under the ledge with the skulls now.

“Henry?” Delilah's voice drifted to him. “Did you find the compass? I can't see you anymore.”

“I'm here,” Henry answered. “But I haven't found it yet.” He sighed, ready to turn back.

Then something caught his eye. Amid the pebbles at his feet was something long and white, gleaming in the sun.

A bone.

Henry sucked in his breath. He crouched down, gently brushing the stones aside for a better look. Then he realized it wasn't just one bone. There were bones everywhere.

CHAPTER 25

REMAINS FROM LONG AGO

“D
ELILAH!
” H
ENRY CRIED.
“There are bones here, a bunch of them.”

“What do you mean? Where?”

“Near where the creek used to be. Mixed in with the stones.”

Henry sorted through the rocks, gently clearing a space around the bleached white bones. He remembered the list of dead people in
Missing on Superstition Mountain
; the bones found at the bottom of a canyon. Were these human? Did they belong with the skulls? He couldn't tell. He saw something larger, a long, white bone with a row of flat teeth protruding from it. It was a jawbone, he realized, way too long to belong to a person.

“I don't think these are human bones,” he told Delilah, relieved. “Maybe a deer.”

Then, as he scanned the area, Henry glimpsed something large and dark under a shrub a short distance from the creek bed. He walked over to it, thinking it was fur, the remains of some big, brown animal. But when he touched it tentatively with his finger, it felt hard. Like a shoe.

“I found something,” he called to Delilah.

“What is it?”

“I don't know … something made of leather.”

Carefully, Henry extricated it from the undergrowth— a hardened pair of leather pouches with a strap connecting them. They were so worn and tattered they were falling apart. The leather looked ancient to Henry, as if it had been washed with rainwater and dried by the sun a thousand times.

“It's a saddlebag,” he said loudly. “And it looks really old. I bet the bones are from a horse.”

“Let me see.”

Carrying it gingerly with both hands, Henry walked back along the creek bed to where Delilah was lying. He knelt beside her and set the crumbling saddlebag on the ground.

“Wow,” Delilah said. “Who do you think it belonged to?”

“I don't know. Somebody from a long time ago.”

“Look at the fancy buckles.”

Even though they were blackened with tarnish, Henry could see that the buckles on the saddlebag
were
fancy, intricately decorated with swirls.

“Let's see if there's anything inside,” Delilah said. Gently, she unbuckled the flap of one of the pouches and held it open while Henry slid his hand into the darkness. His fingers closed around something small but surprisingly hefty. It was a little sack, also made of leather, tied with a strip of rawhide.

“What's in it?” Delilah asked, leaning forward, then moaning. “Ow!” She fell back against the rock, clutching her leg.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it just hurts. I hope they come soon.”

“Me too,” Henry agreed. He gently untied the string and pried open the neck of the sack, brittle with age. Dust and bits of leather sifted into his lap. He squeezed two fingers through the opening and felt pieces of hard, cool metal.

“It's money,” he told Delilah, pinching one of the coins and lifting it into the sunlight. It was silver, as tarnished as the buckle. Henry recognized it immediately. “Delilah,” he said urgently. “Look!
Hispan et Ind
—they're Spanish coins, just like the ones in Uncle Hank's coin box.” They were identical: the severe profile, the columns and shield.

“From the Spanish explorers!” Delilah cried. “They must have been left in this canyon a long time ago. They could have been here for two hundred years!”

“I wonder if they're from the Peralta Massacre,” Henry said.

“Wow,” Delilah said. “I remember that. I read about it in my book from the library—when the Apache Indians fought the Spanish, leaving the bones of men and mules all over the canyons.” She reached across him. “Let me check the other bag,” she said, lifting the flap.

“What's this?” Delilah's hand emerged holding a thick, tattered piece of brown paper, folded twice. She sat forward and opened it on her lap. “Oh! Henry, look! It's a map.”

It was a crude map drawn in ink on dark heavy paper, the edges frayed and crumbling. At first, Henry couldn't tell what anything was. There was no writing on it.

“Are those roads?” he asked Delilah, pointing to a few thin lines.

She peered at them. “I don't think so. I think those are creeks—see how wavy they are?”

Henry looked more closely. “Then these must be peaks,” he said, “for the mountain?” He traced the points that encircled the map, and then ran his finger along one of the channels through the middle of it. “What's this?”

“It must be a canyon,” Delilah said. “Because look, there's a creek in the middle of it. And these are trees.” She pointed to small, spiky lines all along the creek. “Hey…” She lifted the map gently into the air, and turned it. “I think this is our canyon, Henry, the one we're sitting in right now! Look at the way the creek bed zigzags … and this ledge on the map, it might be the ledge with the skulls.”

“You think it's the same one?” Henry asked. “There are so many canyons here. How can we tell?” His gaze swept the uneven ground, the brown walls of rock that jutted in from either side. There were so many nooks and crannies, and the shrubs made it hard to see the contours of the gorge.

Delilah brushed stones and twigs aside to clear a small place on the ground, where she spread the map flat. “If we put it like this—look at the drawing—does it fit the way the creek bed turns?” she asked.

Henry nodded slowly. “But what's this on the side? It looks like another little canyon.” Delilah squinted at the map, then scanned the wall of rock behind them, in the opposite direction from where Henry had searched for the compass. “If it is, it would be right over there, around those rocks. Go have a look, Henry. Maybe another canyon connects to this one.”

Henry scrambled to his feet and ran the short distance to the outcropping of rock. It looked like the rest of the canyon wall, craggy and creviced, and he was about to turn away in disappointment when he realized that there, behind it, almost obscured by boulders, was a narrow channel.

“Hey!” he yelled to Delilah. “There's an opening.”

He edged sideways between the sharp rocks, picking his way between the steep walls, thinking that at any moment the inlet would end in rock. But it didn't. A thin dirt path twisted along, and Henry felt a growing thrill of excitement. This must be how it was for Uncle Hank, he thought—during his days as a cavalry scout, when he set off for uncharted territory, exploring someplace nobody had been before. This was how it felt to discover something new. Henry realized he didn't feel scared at all. He felt eager, as if the mountain were nudging him along.

A minute later, the walls slanted away and the sky opened over his head. He found himself standing alone in a small, hidden canyon.

CHAPTER 26

“THE MOUNTAIN IS ALIVE…”

“H
ENRY
? W
HERE ARE YOU
?” Delilah's voice sounded faint and far away.

“I'm coming back,” he called. “It's a little secret canyon. You would never know it was here.”

He ran quickly through the narrow passageway back into the ravine, where Delilah had apparently been dragging herself across the ground to follow him. She was panting and wincing in pain, still holding the map.

“What are you doing?” Henry protested. “You should have stayed where you were.”

“I didn't know where you went,” Delilah said. She glanced up at the sky. “It's going to be dark soon.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. He walked over to where she'd left their things. Gently he closed up the leather pouch of coins and tucked it in a side pocket of the backpack. Then he picked up the backpack and saddlebag and carried them to where Delilah was lying.

“Do you want something else to eat? More water?” he asked. He helped her lean against a rock. Her leg looked even more swollen now. The skin was turning darker.

Delilah clutched her leg, breathing heavily. “I'm not hungry,” she said. “Do you think they'll be back soon?”

Henry nodded. “I bet they're climbing up the mountain right now.”

“Good. I hope so.” She leaned her head against the rock and closed her eyes.

“Does it still hurt a lot?” Henry asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it's broken?”

“Probably.”

Since she didn't seem to want to talk, he picked up a stick and began to poke the bushes. A rabbit sprang out from underneath one, making him jump. It darted off through the canyon, its white tail bobbing.

“What was that?” Delilah asked, opening her eyes.

“Just a rabbit,” Henry said. “I scared it with my stick.”

She stirred slightly. “So there's a whole other canyon over there? Hidden behind the rocks?”

“Yeah, a secret canyon. It's a lot smaller than this one.”

“Then this old map is right.”

Henry nodded. “I wonder who made it. I mean, were they soldiers, or explorers, or”—he hesitated—“maybe gold miners?”

“I know,” Delilah said, “I thought that too! What if it's a map to a gold mine? But I was looking at it the whole time you were gone, and there's no special mark or anything … nothing that looks like gold.”

Henry squatted on his heels, dragging his stick in the dirt, thinking about old maps and lost gold mines.

“Henry?” Delilah's voice was soft.

“Yeah?”

“Do you hear that noise?”

“What?” Henry turned back. Her face looked pale and anxious in the dusk.

“That rustling noise.”

Henry listened for a minute, straining into the bluish quiet. He did hear something, a faint distant crackling, then silence.

“It's probably another rabbit,” he said staunchly.

“It sounds bigger than a rabbit.”

“Maybe it's a raccoon?” Henry tried to think of other animals that weren't scary.

“It feels weird here … like the mountain is alive,” Delilah said haltingly.

“I know,” Henry said. “It really does feel that way up here.”