Read The Secret of the Forgotten City Online
Authors: Carolyn G. Keene
The Secret of the Forgotten City (10 page)
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She said, however, “I’m not the least bit superstitious. I’m sure nothing would happen to me if I wore the necklace, but tell me, why do you think so?”
The young Indian woman looked steadfastly at the girl. “I’m not superstitious either and I hated to believe the story. But twice I’ve let friends of mine wear it with nearly disastrous results.”
Nancy spoke up. “What happened to them?”
Wanna told the girls that one of the friends had been in a bad automobile accident while wearing the necklace.
“The other one developed some strange blood disease, which several doctors could not diagnose even though they were specialists.”
“Did your friend die?” Bess asked.
Wanna shook her head. “Fortunately, no, but she almost did. Since that time I’ve had more respect for the warning given me by the old woman who gave me the necklace. She said no one but an Indian should wear it.”
George remarked that this was like having a curse on the necklace. “Such beliefs belong to witchcraft and things like that. Sensible people don’t believe in all those signs and omens Man thinks up.”
At that moment Archie stuck his head into the tent. “What you-all doing?” he asked.
“Come in,” Wanna invited. She told the young man the story about the necklace.
“But,” said George, “I can’t believe it.”
Archie looked at her almost pathetically. “My dear girl,” he said, “as you get older you will learn that there are many unexplainable things in this world.
“Much of it has to do with objects that for one reason or another should not be touched by certain humans. In this case it happens to be white people, and that reminds me of Egypt. Have you ever heard of all the white people who became ill after they had dug into King Tut’s tomb?”
Bess said no. The others remained silent.
Archie went on, “It seemed as if the boy king’s tomb was never to be opened. But archaeologists thought otherwise and went in there. They brought out all sorts of objects that had been laid with the body. After a while every one of those white men became ill.
“Doctors were puzzled and came to the conclusion that germs can linger underground for thousands of years. I agree with Wanna that none of us white people should touch this necklace.”
His listeners said nothing. Archie Arnow, having decided he had made his point, marched off pompously. Now the girls burst into laughter.
“Okay, Professor Archie,” said George, “what are you going to do when we dig down among the Indian relics here? Are you going to tell us not to touch them?”
Wanna now laughed too. “You win,” she said, “but just to be safe, suppose I put this questionable necklace away where nobody can touch it.” She hid the ancient jewelry in her suitcase, locked it, and kept the key.
The next morning Nancy took Ned aside. “Let’s ask permission to visit the Valley of Fire. I can’t wait to search for the missing tablets out there. I have a strong hunch they’re hidden among the rocks.”
Ned was eager to go and said he would locate Professor Maguire and ask his permission. It was quickly granted, and the couple started off in Nancy’s rented car.
When they reached the fantastic conglomeration of red rocks, they drove as close as possible to one section, then started to climb. The couple followed a trail but stopped every few minutes to exclaim over rock formations. It became a game between the two to see who could find the most unusual shapes.
“Here’s one that looks like a rock cactus,” Ned remarked. “And sitting on top of it is a big bumblebee.”
Nancy laughed. “You really have to use your imagination on that one.”
A few minutes later, however, Ned grinned at one she pointed out.
“So you think that looks like a castle among the rocks with a moat around it.” He chuckled. “If I stand up there alongside it, may I be the knight in shining armor?”
Nancy laughed and the two went on. They had carefully examined every crevice and hole to see if one of the valuable old tablets could have been hidden in it. They found none and went on, trudging up and down over the uneven paths.
After a while the couple sat down to rest. Ned leaned back and in doing so his hand came in contact with a paper. Turning, he gently pulled it out of a hole.
“It’s a comic book!” he exclaimed. “Why would anyone stuff this in here?”
Nancy answered, “No one is supposed to litter this spot, so what better place than this to hide something?”
She had been smiling. Now she became serious, got up, and peered into the hole herself. Nancy had learned not to put her bare hands into such places in case there were poisonous insects or reptiles of any kind resting within. She beamed her flashlight inside but could see nothing alive. A small object was lying at the back of the hole, however.
“I see something,” she said, reaching in. Nancy pulled out a somewhat dilapidated wallet. In it was a small amount of money and two diamond rings! As she replaced them, Nancy turned the wallet over. On it were two initials: F. J. “Fleetfoot Joe!” she exclaimed. “What a find!”
Ned said he was sure the rings had been stolen. Fleetfoot had hidden the wallet here until he thought it would be safe to bring it out and sell the jewels.
Nancy agreed. For a few seconds she sat, lost in thought. Finally she said, “If this is one of Fleetfoot’s hiding places, maybe one or more of the tablets is buried around here.”
The two began a careful search. They scraped away loose sandstone and cleaned out crevices and indentations.
Suddenly Nancy cried out, “I think I’ve found one!”
“Fleetfoot Joe’s initials!” Nancy exclaimed.
The flat object, wrapped in a cellophane bag, had been wedged between two rocks and covered with sandstone scrapings.
Ned hurried to Nancy’s side, and together they pulled the object from its cover. There was no question that this was another one of the tablets. Nancy took her magnifying glass from a pocket in her jeans and examined the plaque.
“Here is the identifying mark in the lower left-hand corner,” she said. “The familiar chuckwalla symbol.”
She handed Ned the magnifying glass. He was intrigued with the petroglyphs on the tablet but could not decipher them. He did, however, spot the same tiny oblong symbol in the lower right-hand corner that they had come to believe indicated the golden tablets.
As Nancy secreted the ancient plaque under her sweater and was about to hunt for another matching one, Ned suddenly said in a loud voice, “Run, because you should be in the shade. Desert sunburns are deadly. Any person being caught here is a target. Be on watch for sunstroke.”
For an instant Nancy was puzzled, since she was not particularly hot and was wearing a big hat. Then, suddenly, as she repeated the words in her mind, she realized that this was a coded message to her.
It was saying, “You are being watch.”
Without question she hurried along after him until he stopped. He whispered, “A man suddenly appeared up above us. I’m sure he was Fleetfoot!”
Nancy was aghast. Now that he knew she had the tablet, the thief might attack both her and Ned! Then what?
“We mustn’t let him harm us,” she told Ned, fearing he might throw a large rock down on them. “And we ought to take this tablet back to camp as fast as we can.”
There was a further whispered conversation. Ned felt that they should not return to the car the same way they had come.
“But we have to get back to it in order to escape,” Nancy reminded him.
Ned thought he had the rocky area pretty well figured out. “I believe there’s a shortcut we can take. It may be rough, but I think we’d better try it.”
The two scrambled off the path, over a series of jagged rocks, and came to another trail. They hurried along this in what they thought was the right direction.
Finally Nancy said, “I have a strange feeling we’re going in the wrong direction.”
“Then let’s turn around,” Ned suggested.
The two hurried on. The trail ended. They looked far below them but could see no sign of the car. Furthermore, they could not see Fleetfoot or anyone else.
“Ned,” said Nancy, “don’t you think we’d better keep going down? Eventually we’ll come to the desert floor, and then maybe we can figure out how to get to the car.”
“All right,” he agreed.
The couple went on, first down, then up, then down again. At last they sat down to rest. They could see nothing around them but jagged red rocks.
Not a word was said for several minutes, but finally Ned spoke. “Nancy, I’m afraid we’re hopelessly lost.”
CHAPTER XIV
Hidden River
AFTER Ned announced that he and Nancy were lost in the Valley of Fire, the two stood up and looked around. They were silent for several minutes. Each was trying to figure out which way would lead them out of this maze, and they began to walk.
Finally, Nancy said, “I wonder if Fleetfoot is still around. He seemed to be familiar with this place and probably wouldn’t get lost.”
“But if he tried to follow us to get back the stone tablet you’re carrying,” Ned said, frowning, “he may not care how far we go. In the end he’ll outwit us.”
The two walked on. Long shadows began to creep across the landscape. The stranded couple did not want to spend the night in the Valley of Fire.
Nancy had just rounded another corner between two huge rock formations when she cried out, “The car! I see it!”
Ned looked too. The car was almost directly below them but far, far down. Both he and Nancy wondered how much they would have to slip and slide down the steep incline to reach it.
The two held hands, dug their heels into the sandy rock, and slowly went down in a zigzag course. They knew this had been the way Indians ascended and descended steep slopes.
“You all right?” Ned asked, as Nancy’s right foot suddenly skidded under her.
He kept her from falling and she declared that the slip had meant nothing. At last, to their relief, they were able to jump down the last few feet to the desert floor.
“Thank goodness!” Ned murmured.
They hurried forward to the car. Nancy wanted to look at the tablet again but thought it might not be wise. Fleetfoot could be spying on the couple, even with binoculars.
“Let’s get back to camp as soon as possible,” Nancy suggested as Ned took the wheel.
“If you don’t mind the bumps I can go over this flat desert as fast as you want. What do you say? One-hundred or one-hundred and fifty miles an hour?”
Nancy laughed and this broke the tension. They stopped worrying about Fleetfoot and realized how lucky they had been to find the tablet.
“Only five more to go,” Nancy said.
Ned groaned. “Only five?”
Barely three minutes had gone by when he and Nancy saw the bobbing lights of a car coming toward them.
“Oh I hope it’s not that thief!” Nancy said, worried.
The other automobile began to blow its horn incessantly. Was this a signal for Nancy and Ned to stop?
“Don’t stop!” Nancy begged.
Ned was debating whether or not he should shoot past the other car when his own headlights picked up the license plate of the oncoming automobile.
“It’s one of the camp cars!” he said.
Nancy was sure it was a rescue party and knew the rescuers must be Bess, George, Burt, and Dave.
“Am I glad to see you’re safe!” Bess exclaimed, as the vehicles pulled up side-by-side. “You had us worried sick!”
“Sorry,” Nancy said. “We got lost!”
The three couples sat and talked from the windows of their cars.
“Did you have any luck?” George asked.
“I’ll say,” Ned replied. “Nancy found one of the missing plaques.”
“Honestly?” George burst out. “Hypers! You’re really getting ahead of that thief Fleetfoot, Nancy.”
“But wait until you hear the rest of the story,” Ned said. He quickly brought the other four up to date on what had happened in the Valley of Fire.
“Some adventure!” Burt remarked. “Well, we’ll follow you back to camp.”
The person most delighted over Nancy’s find was Wanna. She looked at the tablet, trying to decide what the petroglyphs meant.
Presently she said excitedly, “I believe these pictures prove my theory that there is an underground river with gold nuggets on its shores.”
Nancy said she could hardly wait to start a search for the stream.
Dinner that evening had been delayed because of the camp’s worry over Nancy and Ned. But now everyone gathered for the outdoor get-together.
Each camper was given a large metal frying pan with wooden handles, and the delicious hot meal was put into this.
Afterward there was singing and guitar playing. Archie was in the front row, making wise-cracks and telling some corny jokes. Nancy’s group had to admit, nevertheless, that the young man had a very good singing voice.
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