by Elise Broach
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For my friend Carol Sheriff and her children, Anna Daileader Sheriff and Benjamin Daileader Sheriff—excellent readers, all
—E. B.
CONTENTS
Title page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1: A Secret Meeting
Chapter 2: Commotion
Chapter 3: Plots and Plotting
Chapter 4: Return to Gold Creek
Chapter 5: “What Kind of Place Is This?”
Chapter 6: Not Alone
Chapter 7: Past Lives
Chapter 8: Hidden Pictures
Chapter 9: Key to the Past
Chapter 10: A Perfect Match
Chapter 11: The One
Chapter 12: Prita
Chapter 13: The Deadly Curse
Chapter 14: Something for Henry
Chapter 15: Grave Developments
Chapter 16: Understanding Sara
Chapter 17: Tombstones by Moonlight
Chapter 18: Confessions
Chapter 19: Precious Bequest
Chapter 20: The Gold Mine Beckons
Chapter 21: Return to Superstition Mountain
Chapter 22: “Someone Is Watching Us…”
Chapter 23: The Thunder God Speaks
Chapter 24: Revenge of Superstition Mountain
Chapter 25: Alone
Chapter 26: Missing
Chapter 27: Escape from Superstition Mountain
Chapter 28: Sanctuary
Chapter 29: Namesake
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Also by Elise Broach
Author bio
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
A SECRET MEETING
“WHAT WAS THAT?”
The librarian’s voice cut through the cool night air, and Simon shot Henry a quick, silencing glance.
They were huddled against the rough concrete wall of the library building, in the shrubbery below the open window, with Delilah and Jack wedged up against them in a tangle of elbows and knees. Twigs and leaves scratched their faces. As usual when Henry was desperate to keep perfectly still and quiet, he was beset with discomforts. He suddenly had to go to the bathroom; his legs itched; he felt sure he was about to sneeze. The more he considered how terrible it would be if he did sneeze, the more he felt a sneeze welling up inside him.
It had been Simon’s idea to eavesdrop on the August meeting of the Superstition Historical Society, to hear firsthand what the treasure hunters were up to. On the other side of the window, the meeting had just ended, and the librarian Julia Thomas, president of the historical society, had asked the members of the executive committee to remain behind. From what Henry could tell, after the scrape of chairs and murmur of departing voices, there were only three people left in the room: the creepy librarian, Officer Myers—the big, stern policeman who had first warned the boys to stay away from Superstition Mountain—and a man they figured had to be Richard Delgado, the caretaker at the cemetery, who was the historical society’s secretary and whose addled daughter Sara was living proof of the mountain’s eerie grip. A year ago, she had returned from its wilds in a fugue state, frightened and talking nonsensically. To Henry, it seemed like she had left the saner part of herself somewhere in the mountain’s caves and canyons … with the bones of the people who’d died or disappeared there while searching for the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine.
The gold mine! Even now, crouched in a sweaty human tangle under the screen of branches, Henry could picture the gold. He remembered its breathtaking luster in the dark mine, sparkling in the beam of the flashlight. It was the secret that he, Simon, Jack, and Delilah had kept all summer long: they had found the Lost Dutchman’s Mine! The treasure that person after person had climbed Superstition Mountain in the hopes of finding, for over a century.
Of course, once the avalanche buried the mine’s entrance, it was impossible to know if anyone would ever see the gold again. Simon, Henry, and Jack had barely managed to escape, and only because of Delilah’s warning. But in the moments before the cascade of boulders thundered down the canyon wall, Jack had grabbed a fistful of sparkly golden flakes … and this was the sole remnant of their discovery. For the past month, he had kept them safe in an Altoids tin under his dresser, and sometimes, when the boys were playing a game in his room, he would take out the tin and wave it imperiously under the noses of his brothers, reminding them that he was the only one with real, actual gold from the Lost Dutchman’s Mine. Then Simon would produce the gold nugget from the old Spanish saddlebag that Henry and Delilah had found in the canyon, and a heated argument would ensue about which was more valuable, the single nugget or the collection of golden flakes.
It was good they had those bits of gold, Henry thought. Sometimes during the long, hot sweep of the summer—while Delilah’s broken leg healed and the boys spent their days playing games with her or riding their bikes or keeping track of Josie, who was determinedly independent even for a cat—it had been hard to believe the gold was real. The gold mine was a secret; they could tell no one. It seemed not just separate from but at odds with the rest of their daily lives in the tiny town of Superstition, in the home the Barker family had inherited a few months ago from Mr. Barker’s cattle-wrangling, poker-playing, adventure-loving uncle, Hank Cormody, who had died in his eighties after a long, eventful life. Uncle Hank was a former U.S. Cavalry scout and the relative for whom Henry had been named—in what he sometimes felt was a cruel joke designed to make him painfully aware of all the ways in which he was not brave, exciting, and adventurous.
But Mr. Barker had idolized his uncle and loved telling stories about him, and throughout their childhoods the boys had a special place in their hearts for their great-uncle Hank, even though they had met him only a handful of times and barely knew him. He sent them funny birthday cards and inappropriate presents (like a shiny silver cap gun for Henry’s birthday, which Mrs. Barker had promptly confiscated), and every once in a long while he burst into their lives for Thanksgiving or a holiday weekend, brimming with jokes and tales about his life in the West. Sometimes Henry felt he didn’t so much know Uncle Hank as know of Uncle Hank. But nonetheless, the impression was a vivid one, of flowing white hair, a booming voice, and hands patterned with interesting calluses and scars.
The Barkers had moved to Uncle Hank’s brown, shingled house in Superstition in June, at the end of kindergarten for Jack, and fourth grade for Henry, and fifth grade for Simon. They had met Delilah, who was Henry’s age, shortly afterward. Henry could scarcely believe all that had happened to them since then, over the course of the long summer, in the shadow of the great, spooky mountain whose essential mystery they had yet to solve.
So here they all were, frozen beneath the screen of leaves and branches outside the library window, listening and trying not to be heard. Henry felt like Harriet the Spy, the main character from one of the books he loved. He wished he had a notebook to transcribe the conversation flowing through the window.
“What do you mean? I didn’t hear anything,” a man’s voice said, and Henry recognized it as belonging to Officer Myers.
“Something outside,” Julia Thomas replied. Heels clicked against the floor, approaching the window, and a man’s heavier footsteps followed. Beneath the twiggy canopy, Henry held his breath, and he saw Jack’s eyes grow wide.
“Do you s
ee anything out there?” the librarian asked.
“No. You’re getting paranoid, Julia.” The voices were now above their heads, floating through the thin night air. After a minute, the footsteps left the window.
“I’m not paranoid, I’m careful. Which is more than I can say for you and Richard. That rock slide was your fault! We may have lost our only chance of getting to the gold.”
Henry gasped. “They started the avalanche,” he whispered.
“I thought so,” Simon answered softly. “They were watching us the whole time. That means they know where the gold mine is.”
Delilah tensed. “They could have gotten us killed.”
“Yeah,” Jack repeated, “KILLED.” In the dark beneath the bushes, Henry could see him clench his fists.
Beyond the windowsill, the three adults were now arguing.
“I told you, my foot slipped,” Henry heard Richard Delgado say testily. “I had no way of knowing that would bring down half the mountain!”
“You should have watched where you were stepping,” Mrs. Thomas snapped. “The gold mine is buried behind a wall of rock now.”
“Hang on,” Officer Myers interrupted. “Who says that was the gold mine? We have no idea what the kids found in there. For all we know, it was just a cave.”
Mrs. Thomas answered curtly, “No. It’s the Lost Dutchman’s Mine. I’m certain of it. And now that we know those children are after the gold, we have to move quickly.”
Beneath the bushes, Henry squirmed, rubbing the back of his hand against his nose.
“What’s the matter?” Delilah whispered, watching him.
“I think I might sneeze,” Henry whispered back.
Simon shook his head. “Well, don’t. Shhhhh, this is important.”
Through the window, the debate continued. “Then what do you want to do?” Mr. Delgado asked. “As you said, if it is the gold mine, it’s buried under a mound of boulders.”
“We can either try to break through the boulders or find another way in,” the librarian answered.
“You’d need dynamite to break up those rocks,” Officer Myers said. “And it would be pretty hard to have an explosion up there in the canyon and keep it a secret.”
Mr. Delgado mumbled his agreement. “What about your other idea? The gold from the mine that might still be somewhere near town—the nuggets that Jacob Waltz took and kept in a candle box under his bed. You said he might have left the candle box with the neighbor lady when he died—why don’t we work on finding that?” He paused. “It’s a lot easier than going up the mountain again. And safer. That place is…” His voice trailed off.
Henry turned to Delilah. Box of gold? They had heard the story of Jacob Waltz and the gold mine from their geologist friend Emmett Trask. Back in the late 1880s, when the old miner was being cared for on his deathbed by his neighbor, the original Julia Thomas, he supposedly gave her directions to the mine, and maybe even a map … but this was the first Henry had heard about a box of gold under the bed. The directions to the mine had survived on a scrap of paper the children had found in Uncle Hank’s desk, in the hidden compartment of his orange metal coin box … written by someone other than Uncle Hank.
Mrs. Thomas sounded impatient. “The deathbed ore? Because as I told you, we have no idea where to begin to look for that. Some believe that he didn’t give it to Julia at all. That it was stolen by someone when she left Waltz’s deathbed to get a doctor, and he died while she was gone.”
“People have been looking for that deathbed ore forever,” Officer Myers interjected. “But what about the ghost town? We know she stayed there before and after her trip up the mountain to look for the gold.”
The ghost town! Henry remembered the desolate silence of Gold Creek, with its row of ramshackle buildings … and the shattered floorboards of the Black Cat Saloon, where Simon had fallen, disappearing into a cellar where something or someone had lain in wait for him.
“Yes, the ghost town,” Mr. Delgado echoed. “That’s exactly where we should be looking. At the old hotel, where she stayed with those German brothers. What if they left something behind?”
Simon nudged Henry. “See? We have to go back,” he whispered. “Before they do.”
Henry opened his mouth to agree, but suddenly the sneeze he’d been suppressing burbled up into his throat and his nose. He sucked in his breath, trying to swallow it, but something—part sneeze, part breath, part sputter—escaped.
Ahhhhh-phhhht!
Simon, Jack, and Delilah stared at him in horror.
Inside the room, a chair scraped the floor, and heels came clicking furiously toward the window.
“That!” Julia Thomas exclaimed. “Do you hear it now? There’s someone outside the window.”
CHAPTER 2
COMMOTION
A RIPPLE OF PANIC SHOOK the bushes. Henry didn’t know what to do. If Mrs. Thomas looked closely enough through the leaves, she would see them. There wasn’t time to get away. He could tell from the stricken expressions on the others’ faces that they were making the same desperate calculation. The librarian’s fast-clicking heels had almost reached the window above them. Henry crouched as low to the ground as he could, waiting in horror for the moment he knew was coming.
Then, just as Mrs. Thomas’s bright polished nails curled over the windowsill, there was a rustle of branches. Henry saw a dark shape sail over the bushes. It landed with a feather-soft thud on the sill.
Josie!
How did she get there? Through the thatch of twigs and leaves, Henry could see her balancing, all four paws on the sill, as the librarian’s hands jerked back in surprise. Josie’s back arched, and her fur rose in a spiky shroud. Her ears flattened against her head. Face-to-face with Julia Thomas, she yowled her displeasure.
“What in the world!” The librarian recoiled, backing away from the window.
“It’s just a cat,” Officer Myers said. “Calm down.” He crossed the room and slammed the window shut, as Josie leapt to the ground, streaking off into the night.
Henry’s rigid shoulders collapsed in relief.
“Sheesh!” Simon hissed at him. “That could have been a disaster.”
“Well, he did say he was going to sneeze,” Delilah whispered.
“That creepy librarian almost saw us!” Jack chimed in disapprovingly.
Henry cringed. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I tried to stop it.”
With a glance at him, Delilah changed the subject. “What was going on with Josie?”
“She must have followed us,” Simon said.
“I know, but I mean the way she freaked out. I’ve never seen her do that.”
Jack nodded. “She hates that creepy librarian as much as we do!”
“But she’s never even seen her before,” Henry said thoughtfully. It would be nice to believe that Josie was an excellent judge of character, but through long years of experience, the Barkers knew this was not the case. Josie tended to like people who were quiet, slow, and neat and, most important, who didn’t pay any attention to her. She was particularly drawn to people who didn’t like animals at all. Back when they lived in Chicago, Henry remembered how Josie would settle herself in the lap of their neighbor Mrs. Crichter, an easily irritated woman who often knocked on the door to complain about how loud the boys were in the backyard or how inconvenient it was when one of their balls flew over her fence. When Josie leapt onto her lap, Mrs. Crichter would flinch in disgust, complain about shedding, and demand that someone take her away. Josie, meanwhile, adored her. Henry thought that it would be very hard to like someone who didn’t like you back. It reminded him of one time last year when he had tried to be friends with a boy who was much cooler and more popular than Henry at school, and how it had only made him feel bad about himself. But clearly, it didn’t bother Josie at all.
“She looked the way she does when there’s a dog coming at her,” Simon said. That was right, Henry thought. There was a goofy boxer down the street in Chicago who had sometime
s bothered Josie, and she would react with that same dramatic posture, a mixture of fright and fury.
Simon cocked his head and turned toward the square of white light shining through the window. The voices behind the glass had faded to a muted murmur.
“We might as well go home,” he said. “We told Mom and Dad we’d be back by nine, and we can’t hear anything now anyway.”
“What were they saying about the ghost town?” Delilah asked.
“They’re going there to look for the gold that Jacob Waltz gave to Julia Thomas when he died. Or for something that will lead them to it,” Simon explained. “Which means we have to get there first.”
“But what about—” Henry shivered, thinking of the broken floorboards in the Black Cat Saloon, where Simon had tumbled into the dark cellar.
“We’ll be careful, Hen,” Simon told him. “We know what to watch out for this time.”
Privately, Henry thought that they never seemed to know what to watch out for; in fact, wasn’t that the whole problem? Librarians who looked like people who’d lived a century ago; gunshots in a hidden canyon; a tombstone with their own name written across it; rattlesnakes and rock slides; a ghost-town cellar where something or someone had been waiting, and had rustled slowly through the blackness toward Simon.
“Let’s go,” Simon ordered, “and be QUIET! We don’t want them nosing around again.”
Carefully, he pulled aside a web of branches and extricated himself from the shrubbery, brushing bits of leaves and dirt from his legs. Jack tumbled after him, not nearly so quietly, and then Henry and Delilah followed.
They ran around the corner to the shadowy back of the library building, where they had stashed their bikes in a landscape bed. As Delilah raced ahead, Henry thought what a relief it was to have her out of her cast. She could keep up with them again.
Delilah seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I can go to the ghost town with you this time,” Delilah said to Henry, smiling as she threw her leg over the pink chrome bar of her bicycle. “I can’t wait, after all you told me.”
