Ten Mile Treasure

by Andre Norton

  "I had a cat once," Libby volunteered. "But when we traveled around so much she got lost. I missed her a lot."

  "Do you live in the truck van all the time?" Christie wanted to know.

  "Mostly, except in the middle of the winter. My father is a geologist, only right now he's working for the Navajo Tribal Council, keeping in touch with all the herders out on the range in between his prospecting. He does a lot of things—writes pieces for magazines, goes rock hunting, now he's writing a history of our people. He doesn't like to live inside a town. Mother paints pictures. They have shows of them sometimes. She even had a show all by herself last winter and a lot of people came and bought them. That was exciting. They interviewed her on TV, too."

  "You don't—" Christie hesitated, and then spoke frankly. "You aren't like what I thought Indians are." Then she flushed. What a dumb, rude thing to say! She was sorry. But Libby was smiling instead of looking mad.

  "We're Navajos, all right, but my mother and father went to college back east. My father was an officer in the army, too. But this is our real home country and we like it best here. We are truly of the Dineh—the People—even if we don't always stay on the reservation. Mother and I, we have Navajo dresses. We wear them when we visit with our people, but not when we travel. Those wide skirts are not good for climbing in and out of the van. Are you going to live here now?"

  "I don't know," Christie admitted.

  Libby looked sober now. "Yes—maybe Mr. Toner won't let you."

  "Who is Mr. Toner?" Christie demanded in surprise. She had not heard that name before in all the talk between Father and Mother.

  "He has a ranch, over there—" Libby pointed eastward with her chin as she still patted Shan. "He's been wanting to get this valley for a long time—because of the water. He's always riding over and trying to get Pinto to move out. But Pinto has some kind of a paper that says he has a right to stay here for some years. It belongs to the stage company still, so Mr. Toner has had to wait. Only he said a couple of months ago that this year Pinto's paper wasn't any good anymore and now he'd get the land. He wants it very badly."

  "Well, he can't get it," returned Christie firmly. "My father has it now."

  "He won't give up easily." Libby did not look so sure. "You'll see. He'll come over again—probably with Marlene."

  "Who's Marlene?"

  "His daughter." Libby's answer was very short and something in her tone made Christie feel that the Navajo girl did not like Marlene in the least.

  Neal and Toliver, with the twins trailing them, joined the girls.

  "Listen here, Chris, it's about the Plan." Neal was plainly excited. "Toliver, he thinks he knows where we can get some good arrowheads. Maybe it was one of those places where they had a fight in the old days."

  The Navajo boy nodded. "Come on over to the bus," he said. "I can show you some we picked up last year. Remember, Libby, down that side wash?"

  Shan had stuck his claws into Libby's shirt for anchorage and was standing on his hind feet. She put her arm around the cat. "Can we take him with us?" she asked Christie.

  "If we keep him on the leash. He might stray off and get lost."

  "You mean he'll walk on a leash—like a dog?" Toliver asked. "I never knew a cat would do that."

  "Siamese cats will. We taught Shan to when he was just a kitten. We didn't want to lose him and back home we lived on a street where there were a lot of cars passing all the time—he could have run out and been killed."

  She clipped on the leash and they all went to the truck-van. Toliver climbed inside and returned with a box in his hand. He led the way to the shadow of a tree and they all dropped down to watch him take out his discoveries.

  "This is a spearhead, and these are arrow-heads—you can see that by the size. Look here, see this real small one—it's really made of hard bone and was probably for hunting birds. And this is a knife, only the point is broken."

  "You want to collect arrowheads?" Libby asked Christie.

  "Well—" For a moment Christie hesitated. The Plan was sort of a private thing. But apparently Neal had already told Toliver, so it did not matter if she explained to Libby.

  "You see, it's really part of a plan Neal and I have. Getting the station started and making people want to stop here when the new road is open—that is important. We started watching the different motels as we came. Some had advertised swimming pools and TVs and all the usual things. But here we can't have a swimming pool and I don't know about TVs either. But other motels had special things made up to make you want to stop and see them—"

  "Yes," Parky interrupted. "One had a lot of birds—big fancy ones in an outside cage. And there was another with a buffalo—honest, a real live buffalo! He was eating grass in a field and you could watch him."

  "Those places," Christie went on, "put out signs for miles ahead about what you could see. We stopped at two places just because of the signs. So if we could have something special to show here, something we could put up a sign to tell about, then more people might want to stop. That's our plan—to find the right things to show."

  "Last night"—Neal looked up from the broken knife he was holding—"Pinto showed us two arrowheads stuck in one of the window shutters. He said they were shot in there during an Apache raid. Well, everyone likes stories about the Old West. If we could show a lot of Indian things—"

  "Old Indian things," Christie interrupted him quickly. "Not Indians today. We don't mean—" She again felt as if she might be saying the wrong thing.

  Toliver laughed. "You afraid we'd think you believe we still go around raiding? That was all a long time ago. My dad always says we have to forget a lot of bad things, both you people and us. But maybe you have got a good idea, talking about the history of the Apache raids here and all. Anyway, we can take you to the place where we found these, and maybe there are more. You could think about getting other things too—like those they kept in the station in the old days. What you really ought to have is a real stagecoach to set up by the corral. That would be worth seeing!"

  "Gollee!" Parky cried. "A real stagecoach! That sure would be keen. Could we, Neal, could we?"

  His brother shook his head. "No such luck as that. We had better plan on what we can find— Is this arrow place far from here? How do we get to it?"

  Just then Christie remembered Pinto's warning, the one he had given her only that morning. "Pinto said we have to keep in sight of the station. He told me it was easy to get lost out there and there were snakes and—"

  She saw Neal frown, but Toliver spoke first.

  "It isn't far. We've been there lots of times. So you couldn't get lost if you went with us. Maybe we can do it soon—" He seemed nearly as eager as Neal looked.

  "Why not go now?" demanded Parky. Perks crowded up beside him as if she was ready to take off as soon as her twin made a move. Parky did most of the talking, but Perks was all ready to back him up in any action.

  "No. You know we've got to help here— unpacking," Christie reminded them, though she, too, would have liked to follow Parky's suggestion. "The truck with all our furniture is coming out from town today. And mother has to go in to shop. She has a big, long list of things—she keeps adding to it all the time. We can't go today."

  Parky looked entirely unconvinced. But he knew better than to start off without Neal or Christie. He had done that once during this trip, only to lose himself and Perks. What Father had said to him when they had been found after two hours of anxious search had impressed one fact on him—he was never to go off again without one of the older children along.

  "Someone is coming down the road." Toliver had turned his head to listen. Baron raced away from where he had been standing by Neal to loose a flurry of loud barks. They could see the dust rising from the rutted road now as another truck pulled along toward them through the entrance of the canyon. Christie ran to the house to announce its arrival and the whole of the station erupted into action as if it were the old days and a stage were pulling in w
ith cargo and passengers needing instant attention.

  Lucas Wildhorse drove their truck-van on past the corral to park it in a stretch of field beyond, clearing a space so the men could unload. Boxes and cartons were pulled out, carried in, or left stacked on the dirt-floored porch.

  Libby and Toliver had gone off to help with their own settling in, and the four young Kim-balls found that there was certainly plenty to do. At last, right after a hasty lunch, Mother took Parky and Perks, whose help was often closer to hindrance, and drove off in the station wagon for supplies. Pinto and Father went back and forth, transporting boxes, prying open crates, and Christie and Neal carried until their arms were tired, usually putting things in the wrong places so they had to be moved again.

  There was a lot that had to be done to the station house, as well as having motel cottages built as soon as workmen would come. But there Lucas Wildhorse was a help.

  In the late afternoon he saddled up his horse and rode off cross country to locate Navajos who were willing to work. None of the Kimballs at this time had much to think about except getting their new home in order, and the Plan had to be pushed to the back of both Christie's and Neal's mind.

  It was harder work than they had ever known, this getting things into order. Christie made sandwiches and heated coffee on the stove after Pinto had stopped long enough to light it for her. She was very tired and more than glad to see the station wagon returning near sundown with Mother. Everything still seemed to be in a dreadful muddle, she thought as she sat down thankfully, Shan draped across her knees. It certainly was going to be a long time before everything was in place. Even then, she wondered, would the station ever seem like home?

  Up the Canyon

  "If you really want to be a help, Christie, you can take the twins, and Baron—and Shan—and get them all out of here." Mother was tying on the scarf that kept the dust out of her hair and looking about the big room of the station at the same time early the next morning. There was a frown line between her eyebrows, as if she were seeing a great many things that ought to be done all at once.

  "Take our lunch maybe," Christie suggested, "and have a picnic?"

  "Now that's a good idea, Chris. There is enough peanut butter and jelly and those big buns left over from last night to make sandwiches. I'm sure there're bananas and—just take what you can find. But remember—don't go too far. And don't let the twins out of your sight! You might ask Neal to go with you—if Father does not need him."

  Christie gathered food supplies and went to work. Buns were spread, and there were apples as well as bananas. On another shelf she found half a box of cookies. All could be packed into a basket. Nor did she forget the dry cat food in a sandwich bag, and she dumped the contents of an opened can of dog food into another such container. There—she had everything. Basket secure on her arm, and Shan scuttling ahead on his leash, she went to round up the twins.

  There was plenty of noise and confusion out in the yard. Shan tried to get back into the house again, and Christie got several new claw scratches on hands and arms before she fixed him firmly under one arm. The men who had come out from town this morning to begin the job of changing some of the outbuildings into motel rooms and to lay the foundations for cottages, plus some Navajos, doing all sorts of odds and ends of unpacking and getting ready places for the building materials, the first of which were to be delivered today, were everywhere. Christie found the twins by almost falling over them where they crouched watching.

  "Come on—"

  "No!" Parky did not even look up at her. But Perks saw the picnic basket and pulled at her brother's arm until he shook off her hold.

  "Where, Chris?" Perks asked.

  "On a picnic—" Then an idea struck her— one that might make even Parky come willingly. "We'll go and ask Toliver and Libby about hunting arrowheads— "

  Parky did look up now. "You mean that?"

  "If they can come. Let's go and see. Bring Baron too." She looked for Neal, but he was nowhere to be seen. Better not wait to hunt him up—Parky might change his mind again. Perks caught at Baron's collar and towed the big dog toward the meadow where the Wild-horse van was parked.

  There was Neal with Toliver. Libby was sitting on the wide driver's seat of the truck, sewing. She laid aside her lapful of material and slid down when she saw Christie coming.

  "We've got a picnic." Christie held the basket for them to see. "Mother says we ought to keep away from the station right now while everybody is working. Could we go and hunt arrowheads, if the place is not too far away?"

  "Taking the kids, too?" Neal demanded.

  Parky stopped, his lower lip pushed out a little as he scowled up at his brother.

  "Me'n Perks, we can look for arrowheads just the same as you! Maybe a lot better—so there, Neal Kimball!"

  "Mother said—" Christie began.

  "Oh, all right. What about it, Toliver? Can we all go there or is it too far?"

  "Not far," the Navajo boy answered. "Libby,

  TEN MILE TREASURE

  get the canteens. We'll need to carry water-none up there. Take some grub, too—"

  When they set out on their promised expedition, Toliver took the lead as guide. He wore a small camp ax at his belt, as well as his ever-present knife, and carried two canteens strung on straps over his shoulders. Neal had two more canteens and a flashlight—though why he bothered with that in daytime, Christie did not know—except it was his big camp one and he was proud and careful of it.

  Libby had added more food to the basket that she and Christie now carried between them. The twins were in the middle, where their elders could keep an eye on them.

  They crossed the meadow where Old Timer, Susie, and all the visiting Navajo horses were grazing. Then Toliver turned into a narrow way where big rocks had fallen from the top of the canyon wall, so that they had to twist and turn to get around these.

  Baron suddenly flashed ahead, barking loudly. Christie hoped he was only after a rabbit—not anything larger. What had Pinto said about "big cats"? The dog was hidden by the rocks now and his barks echoed loudly. Ahead was a very narrow space between two huge boulders and Toliver disappeared that way, Neal right behind him.

  "Is that a cave?" Christie slowed a little. "No," Libby told her. "It's open beyond.

  My father thinks someone was blasting back in here a long time ago, maybe trying to open up a way to a mine. It's narrow, but you'll see— it comes out all right."

  It was difficult in some places to wriggle through, and they had to tug once or twice at the basket. Shan pushed and kicked so in Christie's hold, that she had to let Libby take both handles while she controlled him. However, once they were through that rocky part there was another wide-open space before them.

  This was different from the meadow—more like the desert. There were clumps of narrow, swordlike leaves gathered around tall stalks that carried weights of cream white flowers. Farther on was a barrel cactus that stood nearly as tall as Father, and nearby were two -saguaroes, also in bloom. The ground underfoot was dry and crumbled when you walked on it. Just to look around made Christie suddenly feel thirsty.

  Baron was standing with his front feet braced against the canyon wall, still barking loudly at a crevice several inches above his head. Toli-ver swung up on a rock and leaned over to peer into the same break in the stone.

  "Just an old chuckawalla," he reported.

  "What's a chuckawalla?" Parky wanted to know.

  "Big old lizard. You chase him into a hole like this one and he puffs himself up so he fills all the space. Then you can't pull him out. He won't hurt you—all he wants is to be left alone." Toliver slid down from his perch. "Now—" He turned his head slowly, studying the rocky walls that stretched out in a wide curve from the entrance way. "We found our points about over there. They might have been washed down in some flood, though." He gestured to the right.

  Christie made Shan's leash fast to the handles of the basket Libby had already set down and let him go,
sucking the last bleeding scratch he had left across the back of her hand. He crouched there on the sand staring about him in dark suspicion, wearing what the children called his "goblin look."

  The boys shed their canteens, Toliver stopping to test the corking of each carefully, making a pile with the basket. Parky and Perks started to dart away and Christie had to move fast to catch up with them.

  "Toliver," she called, "what about snakes?"

  "Never saw any here. You kids"—he turned and faced the twins, his face as stern as Father's could be sometimes—"don't you go wandering off now. You stick with us, understand?"

  For just a moment Parky looked as if he might argue as he usually did. But, perhaps because it was Toliver and not Christie or Neal who had given that order, he did not protest. He even walked instead of ran to reach the stretch of gravel and sand that might once have been the bed of a stream.

  The Navajo boy squatted down on his heels, studying the gravel closely. "We found those points right about here. They get mixed up with the stones, so you have to look hard to see them."

  Christie sat down, took off her glasses, and mopped her hot face. Here the sun beat down seemingly twice as hard. She wished Baron would stop barking at that chuckawalla thing. His noise hurt one's ears.

  "I found one! I found one!" Perks cried, fanning one arm in the air, her hand closed tight about her treasure.

  "No! You let me see it! I bet you didn't. I just bet you didn't!" Parky's jealous protest drowned her out as he sprang at his sister and tried to catch her hand.

  "It's mine! I found it! Chris, don't let him take it! It's mine!" Perks threw herself back to elude her twin and jumped a drift of gravel to reach her sister. Once at Christie's side, she opened her hand to display a triangle of reddish stone. Toliver came to inspect it critically.

  "It's broken—see— It could be the end of a spear point, maybe, or an extra-large arrowhead. But you're right, Perks, it is a real find!" "Huh, just an old broken one—" Parky snorted.