Erin shrugged. “Eh. Doesn’t matter. Results are the same.”
As Erin wrapped, Willie started to fill the cooler that was on hand. Erin added some boxes of juice from the fridge, napkins, cookies, cut up fruit and veggies.
Willie shook his head. “All of this for one day? It’s a feast.”
“I know how much you guys eat. There’s not going to be much left over. Especially if we end up covering for two meals. You guys will be like the plague of locusts.”
“I don’t know. This looks like a lot.”
“When you’re hungry it won’t be. Especially with Jeremy along.”
They were finally finished getting everything packed. Willie waited impatiently for a couple more minutes while Erin and Vic gave the animals their treats and said their goodbyes.
“You’re going to be back tonight,” he pointed out. “It isn’t like you’re going away for a week.”
“We’ll be back,” Erin agreed. She scratched Marshmallow’s ears. “Don’t you go getting getting into any trouble.” She shook her head. “He’s has been crazy lately. He’s been getting into the houseplants, chewing on the legs of the couch… I don’t know what to think. He’s always been so well-behaved before.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine without you for a few hours.”
“I know.” Erin said goodbye to Orange Blossom, and then they were on their way. Willie led them out to the truck. He went around to the driver’s side. When he looked at Vic, she hadn’t climbed into the car, but was standing outside looking down.
“Vic. What’s up?”
“No, it’s what’s down,” Vic said.
Willie walked back around the car and looked down at the tire. It was completely flat.
Willie swore. He replayed the trip over to Erin’s house back in his mind and shook his head. It had been a perfectly smooth ride with no issues. Which meant that it had somehow gone from fully inflated to completely flat in the twenty minutes or so he had been in the house trying to get Erin and Vic on their way.
“You must have driven over a nail,” Vic said, studying what she could see of the tread for the head of a nail.
“Must have,” Willie agreed. He went to the back of the truck and moved things around in order to get out his jack and spare tire and the rest of the tools that he needed. Erin stood by feeling useless while Vic and Willie quickly swapped out the flat tire. While Willie put on the spare, Vic was rolling the flat, looking for some sign of why it had gone flat.
When Willie was finished, he went over to look at the tire. “Find anything?”
Vic turned it around and pointed to the wall of the tire. Willie leaned in. Vic pressed her thumb to the sidewall and Willie saw the small slit open up. He looked at Vic, his brows drawing down. “Somebody slashed my tire?”
Vic nodded.
Erin got closer to have a look, though she was certainly no expert on sabotage to tires. She saw the short, straight slit in the tire. “Couldn’t it just have popped or burst? It could just be an accident, right?”
“No,” Willie shook his head. “I don’t think so. That looks intentional.”
“But who would slash your tire?”
Willie walked around the truck, looking at the others. If some unknown party had slashed one of his tires, Willie was lucky he hadn’t slashed all four of them. Maybe he had been interrupted. Or maybe the perp had just chickened out and couldn’t do more than one. At least where it was only one tire, they could fix it immediately and get back on the road.
“There are plenty of people around Bald Eagle Falls who don’t particularly like me,” he admitted. “I would think that most of them wouldn’t care anymore. It isn’t like I’m getting in anyone’s way. I would think that anyone who planned to do anything would have done so years ago.”
“You haven’t started anything recently that someone might be upset with you about?” Vic asked.
Willie shook his head. “No, nothing new.”
“Then do you think…” Vic trailed off.
Willie looked at her. “What?”
“I just wondered if you think it’s because someone doesn’t want us going to Orson’s mine. Maybe this is a warning to stay away. Or an attempt to get us to stop so they can get there ahead of us…”
Willie let out his breath in a thin stream. “I don’t think anyone really cares that much about this treasure hunt,” he said slowly. “Although…”
“Erin got hit over the head for the maps and poem,” Vic filled in. “So, we know that someone is taking an interest. Someone who maybe followed us all the way from Bald Eagle Falls to the hospital. And then stuck around for hours to see you give Erin the maps.”
Willie nodded slowly. Erin didn’t like the idea. “Maybe we shouldn’t go, then. Maybe it’s too dangerous. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Willie loaded the damaged tire into the back of the truck, then put away his tools. He looked at Erin, his face a mask. “I don’t think you need to worry about it. If they really wanted to keep me from the mine, they’d know that they had to do a lot more than just puncture one tire. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m handy and that I’ve got all the tools I need right here in the truck. There’s no point in just flattening one tire.”
“So you don’t think it was intentional.”
“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But they didn’t flatten all four, which is what they’d really need to do to slow us down for any length of time. Then I’d need a tow and four new tires before I could get on the road. Just slashing one tire… More likely someone who just has a grudge. Doesn’t like something I’ve been doing lately. I don’t know who or why. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go to the mine today. Then you have a few days to think about it and investigate properly…”
Willie motioned to the truck. “Hop in. I’m not letting this stop me.”
Vic got in as instructed. Willie went around to the driver’s door again and got in. Erin was the only one left standing on the sidewalk, dithering about whether it was the right thing to do.
“Get in, Erin,” Vic urged. “Come on. We’re going. We’ll pick up Jeremy and between all of us, we’ll be just fine. No one is going to come after all of us.”
Erin was still uneasy when they got to Orson’s farm. But Vic and Jeremy were talking and laughing as if nothing had happened, and Willie didn’t seem to be overly concerned about who might have tried to sabotage his truck. No one acted like it was a big deal.
Willie was a lot faster going over the old roads than Vic had been, and a couple of times they overshot a turn. Erin felt rattled to pieces when they got there and was glad to get out of the truck.
Willie got out and started to circle the truck and tramp back and forth over the area where they had parked, the same place that Vic and Erin had previously stopped to have a look around. He was looking down at the ground. Erin followed him.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just checking for any signs that anyone else has been here.”
“And… has there been?”
“Impossible to tell.” Willie shrugged. “If someone has been here, they didn’t make it obvious. Everything is so overgrown, there’s no way to know if they were trying to cover their tracks or if there just hasn’t been anyone around. At any rate,” Willie took a look around the farm, “it doesn’t look like there’s anyone here now. So why don’t you show me the mine entrances. We’ll have a look at their condition. That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?”
Erin and Vic took the lead, taking Willie to the place they had taken pictures of the entrances to the mines. They too were overgrown, and Erin was sure that all of the supporting beams and structures had given way. It was way too dangerous for anyone to go into the mines in their current condition.
“Not bad,” Willie said, which was not what Erin was hoping to hear. Willie pulled out a strong flashlight and shone it around the inside of the entrances. “It all looks pretty clear. Lot
s of solid rock, so it’s held up pretty well.”
He took a couple of steps inside.
“Do you really think you should do that?” Erin asked, her voice squeaking up. He had said that he wouldn’t go inside. He’d said that he would just look at it. She wasn’t ready for him to go in.
“I’m just right here, Erin,” Willie assured, his voice close at hand. “I’m not doing anything dangerous. Just having a look at the condition.”
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything in there. If there was anything to be found, then someone would have found it in the last hundred and fifty years. Even if Orson did hide the source of his treasure, it has long since been raided. People would have looked at the mines before anything else. Well, maybe the house first, but the mines would be the natural place for anyone to search for it.”
“Don’t freak out now,” Vic advised. “Why don’t you go sit down? If you don’t look at the mines, maybe you’ll be able to calm down.”
Erin moved a short distance away and sat down, but it didn’t make her feel better. Not with Willie already inside the mine, and Jeremy and Vic super close behind him, hanging around the tunnel entrances and talking and pointing and thumping the walls. Erin knew that it wouldn’t be long before they all decided to go in.
Chapter Twenty-Two
S
he was right. Within the hour, Willie had brought over half the equipment in his truck. He was suiting up and showing Vic and Jeremy how to handle their equipment, even though Vic had been caving with him before. Erin bit her fingernails. She knew she didn’t have any influence over them. If they wanted to go into the mine, they were going to go into the mine. And Erin couldn’t control what would happen to them when they did, and neither could they. They could make the choice, but they couldn’t choose the consequences.
“It will be fine, Erin,” Vic said as she pulled a backpack on. “Willie says it’s perfectly safe. Everything still looks strong. There aren’t any loose beams or rocks or anything. Everything was built really well. It’s in better shape than the house, and you went into the house.”
At least if the house had collapsed on them, there would only have been a few boards coming down on their heads. Not half the mountain. They would have been able to push themselves out from beneath the debris. It wasn’t the same with crawling into a mining tunnel. They could easily be hurt or killed if there was a cave-in and they ended up being hit, buried, or trapped by falling rock.
“I just don’t have a good feeling about it,” Erin said, shaking her head. She wished that she hadn’t told anybody about the poem. She should have just read it and left it there in Clementine’s papers. Clementine had known what she was doing. Just put the poem in with the genealogy papers and leave it there as a bit of history. What had made Erin think that it was a good idea to go searching for hidden treasure? Why had she told Vic about it? She should have known that Vic would instantly want to pick up the adventure. She was always up for a bit of excitement.
“You don’t have a good feeling because you’re afraid of enclosed spaces,” Vic pointed out. “It isn’t anything to do with these particular mines. It’s just a bad feeling because you had a couple of bad experiences. You can’t let that stop you from enjoying life.”
“I really don’t think you should go in there,” Erin insisted. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes, but she didn’t care anymore. Let them see her tears. Maybe it would convince them that what they were doing really was dangerous and unnecessary. What did they think? That they were going to go walking into one of those mining tunnels and just find Orson’s treasure, lying in the open? Other people had looked for the treasure. They weren’t going to find it.
“Erin.” Willie approached Erin. He gave her a hug. “It’s going to be okay. You don’t need to worry about us. If you want to come in, I’ll show you. You can see that it’s sturdily-built and there isn’t any danger to us.”
His arms felt good around her. For a minute, Erin just closed her eyes and reminded herself that she was safe. They were all perfectly safe in Willie’s capable hands. She knew he was careful. He didn’t rush into things. He knew how to handle himself in an emergency. Even if something did happen, Willie would be able to take care of it. He had always come to her rescue before.
“Don’t go in there,” she told him anyway.
“Do you want to see? I’ll show you.”
“No. Just don’t go in.”
He shook his head and gave her another squeeze before releasing her. “It’s going to be okay; you’ll see.”
Erin couldn’t help it. Tears escaped her eyes and she turned away from them, trying to find some mental space to get past the feelings of fear and dread.
She could hear Vic inquiring softly, questioning whether maybe they should just give it up if Erin felt so strongly about it. But Willie murmured that Erin would be okay and that she’d settle down once they were inside, and the little group went ahead.
Erin didn’t say goodbye to them. She watched them enter the mine one at a time, just waiting for something to happen. But there wasn’t a collapse the minute they walked into the mine. She could hear their voices, cheerful and excited, as they started to explore. She stayed near the entrance for a long time, until their voices had faded away. Nothing had happened. They were okay. Just like Willie had said, the mine tunnel was well-constructed and would probably last several hundred more years. Orson had known what he was doing.
They would explore the empty tunnels, see where Orson had dug looking for gold or whatever he had been mining for, and then they would be back out. Even though they had brought enough food for a couple of meals, they would only spend a couple of hours exploring the tunnels, and then decide that there wasn’t anything down there. They would all pile back into the truck and go home.
Thinking about the truck, Erin went back to the vehicle to ensure that everything was still in order with it. She walked around it, checking out each of the tires. It was always possible that whoever had slashed the one tire had intended to do them all. He could easily have followed them there, and then once Willie and the others were in the mine, he could sabotage the rest of the tires and strand them.
But everything looked fine. The tires were all fully inflated and there were no other vehicles around. Birds were singing lustily in the trees. A light wind was blowing through the trees. Everything was calm and peaceful.
There was a muffled thud. Erin felt the ground beneath her feet give a shudder, and the birds stopped singing.
A plume of dust or smoke rose in the air.
Chapter Twenty-Three
E
rin looked around. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she knew something was wrong. She looked at the truck once more, worried that if someone had messed with it, they wouldn’t be able to get back home. But the truck looked fine. Erin pulled out her phone and looked at it. She had no signal. She hadn’t expected to have one, but it still made her anxious not to be able to reach out. How had Orson and the other farmers been able to live that way, totally out of touch with each other? No way to communicate unless they got on a horse—or their own two feet—and physically went to find the nearest neighbor. And maybe he would not be there, having gone into town or to some other destination.
During Erin’s time, all of those neighbors had moved away, into the cities and other populated centers, leaving the old farms abandoned and isolated.
Erin walked back to the mine entrance. She walked closer to the entrance and listened for their voices.
“Vic? Willie? Is everything okay”
Her voice bounced back to her. Erin had a sick, tight feeling in her stomach. Something wasn’t right. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew there was a problem. What had happened?
“Vic?”
Willie had given Erin check-in times. If they took more than a few hours in the mine and didn’t check in with her, then she was to assume that something had happened and to call for help. She would
not go into the mine after them, she would get in touch with someone who could do a proper search.
“Willie?”
There was no answer. Erin looked at her phone for the time. They had not been in there for long. It wasn’t time for them to contact her. She went to the radio equipment Willie had left behind. It wouldn’t work if they had gone down too deep into the ground, but Willie hadn’t thought that the tunnels were very deep. Not like some of the caves that he had been in before.
Erin fiddled with the emergency radio. He had shown her how to use it, but everything he had said had gone straight out of Erin’s mind. She turned the volume up and clicked the button on the microphone.
“Willie? Can you hear me?”
There was only crackling in response. Erin listened closely, trying to hear through the crackle for Willie’s voice. She could just see him rolling his eyes at Vic and making a comment about how she couldn’t go two minutes without assuming that something catastrophic had occurred. She waited for his reassuring voice, but couldn’t hear anything.
“Willie? Are you there? Come in, please.”
Still no response. Erin looked around. The birds were singing once more. A crow circled way up high in the sky up above her, and Erin was reminded of Skye, Adele’s crow. He was so smart. Adele had said that crows were one of the smartest birds, approaching human intelligence.
“At least, we assume by the tests that we have done on them that they are almost as smart as humans,” Adele remarked. “I happen to think that they may just be smarter. How would you test an animal to see if it was smarter than you? Humans only assume that they are the smartest species on the planet. But that’s a little arrogant.”
“Hey Skye,” Erin said softly, looking up at the bird. Of course it wasn’t Skye. It was another crow. But she was still encouraged to have the bird fly over her, feeling like she wasn’t quite so alone.
“Willie. Vic. Jeremy. Come in, please.”
She thought she might have heard a squawk back, but she couldn’t make out any words. Erin clicked the mike button and released it. Where were they and why weren’t they answering? They shouldn’t already be so deep that Erin couldn’t reach them.
Apple-achian Treasure (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 8) Page 14
