The Eureka Key

  “Go!” yelled Sam.

  Theo twisted the key hard, and their own engine roared back to life just as a gun went off and a rock close by Sam’s foot exploded into shards. This time there would be no second chances, he realized. If they got caught, they were dead.

  The other ATV bounced down the slope toward them, and Sam hung on hard to Martina as Theo raced the machine down the path of the creek bed. Then the ground softened beneath them and their ATV tipped, two wheels spinning helplessly in the air.

  Sam threw his weight sideways, trying to steady the ATV, and Martina did the same. Another bullet plowed into the earth to their right. But they got all the wheels on the ground, and Theo drove out of the creek bed, tearing up a small hill and crashing down onto flatter land beyond.

  The other ATV struggled up the hill behind them, and a second was close on its tail. To his right, Sam saw Scotty’s Castle again, outlined against the darkening sky. The white van was careening down a hill from the castle’s parking lot, headed straight toward them.

  “We can’t outrun them!” Theo shouted as he drove.

  Sam knew he was right. If they went straight, they’d be shot. If they wove back and forth across the landscape, they’d be a more difficult target to hit, but they’d lose speed.

  “Just keep going!” he yelled.

  Theo twisted the handlebars, aiming the ATV at a gap between two low hills perhaps fifty yards away. A third bullet whined through the air above them; Sam ducked, pushing Martina down too. They both clung on, lurching from side to side as the ATV raced across the desert.

  The hills were getting closer. Maybe they’d make it to the gap. That could get them out of their pursuers’ sight for a minute or two. And then what?

  Suddenly a fierce white light blazed into his face.

  Headlights! Another vehicle had barreled out of the gap between the hills, right into their path.

  Theo tried to turn, but he was going too fast. The ATV skidded across packed dirt. Martina cried out. Sam tightened all his muscles, bracing for impact.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The ATV tipped again, rising up on its two right wheels. Blinded by light and dust, breathing in clouds of choking grit, Sam lost his grip on Martina and went tumbling across the dirt, crashing into a thorny bush.

  For a few panicked seconds, he couldn’t breathe or move. Then, slowly, the vise-grip across his chest loosened and he managed to cough. He peeled his eyes open, unable to see anything but brightness. Was this the shining light everybody always talked about in the afterlife? Was he about to hear a deep voice welcoming him to eternity, and perhaps mentioning that time he’d stolen the tadpoles from the science lab and dumped them into the water cooler in the teachers’ lounge?

  No, he was actually blinking in the glare of headlights that belonged to a massive SUV, screeching to a stop not three feet from where Sam was lying.

  Someone was shouting, “It’s them!” Doors were banging open; people were jumping out of the vehicle. Sam groaned. He was dusty, tired, and bruised, and he didn’t think he could run away from anybody anymore.

  “Theodore?” A tall, slender figure was striding through the light-flare.

  “It’s us, Evangeline,” Theo called. “Sam? Marty? You okay?”

  Theo had picked himself up and was walking toward the woman who Sam now recognized as Evangeline. She wore a rumpled tan coat, and wisps of steel-gray hair had escaped from her bun. She looked older somehow, as if the past twelve hours had aged her twelve years. When her eyes met Sam’s, he saw her thin shoulders sink with relief.

  Martina was on her hands and knees, groping around for her glasses. Sam kicked and crawled his way out of the bush, ignoring the stinging scratches. Evangeline had about half a dozen people with her, who were all wearing park ranger uniforms.

  Saved, Sam thought. And not a moment too soon.

  Gideon Arnold’s white van was still coming toward them, now about fifty yards away. The two ATVs were hanging back, perhaps waiting to see what happened next, but as Sam watched, the van approached and braked, bouncing a little on its wheels, and Flintlock and Arnold both stepped out.

  Park rangers didn’t carry guns, did they? Sam felt his stomach do a quick, queasy roll. What if Arnold decided that he wanted the kids back, and didn’t care how many witnesses he had to . . . remove? This was the man who’d tortured Evangeline’s father to death, after all. Presumably a few park rangers wouldn’t mean all that much to him.

  But Arnold paused and smoothed his hair with one hand. Sam could see his mind working as his eyes roamed over the scene: Evangeline, talking urgently to Theo; Sam and Martina on the ground; park rangers taking in the scene.

  Evangeline stepped out in front of Theo, like a lioness protecting her cub, and faced Gideon Arnold.

  Sam could almost hear the hatred sizzling between them. “Well, finally,” Arnold said as he straightened his suit jacket with a tug and advanced toward them. “I’m so glad to see an authority figure has arrived. These kids—we saw them on the road, and of course we knew they had no business out alone at night. We tried to flag them down, but they just took off across the desert. I was terribly worried they’d get lost or hurt. Very reckless behavior. I trust you’ll speak to their parents? Or their”—his eyes rested on Evangeline—“guardian?”

  Sam, his throat full of dust, nearly choked on the hugeness of Gideon’s lies. “Hey!” he spluttered. He staggered to his feet. Martina did too. “That’s not—”

  “I am their guardian,” Evangeline said coldly. “I’ll certainly be speaking to them about their . . . behavior.”

  “Wait a second!” Sam protested again. But before he could continue, Theo made a face at him and shook his head.

  “You are very kind to be so concerned. I will take responsibility from here.” Each word of Evangeline’s was edged as sharply as a razor. The rangers looked from one to the other, baffled by the tension that seemed about to make the dry desert air burst into flames.

  “Very good, madam,” Arnold said. “Well, we should be on our way then.”

  “Yes,” Evangeline hissed. “You should.”

  Arnold jerked his head at Flintlock and they quickly returned to the white van. The engine started up, and they were gone in a matter of seconds, followed closely by the men on the ATVs.

  Sam stumbled to Evangeline’s side. “You’re letting him go?” he asked under his breath. “But we could—”

  “—have him arrested!” Martina finished for him. “Kidnapping. Assault. He hit Sam! And Theo! He was going to shoot us!”

  “Would you mind explaining what’s going on here?” said one of the rangers. Theo gave his head a quick jerk, warning them both to keep silent. It wasn’t easy, but Sam swallowed his protests.

  “It’s nothing,” said Theo. “We just got bored with the sightseeing tour and took off on our own. Couldn’t find our way back and got lost.”

  The head ranger looked skeptical and annoyed. “Do you kids have any idea how lucky you are?” he said. “The next time you decide to wander off from a guided tour, think twice, okay?”

  “We’re sorry, sir,” Theo said. “It won’t happen again.”

  Sam grumbled under his breath. “Lucky” wasn’t exactly the term he’d have used.

  The rangers handed out water bottles, examined bruises, bandaged scrapes—Sam had not even realized how many spots were bleeding—and one gave Sam an ice pack for his aching cheek.

  “How did you find us?” Martina asked Evangeline while one of the rangers was checking out Theo’s shoulder.

  Evangeline nodded at Theo, a few feet away, who was pulling his T-shirt back over his head. Sam glimpsed a tiny black square on his chest before the T-shirt hid it from view.

  “Theodore has a satellite beacon, for emergencies. I’ve been monitoring it constantly since the three of you disappeared on that canyon tour. For a long time there was no signal at all, which was worrisome.”

  “We were underground,” Martina explained. ??
?All that rock would have blocked the signal.”

  “I see.” Evangeline looked wary, throwing a sideways glance toward the rangers nearby. “In any case, I kept an eye on the satellite signal, and not long ago, it came back online, showing a location near Scotty’s Castle. I gathered reinforcements and got here as quickly as I could.”

  Martina shivered. “I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t.”

  Evangeline gave her a considering look and then a surprisingly warm smile. “I don’t know either, Miss Wright. But I expect you would have done something.”

  Martina blushed a little.

  “At any rate,” Evangeline continued, “I look forward to hearing more about your . . . adventures.”

  “Ms. Temple?” one of the rangers called. “We’d better be heading back.”

  “Yes, of course,” Evangeline agreed. The rangers moved out of earshot as they packed all the first-aid gear back in the SUV.

  “Did you get it?” Evangeline whispered as Theo reached her side.

  Sam knew what she meant. The Eureka Key—the one that was in Gideon Arnold’s pocket right now.

  He drew a breath, ready to answer her, when the look on Theo’s face stopped him. Old stone-faced Theo was smiling. But why?

  Theo put a hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out—a key?

  “But you gave it to Arnold!” Sam said. “I saw you!”

  “You saw me give him a key,” Theo said. “But not this one. Remember the key with the eagle on its handle? I grabbed it, down in the vault. When I went to check on the guy who got electrocuted, the eagle key was lying there on the floor, right beside him. After Arnold hit you—which was an excellent diversion, thank you, Sam—I switched the keys.”

  “You’re so welcome,” Sam muttered, rubbing his sore face.

  “I handed Arnold the fake key and slipped the real one into my pocket,” Theo went on. “He didn’t know what it was supposed to look like—only Flintlock did.”

  “I can’t believe you got away with that,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Man, Theo, looks like you didn’t need to win a contest to prove you’re a genius.” Theo blushed and gave Sam a playful punch in the arm.

  Evangeline was deaf to their banter. She reached out a trembling hand, and Theo gently laid the key in her palm.

  “I never thought I’d hold this,” she murmured reverently. “Well done.” She closed her fingers around the key and stowed it away inside her purse.

  “I couldn’t have done it without these two,” Theo said. “They know about the Founders, Evangeline. I had to tell them.”

  Evangeline nodded. “How much do they know?”

  Sam spoke up. “Not nearly enough. It took him a while even just to tell us that we weren’t actually on a sightseeing trip.” He thought Evangeline looked a little bit guilty. “And maybe somebody wants to let me in on why we just let that Arnold guy drive off into the desert?”

  “Gideon Arnold has friends in very high places,” Evangeline told him. “He wouldn’t spend long in jail, I assure you. And questions from the police would mean publicity for things we must keep secret.” Her eyes met Sam’s. Sam had to fight the urge to take a step backward. Evangeline could look scary when she wanted to.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Solomon,” Evangeline went on, as the rangers beckoned them toward the SUV. “We’ll deal with Gideon Arnold on our own terms. But we will deal with him. I promise you that.”

  Morning light touched Sam’s face gently. Opening his eyes, he was relieved to see the white walls of his hotel room around him. He rolled over, trying to burrow back into the pillow, but the movement woke a hundred tiny but insistent pains in his back, shoulders, and legs. Muscles that had done more climbing, swimming, falling, running, and scrambling yesterday than Sam had ever done in his life were shouting at him.

  Sam gave up. He wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. Heaving himself upright, he looked down and realized he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, caked with dirt and dust and a fair bit of blood. Yuck. He stripped them off and stumbled into the shower, letting hot water wash away the dirt and the worst of the aches.

  When he stepped out of the shower, he wiped the mirror clean and took a look at his face. His cheek, where Arnold had hit him, had darkened to a remarkable shade of purple. There were scrapes on both elbows and another eye-catching bruise across his left shoulder—had that happened when he’d fallen off the ATV? Or when they’d fallen down the mine shaft? And the bush he’d landed in had scribbled scratches across his face and hands as well.

  Under all the injuries, though, did his face itself look different? Sam squinted into the mirror, trying to figure it out.

  Was he still the Sam who’d nearly missed a plane in Las Vegas? The one who’d begged his mom to let him go on this trip, promising that it would change him? Or was he the Sam who’d faced down bad guys, found a secret key, and discovered more about the history of his country than he’d ever imagined?

  Too complicated a question to ask on an empty stomach. There had been some food last night, he thought, after a ride back to the Furnace Creek Ranch that he only hazily remembered. But apparently it hadn’t been enough. He could consider deep philosophical questions after he’d eaten some bacon.

  Probably a lot of bacon.

  He pulled on clean jeans and a T-shirt and headed for the door, looking down when he heard a slight crunch beneath his foot. He’d stepped on a piece of paper. Picking it up, he saw that there was a message written on it in swirly handwriting: Meet me on the portico.

  Sam detoured by the breakfast buffet first.

  When he reached the covered entranceway to the ranch’s main building, he saw Evangeline sitting in a rocking chair, sipping a cup of coffee, with Theo by her side.

  Theo, wearing a white button-down shirt over his jeans, looked all serious again, just as he had when Sam had first met him. Evangeline was gazing out over the view. She wore a sleeveless dress with a wrap over her shoulders. On her left arm, the wrap had slipped down, and Sam could see a tattoo, standing out clearly against her fair skin. It was exactly like Theo’s, except for one thing—inside the one-eyed pyramid, where Theo’s tattoo had a sword, Evangeline’s tattoo had a key.

  Evangeline didn’t seem to notice that Sam had arrived. Sam, munching on a breakfast burrito, looked out over the landscape to see if he could spot what she was looking at.

  The early morning light was spilling down the slopes of pale-brown mountains, and stretching over miles and miles of hills, tawny with dry grass and brush. Little clouds, pale pink and soft orange, floated in a sky bluer than any Sam had ever seen.

  On the lawn, an American flag flapped gently in the soft breeze. “‘Oh, say, can you see,’” Evangeline murmured tunefully, almost to herself, “‘by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed, at the twilight’s last gleaming?’”

  If there was going to be singing, Sam hoped he could get away with standing in the back row and moving his lips.

  “Do you know what that song refers to, Mr. Solomon?”

  Sam stopped mid-chew. So Evangeline did notice his arrival. “Um, no,” he said through a mouthful. He’d never really thought about it. It was just the national anthem, just something to get through as quickly as possible so the baseball game could start.

  “The British attack on Fort McHenry.” Now Evangeline did turn her head to look at Sam. “In Baltimore, during the War of 1812. The British shelled the fort all night long. But when the sun rose in the morning, the Stars and Stripes was still flying. The Americans had won.”

  “Oh.” Sam swallowed.

  “It amazed many at the time,” Evangeline continued. “How a force that seemed so weak at first could prevail against such overpowering strength. But you know all about that, don’t you, Mr. Solomon?”

  To his intense embarrassment, Sam felt himself blushing.

  “You did very well yesterday. You and Miss Wright. Theodore filled me in on the details.” Evangeline’s e
xpression turned serious. “You were angry at him, and at me as well. But I hope you can understand why we needed to be sure we could trust you. These secrets . . . no one outside the Founders has ever been entrusted with them before.”

  Sam felt the heat in his cheeks draining away. “I don’t like being kept in the dark,” he answered her.

  “Of course. But you’ve met Gideon Arnold now, so you must understand why we needed to keep silent,” Evangeline went on. “After what happened with the plane, I was almost sure you were on our side. But I wanted to be absolutely certain before I told you the truth. I had no idea that Arnold and his followers would move so quickly. Still, I owe you an apology.”

  Sam didn’t know what to say. He’d done plenty of apologizing to adults in his time, but he thought this might be the first time an adult had actually apologized to him. “It’s okay,” he said. “I mean, not exactly okay. But, um, I understand. And I accept your apology.”

  Now Theo really was smiling. And Evangeline too. It was surprising what a difference it made on her thin, severe face.

  “Did I miss anything?” It was Martina’s voice. She had arrived on the portico as well, with another of Evangeline’s notes in her hand.

  “I was telling Mr. Solomon how impressed I was with your performance yesterday. When courage and cleverness come together, there is little they can’t accomplish.”

  Now it was Martina’s turn to blush. Sam was just glad to have Evangeline’s attention on someone else long enough for him to finish off his burrito. “You have seen, now, what we face,” Evangeline went on. “Gideon Arnold will stop at nothing to get his hands on my ancestor’s weapon. He has killed for it, and he is more than willing to kill again.” For a moment her eyes went back out to the flag, now flapping more strongly in the breeze, and Sam remembered that it was her father who Arnold had killed.

  “If Arnold gets what he wants,” she went on, “there is no telling what kind of destruction he might cause. So I ask you both—will you continue with us? You’ve heard what happened during the Civil War—well, we need to do that again. We have Franklin’s key, but there are six more artifacts we need to find before we can recover the Founders’ weapon. All of them must be taken to safety now that the secret locations have been compromised. And with so many of the other Founders missing or unwilling to help—” Evangeline paused, the worry plain on her face. “I would trust Theodore with my very life, such is my faith in him. But one young man, even with my help, cannot do this alone. I’m afraid you children are our only hope.” She took a deep breath and looked at Sam and Martina. “I know it’s unfair of me to ask this of you, but I have no choice. So I’ll ask again: Will you join us?”