“I wonder how it will get out of the net,” Delilah said, her brow furrowing. “I hate to leave it there like that.”
Simon looked incredulous. “It almost bit me!”
“I know, but that’s not its fault. That’s just what snakes do,” Delilah countered.
“Oh, it can get out of there,” Jack said confidently. “Rattlesnakes are tricky.” He proceeded to fire off a volley of facts about rattlesnakes that he’d learned from his library book, including that they could strike at a distance that was two-thirds of their length, that they could smell with their tongues, that they shed their fangs every two months, and that people could die as soon as six hours after a bite.
“Really? Six hours?” Delilah said. “That is not very much time to get help if you’re out hiking.”
“Okay, can we stop talking about this now?” Simon asked, taking the backpack from Jack and pushing past him into the lead.
“Why?” Jack said. “Did you know rattlesnake bites aren’t always poisonous? Most of the time they are, but the snake can decide how much poison to put in when it bites. Sometimes they don’t put in any.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to count on that,” Simon said. “We should probably watch out for these piles of rocks along the trail. They’re a good hiding place for snakes.”
Henry could tell he was annoyed that Jack was the one spouting off facts for a change. It was the way Henry himself sometimes felt when one of his brothers used an unusual word … that they were crowding into his territory, and if they started doing that, what about him would be so special anymore?
“Yeah,” Henry agreed, still too shaken up by the encounter to discuss it further.
Soberly and more tentatively now, they continued along the hint of a trail.
“When will we get to the canyon?” Jack complained.
“Soon,” Simon told him. “Soon.”
CHAPTER 24
INTO THE CANYON
FINALLY, THEY REACHED the woods. It was cooler here, with the trees shading the rocky path. Through their sparse branches, Henry could see the sun high in the sky. The silence seemed heavier now, the mountain a place resistant to ordinary sounds. He glanced over his shoulder. Still no sign of anyone following them, thank goodness, but there was always the strange shivery feeling of being watched.
“We’re getting close now,” Simon cried, jubilant. “Come on, pick up the pace.” He hesitated, flashing a quick look at Delilah. But she tromped steadily after them, frowning with concentration.
Jack barreled ahead. “Hey!” he yelled moments later. “The CANYON! We’re here!”
And there it was. Henry caught his breath as the ground fell away. Suddenly, they were standing on the edge of the steep-walled ravine. The sun glinted off the brown rock. He could see exactly where Delilah had slipped, scraping and bumping all the way down, until she landed in a heap on the canyon floor. And some sixty feet below, there was the pebbly path of the creek bed where he found the saddlebag, and the gray-green shrub where he’d hidden it.
“Look,” he said to Delilah, pointing. “That’s the bush where I hid the saddlebag, after we took out the map and the pouch of coins … and the gold.”
She nodded. “I remember.” She rubbed her shirt across her forehead, wiping away the sweat and dust. “Hey … do you think we’ll find my dad’s compass?” she asked softly.
Henry scanned the rough slopes. There were so many rocky outcroppings and crevices. It was strange to see the ledge where the skulls had been, empty now. “Maybe,” he said doubtfully.
“I really need to find it,” Delilah said.
“I know,” Henry told her. And he did.
Simon walked along the edge of the cliff, surveying the canyon wall. Finally, he stopped. “We should go down here. It’s not as steep, and there are plenty of places to put your feet.”
Then he looked at Delilah’s cast. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for us up here?”
She glared at him. “No! I’m coming too. I haven’t slowed you down yet.”
“The climb up the mountain was nothing compared to this. You already fell once, without a cast.”
“You can shut up about that,” Delilah grumbled.
“I’m just worried it’ll be too hard for you,” Simon said, with a more appeasing tone.
“That’s for ME to decide,” Delilah said. “Not you.”
“Okay, okay,” Simon said. “Don’t get mad.” He looked back at the steep wall of the canyon and ran his hand through his hair.
“We’ll just have to go down more carefully,” Henry said. “You go first and Delilah can follow you.”
Simon shook his head. He slipped off his backpack and crouched on the ground, unzipping the main compartment.
“We’ll use the jump ropes,” he said. “I’ll tie them together, then around my waist and Delilah’s, in case she loses her balance.”
That was a good idea, Henry thought. It would be safer for all of them than if Delilah slipped and knocked into them on the way down.
“I’m not going to lose my—” Delilah began, but Simon cut her off.
“Listen, we’re letting you come with us,” he said. “I’m not going to get yelled at when you break your other leg. We’re doing it this way.”
Henry nodded at Delilah. Simon was right. “That’s what a real explorer would do,” he told her.
Delilah’s cheeks reddened, the freckles blazing. “Okay,” she said finally.
Simon dug the jump ropes out of the backpack and knotted them securely together. Then he looped the long piece of rope around his waist, tied it tightly, and did the same to Delilah.
Henry peered at the jumble of supplies in the backpack. He saw the metal trough of the little shovel. “Hey,” he said. “I can go first and use the shovel to dig footholds for you wherever there isn’t a good one.” That seemed like a real explorer thing to do too; like something Uncle Hank would have thought of.
“That’s a great idea, Hen,” Simon said enthusiastically. “It’ll make it easier for Delilah with the cast.”
“I don’t need—” she started to protest, but at their combined expressions, she shut up.
“Does that mean I’m last?” Jack demanded. “I want to go first.”
“You’ve been first almost the whole way up the mountain,” Simon told him. “That wouldn’t be fair. Follow me and put your hands and feet wherever we do.”
Jack’s lower lip pushed out and he looked crestfallen, which reminded Henry again that he was only six. But it was hard for Jack to disagree with a “fairness” argument, since he relied on those so often himself.
“Come on, Jack,” Henry encouraged. “Let’s find that gold.” He zipped up the black backpack and pulled it over both shoulders. Jack reluctantly took Delilah’s pink one, leaving Simon and Delilah free to navigate the canyon wall unencumbered. With the spade in one hand, Henry clambered over the rim of rocks and began to climb down the side of the canyon. The pebbly ground shimmered in the sunlight, far below.
CHAPTER 25
MISSING
WITH HENRY LEADING the way, they descended into the canyon. Henry tucked the spade in the back of his pants, below the backpack, where he could get to it more easily. He lowered himself gingerly over the rough rocks. He would feel blindly with one sneaker till he found a notch or shelf, then step down, gripping the rocks with both hands. Fiercely concentrating on the contours of the canyon wall, he tried not to look beyond the next foothold. The sight of the canyon floor so far below, and the memory of Delilah tumbling down the side, made him sick to his stomach.
“How are you doing?” Simon asked him. “We can go faster if you can.”
“Yeah, faster!” Jack echoed.
Delilah, rope tight around her waist, was following with surprising agility, using her hands to hold her weight and putting her good foot down first, the cast dragging uselessly behind.
“You’re pretty good at this,” Simon said begrudgingly. “Much better than I e
xpected.”
“Well, I’m strong,” Delilah said nonchalantly. “I can do pull-ups. When we do the bent-arm hang in gym, I’m always best or second best in the class.”
Henry himself was terrible at the bent-arm hang. Of all the goofy exercises and contests that were required in gym class, he considered it the most humiliating.
“I guess you’re better with your arms than your legs,” he said, looking pointedly at her cast.
But Delilah was unfazed. “No, I’m good with both,” she said. “Breaking my leg was just a freak accident. I never broke anything before that.”
“Well, you’re doing a really good job of climbing down,” Simon said. “Henry, you can go faster.”
Henry sighed and reapplied himself to the descent. The heat was oppressive. He could feel the mountain’s stern judgement gathering around them. Suddenly, he heard a muffled crack and a rumbling noise.
“Look out!” Simon yelled, just as a large boulder above them dislodged and began rolling down the canyon wall.
“Whoa!” Jack cried, shrinking back.
“Stay where you are!” Simon shouted. Delilah cowered.
Henry gripped the side of the canyon and pressed himself flat against it. The large rock tumbled past him, mere feet away, bouncing and rolling to the canyon floor. As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The thundering crack of it lingered in the air.
“Wow, that was a close one!” Jack cried. “If it had been right above us, it could have knocked us all down—wham! wham! wham! wham!—like dominoes.”
Henry secretly wondered if that was exactly what the mountain wanted.
“I wonder why it came loose like that,” Delilah said, staring at the area where the rock had come from.
“I bet that happens all the time,” Simon said. “Emmett said rock slides are really common.”
Henry took a deep breath and squinted up at Simon. “Should we keep going?”
Simon nodded. “Be careful.”
So Henry started down again, more wary this time. If he sensed that a foothold wasn’t secure, he’d pause from his new position to dig at it with the spade, chipping away and enlarging it. Sometimes the rock was unyielding. Other times, patches of softer rock or dirt gave way, and he succeeded in widening and deepening the hollow.
“Do you see my dad’s compass anywhere?” Delilah asked him once.
Henry shook his head. “I think it probably rolled to the bottom, don’t you?”
“I guess,” she said. “But we didn’t see it down there, remember? Keep looking.”
“I will,” Henry promised.
The sun beat down on him. Whenever he slid the spade back under his waistband, the metal felt cool and sharp against his back.
“Watch out for this one,” he’d say sometimes, or “Step over here, it’s better.”
Delilah climbed steadily after him. Her face was red with exertion, dripping in sweat, but she didn’t complain. Suddenly she stopped.
Henry squinted up at her, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. “What’s the matter?”
“Look,” Delilah said. “We’re here.”
Henry realized he had been so focused on not looking down that he’d climbed all the way. They were just a few feet from the canyon floor.
“Hey,” he said in wonderment. “We did it.”
“Good job,” Simon told him, scrambling around Delilah and then helping her to the ground. He quickly untied the rope from their waists and coiled it. Then he took the spade from Henry. Unzipping the backpack, he stuffed them both inside.
“NOW can I have a snack?” Jack asked. “I’m STARVING.”
“Sure,” Simon said. “But eat quickly.”
They rooted through Delilah’s backpack and quickly devoured the apples, one bag of the potato chips, and the granola bars. To Henry, the sharp juiciness of the apples tasted even better than water after the long, hot hike. He rubbed crumbs and juice off his chin and thought of all the books he’d read with starving or thirsty characters who finally found sustenance … My Side of the Mountain, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Long Winter.
As they gathered up the wrappers and brushed themselves off, there ensued a vigorous debate over whether to eat the chocolate bars now or wait until after they’d looked for the gold mine. Jack and Delilah wanted candy immediately; Simon argued they should wait.
“We could compromise,” Henry suggested.
“What’s that mean?” Jack asked.
“Find a solution in the middle. Like, we could split one candy bar now and save the rest for later.”
“Okay,” Jack grumbled, “as long as it means we can eat some candy now.”
So they divided up one of the chocolate bars, and Henry had to admit, even the small rectangle of sugary sweetness, soft and sticky from the warm sun, gave him a burst of energy. Jack promptly demanded another chocolate bar, which they divided as before, and then it tasted so good, they all immediately agreed that they had to have one more, at which point Jack began running around like a maniac in a sugar-hyped craze.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” he shouted.
“Okay,” Simon agreed. “Henry, show us where the secret canyon is. We have to start looking for that gold mine.”
“First, let’s get the saddlebag,” Henry suggested. “Just to see if we missed anything.”
He walked past the boulder where Delilah had rested with her broken leg during those hours they were in the canyon alone. He continued in the direction of the secret canyon until he came to the bushes where he’d hidden the saddlebag.
“It’s this one, right?” he asked Delilah.
She nodded. “Where the rabbit was.”
Henry remembered how a rabbit had shot out from under the bush. When they’d heard the gunshot, that was where he’d tucked the saddlebag. Crouching down, he reached underneath the shrub, pawing at the loose dirt.
Delilah clomped over to him. “Have you got it?”
Henry frowned, still digging with his hand. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Maybe that’s the wrong one,” Simon suggested. “There are a lot of little bushes down here.”
“Yeah, but I remember where it was,” Henry said. “I thought we might need to find it again.”
Delilah pursed her lips and gazed down at him, hands on her hips.
“It is definitely that bush. I remember too … and look, the dirt is all stirred up around the bottom, like someone’s been digging. It’s not like that under the other bushes.”
Simon bent down with Henry and brushed the pebbly dirt aside.
“You’re right,” he said slowly. “Somebody must have taken it.”
CHAPTER 26
INSIDE THE SECRET CANYON
HENRY TURNED TO DELILAH. “It has to be the person who shot at us! That’s the only one who could have seen me hiding it.”
“The same person who left the note in my bike basket,” Delilah agreed grimly.
“Or people,” Simon said.
“Do you think that historical society is a whole gang of … miscreants?” Henry asked, horrified.
“Who knows,” Simon said. “Let’s just hope they’re not watching us now.”
They all simultaneously raised their eyes to the upper cliffs, scanning the broken ridgeline. The blue sky stretched vast and empty overhead. A bird wheeled high above the canyon and disappeared into the trees.
“Nope,” Jack declared. “Nobody there.”
“Not that we can see, anyway,” Henry amended. He continued to watch the woods, thinking about the sharp crack of the gunshot—how unexpected it had been, how it had shattered the air with danger.
Simon roused them. “Okay, you guys. No saddlebag. Let’s keep going. Henry, where’s the entrance to the little canyon? Do you need the map?”
Henry shook his head. The route was indelibly etched in his mind. He walked swiftly toward the cluster of boulders that nearly blocked the narrow chute.
“Look.” Delilah came up behind him, poi
nting. “The two trees that were in the note. Those must be cottonwoods.”
There were two trees growing close to each other, just a few feet from the boulders. “Hey … you’re right.” Henry smiled at her.
Simon and Jack charged up behind them, and together, they peered down the narrow passageway. It was flanked on both sides by steep walls of rock. Henry remembered how he’d explored it the first time, not knowing what lay ahead; there was that thrill of discovering something new, a place no one had been before. Except now it seemed that somebody might have been there before, more than a hundred years ago … if the Lost Dutchman’s Mine lay somewhere in the secret canyon.
“This way,” Henry told the others. “It’s a tight fit.”
He slid between the high rock walls, squeezing and bumping his way along the sandy path. Simon followed, then Jack, then Delilah, walking carefully on the uneven ground with her cast.
A few minutes later, the passageway widened, walls slanting away, sky opening up overhead. The secret canyon was much smaller than the other canyon, and utterly silent. Red-brown cliffs rose sharply on either side. A smattering of spindly trees and the same gray-green shrubs grew in the middle. Beyond them, about a hundred yards away, the canyon angled to the right and appeared to end in a wall of rock.
“WOW!” Jack yelled, thundering out of the passageway.
“Cool!” Simon said. “You’d never know it was here.”
Delilah followed a minute later, stopping to lean against the rocks. They all surveyed the scene.
“It’s so quiet,” Delilah said. “Even quieter than the rest of the mountain.”
It was true, Henry thought. It felt like a place outside of time … as if, any minute, dinosaurs could come lumbering around the bend.
Simon dug in the side pocket of Delilah’s backpack and took out the map and the note. Gently, he spread them on the canyon floor. “Okay, guys. This is all we have, and there’s not much time. Where should we start?”
While Jack raced in circles around them, still energized from the chocolate bars, Henry, Delilah, and Simon scrutinized the note. Henry read it aloud: “The canyon entrance is on the eastern wall, behind a group of large boulders. Two cottonwood trees grow opposite the boulders. The entrance is narrow, no wider than a man’s shoulders. Continue toward the horse until the bent tree threads the needle.” He paused. “And then it ends with the three overlapping V’s.”