Delilah frowned. “What horse?”
“It can’t be a real horse,” Simon said. “So what is it?”
Henry scanned the canyon walls, looking for anything that matched the description in the note. “Continue toward the horse until the bent tree threads the needle,” he repeated. “So maybe it’s something that looks like a h—”
The words died in his mouth.
There, on the right side of the canyon, about sixty yards away, he saw it: a strangely shaped rock, with sharp contours that looked like ears, and a head, and a flowing tail.
In its shadow was a crooked tree.
CHAPTER 27
THREADING THE NEEDLE
“A ROCK HORSE!” Jack yelled. “There!” He pointed in the direction of Henry’s gaze.
“It is shaped like a horse,” Delilah whispered in wonderment. “Look—there’s the head.”
Henry nodded. It was like a strange, fantastical sculpture, the rough head leaning forward into the canyon, the broad back ending in a windswept tail.
“And that’s the bent tree!” Delilah continued. “Do you think that’s where the gold mine is?”
“Come on,” Simon urged. “Let’s find out.”
He ran toward the rock horse with Jack close on his heels, dust clouding the air behind them. Henry snatched the map and the note from the canyon floor, then hesitated, waiting for Delilah. Was it possible? Were they really so close to finding the Lost Dutchman’s Mine?
“Do you think that could be it?” Delilah asked, awkwardly hustling after Simon and Jack. “I don’t get the part about a thread or a needle. And I don’t see a hole in the ground, do you?”
When they got to the horse-shaped outcropping, Simon and Jack were climbing all over the boulders that surrounded it.
“What does a gold mine look like?” Jack asked impatiently.
Simon paused. “Emmett said sometimes it can have an entrance, with wooden beams supporting it, almost like a doorway.”
Henry tried to remember what else Emmett had told them. “It could just be a hole or a tunnel,” he added. “Either way, it’ll be close to the ground, won’t it?”
“Yeah,” Simon said. “Technically. But I don’t see anything down there, do you?”
Henry walked along the base of the canyon wall, beneath the rock horse. He saw nothing but ground and rock. He kicked at the loose stones in disappointment.
“The entrance could be hidden,” Simon reasoned. “It probably is hidden, if nobody has found it after all this time. Maybe we need to look behind some of these boulders.”
Handing the map and note to Delilah, Henry joined his brothers, grabbing the top of a big rock and hauling himself up. The edges poked sharply through his sneakers, making it hard to keep his balance. He peered behind the piles of boulders on the ground. He didn’t see anything that looked like a tunnel, and most of the rocks were too heavy to move.
Delilah sighed. “It’s not here. We must be missing something.”
“Read the note again,” Henry suggested.
Delilah squinted down at the scrap of paper in her hand, which flashed brightly in the midday sun. “Continue toward the horse until the bent tree threads the needle.”
“What does that mean? Here’s the tree, but where’s the thread?” Henry sighed. “I don’t get it. Let’s look at the map again.”
“But we’ve gone over it so many times,” Delilah said. “There were no markings that seemed to be a gold mine.”
Nonetheless, she spread the map on a rock and leaned over it, while Henry scrambled down to join her. Together, they stared at the paper, trying to unravel its secrets. Henry’s eyes followed the crude line of the main canyon, then the smaller tributary that signified the little canyon. All around these were the upside-down V’s, which seemed to represent the cliffs and crags of the mountains.
“Henry,” Delilah said slowly.
“What?”
“Look at this.”
“What? The upside down V’s? That’s the symbol for the mountains.”
“No, look closer. These are different from the others.” Delilah touched the paper gently with her index finger. “They’re right side up. They’re actual V’s.” She raised her eyes slowly to his.
“Yeah … so?” Then Henry realized what she meant. In the midst of the upside-down V’s that showed the mountains were three that were upright. And they overlapped.
He stared at Delilah, eyes wide.
“Veni, vidi, vici,” Delilah whispered. “It must be the symbol for the gold mine!”
Henry grabbed her arm in pure jubilation. “Simon! Jack!” he yelled.
Delilah waved the map above her head. “We found it!”
Simon and Jack came running over the rocks and leapt to the ground.
“Shhh,” Simon cautioned, scanning the rim of the canyon. “Don’t be so loud. Where? Is there something on the map?”
“Look!” Delilah thrust the map in their faces, while Henry explained, “The overlapping V’s! Veni, vidi, vici—just like Adolph Ruth’s letter, and the little paper we found in Uncle Hank’s coinbox, and the initials at the bottom of these directions.”
“That must be it!” Simon exclaimed. “So it’s not on this side of the canyon at all. It’s all the way across, on the other side.”
“Where?” Jack bounced on his sneakers. “Where’s the gold mine?”
“Exactly opposite where we’ve been looking,” Henry told him, pointing. He surveyed the wall of the canyon facing them, with its rough vertical ridges and the mass of boulders at the base, and began walking toward it.
“But then what’s with those directions in the message?” Simon wondered, picking up the slip of paper and reading it to himself. “The rock horse and the bent tree? They’re on this side.”
Henry stood in the middle of the canyon, turning slowly around, his eyes tracing the rock walls that rose in every direction. Just above the horse-shaped rock, hovering over the bluff, he glimpsed the craggy spire of Weaver’s Needle.
Suddenly, he understood.
“The bent tree … threading the needle…,” he began.
Simon followed his gaze. “Weaver’s Needle—that’s it! We have to find the place where the view of this tree makes it look like it’s threading Weaver’s Needle. That’s where the gold mine will be!”
Even Delilah was running at this point, stumbling awkwardly over the canyon floor. They reached the other side of the canyon and looked back in the direction of the rock horse and the crooked tree, which rose toward the sky and then abruptly turned, its trunk shooting out parallel to the ground.
Simon dropped to his knees and scrambled along the dusty ground, scrutinizing the twist in the tree’s trunk and its alignment with the spire of Weaver’s Needle.
“Here!” he said finally. “Look at it now! From this spot right here, the tree looks like it’s running through Weaver’s Needle and bending at the tip—threading the needle!”
Jack charged over to him. “Then where’s the GOLD MINE?”
They all scanned the base of the canyon wall. There were so many boulders strewn along it. Henry couldn’t see anything that looked like a tunnel.
“It has to be here,” Delilah breathed. “It just has to be.”
“Look behind the rocks,” Simon directed.
Then Henry saw it. A jagged cleft, almost like a fold, where a wing of rock jutted out parallel to the canyon wall. When Henry faced it, it looked like it was the canyon wall, corrugated with cracks and crevices, but when he walked around to the side, he found a hidden passageway, obscured by the curtain of rock. Peering into the fold, he saw that at its base was something that looked like a cave.
CHAPTER 28
INTO THE DARKNESS
HENRY CLIMBED OVER the rocks and into the shadowy corridor. The ground in front of it was worn flat … as if someone had gone in and out of the cave many hundreds of times. On the wall above the rocky cavern, he could see a cluster of faded scratches and marks. They were
designs, he realized, but they didn’t look like anything he’d seen before. There were several humanlike stick figures. Some were upright, while others lay flat, horizontal. They were surrounded by pale circles.
“You guys,” he called faintly.
“Where are you, Hen?” Simon called back.
“Here,” Henry said, unable to move, unable to breathe.
Simon, Jack, and Delilah crowded at the opening of the passageway, blocking the sunlight. They stared at the dark hole in the wall of rock.
“Oh!” Delilah gasped.
“Wow,” Simon breathed.
“The MINE! The Lost Dutchman’s MINE!” Jack cried. He raced toward the entrance.
“Keep it down, Jack,” Simon warned. “And wait a minute. We need the flashlights, the garden shovel, and the rope. Let me go first.”
He took the map from Delilah and carefully returned it, along with the note, to the side pocket of the pink backpack. Then he retrieved the supplies, coiling the knotted jump rope over his shoulder and handing one of the flashlights to Henry.
“Come on, follow me.”
Delilah paused at the entrance, lifting her eyes to the pale designs on the rock overhead. “What are those?” she asked.
They all stared at the ancient drawings.
“Probably just Indian art,” Simon said. “Petroglyphs. Remember? That’s what Emmett was going to show Aunt Kathy today.”
Delilah tilted her head, considering the figures. “Why are some of them lying down?” she asked.
Jack pushed past them into the cave. “Maybe they’re dead,” he offered cheerfully.
Henry shuddered. That was just what he was afraid of. What if these drawings were some kind of warning?
“Hmmm,” Delilah said, frowning slightly. She took the garden shovel from Simon and trudged after Jack.
“Come on, Hen,” Simon urged.
Henry’s heart was pounding so loudly in his chest he could hardly concentrate on anything else. Were they really so close to the gold that had been kept a secret for over a hundred years?
He directed the beam of his flashlight into the dark cave. It was barely tall enough for him to stand up. A grown man wouldn’t have been able to—even Simon had to duck his head. The tunnel-like entrance curved into the mountain.
Delilah and Jack were waiting at the edge of the light. It was pitch-black ahead, an impenetrable darkness beyond the arc of the flashlight.
“How far do you think it goes?” Delilah asked.
“I don’t know,” Simon said quietly. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Simon led the way, with Delilah following. The air temperature had dropped several degrees, and Henry felt the skin on his arms prickle with the chill. The cave’s silence fell over them like a blanket. They filed through the tunnel, aware of every scuff and scrape of their feet on the cold stone floor.
Jack hung back. “I don’t like this,” he said.
Henry looked at him in surprise. “How come? It’s just a cave. We’re exploring!”
“It’s all closed in. It’s too dark.”
“But you’re not scared of the dark,” Henry said. He had never known Jack to be afraid of anything.
“I’m not scared,” Jack said.
“Okay, okay,” Henry said. “Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Henry flashed the light toward him and saw that Jack’s lower lip was quivering. His face looked about to crumple.
“Here, do you want to hold the flashlight?” he asked quickly.
Jack shook his head.
“What’s going on back there?” Simon’s voice echoed thinly through the tunnel. “Where are you guys?”
“Coming,” Henry called, trying to think what to say to Jack, who looked as if he was about to turn and run out of the cave.
“It’s okay, Jack. We’re all together. Know what this is like?”
“What?” Jack mumbled suspiciously.
“Journey to the Center of the Earth,” Henry said. “It’s a really cool book about explorers who go down into the crater of a volcano, through a tunnel to the center of the earth. They meet prehistoric animals! And discover oceans.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, as if he thought he was being duped. “Do you think there are prehistoric animals here?”
“Well, no,” Henry admitted. “But there might be gold! Don’t you want to try to find it?”
Jack nodded mutely, but still didn’t move.
“Come on, Jack. Think of all the things we’ve done to get here, and you haven’t been scared at all. Not once. Starting with falling down into the canyon that first time, when we found the skulls. And then at the cemetery, seeing our own name on a tombstone. And going back up the mountain to get the skulls, and then after Delilah broke her leg, you and Simon had to go down by yourselves in the dark. And the ghost town, Simon crashing through the floor into the cellar with … well, whatever that was. You saved him, remember? And today, the rattlesnake.” Henry let out a long breath. “This old cave is nothing compared with all of that.”
“You did all of those things too,” Jack said.
Henry nodded slowly. “Yeah, I did.”
“You’re a real explorer, Henry.” Jack’s face, pale in the beam of the flashlight, was full of admiration. “Just like Uncle Hank.”
And Henry realized with a kind of wonderment that it was true. Sometimes things turned out just as you planned them—even though you never truly believed they would happen. It had been hard to see it at the time; how each part fit into the whole, how all of the individual adventures combined to create a picture of someone who was exactly as fearless, resourceful, and unflappable as Henry so longed to be. And so what if he’d been afraid? Or filled with doubt? Or had wanted, at different times, to turn back? It didn’t matter. In the end, he had done all of it.
He grabbed Jack’s arm and said, “Come on. Let’s find that gold.”
“Hey,” Simon called from far ahead, “look.”
Henry and Jack hurried to catch up, and suddenly they were standing in a cavern with walls that looked like they had been diligently chipped away to hollow out a larger space. Henry raised his flashlight and shone it on the ceiling.
“I don’t see any gold,” Jack said. “What if it’s just a cave?” He hesitated. “What if it’s a cave with something LIVING in it … like a mountain lion?”
“It’s not, Jack,” Simon said quickly. “Do you see any signs of an animal?”
Jack shook his head, subdued. “But it feels weird in here.”
Henry knew what he meant. As quiet as it was, the cave had a feeling of presence.
“Hey,” Delilah said, “look at this! There’s a ladder.”
Simon directed his flashlight to where she was pointing, and there, close to the rock wall, was a ragged hole in the floor. The wooden shafts and rungs of a ladder poked out of it.
“It’s a good thing you saw that,” Henry told her. “We might have fallen in.”
“Yeah,” Simon agreed. “See, Jack? People have been here! It must be a mine. This ladder will take us down to the next level.”
“A mine has levels?” That had never occurred to Henry. How deep into the ground would they have to go?
Simon leaned over the hole and swung his flashlight back and forth, illuminating the ladder. It dropped down about twelve feet. The wood was old and splintered, and it appeared to be missing a couple of rungs.
“Well, this one has at least two levels,” Simon said. “Maybe more. Be careful on the ladder. It looks pretty rickety.”
He crouched down and started to lower himself onto the ladder when Delilah stopped him.
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“Sure you can,” Simon told her. “You climbed all the way down into the canyon. That was harder than this.”
He lifted the beam of his flashlight to Delilah’s face. Henry saw that, for the first time all day, it was pinched and pale.
“I know,” she said slowly. “B
ut I was tied to you, and I could hold on to the rocks with my hands. I didn’t have to put much weight on my cast.” Her eyes were fixed on the ladder. She shook her head. “There aren’t even enough rungs.”
Privately, Henry agreed with her. She could fall or hurt herself, and if she did, how would they ever get her out of here? He thought of how he and Delilah had waited for hours in the canyon when she broke her leg. The idea of being stuck in this black hole of a mine was unbearable to even contemplate.
Simon looked at her, then back at the ladder. “You’re right,” he said finally. “It isn’t safe for you.” He hesitated. “And you don’t want us to go down without you.” He didn’t say this with any accusation in his voice, Henry noticed. It was just a statement.
“No,” Delilah said. “You should go ahead.”
They all stared at her. “We’ve come too far,” she said. “You have to go on and try to find the gold.”
“Really?” Jack said in disbelief.
“Are you sure?” Simon stayed where he was, his flashlight trained on her pale face.
Henry looked at her, shivering at the edge of the hole, with her thin arms and mussed-up braid and dirty cast. He understood abruptly how tired she was. The climb had been hard for her. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
Delilah shook her head firmly. “No, you guys should all go. It’s just…” She hesitated. “I don’t want to wait in here by myself.” She shivered. “It’s kind of cold.”
Simon angled the flashlight beam onto his wristwatch. “Listen, it’s one thirty. We should leave here in half an hour to make sure we have time to get home before Aunt Kathy and Emmett come back. Henry, walk her back to the entrance so she can wait for us outside. But hurry.”
“I could wait with her outside,” Jack offered. Simon and Delilah looked at him in shock.
“But, Jack,” Henry said gently, “we’ve come so far.”