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“Be very gentle, Lock,” Tilda cautioned. “Old iron can become thin enough to break if not handled with care.”

Lock nodded gravely. He traced one finger along the curving crest. That part was thin and stuck straight up. It was what Josh had knelt on, thinking it was a rock.

The boys, across from each other, tugged on the helmet. They’d pause every few seconds and brush dirt aside, then tug some more. They were going slow so they wouldn’t damage the helmet.

Tilda watched as it finally emerged, the T on the front becoming visible.

“This helmet hasn’t been here for three hundred years,” Josh said. “Your grandpa found it, and he found the shield. What else is down there?”

“Did he get the gold coins from here?” Lock asked, his voice vibrating with excitement as they kept working on the helmet.

A few moments later, the entire helmet had been freed with most of the dirt cleaned off.

“We’ve got it!” Lock said. “Let’s lay it gently aside and see—” Lock screamed and fell over backward as a skull rolled out of the helmet right toward him. It splintered as it rolled, breaking apart.

They all leapt backward.

Lock scrambled back as if the skull were chasing him. Then he was on his feet, still backing away as Thayne fell over to sit on his backside. Josh quickly stood, then helped Tilda to her feet.

When Cord jumped up, he cracked his head on the shield, a chunk of which broke off and landed on the ground, crumbling nearly to dust. Cord slapped a hand to the back of his head and pulled it away, blood-soaked.

They all stopped and stared, the skull momentarily forgotten.

Josh, the first to regain his senses, rushed over to Cord. “Let me look at that.”

He thought of how a man could die by being scratched with a rusty nail or wire. This had to be dangerous. A look at the wound showed nothing serious, though the blood flowed freely as head wounds tended to do.

“Move your hand, Cord. It’s best to let a wound like this one bleed for a bit because that washes away whatever poison might be in that iron.” Josh parted Cord’s hair, hoping and praying the wound wasn’t serious.

“Let’s build up the fire and talk.” Tilda stepped well away from the skull. Everyone followed her.

Josh figured himself to be the toughest of them, but he had to admit he wanted no part of a skeleton.

He thought of Grandpa MacKenzie’s body they’d found in that cave.

There’d been some yelling when they’d found that, too.

This seemed different somehow. Not knowing who this dead man was made it feel like they were grave-robbing.

Josh swallowed hard. “We definitely need to talk.” He was glad now that camp was set up and he’d sent the MacKenzies to find more firewood before Cord had drawn Tilda’s attention to the shield.

He urged Cord to sit down.

“That’s bled long enough. I’m going to pour water over it in case there’s anything left to wash away, then wrap it.”

Tilda stepped away from the camp behind a tree.

Josh heard fabric ripping. Living in the West had taken a toll on Tilda’s clothing. Now she was tearing strips off another of her garments.

He positioned Cord on his side on the ground. Josh had the cut washed clean by the time Tilda, her dress still intact, came back to help with the doctoring.

She wrapped a strip of what looked like cloth from a petticoat around Cord’s head and knotted the ends so that it stayed.

As Josh settled himself by the fire next to Tilda, Cord leaned against a tree, looking ashen. The boys stared at the helmet, which was lying where they’d dropped it when the skull had rolled free.

Josh and Tilda and Cord all looked at each other and laughed.

Josh said, “It’s time to talk.”

“No.” Lock gave Josh the most mature look Josh had ever seen on the kid. “It’s time to dig. We came out here searching for a treasure, and we’ve found one. That skull about scared me to death, but I’ve settled down now. We need to dig up what else is buried around here.”

Thayne sat forward, his forearms resting on knees he’d drawn up to his chest. “Grandpa must’ve hung that shield.

He put that rock over the helmet. He wanted us to find it.

I have to wonder whether another look at all those notes Grandpa left might reveal some reference to a shield hanging over a rock to mark the spot. ”

Thayne shook his head. “Probably much of what Grandpa wrote in the journal was written in the hope we’d come out here, and he’d guide us to the treasure.

He didn’t expect to die in that cave with a broken leg.

We’ve thought his notes were strange and hard to understand, but he was probably writing them for himself so he could find this spot again and whatever Cord’s map leads us to.

He mailed things off. Maybe he hadn’t found the gold yet, or maybe he had and didn’t want to trust it to the mail.

Back then, before the railroad, getting a letter back east would be a slow business.

Grandpa sent it, likely thinking we’d come west to find him.

Pa did after all. Grandpa went back to explore and was hiking back out when he broke his leg. ”

Thayne looked at Lock, who nodded and said, “That sounds right to me. He went back to his treasure hunt and expected we’d join him here. I wasn’t born yet, but he was hoping Pa and Ma and Brody would be here with him to keep searching.”

“And then, his leg broken, he crawled into that cave, wrote what messages he could, and died,” Josh said. “It makes sense.” He glanced at Tilda. “You know enough about conquistador history to recognize the shield and helmet as armor they once wore. What else are we likely to find?”

Quietly, Tilda spoke on something different, not answering Josh’s question. “We were all shaken by that skull. And for a moment I couldn’t think of this find as anything other than a man whose grave we were robbing. But now that I’ve quit jumping around, I think Lock is right. It’s time to dig.”

They all turned to stare at the skull and the helmet.

Josh said, “That’s what we came here for, to search for treasure.” He exchanged a look with Cord. “You haven’t said anything yet.”

Cord looked pale where he sat, his head wound bandaged snugly now. “It’s dusk, my head aches, and we’re all exhausted. It’s time for bed now, but first thing tomorrow morning, we start digging.”