Page 27

E ighteen

“We have to stop.” Tilda gently laid a curved metal chest plate beside their growing pile of iron.

They’d found four bodies already, all of them men who’d been buried in their full armor.

They’d found spearheads, too. Some of the pieces of iron were rusted, which seemed to depend on how well they’d been buried and the type of soil.

Whether these four had been warriors or soldiers or sailors, Tilda wasn’t sure.

She wanted more time to study the artifacts. She’d need a good library with history books she could compare with all that they’d found. And she wanted to go back to the Two Harts. They’d dug up more things than they could hope to carry. What was the point of digging further?

“I’ve found another grave!” Lock shouted.

Tilda had started calling them graves, but even that she wasn’t sure of. Could they have died here in an earthquake, a flood, or maybe a landslide? And the years covered them, making this a burial ground. She wished a true archeologist were there to study everything with her.

“Josh, Lock, we have to stop now. How will we get home what we’ve already found? What’s the point of unearthing more?”

Josh’s eyes were bright with the excitement of discovery. “You’re right. It’s almost full dark anyway. Let’s finish up and get some sleep.”

Tilda gazed up at the stars, twinkling through the treetops.

“Tomorrow,” Josh went on, “we’ll figure out a way to take home what we’ve found. We need to decide if we should take everything with us, even the skeletons, or rebury some of it.”

“No, we can’t quit!” Lock as good as howled.

Thayne straightened from the grave he was working on and leaned on the long handle of his shovel.

“We can’t carry it all, Lock. It’s best to leave what we can’t carry underground.

It’s safer there out of the wind and rain.

And we need to go through that packet of papers we found with the first skeleton.

It looks like more notes from Grandpa. Maybe it will help us find the way to the end of Cord’s map. ”

Fascinated, Tilda brushed a bit of dirt away from one of the helmets. It felt odd, almost a wonder, to touch something so old, something that had survived for over three hundred years.

Thayne brought over a strangely shaped metal object. A type of ax maybe. Tilda wasn’t familiar with it.

“I’ll help Lock finish up, then we’ll turn in for the night.” Thayne studied the ax-like thing for a moment. “Do you know what this is?”

Shaking her head, Tilda said, “We should get an archeologist involved with this.”

“A what?” Josh and Lock said in unison.

Cord straightened from where he was digging. He lifted a curved piece of iron Tilda thought might be for girding the loins. It was about the right shape, yet she couldn’t think of the name for it.

“An archeologist. Sometimes they’re called antiquarians.

They study ancient artifacts like these.

A college may know who to ask. There’s information to be learned from this burial site, although I can’t think what all that might be.

But an archeologist would recognize these pieces of iron and be able to set this burial ground properly in history.

They’d know if something killed these men and left them buried here, like a landslide, or if this was the burial ground for some kind of settlement. ”

“But wouldn’t they try and take our things?” Lock sounded as if he was ready to fight for their artifacts.

Tilda smiled at him. “They might, and we should do our best to prevent that. Maybe Michelle would know who we could talk to about identifying the armor and these men and what happened here. I’m inclined to believe they were individually buried because of the way they were laid out.

It seems neat and planned, not like they died in an avalanche or from floodwater sweeping them to their death. ”

“Archeology.” Josh said the word slowly as he approached the campfire. “Does that have something to do with Noah’s ark?”

Tilda smiled. “No, but I suppose if someone dug that up, it’d be quite a find.”

“I’ve got everything out of this grave, and we’re just taking the armor, right? Not the bones?” Josh leaned the shovel against a rock wall and went to build up the fire.

“Leaving the bones is the right thing to do. I don’t know for sure, but I think we’ve found something extraordinary here.” Tilda noticed Josh was using beef jerky to make stew again. They were all hungry. She got to work cutting up an onion.

“No gold, though,” Lock grumbled.

Cord came over and plucked a potato out of a saddlebag and used the knife he carried in his boot to peel it.

“I wonder just what went on here with Graham MacKenzie. Did he find all these graves, or even some of them, and carefully rebury these men? They don’t seem to have been disturbed.

And where did he find those gold coins?”

“All good questions,” Tilda said. She looked over at Josh, who set the coffeepot on the fire, then picked up his stewpot.

“Why are we so alone out here?” she asked.

“We haven’t seen any sign of civilization.

Do you know where the nearest town is? Why are there no settlers around here?

This area isn’t good for farmland, but a person could fell enough trees for a garden.

They could hunt, raise a few cattle maybe. ”

“We’re not far from the town of Cornerstone.

That’s where I’d start looking for a land office to see if Graham bought any land or staked a claim.

There’s never been any gold found around here to my knowledge.

We did once find a pocket of gold on the Two Harts, but it was a small deposit, and we were quiet enough about it that it didn’t start another gold rush. Could be others have kept quiet, too.”

Thayne came up carrying a shield. “The graves all had a shield laid on top of the body, except that first one. But that’s because Grandpa found the shield and then hung it to mark his find.”

Lock came next with a helmet. Each one of them had a skull in it. They had returned the bones to their graves, treating these long-dead men with some respect.

Tilda had carefully laid the armor out as the different pieces were being unearthed. Now the beginning of the fifth suit of armor lay beside them.

Josh shook his head. “Lock, we’ve got to head back to the ranch tomorrow.”

Lock’s eyes flashed, but he remained silent. Tilda thought that for the first time, he was showing some restraint. Maybe he was turning into a man.

Josh, scanning the armor and weapons, said, “We can’t take even this much back, can we? What would be the point of digging up more, and we’d have to leave all this lying here. It would probably be all right, but if someone did come along...”

Thayne nodded, bringing over what looked to Tilda to be a breastplate. “Or a wolf pack or bear might come by, scatter everything and damage the armor.”

“But how do we take all this with us?”

Tilda imagined herself riding along with a fully assembled suit of armor riding behind her. “Yes, how?”

“We could build a travois.”

“What?” Cord reached for the coffeepot that sat over the fire.

“It’s an Indian word, I reckon. It’s a kind of sled, dragged behind a horse.

I used one to transport an injured calf home from the range; another time it was an injured cowpoke.

A travois is just two long poles attached to the back of the saddle, with strips of cloth holding them together to make a sort of bed between the poles.

The Native folks, usually when following a buffalo herd, use the travois to transport whatever they need to bring along.

If they have enough horses, they can tear down a whole village and drag it along with them.

I know how to rig one, too. We’ll get to work on moving these suits of armor home, get them stored away somewhere safe, and talk about what to do next. ”

Cord said, “I’m ready to head back with what we’ve got and follow my half of the treasure map another time.

Just because Grandpa had a map doesn’t mean he owns what we find by following his half.

Honestly, I’d be real surprised if my grandpa demanded half of what you find here.

He’s let this treasure Graham MacKenzie found become an obsession, but for him it’s not about the money—he’s got plenty of it.

It’s the feeling he was cheated. And as he’s aged and doesn’t work much anymore, he’s let it burrow inside his head and burn there.

I think he’ll be delighted to see all these things and will want to be involved in studying them and figuring out what to do with them. ”

“There’s a big museum in New York City that keeps artifacts like these,” Tilda said. “My adoptive father took me there a few times, and that gave me a love for history. Does California have a such a museum? If not, maybe we could start one.”

“My grandpa is friends with Edwin Crocker,” Cord said. “He passed away recently. He and his wife have an extensive art and artifact collection in Sacramento. I heard she turned a wing of her house into a museum.”

“A wing of her house?” Thayne looked confused. “How big is it?”

“Big,” Cord said. “Real big.”

Tilda thought of how Thayne and Lock had talked of sharing a bedroom over the doctor’s office. Brody had his own. Thayne had said he’d never had such a nice place to live. She’d never lived anywhere big enough to have a spare room, let alone “a wing.”

Josh checked the stew, stirring it slowly. “We will head home tomorrow, then. We’ll show everyone what we’ve found and plan to come back here soon.” Crouched beside the fire in the starry night, he added, “Stew’s ready. Let’s everyone eat.”

Tilda smelled the stew and realized how hungry she was. The boys looked doubly so. Josh knew about feeding growing boys, and maybe he was hungry himself because there was plenty.