Page 9 of Riches Beyond Measure (Golden State Treasure #3)

Six

“Josh, over there.” Cord wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but he thought maybe it was...

“That’s part of the armor,” Josh said, then pulled back on the reins and dismounted.

Cord, only a few seconds behind him, headed into the brush that edged the trail.

They’d been searching for hours, although Cord had given up long ago and stopped pretending that he could spot any tracks on the sometimes grassy, sometimes rocky trail.

Instead, he just kept an eye out as he followed Josh, who seemed to be following something with determination.

His distraction might’ve saved the day. And since Josh had ridden past the dull gray object, Cord happened to be closer. He pushed the scrub juniper aside and stared down at a helmet.

“Who did this?” Josh crouched down and picked up the helmet. “Look behind it. This could be everything that’s missing.”

Shaking his head in disgust, Cord said, “It’s all just been tossed here. It doesn’t look as though someone hid these things to collect later either. No, it looks like they just threw them into the underbrush and rode off.”

Josh pivoted on the toes of his boots. “We can figure out why later. For now, we’ve got the artifacts back in our hands. Wait, you don’t think...?”

Josh’s hesitation worried Cord. “What don’t I think?”

Dragging in a ragged breath, Josh said, “To me this looks like some kind of prank, like the work of vandals. Something a bunch of kids might do.”

Cord, who’d pushed deeper into the underbrush to gather up the armor, stopped and turned to face Josh. “You think some of the youngsters we’ve taken in at the ranch might’ve done this?”

Josh’s jaw tightened until Cord thought his teeth might crack.

“I hate thinking it. Anyway, how would they get this armor out here? How could they carry it this far? They must’ve stolen .

.. or borrowed horses since we don’t have any missing.

” He hesitated at the word stolen , knowing a horse thief could be hung.

Accusing someone of such a thing was serious business in the West.

“We can talk it over later,” said Cord. “Now, do we need a travois, or can we split these pieces of armor between us and the horses?”

Josh looked back at the armor. A smile quirked his lips. “You know, we could get all the pieces back home if we wore them.”

Cord, still shocked by the idea that one or more of the orphans might be to blame, chuckled at the thought of their riding to the ranch wearing centuries-old armor. “It’s all very old and delicate, but if we’re careful, it should be all right, don’t you think?”

“Then we’ll be careful,” said Josh.

Cord grinned. “I get the helmet.”

Annie caught Tilda’s arm. “Looks like they found the missing artifacts.”

They were on their way home from school. The students were acting subdued today. She blamed yesterday’s earthquake for that. There was something very powerful, almost biblical about a condition that could shake the whole earth.

Now she watched Cord as he rode toward the ranch house, wearing a breastplate and helmet.

Other pieces of armor were tied down in front of him on the saddle.

Josh, riding right behind Cord, carried a sword and that odd-looking ax Tilda called a “halberd.” The pieces for protecting a man’s legs and feet were among those stacked in front of both him and Cord.

Cord waved. The helmet had a little strip of metal coming down from the forehead, probably there to protect the wearer’s nose when in battle. She saw a smile flash from the helmet.

“Cord, Josh, you found the armor!” Tilda ran toward him.

Now that the two had made their grand entrance, they rode for the laboratory.

The door to the ranch house opened, and Annie saw Michelle coming, her baby in her arms. She was joined by Zane, fresh from the barn, Brody, and the bunkhouse cook, who stepped outside, wiping his hands.

Several students poked their heads out of the schoolhouse.

Brody nodded his approval. “Josh, Cord, you got the armor back.”

Brody’s younger brothers shoved past him and ran toward Josh and Cord. Annie knew those boys mainly wanted gold, but they were still very protective of anything connected to their grandfather’s treasure.

Apart from Brody, who probably had a patient and shouldn’t desert his post right now, they all converged on the laboratory at the same time as the would-be conquistadors.

Cord swung down from his horse. “Get this thing off of me. Be very gentle with it. How did those Spaniards stand it? The helmet may be stuck on my head. I never should have put it on.”

They all got very busy reclaiming the armor and bringing it inside the laboratory.

Michelle frowned and said, “You shouldn’t play with these things.” Yet she didn’t sound all that angry.

“It’s the only way we could carry all the armor home without having to build a travois. And we were in a hurry to get it back here.”

“I want to lay it all out.” Michelle glanced at Tilda. “Can you help me decide where all the pieces go? Once that’s done, we’ll check for any damage?”

Annie took Leah and stayed back as they laid the armor out on the table. Some of the pieces weren’t easy to identify. The iron that protected the shins looked a lot like the steel that guarded the arms.

Thayne and Lock got busy helping put the armor together like a puzzle they were eager to play with.

“Tell us how you discovered it, Josh,” Zane asked.

Taking turns, Josh and Cord told everyone how they’d found the pieces of armor tossed into the underbrush as if they were worthless.

Michelle, who was looking over the armor with a notebook in her hand, occasionally paused to listen to the details while the suit of armor came together. Annie bounced Leah, who reached for the armor as if wanting to play with the fun puzzle, too.

“That right there is a dent that wasn’t there before.” Tilda pointed at a piece that protected the knee.

“I don’t see the dagger,” Michelle said. “Could you have missed it when you gathered up the rest of the armor?” Her eyes shifted between Josh and Cord.

Cord shook his head. “We scoured the place, Michelle,” he answered, and Josh voiced his agreement. “Of course, the dagger may have gotten thrown unusually far from the other pieces. I suppose we could ride out there and check around some more.”

Michelle had a doubtful look on her face. “You didn’t by chance drop it while riding here?”

Josh and Cord exchanged a glance.

“I would have remembered a dagger,” said Josh, “and I sure didn’t see one. We picked up a bunch of pieces of steel we couldn’t identify, but—”

“It’s all here.” Michelle waved her notebook. It showed a complete sketch of the armor, assembled and in pieces. Each individual element had been numbered and identified. “The only thing missing is the dagger.”

“We’ll ride back there tomorrow,” Cord volunteered. “Maybe whoever took the dagger was up to mischief and thought it was interesting enough they decided to keep it.”

“Mischief? What makes you say that?” Annie asked. “Nothing much mischievous about stealing something this valuable.”

Annie took a turn looking between the two men. Josh shoved his hands into the back pockets of his denim britches. Cord rubbed the back of his neck.

The silence was thick, and no one broke it as they waited for one of them to explain.

Cord broke first. “It seemed to us that there was no good reason for someone to take the armor, then ride off and just toss it. Our first thought was theft—that armor is valuable—but why go to the trouble of breaking into a building, gathering up all those pieces of armor, only to ride a few hours away and toss it into the underbrush somewhere? Makes no sense. It seems like the kind of thing that, well...” He cleared his throat, clearly not wanting to finish his sentence.

Josh finished it for him. “The kind of thing a kid might do.”

“Are you accusing our orphans of stealing the suit of armor?” Tilda crossed her arms, looking indignant on behalf of all the orphans in the world.

As if an orphan was above stealing. People were people, after all. Still, none of their youngsters would do such a senseless thing.

“Hey,” said Lock, “those kids are our friends. And they like having that armor here; they’ve been excited about studying it.” He was red in the face, ready to fight for the honor of his fellow students.

Michelle remained silent. She had that strange look in her eyes, a look that said she was thinking real hard on something.

Then Annie chimed in, adding, “I think I can account for the whereabouts of every one of my students. I have the older boys. It would have to be one of them, don’t you think?

I’m not one to underestimate a woman, but it stands to reason.

I was out on the range for a while after the earthquake hit, but not so long that anyone could have stolen the armor and run for the hills and then gotten back. The older boys were all here.”

Tilda nodded. “The quake struck right when we were finishing with lunch. All the older students were in my history class.”

“All of them, you’re sure?” Annie knew Tilda had nearly thirty students in her class.

“Not Thayne and Lock—they’d just gotten back—but I was going to talk about Sutter’s Mill and how the gold rush started.” Tilda paused for a moment. “Yes, everyone was there. We brought in desks from the other classroom. The place was packed. There were kids standing up and sitting on the floor.”

Like most people, the students were fascinated by stories of instant wealth.

“And I got back right after you’d herded everyone outside,” Annie said.

“We counted them. Remember, Tilda? We made all the students get into groups by age because it was hard to be sure we got everyone out, and they were all milling around. You had that mostly done by the time I got there. But to double-check we counted again, and the students were accounted for.”

Annie, who happened to be closer to Cord than Josh, backhanded Cord in the belly. “None of my students would be party to such nonsense as vandalism or theft.”

Which she knew hadn’t honestly always been true, not when they’d been running free on the streets. But since they’d moved to the Two Harts, she hadn’t seen any of them get in too much trouble.

Cord nodded as he rubbed his belly. “I’m glad to hear it. We didn’t want to believe it was one of them, but it was all that made sense. And now with the dagger still missing ... well, it seems like something that might tempt a youngster to keep as his own.”

“There goes the easy solution.” Josh sounded relieved and frustrated at the same time. “So if it wasn’t one of our noble students, then who else might it be? How do we get to the bottom of this?”

“First, let’s find a way to lock up the laboratory more securely,” Annie said, “so this doesn’t happen again.”

“Lock the laboratory door after the armor’s been stolen, you mean?” Michelle said dryly.

Annie controlled a smirk.

Zane shrugged. “Then tomorrow, Josh, you and Cord ride back out there and search for the dagger.”

“The dagger...” Cord said thoughtfully, “Is there any reason someone would steal just the dagger? You’ve all convinced me it’s not the students here.”

“It’s not,” Annie said firmly. “I say that not because I don’t want to believe ill of them or have an idealistic belief in their honesty. They simply couldn’t have done it. They have me and Tilda and Brody and Ellie as witnesses to their presence here all day.”

“It seems to me someone went to some lengths to make the theft look sloppy and strange and, well, childish.” Cord tapped on the table.

“If that’s true, then we need to at least consider that the theft and disposal of the armor is a distrac tion, so whoever took it will hope we blame the students and with some great regret give up the dagger as lost in the woods or swiped by someone because it’s interesting. ”

That silenced the room. Michelle was the first one to talk. “But why would someone want that dagger anyway? It’s no more valuable than, say, the sword or shield or helmet.”

“Yes,” Annie said, nodding. “Why would they want the dagger?”

“There’s only one thing we can do about it.” Cord kept tapping.

That got everyone’s attention. Annie couldn’t think of a single thing they could do about it. “What’s that?”

Cord arched his eyebrows. “We’ve put it off long enough. It’s time to finish the treasure hunt.”

Annie didn’t see how that made sense. Why did Cord want to get out of here?