Page 14 of Whispers of Fortune (Golden State Treasure Book #1)
F OURTEEN
Al norte de la Bahia de Los Pinos con Capitan Cabrillo en una espesa niebla.
Brody shoved the book at Lock. “What does this mean?”
Lock had studied this book more than any of them. “I’ve looked up most of these words in the library back in New York. Capitan is Captain, I think, in Spanish, so it must all be written in Spanish. I think he’s the captain of a ship—maybe a pirate ship?”
“He? Who are you talking about?”
“Capitan Cabrillo. I couldn’t find a pirate named Cabrillo, but then I didn’t find much about any pirates. Captain Cabrillo, the pirate, makes sense.”
“Los Pinos sounds ... well, there’s Los Angeles. So is Los Pinos another California town?” Brody tapped on the journal. “Los Angeles, that’s a town named by the Mexicans who owned this part of the country before America took over. Los Pinos is a place maybe.”
Thayne, always more sensible than Lock, said, “We need to find someone who speaks Spanish. I think a few of Zane’s cowhands speak that language. I’ve definitely heard a language I don’t understand. Maybe it’s Spanish. Mrs. Lane might know who we could ask.”
Brody had to think for a minute. He remembered that Mrs. Lane was Annie, Ellie’s sister. Which brought Ellie to mind, and he felt the tips of his ears heat up like they sometimes did when he was blushing. Mostly it was confined to his ears, so he hoped his brothers couldn’t see him turning red, wonder why, and end up tricking him into admitting he’d kissed Ellie.
He shouldn’t have done that.
“But why would Grandpa MacKenzie, who didn’t speak Spanish, write down Spanish words?” Brody pointed at the unreadable lines. “See how they’re written, not in Grandpa’s usual script. I wonder if he copied the words from somewhere. Or maybe someone said the words to him, and he tried his best to write down what he’d heard, then study it later.”
“Or so we’d study it later.” Thayne sat around the corner of the square kitchen table to Brody’s right. Lock was on his left. Thayne turned the journal so he could read the words directly instead of looking from the side.
“We should ask around, see if any of the Hart cowhands can read this.” Brody studied the wall in front of him as he considered what to do next.
Lock was shaking his head before Brody could finish the sentence. “What if the words mean ‘here’s the exact location of the pirate’s treasure’? We can’t show this to anyone outside the three of us.”
Brody was drawn out of his pondering to look at Lock. “Then what do we do?”
“I was here when Michelle was, before she left for the lumber company on a mountain her family owns. I think she speaks several languages.” Lock turned to Thayne. “Do you remember if one of them is Spanish?”
Thayne shrugged. “I think I heard Russian once, and maybe French. Those aren’t near as common around here as Spanish. Seems to me if she was going to learn languages other than American—”
“English,” Brody interjected.
“Right, anyhow, you’d think she’d learn the language first that’s all around her. I’ll bet she can speak it.”
“So do we abandon the treasure hunt until she comes home and hope she doesn’t steal the treasure?”
“The Harts are mighty rich, and they’re good people. I doubt they’d steal our treasure.” Rebellion sparked in Lock’s eyes. “But she won’t be back for weeks. If we wait too long, that mountain we need to climb will be colder than ever. It might set us back another whole year.”
“We can’t wait that long.” Strange that Brody felt the urgency to go treasure hunting just like his brothers, but for a different reason. This was a waste of time, and he wanted to be done with it. “I wonder if Ellie speaks Spanish.” He was ashamed of how badly he wanted an excuse to go see her. He quickly shoved that aside. “Let’s ask her and get on with translating this journal.”
After last Saturday night’s fiasco when he’d forbade them to search for the treasure ever again, and they’d run off, he was determined not to treat them with a heavy hand. Thayne was sixteen now, and many sixteen-year-olds were on their own, working and providing for themselves. An adult man couldn’t really run away from home. Brody knew a few who were already married men with children. And Lock was nearing full height and certainly thought of himself as a man. Brody wasn’t going to lay down the law with them ever again. Instead, he’d talk to his brothers man-to-man, and the three of them would make decisions together in a reasonable manner.
Lock leapt to his feet with a shriek. “You think if we can get that line translated, that’ll lead us to millions of dollars in pirate treasure?”
Body didn’t remind Lock that there were quite a few lines Brody couldn’t read. Fine, he would make reasonable decisions with Thayne.
Thayne punched the air. “I think it’s a diamond mine, not pirate’s gold.” He pushed back his chair so hard it went crashing to the floor.
Lock rounded the table, hooting with laughter. “Pirate booty, a dead man’s chest full of gold doubloons. Yo-ho-ho!”
“Diamonds!” Thayne righted the chair, stepped onto the seat, and leapt off, shouting, “Diamonds, diamonds, diamonds!”
The two of them started dancing a jig.
With a sigh that came all the way from his toes, Brody decided being reasonable was going to be his job and his alone. “Boys, we’ve spent enough time on the journal today. I’ll talk with Ellie tomorrow once work slows down. Now, I want to know more about what went on at home while I was away. I sent money enough to pay your rent. And Ma was working. Did you two work? What was it like at home?”
The boys, their chests heaving from the exertion, finished their dance. Their spirits high, they went back to the table and sat down again. Thayne and Lock plopped down in their chairs, and finally Brody was given a chance to talk about something other than hunting treasure.