Page 24 of Whispers of Fortune (Golden State Treasure Book #1)
T WENTY -F OUR
Brody heard Lock yelp in pain. He bit the sound off quick, but Brody stopped hugging the poor battered kid and said, “Ease up now. Sit down and let’s study this map.”
“We need to go right now, Brody.” Lock sat with a poorly stifled groan, even as he demanded action.
Brody’s younger brother needed a bit more time to heal up. “Yes, we should go, but it’s Thursday. I don’t think we can go this weekend.”
“Brody, c’mon!” Lock howled.
“We have to go,” said Thayne, whose protest ran right over the top of Lock’s.
Brody had to smile at them. “We will go, and soon. As soon as it’s safe for Lock to sit in a saddle for hours on end. Cracked ribs often feel much better after two weeks. You’re close, Lock, but not this weekend. The next one, though.”
He urged Thayne to sit down at the small table. They were in the kitchen above the doctor’s office. Brody had finished the day’s work. The boys had gone to school and returned. They’d eaten a simple supper one of his patients had brought over instead of her dollar. Then, as they did most evenings, they’d started going over the journal again, looking for more clues.
Lock’s frustration at seeing nothing new had erupted. He’d thrown the old book, and the map had come to light.
“Let’s study it.” Brody’s heart sped up as he focused on the map. He rested one hand on each boy’s shoulder, and that drew their attention. Brody might not have exactly rested a hand; he might’ve squeezed, a bit hard, in his excitement. He relaxed his grip, but he had his brothers’ full attention now. “I promise you, I want to go just as badly as you do. But, Lock, you agree with me, don’t you? You’re not up to riding for hours, then hiking over rough ground. You want to feel strong when we go searching, don’t you? You two won’t run off again, right?”
Lock’s cheeks turned pink, a smile curving his lips. “We won’t run off again.”
Thayne turned to the map laid out on the table. “We haven’t sunk so low as to turn to horse thievin’, and we know how far it is to that green pond.” He jabbed a finger onto the old map. “He’s written Loch Uaine. The map will lead us from there.”
“I’m going to heal up just as fast as I can, and then we can finish this treasure hunt.” Lock grinned. “I can’t believe it—there really is a treasure. Grandpa’s map proves that, doesn’t it?”
Brody was struck by how young Lock was. He was fourteen and had done a fair amount of growing. He was gangly, not as tall as Brody and Thayne, but Brody had gotten to thinking of him as a man. Yet his smile, his cheeks pink with excitement, the glow of wonder in his eyes—all of it told Brody there was still a lot of kid in there.
This treasure hunt had to be about the most fun a kid could ever have.
A man too. He couldn’t wait to tell Ellie.
The three of them bent over the map.
“Wait!” Brody said, his hand in the air. “I’m going to fetch some paper and try to copy this. We don’t want to harm the original map.”
“Good idea.” Lock barely glanced up from the chicken scratches of Grandpa’s handwriting.
Brody pounded down the stairs and was back up fast. When he returned, his brothers were leaning close to the map but kept their hands well away from it. Brody sat down and gently slid the map in front of him.
“Now,” he began, “let’s talk about what we’re seeing here.”
“Don’t forget,” Thayne said, “we may see something that’ll help us better understand Grandpa’s notes.”
Brody looked up at his brother. “Good thinking. First thing I’ll do is draw in Loch Uaine. That much we know.”
“We can ride back to that very spot.” Thayne pointed to the area on the map. “This looks like a trail or a path of some kind, don’t you think?”
Brody nodded. “But it’s hard to know if it’s long or short. It could be a hundred feet long, or it could go for miles.”
“Let’s just do our best to follow the map as accurately as possible.” Thayne’s eyes were riveted on the map. “We’ll have to take the trail once we’re there. Hopefully some of these strange shapes Grandpa drew will make sense once we’re back down there by the green pond.”
“Does this look like an oddly shaped rock to you?” Brody stared at the paper, and his brothers debated what they were looking at.
The three of them continued to fuss over the map, with Brody sketching a replica of it. One that wasn’t on the verge of crumbling. They spent all evening laboring over it. As Brody worked, he thought of Ellie and wished she were there. And it wasn’t all about helping with the treasure hunt.
The next morning, Ellie swung open the door to the doctor’s office.
Brody needed to get the boys fed, and then he and Thayne had to work hard to get Lock to school. They’d built a special chair in which to carry him. Once they got Lock settled at his school desk, he had to stay there throughout the day—although Annie had told Ellie that Lock had been doing a bit of limping around. It seemed he was healing fast.
If Ellie came too early, she distracted them from what needed to be done in the morning. And unless there was an emergency, Brody wasn’t working anyway. She forced herself each day to eat some breakfast before coming over. She often packed a loaf of bread, cheese, and a couple of apples and some cookies. Today it was gingersnaps. And she primped just a bit more than maybe was necessary. A few curls in her hair hurt no one. It was all because she didn’t want to get there too early.
Today she’d put on a new everyday dress, pink calico with blue-and-white flowers scattered over it. There was lace at the neck and on the wrists. But not floppy lace. She was here to work, so she dressed accordingly. Still, the lace was white and delicate. She’d tatted it herself.
When she stepped inside, she saw she was alone in the doctor’s office. Listening, she heard no sound overhead, so probably Brody wasn’t back yet from the trip to school.
She set the basket of lunch fixings on the table and looked around. Brody was a good doctor and ran a fine office. He’d asked for supplies Ellie hadn’t thought of stocking the doctor’s office with, and she’d seen to it that things were as he’d requested. She enjoyed the quiet moment in the office where she worked with her handsome new friend.
The door opened behind her, and there he was. His eyes shone as if he was thrilled to see her. She thought he might be ready to say something about their growing feelings for each other. Tell her she’d become important to him. Tell her he’d decided not to leave her.
He rushed over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, hoisted her off her feet, and spun her in a complete circle.
She was right. He was ready to tell her—
“We found something.” Brody howled with pure joy and spun her around again. “There was a map stuck inside the front cover of Grandpa’s journal.”
So he was ready to tell her about ... that stupid journal? Arms wrapped around his neck, she gritted her teeth and considered how she was in the perfect position to box his ears.
He plunked her back onto her feet, grabbed her hand, and dragged her up the stairs to his apartment. Which wasn’t at all proper. She shouldn’t be up there without the boys present. As they climbed the stairs together, she sighed, knowing full well she was safe from any impropriety because this was all about the journal, and because Brody was a half-wit.
He led her to the kitchen table, where she saw two sheets of paper along with the journal, one of them yellow from age and badly creased. It was torn along one of the creases. Beside it lay new paper and a pencil. And on that new paper she saw a copy of the old sheet of paper.
She decided right then that if Brody was a half-wit, then she was one as well. “This old map was in the journal?”
“Last night Lock was angry and frustrated, mainly because I’d told him he needed another week to heal up before we could go treasure hunting again.” Brody reached for the journal and put it in front of her. “He was rough with the journal and tore it. That was when we found this map.” He jabbed his finger at the brittle paper. “I made a replica so we wouldn’t damage the original map further.” Pointing to a spot on the replica, he went on, “Here’s the green pond, or at least we’re figuring that’s what it is. Do you think—?”
The door squeaked open downstairs. “Doc? Are you here?” a woman called.
“That’s Harriet,” Ellie said. “I asked her to bring the baby in when it was a couple of weeks old.”
He gave the map a longing look, then turned to Ellie and smiled that glowing smile of his.
“I can’t wait to hear more, but we’ll do it later.” Ellie headed for the stairs.
Brody followed her. From behind, he said, “I shouldn’t have dragged you upstairs. I’m sorry about that. I forgot myself.”
He hadn’t forgotten about the map, though. Yes, he definitely qualified as a half-wit.