Norton, Andre - Novel 32 (13 page)

Neal was holding
Parky
in spite
of the little
boy's
struggles, his flying fists beating the air.
Perks stood before Marlene, hitting out at the
older girl as wildly as her
brother fought to do.

"Perks!"
Christie rushed to grab her
sister.
"Perks,
behave
yourself
!" But she had dif
ficulty restraining the child,
who was red-faced
now
and screaming in rage.

"She slapped
Parky
, she
did,
she
did!" The uproar Perks made was
deafening.

"He bit me first!" Marlene had backed
against the wall, staring at both
furiously angry
twins
as if they were wild animals.

"She was going to take Lady Maude. She wouldn't let
go of the box!" Perks continued.
"She's mean, mean, mean!"

"Perks!"
Christie shook her little
sister.
"Calm
down, Perks. Stop it!" Now her voice was beginning to sound as shrill as
Perks's
.

"Get them out of here." Neal pushed the
resisting
Parky
ahead of him. Christie tried to
follow his
suggestion with Perks, though it was
all she
could do to force the little girl to take
one step at a time. Meanwhile
she heard a loud
barking, as if Baron,
having gone off on some business of his own, had returned to find his
family in trouble and was voicing a warning
about what he was going to do to remedy that.

Somehow they got the twins outside. Once
in the open, they began to calm
down.
Parky
refused to answer any questions and Perks
cried loudly as Christie tried to
find out what
had
happened.

"I'll tell you what happened," Marlene ex
claimed. She had a tear in the
sleeve of her
shirt,
and there were dark smudges on her
jeans. "I saw these—these little monsters
sneaking around, pulling out
rocks to open up
that
cave. So I watched to see what else they
were doing. That way I found this treasure of
yours. They had just opened the
box and were
taking
out that old doll when I caught them."

"Perks!"
Christie's real horror was plain
in
her voice. What if the twins had
dragged Lady
Maude out, broken her fine
china head, or got
ten her dress torn
and dirty?

"We were going to hide her and keep her
safe!" Perks wailed. "You and Libby, you
said
she was worth a lot of money and we
wanted her for Daddy! Then she"—Perks stabbed a
finger toward
Marlene—"said Lady Maude be
longed to
her and she was going to take her
right
now. When she couldn't let go of the box,
Parky
bit
her. He had to—she wouldn't let go!"

"Just like an animal!" Marlene broke in.
"Don't you teach your little brother to act human? Just like a dirty
little animal—"

Christie gave Perks a push in Libby's direc
tion and confronted Marlene.
"You—you shut
up!
Parky's
no animal. He was just too excited
and frightened. And you've no
right to Lady
Maude
either!"

"So? Well, this cave is on my own father's land, and
what's found here belongs to us!
And—"

Marlene moved as if to return to the cave,
but the four
Kimballs
plus Libby formed a solid
barrier between her and its entrance. She
stopped, but it was plain she was not yet de
feated.

"You
just wait and see! I'm going right home
now
and tell my father, and you'll see what happens to you then! Your little
brother bit me
and tore my shirt.
See?
Right here.
You're keeping things that belong to
us. My father,
he'll fix you! Just
wait and see!" She turned
her
back on them and went toward > her mare.

Neal moved as if to stop her, but Libby
caught him back.

"Don't make it any worse," the Navajo girl
advised him. "She can cause
trouble and she

Danger for Lady Maude

will
.
What are we going to do about that now?"
She
nodded at the cave.

"There's just too much for us to take it all
away," Neal said.

"Take the mail sack, Lady Maude, and the
strongbox," Christie advised.
"The rest is
mostly
old clothes. We can show Mother and
Father and they'll know who it really belongs
to."

"Chris—Chris, can Marlene do something
bad to
Parky
'cause he bit her?" Perks caught
her sister's hand in both of hers and squeezed
it tight.

"
Parky
shouldn't have
bitten—he knows
that,"
Neal said.

"Don't care!"
Parky
scowled at his brother
defiantly. "She was going to take our stuff.
She's nothing but an old stealer,
so she is! I
couldn't
make her let go, so I bit her!"

"You know what Daddy said about biting,"
Christie reminded him. "Now,
we don't know
how
long it will be before she comes back—"

"Yes." Neal turned to the cave. "We'd better
get those things to the station as quick as
we can."

The
mailbag was light enough for Perks and
Parky
to carry between them. But Lady Maude's
box needed both Christie's and Libby's full strength to transport it.
Neal, with frequent
pauses to rest
cramped fingers, carried the
strongbox.
The meadow seemed to have dou
bled in
length when they crossed it so bur
dened.

"
Yoooohooo
!"
Toliver
ran to meet them from the van. "What's the matter? Why are
you bringing that stuff here?"

Neal
and Libby between them told him what
had
happened at the cave, while Perks and
Parky
dropped down beside Christie where she
sat in
the grass, one arm
laid
protectingly
over
Lady Maude's box.

"Christie, can—can she put me in jail?"
Parky's
face was not red with anger
anymore. He did not look at his sister but stared at the
ground. Perks squeezed up against him, putting
an arm around his shoulders.

"No, I don't think so. But you shouldn't
have done it—you know that."

"There was no other way I could stop her—
she pulled so hard," he said
miserably, and
smeared
one hand across his eyes.

"What made you go to the cave in the first
place? If Marlene hadn't seen you
there she
wouldn't
have known anything about it!"

"We wanted to get Lady Maude—for Daddy,"
Parky
said.

"I'm going for Mother."
Toliver
broke away
from Neal
and his sister. "If old G.T.
comes
riding in here
he won't listen to any bunch of
kids. And Dad's gone off prospecting with Grey
Eagle." The Navajo boy
started to run and
Libby went into the van, coming out with a
thermos jug and two paper cups.

"Here,
Parky
, Perks, drink
some of this lem
onade.
You're all hot—it'll make you feel bet
ter."

Perks had cried so much she had hiccups and
Parky's
face was streaked with dust and
tears.
They drank
what she had poured for them
slowly. Christie stood up and drew a little away
to whisper to Libby.

"Can Marlene really make a lot of trouble?
About the bite
and the things from the cave?"

"She can try." Libby did not give her any
comfort. "Let's get these
boxes and the mail-
bag
into the van.
Toliver
will tell Mother all
about it on the way back and
she'll know better what to do. It'll take Marlene some time to ride
home, and maybe her father won't
be there.
We can
hope they won't come here until your folks are back, too. I wish Dad were here,
but
he won't be back
until late tomorrow."

Christie shivered. It sounded as if they were
in real trouble. Mostly it was
her fault. If she
had
watched the twins more carefully, as
Mother had expected her to, they would never
have gone to the cave. Then
Marlene would never have known about it.
Parky
was
only a
little boy.
Surely they could not do anything to
him really. But she was not sure of that.

She was still feeling cold inside when Mrs.
Wildhorse
came back with
Toliver
. The Navajo
woman did not seem upset—only surprised at their
finds. She agreed that they should leave
those in the van for safekeeping—all except the
mailbag.

"That
should be delivered to the post office."

"They're dead letters."
Parky
had regained
some of
his usual assertiveness. "Neal said let
ters can't be delivered when they are dead."

"Perhaps they can't be delivered to the right
people," Mrs.
Wildhorse
agreed, "but they are
mail, in an official pouch, and
must be taken
to the
office in town. I wonder how long they
have been in that cave."

"The papers packed around Lady Maude
have the date eighteen
seventy-five on them,"
Christie said. "They were from
London
. Please,
can Marlene just take Lady Maude
and the rest
of the
things?"

"Not right
away,
and maybe
not at all. We
shall
tell the sheriff about this and he will take
charge. Perhaps even the court will have to
decide about the true ownership. There's some
thing even more important to think about
now."

"You mean who's going to have the station?"
Neal asked.

"Yes."

"Please, can you tell us more about that?"
Christie wanted to know.
"Mother and Father
were so busy and they went to town so early.

All we really know is what Marlene told us—
that her father and not Daddy
owns
it."

"I don't think anyone knows the truth just
yet, Christie. You see, when the
stage line was
established
Arizona
wasn't even a state—it was
a territory. Mr. Bright, who started the stage
line, had a grant from the territorial government
to build the stations. But this particular one was
built only with the permission of the Navajos by a
special treaty.
     
_s

"Then for a while it served also as an army
post. So there have been a number
of different
'owners.'
The stagecoach rights were given to
last
a good many years, and they were renewed
again
right after
Arizona
became a state be
cause no railway ran in this
direction and there
was
another silver strike back in the mountains about fifty years ago. So, though the
real stage
had not
run for a good many years, a transportation company was formed on their old
charter and the station used
again.

"Your father and his partner bought these
rights from the representative of
that old com
pany.
Now Mr. Toner says that because the
stage line stopped using the station, they lost
their claim and had no right to
sell to a private
person. It is all very
complicated and may have
to be taken to
court."

"That would take a long time, wouldn't it?"
Neal asked doubtfully.

"I'm afraid so."

"And we can't wait a long time," Neal said.
"We have to have the station
open for business
as soon as the highway
is ready—Dad has said
that several times. So
it looks as if Mr. Toner
may win after
all."

"Why did the man sell it to Daddy if it didn't
really belong to him?"
Christie wanted to
know.

"He thought that it did, and he will have to
go to court, too," Mrs.
Wildhorse
said.

"But that still doesn't mean that Marlene can
have Lady Maude and the rest of
the things
does
it?"
Perks leaned against Christie, again
pulling at her hand. "It doesn't, does it?"

Christie could not answer that—she was too
afraid that the answer might be
yes, and inside
now
she felt as hot and angry as
Parky
must
have been back in the cave. Nobody was going
to get Lady Maude—not if she could help it!