Norton, Andre - Novel 32 (6 page)

"Wood rat nest," Libby explained as she joined
Christie. "They carry off all kinds of
things to build it. Look here—" She stooped
to pull at an end of rag caught
on one of the
thorns.
It came apart as had the old thong
Toli-
ver
had found. "That's real old."

"But there's a tin can," Christie pointed.
"Where would they find
that?"

"Hunter's camp, maybe, or they could even
have brought it all the way from
the station.
No use
you making such a noise," Libby told
Baron. "Old man rat isn't going to come out
and say howdy to you!"

"Don't touch anything," Christie warned the
twins. "See all those
thorns? Get those in your
fingers and they would really hurt."

"Rat knows that," Libby laughed. "It's his
way of keeping the roof
on his house."

"What's this?" Christie had started to turn
away when she caught sight of
something en
tangled in the mess. She
leaned over and picked
at it carefully,
trying hard to avoid the spines.
But
when she tried to tug free what she held, she discovered that the rest must be
deeply embedded in the nest. It looked like leather,
perhaps part of a belt.

Toliver
worked the find loose, suffering stabs
from
two thorns in the process. When he
straightened
it out on the ground, they were all
excited.

"Belt and pistol holster!" Neal cried as if he
could hardly believe it. "It
must be old!"

"Sure is,"
Toliver
agreed. "Guess it's so dry
in here that the leather didn't rot. This might even be
for a Colt .45. Dad would know. And
if
that's true you've got yourselves a good show
piece
for your museum."

Where
did it come from? Christie wondered.
The station?
Or was this
a place where there
had really been a fight—like those Pinto talked
about? She glanced around with a little shiver.
A man just wouldn't leave his gun belt unless
he had no more use for it—she could guess that
much. Suddenly she wanted to go home, but
she would not say so.

Neal prowled around the edge of the nest, peering into
the mass in search of other trea
sures. Perks pulled at Christie's hand.

"That's just a dirty old thing!" She kicked
at the belt. "Let's go and
look for arrowheads
again."

"Perks, you stop that!" Neal shouted.
"That's
a very
important find. And,
Parky
, don't you
dare pull at it! Want a cactus
spine in your
hand?
Christie, you get those kids out of here
before they get into trouble."

"Come on
Parky
,
Perks." She was willing
enough. "Let's go hunt arrowheads."

Perhaps
Parky
had been cowed by
Neal's
shout, because he did come. She
took both chil
dren back to the gravel bed,
but it was so hot
she did not see how
they could stay. Libby sat
down with
her back to the wall in what shade there was and Christie joined her. A few min
utes later the twins flopped down beside them.

Christie felt sleepy. Perks, curled up with her
head on Christie's lap, dozed
off. I'll just close
my
eyes for a minute, the older girl thought. It
is so quiet—just for a minute—

"Chris! Please, Chris—" Her head jerked
and she opened her eyes, not quite
sure for a
moment
where she was. The shadows had crept
out farther, but beyond them the sunlight was still bright
enough to make her blink.

"Chris! Please, Chris, wake up!" Perks was
pulling at her shoulder.

She came fully awake, for there were tear
streaks down Perks' round cheeks,
cutting
tracks
through the dust.

"Perks!"
She threw her arm about the
small
girl.
"Perks, honey, what's the matter? Are you
hurt?"

Perks smeared one hand across her eyes.
More tears spilled over.
"Chris—Shan—he's
lost!
We hunted 'n' hunted—but he's lost!"

Shan! How—and where? Christie scrambled
up, still holding on to the crying Perks. She saw
Libby was standing, too, looking about her.

"What's the matter?" asked the Navajo girl.

"Shan.
Perks says he's gone. But
how—"

Surely before she had settled down by the
rocks she had fastened Shan's
leash back on
the
handle of the picnic basket—she distinctly
remembered doing that. The cat might have
been able to drag the basket along
if he pulled
hard
enough, but he could not have gone far
with that as an anchor. It was the way they
always left him when they went on
a picnic.

"I'm sure I fastened his leash to the bas
ket—"

"You did. I saw you," Libby assured her.

"Maybe his harness got open. But it was
buckled—
Or
the leash could have broken—"

"
Parky
was hungry,"
Perks jerked out be
tween
sobs. "He wanted a cookie and he had to take the leash off to get the
basket open."

"But Perks, then you should have put the leash over
a rock—like I did at
noon
!"

"We—we forgot!"
Perks's
sobs turned into
a
loud wail.

"What's going on?" Neal tramped up to the
picnic basket just as Christie
arrived from the
other
direction. He was smudged and dirty and
looked hot and tired.

"Shan's gone," Christie told him. "The
twins wanted cookies and took his leash off the
basket to get them."

"I told her, I told her, I told her!"
Parky
scrambled over
a rock into sight. "I said 'Perks,
put
Shan's leash on the rock.' And she for
got—"

Perks let out another wail and burrowed her face against
Christie.

"You opened the basket,
Parky
.
You
should
have
put the leash on the rock," Christie
snapped, and then gathered Perks to her closely.
"Perks, honey, don't cry so.
You know Shan
doesn't
like strange places. Now let's all be
quiet while I call him. You'll see him come
because he's probably almost as
frightened as
you
are. But you'll have to be quiet so Shan
can hear."

"I'll try," Perks said in a small, muffled
voice.

"Shan—Shan—here, boy.
Shan!"
Christie
tried to make her voice firm yet
coaxing. It was
true that Shan would come
when she called,
but only if he chose
to. And he might not be
as frightened
at finding himself loose as she had
assured Perks. If he were curious
and had gone
exploring, he could be anywhere.

Shan did not come, nor did he reply to her
calls as he sometimes did with a
little sound
that
meant, "I'm busy. Don't bother me."

Parky
was beginning to sniff now, too.
He
brushed angrily
at his eyes, not wanting to show
he shared his twin's despair. Finally Christie
left Perks with Libby and made a
circuit of the
open
space, calling, listening,
then
calling
again.
Toliver
,
Libby, and Neal stayed where
they were because Christie thought with too
many searchers Shan might take cover and not
come out at all.

She met Neal at last by the rocks through
which they had come.

"He might have gone back." She spoke
aloud what she most feared. If
Shan was here,
hiding
somewhere, they had a chance of finding
him. However, if he had gone back toward the
meadow he could be anywhere and they might never see
him again. Christie thought of snakes
and
coyotes for
whom
Shan might make a good
dinner. In spite of the sun hot on her head and
shoulders she felt very cold inside.

Neal caught her sleeve. "We can try Baron!"

Would Baron understand what they wanted
him to do? Christie was not sure,
and she did
not
have much hope. Neal whistled for the dog,
who
came in a rush. The boy caught
him on
either side of
the head, looked down into his
eyes, and spoke slowly and distinctly, as if the
dog could indeed understand every
word.

"Shan, Baron, fetch Shan." With his fingers
hooked in the dog's collar he led
him over to where Shan had lain in the shade and pushed
his head down so he could sniff the stone there.
"Fetch, Baron—fetch Shan!"

Neal
released his hold and stood back. Baron
had
been sniffing the rock. Suddenly Christie felt a little more hopeful. If Baron
could trail
Shan—

Shan must still have his leash on. Suppose
that had become caught, was holding him pris
oner somewhere so he couldn't come? Baron
still sniffed,
then
he
raised his head and looked
at Neal as
if wondering what to do next.

"Find Shan—find!" Neal ordered sharply.

The dog gave one more sniff and did move
away, nose close to the ground as
if he were
following
a scent! Christie held her breath.
Baron was heading for their back trail. Oh, if
Shan had gone into the open could
even Baron
trail him
there? The dog moved slowly, stop
ping many times to sniff. Because they had no
other hope, the children followed
him.

Baron continued to move slowly, stopping now
and then for a long sniff at some
rock. Christie
twisted
her hands together. They could not
even be sure the dog was trailing Shan—he could be after a
rabbit or one of those chuck-
awalla
things. Suppose Shan had gone in the
opposite direction and was
caught now by leash
or
harness—maybe choking!

The dog came to a big slide of rock and poked
his nose between two boulders.
Then he gave
an
excited bark and began to dig, showering gravel and sand over the children, who
were
crowding
closer. Neal caught him by the collar
and pulled him back while
Toliver
squatted
down, his
head so low that he, too, might have
been smelling
out a trail.

"There's a hole back here," he reported. He
pushed tighter
against the rocks and shoved his
hand
and then his arm into the crevice. "Goes
in pretty far," he reported. "I can't feel any
thing—"

"Let me!" Christie jerked at his shoulder.
"If Shan is in there maybe
he'll come when I
call."

She crouched down in
Toliver's
place.
"Shan!
Shan!" she cried, with her mouth as close to that
hole as she could get it.

Then they listened, so they
could
hear the
thin, hollow-sounding wail that
answered her. It was one Shan always used when in trouble.

"He can't get out!" Christie was as sure of
that as if she could see.
"Maybe his leash is caught somewhere. Oh, Neal, what if we can't
get to him!" She shivered.

"Look here!"
Toliver's
sharpness caught all their attention. He stood a little back, studying
the pile of rocks. "I don't
think this was just
a
rock fall. This was built on purpose. Maybe
it's a cave someone walled up."

"The Old Ones!"
Libby shrank back.
"One
of their places."

But that did not mean anything to Christie.
"If the rocks were put there,
then can't we take
them
away—let Shan out? We
have
to!"

"Stand back, Christie." Neal had gone to
stand beside
Toliver
.
"Maybe if we try taking stones out at the top we can get enough free so
someone can crawl through."

"Oh, Neal, we have to, we do!" Christie
reached for one of those upper
rocks but
Toli
ver
caught her wrist.

"This has to be done slowly," he warned her.
"We don't want to start any slide. The
hole could be part of a mine digging. Neal 'n'
me, we'll pick out the rocks and
hand '
em
to
you girls. You pile them over there where they
can't fall back. Ready?"

"Yes, yes! Please hurry!" Christie pushed
her glasses higher on her
sweating nose and
held
out her hands for the first stone.

It
seemed to her that
Toliver
was far too slow in
picking out the proper rocks, loosening them
with
such care he was just wasting time. She
handed them on to Libby, who laid them on
the ground while
Parky
and Perks rolled them
out of the way.

The hole
was
growing larger. Now they could
hear more wails from Shan,
uttered at intervals
as
if he wanted them to hurry. A big lizard
flashed
into view and Baron barked and leaped before Neal could stop him, so that
stones tum
bled and the hole was nearly
covered again.

"
Parky
," Neal ordered,
"you catch Baron
and
keep him away from here."

Once more
Toliver
pried at
stones, now using
the
blade of his belt hatchet.

"I don't think this is a mine shaft," he com
mented.