Katie Watson Mysteries in Time Box Set

by Mez Blume

  “Forgot what?”

  “You have to see this.” I scrambled over to the heap of clothes where my quiver rested on top, pulled out the leather folder and brought it back to Imogen. “Now brace yourself,” I said as I turned open to the painting of the two of us side by side.

  She stared at the painting as I explained how I’d thought there was only the one painting of me, then how I’d accidentally found the others after she’d been taken by the peddlers.

  “I don’t understand what this means,” Imogen said, her eyes still transfixed on the picture.

  “It means Ramona knew we’d be here. We were meant to be here together.”

  “But how did she know? And how did she mean for us to get back? Have you asked them?”

  “I’ve been a little distracted rescuing you,” I admitted. “But I did ask about the stone, and I was wrong. Ramona didn’t take it. It’s got nothing to do with her magic.”

  “But if Ramona painted those horses in the cave, then she has to come back some time. I mean, the painting isn’t there yet, right? Don’t they have any idea where she is?”

  I shook my head. “Wattie told me that Ramona might’ve run off with the stone so that Black Fox would leave Jim and Ka-Ti alone. But Jim swears she didn’t take it, and I believe him.”

  Imogen scrunched up her face, thinking. “Still, if Black Fox thought Jim had taken it, Ramona might have pretended to take it away just to throw Black Fox off the scent.”

  I looked at Imogen, impressed by the sleuth skills I never knew she had. “Yea, I suppose she might’ve done that. In which case, the stone is still out there somewhere.”

  Imogen’s eyes grew wide. “Maybe if we could find it, she could come back.” She frowned. “Only, how would she know, even if we did find it? I mean, it’s not like we can send her an email.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and my eyes dropped to the painting of Imogen and me. “Maybe the same way she knew about us, even though we’ve never met her. Maybe she’ll just know.”

  Imogen made a face to warn me that Jim was approaching. With a grunt, he lowered himself onto a stump beside the fire, took out his knife and started picking at his fingernails with the tip of it. We watched him, neither of us speaking.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, holding his hands out to the flames. “Wildcat caught yer tongues?” When neither of us said anything, Jim tried a more direct approach. “What’s yer name again? I-ma-jeen?”

  “It’s Imogen,” she corrected.

  Jim tried again. “Eem-o-gin?”

  “Oh, never mind. Just call me Dilli. All the others do.”

  “Dilli?” Jim scratched his head and chuckled to himself. “Well it’s easier to say, I’ll give you that. Well now, Dilli, I don’t reckon you happened to overhear anything interestin’ from them thugs while they was draggin’ you around?”

  Imogen knitted her eyebrows, thinking back. “They talked a lot about Governor Blunt.”

  “Go on.” Jim was all ears.

  “He’s been paying them to steal things from the Cherokee. Like horses,” she said, giving me a meaningful look. “Oh, and something about a treaty Blunt is making. They said they’d get the rest of their pay day after tomorrow once the Governor made the deal … that they’d get first pick of the land.”

  “Blunt’s Town,” I said at once.

  Both Imogen and Jim looked at me.

  I got up, ran to the grey horse and found the rolled-up map I’d stuffed into his saddle bag. “Here,” I said, handing it to Jim. “I found this in Blunt’s mansion. I forgot to show you.”

  Jim unrolled the map and scratched his chin. “Well I’ll be …”

  “Blunt’s making a treaty with Black Fox,” I told Imogen. “That’s why he got so flustered when you mentioned his name. He’s buying Nickajack illegally.”

  Imogen looked outraged, then perplexed. “How do you know all this, Katie?”

  “Long story,” I said, and explained briefly how I’d followed the officers who had taken Wattie, then sneaked into the Governor’s mansion and spied on his conversation with Lovegood.

  “How’d you get away without being caught?” she asked in a mix of amazement and horror.

  “I … uh …”

  Jim answered for me. “She rode off on Lovegood’s horse. That one, right there.” He nodded at the grey horse and clapped his hands together.

  Imogen’s face had gone from horrified to impressed. “Katie! Now you’re a horse thief!”

  I shrugged. “Only in the Robin Hood sense of the word.”

  “There’s a fittin’ name for that horse,” Jim hollered. “Why don’t you call him Robin Hood?”

  We all laughed for one golden moment. Ka-Ti returned with her basket and put her arm over her father’s broad shoulders.

  But Jim quickly steered the conversation back to deep waters. “There’s somethin’ about this whole treaty story that don’t sit right. I know Black Fox. He’s as red-blooded a Cherokee warrior as ever you’ll meet. I just can’t see him sellin’ his people’s land to a man like Blunt.”

  Something Wattie had said leapt to mind. “Unless Blunt had something Black Fox really wanted.”

  “Like what?” Imogen asked.

  “Wattie told me he’d do anything for the Uktena Stone. Even kill for it.” I glanced at Jim, whose eyes were fixed on the fire. “What if that’s what Blunt is bargaining with? The stone for the land?”

  “I always suspected Blunt had the stone,” Jim said at last. He sounded as if he was only just controlling the angry grizzly bear inside of him. “He didn’t just accuse me of stealing it. He arranged the whole thing. But he’s gonna reap what he’s sown.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Just wait ’til Black Fox gets his hands on that Uktena Stone. He believes it’ll make him invincible, and his gang of followers’ll believe it too. He’ll make himself Chief and lead his warriors in a war against the settlers, you mark my words.” He shook his head. “Blunt don’t have the slightest idea of what he’s getting himself in for. You pick a snake up by its tail, and the other end’s bound to bite you.”

  “If we could just find that stone, we could put a stop to this,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Without the stone, Blunt has nothing to bargain with.”

  Jim was shaking his head. “Gal, you done been in that cold water too long. Don’t you know that ol’ chunk of rock could be anywhere? Why, it could be in Blunt’s pocket.”

  I sank back down beside Imogen again, but she was looking at me with a strange light in her eyes. “Of course!” she said, almost laughing. “Katie, we know where it is! Don’t you remember the first time we ever encountered Black Fox?”

  I shivered. “How could I forget?” I grabbed Imogen’s arm. “Oh! The cave! Of course.”

  In a rush of excitement, Imogen and I told Jim what we had overheard between Black Fox and the guard that first terrifying night in the cave.

  “Where was this cave?” asked Jim.

  We looked at each other, both trying to remember some useful point of reference.

  “Somewhere near the Federal Road?” I offered.

  “And it’s behind a waterfall,” Imogen added.

  To our amazement, Jim gave a sharp nod. “I know the place.” He stood up and, thrusting his knife back into its sheath, said, “Drink up, gals. We’re goin’ on a treasure hunt.”

  30

  A Shot in the Dark

  “But what about rescuing Wattie?” I murmured to Jim as we dismounted our horses. I was beginning to worry about what Blunt might do to him when he learned we’d foiled his plans.

  “We get that stone first,” Jim answered. “Then we got somethin’ to bargain with.”

  We tied the horses a little way off and followed Jim on foot up a steep, winding path through the woods.

  “That’s the entrance to the cave just there.” He was nodding towards the other side of the ravine we’d been hiking along where, sure enough in the rock face, al
most hidden behind the rhododendron bushes, was the black outline of a cave opening. When we got closer, Jim lit a couple of lanterns and handed one to Ka-Ti. Then he ducked his head and disappeared into the dark sliver in the mountainside. Jim led the way, Imogen and I following after him and Ka-Ti taking up the rear, holding her lantern up to cast a beam of light on the steps just ahead of us.

  I could never have imagined what strange worlds exist in the belly of a mountain. The lantern lights lit up walls and a ceiling that looked like dripping wax. Sometimes we had to squeeze around a corkscrew pillar of the waxy stone or duck under a great blob of it like a giant bee hive, or step over little streams that cut across the slippery floor and disappeared down mysterious holes.

  Imogen grabbed on to the back of my tunic as we squeezed past a particularly narrow gap, shuffling sideways as the walls almost touched each other, then opened out again. Then the ceiling came down to meet the floor like the two halves of a hamburger bun, and we had to drop to our hands and knees and crawl across the clammy surface. The tightness made me feel as if I were choking. I closed my eyes, breathing slowly and forcing myself to imagine that I was in a vast, open cavern. When I heard the sound of rushing water, I opened my eyes and my imagination had come true.

  Jim’s lantern swung in his raised hand, shooting beams of light in every direction of the enormous room that was as wide as a circus tent and as tall as a cathedral. My jaw dropped as I got to my feet, my head tilting back to take in the waterfall spilling from the rock ceiling down into a clear pool.

  “Wow,” Imogen breathed when she’d got to her feet beside me, followed by Ka-Ti.

  “Heh. So this is where Blunt hoards his loot. Ain’t he a right magpie?” Jim said, walking a circle around the cave.

  Only then did I take my eyes off the waterfall to notice the dozens and dozens of crates and barrels littering the cave floor. Jim rifled through them, picking up a beaded belt here, tossing aside some cloth there. It dawned on me that these must be the stolen treasures of countless Cherokee villages along the Tennessee River.

  “But the stone could be anywhere,” Imogen said despondently as she half-heartedly started searching through a crate of knick-knacks.

  “Miss Fire-Hair, Dilli, you two take my lantern and start huntin’ on that side.” Jim pointed to the opposite side of the cave as he handed me the lantern. “Me and Kingfisher’ll start over here. Look for smaller boxes first. I don’t reckon even Blunt would just toss the stone into a crate of petticoats.”

  Imogen and I searched every small box, basket or pouch we could find. We found silver earrings, beaded necklaces and even a purse made out of a bear’s paw, but no stone.

  I sat back on my heels and scratched my nose – I’d just been sifting through a basket of feathery headdresses. “I feel like we’re wasting time, looking in all this stuff.”

  Imogen tossed a pair of moccasins aside. “You mean you don’t think the stone is even in here?”

  I chewed on my lip. “It has to be in here. At least it was when Black Fox came sniffing for it, or why else would the guard have turned him away? It just seems like it would be hidden somewhere all on its own. Somewhere special.”

  As if drawn by a magnet, my head and Imogen’s both turned at that second towards the waterfall.

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Imogen said. “We do tend to find interesting and unexpected things behind waterfalls.”

  Together we meandered through the maze of stolen goods until we came to the pool fed by the waterfall. We walked gingerly around the slippery edge, grabbing hold of the cave wall as soon as we reached it. I held up the lantern, making a sparkling mist appear before our eyes. But what else appeared were stones, smooth and flat, spaced out across the pool leading behind the waterfall. Stepping stones.

  It was slow work, hopping from stone to slippery stone. I went first, turning to shine the lantern for Imogen each time before going on. Twelve stones later, I could feel the shower of mist wetting my face and hair. We were nearly under the waterfall. With the next leap, I landed on a stone floor. Grabbing Imogen’s hand as she leaped behind the waterfall, I held up the lantern.

  We were in the belly of a colourful alcove. Yellow stalactites dripped down like weird, waxy chandeliers from the domed ceiling. A sort of stone shelf jutted out in the middle of the alcove. We tiptoed closer, light held high. There on the shelf was a single, smooth oval stone. It glistened green and pearly white in the light, and when I leaned in closer, I could make out the spiral design etched into its surface: a snake.

  I didn’t lay a finger on the stone until Jim and Ka-Ti came to see it for themselves.

  “Is that it?” Imogen looked at Jim, whose eyes were glued to the thing with a grim expression.

  Without ungluing them, he nodded. “That’s the little rock that cost me everything I had.” With that, he reached out and grabbed the stone with a vengeance, then slipped it into the pouch at his hip. “Let’s get outta here.” He stepped across the stones again, the rest of us following him.

  I brought up the rear and had just reached the last step when a voice echoed around the cavern walls.

  “WHAT’S GOIN’ ON IN THERE?”

  Jim turned and ordered, “PUT THAT LIGHT OUT AND TAKE COVER!” I put out my lantern just as Jim put out his. The cave went black as we scattered like mice. I felt Imogen whip past me just as I ducked down behind a box.

  The pitch blackness lasted only for a second before another light flickered in another passageway on the opposite side of the cave. It grew larger and brighter as a guard scurried into view, his lantern in one hand, a pistol in the other.

  I ducked a little lower as he held up his lamp, swinging it this way and that. It stopped. My heart stood still as I looked down its beam. It had landed on Imogen’s foot just as she’d pulled it in behind her barrel. I watched, horrified, as the guard set down his lantern and took aim with his pistol at the barrel behind which Imogen lay huddled, unaware she’d been seen. Where was Jim?

  Then I saw him. Jim’s hulking figure rose up from behind a pile of crates behind the guard’s back. Just as the guard cocked the pistol, Jim threw something hard and round at him. It caught the man in the shoulder. He hollered and spun around, ready to shoot at Jim.

  I jumped out from behind my box. “OVER HERE!” I shouted.

  The guard swung the gun around to point it at me, and at the same time Jim ran up behind him and threw his muscular forearm around the man’s neck in a chokehold, while another hand reached around and grabbed the pistol. The guard kicked his lantern in the struggle and, in an instant of shattering glass, all light went out followed by a deafening Bang! that made the cave walls and floor shudder. I dropped to the ground and covered my head with my arms as bits of rock and sharp stalactites crumbled and plummeted from the cave’s ceiling.

  For a minute, I was deaf and blind, groping around on my hands and knees, terrified to learn what had happened when the gun went off. With a sharp breath, I pulled my hand back in pain – I must’ve cut it on a piece of broken lantern glass ― but as I did, my fingers brushed over something smooth and round. Getting shakily to my feet, I slipped the object into my pocket. A sound, like faint grunting, made me stop and listen.

  A second later, there was the unmistakable sound of a match striking and, blinking into the lamp light, I could make out Jim Weaver’s broad shoulders. He had the guard pinned to the ground with his knee and the man’s hands bound up with rope.

  “I lost the stone, but I caught us a rat,” Jim said. His lip was bleeding.

  “Katie, you’re insane.” Imogen appeared from behind her hiding spot. “You nearly got yourself―”

  A chunk of the rock the size of a tombstone landed about an arm’s length from where Imogen stood, crushing several barrels and sending shock waves through the room.

  “Y’all RUN!” Jim yelled, but he didn’t have to tell us twice. As more chunks of stone thundered down from above, we bolted for the passageway on the other side. Jim and his cap
tive stood at the doorway waiting as Imogen, then Ka-Ti, then I made it through. We didn’t stop, but ran through the blackness, hands out to feel the way forward. I’d got about ten strides in when I heard a yell behind me that could only mean pain.

  “Stop!” I screamed into the darkness ahead of me. “Jim’s hurt!”

  I heard Ka-Ti’s and Imogen’s heavy breathing beside me.

  “Pa!” Ka-Ti panted, moving past me.

  “Ya’ll get outta here!” Jim growled. But none of us listened. Imogen took the prisoner’s rope — he was too scared to put up a fight — while Ka-Ti and I each grabbed Jim under an armpit and dragged, dragged until I was sure my face had turned blue, dragged until the passage started to lighten.

  “There’s the way out!” Imogen called from the front. And with another few heavy steps, we were dragging Jim right out into the daylight. Ka-Ti and I stumbled to our knees, exhausted, but she didn’t even catch her breath before taking the bandana she wore around her arm and tying it around her father’s leg where the deerskin had been soaked through with blood. She took a flask from her jacket and gave it to him to drink.

  Jim took a swig and winced. “You gals ain’t too good at followin’ orders,” he grunted.

  None of us apologised.

  Jim’s leg was badly hurt. There was no doubt about it. We had come out of the mountain into the open alcove behind the enormous waterfall that Imogen and I had now visited three times. After scouting the place for any more guards and finding it deserted, we propped Jim up against the stone wall and tied our prisoner to a root that had wormed its way through the rock. Once Ka-Ti had tended to all of our scratches, even the prisoner’s, we washed our hands and faces in the runoff from the waterfall and plopped down, exhausted.

  It was Imogen who asked the question I’m pretty sure we’d all been thinking: “Now what?”

  Nobody answered. Then Jim shook his head. “Without that stone, I reckon our hands are ‘bout as tied as that fella’s over there.” He nodded his head towards the militia man who hadn’t made a peep since the shock of his narrow escape from the cave.