by Elise Broach
Henry felt a chill of foreboding, and he knew what she was going to say before she said it. She turned back to them. “You don’t know the mountain. The mountain is sacred. Anyone who takes gold from that mine will die.”
CHAPTER 13
THE DEADLY CURSE
ALL HENRY COULD THINK of was the handful of tiny gold flakes that Jack had taken from the gold mine. Jack’s eyes were enormous. His lower lip quivered. “Even a little gold?” he asked.
“Any gold from the mine,” Prita answered. “To the Thunder God, the amount does not matter.”
“But…” Jack’s cheeks were splotched with color. Henry could tell he was on the verge of tears.
Delilah glanced over at him and said quickly, “What if it’s not nuggets of gold, just little bits? Just … gold dust?”
Prita shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Anyone who takes gold from the mine will die.”
Jack could no longer contain himself. “I’m going to DIE!” he cried. He flung himself on the floor, his arms covering his face, his body wracked with sobs.
Henry quickly crouched beside him, not knowing what to do. But Simon was there too, pulling him up.
“Come on, Jack,” Simon said, and his voice was calm, not scolding. “You know that’s not real. Curses and ghosts, they’re just made-up things. You’re not going to die. That’s crazy.”
“I’m going to DIE!” Jack sobbed. “You heard what she said!”
Prita knelt on the floor and gathered Jack, big as he was, into her lap. “What happened? What did you do?” she asked gently.
“I took gold from the mine! I didn’t know!” Jack cried, turning his face into her shoulder and sobbing unabashedly. “Now I’m going to be DEAD!”
Henry could see a dark, wet stain spreading across Prita’s blouse.
She held Jack close. “Then you must return it,” she said simply. “That’s what I told your uncle to do.”
Jack stopped crying, though he still hiccupped. “You said Uncle Hank didn’t take gold.” He gulped.
“Well, he didn’t keep it. He put it back.”
“Uncle Hank took the gold too?”
Prita nodded, setting him gently on the floor. “Let me get you a glass of water,” she said.
A minute later, she returned with a blue plastic cup and a box of tissues. Jack took the cup gratefully and guzzled it, still snuffling. Delilah wiped off his cheeks with the tissues, and Henry was surprised to see him submit to it so docilely.
Prita sat back down in the chair and said, “That’s how your uncle and I first met.”
“When was that?” Simon asked.
Prita’s brow furrowed and she glanced out the window. “It was twelve years ago.”
Before any of us were born, Henry thought.
“He was looking for the gold mine,” Prita continued, “and he knew I was descended from Ken-tee, the Ndee—Apache—girl who first showed Jacob Waltz where the gold was. I warned him about the Thunder God, but he didn’t believe me.”
“You’re related to Ken-tee?” Henry asked. “The girl whose tongue was cut out? Your street is named for her.”
“Yes,” Prita said. “She is one of my ancestors.”
“So what happened?” Simon asked. “You gave Uncle Hank the directions to the gold mine?”
“Yes. In the note you found.”
“But why did you do that?” Henry asked. “You said if he took gold from the mine, the Thunder God would kill him.”
Prita sighed, and looked out the window again. “There is too much for me to explain. I helped him because he said he wanted to find the mine, not take the gold. Your uncle was an adventurer. He didn’t care about material things. He told me he didn’t want the gold … but then, as it does for everyone, the search for the gold began to change him.”
“Was it gold fever?” Henry asked. He remembered Emmett telling them about gold fever, the mania that infected people who searched for the gold mine until the gold became more important to them than anyone or anything else.
“Yes,” Prita answered. “It’s an obsession. The desire for the gold makes people crazy—it becomes the only thing they can think about.”
“So when he found the mine, he did take gold from it?” Simon asked.
“Yes, he took a few small nuggets, even though he had promised me he wouldn’t. By then, we had become … close.” She was talking to herself now. “The gold, the gold … it was the only thing we ever fought about. I told him I would not see him anymore if he kept it.”
“So he took it back,” Delilah said, satisfied. “Because he loved you.”
“But does that work?” Henry asked. “If you take back the gold, the curse is undone?”
“Yes,” Prita said. “Returning the gold to the mine appeases the Thunder God. So, for me, Hank went back up the mountain and returned it. And that’s when he began searching for the deathbed ore of Jacob Waltz instead.”
Simon shook his head, puzzled. “The deathbed ore? But that’s still gold from the mine, right? Why does that make a difference? It’s stolen from the mountain too.”
“Yes,” Prita answered. “But the Thunder God only punishes the one who takes. When that person is gone and the mountain’s gold passes into other hands, the curse doesn’t follow it.”
Jack’s lower lip quivered. “When that person is GONE,” he whispered.
“So your uncle Hank began his search for the candle box of gold nuggets that Jacob Waltz kept under his bed and that disappeared when he died.”
Henry was lost in thought, his mind wandering over the long list of names in the pamphlet from the historical society. “That’s why all those people died? Jacob Waltz, Adolph Ruth, and the others?”
Prita shook her head. “The mountain is a dangerous place. Many people have died there, and not all of them found the gold. But for those who did … yes. That is the curse of the Thunder God. Anyone who takes the mountain’s gold must die.”
Jack was still snuffling, watching her with large, wet eyes. “But I can just give it back? How do you know that will work?”
Prita pulled him toward her so she could look directly at him. “It is what my great-grandmother told me, and what was told to her by Ken-tee,” she said intently. “I wasn’t sure it would work until Hank did it. But he took the nuggets back to the mine, and he lived his long life. There was no suffering, no early death.”
“And he couldn’t have just given the gold to you?” Simon asked skeptically. “Giving it away isn’t enough?”
“No. The Thunder God’s curse follows the one who stole the gold,” she said simply. “And as I told him, if the gold were to be stolen from him, he would have no way to reverse the curse.”
“Was somebody trying to steal the gold from him?” Simon looked suddenly alert.
“He believed so, yes,” Prita said. “He thought he was being followed.”
“Who was it?” Simon asked, but Henry was certain they already knew the answer.
“There are people in this town who are desperate to find the mine and the gold,” Prita said.
“Who?” Simon persisted.
“I doubt you would know them,” Prita said. “One works at the library. One works at the cemetery.”
Simon nodded grimly. “We know them.”
“’Cuz they’re following us too!” Jack turned to Simon, his face desperate. “We have to go back up the mountain! Back to the gold mine! Before they take my gold and the curse STICKS.”
“Well, I still don’t think that curse is real,” Simon said stubbornly, and then, as Jack’s eyes filled with tears, he continued quickly, “But okay, okay. We’ll take it back. If even the littlest thing does happen to you, I don’t want you blaming it on me. So I guess we don’t have a choice.”
Jack’s face shone with relief. “But then we’ll never be rich,” he said, sorrowfully.
Henry could picture the dark, damp walls of the mine, streaked with sparkling gold. Did that mean the gold was lost to them forever
?
Simon didn’t look happy. “But there’s no curse on the deathbed ore? That box of gold from Jacob Waltz?”
Prita shook her head. “No. After Jacob Waltz died, it was freed from the curse. That’s why Hank began looking for that instead.”
“And he never found it?” Delilah asked.
Prita smiled. “It really was the looking that mattered to him, more than the finding. But that reminds me! Henry, let me get you what your uncle left for you.”
She rested her palms on the arm of the chair and rose to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as she was gone, Delilah said to Simon, “See? I was right about those letters. Prita and your uncle Hank were in love.”
Simon snorted. “Maybe. But who cares? We have bigger things to worry about than that. What good is it finding the Lost Dutchman’s Mine if we can’t take any of the gold?”
Prita returned with a sealed envelope in her hand. Henry immediately recognized Uncle Hank’s creamy stationery. The envelope was emblazoned with his name in black script: Henry Cormody. It matched the stationery they had found in his desk drawer when they first moved to his house in Superstition; the same stationery Josie had found crumpled in the gold mine, which had convinced them that Uncle Hank had been there and found the gold.
“Here, Henry,” Prita said, holding it out to him.
Henry took it, his fingers trembling. Uncle Hank had left him a message, something only and especially for him—something Uncle Hank had written before he died. What could it possibly say?
Jack bounced forward onto his knees. “Did he leave anything for me? Or Simon?” he asked Prita.
“No, just this. For Henry,” Prita said.
And even as Henry’s heart leapt at the feeling of being chosen, he felt a pang of guilt over his brothers, who were sitting next to him empty-handed.
He held the cool envelope in his palm.
“Open it,” Simon ordered.
“Yeah, open it!” Jack echoed.
Henry looked at Prita. She nodded silently.
He tore open the sealed flap of the envelope and slowly took out what was inside.
CHAPTER 14
SOMETHING FOR HENRY
INSIDE THE CREAMY ENVELOPE was a folded sheet of paper. When Henry opened it, he saw HENRY CORMODY in the same black script across the top, and felt again the thrill of seeing his own first name in such a dignified and formal fashion. Beneath that were a few bold lines of Uncle Hank’s handwriting, instantly recognizable from years of birthday cards. He wrote this before he died, Henry thought. He wrote this for me.
“Read it to us!” Jack cried, bouncing excitedly. “What does it say?”
Henry squinted at the page. Even though the ink writing was large and dark, it was cursive, and the lines were a little shaky.
“Dear Henry,” he read aloud, and felt a chill pierce him. It was like hearing Uncle Hank’s voice from beyond the grave.
“Dear Henry,” he read again, concentrating on the spare lines of text. “Your name is my name. It will outlast death—the way a place can be about death but outlast death. If you believe that, you’ll know where to find something I left for you and your brothers. Live well, Henry. Love, Uncle Hank.”
“See? You and YOUR BROTHERS,” Jack declared. “It’s for us too.” He jabbed Simon with his elbow.
“Huh,” Simon said. “I wonder what it is. Did he say anything to you?”
“No,” Prita said. “He only left me the envelope, to give to Henry. I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner. You moved in a few weeks ago, didn’t you?”
“It’s been more than two months,” Henry said. “The beginning of June.”
“I didn’t realize it had been that long.” Her face clouded. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Henry told her quickly. “I’m just glad we found you.” Looking into her calm, dark eyes, he did feel truly glad. This was someone Uncle Hank had loved. Whether she was what Simon thought—just one girlfriend of many—or what Delilah thought—the love of his life—she was someone who had been important to him. That alone made Henry feel a connection to her.
“What do you think it means?” Delilah asked. She took the letter from Henry’s hand and read it to herself. “It will outlast death.…”
“Well, that’s obvious,” Simon said. “Of course his name will outlast death, because Henry is named for him. But if he left something for us, that doesn’t tell us where it would be.”
Delilah handed the letter back to Henry. “Did he leave you guys anything in his will?”
Henry shook his head. “The house was for our whole family.”
“A house is a place that outlasts someone’s death,” Prita said. “Was there anything at Hank’s house that had your name on it? When you moved in, I mean?”
Again, Henry shook his head. “We’ve been through the drawers of his desk—that’s where we found your letters. And our mom and dad boxed up all his belongings. They would have told us if they found anything he meant for us to have.”
Delilah tossed her braid over one shoulder and squinted through the bright windows of the sunporch at Superstition Mountain, looming in the distance. “We need to think of someplace that is about death but outlasts death,” she said. “A mountain outlasts death. Think of all the people who have died on Superstition Mountain, either looking for the gold or just getting lost or killed up there. But the mountain is still there.”
Simon’s brows knitted together skeptically. “If Uncle Hank left something for us on the mountain, we will never find it. The mountain is too big! We wouldn’t know where to look.”
“Well,” Henry said, “he did leave the directions to the gold mine. And the Spanish coins that we found.”
Prita took Jack’s empty water cup. “I can promise you he would not have meant for you to take anything from the gold mine,” she said. “He knew how dangerous that was. He returned the gold he took, and he would never have wanted any of you boys to put your lives at risk.”
She returned the cup to the kitchen and came back, studying them. “He loved you,” she said finally.
They were quiet. Henry was thinking about Uncle Hank, with his wild, adventurous heart that had loved this woman they’d never met, along with his great-nephews.
“Okay,” Delilah said. “Then not the mountain.”
Henry rubbed his forehead, his cheeks hot with concentration. What could Uncle Hank have meant? Lots of Uncle Hank’s belongings had outlasted his death, so that wasn’t saying anything. But you couldn’t expect objects to outlast a person’s life. Most things didn’t last as long as people. There were Uncle Hank’s ashes—they’d lasted longer than Uncle Hank, Henry thought soberly—but since Uncle Hank had obviously been cremated after he died, it would have been impossible for him to leave anything for the boys in the porcelain urn full of ashes.
“Wait,” Henry said suddenly. “A place that is about death but outlasts death … I think I know what it is!”
They all turned to him. “What?” Simon asked.
Henry could feel his face burning with excitement. “The cemetery!”
CHAPTER 15
GRAVE DEVELOPMENTS
DELILAH’S EYES WIDENED with recognition. “The cemetery!”
But Simon frowned. “I don’t see how that can be it. There’s no grave for Uncle Hank at the cemetery.”
“No,” Prita said. “He did consider being buried there, but then he decided he wanted to be cremated.”
“He talked to you about that?” Henry asked, surprised.
“Oh yes,” she answered with a small smile. “We talked about everything. He called me his dear one.” At their puzzled expressions, she added, “It’s what my name means, in Apache. Prita is ‘dear one.’”
“It’s a nice name,” Delilah said.
Simon got to his feet. “But he was cremated. So there shouldn’t be anything at the cemetery.”
“I know,” Henry said. “I thought about that. It’s just
… a cemetery is the … ultimate place that outlasts death, because it’s all about death, but the graves and the tombstones are what survive after someone is gone. You know?”
He knew he wasn’t explaining it well. But he remembered bicycling past the cemetery on the way to the ghost town, past the bright, orderly rows of crosses and monuments, and the impression he had of it being a place teeming with life—with the past lives of all the people who were now buried there.
“We should go back and have another look around,” Delilah said. “Maybe we’ll find something he left there for us—for you,” she corrected, looking at Henry.
“And me too!” Jack interjected. “And Simon. Just not you.”
Simon ran his hand through his hair, roughing it into spiky clumps. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Henry asked.
“Well, Prita says he was thinking of being buried at the cemetery. What if he owned a plot there?”
“What does that mean?” Jack demanded. “What’s a plot?”
“For people to be buried in a cemetery, they have to purchase a piece of the land,” Prita told him. “And then that’s where their grave will be. I don’t see why Hank would have done that if he intended to be cremated. But your uncle was full of surprises.”
“It’s worth checking,” Simon decided. “We should head home now.” He wiped his hands on his shorts and held one out to Prita. “It was nice to meet you,” he said, and Henry thought he sounded suddenly shy.
She ignored his hand and drew him into a hug, her long silver hair falling over him. “I am so happy to meet all of you,” she answered, her voice warm. “I know we will see each other again.”
She stroked Jack’s hair and said, “Return the gold, and everything will be fine.”
When it was Henry’s turn, she cupped her slim brown hands on either side of his face and looked steadily into his eyes. “Henry,” she said. “The namesake! Live well.”