Bailey and the Santa Fe Secret

by Linda McQuinn Carlblom

  The Secret Compartment

  Wednesday morning at Earth Works, after their store-opening chores were done, Bailey and Elizabeth pulled out the pottery pieces from the cabinet.

  “The pot seems even older now that it’s broken.” Bailey laid the pieces on the table and brushed off her hands. “I feel like we’ve just found these old relics on an archaeological dig!”

  “Seriously, that’s something to think about,” Elizabeth said. “As old as this pot is, we should be extremely careful in handling it and studying it, just like the archaeologists would. We’d hate to damage it even further and lose an important clue in the process.”

  “You’re right.” Bailey went to the countertop along the wall and opened a drawer. She returned to the table with two small paintbrushes. “These should help us uncover clues without touching the pot too much.”

  “And what about some gloves, so oils from our skin don’t get on the pot when we do have to touch it?”

  Elizabeth asked. “I think the part that’s painted will be protected, but I’m afraid our skin oils could discolor the plain, unpainted clay.”

  “Good thinking. I’ll see what I can find.” Bailey scrounged through drawers and cabinets until she found what looked to be Halona’s gardening gloves. “These should do the trick.”

  “Perfect.”

  Bailey slipped on a pair of gloves and picked up a paintbrush.

  “Wait!” Elizabeth said.

  “Now what?”

  “We should spread out some old newspaper on the table to make our cleanup easier.”

  Bailey sighed. “Cleanup? You’re as bad as my mother.” She started to grab a couple sections of newspapers from a pile sitting in the corner, but then reconsidered. “What if the newsprint comes off on the pot?”

  “You’ re right. We shouldn’t use that.”

  “We could use the same paper that we wrap the pots in when someone buys them,” Bailey said. “I’ll run and get some from under the counter.” Bailey hustled out to the front of the store and, after getting Halona’s permission, returned with a small stack of the wrapping paper. They spread the sheets out until the tabletop was covered. “Satisfied?”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Yep! If we can’t keep our mess on all this, then it’s a project we probably shouldn’t do.”

  “Let’s get started.” Bailey gingerly picked up her favorite piece—the one with the sunset painted on it—and set it in front of her. It still had some of the pot’s bottom attached to it, so it stood up as if it had never been broken. Bailey dusted off the small painting with her paintbrush, then turned the pot to dust the inside. As she turned it, she noticed a little hole only about a half inch long, exposing what seemed to be a pocket built into the pot near the top, almost like a wall within a wall.

  “Check this out!” she told Elizabeth.

  “What?”

  “This side is hollow.” Bailey stood to peer down at it.

  “Of course it is,” Elizabeth replied. “Pots have to be hollow to hold anything.”

  “Not like that,” Bailey said, irritation creeping into her voice. “The actual side of the pot is hollow, like it has a pocket or a secret hiding place or something. There’s a space only about a quarter of an inch wide between the two walls.”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and stood to look at the piece Bailey was inspecting. “Wow! I see what you mean!”

  “Why do you think they made it like that?” Bailey asked.

  Elizabeth ventured a guess. “Maybe to hold something important, like today’s safety deposit boxes do?”

  Bailey had her eye right up to the hole. “I can’t see if there’s anything in there.”

  “You need a flashlight or something.”

  Once again, Bailey rummaged through drawers and cabinets. “It’s no use. I can’t find one.”

  “How about if I shine my cell phone light on it while you look in?” Elizabeth suggested.

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Elizabeth opened her phone and shone the light just above the hole in the side of the pot, but Bailey’s head kept blocking the light. “Your head’s in the way,” Beth told her.

  “That’s where it has to be if I’m going to be able to see in,” Bailey said. “Why don’t you move the light?”

  “‘Cause I don’t have anywhere else to move it to where it will shine into the hole!”

  Bailey thought for a moment. “How about if we stick something in there to see if we feel anything inside?”

  “Great idea!” Beth said. “We need something small, but long enough, like a pencil or pen.”

  “I think we should use a pen so we don’t risk making marks on the inside with a pencil.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “That wouldn’t be good.”

  Bailey stuck a black ballpoint pen down into the hole and moved it around.

  “Feel anything?”

  “I’m not sure.” Bailey moved the pen again. “Maybe.”

  “Let me try.” Bailey stepped aside and Elizabeth pushed the pen into the hole and wiggled it. “I see what you mean. It’s hard to say for sure since there’s not much wiggle room, but I think something’s in there. It sounds different than if the pen were just hitting against the clay pot. Muffled.” She pulled the pen out, and powder from the dry surrounding clay came out with it.

  “You just made the hole bigger!” Bailey said. She put a gloved finger at the edge of the hole between the two pocket walls and brushed more powdery clay out.

  “Do you think we should really break this pot more than we already did just to satisfy our curiosity?” Elizabeth asked. “I mean, isn’t that what got us into trouble in the first place?”

  Bailey peered into the little hole, not hearing Beth. “Almost there …” Another brush with her finger and a couple more with the paintbrush. “I can see it!”

  “See what?” Elizabeth squealed. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s definitely something in there.”

  “So now what do we do?” Beth asked.

  “We brush away more of the side until we can get it out.” Bailey kept working on it, and Elizabeth did her part by blowing the dust out of the way. Finally, Bailey tried to put her index finger and thumb in the hole to pull out whatever was inside, but they wouldn’t fit.

  “We need some tweezers,” Beth said.

  “Oh! I saw some in the drawer.” Bailey was up in an instant. “I figured they probably used them for adding beads and stones to the pottery.” She retrieved the tweezers and twisted them this way and that to try to grab onto the hidden contents. “I think I have it!”

  “Be careful,” Beth said. “Don’t let it go.”

  Bailey pulled the item to the hole and they saw for the first time that it was something resembling folded dark brown leaves. “What in the world?”

  Elizabeth tilted her head to try to determine what it was. “Pull it out.”

  “I’m not sure I can without ripping it or damaging it somehow,” Bailey said. “But I have a feeling this brown part is protecting something inside it. So maybe it doesn’t matter if it gets torn.”

  Beth brushed some more of the side away to enlarge the hole. “There. Try that.”

  Bailey gently pulled the tweezers and whatever was in their grasp through the hole. The brown wrapping was more pliable than they thought it would be, and only tiny pieces chipped off as it was birthed through the gap in the pot.

  Electricity charged between the girls as they looked at the brown leafy package.

  “I’ve heard that people used to use certain kinds of leaves to wrap things to protect them against moisture.” Bailey’s hands trembled as she gently unfolded the leaves to reveal its contents—a yellowed document with the word Deed written across the top in fancy curlicue writing. With great care, she lifted the deed out of its protective cocoon. Some of the words were faded, but she could clearly read the words “Suquosa Mine” and “Hakan Kaga.”

  Elizabeth’s jaw dropped and she hi
gh-fived Bailey. “We found the deed to Halona’s mine!”

  Bailey couldn’t contain the huge grin that stretched across her face. “Should we tell her right away?”

  “Maybe we should see if we can find the mine first. What good is the deed if there’s no mine anymore?”

  “You’re right.” Bailey nodded. “We don’t want to get her hopes up only to disappoint her later.”

  “We have to find out where that mine is,” Elizabeth said. “Surely there must be an old map online somewhere.”

  “Or in the public records at the county recorder’s office,” Bailey offered.

  “I’d think that if it was on public record, the Tses would have already found it. It can’t be that easy.” Elizabeth looked at the table with the broken pottery pieces. “We’d better clean this mess up before we start looking for the map.”

  “What’ll we tell Halona about not putting the pot back together?” Bailey asked.

  “We’ll tell her the truth.” Elizabeth gathered the wrapping paper covered with pottery dust. “That we found some information we needed to check out before we can finish. If she presses us, we’ll just have to trust God that she won’t be too disappointed if we can’t find the mine.”

  Bailey brought the trashcan to the table. “Yeah, we sure don’t want to glue the pot back together and not be able to show them where we found the deed. I think she’ll be happy that we found it even if we don’t find the mine right away.”

  “I do, too.” Elizabeth carried the broken pottery pieces back to the cabinet, then rolled up the wrapping paper and dumped it into the trash. “But I think she’ll be overjoyed if we find both!”

  Bailey looked the room over. “We’ve got everything picked up, but what should we do with the deed?”

  “I can put it in my bag,” Elizabeth said. “No one will look in there, and it’s big enough not to bend it.”

  She tucked the document into her bag. Then Elizabeth opened her laptop to look for a map of the mine’s location. Bailey sat next to her to help her look. They clicked on several old maps and found nothing that showed Suquosa Mine. Then they clicked on one more link and found what they were looking for.

  “There it is!” Bailey said, pointing at a tiny black dot.

  “I can’t believe it,” Elizabeth said.

  “Looks like it’s close to where we were at the Puye Cliffs.”

  “I don’t remember seeing anything that looked like a mine in that area, though Elan did say there used to be some up there.” Elizabeth pushed back her blond hair. “I hope this isn’t another dead end.”

  “We won’t know until we try to find it,” Bailey said.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “A ride.” Elizabeth laughed. “We can’t walk there from here. It’s too far.”

  Bailey groaned. “We don’t have any time to waste. We leave for home tomorrow! Maybe my mom would take us to Halona’s house, and we could walk from there,” she suggested. “It’s really slow here at the store today. I’ve only heard the bell ring once or twice all morning.”

  “It’s worth a try. Let’s go ask.”

  “Hi!” Aiyana skipped into the studio. “What are you doing?”

  Bailey looked at Elizabeth nervously.

  “We’re getting ready to see if my mom will take us to your house.”

  “Why? Are you sick?”

  “No,” Bailey said. “We have something we need to do.”

  “What is it?” Aiyana’s dark eyes grew.

  Elizabeth and Bailey looked at each other, then Beth nodded to Bailey.

  Bailey took her little cousin’s hands in hers. “Aiyana, remember when you told us a secret about the pot and the things your ancestors said about it?”

  Aiyana bobbed her head up and down.

  “And you asked if we would keep your secret?”

  “Yes.” Aiyana’s face was somber.

  “Would you do the same for us?” Bailey asked her. “Keep a secret?”

  A wide grin sliced Aiyana’s face, and her eyes snapped. “Sure!”

  “Okay, then,” Elizabeth said. “Bailey and I need to go back to Puye Cliffs to try to find the mine that belongs to your family.”

  “But you can’t tell!” Bailey reminded her.

  Aiyana looked ready to burst with excitement. “I won’t!”

  Elizabeth patted her on the back. “Good girl. That’s why we want Bailey’s mom to give us a ride to your house—so we can hike to the cliffs from there.”

  “Oooh. I won’t tell, I promise.” Aiyana pressed her lips together and pretended to lock them and throw away the key.

  “We want it to be a surprise for your mom if we can find it,” Bailey added. “Understand?”

  Aiyana nodded, lips pursed.

  “Okay.” Bailey turned to Elizabeth. “Let’s go find my mom.”

  “I’m going to leave my bag in the studio,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure no one will bother anything in it.”

  She winked at Bailey, who smiled back.

  Mrs. Chang was in the office working on the books. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, while she intently stared at the bookkeeping program on the computer.

  “Mom, could you run Beth and me back to the house?”

  Mrs. Chang looked up. “What on earth for?”

  “We have something we need to do that we can’t do here.”

  “Like …?” Mrs. Chang prompted.

  “Like…something we can’t really tell you about yet.” Bailey hedged with a smile. “It’s sort of a surprise. But I promise it’s nothing bad.”

  “Have you talked to Halona about this?” Mrs. Chang asked. “You’re supposed to be helping her.”

  “Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “We thought we’d find out if we even had a ride before we asked her.”

  “Besides,” Bailey added, “the thing we need to do would help her more than us being here at the store.”

  Mrs. Chang eyed the girls suspiciously, a faint smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “You’re up to something.”

  “We are!” Bailey admitted. “But it’s a surprise!”

  Mrs. Chang sighed and gave in to that smile. “Oh, all right. If it’s okay with Halona.”

  Bailey hugged her mom and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks! You’re the best.”

  The second the car stopped in front of the Tses’ house, Bailey and Elizabeth jumped out.

  “I have my cell phone if you need us.” Elizabeth held it up for Mrs. Chang to see.

  “Part of what we have to do involves a hike, but don’t worry,” Bailey told her. “We’ll take water, sunscreen, and Beth’s phone.”

  Concern flitted across Mrs. Chang’s face. “Don’t make me sorry I brought you here.”

  Bailey laughed. “We won’t. Thanks for the ride. Love you.” She blew a kiss to her mother.

  “Now,” Elizabeth said as Mrs. Chang drove away, “let’s gather our things and get going.”

  “We need to print out the map first,” Bailey reminded

  her.

  “Right. I’ll do that while you get the water and sunscreen.” With the sun already hot at ten-thirty in the morning, the girls set out on their hike.

  Looking for the Lost Mine

  Bailey and Elizabeth chatted easily as they started out.

  “The sky here in this big open space is so much bluer than in Peoria,” Bailey said.

  “I know what you mean.” Elizabeth pointed up. “Look at that cloud. It looks like the breeze is just carrying it along, not a care in the world.”

  “It’s a gorgeous day!” Bailey loved the feeling of the warm sun on her skin. She was glad they’d remembered to put on sunscreen.

  “Look! A roadrunner!” Elizabeth said. The leggy bird darted this way and that before disappearing behind a rock formation. A hummingbird with its iridescent green head zipped around in the distance.

  “It’s a regular wildlife preserve around here!” Bailey joked.

  “Well, hopefully we won
’t see any wildlife we don’t want to see, like coyotes or javelina.”

  “Or snakes!” Bailey added cheerfully. “Hey, we haven’t told the other Camp Club Girls about finding the deed yet!”

  “Oh, yeah.” Elizabeth snatched her phone from her pocket. “I’ll call them right now.” Once she had them all conferenced, she hit speakerphone so Bailey could hear, too.

  “Okay,” Elizabeth began. “We have some big news to report.”

  “Let’s hear it!” McKenzie said.

  “Remember we told you we were going to try to piece the broken pot back together?” Bailey asked.

  “Yeah …,” Sydney replied.

  “We started on it, but had a minor distraction.” Bailey winked at Elizabeth.

  “Did we ever! Bailey found a hidden compartment in the piece that had the sunset painted on it.”

  “A hidden compartment?” Kate whooped. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “Nope,” Bailey said. “The side with the sunset was hollow, sort of like a second side hiding behind the one we could see, making a pocket that could hold things.”

  “Was there anything in it?” Sydney asked.

  Bailey and Elizabeth grinned and kept walking.

  “As a matter of fact, yes!” Elizabeth said.

  “What was it?” some of the girls asked in unison.

  Bailey tried to sound casual. “Just a dirty old deed to Halona’s turquoise mine.”

  All four of the girls screamed and talked at once, and Biscuit barked excitedly.

  “You’re kidding!” Kate said. “I can’t believe it—and neither can Biscuit!”

  “What did it look like?”

  “That’s insane!”

  “Are you sure it’s the real thing?”

  “I know. It’s almost too good to be true!” Bailey’s voice registered her enthusiasm. “But it really was the deed we’ve been looking for!”

  “Unbelievable!” Alex said. “Was Halona thrilled?”

  “We haven’t exactly told her yet,” Elizabeth said.

  “Haven’t told her? Why not?” McKenzie sounded incredulous.

  “We thought it would be best to find the mine first,” Bailey explained. “What good is a deed to something if it doesn’t exist?”