“Oh, Mom,” Mr. Douglas said, with his fierce hawk’s eyes blinking out of his face. Raine gave a happy little giggle.
“Well, they do look like a bird’s eyes,” she said. “Don’t you think, Tor?”
“Yeah,” Tor said. “They really do.”
“These young ones have things to do,” Grandma announced, shoving back her chair and using her hands to lift herself to her feet. She was so tiny she hardly looked taller standing up. “We’ll do the dishes, Raine. You three can have the study.”
As Raine showed them toward the study and her parents started the dishes with bemused looks on their faces, Grandma Douglas took Tor’s arm in a grip that felt like lobster pinchers.
“It’s about time you showed up,” she whispered, and winked at him in a way that left him as bewildered as Raine’s parents.
The study contained shelf after shelf of books, surrounding an enormous library desk that held open books, papers, and a computer. The drapes were drawn, but Tor could see that in daylight the sun would shine in from Main Street and paint big squares of sunshine on the worn rug and the comfortable reading chairs.
“It’s our place,” Raine said, eyeing the old carpet and the threadbare drapes as though seeing them for the first time. She sounded a little ashamed.
“This is the best place ever,” Tor said. “All those windows, right over the street. Hey, you have an Internet connection? We can find out about the otters!”
“Shhh,” Raine said. “Not so loud, they’ll hear you.” Still, she looked pleased. Drake, who’d been silent until now, stretched his arms out and yawned.
“They won’t hear us with the door closed,” he said. “This is where I sleep when I stay here.”
Tor looked over and saw an old couch filled with comfy, tasseled pillows. He suddenly yawned so widely his jaw creaked. He wanted nothing more than to flop down on all that softness and go to sleep.
“Raine, what about the mining claim?” Drake asked suddenly.
“What?” Raine said.
“The mining claim,” Tor said. He clenched his fists. “Isn’t the mining claim going to be…whats-its?”
“Disinherited,” Raine said. Her mouth thinned down to a slash. “That’s right. They’re going to bulldoze the mountain and turn it into another slope for the resort.”
“No, they can’t,” Drake said. He put a hand to his forehead like he’d been struck. “The otters.”
“They’re not going to take away their home. They just can’t,” Tor said.
“If they’re an endangered species, won’t that mean that Mayor Malone will have to stop?” Drake said.
“Let’s find out,” Raine said, and sat down at the computer.
Ten minutes later, they had their answer.
“‘River otters were once widely distributed in riparian habitats statewide, but free-range populations were extirpated from Colorado early in the twentieth century,’” Raine read out loud.
“Riparian?” Drake asked.
“Rivers,” Raine said.
“Extirpated?” Tor asked.
“Let me guess,” Drake said. “That’s a nice way of saying exterminated.”
“Yeah,” Raine said. “Turned into hats and gloves for rich ladies. Now hush and let me go on. ‘In 1975 the river otter was designated as a state endangered species. The Colorado Division of Wildlife reintroduced one hundred twenty-two river otters into five separate locations in 1976. River otters were downlisted to threatened in 2003.’” Raine sighed and sat back from the computer. Tor craned forward to take a look. A picture of a river otter was on her screen. It had ink-black eyes that looked just like Grandma Douglas.
“That’s it, then,” Drake said. “We reveal them, the bulldozers have to stop. They’re endangered, right?”
“Threatened,” Raine corrected. “I think that makes all the difference in the world. Threatened. So we tell everyone, and the Division of Wildlife puts out traps and moves them somewhere else, and the bulldozers start up.”
Tor felt like gagging. The thought of the otters caught and caged was too horrible to think about, but he was already thinking about it. They’d cry. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. They’d cry in their metal cages, and they’d die on a strange river far away from their home. And that would be okay because they were only threatened, not endangered. No one would care.
“Now we know why Leaping Water cursed the town,” he said. “We have to save them.”
“If we can save them, Tor,” Raine said slowly, “would that mean the curse would be broken?”
“The healer has to promise to protect the people,” Drake said. “But if the healer’s son protects them, wouldn’t that do it?”
“I don’t know,” Tor said, but he felt hope light up inside him like a warm flame.
“It’s worth a try,” Drake said. “I’d say, worth a try.”
“Time to go, Tor,” Mr. Douglas said from the doorway. “It’s a school night.”
The next day Tor dropped by the Snow Park Medical Clinic after his snowboard lesson, his board caked with powder and his belly growling for supper. He heard his mother’s voice in her office.
“Tor doesn’t know,” Dr. Sinclair said. Tor froze.
He was planning to eat supper, work on homework, do research on otters and mining claims and National Forest legal issues, and finally get some sleep before it started all over again. Tor had never been so busy in his life. He’d also never been happier. Now he stood very still, listening, because his mom was on the phone and she was talking about him.
“No, I’m not bringing him to Detroit, Shareena,” Dr. Sinclair said, and barked out a choked laugh. “I’d love for you to meet him, he’s just the best kid you’ve ever met…. What?…No, it isn’t the weather, or the crime. It’s that I’d never be home, I’d always be at the hospital…. Yes?…No, even if you made him a whole necklace of gris-gris with every voodoo protection…What?”
This time Dr. Sinclair laughed louder. Tor could smell the tea his mother favored, a pungent brew mixed with warm milk that she called Chai. She’d gotten a taste for it from her Indian friend, a nurse called Sarah—Sarah from India. Tor gripped his snowboard with his mittens, hoping he wouldn’t betray his presence in the hall. His mom had gone away and made voodoo friends like Shareena, who wanted to give him gris-gris, whatever that meant. She had an Indian friend who wore a red dot on her forehead and drank tea that smelled like Tor imagined India itself must smell—rich and full of incense, like the fur of a tiger. He didn’t want his mother to go back to those people and that exotic life and send him away.
“No, you can’t do that to Stanford Malone, girlfriend. That would be against your rules, now wouldn’t it?…Yeah, I guess so. I don’t think he wants me because of my deathless beauty or anything, for heaven’s sake. I mean, you know what I look like.”
You’re very pretty! Tor thought fiercely.
“There’s something else, besides me not wanting to date the mayor. Like the town doesn’t want me here. I’m failing here and I don’t know why and I can’t stop it and I’m so angry I could…oh, look at the time, I’ve got to go.”
The curse, Tor thought. It’s the stupid curse.
He crept backward a few steps and then clumped loudly up and down in the hall. Dr. Sinclair poked her head out of her office door and her face lit up with a smile at the sight of him.
“Hi, Tor,” she said. “Shrimp etoufee tonight, sound good?”
“Sounds great,” he said. “I’m going to study at Raine’s afterward, that all right?”
“Sure. Let me get my stuff,” his mom said, and ducked back into her office. There was something he could do about the curse, Tor realized as he waited for his mom. There was something he could try.
Mayor Malone was at the center of everything. His ancestor, Dr. Robert Malone, had tried to take over Leaping Water’s mountain. Now Mayor Malone was trying to take it, this time by disinheriting the mining claim. The curse that Leaping Water ha
d laid on the town was supposed to protect her river people, but now they were in more danger than ever.
Unless Tor could find the original mining claim, the bulldozers would be ripping out trees by next summer, the otters would be gone, and he and his mother would never escape the curse.
He had to figure out what was going on, and he had to do it soon.
Drake was at Raine’s apartment when Tor arrived. Drake’s father was in Chile doing a snowboarding video with the famous Warren Miller, a name that Tor didn’t know but as a snowboarder he was obviously supposed to practically worship. Drake was at Raine’s for a week or so, an arrangement that seemed to be no big deal to anyone.
“What’re you doing here?” Drake asked as Raine opened the door. The apartment was quiet—Grandma Douglas had already retired to bed and Raine’s parents had gone to a movie with her little brother. The apartment was theirs.
“I need your help,” Tor said shortly. “That’s what I’m doing here.” Then he explained what he meant to do. Alone or with them, he meant to go ahead with his plan.
“That’s crazy,” Drake said when Tor finished. He turned and started rummaging in a duffel bag that sat by the couch in the study where he slept. Raine stood motionless, her only movement the glitter of her dark eyes looking from Drake to Tor.
“Well, we can’t go to prison, right?” she finally asked.
“No way,” Tor said. “We’re kids. Maybe probation.”
“Our reputations will be in tatters,” Drake said. “How will we deal with the shame?” He pulled off his sweater, a woolen thing that had been stitched together from triangles of loudly contrasting colors, and held up a fleece jersey that was plain, midnight black. “All right, then. Let’s go break into the mayor’s office.”
BREAKING INTO THE mayor’s office proved easier than it sounded, since Raine had a key.
“Skeleton key,” she explained, rummaging in a kitchen drawer that held screwdrivers, sewing thread, three pairs of pliers, and what looked like an antique doorknob. Raine finally made a satisfied sound and held up an enormous piece of metal that looked like something from a horror movie. It was brownish-black, as long as Raine’s hand, and the keys were like big square teeth. “The mayor’s office is in the same row of buildings as ours.”
“You have the keys to the whole building?” Tor asked. Raine had changed into black jeans and a tight black top that zipped to her neck. With her black hair in her usual long braids she looked like a junior ninja. A Ute ninja.
“That’s a key?” Drake said, taking the key from Raine. “It looks like a joke.”
“The front door locks have been changed a million times,” Raine said, snatching the key back and tucking it into a little bag she slung from her shoulder. “But not the alley doors, where the trash gets taken out. They’re all the same locks. Ours too. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Never,” Drake said, looking delighted. “Of course. Flashlights?”
“Look in that drawer,” Raine commanded, and Tor rummaged in another kitchen drawer that held more tools, a cake slicer that looked like an enormous comb, three napkin rings shaped like turkeys, and two flashlights.
“What time does the movie get out?” Tor asked.
“They’ll be home by nine-thirty,” Raine said. “To get Carswell to bed.”
“Then we don’t have a lot of time,” Tor said. He clicked the flashlight on and off. “You sure about this?”
Drake made a disdainful sound and didn’t answer.
“Too bad we don’t have tranquilizer darts,” Raine said, shoving her flashlight into her little bag and heading for the apartment door.
“Why?” Tor asked.
“Because if we find the mining claim there, you’ll need to shoot me with one,” Raine said. “Before I find the mayor.” She bared her teeth and looked at Tor with her glittering black eyes. He remembered how her ancestors had killed Nathan Meeker because they didn’t want to learn how to farm, and he tried not to grin, but he had to anyway. He was really glad she was on his side.
The alley was dark and grimy. The snow had been tramped over until it was the consistency and color of oatmeal flakes. Their boots slipped on the dirty snow, but at least they left no tracks. The alley was filled with Dumpsters, some tall and some round. The other side of the alley was a long brick wall. Tor found time to marvel that there wasn’t a single piece of graffiti on the entire wall. Two dim sodium lights lit the alleyway at either end, making eerie shadows that were ink black or grayish-orange.
Tor could hear Snow Park’s Main Street but it sounded distant and muffled. There was the rumble of traffic, the occasional squeal or shout of someone hailing someone else, and a deep pounding beat of music from a bar on Main Street. Raine led them silently down the alley and stopped once, in the black shadow of a large Dumpster, while a car cruised slowly past the side entrance to the alley.
Then the car was past, and Raine walked on as silently as a ghost. They had nearly reached the end of the alley when she turned to a doorway and pulled her big key out of her bag. They were all wearing gloves. They’d all seen enough television shows to know about fingerprints and DNA. Besides, it was cold.
The door creaked open slowly and Raine walked in, her shoulders tense and hunched. Drake slid in after her with an ease that reminded Tor of the otters pouring out of their hole in the river, and then he, too, was inside and Raine was shutting the door behind them.
“So far, so good,” Drake whispered. “Flashlights?”
“Let me check the blinds first,” Raine whispered. She squeezed her fingers over the lens and then clicked on her flashlight so it cast a faint, reddish glow. Tor could see the room they were standing in, lit by Raine’s dim light. There were two big plastic tubs overflowing with papers, a copy machine that looked expensive but whose paper door was broken and hanging half-off, a small steel box half-buried behind boxes of paper, and a big garbage can that smelled like old coffee grounds and cold French fries. They were in a storage room.
Raine opened another door gently and eased through it. A moment later she was back, and her flashlight was unhooded.
“The blinds are pulled down,” she said. “Try not to shine your light around too much, anyway.”
Tor could feel a shivering ache deep inside him. He’d never done anything like this before, and he felt guilty and ashamed. But he was also desperate.
They might save the otters. They might save Raine’s family land from the bulldozers of the developers. They might break the curse that was on his mom and also on him, or find out who was using the idea of the curse to blame his mom for Brian Slader’s death.
Or were all these things somehow intertwined, like the pipes and wires under the streets? Tor stood for a moment, lost in thought, trying to follow the threads down to a connection point. Was there a connection there? He felt there was, but what?
“Let’s go,” Drake hissed, and whatever had been hovering in Tor’s mind was gone. He blinked and reached for his flashlight.
The mayor’s office was handsome, neat as a pin, and empty of papers of any kind except for the certificates and photos hung on the wall. Drake made a snorting sound when he saw the photos of the mayor next to one of the more famous Denver Broncos quarterbacks.
“He should have a picture with a snowboarder,” he said, and Tor could hear a touch of reluctant pride in his voice. “We’ve got world-class snowboarders here. Who cares about football in Snow Park?”
“Everybody,” Raine said absently, looking at the contents of the mayor’s desk. “Everybody watches football, Drake. Sometimes even when there’s a powder day.”
Tor snorted at the same time as Drake, and they shared a grin across the beams of their flashlights.
“There’s nothing here,” Raine announced. “We need to look in the back room, where all that paper is. Or maybe there’s a filing room we missed?”
Tor gently opened doors until he found what looked like a break room. There were filing cabinets in there and he
hissed at the others to join him. A coffee machine sat next to a sink where coffee cups were placed, clean and upside down, on a paper towel. There was a refrigerator in the room and Drake opened it and yelped in surprise when the interior light came on, dazzling as the sun after their dim flashlights, showing a fridge with soda pop, coffee creamers, and some left-behind lunch items.
Tor blinked after Drake closed the door, because he saw nothing but a purple afterimage of the lightbulb in the darkness, but also because there was something important about the fridge. What was it?
“Hey,” he said. “There was a fridge-looking thing in the back room, too. Did you see it? It was shoved way in the back, but it was there. It looks like one of the fridges in my mom’s clinic.”
“I didn’t see it,” said Drake, rubbing his eyes. Raine was already going through the files but with a droop to her shoulders that meant she’d nearly given up.
“There was. At the back of the room, by the trash containers. Why was it there? Nobody needs two fridges, do they?”
“Let’s go look,” Raine said. “But why would anyone store a mining certificate in a fridge?”
“They might not store certificates,” Tor said. “But they might store drugs.”
The fridge was a box made of polished steel and it was hidden behind the broken-down copy machine and a big box of paper trash.
“Doesn’t look like a fridge,” Raine said. They all pointed their flashlights at it.
“Let’s see,” Tor said, and he crouched down. He had to push a box of papers out of the way to open the door, and he could feel the excitement making his fingers tremble and the flashlight beam jitter. This was a hidden thing, and it was important.
The door came open, and Tor took a little hop back and sat down. The flashlights wavered wildly in Raine’s and Drake’s hands, and Tor had to hold his flashlight in both hands so he could aim it at the contents of the humming refrigerator.
It was full of blood.
The White Gates Page 11