Ngyun’s smile faded, however, when one of the firemen frowned at the charred and smouldering building and commented, “I just don’t see how it could have started accidentally, Chuck. There wasn’t anyone staying in that cottage, and you weren’t working on it yesterday, were you?”
Chuck shook his head. “We finished the rough work before Grandfather’s accident, and I haven’t had the time to do anything else since. I’ve been waiting for Grandfather. He makes all the final decisions about the wiring and finishing, you know.”
“Are you saying that the cottage could have been deliberately set on fire?” Nancy asked, her attention caught by the idea.
“I not do it!” Ngyun protested, getting to his feet so quickly that he spilled the remainder of his milk in the grass. “I not set any fires!”
For a moment, no one spoke. Maria cleared her throat, but before she could say anything, the boy was gone, fleeing not toward the house, but toward the stable. In a moment, the black and white pinto appeared, Ngyun clinging to his bare back as they raced away from the house into the desert.
“I didn’t mean to make him think I was accusing him,” Nancy protested quickly, getting up. “Should I ride after him?”
“You’d never catch him,” Maria told her sorrowfully.
“Why should he think you were accusing him?” George asked. “You were just asking a logical question.”
“Perhaps he should be questioned,” Ward observed, looking uncomfortable. “There have been so many fires since that first signal fire on the ridge. I don’t think that Ngyun could have anything to do with them, but...” He let his voice trail off, shaking his head, then continued, “Burned saguaro cactus and fenceposts are one thing, but the cottage is something else.”
“No!” Maria was on her feet, her face full of pain. “It can’t be Ngyun,” she cried. “Honestly, Chuck, he was in his bed when you pounded on our door. There’s no way he could have done it. He wouldn’t, I just know that he wouldn’t.”
“I think we’re all jumping to conclusions,” Floyd said. “The fire is too hot to check now, but I’ll come back late this afternoon and look around. I’ll see if I can find any clues to how it happened. Maybe that will give us some answers.”
His words seemed to signal the end of the brief rest period. The firemen finished their sandwiches and coffee and began to gather up their equipment and put it back on the truck.
The rest of the group, including Nancy, Bess, and George, all set about cleaning up what they could of the debris that had been left behind. By the time the truck drove away, the sun was over the horizon and the new day had begun.
Once things had been set to right, Nancy wandered slowly toward the house. “What’s wrong?” Bess asked as they started down the hall to their rooms, anxious to clean up.
“I’m worried about Ngyun,” Nancy admitted. “I promised to try to clear his name and now he thinks I’ve accused him of setting the cottage on fire.”
“Do you believe there’s a possibility that he did?” George asked.
Nancy considered, then shook her head. “I don’t think he’s guilty of anything except being alone too much and pretending to be the kind of boy he thinks his father was.”
“Poor kid,” Bess murmured compassionately. “But why would someone else set fires and let him be blamed? I mean, someone has to be doing all these things.”
Nancy sighed. “I wish I knew who it was,” she admitted, then brightened. “Maybe we’ll find a clue after the fire cools.”
“If there’s a clue, you’ll find it,” Bess told her loyally.
After they parted, Nancy showered to remove the stains of her fire fighting, then dressed in a bright blue-and-yellow print, cotton dress. Ready to start the day, she went out to see if she could help Maria or Heather.
She found Heather alone in the lobby and asked her where Chuck was, hoping that he’d gone after Ngyun. Her hope was short-lived.
“Chuck has gone into town to talk to Grandfather. He wants to tell him about the fire and about the journal you found. Then, too, he feels he should tell him about that rattler someone threw at you last night.” She frowned. “Chuck and I are still worried about you getting hurt, Nancy.”
“And I’m worried about Ngyun,” Nancy said, changing the subject.
Heather nodded. “So am I,” she admitted, “but I don’t know what to do about him. There are people who can’t help setting fires, you know, Nancy. Do you think Ngyun could be like that?”
“Oh, I hope not,” Nancy said, not liking the idea at all.
“Did you find out anything from the journal?” Heather asked, changing the subject.
“Not about any treasure,” Nancy told her. “But it does make it clear that Jake Harris and the Indians were friends, so I very much doubt that they were the ones who caused his death.”
“I’m glad of that for Maria’s sake,” Heather said.
“Do you think she’d like to read the journal?” Nancy asked. “Jake mentions several of the Hopi chiefs and elders by name. One of them might be her great-grandfather.”
“Oh, she’d love to read it,” Heather assured her. “She’s always been so sure that the Indians were wrongly accused. It will make her happy to see some proof of their innocence. And after what happened this morning, I’m sure she could use some cheering up.”
Nancy nodded, remembering only too well her part in Ngyun’s hasty exit from their early morning gathering by the pool. “She must be very worried about Ngyun,” she agreed. “I’ll go and get the journal.”
She hurried back to her room and opened the drawer in the bedside table. Her nails scraped the wooden bottom as she reached inside, then she stared unbelievingly into the empty drawer. The journal was gone!
11
A Flying Arrow
Nancy checked with George and Bess just to make sure that neither of them had taken the journal to read, but she wasn’t surprised by their denials. “I had the feeling someone was watching me last night,” she told them. “But who would take Big Jake’s journal?”
“Someone who thought it might lead them to the treasure?” Bess suggested.
“Well, the thief will certainly be disappointed then,” Nancy said. “There’s no mention of any treasure in the journal.”
Since everyone was tired from fighting the fire and from Nancy’s earlier excursion in the hall following the Kachina, Maria served an early lunch so they could all settle down for naps. Afterward they planned to spend the warmest part of the afternoon in the swimming pool.
Even while she splashed in the water, however, Nancy kept watching the surrounding hills, hoping for a glimpse of the boy and the pinto horse. Later, after she’d changed out of her bathing suit, she made a search of the now smokeless ruin of the cottage. But there were no clues to be found in the charred wreckage of the building.
Floyd did no better when he came by later. “There’s really not much I can tell you,” he said after he finished inspecting the ruined cottage. “With so much raw wood around, it would be easy to set a small fire, and once the building was fully engulfed.... Unless someone saw something, I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
“It’s just that there is no way it could have been an accident,” Chuck stated as he joined them. “That’s what Grandfather said when I told him. No careless cigarettes left burning, no lightning, no mice in the wiring, nothing like that. It just must have been deliberately set.”
Nancy thought of the missing journal and quickly told the two young men about it. “Perhaps someone saw me reading it and set the fire to get us all out of the house,” she suggested. “I mean, it is gone, so someone must have taken it.”
“I guess if the thief thought the journal would lead him to the treasure that is supposed to be hidden here, he might do something so violent,” Floyd mused. “But who could it have been?”
They all looked at Nancy, but she had no answers for them.
She continued to watch for Ngyun, and when she saw the p
into in the distance, she excused herself and walked to the stable. She stopped first at Dancer’s stall, petting the mare and examining her scratched and swollen legs.
When the boy brought his horse in, Nancy went over to him and leaned on the top of the stall. “Have a nice ride?” she asked.
The boy nodded, but didn’t look up at her.
“Did you happen to see any strange tracks, or anyone in a car or on horseback riding away from here?” Nancy went on.
This time the almond eyes turned her way. “Why?” Ngyun asked suspiciously.
“Someone set that cottage on fire and stole a book from my room,” Nancy told him. “I thought you might have seen him.”
“I go to mountains,” Ngyun answered after several moments of considering the question. “No one live that way.”
“But you do like to follow tracks?”
The boy nodded, his shy smile returning. “Grandfather start to teach me, but I not good yet. If he here, he trail whoever do it.”
“You must know a lot about the Superstition Mountains by now,” Nancy said, changing the subject as they started back toward the great, stone fortress of the resort.
“They different all the time,” Ngyun answered. “Sometimes people ride or hike or dig gold. I see coyotes teach cubs to hunt and ... ”
He was interrupted by a shout from the house and excused himself politely to run to his aunt. Nancy followed more slowly, certain now that Ngyun hadn’t set the fire in the cottage or taken the journal. If only she could prove it, she thought wearily. The poor boy must feel terrible, having people suspect him all the time.
Chuck came to meet Nancy, his face grim. “What did he have to say for himself?” he asked.
“About what?” Nancy was surprised by her friend’s tone.
“The way he spent his day.”
“He said he was riding in the mountains,” Nancy answered. “Why?”
“I just got a call from Mr. Henry. One of his men rode in a little while ago to tell him that their catch pen and shed were burned, probably sometime early this afternoon. The men spotted the smoke, but by the time they got there, nothing was left but charred wood. ”
“And you think Ngyun had something to do with it?”
Chuck’s attractive features softened a little. “I don’t want to think that,” he admitted, “but why would anyone want to burn an old shed and corral that no one is using?”
“Why would Ngyun burn it?” Nancy countered.
“He could have been angry because Mr. Henry was the one who came over and told us about the missing filly, and Ngyun thought he was accusing him of stealing her,” Chuck reminded her. “Or maybe he was just playing Indians and settlers and thought no one would notice. It is in a remote area of the Circle H.”
Nancy considered for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m sure he didn’t burn your cottage, and I don’t think we have two firebugs in the area, do you, Chuck?”
Chuck sighed. “I have a feeling it isn’t going to matter what I think,” he replied bitterly. “Mr. Henry’s been a good friend to us and he’s been very patient about open gates and straying cattle. This time he sounded really angry. I don’t know how much longer we can keep Ngyun here.”
“But where would he go?”
“His mother is now staying with relatives in the Los Angeles area. Living in the city would be rough on him, but if these fires keep up....” He shook his head, not bothering to finish the sentence.
Nancy started to protest, then closed her lips firmly over the words. If Ngyun was to stay, it was obvious that she must clear his name and there was no time to waste.
She and George spent the next hour walking around the desert beyond the walls of the old house, but found nothing significant.
“The ground’s been so marked up by the fire truck that it’s impossible to see anything,” George complained.
Nancy nodded. “And we have all the hoof marks from the horses yesterday going to the barbecue site. They obscure any other tracks that might have been made.”
“Let’s look under your bedroom window,” George finally suggested. “Perhaps we can determine whether the thief came in that way.”
This idea proved more productive. Though the ground was too hard to show footprints, Nancy soon discovered something when she examined the window itself.
“Look, George!” she called out. “See all those smudges on the frame of the screen? That proves someone lifted it down, then replaced it.”
“Did you leave the window open last night?” George inquired.
Nancy nodded. “The thief had no trouble getting in this way.” She stepped back, then shivered, though the late-afternoon sun was warm beyond the shadow of the house. She had the eerie feeling that they were being watched. She turned slowly, scanning the ridges and washes that formed the landscape between the ranch and the nearby mountains.
George had wandered away from the window, still trying to find a telltale set of footprints. Nancy looked after her, then shifted her attention to a clump of cactus. A roadrunner darted from it to some bushes. Quail chirped sleepily from a closer stand of grass. And a shadowy figure was moving on the crest of one ridge.
There was something so threatening about the vague movement that Nancy dodged behind a sheltering palo verde without seeing clearly what had caused the motion.
The next moment there was a whistling sound, then a “thunk” made the tree’s green trunk shiver. Startled, Nancy looked up to see an arrow quivering in the wood!
12
Trapped!
“Nancy, where are you?” George called suddenly from just around the corner of the house.
Nancy looked toward the ridge. “Stay where you are,” she ordered, aware that the arrow had struck the tree and not her only because she’d no longer been standing in front of the green trunk. Never looking away from the ridge, and ready to dodge into the bushes at any sign of movement, Nancy made her way around the corner to where a thoroughly unhappy-looking George waited for her.
“What in the world is going on?” George demanded.
“Someone just shot this at me,” Nancy told her, extending the arrow for George’s inspection. “Luckily, I saw someone moving and dodged behind the tree, or—she shuddered, unable to finish the sentence.
“Let’s go inside,” George said, a frown marring her attractive features. “This is just terrible! Someone’s making an attempt on your life every day!”
“But why?” Nancy asked. “Why would anyone try to harm me, George? I haven’t even come close to solving either of the mysteries here. I don’t know why the Kachinas are haunting the house, and I haven’t been able to clear Ngyun’s name.” The young sleuth clenched her fist in frustration. “So far all I’ve done is to get Dancer injured and lose Jake Harris’s journal.”
“You found it first,” George reminded her as they walked into the cool kitchen, where Bess was sitting at the table sipping some lemonade and sampling the cookies that Maria was taking from the oven. “You must know something dangerous to someone.”
“But what?” Nancy asked, putting the arrow on the table and sinking wearily into a chair. “And whom could I be a danger to?”
“What are you talking about?” Bess inquired.
“Nancy almost got shot with this arrow,” George said and explained what happened.
Bess’s face turned white. “Oh, Nancy!” she cried. “What are we going to do?”
Maria had been busy taking more cookies out of the oven, and had not paid attention to the girls’ conversation. Now she came over to the table and stared at the arrow.
“Where did you find this?” she asked.
“Do you know whose it is?” Nancy countered, reviving as her detective instincts returned.
“It’s Ngyun’s,” Maria answered without hesitation. “My cousin makes arrows and he does special fletching—the feathered part—for the family. See the pattern of red feathers worked into the black and gray.”
Nancy nodded. �
��I knew the arrow was homemade,” she admitted.
“Where did you find it?” Maria asked a second time. “Don’t tell me he’s been shooting the cactus again. ”
“Someone shot it at Nancy,” George spoke up. “She moved out of the way just in time, so it hit a tree.”
“Nancy!” Maria paled. “You don’t think ... Ngyun wouldn’t ...” The woman sank down in the empty chair, dropping the arrow as though it had burned her fingers.
“I’m positive it wasn’t Ngyun,” Nancy assured her, “but how would someone else get one of his arrows?”
Maria sighed. “He’s lost some by shooting them into brush or cactus,” she answered, looking only slightly relieved. “My cousin gave him a dozen when Ngyun’s grandfather showed him how to use the bow, and I think he has eight or nine left. Would you like me to go up and see?”
Nancy shook her head. “I don’t want him to think that I suspect him of shooting the arrow at me. In fact, I think it might be a good idea not to say anything about this to anyone else.” She looked at Bess and George.
“But if you’re in danger, Nancy, we should tell someone,” Bess protested.
“I’ll just have to be more careful till I find out who wants to get rid of me,” Nancy replied. “Meantime, I don’t want Chuck and Heather worrying any more. And I don’t want them telling their grandfather. Mr. McGuire was very disturbed when he heard about the fire. Chuck says he might have to stay in the hospital several more days because of it.”
“He’d be terribly upset if he knew,” Maria agreed. “But if there really is someone out there who means you harm, Nancy, you must not take any more chances. I’d rather send Ngyun back to his mother and her people than have you risk your life trying to clear his name. And you know that Chuck and Heather would feel the same way about you trying to solve their mystery.”
Nancy nodded. “They’ve already told me that,” she admitted. “But don’t you see, if someone wants to hurt me, there has to be a reason. I must be close to finding out the truth, and once I do, I’ll be safe. ”
The Kachina Doll Mystery Page 6