Ghost Cave Read online

  Ghost Cave

  Barbara Steiner

  For my nephew Mark Daniel,

  who took me into the cave,

  which was the beginning of my addiction

  to the underworld.

  1

  THE REWARD POSTER

  For the second time in a week, Marc felt he had to escape from home. Maybe it was the rain, the rain that had kept him prisoner in the house. School had let out, promising freedom. Then a week of rain had followed. It didn’t seem fair. But then nothing in his life seemed fair lately.

  He grabbed his yellow slicker. It was too small, but at least it would keep off some of the water. Jamming an old straw hat onto his head, he rolled his bike into the driveway.

  Bluedog looked at him with her funny amber eyes, wiggled and whined, smiling an eager “Let’s go!” look. Marc leaned over and tried to hug her, but she was in no mood for hugging. She tugged loose, bouncing and barking, impatient.

  Marc laughed. He didn’t know what he’d do without Bluedog. She seemed to be the only family member he could count on these days.

  “Yes, girl, you can come.” One foot on the pedal, Marc swung his leg over and coasted down the drive. He didn’t think his dad had heard him leave. Or if he had, he wouldn’t care.

  Pine Creek was one of those small towns built around a square. Instead of a courthouse or a railroad station in the center, it had a park dotted with huge pine trees and bordered with magnolias.

  He cut across the park, threading his way between the two picnic tables. A park bench, usually occupied by Grandpa Howe and Ephron McCully playing checkers, was empty. Too wet for them, too. A row of magnolias dripped, beads of water trickling down their shiny leaves. The week’s steady downpour had eased, but the world smelled waterlogged.

  A small crowd had gathered around the town bulletin board. It announced band concerts in the park, summer classes at the recreation building, lost dogs and cats. Marc stopped to find out what was up.

  “Hey, Schaller, you see this sign?” Howard Moon hollered at Marc before he got close.

  Howard Moon, nicknamed Mooney, was a pain in the you-know-what. Surely he could see that Marc had just gotten there and hadn’t read the sign. Marc ignored him and squeezed in between Grandpa and Ephron, to see what Mooney was so excited about.

  REWARD:

  Fifty dollars, cash money, for information leading to the discovery of any Indian graves in Franklin or Johnson County. I would prefer the graves be left undug, but I’ll buy any relics newly found if I can see their location.

  ANDY BESLOW

  Collector/Dealer

  Signed this tenth day of June, 1954.

  Fifty dollars! Boy howdy, anyone would be excited about that amount of money. But Marc held down his desire to run right out and start looking. He pretended to be casual about the whole thing. He sure didn’t want Mooney getting the idea that he knew where any relics were.

  “Who’s Andy Beslow?” he asked instead. Mr. Daniels was the only collector and dealer he knew around Pine Creek.

  “Beslow’s a professor down there at the university,” Ephron McCully told Marc. “I figure he’s gotta be desperate for some Indian relics. Why, I remember when you could pick ’em up in any farmer’s field around here.”

  “Yep, there were plenty of flint spears and arrowheads over at the river, under the bluffs,” Grandpa Howe added. Alex Howe wasn’t Marc’s grandfather. Everyone in town had called him that as long as Marc could remember. He was a good person to consult for Pine Creek history.

  “You figure on taking up that Andy Beslow’s offer, Schaller?” Mooney asked, acting real friendly.

  Right away Marc was suspicious. Mooney was no friend of his. He was the biggest kid in fifth grade because he’d flunked third two years before. He didn’t have any friends unless you counted Otis Kruger. Otis was what people in Pine Creek called “poor white trash.” His father stayed drunk all the time, and nobody knew where his mother was. Sometimes Marc felt sorry for Otis. But he’d never wasted one minute feeling sorry for Mooney.

  “I don’t know,” Marc said, acting casual again about the poster. “How ’bout you?”

  Mooney could see that Marc hadn’t bought into his friendly act. “Naw, too much work. But everyone in town knows you’re the expert. Maybe I’ll just let you find something for me, Schaller. You and your kiddie friends do the legwork, and I’ll help you collect the reward.”

  Mooney grinned, showing the front tooth he’d broken on the jungle gym before school let out. Then he went to pick up his bike where he’d laid it on the curb. On the handlebars two canvas bags gaped, half full of newspapers. Was Mooney this late finishing his paper route? It was almost eight-thirty.

  Maybe if Mooney lost his job for being late all the time, Marc could get it. If he could earn some money, he could buy some new relics from Mr. Daniels to add to his collection. Marc and his dad had the best Indian-relic collection in town except for Mr. Daniels—but then, he was a dealer. They spent all their spare time hunting and digging for new pieces. Or they had, until January.

  Marc pushed the thought way down inside. He took pride in his ability to control his mind. Thinking about the past wasn’t worth all the bad feelings it brought. He’d had enough bad feelings this spring to last him a lifetime.

  He whistled to Bluedog, who was inspecting the park’s garbage cans. They’d go see if Hermie was up.

  Hermie lived behind the Pine Creek library and down two blocks. As Marc rode, he wondered about the poster. Was there any possibility of finding a grave that hadn’t already been disturbed in Johnson or any other county? Boy howdy, that’d sure be a treasure worth hunting for, even without the reward.

  He stood up on the pedals and pumped harder. The summer was looking somewhat better. Just wait till Hermie and Eddie heard about the possibility of earning fifty dollars for doing what they’d planned to do all summer anyway. Marc laughed out loud at the thought.

  2

  A PLAN

  “Hi, Hermie.” Marc entered the sleeping porch without knocking. Through the screens he could see his friend still in bed, not asleep, but reading.

  Hermie pushed up his wire glasses from where they’d slipped down his nose. His pajamas were getting too small, and his belly showed around the middle. ’Course, Hermie’s belly seemed to show underneath whatever he wore, since it was fairly round.

  “Hey, Marc. Did you know there were three Civil War battles fought in this part of Arkansas?” Hermie put his cardboard 3-D Polaroid glasses on over his real ones and stared at Marc.

  Marc laughed. They’d gotten the glasses in April when they went to watch It Came from Outer Space. Marc still had his, too. He and Eddie and Hermie wore them when they played outer space games. They’d heard another 3-D movie called The Creature from the Black Lagoon was coming this summer. They all hoped to get another pair of glasses.

  Marc and his mother and father used to drive to Fort Smith to see the new movies long before they came to Pine Creek, since his mother loved movies almost better than anything. Mama even liked cowboy and outer space movies. But now his dad wouldn’t go. They hadn’t been to the movies together since January. Marc struggled to bring his thoughts back to the present, but it was hard to forget that Mama was in the sanatorium at Boonville—to forget she was sick and might never get well, might never come back home.

  “I know of two battles: Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove,” Marc said. As much as he liked Civil War history, his specialty was Arkansas Indians, especially the Osage. They were known for being very aggressive. Sometimes he wished he could go back through time and live with them for a few days. His relic collection helped. As he studied all the tools, weapons, and other artifacts he identified as Osage, he could imagine he was back there with the
m.

  “I’ll bet you’ve done nothing but read since school let out, Hermie,” Marc continued. “Wasn’t being promoted to sixth grade enough to make you take a few days off from studying?”

  “This is not studying, Marc. I like reading this stuff.”

  Hermie was only ten, while Eddie and Marc were eleven, but Hermie belonged in sixth grade just as much as they did—maybe more. Eddie wasn’t a great student, and Marc studied only when he had a test. He preferred reading about what he liked instead of having some teacher tell him what to study.

  Where Howard Moon had flunked a grade, Hermie had skipped one. He and Marc had been best friends ever since that October when Hermie came from second grade up to third. No one but Marc had known what to say to him. “Welcome to third grade,” Marc had said. “Do you like cars?” “Yeah, and airplanes,” Hermie had replied. “I’m making a model of a 1926 Fokker. Want to see it?” Marc had, and that was that.

  “If I read any more I’m going to go blind,” Marc said, saving his news for when they found Eddie.

  “Bluedog would make a good guide dog for you.” Hermie snapped his fingers. Bluedog jumped on Hermie’s bed, muddy feet and all.

  “Boy howdy, I sure hope your mother isn’t home.” Marc looked around. “She’ll kick us out of here.”

  Hermie laughed and dived into Bluedog. She and Hermie rolled and wrestled on the bed. “She’s not home right now, but we can’t stay here today. Mom only went to a church meeting for a couple of hours. I sure wish we could hang out at your place, like we used to.”

  “Well, we can’t,” said Marc. “And even if we could, it wouldn’t be the same.” Marc tackled Bluedog, hugging her warm, wiggly body. She barked in protest.

  “I know.” Hermie pushed his glasses up. “What do you want to do today?”

  “Hey, look.” Marc turned and stared at the sky. “The sun is trying to come out. I’d almost forgotten what it looked like. Let’s go find Eddie. I’ve got some super news.”

  “What is it?” Hermie grabbed his jeans and favorite red T-shirt and tugged them on.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Marc teased.

  “Aw, Marc.” Hermie stuck his feet in old tennis shoes and flopped on the bed to tie them. “Get off, Blue.” When she leaped, Hermie pulled up his old yellow bedspread. “Mom will yell at me if I don’t make my bed,” he explained to the dog.

  Bluedog started to get back on, until she realized the boys were heading for the kitchen. Then she trotted to catch up.

  Hermie grabbed two bananas, three store-bought sweet rolls—giving Marc the last two in the package—and they ate all the way to Eddie’s.

  “I want to tell both of you at the same time,” Marc said, eating the first roll. He started at the outside, turning it as he nibbled, then slipped the soft, gooey middle into his mouth all at once. “I have a great plan for the summer.”

  “You always do.” Hermie stripped the first banana, tossing the peel into Gertrude Frisch’s immaculate yard. Bluedog ran over and sniffed the skin, then caught up to them again. She stayed close to Hermie’s hand with the squished last roll in it. “Hey, Bluedog’s become a pointer,” Hermie decided.

  “Yeah, she points to any and all food.” Marc laughed.

  Eddie never encouraged them to come to his place except to pick him up. He had lived with his grandparents ever since his mother was killed in a car accident. He didn’t know where his father lived. Sometimes Eddie talked about him, though. He bragged that he was sure his dad would come one day and take him out of this old folks’ home.

  “Hi, boys. Looking for trouble?” Pops, Eddie’s grandfather, cackled with laughter that sounded more like wheezing.

  “You mean Eddie?” Hermie asked, and laughed with Pops.

  “When I was young, three boys your age didn’t have to look far to get into some mischief.”

  Sometimes it was hard to remember that Pops had ever been a boy. He was as wrinkled as a walnut and complained about his arthritis all the time. He and Eddie had done some cave exploring together until a couple of years ago, but now Pops said he couldn’t stand the dampness anymore.

  Eddie called his house “The Mausoleum,” and the name fit. It even smelled old. Marc knocked, then went on in, knowing that Gramma Sparks couldn’t hear much of anything unless it was up close to her ear.

  Plug, the Sparkses’ bulldog, waddled to greet them. They’d left Bluedog outside, since Plug was too old to tolerate the younger dog’s playfulness.

  “Hi, Plug,” Hermie said, patting his head. “Is Eddie here?”

  Plug was as wrinkled as Pops. He tried to wiggle a greeting, but he had arthritis, too, and didn’t move very well. His full name was Sparkses’ Plug, but he had little energy and no spark left.

  The Sparkses’ house was gloomy and full of dark antique furniture and knickknacks. As much as Marc liked Indian relics, he didn’t like the collection of old stuff that Gramma Sparks prized. Chairs had white doilies on their backs and arms. Under the glass on the coffee table was a display of her button collection. The air reeked of camphor until they got to the kitchen, which smelled of chocolate and oatmeal. Eddie was lifting cookies off a baking sheet and onto a piece of waxed paper.

  “Hi, Gramma Sparks,” said Marc and Hermie loudly.

  “Hello, boys,” she said. “Would you like a cookie?”

  “I wondered where you guys were.” Eddie shoveled a cookie into Marc’s hand and one into Hermie’s. Marc tossed his cookie back and forth to cool it, then bit into the chewy sweetness.

  “Hey, you make a cute cook, Eddie,” Marc teased. Eddie knelt on a chair, making him almost as tall as Marc. He had a big apron tied around his chest and under his arms.

  Eddie wiped one hand across his hair and ignored Marc’s remark. He’d gotten awfully vain about his hair, Marc thought, since he’d started greasing it back into a ducktail with a big blob of Brylcream every day. It was a look nobody else in Pine Creek Elementary School had taken up, except Eddie who was a big Elvis Presley fan.

  “I notice you didn’t refuse the cookies that this cook and Gramma made, Mr. Smarty.” Eddie stood up and slid out of the apron.

  Marc laughed and took seconds. “The rain has stopped. Let’s go outside before it starts up again.”

  “Go ahead, Eddie,” Gramma said. “I can finish these myself. You’re looking peaked from so many days inside.”

  Eddie didn’t hesitate. He never stayed home unless he had to. Marc didn’t blame him, with Pops and Gramma as old as the Civil War. Eddie grabbed a handful of cookies and followed Marc and Hermie out of the house.

  “Okay, Marc, tell us,” Hermie said, as soon as they were out of Pops’s hearing.

  “Tell us what?” Eddie slid onto his bike. Eddie’s bike was a new Hawthorne tank model with an electric horn and motorcycle headlight. He had added a Hollywood goose horn and sheepskin saddle cover. It left Hermie’s old Montgomery Ward model in the Dark Ages. Marc’s bike wasn’t much better. If they got the reward money for relics this summer, Marc could get a new one with his share.

  “There’s a reward poster on the bulletin board in the park,” Marc said. “Fifty dollars for newly found relics. Some professor over at the university is offering the money.”

  “Fifty dollars! Holy Cow!” Eddie whistled low, then shouted and took off. He rode circles around Marc and Hermie, honking his goose horn. “Whoooeee, could I use fifty dollars!”

  “Jumpin” Jehoshaphat!” Hermie grinned. “But my parents will make me put it in the bank.”

  “Where’ll we find any relics like that?” Eddie said, calming down.

  “Let’s ride out to Mr. Daniels’s place and ask him what he thinks about the reward,” Marc suggested. “He might even have some suggestions for us. He used to tell my dad and me about places he thought we should look.”

  “Suits me.” Hermie was almost always agreeable to Marc’s ideas.

  “Me, too.” Eddie didn’t argue. He pulled out a comb and smoothed back his hair on ei
ther side. “I could get a new catcher’s mitt with fifty dollars.”

  Eddie often talked about stuff he was going to buy, as if things would make up for losing his mother. Pops and Gramma had gotten him into that habit, Marc figured. They bought him everything he wanted. Eddie hadn’t mentioned his mother in a long time. And he had stopped asking Marc about his. At least Marc could hope his own mother was coming back.

  He’d rather think about the fifty dollars. But he didn’t want to spend the money before they got it. He did feel, though, that he and Hermie and Eddie had as good a chance of collecting the reward as anyone else in town.

  3

  THREE-WAY PACT

  The new highway had skirted Pine Creek, taking most of the business on past and into Fort Smith, but not too many people cared. They settled for local business and the few tourists who wandered into town.

  People who wanted to trade with Mr. Daniels looked him up. Everyone for miles around knew him. He ran a combination junk shop, Indian store, and pawnshop. As far as Marc, Hermie, and Eddie were concerned, Mr. Daniels had the most interesting store they’d ever seen. Marc, his dad, and Hermie had traded Indian relics with Mr. Daniels as long as Marc could remember. In fact, Mr. Daniels had given him the first tomahawk he had in his collection.

  It was a large, double-bladed tomahawk, and probably worth five dollars, Marc’s dad had said. Marc couldn’t believe Mr. Daniels had given it to him, but now Marc knew he was just like that. If someone, especially a kid, wanted something and really didn’t have the money, Mr. Daniels would usually give it to him. Sometimes he cut the price for Marc or let him pay things out over time. He’d paid out some of his best pieces over several months. Mr. Daniels had gained a steady customer by giving Marc that good tomahawk.

  One time Marc asked him how he ever made any money, giving stuff away like he did. “I make it up on the tourists, Marc,” he answered. “Tourists will buy anything and usually will pay too much for it. You don’t need to worry about my going broke.” He laughed when he said that, and Marc decided he was right.