Prudence Pursued (26 page)

"Go," the older woman urged, thrusting the bowl toward her. "And do not worry."

Amanda nodded, taking the bowl and swiping a small Mason jar filled with salt from the kitchen table too. As she opened the door, the dog swept past her with an eager swish of her tail. Gil Gladney stood on the porch talking with Rex. He’d removed his hat, and his black hair glinted in the sunlight like a raven’s wing. Even in scuffed boots and worn trousers, Mr. Gladney was the most attractive man she’d ever met. Dolores was right — he was tall, dark, and handsome. Incredibly handsome.

She glanced past him to the four youngsters already sitting in the back of the buckboard — little Sammy Cordova, who opened his mouth wide, revealing missing front teeth; the Schwarzkopf twins, Gertrude and Greta, with their long, twiggy braids, the color of old straw; and Jerry Snow, a boy flecked with freckles and red hair nearly the same shade as Bonita’s ragged coat. Jerry was Rex’s best friend. Amanda gave him a slight smile before returning her attention to the good-looking schoolteacher.

"Miss Dale, you’re as pretty as a picture this morning," Gil greeted her. He smiled, revealing fine white teeth. The deep lines around his eyes crinkled — such blue, blue eyes, Amanda noted. The look of unfeigned admiration she saw there both pleased and flustered her.

"Good morning to you, Mr. Gladney. A fine day for a school outing," she observed.

"Yes, the weather’s fine," was all he could reply before Rex began pleading to take the dog along.

"Please, Mr. Gladney, can Bonita come too? She won’t be any trouble. She’s a good dog, honest."

Hearing the hopefulness in her nephew’s voice, Amanda said a silent prayer that whoever originally owned the dog would never show up to claim her.

Gil didn’t hesitate. "Sure, why not? Have her climb up into the back of the wagon."

Turning to Amanda, he took the bowl of eggs and the jar of salt from her and handed them over to Gertrude to place in the back of the wagon. He offered Amanda his hand to assist her into the front seat of the buckboard.

"I’ve always liked dogs," he told her. "They have a peculiar sense of humor all their own. And most of them are more pleasant to be around than lots of people I know," he said with a chuckle.

Amanda’s lips twitched. She thought he had a peculiar sense of humor himself. "Rex loves the dog," she told him after he’d settled Rex and Bonita in the back and joined her on the seat. "She wasn’t much to look at when he first found her, homeless and miserable. The dog was thin and rickety looking, and as you can see, her tail is broken and sticks out to one side. The sore patch on her back is finally beginning to heal. I think someone might have scalded her with something hot."

"Who named her Bonita? It means pretty one in Spanish, doesn’t it?" Gil asked, reaching for the reins.

"Rex picked out the name," she replied.

Gil’s eyebrows shot up. His mouth quirked to one side. "Your nephew is quite an optimist."

Amanda laughed. It was going to be a lovely day, and now she was away from the house and her responsibilities there, she planned to enjoy it. September was one of her favorite months of the year. The sun was just warm enough to be pleasant. Wild purple asters and golden chamisa dotted the landscape reminding her of a yellow and lavender quilt she’d had as a child. Rex and the other youngsters chattered happily in the back of the wagon, with Bonita the center of good-natured attention.

"How’s your sister," Gil asked. "And the baby?"

At first, Amanda didn’t reply. She could feel her cheeks flush with resentment. She didn’t want to talk about Ella and Minnie. Not today. Not with Mr. Gladney. Reluctantly, she replied, "As well as can be expected." Before he could pursue the topic further, she changed the subject. "Any new students in the school this year?"

"Yes, a few. Most of them boys Rex’s age or older," Gil replied, giving her a sidelong glance. "There’s a new little girl too. Just barely six. Her name is Brunhilde Bergschneider. Her father just bought the livery in town."

"What a big name for a little girl!" Amanda exclaimed.

"The kids call her Bunny," he replied, giving her a lazy smile.

"You love it, don’t you? Teaching I mean?"

He nodded. "I do."

"Did you always want to be a teacher?" she asked.

"Yes, it’s an honorable calling. Helping to form the mind and manners of a child is about one of the most important jobs there is. Introducing them to literature, history, science, and the Bible, so one day they will be good and useful citizens — it’s a big responsibility, don’t you agree?"

"I do," Amanda replied, moved by his obvious dedication.

"Mr. Noah Webster, the scholar who wrote the dictionary, defines education as that which furnishes a child with principles, knowledge, training, and discipline," Gil went on. "But most teaching positions don’t pay much, so I’ve moved around a lot. I’d like to settle here though — in Aztec or Farmington. I hope to raise horses one day too, as well as teach. I’m saving up to buy a place of my own — a ranch. One of these days," he added, with a self-conscience shrug.

Amanda swallowed hard and nodded. She knew what it was like to have dreams — the one-of-these-days kind of dreams. She knew he lived in two small rooms attached to the back of the schoolhouse. She also knew the teacher’s salary wasn’t much. Doc Morgan had told her, and he was on the school board, so he would know. But Mr. Gladney did earn twice as much as Miss Weston and Miss Platz, who had been the town’s two previous schoolteachers. Amanda was happy for him, of course, but it didn’t seem right somehow, the female teachers not earning as much. How long, she wondered, would it take Gil to save up enough money to buy a ranch?

****

On the brief journey to the ruins of the old Indian settlement, barely four miles away on the banks of the Animas River, Gil quickly noticed when Amanda fell into a distracted silence. He asked her if the chickens were thriving, and her only reply was a brief nod. He wondered if her sister and the premature infant were not doing as well as she’d let on. Perhaps she was more worried about the state of their health than she cared to admit. He silently chastised himself for bringing her along as a chaperone for the female pupils. He’d assumed — more fool he — Amanda Dale had offered to come along. He realized now Rex had probably volunteered her services. She’d felt obligated to come, no doubt. But she had seemed willing, even eager, when she’d stepped out onto the porch, wearing a fetching straw hat and holding the bowl of hardboiled eggs.

His heart had jolted at the sight of her. He wasn’t quite sure if his reaction was caused by nervous tension or delight, but he couldn’t afford to think about it for too long. Gil studied Amanda from the corner of his eye. She sat straight and rigid on the hard seat beside him. Her dark eyes, with those impossibly thick lashes, were fixed on something in the distance. Amanda’s cheeks were a deep pink color — from the heat of the day or embarrassment, he couldn’t say. Perhaps he’d embarrassed her by talking so frankly about his passion for teaching and his plans to breed horses one day. Maybe he’d been too bold, too open. Gil clenched his jaw and berated himself for being more than one kind of fool.

Fortunately, the awkward silence between them was interrupted by a flood of questions from Jerry Snow, in the back of the buckboard. "Do you think we’ll find gold or silver, Mr. Gladney? What about Spanish treasure? Or maybe some dead bodies wrapped up like mummies?"

The Schwarzkopf sisters made a disgusted Ew! sound.

Turning slightly to answer his student’s excited inquiry, Gil noticed Amanda looking at him with an amused expression on her face. Her brown eyes danced with laughter. He knew she was enjoying his predicament and tried not to smile.

"Jerry, I’ve told you before this settlement is not an ancient Aztec city. I doubt there will be any gold or silver, and I’m certain there won’t be any mummies," he called back over his shoulder. The boys in his class had gone crazy over mummies ever since he’d shared with them a newspaper article about archeologist Wallis Budge and the excavations he’d been doing in Egypt on behalf of the British Museum.

"But what about S-Spanish treasure?" Sammy Cordova asked, his missing front teeth causing him to lisp.

"No Spanish treasure either," Gil replied.

"But my father, he tell me Jesuit priests had gold mines all over New Mexico," the boy insisted.

"Yeah, and they didn’t tell the Spanish king about the mines because they wanted to keep the gold and silver for themselves," Jerry added.

"Perhaps the treasure is all gone now," Greta spoke up.

"Not if the Black Robes didn’t return for it," Rex said.

"I’ve told you already this isn’t an Aztec city nor the remains of a Jesuit mission," Gil repeated firmly. "I realize you have all grown up with the legends of Cibola — the Seven Cities of Gold — and the long lost mines found by the conquistadors, but these ruins are far more ancient than all of those stories."

The ruins came into view then. Located on the western lip of the river, the old settlement, with its the sandstone masonry walls — some several stories high — was an intriguing sight against the pale, bleached sand hills, sparsely covered with sage and saltbush. Although he wouldn’t have admitted it to his students, Gil thought ruins were romantic — like the old stories of knights and dragons he’d so enjoyed as a boy.

"It’s just an old ghost town," Amanda observed. "Sad and forlorn."

"Haven’t you been here before?" Gil asked her.

She shook her head. He noted how the blue bead on the head of her hatpin glinted in the sun.

"Folks from town come out here all the time for picnics and to explore the ruins, just like we’re doing today," he said.

"Mr. Gladney, do you think it’s haunted?" Gertrude asked.

"No," he replied with prompt firmness.

"Miss Dale, do you think it is?" the girl pressed.

Gil glanced at Amanda. Her lips were slightly pursed and her eyes twinkled with good humor. She was trying not to laugh. He watched as she twisted around to look at the children in the back of the wagon as she answered calmly, "No, of course not."

He thanked her with a wink, which caused her to blush prettily. She fixed her gaze upon the lazy, trickling river. Four other students — all boys — had already arrived and tethered their horses. They waved. Gil waved back.

"I hope there aren’t any bats or rats," Greta spoke up as Gil maneuvered the wagon toward the nearest shade tree.

"Or snakes," her sister added.

"I’ll bet there are lots of rattlesnakes," Jerry piped up. Gil couldn’t help noting the enthusiasm in the boy’s voice. "One might bite you on the ankle, Greta, and then your tongue will swell up so big it won’t fit in your mouth, and your face will turn purple and black, and you’ll die!"

The sisters squealed with terror, while the boys laughed with raucous enthusiasm.

"That’s enough, boys," Gil warned. As he reined in the horse and climbed down from the buckboard, he was thankful, now more than ever, Amanda had agreed to come along to watch over the girls.

The youngsters scrambled out of the back of the wagon and raced toward the rubble to greet their classmates, with Bonita dogging Rex’s heels. Gil helped Amanda alight and asked with matter-of-fact politeness, "Are you ready for an adventure?"

"Ready as I’ll ever be, I reckon," she replied. Her dazzling smile almost took his breath away. Gil glanced over at his students and forced himself to think about archeology. He was here today to instruct his pupils in the scientific study of artifacts and other material evidence of ancient culture, not to allow himself to be smitten any further by Amanda Dale.

"Jerry, Rex — help me with the equipment," he ordered. As the boys hastened forward to lend a hand, Gil retrieved spades, a hatchet and a few other assorted tools for the small group of young explorers to use. After giving them a brief history lesson and digging instructions, Gil gave them permission to poke about in the dirt and debris near the jagged masonry walls. No doubt a professional archeologist would be horrified by his disregard for the old Indian site. But many of the structures had already been damaged from years of rain and snow pooling on the roofs, slowly rotting the wooden slats and beams, which had crashed, carrying chunks of the wall masonry with them.

Peering down into the collapsed chambers choked with centuries of rubble, Gil figured his students couldn’t do any serious damage with their spades and trowels. He noticed Rex had moved away from the other students, selecting a section near a collapsed wall to explore on his own. The boy was hunkered down on his knees, scraping at the hardened earth with the tip of the spade. Bonita sat in the shade, watching the boy’s every move.

"Want some help?" Gil asked.

"Sure," Rex replied with a ready eagerness. He moved over to make room for them both.

Gil liked Rex Stewart. He was a bright pupil, always eager to learn. It was a shame the boy’s father had died so unexpectedly, leaving the kid to shoulder the responsibility of a sick mother and ailing baby sister. Sometimes Gil didn’t know whom he felt sorry for most — Rex or his pretty aunt.

The two worked together in companionable silence. Once in a while, Gil glanced over at Amanda. She appeared to be supervising Greta and Gertrude, who seemed more interested in picking wild flowers in the rubble than exploring the ruins. When he and Rex had dug nearly four feet down, they uncovered a row of pine log roof beams, which seemed to make up a ceiling of some sort. Using the hatchet to chop through the brittle mass, Gil made an opening large enough to peer through.

"Look, Rex! There’s a chamber below." He sat back on his heels and studied their location. "We’re on the roof, I think."

"We’ve found something!" Rex hollered out. The other boys, abandoning their own efforts, dashed over to join them. Amanda came too, gently herding the blonde sisters in front of her like two little lambs in pinafores.

"Is it a dungeon?" the Hurtado boy asked, his eyes gleaming with hope.

"Any bats or rattlers down there?" Jerry asked. He bestowed a wicked grin upon the nervous Schwarzkopf sisters.

Gil dropped to his hands and knees. "I can’t see anything," he told them. "It’s too dark. I’m going down there. Give me the rope and a candle," he ordered. Making a few more chops and slashes to enlarge the hole, Gil secured one end of the robe to a nearby scrub oak and shoved a candle into his jacket pocket. He then lowered himself down into the black cavity.

"I’m coming with you, Mr. Gladney," Rex insisted.

"All right, but bring a candle down with you," Gil called up to him. He heard the boy order the whimpering dog to ‘stay’ and watched as Rex inched his way over the side of the hole into the chamber before carefully making his way over the side and down into the hole.

"It smells down here," Rex said, wrinkling his nose.

"It is pretty musty." Gil struck a match on the bottom of his boot. He lit his candle and then Rex’s.

"Can we come down too, Mr. Gladney?" one of the other boys called down.

"Me too?" Jerry hollered.

Wiping his hands on the seat of his britches, Gil stared up through the hole at the ring of boyish faces peering down at him. Of course they’d want to come down too. This was an adventure they’d been looking forward to for quite a while.

"Okay, you can all come if you want to, but one at a time down the rope." The descent was only about eight or nine feet. The boys took their time going down the rope and lit their candles from Rex’s already flickering one. When the last boy had made his descent, Gil looked up and saw Amanda and the two girls peering down at them.

"Greta, Gertrude, you can come next, if you want to," Gil said.

"Do we have to come down, Mr. Gladney?" Greta whined.

"If you’d like me to, I’ll stay up here with the girls," Amanda offered.

"Are you sure?" he asked, wondering if she honestly longed to come down into the chamber too.

"Aunt Mandy, there’s no treasure or gold or anything down here," Rex called up to her. The boy’s voice seemed heavy with disappointment.

"And no old bones either," Jerry lamented.

Gil ignored their disappointment and began prying stones from the wall to allow them access to what he hoped was an adjacent chamber. Rex and Jerry lent a helping hand. Soon the other boys were pulling at stones too, until there was a clear entrance into the next chamber. One by one, following his lead, the boys stepped inside. The candle flames flickered in a frenzied manner before blinking out. Young Michael squeaked with distress. The heavy darkness hung around them like thick curtains.

"There’s not enough oxygen in this interior chamber to keep our candles lit," Gil explained in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. "There’s nothing to worry about." Taking one or two slow steps backwards, he returned to the first chamber, took another match from the box in his pocket and relit his candle. The boys pushed forward, eager to relight their own. Once all the candles were burning again, Gil led his young explorers back into the second chamber. This time, there was enough air coming in through the breach in the wall to keep the flames burning.

"Looks like a pile of rubbish to me," Jerry remarked as he held his candle high and peered into one gloomy corner.

As Gil glanced upward toward the ceiling, Rex and Jerry took tentative steps in the direction of the farthest corner. Behind them, Michael shrieked with fright and Jerry, gasping, dropped his candle.

"Look, look there!" Rex stammered. He pointed a shaky finger.

Gil stared at the seated skeleton in the corner. "This is almost too good to be true!" he exclaimed, thrilled with the discovery.

"Is everybody okay?" Amanda called down to them.

"We’re fine!" he called back. "The boys have found some human remains."

Gil ventured forward to study the skeleton. His heart pounded with excitement. This was more than he had hoped for. The body’s flesh had disappeared long ago, but the bones and dried ligaments held the skeleton in its seated position. The empty eye sockets seemed particularly gruesome. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Michael crossing himself before ducking out of the chamber.

"I’m getting out," the boy announced, making for the rope.

"Anyone who wants to leave can, " Gil told them. He didn’t care if all the youngsters scampered back up the rope. Amanda would keep an eye on them, he knew. Rex, however, remained close to his side. He could hear the boy’s heavy breathing and knew Rex was as thrilled as he was.

"Mr. Gladney, over here. Look!" His voice was hoarse with excitement.

Turning, Gil held his candle high. Another skeleton. This one was lying on the floor with its knees drawn up to its chest and wrapped loosely in some sort of fiber matting. Several fine pottery vessels and an amulet made of turquoise and abalone shell had been placed next to the corpse.

"I’ll bet he was a warrior… or a chief, maybe," Rex conjectured.

"I think you may be right." Glancing up, Gil noticed Jerry standing at the chamber’s rough entrance. The red-haired boy was gaping with disbelief. All of the students hadn’t abandoned him and Rex after all.

"What do you think, Jerry?" he asked. "Could these be the remains of a great chief?"

When Jerry only shrugged and shook his head, Gil stared down at the second skeleton and proclaimed in an awed voice, "I’ve got to write to Phillips." Turning to Rex, he explained, "He’s my friend, the archaeologist, the one I told you about. He’ll want to see this for himself."

From somewhere above the half-buried chamber, Gil could hear Rex’s dog barking accompanied by the faint laughter of the other students.

"Your friend, Mr. Phillips, will he come here to dig for relics?" Rex asked.

"Yes, I’m sure he’ll come," Gil replied, rising to his feet and brushing the dirt off his trousers. Still clutching his candle in one hand, he clapped the other upon the boy’s thin shoulder. "Phillips may even bring in an excavation crew."