IS IT A CLUE?
The shot undeniably had been fired from the brush-tangled arroyo. Jerry
stepped back that he might not be a helpless target while he conferred
with the other boys.
“I cain’t understand it at all,” he said. “If we missed getting one of
the bandits, he wouldn’t be staying around here. By this time, he’d be
miles away.”
“You’re right about that,” Dick agreed. “My theory is that the man who
called for help was the one who fired the shot.”
Harry said, “Don’t you think that possibly someone is hurt and fearing
that his call wasn’t heard, he fired his gun to attract our attention? He
may have heard our cars climbing the grade. They made noise enough.”
Jerry, feeling convinced that this was more than likely a fact, went
again to the edge of the arroyo, and, keeping hidden behind the jagged
pile of rocks, he looked intently through the dark tangle to the dry
creek in the arroyo bottom. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimness
he saw the figure of an old man lying on his back, one leg bent under
him, his arms thrown out helplessly. One hand held a gun. Undeniably he
it was who had fired the shot.
Without waiting to inform the others of his decision, Jerry leaped over
the rocks and crashed through the brush. Dick and Harry followed a second
later.
As they stood looking down at the wan face of a very old man their hearts
were touched.
“Poor fellow,” Jerry said, kneeling and lifting the hand that held the
gun. “I reckon firing that shot was the last act he did in this life.”
“I’m not so sure.” Dick had opened the old man’s torn shirt and was
listening to his heart. “He’s still alive. Hadn’t we better get him back
to Tombstone to a doctor?”
For answer the boys lifted the stranger who was lighter than they had
dreamed possible and carried him slowly back up to the road. The girls,
awed and silent, asked if they could help, but Jerry shook his head. At
his suggestion the old man was placed at his side. The girls rolled their
sweater coats to place under his head and shoulders. Dick, from the back,
through a tear in the curtain, held him in position.
Turning the cars was difficult but not impossible. Awed and in silence
they returned to town.
Dr. Conrad, luckily, was in his office in a small adobe building near the
hotel. The old man was still breathing when he was carried in and laid on
a couch. Restoratives quickly applied were effective and soon the tired
sunken eyes opened. The unkempt grizzled head turned restlessly, then
pleadingly he asked, “Jackie, have you seen him?”
There was such a yearning eagerness in the old man’s face that Mary hated
to have to shake her head and say, “No.”
Jerry asked, “Who is Jackie?” But the old man did not reply. As though
the effort had been too much for him, he closed his eyes and rested.
Dick exclaimed eagerly, “Jerry, you know that young boy we brought over
with the bandits. Couldn’t we ask Deputy Sheriff Goode to bring him over
here? He would know if this old man belongs to the robber band, although
that boy certainly didn’t look like a criminal.”
The plan seemed a good one and was carried out. The boy, fair-haired and
about nine years old, cried out when he saw the old man and running to
him, threw himself down beside the lounge and sobbed, “Granddad!
Granddad! Oh, _do_ wake up. I’m so glad you found me. I thought _this_
time they’d make away with me for sure.”
Slowly a smile spread over the wan features. The sunken eyes opened and
looked directly at the tear-wet face of the boy. “Jackie,” the old man
said, and there was infinite love in his voice. “Thank God you’re safe!
They’ve ruined me. They _mustn’t_ ruin you. Go to Sister Theresa. Hide
there.” For a long moment he breathed heavily, his gaze on the face of
the boy he so loved. Then he made another effort to speak. “I’m dying,
Jackie. I give you to Sister Theresa. Goodbye. Be—a—good boy.”
The girls, unable to keep back their tears, turned away, but Mary,
hearing the child’s pitiful sobs, went over to him and, kneeling at his
side, put a comforting arm about him. Trustingly he leaned his head
against her shoulder and clung to her as though he knew she must be a
friend.
Later, when the boy’s grief had been quieted, the young people, at the
doctor’s suggestion, took him into another room and questioned him.
“How had he happened to be with the robber band?”
“Who was his grandfather?”
“Where would they find Sister Theresa that they might take him there as
his granddad had requested?”
Still in the loving shelter of Mary’s arm, the boy, at first chokingly,
then more clearly, told all that he knew. His grandfather, he said, had
been a marked man by that robber band. He had done something _years ago_
to turn them against him, Jackie didn’t know what. They had robbed him.
They had destroyed his ranch and his cattle. They had stolen Jackie once
before, but he had gotten away that time, but this time they had watched
him too closely. Granddad had been hunting for him.
Sister Theresa? She was a nun and lived in a convent on the Papago
reservation up to the north, quite far to the north, Jackie thought.
Deputy Sheriff Goode came in and listened to what Jerry had to tell him
of the child’s story. He nodded solemnly. “I know that good woman,” he
said; “she is one of the world’s best. I reckon the kid’s telling the
truth. If you have the time, Jerry, I wish you’d take him over there
right away.”
The combination ambulance and police car was brought out. That it was
seldom used was evidenced by the sand on the seats and floor. Jerry drove
it to a gas station and had the tank filled. Jackie, who clung to Mary as
though she alone could understand his grief, nestled close to her in the
big car.
Harry said to Jerry, “Old man, I think I’d better fly over. The Papago
reservation is close to Tucson, isn’t it, and I must turn in a report.
Then I’ll join you all and come back with you perhaps.”
“Oh, please do!” Mary called to him. “I want you to meet the nicest dad
in the world. He’ll be so interested in hearing about your trip from the
East.”
A crowd of townspeople had gathered in the square and silently watched as
the big police car started and the “Seagull” took to the air.
As they were rumbling along, Dora, across from Mary, silently pointed at
the boy. “He’s asleep, little dear,” she said softly.
Dick was on the driver’s seat with Jerry.
“Dora,” Mary whispered, “how tangled up things are. We _were_ hunting for
one child and find another. Something seems always to lead us farther
away from solving the mystery of poor Little Bodil.”
“I know,” Dora agreed, “but after all, we could hardly expect, I suppose,
after all these years, to unravel _that_ mystery.”
It was not a long ride. The road was smooth and hard. The car rolled
along so rapidly that the forty miles were covered in less than an hour.
Dora, looking out of the opening in the back of the wagon, was delighted
when she saw tepees along the roadside. Also, there were small adobe
shacks with yucca stalk fences and drying ears of corn and red peppers in
strings hanging over them.
“Oh, how fascinating this place is!” she whispered. “Do look! There’s a
Papago family. The mother has her baby strapped to her back.” The convent
was an unpretentious rambling adobe building painted a glistening white.
Jerry turned in through an arched adobe gate over which stood a wooden
cross.
At a side door he stopped, got out and, climbing a few steps, pulled on a
rope which hung there. Almost at once the door was opened by a
sweet-faced nun who smiled a welcome. Jerry asked, “May we speak with
Sister Theresa?”
“Yes, will you come in?” Then, glancing out at the car and seeing the two
girls, she added hospitably, “all of you.”
Jerry lifted out the sleeping boy and carried him into the long, cool
waiting room. The sister who had opened the door had gone to call Sister
Theresa and so she did not see the child.
Mary glanced skyward before she entered the convent and, seeing the
silver plane circling about, wondered if Harry would be able to land.
Evidently he decided that it would be unwise, for he was dropping the
small aluminum bottle once again. Mary ran to the spot where it fell and
read the note. “Unsafe to land on the sand. Will return to Tombstone and
wait for you there.”
Dora glanced at Mary’s face and saw an expression which told her
disappointment. Once again she thought, “Poor Jerry!”
Dick, who had waited for them, said, “He’s a wise bird, that Harry
Hulbert. He takes no chances.” Then they three went indoors and joined
Jerry who, seated on a bench, held the sleeping child.