The Mystery of Death Trap Mine Read online

  “That’s Mrs. Macomber,” said Allie.

  The woman smiled and waved at them. She wore dark slacks, a white shirt, and a massive Indian necklace of silver and turquoise. When she moved back to turn off her hose, the boys could see that although her black hair was streaked with silver and she must have been at least sixty, she moved as easily as a young girl.

  “She was born here way back in the boom days,” said Allie. “She married the superintendent of the mine. They moved away after the mine closed down. When her husband died she worked in Phoenix to save enough money to come back and buy the house she had lived in as a bride. She owns those other places, too — the little run-down houses — but she doesn’t use them for anything.”

  “So her story’s not so different from Wesley Thurgood’s, is it?” said Bob.

  “That’s not the point,” snapped Allie. “Mrs. Macomber is a nice lady.”

  “That is the point,” said Uncle Harry. “Twin Lakes is a great place to live and a perfect place to retire.” He stopped the car outside the open gate and pointed ahead to where the road ended and steep mountains edged the western side of the valley. In a hillside toward the left, about a quarter of a mile away, the boys could see an opening — a black timber-framed square.

  “That’s Death Trap Mine,” said Uncle Harry. “The cabin up there is where Mr. Thurgood lives. And he also owns that big building behind it. It used to be the mine works.”

  The boys nodded as Uncle Harry turned left through the gate onto a narrow, rutted

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  drive. Rows of small Christmas trees spread out on both sides. The car jounced past a fenced pasture on the right, where Allie’s horse, a handsome Appaloosa named Indian Queen, grazed together with three other horses. Farther down the drive, on the left, a spanking new ranch house sat in a clearing among the low trees. It was barn red with immaculate white trim. At the end of the drive was an ancient sagging barn that had not been painted for many years.

  Uncle Harry stopped the car in front of the ranch house, yawned, and stretched. “Home at last,” he said.

  The boys and Allie tumbled out of the station wagon, and the boys stood for a moment and looked around. A dusty, no-nonsense pickup truck was parked in front of the barn. On the far side of the house they could see the edge of a fenced enclosure where chickens clucked and scratched.

  Uncle Harry got out from behind the steering wheel, moving rather stiffly. “I like my eggs real fresh,” he said, pointing toward the hen yard. “Besides, there’s something kind of peaceful about waking up in the morning and hearing them cluck around. And I do wake up in the morning because the rooster thinks it’s his personal responsibility to start the day.”

  The words were scarcely spoken before the rooster could be heard from behind the house. He wasn’t crowing — he was squawking.

  A split second later there was a screeching, fluttering, flapping uproar in the hen yard. An instant after that the boys heard the thunderous explosion of a gun.

  Pete shouted and fell to the ground, instinctively covering his head with his arms.

  Jupe and Bob ducked behind the car.

  A huge dark shape came racing from behind the hen yard and bounded toward Jupe.

  Jupe had a confused impression of gleaming white teeth and dark eyes. Then the creature leaped, knocked him to the ground, and bounded over him to disappear westward into a field of Christmas trees.

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  Chapter 3

  Allies Mysterious Millionaire

  “Welcome to peaceful acres!” laughed Allie, as the afternoon stillness settled over the ranch again.

  Pete sat up and blinked. “What the heck was that?” he demanded.

  “Just Wesley Thurgood’s monster of a guard dog having another go at the chickens,” Allie explained as Jupiter picked himself up. “He tries to dig his way under the fence into the chicken yard. The chickens squawk and Magdalena runs out and shoots off her shotgun. If that dog doesn’t watch it, she just might stop shooting into the air, and he’ll have a tail full of buckshot.”

  “Magdalena?” said Bob.

  “My housekeeper,” explained Uncle Harry.

  A stout black-haired Mexican woman came around from behind the house. She wore a dress made of coarse cotton fabric with bright flowers embroidered at the neck and on the sleeves, and she carried a shotgun.

  “Seńor Osborne!” she cried. “Allie! I am pleased you are back. It is too quiet when you are not here.”

  Harrison Osborne chuckled. “So you have your own ways of livening things up,” he said.

  Magdalena scowled. “That dog, he is a thief!”

  “Never mind,” said Uncle Harry. “Keep blasting away with that gun and he’ll reform. Magdalena, these boys are friends of Allie’s. Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews, and Pete Crenshaw. They’re going to stay with us for a couple of weeks.”

  Magdalena’s black eyes sparkled. “Ah, good, good!” she cried. “It is nice to have more young people here. I will get steaks from the freezer. You are hungry after your journey.”

  She disappeared into the house.

  “I hope you are hungry after your journey,” said Uncle Harry. “Magdalena doesn’t have any patience with people who pick at their food.”

  “Don’t worry!” said Jupe heartily.

  Uncle Harry began to take suitcases out of the station wagon and set them on the front porch. The boys hurried to help him. In a few minutes they had carried their things into the house and upstairs to a big bunkroom that was over the spacious living room. Allie’s room was on the first floor, next to her uncle’s. Magdalena had her own little apartment behind the kitchen.

  “You’ll want to wash up,” Uncle Harry called to them as they began to unpack. “Don’t take too long. I’d like to show you around the place before dinner.”

  Pete immediately lost interest in stowing his clothes in the closet. “We can unpack anytime,” he said, heading for the bath across the landing from the bunkroom.

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  Soon the boys, Allie, and Uncle Harry were out under the blue New Mexico sky. Allie ran down the drive, two lumps of sugar in her hand. “Here, Queenie,” she called. Her Appaloosa snorted and galloped to the fence. The girl hugged the horse’s neck and it tossed its head, whinnying joyfully.

  “Getting Allie unpeeled from that horse, even for a couple of days, was quite a job,” said Harrison Osborne. “C’mon. I want to show you the machetes we use for pruning.”

  “Machetes?” said Pete. “Aren’t they big knives?”

  Uncle Harry nodded. “In adventure stories, the heroes use them to hack a path through the jungle.” He led the boys past the pickup truck and opened the door of the dilapidated barn. The boys smelled hay and saw bales piled high in one corner. Coils of hose hung from pegs in the wall. Spades, shears, trowels, and hoes were neatly stacked beside a workbench with a grindstone fastened to it. Over the workbench was a rack with five huge deadly-looking knives.

  “We always use shears when we prune at home,” said Pete.

  “With thousands of Christmas trees to be done, shears are too slow,” Uncle Harry told him. “Besides, you can really get a good sweep with a machete.” He took down one of the great knives, stepped away from the boys, and demonstrated. “The trees don’t grow to be a perfect Christmas-tree shape naturally,” he said. “When I bought this place three years ago, I thought all I’d have to do was stick little trees into the ground and wait for them to get big. There’s more to it. You’ve got to irrigate and kill weeds, and you have to prune. You look at a tree and picture it the way a Christmas tree should look — nice and tapering, full at the bottom and small at the top. Then you take aim and bring the machete down like this—” The blade flashed and the air swooshed as Uncle Harry’s arm came down in a slanting motion. “You cut off anything that’s going to interfere with that nice shape. But be careful, because if you make a mistake with a machete you can open a king-sized gash in your leg. I-prune in the summer and by the time my trees are ready to be harvested in November, the new growth has come out to cover the cuts and the trees ar
e fuller. Got it?”

  “Right,” said Pete.

  Uncle Harry carefully put the machete back in its place and pointed to a dusty old automobile that stood on solid rubber tires in the far side of the barn. “One of these days I’m going to build a new barn,” he said, “and that car is another thing I’m going to do something about.”

  Jupe went to the car and peered through a half-opened window. He saw seats covered with cracked black leather, and bare wooden floorboards. “It’s a Model T Ford, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “It is,” said Uncle Harry. “I got it as kind of a bonus when I bought this place. It was standing right there, half-covered with hay. I got as far as getting the hay off, and then I had to forget it. I’ve been too busy. But when I can, I’m going to restore it. Model T’s are collector’s items today.”

  Allie appeared at the open door. “Wesley Thurgood’s coming down the drive,” she announced.

  “Okay, Allie. You behave yourself,” warned Uncle Harry. “No smart talk, you hear?”

  Allie didn’t answer.

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  The boys heard footsteps outside and a voice called, “Mr. Osborne?”

  “In here,” said Uncle Harry.

  A thin fortyish man with blond wavy hair came into the barn. He wore jeans that were so new they were stiff, and boots that were gleaming and unscuffed. His western shirt looked as if it had been taken out of the box that afternoon. Jupe watched him shake hands with Uncle Harry, then listened as he apologized for the intrusion of his watchdog. Jupe felt that in at least one of her accusations Allie had been right. Thurgood did look like a person who was playing a part — an actor who had costumed himself for a role. But then Jupe reflected, what else would anyone wear in a place like Twin Lakes but jeans and boots and a western shirt? And if Wesley Thurgood didn’t have old jeans, what would be more natural than to buy new ones?

  “I’ve chained the dog up,” said Thurgood. “He won’t be down here to bother you again.”

  “It’s no big deal,” said Uncle Harry. “So long as he doesn’t actually get any of the chickens, and I don’t think he will with Magdalena around.”

  Uncle Harry then introduced the boys. Allie ignored Thurgood and stared into space. He glanced at her briefly, and his clear blue eyes became hard for a second. Then he seemed to look right through her to the Model T. “Say, that’s quite a rare car you’ve got there,” he said.

  “I was just telling the boys I’m going to fix it up one of these days,” said Uncle Harry.

  Wesley Thurgood stepped over to touch the car, and suddenly Pete straightened.

  “Wesley Thurgood!” he exclaimed. “I thought I’d heard that name before!”

  “Eh?” said Thurgood.

  “My father does special effects for the movies,” said Pete. “He was talking about you at dinner a while back, Mr. Thurgood. He said the props department at his studio needed an old Reo for a picture they were making, and they got it from you. You’re an old car buff.”

  “Oh? Oh, yes, that’s right,” said Thurgood.

  “Dad was telling us about your collection of old cars,” said Pete. “He said you’ve got a private garage where you keep them and a full-time mechanic who doesn’t do anything except make sure they’re in running condition.”

  “Yes,” said Thurgood. “Well, why not? They don’t make them like they used to, do they?”

  “Wasn’t it your Silver Cloud that was used in the movie The Fortune Hunters?” Pete asked.

  “Silver Cloud? Why, yes. I did let one of the studios borrow that not … not long ago.”

  “A Silver Cloud?” said Uncle Harry. “Guess my Model T looks pretty humble.”

  “I started small, too,” said Thurgood. “Once you really get the old car bug, you’ll probably start buying. You’ll have to enlarge your barn.”

  “You mean I’ll have to build a new one,” said Uncle Harry, and he and Thurgood strolled out of the place with Uncle Harry talking excitedly of his plans for his ranch.

  “Well?” said Allie, when the two men were gone. “Have you ever seen such a phony?”

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  “So his clothes are new,” said Pete. “So what? I didn’t remember the name Wesley Thurgood until he got so interested in the Model T, but my dad talked a lot about him and his car collection. He’s got piles of dough and he’s kind of a recluse — has a big house in Mandeville Canyon with ten-foot walls around it.”

  Jupiter cleared his throat. “He did not, however, lend a Silver Cloud to be used in the filming of The Fortune Hunters,” said Jupe, in the somewhat stuffy manner he used when imparting information. “There was an article in Film Fun about that car. It didn’t belong to Thurgood. It belonged to Jonathan Carrington, the financier. Also, The Fortune Hunters was not filmed recently. That picture has been out for several years.”

  No one contradicted Jupe, who prided himself on his knowledge of motion pictures and the theater. But Allie Jamison crowed in triumph. “What did I tell you? A phony! He lied!”

  Jupe smiled. “Not necessarily, Allie. You’re jumping to conclusions again. Wesley Thurgood is a very wealthy man, and if he owns a fleet of antique automobiles and has a man whose exclusive duty is to take care of them, he would hardly be bothered with details. He might not remember whether he loaned a certain car to a studio at a certain time. No doubt some employee takes care of the negotiations and the mechanic delivers the car to the studio.”

  “Ha!” said Allie, since there seemed to be nothing more clever to say.

  There was a rather stiff silence in the barn until Magdalena could be heard calling the four young people for dinner.

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  Chapter 4

  Shots in the Dark

  “Have more strawberry shortcake,” said Magdalena from her end of the long table in the big kitchen. Jupe had just finished the last crumb of his dessert.

  “No thanks,” he said. “It was delicious, but I’m trying to take off some weight.”

  Magdalena frowned. “You young people — always you worry about weight. Allie, she eats like a sparrow, so she is skinny like a little stick. This summer I try to make her plump like a pigeon.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Magdalena,” said Allie. “The American Medical Association says skinny is the thing to be. Baby Fatso here,” and she nodded toward Jupe, “should pay attention.”

  Jupe reddened. He hated to be reminded of the time when he had been a child star, distinctly on the plump side, and known from coast to coast as Baby Fatso.

  “I diet all the time,” said Jupe.

  “You mean when you’re not actually eating.” Allie stood up and carried her dishes to the sink.

  “Allie, you are a rotten hostess and if you were a little younger I’d turn you over my knee and give you a spanking,” her uncle told her.

  Allie didn’t answer. She rinsed her dishes and put them into the dishwasher.

  Magdalena got up from the table. “Go and talk with your friends. I will do those.”

  “We can help, Magdalena,” Bob offered.

  “No, no! I do not like a crowd in my kitchen. Besides, there is the dishwasher and it does the work.”

  Uncle Harry, Allie, and the boys retreated to the living room, where Uncle Harry promptly fell asleep in front of the television set. Soon the boys were yawning.

  “Deadheads!” jeered Allie. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”

  “We were up at five this morning,” Bob reminded her.

  “So was I,” said Allie. “Tell you what. I’ll get out the chessboard and—”

  “No thanks!” Jupe interrupted. “I have decided that according to my own official clock, which is inside my head, it is ten-thirty. I am going to bed.”

  “Me, too.” Pete started for the stairs. Bob yawned and went after him.

  “Spoilsports!” Allie taunted.

  “That Allie can be a pain in the neck,” Pete complained, when the boys were upstairs and getting into bed. “She never runs out of steam.”

  Jupe stretched out and put his hands behind his head. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “Listen.”

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e

  Bob and Pete were silent. They heard the muted sound of the television being turned off. Harrison Osborne’s voice came to them, low and sleepy. A door closed and water ran in a shower. Then another door closed.

  “Allie’s going to bed, too,” said Jupe.

  He turned over on his side and turned off the bedside lamp. The room was dark, except for the moonlight which came through the open windows and threw cold squares of light on the floor.

  Jupiter closed his eyes. In a second he was asleep. He slept deeply, not stirring, until he was jarred awake by a noise that came from outside — a muffled roar that echoed and rumbled and then died away.

  Instantly alert, Jupe sat up. He concentrated, listening for a repetition of the sound.

  In his bunk, Pete groaned. “Magdalena,” he mumbled. “Shooting at the dog again.”

  “No.” Jupe got out of bed and went to the window. “It sounded like a shot, but it wasn’t Magdalena. Too far away.”

  Jupiter looked out over the moonlit fields of Christmas trees stretching away from the house. To his right, he could see Mrs. Macomber’s house and the abandoned dwellings that made up her little domain. Straight ahead, Wesley Thurgood’s property was fully visible on the rising slope of land. A small, boxy-shaped truck was parked near the mine entrance. A shadow moved next to Thurgood’s cabin, and the guard dog prowled to the end of his chain, lifted his head, and howled.

  A light went on in the little house across from Uncle Harry’s gate. A door opened and Jupe saw Mrs. Macomber come out in a dressing gown. She stood on the porch and looked up toward Thurgood’s place.

  There were voices in the living room below. Uncle Harry was up, and so was Magdalena.