The Mystery of the Death Trap Mine - M. V. Carey [4]
Pete exploded with laughter. “Allie! You didn’t tell us you got thrown off Thurgood’s place!”
“Oh, shut up!” Allie’s voice shook with anger.
Jupe chuckled as he pictured the proud girl being marched out of the mine.
“He’s a phony, I tell you!” cried Allie.
“Perhaps he’s only eccentric,” said Jupe. “Wealthy people sometimes are eccentric.”
“That’s no crime,” said Uncle Harry. He released the brake and they were moving again. “I don’t want you to bother him again, Allie. And that goes for you, too, boys.”
The car turned off the oiled road and bumped across a wooden bridge that spanned a tiny waterfall between two lakes that were hardly more than ponds. The boys guessed that these gave the town its name. Beyond the bridge the road was unpaved and dust billowed out behind the car. About a mile from the bridge, on the left side of the road, were fields filled with young evergreens and, farther on, an open gate. Across the road from the gate sat several small houses. One was newly painted, but the others looked desolate and abandoned. Uncle Harry slowed and honked the horn at a tall, lean woman who was watering the garden next to the trim little house.
“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
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