Bailey and the Santa Fe Secret (6 page)

“We need to leave!” Halona called to the others the next morning.

“Where’s Elan?” Bailey asked as she climbed into the Suburban.

“He’s not feeling well,” Halona explained. “He’s staying home to rest.”

“Maybe that hike yesterday was harder on him than he thought,” Elizabeth said as she buckled her seat belt.

When they arrived at Earth Works, Bailey took over Elan’s job of sweeping the front sidewalk while Elizabeth dusted the shelves and pottery inside. Before long Bailey heard the familiar voices of Paco and the other boys who teased Elan.

“Oh, look!” Paco taunted. “Elan has a girl doing his work for him. Must have been too hard for him.”

“It just so happens Elan is sick today.” Bailey was immediately sorry she had given them the satisfaction of an answer.

“Aw. Isn’t that too bad.” Paco used his best baby voice. “Hope the delicate little thing gets better soon so we can pound him into the ground!” The baby voice morphed into a growl.

The other boys laughed. Bailey shot poisonous darts from her eyes. She was steaming mad but didn’t say anything else. The boys rode off, still laughing.

As soon as Bailey finished sweeping, she went back into the store and pulled Elizabeth into the back hallway. “I’m going to give that dorko a shocko if he’s not careful.”

“Huh?” Elizabeth frowned.

“That mean guy, Paco, came back on his bike while I was sweeping.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Paco the Dorko? That’s pretty funny. Not nice, but funny.”

“Well he’s not too nice. I can see why he gets Elan mad.”

“Just let it go,” Elizabeth advised. “They’re gone now anyway.”

Bailey nodded. “While we’re here, we should study that ancient pot again,” she said. “I keep thinking after our hike yesterday that maybe some of the landscape on the pot will look familiar.”

The girls went to the shelf in the hall to look again.

“I know what you mean.” Elizabeth leaned so close to the pot her nose almost touched it. “But there were way more trees and dry, scrubby bushes where we hiked than there are on this pot. It can’t possibly be the same area.”

“But the place on the pot has to be close,” Bailey said. “This is where the Tses’ ancestors are from. They didn’t move that far away when the drought hit. They only moved closer into town.”

“It just looks so different.”

“I wonder if Kate found anything else out about the pot since she printed the pictures we sent.” Bailey scratched her head.

“I hope so, or I’m afraid we may have run into a dead end.” Elizabeth turned when she heard the bell on the front door ring. “Sounds like Halona’s got customers.”

Bailey looked at the pot on the shelf once more, twisting her neck to see as far around the side of it as she could. “It’s no use. I can’t see enough of it without picking it up.”

“Bailey?” Halona called. “Could you girls please come and wrap these purchases while I ring them up?”

“Sure thing,” Bailey answered.

Bailey and Elizabeth joined Halona behind the counter and pulled out a stack of white paper squares from underneath.

“Pastor John, I’d like you to meet my cousin’s daughter, Bailey, from Illinois. And this is Elizabeth, Bailey’s friend from Texas. Girls, this is John Whitcomb, pastor of the church down the street.”

Bailey shook the pastor’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. This is a beautiful vase you’re buying.”

“You can call me Pastor John. The vase is a birthday present for my wife, Lelana.” Pastor John smiled broadly, but then put his finger to his lips. “So no telling if she comes in here.”

“Our lips are sealed.” Bailey giggled.

Halona bagged the wrapped vase. “Here you go,” she said as she handed the bag to Pastor John.

“Thanks, Halona.” Then to the girls, “If you’re still in town on Sunday, come on over to the church and visit us. Bible classes are at 9:30, and services start at 10:30.”

Bailey’s shoulders sagged. “I wish we could come, but we leave on Thursday.”

“Well, next time you visit then.” Pastor John smiled pleasantly. “It was nice meeting you.”

Bailey’s phone vibrated as she waved good-bye. She pulled it from her pocket. “Hello?” Bailey strolled to the back of the store, her phone pressed to her ear. “Hi, Kate!”

Elizabeth followed Bailey to the studio where they’d taken their first pottery lesson.

“Okay, we’ll hang on.” Bailey whispered to Elizabeth, “She’s going to conference all the girls in, so get ready to answer your phone.”

Elizabeth pulled her phone from her jeans pocket and it rang in her hand seconds later. “Yes, I’m here. Can you hear us?”

“I think we’ve got everyone,” Kate said. “Bailey?”

“Check.”

“Alex?”

“Check.”

“Sydney?”

“Check.”

“McKenzie?”

“I’m here.”

“Elizabeth?”

“I’m here, too.”

“Good,” Kate said. “What’s going on with you guys? Anything new?”

Bailey sighed. “‘Fraid not. We went on a hike yesterday with Elan to the Puye Cliff dwellings. We thought some of the area might resemble the scenery on the ancient pot, but nothing looked familiar.”

“We’re starting to feel this may be one mystery we aren’t going to be able to solve,” Elizabeth said.

“Don’t give up yet!” Kate said. “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

“The bad news,” Bailey said.

“Okay. Remember I told you I was going to print out the pictures you sent me so I could study them better?”

“Yes.” Bailey looked nervously at Elizabeth.

“Well, I did print them out, and they looked great. So I laid them out on the floor to examine them. Biscuit came running into the room and got her muddy paws all over them.”

“Oh no!” Alex said. “Are you going to have to reprint them?”

“I’m not sure.” Kate cleared her throat. “Here’s where the good news comes in. Or at least it may be good news. I’m not sure.”

“Let’s hear it!” Sydney said.

“Well, the funny thing about the muddy paw prints on the picture is that it almost looks like trees painted onto the scenery.”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” McKenzie said. “How could that be good news?”

“I think I see where she’s going,” Sydney said. “Think about it. The Santa Fe landscape had to have changed over the last few hundred years or so since that pot was made.”

“Oh, I get what you’re saying.” Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled at Bailey. “Trees and bushes and cactus plants would have grown in since then, so it may look entirely different than the pot’s picture.”

“Bingo!” Kate said. “And that’s exactly what the picture looks like to me with the muddy paw prints on it.”

“Why don’t you send us photos so we can see them with Biscuit’s paw prints? Then we’ll get a better idea of what the area might look like now.”

“I already did.” Kate giggled. “Check your e-mail.”

The girls burst out laughing.

“You’re really on top of this!” Bailey said.

“Anyone else have anything to report?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, I’m still researching the public records on the Tse family,” Alex said. “Haven’t turned anything up yet that’s of interest.”

“Sydney, any news on the Native American code talkers?” McKenzie asked.

“Only that the Navajo Indians were the ones who did the code talking in World War Two,” Sydney said. “I don’t find any connection that would tie them or their code to the Pueblo Indians.”

“All right,” Bailey said. “Let’s keep working on this. Thanks for calling, Kate. Your tip about those photos may crack this case.”

Kate laughed. “Just doing my job. Or at least Biscuit was!”

“We’re working at the shop right now, but we’ll check our e-mail as soon as we have time,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll let you know if the picture resembles anything we’ve seen so far.”

“Okay,” Kate said. “Keep us posted.”

Bailey and Elizabeth said good-bye.

“Good thing I brought my laptop along,” Bailey said. “I thought we might get bored, so I brought it in case we wanted to play games while my mom worked.”

Bailey typed in her username and password, and Kate’s e-mail popped up with photo attachments. Elizabeth scooted her chair closer.

“There it is,” Bailey said.

“Boy, that’s amazing!” Elizabeth leaned in to get a better look. “Those muddy paw prints really do look like trees.”

Bailey laughed. “Who knew Biscuit was such an artist!”

“This looks a lot more like the area we hiked yesterday with the ‘trees’ added,” Elizabeth said.

Bailey squinted her eyes and pointed at the mountain to the right in the picture. “I wonder if this could be the mountain beside the Puye Cliff dwellings.”

“I’m not sure.” Elizabeth shook her head. “It looks more purple than that mountain. I thought it was brown or black.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Bailey had another idea. “Or maybe it was just the lighting when Kate took the shot.”

“I’m not sure the shape of the mountain is right.” Elizabeth’s eyebrows narrowed in thought. “Wasn’t the top flatter than this?”

Bailey nodded. “I think you’re right. Maybe the painting on the pot isn’t where we went hiking after all.” She clicked the picture off and closed the laptop.

Halona wandered into the pottery studio. “What are you girls up to?”

“We were checking our e-mail,” Bailey said.

“Ready to see how the pots you made yesterday look now that they’ve dried?”

“Yeah!” Bailey pushed the computer to the end of the table, out of the way, while Halona got the pots from out back and brought them to the table.

“Now we get to paint them?” Bailey stood up and down on her tippy-toes.

“We glaze them,” Halona said. “Have you thought about what colors you want to use?”

“I want mine to be like the sunset on your family pot, so I’ll choose pink, orange, and yellow.”

“I just want blue and green on mine,” Elizabeth said. “Those are the colors in my room.”

“Blue and green it is,” Halona said as she got out big bottles of glaze and poured a little of each color into cups. She pulled paintbrushes from a drawer and laid them on the table by each girl. “What color do you want the inside of your dishes to be?”

“Pink, please,” Bailey said.

“I think I’ll make mine blue.”

Halona poured some pink paint into Bailey’s dish. “Pick up your bowl and swirl it around to make the glaze coat the bottom.”

Bailey did as she was told.

“Now tip your dish on its side to get the glaze on the sides.” Halona watched as Bailey let the pink glaze cover the sides of her dish.

Halona then poured blue glaze into Elizabeth’s bowl, and Elizabeth covered the inside in blue.

Bailey dipped her brush into the pink glaze and started working on her sunset. “I wish these colors were brighter.” She couldn’t disguise her disappointment as she looked at her painting.

“They will be after we fire them in the kiln,” Halona replied.

Elizabeth cocked her head. “Guess that’s a good thing to remember when we disappoint ourselves with the way we sometimes act. Just like the colors we paint on these dishes, we don’t always shine like we should. But we’re a work in progress. God isn’t finished with us yet.”

“You are wiser than your years, Beth,” Halona said. “We always have room to grow and improve, don’t we?”

“So the next step is firing them?” Bailey asked.

Halona nodded. “Yes. I’ll turn on the kiln.”

“When Mom and I bake cookies we set the oven at 375 degrees,” Bailey said. “What temperature do you set the kiln to cook the pots?”

Halona laughed. “Much hotter than your kitchen oven. The first firing, the bisque, is usually at 900 to 1,000 degrees.”

Bailey’s eyes widened. “That’s hot!”

“Yes it is,” Halona agreed. “That’s why you must never play around the kiln.”

“How long do you bake it?” Elizabeth asked.

“Usually about eighteen hours.” Halona set the oven.

Bailey’s jaw dropped. “Eighteen hours! Seems like they’d be burnt to a crisp by then.”

“If they were cookies they would be!” Halona teased.

“Do you use special potholders to take them out?” Beth asked.

Halona shook her head. “No. We let them cool in the kiln for two to three days before we remove them.”

Bailey could hardly believe her ears. “So our pots won’t be finished until we have to leave?”

“I’m afraid not,” Halona said. “Making pottery is a slow process. There are many steps, and each one takes time.”

“Wow. Now I understand why each piece is so special,” Elizabeth said. “Especially that beautiful one handed down from generation to generation.”

Halona smiled. “We take great pride in our work. For a pot to last hundreds of years as that one has only proves the excellent craftsmanship of my people.”

“That’s for sure!” Bailey said.

A ding at the door followed by baby cries told them they had customers.

“I’d better get back out to the front of the store,” Halona said. “But I thought we should get those pots started so they’ll be ready for you to take home with you on Thursday.”

“Thanks for helping us,” Elizabeth said. “I’m learning a lot.”

“Me, too!” Bailey said. “Like never try to bake a pot and a batch of cookies in the same oven!”

Halona laughed, her dark eyes twinkling, and hugged Bailey. “It’s so good to have you here. You make me laugh in a tough year when laughter is hard to find.” She gave Bailey one more squeeze and went to the front of the store.

“I was thinking,” Bailey said to Beth. “Maybe we should compare the pictures Kate sent us with the actual pot. We might spot something we missed before.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s log back on.”

Bailey opened the laptop and pulled up Kate’s e-mail. Soon the pictures appeared on the screen.

“Let’s take it to the shelf where the pot is.” Elizabeth picked up the computer.

“Okay. I’ll turn out the light.” Bailey flipped the switch by the door.

The two slipped into the hallway where the shelf containing the pot stood. Beth held the computer beside the pot. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I think the lighting is terrible in this hallway,” Bailey said. “And the light from the computer is making the colors on the actual pot look weird.”