Cupid's Treasure - Mystery of the Golden Arrow (24 page)

Patricia stepped forward and took their bags.

“Now take a seat.” He waved his gun toward the van.

“You’re that fish—this is kidnapping—where are you taking us?” Mavis blurted out.

“Do exactly as I say, and no one will get hurt,” Joseph the fish Marconi said.

~*~

Jonathan turned his truck off the main road onto a dirt one. Jacques groaned from the far passenger side as they hit one and then another chuck hole. The girls who sat in the middle bounced up and down.

Uff
-off-oaf! Jacques gasped as Agnes bounced on his lap. “When are we going to get there?” he asked.

“Not long now,” Jonathan said. “According to the GPS we are almost to the end of the road, and we’ll have to walk from there.”

“I think my legs are numb,” Jacques said. “I’m not sure how much more I can take—I knew I should have sat in the back with Eros.”

“Think of the treasure,” Jonathan said. “That should help.”

“Why don’t I feel anything?” Jessie asked as she looked at him. “Agnes is on top of me as well.”

“This I don’t know,” Jacques said. “Perhaps it is my connection with the spirit world that makes this possible.”

Jonathan pulled off to the side of the road and stopped. “There is a trail over there that should lead to the cave.”

~*~

“How is the project coming along?” Harold asked René when he came home for a late lunch.

“
Mmm-wa!” René kissed his fingers. “It is, how do they say. . . ? Sweet!”

“It runs?” Harold asked.

“Runs?” René asked. “Ha! It purrs like a kitten . . . and fast?” He chuckled. “The pony can run now.”

“It’s a Pinto,” Harold said.

“Ho-ho.” René held up his finger as a baton. “That is where you are wrong. . . . Now, it is a race horse!”

“How about the other upgrades?”
Harold asked as he bit into a sandwich.

“I may have modified the upgrades just a little,” René said. “I was in an aircraft-hanger after all.” He shrugged. “The temptation was too great. It is truly amazing what you can have ordered and shipped same day delivery.”

“What about your experiment?” René asked. “I am very curious to know if it worked.” René watched as Harold took another bite, swallowed, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and shook his head with a sigh.

“It was a disappointment,” Harold said. “The alloy I made using the spectrographic analysis of the little arrow will only levitate a hundred thousand times its weight!”

“No!” René did a little dance. “You did it!” He laughed.

Harold was grinning from ear to ear. “It should float a boat!”

“We must tell everyone!” René chuckled. “Where are they anyway?”

“The kids stopped by and grabbed lunch, ropes, and flashlights earlier,” Harold said. “Apparently they are going after Jacques’s treasure.”

“So you pieced the clues together?” René asked.

“Not I,” Harold said. “They had the ghost at the library assisting them.”

René chuckled. “I would love to be a fly on the wall for that one,” he said as he pressed speed dial. “That is strange,” he said, handing up the phone. “Katie is not answering her cell phone. She said she was going to meet that busy bee and would be right back.”

“She must be with my wife,” Harold said. “She had a call from her asking her to meet too.”

“That is very strange,” René said.

Harold called his wife’s cell phone, waiting as it went to her messages. “Just calling to check on you, love,” he said. He called Jessie next, leaving a message for her too. He hung up the phone and looked at René. “It is probably nothing, but with everything going on, maybe we should pull up their phones on the GPS.”

~*~

“I can’t believe we don’t get reception here,” Jessie said.

“Mine is dead too,” Jonathan said. “The last signal I got was on the other side of that ridge.”

“Listen,” Jacques said. “I think I hear the sound of water. It’s interesting that the soil here is almost yellow. Wasn’t there something about yellow river meeting red horses in the clues?”

“Yeah, there was,” Jonathan said as he walked across a stream that was a foot wide. Maybe it’s just a seasonal creek. “Thanks to modern computers and satellite mapping we were able to bypass those instructions and come directly to the cave,” Jonathan said, looking over the low cliff. “It must be over this drop.”

“It looks like we can get down over here,” Eros said.

They climbed down and stood staring at the small and shallow cave that was littered with beer cans.

Jacques stood looking into the cave. “It seems we have made it to the bear’s bowels,” he said.
“Now what?”

“The rest of the poem says that the dark storm gathers,” Jonathan said.

“Agnes has generously reminded me that this means we are to go west,” Jacques said. “Ouch!” He spun around when an acorn hit him. “Now, I was being nice.”

“And I’m not responsible for the actions of a squirrel,” Agnes retorted.

Jessie took Jacques’s hand and walked with him to an area of trees and grass.

Jonathan looked at the sun which was getting fairly low on the horizon. “What does Agnes have to say about the rest of it?” He looked down at the paper Jessie had written the poem on.
“
The
tskïlï'
spreads its great wings as the little sparrow hides against the broken arrow.”

Amber who stood next to him spoke up. “She said that the great horned owl, the
tskïlï',
was considered the embodiment of ghosts. From there at night we must find where the little sparrow hides against the broken arrow.”

Jonathan looked at his watch then again at the sun. “I say we eat while we wait.” He looked at her. His expression saying he was very hungry . . . for her. “I am starved.”

She smiled bashfully and spread a blanket across the grass while the boys went back to get the basket of food.

~*~

What are they doing? Patricia asked when Joe came back to where he had parked the van. He had driven away from the main road and parked the van behind some trees. “They are having a picnic.”

“How much longer do you think this is going to take?” Patricia asked. “I wanted to make the six o’clock news.”

“How are our guests?” Joe ignored her question and asked another instead as he looked back at the dark brown van that blended perfectly into the brush.

“They are fine,” Patricia said. “I’ll be glad when this is over though.”

He opened the door and saw the three women he’d duct-taped to the separate seats in back.

“You can’t mean to keep us like this,” Mavis said.

“I need to go potty,” Katie chimed in.

He put a piece of tape on each of their mouths and opened the cooler that was in the back seat.

Gloria’s eyes became huge as she looked down at the bomb.

Joe looked away from the three and closed the door to their cries.

“Why are they upset now?” Patricia asked.

“They are upset because we will be leaving them for a minute is all,” Joe said. “Do you have your camera?”

“I’m never without it,” Patricia said.

“Good,” Joseph said. After all, he would have hated to go looking for the evidence later.
“This way.”

“
Hm-hu-homh,” Gloria mumbled.

“Huh?” Mavis mumbled back.

“Ha-homh.” Gloria motioned with her head to the device on the floor.

“A-
homh?” Katie who was also in the middle section next to Mavis asked. She tilted her head back to see over the seat behind Mavis. “Augh,” she gasped. “A homh!”

Mavis looked frustrated in the extreme and shook her head still not understanding.

“him-ha-him-ha-him-ha.” Katie rocked sideways like a clock ticking, then, make the closest sound to an explosion she could. She looked at Mavis with big eyes.

“Augh,” Mavis gasped. “
ah-homh!”

“Uh-huh,” Gloria said as she and Katie nodded.

Mavis started mumbling incoherently, and then looked expectantly at the other ladies. They shook their heads and shrugged. She started wiping her mouth against the side of the shoulder harness and the window. As soon as it stuck she ripped the tape the rest of the way off of her mouth. “I said what are we going to do?”

Both Katie and Gloria followed suit, wiping the tape against any surface they could. Katie had hers off first. “We’re going to blow this joint before it blows up!”

Gloria stuck the tape to the window and pulled away. The tape pulled away from the window, leaving half of it hanging. “And then rescue the kids,” she said, talking out of half of her mouth like May West.

“I cannot believe Patricia would do this!” Mavis said. “I am so glad they didn’t have children,” she said as she bent her head to the tape that bound her wrist to her seat. “Can you just imagine? What was Jonathan thinking?”

~*~

“I really think we should follow that stratum in the ridge,” Jonathan said as he leaned back on one elbow and crossed his legs. “If there is another cave, it is most likely in the same substrate as this one.”

Jacques reached across the blanket, dug a plum out of the lunch hamper, and looked at him in surprise.

“What?” Jonathan asked. “Did you think I was all brawn with no brains?” He looked back at the cave. “I wanted to be a geologist before I went into the military. I was actually going to use my college fund to go later. Then one thing led to another, and I found I was better at other things.”

“Like what?” Jacques asked.

“Like war for one,” Jonathan said. “I was a natural.” He sighed.
“Unbeatable in hand to hand combat.” He looked at Eros. “Tell me. Does the god of war have any redeeming qualities?”

“Of course!”
Eros said in surprise. “Everyone knows that you are the protector of the family and community. Without you chaos would reign, and there would be no civilization.”

“What about the goddess of Love?” Amber asked. “Please tell me it’s not been all devious lies and petty jealousy.”

“There is nothing in the universe greater or stronger than love,” Eros said. “Not even the god of war is more powerful.”

Amber sighed. “I do not seek to be powerful, but empowering. . . . There is a difference I have found.

“Then this has not been all for naught, Eros smiled. “For love is the greatest nurturer. It will bear any burden, and it is love that soothes the wild beast. Love conquers all, not because it wounds us, but because it heals. What could be more inspiring?”

“You’re pretty smart for a kid,” Jacques said.

“I’m older than the dirt you’re sitting on,” Eros said.

Amber laughed, looked at Eros and then to Jonathan.
She wanted to believe it could be true. Jonathan picked up an apple, sinking his teeth into it, then reached out for her to take a bite, holding it to her lips. She tentatively opened her mouth and took a bite.

“It’s juicy,” he said with a wink and laughed as she had to wipe her chin.

A shadow passed overhead as he said it. Large wings glided over the small clearing where they sat, circled around and alighted in a tree high on the hill above them.

“It appears that your messenger has arrived father.” Eros grinned.

Jonathan looked at Jacques who was grinning as well. “It’s a coincidence.”

The great horned owl sat looking down at them until a sparrow flew past it, screeching a warning as it went.

“What do you suppose would make the sparrow risk his life to protect his nest,” Eros said, “if not love?”

“Ahem.” Jacques cleared his throat. “I’m not sure we’re going to get another invitation like that one. And Agnes is having a conniption waiting for us to move on.” He moved, missing the acorn that dropped to the ground next to him and chuckled.

~*~

“I can’t do it,” Katie said, sitting back in dismay after trying time after time to reach the tape that bound her wrists. “You’d have to be a contortionist to reach it.”

“Well,” Mavis said. “Before I worked at the mortuary. . . .”

“No, don’t say it!” Katie said.

“Don’t you re-tell it,” Mavis said, horrified to confess it. “If word got out that I was a carny.”

“What’s a carny?” Gloria asked.

“It’s someone who works in the carnival.”

“Oh,” Gloria said. “And how does this help us? I’m confused.”

“I worked with Harry Hairdini, the bearded lady, and the contortionists,” Mavis said. “I was part of the act.”

“You were a contortionist?” Gloria asked.

“Well, I wasn’t the bearded lady,” Mavis retorted. “I’m sorry,” she said, absolutely mortified. “That was just awful of me to say. The strain of this is getting to me. And I really have to pee!”

“This has to be the ultimate Depends moment,” Gloria said.

“Oh, my goodness!” Mavis chuckled. “Stop it! Oh, now I reaaallly have to go!”