Aunt Dimity Goes West (33 page)

one leading to the Aerie because . . . because . . .” I fell silent, having run out of revelations.

“I know why you did it, Dick.” Toby jerked his head

toward the hand-drawn map above the desk. “You’ve

been searching for gold, haven’t you? You’ve been

scavenging whatever’s left down there. You’ve been

stealing gold that doesn’t belong to you.”

Dick thumped his chest furiously, bellowing, “It

does
belong to me. It
all
belongs to me. My great-great-grandfather discovered the Lord Stuart Mine,

and the Auerbachs
stole
it from him.”

I staggered back a step and my mouth fell open.

“You’re Ludovic Magerowski’s great-great-grandson?”

“The Auerbachs drove Ludovic
crazy,
” Dick shouted, flecks of spittle flying from his lips. “They drove his wife to
suicide.
They put his son in an
orphanage.
My great-grandfather changed his last name to Major, but it

didn’t change our luck. Nothing’s gone right for us

since the Auerbachs stole the Lord Stuart.”

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Nancy Atherton

“So you decided to balance the books?” said Toby.

“You came here to take what’s rightfully yours?”

“
Yes.
But I came too late.” Dick’s voice sank to a hoarse whisper, and his eyes became bleak. “There’s

no gold left.The Auerbachs took it all.”

“If there’s no gold left in the Lord Stuart,” I said,

“why did you go back down there tonight?”

“If I can’t have gold, I’ll have justice,” Dick

shouted, shaking his fist at me. “I know how to get it,

too. I worked bomb disposal in the army.” He bared

his teeth in a savage grin. “I left a surprise package under the Aerie tonight, a little thank-you gift for the

Auerbachs. It’s set to go off at midnight. By then I’ll be on my way to Denver.”

For a heartbeat,Toby and I stood as if carved out of

stone. Then Toby launched himself at Dick, punching

him so hard that the big man collapsed in a heap.

I leapt over Dick’s prone body, dashed up the hall-

way, and flew through the front door. I didn’t stop to

check my watch or to see if Toby was following. I

charged up the dirt road and onto the Lord Stuart

Trail with only one thought thundering in my head: I

had to get my sons and Annelise out of the Aerie be-

fore Dick’s “surprise package” exploded.

Moonlight silvered the trail and scattered it with

shadows. Aspen leaves chattered overhead, but I could

scarcely hear them above my gasping breaths. My

lungs ached, my legs burned, and flashbulbs seemed to

pop before my eyes, but I ran on, hurtling myself up-

ward, past the wildflowers, past the ponderosa pines,

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283

past the fir tree I’d leaned against, giggling with Toby, one day ago.

When the Aerie came into view, I realized with a

sickening jolt that the front door would be locked. I

instantly changed course, flung myself over the railing

and onto my deck, sprinted through the master suite,

and raced down the corridor, shouting for everyone to

get out. By the time I reached the great room,Annelise

had roused the twins and pulled them from their sleep-

ing bags, though they were still clutching their fuzzy

buffalo.

“Out!”
I shouted breathlessly.
“Get out!”

Annelise scooped Rob into her arms, I darted for-

ward to lift Will, and we fled the Aerie as if the hounds of hell were after us.We nearly crashed into Toby as he

bounded across the clearing, but he swerved in the

nick of time, took Will from me, and led us back down

the Lord Stuart Trail. We’d just spilled out onto the

dirt road when a deafening explosion rocked the

ground beneath our feet. I stumbled, turned, and saw

a fireball billow gracefully into the night sky.

“Reginald,”
I whispered, stricken.
“Aunt Dimity.”

Twenty-five

I could feel my heart breaking as the devouring

flames leapt skyward, taking with them my

precious Reginald and the blue leather-bound

journal that had connected me for so long to my dear-

est friend and wisest counselor, the remarkable, un-

forgettable Aunt Dimity. Tears filled my eyes and

spilled down my cheeks. My breath came in rasping

sobs, and when Toby spoke, his voice seemed to come

from a distant planet.

“Well,” he panted, “thank God for that.”

“Thank God for
what
?” I snapped, rounding on him.

“Dick’s aim was bad,” he said. “He missed the Aerie.”

“He . . . he
missed
?” I stammered as a knee-weakening wave of relief flooded through me.

Toby shrugged. “It’s easy to get turned around in

the tunnels if you haven’t grown up exploring them.

I’d say he planted his bomb about a half mile to the

west of where he intended to plant it. If we can get the fire under control, the Aerie should be okay.”

“Bomb?” said Annelise, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ll explain later,” I told her.

A siren howled in Bluebird and a cacophony of

voices echoed over Lake Matula.The townspeople were

Aunt Dimity Goes West

285

awake. A truck from the volunteer fire department

roared past us as we limped along Lake Street and

Toby flagged down the local sheriff as he drove by.

“Hey there, Tobe,” said the sheriff, running an eye

over our little band of refugees. “Any idea what caused

the explosion?”

“Yeah.” Toby jutted his chin toward Dick Major’s

house. “You’ll find him in the back bedroom. Lock

him up, Jeff. I’ll drop by the jailhouse and explain

everything once we find beds for these kids.”

“Carrie Vyne’s got an empty guest cabin,” the sher-

iff suggested.

“Thanks, Jeff,” said Toby. “Fire service on its way?”

“You bet,” said the sheriff. “Got ’em coming in from

as far away as Boulder.”

“Can we ride in your police car?” Will asked, rub-

bing his cheek against his buffalo.

“With the siren?” Rob added hopefully.

“Maybe another time, boys,” the sheriff said kindly.

“Right now I’ve got some business to take care of.”

He put two fingers to his brow in a casual salute,

then pulled over to park in front of Dick Major’s

house. As we continued to trudge up Lake Street, I

wondered what he’d make of the place once he stepped

through the front door.

I also wondered what Amanda Barrow would do

when she realized how accurately she’d predicted the

night’s tumultuous events. She’d told me in her shop

that Death would come for me again, and he had. She’d

told me I risked all by sleeping beneath the eagle’s

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Nancy Atherton

wings, and she’d been right. She’d stood before the

playroom tent, warning of darkness, flames, and a

hate-filled heart seeking to destroy, and in no time at

all, I’d encountered the darkness of the mine shaft, the flames on the mountainside, and a man so filled with

hatred that he was willing to kill innocent women and

children in his insane bid for revenge.

What would Amanda do when she discovered

she’d been right from start to finish? I wondered. As

we walked up Stafford Avenue toward Caroline’s

Cafe, I shuddered to think of Amanda Barrow camp-

ing out on the Aerie’s doorstep, babbling nonstop

about the great beyond, and hoped with all my heart

that I’d be back in England long before she realized

how truly gifted she was.

Carrie Vyne was in the cafe, preparing food and

drink for the swarm of firefighters who would soon

descend on Bluebird. She welcomed us with open

arms, took us to the vacant guest cabin, put sheets and

blankets on the beds, lit a fire in the living room fireplace, and brought sandwiches and a thermos of hot

chocolate out to us from the cafe.

Carrie also brought bandages, antibiotic ointment,

and arnica cream for Annelise’s feet. My intrepid nanny

hadn’t bothered to don bedroom slippers when my

frantic call to action had startled her from sleep. She’d been so intent on saving my sons’ lives that she’d run all the way from the Aerie to Bluebird
barefoot.
I wanted to pin a great big shiny medal on her nightgown, but since

Aunt Dimity Goes West

287

medals were in short supply, I simply tended to her cuts and bruises and helped her hobble to her bed.

“You’re a bona fide heroine,” I said as I smoothed

her blankets.

“It’s all in a day’s work,” she replied, smiling.

I hugged her, turned out the light, and joined the

boys and Toby, who’d gathered around the fireplace to

drink hot chocolate. Despite the fact that they had bunk beds in their bedroom, Rob and Will fell asleep curled

up in blankets on the floor while Toby and I watched a

seemingly endless stream of emergency vehicles speed

through the streets of Bluebird.

“I have to go back to the Aerie,” I said quietly, after

the boys had fallen asleep. “Tonight.”

“The road will be blocked off,” Toby warned.

“I don’t need to take the road,” I said. “Will you

stay here with the twins?”

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” he promised. “I hadn’t

planned on getting any sleep tonight anyway.”

It took me less than an hour to hike to the Aerie,

tuck a few necessary and two irreplaceable items into

my carry-on bag, and return to the guest cabin. Toby

was still awake when I got back, so I put the carry-on

bag in my bedroom and sat up with him through the

night.We didn’t say much, though he did compliment

me on my record-breaking uphill dash.

“You carried Will in your arms all the way to the

edge of the clearing, too,” he reminded me. “You were

too weak to lift him out of the van a week ago.”

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Nancy Atherton

“It’s amazing what you can do when your children

are in danger,” I told him. “You’ll find out one day,

when you’re a father. You’ll give your life for your

kids, one way or another.”

I touched a hand to the scar on my shoulder, then

turned to watch the burning mountain.

Epilogue

I t took three days to put the fire out. By then it

had burned a hundred acres, turning majestic

trees into charred matchsticks, but thanks

to the firefighters’ skill and the recent heavy rain, it spread no farther and the Aerie was untouched. We

moved back the day before Bill arrived, and although

he could stay for only a week, the rest of us stayed

there until the end of August, when Toby returned to

college.

When news of the fire reached Danny Auerbach, he

came to Bluebird to check on his property. While he

was in town, I took him to Caroline’s Cafe for lunch

and a long talk, at the end of which he decided to have

a still longer talk with his wife and daughter, take his beloved tree house off the market, and build a small

cabin for James and Janice Blackwell and their child.

He also decided to plug the mine entrance Toby and I

had used, before his sons discovered it.

The Blackwells—with their healthy baby girl—

moved into their cabin two months after Toby left.

James resumed his caretaker’s duties as if there’d been

no interruption, and the Auerbachs are once again

staying at the Aerie every chance they get.

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Nancy Atherton

Will and Rob spent much of the summer at the

Brockman Ranch, though Toby coaxed them away

every now and then to hike, fish, and hunt for fossils.

When he offered to teach them how to pan for gold,

however, I put my foot down. Gold fever was a nasty

bug. I didn’t want my sons to be bitten by it.

Maggie Flaxton bullied me into selling raffle tick-

ets during Gold Rush Days, but Bill adamantly refused

to participate in Nick Altman’s beer-tasting contest.

He wasn’t as impressed as I was by Bluebird’s doppel-

gangers, but he’d learned through hard experience to

avoid anything that was both homemade and alco-

holic.

I put an end to Amanda Barrow’s visits to the Aerie

by telling her straight out that I held long conversations every night with a magic book that talked back to me.

She accused me of mocking her and never darkened

my doorway again.

Dick Major followed in his infamous ancestor’s

footsteps when he entered a high-security prison for

the criminally insane. Once there, he began to call him-

self Ludo Magerowski and to curse everyone who tried

to help him. His house on Lake Street was demolished

before the year was out and the rubble it contained was

put to good use by the highway department.

Toby and I made one more foray into the Lord Stu-

art mine shafts that summer. On a hot and sunny day in

early August, Toby used his local knowledge and a pho-

tocopy of Dick Major’s hand-drawn map to help me find

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291

the cave-in that had killed Cyril Pennyfeather. I knelt at the spot to fill a plastic bag with handfuls of dust.

I took the dust to the cemetery the next day and

sprinkled it on Hannah Lavery’s grave.There must have

been something of Cyril mixed in with it, because I