Triumph and Disappointment
THEY WERE JUST FINISHING BREAKFAST the next morning when Slim’s pager went off.
“That’s our cue,” Mr. Neely said.
Within minutes May Lynn and her parents were bundled up and waiting at the door. Max watched his mom grab the nebulizer and shove it into a grocery bag. “Just in case you need it before the ambulance gets there. Just leave it at the station.”
Mrs. Neely hugged the women and then turned to Carly, Max, and Brandon. “Thank you for saving our girl. All of you.” She waved her arm. “You saved all of us.” Then she reached out and grabbed Bryce in a big hug. “I’m sorry you can’t go with us. We’ll come and get you as soon as we can. Or, maybe they can carry you to town once the roads clear. Love you, Son.”
Bryce hugged his mom, then his dad. Then he reached out and punched May Lynn lightly on the arm. “Get well fast, Shrimp.”
May Lynn smiled wanly at her brother. Her breathing had never gotten as bad as it was before the nebulizer arrived, but she was struggling again and Max could see she was very tired.
Max swallowed hard and gulped down the rest of his milk.
“Here’s the snowmobile,” shouted Chad from the front window.
“You have the phone numbers, don’t you?” Aunt Susie asked.
Mr. Neely patted his shirt pocket. “Right here. Yours, the store’s, and your parents’. I’ll get the number for the fire chief’s house too, so if all else fails I can call there to get a message to you. Thanks for everything. And thanks for letting Bryce stay. It’s so good to know he’s safe.”
After the Neelys left, everyone pitched in and cleaned the house. Cleaning was harder without power, and the bedrooms were frigid. But before long, the house looked better than it had in days.
“Who wants to try and get over to the store?” Mr. Rawson asked.
“I do!” Max jumped up and grabbed his coat.
“Me too,” Brandon and Bryce both said at once.
“I’m reading a book.” Chad lay on his back in front of the fire, his head on a couch pillow. “I’ll stay here.”
Max stopped in his tracks. “Chad, do you feel okay? You’ve never wanted to read before.”
Chad poked his nose out of the book, his face serious. “It’s a book about snakes and alligators. I know there are snakes, but do you think there are alligators at Grandpa Johnson’s ranch? In the pond?”
The three older boys hooted. “I don’t think so,” Bryce said. “But there are alligators in Florida. I saw some when we were there last year.”
Chad’s eyes lit up. “Wow, I want to go to Florida. I want to be an alligator catcher.”
His mom shuddered. “Oh, boy.”
An hour later the boys swept back into the house with the smell of fresh air and two gallons of milk. They also brought cottage cheese and yogurt. “It’s cold now, but won’t be for long if the power stays off.” Max pulled his coat off and sprawled in front of the fireplace. “What are you reading, Carly?”
Carly sat on the couch, her feet up on the ottoman. She leafed through another issue of Deadwood Magazine. She was sick of looking through books, but there didn’t seem to be any other way to research. She turned another page and glanced at the headline: “Charles Windolph Was the Last Bighorn Survivor.”
Carly blinked. She sat bolt upright. “Hey, I think I found something.”
Max looked up. “What?”
Carly skimmed the article. “It’s an article about a guy who was at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He was interviewed when he was really old and there are quotes in here.”
Max sat up. “What’s he say?”
Carly started reading aloud and the kids all leaned forward to listen. The article told about Mr. Windolph, how he came to America from Germany and became a part of Custer’s army. He not only fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn, but he also had been with Custer earlier when he discovered gold in the Black Hills.
“Here it is,” Carly said.
A year later, in an abandoned Indian camp, Windolph found a five-dollar bill folded up and tied on a little clay pony for a blanket. “I was always sure that it had come out of the pocket of some dead trooper, who had been paid off that afternoon of May 17 on the Heart River,” he said.
“Well, that’s that,” Max said. “I think we have our answer. If he was there and he says they were paid with paper money, that pretty much proves the gold coin isn’t from Custer’s payroll.”
Carly nodded. “And it’s a primary source. That’s awesome.”
“I can’t wait to tell my dad about it,” Bryce said. “He really gets wound up about stuff like this. He’s going to be so excited! And it’s about Custer, too! He’ll flip!”
Two hours after lunch, Bryce had his chance. The power had come on while they were eating, and Aunt Susie had plugged her phone in to charge.
When the phone had charged enough to turn on she checked it. “I have signal.” Just then her phone rang, and she jumped so much everybody laughed.
“I think it’s your dad, Bryce. It’s a Rapid City number.” She held the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
Bryce held his breath. His insides quivered at the thought of May Lynn and her asthma. “Yes, sir. He’s here.” Susie smiled at Bryce. “Anxious to talk to you.” She listened a bit more. “Oh, that is good news. I’ll pass it on. Good-bye now.“ She handed the phone to Bryce. “It’s your dad.”
“Hi, Dad!” Bryce held the phone as close to his ear as he could get it.
“Hi, Son. How’s it going?”
“Great! We found the answer to the gold coin.” He rushed on. “But how is May Lynn?” His fingers hurt from squeezing the phone.
“She’s perking up,” his dad said. “They gave her several more nebulizer treatments, started an IV, gave her a whole bag of fluids, as well as antibiotics and a steroid to help her breathe, tested her blood for infection, and took a chest X-ray. Now they are letting her rest.” His dad chuckled. “But the nebulizer medicine makes her jittery and she hasn’t stopped talking since they gave it to her.”
Bryce laughed. “That sounds like May Lynn.”
“What did you say about the coin, Son?”
“Carly found an article in the Deadwood Magazine that has quotes from a guy who was actually at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It has part of an interview with him. He said they were paid and that it was paper money.”
Bryce heard his dad whistle. “Wow! What a find. I’m impressed. What month and year was the magazine published?”
“Just a minute. Let me look.” Bryce held his hand over the phone and told Max what his dad wanted.
Max nodded and ran into the living room for the magazine. He studied the front and found the information at the bottom of the cover. He handed the magazine to Bryce and pointed to it. After reading the information to his dad, Bryce hung up. He grinned.
“Dad’s going to see if he can find it on the Internet. He’s really impressed and that’s hard to do, let me tell you! But best of all, May Lynn is jabbering their ears off!”
Chad threw his hands in the air. “Three cheers for May Lynn!” The kids all jumped to their feet and a rousing round of cheers split the air.
The next morning, the kids all went outside to shovel snow. “Look, there goes a plow.” Max pointed out to the road. “Maybe it will go to Grandpa Rawson’s.” He pulled his hat down over his ears and picked up one of the shovels his dad had found at the store.
“Maybe he’ll come back and help dig us out!” Brandon threw a shovel full of snow to the side. “It will take us forever to reach the Circle 6.”
“I know. But Dad says we have to get the painting done.” Max pushed his shovel deep into the snow in front of him. The air was surprisingly warm on his face, but the amount of snow was overwhelming. The town didn’t even look the same. The wind blew through the trees and dumped more snow off the branches, making it look like it was snowing when it wasn’t. The sky was bright blue and the sun glittered on the snow. He squinted.
“It does feel good to be doing something.” Bryce panted and leaned on his shovel. “I’m sure not much good at this. I haven’t had much practice with snow.”
Carly grinned at their new friend. “You don’t get snow where you live?”
“Well, in the mountains around Hendersonville we get some, but we haven’t been there much the past couple of years. We’ve been in Texas, Oklahoma, and even Arkansas. This semester is the first time we’ve seen snow in a while.”
“Wow!” Max stared at Bryce. “It must be fun moving all over the place.”
Bryce shrugged. “It’s okay. But I hate that I have to make new friends.” He threw another shovel full of snow. “Like now. Next week we go back to Hendersonville near where my dad’s going to teach. I’ve just met you and now I have to leave. I get kinda tired of that.”
“I wouldn’t like that either,” Carly said. “But, if you hadn’t left your last friends and come here, you wouldn’t have met us!”
Max laughed. “Carly. The optimist.”
“Hey look, there’s Mr. Dilbert.” A pickup with a plow on the front pulled into the lot at the store. The driver began clearing the parking lot.
“Hurrah!” Max threw his arms in the air. “The cavalry has arrived!”
By noon the main roads through the guest ranch were cleared, thanks to Mr. Dilbert and the man with the plow, who as it turned out, had gone all the way to Grandpa Rawson’s house before returning to Nemo to help Mr. Dilbert. Just before noon the men all gathered on the porch at the store. Max, Carly, Brandon, and Bryce tagged along. Chad perched on Slim’s shoulders.
Mr. Dilbert shook the plow driver’s hand. “Thanks, Doug. I wouldn’t have been done with all of this until next week without your help.” He waved his arms. “Look at those piles. This will be one big mess when it melts.”
“Thanks for plowing out my parents too,” Max’s dad said.
Doug smiled. “I didn’t have a choice. My mother told me to.” He laughed. “She met your kids the other day when they brought that Bible by, and she wants them at church tomorrow.” He turned to Carly’s dad. “By the way, our pastor called from town and asked me to see if you could take the service here tomorrow. He doesn’t think he’ll be dug out yet.”
Carly’s dad laughed. “That seems fair. I just called a man in my church and asked him to take the service there tomorrow because I can’t get out.”
“Mr. Dilbert, we discovered something in those Deadwood Magazines,” Max said.
Mr. Dilbert’s eyes lit up. “What is it, Son? Do we have a genuine piece of Custer’s gold?”
Max shook his head. “I don’t think so. The article we found quoted a survivor of the battle and he said they were paid and it was paper money.”
“Well.” Mr. Dilbert leaned against the porch rail and crossed his arms. “That’s a bit disappointing, isn’t it?”
“We’ll see if we can find out what the coin is worth, though. Mr. Neely said he thought it would be worth a lot. And we want to find the family for the diaries and Bible.”
“Who is Mr. Neely?” Mr. Dilbert pulled his cap off and wiped his forehead.
Max’s dad laughed and put his hand on Bryce’s shoulder. “Oh, yeah. I guess we should tell you about our extra guests.”