The funny bone is not a bone at all. It’s a nerve.

—Galen’s Anatomy

Chapter 8

Folks who have been in Jenny’s neck of the wild often find it hard to express their joy. On a clear day, with peaks in front of you and peaks behind, the world of sorrow shrinks to a fleck in the dirt. There’s no taint of past to a walk in the mountains. Just the sky and the wind and the scent of the black honey bush.

Jenny was a happy girl by nature, and happier yet on this Sunday above Eden. The path might be crumbling, and the grass sharp as swords, but the glint of gold could be seen in every ray of sun. A few of them had caught in Pandora’s hair.

“‘When I turned a soldier, I could lift a barn,’” hummed Jenny, switching the woolsack to her left shoulder. “‘Now I need a pulley just to raise my arm.’”

To get to the end of the ridgeline of the Sleeping Girl, the pair was following an old sheep path, climbing over outcrops and skating down gravel slips. Up here, above the winter snow line, very few plants but tussock had the gumption to grow. Jenny tried hard to avoid stepping on the white alpine flower that her father called Sweet Mary. It reminded her of Mrs. Quinn.

“‘Eating moldy peas! Goodness, how nutritious, eating moldy peas!’”

It was an ideal hour for seeing mirages. The idea of fixing up Old Randolph Scott’s place and living the quiet life in Eden was becoming a distant memory. It would be a grand adventure, mused Jenny, to ride through the prairies of her father’s childhood, or roam through canyons of red. Who knows? She might buy herself a ship and sail it to the ends of the earth.

The first bout of gold fever was taking a firmer hold. The more Jenny fixed on striking a fortune, the less she remembered her connection to the country. It’s a shame—as her mood would suggest, the land was the thing that made her whole.

“How you doing, Pandora? Loving the air and everything in it?”

“No.”

Jenny paused to let her friend catch up to an outcrop. Having spent most of her time in the must of home or the dust of the schoolroom, Pandora was struggling with the altitude. Her nose was peeling and her breath was short. She dumped the shovel on the ground. “I’m hot.”

With a smile, Jenny picked up the shovel and leaned it, careful as she would a baby, against the rock. “Pandora, I’ve been thinking. We’ve got to be sure we’re not being followed. Keep an eye out, like.”

“You’re worried about Mr. Grimsby? Because he has the letter from Dr. Galen?”

Jenny nodded. “And King Louis. What reason did he have to be loitering about Doc Magee’s office? I bet he’s after the nugget, too.”

Pandora stuck out her tongue.

“What?” asked Jenny.

“King Louis has more money than the government,” said Pandora.

“How do you know that?”

“Mum told me. He’s rolling in it. That’s why he has so many fancy suits. He’s the best gambler in the territory. Mum says he’s bankrolled a quarter of the businesses in Eden.”

“Then what was he doing on Poplar Street?” demanded Jenny. “Maybe,” she said, recalling her earlier theory, “King Louis is a murderer. He said himself he likes practical jokes—maybe he knocked off Magee, stole the nugget, and came up with the idea of a skeleton map!” Jenny paused, already seeing the holes in her theory. “Of course, putting together a fake treasure hunt is a lot to do after you kill a man. Especially if he’s your best friend.”

Pandora grunted. “We shouldn’t speculate until we have all the facts. And I’m hungry.”

“Fine,” said Jenny, untying the sack. “But our motto from now on is ‘Don’t trust anybody.’”

Doc Magee’s mystery meat proved to be canned pork and beans. It’s wholesome enough grub, but somewhat tricky to eat with bare hands. Jenny held her nose and drank half the liquid from the can. Then Pandora did the same. They were unlikely to find fresh water at this elevation.

“That was disgusting,” griped Pandora, “and now my shoulders ache.”

“Mine too,” said Jenny, soothing-like. “We’ll rest a few minutes until it gets cooler.”

Stretching back under the welcome shade, Jenny laid her head on her hands and let her attention wander for a while over the valley. Her gaze roamed from the tussock to the trees to the bumps of the Crooked Man in the east. Quite suddenly, she laughed.

“What?” asked Pandora.

“This is just like the day when I pretended to have scarlet pox at school. Remember? I wrapped a hot stone in a rag to warm my forehead. Then I dotted myself all over with red ink . . .”

“I used blackberry juice to dye your tongue black . . .”

“And then I started flapping around on the floor like a bug on a griddle. Ooohh, grooble, Mr. Grimsby, cooble wooble!” Jenny gave an encore of her original performance. “Scooble, rooble, I’ve pooped on the floor!”

“I’ve never seen Mr. Grimsby run that fast before,” said Pandora.

“God, what a funny day,” said Jenny, wiping away her tears.

“I wish I knew how to be funny.”

Jenny twisted sideways and examined her best friend. Pandora’s face was the same as ever, forehead creased and mouth dipped down. But there was a longing in her eyes that Jenny had seldom seen, even in her own reflection. “Why do you say that?”

“Funny people have friends,” said Pandora.

Jenny had to acknowledge the truth of this statement. Pandora could be comic in moments, but it was usually by way of something she accidentally did or said. A joke or two would go a long way to making her life easier in the schoolyard.

“That’s simple enough—I’ll teach you,” said Jenny, sitting up and brushing off her hands. “Try this one. Why couldn’t the miner ever find gold?”

“What miner?”

“It’s the start of a joke,” said Jenny. “You’ve got to answer the question.”

“How am I supposed to do that when I don’t understand which miner you mean?”

Jenny sighed.

“It’s just the way a joke works.” She cracked her knuckles speculatively. “Tell you what, you ask the question.”

“What question?”

“The one I asked about the miner,” said Jenny.

Pandora appeared to be thinking of asking Jenny a question about her question, and then thought better of it.

“Okay. Why couldn’t the miner ever find gold?” quizzed Pandora.

“Because he looked and looked,” Jenny said with a grin, “but searched in vain.”

“So?” asked Pandora.

“So, it’s a pun! He searched in vain and he also searched in the vein of a rock.”

“But if he searched in the vein of a rock, he’d be sure to find gold.”

When Pandora turns to logic, your sole course of action is to admit defeat.

“Never mind,” said Jenny.

If Jenny thought this was the end of the matter, she’d forgotten her friend. As was her wont, Pandora was revisiting every word of the conversation. Eventually, after a few minutes, she came to her own conclusion.

“Then I guess that’s why the song about peas is supposed to be funny.”

“What are you on about now?” asked Jenny.

“‘Moldy Peas’ is a humorous song.” Pandora paused for Jenny to cotton to the meaning. She didn’t. “Because we’ve been walking down the humerus bone.”

“Jiminy, Pandora,” groaned Jenny. “That’s terrible.”

Her best friend shrugged. “I said it was supposed to be funny. I didn’t say it was.” With a firm step and determined thrust, Pandora got to her feet and handed the shovel to her friend. “I feel better now. I’ll carry the cans.”

Jenny was tempted to note that the bundle was considerably lighter than before, but it wasn’t worth the debate. Anyway, she was determined to get Pandora to the tip of the ridge before her best friend ran out of puff. She swallowed her pride and shouldered the burden. “Okay. But I’m going first.”

It was tough to pick up the trail. From its height in the afternoon, the sun beat down like a hammer on the Sleeping Girl. As soon as they hit the ridgeline again, all Jenny wanted to do was burrow under the skin of the earth and find a sweet place to nap. But there was nothing to do but keep at it. Treasures were in want of finding.

“How far do you think we’ve come on the map?” asked Pandora, when a parched and weary hour had passed.

“We must be well beyond the elbow. See?” Jenny swung her shovel in a circle to the south. “There are the peaks of the Wise Women. Beyond that knuckle of rock.”

Pandora wiped her pink cheeks with the edge of her sleeve. “This part seems far too easy.”

“Which part?” asked Jenny.

“The song. And the arm,” said Pandora. “It doesn’t feel hard enough.”

“Hard enough? We’re hotter than cast iron.”

“That’s because we didn’t come prepared. On a regular day, this tramp would be simple to do.” She sniffed. “Dr. Galen’s letter had more challenging clues.”

“Pandora,” said Jenny, “why do you always go looking for trouble?”

“Because it’s usually there.” She turned around. “Like that man who’s following us.”

“What man?”

“That one,” Pandora said, pointing to the black silhouette that was approaching from the north. Framed as he was by the circle of the sun, it was impossible to tell what manner of beast he was—friend or foe.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him sooner?” yelled Jenny. “I told you to keep an eye out!”

“I only noticed him now,” retorted Pandora. “You were distracting me.”

All manner of horrors were sprouting in Jenny’s mind. It could be Mr. Grimsby, following the clues in Dr. Galen’s letter and finding their trail. It could be King Louis, crafty and keen to see what was happening where Magee had lived. It could even be a mysterious murderer after the secret of the nugget!

Fortunately, thanks to years of rescuing Hapless from various perils like swollen creeks and mad-dog ewes, action was the one reaction Jenny had down to an art.

“We’ll have to run for it.”

“You can’t run on a ridgeline like this,” said Pandora. “You’ll break your neck. Or your arm. Or your ankle if you land on the wrong—”

“Then we’ll walk really quickly! C’mon!”

Despite what the storybooks would have you believe, the sight of two sweaty girls haring over a mountainside is rarely romantic. There were tongues flapping and knees grinding and clods of dust flying in every cardinal direction. Then and again, grunts would be joined by an oww! or an oomph as a foot hit a stone or a hand scraped a thorn.

“Why,” panted Pandora, “don’t . . . we stop . . . and ask him . . . what he . . . wants?”

“Because we’re likely to be switched or stabbed! And I like my skin as it is!”

You know the uncomfortable feeling you get when you burp the wrong way? Now imagine that plus the addition of warm sloshy beans and pickled pork. Jenny was fair bursting with the effort of keeping her lunch in her belly.

“Aim for that rock!”

“Which rock?” cried Pandora.

“The one that looks like a pea!”

They both reached the formation at around the same time. Pandora was still holding the woolsack with the grip of a dead man.

“Here,” said Jenny, pushing Pandora to the safety of the shade. “Keep low to the ground and don’t say a word.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jenny wedged herself in front of her friend. “I’ll wait till he comes round the corner and crown him with the shovel.”

Pandora’s jaw dropped. “You’ll kill him.”

“I won’t put my back into it,” said Jenny, trying to ignore the lumps in her throat. “But if we’re going to negotiate, I want the upper hand. Now, shhhhhhh!”

It’s rare to find real silence in the mountains. If there isn’t a glacier creaking or a river pounding, there’s the snap of schist cracking or a bud bursting or the wind tickling the grass. Jenny stood with the blade of Magee’s shovel high in the air and listened with all her might and main.

Shick, wick, shick, went the soles of a pair of boots over the dust. From the weight of the walk, Jenny was certain it was a man. And a cautious one at that.

Shick, wick, shick. With her heart beating faster than a grasshopper’s leg, Jenny crouched beside the rock and waited. And waited. And when she thought she could wait no more, the man finally shuffled his toes around the corner. Jenny hiked the shovel—

And promptly puked.