Humbug Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

find Sunrise.
    But when we approached all we found were old wooden surveyor’s stakes in the ground marking off the grassy city lots. There was no opera house. There were no fine homes. There were no streets.
    There was no town. Sunrise was just a scrap of paper.
    â€œThere’s not even a mountain,” I said, and Glorietta slipped her glasses back on to look for herself.
    Pa shoved back his hat and laughed. “I expect that’s why they named it Humbug Mountain!”
    We’d startled a few jackrabbits and a couple of bobtailed deer. We could hear the soft, sad call of mourning doves hidden in the spring grass. And that’s all there was in Sunrise. Except us. Grandpa may have had the lots staked out, but he was gone now.
    You’d think Ma would have busted into tears, but she didn’t. I know for certain she’d been dreaming of this day for all of three years. And now it had arrived.
    She glanced at the weed-grown lots and lifted her chin. “Well, as long as we’re in Sunrise—we might as well smile,” she said.

6
    FATE OF THE PHOENIX
    The next thing I knew, Ma had turned her head and was crying softly. Pa took a clutch on her shoulder and they walked off a little way. Glorietta looked at me and I looked at Glorietta. We had never seen her cry before. Not even those times when Pa disappeared.
    I turned my back, stuck my fists in my pockets, and took off for the cottonwoods. It was a moment before I realized that Glorietta was following along behind me. We were both clean-scrubbed and fussed up in our Sunday clothes, and that seemed to make everything worse.
    â€œGo ahead and bawl if you want to,” I said.
    â€œDidn’t know I had to get your permission,” she answered. “Where you going?”
    â€œNowhere.”
    â€œI’ll go too.”
    I tossed the hair out of my eyes. Where there was a meander of trees there must be a creek, I thought, and I’d skip a few stones.
    I set a good pace, but Glorietta kept up on her spindly legs. “What do you reckon we’ll do now?” she murmured.
    â€œCan’t stay here, can we?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen don’t ask dumb questions.”
    She fell silent. For about three seconds. “It might be a pesky long wait for another riverboat.”
    â€œMight be.”
    We went crackling through a tangle of willows and cottonwoods, and came to the high bank of the creek. I stopped short and so did Glorietta. The creek was vastly broad and vastly disappointing.
    â€œIt’s dried up,” she said.
    â€œI can see that for myself.”
    The bottom mud had shrunk and cracked and was curled like dead, brown leaves. But we sat on the bluff and chunked a few stones anyway.
    Suddenly a voice shot through the still air.
    â€œShagnasty!”
    I jumped up like a cat out of a woodbox and so did Glorietta. Then the voice came again, but from a fresh quarter.
    â€œFool Killer! Hang’m! Bash’m!”
    It was a croaking, graveyard kind of voice—daft and scaresome. My eyes flicked from tree to tree, but I couldn’t catch sight of anyone. Then it came again.
    â€œShagnasty! Fool Killer!”
    We scrambled down the bank and peered back. I didn’t believe in haunts, but there was something mighty peculiar roving about in those trees.
    Glorietta gave me a look and a whisper. “Oughten we to run for it, Wiley?”
    â€œUnless it’s Grandpa,” I said.
    â€œGrandpa?”
    â€œTalking to himself. Out of his wits or something.”
    Then there came a sudden rustle of leaves. Glorietta lit out across the creek bed and I might have been right beside her—but I saw it.
    A crow. Nothing but a big ol’ crow.
    It rose through the treetops into the sunlight. A he-crow, I thought—it must have had a wingspread of about three feet. Then four or five other crows came flapping after