Fool's Gold Read online

  From then on Barney and Rudy played together at school and on weekends and before long Rudy was practically living at the Crooked Bar Ranch.

  Maybe Barney and Rudy became good friends so quickly because they were both a little bit lonely. Barney because his parents were away so much of the time, and Rudy because Natasha married Art Mumford right around then and Rudy never felt particularly welcome at home when his stepfather was there. So for about nine years he and Barney had been like brothers, except better because some brothers don’t particularly appreciate each other and he and Barney always had.

  Of course, Rudy was a long way from being the only Barnaby Crookshank appreciator. Starting from almost his second day in kindergarten Barney was always one of the most popular kids at Pyramid Elementary—being popular was something that Barney never worked at. He was great at every kind of sport, so he always got chosen first for all the teams. And he probably got chosen for other kinds of things because of his looks. Barney had always looked a lot like his father, the rodeo star who was so good-looking that he was known on the circuit as “The Handsome Cowboy.” And of course, it didn’t hurt Barney’s reputation that everyone knew he’d been helping his grandfather at the ranch since he was practically in diapers and at the age of five could have been almost a champion cowboy himself.

  One of the things Rudy particularly liked about Barney was how he didn’t talk about himself a lot like some popular kids do. In fact, Barney never talked more than necessary about anything, a trait he probably inherited from his grandfather, who was a world-class conservationist when it came to the spoken word. Also, Rudy had always appreciated how Barney never put people down—not even nerds and little kids—like some popular dudes do.

  And as for how Barney felt about Rudy—well, for one thing, he’d always seemed to think that Rudy was a major laugh riot. Nobody appreciated Rudy’s crazy sense of humor as much as Barney did. For instance, Barney really got a kick out of the “Romeo Rudy” thing. Juliet, of course, was Stephanie Freeman, a girl who’d been in the same class with Rudy and Barney since about second grade.

  Even way back then Stephanie was a knockout, with short curly hair and long curly eyelashes and a totally mind-blowing frown. She had a great smile, too, but she didn’t use it very often, particularly when Rudy was around. Her first day at Pyramid happened to be around Valentine’s Day, and Rudy had started following her around with a really zonked-out expression on his face, trying to give her a big paper heart he’d made. The rest of the class was used to Rudy and they all thought it was pretty funny—but Stephanie obviously thought he was crazy, which made it all the funnier. After that the whole thing just kept growing.

  One time in the cafeteria when they were in third or fourth grade Rudy noticed that no one was eating their raw veggies. So he collected a bunch of celery stalks and carrot sticks and made a kind of bouquet out of them. He got everyone’s attention when he went around collecting veggies and especially when he snitched Julie Harmon’s hair ribbon to tie the whole thing together. Then, with everyone watching—except for Stephanie, who was determinedly looking the other way—he did a fixing himself up act, slicking down his hair and polishing his shoes on the backs of his pant legs and straightening an imaginary tie. Then he marched down the aisle, went down on one knee with a big flourish and tried to give the bouquet to Stephanie. Everyone cracked up, particularly when she hit him with her lunch pail.

  When Rudy did something like that Barney would always say, “How do you have the nerve to do crazy stuff like that?” as soon as he could stop laughing enough to say anything. And Rudy would say something like, “I don’t know. Born weird, I guess. You know, kind of…” And he’d do a wildman bit, bugging his eyes and panting, with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

  Perhaps that was another part of the friendship—the fact that Rudy and Barney were, in a lot of ways, about as different as two people could possibly be. Maybe being absolute opposites was one thing that kept them from getting bored with each other.

  Things changed some when they were in sixth grade. Barney’s grandmother died that year, and at about the same time, Rudy’s stepfather decided he wasn’t cut out to be a husband and father and went back to Texas. After Art took off Natasha needed Rudy at home, so he had less time to spend at the Crooked Bar. But he and Barney still saw quite a lot of each other and went on being best friends and absolute opposites.

  But if being opposites just made their friendship better in most respects, there was one difference that had always been more or less a problem—and that was the thing Barney had about living dangerously. It seemed to Rudy that Barney felt that in order to have a great time, you had to go out and find something to do that stood a pretty good chance of killing somebody, or at least doing them considerable damage. Not many people realized that about Barney because, even though Barney always went first and farthest, the person who got damaged was usually somebody else. Like Rudy, for instance.

  There had been the time, for example, when Barney talked Rudy into helping him build a Tarzan-type swing over Wild Horse Gorge. Rudy was pretty sure that it wasn’t a red-hot idea, particularly when he stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down at the rocks below. A pain shot up the backs of his legs and something clamped down on his throat, so he had to swallow hard before he could speak.

  “Er, look, Barn,” he said. “Do you mind if we put this off till tomorrow? I just remembered something I have to do immediately, if not sooner. Like check on my life insurance.”

  He was trying to make a joke of it, but it didn’t work. In fact, Barney hardly seemed to hear him at all. Standing at the edge of the cliff, he stared out across the chasm with unblinking eyes and a tight, excited look on his face. Then without even looking at Rudy he yelled “Geronimo” and swung across to the other side as easy as anything. So Rudy yelled and jumped too—and crashed into the cliff on the other side.

  And then there had been tightrope walking in the barn loft, and bucking-horse riding, and high diving from the top of a storage tank into the stock watering trough down below.

  There’d been a lot of other such adventures. Some of them Rudy could barely remember, even if he tried to—which wasn’t often, because remembering was just too painful, and not just because of the various bruises and lacerations. The most painful part was remembering how world-class chicken he’d usually been and how hard it was to keep it from showing.

  Actually, not all of Barney’s great ideas had turned out as badly as the Tarzan swing, and some of them Rudy really got pretty good at—after he got over the terror. Usually Barney was very easygoing, but when he started on one of his daredevil schemes he would get a strange look in his eyes—almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing—and there was just no use arguing. But sometimes Rudy was able to talk him out of the most obviously fatal ones. Or he had been, at least, until Ty Lewis appeared on the scene.

  At that point Rudy opened his eyes and came back to the present—the gentle rocking of the hammock and the warm bright air of midmorning. Going back over his friendship with Barney had taken his mind off his problems at least for the present, and he was feeling pretty much back to normal. He was beginning to think about all the things he ought to be doing when he suddenly heard a familiar sound. The clink and whir of approaching bicycles. And then voices—also familiar. Sitting up so quickly that he almost capsized the hammock, he looked up the street and there they were—Barnaby Crookshank and Ty Lewis. Ty Lewis! Ophelia started barking. Rudy knew how she felt.

  Chapter 4

  RUDY LOOKED AT his watch. Barney must have started off pretty early to have biked in from the ranch already. And he’d obviously gone straight to Ty’s house without even stopping off to see Rudy first. And now the two of them were on their way downtown, and as they passed Rudy’s house, laughing and talking, it almost looked as if they weren’t even planning to slow down. But when Rudy yelled, “Haybarn!” they skidded to a stop. At least Barney did. Ty went on almost half a block before he
braked and circled slowly back.

  “Hey, Rudy-dudey.” Barney rode out the skid and then jumped off at the last second. He was wearing faded jeans and unlaced L.A. Gear sneakers and his usual wide-angle grin. Leaning his bike against the fence, he jumped over the gate and started up the steps to Rudy’s veranda. But Ty didn’t. When he finally came to a stop in front of the fence he just yelled, “Yo, dude,” and went on sitting on his shiny new twenty-one-speed Klein.

  After Barney had grabbed the edge of the hammock and pretended he was going to dump Rudy, they roughhoused for a minute before he sat down on the railing. “Cool it, poodle,” he said to Ophelia, who was jumping around and barking her head off.

  Ophelia, who, like everybody else, was crazy about Barney, immediately shut up.

  “Yeah?” Barney said, making it into a question.

  “What’s up?” Rudy got out of the hammock. “As in—where are you dudes off to?”

  Barney grinned. “Shopping,” he said, “and scrounging.”

  “Yeah, and we’re in a hurry,” Ty called. “I got to get back home to do some stuff for my dad. Come on, Barn.”

  “Shopping?” Rudy asked.

  “For some stuff we’re going to need for—” Barney lifted an eyebrow. “You know.”

  Rudy knew, all right. “Like what?”

  Barney lowered his voice. “Rock picks. And hard hats, if we can find some. Ty thinks he knows where we can get some real miners’ helmets. You know, the kind with the light on the top. Want to come along?”

  A picture began to flash in Rudy’s mind. A faint wavering light… an oozing rock wall… and beyond that, darkness…. It took all his strength to keep from wincing as he said, “Oh, yeah? Where you going to find miners’ helmets? I don’t think they carry them at K mart.”

  Barney laughed. “Not K mart. Old Jake’s. Ty saw some there.”

  “Yeah.” Ty had given up on getting Barney to leave immediately. He leaned his bike against the fence and was on his way up the steps. “Jake has a bunch of them. In that back room where he has that kind of museum of old mining stuff.”

  “They’re like antiques,” Barney broke in, “but Jake has a lot of them and Ty thinks we can fix them up with new…” His eyes focused on something out past Rudy’s shoulder and his voice trailed off into silence. From the glazed look in Barney’s eyes and a moment later in Ty’s, too, Rudy guessed what was happening before he turned around and saw her—Heather Hanrahan.

  Heather Hanrahan, eighteen years old and terminally gorgeous, had been Rudy’s neighbor all his life. It didn’t surprise him at all that both Ty and Barney seemed to have gone into shock. Heather had that effect on some people. Like, just about every male in Pyramid. Rudy, himself, could hardly pretend to be immune. It was just that having grown up practically next door to Heather, he’d more or less gradually gotten used to her and… He stopped grinning at Barney, glanced back at Heather—and lost his train of thought.

  She was dressed in some kind of western riding outfit—high-heeled boots, tight jeans, and a snug plaid shirt open at the neck. The Heather who had once been Rudy’s baby-sitter and who had helped him learn how to read had always been good-looking, but this glamorous cowgirl was something else again.

  She came closer, awesomely slender and at the same time curvy in her tight outfit. And it wasn’t until she looked up toward the veranda and smiled that Rudy got it together enough to say something. He wanted to say something—anything—to make her stop and talk to him. For one thing, it would give him lots of points with Ty and Barney. But there was beginning to be another reason, and even though it was still vague and undeveloped, he already felt it was going to be very important.

  Closing his mouth, which must have been hanging open a little, he gulped hard and called, “Hey, Heather. Wait a minute.”

  She stopped, smiling calmly. She’d always been that way, calm and unflappable and not the kind of person you could put anything over on. Not even when you were a kid and she was your baby-sitter. He’d learned that in a hurry, and after they’d worked that out they gradually developed what you might call a neighborly kind of relationship. The kind of neighbors who enjoy each other’s company but who know exactly where the fences are.

  Heather had always appreciated Rudy’s impersonations, so now he sauntered toward her doing his Windy Dayes bit. A few feet from where Heather stood he paused, hitched up an imaginary gun belt, spraddled his legs and said, “Well, howdy there, ma’am. You fixin’ to ride on in to Dodge City?”

  She laughed and Rudy gulped. A laughing Heather—even white teeth, red lips, and crinkling long-lashed eyes—was really mind-boggling. Even to an old neighborhood friend like himself. He could just imagine what it was doing to Ty and Barney.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “I don’t think I’m ready for Dodge City yet. Next month maybe.”

  “Next month?” Rudy asked.

  “Yes. After I learn how. I’m taking the beginners riding class at Lawford’s. Starting today.”

  “Oh, yeah? The beginners class? You mean you haven’t ridden before?”

  “Oh, I’ve been on a horse once or twice, but not enough to really learn how,” Heather said. “My folks never could afford lessons.”

  That wasn’t a surprise. Heather’s father had never been able to hold a job for very long because he was sick a lot. But then, Rudy’s family had always been even poorer and Rudy had been riding since he was five. But the difference, of course, had been being Barney’s friend.

  “So now I’m going to learn how,” Heather said. “Before I go away to college.”

  “Yeah. I heard about your inheritance. Pretty neat. Wish I had a rich uncle.”

  Natasha had told him about the inheritance just last week, after Heather had been over for a visit—Heather and Natasha had always been pretty buddy-buddy. A great uncle, or someone like that, had left Heather some money just in time for her to use it for her college education. So now she was going to be able to go away to Sacramento State in the fall, instead of living at home and going to the local junior college like she had been planning to do.

  “Well,” Heather said, “it ought to get me through school if I’m careful. And pay for riding lessons. I’ve been absolutely dying to learn to ride for years and years.”

  At that moment the plan in the back of Rudy’s mind took a giant stride forward. He was beginning to see that he might be able to use his “old buddies” relationship with Heather to get certain people’s minds off certain other things—like gold mining.

  “Look,” he said, falling into step as Heather started down Lone Pine. “Why are you taking riding at Lawford’s? From what I hear their horses are in pretty bad shape. Like, one foot in the glue factory.”

  Heather smiled. “Oh, they’re not that bad. And the good news is they’ve got a lot of nice, safe, lazy ones for beginners like me.”

  “Well, yeah, safe I guess. Unless one dies on you. From what I hear they’re dropping like horseflies. Having a dead horse land on you can pretty much ruin your whole day.”

  Actually, Rudy had never ridden at Lawford Stables, but he’d heard Barney and his granddad talking about how riding-stable horses tended to be worn out from overwork and spoiled by having had so many greenhorn riders who didn’t know what they were doing. But his plan was really taking shape now, and part of it was to convince Heather that trying to learn to ride at the Lawford stables was a big mistake.

  “Look,” he went on. “How would you like to have some riding lessons on a really great horse? For free.”

  Heather stopped walking. Putting her hands on her hips, she gave Rudy an amused yet exasperated frown and said, “What are you raving about now, Rudy Drummond? You don’t have a horse.”

  “Hey! You’re right!” Rudy whacked himself on the forehead, like the problem had just occurred to him. Then he mimed an “I’ve got it” expression and said, “However, I know someone who does. And I’m sure something could be arranged by Rudolph Drummond, Private Lesson Arr
anger, First Class.”

  Heather was looking suspicious, but at the same time a little bit interested. “How about it?” Rudy said. “Free lessons on a great horse. You with me?”

  “Look.” Heather suddenly looked at her watch. “I’ve got to run. I’m late.” She started off and then turned back. “We’ll talk later. If you’re not kidding…”

  “I’m not. I’m not. I’m serious. I’m totally, absolutely…”

  Heather waved impatiently and started off down the street.

  “I’m serious. Totally serious. I couldn’t be more serious if…” Rudy gradually ran down as he realized that Heather was out of earshot. Watching her departing back, he sighed, and then turned to where Ty and Barney were still waiting on the veranda. As he came up the steps they both stared at him with what was obviously new respect. Especially Tyler.

  “Way to go, Rudy-dudey!” Barney said, grinning.

  Ty’s eyes were still glassy-looking. Punching Rudy in the shoulder, he said, “Hey, Rudy, baby. What’s your secret? What were you and the Ice Princess rapping about?”

  “The Ice Princess?” Rudy asked.

  “Yeah,” Barney said. “That’s what Ty calls her.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why?”

  Ty only shrugged, but Barney laughed. “Because she really cooled him when he tried to put a move on her.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Rudy said to Ty. “I just don’t believe it.” Where did Ty get the idea that an eighth-grade dude could get away with hitting on a senior in high school? Particularly one like Heather Hanrahan, who had not only been homecoming queen and county fair princess, but who was also a straight A honor student.

  Ty ran his hand over his bristly haircut, and with a supercool shrug said, “So she iced me. So what? I thought it was worth a try.”