Chapter 5

CHAPTER five, Leo sat down on the flea-bitten horse blanket that he used as a bed. He rubbed his sore jaw. His stomach grumbled. The best thing, he realized, would be to close his eyes, get to sleep, and forget about this day. He closed his eyes. But kept thinking about what Morris had said. We could trick them. The words had wormed their way into his mind. Finally Leo sat up and lit a candle. Maybe Morris was onto something. Of course Leo couldn't make those two goons hand over the gold. But maybe there was a way to trick them. Like the way Grandpop had tricked the grizzly bear.

Leo could hear Papa's voice now in his mind, telling the story. It was 1849, and Grandpop was only sixteen years old. Gold had been discovered in a streambed in northern California, and Grandpop was heading west to make his fortune. It had been a tough journey. He'd been held up by bandits near St. Louis. He came this close to getting bitten by a four-foot-long rattlesnake in the Indian Territory. Finally he'd made it high into the Rocky Mountains. It was rough country, but beautiful too, with streams as blue as the sky and fields of wildflowers that stretched out like rainbows. The sun was setting, and Grandpop had made his camp and built his fire. He got up to fetch some wood for the night. He was coming back over a hill when he saw an enormous bear. "Three times the size of a man," Papa would say, stretching his arms up to the ceiling. The bear rose up and roared at Grandpop, baring enormous teeth. Grandpop knew about the Rocky Mountain grizzlies. They ran faster than mountain lions.

They could climb trees. They could rip a person to shreds with a swipe of a paw. Grandpop could see the bear's claws, ten black daggers glistening in the setting sun. The bear stood there, ready to attack. All Grandpop wanted to do was run. But no one can outrun a grizzly. They're too fast. All travelers are told this. And yet most men can't help themselves. The urge to run is just too strong to resist. But Grandpop wasn't like other men.

Every muscle in his body was ready to run. But he planted his feet into the ground. Think, he told himself. Think. He couldn't escape from that grizzly bear. He couldn't kill the grizzly. His gun was in his tent. His only hope was to scare that grizzly away. But how? And then Grandpop remembered: The rattle.

The rattle of that monster rattlesnake he'd killed in Pawnee Indian land. The snake was as thick as Grandpop's leg. Its rattle was five inches long. That snake could have killed him. He'd almost stepped on it when he was walking through the tall plains grass, hunting for rabbits. By the time Grandpop heard the rattling noise, the snake was coiled and ready to strike. Shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk, shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk, shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk. Without a thought, Grandpop had grabbed his knife from his belt and threw it. By some stroke of luck, the blade landed in the center of the snake's head. The snake didn't die right away. It thrashed wildly, its body coiling around Grandpop's legs. Grandpop had to hit it with the handle of his rifle. And then, when the snake was dead, Grandpop cut off the rattle for good luck. Far from those tall grasses in the prairie, the grizzly bear snarled at Grandpop, inching closer.

Grandpop put his hand in his pocket and started shaking the snake's rattle. The sound rose up around them. Shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk, shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk, shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk. Grandpop hoped that grizzlies were afraid of rattlesnakes. He hoped he could trick it into thinking that he was some kind of huge rattlesnake-man. A fearsome monster. The bear looked around, and Grandpop could see the fear in its eyes. It let off one last roar, and then scampered off. Now, sitting on his flea-bitten blanket, Leo realized that Morris was right. There might be a way to scare Fletch and Wilkie, to trick them into giving back the gold just like Grandpop had tricked that bear into running away. And sure enough, sometime in the middle of the night, Leo had come up with a plan.