All-American Adventure Read online

  “We need to teach Collier and McDaniels a lesson!” said Beck.

  “We sure do!”

  I gunned my throttle and pulled up alongside the RV.

  I could see Uncle Richie and Storm in the back, working on the computer in the galley.

  I gave the ATV a little more gas and was riding parallel to Tommy, who was behind the wheel.

  “Pull over!” I shouted at him.

  “What? Who are you? The California Highway Patrol?”

  “Pull over!” shouted Beck, who’d zoomed up on the other side of the RV.

  Tommy eased off the gas and brought the lumbering vehicle to a stop.

  The thumping helicopter hovered directly overhead.

  Beck and I hopped off our ATVs and dashed into the RV.

  “Why have we stopped?” asked Uncle Richie. “Do one of you children need to go to the potty? I’m told children need to do that on a frequent basis.”

  “We’re being followed,” I said, gesturing toward the ceiling. There was no mistaking the whump-whump-whump of the helicopter hanging in the air right above us.

  “Who’s in the chopper?” asked Tommy.

  Beck turned to Uncle Richie. “Your buddy Dirk McDaniels.”

  “He works for Nathan Collier,” I said.

  “Collier!” said Tommy, pounding a fist into his palm.

  “Ah,” said Uncle Richie. “Your parents’ number one nemesis.”

  “We think Mr. McDaniels let you win that map on purpose,” I said, “so we’d crack the code and lead him straight to the precious black pearls.”

  “It sounds like the sort of thing Collier and his cronies would do,” added Storm.

  “Then,” said Uncle Richie, “we need to take them off our scent. Give them a red herring to chase, as it were.” He looked at Tommy. “Thomas, you’re about my size. Quickly now. We need to exchange outfits. You’ll be me and I’ll be you!”

  CHAPTER 24

  Tommy slipped into Uncle Richie’s hat and safari jacket.

  Uncle Richie borrowed Tommy’s baseball cap.

  “Take that road and lead them north on one of the ATVs, Thomas,” Uncle Richie instructed. “Go as far as the Joshua Tree National Park, if need be. When you are in a remote enough location, pretend as if you are studying the treasure map and pacing off a goodly distance. Then start digging.” He yanked a shovel out of the RV’s utility closet.

  “Um, wouldn’t using the backhoe be faster?”

  “Indeed. However, we will be employing it at the true dig site.”

  “Riiiiight.”

  “Plus, Thomas, you want to waste as much time and helicopter fuel as you can.”

  “Oh. Got it.”

  “Atta boy. Keep them distracted until they’re flying on fumes. Eventually Mr. McDaniels and his chopper crew will head back to the Salton airfield to refuel. When they do, you can rejoin us at the true dig site.”

  “We’ll text you the exact GPS coordinates,” added Storm.

  “Cool,” said Tommy.

  “Take this,” said Uncle Richie, handing Tommy the rolled-up hide with the ancient backward map inscribed on it.

  “Don’t you guys need it?”

  “Not anymore,” said Storm. “We scanned it into the computer and matched it up with satellite imagery of the same area.” She tapped her phone. A glowing map with a blinking green dot appeared on the screen.

  “Awesome,” said Tommy. “Anybody want a souvenir from Joshua Tree? Maybe a keychain or a snow globe?”

  “A snow globe?” said Beck. “From the desert?”

  “Good point. Catch you guys, later.”

  “One minute, Thomas,” said Uncle Richie. “Time for some dramatic acting.” He grabbed the RV’s CB radio microphone. “Chances are, they will be monitoring all frequencies.” He depressed the Talk button. “Breaker, breaker. This is Uncle Bear. Things are getting too risky out here in the sandbox. I’m leaving you children in the air-conditioned comfort of this lovely recreational vehicle where there is a bathroom and plenty of snacks. I, all by myself, shall head off to un-bury the treasure now that we know exactly where it is buried!”

  He clipped the microphone back into its bracket.

  “Good acting,” said Tommy.

  “Thank you. Whilst in London many years ago I took a few classes at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Now, Thomas, it’s your turn. Be the best me that you can be.”

  “You got it!”

  “Go!”

  Tommy tugged down on Uncle Richie’s Teddy Roosevelt hat, tucked the treasure map under his arm, grabbed the shovel, and raced out of the RV. He did his best to imitate Uncle Richie’s brisk, arm-swinging gait and waved the map in the air so Dirk McDaniels could see it from his perch in the sky. He even said, “Bully! Bully!” a few times.

  Tommy climbed aboard the nearest ATV, goosed the throttle, and blasted off—spewing rock chunks and careening up a rutted trail that would take him north and far, far away from where we were headed.

  Dirk McDaniels and the NCTE whirlybird took the bait. They flew off after Tommy—the fake Uncle Richie.

  “Bully!” said the real one when they were gone. “Let’s give them at least a thirty-minute head start, shall we?” He pulled a deck of cards out of a side pocket in his cargo shorts. “Anyone interested in a friendly game of old maid?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Thirty minutes later, after we’d all lost our allowance money for the next ten years to Uncle Richie, we returned to our quest.

  The map took us to a patch of sandy dunes nestled between two craggy mountain ridges.

  Storm held her phone in her hand and marked off the last few paces to the spot where the ancient Cahuilla map showed the Lost Ship of the Desert to be buried.

  Uncle Richie maneuvered the backhoe off its trailer and stationed its shovel teeth above a windswept crest in the sand. “And now we come to the critical moment in our grand adventure!” he declared. “But remember, children, no matter what we might uncover here today, the only person who makes no mistakes is the one who never dares to do anything!”

  And with that, he jimmied some levers and started scooping away the sand.

  He gave us each a turn in the backhoe cab. In no time, we had shoveled out a hole that was twenty feet wide and twenty feet deep. We were far away from the nearest roadways. No one was there to see us do our digging, except for a few buzzards circling in the sky.

  Beck was back in the cab for her second turn with the power shovel when we all heard something wooden crunch.

  She’d hit the rotting timbers of the ship.

  “Eureka!” shouted Uncle Richie. “You found it, Beck! Quickly now. To the RV. Everybody grab a broom, a brush, or a rake. It’s time for the delicate work.”

  The four of us swept and whisked sand away for another hour. It was hard work because the wind kept working against us. But the shape of the ship (well, what was left of it) was slowly revealed inside the crater we’d carved into the desert.

  “Here’s the hatch for the cargo hold!” shouted Storm.

  The rest of us raced over to join her. The rusty iron gate weighed a ton but, working together, we were able to pry it open.

  Since we were the smallest, Beck and I each grabbed a flashlight and dropped down into the hold.

  “See anything?” asked Uncle Richie, peering into the darkness where Beck and I had just bumped into something big and boxy.

  “Nothing much,” I said.

  “Nothing at all,” said Beck, playing along.

  “Except for this old footlocker,” I said.

  “Or maybe it’s, you know—a treasure chest!”

  “Eureka!” cried Uncle Richie. “Well done, Bick and Beck. Well done, Storm.”

  “Well done to you, too!” I shouted. “You’re the one who got us the treasure map.”

  “You’re also the one who believed the crazy legend in the first place,” added Beck.

  “You guys?” said Storm. “Can we stop congratulating each other a
nd extract the contents of the treasure chest? Tommy can’t keep Dirk McDaniels and that helicopter distracted forever.”

  “Your sister is, of course, correct,” said Uncle Richie. “We best save our celebratory festivities for another time and place. Are you two able to open the treasure chest? Do you need a pry bar?”

  “Nope,” I said. “There’s no lock.”

  “Really?” said Uncle Richie, up on the deck. “Fascinating.”

  It took a few grunts, but Beck and I were able to heave open the creaky, squeaky lid. We swung our flashlights to inspect its contents.

  We didn’t see any precious black pearls. Or gold. Or jewels. Or bars of silver.

  The big wooden box was practically empty.

  The only thing inside the Lost Ship of the Desert’s treasure chest was very weird and totally unexpected: a USB thumb drive.

  CHAPTER 26

  “A thumb drive?” said Uncle Richie after Beck and I climbed out of the hull of the shipwreck with our, uh, treasure.

  “That’s all that was in the chest,” I told him.

  “Except,” added Beck, “for, you know, sand!”

  Uncle Richie stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Indeed. Quite a bit of that in this location.”

  “Maybe somebody else found the treasure before we did,” I said.

  “It’s a possibility,” said Storm. “There are legends of a mule driver in the late eighteen-hundreds who came out of the desert, his saddle bags filled with riches.”

  “But what about the thumb drive?” I said. “Most mule drivers from the late eighteen-hundreds didn’t carry those in their saddle bags.”

  “True,” said Uncle Richie. “And they were hardly standard equipment on Spanish ships from the Age of Exploration.”

  “Because the first USB flash drive wasn’t even sold in America until the year two thousand,” said Storm. Yes, her brain is ginormous enough to remember just about anything, even stuff nobody really cares about.

  I handed the flash drive to Uncle Richie, who tossed it up and down in his palm as if it were a peanut.

  “I suspect there is only one thing for us to do,” he said. “Storm? Will this work in your laptop?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Bully. Contact Thomas. Instruct him to meet us at the Cottonwood Campground at the southern edge of the Joshua Tree National Park. We should all be together when these modern secrets of the Lost Ship of the Desert are revealed!”

  Storm texted Tommy. We hitched the trailer up to the RV and loaded the backhoe and remaining ATV. Rumbling across the rugged terrain, we found Box Canyon Road again and followed it until it crossed under an interstate and turned into Cottonwood Springs Road, which took us into the Joshua Tree National Park and its Cottonwood Campground.

  Tommy was already there.

  “I pretended like the treasure was buried up north, underneath one of the Joshua trees,” he told us, swapping hats and vests with Uncle Richie. “Dirk McDaniels watched me dig for about an hour and took off. His engine was kind of sputtering. I think he needed to go gas up.”

  “What’d you guys dig up?” Tommy asked.

  Uncle Richie tossed him the flash drive. “Only this.”

  “Whoa. The Spanish Conquistadors had computers?”

  “We think somebody else put it in the treasure chest,” I said.

  “Sometime after the year two thousand,” added Storm.

  “Cool,” said Tommy. “Let’s go check it out.”

  We all headed into the RV. Storm inserted the drive into a USB port on her laptop.

  “It’s a single document,” said Storm after she clicked the file icon to open it.

  What looked like a letter filled the screen.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. I recognized the big “E-1” logo in the letterhead. “It’s from the Enlightened Ones.”

  All of a sudden, things had become much more mysterious.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Who, pray tell, are these ‘Enlightened Ones’?” asked Uncle Richie.

  “A shadowy group of international art thieves,” said Beck. “We’ve dealt with them before.”

  “Chya,” said Tommy. “In Italy and Russia. E-1’s totally twisted. They like to taunt treasure hunters. They’ll give you clues because they get their kicks watching you try to figure ’em out.”

  “The Enlightened Ones,” said Storm, “are also rumored to own the most spectacular collection of paintings, sculptures, and art treasures in the world. Typically, they don’t purchase these masterpieces at art auctions. They steal them.”

  Uncle Richie nodded as he soaked in all the new information. “Read us what they say in their letter, Storm.”

  Storm scrolled down the page and started reading.

  “‘Congratulations, Mr. McDaniels.’”

  “Mr. McDaniels?” said Uncle Richie. “Of course! They expected that Dirk McDaniels would be the one to unearth the Lost Ship of the Desert and discover its empty treasure chest. They didn’t know he would wager his treasure map away in a friendly card game.”

  “Wait a second,” said Tommy. “Do you think these Enlightened Dudes stole our precious black pearls?”

  “Doubtful,” said Storm. “They prefer priceless paintings and sculptures to rare gems. I suspect our friend the mule driver or an intrepid Native American made off with Señor Juan de Iturbe’s cargo ages ago.”

  “Read on, Storm,” said Uncle Richie. “This should prove most interesting.”

  Storm went back to reading: “‘Congratulations, Mr. McDaniels. You found the Lost Ship of the Desert quite handily. It took us more than a year, working with the very same Native American map, which we had in our warehouse of ancient etchings. You may very well be the intrepid treasure hunter we are seeking to help us find certain works of art that have, shall we say, gone missing. But before we back you with our unlimited financial resources for that ultimate quest, we require that you accept the challenge of a second test.’”

  “A test?” said Tommy. “Like in school?”

  “No,” said Storm, who’d read ahead in the letter. “This will be another test of our treasure-hunting skills. Guess the Enlightened Ones wanted to make certain that Dirk McDaniels was super-skilled before they hired him to find whatever art they’re looking for.”

  “This test might prove extremely dangerous,” said Uncle Richie, probably because he was the adult in the room. “Perhaps we should simply quit while we’re ahead and return to the safety and comfort of your parents’ apartment in Washington, DC.”

  Storm shook her head. “Nope. We need to be in Virginia.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s where we can hunt for another one of America’s greatest missing treasures.”

  “Yes!” I said.

  “Boo-yah!” added Beck.

  Like Dad, Beck and I kept a list of real-life treasures still waiting to be found (preferably by us). A whole bunch were in America. Beale’s missing millions, hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. The Lost Dutchman Gold Mine in Arizona. The Lost Treasure of the Alamo. Gangster Dutch Schultz’s Stash in the mountains of New York. Confederate Colonel John Singleton Mosby’s Treasure in Virginia.

  Virginia!

  “Is it Mosby’s treasure?” I blurted.

  Storm nodded. “Yep. And there’s another map with another code. Give me time, and I think I can crack it.”

  “Bully!” said Uncle Richie, eagerly rubbing his hands together. “Ah, Mosby’s Raiders. I’ve been fascinated by their missing treasure for decades.”

  “Then let’s go get it!” I said.

  “We’ve got a map!” added Beck.

  “And plenty of free time,” said Tommy.

  “I concur,” said Storm.

  “Shall we take a family vote?” suggested Uncle Richie. “All in favor of pulling up stakes and heading back east to search for Mosby’s treasure in Virginia, kindly raise your right hand and say, ‘Aye!’”

  “Aye!” we all shouted.

  “Any op
posed?”

  No one said “nay.”

  “Thomas?” said Uncle Richie. “Take the wheel. We need to return to the airport and fire up my plane. If we hope to find Mosby’s treasure, we need to return to the other side of the continent.”

  “No problemo,” said Tommy, slipping into the driver’s seat. “So, who was this Mosby dude, anyway?”

  “Storm? Would you like to do the honors?”

  “No, thanks, Uncle Richie. I like the way you tell tales.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Very well.”

  And while Tommy drove, Uncle Richie spun an amazing tale of action, adventure, and lost treasure.

  He sort of reminded me of me.

  CHAPTER 28

  “During the Civil War, Confederate Colonel Mosby and his rebel riders made a daring night raid on the Fairfax County Courthouse, behind Union lines,” said Uncle Richie as our RV hummed south on the interstate. “They captured forty-two Yankee soldiers without firing a single shot!”

  “Whoa,” said Tommy, behind the wheel.

  “In the Union generals’ room at the courthouse, they found gold, jewelry, candlesticks, and coins. Mosby and his men stuffed the treasure into a burlap sack, hopped on their horses, and headed back to the Confederate lines.”

  “But Mosby’s raiders ran into a little bit of trouble on the ride home!” said Storm, picking up the thread.

  “Indeed so,” said Uncle Richie. “Their advance scouts came back with a dire warning: Mosby and his men were heading straight into a large group of Union soldiers. So, Mosby and his most trusted sergeant took the burlap sack filled with booty and buried it between two pine trees, both of which, legend has it, they marked with an X so they’d remember where they had buried their treasure.