Bailey and the Santa Fe Secret by Linda McQuinn Carlblom Page A

but nodded. She took the vase from Halona and carefully started wrapping a paper square around it.
    Aiyana bounded through the door, a plastic bag swinging from each hand. “I got the supplies you asked for, Mama.”
    “Thank you, sweetheart,” Halona replied. “You can put them in the studio. The clay goes in the lower cabinet.”
    Bailey followed Aiyana with her eyes, and then wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans before picking up the bowl to wrap it. Her hands shook as she set the bowl in the center of her paper square. She could hear Aiyana singing in the studio. Bailey pulled one corner of the paper up and stuffed it into the center of the bowl, then another.
    She stopped, hands in midair, when Aiyana screamed.

The Treacherous Summit
    Aiyana’s scream from the studio froze all activity in Earth Works. Halona rushed to the back and was met in the hallway by Bailey’s mom, who’d raced out of the office. Together, they hurried into the pottery studio where Aiyana stood dazed, holding the broken pottery pieces in her hands. The cabinet door stood open, and the newly bought clay sat on the floor in front of it.
    “Aiyana, what is it?” Halona went to her daughter.
    Bailey and Elizabeth quietly appeared in the doorway and stood with Bailey’s mother.
    “The pot! Our key to riches…it’s broken!” Tears poured down the little girl’s face.
    “Wha– There must be some mistake.” Halona took the pottery shards from Aiyana’s hands. She turned the pieces and looked at the painted pictures. “It can’t be!”
    The bell on the front door rang as it opened.
    Paco’s friend, Willy, burst into the store looking for Halona. “Come quick! It’s Elan! He’s in trouble on Puye Cliffs! He’s losing his footing, and I think he’s going to fall. You’ve gotta come!”
    Halona left the pottery pieces on the countertop and hurried out the front door, not bothering to turn the open sign to closed as she locked the door. She hoisted Willy’s bike into the back of her Suburban while he and the others buckled up for the trip to the cliffs.
    “He’s climbing the side of the cliff like they used to do in the ancient rite of passage,” Willy explained when they were on their way. “I think he’s trying to prove his manhood by scaling the cliff. Sort of his own personal rite of passage. But he’s slipping a lot, and I don’t care if he gets mad at me. Someone needs to make him get down.”
    “He has nothing to prove,” Halona said, defiance and fear gripping her voice. “He’s more man than most boys his age.”
    Willy said nothing.
    “Is anyone else there?” Bailey asked.
    “Paco was there when I left.”
    Bailey closed her eyes and shook her head. That could only mean trouble.
    Halona sped out of Santa Fe and into the desolate area that took them to Puye Cliffs. She swung her car into a parking space on the tourist side of the cliffs, and they ran to the place Elan had showed Bailey and Elizabeth, where the ancient rites of passage used to be held.
    Willy looked up and pointed. “Whoa. He’s a lot higher now than when I left.” Willy walked away to where Paco stood by his bike.
    “Elan!” Halona cried when she saw where her son was. “You must come down!”
    “I can’t!” The tremble in Elan’s voice gave away his fear.
    Halona snatched out her cell phone and dialed. “Chief Maska. We need your help. Elan is scaling the Puye Cliffs. You’ve got to talk to him. Yes…Thank you.”
    “Is he coming?” Bailey’s mom asked.
    “Yes. He’ll be here in just a few minutes. He lives nearby.”
    “Aiyana, did you know he was planning to do this?” Halona asked.
    “No,” Aiyana replied. “He talked about proving to those boys that he was a man, but I didn’t think he’d do something this crazy.”
    “What boys?” her mother demanded.
    Aiyana shrunk back. “He didn’t want me to tell,” she said.
    “You must tell.”
    “Paco and his friends have been bothering Elan almost every day since