like axes—I recognized the axe head I had found in the yard—adzes, plows and harnesses; dresses, bonnets, breeches and shoes. Three CDs were consumed as I pored over the photos, and by the time I closed the book I was able to make four lengthy additions to my notes. And I had generated lots of questions.
The soot-covered stones I had dug up from the same hole as the box had probably been remnants of a pioneer cabin’s chimney and fireplace. Which meant that our house was built almost on top of the site. Who had lived on our land? Had the cabin burned down or rotted away after being abandoned?
Piffard the jeweller had probably been right: the nugget seemed to have been cast in a bullet mould. There were pictures of these tools in the book. But why cast gold as a bullet? To shoot a werewolf? I wondered, laughing and spraying corn chip dust all over my work. Was it easier to carry or hide the gold as shot rather than dust? Or had it been a coin, melted down?
The leather straps, I deduced, were exactly that, not belts. In the book was a picture of a Butler’s Rangers dress uniform. The Rangers were a corps of British soldiers who had fought the Americans guerrilla-style, with Indian allies. The straps were worncriss-crossed over the shoulders and chest and held a sword on one side and an ammunition box on the other. Had the cabin owner, the pioneer, once been an army man?
That question seemed to be answered by the identity of the box—and that was the most exciting discovery. It was called a document box—I saw it looking at me from page 256 of the book. The crown represented England and the initials
G R
stood for Georgius Rex—King George, who reigned during the time of the American Revolution.
In other words, my silly half-rotten box was more than two hundred years old! And that proved that the contents were at least as old.
That night sleep came late. My mind spun, throwing out question after question. Who had lived on our land on the banks of the Grand River two hundred years ago? Why had he or she buried the box? To hide it? To save it from or for someone?
“The thing to do,” I whispered into the darkness, “is search the title to the land.” I had learned when Mom and Dad bought the place that a lawyer had to do a “title search” first to make sure there were no financial liens on the property, and to be certain the person selling it actually owned it. Dad had explained that the registry office could tell you all the proprietors of a piece of land since the Crown had granted it to its first owner.
Maybe if I did that I’d find a clue to the personwho buried the box, the nugget, the straps and—
It was then I remembered the iron Cs. What the hell, I thought, I can’t sleep anyway.
I stood at the kitchen sink, having used up most of a box of steel wool pot cleaners, up to my elbows in dirty soapy water, working quietly so as not to wake up my parents. The solvent I had soaked the iron in had loosened most of the surface rust, which came off fairly easily with the steel wool. After half an hour’s scrubbing I decided that the thing was as clean as it was going to get. I dried the Cs with a dish towel—leaving it stained with rust—and returned with the iron to my room.
Under my desk lamp the ring was blackish, its surface pitted and scarred from corrosion. As I ran my fingers, now tender from the scrubbing, along it I noticed a place where the roundness had been ground flat.
I trained my magnifying glass on the spot. Barely visible were three letters scraped or punched into the metal.
R P
, then a big space, then a
T
. Once more a rummage in the desk drawer. Congratulating myself that I never threw anything away, I opened the smallest blade of the Swiss Army knife Mom had given me when I was ten. Carefully, I scraped the metal between the letters. Slowly, one by one, the rest of them emerged:
R. PIERPOINT
.
My enthusiasm soared. I had a name. I had a place to start.
Chapter 12
T he
The soot-covered stones I had dug up from the same hole as the box had probably been remnants of a pioneer cabin’s chimney and fireplace. Which meant that our house was built almost on top of the site. Who had lived on our land? Had the cabin burned down or rotted away after being abandoned?
Piffard the jeweller had probably been right: the nugget seemed to have been cast in a bullet mould. There were pictures of these tools in the book. But why cast gold as a bullet? To shoot a werewolf? I wondered, laughing and spraying corn chip dust all over my work. Was it easier to carry or hide the gold as shot rather than dust? Or had it been a coin, melted down?
The leather straps, I deduced, were exactly that, not belts. In the book was a picture of a Butler’s Rangers dress uniform. The Rangers were a corps of British soldiers who had fought the Americans guerrilla-style, with Indian allies. The straps were worncriss-crossed over the shoulders and chest and held a sword on one side and an ammunition box on the other. Had the cabin owner, the pioneer, once been an army man?
That question seemed to be answered by the identity of the box—and that was the most exciting discovery. It was called a document box—I saw it looking at me from page 256 of the book. The crown represented England and the initials
G R
stood for Georgius Rex—King George, who reigned during the time of the American Revolution.
In other words, my silly half-rotten box was more than two hundred years old! And that proved that the contents were at least as old.
That night sleep came late. My mind spun, throwing out question after question. Who had lived on our land on the banks of the Grand River two hundred years ago? Why had he or she buried the box? To hide it? To save it from or for someone?
“The thing to do,” I whispered into the darkness, “is search the title to the land.” I had learned when Mom and Dad bought the place that a lawyer had to do a “title search” first to make sure there were no financial liens on the property, and to be certain the person selling it actually owned it. Dad had explained that the registry office could tell you all the proprietors of a piece of land since the Crown had granted it to its first owner.
Maybe if I did that I’d find a clue to the personwho buried the box, the nugget, the straps and—
It was then I remembered the iron Cs. What the hell, I thought, I can’t sleep anyway.
I stood at the kitchen sink, having used up most of a box of steel wool pot cleaners, up to my elbows in dirty soapy water, working quietly so as not to wake up my parents. The solvent I had soaked the iron in had loosened most of the surface rust, which came off fairly easily with the steel wool. After half an hour’s scrubbing I decided that the thing was as clean as it was going to get. I dried the Cs with a dish towel—leaving it stained with rust—and returned with the iron to my room.
Under my desk lamp the ring was blackish, its surface pitted and scarred from corrosion. As I ran my fingers, now tender from the scrubbing, along it I noticed a place where the roundness had been ground flat.
I trained my magnifying glass on the spot. Barely visible were three letters scraped or punched into the metal.
R P
, then a big space, then a
T
. Once more a rummage in the desk drawer. Congratulating myself that I never threw anything away, I opened the smallest blade of the Swiss Army knife Mom had given me when I was ten. Carefully, I scraped the metal between the letters. Slowly, one by one, the rest of them emerged:
R. PIERPOINT
.
My enthusiasm soared. I had a name. I had a place to start.
Chapter 12
T he
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