A Treasure to Die For by Richard Houston Page B

code, then what did the decoded message mean?
    The words ‘Blood sucking bug pass’ were staring at me from Appleton’s notebook paper. My how-to book had given way to finding the message and spending the last hour trying to solve the riddle. I even went so far as searching the Rocky Mountain News archives to find a copy of the original article, but got sidetracked about an article on a preacher who had crossed Mosquito Pass in snowshoes during the winter.
    Father Dyer had become a legend for preaching to the mostly deaf ears of miners about the sins of gambling, drinking, and prostitution. My interest piqued when I read an article where he nearly died from a trip over Mosquito Pass in the winter when his feet froze during a bitter-cold snowstorm.
    That’s when it hit me. Pass referred to a mountain pass. If Drake was on his way to Leadville it had to be Mosquito Pass, a bloodsucking bug pass.
    My first thought was to call Bonnie back and brag about unraveling the enigma. Then I had a flash image of someone listening to our phone messages. Now I knew how treasure hunting could lead to paranoia, and chided myself for being bit by gold fever. I decided to tell her tomorrow during coffee instead of calling, just to play it safe in case the NSA was listening.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Fred saved Bonnie from having to clean her kitchen floor when he ate the scrambled eggs she’d dropped after I told her about discovering the location of Drake’s gold. “What are we waiting for, Jake? We need to get up there before someone else does!”
    I should have waited until after breakfast before telling her. She didn’t seem to notice the plate was empty when she set it in front of me. “What’s this, we? Margot would have my scalp if I ever took you to the top of that pass. Do you have any idea what the lack of oxygen at that altitude can do to a chain smoker?”
    She looked over at a pack of cigarettes on the table then picked it up. “I can go without you, you know,” she said while tapping the pack to make a filter tip appear.
    Not wanting another argument like we had the other day when she had insisted on going to Appleton’s cabin, I tried to change the subject. “Not on an empty stomach, Bon. Besides, I think I should verify the code from another copy of Tom Sawyer before going off half-cocked,” I said, pointing to my plate.
    She took one look at my plate and then looked down at Fred, who was patiently sitting at her side waiting for more eggs. “What’s there to verify?” she asked, patting him on the head and smiling. “What else can blood sucking pass mean? Any school kid can see that. If we don’t get our butts up there right away, someone else is going to beat us to the treasure.”
    I got up from the table with my empty plate and went over to the counter by her range. “We’re the only ones besides Appleton who knows the deciphered code, and I doubt if he’s going up there anytime soon.” I knew the only way I was going to get breakfast was to make it myself, so I started cracking more eggs into Bonnie’s mixing bowl.
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “Because he’s dead, Bon.”
    “Not, Appleton! Jeeze, Louise, don’t be so dense. How can you be so sure someone else hasn’t decoded the message already? That author, what’s his name, didn’t strike me as no dummy, and then there’s those punk kids.”
    “Paul Wilson. I suppose it’s possible now that you mention it. He must have known about Father Dyer. Good thing he didn’t have the key, or I’m sure he would have figured it out by now. But I don’t see how those kids could solve a Ranger Rick crossword puzzle, let alone decode Drake’s message.”
    “The key? Oh I get it, the right book is the key.”
    I picked out another egg and cracked it on the side of the bowl. “Do you want two or three?”
    Bonnie quit playing with her cigarettes and came over to the range. “Just two, and get yourself more coffee while I cook these. Then we’re going up