Bailey and the Santa Fe Secret by Linda McQuinn Carlblom

brown part is protecting something inside it. So maybe it doesn’t matter if it gets torn.”
    Beth brushed some more of the side away to enlarge the hole. “There. Try that.”
    Bailey gently pulled the tweezers and whatever was in their grasp through the hole. The brown wrapping was more pliable than they thought it would be, and only tiny pieces chipped off as it was birthed through the gap in the pot.
    Electricity charged between the girls as they looked at the brown leafy package.
    “I’ve heard that people used to use certain kinds of leaves to wrap things to protect them against moisture.” Bailey’s hands trembled as she gently unfolded the leaves to reveal its contents—a yellowed document with the word
Deed
written across the top in fancy curlicue writing. With great care, she lifted the deed out of its protective cocoon. Some of the words were faded, but she could clearly read the words “Suquosa Mine” and “Hakan Kaga.”
    Elizabeth’s jaw dropped and she high-fived Bailey. “We found the deed to Halona’s mine!”
    Bailey couldn’t contain the huge grin that stretched across her face. “Should we tell her right away?”
    “Maybe we should see if we can find the mine first. What good is the deed if there’s no mine anymore?”
    “You’re right.” Bailey nodded. “We don’t want to get her hopes up only to disappoint her later.”
    “We have to find out where that mine is,” Elizabeth said. “Surely there must be an old map online somewhere.”
    “Or in the public records at the county recorder’s office,” Bailey offered.
    “I’d think that if it was on public record, the Tses would have already found it. It can’t be that easy.” Elizabeth looked at the table with the broken pottery pieces. “We’d better clean this mess up before we start looking for the map.”
    “What’ll we tell Halona about not putting the pot back together?” Bailey asked.
    “We’ll tell her the truth.” Elizabeth gathered the wrapping paper covered with pottery dust. “That we found some information we needed to check out before we can finish. If she presses us, we’ll just have to trust God that she won’t be too disappointed if we can’t find the mine.”
    Bailey brought the trashcan to the table. “Yeah, we sure don’t want to glue the pot back together and not be able to show them where we found the deed. I think she’ll be happy that we found it even if we don’t find the mine right away.”
    “I do, too.” Elizabeth carried the broken pottery pieces back to the cabinet, then rolled up the wrapping paper and dumped it into the trash. “But I think she’ll be overjoyed if we find both!”
    Bailey looked the room over. “We’ve got everything picked up, but what should we do with the deed?”
    “I can put it in my bag,” Elizabeth said. “No one will look in there, and it’s big enough not to bend it.”
    She tucked the document into her bag. Then Elizabeth opened her laptop to look for a map of the mine’s location. Bailey sat next to her to help her look. They clicked on several old maps and found nothing that showed Suquosa Mine. Then they clicked on one more link and found what they were looking for.
    “There it is!” Bailey said, pointing at a tiny black dot.
    “I can’t believe it,” Elizabeth said.
    “Looks like it’s close to where we were at the Puye Cliffs.”
    “I don’t remember seeing anything that looked like a mine in that area, though Elan did say there used to be some up there.” Elizabeth pushed back her blond hair. “I hope this isn’t another dead end.”
    “We won’t know until we try to find it,” Bailey said.
    “What are we waiting for?”
    “A ride.” Elizabeth laughed. “We can’t walk there from here. It’s too far.”
    Bailey groaned. “We don’t have any time to waste. We leave for home tomorrow! Maybe my mom would take us to Halona’s house, and we could walk from there,” she suggested. “It’s really slow here at the