Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (free ebook reader txt) 📕

wilt the few greens into a soup. She says the iron in the greens will keep us strong. Abuelita snorts and tells her that there is more iron in meat and that would keep us all stronger.

Four days with Daniel missing.

I’ve just taken the soup inside when César shows up, right on schedule. Mami offers him a bowl of soup. He sips it politely while he gives her the update: still no boy; still no body. I can’t tell if he notices how thin the soup is. I can’t focus on the conversation he’s sharing with Mami and Abuelita. My thoughts keep twitching to Daniel, to the fact that they still haven’t found him. As soon as I possibly can without being terribly rude, I grab the dirty dishes and head outside.

I plonk them angrily into a shallow plastic tub and slosh water from the barrel over the bowls and spoons. Then I add some soap flakes and scrub at them with sand. I’m taking all my frustration out on the bottom of a bowl when César comes out of the house.

“I’m heading home now, Ana,” he says. “Good night.”

I want to tell him I appreciate what he’s done for us. I want to apologize for being rude. But when I open my mouth, what pops out is, “Do you think Daniel is dead?”

César lets his gaze drift away, over the edge of the mountain to the orange-and-rose-banded sky and the last hint of the setting sun.

“Like I told your mother: the men have cleared the rubble from the affected tunnels. The mining cooperative has closed the inquiry.”

I scowl into the wash water and scrub even harder at the bowl. “So no one’s searching for him? Everyone has given up on him?”

César considers me. “Your mother is worried about you,” he says. “The mountain has taken her husband and her son. It would crush her to lose you too. She wasn’t happy to hear that you went, alone, to the mine to ask about a boy who is likely dead. She knows how superstitious miners can be. You must promise me, Ana, not to come asking at the mine again.”

This is all true. I nod. There’s no point in asking the miners anything more. I know how they feel about me.

César turns to leave. I realize that he still never answered my question.

“Don César,” I call after him. He pauses. “Are you still looking for Daniel?”

For a long moment there’s a quiet where I stare at his shoulders and he stares off into the distance and I think he really isn’t going to answer me after all. Then: “He disappeared on my watch,” César says softly. “Even if I can only bring your mother a body to mourn, I look for Daniel every minute of every day I am in the mine.”

Though it’s the answer I wanted, it crushes something inside me to hear that even César is now thinking of the search in terms of a body, not a boy.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

César nods once and then walks away.

He has only just vanished out of sight when Mami comes bustling out of the house.

“There you are!” she exclaims. “Aren’t you done with those dishes yet?”

I glance down at the very, very clean bowl in my hands.

“I’m done,” I say, and toss the wash water onto the rocks by the door.

That night I find I can’t sleep.

I lie there, listening to the even breathing of my mother and grandmother, and I can’t stop the angry, twitchy feeling that comes over me any time I think about Daniel being gone for so long. Maybe they’re not looking hard enough, I think. You don’t try as hard when you think you’re searching for a corpse.

Then again, if they’re not right about Daniel now, they will be soon. If he’s in the mine, trapped, tomorrow he’ll start his fifth day with no food or water. Even if he wasn’t hurt at all by the initial cave-in, waiting will be enough to kill him. I can’t leave the search to people who think he’s beyond saving. I have to do something.

My eyes catch on the shadow of Papi’s miner’s suit, neatly folded in the corner with his helmet on top since the funeral. Getting to my feet, I run a finger over the stiff material. Slowly, barely believing I’m doing it, I pull it toward me. The suit slithers over me like a scaly second skin. I shiver, but lace the boots tightly. Then, setting the helmet on my head and putting some coca leaves and a bottle of water in a manta, I sling the bundle over my shoulder and sneak out of the house.

Just one quick look, I think as I start down the road.

Luckily, I only promised César I wouldn’t ask questions at the mine.

He never thought to make me promise not to go into it.

The entry lot to El Rosario is deserted when I arrive. They still must not have found a guarda to replace Mariángela. Still, just because there’s no official guard that I can see and it’s not an official shift time doesn’t mean that someone might not come by at any moment.

We call our twelve-hour day a “shift,” but the hours are hardly that official. The men who work in our cooperative decided to claim this entrance and its tunnels and work from six in the morning to six at night. But there are more than two hundred cooperatives on the mountain, and each of them organizes differently. Plus, there are thousands of men who work the mountain who aren’t a member of any of the cooperatives. They hire out as laborers and they get paid by the day, not a fraction of the profits. Some men work sixteen-hour shifts. Some even work twenty-four, working deep in the mountain and fueling themselves with nothing but coca and alcohol. It can take six hours just to climb back to the surface from