The tour guide led them inside the Bird Cage and over to the faro table where Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo faced off between it and the grand piano. The older men crowded around the table and pretended to twirl a cup like a gunslinger. Abbey shifted her weight and roller her eyes. She wished this tour with the grandparents would end.
While the rest crowded around the faro table, she turned to the piano, and climbed over the rope. Abbey sat on the bench and fingered the keys. She played seven measures from Minuet In G and everyone stopped to listen. When she touched the F-key it failed to ring out. It sounded muffled like something covered the hammer.
Abbey hit the F-key a few more times and it still made a muffled sound. Her grandfather climbed over the rope and looked into the soundboard. He asked her to strike the key. The hammer stopped before it could hit the string. He reached inside and touched the hammer. Behind it he found a small folded piece of paper.
[bctt tweet=”Abbey hit the F-key a few more times and it still made a muffled sound.”]He unfolded the paper square and laid it out on the keyboard. The crowd drew around the piano to see what was on the paper. In faint letters, they could see it was a drawing of a map and the words, “Superstition Mountain Treasure.”
One of the old men shouted out, “She found it! She found the lost Dutchman Mine.” Abbey shrunk down into the bench. She hadn’t intended to be seen. It was bad enough she had to go on this trip and now she was the center of attention.
“Looks like you’ve found a piece of history,” her grandfather said. “Now, I guess we’ll have to find it.”
© 2018, Michael Shawn Sommermeyer. All rights reserved.
