Still looking for treasure, and it’s right under his nose. Why does he have to have riches? she wondered. He’d kill me if he knew that all this time—She dared not think about it.

Pesty slammed inside the house just to make noise. There was no one there. She made her mama’s bed. She never bothered to make her own or anyone else’s. The clock said seven minutes to nine. Not long now. She went into her mama’s bedroom and lay on the bed, closed her eyes. All was silence around her.

“I’m just a kid,” she whispered into the pillow, feeling sorry for herself. Am I wrong to help Mr. Thomas’s papa? What is going to happen?

She heard a gun go off a long ways off. Her eyes flew open; she saw it was nearly time. She got up, giving herself a minute to leave the house, to trot around to the fields. Her daddy would be nearby. What if he’s not? What if he’s gone off to town? She had a moment of panic and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy, hurry, something’s happened!” she hollered. She knew it must be nine o’clock. “Dad-dy!”

Where there had been no one, River Lewis Darrow was suddenly there. He was climbing over a fence near Pesty. “Daddy!” she yelled, running to him.

He looked slightly to one side of her when he spoke. “Mattie all right?” he said, alarmed by her hollering.

“Daddy! Come quick. Everybody over Mr. Pluto’s. Say there’s been a great discovery.” Pesty stood there panting.

River Lewis stopped still. He didn’t move a muscle, and he looked as if he had been struck dumb. His boys, Wilbur and Russell and River Ross, came up.

“What is it, Daddy?” River Ross asked. River Lewis waved him quiet.

“Say again? Slowly,” he finally said to Pesty.

Pesty took a deep breath and started over. “Daddy, all them Smalls, over to Mr. Pluto’s. Everybody yelling. Mr. Small says to Mr. Thomas, ‘Thomas, this is a great discovery.’ Mr. Thomas, jumping up and down. Mr. Pluto, he had a handful of gold. Just lumps and lumps of gold. He given it to Mama!”

“Wh-what?” River Lewis stammered. “Mattie, over there? Gold?”

“She like to walk, so I walk her on over to Mr. Pluto’s ’cause she’s his friend,” Pesty said, “and she’s right in the middle of some great discovery.”

Before Pesty had finished, River Lewis was moving by her; the older sons were right with him. Then River Lewis was nearly running, and his sons were still with him. Pesty trotted at the rear. Wasn’t any use talking more about it. She had done her part.

They were nearly at Pluto’s. They had skirted Carr property and were passing by the woods when Macky walked out of the trees. He had his gun over his arm and pointing toward the ground. There was something still in a burlap sack slung over his shoulder. “What’s going on?” he called, trotting down to catch up with Pesty. “Were you yelling my name?

“Well, sure,” Pesty said. “You catch anything?”

“Sure, some squirrel,” he said. “But what did you want? Where’s everybody going?”

River Lewis and the older sons hadn’t stopped. They paid no attention to Macky as usual. “Just come on,” Pesty said, trotting again. “We have to get over to Mr. Pluto’s for the great discovery.”

“The what?” he said, carefully setting his gun and the sack down. He would pick them up later.

“Mr. Small says to his son, Mr. Thomas, ‘Thomas, this is a great discovery,’ ” Pesty explained. “And Mr. Thomas, a jumping bean. His mama there, too. She already taken the twins to school and come back. And Great Mother Jeffers say, ‘Praise heaven and earth!’ And Mr. Pluto, he have a handful of gold. He give it to Mama!”

“He what?”Macky said.

“Just come on, Macky, and you’ll see!” Pesty said.

She and Macky went, following River Lewis and the older brothers, who were truly hurrying now. When they reached the clearing before the cave, the men stopped in their tracks.

“Careful,” River Lewis whispered. He was remembering the last time they thought to enter Pluto’s cave. Then the Smalls with Pluto and his son, Mayhew, had played the awful trick on them, scaring River Lewis and his boys to death. He half suspected that little Pesty had been in on it, although he was never able to prove it. Pretending slave ghosts and Dies Drear ghost had come back to haunt the place and everything. Made him look like a fool when folks found out his boys had run in fear. He’d barely lived it down. Now here he and his sons were back again. And were they to be made fools of twice?

“Daddy, them doors to the cave is open,” said River Ross.

“I can see that,” River Lewis said. “Do you think I’m blind?”

“No, Daddy,” River Ross said.

River Lewis skirted the clearing. He intended to turn and swagger off at the slightest movement inside. But there was nothing, no sound or anything. The doors to the cave were open partway, but not enough so they could see inside.

Pesty held her breath as River Lewis reached the door. He stood for a second. Then he roughly pushed the plank doors all the way open. Not bothering to knock, he walked on in. After all, his wife must still be inside. His older sons came on behind him. Then Pesty and Macky came in.

Within, Pluto’s cave was the way it always was after breakfast. The bed was neatly made. But the forge and firepot, the bellows and anvil were cold and still today. The wood roof doors in the rock ceiling were open to the cold and light. Pesty could see a piece of sky surrounded by bare limbs of trees.

The secret wall across the cave from them had been made to slide away.

“Look!” whispered River Lewis. “Didn’t know that opening was there!”

“Daddy …” Wilbur said.

“Shut up!” River Lewis whispered loudly. Wilbur clamped his mouth shut.

Cautiously River Lewis moved up to the wall opening.

When he stands right in front of it, he will see, Pesty thought. Her heart leaped in her chest. Glad I won’t have to keep it a secret no more.

River Lewis stood at the opening, as still and dark as shadow. He was looking down. They all came up behind him, stood on either side. The opening was that wide. They had to look down into the underground cavern. Darrow men stood there, thoughts rushing so. Pesty, seeing Thomas inside looking up, could almost hear her daddy thinking: This wealth, right underfoot. Forever here. All this time.

They all were down there: Smalls and Pluto, Pluto’s son, Mayhew Skinner. He was an actor. See, Pesty? Thomas was thinking. We got hold of Mayhew, too, so Mr. Pluto would feel better about it all.

Mayhew stood coolly, smiling up at the Darrows. Pesty was glad to see him. He was her friend and always nice to her. She’d seen him on television in a commercial once. She didn’t get to see him in real life so often.

Her mama was there with Mr. Pluto on one side of her and Great Mother Jeffers on the other. Next in line were Mr. and Miz Small.

The Darrow men, River Lewis and the boys, including Macky, who’d never known the treasure existed, walked down the ramp like sleepwalkers. They were staring at the stalactites as if they’d dreamed them. They avoided touching the monstrous things. Stalagmites rose from the floor, seeming to guard what had to be one of the greatest discoveries ever uncovered: the great cavern, the stupendous treasure-house of Dies Eddington Drear.

River Lewis Darrow moved along as in a trance. His sons stumbled behind him, jostling one another and tripping over their own feet. He kept slapping back at them weakly. But none of them, not even Macky, said a word. Without even thinking about it, they all knew that they must not make loud noise in a cave this size.

They stared dumbly at everything. Mr. Pluto stood beside the Renaissance desk that commanded the approach to the cavern. He rested one hand on the polished top. His brown woolen throw over his shoulders made him look like a king: King Pluto of the Drear Underground.