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  It didn’t take Andy long to find the box. It was heavy, but he balanced his notebook on top and managed to carry it down the stairs.

  As he staggered through the back door of his own home, his mother, who had been looking through the day’s mail, glanced up in surprise and rose to help him. Strands of reddish brown hair clung to her cheeks, her tailored blouse and skirt were wrinkled from the late September heat, and she had kicked her shoes off.

  “Hello. What in the world is that?” she asked.

  “I dunno,” Andy said. “Miss Winnie said it was full of papers and photos that might help me with my genealogy report.”

  “I can’t wait to see what’s in here,” she said, cutting the tape on the sealed box with the letter opener. “I’d love to know more about the Bonners.”

  “Then I wish you could write the report, instead of me!” Andy told her.

  “Oh, come on, Andy,” Mrs. Thomas said as she pulled off the top of the box. “This is fun. Let’s take a look.”

  In spite of himself, he was intrigued as his mother gently removed a handful of papers, smoothing them against the kitchen tabletop and laying them flat. “Letters … a bill of sale for livestock … an old receipt for county property taxes … Oh! Here’s a child’s drawing,” she said, then reached into the box for a framed photograph.

  “My, my, look at this,” she murmured. “You’ll have to ask Miss Winnie who all these people are. It looks like a family portrait, taken at a party.”

  Andy, who could almost match his mother’s height, leaned over her shoulder, studying the faded, brown-tinged, double row of unsmiling adults—so many they filled the photo, crowding against the narrow wooden frame. The women were dressed in high-necked, long-sleeved dresses, with skirts that touched the ground. The men’s necks were squeezed uncomfortably inside stiff, high collars that poked above high-buttoned coats.

  “It must have been a terrible party,” Andy said. “They all look miserable.”

  “Back in the eighteen hundreds, people didn’t usually smile when they had their photographs taken,” his mother said. “For one thing, they had to hold still without moving for a long time, while the photo was being made. Also, many of them had missing teeth! Dental work wasn’t what it is today.”

  Andy peered more closely. “The men are wearing something around their necks,” he said. “They look like bolo ties, except they each end in a circle.”

  “Like this?” His mother fished a narrow strip of leather from the box. Hanging from the middle of it was a horseshoe nail, hammered flat.

  “Weird,” Andy said as he took it and examined it. He hung it around his own neck.

  Mrs. Thomas reached into the box again. “Oh, look, there are some books in here, too. What’s this? A poetry book. And this one looks like a child’s reader.” She pulled out a thick, heavy book with a worn, frayed leather cover. “This must be an old family Bible,” she said.

  She opened it and held it toward Andy so that he could see a faded list of names. “Malcolm John Bonner,” she said. “He wrote his birthdate and date of marriage to Grace Elizabeth Hardy. And their children are listed underneath.” She touched the page lightly. “Someone has added their dates of death, as well. This is a real treasure.”

  “They sure had a lot of kids,” Andy said. “There’s a second Malcolm John Bonner, and an Elizabeth Anne, Margaret Jane, Cole Joseph, Peter James, Victoria Grace, and Rose Marie. Looks like for a while Mrs. Bonner had a baby every other year, or even closer.”

  “Back then people had big families because they knew they’d lose some of their children to illness,” Mrs. Thomas told Andy. “Look at the dates of birth and death. Victoria Grace and Rose Marie were infant deaths. Peter James lived only into his mid-twenties.”

  Andy stared at one name on the page. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Cole Joseph had a birthdate—August 1, 1856—but not a date of death, and somebody put a line through his name. Isn’t that weird?”

  His mother shrugged. “That’s something to ask Miss Winnie about.”

  Andy took a step toward the back door as he said, “Grandpa, Grandma, and Miss Winnie are going to a movie, but I think I can catch them before they leave.”

  “When’s the report due?” Mrs. Thomas asked.

  “In a couple of weeks,” Andy answered.

  “Then visit Miss Winnie tomorrow. She’ll tell you then.” Mrs. Thomas smiled. “You’re really interested in this project, aren’t you?” she observed.

  “I can make it,” Andy insisted as he fingered the flattened nail. “I just have to ask her two questions.” He was sure Miss Winnie had a secret, a family story she didn’t want told, and he was beginning to suspect that the story had to do with Cole Joseph Bonner.

  Andy ran through the crackling leaves, promising himself he’d rake them up for Grandpa as soon as he found time. He arrived just as Grandpa and Grandma were helping Miss Winnie down the back steps.

  “Me again,” he called. “I only want to ask you two questions, Miss Winnie!” Andy paused, gulping in a long breath. He held up the nail on the leather thong he was wearing. “What is this?”

  Miss Winnie smiled. “That’s a nail from the shoes of Malcolm John Bonner’s horses. He made those circles for himself and his sons to wear. I believe they stood for his faith in the family’s future. A circle means ‘unbroken,’ you know.”

  “They all wore them?”

  “So I heard. Always.”

  Grandma Dorothy looked at her watch, so Andy quickly said, “The last question’s about Malcolm John Bonner’s family Bible.”

  Miss Winnie started. “The Bible? That was in the box?”

  “All the names listed had birthdates as well as dates of death—all except one. Cole Joseph Bonner. Somebody drew a line through his name.”

  Miss Winnie leaned heavily on Grandpa Zeke’s arm. “There was no Cole Joseph Bonner,” she said so firmly that the tight white curls on her forehead bounced.

  “His name was right there,” Andy persisted. “It was written in the same handwriting as the other names. So sure there was. You know why it was crossed out? Please tell me.”

  “Listen to me, Andy boy,” Miss Winnie said. “You’re poking your nose into matters where it shouldn’t be poked. I don’t care what your Mr. Hammerhead assigned. Leave Coley Joe out of it. You’re going to stir up problems that you and the family can’t handle.”

  “Coley Joe? You called him Coley Joe! That means you know about him!”

  Miss Winnie’s finger waggled at Andy’s nose. “Don’t ask me questions about him, because you won’t get any answers,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, he never existed. Forget all about Coley Joe, or you’re going to cause all of us a great deal of trouble!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  That evening Andy had other homework to do. But he found time to call J.J., whom he told about Coley Joe.

  “Maybe someone in our family really was a horse thief or a train robber,” Andy said. “I wish I could find out.”

  “If Miss Winnie won’t answer questions about him, why don’t you just let it drop?”

  “She didn’t say I couldn’t ask someone else.”

  “But you said she didn’t want anyone to know about him because it would cause trouble,” J.J. reminded him.

  “I don’t know what kind of trouble Coley Joe could cause. He was born in 1856. That’s a long time ago.” Andy paused and added, “J.J., I could see that my knowing about Coley Joe scared her.”

  “Then why don’t you just do what she said?” J.J. asked. “Forget about him.”

  Andy fingered the leather thong he still wore around his neck. “I just can’t.”

  When J.J. didn’t respond to that, Andy said, “Listen, J.J., your family has an important great-great-great-great in it. Half the town’s named after him. And you’ve got a cousin who’s acted in two movies and an uncle who went to Washington as a congressman. Nobody in my family’s done anything like that. The most exciting thing that’s e
ver happened to anyone in the family was when Uncle Jeff, on my mom’s side, won a trip to the Super Bowl. Don’t you see? I need Coley Joe.”

  “What about your aunt Winnie?”

  “I won’t do anything that would hurt her. Whatever I find out about Coley Joe will be my secret. I think that’s fair.”

  “Okay, I guess,” J.J. said. “It’s up to you.”

  “And maybe to you. Or your great-grandmother, that is.”

  “Miz Minna?”

  “I’d like to talk to her. Just to ask if she ever heard of Coley Joe. Is that okay with you?”

  “Are you sure you want to find out?” J.J. asked. “He may have done something you really don’t want to know about.”

  Andy felt suddenly defensive. “Well, maybe he didn’t.”

  “Then his name wouldn’t have been crossed out.”

  Andy didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “You watch too many old cowboy movies,” he said.

  “You’re the one who said maybe he was a train robber or—”

  Andy interrupted. “I’ll see you tomorrow and stop off to visit Miz Minna when we walk home. Okay?”

  As Andy hung up the phone he heard J.J. saying, “Okay … I guess.”

  The minute the bell rang in history class the next morning, Mr. Hammergren asked, “How many of you have begun your interviews with relatives?”

  Lee Ann Dooley waved a hand. “I can’t! My grandma in Florida just got married again and is off on a honeymoon. And my grandma who lives in a rest home can’t remember much of anything.”

  “Then ask your parents if they’ve heard any of your grandparents’ stories. Go back as far as you can. Maybe your family history will begin when your parents were children.”

  “Everyone else has grandparents.” Lee Ann’s lower lip curled outward. Her glance fixed on J.J. “Or even a great-grandparent.”

  “Tell you what,” Mr. Hammergren said. “I’ll let you borrow my grandmother. She won’t know any stories about your family, but she can tell you about riding streetcars when she visited the big city and canning vegetables and making jam and sewing all the clothes for a family of six girls. See me after class and I’ll give you her phone number if you’d like to speak to her.”

  He glanced around the classroom. “Anyone else having trouble getting started?”

  Harvey Marks spoke up. “My great-grandpa has got some good stories about things he did with his cousins while he was growing up, but he can’t keep their names straight.”

  “Did his cousins live in Hermosa?”

  Harvey nodded.

  “It won’t be hard for you to get the right names,” Mr. Hammergren said. “If they were born here, you can look for their birthdates in county records. If they died here, you can do the same.” He smiled. “Or you might even go to the cemetery and check the names on the tombstones. Some of the old tombstones have information on them that isn’t in the cemetery’s records.”

  “But don’t visit the cemetery at night,” Nelson Banks growled in a scary voice, and everyone laughed.

  Luke Martin raised his hand. “I’ve got a problem, Mr. Hammergren,” he said. “When my mom’s father was young, he got in a fight and went to jail. Mom said under no circumstances could I put that in my report.”

  “I certainly don’t expect you to include every single family story you discover,” Mr. Hammergren said. “Record the best. Make your report interesting. And remember that it’s better to leave some things out of the report.”

  “Like the mystery man.” Andy realized he had spoken aloud when some of the kids turned and looked at him.

  “What mystery man?” Lee Ann asked.

  Andy carefully gave his explanation. “He’s one of my dad’s relatives, from way back in the eighteen hundreds. His birthdate was listed in the family Bible, but then his name was crossed out. My great-aunt Winnie first said he never existed. Then she told me not to ask questions about him because she wouldn’t answer them.”

  “Then I’d suggest you forget this mystery relative,” Mr. Hammergren said. “This report is not intended to cause family problems.”

  But Andy’s mind was on Coley Joe. He wasn’t about to forget him.

  Lila Martinez, the Gaspers’ housekeeper, opened the door just as J.J. reached for the knob. She smiled and said, “Hey, J.J. Hey, Andy. How’s it going?”

  “Fine, Lila,” J.J. answered.

  “You came because you knew I just took some cookies out of the oven. Right, Andy?”

  Andy smiled. “I came for cookies and homework. We’re here to do some homework, Mrs. Martinez.”

  She cocked her head as though she were studying Andy, and her eyes twinkled. “That doesn’t look like a homework face. It looks like you’re up to something.”

  “We’re doing research on our family histories,” Andy said. “And we’re going to see if Miz Minna will answer some of our questions.”

  Lila’s smile grew broader. “She’ll be glad for a little company. All her old lady friends were either at the beauty parlor, the doctor, or visiting relatives today, so Miz Minna’s been bored with no one to talk to. She’s in her sitting room. Please tell her I’ll bring up cookies and something cold to drink in a couple of minutes.”

  Lila left, but J.J. hesitated at the foot of the stairs. “Why don’t we forget the history homework for now and shoot baskets?” he asked.

  “After the questions,” Andy insisted. He marched around J.J. and up the stairs.

  The door to Miz Minna’s sitting room was wide open. In a dark blue silk dress, with the opera-length pearls she always wore, she sat framed against the wide, velvet-swagged window. In spite of the puffiness around her eyes and chin, Andy was reminded of the painting of a duchess he had seen on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art.

  Miz Minna had been watching a television show, and she quickly clicked off the power as Andy tapped on the door frame.

  “Come in, boys,” she called in her soft little sugar voice. “How nice of y’all to come and visit me. Does Lila know you’re here?”

  “She said to tell you she’d send up cookies and something cold to drink,” J.J. answered. He bent to kiss Miz Minna’s forehead.

  Miz Minna beamed and said, “Sit down. Please, sit down. Pull those chairs a little closer, but don’t break anything while you’re doing it. Watch the vase, J.J.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” J.J. answered politely.

  “Did J.J. tell you that I’m making it easy for him to write his history report?” Miz Minna asked Andy. “Over the past few years, not only have I researched our genealogy by hunting in old family records, but I’ve bought books about the time periods. I have volumes that show the kinds of clothes people wore, what they used for cooking, the buggies and surreys they rode in. It makes me glad that there’s a good deal of information J.J. can finally use.”

  J.J. looked embarrassed, but Andy simply asked, “How did you do all that research?”

  “Some of it came from old family records, including a very special journal kept by the first James Jonathan Gasper, but most of it I did by computer.” Miz Minna winked coyly. “The electronic age is not just for the younger generation.”

  Andy glanced at the computer and printer on a desk at the far side of the room. “Do you mean you used the computer to look up stuff about your family?”

  “Not only that. If you enter the Internet directly or subscribe to a computer service, you can link into some of the world’s finest genealogy centers, such as the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. And the bulletin boards are useful, too.”

  “Bulletin boards?”

  Impatiently, J.J. said, “You know about computers, Andy. Miz Minna uses the place where people send messages to each other. In the genealogy boards they write messages asking for help in finding information about old guys who are supposed to be part of their family trees.”

  “J.J.!” Miz Minna snapped. “They are not ‘old guys,’ as you put it. I was able to trace our own branch of
the family back to some highly respected gentlemen from the Carolinas.” As her voice softened, she preened and said, “Why, the first James Jonathan Gasper’s father, Wilfred Edmunton Gasper, fought as a major in the War Between the States.

  Andy didn’t think he’d better ask which side, but he thought that if Miss Winnie could learn to use his dad’s computer, then she could look up her ancestors, too.

  Lila Martinez brought in a tray of snacks.

  “Miz Minna, you know just about everything about everybody who ever came to Hermosa, don’t you?” Andy asked.

  She almost giggled and said modestly, “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  “Do you know anything about Coley Joe Bonner? He was born in 1856.”

  A smug smile crossed her lips. “Why are you asking about Coley Joe Bonner?”

  “Because he’s kind of a mystery man in our family. I found his name written in Malcolm John Bonner’s family Bible, along with their other children, but his name was crossed out, and there wasn’t a date of death.”

  “Did you ask Miss Winnie about him?”

  “Miss Winnie said he didn’t exist.”

  Miz Minna leaned forward. “Oh, he existed, all right, or his name and birthdate wouldn’t have been written into the Bible.”

  “Then why was it crossed out?”

  Miz Minna sighed plaintively. “On rare occasions—very rare, you understand—a son or daughter so disgraced the family that a father would cross out the name. It was a symbol that the person was no longer a part of the family.”

  Andy felt as though a rock had dropped into his stomach. Sure, he’d told J.J. that it would be fun to have a bank robber or horse thief in the family, but he realized he hadn’t really meant it.

  “Do you know what Coley Joe did to get crossed out of the family?” Andy asked.

  “Yes, indeed. There’s proof. However, it’s not up to me to rattle other families’ skeletons,” Miz Minna said. “You’d better ask Miss Winnie to tell you.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she thought, and her voice shifted from sweet to salty. “On the other hand, maybe you’d better not,” she warned him. “Sometimes asking too many questions leads to trouble.”