The Eyes of Kid Midas Read Free

tent like a hermit.
    It was Josh who dragged him out.
    "If you don't come out," said Josh, "it'll make Bertram look even better. It'll mean he beat you up so bad you were ashamed to show your face."
    Kevin had to accept the logic, as much as he hated to.
    The sun was already beneath the horizon when Kevin shuffled over to the campfire. Now the mountain reflected a rich purple blanket across the campsite that clashed with the flickering orange flames of the fire.
    Kevin couldn't quite make out the faces, but he imagined that they all stared at him as he sat down.
    He grabbed a marshmallow stick and poked it into the fire, sending sparks that flew into the air and faded quickly out of focus. Embarrassed to look up, Kevin just listened as Kirkpatrick rambled on in his earth-science sort of way about the mountain.
    "The Divine Watch," he said, "is a mountain of mystery, a place with roots dating back thousands of years." Kirkpatrick turned to look at the dark peak, its shade of violet getting deeper and deeper. "It was sacred to the Native Americans. They called it 'The Eye of God.' "
    Now Kevin began to pay attention. When he squinted, he could make out Kirkpatrick's face across the fire. He was leaning into the center of the circle, drawing everyone into the story.
    "The Native Americans believed that the sun- god peered off the top of the mountain each morning to drive back the forces of darkness and clear a path for the coming day. They feared that if he slept through dawn and didn't fight back the darkness, the sun would never rise again, and the world would be thrown into chaos."
    Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled out a badly scratched eyeglass lens. He peered through it at the mountain. Its face was completely black now—an absolute ebony against a sky filling with stars.
    Kevin began to forget his swollen mouth and black eye as he listened to Mr. Kirkpatrick weave the ancient legend.
    "There's a prophecy," said Mr. Kirkpatrick, "that goes something like this:"
    The flames began to leap higher as he spoke.
    In the balance of dark and day, The endless battle; the lasting peace, Our lives are born of the dying dream, In the balance of dark and day.
    "What does it mean?" someone asked.
    "It means" said Nicole Patterson, who alwaysknew what everything meant, "that if morning never came, we would sleep forever and never wake up."
    "Something like that," said Mr. Kirkpatrick, raising his eyebrows.
    Bertram tossed a plastic fork into the fire.
    "Dumb Indians," said Bertram. "What do they know?" The plastic fork twisted to a slow, painful end in the flames.
    "I think they knew quite a lot, Bertram," said Mr. Kirkpatrick, "because that's not where the story ends." The last glow of twilight was gone from the sky now, and the fire played on Mr. Kirkpatrick's face. That and his crazy gum-shorn hair made him look like a shaman—an Indian medicine man.
    "There's another place," he said, "fifty miles to the west, called the Devil's Punch Bowl. It's a huge bowl a mile wide, carved into the stone like the crater of a meteor, and in the very center of the bowl is a tall spike of rock, hundreds of feet high. That spike is called the Devil's Chair."
    "So?" said Hal.
    "So," said Mr. Kirkpatrick, "about a hundred years ago, two astronomers discovered something incredible! They discovered that the shadow of the very tip of the Divine Watch rests on the Devil's Chair at dawn, twice a year!"
    "When?" asked Josh.
    "I know!" Kevin blurted out. " 'In the balance of dark and day.' That must be the spring and fall equinox—it's the only time when both the day and night are exactly twelve hours long!"
    Mr. Kirkpatrick gave a broad shaman's smile.
    Josh smiled back at him, calling his bluff. "How conveeeeenient," said Josh, "that tomorrow is September twenty-first—the fall equinox. C'mon, Mr. Kirkpatrick—the whole thing's a bunch of baloney, isn't it?"
    "Yeah," Bertram agreed, greatly relieved. "I knew it. I knew it all along."
    "Maybe,"