Free Gasparilla's Treasure (Trip Mongomery Book 1) by Scott Clements Page B

surprised how young Pappy looked in all the pictures.  And in some of the photos, Trip’s dad was about the same age Trip was now. 
    As he went through the photos for the hundredth time, Trip noticed something he had not seen before.  The photos were all taken in public places, and there were other people going on about their business in the background.  That was not the unusual thing.  But in every single picture, there was an old Native American man in the background.  In some of the photos it was hard to find him in the blurry backgrounds, but in some of the pictures, he was right behind Pappy and Dad.
    Trip picked out the picture with the best view of the old man and studied it closely.  He had long grey hair and a bandana tied around his forehead.  Deep wrinkles creased his entire face, but the wrinkles were most pronounced in his forehead.  His lips were pursed tight together at a strange angle, sending small wrinkles out from his mouth like spider webs.
    But what held Trip’s attention most were the eyes.  They looked right into Trip’s soul and bored into him.  Trip found it difficult to look away. 
    Trip woke up gripping the picture in his hand, and didn’t remember falling asleep.  He had been studying the picture, and the next thing he knew he woke up.  That is all he could remember.  How long was he asleep?  He looked at the clock and saw it was just after three thirty.  He must have only been asleep about twenty minutes.
    He looked at the picture again, and the man was not there.  He shuffled through the pictures and could not find the man in any of them.  How could that be?  Trip still felt the old man’s eyes studying him.  He could still see the tight lip grimace.  And yet, the old man was not in any of the pictures.  Had Trip been dreaming?  That must be it. 
    He continued to look over the pictures for more than two hours, and again drifted to sleep in the attic, surrounded by his past.  He dreamed about the man in the pictures.
    He awoke with a start. The man seemed so real to Trip, even now, but it must have been his imagination playing tricks on him.  Trip decided he should try and get some real sleep, so he put the pictures away and trudged down to bed.

CHAPTER 15
     
    As Trip slept, he dreamed of the day’s events.  His dreams were different from reality.  Alone at night, he snuck into the Gonzalez-Alvarez house.  He looked around the shadowy room and spotted the pot on the shelf.  He took the pot down and gently placed it down on the ground, then pulled the shelf out of the wall and grabbed the piece of the map from the hole. 
    The map was huge.  He unrolled it, and instead of the map, it was a hand drawn picture of Pappy.  He was young, just as he was in the photographs, but then suddenly he turned old and frail.  The paper crumbled to dust in Trip’s hands, and a breeze carried the dust away.
    As Trip put the shelf back in place and picked up the pot, he was overly cautious.  Something in the darkness caught his eye.  A small red fox slinked through the shadows, eyes bright in the gloom.
    Trip walked towards the dark corner where the fox had disappeared.  He found himself face to face with the old Native American man from the photos.  As they stared at each other intently, the old man’s eyes searched his soul.
    Trip was not afraid, in fact, a feeling of complete serenity came over him.  Trip recognized wisdom in the man’s weathered face, as if the knowledge of the entire world lived inside his soul.  Not the knowledge of man, but the knowledge of the earth, the trees, the rivers, and the animals; the knowledge and wisdom of all things good and pure.  Trip felt it all in the old man’s searching eyes and he felt at peace; a quiet in his soul few people ever feel.
    As his entire body relaxed, the pot slipped from his hands and crashed to the floor.  Trip jolted awake.
    He sat in his bed looking around, not sure if he was awake or asleep.  He still