89

Beale Vault

They’d brought two.

Bel shined hers into the vault. It was no more than ten feet deep with waist-high terra cotta pots lining the floor and shortening the distance between outside and in. The hole was only wide enough for one person at a time to stick in their head. Bel volunteered, tipping her upper body over the edge while Salem held her feet.

“More clay pots,” she said, her voice echoing. She yanked herself back out and pulled off her sling. “I’m going first.”

“I’m going to tie your rope around that tree while you go in,” Ronald said, pointing at a pine. “Only a fool and a ground hog go into the ground without a way out.”

Ernest went second. He was tall enough to stand on one of the clay pots and pull himself out, if need be, so Salem lowered herself down next, the second flashlight tucked into the waistband of her khaki pants. She eased her feet between a cluster of pots so she could stand firmly and flashed her light into the farthest reaches. The vault was indeed shaped like a jug, the floor a circle with a 12-foot diameter, clay pots lined three high on the perimeter. There were at least a hundred of them.

Salem slid the lid off the waist-high pot nearest her. It made a scraping sound. It was packed to the brim with circles of gold. She grabbed a fistful, the sun shining through the opening of the vault and lighting up the treasure.

A shadow dimmed the sun overhead.

Salem glanced up, throat tight. They should have waited for the rope to come down. They were at the mercy of Ronald, a stranger.

His face peered down, followed by a rope. “That what I think it is?” he asked.

She held up her hand to him. Five feet separated them, but he still reached for the gold.

He smiled. “I’ll be hot-damned. I’ll stay up here. One of us should.”

Trust no one.

Salem shone her light toward Bel, whose back was to her. “Find anything?”

“Every urn I’ve opened contains gold, or jewels, or silver.”

“Same here,” Ernest said.

“Keep looking. We need to find whatever it is that’s going to ruin the Hermitage.”

The scraping of terra cotta pots being opened filled the space, echoing off the walls, interrupted by the occasional gasp as Bel uncovered a container of rubies, or Ernest found a small cask filled with loose pearls, like a vase of creamy marbles. It was amazing, glorious, beyond belief. Without a car and GPS, it would have taken months to locate this spot, if it would have even been possible. Thomas J. Beale couldn’t have conceived the world his treasure would be born into.

“Wait!” Salem said. Her light shined off a pot different than the rest. It had a lightning bolt cast into its side.

Here you will find the treasure, and the Lightning Bolt …

She waded through the maze of pots until she stood in front of it. The lightning bolt pot was stacked on top of another and stood at chest height. She slid off the top and tipped the pot to peer inside. It contained rolls of paper. She pulled them out.

“Come here and hold my flashlight!”

Ernest reached her side first, Bel seconds after. With shaking hands, she unrolled the paper on a nearby ledge. The first one was a letter signed by Thomas J. Beale and dated 10 August 1814:

Major General Andrew Jackson altered the Treaty of Fort Jackson, falsely, after the Chiefs entered their signatures. My men have intercepted the one true original, which rests herein. If the accurate Convention is brought before the Nation’s eye, Jackson cannot rewrite history. The whole of Alabama and the valuable parts of Coosa and Kahawha containing in all approximately twenty-three millions of acres are NOT articles of the Creek’s cession. Major General Jackson has created copies that cast out this fact, but they are unconsummated by the signatures of the Chiefs of the Creek Nation and contain only the letter X where a name should be. With the Truth herein, and the strength of the Creek Treasure encased in this vault, the Indians keep Alabama and Georgia, and Jackson’s fortune and reputation are struck a fatal blow.

—Thomas J. Beale

“Holy shit,” Salem said. “Alabama and Georgia legally belong to the Creek nation?”

“Let’s see the treaty,” Bel insisted.

Salem set Beale’s note aside. The three pages underneath were a thicker parchment. The top started out with this:

Articles of agreement and capitulation, made and concluded
this ninth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and
fourteen, between major general Andrew Jackson, on behalf
of the President of the United States of America, and the
chiefs, deputies, and warriors of the Creek Nation.

Salem skimmed the section blaming the Creeks for starting a war against the US until she got to the First Article.

The United States demand an equivalent for all expenses incurred in prosecuting the war to its termination, by a cession of all the territory belonging to the Creek nation within the territories of
the United States, except that lying west, south, and south-eastwardly, of a line to be run and described by persons duly authorized and appointed by the President of the United States.

The treaty then went on to describe in great detail the land the Creek were to keep, with Article 2 underscoring the Creek’s claim to most of Alabama and southern Georgia:

2nd—The United States will guarantee to the Creek nation
the integrity of all their Territory within said line to be
run and described as mentioned in the first article.

The rest of the treaty was devoted to the language of peace, including the Creek agreeing to no longer collude with the British, to remain in their designated lands in Alabama and Georgia, and to never again engage in conflict with the United States. The entire third page was given over to signatures, the spider webs of ink impossible to read in some places, though Salem clearly made out the signature of Andrew Jackson along with some others—Faue Emautla, of Cussetau; William McIntosh, for Hopoiee Haujo, of Ooseoochee; Eneah Thlucco, of Immookfau.

“Are these official?” Bel asked.

“They sure look like it,” Salem said. “You know what this means?”

“Andrew Jackson not only morally stole Indian land. He broke established law to do it,” Ernest said.

“I don’t know.” Bel rubbed her cheek. “Weren’t treaties broken all the time?”

“Yeah, but that was then. This is now.” Salem swiveled to count all the pots of gold and gems the vault contained. “With this treasure on their side, the surviving Creek nation could muck up the courts for years while this gets figured out. Jackson built his fortune on a falsehood, which means the Hermitage Foundation did too. They might survive this going public, but they might not.”

Bel whooped.

Ernest leaned over and scooped them both into his arms. “I can’t believe you two did it. You’re going to put a vault-sized dent in the Hermitage!”

“Not if we don’t get out of this hole,” Bel said. “Salem, you first. Tuck those papers into your pants and let’s go.”

“Wait, what’s this?” A slip of paper freed itself from the roll. It was half the size of the land deeds but tucked between them. She picked it up and shined the flashlight on it. “It looks like some sort of code.”

“Gawd, no,” Bel groaned.

“I’m taking a picture.” Salem lined up her phone. “We can deal with it later.”

The code consisted of columns of seemingly random letters as opposed to the numbers Beale had used in his famous ciphers. She snapped a couple shots, rolled the papers back up, and tucked the works into the back of her pants.

They’d parked their car on the side of the road over five hours ago. They’d changed history in that time.

Salem held her arms toward the fading sunshine, her shoulders stiff with fatigue. “Ronald, I’m coming up!”

Ernest climbed on top of the clay pot immediately under the hole and made a bridge with his fingers. Salem stepped into it and used his leverage and the rope to wrench herself up and out. The warmth of the dappled fall sunshine was a relief after the close air of the vault. She hoisted one knee over the edge, and then the other, turning to look for Ronald.

She found him lying on the ground, blood pulsing from a gash in his throat.

A man stood behind Ronald’s corpse, holding a knife to the throat of a woman.

Her face was swollen and battered, but she was recognizable.

The killer looked tired, his clothes rumpled, but he was still breathtaking.

His snake eyes studied her.

He held his finger to his gorgeous mouth, his meaning unmistakable.

Make no noise or sudden movement. I want your friends here for this.