Chapter 14

Gracie hadn’t slept well at the hospital and was glad to see Pastor Ted show up. She gathered her things. She wanted to be out of there. She wanted to be home. She wanted her grandfather to get well, though the doctors didn’t share much good news. Dehydrated and fighting pneumonia, Thomas had looked ghost-like, fading to blend with the white hospital sheets. Only her first wish was granted. Pastor Ted had come to pick her up and take her home for a couple of days and then return to the hospital to stay with Thomas.

Gracie’s head rested against the car window as its vibration kept her awake. The desolate blur of bare trees and stark brush hypnotized her. The image of her grandfather in the hospital, the needles and the tubes, haunted her. I should have made him drink more cider.

Pastor Ted slowed in front of Gracie’s house. “There’s nothing there you can do,” he tried to reassure her.

Gracie nodded.

“He’s going to be okay.”

Gracie nodded again.

“It’s not your fault …”

It seemed he had read her mind. Gracie turned to him and exclaimed, “It is!”

“No, Gracie. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“What if—” she stopped.

“It’s out of our hands, Gracie.” Pastor Ted stopped the car and reached for Gracie’s bag.

Gracie didn’t get out of the car when he opened her door.

“You not ready to go in yet?” he asked.

Gracie shook her head.

Through her misty eyes, she saw him get down on one knee on the ground beside where she sat in the car and bow his head. He began to pray. “Dear God, today we pray for Thomas. Please make him strong, again. Help the doctors and guide them. Take care of our sweet Gracie. She needs you. Rest Gracie’s mind. Give her peace.”

“Peace.” Gracie reached out and grabbed onto the word. Pastor Ted, unaware of the powerful memories his prayer had ignited, continued though Gracie’s mind drifted elsewhere. She had once found peace—in Kage’s arms.

* * *

Willy and Barney tugged their overalls on in the dark. Willy, with his on backwards, grunted as he tried to stumble out of them. They tiptoed in large, exaggerated steps. Willy leaned toward Barney in the dark placing his finger in front of his lips. “Shush!” he mouthed as he put on his coat trying not to wake Gene.

When they got to the barn door, they gave one another the thumbs-up sign. They were counting on the moon to light their way to the treasure. Earlier that day they’d heard two men they’d never seen before at the stockyard talking about Lost Cave. They said their sons had played in the cave and found a message scratched on the rock wall that said “THIS WAY” with an arrow beneath. At those words Willy’s eyes widened and his soiled straw hat nearly shot off his head as he turned toward Barney to see if he’d heard the same thing. Barney nodded, and they both leaned in, listening as the men speculated that the treasure might be in the cave. One man continued, “Then the boys found another etched wall that said “HERE” in big letters.” With that piece of information, Barney and Willy had revised their theory and put a new plan into action.

Gene threatened that if he found out that any treasure nonsense was going on, he’d dock their pay for every daylight hour that either of them wasted hunting treasure. So, they determined a new angle for their covert operation. Treasure hunting would begin at midnight.

Grabbing a five-gallon bucket, flashlight, shovel, and large pick, they trotted swiftly, not because it was cold, but because they wanted to beat anyone else who might have word about the treasure’s location.

When they reached the entrance of the cave, Barney headed in first, flipping on the flashlight. Barney shrieked and jumped backwards into Willy, proving that, without the incentive of treasure, spelunking wasn’t Barney’s forte as he had bragged. Their first steps revealed a possible companion.

“Lookie there. We ain’t the first ones here.” Willy picked up the snake skin and it crumbled. “Yep, one of those live ones got around my leg when I was a boy. The black snakes won’t hurt’cha, but the colored ones I don’t mess with anymore.” Willy emphasized, as if there were more to that story than he’d shared.

“I don’t like no snake a-tall, especially when the only light I got to spot one is a flashlight,” Barney confessed, as their pace slowed.

“’T’ain’t no snake you gotta worry about. It’s the bats!” Willy flapped his arms.

“There it is! Right there!” Barney called out, and Willy’s eyes shot in the direction Barney pointed.

“Well, do you believe that? Those men was tellin’ the truth. Right there in front of us.” Willy looked upon the words ‘THIS WAY’ scraped into the cave wall with the delight of a child catching Santa beneath his Christmas tree.

Barney, hopping, sputtered, “Okay, okay, what did the men say next? Didn’t they say the arrow points to it? Right?”

“Yep! They says the arrow points in the direction of the treasure, and you knows you found it when you come to the word ‘HERE’ scratched on the wall,” Willy recapped, rubbing sweat from his brow, although the cave air was cool.

For whatever reason, they both began tip-toeing, as if sneaking up on the fortune were a strategic part of treasure hunting. Minutes later the ray of light landed on the word. Willy walked up to the letters as if they were the jewels sought and brushed his hand over the word. The H was large, and the E was followed by a lowercase r, and then the final E was faded but still could be made out if you touched your nose to the rock wall, which Willy did.

Barney turned in circles ready to begin digging. “Do you take the pick straight to the wall there, Willy? Knock it down and pull that treasure straight out, you think?”

Willy looked at Barney like he was stupid. “Naw, you don’t do that. This is t-r-e-s-u-r, boy.” He spelled out the word slowly as if that was the only way Barney would understand. “We hunt for hidden treasure where it’s buried.” He placed the shovel dead center of the ground floor parallel to the scratched stone wall.

Barney smiled and shook his finger at Willy. “You’s a smart one. Right there, huh? Okay, I’ll give it the first lick.”

“Fifty-fifty remember,” Willy reaffirmed their deal to split whatever they found.

Throwing the pick back above his head and shoulders, Barney gave the unadulterated red clay floor a whack, chipping a piece of it about the size of the pick’s tip. “Hum, that stuff’s harder than I thought.”

“Here, let me do that.” Willy took the pick and mimicked Barney’s motion, adding intense facial expressions resembling constipation as he used all of his arm strength. Willy’s efforts were even less successful.

Barney guffawed, his laughter bouncing off the walls of the cave.

Not easily deterred, they both took turns pecking and shoveling the clay. Willy removed his jacket and tugged his shirt away from his neck.

“Should’ve brought a water jug.” Barney listened as his voice echoed.

“You can get you some water over there.” Willy pointed to the water trickling down the cave wall.

“You really suggestin’ that I stick my tongue to that rock wall and lap up that water like a dog?” Barney mocked sarcastically.

“Yes, sir. That there’s some good water, as fine as any you’ll drink. I promise.” Willy walked over to the cave rock and stuck his tongue out letting the drips fall from the ceiling to his extended tongue.

Barney’s pick struck the ground this time with an unmistakable ding. Their eyes shot to one another. Barney threw his pick again and the clank echoed once more. Willy jigged, leaping toward Barney. “We’s done it, Barney. We’s found the treasure!”

Pushing Barney aside, Willy started digging with the shovel breaking away at the ground. A dirty, silver edge peeked from the red clay.

“Is it a chest full of the treasure, you think?”

“Uh-huh,” Willy said and placed his foot on the upper edge of the shovel. He grunted as he pushed the shovel’s blade into the ground.

Barney propped the flashlight on a rock and started singing and dancing, hollering, “Yippy, yippy, yea. We found us some treasure today.”

Amid Barney’s whooping and leaping, something swooped down and fluttered in front of his face. Barney slapped madly at it. Instead of song, curse words poured out in high pitched squeals. Willy leapt up, to see the commotion, and the fluttering creature swooped next toward him. Both Barney and Willy jumped and twirled like wild cavemen ingesting magic mushrooms and took off running in a fierce scurry, leaving everything but the flashlight behind. Neither slowed as they exited the cave. Their careful navigation lost in the frantic exit, they ran directly into a wild patch of blackberry bushes, and hundreds of tiny thorns scraped their exposed hands and faces.

* * *

“Who is it?” Gracie yelled, jerking from the porch swing and backing against the house in one full step. The cool night air helped after the nightmares—this time she’d been walking in circles, desperate, lost, and alone. Yet now, realizing that she wasn’t alone, she eased toward the door, the shingles on the side of the house tickling her back. She didn’t take her eyes from the path where she heard the voices.

“Go away! I have a gun,” she called to the trees. Gracie now wished she had paid better attention when her grandfather taught her how to shoot his gun. She thought he was simply trying to do something special with her, since he knew more about guns than fingernail polish. But now she wondered if he had been concerned for a night like this, concerned for her safety.

“Don’t you come near here!” She screamed and reached for the screen door handle. Even her empty home didn’t feel safe any longer. She tried to remember if she had locked the back door.

Just then two men emerged from the forest, running and squalling. They immediately turned down the gravel road, away from Gracie, swatting their heads and leaping insanely. The thinner, taller man took to the gravel like a jackrabbit, quickly gaining distance on the plumper one. Gracie, not sure if there were more people in the thicket, ran inside and locked all her doors.

* * *

Pearl came home after midnight, stumbled and dropped her keys just inside the door. She was not alone. “Harold, I dropped my keys,” she giggled.

They both bent to pick them up and bumped heads. Pearl squealed.

Harold embraced her from behind and tried to walk forward—their feet tangled. Pearl tripped, and Harold pulled her up.

“Shhh, you’ll wake my little brother, Beenjaammiin,” she sounded out his name, slurring each syllable.

Kage pretended to sleep.

He had tried earlier to call Gracie but couldn’t get through. Pearl’s phone was dead—no dial tone. He had unplugged it and plugged it back into the wall and still nothing.