Front Yard

Artis and Nimwell wrung their hands and looked down at the floor.

“We mean it’s not there, Miss Price,” Artis said.

“And you actually went to the hole itself and looked in, and used your treasure detectors, and dug around some?”

“Well,” said Nimwell. “Not exactly, Miss Price.”

Artis tried steal a glance at his brother, and gave his head a tiny shake, which would have been barely perceptible to most people.

“I saw that!” screeched Miss Price. “I saw that. It’s a signal, isn’t it? It means ‘Don’t tell Miss Price the truth,’ doesn’t it? Huh?” Locking her jaw into a steely smirk, Miss Price gazed first at Artis, then at Nimwell, in a manner that reminded them of the judge passing down the sentence—a $15,000 fine and one year in jail, suspended—for trespassing on public property and theft of same. That was at Vicksburg.

“What happened?”

Artis and Nimwell looked at each other.

“No more signals, now,” Miss Price barked. “As you’ve seen I can detect your little secret signals. Fess up!”

“Well, we really didn’t get to look at the hole,” said Nimwell, who was usually the brother delegated to making incriminating confessions when they were warranted, mainly because hardly anyone could understand what he was saying once his nerves got the better of him. “Is often accountable and found out through discovery, and, I must say, of a threatening nature, is the sot which out is through and back again.”

“What in the name of God are you saying? You didn’t get to the hole? Well, I thought that was the whole idea behind the tree-removal ruse!”

“The Fremonts found us out,” Artis said. “They figured out what was up and threatened to call the cops if we didn’t leave. We can’t afford any more law enforcement encounters, Miss Price. We’ve got two convictions on our records, and there are outstanding warrants on us in three . . .”

“Four.”

“Four states.”

Miss Price sighed.

“Incompetents and criminals, that’s who I’ve hired,” she moaned. “What in the name of God have I done to deserve this?”

“We brought you back the stump,” said Artis.

“Just as you asked,” said Nimwell. “And it’s got quite a large and tangled root system.”

Miss Price instantly broke free of her mournful reverie and leaned forward toward the Scroggit brothers, causing them instinctively to flinch and draw back ever so slightly.

“That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good. And you had it delivered to the Historical Society parking lot, as I directed you to do?” Both nodded their heads furiously.

“Okay. Let’s head over there right this instant. I’m driving. We want to get over there pronto in case somebody might get it into his head to steal it.”

Artis chuckled. Nimwell smiled.

“Miss Price,” Artis said. “Who in the world would want to steal a tree stump?”

“Who’s to say the Fremonts won’t come charging in to reclaim their lost property, eh?” said Miss Price. “Now, get up. We’re going to head straight over there. Give me your keys. I’m driving your car, and you’re not getting a dime of mileage out of me. You got your pick and shovel to dig the dirt out of those roots?”

Artis shook his head.

“Those are back at our store, Miss Price.”

“Okay, never mind. We’ll dig it out with our bare hands if we have to.”

Billowing their oil cloud behind them, they made the four miles to the Historical Society in three minutes flat, running two red lights and three stop signs, barely avoiding a collision with a Jim’s Sanitation Service truck, and miraculously avoiding detection by the Livia police. When they skidded to a stop in the Historical Society parking lot, Artis and Nimwell were quivering mounds of jelly, marveling that they had survived, and wondering, based on the fog-thick cloud trailing them, how long it would take for their engine to blow up.

“All ashore that’s going ashore!” shouted Miss Price. She jumped out of the car and found herself face-to-face with the turned-over stump, which sprouted a Medusa head of roots, turf, and clotted dirt covering at least seventy square feet.

“Let’s get digging!” she shouted. “Hey, what’s wrong with you two? Or should that be a big surprise to me?” As Miss Price ran her hands over the roots and began to claw away at the dirt trapped within their tangled network, Artis and Nimwell hung back, standing silently by the car.

“What is it you want us to do?” wondered Artis meekly.

“Well, what do you think I want you to do?” barked Miss Price. “Drop your trousers and do your business right here in the parking lot? My God, you would’ve thought I was asking you to jump through hoops of fire. We’re going to dig through this mess to find out if our treasure’s tangled up in it. If it’s not down in the hole somewhere, it just could be all knotted up deep in these roots. There’s no telling what could be locked up in here. Now, go to the back of the building, and look for a couple of big plastic buckets under the eaves. You should find some trowels and gardening forks in them. I use them in my groundskeeping. We can claw through all this stuff in no time.”

One hour later, Miss Price and the Scroggit brothers were soaked in sweat. A big pile of dirt and gravel lay at their feet. Coiling out from the trunk was a fibrous network of roots and rootlets still caked with thick hunks of damp subsoil. It looked impenetrable.

“Okay,” said Artis. “It’s obvious that there’s nothing here. And I personally have my doubts that even a tangled mess this thick can hold up a heavy chest full of treasure.”

“Who said it was a heavy chest?” said Miss Price. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying that good things come in small packages? This could be a small chest. Who knows, it might not even be a chest at all.”

Artis and Nimwell looked at Miss Price, puzzled.

“Uh, how could you fit a lot of coins, or gold, or whatever it is into a little chest?” wondered Artis.

“You’ll see,” said Miss Price. She kept stabbing at the clot of dirt and roots, trying to tear away the web of smaller roots to free the spaces between the bigger ones. “You must take my word for it; this is a treasure that will make you wealthy men, wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.”

As their thoughts drifted back to the tens of thousands of dollars they owed various autocratic government agencies, and their dream of someday recapturing the glory days of their artifacts business, the Scroggit brothers attacked the tangle of roots with a fresh energy.

“Hey!” said Nimwell with uncharacteristic excitement as he pulled back from the stump. “I just hit something hard. What on earth . . . or I guess in earth, I should say, is that?”

Artis and Miss Price crowded in for a look. Deep within the fibers of stringy roots was something that looked like a bleached rock.

“Is it a fungus of some kind?” wondered Artis.

“Too hard for a fungus,” said Nimwell. “I think I chipped it with my trowel. It’s more like a rock.”

“That’s no rock,” Miss Price said ominously. “I’m not paying you to sightsee. Dig!”

Artis and Nimwell furiously attacked the roots surrounding the yellow-gray object, which appeared unnaturally smooth. Once they had cleared the dirt away from it, it dangled there, an orb suspended in place by the roots still attached to it.

“What is it?” gasped Artis.

Miss Price tittered.

“Give it a good pull and you will soon find out.”

Artis began to tug at the object, at first without using much force, afraid it might be something of great value that could be broken unless a delicate touch was employed.

“Pull hard, yet steadily and carefully,” said Miss Price. “Dig your fingers in at the sides a little and jiggle it. But, careful! It should come out now without too much more work.”

Artis hesitated, placed his hand firmly around the hard object, and yanked with all his might. With a crackle of roots, the object broke free, more easily than he expected, causing him to fall backward and drop the object on the parking lot pavement, where it shattered into a dozen pieces. Miss Price and Nimwell yelped. Nursing his wrist, which had been bruised by the fall, Artis got up slowly and looked down at the object, which the other two stared at in silent awe.

“My God!” he cried. “It’s . . . it’s . . . what is it?”

“You know damn well what it is,” Miss Price cried. “It’s a human skull! Or pieces of a skull, you oaf, thanks to your clumsy incompetence. Now, keep digging.”