Tom’s flashlight beam leapt between a hand drawn map and the bluff he
walked along as he managed not to slip into the brown waters of the
Missouri River. He looked up the bluff and attempted to make out the
ruins of the French colonial chateau that sat overlooking the bluff. He
remembered the stories he heard growing up of a hidden fortune. He looked
down at the map again and tried to imagine the way the area would have
looked just years after the American Revolution.
Tom had spent nights studying the map and journal he had stolen from the
historical Society. He focused upon the journal’s notes written by a
local historian he had heard the stories from as a child. It was the
greatest proof the fortune existed, buried in an old pirate’s cave used by
the French to help the American Colonials in the Revolution. The notes
were filled with references to a plague that swept the area in the late
1780’s. Tom wrote off the references that the fortune was a sacrifice and
a protection for the town from the plague bringer. It had become clear
from the notes the historian believed in witchcraft. He only studied the
notes for the location of where the treasure was hidden.
Tom looked up at the old chateau as he walked and stumbled down the steep
embankment into the river. He kicked against the current, which yanked
him into the deeper waters. One hand held the map above the water. The
other clutched the flashlight. I cannot die now! I am too close!
With the flashlight hand he paddled toward the shore. He alternated
between pleading with God for his life and cursing Him for his own foolish
mistakes.
He could feel the fragile map crumble between his fingers as it got wet.
He kicked at the current and felt a bump against his feet as they
entangled in a web of roots from a tree hanging over the river, as if they
joined in some supernatural conspiracy to drown him. With bound feet, he
tasted the vile fish flavored water. He looked at what remained of the
map. Without a free hand he would drown. He knew he had only seconds to
make a choice. He could lose the flashlight or the map. Hatred burned in
him at God and the irony of life. His head dunked, his body pulled until
only the hand held the map was above the water. Tom bobbed back to the
surface and spat out the fishy water. He looked forlorn as the river
swallowed the map.
He dove to his entangled
feet and pulled against the roots. His lungs burned for oxygen. The
roots would not let him go. He bobbed back to the surface, thankful he
was kept from floating away. He breathed in deep and went back under. He
pried again with all of his strength against the roots. The roots mocked
him. He felt defeat and himself begin to drown. As he relaxed his
struggle, his boot slipped out of the grasp of a greedy root. Sensing a
chance of survival, Tom clawed his way to the surface again. He raised
his head out of the water. His explosive gasp for air echoed. He felt
the river and roots wrench his trapped leg. Tom went back under to renew
his fight. His free foot gave leverage and pried his other foot free.
Almost out of oxygen, he knew his hard won freedom placed him into the old
peril. The roots became his last hope for life. He clutched his former
foes and pulled on them with all his strength hand over hand to the shore.
Tom’s lungs burned with pain, his arms tired of the fight, but he refused
to surrender.
He climbed until his head surfaced. He could see the chateau in the
distance on the bluffs far above him. He climbed out of the water and lay
on the sand and mud mixed bank of the defeated river.
The late autumn air was a cold blanked tucked around him. Exhausted, he
frowned with bitterness at the loss of the map. I have come this far
and to lose everything because of a careless step? He stood in
despair, shivered from the cold as hypothermia brushed his core while he
looked around in the near moonless night to gain his bearings. Without
the map, I have lost it all. Tom collapsed to the ground again.
What had the old historian written? ”Beware of seeking the lost fortune
for despair and death are leashed to the coin.” I suppose you were right,
I almost died this night looking for it. Tom sighed and rose to his
feet again. He stumbled along the muddy sand strip between the bluff and
the river.
He shivered from the cold as he reached out to the bluff
face to keep his balance and walked back from where he came. The wind
chilled his face. The chateau can’t be far away, can it? I can’t
stop. It’s cold here. Damn the river! Tom shivered against the
autumn wind came off the river. My legs are shaking. Wish I had a
campfire. A campfire would feel so good now.
Tom swayed along
the narrow trail. I need to get out of this wind. Wish God would turn
off the fan or something. I wish I was in a warm cave. He turned on
his flashlight again, its light weakened. The beam danced on the bluff
wall, searching for any sign of the buried cave. The wind sung in Tom’s
ear as he used every nook in the wall to shield his shivering body. He
shook uncontrollably as a new shiver through him. A sound came on the
wind, muffled yet it was feminine. Tom looked around.
Nothing. She
sounds so close.
Tom’s voice echoed in the night. “I need help!”
The sound became clearer as he walked back to the chateau. It was a
woman sobbing. “Hello?” He paused to listen. The sobs were the answer he received.
“Are you ok? I am not going to hurt you. Can you hear me?”
The sobs continued despite his cries. The rock wall scratched Tom’s
hands has he continued along the bank. The sound of his voice and the
woman’s sobs blended with the sounds of the river.
I am not alone.
But, I might as well be. It sounds like we are both in trouble. Why
doesn’t she answer?
He continued to follow the woman’s cry as a sad siren’s song drew his
hypothermic body. His eyes widened as his he found a small opening in the
bluff wall. The cave! I knew it was here! The woman’s cries sound
like they are coming from within. Maybe the treasure is gone. Can I be
robed of so much in one night?
He stumbled to the bluff face and shone his light within the opening.
Maybe a small child could have gotten through this. “Where are
you?”
The woman sobbed in response. Tom could not see her. He felt on his
face the warmth of the cave air. Treasure or no, I have to get
inside. I can live if I can get where it is warm. “I am coming for
you.”
He
turned off the flashlight, shoved it in to his pocket and willed his hands
to dig. Blood? When did I cut my hands? He tossed aside stone
after stone, leaving palm prints of blood. The effort of digging warmed
his body a little. Minutes passed and the woman’s sobs continued. The
rocks tore at his hands. He opened the bluff face inch by inch. His
breathing was shallow and strained with the effort. The opening was large
enough for him to crawl on his stomach. He wormed his way through, rocks
cutting along his body as he entered the warm cave. “Where are you?”
The woman’s sobs echoed off the cave walls. He pulled his flashlight out
and turned it on. The cave looked undisturbed except by bats clinging to
the ceiling above. The ceiling was now high with long dripping
stalactites. He staggered out of the chamber and down a passage where the
cries sounded like they came from. He paused against the moist cave
wall. “Hey! Why don’t you meet me half way? I am back here!”
The bats squeaked at him from above, irritated at the disturbance of his
shouts. I don’t care what people say, you still look liked winged
rats. How many cultures can be wrong in thinking you are the bringers of
death? He noticed their wings folded about their small bodies as a
death shroud. The disturbed colony seemed to watch him. Their eyes
followed his every move. Fear tickled him.
Am I such a child as to
fear these little creatures? They won’t harm me.
He followed the woman’s grief deep into the heart of the cave. Then he
saw her in the shadow created by his flashlight. With no light of her
own, she stood before a brick wall. As tall as his shoulder, he knew she
was no child. “How did you get back here without a light?”
She was dressed in a maroon gown of another time. Her bonnet covered
head, with mousy brown hair down to the middle of her back bent into a
handkerchief.
“Hello?” Tom called to her.
She still did not acknowledge his presence.
Tom looked then at the wall. Brick? Down here? The treasure has to
be behind the wall! How do I get to it? I don’t have anything to smash
in. Why is she crying at the wall? “Miss, I won’t hurt you.”
He approached, lifted his hand out to touch her shoulder lightly. A cold
fire leapt and burned its way though his arm.
She turned to him, brown eyes swollen from tears, colors paler than their
natural shade, fixed on his. The glow of life was vacant in her eyes.
Her handkerchief fell away from her pale lips that formed the ‘o’ of
surprise.
She
is gorgeous. Maybe late twenties? No older than mid-thirties. Why am I
afraid?
He sucked in his breath. His muscles tingled as if shocked by an
unpleasant current of electricity. “I heard you crying.”
She spoke, her voice tiny, a melody in her words.
“What language is that? Do you speak English? How did you get here?”
She pointed at the wall.
“What about the wall?” Tom looked over to the wall. Tom stepped over
and touched the slime covered cold brick the cave tried to absorb into
itself.
She began to sob again.
“How do I open it?” Tom pushed. “It won’t move.”
The woman turned her gaze to what appeared to be a stalagmite next to the
wall.
Tom studied the stalagmite. It is not rock, it looks like a wooden
lever. Someone put a lever in a cave wall next to a wall of brick?
Tom pulled down on the encrusted lever. After a moment he felt a
counterbalance move. He stepped back to the wall and saw a tiny gap had
formed between the brick and the cave. He pushed against the brick wall
and it cracked open then stopped. “Can you help me push?”
She stared with anticipation.
Tom slammed his shoulder into the wall. It shuttered before it moved a
bit more then shrugged away his vain efforts. He turned back to the
woman. His eyes widened as he froze in surprise and fear. Where is
she? How did she disappear? Why would she?
He looked down the silent cave. The infrequent eerie squeak of a bat
came from the darkness. “Where did you go?”
She
wanted this wall open for a reason. Why disappear when I get it open?
Tom
turned back to the open wall and shined his beam within.
The wall opened onto a small damp chamber. He moved the light from along
the slick floor. Off to the side stood a group of old wooden chests
covered with dripping mud slime from the ceiling. Tom’s lips parted in a
surprised smile as he entered the room. “Did you know this was here?”
The muddy walls were barren save one. He stared transfixed at the one
wall were shackles and chains, covered with mud and grit, made of iron,
held a silver skeleton with emerald eyes. How macabre. Tom shone
the flashlight on the skeleton as he approached it. Who would cast so
much silver to make such a thing? It looks so real, so accurate!
They didn’t have the medical knowledge to be so accurate. Law and the
church had not begun to allow them to open corpses. Whoever smelted this
thing had to have been a grave robber.
Tom appraised the skeleton. Apprehension came as he gazed deep into the
emerald eyes. With effort of will, he turned the macabre art and cast
his light around the room and found on the open brick door hung a large
cross of iron and the wooden chests lay before a statue he had not noticed
at first covered with cave grime. Tom walked over to study the statue.
It was chipped and chiseled as if by some poor artist. He bent down to
the base where there was an inscription in Latin.
His head jerked up, alert to the soft rumble. He cast his light about
the cave and saw the bats agitated and fly about. The flashlight beam
swept the room, the boxes, and the shackled silver skeleton. Tom looked
back at those emerald eyes held a fascination as a chill bathed his body.
He stared as if the jewels stared back. How odd, Tom thought as he
turned away, someone commissioned the skeleton to be so artistically
cast should spend money on so poor of a stone sculpture. He bent
again to the stone base where the engraving had worn away. He could make
out that the statue was to depict some saint. I will have to review my
list of saints to try to figure out who this is to be. Again the
grinding echoed in the cave. Tom looked about and saw nothing to cause
the sound. He moved to the closest chest and bent to examine it. The lid
was not to be locked. He lifted and held the lid halfway open, peered
inside in wonder. His dim light bounced off the metallic coins and jewels
sparkled. The fortune...it is real! He laughed in insane triumph.
He threw back the lid, which fell of its hinges and crashed to the
floor. Its crash thundered though out the cave and further disturbed the
nervous bats. He sunk his free hand into the pool of riches before him.
He ignored the faint sound of a tinkling crash as the coins fell between
his fingers. Tom bellowed with giddy laughter. I will no longer live
in the poverty. I can live as they I was meant to. Tom put down his
flashlight behind him, which cast his shadow against the cave wall. He
plunged his other hand into the coins.
His expert mind caught they were French, Spanish, and English, even some
were colonial from both the British and French Colonies. It must be a
river pirates treasure. There were plenty of them back then and the
Missouri river feeds into the Mississippi River, which feeds into the Gulf
of Mexico. It does not matter. They buried it here, forgotten to the
world. Again he laughed and then stopped as an thought crashed
through his euphoria. Why had they abandoned it here? Clearly it was not
forgotten, it was in the journal. He looked at the unknown saint and
reached behind him for his flashlight. Chests set before a statue of a
saint. Why? He wrote the treasure was offered up as an offering and
sacrifice. Yes, of course. This is some kind of sacred sacrifice.
His hand fished for the flashlight. Why chain a skeleton made of
silver in irons as a display of an underworld Prometheus who sinned
against the gods?
The wind chime tinkling sound seeped past his distraction. His fingers
still had not found the dropped light. He turned to find it. His eyes
caught his shadow on the cave wall. His shadow blended into a second
hollow shadow. He wondered if the woman returned. He completed his turn
and looked above him.
Lust swirled with insane need in emerald eyes stared down. Tom began to
open his mouth in horror. The sound was squashed as the skeleton’s silver
fingers grabbed his throat. He flailed against fingers. He could feel
his pulse in this throat. Tom tried to twist. His fists pounded on the
skeletal arm lifted him off the ground. He struck the skull for his
freedom.
His anger evolved into greater horror as he saw two teeth extend
themselves down from the other silver teeth sharp as rapiers. The
skeleton looked back over its shoulder. Tom dangled in the air, his
breath labored in gasps as his windpipe closed.
The skeleton looked back at him. The eyes glowed with lust, hunger and
insanity. Tom then saw one other emotion: regret. The skeleton lowered
him to the ground to draw him nearer. Tom heard the now terror filled
squeals of the bats mingled with a distant sound of a woman’s laughter.
Tom watched the bats burst into a cloud of chaos in the cave as he felt
the silver fangs enter his throat. He smelled the copper scent of blood.
His mind released him in a near orgasmic spasm as he felt electricity
arcing over the two puncture marks and out of him as he passed into
blackness.
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