by Tonya Kappes
He and Mary Elizabeth stood nose to nose. Neither one backed down.
“It’s the curse.” Agnes’s eyes glowed at the prospect of it.
“That’s silly.” What was silly was that I was the only one who didn’t think it was the curse at this point.
“Go on and run all over the place to look for your precious pearls.” Mason was being a jerk now.
“No wonder Sue Ann left you.” Mary Elizabeth glared at him. “You are a no-good, dirty lying dog, and she deserves more in a man, if that’s what you want to call yourself, than you.”
“If you all think you’re going to follow me and Dirk around tomorrow, because we are going to find the treasure, you can forget it.” His finger circled the five of us. “You’re on your own. You can go back to your little hillbilly campground for that matter and leave.”
“You don’t have to name call.” Queenie stood up. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”
It was cute how Queenie threw away her empty plate. She’d not lost her appetite—she’d fed it. Still. She was trying to say she was picking Mary Elizabeth’s side.
“We don’t need you anyways.” Mary Elizabeth walked over to Agnes and tried to take her plate. Agnes had a death grip on it but let go when Mary Elizabeth gave her a look of death. “We’ve got our own maps of real treasure hunters. Ain’t that right, Agnes?”
“Yeah. That’s right. My Graham, he was a treasure hunter,” she said proudly.
“Yes’m, you told us.” Dirk had finally found his voice. “Why don’t we all go to our campers and get a good night’s sleep.”
“I’m waiting up for the police.” Mary Elizabeth sat down in a chair in front of the campfire. “Ritchie left, so it won’t be long.” She crossed her arms and wasn’t about to budge.
“Fine. You do what you think you need to do, but we are going to bed.” Mason tugged on Dirk’s shirt, and they both left.
“I’m not going to sit out here and get eaten up by chiggers.” Queenie swatted at her ankle before she skipped back to the camper, soon followed by Agnes and Abby.
In the distance, the sky lit up as heat lightning rippled through the darkness.
“Are you sure?” I asked Mary Elizabeth. “It looks like rain might be moving in.”
“I’m more sure than ever that I’m not going to leave this chair. They might try to get out of here with my pearls when we are sleeping. That’s their treasure.” Mary Elizabeth looked hurt. “I just can’t believe this. My mama would be so upset.”
“I’m not sure where they are, but once Ritchie gets the police here, they will help look and get to the bottom of it.” I rubbed her on the shoulder. “Are you sure you won’t just come in and watch from the kitchen table? It really does look like it’s going to rain.”
“Not in a million years. Hell or high water, it’s what I’m doing.” She dug her feet deeper into the grass. I left her to do exactly what she wanted.
No one in this world was going to tell Mary Elizabeth Moberly what to do. That included me.
EIGHT
“She’s gone and lost her ever-loving mind.” Agnes had the curtain pulled back, looking out into the dark, rainy night. “Mary Elizabeth is going to catch a cold, get pneumonia, and die.”
The campfire had long gone extinguished from the storm coming through. I’d gone back out and given her an umbrella, but she refused it. Mary Elizabeth was making a point, and she wasn’t going to budge. It would take a bulldozer to pick her up and move her until Mason gave her back the strand of pearls she’d accused him of stealing.
“Lightning is going to hit her.” Abby leaned over Agnes’s shoulder, biting her lip. “I think you need to get her seen by the doctor, because no one in their right mind would risk their life for a set of pearls.”
“You don’t know Mary Elizabeth. Once her mind is on something, you can’t get it off of it.” I failed to tell how Mary Elizabeth had sat outside of the county fair offices for three days to turn in the beauty pageant form for me to enter. It wasn’t like anyone was dying to win the title, and no other mother sat out there for three days. I didn’t even want to be in the darn thing, but Mary Elizabeth Moberly had it in her head that her adoptive daughter would be the debutante.
She’d had it in her mind that I’d had a hard life, and no matter what, we were going to show people how we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and made it in life. I was perfectly fine with my life, since I knew I was going to get out of there on my eighteenth birthday.
“I’ve been looking out at the entrance.” Queenie had been sitting in the driver’s captain chair looking out the window. She swiveled the chair around. “I still don’t see no headlights from the police.”
“I’m sure Ritchie told them the story, and it wasn’t on the priority list.” I looked out the window at Mary Elizabeth. She’d not moved an iota. She had her hands placed on her knees, and she stared at Mason’s camper.
Mason and Dirk didn’t seem to care. The lights were out in their RVs, and the pounding rain didn’t bother them any.
“We can’t just sit up all night and watch her make a fool of herself.” Agnes switched places with Abby. “I’m going to get some shuteye, so y’all go on and get out of my bedroom.”
“I’m not going to let you sleep out here.” I’d planned for her and Mary Elizabeth to sleep in my bed since they were the oldest, and the mattress was made specifically for my camper. “Queenie, you go with her and Abby, and I’ll watch Mary Elizabeth.”
“I don’t know why we are watching her.” Abby pulled the curtain shut. “If that clap of thunder didn’t light a torch under her hiney, I don’t think nothing will.”
Queenie and Agnes went to the back and got ready for bed. Abby made the coffee so we only had to flip on the switch in the morning, which was just a few hours away, while I made the couches into a makeshift bed for me and her.
Abby and I didn’t say much. Both of us felt deeply disturbed at how Mary Elizabeth had acted.
“We looked everywhere for those pearls.” Abby’s voice pierced the dark as both of us lay there.
The rain continued to knock on the roof of the camper. I couldn’t help but think Mary Elizabeth was shivering out there. Once one of these dog-days-of-summer rains got into your bones, it was hard to shake it off.
“Where do you think it is? Do you think Mason took them?” Abby rolled over to her side to face me from the little couch. Abby and I had done some investigating on our own before and with great results, I add.
“I don’t know. I mean, he did make such a big deal about them when he noticed them.” I recalled how hungry his eyes looked when he saw the pearls around Mary Elizabeth’s neck. “He continued to offer her more and more money for them, but she refused. They’ve been in her family for so long and they’re so much a part of her identity that I’m not sure what she’ll do if we don’t find them.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t think Ritchie went to the police, because I think Hank would’ve been told, and he’d have been here.” I remembered the CB radio Dottie had given me. “If they aren’t here in the morning”—I glanced at the digital clock I had on the wall and realized morning was just a couple hours away—“then I’m going to hook up the CB Dottie gave me just to tell her to tell Hank about the missing pearls.”
“You have a CB?” Abby popped up, leaning on her elbow. “You should’ve called before the storm because the rain will hurt the waves.”
“I don’t know anything about the darn thing, but you can try your hand at it.” I was going to get up and let her work with it, but she stopped me.
“It won’t do us any good now. The thunder and lightning won’t help. Might’s well wait until the morning.” She rolled back the other way, and before I knew it, the sound of snoring filled the camper.
I got up and looked one more time at Mary Elizabeth. She was still sitting there staring at Mason’s camper.
I shook my head and lay back down on th
e couch, tugging the blankets up to my chin.
As I recalled the conversation from start to finish, the rhythm of the rain sounded like a song and put me right to sleep like a lullaby.
NINE
“Get up!” Agnes shook me by my shoulder. “Mason and Dirk are going at it. Mary Elizabeth is encouraging Dirk.”
“What?” I bolted up from being sound asleep, throwing the cover off me.
Agnes already had the door open with Queenie following behind her. I grabbed my hiking boots and put them on without lacing them up.
“Sock him!” Mary Elizabeth looked like a drowned rat as she hooked her arms like she was in the boxing ring. “Sock him good too!”
Dirk and Mason danced around on their toes in a circle with their fists up.
“What is going on here?” I stomped through the mud puddles to reach them and put my arms out. “Has everyone lost their minds?” I looked between them.
“Get out of the way. Dirk is gonna give that thief exactly what he’s got coming.” Mary Elizabeth punched the air a few times.
“You’ve gotten really good at your form,” Queenie encouraged Mary Elizabeth. The wrong thing to do. The grass was soaked. “Strike class has really been helping you.”
Mary Elizabeth and Queenie started to talk about the Jazzercise class, while I tried to stop the real fight.
“Leave us alone, Mae,” Dirk warned me, never looking away from Mason. “He’s got this coming to him. Your mom is right. He’s a thief.”
“Not a thief. The silver is anyone’s to look for. Ask Queenie. She knows. She’s the historian here.” Mason tightened his fists and moved them up to his face.
“We agreed when Sue Ann left that I’d get her share. Not just the twenty-five percent. Half. Half of whatever we find out there, and now you are saying I’m not getting what is owed to me.” Dirk jabbed the air a couple of times, and Mason pulled back, barely missing getting punched in the face.
“Stop this right now!” I screamed. “This is ridiculous.”
“Get him!” Mary Elizabeth screamed.
“Stop it now! You are grown men, and you are my mother,” I said through gritted teeth. I bounced between them, ignoring the mud flinging up from under my feet.
“Did you just call me your mother?” Mary Elizabeth got a little too excited and flung her arms around my neck, practically squeezing the life out of me. “Thank you,” she gushed and kissed me before she let go. She turned to Mason. “Keep the pearls, loser.” Her nose curled. “They are worth a lot, but hearing Mae call me her mother is worth the loss. If I had to get those pearls stolen to hear this”—she looked at me, tears in her eyes—“it’s worth it. Hearing that is worth more than those pearls.”
“Is that really all it took?” Agnes snarled.
“That doesn’t settle this.” Dirk pointed to Mason. “I’m going to get half of whatever we find today and tomorrow.” He took a step forward and jabbed Mason in the chest with his finger. “Got it?”
“Yeah. We’ll see.” Mason’s jaw set. He didn’t bother watching Dirk stomp back to his camper. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “I’m going to tell you one more time, and then we aren’t going to revisit this again.” He jabbed a finger toward Mary Elizabeth. “I didn’t take your stupid pearls. Now, be ready in ten minutes to head out.”
“We aren’t going with you.” I stepped up and glared at him. Forget that I was sinking into the wet ground. “You’re a jerk. If anyone took the pearls, we know it’s you, and when the police get here, we will make sure to tell them everything.”
“The police aren’t coming at least until tomorrow. No one is coming or going.” Mason laughed. “The roads have washed out from the storm.”
“What?” My entire insides deflated. “We can’t leave even if we wanted to?”
I was going to suggest to my group that we just leave and not worry about the treasure.
“Nope. Ritchie came back last night and knocked on my door when he saw Mary Elizabeth sprawled out in the chair, asleep.” Mason eyed Mary Elizabeth.
“I was doing no such thing. I saw him.” Mary Elizabeth twitched, a sure sign of her lying.
“Regardless, what exactly did he say?” I asked and turned around to look at Ritchie’s little cabin in the middle of the field.
“What does it matter?” Mason acted as if I was putting him out. “The roads are closed. I’m sure it’ll all dry out by the time we all leave tomorrow.” He turned and headed toward his camper. “Five minutes, ladies, or I’m leaving without you.”
“‘Five minutes, ladies,’” Queenie mocked Mason with a curled lip and squished-up nose. “I’ll give him five minutes.” She turned to Mary Elizabeth. “Come on. We need to get you in the camper for a hot shower and a cup of coffee.”
While they all took Mary Elizabeth into the camper, I decided to head over to see Ritchie to learn exactly what he knew about the roads and if he went to the police station like Agnes had suggested.
There wasn’t any electricity running to his cabin, and I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or up. I took my chances and knocked on the door anyway. When he greeted me in a pair of underwear and nothing else, I got my answer.
“Oh. Crap.” He was decent enough to use his hands to cover himself. “I thought you were a guy. Let me put some pants on.” He shut the door on me.
I could hear some rustling in the cabin. Probably where there was no light and he couldn’t see, since I’d apparently awakened him from a dead sleep.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” He yawned and stretched his hands over his head. “I got in late, and that rain makes me sleep like a wee little baby.”
He stepped out of the cabin, and his bare feet sank into the wet grass, mud squishing up between his toes.
“What can I do you for?” He crossed his arms in front of him.
“We still haven’t found the pearls. It’s my understanding the roads have been washed out, and no one is coming in or out of here.” I ignored the sounds of Mason and Dirk behind me. Ritchie didn’t, though. He was watching every move they made from over my shoulder. “Did you go to the police station about the missing pearls?”
“I was headed there when the big storm came, and I knew I didn’t have no time to go there and be back here before the gravel washed away. So I made me an executive decision. The safety of the campers during a wash-out is more important than a pair of pearls to me. Safety first. That’s what they teach you in Scouts.” He sucked in a deep breath; his eyes bored into me like he was prepared to challenge me if I dared say something.
“So you didn’t go to the police station? I just want to be clear.” My shoulders dropped when I realized he was barely listening to me. I snapped my fingers in front of his face.
“No.” He shook his head. “I didn’t. But I’ll try to get out today while you’re hunting.”
It was the best I was going to get from him, and I knew it.
“Fine. Just let me know.” I turned around when I didn’t even get an acknowledging grunt, much less any words from him.
Mason and Dirk must’ve made up because on my way back to my camper, I watched the two of them disappear into the woods where the mouth of the trail led to what they believed was the John Swift silver mine.
The sun was trying to peek out over top of the mountainous area. If it would just pop out, it might help dry up some of the road, though I knew that road was literally covered from the bridge of trees on the way here and the sun would have to penetrate through them to even start to warm the gravel and dirt.
The mud squished underneath my boots, and I took them off once I stepped up on the step before entering the camper.
“Anything?” Agnes greeted me with a cup of steaming coffee after I shut the camper door.
“No.” I shook my head and took the coffee mug. “Ritchie said he had to make an executive decision about the safety of the campers or the pearls. He thinks he’s in charge of us and wanted to be here in case something went wrong.”
The first sip of the coffee instantly made me feel somewhat better. They’d already cleaned up the covers from the couches. I sat down in one of the café chairs and curled my hands around the mug, bringing it up to my mouth to enjoy the warm liquid.
“What are we going to do?” Queenie asked and looked around at all five of us. She was spraying the bug spray all over her body, including her clothes.
After Queenie doused herself in the stuff, she handed it off to Abby, who handed it off to Agnes, who handed it off to Mary Elizabeth.
“We are going to go find that treasure.” Mary Elizabeth ran her hand across her neck where her pearls used to hang. “If I don’t have my treasure, Mason won’t have his. That means we have to find the John Swift silver before he does.”
“That’s music to my ears.” Agnes gave a vicious grin. “I’ve got the food backpack.” She flung the bigger bag on her back.
“Here, spray yourself good.” Mary Elizabeth held the spray out to me. “When you were a kid, you fought me tooth and nail for me to spray you.”
These women were out for blood. Even the poor bugs had no chance with them. They say you never cross a Southern woman, and here Mason had crossed two. The John Swift curse had nothing on a scorned Southern woman.
Mary Elizabeth decided to spray me herself, even my clothes. I batted her away before she got near my arms and face.
With everyone all bug-sprayed up, we were out the door in no time.
“How on earth did you sleep in that rain?” I asked Mary Elizabeth as I locked the door to the camper, since I was the last one out.
“Honey, I’m tougher than you know.” She winked, and we headed into the woods.
“Let’s go find that treasure.” I smiled.
“I got my treasure this morning.” She patted me on the back as she referred to me calling her Mom.
TEN
“Who does he think he is?” Even though Mary Elizabeth had said she was letting it go until we could get some police in here, she didn’t. “He can’t tell Sue Ann she can’t be here when he’s here. He isn’t Father Nature, God, or the owner of the Daniel Boone National Forest.” She swung the walking stick at all the low-lying branches to smack them out of the way.