Skavenger's Hunt

by Mike Rich

  Five minutes? He can barely start a story in five minutes.

  “Grandson?”

  Henry looked up. The door was still open only an inch or two. The old man’s ears apparently were open much wider.

  “Chief?” the young boy replied as he elbowed the door open and peered inside.

  “Chief” was the name Nathan had always called his father. It was one of Henry’s first words too, even though the “chh” at the front was tricky for a one-and-a-half-year-old to master.

  “Ah! There you are,” Carter said with a smile, candles burning on his desk. “I thought I heard you come in, along with a lecture about making a proper greeting on Christmas Eve.”

  “Oh . . . right,” his grandson answered, knowing he was busted. “Guess I forgot both times. Merry Christmas.”

  The old man leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingertips against one another. He’d obviously trimmed his gray beard and mustache just for the occasion, and he looked especially sharp wearing his dark green Christmas fedora, the color of which was close to that of his eyes. Henry had said on a few occasions that if Sean Connery had had a twin brother in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it would have been Chief.

  “Merry Christmas indeed, young man,” Carter smiled as he leaned back. “I also heard Abigail mentioning tomorrow’s ice skating over at Central Park. With dancing, it seems.”

  Henry knew what was coming next.

  “Seems like a nice opportunity lost, don’t you think?” his grandfather continued. “Skating, dancing, a pretty girl. Am I missing anything?”

  “No. No, I like Abigail,” Henry answered, trying to get out of it. “It’s just that, with the snow and everythi—”

  “Nonsense,” Chief interrupted as he rose from his chair. “Don’t blame that on your mother. The only one to blame for missing out on that is you. One of these days you need to stop being so nervous about seizing life’s opportunities. Of which there are many.”

  Carter gestured toward the ancient leather chair Henry always liked sitting in. It was wide enough for two of him.

  “Having said that, though,” he admitted, looking for something on his desk, “it is quite an impressive snowstorm out there tonight.”

  “Yup, sure is.”

  A downright nasty one, if ya ask Mom. And Dr. Riggins. Maybe a few others.

  Henry surveyed the quirky office he’d loved since forever, seeing if there might be anything new among the overflow of artifacts from almost every continent.

  There were old wooden boxes that held Chief’s collection of royal garments from ancient Egypt; century-old newspapers stacked next to an original golf club from St. Andrews, Scotland; an enormous framed image of his grandparents sitting in the cockpit of Howard Hughes’s giant aircraft from the 1940s: the Spruce Goose. Oh, and yeah, an actually dirty, worn first base from Yankee Stadium back from the Mickey Mantle days. One that the Mick, Joe DiMaggio, and countless other champs thumped their cleats onto a few thousand times.

  “See anything new?” Chief asked as he turned to face him.

  “Not yet,” Henry answered, shaking his head. “Am I missing anything?”

  With a smile, Carter held out the single item he’d been looking for on his cluttered and timeworn desk: a single sheet of paper, which even from a few feet away looked old. Very old.

  “This,” Chief said as he held it up, pinned between his thumb and forefinger. “This is what you’re missing.”

  Henry stared down at the old sheet of parchment, now resting in the middle of Chief’s desk. It was covered with columns of small and faded boxes meant for dates, destinations, and perhaps a note or two about what had happened both then and there.

  Except none of the boxes were filled in. All of them were dead empty, printed in a time that appeared to be—considering the crumpled coloring of the paper—long since gone.

  “Okay,” Henry ventured. “So, what exactly is it?”

  “It’s a ledger . . . for record keeping,” Chief answered. “Late 1800s, I’m pretty sure. 1885, if you put me on the spot.”

  “How do you know that?” Henry asked with a suspicious look. “The 1885 part, I mean?”

  His grandfather was smiling—and Henry knew why. Ever since Henry was old enough to form a question, Chief had encouraged him to be skeptical. It was a big-time motto of his: If you don’t know something, ask. If you don’t believe it, ask again.

  “I want you to listen to me carefully, grandson,” he quietly started. “And I’m going to need you to . . . what is it you sometimes say? Roll to it?”

  “Y’mean, roll with it?”

  “Roll with it, precisely.” Chief nodded. “It’ll all make sense in a few minutes, but all you need to know right now is . . . I have studied the story I’m about to tell you not for months, not for years, but for decades.”

  Whoa. This sounds serious.

  “Tell me something, Henry,” Carter continued after letting his intro take root. “Have you ever taken part in a scavenger hunt?”

  Henry lifted his eyes from the ledger. “You mean one of those hunts where you get a list of things you have to find?” he asked. “Paper clip, box of raisins, that kind of hunt?”

  “No. No raisins, no paper clip,” Chief replied. “I’m talking about a scavenger hunt much, much bigger than that. I’m talking about the first scavenger hunt ever held. One that was filled with clues, puzzles, mysterious quests across the country, sometimes spanning the entire world.”

  The back of Henry’s neck tingled.

  Ohhh . . . this one sounds good. This one sounds epic even by Ol’ Chiefy’s standards!

  He could tell that his grandfather was just getting warmed up, but that he’d also want Henry to hold his feet close to the fire.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Chief,” Henry said with a small measure of disbelief. “You’ve spent decades studying the very first scavenger hunt?”

  “Actually . . . there were three hunts,” the old man amended. “Like I said, grandson, you’ll need to ‘roll with it’ for a few minutes. Did I get it right this time?”

  “You did. Good job.”

  “Thank you.” Chief tipped his forehead appreciatively and then continued. “The first hunt was in 1883, the second in 1884, and the last in 1885. All starting right here in New York.”

  “See? I knew 1885 wasn’t just a guess.” Henry smiled at his grandfather.

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Chief replied before letting his voice drop to a near-whisper. “And the one thing that each of those three hunts had in common? Every riddle, every clue . . . was put together by one mysterious, very secretive man who put his very own name on it.”

  He paused to heighten the revelation before announcing: “Hunter S. Skavenger!”

  “Hunter S. who?” Henry asked.

  “Skavenger. Spelled with a K, not a C. He was the richest man in the city, Henry. Perhaps richer than Rockefeller. And where his money came from? No one was quite sure.”

  Carter leaned farther across his desk, looking his grandson squarely in the eye. “That’s because no one ever saw him. He was a man of industry, that much was known. But it was as if he were a magician! A sorcerer! A ghost of a man who had secret friends everywhere. And the only thing those friends knew—and I mean the only thing—was that if they were ever to talk publicly about him or his secret business dealings?”

  Again, he stopped.

  “What?” Henry asked, momentarily spellbound. “What would happen?”

  “He’d disappear from their lives forever,” the old man told him. “Just like a good many of the stories from those three elaborate hunts have now disappeared from history. Gone!”

  “Wait a second.” Henry’s expression zipped back to skeptical. “I mean, if these hunts were so great, why wouldn’t people still be talking about them?”

  “Because no one ever won, that’s why,” Chief enticingly answered. “And by the way, I am a little concerned why you didn’t ask why I’m still talking about it.”
>
  “No, no, no. Keep goin’, Chief,” Henry said with a smile. “I do like the start of this one.”

  “Good. Because the best part’s still coming,” Chief said with a tantalizing wink. “First, though, you need to know the rules of the hunt, which I’ve been studying for how long now?”

  “Decades,” Henry played along.

  The old man’s eyes twinkled as he walked over to the stack of ancient newspapers, taking the one from the very top.

  “Skavenger placed an announcement in the New York Times, the Old Gray Lady.” Chief always made a point of using the paper’s nickname. He spread the brittle and yellowed paper out next to the ledger sheet. “See? It covered two full pages. The greatest hunt ever. A hunt that Hunter S. Skavenger himself would reveal the rules to, including the prize to be won, on July tenth, 1883, right here in Central Park.”

  “You mean right-across-the-street-here Central Park?” Henry raised an eyebrow, nodding toward the window that was now framed with snow.

  “Right-across-the-street-here Central Park,” Chief confirmed. “Thousands upon thousands, that’s how many people showed up that morning.”

  “Even Skavenger? I thought you said no one ever saw him.”

  “They saw him that day. And he was every bit as mysterious and charismatic as everyone thought he’d be. He started off the hunt by reciting a single puzzling clue. For those who solved it, wherever it led them, a second clue would await, and then a third, and then a fourth . . .”

  “When do we get to the paper clip?” Henry couldn’t resist.

  The old man continued without taking the bait, “Until finally—how many clues later, no one was sure—one person or one team would find the last clue. And if they, and they alone, could decipher that one final, all-important riddle? That winner would receive the grandest prize ever—worth more than anyone could imagine.”

  “What?”

  “Skavenger’s fortune, Henry! That’s what!”

  It was right at that very moment—with his story reaching its absolute crescendo, wind-driven snow dancing in the window behind him—that Chief sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Henry asked.

  Carter took in a deep and sad-sounding breath. “Like I said. No one ever won. He was there to start the hunt on July tenth, 1883. On July tenth, 1884. And on July tenth of 1885. And when everyone showed up the following year? The only one who wasn’t there was Skavenger himself.”

  “Where was he?” Henry inquired as if on cue.

  Chief struck a match to boost a couple of his struggling desk candles.

  “Well, some felt the mysterious old recluse had simply grown tired of outwitting everyone,” he said. “But there were others who felt there was a much, much darker ending to the story. A worse ending.”

  “What kind of worse ending?” Henry knew he’d fallen into asking the most rudimentary of questions, which always seemed to happen at some point during his grandfather’s stories.

  “That he’d met his demise at the hands of Hiram Doubt,” Chief answered.

  “Who?”

  “Skavenger’s old business rival,” Carter replied as he blew out the match. He turned a few pages of the century-old newspaper on his desk. “This man here.”

  He pointed to an old photo, and Henry shuddered the second he looked at it. The man in the photograph looked like something out of a nightmare—tall and gaunt with short gray hair, deep sunken cheeks, and unwelcoming eyes that somehow found a way to pierce through even the ancient black-and-white.

  He was flanked by four other equally haunting men, all of whom wore black longcoats and top hats that made them look even more menacing, each gazing at Henry with eyes just as chilling as Doubt’s. One in particular.

  “You see the one just off his shoulder, don’t you?” Chief’s eyes had accurately tracked his grandson’s.

  “Yeah.” Henry almost swallowed the word.

  “Doubt’s closest and most trusted aide,” the old man informed him. “And by far the most dangerous. His name was Grace, of all things.”

  Thump, thump, thump, thump.

  Eloise tapped her hand against the doorframe of the study and walked in before Henry could reply.

  “Sorry to interrupt you two. Merry Christmas, Carter,” she said with a smile.

  Uhhhhhhh . . . not the best timing here, Mom. We’re gettin’ to the really good part.

  “Merry Christmas, Eloise,” Chief replied with a patient smile. “No bother at all. Henry and I have just been catching up on a few things.”

  “Margaret says dinner’s just about ready,” she said. Henry knew the words were for him more than his grandfather.

  “Of course. We’ll be right down,” Carter promised. “Five minutes.”

  “Tops, Mom. Promise.” Henry nodded.

  “Okay, five minutes. Fair enough.” She sounded less than convinced. “Don’t want our Christmas Eve dinner to get cold.”

  “Nor do we, dear, nor do we. Merry Christmas, again. It’s good to have you here.”

  Chief politely waited for her to leave, then stayed quiet while the sound of her footsteps clicked down the stairs. Once everything was silent, he leaned toward his grandson once more. Henry leaned close as well, only to hear the old man say through a wry and teasing smile:

  “Perhaps we should wait till after dinner. And not a word of this to either your mother or grandmother. This is our secret.”

  FOUR

  Pumpkin Pie and the Tale’s Ending

  DINNER, AS HENRY knew it would be even before the first bite, was both terrific . . . and long.

  Henry had been itching for an hour now to get back upstairs to hear the end of Chief’s story. Yes, it would have been both impolite and a full-blown disaster if they’d stayed upstairs after Gigi proudly announced her prize meal of the entire year was on the table.

  But they did have five minutes.

  Five minutes in which Chief could have given him another piece of the story. Maybe two pieces, depending on how long the first one took for him to tell.

  A hint of a smile crossed Henry’s face as he realized that what he was thinking was ridiculous.

  The old man, now sitting across from him on the other side of the table, had taught Henry that the only thing better than a good story told straight through was a good story that had a tormenting break somewhere in the middle of it.

  Boy oh boy, did he ever nail that spot.

  Henry looked over at his grandfather, who was looking back at him, Carter’s fedora resting right next to his butter plate. There was still the tiniest of twinkles in Chief’s eyes, the same twinkle that had told the young boy from the moment they stood to leave his office for Christmas Eve dinner . . .

  That the two of them now had a secret. A secret on Christmas Eve.

  “All right,” Gigi said from the head of the dinner table, unaware of the silent conversation taking place. “I see empty plates all around. Who’s ready for thirds?”

  “Oh no. No, thank you,” Eloise held up her hands to stop the onslaught of holiday delight. “Although, I do have to tell you, Margaret, that was the best turkey you have ever made.”

  “Really? Well, thank you, dear. You are so sweet to say that.” Gigi beamed at the compliment. “I’m not so sure I haven’t had a few others that turned out better.”

  Chief shot Henry a wink, motioning for him to please pass the mashed potatoes—intentionally drawing the suspense out at least one serving longer.

  Fine. I can wait a little longer. Even though I already know this is the best story you’ve ever told me.

  “Let me tell you something I’m not so sure of, dear,” the old man slowly chimed in as if he’d heard the exact thought in Henry’s head. “I’m not so sure Eloise isn’t one hundred percent correct about this meal. What do you think, grandson?”

  “Mmm, absolutely,” Henry agreed. “Thirds comin’ up.”

  The beaming look on Gigi’s face now looked as if it might never fade.

  “Oh pleas
e, you’re all being far too kind.” She reached for the uncut pumpkin pie at the center of the table and said, “Don’t worry, Henry. I’m just getting it ready. Plenty of time for you to have your thirds or fourths if you’d like.”

  Henry looked at his grandfather again, concerned that the twinkle had just disappeared.

  This was when the table had gotten a little quieter and a whole lot heavier last Christmas Eve. And the reason for that was simple. Henry’s father had always been a slam dunk for two slices of Gigi’s famous pie; on one memorable occasion, he’d even pulled off an incredible three-slice hat trick.

  The one thing Gigi had done both this year and last, something Henry really appreciated, was not setting out an empty plate for his father. That always felt, at least to him, like something that should just be left for the movies. Besides, the sadness of such a gesture would have been too much for all of them.

  Same as the year before, though, the silence at the table grew heavy. Henry thought the odds were good that Chief would be the one to break the silence, as he had last year, but surprisingly it came from somewhere else this time.

  “So . . . Henry . . . Carter.” Eloise nodded toward both of them. “It looked like the two of you were having quite the conversation just before dinner.”

  “Ah, yes,” Chief said as he smoothed out his napkin. “I’ve been going through some of my old newspapers of late and found quite a few articles I thought Henry might want to share with Dr. Riggins over at the museum.”

  Oooooh, well played, Chief. I wouldn’t have thought of that one. Short. Makes sense. Perfect.

  Eloise looked somewhat relieved at the newspaper revelation.

  “Oh! Well . . . that sounds great,” she said with a look toward Henry. “You told Chief you saw Dr. Riggins just today?”

  “Yup, sure did. Santa Claus. Space-time continuum.”

  Somewhere along the line, Henry had picked up—from Chief, naturally—the skill of smiling without smiling, which he was putting to good use right now. As was the old man, his once-again twinkling eyes sharing a look with Henry’s.