by Gary Paulsen
Dunc held up his hand. “I don’t know for sure where he is or how long he’ll be gone. Sometimes he goes out for a minute or two, then he might be gone for an hour. As to how you got here, Milt brought you—the same as me. We were talking in the dark, remember? Well, the next thing I knew, I had a hand over my mouth, and he carried me off, dragged me under water and up in here.”
“So why didn’t you run off when he came back for me?”
“It’s not that easy. I tried to get away three or four times, but he waited just outside the cave and caught me. He didn’t hurt me or anything—just carried me back in here. Then when you came and were out cold, I didn’t feel right about leaving without you.”
“How long have we been here?” Amos looked at his wrist, but his watch was gone. “And where’s my watch?”
“You were out most of the day. It’s late afternoon now. Milt has your watch. It’s—it’s sort of his now. Except that you can get it back. Well, maybe you can get it back.”
Amos nodded. “Well, good. All that makes sense to me now. We’ve been kidnapped by a wilderness monster named Milt who put us where bats can poop on us and owns all the things we used to own but maybe we can get them back and even though he isn’t here we’re not allowed to run away.” He paused, took a breath. “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re just about as wacky as this Milt guy. And I’m not going to wait around to see who’s worse—it’s time to leave.”
He stood and dusted bat guano off his shoulders and hair, moved to his clothes, and pulled them on.
Dunc joined him and started to dress but shook his head. “You’ll see. We won’t even get our clothes on. I mean, I’ve tried this before.”
He was wrong.
They did get their clothes on. As a matter of fact they were totally dressed, and Amos was at the edge of the pool ready to dive in and swim out to where the light shined the brightest.
The light suddenly went out as something blocked the entrance, and in a great shower of splashing water, Milt appeared in the pool just in front of Amos.
“See?” Dunc said. “I told you.”
Milt was carrying a spear, and on the end of it wiggled a fresh trout. He pushed the trout toward Amos’s face two or three times.
“He’s telling you to eat,” Dunc said. “He wants you to eat the fish.”
Amos hesitated only a second before hunger took over. He grabbed the fish and moved back by the rubber raft.
“Raw?” Dunc asked. “You’re going to eat it raw?”
Amos looked up, his eyes questioning. “Unless you’ve got a Twinkie.”
Dunc shook his head, and Amos nodded and bit into the fish.
.8
After giving the fish to Amos, Milt shook himself dry and moved to stand near the raft. He was dressed in a ragged pair of shorts and made no effort to avoid the dropping bat guano.
Amos took the fish out of his mouth. “It doesn’t taste quite as good as it looks. Is there some way we can cook it?”
Dunc shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him cook anything.”
“Does he talk at all or understand what we’re saying?” Amos turned to Milt and spoke slowly. “Do - you - have - a - stove - and - a - frying - pan?”
Milt crouched, watching him, a quiet smile on his face.
“Do-you-know-what-I’m-saying?”
There was no indication that Milt understood, and no indication that he didn’t understand either. Nothing.
“I haven’t heard him talk,” Dunc said. “But I think he knows what’s going on.”
“What I think is this guy is about three sandwiches short of a picnic,” Amos said, shrugging, slapping the trout against his leg. “I mean, there’s nobody home up there in the old bean.”
“Maybe so.”
“What’s to keep us from just saying so long and walking out of here?”
“Him. I tried it.”
“Well, I haven’t. And I’m going to.” He threw the fish on the ground, waved at Milt, and stepped toward the edge of the water that led out.
The effect was immediate and so fast, it was hard to see. Amos was halfway into the second step when Milt seemed to vanish from where he had been sitting and reappear in front of Amos. He did something with his hands and arms, and Amos was turned back, standing exactly as he had been standing, looking at Dunc and holding the fish.
“See?” Dunc said.
“How did he do that?”
“I don’t know. It’s something about how he uses his hands and arms and things. He seems to flow from one place to another, and you don’t get to see it.” Dunc sighed and moved to stand next to Amos. “I tried three or four times to leave, and it was always the same. I just wound up back where I started from.”
“Look”—Amos pointed at Milt with the fish—“you don’t understand. This is wrong. You’re holding us against our will, and if you don’t let us go, we’ll turn you in to the proper authorities. Now we’re going to go, and you’re not going to do anything to stop us. Come on, Dunc.”
Amos turned, took a step, and the same thing happened. He was back where he started from—unhurt, almost untouched. Just moved. And Milt crouched next to the raft, smiling quietly.
“If he does that again, I’m going to get mad,” Amos said.
Milt turned suddenly, moved to the side wall of the cave where there were some boxes stacked, and rummaged for a moment. He returned with a checkerboard and a box of checkers.
“Uh-oh,” Dunc said. “He wants to play checkers.”
“What?” Amos turned.
“He loves checkers. But he plays for things. Maybe that’s how he owns all the stuff in here. Maybe he won it.”
“Dunc—are you all right?”
“I had to play him three games and he won all my clothes and the glider. He’s incredible—you can’t beat him. Now he wants to play you.”
Milt set the board on a box in front of Amos and went to the pile of Amos’s clothes. He brought them over and dumped them in a pile next to the board, then motioned Amos to sit. Then he went to a box on the other side of the raft and came back with a candle in a glass jar, which he lighted and put down next to the board.
Amos slowly knelt in front of the board, and Milt quickly put all the pieces in place. Milt hid two in his palms behind his back, then held his clenched hands out.
Amos picked the right hand.
Milt opened it to show a black checker. He turned the board so that Amos had black, and he motioned for Amos to make a move.
Amos moved a checker. He looked up at Dunc. “This is completely crazy. I mean, yesterday morning we were hang gliding, and I was waiting to go on a rafting trip with Melissa and …” He trailed off as Milt moved one of his men.
Amos studied the board. He moved one of his men.
Milt moved.
Amos moved.
Dunc yawned.
Milt moved.
Dunc yawned again. His eyes closed.
Amos moved.
Milt moved.
.9
“King me, sucker!”
It was a loud yell, and it snapped Dunc out of his sleep. He had been dreaming of a hamburger. Not eating it, just watching it cook, sizzling in the pan with a piece of cheese on top of it and two pieces of bacon. For part of a second he couldn’t remember where he was, and he kept smelling the hamburger cooking.
Then his eyes opened.
“You’re dead now—I’ve got a king in back of your lines! I’ll shred you! I’ll tear you to pieces!”
Dunc sat up. Amos and Milt were still by the rubber boat with the checkerboard on a box, hunched over, except there were some differences. Everything in the cave—all the boxes, the rubber raft, the fishing rods, the clothing, everything—was in a huge pile behind Amos.
Milt sat in his shorts, covered with hair but nothing else.
The smell hadn’t gone away—the smell of something cooking. It was so real, Dunc could e
ven hear the sound of sizzling. He shook his head. It was still there. Then he saw it. A small fire had burned down to coals, and a pan of something was cooking on it.
“Amos?” Dunc said. “Is that something cooking?”
Amos didn’t look up. He ignored Dunc and concentrated on the game.
“Amos?”
Amos looked up quickly, irritated at the interruption. “What?”
“Is that something cooking?”
“Well, of course it is. There’s some trout and Spam in the pan, and some freeze-dried hash browns. I saved some for you. Milt and I already ate.”
“Milt and you already ate—”
“Well, I had to let him use the stove and borrow some Spam, or he would have had to go out for another fish. But yes, we already ate. You’ve been asleep for hours.”
Amos stopped talking as Milt jumped two pieces, grinned, and motioned for Amos to give him a king.
“See?” Amos said. “You bothered me, and he got a king. Now I’ll be all day destroying him.”
He turned back to the game and ignored Dunc again.
Dunc moved over to the pan that was cooking on the bed of coals. It was covered with a lid, which was just as well because the lid was covered with bat guano. Everything was covered with bat guano.
In the pan lay about a quarter of the trout, several pieces of Spam, and a generous plop of hash browns. There was also a large spoon—the kind the army uses in mess gear that shows up in surplus stores. For about half a second Dunc hesitated, thinking of who might have used the spoon before him. Then he shrugged and dug in. It took him three minutes flat to eat everything in the pan except the trout bones.
“Bingo!” Amos yelled from the board. “You fell right into my trap—you’re mine! I now own your shorts.”
Dunc moved back to the board. Amos was leaning back on his haunches looking triumphantly at Milt, who was crouched on his feet.
“You’ve won his shorts?” Dunc said.
“You bet.” Amos nodded. “That’ll teach him to mess with the checker master.”
“Checker master?”
Amos nodded. “I’m deadly. It comes from when I was small. You know my uncle Alfred, who picks at his feet all the time?”
Dunc nodded.
“Well, he used to make me play checkers with him until I beat him. And he’s really good at checkers. The thing is, he’d sit there and pick between his toes while we played. Pick, pick, pick—and it smelled. It was enough to make you throw up. My only chance was to get good enough to beat him so I could get away from him.”
“And now you’re the checker master,” Dunc said. “I didn’t even know it.”
Amos cocked his head. “I’m a mysterious kind of guy.”
“I couldn’t come close to beating him.” Dunc pointed in back of Amos. “And now you’ve won all this?”
Amos nodded. “Everything in the room is mine, including his shorts.”
All this time Milt had been crouched, watching them in silence. Now he stood and started to take off his shorts.
“That’s all right.” Amos held up his hand. “You can keep them—for hygiene.”
Amos put the pieces back into the small box, folded the board, and put it all on his pile.
“You won the board too?” Dunc asked.
Amos tapped his temple. “It’s all up here, Dunc—checker master. It’s all here.” He turned to Milt. “So since the gaming is over and there doesn’t seem to be any reason to be here, I guess we could take our stuff and put it in our boat and head on down the river for civilization.” He turned toward the entrance.
Milt jumped to his feet, and for a moment it seemed he would make the funny moves and stop Amos.
Instead he whirled and moved to the dark at the side of the cave. He hunched over scrabbling in the dirt, then came back and held something out to Amos.
It seemed to be a metal bar, a piece of steel, until the light from the candle hit it.
It shone a deep, bright yellow.
“It’s gold,” Dunc said. “It looks like gold.”
.10
Amos and Dunc looked at the bar for a long time.
For a whole lifetime.
The blue light from the water in the grotto entrance mixed with flickering light from the candle in the jar and the shining yellow of the bar and seemed to make it come alive.
“It is gold,” Amos whispered. “Real gold.”
Milt nodded and held the bar out to Amos. It was heavy enough that he had to strain to hold it forward.
“I don’t believe it,” Dunc said. He moved forward. “It must be painted lead or something. Can I see it?” He held his hand out for the bar, and Milt handed it to him. His arm dropped like a shot when the weight hit it, and he quickly used his other hand to catch it and bring it up. He examined the bar closely, holding it to better catch the light from the candle.
“It must weigh twenty pounds. And look—there’s something here, something stamped in the end.” He turned the end of the bar to the light and read.
“What is it?” Amos had been leaning forward, and he was so far off balance that he nearly fell.
“ ‘One seven six four,’ ” Dunc read slowly. “ ‘Seventeen sixty-four.’ ”
“Pirate gold,” Amos said. His hands came out and took the bar. He held it softly, like a mother holding a baby. “We’re always looking for pirate gold, and here it is.”
“In the middle of the wilderness?” Dunc shook his head. “I doubt it.” He turned to Milt. “Where did you get it? Where did it come from?”
Milt looked at Dunc, at Amos, at the bar of gold, and said nothing. He waved at the pile of gear in back of Amos and the checkerboard by the candle.
“He wants,” Dunc said softly, “to play you a game of checkers for the bar against all the gear.”
Milt nodded, smiling.
Amos was still staring at the gold. He spoke in a hushed, reverent voice. “How much is it worth—the gold?”
Dunc thought out loud. “It’s hard to be exact without scales. Say gold is four hundred dollars an ounce, and there are sixteen ounces in a pound—that makes each pound worth sixty-four hundred dollars. If the bar weighs twenty pounds, it’s worth about a hundred and twenty-eight thousand.”
Amos swallowed. “Dollars?”
Dunc nodded.
“I’d have a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars if I played?” Amos asked.
“Well, you would if you did it—if you played him. But of course you’re not going to do that.”
“I’m not?” For the first time, Amos took his eyes off the gold. “I can beat him with my eyes closed. Are you out of your mind?”
“No.” Dunc leaned forward and whispered into Amos’s ear. “But he might be. Do you think it’s fair to take advantage of him just because you can play checkers better than he can?”
“Yes.” Amos’s voice was firm. “Absolutely.” He looked at Dunc. “He kidnapped us, remember?”
“Well—not really. I think maybe he was just lonely or something and wanted us to be company. He didn’t really hurt us or anything. I’m kind of starting to like him.” Dunc shook his head again. “I really don’t think it would be fair for you to take all this stuff and then take his last bar of gold.”
Here Milt held up his hands and shook his head violently.
“See?” Dunc said. “He doesn’t want to play.”
But Milt kept shaking his head and waving.
“No,” Amos said, “that’s not it. He’s telling us it isn’t his last bar of gold. There are more, aren’t there?”
Milt nodded. He picked up the jar with the candle and beckoned them to follow him to a flat rock the size of a small tabletop at the side of the cave. He knelt and set the bar down and put his hands on the rock. With a sudden springing movement of his arms the rock slid sideways.
“Oh.” Amos whispered. “Oh my my my my …”
Beneath the rock was a rectangular dug-out storage hole. Nestled there, not wrapped
or covered, was a stack of shiny bars exactly like the one the boys had seen.
“How”—Amos’s voice squeaked and he coughed—“how many are there?”
Dunc pointed with his finger and counted. “Eight, nine, ten, eleven. I think. Unless there are more underneath.”
Milt smiled and shook his head.
“Eleven,” Dunc repeated. “Eleven bars.”
“Eleven,” Amos said quietly, “times one hundred and twenty-eight thousand …”
Dunc knew where he was going. “Just over a million, three hundred thousand dollars.”
Amos smiled. “Isn’t math fun—you know, when it’s about something like gold bars?” He laughed. “And you were worried that he couldn’t afford to play me a game of checkers for one.”
Dunc sighed. “Amos, it doesn’t matter if he’s got a hundred bars. It’s still not right to take unfair advantage of someone this way.”
“Sometimes,” Amos hissed, “sometimes you let your rules get in the way of what’s right.”
“Amos.”
“You sound like my mother the time I didn’t tip over Mr. Macruthers’s garbage can only he said I did only I didn’t and finally I had to take the blame anyway even though I didn’t tip it. At least not that time.”
“Amos.”
Amos’s eyes brightened. “Maybe we could cut the bar in half and only be half wrong.”
“Amos.”
“But it’s gold, Dunc—real gold.”
“Amos.”
It was still not easy. Amos clutched the gold bar, his hands tight. His eyes were first on the shining yellow metal and then on Dunc, then back on the bar. At long last he leaned back and sighed. “I guess you’re right. I mean, I think you’re wrong, but you’re right. I mean you’re rightly wrong or wrongly right. Oh, heck—I don’t know what I mean.”
He held the bar out to Milt. “Quick. Before I change my mind.”
Milt looked at the bar, at Dunc, at Amos, and then shook his head.
“Really,” Amos said. “Sometimes Dunc makes me so mad, I could spit fire, but he’s right. Take it. It wouldn’t be fair.”