River Rocks: A West Virginia Adventure Novel

by Steve Kittner

  CLICK! The Peacemaker failed to fire.

  Burl saw the orange flame first and then felt the excruciating pain just below his right shoulder.

  “NOOOO!” Josh screamed!

  Burl went down to his knees in the creek, holding his upper chest.

  The silencer on Collins’ gun added to the bleakness of the situation. No one could hear the violence beyond the tunnel. The guys began to run, including Burl Otis who was grabbing the boys while holding his chest in a desperate attempt to live, but there was nowhere to go except out the other end of the tunnel, and all Collins had to do was point and shoot. He would get them all!

  “You’re next, boy!” Collins swung the service pistol toward young Josh Baker.

  BOOM!!! BOOM!!!

  “JOSH!!!” Emily Baker screamed in horror from across the river. She was now standing on the boat dock that belonged to the Bakers, along with Mr. Baker, Giselle O’Connor and the Debords.

  “MOM!” He called back from the tunnel.

  The thunder of a snub-nosed .38 caliber handgun echoed through the tunnel and up and down the river in the early morning hours. They were all shocked at the sound. It didn’t make sense. What happened to the silencer and who was down?! The guys turned quickly to look back. They saw Sheriff Collins’ right arm drop to his side, and his service pistol fell to the river rocks of the sandbar. Collins swayed once and then fell to his side. Many sirens could be heard in the distance. Police cars were roaring down Elk River Road to get to the scene. Emily Baker had made the call.

  Josh looked back at Burl who was grimacing from the gunshot wound. The Peacemaker lay on the rocks where it had fallen when he was shot. It was not the source of the two shots that had been fired. They looked towards the entrance of the tunnel, as yet another shadow passed across it. A much larger shadow.

  Mayor Billingsworth stepped over Collins as he lay unconscious and then beamed his light into the tunnel. “Who’s hurt!” How many?” he called out desperately in a huge booming voice.

  They couldn’t believe it. Mayor Billingsworth! Josh and Eddie had been just sure that he was still in cahoots with Collins.

  “Just one! Mr. Otis is hurt!” John Hopes said.

  It was hard to follow what happened next.

  Tiny Brooks looked around at everyone. He grabbed the lantern from the vault and held it out into the tunnel and then knelt at Burl Otis’ side. Josh and Eddie gathered around.

  “We need help!!! We need an ambulance!” Eddie shouted, near tears, towards the tunnel exit.

  “JOSH!! Josh answer me!!” Emily Baker shouted again!

  “EDDIE!!!” called Mr. Debord!

  Burl gave them a reassuring smile. “Go let them know you’re okay, boys. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  With that, the two friends ran out to the sandbar to show their parents that they were OK. They had to jump over a motionless Sheriff Collins to do it. Sirens screamed down both sides of the river now as Emily Baker had directed them towards the opposite side where the trestle was. Emergency vehicles were arriving now and two officers came running through the Bakers’ lawn with a small boat to access the sandbar on the other side quickly and make sure the scene was secured.

  Brad Radcliffe said, “I’m going to run up to the dirt road down the tracks and bring in the paramedics.” Brad knew the area well and could get them in quickly.

  Elton Mansfield, John Hopes and Tiny Brooks were now around a badly wounded Burl Otis.

  Tiny looked him in the eye. “What made you go for that old Colt in there? You knew it wouldn’t fire.” Tiny said, grinning. “I’m surprised the trigger even pulled after all these years.”

  Burl looked at him and started to talk but then stopped. Tiny knew exactly why. First of all, it was a long shot. There was a ninety-nine percent chance that that gun was not going to fire, but it was worth a try..

  “You wanted to take the first bullet. You wanted to create a diversion, however small, away from these three young boys. You wanted them to at least have a chance to run because you and I both knew Collins was sincere. Collins was going to execute these kids right there in the tunnel under the trestle, along with us.” He looked at Otis and the big man could not deny it.

  “They’re just kids,” Burl said. “You would have done the same if you were the one by the gun,” he said.

  Tiny smiled at him. “You’re a brave man, Burl Otis.”

  “Pretty tough for a couple old river rocks, ain’t we?” he replied with a painful grin.

  They both shared a laugh as emergency help began to arrive.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Within minutes that section of the Elk River and the train trestle with the tunnel was lit up like a baseball field. Police, FBI, reporters, and medical teams covered the entire area from Josh’s backyard and campsite, across the river, to the sandbar and even up to the island. There were 12 boats total that were now being used to transport investigators, police personnel, crime scene photographers and various government officials. As it turned out, this was most certainly a crime scene. They were taking pictures and asking a lot of questions of Josh, Eddie, Tiny, Brad, John and Elton. A lot of questions! Everyone was completely amazed with the vault and all that gold that was piled in there. Most of the first responders had never heard of the legend and were completely blown away as the story was explained to them. Armed security was called in to remove the gold and the Medical Examiner was called in to remove the skeletal remains of Arthur Otis.

  Giselle O’Connor was waiting her turn to talk to the boys and finally got her chance after many police, FBI, news crews, and Mr. and Mrs. Baker swarmed them.

  Josh and Eddie walked toward her, all with smiles of friendship. “Could be that you guys are going to be quite famous, ya know,” she said, hugging them both. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Your name was mentioned too, lady! You are in on this!” Josh said, happy to see her.

  “They’re going to be talking to you, don’t worry!” Eddie followed up.

  “My Gosh, we were so scared over here. I was crying so hard with your mom when we heard the two big gun shots! We just knew it was bad.”

  “How did you get here? How did you know?” Josh asked.

  “My phone rang and it was your house number. And this was late, too. So I got it and it was your mom; she was scared to death, saying that you guys had camped out down here below the house and she had looked out to check on you and the camp site was all torn up and the tent looked slashed. She wanted to know if I knew anything about what we were up to because she knew that we had met and were hanging out some. I had to be honest, so told her that I knew that you guys were going to the island to poke around and she was kind of okay with that but was scared about the cuts in the tent and the campsite being all torn up.

  “I can imagine,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, your mom was pretty hysterical,” she said. “So we got in the car and drove to the island just to look across the bridge. There was an SUV there but we couldn’t see any lights or movement, so we went back to the house to the back porch. We were talking and she was trying to call you the whole time but I guess your ringer was off.”

  “We had to be quiet so we didn’t draw attention, so I turned it off, and that SUV was John Hopes’.”

  “So we were on the back porch and thought we could hear voices every now and then and you can’t imagine the relief that your mom started feeling. She was sure that were you coming off the hill or something, over behind the tunnel.”

  “That was probably when we were in the tunnel and getting close to the vault. We got a little excited.”

  Giselle continued, “And we started seeing lights flickering around and then heard pounding.”

  “Busting out the vault.” The boys looked at each other, smiling.

  “Your mom said, ’What in the world are they doing?’

  “I started getting excited then because I knew you guys may have found something…something big. That’s when I h
ad to tell her everything. I started telling her the story, the whole story, which took time, and in the meantime we were listening to the pounding and watching the lights change in the tunnel. As I was telling her all of this, she was staring across the river in disbelief…and your dad too! But your dad was a little more impressed than your mom. Anyway, your mom’s phone rang and it was from you. She was listening and then I saw fear in your mom’s eyes. Extreme fear. She ended the call and then called 911 and told them what was going on and to get here as fast as they could. So we started running down towards the river to the dock and then we heard the two big, loud gun shots…that’s when your mom screamed and so did I! Your dad ran to the river but the boat was gone, the V-bottom. He was looking for a neighbor’s boat to get across the river but it was so dark…”

  “Yeah, that part was so scary; I have never been so terrified in my life. I really thought we were all dead.” Eddie said. “But those were the good shots that you guys heard. Those were the ones that saved our lives. The gun shots before that were the ones that…” He paused and looked at Josh. Eddie didn’t have to finish. Giselle hugged them both. These new friends had a tight bond already.

  Mr. and Mrs. Baker had walked up to hear the recounting of the story as well as Mr. and Mrs. Debord. They were all extremely grateful to have their children unharmed and back with them that night. They would also have some questions for the boys, at a later time.

  Tiny and Brad did their share of explaining things to law enforcement officials that early morning and of course, everyone’s story matched up perfectly so there was no reason for the police to take anyone into custody. The only bad guy had been taken down by the mayor and quickly rushed to Charleston Area Medical Centers Memorial Hospital. He died twice on the way but was able to be revived both times. He had a very weak pulse as he arrived at the hospital and had lost a lot of blood. Doctors were not optimistic.

  By now it was close to four o’clock in the morning and it was pretty certain that no one would be getting any more sleep that night. Across the yard Mayor Billingsworth was doing multiple interviews as by this time the TV crews had arrived with their vans and broadcast dishes. Mayor Billingsworth was a good man who loved his hometown there on the Elk River. He had been tempted in one of the greatest ways a human can be tempted and had refused to let the lure of money overtake his dedication to this little town, this little map-dot of a town that he was proud to represent. He had stood up and saved the lives of seven men that night and you can bet that he was rewarded for it in a big way by the State of West Virginia. His courage would pay big dividends for him in his future political career but he was just happy and relieved to have seven of his townspeople alive and well on that night.

  Burl Otis was taken to the Charleston General Hospital Emergency Room where doctors there extracted a nine-millimeter bullet that was lodged just above his right lung. They said if it had entered just a half inch lower he would have been dead in minutes. He walked out of the hospital the next morning and by that afternoon he was on Josh’s back porch, drinking iced tea and getting to know the Baker and Debord family a little better. They insisted that he stay with them until he recovered some and they saw to it that he went back for his one-week follow-up appointment.

  It took a while for things to get back to normal in the small town of Red Creek. Tourists came from all over the state and many surrounding states to try to get a glimpse of the locations of the island, the vault, Tater Holler and the Elk River. The Baker and Debord family had people nervously knocking on their doors for weeks wanting to meet the kids and they did their best to accommodate the curious. Some wanted autographs, some wanted pictures and some just wanted to say hello and shake hands. It got a bit overwhelming but things settled down soon enough.

  This has been, by far the biggest story ever be told in these parts and absolutely through the years to come it will be told and retold as good stories are, but this story is different. This Elk River tale is pure fact and Josh Baker and Eddie Debord, as well as Brad and Giselle, will be able to sit their grandchildren on their laps and tell them what really happened. In the summer of their freshman years, they had rediscovered the Legend of the Southern Jewel; 162 pounds of Confederate gold stolen from a train in the year 1903.

  THE END

  EPILOGUE

  The next few days were a blur of activity for the four young kids involved. The news of the rediscovery of the gold went viral on social media in a matter of hours. There were interviews by local TV and radio and as the news spread, travel plans had to be made. New York for the Today Show, Los Angeles for the Tonight Show and many other shows in between. In the months to follow, Josh and Eddie would be on the Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, History Channel and The Learning Channel and even made a couple magazine covers.

  The State of West Virginia benefited greatly by all the publicity that was generated and worked with the Federal government to make good on the reward, even far surpassing what everyone expected.

  For Josh, Eddie and Giselle; full ride, four year scholarships to any West Virginia university that they wanted to attend. This included dorm, book and transportation expenses. When they graduated, (and they had to graduate to receive it) there was a tidy little present for them that would be deposited into their bank accounts. For all their hard work, they would each receive the value of one five-pound gold bar that they had helped to recover. Somewhere in the range of $100,000 each.

  Brad was awarded something a little different but equally as cool. Brad Radcliffe was awarded a full scholarship to MMI, Marine Mechanics Institute in Orlando, Florida. It was recognized that he has a love of the water and a knack for engineering marine craft. It was his ticket to a great future and he could not have been happier. He too, would receive the value of a five pound hunk of gold upon graduation.

  Brad’s raft was put on a six month display at the Avampato Museum in Charleston along with the original deer-hide document that was expertly made by Clyde Franklin, with a little story on how much they both played a part in the discovery of the Southern Jewel. It was a huge attraction and when the six months were up, Brad eagerly returned the raft to where it belonged; Brads Landing, Elk River, West Virginia. The deer-hide became a permanent display at the museum.

  Brad’s father underwent treatment for alcohol abuse and his explosive temper, all paid for by the state, it was a long road but eventually he became the father and husband that his family needed. John Radcliffe would start his own landscaping business and eventually was awarded government contracts for all of the state owned buildings in the Charleston area.

  The state of West Virginia sent Tiny Brooks on a weeklong all expense paid Mississippi river-boat cruise. When he returned he had a brand new twelve by thirty-six foot boat dock sitting at the river’s edge below his house. It replaced the eight by ten foot sagging dock that he had used for the past 30 years. It had served him well but Josh had made the recommendation for the gift for Tiny, and the state had come through. Also there was a sixteen foot Carolina Skiff tied up to new dock with a 65 HP Evinrude outboard engine for buzzing up and down the river. The construction crew that built his dock also did some reinforcing work on Tiny’s house and a fresh coat of paint. Tiny smiled for three days when he got home.

  Burl Otis recovered fully and returned to his home on the mountain, Tater Holler Homestead, and graciously refused any reward for his part in the adventure. The State respected his request however refused to accept any further property tax to be paid from this property…ever! Also, before trapping season started, he came home one evening to find a brand new John Deere hunting quad fully equipped with racks and rifle holders. The state also cut a new road off his mountain for personal use to go down to Hickory Holler Gas and Go to fuel up his new toy free of charge. Burl had never driven anything in his life but had a real good time learning with Josh, Eddie and Brad and he would soon master it.

  Elton Mansfield, like Burl Otis, wanted no personal reward for his part of the discovery. H
e asked that any reward that the State of West Virginia felt like they wanted to give him to be directed to his baby, the library. The State delivered. He was awarded a generous grant for upgrades to his library. He went fully computerized with bar-coded automated check-in and check-out. He kept his card catalogue for sentimental reasons (it became non-functional furniture) but added fifteen new user friendly iMacs for members to use to locate books within the newly expanded library. An addition was built on to the original building that nearly doubled the size of the library. All new tables and chairs and a kids’ corner with a wooden train set fit into the budget as well as a coffee center close by for moms and dads. All microfiche was now on a huge hard drive in a cooled computer room and all those old tapes and cabinets were a thing of the past.

  John Hopes came out of retirement and wrote an award winning front page story about the legend past and present and a full firsthand perspective of how it unfolded from the time the boys found the old red milk can to the climax of the event on the sand bar in front of the train trestle. He would go on to write a full non-fiction story about the legend and would finally be inducted into the U.S Journalists Hall of Fame for all his works, past and present.

  Sheriff Ronald Collins would recover from his two gunshots to his upper torso but would lose the function of one lung. After recovery, he would stand trial for the attempted murder of Burl Otis while his attorneys would contend that he was acting in self defense since Burl drew on him first with the old Peacemaker. The piece of tape that was saved from the library break-in matched with Collins right thumb and made him guilty of breaking and entering into a public building. The part that saved Collins from the death penalty was that while in the hospital, he was found to have a tumor on his brain at the lateral frontal pole. This region of the brain is used to help humans not to make calamitous decisions. He was able to have successful surgery to remove the small growth and relieve the pressure on that part of the brain. For that, the court still found him guilty but with a reduced sentence of ten years and he would be eligible for parole after three years. Collins would express sincere remorse for his actions and that too was taken into consideration by the judge and jury.