The Treasure Hunt Club

by Michael Scott Clifton

  “Here’s what I think we should write in the book,” Mark said as he handed the legal pad to Nick.

  Studying it, Nick saw that Mark had written.

  Reveal the location of any antique within the county at an estate sale or garage sale that, unbeknownst to the owner, has a value of at least $1,000 or more.

  Nodding, Nick handed the legal pad to Abby, who studied it before handing it to the next person. In this fashion, the legal pad made it around the table and back to Mark.

  “What do you think?” he asked. A chorus of “Looks good” and “Let’s do it!” greeted his question.

  “We won’t need the contract agreeing to give the owner ten percent of what we find, since we’re actually buying the item from them!” Mark explained. “However, we need to make sure we get a receipt of some kind to prove our ownership.”

  Seeing that everyone understood him, Mark looked over at Nick. “You ready, buddy?”

  Taking a deep breath, Nick nodded and pulled The Book of Lost Treasures from his satchel and placed it on the table. Turning to the first page, under “What is the lost treasure which you seek?” he carefully wrote their request, copying it word for word from the legal pad Mark held up before him.

  The pencil Nick was using had barely left the book’s page when bright light flared from the book, startling all those around the table, except Nick and Mark. A deep sense of relief washed over Nick as he turned the page and saw not one, not two, but three maps etched in precise detail on three successive pages in the book! Now they had to believe him!

  Looking around, Nick saw a range of emotions displayed by his friends, from open-mouthed amazement to shock. Steve, beer forgotten, was standing up and leaning over for as close a view as possible, while Kenneth sat with a stunned expression, as if his mind couldn’t quite process what his eyes were telling him. Even Patti, normally unflappable, was making little waving motions in front of her face and said repeatedly, “Oh my, Oh my!” Mark’s expression was much like that of Nick’s, a mixture of relief and excitement.

  Abby, a broad smile on her face, reached over and squeezed Nick’s hand.

  “Congratulations. You did it!”

  Unable to stop himself, Nick pulled Abby to him and gave her an enthusiastic kiss before raising his hands in euphoria above his head.

  “Yes!” he shouted.

  An excited babbling broke out as everyone seemed to want to talk at once For a few minutes, a happy pandemonium reigned. The Book of Lost Treasures was passed around, and everyone took a turn staring at the maps within it.

  “Brook Street! That’s just two blocks from here!” Patti exclaimed as she pointed at one of the maps. “And look! Edwards Avenue is on here too! Mark, that’s close to you and your daddy’s State Farm office!”

  “Where’s this?” Steve asked, pointing at the third and last map. Patti saw it was a location out of the city and in the country. Mark knew the county much better than she did, so she pushed the book over to him.

  Perusing the map, Mark did little clucking noises with his tongue as he studied the map. “I think that’s the old Parmelov place. But he died a couple of months ago. I know, because we have his car insurance, and his son called and canceled the policy last month.”

  Snapping his fingers, Mark excitedly said, “That’s it! It must be an estate sale! Parmelov’s wife died years ago, and his son and daughter don’t even live in Texas anymore.”

  There was more excited discussion before Kenneth, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, suddenly raised his hand and began waving it like a student wanting to get a teacher’s attention.

  Mark, noticing Kenneth’s waving, rapped his knuckles on the table, causing the excited babble to temporarily quiet down.

  “Yes, Kenneth?”

  “If I remember correctly, the rules in the book state that only one lost treasure at a time can be found! Yet there are three maps here!”

  A momentary silence followed Kenneth’s pronouncement before Mark, with a puzzled look, glanced over at Nick and said, “He’s right. There are three maps and three locations.”

  Nick drummed the table with his fingers as he considered the maps and locations revealed to them by The Book of Lost Treasures. Kenneth was correct, at least on the face of it.

  However, it came down to what he had confided to Abby: the interpretations of the simply stated rules were something they had no understanding of. What’s more, they would only discover these nuances as they were revealed through experience by using the mysterious book. It was all the more reason to be very careful in what they wrote in the book.

  “The request was singular and specific,” Nick said slowly. “We asked for the location of any antique that might meet a certain criteria, namely that the antique be of a monetary value that equals or exceeds a thousand dollars and that the owner is unaware of its value. By producing three maps, this must mean the book can and will reveal multiple locations if they fall under the terms of the request.”

  “A lawyer couldn’t have phrased that any better!” Mark said as he pounded Nick on the back. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to get started! Mr. President,” Mark said, winking at Nick, “I move everybody who agrees to follow me!”

  “So moved!” Nick cried, and with that, Mark led them to his SUV. Mark and Nick got into the front seats with The Book of Lost Treasures in his lap, while Patti and Abby sat in the back. Steve and Kenneth piled into Steve’s car. The GTO gave a husky roar as Steve started it and began to follow Mark, who had already backed up and pulled out into the street.

  The first official search of the Treasure Hunt Club began!

  Chapter 21

  It took only a few minutes to travel to Brook Street, a residential section of modest brick homes. As they turned and pulled onto the street, they saw a full-scale garage sale in progress at one of the houses on the block. Even at this early hour, cars were already parked up and down the block, and a throng of potential customers was examining the various items for sale. Mark was forced to park at the end of the block, with Steve parking behind him. They all got out and walked up the sidewalk toward the garage sale.

  Racks of clothes lined the driveway, and a line of tables set end to end on the front lawn held boxes of knickknacks and other items. Inside the garage itself were larger articles for sale, and consulting the book, Nick led the club members there. Studying the book, Nick found the detail on the map to be amazing! Items for sale were actually catalogued by location, and it was a simple matter of following the route outlined by the map.

  With his location represented by the moving red dot, Nick dodged a Hispanic couple looking at a small coffee table and stopped beside a stationary exercise bike that was for sale. Behind it was a wooden crate, and propped precariously on top of it was what looked to Nick to be an urn or large crock. Carefully, he moved the stationary bike aside and picked up the crock. It was extremely heavy, and Nick grunted as he set it on the ground before him. Light flashed from The Book of Lost Treasures, and glancing down, Nick had to shade his eyes as the words “Treasure Found” glowed like fire from the first map. Hastily, Nick closed the book before it drew unwanted attention.

  “This is it?” Steve asked doubtfully as he and the others crowded around the crock. “It looks like a big clay crock my granddaddy used to store dried pinto beans in.”

  “Is it … pottery?” Patti asked.

  “It’s pretty heavy to be a pottery piece,” Nick commented.

  “There’s something painted on it!” Mark said as he squatted beside the crock. A thick coat of dust covered the crock, as if it had recently been moved out of storage. Anybody got something I can clean it off with?”

  Patti nodded and fished a couple of Kleenexes out of her purse, and Mark wiped the dust off. A scene, etched in a bluish paint, was revealed of a soldier holding a regimental flag and a woman dressed in a bonnet and hooped skirt.

  Squinting at the painted figures, Mark said, “It looks to me like the
soldier is wearing a Confederate uniform.”

  “Painting or not, it still looks like an ugly piece of pottery to me,” Kenneth said, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

  “Look, if it was something obvious, like a great work of art, it wouldn’t have been put out at a garage sale now, would it?” Nick snapped. “Besides, if the book revealed its location to us, it must be worth at least a thousand dollars.”

  “Let’s buy it and then use the reference books to see if we can find something equivalent to it!” Patti chattered excitedly. All the club members quickly agreed, and with Steve picking up the crock, they went in search of the owners.

  Rounding the corner of the garage, they quickly spied the garage sale proprietors. An elderly couple that looked to be in their late sixties or early seventies sat in lawn chairs behind a card table in the shade of their front porch. Each had a handmade nametag made of index cards pinned to their lapels, with the names “Roger” and “Mabel” neatly printed on them. A cigar box containing money rested on the card table in front of the couple.

  As Steve hoisted the dusty crock, Nick asked, “How much?”

  Squinting from behind a pair of thick glasses, the silver-haired woman named Mabel, peered at the crock, while her husband, also wearing glasses, did the same.

  “My grandmother’s stoneware crock!” she exclaimed. “I’d for- gotten I even had it until we cleaned out the attic!” Looking at it with a distasteful expression, she added, “It never was much to look at.”

  Rubbing her chin in concentration, Mabel glanced toward her husband before saying, “How about ten dollars?”

  Nick readily agreed and quickly handed the woman’s husband a $10 bill. “Can I have a receipt?” he asked.

  “For that?” Mabel asked in disbelief.

  “Well … I like to keep meticulous records of my … financial transactions,” Nick managed to say.

  Snorting, Mabel shook her head and scrawled out a receipt on a piece of notebook paper. As she handed it to Nick, he thanked her, and they hurriedly made their way back to their cars. Mark popped the door to the Expedition’s cargo space up, and Steve carefully set the stoneware crock down into it.

  While they were doing this, Patti had grabbed the reference books from the backseat and was furiously thumbing through them.

  “Look!” she cried, holding one of the books before her and pointing.

  As everyone crowded around Patti, she excitedly jabbered, “Here’s a picture of a stoneware crock from around the Civil War era, and it looks identical to the one we just bought! Its estimated value is between twenty-eight to thirty thousand dollars!”

  Gasps sounded all around, with everyone clamoring to get a closer look at the picture Patti was pointing to in the book.

  Passing the reference book around, all the club members finally got to scrutinize the picture themselves, with all agreeing it looked just like the crock they had just bought.

  “Let’s move on to the next map and get the next antique!” Nick said, with no attempt to control his excitement.

  In response, there was a rush to get into the cars, with Nick pausing just long enough to place the heavy crock between Abby and Patti in the backseat before jumping into the front passenger seat of the SUV.

  Steve goosed the throttle on the GTO impatiently, the engine roaring, as Mark finally got the Expedition started and pulled out onto the road.

  It took less than ten minutes to reach Edwards Avenue, which was another residential section. The homes here were older and were primarily wood frame houses of pier and beam construction. Unlike the garage sale on Brooks Street, this one wasn’t nearly as busy, and Mark was able to pull up and park in front of the house. As before, clothes on makeshift racks were strung out on the lawn and driveway, along with all manner of items, large and small. Not bothering with tables, the couple putting on this garage sale, a portly middle-aged man and his wife, had simply put everything they were selling directly on their lawn or on their concrete driveway.

  Consulting the map in the book, Nick climbed out of the SUV and made a beeline for one of the objects that had been placed on the driveway. It was a carved, wooden eagle with wings spread wide, and its talons were clutching a pale blue sphere, which was presumably the earth. This sphere rested on a platter-shaped base, which was also made of wood. The eagle had been painted a gold color, which had faded over time. Stopping beside the figurine, Nick squatted down beside it and studied it closely. It looked to be about two feet high and almost as wide from wingtip to wingtip. The faded paint was chipped in places, and the circular wooden base had a small crack in it.

  However, the detail evident in the eagle carving caused Nick to give a low whistle in appreciation. Although it looked top-heavy, with the spread-winged eagle perched on the earth, Nick found when he picked it up and then set it down that it was perfectly balanced.

  The second he touched the carved figurine, The Book of Lost Treasures flared brightly in Nick’s hands. As before, the words “Treasure Found” had replaced the map on the book’s page.

  Stuffing the book in his satchel, Nick picked up the eagle figurine with both hands and examined it as the other club members crowded around. Turning it over, Nick saw the initials “JHB” carved into the circular wooden base.

  Kenneth shook his head. “Don’t tell me that’s what the book picked as a valuable antique?”

  When Nick nodded, Kenneth added, “But it looks like a cheap cigar store souvenir! No wonder no one knows it’s worth anything!”

  Nick, who obviously knew a thing or two about woodworking, couldn’t have disagreed with Kenneth more. However, he bit his tongue and carried the figurine toward the front of the house. A large red and white striped umbrella, the kind you might see at a beach or beside a swimming pool, had been hammered into the grass and a large beefy man sat lounging in a lawn chair beneath it. Bald as a billiard ball with fleshy red jowls, the man had a metal tackle box sitting in his lap, which Nick quickly deduced held the garage sale money. The man’s wife, a waifish woman, sat primly beside him in another chair. When Nick showed them the carved eagle figurine, the man gave it a bored look.

  “Twenty bucks,” he stated simply.

  Although he knew he could have haggled him down, Nick wanted to take no chances and handed over a $20 bill.

  As the money disappeared into the tackle box, Nick asked curiously, “Is there any, um … family history concerning this piece?”

  With a shrug that caused his jowls to quiver, the man replied, “Been sittin’ on a mantle at a fishin’ cabin on Lake Texoma for years. My wife’s uncle owned the cabin, but when he sold it, he gave us that eagle thing. She might be able to tell you more,” he finished, jerking his thumb toward his wife.

  Flashing a watery smile, the man’s wife said, “Uncle Bert told me once that the eagle belonged to his granddaddy, which was my great-granddaddy. I believe great-granddaddy moved to Tulsa from Missouri way back in the early twenties. Does that help?”

  Nick assured her that it did and thanked her. He then asked for a receipt, hoping he didn’t get the same reaction as he had when he had asked for a receipt on the crock. Grunting, her husband produced a scratch pad from inside the tackle box and wrote out the receipt. Nick then carried the eagle back to the SUV. Feeling the curious eyes of the garage sale couple on him, Nick suggested they adjourn to one of the several city parks located in Pleasant Mountain. The others quickly agreed, and piling into the Expedition and GTO, they drove the short distance to the nearest park.

  Pulling up next to a picnic table, Mark stopped and parked the SUV as Steve pulled up beside him and did the same. Nick opened the door and carried the carved wooden eagle figurine and placed it carefully on top of a cement picnic table. While he was doing this, Patti and Abby had carried the reference books to the table and were poring over them.

  This time it was Abby who gave a sudden and excited squeak as she pointed to a picture in the book she was holding.

  “I
think I found it!” she cried.

  Following Abby’s trembling finger, Nick spotted a picture that looked quite similar to the eagle figurine they had purchased at the garage sale. Reading the information accompanying the picture, he saw that the carved and painted eagle figurine had been made by John Haley Bellamy (1836–1914) of Kittery Point, Maine. Something about that name jogged Nick’s memory, and suddenly, he remembered!

  Grabbing the figurine, he turned it upside down. There, as he had seen earlier, were the carved initials “JHB.” That could only stand for John Haley Bellamy! Looking back at the picture in the reference book, Nick’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the estimated value of the carved eagle figurine.

  $50,000–$55,000!

  “It’s worth at least fifty thousand dollars!” he blurted out. Ignoring the gasps of his fellow club members, he quickly showed them the initials on the base of the figurine.

  “That’s … that’s close to eighty thousand dollars or more on just two antiques!” Mark said in disbelief. Nick and Kenneth danced an impromptu jig. Changing partners, Nick grabbed Abby around the waist and swung her, laughing, round and round, while the rest of the club members clapped and high-fived one another enthusiastically. Finally breathless, Nick and Abby collapsed on the picnic table’s stone bench.

  “Eighty thousand dollars!” Steve said as much to himself as to the others seated around the picnic table. “I wonder what the last antique is worth?”

  Nick looked across the table at Mark. Grinning, he said, “Let’s find out!”

  No one objected as Nick led a second rush to the parked cars. Grabbing the wooden eagle, he carefully laid it down in the SUV’s cargo area before shutting the door. By the time he was finished, Mark already had the Expedition started, and the others were in their seats waiting impatiently for him.

  With Mark leading the way, it took twenty minutes to reach the Parmelov house. Along the way, Mark told Nick what he knew about the late Anton Parmelov, who had been his father’s client. Of Russian heritage, Parmelov’s wealthy parents had immigrated to Chicago in 1917 to escape the upheaval resulting from the collapse of the Tsarist Monarchy and the onset of the Russian Revolution. Mr. Parmelov had been born in Chicago and had married his wife and raised his two children there. Tiring of the cold Chicago winters, he and his wife had retired and moved to Texas twenty-five years earlier, ultimately settling in Pleasant Mountain. His wife had preceded him in death five years earlier. Mark stopped his narrative as a winding, black, asphalt drive appeared to their left that led from the farm-to-market road they were on and to what proved to be a large ranch-style home. Turning, Mark drove down the asphalt drive and parked the SUV. A number of cars were already parked in the circular drive in front of the house, and a few had signs on the car doors advertising wholesale antique businesses, with some from as far away as Dallas, Texarkana, and Houston. As he got out of the Expedition and spotted the signs, Nick knew with a sinking feeling that they were now going head-to-head with professionals at the estate sale. These people knew their business, and unlike the garage sales they had come from, there would be no valuable antiques slip by unnoticed. Hoping they weren’t too late, Nick pulled The Book of Lost Treasures from his satchel and hurried into the house. With the rest of the club members hard on his heels, Nick paused and looked around as he entered the house. A table had been set up by the front door, and a young boy, possibly eleven or twelve years old, handed Nick a piece of paper. As Nick scanned the paper, he saw it was printed with items that would be auctioned off at eleven o’clock that morning. An area had been set up in the large front den with a portable podium and about twenty or so folding chairs facing it. A tall spare man wearing a black Stetson, probably the auctioneer, was fiddling with the microphone on the podium. Obviously, this was where the auction would take place. Looking at his watch, Nick saw it was ten thirty.