by Kane, Zoey
“Oh, heck no. I’m the guy who can pump a septic tank and eat a bologna sandwich all at the same time.”
“Eeeuuuw! A bologna sandwich?!” quipped Zo.
“Okay, ride the river as if sitting looking forward and keeping your legs straight in front of you. That will take us down fast and safe. Then you will have strength to swim if we need to get to a landing.”
“I suggest everyone keep their lips tightly shut.” Zo wanted to add that dire bit of intel. “And when you see the waterfall coming, get ready to leap out as it takes you down. I don’t know where it would otherwise suck you under, as there is a large grate just below.”
“I’ll go first,” said Jones, “to help any of you that come in behind me if I need to.”
“This is going to ruin my new skirt, but the last one in is a pretty lady, Mom.”
Everyone agreed and each jumped in the water, which quickly picked them up and washed them rapidly down the river. The two with flashlights kept them illuminating the tunnel ahead of them, so they could determine where they were going. All the while, the noise of rapid water and the wet stink of the sewer kept heart rates high. At an accelerated speed they were coming upon something Zo had never seen before—a peninsula of dirt. “That is where we want to land and investigate!” yelled Zo, seeing the captain’s little boat atop it. She knew, just beyond was the falls, since its thunderous splashing made it hard to hear each other.
The deputy hit the dirt first and pulled himself up, and hastily moved close enough to reach in and grab Slobber out. Then the two of them hurried to grab Zo, who had hit the dirt but was being dragged by the water as if around her ankles. The river fought to take her on its finished course around the dirt peninsula and down the falls. Slobber leaped and caught her by her wrist. Jones grabbed Slobber by his arm, and they both pulled, bringing Zo to safety.
“Oh, that was just scary! I think my stomach is in the same churn and twist as the water I was caught in. I could use a hug, but you guys look kind of poopy.”
“Well that’s the first time I’ve heard that,” replied the handsome deputy, looking sympathetically into Zo’s eyes.
“Not me!” boasted Slobber with his huge and horsey upper-tooth smile.
“Wait, guys. The last time I was here, I got the leather pouch and pearl out of a crack in a niche of the wall right there. Now, it looks like a big cavern. And what we are now stepping on used to be part of the river. We have to be careful. This place is falling all around and getting swept away. …Oh dear, I hope my Claire’s okay.”
“Yes, and looking around with the flashlights is going to warn others that we are here, though we really don’t have a choice. We should enter the cave over here, and edge ourselves in along the walls. Zo,” the deputy stood like a monolith of man above her, looking down in an irony of gentleness, “I have the authority to use deadly force. Since my gun got stolen, may I take the use of your gun?”
“It has been in the water.”
“Modern guns are made pretty tight.” He reached a well-formed hand forward, palm up, waiting.
“Okay, here.” She handed it to him. Riley Jones clipped it onto his belt. It made Zo laugh. “It looks pretty dinky on you there. Kind of like a kindergarten gun, heh heh. Do you think your finger can fit to pull the trigger?”
“You must not doubt my fingers, madam… in case you ever want a neck and shoulder rub.” His voice didn’t sound poopy at all.
“Eep,” she squeaked and just nodded submissively, having no words.
So, the three hugged a wall of the cavern and walked slowly into it with the glow of the flashlights all around them.
“Mother, is that you?” a little voice called from a deeper location.
“Yes, Claire, how are you?”
“Oh, great!” Jack was heard to say.
“Mom—Jack and Pat Bule have each other in a Mexican stand-off. She has a gun too. First one to blink get’s shot.”
TWENTY-ONE
They rounded a dark corner and saw them all by the bleak light of their flashlights. Claire stood beside Jack, rubbing her arm nervously.
“Well, that is interesting,” said Jones. “And, now I have a gun pointed at either one of you.”
“Where are all these flipping guns coming from?” asked Claire.
“Got mine from a drawer in the infirmary,” answered Jack.
“Got mine from the inept hunk,” taunted Pat Bule.
“Well, mine is on loan to the county Sheriff’s department. You two, should you actually shoot someone, will be hung according to Judge Huff; but Deputy Jones, if he shoots you, will get a parade,” Zo informed with some gusto.
Guns stayed pointing, arms straight out and elbows locked in position.
“It occurs to me,” Zo went on, “that no one is finding any treasure, so I’m going to go around you all, look for the mighty chest of pearls. You move your guns off of each other to me and the deputy will shoot you both. You afraid to do that, Riley Jones?”
“It would be my pleasure in the course of my duty. You go ahead, Zo. I’m watching with my finger on the trigger.”
Zo moved ahead, her flashlight leading the way.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Jack protested, and Zo walked on, undaunted.
Jack’s eyes didn’t leave the murderous Bule for a second, asking, “Don’t you have anything to say about this, you hag?”
“I’m thinkin’…,” Pat said from her shadowy position behind a boulder.
There was so much distraction now between Jack and Bule, and the spot where the deputy was thought to be standing in the dark, that when Zo had passed them all, she motioned with a finger for Claire to break away and join her, which she did. Jack caught sight out of the corner of his eye and nearly moved his gun to point at Claire, and then thought better of it.
“Oh, looky there, Jaaaack. You lost your hostage,” teased the round woman with the nine milometer automatic aimed right at him.
“Since you two are adamant about shooting to kill someone,” Deputy Jones’s voice came from an indiscernible spot in the darkness, “it won’t hurt a thing if you tell me, Jack, if you murdered John or Matilda.”
“No, I didn’t. What would be the point? I don’t want to inherit anything. I can just take the treasure and split out of town.”
“What about you, Pat?”
“It wasn’t me, and I didn’t steal the painting either. I really was framed for that.” Her sights then drilled into Slobber. “I can’t believe you betrayed me, Marvin. Things didn’t have to get to this point.”
“We only went out fer two days.” Still holding a flashlight with one hand, he put his other on his hip with attitude. “And the second day I obliged just because I was scared for my life. I ain’t scared no more. I ain’t scared no more.”
“Well, look what you’ve made me do. Made me become. I’m in a gun fight with hot buns here.”
“Hot buns?” Jack said, looking repulsed at the compliment
“You’re in a medical gown, pretty boy,” Pat said matter-of-factly. “We’ve all had a good view.”
Slobber nodded.
Jack shifted his position, so his rear faced the cave’s wall, still keeping his finger on the trigger.
“I didn’t do anything to make you the way you are. Yer a she-devil, Bule.” Slobber spat on the ground for emphasis.
Her face turned red and she quaked. “I’m glad I blew up your stupid station!
“You blew up my station? I shoulda known! Didja hear that, Riley? She’s the one who blew up my station!”
“I got that,” he just said.
“I was perfect for you,” Pat went on. “I know where you like to be tickled. I can make your favorite sandwich just the way you want it. And I ordered those fuzzy handcuffs I know you like.”
“I don’t know what yer talkin’ ’bout!”
“Yes you do—”
“No, I don’t. All that musta been in yer dreams!”
“Shut UP!” Jack cut in. “Would y
ou both just shut up.”
The deputy said, “I have to agree with hot buns.”
Jack squirmed and said, “Onto important matters. No, I don’t have Claire anymore, but I’ve got you two. I don’t think anyone would care if I shot Drooly. So I haven’t got a hostage. However, it gives me a laugh to know the Kanes are smarter than all of us, and they will get the treasure and get out of here, and all you’re gonna get is shot, Bule.” He laughed a hoarse, sick-man kind of laugh.
A shot rang out and Jack slumped forward, blood oozing through his hospital gown. A second rang out, followed by three more. Pat fell out over the boulder she had hid behind; the gun slid from her fingers.
“Wow! I’m takin’ you a lot more seriously, Riley,” said Slobber, a little shocked at what had just happened.
“Turn your flashlight on,” he responded. Slobber listened, and Jones picked up Jack’s gun on the way over to Pat. The dead woman’s blood trickled over the boulder. He grabbed her pistol, too, and emptied both their guns of their bullets into a pocket, before sticking them both in his belt. “Both dead.”
“To think she wanted to marry up with me,” Slobber said more to himself in a moment of reflection. “Wait till Sweet Pea hears this!” He straightened up his skirt that was hiked up on one side and smoothed it down. “Let’s go save the ladies!” He headed back into the further recesses of the cavern.
The girls were standing at a dead end, where a dirt wall met them. “We heard gun fire,” Claire said. “We were wondering how we were going to get out of here if it all went bad.”
“It did go bad—for Jack and Pat. Pat fired on Jack and killed him,” said Jones.
“Oh, no,” Zo sympathized. “Have you got her in cuffs back there?”
“Not exactly…”
“No. Riley lit her up with three bullets,” inserted Slobber. “I kissed ’er oncet. It was like kissing rubber lips on a bowling ball. Still it is all too bad, isn’t it? I am torn, feelin’ guilt for being relieved for not havin’ to watch the dark shadows around my house anymore, where she might jump out and steal my virtue. I am a man with lofty ideals.” With that he smiled a big horse-tooth smile and quickly added, “Well, now what?”
The deputy leaned against the dirt-slash-rock wall in a moment of rest. To everyone’s shock, it gave way, sending the handsome officer down to his knees. Everyone else jumped back, as it continued to shower down on him, threatening to bury him. The commotion came to a stop with the sound of little rocks pelting the ground like the last patters of rain. Zo saw her flashlight glowing from beneath some of the fallen dirt, and dug it out; Slobber never did let go of his.
“You okay, Riley?” Slobber called in to him. Everyone was trying to get to him, shining their flashlights through to where he was, hoping for the best.
“Yes. Hand me my light,” he said beyond a large and new dirt mound.
Zo stepped precariously went over to him, and extended the flashlight to him. The others followed right behind. Jones stood up and put a hand through his hair to shake out the dirt, and then they all three shone their lights beyond him.
“Oh, my, gosh! Look at that!” exclaimed Claire.
“Man!” was all that the deputy said.
“I ain’t never…, and I hope to never ever again. My liver is turnin’ over. Mama!” Slobber was backing up.
“Relax, Slobber. Haven’t you ever seen dead people before?” Zo asked.
“No, Mom…, and especially looking like they was zombies out of a cheap 1950’s thriller.”
Four dusty, decrepit bodies, mostly skeletal, were lying in the rubble behind Deputy Jones. Zo said, “It does look like they’re rather mummified. So it is true. There is Captain Dread, I presume, since he is in his Captain’s hat. I’m not sure who the two beside him are—hostages maybe? According to the legend Matilda re-told, I would say the man with the missing finger there is where we got our finger bone, Claire.” There was a missing pointer finger on his right hand. “He looks a little better than the rest, and is wrapped in a sheet? Hm.” Zo stepped closer to him to inspect further. “Here is a tag hanging off a toe bone.” She bent down and read, “Grindal’s Mortuary. No wonder he looks better—embalming fluid!”
“He still looks disgusting to me!” Claire said.
“So, the finger was not taken off a living man….”
“Ahhh, that’s right.” Claire nodded in thought, and Deputy Jones asked, “What was the story?”
Zo said, “We weren’t told much. We just know that Matilda’s grandfather was threatened by a thief to give up his treasure or they’d start harming hostages—like removing fingers.”
“Looks like the rumor’s true…”
“Which means,” Claire surmised, “the treasure is definitely around somewhere.”
“Yes,” her mother agreed. “It looks there was some sort of dirt avalanche that tightly sealed them all in here. And lucky for us, the storm water eroded everything away so all that had to happen was for Deputy Jones to lean on the shell of the wall that was left.”
“Do you see any treasure?” asked Slobber.
The flashlights beamed everywhere, searching, but there was nothing but soggy walls.
“Eeuuw!” Slobber crinkled up his nose and puckered his lips as Zo dug through the pockets of Captain Dread’s jacket. The jacket’s rotten material crackled as it stuck to the remains of the corpse’s chest bones, revealing black decay.
Zo looked up with a satisfied look, because she retrieved a handful of very large, different-colored pearls. “This is significant proof that more treasure exists. The only rational thought on these pearls here being in his pocket is, he thought maybe he could buy the hostages freedom from the kidnapper. I’d say the thief is probably the one tied with ropes.
“Let’s get back to the house and send people to pick up these bodies as soon as the storm is over. Meanwhile, these pearls here belong to you two guys to divide up. Claire and I have all the pearl necklaces we want. Right, Claire?” She counted out evenly half the pearls and handed the deputy his half, and Slobber’s half was given to Claire since his skirt had no pockets for safe keeping.
“But these are worth a lot of money, ladies,” the deputy reminded.
“We don’t care. We laugh at bloody pearls. Don’t we, Mom?
“Yes. Ha! We don’t want them.”
“Well, I ain’t too proud to accept, so I can buy a tiara to go with my skirt.”
The four of them trudged back through the tunnel, focusing their flashlights ahead of them, and passing by the bodies of Jack and Pat. As they walked out onto the new peninsula, the sewer lights turned on dimly.
“I’m thinking the generator just kicked in for the city,” said Jones.
Slobber and the deputy walked a little further out on the new finger of land to see what the next way was going to be. Zo could only see lip movements because the river and the falls were so thunderously loud. She decided to walk up to talk with them.
Claire was about to follow when she was totally confused by something that took hold of her. It wrapped itself around her mouth, preventing a scream. “My death has been seriously over-estimated, my lovely,” said Jack hoarsely in her ear, and coughed. “Now hand over those pearls.”
TWENTY-TWO
Everyone turned to see what the hold-up was, and were stunned to see Jack with a choke hold on Claire. All three started moving forward since he didn’t have a gun anymore.
“Stand still. I only need one lung, which I am doing very well on.” He spit out some blood.
He forced Claire over to the side of the peninsula, where a cloud of dirty mist was rising up above the falls and soaking the two of them. “Take a look, my sweet.”
Claire looked down and saw that the water had eroded much of the mud floor beside the grate, leaving a deep black abyss in which water was plunging into at depths unknown. “You stay where you are or Claire goes over to her death!” Jack yelled over the loud sound of rushing falls.
Slobber stepped
a foot forward. “Now look, Jack—if it’s money you want…”
“Jack—you throw Claire over and I will shoot you down a leg at a time.” The deputy never looked more intense.
“I don’t care! I want it one way—my way or I die, and I don’t care!”
Zo stepped out between Slobber and the deputy. “You are mistaken by taking Claire. Look.” She held up a round, black pearl the size of a golf ball.
Jack squeezed his eyes to get a better look in all the muddy mist. “Come forward! Only Zoey Kane!”
Zo came forward, not taking her eyes off of Jack, not once blinking. When she got close enough, she raised her hand and spread her fingers, dropping its contents into his hand. Zo seized the moment by taking hold of her daughter, and yanking her out of his grip.
“That is nothing but a rock, you…”
The lunatic came at them both. The women wrestled him, and Deputy Jones’s voice could be heard yelling above the rushing of the falls. Zo took the heel of her hand and punched an uppercut. Blood spilled out Jack’s nose, and he broke loose, dragging Claire back to the edge of the falls.
Zo wasn’t going to give up—no, sir! She grabbed her daughter’s leg, pulling her as hard as she could, playing tug-of-war like never before. Jack eventually pushed Claire away and wrenched Zo by the arm. “Okay, you’re the one that goes over, for being a big nuisance!”
Deputy Jones and Slobber surrounded him. “Stop!” Jack yelled at them. “I have Zoey!” He took a step toward the falls. Claire screamed. The two men stepped forward more. Jack put a hand up. “Don’t do it!”
“Look, Jack,” the deputy reasoned, “you really haven’t done so much except drag Claire down to the sewer. You haven’t killed anyone. Your whole life is ahead of you still. You can turn this around. Obviously circumstances are that these things and the storm will all be taken into account!”
Jack stood still a second, his gunshot wound bleeding badly. “Nope.” He shook his head emphatically. “I really don’t care if I die.” He had a great, but crazy, smile on his face.