The horse finally gave out a laughter type smile and sound at something Simpson whispered and Cameron was amazed that they had done it, and Hanks paid them the money, even though it quickly retuned to being in the same mood!
Hanks swiftly decided to try to get his money back by betting them that they could not make the horse weep and Simpson and Fogler took the challenge and went up to the horse and started whispering to it, but it grunted and knocked Fogler over instead, and they returned to their seats and paid Hanks his money!
Hanks eventually went over and tried to cheer the horse up by comforting it and reassuring it, and it just ignored him, and he admitted that they had an incredible ability of making the horse more cheerful and laugh!
In the end he asked them how they had cheered it up, and Simpson replied jokingly, “I whispered in its ear that if it laughed I’d give it my beer!”
They laughed and watched Hanks unsuccessfully try to get the real answer and they started getting ready to leave and return to the army camp, and Cameron was surprised to hear Hanks say that he might free the thing in a nearby field.
Chapter 10
William the Conqueror
It was a bright hot day and everything looked perfect and about as perfect as they were going to get and Cameron wondered what could possibly go wrong! Even if the horse did not win it was its first race and he was sure its performance would become far better in the future!
Hanks was transformed now and looked a perfectly normal jockey, and not the soldier they knew, and his weight had dropped and he looked skinny and even fragile, but very determined to do his job! His knowledge in horse racing was great, which had even surprised Simpson and Fogler, who thought they knew everything about him, and they even thought he had a good chance of winning the race. For one thing all the horses looked lethargic compared to their horse, and the jockeys looked inexperienced.
The only major argument they had was the name of the horse, which was Willy, which Hanks insisted in calling it, which he claimed was after William the Conqueror, but Cameron was sure it was named after a relative!
They had argued over it with him as they could not imagine a horse with the name becoming a leading racehorse! But Hanks insisted that it was a great name and horse names never mattered that much, and that there were many examples!
Willy still looked a monster even in the light of day and sober and they still looked twice at it when they had not seen it for a while, checking if they were imaging things, and they were surprised that experienced people at the racecourse had strange reactions to the horse and many stood with their mouths wide open trying to grasp something, and some thought they were up to something and checked on things.
He wondered if it could win and what the outcome of the race would be, and he saw how prepared for the race the other jockeys really were and their horses were more trained than he had seen.
Near the starting line he stood beside Fogler and Simpson at the front of the audience and watched Hanks preparing himself for action and he wondered again why he was so keen to have the horse and just how good he was at the game.
Fogler soon started handing them beers and he grabbed his and opened it and drank thirstily and realized that he had not had anything to eat and eyed up a place where he was sure there was food, and decided to get over there later if he could.
He wondered what he was missing about horse racing, and realized that they probably had to make it big to do anything worthwhile, as most sports.
When the starting gun blasted out he jumped and was amazed at the speed the horses raced away and that Willy left slow and uninterested in the race and he watched Hanks going crazy trying to get it to move it, and he spotted what looked like a glint of satisfaction on the horse’s face, and realized it was the first glint of happiness he had seen on it since it had made an expression in the pub. It was like it was being kept fully captive against its will and would do anything it could to escape.
Simpson looked the happiest for some reason and Cameron was sure he had bet on another horse or it losing! Fogler at one point looked furious and clenched his fist and had to calm himself!
Yet just when they had all packed in thinking anything but a bigger disappointment was possible Cameron saw something strange and that Willy was speeding up and his eyes had changed to being bloodthirsty, and not just his furious look, and his eyes were on the front horses and he looked as if he was going to attack them and he accelerated faster than any animal he had seen in person and he soon caught up with the horses and the front horses, and Cameron was sure he was going to attack.
It was incredible the audience went crazy all around them and Fogler spotted it and burst out laughing loudly and cheered the horse on loudly and Simpson’s face dropped.
It was incredible! When Willy reached the front horses they were at the finishing line and Hanks forced Willy to race passed the finishing line before them and it won the race!
Though Willy looked shabby, badly treated and starved, he figured it had colossal inner strength and powers and could win races, and he realized the name was a good one as he was named after William the Conqueror!
Though to his surprise Willy stayed furious, burst into life more, and rebelled against Hanks and his treatment and once he jumped off the saddle it ran furiously away and after one of the horses it had chased, but the jockeys stopped it going near it, and it jumped up and down and managed to loosen its saddle and throw it off it and it leapt crazily on one of the other jockeys and chased after him all over the track and into the audience!
People ran away from it screaming in fear when it attacked and bit them furiously like a wild carnivore beast, and the whole audience stampeded away in the opposite direction as it ran after them attacking, biting, bucking, and smashing glasses, handbags, seats, and anything in its path!
It finally charged into the car park and chased people everywhere about the cars, leaping on roofs and people, but it finally jumped through a car windscreen and got trapped, and security guards finally arrived and caught it!
Chapter 11
The Show
Afterwards to celebrate their incredible win they went to a Las Vegas type of show, even though they nearly got charged for the destruction Willy did, and Cameron was sure it was because they were interested in the horse for more races!
The victory had them all far more drunk than normal and the horse incident was an incredible event, which was in many of the newspapers, and they were sure it was a winner.
It was incredible that before they thought the horse was an absolute monster but they now even encouraged it to be, as they wanted it to get the publicity they believed it needed. Especially Hanks who was like he was making a last desperate bid at his horse racing career, and he was sure that he had paid far more than he had said for the horse, and was carefully hiding the fact.
The show was fantastic and he watched on sniggering and thinking of a headline on one of the newspapers, which read: JOCKEY’S MONSTER ASS ON THE LINE, and showed a stupid photo of Hanks going over the finishing line.
They had been lucky, but how lucky? He was really interested in what would happen with the horse in future races!
During the interval Cameron drunkenly staggered about trying to find a toilet, wandering about for almost half an hour, and was angered that he had allowed them to get him so drunk and by the fact that there were no toilets anywhere! No matter where he looked there was nothing, and was eventually told off by a parking attendant for trying to do the toilet in a nearby car park.
He even though he was sure he was going to collapse somewhere he forced himself to keep walking about outside, and to get some air, and once back in the building he decided to look for one of the people working there for directions to a toilet.
Then after wandering around there for ages he spotted an old usherette and quickly asked for directions, and she told him, “Go up the stairs over there! Go through the double doors you come to! Turn left and carry on through the foyer! Tu
rn left at the end, go up stairs, and then left again! Don’t worry about it you’ll find it!”
She left with a sadistic smile on her face that worried Cameron, and he thanked her and started marching up the stairs.
He arrived at the top dizzy and sick, and wobbled around in a circle and dizzily nearly collapsed in a heap, and had a hard time recalling what she had said!
The place was entirely new and he could not recall anywhere like it, but rushed on so he would not miss the rest of the show.
The place was empty there and he could not find anyone and he recalled the double doors and went there and turned left, and he knew the place could not be that big and that he would come across the toilets if he kept wandering, and he was sure he could recall the directions anyhow!
After he recalled the next set of stairs he was sure he could find the toilet somewhere! Yet the place was far larger than he had estimated, as he had not properly seen it at the outside.
Eventually he found stairs, which looked as they were for the staff, and he followed the instructions and turned left and he became worried about being lost and ruining the night wandering around there, and perhaps collapsing in a drunken mess and spending the night there, and he lost his temper, and saw a distant figure like the usherette away along a corridor and shouted at her calling her an old hag.
Eventually he found his way back to the stairs, which he confirmed were the same ones, and he followed her instructions and turned left but got lost again and arrived at a dark place, just below the roof of the building, and realized it was where the staff did the toilet and he managed to relieve himself in complete darkness as he listened to the audience roaring away in the distance below, and realized that they were cheering a famous performer and rushed back to the stairs, the show, and to his seat!
When he arrived back he was tired and breathless and could not believe that they never had a proper toilet available.
The others hardly noticed him and seemed far more excited and louder than when he had left, and he was disappointed at missing the action, and he started asking them what had happened.
“You missed the best bit!” Simpson announced, laughing cheerfully, watching the now empty stage, imaging what had happened was still there.
Cameron finally had to ask him what he had missed and sat wondering what could have happened and if he should come back the next night to watch it.
Simpson downed his drink, and to his horror told him, “While you were away some guy did the toilet all over the orchestra from somewhere up on the roof!”
Chapter 12
The Treasure Hunt
Cameron could hardly believe the events of the past weeks as they were astounding and the fact that they were once again on the trail of the treasure and had returned to the well.
The last shreds of sunlight vanished beneath the wood, below the horizon, with a deep black night engulfing them, and Cameron studied his surroundings trying to see what he was doing in the darkness and fitted the harness on, getting ready to go down the well, and a car raced passed on Floors Road and its bright headlights illuminated the whole wood and them, showing him how easy it was to see them.
The well had been covered over with something else and the four of them had uncovered it! It was now like they were doing something they should not but all they were doing was climbing down an old well and looking for something and he despised the darkness there as he was sure a bad accident could occur. He had already had some accidents there already!
In the well the darkness would be the same with the torches!
Why did they insist that there was something there? Why did they insist he had been the main person that had thought there had been evidence? It was an incredible situation! He was trying to argue that there was nothing there and he had been the one they insisted had the evidence and had convinced them that there was something buried away there, and they still refused to say anything and back up what had happened.
The wood looked different somehow, even though the darkness altered it greatly, and he was sure someone had altered something else there for some reason, but he was determined and it made little difference.
He considered their search for the lion and tried to search for it in the dark landscape, realizing that lions did come out at night, and was amazed that his senses started increasing, which he was sure was his body gaining heightened awareness to the potential dangers, but he started hearing and seeing things more powerfully than he had ever done before, and could recall, even though he had lost a lot of memory, and he saw a rabbit at a great distance away as though his sight had been magnified like binoculars.
It was also as though he could see in infrared and he watched the rabbit move from hiding place to hiding place, and wondered why they were still even at the location and he was sure that once the army moved they would no longer want to search there for it and that they were on their final attempts at searching.
Fogler was determined in finding what was there and he was going down with him, instead of Simpson, and Cameron put on a harness and they lowered him into the well.
As he went down air currents made strange sounds and he wondered if it was the normal sound of them, and he was hearing it in its real form, and he was sure he heard an insect scurrying along a piece of rock, and he listened to Fogler breathing below, now at the bottom of the well, and he sounded annoyed at what he found there and he watched him moving about trying to check things, as though doing it before he arrived below.
He wondered what was happening to him, and how far his hearing could alter, and if it could alter him into something else, and he wondered if it was a sixth or something else involved as he had seen the rabbit in what appeared as a different form of light.
The sounds were amazing and the others above started to notice his peculiar reactions, and mentioned it.
He even wondered what would happen if they remained the way they were, and what the effects would do to him, and he listened to how mind-bending they were! Fogler’s breathing came screaming up through the shaft like a dangerous fury that stunned him, and no matter how he tried to shake it off and contemplate how it could happen it never altered or formed a stable normal recognition and he started not listening, and forcing his hearing to return to normal again.
Clouds of powdered dirt came up from below, swirling through the beams of light in gusts of air, and he felt heat from the air and smelt burning and realized that Fogler was now lighting a fire below for some reason and he tried to see why.
He was using pieces of branches and twigs that were covering the area below and Cameron considered if he was getting rid of them to clean away the mess or using the fire for some reason.
He soon realized that it was both and that he was using it to see properly around him in the darkness below, and he considered if his torch batteries were going flat and if they would only have one torch later on.
He was sure the well was actually built hundreds of years ago and wondered if there had been no water above at the time, and why it had been made. Perhaps they had not owned any land with water and had to use their own water source.
He wondered if it was the well’s builders that had put the treasure there, if it existed! There was little on what was there and why they were there. They insisted he was the one that had the information and they expected him to recall what was happening, but what the hell was it and he could not imagine recalling anything. If only he could meet someone or something that he had known that would remind him.
When he landed beside Fogler at the bottom of the well he suddenly he recalled the map and he watched Fogler absorbed with the fire and searching to fully notice him!
He recalled all the faint lines on the map, and scribbles, and was sure it was a map but everything was too dim and incomprehensive, but he was starting to think it could have been a form of treasure map! He was sure it was a map of the area and that an mark on it was where they were digging and he or the person that it had belonged to had traced
the well to there, and had uncovered the well beneath the ground in the wood.
He had kept trying to read the writing on it, and had been so unsuccessful that he had not even realized one word on the thing, and he was starting to think it was in another language or an old language used by the person that had made it.
He had considered having it dated to get who had written it, but he was not sure how to go about doing it yet and was unsure if their dating was accurate, and could give him the wrong time and be off by many years.
Fogler’s plan was clearly to search where they had not looked or properly looked, and Simpson had given him his information.
Cameron soon became more interested in the fire and keeping it going, especially for its bright light and warmth it gave out, and he wondered again what had happened to all the water at the bottom of the well and realized that the underground water supply was either gone or buried below all the mud and boulders.
He suddenly wondered if the treasure was behind any of the bricks making the surrounding well wall going around him and he started to examine them in detail and even though most had been removed and fitted back in place he was surprised that one part of the wall was covered in a thick layer of dried muck and when he pulled chunks of it away he eventually found a black slab embedded in the dried muck, and that it looked like some form of shiny black stone, measuring a foot by half a foot, and it interested him greatly and he wondered why they had not properly searched the whole wall, and what amazed him most was its accurate flatness and shape, as all the other boulders were chiseled rocks.
It was perfectly manufactured and he could not realize how it had gotten there, as none of them had believed the makers of the well had manufactured it less than hundreds of years ago.
The Lost Treasure Map Series Page 62