by Jon Cohen
Ronnie swallowed. It was if he had just watched a dog bury a bone in a vast backyard, with the strange intention of never finding it again.
Oriana, meanwhile, had made her way over to YA which was next to the children’s books. The other young girl was down on her knees perusing titles.
“Hi, Tess,” Oriana said. Tess was in Oriana’s fourth grade class. Sometimes they sat together at lunch, but they didn’t speak much. Tess had red hair and that was interesting. And her parents were divorced, and that was interesting, too.
“Hi, Oriana,” Tess said.
“What book are you getting?” Back at the desk, the mothers were looking their way.
“The Buckskin Sisters,” Tess said. “It’s kind of old but I like it. It’s cowboys but with girls.” It was a series. She handed a volume to Oriana.
Oriana paged through it. “Looks good.”
“It’s goofy but I like it.” Tess moved a little closer to whisper. “Do you like this library?”
Oriana nodded. “Very much.”
“I do, too. Mom says it’s dusty. And that it smells.”
“I love the smell of books,” whispered Oriana.
“Me, too,” whispered Tess.
Both girls smiled and nodded. Tess’s mother beckoned, and the two girls grabbed their books and skittered to the circulation desk.
Amanda was loving it, the two girls side by side, like friends. And each had the same book. Some kind of series. “Whatcha got there, can I see?” Please don’t be, please don’t be—and it wasn’t! On the book’s cover a picture of two girls in buckskins staring intently at a herd of buffalo in the prairie distance. Not a fairy tale. “Nice,” Amanda said.
Oriana stepped up to the desk, and Olive whammed the date stamp on the Date Due slip in the back of the book. Olive didn’t meet Oriana’s eyes. It registered deeply with Olive, too: Oriana was done with fairy tales. She had changed. Metamorphosed. And Olive knew why. She felt dizzy again, and braced herself against the desk.
The tale of the grum had ended fairy tales for Oriana because it wasn’t a fairy tale at all. The Grum’s Ledger was a grown-up story.
Oriana, a child, an innocent, had been exposed to the real world of woe and loss and regret. There really was a doleful grum who hoarded his treasure—the only part of the story that was a fairy tale was the happy ending. Olive wanted to whisper to her: I didn’t mean to show you a truth, sweetheart. I am sorry to have shown you a truth. And then Olive was awash with shame. That she stood wavering before this young girl.
What else is a library, but a temple of truth? What other function do books have, the great ones, but to change the reader? Books to comfort. But most of all, books to disturb you forward. Oriana needed to change. That was a truth. The grum could only dream of change, while Oriana, before Olive’s very eyes, was changing by the minute. Keep going, sweetheart, until you read every book in this library. Olive looked around at her glorious, tattered temple. But hurry, hurry.
“Oh my goodness,” Tess’s mother suddenly said. She’d gotten a text message. She stared at the glowing screen of her phone, gave her head a little shake of astonishment and laughed. “Guys. Listen to this. In Elkdale?”
Oriana stood very still. If she was absolutely still no one would see the trail of gold coins, like crumbs in the forest, that connected her to Elkdale. Boy, did news travel fast. But of course it did. A hummingbird couldn’t sneeze without it being instantly detected by the internet.
“Elkdale’s only, what, ten miles away?” Tess’s mother said. “Somebody, you’re not going to believe this, found a bag of gold on their front doorstep.”
“Gold?” Amanda and Tess and Olive said in unison. Oriana made sure to say it, too, though she was a second behind everyone else. “Gold?”
Tess’s mother held her phone so everybody could see. They leaned in. There on the screen, atop a news brief from the Scranton Times, a photo of Phil Bartek holding a burlap bag in one hand, and a dozen glittering coins in the other. Standing beside him was a very large and grinning state trooper.
“Is it real?” said Oriana. Her voice squeaked.
Tess’s mother scanned the news blurb. “Totally. It says they tested it, and it’s real.”
“Who would hand somebody a bag of gold?” Amanda said.
Oriana spoke too quickly, “They didn’t hand it, they left it.” Oops. But nobody paid any attention to that fine detail.
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars,” Tess’s mother said. “Can you imagine? Waking up and finding that on your doorstep?”
“Was there a note?” Olive said. “A reason?”
Tess’s mother scanned the article. “No note.”
Good Lord, Olive thought. Someone, a do-gooder or a grum, relieving himself of gold. How stunning the world is.
“I know who it was,” Tess suddenly said.
They all stared at her.
She pointed at Oriana.
Oriana went pale. But Tess reached for the book Oriana was holding. Buckskin Sisters: The Treasure of Craggy Creek. “The Buckskin Sisters find a bag of gold in this one,” Tess said. “I bet you they left it on that man’s doorstep.”
Oriana thought she would faint dead on the spot.
Tess’s mother laughed and took Tess’s hand. “Time to go home. Let’s see if there’s a bag waiting on our doorstep.”
Back in the stacks, Ronnie didn’t hear any of the chatter and commotion. He had opened a very strange book, written by hand. He whispered the first line as he began to read. “‘Once upon an endless time in the Endless Mountains...’”
He didn’t look up from the book until it began to snow on him. Absorbed completely by The Grum’s Ledger, he thought he had been transported to a fairy land where it snowed inside buildings. But when he looked up at the ceiling, Ronnie saw a raccoon paw triumphantly penetrating a new plaster patch that Ronnie had troweled into place just the day before.
* * *
At that same moment, down in Richmond, Virginia, Wolf’s ears pricked and he sniffed the air. Some animals are finely attuned to the scent of blood. Others to the scent of money.
“Elkdale,” Wolf said. He was staring at his iPhone.
It was not a scent, but a news aggregator app he’d had on his phone for years called “Lucky Bastards” that had led him to the Elkdale story.
“Lucky Bastards” was devoted to the undeserving rich, the disgustingly rich and the suddenly rich. Stories about how much money it takes to heat the Queen of England’s four castles. The price of the latest mega yacht. Lottery winners standing beside the podium with their ludicrous oversize checks. And now this undeserving schmuck in Elkdale, Pennsylvania, Phil Bartek.
“A bag of gold. On your goddamn doorstep,” Wolf said.
He was sitting on his own doorstep in the late-afternoon sun, pulling on a cigarette, the post-lawyer’s-conference rage working through him like a horse shiver. Here he was on a doorstep he would soon lose in the divorce. A doorstep that was costing him money, not earning money. Draining him, like Harry was draining him. Harry somewhere out there, not giving Wolf his share.
Harry threatening to give away his money, but has he? And whether he has or hasn’t, what good does it do if I can’t fucking find him? What forest was he hiding in? Harry was a needle in a haystack. I’ll never find him. But I have to. I will.
Who’s so generous that they give away money? Demented. Why would somebody give somebody something? That’s like surrendering. Here, take my money, I can’t deal with it. How perverse is that? It’s like giving away oxygen. Why would you give away your oxygen? Wolf pulled deeply on his cigarette.
Wolf was sweaty with desire. He envied Phil Bartek of Elkdale, PA. Phil Bag-of-Gold Bartek. That’s how easy it was supposed to be for me. That’s how easily Harry’s settlement money was supposed to come to me. Here, Wolf. Thank you, big brothe
r. Here’s a fat check. Wolf imagining it. How it was supposed to be. The doorbell rings, right? And I go outside, and on my doorstep is the check from Harry. So easy, it would’ve been. And so right. So fucking fair.
Wolf zoomed in on Phil’s blandly pleasant face. He tapped a fingernail on the glass of his iPhone, but what he was really doing was tapping Phil on the forehead. Wolf used to do that to guys in high school. Scared the living shit out of them.
Then Wolf began to tap his own forehead because a memory was suddenly taking form. A childhood memory of the first time he saw and desired a bag of gold.
Way back, when kids were allowed to stuff their faces with sugar, there was a brand of gum that came in a small, fake burlap bag. The gum inside was shaped like yellow nuggets of pretend gold. Bag o’ Gold, that was the name of it. Wolf flicked his cigarette, lit another and looked into the distance.
“Harry and the Bag o’ Gold,” he mused. It sounded like the title of a children’s story. Because it was. Starring Wolf and Harry. Costarring Dad. Simple plot. One day, Harry came home from a trip to the store with Dad. Dad had bought Harry a Bag o’ Gold. The bag had a string at the top to close it. Harry swinging the bag by the string and happily chewing his gum as he came up the walk.
Dad didn’t buy two bags, one for each son, he bought one. So the outcome was inevitable, right? Wolf had to have that bag of gold. The question was: Was this the formative moment? Did all his desire for money start right there? With Dad and Harry betraying him? His need to take things? To steamroll his brother and everybody else who stood in the way of whatever it was that he wanted?
Wolf squirmed. He didn’t like these thoughts. He wasn’t a fan of personal insight. It didn’t get you anywhere. It didn’t stop the craving. You still, until your dying day, want what you want, and you will damn well get it.
There was more to the chewing gum story.
Wolf walked into Harry’s bedroom that long ago day and tapped Harry on the forehead. “Give me the bag,” he said. Harry handed it right over. “Don’t tell Dad.” And Harry didn’t. Why wouldn’t Harry have told? Because he was weak. And he didn’t like to make a fuss. Jesus, Harry. Wolf was so angry at Harry for being weak and his father for favoring Harry, that he climbed Harry’s favorite tree, the beech in the front yard, and carved his father’s initials into a thick branch. JC. Wolf wanted Harry to find those initials so that Harry would hate his father for wounding his precious tree.
So very unsettling for Wolf, this Elkdale business. He imagined Phil Bartek holding his bag of real gold. Which is more valuable, Wolf wondered, a bag of real gold or a bag of little gum nuggets?
“Where’s my fucking money, Harry!” Wolf shouted.
If gold is falling from the heavens, how do I get mine? Paint a bull’s-eye on my front doorstep? A golden dollar sign? What had Phil Bartek done?
Wolf began to tap his own forehead, almost violently. What am I dreaming for, I should be thinking. Because somewhere out there is Harry and his four million dollars.
I need to find him fast.
It will be like the old days, Harry cringing, and old Wolfie appears and says, “Give.” And Harry would give, so eager to rid himself of anything that might cause him trouble.
Wolf drew on his cigarette. At least that’s the way Harry used to be.
Now he thinks he’s being smart with me, shrewd? Wolf thought. Harry, little brother, you don’t do shrewd. You do surrender.
What would I do with four million dollars? What’s the first thing I’d buy?
A little burlap bag of golden gum.
And then, I’d start chewing. And when I was done with that bag, I’d buy another and another. Wolf on the doorstep, the heavy muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching as he chewed on visions of limitless bubble gum and gold. He was so lost in rumination, he didn’t see the UPS truck pull up in front of his house. The UPS guy stood there with a box from Amazon.
“Sir, a package for you.”
Wolf snapped out of it and focused on the UPS guy. “What did I order?”
“I, uh, don’t really know.”
Didn’t matter what was in the box. The important thing? Whatever it was, it was his. He owned it. Wolf stared at the box in his lap as the delivery truck drove off.
His thoughts circled back to Harry and the gold.
Wolf held his phone close and zoomed in on the burlap bag of gold in Phil Bartek’s hands.
To the forest and the trees. What does that mean, why did you say that?
Wolf began to tap his finger on Phil Bartek’s Bag o’ Gold. Harder and harder.
No, impossible. It doesn’t make sense. It makes no sense at all.
Does it, Harry?
26
That night, in the tree house, they stared at the news photo on Harry’s phone.
“Just look at him, Harry,” breathed Oriana.
Harry was looking. Phil Bartek standing next to his friend and neighbor, a state trooper. What a grin stretching across Phil’s face.
“Look at how happy you made them.”
Harry nodded. He hadn’t expected this part. That the money, which had come from such a miserable place, could put a smile of such joy on someone’s face.
“Can’t you smile a little, too?” Oriana said.
But Harry was thinking too intently to smile. It was hard for him to process the joy—but what he could process was the excitement in the eyes of Phil and the state trooper. It was the excitement part that he had worried about and planned for.
* * *
Harry knew it was the second bag of gold that would be the true sensation. The first order of gold, the Bartek bag, had been a test to see if the system worked. Boy, did it. But he wasn’t going to pick up the remaining shipments one by one. He didn’t want to make multiple trips to UPS delivery sites (forget the post office, too snoopy) no matter how anonymously he could supposedly do it. Not with all the hubbub and hype that would come after bag number two landed on a Susquehanna County doorstep.
Harry ordered the remainder of the gold, approximately $3,750,000, in $300,000 dollar parcels (the allowable maximum) from twelve different gold bullion companies, and had them shipped to three different UPS sites in and around Scranton. It was a complicated and time-consuming pain in the ass, but doable. Do it, Harry, do it. That was his mantra for the several days he spent gathering up the shipments. A guy runs around Scranton picking up millions in gold and no one pays a whit of attention. Holy moly. If it hadn’t been terrifying, it might’ve been fun.
Each box weighed twenty pounds. He still would have liked to use a wheelbarrow, but navigating one through a dense forest would be impossible. He used a backpack to schlep the gold in multiple trips to the quarry hiding place Oriana had found.
When he saw the quarry the first time, he was impressed.
“Wow, Oriana, home run.”
He had to hand it to her, it really looked like the perfect setting for a troll or a small dragon to hide its gold. Why hadn’t the grum hidden his gold somewhere like this, why did he sit on it night and day, Harry wondered. To feel it constantly under his butt, probably. The grum was chained to it, that was the point of the story. The holding, then the explosive freedom of letting go.
“Don’t get too close to the edge,” Harry said.
“I know how to do this.”
He smiled. “I know you do. What was I thinking?”
“It’s okay. You were just watching out for me.”
They stood on the quarry perimeter, fifty feet above the floor, which was dry except for little pools of brackish rainwater here and there, and giant mounds of broken bluestone slate like shattered temples. The cave, Oriana said, was just below them, tucked into the largest mound, shouldered up against the quarry wall. It was impossible to see the cave entrance through the mass of vines and undergrowth that had invaded the quarry.
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br /> “That’s a lot of poison ivy. Daunting for gold thieves. Nice touch,” Harry said.
“And tons of yellow jackets,” Oriana said, pointing to a nest in an oak stump. Five or six bees orbited Harry’s head like angry moons around a planet. He raised a hand to swat at them.
“You do that, the whole nest will attack you,” Oriana said.
He slowly and carefully lowered his hand. “Bees, poison ivy. How about badgers? Have you assigned badgers to guard this place?”
“Wouldn’t that be cool? Badgers in uniforms and big, thick snakes.”
Oriana placed a foot onto the slate mound. “Watch your step. Don’t start a landslide.”
Harry blinked. “I’m thinking this isn’t a good idea.”
“You wanted the perfect place. This is perfect.”
“Oriana. Really. It’s perfect but it’s dangerous. I should do this alone.”
She stamped her foot. Pebbles bounced down the side of the mound. Harry blanched.
“That’s not fair,” Oriana said. “That’s treating me like a kid. I’ve played in this quarry, like, a million times.”
“Your mother know?”
“My dad knows.”
Oriana waited. Harry considered his options. “Okay. Fine. Just know that if we tumble to our deaths, your mother will kill me.”
“Harry,” Oriana said solemnly. “You never die. That’s how we met, remember?”
Harry was taken aback. Yes, of course, at the sugar maple. He didn’t die that day. And that fact was certainly on Oriana’s unspoken list of Important Things About Harry Crane. Harry was a grum. Harry was a giver of gold. And Harry, perhaps most of all, was a man who wasn’t going to die. Guaranteed. He had made that guarantee to Amanda, too.