by Jeff Strand
“What do you think we should do?” I asked Roger.
“I guess we need to backtrack in a slightly different direction. Though that does seem to increase the risk that we’ll get lost forever and ever.”
“It definitely does.”
“And it would suck if the treasure is actually just fifty yards ahead of us.”
“Should we walk another fifty yards, just to be sure?” I asked.
“No, that would be stupid.”
“Let’s go south for five minutes. Then we’ll go east until we’ve either found it or we’re pretty sure we missed it again.”
So that’s what we did. And soon we were pretty sure we’d missed it again.
We tried again, adjusting our direction once more.
Then again.
I was trying very hard to ensure that, despite the changes in direction, I had a very strong sense for how to avoid getting lost forever and ever. I was extremely sure that I could get us back to the pond. But me being extremely sure that I could get us back didn’t necessarily mean that I could actually get us back. And we needed to consider that at some point we were going to have to cut our losses and give up.
“When do we bail on this?” I asked.
“Are you ready to quit?”
“No. I just think we should have a general plan. I don’t want to sleep out here again.”
“Me either,” said Roger. “And we don’t know how Henrietta is doing. Is there any reason we shouldn’t just go back to the boat, get to civilization, rest up for a day or two, then come back?”
“Maybe we should have done that in the first place.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m kind of surprised that isn’t something we discussed when we were back at the pond. It makes a lot of sense.”
“Well, sometimes we aren’t very smart.”
“Let’s give it one more hour. If we haven’t found anything by then, we’ll give up for now.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
It would be more dramatic to say that exactly fifty-nine minutes later we emerged into a clearing, but it was more like half an hour. It was a large clearing, not quite the size of the pond.
A cemetery.
There were maybe twenty-five tombstones, spaced pretty far apart.
“This...this may be the right spot,” I said.
“And graverobbing’s totally in our wheelhouse,” said Roger. “You even had that one time where you had to figure out which grave to dig up. This could not be better suited to our skill set.”
I was so excited about our discovery that it took a few moments for it to sink in that there were twenty-five tombstones and no clue about which one might mark the spot of a buried treasure. There may have been some sort of clue on the map that would suddenly make sense now, like if we held it upside down or something, but we also had to prepare ourselves for the possibility that we’d have to dig up twenty-five graves.
“Let’s take a stroll through the tombstones,” I said. “See if anything sticks out.”
There were no words carved on the tombstones, just crude etchings of faces.
And then…
We both stopped and stared at one of the tombstones. The carving was of a skull and crossbones.
“It’s too early to freak out,” I said. “Let’s stay dark and cynical for now.”
“Yes,” said Roger. “I’m sure there’s no treasure buried under there. This is going to be a total waste of time. I’d turn around right now if I had anywhere else to be at the moment.”
The shovels were more like garden trowels but we had two of them, so we started digging.
“May I ask something genuinely cynical, instead of fake cynical?” Roger asked.
“Sure.”
“Does it concern you that the cemetery is so nicely maintained? I’m not saying that somebody comes out here every week with a lawnmower and weed whacker, but unless it’s a cursed place where nothing grows, I don’t think it’s an abandoned graveyard.”
“That’s a very good point,” I said. “Let’s dig faster.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Roger and I dug frantically, as one does when one is trying to uncover an extremely valuable pirate’s treasure. We originally found ourselves digging a coffin-shaped hole, because old habits die hard, but we caught our error and began digging a treasure-chest sized hole instead.
Some bushes rustled.
Crap. Please not another pair of jaguars. Or the same jaguars, here to seek vengeance for our cruel act of hurting their ears with the sound of gunfire.
A man stepped into the cemetery. He was painted completely white.
He was followed by many more of the cannibal villagers. At least thirty of them.
Roger and I climbed out of the hole. It was more like we stepped out of it—it wasn’t a very deep hole yet.
I held up my hands to show that I was not dangerous, in case the villagers were concerned that their thirty-to-two advantage was insufficient. I slowly stepped to the left, toward the backpack with the guns.
The villagers continued to walk toward us. They looked unhappy.
Slow and subtle wasn’t working. I quickly moved for the backpack, grabbed the guns, tossed one to Roger, then pointed my gun at the villagers.
“Stay back!” I shouted. “Keep away from us! You’ll eventually win, but we’ll take some of you with us! We’re not here to hurt anybody!”
The villagers did stop moving, but I did not get the sense that they were going to turn around and march back the way they came.
“Do any of you speak English?” I asked. “Can we talk this out?”
A tall, thin man stepped ahead of the others. “I speak some English.”
“Great! Perfect!”
“Lower your weapon,” he told me.
Roger and I lowered, but did not drop, our guns. The man walked over to us, then pointed at the hole. “Why? There is a word for this. Let me think.” He concentrated for a moment. “Deviant.”
“No, no,” I said. “We’re not deviants.”
“Digging up a dead body. Deviant behavior. What will you do with the bones?”
“It’s not a dead body. It’s buried treasure.”
“Bones are buried treasure? Deviant.”
“No bones. Riches.”
“There is a word for this. Let me think.” The man frowned. “I remember: horseshit.”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Sacred place. We’ve buried our leader that you killed. We return to honor her.”
“So you know a shortcut from your village to here?”
“Efficient route, yes.”
“I’m very sorry about your leader,” I said. “To be fair, she was trying to have us killed. I wish our friend hadn’t shot her, but she had no choice. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sure she was a kind leader.”
The man shook his head. “She was terrible. Made us eat human flesh. Disgusting.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t your idea.”
“And she was the only woman. Long lines. Deviant.”
“So you’re not mad at us for killing her?” I asked.
“Very angry. Filled with rage. You must die.”
“Like I said before, if you all charge at us, you’ll win in the end but we’ll take a few of you with us. Why not just let us leave?”
“Not my choice. Until we choose a new leader, it’s anarchy.”
I had no idea what to do. I really didn’t want Roger and I to start shooting villagers left and right. I’m generally cool with killing madmen who are actively trying to do me harm, but opening fire on a group of people felt very distasteful. Maybe a shot in the air would work on them the way it had the jaguars.
“Can’t you at least try to talk to them?” I asked.
“What’s the treasure?”
“We don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“We don’t know.”
The man looked very confused. “What if it’
s disappointing?”
“It probably will be. My friend and I have terrible luck.”
“You’re cursed?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“I think you’re lying. I think you’re digging up bones. You keep digging, and if there’s treasure underneath the ground, I’ll ask the others not to kill you.”
“Great, sure, that sounds fair,” I said. I turned to Roger. “Okay, break’s over. Let’s get back to work.”
As the man spoke to the other villagers, Roger and I returned to the hole and resumed our digging. “You get that the stakes now are way higher, right?” he asked.
“I sure do.”
“This might not be the right tombstone.”
“I’m very much aware of that.”
So the fun excitement that we might be digging up a buried treasure was replaced by the stomach-churning fear that we might not be digging up a buried treasure. I wondered if maybe we could dig really, really slowly and hope that they got bored and left.
We decided not to do that, in case it pissed them off.
My shovel struck something.
Probably a rock. Or a skull. Or very hard dirt.
I quickly dug around it.
It was not a rock. Or a skull. Or hard dirt. It was a...holy freaking crap it was a treasure chest!
Oh, sure, it was a fairly small one. Maybe the size of a lunchbox. But it looked like the image that’s in your mind when you picture a treasure chest, unless you have some deranged mental image of a treasure chest, in which case just try to picture what other people think of when they envision a treasure chest.
I lifted it up. It was quite heavy.
Roger’s jaw had literally dropped. Not to the ground, just the standard amount that a human jaw drops when its owner is completely gobsmacked.
I placed the treasure chest on the edge of the hole. Roger and I stepped out.
“What’s the word for when you’re really shocked?” asked the man.
“There are lots of them,” I told him.
“Bamboozled?”
“Nope. Just go with surprised.”
“I am very surprised.”
“So are we. Anyway, you’ve now seen that we weren’t trying to steal anybody’s bones for, I don’t know, whatever kind of kink might be involved with that. Can we go?” Yes, I was mostly playing stupid, but it was possible that a group of villagers who lived out in the rainforest and eschewed contact with outsiders might have no real use for a treasure chest.
“Open it,” the man told me.
I took the silver key out of my pocket, inserted it into the lock, and turned it.
Nothing happened.
“Turn the key more effectively,” the man said.
I tried again. Still nothing.
“It’s a really old key, and it’s a really old chest,” I said. “Yeah, the wood is in fantastic shape for something that was buried for so long—they must have treated it with something—but it makes sense that the lock will be a bit rusty. No big deal.”
“Let me see the key,” said the man.
I handed it to him. He looked over the key, then bit down upon it. He nodded with satisfaction.
“I like this key,” he said. “It’s a fair trade for your lives. If you didn’t have the guns, we’d kill you and take everything, but since you do, we’ll settle for the silver key. Agreement?”
“Yes. That’s more than fair. Thank you.”
The man held the key up to the others and made a dramatic announcement. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but his tone and gestures seemed to indicate that he was telling them that being the holder of the silver key made him their new leader.
Roger scooped up the backpack while I picked up the chest. The villagers didn’t pay much attention to us as we quickly walked past them and out of the cemetery.
When we were a safe distance away, we put the chest into the backpack.
“Should we try to smash it open against a tree?” Roger asked.
“Nah,” I said. “The chest itself might be worth something.”
“Good point.”
“We can pick the lock later. We might open it and find out that it’s full of rocks and a picture of the pirate Erik Bestard giving us the finger. I’d rather imagine that we’ve struck it rich for a while longer.”
“I like that idea,” said Roger. “For now, we’re filthy stinking rich.”
A few minutes later, it began to pour. On one hand, this felt like a purposeful attempt by Mother Nature to spoil our good mood. On the other hand, we were literally in the rainforest. We were overdue.
And screw you, Mother Nature. Our good mood didn’t diminish. We even whistled.
Imagining that the chest was full of gold made the weight of the backpack easier to bear, but we still kept trading back and forth, to make sure we didn’t suffer spinal damage. The pouring rain slowed down our pace, but I watched the compass carefully and as far as I knew we were still headed toward the pond. I wondered if it was raining there. If so, Henrietta was probably in a pretty foul mood, but I was confident that the treasure chest would brighten her spirits.
Though we were moving more slowly, we saved time by not fumbling around and missing our destination. We reached the pond on the first try.
It was still pouring. Henrietta sat there, looking absolutely miserable, as if she’d been shot in the leg, was left alone for several hours not knowing if she was going to die out here, and was now sitting in the rain.
Roger and I had discussed the possibility of honoring Ignacio’s sense of humor by telling Henrietta that we hadn’t been able to find the treasure, and then saying that we were just kidding, but we decided against it.
“I can’t believe it,” said Henrietta as we walked over to her. “I assumed you’d died hours ago.”
“Nope.” I took off the backpack and unzipped it. “And guess what we found?” I took out the chest.
Henrietta’ eyes went wide. “What was inside?”
I returned the chest to the backpack. “We don’t know. The cannibals stole the key.”
“Well, break it open against a rock.”
“The chest might be valuable.”
“Ah, good point.”
“We’ll pick the lock. I don’t want to do it now in case the treasure is something that shouldn’t get wet.”
“Like a Mogwai,” said Roger.
“So whose back am I riding on?” Henrietta asked.
Roger and I did a quick game of rock, paper, and scissors. As always, Roger cheated by making his selection an instant later than the rules indicated, so he had the backpack and I had Henrietta. She was a fairly small woman, but unless it’s Tinkerbell, trying to walk through the rainforest while giving somebody a piggyback ride is quite a challenge. Her comments ranged from playful to disturbing. That said, she would’ve been justified in constantly screaming “My leg! My leg!”, so if I had to listen to the occasional flattering but haunting remark, I’d live.
The exhaustion and the rain were starting to outweigh the giddiness of being potentially rich. And it was starting to get dark, so we’d have to decide if we wanted to sleep in the rainforest again or trust that flashlights would be enough to keep us from slipping and breaking our ankles.
And then the rain stopped.
And I heard the sound of a river.
With a sudden renewal of energy, we walked toward the river and emerged from the rainforest. It wasn’t exactly where we’d entered, but we could see Jasper’s motorboat a few hundred yards to the north.
We’d made it.
“Why are you crying?” Henrietta asked me.
“Because I’m relieved.”
“Well, knock it off. It’s making me uncomfortable.”
We walked to the boat, almost delirious with happiness. But I had to remain focused, because it would suck to make it this far only to lose my balance and splatter my face on the ground. Roger took off the backpack and set it inside the boat, while Henrietta sl
owly limped around to inspect the vehicle.
“Please tell me you have the starter key,” she said.
“I sure do.” I took it out of my pocket and gave it to her.
Henrietta climbed into the boat. “Then give this thing a push and let’s be on our way.”
Roger and I shoved the boat off the shore. I wasn’t even worried about caiman or parasites anymore. Our problems were—
“Shit,” said Henrietta.
“What?” I asked.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Hopefully it’s not a big deal. Hold on a second.” She unzipped the backpack. By the time I thought “Hey, it might not be good that she’s digging around in the backpack,” she’d already pointed a gun at us.
“Step away from the boat,” she said.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked.
“All the way back onto the shore. Both of you.”
“Can’t you at least drive us back to the city, and then steal the treasure?”
Henrietta shook her head. “Sorry.”
“C’mon, Henrietta,” I said. “I thought we were friends. The treasure divided by three is way more than we thought we were going to get.”
“Speak for yourself. Hell, if I’d known the treasure could be carried by one person, I might have let the cannibals eat you. Now get the fuck back on shore or I’ll shoot you in the neck.”
Roger and I stepped away from the boat. “You’re really going to leave us here to die?” I asked.
“Not necessarily. You’re resourceful. Build a raft. See what lies down the river.”
Henrietta moved to the driver’s seat, started the engine, and sped off, heading back the way we came.
Roger and I just stood there in a state of shock until she’d vanished from sight.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Roger and I spent admirably little time pouting. I’m not saying we didn’t pout at all, I’m just saying that we could have easily pouted a lot more. Finally, accepting our bad fortune, we decided upon our next step.
We really only had three options. The first was to build a raft, and then float down the river and see what happened. But it was fair to say that whatever happened would be very bad.