“Yesss,” Jonathan hissed.
He fit the cutter over the shackle of the second lock. He squeezed the cutter’s handles together, and the lock popped apart with ease.
He knelt, pulled the severed locks from the chest and placed them in one of the pockets of his vest. He reached down, put his hands on either side of the now-unbound lid and tugged upward. It didn’t budge. Again he tried, again it didn’t move. Crap.
He examined the chest more closely and discovered the rim of the lid to be trimmed in iron, as was the brim of the chest. Rusted together, fused as if soldered.
There didn’t appear to be enough room between the chest and surrounding soil to hammer one of the chisels into the rusted seam. And the chest itself, as Jonathan had discovered yesterday, couldn’t be lifted from the ground.
“Oh, well, old-fashioned way then.” He stood, plucked the hatchet from his tool belt and went to work on the hardwood lid.
The cover seemed impervious to the first few blows, the hatchet merely leaving dents in the wood. The sound of chopping rang through the woods and sent several squirrels into a scolding frenzy. In the middle distance, a dog yapped. Zurry’s ears pricked up.
Jonathan kept at it, pacing his hatchet swings so as not to tire quickly. Gradually, the dents became scars, then cracks. At last, one of the cracks ruptured. The hatchet jammed itself into the fissure. Jonathan jimmied it out, then slammed it into the wood several more times. After about ten minutes, he’d managed to hack out an opening roughly a foot long and several inches wide. He peered into the breach, but the dim light prevented him from identifying anything. He could tell only that there seemed to be “stuff” in there.
He took a breather, then went back to work. Hack, hack, hack. He feared the noise would draw unwanted attention, but other than rebukes from the local denizens—squirrels and birds—no one showed up.
After another half hour of chopping, he had enough wood splintered and slashed to be able to yank the pieces from the lid. After clearing the debris away, he leaned over the chest.
“Hol-lee shit,” he said softly, drawing the phrase out. Zurry stood beside him and stared into the hole, perhaps hoping to find plundered dog treats.
Manzanita
SHACK, WITH AN early afternoon departure on Delta from Portland to Atlanta, knew he didn’t have much time. It would take at least a couple of hours to drive to Portland International. First, however, he wanted to talk with Alex. He needed to talk with Alex. He packed the car, left his house key in the condo, and drove through the sunless morning to Alex’s.
He rapped on her front door. No answer. He rang the doorbell. Again, no response. With virtually no traffic, vehicular or foot, in the neighborhood, he decided to walk around the house to see if he could spot Alex through a window. First, he checked the garage and saw her car. That confirmed her presence.
He set off along the side of the residence, following a narrow path through seagrass, salal, and blackberry brambles, so unlike the neat Bermuda grass lawns that carpeted Atlanta subdivisions. He peaked into a couple of windows, trying not to appear like a cat burglar, but drawn Roman shades blocked his view.
At the rear of the house, he found a cedar deck with a built-in spa tub. He stepped onto the deck and moved cautiously toward a set of glass doors leading to the interior of the home. He placed his hands on either side of his face to block outside light, pressed his nose against the glass, and stared into what appeared to be a sunroom. He caught, or thought he did, a glimpse of motion in an adjacent hallway. He tapped on the glass and called Alex’s name. His efforts went unanswered.
Discouraged and a little bit angry, he moved back to the front of Alex’s house. He couldn’t phone her because he didn’t have her personal number, but she probably wouldn’t have answered anyhow. He stood beside his car trying to figure out what to do next when a Manzanita police SUV drove up.
“Shit, Alex,” Shack muttered to himself.
The officer, a kid who didn’t appear to be out of his twenties, climbed from the vehicle and approached Shack. “Sir, what’s going on here?”
“I was just trying to contact Alex . . . Ms. Williamson.”
“You’re Mr. McCready, I assume?” The cop stopped several yards in front of Shack and looked him up and down, a careful, practiced procedure.
“Yes.”
“Well, you were trespassing, Mr. McCready. And Ms. Williamson apparently doesn’t want to see you.”
Unsure of what to say, and taken aback by Alex’s determination to have no further dealings with him, Shack merely nodded.
“We can resolve this peacefully if you agree to leave the area now and not return. Ms. Williamson doesn’t wish to press charges.” He paused. “I understand you’re scheduled to leave town today?”
“I have a one p.m. flight out of Portland.”
The cop checked his wristwatch. “It might be a good idea to get on the road then. The traffic can get heavy going back to Portland on a Sunday.”
“Am I permitted to have breakfast first?”
The young officer squinted at him, perhaps trying for a Clint Eastwood glare. “Yeah, sure. Try The Big Wave up on 101. But if you come back here, I will arrest you. Capiche?”
Shack almost burst out laughing, but decided he might get the bum’s rush if he did. Capiche? Really? Instead he said, “Got it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Warnings
Manzanita
Sunday, July 5
ROB LEFT LEWIS’S place and headed back to the beach house to roust Tim out of bed. Like most teenagers, Timothy loved to sleep in on his “days off,” which amounted to most of summer vacation. They needed to get over to the airstrip again, so if—when—the earthquake struck they could get the Skylane airborne as quickly as possible.
As Rob trudged through the loose gravel on the shoulder of the macadam road, he heard footsteps behind him. He stopped and turned.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Cassie said.
“You didn’t. Just kind of snuck up on me, I guess.”
They continued walking, and she fell in beside him, her lush red hair, as usual, tumbling from beneath a ball cap. And as usual, Rob had no clue as to how old she might be. She seemed . . . ageless.
“So today’s the day, I guess,” she said.
“What?” The question surprised him. How could anyone have picked up on that so rapidly?
“The TV satellite truck, it’s still here,” she said. “There’s not much reason for it to stick around except . . .” She stared at him, and he read a timeless wisdom in her eyes, and a thought as bizarre as his “vision” flashed through his mind.
“No,” he said slowly. “You didn’t need any physical clues to figure this out.” He stopped walking and faced her. “You know, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I sense it, that’s all. I’m just a university researcher.”
“From Troy?”
“Yes.”
“In Alabama?”
“Everyone has to be from someplace.” She laughed. “Look, I just wanted to get in touch with you and say goodbye.”
“I thought you said you’d be around for a few weeks yet?”
“My work is finished. I need to get home.” She moved her gaze toward the ocean as though seeing something unseeable, then looked again at Rob. “You’ve done well, Dr. Elwood. You’ve stayed true to your principles and beliefs, spoke the truth in your prophecies, and weathered the curses.” She touched him lightly on the arm. “I know about curses.”
“How?”
“It comes with the territory.”
“What territory?”
“You’ll figure it out.” She stepped away from him. “I need to get going. Don’t wanna get caught in a tsunami.”
The sudden yapping of
a large dog in a nearby yard drew Rob’s attention from Cassie. When he turned back to say goodbye, she was gone. He caught a glimpse of her lithe figure fading into a soft ocean haze as she walked toward Laneda. He tracked her visually until she turned a corner, heading up Laneda toward 101.
Yes, I figured it out. I know who you are. But I don’t believe it.
More dogs joined the initial yapper. Then yowling cats. Their barks and cries melded quickly into an urgent chorus of concern filling the morning.
Rob broke into a sprint toward the beach house.
Cannon Beach
JONATHAN STARED into the opening he’d hacked out in the lid of the chest. His breathing became rapid and shallow, pure excitement. Zurry looked from the box to Jonathan and back again, puzzled, obviously not understanding his master’s exhilaration.
Jonathan surveyed the contents of the box, although as yet they were only partially visible. He spotted small leather pouches secured with twine, porcelain objects, bundles of silk, chunks of something that looked like beeswax, and in the bottom. . . . He reached into the chest and thrust aside the other objects. Ingots! He counted them, six, each about a foot long.
He withdrew his hand from the chest and stared at Zurry. “Jesus, can you believe this, old boy? Gold. No-bullshit-real-deal gold.” He couldn’t be certain of it, of course, but what else could the bars be?
Images of Manila galleons and pirate vessels danced through his mind. Perhaps the ship of Indian legend had been a trading galleon blown far off course as it plied the Manila-Acapulco route across the Pacific. Or maybe it had been a pirate vessel, full of plunder, making a desperate run north along the West Coast of North America in search of escape through the fabled Northwest Passage, or perhaps merely seeking shelter in a hidden harbor or river mouth.
Jonathan retrieved a couple of the canvas bags he’d brought with him and spread them flat on the ground beside the hole. He began dredging items from the chest and placing them on the bags. After fifteen minutes he’d unloaded the contents except for the ingots. He struggled with those. He estimated each weighed thirty or forty pounds. By the time he’d hoisted those from the chest, sweat saturated his clothes, a strange counterpoint to the coolness of the morning.
He brushed himself off and stood, studying the plunder before him. He focused on the bars. Their color, weight, and the fact they appeared only lightly tarnished suggested, given his minimal knowledge of the subject, they had to be gold. He drew a deep breath and tried to calculate in his mind how much they might be worth. He thought gold currently sold for something on the order of a thousand dollars per ounce, but knew the price jumped around a lot. So, sixteen ounces to a pound, let’s say each bar weighs thirty pounds, that’s . . .
He found himself unable to focus, unable to do the math, but realized he’d probably uncovered a fortune worth . . . what? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Millions? He couldn’t comprehend it.
He knelt and opened one of the leather pouches and emptied its contents onto the spread-out canvas. Several dozen irregularly shaped coins tumbled out. Silver? In truth, they appeared more like misshapen pieces of jewelry than real coins. Again his heart fluttered. Are these the storied pieces of eight? If so, how much would they be worth? He counted four more bags. So, thousands of dollars? More? Less?
He drifted away on an ocean of fantasy, forgetting where he was, what he was doing. Then he blanked totally, confusion reigning, as it seemed to do more and more frequently these days. He remained kneeling as though doing penance at the altar of life.
A soft rumble emanating from deep within Zurry’s chest, like the reverberation of a distant diesel engine, snapped Jonathan out of his involuntary reverie. He stood and looked around, expecting to see an elk or bear or bobcat nearby. Nothing caught his eye. He spoke to Zurry.
“Somebody coming, boy?”
He stared back down the dry creek bed. He saw no movement, except for underbrush and wild grass quivering ever so slightly in the breeze. Zurry continued to growl, his nose pointed toward the ocean.
Jonathan surveyed their surroundings, looking for some hint of an invader, animal or human. No threats appeared, but Zurry sensed something. Jonathan placed his hand on Zurry’s head and felt the warning vibrations rippling through the dog’s massive body. Zurry nudged closer to him, leaned against him, as though in a protective mode.
Then Jonathan got it. Oh, no. Not now. Please, not now. He glanced at the treasure that lay at his feet.
Manzanita
SHACK SAT IN a booth near a window at The Big Wave Cafe and watched the sparse morning traffic—cars, SUVs, motorhomes—plodding along Highway 101 underneath a leaden sky. A waitress tossed a menu onto his table, but he ignored it, lost in the wilderness of his thoughts.
He understood Alex’s animus toward him now, but remained taken aback by its intensity after so many years. He supposed he deserved it. He’d led her into a rose garden, then left her standing alone in the middle of it, surrounded by thorns, not beauty. He’d never contacted her again, never checked up on her, never asked about her—ignored her, in fact. He’d been uncaring, uncommitted, unconcerned.
She’d raised their daughter on her own. She’d been, and still was, a proud, stubborn, intelligent woman, never tracking him down to ask for help or to take responsibility. He’d been an absentee father since the get-go, and would, he now realized, be forever an unwelcome member of his own family.
If only Alex knew that he did care, that he did feel responsibility for his actions. That his expressions of regret were sincere. “I know,” he muttered, “a few thousand days late and tens of thousands of dollars short.”
He wondered if there were legal recourses to get in touch with his daughter, but then realized she was no longer a minor or a dependent, that he could find her and get in touch with her on his own. Not that he’d be any more welcomed by her than he’d been by Alex.
An empty, hollowed-out sensation wormed its way into his psyche. He buried his head in his hands and leaned forward, his elbows planted on the table. He drifted off into a swamp of black thoughts and assessed what he had become. Middle-aged. Alone. Smoldering bridges behind him. A sorry existence cloaked in a flimsy, tattered garment of good intents woven from lessons learned too late.
“Ready to order?”
He jerked his head up. “What?”
A dark-haired, slender waitress, possibly close to Skylar’s age, stood beside his table, tapping a pencil on an order pad. “Are you ready to order? Or would you like to snooze a little bit more?”
“I wasn’t snoozing, I was reflecting.”
“About what to order?”
“Yeah. How about cheese grits?”
“We’ve got cheese omelets.”
“No grits?”
“What’re they?”
Shack grunted. “Any hush puppies?”
“Shoes?” Her tone revealed genuine surprise.
Shack rolled his eyes and opened the menu. “Give me a minute.” He scanned the fare quickly. “Seafood omelet.” He jabbed his finger at the entry.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
The waitress returned in short order with a pot of coffee and a cup. The cup rattled in its saucer as she placed it on the table. She poured the coffee, but the cup persisted in its jiggling and caused her to miss the mark, the dark liquid splattering onto the table.
“Oh, my,” she said, more startled than embarrassed.
Shack glanced toward 101, expecting to see an eighteen-wheeler or log truck lumbering by, but the highway appeared temporarily devoid of traffic.
A sharp jolt rippled through the restaurant, triggering a brittle chorus of clattering dishes and utensils. Several patrons rose from their seats and moved toward the exit. The waitress set the coffee pot on the table and followed them.
Chapter
Sixteen
Megaquake
Manzanita
Sunday, July 5
AS ROB SPRINTED toward his beach house, he, ever the scientist, checked his wristwatch. Ten twenty-three a.m. The ensemble of yapping and yowling pets had been his canary in a coal mine. He knew enough about earthquakes to understand what was happening, the sequence of events that had begun to unfold. First to hit would be the seismic “body” waves, called P-and S-waves, that ripple through the Earth’s interior.
The leaders, the P-or primary waves, had already arrived. Compressional waves, much like those that zip along a Slinky, they course through rock and water faster than any other seismic waves. Humans may not sense them, but animals do. Because of their speed, they are the first to be detected by seismographs.
A few ticks of the clock behind the P-waves come the S-or secondary waves. They propagate only through solid rock, not water, and thus lag the P-waves slightly, jerking both up and down and sideways.
These harbingers are not the impulses that cause damage, however; they are the warm-up acts, triggering only bumps and rattles. The main event slams in in the form of “surface” waves, seismic ripples that race through the Earth’s crust, trailing the “body” waves by only a matter of seconds.
Their names, Love and Rayleigh waves, flashed through Rob’s mind as he continued to run, his breathing now deep and labored. Out of shape. But the names Love and Rayleigh would not matter to a population about to be hammered by a megathrust earthquake. They would know and care only that their world seemed to be coming apart beneath them.
His chest heaving, Rob reached the beach house, and paused, head down, hands on knees, gulping air.
“Running from your detractors?” Hector Springer, with what Rob could only describe as a shit-eating grin, stood outside the house. “You invited me to bust your balls if your fantsyquake failed to materialize yesterday, so here I am.” A phlegmy chortle escaped from his throat. “But probably what needs to be busted is your crystal ball. Or maybe you could just sell it to help pay your legal bills. The lawsuits are coming, you know.” He tugged his pants up and gave Rob a victory smile.
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