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“‘Drake had seen men's fingers crushed by misdirected sledge hammers before, a common occurrence among novice miners, and he could have accepted that, but nothing in his sixty-two years had prepared him for what the equivalent of a twenty-pound sledge could do in subfreezing weather. In that brief moment between realization and pain, he stared at his fingerless glove with all the astonishment of a gold strike. Then, before the pain completely hit him, and before the wind could blow the door open again, he dropped the latch beam in place with his good hand and screamed every obscenity he knew.’”
Wilson stopped to catch a breath and take a sip of water. It was just long enough for Jerk to cut in. “Can you get to the part of the treasure? The paper said you were going to show how Mark Twain put a secret code in his book on where to find a fortune in lost gold. It didn’t say anything about you reading to us like a bunch of preschoolers.”
The look on the author’s face would have made Medusa jealous, but I doubt anyone noticed. Jerk must have changed his shirt, but his pants were still wet, making it look like he had a bladder accident.
“Craig, please. Not here,” Shelia said, turning to face him. Her cheek was bright red, and obviously it wasn’t because she had too much sun at the lake, or embarrassed by his remarks. Even I knew it would soon turn a dark blue. She should have let him drown.
I whispered a little too loud to Bo
My remark resulted in a laugh from a few people next to us.
“I’m sorry if the news article was misleading, sir,” Wilson continued, unaware of my joke. “My publisher hired a new publicist straight out of school who is trying to make a name for herself. The treasure in my book is folklore as is its location. I suggest if you are looking for a treasure hunt, then maybe you should go out and buy Forrest Fe
“Who the hell is that?” asked a kid sitting next to the jerk I now knew as Craig. He had the weirdest hair I’d ever seen. His head was shaved bald on one side and long, purple hair on the other.
“That guy who claims to have buried a treasure so people will buy his book, Cory. Now shut up and let him finish. Or have you forgotten why we’re here?” It was the punk’s girlfriend, or at least that’s the impression I got. It could have been his sister, for all I knew. Either way, they were definitely a matched set with nearly identical tattoos covering their necks and arms.
“Thank you, miss,” Wilson said. He began to read where he had left off, then looked back at the audience. “Well, considering how my publisher may have brought most of you here on false pretenses, I guess it won’t hurt to skip ahead to the treasure. But please remember, this is historical fiction. I have simply taken an incident from the past and used it to create a story.”
Wilson lowered his eyes again and started flipping pages. Fringed with graying hair, his shiny bald spot reminded me of my grandmother’s doilies. He seemed to find the page he wanted, and woke me from my daydream of Grandma setting the table at Thanksgiving di
“Anyway, Drake must have found the mine and dug out five thousand dollars worth of nearly pure gold, for he left a message describing his find and the location of where to find his gold and the lost mine. However, according to an article I found in the Rocky Mountain News, his message wasn’t found until some uranium miners stumbled on the remains of his pack mule in the early fifties. There was a frenzy of sorts, searching for the gold, but because Drake had encrypted the location in code, the treasure was never found, and it soon became just another forgotten fable.”
“You’re telling us there’s only five thousand dollars?” It was Cory again. “I don’t call that no treasure.”
Wilson didn’t seem to be very upset at the latest interruption. He smiled and looked back with cold, gray eyes at the kid. I’d seen that same smile before. I think it was Ha
Cory didn’t say another word. I couldn’t see his face from where I sat, but I could imagine him counting on his fingers trying to calculate the sum.
Wilson didn’t wait for the kid to come up with a figure. “That’s nearly three hundred thousand, Son,” he said before refocusing on his book.
He waited a moment for it to sink in then continued. “I think I left off where Drake had found shelter in an abandoned silver mine and lost his frostbitten fingers when the wind blew the mine door shut on his outstretched hand. I’ll skip ahead now to the good part where he has started a makeshift fire from all but one book in his pack.
“‘Drake huddled over the flames, trying to catch every last ray of its nefarious warmth, as the fire burned with the words of dead writers. Drake needed all the help Pe
“‘Hours later, Drake finished his Last Will and Testament in which he says Pe
“So you’re telling us we got to buy your book to find where the gold is hidden?” It was Cory again. His tone suggested more than a question; it came out like an accusation.
Wilson answered condescendingly. “I told you, this is a fictionalized story of an article I read from a 1953 issue of the Rocky Mountain News. The book you want to buy, if you insist on believing the story is real, is written by Mark Twain, not me.”
“And what book is that, Mr. Wilson?” asked a bald man in the front row, wearing worn Levi's and a sleeveless shirt that showed a crude tattoo of the Marine Corp symbol and the words, Semper Fi, beneath it.
Craig took it upon himself to answer for the author. “Jeez, dumbo, any idiot can see it’s Tom Sawyer.”