No. 347

Lucas Williams sat high-up in the tree, watching the two men search for the treasure. Though the men were careful to avoid being followed, they did not suspect that they were being observed from above.  

 

The treasure had been part of town lore for all of Lucas’ 15 years, and for many more before that. There was said to be a curse upon whoever found it, but that didn’t stop anybody from looking. Whispered rumors suggested that Farmer Ashcroft had discovered the lode shortly before his accident, although it was clear that he’d made no further attempts to retrieve the prize.

Everybody knew the cryptic directions by heart. “A fortune is buried four fathoms below the clearing west of the forked rock.”

 

Lucas saw one of the men begin to dig as the other marked the coordinates in his GPS device. Before long, the hole had been expanded into a cavity large enough for both men to stand in. Lucas heard the unmistakeable sound of a shovel striking wood and drew in his breath sharply. He strained to hear what the men were saying, but couldn’t make out their whispers.

Slowly, the men scraped away the dirt around a large, rectangular area. Then they traded their shovels for crowbars and jimmied the wooden lid off of the exposed crate. Lucas thought he saw a flash of something shiny before his view was blocked as the men shifted position in the hole.

But Lucas had a funny feeling that something about the situation wasn’t right. The pit wasn’t nearly deep enough as the legend said, and the size of the box, though impressive, didn’t seem large enough to hold the requisite amount of gold.

Lucas was trapped in the tree until nightfall, when the two men left in the direction of the town. He scrambled down the trunk and crept carefully toward the hole. Reaching the edge, he lowered himself down until he was kneeling on the ground, inches away from the mysterious chest. With one last, nervous scan of the clearing, Lucas pulled aside the hastily replaced lid.

Upon seeing what was inside, he gasped, and stumbled back into the earthen wall of the excavation. He felt small chunks of dislodged soil fall onto his shoulders as he struggled to comprehend the contents of the box.

They were certainly not a treasure.