There's Gold in Them Thar, Peaches?

It was getting late and mama was calling for us to come home. It was summer 1975. I was out with my brother and sister. We had put our money together and bought a metal detector to find some treasures buried out back. You see, we live in a small town in California, called Pollock Pines. It used to be a gold mining town and we were going to strike it rich. Mama thinks we're being foolish, but daddy was optimistic. He said if we struck it rich, that we would have to start paying rent. We were good with that. We were out every day, all day. But so far only a few coins and a rusty old bucket. But mama started calling us just as we started digging in a new spot. This could be it. We could be rich. My sister ran to the house to let mama know we would be in soon, and to grab a flashlight.

She got back just as my brother yelled, “I feel something.” We kept digging and soon pulled up a metal box. It had a little lock on it so we took it home to clean it off and open it. Mama made us wash up for dinner and eat before we could open it up. Daddy agreed with her, so we ate as fast as we could, without getting in trouble for inhaling our food. After dinner we ran to dad’s shop to open the box. During dinner we thought of all the things we may find inside. I imagined a pirate's treasure. My sister guessed that it would be full of bones of someone's pet. My brother guessed it would be full of gold. It was kinda heavy and things did shake around in it. It could just be full of rocks and someone just put it there to get someone all excited. Maybe daddy put it out there. Nah, it would have been easier to dig it up if he buried it recently. Teddy, my brother, tried to open it, but couldn’t get it. So we had to get daddy. Sammy, my sister (her real name is Samantha, but she doesn't like it) went to get him. My name is Nickie. I'm 7, Teddy is 10 and Sammy is 12.

When daddy came in to help us open the box, he joked and said “there’s that box I buried back when I was a kid.” We knew he was lying as he grew up in the city, far far from here. He laughed as he got his dead bolt cutters. “This should do the trick” he said, and before we knew it the box was opened. It had some purity rocks that might be worth something, some marbles, a little black book, a very old toy car and a bag with some old money in it that totaled $6.48. Not quite rich, but it was fun.

Sammy picked up the book and started to read it. It was written in 1942. This book belongs to Billy James, is what it said on the first page. Sammy read Billy’s journal to me as we laid in bed. At first it was just about his summer. Swimming in the lake and going on a fishing trip with some friends. But then he talked about a treasure that the locals would talk about.

This is what he wrote:

I overheard Old Tom talking to my pa about the family who lived here long ago, back when he was just a boy. He said that they kept to themselves from the moment they moved in. No one in town knew much about them. They kept their kids home from school too. Some men came to town a few years after they had moved here. They were looking for someone, and they look dangerous. At first no one was sure who they were looking for, but when one mentioned a scar on the back of the man's left hand, well that was a give a way. It was the mechanic who told the men where to find them. He was still mad because the man refused to let him work on his car and only bought parts from him.

Well the men went over to the house, my house. It was overheard that they didn’t find the gold that they were looking for. They tore up the house looking for the treasure that had been stolen. They had killed the parents and left the two kids, a boy of 11 and a girl of 6, all alone. Rumor has it that the man was part of the gang who stole the gold in the first palace and must have ran taking more than his share. Old Tom said that it was Sally, the hairdresser that took the kids in. Sally had never married and had no kids of her own. He didn’t know what happened to the kids after they grew up and left town. Sally died some years later, but no sign from either of the kids. Daddy listened to his story, so did I. I want to find that treasure.

As Sammy read on, there were entries that he looked by the creek, by the big oak tree and even next to the out house. I was glad he looked there as the outhouse is long gone now. I kept thinking how much easier it will be for us to find the treasure as we have the metal detector. I could hardly sleep.

The next morning we got up with the sun. Over breakfast Sammy and I told Teddy all about what the book said, in between bites of food. We cleared our plates and ran outside to start looking. We looked everyday with the knowledge that there was in fact gold buried somewhere on our land. Summer was almost over, and we still haven't found it. We did find a silver ring, some old silver dollars, $14.33 in coin and lots of junk. Lots of junk.

A bad storm moved in and so we can’t go out looking. Mama said that it was good, we could do something besides looking for treasure. Sammy did the math and figured the gold had to be buried in the late 1800’s maybe around the 1870’s. We went to the Library to get some books on our town around that time, as well as news articles. For those we had to spend the day looking at microfiche files. It did finally pay off after 3 ½ hours, we found a story about some stolen gold from a bank. We got a copy of the story and some books on the area and went home. Teddy was in his room drawing pictures of all the things he wanted with his share of the gold. His house was huge and a big fancy car. I think he is crazy. I want a pony, and maybe a bigger house so Sammy and I can have our own rooms.

We sat at the table and talked about the gold. We looked at the map we made of all the places we had already looked, and marked any place that could be a good place to look. Mama was even interested and chimed in with the, “you haven’t looked inside the house?”

She was right, we figured it had been gone through plenty when the men came looking for it. Daddy said not much of the original house was left, as it had been remodeled a few times. Once due to a fire. We started looking in the house with the metal detector. In the pantry we got a beep. Problem was there were tiles on top of the beep. Mama handed Teddy a hammer and told us to get out of the way. Looks like the gold fever is getting to mama too. Teddy got the tiles up only to find another layer of linoleum. That was easier to get up. But what a mess. I know daddy will be mad when he sees this. But we got the linoleum up and found what made the beep. It was a hinge. There was a secret cellar.

Mama got the flashlight and Teddy went down. It was full of old canned foods. Must of been over 100 years old, or just ‘bout that. Maybe the gold was hidden in here. Sammy went down next after handing the metal detector down to Teddy. Then I went in. It was a bit spooky in there and not much room with the three of us there, but we started looking. Teddy checked the entire floor, but nothing. In his anger he pushed the metal detector away and knocked over one of the jars. It broke, and boy did it stink. Teddy was the first one out. But I saw something shiny and so did Sammy. It was a gold coin. We found 3 of them. We handed mama and Teddy the rest of the jars, totaling 42 if you count the broken one. By the end of the day we had 126 gold coins. Each weighed 1 oz, They were in mint condition mama said. We were indeed rich.

When daddy got home and saw what we had found, well lets just say he recovered after a few days. Both mama and daddy said we would have to turn it over to the police first, as it was part of a robbery and a muder.

Weeks had passed when we got a call from the police station. Seems the bank had folded many years ago. The gold was released to us as the owners of the house. Daddy gave us each $20,000 in our banks for when we get older. He then bought us a bigger house by the beach, as mama always wanted. And we are going on a vacation. We have never been on a vacation before. Mama wants to go to Hawaii and daddy wants to go to Alaska to do some fishing. I said, why not both? So we did. Mama got the tan and rest she wanted and daddy got the biggest halibut caught that day. And for us kids, we brought our metal detector with us and found more treasures, including a diamond ring in the sand. Best investment ever.