Another Treasure Hunt

Another Treasure Hunt

By Cleve Taylor

At lunch today, Billy Joe once again told the story about how he and Bobby Lee, when they were young teens, had been scared by a ghost when they were digging for treasure inside an old house with ripped up floors in Frog Lick where an old civil war veteran had lived and died.

Bobby Lee had died on Omaha beach at Normandy, but Billy Joe had survived parachuting into St. Lo and ended his army time helping with logistics in a liberated Paris. A GI Bill later and years of study at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and presto, Billy Joe was a lawyer in Conway.

They of course had seen no ghost, but the night was dark enough, the kerosene lantern had cast ghostly shadows, and he had been talking about BJ's ghost guarding his treasure. Then when a large whitish barn owl took flight and screeched at them, they thought they were seeing a ghost and ran screaming from the house leaving their shovels and their lantern behind. It was only later when they told others what they had seen and heard that they learned that they had encountered a barn owl that had taken up residence in the old house.

The story was always good for warming up a new client, and so it was with the young widow, Marsha Meadows. She had some estate issues that she needed a lawyer to resolve. So, Billy Joe to the rescue. He was not one to leave a damsel in distress, especially one as pretty as this damsel. Soft long dark hair, shimmering blue eyes, a smile that matched a twinkle in her eyes… Oh well, stop that. She's in mourning and the biggest no-no in lawyer land was starting a relationship with a client. Especially when the lawyer was at least fifteen years older than the woman.

Billy Joe was driving west in his 1950 two-tone Mercury sedan with the wide whitewall tires toward Little Rock for an appointment with a state legislator when he saw the sign for the turn off for Frog Lick. It being fresh in his mind, he impulsively turned into Frog Lick and started looking for familiar landmarks that would lead him past the house he grew up in and to BJ's haunted house.

The current owners of his parent's house had added an addition, cut the trees that he had climbed, added a brick facade to the front, in other words, made it into their house. Billy Joe’s old house no longer existed.

The empty land that used to be between his house and the haunted house had spawned post-war cookie cutter houses with car ports and trikes in the driveways. When he got to the turnoff to the old house, there was no old house. A cornfield surrounded by a stand of pines was there instead.

He parked, climbed the gate, and walked to where the old house had been, right in the middle of the cornfield. He shook his head, half in amazement and half in dismay, in the way that time had erased the objects of his memories of childhood. He knew it was true of every generation since man had moved from caves to straw huts, but it was still unsettling, like something was lost, like there was a piece of a thousand-piece puzzle gone astray.

When he got back to the gate, he noticed an old rusting “FOR SALE” sign by the gate. Out of curiosity he wrote down the name of the realty company and the phone number.

The next day he called the realtor and asked the status of the land. Lawyers loved inheritance disputes. A good one could pay for the lawyer’s children’s college education. BJ’s large family had grown exponentially with no agreement for disposing of their inheritance, until it got to the point that the land was about impossible to sell. However, the signatures of all the heirs the lawyers could find had recently been secured that they might now find a buyer. However, the asking price was abnormally low because the buyer might encounter an unknown heir with legal rights at some future date. “It would be a perfect purchase for a lawyer who could handle any future issues without incurring legal fees.”

Billy Joe agreed and bought the 20-acre parcel with earnings from a recent successful product liability suit. Billy Joe allowed the farmer wo had rented the cleared five acres for a pittance to harvest his corn crop with the proviso that he would clear the land of stubble after the harvest.

A few months later Billy Joe bought a used RV and on weekends started parking it on the site where BJ’s house had stood. He would sit there under an awning with a cold bottle of Budweiser and a Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer novel and sip and read and remember. Quite often, Marsha Meadows would accompany him. She didn’t think fifteen years was a big deal when both parties were adults. And Billy Joe wasn’t inclined to argue with a former client. She had her own books and preferred wine to beer, so life could not have been better.

Fall was near when Marsha put down her book, turned to Billy Joe, and said, “Let’s look for the treasure.”

“You mean…”

“Yes,” interrupting him. “It could be fun, and it is something we could do together.”

“Well, what do you have in mind?”

“In the book I am reading, there are metal detectors which can find metal objects, like jewelry and coins, and people in England calling themselves detectorists have found Roman hoards of gold and jewelry using them. Maybe BJ’s treasure was metal and maybe it’s still here, underground.”

“Yeah, and there’s probably some old tin snuff cans and Prince Albert tobacco tins around too.” Billy Joe said laughing while using his church key to open another bottle of Bud.

“Probably so. But it would still be a fun thing to do. I’ll bet we could get a metal detector from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.”

“OK, you find a detector for us, I’ll pay for it, we’ll use it together, and we can split fifty-fifty any money we get for any scrap metal we find.”

“Oh, you. Be positive. And we’ll split the cost of the metal detector. I don’t want any argument from you when I claim my half of the treasure.”

Two weeks later they picked up their metal detector from General Delivery at the Post Office in Frog Lick. It was heavy and it was clear that Billy Joe was going to have to do most of the carrying of the thing around. That was until Marsha, after staring at it for several minutes, said to herself “I know…” She got up, announced she was going into town and should be back in a half hour, and left in Billy Joe’s Mercury.

She returned in forty-five minutes, and from the trunk retrieved a Red Flyer wagon, a hand drill, and a clothing line wire several feet long. Without offering explanation or asking for help, she proceeded to jerry-rig a mount for the metal detector onto the little red wagon featured in many children’s books.

Finishing she stood back and looked at her improvisation’ saying out loud, “That’ll do. Billy Joe, can I have one of your beers?”

She could. Afterwards they turned on the metal detector and started dragging it around the RV in an ever-widening circle. Three days later they had in their possession, a half dozen very rusted cans, three bottle caps, (one of them Coca Cola, the other two unidentifiable), a metal bar that they guessed came from a piece of farm equipment, and a 1938 silver quarter. They also had two cases of empty Budweiser bottles and three empty wine bottles. It wasn’t all work.

Sitting in their lawn chairs, they simultaneously realized there was one place they hadn’t looked. They tuned toward each other, both saying, “The RV. We haven’t looked under the RV.”

“Let’s do it he said,” taking the keys from the dashboard.

"Let’s hope there’s still juice in the battery." The starter was sluggish, but after a couple of tries the motor caught, and Billy Joe pulled the RV forward exposing the ground under the RV.

By the time Billy Joe got out of the RV, Marsha was already dragging her Little Red Wagon over the ground that the RV had covered. Billy Joe had just joined her when the metal detector started buzzing, softly at first, but more loudly as they zeroed in on the source of the buzzing.

Marsha did the honors. She carefully removed a square of sod, before getting a garden claw and a large kitchen spoon to dig with. Billy Joe, also excited, was mostly happy that Marsha was having such fun. Odds were that they would soon have an old horseshoe to add to their collection.

First, they heard the spoon clink against glass. Then the rusting metal lids of two quart jars emerged, and with careful digging Marsha retrieved one of the jars and examined it. She handed it to Billy Joe. “What do you think?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. She knew it was a jar of old silver coins. Probably pre-civii war.

She lifted out the second quart jar, looked at it, and started laughing. The jar was very heavy as she handed it to Billy Joe. The jar was filled with shiny gold coins that glinted in the sun as Billy Joe carefully took the jar from Marsha.

“You did say fifty-fifty, didn’t you?”

“Well, I don’t think I really have a choice. Arkansas is a common law state. Half of what I own will be yours, and vice versa.”

“Is that your way of asking me to marry you?”

“Yes, and here’s a ring to bind the contract,” he said handing her a small open velvet ring box with a large solitaire looking up at her, one that she had admired a couple of weeks ago when they were window shopping.

“I love you, and yes, I’ll marry you,” she said, rising on her tiptoes as he lowered his head to kiss her, their arms already around each other.

A barn owl off in the distance hooted his approval.