B J's Treasure

BJ's Treasure

By Cleve Taylor

BJ had a dozen kids and thrice that number of grandkids. Add to that the many friends and acquaintances who showed up at the Frog Lick Cemetery for his funeral, and the turnout for his funeral was a bigger do than the annual Frog Lick Christmas community dance, and there wasn't any spiked punch at the funeral. Not to say that a few of the people there hadn't had a nip before the interment.

Brother Jack read some words from the Bible and BJ's surviving wife, Minerva, laid a bouquet of wildflowers on the pine casket fashioned in the barn by his second oldest. Everyone then moved over to the shelter built just inside the cemetery gate for group gatherings where deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, baked beans, corn on the cob, fried chicken, and homemade biscuits had been brought by family and friends. Four friends stayed at the gravesite to fill in the grave and mound the earth atop it.

BJ's demise wasn't dramatic. He died of old age at 93 years of age. He was well known in Frog Lick being he was the last living civil war veteran in the community and had entertained several generations of youngsters with his ever-changing tales of his service during the war, surprisingly as a union cavalryman. In truth he had been conscripted, but he survived the war and since he was on the winning side was entitled to a veteran’s disability benefits.

Though he received only eighteen dollars a month for a partial disability, in rural Arkansas during the late 1800's and early decades of the 1900's he seemed to have money when hardscrabble farmer neighbors had none. Consequently, fertile minds and needy hands imagined and verbalized fiction about him having buried treasure which accounted for his always having a couple of dollars in his pockets and no visible signs of income, since he did not speak freely about his finances or his pension.

Now that he was dead, and Minerva had moved in with her eldest daughter, the old unpainted plank house originally built by his own grandfather, with one side of the rotting wooden porch sagging dangerously, now sat abandoned.

BJ was gone, but the speculation about his treasure was quite alive. Former friends were not above rationalizing trespass on BJ's property, now belonging to a multitude of kin, for the purpose of finding BJ's treasure. After all, they were BJ's buddies, and he would have wanted them to have it. If he had wanted his family to have it, he would have given it to them while he was alive.

The house sat alone in a field, the nearest neighbor more than a half mile away, so the treasure hunters in the evenings could gather there without being observed and dig for the treasure. Within a couple of months, dozens of dry holes had been dug around the house, and the interior floor had been ripped up and enough dirt removed to make a low-ceilinged basement.

Most of the original treasure hunters had given up on their quest. However, tonight Billy Joe and Bobby Lee, two of the younger diggers at thirteen and fifteen years of age dug alone. Bobby Lee was convinced that the treasure was only a few shovels of dirt away. Two hours into digging and working to the light of a kerosene lantern with its flickering shadows, Billy Joe stopped. "Did you hear that?"

Bobby Lee stopped and leaned on his shovel. "Hear what?"

As if in answer, there was a rustling above them.

"Could that be Mr. BJ's ghost? Raylin said this place was haunted, and no way was he going to come here looking for treasure."

"Billy Joe, there ain't no ghosts here."

"But Raylin said the ghost was here protecting his treasure, and that the ghost would attack anyone getting close to his treasure. Maybe we are close, and the ghost is getting mad."

A loud fluttering sound preceded a white creature sailing across the room emitting a terrifying screech.

Billy Joe added his own screams to the barn owl’s screech as he abandoned his shovel and ran from the house. Bobby Lee was faster and passed Billy Joe before he had reached the old oak tree at the edge of the property. He reached the dirt road out in front of the property and, gasping for breath, waited for Billy Joe to catch up.

Billy Joe, breathing deeply and also out of breath, asked, "Do you think that was a ghost?"

"Naah, I don't think so."

"Want to go back?"

"No. Let's just go home. I think somebody has already found the treasure and is just keeping it to himself."

"What about the shovels?"

"Let's just leave them for the ghost."