The Biggest Risk

The biggest risk is not taking any risk. I’m pretty sure that dude from Facebook said that, but all this fresh air and altitude seems to be interfering with my ability to recall any information beyond how to put one foot in front of the other. Regardless, I’d wager that a bigger risk might be to spend 4 days vigorously hacking your way up a wildly overgrown mountain with nothing but your grandfather’s rusty machete and a bag of trail mix that you’ve already eaten all the M&M’s out of. Oh, and you’re diabetic and kind of crippled.

Ok, so I obviously brought more than a huge knife and some trail mix. I also brought beef jerky. And my ankle brace. And other wilderness essentials. But I think Facebook Boy would still get my point. He may even ask why someone with those specific ailments would do something so seemingly insane. To which I would answer with two words: Buried. Treasure.

I bet he’d think I was joking at this point. Nope, not joking at all, I’d tell him. And then I’d show him the little black notebook.

I instinctively clutch the notebook tighter as I make my way across a small stream and deeper into the forest. An hour after Arlo Ashford, an art collector in Colorado, announced to the world that he had taken an assortment of gold and jewels and hidden it in a chest somewhere in the Southwest, I had purchased this little black notebook. He released a new clue to the treasure’s location every week for the next 6 months, 24 clues in all. I wrote every clue in my notebook, and then spent days trying to decipher it and add it to what I already knew. Sometimes the clue was just a single word, sometimes a picture, never more than a few sentences. But I wrote down every single clue. Every hunch, every random thought, every miniscule fragment of information I could find. It’s all in this notebook.

I scramble up a huge boulder, scraping moss off its surface. It rained for most of the morning, so everything is damp. The clues stopped 10 months ago; since then, thousands of people have come from every corner of the globe to search the wilderness for the Ashford treasure. A few people have even died. I’d be lying if I said the thought of dying hadn’t crossed my mind a few times since I started hiking. I’m not exactly an expert hiker (if there is such a thing) - add on the diabetes and the crippled ankle from a bad break years ago that didn’t heal correctly, and I would say my abilities are slightly below average, which most likely increases the likelihood of me dying alone in miles of forest. But I’m not giving up. It’s a calculated risk, and I’m really hoping my math skills from years ago don’t fail me now.

No one knows how much the Ashford treasure is worth; he never made that information public. He told the public that it was more about getting people back in nature and reintroducing adventure into our mundane lives. I mean, I get his point. But truthfully, I’m out here searching because I need a change.

I step over a fallen log, and my ankle twists slightly but painfully in my brace. I wince, and decide to sit down and catch my breath. The brace has worked wonders on this trip. Usually I’m only standing for about 30 minutes before my ankle is swollen and pulsing in pain. With this brace, I can hike for hours and not feel a thing. It’s about as close to walking without pain as I’m going to get at this stage - the damage from the break has ensured that my ankle is fighting a losing battle. I prop it up on a rock to let it rest and open up my pack. This is my last day out here - I’m supposed to rendezvous with my husband in a little town about 10 miles ahead tomorrow morning. I practically had to beg him to let me come out one last time, and he really wasn’t a fan of me going alone, but he had obligations he couldn’t get out of, so here I am. I lean back against a huge pine tree and take a drink from my water bottle - the water is crisp and sharp and refreshing. I’m feeling a little shaky and weak, which probably means my blood sugar is low again. I take out my meter, prick my finger, and squeeze some blood onto the test strip. Yep, I’m 58 and dropping. I quickly eat a package of fruit snacks, and then another, and then one more, just to be safe.

Sitting there and waiting for the weakness to subside, I can’t help but daydream about what I would do with the Ashford treasure money. It’s hard not to let my thoughts run wild. I’ve never had a lot of money, or even a comfortable amount of money, so even a few thousand dollars would be a game changer. My first thoughts are always for fun things - that new board game I’ve been dying to play, every book on my wishlist, a VR Headset for my husband, a cruise to the Bahamas, a ridiculously priced steak dinner, a hot air balloon ride. Eventually I slide into more practical things, like new leggings, a new car, new dinnerware to replace the ones we bought in college, a mattress that doesn’t creak when you lay down, even a house. The silly and the serious mix together, like the way the mist melts into the trees. Money means possibilities. With enough money, it would be possible to travel to places I will currently never be able to go to, to see Broadway musicals whose tickets cost almost as much as our rent, to expand my library exponentially. I can see my dream house. I can also see an expensive charcuterie board (I’ve been practicing my meat and cheese arrangements, and I’m getting pretty good). I could get that hoodie that I saw in the mall last week, or maybe I’ll get a new coffee table to replace the wonky one we have now.

Feeling stronger, I pack up and resume hiking, crunching pinecones as I go. There are also the ridiculous possibilities - we could buy a sports team (although we’re not that into sports), or reserve seats on the shuttle to colonize Mars, or we could buy a yacht, even though we don’t live near a body of water large enough for a yacht. Well, we could spend money to have our own private lake made, and then sail around in our yacht all day, eating cookies and drinking milkshakes. I shake my head, smiling, and make a promise to myself that I will not build my own lake. I look at my notebook again, then at my map - I’m getting very close to where I think the treasure is buried. It needs to be here. The truth of the matter is, before I can buy more shoes or chandeliers or sports teams, I need to find a way out of the hole we’ve fallen in. It’s a metaphorical hole, although I do take a weirdly large step to avoid a hole in my path. When I broke my ankle, we couldn’t afford all the surgeries, so we charged them on credit cards, which we couldn’t pay, which then went to collections and have been accruing interest for years. We have numerous medical bills, credit cards, and other debts that we need to pay off. Additionally, being a diabetic means I’m spending hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars every month to buy the medication and supplies that I need just to live. But everything is expensive, and we keep falling behind. It’s felt like we’ve been drowning for years now, just trying to survive.

That’s the possibility I hope for the most. I hope that it will be possible not just to survive, but to live. I would rather dig ourselves out of this hole of debt that we’ve fallen into, and start at square one, than buy all the yachts in the world. So the treasure has to be here; it’s my only chance.

I climb around a pine tree and emerge in a clearing. A small cliff leans outward, allowing a waterfall to cascade into the pool below. This has to be it. The treasure should be buried in a small alcove behind the waterfall, underneath a sea of stars. I put my pack on the bank of the pool and walk into the water, heading straight into the waterfall. For a minute, I panic at the amount of water pummeling my head, but then just as quickly I emerge on the other side, in an alcove. My heart is racing - everything I’ve been working towards has led up to this moment. I crawl up into the alcove and sit down, sliding a little on the slick rocks. The alcove only goes a few yards into the mountain, so I can still see from the sun shining through the waterfall. I look around and see that the floor is stone. Anxiety curls in my chest - how could something be buried in rock? And what about the sea of stars? I had hoped to figure that out once I reached the alcove, but now all I see is dark, slippery stone.

I rub the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath. I pull out my flashlight to have a better look around. As my flashlight powers on, a section of the alcove’s ceiling explodes in sparkling lights. I scramble closer - hundreds of veins of mica and clusters of quartz crystals are scattered across the ceiling. It looks exactly like stars. I immediately shine my flashlight below the stars. There’s a crack in the ground. My breath catches in my throat. Please, please, please.

I shove my fingertips into the crack and pry the rock up. It resists for a moment, then slides to the side. It’s a hole. Filled with soft dirt. I’m frantic now, clawing at the dirt and shoveling it to the side. My fingernail catches on something. I jerk back instinctively and discover a splinter under my nail. Suddenly, I look back to the hole. I cautiously brush the dirt away, revealing a piece of wood, its edges covered in brass. I find and then dig around the edge before plunging my hands down and lifting the wood up.

It’s a chest. A brass plate with the initials A.A. inscribed sits on the front of the lid. I can’t feel my finger at all. My heart is pounding so loudly that it drowns out the rush of the waterfall. I open the lid slowly and my heart jumps. It is filled to the brim with gold and silver coins, emeralds, rubies, diamond jewelry, and other gemstones.

I did it. I actually did it! I’m so happy I could scream. I do scream. I scream and scream as hot tears slide down my cheeks. I’m in disbelief. I can’t believe I found it. I pick up two fistfuls of jewels and gold coins and let them slowly fall back into the chest. I scream again. Then I’m sobbing. After several minutes, I catch my breath and wipe the tears off my face. I close the lid to the chest and pick it up, noting how incredibly heavy it is, and slide down the alcove and into the waterfall. I emerge on the other side, completely soaked. A sudden urgency has overtaken me. I need to get to town. I shove the chest into my pack and begin galloping towards the town. My finger still throbs from the splinter. I’ll have to buy some tweezers and a bandaid from the general store in town. Hopefully they’ll accept gold. Take that, Facebook Boy.