Rock #2
Miss Amy shrugged. “I’ve never seen it but I think it might be?
” She looked over at Cheyenne and nodded.
“Her mother might have found a small piece of it.” She looked back at Sophie and nodded.
“Her mother was a lovely young woman named Georgia. She used to walk this mountain and apparently she found a pendant. But she didn’t tell anyone.
Then Amos, the man I thought I married, hinted to one of the residents, a no-good man named Grandy, that the treasure was real and he started trouble that spanned twenty years looking for the treasure.
Amos walked this mountain for years but he couldn’t find it.
Grandy thought he’d take a shortcut and find Georgia to get that necklace back.
He ended up killing her but she kept the secret at the risk of her own life.
Then Grandy found out that Cheyenne, Georgia’s daughter had the necklace and he came for her but he never got his hands on her. ”
The two women stared at her in a stunned shock as she relayed the story.
Miss Amy took a deep breath and went on, “I’ve seen the pendant but haven’t seen any other part of the treasure.
I think it should stay buried. It doesn’t belong to us and it didn’t belong to the old pirate either.
It should have stayed with the family or been returned to Russia.
But that didn’t happen and now it's causing trouble again. Personally, I think that gold is cursed and will bring nothing but pain to whoever finds it. That’s all it ever brought to anyone who’s seen it or tried to sell it. Pain and death.”
Sophie was quiet for a long time. Then she shook her head and softly admitted, “You’ll never get my father to agree with that. He thinks that treasure is family money that you’ve kept from them and they are going to use every dirty trick in the book to get their hands on it.”
“Then they are fools, every single one of them are nothing but damn fools.” Asa growled.
What happened to Asa....
Miss Amy grabbed the satchel and undid the clasp. “This belonged to my daddy. It was already old when he got it. I think it had been handed down through the generations until I buried it.”
“So, you had to dig it up?” Sami asked. “That’s why all the dirt was on him—”
Cheyenne snorted and then smothered her mouth with her hands.
Miss Amy allowed a small smile to slip onto her lips. “It wasn’t buried deep. It didn't have to be.”
Rock stared at her in utter confusion and asked, “Huh?”
“Just tell us!” Chandler– who had stayed quiet for the last hour– spoke up for the first time.
Both Cheyenne and Miss Amy raised their heads to stare at her.
“Ok, but don’t any of you dare bring it up to Asa, ya hear me?” Miss Amy warned.
They all nodded eagerly.
“I need to read some of this and look through it, so I will allow Cheyenne to tell it.” Miss Amy didn’t look up as she gently removed a thick volume of a journal from the dusty looking satchel.
Now they swung their curious gazes to Cheyenne.
She kept shaking her head and looked like she had been weeping though it was from laughing.
“Ok, I will... try.” She took a deep breath then launched in, “We get to the cave. Dad brought a shovel and two flashlights. I had Tibby go in and check it out first. He came back and let me know all was fine.” She paused then bit her lip.
“We go in and Dad is telling us to just step back and let him do what was needed. You all know me. I don’t take directions very well, but I let him do what he needed to.
I pointed the flashlight on the ground so he could see.
” She almost chuckled then shook her head and went on, “Miss Amy just stayed at the entrance.
Dad said she might fall in the dark. On the way over, she had told us she hid it under a rock.
But the cave was full of rocks, so Dad kept moving from one to another and my flashlight followed as he asked her, ‘this one, or this one? She kept telling him no. Well after a few minutes, he was getting mad. Big shocker, right?” She smiled at the group.
“Finally, Miss Amy agreed to a rock he found. I felt relieved and he looked relieved. Then...” Cheyenne covered her face and was chuckling.
“This bat came outta nowhere and flew down on him. H-he was swatting at it, waving his arms and spinning in circles...” Cheyenne lowered her head down to the table as she laughed all over again.
“H-he was screaming like...” More laughter cut her off.
Rock crossed his arms over his chest. “I hate those things too. I woulda done the same.”
She couldn’t seem to raise her head as she went on, “I’m sorry but it was like the Three Stooges or something.
He kept hitting his own head. Then the bat finally flew off.
Then he got up from the dirt floor where he had laid down and covered his head.
I flashed the light over despite my laughing. Then I saw it.”
“It?” Mimi asked while sitting on the edge of her seat like the rest of the group.
Cheyenne raised her head and swiped her eyes.
“I called out to him, ‘Stay still, it's a snake.’ I set the flashlight down and grabbed my rifle. But of course, did he listen? Noooo. He’s Asa, so he never does. So he was spinning in circles again, only this time, he was using his shovel to chop at the ground. He looked like some kind of madman yelling you fucker! Die fucker!” Cheyenne burst into another fit of laughter.
They all looked up at Asa standing at the hallway entrance.
Now that he had cleaned up, they could see he did have a small pink bruise on his forehead and a cut on his cheek.
“Well, did ya kill the snake at least?” Rock asked him.
He looked disgusted and didn’t say a word.
Before he could answer, a bark sounded out in the large room.
Asa looked down to see Cheyenne’s dog, Tibby. Then he saw what had been dropped at his feet. With a yelp, Asa jumped back.
Cheyenne cooed at Tibby, “Good boy, you got ‘em.”
They all turned or even got out of their seats to see what the dog had so proudly brought to Asa.
On the floor was not a bloody snake. No, it looked like an old stick or what had been a small branch at one time. It had a swervy design and brown spots all over it.
They all looked up at Cheyenne again.
Grinning at them, she nodded. “Meet the infamous snake. Tibby just wanted to show my dad that he was safe now.”
They all finally got it and laughed.
After a full two minutes of that, Asa shouted. “Alright, that’s a fuckin nuff!”
The chuckles and snickers all died down.
He then walked over to where Miss Amy sat.
She’d been immersed in looking through the old, yellowed remnants of her family’s history.
“What did ya find, Miss Amy?” he asked her.
She slowly looked up at him as her face looked pale and her eyes were round. “I know where it is,” she whispered to him. Then she pointed at a hand drawn map on top of the stack of old papers.
Asa looked perplexed and said, “That’s—”
Just then, shots rang out from the roof.
Rock yelled at the women, “Get under the table!”
Ink rushed over and pulled Mimi down.
She crawled under the table.
Rock then helped Sophie and Jolene by moving chairs out. So, they could get under the table too.
The other women had already ducked under.
Asa pulled his gun out and rushed to a window.
Cheyene had her rifle out and was doing the same.
Asa peered out to take a shot and yelled, “What the fuck am I looking at?”
“An old RV?” Cheyenne took a guess as she stood at the next window. “Dressed like a tank?”
“That’s my uncle’s,” Jolene replied. “He calls it Satan on Wheels.”
“Wait, wait, are they carrying...” Asa paused.
“Molotov cocktails, yes,” Cheyenne finished for him. Then she took aim as she called out, “Sorry about your family girls, but anyone holding one of those bottles is gonna die today.