Chapter 3

There their bodies rested together for one hundred and twenty four years. The last entry gave instructions for burying them together at a specific spot in the cave.

After reading the story they decided to get some air, it was evening and the temperature had already dropped into the mid seventies. They walked up the canyon, seeing the cliffs surrounding the canyon, deer still grazing in the grasses well watered by the underground stream. They walked to what had been the site of the garden, there were still several plants still growing after all those years. Onions, green beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, honeydew melons, cantaloupe, and even watermelon. They gathered more firewood and went back to the cave.

They fixed a freeze dried lasagna dinner, once again adding spices to make it more palatable and finished the meal off with two cups of hot chocolate. Then they sat around the fire talking about Phil and Philly and the kind of life they had lived in this hidden place. It must have been a simple life, but it had to have been almost like paradise at the same time, free of the avarice and jealousies of civilization. Plenty of food, plenty of firewood, a constant supply of fresh water, all it lacked were the modern technologies that people had become accustomed to. But they agreed that they didn’t miss any of that, as long as they had each other.

Larry put the two person tent together but didn’t bother to stake it down. A couple of puffs of air into each thermarest pad and they threw them inside the tent along with the sleeping bags Wendy had zipped together. They watched the fire in companionable silence, holding hands and staring at the fire. They let it die down using the last of its light to crawl into the tent after taking off their clothes standing together in front of its opening. They went to bed and slept soundly.

The next morning they had scrambled eggs with sausage again, and more hot chocolate. Then, after re-reading the instructions he looked for the spot that Phil had asked to be buried.

Before he did anything else, Larry took pictures of the cave inside and out, of Phil and Philly, and some of Wendy. Then he looked for and found the place the book had specified and using the one hundred and forty plus year old shovel he began to dig. He first approximated the size by digging down a shovel full about three feet by six feet, then he dug deeper. At three feet in depth the shovel hit something hard, it sounded like metal on metal. Curious and having no other choice he dug around the object, it was about fourteen inches by ten inches. Clearing the dirt from on top of it he found that it was a metal box when it was free of the sandy dirt he hoisted it up and out of the hole. It had been heavier than he expected. Wendy, who had been taking pictures with his iPhone, stopped and started to clean the box even more and was able to open the clasps that held the lid closed. Using some oil taken from the Harley’s dipstick, she rubbed the hinges with the oil before lifting the lid. What she saw rendered her speechless! Gold, shiny gold coins filled the box!

Larry had continued digging and a foot deeper he found a wooden box, it was long, when they got it up out of the hole and opened it, it contained the Greener shotgun, a Winchester 1876 rifle, and a Sharps Buffalo rifle. Another foot down and he started to hit solid rock, he leveled the bottom of the hole out then looked up at a still dumbfounded Wendy. She was staring at the first box with her mouth open, all she could do was point her index finger at it. Larry jumped backwards and up and was able to sit on the edge of the hole, then he swung his legs up and was able to crawl to the box. Looking inside he too was flummoxed, then he realized that Phil had written the direction to bury them knowing that someone who was a crook would never dig a hole to bury them, only someone with a good heart would do that. And when they did they would find the treasure. The gold might be worth a million, and the weapons were probably worth thousands of dollars, including the Colt revolver that had taken Phil and Philly’s lives. More pictures were taken to document their discovery.

Larry and Wendy fixed the scaffold as best as they could. Then she held on to it as he climbed up and cut the bundle of bones down. Reverently and respectfully he brought them down the rickety scaffold and laid them to rest in the hole he had dug. He read over them from the Bible,

PSALM 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

And he followed up with a prayer he had heard at the funeral of his grandfather. He paraphrased it to fit the present need.

“Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace at long last. Though Phil and Philly perished long ago and under difficult circumstances, please grant them the peace and comfort of your love for the rest of eternity! Amen.”

He covered them over and then added a heartfelt addendum,

“Phil and Philly, thank you for your gift of gold and for those other things you left us here in the valley, your garden still grows and the bed still gives us comfort. Rest in peace!”

They both felt a warm feeling pass through them, as if the souls of the couple had passed through them and thanked them for the words and their final internment.

They sat on the bed and sorted the gold coins by year and the place where they had been minted.

1849 New Orleans 4

Philadelphia 14

1850 New Orleans 6

Philadelphia 9

1851 New Orleans 6

Philadelphia 14

1852 New Orleans 5

Philadelphia 14

1853 New Orleans 3

Philadelphia 18

1854 New Orleans 7

Philadelphia 20

1855 New Orleans 8

Philadelphia 15

1856 New Orleans 4

Philadelphia 15

1857 New Orleans 6

Philadelphia 23

1858 New Orleans 5

Philadelphia 13

1859 New Orleans 3

Philadelphia 9

1860 New Orleans 2

Philadelphia 10

1861 New Orleans 4

Philadelphia 12

1862 New Orleans 5

Philadelphia 12

1863 New Orleans 5

Philadelphia 11

1864 New Orleans 3

Philadelphia 15

All the coins were in excellent shape. Just the value of the gold they estimated was almost a million dollars. But the real money they knew, was in the value to coin collectors.

They spent the night on the bed after beating the mattress and airing it out in the sun. The sheets, blankets and the quilt were washed in the pool and hung out in the sun to dry. Nothing they did would get rid of the musty smell of being in a cave for one hundred and forty years. But it was better than sleeping on the sand. Even in the tent. They made love and listened to the night sounds coming from the canyon, suddenly the growl of a wolf pierced the night and both of their hearts!

It had sounded way too close, his rifle was still disassembled in his backpack, the Colt was in his saddlebags on the bike. He looked at the box that had been buried in the sand for over a hundred years, could that Greener have shells in it, the Winchester? What were the odds? He was about to stake their lives on the gamble, but not trying meant dying.

Another even closer growl was heard, Larry handed his LED flashlight to Wendy, then got out of bed and two steps later picked the shotgun up and swiveled toward the entrance to the cave. Wendy turned on the flashlight illuminating two wolves just entering the cave. Bracing himself, Larry pressed the safety and heard the click as it moved into the firing mode, then aiming at the wolves he pulled the first trigger, then the second. The sound was deafening, the effect on the wolves was devastating, it had been loaded with double ought buckshot. Looking in the box he found two more boxes of 12 gauge shells with the same loading. Breaking open the barrels ejected the spent shells which he replaced. He checked the Winchester, it was empty. Just as well that many years would have affected the spring had it been compressed for that long. Sighting down the barrel of the empty rifle with the breech open he couldn’t see any rust or obstructions. He loaded it with fifteen cartridges and operated the lever to put one in the breech. Then he added another in the storage tube.

It took awhile, but soon their heart rates slowed and synchronized and they went back to sleep. Just as they were doing so they both heard the very faint sounds of wolves singing a mournful song of lament for the loss of their pack leaders. They slept peacefully until mid morning.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon, they sat together near the pool of water and what had been a garden, they needed to make some decisions. Wendy was fourteen and just over three months old, Larry was sixteen and just under seven months old, the age of consent in Arizona is eighteen, the Romeo and Juliet law only applied to couples less than two years apart. They were two years and four months apart. That means that he would be found guilty of Statutory Rape, at least in the State of Arizona. However in Oklahoma the age of consent was sixteen and consensual sex between a eighteen year old and a fourteen was not considered rape at all. Kansas the age of consent is sixteen, in Missouri it is seventeen. Both states don’t have R&J laws so Larry would be prosecuted under the Statuory Rape laws. That said, as a minor, if caught, Wendy would be sent back to Ardmore and her Stepfather from any state. What was the best thing for them to do if they wanted to stay together?

They decided to figure out what they needed in order to live here, in the canyon and cave. Vegetable seeds, especially corn, buckets, a better mattress, sheets and pillowcases, along with the pillows, salt ... The list went on! But how was he going to carry it all? It was over twenty miles to the nearest town! If he was going to go, he thought, he had better make sure he was able to take care of all of the business that needed to be taken care of.

“Wendy, do you have any relatives that might be worried about you? Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, brothers, or sisters? If we are going to stay in this canyon for almost four years, we need to get everything we need to last that long!”

“You are all I have, and all I ever want! As to material things, some of the things on our list are things we need and have to have, like salt. The rest are things that would be nice to have, but we can live just as well without. Like the mattress! Let’s make two lists!”

They worked on the lists all afternoon, but soon all of the closeness led them to other things. Touching each other, that led to kissing, that led to more intimate touching, and that led to removing clothing that was in the way of feeling what was being touched. That led to kissing the newly exposed parts, and soon they were naked and in a sixty nine position. She was sucking his cock, trying to swallow it whole. He had two fingers stroking back and forth in her pussy and his tongue licking on her dark chocolate lips and sucking her clit. Before either of them could cum, Wendy twisted away and sat down on Larry’s cock, enjoying the fullness as it stretched her opening and filled her vagina just right. She faced him and started to ride, his hands playing with her chocolate nipples as they hardened and grew with his touching, his pulling. She leaned forward and placed one then the other nipple in his mouth. He sucked and kissed them sending even more jolts of electrical impulses directly to her clit. Her clit was riding on his pubic bone, all of the things she was feeling added to the inferno of heat and energy that began to overwhelm her senses. She screamed out her pleasure as her orgasm overloaded all rational thought, she collapsed onto his chest as she felt the pulses of his ejaculation in her womb as they both passed out from the exquisite experience. Consciousness returned to both of them a short time later, but they slept on, contented smiles on both of their faces.

Dale Robertson

Larry had been gone for six weeks, the first week Dale had been able to track where he was when he would use his debit card to pay for gas or food. He had gone south to Oklahoma City, then he headed west through Oklahoma into New Mexico and then into Arizona. But then he had just disappeared. No phone calls, no gas purchases, no pings on his cell phone ... nothing.

At first he wasn’t worried, Larry was a good kid with his head on straight, much better than he himself had been at his age! But four weeks went by, then six, and he was starting to get worried about the boy. Then one afternoon a box was delivered in the mail. There wasn’t a return address but the postal mark had the name of the town as Heber, Arizona. His address was printed by hand in the crisp letter style that Larry always used. Relief flowed through him and tension only his wife knew about relaxed and he felt better than he had in a month.

Dale took the package to his office and locked the door after placing a sign on it saying

DO NOT DISTURB GREAT MINDS AT WORK

That usually meant that he was taking a nap, but not today. He used his utility knife to open the box and removed the contents. There were three smaller boxes and a letter. The letter was placed against the long side of the box so opening it with his utility knife didn’t cut it into. It was a pet peeve of Dale’s. It made him smile. The rest was just styrofoam noodle packing, that would eventually wind up in a shipping/receiving bin for reuse. He opened the letter and read,

Dear Uncle Dale,

I am well, and happy! I have a girlfriend, a run away like myself, her name is Wendy and it’s like we were made for each other. I actually rescued her from being found by the police in Oklahoma City’s bus station. We have been together ever since. We are living in an oasis in the desert fifty miles from the nearest town, Heber, Arizona. Our plan is to stay here for at least four years, until Wendy has reached the age of consent in Arizona. She left home when her stepfather was auctioning off her virginity to the highest bidder.