Chapter 8: Hunting Treasure

Just because I live out west doesn’t mean everything is cowboys and Indians. I was a pretty normal kid, even if I did have more access to horses and had an hour of chores before school each morning. You get a lot of opportunity to play pretend things when you live miles away from everything else. I pretended pirates, explorers, and army, just like most kids.

I guess “pirates” was my favorite. And of course, where there are pirates, there’s buried treasure.

I remember the day I dug a hole in the paddock, looking for buried treasure. Dad explained—with his belt—how dangerous it was to dig holes just anyplace I felt like. To make sure I’d learned my lesson, after I filled in the hole and tamped it down so the ground was solid, Dad made me go into the barn and apologize to each horse for creating a danger to them. Lastly, Dad brought me to a stall with a new horse in it. Once I’d apologized to the horse, who stood looking me in the eye the entire time, he made me promise to care for her and keep her safe.

That was my introduction to Buttercup.

It was also my ticket to greater freedom. I couldn’t lift a saddle high enough to saddle her by myself, though she’d take the bit from me with no trouble. Then Dad introduced me to the joys of the bareback pad. An inch-thick cloth pad with a cinch. I could toss it onto Buttercup if I was standing on a stool and it didn’t have to be cinched as tight as a saddle. I had freedom of the ranch.

Buttercup was about the same age as me and much better trained. I made the mistake one day while riding in the paddock of turning her tightly around at the fence and giving her a nudge with my heels. She took off like a bat outa hell—or a cutting horse after a calf—and left me sitting on my ass on the ground by the fence. It took her about three steps to realize she no longer had a rider and slide to a stiff-legged halt. Then she looked back at me as if she was trying to figure out where the calf was I’d roped and hog-tied.

Well, I learned and Buttercup taught me. She added a new dimension to my treasure hunts. We explored all over the mountain, looking for caves where Spaniards had hidden their gold. Never mind that Spaniards never got to Wyoming.

I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d stumbled on Kyle’s treasure cave when I was eight or nine years old. What would I have found? I reckon this would have been a different story.

Gold Watch

We all got home from the Alexander’s and Mom went on to bed. The three of us went to the office and Mary Beth placed the cigar box on the desk.

“Now, tell us what is so important about this watch,” she demanded.

“Before I say anything else, I’ve been puzzled about something. School started at UW yesterday. I’m on leave for a year. Ashley, when do you have to be back?”

“I’m going to be forward, Cole. I understand waiting till Christmas to marry so our families can all be together if you insist. But I’d rather do it now. In lieu of that, I want to live with you and Mary Beth. I don’t think I could bear to be apart from you two anymore. I arranged my classes so they are all on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. You know I’m a year ahead of you and it wasn’t difficult to get the classes I wanted last spring. I guess I was planning ahead. I’ve missed a couple days of classes, but I can make it up. Can I live with you, baby? Will you two take me to bed with you every night and love me like we’ve been loving all summer?” My grin liked to bust my face. I couldn’t get to her before Mary Beth had her wrapped in a hug. When she got free a little, I kissed her right to the tip of her toes. “I guess that means yes?” she asked.

“It sure does, Ash. I’m worried about you commuting every day, though. Even if it is just three days a week.”

“If I need to, I can stay in the sorority house those two nights a week and only commute in on Tuesday and home on Thursday.”

“That might be good. I just don’t want any more accidents and what we’re about to do is going to make somebody really mad.”

“Oh my God!” Mary Beth said. I looked at her. “I didn’t even ask you if I could move in with you. Ashley, you are so cool. I just assumed that I was by-God going to live here and only thought about how to tell our parents. I never thought to ask you two if it was okay.”

“Do you remember the size of my bed, hon?” I asked. “I think Ash and I would get lonely with just the two of us. What do you think, Ashley? Is she in?”

“Damn straight she is.” We hugged again and all sat back down on the leather sofa in Dad’s—my—our—office.

“Here’s the story. I’m not the only one who has been time traveling.” I went on to tell how I’d first discovered that someone was traveling back and taking over Cal Despain. He was sending Kyle out to get the treasures and hide them where he could get at them. Then I told about my encounter with the old prospector and that he was a time traveler and warned me about Joe. “I never did figure out who the prospector was, but just before he died he gave me—or Kyle—this watch. When Kat and Kyle first got together he gave her the watch as his pledge because he didn’t have a ring. She promised it would be passed down from generation to generation.”

“So just before you became my great-great-granddaddy, you gave my great-great-granny this watch. But what are you supposed to do with it now that you found it?” Mary Beth asked.

“I don’t know. Joe Teini was after the prospector’s treasure. Joe told Kyle to only bring the map the first time we went out. I think that sometime in the past year or so Joe went to get the old man’s hoard of treasure and found nothing there. It’s the old Schrödinger’s Cat thing. Once he opened the box, the cat was either dead or alive. In this instance, it was dead. The treasure he expected was gone. So, the next time he came back, he sent Kyle out to get it and store it with the others. He didn’t expect Kyle to walk in and toss a sack of gold and jewels on Cal’s desk when Joe wasn’t in control. I don’t think Cal was ever supposed to know the extent of the treasure Kyle was stacking up for Joe.”

“So, without Joe there to control him, Cal went to see the treasure and found Kyle stealing it?” Ashley asked.

“Pretty much.”

“So, where did all the treasure go?”

“Laramie followed Kyle’s instructions on where and how to hide it. She probably took some to survive the depression in ‘96 and the range wars. I’m guessing the rest is still there waiting for us, but until we open the box we won’t know for sure if the cat is dead or alive.”

“And back to the watch.” Mary Beth prompted.

“I think in some way or another it is the map to the old prospector’s real treasure. He wanted me to have everything I needed to fight Joe Teini. Let’s take a look.” I unwrapped the watch. It was more than 100 years old, I knew. I didn’t know how long the old man had had it before he gave it to me. It was a plain gold watch on a leather fob. I suppose that even if someone had seen it on the prospector’s body they would have simply pocketed it and still said “Nothing of value.” I opened it. It wasn’t running, but it was clean. There was engraving on the inside of the case.

“I need a magnifying glass and better light to see this,” I said. I turned on the desk lamp and grabbed Dad’s magnifying glass. “Phile. Morgan, Esq. Salem, Oregon.” I looked some more. “I don’t see anything else.”

“What about taking off the back. They do that to clean them and replace the crystal,” Ashley said.

“The case is solid. I don’t see how to open it and get at the works. Maybe we’ll have to take it to a jeweler.”

“There should be a ring that twists inside the frame that will release the crystal. Try turning the crystal.” I did and a ring popped out. So did the crystal, which I barely caught. When I turned over the watch, the face and works fell into my hand. We all looked at the inside, but there were no further messages.

“I guess that’s it. Now we have a pocket watch in pieces.”

“My hands are smaller. Let me try to put it back together again.” Ashley took the pieces from me and deftly replaced them. “All better.” The watch was actually running.

“But we still don’t have a clue,” Mary Beth said. We all sat there and finally wrapped the watch up and decided to go to bed. I looked at the stack of mail on the desk that I hadn’t dealt with yet. One piece caught my eye. A statement from American Gold and Silver Exchange regarding the account Dad opened last year. I smiled. The address was in Salem, Oregon.

Ashley and Mary Beth were lying naked on my bed when I walked into the room. They were holding each other, not particularly sexily but like two best friends who just loved to be in contact. They looked askance at me, still fully dressed.

“It seems I’m overdressed for this party,” I said.

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I called directory assistance on a whim,” I said. “Morgan, Morgan, and Morgan is the oldest law firm in the city. Founded in 1872 by Philemon Morgan, Esq.”

“Philemon Morgan?” Mary Beth said.

“The apparent original owner of your watch. I’m going to go to Salem Monday. I think you should come with me, Mary Beth. It is your watch, after all. I’m sorry, Ashley. I know you have to be in school on Tuesday.”

“No. You’re right. But with both of you gone, that’s going to leave a hole in ranch management. I will come back here each night next week. We’d better let George and Harold know what’s going on so they know they can come to me and keep me informed.”

“I love you,” I said. I stripped off my clothes and crawled over Ashley to lie between her and Mary Beth where they made room for me. My lovers came to me and our lips came together. I think a kiss is the most sensual thing in the universe. I’ve kissed a few women. Certainly, Laramie learned kissing quickly and loved it. Kat was an enthusiastic kisser. Geneive and Izzy were frantic and insatiable kissers—all tongue and open mouths. But encountering the combined lips of Ashley and Mary Beth—all of us touching and freezing, not knowing what to do, but unwilling to let the electric tingle through our senses dissipate—was the most sensual encounter I’d ever experienced. We were truly one being and when a tongue tentatively passed across my lips, I was lost in wonderment. We joined in the kiss together, unwilling to move any other part of our bodies, lest the magic of that first touch be lost. We each explored the other two—touching, tasting, receiving. And as we breathed the same air, there was moisture on each of our cheeks. The love we three had together was greater than that of any two of us. I was flooded and overflowing with affection.

I was twenty years old, a college drop-out, co-owner and manager of over six thousand acres. I had a fiancée, a cousin girlfriend, a widowed mom, and panicked Uncle. Out there someplace there was a greedy bastard who was trying to drive all the ranchers in the county into bankruptcy. And more and more, people were looking to me to save them.

We always used to say you tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back. Yeah, I know that’s racist and I only bring it up because you can tell a savior by the nails in his hands. I wasn’t looking forward to the kind of pressure that was building.

Joe Teini had the advantage. He had a four-year head-start on owning the county—and my former girlfriend. He had public office and had shut down the investigation into my Dad’s death before he was dead. He’d already acquired a huge spread in the north county and was running thousands of cattle. For all he spoke up at the co-op meeting complaining about feed supplies, the rumors said the shortage was because he’d bought everything that came into the county. All ranchers had was the hay they raised on their own lands.

Every Friday we saw a drop in the price of beef on the hoof as a thousand to five thousand head were put on the market for a nickel less than the previous price. You might think a nickel isn’t much, but every time a thousand head went on the market, it represented a loss of another $50,000. I had no proof, but it seemed that if no other rancher stepped up to sell undervalued beef, Joe Teini did.

People were another problem. I had good loyal ranch hands, my cousin-lover, and my fiancée. Joe had the entire Albany County Sheriff’s Department, at least fifty ranch hands and an office full of bean-counters and lawyers. I couldn’t see how we could match that and just hoped the old prospector, or whoever it was that time traveled back to him, had a plan and that I’d find out in Salem. We were going to need a lot more than the gold in that trunk to fight what was happening.

Monday morning, I secured the trunk of gold in the back of Dad’s Explorer and Mary Beth and I headed for Oregon. I remember clearly taking this trip in 1891 with a mule and a horse, crossing through mountains that were already filling with snow. This time we hit I-80 west to I-84 and northwest to I-5 then south to Salem. It was eleven hundred miles at seventy to eighty miles an hour. We made the trip in two days and booked into a hotel in Salem so we’d be ready for tomorrow. I decided I really wanted to get rid of the gold as quickly as possible, so we set up an appointment at the Exchange at nine in the morning.

Dad set up the original account with me as a joint owner with right of survivorship, so all I had to do was show my I.D. and Dad’s death certificate and the account was mine. There was about $25,000 dollars left in it from the bail-out last winter. Mr. Jenkins, the broker, looked at the gold bars and was very pleased.

“Are these from the same manufacture as the last batch your father brought in?” he asked.

“The same period of time, but there may be differences in the composition. I assume you will do an assay?” I asked.

“Yes, of course, but based on what we have here, I’m sure we can transfer at least 50% of the estimated value into your account immediately. It will take several days to assay all one hundred bars. We will mark the price as of right now.” He turned to his computer. “The price at this mark is $1,770.40 per troy ounce. There are 14.5833 troy ounces per pound and the scale shows a generous 2925 troy ounces. A little more than 200 pounds. That is $5,178,420. Less our commission of 15%, your projected net is $4,401,657.00. It is likely that like the previous batch your father brought us, this will not assay at 99.999 fine. Nonetheless, why don’t we advance $1.5 million into your account for immediate use and the balance after the assay is completed?”

“That will be fine, Mr. Jenkins. Do I need to transfer funds to my local bank in order to use the money or can I make purchases directly from my American Exchange account?” I asked.

“We are not a bank, per se, so you cannot write checks on this account. However, if you are making a purchase of more than $250,000, we can make a wire transfer directly to the party.”

“That’s good to know. There is one other question. How much gold can you handle?”

“My God! You have more?”

“It seems my great-great-grandfather was a bit of a miser.” I thought Mary Beth would choke.

“We have a market capitalization of $8.4 billion. There is always a market for gold. Transportation of significant quantities is always of concern. I would suggest you hire an armored truck for the purpose rather than carrying more in your suitcase.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.” I took the receipt that he filled out along with the account balances. I added Mary Beth as a signer on the account. Joint tenants with right of survivorship just as Dad had originally set up the account with me. I didn’t want the account going through probate or to be held in limbo if anything should happen to one of us. We would get Ashley’s signature added to the account on the next trip through.

We left the building and turned up the street. I’d made an appointment to see the youngest of the partners at Morgan, Morgan, and Morgan. I’d said merely that I wanted to discuss a matter regarding a historic watch engraved with Philemon Morgan’s name. I had thought about making all kinds of excuses to see someone at the law firm, but it seemed best to come right to the point.

When I announced my presence to the receptionist, I expected to be kept waiting an hour or two. I was surprised when she picked up her phone, said, “Mr. Morgan your eleven o’clock is here,” and then stood to escort us directly to a large office where a man about twice my age by my guess hurried around his desk to greet me.

“Welcome, Mr. Bell, Ms. Alexander. I’m Phil Morgan. No, we ran out of numbers at ‘the third’ and my name is Phillip, not Philemon.” He was a pleasant man with a balding head but not too wrinkled. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he led us to a conference table where a soft cloth and a jeweler’s loupe were laid out. “I understand you have a watch that may have historical value,” he said. “May I see it?” He wasn’t big on small talk. That’s okay. I wasn’t either. Mary Beth handed over the cigar box. He opened it and unwrapped the watch, fastening the loupe in his eye and examining the case. He opened the cover and read the inscription. We just waited. When it looked like he’d examined as much as we had, he looked up at us. “How did you come to have this watch Miss Alexander?”

“It has been passed down through my family from my great-great- grandfather. Several things have happened lately that made my father decide to pass it on to me now rather than will it to me when he dies.” Nicely put. I was getting the feeling, though that Mr. Morgan really didn’t know all that much about it.

“And you, Mr. Bell? What is your interest in this bit of history?”

“That’s rather complicated, Mr. Morgan. Perhaps we should go now, unless there is actually someone here who knows about this watch.” Phil Morgan stood up and for a moment I thought we were being dismissed. He went to a side door in his office and opened it.

“Grandpa? I think this is what you wanted to see. It’s real.” An old man, using a cane but walking erect and proud entered the room. He dismissed his grandson who left through the same door.

“Well, you’ve finally made it. I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” the old man said. “Miss Alexander? May I ask you precisely who gave this watch to your family as a family inheritance?” He apparently had been listening in on our conversation. Mary Beth glanced at me and I nodded. I’d already recognized the old man.

“My great-great-grandmother, Kat Tangeman, gave it to her son, Arthur Alexander Junior. Kat received it from Arthur Junior’s real father, her lover Kyle Wardlaw.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Kyle,” he said turning to me.

“In this life, it’s Cole, sir. It’s nice to see you, too.”

“Phile,” he answered. “The third. And how did you happen to find Miss Alexander?”

“We’re first cousins and next-door neighbors. It turns out that Kyle is both of our great-great-grandfathers, in two lines.”

“You were busy back then, weren’t you?” We all laughed.

“Kyle was kind of a randy kid, especially when I wasn’t around.”

“And how goes the challenge of this guy Joe? Are you in the fight now? I never learned his last name and I withheld mine just like I did with you. It was a real shock to die, though, and then come back to life sitting in my office.”

“How long ago was that, if I may ask?”

“Sure. It’s been close to twenty years now.”

“Hmm. For me it was just last summer. I’ve figured out who Joe is. He seems to have unlimited wealth and is trying to buy out or drive out all the ranchers in our county.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t think he’s figured out who I am yet specifically, but in general he knows Kyle cheated him.”

“Certainly not that sack of gold I sent him after!”

“No sir. I decided that Joe Teini shouldn’t really have all the wealth he’d amassed out in his secret cave. So, I went and stole it and hid it where I could find it in this life on my property.”

“You did that? And is it there?”

“I haven’t opened that box yet, sir. But I’m pretty sure Joe thinks the treasure is somewhere in western Albany County. He’s just trying to acquire all the land so no one can claim he took something of theirs.”

“He was always looking for treasure. He thought getting it was the point. When I realized what he was doing, I came back here to Salem as Bill Campbell and set things up with the man who would become my grandfather, Philemon Morgan. You see the big problem has never been accumulating wealth. There was so much gold and jewels being mislaid in the 1800s that it would have made the entire country wealthy. And yes, I acquired far more than that bag of double-eagles I left for him. The problem has always been how to transfer the wealth from one time period to another. Have you done any of that?”

“I’ve moved some gold bullion into cash using the company that is here in town. Oh. And I’d guess that Joe never got the bag of coins and jewels you left for him. Kyle dumped it on Cal’s desk when Joe wasn’t in control. Cal had it in his saddlebags when he came out to see the rest of the treasure and killed Kyle. And got killed. Laramie tossed his saddlebags into the wagon with the rest of the treasure.”

“Very good. It is much harder to move coins. Oh, it’s easy if you just have a few. But if you have a thousand or ten thousand or a hundred thousand, it is almost impossible to do. So, as I was saying, as Bill Campbell, an old prospector, I went to my grandfather, Philemon Morgan, Esquire. I presented a memorial watch to my grandfather inscribed with his name. This one.” Phile pulled a gold watch from his pocket that looked exactly like the one on the table. He opened it and laid them side by side. They were identical. “I told him that I’d made one myself and I wanted him to keep my wealth and pass it on to my heir who would walk in the door with the match to this watch. My grandfather thought the request was a little foolhardy but he was an honest man. When I told him that if the money and gold and jewels I left with him had not been claimed by the time of his grandson’s death, then it was to be converted to a philanthropic foundation. There was already a good example of that with Carnegie building libraries. I knew already that I would own the watch and that we would be managing a great deal of money. I simply didn’t know where it came from.”

“So why didn’t you just use the money yourself? You didn’t need to fix it so that I could come for it,” I said.

“Oh, we’ve certainly used some of the money for philanthropy, but after meeting Joe, my objective was always to save the bulk for the battle to come. Besides which, I already knew that in this life I was as well-off and as happy as a man had any right to be. And I could set up the foundation the way I wanted to before I died. But when I met Joe and saw what kind of man he was, I determined that the wealth I had gained would be used to stop him. Is that what you intend to do, Cole?”

“Yessir, it is.”

“Then we have the resources to help you.”

The old man went to a safe in the wall behind his desk. He opened it and extracted a large envelope. He emptied the contents on the table. It was mostly pages of account numbers in the name of Gold Watch Corporation. This corporation had vast holdings. I recognized accounts at the same gold exchange where I had mine, but also bank accounts in the U.S. and around the world. There were keys and deeds to a dozen properties from Washington to Florida.

“Gold Watch Corporation is managed by a blind trust on behalf of its anonymous owner. The reality is that the owner can be named the trustee. Not only that; the actual resources of the trust are not public knowledge. Therefore, as soon as I file the papers naming you as the trustee, you will have all these resources at your fingertips. You will need to be cautious as to how you handle it, but you should have enough to save every ranch in your county and make sure it is safe for the future. You can transfer your own wealth, even your ranch into the trust and not be exposed for the fortune you have.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed. What about taxes?”

“The corporation pays capital gains taxes on investments in the United States. Since the corporation owns it all and you are merely the trustee, you have only the direct income that you wish to draw for your personal expenses. I think that, like me, you are not the kind of man that will need millions for your personal benefit. You will direct the Corporation in its good works.”

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t just do this all yourself?” I asked. “With the extra time you’ve had building this fortune, you could have put a stop to it all before Joe Teini got a handle on it.”

“It’s the limits of time travel,” Mr. Morgan said. “I had a first name, but when Bill died and I stopped traveling, I didn’t even know when this Joe lived. You might not believe this, but that was nearly twenty years ago. You were just a toddler and this Joe Teini had never been heard of. By interacting with the two of you, I was getting a glimpse of the future, but it was incomplete. I couldn’t directly manipulate it. I really didn’t know who or where or when it was. It was a gamble on my part to assume you’d get here before I died, but I thought you were probably a contemporary of mine. I had no idea I was dealing with the future. But you want to do good with this money. I could see that when I looked into your eyes back in 1891.”

“Yessir, that I will. I’m starting by ordering winter feed for 100,000 head of cattle and supporting the price of beef on the hoof through the winter. In the spring, we’ll see if Joe Teini can still make a grab for the Albany County land.”

“Just be careful, Cole. Have Phil make the arrangements through the trust. No one will know you are behind it. Phil is a good attorney and I’ve taught him as well as I can to be trustful for this event. This Joe Teini has already shown himself to be ruthless. Don’t let him catch you unawares.”

The paperwork took most of the afternoon. Phile called Phil back in and gave him instructions on what was to be done then wished us luck and left.

“I’m eighty-nine years old,” Phile said. “I think it’s time I retired.”

Phil proved easy to work with. Mary Beth and I spent the entire afternoon with him explaining what we wanted to do. We set up the new board of directors and officers of the corporation as Mary Beth, Ashley, and me. I had to call Ashley to get her Social Security number, but it didn’t require a signature. Phil would continue to act as administrator, administering the funds according to our directions. I had the impression that Phile III had been training Phil for this job from the time he was born. He knew the purpose of the trust and the corporation and he intended to administer it according to the way his grandfather wanted. We sent orders to Omaha, Chicago and Spokane for winter feed and hay to be delivered at a critical time. Even Billings had hay we could ship in. Phil would send in a team to negotiate with the ranchers quietly. There would be no trainload of feed dumping at the co-op nor a caravan of trucks carting hay. It would come in a little at a time from different directions. I would be kept out of all the transactions and it would look like I was taking deals the same as any other rancher in the county. I liked doing business this way.

On Thursday, Mary Beth and I headed back toward Wyoming. We got an early start, but even switching off drivers every couple of hours, six hundred miles a day is a lot of ground to cover. We were southeast of Boise, figuring we could make Twin Falls before we had to pull over for the night. It had been a beautiful late-fall day and we rolled down the windows to let the air flow in and keep us alert. That creates a hell of a wind at eighty miles an hour, but we were happy about the prospects. We’d been talking all day about what else we could do with the money we had access to after the current crisis was resolved.

Over the whistling air currents, with my hands still on the wheel, I heard Redtail’s call.

Traveling: The Bridge

I knew what was happening, but it was an odd feeling. Always before when I’d made this transfer, it was into the living body of Kyle Wardlaw. This time there were no eyes, no ears, and no cock plunging into my lover. I kind of missed that. Instead, I was in a disembodied state in which I could feel what was happening around me, but I couldn’t actually hear or see anything. I’d learned something the last time I was here when Kyle died, though. I could use my meditative state to visualize what was going on around me. If I relaxed myself enough, it all became a real world and I could see in my mind’s eye exactly what was going on.

Hearing was different. It was like listening to that little voice in your head. If you are asking yourself, ‘what little voice?’ that’s it. I’ve never known anyone who didn’t talk to himself in his head. Listening to what was going on around me was like that.

“Kyle?” Laramie’s head came up and she looked around the room. Her heart was beating faster. She’d heard the hawk and knew ... just knew that I was there. I didn’t know how to communicate with her, so I just kept thinking in my mind over and over, “I’m here. I love you.” Laramie relaxed and I could feel her smile. I extended my awareness and found my daughter, Kaylene. My God! She was fourteen years old and what a beauty! I just wrapped my love around her and repeated again, “I’m here. I love you.”