The Treasure Hunter

(a short story) PART ONE

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Professor Arthur Tollers was walking along the gravel beach of Raccoon Cove when he heard a faint beep. He stopped in his tracks, backed up a step and waved his metal detector wand once again over the spot where he had heard the electronic tone. He stooped, with a groan, and poked around in the gravel until the tone became loud and consistent. He turned over two or three small stones and then he saw it. Treasure! He pocketed the quarter and resumed his Saturday morning walk along the beach.

Six months ago, Tollers had retired from St. Francis College in southern Missouri, a small, Catholic liberal arts college nestled in the hills of the Missouri Ozarks. The college was Catholic but Tollers had little use any more for the faith that had once strengthened and sustained him. It had been more than nine years since he last went to church, and that was for the funeral Mass for his wife of 33 years, Diane. The Church and all that went with it was now an unwelcome occupation of his time. He didn’t need it and he didn’t understand it anymore. He understood the trappings of it, of course, and could even muster some interest in the archaic language and ancient symbols. He could no longer find the meaning in the mystery because he had come to believe that precision, history and articulate language held sway over emotion, myth and hymn singing. In many ways and in occasional private moments he wanted to believe, wanted to once again have faith in something greater than himself and his life, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

For 40 years he had taught Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton to eager and not-so-eager young minds, and now he was living a quiet life on the shores of this crystal clear Ozark lake in a cabin he and Diane had owned for more than 25 years as a weekend retreat. If he at times missed the students and the campus life, all he had to do was remind himself of the departmental politics and the stacks of sophomoric essays and he quickly remembered why retirement was preferable. And then there was treasure hunting.

He had become a bit of a treasure-hunting junkie. Fueled by literary allusions as diverse as the holy grail to buried pirate’s treasure, and egged on by National Geographic features on sunken ships and lost Spanish gold mines, he had over the years relished the idea of finding relics of the past. But for him, treasure hunting was more than poking around with a metal detector and a spade. He did his research at the local historical society (such as it was) and often set out looking in specific areas for specific types of treasure. He knew how to follow the trail of treasure when it presented itself, even if it seemed cold and likely to dead end. It was the search that mattered and it didn’t much matter what he found. Still, since he had moved to the lake and purchased the metal detector—the “Relic Hunter 2000”—he had found lots of coins, some old pieces of jewelry and more than a few Civil War artifacts.

He neared the end of the cove adjacent to the Old Chapel Road and heard another tone from the Relic Hunter. There was not another sound on the cove accept for the distant caw-caw of a circling crow and the soft and constant lapping of waves on the beach. The tone from the detector was deep and sustained, and he thought he might have something special. He knelt down on the beach and felt the gravel bite into his knees. He pushed some small stones out of the way but didn’t see anything. He pulled a small spade from his hip pocket and dug a little deeper in the soft mud. He flipped over the soil and caught a glimpse of something metallic—a chain or a necklace of some sort. He pulled his find from the mud and saw instantly that it was more than just a chain. Removing his glasses, he squinted for a moment or two at the crucified image of Christ that stared up at him (accusingly, he almost thought) from the clump of lake mud, quarry gravel and tarnished and fragile gold ringlets. He shook off the loose gravel and mud, slipped the piece of jewelry into the left breast pocket of his loose fitting flannel shirt, and moved on.

The sun was nearly directly overhead before he made it back to his small stone cottage on the far end of the cove. He was turning the key in the lock and already planning his lunch when he heard a voice speaking to him from the road above the house.

“Good mornin’, professor, if in fact it’s still mornin’,” the voice called out with a slight Irish lilt. Tollers checked his watch before looking up to face the man, whom he could barely make out due to the distance and the glint of the sun. It was 11:55 a.m.

“Five more minutes and you would have been too late for morning,” Tollers said with a laugh. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“It’d be Father O’Shaughnessy, Professor, but we’ve never met. I’m the parish priest from up at Sacred Heart. Mind if I come down?”

Without realizing it, Tollers reached up and fingered the crucifix in his pocket. “Sure,” he said slowly and cautiously, “but watch yourself on these old stone steps. The slope can be slippery.” Tollers grinned at his own words and wondered what slippery slope he himself might be going down with a visit from this clergyman.

To be continued….