The Treasure of the Inebriati
James Scargill
“That’s fascinating! Pat, may I tell you a story?”
At the man’s words Emma switched on the hidden camera pointed at the two seated at the bar: a young man whose blandly attractive face made an effort to hint at mysteries, and next to him a middle-aged woman whose hopeful gregariousness seemed as distinctly applied as her elaborate make-up.
“Sshhertainly!” the woman said, slurring only slightly.
The man had sought her out as soon as he had entered, heading straight for the empty barstool next to hers, and though at first he had just stared into his drink, pretty soon she had struck up a conversation with this intriguing and handsome individual. She had already had a few drinks by this point, and he continued to buy her more as they chatted, though only occasionally sipped his own. Patricia, or Pat to her friends, as this man was fast becoming, was a divorcée, had two children who spent most of their time with their father, was an assistant manager at a local supermarket, and a fan of home renovation tv shows. Emma had made a note of all these details, which came out in the course of the conversation.
The man began his story by describing a house, though a sentence in he had an idea and asked the bartender for some napkins, then said, “Now Pat, I’m going to ask you to draw what I’m saying makes you think of. This may seem strange, but don’t worry, there’s a reason. So anyway, this house...” Handing the napkins and a pen to Pat, he continued with the description. As he fleshed it out along with the characters who had lived in this house over the years, Pat followed with intensity that belied her inebriation and shared her attention between his story and the napkin quickly filling with her pen marks. “And in that chest in that attic is...” Pat leaned in at the story’s crescendo, but when the man paused and looked like he was having second thoughts about the whole thing she playfully slapped him on the arm and said, “Psshh, you silly billy! What’s in it?”
“Well...more money than a legal life could accrue.” he said solemnly.
At this Pat’s eyes lit up, and she said, “And this house is abandoned, you say?”
“Yes, and in a terrible state of repair.”
She considered this for a few moments, and narrowed her eyes slightly, “How do you know all this?”
He fixed a deep gaze upon her. “There are certain...vibrations...that connect people across space and time,” he said, nodding gently, “They connect people in ways science doesn’t understand but which are all the more powerful for that. So, when I say this came to me in a dream, you know that is not mere flippancy.” Pat was nodding now too.
Emma rolled her eyes. He often went for this sort of quasi-mystical approach when talking with a woman, supposing they were more receptive to such explanations. The man continued, “So this house is out there, derelict, with the treasure waiting to be claimed. And I am telling you what I know because I sense there are vibrations connecting us. Let me have a look at what you have drawn. There, look! The finial!” he pointed to a smudged detail at the top of Pat’s drawing, “I didn’t mention it in my story, but you knew it was there nonetheless! And here too, you have drawn out details even I was unaware of. I believe you could find this place, Patricia!”
Pat flushed at this praise. “But I don’t even know where it might be.”
“Close your eyes and think, deeply. You know where it is. Somewhere special. What comes to mind?”
“Hmmmm...Tr...Trenton? Yes, Trenton, New Jersey!”
“Well, there it is!” the man said, triumphantly, and bought her another drink in celebration. “So, Pat. What will you do with the money?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought.”
“Just whatever comes to mind.”
“Well, my niece was in an accident a few months back, and is now saddled with medical debt, so I guess I’d help her. Oh, she’s lovely, so vivacious and...”
This answer clearly didn’t satisfy the man, who interrupted her and said, “But what else would you spend it on?”
“Oh, erm, my son is getting ready to apply to college. We can only afford in-state tuition, but I can just imagine the look in his eyes when I tell him he can go to that fancy liberal arts school he’s been dreaming of!”
Again the man frowned, “There must be something you want. An indulgence. This is a lot of money we’re talking about.”
“Maybe some new jewelry, something a bit flashier. Just a bit of fun, you know?”
“And there you have it!” the man grinned. “Now Pat, there’s just one final thing I have to tell you.” To her confusion the man got a small video camera out of his pocket and pointed it at her. “This,” he said, holding up her drawing—“is only good for telling us about you, your desires, and your greed. Patricia, thank you for contributing to the Treasure of the Inebriati.” He grinned as the prank was revealed.
For a shocked second she was silent, processing what he had said, then she chucked the remaining half of her cocktail over the man and fled the bar, sobbing. At this point Emma stopped recording and put her own camera away.
The man slid Patricia’s drawing into his pocket and spent a few minutes wiping sticky liquid from his face with the remaining napkins. He then picked up his own glass, still half full, and walked over to the table at which Emma sat. “I think that went about as well as could be expected,” he said. “Cut the drink finale, or do you think that’s worth keeping in for a laugh?”
“I did think it was a bold move to buy her a new drink so close to the reveal, Geoff,” Emma replied to her colleague.
“Indeed. Well, we can certainly cut those first two self-serving answers. Who does she think she is? Mother Theresa?”
“How were her artistic skills?” Geoff took the napkin drawing out of his pocket and flipped it in front of Emma, who considered it. “Hmm, good, there are things we can use here. I take it this is the ‘finial’ you mentioned? Looks more like a cock, and not for the weather.”
“Repressed sexual desire as a consequence of her divorce, perhaps? We could mention Freud, that always goes down well. What do you make of the wavy lines at the foundation?”
“Oh, clearly, she’s beset with uncertainty, that she tries to foist onto other people. It would tie together nicely if she’d said Atlantic City instead, but Trenton should still get a laugh.”
“I’m glad I asked her to picture somewhere special!”
The two of them continued to discuss the picture, using it and what Patricia had said to draw conclusions about her psyche, jotting down notes and speculating what would get the most views. At home that evening Geoff would scan the drawing whilst Emma would write a provisional script for them to record the following day. A short editing session later and, all going well, their latest video would be ready to upload to YouTube, to the delight of their fans. The show was called ‘The Treasure of the Inebriati’ and involved one of them befriending a drunk and spinning a story of long-lost treasure whilst getting them to create a treasure map or similar. This they analyzed to reach cod-psychological conclusions about their subject, to be shared with their audience along with clips of the encounter, which culminated in inducing the subject to reveal what they would do with the money, before the ruse was revealed and the reaction filmed. It was formulaic, but it worked, each video getting enough views to sustain the two of them.
Emma speculated that it was the combination of pseudo-experiment and prank which did it for them—the analysis allowed the viewer to tell themselves that was why they were watching, not just to see a gullible drunk made fun of. There were times, in the middle of the night, shed of daily disillusions, when she wondered about the ethics of it, but one has to make money somehow and it was really rather tame in comparison to some of the other prank channels. Besides, most of the people in their videos probably never even saw them, and on the few occasions they had been contacted by an angry mark, it hadn’t taken long to negotiate a payoff that left all parties satisfied. Everyone has their price, after all.
Geoff went to the bar to pay his earlier tab. The bartender grumbled about having to clean up after the drink had been thrown, and how he’d rather his customers leave smiling than crying, but the oft-repeated adage about the goodness of all publicity went some way to mollify him, helped by a hefty tip. Back at the table Emma asked what the damage was. “About two hundred bucks, all told,” Geoff replied.
“Right. So long as this one doesn’t underperform, we should be alright.”
“Relax. Let me buy you a drink—not business, but pleasure.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
As they left the bar, Emma and Geoff fixed a time to meet the following day and went their separate ways. This was a bar they had used before, so the route home was familiar to Emma—three blocks, then left and another seven to get to Tower Bridge. Here she stopped and watched the Sacramento River flowing in the moonlight. She didn’t need a map, not even one of those phony ones they got unsuspecting revelers to produce. Her route was clear and simple, like the river, drifting between the banks. Why, then, did she long for an eddy? She sighed and looked up at the bridge, towering in the darkness, occluding the stars, the streetlights making its paint seem the color of vomit. What if she were to go visit its namesake? She could catch a bus to the airport and just get the next flight heading east, there was bound to be one last one even at this time. Then she would just get another, and another, rushing headlong into the dawn, until she reached the land where one of her ancestors may once have been doing something far more edifying. She could stand on the banks of another river and look at another Tower Bridge and have exactly the same thoughts. She sighed again and headed across the bridge towards her home.
The latest video was a success, doing better than any of their previous ones. Geoff attributed this to the drink thrown over him—it generated something of a lively discussion in the comments and they both knew how the algorithm devoured engagement. But even the most outrageous video will find its popularity wane, and so it was on to the next one. This time it was Emma’s turn to inveigle.
As she walked into the bar, a kind of faux-western saloon, she didn’t expect all heads to turn but was glad when her entry went unnoticed. It was about a quarter full—perfect. She scanned the room until she spotted Geoff, at a table, and the occupied barstool he indicated. She wandered up the bar, making a show of looking at what drinks were on offer, until she reached the kind, yet lonely, looking gentleman reading a book—she couldn’t see what it was called, but it looked suitably anodyne as to not cause a problem. Ordering a pilsner—not her favorite, but it fit the character she wanted to inhabit—Emma sat down next to him.
The first thing that struck her was how he seemed perfectly unperturbed by this woman choosing to sit on the adjacent stool when there were plenty of others available. He was probably un-confrontational. Good, Emma thought, for she had no desire to be doused in beer at the end of this, no matter how that might boost their views. To press his quietude, she got out her own book, an intentionally esoteric looking tome on the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Sure enough, after a few minutes a light voice to her side said, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I couldn’t help but notice what you were reading.”—she had the book open on a page with an intricate drawing of the Aztec sun stone—“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” she said, turning to him, “it speaks of a different world.”
“A lost one, sadly. I often wonder what mysteries from that period will never be discovered, let alone resolved.”
This was too easy, Emma thought. “Though you’d be surprised what turns up in archives, having lain undisturbed for so many years. Are you interested in history?”
“Yes, as an amateur. Who isn’t? I’m Don, by the way.”
“Ah, short for Donatello, perhaps?”
“No, nothing quite so exciting. Just plain Don.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m Maria.” Emma held out her hand, which Don gregariously shook.
“And what about you, what drives your interest in...?” Don gestured at the book.
Normally she would have spent longer building a rapport, to say nothing of mining the mark for information that could be wound into the analysis, but Emma felt the segue was too convenient, to say nothing of how Don radiated engagement. “Well, it’s funny you should have mentioned lost mysteries, and you’re right that there are things barely recorded that are impossible to imagine. Treasures untold. Are you familiar with the Archivo de Indias, in Seville, in Spain? Beautiful building, in a beautiful city. Anyway, it holds original documents dating back to the earliest days of the Spanish Empire. Sure, there are the big, important documents, the letters from Columbus, the papal bulls, the things that are known to all, and there are the administrators’ reports, the requisitions, the kind of documents that in bulk are no doubt fascinating to one diligent historian but otherwise might as well turn to dust, except, however, for the occasional oddity that pops up. A quill stroke that goes on a little too long, an ink spot that refuses to be a circle, a burnt edge, the kind of things that might mean nothing, or might mean everything. For example, have you ever heard of...actually, forget I said anything, it’s not that interesting. History’s just a passing fancy for me.” Emma made to turn away and close the book—although she was fairly sure she had Don hooked, there was no point not guaranteeing it.
“Oh, well I don’t think it’s just the drinks I’ve had talking when I say I found what you were saying fascinating! Please continue Maria, I beg you!”
“You flatter me!” she smiled and touched his arm, “I’ve actually just returned from having examined a few of these odd documents, and I have what can best described as a basket of clues.”
“Clues, for what?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“I promise!”
“Well then, for a treasure map.” Don was true to his word and received the explanation with solemnity. Emma flipped to the back of the book, where there was a scribbled series of numbers. “All that’s left is to assemble the map.”
“Well, surely once that’s done one still has to find the treasure?”
“Right, of course,” Emma said, loving Don’s enthusiasm. “Well, there’s no time like the present—care to be my scribe?”
Don was pleasantly taken aback and to Emma’s surprise he got a pad of paper out of his bag—it was so nice when a subject came prepared, she thought. Emma explained that the numbers referred to locations in her book, which was a facsimile of a sixteenth century tome, and that the clues would likely require some interpretation, which she was certain Don would ably accomplish. She then read a seemingly random string of words and phrases—in fact they were random, but she hoped they might act as some kind of Rorschach test, plus it spared her the effort of having to come up with a story. Emma peered at the map as it was taking shape. Don was quite the artist, and she had to admire the way he was synthesizing the ‘clues’, giving genuine thought to each one and incorporating it confidently even when it contradicted some earlier element. What did that imply? He didn’t exude arrogance, quite the opposite in fact, and he accepted without judgement or presumption.
They had just about made their way through the list when a loud noise began blaring throughout the bar. Confusion reigned for a few moments and drinks were spilt, but the bartender yelled over the sound of the fire alarm and directed everyone outside. What had seemed a small number of people spread out in the bar became a crush as they all scrambled out of the doors and when she took stock of the situation once outside, Emma realized she and Don had become separated. She cast around among the milling people, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Lost him?” Geoff asked as he found her.
“It’s strange, it shouldn’t be so difficult to find someone. But I guess it doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine it would be possible to get back into that groove.” Emma was disappointed. The effort of this evening was wasted, though she supposed there was no reason she couldn’t re-use the ploy. But more than that, she realized she had actually been looking forward to seeing what Don would produce, if not how he would react—maybe it was fate that had prevented that, she wondered.
The following day, having declined Geoff’s invitation to go out clubbing after their evening had fallen apart, Emma was once more with her colleague, who was sat on his couch, in a bathrobe, swirling a glass of Alka-Seltzer. She had called him and said they needed to meet, though his bearing betrayed a desire not to have answered.
“We need to think about what’s next after Inebriati.” Emma said.
“Sure, eventually. But why this morning? It’s going strong!” Geoff replied and affected a debonair attitude.
Emma wanted to explain her misgivings, but they were too vague to enunciate, coming out as cold porridge, and Geoff assured her that it was just the fire alarm that had spooked her. “I’m not a fucking horse,” she retorted.
“Yeah, you’re a YouTuber.”
What did that even mean, she wondered, but the stats showed their audience was still firmly behind the format. She was about to suggest they forgot the whole conversation when her phone started buzzing. She frowned at the unfamiliar local number and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, uh, is that Maria?” Emma froze. “Uh, it’s Don. From the bar?”
Emma remained silent for a few more seconds, but in the absence of a plan said, “Oh, Don, hi! Sorry, the connection is bad.” On hearing the name, Geoff looked up.
“Listen, I’m sorry about disappearing last night. Just the alarm and the confusion, you know? Anyway, um, well, I’ve got the map, so, do you want to go find the treasure?”
“Ah, well, Don, you see, the thing about the map is...” Emma felt herself rolling down the hill, but Geoff stopped her, and she muted the call.
“Wait,” Geoff said, “don’t waste the reveal. Meet up with him, you can at least grab the map and spring the surprise?” He rubbed his fingers together indicating the money they could make from salvaging this video.
Emma was uncertain. What of fate? But Geoff did have a point about money, and it was not like this was any worse than telling the man over the phone—if the issue was duping him, they had already done that.
“Maria, are you there? What about the map?”
“Sorry Don, motorbike rally passing. The thing about the map is that it needs to be properly interpreted, we can’t just rush out into the desert. Why don’t we meet up again?”
“Sure! Same place?”
The thought of returning there made her uneasy, but feeling the lead weight of lethargy shackle her, she agreed, and they fixed a time after lunch.
“Meet you there?” Emma asked Geoff.
He groaned and said, “After last night I can’t possibly set foot in licensed premises until at least teatime.” He wished her luck and shuffled into the kitchen to make breakfast.
“So how did it go? Have you got the map?” asked Geoff over the phone, “Bring it to my place and we can discuss it over a vermouth.”
“I don’t have the map.” Emma replied.
“What? Why? What happened?...Are you alright?”
“It’s all alright. I’ll explain tomorrow.”
“And so, what, I’m supposed to just twiddle my thumbs until then? I thought we were partners.”
“You can twiddle whatever you like, Geoff.” Emma hung up. Such adversarial banter was part of their working relationship, but Emma resented his perceived intrusion.
Her sense of unease that morning had stayed with her, germinating trepidation by the time she was sat in the bar on her own. It was more than just the danger of an adverse reaction from Don—she hoped the middle of the day minimized that—but sitting at the bar waiting for someone to come to her felt an inversion of the normal routine.
Don arrived smiling and whipped out the map. “Hi Maria! I’ve had some thoughts about its meaning.” Emma was used to being the one to guide the conversation in such circumstances, to say nothing of interpretation, so was taken aback by Don’s immediate dive into the pool of possibility. For a few minutes she just let him talk, his words a testament to pareidolia, though she wondered if her videos could be described any differently. Eventually, however, she interrupted him. “Don, what is it you do? For work, I mean?”
She sensed his disappointment at her changing the subject, but he answered nonetheless, saying, “Oh, you know, this and that.”
“Such as?”
“The usual odd jobs. I suspect it’s the reading I did as a child that inspired some of what I was just saying.”
“Oh really? In what way?” Emma was glad to be able to get a handle on the conversation and direct it, as she built a mental skeleton of the man sitting next to her. He explained how his parents had instilled a sense of exploration in him, despite never leaving California, or even the Central Valley; he implied they had never amounted to much, and she sensed his fear of going the same way. Every time he veered back to the map, she deflected him, trying to learn more, but also unwilling to perform the coup de grace. She realized there was a reason this was better done with the subject drunk, because as he spoke now, in the middle of the day and not even tipsy, his life became more than the background to a fifteen-minute video. She shouldn’t have listened to Geoff and should have just let Don down over the phone—why was she even thinking of it like that? Only a fool would be taken in and fools deserved what came to them.
Therefore, when Don next brought up the topic of the map, Emma decided it best to cut this off in a quick and clean manner, not even bothering to ask about the money—she knew she wouldn’t like the answer. “Listen Don, about that map. It’s not actually real.”
“Not real?”
“Yeah. As in, made up.”
“But I know that. I drew it, after all.”
“Right. But it’s not based on anything.”
“Sure. If there was an original, you would have found it in the archive. What’s your point?” Emma was silent, but after a moment Don’s face lit up in understanding, “Oh, I see! You’re just making sure I know it might not be completely accurate, that it’s just my interpretation of your clues. I know that! But I still believe we can find the treasure. We’ll make a great team! So anyway, the interaction of these two elements here...”
Emma groaned silently. There was no helping this guy. The following day she related most of this to Geoff but stopped short of admitting Don’s refusal to accept the map’s false premise and claimed instead that there hadn’t been quite the right moment to reveal the ruse.
Geoff commented, “It sounds like he’s quite torrential? But I suppose that gives a lot of useful titbits to use, or even some entertaining audio clips—you were recording right?”
“Oh yes.”
“Glad to hear it. And I take it you’ll be seeing him again, to record the reaction?”
“Naturally.” In fact, Emma and Don had agreed to meet later that day, and when Geoff made no motion to join and observe, Emma did not ask him to come. She wondered how she might again broach the subject of the map’s unreality, but this time as she sat chatting with Don, she found it easier to be swept along. Don spoke so effortlessly about the world the map inhabited that her job felt like floating down a river, only occasionally having to prod an oar against the bank.
“The bell there, for example. I find your suggestion that it indicates the direction of the east wind intriguing, but what does it mean to you, personally?” Emma asked.
“Oh, well, a bell calls, doesn’t it? Like the bell summoning the workers from the fields. Could this be myself calling me?”
“Hmmm, to what?”
“To adventure? My life is, for lack of a better word, boring. Perhaps this is where it all changes?”
This comment weighed on her that evening after they had parted and at night she dreamt of lambs being taken from the herd.
When she was woken by her phone ringing, she was at first grateful to leave behind those grey, confusing images, but upon realizing the time—3 a.m.—she feared the worst as she answered.
“Maria! It’s fantastic!” The voice was excited, and it took her a few disoriented seconds to recognize Don.
At first Emma could only mumble “Wha?”
“I’m sorry for calling so late, but it came to me in a dream, and I just had to tell you!” She was about to repeat her vocalization when he realized he should explain. “I know where it is—the map—southern Arizona. Not far! Why don’t we go? We can find this treasure!”
“Right. Wow. Yeah, that’s something.”
“So will you come?”
Emma thought for a moment, as best as the time allowed, and resolved to take this late-night call as a sign. “Sure,” she told Don, and agreed to meet him the following morning. She lay back now fully awake as what was to come dawned on her.
After a few hours of fitful sleep, sunlight came to wash over the city. Though Emma suspected Geoff wouldn’t be up yet, she decided to give him a ring.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.” She started.
“Not at all, she just left.” Geoff’s attempt and humor or suavity was upset by his grogginess, but Emma had to chuckle.
“There has been a development, regarding Don, and the denouement will come today.”
“Really? Because I was beginning to think asking you two times a day wasn’t proving effective. But seriously, talk to me.”
“Well, he wants to go on a trip, to find the treasure, so it kind of reaches a conclusion here.”
“Wait, so you’re not going to join him?”
“Uh, the treasure’s not real, Geoff?”
“But don’t you see? This will make an excellent video! See how far along you can string this fool—I mean, he actually wants to go on a goddam quest. You film that, vlog it and the crazy rube-ish things he’s bound to do. We can say it’s some kind of experiment—like how far will someone go for a dream? Or even make it about something like the contact between delusions and reality.”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure what I think about that.”
“But you said you wanted to branch out from our usual format. Fate has dropped this into our laps. And we can still do the big reveal at the end, the climax, when it will garner the most impactful response.”
“I don’t know. I mean one night in a bar is one thing, but this seems like a whole different level. He’s bound to feel taken advantage of.”
“Nah. This guy wants to go on this adventure, right? So, you’re just helping him with that.”
“I guess. Plus, it would be something different, I suppose” Emma said, to start on the road of convincing herself.
“Think of the views!”
Geoff’s exhortation pushed Emma further along, and by the time they hung up she had agreed to the plan. As she headed to the parking lot where she was to meet Don, she even felt excited. The true reason for her being there intruded, however, when Don, who had pulled up, commented on the fact she was filming him.
“Oh right, I just want to record the quest for posterity, you know?” Emma explained.
“Oh, good idea! Do you make videos often?”
Emma became flustered but played it off as modesty while she searched his face for this question’s motive. “Occasionally I film things, but only for fun. The results aren’t particularly edifying.”
“Well, I’d love to see one sometime!”
Emma demurred, threw her bag into the car’s trunk, and texted Geoff the license plate.
As they negotiated their way out of the city, Don jumped into a retelling of his dream. “It was the bell, the one you mentioned, so really I have you to thank. At first, I only heard the tolling—everything was dark—but I knew I was moving towards it, and when I looked up, I saw the belfry silhouetted against a bright sky. It was dawn—my dawn—and as the sun rapidly rose, the changing illumination revealed the distinctive shape of the mission church and the surrounding hills. People were thronging but ignoring me, and as the day progressed, they fell, one by one, their flesh disintegrated and bones were bleached by the sun. At this I jumped up and flapped my wings, for now I was a bird who circled and soared, higher and higher. The silky embrace of night revealed the lights of distant towns and cities.
“When I woke, I straightaway opened google maps and studied the distribution of settlements in the southwest, narrowing it down, looking at photographs of ancient buildings, until I came to the Mission of San Epipodio which had to be what I saw in my dream.
“What do you think? Does that make sense?”
“Oh, err, yeah. I mean it’s as good an indication as any.” Emma responded, wishing she ever had dreams as extensive—she almost called it revealing before catching herself.
They had been on I-5 headed south for about an hour, and with Sacramento left behind, Emma gazed out of the window and watched the monotonous scrub punctuated by the occasional city. It wasn’t exactly La Mancha, but perhaps if one squinted. Too late to turn around, in any case, better to charge.
“Maria, tell me something, would you?” Don asked, gently, but Emma remained idly watching their journey’s progress. “Um, Maria?” he said again, reaching out to tap her arm. Emma jumped.
“Sorry, I was miles away. What is it?”
“I was wondering: what was going through your mind? When you were in the archive. Did you think you’d actually find this treasure?”
“Well, let’s not count our bridges before they’re hatched,” Emma said, with a nervous laugh, unsure whether she should be egging on Don for the sake of the video or preparing him for disappointment.
“But let’s also not give up hope right away! When you were collecting those clues, did you anticipate them becoming a map and going on an adventure like this? Was it planned?”
“Oh yes, and you were selected specifically. You are the chosen one, Don.” Emma said, immediately, in a deadpan tone. Sometimes a direct approach was the best way to obfuscate. Fortunately, he laughed, and so she continued, “No. I’ll be honest, I didn’t foresee this. Probably my assembled notes would’ve ended up lost and forgotten in some dusty archive of their own.”
“Your own archive?”
“Or the county library, more likely!” she laughed. “Can I ask you something, Don?”
“Of course!”
“Who won the last election?”
“The President?”
“Right. What is a globe?”
“Umm, a representation of the Earth? What do you mean?”
“Do aliens exist?”
“Yes. I mean, probably. But they’ve not visited the Earth, if that’s what you’re asking.” Emma was silent, so Don continued, “Look, I get it. Going to actually search for this treasure is crazy, but I’m not some nut, I assure you. And I don’t think you really could think that, otherwise why would you be here?”
Emma had wanted to probe his faculties, having been struck by a fear; but even if he wasn’t delusional, could it not still be said she was taking advantage? “Of course. Look Don, I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“No worries! I appreciate my faith in this venture might seem strange, but what’s life without a little optimism?”
The day progressed with snatches of conversation interrupting the monotony of the drive. Emma found herself making up the story of the most interesting document she had come across in the archive—she was about to describe a letter from Juan Ponce de Leon about his search for the Fountain of Youth but figured salacious rumors of one of the viceroy’s proclivities would confuse matters less—and she ended up describing her visit to Seville more generally. As luck would have it, she had been to Andalusia a few years ago, though not to Seville specifically, and so was able to furnish an account convincing to Don. She was worried that after all the information she had extracted from him she might be at a loss for questions with which to reciprocate, but he took pleasure in recounting the plots of various science fiction novels he had recently read—at one point she thought he might even start generating sound effects and she found his enthusiasm infectious.
As the sun began to set, they pulled off the highway and stopped at a motel. Emma immediately asked the receptionist for two rooms and took care to note Don did not evince the slightest disappointment.
The air conditioner in her room made a situating rattle as it was turned on and as she scanned from the dirty net curtains to the desk with the scruffy, dog-eared pad, to the ominous void of the dark doorway to the bathroom, she supposed with a chuckle that she should be soothed by such a quotidian motel experience. She sighed and got the bottle of gin from her bag.
In the morning the slit of light separating the curtains pierced her to consciousness over the course of a few hours. The gin bottle was still two-thirds full and after a few glasses of water and a shower Emma made her way to the reception. The placid warmth of the day made her feel all the worse for not ambling and enjoying it.
A chaotic crowd surrounded the breakfast materials, so she settled for coffee and sat in a corner to glare at the television. The chat surrounding her was worse than the buzz of a mosquito, rising and crashing unpredictably, one person calling another person’s name—why didn’t she answer, or he realize she wasn’t there and stop shouting? She looked down at the murky brew and focused on the largest bubble, adhered to the side, certain and stolid, cushioned by foam, yet pop—there it went, as a shadow crossed the table.
“Maria! Maria! Sorry, I guess you couldn’t hear me above the din.”
Emma looked up to see Don in the now quiet, bright room. “I’m sorry,” she said, “in a world of my own.” They were both silent for a few moments, then she added, “Listen. why don’t you call me M? It’s what my friends do.”
Back in her room Emma sent a quick update to Geoff and by mid-morning she and Don were back on the road, now headed east, the mountains rearing up to one side. After a few hours hurtling through the desert, they were bearing down on the state line and as they crossed over into Arizona Emma abruptly commanded Don to take the next exit. Though taken aback, he obeyed, and she scanned the streets of the small settlement they entered. “There!” she said, pointing at a nondescript bar, in front of which he parked.
“What’s going on?” Don asked.
“Well, this is your first time outside California, right? It demands a celebration!” She herded him inside and bought them each a drink, finding sudden and surprising solace in reprising their previous mode of interaction. “How does it feel?” she asked.
“Like the adventure is really beginning!”
Emma encouraged Don to talk more about his sense of wonder and excitement, even having left the camera in the car. His words were like a refreshing stream, his hope a spring. She had not yet asked him the usual question about what he would do with the treasure, but it had practically passed from her mind in its supposed futility; he desired the treasure, of course, but only as a goal, a reason to embark on this journey, she felt.
Over his protestation they stayed and had another drink and she wondered why she was so keen they remain here. Was she trying to put off bringing their search for the treasure into violent contact with the hard reality of a desert empty of prizes so definite? When they stepped out into the harsh sunlight of the early afternoon Emma suggested a stroll before hitting the road again, so they wandered to the edge of town. Their backs to the freeway, the sandy immensity came up to meet them with unexpected abruptness. Here was the town and here was the temptation of escape, were it not for the fences stretching off and enclosing.
After minutes of silent contemplation, Emma said, “It’s funny, the treasure could be anywhere, in any field, in any wilderness. Lost to mankind if not to our thoughts.”
“M, what are you saying? We’ll find it. Not here, because it’s not here, but we must press on. We’ll find it.”
Back in the car they drove in contemplation adulterated only eventually by the outskirts of Phoenix. Here they stopped amongst the semi-urban dross at a motel which had only its position on their route to favor it. The room could have been a carbon copy of the previous night’s, yet Emma felt it hang heavily as if it were a lead apron. She dreamt of buried panes of glass.
The following day they were to head south, away from the city, skirting it like stone skimmed on a pond. By mutual, unspoken agreement, they eschewed the interstate, choosing, or needing, a slow departure to allow them to witness the city be dismantled by the landscape bit by bit until the desert reclaimed them. They travelled on progressively smaller roads branching into the Sonoran Desert until they were travelling on the equivalent of a capillary, barely paved and just as fragile.
Arriving at a ruined mission church, Don stopped the car and Emma, getting out, admired the way the sun blasted the cracked, whitewashed walls and the sharp contrast with the shadows they cast. Precise lines ran along the sand, thinner than a single grain, demarcating heat and cool, illumination and darkness. There was a tall saguaro cactus close to where they parked, venerable and weathered yet perfectly proportioned, its arms held up in jubilation that occurred on a timescale beyond her reckoning. It was a scene from an ancient postcard, a movie, or indeed innumerable items of Western kitsch, Emma thought, as she recalled the plate she had at home painted with a desert sunset. The impressive heat, encouraged by a gentle breeze, caressed her, and she was bathed in silence, not even the rattle of a snake to disturb her. This appreciation trembled, however, when she recalled why she was here. If this was the spot where the treasure was supposed to be, then this was the moment when the guillotine must fall.
“Look! I knew my dream could be trusted!” Don exclaimed.
“This is the church you dreamt of?”
“I’m sure of it!”
Such certainty disturbed Emma, until she spotted a way out. “But it doesn’t have a belfry,” she noticed. “Wasn’t the bell the important part?”
Don gave her a look that could almost be called condescending, though which, having got to know him a little, Emma assumed was meant to be reassuring. “It must have fallen in a storm. Come, let’s look for it.” Emma followed him as they poked among the brush—his mood was infectious, and she found herself almost hoping they would come across some further ruin. Around the other side they did find scattered bricks and cracked plaster which Don spent time examining, picking them up and trying to put them together. As he made dubious noises, Emma reasoned this was the perfect time to do it, but quickly realized she had once again left the camera in the car.
“Yes, this does look right!” Don eventually said, before looking Emma in the eye and joking, “Ye of little faith!”
She was taken aback but attempted a casual laugh and said, “Well, you would know!” At his bemusement she explained, “About this being the right place!”
Don smiled, got out the map from his pocket, and beckoned her over to study it. He pointed out the various aspects which agreed with their current location, though it all centered around one word—‘bell’—she had read out but a week ago, even if that first evening in the bar felt like it could have happened as far back as the construction of the ruin in whose shade they now stood. He asked her opinion on his interpretation, and though this was the perfect invitation to dissuade him, if not completely let him down, she was overcome with admiration for the solidity of his account and found the best she could do was make her agreement not overly wholehearted. He beamed and wandered back to the car.
Right, Emma thought, feeling as if she had just returned from a vision, when he gets out the spade and starts digging, that’s when I’ll tell him—Geoff would probably even congratulate me on such an apposite climax, sweat dripping from his brow.
Instead of a spade, Don returned with an old photographic camera and framed a shot of the church, careful to include the now partially reconstructed, if transplanted, belfry. Emma debated stopping him, not wanting to imagine how painful this image may later prove to be. But she didn’t, and he took his snap, manually winding the camera afterwards. He then surprised her by saying, “Well, shall we get on our way?”
“What about the treasure?” Emma said immediately, though regretted it a second afterwards.
“It’s not here, M,” he said, confused at her question. Emma became worried, for an instant seeing the tables turned, until he slapped his forehead and gave a bright laugh. “Of course! Sorry, I’ve spent so much time thinking about this map that I forget you don’t know what I know.
“It’s more than just this one location—the map stretches across this land! This place corresponds to one aspect and is the start, but we now have to move from word to word, each one informing the next, spelling out a story written in these sands. The next one is chasuble, but there are no vestments in there.
“Sorry again, I should have explained this, or, at least, this is how I understand it. But it’s your map too, do you think I’m right?”
“Let me see the map again,” she said, and spent a few minutes thinking about the situation as she pretended to study it. Was this a positive development? On the one hand it extended the quest further, and deepened their involvement, potentially making its conclusion all the messier, but on the other hand, this gave it a more definite development and, crucially, a more definite end, for there were only so many words and phrases she had given him. That eased the burden somewhat, as she would not have to decide when to end this, when to tell the truth. Furthermore, with that taken out of her hands and off her mind, perhaps she could even enjoy this adventure, as she found herself beginning to do—why else was it called playing along if it wasn’t meant to be fun? “Ah, I see what you mean,” she said, after a while, “I think you might be onto something. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t convinced the treasure was here either.”
Therefore, they got in the car and trundled back down the road, discussing the next target.
Over the next few days, they crissed and crossed the Arizona portion of the Sonoran Desert, ticking off items from the map, each one leading them to the next. From horses to wells, ranches to cacti—of the last none were as old as the clues they followed supposedly were, yet somehow they still managed to find their way. They stayed away from larger cities, and Emma found the heat and expanse of the desert to have an effect. Its austere beauty challenged her but also promised a reward for effort spent and there were moments when they were miles from another soul that she wished even Don was not there and she could just lie back and let the landscape consume her.
After a fulfilling day of what felt like progress the two of them were sitting in a quiet bar not unlike the one in which they had first met, albeit smaller. They chatted of commonplaces, and apparently exhibited such a gregarious air that they were approached by a charming looking woman who asked if she could join them, for she didn’t like drinking alone. They assented and the three got acquainted.
Julie was travelling west, to Hollywood, though not to become an actress, instead to paint the ocean, as she put it, and as she recounted her journey thus far, it seemed she had found plenty of artistic subjects on the way. If not quite a raconteur, she nonetheless put them at their ease, so when she asked what their journey was, Emma thought nothing of it, until Don began to respond. Her pulse quickened and vision narrowed as he explained that they were treasure hunters, were following a map, and wouldn’t she like to see?
This is it, Emma thought, the moment the bubble is burst, and not even by me. Should she jump in to defend Don from ridicule, or would that just compromise her further? She wondered about staging a diversion, maybe pushing her glass off the table whilst Don was talking, better that to be shattered than the alternative.
Don finished his explanation, Julie opened her mouth, but rather than laughter she launched into effusive praise for undertaking something so exciting. As she mentioned Borges and his story about fiction bleeding into reality, Emma realized her understanding of the whole treasure map situation might be different from Don’s. There was something to be said for an artistic frame of mind, and the complementary view it offered, and so long as Julie wasn’t going to tell Don he was being taken advantage of, or call him a fool, then Emma was happy.
As the evening progressed, they all three became jolly. Don and Julie, in particular, were a pair of aligned mirrors, bouncing cheer off one another, and it became clear her distaste for solo drinking extended to other nocturnal activities. It had of course come out that Emma and Don were not romantically involved, but Emma still had to applaud this woman’s boldness at being quite so forward with her sitting there. In any case, Don was reciprocating the attention being lavished. To his credit, whilst Julie had gone to get more drinks, he did delicately try to broach the subject of whether Emma minded, to which she reflexively responded, “not in the slightest!” and tried to figure out what her feelings actually were.
Eventually, Julie invited Don to come and see some of the paintings she had created on this trip—“The photos on my phone simply don’t do them justice”—and the two of them bid Emma goodnight. Julie was staying in the same motel as them—the only one in town—and so to avoid awkwardly tailing them Emma remained for another drink, trying to ignore the bartender’s look of pity. She stared into her glass until enough time passed, then slipped out into the cool desert night.
The air was refreshing, and it was only now, immersed in it, that she realized how stuffy the bar had been, as she let the gentle breeze blow away the smell of cigarette smoke and spilt beer, even if the fuzz in her mind was harder to remove. Why was she upset about Don and Julie going off together, she wondered? For she was upset, at a low, buzzing level that made up for the lack of irritating insects in this environment.
Simple jealousy, that ooze wept by love and as ubiquitous as simple syrup, exchanging sweet for bitter, was the nearest explanation, she mused, yet wondered whether she had ever actually felt jealousy before. Envy was a common friend to her, be it of the juiciest melon in the supermarket snapped up by the shopper in front, or one of her rare friends’ even rarer promotions, there were many things she did not possess yet wished to, however, so scant she judged her own life, there was not anything she thought she feared losing. Even the career she had manifested making videos for the internet, which felt dwindling and distant over these last few days, she told herself could diminish and disappear with a pop without fundamentally changing her mood. Maybe that lack of interest was precisely because she had become enthralled by Don, but she knew what it was not to want someone. If she was enthralled by anything, rather than her companion it was the journey itself, the adventure, that sustained her. An adventure that might be imperiled by Don sleeping with this woman he had just met? Was Don to run off with this woman to Hollywood, potter around tinsel town, or perhaps persuade her to paint Sacramento instead? Emma thought it unlikely. Don was full of wonder which seemed larger than just falling head over heels for someone, and despite Julie’s interest in what they were doing, Emma knew she would continue on her own journey tomorrow morning. The alternative only happens in the pages of a book. She was a real person, and so was Don. In fact, it seemed to Emma the events of this evening had only emphasized that—he wasn’t just an inebriated mark, but she was tricking and perverting a person with their own hopes and desires.
Emma reached the motel and spent a few seconds scanning the two rows of rooms; above each door was a perfunctory light, half of which worked. Rather than figure out which room Don was currently in, she walked to hers but chose to sit on a bench a few feet away, next to a broken ice machine. It was times like this she wished she smoked—it would be so easy to sit here with a lit cigarette in one hand, like a character from a movie, it would explain everything. Instead, she was overcome with self-consciousness, sitting here for no obvious reason, in the dirty illumination of a pockmarked shade. The light obliterated the stars, leaving pointless, murky darkness instead. Not that there was anyone to catch her staring into it, she thought. Everyone else is too busy dealing with their own problems caused by a disintegrating world. What became of hope, wonder, and innocence, she wondered. Even Don was happy to settle for a quick sexual thrill it seemed. Or was that just her projecting? Why did she need him to be a paragon of innocence?
She got up, throwing away her imaginary cigarette, and was about to return to her room when she noticed a car that hadn’t been there before. There was something familiar about it and so she approached. Though hard to discern the color in the artificial light, the make and model matched one she had seen many times. Sure enough, as she stepped in front of it, Geoff got out from the driver’s side and smiled at her.
The two colleagues shared a few seconds of silence, until Geoff broke it. “I was concerned.”
“For my safety?” Emma replied after more silence.
“Concerned you might have forgotten why you’re here.”
“Charming. You could have just called.”
“Well, you know me, not one to give up an adventure.”
Emma considered this, and asked, “So how long have you been following us?”
“Oh, only the last day or two. When you stopped sending updates I began to wonder.”
“Well, you’ve found me.”
“Jokes aside, what’s up?”
Without hesitation, Emma said, “I know it’s taking a while, but I really think there’s something here, and the payoff will be all the sweeter for it.”
“Okay, well it’s good to hear you say that. As I said, I was beginning to get worried.”
“This is going to blow all our other videos out of the water.”
Geoff smiled at the thought of this, and satisfied, said, “Do you fancy getting a drink? There’s a little bar just down the street.”
“Not tonight,” Emma replied, with an insincere smile, and left Geoff to go off on his own as she returned to her room.
The next morning Geoff’s car was gone—whether he was staying at the motel and had just got an early start was unclear, but Emma was glad he wasn’t around as she knocked on the door to Don’s room, uncertain whether it would be answered and by whom. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to have to explain him to Don, she resented Geoff’s intrusion into this world, a grim reminder of what lay behind the scenery curtain.
By mid-morning Don and Emma were resuming their spider-like progress around the area, avoiding any discussion of the previous evening. Their first stop was an old railway water station, identified as such by one of the words, which caused Emma momentary confusion. She was fairly sure the words all exhibited a more ancient vibe, but Don didn’t mention anything, so she figured she must be misremembering—it wasn’t like the actual words, or the locations they were visiting, mattered in and of themselves, which was a shame. Otherwise, the day passed normally—for the overall situation—and the incident passed from her mind except to note that she had not seen him consult the map, but perhaps he didn’t need to anymore. She made sure to send Geoff an update which omitted this detail.
That evening they stayed somewhere far from any bars or other entertainments, each retreating to their room for a dollar store dinner. Emma wondered whether it was vindictive of her to prefer this, that Don should only exist to her in service to the adventure.
Again the next day, and the one after that Don mentioned steps in their search which Emma felt could not have been part of their original conversation, so long ago. They were distemporaneous with those earlier clues, as if two different eons in this region’s history were being conjoined. Gunslingers and Missionaries facing off. Was this Don creating his own story, building on the one she had told him, and if so, surely he must know it was not real if he was producing it himself? Or was he delusional, after all, despite otherwise appearing cogent? And if he wasn’t delusional, what was going on? Emma resolved to find out, which was why she was now poking about in his room at the latest motel on their quest. Purloining his key had not been difficult, and as they walked to a nearby restaurant—advertised as having the best baked potato west of the Mississippi—Emma claimed to have left something in her room, telling Don to go on ahead.
The contents of Don’s room were neatly ordered, which surprised Emma, who had been hoping to encounter disarray for how it might make her presence less noticeable and what it might imply about his state of mind. But perhaps this made finding what she wanted easier, which was, what exactly? she wondered. His suitcase was just full of clothes—unless there were secret compartments, but it was too soon to fall into such thoughts, she felt—but on the bedside table was a book. Emma picked it up: the title and author were unfamiliar to her, and it appeared to be a novel set in post-war Britain; an unexpected choice. She read a few pages, to see if it contained any clues, but only encountered tender depictions of hope in the face of adversity; she resolved to buy a copy when this was all over. Atop the desk sat a laptop computer—Don hadn’t used it with her around, so perhaps it was a haven for secrets, though if it was, she would have to wait to access them until she discovered the password. She closed the lid and looked around for any papers that might shed light, perhaps a journal in which Don laid out his innermost thoughts and feelings—that would be ideal. Instead, the best she could discover was the same old map that had been guiding them and perhaps still was. Unfolding it, she realized she hadn’t had a chance to peruse it in a few days and noticed a series of marks, in red, against the labels which had originally inspired the map. These were the places their itinerary had already compassed—from the mission church of the start right up to the petroglyph they had inspected yesterday—and with growing disquiet Emma realized that all the places had already been marked.
Before she could consider the implications of this, however, a shadow passed the large, net-curtained window, and she heard Don saying “Blast!” in front of the door as he realized he didn’t have his key. He then tried the door, successfully. Emma had just enough time to tap a quick message to Geoff, holding her phone behind her back and preparing to send it as she turned to the door and met Don’s surprise with her own shock. Any displeasure he felt at being tricked was sure to pale in comparison to how he would feel if he thought she were rooting around his things, so after a second of silence she said, “Ah, hello. I wanted to have a look at the map but didn’t want to bother you.”
Surely he wouldn’t believe this, she thought, and after further silence, he said, more calmly than she expected, “I take it some of our recent points of interest have piqued yours?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t seem to find them on here,” Emma replied, thinking a natural, direct approach could be best, even if it was the truth.
Don considered this, and said, “I guess I should be honest too. I know who you are, Emma.”
His saying her name was a like a thunderclap and, barely able to contain the shock, she mustered a confused expression, and said, “Who’s Emma?”
“It’s too late for that. I know about you, and Geoff, and the Treasure of the Inebriati.”
Well, this really was it, Emma thought, as she prepared to alert Geoff, though she had no idea if he was anywhere nearby. The only things stopping her were Don’s warm persona she had got to know over the last week, his current outward calm, and the fact that if he did mean her harm from knowing, wouldn’t he have acted when he first found out? Which prompted her to ask, “When?”
“Not from first sight, but something about our initial encounter didn’t play right. People don’t often strike up conversation with me in bars. I mulled it over and was reminded of an article I had read about ethics and internet fame, which eventually led me to your channel. You seemed so disenchanted in your videos. Your colleague looked to have nothing to lose, yet I got the feeling there was a spark within you that had been dulled, if you don’t mind me saying, and on the other hand when you were sitting next to me, telling a story about secrets discovered in a distant archive, it seemed you wanted so badly for it to be true, but knew that it couldn’t. So, I thought, why not give you an adventure. You seemed like you could use it.”
This was not what Emma had been expecting to hear. If he hadn’t just found out, then she assumed there had to be some sort of fun being had at her expense—tricked at her own game—yet if Don were telling the truth, those weren’t his motivations. But could he be trusted? She didn’t like to be on this end of such decisions.
“I’m sorry for misleading you,” Don added, to break the awkward silence that had formed.
“Likewise, at the start, at least,” Emma said, with a weak laugh. A confused atmosphere permeated the room as they both remained still, eyeing one another. Eventually, Emma said, “Well, it would be a shame to miss the West’s best potato—do you fancy dinner?”
They returned to their original plan for the evening and had stilted, yet genial, conversation over the meal, assiduously avoiding any prior topics.
That night Emma’s phone buzzed, and she looked down to see a message from Geoff: “How’s it going? Are you getting good footage?”
Tapping it, she was brought to the message she had composed earlier, with the motel name, room number, and “come quick”. How hard the future is to predict, she thought as she deleted it, we are all just bumbling our way along into a world that doesn’t even exist yet. “Yes,” she replied, “some great footage and even better stories!”
“That’s what I like to hear!” Then a few seconds later he added, “I can’t wait to see it and discuss this whole story—kind of envious really!”
“Don’t be—it’s not all that” Emma quickly messaged, feeling as if the interest of another somehow degraded what she was experiencing, that it should be only for her.
“By the way, when you get back to Sac, I’d love for you to meet this woman I’m seeing”
“Oh right”
“She really is a treasure!” Geoff suggested, making Emma no more likely to speed back. “Anyway, see you soon” Geoff signed off.
The next morning, following the routine they had developed, Emma and Don sat in a diner, the nearest, for breakfast. She reckoned she was becoming a connoisseur of the pancakes of the region, whereas Don got a different dish each time, though today it was just black coffee and a glum expression.
They had been eating in silence when Emma asked, “So, where to today? What’s our first goal?”
Don looked confused and said, “Um, back to California?”
“Oh really, what’s there?”
“Home?”
“But what about the quest?
“Um...”
“The next item on the treasure map?”
“Um...Are you alright? I guess it’s now my turn to say it’s all make-believe?”
“And just as you knew that, I know that. But when you pulled the wool over my eyes—for which I applaud you—when you were living that double life—one I know too well, no doubt—did not one half of you wish that one half of it could be real?”
“So, quarter reality?”
“You know what I mean and your weak attempt at levity only proves it. This is more than just a video, in fact, it isn’t—I’ve not enough footage, stopped recording long ago, as you no doubt noticed. I need the mission to be real. And I need you to be more than just a dupe, but also to not be a liar—I need you to just be genuine.” Emma paused, then added, “Did not some part of you enjoy the quest?”
Don struggled to maintain an impassive expression, but was forced to admit, “I thought you might find it refreshing, more than a distraction, a renewal maybe.”
“And you?”
“Not dissimilar. What I told you of my life was not a lie. Tired disappointment. Perhaps part of me thought this could be redemption. Or resurrection.”
“Then can it really be false?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“The locations you were inserting into our journey—that became it—where did they come from?”
“I don’t know, what difference does it make?”
“Think.”
“Well if you must know, it was a story someone told me in a bar—sound familiar?”
“Really?”
“No. I mean, yes it was a story someone told me in a bar once, but they weren’t your doppelgänger, in fact, they were the credulous inebriate. It was an old cowboy, grey beard dissolving into a grizzled face, and a Stetson that looked like it had withstood sun and rain in every corner of the West.”
“Are you sure you’re not making this up?”
Don shrugged and said, “Hey, you asked.” Emma nodded and Don continued, “He’d been put out to pasture in California’s capital but still felt the call of the desert and the plains ringing within him, begging to be heard. I happened to be in the right place at the right time as he told me about his life. There were scenes that could have come from Bonanza, moments of drama and daring no doubt polished by time, and an offhand reference to a treasure lost in a ghost town. I pressed for more details, but it turned out to be something he himself had only heard about, in his youth, from someone as ancient as he now was.”
“And what did this man make of the story when he was told it?”
“He went out searching for this town, even kept it up intermittently for a few decades, but couldn’t find it before concluding that it was instead a lesson to be learned.”
“Is that what you think it is?”
“Maybe the lesson is don’t give up.” Don smiled.
“So, you agree to continue our quest?”
Don thought about this for a while, then said, “Sure. Just so long as this doesn’t turn out to be a double bluff and I don’t end up the subject of one of your videos.”
Emma was shocked at the suggestion and communicated as much to Don, “You have my word.”
There followed some debate about how they should proceed on this quest: cleaving to their prior modus operandi, or simply by looking up a list of nearby ghost towns. Don argued that the method up to now had just been to lay out a journey, whereas Emma pointed out that was the whole point, and, in any case, they had to find out which ghost town it was, if it was even in this part of the country.
She got Don to write down everything he could remember of this story and brushed aside a comment on whether she expected him to draw a map.
By the end of the second day of their renewed quest Don was ready to admit they’d given it their best shot and was trying to persuade Emma of the same. “We have made a good effort,” she accepted, “but that could just as easily be a reason to push on. We’re close, I can feel it!” Don looked skeptical and Emma wondered how much she was deceiving herself. Nonetheless, the next day their ideo-wanderings brought them to the town of Rootsville. Or, rather, the town it once was, being now but half a dozen structures in varying states of collapse, the rest swallowed by the desert. Either through looting or the diligence of the town’s final inhabitants, there were none of the old knick-knacks that prove so charming to such a place’s latter-day visitors. Instead, the buildings were empty, save for the sand whipped in by winds under which the wooden walls and roofs still creaked even on a day as fine as the one they enjoyed. The contrast between the bright weather and the grim buildings made them both feel they were on the right track, though they couldn’t agree which was hiding the other.
“Well, I have to congratulate you,” said Don, “So, where do we start digging?”
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Emma said, “Doesn’t your story give any indication?”
“No. Just that it was ‘lost’ here, but that could mean anything.” He looked around. “What about in there,” he said, pointing to a building which bore the letters ‘B...N...’
“Huh, I didn’t realize they had bingo halls in the Old West...” Emma joked, then said, “That’s not singing to me.”
She wandered down what remained of the main street and tried to conjure a scene of life in this place when it was bustling. She wanted to imagine people, vivacious for a hundred years old, milling about, perhaps the sound of a piano from a saloon or someone yelling from a second story, but could not pierce through the gentle thrum of the beating sun. What was this place’s cause for being here, and its cause for abandonment? She turned to face one of the houses, though this one had lost its roof and most of its walls, and before dwelling too much on those questions, shouted to Don, “Here. Let’s try here.”
Don shrugged and went to get a newly purchased pair of shovels from the car.
They had been digging for a short two hours, their experience of time reduced to the coarse rhythm of shovelfuls of sand and muscles which punished one for resting. Nonetheless, they had to take breaks, and Emma was leaning against one of the rickety walls, her eyes closed, trying to turn the sound of Don’s shovel into the crashing of waves on a shore, but it proved just as impossible as before to go beyond the stretched present. As she began to wonder about purgatory, Don let out an agonized grunt. This was it, she thought, it had been fun.
Instead, Don excitedly said, “I’ve found something!” and Emma woke up to see him shoveling more quickly. Maybe it was just a rock and maybe he was keen to reach a definite conclusion regardless of its flavor; Emma hesitated until she heard the clang of his spade against a metallic object, then grabbed her own to join him in the effort.
A few long minutes later they had exposed a small safe, about a foot across, and as if dropping out of a daze, they both wore disoriented expressions as their gazes shifted between the safe and one another. Eventually, Emma broke the silence and said, “Well done.”
“To you,” Don responded.
They were both quiet as they contemplated the situation. Though it was the hottest part of the day, the flutter of a light breeze felt perfectly refreshing. “It’s probably just full of dirty dishrags,” Emma eventually said.
“Probably,” Don laughed, slipping down into the hole. With effort they heaved it up. It had withstood the years surprisingly well, they agreed, though uncertain exactly what it should otherwise look like. Indeed, the handle turned, if not the door whilst still locked.
“So, how do we open it?” Don asked. “I don’t mean to put it on you, just you seem like a winner right now.”
Emma was about to object when they both heard a car pulling up. Stepping outside the tumbledown building Emma squinted in the bright sunlight and was dismayed to see Geoff getting out of his car. Why was he here? How was he here? Hadn’t her last messages to him—updates composed to give the impression of bland progress—been enough to persuade him to leave her be, to return to Sacramento? This was her journey.
Don had also come out and they stood waiting for Geoff to make his way down the old, dusty street. The gentle rustle of the wind now annoyed Emma as it underlined the impasse. She wanted to excoriate Geoff, but was unsure why his arrival, though annoying, prompted such intensity, or even how he had become her enemy. Don, meanwhile, retained composure like the lid of a bubbling pot.
Finally, Geoff was the first to speak, saying to Emma, “Well, aren’t you going to introduce me?”
After a few further seconds of silence, Emma said, “Don, this is Geoff,” but before she could explain who he was, Don brusquely said, “I know who he is. So, I take it this has then all been a joke at my expense? The man whose credulity knows no limits. I suppose that safe we so conveniently found contains what, a whoopee cushion?”
“No, it’s not like that at all!” Emma assured, “Geoff, I don’t why you are here, but tell him that’s not why! In fact, why are you here?”
“She’s right, you know,” Geoff said to Don, and then, to both of them, “In fact, I’m here for the same reason as you...the treasure.”
“But...how did you know?” Emma asked, finding it difficult to bring Geoff into the world of the real treasure.
“You’re a wise woman, and I simply figured what you were doing instead of making a video must be worthwhile.”
Emma couldn’t tell if he was sincere, or would subsequently laugh at both of them, but reasoned there was not much she could do if he had guessed she had left the video far behind, so she accepted what he said as a compliment and added, “And what’s it to you? Paying off your bar tab?” To this Geoff gave an ambiguous smile and walked through the doorway.
Don still wore a look of diffidence and Emma was torn between trying to assuage his doubts and following her erstwhile colleague to find out what he really wanted. “Look,” she said, “I know you’ve no reason to believe me, or him, given how we were first acquainted, but I ask for your trust, secured only by the experiences we have shared on this journey and the knowledge we have gained, of each other and of ourselves. For were we not both playing roles? Your credulity masking your desire to help and my desire to help masking my admiration for your spirit of adventure? You were right in your analysis of me, and I know you possess an uncommon motive force. We couldn’t have got here and gained what we have gained without each other, and there are rewards yet waiting to be reaped.” She hadn’t prepared this speech, but it came out in an unrelenting flow.
Don looked thoughtful and said, “Why do you still sound like you’re trying to sell me on something? I guess society atomizes us and forces each to be a hustler. Yet you are right that this journey we share, with treasure as its apparent goal, is more than just that. I thought it would benefit you, but it has benefitted me—I have had fun. Then what is its goal?”
“Knowledge? Lifting our head above the humdrum parapet of everyday life and realizing that we hold the power of creation within our own minds? Not having to slide along or into cliche.”
As they both considered this, they heard Geoff kick the safe, followed by a yelp and him yelling, “So how the fuck do you open this thing?”
