---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “What Remains” Down in the Dirt, v143 (the March 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Study in Black the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-April 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Buried Treasure

Lisa Gray

    “I tell you mate! It’s missing!”
    Jock’s voice hit a hysterical note.
    Pete eyed him sceptically.
    “Drawers and drawers of jewellery! Real treasure! Gone!” Jock went on.
    “Maybe the old bat has sold it!” said Pete.
    “No way!” said Jock. “The old woman hasn’t the marbles to do that! She’s too forgetful. That’s the reason I moved out! It was only a matter of time before she forgot to switch off the cooker. And I’d have been cremated before my time!”
    “I thought it was the cat that drove you out!” laughed Pete.
    Jock glared at him. It was that damn animal, that had always lain on top of the jewellery cabinets, hissing and continually attacking him, that had made him leave his lodgings before he had completed his plan to slowly remove the old girl’s jewellery bit by bit. He’d hated that cat but he hadn’t said so to the old woman. She was devoted to it.
    “She looks after me and I look after her!” she’d said to Jock, the first day he’d moved in.
]p    He was glad he hadn’t seen the wretched animal, (What was its name?) when he’d gone round to see the old dear six months later. He’d been free to help himself to some of her treasure.
    Except the treasure was gone.
    No small cabinets with boxes of gold rings, necklaces, bangles and earrings.
    No cabinets.
    Just a blank space where they’d stood.
    “You should have asked the old girl where the stuff was,” said Pete.
    “I did!” said Jock.
     “And what did she say?” said Pete, curious for the first time.
    “She just smiled, winked and said, “Buried Treasure.”
    “You mean she’s buried it!” said Pete.
    His voice was more shocked than even he had realised.
    “God, the old bat’s dementia must really have taken hold! Well, I guess that’s that, as far as your grand plan to relieve the old dear of her jewellery is concerned.”
    Jock glared at his mate. He knew Pete had never thought much of his plans to take up lodgings with rich, elderly women and make a fast buck out of them.
    “Too many dangers, mate,” he’d said. “Relatives. Visitors. Pets. Involvement.”
    That’s why Jock had done his research. Followed the van he knew delivered jewellery for months. Watched out for old biddies that answered the doors. And kept out an eye for the “Room to let” ads in newspapers, on-line or in house windows.
    Yes, he’d done his research thoroughly. And it had paid off. He’d known that when he’d see the four small cabinets crammed full of gold jewellery in the old bat’s bedroom.
    There’d only been one problem.
    The cat.
    The pesky animal sat guard on top of the small cabinets day and night. Like some sentinel serpent guarding treasure.
    He’d never liked cats. As soon as one tried to jump up on him he developed a phobia of fear that he couldn’t quite understand.
    “Maybe it’s a throw-back to a previous life!” Pete had joked when he’d once been foolish enough to confess to him.
    “Yeah, right!” said Jock, wishing he hadn’t revealed his weakness.
    Still he often wondered where his irrational fear had come from.
    “Not necessarily,” said Jock.
    “What do you mean?” said Pete.
    He was used to Jock’s stubbornness but surely even Jock could see his grand plan was as dead as a Dodo.
    Jock contemplated telling Pete what he planned but then thought better of it. After all, if he found the treasure, he would have it all to himself.
    “Maybe I can find out where it is!” said Jock.
    “And how do you propose to do that?” said Pete.
    “I’m not sure,” said Jock, though he knew exactly what he’d planned.
    Break into the old bat’s house at night. Rummage round. Find any clues to where she’d buried the treasure. Dig it up. Part from Pete. And sally off to South America.
    “Remember what I said about involvement,” warned Pete. He’d always thought Jock was too stubborn. Too fixed in his ideas. In this job you needed flexibility. You had to know when to move on. He, Pete, was already contemplating the next way to make a buck.
    It was late that night that Jock found the jewellery cabinets. The old dear had put them in the garage. Jock pulled open a drawer excitedly aware the old lady wouldn’t hear him. Wicker cabinets made no noise on opening. He knew she’d had bought wicker cabinets so she’d be able to move them. Besides which the old dear was fast asleep upstairs.
    The drawer was empty. Shock registered on Jock’s face. He began frantically pulling open the other drawers. Nothing. All empty. It was only as he opened the last drawer, silently cursing the old bat, that he saw the grubby piece of paper.
    Probably one of the jewellery receipts, thought Jock.
    But it wasn’t a receipt.
    It was a map. An aphid apology for a map. Like some spider had viewed the back garden and decided to draw a plan. The only interesting bit on it was the cross. Jock wondered if the spider was buried there. Until he read the writing.
    For right beside the spidery cross were the words.
    “Buried Treasure.”
    The old girl had buried the jewellery and made a map so she wouldn’t forget where it was!
    Jock looked around the garage. He retrieved a spade he saw propping up the far wall and hurried out to the garden, clutching the grubby map in his hand.
    He shone the pocket torch he always carried on the map and made his way down the long, narrow garden till he reached the large cherry tree at the bottom.
    This is it! he thought. This is where the silly old bat buried the treasure!
    All he had to do was dig it up!
    He started digging feverishly till his spade hit metal. The clanging sound sent him into a delirium of digging.
    Of course! The old bat had buried the jewellery in some sort of metal to keep it safe! His excitement accelerated as the top of it shone through the sliver of earth left on top. He scrabbled with his hands to remove the last vestiges of damp, brown soil that covered it.
    And now to open it. Scenes of South America surfaced in his brain. No more neighbourhood research. No more drab lodgings. No more daft old biddies.
    No more——————————————.
    He lifted the lid of the old tin box.
    And recoiled in disbelief.
    Lying stretched out in the same pose she’d adopted in life was that darned cat. (If only he could remember its name.) So that’s what had happened to it. It had died and that daft old biddie had buried it in the garden.
    But the treasure? The gold. The jewels. Where were they?
    He had to lift the tin. See what was buried underneath.
    He felt a slimy sickness of soul as he reached forward to lift the tin. Something he couldn’t quite explain.
    It’s only a damn cat, he told himself. A dead cat. What harm could it do to him?
    His hands had almost touched the top of the tin when something stopped him. Something had fluttered like a feather down on to the top of the dead cat’s body and come to rest on its outstretched body. It was the map. The map he’d discarded on the ground before he’d started digging.
    He looked at the shaky writing on the map and the words “Buried Treasure”.
    He needed to remember something. Why couldn’t he remember? Don’t say dementia was setting in. He shook his head in denial. All he needed was something to knock some sense into him.
    He looked up. As if for inspiration. That’s when he saw her. Standing there. In her long high-necked nightgown, her grey hair blowing back from her face like some saviour, her hands clasped tightly around the top of the wicker cabinet
    “She looked after me. And I look after her!” was all she said as she lifted the small wicker cabinet and swung it violently at Jock, with a strength Jock would never have suspected she had.
    It was only as he fell on top of that terrible tin and his face touched the frightful fur of that feline body that he remembered. Remembered. The cat’s name.
    Treasure. The bloody cat was called Treasure! The map was so the old biddie could remember where she’d buried her pet!
    As his body hit the tin, it slid sideways and the body of the cat rolled on top of him. Its fur filled his mouth and the sickening stench of the animal suffocated him. Jock felt the paralysis of fear. But not before he’d seen what had been wrapped in cloth underneath the tin. The dislodged tin had pulled away the edges of the cloth and from its folds there had been a tantalising twinkle of what the cat had guarded in life and now in death.
    He’d been right all along. Treasure was here. But the knowledge didn’t hearten him. For it was drowned out by the sound of the shovel. A shower of brown earth hit his face and filled his mouth, nose and ears.
    Pete had been wrong. His phobia hadn’t come from a previous life. It had come from this one. And now it was over. And what had he learned?
    You couldn’t trust anyone.

——————————————————

    “I just wondered if you needed any gardening done,” said Pete.
    He saw the suspicious look on the face of the old biddy at the door.
    “It was my friend, Jock, who recommended me for the job,” said Pete. “He used to lodge with you.”
    The old biddy’s face crinkled into a smile.
    “You must be Pete,” she said. “He often used to talk about you.”
    She opened the door wider as if in invitation.
    Pete stepped into the hallway. It was long with an open view through to the back garden.
     “Such a nice man!” the old woman went on. “He’s gone to a much better place!”
    So Jock found the treasure after all, thought Pete. And didn’t include him in his plans. The son of a bitch!
    The old woman pulled him further into the hallway.
    Pete stopped.
    “A much better place?” he repeated.
    “Yes. South America, he said.”
    The sod was sunning himself in South America. So much for his plan to dig up the old dame’s treasure. He knew it had been a bad idea in the first place.
    What was it he had said to Jock?
    Relatives, visitors, pets, involvement.
    The old biddy turned and looked at him.
    “He took my cat with him!” she said.
    Pete stopped dead.
    “Your cat!”
    “Yes! I didn’t mind. In fact you could say I gave it to him! They’d formed such an attachment, you know.”
    Pete took a backward step nearer the front door.
    Something was wrong. Pete would never have taken a cat. He hated cats. And in particular, he’d hated the old biddy’s one.
    He looked at the old woman. Had she got it wrong? Had she just forgotten where her cat was? A worse thought crossed his mind. Did she really have dementia?
    Suddenly his gardening plan didn’t seem such a good idea. He should have listened to his own advice.
    “Are you looking to join him?” said the old woman.
    “Join him?” repeated Pete weakly.
    “In South America?”
    The old lady’s eyes had a piercing shrewdness.
    “Oh, no,” said Pete, hastily.
    His back touched the front door. The cold shot of fresh air that slid up his spine was a welcome relief.
    “Just as well,” said the old woman. “You don’t want to bury yourself down there.”
    A misty look crossed the old woman’s eyes.
    “I’m not sure how my cat will like it,” she said.
    Pete felt his legs go limp. His sweating hand reached backwards for the door handle.
    “Your cat?” he repeated, like a needle stuck in some antique gramophone.
    “My cat,” she said.
    The door handle gave way the same time as Pete’s legs.
    “Buried in South America,” she went on as if she’d never heard Pete. “He looked after me and I looked after him, you know.”
    The door swung outwards and Pete tripped and fell down.
    The cold air outside felt good.
    “Still, I know Jock will look after him and he’ll look after Jock. That man knew a treasure when he saw one. That was the name of my cat, you know!”
    The old woman’s cat was called Treasure!
    Was? thought Pete. What did she mean by was?
    She laughed as Pete scrambled to his feet and started moving backwards down the drive.
    “Both buried!” she said.
    An icy feeling almost paralysed Pete on the pavement.
    Something was wrong. Jock wasn’t in South America. And nor was the cat.
    The old woman was waving something in her hand. Even from the end of the driveway, Pete could see the earth-stained piece of paper with the cross that marked the spot and the words written in spidery writing beside it.
    The map! The old woman had the map. The map he’d last seen Jock holding!
    How had she got it? Jock would never have given her it!
    There was only one way Jock would have relinquished it.
    And the one way sent Pete running up the street as fast as he could like some horrified hare, baying beagles at its backside.
    The old woman screamed hysterically after him.
    He tried to shut out the words.
    But even through there was a rush of wind at his ears and he was putting as much distance between himself and the old woman as he could, silently vowing never to return to that house again, he still heard them.
    Hissing on the wind. Like the sound of some cross cat.
    “Buried treasure!” she screamed.
    “Buried treasure.”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...