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part 3 of the story
The Treasure of the Inebriati

James Scargill

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?”

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