For What Its Worth

Feb. 6th. Propers’ property. Alan Propers’ Balsam Fir Trees. Under roots. check—$20,000 deposit. conspicuous? help? what to do with $20,000 deposit? Cows will tell you you’re in right place. Red jacket. $20,000. Thanks Al. (key taped to box).

I walked along the gravel on Fort Road, goldenrod swayed gently. In my hands was my grandfather’s small, tattered notebook, the sweat from my palms rubbed the black leather so it peeled like orange rinds. I was so close. My grandfather had died, buried just beyond the tree-line that led into the woods behind his house, this notebook and this cryptic message the only things left of him. The only two things left, and I was going to find this money for him, for myself.

Far off in the field, I spotted Alan Propers small house. I could see the cows—the sign I was where I was supposed to be. I walked along the tree line, listening to the cows mooing, their tails wagging, their slack jaws opening to grab mouthfuls of grass.

Tied to a tree not too far off, I saw something small and gray and draped in red. A goat tied to a tree with an old frayed rope, red animal jacket draped over its small body keeping it warm, eating away at the grass, not bothered in the least by my increasingly hurried movements.

I got to the tree the goat was tied to and threw my backpack down, dropping to my knees to inspect the earth. Had the money been buried recently, the ground would be disturbed, the dirt shifted, fresh and overturned.

I almost cried out at the sight of recently tilled dirt. It was right here. I found it. Using my hands to burrow into the ground, working around the roots that bumped and protruded, but let me pass to keep digging.

I felt it. The hard cold metal meeting my hand—something that wasn’t supposed to be there, but was mine.

The goat stopped to stare at me, moved its feet slowly as if it couldn’t care less that I was here or tearing up the land, dropping his head as he went back to eating his grass.

I dug more fervently now, brushing dirt aside, clamoring to get to the box, fresh soil clumping in my hands making a hole large enough to pull the box out of.

Hoisting the metal box out of the dirt, it threw me back as I gave it a final tug, falling on my back, laughing, as it thudded at my feet.

It was real. This box and whatever was in it was real in front of me. I took a moment to stare at it, the last thing my grandfather could surprise me with, sitting at my feet. I sat up and inspected the box. The key was taped to the bottom, with all its glorious edges gleaming in the morning light as if to say: I’ve been waiting.

I turned the metal key in the lock and heard the soft click as the mechanisms worked together in my favor. I took a deep breath as I pulled the key out, setting it next to me, and lifted the metal top open.

It was there. Stacks, neatly bound by the hundreds, sitting on top of each other, one after the other. It was all there, all $20,000 of it. I counted eight stacks, nine stacks, ten stacks before I had to stop and close the lid and breathe. This money was my grandfather’s, but he left no will, and no one but me knew this map or this notebook existed. At first, when I first stumbled across his notebook, I thought I could take the money and do something good. That’s what he would’ve wanted. But the longer I stared at the box in front of me, thinking about the stacks of money, more than I’d ever seen or would know what to do with, the more I felt my plans starting to change.

I needed my backpack. I could take all of it in my backpack, figure out what to do with it after I left. I would need to bury the metal box again, that way if anyone suspected that my grandfather had this kind of money and wanted it, they’d be sorely disappointed with their findings.

Even the goat was curious now. He slowly circled the box, sniffing and huffing, as if money meant anything to him.

I emptied everything from the bag onto the ground, water bottles and granola bars. I didn’t care if I had to go without water for a while if it meant I had room to take the money with me. I emptied it all like trash, trying to move quickly, knowing Alan Propers could come out at any moment and see me stuffing my bag full of money.

I grabbed the metal box, about to fling it open, but the top wouldn’t budge. I shook it a few times, hoping it was nothing more than dirt collected in the hinges and crevices from being underground. I shook it again before kneeling next to the box where I last left the key, starting to panic when it wasn’t there. Something as small as a key could easily go missing, but there was no reason it shouldn’t have been where I left it.

I saw the goat move again, this time one leg bowing slightly before stepping aside, the key gleaming underfoot before it moved slowly again, this time standing directly on top of the key.

My heart leapt to my throat and for a moment at how easily I could lose that key. I shoved the goat gently, trying to get it to move. Nothing.

I shoved again. And again. And again. Nothing happened.

And again.

He walked backward slightly. I dove for the key just as he grazed the grass, sniping it with his teeth, his fat tongue rolling and scooping grass, the key along with it, swallowing it whole.

I grabbed it by the side of the head. “Spit it out!” The panic started rising again. “Spit it out!”

I shook the side of its head again. I couldn’t stop myself, my anger splintering with force.

“Spit it out! Spit it out! Spit it out!” I grabbed it by the jaw and shook his mouth violently, hoping it was sitting under its tongue, hoping he would unfurl it and drop it at my feet. He opened his mouth to eat more grass. Nothing fell out. I saw red.

For a moment I forgot where I was, screaming wildly and violently, the only way to get the money sitting in the stomach of a Bovidae. I didn’t dare go and ask someone to help, lest they asked how I came into such a large amount of money. I needed that key.

I spat and kicked its leg, mad at myself for not pocketing the key when I had the chance. I lied down on my back, staring up at the treetops, so unnaturally still, trying to collect myself. I knew this goat didn’t deserve my violence, but I worried myself with how little I seemed to care.

Possibly, under different circumstances, I would go running toward Alan Propers’ house and knock on his door and tell him what happened. But as it stood, no one knew I was here. I had no way to prove my grandfather was really my grandfather, and that I wasn’t a thief, and that I wasn’t abusing his animal’s right on his own property.

I picked up my grandfather’s notebook and flipped through, hoping he had some other secret code about how to get a goat to pass a key. I closed and opened the notebook, flipping through hopelessly, until I saw his large script, his words dark and bold on an otherwise blank page.

Expect to protect what is mine.

Except to protect what is mine. I rubbed my eyes furiously, scrambling desperately to find a way to get the key. I couldn’t wait for the key to come out, be digested.

I had a pocket knife.

I had to cut it out.

This money was mine. I had a right to cut that key out, even if it meant the goat would suffer for a moment. The goat didn’t need the money. It just lived and died, and would live and die with or without me, so what I did to it didn’t seem to matter much anyway. That money was mine. The world was testing me: How Bad Do You Want It?

That pocket knife like a brick in my chest. It wouldn’t let me move. Wouldn’t let me roll, sit up, breathe deep. I didn’t want to do this, but I had to. I couldn’t go back now. The amount was too great, it would change everything. I was leaving here with it, or not at all.

This goat didn’t have to worry about how it would eat, where it would sleep.

I sat up tall and resolved, crawling quietly on hands and knees toward the goat hoping not to spook it, hoping it couldn’t sense what I was about to do.

In front of its black eyes, I stopped and stared, hooked into an abyss of black space, deep and sticky, memorizing my tracks, my movements embedded in its gaze.

I stroked his rough fur and I felt at that moment I was doing it a favor. A clump of rough fur in-between one set of fingers, a pocket knife, cold and heavy and ready in the other. I traced its neck with the knife. I traced it again, scaring myself when I drew blood and didn’t stop. I traced its neck again.

Then a bang echoing in my ears, knocking me back, clutching my side.

The blood on my hands wasn’t from the goat’s long, sloped neck. It came from me. Another bang, and another.

Frantically I looked around and saw nothing, no one.

I heard grass rustling, feet moving quickly.

I know I screamed, falling on my back on the hard dirt.

Someone was stroking the goat, whispering good things to it. Someone was speaking softly to it as if the goat could understand this blurry figure of a man.

I screamed again, screamed for someone to help me, to stop taking my money. They were gathering the box, the money, my backpack. They were walking away, I screamed louder to stop them.

An echo of a bang shot out in the distance, but everything felt muffled, no sound could get its way through. Maybe there was another bang. Maybe there wasn’t.

Maybe you lay your head down and something goes black.