Grandmother’s Treasures

A Soldier's Riddle

My grandmother passed away on my 20th birthday. She was a sweet lady who loved and cared for me after my mom, a single parent, had been killed in a car wreck ten years earlier. I was too grieved to cry or show any emotion at the funeral. We had no other family in the area, but people from our neighborhood church came by with food, condolences, and offers of help for the next several weeks. It had been over six months and I dreaded going through my grandmother’s things. I may have never tackled that insurmountable job, except that her house and property were being sold at auction the following month. I had tried everything to save it, but without her income added to mine to pay the mortgage every month, there wasn’t enough money to pay both the bills and the mortgage. It made me sad to think her home that had been in the family for generations would soon belong to someone else—someone with no connection to my grandmother, whatsoever.

What do you do with an old woman’s possessions? I couldn’t just throw everything away, because all her things were important to her. I started the dreadful job in her bedroom drawers. Except for a purple scarf and shawl, her clothes were the easiest things to put in the giveaway box. From there, I tackled the closet—another reasonably simple task. But when I got to the things on top of her dresser, it started getting harder. Looking through all her “little treasures,” as she called them, was gut-wrenching, even though she possessed nothing of value to anyone but herself.

I wound up her little jewelry box and listened as it played Clare de Lune. It contained some little trinkets belonging to both her and my great grandmother, whom I’d never met, some costume jewelry that she had accumulated over the years, a small key (maybe to a suitcase?), and a little homemade whistle that my grandfather had carved for her on their first date. I fingered each piece, trying to remember some of the many stories she had shared with me over the years—of where they came from—and trying to imagine myself as her.

In a small bedside drawer, I came across an old and tattered notebook with a zipper, held closed by a tiny lock. I remembered the small key in her jewelry box and upon retrieving it, I found it fit perfectly into the keyhole. I opened the small black book and thumbed through the pages. Tucked in after the last page was a letter, dated September 5, 1927.

It read:

Dear Mrs. Turner,

My name is Matthew McQueen.

I was serving in the cavalry in the Confederate Army at Vicksburg in early July of 1863, and we had just lost control of the Mississippi River to the General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army. Before our surrender, I received word from a courier that my wife was dying of cholera, and that without expensive treatment, would likely not survive. The letter was already a week old by the time it was delivered. My home in Cedar Bluff, Texas was a good ten-days ride, but I knew I had to get there somehow. During the night, I managed to get to my horse, undetected, and headed off for home, crossing the Mississippi River long before daylight. Martha and I had only been married three years, most of that time I had spent fighting in the way, but I loved her beyond measure. I longed to be back in her arms, but without money, I knew I would not be able to help her. On the seventh day of my arduous journey, I happened across a stagecoach that had been overturned and partially burned—likely by Comanche—so recently that the wood was still smoldering.

On searching for survivors, I found that the two stage drivers and a gentleman passenger had all been killed by arrows. I checked the gentleman’s pocket and found that his name was Jonathan Black from Chicago, Illinois. Clothes and other belongings were scattered around, but the strongbox under the driver’s seat was still there and intact. I shot off the lock and discovered $20,000 in gold coins. Mr. Black’s name was etched on the inside of the box.

Now, I am not a thief by nature and under any other circumstances, would have attempted to return the gold coins to his rightful family. But at this moment in my life, I felt this had to be providence. I emptied the gold into my saddlebags and returned on my quest for home.

I reached my home about an hour after sunrise, but the house was empty. I rode into town and found the doctor who informed me that my precious wife had passed on three days earlier. No amount of money could help her now. With the last of my military pay, I paid the doctor, as well as the funeral expenses. I knew the right thing to do now was to try and find the family of the murdered man and give them the gold I had found. Rather than carry it around with me, I hid the gold in a place I would always remember, then left town. From there, I wandered across the country, working on different ranches. I wrote many letters over the years, trying to contact any of Mr. Black’s living relatives, but to no avail.

Those days are now long behind me and I will soon follow my beautiful wife in death. But the fact that I stole another man’s possessions still haunts me after all these years—I’m 82 now. I never returned to Cedar Bluff to retrieve the gold. It was not mine to use, but, to my knowledge, no one else has ever benefitted from the gold either.

So, Madam, on to the reason I am contacting you. I recently found information stating that Mr. Black had been adopted and that his real name was Jonathan Turner before being given the name Black. I tracked the Turner family, to the best of my ability at my age, and it led me to your husband, Malcolm Turner, whom I understand has been deceased for some time. However, as far as I can tell, you and your family are the inheritors of the said gold coins.

To be clear, this is my last letter, and my last attempt to make amends for my sin and return the gold to its rightful owner. It also serves as a true and honest confession to my crime. However, not knowing for sure if you are a true descendent of Jonathan Black (Turner), I have decided to bequeath you, instead, this riddle in hopes that it will lead you to the gold:

Spiral green in a sea of death

Towers high within a breath

Aurum glow in deepest black

Rooted deep in pannier sack.

If you are not a rightful descendant of Jonathan Black (Turner), then you have now become the rightful one by default. If you find the gold, enjoy your life, never take it for granted, and share what you receive to help others.

With best regards,

Matthew McQueen

I stood there staring at the letter for a few minutes—then I reread it several times. Was this some kind of prank? The letter looked like it could have very well been that old, but was the story real? And if the gold coins were truly still there for the taking, how would I find them? What did the riddle mean, anyway?

First, it had to be buried somewhere in or around Cedar Bluff, Texas. I was living a little way outside of Houston, so I packed a bag, the letter, and a shovel in my SUV and headed for Cedar Bluff, which was only about a three-and-a-half-hour drive. It would have to be a quick trip because I needed to have everything out of the house within the next several days.

On my journey, I thought of the many things I could do with $20,000. I would be able to stop the foreclosure on my grandmother’s house and maybe even make a down payment on a new SUV. Then it occurred to me—$20,000 in gold coins back in 1863 would be worth a fortune now. I was overwhelmed with the thought.

I wondered if my grandmother had ever searched for the gold coins. If so, she hadn’t found them, or we wouldn’t still be living in this little house we call home. Maybe she thought the letter was part of a story written by someone in the family. I remembered that she herself enjoyed writing stories. Maybe this was part of one of them. No, that wouldn’t be right, because the letter had postage on it.

I arrived at my destination early in the afternoon. Surmising that the “sea of death” likely referred to a graveyard, I asked around and got directions to the oldest graveyard in Cedar Bluff. After locating it, I searched the gravestones and markers for several hours, but was unable to find any dated before 1971. I finally discovered the neglected and forlorn-looking graveyard over the hill from the newer one. I searched for some time before I eventually found one with the barely legible inscription, which read: Julia McQueen July 1843 – 1863 Beloved Wife. I thought to myself, How sad! She was only 20 years old—the same age as me. She never had the chance for children and living a happy married life. I vowed I would not follow in her footsteps.

I wondered if Matthew McQueen buried the gold along with his wife. But surely, he wouldn’t, knowing that her grave would be decimated if someone came in search of the gold. The “pannier sack” was likely the saddlebags, the “aurum glow,” the gold, but what was “spiral green”? Green was everywhere. And if “towers high” meant trees, there were dozens of trees. It was beginning to get dark and I hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight, so I decided to call it a night and get a motel room.

Early the next morning, I returned to the old graveyard and stood overlooking the weed-covered graves. It would have been impossible to dig up the entire place and, besides, it wouldn’t have been right to dig up people’s graves. I walked around for several hours, contemplating where he would have buried the gold. He said he put it where he would “always be able to find it”. So, I searched for something that stood out. Some of the graves had gravestones, some had what was left of wooden markers, and a few with several family members had iron fences around them; but most of them had no visible markers at all. Matthew McQueen probably never took into consideration he might never go back.

Nothing really stood out. I was tired and discouraged, so I sat down under the shade of a huge, old, twisted oak tree, close to the graveyard. Then it hit me: “Spiral green.” Spiral could mean twisted. And it was the only oak tree in the cemetery. I ran to my SUV to grab my shovel.

I didn’t have a clue which side to start digging on, but it didn’t matter. I would dig until I found it—or not. I had to at least try. I started on the north side, digging two to three feet down, and worked my way around to the east and then the south side. I kept hitting tree roots and it was getting dark, again. I should have brought help. My shoulders and arms ached and burned, and blisters formed on my hands, but I couldn’t stop. Then my shovel hit something—something different—and it wasn’t tree roots. I hurriedly dug around the spot. Suddenly, I spied remnants of the leather saddlebags. Then something shiny caught my eye.

Gold!