Ohio Braxton

Braxton came through the breezeway, like most 5year old boys did, at full speed, “Papaw! Papaw! Look what I found!” He shoved his muddy hand out, for Todd, his “Papaw”, to inspect.

From it, dangled an even muddier necklace, with some kind of blob hanging from it.

“Sweeeeet,” said his Papaw.

“How much do you think its worth?”

“Oh. It’s hard to say. Lotta factors to consider. Who do ya suppose it belongs to?”

“Well…Me. I found it.”

“Yeah but in order for you to find it, some one had to lose it. Right?”

“Papaw,” Braxton admonished, “This was obviously lost a very long time ago. The person who lost it, is obviously dead by now. They were obviously a pirate, and obviously stoled it from someone.”

Obviously was the word of the week. There was always a new one, that he would “work in” wherever he could.

“Yeah you’re probably right. Are ya thinkin bout sellin it?”

“Well, yeah!”

“Probably oughta clean it up first.”

“Obbbbviously,” he said, savoring the perfect application.

Braxton loved explaining things, to anyone who would listen. His Papaw loved listening.

“Oh my God! What the- What are you doing? Look at the mud! Are you crazy? Are both of you crazy?” It was his Memaw, Debbie, and she was hot.

“He was just excited about his treasure.”

“I found it out by the creek,” Braxton quickly interjected.

She shoved him, out the back door, and over to the water hose,

“Put that thing down, so I can spray off your hands. And you!” she shouted turning the hose toward her husband, who was waiting for it, and hopped back into the safety of the Breezeway door. “What were you thinking?”

Braxton managed to disarm her, while she was occupied, scolding his Papaw. He turned the hose on the muddy blob and chain. “Uh… Papaw?” Braxton called out.

“Yeah?”

“You might oughta look at this.”

Todd already had a pretty good idea what it looked like, though he’d never actually seen it, without a magnifying glass.

“Let me see”, said Todd, reaching his hand out.

He took it, and examined it closer. “Guess we better see how much it’s worth, huh?”

“Obviously!” Braxton agreed. “I know! We can take it to that show where they tell you how much old stuff is worth.”

“What’s the name of that show?” asked Todd.

“It’s the Great American Road Show, but we can’t get on there,” said Debbie.

“Why?” Todd and Braxton asked in unison.

“We don’t even know where it is.”

Braxton couldn’t read or spell, but he knew how to use his Papaws phone to find out anything. He ran back into the breezeway, got the phone, held down the home button and said, “Where is the American Old Road Show.” He waited for the results to pop up, then held it out for his Papaw to read, like he always did.

Todd had quit being surprised how well his phone could figure out what Braxton actually meant. On the screen, were several results for The Great American Road Show tour dates. “Alright let’s see,” he said, tapping on the most promising looking one. What’s today?”

“You two are crazy, but today’s the 5th,” said Debbie.

“Says here, they’re going to be in Cincinnati this Sunday.”

“Really?” asked Debbie. “Are you really going to go?”

“Don’t see any better way to find out. Do you?”

“I mean, I guess not. I can’t believe we’re going to The Great American Road Show though.”

“Hi there what do you have for us today?” the lady at the tables asked Braxton, as they walked up.

“I’m not giving it to you. I just want to know how much it’s worth.”

“I understand. Let’s see what you hav- Oh!”, she said, visibly startled. She gently took the necklace from Braxton. “That’s very nice. Where’d you get it?”

“I found it by the creek.”

“I see, well it’s very nice”, she said looking back and forth between Todd and Debbie trying to signal that it was, in fact, very nice and not something you would expect a 5year old to be carrying around in his pocket.

“I’m going to give you a ticket with a number on it. When you hear that number, make your way to the area, they tell you to go to. That’s when you will be on TV,” she said, pointing at Braxton.

“Not everyone gets to go on TV though, right?”, Debbie asked, not wanting Braxton to get his hopes up.

“You’ll be on TV.”

It was only about a half hour before they heard their number, over the loud speaker. They made their way to the area and were immediately taken to the front of the line.

“Hi there. Are you Braxton?” asked the guy with the headset when they walked up.

“Yep”, said Braxton proudly.

“Okay, see that guy with the funny looking tie on?” he asked, pointing at a guy wearing a bow tie, and standing by a table. “Just go over there, and he’ll let you know what’s up”

The guy with the tie, ran through some of the questions he would be asking, as some other people were putting microphones on them. He said he would like Braxton to answer, whenever he knew the answer, and in the end, he would tell him how much it was worth.

After everyone was clear, another guy snapped a thing in front of them and the guy, with the tie, started talking.

“Hi there. I understand your name is Braxton, and you found this beautiful necklace. Can you tell me where you found it?”

“Down by the creek.”

“How long ago was this?”

Braxton looked at his Mamaw.

“Uh, Friday, I think”, she said.

“Like two days ago?” They all nodded. “How do you think it got there? By the creek, I mean.”

Braxton, settling into his element, began to explain. “A long time ago, the creek used to be a lot bigger. So big that Pirates would drive their boats down through there on the way to the ocean. You know what the ocean is?”

“Yes. I’ve been to the ocean a couple times. Where do you live? I mean, where is this creek?”

“Germantown.”

“Germantown?”, he looked at the adults, questioningly.

“Ohio”, Debbie answered.

“Ohio. Hmm. I can see how you would come up with the pirate theory. Ohio has always been a pirate hotbed” he said, very seriously.

Braxton smiled, proud that his theory was “holding water”, as his Papaw would say.

“Well here’s what I can tell you. This is a 4 Carat Ruby. mounted in a 24 Carat pendant, on a 24 Carat Gold Chain, that weighs close to 10 grams. It was made, probably in Italy, sometime around the late 1800s. They were crawling with pirates around that time.”

The guy said this last bit with an expression that spoke of how tragic it was for them, with so many pirates, and all.

“Do you have any idea of how much it’s worth?”, he asked Braxton.

“Probably a million dollars. It’s obviously very old.”

“I’m afraid it’s not worth quite worth a million, but it’s pretty close. There aren’t any markings, to indicate exactly who made it, or when, but just the weight of the stone and Gold alone, would put it in the neighborhood of $20,000, at auction.”

Debbie’s hand flew to her mouth, and Braxton turned to ask, “Is that a lot?” She just nodded eyes open wide. Todd grimaced just a little.

“Congratulations young man. It looks like your treasure hunting skills and sharp eye, really paid off this time.”

“And… Cut!”, shouted the man snapping the snapper.

Later that evening, after they had explained to their son, Cory, Braxton’s dad, what had happened, they hatched a plan to let Debbie help him order $1000 worth of stuff, online. The rest would be used to start a college fund.

“Now we just gotta find someone to buy it,” said Debbie.

“I’m gonna buy it,” said Todd.

“You’re gonna buy it?” she asked.

It wasn’t like they couldn’t afford it. They were pretty well set. They had both retired from lucrative careers a few years back, it just wasn’t something she could see Todd wanting to buy. “Why would you buy it?” she asked.

“I’ve been looking for that necklace my whole life, like my dad before me, and his dad before him. I always thought it was a just a legend.”

“What are you talking about?”, she asked as he got up from his chair and walked over to the old family photos, that had been hanging on the walls, ever since the two of them took over the family homestead, when Todd’s parents died.

He plucked an old, grainy photo, off the wall, and walked back over to her. He showed her the picture pointing at a pretty, young lady, in a fancy dress. It was hard to make out, but you could see that she had some kind of pendant on a chain around her neck.

“Who is it?”, Debbie asked, amazed.

“My Great Grandfather’s younger sister. She died shortly after this picture was taken. Fell off a horse trying to cross the creek, when it was up. Apparently, she wore this necklace everywhere she went. They never found it, after the accident, but there have been 3 generations of Andersons looking for it, ever since. I’ve never gotten anywhere close to that creek, without looking around, at least a little bit, for it.”

She went back and forth between him and the picture, mouth hanging open. “Why didn’t you tell him the truth? He would have loved to have been the one who found the long lost, family treasure.”

“Because that would have made it mine, instead of his. After so many years of looking, I’m happy to buy it from the one who found it. We can tell him the rest of the story when he leaves for college, and we’ve been meaning to start that college fund for some time now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Cause, you can’t keep a secret.”

“Okay, if I get the shovel, and the boots, and some binoculars, and a compass, and the pans for finding gold, how much do I have left?”

Debbie punched a bunch of random numbers into her phone calculator, like she had been doing for the last 3 hours, “Looks like about ten dollars, just enough to pick out something nice, when we go to Target tomorrow.”

“And you have all the rest in the cart?”

“Yep. All I have to do is press “Check Out” if you’re sure.”

He though about it for a bit then said, “Oh, wait! A book! I need a little, ‘black’ book to draw maps and stuff, like in the movies, when I’m treasure hunting. What will I have to take off to get that?

She brought up a page of little black books. “This one looks nice. It has Ivory pages,” Braxton’s eyes lit up at the thought of that, “it has a pocket for keeping clues and stuff like that. Let’s see, oh and an elastic band to keep it closed, so nothing will fall out, and a place to leave a note, in case you lose it and someone finds it, they can contact you, and get it back to you.”

“How much?”

“It says if you spend at least $19,990 you can get it for free”, showing him which one he could get.

“Sweeeet! Did I spend that much?”

“Exactly that much. It must be an omen.”

“An Omen?”

“Yeah. Like a sign, that something is going to happen. Like you finding this awesome notebook, might mean you’ll find even better treasure the next time.”

“An Omen. Yeah. An Omen. Thanks, Memaw. I gotta find Papaw. You think he already knows about omens?”

“I doubt it. You’ll probably have to explain it to him.”

“Obviously!”