Treasure

Watching someone die is a strange thing. Bearing witness to prolonged suffering leaves fresh wounds on the soul that stitch into indelible scars. Mine continue to pulse with phantom pains when I think of my father, laying on what would become his deathbed. I can still smell the sickness thick on the stale air of his bedroom and can hear the droning hum of the machinery which kept him in suspended animation, the sound like a morbid tinnitus. How can I escape these thoughts plaguing me when I'm in his house?

All of the furniture was gone, the decor and accent pieces, the markers of habitation wiped from the place. The only remaining task was to clean out the attic. Surrounded by blank cream walls and bare wooden floorboards, coldness seeped into the marrow of my bones. It quickly transformed to numbness, a twisted blessing borne of the curse of my mother's earthly departure a decade earlier. It had been me and the old man for ten years and now he was gone. Being here alone was tantamount to sacrilege, a desecration of this sacred space we shared.

Yet it had to be done, no matter how loudly the attic stairs groaned and creaked their indignation. I ignored their cries of remonstration and entered the dusty, dank space. Surrounded by insulation in the early stages of molding, the bareness of the area surprised me. The only other object here was a rectangle covered in a thick layer of dirt.

Grabbing it, I descended back into the body of the house. With soot-soaked lungs, I coughed my way into the kitchen where I could wipe off my mystery find. I was fairly certain it was a book of some kind, but time had not been kind to it. When dry paper towels proved inadequate for the job, I resorted to baby wipes. In a house with no water or electricity, it had seemed prescient to bring along a handful of versatile staples. Proving myself correct was strangely satisfying.

In the end, my prize was a small black notebook, sized to fit within an inner coat pocket. It seemed old and musty, like the relic of an older era, an artifact of sorts. Of all that could be stored in an attic, why this? Cracking the spine, I turned to the first page which was covered in coordinates. The old man's handwriting stared at me, clear as day, the notations in the margins his familiar shorthand.

If anyone else had found this, it would be meaningless gibberish which meant what? He left it for me to find? Why not specify it in the will? My entire life, he had been an enigma who spoke in riddles, and despite his inclusion of me into his activities, the workings of his mind remained a mystery. Now, he taunted me from beyond the grave with a puzzle. It was a challenge, and I was eager to prove myself worthy. That had always been our dynamic.

One quick text to the realtor and a careful locking up later, and I began the drive from the old man's to Altamont, Oregon. The journey took a little under an hour, the sun still at peak overhead and the day young. Yet all I could think of was the notebook and the secrets there within.

At my home, I grabbed my own standard-sized notebook and headed to the kitchen table. Opening his book, I began unraveling his cryptogram with a pencil in hand. My intense focus put me in a trance, and when I finally finished the first set of his encoded messages, the absence of natural light hit me. Beyond my windows, darkness had enveloped everything within reach. I wouldn't be able to start my journey into the old man's labyrinth until the morning. Instead of lamenting the cruelty of the earth's rotation, I reread the cracked code.

Treasure, I am not who you thought. You are more than you know. Columbia River Gorge - find me.

I wasn't sure what he meant. I had watched him die, I had seen the casket close over his waxen face, I had stood as sentinel when he was lowered into the ground. What then was I meant to find? Why The Columbia River Gorge? As frustrating as the situation was, fondness and love resounded within my heart. He was gone, and yet he found a way to interact with me, a way to save me from the maw of loneliness that had yawned with hunger inside of me as the last spark in his eyes had died.

I would sleep, and then I would follow the ghost-trace he had left me. Slumber swaddled me in haste, delicately guiding me to unconsciousness.

As quickly as darkness had taken me, light revived me and brought me to wakefulness. It was time, and I was ready to begin the tedious drive towards Vancouver. Luckily, my stop would come before the city on the southern bank of the Columbia River. I followed the twisting road which wound its way through lush greenery to a designated parking place.

Navigating the dense foliage and undergrowth was difficult as roots constantly sought to trip me and twigs did their best to snag on my clothes and scratch my skin. Various birds sang and cried out in warning as I intruded upon this pristine vestige of unspoiled wilderness. I focused on what was in front of me, the coordinates repeating in my mind.

After a three hours' trek, I found myself at the mouth of a small cave. I barely managed to squeeze through, hunching my back and attempting to compress myself as small as my atoms would allow. The inside was no better, the rough walls pressing onto either side of me and scraping my skin with my every movement. My eyes could faintly make out a lump on the ground, the natural light completely obscured by my frame. Grasping it carefully, it was strangely weighted and I could feel it was some sort of canvas and appeared to be a bag of some kind.

Backing up into the light, I recognized what was in my hand as a duffel bag. At first, I couldn't imagine opening it. The old man's words filled me with ominous trepidation. Whatever mysteries this kit contained had the potential to completely upend my life and who I believed myself to be. My fingers moved with tremulous uncertainty and pulled the zipper.

My eyes connected with thousands of dollars, all of them in varying stages of age and damage. My mind went blank, before offering up a story from my childhood. I was five years old when a young boy found 5,000 dollars while camping along the Columbia River. It stuck in my mind because it had later been revealed that the serial numbers matched money ransomed by the infamous D.B. Cooper.

The absurdity of the notion was not lost on me. Not only was it so unbelievable as to insult reality itself, but the old man's name was Michael. It was true we never wanted for money, but that was because he was a bank manager, having worked his way up shortly after he retired from the air force. A laugh of disbelief rudely forced itself up my throat.

Looking again at the money, I began to count out the bills, struggling with my shock as they amounted to 20,000 dollars. What on earth had the old man gotten into? What was I supposed to do with this clearly illegally gotten money?

Pulling the zipper closed, I stood and slowly began the hike back to my vehicle. The existence of the money weighed heavily on my conscience and on my body as the duffel banged into me over every stretch of rough terrain. Truthfully, I was afraid. Had the old man been a criminal? The obvious answer the dollar bills screamed at me was yes. My entire life I had idolized him and now I was faced with an ugly truth: my hero was little more than a con-artist.

Over the next two weekends, I traveled across Oregon and Washington, unearthing mountains of cash at every set of coordinates. I was averaging 3 hours of sleep a night as a moral and ethical war raged inside of me. I visited the cemetery only to rail against this cruel burden, to demand answers the dead could not give me, to deny what I was beginning to suspect. Briefly, I entertained the idea of tossing the notebook in a landfill or body of water but was stalled by irrational paranoia, fearful of discovery. Could I be held accountable for his misdeeds?

It was the third weekend I had followed coordinates and I stared at the attache case in my hands. Every other cache had been some kind of bag, backpack, or tote. This one was different, and though its physical weight was scant in comparison to its predecessors, I could feel a metaphysical weight attempting to crush me. It didn't take much of a leap to know that whatever the contents, they were the true bombshell, the full explanation.

My heart pounded strong enough to be painful as I loosed the latches on the case, and slowly opened it.

The papers within had yellowed with age, the edges curling inwards. Again, the old man's hand-writing faced me.

Dear Treasure,

You've probably figured it out by now. It's true, I committed one of the most baffling heists to ever confound this great nation. There was no malice or ill intent involved, but I had to do it for your mother. I know it was hard growing up with her so often ill, but her sickness was nothing in comparison to what it once was. Without a sizeable sum of money, she wouldn't have lived past the year 1971. The treatment she needed was, at the time, experimental. Without my crime, my greatest achievement would never have been born. The money you found is all that's left and has been safely handled for use. It is yours to do with what you wish. Don't ever forget, your old man loves you. All I ask is that you find your happiness.

Shock ricocheted through my body, racing through my very bloodstream. The improbability of it all was unmistakable. It didn't change who I was, not really. Yes, the old man had apparently been a criminal genius, but it hadn't defined his life. I was still the same person, even if he hadn't been who I believed.

There was no chance I could keep the money though. I didn't need hundreds of thousands of dollars: I had no debt or unpaid bills, and as far as creature comforts were concerned, I was content. Yet the words, "find your happiness" plagued me. My corporate job was a soul-sucker, slowly siphoning away my vitality and will to survive in a world where I was utterly alone. As a child, I had entertained the idea of becoming a writer, but it had seemed so impractical that I never pursued it. Maybe I could keep the first sum of 20,000, and use that to pay my bills so that I could quit my current agonizing occupation and focus solely on writing.

The rest of the money... I had to do something good with it.

It was decided, in that split second. Some of the money would go to various charities, some directly to those in need. I would pursue a dream I had never dared to reach for, and I would do my best to find my happiness, as was the old man's last request of me. No, the money hadn't changed who I was, but it had the potential to change my entire life. That wasn't an opportunity I planned to let go to waste.

To think...The old man had never been who I thought, yet I never would have had any idea if not for a simple, small black notebook.