First to Find

by Mark Gessner

  So come on by, talk about caching, meet some of your fellow cache hunting addicts. Post a note here saying how many cans you'll need.

  Date&Time: Saturday February 22. 10AM till they throw us out!

  Place: City Park, Austin

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  "I've never tried it. Is it spicy?" he asked.

  "Not really. Go ahead and try some. There's more where that came from," replied Maari.

  Kurt worried about eating the homemade venison sausage. Since about the time he turned thirty, his digestive system could take violent offense at the slightest bit of spice, and he couldn't see any restrooms nearby. He tasted some anyway. Mild, not spicy. He helped himself to a bigger chunk. He forked the slippery link up onto his paper plate next to a mound of mustard potato salad, a hunk of German chocolate cake, a stack of nacho chips with cheese (hold the jalapenos), and a charred hamburger on a toasted bun.

  Bonnie had ordered up some fine picnic weather. Not a cloud marred the deep azure blue from horizon to horizon. Temperature unseasonably warm, in the sixties going up to the mid-seventies by afternoon, and no wind at all. Emma Long Park didn't disappoint either. The picnickers fanned out over a flat expanse of grass dotted with ancient live oaks at strategic intervals.

  Lake Austin, a cold emerald snake that slithered a half dozen miles between downtown and Lake Travis, bounded the park on the south. Except for a few places (Emma Long Park, for example), limestone cliffs covered in lush mountain cedar wall the lake on either side. On a spring day, ski boats, water-skiers, and pontoon party boats usually crowded the lake. Restaurants and bars dotted the south shore closer to town. Secret coves tucked off the main passage swelled with boats at anchor. Their crews sunbathed half-naked on deck, pulling on bottles of ice-cold Shiner Bock, flirting, and blaring an unsteady mix of rock 'n' roll, pop music, and hip-hop.

  "Hey stranger, be sure to grab some of that custard-filled a’kern squash too, I made it myself," said a familiar voice from behind.

  Kurt turned to face the voice. It was Bonnie. She gave him a more detailed report on who was here and who was slated to arrive than he really needed or wanted. Her excitement ran her words together into a stream of undecipherable babble until he picked out something that he was interested in:

  "...and of course Martello is here from New Mexico--"

  "No way, not the infamous Martello?" he interrupted, looking around.

  "Yes way, he's right over there with the Krager twins," she replied.

  Kurt said he'd be sure to meet the legend later, then paid for his allotment of cans by dropping a stack of ones into a decorated ammo can sitting on the table. Bonnie told him to get his cans loaded quickly before they were all gone. He set his plate down on the table and walked up to the trailer to load the cans into his truck.

  Kurt walked back up the knoll to the trailer straining under a sheet metal mountain of surplus ammo cans. Olive drab ammo cans formed a huge pile next to the trailer. Another pile behind the trailer partially blocked the gravel road through the park.

  He selected ten of the nicest, cleanest cans. Some of the cans had dents and some didn't have lids. He noticed a pile of lids near the rear tire of the trailer. Someone could easily pound out the dented ones and fit them to these spare lids. Nothing would go to waste here. He carried the cans to his truck four at a time, pinching two cans in each hand like a claw. When he was done, he punched the lock button on his key fob and headed back to the picnic.

  The park was filling up. People were parking on the grass on the far side of the road, despite the no parking signs. He checked the plates on the cars as he walked back to the picnic area: a couple of Toyotas from Oklahoma, a mud-caked SUV from New Mexico, a beat-to-shit pickup truck from Louisiana. The rest came from Texas. He spotted a few cachers making their way from the lot to the picnic areas, some carrying coolers, some with covered dishes, others with zip-tie baggies full of trinkets. Cache swag. Cachers would be swapping goodies today for sure.

  He saw plenty of cachers today but no sign of Judi, the woman he had met the week they found the dead dog. No surprise there. He hoped she'd show up but he knew the odds. Women might show interest, but only until they found out he was out of work. Also he'd noticed that most newcomers introduced to geocaching usually never followed up with future caching, never went caching by themselves or attended any picnics, no matter how excited they seemed while you explained it to them. Come to think of it, Judi hadn't seemed that excited about it either. It didn’t help that he’d been sweaty and unshowered the day they met too. Only a core set of cachers ever went to the picnics anyway, even one as large as this.

  He walked up to the table by the grill. He couldn't find his plate. He checked the adjacent tables, nothing. Someone had made off with it. Oh well, plenty more where that came from. He grabbed a new plate off the stack, elbowed his way through the crowd at the table and reached for the potato salad spoon.

  As he closed his hand around the handle of the serving spoon, a slim hand slipped in from the crowd on the other side and got there first. His hand closed on hers momentarily and he jerked it back. "Oh, excuse me," he said.

  The woman looked up, "Beat you to it," she giggled, and began scooping the chunky yellow salad onto her plate. It was just Maari.

  He filled his plate again, same contents as before except he added a hot dog to the mix. Loading ammo cans had given him an appetite. He strolled over to the nearest group of cachers. It happened to be a group he knew. Kurt hated mixing at parties; he took his time getting into the socializing aspect of it. He had no problem socializing in college, back when he was a big drinker, because a few beers would loosen him up. He seldom drank anymore; he'd lost interest in drinking the day he turned twenty-one.

  The group formed a horseshoe around Martello, the infamous cacher from New Mexico. Martello, a wiry man, stood just shy of six feet tall. A long dirty-blond goatee hung from his chin. His long straggly hair draped over his shoulders. It looked like it hadn't seen lather, rinse, repeat since last week. He wore a red bandana head wrap, a black Jack Daniel's tee shirt with holes in the armpits, a faded jeans jacket, and cut-off jean shorts faded white. Martello had over two thousand confirmed finds. He was a legend on the cache-finders web site. He often posted witty comments to the discussion groups online there, including barbs aimed at the management of the site. This drew their ire, but they dared not ban him because he was too popular.

  A handful of cachers gathered around Martello, including Maari, her sometime boyfriend Bob, and Bonnie. Kurt balanced his paper plate in his left hand, and began shoveling with his right as he walked up to the group.

  "...you're kidding, it was right on top of the cache?" asked one of the men, a pot-bellied guy in a too-short t-shirt, whom Kurt didn't know.

  "Would I make this shit up?" asked Martello.

  "That's just disgusting," said one of the women.

  "So did you call the cops?" asked Bob.

  "Believe me, I told the cops right away." said Martello.

  "Let him continue," urged Bonnie.

  "So there I am standing ten feet away from the carcass, with about forty turkey vultures circling. Some were just perched in the tree above, and others would swoop down every once in awhile to try to scare me away from their kill. But that's not the worst part," said Martello. "When I was hiking back out of the area, I found a jar of urine at an abandoned campsite," he said. (only when he said the word 'urine,' he mouthed it into a whisper, rather than saying it aloud). "That was the one day that I didn't carry trash out on a hike," he laughed.

  More waves of cachers came in. Kurt stayed awhile longer, then mingled out of the Martello fan club and over to the shore. Maari had left the fan club earlier to play fetch with her dog in the water. The dog was a huge brown bulldog and didn't seem to mind the cold water, as long as she'd ju
st throw that tennis ball out in it again. Kurt threw the ball a couple times, wondering why the dog always shook off after each fetch, even though it knew it was going back in to get wet again. He asked Maari if she thought Judi was coming. Maari just smiled and said, "you never know," in a way that hinted that well, maybe she did know.

  "Hey, Kurt," shouted a voice from off to the right, "Quick! can you give me a hand here?" Ratkus had one foot on the shore, and one foot on his party boat. The boat was drifting away from the shore, and in about thirty seconds Ratkus had to make a choice: either perform a full gymnastic split, get soaked, or both.

  Kurt ran over to grab the rope that had come loose from around a thick live oak. He grabbed the rope and pulled it tight, drawing the party boat closer to the shore and grounding it on the shallow mud.

  "Thanks man," said Ratkus, "I thought for sure I was a goner there," he said, hopping onto the shore and taking the rope from Kurt. Ratkus was older than Kurt, mid-fifties, maybe more. He had long grey-white hair, drawn back into a ponytail. Australian outback hat. Face of sun-weathered sandpaper, perhaps three days growth of grey stubble. Moderate height, maybe five-ten, muscular, dark tan, but an honest working tan, not from a tube parlor or a bottle, and not from laying out in the sun trying to get a tan. He had a smoker's face, that drawn and dried-out wrinkled look you get after thirty years of firing off two packs a day. Faded blue jeans, long sleeve white denim work shirt. Leather boat shoes, no socks. He looked the part of the crusty old mariner, and loved to play it that way. Ratkus owned no fewer than twelve boats, at least that he'd admit. No one knew his first name, except maybe his wife, and she wasn't telling. He lived in a sprawling limestone block mansion about two miles up the lake towards the Mansfield Dam, perched on a dizzying limestone cliff overlooking the lake. He had installed an electric inclined tram back in the eighties, so that he could get down to his private marina faster than descending the seven-story staircase. He kept all but four of the boats in storage at any given time. He had sailboats and a yacht on Lake Travis, ski boats and a party boat on lake Austin, and a fleet of kayaks on town lake, ready to put in within thirty minutes notice. His passion was boating, but his money came from pure hard work. He'd spent a lifetime growing his landscape supply business. He sold trees, flowers, mulch, rocks, and had a thriving business that serviced most of the highbrow residents along the lake. If you had a million-dollar home in Austin, chances are your hedges, flower beds, and lawn were tended by a guy wearing a Ratkus logo'd golf shirt.

  "No problem. You getting ready to put her out to sea?" asked Kurt.

  "Little bit later. I was thinking we'd take her up the lake after lunch, maybe pick up a couple of caches on the other side over to Commons Ford park," said Ratkus.

  "Commons Ford? Never heard of it," said Kurt.

  "Not surprised. It's one of Austin's best-kept secrets. Even the locals don't know it's there," said Ratkus.

  "Any decent caches there?" asked Kurt.

  "Two or three, one's pretty new, hasn't been found yet. I figure with this group we can drum up some interest," said Ratkus.

  Kurt said he'd like to go along, and Ratkus promised he wouldn't leave without him, then hopped onto the party boat and walked back toward the wheel. The party boat had a flat deck, carpeted in indoor-outdoor green, with a light metal railing all around, except for the bow, which was open. A canvas canopy suspended over the stern shaded the cockpit. Two thick grey pontoons supported the deck in the water. A polished wooden skipper's wheel, comically large for such a small craft, dwarfed the wooden podium which housed the engine controls and indicators. Grey wooden boxes mounted to the deck just inside the rail each had a hinged lid. The boxes stored life preservers and of course coolers with plenty of iced beer.

  An unwritten law of the lake says you can't put out on a voyage unless you've got plenty of beer in the hold. Next to the speedometer, above the throttle, choke, and battery gage, jutted a metal bottle opener. Next to that hung a wooden holder just perfect for holding one cold bottle of beer. Drinking and boating was a long-time Texas tradition, in spite of any laws to the contrary.

  Kurt mingled his way back through the crowd, now finishing their lunches, looking for Judi. He didn't see her. He had to see her again. In the crowd of new faces he could easily have missed her. Then again it was more likely that she wasn't interested.

  He made his way back up to the ammo can stash, and helped a half dozen new cachers load up their take. He heard the bell just as he stacked a set of cans in the back of a green pickup. Even from up here on the rise, he could hear Ratkus calling, "all aboard."

  He dropped the cans, sprinted down off the rise, hustled his way through the crowd, and climbed on just as the boat filled up. Ten people had climbed on board when Captain Ratkus announced with another ring of the bell that the ship was leaving port. Ratkus sputtered the old gas engine to life, then two barefoot helpers waded in from shore to push the boat off the mud and get her underway.

  Kurt took a seat nearest the bow on the port side and searched the now receding crowd on the shore for any sign of Judi. None. The helper on the starboard side jumped in from the knee-deep water. He sat on the deck and slipped on his sneakers over bare wet feet. The boat pulled out into the lake, now about five feet from the shoreline. Too late for Judi to come running up at the last minute.

  "Buck up, Kurt, she'll be here..." said Bonnie, who had taken the seat next to Kurt, but more toward the stern. The helper on the port side lifted her foot onto the deck and reached up toward the passengers with her left hand. Kurt, looking past her toward the shore, grabbed her hand and pulled her up onto the deck.

  It was Judi.

  "You're here!" said Kurt.

  "Maari convinced me to show up," said Judi, rolling down the cuffs of her pant legs, "Damn, that water's cold!"

  "It's February, silly! Welcome to the party," said Bonnie, lifting a glass of chardonnay in toast.

  Judi slipped into her sneakers, which had been sitting on the deck by Kurt's feet. She explained that she had to go clean over to the next picnic area to find a place to park. She walked in along the shore. When the bell rang, she just rolled up her pant legs, kicked off her shoes and started pushing. "I love a good boat ride," she said.

  "Well we're glad you could make it," said Kurt.

  Judi said she was glad too. "I had a last minute fiasco at my Jester shop, but I got it under control." She had some new employees messing things up, and she felt she just had to supervise. She had three stores and she just couldn't let go, just couldn't let her managers do their jobs.

  Judi admitted she didn't have any idea where they were headed, she'd just seen the boat leaving with Kurt on it, and jumped in to help. Kurt explained where they were going and why.

  "Oh good, I love an adventure," said Judi.

  Chapter 11

  A FEW HOURS LATER, the boat chugged back down the lake after the Commons Ford Park caching adventure. Most of the cachers had congregated near the bow of the boat, trading tales of their newest finds over bottles of cold beer.

  A reckless ski boat rocketed by within ten feet, sending a huge wave crashing over the bow. The party boat rocked side to side and most of the passengers were soaked to the knees in cold lake water. Ratkus jerked the throttle back to kill the engine. The boat pitched forward violently. Judi slammed into Kurt, and both their drinks splashed onto the deck as their arms pinwheeled for support. Kurt's glasses unhooked from his ears, teetered sideways on his face, paused at his nose for a half-second, bounced off Judi's shoulder, and then hit the deck. Kurt wrapped his left arm tightly around Judi. He pulled her to his chest and simultaneously grabbed the rail with his other arm. Something hard, maybe her pager or cellphone, jabbed into his hip. A cacher standing next to them on the edge of the bow dove sideways and grabbed the rail with both hands, launching his GPS receiver into the lake with a sickening plop.

  "Move to the rear of the boat!" Ratkus yelled, "All hands astern!" The water soaked the indoor-outdoor ca
rpeting, adding hundreds of pounds of dead weight to the heaving craft. The boat lowered into the water as more waves from the passing boat washed the deck.

  Everyone on board shuffled toward the stern as the captain ordered, but one young passenger froze to the spot, panicked, shouting, "We're sinking!" Others joined in the shrieking, and several more passengers grabbed the rails. Dropped beers clattered to the deck and rolled off into the lake, leaving foamy trails on the indoor-outdoor deck carpeting. Ratkus let go of the wheel, cupped his hands into a megaphone around his mouth and shouted, "THIS BOAT CANNOT SINK!" Everyone looked back at Ratkus, eyes wide. The boat was obviously sinking, so why was the captain laughing? He shouted again a reassuring, "THIS BOAT CANNOT SINK!" then laughed some more. The passengers hushed. Not only was the boat sinking, but the captain had gone insane. Ratkus then added in a relaxed tone over the silence, "People, this is a pontoon boat, it simply can't sink! Relax and have a seat. We're going to be slowed down by all the water we took on, but we'll be fine, really. Have another beer on the house and enjoy the ride."