Mango Lucky

by Bill Myers

  Anna smiled, "We'll see."

  We continued our walk through the park, and eventually made it to the fishing pier that stretched out over the Atlantic ocean.

  The conditions were far different than when I had first walked on the pier. The weather was calm, the decking was dry. It no longer felt dangerous.

  Hard to imagine the fury of the rain and lightning just a few days earlier.

  As the sun began to drop in the western sky, we walked back to camp, swatting at the tiny no-seeums that seemed to be coming out with the setting sun.

  Anna swatted the back of her neck, "Damn, that one hurt. These bugs are hungry tonight."

  I looked to see where the bug had bitten her and could see a red welt starting to rise. Beside it, I noticed a jagged scar at the base of her head, running up into her scalp.

  Back at the motorhome Anna said, "Too many bugs out here. Let's go inside and continue the party."

  Inside, she opened the second bottle of wine, and I got a deck of cards out of the kitchen drawer.

  She looked at the cards and laughed. "So this is how you entertain a woman? No wonder you're still single."

  I laughed, "You're right. I don't have much experience at this. Why don't you decide what we'll do."

  Anna nodded, "Okay. First, we put away the cards. Then you slide over here closer to me. That way we both can see the sun set."

  I did as I was told. I slid over by Anna and she pulled my arm over her shoulder.

  "Now, isn't this better?" Anna asked.

  "Yes, this is nice. Now what?"

  Anna sighed, "Just do nothing. Enjoy the sunset. Enjoy my company. Enjoy the wine."

  And that's what we did.

  We talked about the day, about the treasures we'd both found, and about Jake the treasure finding wonder dog.

  "Do you really believe Jake can sniff out treasure?" Anna asked.

  "I don't know. But he led me right to it. He sat on the spot. Even started digging the hole."

  Anna shook her head, "I'd give anything to have my own Jake the wonder dog."

  "Me too. Speaking of finding treasure, are we going back out tomorrow?"

  Anna nodded, "You bet. Same schedule as today. We'll get up early, then head to my secret beach. Hopefully, no one has beat us to it."

  I smiled, "Sounds good. Maybe tomorrow will be as lucky as today."

  "I hope so," said Anna. "I still can't believe we found all that treasure. And I have twenty five thousand dollars in my gym bag!"

  Then she asked, "What are you going to do with all the stuff you found? Are you going to take it to Ken and sell it?"

  "I'm not sure. I'm thinking of holding on to it for a while. As a souvenir of our first treasure hunting adventure. If I ever need the money, I can always sell it later."

  Anna nodded, then said, "Well, it's getting late. Time for me to head over to my tent. We've got an early morning tomorrow."

  "Anna, please stay here tonight. The couch is a lot softer than the ground. And Bob will miss you."

  She said, "Nope, I've already been over here too long. It might be dangerous if I stay. I've had too much to drink, and I'm too happy. If I stay, I might let you have your way with me."

  She wagged her finger at me, "And we both know that would create problems."

  She then leaned over and kissed me on the lips.

  Standing she said, "Not bad. Maybe we should do that again sometime." She smiled and said, "Gotta go."

  As she walked to the door I said, "Anna, I'm leaving the door unlocked and the bed set up. If you change your mind, come back over."

  She waved, and walked out the door.

  50

  The next morning, I awoke disoriented.

  Next to a warm body.

  Had Anna returned during the night?

  Then I heard snoring.

  It was Bob. He had curled up beside me during the night.

  Somewhat disappointed, I started thinking about the previous evening's celebration with Anna. It had gone well. Just wished she had stayed the night.

  Then I realized I could smell bacon cooking. And I could hear noises from the kitchen. Someone was cooking breakfast. Inside the motorhome.

  Pulling on my pants, I stumbled out of bed, and walked up front to find Anna in the kitchen, cracking eggs into a skillet.

  She smiled, "Morning, sleepy head. Glad to see you're finally awake."

  I ran a hand through my hair, "How long you been up?"

  "Oh, about an hour. I couldn't sleep, and finally gave up trying. At daylight I came over here and started breakfast. Figured you might need something to eat before we headed out."

  Anna pointed to an empty wine bottle on the counter, "So how's your head this morning? Got a hangover?"

  I nodded, "Yes, and it's your fault." Then I asked, "Do I have time to take a quick shower before we eat?"

  "Sure, as long as you don't mind eating cold eggs. Because they're ready now."

  I passed on the shower. Instead, I pulled on a shirt, washed my hands, and headed to the table to eat breakfast.

  As we were eating, Anna pulled a packet of Goody's Headache Powders from her shirt pocket.

  "Take one of these. You'll feel better."

  Downing the powder with a glass of orange juice, I had high hopes the caffeine and aspirin ingredients would soon clear the remnants of my hangover.

  "So what are the plans for today?" I asked.

  Anna smiled, "As soon as you get your act together, we'll head out to the beach.

  "Then around one, high tide comes rolling in, so we'll come back here. Then I've got to go into town, take care of some business."

  I nodded, "Sounds like you've got the day planned. Give me five minutes and I'll be ready."

  I took a quick shower, shaved, and brushed my teeth. After checking Bob's food supply and refilling his water bowl, I was ready to go.

  Anna was waiting for me at the door. "Walker, anybody ever tell you that you take longer than a girl to get ready?"

  I smiled.

  51

  We put our detecting gear in the back of Anna's Land Cruiser and headed out.

  As we passed the McLarty Treasure museum on A1A, we noticed several cars and trucks parked in the same place we had parked the previous morning.

  Pointing at them, Anna said, "Looks like the treasure hunters are out in force today. Sure glad we were out here yesterday before it got crowded."

  "Me too," I agreed, "Just wish we had Jake the wonder dog with us today. He was a lot of help yesterday."

  Anna nodded, then said, "We're going to the secret beach I told you about. Hopefully, we'll be the only ones there."

  After another ten minutes of driving, Anna slowed and turned left onto a short driveway blocked by a elaborate wrought iron gate.

  At the gate, Anna rolled down her window and punched a few numbers on a metal keypad affixed to a pole on the left side of the drive.

  The gate immediately opened, and Anna drove through, pulling into a parking space under a Key West style home built up on concrete piers.

  She turned to me, "The people who own this place are away this time of the year. They won't mind if we park here."

  "They're friends of yours?" I asked.

  "Not really. When I was working as a meter reader for the power company, this house was on my route. The owners gave me their gate code so I could come on the grounds to read the meter.

  "I checked earlier this week, and saw that they were away. So I figure they won't mind if we park here."

  Anna got out and went to the back of the Cruiser and got her detecting gear and suited up. I did the same.

  As she locked up the Cruiser I asked, "Are you sure it'll be okay for us to park here?"

  "Yeah it's okay. I know the people. They won't be around. Don't worry about it."

  She turned and walked down a paved path leading to the side of the home facing the ocean. From there, I could see that the home was built on a dune, rising about forty feet above
the Atlantic. The views out over the water were incredible.

  I continued to follow Anna as the path joined a wooden walkway which led to a large deck overlooking the beach.

  The deck was separated from the beach by a weathered fence with a small gate in the center, which opened to stairs leading down.

  Standing on the deck, Anna scanned the beach. "Looks like we're the only ones here so far. That's good. We'll have the place to ourselves."

  "We'll do like we did yesterday. We'll search in grids. You go north about 100 yards, and then turn back south. Repeat that until you cover from the dune to the waters edge."

  She continued, "I'll do the same going south. If you find something big, get my attention and I'll come running."

  Then she smiled, "Good luck. Hope today is as good as yesterday."

  Anna opened the gate and climbed down the steps leading to the beach.

  I followed.

  On the beach, we turned our detectors on and started out on our grids.

  It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. And the temperature was in the mid sixties. Perfect weather.

  I followed my grid line going north, sticking as close to the sand dune as I could. I swung the detector coil slowly, hoping to hear the tone that would tell me that I had found something of interest.

  For the first thirty yards, I found nothing. Not even a single peep from the detector.

  Thinking that maybe something was wrong with the settings, I reached into my pants pocket, found a dime and dropped it on the sand.

  Swinging the detector over the dime, it immediately signaled a tone indicating metal. The detector was working as it should.

  Reassured, I continued my grid search.

  After walking what I thought was at least one hundred yards, I turned around, moved over six feet, and started detecting a line going back the way I had just come.

  I could see Anna in the distance doing the same thing. It looked like her luck today was no better than mine.

  We both continued detecting along our grid lines. When I was detecting a grid facing Anna, I'd see her occasionally stop and swing the detector several times over a single location.

  Then she'd either dig the spot with her scoop, or shake her head and continue on the path.

  We did this for three hours, and during that time the only things I had found were four heavily encrusted iron nails.

  With each pass on my grid, I moved closer to the incoming surf. I knew that when I reached the waterline, it would mean detecting this grid would be over.

  After four hours and not finding anything significant, I was looking forward to moving to another location.

  Finally, I reached the waterline. Still no major finds. No gold. No silver.

  Anna and I met at the end point of our first grid.

  I asked her, "You find anything?"

  She shook her head, "No, just a few nails. What about you?"

  "About the same. A few nails, some rust chips, no coins."

  Anna smiled, "That's the way it goes. Some days you find treasure. But most days you don't.

  "Yesterday was the best day because so much sand was stripped away. But last night's high tide brought a lot of sand back in. So treasure won't be easy to find from here on out."

  "Still, being on the beach on a day like today is better than working for a living."

  She was right about that. Being on the beach was a whole lot better than working in an office or a factory. Both of which I'd recently done.

  Thinking about that cheered me up. What happened next would cheer me up even more.

  52

  "So," asked Anna, "do you want to keep detecting here, or do you want to try somewhere else?"

  I thought for a moment, and then said, "Since we're already here, let's stay here. But let's go south."

  Anna nodded, "Sounds good to me. But this time, let's detect in the same direction. You at the waterline and me up near the dune. That way, we'll stay close."

  I agreed, and we both set out to follow the same path going south, separated by about twenty feet of beach.

  Early on, I'd learned my detector would start to send false signals near the water's edge. To prevent that I had to do a ground balance on the wet sand.

  I took a moment, did the ground balance, and the falsing stopped. Then I followed the edge of the incoming tide, swinging my detector slowly over the shallow water and wet sand.

  Anna was slightly ahead of me up on the edge of the dune, and I was able to keep an eye on her as she swung her detector, looking for treasure.

  As before, her movements were gracefully fluid. Almost like a ballet dancer.

  I watched her as I slowly moved south. The headphones over my ears muted the sound of the incoming tide, and the warm sun on my back lulled me into a detecting trance.

  I may have covered fifty feet, maybe more while in that lulled state. Occasionally glancing over to watch Anna's graceful progress.

  A sharp tone in my ears broke the spell. I stopped and looked at the display screen on the detector. It indicated a large object buried at least twelve inches deep in the sand directly in front of me.

  Grabbing my scoop, I started removing layer after layer of sand. I'd dump the sand on the beach, and run my detector over the it to see if I'd recovered the object. If there were no tone, I'd remove another layer of sand and repeat the process.

  Being close to the incoming tide, the sand was wet, and keeping it from falling back into the ever increasingly deep hole was becoming a challenge.

  At about fourteen inches, the scoop hit metal. Whatever it was, it was large. Much larger than a coin.

  Getting down on my hands and knees, I started digging the sand out from around the object.

  The more sand I cleared away, the more I could see that whatever the object was at least thirty inches long. After clearing away enough sand, I could see that the target looked a lot like a piece of iron re-bar, a common construction material.

  But if it were re-bar, it was oddly shaped. It had a large lump on one end.

  Glancing up, I noticed Anna walking over.

  "What'd you find?", she asked.

  "I don't know. But looks pretty old."

  I reached under the object and carefully pulled it from the wet sand. It came up in one piece.

  Brushing the sand off, I held it up so Anna could see.

  She took the object from me, and after a moment she said, "I'm not sure, but this might be a Spanish rapier. It looks like this end is the handle, and the other end is the blade."

  "A rapier?" I asked.

  "A small sword. The Spanish sailors carried them. I saw one in the McLarty museum and it looked a lot like this."

  I smiled, "A rapier, huh? Wouldn't that be cool."

  She nodded, then said, "Guess what I found."

  "You found something? Let me see."

  Anna held up a small gold ring.

  "It's a hand made ring. Looks like it was hammered out of single piece of gold. And it looks pretty old."

  She held out her hand, "Go ahead and pick it up. You'll be amazed at how heavy it is."

  I took the ring from her and she was right, it was a lot heavier than I expected.

  The gold shined bright. The ring wasn't damaged in any way.

  I smiled as I handed the ring back to her, "That's a pretty nice ring. Where'd you find it?"

  She pointed over her shoulder, "Down there. I almost missed it. The detector gave a very faint signal and I figured it was just another nail. But I dug anyway.

  "And about a foot down, I found the ring. It's the only decent thing I found all day. Everything else was just rust chips."

  I nodded, "Me too. Other than this, all I found was nails and rust. But I'm not complaining. I found what might be a rapier. And you found a ring, and That's pretty good.

  "You want to keep detecting?" I asked.

  Anna looked at her watch, "I wish we could, but the tide's coming in. This beach will be under water
in less than an hour. And I need to go into town and take care of some business."