Young Whit and the Traitor's Treasure

by Phil Lollar

  “From whom?”

  The clerk clucked his tongue. “Tsk! Tsk! Don’t you know any history at all? From General Sherman’s Yankee raiders! The Yankee army was all around here then. ’Course, as everybody knows, the coward McClintock went back later, dug it up, and ran off with it.”

  Johnny’s jaw tightened.

  Emmy started to ask another question, but the clerk cut her off. “I’m not a tour guide. I have work to do. You can find the full story in the archives of the town newspaper, The Provenance Standard, in the public library.”

  “That’s our next stop,” Johnny said quietly. He leaned in and focused on the depiction of his great-granduncle’s face, contorted with fear and evil desire. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Emmy tugged at his sleeve and nodded toward the exit. They turned to go.

  “You know,” said the clerk suspiciously, “there’s a rumor going around that a relative of McClintock’s has moved back to town.”

  “Oh, really?” Emmy replied, all innocence.

  “Yes,” said the clerk. “If it’s true, I’d sure hate to be in his shoes. Folks around here have loooong memories.”

  Emmy smiled sweetly. “Some have loooong noses, too.” She grabbed Johnny, and they left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The librarian was far less snoopy, but no less snooty. “Yes,” she said, peering over her spectacles and down her long, thin nose at them. “There has been a lot of interest in that era lately.” She escorted them to the newspaper archive section and pointed out the relevant collections, bound together in newspaper-sized volumes.

  “Of course, these aren’t the originals,” she droned on solemnly. “Those are much too fragile to be handled. These are photostatic copies of the originals. But we still ask that you be careful with them.” After assuring her that they would, the librarian left, reluctantly. Johnny pulled the relevant volumes from the shelves, and they sat at a nearby table and began their search.

  Once again, they didn’t have to look hard. Within minutes, both had found several articles from the end of the war and on, confirming everything Wilson and the clerk at the records office had said and adding more details. What took longer was piecing all the information together into a single account. But after about an hour, they finally did it.

  “Okay,” said Johnny, “here’s what we know: In early April of 1865, as the Confederacy was on its last legs, President Jefferson Davis tasked Captain Thaddeus Knox and Lieutenant G.W. McClintock with transporting Confederate gold to pay General Joseph Johnston’s troops near Raleigh, since the captain and lieutenant were both from the area.

  “Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was on his infamous march through the Carolinas, and his patrols were all around. Thaddeus and G.W. realized they could be captured, and they didn’t want the gold to fall into Union hands. So, they decided to hide the gold and buried it on the grounds of the old Granville House.

  “They then moved to join up with a local regiment on its way to a big battle south of Raleigh. The regiment was moving behind a line of trees, out of sight from the Yankees. But G.W. became frightened by the enormity of the Union army and the scantiness of the Confederate regiment, and he told Captain Knox that the two of them should take the gold and run.

  “Thaddeus called G.W. a coward and ordered him to stay put. G.W. refused, they struggled, and G.W. fired his revolver at Thaddeus, grazing him in the temple and knocking him dizzy.

  “The shot alerted the Union army to the Confederate position and started a clash the Rebs weren’t ready for. They were nearly wiped out. Meanwhile, G.W. went back to the Granville House and dug up the gold.”

  “Wait a minute,” Emmy cut in. “If Thaddeus was dazed on the battlefield, how does he know G.W. dug up the gold back at the Granville House?”

  Johnny consulted his notes. “Because after the war, some of Davis’s former staff came to Thaddeus, wanting to know where the gold was. He took them to the Granville House, but when he dug up the spot, the gold wasn’t there.”

  Emmy nodded. “Right. And since Thaddeus and G.W. were the only ones who knew where the gold was buried ...”

  “They assumed my great-granduncle took it and then deserted.”

  “And no one around Provenance heard another word about him ever again,” Emmy concluded.

  “Until I gave my report in class yesterday afternoon,” Johnny added. He sighed heavily.

  Emmy touched his arm. “You don’t believe all this, do you?”

  He gestured to the newspapers. “It’s hard to argue against it when it’s there in black and white.”

  “But all these accounts have only one eyewitness, Thaddeus!”

  “I know, but do you think that matters to the people in this town?”

  She frowned. “No ... probably not.”

  “Definitely not. To them, I’m the great-grandnephew of a thief, a liar, a coward, and a traitor.”

  “Well, who cares what they think?” Emmy huffed, a little too loudly.

  The librarian hissed, “Shh!” and gave her a dirty look.

  Emmy mouthed “Sorry!” and then turned back to Johnny. She lowered her voice and said, “They’re just a lotta goons!”

  Johnny smiled weakly. “Some of those goons now have an excuse from the whole town to beat me up whenever they want.”

  Her eyes filled with concern. “Oh, yeah.”

  Johnny shook his head. “Wilson and the others caught me off-guard last time. It won’t happen again. I’m not worried about that.”

  She leaned in. “But you are worried about something.”

  “Emmy, what if it is true? What if G.W. really did all those things?”

  She sat back and blinked thoughtfully. “Well, what if he did?” He frowned at her, and she went on. “Look, you heard my history report. I have tons of black sheep in my family. Back in Italy, they were conducting vendettas against each other all the time. So you have one black sheep in your family. Is it really that big of a deal?”

  He couldn’t believe his ears. “Yes!” he said loudly.

  “Quiet!” snapped the librarian.

  He shot her an annoyed glance and continued in a softer voice, “It matters, Emmy.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed again. “G.W. was my great-granduncle on my mother’s side—my real mother. His blood flows through my veins, not my dad’s or Fiona’s or Charlie’s. His letters to my grandpa and mom were so filled with affection and kindness and love ... and courage! He had to overcome unbelievable obstacles to build up his ranch in Texas.”

  He leaned over and looked at the newspapers scattered on the table in front of them. “I just can’t believe he could have fooled them so badly ... that it may all be based on a big lie.” He looked at her. “It matters, Emmy, because family matters.”

  Emmy shook her head. “But your grandpa and your mom really didn’t know him, either—just through letters.”

  He plopped back in his chair. “So where does that leave me?”

  They sat thinking, and then Emmy suddenly cheered up. “There’s another way to look at this, you know,” she said.

  “How?”

  “Well, if G.W. really did do all those things, then he ended up on the right side.”

  Johnny frowned. “Huh?”

  Emmy sat up. “Think about it. If he took the gold, that means he hurt the Confederates, and the Confederates were the bad guys!” Her eyes brightened. “He was a hero after all!”

  Johnny grimaced. “That’s not being a hero!”

  “Sure it is—”

  “Shh!” hissed the librarian.

  Emmy lowered her voice. “He was helping the good guys!”

  He shook his head. “Emmy, being a traitor to the bad guys doesn’t make you a hero to the good guys. It just makes you a traitor! Good grief! No wonder your family had so many black sheep—they didn’t know anything about honor!”

  He had gone too far, and he knew it.

  Emmy stiffened and glared at him. “Y’know,” she said
coolly, “I bet Wilson believes the same thing about your family. You’re more like him than you thought, aren’t you?” He looked away from her, and she rose. “I’m going home.”

  “Emmy—”

  She held up her hand. “No, no. I wouldn’t want you to dirty yourself by being around someone with no honor.” She picked up her bag and left.

  He dropped his head to his chest, closed his eyes, and heaved a great sigh. “Way to go, Whidiot,” he muttered. “You had one friend, and now you’ve blown it with her, too.”

  He looked up at the clock. It was going on lunchtime. He should probably head home himself. He gathered up the bound volumes of newspapers, put them back on the shelves, and then walked to the front desk. “Sorry about the noise,” he said softly. “Thank you for your help.”

  The librarian peered at him over her spectacles. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Not everything. You wouldn’t happen to know if there are any other articles here on Thaddeus Knox or—” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “G.W. McClintock?”

  “Nothing on McClintock,” she replied curtly and a little louder than Johnny would have liked. A few of the nearby patrons turned their heads at the name and scowled. The librarian went on. “The story appeared annually in The Standard for ten years after the war, at Captain Knox’s insistence. As interest waned, it appeared less and less frequently, though it was reported that he would tell it to anyone who would listen and frequently tried to tell it to those who wouldn’t.

  “Captain Knox apparently became more and more eccentric over the years, and he began embellishing the tale with superfluous flummery until no one knew what to believe. The last newspaper article about him was his obituary in 1910.”

  Johnny nodded. “Yeah, I read that first.”

  “Of course.”

  “And there’s nothing else?”

  “Well, there is one other article, though it’s hardly news.”

  He nodded with interest. “What is it?”

  “It’s more of a ... ghost story.”

  “Ghost story?”

  “It appeared in The Standard about five years ago.” She rose and rounded her desk. “Let me show you.”

  They went back to the archive section, where she pulled another bound volume from the shelf, set it on the table, and thumbed through it. “Yes, here it is.”

  Johnny’s jaw dropped. The headline read, “Weird Provenance,” and the subhead, “Strange Goings-On Around Town.” There was no byline. The story briefly recounted the actions of G.W. and Thaddeus and the stolen Confederate gold. But the end of the article was the weird part: “Legend has it that Captain Knox was so distraught over the lost gold that he bound his spirit to the town, and his ghost still wanders the old Granville House grounds, waiting for an ancestor of McClintock to return so he can exact his revenge.”

  What made Johnny’s jaw drop, though, was not that paragraph but what was beneath it. It was a drawing of the ghost of Captain Thaddeus Knox.

  He was tall, thin, wore a hooded cloak, and carried a long, wicked-looking dagger in his right hand and a coil of rope in his left.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next day was Sunday, church day. The Whittakers attended a church that was closer to the university rather than the one in Provenance. Harold liked it better because many of his colleagues went there as well.

  Normally Johnny found going to church to be a cross between a habit and a chore—something he did because he had always done it, and something he had to do because his folks made him. But with all that had happened that week, he was actually looking forward to morning worship. There was something peaceful about the old stone building, even when people were singing (sometimes terribly off-key), and he knew that the sermon was always quality “thinking time.” Besides, none of his schoolmates went there, which meant he wouldn’t have to put up with their avoiding him because of his newfound status.

  As the family pulled out of their driveway, Johnny saw Emmy and her family getting in their car to head across town to the Catholic church they attended. He’d tried to tell her yesterday afternoon about the last article he had found with the picture of Thaddeus Knox’s ghost, but when he went to her house, she wasn’t home, or at least she pretended not to be. She saw him in the car now, and he waved to her, but she didn’t wave back.

  Stubborn, he thought.

  The peace Johnny hoped for when he entered the sanctuary eluded him. He didn’t know why. Everything seemed the same as every other Sunday service, but he didn’t feel the usual wave of calm wash over him. The singing was lovely this morning, though he’d never realized before just how many hymns dealt with blood.

  Most surprising was that his quality “thinking time” during the sermon kept getting interrupted by the sermon. The pastor talked about the greatest commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

  That last part kept intruding on his thoughts. He knew he hadn’t given Emmy or anyone else a lot of neighborly love the past week. He tried to rationalize it by telling himself that, except for Emmy, no one had exactly been neighborly to him, either, but he knew that wouldn’t fly. His mother, grandpa, dad, and stepmom had drilled into him that he needed to love his neighbors, even if they didn’t love him in return.

  But how was that even possible? How was he supposed to love Wilson and Arty and the rest of their gang when they treated him like dirt? The pastor’s answer was blood again: The shed blood of Jesus makes it possible. But Johnny wasn’t sure he bought into that. Maybe if he shed a little of Wilson’s blood ...

  Once the service was over, they piled back into the car, drove home, and ate the delicious Sunday dinner of roast beef and potatoes that Fiona had prepared. After the dishes were clean, Johnny went up to his room and positioned his desk chair so he could watch out the window for Emmy’s car to pull up. It was a warm afternoon, and as he waited, he thought about G.W., Thaddeus’s ghost, the boy he had seen at the old Granville House, and everything that had happened that week.

  He was suddenly aware that a strange man was in the room with him—a black man he’d never seen before, yet seemed familiar somehow. The man was writing words on a piece of paper. Johnny tried to talk to him, but the man wouldn’t speak, or was it that he couldn’t speak? The man finished writing and showed Johnny the piece of paper. It was covered with rows and rows of five words:

  Heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor

  Heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor

  Heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor

  Heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor...

  Johnny jolted awake. The room was growing dark, and he was stiff from napping in his chair. He looked out his window; Emmy’s car was parked in her family’s driveway. He rose, stretched out the kinks in his back and neck, and bolted out of his room and down the stairs.

  “Is it all right if I go talk to Emmy?” he asked his parents. “I won’t be long.”

  Fiona looked at Harold, who nodded.

  Johnny raced out the front door and off the porch. To his surprise, Emmy was crossing her lawn toward him. They met at the tree swing, and both started talking at the same time.

  “Okay, look—”

  “I was upset—”

  “I shouldn’t have said—”

  “It just got to me—”

  “It’s not okay to be a traitor—”

  “Your family has honor—”

  “You’re not like Wilson—”

  “It was all my fault—”

  And then together: “I’m sorry.”

  After a short pause, they both burst out laughing.

  “This has been a weird week, to say the least,” Johnny said, “and it’s about to get weirder.” He quickly filled her in on the picture of Thaddeus, though he didn’t tell her about the strange dream he’d just had.

  Emmy’s eyes widened, and she gave a low whistle. “So now y
ou have a ghost to worry about, too.”

  Johnny looked skeptical. “I don’t believe in ghosts. Besides, the boy I saw was real.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Emmy ...”

  “Did the article mention anything about him?”

  “Not a word.”

  Emmy looked concerned. “What are you gonna do?”

  He shrugged. “I’m gonna go check it out.”

  Her eyes widened. “The old Granville House?”

  “It’s the only lead we’ve got.”

  “But there’s a ghost there after you!”

  “Will you stop that? He’s not a ghost!”

  “Then he’s a man, and that’s even worse!”

  Johnny hadn’t considered that. A real man with a real dagger and rope was much more dangerous than a ghost with a ghost dagger and rope.

  “Well ... I’ll just have to be extra careful,” he offered.

  “You mean we will.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not gonna leave me outta this! I’m—” She stopped suddenly and looked past Johnny, her brow furrowed.

  “You’re what? Emmy? What’s wrong?”

  “Did you get mail today?” She pointed over his shoulder.

  “Mail? It’s Sunday. Mail doesn’t come on—”

  He turned to look at their mailbox. Sure enough, the delivery flag was up. They moved over to the box, and he yanked open the lid. Inside was a piece of folded paper. Johnny extracted it, closed the lid, and put the delivery flag down. He turned to Emmy and opened the paper so they could both see.

  It was his lightning storage experiment diagram. Across the bottom was a note scrawled in shaky penmanship that read, “I no who the man in the hooded cloke is. If you want to no, meet me tomorrow at Grannvile Howse after school.”

  Johnny and Emmy looked at each other. “Still believe they’re ghosts?” he asked.