The Treasure Box (The Grace Series Book 2)

by Mark Romang

  “I’ll do it, Grandpa Ned. I’ll make you proud. But there is one thing I have always wondered. Maybe you can answer it.”

  Ned looked at Connor fondly. The young man reminded him so much of Bobby. “I’ll take a stab at it.”

  “Why do the nicest people die so young, people like Bobby?”

  “I’ve often wondered the same thing, Connor. Maybe it’s because at their funeral we learn of all the great things they did while alive. God uses their death and legacy as a way to motivate us to love others and live better lives.”

  Connor got up to his feet and hugged Ned. “Grandpa, everyone in this room treasures you. You don’t have to die to leave behind a legacy. You’re living out your legacy right now.”

  Ned squeezed his great-grandson as tight as his frail arms would allow. Tears coursed down his wrinkled face. “Thank-you, Connor. Your kind words are the nicest birthday gift I’ve ever received.”

  Epilogue

  Atchafalaya Basin—September

  Chris Mouton tried to shake off his disappointment. He hadn’t caught a single alligator all day. He’d experienced days like this before, but this was the first time he’d taken his eleven-year-old son out hunting with him. And he’d hoped for better luck. Danny sat in the bow with shoulders hunched. He looked bored, even a little mad.

  They’d been on the water since sunrise checking lines. And so far not a single line hung down in the water. The rotting chicken he used for bait still clung to the large hooks and attracted only flies. Worse, only one more line remained to be checked.

  Mouton glanced at his watch; saw that it was after four pm. They would need to turn back soon. Hunting this deep in the Basin at this hour wasn’t wise. He didn’t want to get caught in the dark. Besides the danger of low visibility, alligator hunting ran from sunrise to sunset. Mouton didn’t want a conservation agent to issue him a citation.

  Danny suddenly perked up. “Hey, Dad, a line is down,” he said, pointing toward a sapling doubled over along the bank.

  Mouton looked in the direction Danny pointed. He didn’t see the half-chicken he used as bait, and the line disappeared into the muddy water. He smiled. “We got us a gator, Danny. We didn’t get shut out.” Mouton guided his aluminum, flat-bottomed boat over to the submerged line.

  “Get the rifle, Danny,” Mouton instructed.

  Danny reached down and grabbed up an old Ruger .22 caliber rifle. Scratches covered the gun’s stock and attested to its age and reliability.

  “Slide the safety off and get ready. Do you remember the spot to aim at?”

  Danny nodded. “I shoot right behind the hard plate of the skull, or straight behind the eyes.”

  Mouton smiled. “Excellent answer, you were paying attention.” Mouton cut the power to his motor and allowed the boat to drift up near the line. He grabbed the 1/4 inch rope he used as line. He looked over at his son. Danny had the rifle up to his shoulder. He peered through the sights.

  “Here we go. Let’s see what we got,” Mouton said. He slowly pulled up on the line, hand over hand. The weight on the other end felt enormous. “I think we got us a big gator, Danny.”

  The beast’s snout came into view, but before it broke the surface giving his son a chance to shoot, the alligator went berserk, rolling and thrashing and spraying them with water. Danny jerked back.

  “This one has some fight in him. But he’ll tire out.” Mouton felt the alligator dive back down. Their boat turned directions.

  “He’s pulling us around, Dad!” Danny cried.

  “They do that sometimes. But we’re not going anywhere and neither is the gator.” Mouton reeled in the line once more. He wore gloves to keep the line from cutting his palms and to aid his grip.

  The gator thrashed against the boat, rolling so violently that it was all Mouton could do to hang on and not fall out. The gator dove back down into the depths to gather its waning energy. Mouton let out a deep breath and readied himself for the next assault.

  “Here he comes again, Danny. Get ready. We’re going to get him this time. I can tell he’s wearing out.”

  The alligator surged above the surface. Its snout thumped against the hull. Mouton watched Danny place the gun into position right above the sweet spot. The rifle cracked. And the alligator went limp.

  “Great shot, son,” Mouton praised.

  “Is he dead?”

  Mouton nodded. “He’s not coming back either.”

  “How are we going to get it up into the boat, Dad? It’s huge.”

  “We roll it into the boat.” Mouton hauled the alligator’s snout up as high as he could and then grabbed a front leg. Grab his other front leg, Danny.”

  “Okay, I got it, Dad.”

  “Now, just start rolling and lifting at the same time.”

  It took three concerted attempts before the dead alligator flopped entirely into the boat. The boat dipped into the water with all the added weight. “Man, this guy wore me out, Danny,” Mouton panted.

  “How big is it, do you think?”

  “I’d say he’s close to thirteen feet long. And I bet he’ll weigh around 800 pounds, maybe 900.”

  “What’s wrong with his skin?”

  Mouton studied the beast’s hide. There were several nicks in various places on the alligator. “It looks like he’s been fighting. Males are solitary and will often defend their territory against other males.” Mouton noticed Danny’s face pucker into a frown. And then the boy’s nose crinkled up. “What’s the matter, Danny?”

  “Something stinks around here. Do you smell it?”

  “The swamp always has a fishy smell about it.”

  “No, Dad, it smells like something is dead and rotting.”

  Mouton sniffed the air. “Yeah, I smell it now.”

  Danny pointed a finger. “It’s coming from over there.”

  Curious, Mouton put his trolling motor down into the water. He guided the boat over to a bank covered in tall grass and buzzing with flies. And then he saw it right away. A corpse lay half-hidden in the grass. The body had no legs and very little skin. What skin remained flapped on the skull. Birds had plucked the eyes from the corpse. Both skeletal hands were raised above the body’s head. Each bony palm clutched a gold coin.

  Mouton heard his son swear. Normally he would’ve reprimanded his son. But Mouton nearly swore himself. Something did a number on this person, he thought. And maybe it was this gator we just caught.

  “Dad, those coins are really old looking. And they look like…gold.”

  Mouton leaned over as far as he could without falling out and, using his gloved hands, pried the coins from the corpse’s hands. He looked them over. Sweat beaded on his brow. His stomach clenched. “They’re Spanish doubloons. And they’re definitely gold.”

  “This person found treasure, Dad.”

  Mouton pivoted in the boat and tossed the doubloons as far as he could into the water. He turned to his son, whose mouth had dropped open. “Sometimes what you think is treasure isn’t really treasure at all. There’s a curse on that gold. And this person found both the gold and the curse.”

  “I don’t understand, Dad.”

  Mouton pointed toward the corpse. “That could’ve been me, Danny. Before you were born I was a treasure hunter. I looked for Jean Lafitte’s treasure every chance I got. I was obsessed about finding it. Your mom almost left me over it. But then you were born and God took away the obsession.”

  Danny stared at the corpse for a long time, then turned and looked at him. “Dad, is there something about gold that makes some people go crazy?”

  Mouton nodded. “Gold is a unique precious metal. You can pound it, twist it, roll it and melt it, but it can’t be destroyed. It’s almost like gold is eternal, like it’s a piece of heaven. Mortal people have a hard time understanding eternal things.”

  “Dad, I’m glad you’re not obsessed with gold anymore.”

  “I am too, Danny. But you know what? I’m still a treasure hunter in a way. I’ve acquired
quite a bit of treasure over the years, and I’ve hidden it in a safe spot.” Mouton watched his son’s eyes grow big.

  “What kind of treasure do you have? And where have you hidden it? Does Mom know?”

  Mouton placed a finger on his son’s chest. He drew an invisible square on Danny’s shirt, right above his heart. “This is your treasure box, Danny. Every human has one. Whatever is most important to us is what we put into our treasure box.”

  “What is in your treasure box, Dad?”

  Mouton smiled. “You are in my treasure box, and so is your mom. My parents and my grandparents, my siblings, my aunts and uncles and cousins are in there as well. I’ve also put friends from work and church into my treasure box. God treasures people more than anything He’s created. So we should do the same. And sometimes we need to put strangers into our treasure box. Not all strangers are bad, Danny. But above all else you should save room for Jesus in your treasure box. Jesus is the greatest treasure.”

  Mouton pulled a GPS unit from his carpenter jeans. He saved their coordinates to give to law enforcement, and then lifted his trolling motor out from the water. Mouton started the bigger outboard motor. “We need to go, Danny.” He patted the gator in the boat. “We need to get this big boy to the market. And we need to call Sheriff Tubbs and tell him what we’ve found. That corpse is someone’s loved one, and every person deserves a proper burial.”

  Mouton grabbed the tiller and they sped off through the swamp, away from Arcadias and the treasure that cost him everything, including his life.

  The End

  Thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it. I have another series—the Battle Series—that you may also enjoy. Battle Scream and Battle Storm are fantasy novels set in the end times. I’ve included the first few chapters of Battle Scream with this book for you to sample. You’ll find them on the next page.

  Battle Scream

  By Mark Romang

  Copyright © Mark Romang 2013

  Kindle Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig, Inc.

  Author’s Note

  A human cannot physically fight a demon. The only way to defend against a demonic attack is to put on the full armor of God as described in Ephesians 6:10-18, and to pray. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7. But for the sake of writing an action-packed suspense novel, I temporarily altered the rules of engagement. I hope you understand and forgive me.

  Prologue

  Eastern Afghanistan

  Date: Classified

  “This mountain presents challenges like no other peak in the Hindu Kush. Even the Pashtuns avoid it. They think Allah has cursed it,” Navy Lieutenant Commander Jonathon Stoltzman told his SEALS earlier at the mission briefing.

  Petty Officer First Class Andrew Maddix didn’t believe in curses until today.

  Bleak and forbidding, the windswept mountain would never grace a postcard or calendar. Its towering spires poked into the clouds like deformed fingers reaching up from a collapsed grave. Swift and sudden death often visited this glacier-carved mountain, and only a few hardy goat herders ventured out onto its lonely ramparts.

  Inside the mountain’s belly, a manmade tunnel snaked westward for nearly ten miles. Equipped with electricity, a fifty watt light bulb hung from the low ceiling every one-hundred paces and provided murky illumination. Maddix and his SEAL fire team penetrated the cavern using deliberate movements designed more for stealth than speed. Step, stop, listen, and repeat. They didn’t want to betray their presence. The Taliban warlord patrolling this hardscrabble region in the Hindu Kush dispensed cruelty at the tiniest provocation.

  Maddix pulled rear security for the four-man team. Ahead of him two SEALS covered left and right flanks, while First Lieutenant Damon Kirkland served as lead man of the diamond formation.

  Not wanting to risk a cave-in, Maddix and his teammates carried silencer-equipped M11 handguns as their primary defense weapon, caching their M4 assault rifles among the rock piles outside the cave entrance.

  Maddix positioned his back to the other team members as he skulked inside the manmade cave. He kept his eyes glued to the entrance from which they came, on the lookout for Taliban fighters setting an ambush. Every three steps he looked behind him to make sure he didn’t trip.

  Maddix allowed his eyes to drift periodically along the cave walls and floor. The metamorphic rock glowed phosphorescent green beyond his night-vision goggles. He crept like a ghost, his boots treading lightly on a dirt floor imprinted by dozer tracks and other heavy mining equipment.

  Intelligence gathered from the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan led to the whereabouts of this mammoth cave, long suspected to be used by the Taliban to travel undetected back and forth from Afghanistan to Pakistan. The tunnel was a mindboggling engineering feat. But more amazing was how the Taliban transported a tunnel boring machine up the mountain without being photographed by keyhole satellites. Intelligence analysts will be unraveling this mystery for many years to come, Maddix thought.

  He focused his eyes onto a spot on the cave floor. He thought he spotted an anomaly jutting up from the silvery-brown mixture of dirt and schist two steps to his left at 9 o’clock. He went over to that area and squatted down. “Checking out something on the cave floor, guys. Looks suspicious,” Maddix whispered into the boom mike attached to his helmet.

  “We’ll wait for you, Mad Dog,” Lt. Kirkland replied back.

  “Roger that,” Maddix said as he gently dragged a hand along a metallic projection poking out from the dirt. A warning to be careful rippled up from his subconscious. In a booby-trapped nation of a million landmines, he couldn’t be too cautious.

  But this object didn’t look like any landmine he’d ever seen. Most anti-personnel mines are cylindrical. This metallic object had a ninety degree angle to it.

  Maddix pulled a trenching tool from his pack and began to shovel dirt away from the buried object. In less than a minute he uncovered a lid belonging to a weapons crate. Judging by the crate’s size, he guessed that RPGs or rifles rested inside. Maddix lifted the lid, pushing it to the side. He peered inside the crate. A couple dozen or so AK-47s met his gaze. His pulse rate accelerated.

  “Each of you blockheads needs an eye exam. I just found a crate of Kalashnikovs sitting out in plain sight,” he said into his helmet mike.

  “Grab one for me, Mad Dog. I’ll add it to my collection of enemy artifacts,” Petty Officer Coleton Webb replied back.

  “Sure thing, C-Dub,” Maddix said. He perused the old rifles left over from the failed Soviet campaign, looking for the one with the least scratches. He lifted a likely candidate out and leaned it against the cave wall. He then slid the lid back onto the crate. Later, they would wire up the crate with explosives and detonate it on their way out of the cave.

  Maddix slung the AK over his left shoulder and took a step away from the half-buried crate, unaware it would be his last step on two legs.

  His right foot contacted the pressure plate of an M-14 anti-personnel mine, causing the firing pin to push down onto the detonator, igniting the Tetryl explosive. The superheated fireball overwhelmed the darkness. And for a brief moment the cave became hotter than the sun. Like a scene from an action movie, Maddix felt himself catapulted into the air. He flew through an acrid cloud of dirt and smoke, landing hard on his back about five yards from the flashpoint.

  The jarring thud siphoned the air from his lungs. He tried to sit up, but could only lift his head a few inches. His face burned, and his lips felt like they were melting. He wanted to look at his right leg in the worst way. Something about it didn’t jive. He couldn’t feel his foot.

  As he gathered his strength for another attempt at sittin
g up, he heard Lt. Kirkland’s authoritative voice crackle in his helmet. “We’re coming, Mad Dog! Hang tight!”

  Maddix suddenly felt weak. His eyes glazed over even as glacial coldness crept up his torso, pushing away his body heat.

  Using the last of his strength, he lifted his head high enough to see his right leg resembled a bloody stump. The explosion had sheared off his lower leg at the knee and scattered it somewhere in the cave.

  The rest of the SEAL team arrived at his side seconds later. Just before he blacked out he looked into their eyes. Their worried looks told him all he needed to know.

  ****

  Petty Officer Daniel Pettis hurriedly opened his medical kit and pulled out a C-A-T tourniquet. “Webb, I need you to apply pressure to his femoral artery while I put the tourniquet on.”

  “Gotcha,” Coleton Webb said, applying his knee to Maddix’s upper thigh region.

  “How are his vital signs?” Pettis asked Lieutenant Kirkland, who had a pressure cuff wrapped around Maddix’s right arm.

  Kirkland shook his head. “Not good. His pulse rate is only 38. I counted a respiration rate somewhere around nine breaths per minute, and I’m getting a blood pressure reading of 76 over 53. I haven’t taken his temp yet, but he feels cold already.”

  Pettis nodded. “We need to get a medevac to Bagram immediately or he’s not going to make it,” he warned as he routed the tourniquet band around Maddix’s leg, passing the red tip of the band through the slit on the buckle, pulling it tight.

  Lieutenant Kirkland pulled out his radio. “I’m on it.”

  “Come on, Mad Dog. Don’t check out on us. You’re the toughest SEAL in the Navy,” Webb pleaded to his closest friend.