She picked up the sea scooter, checked its battery, then lugged it back over to the hole.
I stretched my back and shoulders, then splashed water over my face. Some people like to sit back and observe, and some like to dive into life’s arena headfirst and get their hands dirty. I’ve always been glad that Ange is the latter of the two.
Jack and I grabbed our shovels. Our hands were starting to redden. Another hour and they’d blister, but we were confident that we’d reach our desired depth before then.
“I swear,” Jack said as he sloshed through the water beside me, “if this is a rusted piece of old scrap metal, I’m gonna lose it.”
We went right back at it. Shoveling, scooping, and tossing aside. Again and again. I let my mind wander as I lost myself in the rhythmic labor, working in sync with Jack’s movements. I thought about what we might find. I thought about the past, and what the future might hold. I loved the life that Ange and I shared. I loved our daughter, our friends, and our island home. Whether it was treasure or just a piece of old scrap metal, it made little real difference to me. I already felt like a winner, like I’d been blessed beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Anything more in life, I’d view as just icing on the cake.
I pulled out a particularly heavy heap of sediment, having to bend my knees and space out my hands on the handle for leverage. With a grunt, I tossed the pile aside. Jack moved in right after me. With a strong flex of his arms, he shoved the tip of his shovel into the seafloor, then slammed the step with his heel. The sharp metal tip cut through the muck, but instead of a slow, gradual stop, the blade stopped suddenly, slamming against a hard object with a thud.
THIRTY-FOUR
Jack froze, then his jaw dropped. Leaving his shovel in place, he tilted his head to look at me. It was the distinct sound that caused us all to grin and our hearts to race. Not a ting of metal against rock, but a low-pitched thump.
“What is it?” Pete said, sloshing back from the skiff with a drink in his hand.
But we couldn’t speak. We were too excited, too eager to see what Jack had struck with his shovel. It’d been wood, no doubt in our minds about that. And since we’d gotten a hit with the detector, that meant there was also metal nearby.
Ange moved in closer with the scooter. She accelerated the propeller and held on tight, washing away the cloud of dirt. Jack and I crept in and carefully shoveled a few more piles of sediment.
We waited for the view to clear. As the dirt washed away, we caught a glimpse of a rounded wooden surface at the bottom of the hole. Running along the center of the wood was a metal brace.
We cheered and fist bumped and patted each other’s backs. Jack let out a howl, Pete jumped around like a happy prospector, and Ange and I embraced. For a solid minute, we couldn’t stop cheering and laughing we were so excited. Uncovering a buried treasure chest is nearly every kid’s fantasy at one point, and we all acted like kids as we celebrated our find.
“Three cheers for Angelina!” Pete shouted.
We followed his lead, then Ange waved us off.
“Hey, I just waved the coil,” Ange said. “You guys did the heavy lifting. And we never would’ve found it if it weren’t for Scarlett taking the initiative.”
Ange’s mention of our daughter’s name reminded me of her request just before we’d left. I grabbed my phone from my bag inside the boat, then sloshed back to our dig site and rounded everybody up for a selfie. I managed to extend my arm far enough to get all four of us in the picture, as well as the hole in the background. I’d take more as we salvaged it, but I wanted to capture the initial larger than life smiles plastered across our faces.
After snapping a few more pictures, Jack and I picked up our shovels and began digging the area around the chest. There was still a decent amount of work to be done before we’d have it free, but the sight of the chest getting bigger and bigger with every scoop gave us new vigor.
Ten minutes of digging later, we dropped down and reached for the edges of the chest. It was three feet long and just under two feet wide. Much of the wood was rotted away, leaving a weak shell held together by rusted clasps and hinges. As we grabbed hold of the edges and pulled, it was clear that we wouldn’t be able to lift the chest out without it breaking to pieces. Even though the surrounding sediment had kept it from decaying completely, it was still far too brittle for us to lift it up with its heavy contents inside. After all, if the legend was true, it was filled with over two hundred pounds of gold bars.
We carefully dug out the front side of the chest, clearing deep enough to reach the lock keeping the lid secured. It was rusted and corroded, barely hanging on. I grabbed a nearby rock and made quick work of it, pounding it with a well-placed blow that cracked the shackle and caused it to fall off.
Gathering around and craning our necks for a peek inside, Jack and I slowly pried open the lid. The inside was dark and murky from folded layers of fabric that had nearly decayed completely over the years. Holding the lid open, we brushed the fabric aside. Rays of morning sunlight shone through breaks in the cloth, reflecting off bright objects that were all
