The Treasure of Escanaba - 1. The Treasure of Escanaba

The Treasure of Escanaba

“Another Hamm’s, Red?”

The young man nodded, his scalp gleaming beneath the glow of the red bar lights. Festooned around the mirror were strands of fake gray cobwebs, sprinkled with black cardboard spiders in the corners. Typical.

“Is Hal meeting you here?” the bartender asked as he flicked the cap from the bottle of cheap beer. The sodden, blue label was peeling from the brown glass. He set the brew down with a clink in front of guy.

Red picked up the bottle, saluted the burly, bearded bartender, and took a deep draw. “He is. Got some big news I guess. Hal’s always full of big ideas.” He belched to punctuate his statement.

Beau, the day bartender, smiled perfunctorily and scooted his bulk down to the other end of the bar where waitstaff were waiting for him. There was a giant pumpkin glowing next to the wait station. Its cartoon grin was comical rather than scary. It seemed to taunt the patron.

Red took another drink and sighed. Hal was late, as usual. The lanky redneck had no concept of time, which was probably the main reason he never had a job.

Okay, that wasn’t the reason. Hal didn’t have a job because he was a party animal and couldn’t get up to go to work. He didn’t have a job because he was a bum who couldn’t be bothered with punching a time clock. Sure, the guy had three children from three different women, but chasing tail was still his primary occupation.

Red snorted and took another drink of his ice cold, though weak and watery, beer.

A slap on his shoulders pushed Red forward, and he almost choked.

“Dude! Sorry I’m late,” Hal said climbing onto the stool next to Red.

“I just got done with work anyway,” Red lied. “What’s up?”

“You will not believe what I got,” the man blurted out. “Red, my friend, we are going to be rich.”

Red nodded, taking another swig.

“It’s all right here,” Hal said, slapping a sheaf of papers onto the sticky bar. “This is our ticket out of this shithole.”

“Is that right?”

Hal’s big paw pulled the smaller man around to face him. “What’s your problem? I’m telling you, this is the treasure map. My aunt died and left me a fortune.”

Red closed his eyes and steeled himself. He was used to these pronouncements from Hal.

“What’s the deal?” he said, trying to act excited.

Hal was fooled by the words, if not the tone of Red’s remarks.

“I inherited my aunt’s acreage down south.”

That prompted Red’s attention.

“You got some land?” he said, looking at his friend. He’d resisted until now knowing the man would net him like a dangling bass.

Hal was a stunning man. He wasn’t classically handsome. Hal was long and lean with a prominent nose, a firm chin, tanned skin that was scruffy and masculine, smooth with an expressive mouth. Hal had lips that were thick and succulent, and eyes that…shone with energy. Hal was amazing.

“My uncle’s land has been just sitting there for ten years doing nothing.” Red’s best friend continued. “My aunt finally kicked it and as it turns out, I’m the cousin to inherit. I bet my sister and those other relatives are pissing themselves.”

“Which aunt is this?” Red asked. He didn’t really believe this was true. It was like a miracle.

“My mom’s brother died, and his wife got the land. She was too prissy to live in the U.P. and so nobody has done a thing with it. That’s not the best part though.”

Red nodded at Hal’s explanation. People didn’t respect the upper peninsula of Michigan, a camping and hunting paradise. Hal’s aunt probably had never even visited the land her husband grew up on. Okay, it wasn’t ‘his’ land. It was family land.

“Is it on the lake?”

Hal nodded vigorously. “The plot is right along Lake Michigan, across the road from the shoreline. This is prime property, but that’s not what’s so great about it.”

“A drink?” Beau asked, scooting a paper coaster across the bar to land in front of Hal. There was a witch’s face emblazoned on the black surface -- a joyful, cackling crone.

Hal grinned, his big white teeth shining in the bar light. “I think we should celebrate. I’ll take a CC and Coke.” He waited until the bartender walked away and turned to Red.

“Can you cover me? I’m short right now.”

Red nodded and turned on the barstool to face his best friend. “Tell me about this windfall.”

Hal looked at him confused. “Windfall?”

“You said the land was a great deal, but something else was even better.”

Red could smell musk coming from Hal. It was sweat and soap, Old Spice deodorant and motor oil. Testosterone oozed from the man as he moved to face Red.

“Here you go,” Beau said, placing a lowball in front of Hal. “That’ll be four-fifty.”

“I’ve got it,” Red said, glancing at his coworker.

“Of course,” Beau groaned. “What’s new?”

Red scowled at the bartender, who walked away shaking his head.

“Here’s the deal,” Hal began, his voice raised in excitement.

“What?” Red asked and looked around nervously.

Hal noticed his friend’s reaction, and leaned in closer. “My uncle told me there is a treasure left on the old farm. His dad found it and hid it.”

“A treasure?” Red scowled. “That sounds ridiculous.”

“It’s true,” Hal whispered. He took a drink and smiled, thrilled. “My uncle told me about it before he died.”

“A buried treasure?”

Hal nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, my grandpa found it.”

Red took a deep breath, and the scent of Hal’s masculinity was heady. “Your grandpa found a treasure chest and hid it on his farm.”

Hal looked around at the empty room, glanced over Red’s shoulder, and then whispered to the man. “Yeah, that’s what he said.”

Red wanted to pull away. However, Hal was close, so close to him, he could feel the heat radiate from the man. Hal’s presence was intoxicating. He felt high, stoned, messed up, and powerless.

“What’s the plan?” he said, and he realized his tone was sharp and eager. Like a blue gill in a small lake, he was strung along in the water. Hooked. Reeled in.

“We head down to Escanaba this evening, grab the treasure, and come back, easy as cherry pie.”

“Hey guys,” Red heard, and recognized the voice as his boss’.

“Hey Stan,” Hal said, blithely.

“You’re not dragging Red into another of your schemes, are you?”

Red could see out of the corner of his eye, his boss was scowling at them. He towered over them, arms crossed, looking fierce. The man was wearing a t-shirt with the picture of a vampire, like Count Chocula, posed and grinning. It was so offensive, like so much of the stuff about this holiday.

“Is Boyd working right now?” Hal asked smugly.

“No,” the manager of the White Oak Resort admitted. “But, Red works tomorrow morning.”

“I think Red’s plans aren’t your concern.”

Stan ignored Hal’s answer. “Red?” he asked.

“I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow morning,” Red said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Okay,” his boss said. “You start work at seven winterizing those windows, right?”

Red nodded and gestured to Beau for another beer. The bartender was glancing back and forth between the three men. Finally, he realized it was okay, when Stan walked away.

“Did you tell him?” Red hissed at the bartender.

“No,” was the response. It wasn’t convincing. Beau was always doing when Hal was around.

Red decided they could drive down to Escanaba, grab the treasure, probably more like some old iron junk and car parts, and then they’d drive back. He’d be home by the morning for work, and for the holiday in the evening.

***

“What the fuck is it?” Red asked pacing back and forth beside his faded red Ford Ranger. “I’m screwed. Fuck!” he yelled.

“Calm the hell down,” Hal said, looking from beneath the raised hood. “It’s not that big of a deal. It’s the alternator. It’s shot. Get a new one and we’ll be back on track.”

“Why do I let you get me into these things?” Red asked, panting and shaking his best friend’s shoulder.

“The guy’s coming with the tow truck. We get a new alternator and we’ll be on the road in a couple of hours. We grab the stash, and we’re out of here.”

Red looked up at the black branches waving against the gray, night sky, the wind twisting the limbs grotesquely. There weren’t many leaves left clinging to the twigs, and what few remained looked tattered.

As he looked up into the gray light from the street lights, he had a strange thought. Maybe not really so strange given it was Hallow’s Eve, eve, and last night he’d watched a horror movie. One of those on the commercial stations that had lots of ads. A phrase kept popping into his head.

The veil is thinnest on All Hallow’s Eve, when the dead and the living stand only inches apart.

“He’s on his way,” Hal said again. “I can see headlights coming our way.”

It startled Red, because somehow the big guy had crept up behind him.

“Fine,” Red said, as Hal threw his arm around the smaller man’s shoulders. “We get it fixed and go back home.”

“Sure,” Hal said, quietly. “What are you going to do with your portion of the money?”

“I’m not planning anything yet,” Red said, more calmly than he felt. His heart was racing at his friend’s touch. His stomach was knotted from the scent of the man. His head was now light and filled with warmth. “What about you?”

Hal sighed and lifted his arm off Red’s shoulders. He playfully boxed his arm and then said, “I’m getting a new truck and some new duds, something classy. Maybe those jeans with the gold embroidery to go dancing with and a shirt with real mother-of-pearl buttons, like the country singers all have. Something that makes the ladies get a little wet, if you know what I mean.”

Red did know what Hal meant, and the knot in his stomach became a cobra, striking at his guts and making him squirm in discomfort.

A sudden burst of light illuminated them, gold in the gray darkness, and the crunch of tires on gravel broke the still of the evening as the truck pulled over several yards down the road. It was the tow truck, and it slowly crawled towards them, the light becoming brighter and more brilliantly yellow.

Red could see more of Hal now, his ‘pair-o-dice’ tattoo on his right bicep. The scrawl of the name, Phoebe, his first ex-wife, running down his forearm. Even Hal’s neck was decorated with a coiled snake, ready to strike, a vivid red tongue pointing towards his chin.

Red didn’t have tattoos. He couldn’t think of something he liked that much. A tattoo was something permanent, a mark that never left, or so he’d thought about it. He considered his mom’s name or a fish or a gun on the skin of his hip, but he’d done nothing.

“What’s the problem?” the tow truck driver asked as he approached from the cab, and Red’s attention returned to his vehicle and to getting the engine running again.

***

The jukebox was very loud, with a country song twanging on about lost love and missed chances.

Red nursed his beer, looking over the crowd two-stepping and laughing. The bar was decorated for the holiday, strings of orange lights, the usual cotton batting cobwebs, pictures of ghouls, monsters, an enormous cauldron filled with booze next to the bar, and black and purple streamers hanging all over the walls.

Red tried not to look over at the jukebox again. He couldn’t stop himself though. Hal was punching buttons while a peroxide blonde woman in short jean shorts and a midriff top hung on him. She was literally leaning on his shoulders, his arms, and kissing him every chance she had. Her ample breasts were pressed against Hal’s dice tattoo while she licked the snake on his neck.

Red felt sick. It was bad enough they weren’t getting his truck fixed until the morning. Now he had to watch the shit show of Hal being molested by some bimbo right in front of him. Red tried to look away, but bathed in the glow of the jukebox, Hal’s face was transcendent, his features angelic, his square jaw amazing.

Hal stopped punching buttons and gestured for Red to come over. Red paused, then shook his head no.

His friend only gestured more frantically, trying to drag him over by brute force of will.

Red caved in and sauntered over.

“You look bummed out dude,” Hal said when Red came within earshot. Even the loud music couldn’t overpower his friend’s booming voice.

“I’m pissed about my truck,” Red answered. “And I had plans.”

“Oh, quit pouting,” Hal said, play boxing his shoulder again. “This is great bar, lots of people partying, and it’s three-for-one drinks. What else could you ask for?”

“Stan’s pissed. He said I need to get back as soon as I can,” Red answered. He took a drink of his lukewarm beer. It was skunky now.

“Fuck Stan and fuck his dumbass hotel.” Hal belched and continued, “We need to get you laid, boy. You are more strung out than a guitar string.” Hal chuckled at his joke and the girl practically climbed up him like a squirrel on a tree, giggling and nuzzling him, her tail twitching excitedly. Red felt her attention on him. He glanced to her.

“I’ve got a friend who’d like some company,” the blonde shouted over the music at Red. “She’s real nice, and kinda pretty. Her name is Darla and—”

“No, thank you,” Red interrupted, shouting. “I can get my own dates.”

Hal scowled as his chick recoiled from the outburst. Red could see his best friend was pissed. Without a word, Hal grabbed Red’s elbow and dragged him a few feet away, near the bathrooms where the music wasn’t so loud.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Hal demanded, shaking with fury. “So what if your truck broke down. Tomorrow we get the stash and we’ll be riding high. Fuck!”

Hal rubbed his face with his hand, cleared his throat and continued, “Listen, Red. I get that you’re different than most of us. You’re smart and good with your hands and you see things like the rest of us don’t. But.” Hal leaned closer. “You need to try to get along sometimes. Go out with a chick. Get your dick wet. Try something new. I mean, I know you aren’t like me or most guys. I get that and it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes you gotta try though. Just try to get along.”

Hal’s speech finished a little hollow, like he knew what he was asking for or saying wasn’t exactly correct. However, Red watched him nod, and then his best friend marched back to his bimbo. Hal was still angry.

Red went to the bar and grabbed another beer, and for good measure, a shot of whiskey.

***

Hal was having trouble getting the wetsuit on. It was a little too small for him. Red watched as his best friend bent over to pull the pants up his legs after powdering them with talcum. This time, the fabric slid over the forested, hairy legs. When it got to the tops of Hal’s thighs, it started to bunch and squeak.

Red looked at the small of Hal’s back, smooth and tanned, and manly. The ridges of his spine jutted out, the muscles bunched and twitched. Another tattoo covered the middle of his back. It was the name, Connie, with a big, elaborate flourish encasing it. Connie was his second ex-wife. Hal’s third ex was a woman named Trixie, and that had only lasted a few weeks, so no tattoo preserved his union with her.

Red thought it was odd how people got so many tattoos.

He had none.

But, then he realized something he had never considered before. Almost all the local guys who hung out at the bars in Traverse City had tattoos and most of the women did as well. Almost all the locals had a few exes. They were all employed at jobs that required no training and no schooling. They were all happy to party and joke and sleep with each other and then pass out.

Red never did any of those things, except for his job doing maintenance at the hotel. It wasn’t trained, but not many people could recharge air conditioners, fix heating fans, replace water heaters, and fix dish washers. He’d never slept with anyone from the bars they hung out in. He had no exes. Well, not really.

He had no tattoos.

Red got off the bed and handed Hal the top to the wetsuit. It would never fully cover the tall man. It was too tight and too short.

It would have to do.

A knock on the door made Red look up. Hal was grinning, tossing the wetsuit shirt from hand to hand.

“That must be Christy,” he announced happily.

Before Red could made a comment, his best friend strode to the motel door and whipped it open.

Just outside, the blonde bimbo from the night before was holding a cardboard tray with three white cartons.

“Coffee’s here,” she said brightly.

Red wanted to hit her with his truck.

***

“I need help getting the chain hooked up.”

Hal was chest deep in the inky dark pond. The cold water had his teeth chattering and his face was ghostly white. At the edge of the water, about fifty feet away, the winch off the back of Red’s truck had a cable which angled down into the water. Hal’s face was pinched with distress.

Red pulled off his jean jacket and slipped off his boots, untying and then toeing them off by the heel.

The smaller man jumped into the water, and his breath caught in his lungs. The water was ice cold to the touch, and the temperature was only about forty-five degrees, so when he stood up, the skin of his torso prickled in the frigid morning air.

“Fucking A,” Red yelled.

“Get over here before I die of hypodermia,” Hal chattered, his teeth clinking.

“Hypothermia,” Red corrected, but he quickly waded over to his friend.

There was a water-proof lantern in the pond and as Red neared, he could see the problem. The chain around the crate was twisted. The hook on the end of the cable couldn’t slip around the bunched links, and so Hal was stuck.

Diving into the water, Red swam towards the light. His hand reached down to loosen the chain. He placed his palm on the box and the other reached for the chain. That thought bobbed to the surface of his brain again.

The veil is thinnest…

“Ow!” he reacted, interrupting his reverie. Red quickly stood and lifted his hand.

There was a black stain on his palm and there was something stuck in the meat of his right thumb. Without thinking, he pulled out the rusty metal object. He peered at it in the bleak light radiating from the back of his truck. It was a mangled tiny bowl of some kind, or a thimble or something.

Red rinsed his palm in the water and the blood plumed the surface of the pond.

“What was that?” Hal asked, and then added. “Can you hurry up? I can’t feel my toes anymore.”

Red nodded and crouched down into the water. The chain was bunched, but a couple of twists and it settled into place. He grabbed the dangling hook and attached it. Standing back up, he gave Hal a thumbs up and waded back to the edge of the pond.

Shivering in the morning cold, he ran the lever, and the cable tightened, at first not doing anything. Then slowly, laboriously, the line began spooling. Hal jumped back, and he waded towards the truck.

As his best friend stepped out of the water, the blonde bimbo, Christy, wrapped him in a big beach towel, and rubbed his shoulders. She was cooing at him. He was whispering back to her.

Red wanted to be sick.

***

Red sat on the tailgate of his pickup swinging his legs, just like when he was a kid. His mom would go out to celebrate, and set him on the edge of the metal door jutting out from the back of their old, blue Ford pickup. She’d have a picnic basket packed for the party. The others all brought food. There were always several families around.

He remembered, sometimes the weather was cold and damp. Most of the time he recalled the afternoons were sunny and warm.

It was usually nice enough out in the woods. He and the other kids would run around playing games, usually with swordplay or a kind of hide and seek. Red remembered one boy a few years older who had a big cloak and a staff and he’d march around and organize the games.

The memory made Red smile.

Maybe that’s what sparked all this.

Red jumped down from the tailgate and walked over to the passenger side door of his red Ranger truck. He opened it, flipped the lever on the side of the seat, and pulled the back forward. He reached down and grabbed the handles of a bag. It wasn’t heavy, but it was full.

The man pulled it free and closed the truck door. Walking around to the back of the truck, he remembered more things.

His mother’s loaf of Lammas bread, smelling of honey and nuts, rich. It was the smell of fall before the leaves turned or the nights became cooler. He loved Lammas because school was still out, and yet they got to eat tons of food and play in the woods. At night, there’d be a huge bonfire.

They were sweet memories.

Red had stopped attending the feasts and abandoned the old ways when he was a teen. He didn’t want to be teased about his pagan faith. At first, he didn’t miss it, at all. Over the last few years, that had changed, especially after losing his mother.

This year he’d gone to Beltane festivities and hung around the edge of the party outside the woods in Warren. He got misty-eyed remembering his mother’s huge baskets of flowers she’d haul in the back of that old rusty truck. They’d dance and sing, and at night the kids would make little May baskets with treats and freshly cropped grass and drop them off at people’s tents.

Throughout the summer, he tried not to think about the joy of the summer solstice or about Lammas bread baked from the wheat of the summer. By the time Mabon came around at the end of September, he couldn’t resist. He celebrated the autumnal equinox with wine at the setting sun and with a horn filled with apples and grapes at his feet. Red felt nothing except a sense of loss and a brooding feeling of loneliness.

As he walked around the meadow on that September evening, he’d stopped to pour libations onto tree roots, and he remembered. Red thought about how his mother prepared for the feasts. She’d start collecting the herbs and candles, the implements, and readied outfits. It wasn’t a night. It wasn’t a feast. It was a festival, and preparing for the event was even a bigger part than the big Yule fires or the Imbolc circle of candles. Preparing for the holiday was as important as the day itself.

Red started collecting things for Samhain right after his solitary Mabon. He went into the woods and picked oak leaves and acorns, pine cones and wild sage. From his closet, each day he’d look through photos and found ones of his mother, his grandparents, his brother and his father. His father wasn’t dead, but he thought a picture on the altar would be appropriate.

Red bought new cider and chose the perfect pumpkins. He bought a bale of straw and constructed a king-of-winter, like he did as a kid. He stuffed the straw man with dried herbs and fragrant, dried fruit.

Tonight was the most blessed Samhain, the holiest of nights in his faith. As he opened the bag, he pulled out each item one by one, remembering and saying a prayer for each thing. He laid each one side by side in the back of the pickup on the tailgate. This was his altar, his place to call to the Green Man and witness the Mother become the Crone. He’d celebrate it here in the woods alone and surrounded by the souls crowding this place.

After he carefully placed each item on the bed of the truck, Red stripped off his shoes and socks. He paused, looked around the abandoned land and at the dark pond that had contained the crate filled with bricks and garbage, and felt at home.

He continued stripping his clothes. Red would be skyclad tonight when he embraced his religion again. He’d greet the dying summer king as he came into the world; naked and open to the world. He’d cry out like he did at his birth, begging for the Lady to embrace him, suckle him, one last time, at her bountiful breast.

Red threw his underwear beneath the truck and stood akimbo before the makeshift altar.

“I’m ready for you my king and my queen.”

Nothing happened. There were birds chirping in the waning of the light, but the veil hadn’t thinned. Not yet.

Red took a drink of wine and felt it slosh into his empty gullet. He breathed deeply. The cold air made him cough. After catching his breath again, the man shouted, “Come to me, my god and goddess. I’m here for you!”

He felt nothing.

Red walked around the truck, the cold air making his skin pimple and his muscles twitch. What was he forgetting? Sure, he had no fire, but that wasn’t important. It was his head and heart that mattered, not the external items. He didn’t need to feel his gods in the presence of others; the woods were filled with them and their attendants.

What was he missing?

Above him, the dark branches and dead leaves rustled in the gusts of a chill wind. The moon was just beginning to rise, the stars were faint as a backdrop. Maybe if he turned off the truck lights, he would begin to feel the holiday.

As he listened, he shivered, the cold getting to him. He coughed again. It was so lonely.

The naked man stopped, realizing he’d stripped himself of everything except for one thing.

He smiled, and with both hands, reached back to undo his silver choker. As he lifted it off, he placed it on his left palm. It had been a present from Hal, years ago. It spelled out his name. No, not his real name. It contained his false name.

Red.

He hefted the real silver chain in his hand, remembering the good times with Hal, and realized they were over. Boyd, that was his true name, cast the silver necklace into the dark pond. It immediately sank into the water.

At first, nothing happened. The night was the same, until he heard it.

The veil is thinnest…

Boyd felt his heart sing, his pulse raced, when he recognized the voice speaking to him. It was his mother. She’d come to be with him. He knew it and he heard the same voice through the wind in the trees and amongst the trees.

The veil is thinnest and the gods give us our odr, our inspiration…

His mother told him about how your odr overtook you and told you truths. Your odr would never betray you. Your odr was your destiny, your hope, your inspiration, and your muse. It was the best gift the aging goddess and the dying god could give. It was from Odin, the all-knowing. It was his fate whispered from the lungs of the trees and the whirls of the wind.

It overtook the man who was Boyd and he danced to the music of the wind in the trees. The breath that had chilled and made him cough was gone. In its place, he felt invigorated and filled with joy.

The cold that pricked at his skin was gone. Boyd felt the glow of happiness and the calm of purpose. He’d hung around here long enough mourning his mother. His old home was safe and this is where she’d left him, in the woods of Michigan. But, now that had passed.

…the gods give us our odr, our inspiration, and our fate.

Boyd was so excited to hear his mother’s voice once more. Only on Samhain when the veil is thinnest, could his mother come and guide him like she had when he was a child.

He’d healed and knew he must leave.

A blackbird in a tree above the pond, took off. Boyd watched as it flew south. It was a sign. His odr whispered to him, to go south to meet his destiny. It was the sign he’d been waiting for.

His mother was smiling at him, encouraging him to embrace his destiny. The goddess, now wise, and the god, fading, had sent his mother to deliver the message. He knew that was the truth. His mother had came to him, finally.

Boyd gathered his materials. He’d leave tonight, wondering what the fates had for him next. For the first time, he knew he was ready.