Treasures you forsake, p.1
Treasures You Forsake, page 1
Treasures You Forsake
A novel
By: Curt Cagle
Please be sure to check out Curt Cagle’s other books available in e-book or paperback.
RETREAT
RETRIEVE
RETRACE
(The Battles Trilogy)
and
SPECTRUM
Thank you for your interest in my writings. I would be grateful if you would give of your time by posting a review wherever you purchased the book. As an indie author, it helps.
I can be found at the following:
Follow and like me on Facebook @curtcaglebooks
Email – curtcaglebooks@yahoo.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
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Contact
Chapter 1
The strongest cold front of the season was barreling southward, sure to make itself noticed even as far as the coast. “Hey, don’t you think you’d better be leaving by now, if you want to get there before dark?” Anna asked in a loud tone, so as to be heard from the distance between them.
Mike instinctively turned his head toward the house and the source of the suggestion. He raised his hand and gave a nod, then went back to the task at hand. Moments later he glanced up to see her still standing there. “I’ll be right in.” He paused then grunted, “You’re the one who thought the lawn equipment needed winterized.” She spun on her heel and disappeared from the deck, back into the house. His eyes rolled and he huffed audibly.
It was January and he was a little tardy in his responsibility to the yard implements. Like many things around the house needing repair or extra attention, they had been overlooked or seen as unimportant. After all, it’s Mobile, Alabama, where the grass hardly takes a break to go dormant anyway. He’d be using the stuff again before the gas would have time to gum up the fuel lines. He finished the blower and checked his watch. “She’s probably right," he thought. The smell of gasoline vapors permeated the air. He hadn’t noticed so much, until he left the shed and pulled the doors together, getting a sudden influx of fresh air. It had a salty flavor with an edge of fish in the aromatic bouquet; definitely coastal. He took in a deep breath as he put the pad lock into place. To Mike Casey the air smelled like freedom, it always had, ever since he came to work in the shipyards from college. The lock clicked and he turned toward the house. Indeed, his grass was still green in spots. He followed the beaten path that meandered through the backyard to the wooden steps of the small aging deck. The handrail shifted laterally as he guided his steps up, but he was so used to its poor condition that he took no notice. The screen door at least had a strong spring, and it slammed shut behind him announcing his entry.
Anna was washing up the breakfast dishes and briefly glanced in his direction before silently returning her gaze to the suds. He caught her eyes with his in that moment and knew she wasn’t pleased with his attitude. He took a step forward and she loudly cleared her throat. Upon that warning, he stepped sideways back out the door and wiped his shoes off on the welcome mat, finishing the job with two stomps that were more intended as a protest sign than as a means of cleaning the boots. Two of the mat’s letters had been worn into submission from years of abrasion.
“Your clothes are in a duffel bag on the bed.”
“Thanks,” he begrudgingly uttered.
“Are you still planning on being back tomorrow?”
“Yeah. The boss said that I could have one bereavement day. I’ll go up there this afternoon, and go to the courthouse tomorrow. Don’t you think they’ll be open on Monday?”
“Should be,” she said.
“Anyway, I thought I would be back to work on Tuesday and figured I’d find some other time to get back up there whenever they get his ashes ready or whenever we decide to spread them somewhere.”
There was no response, so he moved on to wash his hands in the bathroom sink. He put his bag by the front door and saw that his keys were missing from the hook. “Have you seen my keys?”
“Are they in your pocket?” She yelled back.
He rolled his eyes and moved his mouth to silently mimic her words, then thought it best to check his pockets. Nothing. “I’m not that dumb,” he yelled back in return. He walked into the kitchen where Anna was drying and returning the last dish to the cupboard.
“Then I don’t know, but I’ll help you find them,” she said, then mumbled, “Like I always do.”
“Hey, before you do. Am I wrong for not having some kind of memorial service?”
She paused. “Who would come? I don’t mean for that to sound bad, but you’re the only family he had. Ever since your mom died, he shut himself off to everyone.”
“Yeah, I get it. Basically a hermit,” Mike added.
“I’m sorry, but I think your mom’s death pushed him out of reality or something.” Suddenly feeling sympathy, she asked, “You okay with all this?”
“I got over him a long time ago. Mom’s been dead ten years now, and he hated me for longer than that, probably back to when I quit college. Heck, actually way before that.”
“I know. It’s just a sad situation. I’ll find your keys.” She gave him an efforted hug as she moved past him, to which he patted her once on the back. The coffee pot was still steaming but much darker than it was when he had his first cup this morning. He reached up to the top shelf of the cupboard and pulled down his work thermos. A jingling sound came from the shelf as the move was made. Bewildered, he reached up blindly to investigate the source. He pulled down his keys and stared at them in his open palm. There was no explanation for the discovery, so he continued in wonder, transfixed by the key’s location.
“I can’t find them. Which pants did you wear Friday?” Anna asked as she turned the corner, then saw them in his hand. “Oh, you found them. Where were they?”
The question pulled him back from his thoughts. “Um, my back pocket. Sorry. I must’ve moved them when I was working on the lawn mower.”
“Oh, okay.”
He filled the thermos with the remainder of the coffee and checked his watch. “I should get there just before dark. I’ll do what I can to secure the place and go back to Florence for a hotel room.” He walked toward the door to leave, but she reached for his hand as he passed. “Mike, I’m sorry about your dad, and I do love you.”
He was stoic, but then curved one side of his mouth up into a halfhearted smile. “I love you, too.” There was no hug or kiss, only an awkward moment of silence before he pulled his hand away to grab the door knob. She watched his departure through tear filled eyes as his small white pickup truck left behind a hint of blue-gray smoke.
. . .
The trip from the southern tip of Alabama to the northwestern corner town of Waterloo would take a little more than six hours. He opted for the interstate route through Montgomery and Birmingham rather than a more direct route north on US 45 through the eastern edge of Mississippi, thinking that he could more easily speed and makeup additional time on the interstate. However, traffic snarled to a crawl south of Birmingham as he encountered roadwork. That, combined with the short days of January was going to push his arrival back to the very edge of dusk.
The sun was touching the tree-lined horizon as he pulled into the familiar driveway. He had forgotten how remote his old childhood home actually was. If anything, it was more desolate now that it had been when he attended Waterloo High School. The old Jet-Pep gas station near the edge of town was shuttered closed, and two old homes along the way weren’t even there anymore. Time had certainly reclaimed the area. He looked down at the cement drive after he straightened his truck through the stone pillars that marked the entrance. There it was, a tribute to his efforts in aiding his father long ago. Mike – 10; etched into the concrete at a time when the relationship was good. He stopped the car, staring at it intently. “Ten years old,” he thought, “and I can remember it like it was yesterday.” He eased the pressure off the break, allowing the car to crawl forward, but he craned his neck, watching the engraved letters and numbers till the distance caused him to turn back to the drive. As he climbed over a small hill with the truck, the old home place came into view.
The house he knew was gone, as it had been for ten years. Why his father never cleared the ground of the debris, he didn’t know. Tree saplings of a various sort grew within its footprint. The pines had to be thirty feet tall. Much of the charred remnants were covered with vines and weeds, but one corner of the house still stood, perhaps being braced by a few of those pines. He stopped the truck and turned off the key, unable to pull his gaze from the burned-out remains of the house. A brick lined sidewalk curved into a couple of
The truck door creaked as he slammed it hard to ensure that the latch fastened. A noticeably cold wind was already awaiting his arrival. It bit into his skin at the collar, immediately causing a shiver. He grabbed his coat and slid it on. With the sun setting directly behind the remnants of the house, he stood and tried to remember the happier times, but it all seemed unreal against the backdrop. It was all gone; the good times, the youthful hope of the future, his parents, the house. And the next most likely victim on the chopping block, though he tried to pretend to the contrary, was his marriage. He knew it. She knew it. But they found that for now, it was easier to build a wall of emotional numbness than to quit the marriage. But where was the tipping point? How much longer did he have before that too would be gone? The thought of his wife reminded him to pull out his cell phone and text her about his arrival. (“I’m here.” – Send.)
An immediate tone alerted him that no towers were close enough for service and the message failed to send. “I tried.” There wasn’t much to see where the house used to be, and he began a slow casual walk around one side toward the barn where his father had taken up residence for the last ten years. “There were worse places to stay,” he supposed, though he would have been hard-pressed to think of one. The barn had been home to a pair of horses when his mother was living, both of which were taken by the authorities in the initial months that followed her death. “Malnourishment issues,” he figured. His father also had a workshop within the barn where he made woodcraft projects in his free time, a craft that Mike was intrigued by, but never took the time to learn. Without a place to live, his father, John, had converted the front half of the barn into a living space for himself. The addition of the covered front porch was probably the best part of the barn in Mike’s opinion. The barn sat at a ninety-degree angle to the back of the original home and gave a spectacular view of the sunset and the wooded hills below. Mike stepped onto the porch. His weight caused the boards to squeak against a few loosened nails. He froze in place at the side of the rocking chair near the door. It was his mother’s favorite thing that his father had ever made her. Mike remembered the Christmas that she received it. He figured that he might have been eight or nine years old. It was obvious that the fire had done damage as a few back slats and one arm were not the original wood and were stained a lighter color.
The Sheriff’s deputy that had called him last week said that two hunters had come across his father’s body still in the chair on the porch. An autopsy had been done to make certain that no foul play had taken place. It hadn’t. Natural causes – was the official word from the coroner’s office last Thursday. The body had been on the porch for about two weeks, the thought of which sickened him. “At least it was January,” he thought. That was also taken into account by the coroner who commented that the body remarkably showed only mild deterioration. Mike pulled the screen door against its rusty hinges and let it rest on his back while the main door was opened. It was unlocked, which was a relief because he didn’t have a key. His hand patted around the wall near the door jam in search of a light switch. When he found it, he flipped it up. Nothing. It was far darker inside the barn than he anticipated. The flashlight function of his cell phone was employed to get a brief look around the place. It was warmer inside, to which he breathed another sigh of relief. The propane three-brick heater must still be on. That was one of his primary concerns for the trip. He pictured a frozen water line having thawed and soaking everything. But that wasn’t the case. He insured the water lines safety by opening the cabinet door below the sink and in the bathroom. “I’ll turn the water off in the morning at the meter,” he thought. The living area of the barn didn’t actually look as bad as he imagined it would. A desk, which was another product of his father’s woodworking skills and was also another obvious salvage from the fire was near a window. The light there was reasonably useful with the remaining moments of a glowing western sky. A thick layer of dust was on top of several wooden paperweights and a damaged picture of he and his parents. He picked it up and blew the dust off. ‘Welcome to the Great Smoky Mountains’, the large sign in the picture read. Mike, probably around eleven years old, sat with his father at his side on a stone masonry bench in front of the sign, and his mom was seated in front of them. Mike stared at the picture, trying to remember the trip. It was Gatlinburg, Tennessee for sure. He remembered glimpses of the town and that was about it. He didn’t however, remember the picture being taken at all, and wondered who his mother Eleanor, would have found to take it. “Could have been any stranger nearby,” he supposed. His mother had an approachable way about her, a nonthreatening and friendly countenance that allowed her to make friends in an instant. She wasn’t intimidating in the least. Their smiles in the picture were wide and genuine. Mike took note of his father’s arm over his shoulder. “Where did that guy go?” By the time he walked back onto the porch, the temperature had seemed to have dropped even further. He jogged to the truck with both hands finding refuge deep in the pockets of his coat.
. . .
Florence was a college town, with a population high enough to sustain a few hotel choices. He drove through the downtown section of businesses, shops, and restaurants. It seemed a little more deserted than he thought it would be. Then he recalled that it was Sunday night, and classes would be starting early in the morning. That, in conjunction with the cold air now blowing through, all but ensured the streets would be empty. He pulled into the first hotel he came to, grabbed the duffel bag from the truck bed, and pressed the lock button on his keychain as he dropped them in his pocket. He shook off the cold, quite literally, as he entered the warmth of the building. At the desk, a young woman smiled graciously, “Hello, will you be needing a room?”
“Yes.” He began to pry into his back pocket for his wallet while the clerk began to peck at the computer keyboard in front of her. He had the wallet spread open on the countertop before she got to her next question.
“Just for one?” She asked.
“Yep, just me and just for tonight.”
“All right,” she replied without looking up from the busywork of her fingers. “What size bed would you like?”
He shook his head and pursed his lips. “Whatever you’ve got. It doesn’t matter.”
She completed the transaction with the customary reminder of the free breakfast that would be available from six till nine in the morning, and a description of how to get to his room.
In the room, he turned on the TV for a more comfortable background noise and set about preparing to relax. He remembered his earlier text message to Anna that had failed to send. “Where’s my phone?” He mumbled aloud. He searched every pocket of his pants and coat, then went back to the truck to see if it was there. Nothing. He stopped at the desk again to see if perhaps he left it there, which he didn’t. He considered for a moment calling Anna on the front desk phone, then immediately realized that he didn’t know her number anymore, since they changed cell carriers and got new numbers back in the summer.
“We’ll let you know if anyone turns one in,” he was assured by the clerk. He shook his head without a word and slowly walked back to the elevator and into his room.
In the room, he crashed hard into the loveseat, slid off his shoes, and propped his feet carefully onto a glass topped coffee table. Pointing the remote, he found a news channel and did his best to lose his personal problems in the larger more distant problems of the world. That worked until he found the note in the overnight bag. It was folded into a square and written on the Anna’s personal stationary. It had been a gift for Christmas from her mother. Anna’s initials were conspicuously printed on every lilac page in the lower left corner in elaborate cursive letters.
“Mike, you’ve always been my love. But we have a problem. I know it’s as much me as anything and I’m sorry for that. We drifted apart and we have to work on that. I know now isn’t the best time to fix our issues, especially with your father’s death, but I honestly couldn’t wait. My heart hurts over us, because it seems that you don’t care anymore. Please prove me wrong. – Anna.
