Living Legends

33) Jack's Explorations

            The solution suddenly came to him—he wasn’t in any ordinary pool.  He wasn’t even in an ordinary cave.  He was in a blowhole.

            Grinning with the success of his discovery, Jack stared in fascination at the opening directly above his head.  It all made sense.  He couldn’t wait to tell Hayley.

            Crap—Hayley! His sense of excitement quickly ebbed away like the water around him.  He sucked in a huge breath of air and dove back under.  When he swam back into the large underwater cave that connected the two tunnels, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye.  Buried partly in the sand were two glimmering points of light.

            Jack paused, and his body automatically began floating upwards.  He clung to the wall to keep himself from rising.  With one hand, he scooped his fingers into the sand and came up with two tarnished, but otherwise perfectly shaped, coins.

            No way.

            Those were the only thoughts running through his head as he gaped at the coins.  His heart pounded wildly in his chest.  He couldn’t believe it.  A shiver of delight ran from his fingers to the rest of his body.  No way!

            Other than their tarnished surfaces, the coins were in mint condition.  Jack turned them between his fingers, unwilling to believe what he was seeing.  This couldn’t be real.  After all he and Hayley had been through, could the treasure actually still exist? Could it be somewhere inside this underwater cave? Could it even be right under his fingertips?

            Jack wasted no more time.  He stuck the two coins in his pocket and began digging.  As sand mushroomed around him, floating lazily upwards, he came up with four more coins.  These were also in excellent condition, with strange markings and various sizes and hues.  It was amazing.  To his dismay, Jack could not find anything else.  He stuck the coins in his pocket and resurfaced in the pool, then dove underwater again.  He dug throughout the entirety of the cave, but came up empty-handed each time.  His movements became slower and less enthusiastic.  Were these six coins the only evidence of his ancestor’s treasure? Was that all?

            There has to be more, Jack thought, disappointed.  There has to be.  But the more he searched, the more he proved himself wrong.

            He resurfaced in the pool one last time.  Amazement and excitement had quickly dissolved into frustration. Oh, well.  Clyde had asked for evidence, and evidence is what he would get.  It seemed like the rest of the treasure was gone.

            That’s when Jack heard it—another loud smack, followed by a strange gurgle, and then something terribly unexpected: a rumble.  It seemed like the wall across from him was shaking.  Was this some sort of underwater earthquake?

            Before Jack could react, he saw the sand at the opposite side of the underwater cave suddenly begin draining away.  The water became murky with all the particles floating around.  A few seconds later, the rumbling stopped.

            Jack tentatively swam forward.  A strong current, which hadn’t been there before, pulled him towards the narrow opening that had suddenly appeared at the base of the cave.  Sand and water were sucked through, creating a miniature whirlpool.  Fortunately, Jack was too big to fit through the six-inch-wide hole.  He watched in fascination as the current grew stronger and stronger.  The water in the pool was draining at an extremely fast rate.  All of a sudden, it slowed again, creating a miniature dam of sand that blocked the small hole.

            Jack was amazed.  Did the water displacement somehow affect this little hole? Was it like some sort of drainage system for the bigger blowhole, which was on the opposite side of the cave?

            That’s it! His mouth dropped open in shock, releasing another torrent of air bubbles.  He quickly swam over to the pool and resurfaced.  Water droplets poured from his hair and skin.  A drainage system…

            The blowhole and miniature current worked as opposites.  While the blowhole spouted water, the smaller hole drained sand—and treasure.  Jack figured he had only found six coins because the rest of the treasure had been sucked through the hole.  He rubbed his eyes, unaccustomed to this overload of information.

            The next question, then, was where did the treasure go? Did the hole lead to open ocean, or to another cave? Jack realized with a stab of guilt that he had gotten so caught up in his excitement that he had completely forgotten about Hayley.

            No! He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for her life.  He had wasted too much time in this strange connection of tunnels and caves.  For all he knew, Clyde believed Jack to have drowned and already shot Hayley.  Jack needed to get back to the surface.

            With the coins still jangling in the pocket of his jeans, Jack dove underwater and swam to the original tunnel.  In his haste, he scraped his shoulders against the rocky sides.  But that was only the least of his worries.  Panic quickly settled in.  Please let her be alive.  Please let her be alive!

            Once the bottom was shallow enough to stand, Jack forced himself through the opening of the tunnel and stumbled to his feet.  He was back in the tidepool.  With a loud cry, he announced, “Wait! I found it!”

            But it was too late.  The first noise he heard was the deafening echo of a gunshot across the beach.