The smell of fried chicken filled the air of the kitchen as Dad and I cooked dinner the next night. It was a comfortable routine we'd established in my time here. Some nights he would prepare the main entrée and I would make a side salad or steam some vegetables. Other times, like tonight, I did the majority of the cooking and he handled the side dish. It was carrots and rice tonight.
"So," I started conversationally, "I've been meaning to ask you, how do you buy stock in your own company anonymously?"
His laugh bounced around the room as he sliced the vegetables. "It's pretty easy to do with online trading. Of course, the broker and the company know who I am—they would even if I wasn't the owner—but it's very easy to list it all as a secret. I did it exactly for this reason, too. I knew that someday, someone would try to take it from me. Oak Isle is a very coveted piece of land. We have a deal with the owner now, but I bet Duke's been trying to get him to end it as well. With our discovery in the swamp, I imagine Ralph—he's the guy who owns the island—won't budge on our deal."
"I guess that's nice security," I chuckled. "Do I get to hear what your big plan to drain the pit is now?"
Glancing over, I saw the grin that graced his face so easily. "Not tonight. I want to show everyone tomorrow. You up for a bit of a road trip before?"
"Where to?"
"Just upstate, to the next city. I need to stop by and pick up some drills."
"I guess that'll be fine. Do we have time to do any shopping? I'd like to grab a few more outfits and some new tennis shoes. The ones I have now kinda got destroyed by the swamp."
"No problem," he answered, shrugging. "I'm sure there's a mall or something there."
Dinner passed quickly as we discussed our plans for the next day, a slight excitement to our speech.
The next morning found us in the car, windows down as we sped across the highway to Crawfordsville. Dad was humming along to the radio, lost in his own thoughts as I watched the coast. Everything here was just so . . . green. I still couldn't believe it. The desert did get colorful at times, but nothing like this. It was like my whole adventure here had turned into some kind of make believe paradise. By the time we were in the city, I'd decided that maybe it wasn't so bad Dad wanted to leave me everything. A life on the coast could be my type of life.
"Do you want me to drop you off and go to Beman's by myself?" Dad asked as we passed through town. "They're going to drive the drills out after us, so it needs to be the last thing we do."
"That's good with me," I replied, smiling happily. "I shouldn't be too long."
"Awesome." He turned into the parking lot of a strip mall and let me out, promising to be about thirty or forty minutes. With my wallet in hand, I made my way to the chain shoe store on the end, hoping to find some good work shoes that could withstand the island.
Forty minutes later, I found myself sitting on the sidewalk, a couple shopping bags around me, as Dad pulled up. On the main street, I could see several large drilling trucks heading out of town.
"They knew where to go." Dad laughed as I slid into my seat.
"Of course." I smiled. "The Treasure Pit has probably given them lots of business over the years."
"Yeah, I'm still glad I came, though. There were a few things that needed ironed out and we would have had to send them back if they'd come the way they were set up. What a waste of money that would have been, eh?"
"Well, I got some actual work boots and pants, so I'd say the trip was a success." We drove through the lot and pulled back onto the street, an excitement that wasn't present before in the car filling me to the brim. "Would you please tell me what the plan is?" I finally blurted out. "I've been dying to know."
"Fine, fine." He grinned, waving his hand. "I'll tell you." He paused for a moment to take a drink out of his water bottle and adjust the sunglasses on his face. "Okay. The pit has a flood tunnel in it somewhere, right? Every time we get down to eighty or ninety feet, water pours in and no amount of pumps we've used can get it out. So, I got to thinking. What if instead of drilling in the actual pit, we put some holes down around it in several places and pump out of those? The water isn't getting a chance to make it all the way to the pit then and it won't flood as bad. I'm guessing we'll have some liquid in the bottom, but only a few feet instead of hundreds."
"That could work," I agreed, nodding. "But we don't know exactly where the flood tunnel is, do we?"
"We don't. That's why we have to drill a couple holes—so we can pump out any water we hit. If we can locate the actual tunnel this way, then we can go back and block it off completely, get rid of it at the source."
"What if there's more than one?"
"Then we'll do the same thing." He looked so happy, so sure of himself as he spoke. It wasn't a mystery that his crew followed him so willingly. The way he explained his plans, the sound of his voice tumbling over itself in excitement, made anyone feel like he could rule the world if he wanted to. He had characteristics that reminded me of Mom as well, something that made me more pleased to see him each day.
"You know, Dad, I think you're actually going to do it. You're going to solve the Treasure Pit. I don't know when or how, this could be it, but I know you're going to do it. It doesn't seem possible for you not to. You were made to be part of it."
"Thanks, Sammy," he said in surprise. "That means a lot. I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive about what you would think of all this over time. I'm sure your Mom wasn't very supportive of it. I was worried you'd feel like you'd let her down somehow by being here."
"No. She wanted us to spend more time together. I'm sure she would have been happy about all of it, even if we hadn't found anything."
"Well, you're my good luck charm, Samantha. We didn't find anything until you were here. The superstitious side of me says it has something to do with you." Smiling widely once more, he glanced over at me as I laughed.
"If you say so."
****
The four drill trucks had parked in their assigned spots and were readying to begin, one at a time, in case something went wrong or the ground shifted. After the holes were finished, the trucks would then switch out to their pumping gear and get to work. The whole crew was standing on the scaffolding around the pit, waiting anxiously for a sign of anything. It was a long process, and one of the trucks ended up having to move because they were hitting rock, but eventually, all four of them were pumping water out.
"Four different tunnels," Scott said in awe.
"Or a couple big ass ones," Mark stated, arms folded as he watched one drill closely. "I wonder if any of them feed into the swamp, with the way it keeps refilling itself."
"The bog is fresh water," Dad answered, shaking his head. "We know that this is salt, from the ocean."
"How long until we can get down there into the pit?" I butted in. "Will it take long to drain?"
Glancing down into the hole, Dad shrugged. "We'll have to look in the morning and see how it's doing. I can't tell any difference right now."
"I'll check that the hoses are draining fine," Scott offered, stepping off the scaffolding and heading in the direction of the runoff. "Make sure we aren't spewing anything into the ocean that shouldn't be there."
"Thanks, Scott," Dad called after him, raising a hand in farewell. "Well, Sammy. Ready to call it a night?"
"Let's go home and sleep so we can come out here and find out what's going on." I laughed.
"Treasure bug," Mark smirked, stepping down as well. "It's got you good!"
"As long as it gives me a treasure worth the trouble, I'm fine with it." I grinned.
"See you tomorrow," he said to both of us, walking over to his car.
"Does anyone need to stay and watch the pump?" I asked, suddenly wondering about the work crews.
"It can run through the night on its own," Dad explained. "The crews will go back to the shop, save two guys to help make sure everything is working right. They're staying at a hotel here. We'll come out first thing and check on it all. Hopefully, we'll have an empty hole to dig in!"
****
"Grab that rope and see if you can help the machine get it up!"
Dad was yelling at me from the bottom of the pit, but I was having a hard time hearing him. Finally, after shutting off the machine that was helping to haul mud out of the bottom, I realized that the levy had gotten stuck. Grabbing the rope he'd pointed to, I flipped the switch back on and pulled with all my might. Thankfully, everything started moving as it should again. Looking down into the hole, I could see Dad sloshing around with his shovel.
Two days earlier, we'd come out to find the pit empty, save three feet of water that was constantly leaking in. For the first time, we'd been able to dig below ninety feet—further than anything but a drill had been able to do before—and block off the flood tunnel. The morale of the whole crew could have powered an entire city.
"Hey, Sam," Mark grunted, climbing out of the pit from the extra ladder we'd hastily put together. He was covered in mud from head to toe, but the grin on his face couldn't be beat. "Can you believe it? I was just in the bottom of The Treasure Pit. Without a wet suit!"
"I know." I beamed at him. "It feels great! I can't even imagine how it must be for all of you. I've hardly been here at all and I feel like walking on air. All of your hard work is starting to pay off. That must be amazing."
"It is." He nodded, crossing the scaffolding to the small table I'd set up to hold drinking water and cups. After gulping down a few swallows, he wiped a dirty hand across his mouth and stared up at the sky. "Every day has been a beautiful day, you know? Take that you stinky old curse!" At that, he flipped the sky off and stuck his tongue out.
"What curse would that be?" I snickered, watching him with interest.
"Something always goes wrong. No matter how great it's been, no matter how you prepare, something will happen. So keep your fingers crossed, sound good?"
Doing as he asked, I crossed my fingers as I snickered, moving to help Scott unload the giant bucket of mud we'd just pulled up.
"How's it going up there?" Dad called.
"Good," I yelled. "Let me get this mud taken care of and I'll come down to help again after I send the bucket back."
"Sounds go—" He was cut short by a strange rumbling around us. It sounded like a rockslide, but from far away.
"Get out!" Scott screamed, grabbing my wrist and yanking me away from the pit.
In slow motion, as I was pulled away, I saw Dad scrambling for the ladder, throwing himself on it and climbing as fast as he could. Then I was looking at Scott, who had terror written all over his face as he pulled me to him, flinging both of us off the scaffolding. The rumbling sound got louder, the ground moving beneath us, one of the pumps sputtering and sliding, and then I was face down on the ground, a mouthful of dirt suffocating me. A ringing filled my ears as time continued to slow down, finding me struggling to get to my feet.
My brain couldn't comprehend what I was seeing as I turned around. Dust was heavy in the air, one edge of the scaffolding broken and hanging down into the pit. The opening was larger than it had been before, having caved in somewhere underground and dropped the top several feet. The water pump on that side had fallen into a depression as well, balancing haphazardly on the edge of the solid ground and the mulched earth underneath. Poking way up out of the ground like some type of imagined skyscraper, the ladder we'd been using to get in and out was busted.
All around me, I heard coughing and swearing, until the ringing in my ears came to a sudden stop.
"Dad!" I screamed so loudly that it felt like my throat tore itself open in that very instant. Scrambling to my feet, I pulled myself up onto the piece of scaffolding that was still in place and looked over into the pit, my heart pounding. As much as I didn't want to see what was down there, I knew I had to look.
All of the work we'd done was gone. Fresh dirt and mud had filled the hole at least halfway up. Everywhere was a mess. Broken scaffolding bits were poking out here and there, small bits of rock crumbling into the bottom.
And there was no Dad.
"Oh my god," I whispered, feeling the same shell shock as when I'd seen my mother's dead body. Repeating the phrase, with shaking hands, I pushed away, crawling across the platform until I fell back onto the ground. I realized then that I hadn't been the only one looking, as Scott stumbled down next to me, Mark swearing hatefully behind us. "We have to get him out," I insisted to Scott, looking at him with wide eyes. "He could still be alive! There could be an air pocket and he only has a few minutes left!"
"Samantha, he's buried," he explained with a shaky voice. "We can try to dig him out, but without the pump—"
"The ground crushed the ladder straight across," Mark said, coming up next to us. "There's no way it could break like that and not have been hit with a good amount of force." His jaw was working furiously, his eyes blinking rapidly, and I suddenly realized he was trying to keep from crying.
"Oh no," I moaned, scooting away from the both of them. "Oh no no no no no! Please! There has to be a chance!" In a spurt of decision, I dashed past both of them, jumping back onto the platform and making my way to the edge.
"Sam!" Eric appeared out of nowhere, grabbing me around the waist and pulling back from the opening.
"Let me go!" I screamed. "Someone has to help him!" In the hours that followed, to me it seemed that all I could hear were my screams caught in the trees, slamming themselves against the earth that had taken from me the only family I had left.