Dunc Breaks the Record (5 page)

All this time Milt had been crouched, watching them in silence. Now he stood and started to take off his shorts.

“That’s all right.” Amos held up his hand. “You can keep them—for hygiene.”

Amos put the pieces back into the small box, folded the board, and put it all on his pile.

“You won the board too?” Dunc asked.

Amos tapped his temple. “It’s all up here, Dunc—checker master. It’s all here.” He turned to Milt. “So since the gaming is over and there doesn’t seem to be any reason to be here, I guess we could take
our
stuff and put it in
our
boat and head on down the river for civilization.” He turned toward the entrance.

Milt jumped to his feet, and for a moment it seemed he would make the funny moves and stop Amos.

Instead he whirled and moved to the dark at the side of the cave. He hunched over scrabbling in the dirt, then came back and held something out to Amos.

It seemed to be a metal bar, a piece of steel, until the light from the candle hit it.

It shone a deep, bright yellow.

“It’s gold,” Dunc said. “It looks like gold.”

.10

Amos and Dunc looked at the bar for a long time.

For a whole lifetime.

The blue light from the water in the grotto entrance mixed with flickering light from the candle in the jar and the shining yellow of the bar and seemed to make it come alive.

“It
is
gold,” Amos whispered. “Real gold.”

Milt nodded and held the bar out to Amos. It was heavy enough that he had to strain to hold it forward.

“I don’t believe it,” Dunc said. He moved forward. “It must be painted lead or something. Can I see it?” He held his hand out for the bar,
and Milt handed it to him. His arm dropped like a shot when the weight hit it, and he quickly used his other hand to catch it and bring it up. He examined the bar closely, holding it to better catch the light from the candle.

“It must weigh twenty pounds. And look—there’s something here, something stamped in the end.” He turned the end of the bar to the light and read.

“What is it?” Amos had been leaning forward, and he was so far off balance that he nearly fell.

“ ‘One seven six four,’ ” Dunc read slowly. “ ‘Seventeen sixty-four.’ ”

“Pirate gold,” Amos said. His hands came out and took the bar. He held it softly, like a mother holding a baby. “We’re always looking for pirate gold, and here it is.”

“In the middle of the wilderness?” Dunc shook his head. “I doubt it.” He turned to Milt. “Where did you get it? Where did it come from?”

Milt looked at Dunc, at Amos, at the bar of gold, and said nothing. He waved at the pile of gear in back of Amos and the checkerboard by the candle.

“He wants,” Dunc said softly, “to play you a
game of checkers for the bar against all the gear.”

Milt nodded, smiling.

Amos was still staring at the gold. He spoke in a hushed, reverent voice. “How much is it worth—the gold?”

Dunc thought out loud. “It’s hard to be exact without scales. Say gold is four hundred dollars an ounce, and there are sixteen ounces in a pound—that makes each pound worth sixty-four hundred dollars. If the bar weighs twenty pounds, it’s worth about a hundred and twenty-eight thousand.”

Amos swallowed. “Dollars?”

Dunc nodded.

“I’d have a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars if I played?” Amos asked.

“Well, you would if you did it—if you played him. But of course you’re not going to do that.”

“I’m not?” For the first time, Amos took his eyes off the gold. “I can beat him with my eyes closed. Are you out of your mind?”

“No.” Dunc leaned forward and whispered into Amos’s ear. “But he might be. Do you think it’s fair to take advantage of him just because you can play checkers better than he can?”

“Yes.” Amos’s voice was firm. “Absolutely.” He looked at Dunc. “He kidnapped us, remember?”

“Well—not really. I think maybe he was just lonely or something and wanted us to be company. He didn’t really hurt us or anything. I’m kind of starting to like him.” Dunc shook his head again. “I really don’t think it would be fair for you to take all this stuff and then take his last bar of gold.”

Here Milt held up his hands and shook his head violently.

“See?” Dunc said. “He doesn’t want to play.”

But Milt kept shaking his head and waving.

“No,” Amos said, “that’s not it. He’s telling us it isn’t his last bar of gold. There are more, aren’t there?”

Milt nodded. He picked up the jar with the candle and beckoned them to follow him to a flat rock the size of a small tabletop at the side of the cave. He knelt and set the bar down and put his hands on the rock. With a sudden springing movement of his arms the rock slid sideways.

“Oh.” Amos whispered. “Oh my my my my …”

Beneath the rock was a rectangular dug-out
storage hole. Nestled there, not wrapped or covered, was a stack of shiny bars exactly like the one the boys had seen.

“How”—Amos’s voice squeaked and he coughed—“how many are there?”

Dunc pointed with his finger and counted. “Eight, nine, ten, eleven. I think. Unless there are more underneath.”

Milt smiled and shook his head.

“Eleven,” Dunc repeated. “Eleven bars.”

“Eleven,” Amos said quietly, “times one hundred and twenty-eight thousand …”

Dunc knew where he was going. “Just over a million, three hundred thousand dollars.”

Amos smiled. “Isn’t math fun—you know, when it’s about something like gold bars?” He laughed. “And you were worried that he couldn’t afford to play me a game of checkers for one.”

Dunc sighed. “Amos, it doesn’t matter if he’s got a hundred bars. It’s still not right to take unfair advantage of someone this way.”

“Sometimes,” Amos hissed, “sometimes you let your rules get in the way of what’s right.”

“Amos.”

“You sound like my mother the time I didn’t
tip over Mr. Macruthers’s garbage can only he said I did only I didn’t and finally I had to take the blame anyway even though I didn’t tip it. At least not that time.”

“Amos.”

Amos’s eyes brightened. “Maybe we could cut the bar in half and only be half wrong.”

“Amos.”

“But it’s
gold
, Dunc—real
gold
.”

“Amos.”

It was still not easy. Amos clutched the gold bar, his hands tight. His eyes were first on the shining yellow metal and then on Dunc, then back on the bar. At long last he leaned back and sighed. “I guess you’re right. I mean, I think you’re wrong, but you’re right. I mean you’re rightly wrong or wrongly right. Oh, heck—I don’t know what I mean.”

He held the bar out to Milt. “Quick. Before I change my mind.”

Milt looked at the bar, at Dunc, at Amos, and then shook his head.

“Really,” Amos said. “Sometimes Dunc makes me so mad, I could spit fire, but he’s right. Take it. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Milt studied them a moment longer, then held his finger against his cheek and laughed. “Oh, man—like, this is so far-out, I can’t believe it. You guys are like, honest, really honest.”

.11

“You can talk!” Amos was so surprised, he dropped the gold bar—though he caught it before it hit the ground.

Milt nodded. “Been doing it since I was like, three, four years old. It’s a far-out way to communicate, although not as karma oriented as some. You know, like beams or harmonies or with music. Oh, man, I really dig music. Like, you can say so many beautiful things with music that won’t come out with words. Don’t you like, you know, like music?”

The boys stood speechless. Having started to talk, Milt seemed not to be able to stop.

“Like, it’s so, so groovy that you didn’t think it was fair to take the gold. I mean, you’re probably going to have like, maybe ten or twelve good incarnations because of, you know, like, your generosity. It’s so beautiful, so beautiful, man.…”

He paused to take a breath, and Dunc cut in. “How long have you been here?”

Milt held up his hands and counted his fingers, then went down to his toes, counted them, then started over on his fingers, and finally shrugged. “Time is like, relative—how old are the Mamas and the Papas?”

“Who?” Dunc frowned.

“Like, the rock group—you know, the Mamas and the Papas. How old are they?”

“I never heard of them.”

“How about Donovan?”

“Never heard of him.”

“The Monkees, the Byrds, the Groundhogs?” Milt’s face looked worried.

Dunc looked at Amos. Both boys shook their heads.

“The Animals?” Milt was desperate now. “You’ve heard of them, right?”

“No.” Dunc sighed. “All of those are from before our time.”

“How about bugs,” Amos offered. “You’ve talked about birds and animals.”

“The Crickets?” Milt brightened. “They were like, solid, man!”

More head shakes.

“The Roaches?” Milt asked. “Oh, man, wait—the Beatles?”

Both boys nodded.

“Uncle Alfred told me about them. They were from England.” Amos gestured with the gold bar. “Everybody said they were cool.”

“Right,” Milt said. “Weird hair—like bowl cuts. Far-out. So how old are the Beatles?”

Dunc sighed. “They don’t exist any longer. They broke up before we were born.”

Milt nodded, satisfied. “That’s how long I’ve been here. Since back then. I took my vow of silence and headed into the wilderness then.”

Dunc rubbed his head, thinking. He felt the bat guano and took his hand down. “I remember reading something about them. That was maybe 1965 or 1966. You’ve been here twenty-seven years?”

Milt shrugged. “Time, you know—it stretches. Seasons come and, you know—go.”

“And you’ve been alone all that time, with no outside contact?”

Milt nodded. “Rafting trips come through and, you know, I sneak in and get food from them, but my karma is so strong, they never see me.”

“That’s where all this stuff comes from,” Dunc said. “From rafting trips?”

Milt nodded.

“And the boat?”

Milt shook his head. “I only take food, surplus food. The boat came by on its own one day early this summer. I guess somebody lost it.”

Amos shook his head. “How come if you took a vow of silence and wanted to be alone, you took us, and now you’re talking to us?”

“Oh, wow, man—like, if I’d left you out there, the mosquitoes would have killed you both. I brought you in here to get you away from them. I took him first, but when I went back for you, I couldn’t find you until daylight.”

“I was in the water.”

Dunc interrupted. “How come you talked—broke your vow of silence?”

“Like, you’re honest. I swore there were no honest people left—just people who wanted to ruin, you know, like, the earth. I did some demonstrating and saved a rare kind of stickleback minnow, but I was never going to come out, and I’d never talk again because people were like, you know, dishonest. And then you didn’t take the gold.” He smiled and sighed. “I had to, like, speak, man, and tell you how I felt.”

Dunc stared. “Is your last name Davis?”

Milt nodded. “Cool—you know it.”

“This wilderness area is named for you, to honor you.”

“Oh, wow, groovy!”

“So now it’s all over, and you can come out and be with the world again.”

Milt shook his head. “Oh, no, man—I’d like, miss the tournament.”

The boys looked at each other, then at Milt.

“What tournament?”

“Every summer there’s a checkers tournament. I don’t want to miss it.”

Amos coughed and looked at Dunc. “Milt, you’re alone here.”

Milt nodded.

“And you have this tournament yourself? You just play against yourself?”

Another nod. “Oh, man, like, last year it was really close. I almost won.”

Slowly Amos set the bar of gold, which he’d been holding all this time, gently on the ground. He stood. “Well, Milt, we’d like to stay, but our parents and everybody will be looking for us and worrying.”

Dunc nodded. “We really have to be going.”

Milt moved, or seemed to move, and was standing between them and the water. Liquid movement. “Are you sure?”

They nodded.

“Well, if you, like, really
have
to go—take the boat and the bar of gold. A rafting group went through this morning. I saw them when I went back to check for any gear you might have lost. Maybe you can catch them.”