The Gold Bricks

In 1860, Jack Trout won five gold bricks in a horse race. With one brick, Lucky Jack, bought a two thousand acre horse farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and built a fine house for his wife, Anna, and their infant son, Bud. According to legend, Lucky Jack hid the remaining four bricks somewhere within the house or on the farm.

In 1862, Lucky Jack was killed in the Confederate Army. When word came of his death, the house was already in turmoil. Anna had died the week before of typhoid. This left two year old Bud to be raised on the farm by his uncle. Bud Trout was my grandfather. I never knew him, but he seems to have spent the entire ninety-six years of his life looking for the treasure.

All sorts of rumors abounded. One was that Lucky Jack gave the four bricks to the Confederate Army. Another was that he lost the bricks in a horse race and was afraid to tell Anna. The most plausible legend was the one about Ezra Little, the slave who helped Jack bury the bricks. During the war a mysterious white man agreed to take Ezra to safety in the North if Ezra dug up the bricks. When Ezra dug them up, the mysterious man shot him, took the bricks, and buried Ezra in his own hole. The only truth I know for certain is that the gold is still there and the ghost of Lucky Jack protects it.

At fifty, Bud married and fathered two sons. His young wife was restless at the isolated farm and greatly unnerved by the house. She took long trips to her family in New York City and died there in the influenza epidemic of 1919. This left my grandfather to raise my father and my Uncle Andrew mostly by sending them to military schools. As soon as my father got old enough to live in New York, he never went home. Uncle Andrew stayed on the farm and searched for the treasure.

I was twenty-one and doing poorly in college when Uncle Andrew wrote and invited me to work on the farm for the summer. I remember standing in the tiny kitchen with my parents holding onto that letter. The words leapt off the page to me. “David, I want you to come,” and something inside me woke up. The treasure gleamed in my mind. I knew I possessed the courage to fight the ghost as my father did not.

My mother was intrigued by the old house and stories about the gold, but my mild mannered father got vehement. He grabbed my shoulder like he was pulling me back from a ledge. “David should stay here and work.”

“It’s only for the summer, Dad.” For I believed, then, that I could beat the ghost quickly. Dad loosened his grip on my shoulder, but I’ll never forget the look of fear in his eyes as he nodded.

* * *

In 1967, I left the crowded streets of New York City and rode all night on a bus. At dawn, I stepped out at a tiny bus station into a thick, swirling fog. When the fog shifted I glimpsed a huge rock mountain going straight up. It was barest light and I heard a creek rushing beside the station. There was a small rock bridge there and I stared down into the mist; when I looked up there stood Uncle Andrew. I’d rarely seen him, but he had the same affliction as I did, of looking like our name –Trout. He had a long face, round eyes, and moved his lips in a little circle. “David, how was your trip?”

“Very nice, Uncle Andrew,” I copied his manner of speaking and liked that he was never Andy or Drew, as I was never Davey or Dave.

His lank hair hung across his collar. His clothes were old and poorly patched, as though he stepped from another time. He had a bent back and hunched forward in such a way that he had to hold his head up to talk. Now, he stared atop his glasses. “Did you come for the treasure?”

“Yes.” I said because it was true.

Uncle Andrew’s eyes leapt. He gripped my shoulder, “I’d hoped for this.”

We got into his ancient Pontiac and inched off slowly into the fog. We climbed straight up, completely in fog, and wound around a rock face so narrow, that if we’d met another car we would have knocked it right off.

When we reached the top of the mountain, Uncle Andrew pulled over and stopped. “I’m dying, David. I have six months left.”The clouds parted and I glimpsed the valley below. It lay in lines so even and sure. Again I felt the quick pulse, the clear purpose that I would find the treasure. I had, indeed, been bred for it. I looked at Uncle Andrew and nodded.

He laughed high and happy as he stomped on the gas. The tires squealed over the edge of the mountain as we sailed down, around, and raced into a wide green valley beside a rushing river. My heart beat wild in my chest as we entered a thick pine forest and Uncle Andrew turned at a tilting mailbox.

We bumped over a small dirt lane where bushes raked both sides of the car. Giant oak trees grew thick overhead. My heart thudded in my ears as we pushed into an overgrown lawn where huge trees swayed over an ominous, old house.

Its dark windows accessed me. The shutters slanted like eyebrows. A slight breeze slithered through the branches, like a snake coiling around its prey. Ah, here’s another one.

I closed my eyes and felt the treasure there. Four gold bricks in a perfect square, but there was also the evil, living, breathing of Lucky Jack. He hissed softly, his serpent tongue flicking. I underestimated him then. Yes, but he underestimated me.

Uncle Andrew shook his fist in the air. “Don’t forget this, David. He wants your body, your soul, and your mind. You can never show fear. At some point, he’ll make a mistake and you’ll win.” He stalked off into the house, but hollered back from the doorway, “Stay where you want except for the library.” I didn’t see him again for three days.

* * *

The house had sixteen rooms. There were four stories including the basement. I rummaged through each of them except for the library on the ground floor where Uncle Andrew lived. It was almost evening when I stepped into the attic. It was one long, open room. The ceilings slanted and there were windows on all four sides. The sun had just set as I walked to the center and closed my eyes. I felt the working brain, the head of the serpent.

I heard a sliding then, a slithering around me. Shaking with horror I ran to the fireplace and started a fire. I breathed into the flames until they crackled all safe and warm, then huddled my knees in my arms and stared in the burning embers.

I tried to stay awake but my eyelids drooped. When I woke up the moon was shining through the windows. There was a slow, rhythmic breathing from the fireplace. Two red eyes glowed in the darkness. The eyes bulged outward like boiling lava, hypnotizing and slow.

The hot heat burned my face. I shrunk with terror as the eyes grew lured and evil. It had a serpent head, glittering in purest gold. It turned, pivoted, sizing me, its quick tongue darting. Yet, the eyes were human. Glaring and maniacal, they focused on me with deadly intent.

The body of the snake coiled up over my head. Its huge mouth opened and I saw dripping fangs. I closed my eyes, certain that it would kill me, then some thing – I don’t know what – forced me to open my eyes.

The snake was inches away. I screamed, but in that instant saw clearly that it was in another realm, another plane. I was in the earth plane. By a fate of nature I could see it, hear it, feel it, but it existed as an apparition to me. If I didn’t run or show fear, it couldn’t hurt me. Many people don’t see this. I’m sure you do! But I was bred for that day, stiffened my spine and grew stronger. It grew more wonderful then, shimmering and brilliant. Still, I held against it.

Three days later when I saw Uncle Andrew, he seemed lighter and more erect. The fangs had shifted to me. For the next six months he imparted all that was left to do. The night before he died he whispered, “David, I’ve left it to you because you won’t give up.”

My father came down for the funeral. He looked out over the lawn and the big old trees, “Sell this place and come home.” he said.

“I can’t, Dad.”

Then he did something he’d never done before, he hugged me. “Come back with me, David.”

I worked out of his grasp and stepped back into the trees. The wind stirred, the branches waved, but he could not lure me. Great pain crossed his face as he left that day. He didn’t stay for the night.

* * *

Eight years went by. I read all of Lucky Jack’s books in the library in search of small clues. I covered the entire farm with a metal detector, looking down, studying every inch of the ground. I ripped out the walnut panels in the dining room, stared into the fire each night and willed the flames to tell me. He could be sweet then, hissing so softly I almost heard it, then he’d flame up screaming.

I rarely had visitors, but in the space of three days, two people came to see me. The first was “Stanley Hogan, of Hogan Brothers Realty.” He stood on the front porch looking around, “Mr. Trout, did you ever think of selling?” He raised his eyebrows, “You could buy a proper house.”

The thought of abandoning my home to someone oily and smooth like him made my whole head rage. “Get out!” I jerked so hard on the screen door it came off in my hand. He got the message.

Three days later when I heard another knock on my door, I was so sure it was him I savagely jerked the front door open. A young woman stood there. She had kind blue eyes and the most beautiful golden hair I’d ever seen. “I’m Catherine Miller, Mr. Trout. I teach sixth grade at Fairview Middle School.” She paused, gathering her breath as I stared dumbstruck at her. “We’re studying the Civil War and it would mean a lot to the children if they could see your old home. Would you consider it?”

“Of course, you can bring them.” I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. She was so lovely, and her voice had such a gentle, sweet lilt to it, I would have done anything for her to come back.

Which she did with a busload of loud, jolting children bigger than I was. I’d thought they’d be tiny and have to be herded around. I had apple juice and cookies and gave a brief talk. Then one of them said, “What about the gold? What about the ghost?” That’s all they cared about.

Catherine came back the next week though. She brought hand written thank you notes from each of them. The spelling was horrible but she laughed and had a cup of tea at my little table. A beam of sunlight glowed on her golden hair as she set her cup into her saucer and smiled at me as though I were handsome.

I couldn’t breathe or even think except to know that women didn’t last long in that house. It was austere and cold, all falling down, but perhaps the right woman could change that. I’d settled into an absorbed existence until I met Catherine, then she was all I could think about. We married quickly. It was summer by then and everything was light and green. Sunlight fell on all the gloomy corners. She seemed happy and undaunted by the house.

She brought in rugs and a flowered bedspread for our downstairs bedroom. We painted and sawed and talked. After years of living alone, there was a hot meal on the table, flowers picked from the yard. At night I knew the incredible wonder of being with her. I’d stroke her hair and dream about the gold and everything I’d buy for her – jewels, a new coat, a convertible car. When fall came she went back to teaching driving the long winding roads each day, and then it happened. One day she looked at me with shining tears in her eyes, “Oh, David, I’m pregnant.”

I knew that I should feel something. She was so overjoyed and happy. I knew that I should feel it, too, but I stepped back dazed. I stiffened.

Then Catherine began to change. She began to swell and have backaches and crying jags. She came home tired at night with an angry scowl on her face. She complained of the long drive, the bad winter roads. The house made her uneasy now; the distance from town made her uneasy now.

I retreated to the attic to give her time to work through her rage but it only grew worse. “You’re obsessed!” she shrieked. “Why can’t we sell this place and move to town?”

“Because it’s here,” I said. “I’ll find it.”

One day she didn’t come home. The house was quiet without her, but it was peaceful.

* * *

Catherine came back when the baby was six weeks old. She had dark hollow circles under her eyes as she thrust my son in my arms. I looked startled at him and he looked up round eyed at me. I touched his face with the tip of my finger and his tiny fist clamped around it - five perfect fingernails. He moved his lips in a little circle, then screwed up his face and yawned.

“Oh, David, come with me.” My pretty wife looked haggard and scared. I tried to pull my finger back but my son gripped on. Catherine put her arm around me gently and guided me out to her car. Quietly, the breeze began to stir. The leaves began to sway with that quiet hissing. I felt that coiling around my legs. Catherine put me into the car and ran around to the driver’s seat. She started the engine as the snake coiled up my body and around my neck. “David, hold on.”

I gasped in agony as the choking started, but I looked at my son. He looked back, clutching onto my finger, his eyes right on me.

The mouth of the snake widened and coiled to strike, but she shot the car down the lane. I felt a savage squeeze around my neck and gasped for breath. Shaking with horror, my wife crashed through ruts and thrashed through huge branches as my son gripped on.

The snake strangled harder and harder. Frantic for air, I pulled my finger back from my son and reached to my neck to grab it. Catherine screamed, “We’re almost out of it.” And then the trees parted and the sunlight fell on her hair. It shone that brilliant gold, that shimmering, most beautiful gold, and then I saw it. The sweetest lure that almost got me - she was in on it.

I threw my son on the seat and jerked on the door. “David, come back,” she sobbed, hysterical in her convincing.

I crashed into the lane just inches from the end and ran back flailing the branches. You see it, too! You see the plot of them to get me. I ran back free to my house, my treasure, my own peaceful farm.

I’m still there. Lucky Jack won’t ever get rid of me. Just today I wrote to my son. He’s twenty-one now; I’ve asked him to join me.Time is short and there’s much to teach him.

- THE END -