TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) (37 page)
Read TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) Online
Authors: Phil Truman
Tags: #hidden treasure, #Legends, #Belle Starr, #small town, #Bigfoot, #Murder, #Hillman
The Founders Day Committee got all their ducks in a row, and on a bright day in June the town of Tsalagee held their most gala and successful Founders Day celebration. That evening at Veterans Park Jorge Estavez gave a speech in which he honored Hayward Yost and his father-in-law Socrates Ninekiller for their combined one hundred and seventy plus years as life-long Tsalagee residents and revered Hometown Heroes. He further announced the city council had declared them official Legends in Their Own Time.
* * *
On an oppressive August day, at a spot some ten miles from the town of Tsalagee, a twelve year old boy, Eddie Dunaway, sat on a wide flat rock that stood above the bank of a cool stream. He sat on the rock fishing; all his gear spread out around him—his tackle box, his canteen and lunch sack, his hunting knife.
Eddie had found this rock several weeks back when he’d traipsed along the stream’s shore as it meandered through the woods all the way from where it emptied into the Illinois River. With the hills behind it, and the creek bending so that the rock stood at the apex of that bend, Eddie’s rock sat in almost perpetual shade. He not only fished for hours, but he also stretched out on the smooth flat rock, and while he listened to the gurgle of the stream and the chit and frit of the woodland birds, the buzz of dragonflies and wasps, he snoozed. This particular day, Eddie had reached that point.
At that cusp of dropping off, Eddie heard a short rustle in the grass behind him. He sat up quickly being wary of a snake. Eddie’s rock didn’t present itself as an especially good place to sun, but an old water moccasin likely didn’t know that until he tried it. Eddie came to a crouch looking around in the grass and brush carefully, but he could see no snake, nor hear any further rustle. It could’ve been a mouse or a bird. He laid back down.
No sooner had he closed his eyes again than something metallic pinged off the rock to his front, and arced into the water. Eddie whirled around and looked up the hill behind him. Seeing nothing, he looked over the rock’s edge into the water. At that point just below his rock, the water stood about six feet deep and moved slowly.
As Eddie sat looking into the water, something else splashed into the deepest part of the pool. He didn’t get a good look at it, but he knew it had fallen from above and not leaped up from the surface of the water. He turned and looked up the hill behind him again just as something fairly heavy, but not too big, hit him in the chest.
“Ow!” Eddie said and looked down at the object as it spun on the rock’s surface. It was a coin. One side displayed the profile of a person’s head—a woman, he thought—wearing a crown. Stars studded a circle around the edge. He turned it over. The words “United States of America” were imprinted around the edge, then sort of a flowery circle thing, and inside that
1
DOLLAR
1849
It was golden in the afternoon sun.
As Eddie examined the coin, something flew over his head. He ducked and turned just in time to see another gold coin splash into his fishing hole.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Who’s up there?”
He got no response. A few seconds later another gold missile whooshed by his ear.
“Hey!” he yelled again, but this time he did get a response—a low, frightening rumble.
Eddie jumped back, but he could see nothing. The boy shoved the gold coin into his jeans pocket and quickly left his rock. He stumbled hurriedly along the bank until he came to a shallow run of rapids where he splashed across to the other side, sprinting along the creek, not stopping for the mile or so, until he reached the spot near the highway where he’d left his bike. Furiously peddling toward home, he realized he’d left his gear on the rock. But he didn’t care; he would never go back for it, nor would he ever speak of the incident.
In the clear pool below Eddie’s rock four gold American dollars lay scattered at the bottom. After a day or two, silt, carried by the current, started to cover them.
A Personal Note from the Author
Thank you for taking time to read
Treasure Kills
. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review
here
. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated.
Would you consider being in my Readers Group? As a member you’ll receive periodic emails from me (no spam) about new releases, promotions, giveaways, blog posts, etc. No more than about twice a month. I would love to have you in the group. Go to my website to sign-up and receive a free ebook:
Thanks again – Phil Truman
About the Author
Phil Truman is a native Oklahoman, born in the small town of Miami in the northeastern part of the state. A former teacher and businessman, he and his wife have lived in the Tulsa suburban city of Broken Arrow for more than 30 years. Phil’s website is at
www.PhilTrumanInk.com
.
Other Novels by Phil Truman
GAME: an American Novel
Year in and year out the football powerhouse Hert City Trojans import a ringer to fuel their championship charge, but their luck is about to change. In the small backwater town of Tsalagee, first-year coach Donny Doyle knows the only way he can fulfill his promise to unseat the Hert City juggernaut, is to beat them at their own
GAME
. But in his own recruit, the mammoth and powerful, yet troubled and ominous Leotis McKinley, Doyle finds more than he bargained for. Truman’s character-rich novel
GAME
spins an energetic tale around the intensity of small-town high school football in America. And yet, amid the fast-paced drive of the story, lies an account of the human spirit struggling through adversity and finding victory. Readers of any age or gender will feel the triumph, honor, and glory that comes from the…
GAME
.
Get the ebook for these ereaders:
West of the Dead Line, the Complete Series
The Dead Line, as it came to be called, was a railroad, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, cutting across the middle of Indian Territory
down through Cheyenne and Comanche and Kiowa lands. It was a line on the map, a demarcation. West of it there was no law, only outlaws. On trails out there, notes would be put up on trees and posts letting lawmen know they’d be killed if they continued their pursuits west of the Dead Line.
In the storied history of the American West, no place comes close to matching the dangers and mortality federal officers faced doing their jobs. Their courage, resolve, and dedication to duty were beyond reproach... for the most part. Those who survived became titans in the legends of the West, particularly one man called Bass Reeves. These stories are fiction, but the encounters this lawman faced, and The Dead Line, were not.
Get the ebook for these ereaders:
Red Lands Outlaw: The Ballad of Henry Starr
In the last years of the tough and woolly land called Indian Territory, and the first of the new state of Oklahoma, the outlaw Henry Starr rides roughshod through the midst of it. A native son of “The Nations” he’s more Scotch-Irish than Cherokee, but is scorned by both. He never really wanted to journey west of the law, yet fate seems to insist. He’s falsely accused and arrested for horse-thieving at age sixteen, then sentenced to hang at nineteen by Judge Isaac Parker for the dubious killing of a deputy U.S. marshal, but he escapes the gallows on a technicality. Given that opportunity, the charming, handsome, mild-mannered Henry Starr spends the rest of his life becoming the most prolific bank robber the West has ever known.
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