“I will do that,” Asher said.
“Gunner Kingston. I’m gonna remember that name,” Rangely said. “Nice to meet you,” and walked off.
Unaware he’d been the subject of a conversation, Gunner kept walking toward the crash site, looking for someone to take the bull, when a couple of wranglers came running.
“Good catch,” they said, and led the bull out into the pasture with the rest of the herd while Gunner jogged up to rejoin his brothers.
“Did you really run down a longhorn?” Dylan asked.
Gunner grinned. “I kinda did, but he’d still be running if someone hadn’t tossed me a rope as I ran past their truck. Anyway, all I need is a good drink of water and I’m ready to get back to work.”
“I’m right there with you,” Asher said. “I’m not going to bed until we’ve gone over that whole floor. And if it’s not there, we start on the outside tomorrow.”
The spurt of adrenaline from chasing longhorns ended as they descended the cellar steps again. Gunner was silent, and Dylan’s shoulders were slumped in defeat.
For a few seconds, Asher saw them as children again, with dread on their faces.
“Damn it, boys. We’re not digging up a grave, and we know it has to be here somewhere, or Brandt’s sons would have never set foot on the property. Dylan, fire up your magic wand. We have work to do.”
And just like that, they picked up the rhythm again, trusting Dylan to be the judge of the hits they were getting. So far, he’d identified the sounds as likely old coin or nails, or things like metal belt buckles from centuries past. The little pings that indicated deep in the ground, and the louder pings, indicating just beneath the surface. But they weren’t getting anything to indicate something large, something metal, like the missing strongbox, and they were running out of floor to search.
They had one last area left before going outside, but there were things to be moved.
Dylan came to a halt, waiting for the brothers to begin shifting the stacks.
“This stuff needs to be hauled off,” Asher said. “It’s all wooden crates full of old canning jars, and a full bundle of asphalt shingles from the last time the roof was repaired.”
“Not going to argue that,” Dylan said.
Finally they had the area cleared, and within moments of Dylan’s first sweep, the beep he got was loud and startling. He swept across the area from every direction until he had a fairly clear picture in his head of the size.
“It’s metal. It’s big. And there’s likely less than a foot of dirt over whatever it is,” Dylan said.
“Then we start moving bricks. Where does Dad keep his work gloves?” Asher said.
“I saw some in that big bucket we moved up near the stairs,” Gunner said.
“Grab some for us, will you buddy? I’ll get a pry bar for the bricks. They’re not mortared in, but the years have wedged them in tight,” Asher said.
The thought of what might lie beneath their feet shifted all of them into high gear. Dylan put the detector aside and gloved up with his brothers as they got down on their knees.
Asher was prying up the bricks and Dylan and Gunnerwere stacking them aside, working quickly and in unison, anxious to put a shovel in the earth below.
When they’d cleared a large enough area, Asher stood, took a shovel off the wall where it was hanging. He stabbed it in the dirt, lifted out the first scoop, and dumped it in a wheelbarrow. The ground was hard and full of gravel-size rocks, but he kept shoving it into the ground, pushing it deeper with his foot, then lifting it out, over and over until the shovel clanged against something hard. Something metal.
He shifted where he was standing and began taking out dirt from around the object, scraped away the top layer of what was covering it until the whole lid of the strongbox was revealed.
It was a gut-punch, and a relief. The truth was right in front of them.
“What do we do now?” Dylan asked.
“We leave it. We don’t touch it. We don’t open it. Grab a drop cloth and cover it up, then stack some boxes in front of where we’ve been digging. I’m calling the FBI. It’s theirs to claim and recover.”
They stood, staring at each other, uncertain how to react, and then Asher broke the shock and hugged them in celebration.
“We did it, all of us…together. We’ll have to stand up to public scrutiny again when the media finds out it was Brenda who hid it, and right beneath our feet. But to hell with all of them. We have nothing to be ashamed of, and we’re the ones who solved a twenty-one-year-old cold case.”
“Gunner and I will cover it up,” Dylan said.
