A Treasure to Die For by Richard Houston

to see what was so interesting. “How about it, boy, think you can find where those footprints go to?” I suspected he thought I’d found something good to eat, but was willing to give him credit for wanting to help.
    “Do you think it was those kids?” Bonnie didn’t bother to bend down to our level.
    “Maybe, but I can’t help wonder what they were doing over there,” I answered pointing to where the prints led.
    Bonnie’s eyes followed the path in the snow. “Well whoever it is, I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. I’m cold and getting scared we might get stuck up here in that old Jeep of yours. Can we come back and look some other time?” She had dressed in shorts and a thin summer blouse. Great attire for the near eighty temps back in Denver, but nothing a Sherpa would be caught wearing at this altitude.
    “My thoughts exactly. And the sooner we head home, the better. Unless they were leaving breadcrumbs from a jelly donut, Fred would never find their scent anyway.”
    ***
    Bonnie and Fred both slept on the way home, which was fine with me. It gave me nearly two hours of quiet solitude to think about how foolish we had been thinking we could simply drive up to Mosquito Pass and find the treasure. We had barely started up the trail and must have seen the remnants of at least two dozen mines. There were probably over a hundred more in the area and any one of them could have been where Drake had hidden his treasure, if there was one. Even Wilson said his book was a work of fiction based on an old news article.
    Thinking of Paul Wilson reminded me of the punk kids. What were they doing up there? Had they solved Drake’s riddle within a riddle? The owner of the gas station had said they were only a few hours ahead of us, so unless they went on to Leadville, we should have passed them on our way up Mosquito Gulch as they were coming back. Then again, they could have gone north on Colorado Nine to Breckenridge before we’d made the turn toward the pass. I hoped that was the case, for the road into Leadville was a widow maker in a two-wheel-drive Datsun pickup.
    ***
    Mosquito Pass still bugged me as I sat at my computer Sunday morning working on my how-to eBook. My mind kept drifting while staring at the nearly blank computer screen. I had the title for the chapter, How to Stop Dry Rot Dead, and that was all I had written. I finally shut down the computer and called Fred. Maybe some great revelation would come to me during our walk around the lake.
     
    Like our morning walk, the revelation on dry rot would have to wait. A county Mountie was in my driveway checking out my Jeep. Trouble is, he was checking in the wrong county. His truck said Park County Sheriff and I live in Jefferson County.
    “Stay, Fred,” I said, opening the door. Maybe I should have used reverse psychology and said go. He obeyed as well as a teenager and was the first one out the door.
    The deputy stopped writing in his notebook long enough to reach down and pat Fred on the head before addressing me. “Is this your Jeep, sir?”
    “What I do, Officer? Get caught by a red-light camera or something?”
    “Then you must be Jacob Martin,” he said extending his hand. “I’m Officer White from the Park County Sheriff’s Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your trip yesterday.”
    Fred tired of the chit-chat and went in search of a bush. I invited the officer inside my house once I realized he wasn’t here to arrest me for breaking and entering Appleton’s cabin.
    White took in everything the second he stepped through the entrance of my small cabin, including the dirty dishes stacked in my kitchen sink. Even my bedroom door was open, exposing an unmade bed. My bathroom was the only room he couldn’t see because that door was closed. He must have been disappointed if he’d been expecting a meth lab, or stacks of stolen electronics.
    I offered him a chair at my kitchen table, facing away from the clutter in the sink