Hunt the Ton
"Now this I could get used to!" Will chimed, stretching out full length before the fire. "Holly's boss sure does know how to live!"
"We're just lucky it wasn't rented out," Laura answered, pacing around the den of the luxurious resort condo. "Holly tells me that Beaver Creek is usually completely booked this time of year. They had lettors for the entire month, but they pulled out at the last minute. They lose their deposit, and we get the condo - nice deal for us."
"Well, I don't care why we've got it; it's delicious. Oh, if I only had my handsome Aussie with me. What fun we could have before the fire! Or in the sauna . . . ," Will mused dreamily.
Laura rolled her eyes. When she had found Will that night in Mountain Center, he was the picture of inebriation, reeking of cigarettes and stale piña colada mixer. The notion that he had spent a night of passion with some mysterious Ralph Fiennes stunt double was laughable. Laura was the first to admit that Will was good-looking and certainly charming (albeit in a brash and sometimes obvious way), but it seemed to her highly unlikely that he had snagged some outback pin-up boy in the wilds of the Rockies. Laura knew all too well how Will's imagination could run away with him.
"Don't say it!!" Will yelped, wounded. "Pray, don't malign my night of splendor in the snow. Ah, Sebastian," he sighed in apostrophe to the drifted cliffs outside the picture window, "Where are you now when I need to you defend my honor?" He batted his lashes longingly.
"Oh, snap out of it, Will," she smacked him playfully on the head. "We have work to do."
"Yes! Duty calls! Our millions of fans have held their collective breath far too long! It's time to act." He moved from the window to the dining table, a huge oaken structure overshadowed by a mammoth chandelier wrought in deer antlers. Will winced at the sight of the gargantuan figure and focused his attention on the book Laura had open before her on the table. "Any luck?" he asked, gesturing to the ragged copy of Sooner Than Never.
"Well, let's review. The last clue in Chicago brought us here - Beaver Creek, Colorado. Faye and I agreed that a more specific clue as to where to go in Beaver Creek should be located somewhere in chapter 2. Al and Mary Lou, fortunately for us, were able to get in and find that locale, but now that everyone and his aunt's had a chance to poke around here, that's pretty much common knowledge."
"The shrine."
"Exactly. But according to Faye, her aunt and uncle couldn't find anything that seemed significant there. No verse, no pictures, not even an ear-shattering rendition of some old pop song."
"Which leaves us here: lovesick in a luxury condo . . ." Will pressed his knuckle to his brow.
"Speak for yourself, Camille. I have work to do."
"Oh, and the extended silence of Agent M bothers you not one bit?"
Laura's face darkened a moment, and then shifted to neutral. "Not all of us are libido incarnate, my dear . . . but let's get to work." She bent back over the book. "Shall we review chapter 2?"
"Pray, read aloud."
"Better than that: I'll recite." She leaned back in the huge oaken throne, threw back her head, and began:
As the snow swirled outside the window, Lady Violet burrowed more deeply into the plush benches of the barouche. She would escape her father's clutches. She would! His cruel plans, so mercenary and cold, would not trap her as they had before. Her abortive marriage to Lord Lufton had rendered her an adult - a shocking and sudden development - and she reveled in the full powers of widow-hood. She would flee before she would face a second marriage so soon after her first . . . especially a marriage to the decrepit Count Brisnow. Such an odious man! Like a rotting scarecrow, his eyes burnt with a lustful flame whenever he beheld her, and she cringed inwardly. She would flee . . . or die . . . before she would yield to such a match.
Just that evening her father had sealed the matrimonial bargain with Count Brisnow - as if he had a right against her will! She started violently at the recollection. The count had joined Lady Violet and her father to dine. Throughout the meal, she felt his eyes on her, like red-hot pokers lancing her soul. Gratefully, she seized the opportunity to leave the table early to put young Harlowe to bed. A dear young boy, Harlowe generally regarded her with suspicion. In his young mind, he had had forged an unbreakable connexion betwixt her brief marriage with his father and the tragic incidents of the fateful wedding day. Nonetheless, she had tried to act as foster mother to him - displaying a patient tenderness he resisted relentlessly.
Upon returning from young Harlowe's chamber, Violet (as if on instinct) froze before re-entering the dining hall. A sudden chill crept down her spine, and she eased noiselessly to the curtained entrance. Peering silently, unobserved, around the velvet curtain, Violet witnessed the sealing of her doom.
Count Brisnow, a wasted skeleton of a man, pustulant cankers lining his thin, bloodless lips, leaned toward the table and seized the flagon of wine.
"She is, as you say, a fine figure of a woman. And no doubt, she could provide many heirs. She is . . . innocent, you say?"
"As driven snow," her father intoned from his chair at the head of the table. "I've seen to that. She sees no one here." His back to her, she could not see him - but she knew the tone in his voice, and the look that accompanied it. She was glad to be saved that sight. She knew that look of old, ever since she had reached her eleventh year.
"Excellent. I know your previous choice for her was . . . perhaps a more fitting match, considering her youth, but I've always felt the young benefit from the age and experience of their elders." He smiled salaciously, and Violet shuddered.
"I quite agree."
Violet recoiled and withdrew from the entranceway. She fled, blindly, unthinkingly, and found herself in the great hall. She retreated to the curtained recess of one of the majestic windows and frantically made her plans. She must flee, far from the castle, far from her father's clutches, far far from the panting waiting arms of Count Brisnow. But where?
As if in a vision, the answer resounded: to the sanctuary of her youth. To Lady Pinkerton's! Her dead mother's dearest friend, her bosom confidant and protector of her only daughter, Lady Pinkerton would shield and protect her.
Quickly, quietly, Violet stole to her chamber. Enlisting the aid of her chambermaid, Vivian, she packed a satchel and roused young Harlowe. Her father's servants, ever sympathetic with her plight, eased the way, bringing the barouche to the servant's side entrance and quietly stealing her and her young ward from the estate.
As she sped from that scene of impending horror, Violet stroked young Harlowe's hair and reveled in the glow of satisfaction. She had escaped! Freedom at last!! She would live in quiet seclusion with her beloved stepson, far from the lustful eyes of aged men, far from the coercive will of her father. Lady Pinkerton would hide and protect her. A lonely life it would be, but preferable to the horror of imprisonment in the ceaseless carnal slavery of a loveless marriage!
A blank of white snow, set against a black sky, was all the landscape Violet could see from her window. The monotonous sway of the carriage slowly lulled her, lulled her into sleep, into a dream of sleep on a quiet, gentle cloud when, suddenly, the barouche jarred to a halt. Violet was thrown forward, her face buried into the bench opposite her. With a crack, the door of the barouche tore open, and she turned her face questioningly toward the sound.
The hulking shape of Lord Fortescue filled the doorway. "Ah, Lady Violet, what a striking coincidence," he growled in his deep, menacing baritone. "I was just thinking of you."
Pushing in through the narrow door, he forced Violet back onto the bench and squeezed next to her. Displacing young Harlowe from the bench, Lord Fortescue's huge bulk filled the small compartment. Violet held her breath and tried to shrink from his coarse touch.
"I fear you've been avoiding me, my dear," he whispered throatily. "But, as you will learn, I will have my way. It's not wise to cross me."
Lord Fortescue, whose lands lay adjacent to her father's, had long made suit to Violet. But not to beg her hand, like the decrepit Count Brisnow and the countless other suitors. Lord Fortescue was already married - his fortune bolstered by union with a quiet tubercular heiress with lands to the west - but his lust knew no bounds. And after deflowering half the countryside, Lord Fortescue had fixed his sites on young Violet. She had, of course, resisted, and finally vowed never again to appear in his presence. Her resistance had merely piqued the flames of his desire.
Fortescue struck the ceiling of the compartment. "Driver! On!!" Violet caught a glimpse of her coachman, left stranded in the snow as they departed. She was being kidnapped!!
The lascivious lord groped sweet Violet as she shrank from his touch. "My lord," she cried, "Spare me! Spare my ward!!"
His eye turned to poor Harlowe, cowering on the bench opposite them. The boy's sleepy eyes gazed fearfully and uncomprehendingly on the scene of violence before him. Lord Fortescue cursed under his breath. The young boy angered him, his simpering glance an implicit accusation.
"Suit yourself," he snarled at Violet. "Not here, not now. But you shall not escape my lust!!"
"No, my lord! Release me, I beg you! Give me my freedom!"
Without warning, he struck the ceiling of the carriage once again. The wheels ground to a halt. Fortescue threw open the door, not pausing for the carriage to come to a stop. He hurled Violet out of the barouche and leapt out beside her. Slamming the door behind him, he struck the driver's box. "Home!" he commanded, and Violet watched in horror as the barouche pulled out of sight.
"I will have you, my lady, make no mistake. You wish to save your ward the spectacle, and that I will grant, but not your virtue!"
Grabbing her roughly by the elbow, Fortescue forced Violet off the road and into the desolation of the snowy countryside. Through trees and up a hillock he dragged her. Falling and stumbling, Violet resisted, but her small, weak frame was no match for his brute force.
Leaving a patch of forest, Violet caught a glimpse of their destination. Ahead in the clearing, a strange stone structure loomed above the snow. Violet knew the place. It was the shrine of Persephone.
One of Lord Fortescue's ancestors had built the structure on the family estate to house the remains of his beloved wife. A tragic event: the aged husband laid his young wife's body to rest after she expired trying to produce an heir - yet more youth, more fodder for ancient appetites. The ancient sire repented his destructive lust and marked his vain folly with a monument to his lady's mythic forebear - the Greek Persephone, seized in her youth down to Hades by the lustful god of the underworld. The former Lady of the Fortescue house, like Persephone, was forced into death by the lust of an old man, and her death brought winter to his remaining life, just as Persephone's sojourn in Hades brought winter to the world.
To mark this sad event, and to create some sense of joyous resurrection (a resurrection never to be found on this earth!), ancient Fortescue constructed a tribute to the Greek maiden, his lady's counterpart, as the design of her mausoleum. The temple was constructed all in the finest Italian marble, encrusted with ornamentation that bespoke the most accomplished craftsmanship. The easterly side of the temple was cast as winter - winter wrought in stone crystals, snowflakes carved in stillness sharp. Accents of shimmering glass embedded within the crevices cunningly evoked the chill of frost, cold and crisp. The westerly side of the temple bloomed spring, vivid flowers etched in stone made warm by bright enamel. Shining colors in precious stone, a garden growing in eternity.
Cold stone steps led up to the atrium of the mausoleum on all sides. Fortescue dragged the weakening Violet over the stones, and hurled her to the center of the tomb. Beneath them lay the cold, still body of Fortescue's ancient forebear, a Persephone who would never return to earth.
"I beg you, my good lord," poor Violet sobbed, "Release me and I will never speak of this grave affront!"
He strode to her and stood over her quaking form in vicious delight. "Release you? Is that what you want? Release you to your father's plans of marriage? I should think you would prefer my company to that of Count Brisnow's!"
Violet recoiled. Others knew of her father's plans. "I want neither you nor Count Brisnow!! Will you please have mercy on me and return me to my ward?!"
He held her face roughly to the cold, stony floor of the tomb. "No, Violet," he boomed maliciously, "your freedom has a price, and that price is yourself!"
At that moment, Violet lost consciousness and slipped into a dream-like state. Visions she saw, visions of truth that could only be seen from that locale.
Laura paused. She looked at Will.
"Well?" he asked. "What next? Or have you forgotten? You can peek, if you need to. I won't think less of you."
"No, that's it. That's where the chapter ends." She shrugged.
"Splendid. Clear as mud."
"I think you know what's next." Laura stood up from the table.
"To the shrine?"
"You got it."
**********************
"They've got to be kidding!" Laura scanned the countryside. At least a hundred people were gathered, sauntering about. Some had even set up tents and campsites, evoking the sense of a rustic Mardi Gras.
"It's an event!" Will uttered breathlessly. "We are at the center of an event!"
Since Al's and Mary Lou's press conference, the site of the shrine, some 12 miles outside the resort town, had become the focus of tourist activity. Following Faye's instructions, Al and Mary Lou had combed the town and its environs, finally locating the newly built structure. Clearly erected very recently by Waterbury's men, the shrine matched the description in Sooner Than Never to the letter.
The problem was, the shrine - while vivid - didn't exactly spell out the next clue. Al and Mary Lou had leaked the phony limerick to the press in an attempt to steer people away from the site until Will and Laura could get there, but the ruse had backfired. The hard-core treasure hunters fell for the phony clue in droves, high-tailing it out of Beaver Creek in an attempt to track down the next site. But many more remained behind. The shrine had become a sort of Mecca in its own right. Curiosity-seekers who had no interest in pursuing the treasure showed up in droves, simply to catch a taste of excitement.
When Will suggested that he and Laura visit the site in disguise, she at first dismissed the idea, assuming her companion was simply being - quite typically - melodramatic. But now that she witnessed for herself the carnival crowds at the shrine, she was glad she had relented.
"So what do we do now?" she asked, pulling at her wig.
Will resettled his dark sunglasses more comfortably onto his nose. "I don't know. I just don't know. I suggest . . . that we mill about."
"Well, it's a suggestion, anyway."
Will went west, Laura went east, and they began to inspect the shrine. Carved stone, like the one in the novel, the structure was quite impressive.
They reconvened in the center of the atrium, at the spot of Violet's dream vision. "It's larger than I imagined," Laura commented. "But just as gaudy as I thought. I'm telling you, Sooner Than Never would make a great movie. Very visual."
Will glanced around the mausoleum. "Well, there don't appear to be any obvious clues. And I can only assume that those marks," he said, gesturing to some rough gouges in the floor of the temple, "were produced by earlier treasure hunters."
"No doubt. Or thrill-seekers longing for a peek at the remains of ancient Lady Fortescue." She circled the interior of the tomb. "No buttons, no poems, no pictures, no arrows, nothing. I guess we need to go back to the book. Is there anything else it told us? Something subtle we're missing."
"Well, clearly, it's something that is here. The chapter must be directing us to come here - why else would Waterbury take the time to construct this monstrosity unless is was meaningful?"
"I agree," Laura assented. "Ole Simon's perverse, but he's not that perverse. Now, what did the chapter say in that last section? 'At that moment, Violet lost consciousness and slipped into a dream-like state. Visions she saw, visions of truth that could only be seen from that locale.'" She furrowed her brow, and her eyes brightened. "Maybe that's it! It's not something here, but something you can see from here. Will, are you paying attention?"
She glanced at Will, who stood transfixed on the spot, gazing at some site in the distance. Her eyes followed his. As he started to move toward it, she caught his elbow and pulled him back.
"No!" she whispered through gritted teeth. "Not now. There are too many people around. We'll come back later to check it out."
Will nodded, not taking his eyes of the spot.
***************
Alone in the kitchen, Faye felt the pain of loneliness. Ever since she told the girls she was having an affair with Mike, they were giving her the cold shoulder. Betraying a friend for the sake of a man, that was against the Girls with Glasses most basic ethic. So she was doing what she could to make it up. Concocting excellent meal after excellent meal, keeping the place spic and span, walking on eggshells. But nothing would return things to normal.
Of course, she wasn't having an affair with Mike. But telling them that was the easiest way to get the girls off her back after she had blown it so terribly that night. They could never know why Mike was in the apartment. They could never know what grave danger they were all in. And she could never tell them all that Mike told her that night - about Simon Waterbury, about the treasure hunt, about the mysterious gang of marauders who had intruded that night. It would be far too dangerous.
Faye sighed. She was a little hurt that they believed her admission. She was being silly, she knew, but she had hoped her dearest friends would give her a little more credit than that. When she made her admission, she half-expected them to say, "That's absurd! You'd never do something like that! What's the real story?" But they hadn't. They believe the worst of her.
Faye dried the last glass and put it in the cupboard. She heard the sounds of laughter from Holly's bedroom, just on the other side of the wall and longed to join. It would be a long winter.
*****************
It was 3:00am, and the last of the campers finally dozed off. Will and Laura roused themselves from their tent. They had arrived at 8:00, determined to wait it out until they could undertake their investigation in private. The revelers, however, had far more enthusiasm than they had anticipated.
"To the shrine," Will whispered. Laura nodded sleepily.
They moved to the atrium and situated themselves directly over the spot of Violet's fictional violation. Will pointed and Laura saw it once again. A second tomb. A tombstone. Or at least, a shape suggestive of a tombstone.
Barely visible in the light of the full moon, the shape was long and low, rectangular. Above it, or rather behind, loomed the remains of an old tower. The rickety timbers remaining formed a cross. A crucifix, perhaps. A large burial site, set against the sky.
"Flashlight?" Laura asked. Will nodded, and flashed his maglight in her eyes. "Thanks," she winced. They headed down the steps toward the second structure.
It was farther than it looked, but Will and Laura dared not discuss the clue as they approached. They picked their way through drifts of snow, trying to avoid the tents and campers of the various hangers-on. After 10 minute of walking, they cleared the campsite. After 30 minutes, the shrine had diminished to a small bump behind them. After 45 minutes, they made out the structure before them.
It was a railroad boxcar.
"Curiouser and curiouser," Will mused, using his favorite Alice in Wonderland tag line.
They clambered up a small embankment and over to the tracks. Will flashed his light on the car. There was something written on the side:
Whoso list to HUNT, I know where is a mine
Buried deep in earth, and toppéd with a crown,
A crown of stone, carved deep and razor fine,
Where sun doth sink in sea and slide far down.
They HUNT the prize, but follow not the track,
They will not find the TON they track so close,
The wealth of west buried deep in earth's great cracks,
Nearby the crystal mossy water flows.
And yet for some, for few, the pattern's plain,
They read the tome and test the clues they find
But even then, the HUNT may be in vain -
To seek the truth is oft to catch the wind.
To HUNT the TON, head west to sunny shore,
Find death in stone, the prize is there in store.
"At least I'm prepared this time," Laura growled, pulling a notepad and pen from her pack. "And don't be fidgeting around, Will!" she ordered him curtly just has he began to wander around the boxcar. "Push some random button, and we could end up being swallowed into the earth!"
"Spoilsport," he rejoined as she jotted down the verse, "Where's your sense of adventure?"
"I left it back at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago when we were hiding from the cops behind that mannequin. Remember?"
"Ah, those were brave and exciting days! What drama! But . . . to the drama at hand! What do you make of the inscription?"
She peered at her pad, illuminated by moonlight. "Well, it's a sonnet, I can tell you that much. 14 lines, ending in a couplet. It's Shakespearean in form: with a rhyme scheme a-b-a-b c-d-c-d e-f-e-f g-g. That's all I can tell you off the top of my head."
"Oh, is that all?" Will rolled his eyes in mock-disgust. "I'm sorely disappointed."
Laura smiled at Will for the first time that evening. "We need to work more on it, though. This must be the clue - Simon's really into verse and song."
A cursory examination of the boxcar supported Laura's contention - they didn't find anything else out of the ordinary. The doors of the car weren't latched, and the car was completely empty. It stood on a short stretch of track.
As he stood balancing on the end of the track, Will's face suddenly lit up. "Wait! Wasn't 'track' mentioned in the poem? What does it say?"
Laura consulted the pad. "Beginning of the second quatrain: 'They hunt the prize, but follow not the tracks,/ They will not find the TON they track so close.'"
"So those who don't follow the tracks won't find the . . . the what? The ton?"
"Yes. And ton is in all caps. Which must signify something."
"What else is in caps?"
"'Hunt.' Over and over. And 'ton' always appears within close proximity to 'hunt' - in the same line, or one line away. So they're linked."
"And which way does this track lead?" Will looked at her significantly. "Do you have your pocket compass, my little bluejay?"
Will always laughed at Laura and her voluminous purse, filled with many necessaries. He frequently referred to her as some form of scout - always prepared. She scowled and pulled a small compass out of her bag.
Will toyed with the compass, finally securing a reading. "Just as I suspected," he cried with a flourish, "it's parallel to the east-west line. But the mystery remains," his eyes closed to a squint, "Is it facing east or west?"
"Well, boxcars don't really face," Laura answered. "They're reversible, you know."
"Does the sonnet give a clue?"
Laura's eyes dropped to the page. "'The wealth of west'. . . that's pretty unequivocal. I'm guessing west."
"A là Horace Greeley," Will said significantly, seating himself on one of the rails. He thought intently and then shot up. "Damn!"
"What?" Laura rushed to him.
"These rails are cold! My ass is completely frozen!!"
"Well, then let's get you home, sugar beet." Laura pulled him up. "I think we've got all we're going to get here anyway."
Tune in Thursday, March 25
for the
illuminating and arresting
Chapter 23
of
THE WEBSERIAL
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