It’s a fairly big piece of metal and quite solid. The others gathered round to watch. This was starting to get exciting. I finally managed to pry it out of it’s hiding place. Hmm, just a large rectangular piece of metal, very thick metal and obviously very old. But on the bottom was scratched the word, “DOWN”. “That must mean to keep going down,” said Lena excitedly. My excitement stopped with that piece of metal. “Okay, I’ll keep digging deeper,” I said. At about 4 feet deep I hit some old wood, kind of rotten wood. That did not get me too excited. First thing I thought of was a coffin. “Hey, I remember, they had a child that died, perhaps that’s where they buried him,” said Lena. I definitely wanted to stop after that bit of news.

But everyone said to keep going, so I did. I finally had it uncovered and sure enough it was a coffin, a small one. Meow, meow!=Open it, open it! Meow!=Yes, don’t wait! “I’m with them!,” exclaimed Lena. Sigh. The lid just sat on top, no hinges for it. Surprisingly it was still fairly solid though the wood was getting soft and rotten. I lift the lid and…hmm, no body inside, just a black leather pouch. I pick it up and climb out of the hole. I untie the leather cord around the top and pour the contents onto Lena’s outstretched hands. The look on her face! “Rocks! I’m expecting gold coins and it’s a bag of rocks,”, she said sadly. I thought she was going to faint.

“This is far better than a few gold coins,” I said to her, “these are diamonds, very nice ones at that. And likely worth a small fortune.” Lena just looked at them, then at me, then her hands started to shake. I quickly grabbed her hands so those diamonds didn’t fall back into that hole. We set them on the ground so the cats could see them too. Meow?=Those rocks worth lot of money? “Yes, Mr. Cat,” I started to explain, “when these rocks are cut and polished people will pay a lot of money for them.” Mr. Cat looks at Muffin. Meow.=Human people very strange, pay lot of money for rocks. Meow, meow.=I agree, can’t even do something with them. Let’s go back to barn and look for mice. Meow.=Oh, now that good idea, better than looking at rocks. Meow, meow.=Yep, all that work just for rocks, very strange indeed.

Lena and I laughed as the cats went back inside the barn. As we sat looking at those beautiful diamonds again there was suddenly a very familiar voice. “Thanks for finding our treasure for us,” said the other Lena. We looked up to see Lena and Chantelle standing there, Chantelle with a rifle and Lena with a handgun, pointing right at us. That Lena didn’t look at all like the real Lena now. “I see you have removed your mask,” I said, “it was very realistic, but you didn’t fool the cats.” “They do make masks very realistic these days,” she said, “but it’s good to get it off finally, now toss those gems over here.”

To Be Continued.

Photos of Mr. Cat are kindly supplied by his human, Nina.

Previous chapters of this story and other stories can be found on my home page under 20/20 Investigations, Inc.

©2020 Steve McLeod.