The End of FUN (28 page)

Near the end of the day I brought out his tape measure to check out the depth of my holes—I had three now, and they seemed pretty deep to me. But as they say, “the tape does not lie,” and in this case the tape said 5 feet 9 inches in the very deepest one—5 feet 10 if I really fudged it.

Screw you, tape.

On the sixth day of digging I just about gave up. Pathetic, right? I'd been so sure that I could find the treasure in a week, and here I was on my ass scratching pictures in the dirt.

Homie
™
popped up with a message from Katie.

It was late afternoon, sun shining down full force, but the thought of Katie coming over perked me up, and I decided to get some real work done. I dug through the heat, dug until the sun sat in a ball of flame on the horizon, shadows stretching long and thin across the desert. The light bled from the day and still no sign of Katie, so I dug on, dug until it was too dark to see what I was doing. The ground was black, the horizon a dark shadow. Looking back toward my grandpa's house, something caught my eye. A little glow in the darkness. Two little glows. Headlights. A pickup truck.

I found her on the porch steps, frowning in a yellow jumpsuit. Yellow jumpsuit? Not a yellow jumpsuit, a Chemstop
®
hazmat chemical protective garment, to be exact, with double storm flap, attached chemical-resistant gloves, and durable TuffWeave
™
outer layer (YAY!).

“Hi, Katie. What's going on?”

She thrust out her arm, slid back her sleeve, and lifted a piece of gauze. “What's that look like? Be honest.”

It was pretty gross, all right. This reddish, necrotic sore on her forearm.

“What is that?”

“A leper mite bite. I've got leper mites! But you didn't answer my question: What does it
look
like?”

“I don't know. It's, um, big and sort of webby and—”

“A puckered butthole!” she blurted. “That's what one of my students said. And I was like,
Puckered? Nice vocab word, Taylor
. I thought it was just a mosquito bite, but it kept getting worse. So I went to the doctor, and he tested it for leper mite saliva, and now my whole building's under quarantine!”

“Quarantine?”

“The extermination squad showed up this afternoon. The whole place is under plastic wrap! They wouldn't even let me take my grade book! I had to stand in the chemshower for fifteen minutes and then they burned my clothes! I've been trying to reach Olivia all afternoon, but she won't message me back!”

“Who's Olivia?”

“The P.E. teacher. We're not, like, great friends, but I know she'd at least give me something to wear and let me sleep on her couch.
If
she would answer my messages! I don't think I rinsed long enough. That stupid chemshower is burning up my skin. God, if I ever needed a sign, this was it. I'm not supposed to be in this stupid town. Do I look red to you?”

Kind of hard to tell under just the porch light. But I knew the answer to her problems. She didn't need to leave town.

“Stay here.”

“What? No. I just need to get in touch with Olivia.”

“Really? Why not just stay here?”

Katie looked at me like,
You know why not
.

“There's a spare bedroom and everything. I wouldn't even—” I paused. “Just think about it anyway.”

“That's OK,” she said. “But could I use your shower? And maybe borrow some clothes? This stupid jumpsuit is
itchy
.”

While Katie was in the bathroom, I dug through my bag and got her something comfortable. I knocked on the bathroom door, and it cracked open and an arm appeared. I handed her the clothes.

She was in there a long time, and meanwhile I strolled around the house humming to myself. I couldn't help it. Because here she was! And who could say—maybe this Olivia the P.E. teacher was a real flake and the only option would be for Katie to stay here with me. She probably hadn't had a chance to eat in a while, so I figured I'd make her some food. My cooking skills are pretty limited, but I can do toast and eggs OK.

Homie
™
was bugging me about taking a cooking quiz, so I did that, and then Katie appeared. Her skin
was
pretty red, and kind of shiny, too, but at least she seemed a little more relaxed now, standing there in my sweats and old plaid shirt.

“Nice threads.”

She sniffed the air. “Hey, do I smell something burning?”

The eggs!

I couldn't find a spatula to scrape them off. In that whole kitchen there was barely a utensil, I swear.

“No spatula?” she said. “How did he cook?”

I didn't have a clue. I'll say this, though: it was almost too much, Katie standing next to me in the sweats and shirt. Almost like jammies. She was helping me with the eggs now, scraping them off with a fork. Brushing up against me as she reached for the salt and pepper.

“Katie.”

We were looking into each other's eyes now. I was asking her a question. A silent kind of question. She tried to hide the answer, but I swear before she pushed me away I saw it. I swear I did.

But then she blinked and drew back, and the answer changed. Shook her head a little, almost imperceptibly. It was like,
Aaron. Friends. Remember?

Right. We ate our burned eggs in silence, then Olivia messaged Katie back—this was around 10
P.M.
—and she thanked me for the hospitality, got in her truck, and drove away.

I didn't sleep very well that night. I just kept thinking about Katie. What does age matter? In the end, what does it even
mean
? A couple more years on Earth, that's all. A little more experience.

I was still thinking about her the next morning, my seventh day of digging, as I trudged out to the Russian olive tree. I just didn't get it. I did and I didn't. I pounded the earth with the digging bar and scooped out the dirt. Then around noon I just sat down and looked out at Ass Mountain, with its big white rock
A
.

If you've ever driven through Nevada, you've probably noticed that the towns all have their initials spelled out in white rock on some nearby mountain or hill. As far as I know, the mountain they're on takes the letter as its name. Thus, you have “
E
Mountain” in Elko and “
C
Mountain” in Carlin—and let us not forget Battle Mountain's massive
BM
—but as for the town of Antello, the name “
A
Mountain” has some obvious issues—like you can imagine a scene with out-of-town visitors quickly devolving into a hick Abbott and Costello routine:

“Which mountain?”

“
A
Mountain.”

“I know, but
which
mountain?”

“
Witch
mountain?”

“No—WHICH mountain?”

“I told you:
A
Mountain.”

“But what's the
name
of the mountain?”

“No—
A
is the name of the mountain.”

“Buddy, I'll kick your teeth in.”

The name has some problems, so to avoid confusion the locals have referred to
A
Mountain by a number of different names over the years. At one time it was Ant Hill, which was then bastardized by a generation into Panty Hill, and by their cruder descendants—my generation—into Ass Mountain.

And YAY! for its lofty heights—loftier even than the 400-foot, max-flight potential of an AirWind
®
AlphaFlight
™
expandable stunt kite, with triple-stitch construction and convenient storage sleeve (YAY!).

I mention the hill because that's where I was looking when Oso called.

“Hey, bro. Can you see me?”

“Where are you?”

“Up on Ass Mountain! Right below the
A
. See?”

I couldn't. It was just a little too far.

“Here's what I want you to do,” he said. “Get two shirts, one white and one black. Drive out here and park in the turnaround. If the lot is empty, put on the white shirt. If you see anyone else around, even just a parked car, even if it's
my
car, put on the black shirt. Got it? Empty lot: white shirt. Otherwise: black shirt. Next order of business: hike up the mountain. On the top, just outside the fence, you will find a communication, directing you as to—”

“Hold on a sec, Oso.”

“You're not comfortable with the shirt idea. OK. We can work out something else. A different type of signal. Some kind of semaphore? The sneakier we are, the better. I don't want you out there standing on one leg waving a blanket above your head. That just attracts unnecessary attention. Los Ojos de Dios are closing in, bro, I can feel it.”

“It's just—I'm in the middle of something at the moment.”

I told him about the will, the code, the treasure.

“Well…huh. OK, maybe I'll just head over there, then.”

And I swear it wasn't fifteen minutes later that Oso showed up in his creeper truck. He got out, slung a green duffel over his shoulder, and headed over to the Russian olive. He jumped and caught a low, springy limb. The tree swayed under his weight, leaf shadows simmering in the dirt.

“So get this. I'm at El Capitan, waiting for them to make my number seventeen double chicken enchiladas to go, when the bell rings and the hottest girl I've seen in like
forever
walks in. I don't even know the
word
for it. Wearing short shorts and a tie-dyed T-shirt, bro. This little tie-dyed T-shirt.”

“El Capitan, the restaurant? I thought you couldn't be seen in public.”

Oso dangled there from the tree limb, knees bent, hairy belly peeking out from under his shirt.