Disclaimer: Just so everyone knows, I do not own anything from the movie. Everything else belongs to me.
A/N: Hey, everyone! Okay, get this. I'm supposed to be on spring break right now, but it's more like winter break all over again because we had over a foot of snow! Not cool! But, at least I can still update. Since I'm on break, I can probably get more updates out faster and maybe get done before it's over. No promises though. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, including fantomfairy, Fantasy's Magic, Miss Hermione Jane Granger, daisyduke80, unorthodox yo-yo, riley-poole27, Halo, Anon., AliuIce0814, momiji'sunusedhalo, Jedi'Pirate Jaeh, Hakumele, Maria Blue, and Majestik Moose! You guys rock! Also, Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it! This is my gift to you. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 22
Riley slowly opened his eyes to the sound of knocking. Not realizing what it was, he groaned with irritation and put the pillow over his head. But then, he gasped when the sound reached his ears again but louder this time and realized that it was coming from the door of the room, and he clumsily got out of bed and rushed to the door, quickly opening it.
"Hey, Riley. I take it that you're not ready yet," Ben greeted, Abigail laughing a little from beside him when she saw that he was still in his pajamas.
"Good morning to you, too," Riley said sarcastically, leaving the door and allowing the couple to enter the room. "I had kind of a crazy night…" Then, he suddenly remembered what had happened. "Ben, there's another guest in the motel!"
Ben's eyes narrowed with confusion. "No there isn't, Riley. The man at the front desk said that we were the only ones here last night." Then, he placed his hand on the younger man's forehead to check his temperature.
"I swear to you, Ben. I'm not going crazy!" Riley replied desperately, pulling away from his best friend's hand. "I went to the lobby to get some water after a nightmare that I had, and there was an old lady sitting in there. She told me that she was from the North visiting some family down here."
"Riley… there isn't anyone else in the motel," Ben repeated softly, almost hesitantly. "Maybe… maybe you were just imagining it…"
"No, Ben. I know what I saw!" Riley said with frustration. "She was here! She gave me her shawl, and then I found this journal…" His sentence slowly trailed off. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it must have just been his imagination. He remembered the man working at the front desk saying that the three friends had been the only ones to stay there for weeks.
Abigail wandered over to the desk on the opposite side of the room, her eyes landing on two objects that were sitting on top of it. "Um, Ben. Come here. You may want to see this."
Ben approached his wife, Riley slowly following behind him, and both were shocked to see that there was a neatly folded white shawl on the desk's surface. On top of that sat a worn, brown, leather book with the word journal faintly on the cover.
"See? I wasn't imagining it!" Riley exclaimed. "There is someone else here!"
Ben ignored the younger man as he slowly picked up the journal, opening to the front page to see who it belonged to. "Clara Poole…" he muttered, beginning to flip through the rest of the pages and scanning her neat handwriting. "I wonder how this got here."
"This must have been from when she was a child," Abigail commented, looking at the old book also. "Remember how Daniel told us that she never got the chance to return to the South when she was older?"
"Well no matter what, this will provide us with some good insight," Ben stated, closing the journal and handing it to Riley. "You take that. Hurry and get changed, and then we can look it over."
"Can we leave the motel before we look at it?" Riley asked. "This place is really beginning to freak me out."
Ben smiled, leading Abigail toward the door. "All right. Just hurry up then."
The old motel really must have been scaring Riley because Ben and Abigail were waiting in the hallway for only about five minutes until their younger friend was completely ready. Normally, it took a lot longer from him to get moving once he was woken up, especially without the incentive of breakfast. They went to the lobby, Abigail and Riley waiting anxiously while Ben returned the keys and checked them out of the motel.
"So, we were the only ones here last night, correct?" Ben wondered casually once he finished signing the checkout papers. "There was no one else here?"
"Tha's righ', Sir," the man behind the desk told him. "No one was here 'sides you three."
"There was no old lady here?" Riley pressed.
The man shook his head. "Nope. Jus' you three."
"Thank you for your time and for letting us stay here," Ben said, glancing at Riley. "But we should probably get going now."
"My pleasure," the man replied cheerfully. "Ya'll drive safe now!"
Ben led the way out of the motel and to the car, unlocking it as he climbed in behind the wheel. "So, there wasn't anyone else in the motel with us last night…"
"But there had to be someone there, Ben," Abigail countered, holding up the shawl that they had taken from the room. "Someone had to be there to give this to Riley. We didn't bring it with us."
"Either that or we have something else on our hands," Riley added quietly, looking at the motel apprehensively.
Ben sighed as he pulled out of the parking lot and drove back toward the main road. "Look, I'm sure that there's a perfectly logical explanation for what happened last night," he told them, rolling his eyes. "Let's not assume that it's anything supernatural or anything like that, all right?"
"What if it is, Ben?" Riley asked, leaning back against the seat as he carefully took Clara's journal out of his bag.
"Riley, there are no such things as ghosts," Ben stated firmly.
"How do you know? Have you ever seen one? How do you think they feel about that, Ben? You probably just hurt their feelings."
"Have you ever seen one, Riley?"
"Okay, boys. Just stop," Abigail commanded from the passenger seat. "It may be ghosts, it may not be, but there is definitely a reason for it. Oh, here's the main road now, Ben."
Ben slowed the car to a stop at the intersection where they had almost hit the sheriff, but they were shocked to see that there wasn't a police station or anything there that Bob could have come from or gone to the previous night.
"Maybe he did just disappear after all…" Riley muttered, mainly trying to lighten the mood.
Ben shook his head as he turned left on to the main road, heading toward St. Joseph. "Riley, don't make me say it again. Everything is normal," he stressed. "But at least now we can see how bad the road was flooded last night."
Riley glared at the back of Ben's head, but then his attention switched to the journal as he opened to a random entry toward the front and began to read.
Sept. 4I just arrived in Missouri today, and I cannot wait to see my grandfather again. It has been such a long time since I have seen him since his job took him South. But I am finally here after a long and rather tedious train ride, and now I am taking a carriage because the train station is in a small county outside of St. Joseph. I should be there shortly. But there seems to be trouble. Robert Ford, a sheriff from St. Joseph, is standing on the road ahead. He has his rifle and is directing us in a different direction than where we need to go. I cannot hear all of what he is telling the driver, but I can here something about the road ahead being flooded from all of the rain they had just had and it will not be cleared until morning. He goes on to say something about a rest house down the street and how we will have to stay there for the night. We drive past him, but as I look at his smile, there is something that I do not like about him. But I will continue my entry tonight once we are settled in at the rest house. I only hope that I will not have to stay there too long, for I want so badly to see my grandfather again.
"Well, this is weird."
Riley slowly looked up from the journal page, Abigail's words bringing him out of the year 1882 and putting him back in the present. "What's weird?" he asked.
"Remember how that sheriff told us that the road was flooded last night? Well, there's no sign of flooding," Abigail answered him. "And look. There's the sign that tells us we're entering St. Joseph."
Sure enough. Riley read, Hello, St. Joseph welcomes you, in big, bold lettering on the sign as they passed it, but then he looked back down at the journal page. "Uh, you guys may want to hear this," he muttered before he began to read aloud the entry that he had just read to himself.
Abigail's eyes narrowed once he was finished. "I admit, that is kind of strange," she commented. "You don't think that we all imagined the sheriff from last night, do you?"
"No, we all couldn't have imagined it," Riley told her, shaking his head. "It could be-!"
"Riley, please don't say what I think you're going to say," Ben said. "That sheriff last night was not Robert Ford."
"I wasn't going to say that, but that is a good theory, Ben."
"And you know, it is said that strange, unexplainable things happen in places that hold a lot of history," Abigail added.
"All right, let's just stop talking about ghosts," Ben snapped, sounding agitated as he pulled over on to the side of the road across from the travel center. "Now, I'm going to go inside and find a hotel that we can stay at and possibly some of the well-known attractions. Do you want to come with?"
"I do," Abigail said, unbuckling her seatbelt. "Riley, how about you?"
But Riley shook his head. "Nah, I think I'll stay here," he replied. "I want to look at this journal some more."
Ben nodded. "Okay, we'll be back soon," he told him as he stepped outside. "I'll lock the doors."
"Go for it." Riley saw Ben's grin and smiled himself. Then, he watched his two best friends walk across the street and enter the travel center. Then, his gaze curiously moved out the window to see what was on his side of the street.
A large graveyard met his eyes, filled with many rows of tombstones, some cracked or faded with age. Just how old was this cemetery?"
Suddenly struck by inspiration when he remembered the story that Daniel had told him about the treasure, Riley quickly but carefully flipped through Clara's journal, finally finding her entry on the day where Jesse James had given her the map and pendant. After reading it through quickly, he saw that the cemetery she had been in was at the corner of Fifth and Eighth Street. The techie then looked out the window, searching for some street signs that would give him their location. When he found them, he smiled.
Fifth and Eighth Street. This was the same cemetery where Clara had gotten the map. He could get his father's clue right now. Riley looked back at the travel center and saw that Ben and Abigail were still inside. If he hurried, he may even be able to get it before they returned to the car and found him gone. But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get the final clue on his own.
Riley climbed over the seat and sat on the passenger's side, unlocking the door and stepping out of the car, shutting it behind him before entering the cemetery. He slowly moved through the rows of tombstones, heading toward the back where Jesse James had brought Clara to give her the map. Only glancing briefly at the names on the headstones as he passed them, the techie soon came to a large tree, providing some shade from the blazing sun above. Riley stood at the base and looked up at the leaf-filled branches, wondering where his father could have left the clue. He couldn't believe that his ancestor had stood in this same spot decades before, and this is where she had gotten the map.
"Ya'll won' find any loved ones up there."
With a gasp, Riley quickly turned around and saw that a man with a large beard was walking toward him. Since he had a shovel over his shoulder, he assumed that this man must have been the caretaker. "I'm just enjoying every aspect of this beautiful cemetery," the techie hurriedly explained as the man stopped in front of him.
"This is an ancien' cem'try," the man replied with a small smile, leaning on the shovel. "They say legends are buried here from hundreds o' years ago."
"It's that old?" Riley asked, amazed.
The man nodded. "Yep, she is," he answered. "Now, who are ya' lookin' for? I may be able to help."
Riley hesitated for a minute, and then sighed. "Well, I'm not exactly looking for someone," he muttered hesitantly. "You see, my dad left me something here…"
"Oh, you're tha' kid, are ya'?" the man suddenly asked with a laugh. "But just to make sure tha' it really is ya'…" He reached forward and pulled on the string that was around Riley's neck, revealing the jade cross pendant from beneath his shirt.
"Hey!" Riley said, startled as he pulled it back from the man. "What are you doing?"
The man's eyes shone. "Jeremy left somthin' important beneath this tree," he told him quietly, shocking Riley into silence. "Luckily I was able to get it an' give it to ya' before it was too late."
"Who are you?" Riley asked in a whisper, beginning to wish that he had waited for Ben and Abigail to come with him into the cemetery to get the clue.
Instead of answering, the man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment that looked fragile and ancient. Riley delicately took it, but before he could unroll it, he was handed another piece of paper.
"Read tha' one first," the man said with a wink when the techie looked at him with confusion.
Riley looked at him for another long moment before slowly unfolding the sheet of paper. In his father's handwriting was a riddle. He sighed and read aloud quietly to himself:
"Crooked is straight,
Straight is crooked,
You are almost at your journey's end.
Close to your heart
The key now lies.
Look there for answers,
Each beat will be your guide."
"All righty. What is that supposed to mean?" Riley asked to no one in particular.
"Riley!"
The techie quickly looked up at the distant sound of his name, recognizing the voice to belong to Ben.
"Riley!"
And there was Abigail. They must have returned to the car and found him gone. Maybe he could convince them that he had been abducted by aliens or something when he went back. Riley then quickly folded the paper and put it into his pocket. "Do you have any idea…" he began to ask of the man who had given him the clue, but the question trailed off when he saw that he was nowhere to be seen.
"Geeze, why do I always meet the weird people?" Riley muttered, beginning to gently unroll the fragile parchment that he had also been given. His eyes landed on a carefully drawn picture of what appeared to be a large house of some sort, some words neatly placed in certain places to form what appeared to be a legend to a…
"It's a map," Riley whispered, ignoring the continuous shouts of his name. He held in his hands the map that led to the treasure of Jesse James.
A/N: All right, there we go! The final clue has been revealed along with the map, but will they figure it out? I don't know, you'll have to wait to find out! Thanks for reading! Your reviews are much appreciated. Thank you!