If Catfish Had Nine Lives(103)

            “Almost there?” I asked after only a few ankle-twisting minutes.

            “Just up ahead. There’s no place for an automobile, but we’re not far now.”

            Jake had the small shovel from my trunk over his shoulder, and I was carrying a couple partly full water bottles that had been rolling around on the backseat. I’d told Jake what Jerome had said about being haunted and he’d responded with his normal thoughtful interest.

            It was still spring enough that the Missouri giant prehistoric bugs—my description—hadn’t come out of their hiding places yet. The journey wasn’t completely bug-free, but nothing I saw made me question evolution.

            Without much warning, we were suddenly in a wide clearing that was covered more in short weeds than tall grasses.

            “There, past that bunch of trees was my farm.” Jerome pointed.

            I shaded my eyes with my hand and peered through the trees. There was another clearing on the other side of them. The remains of an old small house still stood, its nubby corners the only things left.

            “Jerome’s farm was over there,” I said to Jake.

            “That was a ways out from town.”

            “Were those things part of your house?” I asked.

            “I think so,” Jerome said. “I don’t know what happened to the place after I died. Miz might be able to answer that better than I can.”

            I tried to imagine Jerome there, standing in front of a house or a cabin, or perhaps plowing the earth or wrangling cattle. The mental pictures were clear. He’d never fit into my own time, and “seeing” him there, on his land, was easy and almost expected.

            “That’s kind of cool,” Jake said. “We’ll explore it sometime.”

            “I’d like that,” I said.

            “But for now, are those the heart trees he was talking about?” Jake pointed to the far right of the cabin remains.

            “Yes,” Jerome said.

            “Affirmative,” I said.

            Jake led the way again and we stepped over rocks and earth until we finally stopped by the trees. The branches of two different trees had bent and come together so symmetrically that they did, indeed, resemble the shape of a Valentine heart.

            “Right there.” Jerome pointed at the ground at the bottom of the heart. “I think that’s something.”

            “Here,” I pointed for Jake.

            Jake and I crouched. Mostly we just saw ground, but there was something else. Maybe. Something about three inches wide stuck out of the dirt. It was too uniformly shaped and sized to be something organic, but it was also too heavily caked in dirt to be recognizable.

            I grabbed the item and rubbed it with my thumb. Only a few seconds later it became clear that we’d found what was probably a leather flap.

            “What should we do?” I asked Jake.

            He sat back on his heels and inspected the space.

            “Probably nothing. We should probably contact the authorities. I imagine you think we’ve found the same thing I think we’ve found.”

            “A mochila? Probably Astin Reagal’s?”

            “Yep, we’re on the same wavelength. And if his mochila is around here, maybe so are his bones.”

            “You’re not going to look more closely?” Jerome asked.