The professor continued, his voice softening, "Miss Smithers, Miriam--may I call you Miriam? I realize that you are new to graduate school, but I have sensed a tremendous amount of potential in you. I expect a lot from you. You are not like the column upon column of wooden-headed droids that I am forced to deal with on a daily basis. You are special, dear. That is why I wanted you to come along on this little trip."

Miss Smithers did not like the path that the conversation had begun to take. Fortunately for her, something or someone distracted Spriggs, and he returned to his level of high irritation. "Look at these people!" he said motioning to a group of elderly men on the sidewalk just off the square. The men were all wearing overalls and blue or checked cotton shirts, and while some were whittling, the majority was watching the outcome of an intense checker game. "Look at what they're wearing! Look at what they're doing! They're hacking away at pieces of wood with their pocketknives! Look at the dining fares of their eating establishments...catfish, catfish, catfish! Who eats catfish?! Well I guess they do," he said, answering his own question.

"Sir, do you really think that there is a millionaire buried somewhere up on Pinkham Ridge," said Miss Smithers, trying to return the conversation to a more coherent level.

"Facts, Miss Smithers, Miriam. That's what we deal with," Spriggs said deliberately.

"I don't know if we'll find our Major Rutherford on Pinkham Ridge. But here are the facts: Robert Beauregard Rutherford was a millionaire many times over. He bought his rank at a time when the Confederacy was starting to hurt for gold, and gold was what he offered. He was given his commission in Jackson, Mississippi in late '61, and he never went anywhere without his wealth. And that included the battlefield. Even in civilian life, he regularly traveled with $200,000 with of gold. Now he had his trusted people to transport it for him, but it was never far from his side."

"But, Pinkham Ridge...?" Miss Smithers asked. She was pulling into the parking lot of the Dover Inn, and she put the car into park and turned up the air conditioner.

"Ah, yes, Pinkham Ridge. One of the things those poor Southern clods were good at was mucking up their own rosters. Robert Beauregard Rutherford, millionaire, major, heir to a Mississippi cotton dynasty, it was all for naught. He never returned from the fields of war. And he took his fortune, or, at least a piece of it with him."

"But didn't anyone miss him? Didn't they look for him?" asked Miss Smithers, incredulously.

"They certainly missed his fortune!" Spriggs said, chuckling to himself at his unintentional double entendre. "After all, there were hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, and believe me, a hundred thousand dollars was more like millions a hundred years ago, especially in the war-wrecked South. So, of course there were some poor souls who searched for him, but only a few. Rutherford had no partners, he had no siblings, his parents were long dead, and he never married. And, as I said, they had a poorly-made roster to boot."

Spriggs laughed, "The poor schmucks who did look for him were turning over stones somewhere down in Georgia!"

So I guess you're saying that this isn't exactly common knowledge..." said Miss Smithers, grimacing from the weight of the circumstances.

Spriggs laughed again and reached over to pat her head. "My dear Miss Smithers, what sort of a tomb raider would I be if that were common knowledge?!"

Winndrow had returned to his trailer where he threw on a fresh, buttoned-down sportshirt along with a couple of slaps of Old Spice for good measure. He strolled into Dover Inn Restaurant with his signature Camel tucked behind his right ear as he casually scanned the dining room for a glimpse of the two strangers he had encountered that afternoon. They were not hard to spot. It was as if they sat at a spotlighted table; they were the bright and elevated point in the dark gray room, and the rest of the diners were leaning in close to each other, speaking in hushed tones and motioning at the two with their eyes and quick nods of their heads.

©Copyright 2002 David Ray Skinner/SouthernReader. All rights reserved.