The Game of Treasure Hunt
It was a game tourists would play when they came to the island. Honestly, even at fifteen years of age, I thought they were fucking idiots.
The heat had been building all morning. I was living in a small attic above the Tobermory Inn.
Putting my face up to the open skylight, needing some fresh and clean air, only to experience the outside air was no different, still and stale, not even a fluttering of a breeze.
It feels like a day when you can feel a thunderstorm before it arrives, or is heard. I need to walk and think before my problems get out of hand.
Leaving the top end of the town, the only vehicle that came by was a horse-drawn carriage — I was thinking how early it was for tourist rides. Must be a party from the mainland wanting a carriage ride before boarding the ferry back to the mainland.
I headed off-road, taking a track first shown to me when I was a boy, following a narrow twisting route that wound between purple heather and bracken; the only sound carried on the limp breeze was the occasional rustle of coarse grass.
I’d progressed about a mile along my coastal path, looking out across to Oban and the mainland coast of Scotland. The path was unspoiled, entwined in bracken, and clean of discarded soda cans or picnic leavings. I’m sure, later in the day, they would be left such waste by inconsiderate tourists.
But maybe I had thought wrong, for up ahead was a large piece of paper lying across a rock. Getting close, I had to wonder if I had come across a ‘treasure hunt clue, such as people enjoy playing.
A reward of one hundred coins is hereby offered for information leading to the capture of smugglers terrorizing this district and the forfeit of their contraband. Contact the undersigned.
T. Macleod — for H.M. Customs.
I was puzzled as to how the reward poster could have ended up, secured by a stone, on a large rock. I satisfied my curiosity by accepting I had stumbled on a clue for a game.
There was something else though —the paper wasn’t that of a poster material, more it felt like parchment, the ink hardly dry — I prodded it tentatively with my forefinger and it left a slight stain.
Yes of course, what else could it be? A hoard of tourists would come by looking for this clue, probably a pub outing.
One hundred coins friend — a weird reward I’d say — ah but smuggling was once the scourge of the times, aye — so it is, but back in the 1700s, not so much today.
Hearing a loud, deep voice, I spun around, having not the slightest notion that someone had followed me up along the coast path, but there he stood a portly man dressed in boots, breeches, and a yellow waistcoat.
“I’m sorry?” I questioned.
“Alexander Thorfinn, sir,” and he looked me up and down as though I were an oddity, from my clean-shaven chin, and checked cotton shirt to my stonewash jeans, and then swiped the back of his hand across his nose.
“I cannae say I abide your clothes, but you hardly look a smuggler, my man. They’re running amok, we must stamp them out,” his voice rose as I became aware of a developing rumble but deriving from the ground rather than the skies.
And then I saw why — the horses and carriage I’d seen earlier were coming up the stone path at a furious pace, bearing down towards me.
Game or no game, I thought this was a bit over the top.
My heart was keeping pace with the horses’ hooves as they charged closer, two horses and one man laden with barrels.
The carriage driver was glaring down at me, his dark eyes the only prominent feature in a heavily bearded face. He pulled sharply on the reins, both horses whinnied and the heavy carriage slithered sideways to a halt alongside me, only feet away.
His mean eyes were fixed on the parchment on the rock. “Pass me that parchment, my friend,” he roared, pointing at it lying on the rock.
I’ve been hauled from my bed into the midst of some pantomime.
He lowered his head, threateningly, and I thought, “It’s either that or I plant lead into your skull — now which would you prefer?”
I smelled the alcohol on his breath, saw his rotted teeth, and the lower set ground to stumps. Some pantomime –
“Look, pal,” I said shakily, “you look impressive, but there are limits to what you can and cannot do on this land.”
“You think I jest?’ From beneath his black frock, he drew a blunderbuss. I’ve seen them in antique stores, and not one of them is real.
“Fuck it, he thinks I’m a player in this game. “Okay, mate, okay, you can put that antique back in your fucking dress. Here, I'll give you the damn clue. I shoved the clue into the big chap’s free hand and then held my arms aloft. Might as well join in the fun.
I glanced at the barrels in the carriage, ‘Trinidad 1734’ Very authentic, I thought.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief as he charged the horses to take up the strain, and off they went. All I wanted was some fresh air, and a walk to think and clear my brain, having not written a decent story for a week or more.
I wiped my forehead in the humidity of mid-morning and headed straight back to the Inn.
I was just in time, thunder and lightning was crackling across the harbor.
But at least I was back to reality and not in some Pub game tourists dressed up for.
I opened the door to the Inn and greeted the cellarman as he came up
from the basement, he looked at me oddly, nodded, hoisted a barrel onto
his shoulder, and proceeded back down the cellar steps. It was an old wooden cask, stunk of age. I glanced at the inscription –
Trinidad. 1734.
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