Sharyn McCrumb - MacPherson's Lament

“There’s one other concern,” said Bill. He explained about the simple real estate transaction, the power of attorney, and the Cayman Islands wire transfer while his partner’s expression changed from polite bewilderment to apprehension and finally to utter dismay. “And so,” Bill concluded, “I have hopes that Elizabeth will find the Confederate daughters and save me from being charged with fraud and murder.”

“I see,” said A. P. Hill. She was several shades paler now. Her eyebrows seemed to have arched permanently in an expression of horror.

“They were really very kind,” Bill said.

“Except that they left you under suspicion of fraud and murder,” his partner pointed out.

“The million and a half worries me,” said Bill. “Will the state expect me to pay it back?”

“I hope not. We didn’t get insurance on the practice yet, did we?”

“No. We opted for filing cabinets instead. I could never hope to raise that much money, Powell. I have the seventy-five thousand dollars from the house sale commission, but that wouldn’t go far. Besides, I paid off my college loan with it and bought a car and the fax machine.”

A. P. Hill groaned. “You shouldn’t be let out alone,” she said. “You have to pay taxes on that, remember! Are those all the assets you have?”

“All my worldly goods,” said Bill. “Except for this.” He fished out his Confederate penny and held it up with a rueful smile.

“Let me see that,” said Powell, snatching the coin. “Where did you get this?”

“Miss Bridgeford gave it to me. For a lucky piece. You see. I told you those ladies were nice.”

“They were very kind. Look, can I hold on to this for a little while?”

“Don’t you think I need a lucky piece more than you do?” asked Bill.

“I promise to let you have the luck, partner. Right now I’d better go and talk to somebody about this little predicament of yours. We need to do something before you get indicted. I have our reputation to think of.”

“Who can you talk to?” asked Bill. “I was afraid to go to any of the old boys in town, because if they find out how badly I’ve screwed up, we’ll never get accepted by the legal eagles around here.”

“I don’t care for the thought myself,” said Powell Hill. “But I can’t see any way out of it. I’m going to see what I can do to clear up this mess. And then I suppose I’ll have to talk to Cousin Stinky.”

“Great!” groaned Bill. “Your cousin Stinky. You think a country lawyer from southwest Virginia can help me out? Where does Stinky practice? Martinsville?”

“Richmond. Cousin Stinky is the state’s attorney general.” A. P. Hill tossed the coin in the air and caught it. “Catch you later, partner.”

“LET ME TELL her about it, Flora!” Lydia Bridgeford was saying. “After all, I discovered it!”

“But who put it there?” Dolly Hawks Smith demanded.

I was almost oblivious to their bickering, because the words Confederate treasury were still reverberating through my brain, louder than the cannons at Petersburg. “The Confederate treasury,” I said, for perhaps the fifth time. “Wasn’t it recovered by the U.S. Army at the close of the war?”

“Some of it,” said Lydia Bridgeford. “One of the cabinet officers, a Mr. Micajah Clark, managed to account for about thirty thousand dollars, which he did turn over to the Union authorities. But remember that when Richmond fell, the government took the treasury with them to Danville. Gold bars.”

I shook my head. “There couldn’t have been much money. The Confederacy was poor. Our soldiers had no shoes, no ammunition, no meat-”

“I thought of that, too,” said Flora Dabney. “But the Union blockade cut off the Confederacy’s trade with other countries, which meant that there were no supplies to be had. That’s not the same as being without the money to buy them.”

“I have been tracing the Confederate treasury for some time now,” said Lydia Bridgeford. “My dear father was one of the men responsible for guarding it.”

“Your father stole the Confederate treasury?” I should have thought before I spoke, but, frankly, I was amazed to find that genteel larceny was hereditary.

Lydia Bridgeford was thoroughly indignant at such an improper suggestion. “Stole it from whom?” she demanded. “The government had fallen and the officials were trying to flee to Mexico. I am sure that he was keeping it in trust for a time when the South would rise again.”

“Oh, Lyddy, he was not,” said Dolly Smith. “You know perfectly well that your father spent his share and lost what he didn’t spend in the crash of ’29. What’s buried here is my father’s share.” Her eyes twinkled as she revealed these ancestral misdemeanors. “Our fathers were young sailors assigned to guard the treasury,” she explained. “And at some point after the retreat to Georgia, they took some of the gold bars entrusted to them and left for home. Lydia’s father managed to sell his gold and became a prosperous legislator. My father buried his on this island.”

“And you’re only now coming back for it?” I was thinking that I wouldn’t have waited until I was seventy to go in search of the family inheritance.

“I only learned of it recently,” said Dolly Hawks Smith. “When we were going through our belongings as we packed to leave, Lydia found an old letter from my father to her father. Father wrote it in 1901, long before I was born, when his first wife died, and he thought his life was coming to a close. I suppose he wanted his old friend to have the money.”

“Father hid the letter in a loose cover of the family Bible,” said Lydia. “I confess that I don’t turn to it as often as I should, but really I do think it was Providence that led me to find that letter as I was leafing through it last month.”

I looked at their beaming faces and at the metal detector resting against the seat of the picnic table. “But how do you know that the gold is still here?” I asked. “Mr. Bridgeford might have come back and dug it up after he got the letter.”

“I think he planned to,” said Lydia. “After he lost all his money in ’29, he told Mother that we were going to a Georgia island to vacation. I was only a little girl then, but I remember Mother remarking on how strange it was that he’d want the expense of a seaside holiday when we were in such dire financial straits. Anyway, we never came here. Father had his stroke shortly after that. He was an invalid until he died.”

“It’s still here,” said Flora Dabney. “And we intend to find it.”

“Good,” I said. “Then you won’t be needing the million or so from the sale of the house, will you?”

They gazed at each other with somber expressions. Finally Mary Lee Pendleton said, “We don’t want your brother to go to prison. If we find the gold, we’ll return the house money.”

“In that case,” I said, “I would be happy to work this metal detector for you. An old boyfriend taught me how.”

If Cousin Stinky was glad to see the Hill family’s newest attorney, he concealed the emotion with remarkable skill. It might have had something to do with the fact that “little Amy” had appeared at his office without an appointment and with no apparent regard for his schedule and prior commitments. It might have been the grim look of determination she wore in lieu of the deferential simper he preferred on a young female face. But most likely, it was the fact that with newsmen thick on the ground in Richmond government buildings, little Amy Powell Hill had the audacity to come to his office in the middle of the day wearing a Confederate officer’s uniform, complete with sword and plumed hat. Stinky (who had scotched that nickname two hundred miles west of Richmond) barricaded himself behind his mahogany desk, and prepared to humor his eccentric young cousin for at least seven minutes-out of duty to the family.