"Two," Clyde said and slid the cards he didn't want across to Bobcat. Bobcat tucked the cards back into the stack and fast-flipped Clyde two new ones, one of which nearly went sailing off the slick table top before Clyde managed to slam his hand down on it.

"Good reflexes."

"That could've landed in some beer and then what would've happened?"

"We'd have ended up outside with you attempting to punch my pretty face in and me not letting you."

Clyde snorted and arranged the cards in his hand. Bobcat looked at John Boy, the third man at the table in the back of the honkytonk bar, and raised an eyebrow.

"Three," John Boy said, sliding his cards over and getting three back. Bobcat contemplated his own splay of cards, toothpick wandering from one corner of his mouth to the other, before he dealt himself one.

Clyde was too keyed up to concentrate on his hand. The twangy country music playing over the bar's sound system grated his nerves and he didn't like the way the bartender stood staring into space as he polished glasses on slo-mo.

Like he was a zombie.

Or a Fed.

"Calm down," Bobcat said, not raising his eyes from his cards.

"I am calm," Clyde said, pushing two peanuts into the centre of the table from the pile next to his soft drink. "If I were any calmer, you'd have to check me for a pulse."

John Boy giggled and added his two peanuts to the kitty.

Bobcat flicked in his two and said "You don't believe he really has it then?"

"I believe he can get his hands on it, is what I believe. Beyond that...." Clyde shrugged. Under the table, he tapped his worn cowboy boot against the carrier bag to reassure himself that the twenty thousand dollars was exactly where it was supposed to be.

Twenty thousand.

Clyde shook his head. And that was just the rental price, the stranger on the phone had said. Thirty grand more for his time and effort, payable up front and in used bills.

And that for only two days use. Tops.

Clyde had almost hung up on him. Who did the stupid punk think he was, making absurd demands like that?

Someone with access to an experimental military-grade drone fitted with photon positioning and nanoparticle detection, that's who.

Clyde had heard rumours. The Pentagon was fed up with having to publicly say whoops, our bad every time they blew up some third-world shepherd's wedding party in the mistaken assumption that it was an ad hoc terrorist camp.

How embarrassing.

That's why they'd been all too willing to pour billions into the development of a sexy piece of tech no bigger than your hand that was so sensitive, it could detect if highly specific elements were present at a site or not.

Like cake, presumably.

And this guy was offering him the opportunity to get his hands on it before even the military did.

For fifty thousand.

"Perfect for what you have in mind," the voice on the other end of the line had said.

"How do you know what I have in mind?" Clyde had answered, peering through the curtains of his hotel room at the strip mall on the other side of the road and the distant peaks of the Sierra Madre beyond.

It would be perfect, he admitted to himself, if it could detect the exact location of four-hundred-year old timbers, rusted-out muskets and a mega-ton of gold bars.

"You're supposed to be a real life Indiana Jones," the guy said. "There are fan blogs on the internet about you. I've read them. Impressive, if they're true. And now you're in California kicking beer cans along the side of a highway nobody's been down in fifty years. Doesn't take a genius to figure why."

Smart ass.

Two days. Versus an entire winter's work hauling equipment back and forth over a 400-mile quadrant.

Should he risk it? Fifty grand was a hunk of change, but the pay-off could be in the millions.

That was the danger, and attraction, of the treasure hunter game. You either made bank or you ate peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner until something else turned up.

And he could never explain it to Jenny. Why he sunk so much time, cash and effort into something that – in all but the rarest occasions -- had about as much of a connection to reality as the Easter bunny.

Maybe that was why she'd walked out on him and was now dating a dental hygienist in Cleveland.

So he'd heard.

But when it did come true, Jenny. God, what an Easter bunny.

Clyde had let the curtain fall back into place and cranked the air conditioning up a notch. It was early October and the temps were still hovering in the 90s.

He was damned near broke. What with the divorce and the fact he hadn't found anything that had brought in real money in the last two years.

And he was almost sixty.

He needed a win. Badly.

Two days.

Jesus.

The bar door swung open and a man in his thirties walked in. Polo shirt and khakis. Nice boy haircut. Looked like he just stepped off the Microsoft campus. Nothing in his hands.

That had to be the guy.

Bobcat must have thought the same thing because he pushed out the forth chair at the table with his foot. The guy spotted the movement and made a beeline for them.

Not very subtle.

"Clyde Raynor?" he said, looking quizzically at all three of them, after he'd sat down on the edge of the chair he'd been offered.

Bobcat nodded towards Clyde.

"You got the money?"

"Now hold your horses there, son," Bobcat said before Clyde could even get his mouth open. "Why don't you get yourself a drink and join us for a round of poker. Don't worry, none of us are professional gamblers. As you can see, we're playing for peanuts."

John Boy snorted, "Peanuts, that's good."

"I'm not here to waste time," the guy said, his posture stiffening and his already stony expression ticking another two notches towards granite. "Either you have it, or I walk."

"Jesus." Bobcat rolled his eyes heavenwards. "Somebody's been watching too many action flicks."

"First things first," Clyde said. "You don't know exactly what we're looking for. It's a Spanish galleon, 17th century, that somehow managed to wreck itself out in the desert. Could just be a legend, or maybe not. I've printed you off some material about it."

The guy refused to take the two thin sheets of folded paper Clyde offered him, leaving them untouched on the table. "I told you, I don't need to know what you're looking for, only the chemical material. That's all."

"That's all, huh?"

"Yeah, that's all."

"What's the matter, son? Afraid you'll get your hands dirty? Nothing illegal about poking around after a legend," Bobcat said.

"It's you who should be afraid. I could turn all of you in right now. Tell them you were attempting to bribe me. So stop calling me son," the guy snapped at Bobcat before turning to Clyde. "Well, have you got it with you, or what?"

Clyde thought for a few moments. He could blow the whole thing off right now. Tell the little asshole to stuff it, get out into the desert, start looking on his own. Keep his nose clean.

"Let's go," he said, and reached down for the bag.

Bobcat had set up their expedition headquarters where he normally did -- under a picnic tent next to the gigantic RV he'd inherited from his aunt.

Clyde wasn't complaining.

The thing was a monster in orange and shit brown, but it had 4 bunks, satellite TV and cruise control. And you could park it anywhere, even in the most ludicrous of places, and nobody batted an eye. The AARP sticker Bobcat hadn't bothered to scrape off the back window made sure of that.

Now it was parked on the shoulder of a highway next to a clump of cactus, forty miles east of nowhere.

The four men were gathered around a folding table under the picnic tent. Two of them stood staring at the drone that sat like a tarantula between them, and the other two sitting in folding chairs concentrating on the screen of the control laptop.

The guy, who said his name was Steve, typed in the data Clyde gave him: rotten wood, rust, iron. Possibly bone fragments.

The drone emitted a series of a beeps before rising vertically, pausing in the air and then shooting off over the flat desert like a ghost bullet.

"I've told it to do a fly-over of the first hundred-mile segment. If it finds anything with two or more of the elements, it will report the find immediately. Otherwise, it will return in..." The guy. paused, searching the colourful screen for the right data field. "Forty-five minutes for a battery recharge."

"And what do we do in the meantime?" John Boy asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth.

"Whatever you want," Clyde said, distractedly. His eyes were glued to the moving points on the screen. "A hundred miles? In forty-five minutes, you say?"

"Not bad, huh?" the guy said, clearly proud of his toy. "It would be much slower over anything civilian given how many samples it has to process while in flight. But in monotone terrain like this?" The guy shrugged. He pulled the carrier bag with the money towards himself, opened it and started counting.

"It's all there, asshole." Clyde heard Bobcat say under his breath as he stomped into the dark recesses of the RV.

After a few moments, the opening and shutting of the fridge could be heard followed by the muffled cadence of a sports announcer's voice.

John Boy seemed not to know what to do with himself. He hovered around the table for a minute or so before hesitantly following Bobcat inside, leaving Clyde alone with the tech guy.

Clyde watched the progress of the drone on the screen in fascination. A constant stream of data ran down the side like ticker tape, listing all the stuff it was flying over, assessing in the blink of an eye.

What I couldn't find with something like that in my bag of tricks, Clyde thought. And it's small enough to smuggle in a briefcase or a duffle bag.

The drone found nothing of interest on its first or second flight, but some twenty minutes into the third flight, the laptop began to beep. Steve, who'd had his nose in a science magazine, leaned forward and typed in a few commands.

"Wood. Metal. Close together. I'm asking it to hone in for more detail."

Ten seconds passed.

"Oak. Rotten. The metal...iron. I'm asking for a pic."

A window opened on the screen and the image of a few long boards of dark wood and what looked like a large, thick link of a chain sticking out of the sandy ground appeared. Below it, the exact geo coordinates.

"About sixty miles north north-west," Steve said. "That looks like ship chain to me."

It looked like it to Clyde, too. Especially when, two hours later, he was standing right next to it.

Bobcat and John Boy were clearing the area around the beams, their shovels moving sand and dirt far enough out of the way to see if there was anything underneath.

And there was.

The planks continued down, curving gracefully. More metal parts appeared. Nails, a few more links of sturdy ship's chain.

It was clearly a ship. And an old one at that.

"Holy shit," said John Boy, his voice going up an octave. "Do you think this is really it? Do you think this is really the gold ship?"

"Let's not jump the gun," Clyde said, his voice hoarse in expectation.

"Aw, screw off, Clyde," said Bobcat, thumping his shovel against the ground. "What else can it be? What did the legend say? Wrecked in sight of the Mother, five tons of gold gone asunder. Well, there's the mother." He pointed towards the Sierra Madre. "And here's where the gold went asunder."

"You screw off," countered Clyde. "How many times have you seen a sure thing go up in smoke, huh? I'll get the metal detector."

They'd left Steve in his car, waiting to see if they hit pay dirt or would have to send the drone out again. When Clyde turned around, Steve was standing right behind him.

"Find what you were looking for?" Steve's eyes were locked on the exposed planks, a thoughtful look on his face Clyde didn't like.

"Could be." Clyde walked past him to the jeep and opened up the back hatch.

"Because if it is, I want my thirty grand," Steve said, following him. "That was the deal. Twenty up front and thirty at the end of the second day or when you make your find."

"Yeah, about that. I couldn't get my hands on that much cash in that short of a time span. Give me a few days..."

"I gave you enough time."

"Look man," Clyde sighed. "You'll get your money. But I'm going to need a few more days, okay."

"Not a few more days, now."

"Let's wait and see if this is the right--"

"If you don't have my thirty grand, I'm walking and you won't like the consequences, I promise you."

Clyde didn't have thirty grand. The twenty he'd already handed over was all the money he had left in the world.

And he realised he didn't need to part with it.

He slid a hand into a compartment near the wheel well and pulled out his hand gun. "Sorry," he said. "No can do."

Steve's eyes went wide and he looked down, watching in surprise as red blossomed out across the middle of his shirt. He jerked his head up and glared at Clyde.

"You're going to seriously regret— "

Clyde pulled the trigger again. Steve stumbled backwards and fell, a lumpy red mess where his face had been.

"I was afraid that might happen," said Bobcat, coming to stand next to Clyde. "The greedy little shit had it coming."

"I think I might be sick."

"Then be sick in the jeep. Last thing you want on a corpse is your DNA."

Bobcat handed Clyde his shovel and told him to keep digging while he and John Boy got rid of Steve's car.

Clyde did what he was told. He wasn't in any state to argue.

He'd never shot anyone before. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about it. All he knew was he had to keep his mind on the task at hand. There was gold, if the legend had any truth to it, lots of gold, right under his feet.

He needed this find, and it was right under his feet. So dig.

The shovel turned up more and more planks, chain, nails, bolts and fragments of what might have been barrels or other ship paraphernalia.

None of it of value.

He tossed them aside and kept digging - he had no idea how long- sweat stinging his eyes. He didn't bother to look up when he heard the humming motor of the returning jeep.

Just dig. Dig and find the Spanish gold.

"You must be Clyde," a voice said. Clyde looked up, jerked out of his day-dreams of ingots and lobster dinners. A stranger in T-shirt and jeans stood only a few feet away.

A stranger aiming a large calibre gun at him.

Another man, also armed, stood looking down at Steve's splayed corpse. He slowly raised his gaze and settled it on Clyde.

Clyde's knees began to wobble.

"Our friend told us you'd found something," the first man said, his tone as cold as his smile. "Said we should come out and have a look, help him collect his fifty thousand. Too bad he's not here to greet us. That the cash?"

He nodded towards the bag with the twenty thousand that Clyde had removed from Steve's car before John Boy had driven off with it.

Clyde didn't answer.

The man took a step forward and gave the dark petrified ship's planks a careful appraisal. "Find anything yet?"

Something in Clyde snapped and his fear alchemised into rage.

You aren't going to get my find, you bastards. I need this.

"No," he barked. "And we won't, either. That's what I was trying to tell him." He jutted his chin towards the corpse. "This site's been looted. But he didn't want to believe me."

"And I don't either. Keep digging."

Clyde didn't move. Could he stall long enough for the others to get back?

"I said keep digging. We were promised gold and that's what we're here for," the stranger said. "Or why did you think we let you use the drone? You're not the only one who's heard of legends."

"You were lied to. There's nothing here, see?" Clyde rammed the shovel into the ground a few times hard, tossing dirt wildly out of the ditch. "Nothing! Nothing at all. Just a lot of fucking dirt."

He kept on, screaming and throwing shovelfuls like a madman.

The stranger with the gun looked uncertain, but then suddenly took another step forward, his eyebrows raised. "Then what's that?"

Clyde looked down.

In the earth next to his boots something metallic glittered. He poked at it and it slid out like water from a spout.

A rain of gold coins.

Fat Spanish doubloons. And more glittered in the hole beyond.

Oh Jenny, but when it does come true.

Clyde slammed into the far wall of the ditch, propelled forward by the bullets that hit him in the back and shoulder. With his last effort, he reached out and grasped a handful of the nearest coins in a tight fist.

Let them try to pry them out of his dead hand. It was his find.

And he was going to damn well keep it.

____

This one was written for WPWestern's "Spanish Galleon" contest, June 2022