Published: 11 Sep 2025

Chapter 16 – The End of Fall Break

When we woke up in the morning, we had to go out to get something to eat, and Lonny and Clint wanted to try a different restaurant this time. I quickly retrieved my laptop and showed them the links to all of their choices and let them decide where they wanted to go. After looking at several different menus, they chose “The Breakfast Club” and Lonny drove us there.

After we’d ordered, Lonny looked at Devin and me and spoke. “I want to thank both of you for a delightful few days and for treating us like family. We enjoyed meeting your other ‘family” members’ as well.” Apparently, he was referring to Preston, Jason, Hunter, and Andy. “We also enjoyed the wonderful meal you prepared as a late Thanksgiving celebration, and for going to the football game with all of you as well. Clint and I look forward to joining you again at your parents’ house for Christmas.”

“And we look forward to spending more time with you as well,” I agreed.

“And you’ll get to meet my parents as well,” Devin added.

“We look forward to that, too.”

We continued chatting while we were eating, and when we finished, Lonny drove us back to the house. As soon as we arrived there, Lonny and Clint went up to the bedrooms to pack their things, and then they carried their bags downstairs and prepared to say goodbye.

“Thanks again for everything,” Lonny said as he shook hands with Devin and me. “We had a wonderful time and I appreciate everything you did to make it happen.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” Clint added, “and I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

“I know how you feel, but we’ll be back together in a few weeks and the time will pass by quickly. I’m sure you’ll be busy with all of the different things going on at school and at home before Christmas, and then we’ll be back together again.”

“But only for a few days. And I’m still gonna miss you until then,” he added as he wrapped his arms around my chest and gave me a tremendous squeeze.”

“Take it easy, Clint,” I gasped. “I certainly didn’t put ‘having cracked ribs’ on my Christmas’ wish list this year.”

“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly. “I just wanted to show you how much you mean to me.”

“I know, and I appreciate that, so we’ll see you again in a few weeks. Ok?”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll have to be happy with that.”

He gave me another hug, although not as energetically this time, before hugging Devin as well. He slowly walked over to pick up his bag, and then he followed his dad out to the car and climbed into the front passenger seat. He kept glancing back at me as he did those things, and then he waved at us as the car started to move. I’m not absolutely certain, but it appeared as if he was crying as they pulled away, but then the car turned the corner and drove out of sight, so Devin and I went back inside the house.

“Are you up for a trip to the hunting camp?” Devin asked once we were in the living room.

“Do you think it’s safe for you to transition already?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just want to see how it feels now, and I might also try transitioning into something smaller.”

“I’m willing to go out to the hunting camp and transition in Bear and Buck with you, but you should wait until your next doctor appointment before you try transitioning into something smaller.”

“Look, I’ve speeded up my recovery time again, just like I did when this first happened, so don’t worry about it. I only want to see how it feels.”

I wasn’t sure if I agreed with his logic, but he seemed determined, so we headed out to the hunting camp for a run. After we pulled onto the dirt trail that led back to the hunting cabin, Devin parked behind a huge Colorado blue spruce tree to make sure the SUV couldn’t be seen from the road. I then retrieved the key for the cabin out of the ashtray, so I could use it to unlock the padlock that kept others out of the cabin. As soon as we were inside, we undressed and then Devin immediately transitioned into a raccoon and started scurrying around the cabin for a brief time, before he transitioned back to himself.

“How did it feel? Did it cause you any problems?” I asked.

“No, there were no problems and it felt fine. In fact, it felt like I was back to normal again and I could probably transition into a mouse as well.”

“Please hold off on doing that until you’ve seen the doctor. Ok?”

“Yeah, ok.”

After he’d transitioned into Bear, we left the cabin and I hid the key under the rock, and then I transitioned into Buck and we raced out to the large, grassy meadow. As soon as the field was just beginning to come into view, we realized something was wrong and came to a skidding halt. We could see there was a huge gap in the tree line on the other side of the meadow that hadn’t been there before. My mind was racing as I attempted to figure out what might have caused it and visually scanned the area for an answer.

Eventually, I was able to discern that several of the trees had toppled over, I immediately wondered if someone had been trespassing and had cut down the trees to use as firewood. Cautiously, we made our way over to that area to see if those that had caused the damage were still around.

As we grew closer, it became apparent that no one had cut down the trees, since the roots still remained attached to the base of the trunks. Obviously, they had been uprooted during a powerful storm, possibly a tornado, so I moved closer and studied the various signs of what had occurred. It soon became clear that a tornado hadn’t been the cause of the damage either, because if it had the trees would’ve been tossed about in a random fashion, but this wasn’t the case. Instead, the fallen trees had all toppled over in the same direction.

This led me to conclude that the cause of this damage had been the result of a powerful straight-line wind, which is generally associated with severe thunderstorms. Now that I had a better understanding of the current situation, we began to sniff around to determine if any animals or humans had been injured or trapped by the fallen trees. It didn’t take long, however, before I began to pick up the faint scent of something, and I believe Bear had as well, because we both turned toward each other and barked.

It was a very faint human scent, but wasn’t strong enough to indicate that if had been left there recently. It wasn’t the scent of anything that had died either, so I continued hunting for the source of the smell. I was worried that someone, possibly even a child, had been injured or trapped in this natural calamity sometime before Thanksgiving. If that was the case, then they were probably very weak and suffering from malnutrition and dehydration, so they might not be able to call out for help.

As I continued sniffing around the damaged trees, I quickly learned that I had to be careful, because there were branches and twigs that had broken off, which resulted in sharp, jagged ends being exposed. The sharp edges had the potential to injure us, if we weren’t careful, because they could not only pierce our legs and paws, but they could also slice lengthy gashes in our bodies. There was other debris on the ground, from chunks of bark and smaller splinters, that could cause us damage as well.

I was tempted to transition into my human form so I could call out and see if anyone responded. They might not only be injured and unable to move, but they may not be able to see what they heard moving around and might be afraid they would be attacked by wild animals. They might be able to respond if they thought a rescuer was close by, but afraid of drawing the unwanted attention of an animal that was looking for something to eat. However, I thought I’d open myself up to more potential harm as a human, especially a naked human wandering around out here.

Instead, I continued sniffing around to see what I could find, but my paws were sustaining a considerable amount of damage from all of the sharp splinters of wood and bark lying on the ground. I had no idea where such a large quantity of this type of debris came from, so I began to look around for a possible source. A short time later, I spotted a tree that had apparently been struck by a bolt of lightning.

The sudden strike from such a powerful source of heat had caused the sap in the tree to instantly come to a boil and explode, which sent bark and splinters flying in all directions. It was the splinters and tiny bits of tree bark that littered the ground that was causing the problem, so I decided that I needed to return to the hunting cabin so I could transition, get dress, and put on my shoes.

I thought Devin would do the same thing before anything happened to him, but he was still sniffing around, so I felt I had to find a way to communicate my intentions to him. What I did is to bark, and as soon as he paid attention to me, I began to walk back toward the field. He didn’t respond immediately, but after several seconds he finally got the hint and followed me. When we arrived at the hunting cabin, I transitioned quickly, retrieved the key, unlocked the padlock, and then I went inside, with Devin following closely behind. As soon as he’d also transitioned, I spoke.

“Let’s go back to that area again, but this time as ourselves so we can wear our shoes to protect our feet, because my paws were getting injured due to all the sharp objects lying around. We’ll still have to be careful as we’re moving the debris or handling any of those things, but it would be better if we had work gloves that we could use to protect our hands.”

“Yes, that probably would be better, and I’m glad you let me know that you wanted to come back here to transition, because I was thinking that we probably needed to do this as well.”

As soon as we were dressed, we made our way back to the meadow again, but this time it took twice as long getting there, since we were traveling more slowly as humans, than we had as dogs. When we arrived at the far side of the meadow again and stood alongside of the fallen trees, we carefully began moving some of the broken limbs and branches out of the way so we could look underneath. We not only wanted to see if anything or anyone was trapped under the debris, but we also hoped that we wouldn’t discover any dead bodies.

While we were doing this, we noticed that a couple of the older trees that had been uprooted and toppled over had also knocked over or damaged some of the younger and less sturdy trees as well. After exploring around the trees closest to the meadow, we moved a little deeper into the woods to examine the next level of downed trees.

We continued to move more and more rubble as we inspected the area around and underneath the debris, while also searching for the source of the human scent that we had picked up earlier. About forty minutes later, we finally uncovered the source of the faint smell – it was a large canvas bag, tied closed at the end with a piece of rope. We could tell that there was something stored inside the bag, and it felt like a wooden box of some sort, so now we were excited to see what was inside.

I was trying to untie the rope that was wrapped around the end to keep it closed, and the rope began to fall apart instead, seeing it had rotted while being buried in the ground. We then reached inside and pulled out a wooden chest about the size of a typical home printer. In case you’re unfamiliar with the size of an average home printer, it’s approximately 18” wide, 15” deep, and 7” high (46x38x18 cm).

“It appears that this chest has been buried out here for quite a long time,” I observed, “and it wasn’t totally waterproof either, judging from the amount of rust on the combination lock that secures it. What has me puzzled, though, is how the scent remained on it for such a long amount of time?”

“Being buried under the thick clay soil most likely prevented the scent from dissipating or degrading,” Devin offered. “Although every time it rained some of the scent might have been carried to the surrounding soil as well. It seems that when the tree closest to where it had been buried was blown over, its roots must have carried the chest upward and released it from its hiding place. I’m surprised the chest wasn’t damaged when that occurred.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, but the box looks as if it was not only stained, but it was coated with a lacquer as well. Now, I’m curious to find out what is inside the chest that someone felt it had to be buried in order to protect its contents, since it seems he took great care of it before burying it. I’d also like to discover the answer to what might have kept the scent attached to the chest and led us to discover it in the first place. I think we should come back here later as Bear and Buck and see if we can follow the scent to determine who buried the chest out here in the first place. This might be a dead end, but I still want to try to discover as much as I can about who buried it here.”

“It’s possible the chest was just handled so often when it was dug up and then reburied that the scent remained inside the chest. Maybe the chest was dug up by the owner every so often so he could enjoy holding or looking at the objects he’d buried in the chest, but he felt they might be stolen or destroyed if others got to them. He might have also removed some of the items from inside the chest from time to time so he could sell or trade them with others, and that’s what caused the scent to linger.”

“I guess that’s possible, but I’m definitely eager to see what’s inside.”

“Are we going to take the chest with us then?” Devin asked.

“No, we’ll leave it where it is, because it might belong to the owner of the hunting camp.”

“What if I call Pops and ask him to get in touch with the owner to find out if he buried anything out here?”

“What good will that do? Even if he didn’t bury it here, it’s still his land, so it belongs to him.”

“Maybe it isn’t his and he doesn’t want it, but if he does, maybe he’ll let us bring it to him and he’ll open it so we can see what’s inside.”

“Yeah, that would at least keep me from wondering what it’s hiding.”

“Ok, then I’ll call Pops and ask him to contact his friend.”

He quickly took his phone out of his pocket, pulled up the contact list, and chose his great-grandfather’s name, Isaac. He then hit ‘call’, and waited for Pops to answer.

“Pops, we’re hoping you’ll do us a favor. We’re at the hunting camp and we found a bunch of trees that had been blown over, so there must have been a powerful storm here while we were home. As we were looking around the damaged area, we found a small wooden chest. It has a combination lock on it, so we can’t see what it contains. The lock has a great deal of rust on it, so it must have been buried for quite a while, and we’re hoping that you’ll call your friend and ask if the chest belongs to him or if he’d like us to bring it to his house. We just really want to see what’s inside.”

“Ok, hang on and I’ll give him a quick call, and then I’ll get back to you as soon as I find out what he has to say.”

It seemed like it took forever as we waited for a reply, but it was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes before Pops called back.

“My friend said he’s never buried anything out there and the most he’s ever done was to construct the building near the entrance to the camp and he put up a few treestands. He says if anyone buried anything, it had to be the guy he bought the land from, or a member of his family. He said there used to be a small farm on the property and he tore down the old farmhouse and barn because they were safety hazards.”

“Yeah, that was probably a good thing.”

“He also told me that he still lets a local farmer go out there a couple of times each year to mow and bale the hay in the meadow. The farmer does it once in late May or early June and then again in late July or early August. My friend says it helps to keep the meadow from becoming overgrown, which would make it both harder to attract deer to the field and for hunters to spot the deer during the hunting season. He also said that he wondered if the chest might have belonged to one of the former owner’s children, and if that’s the case, it probably only contains toys or a child’s keepsakes. He said you’re welcome to take the chest and do whatever you want with what’s inside.”

We were shocked that the owner was relinquishing his claim to the chest without learning what was inside first, but that might be to our benefit. Now, we were able to take the chest with us, and we’re even more curious to find out what’s inside, but there’s still a problem.

“That’s great, but now we have to figure out how to remove the combination lock,” I offered.

“We could always try to pry it off,” Devin suggested, “if you don’t mind possibly damaging the chest.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Pops said, since Devin hadn’t ended the call, “because there’s a pair of bolt cutters in the basement that I used to cut old rusted bolts so I could replace them with newer bolts. You must’ve seen the workbench and tools in the basement when you’ve gone down there, or haven’t you ever gone down to the basement before?”

“No, Pops, we haven’t ever gone down there. We never felt a need to explore that area.”

“Well, above the workbench there’s a pegboard that’s attached to the wall, and you’ll notice there are a variety of different types of hangers that I use to display the tools that I keep there. You’ll find the bolt cutters hanging on the extreme left side of the pegboard.”

“Ok, thanks, Pops. That will help a lot.”

After Devin ended the call, we carried the chest back to the SUV and placed it inside, and then we entered the cabin and undressed again, so we could transition into our doggy counterparts. That’s because we never got a chance to go for a decent run, because when we got to the meadow, our curiosity got the best of us and we decided to go over and inspect the damage to the trees instead. The only running we did was when we raced out to the meadow, and then when we raced back to the hunting cabin so we could transition into ourselves.

We’d been totally fixated on finding the source of the human scent that we didn’t do any running, but that was no longer the case. Since we now had the chest in our possession and could open and examine its contents when we get back to the house, we used the opportunity to race out to the meadow. We raced around the meadow as well, but we didn’t enter the woods. We weren’t certain as to how much more damage we might find there, so we decided to wait and check it out more thoroughly the next time we came out here, and next time we’ll come prepared. We’ll wear our boots and bring work gloves with us so we can rummage through the debris, while also protecting our hands and feet. For now, however, we’re getting a little exercise and protecting our bodies by not entering the woods.

We chased each other around the meadow, along with some of the local residents that we scared up. After doing that for a while, we raced back to the hunting cabin to transition and get dressed, so we could return to the house. Once again, we were suddenly consumed by the desire to find out what was inside the chest and we were barely able to wait until we returned to the house so we could open it.

This was probably spurred on, at least psychologically, by our recent success at finding the three bags filled with coins and other valuables in the cave in the Ozarks. I believe we were subconsciously hoping to find treasure inside the box as well. It might be jewelry, possibly even an engagement ring with a sizeable diamond or a gold wedding band, or it could be more old coins. Whatever was inside the chest, it wouldn’t be there much longer before we discovered what was there.

After we carried the chest inside, we placed it on the kitchen counter until we opened it. I’m not certain why we both decided to rush down to the basement to retrieve the bolt cutters, but we came upstairs with other tools as well. As I was latching onto the bolt cutters, Devin was picking up a large flathead screwdriver and a pair of vice grips, and then he spotted a hammer and picked it up, and then he spoke to me.

“Mac, will you grab that can of WD-40 off the workbench for me and take it upstairs with you?”

“Sure, but what are these things for?”

“I’m going to spray the WD-40 onto the rusted area of the lock, where the shackle, or the U-shaped top half of the combination lock, goes into body of the lock and loosen the rust up a bit. I’ll also use the hammer to tap that area and loosen up the rust even more.”

“Won’t that harm the lock?”

“No, I’m not going to be hitting it hard enough to damage it, just enough to loosen the rust. And then after you’ve cut the shackle with the bolt cutters, I’ll use the vice grips to grab onto the shackle above where you cut it, and then I’ll need you to hold onto the vice grips and keep the shackle from moving. I’ll then use the screwdriver as leverage to make the body of the lock rotate around the shackle instead. As soon as we’re able to do that, we’ll be able to slide the shackle through the hasp that’s attached to the chest to help secure whatever is inside.”

“I’ll take your word for it, since you’re the one that’s going to be a mechanical engineer.”

As soon as I used the bolt cutter to snip through the shackle, Devin used his hands and muscles to see if he could get the shackle to turn in the body of the combination lock, but it wouldn’t budge. He then grabbed the hammer and tapped the lock a few more times, and then he grabbed the vice grips and clamped them onto the shackle, just above where I’d cut it.

“I’ve adjusted the jaws on the vice grips so they’ve got a nice firm grip on the shackle, but I’ll still need you to hold onto the legs of the vice grips and keep the shackle from moving. While you’re doing that, I’ll use the screwdriver as a lever to rotate the body of the lock around the shackle. Hopefully, the screwdriver is long enough to give me the leverage I need to cause the rust to break loose so I can rotate it, or else we’ll have to break the hasp free of the chest instead.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Just watch and you’ll see,” he responded.

I took his advice and watched how he placed the end of the flathead screwdriver against the shackle, slightly above where it entered the body of the combination lock. He then lowered the shaft of the screwdriver behind the body of the combination lock, so the handle was extending beyond the body. He then placed his right hand on the handle, and his left hand on top of his right hand, and then he used all of the strength he had, plus possibly a little extra, to pull the screwdriver toward him.

At the same time, I was doing all I could to hold onto the vice grips and keep the shackle from moving, and gradually the body of the combination lock began to budge and I heard Devin breathe a sigh of relief. Eventually, the body of the lock had turned to a point where Devin felt he could now slide the shackle free of the hasp. Once the lock was removed, he turned toward me with a huge grin on his face, as he held the lock up for me to see.

“Would you mind if I open the box, or do you want to do it?” I asked as Devin was setting the lock down on the kitchen counter.

“No, you can open it, if you want, but you may have to use the screwdriver to pry the hinged plate free from the staple. The hinged plate is the metal flap that fits over the staple, or the U-shaped part of the hasp that you would slide the shackle through before securing the padlock so it can’t be opened.”

Devin was correct and I had to use the flathead screwdriver to break the seal on both sides where the hinged plate and the base that held the staple were partially fused together by the rust. After expending a considerable amount of time and effort, I was finally able to separate them, so I lifted the hinged plate, along with the lid of the chest, and looked inside. I was surprised by what I saw, because there were two baseball caps sitting on top of a plastic container that was nearly the same size as the interior of the chest. The plastic container barely fit inside the wooden chest, but I decided to concentrate on the items on top of the plastic container first.

I pulled the two caps out of the box, one at a time, so I could examine them. The first cap had a scarlet brim, and the crown of the cap was a solid navy blue, and on the front of the crown, above the center of the brim, was a lower case “d” in white and a lower case “b” in scarlet. The bottom of the ‘b’ was slightly higher than the center of the letter “d”, which meant it was slightly higher on the cap. The bottom portion of the “ascender” of the “b”, or the straight portion of the letter touched the upper portion of the ascender of the “d” . Both letters had a circular base with a straight bar, or ascender, attached to one side. In fact, the two letters were mirror images of each another, except in different colors.

At first, I thought the ‘d’ and ‘b’ stood for diamondbacks, referring to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the major league baseball team. There was a problem with that interpretation, however, because the team’s colors were black and Sedona red, which was a different shade of red than what was on the brim. The brim was a bright scarlet, where the Sedona red is a mixture of orange and red, which represented the two major colors in the sandstone that is found in Sedona, Arizona. This meant the Sedona red is a much duller shade of reddish orange than the scarlet on the brim.

The other cap had a midnight blue brim and the back half of the crown was also midnight blue, while the front half of the crown was white. In the center of the white portion of the crown was a bear in a baseball uniform and it was holding two bats. It had one bat resting on its right shoulder and it was using its left hand to lean against the other bat, which had its barrel end resting against the ground. The color scheme was reminiscent of the popular baseball cap schemes used during the 1970s and 80s, so that gave us an indication of how long ago the chest might have been buried.

Since I was already guessing that the plastic container might contain a young boys baseball glove and possibly some baseballs or other memorabilia, I went to get my laptop so I could investigate what team the d-b was from. For all I knew, it might have been a child’s little league team, but I wanted to find out if there was another possibility instead.

After doing numerous searches using the initials “d” and “b” and the fact that the mascot might have been a bear and the team might have played in Colorado, I was just about to give up when I finally got a hit. From 1955 to 1983, the Denver Bears played in Bear Stadium, later know as Mile High Stadium.

This gave me a better timeline for when the baseball caps might have been from, so now it was time to pull out the plastic container out of the chest to see what “gems” might be hidden inside.

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