The Gold Mine

By CL Bledsoe

Signs exist for a reason. This one, a massive
once-white piece of plywood, dotted
with potshots, sagged above the levee holding
the water in the big stock pond we called
The Lake. Maybe it said No Hunting, maybe
some kind of warning, but my sister got it
in her head it marked the now-collapsed
entrance to a gold mine. She’d heard there was
a mine not too far away, and if the president
won’t tell the truth about what was found
on the dark side of the moon, why would anyone
admit a spur of precious metal rested just
underneath our pasture? The plan was to convince
me and our cousin Scott to dig. Or course, we
were all too young for shovels, so we used
spoons. We dug for hours, found a shark’s
tooth and no gold. After three days, mom
got mad about the dirty spoons and forbade us
from going back over by the pond. My sister
made a new plan: to dig a pool in the front
yard, line it with trash bags. Maybe we’d strike oil.