It's a Two-Man Job

The origins of this story will remain anonymous. Just know it’s the truth.

Ricky and Stick had only two things in common. One is that they were both orphaned in the big McCartle Ranch fire back in ’75. Second, is they both had the good fortune of being taken in by Bob and Betty McGraw. There were no better folks I’ve ever known than old Bob and Betty. Salt of the earth kinda folks.

One Sunday, Betty read in the morning paper about how two boys lost their folks in the biggest fire the regions ever known and by that evening Betty fostered them boys. When Betty set her mind to something, nothing was going to stop her. Bob, being such a good-natured man, he went along with wherever Betty’s heart brought them. Even if her heart brought them to taking in two 12 year old boys when they were both retired, Bob took the journey with her.

Now, Ricky and Stick might have been foster brothers, but in no way, shape or form were they actually brothers. No sir. Ricky made that clear just about day one when Stick made the mistake of saying he was glad they was going to be brothers.

“We ain’t kin and we aint brothers. Never going to be.”

Ricky hated Stick, I guess on account that Stick was half Mexican. His real name is Alejandro, but growing up everyone called him Stick on account of him being long and skinny like a stick. Stick may have given up on ever trying to have a brotherly like relationship with Ricky, but he was friendly to Ricky just the same. To everybody else in Ricky’s life, he was just indifferent. He had this notion that somewhere out there someone from his mom or dads family would come get him one day. He truly believed that he had blood out there who had no idea what befell his folks and that any day they’d coming finding him. There was no one out there though, at least no one the authorities could locate.

I guess losing your folks in a raging inferno is one of them things that’s responded to differently depending on who you are. Losing his folks made Stick yearn for a family to replace the one he lost, just like he ended up getting with Bob and Betty. Ricky, on the other hand, I’m pretty sure he stopped yearning for anything the day after the fire. He didn’t show a speck of interest in making a go of it with his new family either. Ricky didn’t hate Bob and Betty like he did Stick, but he sure as heck didn’t show them any love.

No matter, Bob and Betty gave everything they had to those boys. They didn’t have much, but they provided the boys a nice life with what they did. One thing’s for sure, the boys had a life that was a whole hell of a lot better than a life they would’ve got at an orphanage.

The cancer got poor Betty only four years after the boys arrived. Same cancer caught up with the old man only two years after that. It was terminal.

One night, the old man called the two boys into his bedroom. His body was propped up in his bed by a stack of pillows. A yellow and orange afghan Betty knitted him covered his legs.

Even after Betty died, Bob’s face never showed just how deep Betty’s dying was digging at him. Hell, most people never even knew he had cancer.That’s just how Bob was, always a smile on his face. Not that night though. Old Bob had something on his mind that was eating at him and his face couldn’t disguise it.

II

“It’s a two-man job, boys.” The old man began, “ You need to understand that before I tell you anything else. It’s a two man-job. Now you boys agree right now that you understand this job is going to take the both of you or I’ll take this one to the grave with me.”

Ricky caught Stick’s eye and shrugged at him.Stick just shook his head and turned his attention back toward Bob, who was now coughing violently into a handkerchief.

“I agree,” Ricky replied, shrugging, “but what the hell are you talking about?”

The old man was agitated and his patience was running thin. The oxygen hose under his nostrils came undone and he flung it over his head and to the ground.

“I’m talking about a lot of money here. This is nothing to joke about. Do you both agree?”

The mention of money got their attention and they both nodded at the old man.

“Good, now shut up and listen.”

He reached beneath the blanket that covered his legs and pulled out a bulky manila envelope. Ricky’s name was writer across the front of the envelope in a red marker. He tossed it across the bed toward Ricky.

“Inside that envelope is all you’ll need to locate the hatch. Maps, trail guides, you name it.”

“Hatch?” Ricky blurted out. “Like on a submarine?”

“Just like on a submarine.” The old man replied with a wink. “Like in Ice Station Zebra.”

He then reached under the covers and produced a second envelope with Stick’s name emblazoned across the front.

“Inside your package is everything thing you need to know about opening the hatch.”

Neither of the boys opened their packages. Ricky stuffed his down the front of his shirt. Stick stood and tucked his into the waist of his jeans.

“It’s a two-man job, boys. One of ya knows where it is and the other knows how to get in. Understand?”

The boys nodded.

“Good. Now get me my breathing tube off the floor for my, would ya Stick?”

It was the last time the boys would speak to Bob. He died that night in his sleep.

III

The boys walked down the snowy path without speaking a word. Aside from the crunch of the snow and underbrush beneath footsteps, the only sound was the patter of flakes and an occasional howl of wind. Stick was taking in the surroundings, trying to figure out where Ricky was leading them. He wondered where this hatch would be and what it would look like, but above all he wondered how Ricky was going to try double-crossing him. The old man made it clear that it was a two-man job, that it would take both of them, but still, he knew Ricky.

Less than an hour earlier, Stick swerved his truck up the steep, winding slope of Tanner’s Creek Pass and turned off County Road 4 just as Ricky instructed him to do.

“Over here,” Ricky pointed toward a large rusty gate on the side of the road just ahead. “This is the gate the old man said to park.”

The gate, adorned in rusted POSTED, NO TRESPPASSING, and KEEP OUT signs, concealed what once was likely a pathway, hardly wide enough to fit Stick’s car, even if it wasn’t littered with dead, fallen trees and an undergrowth that showed little sign of use in many a year.

“We walk from here.” Ricky announced as he exited the passenger seat of the truck. He opened the back door and retrieved his rucksack. The head of a steel spade shovel poked out of the top of the pack.

After about 40 minutes of trekking along the vague path before them, Stick broke the silence. “What’s your plan, Ricky?”

Without breaking a stride, Ricky turned his head and shot a confused look at Stick who was about 5 steps behind him.

“What do you mean? Like, what will I do with the money?”

“Yeah sure.”

“Get out of town and never come back. Maybe Florida, where it’s warm all the time.”

Silence once again joined the conversation until Stick decided to nudge it along.

“I mean, what’s your real plan Ricky. Where are you taking us? You don’t even have a map or a compass.”

“This is it,” Stick shouted excitedly, interrupting Stick’s interrogation dead in its tracks. “This is the spot the old man described.” He pointed toward a large mound of dead branches and leaves, surrounded by a clutch of Birch trees. “Right there, in the middle of a circle of white trees. It’s under that pile.”

The boys got to work quickly. In only a few minutes the branches were cleared away, revealing a four foot square piece of plywood. , Stick flipped over the plywood, revealing the hatch. It was the same as the old man said it would look, like the kind of waterproof hatch you’d find on the submarines in the old war movies they all watched with the old man. The wheel on this hatch was coated in a silver paint though, contrasting against the clay colored steel oval doorway it held shut.

“Hell, I didn’t even think it was real. I thought the old man was just sending us on a fools mission on account of us being such bad kids.”

“Kids?” Stick replied, heavy on the s.

“Shut it. You know what I mean.” Ricky shot back. “I just thought he lost it. Like he was just talking nonsense on account of the cancer.”

“I sure never expect to find a damn submarine hatch in the middle of the forest,” Stick replied, “That’s for damned sure.”

“Why didn’t he tell us about this when it could have helped him and Betty and us?”

“I suppose he had his reasons. Reckon he had plenty of them actually.”

Ricky approached the hatch and dropped to his knees to have a closer look. Aside from not being in black and white, only thing that seemed out of place, at least from those old movies, was the keyhole at the center of the hatch wheel. The old man never mentioned anything about a key to the hatch. He looked back at Stick.

“The old man give you a key in your envelope?”

Stuck unzipped his coat and reached his right hand under the neckline of his sweater. When his hand emerged, it revealed a thin chain-linked lanyard holding a thin, 4-inch long rectangle monolithic figurine at its end. It was, in fact a key.

“I guess it’s my turn,” Stick announced as he stepped forward. Ricky got to his feet and backed out of the way.

Stick removed his gloves and dropped them at his feet. Crouching forward he grabbed the hatch wheel, using it to hold his weight as he placed each knee atop a glove. He ran his hands down the chain lanyard and found the key.

Stick placed the key into the hole and turned it. After rotating 180 degrees it came to a stop. Nothing happened.

Stuck reached down and took the key from the hole. Immediately, a series of clicking sounds started hollering from the hatch door. Stick leaned back just as another series of loud clicks began. The hatch door opened further and further with every click until it pointed straight to the sky.

Stick immediately leaned forward and looked down into the large dark hole in the ground. Ricky scrambled around the pile of sticks until he was behind Stick. He crouched at the waist to take a look for himself.

“Hey, there’s a ladder there.” Ricky shouted excitedly, pointing.

Still on his knees Stick stuck his head into the opening, trying to see what awaited in the abyss below. He raised up and began wiggling his arms and shoulders, fighting to get his back pack off.

“I have a flashlight.”

Just as Stick had the pack off, he started pulling at the zipper of the small front pouch.

That was the moment Ricky attacked. He stood upright, the wooden shaft of the shovel in gripped tightly in his hands, the steel spade raised high above his head. He swung the shovel straight down directly at the back of Sticks head. The full of Sticks body fell forward on to the still-opened hatch door. For a moment his body remained centered atop the edge of the door until, robbing even gravity of its rightful purpose, Ricky hauled off and drove his boot into the side of Sticks ribs, knocking him to the ground opposite the opening to the hatch. At the same time Sticks pack fell down the gaping hole of the shaft into the blackness.

Ricky stood over Stick’s body and watched as a blood pool began to grow in the snow around his head.

Ricky then removed his own pack and tossed it into the hole. After a quick scan of his surroundings, Ricky began descending the ladder.

At about 10 feet down, his foot touched the bottom of the container. Ricky retrieved a flashlight from his coat and turned it on. The entirety of the container was immediately illuminated.

He turned away from the ladder and froze. There right before him, only a foot away, two large black leather suitcases sat sealed on the ground.

Ricky reached forward and, inhaling deeply, unzipped the bag nearest to him. His eyes widened, as did the grin on his face. Inside the bag were stacks upon stacks of bills wrapped in labels that read $10,000.

He took one of the stacks and held it to his nose, breathing in the scent. His excitement built to a crescendo and he let out a long howl. “Thank you God!”

Almost immediately, his triumphant shout of joy was drowned out by a series of rapid clicks, which echoed inside the cramped surroundings of the steel container around him.

Ricky’s attention shifted from the bags of cash in front of him to the opening at the top of the shaft above. Whatever light there was from outside quickly disappeared as the hatch door slammed shut. Ricky quickly started up the ladder and shined his flashlight upward.

There was no wheel on the inside of the shaft door, which made little sense to Ricky. There was always a wheel in the movies. He pushed with all his might at the flat steel surface above him. It didn’t budge.

Confused, Ricky climbed back down the ladder and almost turned his ankle on Sticks opened backpack. All the bag contained was a flashlight and the envelope Bob had given Stick. Inside he found a single folded sheet of paper. After unfolding it, he read aloud, “The enclosed key will open the hatch. The hatch closes every 5 minutes.” He read the last sentence to himself and dropped the paper to the ground.

It read, “The hatch only opens from the outside.”