12. Leaving Camp - The Work Camp Earth-boy
The Work Camp Earth-boy
By Earth-boy
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Quick disclaimers:
- This story contains descriptions of sex between teen and pre-teen males. Do not read if you’re under 18 or it is illegal where you’re living.
- Copyright by the author. Do not upload to pay-to-view sites.
- This story is fiction; references to individuals are coincidental.
- No children or teenagers were harmed in the creation of this story.
Chapter 12. Leaving Camp
Our next go at moving out the gold went far better than the first. We loaded the truck without incident and early afternoon Riley and I headed out. Riley suggested I put my belt and breech–cloth into the truck, but added I didn’t need to wear it unless absolutely necessary. Once in cell phone range I looked up the three groves in the area to figure out which would be the best fit for our unusual request. They all looked the same, so I chose the one furthest from town.
The transaction went smoothly. In a meeting with the grove’s three councillors, conducted in English but with only Riley wearing clothes, we reached an agreement for the grove to move the gold out of the truck and into the meadow for safekeeping.
The transfer was quite the sight. Almost a hundred brown, naked earth-boys with all colours of hair came out of the meadow and eagerly crowded around us by the truck. Riley handed the earth-boys one can each and I took a photograph on Riley’s phone of him holding it, its number visible in the picture. Then the boy carried it out of sight to the meadow.
Riley and one of the councillors agreed to a code phrase to use when retrieving the gold. It was written down on a sheet of paper in our leaf-script, to which was added a description in English and Riley’s driver’s licence number. Another earth-boy swiftly wrote up a duplicate. Riley and the three councillors signed them both, and Riley kept one.
“Can I come to the meadow to see what you’ve done with it?” Riley asked a councillor.
“Oh, for sure!” he replied. He sent an earth-boy to bring Riley a friend-bead, then we all followed the trail through the protective tree border to the meadow. Riley was able to see the real trail only because he kept a hand on my shoulder.
The meadow was very similar to the one in grove where I’d lived all my life. The trail opened onto an open field with a natural pool on one side and the kitchen on the other. Many earth-boys were splashing delightedly in the pool and around it, while in the field a soccer game was in progress. Of course, not one of the earth-boys was wearing anything.
At the far end of the field three giant ferns were growing. Four earth-boys were sitting by them, chatting among themselves and with the young ones growing in the bolls. Behind the kitchen was the large sheltered area used for more quiet recreation like reading, eating, visiting, using the internet and having sex.
I was struck at how cool the meadow was. After nearly three weeks of not being in a grove I’d grown accustomed to the heat of the camp.
The grove’s councillors had placed the cans in a neat row by number on the grass just behind the kitchen, under the shade of the trees. A councillor explained, “We know there are fifty-three cans here. We’ll probably count them every day until you come back for them. I can assure you none will go missing.”
“How do I know you won’t take an ingot out of each one before you give them back to me?”
The councillor thought. “I guess we can’t really guarantee it. But you can bring a scale when you pick them up and weigh them. A missing ingot will show up. And what would we do with them? Lorinár here says you chose a grove because we’re not terribly concerned about money. He’s right. Our grove has lots of it; we don’t need to steal any from humans. As for gold, as far as we’re concerned it’s impressively heavy and looks shiny.”
We took pictures of the row of cans, then the councillor led us out. He asked Riley for the friend-bead back and assured him again, “For us, your gold’s merely a curiosity. It will be safe here, and you’ll get it all back.”
✵ ✵ ✵
We were back at the camp in time for supper. Savros had teamed up with Martin, Larry, and Jared to go through the larder and pick out the best of the remaining food. He was busily applying his chef skills to cook up a sumptuous feast.
There was still time before dinner was ready, so with Savros’ consent I went with Jared to the north field, asking the others for privacy. I asked if he was comfortable getting naked. I wasn’t looking for sex, I explained, but wanted to see if I could increase his connection to the Earth. I felt it would help with his recovery from yesterday’s trauma. He agreed, but only after moving down to the creek where Dumolin had hidden his gold.
The ground wasn’t as accommodating as I’d hoped, but eventually we were able to lay down, me on my front and Jared on his back, using his clothing for a pillow. He sought out my hand and held it. For half an hour we lay there, Jared feeling out the eren as best he could.
“I can see the creek,” he suddenly told me.
“How? We’re some distance from it and it’s hidden by the forest.”
“Yes, but I can ‘see’ it in my mind. I know it’s there, and can follow it a bit north and south.”
I had an idea. “Look toward the creek and imagine a path to it.”
“I can see a path!” he exclaimed. “It’s not, like, any path I’ve seen before; it looks like cotton strands or mist along the ground.”
“I think you’re more than just an honorary earth-boy,” I told him. “Pathfinding is one of our innate gifts. We can do it as soon as we awaken. The Earth … the Earth truly sees you as an earth-boy.”
“Wow, that’s crazy! Maybe we should stop doing this. I mean, I think earth-boys are totally neat and everything, but I’ve got my girlfriend to think about. I don’t want her to break up with me if she thinks I’m no longer human.”
I pondered it. “Well, you know how to connect to the Earth now. And I don’t think you have to lay down naked in a park to do it; just bare feet should do. So you can do as much or as little of it from now on as you like. Your girlfriend? Maybe introduce her to the Earth, too. But when your first kid arrives, take a careful look at his ears!”
Jared laughed. We got up, he got dressed, and we returned to the camp for dinner.
✵ ✵ ✵
We broke camp the next morning, packing our belongings and loading them into the truck. Savros included what he could of the remaining food, with Riley awarding him whatever cookware he wanted and could fit.
Savros and I found several small jars and storage containers and transferred much of the plausse, fennet, and tenstral into them. Using the masking tape and marker, I labelled and dated them, then distributed them to the crew. I wanted to give Jared the beautiful urns, which still had a large amount of their original content, but Savros convinced me we should take them.
“Oh, what do we do with Egan’s laptop?” Jared asked. It looked like he had his eye on it.
Martin disappointed him. “It’s evidence. The RCMP will be very interested to see what Egan’s been up to for the past while. We’ll turn it over to them when we hit town.”
“What about the pressure washer and safe?” asked Larry.
Riley answered, “I’ll come back for them later. Now technically you’re all still under contract, so can I call any of you back to help me move them out! Not that I would; I can hire a day labourer or two to help me.”
“The last time you tried that, all you got was an earth-boy,” Larry said drolly. “Fat lot of good he was!”
“Yeah, totally useless,” said Jared. “All he did was save Martin’s leg, find the treasure, make Riley really rich, and stop Egan from stealing it all!”
“It’s amazing how that turned out,” Riley mused. “Egan bringing Lorinár was both the best thing he ever did for us and the worst mistake he could have made.” He looked at me with affection. “Without you, Lorinár, I wouldn’t have found the gold. Germain’s notes said dans la colline, which I read as “on the hill.” Except dans means in, not on. An elementary translation error that had me so close and yet so far.”
Martin asked, “Hey, Lorinár, do you want to come with me to Nova Scotia? There’s a pit on Oak Island people have been checking out for over a hundred years now. You did so well with this treasure you’ll be sure to find that one too!”
“Not now,” I replied. “This has been an adventure all by itself. I need some time to recover before starting another one.”
Riley told us, “Anyone who wants either the pressure washer or the safe is welcome to take either or both. Otherwise I’ll try returning them to the store or just sell them.”
“Can I ask for the tent?” said Larry.
“Of course!” answered Riley. “In fact, let’s put the safe into the storage shed and pack up the tent right now. That way you don’t have to wait for it.”
“I’m anxious to start looking for something else to do,” Martin said. “Thanks for paying me until the end of September, but I’d like to use the time to get another job.”
“No problem,” said Riley. “That goes for all of you guys. I won’t ask any more of you. Well, except for Lorinár.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because you’re my slave now, boy!” he said with a grin.
“No I’m not!” I shot back, failing to see his joke. “In case you don’t know, I’m with Savros now!”
“You’re moving in together?” asked a surprised Martin.
“Yes, but only for a while,” Savros replied. “I’ve grown really attached to Lorinár and asked him to say with me until I can find a real boyfriend. He says he will.”
We got a round of congratulations and no one, not even Martin, commented on Savros’ unexpected revelation.
“But,” Savros said slyly, “I could sell him to you. How does ten million sound?”
“Ouch, that’s rich!” exclaimed Riley. “Too much; you can keep him!”
This time I laughed with the others.
We moved the gun safe into the storage shed, then took down the tent and repacked it into its carrying bag. After lunch we all took one last look around the camp to see if we had missed anything. Savros propped open the door of the now empty refrigerator and closed the valves on the propane tanks. Riley shut down the battery bank. Finally we got into the truck: Riley at the wheel with Larry and Martin beside him up front, and of course me with Savros and Jared in the back. Riley started the truck. He backed it out of its parking space, and we drove down the rough trail out of the remote work-camp for the last time.
✵ ✵ ✵
The story was front page news all over the lower mainland for days, and even made headlines across the country and around the world. Riley and the rest of us had our day in the sun and were the attention of the media for a week before the furor died down.
It took Riley a month to determine the best way to sell the gold, by which time its value had climbed to almost seventy-one million. A more careful weighing showed there were twenty-seven ounces more than we thought, but various impurities reduced its value by almost the same amount. The broker charged only half a percent to buy the gold, making scarcely a dent in its overall value. Egan’s uncle got twenty percent, leaving Riley with a cool fifty-six million dollars and change.
In mid-October, two weeks after Savros’ contract ended, a letter arrived by registered mail. Savros let out quite the cry when he opened it. When I asked what was the matter, he showed me a thank-you note from Riley—and a certified cheque for three million dollars! We instantly checked with the others: they, too, had been given three million each.
Riley’s considerable generosity stunned us all. In his note he explained he was now wealthy beyond what he could have possibly imagined and was happy to share his incredible good fortune with the rest of us. Larry noted that even after handing out fifteen million dollars he still had over forty left, more than enough to live a life of luxury in retirement.
(Thoughtful as always, Riley included a letter from a tax lawyer explaining how the money should be considered a “windfall” and wasn’t taxable. There was also advice on how to report it when filing income taxes for the year.)
Larry offered to set up a mutual trust company to invest the funds. We could draw four percent a year from the accounts—a hundred and twenty thousand dollars apiece—and still maintain the balance. After taxes we would have a comfortable amount to live on, all the more so if we pursued regular employment.
Jared did even better. When Egan’s uncle heard how his nephew had taken him hostage and fired a gun at him, he offered Jared a million of his own to stave off a lawsuit. Jared accepted; a lawyer advised him a lawsuit could well be unsuccessful, and in any case Jared wasn’t even thinking of suing anyone.
He was right about his girlfriend, too. She was there to help him heal, and to his relief understood his attraction to earth-boys when he realized he should no longer hide it from her. A week later they bonded closer when he introduced her to the earth.
The rest of us wondered if four million dollars hadn’t also brought her closer to him. We agreed she probably wasn’t (to use a phrase) a gold-digger, but understood an independently wealthy partner was a tremendous asset in one of the most expensive places to live in the county.
Savros and I moved to the city from where Egan had kidnapped me. It’s said a decent man cannot live without cooks, and with his Red Seal credentials he quickly landed a job working at a large hotel. I’ll probably be with him until he has a good boyfriend of his own. He’s asked me to ensure potential partners want him and not his money.
Larry retired to pursue his renewed interest in the outdoors, canoeing and hiking in the summer, skiing in the winter. He and his wife didn’t get back together, and his children were more interested in being young adults than being in nature. It seemed they weren’t very keen to spend weeks with their father in the wilderness. Larry hopes to find a lady who shares his interest in nature.
Always willing to try something new, Martin’s next job took him to Nunavut in northern Canada. He’s working at a diamond mine some distance from Iqaluit in the eastern part of the territory. He’s also thinking of retiring, or at least working less and trying to get more out of life.
As for Egan, he got nothing at all. Riley, of course, didn’t give him so much as a dime. Then when Egan’s uncle learned how he had tried to steal the gold, he refused to pay any wages owed him, daring his nephew to sue if he wanted them. And those were the least of Egan’s troubles.
The Earth did not take kindly to the trauma he had caused Jared. Riley’s company had problems gaining possession of the fancy truck Egan had bought for its use but had registered to himself. He was allowed to drive it while they wrangled over its ownership. Late one evening in September while driving in clear and calm conditions, a large tree inexplicably crashed down onto the road ahead of him. The truck smashed into it at high speed and rolled several times. Thanks to its sturdy construction and airbags Egan wasn’t killed, but his lower spine was fractured. He will spend the remainder of his life in chronic pain and in a wheelchair.
His criminal case is still before the courts. The charges against him included attempted murder of Riley and Jared, taking Jared hostage, attempted theft, and a long list of firearms offences. The media speculated that by firing the gun, even if it was just the one shot, Egan managed to get all the charges upgraded to more serious ones. He will probably send him to prison for several years. And unless he changes his name, after he’s out any web search on it will bring up his attempt to steal the gold.
Riley gave me three million dollars, too, although I had no idea what to do with it. Eventually I entrusted all of it to Larry to hold and invest on my behalf. I suspect he’ll look after it for the next thirty or forty years until I return to the Earth, then it will go to the grove.
When I’m no longer with Savros I’ll find a grove to call home and go back to living as just another earth-boy. The Earth will provide for me.
Endnotes
Here ends my first earth-boy tale, with hopefully many more to come.
Did you notice I managed to work in a reference to every province in Canada and two of its three territories?
I did a ton of research on this story: a history of gold rushes in Canada, immigration to British Columbia’s lower mainland in the mid–1800s, how gold is mined and processed, and how much space the haul would take up. I constructed a timeline of Germain Dumolin’s 21 summers mining the gold, then determined he could have made the ingots over the winters. I made a paper mockup of a five pound ingot to see just how large it would be. I even found a scientific paper from 1952 describing how galvanized steel holds up in various soils, to satisfy myself the cans containing the gold would still be intact after 135 years. I also tracked to the day in 2022 when Riley found the gold, and looked up historical information on gold pricing to determine the value of the haul.
I read up on gun safes and how their electronic locks work. (Did you know most gun safes are relatively easy to break into with a good crowbar?) I also read through section III (Firearms and Other Weapons) of the Criminal Code of Canada, as well as the sections on hostage taking, to determine what charges could be brought against Egan.
And, of course, I spent a lot of time developing earth-boys and their culture, to give a solid background to the story. Lorinár covered a lot of the material I wrote up for them, but not everything because I wanted to bring the story to a conclusion. So there are still things to discover.
To all my readers, thank you for reading this story and for the email you’ve sent. I really enjoyed writing this, and of course I love getting email from you with your insightful comments and suggestions.
For now,
Earth-boy