At the retreat.

At the retreat.

When they got to the retreat, Linc unloaded the totes and put things
away. He fixed some lunch, and cleaned up after. Lucas and Angel
went for a nap on the terrace, and Linc took the packaging material
down to the cave to get the boxes ready to ship when they got back
from retreat.
Linc packed the rocks from Colorado in two different boxes. He
carefully wrapped the specimen with the crystals, and the jar with the
rusty sludge in bubble wrap and put them in separate boxes.
Since the rocks were radioactive, he decided to leave them in the
cave until they were ready to leave the island.
He went in the bedroom and took the packet of papers, the dueling
pistols and the ring. He decided to take them back up to the house
and put them in the office up there. He wanted to bring his folks and
the kids here to the island at Christmas time. You never know if Todd
might try and show the stuff to the other kids before he could show
them to his parents. Better to be safe than sorry. He just hoped
Uncle Vernon got the old ZCMI building. Fannie seemed to think he had
a real good chance.
Back up at the house, Linc put the stuff he brought from the cave in
the desk in the office. Then he sat down at the computer to make some
shipping labels for the boxes in the cave. All at once he heard Lucas
yelling," no Angel come back, come back. Linc, Linc, help, help. Stop
her." Linc jumped up and ran outside in time to see Lucas running
down the beach and into the water. He looked and saw Angel bobbing in
the water not far from shore. Lucas ran into the water after Angel
but fell when the water was up to his knees and was struggling to get
up as Linc raced past him to get to Angel. She slipped beneath the
surface and Linc dove under the water to find her. He reached out and
pulled her out of the water, and shook her and blew into her face.
She started to cough, gag and sputter. She whimpered and quivered as
he carried her up to the house. He hugged her and crooned to her a bit
before sitting her on the ground. Angel just lay there quivering
instead of standing and shaking the water off her. Linc felt so sorry
for her. He picked her up and took her with him to the shower by the
patio.
Lucas had already stripped off his wet clothes and was under the
shower, when he got there. Lucas got out of the shower and got some
towels out of a tote that Fannie had put out on the patio. He wrapped
one around him as Linc put Angel down and stripped off his own wet
clothes. Angel still just lay on the ground and shivered. Linc
picked her up as he stepped to the shower. He held her up and washed
the sand and sea water from her belly, then held her up to his chest
as he stepped under the shower. Angel put her head on his shoulder
and her paws around his neck. As the water poured down over them,
Angel licked Linc on his cheek. As Linc stood there holding her
quivering little puppy body close to him, he knew without a doubt , he
really had a dog now.
Linc wrapped Angel in a towel and took her to a lounge chair on the
terrace. He rubbed her and then told her to lay there in the sunshine
and get warm and dry, while he dried himself off. When she finally
quit shivering and just lay in the sun, he went in and got into some
dry clothes.
When he came back out he saw that Lucas had picked up the wet clothes,
wrung them out, and draped them over the chair backs to dry a bit
before taking them in to the laundry. He came up to Linc with such a
hang dog look on his face that Linc almost started to laugh, and then
Lucas almost cried as he told Linc how he was playing toss the ball
with Angel when the ball got away from her and rolled down the beach
to the water. He was so sorry, so sorry. He would never do that
again. Linc hugged him and said, " I bet Angel will never follow a
ball into the water ever again either, she was so scared".
Lucas said, " I bet she will hate me now". He went over to the lounge
and sat by Angel, and she promptly crawled over onto his lap. " well
that answers that, now don't it"? Linc said as he looked at Lucas,
who was grinning broadly. Lucas held her like you would a baby and
told her how sorry he was, and called her Angel Face. He set her on
his lap and she wagged her tail so hard, her butt wagged too. They
both laughed at her.
Lucas put her on the ground and got up, saying he wanted to go for a
walk. They walked down the side of the island opposite the cave.
Angel running ahead, then back to them. She had to stop and sniff at
some piece of driftwood now and then. At one piece she sniffed then
pawed it. A tiny crab scuttled out from under it and went to the
water. Angel was right behind it sniffing and pawing just until she
saw the water, then she ran back up and cowered by Linc's legs. "
See, I told you she wouldn't follow anything into the water again",
Linc said to Lucas., who reached down and petted Angel and told her
what a good girl she was.
When they came to the small cave where they found the children's
toys, the first time they walked this way, Angel went in and came out
with a teddy bear. She shook it over and over again, then went back
in the cave and brought out a purple dino. She put it on the ground
and sniffed at it. Back in the cave she went and started sniffing
and digging. Linc and Lucas stopped to see what she was up to. She
dug out a yellow rhino and a small enameled, metal box. She took the
rhino out and shook it, while Linc reached in and picked up the box.
He opened it and found it held 4 of the largest diamonds he had ever
seen in person. "Holy Cow! . Wonder where these came from, and why
are they here? " he exclaimed. Lucas said, " are they real'. Linc
replied , " looks to me like they are, but I can't be sure". Linc
wondered, how in the world did a child get a hold of them, and when
and where, did he do it. How old was he when he did it. Where did they
come from in the first place? Are they part of one of the time masters
plunder? This is something he never in the world would have
expected. Now what? Sure the island was his but, but… The box was
small, yet too big to fit in his pocket, so he would have to carry it.
Lucas knelt down and started digging in the small cave looking to see
if anything else was in there. He pulled all the loose sand out of the
place and came up with two tiny toy wooden trucks., and a wooden spin
top. That was all. Lucas tossed all the toys back in the cave, all
but the teddy bear. Angel was already taking it up the beach. Lucas
said, "well I guess you can have that, I don't think anyone here will
mind". They walked a ways farther up the beach to where it became
really rocky then turned back to the house.

Back at the house, Linc put the box on the patio table and went into
the house to get a magnifying glass. He wanted to get a closer look
at the box. When he came back out, he saw that Lucas had taken the
diamonds out of the box and laid them out on a napkin. He was looking
closely at the largest stone that was about the size of a quarter,
but more oval. He said, " looks like a poor cutting job, they must be
native cut. This one is pretty clear but has some tiny black specks
near the girdle. I think they are real. All four of them are a
different pale color. If real, they must be worth a Kings ransom, even
as badly cut as they are. Where in the world did they come from"?
Linc had picked up the box and was examining it closely. " The
enameled figures and scenes on the box looks almost Oriental to me.
Not really Chinese nor Japanese. Maybe Tibetan? Hard for me to tell
and I can't decipher any of the marking on the bottom of the box.
Going to have to leave this mystery up to Uncle Vernon to figure out.
This is more up his line".
They sat there for a while, talking. They tossed ideas of where the
box came from, who had it in the first place and why it was buried in
the small cave and why. Why was it still there if Roland put it
there. Did he forget it, or was he deliberately hiding it there
forever?
Linc put the stones back in the box and took it inside to put in the
desk in the office, and start fixing some dinner. He made a bowl of
gazpacho, peeled and sliced an avocado and started to make some
burger patties. He called out to Lucas who was playing toss the teddy
with Angel, to fire up the BBQ.

Lucas lit the BBQ then set the table on the patio. Angel was tired
from all the running around and had taken the teddy and went to lay in
the shade.

As they sat there eating, Angel sat by Linc and begged. He gave her a
bit of bun with avocado on it. She gobbled it right down. Then he
gave her a piece of cucumber and she did the same thing. He tossed her
a piece of onion and when she grabbed it, she chomped once, then spit
it out and shook her head. She looked up at Linc, who pointed to the
piece of onion. Angel picked it up and took it out in the sand and
buried it. Came back, took her teddy and went and laid in the shade.
Linc and Lucas both roared with laughter. Linc said, "I bet she will
never gobble another thing with out smelling it again".

After clean up, Linc took the labels down to the cave and put them on
the boxes.
They spent the next few days, just hanging out, playing pool, napping
and walking. Then Linc got the boxes and they went back to the cabin.

To be continued