Quackery: Cure-All

It had barely been a full minute since Vidar had taken his exit before another bird alighted in the middle of the meadow. Malachi and Zeb furrowed their brows at the dark colored Hawk with flashy veins of rainbows scarring her tail and sides like she had been peeled out of an ore deposit at some point in her life.

“Hello?” Malachi called.

The Hawk turned. “Oh. Yes, hello. A friend of mine invited me to find some shinies. Sorry I’m late.”

 

“Ah, Malachi, Zeb, this is my friend Onyx,” Starlit said. Her shadowy form broke away from the treeline and crossed the meadow towards the Hawk. “He's always had a nose for locating valuables.”

Onyx preened at that.

"The more the merrier,” Malachi said.

Zeb leaned in close and ran his fingers through the thick ruff of feathers on his neck. “At least these friends of yours aren’t eating flocks of sheep and destroying wineries.

 

"Or stealing excavators,” he whispered back.

 

Zeb shook his head, rolling his eyes as he did. He patted Malachi’s wing. “Well go on, son. Go join them. Just be careful what you dig up, okay?”

 

Malachi nodded firmly before bounding through the thigh high grass to his newfound friends.

 

Onyx was already directing Starlit’s efforts with rapid flicks of his wingtips and a few half-uttered words. The big Gryph simply did as she was asked, apparently used to the bossy little Hawk. Malachi didn’t expect directions to get hurled at him as soon as he was within wing’s reach, though.

 

“Okay, you - Mordecai was it? - I need you to start digging over there,” Onyx said and pointed at what appeared to be part of a wagon wheel peeking out of the dirt.

 

“Malachi,” he corrected.

“Sorry. Malachi, dig over there.”

 

He shuffled himself over to the wagon wheel while Starlit did the heavy lifting and relocating of old timbers. Personally, he would have rather continued digging for more glassware as that was far more interesting than chunks of wood, but he supposed he could always come back tomorrow with just Zeb and see if he could find any more not-so-medicinal medicine bottles.

"Okay, just put those beams there,” Onyx said.

 

He glanced over his shoulder as Starlit dropped the timbers with a heavy thwump and a puff of pollen, dust, and panicked fireflies went up from the grass.

 

"Judging by the general shape and size of the area and from what I can see you guys have already scavenged, I’d guess this was a settlement of some sort,” Onyx explained. “Possibly late 1800s or early 1900s.”

 

Malachi was impressed that he had gathered all of that information in the short amount of time he had been there. Zeb had told him as much earlier in the day.

 

Confidence growing in the Hawk’s abilities, he put more backbone into digging out the wagon wheel. While he was proud of the skills he had developed over the years of scavenging and treasure hunting, there was only so much he could do. His talons scooped away as much dirt as fast as he could, but some things couldn’t beat a Harpia or a Gryph unearthing things. Or an excavator. Maybe Mischief had been onto something.

 

Finally the wagon wheel was loose enough he could wiggle it free of its earthen tomb. As he pushed and pulled at it, a tattered patch underneath it caught his eye. It looked like canvas. With a mighty heave, he managed to roll the wheel away and rest it against a tree trunk.

"Onyx, come look at this,” he called.

Onyx paused his directing and quickly flitted over to him. He peered into the hole he’d dug. “Interesting. Starlit, new job. We need some more muscle over here.”

 

Starlit took three steps over to them, her shadow swallowing up what light there was. “Crack that whip a little harder why don’t you, Onyx. Didn’t realize I was your slave.”

 

"Sorry, but you just take direction so well,” Onyx said and shot the bigger bird a cheesy smirk. “I’m thinking there’s either a canvas tent or wagon cover here, so be careful digging.”

 

Starlit grunted and set to work while Malachi and Onyx got out of the way. Malachi glanced over at Zeb who had taken to sitting under a tree with the lantern hanging above his head. He was weighing glass bottles in one hand, eyes flicking between them and then to the phone in his other hand.

“So, how did you know about the settlement?” he asked and tore his eyes away from Zeb, content he was safe for now.

 

Onyx shrugged. “I do a lot of scavenging. Cities, villages, mountains, castles, deserts, coasts, you name it, I’ve probably found something interesting there. This whole area is covered in various settlements. Some of them are old mining camps, others are Asian immigrant settlements.”

 

“We found some Fowler’s Solution and some Calomel bottles over there.” He gestured with his beak to the bottle pile on the other side of the meadow.

 

“Intriguing. There must have been a druggist or apothecarist present,” he said.

"We bailed before we found some Radithor or something,” he said. He dodged a chunk of dirt sent sailing from Starlit’s wing talon.

 

Onyx caught the dirt chunk and crushed it under his foot, swiveling his head side to side as he examined its contents carefully. “I wouldn’t think Radithor would pop up here seeing as its popularity wasn’t really until the late 1920s-early 1930s, but you never know. If I didn’t know better, some of the sites I’ve scavenged have almost convinced me that someone somewhere has invented time travel.”

 

Malachi squinted. He wasn’t really supposed to tell others about the anomalies he and Zeb chased through time and space, so he kept his beak shut. Instead, he changed the subject by parsing through another dirt clump. Within the dark soil and white stringy grass roots he picked out a pebble. His heart stuttered as it glinted in the silvery moonlight.

 

“Hey, look at this!” He held up the pebble for Onyx to see.

 

Onyx’s eyes lit up. “Gold. Must have been an old mining camp.”

 

Malachi twisted the gold pebble in his talons, mesmerized by its warm glow. “Why would anyone leave gold behind?”

 

"You’d be surprised what people leave behind when they have to leave suddenly,” Onyx said. “Gold, clothing, weapons, houses, animals, the sick and elderly.”

 

Starlit braced a wing knuckle on the ground and looked back at them. “You should come see this.”

 

Malachi awkwardly hopped over to the excavation site, determined to not let the gold disappear into the grass. He’d have to give it to Zeb for safekeeping.

 

Starlit had opened the hole wide and uncovered most of the canvas tarp. It looked well worn and weathered after all its years outside and in the ground. He also didn’t miss the suspicious looking holes that looked vaguely bullet shaped. Or the slash marks that would’ve matched his own talons.

 

Onyx slid down into the hole and he followed suit. It wasn’t a very deep excavation site, probably only two or three feet down. Yet, the excitement coursed through him as he hooked his wing thumb under the edge of the canvas and lifted it away.

His jaw dropped.

 

Onyx squeaked.

 

Starlit leaned in closer, eyes bright and reflecting the brilliant golden glow.

 

"You know, they used to think gold was the cure-all for everything,” Starlit said quietly.

 

Malachi couldn’t even talk. His gold pebble dropped from his talons and rolled to the top of the pile. Slowly, he touched the gold nuggets to make sure they were really there.

 

"It definitely cures holes in a wallet.”

 

He started and whipped his head around. He hadn’t even heard Zeb sneak up behind him.

"Can we keep it?” Malachi asked.

"Finders, keepers,” Onyx and Starlit muttered at the same time.

 

Malachi grinned. He turned to Zeb. “You know what?”

Zeb raised a brow at him.

 

"Vidar’s going to be so mad he left early.”