"Bullshit!" Steve cried.
"Okay, if you need to know." I leaned over my beer as if guarding a secret. Steve and I were warming two stools in JD's Tavern. Copying me, Steve leaned over his beer expecting to have his philosophy confirmed - that man couldn't move his bowels let alone mountains unless pussy was involved. "I figured that I'd go to San Francisco, tool around there a bit, but I never got there."
"No shit!"
"I pulled into Denver, looked around and decided to make a right turn. Before I knew it I was in Missoula. The rest is history." I leaned against the back of my stool, finished my beer and sat my mug atop the bar with a self-congratulatory thud.
The remainder of the night, Steve tried tricking me to admit being roped into my newfound home by a deranged cowgirl. "Don't I wish, I still live a priestly life," I said.
After closing the bar, Steve dropped me off at the end of Cemetery Street. "Even though you're a lying sack of shit, it's nice to see you in one piece," Steve waxed as only a drunk could.
Slapping his shoulder I told my friend, "I wish I could say it's great to be back." I stumbled out of his car and towards my house.
"Yo Asshole," Steve called. "You don't live there anymore. That one." He pointed at the Ortolan's.
"I knew that." I watched Steve's taillight's disappear down Cemetery Street. I fumbled for the house key. I chuckled realizing how many times I wished that I had the key. Emboldened by the irony, I slithered into Shannie's bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.
It was still dark when I awoke. I rolled onto my side snuggling under Shannie's blankets. I gathered her comforter to my nose. I inhaled. Lingering behind the fresh scent was an echo of a memory. I rolled over. A blue hue glowed from her alarm clock: 5:30. I slid out of bed and rummaged through Shannie's drawers. I searched for a letter Shannie told me about years ago. I smiled when I came across it. My hands trembled holding the envelope Shannie had self-addressed.
I opened the envelope. On a piece of parchment paper was a hand drawn map - a treasure map - of her back yard and the nearest section of Fernwood, each detail drawn fastidiously. An X loomed centered in the offset between a tombstone that belonged to Joseph Meneget and the last elm tree on the right side of the Ortolan's property line. "7 paces from the tombstone; 6 paces from the elm," Shannie's cursive read.