Kenny tightened the waist strap on his backpack and said, “How much farther until we get to the overlook?”

“Dude,” Mike said, “You must have learned complaining from your kids on car trips. I don’t know, a half hour maybe.”

“I don’t want to be setting up camp in the dark.”

“Lay off. We’ll be fine.”

Two hours later the sun was setting, and Mike and Kenny were sitting around a campfire, finishing their meal of camp tacos, with a tent ready for the night ahead of them. The Indian Trail led National into Forest land bordering Thomasville. The first couple miles of the trail climbed to an overlook with a panoramic view of the town in the distance. As they sat next to the fire Kenny said, “When I stopped by the church I filled up a flask from the bourbon in my confidential file cabinet.”

Mike said, “Dude, quit holding out on me. Give me a fill-up. Was the church ok with you taking off?”

Kenny filled Mike’s cup and then his own. “I haven’t been around the office much with all this running around with you. I told Beatrice not to expect me there for the rest of the week. She asked if I would be returning by Sunday, and I told her of course. Get this, though. She told me when I was there that Chip Perry made the newspaper. She showed me the editorial page and it had an article he wrote on why the local schools and government needed an English-only policy.”

“Cause we all know Jesus spoke only the King's English, too. I have a feeling Grandpa Perry was part of the mob wanting to run off the Germans back in the day. The apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree. So, here’s my theory: the Germans, as they went into hiding, carried the treasure with them to wherever they went. If we find the hideout, then we find the treasure.”

“I don’t know what you think you’ll find. This was over 100 years ago. Nobody is still waiting along the trail with a bell for us.”

“I just want to look. Maybe there’s the ruins of something still out here.”

“I think all we’ll find is an old trail in the woods.”

“Then why are you out here?”

Kenny said, “Phoebe and the boys are still gone. I thought, at the very least, this would be a backpacking trip with my friend.”

“Ok,” Mike said. “As a friend, I’ve always been curious about something. We’re out here where no one will hear what’s said. So can I ask you something?”

“No,” Kenny said sarcastically, “You can’t ask me something. What do you think? You’re my best friend. If someone has the right to ask me a question it’s you.”

“What made you want to be a minister?”

“Oh, geez. Like you it’s probably a bunch of things. I probably unconsciously started thinking about it when I’d spend summers here with my grandparents. My parents weren’t really church attenders. I think my dad had enough of that growing up as a pastor’s kid. So we really didn’t go much when I was younger. I remembered how much my grandpa meant to me, and I always felt really proud to be his grandson when I’d come to church here. I think I told you I spent a year at law school.”

“Sure.”

“My dad’s law firm had a place for me when I graduated. It would have been a sweet deal. I would have made three times what either of us make right now. I was miserable in law school and I knew in my heart I’d be miserable as a lawyer. On breaks studying for law school exams I started filling out an application for seminary. After the first year of law school I never went back. Here I am now.”

“Ok,” Mike said. “So here’s my follow up question, the one I really want to know. When did you start hating being a pastor?”

“I don’t hate it.”

“I think you do,” Mike said. “You said the other day it would be better for me to kick you in the nuts than have to go to a church meeting.”

“Geez, did I say that? Do I sound that desperate?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to hate it. I used to not hate it. I think I was just just trying to recreate the happiness of my summers as a child by coming here. I think the church was trying to recreate the magic of the time when my grandpa was pastor. We’ve both been trying to bring back what was past and have failed. We both ended up disappointed.”

“So what are you going to do?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know. It’s going to take some time. I hope the right answer emerges. Since we’re asking questions, I’ll ask you one: when did you give up?”

“Give up on what?” Mike asked.

“You’ve given up on life, on doing anything significant. You used to be a big deal. You were the hot shot pastor at the church in the city. You were the in-demand speaker, the rising star. I’ve met people who knew you back then. They all wonder what happened to you. Now you’re just putting in the time at that little church. You sit at home binge-watching your shows, and you waste time gabbing with me. You don’t date. You used to paint; I’ve seen some of your old paintings and they’re beautiful, but you stopped. What happened to you?”

“I never thought of any time with you as wasted.”

“I didn't mean it that way.”

“I know you didn’t. I don’t know. I was married before I was here.”

“Lots of people get divorced and go on to a happy life.”

“It’s not that. I was married, and we were doing ok. We wanted a baby, and Jenna was pregnant. We were happy; our families were happy. I was doing well in my work and Jenna was too.” Mike paused for second. “She had a miscarriage, though. It wasn’t an early one, though. She was six months pregnant when we lost the baby.”

“Oh, Mike. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“We’d painted the baby’s room and had all the baby stuff. The church threw us a baby shower. We picked out names and everything. It was Olivia if a girl and Liam if a boy. We didn’t want to know before the baby was born. She loses the baby, and we come home and there’s this room that was supposed to be this place to welcome this beautiful child.” Mike paused, looking into his bourbon, he bit his lower lip. “It felt more like a tomb. Jenna hardly came out of our bedroom for a month. She told me to get rid of everything, and so I’m taking truckloads of baby things to the thrift store.”

Kenny asked, “How’d you get through it?”

“I don’t know. Some things you just don’t fix, you just hope to survive. Jenna and I . . . I think we just didn’t understand each other in our grief. Six months later she left me. I was trying to get up every Sunday and say something hopeful in church, but it felt so empty, like I was telling lies to get through the Sunday.”

“Mike, I’m a jerk. I didn’t know.”

“It’s ok,” Mike said. “I should have told you about this before. I resigned. A friend got me into an interim job in New Mexico, just filling in for half a year. That was good for me, to go out there and forget about things for awhile. Then the job here in Thomasville opened up, and I knew however unimpressive it may seem on the outside that the people in the church would be nice to me.”

“I get that,” Kenny said.

“And I thought that . . “

“Mike.”

“ . . . if we found something like this treasure . . .”

“Mike.”

“ . . . then it might give both of us some life.”

“Mike! Shut up and look.”

“What?”

“Look up. See that shape over the town. What is that?”

Mike looked where Kenny was looking, and he saw an undefined shaped in the sky, an amorphous blob in the sky moving toward them.

Mike spoke, “Crap, Kenny. Is that the monster?”