Her Cheating Cost Her a Fortune

I landed the job as a zookeeper, and I called my girlfriend Winifred Henson to share the good news. All I got was a cold little laugh of disgust.

How is being a zookeeper any different from shoveling manure? Dirty, smelly, exhausting. It's humiliating!

Look at Grant, our old class president. He opened his own convenience store, walks in and out of that place like somebody. That's a face you can be proud of.

"Quit, now. Or we're done!"

There was nothing I could do, so I went to find the zoo director. On the way I heard the thoughts of a few wolves in the enclosure next door.

"That pile of gold in the back hills, how has nobody found it yet?"

"Haven't been up to the back hills for a walk in ages. Whoever takes me next time, I'll tell them."

In that second, my heart was slamming against my ribs.

"You sure you want to quit?"

The director said it plainly.

I shook my head fast. "I'm not quitting! I promise I'll do the job well!"

...

The director and I agreed I'd start work the next day. Then I bought two cartons of cigarettes and went to Winifred's place, wanting to tell her the good news in person.

The moment we saw each other, Winifred said, "Tomorrow you start at Chris's Corner Store as stockroom manager. Thirty-five hundred a month, one meal covered."

"I'm not going."

I shook my head. "A zookeeper's base pay is six thousand a month, plus full benefits, three meals a day."

"And I heard the wolves"

Before I could finish, Winifred blew up, practically screaming. "Didn't I tell you to quit? Can't you understand plain words?"

Her parents' faces hardened too.

"Stockroom manager sounds respectable when you say it. But no, you have to go be some pathetic zookeeper."

"Can't you show a little ambition? Christian's the boss. Stick with him and you'll have a future."

I honestly didn't get it.

Pay-wise, the zoo paid more, with better benefits.

Future-wise, a zookeeper could rise to supervisor, then manager.

Where exactly did it fall short of stockroom manager?

"Reuben Henson, Summer, Winifred."

Just then Christian James appeared in the doorway.

Reuben and Summer rushed to greet him.

"Christian, come in, sit. I'll call in some food for lunch."

"Have a cigarette first. You and I are going to have a good drink this afternoon."

Watching all of it.

Something in me went sour.

Every time I came over, I brought something, and Reuben and Summer always stayed cold with me.

The one and only time they ever fed me, it was the leftovers from the night before.

Christian showed up empty-handed, and the two of them lit up warm as anything, ordering food, handing over cigarettes.

I looked at Winifred.

Instead, she went to the kitchen, sliced up a plate of fruit, and set it in front of Christian.

Another thing I'd never gotten.

"No need to fuss over me. I just stopped by to sit for a bit, and it's a good chance to talk about Herbert Gilbert's work."

Christian smiled, then turned and fixed his eyes on me, saying it with a certain relish. "Work with me, you'd better be able to take it."

"Stock comes in at four. Inventory at ten at night."

I heard that.

Wasn't that just lining up a cheap pair of hands?

Reuben and Summer chimed right in, smiling. "Young people should eat a little hardship."

"This job, I can't do it."

I turned it down flat.

"Are you out of your mind!"

Winifred grabbed a glass of water and threw it in my face. "Christian has vision, he has experience, he's willing to bring you along on the work. That's your good fortune."

"There's something in the hills behind the zoo"

On reflex I nearly told them the secret of the gold, but the words came right back up my throat and I swallowed them.

Wealth isn't meant to be flashed around, after all.

The Hensons trusted Christian. I didn't trust him one bit.

"Something what? A mountain of gold and silver? Enough to have you this obsessed?"

Winifred was even angrier now.

Her parents shot me blaming looks too, clearly convinced I didn't know a good thing when I saw it.

"Don't fight over something this small."

Christian played the peacemaker, all fake. "Since Herbert's not willing, then forget it. I'm not going to keep offering a warm face just to get a cold shoulder."

"I'll head out."

He'd barely stood up when Winifred yanked him back down.

"You're not the one who should be leaving."

She whipped her head around and glared at me. "Go home and think this over, hard!"

"Either you go with Christian, or we break up!"

With that she shoved me toward the door with everything she had, then slammed it shut behind me.

I let out a bitter laugh, took out my phone, and texted Winifred: There really is gold in the hills behind the zoo. Keep it to yourself!

The next second, Winifred called.

A flicker of hope shot through me and I picked up fast, only to hear Christian's voice on the other end.

"Back when I was growing fruit trees in those hills, I never saw so much as a copper wire, let alone gold."

Then Winifred's voice cut in. "Ha. Chris is right here, so don't even try to con me."

"Coming up with some ridiculous excuse like that just to keep a garbage zookeeper job. Pathetic."

"Tomorrow you go work for Chris like a good boy, and no more nonsense."

She didn't give me a chance to say a word. She just hung up.

I didn't listen. The next morning I showed up at the zoo right on time and took the alpha wolf out for its walk.

*The new guy's not bad.*

*Come with me. I'll take you to the gold.*

Its thoughts reached me.

So wherever it went, I followed.

About twenty-odd minutes in, it stopped and took a piss.

*New guy.*

*I've marked it for you. Now we'll see if you can remember it.*

I quickly tossed down a stinky red sock as a marker, so I could come back and check that night.

On the way back from the walk, I ran into Christian.

He was staring at me.

It actually gave me the creeps.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, forcing myself to look calm.

"Dragging you back to be my stockroom clerk, obviously." Christian rolled his eyes at me, sour about it. "It's boiling out. What's wrong with sitting in my AC instead of wandering around out here? You're not scared of running into something?"

"Not going."

I refused without a shred of hesitation.

"Listen, you"

Christian, big and thick as he was, was about to make it physical.

The alpha wolf suddenly bared its teeth and let out a low, warning growl.

Christian jumped, then turned and left.

*Every time I go for a walk I run into this pissing-and-shitting-wherever-he-wants, no-manners piece of trash.*

The alpha's thoughts spilled out in a rant.

I hadn't thought much of it before, but now I was on guard.

Could it just be a coincidence?

An hour later.

Winifred called. "Feeling brave, are you? Not only did you skip working for Chris, you set your wolf on him. How low can you get?"

I explained that Christian was exaggerating.

Winifred ignored it and only got angrier. "Herbert Gilbert! You think I don't know exactly what kind of person you are? Quit playing dumb here."

That cut deep.

Seven years together.

I gave up a good-paying job in another city to come back to this small town with her without a second thought. Every month I handed her half my paycheck, and I never once skimped on gifts for the holidays.

When she couldn't find work, I never pushed her.

And now she reduced me to something this worthless.

"You can hit a clam three times and not get a single word out of him."

Winifred was losing patience by the second. "Go buy two cartons of cigarettes, right now, and come with me to apologize to Chris and make it right."

I refused, frowning.

"What?"

Her voice shot up. "You really don't know a good thing when it's handed to you. Not going? Fine. Then don't count on ever seeing me again."

After she hung up, a few more messages came through.

*Herbert Gilbert!*

*You're sick, your whole family's sick! Broke your entire lives, living as pathetic as a dog, no face and nothing to back it up either.*

*I should've broken up with you ages ago! And I'll tell you this, Chris has been thinking about me all these years!*

I wanted to give her a few days to cool off, to wait until I'd dug up the gold. But the second the message sent, a red exclamation mark popped up.

Winifred had blocked and deleted me.

Every time we fought, Winifred did the same thing, then waited for me to grovel my way through every trick in the book to win her back.

But this time.

I suddenly didn't want to. I couldn't shake the feeling that in Winifred's family's eyes, I ranked far below Christian.

*Guess who I saw today?*

The alpha wolf's voice cut into my thoughts.

*Don't tell me it was that Christian guy?*

*Bingo. Only he came alone today. Didn't bring his little sweetheart.*

*That woman's called Winnie-something. The two of them are always kissing and pawing at each other under the tree, snapping selfies too. No shame at all.*

*Got a little too wild once and dropped some card thing they kept talking about! Right near the gold.*

The pack went back and forth, howling nonstop, exactly like the old women gossiping down by the village gate.

My eyelids twitched like mad, and I locked onto that one word: "Winnie."

Could it be Winifred?

The next second, I threw the idea out.

If it were Winifred, she could have cut me off completely a long time ago. No reason to drag it out until now.

That night.

I took a flashlight up the hills behind the zoo, finally found the marked spot, and started digging.

Two hours later, nothing.

All I'd done was wear myself out.

Had the alpha remembered the spot wrong?

Had I just been played by a pack of wolves?

While I was still puzzling over it, my phone buzzed. My father.

"You're a grown man. What's it going to cost you to swallow your pride? Go make things right with Winifred, now."

"If your bride walks out on you, it'll be too late to be sorry."

He laid into me.

"Dad, it wasn't my fault."

I'd barely started to explain before he cut me off.

"Enough. Who's right and who's wrong doesn't matter. You two agreed to marry by year's end. Don't you go pulling any stunts."

"You're thirty. If this really falls apart, where are you going to find another wife?"

"Buy a gift tomorrow and go apologize."

His voice was cold.

"Dad, I'm not a kid. I know what I'm doing"

"You don't know a damn thing. Do as I say!"

The line went dead.

I rubbed my temples, shouldered the shovel, and headed home to sleep. I'd come back tomorrow night.

The next day.

I took the alpha up the hills behind the zoo again.

When our walk brought us to the marked spot.

The alpha stared at the big pit, froze, then turned its head to look at me.

*New guy. Don't tell me you dug this?*

I kept my face calm.

Pretended I knew nothing.

The alpha marked its spot as it kept muttering away in its head: *Whoever dug this had no patience at all. Just a little deeper and they'd have hit the gold.*

*Back when I was still a pup, I saw the old geezer bury it with my own eyes.*

My heart was pounding. I pulled out two big drumsticks and tossed them to the alpha.

It howled and pounced, gnawing like crazy, then stopped short and glanced at the dirt turned up to one side.

*Huh? Isn't that the card thing? Never mind, forget it. Chowing down comes first!*

I followed its gaze and saw it: a camera memory card!

Yesterday the pack had said there were selfie videos of Christian and his sweetheart on it.

Maybe it could be the leverage I needed on Christian. See how he kept playing the good guy after that, kept bragging.

So I snatched it up, took it back to the zoo, wiped it clean, and slotted it into the computer.

It actually opened!

More than three hundred videos!

I clicked one at random, and the moment I saw what was on it, my eyes went wide.

Then I opened the second one, the third, until I'd watched every last video.

By the end I was drained, slumped in the chair, sunk into a silence that stretched on and on.

Bzzz. Bzzz.

My phone buzzed and broke it.

A message from my father: You don't want to go apologize, so I'll go for you.

Below it, a pinned location. Winifred's neighborhood.

I rushed to ask the zoo director for time off and drove over.

The Hensons' door stood open.

A cluster of neighbors had gathered outside.

My father was bent at the waist like a child who'd done something wrong, standing there taking a lecture from the Hensons.

"My daughter's got the looks and the brains. Marrying into your family is beneath her! Never mind your son, even you, when my daughter says east, none of you had better say west."

"Never mind that they're not even married yet, even after the wedding, one word from her and it's a divorce."

"You lug over a few boxes of liquor and a few cartons of cigarettes and call that an apology? Who do you think you're insulting? Like father, like son. Poor enough to make you sick."

Reuben and Summer Henson sat there with their legs crossed, smug and lofty.

My father kept nodding. "I'm sorry, it's our fault. What will it take for you to forgive us?"

The neighbors watched him with open scorn. Someone muttered, "Look at the Hensons, training their in-law like a dog. It's a riot."

Through all of it, Winifred sat off to the side cracking sunflower seeds, sipping bubble tea.

Not saying a single word.

Enjoying every minute of it.

I clenched my fists. I should have understood long ago what the Hensons really were.

They never wanted a son-in-law.

They wanted an obedient dog!

"Then on top of the three hundred thousand bride price, we'll add one more condition. Your pension and retirement accounts, all transferred into my daughter's name."

Summer narrowed her eyes and smiled as she said it.

I was shaking with rage.

Three hundred thousand bride price, the five golds. Handing over my wages. I'd agreed to all of it.

Buying a place here near Winifred, putting her name on it, I'd agreed to that too.

And now they were coming after my dad's pension and retirement money?

This had gone too far!

They didn't see me or my father as people. We were an ATM to them.

Draining us dry.

Grabbing everything they could for themselves.

My father froze too, hesitated a few seconds, then nodded anyway. "All right, I..."

"Dad."

I rushed into the Henson home. "You can't agree to this!"

Reuben and Summer sneered in unison.

"Oh? The big rat says yes, but the little rat says no?"

"You won't even agree to a small condition like this. How are we supposed to trust my daughter will be happy after the wedding?"

My eyes swept over them, then settled on Winifred's face. "Ask yourself honestly. After all these years, how have I treated you? How could you covet my dad's pension and retirement money?"

"And you told me yourself, with your own mouth, that you'd never make an unreasonable demand like this!"

Guilt flickered in Winifred's eyes, but seeing so many people standing at the door, she hardened at once.

"So what? That money's mine sooner or later. I'm just taking it a little early."

Her chin lifted high.

"Winifred, you..."

I'd barely started when my father cut me off with a shout.

"Enough!"

"You shut your mouth! I'm handling this!"

My father raised his hand to strike me across the face.

"Dad..."

I dropped straight to my knees and kowtowed to him. "I'm not going through with this marriage."

"I know you mean well. You're scared I'll end up alone, scared Mom's spirit will blame you."

"But this relationship, even if I married her, would never make me happy!"

My father's hand hung in the air, his eyes going faintly red.

Hearing that, the Hensons flew into a rage and threw us out.

"Fine, don't marry her! The two of you get as far away as you can!"

"Not a shred of sincerity and you still want my daughter? Keep dreaming."

Winifred had her say too. "Herbert, from today, we're done. Clean cut."

"Someday you'll be the one crying, and I'll see who's willing to marry you then."

I said nothing, took my father by the arm, and turned to leave.

Down at the bottom of the building.

My father wasn't blaming me, but he sighed and sighed, unable to let it go.

"Dad, no matter what, that woman is not someone you marry."

I leaned close to his ear and said a few quiet words.

My father froze first, then sucked in a sharp breath and nodded again and again. "No, she can't be married. She can't be married."

That night.

I shouldered my hoe and went back to the hills behind the zoo. This time it took less than half an hour to hit a crate.

I held my breath and opened it.

Gold bars, one after another!