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Confessions of a Professional Treasure Hunter Part: 12 By: EI Cazador A girl with a gun. To me there are few things more dangerous. One of the only things more dangerous is a woman with a gun who thinks her man has been cheating on her. It was a compact, chromed, revolving six shooter. This was an extremely reliable weapon, nothing to jam on, except the target. The target was my Captain and I walking into the Barrel House late at night with the wind just ... howling. A hurricane was coming. We were far enough away from any other property so with the loud wind no one would probably even hear the shots. Real gun shots don't sound like the movies, even at a small distance. They sound like little-lady finger firecrackers. I followed my Captain into the Barrel House and into one of those moments of truth. His wife found out that he had a "girlfriend" in town and was now in the house, waiting alone. Only after we got there was I told that she may have the gun that my Captain apparently brought with him on this trip. Great. He stepped inside first and we did not see anything from the kitchen. "Wait here, I'll take a look", he said. I left the door open behind us so we could run from the bullets if we had to. A long minute passed by when he came back and said that his wife was ok and that I could leave if I wanted to. I did not need to be told twice. "0k", I said, "1'11.. be.. down at Lexie's house", my "girlfriend" at the time. Gone. The hurricane, the name of which I forget, was building in intensity and Lexie was really glad to see me. She lived just a mile down the road. I asked her where the covers where for the windows. They were stored on the main level and we went down to get them. She told me that some of the windows in the front of the house had been changed and the covers did not all match. Too bad, this was the side facing the huge storm. We grabbed what we could and nailed the covers on the windows that did not match. They almost fit. We then went to the side of the house and clipped the correct covers over the other windows at the top and then at the bottom. The storm covers were made out of a thin wood but were better than nothing. It was fine plywood painted the same color as the house. It seemed that someone spent as much time on how they looked as on their ability to stop flying debris. I guess the covers were also designed for when the property was left empty for long periods by the owner and the house still had to look good. They looked great. These window covers hung by two hooks at the top and then were secured in place by two clips on the bottom. We put several on until it became impossible to work. There was no way we were going to be able to get the ladder out and do the upper floors. The winds were blowing so hard that the covers were being pulled out of our hands by Mother Nature. Somebody was going to get a corner in the face. You could feel the wind building and it became dangerous to even be outside. Then the rain started to blow sideways. It was time for us to get inside the house. We got back into the house right before the rain really started to pour. The word rainfall does not apply since the rain was not falling but was in fact speeding sideways and hitting the house like tiny liquid meteors, exploding on impact. The drops and sound started to build higher and louder. The house became a drum with water and sticks beating on the south side. Not all of the windows were covered and we hoped that a tree would not fall into one of them. The house was surrounded by numerous tall pine trees; the trunks were the size of dinner plates and smaller. The wind blew everything sideways, the trees, the branches, the needles, all pointing north. Outside turned misty and whitish with water. We could see the water pooling in the yard and saw it rise on the side of the Gulf of Mexico only a few dozen yards from the house. It was now starting to get dark.
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