Leave It Alone - Anne Wright

Jack put his hands on his hips and considered this new fact: the leg Great-Pa was wearing when he died was not the one that he and his cousins had seen when they were little, over forty years ago. So the treasure could be in any one of these old wooden legs. Which one of them was the original? He gave up any idea of sleep, and began moving the legs, one by one, to the workbench.

As he lined them up on the workbench, he realized that some were heavier than others; one was cracked almost all the way through where the wood had dried and aged. Jack decided to arrange them in order of what he thought would be oldest to newest, based on the deterioration of the shoes and boots which were clothing the foot. He turned them over to examine the details. The boots, the suede leather lining of the sockets and the leather straps on the upper parts were all coated with a grey dust, like powder. Jack scraped it with his thumbnail. Mold, dead mold. The stiff shafts smelled faintly of urine, or some sour body smell and Jack found himself breathing through his mouth as he looked for the leg with the bullet scar. He needed more light he could see better, and he needed to find some tools -- a saw, or a chisel, and a vise -- so he could operate.

He flipped the switch for the overhead light but when he saw that the light flooded into the back yard and onto the side of the house where the kitchen windows were, he turned it off again. What was he thinking? What if Blanche woke up and came out to the garage and discovered what he was doing, chopping and sawing the legs. She would think he had gone crazy. He had a vivid technicolor moment, as if seeing himself from above: a man gone mad, greedy for a fantasized hoard, flailing in semi-darkness at old, wooden legs. What would Great-Pa think, looking down from heaven at his oldest great-grandson? He gripped the edge of the workbench and gathered his wits. It was nonsense. He flipped the switch again illuminating the entire dusty cluttered garage.