The Jug Rock Cipher - Chapter Two: The Teacher Who Knew Too Much

 

Shoals High School – The Next Morning

I always figured coming home would feel like slipping into an old coat—familiar, worn, maybe even comfortable. But Shoals had changed. Fewer storefronts downtown, more empty houses, and a new cell tower rising behind the old water tower like an uninvited guest.

I needed answers. Uncle Ray’s journal was cryptic, and I had no idea what the combination box held—only that whatever he was trying to protect, it began with Jug Rock. That was where the first clue had to be. But I needed someone who could help interpret Ray’s ramblings. And I knew just who to ask.

Kate Lander hadn’t changed much since high school. Back then, she was the kind of person who read local obituaries for fun, always digging into the past like it might yield some ancient secret. Today, she was the county’s unofficial historian and the only teacher I knew who made Indiana history feel like a ghost story.

I found her in Room 12, finishing up a lecture on the lost town of Hindostan.

“…and in 1820, the entire settlement was abandoned after a mysterious outbreak. Some say it was cholera. Others claim it was the curse of the falls. The truth is buried under sediment and time.”

The bell rang, and she noticed me standing in the doorway. Her expression shifted from surprise to curiosity in an instant.

“Eli Turner,” she said, stepping out from behind her desk. “Back from the land of retirement already?”

I held up the journal.

“Uncle Ray left me something. I think it’s a puzzle. Maybe more.”

She gestured toward her desk. “Let’s take a look.”

We sat, and I opened the book to the first page. Her eyes narrowed as she read.

“‘To find what was taken, follow what remains… Jug, Bluff, Falls, Hill.’ Huh. Sounds like Ray. He never let facts get in the way of a good mystery.”

I leaned in. “You ever hear of a cipher involving these places?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she pulled open a file drawer behind her desk and produced a photocopy of an 1893 land survey map. She laid it beside the journal.

“Not a cipher exactly, but there is a legend. Ever heard of the Dover Hill Payroll Raid?”

I shook my head.

“In 1864, a Confederate raiding party allegedly hijacked a Union payroll wagon near Paoli. The gold vanished. Some believed it was smuggled westward by Confederate sympathizers through these very hills. Dover Hill was a known safe zone—quiet, isolated. Rumor is, someone buried it. Others think it was a cover story for something older.”

I looked back at Ray’s handwriting.

“‘It was never just a rock,’” I read aloud. “‘It was a cipher.’”

Kate tapped the journal thoughtfully. “Ray might have been on to something. You said there’s a box?”

I nodded. “Locked. Three-digit code.”

She smiled. “Then we’d better start cracking it. First stop: Jug Rock.”