Twenty years after its disastrous attempt to stage a nationwide treasure hunt as an advertising campaign, the John Putnam Company has announced that it is trying again with a similar project this summer.

Jack Putnam, vice-president in charge of publicity, confirms that his father, company founder and CEO “Big John” Putnam, has authorized another “Puzzle Contest” to unfold over ten days, culminating on the Fourth of July. The single prize? 12,000 gold American Eagle coins, in today’s market approximately 25 million dollars, enough to buy plenty of Putnam-brand tee shirts, backpacks, and hiking boots.

When asked about the fiasco of twenty years ago, in which two company employees died and millions of dollars in gold vanished, Putnam offered only a brief statement: “We are committed to the safety of our team members and our customers, and we offer this competition as our way of saying thank you to the American public for choosing to buy our clothing and recreational gear. We have made every effort to ensure that this Putnam Puzzle Contest will avoid the unfortunate mishaps of the past.”

As soon as he crossed the state line into North Carolina and the first raindrops splashed onto his windshield, Buster Matthews sensed that the trip wasn’t going to be as easy as he had expected. Buster was twenty-six years old and had been driving in poor road conditions for ten years—minus the three months when a little misadventure had led his aunt to take away his license and keys—but on this Thursday evening, when darkness fell early for June and the roads narrowed, when the steady rain metastasized into a violent thunderstorm, when his GPS said he was still an hour away from his destination even after he entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, when his cell service went out, and when his dog whined for a pit stop and then got soaked in the process, he wondered why the hell he had ever taken this job.

The task had sounded so simple this morning. He would pick up a car in Charleston, South Carolina, drive 346 miles to a place called Yellow Creek Cabin in the North Carolina mountains, swap keys with his buddy Horace Bristow, and then, after spending the night, drive Horace’s car back to Charleston. He would earn two hundred and fifty dollars for this easy trip.

Horace had mentioned that rain was falling in his part of the Smokies, and at the very end of the conversation he had dropped the news that Buster was to transport a teenaged boy back to Charleston with him, but Buster was perfectly fine with these footnotes, these little glosses to their deal, because the arrangement would net him money that he most certainly needed.

At 10:30 p.m. he turned onto the fire road covering the final three miles to Yellow Creek Cabin, which reportedly sat on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. He groaned when he saw that the roadway was more like a creek, rutted and awash with rain.

The oldies station on the radio began playing “The Love I Lost” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. When he’d been maybe four years old, Buster’s parents would pick him up and dance with him in the living room, his feet off the ground, his face at their level, held in their arms, clutching, hugging, smiling. After they died, certain old songs like this one could summon that fragmentary memory of floating in their arms, the audible equivalent of a favorite photograph in his wallet. But tonight the music just made his mom and dad feel far away, as if they were safe in the studio with the DJ while he steered through this furious tempest.

Whenever lightning flashed, the broadcast turned to static. He was driving a brand-new car, which was no longer quite as fresh as when he’d picked it up six hours earlier. His Irish setter, Bo, had already muddied up the floor mats and replaced the new-car smell with that of wet dog. As he edged up the muddy road, scree and mud churning beneath him, trees thrashing in the lightning strobes, he fought the impatience to hurry. He had almost made it. He couldn’t botch another job now.

Half a mile up the fire road, he rounded a switchback, his grille and windshield cutting through the downpour like a powerboat easing its way toward a dock. Suddenly Buster saw that a large chunk of the road had washed away, and at the same moment the car lurched hard to the left. He hit the brakes, but the wheels slid in the slick mud, and the momentum of the car carried him forward, downhill. Helplessly gripping the wheel, he teetered between Surely we’ll stop and Oh shit, I’m going to wreck somebody else’s car.

The car slid maybe fifteen feet before its driver’s side met the tree line. Buster could see branches and leaves scraping the windows, then felt the crunch when his left headlight hit a tree. The impact flung his dog into the carpeted flooring under the dashboard, but the air bags did not deploy.

Buster braced himself against the steering wheel and unfastened his seatbelt. Though the engine had died, the radio still blared. He tried his phone—still no cell service.

“You okay, Bo?”

The dog whimpered and tried to scramble upright. Buster calmed him with a touch.

Foliage blocked the driver’s side, but Buster managed to push open the passenger door. Miraculously, the courtesy light overhead still worked. The rain continued to pour. Buster lifted Bo until the dog could find sufficient footing to get himself out of the car. Some of that footing turned out to be Buster’s chest and face, and Bo’s nails were sharp.

“You’re not helping,” Buster said.

Through the open passenger door Bo barked at him and then, trembling and soaked, put a tentative muddy paw back into the car.

“Easy,” said Buster. “We’re okay, Bo.”

But he knew otherwise. They were in a big mess. His one task had been to deliver a new automobile to Horace Bristow, and the car was now undriveable. They would be one vehicle short at the cabin, and now Buster too needed transportation back to Charleston. He rubbed Bo’s coat and spoke to him gently before reaching toward the jumble of equipment in the back seat.

First he fished out his backpack. It already held some clothes and his sleeping bag and all the paperwork he was supposed to deliver to Horace. He thought about how much his tent had cost him and lashed that to the outside of the pack. Then he found his hiking boots and a couple of cleanish socks. It took a while to switch from flip-flops to socks and hiking boots while crouched in his current position.

Finally he pulled on his rain jacket and crawled out of the car, immediately slipping in the fresh mud. But he managed to yank the heavy backpack out of the vehicle, shrug it on, and clamber his way up the embankment to the road. Bo followed him. In the next flash of lightning, Buster could see that the road continued up the mountain. He’d driven into a solitary sinkhole, but the rest of the roadbed seemed to be holding up. Bo, soaked, complained beside him.

He trudged through the downpour with the dog by his side. The storm was loud. Sidestepping debris and occasionally picking his way over a fallen tree, they worked their way uphill. It took over an hour of hard slogging and scrambling to reach a small road sign that announced the site of the Yellow Creek Cabin. Buster stood there, caught his breath, tried to see his way. In the next flash of lightning, he looked into a void. He was standing at the edge of a newborn cliff where a forty-yard clearing had dropped off the side of the mountain.

Both Buster and his dog quivered here at the end of their road, looking at this gigantic version of the little sinkhole that had swallowed the car. Finally Buster took the chance of approaching the rim of the precipice and staring down into the darkness. The next lightning flash revealed the remnants of a log cabin amid the hectic trees and earth far below.

Under his jacket he groped for his cell phone, but there was still no signal. Now what? He had no car, no phone, and no shelter, and it was possible that Horace and his clients might be buried below.

In the next flash of lightning he looked across the gaping chasm, and to his astonishment he saw a car through the rain—a car blinking its headlights at him. Giddy with relief, he called his dog and started to work his way over to the other side of the gulf. Inside the vehicle would be Horace, safe after all, waiting for him with his clients.

The traverse was a tough one. Wary of another mudslide, Buster walked far uphill before sidling over to the road on the other side of the raw ravine. Wet branches blocked his way on the steep and slippery hillside, and he had to assist Bo in the pelting rain as they picked their way across the face of the mountain.

At last, when he reached the car, he opened the driver’s door to greet Horace. But the driver’s seat was empty. In the passenger seat was one occupant, a muddy, trembling boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old.

Buster shooed Bo into the back, tossed in his gear, and sat down behind the wheel. “Thank God you signaled me,” he said. “What’s going on here?” He couldn’t see much of the kid, just some short black hair and a lot of mud. Something rustled in a vertical box in front of the boy’s seat. “Are you with Horace Bristow? Where is he?”

“Horace left,” said the boy, staring solemnly at him. “Are you Buster? Are you going to help me?”

“I am,” said Buster, fumbling for the car keys. He found them and started the engine. “I’m going to get both of us out of here. What’s your name?”

The boy swallowed before answering. “I’m Ray. Ray Averett.”

But, as Buster discovered much later, the boy was lying.

For the past two years, after graduating from college, Buster had been unable to land steady employment. It wasn’t for lack of trying. His Aunt Suzanne was the head of a boarding school in Virginia and knew lots of alumni eager to give him a chance. But neck-ties and office work were definitely not his thing. He had interviewed at In Loco Parentis, the outdoor-education company where Horace and a bunch of Buster’s other friends worked, but during the field expedition serving as his audition for the job, one of his teenaged clients had used the fuel for a propane stove to start what had almost become a forest fire. After that Buster had tried house-painting and waiting tables and, most recently, landscaping for Lila, who had also been his landlady and his girlfriend. But that arrangement had unraveled only yesterday, when he caught her kicking his dog. The subsequent confrontation had resulted in a trifecta of familiar calamities: a breakup, a firing, and an eviction. Had it not been for the couch at his best friend Eddie’s place, Buster would have had to limp back to Virginia and regroup at Aunt Suzanne’s.

Then, this morning, Horace had hired Buster to deliver the driveaway car. The offer had postponed the need to reckon with his future for another twenty-four hours. He had actually been tickled to know that the car Horace wanted him to deliver was from the John Putnam Company. Buster shopped at John Putnam only if somebody gave him a gift certificate. He was more of an L.L. Bean or R.E.I. guy when it came to outdoor clothing and camping gear, but only because he couldn’t afford Putnam merchandise. He would have taken Horace’s offer under any circumstances, but the glamour of the Putnam brand added cachet to the project.

Though real estate on King Street was very precious, the John Putnam Store, which occupied a handsome old double house with verandas on two stories, provided a courtesy parking lot in the rear for its customers. Buster parked beside a dumpster in the only unoccupied space in the tiny lot, left Bo in the truck with the windows open, and headed for the back door of the store.

He had taken only a few steps before a young woman emerged. She wore the standard green John Putnam polo shirt and khaki shorts, with a green John Putnam baseball cap over her black hair. In one hand she held a canvas tote bag.

“You the guy here for the driveaway?” she called.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Buster, grinning. Horace had explained that a driveaway was a car belonging to a client who wanted it transported from one part of the country to another. In this case, the client was the John Putnam Company.

“Hello, Horace,” she said with a smile.

“I’m not Horace,” said Buster.

She stopped smiling and came closer to him. “I know and you know that you’re not really Horace, but let’s just give our customers inside what they want, all right? You can be Horace for a minute. Now put this on.”

From the tote bag she pulled a John Putnam polo shirt. Horace hadn’t mentioned impersonation as part of the job, but Buster was willing to participate. It had been a long time since he’d worn a new shirt, and in any case it was a pretty day, and here was a pretty woman. He imagined that it would be fun to get to know her when he returned tomorrow. Then he stopped himself from further fantasy. This was how his troubles always began. Follow the line backward from Lila to Kimber to Tracey to Tammy to Sarah—they had all started out being charmed by his boyishness, and they had all ended up being sick of his boyishness.

Next from the tote bag the woman produced a brown envelope. “All your papers for the car are inside this,” she said. “Also phone numbers for emergency service and repair if you have any problems.” Next she showed him a John Putnam Gift/Travel Card, with a magnetic strip on the back and an embedded chip. It had a sixteen-digit account number and was embossed with the name of Horace Bristow. “It’s got five thousand dollars on it,” she said. “Any ATM will give cash back, and any motel or restaurant or service station will accept it as if it were a credit card. It’s very important that you deliver all this to Horace.”

She dropped the card into the envelope, and Buster carefully slid it into the backpack he’d prepared for the journey.

“Horace already has accounts set up for the social-media feeds and the daily blog. You don’t have to worry about those.”

Buster would have to ask Horace what kind of driveaway involved social media and blogging.

From the truck, Bo barked.

“You’re not planning to take that dog in our new car, are you?” she asked.

Oh, no. Buster could see the whole arrangement falling apart at the starting line. “Yes,” he admitted, “but Bo is fully housebroken and never gets carsick. He’ll be no trouble.” Then he held his breath.

She considered Bo, who was flashing his doggy grin at her from the open window. “Well,” she said, “Horace will be carrying a couple of wild falcons, so I guess your dog is okay. But really? A red-headed guy gets himself an Irish setter? Are you trying to look like a cute couple?”

After she’d handed him the keys to a green Subaru Forester two spaces away, she told him that he could leave his truck in the lot but that there had been multiple break-ins recently, so he should take his valuables with him. She helped transfer his camping equipment from his pickup to the back seat of the Subaru.

When he started to get into the car, she stopped him. “Our customers are waiting to meet Horace Bristow before he hits the road. Come on. All you have to do is smile and wave.”

Buster respectfully declined.

For the first time, she indicated some annoyance. “Look you’re messing things up for Horace if you refuse. And for us. And for me. Our thread of the Puzzle Contest features a falconer named Horace Bristow. The real Horace is going to take possession of the car tomorrow, right? But today our customers want to see him off. So please, Horace.”

Buster used some clothesline to tie Bo to a shady section of fence. Then he followed her into the store, where he glimpsed blond wood, green trim, bright stacks of sporting clothes and camping gear, and everywhere the John Putnam falcon logo. His escort signaled to a tall guy wearing the company polo, who pushed a button on a remote control for the sound system, which blared a trumpet fanfare.

The woman positioned Buster in front of a big poster that said “An American Odyssey! The John Putnam Puzzle Contest Comes to Charleston!” She clapped her hands. “Here he is, everybody! Our own Horace Bristow! We’re going to log his arrival time as 4:17. That’s 16:17 if you’re using military time.”

There were a lot of people in the store, and they all applauded. Several wrote down the numbers. A couple of customers took pictures.

“Photographs?” Buster said, turning to his guide.

“No worries. It’s all for the good of the cause.”

Then she pulled him back outside while the sound-system guy encouraged the customers to follow and cheer. Helping Buster and his dog into the car, the woman said loudly, “Good luck, Horace!”

How far away sunny Charleston seemed, now that Buster sat storm-drenched at midnight in a rattletrap car with nowhere to spend the night and a shaken kid whose muddy appearance was straight out of Lord of the Flies.

“Buckle up, Ray,” he said to the boy. “We’re too close to the edge.”

I’ve spent most of my career writing mystery novels and stories, but with HANK OWES THE WATER A DEATH I tried something new: a coming-of-age novel that starts as a comic misadventure and evolves into a mystery thriller. Or, to consider it from the other side of the lens, a double-stranded mystery in the form of a bildungsroman.

The protagonist is Buster Matthews, a good-hearted but inept outdoorsman who wants more than anything to find his niche in the world but who, at age twenty-six, is still fumbling. His companion, the title character, is Hank Putnam, a fourteen-year-old troublemaker devoured by guilt over his role in the drowning deaths of two boys a couple of years earlier. What starts for Buster as a simple one-day chore becomes a ten-day odyssey to deliver Hank safely to his family in San Francisco. What starts for Hank as a cynical effort to run away to the wilderness and perhaps to end his life becomes an intensive tutorial in decency, trust, friendship, and healing.

A case of mistaken identity thrusts Buster into the center of a national puzzle contest. As he and Hank travel west, the two become controversial public figures, regarded by half the country as outlaws and by the other half as folk heroes. Their notoriety pulls them into an unsolved mystery from a previous puzzle contest, in which two people died in mysterious circumstances and millions of dollars in gold coins disappeared. The farther they travel, the more Hank confides in Buster, eventually confessing his complicity in those deaths. Then, as other people who also shared responsibility for the deaths begin to die during Buster and Hank’s journey, Hank realizes that someone seeking revenge is stalking him.

Throughout American culture we see the motif of complementary companions, two partners whose combined skills make them an unstoppable duo: Hawkeye and Chingachgook, Huck and Jim, Thelma and Louise. With Buster and Hank we see another iteration of this trope, but in their case both are Huck Finns: forever learning and growing, improvising and discovering their own resources, appreciating over time how each can help the other achieve adulthood.

I wrote this novel after spending a happy career as an English teacher. I wanted to write an epic adventure featuring flawed but endearing characters, and my challenge was to maintain uninterrupted action while also offering my two protagonists a chance to demonstrate that even an ordinary stumblebum can pull the sword from the stone.