'Relying on Alexa' by Lisa H. Owens

Meredith and Larry, poised on opposite banks, struggled to lift the submerged net spanning the width of Little Bridge Creek.

They’d finally struck gold—or at least Larry was pretty sure it was gold. The net's unusual knots screamed Yosemite Sam's notorious Klondike Gold-Strike, according to his intense research.  

“Ask her again,” Larry shouted, his gruff voice menacing. Meredith, pretty sure they were nowhere near the Klondike, was ready to hop on the four-wheeler and leave him behind, with the net full of… whatever.

“Ask who, what, Larry,” a forced smile gracing her sunburned lips. Never again would she set off with some jerk she’d only known for a fortnight

“You know. Ask Alexa…” Larry’s eyes scanned the horizon for gold-hungry lurckers before he stage-whispered “…about the gold.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Meredith muttered. A yelp emanated from the opposite bank when the tension on her side of the net gave way while she retrieved her phone.

She aimed Google Lens at the disheveled mesh sprawled across the water. “Alexa, Net in Little Bridge Creek.” 

Larry was uncharacteristically quiet as Alexa launched into a soliloquy of facts related to the ancient net’s unusual knotting techniques, primarily used to seine for gold. Meredith’s eyes glazed over; all she heard was blah-blah-blah.

“Are you taking notes, numbskull,” she spun to confront him.

The bank was empty and Larry’s hiking boots jutted straight up from the creek bottom, his legs entangled in the net and the rest of him sunken in quicksand. 

“Thank God,” Meredith said, enjoying silence for the first time in five days.

“Alexa, who is Yosemite Sam.”

Yosemite Sam: a fictional cartoon character known for his antics with a Wascally Wabbit.

Idiot, Larry, she thought, her mood instantly lifting upon spying her long-lost lucky wabbit’s foot on the seat of the four-wheeler.