The Secret of Sangre de Cristo

Teaser

Cliff got the scrap of paper with his notes from the field trip on it. He studied it and the map intensely. There were enough trees on either side of the road that he couldn’t see far enough to pick up any landmarks. He decided he have to wait until they came to a clearing or hit the summit of this road - whichever came first. He sat back and watched Darlene. She totally concentrated on the road ahead now, her face showing a fierce determination. Cliff was glad she was driving. He wouldn’t have wanted to try to drive this road. Then he spotted a spot on the road where the trees thinned out.

“Stop up there for a moment,” Cliff ordered, then explained: “I’ve got see if can see our landmarks.”

Darlene pulled the SUV into the clearing and stopped. Cliff jumped out of the passenger’s side with the map and his notes. He held the map on the hood of the SUV and looked off into the distance. After several moments of checking and rechecking he’d reassured himself of their position, and got back in his seat.

“Well?” Darlene asked.

“Drive on, mon cheri,” I think we’re almost there.”

“I’m not even going to ask what that means; but use English from now on!”

About fifteen minutes later, Cliff ordered her to stop again. He went through the same routine to check his location. Moments later he came back.

“I believe we are almost as close as we can get. Do you want to find a better place to park this?” Cliff suggested.

“Okay”

Darlene then drove up a little farther to one of the areas where the road was wide enough for two vehicles. With a little maneuvering, she managed to turn it around facing the way they had come. She parked it. Then both Cliff and Darlene retrieved their knapsacks. Darlene dropped her cellular phone in hers.

“Which way?” she asked.

“Just follow me,” Cliff instructed as he began to make his way through the trees. A half hour later Cliff stopped to check his bearings again. From his present location both peaks were clearly visible. He pulled out his compass and checked the bearing to each peak.

“A little further this way,” Cliff directed.

“I see the entrance,” Darlene shouted excitedly and ran forward.

Darlene stopped, fished her flashlight out of her pack, and entered the crevice between the rocks. Cliff followed her. When they got to the chamber with the skeleton and armor, Darlene turned, grabbed Cliff’s head with one hand on each cheek, kissed him hard on the lips; then she turned to look around the room.

“You did it,” she exclaimed.

“You actually found it again!” she shouted, turned and kissed Cliff again, just as quick and hard as before.

Cliff, stunned with ecstasy, was speechless. For him, all the treasure in the cave wasn’t worth the two kisses he’d just received. Darlene stopped as though realizing what she’d just done and said:

“We’ve got a lot to do.”

With that she threw off her pack, dug in it and came up with a pen and notebook and handed it to Cliff.

“Here, make a list of anything that looks valuable. I’ll start taking pictures.”

Cliff did as ordered. He enjoyed seeing Darlene so excited. They first inventoried everything that was visible then went to work on the contents of the wooden chest. Darlene took everything out, while Cliff wrote a description of each as well as he could describe them. He was glad Darlene thought to photograph them because some he couldn’t identify some items.

When they had finished listing and photographing the contents of the chest, Darlene took everything out of her pack and started to fill her pack with gold objects. She turned to Cliff.

Let me have your pack so I can figure out what to put in it. Cliff pulled his off and handed it to her. She took out a brown bag, a couple of sodas and a hatchet.

“What’s this for?” she asked, holding up the hatchet.

“I thought we might have to cut our way through some brush,” Cliff answered her.

Darlene started loading Cliff’s pack. When she had both packs about three quarter’s full, she turned and looked up at Cliff.

“I think we’d better see if there’s anything in the other room we ought to take before we finish filling them. Grab your pack.” Darlene ordered.

They both picked up their packs. Cliff noted how heavy it was with the gold in it. He was glad the return trip was downhill. Once they entered the second chamber they started the process of inventorying and photographing again. They went around the nearly circular shaped room moving rocks from time to time so they wouldn’t miss anything. Darlene worked ahead of Cliff, shouting off items, then photographing them. They were now almost back to the tunnel entrance into this chamber when Darlene asked Cliff to help her move a heavy rock from the top of a pile so she could look under it. He got down beside her. They pulled together and the rock rolled off the pile. They could now see that nothing but rocks were under it.

“I guess that about does it,” Cliff said as he looked at Darlene. He was surprised to see she had a look of terror on her face and was staring in his direction, but a little beyond him. Cliff turned to see what she was looking at. When he turned, he discovered he was looking down the barrel of a 9 mm automatic pistol!

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