“There’s a fortune of gold buried around here somewhere,” Brent said. “Buried in a cave with an iron door. It’s been around for hundreds of years, and no one has ever found it. If we could find it, we’d be rich!”
“Bullshit,” Winn said.
“No, it’s true,” Brent said, reaching the platform and opening the book for Winn to see. “Look… ‘the fabled Escalante treasure’…”
“Fabled means it’s a fairy tale,” Winn said.
“No, this is a history book,” Brent said. “It was buried by priests in the 1700s, when they were under attack from Apaches. They had a huge mine, full of treasure, because they’d been forcing the Indians to mine for them, and they decided to hide it. So they covered the mine with an iron door, and buried it so no one could find it! People have been looking for it ever since. I’ll bet we could find it, if we tried!”
“If people have been looking for it for hundreds of years, what makes you think we could find it?”
“I don’t know,” Brent said, looking at the drawings in the book. “But look at this! See how much gold is in there? We’d be rich!” He held the book up for Winn to see.
Winn looked at the drawings, someone’s interpretation of what the inside of the Escalante mine might look like. There were piles and piles of gleaming gold, shining in the darkness of a cave. It did look enticing.
“Can you imagine how rich we’d be if we could even get a handful of that?” Brent said. “We’d be billionaires! I’d buy a Porsche.”
“I’d take a trip to Disney World,” Winn said, some of Brent enthusiasm beginning to rub off on him. “Heck, I’d move to Florida and live right next to Disney World.”
“I’d move with you,” Brent said. “We could go every day. We’d buy annual passes, and we could walk right in and buy anything we wanted.”
“I’d buy every CD at Tower,” Winn said. “My CD collection would be huge.”
Brent smiled, happy that he’d converted Winn. “Let’s start looking for it! It’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
“Sure,” Winn said. “You’re positive it’s still out there?”
Brent returned to his book. “This says it was never found. Lots of people have tried to find it, but no one ever has.”
“Maybe it doesn’t really exist,” Winn said. “You sure it isn’t all made up?”
“No, it’s real,” Brent said. “There was a Father Kino, he was in charge of the priests. And they hid the mine.”
Winn’s mind raced. He was lucky to get two dollars a week from his mom, if he did chores and she didn’t accuse him of something that negated the allowance. If he had billions, he could do anything he wanted. He could buy his mother a house, and he could buy his own – so he’d be able to live the way he wanted, without her always on his case to clean things. And he could get a really nice bike, like a motocross bike, something tricked out. And he could replace the torn backpack he took to school every day with one of the nice ones that the rich kids had. Maybe he’d be rich enough that they could hire teachers to come into his new home, in Florida next to Disney World, and teach him right there, instead of him having to go to school with other kids.
The more he thought about Brent’s proposal, the more he liked the idea.
“Alright,” Winn said. “I’ll help look for it. We split anything we find, fifty-fifty, OK?”
“Sure,” Brent said. “Fifty-fifty. But even if you ditch me and you find it on your own, it’s still fifty-fifty, regardless of who finds it.”
“Why?” Winn said. “That doesn’t sound very fair. If I found it on my own, it should be mine.”
“I’m the one who came up with the idea to look for it,” Brent said, holding up the book. “You wouldn’t even know about it if it weren’t for me. And you’re always trying to ditch me. It wouldn’t be fair if you found it and didn’t split it with me.”
“Fine,” Winn said. He didn’t feel like arguing with Brent, and he thought the chances of finding the gold were a longshot at best. “Fifty-fifty, regardless of who finds it.”
“OK!” Brent said, smiling at him. Winn smiled back, sealing the deal.
Chapter Three
They were on foot, leaving their bikes at the mouth of the canyon, following a creek bed. When they started into the canyon, it seemed easier to walk it than to bring in the bikes – the ground was rocky and the angle a little too steep in some places. Winn wasn’t sure how long they had been in the canyon, but it seemed like a long time. It just kept going.
“There’s no cave here,” Winn said. “Let’s go back.”
“How do you know?” Brent said, pressing on. “We’re nowhere near the end of this canyon. It could be just up ahead.”
“What if someone steals our bikes?” Winn asked.
“Way out here?” Brent asked. “There’s no one around.”
“This canyon might go on for miles,” Winn said. “We gotta stop at some point. Each step we take makes getting home even longer.”
“Look,” Brent said, stopping and turning to face his friend. “I’ve given in to you on almost everything on this treasure hunt. I’m not going to stop looking in this canyon after we’ve just entered it. We’ve hardly gone into it.”
“What do you mean you’ve given in?”
“I wanted to map things out, but you insisted on just winging it. You realize that means we’ll probably waste time backtracking over places we’ve already been?”
“I don’t like maps, they’re boring,” Winn said.
Brent turned around and kept walking. Winn reluctantly followed him. They walked another hundred feet before Winn spoke again.
“Someone could steal our bikes, they’re just sitting out there.”
“They’re lying flat on the ground, no one’s going to see them.”
Brent soldiered on, Winn ten feet behind him. They wound their way around rocks and shrub. The canyon was a little cooler than the desert floor, and its sides were now rising high enough that they cast shade. There was no water in the creek bed they were following.
“I wonder what the forecast was for today,” Winn said. “I’d hate to get caught in a flash flood in here.”
Brent stopped and turned around again. “Look, if you want to go, just go. You’re always ditching me anyway. I’ll look for it on my own. We’ve only been looking for a week, and you’re always whining about something.”
Winn knew he was becoming less and less interested in their treasure hunt as the days progressed. The first day had been fun, and so had the second. But as the feeling of obligation to search weighed on him, it had become less fun, and now just seemed like another chore he had to perform. Brent’s dedication to the search had kept him going, but it was becoming boring.
“We could go to Gale’s house, see if he’d let us play PS2,” Winn offered.
“I’ll buy a thousand PS2s with the gold I’m going to find,” Brent said, turning and continuing on.
Winn followed along, knowing that at some point Brent would have to call it a day and turn around. Winn’s mom didn’t care where he was or what he was doing, but Brent’s father was insistent that Brent be home for dinner promptly at 6pm. Winn figured it was at least a half hour back to the trailer court, so Brent would have to stop soon if he wanted to make it back in time. He knew Brent didn’t want to piss his father off.
A cool breeze began to blow down the canyon, and Winn felt it hit the sweat on his face. The canyon was a nice place to be, even if their gold search was boring. There were trees here and there, real trees – not the scraggly kind you saw out on the desert floor. And things smelled different, thanks to the moving air. The canyon was a little farther from home than they usually went, but they’d already searched the closer places, and Brent was insistent that the iron door mine wouldn’t be out in open desert anyway.
“Winn!” Brent called. “Winn!”
Winn looked up; Brent was twenty feet ahead of him, standing still, looking at something to his right. Winn caught up with him and
looked. He didn’t see anything.
“What?” Winn asked.
“You don’t see that?” Brent said, pointing. “The hole? Come on!”
Brent crossed the dry creek bed and walked up the other side of the canyon, into the rocks. As they got closer, Winn began to see a shadow distinguish itself as a hole, maybe two and a half feet wide.
“I knew the canyons were the best place to look!” Brent said. He knelt down and looked into the hole. Winn joined him.
“It doesn’t go very far,” Winn said, seeing rock a few feet inside the opening, and hoping this would bring conclusion to their exploration for the day.
“That’s not the end of it,” Brent said. He crawled forward into the hole and called back. “It dips down here a little bit, and it goes on after that. Come on!”
Winn watched as Brent’s feet disappeared beyond the dip, and he was gone. He followed him, crawling through the small opening, and dipping down. The little tunnel continued on for another ten feet before it widened and was tall enough to stand up in. The light from the entrance was almost gone, so Winn pulled out a mini mag light Marty had loaned him for their hunts. He turned it on.
“Wow!” Brent said. They were standing in a passageway about eight feet around. It continued on ahead of them. “This might be it! We might have found the iron door mine!”
“I don’t see any iron door,” Winn said, becoming nervous. Something about the cave bothered him. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it made his skin crawl.
“It’s probably further in the mine,” Brent said, pulling his own mag light out of his pocket and proceeding further into the cave. “Come on!”
They walked another thirty feet until they came to an enlargement in the tunnel, which formed a room about thirty feet wide. Brent was scanning the walls for an iron door. Winn noticed a crack in the back of the room that led deeper. To get through it, they’d have to slide themselves sideways. The idea of wedging himself into the rock unnerved him.
“Wow, can you believe this?” Brent said, glancing around the room, shining his flashlight at the ceiling. “I wonder why there’s no bats in here.”
“They might be deeper in there,” Winn said, pointing to the crack. Brent walked over to shine his flashlight into it.
Winn continued to feel uneasy. It wasn’t just the claustrophobic feeling welling up inside him. He felt that there was something else in the room, something he couldn’t see but was there anyway, moving. He looked down at the floor of the room and saw bones scattered around.
“I think we should leave,” he said to Brent.
Brent was craning his neck to see further down the crack. “This opens up into another tunnel,” Brent said. “Let’s keep going.”
“No, we should head back,” Winn said. “You’ve got to get home for dinner. If we leave now, you’ll barely make it back in time.”
“What time is it?” Brent said, turning to look at Winn.
Winn checked his watch. “Five fifteen.”
“Crap,” Brent said. “We’ve got to come back and go deeper! I want to explore this place!”
Winn felt something in the pit of his stomach, and he felt a little dizzy. He was afraid he might fall over, so he sat down on the ground. The air in the room seemed dank and moldy, hard to breathe. He glanced to his right and saw another animal bone. It looked bright white in the beam of his mag light.
“Winn?” Brent asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I feel sick,” he said. “Dizzy.”
“I wonder if there’s something in the air,” Brent said. “I read that there can be gasses in these mines that can kill you.”
“Great,” Winn said sarcastically. He knew it wasn’t a gas. It was something else, something unseen, moving around them. He closed his eyes. “Just let me rest here for a second, and we’ll leave.”
“OK,” Brent said, swinging his flashlight around the room again.
Winn felt the same tug that he felt when he was at home, in bed, ready to leave his body and enter the River. He wondered if he’d see what was in the room with them if he did it here. Brent’s here, he can watch my body, make sure I’m safe, he thought. He felt himself slip into the flow.
The room was suddenly brighter. Brent had become a dark form without features, and the light of his flashlight looked more like a shadow now. He turned and saw the opposite wall of the room. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and he fought an urge to return to his body and bolt from the room.
There was a person holding the carcass of an animal – it looked like a mountain lion. The animal’s throat had been cut, and its blood was spilling onto the floor, dripping over its face. The person holding the mountain lion was lifting it by the back legs, helping the blood drain from its throat.
Winn felt himself starting to gag, and he was about to return to his body, when he thought the person was talking to him.
Who are you? he heard, but the person holding the mountain lion hadn’t turned to look at him. He was still focused on draining the blood from the animal.
I’m Winn, he felt himself responding.
Padre Kino, oh dios, he heard from behind. He turned, and saw a figure lying on the ground. It was a man, dressed in long black robes. The man was afraid. He wasn’t addressing the man with the animal; he looked more like he was praying. Winn could see a gash on the man’s leg, freely bleeding.
Protejas tu siervo. Sanes mis heridas, the man whispered.
Winn turned back to the figure holding the mountain lion, knife in hand. It looked like a man, but its features were hard to make out. As he watched, the figure slowly raised his head, as though he had heard something. It turned to look at him. Winn knew it had seen him – not his physical body, but his River body.
He looked angry. Winn felt every danger warning receptor in his brain fire, and he was scared.
Winn dropped out of the River and struggled to his feet. “We have to leave here, now!” he said to Brent, and turned, running back down the passageway that led to the entrance. He could hear Brent following him, calling after him to wait.
“Come on!” he yelled back at Brent, not stopping. He reached the dip and dove under it, then scrambled up and out of the hole, emerging into the canyon. Brent was right behind him.
He stood up and turned around, looking at the small hole, wondering if the figure he’d seen draining the blood from the mountain lion was going to follow them out. He was breathing heavily.
“What was that?” Brent said. “You scared me!”
“There’s something in there,” Winn said. “I saw it. It saw me.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Brent said.
“It was killing a mountain lion,” Winn said, gasping for air. “It was draining its blood onto the floor. It turned and saw me.”
“There was no one in there with us,” Brent said. “I didn’t see anyone!”
“It was in the River,” Winn said.
“Oh.”
Winn could sense that Brent was skeptical.
“I really saw it,” Winn said. “He was holding a knife. He was going to come after us.”
Brent was a good enough friend that he didn’t scoff to Winn’s face. “Come on,” Brent said. “I gotta get back for dinner.”
“You believe me, don’t you?” Winn asked, following him as they started back down the canyon.
“I don’t know,” Brent said. “Maybe you just wanted to leave the cave, so you made it up.”
“I didn’t, I swear,” Winn said.
“How would I know?” Brent asked. “It’s not like I can see it too.”
“I’m not making it up, Brent, I swear,” Winn said. He slipped the mini mag light back into his pocket, and felt it stop before it got all the way in. He reached inside his pocket, and pulled out a nickel. He held it between his fingers. I’ve been out of money for a week, he thought. Where did this come from?
As he held the nickel, he felt something funny growing in the pit of his stomach which r
apidly expanded in intensity. He thought maybe he was going to throw up, but he didn’t exactly feel sick, and there were no convulsions. The feeling spread rapidly to his arms and legs, making him want to lie down and sleep. He looked at the nickel, seeing Brent move on in the distance. The feeling rose to his chest and up his neck, and when it hit his head, he felt like he wanted to scream with joy. He’d never felt so happy in his entire life. Gradually the feeling began to subside, leaving him with a calm contentedness he’d never experienced before. He looked again at the nickel. Whatever had just washed over him, he knew it came from there.
He slipped it back into his pants pocket and raced to catch up with Brent.
Chapter Four
When they reached the trailer court, Brent said goodbye to Winn, but stopped as soon as he got five feet away.
“What?” Winn asked.
“Jeanette’s out,” Brent said.
“So what?”
“So, I have to walk right in front of her,” Brent said. “Half the time she sics her dog after me.”
“Ears?” Winn said. “Ears is so old he can’t even run. You could walk and still outrun Ears.”
“He’s a nasty dog, and I’m afraid I’m going to kick him in front of her, and she’ll be even more pissed.”
“She’s harmless,” Winn said. “And so is Ears.”
“My dad says she used to be a prostitute, and she got some disease that was never treated properly, and it went into her brain and that’s why she’s crazy. If she’s crazy, she could attack me.”
“You’re insane if you believe that,” Winn said, but not completely discounting the possibility. “You want me to come with you?”
Brent smiled weakly at him.
“Alright,” Winn said, catching up with him and walking down the drive, past Winn’s trailer. Jeanette was two more trailers down, on the left. He could see her sitting on her lawn chair, facing the road. Winn sensed Brent tensing up as they approached her.
“Hi Jeanette,” Winn said as they passed. Brent kept his face forward, not wanting to look over at her and somehow invite her wrath. Winn saw that Ears was sitting quietly at her feet. Even from this distance, he could hear Ears snorting as he tried to breathe.
The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) Page 3
