None of this matters to me. I have had such a full life. I suppose all of us have our deep, hidden secrets. I know I do—and never you mind what they are! So if you wish to know more about this “Red Gold” (or even try to find it) you will have to ask Chato. He’s the one who would know.
My dying advice to you is this: FORGET IT. Enjoy the love and companionship you share with Holly. That is the only gold of pure and lasting value!
Gabriel, I am sorry we drifted so far apart these past many years. I admit I lost track of you, but I did often wonder where you and Holly were and what you might be doing. I think of you often and pray that you will make good use of all I have left you. I pray the love you share will grace your lives for many, many more years! May God bless you forever! Nellie Mae
Meds or no meds, I took the whiskey out of the lower desk drawer. After a good belt, I dialed my cellphone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
April 21
“How can you drive with that arm?”
“Why not? You drive with one leg. Besides, I ditched the sling they gave me. Don’t need it anymore.” I looked across the seat as C.J. piled into my rental SUV du Jour, a silver Ford Expedition. “Did you bring both guns like I asked?”
“One Glock 19, one Smith & Wesson M&P 9. You sure you wanna do this?”
“I’m sure. Hang on to them for now. I’ve got another stop to make before we leave.”
Sunday morning traffic was light. I pulled into the parking circle at UNM Hospital ten minutes later. Rebecca Turner sat in a wheelchair outside the hospital entrance. An armed guard stood just in front of her. She shaded her eyes with her right hand and waved to me with her left.
“Rebecca?” C.J. said. “I figured you were picking up Nai’ya.”
“She has to be at Laguna Pueblo for some ceremony. Rebecca texted me to say they would discharge her this morning. We could use an extra pair of eyes. Someone we can trust.”
He shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I stopped alongside Rebecca and rolled the window down. Pain shot through my left arm. “Hop in.”
The guard stepped between her wheelchair and my car.
“It’s okay, Officer. I’m a friend of Ms. Turner. Gabriel McKenna. She phoned me to come by and pick her up.”
The guard looked at Rebecca.
“He’s right, Officer.” She sprang from the wheelchair and tossed herself into the back seat, slamming the door hard enough to make me wince. “Thanks for picking me up. Hello, C.J.” She leaned forward and poked the back of my shoulder. “How’s the arm?”
“Feels better.”
“So do I.”
I caught her smile in the rearview mirror. She reached behind her head with both hands and long, blonde hair tumbled to her shoulders. “So you need my help? What’s going on?”
I told her about our fruitless search at the Ice Cave and mentioned the note behind my picture that suggested the gold had been moved many years ago. Rebecca’s eyes widened when I said that Carmen and O’Connor were still at large. “This might get dangerous. If you’re not okay with that, I can take you home.”
She shook her head. “I’m not afraid. Drive.”
I thought over my plan one last time. The car was quiet for the next hour except when C.J. loaded and readied the two handguns. Rebecca slid over behind me in the back seat until I could no longer see her in the mirror.
Around noon, I turned and headed south once more to the Land of Fire and Ice. I parked in the same trading post parking spot as the day before. We climbed from the SUV to face Bandera Volcano. The trail sign noted it was one mile to our north. The graded path rose several hundred feet. I turned to C.J. “You up for that?”
“Easier for my leg than walking down stairs. Let’s go.”
I opened the Expedition’s trunk and took out a coil of rope, two pair of binoculars, and three bottles of water. I kept a bottle for myself and lifted the rope over my right shoulder. I handed C.J. and Rebecca each a water bottle and a pair of the field glasses.
“I’ll take that Glock now.” I tucked it into my belt and let C.J. carry the M&P 9.
We started up the cinder-and-mulch path. A light breeze and dappled shade kept us cool. Around the first bend, we paused at a small hand-carved sign:
TRAIL CLOSED TODAY
“Not to me.” I looked at C.J. and then at Rebecca. “You two don’t need to go any farther if you’d rather wait here.”
C.J. shook his head. “Not a chance. I’m with you all the way.”
Rebecca brushed past the sign and was ten yards up the trail before C.J. and I started moving again.
We did our best to keep pace with her for another two hundred yards until we hit a fork in the trail. We hung to the right, on the main path toward the eastern rim of the dormant volcano.
A thin forest of gnarled pine and juniper lined our way. Occasional trees, their upper roots exposed from erosion, clung to the crater’s side below our path. With washouts all along the trail, we had to keep our eyes on the ground.
Half-a-mile later, we rested on a stone bench and drank some water. Three hawks circled above the crater and ascended on morning thermals. Except for the whistle of wind through the trees, we stood in a silence as deep as any I could remember.
“Ready.” C.J. rose and limped up the trail. Rebecca followed. I stood and looked back toward the trading post. Our SUV sat in full sun now. A large van that hadn’t been there when I’d parked sat next to it in the lot. I felt a knot in my stomach.
The wind picked up. My eyes swept the trail behind us through the rustling tree branches. Nobody. I wiped my forehead with my right sleeve, turned, and double-timed it up the trail to rejoin my friends.
Until now, we’d encountered no hikers on the trail. No footprints going in either direction in the soft cinders. With the trail closed, perhaps we were alone.
The gradient increased and C.J. stumbled several times along the sandy incline. He stopped when we reached an open, level area where the path widened to a carpet of coarse grass. Rebecca and I also stopped and inhaled deep breaths of the cool, thin air. We had our best view yet of the crater walls on the far side of the volcano, but a minute of searching with my binoculars revealed precipitous walls of coarse volcanic rock and loose gravel. No caves. We moved on.
Several hundred yards up the trail, we came to another level stretch just below the crater’s rim. My FT60 wrist altimeter read 8,100 feet. Less than fifty feet above us, the upper rim of the crater blocked the sun and cast us in full shade for the first time. Just ahead, the trail ended at a rickety wooden barrier. We drew closer; the message on the sign became readable:
DO NOT PASS THIS POINT
“Now what?” Rebecca leaned against the rock wall to our right, ten feet from the end of the path.
“I have to rest my leg for a bit.” C.J.’s face creased with pain. He took a couple of deep breaths. “Here, man.” He handed me his binoculars.
I scanned the far walls of the volcano. Again, nothing. If I wanted to see the near half of the crater face, it would mean hiking over to the far rim. I was too tired to do that.
Rebecca edged to the sign at the end of the trail. She pointed ahead. “Is this something?”
I moved next to her. The faint outline of a gravel and cinder path extended past the wooden barrier. Slag, debris, and unruly grasses obscured this part of the old trail. Through the binoculars I saw the path disappear into a clump of bushes less than a hundred feet away and twenty feet above where we stood.
Rebecca put a hand on my shoulder and stretched up on her toes. “See anything?”
“No openings on this side of the crater wall, far as I can see.” I pointed across to the other side of the barrier. “The old trail appears to have continued on ahead.” I lowered my binoculars. “The trail beyond here is so poor it might be impassable. At the very least, it’s a treacherous climb.”
“Probably why they put up this barricade.” C.J. joined us.
<
br /> “Want me to go to the other side of the crater rim and take a look from there?” Rebecca still appeared fresh and eager.
“Would you?” I knew neither C.J. nor I could make it that far.
“No problem. I’ll take my field glasses and signal if I see anything unusual. You can follow me from here.” She darted back down our path to the fork in the trail; I lost sight of her among the trees. Five minutes later she broke into the open along the far rim. She’d reached a level section directly across from us and scanned our side of the crater. She stopped suddenly and adjusted her field glasses.
“I think she’s spotted something,” I said to C.J.
I didn’t need binoculars to see her wave and jump up and down. She pointed at something on our side of the crater, up beyond the trail barrier. I waved for her to come back.
As Rebecca retraced her steps, she was soon lost to our sight among the trees and vegetation.
“What do you think, Gabe?”
My heart beat fast. My mouth felt dry. “I think I need a drink.”
I lifted the coiled rope over my right shoulder and took a swig of water. C.J. waved off my offer of the bottle. We stood and waited for Rebecca and news of what she had seen.
A strong gust of wind kicked up. The smaller trees shook from its force. The hawks no longer circled above.
Rebecca came into view thirty yards back down the path; her hands rose high above her head. Spider Martin and Carmen Flores followed close behind her, guns pointed at her back. Richard O’Connor, clad in a park ranger’s uniform, trailed them.
“Drop your guns or she dies,” O’Connor called up to us. “And keep your hands where I can see them. Drop that rope. Now!”
“Do what he says.” I laid the rope at my feet.
“We gotta fight, man,” C.J. said. “We can take them. They’re out in the open.”
“No. He’ll kill Rebecca if we don’t do what he says. We look for an opening later.”
O’Connor pushed Rebecca ahead of him. He raised his arm and aimed his gun at the back of her head.
“Wait!” I yelled. I dropped the Glock on the gravel. C.J. tossed his gun next to it. We raised our hands. Neither of us moved.
Rebecca and her captors walked up to us. “Back away from the guns.” O’Connor spoke calmly. C.J. and I obeyed.
O’Connor stood ten feet away, holding Rebecca by her hair, his gun indenting the flesh of her cheek.
Carmen stepped forward and kicked our guns away from us. She picked them up, shouldered the rope, and tucked my Glock into her belt. She never looked at me.
O’Connor waved Carmen aside with his gun. He turned to Spider Martin. “Take care of the nigger.”
Carmen held C.J.’s M&P 9 out toward Martin.
“Not with a gun!” O’Connor ordered. “You want to attract attention? Use your brains. The park is open, even if this trail is closed.”
Carmen gave him a sharp look and stomped back behind me, with the gun in her hand.
Martin pulled a large hunting knife out of his jacket. He admired its gleam for a moment and came at C.J. on the balls of his feet, arms away from his body.
I tensed and shifted. Before I could move forward, Carmen pressed C.J.’s gun into my back. “One step and you’re dead.”
C.J. outweighed Martin and had several inches in reach on him, but the younger man was quicker. And he held the only weapon.
Martin lunged. C.J. stepped back to avoid the blade and followed with his left fist. It grazed the younger man’s cheek. Martin recoiled and slid to his right.
C.J.’s leg wouldn’t let him turn fast enough. The next plunge of the knife caught him just above his left elbow, tore through his shirt, drawing blood.
Martin turned to grin at O’Connor. C.J.’s long right arm grabbed Martin’s hand. Their struggle for the knife took them off the path, lurching toward the crater.
They swayed, grappling for the knife as they tried to throw each other off balance. When he ducked to gain leverage, C.J.’s bad leg gave way on the loose ground. As he pulled Martin down with him, the knife slipped from their hands and settled on the path. They pitched sideways, free arms flailing in the air. C.J. swayed on the crater rim, still pulling Martin’s arm. They fell together over the edge. Their screams died in the crater.
I cried out and lunged forward.
A bullet from Carmen’s gun whizzed past my ear. “Don’t move. Next shot kills you.”
“I told you no guns! Not yet.” O’Connor looked away from the crater’s edge to glare at Carmen.
I bent forward and tried to catch my breath, but my gut wouldn’t let me.
O’Connor shrugged at Carmen. His glance softened. “Guess there’s more for us now.” He turned back to me. “Let’s get the gold.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He let go of Rebecca’s hair and pushed her toward Carmen. With a shake of his head, he stepped toward me and smashed his gun against my cheek. Pain shot through my nose and into my head. Blood trickled into my mouth. I spat it on the ground but didn’t move. The image of C.J. falling over the edge held me still.
“Game’s over. I knew if I gave you enough time, you’d lead me to the gold. You didn’t let me down.”
I stared at him the way a boxer stares at his opponent before a fight, the way C.J. and I once stared at each other.
O’Connor stared right back. “You should have left when you had the chance. Too late now.”
“Listen to me,” I pleaded. “There is no gold. The whole thing was James McKenna’s elaborate joke.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” O’Connor snarled. “I know about the maps, the Will, the letters, and Red Gold. I know that James McKenna took that gold from my family’s land. It belongs to my family, not yours.”
“It’s not here.”
“It certainly wasn’t at that Ice Cave. We wasted a whole day, just like you did. And we might never have come back to this volcano if you hadn’t led us here. You have my everlasting gratitude, Professor.”
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing here. We’ve looked all along the crater. No caves, nothing. Now let Rebecca go.”
He licked his lips. “Ever have that gut feeling you’ve reached the end of the trail?”
I snuck a quick glance around. Carmen had moved, her gun now hidden behind Rebecca’s head. O’Connor moved behind me and stuck the barrel of his gun into my back. He prodded me toward the barrier. “Go ahead, Professor. Lead me to the gold. Now.”
“We’ll have to go back to Albuquerque then.”
“You don’t quit, do you McKenna? I saw Rebecca signal you. I discovered quite a few years ago that she has a low tolerance for pain. It was child’s play to get her to tell us all about the cave on our way back here. She even told us about the note your great-aunt hid behind your picture.” He turned to Carmen. “You shouldn’t have missed that, my dear.”
Carmen’s gun cocked behind Rebecca’s head.
“Move, Professor. I want to see your face when I take back what’s mine.” He gestured toward the wooden barricade. “Need help getting over that, old man?”
I tottered against the barrier and glanced back to see how much space O’Connor was giving me. I needed an opening. He and Carmen stood on either side of Rebecca.
“Tie her up,” he said. “Don’t kill her unless McKenna tries to cross me. She and I have so much fun together.”
Carmen let out my rope. Rebecca submissively sat on the path where C.J. and Spider Martin had fought over the knife. She extended her hands and feet, making it easier for Carmen to bind her wrists and ankles. A girl who knew the routine.
O’Connor strode back to me. “Go.” I struggled over the wooden barrier. He followed. We began our precarious climb along the faint, narrow path.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As I crept along the trail, sand, cinder, and gravel spilled down the crater wall behind me. O’Connor kept six feet back, close enough for his gun to be persuasive, far enou
gh away that I couldn’t reach him.
Halfway to the clump of bushes up the trail, the ground suddenly gave way and I slipped. With both arms free, I managed to grab hold of a juniper sapling and regain my balance, but cried out from the jolt of pain in my left shoulder.
O’Connor kept his distance. “Stop whining, old man.”
I reached the wall rift that Rebecca had found from the far rim. A neat pile of boulders and smaller rocks obscured much of the narrow gap in the crater’s side.
“Pull those rocks away. All of them,” O’Connor barked.
I heaved with all the strength in my right arm, pushing rocks from the entrance until the opening was just large enough for a man my size.
O’Connor called back to Carmen. “Almost there!”
“Now what?” I was winded, my voice little more than a whisper.
“Keep going. I need more room than that. Push the larger stones inside if you have to.”
I leaned against the crater wall, light-headed from my exertions.
“Professor, if you won’t do it, you’re of no further use to me. Comprendé?”
Deep hatred drove me on. That, and the chance that he might leave me an opening if I could just play for a little more time.
I cleared the entrance until it was five feet high and three feet wide. More light flooded the inner chamber with each rock I pushed aside. The cavern was the size of a small room, its ceiling high enough for a man to stand.
O’Connor edged closer. “Get inside.”
My labors at the entrance stirred up so much dust that the cave was filled with a thick gray cloud. I coughed as soon as I moved into it. O’Connor followed as far as the cave door. The light around me dimmed. He removed his sunglasses and unhooked a flashlight from his belt. Its beam cut through the haze as he swept the interior of the cave and edged inside.
Two bulging saddlebags lay on the ground against the far wall, no more than fifteen feet away. Embossed initials were barely visible under a thick layer of dust that coated the nearest bag:
Red Gold Page 20
