The guide’s eyes opened wide. “So, you’re not looking to bring home a trophy for your wall?”
“No, no trophy.” Maria waited a moment and then continued. “But I do plan on bringing something home. Something much more important than the head of an animal. Do you have a business card?”
Clyde laughed. “You must think I’m forty years old or something. I can send you my contact info. What’s your number?”
Maria hesitated only a moment and then gave it to him. If Clyde was the kidnapper and had ulterior motives, giving him her number would only speed up the process, and that’s what she wanted.
Bring it on.
A second later Maria’s phone dinged. She looked at the screen. “Your info came through. I’ll call you first thing in the morning if I decide I want to hire you.”
“Don’t hesitate,” he said. “I’ll be up with the sunrise.”
As the burly man opened the door and left the bar, Maria noticed one last newspaper article hanging by the exit. It was the picture that first caught her eye. It showcased a dark-haired man talking with a government official. On closer examination, Maria was sure the man was a younger version of Jim, the Native American consultant.
Maria heard the bartender collect the glasses from the table, making a clinking noise as he walked. Quickly she snapped a picture of the article and began reading as much as she could.
The story was about how the U.S. government was sending a representative to Jarbidge to determine if a Shoshone cemetery, found deep inside a cave located in the southwest quadrant of the Jarbidge wilderness, required further protection by the federal government. The graveyard was believed to house many of the great Shoshone elders, who died as early as 1820. What had remained untouched for a hundred years was now being subjected to thrill seekers who, sadly, tended to desecrate anything they came in contact with.
The part in the article, however, that was most intriguing was where it said locals called the cemetery the Devil’s Coup because of the legends saying the place had been taken over by evil spirits.
Devil’s Coup.
That had been one of the Bridge terms Ms. Tuttle had told Maria about. Was it just a coincidence it was also a place in the Jarbidge wilderness? Possibly. There always seemed to be plenty of stories about the devil.
But then again … possibly not.
“Sorry, ma’am.” The bartender interrupted her thoughts. “I need to lock up.”
“Oh, sure. Thanks for the drink.” Maria folded her arms around her stomach and pushed open the door into the chilly night air.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Treasure hunters have searched in vain through remote corners of New Mexico, Yellowstone National Park and elsewhere in the mountains. They share their experiences on blogs and brainstorm about the clues. The mystery has been featured on national networks, igniting even more interest.
“Tragic end to months-long search for the treasure hunter Randy Bilyeu,” CBS News, July 27, 2016. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tragic-end-to-months-long-search-for-treasure-hunter-randy-bilyeu/
Sunrise was drawing closer bringing with it dread and apprehension. Maria had slept fitfully, mulling over whether or not she should hire Clyde Jensen to be her hunting guide. His presence at the bar had been much too convenient for Maria’s peace of mind. Then again, the bar was clearly a gathering place for hunter and guide, as the bartender had explained.
In the end, she decided it was advantageous to keep tabs on the enemy—even if it was just a potential enemy. If Clyde was the kidnapper, or in league with the perp, Maria would rather know exactly where he was all day instead of trying to track down the location of the Veil treasure as well as keeping an eye out for Clyde. And if Clyde was legit, he would speed up the hunting process which could only be a good thing.
Maria made the phone call at five a.m. sharp.
“Hello?”
“Clyde Jensen?”
“That’s me. Is this the lady I met last night?”
“Yes. My name is Maria, and I’d like to hire you for the day.”
Thirty minutes later Maria was armed, dressed, and packed. She had checked and double checked her gun and knife, now both stowed carefully under her clothing.
Preparing oneself for the possibility of danger was different than going into danger on purpose. One was what responsible, sane people did. They prepared for the worst and expected the best. Today, however, it was all about preparing for the worst, and then expecting to die.
That attitude had kept her alive for many years in the CIA. She hoped it would get her through today as well. But if it didn’t, she at least hoped it would keep Justin alive. That would be enough.
Clyde waited for Maria on the road outside the Red Dog Saloon. He definitely looked the part of professional hunter. His gear was well-worn and fit him comfortably. A hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. He tipped his hat to her and escorted her into his Jeep.
“We’ll drive this in as far as we can go and then we’ll go on foot. What are the approximate coordinates of where we’re headed?”
Maria was ready for the question. Using the pictures she took with her cell phone in the middle of the night and the information in the newspaper, she had found Devil’s Coup on the map and noted the general coordinates. It was not too far from a fork in the Jarbidge River, which was the location she was going to give Clyde.
After she gave him the coordinates, Clyde made notes of them in his GPS and then started the engine of his Jeep. Not more than a minute into the bumpy ride, he asked, “Can you tell me exactly what you’re looking for? It would save us a lot of time if I knew what to keep on my radar.”
“I need to examine the fork in the river to see if there is anything unnatural in that spot. If you keep your eyes out for anything that looks out of place, that’d be great.”
“Something out of place? Are you talking about some twelve-foot tall, hairy ape man? Or are you talking about an eight-person Jacuzzi misplaced in the middle of the river?”
“I’m talking about an-eight person Jacuzzi. The Jarbidge monster doesn’t interest me.”
“Not a monster seeker, huh? Well that’s good to know.”
“Nope. As long as the monster stays out of my way, I will stay out of his.”
“Okay. Sounds good. Most of my clients are more direct than you. With all this evasiveness, I can’t guarantee a success rate. You do know what I charge per hour. We’re clear on that, right?”
“We’re clear,” answered Maria.
“Okay, well it just seems to me you’d want some help finding whatever it is you’re looking for. The quicker you find it, the less you pay.”
“I appreciate your concern for my bank account, but I’ve been honest with you. I don’t really know what I will find. I just need to go there and make sure everything checks out.”
“Fair enough.” Clyde turned back to focus his attention on what had now become little more than an ATV trail. Maria grabbed the seat and held on tightly as the ride jostled her every which direction. The motion paralleled how she felt inside. Her emotions were back and forth, flipping and flopping. Nothing was stable. But she buckled down and repeated what had now become her mantra.
Get Justin back.
Hiking felt more secure to Maria than the car ride. Standing on her own two feet was much more reassuring than giving Clyde all the control behind the wheel. They had been off trail for more than an hour. According to Clyde (and on Maria’s own GPS on her watch that she’d programmed earlier), they had another two hours before getting to the fork in the river. From there it was only another twenty minutes or so to Devil’s Coup.
Clyde readjusted the strap slung around his shoulder that held his hunting rifle. Maria took a granola bar from her backpack and ripped the wrapper open. She had to stay well fed and hydrated. Clyde was a good hiker and she didn’t want him to tire her out, since she had no idea when all this was going to hit the fan. If Clyde was in league with the kidnapper, or if he was the
kidnapper, she didn’t know how long he would allow her to take him on a wild goose chase.
As they hiked, Maria reviewed what her options were. She kept coming back to the same basic plan. First, she had to ascertain whether or not Clyde was on the up and up. She doubted he was, so at some point she was pretty sure she would have to make her move. She would overpower him, with her smarts not her brawn, and restrain him. She had rope in her backpack and there were plenty of trees around that could easily hold him.
Next, she would find Devil’s Coup on her own. Here is where she hoped her Sight might actually come in handy. Granted, she hadn’t met any Shoshone ghosts yet—Acalan was Aztec and shadow man was most likely Freemont—but she hoped she could connect to a few of the buried souls at Devil’s Coup. She planned on showing them a picture of Steven Veil on her phone to find out if they’d seen the old man lurking around those parts hiding treasure.
To verbalize the plan to anyone else she would sound like a complete crazy. But in her mind it sounded doable. Not watertight by any means, but there was a chance she might actually learn the location of the Veil treasure from a few kind-hearted Shoshone spirits lingering about.
After all, Acalan had been happy to help her … eventually. It was a matter of winning trust and assuring no further interruption. That was one thing Maria had learned over the past year. Most ghosts don’t want to bother people—it’s just that people keep bothering them.
Once Maria found the Veil treasure, she would take one piece of it (no more, despite her current financial status) and return to Clyde. That piece of the treasure would be her bargaining chip to find out where he, or whoever he was working for, was keeping Justin. Once she knew the location, it was all about finding a cell signal and getting the information to the FBI.
Maria figured she had a one out of thousand chance of it actually happening as she hoped. Who was she kidding? Probably more like one in a million. She still didn’t even know if the Devil’s Coup was really where the Veil treasure was located.
But one in a million was still a chance. And, to be honest, she was feeling rather lucky.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Now 86 years old and in poor health, Fenn receives hundreds of emails a day from people looking for an advantage in finding the chest — mostly older men. He’s been sent death threats and bribes; on occasion, strangers appear at his front gate unannounced, to dig around his property for information. “I’ve had to dial 911 three times,” he told People last year.
“Fenn’s treasure: Our 5-day quest for $2 million hidden in the Rockies” by Zachary Crockett, updated on June 30, 2017, https://www.vox.com/a/fenn-treasure-hunt-map
Resting on a larger boulder next to a dry river bed, Maria caught her breath while Clyde studied her out of the corner of his eye. It was enough to make her skin crawl, but she acted like she didn’t notice. Her Glock, pressing next to her back, and her knife, saddled next to her calf muscle, gave her the reassurance she wasn’t alone.
Of course, the rifle Clyde carried with him out in the open also reminded Maria he wasn’t alone either.
The conversation between the two of them had been minimal. Clyde had kept his personal information to a minimum, except for his love of hunting. On that subject he could apparently talk for hours.
At four years-old he’d caught his first prey—crawdads at the lake. He’d used a shoelace with a piece of fresh chicken meat tied to one end. When he’d pulled his line up from the water and seen a cluster of crawdads all fighting for the bait—he’d known what he wanted to do the rest of his life.
Four years later he shot his first deer. Three years later his first elk. At that point, the man’s conquests blended together.
“Well, I’m ready to start back up.” Her GPS showed they were under an hour away from the river’s fork.
“One second.” Clyde reached down and picked an odd-shaped blossom off a three-foot tall bush he was sitting next to. Maria had noticed several similar bushes all growing near the dry river bed they’d been following.
“Listen, Maria. It would be helpful if I knew what I was looking for. Are there any specific geographic features, a marking, indentation, that sort of thing?” Clyde lifted the blossom to his nose and his face soured. “That’s Datura, all right,” he mumbled.
“No,” answered Maria. “There is nothing you can help me look for. I just need to see the river fork and then I’ll know more how to direct you. What’s Datura by the way?” she asked, hoping to change the topic.
“A flower—a poisonous one. It’s a little hobby of mine. Deadly plants. As a kid I used to have a garden of poisonous herbs until my mom made me dig it up. Anyhow, this one is in the nightshade family. Some call it the Devil’s snare or trumpet.”
Maria’s heart leapt into her chest. Another reference to the devil? That was encouraging.
“Enough of it can kill you, or at least give you a ride you might not come back from. The Native Americans used its seeds in some of their ceremonies—their spiritual voodoo crap. But you know about all that stuff, don’t you?”
A moment passed.
“About what stuff?” Maria kept her voice steady even though her lungs wanted to jump out of her chest. Clyde had made his move. Whether on purpose or an accident she didn’t know. But he had laid down the gauntlet. He had tied a piece of chicken to a shoelace and was waiting to see if she would bite. He knew about her connection to the reservoir where she had called up the Native American skeletons. It was the incident the FBI believed triggered Justin’s kidnapping.
“I’m not stupid. You know all about that Indian voodoo, don’t you?”
“Are you talking about the voodoo religion in Africa? That has nothing to do with Native Americans.” Maria was stalling. She hadn’t decided whether or not to take the bait.
“No, I’m talking about all that Native American spiritualistic crap.”
Maria made a split-second decision. She was still too far from Devil’s Coup for a direct confrontation. It wasn’t the right time. “Nope. I don’t know much about Native Americans. Just what I learned in school. And I don’t know a thing about poisonous plants. What kinds did you grow in your garden?”
Clyde stared at Maria a minute and then stood up, his thick frame looming over her. He was going to be a challenge to take down, but Maria was ready. She fingered the small can of Mace spray concealed as a flashlight that hung down from her water bottle. It was CIA issued and could spray much further and harder than the commercial stuff.
“Never mind,” said Clyde. “Let’s keep going.”
Over the next thirty minutes, Clyde and Maria gained sixteen hundred feet in elevation before dropping back down. Maria slowed her breathing and kept herself hydrated. Even Clyde seemed to be getting somewhat winded. With no path to follow, it was a matter of bush whacking and utilizing existing deer trails.
Ever since Clyde had mentioned Native Americans there had been a shift in the wind. It no longer came from one direction. Instead, the higher they climbed the more the wind swirled in circles as if mini tornados were playing a game of tag.
As they began their descent into the canyon, the sound of the river filled Maria’s ears. They were close to the fork … and to Devil’s Coup. Clyde no longer allowed her to walk behind him. Instead, they walked side by side. Out in front, something crossed the deer trail they were following. Maria wanted to look up but instead focused on Clyde’s every move. The minute he went for his rifle, she went for her Glock.
Maria continued onward, not letting her gaze drift until she physically felt something brush into her side opposite to where Clyde was. Startled, Maria turned to see a misty figure beside her.
A ghost.
Her spectral companion was a woman wearing a long deerskin dress with wide sleeves. The moccasins on the woman’s feet made no noise as she walked over brush and rock. She smiled at Maria and bowed politely.
If shouting hooray wouldn’t have set Clyde off, Maria would have done it. This beautiful w
oman had to be the Shoshone spirit of someone who had passed on. The Sight had pulled through! The graveyard must be close by. It was time to settle matters with Clyde.
Maria tumbled forward onto the ground on purpose, sprawling into a patch of shrubbery and scraping her arms on the branches. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and reached out her hand.
Clyde instinctively tried to grab it in an effort to pull her back up on her feet. The second he did so, his face registered his mistake. The motion of reaching down caused the strap attached to the rifle he carried over his shoulder to slip down. Maria’s hand shot past Clyde’s hand and traveled up his forearm to where the rifle strap now hung. She slipped her hand under the strap and pulled it off his arm. It was over in a matter of seconds.
Clyde bellowed like a mama bear whose cub had just been taken. “Noooooo!”
In a second swift motion, Maria flung Clyde’s rifle into the air and down a ledge. It took five or six seconds until the riffle clattered on the canyon floor beneath them.
Rolling to her side, Maria avoided Clyde’s reach. Before getting up, she swiped at his feet, toppling him like a giant. As he fell, he slammed his arm into Maria’s neck. The force of the blow caused her to gag and struggle for air.
Get my gun.
Springing to her feet, Maria reached behind her and pulled out her Glock in one fluid motion.
“D-d-don’t move a single muscle,” she gasped and pointed the barrel of her gun straight at his heart. “You have a few things to explain.”
As Maria had suspected, Clyde would tell her nothing. He clamped his mouth shut and stared past her as if she didn’t exist. Bringing him a piece of the Veil treasure would change his mind.
After securely tying him to a tree, Maria began phase two of her plan, which was to find the Veil treasure using the knowledge of the Shoshone who were buried in Devil’s Coup. First, that meant finding the woman ghost who had disappeared when the fighting began.
Maria ran through the weeds and the brush, trying to avoid loose rocks. The last thing she needed was a sprained ankle. She didn’t know how much time she had, but she wanted to get to the cave where the bodies were buried as fast as she could. It was still only a million in one chance, but she fought against the odds before and won.
Riddles that Kill: a gripping paranormal mystery Page 19