In the darkness Kee shifted his body a little, waiting until his wife was asleep. Only then did his hand curve over the soft swelling roundness of her belly.
He smiled. He couldn’t wait to tell Logan he was going to be a grandpa. Maybe tomorrow Isabel would tell him about the child she carried.
Or the next day.
It didn’t really matter. He would only love her more.
Author’s Note
Strange happenings, mysterious deaths and bogus maps continue to circulate, adding to the legend of the Lost Dutchman Mine. It is over one hundred years since Jacob Walz died. Unexplained deaths have occurred, some bodies recovered but their treasure maps were missing. Was the mine ever real? There are those who claim gold could never be found there. Others say the earthquake truly destroyed the most important landmarks.
Was Walz crafty? Did he choose a site where the very ominous name of the mountain range plays into the legend? Was there nothing more than a hoard of gold that he and Ken-tee stole from the Vulture Gold Mine in Wickenberg?
Truth? Legend?
Gold-hungry adventurers have been searching for years. Adolph Ruth believed he had the map that came from the early Peralta family. He was murdered, but his possessions were not found until a month later, far from his body. His map was missing. But he had a little book where he had written of thirty-six other deaths and claimed that the mine was within five miles of Weaver’s Needle. In 1964 Glenn Magill, a private investigator, set out on his search. He and his men were shot at, threatened by Apaches and rattlesnakes, tricked by swindlers, lied to, warned in letters, sabotaged and beset with accidents. They kept on until 1967 when they found a pit above a tunnel. There were signs that fit Walz’s clues but no gold.
The laws passed in 1983 protect all National Forest Wilderness Areas including the Superstitions from any mineral exploitation. So the Lost Dutchman Mine may remain just that—lost.
But the legend lives on.
And who can say if one or two of the hundreds of hikers and horseback riders that visit the site annually, do not have gold fever, do not have a carefully hoarded map, and are not still searching?
And if they are counted among the missing—does that mean they died mysteriously or that they found gold…?
More from Raine Cantrell
The Kincaid Series
Novels
Novellas
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