CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Suddenly Amigo stops his horse as the reach the next site. Several weeks have gone by since they last saw the females traveling nearby. Everybody else stops as well wondering why the site has a different appearance than the other sites. They all look around a bit before they really start to become disappointed a bit.
Amigo holds his horses bridle tightly with both hands against his saddle horn while saying, “Here’s the next site!”
The Pawnee Indian looks around trying to recognize anything that might be peculiar. He looks around another turn of his head asking, “Where’s the arrastras?”
Amigo chuckles for a second before hedging, “There aren’t any arrastras here at this site!”
The Cherokee Indian thinks to himself for a minute wondering if they are all eroded away or something querying, “Why are they all eroded and grown over like the last site before here?”
At that time, Amigo takes his hands off of his saddle horn letting go of his bridle with his right hand. Quickly he reaches in to his satchel bag without anyone really noticing. Inside is another small burlap sack that is about the size of a large softball. Inside are some bone fragments which came from this burial site.
While laying the burlap sack of bone fragments on his lap, Amigo informs them, “This is a burial site!”
The Sioux Indian can’t believe what he’s hearing they are stopping at a burial site where there’s no gold to be recovered. The Sioux Indian wonders why they have stopped at such a site bickering, “Why are we stopping at a burial site if there’s no gold to take?”
For some reason Amigo has the perfect excuse to tell them all. With not much thought about it, Amigo says, “We are stopping here because it’s on the way!”
The Pawnee Indian looks around a little more before equivocating, “That’s bitchin, and we are at some burial site!”
The Cherokee Indian sees a slight hole that is about three or feet wide and six or seven feet long, although it’s uneven like it has been filled over in certain places. Nevertheless the Cherokee Indian becomes very curious questioning the hole there, “Hey what’s that hole there?”
Amigo can only sit there holding the bag so diligently as they all stare at it before them all. Hastily Amigo blurts out his name for the burial site quibbling, “That’s the hateful burial site as I like to call it!”
The Prophet Ramon has been sort of quiet the last few moments as they approached this burial site. It was almost like he was expecting something different to shoot off in to another course of action so to speak in a way. Moreover the Prophet Ramon gets up off of his horse and walks over towards the burial site and stands right next to it. The Prophet Ramon can do nothing but simply stare it over as a feeling of familiarity comes over him. Another moment later he takes another step inside like he thought Amigo may be lying or something. But for some Dagon reason he can’t seem to pick up anything with his senses as far as sight, smell and his other senses of emotion are concerned about.
The Prophet Ramon looks for the remains of bones which he figures would be visible by his naked eyes especially at this close range. After a glance or so, the Prophet Ramon turns back towards Amigo and comments, “Then where are the bones?”
Hurriedly, right then and there, Amigo throws the bag of bones towards the Prophet Ramon who catches them as fast as he can without expecting it. The Prophet Ramon looks at the bag which is tied at the top like it were some dirty bag of gold nuggets or something. He looks around at it for a moment before Amigo says, “Well, takes a look inside!”
The Prophet Ramon slowly unties the bag so that he can take a look inside and see what’s there. It takes a few twists of his long fingernails before the Prophet Ramon opens it. But once he does bad small hits him. Yet he continues to pour out a few some finger and some other metacarpal bones. A few other bones are exposed but they are impossible to identify or say what they are perhaps.
Amigo keeps a serious look on his face before asking, “So what do you think of them bones?”
The Prophet Ramon tips the bones from in his hand back in to the bag after taking only a quick glance gabbing, “They’re pretty old!”
Amigo chuckles as the Prophet Ramon ties the bag of bones back up once again. While tying the bag the Prophet Ramon begins to develop a slight sickness from it like a bunch of sand bags have just rippled through his body. Then he becomes dizzy and then he nearly faints a bit while bobbing his head back and forth inside out trying to tough it out with their sorcery sickness.
Hopefully the Prophet Ramon will see their social control by how they tend to hide their real names from him. And maybe down the road he will realize that they have used an intrusion against him once his true memory shines forth. Then he will understand that they know who he is and that he must trigger his own memory of his true past self in order to be in control of the situation. Furthermore he thinks he did see some scalpel remains in there which seemed to have some hair still attached which means that maybe they were carried down through his family somehow.
Quickly the Prophet Ramon throws the bag of bones back to Amigo who catches the bag with both hands. Immediately after catching the bag of bones Amigo tells them all, “You’re darn right these bones are old! They’re some of the oldest bones around besides what’s possibly at the main site. There are lots more there I bet!”
The Sioux Indian is curious as to what they are going to do next analyzing, “So what next?”
The Pawnee Indian is wondering the exact same thing about this next site. It seems all there are is some scattered bones which Amigo has already picked out the last time he had ventured this way. Furthermore the Pawnee Indian trills, yes, so what next are we going to all get off of our horse and stand in some burial site you dug up long before when you first came out here?”
Now Amigo feels he has to refute what he has said earlier or at least repeat himself in a way they understand. Still there are things he must leave out because why should he have to trust them for all it’s worth. Nonetheless Amigo decides to bring out his point gibbering, “I didn’t dig those bones out. They were just lying there on the top all scattered about in that hole. I just simply notice them accidentally when I came by looking down nearly falling asleep while riding.”
The Cherokee Indian can’t seem to understand why he would even go through the hassle of saving bones if he were looking for treasure. Swiftly he asks a prompt question, “So you just decided to bag up some bones for the ride because there was nothing else to find, huh?”
Amigo figures he should use a short one word answer saying, “Precisely!”
The Pawnee Indian wonders if they should dig for some more bones interrogating, “Should we dig up some more bones to add to your collection?”
Amigo is ready to leave squealing, “Let’s blow this burial joint and head pass Castle Rock!”
Amigo places the bag of bones away back in his satchel and then he pulls his horse’s bridle signaling to leave. One by one they all follow. Of course the Prophet Ramon is lagging behind at first especially because of the pale face he inherited because of the ordeal. But then he catches back up yelping, “So whose bones do you think they belong to in the past?”
Amigo is sure on who they belong to, though he doesn’t want to act that positive unfolding, “If I’m not mistaken; I believe they are one of the seven conquistadores that slipped away and escaped.”
Just about over a ways is Indian Lace and Indian Skies who are still wondering what they were doing when they stopped. Indian Skies asks Indian Lace, “What was in that bag that they threw you think?”
Indian Lace puts her telescope down as Indian Skies lifts hers back up trying to take another peak as they fade behind a bunch of trees. Indian Lace puts her telescope away and pulls out a deck of magical cards. She pulls her bridle aside as Indian Skies rides aside putting her telescope down. Indian Lace quills, “There’s only one way to tell for sure and that’s to deal our own tarot card! As followers we are deemed a similar fate and it will show forth through the tarot.”
Indian Lace spreads the cards about in her hand like she was some card dealer in some poker game convincing, “Now pick a card and it will be a similar fate!”
Indian Skies looks about the tarot cards sprawled out before her in Indian Lace’s hand. Slowly she looks before picking a card somewhere off from the middle of the tarot card deck. Indian Skies holds the card down and then she turns it up so that they both can see it. Indian Lace looks and behold; it’s a Death Card.
Indian Lace says cautiously, “It’s the Death Card. The Indian must have retrieved his bones and threw them to him at the burial site. But in actuality, that was no burial unless some Indians got a hold of him later for a funeral!”
The imagery within the Death Card is pretty gnarly displaying a person being killed with bows and arrows all over piercing the body as the entity lies there helpless. There are also Indians in the background who are approaching to cause more harm and they are somehow there to end his cycle and create a new beginning somehow.
Indian Skies thinks for him with some feeling sorry for him expressing, “Maybe we should move on before they scalp and shed his skins!”
Indian Lace pulls her horse’s bridle back the other way to head back out once again. However this time they are more concerned than before. It seems that they may be using him for more than what it’s worth. And it appears to Indian Lace that maybe he has come this way before and looted the treasure for his own reaping which means he would be hiding out certain details from them. Or maybe she has it all wrong and they are all in cahoots and have been working together from the beginning and she is now just picking up on the fact.
After riding a minute or so, Indian Lace makes the best of things tallying, “Well, it isn’t so bad for him. He still has his seven pentacles and that is only one of them. So he still has six more to choose and he may still pick another fate than what is at hand now!
Indian Skies makes another statement about his fate saying, “He sounds like a lucky man to have so many parts of his own fate to abide by!”
Back with the Indian Renegades, we see that they and the Prophet Ramon are still riding along holding up the conversation. Then the Prophet Ramon questions who killed the conquistador that lies within the burial site asking, “Who do you think killed the seventh conquistador and laid his bones there nearly to dust?”
Amigo brings his thoughts back to reading the Book of Revelations recoiling, “When I read your bible, I read something about a hateful bird which could be an Indian Warrior covered in an array of feathers and shot the conquistador with an arrow.”
The Prophet Ramon knows that chapter of the Book of Revelations pretty good. He takes the conversation to new heights saying, “That’s chapter 18 verses 1 and 2 of the Book of Revelations.”
The Prophet Ramon starts to reach for his bible which is in one of his burlap satchels. Once he gets it out he opens the bible to the Book of Revelations and says, “Verse 1 reads, “And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lightened in his glory.””
Then the Prophet Ramon takes a breath before reading the second verse. Quickly he says, “Here’s the second verse as reads, “And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, and has become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.””
Amigo takes one hand and rubs his chin with his fingers like he remembers reading that part of the chapter of the bible. With a response to what he is hearing again after reading, Amigo correlates, “Huh, that’s something sounds like that’s the place in the bible, although it doesn’t really tell you too much. And I know the person St. John the Divine wrote it on the island of Patmos at the turn of the century which was much later. I remember that from my bible studying before. Nevertheless it is some good imagery, but if he did write about this story, he was never here and his writing isn’t that accurate I would say.
The Prophet Ramon agrees slightly saying aloud, “I suppose so; he doesn’t know everything perhaps.”
The Pawnee Indian laughs at one of the parts in the verses saying, “What would some writer know about the habitation of devils and every foul spirit anyhow? And he was even exiled?”
The Cherokee Indian makes a statement about it telling them all, “He’s dead anyhow! Who cares what he wrote about? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, this St. John the Divine guy!”
The Prophet Ramon moves his attention to the precious minerals mentioned within the story particularizing, “Well, he sure seemed to know about some precious minerals! So how do you think he knew all that?”
The Pawnee Indian comes up with a funny comeback line giggling, “Maybe he was a magician, or better yet, maybe he was a psychic who could see the past somehow!”
The Cherokee Indian feels that St John the Divine would have to have some way of doing this questioning, “There must be some trick he has up his sleeve!”
The Sioux Indian realizes that he must have been very wise to the early writers of the Bible avowing, “I bet he must have studied with the smartest of bible scholars!”
Then a twinkling of an instant later, Amigo goes in to more details about some ways he must have been an extrovert to write his visions explaining, “There’s more to it than that. He could have used dream techniques and connected to some religious icons or he may have used other methods of foreseeing or visioning the past somehow!”
The Pawnee Indian is curious as to these methods asking, “And what types of methods are we talking about here?”
Amigo pauses for a brief moment before jargoning, “Maybe he used Necromancy which is confiding in a familiar spirit. However I doubt he used that method. It’s more likely that he used a form of Hydromancy which reveals the truth about the future, although somehow he learned to use it to see the past through water images. And these images he had seen through the water were similar to knowing his right hand! Or he may have used some hieroglyphics to help with revealing the past which would be similar to his left hand!”
The Prophet Ramon remembers hearing something like that, although it didn’t seem to make as much sense to him as Amigo had put it. For some reason the Prophet Ramon comprehends the fact that he may know a lot more than he is cluing them or maybe him in on for some uncertain reason. The Prophet Ramon continues on by wondering, “It seems like you know more than you say. So what about her Precious Stones? Did you find them too?”
Amigo ponders the idea over for a minute within his scheming mind of his. He refutes the Prophet Ramon’s question by saying, “No, I have never found anything like that. I never even had much of a chance to even try and look for anything with the way that the bad weather was behaving. Nonetheless I’m sure when she took them with her she must have left them on the other side somewhere I suppose! Still she would have to have chiseled them from other larger specimens I would think.”
The Prophet Ramon is hoping he knows where the larger specimens would be if there was any interrogating, “Where do you think they would be at the site maybe?”
Amigo is unsure of what she did with them floundering, “That’s hard to say, they could be anywhere. She could have left them on her home ground which I believe would be Ancient Navajo or Anasazi Territory. Or maybe she brought them along and ditches them somewhere to display some carnage. The only way to know would be to pan the whole entire site which would take many years or so probably. And it would be hard to do if the river runs low and if there’s a flash flood you have to be careful. You could cash gold in order to buy supplies but I don’t know whether it would be worth it or not.”
The Sioux Indian looks and whispers over to the Cherokee Indian remarking, “This doesn’t seem to be working!”
The Cherokee Indian fades back with a slight pull on his bridle observing, “No, this isn’t working out like so!”
The Pawnee Indian looks away from them after catching the message to speed things up a little. Amigo continues riding ahead and only looking ahead as he drifts closer and closer to their destination. He rides a little closer towards the Prophet Ramon with a nosy notion enquiring, “So which conquistador do you think the so called hateful bird or Indian kill Prophet Ramon? Do you have any ideas?”
The Prophet Ramon has no ideas so far, although things are clicking fast like and memories are on the verge of surfacing. The Prophet Ramon looks around at them all while blundering, “I’m not sure; but I bet he was Religious in some way!”
Amigo finally jumps back in to the conversation claiming, “Sure he was Religious. He was a Prophet of the Lord, like you!”
The Prophet Ramon feels that they seem to know a lot answering, “That about sums it up!”
The Pawnee Indian butts in to the scheme of things with a hasty notion slandering, “Through many legends, I heard that his first name was Ramon as well. Now, isn’t that a coincidence!”
The Prophet Ramon doesn’t know what to say in response to that with any reasonable doubt. Now he feels that they may have him backed in a corner so to speak. Nevertheless he says the only thing he can to pass off the topic mumbling, “I guess!”
The Cherokee Indian tries to bring a new light to the subject by summarizing, “Maybe, it was you. You may have been the Prophet in the past that was laid by an arrow back there!”
The Sioux Indian speaks with a little momentum to his speech blurting, “Maybe that was your “X” box back there and that’s what lured you out here in the first place!”
The Prophet Ramon almost can’t believe what he’s hearing. Now they are insinuating that he is reincarnated from the past and that he has come to retrace his own steps for that matter. And of course he will have to face the demons he has been living with on his shoulders for many years. Yet in his eyes, the Indian are slowly becoming those demons that have him cornered. The Prophet Ramon decides to get to the heart of the matter because of what he said about the bottle being a representation of a reincarnated Christ. With that all in mind, the Prophet Ramon carries on by saying, “Maybe you’re right; I could be here to make amends with the past that I can barely remember and there is out there is an empty bottle of liquor with an old claim note inside.”
The Pawnee Indian can only think of the liquor now that they have gotten his attention they hope gawking, “All you can think about is the liquor. Don’t worry; we will get our liquor in due time.”
Then Amigo cuts in to the speaking of things with a token, “Don’t worry; when we get the mother lode, we will all go out and get a couple of bottles of some fine whiskey for all of us. How does that sound?”
The Prophet Ramon begins to act positive once again as he cringes, “Sure, that sounds like a plan!”
Now we skip back to Indian Lace and Indian Skies who are still talking about the negativity surrounding them all. Indian Skies asks Indian Lace, “So when do you think they’ll confront him?”
Indian Lace puts her bets on the table in a metaphoric way of showing the probability reacting, “They’ve probably already have I would think back there!”
Indian Skies feels some pity for the Prophet Ramon crying, “I feel sorry for him now!”
Indian Lace figures what he was expecting leading a life like that tallying, “It’s his fate from coming back out this way.”
Soon miles and miles have gone by before they are ready to camp. Before sunset they all tend to ride near some barbed wire cattle fences which are out of place. They looked ratted with torn and falling spots here and there. And around the barbed wire cattle fences are many types of tumbleweed caught in between. Moreover he starts to become paranoid as things change in to a feeling of becoming dark and gloom. For the first time he can almost nearly taste his own gloom and doom and it was something that has never ever crossed over in his mind before now.
Another mile down the “Old Spanish Trail” they stop and camp for the night without saying too much to each other. Quietness rings in their ears as they all try and dream of the past that they had once lived. Amigo has dreams relating to the site which have emerged time and time again. Though he feels he knows the past like the back of his hand, Amigo still dreams the same dream over and over.
The others have similar dreams like they are chasing someone out of an area that has such a face. Still the face is quite distorted and they barely can make anything out of it that’s clear enough to abide by. Yet in their dreams they are all working together in some harmonious way that has a special power to it. They know what this power is and they have only grasped a meaner side that is connected to it in some way.
Now the Prophet Ramon on the other hand, which in this case would be his left hand, is having similar reveries about the past except for a few differences. One of those differences is that he isn’t chasing anyone away; he is the one running away. The other difference is that he can see some faces, yet they are covered in a war like paint. Some of them are red and some of the other faces are green while many others are pasted with a brown array.
Nevertheless the same imaginings keep on flowing like they were a river of information. It’s almost like someone is reaching out to his soul with this so called divine carnage that separates him from them. For some reason he feels like his spirit is traveling downward from the river of souls. The process in his mind is very slow as he tries run away from many beings in his nightmarish sleep. It’s almost like a he was being pulled through a river of sand and it even feels that way through his veins. And there’s this connection with him and someone else that feels super familiar and he can nearly put a finger on it. He even feels like he has been pulled by this person further downward toward some trickster scheme or bad stance that he can’t get out of at this time.
Soon the Prophet Ramon wakes up to the commotions of a brand new morning. Amigo is the first to speak commanding, “Come on, and let’s get a move on. We have lots to do today. We are so close!”
The Pawnee Indian wonders how long it will take them to get to their destination blabbing, “Do you think we will arrive their today?”
Amigo answers back with only a presumption on when they will arrive their saying, “Before sunset we should reach the site!”
Quickly they all pack up and start to head out on their way. It isn’t long before the Prophet Ramon begins to recollect on his visions while he was sleeping. Many of the dreams he had seem to seep through like they were some radio wave receiving to an antennae of some kind repeating over and over again. It doesn’t take long before he can almost start to make some faces out a little bit through the candid make up, although nothing is too apparent.
About a mile down the track, the Prophet Ramon sees some images coming in to existence. There are some barbed wire cattle fences which have some cattle skulls strewn in through the wires. Some of them even have the essence of the devil at times like it was them all showing and expressing their power over him. Minutes later he notices a complete cow like skeleton embedded in to the fence with a leaning posture to it.
To him, this is an image that he has only imagined in a figment of his imagination and it was something that was associated with the occult. For that reason he now feels powerless and helpless as he rides along wondering what in the heck will pop out at him next. And in the back of his mind he is contemplating the fact about whether or not these remains were props which have been places there to put fear in his mind.
In fact, this trickster art work even becomes beneficial in an accidental way to him. Now he is almost sure that he is in a bad spot in which he may never get out of. And he even sees pictures in his mind of ghosts that may be deceased people who have longed this treacherous trail upon their journeys. For some unknown reason they remain within this world afar from their supernatural spirit world. At times it appears that he may know who they are and he can see and sort of tap in to the forces and powers that are working in and through them all.
Even though they have stayed so quiet along the path, Amigo comes out with an antagonistic line aimed towards the Prophet Ramon asking, “So did you have any dreams last night after all that we talked about?”
The Prophet Ramon thinks back to his apparitions telling him, “Yes, I had the same dream over and over again!”
The Cherokee Indian closes in on the topic and fast searching, “Did you recognize anything?”
The Prophet Ramon wants to say something but can’t as Amigo cuts in to the conversation once again, “See anything?”
The Prophet Ramon then decides to answer back with, “Just many painted faces!”
The Pawnee Indian has an inquiry, “Could you make anything out in your mind’s eye?”
The Prophet Ramon really couldn’t make anything out for that matter and it seems that he only says, “Not really, everything was too blurry for some reason!”
Then Amigo goes a little further with the matter asking, “You couldn’t make anything or anyone out in your dreams?”
The Prophet Ramon ponders back over all of the painted faces that he saw. He really couldn’t make any of them out for any reason. The Prophet Ramon describes this by muttering, “No, I couldn’t make out anything because everyone’s faces were covered all over in paint!”
The Pawnee Indian carries on informing the Prophet Ramon, “That was probably facial war paint I bet!”
Amigo mentions the Indian War blundering, “It could have been the Indian War that went on from the past. It was a Bloody Basin as some may call it. Maybe somehow you were involved in the same war as us and it’s finally coming through to you!”
The Prophet Ramon wonders why they didn’t say anything about that before wailing, “Why didn’t you say anything before this? You never mentioned anything about being a part of the place before?”
Amigo brings the ceremonial practices in to the matter grimacing, “That’s because we haven’t given you the ceremonial peyote yet to discover any information from you!”
The Prophet Ramon is very curious now as to why they would need any information out of him anyhow quizzing, “Why would you need any information from me anyhow, for what?”
The Cherokee Indian figures that it’s time to lay the ball and chain going ahead in the scheme of things to come eloquently saying, “To find out where the gold is hidden. The gold that the conquistador’s Prophet hid from the conquistador!”
The Prophet Ramon feels that he has been backed in to a corner now by them all. He tries to get more information from them all finding out, “What makes you think I know where the gold is hidden at?”
Amigo slices back in to the conversation really quick adding, “Because you’re the Prophet Ramon with the same similar name. It’s got to be you?”
The Sioux Indian tries to confront him as well which will change the course of his existence shrieking, “Come on, we know it’s you?”
Everything gets quiet for a moment as the dream Ramon saw in his mind becomes clearer and clearer as he can make out their faces a little better. Now he can see Amigo as he charges him with his stone tools weapons such as his stone dagger and a tomahawk that is fastened around his wrist with a large string. The Prophet Ramon can even see the other Indians that are around in his dream as they all are charging along the side and from behind Amigo as his past Indian self. Now he automatically feels that he may be in a lot of trouble being cornered by them.
Coming to the New World isn’t looking so upwards to the Prophet Ramon who is now looking for a way to back out and how. Nevertheless he decides to blurt out, “I don’t know where any gold is without looking around a little!”
Amigo explains to him how it will go down telling the Prophet Ramon, “Oh don’t worry, we will all get a chance to look around a bit!”
The Sioux Indian gets a feeling that kind of like wanting to wage him over for it, although he unfolds, “In fact, some of us have done a little bit of looking around here and there ourselves. How do you think we have come up with so many facts and the map?”
The Prophet Ramon is left nearly almost breathless as he has images of himself caught in a barbed cattle fence himself as he looks back at himself leaning back in one. It’s quite a villous look as he tries to find a way to handle the oncoming situation. He quickly tries to pass everything off by using a short answer, “I don’t know! So you all have been out here before looking around more than you said?”
The Pawnee Indian decides to be the one to move along with their status on the discovery tallying, “But of course, do you think we’d give up gold that will be worth the price of diamonds.”
The Cherokee Indian has a question for him going in to detail, “What do we look like, anthropologists?”
The Prophet Ramon has maybe heard the term once if even that. Still he probes along wondering and wording out loud, “What’s an anthropologist?”
They all start to giggle and then they continue riding along laughing a bit. Amigo calms his nerves a little by divulging, “Don’t worry; we’re nearing the site!”
Indian Lace realizes that they are getting closer and closer to the site. She proclaims this to Indian Skies as they ride a ways away and out of site enlightening her, “They’re not too much further from the site!”
Indian Skies can see that things seem mellow with them all correlating, “So far nothing has happened?”
Indian Lace is sure they aren’t out of the clear until they reach their destination saying, “Well, they still haven’t reached the site and anything is possible!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When they reach the site Amigo says to them, “This is the site! See here’s where the third arrastra was at!”
Then Amigo continues riding further past the other two adding, “And here’s the other two down this way!”
After a few more yards, Amigo stops and gets off of his horse and looks around a bit announcing, “Here we are!”
He notices that the area appears to have been untouched since his last visit. Amigo turns and looks towards one of the stone monuments that have been left by the miner. Now Amigo quills, “It doesn’t seem like anyone has been here recently.”
Quickly he walks over to the mound of rocks marking one corner of the claim. Amigo removes a few rocks that are bigger than two fists. Then he removes a few more exposing a bottle that is lying there beneath. Amigo takes a hold of the bottle that seems to have a cork in it.
Amigo removes the cork and tips the bottle as a small tied piece of paper falls out. Amigo holds the rolled piece of paper in his hand saying, “What do we have here; looks like a miner’s treasure map!”
Amigo sets the glass wine bottle down and he slides the tied string off of the rolled piece of paper to read its contents. Amigo unrolls the piece of paper reading, “This land is claimed by J. C. Tenney who has claimed this land as his own.”
Amigo glances over the map that is drawn on the piece of paper which leads to an “X” of some kind marking some hidden contents or something. With a sense of desperation, Amigo looks at the others responding, “There’s a date but I can’t make it out. It either says 1860 or 1880. I’m not too sure what it says. And there’s this map leading to an “X” over down around the bend maybe. I don’t know I can’t make it out! Well, let’s go have a look.”
About that moment Amigo rolls up the piece of paper and puts the tied string back around it. Then he puts the piece of paper back in the bottle and drops it back in. Afterwards he corks the wine bottle and puts it away bearing it under the rocks once again. That’s the only wine bottle the rest of the monuments don’t have any. I’ll leave it there just in case he returns sometime in the future.”
The Pawnee Indian looks as Amigo hops back onto his horse asking, “Where’s this spot marked by an “X” just around that bend?”
Amigo gets on his horse and pulls his bridle the other way answering back, “Yes, just around the bend maybe. I’m not too sure according to that poor drawing of a map there!”
Fast like Amigo starts to ride and trot back over the small hill passing the arrastra first and second arrastra. Soon he passes the third and heads over near the river bank of the Agua Fria River so that he can see what’s on the other side along the canyon walls such as hiding places are concerned.
A distance away Indian Skies scurries away from the top of the rift valley down about a quarter of a mile down. She makes her way back to Indian Lace who is sitting on her horse out of site with Indian Skies’ horse as well. Ghastly Indian Skies correlates, “They are riding back the other way along the river embankment!”
Indian Lace has no idea where they are all going. That’s a wonder to her for any reason. Bringing this thought to mind, Indian Lace speaks aloud, “I wonder where they are going?”
Indian Skies has a notion about where they may be going mentioning, “Maybe, they are following something that lead them the other way that was on that bottle that the big Indian was looking at!”
By now Indian lace can tell that she has no idea what is really going on with them. It’s not like she talks to any of them about anything anymore. Everyone has gone their separate ways over the many lives they have led. For all she knows they could be headed down stream looking for something. Right away, Indian Lace pictures a bottle in her mind marveling, “He was looking at a bottle?”
Indian Skies answers back fast like divulging, “A bottle with a piece of paper in it that he took out!”
Indian Lace is pretty sure that it was a personal claim paper of some kind summarizing, “It must have been a miner’s claim paper maybe or something!”
Indian Skies breaks a slight little sarcastic line in which gets Indian Lace thinking, “Or maybe it’s one that he made up with a map to somewhere else!”
At about this moment the herd of Indians and the one Spanish Cowboy have turned around the corner of the bend as Amigo checks the canyon walls. As he rides barely another thirty feet a marking that looks like it may have been inscribed pops out at him. Amigo stops noticing some little like cracks and crevices which may be a possible hiding place for some loot such as gold or maybe even bags filled with gold ore.
Amigo gets off of his horse and then turns to the Prophet Ramon commanding, “Hey, get off of your horse and check out what’s inscribed and written on that canyon wall next to that little hole like crevice!”
The Prophet Ramon looks at the canyon wall from the far side of the river voicing, “I don’t see anything!”
Amigo comes again with his authoritative demand telling the Prophet Ramon, “Just go take a look anyways!”
The Prophet Ramon gets off of his horse and walks across the Agua Fria River which is running and streaming only a little. As he splashes through the water he looks around at the canyon walls and notices nothing except some marking that looks like a faint line. The Prophet Ramon continues walking his way closer to the wall of the canyon and then stops looking back for a second, “That’s nothing; what could be back in there?”
The Pawnee Indian gets off of his horse and starts to walk towards the Prophet Ramon as Amigo follows. The Pawnee Indian approaches the Prophet Ramon with Amigo grabbing him and walking him towards the canyon wall. Once they reach the other side, the Prophet Ramon notices a marking that looks like an inscribed “X” that appears to be recently fresh, but what does he know.
Quickly they nearly push him until his face is looking right in to it. Immediately Amigo questions his stance arguing, “What’s that?”
The Prophet Ramon can only state what it looks like to himself gawking, “It’s an “X!”
Right away, the Pawnee Indian makes a statement before going further, “And don’t you think we ought to take a peek back there?”
The Prophet Ramon decides to make the right choice by trilling, “But, of course!”
Without any pretense, Amigo starts to let go as he reaches in and takes a small rope from his pocket saying, “I’m glad you think so. But I’m going to have to tie your hands up until we secure our share of the loot. What do you say to that?”
As quick as a flash, Amigo initiates part of his plan to mesmerize the Prophet Ramon. While tying up the Prophet Ramon’s hands from behind, Amigo gawks, “Don’t worry; I’ll leave them a little loose so you will still be able to ride!”
Once Amigo is finished he and the Pawnee Indian backtrack away a few feet back in to the river bed. They leave the Prophet Ramon standing there with his hands tied behind his back as Amigo pulls out a stick of dynamite and holds it there. The Pawnee Indian pulls out a stick match and sparks it on his belt buckle. Then the Pawnee Indian ignites the wick as Amigo throws the dynamite past the Prophet Ramon inside the crevice.
There’s no hesitation here as the Prophet Ramon tries to kneel down and roll away from the canyon wall as fast as he possibly can before anything even happens. After getting about ten feet away from the crevice of the canyon wall, the dynamite blasts his only a few rocks shooting outwards. In fact, it seems to have no effect as to what Amigo as his friends were expecting.
The Prophet Ramon looks seeing no change and sits up while pulling his arms back past his rear with his hands in front of himself.
A ways away Indian Lace and Indian Skies here the loud bang as Indian Skies imploring, “Sound like they found something!”
Indian Lace demands that she goes back and watches once again stating, “Get back over there and see what’s happening!”
Then the Prophet Ramon stands up and unties his wrists from the rope. He even acts like he doesn’t have any concern for the treasure anymore as he heads back to his horse who has become agitated from the whole entire ordeal. Once the Prophet Ramon makes it back to his horse, Amigo and the Pawnee Indian make their way back to theirs as well.
Amigo hops up onto his horse remarking, “There’s no treasure; it’s all a bunch of hogwash!”
The Pawnee Indian gets back on his horse saying, “Let’s just head back to the site and go from there!”
The Prophet Ramon watches as they all ride ahead. Slowly the Prophet Ramon follows slowly as they all turn the bend and head back to the site. Along the way the Cherokee Indian asks a question to his fellows, “Are he him?”
Amigo looks back for a second and then back ahead concentrating on his riding answering back, “Yes, are he him!”
Indian Skies at the moment is trying to get as close as she can to a view without letting any of them see her. Straight forth she realizes that they seem to be heading back towards the site with a slow pace. It seems that she caught everything except that little incident that happened before the dynamite went off. Right away she turns around and returns to where Indian Lace is waiting. Indian Skies informs Indian Lace that they are heading back to the site by telling her, “They turned around and are heading back to the site. They had his hands tied behind his back. It looks like he must have slipped out of it somehow and they are now leaving him alone!”
Indian Lace wonders about how long that will last replying, “For now maybe!”
A minute later they reach back at the site as the Indian Band stops and waits for the Prophet Ramon to catch up who is lagging behind just a little bit. Once he approaches rather closely, Amigo tries to apologize by saying in front of the others publicly, “Sorry about that; sometimes we just get too carried away with things!’
The Cherokee Indian tries to become a little sympathetic to the Prophet Ramon’s needs telling asking him, “I suppose you don’t know who we are and why we are here?”
The Prophet Ramon chooses to act sort of naïve about the whole entire voyage, or maybe he is confused about everything for some reason. Nevertheless he continues on by eluding, “You are the Indians who shot Davies!”
The Sioux Indian quickly cuts in a quick line as a call back bickering, “Davy who; Davy Crockett you still think it is?”
The Pawnee Indian is humiliated immediately crying, “Man you stupid mother…….!
The Prophet Ramon by this time has realized that there is no treasure at all and that it is just a big doggone hoax. He even feels that maybe they have betrayed him and that they have already reaped the rewards of the find long before now. They have merely played him like a six string banjo or guitar fretting him along the way for some sort of revenge plot. Still he carries on with confronting him from their hostile acts that have only soon passed by.
The Prophet Ramon looks at all of them while contemplating whether their names are real or just some made up names that were put on to help with their scheme. He sits there on his horse with a confusion that he feels he should try and handle by bringing up, “Are those your real names or are they just some fake names that you came up with?”
The Cherokee Indian laughs a second before answering back intimidating like, “Those were fake names. We are Yavapai Apache and Amigo is Navajo. We are here to protect our heritage and our culture.”
Then Amigo goes on to talk about how this is their sacred land that has been desecrated over and over again slanging, “This land her is our sacred land. It is part of our religion and we don’t let anyone desecrate our traditional beliefs.”
A moment later they all start to pull out some war attire to add to their wardrobe. The Prophet Ramon watches as they all put some Beaded Indian War Vests. Quickly they all slip them on and adjust themselves like they were getting comfortable. Then they all take out some Indian war paint and start to paint their faces. Amigo starts by putting on a black make-up while the other covers their faces in a green like make-up. Then Amigo starts to add some other colors such as red and brown stripes on his neck.
They all ignore the Prophet Ramon as he wonders if he should just leave and take off from the whole uncanny scene. The Prophet Ramon pulls his bridle and turns around sort of facing the other way like he wanted and was ready to leave.
The Pawnee Indian reaches in his bag and pulls out a club as Amigo pulls out a horse’s whip that looks pretty sturdy. The Sioux Indian pulls out a small wooden like Tomahawk and the Cherokee Indian pulls out a small club.
The Prophet Ramon looks ahead trying to see where the fastest escape route is at. He notices a small canyon leading up the creek that seems to get narrow at the beginning, although it seems to spread and level out further up. There is even a small crick that is streaming slightly that he notices. He looks to the right of the canyon noticing many pictographs and petroglyphs along the face wall that faces him.
A moment later he looks back and sees one of them holding a burlap sack while opening it. It’s the Pawnee Indian as he pulls out an old scalping for a second to take a peek at. He stares at it for an instant and then he puts it back and closes the bag by tying it shut. Quickly the Pawnee Indian puts the burlap bag in his satchel bag and spews, “What a collection?”
At this time, the Prophet Ramon recognizes the circumstance of how he is really in deep trouble. It seems that these renegades have consequently turned on him and they are ready for anything. Any move that he makes they are ready for right now. They are watching him like a hawk in other words. The Prophet Ramon wants to run but feels that he shouldn’t try because if he does they may take him down.
Another truth is that they can see the fear in him and they are most likely going to feed upon it any way that they can to keep their social control over him. Still he holds on tight to his horse’s bridle waiting for something to go wrong. And it’s no doubt that his horse is expecting the same outcome. Luckily his horse has sized the other horses up and knows that it has a chance at getting away.
Then without any warning, the Pawnee Indian approaches closer on his horse towards the Prophet Ramon. As he pulls back on his bridle to slow down a little closer to him, the Pawnee Indian elucidates, “If I was you; I would ride my ass off!”
Immediately the Prophet Ramon turns and signals his horse to take off. Thankfully he has found the way that he should take to escape. However once he makes his ways passed the petroglyphs and pictographs, Amigo yells out, “I’ll count to one hundred and then we’re coming!”
Just then the Prophet Ramon passes in between the canyon walls riding as fast as he can over the unknown terrain that lies ahead of him. A moment later as the sounds of the Prophet Ramon’s horse gets further and further away. By now Amigo can hear the sounds of other horses riding away fast in the near distance. Quickly Amigo turns and gets the glimpse of Indian Lace and Indian Skies careening out of view on the northeast canyon top.
Without any further hesitation, Amigo turns to the others saying, “Did you see that? It’s them!”
The Sioux Indian is the first to wonder asking, “Them who; I thought we didn’t know them?”
Amigo answers back candidly like saying, “It’s a couple of them Indian women that’s who!”
The Pawnee Indian thinks positively telling his comrades, “Let’s just get all of them!”
Amigo doesn’t seem to pay much concentration in to keeping up with the numbers too much, “Amigo asks out loud, “Who’s counting because I lost track because of them?”
The Pawnee Indian could care less about counting, “Who ever thought about really counting?”
The Cherokee Indian is getting anxious to get on the move. In fact he has been pulling his horse’s bridle back and forth trying to get a run off. The Cherokee Indian comes back with a line suggesting, “Ah, just call it twenty, or how about thirty. Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four, thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty!”
The Sioux Indian cuts in to the conversation saying, “Come on, let’s just county to fifty and be off!”
A few more moments go by and the Cherokee Indian calls out, “Fifty!”
The Sioux Indian is almost about to take off like he was a race horse taking off on the track. Then immediately Amigo says, “No, we’ll keep our word even though they may catch up to him before us. And if they do, he doesn’t even know anything about them two women. He’ll think they are our sisters and stay away from them!”
The Pawnee Indian could really care less what Amigo says correlating, “Oh, screw that!”
The Pawnee Indian signals his horse to take off with one big kick to the rear with his foot out of the stirrup. As fast as he can take off, the Pawnee Indian rides away from the others quickly. However the others follow being instantly. Amigo swipes his bridle on his horse’s side yacking, “Darn it!”
A ways a way the Prophet Ramon has reached the edge of the canyon and through the few deep washes that separate him and the canyon from the Indian Warriors. At this time Indian Lace and Indian Skies enter from the canyon further up a bend or two up river. Once they make their way within a quarter of a mile from where the Prophet Ramon is looking around, Indian Lace waits and watches patiently wondering which way he will choose to go.
A moment later he turns hearing some fast riding coming up from the canyon already. The Prophet Ramon realizes that the time didn’t seem to be enough, but oh well anyhow. He looks back and then ahead the other way and decides to head north in a westward direction. Like a flash of lightning, the Prophet Ramon takes off and heads down in to a wash that he notices. The wash is fairly large in size with lots of trees that he can hide behind while riding.
Nevertheless he continues to ride as fast as he can by eluding them as to where he’s at. He makes his way down the wash a ways and continues to ride even faster trying not to stir up to much dust in the dry hardened dirt that lines the bottom of the gulley. Another moment goes by and he is able to hear the sounds of their horses as they ride on past not noticing which way he has gone.
Quickly he continues to ride at a faster pace realizing that he may have lost them by taking a turn down the wash. A minute goes by and he can’t seem to hear them anymore. It seems that luck may have changes his fate for the better. Maybe he ought to still head in a north direction just in case they retreat back and think he headed south after riding through the wash.
Though on the other side of the hill, the Indian band sees that he may have turned off in to the wash considering that don’t see him ahead or any dust from his riding away anymore. Quickly they all start to slow down as Amigo jousts, “He must have headed down a gulley and we missed him all together!”
The Pawnee Indian pulls his horse’s bridle the other way while agreeing, “Let’s turn around!”
The Indian Renegades quickly change their course of direction and backtrack towards the gulley they passed only fifty yards or so away. Once they arrive they all shoot up that way like a pack of wolves on the hungry hunt. The Cherokee Indian and the Sioux Indian lag behind while they make their way through the gulley. Amigo trails behind the Pawnee Indian as they enter the wash broadcasting, “He couldn’t have gotten too far!”
The Cherokee Indian yells out a question wondering, “I wonder which way he’ll go at the end of the hill?”
A ways away Indian Lace takes the Death Card that she removed from the deck. Quickly while riding she slows down and hands it to Indian Skies commanding, “Take this to the Indian Shaman woman at the Bumble Bee stagecoach stop!”
Indian Skies takes the Death Card away from Indian Lace and speeds in a more northern latitude separating quickly. Then Indian Lace turns and heads more in to a westward direction trying to catch up with the Prophet Ramon even though she is fairly sure that he will choose to head north. However no matter what the consequence she must stay out of sight until the time is right. Otherwise there will be hell to pay with a confrontation. And that confrontation much be avoided at all costs until he sees his Death Card in person to force him to face his fate and change it for the better.
Meanwhile the Prophet Ramon has come to the end of a hill and has stopped trying to decide whether to go north or south. If he heads north he will reach the Stagecoach town of Bumble Bee and if he turns south he can find his way to the town of Black Canyon City and Rock Springs. And on the other hand he knows that the treasure which has been hidden from the Indians is somewhere north in the hidden Cliff Dwellings which according to the map is somewhere north of the Bumble Bee Stagecoach Stop.
While reading the map that the Cherokee Indian and the Sioux Indian were so hip on, the Prophet Ramon realized that the Indians may have left the site and moved somewhere else. Either way he must make his decision fast before the Indians close in on him and realize which way he has gone to avoid them all.
Another moment goes by and the Prophet Ramon pulls his bridle north and south again confused as to which way to go. Then quickly he turns his bridle north again and signals a jump ahead to his horse that is just as forsaken as he is at the present moment. Just then he can hear the sounds of the Indians and their calls out and the sounds of their horses nearing are coherent enough to make him want to ride much faster.
At this time Indian Lace tries to get as close as she can without being seen, although she hasn’t caught up to where he is yet. However she noticed that the Indians have changed their course down the gulley. She decides to head west with a dip towards the north as she encounters many rolling hills and rises along the way.
The Prophet Ramon continues to move ahead as fast as he possibly can without getting caught. He is very unsure of what he will find when he reaches the stagecoach stop at Bumble Bee. It hard to say how inhabited it will be according to what the Indians had told him. Hopefully he will be able to find some help if he’s lucky enough to find anyone out there. Nevertheless he must ride his rear off to always be a step ahead of them.
Soon the Indians reach the spot where the Prophet Ramon has stopped and they stop as well by pulling their horse’s bridles as hard as imaginable. Amigo looks and sees that his horse’s tracks are imbedded in the hardened dirt of the wash. It looks like the Prophet Ramon may have been looking and wondering which way to go to him. Amigo comes out and deliberates, “It looks like he stopped here and twirled around a few thinking where to go!”
The Pawnee Indian see some tracked and which kicked over heading upwards to the top of a hills crescent blurting, “It looks like he must have gone this way I bet. See those tracks?”
Amigo turns and looks while pulling his horse’s bridle in that direction affirming, “Let’s head after him he couldn’t have gone too far!”
As fast as they can all dart off together, they all head up the slight hill out of the wash and back to getting hot on his trail once again. It doesn’t take long and they all start moving along fairly fast.
Still the Prophet Ramon has been pushing his darn hardest as well trying to reach a town that he has never ever been to in his whole entire life. Yet he feels like fate may force him to reach this destination. For some reason he feels it in his blood about how his life depends on it. And no matter what reason he knows they will be right behind him if he wastes another moment contemplating his run away from them all.
And after hearing the sounds of their yells and screams along with the sounds of the pounding hoofs of the horses nearing closer and closer, the Prophet Ramon realizes that he might be lucky enough to make it. Maybe for the forsaken reason he may just make it after all if they had stopped while trying to figure on which way he must have gone with his turn of good fortune.
But then on the other hand he knows they will catch up fast considering that they know the terrain much better than he does at the moment. And that they do after he makes his way across a few more rolling small washes. Then sounds of them nearing is obvious that they have seen his tracks worn in where he made his confusion to head north the other way. No matter what, the Prophet Ramon feels that it’s better to not look back and lag on any time.
If he does he will never make it for help from his enemies and he will never even know the difference. He will be succumbed to their treachery at hand and his soul will be lost forever. It seems that in that respect he will have not only have a loss of his soul after becoming ill from their witchcraft sorcery, but he will be possessed under their will.
He is riding as quickly as his horse can go without looking back and allowing them to catch up. But in his mind he understands the fact of how they are trackers as well and they will find him no matter which way he turns. He must seek refuge somewhere where there are lots of people to make it uncomfortable to them to do or try anything. And there is even the chance that no one will pay any attention to him. It may end up being like he was to be treated like some outside foreigner even when they don’t know or understand the difference.
For some reason he feels like he is fighting an external possession like something was trying to come over his thoughts, but either way he tries to fight it and muster on forward. More time goes by as he makes his way over more rolling hills looking off in the distance for anything in the idea of a settlement that might be out there in existence.
At about this time Indian Skies nears the town of Bumble Bee before him. She enters finding a secluded building where the Indian Shaman woman is waiting outside. She is accompanied by two other Indian Medicine men with rifles. There are also a few other armed Indian Medicine men inside waiting for the arrival.
Another minute or so goes by and Indian Skies makes her way to the abandoned building within the stagecoach stop. She rides up approaching the Indian Shaman Woman. She reaches in to the pocket of her Indian laced coat and pulls out the death card that Indian Lace had pulled from the deck. She hands it to the Indian Shaman oman and says, “We have an abiding!”
The Indian Shaman woman takes the death card from her and heads inside as the two Indian Medicine men wait outside by standing guard on both sides of the entrance leading inside. Indian Skies pulls her horses bridle the other way and heads off away from the town in a quickened fury like she was trying to avoid the evil eye or something.
Indian Lace has now caught up to the Prophet Ramon as he approaches the outskirts of the town. Of course, she feels that she must not try and get too close or she will be seen. At no cost shall she undermine anything at stake here. She glances off in to the distance as she notices Indian Skies riding away over a hill towards the north directly behind the building a ways.
The Prophet Ramon approaches the town wondering where to go. It doesn’t seem too inhabited by the time he gets there. He sees a few bum like individuals leaning against a building that have a bottle in there hand as he looks the other way seeing two men with rifles. One stands out a few feet and signals the Prophet Ramon over by pointing his rifle their way. The Prophet Ramon turns his bridle and makes his way over to the building and stops.
One of the armed Indian Medicine men speaks telling him, “Come inside!”
The other Indian Medicine man commands, “Brings your horse inside too!”
Soon the Indian Renegades arrive seeing the Prophet Ramon enter the inside as the Prophet Ramon’s horse disappears behind the closing door of the building of the stagecoach stop.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The moment the Prophet Ramon enters the room, he notices that the Indian Shaman woman is already seated at a table. He continues to stand there for a moment until she conveys to him, “Come over here and sit for a minute or so!”
The Prophet Ramon lets go of his horse’s bridle and slowly starts to walk over towards the table she sitting at. As he walks he turns and looks at two Indian Medicine men standing at opposite sides of the room with rifles. One has a rifle and a shotgun, while the other has a rifle and a revolver.
The Prophet Ramon sits at the table and faces directly to her like he was waiting for some divine intuition or something far greater. The Indian Shaman woman looks at him holding a card. It’s a tarot death card; the one that Indian Skies has brought from Indian Lace’s deck. The Indian Shaman woman sets the tarot card on the table face down so that he can’t see it. Then she picks up a stack of tarot cards that is sitting on the table there before the Prophet Ramon first ever sat there.
The Indian Shaman woman starts to shuffle the stack of tarot cards. She shuffles them many different ways before saying, “Think of this as another chance at your true fate!”
The Indian Shaman woman hands the deck to the Prophet Ramon suggesting, “Here you shuffle them a bit. You must trust your own fate and destiny!”
The Prophet Ramon takes the deck of tarot cards from the Indian Shaman woman and holds them in his hand for a moment. Then he shuffles them back and forth splitting the deck up. Then he tries another method of shuffling for another few seconds or so. Momentarily the prophet Ramon hands the deck of tarot cards back to her. She takes the deck of tarot cards and sets them on the table saying, “Cut the deck!”
The Prophet Ramon cuts the deck by taking the upper half of the cards and setting them in another pile next the other half of a deck. Immediately the Indian Shaman woman picks the deck of tarot cards up and begins by taking the top card and laying it face down. She repeats the process seven times over and stops. Consequently the Indian Shaman woman places the rest of the deck on the table face down as well.
She looks up at the Prophet Ramon and says, “This is your chance to pick an alternate fate as the one that was brought to you over here!”
Quickly she looks at the other tarot card that is different as her deck in appearance. The Prophet Ramon glances at the other tarot card noticing some different images as far as art work is concerned. Nevertheless he has never really gotten the chance to become familiar with them and this doesn’t seem like the time anyhow. But regardless he knows what’s waiting for him around the corner outside and he must come to peace somehow.
Right away, the Indian Shaman woman turns back to her deck saying, “There are seven cards there and there are seven pentacles relating to your life. Choose one and that fate shall be yours!”
The Prophet Ramon looks over them all for a brief moment. He looks back and forth at them trying to abide his time but he knows he can’t hold out for too long. At that point the Prophet Ramon chooses a card. He quickly sets his finger on one pressing his finger nail in making an indentation.
The Indian Shaman woman looks at him and then she looks at the tarot card. Then and there she picks up the tarot card and flips it over. The tarot card is the Life card which is very powerful at this turn in his life. It includes other aspects as well such as love and wealth, whereas some cards are limited. This card gives him more of a chance at changing his destiny.
Once the Indian Shaman woman turns the tarot card over, she speaks saying, “You drew the “Card of Life” and it is a good card to focus on!”
The Prophet Ramon picks the tarot card up and looks at it with the bold letters spelling out “Life!” He continues to stare at it for a brief moment before turning his attention to the other tarot card that she has sitting of to the side away from her tarot card deck. Then he confronts her immediately asking, “What’s that tarot card?”
The Indian Shaman woman is baffled that he would ask such a question when she is trying to help him by bringing positive actions in to his life. All the same she decides to grill him expressing, “This is one that was chosen for you to see if you needed guidance!”
The Prophet Ramon reaches over and tries to take the card, but the Indian Shaman woman sticks her long fingernail in it before he even twitches. Here and then she drags the card with her fingernail over towards the Prophet Ramon making an annoying screeching sound. The Prophet Ramon can do nothing but look until she takes her fingernail away advising him, “Flip the card over!”
The Prophet Ramon is nearly breathless, although he manages to reach his hand over and turn the tarot card over facing upwards. And when he does he is faced with the frightening artwork of the “Death Card!”
When he looks at the artwork and drawing on the face of the death card, the Prophet Ramon notices that there are Indians and there arrows are integrated in to a lying cowboy corpse of some kind. Right away, he feels so low and nearly sickened like she was an integral part of their witchcraft sorcery.
The Prophet Ramon takes the “Death Card” and looks at it for a moment. As he continues to look at it for a another second, the Prophet Ramon thinks about how preposterous this sounds even though there are those evils waiting for him outside. Then he glances over to the “Life Card” for a jiffy before turning back to her while she says, “Keep it! It’s not mine anyhow it was brought to me by some secret admirers of yours who left her shortly afterwards!”
The Prophet Ramon thinks and contemplates what she said for another few thoughts before saying, “It was those women following us!”
The Indian Shaman woman looks at him bringing another notion to his mind saying, “There are many who seek after the treasures of life!”
The Prophet Ramon puts the “Death Card” in his pocket before standing answering back, “I’ll have to give this back to them!”
The Prophet Ramon turns and moves over towards his horse taking his bridle while heading to the entrance of the small building. Just then he looks back for a second as the Medicine men open the doors to let the outside sunlight in. The Prophet Ramon hesitates for a few seconds before turning and heading out past the doors.
The doors close behind him as he walks out a few feet past the wooden floored walkway. Immediately the Prophet Ramon puts his left foot in his left bridle and hops up onto his horse. He looks around and doesn’t see anything. He looks again the other side and doesn’t see anything either. So far everything is quiet like the whole town was nearly completely abandoned.
Then the Prophet Ramon starts to ride off heading north just galloping at a medium paced speed. He looks around as he rides trying to notice anything out of the unusual. Nothing at first until he hears the sounds of horses comes out from many buildings away. It appears that the Indian band has waiting for him to exit and there giving him a little bit of a head start perhaps. The Prophet Ramon looks back for a brief moment. Then he turns the other way and starts to ride as fast as he possibly can again heading north.
It doesn’t take too long and they manage to catch up a little bit closer. Still they are a good hundred feet or so behind him which poses a threat. He can hear their mustering for their horses to push forward much harder and faster. And he does the same by tapping his horse on the side trying to get a much faster pace going. On one hand he realizes that he is at a disadvantage because he doesn’t really seem to know the terrain like they do, yet he feels like he may have some allies out there somewhere even though they are unnoticeable right now, although he looks around like he did before and doesn’t see anything out there in the distance.
Regardless of whether he thinks there is someone out there or not, he must act as though there isn’t and he must try and avoid them at all costs. They are out for vengeance of the past because of something he must have done on the side of the other conquistadores knowing about it. Still there is the Indian Shaman woman who mentions the “Death Card” he has belonging to someone else and he figures that it must belong to the woman following them all.
But without a doubt he doesn’t really know who it is out there. For all he knows it could be another trap so he decides not to waste his time wondering and only concentrating on out running them once and for all. They could be the Indians sisters for all he knows and he doesn’t feel like he should take a chance at risking trying to look for some unknown help lingering around nowhere.
Soon the Prophet Ramon comes upon some rough ground that has many bushes and large mounds of rock sprawled out everywhere. He manages to glide over most of them which slows him down just a little. But nonetheless it slows them down as well. Still the Pawnee Indian is able to pick up a few more yards on him. In fact he gains some more ground on the Prophet Ramon fairly fast.
The other lag behind a bit as the Prophet Ramon stretches out in a clearing trying to pick up the pace rather quickly like again. But catching up from behind is the Pawnee Indian who jumps ahead with a fast pace as well. The Prophet Ramon turns looking back for a split second with a blind spot as he looks behind himself. He looks back at the opposite side as the Pawnee Indian coming upon him.
Then as he turns back he realizes that from a slight glimpse of the Pawnee Indian’s horse’s tail he may be closer than he thought. He can also see the Sioux Indian who seems to be tailing from behind the others. The Prophet Ramon starts to side whip his horse a little faster trying to pick up some speed to out run him. Yet he doesn’t look back trying to see where the others are considering that he is riding for his life in this dreamy reality of his now.
Nevertheless he decides not to look back right away and only to try and make it somewhere as fast as he possibly can, although he doesn’t really know the area like his enemies. And he hopes to God that he can get away from them somehow or another. So far this whole entire trip has been a facade in his truthfulness and should have never ever happened.
Now he regrets this whole adventure which has turned out to be nothing less than pure bad luck. He continues pushing on forward as he senses something off to his right side. He can even hear the sounds of another horse moving in closer. Fast like the Prophet Ramon moves his head looking back seeing the Pawnee Indian nearly at striking distance. When he looks he even sees the Pawnee Indian and a small club with a wrist strap to it.
Right then the Prophet Ramon starts to whip his horse even a little harder than before trying to gain more yards away from the Pawnee Indian as he continues to catch up slightly more. Here the Prophet Ramon decides not to look back anymore and only concentrate on going much faster. He can only push so hard and he feels he is pushing himself as hard as he can while the other seems to be lagging behind at this time.
A few more moments go on by and the Prophet Ramon glances back and sees the Pawnee Indian and his horse only a few feet from his rear. And behind him is the Sioux Indian who is riding the Pawnee Indian’s trail from behind. The Prophet Ramon looks back watching where he’s riding realizing that he’s lagging behind too much. Then the Prophet Ramon whips his horse even harder trying to pull ahead.
Here is where the Pawnee Indian has caught up completely trying to grab onto his shirt sleeve. The Pawnee Indian grips it barely as the Prophet Ramon pulls his bridle to the side letting his hands loose. Quickly without hesitation, the Pawnee Indian swings his bridle the same way keeping a close proximity to the Prophet Ramon and his horse.
The Prophet Ramon comes upon a thicket of trees and swerves around to the left. In repose, the Pawnee Indian swings to the right taking a shorter distance around the group of trees. Immediately the Pawnee Indian curves back the other way coming right up close to the Prophet Ramon and his course.
As the Pawnee Indian gets within two feet of the Prophet Ramon and his horse, he reaches over and gives him one hard shove. The Prophet Ramon leans over by force before finally getting his grip again after a few struggles. Then without warning, the Pawnee Indian gives him a swing with his left arm. It is a pretty hard hit considering that he isn’t even left handed. Either way the Prophet Ramon fights back by pushing his hand away afterwards. He thinks of slowing down but the Sioux Indian is directly behind him riding his horse’s tail.
They both struggle for a moment until the Pawnee Indian merges left again towards the Prophet Ramon laying another swing with his club that nearly hits his horse. The Pawnee Indian moves in again with another swing that the Prophet Ramon dodges swiftly like he was expecting it to come his way.
The Pawnee Indian nearly loses his balance from when his arm had swung past and over the Prophet Ramon’s head as he stooped. The Prophet Ramon takes this miss as an advantage to whirl himself ahead of the Pawnee Indian as he merely is able to. Still the Prophet Ramon looks back and understands how close the others are getting towards him.
As the Prophet Ramon glares back, he notices that the Pawnee Indian is swinging his small size club around while holding his bridle with one hand. The Prophet Ramon looks back ahead and only thinks of one thing only and that is to out maneuver them all. And no matter how weak and over whelmed he begins to feel, he continues holding on to his horse’s bridle with his waist held tightly in the saddle.
Another few too many gallops along and the Prophet Ramon feels the side of a club nick his rib cage on the side. Luckily it was a slight skip across and there wasn’t any damage. He is a tough Spanish cowboy or in their language, Spanish “Vaquero,” and he has been in a few brawls and scuffles that they don’t know about. In fact, in his eyes they really don’t know him that much at all. He is a tough cookie and he somehow will find the courage to try and take care of everything without a doubt.
The sounds of the other four horses in the gang are getting louder and louder as they come nearer and nearer. It seems that they must know the terrain a little better than him. No matter how hard he tries they manage to keep up to his pace. However he feels a weakness to their power of magic that they have turned against him. For some reason he has overcome the truth as to how he is a part of their past and nothing has changed from that even through all of this time.
At this time the two women have been riding as fast as they can and out of sight. Of course, they feel they know where he is headed and still they must avoid any confrontation at no matter the consequence. They must wait until the appropriate time to do their thing, or in other words to do their magic. And the seed of their trustworthiness has been seeded. All they have to do now is show an indifference towards the others who have betrayed him time and time again.
The two women Indian Lace and Indian Skies continue riding along listening to the sounds of their horses to guide them. There’s too much commotion coming from there that they are sure they won’t be perceived. Then there’s a moment where Indian Lace catches a glimpse of them passing through an arroyo as they pass with a fast speed coming their way.
Indian Lace looks to Indian Skies saying, “This way!”
Indian Lace turns the other way racing behind some trees as Indian Skies follows. Then suddenly the Prophet Ramon changes his course going the other way out maneuvering them all for a split moment in time. Indian Lace watches as he and his chasers glide out of sight. Indian Lace slows down a bit between a large patch of saguaro and mesquite trees blocking their view. Indian Lace is ready to race and speed up ahead to keep up. Before so, Indian Lace coils to Indian Skies, “It looks like he’s in trouble!”
Indian Skies feels sorry for him right away especially considering the idea that he is a different person and now and he has had a crash course in remembering the past. And this is a crash course that he definitely wasn’t expecting. Indian Skies desperately wants to help the poor man somehow displaying, “We really need to keep up and help him!”
Indian Lace turns back to Indian Skies adding, “Come on, and let’s go after them!”
They both speed ahead again and head north with a dip towards the northwest as the group reaches closer and closer to the area of the cliffs. Luckily they didn’t stop completely; otherwise it would be harder for them both to catch up once again. Nevertheless Indian Lace and Indian Skies plan to stay out of sight until they reach the destination. They don’t want the others to know about them because it may cause problems such as causing the Indians to try and kill him rather than just toy with him.
As they continue to try and keep up the pace, the Pawnee Indian takes a whack at the Prophet Ramon with his club that hits his back making him nearly lost his balance as the other Indians start to come in closer. The Prophet Ramon gains his balance as the Pawnee Indian nearly loses his grip on his club as it bounces back. The Pawnee Indian tries to get back in order as the Cherokee Indian comes up from behind to grab the rear of his saddle but slips his hand away. The Sioux Indian hasn’t taken much action, although he keeps the Prophet Ramon moving ahead as fast as he possibly can go to avoid them.
The Prophet Ramon turns and slaps his hand away really hard trying to keep them off of him the best that he possibly can at the time. The Cherokee Indian moves his hand back and away for a moment before coming back closer trying to grab his arm as well. The Prophet Ramon takes out small knife from his satchel back while holding the bridle with both hands. He has a little trouble at first, but then he manages to get it out.
He turns and shrugs to avoid the Cherokee Indian’s hand again as he tries again. But then he turns and sticks the Cherokee Indian’s hand with the knife. The Cherokee Indian pulls his hand back with anger yelling back as he fades back a few feet. Just then the Pawnee Indian tried to take another swing hitting his leg instead just below the Prophet Ramon’s hip. By now Amigo catches up swinging a whip trying to whip his head off.
The Prophet Ramon sees it coming as he tries and ducks but can’t in time. The whip hits his cowboy hat and bounces off and around again. Amigo tries again and again while riding along at their fasted pace.
Hundreds of feet go by which turn in to yards over yards. Meanwhile the Pawnee Indian takes another swing with his club trying to hit him square on. However the prophet Ramon blocks it as it bounces back causing the Pawnee Indian to lose grip of it. Somehow wrist band comes undone from his hand. Quickly he fumbles it and drops it onto the ground as they all continue to ride away at their fasted speeds.
The Pawnee Indian looks back as the club plops back and rolls away a few strides before he turns again. The club trickles through the horse’s legs of the Sioux Indian as he follows from a short distance. Without any further hesitation, the Pawnee Indian thinks of something else to use. Now for the time being the Pawnee Indian concentrates on keeping up with the Prophet Ramon and trying not to leave too much of a gap between them both.
The Pawnee Indian takes another grab at the Prophet Ramon once he moves in closer. The Prophet Ramon is on guard with his small knife and he has some other tucked away under his pants strapped to his ankle. He seems to have come prepared and is very good at hiding everything even when he has been at some of the nearby stream cleaning himself when he would get away from them for a few here and there.
As the Pawnee Indian tries to grab him again, the Prophet Ramon threatens him with his small knife making the Pawnee Indian careful with his decisions trying not to get poked or stabbed. At this time Amigo hits his horse on the side with the whip as the Prophet Ramon’s horse pulls forward and ahead of them a bit.
The Cherokee Indian is trying to keep up even though his hand is slightly injured with some bleeding. In fact it’s streaming a bit as he tries to hold onto his bridle with both hands to keep right on the Prophet Ramon rear. The Pawnee Indian pulls ahead as he grabs another weapon of choice, although it may seem to be not too much in this point of time with this incident.
Right away, the Pawnee Indian pulls out a lasso. He holds it with his left hand while holding his horse’s bridle at the same time which is pretty hard. He almost looks like a bronco buster in a way as he starts to spin his lasso around and around over his head. Nonetheless the Pawnee Indian fumbles a bit as the lasso hits his side a few time as he and his horse trample over rough terrain.
There are even some trees along the way which the Prophet Ramon has been riding in between trying to throw them off of the mark so to speak. It has been tough for them to keep up as they ride over grassy rolling hills and patches of trees here and there. They are now starting to reach in to some tougher terrain as everything becomes rockier with lots of small footwalls blocking the edges of small forming canyons.
Still the Pawnee Indian keeps a close tab while trying to ride right alongside of him. And no matter how hard the Prophet Ramon tries to dodge him he is right up nearly on him. The Pawnee Indian continues to twirl his lasso as he takes a fast swing with it aiming at the Prophet Ramon’s head. Though the first time he misses as the Prophet Ramon pushes the loop away with his right arm as he throws.
Soon there is another wider opening where there are trees but they are farther apart leaving enough room for them to maneuver each other. The Prophet Ramon makes a turn around a small bend while the Pawnee Indian goes for another swing at his handy bronco busting attitude again. Meanwhile Amigo and the Cherokee Indian sort of lag behind as they muck over the terrain that is starting to have more and more slopes.
Another turn comes as the Pawnee Indian notices that it heads under some trees that are over hanging. There are some tree limbs that look reachable where the Pawnee Indian feels that he may have a chance at going at his luck. Furthermore the Pawnee Indian continues with his twirling as he prepares and takes his chance.
Another seconds later and the Pawnee Indian has swung a lasso around him. Quickly he slows him down as they approach underneath a few large branches overhanging. The Pawnee Indian tries to slow down before reaching the overhead tree branches which are coming up within a few feet. Without waiting for the hap or possibility to pass on by, the Pawnee Indian slows down as much as he can and chucks the rope up over the lowest hanging tree branch.
Luckily the rope flays over the tree branch while coming back down and hanging. Quickly Amigo and the Cherokee Indian begin to slow down as well even though this was all unplanned at the time. Fast like the Pawnee Indian scurries with his horse for the rope as the Prophet Ramon tries to ride the slack off. Moments later the Pawnee Indian grabs the line and starts to pull as the Prophet Ramon’s horse pulls away with full power. The Sioux Indian crowds over towards the Pawnee Indian who is tugging the line. He takes a hold of the line and starts to pull as well.
Amigo and the Cherokee Indian aren’t sure what to do as the Pawnee Indian pulls on the rope lifting the Pawnee Indian nearly off of his horse. But then the Prophet Ramon has his stirrups holding him back to his saddle as his horse turns. By now the Prophet Ramon is reaching with one hand in to his pant leg to grab his biggest knife while holding the bridle with one hand and steering about.
Amigo goes crazy as the Cherokee Indian stops and checks his wound to his hand from the Prophet Ramon’s knife from when he jabbed his grab. A second later Amigo yells out, “Let’s hang him!”
Just then the Pawnee Indian and the Sioux Indian are joined by Amigo who moves over towards his end of the rope that’s hanging around the upper branch. With a stringed take of faith, the Prophet Ramon has his knife in his end which he has sharpened for the occasion and he starts to cut while holding his feet tightly to the stirrups. Moments later he pulls back and takes another few slashes and he’s free pushing the rope entirely off from him.
For a split second he tries to catch his breath after all of the lugging and tugging towards the overwhelming tree branches above. Then things become faster paced as the Prophet Ramon pulls his horse’s bridle back towards the north. Quickly he gives his horse a brush of on the side with his boot in the stirrup feeling the need to take it easy with him. It’s almost as though he expects his horse to be just as frightened as he is with this incident.
Nevertheless he and his horse split the scene as fast as they can without letting their guard ever down. In fact this time he doesn’t look back as he just musters and pushes himself ahead towards some unknown destination.
Furthermore it doesn’t take long before Amigo darts after him once again as the Sioux Indian joins from behind. The Pawnee Indian scurries around with winding his rope up like it was the only thing he had left. Of course he has other weapons he could use, although that was the next best thing. The Cherokee Indian follows and trails from the rear considering that his hand is injured.
And it’s no strange reality that the Prophet Ramon has sped ahead and abided some time and distance away from them as they fumble his slip of hand. For a half of a minute or so the Prophet Ramon felt like they almost had him. Then none the less he was as careful as he could be and more prepared than expected. But he also feels that this chase is far from over with. So far there have been no sign of anyone to get any help and would anyone be able to if they were around anyhow.
About a hundred feet or so later the Prophet Ramon can hear them all approaching closer again. It took a few hundred yards before they even started to catch up a little. But no matter what he hears he keeps on pushing harder and harder realizing that they really do mean business. He knows they aren’t messing around now with anyone coming upon what they feel is their discovery or right of heritage.
As the story skips ahead, miles and miles go by before the Prophet Ramon looks back noticing how tired they are from all of this. It appears that maybe he has finally come to being a better competitor. But then again they’re not really too far off. They are only a few hundred feet behind him or so.
After a few more hundreds of feet the Prophet Ramon recognizes something riding along ahead in the trees. As he looks he sees some sort of object slow down. It appears to be two entities entering closely by in the near distance. He looks and recognizes the image of two women which seem like they may be the ones from before who were following them all about to these places. Maybe indeed they are the same individuals that the Indian Shaman woman is talking about.
Nevertheless it looks as though they are trying to keep out of sight and he can’t really pay too much attention without being trampled or caught. Still he glances as one of them emerges from behind the trees. It’s the younger one who only shows herself from slightly ahead of him to the east side. She points in a direction for him to go and then disappears back behind in to the densely populated trees again.
Quickly the Prophet Ramon turns in that direction that is in their direction a little between this valley rifts that is coming up closely. As fast as she can Indian Skies turns her horse’s bridle and signals Indian Lace by informing her, “He’s turning right in that direction!”
Indian Lace signals her horse to move ahead fast like affirming, “Let’s bolt over there before they catch up to him again!”
Quickly they speed ahead in the direction of the Indian Dwellings which are located in the Cliffs within the walls of the upcoming valley. There are many homes which have been carved within the stone front cliff walls. The place isn’t too much further and either are the two women who have a devised plan once they are there. There are also a few other allies who live there within the cliffs still to this day who have been living outside of the normal society.
They will be of some use once they arrive because they are shaman women who can deceit the mind of most individuals. And considering that these Indian Renegades are weak minded Medicine men to them, it will be easier to fool them once they arrive. And not to mention that nonetheless the women Indian Lace and Indian Skies are more prepared than they all may think at the time.
Still they have to move fast trying to get there before he arrives there. Their plan is one of deceit which will only come in handy if he is caught once again before he arrives at his destination. Then there’s the chance that he may make it to the cliffs with them right on his back forcing him to seek refuge inside the walls with no prevail.
Indian Lace and Indian Skies race for the cliff dwellings as the Prophet Ramon has rode out of their range for the time being. There are only a few more canyons to ride over and they will be entering from the southeast while the Prophet Ramon will most likely enter from the south west or he may hit the cliffs head on with them on his trail.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Quickly Indian Lace and Indian Skies enter the yard and front terraces of the cliff dwellings. They seem to ride in with fairly fast speeds while wondering if it’s even fast enough. Luckily it was and they have arrived before the others. It seems that maybe the Prophet Ramon has been held up slightly from making his way here. And he has no real reason to with the treasure so blown out of proportion it isn’t funny no more.
Indian Lace turns to Indian Skies commanding her, “You’ll wait here and lure him in while distracting the others by drawing their attention away from the dwellings.”
Indian Lace turns back and heads towards the cliff dwellings with her horse as a few other Indian women scurry off in the distance as though they were waiting for the appropriate time to come their way. The women scurry inside like they had something planned for anyone who may enter the insides of the cliff dwellings. It is almost as though there was something of importance there which must be protected. Well, there is and that happens to be their culture which they don’t want overly desecrated.
As fast as a train entering a tunnel, Indian Lace races inside as a few Indian women put up blankets to cover the entrance. The designs on the blanket are that of Indian styles which are of their heritage. The designs are such which contain subliminal messages that will ensure the eye of the beholder that the treasure was never real and it was only a myth or mystery. Meanwhile Indian Skies turns towards the west and waits for the time being for their arrival.
As she waits she can hear the sounds of scampering around just north of her inside the cliff dwelling walls. It’s almost as though a silence has soon broke meaning that everything and everyone is in place for the snuffing up ahead. Now there are only the sounds of the wind blowing through the canyon as she wonders how further ahead they had been from them all. Nevertheless she stares towards the west as if she were expecting something to approach soon.
At this moment Amigo has caught up to the Prophet Ramon. This has been a struggle for the last few hundreds of yards or so. Yet Amigo has only caught him by the belt trying to slow him down. Luckily his hand slips as the sounds of them getting nearer begun to surface. Their horses start to cast themselves along the canyon walls.
Indian Skies hears them come closer and closer as she turns her head towards the cliff dwellings. She notices the nook and cranny in which Indian Lace has taken her stance at. Immediately she can see that things are prepared as she turns away back towards the west side of the canyon as the sounds grow louder and louder.
By now Amigo has a good grab on the Prophet Ramon by slowing him down completely to a standstill. Without waiting another second, Amigo pulls the Prophet Ramon right off of his horse. Nevertheless the Prophet Ramon holds onto his horse’s bridle as hard as he possibly can without ever letting go of it.
The others are a little behind at this time and arrive simultaneously one at a time. At about that moment Amigo turns the other way and notices that Indian Skies is staring at him from here point of view within a short distance. Luckily she is out of harm’s way as far as being in pistol range is concerned.
As Amigo stares he pulls the Prophet Ramon that way while holding his horse’s bridle just the same. It appears that he may be confused as to who she is considering that is totally alone. Then he makes a comment to her while dragging towards her yelling, “Go away! Get out of here! Go on get out of here!”
The others watch with a disappointed or maybe it is a confused look about them as well. Right off of the bat the Pawnee Indian says, “Who’s that?”
Indian Skies continues watching as Amigo starts to walk closer yelling once again, “Go on get out of here! Go away I say!”
Just about at that moment Amigo begins to reach for his pistol by pulling his horse’s bridle along as though he could hold both at the same time while trying to point his gun or take a shot at her maybe.
Right then a rifle shot comes from nowhere landing about two inches from his right boot veering underneath his horse and beyond. Quickly Amigo darts the other way while the Prophet Ramon pushes him away and moves to his horse hopping back on. Indian Skies rides off straight forth heading towards the cliff dwellings. Like a bat heading back in hell the Prophet Ramon tries to ride faster than he ever has before. For once he feels that he has a destination and he better take heed to it or else.
Yet of course, Indian Lace on the other hand refuses to put up with such an act. Immediately she keeps aim on Amigo as he scurries off and backtracks about fifteen yards. The others do the same by turning and riding away slightly, although they tend to look back toward the cliff wondering who’s all up in there waiting for them. Quickly Indian Lace takes another peep shot trying to draw them back further. Still she doesn’t want to give away her position to the Indian men.
A half of a minute later Indian Skies enters the cliff dwellings as the Prophet Ramon follows promptly. Before he approaches, the Prophet Ramon turns to take a look back at them all scurrying about as though they were too tough to take cover. Then the Prophet Ramon turns back and trails right in the same direction as Indian Skies.
Moments later the Prophet Ramon enters as a group of Indian women cover the entrance after him with large tapestries and wall hangings. When he enters he is surprised at how there are many Indians greeting him like he had defeated all odds or something even more grand.
For the time being, Indian Lace has decided to put another shot towards the Indian gang to push them back even further. And when she does they pull back, but just then they decide to maneuver themselves over to a small footwall that has a cranny for them to take cover behind. One by one they all redirect themselves and head around the edge of a back wall that separates them from her aiming.
The Pawnee Indian is the first to respond to a question as to what’s going on with the scene that has just happened. The Pawnee Indian asked a question directed more towards Amigo asking, “Who was that?
Right away Amigo catches his breath from such a surprise to them all from nowhere. He wasn’t really expecting anything like that to happen. It seems as though they were caught off guard. Once he comes to his senses, Amigo correlates to everyone insinuating, “It’s those women!”
The Cherokee Indian starts to look at his hand wounds once again while querying to Amigo, “What women?”
Amigo answers his question promptly suggesting, “The ones that have been following us along for all that time!”
The Sioux Indian is curious about where the other one is at wondering, “And where is the other one?”
The Pawnee Indian agrees with the Sioux Indian adding to the conversation, “Yes, he’s right; there were two of them! Then where is the other one at?”
After thinking about that for the time being while everyone frats and talks about it all, Amigo tries to get things right by signifying, “The other one is the one up there shooting at us and she probably has some friends up there with here as well I see!”
The Cherokee Indian takes out an old torn shirt rips a piece of it. Quickly he begins tying it around his wrist and hand to wrap his wounds. Then he decides to say as a token of worrying about what they are going to do about it, “So what are we going to do about it?”
The Sioux Indian figures that it would be hard to get up there with guns or rifles pointing at them shooting them off and away from there. The Sioux Indian searches for more details from his friends quailing, “So how are we even going to get up there without getting shot at?”
Amigo has no idea at this time cringing, “I’m not sure; I don’t know!”
The Pawnee Indian realizes that they will have to think of something, “Well, we’re going to have to do something.”
The Cherokee Indian finishes wrapping up his hand as the bleeding continues showing through the cloth. At once he deliberates on the issue of the treasure wising, “Well, it looks like they beat us to the punch and they may have the treasure already!”
Amigo becomes furious right away about maybe losing the treasure after all of this preparation, “Well, they’re not going to get away with it because we aren’t going to let them, huh?”
Inside the Cliff Dwellings the Prophet Ramon is being greeted by many of the Shaman woman. They are so glad to see that he has made it and that he is very much still alive to be there. While they are greeting him still patting him and his horse all over, some of them are hugging and holding their hands on him rubbing them all around.
Meanwhile Indian Lace is still out of sight keeping her eye on them the best that she possibly can without losing sight of them all. She doesn’t want them sneaking in somehow and catching them all by surprise. Nevertheless she continues looking through her peep sights just in case they try anything. She is certain that they will try and come up with some way of getting inside somehow.
At the time the Prophet Ramon is still being pampered by some of the Indian Women who have all brought him some gifts as tokens of good luck. One puts a necklace around his neck which was homemade to ward off evil and highly evolved spirits to bring luck and harmony in all that the wearer partakes in and another Indian woman sprinkles some blessed water lightly on him by dipping her fingers inside of a vessel and sprinkling them around and about him and his horse.
Soon he gets off of his horse realizing that he is safe and out of harm’s way for the time being. As soon as he gets off of his horse, he turns and notices that the girls from outside who appears to be the one following him is standing next to her horse holding her horse’s bridle so diligently.
Slowly she approaches him with her horse as the others fade out going back to protecting the heritage of their ancient cultures. Still they all try to keep out of sight so that the Indian Renegades think that it is only Indian Lace and Indian Skies accompanying him at this time within the cliff dwellings. This is also the area of where the ancient gold treasures may be hiding and lying.
The others all move away from him after their greetings to welcome him in to the group. It seems that the Indian Renegades have been busier than he has expected with keeping the others from the treasures. So far they have succeeded with everyone else except for him. And significantly he is the last straw at trying to deceive anyone otherwise from redeeming the fruits of it and any reaping of the rewards.
Moments later Indian Skies approaches closer to him as he turns and looks. Even the Prophet Ramon’s horse turns and makes a friendly like gasp towards her and her horse as they come nearer to them both. Then Indian Skies stops with her horse. She just stands there looking back at her horse and then back at him saying, “You’re lucky that you made away from them alive. They are serious about protecting that treasure. And so are we! My name is Indian Skies and Indian Lace and I have been following them for a while now. And you were the next to make their hit list!”
The Prophet Ramon is nearly speechless realizing that he almost didn’t make it here this far out replying in the utmost, “At least there’s a warm welcoming!”
Right away, Indian Skies doesn’t seem to believe what she is hearing. It is as though he didn’t think of everything as so bad. All the same she rants on about his travels indicating, “You call them chasing after you a warm welcoming!”
The Prophet Ramon thinks about all of the gratitude he has received from them already stating, “Now this; is what I was calling a warm welcoming!”
Indian Skies carries on further now that she is sure that he has his head on straight and there’s no more confusion with what’s happening. She goes on by saying, “This is the best we can do and that was the best that we could do out there!”
The Prophet Ramon glances around noticing that many of the women are hiding about the inside of the cliff dwelling. And it appears that they are all trying to stay out of sight from anyone of them seeing them waiting. Then the Prophet Ramon turns back to Indian Skies and asks, “There were two of you right?”
Indian Skies shrugs her head up and down like she were implying yes while banding, “Yes.”
The Prophet Ramon wonders where the other women of crime that was riding along with her. However she isn’t really a woman in crime to him as she is merely more an ally more to say. Next the Prophet Ramon mentions this by querying, “Then where’s your partner at?”
Indian Skies turns back looking for a split second and then turns back saying, “She will be down shortly after the Medicine Practitioner relieves her from the post!”
At about that moment the Medicine Practitioner relieves Indian Lace expressing, “Let me guard for a while so you can have a break from all of this!”
Indian Lace sets up with her rifle as the Medicine Practitioner takes guard with his own weapon at hand which happens to be a 22 caliber long shot rifle with 22 caliber long rifle shells. Still they can do some damage if he happens to hit his target. And in this case it would be better if they can get a shot or to in at them to stop their crusade perhaps.
After being relieved of the upper post, Indian Lace says, “Keep your eye on the edge of that back wall right there. Then immediately Indian Lace makes her way down to the lower floor of the cliff dwelling. Of course, this spot is one of the best places within the cliff dwellings to make in to a look out. Nevertheless the Medicine Practitioner keeps his eye on the edge of the back wall in which they are all hiding behind.
Minutes later Indian Lace makes her way down to the lower level where she accompanied by two more Medicine Men guards who fade back many feet from her side as she approaches the Prophet Ramon. The Prophet Ramon and Indian Skies turn their heads and their bodies to her as she nears.
Quickly Indian Lace stops about three feet away before asking, “So do you remember us from out there?”
The Prophet Ramon does remember them indeed. In fact, how could he ever take his mind off of them after they showed themselves so many times off in the distance? Still the Prophet Ramon wants to make a good impression even though he is very confused as to what’s really going on. And this is why he answers back contently, “Yes, I remember you from out there. How could I forget after the times we saw you in the mere distance?”
Indian Lace catches on to his inference right away catechizing, “What do you mean “we”?
The Prophet Ramon tries to explain things as clearly and precisely as he possibly can by telling her, “Well, the Indians were all arguing about why you were following and whose sisters you all were if you were following!”
By now Indian figures they aren’t as smart as they think they are by boasting, “Them jack asses!”
Indian Skies starts to contend to her horse by checking her saddle bags while they continue talking for a brief second. After she turns and prepares, Indian Skies says, “I’m going to get ready!”
The Prophet Ramon has become even more curious speculating, “What’s the deal with this treasure anyhow?”
At this instant Indian Lace decides to inform the Prophet Ramon of who she is by recoiling, “Let’s just say this is our past as well as yours and it’s theirs as well. In addition all of us have insight to the treasure. It was removed long after the conquistador had left within continued mining operations. For many centuries it has been hidden until the white man came and the Indians decided to cash it all in except for a good size portion which is hidden in a more sacred place today. They are out to get what’s left, or at least they think they are going to find its location. And we aren’t going to let that happen because we are all going to end it today and settle this lost treasure once and for all!”
Back with the others, Amigo has a plan that he feels is fool proof so that they can make their way inside of the cliff dwellings. Inside they believe there is another map drawn within a petroglyph which discloses where the hidden cave of Indian gold is located. Nevertheless Amigo takes another peek as he sees things have quieted down and nobody seems to be around.
Another reality is that he thinks it’s only the three of them inside the cliff dwellings as well. Amigo notices another spot big enough to hide behind with their horses too. Now Amigo moves forward with his plan communicating, “I have a plan. Listen up!”
Quickly before speaking to the other inquiring Indians of his about his plan, Amigo leaves his horse with the other while he peeks to take a look at the spot where he thinks the other woman is keeping aim on them. When he looks he looks slowly trying not to be seen by her so he risks the chance of another shot being ripped at him.
As Amigo turns back to the others, he says, “Two of us will take cover while the other two will dart off over towards that lower wall just east of the entrance where that Indian girl and the Prophet Ramon had entered in to. Then the other two will see if they can still cover so that the other two can rush in. If not, then the two who wait here will have to cover again which means that only two of us will have to take them down. Then the others will come in later and help finish up. Okay, does that sound good and is that a plan?”
The Pawnee Indian agrees with him that they have no other choice if they want to win and reap the rewards of the treasure before their opposition does win and cash it all in. The Pawnee Indian is anxious and agrees by mentioning, “That sounds good! But we have to be careful by trying to keep from getting shot by her. It seems as though she isn’t that bad of a shot!”
The Cherokee Indian wonders if he should stay back and cover or should he ride off and try to make it to the other spot to stand off. He brings up this curiosity by questioning, “My hand is still bleeding; should I stay and try to cover you by taking some shots up there or should I try and ride out. Which two of us are going to try and ride over there?”
Amigo speaks up right away commanding the Cherokee Indian, “You stay here with the Sioux Indian and cover myself and the Pawnee Indian as we race over there to our destination!”
The Pawnee Indian wonders if they should have their pistols out just in case they should also try and cover themselves as well asking, “Should we have our guns ready just in case she becomes really trigger happy or something?”
It seems that Amigo thinks they should only concentrate on riding as fast as they can but then it again he feels it wouldn’t hurt to have their pistols held against their bridles when they ride off. He mentions this fact by agreeing, “Why not? It wouldn’t hurt to have our guns ready just in case something was to happen and they’re all up there with guns pointed this way at us!”
The Sioux Indian is anxious to get this show on the road by exasperating, “Well, why not? Let’s do this and get it over with!”
Amigo wants to get this over with as fast as he possibly can himself, although he doesn’t want to run in to this situation unprepared and wind up with any of them dead on the other hand either. Furthermore he carries out his readiness of plan by answering back, “Let’s not rush in to things too quickly. Let’s just take a breath and get ready to dart off. But as sure as we do you two need to be ready to start shooting up there towards that window opening where she’s at, okay?”
The Sioux Indian is compatible with that replying back, “Okay!”
Then the Cherokee Indian agrees as well imploring, “Sure, okay!”
Immediately Amigo fades back to his horse who is sitting waiting patiently as he holds his bridle. Amigo hops onto his horse’s saddle and the Pawnee Indian follows suit doing the same thing. Slowly they pull their horses forward towards the edge of the crevice which is separated by a footwall that extends upwards with layers extending over to the top of the rise.
Meanwhile Indian Lace turns to the two Medicine men guards quilling, “It won’t be long and nightfall will come. Then it will be harder to keep them out so we’ll have to hurry with our preparations!”
The head Medicine man makes a comment saying, “And what happens if they come sooner?”
Indian Lace is pretty sure they are covered and that they won’t want to try anything schilling, “Hopefully they won’t be that stupid!”
The partner Medicine man asks, “And if they do?”
Indian Skies finishes repacking her saddle bags busting in to the conversation, “If they do; they’ll be jumped and taken down.
He has also considered that they only have one rifle pointing their way at the Indian Renegades as they all hide behind the footwall that separated them all through time and the distance of space. He feels that they should have brought a few more people as well because it would be a terrible mistake to underestimate them all. But then on the other hand there is really nothing more for them to get now that the treasures have all been removed from the secret caves guarded by Indian Spirits.
Just at that moment, Amigo tells the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian to be ready with their rifles to take aim at the window to cover them. On the same hand the Pawnee Indian and Amigo are ready with their pistols held against their bridles while they prepare to ride off as fast as they possibly can muster. Quickly Amigo turns to the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian telling them both, “Once we take off, I want the two of you to pounce a full a few shots up there. Have your pistols ready to cover us all of the way. If you slip even for a second we are done for perhaps.”
Then Amigo looks at the Pawnee Indian asking him, “Are you ready to do this?”
The Pawnee Indian continues to stare ahead while taking a deep breath trying to prepare himself for another quick ride of his life exasperating, “Sure, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be; let’s just do this and be done with them all!”
Immediately about a second or so later Amigo gives his horse a quick hard brush of his horse’s bridle along with a slight kick leaping forward around the footwall. The Pawnee Indian trails behind as close as he can without running in to him. As fast as a horse darting off the starting line of a race track, Amigo and the Pawnee Indian make a fast paced haul towards the east end of the cliff dwellings.
With a surprise the Medicine man who has watch on them tries to take a shot but misses. Without warning the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian each take a shot at the window where the shots are coming from. Then the Medicine man takes another shot which bounces right in between the Pawnee Indian’s horse’s legs as they scurry further and further. Hurriedly the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian fire another round each which pounds away at the walls with barely any effect. It was almost as though their bullet shells were made of plastic or rubber. Yet the Medicine man tries to take another shot but skims one right over Amigo’s head.
Nevertheless Indian Lace and Indian Skies react rationally as Indian Lace quills, “Sounds like revenge!”
Indian Skies buts in with a questionable line as Indian Lace walks towards one of the openings looking out as she knows they are making their way at looking in swaggering, “Maybe the Medicine man nailed one of them?”
Indian Lace stares out as she catches a glance of the both of them disappearing from her view beyond the wall on the east end of the cliff dwellings. In a hurry Indian Lace turns back like she was in repose to another plan saying, “No they made it to the far wall at the east end!”
Indian Skies pauses for a moment before gawking, “Time for plan “B” it looks like!”
Now Indian Lace feels that the other two Indians will try and make an advance forward. She turns to the other two Medicine men telling the head Medicine man, “Give him a hand up there while we prepare to make an exit before they enter. One of you stays here just in case they try something sooner. Try to keep them all from regrouping or catching up to each other at all costs. We need to buy us some time to get the Prophet Ramon out of harm’s way by taking him deep into the reservation where he will be safer from them mean Indians."
At about this time the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian take another two shots to throw the scene off a little. Of course, they still think it’s the woman up there all alone trying to keep them out. And on the same hand, they feel that the other female Indian Skies and the Prophet Ramon are somewhere near with their weapons aimed at them and ready to use as well.
One fact is that they both feel she isn’t either a bad shot or she isn’t trying to hurt them any. Without batting an eye, the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian jump onto their horses while keeping out of sight behind the footwall. Moments later they are ready to head off over to where the Pawnee Indian and Amigo are patiently waiting.
At this time Amigo is wondering how lucky they are to make it busting out, “Well, we made it. Either she is no marksman or she’s just trying to scare us away is all. What do you propose Pawnee?”
The Pawnee Indian starts to think about it all a little before contemplating, “It figures the Indian women would try and get in the way of our endeavors for scoring the Indian treasure to the lost and hidden gold!”
Moments later a sound is heard as another rifle shot ripples as the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian have made a run for it without any cover. Amigo looks with his pistol drawn trying to cover them yelling out, “I can’t get a clean shot up there!”
In anxiousness, Amigo tries to take a few shots which just skim the side of the cliff dwelling sliding off and out in to the far distance.
The Pawnee Indian aims his pistol firing one shot round and pulls his back while turning his eye to the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian who are well over the three quarter line mark coming in fast. The Pawnee Indian’s gunshot does the same by bouncing off of the further cliff edge missing the cliff dwelling completely.
Moments later another shot rips behind the Cherokee Indian’s horse as it misses and the both of them glide in passed the east side wall. A few more seconds later the Sioux Indian and the Cherokee Indian make their way completely camouflaged by the east side wall out of range from the sniper shots. Amigo fades back behind the east side wall further welcoming them in for a surprise take off and entrance yielding, “You both made it!”
The Pawnee Indian wonders why they didn’t wait asking, “Why didn’t wait for a signal?”
Amigo comes back with the other extreme shunning, “Yes, you both are lucky you didn’t get shot or skimmed!”
The Cherokee Indian stays on his horse for a moment and then gets off saying, “It was then or never. We saw an opportunity to go for it and we took it. We made it right?”
The Sioux Indian gives his view to the whole entire scheme of things schilling, “I figured maybe that woman dozed off or something up there. All was quiet and nothing was happening!”
Amigo thinks how she was ready and they are just lucky to be alive as he expounds, “You’re both lucky to be alive and it’s not over yet! We still are only about half way.”
The Medicine man leaves the sniper’s post at about the same moment the other one for backup arrives. The head Medicine man says, “Come on; they’re on the other side regrouped!”
Both of them turn and begin to head back to the lower level where everyone else is waiting for a comeback from the Indian renegades. Indian Lace and Indian Skies prepare themselves to make an exit through the cliff dwelling on the other side which leads to the top of the mountain top. The Indian women all wait patiently just in case the Indian outlaws try to make an early entrance inside the cliff dwelling.
Below is a link to "Bags of Gold" subpage 5.