R. Trembly - Madigan

In less than a second it was too late for him to save himself. As the rock pivoted on its center, Donoven dropped feet first into the deep void below. By the time he hit bottom he had crashed head over heels into the rough stone sides a half-dozen times or more.

Yet, the loudest sound heard was that of his body hitting bottom with a sickening crunch. Not even then did any sound escape Donoven’s lips. He was not the kind to cry out in fear, not even in death.

As the great stone slowly righted itself, two streaks of blood and a piece of cloth were the only signs that Donoven had passed this way. The two narrow lines of blood, about two feet long, ended as abruptly as they had begun. The cloth, torn from Donoven’s shirt as he tried desperately to save himself, was wedged between the end of the gigantic rock and the floor of the cave, silent testimony to Donoven’s passing.

Harris, next in line behind Donoven, hadn’t heard or seen anything of Donoven’s plight. He had been scared half out of his mind after Charlie Scott’s death and was in no hurry to follow up too close to Donoven. He had been scanning ahead as he crept along when the piece of shirt in the rock caught his attention immediately.

“H-H-Hey, s-som-somebody get up h-he-here quick and l-l-look at th-this!” he stuttered as he literally shook in his boots. Harris was scared and he didn’t care who knew it. The thing he wanted most right now was to be some other place hundreds of miles away. He didn’t care where; any place was better than this gloomy hole in the ground that was leading them all to their demise.

O’Neill floated out of the shadows like a phantom suddenly materializing from thin air. “What’s the problem?” he asked in a flat, sarcastic voice.

“Th-th-there on the-the g-gr-ground,” Harris pointed, now visibly shaken. O’Neill bent over and examined the red blotches.

“Blood!” he exclaimed in the same flat voice, but without the sarcasm this time. Then finally taking hold of the cloth he gave it a tug. When nothing happened, he pulled harder, but still the piece of shirt would not come loose from its grasp in the rock.

A puzzled look came over his face as he studied the situation at hand. How could a piece of Donoven’s shirt become wedged in the stone like this? That Donoven was dead he had no doubt, but where was his body? These questions raced through his mind until, on closer examination, he discovered the hairline crack in the stone floor.

“You three men come here. Three more of you grab their belts and hang on.”

Showing them where to stand, he ordered them to place one foot on the other side of the crack and push as hard as they could. At first nothing. Then slowly, ever so slowly the floor began to move downward allowing the piece of shirt to drop out of sight. In the torchlight, the men could see the other end of the stone that made up this part of the cavern floor move upward at the same rate as the stone under foot moved down.

“It was a very clever trap and Donoven walked right into it,” O’Neill said with a ghostly smile on his face. “Very well done, but it will not save them. Everybody backtrack and pay attention,” O’Neill snapped.

“What are we looking for, boss?”

O’Neill thought for a moment.

“A narrow path of very smooth stone along one side of the cave. When you find it, yell out, then wait for me.”

“Why would there be smooth stone when all the rest is fairly rough? came a voice from the darkness.

“Because somehow the people who use this cave have to have a way around this trap. My guess is that there is a trail alongside that climbs up the wall and past this area. It will have to be small and narrow or we would have seen it. And it will be worn smooth because of all the concentrated use it gets. Anyone not knowing where it was would lose it in the darkness as we did.” O’Neill suddenly realized that, had he tried to find his own way out of the cave instead of following the hostage, he most surely would have fallen prey to the trap as Donoven had done. “Any more questions?”

When no more questions came forth, O’Neill ordered the men to start looking, and within minutes they found what they were looking for. There, just as O’Neill had said, hidden between two boulders was a narrow path climbing up the side of the wall. From time to time, as the men had moved deeper into the cavern, there had been such boulders scattered about, thereby causing no concern when the men passed these concealing the hidden trail.

“Now we don’t stop until we reach the golden city!”

The path was narrow and precarious, at times raising from the main floor of the cave twenty feet or more. Making the men more nervous was the fact that below them, ready to engulf anyone unfortunate enough to slip from the trail, was the gaping mouth of the pit covered only by the thin slab of tilting stone.

One by one the men clung to the wall as they inched their way across to safety. It would have made them feel no less apprehensive to know that the Indians moved along this same unforgiving walkway without hesitation or even a light to guide them by.

After what seemed like hours, they were all safely across and on solid ground again, the only casualties being a few skinned knees and scraped hands. But what overshadowed these minor inconveniences was the small point of light glowing at the end of the tunnel.

“Get those torches out!” O’Neill ordered. “And keep your mouths shut. We’ll be lucky if you whimpering jackasses haven’t given us away already.”

The men hated the insults O’Neill unleashed on them at every opportunity, but not one of them dared risk calling him on them. O’Neill ruled with an iron will, and the men, like the tree to the woodsman’s ax, could do nothing to ward off his cutting remarks.

When they had proceeded to within a few hundred yards of the tunnel opening, O’Neill signaled the men to gather round him so he might give his orders for the imminent raid.

“Now listen carefully,” he began. “I don’t want any mistakes. When you men chose me as your leader, it was to lead you to the treasure that I had told you about. All I knew was that at the time of the full moon, these people came out from some hidden location carrying large amounts of gold.” O’Neill paused to take a long breath. “They used gold idols in some kind of ritual to worship the moon, or some crazy thing like that.

“I really don’t know what they worship and I don’t care. The point is that I have since found the place where all their gold is stored.” O’Neill waited a moment for what he had just said to sink in. When he was sure he had the full attention of the men, he lowered his voice and spoke again. “And that, men, is right here at the end of this cave,” he said, pointing at the distant light, a devilish look coming over his face.

“Men, instead of a few saddlebags of gold for each of us, we will have wagon loads!”

At this statement, it was hard for the men to contain themselves, but contain themselves they did, either for fear of being overheard from the outside, or of their boss’ vengeance.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Ted Tworol asked.

“We simply go in and take the gold by force. Anybody get in our way, we shoot him down. Everybody check your weapons and get ready to go. The hidden valley is just around the bend a few hundred yards.”

“What if they don’t give up easy?”

“Then we settle in and make camp. That’s what I been lugging that tent around for-in case we have to stay awhile. I want to be comfortable for as long as it takes.”

The hidden valley spread before them like a picture from the past. Never in all their days had O’Neill’s men seen anything like what they now experienced. It was if they had stepped into another world, a land of beauty with none of the harshness of the outside world.