Shrine of the Apache

CHAPTER 1

The Superstition Mountains ascended from the earth east of Apache Junction, Arizona. 254.6 square miles of jagged, rugged terrain and tuff, scattered Ponderosa Pine, Saguaro and Cholla cacti, a few tiny lakes, springs and stream ways, trails, animal and reptilian life, birds, and a load of hell!

The year was 1952.

An enterprising, adventurous young man, Wesley Irvin Burns, agreed to tag along with five other gentlemen for a few days on a hike into the Superstitions, though under the following two strict conditions: He would carry one of their backpacks, and he would be their historian and take copious notes as they ventured inside. By accepting those two conditions, Wesley would be a welcomed and active member of the party; he would share the food they’d provided, as well as a small percentage of any artifacts that were discovered. Asking why they were hiking into the Superstitions, twenty-two-year-old Wesley was told they were on a treasure hunt.

Beneath his natural born reluctance and his internal, silent whinny, it sounded exiting.

Thus, on that breezy summer morning, the six of them went into the Superstition Mountains. Five days later only one came out:

Wesley Irvin Burns!

The Superstition Mountains, 1969.

Nearing his 40th year, Wesley Irvin Burns, who was commonly referred to as W.I.B., had written in his leather journal:

"The Superstition Mountains remain beautifully spiritual, presumably as they always had been. They are dark and wild, ominous and inhospitable. Memory serves, however, and I cope. Do I abandoned myself as they before me had refused?"

Rolling dark, gloomy clouds shrouded Wesley Burns’ presence. The intermittent booming thunder was startling. Occasional buzzes from the rattles of Diamondbacks and the angry, hungry cries from pumas warned and stalked W.I.B.’s stubborn but determined trek. Though it was the middle of the day, it seemed as if night approached; the atmosphere was painfully, relentlessly wicked. Fear flushed his face! Strange, threatening, unnatural sounds engulfed him, accompanying the multiple mountain cats’ shrieks, the hissing, buzzing reptiles, and the howling, searching winds...

...and the Thunder God’s wrath!

Inhospitable was a modest portrayal!

W.I.B. had trekked inside the Superstitions seventeen years in the past and probably this deep, yet but as best as he could recall, never this far; indeed, he thought, never this close. He could have been wrong.

He made a few notations in his journal and drew a couple of symbols and wiggly lines that made sense only to him. He soon rose from his seated position, placed his journal in a small satchel that was strapped securely about his neck and shoulder, and frantically moved away. His scruffy canvas backpack, containing his canteen and nonperishable foodstuffs, barely swelled. Sustenance was on the wane. His clothes were soiled and torn giving him an appearance of dire homelessness, skulking along an alley wall to, hopefully, not be seen by any one or any thing as the eerie sounds of the winds, critters, and guttural thunder pounded and chased him.

He soon found welcomed refuge in a slight undulation along the ledge’s wall and tucked himself in. The winds simmered. A teasing peace prevailed.

The compass he carried was ineffective, the needle sprung erratically, spinning endlessly, stopping then pointing there, here. Everywhere! The apparatus was as futile as his being there.

In that welcomed, quieting moment, he took several deep breaths to settle himself, carefully pulling a smudged cloth bag from his satchel, removing a drawing on parchment, checking his position. A few tiny, dark rocks rained down from somewhere above him from spaces he could hardly make out, yet above him, shadows seemed to dart from place-to-place on the jagged formations, and at angles on layers of tuff, shadows that were all too real...all too human. Then another puma’s whine echoed within the canyon. Satisfied with his location and positioning, though possibly guessing, he replaced the drawing, took one more deep breath and continued forward, his eyes searching for something specific above him, something he had seen seventeen years before but from a position much farther away and from a much different angle. As the momentary calm turned wicked once more, he spotted what his memory dictated he’d seen in 1952: A ledge five-to-six feet above another ledge, and an opening.

That cave? He pondered.

At last satisfied, he climbed to the upper ledge, fighting the perilous, infuriating, whipping winds, and cautiously crawled through a three-foot opening, gladly finding protection in what was, undeniably, that small cave he remembered.

W.I.B., panting fearfully, settled back against the cave’s wall and rested for a short time, removing his backpack, his mind a jumble of uncertainty. He anxiously scanned the cave.

The slightest, twitchy-lipped grin appeared. Yes. He whispered.

The cave was only a bit over five feet to its ceiling and only went in about eight or nine feet. The floor of the cave was hard, crusted sand.

Sitting against the back wall of the cave, he wondered why, oddly, the swirling winds did not enter the cave. They merely churned and whined outside the opening, passing back-and-forth as if ghostly sentries patrolling the entrance, standing watch. The thunder outside simmered to a patient growl. It was hard to comprehend; yet, at that moment of his journey, he didn’t attempt to understand his current status.

He pulled out his leather-bound journal once again. Embossed on the cover was: The Journal of W.I.B.

He made another notation that, perhaps, might have indicated the cave’s location and height at the lower level from which he’d first seen it seventeen years ago. His hands slightly quivering, he began to pen another entry:

"My fairest Carolyn: Bobby and Dottie and you are my thoughts, muddled though they are; however, I must remain. Abandonment is no longer an option to consider. I remembered your reflection, a good idea to explore! Being home is my most precious desire; I am lonely without you, but I am driven...and very afraid."

He stopped! Another notion filled his tangled, cluttered mind, drawing on the journal’s page a symbol that resembled, simply, three sides of a square, the bottom open. He set down the journal and retrieved the cloth bag with drawstrings from the satchel and carefully removed the piece of parchment paper that was folded in quarters. In total, it was a map with a variety of carefully drawn symbols, wiggly lines, letters and numbers; a few geographical thoroughfares within the mountains, paths and trails; cactus patches, trees, and arrows—X-arrow...Ledge fork...Weaver’s Needle et al. He cryptically fashioned more additions.

Despite the mischievous presence, it was a map he was making, not following!

To W.I.B., that piece of parchment was as sacrosanct and important to him as the Declaration Of Independence had been to the country’s Founders who’d signed it.

He cautiously refolded the map and placed it into the cloth bag, drew the strings, putting it back it in the satchel.

Once again he settled back against the cave’s wall, staring at the opening, listening to the sentry winds and low rumbling, rolling thunder. He leaned forward, got to a lower position, his chin nearly touching the cave’s sandy floor and peered out the opening.

Far across the canyon below there was another mountainous wall. The strange dark, wispy, umbrella-like clouds easily, perhaps intentionally, camouflaged any distinctive characterizations of the wall beyond, but W.I.B. wasn’t dismayed. It was as if he’d dreamt what that side of the canyon might own, and to be sure, a destination that had not been attained in 1952 because the trek across that canyon below was what, apparently, took the lives of those five men with whom he’d tagged along seventeen years ago.

He pulled out a pocketknife with his initials W.I.B fixed on its ivory casing. He extended the longest blade and hurriedly dug an eight-inch long hole on the floor of the cave near where his chin had just rested. Suddenly, however, the winds began to snap, howl and gnaw, intermittently entering the cave, shivering W.I.B.’s spine!

Like fire, the Thunder God’s gale was alive, breathing down his neck!

Was this hell on earth?

Simultaneously fearful though undaunted, he positioned the blade in a specific direction, straight out the cave’s opening then quickly reached into his backpack and yanked out a pair of binoculars. He moved back a couple of feet, his legs bent at the knees, the tips of his boots against the back wall, and gazed through the lenses directly over the knife blade and out through the mouth of the cave.

W.I.B. scrutinized the magnified foreboding wall across the canyon that appeared to have jagged edges, shelves, giant stalagmites and columns of some kind: Was it a premonition? Surely curious and menacing, yet beautiful.

Suddenly, a crack of thunder quaked the mountain! It was at-once threatening.

All schemes and thoughts of the faraway wall left W.I.B.’s brain. Panicked and unsure of his current position, he quickly, perhaps unconsciously, buried the pocketknife, patted the sand down, solidly, then braced back against the cave’s wall and packed is binoculars. W.I.B.’s eyes were wide and terror-stricken as he viewed the cave’s opening, waiting for what might come at him next...but soon another calm evolved before he opened his journal and began to write. After a minute or so, the mountain quaked once more. Closing the journal, he put it in his satchel, stuffed his satchel in his backpack, strapped it on and prepared to exit the cave.

The rumblings increased. W.I.B. wisely held back, reluctant to exit and confront whatever fury the Thunder God had in store.

It was madness!

He waited but the mountain trembled in sync with his body. If he was going to succumb to that passionate rage, he wasn’t going to be buried inside that stone casket of a cave.

W.I.B. darted out onto the ledge!

Purposely, though carefully safeguarding his equilibrium, he maneuvered as quickly as possible along the narrow ledge, eased himself downward to the next ledge, and scampered down the tuff slope at a quickened pace to the canyon floor as the elements converged, knocking him over to the sandy bottom. He couldn’t rest; he had to move. W.I.B. could easily streak to his left to the more benign, less hazardous position from whence he came. But as he’d written to his dearest Carolyn, he was driven despite that canyon, a piece of unknown territory on which he’d never before set foot; indeed, and again, that same terrain upon which his five 1952 companions had ventured and disappeared, and whom W.I.B. never saw again. His memory consumed him as he eyed the quarter mile distance across that nameless, unnerving canyon and the ominous, jagged rock wall beyond. He only wondered if he would suffer the emotional pain over another two decades into the future if he didn’t go.

He had to go!

Mustering all that was left in him, W.I.B. took off on a sprint across the canyon floor toward that dark, foreboding wall—a gauntlet saturated with rocks and boulders; needled, mephitic cactus plants, sage, and the relentless aggression of the Thunder God that roared its disapproval.

W.I.B. ran for his life!

Nearly breathless, he jumped back seeing a headless skeleton in his path. A ten-foot, sandy tornado came out of nowhere, knocking him to the canyon floor; he covered his face and eyes, squirming, crying out as he maneuvered to a boulder that broke up the mini-tornado, and there his weary eyes saw half a rib cage, and a skeletal arm attached to a boney hand with only one finger.

Hell on earth!

Looking away, his eyes just as suddenly fixed on something else seen through a narrow opening in the canyon beyond: It was the tip and two sides of a towering, bold spire; indeed, mountainous peak far, far away at a lower elevation. W.I.B. recognized it and knew its name, gazing at it for as long as he could, but whatever or whoever was in that Godforsaken place had other intentions.

The winds swirled and kicked up more sand into his face! Frantic and nearly unable to breathe, he brought a section of his smudged shirt to his mouth and nose, got to his feet, his mouth dry, his lungs wheezing and starving for air, and dashed forward toward the canyon wall, the driving winds whipping him from side-to-side, causing him to fall once more. Near exhaustion, literally drowning in wind and sand, W.I.B. bravely got back onto his wobbly legs, recovering, finally making it to the toothy, rough mountain wall where he collapsed to his knees, and fell against the mountain, panting feverishly, begging for oxygen to fill his laboring lungs.

A wasted man, he silently wished and prayed for a way out.

The elements began to simmer but hell—they were just waiting for the uninvited intruder to dare continue. W.I.B. removed his canteen and poured one gulp of water into his drying mouth, swished it around to loosen the sand then spit out the liquid; he repeated the exercise, though there were still several grains of sand inside; he could feel the undesirable grit on his teeth. He gathered some saliva and spit out what he could. After taking in a few more swallows of water, he replaced the canteen and zipped the backpack closed. Leaning back, he finally caught his breath, and found his bearings. Soon his eyes began to search for the surest flight to freedom.

Behind him and to his right, there seemed as if there was a way out, again in the direction from which he’d come hours earlier.

One last chance? He contemplated.

Was the Thunder God giving him one last opportunity to choose life before imminent death? Likewise again, could he live with such a decision having come so far and been through so much hell to turn back?

Eight-to-ten feet to his left he spotted a furrow along the wall and quickly dashed to it, crouching. It was the shape of a half-moon; he settled in and removed his backpack, unzipping it.

He rested, gathering his breath and his decision.

W.I.B. repositioned and removed the cloth bag, withdrawing the parchment map. He checked his drawings, his current position, and once again gazed in the direction of Weavers Needle, the bold peak he’d spotted in the far distance, but he couldn’t see it. On the map, he made another symbolic notation—a distinctive arrow pointing in a particular direction—approximately at the position in the canyon where he’d seen the peak, jotting ‘Needle’ on the parchment then prudently folded the map, placed it carefully it back into the bag, back into his coveted satchel, and back into the backpack. That routine was such that he could almost do it without looking despite the Thunder God’s alternating wrath. Though meticulously deliberate, perhaps W.I.B. was merely procrastinating, biding time, afraid of his next move.

Nonetheless beleaguered and fearful, W.I.B. was committed. He waited, listening to the portentous elements surrounding him, gearing up for another brazen, foolish, and potentially life ending ploy.

I miss you so. He softly whimpered, thinking of his Carolyn and his children.

After slipping the backpack on, he very slowly eased out from the half-moon furrow and began to move just as slowly along the wall, but the Thunder God woke, apparently, with either 20–20 vision or an uncanny sense of motion, and gave free rein to its wrath, chasing him without mercy for, at least, 200 feet until his eyes widened, and a petrifying dread gripped him like the unrelenting jaws of a chaser hyena!

He stopped! What he saw chilled his bones!

The canyon floor literally open up! It must have dipped a good ninety-to-a-hundred feet down to a mass of rocks. Then, to W.I.B.’s eyes and mind, it changed!

At the bottom of that sheer concavity was what, suddenly, looked like a 60-foot wide and nearly perfectly round hole in the earth that went downward into to nothing but blackness—bottomless, resembling a vertical cave!

In his delirium, he wasn’t sure if he saw it; was it a phantasm? To his eyes and mind, it was crystal clear then gone! It was open then closed as if a mouth opening and closing eager to chew up whatever dropped into it. W.I.B. frantically, insanely, backed up against the jagged wall of the mountain; his breathing was rapid, his eyes widened then shut, his mind played games and the Thunder God roared!

There wasn’t a hell of a lot of space, perhaps four-to-five feet, between the wall and the edge of that long, deep, dark drop. The Thunder God’s reviling winds attempted to push him away from the wall to easily blow him over the edge like a dead fly on a tabletop. W.I.B. waited; he had no plan, only fear, feeling drawn to that rocky-bottom drop, or that ugly, dark, bottomless pit, hungry for him. Whatever it was, the feeling of icy thorns shot through his body, discouraging him, detaching him from his driven mindset. It was as if the Thunder God was daring him to confront that drop, that illusionary bottomless colliery, drawing him in for a mouthful, to swallow him whole.

His eyes went to his left, seeing some kind of shelf that appeared low enough upon which to simply hop onto, but it was, at least, another 50 or 60 feet away. He pondered; he listened to the current patience of the winds and snarling thunder as wispy, charcoal-gray clouds swirled above. What the hell was the Thunder God waiting for, to feed him to that monster black hole?

The rusty-colored wall against which he was clinging had a clearly serrated finish though offered sharp protrusions that could be gripped. He wasn’t going to look at that goddamn cavity in the earth. His sanity nearly wiped, his next deliberate move had to be now or forever lost.

Finally turning his back to the sheer drop, with both hands he found his first firm grasp along the wall. The elements stirred and wound up. The Thunder God wanted him gone!

It took a bit of time, but W.I.B. clung to the mountain’s wall, ignoring the lacerations his hands and arms incurred while fighting the poking, prodding winds, small falling