Secrets: The Truth is Slowly Revealed - 10. Chapter 10 S1

Chapter 10 – A Hell of a Tale

After we finished eating lunch at the dining hall, we headed over to the building where we were supposed to pick up our student IDs. As soon as we had them, we walked back to the house to get the SUV before we headed to the campus bookstore to buy our textbooks. We decided to do this because we didn’t want to have to carry a heavy load of books back to the house after we purchased them.

Not only that, but we were buying our books now because we wanted to get an early start on our coursework, since the syllabus for each of our courses was online. I had difficulty believing the college still used hard copies of the textbooks, instead of going to e-books, but I was told the other materials would be online. In addition to the syllabus, our homework and quizzes would all be on a hidden platform online behind a pay-wall that will expire when the semester ends. I guess this means the University is moving in the right direction, even if they are doing so slowly.

While we were at the bookstore, we also picked up a few other items that we needed, and after we had everything we dropped it all in the SUV before heading back to our room to grab our luggage. As soon as we loaded those items into the SUV, we started the trip back to my house. I could hardly wait until we got out of the city so I could hear Devin’s explanation for why he said he didn’t have very much to do with the financial aid representative.

As soon as we were on the highway, I looked over at Devin and waited for him to speak. When he didn’t say anything right away, I asked the question I was dying for him to answer.

“Ok, why didn’t you have to do much with the financial aid rep? Every freshman had to make sure their grants and scholarship money arrived, along with the student loans they’d taken out, because they needed to know how much their parents still had to pay. If that isn’t taken care of by the time classes begin, then they won’t be allowed to attend classes, so how come you didn’t have to do those things?”

“I have a confession to make. I only had to worry about the grant money, because I didn’t apply for any scholarships and I didn’t have to take out any loans. My dad and grandfathers are paying for everything else.”

“What? How can they afford to do that?”

“It’s another thing I should explain to you. They’d set money aside for my education and they’re using some of it now so I don’t have to take out any student loans.”

“Your family is that rich?”

“Kinda, but it’s a long story.”

“And it’s a long ride back to my house, so start talking.”

“Ok, if you insist. Have you ever heard of the Lost Dutchman Mine?”

“Yeah, it’s a legend about a lost gold mine somewhere in the southwest United States, but what does it have to do with your family?”

“That’s where my great-grandfather got some of his money.”

“You’re shittin’ me, right? No one’s ever found that mine.”

“That’s what everyone believes, but if you’re willing to listen then I’ll tell you the real story.”

“Ok, I’m listening.”

“After the shaman performed the rituals on Grandpa Isaac, he was hesitant about returning home. That’s because he was afraid he’d accidentally transition in front of them and then they’d all think he was a freak. For that reason, he looked for something else he could do and eventually he got a job as a trail hand for one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas. As a trail hand he was part of the group that drove the cattle up the Chisholm Trail.”

“You mean he was a real-life cowboy?”

“Yes, and every year they would drive a herd of around 3,000 steers from the ranch to be sold in Kansas.”

“Wow that must have been exciting.”

“Nah, he said it was really hard work and could be very dangerous as well, so it wasn’t nearly as exciting as some people want us to believe. Grandpa Isaac explained that the herds might stampede at any time or they could be attacked by a gang of cattle rustlers or a tribe of Native Americans along the way.”

“I never thought about those things, so I guess it could be dangerous. How long after he became a skinwalker before he started doing that?”

“Grandpa Isaac finished his training as a skinwalker in 1866, but he lived with the Navajos until 1868 before he went to look for a job.”

“How did he end up becoming a cowboy then?”

“He was looking for a job when he ran across a herd of cattle being driven north, and since they were shorthanded and didn’t have enough trail hands, he said the trail boss hired him on the spot. A few years later he was promoted to ramrod, or trail boss, and he did that job until 1884, because that’s when they stopped driving herds up the Chisholm Trail.”

“Why did they stop doing that?”

“They stopped for a couple of reasons. One was that the farmers along the Chisholm Trail had started putting up barbed wire fences to protect their crops, and this posed a threat to the cattle. The steers would get cut up quite badly when they got entangled in the fences, so the trail hands started cutting the fences down. This led to gun fights between the farmers and the cattlemen and the situation was very tense. The farmers wanted to protect their crops, but with the fences all along the route, the trail hands were unable to continue taking the herd north.”

“Damn, I didn’t know it got that bad.”

“Yes, it did, and the other reason was that in 1885 Kansas passed a quarantine law because some of the herds were infected with what they called ‘Texas Fever’. Grandpa Isaac said that disease was caused by parasitic protozoa that were carried by ticks and caused many problems with the cattle. This included high fever, emaciation, anemia, and bloody urine, but the reason for the quarantine was that the ticks tended to drop off the cattle and then spread the disease to other animals.”

“How did they get rid of the Texas Fever then?”

“For one thing, the ticks would die off during the colder weather up north, and the cattlemen also learned how to kill the ticks by using a process called ‘cattle dipping’. The cattle would be immersed in a solution of various chemical that were meant to destroy the parasites infesting the cattle’s skin without harming the cattle.”

“Did they start driving the cattle again after that?”

“No, because by the mid to late 1880s the railroad lines had made it cost effective for the ranchers to ship the cattle to market by rail.”

“What did Grandpa Isaac do after that?”

“He told me that before he left on his last cattle drive, the owner of the ranch had offered him the job of ranch foreman when he returned, which was a much better job.”

“Ok, so when did he find The Lost Dutchman Mine then?”

“That wasn’t until a few years later, after Joseph Waltz, the guy who became famous for the Lost Dutchman mine, had died. Grandpa Isaac started hearing stories about the mine in the late 1890s, and by 1908 he had saved up enough of his money working as ramrod and ranch foreman so he was able to quit his job and go looking for the mine.”

“Ok, but he only heard about the mine and hadn’t found it yet, right?”

“Not initially, but he’d heard the mine was supposed to contain a great deal of gold and that really interested him. He’d also heard that the people who’d tried to find the mine had either perished or gone broke in the effort, so he did what he could to avoid those outcomes. He believed his long life expectancy, as well as his recently acquired ability, would give him an advantage the others didn’t have.”

“So he actually found it?”

“Yes, Grandpa Isaac found it.”

“How did he do it when no one else was able to?”

“Let me explain some of the history of the Lost Dutchman Mine first. Grandpa Isaac discovered that in the 1840s the Peralta family of northern Mexico had supposedly developed a very rich gold mine in the Superstition Mountains, which are now in Arizona. On their last expedition to the mine in 1848, they were ambushed by a large party of Apaches while transporting the gold back to Mexico. All but two of the Peraltas were killed in an area that is now commonly referred to as the Massacre Grounds, and those who managed to escape returned to their homes in Mexico.”

“So, did they tell others where the mine was located?”

“Only some of their relatives knew about the mine, but other people may have known about it and even worked in the mine with the Peraltas before then. The reason no one every found it was because something always happened to those people whenever they tried to go back to the mine, or even when they were merely trying to file a claim on the land. These events only helped to make the legend of the lost mine grow even more.”

“What kinds of things happened to the people who tried to go back to the mine?”

“Grandpa Isaac learned that many of them were attacked and killed by the Apaches that lived in the area, while others died in accidents or other causes. This included such things as falling down the mountainside where they either died instantly or as a result of their injuries. Others had fatal run-ins with the wild animals that roamed the area or they merely died of exposure or dehydration.”

“So, how did your Grandpa Isaac avoid those problems?”

“He did it by using his newly acquired ability and transitioned into a bear before he began looking for the mine. Being a bear gave him better stability as he roamed the mountains, since he was moving around on four limbs, instead of two. It also allowed him to move about in the mountains without drawing as much attention as he would have as a man, and his appearance as a bear was intimidating to other animals and caused them to stay away as well. These advantages allowed him to search for the mine, along with searching the various caves and other hiding places where the gold might have been stored.”

“Wait! The gold was stored in other places too?”

“That’s what he had heard, so I guess I’d better go back and fill you in about more of the history of the mine. In the 1870s, a German miner named Jacob Waltz rediscovered the Peraltas mine, but he only did it with the help of the Peralta descendants. Since he was German, he was often referred to as the Deutsch man, or German man, but many people misunderstood the term and began calling him the Dutchman, and that led to the name of the mine.”

“Oh, so that’s how the mine got its name.”

“Yes, and over a lengthy period of time, Jacob Waltz and his partner began removing a considerable amount of gold from the mine. His partner’s name was either Jacob Weiser or Wisner, although no one can say for certain which one. It was said the pair had hidden large caches of gold in a number of nearby caves and other hiding places throughout the Superstition Mountains before Weiser was killed.”

“Who killed him?”

“It was either the Apaches or possibly even Waltz.”

“You mean Waltz might have killed his own partner?”

“Yes, greed can be a powerful motivator, because once Weiser was dead all of the gold belonged to Waltz. Waltz died in 1891, but just before he passed away he described the location of the mine to Julia Thomas, a neighbor who had helped to take care of him before his death. After Waltz died, she sold everything she owned in an attempt to find the mine, but she lost everything in the attempt.”

“Then how did Grandpa Isaac find it?”

“Like I said, he transitioned into a bear so he could search for the mine, even though he knew he ran the risk of being killed by hunters while in the form of a bear.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like he would have faced an even greater risk of being killed or dying if he was still in his human form. In addition to the other things, he could have been killed if the mine collapsed on him or he was trapped in there with no way to escape.”

“That’s very true, but he was only mildly worried about the mine collapsing on him. As a bear, he would be better able to withstand something like that happening than he would have as a human, because of the bear’s build and strength. He wasn’t worried about becoming trapped either, since he could always transition into a smaller animal, like a mouse or a snake, and escape through an opening that a human couldn’t get through. He could have even transitioned into one of the animals that could dig its way out, like an aardvark or a gopher, and then escape that way.”

“Oh, I never thought about those things.”

“After a few years of roaming across the mountains, he eventually located the mine, and by 1914 he’d also located a couple of the other hiding places where the gold had been stored. After that, he just had to find a way to remove the gold without anyone else seeing what he was doing. After thinking about the problem for a long time, he finally figured out a solution, so now he only had to complete the various preparations so he could do it.”

“What was he going to do?”

“He felt his best chance of taking the gold out was if he did it as a bear, but a bear wouldn’t very well be able to carry the gold out, so he devised a way that the bear could transport the gold. He went back to his camp and cut up the bear hide he’d used when learning how to transition into a bear, as well as to keep warm on cold nights. He then cut it up and made a large backpack out of it that would cover his back and both sides, along with straps to help him keep it on. He double and triple stitched everything to account for the weight he’d have to carry and he also made certain it would blend in with the bear’s body when he transitioned into the bear. Once he did that, he was ready to make his first attempt.”

“So, how was he going to put a backpack on a bear?”

“As soon as he was ready to make his first attempt, he undressed in a remote area and slid his arms through the straps on the backpack he’d made from the bear hide, and then he transitioned into a bear. That way, the backpack was on the bear and merely looked like part of its body.”

“Wow that was really clever of him.”

“Yes, it was, and then when he got to where he was going he would transition back into his human form so he could place the gold into the backpack. He would lean it against something while he was filling it with the gold, and after it was full he would reverse the process and carry the gold from its hiding place. He did this to retrieve the gold from one of the hidden caches first and loaded the backpack up with the gold bars that had been stored there. Once the backpack was full, he changed into the bear again and carried the gold out of there.”

“Wouldn’t the gold be really heavy?”

“Yes, it was, but another advantage of doing it as a bear was that the bear was able to carry much more weight than he could as a man, even if he used a mule or a horse to transport it. Over time, he not only found some of the other caches, but he located the mine as well, and during his many trips he was able to remove a large quantity of gold bars and gold nuggets.”

“Where did the gold bars come from and what did he do with the gold nuggets? I know it takes a very high heat to melt the nuggets down to extract the gold?”

“The bars were most likely produced by the Peraltas to make the gold easier to transport, since gold bars would take up less space. The nuggets are irregular in shape and they would have had to make more trips back and forth than if they carried the same amount of gold out in bars.”

“Wasn’t he worried that they’d cheat him or just steal his gold?”

“Yes, so he needed to find reputable organizations to do it for him. In the meantime, Grandpa Isaac became aware of a lawyer practicing in Albuquerque who was also a Navajo and he hired that lawyer to negotiate the sale of the gold bars to the Denver mint. Since the lawyer presented himself as a representative of both the Apache and Navajo tribes and stated the gold had been found on their land, no taxes were due.”

“I’ll bet that saved him a lot of money.”

“Yes, it did, and Grandpa Isaac donated ten percent of what he received from the sale of the gold to each tribe, which pleased the tribal leaders greatly. For that reason, neither tribe ever questioned where the money came from. The lawyer merely told them it was a portion of the proceeds from a shrewd business transaction his client had made and he was willing to share it with his adoptive tribe, as well as the Navajo’s cousins, the Apache. What Grandpa Isaac didn’t share with any of them was that he suspected the mine may have actually been on Apache land, although he wasn’t certain. He also paid ten percent to the lawyer for his assistance, so everyone was happy.”

“Yes, I’m sure they would be.”

“When the Denver mint had all the gold they needed, that mint served as an intermediary so they could sell the excess gold to the San Francisco and Philadelphia mints.”

“Did they use it to make gold coins?”

“Yes, they did, and once all of the gold bars were sold, it was time to deal with selling the nuggets. Due to the high quality of the nuggets, the lawyer was able to sell a portion of the nuggets to the mints as well. However, starting in 1921 he was also able to arrange a deal with the newly established Newmont Corporation in Greenwood Village, Colorado. It had its own mining operation, but since the nuggets were of such high quality, they were eager to buy them. Whenever they asked the lawyer where the nuggets came from, he would merely told them the nuggets came from reservation land.”

“What did Grandpa Isaac do with all of his money?”

“Since he didn’t trust banks, due to the high number of robberies at that time, he had his lawyer hold some of the money for him in the safe in his office.”

“Wasn’t he worried that safe would get robbed?”

“No, since the lawyer wasn’t known to hold very much money in the safe. It was mostly a secure place to keep the legal documents of cases he was working on at the time.”

“Ok, that makes sense.”

“As soon as Grandpa Isaac had enough money and was ready to settle down, he used a portion of the money to purchase the house in Fort Collins. He also bought a medium-size safe for the house that he claimed was to keep his personal documents, such as the deed to the house and his will, along with various business papers. Seeing he claimed that he was partial owner in several businesses, which wasn’t true, he claimed to store the partnership agreements in the safe as well. This gave him cover for why he needed a safe, but in addition to the legal documents, he stored cash in the safe as well.”

“Does he still do that?”

“No, he stopped storing his cash there in late 1935 and started keeping it in bank accounts instead. By that time he felt it was safer to use the banks, since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had been established and the limits had been increased to $5,000. He chose several large, well-established banks in the Denver and Fort Collins areas and opened accounts with $5,000 in each one.”

“Is he still doing that?”

“No, it was during the 1950s when he started withdrawing the money from the banks and investing it in stocks instead. He invested in companies like IBM, GE, Ford, and General Motors at first. Then, in the 1980s Grandpa Jacob convinced him to start selling those stocks and investing in different stocks, such as Microsoft, Intel, Hasbro, and Amazon, along with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway instead.”

“Damn, it’s almost as if they had a crystal ball.”

“No, they just did their research, and my dad has been helping with that since he graduated from college. And before they disappear and fake their deaths, they will put their money, stocks, and other assets that are in their names into a trust for the various younger family members. They will start doing that with me too, as soon as I turn twenty-one, and that’s how they’ve managed over time to create a considerable fortune.”

“So he doesn’t keep any money in the safe now.”

“He still has some money in there, mostly $50 and $100 bills for emergencies, but he also has a few $500, $1,000, and $10,000 bills in there as well.”

“Are they even legal?”

“Yes. Even though they stopped printing those denominations in 1969, you can still use them as legal tender. However, you can usually find buyers that are willing to pay even more than face value for them as collector items.”

“Wow, I didn’t know they knew how to do all of those things.”

“Grandpa Isaac was the one who handled the finances and he initially did the research before purchasing the stocks. However, it was Grandpa Jacob who talked Grandpa Isaac into selling the older stocks and investing in the newer companies.”

“How did Grandpa Jacob know about that stuff?”

“He graduated from CSU in the 1960s with a degree in geology and a minor in finance.”

“Ah, no wonder he knew about those things. I’m impressed.”

“Yes, they’ve done very well.”

“So, Grandpa Isaac just got the gold nuggets and gold bars from the Lost Dutchman Mine and other hiding places?”

“No, he actually discovered much more than just those things. You see, the Superstition Mountains cover an area of nearly 250 square miles (just under 402 square kilometers), and he searched every cave, nook, and cranny where valuables might be hidden. In one of those places, he discovered bags filled with $20 and $10 gold coins, along with even more silver dollars and other objects made of gold.”

“Wait! Where did those things come from?”

“Grandpa Isaac had a couple of different theories about that. The coins all had dates between 1839 and 1860 on them, so one theory was that Waltz and Weiser got gold coins when they sold the nuggets and then they stored the coins in another location. As far as the other items were concerned, Grandpa Isaac theorized that Waltz and Weiser might have bartered for those things or bought them outright with the money they’d received. They figured Waltz probably stored them there after Weiser’s death.”

“What kind of items are you talking about?”

“They were mostly things made out of gold, such as candle holders, rings, jewelry, crucifixes, and watches, but there were some items made of silver as well.”

“Ok, so those guys might have exchanged the nuggets for some gold coins, and possibly even some silver dollars as well. They might have even had the nuggets made into some of the gold items or traded the nuggets for a few silver items, but why did they hide everything away.”

“They were probably worried that if they kept them in their homes that they would get robbed. They probably also thought the places they were storing them were safer than nearly anywhere else, so they’d leave them there until they were needed. However, Grandpa Isaac came up with a couple of other theories about how the coins and other objects got there. He thought those items might have been stolen by a gang of bank or stagecoach robbers, but they were apparently killed or caught and hanged before they could return to retrieve everything. Another theory was that those items might have been part of the Confederate Treasury and they were removed from Richmond prior to the end of the Civil War.”

“Ok, I can understand the idea about the robbers, but I can’t see how the money from the Confederate Treasury would have ended up in Arizona.”

“My grandfathers had heard stories that some of those sympathetic to the Confederate cause were hiding money so they could use it later, when they could reform the Confederacy. They were planning to do it in areas outside of the United States, and this was a plan put forward by a group called The Knights of the Golden Circle, or the KGC. This group hoped to buy up large parcels of land in Mexico and Central and South America and then form their own country. They felt it was the best way to make slavery legal again, at least in those areas, and then they could perpetuate their former way of life again.”

“I guess that might make sense after all. Did Grandpa Isaac also put the gold coins and silver dollars in his accounts?”

“No, over the years he sold many of the coins to collectors through advertisements in newspapers or at auctions. However, with the passage of the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, the situation changed significantly and private ownership of gold became illegal. This affected both individuals and most businesses, and it included the ownership of gold coins as well. Fortunately, Grandpa Isaac had sold off all of the gold bars and nuggets by the start of 1929 and all he had left were a portion of the gold coins and silver dollars.”

“So, how was he able to keep the gold coins?”

“He felt the law was unconstitutional and would eventually be repealed, so he hid the remaining gold coins until that happened.”

“Where did he hide them?”

“When Grandpa Isaac first bought the house in Fort Collins, he used the fire places to heat the house, that’s why you see so many of them throughout the house. However, in 1940 he decided to put in coal-fired central heating. This meant he had to section off part of the cellar, or basement, to form a coal bin where the coal would be stored until it was needed. The coal bin would have a cinderblock wall separating it from the rest of the basement, as well as an opening that could be temporarily blocked off using wood slates until the coal was needed.”

“Is that still down there?”

“Yes, you must not have noticed when I gave you a tour of the house. Anyway, when he was building the coal bin, he also constructed a small cinderblock storage area on the outside of the cinderblock walls where he stored the wood slats and coal shovel when they weren’t in use. He built the storage area so it had a false wooden bottom under which he hid the bags of gold coins that he hadn’t sold.”

“Clever, so was he ever able to sell them again?”

“Yes, the Gold Reserve Act was repealed by an Act of Congress on December 31, 1974, when President Gerald Ford was president. As soon as that happened, Grandpa Isaac became a coin dealer so he’d be able to begin selling the coins again. He has another business called Hidden Treasure Coin Dealers, which he had before he started the business that you know about, and he was able to start selling the coins again. He only offers a limited number of gold coins and silver dollars to coin collectors each year and he’s able to sell them for considerably more than face value of the coins to the collectors.”

“Ok, that’s smart, but didn’t you say there were other items in with the coins? Where did those things come from? They wouldn’t have kept objects made from gold and silver in the Confederate treasury, would they?”

“Yes, they might have. Those things could have come from the homes of wealthy Confederate leaders and plantation owners who were trying to hide them from the Union Army.”

“Ok, I guess that’s possible too. Was there anything else?”

“Yes, he found another cave with a lot more gold items in it, but they didn’t look like anything that Waltz, Weiser, or a wealthy southerner might have owned. These objects included unusual golden heads, some with squarish or elongated faces that were making strange expressions, and they were wearing unusual looking headdresses as well. They also found a round disk with a round face with triangles extending from its head with the pointed ends facing outward, and he learned later that this was a tribute to a sun god.”

“So, the gold was all in the shape of heads, even if it was on a disk?”

“No, there were also golden figures of animals, such as turtles, lizards, and jaguars, along with some eagles’ heads. There was also a jade serpent or a dragon with two heads, one at either end of its elongated body. There were also some unusual pieces of jewelry such as necklaces and bracelets consisting of objects that looked like a series of tiny frogs, while others appeared as if they contained animal’s teeth, but they were all made out of gold. After Grandpa Isaac compared these objects to a variety of photos and drawings he found in archeology and history textbooks, he decided they were probably part of Montezuma’s lost treasure.”

“Wait! Do you mean the Aztec ruler?”

“Yes. It was said that Montezuma had ordered many of his treasures moved from Mexico in order to keep them from falling into the hands of the Spanish Conquistadors. It was said that Montezuma sent them to the areas that are now in Utah and Arizona, because those locales were supposedly the ancient homeland of the Aztecs.”

“Ok, it seems a little far fetched, but I guess I can see that as well, so what did Grandpa Isaac do with those things?”

“In the early 1920s he had a brochure printed depicting the various items, and then he sent the brochures to Universities, museums, and wealthy private collectors in the US, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Whatever he didn’t sell to those buyers, he placed in separate ads in various newspapers around the country and the world describing the items and stating they would be sold at auction. The auction was conducted at Samuel T. Freeman & Co. in Philadelphia in 1927, and in the end my grandfather converted all of those items into cash as well.”

“So, by doing all of those things it gave your grandfathers enough money to live on and pay for your college tuition as well?”

“Yes, although they’ve worked other jobs to support themselves as well. Grandpa Isaac also paid for Grandpa Jacob and my dad to go to college, and there’s still enough money left over for my future son to go to college, and who knows how many more.”

“What did your dad major in, since you said Grandpa Jacob majored in geology with a minor in finance?”

“Grandpa Jacob majored in geology because he felt it might help them find even more gold, as well as helping with the new business they were establishing. My dad majored in accounting and business administration and was the manager of the accounting department for the company he worked for when we still lived in Jamesville.”

“Did your dad major in those things so he could help to keep track of the family’s money too?”

“Yes, I suppose he did, because he helps them with their accounting and filing taxes for the family business, as well as working as a CPA.”

“Wow, it sounds as if they know what they’re doing and it’s obviously working out well for them. I’m glad they were able to pay for your college expenses so you didn’t have to take out any loans.”

“And if we get married, don’t be surprised if they offer to pay off your school loans as well.”

“Really? That would be awesome.”

“I have no doubt they’ll do it. They already like you, and if we’re married then you would also be part of the family and they wouldn’t mind sharing what they have with you too.”

“That’s a perk I didn’t expect.”

“Just don’t say anything about it to anyone, not even your parents.”

“Ok, I won’t.”