It’s
not like I was expecting lush green grass, but I figured it would at
least be a bit more colorful than the drab yellowish brown that crunched
beneath our feet. Oh well. I suppose I can’t demand much from a warm
September afternoon in Wyoming. It’s not like the area was known for its
rolling emerald hills. But Tolkien did me a disservice. I really
believed that adventures involving treasure and tumult were supposed to
begin with vibrant green grass before plunging its heroes into a world
of ominously dead weeds and bison skulls (the former of which stretched
out as far as the eye can see and the latter was scattered about here
and there to ensure that we never quite felt safe).
But
trepidatious or not, Jac and I were treasure hunters now and we
couldn’t turn back! I mean, three million dollars of gold and jewels
awaited us at the end of our journey. So we pressed onward.
It
may be advantageous to the story that I inform you of our present
predicament. You see, we had no provisions and our only form of
communication with the outside world was the heartiest screams or shouts
we could muster, since our phones had been long dead. But by now, we
were roughly three miles from the trail head (a term used here loosely
as a formal trailhead was nowhere to be found) and Jac was patiently
following my lead into the great unknown.
Now you
may need to know that I am not really keen on being gored, trampled, or
eaten. So when Jaclyn and I happened upon a herd of roughly fifty
American bison, I was decidedly unwilling to barrel through them. Jaclyn
disagreed.
But, being the heroic fellow that I am,
I insisted that it was far too scary to continue until they’d moved on,
so we stood perfectly still for two and a half hours. Jaclyn tried
several times to move forward, but I was unwilling to die. So we
remained in the same place. Some more.
But these
bison weren’t ready to move along. A couple groups of adolescent calves
were butting horns and grunting rather aggressively at one another, a
few babies were suckling the teets of their mamas, and the largest,
scariest two of the bunch took turns lying down and standing in our way,
staring us down. Oh and a few were making new calves.
Anyway,
after a while, we saw a man approaching from beyond the herd and so we
left the beaten path and walked about a mile out of the way and further
into the wilderness of the prairie. It was sunny, so it wasn’t so bad,
but we were a little wet, having just endured a flash rain. Oh well. We
pressed on.
Another two hours passed as we hiked,
eager to arrive at our eventual destination, a creek where I believed
the treasure to be hidden. We made it to find a couple of people making
their way back toward civilization, and we began surveying the area for
the right hiding spot.
The clues were all there. We
needed some waist-high water - we had it. We needed some old burnt wood
- we had it. We even had a rainbow, resting in a spot marked by a
naturally formed X. We were confident we’d found the right spot.
I
began digging in the wood and water for clues and hints to the exact
whereabouts of the treasure, but to no avail. It was deeper. And Jaclyn
wasn’t going to let me walk away from this adventure without checking as
thoroughly as possible.
She urged me to disrobe
and hop in. So after a bit of protesting, I conceded and took off my
clothes. The water was cold. And worse - slimy. But that’s alright. I
was there for $3,000,000. Trouble was that the $3,000,000 wasn’t there
for me.
Defeated, but oddly satisfied, I hopped out
of the freezing creek and put my clothes back on. It was time to head
back. Besides, the sky wasn’t blue anymore. Instead, it was painted with
beautiful pink and orange strokes, but the beauty also meant danger. We
were no less than eight miles deep into the wilderness with no
provisions in the middle of grizzly country. So we started hiking.
But
the trail wasn’t so easy to find this time around. It had been obscured
by several herds of bison and our own inability to navigate a prairie.
Still, we marched onward.
But it wouldn’t be a safe
journey back. Or a dry one. The rains came again! This time with a
vengeance. And being later in the day, it was much colder than before.
We hunched and kept trekking, soaking wet now. We made it about a half
mile and the rains stopped. Relieved, we smiled. But Mother Nature is a
cruel prankster.
The rains subsided only to make
way for the hailstorm that followed. Tiny pellets of ice beat down on
us. And then they got bigger. A year later and I can still feel the
bruises on my ears. We ran for cover, but no cover would be found. So we
prayed.
Finally, we spotted a meager tree in the
distance. It was off the trail (if such a thing even existed anymore),
but we needed to find shelter. We made a run for it, our socks soggy and
wet, sloshing with rain water and our feet blistering.
The
tree wasn’t much help. It was small, and with autumn in full swing,
what few leaves it might’ve had just a few weeks earlier had long since
fallen. We held one another, praying. I tried to shield my bride from
the elements, cradling her head under my body.
Then
she began to panic and flail. She was under attack! Suddenly, I watched
as her leg swiftly accelerated upward, punting a baby bird. It must’ve
been seeking shelter in her pants. It wasn’t too injured, but it was
certainly not pleased with her unwillingness to share, so it five bombed
her, hitting her hair before flying off into the storm. After a half
hour or so, the hail subsided, and we were back on our way, the sky a
dim, dark gray now.
We hadn’t taken more than five
steps when Mother Nature decided to prank us again. CRAKOOWWW!!! A huge
burst of lightning rocketed to the ground ten feet from us. Our hearts
pounded. CRAKOOWWW!!! Another bolt. We crouched and started running.
To
our left, we saw the agitated bison making their way to us again. In
the distance, the sounds of howling wolves and rolling thunder. We were
stranded and lost at six thousand feet and seven miles from the road. We
ran.
CRAKOOWWW!!!
Our panting
must’ve seemed so loud to anything out there. But it was getting dark,
and we were certain that this was our last night together alive.
We
made it to an embankment. It was muddy, but we remembered coming down
it on the way to the treasure (which we hadn’t found). It was the first
semblance of a land marker we’d seen in some time, so we knew generally
where we were.
CRAKOOWWW!!!
We
were in Death Gulch. And the bison skull and grizzly paw prints we
almost tripped on didn’t give us any ease. We started up the embankment.
But it was loose mud and wouldn’t hold us. We trigger a mudslide
(unintentionally of course). Jaclyn was whisked away by it, falling
fast.
I quickly grabbed for a root protruding from
the ground and latched on with my right hand as I grabbed my bride’s
wrist with my left. I may have hurt her arm a little, but I had to save
her life. Rocks and mud and water poured over my body as I strained with
all my might, praying the root wouldn’t snap. A quick rush of
adrenaline allowed me to push my darling up the embankment to safety and
then she helped me up. By now we were bruised and muddy and soaking
wet, but to good news was that it was almost dark and we were six miles
from the car.
We pressed on, Jac following my lead.
I held her close. Her sock had long ago slipped off her foot and was
eroding her skin from inside her boot. But we had no time to stop and
fix it. We had to press on.
Night fell and we were
still a long way from the car, but by 11:00PM, we finally made it back.
Unwilling to ride in wet clothes, we disrobed and hopped in, ready to
get to the hotel only five miles away.
Except that
five miles was an exaggeration and the nearest hotel in that direction
was ninety miles away. So we drove. We drove into the night. Into the
fog. Around the mountain. Through construction. Around a porcupine.
Going 5 MPH at some points and 35 MPH at others. And finally, after
hours of exhaustion and defeat, we arrived at a hotel and I walked in (I
had eventually put on some clothes).
Inside, I
asked for a room, my eyes bloodshot and my face weary. And then a
cockatiel attacked me! For whatever reason, it hated me that night.
First, it swooped down and attacked my head, then it circled back around
and started violently pecking my bare feet (okay, I was wearing flip
flops). What could I do?! I dodged and evaded (unsuccessfully), but I
came away battle scarred. Still, at the end of the day, we were officially treasure hunters. We weren't treasure finders, but we were treasure hunters. And I had a room key.
We showered. We ordered food. We passed out. And that’s just one reason
