National Treasure

Into the West

Chapter 20: The Heart of the Serpent

The night air had gotten cold by the time Abigail, Riley and the others reached the end of the dirt road leading west into the desert. The truck came to a stop at the end of the road, near a line of small bushes and trees alongside the path. Tyler and Armando stepped out first, flashlights dimly in hand. As Armando pointed out to Tyler where the river was, the others got ready for the rocky hike. In the truck, Emily and Abigail found some of their own clothing they could lend to Anita and Josephine to protect them from the cold. The darkness beckoned them to do so, as nothing but darkness could be seen for miles and miles. The crescent moon did, however provide enough moonlight to illuminate parts of a natural landmark which was among one of the greatest natural wonders in the world; The Grand Canyon.

"I don't see it." Riley stated, looking out into the darkness.

"It's pitch black out, Riley." Patrick stammered, pulling a sweater over his head. "Of course you can't see it."

"No, it's just that I've heard that it's really cool to see it by Moonlight."

"That's probably when closer to it." Patrick responded. "And on a night with a full moon."

Riley nodded in agreement as he replaced his canvas sneakers with hiking boots. Patrick had done the same moments before, and was now digging around in the back for his battery lantern. As he looked, he noticed Riley acting rather peculiar, more than usual. "Riley?"

"Yeah?"

"You're not scared of the dark, are you?"

"No." He said through his teeth. Patrick chuckled with a playful sense of humor as he continued to look for his lantern.

"I'm not!" Riley insisted. "I'm not afraid of the dark. It's nature that I can't stand."

"What's wrong with nature?" Anita cried from the middle seats.

"Nothing's wrong with it when you can see it-"

"So it is the dark." Anita said, calling him out on the truth. Riley's face began to turn red as the others in the truck chuckled softly. Then, one by one they stepped out onto the gravel road. The temperature had dropped down somewhere in the forties, and when they saw Armando and Tyler walking back towards the truck, they could see their breaths illuminated by the lights from their flashlights.

"There's a pathway leading down into the gorge further over this way." Tyler informed them. "It's pretty steep, so we need to inflate the raft up here."

In the back of the truck, Riley helped Tyler pull out the large black case containing the raft. Within minutes it was inflated and once Riley got the paddles put together, they were almost ready to go.

"Uh, fellas?" Abigail said. "We've got a problem."

"What?" Riley asked.

"Lifejackets." She responded. "We're three short."

"Armando can have mine." Riley said. "I'm not afraid of getting wet."

"Okay." Abigail said with a nod. "Now, what about the girls?"

"Anita, can you hold Josephine in your lap?" Tyler asked. Anita nodded. "Then they can both have my lifejacket. I'm a pretty good swimmer too."

Once they got the truck all locked up and their gear all packed up, which consisted of three knapsacks of things, Riley and Tyler picked up the Raft and the group followed Armando towards the trail. He walked aside Patrick through the tall grasses, illuminated dimly by Patrick's lantern. Abigail walked behind, Josephine riding on her back, while Anita walked alongside Emily with a flashlight. The group was followed by the two men with the raft. After a few dozen yards or so, a sudden drop-off appeared in the ground as the gorge suddenly appeared out of the darkness.

"Be careful." Armando instructed. "It's really steep in some spots."

Slowly but surely, they inched their way down the path to the water's edge. Abigail and Emily watched the rock wall pass them by as they descended into the earth, looking on as the layers of different colors of brown and tan ascended upwards. Every now and then, a few rocks would give way from the outer edge of the path and go tumbling down below. Before long, the noise of running water could be heard.

"Excellent!" Armando exclaimed, jumping from the edge of the rock at the end of the trail. Patrick followed him into the darkness and the light from his lantern revealed a clear, slow moving pool of water that had collected on the bottom of the gorge.

"It looks like it's hardly moving." Riley stated, expecting to find faster moving waters.

"This is just one of the still spots." Armando answered to Riley's remark. "It does get really rough in some areas, but there are ways to get around most of them."

"Most of them?" Abigail said with a nervous tone in her voice.

"We should be fine." Armando said, stopping and setting his backpack down on the ground. He fished around inside until he found an old map of the canyon floor. "This map shows where all the bad rapids are, and there are trails and paths leading around them.

Abigail nodded as Tyler and Riley softly rested the raft into the water, and then stood along the edge of the rock to hold it in place.

"All Aboard!" Tyler announced.

Armando and Patrick climbed in first, settling tightly into the far front of the raft. Abigail helped the two girls and Emily in, before joining them in her seat in the center of the raft. Tyler held the back of the raft in place as Riley climbed in, and then leapt into his spot as the raft drifted away from the rock and into the main current of the river. Armando held up his flashlight to point out the direction for them to head in.

"It's ahead a ways that way, and then a little bit to the left." Armando informed while Patrick set his lantern on the brightest setting it would go to before setting it in the middle of the raft, amongst the women. Riley and Tyler gently paddled their way into the main current of the river, which caught them with a jolt and sent them nose-first down the shallow incline. Abigail's stomach lurched at the first three inclines they went through, her heart leaping into her throat every time they struck the bottom of one. She had placed the copy of the diary pages into a plastic bag and placed it into her backpack, which sat at her side in the raft. She looked around at the numerous rocks and boulders in the riverbed they passed. The lights they had were enough to make everything within fifteen or twenty feet visible. After about 20 or 30 minutes of floating their way down the stream, they came to a fork where the river they were on emptied into another river. This one was much deeper, as when Abigail shined her flashlight into the water, she could barely see the bottom.

"There are some small rapids coming up." Armando warned. "Steady on the paddles!"

"He seems to know what he's doing." Emily commented.

"He does." Anita replied. "He comes here with his friends during the summer a lot."

Anita's words were interrupted by some bumps from the raft going over shallow waters. Armando had an oar in hand in the front, steering them gently away from any sharp rocks.

"We need to move to the right!" He suddenly snapped. "There's some rapids we need to get around!"

Tyler and Riley paddled over to the right just as they passed a large rock marking a split in the river. They could hear the gentle roar of a small series of rapids in the left stream, which sounded very rough compared to the gentle and swift waters they'd taken. "We'll be on the Colorado before long." Armando announced. "The River of Embers."

Barely two and a half hours had passed since they'd found their way to the water's edge, the raft floated into the calm waters of the Colorado River. They were in the Grand Canyon. The walls stood tall above them, silhouetted by the nighttime sky. The river itself was very wide and calm where they entered. The reflection of the moonlight on the water illuminated some more features of the nearby landscape. As they floated along for the next hour or so, Armando laid out his map of the Grand Canyon on the bottom of the raft and pointed out the location to Twin Butte.

"It looks to be about twenty miles from here." Armando said. "We can follow Crystal Creek up into the hills where the mountain is."

"Do you think we can find it?" Josephine asked sleepily.

Abigail smiled at the girl. "I'm sure we can." Deep down inside, she thought it was rather odd that they were reacting to this whole situation so calmly when they had just lost their grandfather. Armando recognized the look on her face, because he'd seen many of them after they had lost their mother.

"It's alright, Dr. Chase," Armando said in a low voice. "We are doing this to honor our family." Both Anita and Josephine nodded in agreement. Abigail looked at Emily, then nodded apologetically. Armando cracked a smile and returned his focus to the map. "There's a stretch of river about three or four miles long that is too rough to navigate, and we can follow the river along the path on the rocks until things calm down.

"How far is it?" Patrick asked, looking ahead on the river.

"Shouldn't be too long." Armando responded. The distant howling of a coyote from somewhere in the canyon made everybody in the raft jump.

"That's what I was referring to when I said I Hate Nature." Riley said in a high pitched voice.

"Here it is." Armando said, pointing his flashlight to a rocky shoreline alongside the river's edge. The ominous roar of water coming from just a few yards downstream made Riley and Tyler paddle like mad to get to shore. Once they felt the bottom of the raft scrape against the rocky shore, they all slowly clambered out, collecting their things. While Riley and Tyler lifted the raft from the water, Emily passed around a bottle of water amongst the group. Once they were all finished, Armando pointed his flashlight to the rocky path along the water's edge.

"Does anybody know what time it is?" Riley asked with a dull yawn. Abigail fished Ben's watch out of her pocket and lit it up.

"3:37 AM."

"Correct time zone?" Riley asked.

"Yep."

"Alrighty." Riley said, looking up at the stars from under the raft. Armando stopped to help Patrick over a long drop, but Patrick simply leapt over the drop, landing on both feet four feet below.

"Patrick!" Emily hissed. "Be careful."

"I'm assuming we're not using our aliases anymore?" Riley asked.

"Not much point in doing that anymore." Tyler responded. "They know we're here already."

"That reminds me." Abigail noted, thinking to herself. "How'd they find us so quickly?"

"I couldn't tell you." Tyler responded.

Meanwhile, the sun was rising over New Jersey as Sadusky was making his weekly three-hour commute from his home in New York to his job in Washington DC. It was rough at times, but it was worth it when it came to keeping the job he loved and keeping the roots he and his wife had maintained in the Bronx for 26 years. As he flipped through the stations, he finally came across top headlines for the day. At first, it seemed to be not much more than bickering politicians, but one piece of news did catch his attention in a way he never liked his attention to be caught.

Tragedy struck the Navajo Nation late last night when two brutal crimes took place in the small town of Kayenta, Arizona. Two people are dead and three children are missing after what has been reported as a "double homicide." Dr. Alan Samuels of Kayenta was found stabbed to death in the bathroom of his home late last night when neighbors called the police after hearing glass breaking in Dr. Samuels' home. Samuels was pronounced dead at the scene. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a large white van in the alley behind Samuel's house shortly before the incident occurred. That same van was seen fleeing the vicinity of a farm about seven miles north of Kayenta, where a state patrol officer saw the van departing abruptly from a dead-end driveway. The owner of the farm, identified as Joseph Salinas, was also pronounced dead at the scene of multiple gunshot wounds. His three grandchildren were reported missing after a search of the home revealed no sign of 16-year-old Armando Salinas, 12-year-old Anita Salinas, and 7-year-old Josephine Salinas. An Amber Alert has been issued for all three children, as the only clue to their whereabouts was the discovery of the family's four-wheeler discovered behind the Blue Cactus Motel in Kayenta near Interstate 80.

By the time the report was finished, Sadusky had increased his speed by ten miles an hour and was now frantically digging for his cell phone.

After four hours of hiking and rafting down the river, the sunrise brought some added relief to the troop of treasure hunters as they finally reached the mouth of the Crystal River. Patrick sat in the front of the raft, soaked from head to toe after he'd gotten too close to the edge while they were passing a waterfall. Anita was fast asleep, Josephine still buckled into the same lifejacket while sitting in her lap. Abigail was gulping down a bottle of water and looking at the three remaining clues and Emily was shedding off the sweater she'd worn from the night before. The temperature was rising fast and everybody began taking off their sweaters and jackets.

"We're here." Armando announced as he leapt from the raft just seconds before they beached onto a rocky shoreline near the mouth of the Crystal River, an attribute of the Colorado which drained water from the hills to the north. Patrick climbed out slowly, sitting on the rocks to drain out his shoes and socks. Abigail helped the girls onto the shore before helping Emily out of the boat. While Tyler deflated the raft, Riley and Armando took a look at the map. "Our goal should be only about three miles north of here." Riley announced.

"Yep." Armando agreed. "There it is right now." He said proudly, pointing to something which took Abigail's breath away. Patrick stood to Emily's side in his bare feet and admired the sight of it. Riley blinked as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, as he could see the gates to the heavens in the form of the mountain with two peaks.

Little did any of them know, they were being watched.

To Be Continued…..

Coming Soon

Chapter 21: Zia's Fountain