The major character in the story is Troy ONeill, an Arizona boy reared by a religious mother of Dutch heritage and an adventurous Irish father. The boy treks northward into the wilds of the mountains and canyons of Utah in search of an ancient Aztec treasure. Amid harrowing experiences and life-and-death struggles, the impossible dream comes true.

Monteontezuma's Treasure Canyon

By ED GILBERT

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2013 Ed Gilbert
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-7756-3

Chapter One

THE YEAR WAS 1875 ... The rider suddenly reined up, a whistle of wonderment frozen on his lips as he carefully approached the great chasm. The unexpected jerk on the bit sent his wiry, Mescalero-bred mustang into a dangerous side-step, so the young, lean rider slipped from the saddle and held the fire-eyed sorrel. Again he gazed down and across the deep crimson rent.

Troy O'Neill had seen many and varied landscapes, but never one that compared to this. His bright and intelligent blue eyes scanned the beautiful while frightening spectacle. Yellow limestone framed the canyon rim in either direction, while as far as the eye could see, precipitous cliffs fell into purple, seemingly bottomless depths.

The young rider knew from history that this could be none other than the awesome abyss known as the Grand Canyon del Rio Colorado: so named by the Spanish explorer, Coronado, the first white man to claim its sighting, back in 1540. It encompassed over a thousand square miles, and a mighty river, the Colorado, flowed wildly through its depths, making it the world's showplace of erosion.

Although transfixed and awed on the moment, he felt an over-whelming weariness throughout his body. It had been a long and devastating trail up from Payson, in the Arizona-New Mexican Territory. He'd weathered the cliffs of the Mogollon (Muggy-own) Rim, immense lightning storms through the tall pines of the Coconino, and then the desert heat of Flag. Piled on this had been more days of stifling dust and furnace winds through the Painted Desert. The young cowboy was bone-weary.

Troy O'Neill ground-reined Sundown and stumbled about preparing a makeshift camp. He partook of a brief but hearty meal of warmed-over beef jerky and biscuits, gazing long into the embers of a small fire. Finally, he exhaled deeply and relaxed, viewing the sunset that seemed to cataract along the canyon's distant rim. Suddenly he was overcome with a burst of inner spirit ... He was heading toward what may be the most fabulous of adventures, into the wild Utah Territory. And, he was young and thirsting for adventure and excitement.

Shortly after his twentieth birthday, he had made his decision to make this venture, and now he recalled how hard it had been—hearing his father's words and parting shots of wisdom as he prepared to leave their Arizona ranch ... He had held some misgiving about leaving his father, alone with Troy since his mother had died nearly a year earlier. But in the end he had gone, and he felt certain his mother would have wanted him to follow such a quest.

Kate O'Neill had been born of sturdy stock. Her father had immigrated to the Pennsylvania coal fields from Ireland in 1820, where he had wed Caroline VanDuin, the daughter of Dutch immigrants.

Kate's early years were spent within a highly religious atmosphere, her mother being a devout subject of the German Reformed Church, which had been renamed The Reformed Church in the United States in 1869.

Along with her devout religious feelings, however, Kate had harbored a deep wanderlust for excitement and adventure. Thus she had married a young, personable man named George O'Neill, who was determined to seek a fortune in the gold fields of the Arizona-New Mexico Territory.

Kate O'Neill was not by nature a frail woman; however, circumstances proved her undoing. She had recently and literally worked life and limb away at the small ranch in Payson while her husband and her brother-in-law, Jim O'Neill, had been off with many others of their Irish clan constructing the Union Pacific Railway.

But Kate was perhaps stronger in another way, and for many years had spent long hours teaching a love for reading and writing to Troy.

Troy's mother had likewise been selective in her son's reading material. Much time had been devoted to study of the Bible, which Troy read daily and still carried faithfully in his saddlebag at all times.

However, in the more recent years, Troy had also developed a root-liking for the field of archaeology, several books on which his mother had arranged to have forwarded west from a New York university.

While never forcing her feelings upon her son, Kate's obvious aim for Troy was toward joining the ministry. She offered no complaint concerning his archaeological pursuits, beyond instilling the thought that he might strive to find a positive relationship between it and the Bible. And, although many theories found in his archaeology books differed sharply with biblical readings, Troy was determined to study both, reasoning also that were his mother alive she would not be against his present quest.

The youngster had also been an apt listener, and had done so many an hour as both father and uncle related harrowing tales concerning the construction of the mighty U.P. Railroad through and beyond the savage wilderness ... How they, the Irish clan, had frequently visited the gambling dens within the hastily constructed towns along the trail; how they had sweated and toiled tie by tie and rail to rail across the yellow prairies; how they had fought side by side and sometimes back to back against wolves and stampeding herds of buffalo, and how they had battled and beaten the Black Hills to move onward into the Rockies, where the fight had sifted to one of savage Indians and great, unmerciful mountains. And many times they had told with pride how they finally had stood at Promontory, Utah, upon that May day in 1869 to witness the world-famous driving of the golden spike that connected east to west.

Those had proved to be prosperous as well as adventure-filled years for John and Jim O'Neill, and the brothers had returned not only in a spirited mood but also financially rewarded. This time they also decided to abandon their earlier pastime of gold prospecting—which the non-incorporated area of Payson was noted for—and opted to get serious about horse ranching. This they did, and in an industrious and businesslike fashion. So much so that this too proved rewarding to the adventuring duo.

It was close upon their return that Troy's mother had started to show the cost of her hard existence in that yet-uncivilized mining area, and not long thereafter that she succumbed to it. The adventurers had returned with more than a little, but all of it too late for her.

Several years later the gold fever claimed Jim O'Neill once more, and he had packed northward on another prospecting venture, leaving Troy and his father to tend the expanding ranch. Uncle Jim ... Troy kicked out, spurring another log into the fire. He thought often of that individual and imagined with no little pride that he himself had indeed inherited his uncle's spirit and fever for adventure.

Since early childhood Troy had insatiably devoured his uncle's tale, which, in addition to the railroad days plus a brief stint in the Civil War, ranged from his pony express rides from Crittenden to Point Lookout, Utah, in 1860, to the finding and losing of several fortunes in gold and silver ... In particular there was an often repeated story of a journey into the mountainous regions of southwestern Utah, where a fabulous treasure most certainly existed—awaiting someone with the knowledge and the courage to locate it, and to bring it out.

The young rider's hand moved automatically to his shirt pocket, from which he removed and unfolded a flimsy, yellowed piece of paper. Once again, perhaps for the thousandth time, Troy O'Neill was drawn onward and into that fantastic accounting....