It looked like the entrance to hell.
The two young men stood on a ridge overlooking a deep, shadowy chasm. It had taken them eight hours to climb from the tiny burg of Roosevelt to this remote spot high in the Rocky Mountains.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Trent Wilder asked.
Charlie Reed took out his cell phone, checked the GPS, then examined the Indian map drawn on a piece of deer hide and sealed in a clear plastic Ziploc bag. “I think so. According to the map, there should be a small stream at the bottom of this ravine. The cave entrance should be where the creek bends around to the north.”
Trent shivered and brushed snow from his hair. Though a tapestry of wildflowers heralded the arrival of spring in the lowlands, up here winter still held a firm grip. The air remained frigid, and snow frosted the surrounding mountaintops. To make matters worse, the sky had been lowering all day, and a light flurry had begun to blow.
Trent studied the narrow valley. It seemed to have no bottom. Down below, a black pine forest rose out of a sea of fog. Sheer cliffs surrounded all sides. While he had packed ropes and rappelling harnesses, he hoped he wouldn’t need them.
But that wasn’t what was truly bothering him.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be going down there,” he said.
Charlie cocked an eyebrow at him. “After climbing all day?”
“What about that curse? What your grandfather—”
A hand waved dismissively. “The old man’s got one foot in the grave and a head full of peyote.” Charlie slapped him in the shoulder. “So don’t go crapping your pants. The cave probably has a few arrowheads, some broken pots. Maybe even a few bones, if we’re lucky. C’mon.”
Trent had no choice but to follow Charlie down a thin deer trail they’d discovered earlier. As they picked their way along, he frowned at the back of Charlie’s crimson jacket, emblazoned with the two feathers representing the University of Utah. Trent still wore his high school letterman jacket, bearing the Roosevelt Union cougar. The two of them had been best friends since elementary school, but lately they’d been growing apart. Charlie had just finished his first year at college, while Trent had gone into full-time employment at his dad’s auto-body shop. Even this summer, Charlie would be participating in an internship with the Uintah Reservation’s law group.
His friend was a rising star, one that Trent would soon need a telescope to watch from the tiny burg of Roosevelt. But what else was new? Charlie had always outshone Trent. Of course, it didn’t help matters that his friend was half Ute, with his people’s perpetual tan and long black hair. Trent’s red crew cut and the war of freckles across his nose and cheeks had forever relegated him to the role of Charlie’s wingman at school parties.
Though the thought went unvoiced, it was as if they both knew their friendship was about to end as adulthood fell upon their shoulders. So as a rite of passage, the two had agreed to this last adventure, to search for a cave sacred to the Ute tribes.
According to Charlie, only a handful of his tribal elders even knew about this burial site in the High Uintas Wilderness. Those who did were forbidden to speak of it. The only reason Charlie knew about it was that his grandfather liked his bourbon too much. Charlie doubted his grandfather even remembered showing him that old deer-hide map hidden in a hollowed-out buffalo horn.
Trent had first heard the tale when he was in junior high, huddled in a pup tent with Charlie. With a flashlight held to his chin for effect, his friend had shared the story. “My grandfather says the Great Spirit still haunts this cave. Guarding a huge treasure of our people.”
“What sort of treasure?” Trent had asked doubtfully. At the time he had been more interested in the Playboy he’d sneaked out of his father’s closet. That was treasure enough for him.
Charlie had shrugged. “Don’t know. But it must be cursed.”
“What do you mean?”
His friend had shifted the flashlight closer to his chin, devilishly arching an eyebrow. “Grandfather says whoever trespasses into the Great Spirit’s cave is never allowed to leave.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if they do, the world will end.”
Right then, Trent’s old hound dog had let out an earsplitting wail, making them both jump. Afterward, they had laughed and talked deep into the night. Charlie ended up dismissing his grandfather’s story as superstitious nonsense. As a modern Indian, Charlie went out of his way to reject such foolishness.
Even so, Charlie had sworn Trent to secrecy and refused to take him to the place marked on the map—until now.
“It’s getting warmer down here,” Charlie said.
Trent held out a palm. His friend was right. The snowfall had been growing heavier, the flakes thickening, but as they descended, the air had grown warmer, smelling vaguely of spoiled eggs. At some point, the snowfall had turned to a drizzling rain. He wiped his hand on his pants and realized that the fog he’d spotted earlier along the bottom of the ravine was actually steam.
The source appeared through the trees below: a small creek bubbling along a rocky channel at the bottom of the ravine.
“Smell that sulfur,” Charlie said with a sniff. Reaching the creek, he tested the water with a finger. “Hot. Must be fed by a geothermal spring somewhere around here.”
Trent was unimpressed. The mountains around here were riddled with such baths.
Charlie stood up. “This must be the right place.”
“Why’s that?”
“Hot spots like this are sacred to my people. So it only makes sense that they would pick this place for an important burial site.” Charlie headed out, hopping from rock to rock. “C’mon. We’re close.”
Together, they followed the creek upstream. With each step, the air grew hotter. The sulfurous smell burned Trent’s eyes and nostrils. No wonder no one had ever found this place.
With his eyes watering, Trent wanted to turn back, but Charlie suddenly stopped at a sharp bend in the creek. His friend swung in a full circle, holding out his cell phone like a divining rod, then checked the map he’d stolen from his grandfather’s bedroom this morning.
“We’re here.”
Trent searched around. He didn’t see any cave. Just trees and more trees. Overhead, snow had begun to frost on the higher elevations, but it continued to fall as a sickly rain down here.
“The entrance has got to be somewhere nearby,” Charlie mumbled.
“Or it could just be an old story.”