Enigmas: Gold Fever, Space-Time Warps, Sierra Madre Magic

By Floyd Merrell

Four married couples from the southwest search for Spanish treasure in northern Mexico, guided by a peculiar map. They meet strange four-dimensional visitors from another world, Tarahumara people with a unique philosophy of life, local bandits roaming the area, narcos ready to kill any and all outsiders, and suspicious police and military personnel. Yet, they become enchanted by the vast Sierra Madre range, they find treasure that exceeds their wildest dreams, and unfortunately they begin squabbling over the take, until the alien visitors sequester most of it. Back home, they make amends, but soon realize their adventure, bizarre to the extreme, will continue haunting them to the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514435892

Book preview

False Premises

During one of their final meetings back home, the group was itching to end talk and move into action as quickly as possible. To their surprise, Hank said he and Tati wished to propose an addition to their operational procedures. They balked.

Operational procedures? Bill raises a brow. Pardon me, but that sounds excessively methodical.

Bell chimes in, I thought we agreed we ought to keep open hearts and minds about the trip.

Hank pulls his customary condescending smile. We did. And it will be our general modus operandi. But what Tati and I have in mind will reduce suspicion about our existence down there far from tourist traps.

Tati concurs, And it will give us more credibility.

I like the idea of lifting ourselves by our bootstraps. Fred frowns while glancing at Jeff.

Bell shakes her head. And now you want to structure our adventure?

Please—Hank holds out his hands, palms up—give me and my lovely private advocate fifteen minutes of your time to plead our case.

Okay, if it will help us feel safer, Rafa mutters.

Fifteen minutes. I’ll be lookin’ at my watch. Fred smirks.

Tati begins, "Hank and I have been doing some extra reading about the Rarámuri people. At seventy to eighty thousand, they are the largest single indigenous culture in Mexico. They are also one of the least assimilated, having maintained the basic characteristics of their culture since the Spanish conquest. Over the years, especially during the latter part of the nineteenth century to the present, mestizos have relentlessly invaded their homeland and gradually pushed them further into the mountains."

Rose frowns. "I’ve heard that word, mestizos, off and on. But I’m not sure I understand it."

"Mexico is chiefly a nation of mestizos, a mixture of Spanish and indigenous people, with a tinge of African and other ethnicities."

Like Rafa, the most lovable mongrel in the world. Fred cackles.

Rafa gives him a nasty frown, gets up, and walks away with bowed head. Tati rolls her eyes and mumbles, Uncouth. Bell shakes her head and whispers, What a prick. Hank pulls a wry face and remarks, Up to your patented bigotry streaked with camouflaged irony, eh? You’re a work of art, Fred.

Rafa knows I ain’t serious, he replies, glancing at her sour face as she turns back and says, Screw you.

Yeah, sure. Jeff shifts in his seat. Your remark reminds me of those snide comments down in Brazil about those of us showing telltale signs of African heritage. They pose as innocent humor revealing subtle racism that twists our guts into knots.

May I? Tati makes a plea.

Please go ahead. Hank heaves a sigh.

"Throughout Mexican history, mestizos drove the natives into the high Sierra Madre range. Recently, the area has suffered considerably from three factors. First, deforestation, especially after 1989 when the World Bank floated a forty-five-and-a-half-million-dollar loan to Mexico for logging and forest management. Second, drought, driving many Rarámuri people to the cities where they are reduced to begging and menial work. Third, drug cartels, transforming the area into a center for marijuana and opium production. The Mexican government sprayed the fields with paraquat and other herbicides. It damaged the peasants’ crops and contaminated their water supply but didn’t stop the cartels in the least."

Tati turns to Hank, and he takes the cue. For generations, the Rarámuri people have cultivated diverse crops in the Tarahumara range. But their livelihood is now threatened because of ecological destruction, cartel activities, government efforts to curb them, and present drought. However, the indigenous people have been able to salvage their most important herbal remedies, which can be a boon to modern medicine.

Fred’s taste for creating controversy can contain itself no longer. Now wait just a gosh darn minute. After I checked out my map of Northern Mexico, I did some readin’ on the Internet and found out the drug cartels are diversifying.

Correct, Hank concedes. They engage in contraband, especially in the form of semiprecious stones.

Jeff, while flexing his biceps, smirks. Hey, we could also illegally export gems, and we wouldn’t have to go gallivanting around these mountains looking for some long-lost treasure.

Bell sends him a frown. And we end up in prison. Get serious.

Rafa blurts out, I don’t want anything to do with contraband.

Eager to mix it up, Fred turns to Rafa. Calm down, lady, and let me put in my own two cents’ worth. Then he tells the group, Them cartels do whatever is necessary to keep on the good side of the peasants. Some of them even call themselves The Family. Get that! Family! Then they go and toss pesos to the peasants like goddamned Robin Hoods. And the people love them for it. Robin Hoods, shit. They’re hoodlums.

Tati says, So what exactly are you suggesting, Fred?

Yes, what are you getting at? Hank thrusts his head back, uncomfortable over Fred’s crabby outburst. We should—

I’m getting at this. Fred remains testy. The cartels exploit them Tarahumares and force them to grow marijuana and poppies. They also pay Tarahumare runners a little cash or a bottle of hooch to run for the border with a load of drugs. It’s a bunch of shit! Those cartels.

Hank’s usual diplomatic demeanor becomes rough around the edges. So I repeat. What are you proposing, Fred?

Let’s put them Indians to collectin’ semiprecious stones, pay them what they deserve, and make arrangements with crooked business operations down there in Mexico to smuggle the goods across the border, and we sell them in the black market up here. The Tarahumares will love us for it. And we’ll make another pile of money after we find the gold that’s marked on my map.

Rafa grimaces, I don’t like it!

Rafiii! Fred barks out.

Rose turns to Rafa. I’m with you.

Hank moves his hands in a calming gesture. Fred, if we do what you’re proposing, the drug kings will sick their men on us with AK-47s.

Right! Bell butts in. "Besides that, the Rarámuri do not take to foreigners. They call us chabóchis. The word means ‘spider faces’ or ‘whiskered ones,’ and—"

Yeah? Fred cuts Bell off. Well, let me tell you about the method we’ll use. I read on the Internet about them Tarahumares thinking the government is their enemy. So we can make out like we’re against the government, same as them, and tell ’em we’re there supportin’ their cause. We’ll be heroes.

Uh-huh. Bell nods. Lie to them. Anthropologists say lying is an unknown practice among the Rarámuri people.

Hell, they won’t know we’re lyin’, Fred shoots back.

I’m not so sure about that, Bell replies. The Rarámuri can smell a lie a mile off. They see it in our eyes, our gestures—

Not if we’re careful.

Bell insists, You aren’t listening, Fred.

To hell I’m not. You’re the one that’s not listenin’.

Think about this. Bell hardens her stare at Fred. "The Jesuits taught the Holy Trinity and the devil to the natives. They had no use for the devil in their religion, so they called him chabóchi and attached the word to mestizos and strangers like us. As far as they are concerned, we’re all devils."

I can respect that, but—

Listen, Fred, Bell shoots back, "the natives have an inborn antipathy toward mestizos and all the rest of us chabóchis."

Right. Hank struggles to regain center stage. I’m afraid your idea is doomed to failure, Fred.

Fred grumbles, No, it isn’t … Well, anyway, I ain’t givin’ up this idea. Eventually, you’ll be seein’ it my way.

Hank takes Fred’s slight wiffle waffling as a prompt. For now, why don’t you hear Tati and me out, Fred?

Tati, momentarily engrossed with the task of picking lint out of her sweater, raises her head and nods. Yes, why don’t you? Hank and I have a way to avoid problems with the narcos, police, and government officials.

I want to hear this, Bill says.

All right, Fred grumbles. But it’d better be good.

Hank straightens his torso, clears his throat, and continues, For safety’s sake, we ought to enter the Sierra under the guise of biologists studying the Rarámuri people’s herbal medicines. Tati gives everybody a charismatic ingratiating smile. Hank tries his best to imitate her gesture, wishing to believe he now has the situation in hand.

If we go as tourists, he carries on, we are suspect since few tourists from the United States frequent the area. By the mere fact that we are from the United States opens more suspicion. We could be DEA agents for all the narcos know. In contrast, if we pass as biology professors and researchers, we will win a degree of respect from them that might save our necks.

You have a point there, Bill says.

I consulted some professors at my university about this, and they were remarkably helpful. They told me the Rarámuri people use an astounding number of over three hundred plants for medicinal purposes. Some thirty to forty of them are toxic.

Toxic! Rafa grimaces. How can they use toxic plants for herbal medicine?

The plants kill in large doses. But if taken in small quantities over time, they can be beneficial.

I still wouldn’t touch them. Rafa shivers.

Hank ignores her. Actually, the Rarámuri people believe all plants are beneficial in their own way, some more than others. It’s your ball game, Tati.

"Chief among these plants includes Croton fragilis, used as a strong purgative. You will have to bear with me, she says while scanning her companions’ faces, but we need these Latin names in the notes we intend presenting to government officials and narcos as proof we are biologists engaged in research."

You aren’t sayin’ we have to memorize a bunch of weird-sounding names, are ya? Fred protests.

A few of them, yes. It is doubtful the same narcos or government agents will interrogate us more than once. If we can spout out a few Latin names, it should be sufficient. Then we will have the entire list of herbal remedies in our fake notes to show them as evidence that our research is legitimate.

Sounds reasonable, Bell says.

Uh, Fred grunts.

Now, Tati goes on, "there are other plants, such as Datura inoxia, a treatment for asthma and other respiratory disorders, Cheilanthes angustifolia for fever and skin rashes, Nocotiana trigonophylla for migraine headaches, and Phytolacca for poisonous bites. We will tell those who are checking up on us that our investigation focuses on remedies that might be welcome additions to our modern pharmacological repertoire—"

I still gotta problem with this, Fred intervenes.

Attention turns his way as Hank pulls a frown and says, What is it now, Fred?

I’m just a half-literate cowboy. If I start babbling about some weeds that will cure this and that, it will be an obvious giveaway, with my language and my country ways and all.

Don’t sell yourself short, Tati says. Some of us can profess ignorance of Spanish. Rafa’s native fluency makes her the obvious spokesperson and translator. Hank, Bell, and I can add a few words in the language here and there. And Jeff can ad lib a bit with his Portuguese accent. Just be yourself, Fred, and they won’t detect a thing.

As far as they’ll know, we’re all professionals, Bell reasons with a nod.

Fred insists, I still don’t know about this. It doesn’t fit my way of doin’ things.

Latinos usually have more respect for profs and scientists than people in our culture. Rafa points out. They’ll take us for our word.

She’s right, Jeff adds. That’s the way it works in Brazil too.

Aw, what the hell, Fred growls back at Jeff.

The doubters finally end up believers in spite of Fred’s protests and Rafa’s fears. They give Hank and Tati the go-ahead. Soon they are eager to try their hand at playing out their fake identities. They do their work memorizing strange words, coming up with plausible explanations regarding their simulated profession, and writing a collection of notes in properly weathered notebooks. They would like to believe they are consummate pretenders. Bell never ceases telling them, however, that they must practice humility and tolerance at all times.

They pack up some of the essential equipment for their treasure quest disguised as tools for their research—small hand picks that pose as instruments for splitting up rocky areas to get at hardy plants in otherwise inaccessible areas, items for gold panning that are ordinarily seen as handy lightweight cooking utensils going by the name of woks, and portable miner’s lamps ostensibly used at night and for searching out plants occasionally found in dark crevices. They make preparations with no-nonsense dispatch, proud of their newly acquired knowledge about the Rarámuri people and the Sierra’s flora and fauna.

And yet back to the present as they continue ambulating toward Sinforosa Canyon, they become aware that more often than they would like, they will have to contend with …

Obstinate Unwanted Guests

Today was a long haul. Sweaty, hungry, thirsty, and dog-tired, they think about settling down for the night. Suddenly, Rafa shrieks, Oh my god! There they are again! I’ll be damned if they ain’t! Fred calmly observes. Where did they come from? Always curious Tati reveals a note of fear. I think … Jeff searches for a reasonable explanation but finds none. Bell grimaces, struggling with her customary empathic demeanor. Hank wrinkles his forehead in agitated thought.

One of the felicitously labeled blobs rotates counterclockwise as it expands and contracts. Then it stops and vibrates. Rose giggles. It’s jiggling like doing a belly laugh.

I don’t like this, Rafa moans.

Bill chuckles. It’s probably laughing at us while we’re standing here with our jaws hanging down to our chests gawking at it.

Bell cocks her head back and rolls her eyes. Laughing at us? What an imagination.

You still think those creatures have humanoid qualities? Hank smirks. How can we know that? I think—

But look at it, Rose says in her defense. It’s like we’re the butt end of a joke.

Yeah, Rose. Fred snickers. That’s ’cause we’re still not seein’ right—

"Hey, look at us. Tati cuts in. The way we’re talking, we could be observing a puppet show. This thing should be frightening us to death."

I’m scared even if it is unreal. Rafa shivers.

I’d say it’s as real as we are standing here and gaping at it. Jeff squints. I’m going over there to get a closer look.

Be careful, dear, Bell says.

Not to worry. Here in the wilderness, we boldly do what we fear to do.

Jeff approaches the strange object, and it disappears in the blink of an eye. He looks back at the group with hands out and mouth ajar.

Laughing at us? Fred chuckles. Hell, it’s scared to death.

Or it was simply amused. Tati shuffles her feet to a silent rhythm. "As if we were characters in Toy Story—"

Hah, Fred quacks. "Toy Story, and we’re the town clowns."

Rafa wails, This isn’t funny.

Not at all, Rose laments. That thing’s disappearance sent goosebumps up my spine.

Well—Hank glumly counsels them—it retreated. So we should move on.

You guys still want to humanize those blobs, Jeff says. So how do you see them? Male or female?

Neither, Bell replies.

Shemales. Rose giggles.

Maybe they’re transgendered beasts. Tati tosses her head back with a smile.

Or sexless like amoebas, Bill chips in, subdividing and cloning themselves every hour on the hour.

If so—Hank speculates—they will clone themselves at an exponential rate while on their way toward displacing all us humans.

Ugh, spare me the horrible thought, Rafa says, making a face as if she had inadvertently chomped into a rotten apple.

Fred frowns. You don’t really reckon they’ll gobble us up and eventually eat the whole human race kit and caboodle, do ya?

Let’s forget this ever happened. Bell scans the faces around her.

I agree, Rose chips in.

So are we off? Bill hopes.

Yes, Hank tells them as if endowed with the authority to decide for all people present.

Nobody was prepared for those peculiar apparitions. Yet one of the specimens was there again, hovering in midair, weaving slightly from left to right and up and down, projecting forward, and appearing to stretch out toward its curious but squeamish audience then reversing its movements and becoming smaller as it receded. But it didn’t disappear entirely until Jeff approached it. Then in a flash, it was gone.

This should have given them premonitions of things to come, but it didn’t, save for Rafa, whose senses are of the nature of those extraordinary but rare highly intuitive people, and Hank, whose analytical fervor refuses to fade.

All told, in spite of their diverse ethnic makeup, education levels, employment, and lifestyles, our BBQ grill acquaintances’ differences serve to unite them because of a few common interests—physical fitness, backpacking through wilderness areas, amateur gold prospecting, and tales of the Old West.

Fred told them about his map one evening in a bar with highbrow eyes, lowered voice, and visions of golden sugarplums pirouetting in his head. He asked them if they wanted to accompany him in search of a treasure more valuable than their wildest dreams.

I’m not sure, Rose says. We won’t know where we’re going or how to get there.

No path is the best path, Jeff tells her, speaking like the perpetually improvising Brazilian. We shouldn’t go where some path takes us. We should make our own path and leave no trail behind us.

I love it. Tati smiles from ear to ear. You only live once, so if you throw caution to the wind and do what you’re afraid to do, once is enough.

Rafa shakes her head. I’m always afraid of what might happen.

Bell smiles. If we keep our calm and don’t go viral, we’ll be okay.

Bill pulls a wrinkled face. I wonder. Maybe we’ll be doing no more than following a castle in the sky Fred’s map created in our heads?

Hey—Fred jumps in—my map is no illusion.

Nobody is happy without illusions of some sort. Tati turns to Bill. They are as necessary to our lives as reality itself.

Besides, Hank adds, wishing to have the last word, illusions are not simply an escape from reality. They help us understand our world.

Eager to confront the challenge, they become more keenly focused on a frizzled piece of paper sporting a roughly drawn map than on the dangers of traipsing through one of the most rugged mountain regions in the world. They become aware of horror stories the likes of those found in Richard Grant’s God’s Middle Finger Tati gave them as required reading. It discourages them nary a bit because gold takes the hint and relentlessly pushes its way into their minds. Images of B. Traven’s novel, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and its movie rendition—also mandatory reading and viewing—often swirl around in their heads. Rendering their imaginary anticipations dreamy, faraway, even deceptive and on schedule toward becoming second nature to them. For after all, they will pretend they are who they aren’t while searching for what not yet is but hopefully will be. Nothing will deter them now.

Stories and accounts set in Mexico, some of them created for the purpose of inducing fear, serve to stimulate their vision of fast and furious action. Carried away by their enthusiasm once they are in Tarahumara country, they entertain ideas about sending tales of woe back to their bosses and relatives in Malpais with the idea of giving themselves some extra time in the Tarahumara wilds, saying they were unexpectedly held up in the Sierra. That Montezuma’s customary culinary revenge against tourists struck them. That some strange virus penetrated their bloodstream. That the Federal Police suspected illicit activity and threw them in jail. Tales of that nature. The great pretenders are to all intents and purposes apparently up to their newly discovered tricks.

After a few exhausting days in the Sierra punctuated by periods of rough terrain, torrential rains, and hunger and thirst, they arrive where they find themselves at this moment, unaware that gold fever is working its way into the fissures of their minds, gestating and carrying out its task of infecting millions of brain cells. All the while, they think they are in the best of spirits and primed for becoming celebrities back in Malpais.

Gold fever.

The malignant virus blocks normal thoughts from minds and replaces them with desires running rampant. People suffering from the unrelenting infection take on behavioral patterns that would otherwise remain beyond them. The victims often curse the day they heard of the yellow stuff. Yet they remain obsessed with it. There’s hardly any freedom from gold once it fastens upon the mind.

Gold’s entices.

There’s beauty in its hue. Most metals are color bland. Gold has color clout. In fact, it’s the consummate macho metal. Heavier than lead, yet the ancient alchemists believed lead is gold’s roughshod brother among the elements, and with the proper technique, they could transform it into its more sophisticated sibling, gold. Soft yet malleable, gold can be beaten into sheets so thin they almost look transparent. It is just another metal, yet people obstinately insist on segregating it from its neighbors in the periodic table.

Gold is stuck away in Fort Knox and other safekeeping places by nations around the world. It finds its way into strong boxes in mansions of the rich and deposit boxes in banks. It is often hidden away along with other luxurious belongings, not to be seen by common folk yet enduring in the imagination of those who hoard it. Nevertheless, they cannot resist ostentatiously flaunting it in the form of elaborate jewelry when the goal is to impress friends, relatives, colleagues, and even enemies. Gold is not just another metal. It is the supreme metal of greed and desire.

Gold’s gentle yet unyielding appeal bears on sexual magnetism.

Indeed, desire for it is not entirely alien to that craving among male slave owners in the Americas who became obsessed with sex of an exotic kind. Sensual images of erotic African women, like gold, enticed them, captivated them, and at times dominated them. In spite of or because of their racism? Perhaps it depends on the eye of the beholder. Later, there were other women of a variety of exotic colors who garnished their desires, from Latin America, Spain, Italy, Asia, Hawaii, and the South Seas. The secret desire for women of an exotic color is metaphorically akin to that union of tobacco and sugar in Cuba yielding a golden cinnamon tint, to coffee and cream offering varying shades of golden brown, and to unprocessed chocolate combined with milk to offer up that sinful treat.

The image of gold is a hybrid cultural fusion. Erotic attraction is its yield.

Such hybridity is found, for example, in Carlos Santana, who fused Afro-Cuban sounds with other Latino strains and heavy metal rock into smash hits like Oye Como Va, one of Tito Puente’s songs. Hybrid music emerged from hybrid cultures and ethnic mixes as if it were comparable to that hybridized metal, gold. But it isn’t. Only in the imagination does it become so.

Gold says it all.

It is a metal but different from other metals. Not a nonmetal but as attractive as the best of gems. Prime candidate for adorning the body yet essential to technology hardware. Just another element, yet it lends itself to folktales, legends, magic, and myths. Gold—the source of lust, pretension, flamboyance, and often violence and death.

Our four single-minded couples are familiar with gold’s allure. And they enjoy every bit of the hybrid image it creates as if it were a natural matter since they are, themselves, a hybrid mix of ethnicities, backgrounds, and lifestyles. The physical manifestation of the mix entices them. They mentally wallow in it. It stimulates them, encourages them.

Then that completely unexpected turn of events popped up to haunt them. Those grotesque, virtually unfathomable apparitions. Why did they single out this octet of pioneers blazing their own hopeful trail to wealth and fame? Our adventurers don’t deserve this, at least according to the gold-laced manner in which they wish to look at themselves. As daredevil fortune hunters believing they will shortly meet with success. As soon to be envied members of that affluent cream of the crop in a world populated by ordinary people.

Little do they know that their gold fevered treasure hunt will increasingly become …

Too Weird for Words

The late afternoon heat beats down on them. Sapping energy. Rendering legs wobbly. Saturating clothing. Drying out tongues while leaving white toothpaste-like stickiness. They stop to take a breather. However, their rest station succumbs to the pressing topic they cannot remove from their minds.

What keeps botherin’ me is where the hell did those freaky snot-dribbling globs come from anyhow? Fred asks nobody with no expectation of an answer.

Jeff stares out in the distance. My question is how can they appear and disappear in a split second?

Bell adds, They’re more than freaky. They’re bizarre. If we didn’t have hopes of finding what we’re looking for down here, I would be for leaving this place to the buzzards.

Bill looks at the panorama surrounding them. "Nobody wants to be here because of those blobs, and nobody wants to leave because