Alexandria's Gold

By Annmarie H. Pearson

Alexandria Tillie Bush, a twenty-one-year-old college student, went home to visit her parents in Glenwood, New Mexico, on her summer break. During her visit, her grandfather, Len Hudson, once a prospector for gold in the Mogollon Mountains, bequeathed an adventure for Alex to find his buried treasure in the rugged Gila Wilderness. What Len Hudson didn’t realize when he asked his granddaughter to venture into the wilderness was that her life, and everyone who accompanied her, would end up in a dangerous and deadly quest.

Alex asked three of her sorority sisters, along with their boyfriends, to accompany her on retrieving her grandfather’s buried gold. Someone was sabotaging her entourage as they traveled on horseback with pack mules into the rocky mountains. Alex’s boyfriend was in a coma from an unusual accident. One of her sorority sisters broke her left leg in a sinister incident, and two of her friends were horrendously mutilated as they tried to help Alex redeem her grandfather’s hidden buried treasure.

Who followed Alexandria and her consortium into the Gila Wilderness? And why was he tormenting them? How would they return to the Bush equestrian ranch while on horseback and dragging a travois carrying a coma patient?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649520555

Book preview

Chapter One

My name is Alexandria Tillie Bush, but most people call me Alex. My grandfather wanted my mother to have a son and was greatly disappointed when I turned out to be a girl. My mother nicknamed me Alex to please her father, my grandfather, Len Hudson. Since my mother delivered me in a cesarean birth and with much difficulty, I ended up an only child.

Granddad was a prospector for gold in his younger days. His prospector’s gold turned into a foredoomed legacy for me. My father and I almost lost our lives, and one of my sorority girlfriends broke a limb, her left leg, all because of an adventure that my grandfather bequeathed to me on his dying bed.

My boyfriend, Effram, almost died by what we all assumed was an accident in an unusual incident in the wilderness. One of my college girlfriends and her male companion were horrendously mutilated trying to help me redeem my grandfather’s hidden buried treasure from his gold-mining days. Granddad wanted me to retrieve his buried gold that he had left in the Mogollon Mountains of New Mexico some fifty odd years ago.

It all started when I passed my grandfather’s bedroom door and waved a good morning greeting to him while I was visiting my parents on spring break.

Good morning, Granddad. How are you doing today? I greeted him excitedly, for I was just getting ready to leave in my new Ford pickup truck that he had given me for my twenty-first birthday.

My grandfather lay quietly on his bed in his daughter’s house, my parent’s home, dying of old age. We all lived in Glenwood, on a ranch in a small town between Reserve and Silver City in New Mexico, which was on the outskirts of four mountain ranges: the Mogollon Mountains, San Francisco Mountains, Tularosa Mountains, and the Elk Mountains. Off to the north of these mountain ranges skirted the Gallo and Mangas Mountains, and to the south skirted the Mimbres Mountains. All these mountains are right smack in the middle of the Apache National Forest and only a hop, skip, and a jump into the Gila National Wilderness, not far from the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.

Glenwood is about sixty miles northwest of Silver City, and travel time of 240 miles south of Albuquerque via the Interstate 25. The countryside is desert and mostly barren with some cactus, yucca, and mesquite bushes for a bit of scenery, until you reach the mountain ranges in the magnificent Apache and Gila Forests on Highway 180. Then the terrain turns into a beautiful landscape of evergreen trees and piñon trees with rolling hills and an abundance of wildlife. The Apache and Gila National Forests are home to the antelope, elk, deer, black bear, mountain lion, cottontail and mule deer rabbits, and too many wild turkeys. The magnificent mountains of New Mexico are also the habitat for both javelinas and wild boars, which are known to be very vigilant, sometimes vicious, nocturnal, and diurnal animals.

My mother married into the Bush family, my father’s family, who was one of the first founding families of Glenwood Springs, New Mexico, since 1878. After the gold rush craze ended, the town became known as just Glenwood. The township had dropped the Springs from the more courtly title.

Mary Tillie Bush is my mother’s full name. She was named after her mother, Mary, who was my grandfather’s wife, and Tillie, who was my grandfather’s aunt who raised him to the age of nineteen. That was when Len Hudson ran away to become a gold miner.

Len Hudson, now eighty-nine years old, lay helpless in his bed. He watched the days go by unable to move freely, for his body was withering away. He once was a sturdy big man, usually weighing in at about 230 pounds. He was fit and rowdy in his younger days, mostly muscle, not fat, but today he was slowly dying in his bed, and he wanted to share his life’s story with me.

I’m feeling a bit poorly today, Alex. Not one of my better days. Do you have a moment to spare for your old granddad? I have a story to tell you, and I promise you, it will be a good one. It may even benefit you if you want to take action after my tale.

My grandfather was grinning in his bed as he struggled to prop himself up with pillows to relate his story to me. I thought my grandfather truly believed that my life would have changed dramatically from this adventure that he planned to offer me at the end of his story. The change would be for my better or for my worst, according to how I chose to experience the mountains on my quest, if I did take on his proposal. What my grandfather didn’t realize was that this adventure would turn out to be the biggest nightmare of my life.

My grandfather continued his narrative story after he took a deep breath.

I had offered this same adventure to your mother when she was about your age. I didn’t go into great detail as I am about to tell you. I felt that this story, the story that I’m about to share with you, well, I didn’t think it would interest your mother as I believe, and as I hope, will interest you. Your mother chose to elope with your dad, and as you know, your mother is not the adventurous type. She wanted to have a child of her own, and she got pregnant with you right after your mother and your father were married.

I had been intrigued with my grandfather all my life. He always had great tales to tell me about his adventures when he was younger, but he never talked about his early life. Never about his family or how he got his money or how he met my grandmother, Mary Ann Strauss. I pulled up a chair near my grandfather’s bed, and I helped him with his pillows before I sat on the hard oak chair. I sat there quietly for the longest time and waited for him to continue as he seemed fixed in his gaze on me.

Len Hudson stared at his granddaughter with loving admiration. Len and Alex both sat quietly for a short pause as Len reflected on his granddaughter’s character.

This young woman always has time for me, Len Hudson thought. She is a pretty girl yet a bit tomboy, very independent, more like a frontierswoman. Maybe this aspect of her personality will tempt her to accept my quest to find my buried gold? He continued his thoughts questionably but with great anticipation.

Len continued his thoughts as he lovingly gazed over his granddaughter’s appearance. He sincerely loved his granddaughter’s long, wavy black hair and her deep, mesmeric, royal-blue eyes.

Oh, how she looks so much like her grandmother, my dearly beloved Mary, Len thought with a nostalgic pain of loneliness for his deceased wife. I’ve missed you, Mary. I’ve missed you so much, my beloved. It was hard to raise our daughter alone when you left me, but I always felt your presence when I needed you.

Len stared at Alex as he pondered on her feminine attributes, all while his heart ached for his deceased dearly beloved.

Alexandria was tall, taller than him only by half an inch, and he was at least five-foot-ten in his budding days. She weighed about 120 pounds, soaking wet. She was also well-endowed like her mother and grandmother before her. Even though she was voluptuous and shapely, she was physically strong and street-smart as well as book smart. Alex graduated top of her high school class and received a scholarship for college. She was home for summer break and had just completed her second year at the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She could have accepted the proposals for other colleges in the east that her mother was pushing her to accept, but she had too much country girl in her, and every time she thought of leaving her family and her precious mountains of the Apache and Gila Wilderness, well, it was more than she could bear.

Alex was always on a horse riding a ridge through the rough and rugged mountain ranges. She loved every horse on their equestrian ranch. Grooming them was a pleasure for her, not a chore, after her schoolwork was done. Pulling ticks from the horses’ ears; brushing Avon’s Skin So Soft oil into the horses’ hide to keep the flies, mosquitoes, and ticks from biting them and laying pupa eggs near their eyes or open sores; and brushing and braiding their manes were just some of the many nonchore equine activities that she could have done for hours.

Len shook his head when Alex interrupted his flashback memories of his precious granddaughter growing up.

Sure, Granddad, I’m here for you. What do you want to tell me? Alex shifted her weight onto the two back legs of the hard oak chair in her grandfather’s bedroom as she spoke. She was eager to pass the time with another tale. He had so many of them, and they were all adventurous.

Granddad was always active when he was younger. Nothing stopped him short of fulfilling his expectations, nothing now but his old age.

"Well, I would like to share my life’s tale with you, if you don’t mind. There is one particular event that occurred in my life that I want to hand over to you. That is, after you have heard my accounts and what I have done with some treasures that I accumulated in my youth.

I’m leaving them all to you, Alex. You just have to go get it. I’ll tell you where it’s hid, but you have to take the adventure to find it.

Grandpa Len closed his eyes to let Alex absorb his words, and he hoped that she would think of it as a thrilling new adventure in her life. Like the adventure that changed his life when he was younger. Len Hudson had no knowledge of the terror that was to follow his granddaughter into the Gila Wilderness of the Mogollon Mountains.

Len purposely lay quietly for a while to collect his thoughts as he watched his granddaughter nestle herself comfortably in the hard oak chair by his bed. Slowly, he opened his eyes and started to recount his life’s story.

"I was born in the early nineteen hundreds on West Randolph Street in the loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, at Hotel Sherman, so I’ve been told. My mother and father both worked there. That’s how they met.

I used to play on the Cortland Street Bridge when I was a young lad. It was a swing bridge that connected the west side over the Chicago River that emptied into Lake Michigan. I remember seeing many horse-drawn wagons that were filled with steelworkers and packing plant employees.

Granddad stopped for a brief second to shuffle his weight in his bed, and then he continued.

There were rows of new, shiny, black automobiles—General Motors, Fords, and Chryslers—that were ready to cross when the bridge finished its cycle to close the wings of the steam-powered bridge. There were people on bicycles and hundreds of pedestrians waiting and watching the counterweights, the huge gears, and the steam motors that rotated when the swing bridge was closing. The grinding noise of metal rubbing against metal was so loud that the live chickens in the butcher shops would squawk and clamor with fright. Wild pigeons would flutter in waves nervously over the bridge. Everyone wanted to cross in a hurry early each morning. Countless horses whinnied raucously, while the drivers from the multiple vehicles pressed their brassy horns. There were so many pedestrians talking all at the same time as they waited for the swing bridge to close. It was difficult to distinguish one conversation from another, unless you were standing directly opposite the person who was speaking. One of the most spectacular views I had ever seen in my life was that swing bridge pivoting to allow boats to pass through on the Chicago River. I tell you, it was an amazing sight.

Len stopped for a brief moment to recollect his thoughts and then continued to recount his youth.

I was ten years old when my father was killed in an accident by two horse-drawn streetcars on Madison Street between South Canal and South Clinton Street. One of those damn things toppled over and crushed my father when they collided. My mother was devastated, and she had a hard time coping after that. Life wasn’t easy in those days. We didn’t have all the luxuries that you have today. I don’t believe that any of today’s luxuries would have helped my mother in any way.

Granddad stopped again, inhaled a huge breath, and stared directly into Alex’s eyes to see if she was paying attention to his story. He used to do that when she was younger to make sure he had a captive audience. Alex did believe that this time, he probably stopped to give his respect to both his parents who had died so many years ago. She could see that his eyes were becoming glassy, and a tear may have been forming, but her granddad wiped it away quickly before his emotions were out of control.

Granddad continued, Aunt Tillie, my mother’s older sister by eight years, convinced my mother to let me move in with her since my mother couldn’t and wouldn’t care for me anymore. The day Aunt Tillie and I left to go to her farm was the last time I ever saw my mother. My Aunt Tillie said that my mother died a lonely woman. She wouldn’t tell me any more than that. I’m not sure if my mother killed herself or just up and died as a lonely woman. It can happen, I heard, dying of loneliness.

Alex watched her grandfather relate his life’s history. This was a different tale than his normal stories. This time, her granddad was telling her about his early life, about her great-aunt Tillie. She heard about Great-Aunt Tillie a few times before, but never in detail, and her granddad never talked about his wife, her grandmother, Mary Ann Strauss. He said it was just too painful to talk about her since she had died.

Alex leaned forward to draw the blanket over Granddad’s arms when she noticed him shivering with a chill, and then she pleaded, Go on, Granddad. Please finish your story. She felt like a little girl again listening to his tales.

Len Hudson looked at Alex and offered a trifle grin before he continued his narrative of one of the most memorable milestones in his life. The grin faded away as he remembered that he had to kill a man to save his own life. He had to kill his partner. He was twenty-nine at the time, but his partner was in his forties. Len closed his eyes as a single tear rolled down his cheek. In the silent moment in Len Hudson’s bedroom, while Alex was staring at her grandfather in the hushed moment, Len stated in a barely audibly sound an allegation that startled her.

Please forgive me, Baxter. I didn’t mean to kill you, but it was either you or me.

Alex stood up abruptly, and her chair fell backward when she heard