The Silver Madonna and Other Tales of America's Greatest Lost Treasures (15 page)

Those familiar with the tale of the buried Inca treasure in the area were convinced the Spaniard found some of it and carried it away. How the stranger managed to transport such a sizeable amount of the heavy gold, silver, and other treasures was never determined. No one ever discovered his identity or where he went. What was quickly discerned, however, was that there remained eleven holes unexcavated.

During the ensuing years, floods from the Salt Fork have filled the ten excavations with sediment. While there were some old-timers in the county who claimed to know where these holes could be found, there exists some confusion about the actual location of the ten excavated holes.

Strange, indeed, but events were about to get even stranger.

In the spring of 1902, a second Spaniard arrived in the area, this one a young man in his late twenties. He was polite, apparently well educated, and carried a very old map along with numerous notations on a large piece of old, tanned leather. Many speculated about the identity of the stranger, but like the Spaniard who preceded him two and a half decades earlier, this one likewise remained quiet and elusive.

After spending several days riding around the property purchased by the earlier Spaniard, the younger one rode into Aspermont, purchased a number of shovels, picks, and buckets, and hired four men to do some digging. One of the men, who was interviewed several years later, stated that the young Spaniard, constantly consulting the leather map, led the diggers around the area for four days checking landmarks and asking questions about the region. Finally, they arrived at a location decided upon by the young man and commenced digging.

Within the first hour of labor, the workers unearthed four skeletons. They were then directed to excavate other holes at marked locations. Several of these holes appeared to have been previously excavated and then filled in with river sediment. Though the workers dug as deep as eight feet into the ground, nothing was found.

On the day they were due to be paid, the Spaniard explained that he did not have enough money but that he would share a percentage of the treasure he claimed they were certain to find. Following several more days of digging in the hot Panhandle sun and finding nothing, the workers grew irritable and demanded their wages. The Spaniard told them he would go into town and obtain some money from the bank. After carefully folding the leather map and placing it into a case, he climbed aboard his carriage and drove away. It was the last anyone ever saw of him.

Most researchers who have studied this tale are convinced that the young Spaniard was related to the one who had arrived years earlier, perhaps a son or a grandson. They are also convinced that the reason he did not find any of the buried Incan treasure is that the workers dug into the same holes previously excavated by the elderly Spaniard years earlier.

As far as anyone knows, the remaining eleven caches have never been found and remain filled with a great portion of the Incan treasure. In one of them lies, many contend, the first Bible to reach the Americas.

17

Lost Treasure in the Monahans Sandhills

Located near the point where Winkler, Ector, Crane, and Ward counties all come together in West Texas near the northern limit of Big Bend country, an expanse of bright sand dunes rises out of the otherwise gravelly and creosote-studded desert floor. From an airplane, this unbroken collection of dunes looks much like an island, and there is no place else like it in Texas.

So unique and spectacular are these sands that they have been designated by Texas as Monahans Sandhills State Park, a travel destination that receives thousands of visitors each year. Unknown to those who come, however, and lying somewhere just inches below the very dunes they hike and play on, are the remains of forty wagons along with 477 gold ingots. This lost treasure is estimated to be worth in excess of thirty-five million dollars today.

In Yuma, Arizona, in September 1873, preparations were being made for the departure of a wagon train on a long journey to St. Louis, Missouri. The party of travelers consisted of several dozen families of Dutch descent. Years earlier, they had traveled to California to seek their fortunes in the gold fields. By dint of frugal living, hard work, and a modicum of luck at locating and harvesting gold ore, they grew wealthy. The gold-laced quartz outcrops in the California Rockies yielded the mineral they came for. They mined, panned, smelted, and stored the gold until they were convinced they had accumulated enough to establish a Dutch settlement at a preselected location along the Missouri–Illinois border.

With their newfound wealth, the leaders of the Dutch party purchased the finest wagons, horses, and oxen for the long trip. Along with supplies, rifles, and ammunition, the gold was loaded onto several of the wagons and covered with the possessions of the families. It was early autumn, and the travelers were anxious to begin the trek eastward before the weather turned cold.

During the first several weeks travel was difficult. The party endured storms, floods, drought, and Indian attacks. A few attempts were made by outlaws to rob the wagon train but they were repelled by the Dutch marksmen. Three months from the time they began their journey in Yuma, they reached Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River in West Texas. Minutes after the last wagon made it across the river, the leader of the Dutch party, a man named Daniel Flake, spotted several mounted Indians watching the caravan from a nearby rise. Flake rode toward the Indians to apologize for the intrusion into their territory and to inform them they were only passing through.

As Flake approached the Indians he noted that they were armed with bows, arrows, and lances. Their faces and bodies were painted. When he was fifty yards from their position, the Indians turned their horses and galloped away down an adjacent ravine. Flake had come close enough to the Indians to recognize them as Comanches. He also knew they were one of the most feared tribes in North America and one known to attack and slay travelers who entered their realm. That night, Flake ordered the guard doubled around the wagon train.

For the next few days as the wagon train lumbered eastward, Flake observed Comanches watching them from a distance. When he and other riders attempted to approach, the Indians rode away, disappearing into the landscape. Flake grew nervous with the Indians’ presence, and confessed to a bad feeling. He told one of the stock handlers that he was having premonitions of disaster.

Travel was slow, the tired oxen managing only a few miles each day. More time passed, and one day the wagon train rolled through the tiny settlement of Monahans, a community that consisted of little more than ragged tents and brush shelters. On reaching the eastern outskirts of Monahans, a scout rode up to Flake and informed him of a large expanse of sand dunes a short distance ahead. Within its limit, the scout said, he found a freshwater spring and suggested it would be a good place to camp for the night. Flake led the party toward the dunes.

As the wagon train approached the destination, Flake again noticed they were being watched by Comanches. The Indians were on horseback and remained two hundred yards behind them. Flake counted more than one hundred and fifty warriors. He also noted that each was carrying a weapon.

Around midday, the wagon train entered the dunes. The mounds of shiny, light-colored sand grains extended east and north as far as Flake could see. Many of the dunes were dozens of feet tall. The varying topography, along with the soft sand, made travel difficult for the oxen and horses. Moving through the yielding ground and sinking several inches into the sand was much more difficult than walking across the hard-packed desert floor they had experienced up until now. Before much time had passed, the animals had become exhausted.

The wheels of the heavy wagons sank even deeper into the sands, sometimes causing forward movement to cease altogether and necessitating the efforts of men and additional draft animals to pull the vehicles free. As the Dutch fought the challenges of these obstacles while making their way to the freshwater spring, the Comanches were making their way closer to the wagon train. While hitching extra oxen to a wagon that had sunk into deep sand, Flake looked up and spotted the Indians sitting their ponies only fifty yards away.

It was well past sundown by the time the party reached the spring. Flake ordered the drivers to pull the wagons into a protective circle in the event the Indians decided to launch a strike. This done, he instructed the women and children to fill the water barrels from the nearby spring.

That night, the waxing moon shone bright in the sky. Flake and several of the men stood guard around the wagons. In the distance, they could see the Comanche warriors riding their mounts slowly back and forth, deliberately circling the campsite. Throughout the night, the Indians rode in an ever-widening circle. By dawn they were gone.

During the night, a group of men approached Flake and expressed their concern that the Indians knew about their gold and wanted to steal it. Despite Flake’s objections, the men insisted the gold ingots be removed from the wagons that night and buried at some location in the dunes. In the morning, the train would depart. When the Indians approached the train and saw there was no gold, they insisted, they would simply ride away. At some time in the future when the Indian menace was removed from the region by the U.S. Army, they would return to the location, dig up the gold, and proceed to their new settlement in the east.

Flake objected strenuously to this proposal, explaining that the Comanches cared nothing at all for the gold, that they were just angered at this intrusion into their lands. If anything, said Flake, the Comanches would be more interested in stealing the horses and oxen than any gold they carried.

Despite Flake’s arguments, the group of men insisted their plan be followed. Realizing the futility of further objections, Flake stood by while the men unloaded the gold ingots and buried them in several excavations made inside the circle of wagons.

Flake did not sleep that night. The bad feeling he had been experiencing the previous days returned even stronger. He paced about the camp all night, stopping now and then to peer out into the darkness, searching for any sign of the Comanches. When dawn broke and just before any of the sleeping travelers had awakened, Flake spotted a lone Comanche sitting astride a pony atop a dune some fifty yards away. As Flake watched the Indian for several minutes, the camp began to stir as men and women climbed out of the wagons and started campfires to prepare breakfast. Horses and oxen were tended to and children scurried about playing in the cool dawn.

As the Dutchmen moved about with their morning chores, the lone Indian, in a slow and deliberate movement, raised his lance high above his head. Within seconds, he was joined by the rest of the Comanches, all armed with similar lances as well as bows and arrows, war clubs, and a few rifles.

Flake debated whether or not to approach the Indians. Seconds later, however, the relative quiet of the early morning was shattered by a piercing cry. In another moment, the Comanches galloped down the dunes toward the circle of wagons. Their war cries rang through the air and mixed with the screams of the terrified travelers.

As women and children ran for the shelter of the wagons, the Dutchmen scrambled for their rifles. No sooner had they retrieved their weapons than the Comanches were upon them, riding about the camp inside the wagon circle slashing, clubbing, and shooting all they came in contact with. The skirmish lasted for thirty minutes as the Dutchmen valiantly sought to defend their families. Their efforts proved fruitless. All of the members of the wagon train—men, women, and children—were dead.

When the last of the immigrants were scalped, the Comanches turned to the wagons and began looting them. They found and took cooking pots, clothes, bolts of cloth, and other goods deemed important. Unwanted items were tossed to the ground. Some of the warriors cut the harnesses and reins from the stock and began herding the animals away toward the north.

By noon, all of the wagons had been ransacked and set afire. The last of the Indians had ridden away to join the main band. Already, the convection-driven desert winds were stirring the light sand grains on the desert floor, blowing them along and pushing them up against the remains of the wagons and the scattered and mutilated bodies of more than one hundred Dutch. Buzzards that had been circling high in the sky began their slow, patient descent to the ground. They flew in ever-tightening spirals toward the corpses lying on the blood-soaked sand.

The gold ingots, their total weight estimated to be as much as ten thousand pounds, lay just below a covering of sand in several individual caches. They had gone unseen by the Indians. They would remain there for a long time.

Decades passed, and the ever-shifting sands of the Chihuahuan Desert closed in upon and covered the entire remains of the wagon train. Travelers who stopped at the freshwater spring occasionally told of finding what appeared to be an old wooden plank from a wagon or a piece of harness, but none were aware of the massacre that had taken place there during the early part of 1874.

Other than availing themselves of the cool waters of the spring, people passing through the region had little reason to enter the realm of what had come to be called the Monahans Sandhills. The first formal expedition to enter the area was led by Arthur Hayes, a retired U.S. Army colonel and a prominent West Texas judge. Hayes undertook such expeditions from time to time to evaluate the surrounding countryside to assess the possibilities for the grazing of livestock.

The scout for the Hayes expedition was a man named Robert Brown. Brown led the Hayes party into the Monahans Sandhills and selected a location for camp at the freshwater spring, now called Willow Spring. While encamped here, Hayes and other men found several charred pieces of milled lumber. One of the members of the group suggested they might have come from a wagon. On the second day, they found two wagon wheels and several metal fittings partially buried in the sand.

Curious, some of the men began digging, and in a short time unearthed several dozen human skeletons. A number of the skulls appeared to have been caved in such as might happen from the heavy blow from a club. Some of the bones had stone arrowheads embedded in them.

After piecing together the evidence of what likely occurred at Willow Spring, Hayes tried for several years to solve the mystery of the destroyed wagon train and the death of its members. An elderly man, Hayes passed away before learning the truth.

In the wake of Arthur Hayes, other researchers analyzed remains of the wagon train and eventually concluded the site contained what was left of the Dutch party that left Yuma, Arizona, in 1873 and never arrived at its intended destination in Missouri. Originally, the group had departed Pennsylvania years earlier for California to seek their fortune in the gold fields.

Several years later, one of the researchers encountered an old newspaper clipping describing in detail the organization of a party of Dutch miners in Yuma and their plans to travel to a location in the east to establish a religious community. The researcher was startled to read that the party left Yuma with 477 gold ingots.

Excited at the prospect of locating the treasure, the researcher returned to the site near Willow Springs. On arriving, however, he found that it had once again been covered over by the shifting desert sands. He was unable to relocate the exact place he had excavated years earlier.

During the 1940s, a cowhand employed at a nearby cattle ranch rode into the Monahans Sandhills in search of some stray cattle. He followed their tracks to Willow Spring where he found the animals resting in the shade of the few trees that grew there. Since it was late in the day, the cowhand decided to make camp and herd the cattle back to the ranch in the morning. As he scooped out a small pit in the sand in which to make his campfire, his hand struck something solid. After scraping away more of the sand, he removed a large metal bar. Thinking it was a piece of lead used for fashioning bullets, he placed it in one of his saddlebags. He intended to give it to the ranch foreman, who reloaded his own ammunition for his rifle.