Go west, young man

Last week in Duluth MN I stumbled into this little old used bookstore while waiting for acouple of tree trunk thugs to get tired of chasing me. The place was ragged and dirty, sort of how I was feeling that day. Appropriate. Ducked between haphazzardly stacked piles of musty old books something caught my eye. It was worn and tattered and very very yellowed with age. I slid it out from where it was wedged between a first printing of the Julia Childs cookbook and some ancient volume with it's title long since worn off. It appeared to be some sort of map. All of the writing was in Spanish and there were rudimentary sketches of piles of skulls and a mountain range that was oddly familiar, but the main thing that caught my eye was the large brownish stain running through the middle of the map and the small bullet sized hole through the middle. Another thing that caught my eye was that several times throughout the scribbled Spanish text was a word that didn't fit - Waltz. What was a Germanic surname, or dance style, doing in this poorly preserved hispanic document? And what exactly was this a map to? I'm no ace at Spanish, but I know what "muerto" means, and this bad boy had death written all over it, both figuratively and litterally. And Death is just one of my middle names.



Before I could get into the nitty gritty of this map, I had to get it out of this ratty old book shop. I found it odd that considering the sudden and conspicuous manner in which I entered the store, I had not yet been harrassed by any shopkeeper or the sort of pompous bookworms that normally frequent this sort of shop. Rising my head above the piles behind which I had taken my refuge, I was startled to see an ancient little indian woman squinting at me from behind tiny half moon spectacles, smiling big as you please. So much for a stealthy retreat.... The shopkeeper's appearance was offsetting to say the least. not possibly more than 4 feet tall, she appeared to be in at least her ninth decade. She had a hand crocheted shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders, but wore short sleeves and her forearms were a colorful canvas of intricate native American tattooistry. I guessed that the symbols were probably Apache or Hopi in origin. And while she had life's map of many hard years carved in the wrinkles across her face, her hair was still perfectly black and smooth, pulled back into a tight little bun, with a well chewed pencil unceremoniously shoved through it. Even more unsettling was when she spoke, it was with strongly broken English I expected, but with a strong Mandarin accent, and her voice was smooth and crsip, not at all the conduit to the past that I wa expecting.

"Bad map! You go now!"

"Bad map, eh? How much?"

"Bad map! Twenty dollar!"

Well that was easy. I would say too easy, but things always come easy to me.

I pull a $20 from my pocket and give it to her. She shuffles behind the counter and holds it up to the light. Appearantly satisfied, she drops it into a worn cigar box. She hastily grabs a box of what appears to be home made fudge and shoves it at me.

"You want chocolate?"

Looking at the map , I pretended not to hear.

"What is this?" I ask, not looking from the map, indicating the dark brown stain.

"Husband. He die, long time. What you want? You go now."

"Husband? Your husband?"

"No! Gengis Kahn husband! Chocolate?"

I chuckle and carefully fold the map up and put it in my bag.

"Dutchman kill many people! You go now, Dutchman kill you, you no bother. Go now"

The Lost Dutchman mine of southern Arizona. Suddenly I wanted my $20 back, but one look at the little old crypt keeper told me I wasn't going to get it. The Lost Dutchman is a well known lost, very rich gold mine hidden somewhere in the Superstition mountains near Phoenix. Treasure hunters have been looking for it for a hundred years. It is also a fairy tale, and this lady was conning me. But hey. A twenty could put a couple of cheeseburgers in this lady, and I had more where that came from. The map WAS old, that much I could tell. The 'blood' was probably not real, but it couldn't hurt to run a couple of tests, and I knew just the person to run them. I was getting pretty tired of the cold anyway. Perhaps it was time to head back out west after all...

I sidestepped the proffered fudge and exited the shop, looking around to see that the coast was clear. I decided to walk a few blocks over before finding a ride suitable to make the trip. After a quick stop at the motel to grab my things, I was on my way.

Minnesota was getting a bit crowded anyway these days.