I grew up in Oklahoma. Apparently there are a lot of stories of lost gold, but the one my grandfather told me involved Spaniards looking for the fountain of youth. In the 21 century we are still looking, but we’ve decided that it comes in a jar of cream or a pill we can swallow. Everyone wants an easy answer… but back to my grandfather.
He told of the Spanish coming from South America, up into the part of the United States that is now Oklahoma. They were camped out on the plains just south of what is now Poteau when a group of Indians came into camp loaded down with meat and furs from a successful hunt. Since there was a language barrier, the Spanish tried to bargain for the meat and furs as best they could. They were running low on supplies and badly needed the meat, but the Indians didn’t understand. The shiny round disks the strange men seemed to be trying to give them were pretty, but they had hungry people to feed back at the village and no need for round, flat rocks, no matter how they gleamed. Soon, tempers flared and shots were fired. In the end the Spanish, who out gunned and out numbered the Indians, had killed all but one of the mighty red men. That one Indian, though badly wounded, escaped into the night.
The next morning, the Spanish were breaking camp when a mighty cry erupted from all around them. They were completely surrounded by Indians, ready to avenge their brothers’ death. The Spanish fought, but this time they were the ones outnumbered. Eventually, a few Spaniards broke away from the camp and rode toward a nearby mountain. If they could just get away and hide out for a while, then they could reunite with any of others who survived the fight. Soon, the men reached the foothills; they were safe now and all they had to do was find a place to hide. As they rode into a valley they spotted an opening about half way up a rocky hillside. Deciding that this cave was the perfect place to hide, they took the pack of gold off the mule they had escaped with and drug it up to the entrance. Beyond the mouth of the cave was a hole big enough for a man leading back into the mountain, so they explored it. The cave ended about 200 feet in, but to one side was a hole in the rock floor deep enough that you couldn’t see the bottom. They had to hide the gold, so two of the men dropped a braided rawhide rope into the opening and the third one climbed down. When the man climbed back out, he reported it was the perfect place to hide their treasure. They threw the bags of gold into the hole before noticing a boulder off to the side. Why not tie the rope to the boulder and leave it to mark the spot? Hiding the gold didn’t help the men however, because upon exiting the cave they found the Indians had tracked them and were waiting to take their lives.
Many years later, Oklahoma became part of the United States and families came to eke out a living in a very poor part of the state. The mountain everyone called Cavanal was now free range grazing for the community. Anyone could brand their cattle and turn them loose on the mountain to graze for the summer. Without the cattle eating it, the little farms could allow their own grass to grow and have it to feed their herd through the rough winters. This meant poor farmers didn’t have to buy grain. As the story goes, my grandpa turned his cattle loose on the mountain to spend the summer. In the fall, all the farmers got together for the yearly roundup. They would herd all the cattle down from the mountain and separate them according to brands, making sure all the cows they collected didn’t get separated from the calves that had been born during the summer. Calves could be sold in the Fort Smith stockyard and were a good part of their income.
It was on this roundup that Grandpa saw a calf wander into a hole in the mountain and got off his horse to retrieve it. Way back in the cave, Grandpa found the straggler and shooed him back toward the opening. That’s when he noticed the hole. Stopping to investigate, he saw the rope, hard and dried out from age. He didn’t dare use the rotten rope to climb down, and besides, it was getting late and he had to get the cattle down the mountain. He would come back another day, he promised himself. As things tend to go on a farm though, one thing or another kept him from riding out to explore the cave. The years went by and Grandpa got old. He couldn’t ride that old red horse back up on the mountain, or chase cattle anymore for that matter. He decided to run sheep because they didn’t require as much pasture land, but Grandpa knew there was gold on that mountain, he just knew it.
Well, that’s the story and the subject of my third book. (My second one is ready to go to the printers!) You will visit two cousins, loosely based on my cousin and myself. (Very loosely!) Oklahoma was a wonderful place to grow up; we were poor as church mice but rich on love. As another cousin once commented, “We had all we wanted to eat and no idea we were poor because everyone was in the same boat.” Our clothes were patched but they were clean and ironed, my mama saw to that. We may not have had money, but pride was abundant.
Take care and happy reading, Linda