“There you go with that ‘Mister’ again. Good luck. You too, Sheriff.”

Watts didn’t answer as he followed Morwood out the door. He was thinking about what he could do to stop the destruction of High Lonesome at the hands of the feds.

48

IT WAS ELEVEN o’clock on a Monday morning at the Institute. Orlando Chavez sat in a rolling chair in his laboratory, Nora seated next to him. They had been there ever since Nora had roused Chavez from bed at six in the morning and persuaded him to come into the office early. Both were staring at a large computer screen with an image of the text on the parchment Nantan had given her.

“Finally, we can read it clearly,” said Chavez. They had spent hours photographing the parchment under UV light and digitally enhancing the faded script to bring out the details. “So: what we have here is a classic example of Cortesana Castilian script from the seventeenth century. It looks like gibberish to the unpracticed eye, but the challenge isn’t the language—Spanish hasn’t changed that much in the last few centuries—it’s reading the script. I can read it, but for the uninitiated it’s practically impossible. Fortunately, there are online alphabet charts of old Spanish scripts.” His voice had become almost professorial. “Here, let me show you.”

Moving to a second computer screen, he typed in some commands and brought up a website displaying numerous charts. Each showed a letter of the alphabet with all the old Castilian script versions of it, both upper-and lowercase.

“Take the capital letter A for instance,” he said. “Here are all the ways it is written in Cortesana script. A remarkable variety, and some don’t look anything like an A! Now, B …”

Controlling her impatience, Nora gently interrupted. “That’s fascinating. Now, can we move on to the text?”

“Of course. Now that it’s legible, let’s see what it says … ” Chavez fell silent and peered at the image on the first computer screen, while Nora waited.

After a few minutes he sat back in his chair. “Madre de Dios,” he said under his breath.

“What does it say?” Nora was bursting with eagerness.

“It’s hard to know exactly what it says, since roughly one-half of the text has been cut off. But I can translate the half that’s here.”

“And?” Nora asked.

“Let me translate it for you, line by line,” Chavez said. “I don’t mean to keep you in suspense, but I’d rather not add my own summary, because … well, you can see for yourself.”

“‘S.C.C. Majestad,’” he read, then paused. “That’s shorthand for Sacra Cesarea Cathólica Majestad, or Holy Roman Catholic Majesty. Intriguing. It indicates the letter was addressed not to the viceroy in Mexico City but to the emperor of Spain himself, Charles II—clearly this correspondence was very important. Okay now, let me go line by line: On the 20th of August 1680 I write in haste— along the Camino Real. On the 10th of Aug—

He stopped. “The tenth of August was the first day of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. I’ll resume: many of the holy fathers. Having foreknowl— “He probably means foreknowledge of the Revolt. One of the Pueblo plotters betrayed his fellows and told the friars about the revolt just before it started: Angelico, and Fray Bartolomé and soldiers— of the cathedral, the churches and the miss—

with treasure and fled southward. Along the Ca— Nora interrupted. “You said treasure?”

“Yes. The Castilian word is tesoro. ‘Along the Ca—’ must mean “Along the Camino Real,’ which was the Royal Road from Santa Fe to Mexico City, down which the friars fled during the revolt.”

He went on:

beset by savage Apachu Indians and forced east— the treasure in the old Reina de Oro mine in the— Sierra Oscura. We concealed the south entrance— a stone five paces to the right. At the base of E— on a large stone directly below. We conce—

We are yet pressed by the Apachu and I—

you receive it, and that the holy treas—

Catholic Majesty upon the recapture—

Humble servant and vassal of Your Majesty, who— Fray Bartolomé de Aragon

He stopped and peered through his thick glasses. “Nora, do you see the significance of this? What we have here appears to be an actual historical account of the Victorio Peak treasure.”

“Not only that—it appears to include directions to where the treasure was hidden.”

“And look here, it mentions the Sierra Oscura. That’s the range of hills north of Victorio Peak.” He exhaled. “This is incredible. It means Doc Noss was a fraud and con all along, claiming he’d found the treasure on Victorio Peak!” He paused. “‘At the base of E—’ … That could refer to a hill or landmark in the Sierra Oscura—the real hill.”

“Is that still on the White Sands Missile Range?” Nora asked.

“Yes, but near the north end, on the Jornada del Muerto side of the mountains, not far from the Trinity site.”

Not far from the Trinity site. “Have you heard of this Reina de Oro mine?”

“No. It was clearly one of many pre-Revolt mines, of which all historical documents were lost during the rebellion.” Chavez took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. “There’s something I wasn’t going to tell you yet, but—well, this document changes everything.”