"one should not disturb the spirits.."
My family comes from the Northern
New
Mexico, Southern Colorado area, particularly near the Rio
Grande.
There are many tales of buried or found Spanish gold there,
and this
story
indirectly relates to that. My uncle had a cattle ranch
(he has
since
passed on, although my aunt and cousins still live there) in
the San
Luis
Valley, and if you faced east from his front porch, you could
see
across
his land and the land of some of my other relatives. The
land is
usually green with wild grasses although the terrain is high
desert
plain.
The ranchers have a system of canals with which they irrigate
their
lands,
making them lush with grasses. If you face slightly
southeast
from
my uncle's porch, there is a barren, small hill that rises out
of the
green
fields. I would spend some summers in this part of
Colorado and I
would visit my uncle's ranch. While I was there, we
would look to
the southeast and see floating lights around the area of the
barren
hill.
The family story is that this hill is where there is buried
Spanish
gold
that is protected by spirits, and that the lights are those
spirits.
One day, my cousin and I decided we would go gold hunting and
we walked
out to the small hill and began poking around. We found
there was
a cellar type of structure in the hill, with a wooden door,
probably a
potato cellar, we thought at the time. Anyway, we
explored the
cellar
and didn't find much but dust. We climbed to the top of
the hill
and were drawn to a medium sized lava boulder which we
strained to
overturn,
successfully. On the bottom of the boulder was carved a
small
cross.
We thought this was unusual, but soon dismissed it. That
night,
we
were with our other cousins in a small trailer we were using
as our
bedroom,
excitedly telling everyone about our treasure hunting
experience that
day.
Suddenly, the kerosene lamp we were using for light flickered
as though
someone were trying to blow it out, then it actually went
out. It
was pitch dark in the trailer, and everyone went for the
door. I
was at the back of the trailer laying on the bed away from the
door,
and
was the last one to make it to the door. I stepped out
and turned
180 degrees to run to the house about 50 feet away from the
trailer.
It was a pitch black night, moonless, but I still could make
out the
silhouettes
of my cousins making it to the porch 50 feet or so away. When
I was
about
to break into a run, something grabbed the collar of my
jacket,
stopping
me from moving. Terrified, I turned to see who was holding me,
but all
I saw was darkness....whatever had my jacket let go at that
time, and I
broke into a sprint for the house. I did not sleep that
night,
and
when I got up in the morning, I told my aunt what had happened
and she
told me, essentially, "one should not disturb the spirits.."