The Goblin Queen’s Cache
An IPMA Adventure for Halloween 2014
By P. Edward Auman
Copyright 2014 P. Edward Auman
Cover Art Image by Algol - Fotolia.com
ISBN: 9781310058264
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Dedicated to those of us who are rightfully still afraid of dark forests and howls in the night.
The following is an interpretation of the Private Journal entries of one Jonathan H. Carruthers written following the night of October 31, 2014, donated to the Institute for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts. For research purposes regarding Rocky Mountain Faerie Folk interaction and observation of the presumed hostile Goblin Clan residing in or near Maple Mountain.
Jonathan sat on the old truck’s tailgate reviewing his equipment. He wasn’t quite sure why Don had reserved a camp stall way down in the valley so close to the interstate. The noise even though a couple miles away of semi’s on the road and the occasional train on the track near it were reason enough for him to look forward to their days in the actual mountains during this year’s hunt. But, at least from here they could climb up on the bed or even sit on the cab and use the binoculars to look for the trails.
There were so many peaks and so many canyons, it had to be some of the best hunting ground in the lower 48 available, and he and his brother finally got the lottery for a draw. His favorite rifle, a Ruger No. 1 that was what he thought of as a classic looking rifle that fit his hands well, was all cleaned and rubbed. His knife he had just finished sharpening was strapped tightly to his leg the way he liked it. And Don was busy getting some hamburgers grilled on an old iron skillet over their fire.
It was then, as Jon looked up at the hills in the late dusk of an early October night that he saw the flash upon the top of Mount Maple. The light was merely a pinprick from so far away, likely not to be noticed by the couple hundred-thousand residents that blanketed the valley floor as it sprawled northward towards the next large valley. But far south in the county, in the mostly rural area he and Don started making preparations in, it was just enough for an observant hunter to catch. It flashed a welding-hot blue light three times. That was the first thing to catch his attention, that it had a pattern.
Staring at the point on the mountain near its peak where only a light frosting of snow had so far touched the Rockies and then quickly melted off again, Jon was mesmerized. He couldn’t imagine another hunter taking the time to climb so very high up, probably over ten-thousand feet in elevation and just above the alpine line to go after any deer that live in this particular unit. It was weird. And he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be anyone, perhaps some teens, who would drive up there casually. He knew from previous trips it was near impossible in a normal car or truck to get up to that particular location. The service road on the peak next to it for the antenna array was difficult enough, if you got past the guardsman five thousand feet below, but to get to the rise near the very peak of old Maple would have had to have been by foot.
So he waited. And watched.
Eventually, the light flashed again. This time many more than just three times. Perhaps he missed the full pattern the first time around. But it definitely wasn’t Morse code because it was so random. Jon knew a few letters and words in Morse but these were so random it could have just been a very bright flashlight going in and out of trees. Except it wasn’t. It was stationary.
He got up, now having the location in silhouette at the mountain top narrowly pinpointed, and walked to the back of the cab in the bed of the truck and nabbed the binoculars. He trained them upon the mountain and waited again.
“What are you up to, Jon?” his brother asked, standing with the skillet in his hand. “These burgers are ready, by the way.”
“Hold ‘em by the fire for just a sec,” Jon replied.
Doing so and then hopping up on the truck bed Don asked again, “What you see up there?” He added with a smirk, “Think you can take him down from five miles away?”
“Nah. Nah,” Jon hesitated. “Be quiet, I’m looking at something?”
“You need me to be quiet for you to look at sumthin’?” his brother retorted. “Just how many have you had, Don?”
“None,” Jonathon answered again. “Now, be quiet, will ya? There’s something goin’ on up on the peak, I’m trying to see what.”
Together, one with his eyes in binoculars and the other with just enough drink to feel like he was wearing binoculars, the two brothers stared and waited. Then the light flashes came again. Several of them, and just out of the corner of Don’s eye he noted through the canyon and up onto the peak due south of Mount Maple there was a replying flashing of light.
“Look!” he said, whacking his brother’s shoulder hard. “Did you see that one?”
“No, where?”
Donald pointed as best he could to a ridge near the peaks of Bald Mountain which did not rise nearly so high up as Mount Maple, but had had a burn cover the top third of it several years back and had been nicknamed Bald Mountain after the trees were gone. Sure enough there was a returning cacophony of response flashes. They seemed to be calling back and forth to one another.
Jon focused the binoculars on the exact spot on the ridge where the second light had come from and he managed to make out several very small silhouettes. At such a distance it was still difficult to make out the actual form of a deer even in daylight, but you could make out certain details, especially if it was moving and you were a hunter. Whatever these were, they were smaller, dark and a little creepy in the dark. Jonathan’s first thought was that of ants. They scurried, while one or two seemed to be making the flash between them. If he squinted just right it seemed like one was striking something the other was holding each time the flash of blue light came.
And the light itself through the binoculars seemed somewhat organic. Though it was blue and brilliant it was not just a flashlight or something man-made looking. It seemed more like it was a flicker of flame, dancing between the scurrying shadows.
“Bunch o’ boy scouts, I betcha,” Don interjected. “Seems like a dangerous thing to be doing right now with all the hunters in the hills.”
The younger brother was moving to get back off the truck and enjoy supper.
“No, I don’t think so,” Jonathan finally replied, licking his lips a bit as he usually did when he was concentrating. “Sumthin’ weird ‘bout it.”
“Well, c’mon. You still need to eat before these burgers get cold.”
Jon watched for another near minute, before he finally hopped out of the truck bed with binoculars in hand. They prepped their hamburgers together and opened a pair of cold beers from the cooler, one of several combined mistakes that led to their disappearance later that night. Once they started chewing though they sat nearly silently, which was also quite unusual, and watched the lights communicating back and forth.
For nearly ten minutes the lights went back and forth with occasional rests in between, and the burgers were disappeared when suddenly Don pointed lower among the mountains, on a ridge towards the base of Mount Maple. Another light flashed down at the lower elevation. It too followed a pattern, though the first signaling seemed short. After a couple minutes it
became clear that whatever conversation was being had with these lights was being had more between the second location and the third now, and the top elevation first signal was slowly migrating down the top ridge to a lower elevation with only infrequent bursts of short messages.
“If those are boy scouts,” Jonathan groused, “they ain’t just freezin’. There’s a whole bunch uv’em.”
Then a fourth light replied still lower, a ways from but on the same elevation as the famed Maple Springs themselves were known to exist above a small cliff face of granite. Don took heavier sips of his alcohol than Jon but even he was starting to get a weird feeling about these odd lights flashing back and forth on the mountainside. It was as if packs of people were looking for something, almost a set of search parties.
“Was there anything about a lost hunter again this weekend or sumthin’?” Don slurred ever so slightly, letting the mild southern-style accent slip out that those living on the southern end of the western face of the Rockies seemed to have.
Jon apparently hadn’t thought of that. He gave his brother a quick look and took a very small sip of his own beer. “No, not that I know of. There was nothing on the radio tonight.”
They sat just a little bit longer, letting the unseasonably warm late-October day turn to a typical chilly Fall night and the moon had risen well above the mountains. Yet neither brother could make out specific shapes or behaviors from the shadows around the lights as they watched, and finally Jonathan could take it no more. His curiosity got the best of him.
“Don, they’re moving a little towards where one of the tower road branches go. See the Pine Canyon trail up there between the tower mount and Mount Maple?” he asked.
Don was nodding his head and then turned to watch his older brother stand up and dust himself off a bit.
Jonathan continued, “I’m gonna drive up there and see if I can see what they’re up to.”
“Alright,” Don rose slowly. “I’m coming with.”
They secured their rifles into the gun rack and loaded into the cab, the old GM four-hundred small;-block coming lazily to life and barking louder than they might have wanted that late at night through the rusted and holey exhaust. Putting the column shifter into drive, Jonathan rolled out of camp, leaving their fire going and their tent setup.