Assault on Atlantis

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He was known as the Mountain Madman in town. In a mining town full of many strange characters, such a distinguishing moniker meant one was indeed far from the norm.

Bouyer didn’t care what the people in Boulder called him. He only went down there every three or four months for ammunition and other essential supplies. So far he’d made seven trips. It was closing on two years since he’d left Denver after his vision. He’d found the spot he’d “seen” relatively easily: a small cave at the base of the middle Flatiron in rough terrain.

At first he’d camped there, expecting something to happen at any moment. But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, he’d realized that the vision hadn’t guaranteed a time. He went to work and built a small cabin outside the cave. He hunted for food and did some trapping so he could trade m town. And most of all, he waited. Through two brutal winters, the searing heat of summer, lightning storms and flooding creeks, he waited.

Whenever he went into town he also checked on the latest news. 1875 had been a year of turmoil. Another Army expedition had confirmed the finding of gold in the Black Hills. The government tried to buy the land outright from the Sioux, an offer that was soundly rejected. Then the government did the inevitable, opening the land to whites, breaking their own treaty. To make the area safe, a proclamation was issued ordering all Sioux to report to reservations by 31 January, 1876. Any who did not would be considered hostile.

General Crook, a renowned Indian fighter, had attempted a campaign in the winter of 1875 to 1876, but the Army found these northern plains more brutal than those in the south and managed only to scatter one village before the cold sent them back to the warmth of their forts.

Now with spring, there were rumors of military movement against the Sioux. Bouyer knew the storm clouds were gathering, yet he also knew he had to stay in this place until whatever he was waiting for occurred.

Bouyer walked back and forth along the base of the massive rock face of the second Flatiron. Sheer rock angled up for more than three hundred feet. Before pointing a jagged edge into the sky. Boulder was several miles to the east, on the edge into the sky. Boulder was several miles to the east, on the edge spot.

Bouyer paused in his pacing as storm clouds appeared over the top of the Flatirons. Afternoon thunderstorms were common in the spring, and he paid it little mind. That is until a lightning bolt hit the middle of the Flatiron. Spraying chips of rock down on him.

Bouyer staggered back into the shelter of a pine tree as another bolt struck the rock face. He felt it, the power, the nearness of something. Finally, was all he could think.

In front of him. At the very bottom of the Flatiron, a black circle appeared on the rock about six feet around and pitch black, a darkness that Bouyer didn’t want to go near. He waited as lightning crackled all about. Thunder reverberating off the Flatirons and echoing all around.

A man stepped out of the circle, a man who had been through a gate of fire, his body burned, blistered and savaged by the gate. In his hands was a singed metal case. Bouyer felt his stomach heave as he saw that the man’s eyes were blinded, partially melted from whatever he had experienced. He couldn’t imagine the pain the man must be in. Bouyer had seen captives burned at the stake in Indian camps, but this was far beyond that.

The man held up the case in his hands. Bouyer reached out and took it. The man went to his knees, lifted his head up to the rain that was just beginning to fall, as if the drops were soothing to his burned flesh, then collapsed, dead.

Bouyer knelt next to the body, putting down the still warm and smoking case. Bouyer noted that the man’s eyes were narrow. Was he a Chinaman, like one of those working on the railroad in the east? Where had he come from?

Bouyer turned from the body to the case. Whatever the metal was, it had been partially melted and warped. The latch to open it didn’t work. Bouyer pulled out his hatchet and went to work, cutting through. As he worked, the storm passed and the sun broke through the clouds. After many strokes, the blade bounced off something hard. He saw the glint of crystal. He uncovered a skull, then another. Eventually he extracted eight from the case.

Bouyer stood, looking at the eight crystal skulls reflecting the sunlight. He turned to the body and picked up the smaller man. He carried the body to his cabin and placed it inside. Then he started a fire in the Center of the small room. Bouyer went back out and watched as flames engulfed the structure. Then he loaded the skulls, adding in the one he’d already had, into a pack and tied it off on his horse. He mounted the saddle, turned the horse toward the north and set off.