Prologue

Red Falls, Utah

HARVEY “DUDE” BURNETT’S hands shook so badly that he darned near dropped his shovel. In all of his seventy-two years, he couldn’t ever quite recall being this excited—well, of course the day his granddaughter, Olivia, had been born, but this . . . He couldn’t stop smiling when giving the still mostly buried trunk’s lid another satisfying thump. Even by the battery-powered lantern’s dim light, he could tell they’d hit the motherlode of all treasures. “Shirley! Hurry up with that camera! We’re making history, muffin!”

“I’m trying, but it’s just not here. Could we have left it back at that truck stop when we went into town for the ladder?” From her perch at the mouth of the narrow cave, her voice sounded tinny.

It had been three weeks since they’d left Jacksonville, Florida to land in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the airport, they’d rented an SUV then drove south until seeing more crows than people. Their journey had finally led to this forgotten cave. He was passionate about collecting old treasure maps—he’d paid a pretty penny for this one. And sure, he and his honey muffin had been hunting this treasure since they’d first married over fifty years ago, but this time was different. They’d actually found something and he planned on documenting it for the whole world to see. He had to make everything just right for their inevitable History Channel documentary special.

“Nah. Keep looking.” He put extra backbone into digging faster. “It’s gotta be there somewhere.” He’d first heard the legend of El Diablo’s Gold back when he and his pal Jimmy served in the Navy. They couldn’t have been much older than eighteen when they’d found themselves darn near blown to hell in Vietnam.

Their field hospital cots had been side-by-side when Jimmy opened up about the legend. He’d been raised in Utah and claimed his father died looking for the treasure. Jimmy’s dying request had been for Dude to find the supposed stash of stolen Incan gold. His entire life, Dude had periodically been coming out here trying to make good on his long ago promise, but it wasn’t until recently that he’d bought a map labeled El Diablo at a private Miami antiquities auction. Once his granddaughter, Olivia, joined in on his research, things had taken a most peculiar turn.

Seems all these years, he and Shirley had been looking in the wrong spot. By hundreds of miles. On a tourist-style map, what they’d thought read White Falls in Navajo, Łigaii, had actually been Łichíí'—red. That discovery had led to a cornucopia of new details and characters who had all shared even more new information. Sure, some of the folks they’d met hadn’t been so savory, but with a treasure this size, he supposed that was to be expected.

Dude shoveled faster and faster until the sandy soil raised quite a dust cloud in the cramped space. He suffered through a coughing spell but then got right back to it. The chest’s entire top was almost exposed. Just a little further and he’d be able to pry it open.

“Shirley! Where’s my camera?”

“You mean this?” a man’s voice asked.

Dude spun around to find a familiar figure holding not only Shirley’s prized digital camera, but a rifle. Poor Shirley stood in front of the man. Two more ominous figures loomed behind, and further back, a woman. Dude dropped the shovel, then slowly raised his hands. “Now, look, back in Green River, me and Shirley told you we didn’t want any trouble. We’re amicable to share.”

“See?” The man laughed. “That’s where you and I differ. I’ve never liked sharing. Right, Ma?”

“True. Very true.”

“But—” One of the men behind Shirley spoke up, only to be instantly silenced by a lone shot’s roar. The gun’s concussive force rocketed through the cramped space. Were there now two groups of bad guys?

This newest addition to their party—a massive, tree trunk of a man—lunged forward.

A fight ensued.

Dude grabbed Shirley’s forearm, their fallen camera and the shovel, before pushing her deeper into the cavern.

He doubled back for the lantern.

“What’re we going to do?” Shirley asked. Her dear face was dirt-smudged. Her eyes were red and teary.

“Shh . . .” They’d come to a fork. Dude veered left but then dropped to his knees, smudging out their tracks with the shovel. “Don’t you worry about a thing, muffin. We’re going to be just fine.” Having served thirty years in the Navy, there was no way he was giving up without a helluva fight.

A second gunshot roared.

A half-scream escaped Shirley before she covered her mouth with her hands.

“Come on,” Dude guided her deeper, always using the shovel to erase their path from the sandy soil. “While they fight, we’ll find another way.”

“What about the treasure?”

He stopped for a hasty kiss. “You’re my true treasure.”

Dude might have reassured his wife, but inside, his heart galloped at an alarming degree. If he didn’t find a way to calm down, a heart attack might kill him before these bandits got a second chance . . .