The Rifle

Garden of the Gods, Colorado 1984
Hiking with my friend, Mike. We had been through this beautiful maze of natural sandstone formations before, following each of the trails that were carefully marked by the government. This time we had decided to explore a bit deeper, and while that was not illegal it was considered dangerous; besides the fact that this was the Rocky Mountains, with all that the name implied, there were also snakes and scorpions, cactus and dehydration to contend with. But hiking through the Four Corner states; Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico had more than majestic natural beauty to offer. This area of the world had been home to the same tribes of natives for thousands of years, and while they were not known for residing in this place (they were the ones who had named it, after all), they did pass through. We were hiking with an eye looking to find something. Maybe it was this focus of curiosity that led us to find something, though certainly nothing like what we had expected.
At one point we decided to find a place to relieve ourselves and we moved into a tighter grouping of the towering formations to do so. It was Mike who saw the hole in the ground; he called to me from behind a large rock.
This hole seemed natural, about a foot and a half in diameter, and a good six feet deep. We had not seen any like it in this park, and while it was too narrow to fall into, a person could easily break a leg if they tripped into it. I do not know what might have made this whole and I wonder that we did not look more closely to see how it might have been formed, but our attention was completely taken by what we saw at the bottom of this hole. Resting at the very bottom was a metal box, with a little lock on the front, and propped on top of this box was a rifle. The weapon’s butt was placed against the box and the barrel leaned against the side of the marrow hole, pointed straight up, and from where we stood it pointed directly at us. A moment more of looking and we could see that there was a string going from the little metal wire handle of the box to the metal ring that cirlced the trigger of the rifle.
The box was about half the size of a fishing tackle box, and it was dented in places, while the gun was dark and therefore hard to see any details. Our minds raced with thoughts that this weapon was guarding something of extreme value in that box and we knew we would not be able to leave without it. But time was not on our side; we were not prepared to spend the night in this mile-high desert park. Because of these factors we probably used much less caution than what was called for. After some searching we found a stick both long and strong enough to reach the bottom of the hole. We had no idea how old this weapon was; for all we knew it could blow up in our face at any time. Mike was the bravest and he laid on his belly next to the hole as he lower the stick into it. As planned, he tapped the rifle. Nothing happened so he tapped it harder. This time the long weapon moved against the side of the hole; even I could hear it from my distance vantage point, and we both felt a jolt of fear, but again, nothing more happened. I moved closer and Mike allowed himself a look over the edge, quickly snagging the gun and hoisting both it and the box free from the deep hole. He gingerly laid our prize onto the ground.
After we carefully cut what might have been a shoe lace, we separated the box and rifle, moving the box a distance away from the weapon. The silver box was clearly not too old, but it was locked and seemed to be empty when we shook it. Finally prying it open, we were disappointed to find that it was empty. As for the rifle, it did seem older; the wood of the thing was in bad shape, but truly neither of us new a thing about it.
Disappointed, we decided in the end to sell out rifle and we were very pleased to get some money for it, though we never found out what kind or how old it was.
It was not until I was recording this story, all these years later that it occurred to me that the box and rifle might have been used in a robbery, or worse.