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By Jonathan Haeber

There was a great valley in my childhood; a valley with verdant forests and thriving fields of clover. Stringers of water meandered through the sedimentary soil, and great boulders littered the open spaces— reminders of the giant U-shaped glacier that once encompassed the huge void. I shouldn’t say “void,” simply because the space it created was far from empty. There, in that captivating space, were enclaves of chantrelle and morel mushrooms, groves of pine and birch, aspen and alder. And the best parts of it all were the caves—those natural empty spaces that contained much more than a void ever could. Inside were mysteries, conundrums, history, and the intrigue of nature.

I was just out of middle school when I discovered my valley. School was the last thing on my mind. Living my young life in adolescent musings of adventure and discovery was the first. I hiked many places in those years, with my pair of Caterpillar hiking boots and my pop’s 357 dangling from the tiny belt of my Levi’s. But the valley of caves was unlike anywhere else I’d ever been.

Tales reverberated across the county of lost gold mines, jars of riches buried under cabins, and forgotten troves of treasure left in the haste and lawlessness of the West’s hey-day. That valley was the home of many of those tales. My mission and trek of discovery was to prove a tall-tale true. If so many of those stories existed, why couldn’t one be true, I pondered?

There was a plethora of mines littering the ridges of my valley. My strike would be in those adits and caverns. The caverns of my Imagination proved to set my feet into action. I would discover it all. I would conquer that valley.

So, one day, like many others, I set out. Nothing but a topo map guided me. The sun would be my beacon to determine the time of day. The course of the water and contour of the terrain would guide my direction. Remnants of the past were omnipresent. Arrowheads protruded from the soil at the sides of the streams. Ore carts haphazardly strewn across the mountains heralded the end of the fever for gold. Dilapidated hunting cabins lay collapsed in the overgrowth. Everything seemed to speak silently.

In fact, the whole trail was silent. The nearest road stood behind me, and it was as if I was entering a new world—a place impervious to modernization. It was like a vortex where time was stored in all the surroundings. Everything told the story of the past. Nothing was moved in the present. I saw it from the largest things (like the U-shaped valley, which told the story of global climate change and the recession of glaciers) to the smallest (the elk dung that stood below me was cold and hard; elk did not use the trail for at least a week). The wind was all I could hear. It was an ominous wind, nearly dissuading me from uncovering the valley’s mysterious past.

But I continued. I couldn’t help but continue. Intrigue guided my nerves.

The distant bellowing of the elk comforted me. It was then that I realized living things thrived in such a quiet and fear-inspiring biome. They goaded my movement towards the object of my desire. They were my inspiration, those primal sounds. Then I saw a past habitation, a miner’s cabin. I peeked through the ancient door to find a rusted mattress and broken glass on the floor. Far in the back was a cast-iron stove. Curiosity called me to that hearth, and I opened the rusty door. I combed through the ashes in search of the dreck that one so often finds in historical sites—the dreck of the past, but the precious of the present.

Inside was a skeleton key. The kind that opens trunks, or rather, as the average adolescent would ascertain: the kind that opens treasure chests. I kept it and continued on.

After a few hundred yards, an opening appeared in the forest. The trees vanished into an open meadow on a climbing hump. The sun faced my eyes from the West. It’ll be dark in a few hours, I thought. Out of habit I shaded my eyes from the rays that temporarily disabled my vision. I ascended the hump and simultaneously looked down into the depression. Below was a ghost town—more ghostly than any town I’d ever seen. There were no interpretive signs, and no sign of any person even walking down the corridor for years. Blackberry brambles crept up sun-bleached walls and gravestones. The church stood standing, but the cross was lying on the ground with its bottom edge pointing at the sun. Faded lettering denoted the various establishments in a typical rush-town: a saloon, hotel, general store.

I slowly stumbled into the church with effort. The thorns from the blackberries were catching me on my forehead and arms. The dust that I kicked up filled the grotto-like pulpit and the setting sun sent rays of light through the dust creating an ethereal, dreamy ambience. Everything seemed to be sitting as it was years ago. The bible sat torn and worm-eaten on the pulpit stand. Ironically, the receptacle for holy water was full of water, though it most likely derived from the broken stained-glass skylight directly above it rather than from a divine deity.

On the right-hand side of me were the confession booths. As a raised Jehovah’s Witness, I’d never been in a Catholic church, so-- much like the stove in the cabin-- curiosity led me to the eerie box. I’d seen in movies the proper entrance for a confession, so I giddily acted out the ritual with my head turned low as I closed the door behind me. I smelled the musty scent of decay as I entered the booth. Something didn’t smell right about it, but I continued the rite. Then I looked up in terror.

The image of my terror was something that I will never forget. The carcass of a dead friar stood ahead of me, wearing a dust-covered robe, a crucifix around his neck, and a string of rosary gripped in his hands. The grin of death that accompanies every skull was prominent on this particular unfortunate religious figure. That was the last image I saw as I ran from the booth and towards the holy water. I washed off my face and felt the lukewarm water soak into my dry pores. Was I dreaming?

That was my last thought as I sat down in one of the many rows of seats in disbelief. I was afraid to leave this holy edifice in search of salvation from the dead friar. In this surreal world away from the present and full of perils this would the safest spot. The water was refreshing, yet lulled me to a state of sleepiness. I reclined on the bench, occasionally staring at the enclosed confession booth, hoping that the deceased friar wouldn’t move. I was asleep before I knew what hit me. . .