Forrest Fenn’s Treasure
Posted by Pete | Posted in Downloads | Posted on 28-06-2019
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Remember Fenn’s poem: “As I have gone alone in there, and with my treasure bold, I can keep my secret where, and hint of riches new and old, Begin it where warm waters halt and take it in the canyon down, not far, but to far to walk, put in below the home of Brown, From there no place for the meek….” and on and on it goes….but lets stop there:
It has been a while since I have mentioned the millions hidden, er, well, somewhere above 5000 feet in elevation, somewhere north of Santa Fe, NM, not buried and not in a graveyard…..In Mr. Fenn’s poem he says, “Began where the warm waters halts”, which implies to me it is near a hot springs that dumps into a canyon that runs into a fast cold water stream, say like the Rio Grande north of Santa Fe and south of Taos, which probably is “home to a few brown trout”…. “No place for the meek”, so I’m pretty sure it is not right there on the river which is bordered by a nice paved road….Probably up some canyon around that area with a road that a four wheel drive can travel over. “Mr. Fenn is no spring chicken, so he is not walking, carrying that chest to bury it and he would not want to be seen.” No doubt he is off the beaten path by a good ways…..Then look for a waterfall, not a lot of water most of the time, but enough to cover a opening to a cave of sorts and behold, and not to far off that little road and there sitting on the ground, high and dry away from the water, is the chest full of treasure. Just waiting for you and me to pick up…….Well, no, I don’t know exactly where it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s in that general area. So, why don’t I go look. I’m older than Mr. Fenn. …..I don’t have a four wheel drive vehicle….. And I don’t need all that excitement in my life….Otherwise I’d go looking….I think I could find it in two or three outings…well, ok, maybe four or five outing….well, I think I could….listen, I’m a writer of fiction so I know what you are thinking…..But, really folks, this is no bull….ok, a little guess work, maybe
No bull indeed! But more likely a product of an over active mind of a fiction writer’s imagination! If there were millions lying somewhere out in the New Mexico desert in plain view for every one to see, it would more than likely be a few million in gold dropped, spilled, or hastily buried, and uncovered by the wind by Cortex and his robbing band of Spanish thugs as they hastily ran from their very mad Navejo pursuers. At least the first part of the story is true. We know that Fernando Cortex brutally and maliciously and with plenty of malice raided and stole milions of long held wealth from various ancient Navejo sites, making him not a very well loved Spanish explorer to the Navejo. If the explorers did indeed dropped or lost their ill-gotten gain from the Navejo, the booty was likely recovered over time by Mexican thieves from south of the border, taken to Mexico City, and sold or exchanged for Mexican wealth that was more easily tendered in Mexican society and became the basis for many a wealthy man and foundation of many uprising against the central government of Mexico. So, where is old Fenn? His wealth and generosity keeps coming up each time another wealthy Mexican arises to challenge the central government. This story is simply Mexican folklore and nothing more, else Fenn’s millions would have been claimed by now. I submit that they have been claimed but by millions of rum running, cut throat invaders of the northern promised land where wealth is believed to abound for the taking. It indeed did aboung in Texas, but not simply for the asking of non-chalant pick up from the desert but by millions of hours of extremely hard work of the cowboy by punching cattle and prospecting for black gold from the extreme depths within the earth. This extremely hard work the Mexicans were not equipped, so the work fell to the cowboy and the oil entrepreneur and prospector. As a result, the wealth is centered in Houston, not in Mexico City, and Americans, not Mexicans, have black gold to power their big cars and to run Trumps’s mighty economy. This is my explanation of Fenn’s treasure bold. It is now lying in a Houston skyscraper with millions of Lear jets fanning out over the American landscape hawking Fenn’s black gold treasure across the nation and the world.
ok, to each his own….Mr. Fenn is a respected member of the Santa Fe community and has been in business there many years. I would never call him a liar. Did he take a treasure out into that part of the world? He said he did. I will not call him a liar and simply trust that the man is true to his word. I hope he tells someone where it is before, well, you know…someone else needs to know….I’m sure there are many other unbelievers out there and that’s ok…others look for it….some write about it….
A respected member of the Santa Fe community or not, but that doesn’t mean that Mr. Fenn’s story is literally true. Treasures can come in many forms and sizes and be a treasure to one man and trash to another. What’s a treasure to one man can be garbage to another. That which is a treasure to one can be an untouchable mess to another. I am certain that Mr. Fenn wrote of a treasure lying somewhere in the desert, but that doesn’t mean that he wrote of a basket filled with gold, which the chemist gives the symbol, Au, with its yellow, shiny luster and enduring quality, beautiful to the eye to behold. I bet that black, gooey mess oozing from the hole in the earth at the site of the first oil well in west Texas appeared as beautiful liquid “gold” to the man who labored in the hot Texas sun to cause it to flow Just as surely as if it had been real yellow gold, and it cause just as much of a stir in the mind of other Texans and people world wide as if it had been gold. Just the knowledge that it was worth “millions” on the Texas and world markets was sufficient to make it as “gold” to his poor overworked soul laboring in the hot Texas sun. Gold comes in many forms. Chemistry is required to make it a precise and certain element durable through time and the basis of all wealth. Of all his enduring qualities, Fenn wasn’t a chemist, and he couldn’t have been expected to think like one. Instead he thought like a writer of fiction, and probably a good one. My advice to all who have an inclination to run out to search for Fenn’s treasure to just be carefule and remember that treasure, even gold, comes in many forms and means different things to different people and, even when it is real, it can cause many more problems and cause many more headaches than one had before the so-called wealth came into their lives.
Not only did he write about it, he showed pictures of the chest he used and with some of the treasure in it. I believe that he did in fact take it out into the country side of New Mexico and left it. I do not think the man is lying. However, I know better than to try and convince you and I think you know better than trying to convince me…so why don’t we just leave it at how we have reported feeling about it and move on to our next conflict….I’m sure there is one coming…..soon
Sorry! I have been giving only suggestions that there could be alternative meanings to Fenn’s reported facts of a basket of gold and other jewels of which he was trying to dispose, alternative meanings that would make more sense to a sane man than that of leaving a fortune in gold and jewels exposed for the taking under the desert sun. I sure that Fenn was sane. One has to be to be a successful fiction writer. Ernest Hemingway proved that as his career was over at the moment he became crazy and shot himself. Fenn never did that, so he must have been very sane. Leaving a fortune of gold exposed in the desert in plain view is not a good way to demonstrate that sanity although, as I rode my bicycle over the New Mexico desert I often wished some one had so demonstrated their sanity by leaving a basket of gold in plain view in the desert sand for me to stop and pick up. Gold is a heavy element. I don’t know if I could have hauled it back to the civilization of an Air Force base or even to survive to reach my destination (if other people knew about it and they would if the knowledge of the basket of wealth was widespread.)Anyway, I’m happy that it didn’t happen because a basket of gold and jewels found exposed in the desert would merely excite my basic sense of greed that I’ve fought all my live. By that time, I had already made a commitment to attend a theological seminary as soon as my Air Force commitment was over. I had only to decide which one and the curriculum to study. I didn’t need the additional temptation that a basket of gold would entail at this point in my life. Perhaps that was Fenn’s hidden motive: to lead astray the faithful of Jesus by providing a temptation to sin. A basket of gold lying in the desert free for the taking is such a temptation, at least it would have been for me since I was so poor at the time, fresh from a fancy education from the University of Alabama, about to terminate a perceived military obligation to my government, and looking for a way to use that fancy knowledge the I had gained at the University. I could go on and on about Fenn’s motives; but, the fact is, only he had knowledge of his real motive.