Sometimes the Fates are even kind to teenagers. Cliff is an average 16 year old, but with no particular dash to lure the girl of his dreams, Darlene. She has everything: beauty, brains and a brute of a boyfriend named Rocky.

Mr. Edwards, the Physical Science instructor, starts a chain of events that will vastly alter Cliff’s life. Mr. Edwards teams Cliff with Darlene on a mineral searching expedition in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. Together, Cliff and Darlene discover much more - a treasure left by a 17th Century Spanish explorer.

Finding the treasure is one thing. Cliff and Darlene learn that cashing in on it is quite another matter. They soon find themselves in conflict with the Federal Government and the Mafia, and Cliff must face Darlene’s powerfully strong boyfriend.

Will the discovery and subsequent conflict form more than a bond of convenience between Cliff and Darlene? Are they doomed to perish at the hands of the Mafia at the site of their discovery, with their bodies to be found by some other high school expedition some 400 years from now?

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Michael Schneider grew up and attended college there. During the summers of his second and third years in college, he worked for the US Bureau of Land Management in Canon City and Alamosa, Colorado. There he heard stories of lost Spanish treasure supposedly discovered, but not recovered in the mountains of the Sangre de Cristo range. This unlocated, mysterious cache of artifacts, purportedly left by Spanish Conquistadors provides the basis for The Secret of Sangre de Cristo. No stranger to the West, the author has worked in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and North Dakota. He now resides with his wife and three children in Iowa.

Darlene then drove up a little farther to one of the areas where the road was wide enough for two vehicles. With a little maneuvering, she managed to turn it around facing the way they had come. She parked it. Then both Cliff and Darlene retrieved their knapsacks. Darlene dropped her cellular phone in hers.

"Which way?" she asked.

"Just follow me," Cliff instructed as he began to make his way through the trees. A half hour later Cliff stopped to check his bearings again. From his present location both peaks were clearly visible. He pulled out his compass and checked the bearing to each peak.

"A little further this way," Cliff directed.

"I see the entrance," Darlene shouted excitedly and ran forward.

Darlene stopped, fished her flashlight out of her pack, and entered the crevice between the rocks. Cliff followed her. When they got to the chamber with the skeleton and armor, Darlene turned, grabbed Cliff’s head with one hand on each cheek, kissed him hard on the lips, then turned to look around the room.

"You did it," she exclaimed.

"You actually found it again!" she shouted, turned and kissed Cliff again, just as quick and hard as before.

Cliff, stunned with ecstasy, was speechless. For him, all the treasure in the cave wasn’t worth the two kisses he’d just received. Darlene stopped as though realizing what she’d just done and said:

"We’ve got a lot to do."

With that she threw off her pack, dug in it and came up with a pen and notebook, and handed them to Cliff.

"Here, make a list of anything that looks valuable. I’ll start taking pictures."

Cliff did as ordered. He enjoyed seeing Darlene so excited. They first inventoried every thing that was visible then went to work on the contents of the wooden chest. Darlene took everything out, while Cliff wrote a description of each as well as he could describe them. He was glad Darlene thought to photograph them because some he couldn’t identify some items.

When they had finished listing and photographing the contents of the chest, Darlene took everything out of her pack and started to fill her pack with gold objects. She turned to Cliff.

"Let me have your pack so I can figure out what to put in it."

Cliff pulled his backpack off and handed it to her. She took out a brown bag, a couple of sodas, and a hatchet.

"What’s this for?" she asked, holding up the hatchet.

"I thought we might have to cut our way through some brush," Cliff answered her.

Darlene started loading Cliff’s pack. When she had both packs about three quarter’s full, she turned and looked up at Cliff.

"I think we’d better see if there’s anything in the other room we ought to take before we finish filling them. Grab your pack." Darlene ordered.

They both picked up their packs. Cliff noted how heavy it was with the gold in it. He was glad the return trip was downhill. Once they entered the second chamber, they started the process of inventorying and photographing again. They went around the nearly circular-shaped room, moving rocks from time to time so they wouldn’t miss anything. Darlene worked ahead of Cliff, shouting off items, then photographing them. They were now almost back to the tunnel entrance into this chamber when Darlene asked Cliff to help her move a heavy rock from the top of a pile so she could look under it. He got down beside her. They pulled together, and the rock rolled off the pile. They could now see that nothing but rocks were under it.

"I guess that about does it," Cliff said as he looked at Darlene. He was surprised to see she had a look of terror on her face and was staring in his direction, but a little beyond him. Cliff turned to see what she was looking at. When he turned, he discovered he was looking down the barrel of a 9 mm automatic pistol!