Local lore had it that the man buried under the blank tombstone in the oldest section of the city cemetery had wandered into the town square over a hundred years ago, clutching a nugget of gold in one hand. His skin cold to the touch, the man had muttered “ice, ice,” before succumbing to death by frostbite.

The fact that New Mexico only saw large amounts of ice on rare occasions, and that the man had supposedly died in July, precluded any serious acceptance of the story. Yet still it circulated among the bored and ne’er-do-well during the height of summer, with many wondering what riches might be found in deciphering the crazed wanderer’s calling of ice.

One man in particular had hit the town library and historical society in search of proof–Carlos’ father, during a stretch of unemployment in the late 1960’s. There had been plentiful newspaper accounts, many embellished, and a careful survey of the cemetery confirmed that someone or something was indeed buried there. But eyewitness testimony had been hard to come by, and the only clue as to the disposition of the gold supposedly clutched in the dying man’s hand come in the form of a sudden building spree around 1881.

But, for Carlos, that was more than enough.