I was gratified by the rapt silence of my audience as I put the finishing touches on my performance.
“There are a couple footnotes to the story. No houses have ever been built on the site where the Spanish camped, and the land is curiously barren. Only a few stunted trees grow there, and even the animals shun it.
One hundred years after the slaughter, on the exact date, lightning struck a dead tree, igniting a forest fire that left twenty-three dead. On the next hundred-year anniversary, two men panning for gold in a nearby stream were brutally murdered.
And this very day…” I stopped, holding up my hands to suspend the moment while I panned the faces of my listeners… “marks the three-hundred-year anniversary of the tragic occurrence. Be careful of yourselves today, my friends. Beware
