评论
打印
"Please don't say I buried it," says the e-mail from Forrest Fenn,
88岁的福雷斯特·芬恩是墨西哥的一位退休的古董商，
the 88-year-old retired antiques dealer from New Mexico who engineered one of the biggest treasure hunts of the 21st century. "Just say I hid it."
他策划了21世纪最大规模的寻宝行动之一。他在邮件中写道，“请不要说我把它埋了，就说我把他藏起来了。”
I read this line over and over, wondering what Fenn meant—and looking for a clue.
我把这句话读了一遍又一遍，想知道芬恩到底是什么意思，想找到一个线索。
He didn't write, "I never buried the treasure." He just doesn't want me to tell anybody else he did.
他没有写，“我从来没有埋过财宝。”他只是不想让我告诉别人他做了什么。
Which means... what, exactly? My mind races, and I briefly consider giving up on journalism to become a full-time treasure hunter.
这到底是什么意思？我进行着大脑风暴，我曾一度考虑放弃新闻业，成为一名全职寻宝者。
That is the power of Forrest Fenn's treasure, a prize that in the past eight years has lured a surprisingly large and enthusiastic group of treasure hunters.
这就是福勒斯特·芬恩的宝藏的力量。在过去的八年里，这个奖赏吸引了一群数量惊人、热情高涨的寻宝者。
Fenn and his wife ran a highend gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and amassed a personal collection that included Sitting Bull's original peace pipe and a mummified falcon fromKing Tut's tomb.
芬恩和他的妻子在新墨西哥州的圣菲经营一家高端画廊，他收集了一些私人物品，包括酋长坐牛的原始和平烟斗和图坦卡蒙国王墓中的一只干尸猎鹰。
In 1988, Fenn was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Faced with his own mortality, he came up with a crazy scheme:
1998年，芬恩被诊断患有肾癌。面对自己的死亡，他想出了一个疯狂的计划：
He would bury some of his favorite artifacts somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and then die next to them.
他会把一些他最喜欢的手工艺品埋在落基山脉的某个地方，然后死在它们旁边。
"My desire was to hide the treasure and let my body stay there and go back to the soil," he explains.
我的愿望是把宝藏藏起来，让我的身体留在那里，然后回到泥土里，”他解释道。
He beat the cancer and put the treasure idea on hold for two decades,
他战胜了癌症，把藏宝藏的想法搁置了二十年，
until his 80th birthday, when he decided to finally go through with it (minus the dying in the wilderness part).
直到他的80岁生日，他最终决定要执行这个计划（除去在荒野中死去的部分）。
Fenn filled an antique bronze lockbox measuring ten inches by ten inches with hundreds of treasures:
芬恩将数以百计的珍宝放满一个十英寸长十英寸宽的古式的青铜锁箱：
gold coins and nuggets, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, Chinese jade carvings, and pre-Columbian gold bracelets.
金币、金块、红宝石、钻石、绿宝石、中国玉雕和哥伦布发现美洲大陆以前的金手镯。
The contents are worth somewhere between $1 million and $5 million, based on estimates Fenn has given over the years.
根据芬恩多年来的估计，这些宝贝的价值在100万至500万美元之间。
Then he took his treasure chest out into the Rockies and hid it. He wanted it to be found.
然后他把宝箱放到了落基山脉藏了起来。他想要人们发现它。
That was the whole point. But he wasn't going to just give it away. "This country was going into a recession," he writes to me.
这才是重点。但是他不想就这么把它送给别人。他写信给我，“这个国家进入了经济衰退。”
"People were losing their jobs, and despair was the headline in every paper.
“人们在丢失工作，每个报纸的头条都写着绝望。
I wanted to give some hope to those who were willing to go into the mountains looking for a treasure."
我想要给那些愿意进入山脉寻找珍宝的人一些希望。”
In 2010, Fenn self-published his memoir, The Thrill of the Chase.
2010年，芬恩自己出版了他的回忆录《追逐的快感》。
In addition to stories about his adventures as an Air Force pilot and selling moccasins to the Rockefellers,
除了讲述他作为空军飞行员的冒险经历和向洛克菲勒家族出售鹿皮鞋的故事，
it includes a 24-line poem that Fenn claims contains nine clues that "will lead to the end of my rainbow and the treasure."
回忆录中还包括一首24行诗，芬恩称这首诗包含了9条线索，“这些线索将通向我的彩虹和宝藏的尽头。”
At first, nobody really noticed. The Thrill of the Chase was sold only in a local New Mexico bookstore.
起初，没有人真的注意。《追逐的快感》只在新墨西哥州一家当地的书店销售。
But word spread, and by 2011 there was a small community of determined hunters.
但是后来消息传开了，到2011年，出现了一小群意志坚定的猎人。
Once the media told Fenn's story, the chase was on. (The book is now out of print, and copies show up on Amazon for as much as $3,200.)
一旦媒体报道了芬恩的故事，追逐就开始了。(该书现已绝版，它在亚马逊上的售价高达3200美元。)
Fenn estimates that 350,000 people from across the globe have searched or are currently searching for his treasure.
芬恩估计，来自世界各地的35万人已经或正在寻找他的宝藏。
Yet nobody has found it. How, one might reasonably wonder, could that be?
但是没有人发现宝藏。人们有理由怀疑，怎么会这样呢？
The problem with Fenn's poem—or perhaps the reason it has become such an obsession—is that the "clues" can be interpreted a million different ways.
芬恩的诗歌的问题是-或者人们已经如此痴迷它的原因是-线索可以有100万种不同的解读的方式。
