Novel 1987 - The Haunted Mesa (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  What did he know about Eden Foster? Raglan was positive Gallagher had taken him there for more than a cup of coffee and a sandwich, yet he could scarcely have expected to discover anything as positive as the paperback book.

  The man who had entered his condo had either been there, in Eden Foster’s home, or he had met with her somewhere. So there had to be a connection.

  The man who had come to the condo had known where to find him. Eden Foster must also have known; hence, others would as well. That they were willing to kill had been demonstrated at the café, so he must move with care. There might even be somebody in this room right now, watching, waiting.

  Obviously, with Erik out of the way he himself represented their biggest problem. Therefore he must be captured or eliminated.

  Mike Raglan let the waiter refill his cup, his eyes wandering over the room. Several of the people he knew. They were regulars. The tourists were obvious enough, often with children, or discussing plans for the day. Two tables were occupied by men who sat alone, which could mean nothing at all.

  One of their people might be a regular employee here, or on the housekeeping staff.

  Eden Foster did not, of course, know he had seen the book, and even if she did, she could not believe he had known it for his own. She was well established here and would not believe herself suspected, something that was in his favor. Yet he must be careful.

  Putting down his pen, he considered the situation, going over in his mind the little he knew. He had first come into this country on a very poor wagon road that ran east of Navajo Mountain. He remembered how he had been struck by the stark beauty of the land, and he had himself thought of building a home atop one of the mesas, just as Erik had.

  All that country had been known and traveled over by the people the Navajos called the Anasazi, studied by latecomers as the cliff dwellers.

  At first they lived in pit-houses atop the mesas. From the beginning they had begun learning how to use every drop of available water. Later they had moved down from the tops of the mesas into the great open caves in the cliff faces, building houses of native stone with doors wider at the top than the bottom. Various reasons have been offered for this but it was probably a simple one: A person carrying a water jar, a bundle of firewood, or the carcass of a game animal needs more space for the upper part of his body.

  Occasionally the caves had springs, but usually both water and food had to be brought to them, carried down precarious paths or up from the canyon below. The expenditure of effort must have been enormous, only reasonable if some threat demanded defensible positions.

  In the latter half of the thirteenth century there had come a long drought and with it attacks by nomadic, raiding Indians coming down from the North. No doubt these were advance parties of the invading Navajo, Apache, and Ute peoples who were to populate the region in later years.

  Whatever the cause, their cliff palaces were deserted, their fields abandoned. The Anasazi disappeared.

  They were there, and then they were gone.

  Some evidence indicated that a few Anasazi had merged with other groups to become the Hopis. Others might have joined other Pueblo groups, but the greater part seemed simply to have vanished.

  Suppose, when the drought persisted and the attacks increased, that some of the Anasazi elected to return to that Third World from which they came?

  Fleeing from our world, they had returned to that which had grown evil, preferring to face an evil they knew rather than starvation and death. Once there, they would have wanted to close off the way to deny any pursuers a chance to follow. Over the centuries, an almost paranoid fear had built up of what lay on the other side.

  It was possible, as Kawasi seemed to imply, that only a few of the elite knew how or where to cross over, and that they had occasionally done so to obtain things not otherwise available on the Other Side.

  Mike Raglan finished his coffee, staring at the two names on the otherwise blank page.

  Erik. Kawasi.

  She knew him. Had met him. Yet there must be another involved, for when Erik had pleaded for help, he had spoken in the plural. Who was this other person?

  Erik seemed to have become a prisoner, yet Erik was an intelligent man with a vast store of knowledge that might help him to escape.

  Evil? What evil? Had those who returned to the Other Side taken up the ways of some of their relatives from Mexico and Central America? The Aztecs had engaged in bloody sacrifices of many thousands of people each year, most of them prisoners taken in war. Recently it had been discovered that the Maya did likewise. Was that the evil from which the Anasazi originally fled? Or was it something else? Something less tangible, something insidious?

  He sat very quietly, trying to consider every aspect of his problem, but the unavoidable fact remained: Erik was a prisoner, probably on the Other Side, and he must be freed.

  Moreover, Mike could think of nobody who might help. Gallagher had his own concerns and more than enough to keep him occupied, but suppose Mike could contact that old cowboy of whom Kawasi had spoken? Suppose in freeing Erik Hokart he could also free that old man?

  Certainly, in his years on the Other Side Johnny must have learned a great deal just in order to survive. The more Mike considered that possibility, the more he liked it. Yet first his base must be secure.

  He must know more about the Paiutes, if such they were, and more about Eden Foster.

  Above all, he must remember they would be attempting to kill or capture him.

  His eyes swept the room. One of the men who sat alone was gone. The other remained: a stocky man with a bullet head and short-cropped hair, wearing a neat gray windbreaker and slacks, and under the windbreaker a navy-blue T-shirt. He was facing the other way but in such a position as to catch Mike’s slightest move from the corner of his eye. It was probably chance, no more. The man might be a guest, might be attending a convention, or just be out for the golf or fishing.

  Mike must be prepared. On the stairs, when walking, driving, or just at home. They would not wish to attract attention, so they would probably make a try for him when it could be done unobtrusively.

  Once he had been good at both karate and judo. How good was he now, after the years had passed?

  His thoughts returned to the problem before him. What manner of people would he find on the Other Side? What conditions?

  Judging by Kawasi and the unknown visitor at Tamarron, they were people much like himself. That was what the evidence indicated. But he must not make the mistake the white man did in judging the Indian, and vice versa. Each came from a certain cultural background, and assumed that certain attributes were typical of all men when such was not the case.

  There was no such thing as human nature, if by that one believed that certain reactions and responses were typical of all men.

  Our patterns of behavior develop from what we have been taught and from the responses of those about us with similar origins. The people on the Other Side would have an altogether different background and, hence, different responses.

  Obviously they had no desire to reveal their presence to those on this side of the curtain. If his assumptions were correct, there were several living on this side for one reason or another. Eden Foster might well be one of them, and if she was she had learned to fit in. She belonged. She had made friends.

  She had located the sources of power and had associated herself with them. She had friends at the Statehouse and, no doubt, others in business as well as politics. She had met and become friendly with Gallagher.

  Did Gallagher know or suspect who or what she was? Apparently he did, but what had given her away? Why did he suspect her of being something other than she seemed? The fact that he had taken Mike to meet her was an indication of something. Had something caused suspicion that she was not all she pretended to be? Or had something Mike said started him thinking?

  He glanced around again. Several people had left the room. The waiters were used to him, knowing he often sat long o
ver his coffee. Often they paused by his table with bits of comment, questions about his work, or gossip about some of the more transient visitors at the lodge. They were a bright, interested lot and some were students at the nearby college.

  The man with the gray jacket remained where he was, seemingly uninterested in what took place around him. Positioned as he was, he could see from the corner of his eye when Mike got up to leave, if he got up. He could also see people who stopped by the table, but he was too far away to overhear.

  “How’s the place doing?” Mike asked the waiter who served him frequently. “Is the lodge full?”

  “No. The biggest convention just left. We’re about half full. I’d guess.”

  “Many strangers around?”

  “Very few. A few singles. People passing through.”

  “Know that fellow in the gray jacket?”

  “Him? He’s not staying in the lodge. He’s some kind of a foreigner.”

  The truth of the matter was, Mike Raglan was scared.

  Certainly not of the man with the bullet head, nor of anybody else. He was afraid of that other world, of venturing into someplace where nothing would be as he knew it. Above all, he did not want his world to be different. He could deal with three dimensions, and with three-dimensional people.

  In his study there was an atlas, and he could open it to maps of any land on earth. He could put a finger on Afghanistan, or point out where the Mitanni had lived, or to the site of Babylon, and even to Three Dragon Pass. All that was real. What he did not wish to discover was that between any two numbered pages, 357 and 358 for instance, there were an infinite number of worlds of which he knew nothing.

  Here in this room was stability. He could walk down those steps each morning, be given a table, and go to the buffet for breakfast. Of that he was sure.

  If he went through that window in the kiva, all bets were off. Yet that was where he must go.

  He did not want to go. He wanted to walk away and never look back. He wanted to go to Los Angeles, meet friends for dinner, or just sit down with a good book.

  But he had to go.

  Chapter 15

  *

  HE WAS WATCHING for his chance. The glass doors behind him opened onto the terrace, where the tables were unoccupied and the umbrellas furled. The only activity was from squirrels prospecting for crumbs.

  Suddenly there was a scuffle near the entrance, two teenaged tourists having fun. Startled, the man in the gray jacket looked up, and Mike Raglan moved.

  He had already signed his check, so he got up quickly, slipped out the glass door and down the steps to the lower level.

  His car was parked against the curb and close by, with Chief patiently waiting in the back seat. He swung around, skirted the pond, and was on the highway in a matter of minutes.

  He watched in the rearview mirror until the entrance was lost from sight. Nobody had appeared. He might have been mistaken in his man, but he did not believe it.

  Why were they watching him? To find an opportunity to kill or capture him, without a doubt. They had no idea how much he knew, but that he knew more than was good for them was undoubted. He had some communication from Erik. He had talked with Kawasi, which they probably knew, and he was in touch with the police.

  Obviously they had established a base of operations on this side of the curtain, yet how familiar they were with life in his world Mike could not guess. Eden Foster, if she was one of them, obviously knew a good deal. The man in the gray jacket might never have suspected there was a door in what to him must have seemed a glass wall.

  What had happened after he left? Had the man tried to follow him? Or had he been completely puzzled by his disappearance?

  Trying to remember, Mike did not recall seeing the man pay his check, so he must have been stopped before he could leave.

  It was a long drive ahead. Moving his pistol into a good position on the seat beside him, Mike headed west, driving fast but within the speed limit. He had no desire to be stopped now.

  As he drove he turned over the situation in his mind. Unless Erik somehow escaped, Mike had no choice. He would have to go through the curtain and find him. “And that won’t be easy, Chief,” he commented.

  The big dog’s head lay across his thigh, and only an ear twitched. “You’re like me, boy. You’d sooner stay on this side.”

  Nothing showed in his rearview mirror except occasional cars or pickups going about their usual business, but he trusted none of them. His thoughts ranged over the problem.

  The kiva entrance to the other world, if such it was, apparently opened into some kind of a controlled area. Kawasi had feared it, and so must he. There were said to be other, erratic openings and it was through such a one that Johnny had gotten through. One or more of these openings lay in the vicinity, if the stories were to be believed. Yet the opening through which Johnny rode when chasing that errant steer might now lie beneath the waters of Lake Powell.

  The legends of the Hopi told of a long migration with occasional stops until they found the particular place they sought. And when they found the place it was close to no running water, nor was it in a rich and fertile area. Why had they chosen such a place?

  Undoubtedly, people from the cliff dwellings had merged with the Hopi and shared legends, but why that particular area? Because it was close to the place of emergence?

  The legends themselves were confusing, because other peoples had joined what became the Hopi and brought with them their own stories. The kiva, now a ceremonial center, was constructed much like the dwellings of the Koryak of Siberia. The ventilation system was the same, too similar to be a matter of chance.

  Another legend had the Hopi crossing a great sea to get where they now were.

  It was said that a sorceress had come with them from the other world, and brought evil with her.

  He glanced into the rearview mirror. Nothing in sight, yet he must not assume the man in the gray jacket, even if he was one of them, was the only one. The man in the white van must be somewhere about, and there might be others.

  Where, he wondered, was Kawasi? How had she disappeared so suddenly? She would not have ventured into the kiva, of that he was sure. Was there another opening close by? Had she deliberately left him without so much as a word? Or had she been seized by her enemies?

  He swore bitterly. What the hell was going on? And what could he do about it?

  Supposing Erik had been seized and was being held on the Other Side? What would he do if he crossed over? How could he find him? How would he even know where to begin? Obviously their clothing would be different from his, and he would immediately be seen as someone different. The trouble was, he had no information. He did not know his enemies, if they were enemies, and he did not have any means of passing among them unnoticed. He had no idea where a prisoner would be held or under what circumstances, or how he was guarded. To cross over blind would be foolhardy in the extreme.

  Why had he not asked more pertinent questions when Kawasi was with him?

  Judging by the few he had seen, they looked not too different from people on this side, yet what if that was not the case? What if the people he had seen had been deliberately chosen because of their resemblance to people on this side? Certainly their customs would be different, and he would be walking into a trap if he crossed over with no more knowledge than he now had.

  Crossed over? Was he actually buying that story? Did he believe in such a thing?

  Suppose it was an elaborate fraud? A kidnapping not for ransom but for what Erik knew? It had happened before, and Erik Hokart was a man of international reputation in his field.

  So what could be done? He simply did not know. None of his tried investigative methods seemed to help in this situation. He would return to the mesa, camp there, and await developments. They might move against him, or Kawasi might return.

  What of the Poison Woman, so-called? She had appeared suddenly on the mesa, miles from anywhere, and had, according to Erik, disappear
ed into the kiva. If there was not another side of the curtain, where had she been hiding in the desert?

  He swore softly. “Raglan,” he said aloud, “you’re getting in over your head.”

  The small town of Dove Creek lay just ahead. This was one of the places where Zane Grey had lived briefly and where the local citizens claimed much of Riders of the Purple Sage had been written. He slowed down, thinking of stopping for coffee, then decided to drive on. As he drove out of town he glanced back and saw a pickup carrying two men pull out on the highway.

  He stepped on the gas. It was a long way to the next town, and the road was often empty. He dropped his hand to his pistol, shaking it free of its scabbard. He was a good driver and had qualified in a defensive-driving course given for the Secret Service. He knew something of evasive action. The trouble was that the highway offered almost no place to go except itself and a few roads turning off into the desert, any of which could turn into a trap.

  The pickup was behind him, a good half mile back and maintaining its distance. He stepped up his speed but noticed that he did not pull away.

  Despite his suspicions it might be nothing at all. They were more than likely simply some ranchers heading home.

  His thoughts returned to the problem. If there was another world parallel to this, in some other dimension, perhaps, what would it be like? How would it differ from this?

  He had read science fiction about such things but remembered none of it.

  They would be what we call Indians, of course, but they must have progressed beyond what the cliff dwellers were when they abandoned their cliff houses and returned to that other world. Yet “progressed” in what way? What were they like now? Those he had seen, if not accomplished actors, seemed little different from the people on this side, yet that seemed was a large word. Actually, he knew nothing about them.

  If he saw Kawasi again he must remember to ask these questions. Apparently, access to this world was strictly controlled and perhaps had been nonexistent for many years, perhaps even centuries. Kawasi had suggested they wanted much from this side but did not wish to make themselves known.