"She's a witness, Raglan. An important witness. I need to talk to her. She was last seen with you, heading out this way. She couldn't just vanish."
"No?"
"Don't start that again. I don't buy it." He paused a moment. "I found your white van, or at least a white van."
Raglan waited, his eyes sweeping the mesa. There had to be footprints in that dust. If there had been movement, there had to be signs of movement. "And ... ?"
"Paiutes. Been here for years. Nothing unusual about them at all--just folks."
"Are you sure?"
"Not much of a place. Been standing there for years. They run a few sheep, keep a pony or two. Lots of Indians don't feel right unless they have some horses. Even if they don't ride them, they want them."
"You found the van?"
"Sure. Right there in the garage alongside the house."
"Garage?"
"Sheet-metal building. Kind of a workshop or something. I guess they make their own repairs."
"You talked to them?"
"Sure. There were three of them there. Old man and woman and a young buck, maybe twenty-five or so."
Mike Raglan felt let down. He had thought if they found the van there might be a lead. "You know these people?"
"No, I don't know them. I talked to Weston about them--he's their nearest neighbor. He's known the old folks for years. Seems their people used to live close around here but they pulled out and went away, years back. Weston says the old folks never bother anybody. He picks up junk, stuff along the highway. Old tires, anything thrown out or abandoned. The old man does sell stuff occasionally."
Gallagher walked past him into the ruin. He glanced at the blueprints, then into the next room at the cot, the bedroll. Raglan walked out on the mesa. There was a confusion of tracks, blurred, nothing definite. Somebody had been here. He said as much.
"You could have made those tracks," Gallagher said, "just gathering wood. Or Hokart could have. There hasn't been any rain or high winds to wipe them out. They might have been there for weeks."
"There'd be dust sifted over them." Raglan walked away several steps. "Gallagher? Take a look at this. Do you think I have feet like that?"
"This" was a large, distinct print of a bare foot, a very large foot.
Gallagher looked at it and was silent. Suddenly he squatted down on his haunches. "I'll be damned!" he whispered. Then he pointed. "Will you look at that?"
At the end of each toe--and they were well-defined-- there was the mark of a claw. Or of a long untrimmed toenail. But sharper, like a claw.
Gallagher stood up and looked around. For a long moment he looked all about and then he said, "She's gone. Do you reckon those things got her?"
Mike Raglan had been shying away from the idea. "No," he said, "I don't know how they could have gotten her without a struggle. She was deathly afraid of them and would never have gone into the dark where they were, and they would have had to go over me to get her."
"Then where is she?"
Reluctantly, he said. "I think she went away, after they had gone. I think she went because she wanted to, or had to, but of her own volition."
Gallagher looked at him. "Went where? I told you I was on the road, and I saw nobody. She wouldn't just wander off into the desert and fall into a canyon, would she?"
"Maybe she went back where she came from. To the Other Side."
Gallagher stuck his thumbs in his belt. "You on that kick again? I've been thinking about that. It's nonsense. Pure unadulterated nonsense! I don't buy it." He paused. "You're in trouble, Raglan. Maybe what you should do is get on the wire and get yourself a good lawyer. We've got two disappearances here, one of them a wealthy man, another a beautiful girl. The only connecting link is you."
"And the kiva."
"There's a lot of kivas." He glanced around, then said, "Let's have a look."
Erik had staked out his rooms, indicating the projected floor plan of the house. Two of the rooms--the large living room and the study--were to have walls of native rock which needed only a little smoothing and shaping. The floor as well would be of natural rock.
Gallagher paused, studying the strings and stakes that marked the layout of the rooms. "Quite a place. You say he was going to build this himself?"
"That was the idea. I suspect he might have called somebody in to do the plumbing and the wiring."
"Away out here," Gallagher commented, "he wasn't going to have many visitors."
"He didn't want them. Erik had an apartment in New York, beautiful place, but he wasn't social. He had a few friends, mostly people he met in a business way. He wanted time to think, to be away from the telephone."
Gallagher looked around again. "Everywhere he looked," he said, "he'd have a view. It would be something to wake up to, I'll give him that." He paused again. "He have any family? Any heirs?"
"Nobody I know of, but there must have been somebody. He wasn't a talkative person. Not about personal affairs."
"Where was he from?"
"I've no idea. He was an American, I am sure of that, and I believe his ancestry was Swiss, but I can't be sure. Like I said, he didn't talk."
"A kind of a mystery man?"
"I never thought of him that way. He never seemed to be mysterious--just a quiet sort who minded his own affairs and made a mint of money doing it."
Gallagher glanced toward where the kiva lay but made no move toward it. "Odd," he said, "you being the one he sent for when he was in trouble, yet you know nothing about him."
Raglan shrugged, disturbed in spite of himself. "He thought he was calling an expert. When your plumbing goes haywire you call a plumber. If you aren't feeling well, you call a doctor. Something strange was happening, so he called me."
"Makes sense," Gallagher agreed. "This place here"--he waved a hand--"beautiful place, all right, but what about water?"
"What?"
"Where was he going to get water for the house? Of course, if money was no object ..."
"It wasn't."
"Look," Gallagher said, "you've told me quite a story, you and the missing girl, but all I've got is a burned-out cafe that seems to have been arson. I've got a Jeep, and you, and I can't connect you to the cafe. Not yet, at least."
"Me? Why would I burn it?"
"That I ask myself. But I am asking myself a lot of questions and none of the answers make sense. If the folks around here even guessed at some of what I've been thinking they'd run me out of office.
"Hokart is missing. Now the girl is missing, too. Two missing people and a fire." He paused. "How do we know this isn't aimed at you?"
Astonished, Raglan stared at Gallagher. "Atme ? How? And for what reason?"
"I don't know. I just don't know anything and I'm reaching. Hokart have any reason to want to get rid of you?"
"No. Of course not."
"He invited you out here. Asked for your help, you say. Then he doesn't show up and there's some cock-an'-bull story about other dimensions, parallel worlds, and all that. There's a building burned and Hokart disappears, leaving nothing behind but a Jeep and what you see here. Then that Kawasi disappears when you are alone with her. Something about this smells to high heaven."
He walked back to the ruin and stopped in front of the blueprints. "I'm fishing," he said irritably. "I just don't have anything that makes sense. For all I know, you could have murdered both of them."
"I'd no reason to kill Erik and nothing to gain by it, and if I was going to start killing, it wouldn't be a beautiful woman. There's never enough of them around."
"I grant you that." Gallagher was studying the circle where the kiva would have been added to the house Erik had planned. "Fits, all right. Suppose he could have dreamed it? I've heard stories of men going to sleep and waking up with answers. Maybe this was like that."
"He didn't know the kiva was there--nobody did."
"Any other ruins around?"
"In the canyon over there. He told me there were a couple of rock shelters
for storing grain. And, of course, back up the canyon there are two or three ruins, one of them near a spring."
"I know about them. Been there a time or two." Gallagher walked out and looked down the mesa. "Odd. It does look like it had been cultivated at one time."
"The Anasazi planted crops on the mesas but I've never seen one like this. It's different, somehow."
Gallagher took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. "I've got to look at this every which way," he said, almost as if thinking aloud. "I'm going to run a check on Hokart. I want to know who he was and where he came from." He stared at Raglan. "That goes for you, too."
"Fine with me. As for Hokart, I doubt if you will find much."
"Maybe, maybe not. Can't leave anything to chance. Everything a man does is rooted in his past somehow. If we check him out, something may turn up."
"Let's take a look at the kiva."
Gallagher shook his head. "Wait. I want to think this out before I start going any further. First, I'd like to find that girl. I need to question her. Should have done it before but you snowed me with all that talk about other dimensions or whatever it was."
"I think she went back to the Other Side."
"You implied that. What about your dog? Could he find her?"
"He could, I expect, but they don't like dogs over there. They don't understand them. But what about the cliffs? She could have fallen over. It must be five hundred feet down to the river."
"No tracks I noticed." He glanced at Raglan. "It was the first thing I thought of, and the tracks would have been plain enough, leading toward the edge."
He ran his fingers through his hair again. "All right, let's look at the kiva."
Chapter XIII
Mike Raglan did not move. "Gallagher? You said the Paiutes had a sheet-metal garage? How large?"
Gallagher turned squarely around. "Big. Big enough for four cars, but they have sort of a workshop in one corner."
"A place like that costs money. I wonder what they needed it for? Seems to.me a four-car garage is quite a lot for a couple of old Indians who raise a little stock and collect junk for resale."
"So?"
"Could be more than meets the eye. Did you check the mileage on the van?"
"I did." He flipped the pages on his notebook. "Fifty-one thousand, two hundred eighty-eight miles."
Raglan's eyes went toward his car. Suddenly he wanted to be seated in it, driving back to the condo. "A lot of mileage for an old couple, even with that other man around."
"I thought of that."
"Think about it some more. Are you driving back to town? I'm spooky about this place. I want to get back where there are people."
"All right. Let's stop by Eden Foster's place. She's not far off your route if you're driving back to Durango. She heard you were around and asked if you'd drop by."
"Who is Eden Foster?"
"Somebody to know if you live around here. She's interested and she's active, if you know what I mean. Used to teach in some eastern university. Moved out to Santa Fe, and then she decided she liked it better here, so she bought out a dealer over on the highway and she sells Indian art, paintings, jewelry, and rugs. Only the best."
They had reached the cars. Gallagher paused, looking back toward the mesa. "Raglan? I wouldn't mention those tracks if I were you. No need to get a lot of crazy rumors started."
"You're right, of course."
"And that white van? It may not have been the same one. I'd bet there's two dozen white vans between here and Tamarron, and we've no evidence the man who entered your place has any connection with the one outside the cafe.
"If folks started putting this together we'd have all sorts of rumors going around, just when all that was sort of quieting down."
"What do you mean by 'all that'?"
Gallagher hesitated. "There's been talk, over the years. It's easy for somebody to disappear out yonder. When it happens, it always revives every old story they've ever heard. There's talk of witchcraft, too. Most of the Indians won't talk about it, but the belief is there. Most of them can point out a witch or two, but don't think it is just the Indians. Most of the whites who've lived here any length of time hesitate when you ask, and then just shrug it off. They won't admit they believe, and maybe they don't, but they don't disbelieve, either."
Chief was standing off a little, his head up, nose in the wind. "What is it, Chief? Something wrong?"
The dog came closer, but looked back again toward Erik's shelter. "I think it's Kawasi," Mike said. "He's worried."
"You lead off," Gallagher said, "I'll follow."
Mike Raglan motioned Chief into the car, then got in himself. As he drove off he said, "I'm wondering, too, Chief. Why did she go off like that? Why did she run away?"
When they reached the highway, Gallagher pulled alongside. "We'll go to Eden's. Make it by lunch," he said. "She sets a good table."
Gallagher pulled on by and Mike followed, the big dog filling the seat beside him.
"Looks like we're in trouble, Chief. Gallagher's a good man but he's got a job to do, and right now he has two missing people and a burned-out cafe, and I'm the only connecting link. All I have to offer is a cock-and-bull story that in his place I wouldn't buy for a minute."
Chief offered no comment, not a growl, a whine, or a yawn. He simply kept his eyes on the road.
"Just the same, Chief, I'd like to know more about that garage. No reason why they shouldn't have it if they want it, but what do they use it for? Does somebody find it convenient as a place to leave cars when they are not being used?"
Up ahead, Gallagher slowed, then turned right off the highway onto a gravel road that led around a small hill, pulling up in a gravel parking area before a two-story house built of native stone. There was a wide veranda, and to the right of the house a wide green lawn, several beautiful old trees, and a lot of flowers. Before Mike had a chance to do more than notice them, Gallagher was going up the steps. Raglan followed as the door opened.
Eden Foster was a stunning woman. She was slender and dark with large gray eyes. She was wearing a beige blouse and slacks, and a turquoise necklace. "Gallagher! You're just in time for lunch!"
"Don't you think I know it?" He turned slightly. "Mike Raglan, this is Eden Foster.".
Their eyes met and he was suddenly wary. He could not have said why. She was beautiful, with a lovely smile, and a warm handshake to greet him. "Come in, won't you?"
Inside, it was dark and cool, Navajo rugs on the floor and a couple of very fine ones on the walls. There were many shelves of books. Mike noticed three of his own, and near them two books by Evans-Wentz and one by Eliade.
The breakfast room to which they were shown was cool, fronted by glass with a fine view of the garden he had glimpsed. She glanced over her shoulder. "You'll forgive me, I hope? I asked Gallagher to bring you if he could. I did not want to miss a chance to meet one of my favorite authors."
"Thanks, but I am not really a writer. It just happens that I've written a couple of books."
"Nevertheless, you're an interesting man and most of them just pass through. Good company is hard to find when one lives so far from everything."
She turned toward what was evidently a kitchen door. "Mary? You may serve now, if you will. You're younger than I expected. From your books I would have thought you older."
"It's the light in here," Raglan said. "It's deceiving."
Mary was a Navajo girl with large dark eyes. She brought a tray with sandwiches, and a bowl of celery stalks, olives, and spears of cucumber. For a moment, as she turned to go, she was standing behind Eden Foster, and Mary looked directly at him, her face expressionless.
Eden turned her attention to Gallagher, asking about his wife, his children, and his garden, in that order. Mike listened, ate a celery stick, and looked out the window, but he was thinking.
What was it about her? She was beautiful, and had a figure a man could dream about, so why had he become suddenly suspicious? W
hat was it about her that bothered him?
She turned to him then. "And you, Mr. Raglan? Will you be with us long?"
"Call me Mike. When you call me Mr. Raglan, I start to look around to see if my father is here." He paused. "No, I shan't be around long."
"A new book?"
He shrugged. "Visiting." He glanced at her. "The books are incidental, written when I have leisure, but this is just a visit to a friend."
"A friend," Gallagher said, "who is building a house over in the desert."
Raglan looked at the garden. He had not come to talk, but to listen. Had Gallagher brought him here simply to meet a neighbor or was there more involved?
Eden Foster sat opposite him, and poured coffee. She looked up at him. "That would be Erik Hokart, I expect? I know of no one else building over that way."
It was a large desert, he thought, and there must be others who were building. "He's a friend of mine," he said.
"I wonder if his wife would want a home out there. Women usually like to be close to other women."
"He's a single man," Gallagher said. "Likes to be alone. Isn't that right, Mike?"
"He has a lot to think about." But then, so they would not think Erik too alone, Mike added, "He's a very important man to a lot of people. You can bet the government knows where he is."
Eden's large gray eyes met his. "Is he so important, then?"
"To them, he is." Did Mike notice a little frown around her eyes, he wondered, or was he being overly suspicious? "There are people in the Pentagon who would consider him a national treasure."
That might be stretching it a bit but not very much. He took a sandwich from the tray. "Beautiful flowers," he commented. "They add so much to a place. And I like to see the marigolds there."
Eden Foster glanced toward the garden. "Marigolds?"
"They help to keep insects away," Raglan said.
"I wouldn't know. Mary takes care of the garden." She turned her attention to Gallagher. "You must invite Mr. Hokart to come over. I should like to meet him."
"He's not around," Gallagher said. "We'd like to talk to him, too."
She looked at Mike. "But you're his friend. You must know where he is."
the Haunted Mesa (1987) Page 9
