the Haunted Mesa (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  From among Erik's papers he found a sheet of drawing paper and began slowly to reconstruct the map as he remembered it. The map itself was in his condo at Tamarron. He had not believed he would need it.

  The river, Navajo Mountain, the Moonlit Water--these places he remembered. He studied the items placed on the map and added another mesa to the west of No Man's, a much bigger one. Putting down his pencil he walked outside to look around again. Chief stayed close beside him.

  "We've got to watch 'em, boy," he said softly. "We don't know what we're getting into."

  Twilight lay upon the desert, and No Man's had gathered its blanket of shadows around it. Navajo Mountain still had a crown of gold and crimson, the gold fading, the crimson lingering. Raglan turned quickly, hearing no sound, seeing nothing. "You're getting jumpy," he said aloud.

  After walking back to the ruin, he lit his fire. Chief was scenting the breeze, head up.

  The night was cool, as desert nights are inclined to be, and the planet Venus hung its lantern in the sky. He studied his crude map, adding Mike's Mesa. He added fuel to his fire, then broke out a box of crackers and took a handful. He tossed one to Chief, who caught it deftly and looked grateful.

  Trees. The old cowboy had mentioned trees. Raglan shook his head. In this country? There was a good bit of cedar but he had seen nothing else. On that first night, riding to his expected meeting with Erik, he had seen cottonwoods along the wash. But the old cowboy had mentioned a large number of trees and much shade. There was water in the canyon, too, and a couple of Anasazi grain-storage caves, walled for the purpose. He would have to do some scouting.

  He unrolled his sleeping bag in the corner of the ruined wall. Nothing could come at him there--nothing human, at least.

  What did he mean by that? Nothinghuman? What was he expecting?

  Sourly, he stared off across the desert toward Navajo Mountain. That was just the trouble. He did not know what to expect. He did not want to go, yet Erik was expecting him, hoping for him, and there was no one else. Without Mike Raglan it was all up to Erik himself. And what could Erik do?

  That would depend on the situation and Erik's ingenuity, of which he should have a plenty. He was a man who had come far on his intelligence, his reasoning power, and imagination. Much would also depend on the kind of people with whom he must deal.

  What was their background? What was their education? What language did they speak? And what was their culture like? Even when people spoke the same language they did not always mean the same things.

  His thoughts returned to Eden Foster and the Navajo girl who worked for her. He remembered how the girl had looked directly into his eyes, but in no flirtatious manner. Had she been trying to warn him? Or had she been measuring him against them? A bright girl, Gallagher had said. He must talk with her, somewhere alone when Eden Foster was not around. Raglan made coffee and ate a few more crackers while waiting for it, adding fuel to his fire meanwhile.

  In their heyday the Anasazi occupied more than 40,000 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. Their ruins were everywhere, some mere heaps of debris, some broken walls of carefully laid masonry, indicating a growing skill in architectural construction.

  The study of such ruins was comparatively new, and the science of archaeology itself was scarcely one hundred years old, much of that time a learning process. First it had been necessary to learn how to conduct a dig, how to determine the ages of the sites and objects discovered, and how to preserve what they had found.

  The science had suffered and still suffered from preconceived ideas, and attempts to make discoveries fit preconceived patterns. One such idea was that the introduction of agriculture had given birth to other dramatic changes. Discoveries at Bat Cave, for one instance, showed that the introduction of planting long preceded the production of pottery.

  The fact was that in the beginning, agriculture had demanded longer hours of disciplined labor than food-gathering and hunting. To a settled community a crop failure could be a disaster. Supposedly, planting had caused hunting to fade into the background, but the Cheyennes had given up agriculture and returned to hunting. Without a doubt this had been due in part to a population explosion among the buffalo, providing a stable diet to a people to whom hunting was a sport as well as subsistence.

  He poured his coffee and looked over his shoulder. It was dark. In the distance beyond No Man's there were stars, but were they the same stars?

  He shook his head to shake off the disturbing thoughts. He was creating ghosts where none existed. Kawasi had said the mesa looked familiar, like something from the Other Side. Could something exist in two worlds at the same time?

  Suddenly he realized he was hearing footsteps, approaching footsteps. A figure loomed at the edge of the firelight. It was Gallagher.

  "I figured you needed company," he said.

  And what, Raglan asked himself, did he know about Gallagher?

  Chapter XVIII

  Gallagher took a campstool and sat down. "Got worried about you," he said, pushing his cap back on his head, "and I figured we should talk some more.

  "I'm not much on talk, usually, but sometimes something comes of just bringing out all aspects of a problem and just mulling over it."

  Raglan offered no comment. He was thinking about Gallagher and how he had arrived. Had Mike been so preoccupied that he had not heard the sound of a car arriving? Or had Gallagher's car simply not made that much noise? Or could he have used some other means of arrival?

  Despite his suspicions he trusted Gallagher. He liked the man, believed he wanted to cope with the situation, but understood that, although he acted friendly, he was on the whole impersonal in his attitude--as he should be.

  "We've got two ways to look at this," Gallagher said. "We can look at it logically like it was a kidnapping or murder, and investigate it from that standpoint. Or we can accept this idea of another world and see where that leaves us."

  "Which we've both been doing."

  "Right."

  Gallagher poked a stick into the fire. "Had a couple of queries about Hokart. From back east. Seems he usually calls his office and they've not heard from him."

  They sat listening, and Raglan looked at Chief. The big dog had not lifted his head from his paws but his ears were up.

  "If he doesn't show up soon we'll have a lot of inquiries. Hokart's a mighty important man, seems like, and yesterday, while I was gone, somebody from the governor's office called. He said the governor wished to consult with Erik Hokart and would he call back as soon as possible?

  "We've got to find him, Mike, and right away. This is going to blow the lid off."

  "Does Eden Foster know?"

  "I made a point of talking about it. I was over there today, just sort of dropped in. She always wants to know what I am doing, so I told her I was hunting a missing man, and that if I didn't find him there'd be people all over the country around here, looking into everything.

  "I also mentioned that one of the places they would immediately check would be Hokart's camp, and the kiva."

  "What did she say to that?"

  "Not much, but I could see she was bothered. She was kind of impatient, wanted to know what was so important about him, and I just told her any citizen was important, as she should know, but Erik had worked with some important people and was considered very special by many of them. Then I told her they'd never stop looking until every possibility was exhausted."

  "Did she say anything about me?"

  "I was coming to that." He chuckled. "First time I ever saw Eden pay much mind to anybody in other than a business or social way. She asked me if you were married."

  "Probably wondering if anybody would miss me if I disappeared."

  "Oh, no. Not this time. Sounded like she had a personal interest."

  Raglan was skeptical. Eden Foster was an attractive woman who might be expected to have an interest in men, but he doubted if she had anything other than a business interest in him. He sa
id as much.

  Gallagher refused to accept it. "If I know anything at all about women, she's interested in you."

  Raglan looked out of the door and across the mesa toward No Man's. "If I know anything about women," he said, "Eden Foster is nobody to mess with. She's got a mind, but she also has a will and she doesn't like being thwarted. I could see that in her. I have a hunch that intellectually and personally she's a defector."

  "A defector?"

  "Suppose what we surmise is true? That she's an agent, a lookout station for the Other Side? My hunch is that she has come to like it over here, and although she could never be one of us, she likes the life here better than where she comes from.

  "I don't mean she'd betray them. She's like some of the Soviets sent here or to Europe. They begin to enjoy the life and they don't want to go back. Here they have access to things they cannot get over there, and they are free of many of the pressures."

  Gallagher was silent, mulling it over. The air was, cool and the night was still. Chief arose and walked outside, stretching.

  "What worries me,' Raglan said, "is that we don't know their capabilities, nor do they know ours."

  "They know a damned sight more about us than we do of them," Gallagher said. "Eden Foster is here. She's been making contacts, listening, reading, learning. We don't have any communication with her side of things, nor do we actually know there is another side. I still can't escape the feeling we're being had."

  Raglan was uneasy. The kiva was there and its opening into another world, or whatever it was, an unpleasant fact. Erik Hokart was over there somewhere, and it was a fact that those who held him must know something of this world.

  Yet how much did they know? How accurately had Eden Foster judged this world, and how accurately had they read her messages, if such there were?

  It was never easy for one people to understand another when their cultural backgrounds differed drastically. If he only knew more of how the Anasazi had lived and thought. Many of the outward evidences of their living were obvious. Their buildings, from pit houses to cliff apartments, were easily seen. Some of their pottery, their tools and weapons remained. Yet as they ground their corn with mano and metate, what were they thinking? What was it that ordered their existence?

  "Have you got a knife?" Gallagher asked. "Sometimes one can be mighty handy."

  "I have one."

  Gallagher glanced at Raglan, a wry look on his face. "Sometimes I think I should pull you in just to see what you're carrying."

  "You'd make me mighty unhappy," Raglan commented. "I might just move out and leave you with your friends from over the line. Then you could handle it all by your lonesome."

  Chief had returned and was lying across the doorway, his head on his paws.

  "Anything you're carrying," Gallagher said, "you're likely to need. You might have a chance if you could tie up with that old cowboy you told me about. The one called Johnny.

  "The trouble is a man wouldn't know how to act over yonder. In this country there's so many foreigners and strangers we don't pay them much attention, but in a place like that ...

  "How would you get food, for instance? Do they have eating places? Or do they eat at home? What would you ask for? If you went over there you wouldn't even know the names for things or where to go to find out anything."

  Raglan agreed, then added, "The cliff dwellers lived by farming. The Hopi are very skillful dry farmers, and the Hohokam had extensive irrigation projects. So, unless there was some drastic change, the Anasazi probably continued to develop as an irrigation civilization, and most such develop very rigid governments. Somebody has to control the water so it can be evenly distributed, and that calls for authority."

  "What about this evil they talk about? They say the Third World was evil."

  "Your guess is as good as mine. What is evil? Our conceptions of evil are a result of Judeo-Christian ethic, but their conceptions of evil may be entirely different. The Maya and the Aztec, who were probably kin to these people, indulged in human sacrifice on a grand scale. If you go over there you might find yourself stretched out on an altar."

  "That's for you, Raglan, not me. I've my own work to do."

  Long after they slipped into their sleeping bags, Mike Raglan lay awake, listening.

  Listening and thinking. The night was very still and cold, and although he heard nothing outside, he heard Chief growl deep in his chest. Yet the big dog did not rise, so the danger, if anywhere except in his dreams, was not close.

  At dawn he was out of his sleeping bag and making coffee when Gallagher came in from outside. "Been looking around," he commented. "Took a look at that kiva."

  "It's more than I've done. I've been shying away from it."

  "Can't see anything through that window," Gallagher said. "Might be anything in there, and it's right on the edge of the cliff thataway--"

  "The dog went through. I suppose Erik did, too, but I don't know." Raglan paused. "Gallagher? Do you know this country right close around here? A canyon with a lot of trees?"

  "Are you kidding? This isn't tree country except for some cedar and an occasional cottonwood in the bottom of a wash."

  "If that kiva offers an opening to the Other Side, it is an opening right into their hands, but according to what I've heard there are other openings, and one of them is a canyon with trees. I'm going to have a look."

  "I got to get back to town." Gallagher reached for the pot. "For heaven's sake, take care of yourself. All I need is another guy disappearing around here."

  They drank coffee and talked; then Gallagher got up and started back to his Jeep. When he reached it he turned and looked back, hesitating as if reluctant to drive away. Then he got in, swung his car around and headed back toward the highway.

  Raglan stood listening to the sound of the motor until it died away, then turned back to the ruin. He put together a small pack, checked his gun, and called Chief. "Come on, boy, we're going for a walk."

  On the old canvas map, No Man's had pointed like a gigantic finger. Pointing at what?

  The way was rough, but he took his time, glad he had hiking boots rather than the western boots he usually wore. He walked around one of the red rock domes and then down into the gully beyond. He had to pick his way with care, for there was much loose rock and the solid rock was uneven. A "hole" in western lingo might be any basin, hollow, or even a canyon, and over here somewhere was something of the kind. Several times he paused to look around, to choose his way but also to see if there was anyone following him.

  He saw nothing--only an eagle high against the sky, only a lizard that darted into the shade of some brush. It was a world of silence, with no sound but those made by his own passage. Across the river and stretching off to the south was No Man's Mesa, huge, ominous, mysterious. He worked his way down a precarious sandstone slope. Any misstep might send him pitching down a hundred feet or more. A broken leg out here alone could be the end of him. He paused near a juniper and crushed a leaf in his fingers, liking the faintly pungent smell, listening to the song of a canyon wren. There was no other sound.

  He worked his way, Chief sometimes following, often leading, down a steep canyon wall. He glimpsed the bright-green of foliage that indicated the presence of water, but it needed another hour of hard clambering and climbing before he was within sight of the trees.

  They were there, all right. At first only a clump was visible, but when he reached the edge of the canyon he could find no way down. The canyon wall bulged outward and there was no edge. To walk farther out was to fall off. For an hour he worked his way along, seeking for some break in the wall down which he might work his way. There was none.

  Occasionally he glimpsed trees down below, and once he thought he caught the gleam of water. Finally, he made camp under a rocky overhang, gathered wood for his fire, and prepared a camp for the night. A good-sized cedar shielded his fire from observation, although the reflection against the back wall might be seen.

  There was cons
iderable deadwood lying about and he gathered enough for the night, most of it cedar washed down the canyon from higher up. As the crow flies, he doubted he was more than two miles from the ruin and its kiva, but even with the flashlight he carried he had no desire to try to cross that rough country in the dark.

  A coyote spoke inquiringly into the night, and somewhere out in the darkness, a rock loosened by one of the many natural causes, fell into the canyon, bounding from ledge to ledge. Only a small rock, but one more item in the continual change wrought by frost, rain, sun, and wind.

  He had only a small fire, and he did not lie down but leaned against the backwall, a blanket around his shoulders. He dozed, added fuel to the fire, and dozed again.

  The night waned, the moon arose, flooding the canyon with ghostly radiance. The towering spires above the canyon wall took on shadows, and he let the fire die down to red coals, adding just enough fuel to keep them alive, with an occasional bright-yellow flame as the new fuel was attacked. The wood from the cedar smoke smelled good, and he thought how often cedar had been used, in many countries, for sacred ceremonies. He himself had watched a medicine man waft smoke over tribal elders with an eagle's wing to purify them before an important conference.

  He took cedar bark and added it to the fire, and then, suddenly, as his hand reached out to the fire, it stopped, arrested in movement by some small sound, a sound not normal to the night. Chief also sensed its presence.

  Something, far up the narrow canyon, had moved in the night. Something that was not a rock falling or a wind stirring the junipers. It was something alive.

  Alive? At least something that moved, alive or not. Something that came nearer in the night, something carefully moving, something approaching, something that tried to make no sound.

  He was seated well back in a corner of the rock, not easily visible, his fire a few feet away, the shadow of the cedar looming large before the cave, but with openings on either side. He could see a star over the rim of the rocks opposite.

  The coyotes had ceased their chatter. The night was still, waiting, and now he heard no sound.