the Haunted Mesa (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  "Why d'you do it?"

  "He's depending on me. Just like folks depend on you. And he's got nobody else."

  "How long d'you figure to be gone?"

  "As long as it takes. I don't know what time is like over there. I don't know what anything is like. We're used to this world, but over there it can be completely different. I may be gone a matter of minutes, but more likely it will be a week or even a month. I hope to wind it up in what is a few hours of our time."

  Slowly, he explained the little he knew. "This Forbidden area covers a lot of ground: big buildings, thick stone walls, built ages ago. Much of it no longer used. I get a picture of an autocratic power that has gone to seed, that's dying on the vine, so to speak. Of a people who have not only lost the will to resist but to whom the idea of resistance no longer even occurs. The dissident elements pulled out long ago and went to the mountains where some of the descendants of the old Anasazi still live.

  "They want some of what we have but are afraid of contaminating ideas coming through. I don't think there's any superpower over there or any great guiding intelligence. It is a cramped little world filled with fear, hatred, and held together by fear of anything from the outside. I could be wrong as hell. I just don't know, Gallagher, except that when Erik opened up that kiva, it was like opening Pandora's box, if you recall the old myth."

  "I should be going with you."

  "I don't want you, or anybody. If I can't take care of myself I'll be of no use, and I know more of what to expect than anybody I'd take. I don't want to have to think of anybody but myself, nor worry about what's happening with anybody. If I can't do it alone, nobody can. You've been conditioned for your work. A good cop can sense trouble before it begins, and in that kind of world, I know what to look for, up to a point."

  He turned suddenly as a shadow loomed over the table. It was Volkmeer. "Been huntin' you," he said, and pulling back a chair, he straddled it, leaning his arms on the back. "Thought I'd look in here one more time before I started out to that mesa you talked about."

  "Good to see you," Raglan said. He got up. "Gallagher? As soon as I get back I'll be in touch."

  Gallagher turned to Volkmeer. "Raglan is a friend of mine, too. Take good care of him."

  "I'll do that," Volkmeer said. "I'll do just that."

  "If anything goes wrong," Raglan said, "you'll be hearing from back east. Help them all you can. And if you see my friend with the busted ear and cut scalp, throw him in jail on some pretext or other and hold him until I get back. He might even come up with answers if you ask the right questions."

  Outside, Volkmeer said, "What was that about the man with a busted ear?"

  Raglan shrugged. "Couple of muggers tried to use some muscle when I was visiting Eden Foster. They didn't understand their business well enough."

  Volkmeer glanced at him. "I don't see any scars."

  "I said they didn't know their business."

  Volkmeer glanced at him again, but offered no comment. Only later, he said, "Two of them, was there?"

  "They have the same trouble here I'll have over there. They don't understand how different things are. Whoever is their contact here is either lying to them or is ignorant. They can't seem to grasp the fact that a man or woman may be nobody, but if they disappear or are murdered they become important. Even if Erik wasn't who he is, questions would be asked."

  "And who is he?"

  "An electronics expert, and one who has worked with both the FBI and the CIA. He has testified before Senate committees and every newspaper in the country knows who he is. They are already beginning to ask questions."

  Volkmeer ran his gnarled .fingers through his sparse hair. "Never knew him, m'self. Heard about him."

  "They'll be asking questions, Volk. And they will be wanting answers. That fire that burned the cafe will be first on the list, and they will go through those ashes like you wouldn't believe. I'll be questioned, and so will you."

  "Me? I don't know anything."

  "They won't assume that, Volk, and if anything happens to me, I've left a list of people and places."

  Volkmeer swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. He looked off toward the mountains, blue in the distance. "Well, I hope they find him."

  "It won't be quick, Volk. They will follow every lead, talk to everybody, demand explanations for everything. You see, Yolk, they havetime . If there's any discrepancy in a story, they will find it and follow it up. They will check the records on mining claims, tax returns, and everything you can imagine."

  "I guess you're right. Never thought much about it." He paused. "A man gets on a trail sometimes, seems easy at the time."

  "What are you suggesting?"

  "Me? Nothin' at all. Just sort of thinking about all that out there, wondering what will come of it."

  "Don't come out there, Volk, unless you are ready to go the route." He turned to look at the older man. "I am going in there after a friend, Volkmeer, and that's all. There's nothing in this for me but a lot of trouble, and if you come along, that's all I can promise you."

  "Reckon I know that, Mike." His hard old eyes measured him. "You got any idea what you're gettin' into?"

  Raglan did not answer. What was he doing, anyway? All he had to do was walk away or drive away. Nobody would know the difference, or care. The hell of it was, he was going into this for a man who was not really a close friend. But the man had called on him for help.

  After all, what did a fireman know about the person he dragged from the fire? Or the passing stranger who saved a drowning man? One did what one could. From the best motives in the world he was trapped into a situation where he might die a very unpleasant death, when he would rather be almost anywhere else, doing almost anything other than this.

  He swore, and Volkmeer glanced at him. "Gettin' cold feet?"

  "Hell, Volk, I've had 'em from the beginning! How the hell does a man get into such a situation? I'm no hero. I'm just a tough, self-centered guy who has been trying to make a life for himself."

  "Like me," Volkmeer said. "I got tired of punchin' somebody else's cows, always makin' money for the other feller. Wanted some of my own."

  "Well, you've got it, but is it yours? I expect it is if nobody has a claim on you."

  Volkmeer removed his hat and wiped the hatband with a rough hand. "Watched 'em build that dam. Watched the water back up behind it, fillin' all those old canyons where I used to ride, covering ruins, filling up kivas. I tell you it was like a blessing, like a blessing.

  "I never thought--"

  Mike Raglan walked to his car. He was in no mood to listen to more. His mind was made up and he could delay no longer. It might already be too late.

  He glanced around at Volkmeer, standing undecided. "Get one thing straight, Volk. I'm going in there planning to come out, and I'm going to bring Erik Hokart with me. And anybody who gets in the way is in trouble, and I meananybody !"

  Chapter XXIX

  When Mike Raglan walked into the ruin on the mesa, a robe was lying across his sleeping bag. Beside it was a worn turban of the kind Tazzoc wore. Mike sat down on a campstool and got out his old canvas map.

  Maybe he was a coward. He knew he was scared. In his years of knocking about he had gone into some tight and dangerous places. He had walked the mean streets of the world, he had gone into ancient, supposedly haunted monasteries, he had explored catacombs where the dead were buried, but before he had always had a fairly clear idea of what he was facing, and here he had only the vaguest.

  He studied the map given him so long ago by the old cowboy in Flagstaff, who had copied it from part of a map on a gold plaque. The entrance the old man had used was now under water, but the other one he had known of was over to the west, in the place Johnny had found when rounding up strays.

  Looming on the map, drawn with remarkable accuracy, was No Man's Mesa. In the old days one could cross the river easily, but now it was a long way around by car. The dam had backed water up the canyon and deepened it considerab
ly.

  He had to cross over and he could not safely use the window in the kiva. That led, he had been told, into a trap. Still, Chief had gotten through and had apparently not been injured.

  Well ... as a last resort, maybe. He would try the Hole. There was an opening there and with luck he could find it.

  What had become of Kawasi? More and more he found himself thinking of her. There had been a wistful loneliness about her that stayed with him. Large, beautiful eyes, soft lips ... What the hell was he thinking of? This was no time to be thinking about a girl. His job now was to cross to the Other Side and survive it, then to find where the Hall of the Archives was, and, once inside, try to find a way into other parts of the structure without getting himself trapped in one of those built-in tombs.

  "You're a damned fool, Raglan," he told himself. "Go on into Durango and catch a plane out of here. To hell with it."

  Yet he was not going to do it. Even as he thought of all the intelligent reasons not to do it, he knew he was going in. Yet he had to be honest with himself. Was it altogether because of Erik? Or was it the challenge of the unknown?

  He had spent months exploring ruins of the Anasazi, he had slept in their kivas in far-out, lonely ruins. He had followed their trails, stood upon fields where they once planted maize and squash, fingered shards of their broken pottery, and in his heart he felt a kinship. Some had undoubtedly merged with the Hopi, others with the Mimbres, and many had died. Yet, if it was even remotely possible that some had gone back to that Third World, he wanted to know how they fared.

  Sometimes, seated alone in one of their ruins, he had felt himself one of them. He had watched in his mind those small copper-skinned people grinding corn, carrying water up the steep trails, weaving cloth, going about the day-to-day business of being themselves.

  What had happened to them? From the little he had learned, and if what they told him was true, some had fallen in with the Evil Ones who had remained behind, but some had fled that world, gone to the mountains or canyons, and there carried on as they might have, had they remained at Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, or Chaco Canyon.

  He checked his gun again, then from his small pack he took another, a Heckler and Koch 9 millimeter, stowing it away in a special holster inside his belt at the small of his back. That was simply insurance. It was the Smith & Wesson .357 on which he intended to rely.

  Where was Tazzoc? He needed to talk to him once more. He needed more guidance, more advice! And where was Kawasi? Was she yet alive? Or had they taken her? Killed her or kept her a prisoner?

  He went outside and walked to the kiva's edge, looking into it. Were those fresh tracks? Made by whom? For what reason? He looked at the window and it stared back at him like an open mouth, with spots on the wall seeming like eyes. He shifted his feet uneasily, glancing over his shoulder.

  Chief moved up beside him, growling a little, then sniffing the rocks that made up the circular wall of the kiva. Had something been there? Something that climbed out and prowled about the ruin?

  The sky was a magnificent blue, with only a few scattered clouds. The river lay bright in the sunlight, and No Man's brooded in silence.

  Was there a trail to the top? He could see no place for it, only the bare red walls rising sheer from the piles of talus. He had been told there was no trail, but an old Mormon had said there was. There were wild horses on the top, horses that must have found a way up and down, for the winters would be bitterly cold, with icy winds sweeping across the unprotected tableland.

  A lone buzzard swung against the sky in solitary awareness that it had only to wait. All things came to it in the end. Would there be buzzards over there? Or eagles? Were there gateways in the sky through which they could pass? Uneasily, he watched the buzzard, then shifted his eyes to the red rock land around him and searched it with care, knowing there could be eyes where none seemed to be.

  He looked around, feeling himself observed, but saw nothing. He walked across the mesa and down the steep slope on the side away from the river, going back the way he had come and, after some time, finding his way down the steep cliffs to the bottom of the Hole.

  The first thing he saw were mountain-lion tracks. A big lion, and one there not long before. The place seemed empty, and it was quiet. Leaves whispered their secrets into the stillness, then held still, listening for replies that never came. He walked along, his footsteps the only sound, slight as it was.

  Indian painting on the walls. In places the desert varnish had slipped away, and what stories might have been written there, lost. He found his way along a narrow, ancient path. Surely, in such a place where there was shade and water, there must have been Indians. But the trees were not old, perhaps no more than forty years in place, and what had it been like before? Had there been other trees? Burned perhaps, or their timbers used by Indians in building or for fuel? There were sand heaps. What lay beneath them?

  Navajo sweathouses, only the cedar posts left, leaning together. And those other huts, built by someone other than Navajos, he believed. By Paiutes? He did not know, but the shape was different. They were not hogans.

  Here was where he had seen the Varanel, but how had they come to be here? Pursuing someone? Or something? He stopped, his back against a sandstone wall, to look carefully around. Somewhere here there was an opening into that other world.

  Tracks! The Varanel must have left tracks.

  His back to the red rock wall, he studied the canyon before and around him, searching the rocks for some variation, some anomaly, some indication. He found nothing. He touched the butt of his gun for reassurance and it felt good under his hand. Again his eyes searched the terrain, and then he left the wall and went down into the trees. Over there, where he had first seen the Varanel, there was a vagueness, a shimmering. He could feel his heart beating heavily.

  He moved forward through the trees; then, stopping against the trunk of one tree, he looked carefully around. Someone was here. His every instinct told him something was here.

  He moved across the open space to another tree, merging his body with the tree trunk. Again, warily, he looked around. If somebody watched him now, where could they be? Keeping his eyes straight ahead, using his peripheral vision, he waited for movement.

  Where?And who? Or should it bewhat? There were strange creatures on this side, but what might lie over there? What kind of appalling monsters might there be?

  Suppose they were invisible? There were sounds beyond the reach of the human ear. Dogs could hear them, insects possibly. What if there were colors beyond the range of the human eye? Colors no human could see? Suppose some such thing approached him now?

  If men could pass through from one side to the other, what about animals? Chief had done it, going both ways. But what of their animals? Might they not have wild animals of some kind unsuspected?

  Moving as a shadow moves, or as the wind, he went to another tree and still another. There he crouched, waiting and watching, alert for any breath of sound. From where he now waited he could look across the open space where he had seen the Varanel.

  Empty. Nothing.

  He touched his tongue to dry lips, not liking the thought of moving away from the shelter of the trees. He would be exposed, vulnerable. The worst of it was, he did not know what to look for, or exactly what he would do when he found it.

  He shivered, although the day was not cold. He should get out of here, back to the camp in the ruin, back to something like security, back where he knew where he was and what must be done. Yet he had found nothing. The day would be lost, and there was so little time.

  What was Erik doing? Was he tied hand and foot? Was he imprisoned in a cell? Dying in one of those tombs? Or had he somehow won a reprieve? Convinced them he had more to offer by living?

  He moved along the border of trees, looking across to where the Varanel had gone. He could see nothing but a sweep of sand, some desert growth, and, beyond, a low ridge of sandstone. Where had they come from? Where had they gone?

  H
e watched; then his eyes went to the lone buzzard in the skies overhead. Suddenly, with a chill he wondered: What if that was not a real buzzard? Or was a trained bird? Trained to observe him?

  That was nonsense. He was thinking foolish thoughts. He moved on to another tree, almost on the edge of the sweep of sand, and there he waited again, listening. Did he hear a sound? A sound of singing? Of chanting? Somewhere a long way off? He glanced around again.

  He would withdraw. It was growing late, and he must return to the ruin before he broke a leg scrambling over rocks in the darkness. He heard the chanting again, many voices singing a monotonous song of few words. It was not his imagination, but where did it come from?

  They must be close, very close, for he sensed they were singing in low tones. Uneasily, he pressed closer to the bark of the tree, trying to locate the source of the sound. It seemed to come from somewhere out there before him.

  If he was attacked, and he killed one of them on this side of the curtain, how would he explain the body? Who would believe such a fantastic story? He had no evidence to present but the daybook, which could be considered a piece of pure fiction. After all, he was a writer with books to sell and it might be considered an elaborate publicity scheme. So to get help from the proper authorities was out of the question.

  Nobody would accept the story for reality. Mike Raglan knew he must accept the fact that he lived in a world concerned with the deficit, with the arms race, with coming elections. People were thinking about paying rent, keeping up payments on a house or car, and planning for a vacation where at least some of them would come to Mesa Verde and wonder at its builders who lived so long ago. They would wander through the ruins while a park ranger explained them, and when they returned home to Vermont, Iowa, or wherever, they would repeat what they had heard and show the pictures they had taken.

  What if he were kilted out here, now? His body might not be found for years, for who came to this lonely, forgotten place? Standing among the trees, looking up the sunlit canyon, Mike Raglan knew he was alone.