the Haunted Mesa (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  He stepped up to the door and peered inside. Directly before him was a screen, placed so one had to turn either right or left to go around it. He had seen the same effect several times in Asia. The idea was that evil spirits have to travel in straight lines and so could not follow beyond the screen. Smiling at the idea, he started to duck down under the pillar.

  "I wouldn't go in there, if I was you."

  Chapter XXXIV

  The voice came from behind him. Only a moment before, he had looked all around, seeing nothing. Slowly, he straightened up and turned.

  About twenty feet away stood a tall old man with long white hair. He had a narrow, saturnine face with amused blue eyes, a carefully trimmed beard and mustache. He was dressed in carefully fitted buckskins and moccasins.

  "Johnny?" he asked.

  "Know me, do you? Well, there surely ain't many of me to confuse nobody. I'm Johnny. Who're you?"

  "Raglan, Mike Raglan. I came over to find a friend and take him back."

  "Come of your own free will?" Johnny shook his head. "You must be some kind of damn fool. This friend of yours? You know where he is?"

  "In the Forbidden area. He was brought over from the other side by some strong-arm guys."

  "Brought over? They must have wanted him bad. They don't bring anybody over, and there's no way back. I been lookin' for more years than I can count."

  "I'll find him and take him back. You, too, if you'll help."

  "You know a way back?"

  "Not right now, but I know where several should be. We've got to work fast. There isn't much time." Raglan explained what Kawasi had told him.

  "Know all about it. That's what stuck me at first. Same thing happened right after I come through. I kep' tryin'. Done me no good." He cocked his head to one side. "Know Kawasi, do you?"

  "I do, and I want to take her back with me."

  "Don't blame you for that. She's a fair lass, that one. Bright, too. She's got gumption."

  Raglan gestured toward the door he had been about to enter. "I'm looking for a place where gold is stored. Where there's a map scratched on a gold plate."

  The old man sat down on a flat rock. "How'd you know about that? I surely never told nobody, and those folks"--he jerked his head back toward the pueblo--"they never come over here. Never come at all."

  Raglan explained about the old cowboy in Flagstaff and his gold. Johnny chuckled. "Smart, that's what he was! Smart enough to take enough an' stay away."

  He gestured around. "The way I figure it, this here was settled by somebody thousands of years back. No kin to them. No kin to anybody around now, the way I see it. They had gold and lots of it. There's several tons of it, near as I can calc'late. I seen that map you speak of--never saw it as a map. Figured it to be the plan of something."

  Raglan was puzzled. "That outfit you got on? Looks like it had been tailored for you."

  "Was. Tailored by me. By my ownself for me. Back when I was a youngster, Pa put me to work with a tailor. Wishful of me learnin' a trade. I stuck it for three year, from time I was twelve to 'most sixteen. Then I taken out for the West.

  "Here a man's got nothin' but time, so I tailored myself some fancy duds." He brushed his whiskers with a hand. "Keep trimmed up, too. I remember hearin' of Englishmen stationed in the jungle somewhere an' how they always dressed for dinner, even when all alone out there. 'Morale factor,' they called it.

  "Well, I done the same. Figured I'd go to pieces if I didn't. Wear tailored clothes, trim my beard, keep my places revved up an' neat."

  "Places?"

  Johnny chuckled. "I got a bunch of them. Hideouts. Scattered around, so's I don't make the same trail all the time. A man always goes the same way an' somebody smartens to where he lives. I got smoked an' dried meat in all of them. Dried fruit, too, nuts an' seeds I c'lect. Nobody knows where those places are but me, so's nobody can tell nobody else. Sure as you tell somethin' to one person, they will tell somebody else, an' warn them not to tell. Of course, they do."

  "The man I'm looking for is called Erik Hokart. They've had him several days. Do you know anything about the Forbidden?"

  "No, an' nobody else does. Maybe The Hand knows, an' maybe Zipacna."

  "You're wearing a pistol?"

  "Black powder. Make my own. Been doin' it for years, an' right now I'd say I make as good a black powder as can be made."

  "You've tangled with the Varanel?"

  Johnny spat into the sand. "That I have! Three, four times. They leave me alone now, but don't you take them light. They've got some sort of gun--makes no sound but a sort ofthwat, but it shoots an arrow into you.

  "All it needs is a scratch an' it does you in, starts something happening inside you. I seen a wolf killed thataway and its insides was all wrong, somehow. Whatever it is, it upsets the way things work inside you.

  "I seen that wolf shot an' they didn't know I was anywhere about. I laid there a-watchin' it. Wolf went down. Struggled a mite, then lay still. Tongue hangin' out, pantin' like. Several times it tried to get up an' couldn't.

  "Looks like whatever it is sort of takes their strength so's they can't move nor fight. Then they die."

  "Something that affects the metabolism? The cell structure, maybe?"

  "I wouldn't know about that. I only know what I seen. Believe you me, I stay clear of those fellers, an' you best do the same. If you run into them, don't waste your time. Kill them quick or they'll nail you."

  "You have a rifle?"

  "A Sharps Big Fifty. Brass ca'tridges. Load 'em myself. Make my own powder and shot. Back up yonder I've got me a lead mine that's almost half-silver. Somethin' else in there, too. Zinc, I reckon."

  "Why did you advise me not to go in there?"

  "Lizards! Damn big ones! Get to be eight, ten feet long an' they can run down a deer in fifty yards. Don't seem to try if its further. They'll weigh three to five hundred pounds, I reckon."

  "Like the Komodo lizards," Mike suggested. Then, as the old man looked blank, he added, "Komodo is an island in the East Indies. Indonesia, they call it now. They find lizards of that size on Komodo and the island of Flores, across the strait. They are meat eaters and they'll run down a horse in a short distance."

  "Sounds like 'em. Set up on their hind ends an' look around. Make almost no sound in the brush." He gestured. "Some of'em live in these ruins."

  The old man stood up. "Come along. I'll show you where the gold is. Got no use for it, m'self. Cached some here an' there in case I got a chance to get back. Figured I'd need it over yonder."

  He looked suddenly wistful. "Like to go back. Kinda would. Doubt if there's anybody knows me back yonder now, with all the years between.

  "Healthy here. Never had a cold since I come over. I don't see many folks, an' maybe that's the reason, but I'm more'n ninety year old now, I reckon. Ain't been sick a day since I come over.

  "Hoss died. That was a pity. Lived to be almost forty, then just died on me. Old age, I reckon." He peered at Raglan. "Them automobiles now? Did they ever catch on?"

  "They're all over the place now. They paved the roads for them."

  "Paved? That's kinda hard on the hosses, ain't it?"

  "You don't see many horses except on ranches. Even there they use pickups and Jeeps more than horses."

  "I'll be damned. What's them 'pickups'?"

  "A kind of car with a place behind the driver to carry supplies, bales of hay, whatever."

  Johnny led the way down among the ruins, and then at last to another tall, narrow door. Stopping, the old man got out a stub of candle. "We'll need some light. Dark in there."

  "Keep it. I've got a flashlight." He flashed the beam into the dark opening, and gasped.

  The gold was there, half-covered by the accumulated dust of years, but gleaming bright beneath the powdery film. The room was a sort of vault, its sides honeycombed with openings, each one stacked with discs of gold such as the old cowboy had mentioned. In the very center of the room, above a heap of the discs, was a pi
llar. On it was the gold plaque. He stepped closer, studying it.

  The Forbidden was, literally, a maze. It was a labyrinthine tangle of rooms, passages, and columned halls, and at the center a court, a group of larger rooms. For a moment he studied the design. It was a challenge, but a challenge to which he would not have the time to respond. Somewhere, in all that insane spider web of rooms and passages was Erik, and he must be found. There were also the rooms of death, which must be avoided. Suddenly, something about the shape and design began to seem familiar. There was something about it ...

  He shook his head. Whatever it was would not come to mind now. He indicated the diagram of the maze. "Johnny, I've got to get in there and get out, with Erik."

  "You ain't got a prayer. That place is guarded by the Varanel an' the Lords of Shibalba. Even if you could figure a way in and a way to get out."

  Raglan continued to study the maze. In his wandering about, solving mysteries and puzzles, he had often walked mazes, including those in England at Hampton Court and Longleat, but there were dozens of others, some only in patterns on the floors of cathedrals such as Chartres, Amiens, and Ely.

  "It ain't only that," Johnny warned. "This here country is right deceivin'. Have to get used to it. Distances ain't what they seem, nor heights, either. You got to develop a new set of senses to handle it."

  "I won't have time, Johnny. Whatever is done must be done in the next few hours." Then he added, "I've got a way in. I've got a friend inside there."

  "That's another thing. You just think you got a friend, if he's one of them. Kawasi's folks, they're different. They are good folks, mostly. But them down there? Don't you trust any of them. Lyin' comes natural to them. So does deceit. Do it for the fun of it. Lead you right into a trap if they can. They would rather see you fail than succeed, no matter what you're doin'. I've had truck with 'em. Know what I'm talkin' about. Most of 'em would risk their own necks just to betray somebody. They thrive on betrayal an' deceit.

  "When the Anasazi fled this place they fled that sort of thing, leaving a world that was evil. Don't you think there's exceptions. Any one of them down there would go out of his way just to trick you into injury or death, and then set by and watch you suffer."

  Raglan continued to study the plaque, but he was wondering now about Tazzoc. He remembered the peculiar gleam in Tazzoc's eyes when he spoke of the rooms that were traps. Tazzoc had seemed to relish the idea.

  "They'll even do it to each other. Only thing I can't figure is how they've lasted this long, mean as they are."

  Tazzoc had seemed sincere, but was he? Was the cloak only a trick to get him inside? To have him captured? Or would Tazzoc wait and let him be trapped in one of the death rooms? But he had promised to help. Tazzoc had wanted his Archives appreciated and, if possible, saved.

  Mike had no choice. It was his only way inside and he must take it, then play it by ear, and handle each emergency as it arose. Well, he had experience at that, and he had been warned.

  "I'm going in, Johnny, and I'm going to bring Erik out, no matter what happens." He turned to Johnny. "How long will it take to get down there?"

  "Couple of hours. Only the last few minutes will worry you."

  Raglan studied the trail that seemed to end in a blank wall. That made no sense unless it was some kind of an entrance. Because this path was shown on the design did not mean it was visible on the ground, only that it was there, and it led to something.

  Johnny glanced around, then said, "Does a body good, talkin' to somebody speaks his language. I taught Kawasi an' some others. Convinced 'em they'd need to know it, but part was pure selfishness. I was lonely, like. That Kawasi now, hungry to know. Ever since she was a little tyke, always askin' questions about how we live, think, work, all that kind of stuff. Zipacna was the same."

  "Zipacna?"

  "Oh, sure! He lived amongst them! Acted like he was one of them but he was against 'em from the start. I'd not take any of them to my places. Met 'em in the woods, like. Zipacna, he was always after me to take him to where I lived. Finally I got suspicious. Seemed unnatural he'd persist. All the time he was a traitor. His mother was a witchwoman. So he speaks English better'n anybody, better even than Kawasi, because he's been over to the other side."

  "You're sure?"

  "Been over several times. Brought back some doodads, too. Some folks think he hisself is The Hand."

  As the old man rambled on, Raglan listened with only half his attention. He was concentrating on the diagram on the gold plaque. Most of it represented the Forbidden area, yet there were other diagrams in the corners of the plaque, and one seemed to be this ruin where he stood.

  Suppose there was a way to the other side from here? After all, that old cowboy could not have carried his gold very far. It had to be very heavy. Suppose somewhere among these ruins there was an opening he could use?

  "Johnny? What about this place? Was there ever an opening from here?"

  "Never heard of it. But then, those folks over at the pueblo, they never come here. They turn their heads away from this place. Even Kawasi."

  He swept a hand. "All this here isold ! Older than them pyramids you got back yonder. There's a place over there"---he pointed--"a hall, sort of, lined with figures of animals, deer, buffalo, llamas, all sorts of animals, an' at the head of the hall the biggest statue of a jaguar anybody ever did see. Ever' one of them is carved an' polished until they shine.

  "Beautiful, that's what they are! But no figures of man or woman!"

  "Men did not think of themselves or their women as beautiful. They could see the symmetry and the beautiful movements of animals, but their own bodies seemed clumsy by comparison. Possibly that's why so many primitive peoples worshipped animals, because of their beauty, either sitting still or in movement.

  "Early man was awkward by comparison, and ill-formed, too. It needed years of breeding and the desire for beauty before man began to achieve it."

  Johnny stood up again. "You figure to do all you say, you better have at it. You ain't got much time." He paused, looking around. "Maybe I better come with you. Maybe I better."

  Chapter XXXV

  Down the mountainside lay the collapsed ruins of what had been a mighty city, a fortress, or whatever it was. Only a chaotic mass of tumbled stone remained. Fallen columns, broken statues, ruined walls, and cavernous black openings that gaped threateningly on every side. Mike Raglan led the way, threading a path through the tangle, wary always of enemies.

  Below them and far off he could see the vast black bulk of the Forbidden.

  "Basalt," Johnny said. "Volcanic rock like you see in lava flows out west. Shaped and polished like glass. God only knows who built it, but I doubt any human did. No windows, no doors--only that gate and the small door beside it."

  "There might be one where that path ends."

  "Don't count on it."

  "Johnny? If you want in this, get back up that trail somewhere with that Sharps and be ready. When I come, I'll likely come fast."

  "How you goin' to find him? Take an army a month to search out all those passages and rooms, if what we saw back yonder was a map."

  "I've already got an idea." Mike paused, studying the ruins scattered along the slope before him. He wondered what had destroyed the original structures. The passing of ages had done their work, but there must have been some cataclysm, some frightful disaster that brought doom to all who lived here.

  "Do the people of the pueblos never come here?"

  "Them? No, they don't. They pay strict mind to their own affairs. If they are curious they surely don't show it. Mostly they won't even talk of this place, but they've not seen it, either. There's nothing lives here they want, and those big lizards have killed all that lived here. Now they go afield to hunt theirselves."

  "Did you say you've killed them?"

  "Time or two. They don't die easy, Raglan. They surely don't. You fight shy of them."

  Mike eased his pack on his shoulders, shifting the straps.
They walked on, and Johnny explained what he had learned about what lay below, with occasional references to Kawasi's people. "Like they lived on two islands, miles apart. There's no trading going on, no traffic back and forth. Folks down below there refuse to admit there's anybody around but themselves, whilst Kawasi's people just tend to their knitting. There have been a few clashes in the past, but The Hand never lets his people know about them, and the folks on our side usually come out losers, although The Hand has never made a direct attack on the settlements. Always on small parties out cutting timber."

  From atop the pack Mike took the folded robe Tazzoc had given him and donned it; then he switched his rubber-soled shoes for moccasins like Tazzoc's. Several times during their walk he had paused to pick up bits of stone. Some he discarded, but he had been alert for what he wanted.

  He found it at last, an outcropping of white chalk. At the base of the cliff he picked up a dozen fragments and put them in his pockets. Johnny watched but offered no comment.

  "When I was a youngster, schools taught us mighty little, but the times were such a man just had to learn to think. There was nobody we could call on, so we just naturally solved our own problems our own way. When a different set of circumstances showed up, we just figured out how to cope. My folks made most everything they used with materials out of the woods or from hunting.

  "These folks who came back over from our side, they made out. They fitted themselves into the world they found, and learned more all the time.

  "If you get the idea they are like us, you'll be wrong. They are different an' they think different. Folks back to home used to talk about 'human nature.' Ain't no such thing. What they called human nature was the way they'd been taught, and they figured everybody had the same feelin's, same reactions. Well, it ain't so. Injuns had been raised different from us an' they reacted different. Over here, folks are different.