the Haunted Mesa (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  Raglan dropped into the kiva, approaching the window. He could not see through it. Open it undoubtedly was, but here, too, what lay beyond was masked by that weird curtain of what appeared to be a thick smoke, or something akin to it.

  Did he dare take a chance? He moved closer, and then, within, he saw the edge of the door slope steeply down, a smooth rock surface.

  Another trap?

  "Mike?" Johnny's voice was pleading. "For God's sake!"

  He turned quickly. The old man was struggling to reload, and Raglan could see spots of blue darting among the rocks. He reached for his own gun, and then from behind him a voice spoke. An amused, contemptuous voice.

  "I would not do that if I were you. It is too late, Mr. Raglan, much too late."

  Mike turned slowly, his hair crawling at the base of his skull.

  It was Zipacna.

  Behind him were a half-dozen Varanel, and among them, Kawasi, obviously a prisoner.

  Chapter XLI

  Too late?

  Kawasi was a captive. If Johnny was taken he would be immediately killed, and as for Erik and himself, they would either be starving in cells or dead. Even as Zipacna spoke, Mike Raglan knew it was too late only if he did nothing. If he was to resist, the time was now, not when he was a prisoner. He drew his pistol and fired.

  Again their confidence worked for him. The great Zipacna was speaking, he who was never disobeyed. For men unaccustomed to resistance, believing themselves invulnerable, Mike's reaction was too swift. Before their minds could adjust and react, a man was down and dead, another dying, the rest scattering like sheep.

  Zipacna's reaction had been swift and immediate. Even as he spoke he must have realized Raglan would resist, and his move was to save himself. Poised for instinctive reaction, Zipacna threw himself to the side and leaped for cover.

  Almost as quick was Kawasi's reaction. She stepped aside and swung a hard fist to the throat of her guard. As she ducked away, Johnny was among them, swinging his clubbed rifle.

  "Run!" Johnny yelled. "There's others a-comin'!"

  There was an opening among the twisted, malformed lava rocks before them and Mike led the way. Down a steep chute over broken rock, and then a green terrace and a ruin, a few stunted trees. Beyond them a huge mass of rock, weirdly shaped.

  The ruin offered shelter, cover of a sort. A few ruined walls, a kiva, and a roofless corridor ending in a T-shaped doorway. It was a semicircular ruin with all the houses facing broken canyon country, somewhat like that between Navajo Mountain and the Colorado.

  "Can we stop?" Erik asked. "I'd like to rest."

  Once inside the ruin, Raglan paused to listen. "Take it easy," he suggested. "Johnny? Would you keep a lookout?"

  Somewhere near he could hear the sound of running water. It proved to be a small stream running from under the slide-rock, a stream that had been guided away from its old bed and into a ditch. The water looked clear and fresh.

  "Kawasi? Was it near here?"

  She came to him. "You will go back now?"

  "I must get Erik back, and Johnny." He turned to look at her. "And you, if you will come with me."

  Her eyes searched his face. "You are sure? I do not know your world."

  "You did not like what you saw?"

  "Oh, yes! I like very much some things. Others I not--donot--understand."

  He looked around. "Kawasi? We're near, aren't we? How do we get back?"

  "It is a sometime place," she said. "I do not know all. He Who Had Magic was the one who knew, and he marked the ways he knew. I think only the door from the kiva is an always place."

  "We haven't much time, Kawasi."

  She led the way through the fallen walls, skirting a kiva and a round tower. She paused some distance from a T-shaped door. "It is there. Or it has been. I do not know." She looked up at him. "All this is uncertain. We are different from you, for we know our world is a sometime place, and all this where our two worlds come together and cross--all this changes. Now only the Saqua know. The People of the Fire. They come and go as they will, and sometimes people on your side believe them ghosts, or the walking dead. But they will not bother where fire is."

  "I saw them once, down on Copper Canyon road. There was a bright fire on No Man's Mesa and they went toward it."

  "I have seen this, too. The fire calls them back. I do not know why."

  Raglan glanced toward the door. "That is where we came through? It does not seem the same."

  "You will see. It is the same. You fell through the door, and got up. You came down here."

  Turning, he called out. "Erik! Johnny! Come on!"

  He saw them rise, saw them start toward him. Uneasily, he glanced around. The yellow sky remained the same, the green grass, the old, moss-grown stones of the ruined walls, yet something was wrong, very wrong.

  Following Kawasi, he started up the narrow, grassy lane toward the T-shaped door. Behind him were Johnny and Erik. Glancing back he saw Zipacna come from the ruins, the other Varanel coming one by one from hiding. He ran, in a stumbling run, following Kawasi. She came to the door and stopped, abruptly.

  "Mike! Mike, it is not here! The opening is gone!"

  He stopped beside her. If ever there had been an opening here it was gone now. Desperately, he glanced around. "Kawasi! Kawasi, there's got to be a way!"

  "It is gone! We are caught!"

  Johnny was loading his rifle. "If we could get to one of my places--"

  "There's no chance now." He indicated more of the Varanel coming up from the trees.

  "Be dark soon," Johnny said.

  The Varanel were down there now, not three hundred yards away, and from where they stood there was no escape. Their little patch of ruins was all there was for them. Through a rift in the rocks he could see the valley of the Forbidden, not so far off as he had imagined. Or was it this deceiving light?

  Vast, black, and ominous. At this distance it seemed much larger than he had believed. It no longer seemed so black. Was that the strange light that preceded darkness? What passed here for a setting sun? Only, no sun was visible.

  "Ain't like them to attack at night," Johnny said. "We got until daybreak, if we're lucky."

  "There's not that much time," Raglan said, "not if what Kawasi said was true."

  "I don't know," Kawasi protested. "Only He Who Had Magic knew. Somehow he worked out the rhythm of the changes. He left writings that explained it, but I have not seen them. He said it was natural law, and only seemed unnatural because we did not understand. He said there were other such places, but they were few, and far apart. This one was all in an area of scarcely more than five of your miles. He said there were occasional openings, and they might happen just anywhere. He said our ideas of dimension and space would have to change before we understood. He said our three-dimensional world was fantasy, something we had become accustomed to and accepted as the all."

  "We don't have to understand it," Erik commented. "We just have to make it work. I've an apartment in New York and that's where I'd like to be."

  "We followed you, Raglan," Johnny said. "Up to you, ain't it?"

  The light had grown dim. "Better gather any wood you see," Mike suggested. "We'll want a fire."

  "There at the edge of the trees? Where they come down to the ruin? I saw some dead stuff over there."

  As Erik and Johnny went to gather wood, Mike turned to Kawasi. "Is there any other place? I mean, it's our only chance."

  "I do not know. I thought this place ..."

  "We have water and we have walls around us. If we have to make a stand, we can do it here."

  Johnny and Erik returned with wood, dumping it on the ground. "There's plenty of firewood and we might be able to get away into the woods, come daylight."

  Johnny glanced at Mike. "Nobody goes into the woods at night. Ain't safe. Them big lizards hunt at night, mostly."

  Mike gathered twigs and bits of shredded bark. Then, powdering some of the shredded bark in his fingers, he put it in a
hollow in a slab of wood. Making a bow of a curved branch and some rawhide looped about a stick, he put the end of the stick in the hollow and worked the bow back and forth to twirl the stick. Soon smoke was rising, and then a tiny flame. He brushed the burning material into the gathered bark and twigs. His fire blazed up and he added fuel.

  He had an eerie sense of being watched. He turned his head suddenly.

  The creature stood in the shadows beyond the ruins. It appeared to be naked, but covered with hair. It stared, and he stared back. Deliberately, he extended his hands to the fire. When he looked around, the creature was gone.

  It resembled those seen that night in Copper Canyon. Like the creature who bumped into his car when answering the call of the light from No Man's Mesa. There had been no animosity in the stare, only a kind of wonder. Or was it awe?

  "Kawasi? Did you see it?"

  "Yes. It was a Saqua, the hairy ones." She added, "We believe they worship fire, but do not know. Yet something about the fire attracts them."

  "They know the ways to pass through to our side?"

  "It is believed."

  "Would they show us?"

  She was aghast. "Oh, no! They are fearful things! My people fear very much! Anyway, they have no speech. Or we think they have none."

  "But if they know the way?"

  "You would trust them?"

  He shrugged. Would he trust them? In any event, how to communicate? They certainly would not know English, if they had intelligence enough to understand anything. Were they animals or men? Even that he did not know, for, while seeming like men, they acted like animals--and smelled like them.

  "Have they ever attacked you?"

  "No, but--"

  "Maybe they just want to be left alone?"

  Or maybe there was something else. He had extended his hands to the fire, held them there. Was there something in that? He had been doing nothing else that might attract attention.

  "Johnny? Erik?"

  They appeared from the darkness. "Johnny, I'm not going to waste your time with explanations, but I've a hunch. Let's all of us stand around the fire and stretch our hands to it. Just warm your hands, palm down."

  Erik stared at him. "What the hell's the idea? My hands aren't cold."

  "Maybe not, and probably we're wasting time, but I'm playing a hunch. It's just for a minute or two."

  Johnny reached his hands to the fire. "If you say so."

  "We're being watched, I think. The Saqua are out there, and they have some affinity for fire. I thought maybe if we showed something of the kind, it might help."

  "With them?" Johnny asked skeptically. "They're animals. They ain't even human."

  "They know the way through."

  "Well, that's what's said. Seems like they come an' go as they like. I've heard talk of that."

  They stepped back from the fire and Mike went again to the forest's edge for fuel. It would be a long night, and fires were insatiable in their demands. Yet he needed time to think. If it was true the Varanel would not attack in the night, he had time in which to think, to plan. How many times had he told others that it was only the mind of man that distinguished him from animals? That a human being should take the time to think. All right, he told himself grimly, think, damn you!Think !

  Telling himself to think brought no flood of ideas. He tried examining his situation from every view and could find no ready answer. Somewhere near, there would be an opening, if, indeed, it was not already too late.

  Despite all the hiking about he had done, he had at no time been more than ten miles from where he now stood, and he doubted if it were much more than half that. Yet that long-dead river on which they had found the remains of theIron Mountain must have begun far away, and the ill-fated steamer must have steamed north, hoping to find St. Louis or some such river port, only to find nothing and to tie up at last to a deserted riverbank, to move no more.

  He, at least, knew what had happened. He did not understand the circumstances, yet he had heard of such things many times. At least, the idea was familiar to him but he doubted whether anyone on theIron Mountain had ever heard of such a thing as happened to them.

  Somewhere near was No Man's, Johnny's Hole, and what he couldn't help but think of as the Haunted Mesa. Somewhere, just across that thin line dividing them from his world. The Anasazi had known how to leave this world and go to his, and they had known how to return when their decision was made. Was Kawasi keeping something from him? Did she not wish them to return? He stood at the edge of the forest, thinking, then began to gather wood. Something moved in the forest close by.

  "For the fire," he said aloud, not hoping to be understood.

  There was no sound, no movement. He filled his arms, resolving that if attacked, he would throw the wood into the face of the attacker and then draw his gun. Nothing happened, yet he could distinctly sense the presence of something living. And that odd smell? Yes, it was there.

  "We want to go back," he said aloud, hoping somehow to communicate his need.

  He withdrew one arm from under the wood, touched himself on the chest, and made a gesture outward, then repeated it with the one hand. "We want to go back," he repeated, and then walked back to the fire.

  Johnny had gone to keep watch. Erik was seated, eating some of the trail mix from Raglan's pack. "Sorry," he said, "but I'm starved."

  "I don't wonder. Take what you need."

  Raglan dumped his wood and stood staring into the flames, then sat down abruptly. "Whatever we do," he said, "we should do before daylight."

  Erik wiped his hands on his pants. "Mike," he began, "I--"

  Zipacna loomed suddenly, across the fire. He was smiling, obviously pleased that they were startled. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Tomorrow at noon I will show you the way. You can go, all of you."

  Chapter XLII

  Nobody moved or spoke, startled by his sudden appearance. Raglan was angered by the man's manner as well as his own carelessness, and at the same moment he knew he must not allow his animosity to affect his judgment.

  "Show us the way, Zipacna? To one of your trapped rooms, perhaps? I think not."

  "Soon you have no chance."

  Raglan shrugged, assuming a nonchalance he did not feel. "So? If we stay, we will simply take over. Your country is ripe for it and we have already demonstrated that the Varanel are not invulnerable.

  "The Hand has been wise to exclude outsiders. Over on our side we have a compulsive drive to move into any area that offers opportunity, and your country is dying. It is ripe for a takeover, as you yourself have decided.

  "There is opportunity here. There are undoubtedly minerals to be exploited. Conditions would be different but ours are an adaptable people. We have taken to working in many countries, to deep-sea drilling and space travel. In fact, Zipacna, I have been thinking about approaching The Hand. He might welcome some controlled innovation."

  Raglan had no such idea. He was stalling for time, talking off the top of his head while seeking a way out. What he wanted was to be back on his own side and to forget the whole affair.

  Had The Hand a method of listening? Such devices were available in his own world and he already had been told The Hand sought such devices. Suppose he already possessed them and was listening now?

  Zipacna was angry and restless. Obviously, he too wished to be free of the situation into which his boldness and his ego had projected him. There was something else, too. Raglan had been feeling a growing sense of urgency. Was it some change in the atmosphere? Something caused by the approaching space-quake or whatever it was? From their attitudes he knew the others felt it, too.

  Johnny put wood on the fire. "You had better go, Zipacna. There's nothing for you here. When we go, we will go our own way."

  "You have until daylight," Zipacna said stiffly. "Only until then."

  "I think you speak for yourself only," Kawasi said suddenly. "It is you who speaks, not The Hand. You are of the Varanel, not the Lords of Shibalba. I think y
ou reach for power."

  "You? What are you? Only a woman!"

  "Among my people, I speak and am heard." Her manner was cool, imperious. "You were nothing until somehow you crept through to the other side and learned a little, making yourself useful to The Hand. And then you found out abouther !"

  "Melisande," Erik said. He glanced at Raglan. "The girl of the sunflowers."

  Mike Raglan looked from one to the other. What the hell was going on? Who was the girl of the sunflowers? Of course, there had been the missing pencil and the sunflower on the dog's collar, even the sunflower stitched inside the collar of the sweater. Could this be the girl Erik had meant when he spoke of "us"?

  If so, where was she? Where had she been? And who was she?

  "Look," he said impatiently, "if we're going to get out of here, it's got to be now. We haven't the time to hunt up some other girl--"

  "I won't go without her," Erik said.

  Zipacna was ignored, except by Johnny, who, seated back at the shadow's edge, held his pistol in his hand, his rifle beside him. Johnny was watching Zipacna with sullen, angry eyes, waiting for a wrong move, and Zipacna was aware of it.

  Some of the man's arrogant confidence seemed to have deserted him. Nevertheless, he was poised and watchful. "Where is she?" Raglan demanded. "Whatever is done must be done now."

  "She's close by," Kawasi replied.

  So suddenly that it caught even Johnny by surprise, Zipacna dropped a hand to a wall and vaulted over into the darkness below. Johnny leaped for the wall but Raglan spoke sharply. "Don't waste the bullet. He's gone and we're well rid of him."

  "He'll be back," Johnny said.

  Raglan agreed but did not say so. His only thought now was to get out. If that prophecy was true, they had almost no time left, but of course it was an estimate based on a rumor, nothing substantial to it at all. Nonetheless, he was uneasy, with that unsettling sense of impending doom.

  "All right, Kawasi," he said, "let's get her and get out. Zipacna will be back, and so will others." He turned to Johnny. "Keep watch. I've got to look around."

  Kawasi disappeared, to where he did not know, but she knew this country better than he. He felt for his gun, then went back to what had been an opening. The door was there but it seemed to have been walled shut with stone. He put his hand out to touch it, then hastily withdrew it. He didn't like the look of it, and glanced over his shoulder again.