Switching horses regularly, they pushed on through the night, pausing to sleep for a short time, give the horses some water, and make a skimpy breakfast. The Caballo Mountains had fallen behind them, but as the sun climbed into the sky and they continued riding north, another mountain range rose to their left. Those were the Fra Cristobal Mountains, Annabelle explained, named after the same old Spanish missionary who had given his name to the waterhole somewhere ahead of them.
“The Jornada narrows down between the mountains and the lava flow,” Annabelle said. “Fortunato and his men have to be either ahead of us or behind us now. They can’t be paralleling us anymore.”
“I’m going to vote for behind us,” The Kid said.
She laughed. “I’m not sure you get a vote. That’s not how it works.”
“You don’t think that we determine our own fate?”
“Well, that’s not exactly the same thing, is it? Certainly, people have a degree of control over their lives, but not completely. Things can still come out of nowhere and change everything without any warning.”
The Kid had reason to know the truth of that more so than most men, but he didn’t say anything about his past. That was going to remain locked up inside him.
After spending so much time traveling through the gray and brown and tan landscape, the large area of black that appeared to the northeast that afternoon was a stark contrast. As The Kid reined in and studied it, Annabelle did likewise, saying, “That’s the lava field. The malpais, as you called it. Scientists believe it’s been there for hundreds of thousands of years, ever since a huge volcano north of here erupted.”
“Not much chance of that happening again, is there?”
“Oh, no,” she replied with a shake of her head. “All the volcanoes in this region are extinct now. The closest ones that might still erupt on occasion are down in Mexico, and even they’re dormant.”
“One less thing we have to worry about, then.”
Annabelle smiled. “We should be thankful for small favors, is that it?”
The Kid just grinned back at her and hitched his horse into motion.
They angled toward the lava flow. During one of the stops to rest the horses, Annabelle knelt on the ground and used her finger to draw a crude map in the dirt, showing how the malpais curved down from the north to form a sort of peninsula in the desert.
“We’re supposed to enter the lava field at its southernmost point, where there are two spires of rock that form a sort of gate, and proceed several miles into it until we reach a U-shaped ridge with its open end facing east. In the eastern slope of that ridge, in the very middle of it, there’s a cave, and that’s supposed to be where Albrecht Konigsberg hid the candlestick and whatever else he had with him that was valuable.”
The Kid thumbed his hat back as he looked down at the lines Annabelle had drawn in the dirt, studying them until he had committed them to memory.
“The secret of the Twelve Pearls,” he said.
Annabelle nodded. “I want to find out what that means, probably even more than I want to recover the Konigsberg Candlestick.”
“You want to solve a historical mystery that no one’s ever been able to solve.”
“That’s right,” she said without hesitation.
“Because you think it would have impressed your father.”
Her head snapped up. She glared at him. “Have you ever heard of Sigmund Freud?”
“Can’t say as I have,” The Kid said.
“He’s a doctor in Austria working with patients who have mental problems. He claims that when people do something, their actions are really about something else, something that they may not even be aware of.”
The Kid’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe sometimes. But it doesn’t seem too likely to me.”
“Nor to me.” She stood up and brushed her hands off. “So don’t start thinking you know everything about me and why I do the things I do, Mr. Morgan.”
“I thought you were calling me Kid now.”
“Perhaps I really meant something else,” she said in a chilly tone, then turned and walked away.
The Kid watched her go, then chuckled, making sure she didn’t hear him.
Soon they were on the move again. They drew closer to the lava field and finally entered it when there were still a couple hours left until sundown, passing between the twin spires of rock that towered about a hundred feet in the air. The ride had been incredibly tiring, but The Kid felt an exhiliration that lifted his spirits as they rode into the malpais. They weren’t far from their goal, and so far, he hadn’t seen any horse droppings or tracks that indicated Fortunato was ahead of them.
He wouldn’t see any tracks on the lava, either, except maybe an occasional place where a horseshoe had nicked it. The red, molten rock that had flowed from the erupting volcano had cooled and turned into black stone that still held a dull sheen, even after all those centuries. They had to proceed carefully, because in places, bubbles within the lava had left air pockets where the rock was thin and brittle. It could break when too much weight was put on it, leaving sharp edges that would slash a horse’s legs to ribbons. They had to stay on the part that was solid, so The Kid went first, telling Annabelle to stay behind him and to ride where he rode.
“How do you know where you’re going?” she asked.
“My father told me about places like this and how to find my way through them. Mostly, you just have to take it slow and easy and let your horse pick its way along. Their instincts are just as good or better than ours. They won’t put their weight down on a place they don’t trust.”
Surprisingly, the malpais wasn’t totally devoid of vegetation, like Laguna del Muerto had been. An occasional clump of hardy grass poked its way through the black rock, and there were puny bushes that made the gnarled mesquite of the desert look healthy. For the most part, though, the terrain was bare and eerie-looking. Once they were out of sight of the desert, so that they couldn’t see anything except the ripples and ridges of the lava field, a shiver went through Annabelle.
“It’s unearthly,” she said in a hollow voice. “Like something on another planet.”
“I figured out that’s what unearthly meant,” The Kid said.
“Don’t try to tell me it doesn’t make you nervous, too.”
He shrugged. “I’m not overfond of it, that’s for sure.”
Their pace was slow, and it was almost an hour before they spotted a ridge that might be the one described in the old journal Annabelle had read.
“It’s so hard to be sure,” she said. “We almost need to be able to look at it from above.”
“That’s not going to happen unless you figure on sprouting wings. We’ll circle around the end of it there—” The Kid pointed “—and follow it on around, see if it’s shaped like a U and if there’s a cave in it.”
“And if there’s not?”
“We keep looking, I reckon.”
That wasn’t going to be necessary he saw a short time later as they rounded the end of the ridge. He could see all the way to where it curved, and in the middle of that curve was an even deeper patch of blackness that marked the mouth of a cave.
Annabelle saw it, too. “That’s it!” she said, unable to keep the excitement from creeping into her voice. “Oh, my God, that’s it, Kid!”
He reined in and rested his hands on the saddlehorn. “Yeah, I reckon it is,” he said.
“Do we have time to get there and get back out before it’s dark?”
“We’ll get there. We can spend the night in the cave if we have to.”
“That might be a good idea. It’ll give us more time to search if we need it.”
Annabelle was so eager, she would have ridden ahead, but The Kid motioned her back and took the lead again. He was mounted on the buckskin and he trusted the horse’s instincts. They made their way slowly and carefully along the ridge. He felt his nerves drawing tighter as they neared the cave mouth.
Would they find the Konigsbe
rg Candlestick and the secret of the Twelve Pearls inside? Or would they discover that Count Eduardo Fortunato had beaten them to the prize?
Finally they were just below the cave mouth, which was about forty feet up the side of the ridge. The Kid swung down from the saddle and told Annabelle, “Wait here. I’ll have a look inside.”
“Are you insane? After coming all this way and going through all I’ve gone through, you think I’m going to let you go first?”
“Yeah, I do, because it might be a trap.” The Kid slipped the Colt from its holster. “Stay here. I won’t explore the place. I’ll just make sure there aren’t any nasty surprises waiting for us inside.”
“Well…all right. But I don’t have to like it.”
“Nobody said you did.”
The Kid started up the slope, being careful where he stepped. Just before he reached the opening, he bent down and picked up a loose piece of broken lava. He tossed it inside and waited to see if there would be any reaction. When there wasn’t, he came closer and approached the opening from the side. When he went through it, he moved fast, crouching and twisting as he swept the gun from side to side.
Nothing. Just the sound of his boots scraping against the rock echoing back from the close confines of the cave.
Once he was inside and no longer silhouetted against the opening, he dug a match from his pocket and struck it on the wall next to him. As the flame flared up, it revealed a chamber about twelve feet wide and twenty feet deep that was tall enough for him to stand up in. Although the pockmarked black lava was visible around the edges of the cave mouth, the interior walls were the sort of smooth gray stone that had been there before the eruption covered the area with molten rock. A layer of dust and dirt coated the floor, along with a few dried-out animal droppings. Not many animals ventured in here, just like the rest of the Jornada del Muerto.
Other than that, the place was empty. The Kid didn’t see anywhere that the fugitive German could have hidden the treasures he had brought with him all the way from Europe.
The Kid breathed a curse. Annabelle was going to be mighty disappointed if this turned out not to be the place they were looking for. It matched the description. That U-shaped ridge was a hard landmark to miss.
Of course, it was still possible that Fortunato had gotten there first and already had the candlestick in his possession.
The match was about to flicker out when The Kid spotted a flash of something white from the rear wall. He dropped the match and lit another, then held it up higher as he approached whatever it was he had seen. He knelt to take a closer look.
The rear wall of the cave wasn’t smooth, he saw. It sloped slightly and was made up of a large pile of smaller rocks, like the tailings from a mine shaft. The Kid glanced up at the ceiling. At one time the chamber had been deeper than it was now. There had been a cave-in, sealing off the rear wall.
And in that jumble of rocks, he saw as he leaned closer, was something white and smooth, although slightly porous…
That was a piece of bone he was looking at, he realized.
The Kid stiffened. He stood up from his crouch and holstered his gun. He could dig out the bone, but he would need help. He went back to the entrance and looked down at Annabelle waiting anxiously below.
“Come on up,” he said. “I want you to meet Albrecht Konigsberg.”
Chapter 29
One of the things they had brought along from the wagon was a small, collapsible lantern. Annabelle stood behind The Kid, holding the lantern so that he could see what he was doing as he moved chunks of rock left behind by the cave-in. He could sense her excitement growing as he uncovered several pieces of bone. They were badly broken, but Annabelle insisted that she could tell they were human.
The Kid thought so, too. He said, “I figure Konigsberg was nothing but a skeleton by the time the roof fell in. He’d made it this far and then died while that servant of his went to look for help.”
“Then the candlestick and anything else he had might still be buried under those rocks,” Annabelle said.
The Kid nodded as he shifted another chunk of stone. “They might not be in very good shape, though. That’s a lot of weight that came down.”
“Even if the candlestick is crushed, we may be able to tell what it is. The Church wants it back, either way.”
The Kid continued digging. After a few more minutes, he uncovered something that wasn’t rock or bone. He ran his fingers over its smooth surface and announced, “Looks like some sort of leather pouch. The air’s dry enough in here that it hasn’t rotted away.”
Annabelle leaned forward. “Can you get it loose?”
“Hang on.” With a grunt of effort, The Kid heaved a large piece of rock aside, then another and another. He could see that the thing he was digging out was definitely an old pouch of some sort.
When he lifted it out of its nesting place in the rubble, it was heavy in his hands. It was a good-sized bag, more than a foot and a half square. A flap on the top of it was held closed by a piece of rope that practically fell apart in The Kid’s hands when he tugged on it. He pulled the flap back and slid his hand inside the pouch, thinking after he had already done so that he hoped the old German hadn’t rigged some sort of trap in there.
His fingers brushed metal. He closed his hand around the thing and pulled it out. The light from the lantern gleamed dully on the golden surface of a heavy candlestick and struck scintillating reflections from the gems embedded in it.
“Oh,” Annabelle said. That was clearly all she could manage.
The candlestick was dented and misshapen, but it was still easy enough to recognize for what it was. After more than two centuries, the Konigsberg Candlestick had emerged from its hiding place.
The Kid turned and held it out to Annabelle. She set the lantern on a rock and then gingerly took the artifact out of The Kid’s hands. She looked at him with wide eyes and whispered, “This is it. This is really it. I’ve read all the descriptions. This is it.”
“Yeah, I reckon it is,” The Kid said. “But what else is in here?”
He stuck his hand back in the pouch. Annabelle was still gazing down in awe at the candlestick, but she lifted her eyes when The Kid went on, “I’ve got something.”
He pulled out a bundle wrapped in some sort of cloth. It was thick and rectangular. He began unwrapping it, and within moments the cloth lay in a heap on the floor of the cave and The Kid held a book in his hands.
“A book?” Annabelle said. “That’s the secret of the Twelve Pearls?”
“Must be.” The Kid held the book in one hand and hefted the pouch with the other. “There’s nothing else in here.”
Annabelle set the candlestick aside. “Let me see it.”
The book was bound in faded brown leather. There was no writing on the outside of it. The edges of the binding overlapped the pages, which The Kid riffled through with his thumb before he handed the volume over to Annabelle. As far as he could tell, the book hadn’t been printed on a printing press. Its pages were filled with handwritten notations, along with columns of figures and carefully drawn figures and diagrams. He got a good enough look at the writing to tell that it was in German, no doubt Albrecht Konigsberg’s work.
“Can you read German?” he asked Annabelle.
“Quite well, actually,” she said. “A good working knowledge of various languages is an invaluable tool for a historian.”
“What does it say?”
Annabelle flipped rapidly through the pages. “It seems to be…an astronomical journal of some sort. Konigsberg was a scientist, remember? He studied astronomy, and this appears to be a record of star sightings, of movements among the heavenly bodies…and predictions of things that Konigsberg believed were going to happen in the future, based on the stars.”
“Like a fortune-teller?” The Kid asked with a frown.
Annabelle glanced up at him. “People have believed for thousands of years that there are portents in the stars that allow them to fore
tell the future. In those days, the science of where the stars were located and how they moved in the cosmos was all mixed together with the mystical and predictive aspects of the stars, what people call astrology. Konigsberg made a study of all of it, and…” She sank down on a rock. “It’s going to take me some time to work this out.”
“Go ahead,” The Kid told her. “I’ll go check on the horses and bring them up here so we can tie them close to the cave. We’ll be spending the night here.” In fact, it was already dark outside.
“Go ahead,” Annabelle said, totally absorbed in what she was reading. “I’m going to be busy with this for a while.”
The horses hadn’t wandered off. There was nowhere to go in that wasteland. The Kid found a fairly level spot with a little grass and some of the scrawny bushes growing on it and tied the horses’ reins to the bushes. Now that they had found what they were looking for, he was anxious to get out of there, but they couldn’t retrace their path until morning. It wouldn’t be safe to cross the malpais in the dark.
They would have to figure out what to do about Father Jardine. The Kid hoped he could find a place suitable for an ambush. If he could get the drop on Fortunato, the count might release Father Jardine to save his own life. Since The Kid and Annabelle already had the old German’s treasure, the priest wasn’t valuable to Fortunato anymore.
He took his time tending to the horses so that Annabelle could work undisturbed. When he finally went back into the cave, he saw that she was still bent over the book, looking back and forth from it to a piece of paper she had spread out on the rock beside her. That paper was covered with numbers. Annabelle added to them, scrawling more with the stub of a pencil she held in her hand. As The Kid watched, she scribbled away for a few more minutes, then looked up suddenly and said, “Of course! That’s it!”
“You’ve figured it out?” The Kid asked.
She looked at him. “Yes. It’s worthless, Kid. The secret of the Twelve Pearls doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Wait a minute. I thought you said Konigsberg hinted that it was worth a fortune.”
The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold Page 20
