‘Don’t worry,’ I tried to reassure the Abbess. ‘I’ll try and catch Hector Kershaw before he actually goes up onto the mesa —’
‘My dear.’ She shook my arm. ‘It’s not just the mesa that you must beware of. Coyote created Big Sun Canyon to contain the Sun’s precious heart’s blood. And the canyon is on the other side of The Badlands.’
‘The Badlands?’ I lifted a brow. That didn’t sound good.
‘It’s a dangerous plain in which every rock, every bush, every animal was formed to protect the canyon.’
When the Abbess saw I wasn’t impressed, she insisted, ‘Coyote created The Badlands as a giant trap to prevent trespassers.’
‘I understand, ma’am. You feel responsible because you’re helping me get into … this mouse trap. But no matter what you say — I’m going.’
The thought horrified her.
‘My mission is to find Hector Kershaw,’ I insisted. ‘That’s why I came all this way.’
I paused; my quarry may not be by himself in Big Sun Canyon … and I wasn’t talking about any canine deity. ‘I’ve heard that Coyote Jack is supposed to camp on Spruce Tree Mesa. Why would he do that given what you’ve just told me?’
‘Because he is said to be the son of Coyote. With all the powers and tricks of his father.’
‘I have tried my best to dissuade you,’ said the Abbess. ‘Now I must send you on your way.’ She leant into the big telescope, studied the horizon then angled the lens out to the southwest.
We changed places.
‘See that ribbon glinting in the distance?’ she asked.
Across the great dry plain to the southwest, I could see a twisting line of silver flashing in the sun.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘That is the Rio Hama.’
I recognised the name. ‘That’s the western tributary of the Rio Grande.’
‘Yes … The plain that stretches from here to that river is called The Badlands. Its natural attributes have meant it was always dangerous, but now that stretch of earth is virtually impassable. It has become so because it is now bitterly contested territory … very bitterly contested. The advent of the Americanos and their cavalry incursions have destabilised this area. Tribal territorial lines have shifted and the conflicts have left many dead bodies in their wake.’
She shot me a sad look. ‘To make matters worse, last week bands of vigilantes rode up from Santa Fe on revenge raids for the murder of the governor. They killed every Indian they could find on the Rio Hama.’
The Abbess nodded to herself. ‘Yes, there will be war parties out on that plain. If you see any, you must hide or they will hunt you down and leave your body as a warning sign to other whites.’
I shot her a sour look. This was just getting better and better. I checked the plain; it seemed empty at the moment.
‘You must head directly southwest across that plain until you see a great red rock shaped like a brave sitting astride a horse. The tribes call it Chieftain Rock. You can’t miss it — it’s the tallest rock formation between here and the Rio Hama. When you reach it, immediately turn due south.’
I exhaled in relief. A break at last. Those directions meant I’d be circling back around towards Santa Fe. ‘Very good,’ I muttered.
Disturbed by my evident relief, she swung the telescope away to confront me. ‘Listen to me very carefully, boy. In about a day’s ride due south from Chieftain Rock, you’ll find the entryway to Big Sun Canyon … You’ll know it by the two red pillars that rise up on either side of the entrance. Those pillars are called Coyote’s Fangs …’ She grabbed my arm, and emphasised each word. ‘Whatever you do, you have to reach the red pillars as fast as you can — because no braves will enter Big Sun Canyon.’
That was something at least.
‘Okay, how much farther past the entry to Big Sun Canyon is Spruce Tree Mesa?’
The Abbess shook her head. ‘I’ve never been there so I can’t tell you. I’ve been told that once through the red pillars the canyon opens up into a huge, round space.’
‘But what does Spruce Tree Mesa look like?’
She shook her head again. ‘Its markings are considered sacred … a secret. But, from the whispers I’ve heard, it’s impossible to miss. You’ll know it when you see it.’
Great. Another piece of guesswork. I straightened up, ready to go.
‘There’s one more thing.’ She studied my face. ‘You will need a lot of help to complete your mission.’
Before I could reply the Abbess slapped her right palm, hard, onto the middle of my forehead.
I gasped. It felt like she had my head in a vice. Her palm was so hot it felt like it was burning a hole into my skull.
She pulled her hand back as quickly as she’d laid it there.
I cursed. ‘What did you just do?’
I felt my forehead gingerly with one gentle finger. It was tender, like a bad case of sunburn.
‘Just a parting gift, a blessing,’ answered the Abbess. ‘You will need every natural advantage you can possibly have to do what is needed.’
I shook my groggy head. This was too much mumbo jumbo in one day.
She studied me with concern. ‘It is clear to me, Mr Eriksen, that your success, your survival, is in everyone’s best interest.’
29
THE BADLANDS
I lit out — my three black beauties, their tails high and prancing, were more than ready for trouble. They were well rested, well petted, and I had no doubt their desires would be soon fulfilled.
I just kept chanting the directions. ‘Head southwest … find the great red rock shaped like a brave sitting astride a horse … turn due south and ride for a day … the entry to Big Sun Canyon is two red pillars called Coyote’s Fangs.’
For the hour before I left, even as I was saddling up the girls, the Abbess had driven me wild. She’d repeated one thing, and one thing only: ‘You must get to Coyote’s Fangs as soon as possible. Don’t stop for anything. And don’t let anything stop you.’
But every time the Abbess told me to get my arse into Big Sun Canyon as fast as possible, because no one would dare follow me in, you could see her falter at the thought of what could await me once inside those blood-red gates.
Her parting words were, ‘Don’t let them catch you in The Badlands, boy.’
I know how The Badlands got its name.
From the Santa Avia Mountains, it looked flat, but close up it was an arid stretch of blackish-grey wasteland, pitted with rock-filled arroyos and meandering, shallow gullies. And each one held its own nasty little surprise package.
At the start the vales were just full of thorny bracken, bristling with poisonous reptiles and clusters of twittering birds.
It was the birds that frightened the living crap out of me. If we scared the birds they’d scatter shrieking and act like a natural alarm system, warning every predator within earshot of our presence.
My three equine warriors became as quiet as possible, expertly picking their way up and down the rocky slopes … without a stone disturbed, nor a hoof beat sounded. They knew.
But between the thorns, the snakes, the birds and the constant tramping up and down the gully slopes, we slowed to a trot at best and an excruciating crawl at worst.
The sweat from my anxiety made my fingers slip on the reins.
The longer we took to get through this wasteland, the more likely we were to be discovered. And the lack of a clear view ahead meant we could be ambushed at any moment. Every time we rode up the other side of an arroyo, my heart raced and I went into a cold sweat, waiting to see if the next gully was occupied.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse — it did. We stumbled into the inner circle of hell.
When we’d made it to Chieftain Rock, I thought we’d be okay. I’d found water as per the Abbess’ instructions, fed and rested the girls, then turned due south also as instructed … But then the landscape transformed, as though the closer we got to Big Sun Canyon the
more toxic the land became.
The slopes of the arroyos deepened into cruelly steep cliffs that could collapse under the girls’ hooves into bone-breaking avalanches. The thorny bracken gave way to forests of eerie purple-yellow cacti that towered over our heads in bizarre shapes and forms, mimicking attacking monsters. The weird cacti were covered in foot-long black spines, razor sharp and dripping with some kind of nasty yellowish juice.
Here and there, the rigid bodies of tiny animals, and even birds, hung impaled on the spines.
I’d never seen or heard of anything like these purple-yellow cacti before. But the three mares’d showed the whites of their eyes and backed away at the first sight of it.
It chilled me to the bone.
This place was the perfect setting for an ambush … a natural trap from which it was impossible to escape.
It took me far too long to talk the girls into the first cactus forest, and every step deeper into this spine-filled territory they’d held a fragile truce with their panic. I softly crooned to them, and to myself, for comfort.
Then at the bottom of one nerve-rackingly steep ravine the cactus forest became totally impenetrable. A lethal wall.
It took me an hour to find a way through. It was a tiny tunnel into that horrible purple-yellow wall. I dismounted and led the way in. The mares followed, shivering. We were now encased in a long, narrow cage of spines dripping a yellow poison.
My breath became shallow, panting. It would just take one spine to scrape just one of my girls … just one sharp prick and they’d all erupt into a lashing, kicking explosion of flesh — and it would be as though we’d been forced through a meat grinder.
I was as scared as I’ve ever been. But I fought my panic. If I lost control of it, the girls would too. I clung to one thought, one piece of hope — if the Abbess was right we’d soon be in sight of Coyote’s Fangs. Very soon.
We struggled to the end of the tunnel, shaken. I wanted to stop, to rest, but was afraid to. ‘If it just doesn’t get any worse …’ I muttered. ‘If it just stays like this and we stay calm, then we’ll make it.’
But then it got much worse …
We climbed the steep slope up and out of the ravine, me riding Incendio with Azucar and Duquesa following us in a single line … Suddenly I felt a jolt to the top of my head — as though an anvil or a piano had fallen out of the sky, just like in one of those kids’ cartoons.
The air sparkled in front of my eyes, shimmered once and then went back to normal.
I checked my aching head. Nothing had hit me …
Seeing my distress, Azucar and Duquesa immediately moved forwards and onto either side of me. Incendio swung her great head back to study me. Her fearful eyes pleaded with me to go forwards, to get them out of this nightmare before they broke.
But every time I decided to ride forwards and down into the next gully, the air would shimmer in front of me.
I took a deep breath. It was time to check out our position again anyway. From the ridge top, I scanned the way ahead, to the south. A long line of high cliffs blazed white in the hot sun. At last! That had to be the walls of Big Sun Canyon. We were so close … so very close.
I looked down into the gully just below us, but could see nothing. A thick shield of purple-yellow cacti hid the contents from view. Damn! Not another tunnel!
I scanned the gully again.
The gully was quiet … Maybe it was too quiet? No birds singing … no scurrying reptiles or rodents.
Suddenly my forehead became unbearably itchy. I dug my nails in, scratching it to the point of pain.
Then for some unknown reason, a wave of paralysing terror swept through me …
I wasn’t going down into that gully!
There was a thick grove of stunted pinyon trees to our immediate left. I moved us silently into its dark cover and waited, while I fought with my fear.
Half an hour must’ve passed, filled with too many rapid heartbeats. Then gradually my cold sweat dried and the paralysing terror receded before a driving urge to get to Big Sun Canyon as fast as possible.
I noiselessly pulled out my binoculars and scanned those white cliffs again. I could see a dark crevice in the walls. I focused on it. No, those were two dark columns … Two pillars that just had to be red!
I scanned the land between us and Coyote’s Fangs and felt a quick rush of hope.
It looked as though The Badlands flattened out into a smooth plain dotted with mounds of giant red boulders.
If it did, then we could be at those red pillars in forty minutes … maybe even less.
I stashed my binoculars and looked down at the gully below. We had to go down there. I took a deep breath, ready to urge Incendio down another steep slope one more time …
Then I saw them.
A single line of horsemen trooped silently out from under the shield of purple-yellow cacti and up the far slope. They were keeping carefully in line, to minimise their hoof prints.
Just as we had.
The horsemen wore long cloth breech clouts, thick buckskin leggings and high moccasin boots to protect them from the cacti. Their black hair hung to their shoulders, tied back at the brow with wide cloth headbands. Their black eyes gleamed out of visages covered in war paint.
It was a war party. They were Apache.
And they were so close I could count the owl feathers in their leader’s war cap.
They were armed with lethal-looking bows with quivers full of arrows slung over their lean and muscular shoulders.
A memory from Santa Fe clouded my vision … the bald, French undertaker and his dead and dying patients. The three broken arrows pointing out of the middle-aged man’s blood-soaked back. The boy with a deadly black arrowhead sticking out of his pus-filled stomach. The stench …
I shivered.
The Apache leader rode up to the top of the next slope and scanned three hundred and sixty degrees. He flicked over our pinyon trees, went on … then came back for a closer look.
I checked down and around; we were covered. What was he staring at?
We couldn’t retreat into that spine-filled tunnel. If they came at us, I’d have to stand and fight. But there were too many of them at close quarters … and this was their back yard. They were experts at fighting in this terrain.
I pulled my modified rifle down off my back and laid it over my saddle, ready. I swear I could hear my heart pound with terror. I didn’t want to kill — but I would if it meant my survival.
The leader waved one of his warriors forwards and swung round to consider the canyon walls ahead. He pointed at Big Sun Canyon and then to the right, at a mound of red boulders that had a tree growing out the top. They spoke, then the warrior went back to take his place in line. At the leader’s signal, the war party moved off in the direction of the red boulders.
I exhaled.
The Apache rode over the rough surface of The Badlands with no more sound than a soft breeze.
If I’d gone blindly down into that arroyo, I’d have been dead for the past thirty minutes.
I watched the Apache war party move off to the southwest, then made my move. There could be more of them around, there probably were … Staying put would get me just as dead as anything else …
We made it halfway across the flat plain that stretched out to Coyote’s Fangs. There was still a mile to go before they found us.
It was the same band. Six Apache warriors charged us from the rear, while the rest hunted us from the sides in a pincer movement. They must’ve crossed back over our trail and read the girls’ shod hoof prints like a wanted poster.
I shoved my binoculars back in my shirt pocket and we took off.
Incendio, now that the weird forests of purple-yellow cacti were behind us, had regained her courage. She neighed orders to her sisters and a contemptuous challenge to our pursuers. She launched herself into top gear and stretched out her long black legs, eating the ground like a champion thoroughbred.
Like the soldiers they w
ere, Azucar and Duquesa kept between me and our pursuers, ready to block their arrows. I let them because the Apache war party — though they’d kill me in a heartbeat — would do everything they could to catch my beautiful girls alive.
But before the war party could do anything about it, we’d outpaced them.
The Galindo mares, exhausted as they were, were completely out of the Apache ponies’ league. Their forebears had crossed the Sahara, triumphed in battle and won the fastest races in the world — they were dynamite on four legs.
Then I noticed that even though we were out of range and accelerating, the war party still didn’t give up. They just kept on coming, full bore. Once the Apache band realised where we were headed, they fired a few arrows to either side of us, as though to keep us on a straight course.
They seemed to be herding us along …
As we raced through Coyote’s Fangs, the warriors whooped and howled with glee. Their leader shouted that he wished me a long and horrible death in Coyote’s trap.
I didn’t care. I’d rather deal with haunted canyons than have to kill to survive.
Well, that was what I thought until I saw what was on the other side of the red pillars …
Then I stopped thinking altogether.
30
BIG SUN CANYON
Big Sun Canyon was a giant’s sculpture garden, carved out of a deep pinky-red rock that stretched as far as the eye could see. Now I could understand why such wild legends had been woven around this place.
It was so beautiful it was surreal.
The high canyon walls enfolded a geological treasure trove of towering monuments sculpted by wind and rain into a bizarre wealth of shapes and forms.
Majestic towers that watched over all, noble totem poles displaying the profiles of warriors, lofty spires that threatened to pierce the diamond-blue sky, great archways waiting for the gods’ triumphal return, swirling fans of delicate patterns and textures, immense sea shells left behind on an ancient ocean’s shore … and all in the same glowing, iridescent pinky-red rock.
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