Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3)

by Leverone, Allan

  WELLSPRING

  BY ALLAN LEVERONE

  For Craig: never stop fighting

  First Kindle edition © 2013 by Allan Leverone

  Cover design by Scott Carpenter

  Special thanks to J. Carson Black for helping brainstorm the perfect title.

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents, some of which may be based in part on actual names, characters, places and incidents, either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  First eBook edition: 2013

  PART I

  1

  May 10, 1856

  Southeastern Peru

  The three outlaws crouched in the scrub brush, hot and uncomfortable in the midday South American sun. They had discovered shortly after sunrise that trying to stay cool out here in the God-forsaken Peruvian wilderness was damned near impossible.

  Jackson Healy wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one grimy hand and asked the young native guide, “How much longer?” The words came out a scratchy, low-pitched growl.

  The kid—his name was Juan and he claimed to be twelve, although Jackson thought that might be a bit of an exaggeration, not that he cared—stared back uncomprehendingly, then seemed to decipher the gist of the question and smiled brightly. “Soon,” he said in his heavily accented English.

  “I goddamn well hope so,” Jackson grumbled. “It’s hotter’n Satan’s kitchen out here.” The bizarre-looking group of three adults and the child had taken up their position hours ago, disappearing from sight—they hoped—in the folds of a gigantic natural rock formation located less than a hundred feet from what appeared to be a door carved into one smooth, sheer side of a massive boulder.

  On their approach, hours earlier, all three Americans had gaped, slack-jawed, at the enormity of the door. Well over twenty feet high and nearly as wide, it featured a smaller alcove carved directly into its center. The alcove itself was perhaps six feet high, roughly the size of a normal door.

  Except it wasn’t a normal door.

  It wasn’t a door at all.

  It was a door-like shape carved into a solid rock wall disappearing into the side of a jagged, rocky hill in the middle of nowhere in Peru, miles away from civilization, or anything remotely resembling it.

  And it was haunted, or so claimed the local legend.

  The rock face was known as Puerta de Hayu Marka by the locals, the English translation being “Gate of the Gods,” and it had been here for centuries; for as long as anyone could remember. No one could say how it had been carved, or when, or by whom.

  But South American legend had it that on rare occasions, the door could be opened, only by shaman priests, and only through an elaborate ritual utilizing a sacred golden disk as key, inserted into the center of the carved door. Once the portal was opened, the legend said that the gods were free to pass through it, crossing between their worlds and ours.

  All of this Jackson had learned over the course of many weeks buying drinks – and friends – in a tiny cantina in the dusty Peruvian village of Puno.

  Jackson and his two fellow outlaws, Wesley and Amos Krupp, had headed south into Mexico through Brownsville, Texas, following a dispute over accusations of cheating during a poker game. The accusations—all accurate, as if that mattered—had resulted in a gun battle, which had in turn resulted in two dead cattle ranchers and a posse of Texas Rangers hot on their trail.

  Mexico had seemed a little too close to Texas for Jackson’s taste. He had had run-ins with the Rangers in the past, and felt certain the minor complication of an international border crossing would not deter their pursuers for long, if at all. So he led his fellow outlaws farther south, putting more distance between themselves and the long arm of the Texas law, eventually holing up in Puno, Peru, where the plan had been to drink away a few months, romance a few senoritas, and eventually slip back across the border into the States once the heat died down.

  But within a few weeks, after the trio had ingratiated themselves with the locals through a liberal whiskey-sharing policy, Jackson had begun hearing the stories.

  The mysterious door carved into the sheer rock wall.

  The elaborate rituals.

  The golden disk.

  The portal to other worlds.

  The more Jackson Healy heard of the Puerta de Hayu Marka legends, whispered fearfully in dark corners of the Puno cantina, the more intrigued he became.

  The legends themselves were all superstitious South American bullshit, of course. Gate of the Gods, indeed. The notion of a magical doorway carved into a rock wall, accessible only via a golden disk, was beyond believable. But the disk itself wasn’t bullshit. This disk, supposedly the key used to open Puerta de Hayu Marka, was said to be large, hefty, and solid gold, through and through.

  Getting his greedy hands on a disk constructed of solid gold was the sort of thing no self-respecting outlaw could be expected to pass up. Jackson had no idea how much money such a golden disk might fetch on the open market, but he knew it had to be a lot. And it wasn’t like the Healy-Krupp gang was exactly rolling in dough. The cash they had scored from their most recent bank jobs, combined with the money they had taken off the dead ranchers in the ill-fated Texas poker game, amounted to just enough to bankroll this South American vacation.

  A solid gold disk could solve a lot of problems.

  So, three nights ago, when one of their loose-lipped Peruvian drinking buddies had let slip the secret that one of the rare Gate of the Gods ceremonial rituals was to take place at Puerta de Hayu Marka tonight, a plan had begun forming in Jackson Healy’s devious mind.

  Finding a guide to lead them to the mystical location deep in the Peruvian wilderness was a simple task. Puno was a poor village, and the three gringos had learned quickly that the U.S. dollar was king in South America. That fact, combined with the natural curiosity of young boys everywhere, easily outweighed any superstitious fears about gods and shamans and imaginary doorways carved into rock formations.

  The son of a local goat farmer had enthusiastically agreed to lead the three Americans by burro to the “Valley of the Spirits,” as the area containing Puerta de Hayu Marka was known locally. The strange group—three grown American men sporting scraggly beards and dirty clothes following a tiny brown child with a massive smile creasing his face—had left town before daybreak, Jackson’s reasoning being that the team needed to be in-place and invisible well before the shaman priests began preparing for their ritual. Word around the cantina was that preparation would begin sometime in early afternoon.

  The trip had taken hours, and while the three Americans started out raucous and lively, joking, swearing and sipping whiskey, as the morning had passed they grew more and more restrained. The heat grew stifling as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky. The terrain was alien and forbidding, flat grassy plains erupting occasionally into massive rock formations resembling animals, strange beings, and alien-looking structures.

  Jackson’s outlaw partners, Amos and Wesley Krupp, just as devious and bloodthirsty as Jackson if not quite as intelligent, became pale and withdrawn and even began to appear a little afraid as the men journeyed
farther and farther from the semi-civilization of Puno.

  Jackson would never have admitted it to his partners, but a worm of unease had begun crawling through his belly as well. The farther they rode, the more…off…things seemed to become. There was nothing specific he could put his finger on. Rather, it was a vibration, a sensation of encroaching alien-ness. It was as if the South American air was becoming saturated with some weird electrical charge, a pulse unseen but real, altering their perceptions in a slight but noticeable – and frightening – manner.

  He shook his head, embarrassed at his schoolgirl fears, thankful Amos and Wesley could not read his mind. As an educated man—he had completed eight years of schooling in Kansas City before moving to the Texas plains with his parents as a child—Jackson Healy was the acknowledged leader of the Healy-Krupp gang and not one to suffer superstitious fears or crises of confidence.

  He glanced at their young Peruvian guide and felt even sillier. Juan was clearly unaffected by whatever was causing Jackson’s jumpiness. His grin, which seemed permanently glued onto his face, was just as bright now as it had been in the predawn darkness this morning.

  After what felt like an endless journey, their guide began gesturing wildly at what looked to Jackson like just another rock formation looming above the flat surface of the plain, far off in the distance. It appeared as alien and forbidding as all the others they had ridden past, but this one, the young boy informed them in broken English, was the one they were looking for.

  Puerta de Hayu Marka.

  As they approached, even from a distance of at least a quarter-mile, Jackson could see the outline of the gigantic door, the sides of the carving thrust upward toward the sky like long arms.

  As they moved closer, the smaller carved alcove appeared, exactly in the middle of the much larger door. Six feet high and sunk into the flat surface, the alcove was bathed in shadows, and the sight of it reignited in Jackson his previous irrational fears, which seemed suddenly not so irrational at all. He glanced at his partners and could see without speaking that they felt the same way.

  The tension that had been blanketing the adults in the small group—the boy seemed impervious to anything other than wide-eyed, innocent joy—ratcheted up even higher. The reason for the stress was unspoken between the three outlaws but clear: if the shaman priests who were to conduct tonight’s sacred ritual were already on site, a bloodbath was likely about to begin. The consensus among the superstitious locals populating the Puno cantina had been that the priests would not arrive until late afternoon, but none of the men had ever actually attended one of the ceremonies, and they freely admitted all of their information regarding Puerta de Hayu Marka was second or even third-hand.

  When the outlaws reached a point several hundred yards away, Jackson called their small caravan to a halt and sent the Peruvian guide ahead to scout the rock formation. The kid was gone less than thirty minutes, and when he returned, smile still plastered onto his face, he announced that the area was deserted. Only then did the group ride the rest of the way.

  They examined the curious carving before scouting out a hiding place among the nooks and crannies in the massive formation. The alcove did, indeed, resemble a doorway. It featured a perfectly circular depression at approximately waist height, located precisely in the middle. This depression was close to a foot in circumference, and Jackson thought that if the sacred golden disk he had heard so much about was supposed to fit into that depression, he would be one very rich man before the day was out.

  The feeling of unease and paranoia that had been building among the men all morning did not disappear, however, and in fact grew much stronger now that they had arrived at their destination. Jackson had no difficulty understanding why the South American natives feared and revered this place. He didn’t give a damn about any of their superstitious mumbo-jumbo, but he had to admit, if only to himself, that something was off-kilter about the place.

  After a few minutes’ examination of the carving, and sick of listening to the Krupp brothers’ endless grumbling about the intensity of the midday heat, Jackson decided it was time to make camp and await the arrival of the shaman priests.

  The group moved into the jumble of reddish-brown boulders, climbing steadily upward. Jackson knew that to successfully accomplish their mission tonight, two things were essential: the element of surprise, and occupation of the high ground. It was critical he be able to see everything happening at Puerta de Hayu Marka.

  Once hidden safely away from the eyes of the native priests who would be arriving soon, the plan was to rest up, drink plenty of water, and wait.

  2

  The night was clear and warm, and the air heavy with moisture and the threat of a coming storm. In the distance, a fire burned brightly in a pit that had been constructed roughly fifteen feet directly in front of the Door of the Gods.

  Jackson wondered what sort of fuel the Peruvian shamans had used to stoke the blaze, as it burned with greater than any campfire he had ever seen. Flames leapt straight up, as if straining to reach the heavens, roaring to heights greater than that of the men feeding the fire. Wood crackled and the fire seemed to take on a life of its own, emitting a guttural sound like throaty moan of a suffering animal. The rocks forming the edges of the pit glowed a bright red.

  The ceremony was in full swing and had been for more than an hour. Drums pounded and men danced, their moves oddly hypnotic, their bones seeming to lose all rigidity, so fluid were their motions. There was no food consumed that Jackson could see, but there was plenty of drink, and pipes with massive bowls were passed among three men at the center of the activity.

  Those three men were the shamans, Jackson knew, and he focused most of his attention on them. So far he had yet to observe any sign of the reason for this bizarre journey: the golden disk. He hoped his time had not been wasted, as none of the men performing the ritual in front of Puerta de Hayu Marka seemed to possess a single item worth stealing. They were simple people, dressed in simple native garb, deeply involved in their strange ritual. That was all.

  Wesley and Amos had begun mocking the Peruvians almost from the beginning o the ceremony, their voices low, snickering and chuckling, and they turned resentful gazes on Jackson when he shushed them. Their young guide was transfixed. He stared at the activity, taking it all in, watching with all of the reverence the Krupp brothers lacked.

  And then Jackson saw it.

  The golden disk. The reason they had come out here.

  Without warning, a short, squat man materialized out of the pitch-dark Peruvian plains, walking slowly into the ring of flickering light provided by the fire. Even from a distance and in the dim light, it was clear the man was old. He was more than old; he was ancient. Wrinkles lined his face, and skin sagged from his jowls despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that he was thin to the point of emaciation.

  The man moved slowly, purposefully, carrying the heavy disk before him at chest height, arms extended and locked in what had to be an extremely uncomfortable position. The man didn’t seem to notice. He trudged toward the fire from somewhere out in the wilderness, head up, eyes focused forward.

  The drumbeats increased in intensity now, and the strangely fluid dancing of the men around the fire became frenzied. They whirled and jittered, arms moving this way and legs that, seemingly in defiance of the laws of human anatomy. Jackson watched, spellbound, jaw hanging open, one hand resting on the butt of his Colt revolver.

  The drums pounded and throbbed and the dancers whirled and the ancient shaman priest moved slowly forward and the pace of the tribal music increased until it seemed something would have to give—

  —and then the old man arrived at the fire and stopped moving, and instantly, all activity ceased.

  The drumbeats abruptly stopped, although no signal had been given that Jackson could see. The dancers froze in place, their bodies suddenly rigid and unyielding, the men holding themselves in positions that didn’t seem humanly possible. They remained
as unmoving as statues, the only indication they were even alive being the expansion and contraction of their chests as they panted from the exertion of the dance.

  For a long time—Jackson guessed at least five minutes, maybe ten—nothing happened. No one moved. No one spoke. The fire roared and crackled, but otherwise the silence was complete. It was unnerving after the frenzy of activity preceding it. The Krupp brothers had long since abandoned their mockery and stared at the scene below, their skin pale and their eyes nearly as wide as their Peruvian guide’s.

  Just when it seemed the inactivity might continue forever, stretching into eternity, the ancient shaman priest holding the golden disk began moving. When he had stopped initially, he had done so directly in front of the mammoth door carved into the sheer rock face—Puerta de Hayu Marka—and now he crept forward, the disk still clutched before him like a sacrificial offering.

  The old man approached the alcove carved into the center of the door. The other shamans watched but remained motionless. When he arrived at the alcove he stopped again. He stood motionless and Jackson could see his lips moving, like he was reciting some kind of prayer or incantation. When he finished, he reached forward with great solemnity and placed the golden disk into the depression Jackson had seen when they examined the alcove earlier in the day. It fit perfectly, locking into place, glittering dully by the light of the fire.

  And then the impossible happened.

  The door began to open.

  The ground shook and a rumble emanated from deep within the solid rock and then, incredibly, the alcove that was no more than a rendered carving of a door—Jackson knew it to be true, he had examined the cursed thing with his own eyes, had run his own hands over the solid surface—swung slowly outward, and as it did, a brilliant blue light pierced the darkness, appearing from the other side of the door, the side buried deep within the solid stone. The impossibly bright beam burst outward into the South American night.