Novel 1987 - The Haunted Mesa (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  The car behind him was gaining. The road was empty now and they were closing in.

  The highway dripped into a hollow, rose out of it, then dropped into another. To the right he suddenly saw a small turn off into the brush, apparently something used by highway work vehicles. Instantly he turned into it, pulled behind a couple of cedar trees, ready to drive back onto the pavement when he could. He took the gun from the seat and held it in his lap.

  Only an instant, and their car went by, driving fast. Apparently they were not expecting evasive action and probably were not accustomed to car chases. He counted a slow ten, then pulled out onto the highway, letting them get well ahead. He was still in the hollow and out of sight if they looked back, so he climbed slowly, topping out on a rise to see them far ahead, driving fast.

  He returned the gun to the seat beside him and slowed his pace. Evidently they believed he had increased his speed and they were doing likewise. Monticello was not far ahead, and if they did not realize what had happened before then, they would probably stop there to try and find him.

  Long ago he’d had friends in Monticello but he doubted if any remained whom he knew. Entering the town, he turned off and, avoiding the main street, drove down back streets until he emerged on the highway headed south.

  It was after midnight when he finally got to sleep in a motel room, and he awakened as usual in the cold light of dawn. For a moment he lay still, listening.

  Down the street somebody started a car. Somebody else passed his room, walking along the parkway. A moment of silence and then a door opened and closed, and he heard boots walking across gravel.

  He lay perfectly still, listening. Seven hundred years ago all this country around, but mostly to the south, had been inhabited by those whom the Navajo called the Anasazi. This had been their land, its true length and breadth not yet established, nor the limits of its culture. Yet much was known of them.

  Father Escalante had come this way seeking a route from Santa Fe to Monterey, California, in 1776. Father Garces, that intrepid adventurer in a cassock, had come up from the south, exploring a wild and lonely land, only to turn back. Who first had seen the cliff dwellings was without doubt one of those unknown hunters or prospectors who found almost everything before the official discoverers came on the scene.

  W. H. Jackson, photographer for the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey, was guided into the area by John Moss, who told him of the ruins and, when asked, indicated where they were to be found. Moss is sometimes represented as a mere miner. He was much more than that. He was a man who, leading a party of prospectors into Indian country, had no trouble with Indians. He met them, smoked with them, ate with them, and established a relationship that endured. No matter that others had trouble with the Utes, Moss did not. He had welded a friendship that was to last. In subsequent years he founded Parrott City and operated mines in several states, including Colorado and Arizona. Undoubtedly the Utes had told him of ghost cities high in the cliffs, and he was a man who would have been interested. Jackson, following the directions of Moss, visited at least one of the ruins. At the time no one had any appreciation of their size or extent. It remained for the explorations of the Wetherills to demonstrate that.

  Jackson had gone into the ruins in 1874, and others followed, guided by the Wetherills.

  The cliff dwellings had been strongholds, but the people were vulnerable when working in their fields. Invading Indians from the North, perhaps the Ute and the Navajo, had stolen their grain and killed many of their people. Nor had the cliff dwellings themselves been secure. The first white men to visit found the bones of the dead scattered about, pitiful evidence of what had taken place.

  It is often forgotten that the Indian the white man encountered had himself been an invader, sometimes preceding the white man by but a few years.

  The Anasazi themselves had come to the country from elsewhere and settled first on the mesa tops, where the ruins still remained, many of them hidden, however, by brush, trees, and grass. No matter what other reasons have been given, it seems obvious they would not have abandoned their mesa-top homes for the great caves without reason. Only a few of the cliff dwellings had springs, and water as well as food and fuel had to be carried into the cliff dwellings at great expenditure of labor.

  Mike Raglan swung his feet to the floor. For a moment-longer, he listened to movements from outside. A traveler was loading a car, and there were voices of children, then a woman’s admonishing them to be quiet, that people were still sleeping.

  He shaved and showered, thinking of what he must do. Gallagher would be around, and would have questions for which Raglan had no answers. Yet he might have information, too.

  Two men were looking at his car when he emerged. They were, he was sure, those who had followed him the previous day.

  “Something I can do for you?” he demanded. “You lost something?”

  Deliberately, he was belligerent. If they wanted trouble they could have it, and nothing was to be gained by seeming to be afraid.

  “No. It is nothing. I look at car.”

  “Help yourself.” He gestured widely. “There’s a lot of them to look at.” He pointed toward a police car in front of the café. “If you have any questions the police will be glad to answer them.”

  “Police? Who speaks of police?” As he spoke, the man was glancing around; then, hurriedly, they turned and left.

  The tourist with the children commented, “They’ve been hanging around all morning. Obviously they want nothing to do with the police.”

  Raglan glanced toward the café. Gallagher would be waiting.

  “See you!” he said, and waved a hand.

  Chapter 16

  *

  GALLAGHER WAS SEATED at a table in a corner eating breakfast. “Figured you’d be along,” he said. He gestured at the food. “Been up since four A.M. and didn’t want to wake the folks.”

  Raglan seated himself where he could watch the street. Gallagher smiled. “Careful man. Now I like that.”

  He added butter to the toast. “You make trouble for a man. I had things about wrapped up around here until you showed up. Everything quiet, no problems except for a few Saturday night drunks and the usual pot-hunters. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since you got here.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I need the exercise.” He glanced at Raglan over his coffee cup. “What’s happened?”

  Raglan shrugged. “There was a man at Tamarron who might have been tailing me. There was a car tailing me on the road yesterday and two men looking over my car when I came out this morning. When I pointed out your car, they skipped.”

  Gallagher sized Raglan up carefully. “You think they were some of your friends from over the line?”

  “I couldn’t swear to it, but I know.”

  Gallagher chuckled. “Yeah, I know how that is. I know a half-dozen thieves around here, and they know I know them, but I haven’t a thing that would stand up in court and they know that, too.”

  Raglan ordered his breakfast and stared out the window. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Raglan reminded himself that he liked Gallagher. He was a good man, a tough man, and one with imagination. At least he had an open mind.

  “The world’s gettin’ too damn complicated,” Gallagher said. “Used to be a man knew who his enemies were and where to find them. If you made a deal with a man, you shook hands on it and nothing more was needed. Now you got lawyers, you got the government, you got everything tangled in red tape, and then things like this come up. Who knows about fourth dimensions and parallel worlds?”

  “That isn’t really new. Einstein started it all back in 1919, I think it was. From all I hear, he didn’t like it much, either. Most people are still living in that nice, comfortable world that Newton accepted.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” Gallagher filled their cups from the pot the waitress had left. “Supposing what you suggest is fact. Supposing that when the Anasazi l
eft here they went back to that world that was evil. What do you think it would be like now?”

  Raglan shrugged. “Hard to tell. It would depend so much on what influences there were that affected their culture. They were planting on mesa tops, learning to use all the water they had. I suspect they’d become pretty good dry farmers but they were into irrigation, too.

  “Off to the south, where Phoenix is, there was the Hohokam culture who understood irrigation very well. Some of the ditches they dug couldn’t be improved upon.

  “There was a connection with the Hohokam. I don’t know how much of a connection but there was probably some trade and exchange of ideas, so if the culture they had persisted on the Other Side, I would guess that by now they would have a very advanced system of irrigation, one that was strictly regulated.”

  “When you need water,” Gallagher agreed, “somebody has to control its use or there’d be fighting all the while.”

  “Exactly. And there seems to have been, for a long time at least, an effort to close off any communication with this side. To develop a civilization needs input from other peoples. Europe had a lot of useful rivers, lots of coves, harbors, and the like, so it was easy for people to come and go and each one brought new ideas, new blood.

  “Nobody knows how old seafaring was in Europe. For years everything was based on what we knew about the Mediterranean, but there were ships in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific just as early, if not earlier than the Mediterranean. There was seafaring in the Baltic and Atlantic, too. All of it enabled ideas to spread, introducing new weapons, new tools, new crops.” Raglan paused to sip his coffee.

  “What are you going to do now?” Gallagher asked.

  Raglan shrugged again. “Go back to Hokart’s mesa. Hang around out there and see what I can learn.” He paused. “I’ve got to find Erik. He asked for me to come, he almost begged me to come, there at the end. That wasn’t like him. He was scared.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “To be frank, yes. I don’t know what’s over there. If I go, I don’t know that I can ever get back. Johnny never could make it and from what I gather he was a pretty canny old cowboy.”

  “You be careful.”

  “I’ll do that.” Raglan paused. “Seen any more of Eden Foster?”

  Gallagher shook his head. “I’m not liable to. Not for a while. The missus like to flew off the handle when she heard I’d been over there. She doesn’t know Eden but she suspects the worst.”

  Raglan was silent, and then he said. “The way I see it, judging from what I might call contacts with them, they don’t know much about how we function over here.

  “Eden knows, but she’s only one and for reasons of her own she may not be sharing what she knows. Maybe it’s because she just doesn’t think of it that way. Little things, about how to spend money, getting change, paying checks in restaurants, and even the structure of our buildings.

  “At Tamarron, I don’t believe that fellow even suspected there was a door behind me. He saw a glass wall and took it for granted. He was sitting so he could watch me and the entrance, so when some confusion distracted him, I slipped out that door.”

  Raglan watched the movements outside. There was nothing going on beyond the casual, everyday life of the town. Where was Kawasi? Was she safe? Or had she, too, been taken?

  “Postmistress spoke to me this morning,” Gallagher commented. “Said Mr. Hokart had not been in to pick up his mail. I told her to hold it. He might be out of town.”

  “She buy it?”

  “I don’t believe so. She didn’t say anything but she looked doubtful, said Mr. Hokart was always very particular about his mail.” Gallagher pushed back in his chair. “That’s the beginning of it, Mike. Folks are going to start asking questions. This is a small town and they don’t miss very much. Hokart was never what you’d call neighborly, but he was always friendly in passing and one way or another he did quite a bit of business here in town.

  “He bought groceries now and again, ate in the café, and he bought hardware—nails, tools and such.…”

  “Ammunition?”

  “Uh-huh. He bought quite a lot. Aroused some curiosity, as it was pistol ammo. Said he was shooting at targets, trying to perfect his shooting.”

  “Reasonable enough.”

  “Sure, anybody will buy that. None of us shoot well enough. No matter how good you are, you can always get better.” He paused, staring out the window. “Anyway, folks are asking questions, wondering why he hasn’t been in. But they’ve just begun to wonder where he is. Soon they will be asking questions about that, and then they will begin to wonder just who you are and what you’re doing here.”

  “I expect that.”

  “Yeah? But are you ready for the next thing? They will be wondering how come you are around and Hokart’s vanished. They will be asking about the connection. They’ll be suspicious.

  “When they start asking questions they will be wanting answers, and I don’t have any answers. Do you?”

  “I am a friend of Erik’s. It is as simple as that.”

  “If you’re such a good friend, why don’t you know where Erik is?” Gallagher stared at him. “You see what I mean? This is a small town. Everybody knows everybody else, but they don’t know you. Erik wasn’t one of them but they accepted him. He was doing something they thought foolish but he was doing it on his own land and he was willing to pay for it, so they are on his side.”

  Gallagher was silent for a few minutes, then he added, “It’s already begun. Over at Mexican Hat. Woman in a store over there asked about Erik Hokart. Wondered where he was, and then added that he was probably out on the mesa with you. She added that if anybody knew where he was it would be you.”

  “A woman said that?”

  “Uh-huh. Nice-lookin’ woman whom they didn’t know but they said she’d been in before. Looked like a city woman.”

  “Eden Foster?”

  “Sounded like her. Looks to me like some folks may not wait for suspicion to grow. They’d just help it along a bit.”

  Mike Raglan thought about it. The question Eden Foster asked would be repeated, and of course, that was as planned. When Erik did not appear, suspicion would grow. She did not need to accuse, only to ask a few questions and start people wondering.

  “See what I mean? If I give them your answers they’d put me in a booby hatch, and I wouldn’t blame them.” He looked across the corner of the table at Raglan. “Seems to me you’re in trouble, my friend. If you’re coming up with any answers it had better be quick.”

  Raglan knew he should leave here now. He should check out of the motel, drive back to Tamarron, check out there, and catch a plane for Denver and then New York.

  After all, what was Erik to him? Hokart was just a man whom he knew, like many others. Of course, the thing he could not escape was the fact that Erik had called on him for help. The man was alone, faced by God knew what in the way of enemies. Of course, if Mike went on, he would have the same enemies.

  He got up. “See you, Gallagher.” He turned toward the door.

  “You going out there?”

  “What else can I do? Cut and run? He trusted me to get him out of this, and there isn’t anybody else.”

  “There’s me,” Gallagher replied.

  “You’re an officer, with a duty to a community, and no telling what will come of this. Besides, I’d rather have you on the outside. I may need help.”

  “What did you mean when you said there’s ‘no telling what will come of this’?”

  Raglan walked back to the table and spoke more quietly. “Gallagher, think about it. Supposing a lot of them come through some night? Without warning? You’ve got a small town here. They know how many you are and what your communications are. Supposing they decided to come over?”

  Gallagher stared at him. “Now you’re really going off the deep end. Why would they do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t for a minute believe they will. It w
as just an idea, but how many would it take to descend on a sleeping town?”

  “More than they are likely to have,” Gallagher said. “Everybody in this town has a gun, most of them two or three. These folks do a lot of hunting in season, so they not only have weapons but they know how to use them and when.”

  Raglan walked to the cash register and paid the bill, then walked out into the sunlight. Gallagher followed him.

  “Damn it, man, why’d you have to bring up an idea like that? Now you’ve got me worried.”

  “Look, I doubt if you believe any of this, and I don’t know what to believe myself. It was just one idea following another. The legend is that the Anasazi left the Third World because it became evil.

  “Evil in what way? What did they think of as evil? The Aztecs, the Mayas, and some other Indians from south of here believed in human sacrifice. According to the best reports they sacrificed literally thousands of people. Is that what they meant by evil? Did they think of human sacrifice as evil? Probably not, as it was a religious rite.”

  They stood on the curb near Raglan’s car. “Gallagher, I don’t know what to believe. I’m a confirmed skeptic, but that doesn’t blind me to the fact there’s a lot we don’t know. We’re only beginning to learn about this world, and believe me, the ideas of our grandchildren will be altogether different from our own. They will take things for granted of which we know nothing now.

  “The world is changing fast. When I was a youngster there were still a hundred jobs a man could do who had no education. Most of them have vanished. It’s not even a machine world as we knew it. Now it’s a computer world, and if you don’t have education and the ability to adapt you’re out of it. You either get an education or find a place on skid row.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ve seen Mesa Verde, Gallagher. That culture lasted a thousand years at least. Do you think they doubted it would last forever? When someone looks at Mesa Verde and the ruins left by the Anasazi, he should not just wonder at them but he should think of what they must have thought. What did they believe? We can reconstruct their world from the artifacts that have been found, and we know how they lived, but what did they think? How much did they know about other Indians? Probably there was interchange of trade goods and ideas with the Hohokam or the Mogollon cultures. There seems to have been some trade as far away as Central America. They’ve found mummified parrots in the ruins and other evidences of trade.