Novel 1987 - The Haunted Mesa (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “I don’t mean she’d betray them. She’s like some of the Soviets sent here or to Europe. They begin to enjoy the life and they don’t want to go back. Here they have access to things they cannot get over there, and they are free of many of the pressures.”

  Gallagher was silent, mulling it over. The air was cool and the night was still. Chief arose and walked outside, stretching.

  “What worries me,” Raglan said, “is that we don’t know their capabilities, nor do they know ours.”

  “They know a damned sight more about us than we do of them,” Gallagher said. “Eden Foster is here. She’s been making contacts, listening, reading, learning. We don’t have any communication with her side of things, nor do we actually know there is another side. I still can’t escape the feeling we’re being had.”

  Raglan was uneasy. The kiva was there and its opening into another world, or whatever it was, an unpleasant fact. Erik Hokart was over there somewhere, and it was a fact that those who held him must know something of this world.

  Yet how much did they know? How accurately had Eden Foster judged this world, and how accurately had they read her messages, if such there were?

  It was never easy for one people to understand another when their cultural backgrounds differed drastically. If he only knew more of how the Anasazi had lived and thought. Many of the outward evidences of their living were obvious. Their buildings, from pit houses to cliff apartments, were easily seen. Some of their pottery, their tools and weapons remained. Yet as they ground their corn with mano and metate, what were they thinking? What was it that ordered their existence?

  “Have you got a knife?” Gallagher asked. “Sometimes one can be mighty handy.”

  “I have one.”

  Gallagher glanced at Raglan, a wry look on his face. “Sometimes I think I should pull you in just to see what you’re carrying.”

  “You’d make me mighty unhappy,” Raglan commented. “I might just move out and leave you with your friends from over the line. Then you could handle it all by your lonesome.”

  Chief had returned and was lying across the doorway, his head on his paws.

  “Anything you’re carrying,” Gallagher said, “you’re likely to need. You might have a chance if you could tie up with that old cowboy you told me about. The one called Johnny.

  “The trouble is a man wouldn’t know how to act over yonder. In this country there’s so many foreigners and strangers we don’t pay them much attention, but in a place like that…

  “How would you get food, for instance? Do they have eating places? Or do they eat at home? What would you ask for? If you went over there you wouldn’t even know the names for things or where to go to find out anything.”

  Raglan agreed, then added, “The cliff dwellers lived by farming. The Hopi are very skillful dry farmers, and the Hohokam had extensive irrigation projects. So, unless there was some drastic change, the Anasazi probably continued to develop as an irrigation civilization, and most such develop very rigid governments. Somebody has to control the water so it can be evenly distributed, and that calls for authority.”

  “What about this evil they talk about? They say the Third World was evil.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. What is evil? Our conceptions of evil are a result of Judeo-Christian ethic, but their conceptions of evil may be entirely different. The Maya and the Aztec, who were probably kin to these people, indulged in human sacrifice on a grand scale. If you go over there you might find yourself stretched out on an altar.”

  “That’s for you, Raglan, not me. I’ve my own work to do.”

  Long after they slipped into their sleeping bags, Mike Raglan lay awake, listening.

  Listening and thinking. The night was very still and cold, and although he heard nothing outside, he heard Chief growl deep in his chest. Yet the big dog did not rise, so the danger, if anywhere except in his dreams, was not close.

  At dawn he was out of his sleeping bag and making coffee when Gallagher came in from outside. “Been looking around,” he commented. “Took a look at that kiva.”

  “It’s more than I’ve done. I’ve been shying away from it.”

  “Can’t see anything through that window,” Gallagher said. “Might be anything in there, and it’s right on the edge of the cliff thataway—”

  “The dog went through. I suppose Erik did, too, but I don’t know.” Raglan paused. “Gallagher? Do you know this country right close around here? A canyon with a lot of trees?”

  “Are you kidding? This isn’t tree country except for some cedar and an occasional cottonwood in the bottom of a wash.”

  “If that kiva offers an opening to the Other Side, it is an opening right into their hands, but according to what I’ve heard there are other openings, and one of them is a canyon with trees. I’m going to have a look.”

  “I got to get back to town.” Gallagher reached for the pot. “For heaven’s sake, take care of yourself. All I need is another guy disappearing around here.”

  They drank coffee and talked; then Gallagher got up and started back to his Jeep. When he reached it he turned and looked back, hesitating as if reluctant to drive away. Then he got in, swung his car around and headed back toward the highway.

  Raglan stood listening to the sound of the motor until it died away, then turned back to the ruin. He put together a small pack, checked his gun, and called Chief. “Come on, boy, we’re going for a walk.”

  On the old canvas map, No Man’s had pointed like a gigantic finger. Pointing at what?

  The way was rough, but he took his time, glad he had hiking boots rather than the western boots he usually wore. He walked around one of the red rock domes and then down into the gully beyond. He had to pick his way with care, for there was much loose rock and the solid rock was uneven. A “hole” in western lingo might be any basin, hollow, or even a canyon, and over here somewhere was something of the kind. Several times he paused to look around, to choose his way but also to see if there was anyone following him.

  He saw nothing—only an eagle high against the sky, only a lizard that darted into the shade of some brush. It was a world of silence, with no sound but those made by his own passage.

  Across the river and stretching off to the south was No Man’s Mesa, huge, ominous, mysterious. He worked his way down a precarious sandstone slope. Any misstep might send him pitching down a hundred feet or more. A broken leg out here alone could be the end of him. He paused near a juniper and crushed a leaf in his fingers, liking the faintly pungent smell, listening to the song of a canyon wren. There was no other sound.

  He worked his way, Chief sometimes following, often leading, down a steep canyon wall. He glimpsed the bright-green of foliage that indicated the presence of water, but it needed another hour of hard clambering and climbing before he was within sight of the trees.

  They were there, all right. At first only a clump was visible, but when he reached the edge of the canyon he could find no way down. The canyon wall bulged outward and there was no edge. To walk farther out was to fall off. For an hour he worked his way along, seeking for some break in the wall down which he might work his way. There was none.

  Occasionally he glimpsed trees down below, and once he thought he caught the gleam of water. Finally, he made camp under a rocky overhang, gathered wood for his fire, and prepared a camp for the night. A good-sized cedar shielded his fire from observation, although the reflection against the back wall might be seen.

  There was considerable deadwood lying about and he gathered enough for the night, most of it cedar washed down the canyon from higher up.

  As the crow flies, he doubted he was more than two miles from the ruin and its kiva, but even with the flashlight he carried he had no desire to try to cross that rough country in the dark.

  A coyote spoke inquiringly into the night, and somewhere out in the darkness, a rock loosened by one of the many natural causes, fell into the canyon, bounding from ledge to ledge. Only a small rock, but on
e more item in the continual change wrought by frost, rain, sun, and wind.

  He had only a small fire, and he did not lie down but leaned against the backwall, a blanket around his shoulders. He dozed, added fuel to the fire, and dozed again.

  The night waned, the moon arose, flooding the canyon with ghostly radiance. The towering spires above the canyon wall took on shadows, and he let the fire die down to red coals, adding just enough fuel to keep them alive, with an occasional bright-yellow flame as the new fuel was attacked. The wood from the cedar smoke smelled good, and he thought how often cedar had been used, in many countries, for sacred ceremonies. He himself had watched a medicine man waft smoke over tribal elders with an eagle’s wing to purify them before an important conference.

  He took cedar bark and added it to the fire, and then, suddenly, as his hand reached out to the fire, it stopped, arrested in movement by some small sound, a sound not normal to the night. Chief also sensed its presence.

  Something, far up the narrow canyon, had moved in the night.

  Something that was not a rock falling or a wind stirring the junipers. It was something alive.

  Alive? At least something that moved, alive or not. Something that came nearer in the night, something carefully moving, something approaching, something that tried to make no sound.

  He was seated well back in a corner of the rock, not easily visible, his fire a few feet away, the shadow of the cedar looming large before the cave, but with openings on either side. He could see a star over the rim of the rocks opposite.

  The coyotes had ceased their chatter. The night was still, waiting, and now he heard no sound.

  Under his blanket his fist gripped a gun butt, but what use was a gun against a ghost? Yet, did ghosts make small whispers in the night? Something brushed against brush; something ceased to move, something that was looking, peering, trying to make him out, the small light from the fire making the finding of him more difficult.

  His shoulders were against the rock. One hand held the blanket edge, the other the gun.

  Chapter 19

  *

  MAY I SPEAK?” The voice was low, not unpleasant. Raglan waited for several seconds, then said, “Come forward, into the firelight. Come very carefully.”

  The man was tall, with high, thin shoulders and a scholar’s face. He wore a turban, small and tight-fitting, and a sort of robe gathered at the waist by a broad leather belt. On his feet he wore hard-soled moccasins. He carried no weapon that Raglan could see.

  “Be seated,” Raglan said, and when the man looked puzzled, he repeated, “Sit!” and gestured at a place near the fire but directly in front of Raglan.

  The man seated himself, cross-legged, and looked over at him. His costume did not surprise Mike Raglan, who had lived through the hippie period of the sixties and was astonished by nothing.

  “Speak, then,” Raglan suggested.

  “You look for something?”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  The man smiled suddenly, revealing white, marvelously even teeth. “I think yes. It is our way, to seek.” His smile vanished. “It is the way for some of us, but a dangerous way.”

  He paused a minute and then, speaking slowly as if groping for words, he said, “I think somewhere you live in a nice place. I think it is better you go there.”

  Raglan still held the pistol, but it was hidden by the blanket and he did not know whether the man guessed that he held a weapon.

  “I have lost a friend. I search for him.”

  “He is gone. You will not find him, and if you try to look you will go where he has gone.” The man paused. “I try be friend to you.”

  “If you are a friend, bring Erik Hokart to me and then I shall know you are a friend.” He spoke slowly, seeing that the stranger had difficulty with the words. “If he does not come, I shall continue to search. If I do not find him soon, many will come. They will find him and they will also find whatever else can be found. There will be no secrets then.”

  “It must not be.”

  “Sorry, friend, it will be. They will come first to the kiva on the mesa. They will go through the window. They will find Erik Hokart.”

  “There will be fight then.”

  Raglan shrugged. “They will expect it. Many will come. First, there will be policemen, and after that, the army. Many, many men, with weapons and machines. Nothing will stop them.”

  The man shook his head and smiled again. This time he smiled less warmly. “Do not say untrue thing. You are few. You are not strong.”

  “Who told you that? If that is what you have been told, you cannot trust those who speak. We are many, and we are strong, and where my people come, nothing is ever the same again, which is often a mistake they do not recognize.”

  Raglan was puzzled. The man’s speech was slow, somewhat halting, the words carefully enunciated. He looked to be an intelligent man, and he did not appear to be seeking trouble. Yet who else might wait out there in the darkness? Even as they talked, Raglan strained his ears to listen.

  There was something interesting here. The man seemed to be warning him, yet trying to avert danger. He offered no threats.

  “Long ago,” Raglan said, “when my people first came to this country, only a few came west to trade for fur. The Indians they met despised them for their weakness. They saw only a few men, or often one alone, and they traded for skins. To the Indians they met this was foolish and weak. If they were men, why did they not trap their own fur? The Indian had no idea of the millions of people in the eastern lands. It is the same with you. You have seen a few of us and do not know how many of us there are.

  “You do not know our insatiable curiosity, our drive to investigate, to explore, to learn. No barrier will stop my people, even if some should wish it. No doubt your land has minerals we could exploit. It may have timber. It may have much we need or believe we need. There is no barrier to stop the mind of man, nor the feet that follow, nor the hands that will do what is to be done.

  “You have but one choice. Return Erik Hokart to us and we will close up the opening in the kiva and bother you no more.”

  “It is not possible. It is not I who say he can be free. I am but one man and have no authority. Go,” he added, “and do not come back. If the window in the kiva was a mistake, the mistake was mine. It was I who wished to open the way.”

  “You?”

  “An ancient tablet told of the kiva and the opening to your world. I am he who is Keeper of the Archives. Into my hands all such things come. In the Halls of Shibalba there are many Tablets, lying long-untouched. They are writ in the ancient characters which cannot be spoken. I have writ them in your tongue.”

  “In English? Why?”

  “It is read by few, but known by several of my kind, and such knowledge as I have discovered is not for the people.” He hesitated. “Nor even for the Masters.”

  “I thought The Hand was your ruler?”

  He stared at Raglan. “You know of The Hand? How could you know such things?”

  Not wishing to betray Kawasi, Mike said, “We, too, have our archives.”

  “It cannot be! You know nothing of us! No one from your world has ever entered ours and returned!”

  “You are sure? Not even many years ago?”

  He hesitated, then said, “It is not in the Archives.”

  “You have examined them all?”

  “Years would be needed, and I have but begun.”

  “Then you do not know. You know only what is commonly said. What is agreed upon. A scholar does not accept. He questions, examines, then suggests a possibility.”

  The man was silent, and Raglan added fuel to his small fire. Then the man spoke.

  “What I say is true. You must go. The man you seek has been taken before The Hand. The Hand will dispose of him as he sees fit. No one opposes The Hand.”

  “No? What of the followers of He Who Had Magic?”

  The man stared at Raglan, then shook his head. “That is a legend.
There was no such person. There are no such people.”

  The flames flickered under a touch of wind. The two men sat silent, staring into the fire. “It would have been well to have left the kiva closed,” Raglan said mildly. “You have begun something that cannot be stopped.” He paused. “Our legend is that your world is evil. How is it evil?”

  The man’s eyes avoided Raglan’s. He gestured about him. “What is this place?”

  “It is a place in the desert. The river out there is the San Juan. It is Spanish name, as the Spanish once came to this country and left their names upon the land.”

  “You have cities?”

  “Very large ones, far from here. The nearest is over one hundred miles away, but there are towns, and people. There are roads that lead to the cities. Most of them are far away.”

  Chief had been lying quietly. Now he stirred, and the man started to rise, obviously frightened.

  “It is all right,” Raglan said. “It is my dog.”

  Uneasily, the man looked at Chief, whom he could scarcely make out, lying deep in the shadow of the cedar.

  “We can talk of our cultures later,” Raglan said. “Now we must speak of Erik Hokart. You say he is a prisoner of The Hand, so we must speak with The Hand.”

  “You do not know what you say. It cannot be done.”

  “You can take me to him.”

  “It is impossible. You do not comprehend. Nobody can go to The Hand. My hair is touched with gray, yet I have never been in his presence.

  “My life is spent among the Tablets. I am their protector, and of our people few even know of their existence. Long ago our rulers came there to study, but it has been many generations since one of them has come. Once we who were Keepers of the Word were called in council, but it is so no longer. The Hand may not even remember that we exist.”

  As they talked, Raglan began to understand a little. The Archives had been accumulated in ancient times, beginning long before the Escape, when some of the people fled the growing evil and took shelter beyond the veil. For over one thousand years they had lived in the new world they found, until drought and invading savages drove them to return. In the intervening time they had forgotten the horrors from which they had fled. Some did remember and refused to return. They had merged with other tribes.