The Haunted Mesa (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  The next thing of which I was aware was Chief. He was growling, but uncertainly, as if confused. At once I realized this could not be the person Chief had permitted to touch him.

  She motioned, indicating I should follow, so I stepped to the door and watched her walk to the kiva. With a walk like that she had no need to beckon.

  Yet I hesitated. Chief was holding back, pressing against my leg as if to prevent my going. There was something here he distrusted, and rightly so. She paused at the kiva’s edge to look back. When she saw me still standing in the ruin’s door, she beckoned again. I shook my head. For an instant I thought I glimpsed a flicker of irritation on her face, but it might have been my imagination.

  Beautiful she certainly was, yet “striking” might have been a better description. However, there was about her a subtle sense of evil, of foreboding. Despite her beauty, every sense in me warned me I should shrink from her, that I should draw back, that here was evil.

  Her clothing seemed to be of the same material as the cardigan left me by the girl of the sunflowers, but of finer thread, figured with an Indian motif, but much more sophisticated than any American Indian garment I had seen. She wore turquoise jewelry of the finest quality.

  “You have fear? Of me?”

  Her voice was low, a lovely sound, holding a little of invitation, a little taunting.

  Unwittingly, not knowing what to say, I said the wrong thing.

  “I must wait. I have builders coming to work on my house.” My gesture took in the area.

  “No!” Her tone was strident. “There must be no one! No one, do you comprehend?”

  “I am sorry. This land is mine. I shall build a home here.”

  “What do you say? The land is yours? All land belongs—” She broke off suddenly. “Come!” Her tone was imperious. “I show you!”

  “I cannot,” I repeated.

  From her manner I gathered she was not accustomed to refusal, but in this situation she was obviously uncertain how to deal with it. “Now! Come, or you will be sent for. You will bring the wrath upon you.”

  A moment she hesitated. Then she descended into the kiva and disappeared.

  Instantly I had the impression that I should get away, as far, far away as possible, and as quickly as it could be done.

  Ten minutes later, this book tucked into my pocket, I was hurrying down the trail. My four-wheel-drive vehicle was waiting at the end of the road not far away, a rarely used trail. I had almost reached it when somebody hissed at me from a clump of rocks and juniper.

  Turning sharply, I faced a slender, lovely girl with a sunflower in her hair.

  “No! They wait for you! You must not go!”

  “What do they want from me?”

  “They wish nobody here! They take you. They get from you all. Then they kill.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Kawasi. I am runaway. They find me, they kill.”

  “But you speak English?”

  “I speak small. Old man tell me words.”

  “But she spoke English, too. The other one.”

  “They have four hands people who speak. No more.”

  “Four hands?”

  She held up her hands, closed her fingers, then opened them. Four hands, twenty people.

  “We go now. I show.” Turning quickly, she went down through the rocks, rounding a boulder into an ancient path, steep and narrow, that led down to the river. In the shadow of the cliff, she hesitated. “You must cross river or wait until darkness and float down to great lake.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I go back—if I can. It is not always. Only through kiva is always, that not possible for me.”

  “You come through at another place?”

  “It is a sometime place. Only sometime.” She gestured. “Long time past my people live all about here. Bad times come. Much dry. Wild, wander-about people come. They fight us. Take our corn. Some people walk-away, some go back to old place, where we come from before. Much evil there.”

  “But you are not evil.”

  “I am not. She is. She has very high place. We fear. You fear, too. You sleep with her, you die. She is Poison Woman.”

  “Are you Indian?”

  “What is Indian? I do not know ‘Indian.’ ”

  “Your people lived here? Where?”

  “Nobody live here. Special to gods. Priests come to plant witch plants on this mesa. My folk live far away. Big cave, many house. On other side we have big house, many rooms. Here all fall to pieces, I think.”

  Cliff dwellers? They could have been. The Hopi had a legend they had come into this world through a hole in the ground. Might it have been from another dimension? From what some called a parallel world?

  “And your people now?”

  “Over there. Many are gone. They are slaves or dead. It is evil, over there.”

  “You spoke of the woman who came for me as a ‘Poison Woman.’ What did you mean?”

  “From childhood they fed on poisons. Not enough to kill, but enough to make free of poison. They special to the gods. Their flesh is soaked with a poison from secret herbs. They do not die, but any man who lies with them dies. When a man has an enemy he sends a Poison Woman to him.”

  Until it grew dark we hid among the rocks and juniper, and although searchers came close they did not find us. Then we worked our way east by old trails, scarcely seen in the night.

  Friday. I have returned. I have escaped them for the moment. I have hidden what was possible, and a map as well.

  Mike, if you get this, for God’s sake, help us!

  Kawasi urged me to cross the river but I was sure we could escape them without that. We were more than twenty miles from a paved road and I wanted one more attempt at my Jeep. Under cover of darkness we got close. Nobody seemed near. Leaping into the Jeep, I thrust my key into the ignition and the Jeep roared into life. There was a shout, a rush from the darkness, but the car leaped forward. I struck a man across the face and we were away. A mile down the road we turned into another track.

  Town, when we reached it, was more than sixty miles away and safe, or so I believed. We ate in a small restaurant, almost at closing time. Kawasi asked many questions about the café, cars, buses. I explained about ordering meals, buying tickets and clothing. Taking money from my pocket, I gave her a hundred dollars and some change. “If anything happens to me, get my book to Mike Raglan at Tamarron.”

  “It is not possible. They are here.”

  A shadow flickered by the window. I went to the cash register. A stout, baldheaded man in an apron came to take my money. I paid him. “Friend, I am Erik Hokart. I am building southwest of here and I need a gun. Have you got one?”

  He just looked at me. “Mister, I got a gun. Ever’body hereabouts has one, but I wouldn’t lend my gun to anybody.”

  Turning, I looked outside. My Jeep stood waiting. Nobody was near. If we…

  Kawasi was gone!

  CHAPTER 7

  For a moment I stood perfectly still, my hands flat upon the counter, my back to the window. Had Kawasi escaped somehow without being seen? Or had they taken her through a back door?

  “Sir,” I said quietly, “keep your gun but let me warn you that if they come in, you had better use it. They may decide they want no witnesses.

  “My name is Erik Hokart, as I have told you. Please remember it when inquiries are made. If the law does not investigate, I have a friend who will. His name is Mike Raglan.”

  “Look here, Mister, I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in but I’ll call the police, and—”

  “From the kitchen, then. If you pick up that telephone they will kill you.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?” He peered past me. “I don’t e
ven see nobody.”

  “I’ll run for my Jeep. You’d better get out of here, too.”

  Mike Raglan put down the daybook and swore, softly and bitterly. He glanced again at the book, frowning.

  The daybook had been written for Erik himself, until he evidently got the idea it would be the easiest way to communicate to Mike what had taken place.

  Quickly, Mike checked his haversack and his gun, and slipped his boot-knife into place. As he stopped in the doorway, he took care to check the position of his car. Several other vehicles were parked nearby but all seemed empty, and there were no cars he did not recognize. He went to his car, got in, and promptly locked the doors after checking behind the seat. Then he backed out and headed for the highway.

  He paused at the security gate. “If anybody asks for me, you don’t know whether I am in or not,” he told the guard.

  Several times he checked his rearview mirror but saw no evidence he was followed. Hours later he pulled into the small Utah town, looking for the café he remembered from previous visits.

  It was gone! On the site were a few blackened timbers and still-rising wisps of smoke. Up the street was another café that had been closed on his last trip due to a slackening of business during the off-season. It was open now. With another careful look around he parked the car where he could watch it and went inside.

  Three Navajos sat at the counter drinking coffee, and a truck driver was finishing a meal. His rig stood outside, close to the pickups belonging to the Navajos. There was a girl sitting alone in a back booth.

  He dropped into a seat not far from her. When the waitress came for his order, he commented, “Looks like you had a fire up the street.”

  “I’ll say! It put my girlfriend out of her job! She was waiting tables on the morning shift—then the fire and she’s out of work.”

  He ordered ham and eggs. “Anybody hurt?”

  “Jerry. He owned the place. He’s in the hospital now, if you can call it that. The cook managed to get him out with their clothes afire. The cook was burned a little, but Jerry…he’s in a bad way.

  “They say he was hurt somehow other than the burns, but nobody knows much about it.”

  “How’d it start?”

  “Who knows? The cook swears it started up front.”

  She went to turn in his order and he glanced at the girl in the booth. She was just sitting there with a cup of coffee in front of her. He looked again. She was very attractive, but subdued somehow.

  The waitress returned with his coffee. “You should have seen that fire! Like an explosion, almost, only there wasn’t any explosion, just a sort of poof. The whole building was gone in less time than it takes to tell it.”

  “What’s Jerry say about it?”

  “Him? He can’t talk. The cook says there were at least two customers the last time he looked up front, and he looked because he was getting ready to close up. There was a girl, and this man who asked Jerry for a gun—”

  “A gun?”

  “The cook heard him, and stopped what he was doing to listen. Fine-looking man, he said, looked like a businessman, but a mighty scared one. Jerry turned him down, of course. Nobody but a damned fool loans a gun to a stranger—or, for that matter, to a friend.”

  “What then?”

  “All of a sudden this girl is in the kitchen. The cook started to ask her what she thought she was doing, but she ran out the back door.

  “The cook heard the front door close and headed up front, and that was when it happened. There was that sudden poof and Jerry was knocked right into his arms and then the whole place was in flames. He dragged Jerry outside.”

  “What happened to the man who wanted the gun?”

  The waitress shrugged. “Ran off, I guess. His car is still here, keys in the ignition. The chief of police impounded it. He’s got it over at the station.”

  “And the girl?”

  The waitress’s voice lowered, but she cast a meaningful glance at the girl in the back booth. “Nobody knows, but she’s been around all morning. Looks like she’s watching for somebody.”

  Mike glanced at the girl and their eyes met. He looked away. “That man who asked for the gun? Did he say anything else?”

  “Just something about him building down in the desert, but we all knew that.” She went for his breakfast and returned. “This is a big country, Mister, but there aren’t that many people, and everybody usually knows what’s going on and where.

  “He’s bought gas here in town, groceries, and sometimes he eats here. I’ve seen him around, and he’s good-looking. Started all the girls wondering if he’s single. But he minds his own affairs and bothers nobody. His name is Hokart.”

  “Where can I find the chief?”

  “He’s down to Mexican Hat on business but should be in later today.”

  “Any strangers in town?”

  “No, except for her. There’s not a lot of traffic through here in the winter. In the summer we get tourists, but not like over in Durango. We don’t have the narrow-gauge train and we’re off the main route, but we do get tourists.” She looked at him. “Did you know Erik Hokart?”

  He hesitated a moment. “He’s a friend of mine. That’s why I’m here.”

  She brought the coffeepot and refilled his cup. The Navajos had gone; so had the truck driver. She looked at Mike. “You aren’t from around here?”

  “I spent some time in this country, years back. In fact, I told Hokart a good deal about it before he decided to come out. He was from back east, but he had fallen in love with this country. He planned to make his home here.”

  She left to get on with her work. Mike glanced over at the girl, then took his plate and his coffee and crossed to her booth. “Kawasi?” he asked.

  The momentary fear left her eyes. “You are Mike Raglan?” She spoke the name in two distinct syllables.

  He sat down. “Do you speak English?”

  “Small. Old man tell me.”

  “What happened to Erik?”

  “They have him. They take him.”

  “Did they burn the restaurant? How?”

  “I do not know. It is…a thing…like…” She touched the edge of the saucer. Lifting his cup, she took the saucer by the edge and made a backhand move as if to throw it. “They…” She gestured again. “It is fire then, big fire, very quick.”

  “These things they throw? They are big?”

  “Small. Smaller as”—she indicated the top of the cup—“so.”

  “They burn?”

  “They break, then burn.”

  “Have the police talked to you yet?”

  “No.”

  “Kawasi, I know nothing of your land, wherever it is. I know nothing of your people. I have read what Erik wrote, but I must know who your enemies are, where they have taken Erik, and what they will do to him. I must also know how to get where Erik is.”

  Suddenly, Mike thought of her. “Have you eaten? Do you have any money?”

  “I eat nothing. To sleep I give money.”

  He motioned to the waitress and ordered for her. When the woman was gone, Kawasi said, “How to get back I do not know. I am far from place I hear of.”

  “Could you find the place if I took you back there?”

  “I do not know. I look.”

  For several minutes he waited while she ate. What the hell was happening? What kind of a mess was this? Certainly, from Erik’s notes and the burned café, he understood that these people, whoever they were, were dangerous. They were not playing games. But who were they? What were they?

  “Tell me what you can. I know nothing.”

  “Long ago”—Kawasi made a sweeping gesture—“my people live all about here. They cut trees to build house or for burn. They plant corn and squash. No rain comes. Year after year, no enough rain.
Fierce people come. They kill our people, steal grain. Soon they camp nearby to steal whatever. We are not many. Some go away.

  “Long time before, we come to this place from another. We come from a place turning evil. We come to escape evil. Some wish to return. Two go back, and they say all is green there, plenty of rain, and only a few people there, so we go back.

  “It was against old beliefs, but our people feared hunger and the fierce enemies coming down from the North, so some went back.

  “But the evil was still there. It had not gone. Our people had closed the top of their heads and could no longer hear the Voices.”

  “Where is this place you went back to?” Mike waited, half afraid of what he knew he would hear.

  “It is on Other Side. I do not know what to say, what words. It is like this, only…only different.”

  “You said they went back. How did they go?”

  “There are places, openings sometimes, never always. Places where can go through to Other Side. The old man who tells me your words, he got through but never get back. He was young man then. He was what he say a ‘cow-boy’? They come to look for him. Somehow they know he is on Other Side. He very…he keeps away from them. Somehow…they do not find him. I think he kills one man, but he finds ways to hide.”

  “He is there yet?”

  “Still there. Some of my people know. They help him. But he very how you say? Strong? He know how to hide. Now I do not think they look anymore. Maybe. I do not know.”

  “What do you call him?”

  “He is Johnny. Only Johnny.”

  “Your people were the cliff dwellers? The old ones the Navajo call the Anasazi?”

  “Yes.”

  Mike glanced out the window. The street looked the same as always. A truck was parked across the way, its driver coming toward the café. His own Jeep was in plain sight. Two local men stood across the street talking. All seemed to be as usual.

  What was he to do? If they had taken Erik back, wherever “back” was, then he was gone, perhaps gone forever.