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

by Louis L'Amour

  Somebody had been here, somebody who wore moccasins and was over six feet tall. The Indians he had seen were mostly not over five feet eight inches.

  Zipacna was tall, they had said. And he might be the most dangerous of all.

  Who was he? What was his relationship to The Hand? Was he a minor captain? An important one? A deputy leader? An adviser? Just what was he? Kawasi had feared him, so he would be wary.

  Raglan went down a steep aisle among the trees. Below him there was bright sunlight, leading to an open place, out from among the trees.

  Pausing beside a tree, Mike Raglan surveyed the area before him. Down through the trees lay a small meadow; beyond it, a stream. His eyes had not yet become accustomed to the odd light, but there was no glare. It was a vague, yellow light, like that sometimes seen in the plains country of the Midwest before a storm. Here no storm impended, nor any change in the weather he could detect.

  He waited, watching, unwilling to go down into that open meadow, yet knowing he must. Beyond it some of the rocks seemed to have a formation that did not look natural, as if they had been shaped by hand.

  When that old cowboy whom he met in Flagstaff had broken through to the other side, it had been near a ruin, a ruin where he had found a map on a gold plate. The old man had copied only part of that map, showing how to return to where he found the gold. It was the rest of that map Raglan wished to see.

  The Forbidden was a huge building, several times larger than the Pentagon, and it was a maze of rooms and passages. If there was a map, it would make it much easier. Of course there were other maps in the Hall of Archives, but this one, scratched on a gold surface, might be much the best.

  Moving forward a few feet, he stopped behind another tree. He had found no more tracks, and the meadow before him was empty. He went swiftly down, crossed the meadow, and went up into the trees and the forest of rocks beyond. Almost at once he came upon a corner of the ruin.

  He studied the path. No tracks, yet much of it was bare rock, and tracks might not show. He rounded the corner and stood at the upper edge of a shallow valley of ruins, a valley not of meadow and grass but of bare red rock created by what he could not guess. At a glance he realized the ruins were ancient, older than anything he had ever seen, anywhere.

  Mike Raglan had looked upon many ruins, but his first impression of this was one of extreme age. His second was a creeping sense of horror—why, he could not say. The area he overlooked must cover more than fifty acres of ruined walls, toppled columns, a surprising number of intact roofs. He sat down on a flat rock, fallen off a wall, and studied the situation. He didn’t like it.

  Carefully, inch by inch, he studied the ruin before him, taking his time to fix the layout in his mind. This might be where his old friend had come through; this might be where he had found the gold.

  How many men could have taken enough and never returned? Few men were content with just enough. Few could resist the lure of just a little bit more. A comfortable life was rarely sufficient. Most men and women wanted wealth, and that old cowboy had known where it was and how to get it. Had there been something else, something he had not told?

  Nothing moved. The valley of the ruin was high on a ridge of some sort, and the broken edges that surrounded it seemed to be the edges of a flat surface, like a mesa top.

  Still he did not move. Yet time was nudging him to act.

  He shuddered. What was wrong with him? Why was he apprehensive? He had explored many ruins in Egypt, Tibet, the Takla Makan, and in India. He ran his eyes over these ruins again. There was little time, and he must get on with it, yet still he did not move. Occasionally there came to his nostrils a vaguely unpleasant odor that was somehow familiar, but he could not place it.

  Did anything live down there? Had animals moved into the old temples? If there were temples.

  Raglan got to his feet, glancing around him once more. He saw nothing. Then he started down the path into the ruin.

  He saw no birds, no chipmunks, not even a lizard. Did nothing live here? He paused again, wary of the ruins. No flies, no bees, not even a whisper of movement. He walked on, his feet making small sounds in the grass.

  It must have been an imposing city in its day, if such it had been. The ruins bore no resemblance to any pueblo he had seen. He walked down a space between buildings. It was not a street or even an alleyway, simply a space, now overgrown with grass. Before him was a stone basin at least ten feet in diameter, but it was dry. On the far side was an opening as of a good-sized pipe through which water must have come into the basin.

  He walked around it and saw opposite him a door, a very tall, narrow opening and beyond it, only darkness. He stepped closer, and peered within. He could see nothing. He started forward, then stopped.

  It could wait. First he must see what lay outside. He stepped back from the entrance and looked quickly around, then walked away, suddenly relieved. Twice he glanced back over his shoulder.

  What was the matter with him? Why had he not gone inside? After all, he suddenly recalled, he had a flashlight. Scarcely more than an inch in diameter and ten inches long, but extremely powerful, the light would have pierced that blackness like a sword blade.

  He walked on, stepping over fallen columns, skirting great blocks of masonry. Several buildings had caved in, and many were intact. Nevertheless the columns and the decorative stonework showed signs of aging such as he had never seen in Greece, Egypt, or the Hittite ruins in Turkey. Whatever this had been, it must be older than anything known on earth, yet the architecture, although different, showed evidence of considerable development. This had been no beginning civilization, but one that had grown, developed, and matured.

  He looked around him again. All was still. Nothing moved, now, not even the wind.

  He walked down another opening between buildings and suddenly another opened before him. The pillar at the side of the door had fallen across it, one end still partly in place. The door was not blocked, however; he could easily go either over or under the pillar. It was a good-sized building but this was some sort of a side entrance. Within, as in the other building, all was black and his eyes would not penetrate that darkness. He started forward. This time he would see what, if anything, was inside.

  He stepped up to the door and peered inside. Directly before him was a screen, placed so one had to turn either right or left to go around it. He had seen the same effect several times in Asia. The idea was that evil spirits have to travel in straight lines and so could not follow beyond the screen. Smiling at the idea, he started to duck down under the pillar.

  “I wouldn’t go in there, if I was you.”

  CHAPTER 34

  The voice came from behind him. Only a moment before, he had looked all around, seeing nothing. Slowly, he straightened up and turned.

  About twenty feet away stood a tall old man with long white hair. He had a narrow, saturnine face with amused blue eyes, a carefully trimmed beard and mustache. He was dressed in carefully fitted buckskins and moccasins.

  “Johnny?” he asked.

  “Know me, do you? Well, there surely ain’t many of me to confuse nobody. I’m Johnny. Who’re you?”

  “Raglan, Mike Raglan. I came over to find a friend and take him back.”

  “Come of your own free will?” Johnny shook his head. “You must be some kind of damn fool. This friend of yours? You know where he is?”

  “In the Forbidden area. He was brought over from the other side by some strong-arm guys.”

  “Brought over? They must have wanted him bad. They don’t bring anybody over, and there’s no way back. I been lookin’ for more years than I can count.”

  “I’ll find him and take him back. You, too, if you’ll help.”

  “You know a way back?”

  “Not right now, but I know where several should be. We’ve got to work fast. There isn’t
much time.” Raglan explained what Kawasi had told him.

  “Know all about it. That’s what stuck me at first. Same thing happened right after I come through. I kep’ tryin’. Done me no good.” He cocked his head to one side. “Know Kawasi, do you?”

  “I do, and I want to take her back with me.”

  “Don’t blame you for that. She’s a fair lass, that one. Bright, too. She’s got gumption.”

  Raglan gestured toward the door he had been about to enter. “I’m looking for a place where gold is stored. Where there’s a map scratched on a gold plate.”

  The old man sat down on a flat rock. “How’d you know about that? I surely never told nobody, and those folks”—he jerked his head back toward the pueblo—“they never come over here. Never come at all.”

  Raglan explained about the old cowboy in Flagstaff and his gold. Johnny chuckled. “Smart, that’s what he was! Smart enough to take enough an’ stay away.”

  He gestured around. “The way I figure it, this here was settled by somebody thousands of years back. No kin to them. No kin to anybody around now, the way I see it. They had gold and lots of it. There’s several tons of it, near as I can calc’late. I seen that map you speak of—never saw it as a map. Figured it to be the plan of something.”

  Raglan was puzzled. “That outfit you got on? Looks like it had been tailored for you.”

  “Was. Tailored by me. By my ownself for me. Back when I was a youngster, Pa put me to work with a tailor. Wishful of me learnin’ a trade. I stuck it for three year, from time I was twelve to ’most sixteen. Then I taken out for the West.

  “Here a man’s got nothin’ but time, so I tailored myself some fancy duds.” He brushed his whiskers with a hand. “Keep trimmed up, too. I remember hearin’ of Englishmen stationed in the jungle somewhere an’ how they always dressed for dinner, even when all alone out there. ‘Morale factor,’ they called it.

  “Well, I done the same. Figured I’d go to pieces if I didn’t. Wear tailored clothes, trim my beard, keep my places revved up an’ neat.”

  “Places?”

  Johnny chuckled. “I got a bunch of them. Hideouts. Scattered around, so’s I don’t make the same trail all the time. A man always goes the same way an’ somebody smartens to where he lives. I got smoked an’ dried meat in all of them. Dried fruit, too, nuts an’ seeds I c’lect. Nobody knows where those places are but me, so’s nobody can tell nobody else. Sure as you tell somethin’ to one person, they will tell somebody else, an’ warn them not to tell. Of course, they do.”

  “The man I’m looking for is called Erik Hokart. They’ve had him several days. Do you know anything about the Forbidden?”

  “No, an’ nobody else does. Maybe The Hand knows, an’ maybe Zipacna.”

  “You’re wearing a pistol?”

  “Black powder. Make my own. Been doin’ it for years, an’ right now I’d say I make as good a black powder as can be made.”

  “You’ve tangled with the Varanel?”

  Johnny spat into the sand. “That I have! Three, four times. They leave me alone now, but don’t you take them light. They’ve got some sort of gun—makes no sound but a sort of thwat, but it shoots an arrow into you.

  “All it needs is a scratch an’ it does you in, starts something happening inside you. I seen a wolf killed thataway and its insides was all wrong, somehow. Whatever it is, it upsets the way things work inside you.

  “I seen that wolf shot an’ they didn’t know I was anywhere about. I laid there a-watchin’ it. Wolf went down. Struggled a mite, then lay still. Tongue hangin’ out, pantin’ like. Several times it tried to get up an’ couldn’t.

  “Looks like whatever it is sort of takes their strength so’s they can’t move nor fight. Then they die.”

  “Something that affects the metabolism? The cell structure, maybe?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. I only know what I seen. Believe you me, I stay clear of those fellers, an’ you best do the same. If you run into them, don’t waste your time. Kill them quick or they’ll nail you.”

  “You have a rifle?”

  “A Sharps Big Fifty. Brass ca’tridges. Load ’em myself. Make my own powder and shot. Back up yonder I’ve got me a lead mine that’s almost half-silver. Somethin’ else in there, too. Zinc, I reckon.”

  “Why did you advise me not to go in there?”

  “Lizards! Damn big ones! Get to be eight, ten feet long an’ they can run down a deer in fifty yards. Don’t seem to try if its farther. They’ll weigh three to five hundred pounds, I reckon.”

  “Like the Komodo lizards,” Mike suggested. Then, as the old man looked blank, he added, “Komodo is an island in the East Indies. Indonesia, they call it now. They find lizards of that size on Komodo and the island of Flores, across the strait. They are meat eaters and they’ll run down a horse in a short distance.”

  “Sounds like ’em. Set up on their hind ends an’ look around. Make almost no sound in the brush.” He gestured. “Some of ’em live in these ruins.”

  The old man stood up. “Come along. I’ll show you where the gold is. Got no use for it, m’self. Cached some here an’ there in case I got a chance to get back. Figured I’d need it over yonder.”

  He looked suddenly wistful. “Like to go back. Kinda would. Doubt if there’s anybody knows me back yonder now, with all the years between.

  “Healthy here. Never had a cold since I come over. I don’t see many folks, an’ maybe that’s the reason, but I’m more’n ninety year old now, I reckon. Ain’t been sick a day since I come over.

  “Hoss died. That was a pity. Lived to be almost forty, then just died on me. Old age, I reckon.” He peered at Raglan. “Them automobiles now? Did they ever catch on?”

  “They’re all over the place now. They paved the roads for them.”

  “Paved? That’s kinda hard on the hosses, ain’t it?”

  “You don’t see many horses except on ranches. Even there they use pickups and Jeeps more than horses.”

  “I’ll be damned. What’s them ‘pickups’?”

  “A kind of car with a place behind the driver to carry supplies, bales of hay, whatever.”

  Johnny led the way down among the ruins, and then at last to another tall, narrow door. Stopping, the old man got out a stub of candle. “We’ll need some light. Dark in there.”

  “Keep it. I’ve got a flashlight.” He flashed the beam into the dark opening, and gasped.

  The gold was there, half-covered by the accumulated dust of years, but gleaming bright beneath the powdery film. The room was a sort of vault, its sides honeycombed with openings, each one stacked with discs of gold such as the old cowboy had mentioned. In the very center of the room, above a heap of the discs, was a pillar. On it was the gold plaque. He stepped closer, studying it.

  The Forbidden was, literally, a maze. It was a labyrinthine tangle of rooms, passages, and columned halls, and at the center a court, a group of larger rooms. For a moment he studied the design. It was a challenge, but a challenge to which he would not have the time to respond. Somewhere, in all that insane spider web of rooms and passages was Erik, and he must be found. There were also the rooms of death, which must be avoided. Suddenly, something about the shape and design began to seem familiar. There was something about it….

  He shook his head. Whatever it was would not come to mind now. He indicated the diagram of the maze. “Johnny, I’ve got to get in there and get out, with Erik.”

  “You ain’t got a prayer. That place is guarded by the Varanel an’ the Lords of Shibalba. Even if you could figure a way in and a way to get out.”

  Raglan continued to study the maze. In his wandering about, solving mysteries and puzzles, he had often walked mazes, including those in England at Hampton Court and Longleat, but there were dozens of others, some only in patterns on the floors of cathedrals su
ch as Chartres, Amiens, and Ely.

  “It ain’t only that,” Johnny warned. “This here country is right deceivin’. Have to get used to it. Distances ain’t what they seem, nor heights, either. You got to develop a new set of senses to handle it.”

  “I won’t have time, Johnny. Whatever is done must be done in the next few hours.” Then he added, “I’ve got a way in. I’ve got a friend inside there.”

  “That’s another thing. You just think you got a friend, if he’s one of them. Kawasi’s folks, they’re different. They are good folks, mostly. But them down there? Don’t you trust any of them. Lyin’ comes natural to them. So does deceit. Do it for the fun of it. Lead you right into a trap if they can. They would rather see you fail than succeed, no matter what you’re doin’. I’ve had truck with ’em. Know what I’m talkin’ about. Most of ’em would risk their own necks just to betray somebody. They thrive on betrayal an’ deceit.

  “When the Anasazi fled this place they fled that sort of thing, leaving a world that was evil. Don’t you think there’s exceptions. Any one of them down there would go out of his way just to trick you into injury or death, and then set by and watch you suffer.”

  Raglan continued to study the plaque, but he was wondering now about Tazzoc. He remembered the peculiar gleam in Tazzoc’s eyes when he spoke of the rooms that were traps. Tazzoc had seemed to relish the idea.

  “They’ll even do it to each other. Only thing I can’t figure is how they’ve lasted this long, mean as they are.”

  Tazzoc had seemed sincere, but was he? Was the cloak only a trick to get him inside? To have him captured? Or would Tazzoc wait and let him be trapped in one of the death rooms? But he had promised to help. Tazzoc had wanted his Archives appreciated and, if possible, saved.

  Mike had no choice. It was his only way inside and he must take it, then play it by ear, and handle each emergency as it arose. Well, he had experience at that, and he had been warned.