by Nan Ryan
“Now,” he said, pleased with his ingenuity, “you’re a little nervous, Elizabeth, but you’ll be fine once I get you down to our magnificent quarters, where we’ll consummate our wedding vows.”
Balking, refusing to take a step, Elizabeth shook her head violently, her eyes as wild as his.
“Elizabeth, I’m hurt and surprised by this strange reluctance on your part to begin the wonderful honeymoon I have planned for us.” Casually, with the leather riding crop, he swept back one side of his black cape to reveal a sheathed dagger. Elizabeth caught sight of more than the dagger. Beneath the black cape, he wore only a soiled transparent robe over his pale, naked body. Wickedly he grinned and allowed the cape to fall back into place.
And then he swiftly dragged her into the caverns. The sun disappeared behind them, but he did not stop or even slow his pace. He continued to drag the struggling woman down, down into the depths. Elizabeth could see nothing. She was drowned in a pit of total darkness and she felt as if any second they would make a fatal misstep and plunge to their deaths.
On he took her, his pace steady and confident. It was as if he could see in the dark. As if the thick blackness could be penetrated by those wild green eyes. Elizabeth had no idea how far down into the earth they went, but when finally they stopped, her legs were tired and aching, her heart was hammering with fear and exhaustion, and her face was beaded with perspiration.
In the inky darkness, from just above her ear, he announced, as if she had asked, “We are now nine hundred feet below the surface of the earth. To get here, we walked approximately two and one half miles.” He added, “All that way in darkness and not once did I stumble. You see, my beautiful red-haired wife, I am the Pale Master. The ruler of the depths. I can see in total darkness, just like my vampire followers.”
Elizabeth winced when suddenly a torch flared to life. With its circle of illumination lighting the pale, smiling face of the demented man, he said, “There’s something I want to show you, my dear.”
He ushered her into a large, dark chamber. He raised his smoking torch high and said, “Look at my subjects, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth’s eyes automatically lifted, and a fierce tremor of revulsion raced through her at the sight. Thousands and thousands of gray-brown vampire bats hung upside down, almost within reach. A gruesome tapestry of bats literally covered the ceiling as far as the eye could see.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Dane said. “Did you know that during winter’s long sleep, the bats become stiff and cold, and they almost stop breathing?” He lowered the torch, looked at her, and said, “I’m trying to perfect that for myself.” He sighed wistfully. “I suppose I’ll have to wait until winter. Why, Elizabeth, you’re shivering. Perhaps it was too soon to show you my winged subjects.”
She tried to speak, to scream; it came out nothing more than sobs muffled by the gold sash gagging her.
He said, “What’s that? You think me mad or sick? My dear, you’re greatest fault is that you reason only in black and white; good and bad.” He shook his blond head accusingly. “You’ve never dealt with a gray or devious world. The world where I now exclusively exist.”
Elizabeth looked up at the towering figure in the dark loden cape and knew there would be no reasoning with him.
“Come,” he said, escorting her back out into the passageway. “I sense your aversion to the bats. Later this evening I’ll show you around my vast domain; you’ll find that much of it is quite beautiful.”
He took her further down the corridor and into a huge room where smoking wall torches cast so much light Elizabeth was momentarily blinded, her pupils still dilated from the darkness. When she could see, she gaped up at the high-domed ceiling and then at the huge stack of shiny gold ingots stacked at the very center of the vast natural amphitheater. Pleased by her awe, he led her forward—past the bed of gold—and several yards beyond. He directed her attention to the smoking floor torches bordering the edge of where the stone floor fell away into darkness.
He instructed her to look out into the blackness. Then he told her he liked to think of this natural amphitheater as his own majestic auditorium. They were standing at the edge of the stage on which they would shortly perform. Their audience? “Why, imagine thousands of admirers out there in the darkness, applauding us, mesmerized by our exhibition of talent and beauty.”
He pointed a long-nailed finger downward and then warned her to be very careful after the performance when they came down to the front of the stage to take their bows before the torch footlights.
“To the best of my knowledge,” he said, “the black, yawning pit below has no bottom.”
Elizabeth trembled and instinctively moved back. He smiled, took her arm, and led her back around to the other side of the solid gold bed. He turned her to face the bed.
From just behind, Dane said, “Darling, I would like to share my gold with you, but I can’t. There just isn’t enough.”
He removed the gagging sash from her mouth. Before she could make a sound, he added, “I will, however, immensely enjoy your company until I—”
“I’m not alone, Dane,” she warned him, torn between the hope that West would find them and the fear that Dane would kill West if he did. “My companion will miss me and come looking. He’ll find us.”
Leisurely removing the concho belt binding her wrists, Dane said, “No one has ever come close to this well-hidden chamber.”
“Edmund,” she reminded him. “Edmund did.”
“Edmund was nowhere near this amphitheater.” He chuckled, then added, “But I didn’t appreciate his nosing around in my personal kingdom. I suspect he was looking for my gold, trying to steal it from me.”
“You’re mistaken, Dane. We’ve come here to help you, not to harm you or steal from you,” she said desperately. “I don’t want any of the gold. You can keep it all. Just let me go.”
He turned her to face him. “I want,” he said, his green eyes glowing demonically, “to make love to you here, where I can watch my gold as I take you.” His eyes turned brighter and he bared his teeth like an animal. “I’ve found the sight of all this hard, gleaming gold to be the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
“My God, you’re hopelessly insane!” she murmured, backing away from him.
The leering smile still on his face, he advanced on her. “Take off your clothes, Elizabeth. Now.” He seized her shoulders. “Unless you want to end up like brother Edmund, you’ll obey me.”
Trapped, terrified, Elizabeth stood directly before the bed of gold and began undressing. She pulled her shirt up over her head and off. “Please …” she begged.
“Continue,” said Dane, and removed his long black cape, allowing it to fall to the floor at his feet. “Take off your boots and trousers.” Watching her with palm-rubbing eagerness, he said, almost idly, “Do you realize, Elizabeth, I’ve never even seen your bare legs.”
When she stood before him wearing only her thin satin chemise and thigh-high underpants, Dane licked his lips, twirled a long, dirty blond curl in nervous fingers, and said, “You have no idea how many times I’ve dreamed of this moment. Just the two of us alone down here in my secret kingdom of pleasure. Just you and me far, far down in the bowels of the earth where no matter what I may do to you, your screams cannot be heard. I can have you as my love slave for all eternity … or at least until I tire of you.” He shivered with anticipation. “Now, start backing away, move toward the bed of gold.”
Elizabeth shook her head, but when he took a step toward her, she began backing away from him. He slowly advanced on her, his filmy gown revealing his bare, unwashed body. The dagger was still strapped to his waist.
“When you reach the bed,” he commanded, “take off your underthings, climb up onto the gold, and crawl to the bed’s center. Then turn to face me, take the pins from your hair and let it fall down your back. Kneel there on my golden bed so I can admire your naked beauty at the same time I admire my shiny gold.”
Gooseflesh covering her bare arms and l
egs, tears of fear and despair stinging her frightened eyes, Elizabeth said, “I won’t do it! You can’t make me, you depraved monster!”
Her fear tickled Dane’s mad whimsy. He threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing off the stone walls. “I’m no monster, my pet. We are mammals. Vampires. The highest class of vertebrates. Surely we are the richest.” He laughed, and added, “We are in the same form as human beings, even though some people think us monsters.”
“You are obviously deranged,” she sobbed.
“Were you aware that the old testament called bats ‘unclean birds’? Did you know that my winged creatures and I are so powerful, people have become rabid just sharing the same air we breathe.” He continued to move slowly closer. “I’ve always known that I am compelled and driven by the force of some dark star, just as I know full well that though you are afraid, you are helplessly attracted to my erotic power.” He smiled and calmly said, “Take everything off.”
Sick with fear, Elizabeth shouted, “No! No, damn you, no!”
The wicked smile never leaving his face, Dane drew the sharp dagger from its sheath and held it up so that it gleamed in the torchlight. He came at her, and Elizabeth let out a blood-curdling scream.
That loud piercing scream carried through the large amphitheater and out into the corridor beyond. In a small chamber not far away, West heard the scream, just faintly, and followed its sound, the safety lantern swinging in his hand. Running faster than he knew he could run, he bolted into the giant amphitheater just as Dane slipped the dagger beneath the delicate strap of Elizabeth’s chemise and cut it in two.
Waiting until the madman had moved the knife away from Elizabeth’s shoulder, West shouted loudly, “Curtin!”
Dane whirled around in surprise, the dagger in his hand. West had nothing but the miner’s safety lantern. “Come on,” West goaded, gesturing, moving further inside the chamber. Quickly advancing, he widely skirted around the gold where they stood, determined to draw Dane away from Elizabeth. “Come and get me.”
“Who are you?” Dane demanded, turning, his eyes following West as he slowly circled. “You have no right to be here. No right at all. If you wish to watch the performance, then kindly go join the rest of the audience, just beyond the floodlights.”
“West,” Elizabeth screamed, “there’s a sheer drop off on the far side of those torches lining the floor!”
“I’m not one of the audience,” goaded West. “I’m part of this performance.”
“You are not!” thundered Dane. “Get off my stage!”
“Come throw me off,” said West, clutching the lantern tightly in his right hand. He watched Dane size him up, knew he was checking to see if he was armed.
“I’ll kill you,” said Dane, and moved toward West, dagger poised. There was only one chance, but West took it. He threw the heavy lantern at Dane’s right hand so swiftly Dane had no time to react. Dane screamed and the dagger went flying. It skittered across the stone floor and Dane lunged after it. West reached him just as Dane’s fingers touched the knife’s handle. West forcefully kicked the dagger and it sailed across the stone floor past the torches and over the edge into blackness.
Dane straightened and threw a punch at West. He missed. West’s fist lashed out and slammed squarely into Dane’s left jaw, turning his head to one side. West followed up with a fierce blow to his ear.
Enraged, Dane growled like an animal and punched West in the stomach. West gasped and Dane tagged him with a punishing right hook to the chin, driving West’s sharp teeth together, catching the fleshy inside of his bottom lip between. Flecks of blood flew.
While Elizabeth watched in helpless horror the vicious fight went on and on. Blow after pounding blow struck flesh, until both men were staggering and punch-drunk. All the skin had come off their knuckles and blood covered their battered faces and their clothes.
Worse, as they fought on, they moved closer and closer to the smoking floor torches that bordered the deep black bottomless pit, until West’s booted feet were not more than a foot from the sheer drop-off.
Dane was aware of his advantage. Victory within reach, he used every ounce of his strength to throw a punch at West, putting the full force of his body behind it. At just the last second, West managed to duck out of the way and Dane Curtin went flying over the ledge. Elizabeth threw herself into West’s tired arms while the sound of Dane’s screams echoed throughout the underground palace.
They never heard him hit bottom.
45
THE OLD NAVAJO WOMAN, her hands adorned with silver and turquoise rings, sat on the broad, flat porch of Santa Fe’s El Palacio Real. Her ancient face was as burnished brown and as deeply carved as the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains. She leaned back against the wall of the one-story adobe building, her watery black eyes twinkling, the wrinkled, tissue-thin lids open wide. Her old bones were warmed by the June morning’s brilliant sunlight, and her old heart was warmed by an inner peace.
The contented Indian woman did not stop passersby to ask if they had seen her sons. She knew where they were. They were safe from harm and in a better place.
Or were they?
If so, who was that raven-haired young man waiting nervously inside a many-roomed low adobe building far, far away?
With her eyes open wide, Micoma could not see much. But when they were closed, she could see everything. So she leaned her head back, shut her eyes, and fell into a deep trance.
And then she could see all the way to Malaga, New Mexico.
So much in love they couldn’t bear to wait, West Quarternight and Elizabeth Curtin decided to marry in the Malaga clínica where Edmund and Grady were recuperating.
At straight up noon on that beautiful June day, West, the typical nervous bridegroom, stood beside the robed padre between Edmund and Grady’s hospital beds in the immaculate sunlit ward.
Edmund was still weak from loss of blood, but grateful to be alive. Grady was feeling so fine he was sitting up in bed, his long white beard and hair neatly brushed for his role in the wedding. He was West’s best man.
Out in the spotless white corridor, Elizabeth, carrying a small bouquet of pink primroses, clung tightly to Taos’s big arm as he escorted her into the room and down the very short aisle to where West and the old padre waited.
West watched her come toward him, overwhelmed by her startling beauty. When she teasingly winked at him, he felt his trembly knees buckle.
The ceremony began.
The padre asked, “Who giveth this woman away?”
Beaming like a proud father, Taos took Elizabeth’s small hand and placed it atop West’s. Smiling, Elizabeth waited for the giant Navajo to nod his head decisively. Instead, she heard him speak for the first time ever.
The towering Taos looked at her and said in a surprisingly soft, pleasing voice, “I do.”
Afterword
The Albuquerque Tribune
Monday, October 30, 1989
Victorio Gold Hunt Revived
Skeen provision would open up missile range
By Peter Copeland
Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON—Deep under the White Sands Missile Range, in a cavern big enough to hold a freight train, is a cache of gold bars stacked in rows like firewood.
That’s the story, anyway, and it’s so persistent that Congress is about to require the Army to open up the missile range in southern New Mexico for a treasure hunt.
But put down your shovels. The search will be limited to a partnership set up by the heirs of the man who claims to have found the gold fifty years ago at Victorio Peak.
The West is filled with stories about lost mines and hidden gold, but this story is different because everybody knows exactly where the gold is supposed to be. The only trouble is, it’s buried under 400 feet of earth at a place where the Army is shooting rockets and blowing up airplanes.
New Mexico Republican Rep. Joe Skeen managed to put a provision into the House Defense Authorization
Act that would require the Army to allow a search for the gold. The legislation has been in conference committee since July.
The searchers will have to pay all the expenses, and the fate of any recovered treasure will be decided by the courts.
“The mystery should be solved once and for all,” said Sherry Kiesling, an aide to Skeen.
The Army has agreed to go along. “We want it laid to rest once and for all,” said Deborah Bingham, a spokeswoman for White Sands.
The story begins in 1937 when, according to New Mexico folklore, Milton “Doc” Noss dodged into a cavern to escape the rain while hunting deer on the side of Victorio Peak near Las Cruces.
The peak is set in a deep, bowl-shaped valley. Noss said he walked into a huge cavern and found “gold bars stacked like cordwood” and twenty-seven skeletons chained to heavy wooden posts.
Noss said he went back to the peak with dynamite to make the hole bigger but ended up caving in the shaft and burying the gold. Noss spent days digging in the hot sun and convinced a Texan, Charles Ryan, to invest in the hunt.
But Ryan was frustrated by the lack of progress. He fought with Noss and gunned him down in 1949.
Noss’s ex-wife, Ova Noss, then filed a claim for the gold. After World War II, the peak became part of the 3,200-square mile White Sands Missile Range, but Ova Noss convinced the Army to open up the range for unsuccessful searches in 1963 and 1977.
Ova Noss has since died, but lobbying for a new hunt was taken up by her grandson and a professional treasure hunter, Expeditions Unlimited of Pompano, Fla., which also led the 1977 hunt.
Jerry Lee, a vice president of the company, said his ground-penetrating radar found a cavern at the base of the peak in 1977. “Is there anything in the cavern?” Lee asked. “Who knows.”
The company wants fifteen days to do engineering studies on the site, forty-five days to excavate and forty days to bring out the gold. The company’s budget is $1 million, Lee said, which would include money to cover the Army’s expenses.