The Romantics

by Peter Brandvold

  Shadows stretched out from the canyon walls as the sun angled low in the west. The screech of a hunting eagle bounced off the canyon floor.

  As he rode behind Clark, who was pushing his mount faster than was safe on such terrain, Cameron thought about gold. He thought about how little it would take to make him rich. Hell, they might be able to descend that hole and be out in ten or fifteen minutes with enough not only to get Marina’s daughter back, but to get them all they’d ever wanted … and then some.

  He supposed Clark was right. They’d have to try. There was still some time. Hell, Bachelard probably wouldn’t even show until morning.

  “There it is,” Clark said after about ten more minutes of travel. “Right up there.”

  Cameron lifted his gaze up the cliff face, to where Clark was staring. “Holy shit,” he said when he saw the ruins pocking the cliff like giant swallow-nests. He’d seen such places left by the ancient Indians back in Arizona, but none had come anywhere near the size of this place. He’d heard of a virtual city left by the Anasazi in Colorado. Could this dwelling have been left by them, as well? The sun was angling just right to catch the occasional small birds winging in and out of the fifty or so black cave entrances, flashing saffron light off their wings.

  “How do you know which one has the gold?”

  “There’s a turtle carved outside the cave on the third tier—see it?”

  Cameron nodded, looking. It was the only opening on the third tier, and it was set farther back in the mountain than the others. The opening was larger than the others, as well, more rectangular than square.

  “Must’ve been the home of a shaman or a chieftain or something, don’t you suppose? I looked in several of the others, but none of them has a back door like that one.”

  “Back door?”

  “You’ll see.” Clark slipped out of the saddle and, half running, led his horse to the base of the cliff, where he tied the gelding to roots sticking out of the bank. He grabbed his saddlebags, draped them over his shoulder, and looked around until he found a stout deadfall mesquite branch, and started up what could only have been the remains of a stone stairway angling up the face of the cliff, to the first tier of caves.

  “Bring rope!” he yelled to Cameron.

  Somberly Cameron halted his horse next to Clark’s, tethered it to the same root, and grabbed the coil of rope from his saddle. Turning to Jimmy, he said, “Kid, you stay here with the horses, keep an eye out for Bachelard and the Mexicans. I doubt they’ll be along for some time yet, but we’re better safe than sorry.”

  “I hear you, Jack. Can I have a gun?”

  Cameron was surprised at the lack of eagerness in the kid’s voice. There was no air of expectant fun in it, no William Bonney grin and flush. It was an innocent, businesslike inquiry.

  Had the kid grown up, from all he’d been through out here? It appeared that he had, and Cameron felt a curious, parental ambivalence at the loss.

  “There’s a spare in my saddlebags,” Cameron said, sensing that he didn’t need to lecture the kid about its use. “And here, you can have this, too.” He tossed Jimmy his Winchester. “I shouldn’t be needing it up there.”

  Jimmy dug in the saddlebags, finding the old Remington conversion revolver, and Cameron and Marina headed up the steep stairs the ancients had carved out of the cliff face, Cameron throwing the coiled rope over his shoulder.

  The steps had been worn down over the centuries by wind and rain so that they were nearly gone in places, and Cameron turned back often to help Marina up the difficult spots. Neither of them said anything—in fact, their expressions were decidedly grim—but secretly they were both enjoying this time together, however brief. Cameron suspected it would be their last.

  “Come on—it’s up here,” Clark called as he climbed.

  With a burning branch in his hand—he must have had kerosene and matches in his saddiebags—he disappeared inside a cave on the third tier, and Cameron and Marina followed him into the dusky darkness, Cameron tearing cobwebs with his hand.

  The cave went back about twenty yards. Clark’s torch illuminated an opening in the back wall, about five by three feet wide.

  “Through here,” Clark said, passing through the door and starting down a corridor only a little higher than the door, so that Cameron and Clark had to duck as they walked.

  They were several yards down the corridor when Cameron suddenly realized he’d taken Marina’s hand and was guiding her gently through the darkness, only a few steps behind her husband. Startled, he released her, but she searched out his hand and clasped it again tightly.

  The corridor opened onto a circular room, about thirty feet in diameter. Here the ceiling was high enough that the men could stand without ducking. Another door opened in the wall directly opposite the first door. During his first visit, Clark had apparently set out candles on the foot-wide ledge that had been carved about chair-high around the room. Newly lit, they burned steadily.

  The limestone walls were nearly covered with petroglyphs—stick people hunting stick deer and bears, and praying to yellow suns and blue moons. The damp air smelled of mushrooms and bat guano. There was a distant, constant rumbling, like an earth tremor oscillating the floor beneath their feet.

  In the middle of the room lay what at first appeared to be a circular black rug. Clark’s torch revealed it to be a pit, flinty walls of chiseled stone dropping straight down, about five feet in diameter. There were two metal rings in the wall of the room, one on each side of the hole. They were old and rusted but appeared firm.

  “Amazing,” Cameron said, looking around.

  Marina had released his hand and stood behind him. She gave a soft whistle at the pictures on the walls.

  “This is the place,” Clark said, holding the torch over the pit. “The treasure’s got to be down there.”

  “What do you suppose this was?” Marina asked wonderingly.

  Cameron shook his head. “Some kind of church, maybe, or maybe sacrifices were performed here … or healings … Who the hell knows?”

  Marina inspected the floor. “What is making that shaking, that vibration?”

  It had grown more intense the deeper they’d plumbed the corridor. A sound like the distant rumble of continuous thunder could also be heard.

  “God knows,” Clark said.

  “Sounds like water, maybe a river,” Cameron said. He nodded to indicate the door across the room. “That tunnel might lead to it.”

  He studied the pit illuminated by Clark’s torch. The sides went straight down for about twenty feet. The torch light revealed a rocky bottom … or were those bones?

  “Yes, but the gold is here,” Clark said, too preoccupied with treasure to be concerned about anything as inconsequential as an underground river.

  “How do you know?” Cameron asked him.

  “That.” Clark pointed out a turtle carved into the wall, nearly camouflaged by the petroglyphs.

  “The hole looks empty to me,” Cameron said, looking down.

  Clark was on his hands and knees, holding the torch over the hole’s opening and staring down anxiously.

  “No,” he said finally. “It opens off that side. There’s a tunnel there. You can see it when I hold the torch like this.”

  Cameron looked again. Sure enough, there did appear to be a small corridor opening off the bottom of the main pit.

  Clark grabbed Cameron’s rope off his shoulder, ran it through one of the metal rings, and secured it to the other ring across the room. Clark hacked and wheezed as he worked, dripping sweat. He’d turned pale as a sheet. The damp air was nipping his lungs like frost, squeezing out the oxygen. When the knot was fast, he stood and offered Cameron the end of the rope. “Here you go,” he said.

  Cameron laughed sardonically. “Why me?”

  “Can’t stand small, dark places.”

  “I can hold your weight; I doubt you can hold mine.”

  Before Clark could reply, Marina said, “I’ll go,” reac
hing for the rope.

  “No you won’t,” Cameron replied, his dark eyes on Clark, whose thin lips were parted with a supercilious sneer.

  Cameron stepped away from the pit, made a double bowline with the end of the rope, thrust his legs through the loops, and took a bite around his waist.

  “Hold that torch good and low so I can see what the hell I’m doin’,” he groused. “Keep a tight hold on the rope, too. If you drop me I’ll shoot you.” He was only half joking.

  Giving his hat to Marina, he slipped over the edge as the Clarks grabbed the rope in their gloved hands, feeding it slowly through the metal ring, which helped reduce the pull of Cameron’s weight. Cameron assisted by finding hand- and footholds in the walls of the pit, in pocks and bores left by the tools used in the excavation. There were more of these than had been apparent from the top. In fact, he was able to climb nearly all the way to the bottom of the pit, and even had to call up for slack.

  At the bottom, he stepped out of the double bowline. “Pull the rope up and use it to lower the torch to me.”

  In a minute, the torch came down horizontally, the rope tied to the middle. He grabbed it, untied the rope from around the base, and held the torch as he looked around the pit. Kneeling and probing the floor with his hands, he saw that the pale dust and chips were indeed bones; there was even half a human skull. A rat scuttled out from under it squealing, and disappeared in the shadows.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cameron mumbled.

  “What is it?” Clark asked from above.

  “Human bones down here. This hole must have been used to keep slaves or sacrifice victims or something. Apparently some died down here and no one bothered to haul them out.”

  Uninterested in such archaeological observations, Clark said, “Can you see anything in that other hole there?”

  Cameron looked around, turning a full circle, the flaming torch burning down toward his hand. Ashes flitted about him and the smoke was getting dense, stinging his eyes.

  He squatted down, bringing the torch down with him, peering into the hole opening off the pit. “Looks like another passageway.”

  “Can you see anything inside?”

  Cameron stuck the torch in the hole. It was just large enough for him to crawl into on his hands and knees.

  He sighed and tipped his head back to say, “I’ll take a look,” without enthusiasm. He didn’t like small, cramped places any more than the next guy—especially those where people had died and where who-knew-what-else lurked in the dark. But his own reluctant curiosity drove him forward, on hands and knees, bumping his head on the low ceiling.

  He moved awkwardly, shoving the torch ahead of him. The air was warm and moist, and the torch increased the heat. He could feel the vibrations from the river or whatever it was each time he pressed a knee or a hand to the rocky, uneven floor.

  Finally he came to a room much like the one where the pit started. In the torchlight, Cameron saw the stone walls and the ledges cut into the walls. On the ledges were mounds of heavy canvas bags, rotten with age and rife with mildew, and a large wooden crate like the ones used for shipping muskets.

  Two gold bells sat amid it all—big as butter churns and coated with dust and cobwebs. Cameron didn’t know for sure, but he guessed they’d bring about twenty thousand dollars apiece.

  Cameron’s right cheek twitched and his heart galloped. He sat there on his knees for several seconds, just staring, wondering, hoping … not quite believing what he was seeing … not quite convinced of the possibility that he’d just found true-blue Spanish treasure.

  He parted his lips, taking in heavy lungfuls of air to quell his pulse.

  Could it be?

  Veins throbbing in his temples, he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the crate. He took the torch in his left hand, wiped the sweat and dust from his right hand on his jeans, and pulled at the lid, on which there was faded writing. The wood was old and rotten from the high humidity, and it splintered in his fingers as one slat pulled away from the rest with a muffled crack. He threw the slat aside and removed two more.

  Then he held the torch over the crate. “Jumping dandelions and hopping hollyhocks,” he heard himself say. It was something his mother used to say when she was surprised and he hadn’t even known he’d retained the phrase in his memory.

  His eyes opened wide, his face expressionless, as he drank in what lay before him—a whole box full of gold and silver trinkets, religious icons, statues, candlesticks, wineglasses, and decanters—the silver shrouded in tarnish but the gold looking as shiny-new as yesterday, as though it had been forged only hours ago.

  Multicolored jewels were scattered about like sugar sprinkles on a cake. There were small statues of the saints, about eight inches tall. Slowly lowering his hand to one, as though it would shatter at his touch, Cameron wrapped his fingers around it and lifted it out of the box, surprised by its weight.

  He lifted it above his head to peer at the bottom of the base. Scrawled there were the words, San Bernardo, 1735. It was typical that the priest-artisan, in keeping with a vow of humility, had not signed it. He hefted it again. It weighed as much as a rock three times its size.

  Hearing something that sounded too much like raised voices to be ignored, he stuck his head into the small tunnel leading off the pit. He listened for a moment.

  Something popped. It sounded like a gun.

  “What is it?” Cameron yelled.

  When no answer came, he hurried back through the tiny tunnel to the main pit. The torch had burned down to almost nothing, and he held it carefully to keep it lit.

  “What’s going on?” he yelled up the hole.

  “Jack!” It was Jimmy Bronco. His voice quivered as he yelled down the pit. “We got trouble!”

  CHAPTER 34

  CAMEROON STEPPED INTO the rope and yelled, “Bring me up!”

  There was no reply, but the rope yanked taut with surprising force, squeezing the air from his lungs. He was jerked off his feet and slammed against the wall of the pit, smacking his head so hard his vision swam.

  Cameron dropped the torch as the rope wrenched him up the wall like a side of beef. Grunting against the sudden, violent jerks, feeling as though the rope was going to pull his shoulders out of joint, he used his feet and hands to push himself away from the stony sides of the pit.

  Who the hell was up there, anyway? Cameron already knew it wasn’t anyone he wanted to see.

  He was at the top of the pit before he knew it, lying facedown beside the hole, his sides sore and burning from the violent chafing of the rope. He’d started to push himself up when a brusque hand took over, grabbing him by his hair and collar, jerking him to his feet. A rancid, sour odor of sweat and human filth filled his nostrils.

  No … it couldn’t be …

  Marina screamed.

  Cameron blinked, then stared.

  By the light of the candles Clark had placed around the room, Perro Loco regarded Cameron with amusement. Cameron would not have been more surprised to see the devil himself standing there.

  Maybe Cameron had been knocked out in his ascent, and he was only dreaming. But he’d never dreamed a smell that strong …

  “H-how the hell …” he began. The Indian brought a roundhouse punch into Cameron’s jaw. It was a solid, braintwisting, vision-blurring blow that sent Cameron sprawling across the hole, one leg falling into the pit as he clutched the floor.

  Marina screamed again. Instinctively, Cameron reached for his .45. His hand grazed the cool barrel just as the Indian removed the gun from his holster.

  He was waiting to hear the hammer click back and feel a bullet tear into his skull when the Indian said in guttural, stilted English, “No. No guns. You, me, Cam-er-on. We fight with knife.”

  Cameron raised his head to look up into the brokentoothed grin.

  “To death,” the Indian added happily.

  Cameron turned onto his back, got his legs under him, and climbed to his feet, feeling wobbly from the
punch that had cracked his lip and sent blood trickling down his jaw. Wiping the blood with the back of his wrist, he glanced around the room, getting a fix on the situation.

  Jimmy was lying in the entrance to the room, where he’d apparently been flung, arms and legs spread. He was either dead or out cold. Clark lay nearby, on his chest, blood spreading onto the rocks and dust beneath him.

  Marina sat on the ledge above Clark. Her hat was off, her hair was mussed, and her blouse was torn. She stared at Cameron, her brown eyes bright with fear.

  Cameron dropped his eyes to the holster on her waist. Her pistol-gripped revolver wasn’t there. Shuttling his gaze to Loco, he saw the gun, as well as two others—probably Clark’s and Jimmy’s—residing in the Indian’s waistband.

  The Indian followed Cameron’s gaze. He lifted his head and smiled cunningly. He jabbed a finger at Cameron, then thrust it into his own broad chest.

  “You, me, Cam-er-on. We fight again. No guns.”

  He tossed Cameron’s Colt into the pit, then removed the three other revolvers from his waistband and tossed them down as well; they clattered as they hit bottom. Grabbing the big bowie from the scabbard on his hip, he held out the wide, razor-sharp blade for Cameron’s inspection. It was smeared with fresh blood, probably Clark’s.

  Perro Loco dropped his eyes to the bowie on Cameron’s waist. “Knife … we fight like men.”

  The smile again, drying Cameron’s throat and pricking his loins with cold, wet dread.

  Cameron grabbed his bowie, trying to convince himself the situation was not without hope. He had a chance. The problem was he hadn’t fought with a knife in a long time. He knew that Perro Loco, like most Apache warriors, fought with knives often, and prided himself on his proficiency with the weapon.

  Cameron glanced at the Indian’s sharp steel blade, buttery with reflected candlelight, and his mouth filled with the coppery taste of fear. Okay, so he’d probably die. He only hoped he could somehow take this big Indian bastard with him …