Ghost Bandits of Sonora (Elizabeth Crowne)

by Robert Isenberg

  And yet—the place was also a mess. Two stately rocking chairs were draped in long underwear. The kitchen area boasted two polished wood counters and a shiny washing basin. Yet unscrubbed dishes were stacked in disorderly piles. A hunk of half-carved meat moldered in its skillet. Two paintings were tacked to the walls; each showed a creek cutting through a forest at a different time of year. The frames were elegant and painted gold, yet they hung at odd angles, as if they’d been knocked sideways and never righted.

  Most surprising of all was the bed, which was queen-sized and covered in quilts. The bedding was bunched up, and blankets were flopped over the sides of the mattresses. The pillows looked as if they’d been individually beaten. Dry dirt was scattered across the sheets; bundled socks and shirts lay everywhere.

  “Poor thing,” said the woman. “Out in the rain like that. Come get yourself warm.”

  The woman moved toward the hearth, and Maude examined her hostess: She was a compact woman, perhaps forty years old. She wore a woolen black turtleneck the color of caramel, along with dark blue jeans and thick socks. Her figure was motherly, yet every curve looked hard and strong, sculpted by years of physical work. She reached for the edge of the fire, where a plain teapot stood, steam rising from its spout. She poured boiling water into two cups and gestured to the chair.

  “Have a seat, dearie. I won’t bite.”

  Maude hesitated. The chair was still covered in discarded clothes, but the woman didn’t seem to care. She sank into the jumble of garments and leaned into the glowing hearth.

  Maude accepted the mug and stuttered her thanks.

  “Least I can do,” said the woman matter-of-factly. “It’s just hot water, mind you, but it’ll do you right. The railroad men call it white tea.”

  The woman started to rock. In the light of the fire, Maude could see her fully: a handsome face, if ever there was one. Decades of sun had permanently bronzed her cheeks and brow, and soft wrinkles outlined her narrow eyes. Her coils of auburn hair had gracefully grayed, and they were bound in a tightly wrapped bandanna.

  “What brings you all the way out here?” she asked mildly.

  “Oh, I…” Maude was so thankful for the shelter that she had barely thought to explain herself. “I got lost.”

  “Did you, now?” The woman grinned. “Hell of a place to lose your way.”

  “Yes,” Maude decided to agree. “I’m not very good at direction.”

  The woman sipped. “Coming from town?”

  “Oh—yes. That’s right. Do you—do you happen to know the way back?”

  “Should probably wait for the rain to stop. At best, you’ll catch cold. At worst—” The woman raised her eyebrow, and Maude felt a chill beneath her damp clothes.

  But then the woman smiled—confident, knowing—and saluted to Maude with a pair of fingers. “The name’s Holly, by the way.”

  “I’m—uh, Maude.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Maude. You must come from back East.”

  “That’s right.” Maude’s lips crinkled. “How did you know?”

  “The way you talk. You can tell a mile away.”

  Maude raised the mug to her mouth, but she couldn’t bring herself to drink. She felt strange, just sitting here like this. The woman was kind to let her stay, but what were they talking about? What was this place? Everything seemed wrong, as if she’d stepped into a dream.

  “Are you—are you here alone?” Maude asked.

  “Me?” The woman chuckled. “Nah. This place wouldn’t be such a sty if it was only me.” She waved vaguely at the clothing littered around them. “I have four brothers. All of ’em younger. Always a bunch of pigs, those boys.”

  Maude giggled. She couldn’t stand clutter, and she’d known plenty of men to leave disaster in their wake. But she privately laughed at Elizabeth, who was the untidiest of all. Before Maude came along, her house in Pittsburgh had been a catastrophe. The moment Elizabeth opened a suitcase, its contents exploded everywhere, never to be refolded. This contrast had always been the private joke they shared, Elizabeth’s over-worn dresses to Maude’s hand-made gowns that always smelled of lilac.

  Rain thrummed the roof. Maude’s eyes drifted across the scenery, from the wide brick chimney to the bear-skin rug sprawled beneath their feet. She looked to her right, away from Holly, until her eyes fell upon a table.

  It was a long table, built from pine. On its rough surface, eight sacks stood in rows. At first Maude couldn’t tell what she was looking at; the sacks were full and standing upright. Each had its own drawstring, fully loosened. Maude blinked at these canvas containers, their contents exposed.

  The sacks were full of powder.

  Red powder.

  Maude’s veins ran cold.

  But she didn’t gasp. She didn’t even breathe. She felt dizzy and disembodied. Every muscle in her body froze in place.

  Next to the sacks lay a thick ceramic bowl. The natural orange surface had been stained a ferocious red. A pestle lay in the middle, its wooden bulb crimson-colored from hours of grinding.

  Four brothers, Maude thought. And Holly. That makes five.

  “Lost your way,” said Holly. “All the way from town.”

  Her voice was quiet, yet it struck Maude like a bolt of lightning. She twisted her head back, trying to keep her composure.

  “Well…” Maude said, shifting numbly in her chair. “It took a little while.”

  “How long would you say?”

  “Oh…” Maude studied her nails. She dared not look her host in the eye. “I don’t know. I was very lost.”

  “I’ll bet you were.” Holly blew lightly across the top of her mug. “I’ll bet you have no idea where you are.”

  Maude felt a deluge of panic. She should walk out. She should get away. But then what? If she put down her mug, how quickly would the woman move? Would she try to stop her? How far to the door? Did Holly have a weapon? Would she threaten her? But wait—maybe she didn’t suspect anything. Maybe this was just idle banter. What trouble could Maude possibly cause her, this utter stranger?

  “Now I’m wondering,” Holly went on, her eyes trained on the fire, her voice as even as ever. “What would a nice young city girl be doing in a place like this? Out here, all alone?”

  “Oh, well…” Maude could feel her lip quiver. “I was with my husband, you see.”

  The woman’s smile grew, distorting the texture of her face. “Your husband.”

  “Yes. You see, we got separated, and…” Maude leaned forward, letting the mug levitate above the hearth’s brick floor. “I’m terribly worried for him.”

  “Yes,” Holly said, bemused. “You look very worried.”

  “So, thank you for the tea—or water, I mean—but I should really go find him…”

  “You know what I think?” said Holly, unflinching. “I don’t think you are worried about your husband.”

  “Oh, but I am—”

  “Because I don’t think you’re married. Or else you’d have a ring.”

  Maude instinctively reached for her empty fingers. She massaged the clammy skin, as if a metal band had mysteriously vanished from her knuckle.

  “Well, you see, we’re very poor—”

  “Don’t me wrong, dearie,” Holly went on. “You seem like a nice kid. And honest. So honest, you don’t even know how to lie.” She turned her gaze to Maude, paralyzing her. “Innocence is a virtue, Maude. But it’s not very useful at a time like this.”

  Maude groped the armrests of her rocking chair. She wanted to spring upward, sprint across the floorboards, and fling herself through the entryway. But could she pull open that heavy wood door before Holly caught up? How agile was this woman? She was athletic, Maude could tell, and age would do nothing to slow her lynx-like body.

  “But maybe you’re telling the truth,” Holly persisted, her tone hardening with every word. “Who am I to say? Maybe you did get lost, on your little walk through the desert. You came from town, you said. Isn’t that right?”


  Maude could barely push out the whisper. “Y-y-yes.”

  “Well, good.” Holly leaned to the side of the chair. She set her mug down in the bear rug’s fur. “Then tell me—what’s the name of the town?”

  Maude rose from her seat. But she moved slowly; her scrawny limbs quivered beneath her. As she abandoned the chair, she browsed the cabin—the closed windows, at the distant door, everything closed, impassable.

  “I don’t think you came from town,” Holly said. She pushed herself easily to her feet. “But it begs the question, doesn’t it? Where did you come from? Not much around here. No roads. No settlements. So how did a pretty young thing like you end up here?”

  In a flash, that wry smile turned wicked. Her narrow eyes blazed. Holly lifted a hand toward her face, then pulled at the collar of her turtleneck. She reached into the depths of her sweater, then grasped something near her throat. A delicate chain twinkled in the firelight. Holly grinned. There, at the end of her necklace, dangled a pendant. A band of silver, wrapped around a stone.

  Quartz.

  Maude swayed. She thought she might faint. One hunk of stone, and it all made sense. In a flash, Maude understood everything.

  “I think you found yourself one of these.” Holly took a step forward.

  Maude retreated behind the chair. But now what? There was nothing behind her but the corner of the room. Until now, Holly had seemed wise and generous; now she was wild, vulturine, ready to spring. She tilted her head forward; she squared her shoulders. The two women faced each other, predator and prey. There was only way this standoff could end.

  And then, to Maude’s horror, she heard a knock at the door.

  Chapter 11

  “All right, Sparrow,” said Elizabeth. “Let’s hear it.”

  Sparrow sat on the ground, his face salmon-colored in the glow of the campfire. The flames crackled. The black logs were fringed with florid gray. The fire spat sparks into the smoke. If Elizabeth weren’t so eager to hear Sparrow speak, she would have relished its primal scent.

  “Understand,” said Sparrow stoically, “I’m no expert in Indian lore. I know the things that people tell me, nothing more. Indian blood may flow through my veins, and Indian men may welcome me, when our paths cross. But from the moment my father found my papoose on his doorstep, I was raised as a white man. And you will not be surprised, I think, that I live in both worlds—and neither.”

  Elizabeth could feel her heartbeat in her temples. Sparrow spoke in a breezy voice. His eyes fixed on the fire.

  “I loved my father,” said Sparrow, “who raised me like his own son. He lost his wife, so I was motherless. When I was a young man, I lost my father, too. My heart cracked that day. But I found my own way to mourn.”

  “How?” murmured Elizabeth.

  “My father was a cartographer. That’s how he came to the Arizona Territory. The government sent him to map the backlands. His study was full of maps. So when he passed, I took those maps, and I walked. I walked for years. I wanted to retrace his steps. To see precisely where he had gone. I slept in a tent. I ate whatever I found. And my only companions were my horse and my gun.”

  Sparrow looked up, and his eyes met Robins’. The Deputy stood a few feet away, on the edge of the firelight. He held his unopened tin of tobacco; he didn’t move. After a moment, Robins nodded his head in silent fraternity.

  “Spend enough time out there,” Sparrow went on, “and the desert becomes everything. I saw my father in every contour. I saw his kindness, and I saw his pain. I saw his strength, and I saw his brittleness. And I saw something more. Call it whatever you want—spirits, ghosts, tommyknockers. But once you’ve been alone, truly alone, a mirage is as real as anything.”

  Elizabeth smirked. “Sparrow—please don’t tell me it’s the Boogie Man.”

  “No. I fear it’s something stranger.”

  Sparrow leaned forward and dug his cigar into the smoldering log. One end flared with light, and he raised the stogie to his lips and puffed. “I’ve met every kind of traveler in these parts. Indians and white men. Panners and furriers. Miners, fugitives, everything in between. They all tell stories. They’re full of tall tales. You never know what to believe. But one story stays the same. No matter what language. No matter what temperament. Late at night, after a lot of drink, men let down their guards, and they tell me—about the passages.”

  Elizabeth straightened. She raised a finger to Sparrow. “You knew, didn’t you? When you saw the spiral in the stone—you knew there would be petroglyphs. You saw them before either of us, because you thought to look for them.”

  “I wasn’t sure,” said Sparrow. “I’d never seen them myself. But I remembered the tales, and I always wondered. Swirls in the rock. Trees curving in the same shape. Like a whirlpool, drawing you in. And the writing—a warning, by ancient peoples, who knew better than we do.”

  “A vortex,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “A what again?” Robins said, his voice gravelly.

  Elizabeth stood up and dusted off her dress. She began her habitual pace, back and forth in front of the fire. “I’ve heard of this,” she said. “Doorways, which pass through dimensions.”

  “Now hold on!” Robins exclaimed. “How do you believe that and not in ghosts?”

  “Apples and oranges,” replied Elizabeth. “But suppose it’s possible—that you could step through a doorway in one location and appear somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Sparrow, didn’t you say that those chilies—the fire fruit—only grow in one place?”

  “So I hear.”

  “And it’s three hundred miles away, you said?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  Elizabeth clapped her hands together. “What if these bandits are using the vortex. They’re quartered near the chili grove. But when they robbed Ezra, they moved through this passage. They skipped over hundreds of miles in a matter of seconds. They emerged in this very cave. They came out through the mine. And they attacked the town. They robbed the bank, and then they escaped—back through the vortex. That’s why they never needed supplies. They’re not here. They’re somewhere else.”

  Robins mulled this over. “Sounds like succatash to me. But given the circumstances…”

  “Think about it, Robins,” said Elizabeth. “A vortex would make one hell of a getaway car. And it would explain all the disappearances in Mine Number One. The men who vanished. All the voices in the dark, the strange goings-on. And it would mean—” Elizabeth faltered. “It would mean Maude is all right. She’s just somewhere else.”

  “Somewhere else,” echoed Sparrow, “with a gang of killers.”

  Elizabeth darkened, but she shook away her grim imaginings. “If we’re right, there’s just one question. Why did Maude go through the vortex, but the rest of us didn’t? Why only certain miners, and not others? And why the bandits? How do they control it?”

  “That sounds like four questions,” Robins said, with a half-hearted guffaw.

  “Some of the stories I heard,” said Sparrow, “told of a totem.”

  “A totem?” Elizabeth said. “Go on. What kind?”

  “I don’t know if I could say. These are spiritual people. They know nothing of physics or dimensions. To them, another world is another world. It’s not for us to understand its reason.”

  “All right,” said Robins. “Supposing this ain’t some crazy talk. Did the little lady have something? Something we didn’t have?”

  “I can’t imagine what,” rejoined Elizabeth. “Unless you mean five bottles of perfume.”

  “Did she pick up anything? A souvenir? A—I don’t know—an artifact, maybe?”

  Elizabeth was charmed by the Deputy’s commitment. Five minutes ago, he would have brushed aside Sparrow’s talk of doorways through spirit-worlds as primitive folklore. Now, he could entertain the inter-dimensional logic, if only to help the cause.

  Then it came to her.

  “The rock,” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “The what, now?”
Robins said.

  “That lump of quartz. The one you found on the floor of the bank. Right after the heist. Remember? You handed it to me, and I gave it to Maude—” She snapped her fingers. “She must still have it in her bag!”

  “Are you saying,” Robins said, “that that little hunk of rock is this so-called totem? Like some kind of carnival ticket to another dimension?”

  “I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Elizabeth said. She smiled with tentative triumph. “Think about it. Some minerals are radioactive. Others are magnetic. And phosphorescent rocks can even glow in the dark. So perhaps this bit of quartz can channel another kind of energy, an energy that science hasn’t yet defined—electric, magnetic, who knows? Whatever it is, that energy opens the portal. And whoever’s close enough to the quartz—they come along, too.”

  A silence followed. Robins stepped toward the fire and crouched low. He warmed his hands above the flame, then picked up a stick and stoked the coals. As he poked, he triggered a cascade of fresh sparks.

  “All them months in the mine,” he said, “digging up rock with a pick and a shovel. Backbreaking work. Never knew when the tunnel might cave in. That was the worst part—more than the dark and the sweat and coming home in filthy clothes. Nothing made me more afraid. That idea of getting buried alive. My wife begged me not to go. Said there was plenty of other ways to make money. But I went. Every morning, I went back in.” He scratched his mustache. “When Pedro disappeared, it was right before my eyes. One second there, the next second—poof. The look on his face, I’ll never forget it. Never saw a man so scared.”

  “Maybe he survived,” Elizabeth said. “If we’re right, he just appeared somewhere else.”

  “Crazy, ain’t it?” pondered the Deputy. “Pedro probably found some rock on the ground, thought it was pretty. Must’ve carried it around. Maybe it was his good luck charm. Who knows? He wanders into that there cave, just ’cause he’s curious. Wants to see himself some petroglyphs. Next thing he knows, he’s in some damned vortex.”