Novel 1974 - The Californios (v5.0) (18 page)

The cave was empty. There was nothing there, nothing at all.

He did not move. His muscles seemed stiff, and when he tried to swallow he had to struggle to do it.

Carefully, he drew his gun. The cave mouth was empty, outside there was sunlight. He crouched down, his back against the cave wall. His eyes went again to the place where the Old One’s body had lain.

The marks of it were there. That, at least, had not been an illusion. The marks were there, and something else he must not have noticed before. The tracks of sandals…

Of woven sandals. His tongue managed to wet his dry lips. He could see the marks of two sets of sandals on either side of the place where the Old One had lain.

Sandals?

That was silly. He was imagining things. Those tracks or whatever they were had to have been there before.

They must have been.

Only they were not.

He straightened up slowly. No use staying here, the gold was gone. It was time to get out. Yet the gold must have come from here, from somewhere around. Gold did not just appear out of thin air. He told himself that, several times.

Circling to avoid the spot where the old man’s body had been, he eased out of the cave mouth into the sunlight. All was quiet. The terrace outside was empty. It was very flat, right down to the edge of the creek. Like a floor. Maybe it had been a floor at some time.

He mopped his face with a handkerchief and squinted his eyes against the morning sun. Heat waves shimmered beyond the terrace. He’d never seen them so close before. Heat waves usually only showed themselves at some distance.

He mopped his face again and looked slowly around. No signs of mining, no arrastra, no rusted picks or shovels, no evidence of placer mining.

Where the devil had that body gone to?

He must go. He wanted to get away from here, far, far away, yet there was a deep-seated fear within him…would they let him go?

And who were
they?

He still held the pistol in his hand. He walked slowly, putting each foot down carefully, walking as if in a trance, back to the trail. Only he could not seem to see the trail. It was here…right here.

Brush, bare sand, some scattered rock, but no trail. Surely he had come in from the east? Of course, he could see the great gap in the mountain over there. He stumbled into the brush. Just head for that gap and he’d find his way out.

What could have happened to that trail? Of course, it was probably just behind some brush, he’d just cut too short or something. He would come upon it any time now. Anyway, there was the gap. Head for that and he’d be out where his horse was.

It was very hot in the brush where no breeze could reach him. He started to hurry, sweat streaked his face, ran down his body under his shirt. He stumbled, almost went to his knees and straightened up. There was a bush right before him. He must have turned halfway around when he almost fell. He changed direction, pushed his way between clinging bushes and thrust on.

Suddenly he came up short. He had faced around and was heading back. He mopped his face, stared wildly around and plunged on again. When he fought himself free of the brush his shirt was torn. He had been carrying his pistol in his hand and now he thrust it back in the holster.

He stood in a small open space among clumps of brush and trees, panting for breath. God, but it was
hot!
He stared around him. Where the devil was that trail?

Due to the height of the brush he could no longer see the gap and only a portion of the rim. He started on, then paused.

On the sand, right before him, were the distinct tracks of sandals.

Two feet, side by side.

Only they stood where no man could have stood due to the bulge of the brush. They were there, as if someone had stood there only a moment before, looking at him.

He turned away, found a space between trees and walked through. Ahead of him there was a flat rock about waist high, standing between two trees. A third tree was behind it, and the rock looked almost like a stone picnic table.

Or a butcher’s block. Or an altar. Or both.

He had started forward to sit down on it, wanting a rest. Now he backed away, until the brush brought him up short. An altar?

What kind of a silly thought was that? An altar in such a place as this? Of course, he supposed, the Indians might have used altars. He had little idea of how they worshiped or even if they did.

Speaking of Indians…what happened to that body?

And those sandal tracks?

Still, the place where a rock had been lying might look something like a sandal track, or a lot of things might have caused it. Anyway there were no Indians around here. Francisco said that.

But Francisco was gone. He had fled in the night. Why?

King-Pin Russell looked again at the altar. Then for the first time he realized that three tracks came out of the woods leading up to the altar.

Like the tracks of a gigantic turkey three trails emerged from the brush and ended at the altar, if altar it was.

He mopped the sweat from his face and neck. Which way to go? Damn it, how could he have lost that trail? If he could only see over the brush, locate the gap. After all, it
was
the only way out. If he could locate the gap he had only to go down the slope to it.

He looked around for a tree to climb, but there were none near that would bear his weight. The highest place and the best footing were on the altar.

He started toward it, then stopped, a curious reluctance coming over him.
What kind of a damn’ fool you gettin’ to be?
he asked himself.
You’re like a kid or some silly woman
.

He rested his hands on the altar, then vaulted easily to the top. Standing on tiptoes he peered over the brush and saw the gap…just over there.

His vision blurred. He shook his head, feeling slightly dizzy and nauseous. What was the matter, anyway? Heat waves shimmered and the horizon became vague, unreal. What was the matter? What was happening to him? He swayed, clutched at the empty air, and fell. He seemed to fall for a long, long time, then smashed against the ground.

The earth seemed to tip and roll and he clutched at it, his brain spinning in slow, dipping rolls. He tried to rise but his muscles had no strength, he tried to think, but his thoughts would not focus.

He lifted his head and the heat waves shimmered and the trees showed through them, but there was no solidity anywhere, not in the trees, nor yet in the mountains. He was neither wholly conscious nor unconscious and yet vaguely he seemed to see the shimmering air, seemed to hear the shuffling sounds of sandals, seemed to see the unreal shapes of Indians in the dancing heat waves.

Were they near or far? Were they real or only figments of his distraught mind?

The Indians, like no Indians he had ever seen, came slowly from the heat waves.

“He pursued the Old One,” one said.

“He was the enemy of the Señora,” another said.

“He is evil,” said a third.

“If he goes now he will tell others of this place,” the first one said.

“So he must not go,” said the second, “not for a long, long time.”

Was it only in his mind? Was he vaguely conscious, or was this a dream, a nightmare, a haunting unreality come to torture his delirium?

He felt hands grasp his arms and legs. He tried to move, and he could not. He felt himself lifted…carried.…

H
ILO CAME UP from the schooner to help, and several of the Chumash, who had helped before, came to the ranch. They dug holes and sank posts, slender posts to hold up roofs made of tules for shade. The oak trees near the house offered shade also, and a space was roped off for the dancing.

Sean rode out on the hill near Las Flores Canyon and shot three steers to be butchered on the spot. One was brought in upon a cart after the meat was dressed and hung up in the shade. Two were to be roasted upon spits.

A dozen women had appeared, some from the homes of vaqueros, some from the pueblo, and they bustled about busy with a thousand things, cooking, decorating, cleaning, preparing for the fiesta. After killing the meat and seeing that it arrived safely, Sean kept out of the way.

At one side he spoke to Polanco. “It is a time to be careful,” he said, “we want no trouble, but if it comes—?”

“We will be ready, Señor. It is understood.”

Tennison came up from the
Lady Luck
. “Down to Pedro,” he said, “there’s talk around. King-Pin’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“He never came back from the mountains. Wooston is hinting he was killed, murdered.”

“He probably just got lost. He would not be the first.”

“No, he wouldn’t. But that ain’t what Wooston has in mind. Wooston hasn’t said yet, so far’s I could make out, but he sort of implies maybe it was you who did him in.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Just figured you should know.” Tennison watched the women passing to and fro, then said, “Cap’n, what does happen back in yonder?”

Sean shrugged. “Look…it is mountain and semidesert. There’s water if a man knows where to look, and if he doesn’t he can kill himself looking. If a man gets lost the best thing he can do is head west. Sooner or later he will come to the sea, if he lasts long enough.”

“What about all this talk of ha’nts and such-like?”

“Who knows?” Sean thought of the mountain valleys and canyons, so still, so alone, and yet—

“Every country has its secrets, and every people their superstitions. Who is to say what is and what is not true? One of the stories current among the Indians is that they came out of a cave or a hole in the ground into this world. That may be pure symbolism. It may imply they were simply born of the earth, but it might mean just what it says.

“The more you wander around back there the more you’re willing to believe anything the Indians believe. Walk up any one of those canyons alone and see how you feel. You won’t go a hundred yards before you wonder if something is not watching.

“You don’t get it in the open desert as much, but wherever there are canyons, rocks, peaks and such, you get that feeling. Now maybe it is just a feeling…but maybe something is watching.

“Once when the Old One talked to me he told me they knew about me, and they knew about the Señora, and they were friendly to us, but he did not tell me who ‘they’ were.”

“Knew a sailorman one time, he was a great talker, but he’d been ’most everywhere. He allowed how there was other worlds right next to this one…something about time and space…I couldn’t make out just what he meant. He said he was a disciple of Pythagoras, whatever that meant, but he argued that a man could pass right from one world into the next, and maybe come back, too. Only the time was different…or could be different.”

“I’ve heard such talk. You get out in those hills alone and soon you are ready to believe almost anything.”

He paused, listening to the
pat-pat-i-pat-pat
of women’s hands slapping tortillas. “Out east people talk of all manner of mysterious things. That’s India, China, and places like that, but they don’t know this country. The old people here…I’m not sure if they were what we called Indians or not…they had their own mysteries.

“You look at one of these Indians. Maybe he’s just a man who hunts wild game, plants a few crops, herds sheep or loafs around the village…but maybe he’s relative to something that’s old…older than any of our history, older than there’s any figure for.

“They say one time this land north of here was covered with ice…a glacier. But what was there before the ice came? What would be left of an adobe house if a thousand feet of ice lay over it? Grinding down, pushing, pulverizing. But there are some things that cannot be lost as long as one man or woman exists, and that’s the memories of older times.

“If the children don’t listen, of course, and if they don’t want to hear, then something is lost, but somewhere it lingers on. Somewhere there’s been a record left…if a man could find it…or if he was really sure he wanted to.”

“Of course he’d want to. If he had any brains he’d want to.”

Sean smiled wryly. “Maybe…and maybe not. As long as a man gets up in the morning, pulls on his pants, stomps into his boots, and goes about his business the world is a simple, comfortable, understandable place. You get to delving…delving deep…well, there’s no telling what you’ll bring up.