Novel 1987 - The Haunted Mesa (v5.0) (41 page)

About fifty yards away, Volkmeer was standing, a rifle in his hands.

“Who is he?” Kawasi asked. “Is it—”

“Volkmeer. He's supposed to be a friend of mine but he's taken money from them.

“Melisande? Where is the opening? I don't see—”

“You can't see. It is near that rock. The big one that looks like a dinosaur? Keep to the left and keep your eyes on the horizon. Look at the rounded mountain. Do not take your eyes from it. The opening is small, almost a window. When you are there you will see.”

“Don't look like they're goin' to let us,” Johnny said. “Do I start shootin'?”

“Wait,” Erik said. “It is only one man.”

Mike moved ahead. “Hi, Volk! Didn't know you ever came over to this side.”

“Time or two.” His rifle tilted. “Can't let you go no further, Mike.”

“So you've turned against us, Volk? I didn't expect it of you.”

“Didn't expect it of me neither. Then I got to thinkin'. I ain't a young man no more an' I been livin' soft on their money. You done me a turn one time, an' I'm obliged, but that don't cut no ice now.”

“You've still got a chance, Volk. Remember? You said once that one time I could do it all. I still can, Volk, and I've learned a lot since then.”

“Maybe, but I ain't alone.”

“Kawasi? Melisande? When the shooting starts,
run
! Get through that opening, no matter how! Take Erik with you, even if you have to drag him. He's not armed, and we are.”

Melisande hesitated. “The tubes they have are weapons. They must be within sixty feet to be effective.”

“Get going,” he said.

Volkmeer moved to stop them and Mike called out: “The last time, Volk! Get out of this!”

“Like hell! I—”

He swung his rifle as Raglan moved, and fired. He saw Volk's knees buckle and the man collapsed into a sitting position, his rifle falling across his ankles.

Behind him Mike heard Johnny's gun boom, and turned in time to see a row of Varanel rising from the ground, already nearly within range.

Johnny dropped his rifle and drew his six-shooter and fired rapidly. Mike joined in, and the line fell back. The girls were almost at the rock and he yelled at Johnny, “Let's go, John! Back off and run!”

Johnny started backing toward them. Then, glancing around, he yelled, “Mike! Look
out
!”

Raglan turned swiftly, but not swiftly enough. A blow struck his gun hand and he dropped his pistol.

Zipacna was facing him, smiling. “Now, you will begin to learn! And when we have put you away we shall teach you more!”

His right wrist was numb with pain, and Zipacna was closing in, his stick lifted to strike. He struck and Mike ducked under the blow and in close, not as Zipacna expected. Stooping low to avoid the blow, Mike swung a kick with his left foot, catching Zipacna on the knee. The larger man's leg folded and he fell forward. Mike hit him as he was falling.

Yet Zipacna rolled over and came up swiftly, favoring his leg but able to move. Now he was wary, but moving in, sure of himself.

Johnny was firing again. The Varanel were circling, holding back, but surrounding them on all sides. A quick glance showed Mike the girls and Erik were gone.

There was no time now. Zipacna was closing in, wary, but smiling and confident. Every people had some system of self-defense. What was his?

Johnny had found a place in the rocks and was reloading his rifle and replacing the empty cylinder of his pistol with another. That was the old way, for when loading took time, a man who needed a gun often carried fully loaded cylinders that could be quickly put in place.

“Johnny.” Mike spoke loudly but he was watching Zipacna. “Get through the hole. You've no time.”

“I ain't leavin' you.”

“You've got to. When I get a chance I'll make my break.”

“You have no chance,” Zipacna said. “Now I kill you!”

He took a quick, fencer's lunge with his left fingers stiffly extended, stabbing for Mike's eye. Mike ducked in time and the stabbing hand skidded around his skull. But those extended fingers were like steel.

Mike feinted, then smashed a left to the body and missed a crossing right to the chin. Zipacna stepped back, then another of those stabbing lunges. The stiff fingers hit Mike just above the eye and cut deep, showering him with blood. Zipacna sprang close and tried to throw him with a rolling hip lock.

Mike stabbed his own fingers down into a spot just above the hipbone, and Zipacna's knees buckled. He fell and Mike fell with him. They both lunged to their feet, and Mike took a quick glance toward the place of the opening.

Zipacna struck again with the stabbing fingers, and again they cut deep. Blood streaming down his face, Mike dodged another stabbing blow and slipped inside, smashing both fists to the body, then whipping a right hook over Zipacna's shoulder that split his cheekbone.

Zipacna staggered and Mike moved in, smashing another hook to the body, and then a left that crunched Zipacna's nose. Zipacna staggered, then fell. Scrambling to his feet, he fought like a madman, clawing at Mike's face with steellike fingers.

Mike slammed another blow to the body, but it was corded with muscle. Nevertheless, Zipacna winced at the blow, and Mike put everything he had into a right uppercut, turning his body with the weight behind it.

The fist collided with Zipacna's chin. His feet left the ground and he came down hard.

Turning swiftly, Mike lunged for the opening he hoped was there.

In that flashing instant he saw that Johnny was gone, but just as he reached the spot, something thrown hard from behind struck him behind the ear.

He felt himself falling, and in that last instant of consciousness he lunged forward, then fell, face down. Something seized him violently by the collar and he was jerked along the ground. Desperately, only half-conscious, he tried to struggle, but the vicious grip on his collar would not yield. He was dragged roughly along the ground, and in that instant his last grip on consciousness failed.

Chapter 44

B
LOOD.

There was blood on the ground where he lay. The side of his face was against the earth and his eyes were open and he was staring at blood on the grass, blood on the sand.

It was his blood. His mind told him that, although he could not have explained how he knew. He moved a hand, wanting to touch his face.

“Hey! He's comin' out of it! He isn't dead yet.”

“Hard man to kill,” somebody said.

Somebody knelt beside him and gentle fingers touched his face. “He's cut on the forehead,” somebody said, and then a woman's voice said, “It was Zipacna.”

The voice was that of Kawasi.

“I'm all right.” He spoke aloud. “Somebody threw something, hit me on the back of the head.”

“You were hit, all right.” That was Gallagher speaking. “You've got a welt back there as big as both my fists.”

Struggling, Mike sat up. “I'm all right,” he repeated. “Something grabbed me back there.”

“It was Chief,” Gallagher said. “He pulled you through.”

“He what?”

“Grabbed you by the collar and pulled you through—just in time.”

Carefully, Raglan got to his feet. He swayed for an instant, then steadied himself. “Did anything else come through?” He looked at Kawasi. “I mean, except our crowd?”

“Nobody. Nothing.”

“Mike?” It was Erik Hokart. “Thanks. Thanks for both of us.”

“It was nothing,” he lied, “simply nothing at all.”

He looked around. “Where are we?”

Gallagher hooked his thumbs behind his belt. “On top of No Man's, waiting for a helicopter to take us off.”

“Isn't there a trail? There was supposed to be a trail.”

“There is one,” Gallagher said, “but we haven't found it yet. You come over with me next week and I'll hike it with you.”

His head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache. Tentatively, he touched his brow. It was caked with dried blood now. He had been cut to the bone at least twice.

He wanted to get cleaned up, and then he wanted to lie down. He just wanted to rest, to sleep. He wanted to sleep for a week. He said as much.

“Not yet,” Gallagher said, “I've got something to show you.”

He would not explain.

The helicopter took them back to the Haunted Mesa.

At the ruin, Erik began gathering his belongings, and Mike picked up his backpack. He could see his car, not too far away. “We'll go back to Tamarron,” he said to Kawasi. “Erik, you'd better bring Melisande and come with me. You, too, Johnny. There's plenty of room.”

“Mike?” Gallagher said. “Got something you should see. That there spacequake or whatever it was happened last night. Happened just after Chief pulled you through the hole. Seems like ever'body wasn't so lucky.”

“What do you mean?”

Gallagher had been leading him toward the kiva. Now he lifted a hand and pointed.

Where the window had been there were some fallen stones, and behind them an intact stone wall. Intact but for one thing.

A human body cannot pass through a solid. Or can it? The brick wall was there, and in the middle of it was Volkmeer's head, a shoulder, and one arm with a grasping hand.

The stones of the ancient wall, apparently undisturbed for centuries, were built around him, perhaps even through him. Somewhere on the other side was the rest of him, the part that did not make it through.

Volkmeer was dead. To all intents and purposes he might have been dead, almost mummified, for centuries.

“Try explaining that,” Gallagher said. “Just try.”

“You explain it,” Raglan said. “I'm a stranger here myself.”

They stood silent for a minute, and then Gallagher said, “Eden's gone. Deeded the place to Mary and just pulled out.”

At the helicopter Gallagher said, “Want me to fly you back?”

“We'll drive,” Raglan said, “But thanks.” He paused a minute, then said, “Gallagher? Did you ever make fire with a bow and blunt arrow?”

“Sure. Lots of times when I was a youngster. An old Paiute showed me how.”

Mike Raglan walked out away from the ruin, and thrust a stick in the ground, tying a red bandana to the end. “They should be able to see that,” he said.

At the base of it he placed a crude bow, fashioned from a somewhat bent stick and a piece of rawhide, which he looped around a blunt arrow. Taking a short board from the ruin he gouged out a hole to receive the end of the arrow, then cut a notch from the hole to the edge of the board. In the hole he placed a few shavings; at the notch, the tinder for a small fire.

From his backpack he took a small magnifying glass and placed it on the top of a rock nearby.

Gallagher shook his head. “What's all that about? I don't get it.”

“For the Saqua,” Raglan said. “They need fire, they worship fire, but I don't believe they know how to make fire.”

Kawasi was waiting for him at the car. Melisande and Erik were in the back seat.

Gallagher had walked over with him. “You're leaving, then?” He waved a hand. “What about all this?”

“All of what?” Mike Raglan looked at him wide-eyed. “I don't know what you are talking about, Gallagher. Erik thought about building a house out here but changed his mind. We came out to get him. That's all there is.”

“Are you crazy? You've got the greatest story ever. You could write a book, you could—”

Mike Raglan started the car. He looked over at Gallagher, extending his hand.

“I could,” he said, “but who'd believe it?”

The End

Author's Note

X
IBALBA: ALSO WRITTEN as Shibalba, is frequently referred to in the
Popol Vuh,
the sacred book of the Quiché Maya, as the lower regions where lived tormentors of men, and a home of all things evil. It is mentioned in
The Annals of the Cakchiquels
as an underground place of great power and splendor.

HOUSE OF GLOOM: in Xibalba, a place of darkness and shadows, known to few, feared by all.

LORDS OF XIBALBA: referred to in the Popol Vuh as promoters of evil and destruction.

VARANEL: the Night Guards, soldiers of the Lords of Xibalba.

ZIPACNA: a mythological figure of great power, finally destroyed, or at least defeated, by Hunahpu.

ANASAZI: We do not know what the cliff dwellers called themselves or what they were called by their neighbors. The name is of Navajo origin and was given to the ancient ones who preceded the Navajo in the Four Corners area. That there was trade and communication between the Anasazi and the Maya is well established. Mummified parrots from Central America have been found in Anasazi graves. Archaeologists have been slowly piecing together the story of the cliff dwellers from fragments of pottery, weaving, sandals, and such, but they are hampered by the thoughtless vandalism of pot-hunters, who by removing a pot from its place of discovery make it impossible to place it properly in history. Often it is similar to removing several key pieces from a jigsaw puzzle, then expecting the puzzle to be completed.

Much fine, painstaking work has been done, yet we have only begun to learn what the Anasazi have to teach us. I, for one, believe man's life on this continent and our neighbor continent to the south is much, much longer than has been surmised.

About Louis L'Amour

“I think of myself in the oral tradition—

as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man

in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way

I'd like to be remembered as a storyteller.

A good storyteller.”

I
T IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full-length novel,
Hondo
, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are nearly 270 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

His hardcover bestsellers include
The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum
(his twelfth-century historical novel),
Haunted Mesa, Last of the Breed
, and
The Haunted Mesa
. His memoir,
Education of a Wandering Man
, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L'Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio publishing.

The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward.