The Legend of the Phantom (6 page)

The moment
soon came as the tribe sat down for a great feast. As the women brought out the food, the prisoners’ guard became distracted, letting his gaze follow the woman rather than the hut’s open doorway. Immediately, Kit burst out, sweeping the guard off his feet. Caribo came out next, and seeing the guard down, kicked him in the head, causing the guard to lose consciousness.

The tribe stood as one and a warrior
ran towards Kit, spear brandished.

Kit slowly
made a production of raising his pistol and, having aimed it at the fellow, waited until he was close enough that Kit could not miss. At that moment, Kit fired his weapon, and watched the warrior fall lifeless to the ground. Shocked, the other warriors stopped as they examined their comrade. One however, decided that it must have been a coincidence for his compatriot’s untimely death and immediately came at Kit. As the warrior raised his arm to throw a spear at the pale one, Kit aimed, fired his pistol and dropped him dead.

The warriors now knew without a doubt that
Kit had some means of killing them from a distance that was faster than they could throw a spear. What they didn’t know was that he had not reloaded and therefore had nothing more that he could have done had they decided to charge him.

Thankfully
, Kit won the ruse. They scattered. As Kit and Caribo coaxed Miya out of the hut, a fearful woman was pushed out toward the fallen men. Kit watched her, but did not point his pistol at her. As soon as she confirmed they were dead, she looked up at them. Kit raised his hands to show he meant her no harm. Then he took a step toward her. He stretched out his hand in an attempt to raise her to her feet.

Suddenly,
the woman stared at Kit’s hands, as if seeing the rings for the first time. She then prostrated herself on the ground and scooted backwards to the crowd.

Once among the crowd
, she told them of the rings as was evident by the gesturing involved. One of the men she told decided that it was best if their prisoners left, and gathering the prisoner’s things, threw the whole lot of it into a great pile in the middle of the clearing where their dead comrades lay.

Kit decided
to leave and urged Caribo and Miya to gather supplies. As they collected their items, Kit reloaded his pistols. As he finished reloading the pistols, he looked at their supplies and noticed that the tribesmen even left his espadas for him.

As
Kit fastened his belt that housed his swords, the same woman that had seen the rings returned with a pile of gifts for them: silver and gold. They thanked her, and collecting the items, they left, grabbing a bit of food from the table as they did so. They were only followed far enough to ascertain that they left the tribe’s territory.

The
trio continued to follow the river as before. As the sun set upon the landscape around them, something in front of them stood out in gleaming gold color. It appeared from a distance to be a tall building made of gold.

“Could that be
the Golden City?” Kit asked his companions.

“I do not know, my friend, but I suggest that if it is, it would be wisest to approach during the daylight,” replied Caribo very practically.

“I agree with Caribo, Kit,” intoned Miya, “I would not like to have to fight or run from another group in the dark. It is better for us to wait until morning light.”

“Well, then,” decided Kit, “we will just make camp here.”

The following morning Kit was awake before first light despite his anticipation of seeing the golden city ahead. His curiosity led him to climb a nearby hill.

When Miya
awoke she searched for him, and found him sitting on the top of the hill that separated them from the view of the ‘city’. But a ‘city’ it was not. It wasn’t even man-made. In front of them stood a tall stone tower. As she approached he heard her and stood up, only glancing back briefly to see who it was.

“I guess the light from the setting sun made it look like a golden city,” stated Miya, walking over to him.

“I think so too,” replied Kit, staring at the incredible sight of so many natural monuments.

“Are you disappointed in not finding your golden city, Kit?” asked Miya, wrapping her arms around him from behind.

The touch caught him off guard, and he started to turn. Then thinking better of it, he placed his own strong arms over her own, holding them to him. “No,” he replied, “I am instead grateful; for this is much more incredible than man could ever dream of.”

Catching one of her arms in his he quickly slid
her out and around so that he could pull her into him. There he held her in a strong embrace; while the morning light cast their shadows back toward camp.

He could hear her heart beat rapidly against his chest. She started to raise her chin and he began to lean to meet her lips. As the two of them were in motion to kiss, a voice boomed out, “Kit, Miya, where are you?”

The tension was lost and both found each other with huge smiles. Miya giggled.

“Over here, Caribo,” called out Kit, then sighing to himself, he promised to Miya, “
…and later we pick up where we left off.”

Caribo found them silhouetted against
a backdrop of tall flat topped mountains. “Mesas,” said Kit to him, referring to the flat-top mountains around him. “That’s the Spanish word for table. They look like tables to me.”

The trio stood in awe as they looked out across the plains at the various sized mesas. 

The mesa they had seen the night before was not the closest one nor was it the biggest. It just happened to be the one that the sun had caught with its rays. They decided to climb it as they wished to see the surrounding area better, to give themselves an idea of what terrain they still had to cross. As they approached the mesa, Caribo spotted an eagle overhead. “That is a good sign,” he said.

“What shall we call this place?”
Kit asked to no one in particular. Miya had at that very moment spotted the eagle’s nest about two-thirds of the way up the side of the tower of rock. “Eyrie” she called out, pointing; that being the term for ‘eagle nest’ in her language.  Kit, entirely having missed the point, instead assumed that she was answering his question.

“Eyrie,” repeated Kit.

“Yes, eyrie,” repeated Miya, thinking he was trying to learn the word.

“I like it,” said Kit. “What do you think Caribo?”

Caribo just chuckled. “Call it whatever you want to, but I plan to climb it.”

So Kit called the place, Eyrie
, much to Caribo and Miya’s amusement.

Miya opted to stay on the grou
nd. She saw no reason for climbing the rock, only to have to climb back down. Instead, she settled herself against a small outcropping of rock a way off from the pillar while still in its shadow, where she could watch the boys climb.

The
pair was about half-way up the Eyrie when Miya was grabbed from behind.

Chapter 7

The Eyrie was a beautiful place of brightly colored reds and yellows rock. The whole of the structure was lava-rock mixed with sandstone
and towered a thousand feet straight up. At the top was a large dome that seemed to be situated around the middle of the structure, allowing one to walk around the edge between the dome and the Eyrie’s wide lip.

Unbeknownst to the
duo, the Eyrie was formed through volcanic action back in a time when the area was covered in water. The volcano erupted underwater and as the magma was blown out, the sides of the tower were formed, causing the water to super-heat around it. Cooler water rushed in to replace the hot, which caused the lava that erupted from within to harden almost immediately into place. Slowly, a lava tube was built from the floor of the sea, and having reached a thousand feet up, it was capped off as gases from within slowed the flow to a stop; forming a large bubble chamber and with adjoining smaller bubble chambers at the very end of the tube. The expanding gases then helped drop the remaining lava back down the tube, leaving a hollow center that eventually hardened. Outside of the tube, collected sand turned to sandstone as the sea slowly withered away. Inside the tube, ground water seeped into the tube to make a deep pool of fresh clean water, which stayed even with the current water table: a natural well.

Kit and Caribo found the climb to be exhilarating. The footholds were near
ly nonexistent and the going was slow and treacherous, but that only added to the fun of making their way up. It, however, left them with their eyes fixed to the stone wall in front of them rather than to the danger that had crept up on them from below.

As Kit and Caribo took off to climb the
rock tower, Miya, settled herself into the shade of the same, a little way back so that she could watch them.

She never heard the man creep up behind her.
Without warning a hand clamped over her mouth as she was pulled to her feet. She tried to scream, she tried to bite, and she tried to flail her arms and legs to no avail.

She was shortly hauled back to a group of braves. They pulled her into a small wash that was shrouded in plant life to wait with them. The plant life along the edge of the wash prevented them from being easily seen from the two climbers above.

One of the more ornately decorated braves thumped his chest and said something to the others. Then, having tied a knife to the small of his back, he started out after Kit and Caribo, taking care to climb just off to the side of the other two, where they could not see him.

Kit and Caribo continued to climb. As they
neared the eagle nest, the bird saw and attacked them, trying to knock them from the side of the cliff in an attempt to keep them from stealing her young.

Kit instinctively let go with one hand as he tried to cover his head from the talons of the bird. The
unexpected loss of support on that one side caused him to slip a bit and he slid a few feet down before catching himself.

Below, Miya had other concerns.
Her captor had tied her up while the first brave continued to cover her mouth. She knew that at some point the man who had her had to release his hand from her mouth and she waited for the moment. Finally it came. Her mouth was uncovered and a small wad of soft leather was quickly shoved in. In that split second when she was free to make noise, she let out a loud, yet short, scream.

Caribo chuckled. “It sounds like your woman saw your fall, my friend.”

“My woman?” asked Kit, trying to sound surprised. “What do you mean by that?” he said back to Caribo, as he jumped sideways to try to get to a small ledge that looked a bit more promising for the climb.

“I am not blind
,” Caribo chuckled, scrambling up to within a few feet of him.

“Then you approve?” asked Kit
, chinning himself up enough to get one arm over the ledge.

“Whether or not I approve is of no consequence.” Caribo replied, with a hint of merriment in his voice.
He clawed at a small outcropping of stone.

“
Well I want your approval all the same,” Kit replied.

“If I did not approve, I would have made it
very
clear to you,” Caribo replied. Looking up he added, “Race you to the top!”

As they arrived at the top, Caribo swung up his leg as Kit pulled himself up. The result was a
nearly a tie with Kit just a hair ahead of the other. As Kit pulled himself over, he just lay there panting for a bit.

Caribo
rolled his body heavily up on the flat ledge and flopped himself over to do the same as Kit, while he caught his own breath. Above them, a few clouds were slowly flitting across the sky, leaving shadows below on the hard desert ground.

As they watched the sky, Caribo turned his head and noticed the large dome of rock in the middle of the mesa. “Looks like neither of us won,” he said. “There is still more to climb,” he continued as he pointed out the dome to Kit.

“Well, then...,” said Kit, “Let’s get to climbing.”

Caribo started off for the dome. The dome was of a different texture than the rest of the mesa. It was smoother, as if it were the top of a soap bubble, which wasn’t far off from reality.

Once the two of them had climbed to the top, Kit decided to look for Miya. From the top of the bubble he was unable to see straight down the side of the Eyrie and decided instead to climb down to the ledge to look for her. However, he couldn’t see her. He walked around the edge and peered down, going the opposite direction from the brave that had just reached the top.

Far below
, the hidden Navajo braves saw the white man. ‘Who is that?’ they asked themselves. ‘Is it the Great Spirit?’ ‘Is it a Wind Walker?’ As quickly as the pale man appeared, he disappeared from view, heading in the opposite direction of the chief’s son who had just arrived at top.

As Kit rounded the corner of the dome, Caribo descended. He noticed right away that there was an opening into the dome. Peering inside, he could see that the dome was a huge room with an arched roof. Off to the sides of the large room stood two smaller rooms of smaller arches, which connected to the main room. The floor in the middle of the room was fairly flat
and quite large with a six foot diameter indented circle in the middle.

Caribo decided to show the place to Kit and started to call him when he saw the
chief’s son.

As the
chief’s son’s eyes fell on Caribo, he pulled out his knife and leapt forward. Caribo yelled out, “Kit!... We have company! Ughh!” The last part was added as the brave slammed into him, forcing both of them into the domed room, the brave’s knife deflected by Caribo’s wrist guards. The two of them went sliding out of control depositing them within the indented middle circle.

Kit started running when he heard Caribo’s warning. As he ran around the dome, he heard a terrible cracking sound.

As Caribo and the chief’s son slid onto the center of the floor, it began to crack from under their combined weight. The crust that formed the top of the lava tube was extremely thin there at that center six-foot section and unable to support the combined 300+ lbs of the two muscular men.

Pouncing
forward, the brave attempted to put Caribo into a strangle hold. As the arms tightened around Caribo’s head and chest, Caribo managed to slip out and quickly grappled the brave instead. Finding himself locked in Caribo’s arms, the brave threw himself backwards. Neither men were going to go down without a fight and twisting like wildcats the two grappled and fell, and grappled and fell; returning to do it over and over again. With every roll, the cracks grew longer and deeper.

A shadow fell across the men as Kit arrived at the scene. Having sized up the situation, he jumped
to his friend’s rescue and pulled back on the brave which dislodged Caribo. Freed of his antagonist Caribo backed against the far wall while he gasped for breath through his bruised throat.

As he wheezed a heavy thud brought his attention back to the pair as the brave’s head rebounded from the floor where
Kit had driven it.

Leaving the brave behind, Kit hurried to Caribo’s side. A
s Kit attempted to help his friend, a scraping sound caught Kit’s attention and he turned in time to find the brave recovering his knife. Leaving Caribo, Kit launched himself toward the brave, determined to end the fight one way or another. The brave in turn must have had similar thoughts as he jumped forward. Meeting halfway the two slammed into each other as they grappled to keep the knife from each other’s throats. The fight was about to yield to the victor when, with a final loud crack, the floor finally gave way! Kit and the brave fell through into the darkness below.