Novel 1987 - The Haunted Mesa (v5.0) (15 page)

Raglan seated himself where he could watch the street. Gallagher smiled. “Careful man. Now I like that.”

He added butter to the toast. “You make trouble for a man. I had things about wrapped up around here until you showed up. Everything quiet, no problems except for a few Saturday night drunks and the usual pot-hunters. I haven't had a decent night's sleep since you got here.”

“Sorry.”

“Don't be. I need the exercise.” He glanced at Raglan over his coffee cup. “What's happened?”

Raglan shrugged. “There was a man at Tamarron who might have been tailing me. There was a car tailing me on the road yesterday and two men looking over my car when I came out this morning. When I pointed out your car, they skipped.”

Gallagher sized Raglan up carefully. “You think they were some of your friends from over the line?”

“I couldn't swear to it, but I know.”

Gallagher chuckled. “Yeah, I know how that is. I know a half-dozen thieves around here, and they know I know them, but I haven't a thing that would stand up in court and they know that, too.”

Raglan ordered his breakfast and stared out the window. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Raglan reminded himself that he liked Gallagher. He was a good man, a tough man, and one with imagination. At least he had an open mind.

“The world's gettin' too damn complicated,” Gallagher said. “Used to be a man knew who his enemies were and where to find them. If you made a deal with a man, you shook hands on it and nothing more was needed. Now you got lawyers, you got the government, you got everything tangled in red tape, and then things like this come up. Who knows about fourth dimensions and parallel worlds?”

“That isn't really new. Einstein started it all back in 1919, I think it was. From all I hear, he didn't like it much, either. Most people are still living in that nice, comfortable world that Newton accepted.”

“I don't know anything about that.” Gallagher filled their cups from the pot the waitress had left. “Supposing what you suggest is fact. Supposing that when the Anasazi left here they went back to that world that was evil. What do you think it would be like now?”

Raglan shrugged. “Hard to tell. It would depend so much on what influences there were that affected their culture. They were planting on mesa tops, learning to use all the water they had. I suspect they'd become pretty good dry farmers but they were into irrigation, too.

“Off to the south, where Phoenix is, there was the Hohokam culture who understood irrigation very well. Some of the ditches they dug couldn't be improved upon.

“There was a connection with the Hohokam. I don't know how much of a connection but there was probably some trade and exchange of ideas, so if the culture they had persisted on the Other Side, I would guess that by now they would have a very advanced system of irrigation, one that was strictly regulated.”

“When you need water,” Gallagher agreed, “somebody has to control its use or there'd be fighting all the while.”

“Exactly. And there seems to have been, for a long time at least, an effort to close off any communication with this side. To develop a civilization needs input from other peoples. Europe had a lot of useful rivers, lots of coves, harbors, and the like, so it was easy for people to come and go and each one brought new ideas, new blood.

“Nobody knows how old seafaring was in Europe. For years everything was based on what we knew about the Mediterranean, but there were ships in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific just as early, if not earlier than the Mediterranean. There was seafaring in the Baltic and Atlantic, too. All of it enabled ideas to spread, introducing new weapons, new tools, new crops.” Raglan paused to sip his coffee.

“What are you going to do now?” Gallagher asked.

Raglan shrugged again. “Go back to Hokart's mesa. Hang around out there and see what I can learn.” He paused. “I've got to find Erik. He asked for me to come, he almost begged me to come, there at the end. That wasn't like him. He was scared.”

“Aren't you?”

“To be frank, yes. I don't know what's over there. If I go, I don't know that I can ever get back. Johnny never could make it and from what I gather he was a pretty canny old cowboy.”

“You be careful.”

“I'll do that.” Raglan paused. “Seen any more of Eden Foster?”

Gallagher shook his head. “I'm not liable to. Not for a while. The missus like to flew off the handle when she heard I'd been over there. She doesn't know Eden but she suspects the worst.”

Raglan was silent, and then he said. “The way I see it, judging from what I might call contacts with them, they don't know much about how we function over here.

“Eden knows, but she's only one and for reasons of her own she may not be sharing what she knows. Maybe it's because she just doesn't think of it that way. Little things, about how to spend money, getting change, paying checks in restaurants, and even the structure of our buildings.

“At Tamarron, I don't believe that fellow even suspected there was a door behind me. He saw a glass wall and took it for granted. He was sitting so he could watch me and the entrance, so when some confusion distracted him, I slipped out that door.”

Raglan watched the movements outside. There was nothing going on beyond the casual, everyday life of the town. Where was Kawasi? Was she safe? Or had she, too, been taken?

“Postmistress spoke to me this morning,” Gallagher commented. “Said Mr. Hokart had not been in to pick up his mail. I told her to hold it. He might be out of town.”

“She buy it?”

“I don't believe so. She didn't say anything but she looked doubtful, said Mr. Hokart was always very particular about his mail.” Gallagher pushed back in his chair. “That's the beginning of it, Mike. Folks are going to start asking questions. This is a small town and they don't miss very much. Hokart was never what you'd call neighborly, but he was always friendly in passing and one way or another he did quite a bit of business here in town.

“He bought groceries now and again, ate in the café, and he bought hardware—nails, tools and such.…”

“Ammunition?”

“Uh-huh. He bought quite a lot. Aroused some curiosity, as it was pistol ammo. Said he was shooting at targets, trying to perfect his shooting.”

“Reasonable enough.”

“Sure, anybody will buy that. None of us shoot well enough. No matter how good you are, you can always get better.” He paused, staring out the window. “Anyway, folks are asking questions, wondering why he hasn't been in. But they've just begun to wonder where he is. Soon they will be asking questions about that, and then they will begin to wonder just who you are and what you're doing here.”

“I expect that.”

“Yeah? But are you ready for the next thing? They will be wondering how come you are around and Hokart's vanished. They will be asking about the connection. They'll be suspicious.

“When they start asking questions they will be wanting answers, and I don't have any answers. Do you?”

“I am a friend of Erik's. It is as simple as that.”

“If you're such a good friend, why don't you know where Erik is?” Gallagher stared at him. “You see what I mean? This is a small town. Everybody knows everybody else, but they don't know you. Erik wasn't one of them but they accepted him. He was doing something they thought foolish but he was doing it on his own land and he was willing to pay for it, so they are on his side.”

Gallagher was silent for a few minutes, then he added, “It's already begun. Over at Mexican Hat. Woman in a store over there asked about Erik Hokart. Wondered where he was, and then added that he was probably out on the mesa with you. She added that if anybody knew where he was it would be you.”

“A woman said that?”

“Uh-huh. Nice-lookin' woman whom they didn't know but they said she'd been in before. Looked like a city woman.”

“Eden Foster?”

“Sounded like her. Looks to me like some folks may not wait for suspicion to grow. They'd just help it along a bit.”

Mike Raglan thought about it. The question Eden Foster asked would be repeated, and of course, that was as planned. When Erik did not appear, suspicion would grow. She did not need to accuse, only to ask a few questions and start people wondering.

“See what I mean? If I give them your answers they'd put me in a booby hatch, and I wouldn't blame them.” He looked across the corner of the table at Raglan. “Seems to me you're in trouble, my friend. If you're coming up with any answers it had better be quick.”

Raglan knew he should leave here now. He should check out of the motel, drive back to Tamarron, check out there, and catch a plane for Denver and then New York.

After all, what was Erik to him? Hokart was just a man whom he knew, like many others. Of course, the thing he could not escape was the fact that Erik had called on him for help. The man was alone, faced by God knew what in the way of enemies. Of course, if Mike went on, he would have the same enemies.

He got up. “See you, Gallagher.” He turned toward the door.

“You going out there?”

“What else can I do? Cut and run? He trusted me to get him out of this, and there isn't anybody else.”

“There's me,” Gallagher replied.

“You're an officer, with a duty to a community, and no telling what will come of this. Besides, I'd rather have you on the outside. I may need help.”

“What did you mean when you said there's ‘no telling what will come of this'?”

Raglan walked back to the table and spoke more quietly. “Gallagher, think about it. Supposing a lot of them come through some night? Without warning? You've got a small town here. They know how many you are and what your communications are. Supposing they decided to come over?”

Gallagher stared at him. “Now you're really going off the deep end. Why would they do a thing like that?”

“I don't for a minute believe they will. It was just an idea, but how many would it take to descend on a sleeping town?”

“More than they are likely to have,” Gallagher said. “Everybody in this town has a gun, most of them two or three. These folks do a lot of hunting in season, so they not only have weapons but they know how to use them and when.”

Raglan walked to the cash register and paid the bill, then walked out into the sunlight. Gallagher followed him.

“Damn it, man, why'd you have to bring up an idea like that? Now you've got me worried.”

“Look, I doubt if you believe any of this, and I don't know what to believe myself. It was just one idea following another. The legend is that the Anasazi left the Third World because it became evil.

“Evil in what way? What did they think of as evil? The Aztecs, the Mayas, and some other Indians from south of here believed in human sacrifice. According to the best reports they sacrificed literally thousands of people. Is that what they meant by evil? Did they think of human sacrifice as evil? Probably not, as it was a religious rite.”

They stood on the curb near Raglan's car. “Gallagher, I don't know what to believe. I'm a confirmed skeptic, but that doesn't blind me to the fact there's a lot we don't know. We're only beginning to learn about this world, and believe me, the ideas of our grandchildren will be altogether different from our own. They will take things for granted of which we know nothing now.

“The world is changing fast. When I was a youngster there were still a hundred jobs a man could do who had no education. Most of them have vanished. It's not even a machine world as we knew it. Now it's a computer world, and if you don't have education and the ability to adapt you're out of it. You either get an education or find a place on skid row.”

“Maybe.”

“You've seen Mesa Verde, Gallagher. That culture lasted a thousand years at least. Do you think they doubted it would last forever? When someone looks at Mesa Verde and the ruins left by the Anasazi, he should not just wonder at them but he should think of what they must have thought. What did they believe? We can reconstruct their world from the artifacts that have been found, and we know how they lived, but what did they
think
? How much did they know about other Indians? Probably there was interchange of trade goods and ideas with the Hohokam or the Mogollon cultures. There seems to have been some trade as far away as Central America. They've found mummified parrots in the ruins and other evidences of trade.

“Did they know anything about the Mound Builders? What did they know of eastern Indians? And were any of the eastern Indians actually living where the white man first found them?”

“So you going back down there?”

“Leaving now. Soon as I can pick up a few supplies at the store.”

“Be careful, Raglan, and for God's sake, don't you disappear! I'll have trouble enough explaining Hokart!”

He was still standing on the curb as Raglan drove away, and in the rearview mirror Mike saw him take off his cap and run his fingers through his hair, then walk back inside.

A half hour later, with Chief sitting beside him, Raglan was headed back for the mesa.

And he did not want to go. He just didn't want to go at all.

Chapter 17

T
HE ROAD WAS empty, and he stepped on the gas. He wanted to get off the highway and into the desert as quickly as possible. So far there was no indication that he was followed or observed, but there was always a chance that somebody was already down the road or out in the desert awaiting him.

The day was hot and still. Heat waves shimmered in the near distance. He turned on the air conditioning, and Chief made a try at curling up in the seat beside him but it proved impossible. There was simply too much of him and he lopped over, resting his big head on Mike's thigh again. Raglan did not like that very much, as it made it more difficult to get at his gun. He picked it up and put it between his legs where it would be quicker to grasp.