The warning had been borne by a puff of breeze tickling his nose. This was no desert wind laden with heat and grit, for it carried the scent of juniper. The pinto nickered and mouthed its bit—water ahead. But also the land before them was not empty of men.
Travis swung out of the saddle, taking his rifle with him. Unless the past year had seen some changes in the terrain ahead, there was a good cover on the lip of the hidden canyon’s entrance. Without being visible himself, he would be able to survey the camp therein. For camp smells reached him now—wood smoke, coffee, frying bacon.
The ascent to his chosen spy post was easy. From below came the pine scent, heavier now, drawn out by the sun’s rays, and the small, busy twittering of birds about their own concerns. There was a cup of green lying there, about a spring-fed pool which mirrored the hot blue of the sky. Between that water and the vast shallow cave which held the block city of the Old Ones, stood the ‘copter. And tending a cooking fire was a man. A second had gone to the pool for water.
Travis did not believe they were ranchers. But they wore the sturdy clothing of outdoor men and moved about the business of making camp with assurance. He began to inventory what he could see of their supplies and equipment.
The ‘copter was of the latest model. And in the shade offered by a small stand of trees he could make out bedrolls. But he did not sight any digging tools, any indication that this was a prospecting team. Then the man walked back from the pool, set his filled bucket down by the fire, and dropped cross-legged before a big package which he proceeded to free from a canvas covering. Travis watched him uncover what could only be a portable communicator of advanced design.
The operator was patiently inching the antenna rod up into the air, when Travis heard the pinto nicker. Age-old instinct he was not conscious of brought him around, still on his knees, with rifle ready. But it was only to front another weapon with a deadly promise in the open mouth of the barrel aimed directly and mercilessly at his middle.
Above that unwavering gunsight, gray eyes watched him with a chill detachment worse than any vocal threat. Travis Fox considered himself a worthy descendant of generations of the toughest warriors this stretch of country had ever seen. Yet he knew that neither he nor any of his kind had ever before faced a man quite like this one. And this man was young, no older than himself, so that that subtle menace did not altogether fit with the lithe, slender body or that calm, boyish face.
“Drop it!” The man delivered his order with the authority of one expecting no resistance. Travis did just that, allowing the rifle to slip from his hands and slide across his leg to the gravel of the hillside.
“On your feet. Make it snappy. Down there. . . .” The stream of orders issued in a gentle voice and even tone, both of which oddly increased the menace Travis sensed.
He stood up, turned downslope and walked forward, his hands up, palms out, at shoulder level. What he had stumbled on here he did not know, but that it was important—and dangerous—Travis did not doubt.
The man who was cooking and the man at the com set both sat back on their heels to survey him calmly as he advanced, the high heels of his boots acting as brakes on the slope. To his eyes they were little different from the white ranchers he knew in the district. Yet the cook . . .?
Travis studied him, puzzled, certain that he had seen the man or his likeness before under very different circumstances.
“Where did you flush this one, Ross?” asked the man at the com.
“Lying up on the ridge, getting an eyeful,” Travis’ captor replied with his usual economy of words.
The cook stood up, wiped his hands on a cloth, and started toward them. He was the eldest of the three strangers, his skin deeply tanned, his eyes a startlingly bright blue against that brown. He carried with him an authority which did not suit his present employment but which marked him, for Travis, as the leader of the party. The Apache guessed his own reception would depend upon this man’s reaction. Only why did some faint twist of memory persist in outlining the cook’s head with a black square?
Since the stranger seemed to be in no hurry to ask questions, Travis met him eye to eye, drawing on his own brand of patience. There was danger in this man, too, the same controlled force which had moved the youngster when he trapped the Apache on the heights.
“Apache.” It was a statement, rather than a question. And it added a bit to Travis’ estimation of the stranger. There were few men nowadays who took the trouble, or had the real knowledge necessary, to distinguish Apache from Hopi, Navajo, or Ute in one brief glance.
“Rancher?” That was a question this time and Travis gave it a truthful answer. He had a growing conviction that to use any evasive tactics with this particular White-eye would not lead to anything but his own disadvantage.
“Rider for the Double A.”
The man by the com unit had unrolled a map. Now he ran a forefinger along an uneven marking and nodded, not at Travis, but to the interrogator.
“Nearest range to the east. But he can’t be hunting strays this far into the desert.”
“Good water.” The other nodded at the pool. “The Old Ones used it.”
Obliquely that was another inquiry. And somehow Travis found himself replying to it.
“The Old Ones knew. Not those only.” With his chin he pointed to the ruins in the great shallow cave. “But the People in turn. Never dry, even in bad years.”
“And this is a bad year.” The stranger rubbed his hand along his jaw, his blue eyes still holding Travis’. “A complication we didn’t foresee. So Double A runs a herd in here in dry years, son?”
Again Travis found himself, against his will replying with the exact truth. “Not yet. Few of the riders know of it now. Not many care to listen to the stories of the old men.” He was still puzzling over the teasing memory of seeing this man’s lean face before. That black border about it—a frame! A picture frame! And the picture had hung over Dr. Morgan’s desk at the university.
“But you do. . . .” There came another of those measuring stares like the one which had stripped the rancher’s clothing from him to display the Apache underneath. Now those eyes might be trying to sort out the thoughts in his head. Dr. Morgan’s study—this man’s picture—but with a stepped pyramid behind him.
“It is so.” Absently he used another speech pattern as he tried to remember more.
“The problem is, buster”—the man by the com unit stood up, spoke lazily— “just what are we going to do with you now? How about it, Ashe? Does he go in cold storage—maybe up there?” He jerked a thumb at the ruins.
Ashe! Dr. Gordon Ashe! He’d put a name to the stranger at last. And with the name he had a reason for the man’s presence there. Ashe was an archaeologist. Only Travis did not have to look at the com unit or at the camp to guess that this was no expedition to hunt relics of ancient man. He had had firsthand knowledge of those. What were Dr. Ashe and his companions doing in the Canyon of the Dead?
“You can put down your hands, son,” Dr. Ashe said. “And you can make it easy for yourself if you agree to stay here peaceably for a time.”
“For how long?” countered Travis.
“That depends,” Ashe hedged.
“I left my horse up there. He needs water.”
“Bring the horse down, Ross.”
Travis turned his head. The young man bolstered his odd-looking weapon and climbed upslope, to reappear shortly leading the pinto. Travis freed his mount of saddle and turned the animal loose. He came back to the camp site to find Ashe awaiting him.
“So not many people know of this place?”
Travis shrugged. “One other man on the Double A—he is very old. His father was born here, long ago when the Apaches were fighting the army. Nobody else is interested any more.”
“Then there was never any digging done in the ruins?”
“A little—once.”
“By whom?”
Travis pushed back his hat. “Me.” His answer was short, antagonistic.
“Oh?” Ashe produced a package of cigarettes, offered them. Travis took one without thinking.
“You came here for a dig?” he counter-questioned.
“In a manner of speaking.” But when Ashe glanced at the cliff house, Travis thought it was as if he saw something far more interesting behind or beyond those crumbling blocks of sun-dried brick.