On the notepad Mike Raglan wrote: Erik. What did he know of Erik, after all? A cool, quiet, reserved man, a scientist with a considerable aptitude for business, not one likely to go off on a tangent, nor to give much credence to the fantastic.,
Either Erik’s notebook was an elaborate fiction, something completely out of character, or it was something Erik believed to be true. Knowing the man, Raglan decided the daybook had been written in good faith, written actually for Erik himself alone. Sending it to Raglan had been an afterthought, conceived in a mood of sheer desperation.
The material in the daybook fitted no pattern of hallucination with which Raglan was familiar, especially given the man and the circumstances.
Suddenly a memory of the old cowboy and his gold intruded. His gold, and the warning. The area the cowboy talked about had not been sharply designated but was probably now on the bottom of Lake Powell. There had been no lake when the story was told.
Below Erik’s name Raglan wrote the name of Kawasi.
She could be an actress hired for a part. It could be a plot to extort money from Erik, but no such request had been made, and nothing in this sequence of events fit the pattern.
What could he expect from Gallagher? The man was a sober, serious police officer of considerable experience as such. Moreover, he had lived in the area, knew the people, and understood a good deal about the Indians and their beliefs. Enough to consider what was happening with an open mind.
What did he know about Eden Foster? Raglan was positive Gallagher had taken him there for more than a cup of coffee and a sandwich, yet he could scarcely have expected to discover anything as positive as the paperback book.
The man who had entered his condo had either been there, in Eden Foster’s home, or he had met with her somewhere. So there had to be a connection.
The man who had come to the condo had known where to find him. Eden Foster must also have known; hence, others would as well. That they were willing to kill had been demonstrated at the cafe, so he must move with care. There might even be somebody in this room right now, watching, waiting. Obviously, with Erik out of the way he himself represented their biggest problem. Therefore he must be captured or eliminated.
Mike Raglan let the waiter refill his cup, his eyes wandering over the room. Several of the people he knew. They were regulars. The tourists were obvious enough, often with children, or discussing plans for the day. Two tables were occupied by men who sat alone, which could mean nothing at all.
One of their people might be a regular employee here, or on the housekeeping staff.
Eden Foster did not, of course, know he had seen the book, and even if she did, she could not believe he had known it for his own. She was well established here and would not believe herself suspected, something that was in his favor. Yet he must be careful.
Putting down his pen, he considered the situation, going over in his mind the little he knew. He had first come into this country on a very poor wagon road that ran east of Navajo Mountain. He remembered how he had been struck by the stark beauty of the land, and he had himself thought of building a home atop one of the mesas, just as Erik had.
All that country had been known and traveled over by the people the Navajos called the Anasazi, studied by latecomers as the cliff dwellers. At first they lived in pit-houses atop the mesas. From the beginning they had begun learning how to use every drop of available water. Later they had moved down from the tops of the mesas into the great open caves in the cliff faces, building houses of native stone with doors wider at the top than the bottom. Various reasons have been offered for this but it was probably a simple one: A person carrying a water jar, a bundle of firewood, or the carcass of a game animal needs more space for the upper part of his body.
Occasionally the caves had springs, but usually both water and food had to be brought to them, carried down precarious paths or up from the canyon below. The expenditure of effort must have been enormous, only reasonable if some threat demanded defensible positions.
In the latter half of the thirteenth century there had come a long drought and with it attacks by nomadic, raiding Indians coming down from the North. No doubt these were advance parties of the invading Navajo, Apache, and Ute peoples who were to populate the region in later years.
Whatever the cause, their cliff palaces were deserted, their fields abandoned. The Anasazi disappeared. They were there, and then they were gone.
Some evidence indicated that a few Anasazi had merged with other groups to become the Hopis. Others might have joined other Pueblo groups, but the greater part seemed simply to have vanished.
Suppose, when the drought persisted and the attacks increased, that some of the Anasazi elected to return to that Third World from which they came? Fleeing from our world, they had returned to that which had grown evil, preferring to face an evil they knew rather than starvation and death. Once there, they would have wanted to close off the way to deny any pursuers a chance to follow. Over the centuries, an almost paranoid fear had built up of what lay on the other side.
It was possible, as Kawasi seemed to imply, that only a few of the elite knew how or where to cross over, and that they had occasionally done so to obtain things not otherwise available on the Other Side.
Mike Raglan finished his coffee, staring at the two names on the otherwise blank page.
Erik. Kawasi.
She knew him. Had met him. Yet there must be another involved, for when Erik had pleaded for help, he had spoken in the plural. Who was this other person?
Erik seemed to have become a prisoner, yet Erik was an intelligent man with a vast store of knowledge that might help him to escape.
Evil? What evil? Had those who returned to the Other Side taken up the ways of some of their relatives from Mexico and Central America? The Aztecs had engaged in bloody sacrifices of many thousands of people each year, most of them prisoners taken in war. Recently it had been discovered that the Maya did likewise. Was that the evil from which the Anasazi originally fled? Or was it something else? Something less tangible, something insidious?
He sat very quietly, trying to consider every aspect of his problem, but the unavoidable fact remained: Erik was a prisoner, probably on the Other Side, and he must be freed.
Moreover, Mike could think of nobody who might help. Gallagher had his own concerns and more than enough to keep him occupied, but suppose Mike could contact that old cowboy of whom Kawasi had spoken? Suppose in freeing Erik Hokart he could also free that old man?
Certainly, in his years on the Other Side Johnny must have learned a great deal just in order to survive. The more Mike considered that possibility, the more he liked it. Yet first his base must be secure. He must know more about the Paiutes, if such they were, and more about Eden Foster.
Above all, he must remember they would be attempting to kill or capture him.
His eyes swept the room. One of the men who sat alone was gone. The other remained: a stocky man with a bullet head and short-cropped hair, wearing a neat gray windbreaker and slacks, and under the windbreaker a navy-blue T-shirt. He was facing the other way but in such a position as to catch Mike’s slightest move from the corner of his eye. It was probably chance, no more. The man might be a guest, might be attending a convention, or just be out for the golf or fishing.
Mike must be prepared. On the stairs, when walking, driving, or just at home. They would not wish to attract attention, so they would probably make a try for him when it could be done unobtrusively. Once he had been good at both karate and judo. How good was he now, after the years had passed?
His thoughts returned to the problem before him.
What manner of people would he find on the Other Side? What conditions?
Judging by Kawasi and the unknown visitor at Tamarron, they were people much like himself. That was what the evidence indicated. But he must not make the mistake the white man did in judging the Indian, and vice versa. Each came from a certain cultural background, and assumed that certain attributes were typical of all men when such was not the case.