Chief had emptied his dish and Mike filled it with water. The big dog drank greedily.
“You like beasts?” She was puzzled. “Why is this?”
He glanced at her. “You do not have dogs over there?”
“It is not permitted.” Kawasi said. “But even if it was”—she shook her head—”we would not think of keeping a beast.” She puckered her brow. “Why is this? Why you like him?”
“He’s my friend,” Mike replied. “The dog was the first animal domesticated by man, and they’ve been companions these thousands of years. I expect the first dogs were captured wolf puppies that were raised for food, and they became such good companions the people decided not to eat them. Men and dogs began hunting together and that settled it, I guess.”
“We do not keep beasts except for food and for skins,” she said primly.
“You miss a lot,” he said. “Of course, there are people among us who do not keep dogs for pets.” He paused. “I think it is more a custom among Europeans and Americans than others, with the exception of some nomadic peoples.”
” ‘Nomadic’? I do not know what it is.”
“People who wander from place to place, often driving cattle or sheep to fresh grazing lands. Do you not have people of that kind?”
She frowned again. “I do not know. There is great desert. I do not believe anybody goes past it, ever. There are miles of plantings, although not so much as long ago. All is controlled by the Lords of Shibalba.”
“Shibalba?”
“It is the name of where I live.”
“The Maya have a legend of an underground place where live the enemies of men. It is called Xibalba.”
“It is the same, I think.”
He added fuel to the fire, and a few sparks flew up. “Once when we talked you said you saw something familiar in the mesa over there? Do you remember?”
She looked over her shoulder, then shifted position so the mesa was no longer behind her. “It is like a place I know on the Other Side. It cannot be, yet …”
“You think it is the same?”
“It cannot be, and yet I think … it is like, but different somehow. I do not like it,” she added. “I do not even like to think about it.”
Chief lay close to them, his head on his paws. Mike looked out across the mesa, his eyes straying beyond to the silver of the river. The stars were very bright, the night dark. Somewhere, far off, a coyote howled. Chief lifted his big head, listening.
Kawasi was silent, staring into the fire. Mike slowly began arranging his thoughts, trying to face his problem and decide what was necessary. There was no use in going it blind. He must have a plan, but one he could adjust to circumstances.
Of what he was facing he had no idea, beyond hostile people in a world of which he knew nothing. A dozen times in the past he had come upon accounts of mysterious disappearances or appearances for which there was no logical explanation. Ships, planes, even a whole Chinese Army had vanished without logical explanation. But what was logical? Only that which men knew, and they know so little.
Erik was gone.
A thin film of dust lay over the worktable and the blueprints. The sleeping bag was rolled up tight, something one did in desert country for fear of snakes, spiders, or scorpions taking refuge in one’s bed. They were not the best of sleeping companions.
He unrolled the bag. “You can sleep in it. I’ll make out with Erik’s parka.”
He brought fuel closer to the fire, then walked out away from the ruin. The mesa top was thick with powdery soil and only a sparse growth of weeds. The night was cool; the stars seemed very close. All was still, and he knew the nearest habitation was at least an hour’s drive, unless there was some Navajo hogan south of the river, which was deep and offered no crossing nearer than Mexican Hat.
The night reminded him of Sinkiang, the Kunluns, and the Pamirs. This was a ghostly, haunted land. Men had lived here and died here, but others had vanished—into what? He knew the feeling from the Kunluns, those mountains that border Tibet on the north, virtually unknown to climbers or travelers, offering few passes, yet one of the mightiest mountain ranges on earth. Only a few local people knew those mountains, and there were areas into which even they did not venture.
He listened into the night, thinking of tomorrow when he would examine the kiva.
There was no sound. The big dog walked out to stand beside him, testing the wind with his nose. Deep in his chest he growled. Mike dropped a hand to the dog’s head. “Watch ’em, boy!” he said softly. “You watch ’em now!”
How he wished the dog might tell him what he knew, what he smelled. Yet the growl warned him they were not alone. There was somebody, some thing out there.
He walked back, picking up more fuel for the fire. Kawasi was in the sleeping bag, and her even breathing told him she was probably asleep. He touched the butt of his pistol again.
What was it like over there? Would his pistol even work? Suppose it would not? Suppose the passing of the veil wrought some unexpected change in him? In his personality? His comprehension? His awareness?
Kawasi seemed all right, and there had certainly been nothing physically wrong with the man who had come into his condo at Tamarron.
If he did go over, what could he do? He knew nothing of the place, nothing of its customs or its people except that they were different from here, no doubt different from any place he had visited.
The Hopi and some other Indians believed this was the Fourth World. Of the two first worlds they professed to remember little or nothing, but because the Third World had become evil, they had fled through a hole in the ground into this world. That was one of the legends.
Another story said the Hopi had crossed the sea to get here, but the disparity did not bother him. The world of the story has no boundaries, and no barrier can keep a story from traveling, although it may take on local color.
He was not surprised that the Hopi had several stories of their origin. Often a man of one tribe would bring home to his lodge a woman of another, and when she bore children she would relate to them the stories she had heard as a child, and so stories from one tribe became the stories of another.
Mike Raglan squatted beside the fire. He had to think this thing through, weigh the problems, and choose a course of action. Erik Hokart was gone, and Erik was depending on him for help.
Apparently Erik was a prisoner, but was he actually in what they had been thinking of as the Other Side, or was he held somewhere here? The idea of a kidnapping still seemed reasonable. It was all very well to talk of a parallel world, whatever that meant, but he was a rational human being who believed in dealing with the here and the now. He had trouble enough dealing with one world without thinking of another.
Whoever they were who had Erik had shown themselves willing and capable of using force. The ruins of the burned-out cafe were proof enough of that, and the man who had gotten into his condo was another.
He poked sticks into the coals of the fire, which was dying down. Suppose it was a simple kidnapping? Their next step would be a note demanding ransom, but who would receive such a note? Erik had no relatives, or none Mike had ever heard of. Not many people knew that he, Mike Raglan, was a friend of Erik’s. If he knew of no one to whom a ransom note might be sent, how could the kidnappers know?
A foreign government could be ruled out. Erik had not done any government work for some time and it was doubtful if anyone had known of that. With the speed of change in such areas, whatever Erik had done would now be out of date and no longer important.
Revenge? But for what? Erik was not a man who made enemies. Always a gentleman, a quiet, hardworking man who never paraded his skills or his wealth, he was a man who did not attract animosity.
Nonetheless, he was gone. He was not here on the mesa. His car had been abandoned in town. His possessions were here, even his shaving kit.
Mike poked at the fire, shying from the problem he must face. Fantastic as the story seemed to be, Erik was missing, and wherever he was he was depending on Mike Raglan to help him, to save them. He had written in the plural, so there had to be somebody with him. Kawasi might have the answer. She might be able to tell him who the other person was, if it was not Kawasi herself.