“When this is over, Chief, we’re going to change that. We’re going to settle down, establish ourselves and have some friends.”
He’d been busy, he told himself, and to have friends you had to stay someplace, put down roots. For a while back there, when he was a youngster working on the paper, he had been about to make friends. He hadn’t, though. He was an outsider there, too. He didn’t fit in. Wherever he’d gone, he had been a stranger. Conversations had a way of getting around to high school or college days, or to mutual associations in the town they were living in, and in all that he had no place.
“The truth of the matter is, Chief,” he said softly, ruffling the hair on the big dog’s neck, “if I didn’t come back, nobody would care very much.”
He walked back to the ruin, glancing around in the outer room, where the blueprints were gathering dust. He and Erik were two of a kind. If Erik had not thought to notify him, nobody would have known what happened to him. Although, apparently, that had changed for him over there, for when he had written of escaping he had said “us.” Somebody would be coming back with him. He was no longer alone.
It would be easier to cope with what lay on the other side if he knew more of what they believed. Basic beliefs are important, even when they are largely ignored. In our world, with each religious system there is a code of ethics or something of the kind, a sort of behavior that is considered right and just. To understand any people, one must have some idea where they are coming from, and so far he had nothing beyond obedience to The Hand, the Lords of Shibalba, and enforcement by the Varanel.
The moon was rising and the canyons were gathering deeper shadows. The river caught the moon’s reflection and gave it back to the sky. He built his fire up and listened, but there were no sounds in the night.
What could Erik do? Would he have access to materials? Could he construct some means of communication? Would anything of the kind work across the divide? Could he put together some kind of weapon? Had he been able to convince them that he could be important to them? Had he even tried? Was he given a chance even to talk? Above all, what was The Hand like? A superbrain? An ignorant man? A paranoid? Eden Foster was his representative here, but was she the only one? Who controlled his goon squad?
Above all, what did The Hand want? A better spy system with which to watch his own people, no doubt, but information from here as well, and some equipment. Above all, he wanted no suspicion of their existence.
His own people were severely restricted in their movements, and no hint of dissension or the possibility of it was allowed to exist. Yet some of his people must know of the existence of those who had been followers of He Who Had Magic, such as Kawasi.
Mike liked having the old stone wall behind him. Liked the protection it provided. Yet he was uneasy, always uneasy. Where was Volkmeer? And Gallagher?
Suddenly, his skin prickled. Something—something moved out there in the darkness.
Every sense alert, he waited. He had heard no car, seen no reflected lights. He touched the butt of his gun, and the feel of it was reassuring. He waited, listening.
And he heard it again.
Something was out there, something coming closer. Over in the kiva, a small stone fell, rattled among rocks, then fell again.
Of course, a car might come without his hearing it. What of Gallagher that time?
Who, he wondered, were his enemies? Did he have any allies whom he could trust? Gallagher, probably, and Volkmeer.
The thought left him empty. How much could they help? How much did they actually believe? Did they believe what he said, or were they just humoring him?
Stark black towers against the sky, island mesas, bathed in white moonlight. Not far to the south a place called Oljeto, meaning Moonlit Water. How well the Indians had named it!
The night was chill. He shivered. From the cold? Or because of something else out there? What was it that lurked in the shadows, sometimes heard but never seen? Was it those creatures, the Hairy Ones?
He would talk again to Tazzoc. He would listen to his voice, he would learn to imitate his walk, he would take the cloak with him, belt it as Tazzoc did, and with luck he could get into the Hall of the Archives and from there to the place where Erik was held.
He would go into that other world and he would find Erik, and when they returned they would blast this kiva, or close it off somehow. They had to, because somehow he knew there was something wrong over there, something twisted and’strange.
He remembered Tazzoc suddenly, and how the old scholar had seemed to revel in the knowledge of the secret doors and of the trapped men. Was it the cleverness of it? Or was there something more? Something evil, even in him?
He unrolled the sleeping bag but did not get into it. Instead, he lay down on top of it and pulled his wind-breaker over him. A sleeping bag was fine but he couldn’t get out of it fast enough. And tonight he might have to. Did the shadows move out there, or was it his imagination?
He got up again and added fuel to the fire, and then he lay down with a flashlight close to his hand, as well as the pistol. What he needed was a good night’s sleep, and he would not get it tonight. Something moved, or was it the dancing of the flames? Had there been a shadow, a …
XXVI
Trusting to Chief, at last he fell asleep. Several times the big dog growled, low and deep in his chest, but Mike Raglan slept on, unaware. He awakened in the cold clear light of dawn, and looked beyond the thin tendrils of smoke rising from the ashes of his fire to the distant blue bulk of Navajo Mountain.
He lay there, hands clasped behind his head, just resting. These last few moments before rising often offered the best rest of the night. Lying there, he reviewed his situation and the moves remaining to him.
Today he would return to Tamarron and he would drive into town and talk to a banker whom he knew. If he did not come back from this venture, he wanted his affairs in order. He must check at Tamarron to see if any messages awaited him. On his return he would visit Eden. The time might not be up, but he had decided he would wait no longer.
Both Erik and Kawasi knew of his place at Tamarron, as did his enemies, if such they could be called. He got up, shook out his boots, and put them on. The morning was incredibly beautiful. There was no movement on the river but he expected none. Few boats came this far up and the river runners passed quickly by. Glancing over at No Man’s, he saw its top bathed in sunlight, its base still deep in shadow. Ominous, but magnificent, too.
He stretched, feeling good. Well, he’d better. He would need all he had in strength, agility, and wit to face what lay before him. Over near the base of the red rock that Erik had planned to make one wall of his house, he saw some wild flowers, several of them sunflowers. He picked one, and returning inside the ruin to Erik’s blueprints, he put down the flower and on a sketch pad wrote: Erik—I will need your help. Any time now.
It was a wild gamble. Somebody using a sunflower as an emblem had come from the other side, somebody who had been friendly. That somebody might know where Erik was, might be able to communicate. In any event, nothing would be lost.
It was a long drive to Tamarron. He stopped briefly at the motel and at the cafe.
No messages. No sign of either Gallagher or Volkmeer.
He told the waitress that if Gallagher came in, to tell him Mike Raglan had gone to Tamarron, and would be back the following day. He saw no one on the road, and was not followed. It was like entering another world. He drove first to the lodge to pick up his mail, then to his condo. It was a beautiful sunlit day, and people in bright costumes were playing golf on what must be, he thought, one of the most beautiful courses in the world.
Once inside he glanced around but nothing had been disturbed. All appeared to be as he had left it. The mail needed only a matter of minutes. A check for an article recently completed, a note from a friend about a ruin recently discovered in Colombia, a letter about some mummies found near Arica, in Chile, that seemed to be five thousand years older than any discovered in Egypt. A couple of bills, and a brief note from a girl he had known in Rio, and when was he returning to Brazil?