“And who is he?”
“An electronics expert, and one who has worked with both the FBI and the CIA. He has testified before Senate committees and every newspaper in the country knows who he is. They are already beginning to ask questions.”
Volkmeer ran his gnarled .fingers through his sparse hair. “Never knew him, m’self. Heard about him.”
“They’ll be asking questions, Volk. And they will be wanting answers. That fire that burned the cafe will be first on the list, and they will go through those ashes like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll be questioned, and so will you.”
“Me? I don’t know anything.”
“They won’t assume that, Volk, and if anything happens to me, I’ve left a list of people and places.”
Volkmeer swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He looked off toward the mountains, blue in the distance. “Well, I hope they find him.”
“It won’t be quick, Volk. They will follow every lead, talk to everybody, demand explanations for everything. You see, Yolk, they have time. If there’s any discrepancy in a story, they will find it and follow it up. They will check the records on mining claims, tax returns, and everything you can imagine.”
“I guess you’re right. Never thought much about it.” He paused. “A man gets on a trail sometimes, seems easy at the time.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Me? Nothin’ at all. Just sort of thinking about all that out there, wondering what will come of it.”
“Don’t come out there, Volk, unless you are ready to go the route.” He turned to look at the older man. “I am going in there after a friend, Volkmeer, and that’s all. There’s nothing in this for me but a lot of trouble, and if you come along, that’s all I can promise you.”
“Reckon I know that, Mike.” His hard old eyes measured him. “You got any idea what you’re gettin’ into?”
Raglan did not answer. What was he doing, anyway? All he had to do was walk away or drive away. Nobody would know the difference, or care. The hell of it was, he was going into this for a man who was not really a close friend. But the man had called on him for help.
After all, what did a fireman know about the person he dragged from the fire? Or the passing stranger who saved a drowning man? One did what one could. From the best motives in the world he was trapped into a situation where he might die a very unpleasant death, when he would rather be almost anywhere else, doing almost anything other than this.
He swore, and Volkmeer glanced at him. “Gettin’ cold feet?”
“Hell, Volk, I’ve had ’em from the beginning! How the hell does a man get into such a situation? I’m no hero. I’m just a tough, self-centered guy who has been trying to make a life for himself.”
“Like me,” Volkmeer said. “I got tired of punchin’ somebody else’s cows, always makin’ money for the other feller. Wanted some of my own.”
“Well, you’ve got it, but is it yours? I expect it is if nobody has a claim on you.”
Volkmeer removed his hat and wiped the hatband with a rough hand. “Watched ’em build that dam. Watched the water back up behind it, fillin’ all those old canyons where I used to ride, covering ruins, filling up kivas. I tell you it was like a blessing, like a blessing.
“I never thought—”
Mike Raglan walked to his car. He was in no mood to listen to more. His mind was made up and he could delay no longer. It might already be too late.
He glanced around at Volkmeer, standing undecided. “Get one thing straight, Volk. I’m going in there planning to come out, and I’m going to bring Erik Hokart with me. And anybody who gets in the way is in trouble, and I mean anybody!”
XXIX
When Mike Raglan walked into the ruin on the mesa, a robe was lying across his sleeping bag. Beside it was a worn turban of the kind Tazzoc wore. Mike sat down on a campstool and got out his old canvas map.
Maybe he was a coward. He knew he was scared. In his years of knocking about he had gone into some tight and dangerous places. He had walked the mean streets of the world, he had gone into ancient, supposedly haunted monasteries, he had explored catacombs where the dead were buried, but before he had always had a fairly clear idea of what he was facing, and here he had only the vaguest.
He studied the map given him so long ago by the old cowboy in Flagstaff, who had copied it from part of a map on a gold plaque. The entrance the old man had used was now under water, but the other one he had known of was over to the west, in the place Johnny had found when rounding up strays.
Looming on the map, drawn with remarkable accuracy, was No Man’s Mesa. In the old days one could cross the river easily, but now it was a long way around by car. The dam had backed water up the canyon and deepened it considerably.
He had to cross over and he could not safely use the window in the kiva. That led, he had been told, into a trap. Still, Chief had gotten through and had apparently not been injured.
Well … as a last resort, maybe. He would try the Hole. There was an opening there and with luck he could find it.
What had become of Kawasi? More and more he found himself thinking of her. There had been a wistful loneliness about her that stayed with him. Large, beautiful eyes, soft lips … What the hell was he thinking of? This was no time to be thinking about a girl. His job now was to cross to the Other Side and survive it, then to find where the Hall of the Archives was, and, once inside, try to find a way into other parts of the structure without getting himself trapped in one of those built-in tombs.
“You’re a damned fool, Raglan,” he told himself. “Go on into Durango and catch a plane out of here. To hell with it.”
Yet he was not going to do it. Even as he thought of all the intelligent reasons not to do it, he knew he was going in. Yet he had to be honest with himself. Was it altogether because of Erik? Or was it the challenge of the unknown?
He had spent months exploring ruins of the Anasazi, he had slept in their kivas in far-out, lonely ruins. He had followed their trails, stood upon fields where they once planted maize and squash, fingered shards of their broken pottery, and in his heart he felt a kinship. Some had undoubtedly merged with the Hopi, others with the Mimbres, and many had died. Yet, if it was even remotely possible that some had gone back to that Third World, he wanted to know how they fared.
Sometimes, seated alone in one of their ruins, he had felt himself one of them. He had watched in his mind those small copper-skinned people grinding corn, carrying water up the steep trails, weaving cloth, going about the day-to-day business of being themselves.
What had happened to them? From the little he had learned, and if what they told him was true, some had fallen in with the Evil Ones who had remained behind, but some had fled that world, gone to the mountains or canyons, and there carried on as they might have, had they remained at Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, or Chaco Canyon.
He checked his gun again, then from his small pack he took another, a Heckler and Koch 9 millimeter, stowing it away in a special holster inside his belt at the small of his back. That was simply insurance. It was the Smith & Wesson .357 on which he intended to rely.
Where was Tazzoc? He needed to talk to him once more. He needed more guidance, more advice! And where was Kawasi? Was she yet alive? Or had they taken her? Killed her or kept her a prisoner?
He went outside and walked to the kiva’s edge, looking into it. Were those fresh tracks? Made by whom? For what reason? He looked at the window and it stared back at him like an open mouth, with spots on the wall seeming like eyes. He shifted his feet uneasily, glancing over his shoulder.
Chief moved up beside him, growling a little, then sniffing the rocks that made up the circular wall of the kiva. Had something been there? Something that climbed out and prowled about the ruin?
The sky was a magnificent blue, with only a few scattered clouds. The river lay bright in the sunlight, and No Man’s brooded in silence.
Was there a trail to the top? He could see no place for it, only the bare red walls rising sheer from the piles of talus. He had been told there was no trail, but an old Mormon had said there was. There were wild horses on the top, horses that must have found a way up and down, for the winters would be bitterly cold, with icy winds sweeping across the unprotected tableland.