“Maybe not, and probably we’re wasting time, but I’m playing a hunch. It’s just for a minute or two.”
Johnny reached his hands to the fire. “If you say so.”
“We’re being watched, I think. The Saqua are out there, and they have some affinity for fire. I thought maybe if we showed something of the kind, it might help.”
“With them?” Johnny asked skeptically. “They’re animals. They ain’t even human.”
“They know the way through.”
“Well, that’s what’s said. Seems like they come an’ go as they like. I’ve heard talk of that.”
They stepped back from the fire and Mike went again to the forest’s edge for fuel. It would be a long night, and fires were insatiable in their demands. Yet he needed time to think. If it was true the Varanel would not attack in the night, he had time in which to think, to plan. How many times had he told others that it was only the mind of man that distinguished him from animals? That a human being should take the time to think. All right, he told himself grimly, think, damn you! Think!
Telling himself to think brought no flood of ideas. He tried examining his situation from every view and could find no ready answer. Somewhere near, there would be an opening, if, indeed, it was not already too late.
Despite all the hiking about he had done, he had at no time been more than ten miles from where he now stood, and he doubted if it were much more than half that. Yet that long-dead river on which they had found the remains of the Iron Mountain must have begun far away, and the ill-fated steamer must have steamed north, hoping to find St. Louis or some such river port, only to find nothing and to tie up at last to a deserted riverbank, to move no more.
He, at least, knew what had happened. He did not understand the circumstances, yet he had heard of such things many times. At least, the idea was familiar to him but he doubted whether anyone on the Iron Mountain had ever heard of such a thing as happened to them.
Somewhere near was No Man’s, Johnny’s Hole, and what he couldn’t help but think of as the Haunted Mesa. Somewhere, just across that thin line dividing them from his world. The Anasazi had known how to leave this world and go to his, and they had known how to return when their decision was made. Was Kawasi keeping something from him? Did she not wish them to return? He stood at the edge of the forest, thinking, then began to gather wood. Something moved in the forest close by.
“For the fire,” he said aloud, not hoping to be understood.
There was no sound, no movement. He filled his arms, resolving that if attacked, he would throw the wood into the face of the attacker and then draw his gun. Nothing happened, yet he could distinctly sense the presence of something living. And that odd smell? Yes, it was there.
“We want to go back,” he said aloud, hoping somehow to communicate his need.
He withdrew one arm from under the wood, touched himself on the chest, and made a gesture outward, then repeated it with the one hand. “We want to go back,” he repeated, and then walked back to the fire.
Johnny had gone to keep watch. Erik was seated, eating some of the trail mix from Raglan’s pack. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m starved.”
“I don’t wonder. Take what you need.”
Raglan dumped his wood and stood staring into the flames, then sat down abruptly. “Whatever we do,” he said, “we should do before daylight.”
Erik wiped his hands on his pants. “Mike,” he began, “I—”
Zipacna loomed suddenly, across the fire. He was smiling, obviously pleased that they were startled. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Tomorrow at noon I will show you the way. You can go, all of you.”
XLII
Nobody moved or spoke, startled by his sudden appearance. Raglan was angered by the man’s manner as well as his own carelessness, and at the same moment he knew he must not allow his animosity to affect his judgment.
“Show us the way, Zipacna? To one of your trapped rooms, perhaps? I think not.”
“Soon you have no chance.”
Raglan shrugged, assuming a nonchalance he did not feel. “So? If we stay, we will simply take over. Your country is ripe for it and we have already demonstrated that the Varanel are not invulnerable.
“The Hand has been wise to exclude outsiders. Over on our side we have a compulsive drive to move into any area that offers opportunity, and your country is dying. It is ripe for a takeover, as you yourself have decided.
“There is opportunity here. There are undoubtedly minerals to be exploited. Conditions would be different but ours are an adaptable people. We have taken to working in many countries, to deep-sea drilling and space travel. In fact, Zipacna, I have been thinking about approaching The Hand. He might welcome some controlled innovation.”
Raglan had no such idea. He was stalling for time, talking off the top of his head while seeking a way out. What he wanted was to be back on his own side and to forget the whole affair.
Had The Hand a method of listening? Such devices were available in his own world and he already had been told The Hand sought such devices. Suppose he already possessed them and was listening now?
Zipacna was angry and restless. Obviously, he too wished to be free of the situation into which his boldness and his ego had projected him. There was something else, too. Raglan had been feeling a growing sense of urgency. Was it some change in the atmosphere? Something caused by the approaching space-quake or whatever it was? From their attitudes he knew the others felt it, too.
Johnny put wood on the fire. “You had better go, Zipacna. There’s nothing for you here. When we go, we will go our own way.”
“You have until daylight,” Zipacna said stiffly. “Only until then.”
“I think you speak for yourself only,” Kawasi said suddenly. “It is you who speaks, not The Hand. You are of the Varanel, not the Lords of Shibalba. I think you reach for power.”
“You? What are you? Only a woman!”
“Among my people, I speak and am heard.” Her manner was cool, imperious. “You were nothing until somehow you crept through to the other side and learned a little, making yourself useful to The Hand. And then you found out about her!”
“Melisande,” Erik said. He glanced at Raglan. “The girl of the sunflowers.”
Mike Raglan looked from one to the other. What the hell was going on? Who was the girl of the sunflowers? Of course, there had been the missing pencil and the sunflower on the dog’s collar, even the sunflower stitched inside the collar of the sweater. Could this be the girl Erik had meant when he spoke of “us”?
If so, where was she? Where had she been? And who was she?
“Look,” he said impatiently, “if we’re going to get out of here, it’s got to be now. We haven’t the time to hunt up some other girl—”
“I won’t go without her,” Erik said.
Zipacna was ignored, except by Johnny, who, seated back at the shadow’s edge, held his pistol in his hand, his rifle beside him. Johnny was watching Zipacna with sullen, angry eyes, waiting for a wrong move, and Zipacna was aware of it.
Some of the man’s arrogant confidence seemed to have deserted him. Nevertheless, he was poised and watchful. “Where is she?” Raglan demanded. “Whatever is done must be done now.”
“She’s close by,” Kawasi replied.
So suddenly that it caught even Johnny by surprise, Zipacna dropped a hand to a wall and vaulted over into the darkness below. Johnny leaped for the wall but Raglan spoke sharply. “Don’t waste the bullet. He’s gone and we’re well rid of him.”
“He’ll be back,” Johnny said.
Raglan agreed but did not say so. His only thought now was to get out. If that prophecy was true, they had almost no time left, but of course it was an estimate based on a rumor, nothing substantial to it at all. Nonetheless, he was uneasy, with that unsettling sense of impending doom.
“All right, Kawasi,” he said, “let’s get her and get out. Zipacna will be back, and so will others.” He turned to Johnny. “Keep watch. I’ve got to look around.”
Kawasi disappeared, to where he did not know, but she knew this country better than he. He felt for his gun, then went back to what had been an opening. The door was there but it seemed to have been walled shut with stone. He put his hand out to touch it, then hastily withdrew it. He didn’t like the look of it, and glanced over his shoulder again.