Mystery of the Haunted Mine

1 The Lure of the Lost Espectro Mine

The Espectro Mountains rose almost impetuously from the desert floor to loom high over the scattered ranches along the southern and western bases of the mountains. The Espectros dominated that lonely part of Arizona as nothing else did. They stood proudly and mysteriously against the blue, cloud-dotted sky of day and loomed dark and brooding at night. They could be seen for many miles in all directions and had been used by travelers as the one outstanding landmark in that isolated land, for the other mountains in the hazy distance were as nothing when compared to the Espectros. They could be seen long before travelers could distinguish any particular features of the great jumbled masses of rock that formed them. When one was near them they seemed almost to lean over, as though to overpower insignificant humans with their ponderous might. Even when one was miles beyond the Espectros, it was difficult not to obey a compelling impulse to turn and look back at them. They had the uncanny power of making people look at them again and again and yet never tire of the view. Still there was a hidden seed of fear that sprouted rapidly within those who looked at them for too long a time. Their very name, given to them by the early Spanish explorers, was an indication of the fear and respect which the brooding mountains had always seemed to instill in those who studied them. The Espectro Mountains — the Ghost Mountains! For they were haunted, as surely as the fears of man could people such places with the ever-restless spirits of the dead.

Gary Cole unsaddled his claybank and placed the saddle on top of the corral rail. His eyes sought the Espectros. He well knew the aura of thralldom, mingled with intense fear and curiosity, that hung over the Espectros like the heat haze of these late summer days. All of his life had been spent within view of the Espectros. The night of his birth the Thunder People had thudded their drums in the rain-streaming canyons of the mountains and had shot their lightning arrows through the dark skies to bathe the Espectros in an eerie bluish light. An old Chiricahua vaquero who was working on the ranch at that time had prophesied that Gary would be held in subjection to the Espectros no matter where he roamed, and that he always would be compelled to come back to them.

Gary leaned on the rail and shoved back his hat. The Espectros were clothed in a smoky-looking haze which distorted and magnified them. It had been a busy summer for Gary, and in two weeks he would be back in high school without having had the chance to explore the Espectros thoroughly. It had been a summer of hard work with little time to play, and the money he had made was not his to keep. It was sorely needed in the Cole household, for Chiricahua Springs Ranch was no longer a paying proposition since Gary's father had become an invalid.

He watched a puff of cloud chase its fleeting shadow down the rugged slopes of the Espectros in a race that would never end. He saw a still-winged hawk hanging almost motionless high over The Needle like a scrap of charred paper pasted against the startling blue of the sky. The naked pinnacle of rock known as The Needle thrust itself up from the harsh slope of a great peak like a warning finger to those who would probe into the secrets of the Espectros. But for those who did venture into the mountains, The Needle was always the starting point. For not only were those mysterious mountains haunted by strange and bloody tales handed down by Apaches, Spaniards, and Americans, but also by the persistent whispered rumors of vast stores of gold and silver left locked within the bosom of the mountains by the legendary Melgosa Brothers, over a hundred years ago.

Gary half closed his eyes. It was almost four o'clock. He looked directly at the sheer rock wall to the right of, and just beyond, the towering finger of The Needle, now fully lighted by the dying sun. Just then Gary heard the old pendulum clock in the Cole living room strike the hour. As the last stroke died away he opened his eyes to stare at the rock wall in the canyon. For a fleeting instant he thought he saw something like a line cut into the rock, but he couldn't be sure whether it was natural or not. Then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him with a bitter feeling of disappointment. Swiftly the rock wall became shrouded in shadow until the entire canyon was dark and uninviting.

He turned quickly to walk to the house, and as he did so he saw his father, leaning on his crutches, staring toward the same canyon. Gary turned away; he didn't want to embarrass his father. He picked up his little Winchester saddle gun from its position against the corral rail. It needed a cleaning, for he had killed a rattler that day. Gary had been guiding dudes from a local ranch, and when the rattler had struck savagely at the horse of one of the dudes, Gary had killed it with a shot through the ugly flat head. Now there was a five-dollar bill folded in his shirt pocket — a grateful gift from the sweating dude. Gary had not told him it was the only cartridge in his rifle.

"Gary!" called his mother from the kitchen.

"Yes, Mother?"

"Wash up. We're eating early tonight. Your father and I are going into The Wells tonight to stay with Aunt Marion. Do you want to come with us?"

Gary, a year before that time, would have been only too happy to go to Cottonwood Wells, but he had been a kid then. It just wasn't right for a guy his age to be seen riding into The Wells with his father and mother, no matter how much he loved them.

"Gary?" questioned his mother.

"Well, I was figuring on studying my maps and things, Mother."

"You know them by heart, Gary."

He filled a basin with water, washed quickly, and combed his thick reddish hair. When he walked into the pleasant-smelling kitchen his mother turned to look at him, brushing back a lock of her own thick titian hair. It was a beautiful red against the blue of her eyes and the fairness of her skin. Lucille Hart had been the belle of Cottonwood Wells before she had married Pete Cole just before Pearl Harbor when he was a sergeant in the Marines. Pete Cole had brought home a fine war record, plus a Navy Cross and a piece of steel lodged near his spine which had partially crippled him. A strange event in a branch of Cholla Canyon had crippled him still further and had almost cost him his life.

Gary eyed his pretty mother as he set the table for her. There were dark circles beneath her lovely blue eyes and every day new worry hues appeared on her forehead. "I was hoping you'd go with us this time, Gary," she said a little petulantly. She didn't quite realize her only child was swiftly growing into a man.

Pete Cole came into the kitchen, slid into his chair, and leaned his crutches against the wall. "I'd rather have Gary stay here," he said. "Jim Kermit said he had seen a mountain lion prowling about the wash just east of the ranch. I think Gary had better stay here and keep an eye on the stock, Lucille."

"The stock, Pete?" questioned Lucille. "There's hardly enough to bother with. Now I think…" her voice broke off as she saw the taut look on his face. Pete Cole still liked to think he was a rancher.

Gary busied himself with his food. His father knew well enough why Gary didn't want to go to The Wells with them. It was hardly likely a cougar would be seen around there in the summer, and during daylight hours at that.

"All right, Pete," said Mrs. Cole. She had been through this before. Men always seemed to stick together, even the two she loved and cherished above everything else.

"You're off tomorrow, eh?" asked Gary's father.

"It's Sunday, Dad," said Gary.

Pete Cole fiddled with his knife. "What are you planning to do?"

There was no sense in lying, and besides it wasn't easy to lie to his father. Gary had learned that at an early age. "I thought I'd ride up past The Needle," he said.

"Looking for more relics?"

"Yes."

"And maybe a lead to the Lost Espectro, eh, Gary?"

Gary flushed. "I didn't think there would be any harm in that."

"I've told you quite a few times this summer to forget about the Lost Espectro."

"It isn't easy, living right in the shadow of the Espectros, to forget about the treasure hidden up there." Gary leaned forward. "The Lost Espectro is supposed to be richer than the Dutchman's Lost Mine, the Lost Adams Diggings, the Lost Padre, and maybe Tayopa itself!"

"Fairy tales! Lies embroidered by old-timers!"

"The Dutchman brought out gold from the Superstitions, didn't he? Adams found a bonanza and researchers agree that perhaps others found it as well and lost it again! The Lost Padre exists! You told me yourself you used to hunt for it on weekends when you went to college in El Paso. You just can't deny Tayopa, Dad. The old records in Mexico prove that Tayopa was one of the richest silver mines in the world!"

"Take it easy," said Mrs. Cole nervously. She glanced at her husband.

But Gary was warming up to his favorite subject. It was almost an obsession with him. "My great-grandfather spent a large part of his later life looking for the Lost Espectro," Gary continued, "and actually made a derrotero of his findings! He told your father the chart was as accurate as he could make it. He said that on his deathbed. Would he lie to his own son when he was dying? You yourself have always said that Great-grandfather Cole's derrotero probably held the key to the Lost Espectro if anything did!"

"Maybe it does, son," said Pete Cole quietly, "but where is it?"

This last remark was like a dash of cold water against Gary's face. The chart, or derrotero, had vanished years ago.

"I saw you looking for that legendary Spanish miner's symbol that is supposed to be cut into the east wall of The Needle Canyon, Gary. I know it's supposed to be visible about four o'clock in the afternoon during the late part of the summer. Did you happen to see it today?"

Gary couldn't help himself. "Did you, Dad?"

It was Pete Cole's turn to flush. He glanced quickly at his wife.

Lucille Cole stood up and began to clear the table. "Yes, Pete," she said quietly, "Gary knows you still look for it. How can you expect him to forget about the Lost Espectro when you haven't forgotten about it yourself?"

"There's nothing but death up there for those who look for it," said Pete.

"Yet you searched for it, Pete."

"Are you siding with Gary?" he snapped.

"No, Pete. But he's as like you as you were like your grandfather. Your own father was a rancher, and he never thought about the Lost Espectro."

"I consider myself a rancher, Lucille!"

She smiled. "By birth rather than by choice I think, Pete. I can remember when we were in high school in Cottonwood Wells how the other girls used to talk about you. But you were always more interested in lost treasures than you ever were in girls."

"Until I got interested in you, Lucille," he said.

"But you were still looking for the Lost Espectro even after you came back from the war, Pete."

He looked down at his almost useless legs. "For a time," he said bitterly.

Gary began to help his mother. It hadn't been so many years ago that Pete Cole had been fired upon by a hidden marksman while he was searching an offshoot of Cholla Canyon for clues to the Lost Espectro. His horse had been shot to death and in the fall Pete had suffered damage to his spine, which had already been injured by his war wound. He had been found by Jim Kermit, a local rancher, a full day after his fall. His condition now prevented him from ever again riding into the Espectros.

Pete Cole got to his feet and reached for his crutches. "Gary," he said sternly, "I don't want you ever to ride past The Needle. That's final!" He dragged himself from the kitchen.

Gary looked at his mother. "I'll do the dishes," he said.

"He means it, Gary."

"I won't go beyond The Needle," he promised. He smiled ruefully. "Not much reason to, I guess. I haven't found any leads to the Lost Espectro."

She took off her apron. "Tuck called," she said.

"I'll call him right back," Gary said eagerly.

"No need to. I told him to come out and stay with you tonight."

He stared at her. "But you asked me to go to The Wells with you and Dad tonight."

She kissed him. "I don't need a lost derrotero to tell me the obvious," she said. "Remember, Gary! Do not go past The Needle!"

He watched her as she walked toward the door into the living room. She seemed so tired. "Mother," he called out. She turned and looked at him questioningly. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out the folded five-dollar bill. He handed it to her. "Buy a hot dog and a bottle of soda pop for yourself and Dad," he said.

She eyed the money and then her big son. "Where did you get this?"

"The Lost Espectro," he said. He swung out his arms. "The place was loaded with bales of 'em, but I wasn't greedy."

She reached out and touched his forehead. "Gold fever," she said quietly.

Later, after his father and mother had left in the battered green pickup truck, Gary walked outside and looked at the dusky light over the mountains. For thirty years persistent stories had lingered about mysterious murders and disappearances in the Espectros. Rifle shots from the clinging, dark shadows of canyons had turned back seekers of the lost treasure supposedly hidden in the mountains. Skeletons had been found in remote, sun-drenched canyons with bullet holes in the grinning skulls. Men had entered those brooding mountains and had never been seen again.

Purple shadows now filled the canyons and hollows. Only the highest peaks of the Espectros were still bathed in the intermingled rose and gold wash of the last rays of the dying sun. The mountains looked so quiet and still, so peaceful and pleasant; and yet, mysterious death waited up there, haunting the silent canyons and the lonely purple mesas, as it had haunted them for many years.

Then the sun was gone from the upper tips of the peaks as though a master hand had flicked a switch. A cold wind began to search through the canyons and to whisper down the darkened slopes. Far across the silent desert came the drifting, melancholy crying of a coyote. Gary shivered a little. The windmill ground into slow life and the whirring blades sang a sad little song of their own. It was then that something seemed to catch at the corner of Gary's left eye — a pinpoint of yellow light, quickly coming and vanishing high on the rugged slopes beyond the looming pinnacle of The Needle.

Gary narrowed his eyes. No one lived up there. The local Apaches, with cold horror, shunned the thought of entering those mountains after dark.

The ranchers entered the fringe canyons of the Espectros only during daylight, always armed and never alone. Those few men who were caught in there after dark never showed a light.

It had always seemed to Gary that the mountains moved in closer at night like a huge crouching beast, a beast that stared at the lonely Cole Ranch, slowly licking its thick wet lips, baring every now and then a long yellow fang, poisonous and sharp as a needle. Some dark night…

Cold green fear flowed through Gary. He glanced quickly at his rifle which leaned against the wall of the house. "Lobo!" he called sharply. There was no answer from the huge dog. In fact Gary had not seen him all that day.

Gary walked to the low sprawling house that had been built near Chiricahua Springs in 1866 by his great-grandfather, a tough and hardened veteran of the Civil War. James Cole had fought Apaches and squatters to hold his land. Bullet holes and arrow nicks pocked the thick adobe walls. Beyond the ranch buildings, closer to the ever-flowing springs, was the private cemetery of the Coles'. Gary's great-grandmother lay buried there, with three Apache bullet holes in her. There were others there who had died violently, some of them by the hand of Jim Cole himself. It was a hard country. It was peaceable now, but it was still a hard country.

The coyote cried again. Gary shivered. The thought of entering that dark house, so full of memories, was not pleasant. A distant humming sound came across the quiet desert. Far across the black velvet shroud of the night came a flickering light, like a curious and probing finger. The light was moving with great speed along the graveled road that came from the main highway to the south. An erratic, popping, roaring noise came on the wind.

Gary grinned. It was probably Tucker C. "Tuck" Browne, riding his beloved Honda motorcycle full out, which was usually the only way he rode it. The darkness of the night seemed a little more friendly now. It was always that way when Tuck Browne came to see Gary. Tuck was a good, though temporary, distraction for the lure of the Lost Espectro.

Gary went into the house and turned on the kitchen and living room lights. Automatically he checked the supply of food in the refrigerator. He went out into the room off the back porch where the freezer was and took out additional supplies which he brought into the house. Tuck Browne had been on a marathon eating contest as far back as Gary could remember and that had been a good part of his life, for the two boys had been friends since preschool days.

Gary went outside and called again for Lobo but there was no answering bark from the big dog. He looked up toward The Needle. Lobo was a prowler but he usually did not go too far into the canyons, no matter how inviting the hunting was. Lobo had always sensed that there was something wrong with those brooding canyons. He'd go along with Gary though, no matter how much he disliked doing so, his love for Gary overcoming his fear of the unknown.

Gary saw that the motorcyclist was charging along the fence line. Any minute he'd turn into the driveway past the windmill. Gary wisely took up a position where he could get into cover if Tuck made one of his spectacular stops anywhere near him. Tuck was gunning the motor in short, incessant bursts of power. The final act was about to begin.