Mystery of the Haunted Mine

10 Clues from the Sky

The moon had died, leaving behind it an intense darkness that cloaked the mountains with only the wolf-fanged peaks showing against the dark blue blanket of the sky. Two tired boys trudged toward the Cole ranch house. Gary turned to look at Tuck. "We still have two days," he said, "in which to hunt." He eyed his lean companion. Tuck had hardly spoken since they had emerged from the mouth of the canyon into the desert. Maybe Tucker C. Browne had his belly full of treasure hunting.

Tuck yawned. He trudged on, shifting his shotgun from one shoulder to the other.

"Tuck?" said Gary uneasily. He himself wanted to keep on searching, but he'd hardly want to do it without Tuck.

Tuck yawned again. "Well, kid, it's like this," he said quietly. He paused.

"Go on, Tuck! Say it! You want to quit!"

Tuck turned slowly. "What's with you?" he said in astonishment. "I was about to say we've got as good a lead as we could wish. It's a lead-pipe cinch that the treasure has to be back there beyond that water hole. I figure we can go right back into the canyon we just left. One of us can stand guard while the other hunts for more symbols."

"What about that man, or thing, we saw back there?"

Tuck spat indelicately. "Well, if it was a ghost, he won't be around during daylight hours. If it was a man, he knows we mean business. Man, you scared the Hades out of me when you opened up on him." Tuck grinned. "If that wasn't a ghost, I'll just bet whoever it was, was a mite worried himself with all that lead whistling over his head. Hawww!"

Gary couldn't help but grin himself. Then he looked down at Lobo. The dog had hunched his shoulders and was standing still, looking intently toward the darkened house. "Wait," said Gary quickly to Tuck.

They stood there in the windy darkness. The windmill creaked softly. There was no other sound. "Go on, Lobo," said Gary. He loaded his rifle. The dog trotted ahead and squirmed beneath a wire fence. The two boys climbed over it and eyed the house. The dog padded on, circled the house, then came back. He looked up at Gary as though to let him know it was all right to go to the house.

Gary opened the back door and walked in. Until he lighted the room there was a tautness of fear within him. He stared at the once immaculate kitchen. It was a shambles. Drawers hung open, tea towels were scattered on the floor, cabinet doors gaped and even the oven door hung open. Tuck whistled softly. "Mice?" he suggested.

Lobo padded into the living room, followed by the boys. The room was a mess. Chair cushions had been removed, table drawers opened, books tumbled from the shelves, the rug peeled back, and the couch overturned, with the padding slit open by a knife.

It was Gary's room that had suffered the most damage. The mattress had been torn to pieces.

The lining had been pulled loose from the closet. His books were scattered all over. The pockets of his clothing had been pulled out. Gary felt sick. He looked at Tuck. "Oh, Lord," he said, "you were supposed to be watching the place until I got back."

"Yeh," said Tuck with a weak grin. He looked about. "I don't think we have any doubt about what they were looking for in here."

Gary shook his head. "The windmill," he said quickly. "I wonder?"

"Don't go near it now!" warned Tuck.

"There'd be no one watching nearby," said Gary. "Lobo would let us know."

Tuck shrugged. "Shall we risk it?"

Gary walked to the front door. He flicked off the lights and peered through the glass window set in the door. It was as dark as the inside of a boot out there — a mysterious, clinging darkness that seemed to be a menace in itself. He eased open the door. "Take a look, Lobo," he said in a low voice.

The dog vanished in the darkness. In a few minutes he was back and he dropped to his belly on the porch. Gary walked to the windmill and looked up the ladder. It was possible that a person at a distance might be able to skyline him up there. It wasn't a pleasant thought, and a .50/110 slug could bore a big hole in a man. He climbed slowly and as quietly as possible, reached the top, felt beneath the loose board, and almost panicked. The derrotero was not there!

He clung to the ladder and peered out into the darkness, wondering who or what was out there. Perhaps the person who had removed the derrotero was still somewhere nearby. There was a green sickness within him. To find the derrotero after years of search and then to lose it again! He eased his hand beneath the board and felt along it. Something rustled dryly and fell from the platform. He almost panicked again. Swiftly he descended the ladder and dropped to hands and knees, pawing the damp ground. When at last his hands closed on the folded chart, he breathed a silent prayer, then hurried back to the house. He did not feel at ease until the door had been locked and barred behind him. He wordlessly handed the derrotero to Tuck, who took it as though it were red hot. He juggled it a little. "What do I do with it?" he asked.

Gary leaned against the wall. "We'd better take it with us tomorrow. Right now I'm going to get some sleep. I want to be out of here before dawn, as we were this morning."

Tuck nodded. "I'll take the first watch," he said. "Tired as I am, I can't sleep right now."

Gary walked into his room and lifted the ripped mattress onto his bed. It was no time to be choosy. He pulled off his hat and boots and dropped onto the mattress. It seemed as though he were asleep the instant he hit it.

When he opened his eyes again it was still dark. He had no idea as to what time it was. The house was deathly quiet. He sat up and dropped his legs over the side of the bed. Something seemed to warn him as he sat there; he reached for his rifle and then stood up. He stood there for a few minutes, listening with cocked head for a sound. Gary walked softly to the bedroom door and through the dark hallway to the living room. Gentle and steady breathing sounded from the couch. Gary tiptoed across the littered room and looked down at Tuck, sound asleep, faithful as ever to his trust. He couldn't help but grin. He was a little startled when the pendulum clock struck one. It seemed much later than that. He reached out to arouse Tuck and his hand stopped midway. A grating noise came from the back of the house.

Gary turned quickly. Lobo was either sound asleep or had wandered off, as he often did at odd hours. The kitchen door squeaked as it was opened, and Gary remembered then that he had not locked it. He reached down and clamped a hand on Tuck's mouth. He looked down into Tuck's wide eyes and shook his head, then released his grasp. Tuck stood up and reached for his shotgun but Gary again shook his head. The scatter-gun was too dangerous in close quarters.

Something moved just beyond the doorway to the kitchen. Gary pointed down, tapped his chest, pointed up, and touched Tuck's chest. His sign language was clear. They'd take the intruder by force, Gary in low and Tuck on high. Somebody loomed in the doorway and Gary drove in hard, arms outspread to grip the legs while Tuck closed in. The stranger thrust out a balled fist and Tuck smacked into it and grunted in pain as he fell sideways to land on top of Gary. The intruder broke loose. Tuck came up and caught a boot heel against his chin. Down he went again. Gary darted after the intruder as he ran for the back door and dived for him, catching him about the waist and driving him hard against the wall. Fingernails clawed Gary's face. "Let me go, you big ape!" screamed a thoroughly feminine voice.

"It's Sue!" yelled Tuck. "We might have known she'd be nosing around."

Gary could feel the blood running down his face. She had put up one whale of a defense. "Don't put on a light," he warned Tuck. He pulled the blinds on the windows and locked the door.

"Man," said Tuck. "I ran right into that fist of yours, Susie. Were you holding a flatiron in it?"

She laughed shakily. "I was so scared I didn't know what I was doing."

"I'd hate to see you in action when you did know what you were doing," said Gary ruefully.

"I didn't want to disturb anyone," she said. "Besides, I wasn't sure you were here. Lobo wasn't around."

"He usually isn't when we need him," said Tuck.

"Would you mind telling us how you happened to come here at this hour?" asked Gary.

"Well, I was going to stay with Francie Kermit this weekend," she said.

"Just by coincidence," said Tuck dryly. "I never thought you and Francie were buddy-buddy. The only reason you were going to stay there was to keep an eye on us."

"What difference does it make?" she said. "Don't answer that! Well anyway, Mr. Kermit is gone for the weekend."

Gary looked quickly at Tuck. "I wonder?" he said, thinking of the shadowy figure that had been watching them.

"Wonder what?" asked Sue.

"Nothing," said Tuck. "Go on with your lying, Cousin Sue."

"Well, Mr. Kermit had left something for Gary at the house. I wanted to bring it right over, but Francie said it could wait until tomorrow, today I mean. I couldn't sleep. So I sneaked out of the house and came over here."

"You could have got killed," said Tuck fiercely.

They could see her inspecting her nails. "Oh, I don't know," she said archly.

"Listen to her!" snapped Tuck.

"Forget it," said Gary. "What was it he left for me?"

She took out a roll of heavy paper from within her shirt and handed it to Gary. He got a bull's-eye lantern from a cabinet and lighted it, holding it close to the floor so that no glow would show through the blinds. It cast a bright circle of light on the floor. Gary unrolled the paper and saw that it was an aerial photograph — an aerial photograph of mountains cut with deep twisting canyons. His breath caught in his throat. "The Espectros!" he said excitedly. He looked up at her. "Tell me about this!"

"He wasn't there when I got there. Francie said that he told her he found out that one copy of the aerial photograph made during the war was still in the files of The Cottonwood Wells Courier, so he picked it up for you."

Gary eyed the photograph. "The negatives were destroyed in a fire at the airfield and Jim told me he didn't know who had any prints of them."

"That was darned nice of him," said Tuck.

"I wonder?" said Gary quietly.

"What do you mean?" asked Tuck.

Gary stood up and turned off the lantern. "Maybe Jim Kermit has been looking for the Lost Espectro all these years without any luck. Perhaps Jim figured that we might find it with the help of this photograph coupled with what we already know. He'd let us go poking into those canyons, trailing us maybe, until we did find the mine, then close in for the kill."

"How you talk!" said Sue. "After he was nice enough to get that photograph for you!" Her voice changed. "Is he a prime suspect, Gary?"

"Forget that TV talk," said Tuck. He paced back and forth. "He's not at home this weekend. Who knows where he really is? Might be outside right now. Maybe he was at your grandfather's house in The Wells when we found the derrotero there…" His voice trailed off. His eyes widened. He clamped a hand over his mouth.

Sue seemed to expand a little in the darkness. "So," she said slowly, "you did find the derrotero?"

"You and your big flapping mouth!" moaned Gary to Tuck. "Well, she knows now!" He picked up the photograph and the lantern and took them to the little windowless room next to his where he kept his relics and other odds and ends. He put the photograph on the table, then placed the faded and wrinkled derrotero beside it. He did not look up as the other two quietly entered the room behind him. Gary traced a finger up Cholla Canyon on the photograph and located the water hole, hardly more than a dot on the narrow floor of the long canyon. To the east of the canyon and slightly north, the terrain seemed a lighter hue, hardly distinguishable from the rest of the land, but still obviously lighter. He studied the derrotero. The sunburst with the question mark in it was marked to the east of the waterhole canyon in yet another canyon, nothing more than a narrow slot in the rough terrain, but plainly marked on the derrotero. There was no such canyon apparent on the photograph.

Tuck traced the line of another twisting, narrow canyon. "That's where we found the arrastres." he said. He moved his finger to the right and placed it on the area where the canyon showed on the derrotero but not on the photograph. "It figures," he added. "There was a canyon there in the old days, in the time of your great-grandfather, Gary, that could be reached both from Cholla Canyon and the canyon of the arrastres. It isn't there now, that's for sure."

"Buried forever in a landslide," said Gary gloomily. He reached for a magnifying glass he used on his rock specimens and began to study the photograph inch by inch. The lighter area held his attention. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that the lighter area indicated the massive slide. He noted, too, that on the derrotero water was indicated as flowing down the canyon of the arrastres, but no water showed on the photograph. He looked for the time of the year when the photograph had been made. It had been taken in the wintertime and there surely should have been drainage water in the canyon at that time. Yet no water showed there. But water did show in the photograph of the narrow canyon they had explored, and did not show on the derrotero. Surely his great-grandfather would have marked such an important thing as a water hole in that dry land. Then, too, the very carved symbols in the canyon did not indicate water there, but rather farther on, at the spring they had found in the upper reaches of Cholla Canyon. So there had been no water in there during the time of the Mexican miners either. "No wonder the Lost Espectro has never been found," he said. "The land changes have been too great." He quickly related his thoughts to his two friends.

Tuck placed a finger on the water hole they had found. "The key is right here somewhere," he said. "You think it's possible that the landslide may have diverted the original water source in the canyon of the arrastres back into the canyon where we found the water hole?"

"I'm almost sure of it," said Gary. He passed a hand over the lighter area of the terrain. "I wonder how many thousands and thousands of tons of rock may be atop the Lost Espectro?"

"It won't hurt to look," said Sue courageously.

"Who said anything about you going?" demanded Tuck.

Again the fingernails were inspected. "When I tell the story about how two rough, tough juniors from Cottonwood Wells Union High School tangled with a little slip of a girl and darned near got whipped this summer, I wonder how your standing will be?"

"You wouldn't!" said Tuck.

"Just you try me, Mister Tucker C. Browne!"

"She would too," said Tuck to Gary.

A cold anger grew within Gary. "All right," he said harshly. "I'm sick of her poking her nose into everything we do. If she wants to risk it, I don't care! We're going back into that canyon today."

"When?" asked Tuck.

"I'm not sleepy. How can you sleep at a time like this?'"

"Who said anything about sleeping? I was hoping you'd want to go right now."

Gary rolled the derrotero and the photograph together and wrapped them in plastic sheeting. "I don't want to stay around here any longer than I have to."

Sue grinned and the lantern light glistened on her braces.

"No wonder, the way you characters have been keeping house. What a mess!"

Tuck raised his eyes toward the ceiling. "Lord," he breathed, "make me strong. We didn't mess up the house, Sue! It was that way when we got back. Somebody must have been searching for the derrotero."

"Oh," she said in a small, weak voice.

"Now do you want to stay behind?" asked Tuck.

"No," she said firmly.

"Well," he said in resignation, "I have only one deep consolation. Being a female, you'll probably get married some day to some unfortunate male, which means you have to change your name from Browne to whatever his name is, which makes me, as your beloved first cousin, happy indeed!"

"Enough of that," said Gary. "This is no class picnic we're going on. It might be dangerous in there. It's bad enough that Tuck and I are taking this chance, Sue, without involving you too. You've been a big help and we appreciate it, but you're going to have to take orders from us. Is that clear?"

"I like taking orders from you, Gary," she said.

Tuck grunted and rolled his eyes up. "We have to have one leader. I nominate Gary Cole. Any seconds?"

"I second the nomination," said Sue.

"Motion made and seconded. Any objections? None? Those in favor say aye. Aye!"

"Aye!" said Sue.

"Motion made and carried. All hail, Leader!"

"That means you have to take orders from me too," said Gary with a grin.

Tuck frowned. "I never thought of it that way."

"Let's get moving. We'll need our gear, digging tools, rope, food, guns, and one blanket apiece."

"Why?" asked Sue.

"We might have to stay in there overnight."

She smiled weakly. "Oh," she said.

"Well take the jeep toward the highway, then cut east on the old gravel road," said Gary. "We can leave the jeep about a mile from the canyon mouth and walk in. It will still be dark. We can make the water hole about dawn. You still sure you want to come along, Sue?"

"Absolutely."

"On your head be it," said Tuck.

They wasted no time thereafter. While they were loading the jeep, Lobo, as though conjured up by magic, appeared in the dimness and jumped casually into the back seat. Gary started the jeep and drove out to the road, turned left, and headed for the highway. Before he reached the main highway he shut off the headlights, then turned left onto the old gravel road. They wouldn't be fooling anyone who might have watched them leave the house, but the desert was wide and dark, so the chance was worth taking that they might get away with it. Gary really didn't care as much as he thought he would. He was sure they were on the right trail this time. The next day or two would decide if the mine was buried forever, or if the Lost Espectro really could be found.