Mystery of the Haunted Mine

12 The Lost Espectro

Gary got down on his knees and examined the thick slab of rock supposedly resting atop a tunnel which held the treasure that had been lost for so long. It would take powerful modern equipment to move the slab, yet it had either been placed there above the tunnel about a hundred years ago, or the tunnel had been dug beneath it. Gary reached for his pack and took out his light, folding entrenching tool. He pulled loose rock aside and then began to probe into the hardened earth beneath the slab.

"Chow time," said Sue laconically. She placed the food on the slab.

Gary nodded absentmindedly. Tuck came up the slope and dumped a load of driftwood near the slab. "I picked out the strongest of the stuff for shoring, Gary," he said. He shook his head. "I still don't like the idea of digging down under that slab."

"How else do you expect to get into the tunnel?" snapped Gary. His nerves were getting edgy.

"We could go back outside and get help," said Tuck.

Gary stubbornly shook his head. "We've got to find out what is under here first, Tuck, before we go and make fools out of ourselves."

"He's right, Tuck," said Sue.

They ate quickly and with little talk. Now and then they could hear the far-off rumbling of thunder high over the darkening Espectros. The canyon was a gloomy, forbidding place at any time, but now with the darkening sky it was positively frightening. A cold wind swept through it now and then, thrashing through the brush and moaning around the bends.

Gary finished his meal and set to work again driving a shallow hole beneath the edge of the slab. Tuck and Sue looked at each other over Gary's head. Now that they had reached their goal they were feeling somewhat let down; both of them had expected to walk into a neatly shored drift and find piles of gold ingots covered with dust, ready for the taking. Now they did not know how long it would take to find out just how true those symbols atop the rock slab might be. The noise of the thunder, and the wind, and the utter loneliness and isolation of the place had begun to prey on their nerves. Yet neither of them had the courage to tell Gary what they thought. Gary was stubborn, and he was determined to get beneath that slab. Meanwhile, the sands of time were running steadily and a little too swiftly to suit the Brownes. Darkness would trap them in the canyon if Gary did not agree to leave soon.

He was on his belly now, driving the tool deep beneath the slab. Despite the coolness of the air he was dripping sweat, and his hands had begun to redden with forming blisters from the hard work.

Tuck shrugged at Sue. "Let me take over, Gary," he said.

"I'm doing all right," said Gary.

"Two of us taking turns can dig faster than one alone."

Gary looked up. He wiped the sweat from his dirty face. "The quicker we find out, the quicker we can leave, eh?" he said a little sarcastically.

Tuck picked up the tool. "Take it easy," he said quietly. "No use getting gold fever."

"Sure," agreed Sue. "Like in the books where one man goes loco and kills off the others once they find the gold. You know, in that picture we saw one time. I…" Her voice trailed off as she saw the look on Gary's dirty face. "Heh, heh," she said. "Well I better do the dishes, fellas, being as how I am cocinera. Heh…" She began to gather the food supplies and to repack them in Tuck's haversack.

"See if you can find a water hole," said Gary shortly. "Don't go too far!"

"I'll be all right," she said. "Besides, Lobo is down the slope. He won't let anyone bother me."

Tuck was digging steadily. He looked back at Gary. "You think this slab might cave in?"

"Most of it seems to be resting solidly."

"Yeh, well I don't want it resting solidly on me."

Gary walked around the slab and examined the ground between it and the cliff face. He took the other entrenching tool and began to dig. Here the earth seemed softer, and in no time at all he was down several feet. He threw off his hat and shirt and began to dig steadily.

Tuck stood up and wiped the sweat from his face. "Well, that was a waste of time," he said. "Struck solid rock down there."

"Give me a hand!"

The two of them made the earth fly until they were waist-deep in the hole. Gary crawled out to get his canteen, for it was hot, dry work. He drank and then started toward the hole to give Tuck the canteen. He stopped as though he had run into a stone wall when the terrified scream came from the canyon below him. He dropped the canteen and snatched up his rifle. He ran down to the place where he had last seen Sue, for it was her voice that was awakening the echoes. Then she appeared, legging it up the slope as hard as she could go. Gary ran down to meet her with ready rifle. She staggered a little. "Don't go down there!" she gasped. She reached Gary and gripped his arm. "I saw somebody down there!"

Gary crouched behind a rock ledge and motioned her to do the same. He eyed the lower canyon. There was no sign of life down there. "Did you see who it was?" he asked.

She swallowed hard. "All I really saw was a head. I had found water in a hole and was just bending down to see if it was good enough to use when I had the oddest feeling I was being watched. I looked up and there he was — about fifty yards from me, on the other side of the dry watercourse, staring right at me, Gary. I got scared, I tell you! I opened my mouth to yell and nothing came out."

"That was a switch," said Gary dryly.

"Funnee, oh funnee! Well, I got my voice back, and when I screamed he vanished. Poof! just like that!"

Gary eyed the far side of the canyon. It was almost impossible to distinguish things because of the gloom. "You sure you didn't see who it was?" There was no answer from the girl. "Sue?" he added. He turned.

"It was his eyes," she said shakily. "Gary, I'll swear it must have been Asesino!"

His blood ran cold. Despite himself he shivered a little. "Cut it out!" he said.

"No," she insisted. "He wasn't wearing a hat, Gary, just a band of cloth about his thick dark hair like you see in the pictures of the old-time Apaches."

"He's just a legend now," he said firmly.

"No one knows for sure if he is dead," Sue said quietly.

Lobo came quietly up the slope. Gary eyed the big dog. It was strange that he had not made some commotion. "Lobo didn't seem to see or hear anything," he said.

"Can a dog see or hear a ghost" she said in a low voice.

"That's loco!" he said. "Let's get back to Tuck."

She walked up the slope ahead of him. Gary looked down at Lobo. "Didn't you see anything?" he asked.

Lobo looked back at his master. There was no trace of excitement about the dog. Gary shook his head and walked up the slope. Now and then he looked back down toward the floor of the dark canyon. There was nothing to be seen, yet he, too, felt as though he were being watched.

"Tuck!" called Gary.

There was no answer from the lean one, and no sound of metal striking earth.

"Tuck!" called Gary again.

There was no sound from Tuck. Sue looked quickly at Gary. A veil seemed to pass over the canyon as a cloud drifted high overhead; the canyon now had a twilight gloom about it.

"Tuck?" called Sue.

Gary looked down the slope again. It was as deserted as a lunar landscape. He walked around the rock slab; there was no sign of Tuck. A cold feeling came over Gary. Supposing, somehow, Asesino had gotten up behind Gary and Sue, and had spirited away Tuck? It was really impossible for a being of flesh and blood to do it, but then Lobo had not seen or heard anything. His heart skipped a beat. "Tuck?" he called.

Nothing; not a sight or a sound of the lean one. The hole was empty. The slope showed no signs of Tuck. Gary peered about; he was downright frightened now. He almost wished he had listened to the others and had left while they had had a chance to leave. "Lobo," said Gary. The dog sniffed up and stopped beside him. "Go find Tuck, Lobo."

Lobo padded off through the brush. He stopped at a clump of thick and tangled brush that was matted against the rock wall. He looked back at Gary.

"Go on, Lobo!" said Gary. "Find Tuck!"

Lobo stood stock-still. He whined a little.

Gary walked to the dog and stared at the brush. He looked down at Lobo. "Find Tuck," he repeated angrily.

Lobo whined and poked his nose into the brush. Gary pulled some of it aside, and a cool draft played about him. Suddenly his hair seemed to stand on end, for a ghostly, faint voice was calling his name. "Gary! Oh, Gary! Gary!"

Gary shivered. The voice seemed to come from the brush itself. He pulled more of it to one side and the cold draft grew more pronounced. Then he plainly heard the voice beyond him and much lower than he was. "Gary! Oh, Gary!"

He started forward. Lobo barked sharply. Gary's left foot began to sink and he jumped back, slipping and falling heavily. Gravel rushed from where he had been standing and pattered hollowly down below somewhere.

"Thanks, amigo!" came the strangled, hollow-sounding voice. "Whyn't you dump down that rock slab while you're at it?"

Gary got down on his hands and knees and worked his way back into the brush. His right hand struck a rounded edge of earth and then probed into nothingness. He bellied forward and found an irregular hole close beside the rock face. The cold air played about him as it rose from the black depths. "Tuck?" he called. His voice echoed below.

"Yeh, it's me," answered Tuck "Black as ink down here. I got tired of digging. Saw a rabbit run into that brush. Thought it might taste good if we needed more food. All of a sudden I found myself falling and I landed down here."

Gary closed his eyes. Green sickness welled up within him and his throat tasted sour. Many a man had been lost forever by fooling around just such old mine shafts and caves.

Sue came up behind Gary. "Where is he?" she asked.

"Don't come any closer," warned Gary. "He's all right."

"I got lonesome out there," she said.

Gary got the packs, tools, rifle, and shotgun and brought them to the place where Tuck had dropped from the face of the earth. There were two coils of light nylon rope in the packs. He took one of them and fastened a bull's-eye lantern to it. "Line and lamp coming down, Tuck," he said. He lowered away.

He could see the lantern light alternately illuminating each side of the deep hole as it swung about. Then he saw Tuck's dirty, frightened face in the yellow pool of light, only to lose it again. He lowered the light a little more and it swung about to light something else, something white and bony — a human skeleton complete with grinning, hollow-eyed skull. Then it, too, was lost from sight as the lantern spun about once more. Tuck's shriek blasted against Gary's ears. Gary had the presence of mind to whip the end of the nylon rope quickly around a shattered tree stump that was near the edge of the brush. The rope tightened, and feet scrabbled against the sides of the shaft. Tuck's harsh and erratic breathing echoed hollowly. In record time his head popped up out of the opening. Gary grabbed him and dragged him out on the ground. Tuck lay there shivering with fright, taking in air with great gulps.

Gary gathered his courage and looked down in the hole once more. The lamp twisted and again lighted the human relics. Shreds of rotted clothing hung on the pitiful framework, and one bony hand rested on what seemed to be a book. It was then that Gary noticed the thick tree trunk to one side of the hole; it had deep notches cut into it. His heart leaped. It was a sure-enough Spanish miner's chicken ladder!

Tuck gasped. "It wasn't that skeleton that bothered me, amigo, it was the bad air down there."

"Sure, sure," said Gary soothingly. He looked back at Tuck. "I think you literally stumbled into the Lost Espectro, Tuck."

"You sure?"

"No, but I soon will be."

"You going down there?"

Gary nodded. "It isn't the skeleton I'm afraid of, Tuck, it's what Sue saw down in the canyon." He told Tuck of Sue's experience.

"Who do you think it was?" asked Tuck after a long pause.

"Quien sabe? The dog didn't see or hear anything."

"You think she might be kidding us?"

"I am not!" said Sue angrily from the background.

Gary looked up at the dark sky. "It's getting late," he said. "We can't possibly get out of here tonight. I say we stay here. Hole up in one of those caves. Two of us stay on guard all night. Lobo won't let anyone get near us without a warning."

"Sure," said Sue sarcastically "He sure gave us a warning about that somebody down there, whoever it was."

"Maybe he knew who it was," said Tuck thoughtfully. "Someone he wouldn't be concerned about. How would he know about our suspicions about certain people?"

"You might have something there," said Gary.

"Whoever it was, sure looked like an Apache," said Sue. "How many Apaches does Lobo know?"

"Jerry Black?" said Tuck.

Gary shook his head. "I don't know if he ever saw Jerry," he said. He looked at the two of them. "Maybe someone is playing Apache."

"Fine time to be playing cowboys and Indians," growled Tuck.

"That's not exactly what I meant," said Gary. He picked up his rifle and checked it. "A white man can have dark hair and bind it with a cloth like Apaches used to do. Someone whom Lobo knows…"

"I'm scared," said Sue. There was a catch in her voice.

"Look, Sue," said Gary, not unkindly, "we're stuck in here. If anyone is looking for trouble we're better off to staying right where we are and letting them come to us than trying to get out of here in the dark. We don't know any way out of here other than the way we came in, and it would be pitch black in there before we ever reached the cavern. We can't take a chance of trying to find another way out of here, if there is such a thing."

"Besides, Susie," said Tuck bravely, "we've found the Lost Espectro. We can't just go off and leave it here, can we now?"

"How do we know it's the Lost Espectro?" she demanded.

"There's one way to find out," said Tuck with a brave and careless smile. He seemed to grow a little in height. "Go on down there and make sure."

"Bravo," said Sue.

Tuck turned. "Don't you worry about a thing, Gary," he said. "I'll keep good watch up here while you're down there making certain it is the Lost Espectro."

"I might have known," said Gary dryly. "O.K. I didn't come all the way into this hole in the mountains to turn away from the Lost Espectro at the last minute." He handed Tuck the rifle, put on his shirt, and picked up his hat. Gary formed a sling for the shotgun from a length of rope and slung it over his back. Then he took the second coil of nylon rope and slung it over his arm. He lowered his legs into the shaft and felt for the first rungs of the chicken ladder, holding onto the rope that he had dropped for Tuck. Gary tested the ladder all the way down and found it solid, preserved from rot by the dry air of the shaft.

He detached the lantern from the rope and flashed it about. Behind the sprawled skeleton was the dark, irregular opening of a drift. He flashed the light on the skeleton. It had been there a good many years. He knelt and examined the clothing. It was so old that some of it crumbled in his grasp, releasing a little cloud of musty dust that swirled about in the lamplight and then rose up into the shaft. An eerie feeling as well as the ancient dust seemed to float about Gary. He gently removed the leather-bound book from beneath the bony fingers and opened it. It was a Spanish Bible. A name-plate showed in the yellow light, and written upon it in a spidery script was a name. "Leandro Melgosa," read Gary quietly. He looked at the skeleton. According to history, Leandro Melgosa had been the youngest of the three Melgosa Brothers. Vigil Melgosa, the second brother, had been killed by Apaches, while Marcos, the eldest, supposedly after hiding the mine, had fled to Mexico and had never returned. Nothing had been known of the fate of Leandro. He had vanished in the Espectros like the snows of yesteryear.

Gary stood up. He stepped over the skeleton, and as he did so a queer, sickening feeling of cold horror came over him. He could see the back of the skull, and in it was a large and ragged hole. Someone had evidently killed Leandro, if indeed it was Leandro, from behind, unless of course he had fallen and fatally struck himself. Gary reached out a trembling hand to touch the hole. As he did so the skull fell to one side. Something rattled on the floor of the shaft. Gary knelt and picked up a mutilated lead slug. He had been killed by human hands then.

Thoughts of the other killings in the Espectros flooded through his mind. Killings in which men had been shot through the back of the skull! He was confused. No one murderer could have spanned the long years from the time of the killing of Leandro Melgosa up until twelve years or so ago when the two prospectors, John Bellina and Carl Schuster, had been shot to death through the back of the head. There was an eerie puzzle here. He stepped over the skeleton and raised his lamp. The rays picked out sketchy carving on the drift wall. "Dios Mio, ayudame" read Gary. He wrinkled his brow. "My God, help me," he translated. Farther down a deep cross had been cut into the rock and beneath that was more writing. "There is nothing but death in this canyon," he translated. There was a signature beneath the last word. "Marcos Melgosa, August 17, 1844," he added slowly.

There were mystery and hidden tragedy in those words. Gary flashed the light up the drift. Here and there on the floor were pieces of wood which had fallen from the sagging pit props supporting the narrow tunnel. Amidst the litter were woven baskets. Gary recognized them as mecapals, used by the Spanish and Mexican miners to carry ore from mines. There was also a pile of sotol stalks, once used by the old-timers as torches.

He raised the lamp and shot the light down the drift. It had not been cut straight as American miners would have done — driving in a drift, then crosscutting to get at the vein — but in the old Mexican method of following the vein itself and not removing any more earth and rock than was absolutely necessary.

Something held Gary back. The prospect of walking alone up that twisted, dark, and echoing drift was not too inviting. He stepped back, hesitated, then walked forward again along the drift. What puzzled him was the steady current of fresh air flowing about him. It indicated only one thing — there was another opening to the mine somewhere in the bowels of the rock ahead of him.

He saw a worn-out husk sandal on the floor and a rawhide zurrón bag that had once been fastened to the head of the man who had carried ore in the zurrón from the mine. On and on he went, his boots crunching in the debris fallen from the roof and walls of the drift, watching carefully for holes or weak spots in the packed earth of the drift bottom. The draft still blew about him, but there was no sign of a gold vein in the walls, or any caches of the precious metal that had been left behind so long ago.

The place was too much for his nerves at last. There was a brooding, haunting air about the drift. He turned to go back, and instantly it seemed to him as though something had moved up close behind him out of the fearsome darkness to reach out bony claws for him. He almost panicked. Then he began to count each step to himself. He had taken thirty paces into the drift. He held off gibbering panic and at last reached the shaft. Gary forced himself to stand there; disciplining himself. "Tuck!" he called.

Sue thrust her head into the hole. "What is it, Gary?"

"I haven't found much of anything," said Gary. His voice cracked a little.

"You want Tuck to go back with you?"

She knew all right. She knew Gary was fighting for self-control down in that drafty dark hole in the ground. Sue smiled. "Maybe Tuck ought to stay on guard," she said. "I'll go with you, Gary."

He swallowed hard. "It's all right," he said. He knew she was as scared as he was. The kid had guts all right. Scared as she was, she didn't want him to go in there alone again. She came lightly down the ladder. She eyed the skeleton. "Who was he?" she asked.

Gary shrugged. "Leandro Melgosa as far as I know. The brother that vanished."

She gingerly walked past the skeleton. "Seems to me his brothers should have buried him."

"Vigil was killed by Apaches. Marcos returned to Mexico." Gary looked down at the remains of Leandro. "I think he was murdered right here, Sue."

She smiled wanly. "Why?"

"Someone shot him through the back of the head." Gary's eyes narrowed. He flashed the light on the writing. "I wonder," he said quietly.

Sue was an A student in Spanish. She quickly translated the inscription. "My God, help me! There is nothing but death in this canyon. Marcos Melgosa, August 17, 1844." She looked at Gary. "He was just frightened, that's all, Gary. His other brother had been killed by the Apaches; then Leandro was killed, and Marcos knew he had to get out of here or die as well. He didn't have time to bury Leandro."

"But he had time to cut that inscription into the rock," said Gary quietly. He looked down at the skeleton. "He didn't even take the time to lay out his brother properly. Just let him drop there in death right across the drift entrance."

There was a puzzled look on Sue's face. "So?"

"Maybe Marcos left Leandro as the patrón."

"So what? A patrón is an owner, an employer, Gary. Maybe Marcos…" Her voice trailed off. "How could a dead man be an owner or an employer?"

Gary felt a creeping horror within him. "There is another meaning to the word patrón, Sue. The old Spanish miners would sometimes take as much gold or silver from a mine as they needed, or could carry at the time, then to guard the mine they would kill one of the peons or Indian slaves so that he would be a patrón—a ghostly warden or guard of the mine to keep out intruders."

"But Leandro was his brother!"

"Yes. But Marcos had gold fever. He knew he had to leave the mine, and there was no patrón to place on guard. No one but his own brother."

Sue shuddered. "Now we know why he never came back here again. Imagine coming down here to see Leandro still on guard!"

"I saw him," said Gary dryly. "So did Tuck. I don't think we'll be bothered by the ghost of Leandro Melgosa. I have a feeling his ghost was waiting for one man alone. Maybe the ghost, if there is such a thing as a ghost, left here and went to look for Brother Marcos. That would have been a meeting!"

Now that Sue was with him, Gary felt his courage return. If a girl had the nerve to come down into that dark mine he could hardly back out now from further exploration.

"Maybe there is nothing in the mine," said Sue.

"Then why would Leandro have been left behind as patrón?"

"That's true," she said. "Won't hurt to look. It doesn't seem to be much darker or any more dangerous down here than it is up there."

Gary smiled at her, then turned to lead the way back along the dark and echoing drift. A stone struck the bottom of the shaft. A moment later Tuck whistled softly, "Gary," he croaked in a low voice. "There's someone coming up here!"

Gary shook his head at Sue, then swiftly ascended the ladder, crawling on his belly through the brush to lie beside his partner. He raised his head and caught a swift and furtive movement amidst the tangle of rocks and brush. The canyon was very dark now and the wind was getting colder. Gary flipped off the safety on the shotgun. Tuck raised the Winchester and full-cocked it.

Minutes ticked past. There was no further sign of life. Gary's eyes ached from peering into the gloom. He raised his head a little higher, then some strange intuition made him quickly turn his head to the left. A man was standing behind a shattered boulder with only his head and shoulders showing; his thick hair was bound with a cloth, exactly as Sue had described the stranger.

Gary threw up his shotgun and Tuck turned, raising the rifle. Gary sighted and then his breath caught in his throat. The man stood up in plain view and smiled widely. He waved a hand. "It's Lije Purtis, fellas," he said. There was no sign of a weapon on him.

"Come out in the open," said Gary coldly. "What do you want?"

Lije shambled out into the open and smiled again. "I wanted to tell you someone has been following you. You got anything to eat?"

"Yes," said Tuck. "Who is following us, Lije?"

Lije shook his head as though to clear it. "I followed him through that cave way back there, at the water hole. I was goin' to ask him for some…" The rifle cracked flatly from a hundred yards down the slope. Lije fell heavily. The echo of the shot slammed back and forth in the canyon as the boys dropped flat. Gary crawled to the edge of the rocks in front of him, and just as he did so lightning flashed high in the heavens. The eerie light played full on the gaunt face of Lije Purtis. His mouth gaped open, revealing his yellow teeth. His eyes stared at the dark sky, but they did not see. They would never see anything on earth again.