Mystery of the Haunted Mine

2 The Mystery of The Needle

The rubber squealed as the tires of the Honda were forced into a hard, grinding turn from the road into the rutted driveway of the Cole Ranch. Tuck gunned the bike. The rear tire shrieked against the baked earth and gravel, and the Honda shot forward as though slung out of a catapult, boring through the dusk like an avenging angel. A bent figure could be seen, hanging onto the handlebars that were even with the driver's eye level. There was a grim determination in driver and bike as the two of them bounced across ruts and swung into the rather sharp turn just beyond the windmill. It was then that the tortured tires refused to grip the hard earth. The bike went into a spin, was wrenched out of it, then went into another sliding angle. Tuck gunned the roaring machine and it shot forward directly toward Gary. He sprinted for cover, vaulting over the low adobe wall just in front of the house.

Tuck Browne was magnificent. He shot past the wall, skidded in a wet patch near a faucet, then swung toward a sagging shed beyond the low barn. Gary watched in fascination as the bike bore down on the shed. Dust and smoke billowed up behind the Honda. "Hi, Gary!" screamed Tuck a fraction of a second before the Honda battered through the thin wall of the shed. "Brakes are gone!"

"Yeh," said Gary dryly. "They sure are."

Wood shattered and cracked, dust whirled up, the bike roared once more in futile protest, then was silent. Chickens squawked and skittered as they broke madly from the ruined shed and headed for the open desert, coyotes or no coyotes. In the sudden silence that followed the roaring onslaught of Tuck Browne on the hapless shed, the roof collapsed slowly and deliberately an instant after Tuck scrambled out of the wreckage.

Gary walked slowly toward the dramatic scene.

It was typical of Tuck Browne. The last time he arrived he had ripped through a line of Mrs. Cole's wash, taking the whole mess with him like a bridal train clean through a barbed wire fence into a filled earthen water tank.

Tuck unlimbered his thin six feet of frame and removed his helmet. He tentatively touched a split lip. "Cut three minutes off my last record out here," he said slowly.

"You figuring from town to the water tank or the shed, Tuck?"

Tuck rubbed a dusty jaw. "How much difference would that make?"

"Maybe ten seconds."

Tuck nodded solemnly. "Yeh. Well, anyway, I cut two minutes, fifty seconds off. You witness to that?"

"Keno."

Tuck eyed the shed. "Was your Dad thinking of tearing that down, Gary?"

"Not that I know of."

Tuck blinked his blue eyes. "Well, maybe I can talk him into it." He grinned. "Got the whole place to ourselves, eh, amigo?"

Gary glanced at the shed. "What's left of it."

Tuck walked slowly toward Gary. Tuck Browne never moved fast on foot if he could help it. He talked slowly, ate with deliberation, and never got to class or to work on time. He always seemed to be just short of standing still when he walked, that is, until he mounted the saddle of his Honda, at which time a strange metamorphosis took place, and the amiable, easygoing, lackadaisical being that was Tucker C. Browne became the personification of mad speed.

Tuck unzipped his jacket. "Got something new for you, Gary," he said. He glanced at the house. "You eat yet?"

"Yep."

Tuck's face fell. "Well, I figured on getting a bite."

"You eat at home?"

"Yes."

"Stopped at Bennie's Barbecue on the way?"

"Yes."

"Buy gas at Schick's Station?"

"A little," admitted Tuck.

"Had a Coke there and a bag of chips?"

Tuck nodded.

"And you still want to eat?"

Tuck looked positively mournful.

"Well, happens we have a pie left."

"What kind?" asked Tuck eagerly.

"Apple and raisin."

"You mean one apple and one raisin?"

"No, sonny, apple and raisin together."

"Well, that's good enough."

"Gracias," said Gary dryly.

"Wait'll I get my 'sickle' out of the shed," said Tuck. He slowly returned to the shed, and while Gary held up the shattered timbers, Tuck pulled the battered Honda from the wreckage. He eyed the bike carefully. "Not bad. Gotta get those brakes fixed one of these days. Could be dangerous."

"Yeh."

They walked together to the house. They went into the kitchen, and Gary placed half a pie before Tuck. He sat down and watched the pie vanish. "You said you had something new for me, Tuck."

Tuck nodded. His mouth was too full to talk. He jerked his head toward his jacket. "Inna pocket," he said.

Gary took out an odd-looking mass. It was a heavy lump of dirty wax, from which protruded four wicks at right angles to each other. Gary studied it, hefted it, turned it over and over, then looked quizzically at Tuck. Tuck swallowed. "Treasure-hunting candle," he said. "Got it from ol' Emilio Chavez. He said it was infallible."

Go on.

Tuck cut another slice of pie. "Sure wish you had some whipped cream for this."

"Sorry. Go on!"

Tuck looked up. "On a dark, windy night you take that ball of wax to a place where you think treasure is. You light all four wicks, then with three amigos, each of you holding a wick, below the flame of course, you watch to see which wick burns longest in the wind. That long-burning wick points the general direction to the treasure."

"Yeh… general direction."

Tuck swallowed. "Well, anyway, by trial and error you finally get to where the treasure is."

"Man, you must have hit your head when you hit that shed."

"It should work, Gary!"

Gary shook his head. "I thought you might have found something that would be useful to us."

Tuck looked carefully about, as though someone might be eavesdropping. "There's something else about that candle."

"Shoot!"

Tuck's blue eyes were wide in his face. "It's partly made from dead man's fat, Gary," he whispered hoarsely.

"Oh, great!"

Tuck wet his lips. "The fat from a man who was hung for murder!"

A cold shiver crept up Gary's back, even though he was used to the mad ideas of Tuck Browne. He carefully placed the candle on the table and eyed it.

"Infallible," insisted Tuck.

Gary opened two Cokes. "I think I saw that light again, Tuck," he said quietly.

Tuck's jaws stopped moving. "You sure?"

Gary shrugged. "Pretty sure."

"Isn't it likely it could be any of the local ranchers up there hunting for strays maybe?"

Gary shook his head. "You know well enough no local man would shine a light up there, Tuck."

"Yeh." Tuck chewed reflectively. "Still, someone might have lighted a cigarette or something. You could see a match flare up quite a ways off. That's it! Someone lighted a cigarette up there!"

"But who, Tuck?"

Tuck's blue eyes studied Gary. "Who do you think it is?"

Gary walked to the window and looked out toward the huge, dark mass of The Needle. "That's the fourth time I've seen it this summer. No one lives up there. It isn't a fire. It comes and goes just like that! Always in just about the same place too."

"Yes?"

Gary turned. "Just about where that light shows is the best place around for anyone to keep an eye on a person coming up toward The Needle. From where they are situated they can see which way a person goes — into which canyon."

Tuck shoved back his plate. "Come on," he said quickly. "Tell me who you really think it is."

Gary leaned against the wall. "I'm not sure."

Tuck stood up and walked to the window. "Asesino," he said softly.

Again the cold chill came over Gary. Asesino! the half-real, half-mythical outlaw of the Espectros. Many of the local people did not believe he was still alive, or thought that he had long ago left the Espectros. There were others who were sure he had never left his hide-out. A man could live in those mountains and never be seen or found if he did not choose to be seen or found.

"How old would Asesino be now?" asked Tuck.

Gary half closed his eyes. "Let's see, he was about twenty years old when he committed his first murder. That was sometime in the twenties— about 1926 I think. Thirty-five years ago. He'd be about fifty-five years old if he were still alive."

"It's possible then," said Tuck quietly.

"No one has seen him for years. There have been rumors that he has been seen. I've never met anyone yet who said he had seen him in the last ten or fifteen years."

"Yeh," said Tuck thoughtfully. "But there have been murders up in there the past ten or fifteen years."

"Murders or accidents?"

"A man can't shoot himself in the back of the head with a rifle, can he?"

Tuck had Gary there. Two men, known to be looking for the Lost Espectro Mine, had vanished, and later one of them had been found lying in the middle of his camp with a bullet from a large-caliber rifle in the back of his skull. The coroner had verified the fact that the rifle had been fired from some distance, at an angle indicating that the marksman had been higher than the camp. The other man had never been found. Some people said he had killed his partner. Others said he had been killed by the same person who had killed his partner. No one really knew. That had been about twelve years ago.

Asesino had been a half-breed, or perhaps more than a half-breed. His father had been a white man, a deserter from the Army, who had married an Apache woman, whose father had been a Negro, or so the story went. Asesino then had been part white, part Indian, part Negro, and all bad. Asesino was not the man's real name. No one was sure what his real name had been. He had murdered his young wife in a drunken and jealous rage, then had fled toward the border. A posse had stopped him, and in the ensuing fight two possemen had died and Asesino had escaped. Trapped on three sides, he had retreated north, into the Espectros, which were an almost impenetrable fortress. He had committed several other killings, thus gaining the Spanish name he bore, a name that fitted him well — Asesino… The Assassin.

Asesino was one of the many legends about the Espectros, writing his legend in letters of blood. The man had the cunning and guile of a wolf, the cold ferocity of a grizzly, the stalking skill of a she-lion, the speed of an antelope, and the killing skill of a shark. The man had been an expert with rifle and pistol, bow and arrow, and knife — a man who could be set adrift in empty country without weapons and survive as his Apache ancestors had managed to survive in that wild and isolated country.

Tuck peered from the window. "Whoever it is might be watching for anyone traveling toward The Needle. He could see them easily enough during the day, no matter how they went in. Dust would rise from hooves or wheels. On moonlit nights it's almost as clear as daylight in there. On dark nights he could see can lights, or perhaps hear wheels and hooves. That place echoes like a tomb."

"Yeh… a tomb," said Gary. "You hit it, amigo."

"Now, if two guys, say like you and me, were to sneak in there before moonrise, keeping quiet as the grave…"

"There you go again!"

"We might just spot something," continued Tuck calmly.

"Such as?"

"That loco sign you and your pa have been trying to spot all summer long."

Gary nodded. "As long as we don't go past The Needle."

"I wasn't aiming to!" said Tuck hastily.

It was an established fact that explorers, dudes, and ranchers had never been bothered south of The Needle. The canyons opened beyond the landmark, to the north, fanning out to penetrate deep into the Espectros. That was where the trouble always started. First the feeling that you were being watched. Then the warning shots. After that, you were on your own…

"We can take the jeep," said Gary. "Drive without lights. Leave it on the playa south of the canyon where The Needle is. Walk in."

"How far?"

"Maybe a mile."

Tuck groaned. "Guess it can't be helped."

Gary put out the lights after he had managed to find a half dozen cartridges for his rifle. He loaded the weapon outside and stowed it in the back of the jeep. Tuck slid his six feet into the right front seat and sat with his bony knees up under his chin. It was very dark outside. Far across the quiet desert they could see sharp pinpoints of light. Headlights could be seen on the main highway into Cottonwood Wells. The glow from the lights of the town was visible above the rocky hills just south of it. But the Espectros were dark, a forbidding mass against the northern sky.

"Where's Lobo?" asked Gary's friend.

"Quien sabe? Who knows? I haven't seen him all day."

"He often take off like that?"

"Once in a while."

"Great! We sure could use him now."

Gary grinned. "You afraid, Tucker?"

Tuck nodded. "So are you, amigo."

He was right. Gary started the jeep, drove out to the road, moving slowly because he had not turned on the headlights. He turned up a wide dry wash, and they bumped and clattered along it until they reached the playa, a place where sand, rock, and brush had been washed down the big canyon during flash floods. Gary stopped the engine and clambered out. Tuck got out and stretched. Gary took his rifle from the jeep, and the two of them stood there in the velvety darkness, listening to the dry soughing of the night wind through the mesquite.

Gary shrugged. He started forward, walking quietly, although no one near The Needle could possibly have heard footsteps on the playa. Still, it was said that Asesino had supernatural powers, or at least highly sensitive hearing and sight. As long as it was dark he could not see to shoot. But supposing he did not stay near The Needle?

The ground sloped upward toward the mouth of the canyon below The Needle. Higher and higher the two boys went until they could see the distant lights of The Wells clearly against the darkness of the desert.

There was a faint suggestion of moonlight in the east when Gary stopped. The huge bulk of The Needle seemed to tower over them, although it was a good half-mile away. The wind whispered down the canyon, rustling the brush and murmuring against the canyon walls.

"Wait," said Tuck. "Maybe we ought to wait until tomorrow, Gary."

Gary turned. "You were the one who wanted to sneak in here before moonrise, keeping quiet as the grave."

"Did you have to say that?" hissed Tuck.

Gary walked on, peering ahead, past the dark bulk of The Needle. There wasn't much to see. He didn't really know why they had come in there, except that this weekend would probably be his last real chance to probe the mysteries of the place.

They squatted down behind a dike of rock that hid them completely except for their heads which protruded above the rock like the heads of two turtles encased in one shell.

Slowly the new moon came up, first flooding the wide desert in cold silvery light, then penetrating the canyon to light the western wall, although the eastern wall was still thick in shrouding shadows.

The two boys stared at that eastern wall. Somewhere on it was supposedly marked an ancient Spanish mining symbol. That same symbol was also supposed to be marked on the treasure chart left to Pete Cole by his father, but Pete had never been able to quite remember its exact location, or what it was. There were quite a few symbols in the old Spanish miner's code, some of them with varying meanings, some of them important, most of them of little importance. Although the existence of the symbol on the eastern canyon wall was doubtful, it was a well-known fact that there were many symbols scattered throughout the Espectros. Many men had seen them, and Gary's great-grandfather had made a chart of them and had tracked down their meanings. Gary had been given the chart by his father and he had memorized all of the cryptic markings. In fact it had been that very chart which had sparked his abiding interest in lost treasures and in the Lost Espectro Mine in particular.

Time dragged past, and then suddenly the moonlight began to creep along the eastern wall of the canyon, while two almost breathless boys stared at it until their eyes ached. Forgotten was the threat of Asesino and the unsolved mysteries of the Espectros.

The moonlight was now flooding the area where Gary had often thought he had seen something that was not a natural feature of the canyon.

Just as the moon completely illuminated the wall a mournful cry came drifting down the silent canyon on the cold night wind. It seemed to emanate from the very bowels of the upper canyon, or from an opened grave. Gary quickly levered a round of .30/30 into his rifle chamber, knowing full well that it would be of little use against the thing that had emitted that ghostly sound.

Tuck gripped his friend so hard by the arm that Gary winced. "Look!" he croaked.

The moonlight flooded the naked rock, and midway up the wall was a line, seemingly sharply etched — a long, long line that trended around a curved shoulder of rock. "Is it man-made or natural?" whispered Tuck.

Gary stared at it. "Only one way to find out," he said quietly.

"You're not going out there, are you?"

Gary did not answer. He leaned his rifle against the dike and walked around the end of the rock formation, keeping as much as possible in the shelter of scattered rocks and boulders and clumps of brush, until he could see that the line continued farther around the curve of rock. He wanted to see the end of it. Perhaps it was a gigantic arrow, pointing to the particular branch canyon where the Lost Espectro was. Perhaps it was a horizontal cross which indicated the same thing as the arrow, or a huge depiction of a bowie knife, also indicating a specific direction. He had to know!

The haunting cry came faintly down the canyon. Gary's throat went dry and his heart thudded against his ribs. He was getting awfully close to The Needle — too close perhaps. He could almost see where the line ended. He hurried forward, getting careless in his haste. He could hear Tuck panting along behind him.

The moon crept along the bald rock face. The moving light was a lodestone that Gary found impossible to resist. Forgotten were the warnings he had received.

He could see something now. He ran forward, head upraised, staring at that thin etched line on the whitish rock. Any second now he would know the secret.

The rifle shot crashed loudly in the stillness of the canyon. The slug whispered through the air just above Gary's head, and the harsh report of the rifle slammed back and forth between the canyon walls raising the hollow echoes.

Gary whirled and saw that he was beyond the towering mass of The Needle. He took off down the canyon. His booted feet slammed against the hard ground like pistons and his breath came harshly in his dry throat. Fast as he was — and Gary had lettered in track at high school just the season before the summer — a gaunt figure passed him as though he were marking time. A strange, thin figure like an awkward crane, head outthrust, thin arms pumping up and down, big feet slapping the ground lightly, wheezing breath pumping from a gaping mouth, flew by him. Tuck Browne easily cleared a four-foot-high rock dike, the very picture of grace and motion, in ideal high-hurdle form, striking the ground like a feather on the far side, losing not a second of rhythm in his incredible burst of speed.

They passed the mouth of the canyon and headed toward the jeep. Gary reached it in time to see Tuck dive under it like a baseball player sliding home. He dragged the lean boy from beneath the jeep, shoved him into it, leaped in himself, turned on the ignition, shifted into first, and whirled the vehicle around, slamming it into second, ramming down on the accelerator to gather speed. He shifted into third as they reached the road and raced for home, raising a thick plume of dust behind them.

Not until they were inside the house with the thick door shut and barred did they look at each other with wide eyes. "It was Asesino all right," said Tuck.

"Did you see him?"

"Sure! Rose up like a jack-in-the-box atop The Needle! Aimed right at us! Lordy! Bullet nearly parted my hair, Gary!"

Cold sweat trickled down Gary's sides. He wiped the sweat from his face and grinned weakly. "Never saw you move so fast off that Honda."

Tuck nodded. "You and your letter," he scoffed. "Man, I was accelerating! Wasn't even out of second when I reached the jeep." Tuck walked to the refrigerator and opened it. He turned, and the light from inside the box accented his sharp features. "Come to think of it, Gary, I know how he got wise to us."

"Go on."

"The moonlight was shining off the windshield of the jeep like a sheet of silver. Could be seen for miles."

Gary leaned against the wall. "Never thought of that," he said.

Tuck selected a cold chicken leg. "Close," he said. He looked at Gary. "You don't suppose he'll come down here tonight, do you, Gary?"

Gary sat down on a chair and reached for a Coke from the refrigerator. "Quien sabe? Left my rifle up there."

"Great, oh great," murmured Tuck. "And Lobo isn't even here." He sank his fangs into the chicken leg.

Later, as they got into Gary's big bed, Tuck placed a hatchet under his pillow. "Might want to cut some wood later on," he said casually.

Gary nodded. He held up a butcher knife. "Or clean a rabbit," he said. His father's rifle was in town for repairs and the double-barreled shotgun had been loaned to a friend. Pete Cole usually carried his revolver in the pickup truck. It was going to be a long and lonely night.

The moonlight flooded through the window. The wind stirred the curtains.

"Kind'a cool in here, isn't it?" suggested Tuck.

Gary got up and walked to the window. He looked up toward The Needle. It was bright with moonlight. He slid down the window and, as he turned toward the bed, his eye caught a quick spark of light, high on the canyon wall beyond the huge mass of The Needle. He turned quickly. But there was no sign of light now. Nothing but the silvery wash of the cold moonlight on the silent canyon and the brooding Needle.