Mystery of the Haunted Mine

6 The Candyman's Strange Story

It was dusk when Gary arrived home. He had not wanted to face his father. Instead of changing the fortunes of the Coles by finding definite clues to the Lost Espectro he had just made matters worse.

An odd-looking truck was parked beside the windmill. Despite his troubles Gary couldn't help but grin. The truck was the traveling place of business for Fred "Candyman" Platt, as well as the only home he knew. He peddled candy, knick-knacks, notions, needles and thread, used tools and books, shotgun shells and rifle cartridges, fishing tackle, and just about every kind of thing a rancher or his family might need between periodic trips to The Wells.

The truck was something like those used by milkmen. The interior was lined with shelves and bins full of Fred's articles of merchandise. There were even shelves on the outside against the walls of the truck, which could be covered by plywood doors when required. Fred also had rigged up a bunk at the front end of the truck, and it was there he slept when on the road. It wasn't an unusual sight to see Fred's truck parked alongside some lonely road and Fred himself seated in a comfortable folding chair smoking his pipe and listening to his radio, miles from any other human being. It was the way he liked it. During the day he lived for his customers; at night and on the weekends he camped by himself, preferring his own company, and finding it good.

Gary's mother turned from the stove as he entered the kitchen after washing up. "You're late, Gary," she said.

There was no use in lying to her. He told her the whole story. He could hear Fred and his father talking in the living room. As long as the "Candyman" was there his father wouldn't make too much of a fuss.

Mrs. Cole took a big meat loaf from the oven.

"I've been against this lost mine business as far back as I can remember. First with your father and then with you. Your grandfather had no interest in the story. Both of you, however, are like Great-grandpa Cole. There seems to be a curse on those who hunt for that mine. Look what happened to your father."

Gary began to set the table. But his mother wasn't through yet.

"Gary," she said, "did you ever know just how your great-grandmother died?"

"Killed by 'Paches," he said. "I know the story by heart."

She shook her head. "You know the story that is on the historical marker. The true one is not told outside of the Cole family. Your great-grandfather left her alone in this very house while he hunted the Lost Espectro. The Apaches knew he wasn't here. They sneaked up and killed three of the Mexicans who were working outside. Your great-grandmother was a brave woman, Gary. She fought from the house and kept them from killing the son who was your grandfather. She died of her wounds."

"It changed your grandfather's life to a certain extent. He raised his son to be a rancher, nothing more. Can you see why?"

"Yet he didn't forget about the Lost Espectro himself. Why else would he have passed his derrotero on to his son?"

"I suppose he just couldn't destroy the work of years, useless as it was. Now can you see why the Lost Espectro had a curse upon it, that it brings nothing but tragedy and death to those who hunt it?"

"I guess so," said Gary.

"Will you forget about it as your grandfather did?"

He looked away from her.

"Gary?"

"No, Mother, I can't do that."

For a long moment her soft blue eyes met those hard Cole eyes, legacy of the Cole men, and she knew she couldn't defeat her own son, or his obsession with the Lost Espectro. "Call your father and Mr. Platt," she said quietly.

Fred "Candyman" Platt limped into the room. He smiled at Gary. "Howdy, son! Good to see you! You're getting bigger and bigger!"

Gary smiled. Fred Platt could cheer anyone up. "I see you're limping, Mr. Platt. What happened?"

"Slipped pretty bad. Mebbe I'll tell you the story later. My, that meat loaf smells good, Mis' Cole."

Fred Platt had another function in life as well as that of being a truck peddler. Fred knew all the local news. He didn't gossip, but passed on anything he thought was of importance, if he was sure no one would be hurt in the process. Fred was no carrier of sly tales or malicious slander; he told the news as it had been told to him, no more and no less. At dinner that evening he passed on all the news, but he never stopped eating, for Fred was a good man with a knife and a fork, almost in a class with Tuck Browne if the truth be known.

Fred reached for the potatoes and bumped his ankle against the table leg. He winced in sudden pain. "Hurts worse than ever," he said. "Taped it up after putting liniment on it. Could hardly get in and out of the ol' truck today. Shifting gears was a hardship I tell you."

"How did you hurt it?" asked Mrs. Cole.

"You know how hard it rained yesterday evening? Well early this morning I stepped out'a the truck and slipped on some 'dobe mud. Got pretty fine bones, Mis' Cole. Don't take much to hurt 'em."

"Maybe you'd better lay off a day or two," she said.

His unusually dark blue eyes seemed to flash. "I got customers to service, Mis' Cole!"

"That takes care of that," said Pete Cole dryly. "'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.'"

The Candyman looked quickly at Pete. "Nice," he said. "What is it?"

Pete smiled. "Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote that about the Persian postal system of 500 B.C. It's a quotation used to describe the present-day performance of our postmen."

Fred passed a hand over his thinning blond hair. "Well, I do my job. Folks depend on the ol' Candyman. Woman might want some baking powder, or thread, or mebbe a corn plaster. Who else would get it to her?"

"He's only kidding you, Candyman," said Lucille Cole.

The peddler again filled his plate. "Well, as much as I hate to think about it, I got to keep going all week. This is the week I go plumb around to the north side of the Espectros."

"Too bad Gary is working for Jim Kermit," said Pete. "He can drive as well as any man."

Gary looked quickly at his mother. She nodded. "So happens, Mr. Platt, that Jim Kermit let me go today," said Gary. "I'd like to drive for you this week."

"Capital!" said the peddler. "Won't be easy! Hard work! Long hours! Moving all the time! You won't get tired driving?"

"I never get tired of driving, Mr. Platt."

"You're young. It's rough country to the north."

"Just don't let him wander off into the mountains, Candyman," said Pete Cole, half in earnest and half in fun.

Fred's eyes narrowed. "Why would he do that?" He brightened suddenly. "The Lost Espectro!" I might have known! Listen, boy, that ain't nothing but a fairy tale! If there was such a mine, which I doubt, all traces of it would have vanished long ago. You won't get anywhere dreaming about those lost mines, kid. Hard work is the formula for success! Look at me! Just a grade school education and I already got my own business! Well established! Well thought of! Welcome anywhere as a solid, respected citizen of the community!" Fred sawed off another thick slice of meat loaf. "I pass them mountains every week," he continued. "Sure, I look at 'em and wonder if there ever was such a bonanza as the Lost Espectro, but I got enough sense to know my fortune is in my ol' truck. I look at them mountains, Gary, but I never go into them canyons I tell you! Too many queer things happening in there to suit the Candyman! Lost treasures don't mean that much to me. There are plenty of other things to be interested in. Money ain't everything, boy!"

Even Lucille Cole had to hide a smile. They all knew that Fred Platt would carry his laden truck on his back up to the top of The Needle if he thought there was a customer on that aerie. It was an obsession with Fred to serve his customers, and it was certainly not to his discredit.

Pete Cole reached for the coffeepot. "I heard that Asesino was looking for some cartridge-reloading equipment for that old rifle of his," he said casually.

"Well so happens I got a set of secondhand Lyman reloading gear," said Fred quickly. He hesitated and looked quizzically at Pete. "Did you say 'Asesino'?"

Pete grinned. "I was only joshing you, Candyman."

"That ain't a thing to josh about, Pete! No offense to you, but some people might want to know how you found out."

"About the reloading equipment?" asked Pete in delight. He burst into laughter. "You don't believe I actually heard that, do you?"

"Pete is only teasing you, Candyman," said Lucille.

The peddler turned slowly to look at her. "I don't like being teased about him," he said. He glanced quickly toward the closest window as though someone might be eavesdropping.

"The man is long dead," said Pete seriously.

"No," said the peddler. "Asesino is still alive."

"You've talked to him lately?" asked Pete. "Sold him a packet of needles? Come now, Candyman!"

Fred's face was pale and taut. "There have been times I know I've been watched — the times when I camped too close to the canyon mouths. Once or twice I saw someone moving about on the canyon rims. I'm pretty sure it was him, Pete."

There was a skeptical look on Pete Cole's face. "Come off it, Fred," he said. "Don't start wild stories about him. There are people who believe he is still alive, you know."

Fred leaned closer to Pete. "I knew him years ago," he said quietly. "I couldn't be mistaken."

"Over thirty years ago?" echoed Lucille Cole. "Do you really think you'd know him after all those years?"

Fred straightened up. "Well, I might as well tell you. I think I seen him no later than yesterday morning!"

"Where?" asked Pete.

"I was camped east of the mountains. Not too far from that plugged up canyon there. I had parked my truck close under a cliff so as to get out of the sun. That was late Saturday afternoon. Had a quiet night. Didn't do much Sunday morning except laze around and look for geodes and the like. I get a good price for them from rock hounds. I wandered quite a ways from the truck, leaving it open to air out. Well, I was getting tired, so I started back. I wasn't one hundred yards from the truck when I seen him…"

Gary felt the cold creeping of fear over his body. He remembered all too well his own feelings when he was in a canyon and thought he was being watched.

"He was standing by the rear of the truck as calm as you please, eatin' something out of a can. I was scairt I tell you! I turned to run and kicked a rock lying there. I looked back. He was standing there looking right at me…"

Somewhere out in the stillness of the desert night a coyote howled softly. Lucille Cole shivered a little.

"His eyes was like coals of fire!" said Fred in a louder voice. "He was ragged and dirty but he moved like a cat! His rifle was leaning against a rock! He run for it, and I run the other way! Then I fell down, and when I had the nerve to look back, he was gone. Nothing on that empty ground but my old truck! He had vanished like a ghost!"

Gary glanced at his father. Pete seemed intent on what Fred had been saying. The man wasn't known to be a liar. The fact was that no man in Gary's knowledge and in that of his father as well had actually claimed to have seen Asesino in the past ten or fifteen years, although there were plenty of rumors that he had been seen, but no one ever seemed to know who had seen him. If Fred's story was true then here was concrete evidence that the feared outlaw was still alive.

Fred hitched his chair closer to the table and refilled his coffee cup. "When I got to the truck I found three empty cans lying there."

"What had he been eating?" asked Lucille.

Fred looked up with an odd little smile. "Peaches! Not them little cans! The big ones! Three whole cans of Elberta peaches, Mis' Cole. That was another reason I was sure it was him."

Gary had become tense. He stared at the talkative peddler. Elberta peaches! Some of the cans in the mysterious cave he had entered that very day had once been filled with the luscious fruit. "Why did that convince you it was really him, Mr. Platt?" asked Gary quietly.

The peddler smiled knowingly. "I said I had known him years ago. If there was one thing Asesino loved, besides killing that is, it was Elberta peaches! Don't ask me why." He smiled again. "It's a cinch he ain't buying his peaches up in the Espectros!"

"What did he really look like?" asked Mrs. Cole.

"Like a ghost! An espectro! Cries out like one too."

"Cries out?" asked Gary quickly. "How?"

"Well, I can't make it sound exactly like he does it, but it's some thing like this." Fred threw back his head, cupped his hands about his mouth, and gave voice to a wailing, eerie cry; a mournful thing, thin and haunting.

Gary paled. It was much like the sound he and Tuck had heard that night in the canyon.

"Elberta peaches," said Pete. He shook his head. "Anything else missing?"

"Yeh. A box of cartridges. Kind'a odd caliber too: .50/110 they was. I used to carry them for Old Man Mills some years ago. He never came into town so I carried them as a sort of service for him. Well, when he died, his son came out from Albuquerque, took one look around, then put the place up for sale or lease and went right back to Albuquerque! Guess he either left the old rifle in the place or else took it with him. Well, I carried that box around such a long time I was almost glad to get rid of 'em. Ain't many rifles that caliber still being used."

Fete nodded. "It is an odd caliber, though not quite as rare as you'd think it would be. Came out in the Winchester Model 1886 repeater. Probably one of the smoothest level action rifles ever manufactured. It was usually a heavy-caliber gun in .45/70, .38/56, .40/82, and .45/90 calibers. The .50/110 was the largest of them."

"Say," said Fred admiringly. "That's all right!"

Gary smiled proudly. "Dad is a gun crank. Anything you want to know about guns you just ask him."

"It was a .50/110 slug that killed my horse and dumped me down to the bottom of a canyon," said Pete quietly. "I ought to know it."

"Sure could make a hole in a man," said Gary.

Fred looked quickly at Gary. "What do you mean?"

Gary looked at his father. "Can I show Fred that skull I found?"

Pete Cole smiled, and then looked at his wife. "Not in here, Gary."

"I'll serve coffee and cake in the living room," said Mrs. Cole hastily.

Later, as Fred Platt examined the bullet-punctured skull he nodded. "Large-caliber slug all right."

"You remember those two prospectors who went into the Espectros about twelve years ago, Fred?" asked Pete.

"Yeh. They found one of 'em with a bullet hole in the back of his head. They never did find the other one."

Pete leaned forward and tapped the skull. "This is quite possibly the skull of the one they never found. Tell him the story, Gary."

Gary told the story of finding the skeleton in the canyon of the arrastres. "There was a belt buckle with the skeleton," he continued. "Initials J. B."

"I think you're right, Pete," said Fred. "The one they found dead in the camp was a man named Carl Schuster. His partner was a man named John Bellina. It all ties in."

"Gary plans to take the relics into town and have them turned over to Sheriff Gates," said Pete.

Fred hefted the skull. "I wouldn't."

"Why not?" asked Gary.

Fred looked about as though someone might again be eavesdropping. "They haven't been able to find Carl Schuster's killer in twelve years, have they? No! And they won't either. Likely them fellas was hot on the trail of the Lost Espectro. They knew too much. They was killed because they knew too much, and for no other reason. Now, I think the place where Gary found this skeleton and them arrastres is mighty close to the Lost Espectro. This is a great lead, Gary. I ain't interested naturally. All the money in Arizona wouldn't get me into the Espectros to look for haunted treasure, and besides, after seeing Asesino yesterday, I ain't ever going near them canyons again!"

"So?" said Pete. "But why not tell the Sheriff?" Fred smiled almost as though he were explaining something to a child. "If any man has the right to the Lost Espectro it's you, Pete, and Gary here too. Supposing the Sheriff does get this stuff? He won't likely know any more than they did twelve years ago. But these clues won't be kept secret if the Sheriff gets hold of them. It'll be in the papers and on the radio and TV, I'll bet. In a week them mountains will be crawling with people looking for the Lost Espectro. This time one of them just might be lucky. No, Pete, you keep this to yourself. I won't talk. Seems like Gary has really stumbled onto something this time. Never say die, eh, boy?"

"I don't want him wandering around in there," said Pete.

Fred smiled. "He's got the Cole blood, ain't he?" He handed Pete the skull. "Anyway I'll keep him so busy the rest of this week he won't have time to look for any lost mine. Come to think of it, I need a partner. Been thinking of expanding. Two trucks. Twice as much business. Need a young fella with energy and ideas. What do you say, Gary?"

Gary tried to make his answering smile look realistic, but he was shuddering inwardly. Some local wag would start calling him "Junior, the Candyman" or something equally horrible.

Fred got up. "I'll sleep in my truck tonight. Put that skull under your pillow, Gary. Might tell you the secret of the Lost Espectro in the dark of the moon. Hawww! Best get to bed, Gary. We leave at dawn."

"Cheerful fellow," said Pete after Fred left. He filled his pipe and lighted it. He eyed Gary over the flare of the match. "Fred might be right at that. Let's keep this skull business to ourselves, for a time at least."

"Does that mean I can keep on looking for the Lost Espectro?"

Pete puffed at his pipe. "I don't really know how I can stop you," he said. He smiled ruefully. "Almost wish I could go with you. I wonder if he really did see Asesino?"

"Quien sabe?" said Gary.

The coyote howled again. Closer to the house this time. Gary eyed the grinning skull. It was a fact that Apaches could imitate the cries of animals and birds almost to perfection. Asesino had been part Apache.