Mystery of the Haunted Mine

9 Shadows in the Moonlight

Lobo greeted the boys at the gate. Gary and Tuck knew then that no one had been prowling about the place. They went into the dark house and pulled the shades in the living room before they put on the lamp. Gary got his Winchester and leaned it against the table. Lobo would warn them if anyone came near the house, giving them time to put out the light.

"This thing gives me the jitters," said Tuck. "Maybe we ought to take someone into our confidence."

"Like who?" snapped Gary. "Jim Kermit? Jerry Black? Lije Purtis? You loco? We found it and we keep our mouths shut about it."

"All right! All right! It was just a thought," Tuck shrugged. "Still, maybe we ought to hide it for a while before we try to use it. Until things quiet down a little anyways."

"You can't mean that!" said Gary fiercely. "We've been running up blind alleys too long to not use this derrotero now that we have it! If you don't come with me tomorrow I'm going it alone!"

"O.K! O.K.! I'm not one to let a buddy go in there alone! Maybe we can be buried together so's our families will only have to put up one tombstone 'stead of two."

"You're a real comedian. Too bad Jerry Lewis isn't looking for a new partner."

"I've got a partner," said Tuck seriously. "Gary, what do you really think about us going into the Espectros?"

Gary sat down and leaned toward his partner. "It isn't as though we were just going in there to take out a couple of burroloads of gold or silver, Tuck. Even with this derrotero it isn't going to be easy. Don't forget that the Lost Espectro has been lost for about a hundred years. All my great-grandfather's chart can do for us is to show us what he found, and he didn't find the lost mine. Sure, we can follow the clues he has on the derrotero, but when we reach the end of them we'll be right where he was when he stopped looking. It's quite possible, too, that someone might have found the Lost Espectro and never opened his mouth."

"Don't say such a thing," said Tuck in horror.

"My thought is to leave here before dawn and hike into Cholla Canyon before anyone can see us from higher up, if we're being watched. We can take light camping gear along in case we have to stay there overnight."

"Goody, goody," said Tuck. "I can hardly wait."

"Meanwhile let's try to learn this chart by heart. I don't want to take it in there with us."

The two of them sat at the table and studied the derrotero with a great deal more interest than they had ever shown in a textbook on algebra or physics. After half an hour Tuck looked up at Gary. "I can compare everything I've seen around the Espectros against this derrotero except for one thing, Gary." He placed a finger on a stylized sunburst drawn in a narrow canyon.

"A sunburst like that indicates a mine or mines close by, Tuck. Any symbol of the sun indicates great mineral wealth nearby. The question mark in the center of it was probably my great-grandfather's own idea. Quite likely that sunburst is where he thought the mine was."

"That isn't what's bothering me," said Tuck. "Have you ever seen a canyon in those mountains that corresponds to the one he drew and marked with that sunburst?"

Gary shook his head. "That's been bothering me too. I can identify Cholla Canyon and Split Rock Canyon, and the canyon where The Needle is, as well as the canyon where we found the arrastres, but I can't link any canyon in the mountains with that one he has marked."

"Great stuff," said Tuck in disgust. "Then just what good is this derrotero?"

"All I know is that he didn't make it to amuse himself. If he marked that canyon on the derrotero you can bet your Honda against a dime that it was there when he marked it. Jim Kermit's remark that there had been a great many changes in the mountains in the past hundred years sticks in my mind. The day I was working for him I saw up Cholla Canyon to the place where there must have been a landslide years ago. I went the other way and found nothing. I think the place to go is past that landslide."

"Behind The Needle?"

"Yes. A long ways behind The Needle…"

Tuck glanced at the clock. "It's getting late. If we're going to do a predawn patrol we'd better get some sleep."

They got their gear ready before they went to bed. Pete Cole's shotgun had been returned and Tuck was to carry it; Gary had his Winchester. "You got any silver bullets, amigo?" asked Tuck.

"No, why?"

"Well, I heard lead bullets ain't much good against ghosts but they might work if you rub them with garlic."

"I ought'a rub your pointed little head with garlic!"

"Where do you figure on hiding the derrotero?" Gary grinned. "Atop the windmill platform," he said. "No one would think of looking for it there."

"No one but an eagle, that is."

It was pitch dark outside. Gary crossed swiftly to the windmill and quietly scaled the ladder. He secreted the derrotero beneath a loose board. He did not return to the ground immediately. He felt as though he was atop the mast of a sailing ship far out on the dark sea. The Espectros were dark and hulking against the night sky; the lights of The Wells could be seen in the clear air. There was a breathless feeling within Gary. Tomorrow might reveal the long-lost secret of the treasure of the Espectros.

A cold dawn wind swept along the lower reaches of Cholla Canyon as Gary led the way through the tangled brush to where he had found the first symbol. It was still very dark in the big canyon, and even Lobo was subdued, trailing closely at Gary's heels, with Tuck not far behind. Several times during the night the big dog had barked, awakening the boys, but nothing had happened. They had not shown a light at the house when they had arisen, breakfasted, and left the premises in the thick darkness of the hour before dawn.

It was hard going until the first faint light of the false dawn began to show in the sky. By that time the boys had reached the place where the branch canyon split off to the right hand. Gary looked up the dark slopes toward the unseen cave. It was as quiet as the grave. He shuddered at the simile.

Gary swiftly crossed the mouth of the branch canyon and began to fight his way through the vicious tangle that almost filled the narrow upper end of Cholla Canyon. It was quite obvious that there had been a vast slide of earth and rocks in years past. It was also obvious that the rushing waters of many flash floods had gouged the narrow passage to one side of the slide. The dawn light was filtering down into the canyon. High above them were masses of dry brush wedged into crevices; here and there bleached pieces of driftwood hung like bones of the long dead. They were the markers indicating the height of the floods that poured through that canyon. It wasn't a pleasant sight. The Espectros seemed to breed vicious storms in the late summer and early fall, and to be caught in a canyon at such a time was akin to a death sentence.

Beyond the slide it was possible to see no more than a few hundred yards at a time because of the devious and tortured way of the deep canyon. Despite the coolness of the early morning the boys were running with sweat as they forced their way through clinging catclaw and savage jumping cholla that seemed to snap at them in anger. They rounded a right-hand bend. Gary stopped and eyed a huge overhanging cliff, shaped like the cup of a gigantic clamshell. "The derrotero shows water in here, Tuck," he said over his shoulder.

Tuck wiped the sweat from his face. "What's that up there?" He pointed to the cliff face. Clearly marked was a Spanish gourd, the unmistakable symbol for water in the vicinity.

It was Lobo who found the spring. It welled up from beneath a rock face to form a shallow pool in a hueco or rock hollow. The three of them drank the cold, sweet water. Tuck wiped his mouth and reached for his haversack. "Time for lunch?"

"It's hardly nine o'clock," said Gary. "I'll go ahead and see what's up there."

"Watch yourself, amigo."

"I wasn't thinking of getting careless."

Gary was a good five hundred yards east of the spring when he found the narrow slit that marked a branch canyon trending off to the right, deep in shadow, cold, and forbidding. He turned to look up the main canyon and saw a chiseled outline on a great slab of fallen rock. It was the outline of a tortoise. There was no way of telling to which of the two canyons it had originally pointed.

Tuck floundered through the brush and eyed the rock. "Got a little lonely back there," he said. "What's that?"

"The tortoise symbol has various meanings. Sometimes the head points toward treasure, or buried possessions nearby."

"Go on."

Gary looked at his friend. "It can also mean death, defeat, or destruction…"

"But that was years ago, wasn't it?" asked Tuck in a very small voice.

"It has to be one way or the other." Gary took a coin from his pocket and flipped it high into the air. "Heads to the left. Tails to the right." He caught it deftly. "Tails," he said quietly.

Tuck eyed the narrow, uninviting passageway. "Best out of three?" he suggested weakly.

Gary shook his head. There was really no choice. If they went up the main canyon and could not find any further symbols they would have to explore the narrower canyon anyway. He led the way. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as though they had entered a vast and empty vault carved into the very heart of the Espectros. Neither of them spoke. Silence seemed to be the ground rule in that dark and echoing place. Silence, and a constant feeling of something watching and waiting for anyone fool enough to look for the Lost Espectro.

The heat of the midmorning sun had begun to penetrate into the canyons by the time the two explorers came to a widening of the canyon they were in. "Just where are we?" asked Tuck.

"We're heading southerly. I think we're roughly parallel to The Needle Canyon, but I haven't any idea how far we are from it."

"You think this canyon comes out on the south side of the Espectros?"

"If it doesn't we'll either have to backtrack or stay in here tonight."

So far they had seen no guiding symbols. That is, until Tuck fell over a rock. Gary gave him a hand to help him to his feet, and as he did so he saw something through a screen of brush. It was another gourd symbol pointing back to the way they had come. That wasn't much help, but at least it indicated that the Mexican miners had been in there.

Tuck picked a cactus needle from his hand and looked ahead. He silently pointed at something. On an overhanging rock had been chiseled a deep Roman cross. "That's another marking with a number of meanings," said Gary. "It might mean there are church treasures buried in here, which isn't likely. It also means a Christian has passed this way. If it was lying on its side instead of being upright, then the long part of the cross would point to the treasure trail."

"As far as we're concerned then, that marking doesn't mean much."

Gary looked up at the high rims of the canyon. "It was cut in here for a reason, maybe as protection against something evil."

They moved on slowly, scanning the canyon walls for more markings. An hour passed before they found another symbol and again it was the gourd marking, still pointing in the direction from which they had come. A sluggish wind stirred in the canyon but it brought little relief from the gathering heat of the day. The canyon began to angle to the right with a rather sharp turn visible in the distance. The canyon floor became a mass of tumbled and riven rock intermingled and laced together by thorny brush and scrubby trees. Here and there shattered tree trunks showed in the jumble.

"I sure could use a drink," said Tuck as he wiped his face.

Lobo moved ahead of them, to vanish in the tangle. In a few minutes he returned and his black muzzle was wet with water. Gary forced his way through a last screen of brush and stopped in astonishment. Before him was a wide shallow pool that had formed in the lowest part of the canyon floor. Scum floated on the surface of the water at his feet, but it seemed clearer at the base of the eastern wall of the canyon. He walked to the wall and tasted the clear water. It was fresh and sweet and it seemed to well from the naked rock itself.

Tuck dropped on his belly and drank deeply. "Sure needed that," he said. "Let's eat." He eyed Gary. "What's the matter?"

Gary looked up and down the heat-soaked canyon. "Strange," he said quietly. "The gourd symbols point the other way."

"So?"

"If there was water here, why would they show signs to the spring so far behind us? Besides, from what I remember from the derrotero, there wasn't any symbol on that either indicating the presence of a spring in here."

Tuck was gnawing at a sandwich. He eyed the pool. "Seems to come from under that wall," he said.

Gary looked up. There was no symbol for a spring marked on that sheer face of rock.

They ate and then filled their canteens. As much as Gary wanted to continue the search, he knew it was only a matter of a few hours before the canyon would be dark in shadows. A quarter of a mile beyond the water hole they found another symbol carved into a pinnacle of rock that jutted out from the right-hand wall of the canyon. It was a neatly depicted outline of a bowie knife, pointing back in the direction from which they had come. "Trail to mine or treasure; travel on," translated Gary.

"Maybe it means travel on to the next gourd symbol," suggested Tuck.

"No. The meaning is clear enough." Gary pushed on ahead and was rewarded fifteen minutes later by finding the next symbol, a mule shoe lying horizontally. "En route to treasure; keep traveling," said Gary. He turned and looked down the shadowed canyon. "It must be behind us," he said. "The symbols for water pointed the other way, away from the spring we found. Now the symbols here do not indicate that there is water just ahead, but rather to treasure. Also behind us…"

Tuck shoved back his hat. "And the symbols in Cholla Canyon indicated that we come this way. I agree. The treasure, if there is any, has to be behind us, and between the last water symbol and that bowie knife symbol back there. Maybe the cross symbol indicated that the treasure was there."

Gary shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Maybe we ought to try the horqueta?" Tuck rummaged in his bulging haversack and came up with a Y-shaped bone, the bleached scapula of some long-dead animal. He inverted the bone so that the leg of the Y was upward, and tapped a glass knob which had been set into the tip of the bone. There was a threaded hole drilled in the glass knob. Tuck fumbled in the haversack again.

"You think the Lost Espectro was a gold or silver mine?"

"Gold," said Gary.

Tuck selected a screw from the number he had taken from the haversack. He screwed it into the hole in the glass knob. "Let's go," he said cheerfully. He gripped the two lower prongs of bone in his hands, thumbs out and palms upward.

"What is that?"

Tuck grinned. "Ol' Emilio Chavez traded me this for a double-barreled shotgun. You hold it like I'm holding it, then wait to feel the 'pull' of the minerals. That screw happens to have a speck of gold dust in it. Now if it were silver we were looking for, or copper, or whatever, we'd put in the screw with that mineral, you see. The screws are hollow and filled with a bit of the mineral you are hunting. Like attracts like, amigo. Emilio said it was infallible. Always works. Now…" His voice died away as he saw the look on Gary's face.

"If everything Emilio cons you into taking is infallible, how come Emilio Chavez is the poorest man in The Wells?"

"Well, now that you mention it," said Tuck thoughtfully.

"Tuckie," said Gary in his kindliest tone, "put one of those screws in the hollow place in your head. It's the sun, I think, or maybe your mother dropped you on your soft little head when you were a baby."

While they stood there the sun suddenly vanished and thicker shadows filled the canyon. A cool wind began to feel its way through the darkness.

"We'll keep moving on," said Gary. "We can make better time when the moon comes up. O.K.? Or would you rather camp in here tonight?"

Tuck smiled wanly as he stored his precious horqueta away.

The darkness grew and thickened. The boys did not speak to each other. There was something in the atmosphere of that forbidding place that banned conversation. Now and then they stopped their slow progress to listen. They saw the velvety-winged flight of the night-hunting owl and heard the pitiful squeaking of a mouse caught in the steely talons of that same owl. They heard the swift and almost noiseless passages of nocturnal animals through the brush. The dry wind crept through the canyon, moaning softly through crevices.

It seemed like an eternity before the first faint suggestion of moonrise appeared in the sky. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, they could distinguish objects and see the path beneath their tired and aching feet. The lighter it grew, the faster they traveled, and in so doing, they became careless about noise. If someone or something was listening to their passage…

They reached a place where the canyon widened. Lobo stopped trotting at Gary's heels. A low growl sounded deep in his throat. He laid back his stub ears and his hackles arose. Gary moved toward the canyon wall and knelt beside the big dog. "Quiet, Lobo," he whispered. "Quiet now!"

The three of them watched and waited. The canyon floor was silvered with cold moonlight, etching sharply each shadow. Nothing moved except the wind. Minutes ticked past, and then Gary felt the hard muscles of the dog tighten against his arm. Tuck wet his lips. He pointed out toward the center of the canyon. The shadows were still motionless, and then one of them seemed to move. But there was nothing there to give body to that shadow. It seemed to move steadily and independently, drifting across rocks and brush. The shadow stopped, then moved on again. Gary saw now that it was the shadow of a hatless man. But there was no man to form that shadow!

Tuck touched Gary on the shoulder and jerked a thumb upward. Gary understood now. Whoever it was, standing on the rim of the canyon, high overhead; the moonlight came from behind him, throwing his bodiless shadow onto the canyon floor. The shadow moved. It bent its head as though to listen. Something pattered dryly on the ground just to the right of the boys. It must be something living up there — rather than a ghost — to be able to push gravel over the edge of the rim.

Cold fear raced through Gary. His legs and stomach seemed to get weak. He swallowed hard, almost afraid to breathe for fear of making a sound. The gravel pattered closer. Tuck's breathing became louder and more irregular. Gary felt as though he were held in subjection to the thing up there. It was quite enough fear for him that night. There was a limit.

Gary jumped to his feet and grabbed his rifle. He ran swiftly out into the center of the canyon. He turned and clearly saw a hatless man standing at the edge of the rim looking down at him, but Gary could not see the shadowed face. "Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded angrily.

The man raised a rifle. Gary threw up his own gun and fired high over the unknown's head. He slammed out three more rapid-fire rounds. The man jumped out of sight. The crashing echoes bounded and rebounded between the canyon walls in roaring confusion.

"You loco?" screamed Tuck.

Gary waved Tuck on. Lobo sped toward Gary, barking deeply. Gary wasted no time. Tired as he was his feet fairly seemed to fly over the rough ground. This time Tuck did not pass him. They were half a mile down the canyon when Gary threw himself on the ground to regain his breath. Tuck staggered up and fell down beside him. There was now no sign of life up the moonlit canyon.

When they had their breath back they trudged on to the south. Far ahead of them they could see where the canyon floor slanted down toward the distant desert, silvered by the moonlight.

The haunting cry arose behind them like the dire wailing of a doomed soul, echoing eerily down the canyon until at last it died away. This time the boys did not stop for breath nor look back until they reached the hidden mouth of the canyon.