Halfway to the main highway, Sue kept looking back over her shoulder with a puzzled look on her face. "Is there an air-warning beacon on or near The Needle, Gary?" she asked.
He shook his head, intent on his driving.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive! Why do you ask?"
She eyed him. "Because I just saw a flickering light up the canyon past The Needle."
He nearly went off the road, turned the wheel into the direction of the skid and brought the jeep back to the center of the road. He braked it to a halt and turned to look back. The Needle thrust itself up, looming in the wet darkness. There was no sign of a light up that mysterious canyon.
"What's wrong, Gary?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Nothing." He started the jeep and drove on. The lure of the Espectros was opposed to the mystery and death that shrouded them. It had held his great-grandfather's interest and his own father's interest, and now it had claimed his as well. He knew there would be no turning back for him now, or ever.
5
Clues to the Treasure Trail
A cold, damp wind blew down Cholla Canyon early Monday morning as Gary Cole followed Jim Kermit up the wet slope toward the mouth of the great opening into the Espectros. Jim drew rein and turned to look at Gary. "Sure, I've heard about those old arrastres on the other side of the Espectros, Gary. To my knowledge no one has ever found a trace of a mine in there. You've got to remember this, kid: Since the old Spaniards mined these mountains there have been a lot of changes in the canyons. Flash floods and landslides have done a lot of earth moving in there."
Gary eyed the rugged escarpment of the Espectros, sharp and clear against the rain-washed sky. "I thought we had a real lead for a change, Mr. Kermit," he said.
Jim grinned. "I've lived in these parts for a long time and I've never yet found any float from those old mines. I'm like your grandfather, Gary. Just a rancher at heart, putting, my belief into good beef. Your great-grandfather was a dreamer, lad, and I think your father is too. You forget those old lies about lost mines."
"But if there were arrastres built back in those days, they built them to crush ore, and if they crushed ore in them, those mines had to be somewhere near the arrastres."
"Good logic, Gary. But what makes you think you can find the mines if experts have failed? Even your great-grandpa couldn't find that canyon where the mines are supposed to be, and he knew these mountains darned near as well as the Apaches did."
"The mines have to be in there," said Gary stubbornly.
Kermit shrugged. "Well, there was an aerial survey made during the war, and no lost canyons showed, kid. Those aerial cameras show everything, and they didn't show any missing canyons."
Gary looked quickly at him. "Aerial photography! That might do it!"
Jim's eyes hardened. "There you go again! Come on! We've got no time for pipe dreams! I've got strays in these canyons and I want them out of there before dusk! Vamos!"
"Is there any way I could get one of those photographs?" persisted Gray.
Jim turned. "Far's I know the negatives were destroyed when a hangar at the air field burned down. I don't know where any of the prints are. Let's go!"
Gary rode on after Jim. He had worked for Jim a number of times. It always seemed to hurt Pete Cole to have to tell Gary there wasn't enough work on the Cole place for him to do. So Gary worked for any of the local ranchers who needed help. Some of them lodged dudes at their places for extra money and had hired Gary as guide into the fringes of the Espectros. Strangely enough, as isolated as the area was, and as mysterious and bloody as its reputation was, the dudes seemed to like it. None of them ever knew they were carefully kept away from the danger zones. More gold had been made from writings about the lost treasures of the Espectros than had been found there.
These writings served to lure the dudes and put gold into the pockets of the ranchers.
Jim turned in his saddle. "Take Cholla Canyon, Gary. I'll follow Split Rock Canyon to where it runs into Cholla and meet you there about noon."
Gary rode slowly toward the looming mouth of Cholla. The Cole place would make an ideal dude ranch. It had a splendid panoramic view of the Espectros. It had a history which had served as the basis for several paperback western novels and countless pulp westerns, none of which had payed a dime into the Cole till. There was a bronze historical marker on the state highway south of the Cole place which told the tale of Chiricahua Springs Ranch. There wasn't any doubt in Gary's mind that the ranch would lure the dudes. Pete Cole could handle that type of work easily enough. It would take money, though, to change the ranch into a dude ranch, and as the situation was now, there wasn't enough money coming in to pay off the loans against it. Jim Kermit was anxious to buy out the Cole place, and he had the money with which to do it.
Gary guided his claybank past a towering growth of saguaros. Maybe Jim Kermit was right. If Great-grandfather Cole had been unable to find the Lost Espectro, it wasn't likely anyone else could find it. What bothered Gary was the fact that history did not lie about the three Melgosa Brothers and their fabulous discovery of gold in the heart of the Espectros in the year 1844. Vigil Melgosa had been killed by the Apaches; Leandro Melgosa had vanished, never to be found again; Marcos Melgosa was said to have sealed off the great mine, leaving a major part of the gold within it, then had fled to Mexico, never to return again. For years after he had left, the Apaches had kept white men from probing into the Espectros. Some white men had entered the mountains despite the Apaches, lured by the promise of the Lost Espectro. None of them had ever returned.
Even today it was said the Apaches still haunted those tangled canyons and inaccessible mesas, and that they knew well enough where the lost mines were hidden. The Apaches believed the Espectros had been the home of ancient gods. Many white people thought it was the Apaches who had committed most of the unsolved murders in the lonely, echoing canyons of the Espectros. There was no proof of this of course; there never was any proof at all as to who perpetrated the murders.
The recent rains had done much damage in Cholla Canyon, sweeping earth into the watercourse at the bottom, piling up brush torn from its roots, moving rocks down the wet slopes. "Flash floods and landslides have done a lot of earth moving in there," Jim Kermit had said. Gary looked up the cold canyon. A thought ran through his mind. "Flash floods and landslides can also reveal things that have been hidden for many years…"
He could see no strays as he worked his way up Cholla. Jim Kermit was a hard worker and he expected hard work from his hired hands. To Jim Kermit, losing a stray was like losing a pound of his own flesh. It showed in his ranch, for he was the most prosperous rancher in that area, by dint of perseverance and hard work, or so he always said. He took no stock in lost mines.
Cholla Canyon met Split Rock Canyon halfway up the slope of the west side of the Espectros, trending in from the left at an easy angle. Then Split Rock continued on the other, or southerly, side of Cholla Canyon, but here it was called Needle Canyon, for that looming pinnacle of rock dominated the canyon as nothing else did.
Gary rode slowly. He reached the junction and saw no sign of Jim Kermit. There was no use sitting there in the damp waiting for him. Gary rode on. It wasn't until he rode into deeper shadow that he realized he was right below the huge landmark. Closer and closer he rode until he could clearly distinguish features of The Needle he had never seen before — great cracks and splits, crumbling ledges, and eerie-looking holes that might or might not be deep caves. Here and there scattered growths clung to shallow pockets of soil trapped behind ledges.