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.