"Jerry Black?" said Tuck.
Gary shook his head. "I don't know if he ever saw Jerry," he said. He looked at the two of them. "Maybe someone is playing Apache."
"Fine time to be playing cowboys and Indians," growled Tuck.
"That's not exactly what I meant," said Gary. He picked up his rifle and checked it. "A white man can have dark hair and bind it with a cloth like Apaches used to do. Someone whom Lobo knows…"
"I'm scared," said Sue. There was a catch in her voice.
"Look, Sue," said Gary, not unkindly, "we're stuck in here. If anyone is looking for trouble we're better off to staying right where we are and letting them come to us than trying to get out of here in the dark. We don't know any way out of here other than the way we came in, and it would be pitch black in there before we ever reached the cavern. We can't take a chance of trying to find another way out of here, if there is such a thing."
"Besides, Susie," said Tuck bravely, "we've found the Lost Espectro. We can't just go off and leave it here, can we now?"
"How do we know it's the Lost Espectro?" she demanded.
"There's one way to find out," said Tuck with a brave and careless smile. He seemed to grow a little in height. "Go on down there and make sure."
"Bravo," said Sue.
Tuck turned. "Don't you worry about a thing, Gary," he said. "I'll keep good watch up here while you're down there making certain it is the Lost Espectro."
"I might have known," said Gary dryly. "O.K. I didn't come all the way into this hole in the mountains to turn away from the Lost Espectro at the last minute." He handed Tuck the rifle, put on his shirt, and picked up his hat. Gary formed a sling for the shotgun from a length of rope and slung it over his back. Then he took the second coil of nylon rope and slung it over his arm. He lowered his legs into the shaft and felt for the first rungs of the chicken ladder, holding onto the rope that he had dropped for Tuck. Gary tested the ladder all the way down and found it solid, preserved from rot by the dry air of the shaft.
He detached the lantern from the rope and flashed it about. Behind the sprawled skeleton was the dark, irregular opening of a drift. He flashed the light on the skeleton. It had been there a good many years. He knelt and examined the clothing. It was so old that some of it crumbled in his grasp, releasing a little cloud of musty dust that swirled about in the lamplight and then rose up into the shaft. An eerie feeling as well as the ancient dust seemed to float about Gary. He gently removed the leather-bound book from beneath the bony fingers and opened it. It was a Spanish Bible. A name-plate showed in the yellow light, and written upon it in a spidery script was a name. "Leandro Melgosa," read Gary quietly. He looked at the skeleton. According to history, Leandro Melgosa had been the youngest of the three Melgosa Brothers. Vigil Melgosa, the second brother, had been killed by Apaches, while Marcos, the eldest, supposedly after hiding the mine, had fled to Mexico and had never returned. Nothing had been known of the fate of Leandro. He had vanished in the Espectros like the snows of yesteryear.
Gary stood up. He stepped over the skeleton, and as he did so a queer, sickening feeling of cold horror came over him. He could see the back of the skull, and in it was a large and ragged hole. Someone had evidently killed Leandro, if indeed it was Leandro, from behind, unless of course he had fallen and fatally struck himself. Gary reached out a trembling hand to touch the hole. As he did so the skull fell to one side. Something rattled on the floor of the shaft. Gary knelt and picked up a mutilated lead slug. He had been killed by human hands then.
Thoughts of the other killings in the Espectros flooded through his mind. Killings in which men had been shot through the back of the skull! He was confused. No one murderer could have spanned the long years from the time of the killing of Leandro Melgosa up until twelve years or so ago when the two prospectors, John Bellina and Carl Schuster, had been shot to death through the back of the head. There was an eerie puzzle here. He stepped over the skeleton and raised his lamp. The rays picked out sketchy carving on the drift wall. "Dios Mio, ayudame" read Gary. He wrinkled his brow. "My God, help me," he translated. Farther down a deep cross had been cut into the rock and beneath that was more writing. "There is nothing but death in this canyon," he translated. There was a signature beneath the last word. "Marcos Melgosa, August 17, 1844," he added slowly.
There were mystery and hidden tragedy in those words. Gary flashed the light up the drift. Here and there on the floor were pieces of wood which had fallen from the sagging pit props supporting the narrow tunnel. Amidst the litter were woven baskets. Gary recognized them as mecapals, used by the Spanish and Mexican miners to carry ore from mines. There was also a pile of sotol stalks, once used by the old-timers as torches.
He raised the lamp and shot the light down the drift. It had not been cut straight as American miners would have done — driving in a drift, then crosscutting to get at the vein — but in the old Mexican method of following the vein itself and not removing any more earth and rock than was absolutely necessary.
Something held Gary back. The prospect of walking alone up that twisted, dark, and echoing drift was not too inviting. He stepped back, hesitated, then walked forward again along the drift. What puzzled him was the steady current of fresh air flowing about him. It indicated only one thing — there was another opening to the mine somewhere in the bowels of the rock ahead of him.
He saw a worn-out husk sandal on the floor and a rawhide zurrón bag that had once been fastened to the head of the man who had carried ore in the zurrón from the mine. On and on he went, his boots crunching in the debris fallen from the roof and walls of the drift, watching carefully for holes or weak spots in the packed earth of the drift bottom. The draft still blew about him, but there was no sign of a gold vein in the walls, or any caches of the precious metal that had been left behind so long ago.
The place was too much for his nerves at last. There was a brooding, haunting air about the drift. He turned to go back, and instantly it seemed to him as though something had moved up close behind him out of the fearsome darkness to reach out bony claws for him. He almost panicked. Then he began to count each step to himself. He had taken thirty paces into the drift. He held off gibbering panic and at last reached the shaft. Gary forced himself to stand there; disciplining himself. "Tuck!" he called.
Sue thrust her head into the hole. "What is it, Gary?"
"I haven't found much of anything," said Gary. His voice cracked a little.
"You want Tuck to go back with you?"
She knew all right. She knew Gary was fighting for self-control down in that drafty dark hole in the ground. Sue smiled. "Maybe Tuck ought to stay on guard," she said. "I'll go with you, Gary."
He swallowed hard. "It's all right," he said. He knew she was as scared as he was. The kid had guts all right. Scared as she was, she didn't want him to go in there alone again. She came lightly down the ladder. She eyed the skeleton. "Who was he?" she asked.
Gary shrugged. "Leandro Melgosa as far as I know. The brother that vanished."
She gingerly walked past the skeleton. "Seems to me his brothers should have buried him."
"Vigil was killed by Apaches. Marcos returned to Mexico." Gary looked down at the remains of Leandro. "I think he was murdered right here, Sue."
She smiled wanly. "Why?"
"Someone shot him through the back of the head." Gary's eyes narrowed. He flashed the light on the writing. "I wonder," he said quietly.
Sue was an A student in Spanish. She quickly translated the inscription. "My God, help me! There is nothing but death in this canyon. Marcos Melgosa, August 17, 1844." She looked at Gary. "He was just frightened, that's all, Gary. His other brother had been killed by the Apaches; then Leandro was killed, and Marcos knew he had to get out of here or die as well. He didn't have time to bury Leandro."