The coyote cried again. Gary shivered. The thought of entering that dark house, so full of memories, was not pleasant. A distant humming sound came across the quiet desert. Far across the black velvet shroud of the night came a flickering light, like a curious and probing finger. The light was moving with great speed along the graveled road that came from the main highway to the south. An erratic, popping, roaring noise came on the wind.
Gary grinned. It was probably Tucker C. "Tuck" Browne, riding his beloved Honda motorcycle full out, which was usually the only way he rode it. The darkness of the night seemed a little more friendly now. It was always that way when Tuck Browne came to see Gary. Tuck was a good, though temporary, distraction for the lure of the Lost Espectro.
Gary went into the house and turned on the kitchen and living room lights. Automatically he checked the supply of food in the refrigerator. He went out into the room off the back porch where the freezer was and took out additional supplies which he brought into the house. Tuck Browne had been on a marathon eating contest as far back as Gary could remember and that had been a good part of his life, for the two boys had been friends since preschool days.
Gary went outside and called again for Lobo but there was no answering bark from the big dog. He looked up toward The Needle. Lobo was a prowler but he usually did not go too far into the canyons, no matter how inviting the hunting was. Lobo had always sensed that there was something wrong with those brooding canyons. He'd go along with Gary though, no matter how much he disliked doing so, his love for Gary overcoming his fear of the unknown.
Gary saw that the motorcyclist was charging along the fence line. Any minute he'd turn into the driveway past the windmill. Gary wisely took up a position where he could get into cover if Tuck made one of his spectacular stops anywhere near him. Tuck was gunning the motor in short, incessant bursts of power. The final act was about to begin.
2
The Mystery of The Needle
The rubber squealed as the tires of the Honda were forced into a hard, grinding turn from the road into the rutted driveway of the Cole Ranch. Tuck gunned the bike. The rear tire shrieked against the baked earth and gravel, and the Honda shot forward as though slung out of a catapult, boring through the dusk like an avenging angel. A bent figure could be seen, hanging onto the handlebars that were even with the driver's eye level. There was a grim determination in driver and bike as the two of them bounced across ruts and swung into the rather sharp turn just beyond the windmill. It was then that the tortured tires refused to grip the hard earth. The bike went into a spin, was wrenched out of it, then went into another sliding angle. Tuck gunned the roaring machine and it shot forward directly toward Gary. He sprinted for cover, vaulting over the low adobe wall just in front of the house.
Tuck Browne was magnificent. He shot past the wall, skidded in a wet patch near a faucet, then swung toward a sagging shed beyond the low barn. Gary watched in fascination as the bike bore down on the shed. Dust and smoke billowed up behind the Honda. "Hi, Gary!" screamed Tuck a fraction of a second before the Honda battered through the thin wall of the shed. "Brakes are gone!"
"Yeh," said Gary dryly. "They sure are."
Wood shattered and cracked, dust whirled up, the bike roared once more in futile protest, then was silent. Chickens squawked and skittered as they broke madly from the ruined shed and headed for the open desert, coyotes or no coyotes. In the sudden silence that followed the roaring onslaught of Tuck Browne on the hapless shed, the roof collapsed slowly and deliberately an instant after Tuck scrambled out of the wreckage.
Gary walked slowly toward the dramatic scene.
It was typical of Tuck Browne. The last time he arrived he had ripped through a line of Mrs. Cole's wash, taking the whole mess with him like a bridal train clean through a barbed wire fence into a filled earthen water tank.
Tuck unlimbered his thin six feet of frame and removed his helmet. He tentatively touched a split lip. "Cut three minutes off my last record out here," he said slowly.
"You figuring from town to the water tank or the shed, Tuck?"
Tuck rubbed a dusty jaw. "How much difference would that make?"
"Maybe ten seconds."
Tuck nodded solemnly. "Yeh. Well, anyway, I cut two minutes, fifty seconds off. You witness to that?"
"Keno."
Tuck eyed the shed. "Was your Dad thinking of tearing that down, Gary?"
"Not that I know of."
Tuck blinked his blue eyes. "Well, maybe I can talk him into it." He grinned. "Got the whole place to ourselves, eh, amigo?"
Gary glanced at the shed. "What's left of it."
Tuck walked slowly toward Gary. Tuck Browne never moved fast on foot if he could help it. He talked slowly, ate with deliberation, and never got to class or to work on time. He always seemed to be just short of standing still when he walked, that is, until he mounted the saddle of his Honda, at which time a strange metamorphosis took place, and the amiable, easygoing, lackadaisical being that was Tucker C. Browne became the personification of mad speed.
Tuck unzipped his jacket. "Got something new for you, Gary," he said. He glanced at the house. "You eat yet?"
"Yep."
Tuck's face fell. "Well, I figured on getting a bite."
"You eat at home?"
"Yes."
"Stopped at Bennie's Barbecue on the way?"
"Yes."
"Buy gas at Schick's Station?"
"A little," admitted Tuck.
"Had a Coke there and a bag of chips?"
Tuck nodded.
"And you still want to eat?"
Tuck looked positively mournful.
"Well, happens we have a pie left."
"What kind?" asked Tuck eagerly.
"Apple and raisin."
"You mean one apple and one raisin?"
"No, sonny, apple and raisin together."
"Well, that's good enough."
"Gracias," said Gary dryly.
"Wait'll I get my 'sickle' out of the shed," said Tuck. He slowly returned to the shed, and while Gary held up the shattered timbers, Tuck pulled the battered Honda from the wreckage. He eyed the bike carefully. "Not bad. Gotta get those brakes fixed one of these days. Could be dangerous."
"Yeh."
They walked together to the house. They went into the kitchen, and Gary placed half a pie before Tuck. He sat down and watched the pie vanish. "You said you had something new for me, Tuck."
Tuck nodded. His mouth was too full to talk. He jerked his head toward his jacket. "Inna pocket," he said.
Gary took out an odd-looking mass. It was a heavy lump of dirty wax, from which protruded four wicks at right angles to each other. Gary studied it, hefted it, turned it over and over, then looked quizzically at Tuck. Tuck swallowed. "Treasure-hunting candle," he said. "Got it from ol' Emilio Chavez. He said it was infallible."
Go on.
Tuck cut another slice of pie. "Sure wish you had some whipped cream for this."
"Sorry. Go on!"
Tuck looked up. "On a dark, windy night you take that ball of wax to a place where you think treasure is. You light all four wicks, then with three amigos, each of you holding a wick, below the flame of course, you watch to see which wick burns longest in the wind. That long-burning wick points the general direction to the treasure."
"Yeh… general direction."
Tuck swallowed. "Well, anyway, by trial and error you finally get to where the treasure is."