Gary bellied down the harsh wet slope. Then he stopped short, for there had been a movement in the tangle of brush. He saw two boots protruding from beneath it. They were small boots and the heel on the left one had been set crookedly in place. The sight laid nerve-chill upon rain-chill. It was too far away to distinguish the double crescent of nails set into the crooked heel, but as sure as his name was Gary Cole, he knew that the crescent was there.
The rain slackened a bit. Gary picked up a fist-sized rock and threw it over the brink. He hardly heard the sound of it striking far below, but the killer heard it. He must have hearing like a dog. As he moved, Gary saw the wet dark hair, bound with the dingy cloth, but the man's painted face was turned away from Gary as he peered intently down into the canyon.
Gary moved closer. He eased the hammer of his Winchester back to full cock. It would be an easy shot. He could hit the killer and he'd never know what had hit him. But it wasn't in Gary to kill that way. An intense curiosity came over him. Gary wanted the man to turn his face so that he could see it plainly, for his other views of it had been too short to know who he was. Maybe he would not know the man at all.
Gary shifted to raise his rifle, and the metal-shod stock struck a rock. The effect of the noise was instantaneous on the killer. He turned and was on his feet, crouching flat against the rock. As he raised his rifle he was looking directly at Gary. It was no one Gary recognized.
Higher on the slope a heavy rifle crashed. The killer's eyes widened. He looked past Gary and his mouth squared like that of a Greek tragedy mask. He was trying to yell or cry out. Gary turned to see a tall, gaunt figure striding down the slope — a figure wearing ragged clothing, with long black hair bound by a dingy cloth and bands of white paint drawn across his nose and upper cheeks. A heavy Winchester was in his hands and as he came down the slope he gave forth with a piercing, wailing cry that seemed to congeal Gary's blood.
"Asesino!" screamed the killer at last.
"Throw down that gun!" yelled Gary.
The man turned to stare at Gary. Gary ran forward. The rifle came up and the stock struck Gary on the shoulder. He dropped his own rifle and then ducked under another blow of the rifle, staring into the wild, dark-blue eyes of the killer. "Tuck!" screamed Gary. He jumped to one side and saw the disguised Tuck fall headlong over a rock, his rifle clattering down the slope.
It was no time for niceties. Gary kicked the killer in the belly, and as he came down with his head in a reflex action, Gary rammed his right knee up to meet the down-coming chin. The man grunted in pain. He staggered to one side and fired his rifle. The blast of flame and smoke half-blinded Gary. He threw his hands over his face and fell backward against the rock slab as the killer levered another round into the smoking rifle. A lean figure hurtled down the slope. The rifle roared and Tuck hit the ground an instant ahead of the bullet, but the stock struck his head and kept him down there.
The killer jumped back to reload his rifle. Gary could hardly see him. At this moment a dark shape came roaring into battle — it was Lobo. The dog rose cleanly from the ground and struck savagely at the killer. The man fell backward. His feet clawed for a hold on the crumbling brink of the canyon, then with a wild, piercing scream he went down. There was a thudding noise just below the rim of the canyon, then the distant clattering of the rifle as it struck far below.
Thunder roared in the canyons and lighting etched itself across the dark sky to lance into a distant peak. Gary rubbed his eyes and then crawled to the edge of the canyon to look down. Twenty feet below him was a narrow ledge, and lying flat on the ledge was the killer with his wide dark eyes staring right back at Gary, but they could see nothing. Gary rubbed his eyes again. The man's hair was no longer thick and black, but rather thin and blond. Just above his head lay a rain-soaked black wig.
Tuck bellied alongside Gary. He stared too. "The Candyman," he said in an awed voice.
Gary nodded. He began to feel his intense weariness, the pain in his shoulder, and the bitter coldness of the lashing rain. "You played a great part, Tuck," he said. He gripped his partner's shoulder.
"It was your idea, Gary."
Gary stood up. "It was too close to suit me."
From somewhere up the canyon came a subdued roaring that gained intensity as they listened. Then it seemed as though the canyon was filled with a towering wall of gray and white. It was water — a great mass of drainage water trapped in the narrow canyon and raging along through it to seek an exit. It leaped from side to side like some insensate and blinded primeval beast, as it battered at the walls, carrying within its swirling liquid belly tons of rock, brush, shattered trees, and anything else it could gobble down, using the rough mass to scour the bottom of the canyon like some gigantic sanding machine.
It was a mad orgy of sound; a world of insane water and crackling lightning underscored by the rumbling of the thunder. From high on the canyon rim came silvery streams of rainwater to add to the flash flood. The water swirled with incredible speed up the slope below the cliff upon which the boys were standing in wide-eyed awe. It swept against the cliff base, rising higher and higher until it seemed as though it might even lap around the feet of the two watchers, then slowly, ever so slowly, it began to subside. The swirling surface was stippled with drowned animals, tangled mats of thorny brush, and splintered trees.
Despite the danger and the cold rain they could not leave until the flood began to recede. Farther along the canyon the crest still roared and raged.
Gary dropped to his belly and stared down at the base of the cliff as the water trickled off. Where the great rock that marked the site of the Lost Espectro had been was now a smooth area of gravel and sand, overlaying the original rocky slope. Even as he watched, great masses of rock fell from the cliff face and shattered on the slope. There was no way he could locate the shaft now. Perhaps it was lost forever. No one could ever trace it without the cryptic symbols left by the Mexicans over a hundred years ago.
They did what they had to do. They got the nylon ropes, and Gary let himself down the crumbling ledge where the Candyman lay. They hoisted the body and placed it beneath the rock slab, covering it with rock to keep the coyotes from it. They did not look back as they returned to Sue. Despite the pouring rain, none of them wanted to take shelter in Asesino's cave.
They packed their gear. Now they had only three gold bricks since one had been left behind somewhere along the winding drift. But nothing in the world could have made them go back after it. Even the gold they had saved didn't mean much to them. They wanted, above all, to get away from the dripping mountains of violent death.
They were south, a good mile away from Asesino's cave, on the rugged mesa top when the lightning struck with fearful intensity against the bald rock face high above the concealed cave entrance, the back door to the Lost Espectro. Slowly at first and then with gathering power, a great side of rock and rain-loosened earth cascaded smoothly down the slopes until the once rough facing was a smooth mass of rock and mud at rest, with Asesino entombed, perhaps forever, beneath the great new covering.
They did not look back again as they picked their way down a crumbled cliff into a wide canyon, which Gary recognized as the lower part of the canyon where the water hole that had been formed by the great landslide of years past was located. Three horsemen urged their mounts toward them, and the worn-out trio recognized Sheriff Larry Gray, Jim Kermit, and the dark smiling face of Jerry Black.
Jim Kermit shook his head as he unscrewed the top of his big Thermos and began to pour coffee for them. "You kids had everyone worried sick," he said. "My Francie found out Sue had left the house, and she called me at Millerton to tell me about it. I found the jeep you left behind and got in touch with the Sheriff here. Luckily Jerry Black was in making his monthly report to the Sheriff, so he came along. Believe you me, kids, you had everyone scared to death. Mrs. Kermit called Tucson and got in touch with your mother, Gary. She's on her way home. Your pa is all right. I also called your pa and ma, Tuck."