He paused in the gathering gloom. This would be his last chance for a good look at the valley before entering the trees, and he wanted to sense which direction his stalkers might come from. By daylight, there were few hiding places in the valley. But as night neared, the number grew: stands of cottonwoods and chamisa, areas in dark shadow. And yet, he saw no unusual movement, nothing out of place.
Once again, he questioned his instincts. They were still screaming: Run, hide! A few raindrops began to fall, splattering heavily in the sand. His heart beat faster as his apprehension grew. He was not a man to walk away from a fight. But it was hard, not knowing who you were fighting, or from where they would come, or if in the end they were just your imagination, after all. He tried to remind himself that these were the bastards that had killed his horses. But as his thoughts returned to the horses, he saw them again in his mind’s eye: ritually sliced, feathers protruding from the glazed dead eyes, the grayish-blue guts wound in spirals. What kind of monsters could do that . . .
He started forward again, quickening his pace toward the copse. Once he almost turned around, heart beating fast, but he checked himself in time: he must not show that he knew they were there.
A few more steps brought him into the stand of the oaks. Moving quickly to the far side, he crouched, then swivelled around, putting his back to the water. It was dark beneath the hanging limbs, and water dripped onto his head and back. The sound of the flood seemed magnified in the close space: it bore down on him confusingly, coming in from all sides. He shook his head to clear it, taking a step backward as he did so. He was at the very edge of the flood now, and the water gurgled through the tree trunks, curling and tugging around his boots. He moved back yet again, slowly, his boots making a light plashing noise.
With a dull, hollow thud of fear, he realized it had been a mistake to retreat to this grove. Darkness was descending so swiftly on the canyon that he could make out little beyond the dense thicket of trees. He waited, shivering slightly, feeling the coldness of the water creep into his boots. His eyes widened as he tried to separate the shapes of the trees from each other, to distinguish them in the damp, dark gloom.
Now he slipped his gun out of the holster, waiting. He took another step back into the swirling water. It surged a little higher, and a distant, detached part of him noted that the flood was coming up again. His anger was no longer a comfort; now all he felt was cold, naked fear. It was too dark to see anything. If only he could hear, he might be able to act: but the sound of the water was like a heavy cloak, depriving him of his most valuable sense. All he had left, in fact, was smell. And even that wasn’t working properly: by some trick of his overcharged brain, he felt surrounded by the beautiful, delicate scent of morning glories.
Just then, to his left, he saw a terrible movement of shadow: a violent wrenching of black upon black. Too late, he realized the things had been in the grove all the time, watching and waiting, while he came to them. He raised the gun with a cry, but the shot went wild and the weapon tumbled into the flood. As the muzzle flare died away, Swire saw—or thought he saw—the blade of a knife, impossibly black and cold, slicing down through the night.
56
IN THE DEPTHS OF THE HIDDEN CAVERN, BLACK carefully edged a penknife beneath the uppermost clay seal, his arms shaking with exhaustion and excitement. He turned one hand, trying to apply an even pressure to the seal, but his aching fingers twitched and the seal popped free, along with a piece of the plastered door.
“Easy,” Sloane said from her position behind the large camera, some distance away.
Black craned his neck toward the small hole, but it was too small and uneven to make out anything within. From the valley outside the city, there was a faint, muffled crump of distant thunder.
Black coughed into his hand, then again, more violently, finding flecks of mud in the phlegm. He shook it away in disgust and returned to the stone facade. Bonarotti, who had now dug away the piles of sloping dust around the kiva door, joined him in the work.
In another half hour, a second seal came into view. Enough courses of stone had now been removed to expose over three feet of plastered door. Sloane came forward to take a series of photographs. Then she stepped back out of the pall of hanging dust, scribbling in her notebook. Black slid his knife beneath the second seal, pried it carefully away from the underlying plaster, and set it aside. All that now stood between him and the crowning validation of his theory was a thin, featureless wall of plaster and mortar. He reached down for a pick, hefted it in his bruised hands, then swung it toward the wall.
A piece of plaster fell away. Black swung the pick again, then again, enlarging the hole considerably: a dark, ragged rectangle in the glare of the lights. Excitedly, he dropped the pick.
Instantly, Sloane returned to his side. Taking a flashlight from her pocket, she thrust it deep into the hole, pressing her face against the plaster. Black saw her body tense. She remained still for a minute, perhaps more. Then she withdrew, silently, her face alive with excitement. Black grabbed the light from her unresisting hand and crowded forward.
The feeble yellow gleam of the small flashlight could barely penetrate the murk within. But as he played it about, Black felt his own heart swell. Everywhere the glint of gold. . . . The yellow glimmer filled the kiva, winking and flashing everywhere, on the floor, on the stone banco that ran around the perimeter: the rich mellow shine of a thousand curvilinear golden surfaces.
Violently, Black withdrew his hand. “Break it down!” he cried. “It’s stuffed with gold!”
“By the book, Aaron,” Sloane said sharply, but the exhilaration in her voice belied caution.
He seized the pick and resumed working along the top of the doorway. Grabbing a second pick, Bonarotti stood beside him, driving it furiously into the adobe in time with Black’s own blows. Soon, the hole grew to more than two feet square. Black stopped to jam his entire head into the opening, wedging his shoulders hard, trying to force his body through, swinging Sloane’s flashlight back and forth. But their picks had roused so much dust within the kiva that all he could see were faint golden glimmers.
The flashlight beam failed and he pulled himself back out, throwing it down in disgust. “More!” he gasped.
Outside the city, another muffled crump of thunder punctuated the obbligato whisper of rain. But Black heard nothing except the sound of his pick on plaster, and the ragged hiss of his breath in the close air. Reality faded into a dream. A strange sensation filled his head, and he realized he could no longer feel his arms as they wielded the pick.
The dreamlike sense grew stronger, almost frighteningly strong, and he staggered back from the kiva, trying to clear his head. As he did so, he felt an overwhelming tiredness. He glanced first at Bonarotti, who was still swinging his pick in a regular, metronomic cadence; then at Sloane, waiting behind, her body still tensed with expectation.
There was a sudden crumpling of plaster, and Black swivelled his head toward the kiva. A large chunk of adobe had come free, breaking into earth-colored chunks on the rocks below. And now Black saw that the hole was definitely large enough to admit a person.
He picked up one of Sloane’s lanterns and moved forward. “Get out of my way,” he said, peremptorily shoving Bonarotti aside.
The cook staggered back, dropped the pick, then turned to face Black, his eyes narrowing. But Black ignored him, desperately trying to angle the lantern beam into the dusty hole.