Novel 1987 - The Haunted Mesa (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

“Are you frigntened?”
    â€œYes. They bad people. They want me very much. They very much afraid of people over here. No discipline, they say.”
    â€œHave many been over here?”
    â€œOh, no! It is impossible! Almost impossible. For a long time, nobody. Sometimes an accident. If someone come from here he is tracked down and killed. At once.”
    â€œAnd Johnny? The cowboy?”
    â€œThey try. He too wise. He leave no tracks. He hide very well. Several places for hide. Finally they decide he not important.”
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œI am rebel. I think too much. I ask questions. I am threat, so I escape to hills where others wait.” She paused while Raglan negotiated a sharp turn and a dip through a wash. “There is bad dry time. Nothing grow. The plants make no seeds. Some die, many sick. They send a man for seeds, but some will not grow.” She looked at Raglan. “Is not same as here—some plants grow, some not. We do not know why. It is decide there must be a permanent way. You say
permanent
? It is always way we need. Much seed.”
    She paused again, looking out over the desert. “What you call broccoli? It will not grow over there. It is try often. Tried often.
    â€œYour corn is different, much bigger. But your seed does not grow well over there. It is puzzle.”
    Raglan drew up behind a juniper to study the road ahead and the country around. Something was bothering him, and he had known such feelings before. Something was wrong, and he was feeling increasingly uneasy, yet he could see nothing out of the ordinary.
    He had been listening with only half his attention. Some seeds that would not grow? Broccoli, among others. But wasn’t broccoli a developed plant? He knew too little about such things.
    He was foolish to have come out here so late in the day. He should have waited, as he had planned to do, until morning, when he would have a full day of sunshine in which to look about.
    But he had to find Erik, and if Erik was lying injured on the mesa, he must be found and helped. Above all, the key to this must be at its point of origin. At least, that was where he must begin.
    Nothing moved on the desert. He started on, tooling the car around a bend in the trail and down a steep incline. Momentarily he took his right hand from the wheel to touch his .357 magnum. It was reassuring.
    â€œWhen you cross over,” he asked, “is there any physical reaction? I mean, does it affect your body? Or your mind?”
    â€œA little. Sometimes the head spins. What is it you say—‘dizzy’? I think so. And”—she put her hand on her stomach—“one is sickish, feeling bad down there. Some never get over. Sometimes it is hours, sometimes days.”
    She put her hand on his arm. “Mr. Raglan? There is somebody out there. I know it. I feel it.”
    He stopped the car again. It was not very hot now, but there seemed to be heat waves dancing. Slowly, he let his eyes search out the terrain before him.
    Nothing…? Nothing he could see, but he knew what she meant. He could feel it, too.
    â€œOver there”—she pointed—“is where Erik leaves his car. You can get no closer.”
    He let the car roll forward. The place was too open, too exposed. There were low hills around, much growth such as would be found in any semidesert area. Here and there were boulders, rocks, and a few ridges.
    She touched his arm again. “Mr. Raglan? I fear.”
    â€œCall me Mike,” he said.
    Chapter 10
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    F OR AN INSTANT after he switched off the ignition he felt a wave of almost panic. The sound of the motor had been somehow reassuring, and now in the utter silence he felt cut off, isolated.
    The car was security; it was escape, a way back to the normal, the usual, the everyday.
    What was he doing here, anyway? Why was he not back at Tamarron, going down to the San Juan Room for breakfast in a normal, sensible,