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

should shrink from her, that I should draw back, that here was evil.
    Her clothing seemed to be of the same material as the cardigan left me by the girl of the sunflowers, but of finer thread, figured with an Indian motif, but much more sophisticated than any American Indian garment I had seen. She wore turquoise jewelry of the finest quality.
    â€œYou have fear? Of me?”
    Her voice was low, a lovely sound, holding a little of invitation, a little taunting.
    Unwittingly, not knowing what to say, I said the wrong thing.
    â€œI must wait. I have builders coming to work on my house.” My gesture took in the area.
    â€œNo!” Her tone was strident. “There must be no one! No one, do you comprehend?”
    â€œI am sorry. This land is mine. I shall build a home here.”
    â€œWhat do you say? The land is yours? All land belongs—” She broke off suddenly. “Come!” Her tone was imperious. “I show you!”
    â€œI cannot,” I repeated.
    From her manner I gathered she was not accustomed to refusal, but in this situation she was obviously uncertain how to deal with it. “Now! Come, or you will be sent for. You will bring the wrath upon you.”
    A moment she hesitated. Then she descended into the kiva and disappeared.
    Instantly I had the impression that I should get away, as far, far away as possible, and as quickly as it could be done.
    Ten minutes later, this book tucked into my pocket, I was hurrying down the trail. My four-wheel-drive vehicle was waiting at the end of the road not far away, a rarely used trail. I had almost reached it when somebody hissed at me from a clump of rocks and juniper.
    Turning sharply, I faced a slender, lovely girl with a sunflower in her hair.
    â€œNo! They wait for you! You must not go!”
    â€œWhat do they want from me?”
    â€œThey wish nobody here! They take you. They get from you all. Then they kill.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œI am Kawasi. I am runaway. They find me, they kill.”
    â€œBut you speak English?”
    â€œI speak small. Old man tell me words.”
    â€œBut she spoke English, too. The other one.”
    â€œThey have four hands people who speak. No more.”
    â€œFour hands?”
    She held up her hands, closed her fingers, then opened them. Four hands, twenty people.
    â€œWe go now. I show.” Turning quickly, she went down through the rocks, rounding a boulder into an ancient path, steep and narrow, that led down to the river. In the shadow of the cliff, she hesitated. “You must cross river or wait until darkness and float down to great lake.”
    â€œWhat will you do?”
    â€œI go back—if I can. It is not always. Only through kiva is always, that not possible for me.”
    â€œYou come through at another place?”
    â€œIt is a sometime place. Only sometime.” She gestured. “Long time past my people live all about here. Bad times come. Much dry. Wild, wander-about people come. They fight us. Take our corn. Some people walk-away, some go back to old place, where we come from before. Much evil there.”
    â€œBut you are not evil.”
    â€œI am not. She is. She has very high place. We fear. You fear, too. You sleep with her, you die. She is Poison Woman.”
    â€œAre you Indian?”
    â€œWhat is Indian? I do not know ‘Indian.’”
    â€œYour people lived here? Where?”
    â€œNobody live here. Special to gods. Priests come to plant witch plants on this mesa. My folk live far away. Big cave, many house. On other side we have big house, many rooms. Here all fall to pieces, I think.”
    Cliff dwellers? They could have been. The Hopi had a legend they had come into this world through a hole in the ground. Might it have been from another dimension? From what some called a parallel world?
    â€œAnd your people now?”
    â€œOver there. Many are gone. They are slaves or dead. It is evil, over