It was several miles before O’Neill dared stop from his dash for freedom. He felt safe for the moment. Taking his canteen, he drank freely, wiping his mouth on his sleeve when finished, before replacing the cork in the container.
Taking a slow, hard look around, he was pleased with what he saw: a patchwork of jagged rock and canyons surrounded him which offered a multitude of hiding places.
The wind started to pick up and a coolness gripped the air. A few miles away lightning cracked, and thunder sounded like a thousand drums all beating at once.
O’Neill watched the storm advance toward him before riding up a small game trail that promised shelter in one of the numerous small caves in the area.
Finding the cave a suitable place to stay dry, he pulled out the fixins and rolled a smoke. Only then did he allow himself time to consider the fate of Thomas, still out there somewhere, maybe even dead, although O’Neill doubted it as he had heard no shots.
The rain started falling in huge driving sheets, and now and again the wind blew some mist into the mouth of the cave where O’Neill stood.
The cave had apparently been formed eons ago, when a prehistoric river flowed through this area and cut the deep canyons as it rushed on unerringly to some far-off, unseen ocean.
Lighting a match, he moved back deeper into the cave to escape the occasional blast of moisture. The light from the match was dim at best, but by holding it over his head, he was able to make out the fact that the cave was much bigger than he had first suspected.
A few yards in from the entrance the walls opened up, the ceiling going up and out of sight in the dim light. The match soon burned O’Neill’s fingers and he was forced to drop it. Fumbling for another, he grew uneasy in the darkness, so he quickly walked out to the mouth of the cave again.
The storm intensified. Out in the open the wind was gusting to gale force. O’Neill dug around in his saddlebag and withdrew a thick candle. Seconds later, he was again moving deeper into the cave, the candle giving off twice the light of the match.
The floor of the cave was relatively flat and smooth, as if ground down by a huge grinding wheel. The walls were of red stone and also rather smooth to the touch.
O’Neill had entered fifty feet or more when something caught his attention on the wall ahead. There, some fifteen feet tall and twenty feet across, was a mural depicting Spanish priests holding crosses high overhead as they walked along with conquistadors on horseback guarding what appeared to be Indian slaves carrying baskets on their shoulders.
Standing there in the flickering light, O’Neill studied the picture in detail. To the best of his knowledge there had not been any Spanish conquistadors in this land for over three hundred years. Yet here before him in splendid color, seemingly as fresh as the day it was painted, was a graphic depiction of a time long ago, a time when Spanish conquistadors swept over the country like a plaque in the quest for treasure held sacred by the natives.
One thing bothered him about the picture: It was his belief that the Spanish invaders hadn’t strayed this far north, so what was the explanation for this wonderful sight before him?
He wiped his finger across the image, then looked to find a light sheen of white-and-gold had rubbed off. Holding the candle closer he examined it more carefully. He was unable to identify what the white chalky substance was, but the other had the sparkle that only real gold had.
Whoever had painted this masterpiece, for a masterpiece it truly was, had used real gold for part of the coloring. O’Neill was astonished at this startling revelation. It could mean only one thing: he was closer than ever to his goal of getting the treasure.
A breeze filtered through from somewhere in the cave’s interior, threatening to extinguish the flame. At the same time, a stream of hot wax ran down the short stub of candle causing O’Neill to switch the torch to the other hand.
Studying the fire, he realized that the tip of the flame bent outward in the direction of the cavern’s entrance. Watching the flare, O’Neill pondered the significance of his discovery.
If the wind was blowing the flame outward, then the air had to be coming from someplace deep within the cave itself. And that could mean only one thing: there had to be another opening to allow the air in. Excitement stirred within O’Neill as he made his way outside.
The storm was in full fury as he reached the spot where he had picketed his horse, under an overhang of red sandstone a short distance from the cavern’s threshold. Looking back over his shoulder, O’Neill observed the cave’s gaping mouth, sinister in the growing darkness, like the mouth of a huge skull, ready to swallow a man up, never to see the light of day again.
The more he studied the black hole, the less he felt the need to go exploring until morning. Besides, Madigan was still out there somewhere, maybe close by, so O’Neill’s best bet was to make a cold camp and wait for morning. In the morning he would make sure he was alone, then and only then would he take the time to explore further.
O’Neill’s camp was north of the opening to the cave about fifty yards. In the blackness around him, he would be invisible to anyone more than ten feet from camp. And by making a cold camp, there would be no fire to give his position away. Only the occasional burst of lightning might reveal his hiding place, but O’Neill had little worry of that happening. A man would have to be looking directly at the camp when a flash occurred, and even then it was doubtful he could see anything with the rain and all.
The wind covered up any noise he might inadvertently make, and by now his tracks would be a thing of the past, washed clean by the torrents of water.
O’Neill wasted no time getting into his bedroll, not even bothering to unsaddle his horse. Smug in the knowledge that he was safe for the night, he was soon fast asleep.
Around 3 a.m., he rose from his bed to let water. The wind was blowing fiercely and the rain was pelting down in great thundering waves.
Reaching for the flap on his saddlebag, O’Neill lifted it and withdrew from deep within an almost empty bottle of rotgut whiskey, appropriately named red-eye. Turning the bottle on end, he quickly drank the remainder, then threw the empty vessel away in the night.
Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he let out a belch that pleased him, and he started to roll up again in his blankets when a movement in the darkness alerted him to possible danger. Was it just something blowing in the wind, or was there someone out there?
O’Neill slowly came to his feet so as not to give his position away. His horse stamped a foot nervously and blew a rush of air from its nostrils. O’Neill stood motionless, gun in hand, waiting for whatever was to come.
The horse stamped his hoof again and shied away from some unknown intruder still hidden in the moonless night. Straining to hear even the slightest of sounds, sweat running down his face burning his eyes, O’Neill waited, choking back panic.
Ten minutes that seemed like hours passed before O’Neill dared to move from his hiding place, then only with great trepidation did he proceed to the side of his horse. Thunder boomed in the distance and caused him to turn and look over his shoulder in alarm in time to see another flash of lightning that for a split second painted the landscape a ghostly-greenish white.
With his hand on his animal’s neck he could feel it shudder in fear, so O’Neill started to speak to it in a reassuring voice when his attention was caught by a shadowy figure on the opposite side of the horse.
O’Neill froze, unable to move, hysteria raising in his throat. Then a great bolt of electricity split the night air and there before him, impelled on a stick, was the head of a man whose eyes were ripped out, blood still fresh from the wounds dripping down his cheeks. The mouth was opened in an eternal scream, nothing but a hollow where the tongue had once been.
A sudden piercing scream shattered the night as O’Neill bolted backward in his uncontrolled scramble to be away from this ghastly apparition from hell. In his backward dash, he tripped and fell hitting his head on the rock-hard ground. Knocked unconscious by the blow, O’Neill lay there, his body not moving while the demons of his mind watched on in amusement.
“Man, that’s weird,” Tom Cook said, shaking his head in disbelief. “What ya suppose happened to him?”
“Something bad, that’s for sure. A man’s hair doesn’t turn snow white like that for no reason, and did you see his eyes?”
“Yeah, like there’s nothing inside. They just look at you like you’re not even there. Man, I’m tellin’ you, this whole thing’s got me spooked.”
Tom poked at the log on the fire with a long twig, causing sparks to fly into the night. Both men watched as the bright specks climbed higher in the evening sky before winking out.
“Who found him?” the man sitting with Cook asked.
“Jackson and a few of the others. When O’Neill and Jim didn’t show up after three days, Jackson took a couple of the boys and went looking. Only found O’Neill and he ain’t talked yet. Just keeps staring straight ahead not saying anything.
“Anyone going out looking for Jim?”
“Some of the boys are going out in the morning. Going to try to backtrack O’Neill to wherever he left his horse. Shouldn’t be too hard. The way he was stumbling around out there, he couldn’t have gone far.” The two men gazed into the flames of the fire lost in thought for a long while.
“With the storm gone, it would be easy to find his tracks, being any others would be washed clean by the rain from the night before.”
“Wonder what they’ll find?” Tom said abruptly, startling his friend from his thoughts.
The next morning several of the men rode out looking for Jim Thomas. It was easy to follow the tracks made by O’Neill in his confused stumbling walk across the flats. The rain had cleansed the land of all signs of trespass up to the end of the storm, leaving a clear imprint of O’Neill’s aimless passing.
In a short time the men came upon the remains of Thomas on the pole. His body was nowhere to be seen, nor did the men feel like venturing into any of the caves that were so common in the area to look for it. Finding O’Neill’s dapple gray a short distance away, they gathered what they could in a hurry and rode off after burying the head of James Thomas, the cowboy who was going to go home.
For two days they stayed in camp and waited for O’Neill to come to his senses. Another storm blew through bringing more rain to the land. A land that normally looked baked and dry now took on a brilliant coat of colors as all sorts of wild flowers bloomed to show their gratitude for the life-giving water from above.
Even O’Neill slowly regained his composure and came back to the land of reality. It was on the third day after O’Neill returned to camp, while the men were sitting around the noon fire eating. Since O’Neill’s return, the men had been taking turns feeding him and more or less helping him with other things much like they would a small child.
It now became Warren Elegant’s turn to feed O’Neill his noon meal. Elegant was a miserable little twit, with a mouth befitting a man twice his size, his curly black hair bushed out from under his hat, giving the impression of someone with a dirty rat’s nest on his head. In his career he had been a town clerk, tax collector, and embezzler. In truth he was nothing more than an imbecile of the lowliest order.
Always complaining and trying to get others to do his work, he was now confronted with the disagreeable task of tending to O’Neill. Elegant had always been afraid of O’Neill and men like him, being the natural coward that he was. But now seeing the terrified form of O’Neill before him brought out what little courage the man possessed.
I’m not going to feed this idiot! If he wants to eat he can feed himself!” Elegant said with a sneer.
“Aren’t ya afraid he’ll hear you talking like that?” Dave Donoven hissed with that big Irish grin he always displayed when he was egging someone on.
“Afraid of him?” Elegant swore, his face turning crimson in a fit of rage. “I wasn’t afraid of him when he was all here, so why should I be afraid of him now?” the little coward lied.
The men standing around the camp began to laugh at the enraged man before them.
“You’re afraid of your shadow, little man, so sure as hell you’re afraid of O’Neill in the shape he’s in or not!” Donoven threw in, the grin still on his face.
“I am not!” Elegant screamed as he stepped forward and slapped O’Neill full in the face as hard as he could. Stunned silence filled the air at the sight of Elegant’s despicable actions.
Taking this to mean a sign of approval rather than pity, the little man raised his hand ready to strike again. He was determined to hit O’Neill hard enough to knock him over this time as his first blow failed to do so. Gathering up all his strength, he swung with all the power he could muster. But to everyone’s astonishment, O’Neill’s left hand darted up and caught Elegant’s hand while it was still in full swing, bringing it to an abrupt halt in midair.
“You’re a dead man!” came O’Neill’s voice through half-parted lips as his right hand reached across and caught hold of Elegant’s eight-inch skinning knife, slowly withdrawing it from its sheath. In one quick motion, the knife slid up under Elegant’s shirt and deep into his flesh. There was a gush of blood as a gurgling sound escaped from somewhere deep within Elegant’s throat.
O’Neill had returned from the pits of hell a changed man. Before his ordeal, he was a coward sending others to do his dirty work, always trying to keep himself away from possible harm. Now he had returned a man of a different character, as the men would soon find out. You might even say the devil himself had returned in O’Neill’s place.