The Enchantment (40 page)

When it was in place, she lurched shakily to her feet. The second her legs quit shaking, she raised her hands.

Shucka-shucka-shucka.

Emma's stomach hit the dirt.

Shucka, shucka, shucka.

She lurched onto her toes and grabbed the hole's hard-packed edges. Dirt rained on her face, sprayed in a hollow-sounding shower on the slack cotton of her petticoat. She clutched the fraying edge and heaved her body upward, flopping face-first on the floor above with a grunt of relief.

She yanked her dangling feet up and lay there, panting for breath.

Gradually she became aware of the change. Something was different. She felt . . . warmth.

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She lifted her head and saw a streak of yellow light cutting like a lightning bolt through the pitch blackness of the corridor. She knew she should feel relieved, but all she felt was tired and old and filled with regret.

Wobbling, she clambered to a weak-kneed stand. She took a moment to regroup, then forced her feet to move. With each step her legs grew heavier, her sorrow more intense. She was leaving him. Leaving him leaving him leaving him leaving—

Molelike she emerged from the darkness. Sunlight splashed her face and sent warmth careening through her body.

She wobbled. Her legs turned to mush and she sank, shaking and exhausted, to the warm ground. Her knees hit the dirt hard, sending shots of pain into her thighs. Grimacing, she sat back on her heels and bowed her head.

The sunlight wrapped its comforting, soothing fingers around her face and banished the darkness's chill. A shiver wrenched her body; goose bumps popped out on her flesh. She hugged herself, trying to draw some of the sun's heat into the ice-cold regions of her soul. God, the warmth felt good. Almost good enough to make her forget the man she'd left behind.

The man who let you walk away . . .

She forced the painful thought aside. There was no point in rehashing her decision. She'd made the only decision she could live with, and that was that.

Rubbing her aching eyes, she looked up.

In the distance, a lone rider was silhouetted like a spectral vision against the blinding noonday sun. Far above the rider's head, against the brilliant blue sky, a hawk glided in effortless circles. Its abrasive screech echoed off the walls and grated along Emma's spine.

The shadowy rider moved toward her.

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Emma suppressed a sharp sting of fear and jerked to her feet, tenting a hand across her bloodshot eyes.

The quiet clip-clop of hooves on sand came toward her. Squinting, she strained to make out the rider's face. When she recognized the man, her fear turned to anger. It was Pa-lo-wah-ti, seated on a small gray-brown ass.

About ten feet away from her, the bent, gnarled old man reined his burro to a stop. His muddy, blind eyes found her with eerie accuracy. "Hai," he said with a solemn wave.

Emma gritted her teeth. She knew it was irrational to be so irritated, but she didn't care. Until now, all she'd felt was betrayal and hopelessness and pain. Anger was a definite improvement; it had always been an emotion she felt comfortable with. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, slamming her hands on her hips.

"Your burro is saddled and waiting."

That stopped her. "Why?"

"For your ride to the white man's fort."

She frowned. "Look, I've had a hard—"

"I will ride with you. It is not a long journey." Before she could answer, he whistled, and Tashee—traitor that she'd always been—trotted dutifully to the old man's side.

Emma looked down at her little burro, all saddled and packed and ready to go, and her determination wavered. It was sort of frightening to be in the desert alone, without knowing how to read a compass or follow a map. And Pa-lo-wah-ti, eerie as he was, was the only guide available.

"I'm going to Albuquerque," she said sharply.

"The fort is closer, and it is filled with white men."

Emma chewed on her lower lip. She had to admit the

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old man made sense. "All right," she said at last. "You may go with me."

"Yes."

Trying to appear calm, she plucked up her skirt and picked her way down the small embankment to Tashee's side.

You shouldn't be going. The sentence reverberated through Emma's brain like a summer rainstorm, fast and hard and thunderously loud. New tears stung her eyes.

Gritting her teeth, she flipped open her saddlebag and wrenched out her pantalets. Stabbing her feet into the frothy cotton undergarments, she buttoned the waistband and flopped on Tashee's back. "Let's go,"

she said throatily.

"You should not be going," Pa-lo-wah-ti said.

That's what I need right now, she thought with an angry sniff. A goddamn mind reader. She dashed the tears away and glared at him. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

"I said I would find you."

"A month from now," she shot back. "Generally that means thirty days, not three."

"It has been thirty-three days since you left my home."

Emma was speechless. She had no idea how to respond to such absurdity, so she didn't.

She tightened her grip on the reins and turned Tashee toward the box canyon's hidden entrance. Setting her mouth in a grim line, she urged her mount to a plodding walk.

Pa-lo-wah-ti's burro trotted up beside her, then slowed until they were walking side by side. "I was wrong about you. For this I am sorry."

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Startled, she glanced sideways. The old man was almost nose to nose with her, studying her face.

"I was wrong." This time the words were spoken softly. The sharp scent of aged teeth and tobacco drifted to Emma's nostrils. "This quest of Larence's vision was yours as well. He alone would have come to the canyon and been defeated. It was you, his other half, who found the jimsonweed and followed the ancient ritual."

Emma's mouth dropped open. How did the old man know that? They had been alone that night. Except for the hawk.

She shivered suddenly. The hawk had always been with them on this trip. Watching. Tracking. Could it be that somehow the old man saw through the bird's eyes?

She glanced sharply at Pa-lo-wah-ti's muddy, sightless eyes. No, she told herself firmly. It was ridiculous to even think such a thing. Blind was blind.

"You were wrong, too, I think," he went on. "You thought you were nothing. ..."

Pa-lo-wah-ti was wrong, my love. You are part of this quest.

Her fingers spasmed around the leather reins. The warm metal of her wedding ring bit into her flesh. She stared down at it.

When I loved you and you loved me, then both of us were born anew. . . .

Tears blurred her vision, ran in searing, white-hot streaks down her face.

Pa-lo-wah-ti squeezed her shoulder. "Stay."

She shook her head. Strands of hair stuck to the moistened sides of her face and further obscured her vision. "I can't," she croaked. "Just lead me away. Please."

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His touch disappeared. A long, tired sigh slipped past his seamed lips. "It is as I thought. Follow me."

Pa-lo-wah-ti dismounted slowly and untied the rope that barred the canyon's entrance. Then he remounted and disappeared through the near-invisible opening.

Emma couldn't help herself. She turned to look back, hoping against hope that Larence would be there.

But of course, he wasn't. There was only the circular, grassy plain and the silent towering mesas.

She forced her gaze back to the dusty, stone-walled trail ahead. Every muffled thump of Tashee's hooves hitting the ground vibrated up Emma's slumped spine. She reined the burro to a stop and retied the rope.

The hemp scratched her flesh, reminding her with every movement that she was leaving.

It's not too late. Turn back. Turn back.

Her heart was talking—screaming, in fact. But it wasn't that organ that had fed and clothed and housed her in the long, dark years since her parents' deaths. It was her brain that had kept her going.

And her brain was speaking now, too. Not as loud, but in a steel-edged voice that cut through the hysterical ranting of her heart with cold precision.

She wouldn't be poor again. Not for anyone.

The decision had been made.

Almost an hour later, the world began to shake. An avalanche of booming noise echoed through the forest and rattled the trees.

"What's that, Pa-lo-wah-ti?"

He didn't bother to look at her. "The earth quakes as the circle draws to its close."

"But-"

He held up a skeletal hand for silence. "In time."

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Emma's frown deepened. She'd read about earthquakes, but she'd never experienced one. Her fingers tightened around the makeshift saddle horn. Absent-mindedly she reached up to touch the turquoise necklace at her throat. Her fingertips glided across the ruffled cotton edge of her camisa to her throat.

She gasped as realization struck. Adrenaline surged through her body, made her heart beat faster. The earthquake was forgotten.

The necklace had vanished.

Larence stood there, alone, for what seemed an eternity. Head bowed, eyes closed, hands fisted, he stood motionless in the city's golden center. Not thinking, not seeing, not even feeling. Just standing.

Surviving. Waiting for the agony of her betrayal to pass.

He felt it first as a rumbling beneath his feet. In the depths of his depression it took him a moment to care what was happening, but as the sound grew louder, the shaking more intense, he lifted his tired gaze to the patch of sky overhead.

The whole world was swaying, trembling as if in fear. Dirt showered from the mesatops, scattering across the golden bricks and dappling the jade-hued pool. Sand shifted and danced beneath his feet.

A sound both earthly and unearthly reverberated through the city. The pool's glasslike surface shuddered.

Then came the terrible, ear-shattering sound of stone grinding against stone.

The opening! Emma!

Larence whirled around and raced toward the passageway. Legs and arms pumping, he sped into the darkness. His foot hit something and he tripped, sprawling face-first on the cold stone floor. His cheek 374

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slammed against a knotty stick of wood. He felt his flesh rip. Warm blood slid down his face.

He crawled to his knees, feeling around for the piece of wood. It was the torch. Tucking it under his arm, he fumbled through his pocket for the matches and lit the stick's cotton-wreathed top. Orange-bright flames sputtered reluctantly to life, and he took off again.

He made it to the guard's grave in no time and crunched thoughtlessly through the pile of bones. Ignoring the rattler's soft shucka-shucka-shucka, he leapt upward.

The corridor above was dark and deathly quiet. He pulled himself up and stood. At the tunnel's end he saw the zigzag of light. His knees almost buckled in relief.

The rumbling came again. Louder this time.

Dirt showered all around him, pattering the shadowy floor. Nervously Larence tightened his hold on the torch and picked up his pace.

It came again; that awful, otherworldly wrenching of stone on stone, like the grinding together of planet-sized gears.

The light at the end of the tunnel began to blink.

"NO!" Larence threw the torch aside and surged forward. Breathing hard, he pumped with his arms. The ragged, overworked spurts of his breathing pounded in his ears, mingled with the hammer-strokes of his heart, and drowned out the grinding sound.

He reached the zigzag of light just as it disappeared. The schism in the rock fused, leaving a bloodred curve of sandstone where before there had been an opening.

Larence skidded to a stop. His hands shot out, connected hard with the solid stone wall. Pain ricocheted up his forearms and lodged razor-sharp in his shoulders. Desperately he clawed at the wall. Dirt clogged 376

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his nails and stung his eyes. Brown tears snaked down his cheeks.

Stay together in the city.

The words sliced through his brain. Now—too late— he understood them. The magic of Cibola had been in their togetherness.

He clawed until his fingers were bloody and raw. Finally, exhausted, he slowed down and heard something other than the ragged spurts of his breathing. It came from behind him; a sputtering sound. He paused, fingers poised against the sandstone, listening. Then, slowly, he turned around.

The fallen torch lay in a pool of shuddering, throbbing light. Shadows crept up to the torch like feeding jackals. Tentative, hungry.

Light quivered, weakened. The torch gave a final sputtered cry and died. Jet black night consumed the cavern.

Larence's hands fell to his sides. Terror wormed its icy, insidious tentacles through his body.

Dear God, he thought desperately, not this. Anything but this . . .

It was just like before. He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the dark, overturned coach. How he'd waited, alone and lonely and terrified, for someone to come and help him.

Only this time, no one would be coming for him. This time he'd die. Alone. In the darkness.

Staggering sideways, he hit the sandstone wall and crumpled to his knees. The silence around him was awesome, oppressive. He touched his cheek, but his skin was cold and clammy. The warmth of her last touch was gone. A memory.

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She was gone. The words sliced like a rusty blade through his brain.

The hope he'd clung to so tenaciously since she'd chosen the gold vanished. He was left with nothing to reach for, nothing to steady him. For the first time in his life he could find no goodness, no sliver of hope.

A vast, impenetrable emptiness invaded his soul, chilled him to the bone. Without hope, there was nothing. He couldn't lie to himself, couldn't cling to the fabricated belief that Emma would change her mind and come back to him.

There wouldn't be a change of heart, or an apology. Years from now there wouldn't be a bittersweet smile over the antics of their youth.