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Hatcher began to run, expertly keeping Ryan between him and the blasters of
his friends.
As he ran unsteadily, he roared, "You're dead, Cawdor! You are so fuckin'
dead
!"
Ryan thought again of his dream, then his friends were all around him. J.B.
and Jak started to run farther down the pass, but Ryan called them back. He
retrieved his SIG-
Sauer and checked it for damage.
"Damn close," Jak said tightly. "Couldn't get clear shot at him."
"He had it planned that way," Krysty said. "What did he want, besides to chill
you?"
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
Ryan didn't answer immediately. He bent and picked up the chunks of metal from
the gorge floor. There were three of them, each about the size and thickness
of a big man's thumb, and they felt as heavy as lead. All had fairly smooth
surfaces. He turned the largest one over. The side was far brighter, rough
textured, the marks of a saw still upon it.
Gold. They were pieces of gold, measuring perhaps three inches long and less
than a quarter of an inch thick.
He pulled the oilcloth-wrapped packet from his shirt and said, "Now I think
I'm getting it."
Krysty frowned, taking the packet from him and opening it. Mildred and Doc
joined them, looking over her shoulder.
"A map," she said. "To what and where?"
Ryan clicked the pieces of gold together in his closed fist. "I would imagine
this is the what. To where I have no idea. Mebbe Mr. Autry will have an
opinion or two."
They met Autry and the pair of guards before they reached the end of the pass.
Their faces didn't register relief when they caught sight of the six people,
alive and unharmed, but they didn't look disappointed, either.
"We heard shots," Autry said breathlessly.
"Took long enough to make recce," Jak said.
Autry ignored the observation. "Hatchet Jack, is he ?"
"No," Ryan replied, "but three of his crew are."
"Did he want you to give yourselves up to him?"
"That subject wasn't raised." Ryan opened his hand, showing the slices of
gold. With the other hand he gave Autry the map. "He wanted me to give this up
instead. Jak found it on one of Spotted Hawk's killers."
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
Autry's gaze flicked from the gold to the map, then back again. He was silent
for so long, Ryan wondered if he was stunned into speechlessness. Then his
face displayed an odd, unidentifiable emotion.
"This map is probably two hundred and fifty, mebbe three hundred years old,"
he said flatly. "It was the cause of a lot of ugly history a few centuries
ago."
"Why?"
Autry sighed, handing it back. "Golden dreams and ugly realities. Let's get
back to town, and I'll tell you what I know."
People were still milling about the street, and when they saw the party of
outlanders alive and ambulatory, they shuffled away, muttering and mumbling.
"Hell of a chamber of commerce you've got here," Mildred commented.
Autry led them to the tavern, fetched a jug of a concoction he called White
Mule and sat at the largest table in the room. When everyone was seated,
holding brimming mugs, he asked, "Have any of you ever heard of Coronado?"
Only Doc and Mildred nodded.
"Francisco Vasquez Coronado," Doc said, "provincial governor of Mexico and
Texas, explorer, plunderer and, some would say, genocidal monster."
Autry stared wide-eyed at Doc. "You know more about him than I do. All I know
are the legends, the campfire tales that have been passed down from generation
to generation."
"Let's hear them," Krysty suggested.
"Over six hundred years ago, during one of Coronado's expeditions, he heard
about the
Seven Cities of Cibola. These were supposed to be Native American treasure
cities, scattered all over the West and Southwest. According to legend, they
were so full of gold, silver and precious gems that sunlight was reflected off
them for miles around. Coronado and a company of conquistadors set out to find
these cities."
"There's a similar legend in Central America," Mildred said. Since she had
minored in
American Indian history at her university, she knew quite a few obscure facts
about
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden aboriginal cultures. "Tales of the city of El Dorado
have circulated for centuries."
"At any rate," Autry continued, "months passed and the conquistadors were
decimated by
Indian attacks, disease and exposure. Some believed Coronado traveled beyond
the
Yellowstone, deep into Utah. He found nothing and returned to Mexico, a
defeated man."
"However, the legend of the Seven Cities persisted, due mainly to one of
Coronado's soldiers who'd committed their route to paper. According to the
soldier, they had indeed found the location of one of the cities, but they
were driven back by an army of Indians before they laid eyes on it. During the
early days of colonization of this territory, the map and the story wouldn't
have been given any credence whatsoever if some of the Sioux groups hadn't
enjoyed visiting the Franciscan missions, flaunting ornaments fashioned from
gold and silver."
"In the mid-1700s, French explorer de Varennes chanced upon the map while
staying at the mission near the Sweetwater River. He made a copy of the map in
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French, of course and went to Norleans, intent on gathering men and materials
to mount a major expedition. As the story goes, the man died and the map was
thought to be lost."
"What happened to the original copy, the one in the mission?" J.B. asked.
"Crazy Horse burned down the mission in the 1870s," Autry answered. "It was
probably destroyed."
Ryan flicked the gold pieces on the table with a fingertip. "Like you said,
campfire stories."
"Perhaps," Autry replied. "But your map is obviously very old. It may be a
copy of de
Varennes's copy, but it definitely shows the route from the Yellowstone,
across the
Washakie Basin where we are, toward mountains that can only be the Wind River
Range."
"If you've identified the landmarks," Mildred said, "then why are the
mountains labeled
'mountains of mystery'?"
Reluctantly Autry said, "Aside from the stories about the Seven Cities of
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