Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

Vanderwagon wore a conservative bathing suit, his sallow, sunken chest looking dangerously exposed to the sunlight. He scrambled to his feet, removing his sunglasses. “How do you do,” he said, standing and shaking Carson’s hand. He was short, thin, straight, and fastidious, with blue eyes bleached to faded denim by the desert light. Carson had noticed him around Mount Dragon, wearing a coat and tie and black wing tips.

“I’m from Texas,” Harper said, putting on a thick accent, “so I don’t have to get up. We don’t got no manners. Andrew here is from Connecticut.”

Vanderwagon nodded in return. “Harper only gets up when a bull deposits a load at his feet.”

“Hell, no,” Harper said. “We just nudge it out of the way with a boot.”

Carson settled in a deck chair provided by Singer. The sun was brutal. He heard several shouts, then a splash; people were climbing up the stairs and jumping into the water. As he looked around he saw Nye, the security director, sitting well off to one side and reading the New York Times under a golf umbrella.

“He’s as odd as a gelded heifer,” Harper said, following Carson’s gaze. “Look at him out there in his damn Savile Row suit, and it must be a hundred degrees already.”

“Why did he come?” Carson asked.

“To watch us,” said Vanderwagon.

“What exactly might we do that’s dangerous?” Carson asked.

Harper laughed. “Why, Guy, didn’t you know? At any moment one of us might steal a Hummer, drive to Radium Springs, and sprinkle a little X-FLU into the Rio Grande. Just to hell around a bit.”

Singer frowned. “That kind of talk’s not funny, George.”

“He’s like a KGB man, always hovering,” said Vanderwagon. “He hasn’t left the place since ’86, and I guess it’s queered him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he bugged our rooms.”

“Doesn’t he have any friends here?” Carson asked.

“Friends?” Vanderwagon said, eyebrows raising. “Not that I’m aware of. Unless you count Mike Marr. No family, either.”

“What does he do all day long?”

“He struts around in that pith helmet and ponytail,” said Harper. “You should see the security staff when Nye is around, bowing and bending like a pig over a nut.”

Vanderwagon and Singer laughed. Carson was a little startled to see the Mount Dragon director joining in the mockery of his own security director.

Harper settled back, throwing his hands behind his head, and sighed. “So you’re from these here parts,” he said, nodding at Guy with his eyes half closed. “Maybe you can tell us more about the Mondragón gold.”

Vanderwagon groaned.

“The what?” Carson asked.

All three turned to look at him in surprise.

“You don’t know the story?” Singer asked. “And you a New Mexican!” He dove into the cooler with both hands and pulled out a fistful of beers. “This calls for a drink.” He passed them around.

“Oh, no. We’re not going to hear the legend again ,” Vanderwagon said.

“Carson here has never heard it,” Harper protested.

“As legend has it,” Singer began with a humorous glance at Vanderwagon, “a wealthy trader named Mondragón lived outside old Santa Fe in the late sixteen hundreds. He was accused of witchcraft by the Inquisition and imprisoned. Mondragón knew the punishment would be death, and he managed to escape with the help of his servant, Estevánico. This Mondragón had owned some mines in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, worked by Indian slave labor. Rich mines, they say, probably gold. So when he escaped from the Inquisition, he snuck back to his hacienda, dug up the gold, packed a mule, and fled with his servant along the Camino Real. Two hundred pounds of gold, all he could safely carry on one mule. A few days into the Jornada desert the two men ran short of water. So Mondragón sent Estevánico ahead with the gourd canteen to replenish their supply, while he stayed behind with one horse and the mule. The servant found water at a spring a day’s ride ahead, then galloped back. But by the time he returned to the spot where he’d left Mondragón, the man was gone.”

Harper took over the story. “When the Inquisition learned what had happened, they began searching the trail. About five weeks later, right at the base of Mount Dragon, they found a horse, tied to a stake, dead. It was Mondragón’s.”

“At Mount Dragon?” Carson asked.

Singer nodded. “The Camino Real, the Spanish Trail, ran right through the lab grounds and around the base of Mount Dragon.”

“Anyway,” Harper continued, “they looked everywhere for signs of Mondragón. About fifty yards from the dead cayuse, they found his expensive doublet lying on the ground. But no matter how hard they looked, they never found Mondragón’s body or the mule laden with gold. A priest sprinkled the base of Mount Dragon with holy water, to cleanse the spot of Mondragón’s evil, and they erected a cross at the top of the hill. The place became known as La Cruz de Mondragón , the Cross of Mondragón. Later, when American traders came down the Spanish Trail, they simplified the place-name to Mount Dragon.” He finished his beer and exhaled contentedly.

“I heard a lot of buried-treasure stories growing up,” Carson said. “They were as common as blue ticks on a red heeler. And all equally false.”

Harper laughed. “Blue ticks on a red heeler! Someone else with a sense of humor around here.”

“What’s a red heeler?” Vanderwagon asked.

Harper laughed louder. “Why, Andrew, you poor damned ignorant Yankee, it’s a kind of dog used to herd cattle. Chases their heels, so they call it a heeler. Like when you heel a calf with a rope.” He pantomimed the whirling of a lasso; then he looked at Carson. “I’m glad there’s someone around here who isn’t just another greenhorn.”

Carson grinned. “When I was a kid, we used to go out looking for the Lost Adams Diggings. This state’s supposedly got more buried gold than Fort Knox. That is, if you believe the stories.”

Vanderwagon snorted. “That’s the key: if you believe the stories. Harper’s from Texas, where the leading industry is the manufacture and distribution of bull shit. And now, I think it’s time for a swim.” He twisted his beer bottle into the sand and stood up.

“Me too,” said Harper.

“Come on, Guy!” Singer called out as he followed the scientists to the tank, pulling off his shirt as he trotted.

“In a minute,” Carson said, watching them crowd up the wooden stairs and jump in, jostling each other as they did so. He finished his beer and set it aside. It seemed surreal to be sitting in the middle of the Jornada del Muerto desert, a mile from ground zero, watching several of the most brilliant biologists in the world splashing about in a cattle tank like children. But the very unreality of the place was like a drug. This was, truly, how it must have felt working on the Manhattan Project. He pulled off his jeans and shirt and lay back in his swimming trunks, closing his eyes, feeling relaxed for the first time in days.

After several minutes, the merciless heat roused him and he sat up, digging in the cooler for another beer. As he cracked it, he heard de Vaca’s laugh rise above the scattered conversations. She was standing on the far side of the tank, pulling her long hair back from her face and talking to some of the technicians, her white bikini in stark contrast to her tawny skin. If she saw Carson, she gave no sign.

As he watched, Carson saw another person join de Vaca’s group. The odd hitch in the walk was familiar, and Carson realized it was Mike Marr, second-in-command of security. Marr began talking to de Vaca, his head thrown back, the wide languorous grin clearly visible. Suddenly he drew closer, whispered something in de Vaca’s ear. All at once, de Vaca’s expression grew dark, and she pulled away roughly. Marr spoke again, and in an instant de Vaca had slapped him hard across the face. The sharp sound reached across the desert sands to Carson. Marr jerked backward, his black cowboy hat falling in the dust. As he stooped to retrieve it, de Vaca spoke quickly, a scornful curl to her lip. Though Carson could not make out exactly what she was saying to Marr, the group of technicians burst into laughter.