Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations by Eric J. Guignard (Editor)

but the Quivira he wanted to find. All because Lyddy had glimpsed an old Indian footpath from the main road and estimated it shortcutted across the desert to his claim and then after stepped off it to piss. There may not have been seven cities but there was one of them, in the Territory, right where Coronado had suspected it lay. But underground, hidden from the Spaniard’s greed—and maybe even from most of the Indians he talked to.
    “Hello there, hello?”
    Lyddy jumped even though he should’ve been used to it by now. But that morning his carbine was slung across his back instead of above-ground with the horse.
    The figure tottered into view around the curve of a house. Lyddy shrank back, Winchester aimed. This one was just as hairless as the last—more so, even lacking eyebrows. And shaped different. The legs and arms were truncated, like those of a dwarf.
    “Don’t shoot,” the little man said, holding up his stubby fingers.
    Lyddy took a few breaths, licked his lips, adjusting to the newcomer’s presence. Another porter, he told himself.
    “I won’t if you help us move the gold,” said Lyddy.
    Clayton leaned in and whispered, “I thought you said we was gonna split it halfsies.”
    “Sure,” Lyddy hissed back, “But he don’t know that.”
    “Ah,” said Clayton. “The old double-cross.” He squinted at the newcomer.
    “I’ll help,” said the stranger.
    “Good.” Lyddy put the gun up. “We’ll call you Shorty. Now let’s go.”
    They freighted another load. But on the return, Lyddy couldn’t find a chamber without a score mark beside the doorway. They had cleaned out the kachinas from this level.
    So Lyddy commanded they set off to explore the city to find other treasure rooms. They climbed ladders to higher terraces, shone the lantern into countless doorways, breathed the cool niter-tanged air. Only empty chambers awaited them.
    Lyddy and Clayton led the way. Shorty stumbled after them. He had some kind of bad itch—he unbuttoned his shirt to scratch his chest and shoulders better.
    “You know,” said Clayton, “For a town like this with so many people, there don’t seem to be any water.”
    Lyddy had been thinking the exact same thing at that exact same moment. He recognized that he needed to quit this place by morning; he had only two skins left and his animals hadn’t drunk since yesterday. By his reckoning, the nearest watering hole was some ten, twelve miles off. Whatever they grabbed today was what Lyddy walked away with.
    “Maybe it all dried up,” said Lyddy.
    “No, Mister Lyddy. I don’t believe anybody ever lived here,” said Clayton. “It’s like it was built by one set of folks for another set who never bothered with it.”
    They searched for hours, climbing higher and higher, lunching on some cornbread Lyddy had brought along. Shorty pecked at his.
    “What’s wrong?” Lyddy asked, annoyed. “You too picky to eat?”
    “Not to my taste,” said Shorty and he tossed the bread away. Coat and shirt discarded completely, he toddled over to scratch his spine on the jamb of a doorway.
    There was nowhere else to go but the top shelf. In a courtyard they found a ladder leading through a tunnel-like square.
    Lyddy pulled himself up and out of the hole. The other two muttered and fussed below him. “Both of you shut your yaps and come on,” he called down.
    Clayton and Shorty huffed up the ladder after him. Lyddy sniffed. Musty. Bad. He held the lantern overhead.
    Bones.
    The cavern’s attic was like the other levels—the round rooms, the snake etchings—but polluted. Littered with femurs and humeri and skulls. They spilled from chamber entrances, packed too tight to contain them all, like waterfalls of white calcium. Not just human bones, but buffalo bones, horse and cattle and deer bones, too. Tiny ribs of mice or rats cracked under Lyddy’s feet.
    Clayton stooped, picked up a leg bone. “Smashed,” he said, studying it. “Like to get the marrow