Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (42 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries
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Her first awareness was of the masonry, straight, beautiful, so intricately placed. Each of the small
square wall crypts might have been an eye from another world, watching her. The kiva seemed to pulse with the voice of the wind.
She turned around, gazing up at the sky. Her senses seemed to be on fire. There was a presence here. Old and powerful. Across from her, she could see through the T-shaped northern entrance to the bleak anteroom beyond. The stone bench was empty, but for the snow, lonely now where once it had supported dozens of finely dressed people. Their ghosts watched her as she walked past the raised fire box.
Dusty stopped dead center between the foot drums and the four round roof supports and knelt.
“What was the trench for?” Maureen asked, pointing at the shallow circular trench that ran around the end of the exposed tunnel in the kiva floor.
“We don’t know. It was Chacoan, filled in by later Mesa Verdean people when they refinished the kiva in the mid-1200s. But this … this shouldn’t be here.”
She looked down. “You mean the sand? Why not?”
“In a kiva cut out of gray shale, where do you get red, black, and white sand?” Dusty stiffened as if stung. “There was a sand painting here.”
He lurched to his feet as though he’d just seen a coiled rattlesnake. When Maureen looked, all she saw was a thin green yucca leaf.
“Step back,” Dusty said. “Move your shadow.”
Maureen carefully retreated and circled. She was looking now, forcing herself to see, to catalog and interpret what lay before her on the ground. The dark stains, weathered and bleached by the melting snow, had a familiar brown—“Oh, God, Dusty.”
“What?” He spun around.
She pointed. “That’s blood. Blood is delicate, it decomposes rapidly in sunlight and the moisture feeds soil organisms.”
Dusty pulled his pen from his pocket and used the tip to whisk multicolored grains from the brown stain.
His hand started to shake. He slowly rose to his feet.
“Maureen, move back.” His breathing had gone shallow and rapid. “Step on the tracks you made on the way in. Call Nichols. I want him in here right now.”
“What did you find?” She tried to look around him, but his body blocked her view.
“Just go! Now.”
Maureen headed toward the stairs; when she reached the top, she looked back.
Dusty stood with his feet braced and his fists clenched at his sides. The shiny black stone he’d uncovered glinted in the light.
 
 
HE SEES HAD watched the old people emerge from Kettle Town and proceed with painful slowness across the canyon. They had provided a grateful distraction from his boring duty. Rain Crow had placed him here, on the stairway just north of Kettle Town, to “keep watch on things,” and report back.
He Sees got to do this a great deal. Not everyone, especially in Red Rock country, had eyes like his. He couldn’t see very well close up, but far away, he had eyes like Hawk. It seemed as if he had spent his entire life on high lookouts either half frozen from the cold wind, or baked and blistering from the summer sun.
But two old people …
They weren’t worth the energy to run back to Center Place with a report. A sentry, especially one such as himself, developed a sense for what was important. Why the two would have left in the middle of the afternoon
was problematic, but then, who knew what the Trader had said in there? When they began their fumbling ascent up the far stairway, He Sees watched, alarmed when one nearly fell.
He was still watching when, to his surprise, he saw the distant figure of a man step out of a fissure in the rock. The man moved like a warrior, and though he couldn’t be sure, He Sees thought the fellow had a war club at his belt.
When the two elders made the summit and the old man collapsed, He Sees waited. Why didn’t the warrior help them? The fool, he … but then, yes, the man was stepping closer, his hand outstretched.
He Sees frowned when the old man suddenly leaped up, and the warrior backed away, stumbled, then collapsed and fell.
“What is this?” He Sees whispered.
Shading his eyes, he struggled to see, cursing the distance for the first time, and wishing that his eyesight were even better. He stood up, rising from the protection of an old shrine, unable to believe what he saw. The two old people rolled the young warrior’s limp body to the side; then they tumbled him off the edge of the cliff.
The body fell, hitting the rock ledges on the way down.
“Ambush!” He Sees said. “They were not …”
Sand trickled below him, making a distinctive shish-ing sound. He lowered his hand from his eyes and looked down.
She was no more than fifteen steps from him, a bow in her left hand, an arrow drawn back in her right.
He Sees met her eyes and their souls linked. She was beautiful, tall, with wide cheekbones and an oval face. In a flash, he knew her: Browser’s deputy, Catkin. But how had she—? Gods, while he had watched the old people she’d climbed up right under his nose.
A sliver of sunlight flashed down the arrow when she let fly.
The impact was silken. As the sharp point sliced through him, his mouth fell open, and he started to pant as though he’d been running forever. In all of his imaginations of this moment, he had never thought of the cold. The arrow was icy where it lodged inside him.
He stepped back, and turned toward Center Place to cry a warning. The second arrow shocked him. Staggering on his feet, he stared down at the stone point protruding from the middle of his chest. Blood bubbled into the back of his throat and sprayed from his mouth.
His knees buckled.
His last sensation was hearing her feet as she sprinted up the road he was supposed to be guarding.
 
 
DUSTY STOOD WITH his back to the wind, the collar of his Levi’s coat pulled up to keep his neck warm. Gray clouds scudded out of the northeast, marking the arrival of a cold front dropping out of Utah. He stood at the western lip of Casa Rinconada, just back from the interpretive sign, and watched as the ERT team crawled over the kiva bottom on their hands and knees. They had taken samples of the sand, of the bloodstains, and collected the glittering basilisk. Now they were inspecting every square inch of Casa Rinconada’s floor.
Twenty feet away, to Dusty’s right, Maureen and Nichols stood. As she talked, Nichols took notes.
He heard Nichols say, “So it may have happened here, and he moved the body?”
“Maybe,” Maureen said in her professional voice. “But we need more information. It snowed on the blood; then it warmed up and melted. I hope you can get something, but it’s going to be tough.”
“And,” Nichols said pointedly, “we don’t have any tracks down there but yours and Stewart’s from today.” He peered down into Casa Rinconada. “I can see how you picked that sand out. It is different. But what made you think it had anything to do with Dr. Robertson?”
“I’m an archaeologist,” Dusty said as he turned. His tone implied that that explained everything.
“Right. So?”
Dusty shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and walked toward Nichols. “The very first hafted ax head I found was in a Moenkopi sandstone outcrop. It was a crummy thing, battered, and badly weathered. No one in their right mind would have looked twice at it. It lay on the sandstone, in a pile of rocks.”
“How’d you know it was an ax head?”
“It was granite, and the nearest granite source was forty miles away. It’s the same with the sand down there. When I saw it, I knew someone must have carried it in.”
Nichols squinted at him with his one good eye. “Dr. Brown told me that lots of tribes use this kiva for ceremonials. Maybe the Navajo held a Sing here?”
“Maybe,” Dusty agreed. “Did Rupert tell you he’d scheduled one? You have to have permission to do that in a national park.”
Nichols shook his head. “He didn’t say anything, but maybe somebody—like young Reggie out there—didn’t want to get permission, and came here anyway.”
Dusty knotted his fists in his pockets. “That’s possible. I’m not the only one who hates government regulations, but no one—not even Reggie—coming here for a sacred ritual would have a basilisk, Nichols. They’re evil. Pure witchery.”
“He’s a thorny kid, isn’t he?” Nichols said. “You interrupted my little talk with him. He’s what I’d call a very angry young man with a chip on his shoulder.”
“He’s had it tough.”
“Do you know anyone who hasn’t? I’m starting to
think all of your friends are basket cases.” Nichols jotted something in his notebook and stared balefully down into the kiva. “It’s sure a big thing, isn’t it?”
Dusty waited until the gust of wind passed, before answering, “Imagine digging that much soil out of the ground. Hammering down through the sandstone and shale with stone-headed mauls and digging sticks. No backhoes in those days.”
“Impressive.” Nichols looked around. “What’s that? Those ruins over there?”
Dusty looked across the canyon. “That’s Pueblo Bonito. An Anasazi road ran right across there”—he pointed—“from Casa Rinconada’s northern anteroom over to the southwest corner of Bonito. And the next ruin to the east is Chetro Ketl. If you get time you might want to walk through them. They were built between A.D. 900 and 1150. North America wouldn’t have buildings this large again until the 1830s.”
Nichols gazed across the canyon, wind-whipped now, and cold. Chaco looked dreary in its winter clothes, the rabbitbrush and grass turned tan to match the soil.
“Why would the Anasazi have come here? This is a barren place.” Nichols was shaking his head.
“It was different then,” Dusty said. “You’re standing in the capital of an empire that covered one hundred thousand square miles. But if you need to put that in perspective, next time you’re in Washington, D.C., imagine what it will look like in five hundred years, after the buildings fall down and the trees are growing out of the rubble that’s the Capitol building.”
Nichols shot him a sober glance. “You think it will come to that?”
“Sure.” Dusty shrugged. “It always does. Persepolis, Greece, Ur, Rome, the Maya, the Khmer, the Anasazi, or the Cahokians, they all follow the same pattern: They go through a warm wet climatic episode, overpopulate, build their cities, cut down all the trees, and overuse the
soil. Then the climate changes, turns cold and dry, and they can’t feed their people. Some critical supply runs out. People feel deprived. Deprivation is the single most powerful human motivation. Someone goes to war to win resources, and the system breaks. It cascades like a house of cards with ethnic hatred, religious war, and crusades. The trade routes are cut and the people fall into barbarism.” His gaze drifted over the ruins before him, imagining how glorious they must have been one thousand years ago. “Why should we be any different?”
“Aw, come on. This is the twenty-first century.” Nichols examined him like a hawk with prey.
“How much oil do we import from foreign countries? How much wood? You know that plum you had for lunch yesterday? It probably came from South America.”
Nichols grunted and flipped through his notebook. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“Okay. What is it?”
He ran his finger down the page. “We were doing some background on you.” He glanced up to read Dusty’s reaction when he said, “‘The Mad Man of New Mexico’? Where does that come from?”
Dusty winced. “I hate that name.”
“After what happened to your father, being locked up in an asylum, I can see why.”
“For what it’s worth,” Maureen said, “Dusty’s nickname comes from his unorthodox field methods; it has nothing to do with his father’s illness. His methods generate some professional jealousy.”
“Yeah, I figured that out,” Nichols replied. “You, on the other hand, Dr. Cole, are highly thought of by most of your peers.”
Maureen spread her feet, as though preparing for a lecture. “Physical anthropology is more of a traditional
science, Nichols. It isn’t as bloodthirsty as archaeology.”
Nichols returned his attention to the kiva. “Mr. Stewart, why do you keep finding these basilisks?”
Dusty felt light-headed. “I’d never seen one until we dug 10K3. We found a murder victim with one on her chest. Our monitor, Hail Walking Hawk, wanted me to rebury it.” Dusty shrugged. “God, I wish I had.”
Nichols perked up. “You’ve still got it?”
“It’s cataloged,” Dusty told him. “In the collections at UNM. We also found a second one at Pueblo Animas.”
“You found it,” Maureen corrected. “Dusty has a thing for finding them. We’ve tried curing him twice.” She gave Dusty a hard look. “You’re not going to start having nightmares again, are you?”
“I didn’t touch this one.”
“Could it be the same one?” Nichols asked. “Or do these things turn up all the time?”
“It’s easy to check whether or not it’s the same one,” Maureen answered. “Get on your phone and call the curation facility at UNM. They can look up the catalog number and trot back in the stacks to find it. If it’s there, well, I guess we’ve answered the question.”
Dusty said, “To answer your question about how common they are, not very. The 10K3 basilisk was the first pre-Columbian one ever found. They’re more common in modern societies, but still not abundant.”
“How many people know about this pre-Columbian basilisk?”
“Anyone who was on the 10K3 project.” Dusty frowned. “Michall, Steve, Sylvia, Maggie, Dale, Maureen, and me.”
“Don’t forget,” Maureen reminded, “that you described the artifact in the final report. Anyone in the profession could have gotten it through a simple request.”
“Anyone?” Nichols had his pen poised to write. “Like Carter Hawsworth?”
“Of course,” Dusty said.
“Where is this report?” Nichols asked. “I’d like to see it.”
“There’s one over in the headquarters building.” Dusty pointed across the canyon. “And another in Washington, one at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration in Boulder, Colorado, another on file with the National Park Service in Albuquerque, one on file with the State Historic Preservation Office in Santa Fe, another—”
“Whoa.” Nichols put his hand out to stop Dusty. “In other words, there are copies everywhere. So, it wouldn’t have been hard for someone like, say, Dr. Hawsworth to have read it.”
“All he had to do was drop by the university,” Dusty admitted.
“Which he did quite frequently.” Nichols seemed to be talking to himself. “Interesting.”
“How’s that?” Maureen asked.
“Oh, nothing. Ruminating, that’s all.”
“Nichols!” one of the agents in the kiva called. He held up a piece of paper he’d dug from under the snow. Weathered and soggy, Dusty could see the printing on it even from where he stood.
“What is it? One of the interpretive brochures?” Nichols called.
The agent, holding his prize up with forceps, shook his head. “No, sir. It looks like a fax. It’s addressed to Dale and signed by … Jesus. How do you pronounce this? Kweee … Kaw …”
“Kwewur,” Dusty said, barely audible.
Nichols stepped to the edge of the kiva and called, “Bring it up here, now! I want to know what it says.”
As the agent got to his feet and carefully made his way to the stairs, Dusty looked at Nichols. “So Hawsworth
has been a frequent visitor at the university. Have you searched his house?”

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