When she returned to the table, Leaphorn was holding a large tan envelope.
“I think this missing man, Domingo Cruz, is an interesting person. Complicated. I didn’t find anything criminal, although he has some activist tendencies. He was involved with AIM and spent two weeks at the Dakota pipeline protest. But no arrests. I guess that goes without saying for a guy who is a top dog at an agency that works with kids, but these days, you never know.”
Leaphorn opened the envelope and extracted some printed sheets of white paper. He put the first one on the table facing Bernie. “What do you notice about it?”
She looked. “Most petroglyphs I’ve seen are on sandstone or softer rock, not pecked into lava.”
“Anything else?”
“The design itself. The spiral is larger than most I’ve seen. It must have taken someone a long time to carve it.” She put the picture down. “I saw this image in Cruz’s sister’s house. When I commented on it, she said her brother had taken the photograph and given it to her for her birthday.”
“Interesting. Now look at this.” He moved the first picture aside and showed her another.
Bernie picked it up. Cruz’s photograph, or one very similar, formed a backdrop for a website that sold Indian artifacts. She couldn’t tell from the tiny images on the sheet if the pots, arrowheads, and spear points were old or reproductions. But the large text said Genuine ancient native artifacts from private land. Priceless! The rest of the type was too small to read.
She set the sheet of paper back down. “Did you click on any of these items to see if there was more description or a price?”
He took a taste of his coffee. “They are all expensive and not well described. The website address is there, so you can look yourself. In the meantime, this might help.”
He handed her an old-fashioned magnifying glass. She held it over the tiny type. The text credited the objects to archaeological sites near a historic trail running through the lava that connected the Zuni and Acoma pueblos.
“This thing makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes.” She started to hand the magnifier back to him. “What do you think?”
“Keep it. You’ll need it for this.” Leaphorn passed her another printout. “I took it from that same website. Take another look.”
“There’s a credit line.” She read it out loud: “‘Background photo by Domingo Cruz from the collection of Merilee Cruz. Original photography for sale.’”
Bernie enjoyed her Coke. “I talked to Cruz’s twin sister, Merilee, and she told me she sold art on the Internet but not Indian artifacts. When I admired the petroglyph photo, she told me she had an extra print.”
He put the pages back in the folder and handed it to her. “Technology is not my strong point. But the appearance of Domingo Cruz’s photo on that site makes me wonder what Cruz might have been doing out in that lava besides working with Wings and Roots.”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would steal from the dead.” Bernie stirred her Coke with the straw. “He told the girls to stay away from the caves.”
“Earlier, you said you had seen this photograph in the home of Cruz’s sister. Are you sure it was the same picture?”
“Yes.”
Leaphorn reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out the small spiral notebook he always carried. He thumbed through it. “I discovered that they were adopted by a family in Utah. I didn’t do any specific checking on her. Only on Domingo.”
“Merilee told me she and Cruz went different directions after high school.”
“That’s right, as far as I can tell.” He took another sip of coffee. “You better get on the road, Manuelito. I will do a little more checking into the Cruz family. I’ll let you know if I find anything else interesting.”
He slid the envelope toward her. “And I think you have something for me.”
She put her backpack on a chair, pulled out the folder from Walker, and extracted some papers held together with a staple. “Here’s a copy of what the councilor gave us.”
Leaphorn glanced at what he had been handed. “Drive carefully,” he said. “I hear a big storm is on the way.”
At the search headquarters, the mood was subdued, a contrast to the adrenaline-filled scene she’d encountered on her first visit. Katz, the incident commander, looked older than when they had met a few days ago.
“I’m glad you’re the one representing Navajo out here. It’s always easier to work with a person who already knows the lay of the land. Are you ready for a hike?”
“Sure. Give me a minute to put on my hiking boots.” Bernie regretted leaving the boots in the trunk of her unit, where they had soaked in the cold. She pulled her warmest hat over her ears, grabbed her gloves, and added an extra energy bar to her backpack. She moved the three-ring binder to the trunk.
Katz introduced a young man with a mustache. “This is Ted. He found the cave, and he can take you to it.”
“Thank you. How far?”
“Oh, about three miles, if we don’t get lost.” He grinned. “Don’t worry. I know exactly where it is. The last thing we need is another lost or injured person.”
The hike took Bernie to an area of the Malpais she hadn’t seen before, beautiful and treacherous. Ted set a fast pace, and she pushed herself to keep up. After about twenty minutes, she felt more assured on the uneven terrain. The exertion of climbing boulders, hiking up stone ridges, and balancing along a ropey snake of solid stone warmed her, and she shoved her hat into her coat pocket.
There was no trail, only common sense and the memory of navigation guiding them. Ted took the lead. The thousands of years of erosion since volcanic activity had laid down this stone jungle had melted a few of the sharpest edges and brought some vegetation, but the rocks were still treacherous. The mix of sizes and the crevices between the stones forced Bernie to keep her eyes down rather than look up at the clouds building in the turquoise winter sky. Islands of trees and shrubs had formed where the mechanics of geography allowed for the creation of soil and retention of water. Periodically Ted stopped and checked his compass and the GPS to make sure they were headed in the right direction.
When they paused for water, Bernie said, “Why does the lava look so different from place to place? I mean, this area where we’ve been walking isn’t much like what I saw with Wings and Roots.”
Ted glanced up from his GPS. “Several different volcanic eruptions created this area. The McCartys lava flow is only three thousand years old, one of the newest in the United States—excepting Mount St. Helens and Hawaii, of course.”
They hiked on. Bernie enjoyed the cool fresh air, the rhythm of the trail, the good luck of being out of the car and out of the office on a semi-mild December day. She told herself to focus on that and not what lay at the end of the hike.
About the time she was seriously considering a drink from her water bottle, Ted paused, studying the rocks ahead. His voice had a deeper degree of confidence. “I remember that ridge with all the lichens. We don’t have far now.”
They stopped again a few minutes later, and he motioned Bernie up next to him. “You see where that juniper is growing up against the lava?”
She nodded.
“Look up at the top of the tree, and then take a straight line to the right. Follow that ridgeline.”
“Is that the cave?”
“Yes. Ready to see what’s in there?”
“In a minute. I want to ask you some questions.”
Ted lowered himself onto a relatively flat piece of rock and nodded. “Ask away.”
Bernie sat across from him. “Give me an idea of what to expect.”
He twirled the end of his mustache with one hand and told her about what he assumed were rib bones and some human vertebrae. “Whatever or whoever is up there predates our version of the southwest by a long, long time. It felt, I don’t know how to describe it . . . Creepy, I guess. Uncomfortable. And I’ve been in a lot of caves.”
“Did you touch anyth
ing?”
He cleared his throat. “No way.”
“The incident commander told my boss that you noticed something in the cave besides the bones.”
“It looked like dried buckskin, maybe an old bag. To be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking. I figured it might have some spiritual significance, and I knew it wasn’t any of my business.” He spoke with an intensity that surprised her.
Bernie looked toward the cave. “Thank you. I’ll take a look now.”
“Do you need an extra flashlight?”
“I’m fine.” She had double-checked to make sure hers worked.
He slipped off his backpack, unzipped the big pocket, and handed her a pair of rubber kneepads. “You’ll need these. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I won’t be long.”
“Do you have your gloves?”
“I think so.”
Bernie took the pads and hiked to the entrance, saying a prayer for protection as she approached. As in the cave Annie had found, the lava boulders someone had placed to block access had been shoved away—another confirmation that this might be a burial and, worse, a burial that had been looted. She climbed over the last of the rocks and paused to stare into the darkness.
She took off her backpack, removed the flashlight from her duty belt, and put on the kneepads and her gloves. She inhaled deeply, feeling the cold air at the tip of her nose, and looked up at the sky, now filled with towering gray storm clouds. Then she squatted down and slowly let the beam of light explore the cave’s interior as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
At first, she saw nothing except the dark rock she’d expected. She moved the light slowly, and then the beam glanced off something lighter in color. She focused on it but couldn’t be sure what she was seeing.
Bernie lowered herself to her hands and knees and began to inch inside, shining the light directly in front of her, looking for relatively smooth places on the lava to spare her hands. She moved forward a little more, stopping to shine the light into the darkness. The roof of the cave seemed to get closer, the space tighter. Her chest tightened too. She crawled deeper inside.
And then she saw something. A bone, varnished to a deep yellow with the patina of age. It did, indeed, look human. She adjusted to squatting, the top of her head brushing the cold roof of the cave. Slowly she ran the light along the shaft of the bone, discovering another bone and then a small grouping, like part of an assembly-required, life-size skeleton puzzle. A cluster of small turquoise beads lay next to the bones, probably from jewelry buried with this poor soul. She continued on the same trajectory, stopping when her light found fragments of broken pottery. Perhaps the looter had dropped the bowl, or one of the old ones might have broken it years before when they respectfully interred the body. Whatever ceremonial jars, fiber mats, or other artifacts had been placed here to help the deceased on the final journey were long gone.
Pushing aside the clenching in her stomach and the rapid pounding of her heart, she crawled closer to the old bones, searching thoroughly. There, next to what could be part of a human pelvis, she saw what Ted had described. The strand of what looked like leather and the gray feathers might indicate that the person buried here was a hataali, but Bernie’s intuition said otherwise. Whoever this skeleton had once been, she deduced, probably wore those items as part of the burial garb.
Exhaling to calm herself, she turned around and put the flashlight to work on a final scan before she left this sad, desecrated place. The stone floor of the cave kept its secrets, but she noticed some pockets of sand and another broken bead, one that could be shell. Then the beam reflected off a jawbone, clearly a human mandible, yellowed with age.
Bernie dropped the flashlight, which rolled away from her, toward the mouth of the cave. She followed on hands and knees, oblivious now to the rough stones that penetrated the leather on her gloves. As she grabbed for the flashlight, she realized that the cold had stiffened her fingers to near uselessness. Pushing herself to sitting, she pressed her frozen hands between her thighs. Finally her fingers regained their flexibility, and she crawled back toward the skull. Even though it bothered her, she had to finish the job. She pulled her phone from the jacket pocket and took off her gloves so she could turn on the camera flash. She needed pictures of everything here—the other bones, the beads, and the leather and feathers—to show the Cultural Preservation Office staff.
Finally, she started back down the slope to where Ted waited.
He stood when he saw her approach. “I was about to go up and holler for you. That took a while.”
“I needed photos. There’s no doubt in my mind that you found human bones. Old bones. I’ll tell the Cultural Preservation Office about this.”
The wind made a noise in the trees, and she looked up. On the rocks above the cave, she saw something skitter. Smiling at her own hyperattentiveness, she was about to turn away when she noticed something else: a spiral pecked into the rock.
Ted was starting to put his pack back on, but Bernie motioned for him to stop. “Could you help me with something?”
“Sure.”
“We need to do some hauling.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Someone removed the rocks that protected the entrance, the boulders the old ones had piled up to keep the burial private.”
“I’ll do it.”
Normally, she would have argued, but she’d already spent enough time in the presence of the dead. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
After he’d finished moving the rocks, Ted led the way back to the search base camp.
“Do you spend much time out in the lava?” she asked as they walked.
“I did as a kid. My uncle had a ranch near here. The Manzanares spread. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
“I met an officer named Manzanares. He works for the New Mexico State Police out of Grants. At least for a little while longer. He’s getting ready to retire.”
“I know who you mean. He’s my cousin. He looks after the place now. I haven’t been back to the ranch since he’s been in charge.” The tone in his voice said that it wasn’t for lack of interest.
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say I don’t feel welcome.”
Ted’s radio squawked, the transmission loud enough for Bernie to overhear. “The vultures Fred and Liz spotted were enjoying a deer,” Katz said. “Mr. Cruz is still missing. The search will resume at dawn, depending on the weather. Head on in, everyone, and thank you.”
Ted turned his radio to broadcast. “Officer Manuelito verifies ancient human remains. We blocked the cave, and I will give you the coordinates. No sign of Mr. Cruz. Save me some dinner.”
Bernie thought the hike back seemed faster, perhaps because her anxiety about viewing the body was gone now. At base camp, she reported to Katz, stressing that the site needed to remain off limits to the search teams. The cook invited her to join the rest of the crew to finish a stew they had made for the volunteers’ lunch.
She took a bowl and found a quiet spot to eat before her drive home. She was nearly done when a slim Navajo man with black-framed glasses came over to her. “Are you Officer Manuelito?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Franklin. The one you talked to on the phone about Dom.”
He looked like a well-dressed cowboy, complete with a handsome leather jacket—not the image she’d created to go with the understated voice on the phone. He was slim in the hips, broad of shoulder. The same build as Chee.
He switched to Navajo and gave her his clans. Bernie reciprocated. They weren’t related, but he was related to Chee through the paternal grandmother’s elder brother.
“Have you heard anything from Dom?” she asked.
“I wish. I check my messages whenever I can, thinking maybe this is only a mistake, and now that he’s had a chance to think things over, he’s on his way home. If he’s still alive, I think he would at least want me to know he’s safe. I mean, if he is safe.” F
ranklin turned away. When he turned back, his emotions were under control. “I wanted to thank you for caring.”
She thought about saying she was only doing her job, but she realized he was correct. She did care.
Franklin had started to walk away. When she called after him, he turned to face her, the fringe on his jacket swaying like the mane of a well-groomed horse. She motioned to him to sit with her. “Join me here a minute, and tell me about Dom.”
He sat next to her, and she breathed in the faint fragrance of his hair gel. “Domingo is the nicest man in the whole world. You know about all the work he does with kids—giving them hope, building them up, changing their lives?”
Bernie nodded.
“Well, he likes to cook for us and does the shopping, too. This situation, him disappearing—it’s terrifying.” Franklin clenched his long finger together, then straightened them again. “I’m so worried I can’t think straight.”
“It is terrifying. Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt him?” Bernie waited, but Franklin seemed to need prompting. “Did he have any enemies?”
“Dom gets along with everybody. That’s how he can put up with me, I guess.” He chuckled, and she thought he was about to add something, but he changed the subject. “He loves his sister, but she drives him crazy—telling him what to do, where to be, how to act, rubbing it in that she’s his big sister because she’s a few minutes older. But he’s still sweet to her. You know that they’re twins?”
“I know.”
“I think she’s jealous of me, of what Dom and I have together. Maybe she’s still upset because she ended up as a widow. Of course, everyone knows that Roger wanted to divorce her. If that had happened, she probably would be living in a tent somewhere, not in that nice house.”
“I heard she planned to divorce him.”
Franklin stood. “It doesn’t matter now. I shouldn’t gossip. I’ve got to help clean up. Thank you for suggesting that I volunteer out here. It sure is better than pacing around our place. I was useless at work, but this helps.”
Cave of Bones Page 18
