by Siena West
* * *
At the pasture, the crew had started on the burned-wood layer and struggled with the tree-ring samples. Tim and Elena conferred on the ground away from the excavation where she would feel safe from the somber, dismal emotions she experienced in the pit.
“I’d like to open more units,” Elena said, “but the pace is too slow. I think we have enough tree-ring samples to date this thing. Let’s stop taking them.”
“You won’t hear me complain.” Tim’s hair looked almost normal, she noted. “What about screening? We’ve found zero artifacts so far.”
“Then let’s bag that, too. You can collect anything that turns up in the shovel.” She lowered her voice. “Make sure that Norton moves on to another unit before you reach the bone layer,” she directed. The Apache laborer would have strong negative emotions about death and human remains. “Better yet, switch him with Caleb from the room excavations.”
Tim agreed to everything, and he was off to lay out new units near the cistern.
* * *
Elena spent the rest of the day with paperwork. Happy to leave the books behind at cocktail hour, she found Maggie waiting on her cabin porch. “I got ‘em, Tía! They’re the ugliest pair of horses I ever saw. But they’ll do fine.”
“That’s terrific! Where did you find them?”
“Near Show Low, from a rancher named Greenlaw. Caleb turned me on to him. What a character! If you could bottle grumpy like spring water, he’d be the source. But he promised he’d trailer the horses to us and back to his ranch and throw in the tack. Norm told me it was okay to use one of his old trailers to haul the horses out to the survey areas.”
Ranchers had fallen on hard times, Elena knew. Drought had taken a huge toll on the grazing lands, and wells were drying. Cattle weren’t worth the effort any more. Many ranchers were leaving the business, selling their land for development where rich city folks could play at being cowboys. Others were donating their ranches as tax write-offs. Some had turned to horseback tours or hunting trips for extra cash. Greenlaw must rent out his horses for money.
“He’s bringing the horses day after tomorrow. Then Cole will complain about saddle sores instead of the vandalized graves he finds on survey.” Maggie grinned. “This calls for tequila!”
That made Elena smile. Everything called for tequila in Maggie’s world.
* * *
The night was stifling and claustrophobic. Elena awakened thirsty and went into the house to get ice from the kitchen. Norm locked the most valuable artifacts his family collected in a closet the size of a small room. She caught her breath when she passed the closet and saw the splintered and battered door hanging at a crazy angle. Someone took an axe or sledgehammer to the lock.
She pushed into the closet—and she stopped breathing.
Shelves once crowded with pots, polished axe heads, and arrow points were bare. Someone had smashed the corrugated and plain ware pots—worth less than painted vessels—to bits and scattered the pieces over the floor.
The thief had torn the excavation journals that Norm’s father kept, ripping out the pages now blown across the room like white sheets in a tornado. Most disturbing to her, blood spilled everywhere, spattered over the pages and the broken pot sherds, pooled on the empty shelves, and mixed with the feathers that carpeted the floor.
Feathers? she wondered and then saw the body of a great horned owl in the tangled mess. Its blood-spattered wings spread wide, as if it were gliding over a meadow in search of prey.
A feather floated down, carried on a random drift of air from the open doorway. She dropped the glass, and it shattered on the floor. Elena fainted.
* * *
It was a dream. Elena woke before her dream-head would have hit the dream-floor in her nightmare. The tee shirt she slept in was soaked, and she had twisted and turned so much that her sleeping bag was upside down. She managed to unzip it and sit up, dangling her legs over the edge of the cot and rubbing her eyes. She had bunked in the old cabin because she wanted more privacy than the rooms in the ranch house offered. The women staff slept there, and the rooms often housed visitors. But now, alone in the dark, she wished for the companionship of others sleeping nearby.
The dream was a warning. She had dreamed of thievery, of pots and artifacts stolen and smashed. The owl—tecolote—symbolized danger and death. The augury could not have been plainer, and she recalled Linda’s prophetic nightmare. But the omen hardened her resolve. She was a scientist, and she did not intend to abandon the excavations in the ossuary until she understood what it was.
November, a.d. 1375, East-Central Arizona
Wuwutçim
On the fourth night of the tribal initiation ceremony, the Wuwutçim, the pueblo huddled under a red moon caught in a halo of ice. No living visitors were permitted on this night of mystery and fear. The men had ritually closed the trails leading into the pueblo with cornmeal, leaving open only the road for the dead. The women had worked all day to prepare a feast for the spirits who would visit the village.
The people had deserted the east side of the village where the food awaited, fleeing to the other side. The women hung blankets and hides over the doorways so no one could glance outside. The terrified children huddled in corners or sat in their mothers’ laps, the youngest sucking their thumbs for comfort.
The fierce, painted and costumed Horn and Agave warriors patrolled the village. They carried long lances, ready to punish anyone caught out of doors. The dead also walked the paths of the pueblo, and witches might slip unseen into the village. It was silent under the bloody moon, except for the hoots and calls of the patrol and the screams of one young woman.
The baby would not come. Many Bright Colors had labored for a night and a day and grew weaker with each passing hour. In agony, Gray Dawn waited for the night of horror to end. He knew the birth should have happened hours ago, and fear clutched his heart in hands as icy as the night wind.
He did not understand why this was happening, because his wife was strong and healthy. She could grind corn for hours without tiring, and even his mother praised her piki bread. She was a happy person, too. Many Bright Colors had laughed while she worked, and the grinding room where the women kneeled side by side at the metates rang with her songs. The women were sure the child was a boy because Many Bright Colors carried him so high in her belly.
At last, the women called for a doctor. The guards stopped the woman sent to fetch him, and she begged and pleaded until they let her go. For that reason, the doctor was late reaching the house. Because of the need to hurry, he declined the women’s offer of food and drink.
He cleansed the room with burning piñon gum and tobacco smoke. Next, he smeared ashes on Many Bright Colors’s forehead and rubbed her with a weasel skin, so the child would slide out quick, like that animal. Still she labored, although the doctor sat with her and prayed.
After an hour, the doctor set aside his medicines and went to Gray Dawn. He was regretful, saying, “It is no use, my son. Sorcery has stopped the child from coming. If I had come earlier, I might have been able to see where the witch shot a poison arrow into your wife and remove it. Now, it is too late, because my medicines are no use. You must prepare yourself for her death, Gray Dawn, and the death of the child as well.”
Many Bright Colors’s screams grew weaker and finally stopped. Not long after, one of the women brought Gray Dawn to his wife. They had covered her with rabbit-skin and cotton blankets. Blood had pooled under her hips and spread on the dirt floor. The child was upside down in the belly, the women told him, his head at the top instead of facing down to slide into the world. Gray Dawn’s son had died with his mother.
The women began to wail. They would wash Many Bright Colors’s hair and body and dress her in the beautiful cotton wedding garments woven for her when she and Gray Dawn were promised to each other. The next day, when the initiation ceremony was over, she and the unborn child would be laid to rest. Gray Dawn would
carry them to the burial ground. In the land beyond, the spirits would see her wedding garments and recognize Many Bright Colors as a married woman.
Gray Dawn could not speak. His heart turned to stone as he gazed at the pale face of his beloved and the lips that would never sing a playful song or smile at him again. Many Bright Colors had been only fifteen years old.
Chapter 5
Two Visitors
Maggie’s horses arrived at midmorning, when a silver diesel pickup with dual wheels and an extended cab pulled a three-horse-slant trailer into camp. Maggie had been waiting since breakfast, bouncing with excitement. A tall, stooped man in the rancher’s standard uniform—faded jeans, cowboy shirt with pearl snaps, expensive but well-used hat—unfolded from the cab with difficulty.
“Mornin’, Ma’am, Miss. I’m Otis Greenlaw.” The man spoke with the Arizona rancher’s drawl. He doffed his hat to the women, revealing sweat-damp wisps of gray hair. Like most of his kind, he’d invested in a pair of hand-made boots. The rancher had cared for them well despite the bits of manure and mud clinging to the heels and soles.
“Show me where you want me to put these hosses, and I’ll git ‘em unloaded.” Accustomed to being hauled, the horses backed out without a fuss. Greenlaw led a rangy bay and a bony roan into the barn and turned them into the stalls Norm had picked. A hitch in the man’s walk spoke of a fall from a horse or a tussle with a wild heifer. The women carried the saddles and other tack from the trailer and stowed them in the barn.
That done, they sat in the shade of the ramada, and Norm offered cookies and cold lemonade. Beads of sweat glistened on Greenlaw’s brow, and he gulped his drink. Most unlike herself, Maggie was quiet. She was fascinated with the grizzled old rancher.
Greenlaw drew a pouch of tobacco and rolling papers from a pocket. “Mind if I smoke, ladies?” When he’d rolled and lit the cigarette, they chatted as the lab crew sorted sherds and flaked stone artifacts at nearby tables. The bits and pieces interested the rancher.
“Are ya findin’ much on yer dig?” Maggie must have filled him in on the field-school’s activities when she cajoled him into loaning the horses.
Elena’s senses alerted, sending alarms like little bolts of electricity. Something was not right. She answered with caution.
“Nothing you’d find special, Mr. Greenlaw. Burned wood is like treasure to us.”
“Ya don’t say.” Greenlaw surveyed the lab as if he suspected the archaeologists were hiding the good stuff.
“Could you give me a tour?”
“It would disappoint you. There’s nothing to see now except dirt and rocks. We should find things to interest you later, when we’ve done more work.” Elena prayed that Greenlaw would forget about a site tour. She did not want him near the excavations, poking and prying and asking questions.
“Mr. Greenlaw, I noticed the design on your truck and trailer,” Elena said. “Does it mean something special?” She knew the answer, but what did it mean to him? It was curious that Greenlaw had picked that logo.
“Well, Ma’am, you oughta know that. It’s one of them birds the Indians painted on pots. Seen a lot of ‘em around here. I liked it and took it for my brand. Not that I’ve got many cattle to brand anymore.” The stylized bird comprised a triangle for the body, a half-circle for the head, and two brush strokes representing the tail. Archaeologists called it the Pinedale bird for the pottery type on which it was first noted, Pinedale Polychrome. The design represented a macaw, but that wouldn’t matter to the rancher.
Greenlaw picked up his hat to show off the silver pin on it. “Friend of mine made this for me. Same bird.”
“That’s cool,” Maggie said.
“Do you have children?” Elena said.
“Yeah, but I don’t see ‘em often. It’s been tough since my kids left home, and my wife died. I’ve had a hard time makin’ ends meet.”
“The children moved away?” Maggie said.
“Yep. Arizona is too backward for ‘em, I guess. One moved to California, designs software or some such nonsense. The daughter got married and lives in Oregon.”
“I’m so sorry—you have no one to help you at the ranch,” tender-hearted Maggie said. The voluble old man must be lonely.
“Seems like I’ve had a string of real bad luck, that’s for sure. Had to take out a second mortgage.”
Not long after, Greenlaw stood, although straightening up was difficult for him, put his hat on, and thanked Elena. “Best be gittin’ back, ladies. Missy, you give me a holler when you’re ready for me to come git the hosses.”
Maggie exploded with laughter the moment Greenlaw’s rig was past the gate, as if she’d been holding it in with effort the entire time he was there. “Isn’t he something?” she shrieked. “Crusty old dude sets the gold standard for cowboy!”
“It’s an act, chica. No doubt he’s laughing himself sick, thinking about the fast one he pulled on the academics, leasing them a couple of broken-down, spavined old nags. I bet he reads French postmodernists in his spare time. In French.”
Maggie shook her head, still choked with laughter.
Elena didn’t think the old rancher was funny in the least. She was sure he was hiding something behind his good ol’ boy demeanor. She couldn’t fathom what it might be, however.
When his dark secret came to light, it would bring danger and death to their little community in the woods.
* * *
At noon, when the crew was washing up for lunch, an unfamiliar vehicle stopped at the gate that kept Norm’s cows out of the camp. A tall, lean man got out, opened the gate, and pulled through it. Nueces, Elena thought. Why did visitors always show up around meal times? Sometimes, it seemed as if she and Norm had fed the entire population of northeastern Arizona. The man’s hair, a shade near strawberry blond, shone in the noonday sunlight. He closed the gate, and that surprised her. The first rule of cow country was to keep the gates the way you found them, open or closed—and it was a rule visitors almost always broke. This visitor had not.
The big, black SUV bearing government plates drove into camp and stopped in front of the ranch house. The man who stepped out wore a crisp white shirt and pressed chinos. Elena realized this must be the FBI agent about whom she and Tinker Reidhead had talked. No local cowboy would dress that well or drive such a fancy vehicle. He opened the garden gate and negotiated between the chickens and one lone duck pecking around Norm’s flower beds. Elena met him on the lawn and shooed the birds away.
“Good morning, Ma’am. Special Agent Sander Jorgensen of the FBI, from the Phoenix Field Office. And you are?”
“Elena Vargas. I’m the field-school director.”
The agent flashed a gold shield. “I was hoping you’d be here—I’d like to talk with you.” When they shook hands, Elena felt a frisson, a little jolt of electricity, as when she had met Otis Greenlaw that morning. This time, it was a pleasant feeling of anticipation rather than discomfort. Jorgensen’s eyes were a brilliant blue framed by sun-crinkled skin. She put his age around forty or forty-five. The man would be at the height of his career and used to getting his way. The agent wore self-confidence like a wealthy woman wears a designer gown—easy, careless, yet completely aware of its effect.
“But isn’t your name Rodriguez?” she said, recalling what Tinker Reidhead had told her. She tried to tuck stray hands of hair back into place and make herself more presentable. She was miffed that she was flustered.
“Agent Rodriguez and I are working together. It’s a long story. If now is a good time, can we talk in private?”
“Yes—but let’s eat first. You’re just in time for lunch.”
* * *
When the Lightning Bolt pot-hunting investigation got underway, Jorgensen figured out soon that the FBI needed professional archaeological help. Nobody in his shop or the other agencies involved in the project—Customs and Border Protection; Department of Homeland Security; Drug Enforcement Administration; Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives—had expertise. He’d given his agents a crash course in cultural preservation laws, but it wasn’t enough. The agent wanted to find someone who understood the mountain country and its archaeology.
Jorgensen struck gold on the first phone call he’d made in search of an archaeological consultant. Not only was Dr. Elena Vargas an expert on Southwest archaeology, she was in the field at the present time. She was directing the university field school at the Taylor Ranch in the heart of the territory the Sinaloa cartel was targeting.
On the drive to the ranch, the agent amused himself picturing a woman archaeologist. She’d be of middle age and frumpy, with unshaven underarms and legs, no makeup, and bad hair.
Because of his preconceptions, Elena Vargas astonished Jorgensen. When he made his way through chickens and a duck to meet her, he found a slender woman with dark hair that shone deep red in the sunlight. Her eyes wavered between green and blue. Later, he learned the color was a gift from her Spanish heritage. Jorgensen felt guilty about his preconceptions. Elena Vargas would educate him on feminism and stereotypes. Jorgensen didn’t realize, as he sat in the living room after lunch, that she would also educate him on subjects closer to the heart.
* * *
“It was hard to get the students back to work, Agent Jorgensen,” Elena said, serving brownies and Norm’s excellent coffee. “They’ve been milling around, sneaking glances at you. They’re very impressed by a bona fide FBI agent right here on the ranch.”
Jorgensen shrugged. “It’s just a job, Dr. Vargas. Not a very exciting one, at that.”
“Please call me Elena. It’s possible the students and I have seen too many movies and TV shows, but we think working for the FBI is darn exciting.”
“It’s mostly tons of paperwork. Let’s talk about the field school instead. I should have known, but I didn’t realize you had to teach archaeologists how to dig.”
