by David Wood
“Back it up,” Orley growled from the darkness. “Move slow and stay where I can see you.”
Bones did as he was told, crawling backward into the room, his options racing through his mind. He was fast and would stand a good chance of disarming Orley, but he’d have to injure the rancher in order to do so. He didn’t want to do that if he could help it. For the same reason, he dismissed the .22 in his ankle holster. Besides, his instinct told him that the man was not a threat.
A flame blossomed in the darkness. Orley held a zippo in his left hand. He kept the shotgun trained on Bones with his right. “I didn’t figure on it being you. By the way, you can take that pissant little flashlight out of your mouth.”
Bones chuckled and tucked the light into his jeans pocket.
“This place is something.”
Orley did not answer. He scrutinized the cave, his usual sour expression in place. “Well hell. You weren’t gonna’ take the disc?”
“Not me,” Bones said. “My people aren’t like that. I think you know that as well as I do.” He stared at Orley, hoping he was right. If not, Bones would have to make a quick move for the shotgun. “I didn't take anything but pictures.”
The silence hung between them in the semi-darkness for what felt like a minute before the rancher spat on the floor and lowered his gun.
“I reckon I do believe you at that. You ain’t so bad for an Injun.”
“And you’re not too bad for a fat white man,” Bones said, chuckling. Orley returned the jibe with a curse and a grin. “What is this place, anyway?” Bones asked.
“I don’t rightly know. I found it near twenty years ago. A storm came through, one of them gully washers. Washed away enough of the rock to uncover this place. I’ve tried to figure some of it out, but I ain’t too good at that kind of thing. I tried to keep it a secret, but once the government started pushing me to open up the other ruins, I knew this place would get found. If it has to be found, I reckon I’m glad it was you.”
“Why do you say that?” Bones was flattered, but confused.
Orley was about to reply when a loud clatter came from the entrance.
“Mr. Orley?” a voice called. The speaker’s tone of voice sounded taunting as if the man, whoever he was, knew precisely where the rancher was.
Orley whirled around, peering back in the direction from which he had come. “It’s them! Take the disc and...”
“Who is ‘them’?” Bones asked.
“The Dominion. Now shut up and do what I tell you. Take the disc with you. There’s a way out up there,” he gestured over Bones’ right shoulder to the dark corner. “It’s narrow, but you can do it. Go!”
Bones wasn’t foolish enough to argue. He grabbed the heavy gold disc and shoved it into his shirt. Three long strides brought him to the corner. He ran his hands up the wall, his fingertips finding purchase on a small ledge. He pulled himself up, digging his steel-toed boots against the rocky face, reached out with his right hand and found the narrow passage. Clambering up, he twisted onto his left side and scooted into the crevice.
“Don’t come back no matter what you hear,” Orley said.
Feeling more guilt than he had thought himself capable of, Bones slithered forward, now understanding how sausage was made. He had never had much fear of tight places, for which he was now thankful. The cold rock sucked the heat from his body. He continued forward in the darkness, wondering how long this passage was and whether it would narrow to the point that he could not get through. His shoulders were almost touching the sides. One thing was sure; Orley had never crawled through this tunnel, or at least not in many a decade.
He heard muffled voices, then a shotgun blast. He froze as the staccato report of small-caliber handguns echoed down the narrow tunnel. One more defiant shotgun blast, a pause, a single shot, and it was over. Bones remained motionless for the span of a three heartbeats, entertaining the irrational notion that he should somehow wriggle backward, take the bad guys by surprise, and save the day. Common sense won out over guilt almost immediately, and he continued his trek, cursing Orley for his stubbornness and himself for not being a hero. He was certain the rancher was dead. Now he needed to save himself.
He crawled for what seemed like an hour, all the while wondering when bullets would ricochet down the passage. Had they killed Orley immediately? Did he tell them about Bones escape route? Would they find it themselves? None of it mattered. All he could do was keep going.
The tunnel curved, and for a brief moment panic threatened to overwhelm him as the walls closed in on him, but he was soon able to wriggle free and move on. Still grappling with guilt over leaving Orley behind, he was distracted by a pale sliver of light in the distance. Energized, he scurried ahead on hands and knees.
A gentle slope climbed toward the light, and the tunnel gradually widened. Suddenly aware that he had no idea where he would be emerging, or who might be waiting on the other side, he slipped his .22 from its ankle holster and quietly moved ahead. Dry air tinged with the aroma of sage and dust assaulted his nostrils. The tunnel ended in a narrow crack about seven feet high and a foot wide at its broadest point. Sage and scrub covered the entrance. Bones could see little through the cover of foliage, but the way appeared clear. His pistol at the ready, he moved forward.
Emerging on the slope of a dry, narrow gulch and carefully making his way down into the parched defile, the sun scorching his face after the relative cool of the cavern, he thought about the layout of the passage through which he had come, relative to the ranch, and guessed that he was due northeast of the dig, on the other side of the hills that backed Orley’s barn and lined the eastern edge of his property. He couldn’t be far away as the crow flies, but with gun-toting archaeologists, or whoever the hell they were, so close by, things felt decidedly unsafe. And what was the “Dominion” of which Orley spoke? He needed an answer.
Absently he ran his hand across his stomach and felt the disc underneath his shirt. He had actually forgotten about it. He withdrew the weighty gold circle and examined it in the sunlight. Its gold surface flashed in the brilliant light, displaying the spiraled writing in sharp relief. It was one of the most beautiful artifacts he had ever seen, and a complete enigma. What was a Hebrew artifact doing in Utah? “I hate puzzles,” he muttered.
Flipping open his cell phone, he checked for coverage and was relieved to see that he had one bar. No way was he going back for his rental. He’d call the agency and report it broken down. He didn’t have any personal items in the car anyway. Who to call? He thought of Emily Dixon, the television reporter. She had been loads of fun for about five hours, and then the obvious fluff between her ears had significantly detracted from her appeal. He needed someone sharp, someone who might know about the Dominion, someone with the guts to dive into what might be a dangerous situation.
A broad grin spread across his face as he called information and requested the number for the Deseret Bugle.
Chapter 10
Shouldn’t we open this thing in a lab?” Saul asked, leaning over the makeshift worktable Maddock had created in his hotel room. A white sheet draped over the study table, plus all the lights they could garner, comprised his work area. The three of them wore gloves and dust masks they had picked up from the local home improvement store. All in all it was a poor excuse for a scientific environment, but Maddock had his reasons for doing this privately.
“What lab, Saul? And even if we managed to find one around here, who’s to say it would remain a secret? I don’t know who those guys in the helicopter were, but I’ll assume they’re no friends of ours until I have reason to believe different.”
“I agree,” Jade said in a distracted voice. Her attention was focused on the box Maddock had recovered from the wall at Chaco Canyon. Working with a set of tiny chisels and hammers, she gradually chipped away at the solder that had held the box closed for, they hoped, five hundred years. “Help me out here, Maddock.”
Maddock took hold of one side of the box
and, following Jade’s instructions, they worked the lid free. It came loose reluctantly, but in short order the box lay open on the table. Ancient fabric enshrouded whatever was inside. Jade lifted it free, muttering soft curses as the dry linen crumbled at her touch. Saul laid out a square of clear plastic to catch the debris. Jade turned the bundle over, laid it on the plastic that covered the table and unwrapped it.
A shiny black object about half the size of Maddock’s fist lay inside. It was black rock, carved into an eighth of a sphere.
“It looks like someone cut a grapefruit in half, then quartered the half,” he observed. “Weird.”
Jade held it up to the light. “Onyx,” she whispered. “I’m almost certain.” Maddock and Saul both leaned forward for a closer look. The rounded top was perfectly smooth, with an odd lip running along the curved bottom edge. Jade turned the artifact over and took a long, deep breath. Faint lines were etched into the bottom surface. They were worn and difficult to discern, but they were definitely letters of some sort. They gazed at the artifact for a long while before Jade laid it gently on the plastic.
“What do you think?” Maddock asked, puzzled by the odd piece. He had never seen such a thing though his background in marine archaeology was not the best preparation for this project.
“I think the artifact has been cut. Possibly into quarters based on the shape of this piece. Look at the straight edges. You can see markings as if someone sawed it. It’s mostly smooth but lacks the perfection of the other sides. So...” she paused.
“So Fray Marcos has gone to the time and effort of setting us on a scavenger hunt through the American Southwest. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense, considering what we know so far. Marcos chopped up the artifact and hid the pieces, or had someone hide the pieces, in various locations. The shield provides us with a map of sorts.”
“Find the pieces, put them together, and it leads us to Cibola,” Maddock said. The prospect was exciting. “So what we need to do now is figure out where the next piece is hidden.”
“Got it covered,” Saul said, his perpetually sour face even more puckered if that was possible. He returned shortly with the briefcase in which they kept the pictures of the shield along with their maps and notes. “I have to tell you,” he said, spreading the photographs on the bed, “I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and most of these images are a mystery to me. I also wonder if we need to visit them in any certain order.”
“If we’re collecting pieces of this artifact in order to reconstruct it, I don’t imagine it would make any difference what order we found them in.” Maddock rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble that announced evening was fast approaching. One of these days, he would grow a beard. “There has to be some key to understanding the instructions. Chaco Canyon was a lucky guess. The place had a distinct shape. I don’t relish the idea of roaming the desert southwest looking at every landform and ruin that resembles these icons.
“These two,” he indicated the images that lay at the center of the cross, and on the left, “could be two of I don’t know how many different peaks. And the images on the right, at the cross point, and at the top look like ruins, but which ones and where?”
“How did we find this artifact?” Jade asked. “The solstice was important, and so was the number seven. Can we use either of those to help us?”
Maddock’s mind was turning over an idea at a rapid pace. The number seven was tumbling around in his thoughts. There was something he had come across in their research. Something to do with travel and direction.
“Are you planning on telling us what you’re thinking?” Saul snapped. He stood with his hands folded across his chest, leaning toward Maddock to emphasize the two inches by which he was taller than Maddock.
“The roads,” Maddock said, ignoring Saul for what felt like the thousandth time since Jade, and her assistant had crossed his path. “Remember? The Chacoans built a series of roads leading out of the canyon. They were special because they were so straight and well-engineered.”
“That’s right. There were seven of them,” Jade said, her voice indicating cautious interest. “What are you thinking?”
“Six of them scatter out in various directions and don’t go very far,” Maddock said. “But the one in the center shoots straight up, and it’s much longer than the others. It stands out to me. I’m suddenly wondering if it points to anything in particular.”
Saul hurried to the charts, obviously not wanting to feel left out. He sorted through them until he found the one with the ancient roads. “Is this the one?” he asked, pointing to the center avenue. Maddock nodded. Saul took his time, checking orientation and marking the roads on a larger map. Finally satisfied, he laid a ruler along the edge of the road and drew a faint line in pencil. The line ran out of New Mexico and into Utah. With his finger, Saul traced the implied path of the ancient road. “All of this is barren land. It doesn’t seem to intersect any of the known sites. In fact, it pretty much covers empty land all the way to...” he stopped.
“Sleeping Ute Mountain,” Maddock and Jade said at almost the same time. They looked at each other, and Jade grinned.
“Look at the image in the middle of the cross. It’s not the entire mountain, but compare it to,” she paused as she sifted through her papers until she found a silhouette of the famed mountain, “this picture. What do you see?”
“It’s the foot of the mountain,” Saul said. “That’s why we didn’t recognize it. The outline of the entire mountain, we’d have recognized, but not such a small section.” He stared at the pictures Jade held up, then looked down at the spot where his finger touched the dot marked Sleeping Ute Mountain. “Does this mean the artifact is hidden on his foot?”
“I don’t know,” Jade said. “I don’t know that something could be hidden there. I feel like there should be something more specific. We’re onto something, but we’re missing a critical piece.”
Saul picked up his laptop that he had left running on the bedside table, and clicked on the icon for internet access.
“We have the number seven connection. I guess now we need the solstice connection.” His frown quickly turned to a smile. “Aha! There’s a flat area on the mountain where the Utes hold sacred dances, get this, in conjunction with the solstice! That’s got to be it!”
Something did not ring true for Maddock, but he didn’t have a better idea. “Can we get up there?”
“It says you have to have permission from the tribe, and be escorted to the top,” Saul replied. “We can get around that, can’t we?”
“I’ve never been there,” Maddock said. “I don’t know what’s around there or if we can even get close to it.”
“Let’s try and do it the honest way,” Jade said. “I’ll make some calls tomorrow and see what I can arrange. If we can’t work it out, we’ll decide what to do next.”
“What? You’re going to ask some Ute bigwig if you can take a shovel and metal detector and maybe dig up their sacred dance floor? Yeah, that’s really gonna’ work,” Saul sneered.
Jade pressed her palms to her temples. “Saul...”
“I know. The decision is yours. But I’m registering my objections, okay?” He shut down his laptop and snapped it closed. “I’m gonna’ grab something to eat, and then hit the sack. I assume we’re heading out early tomorrow?” He didn’t wait for Jade’s answer, stalking out of the room and closing the door just hard enough to make it obvious that it was intentional.
“I feel like I’m teaching Junior High,” Jade groaned, falling down on the bed. “Maybe if this all works out, if we can solve the mystery, I won’t need the backing anymore.”
Taking a chance, Maddock sat down on the bed next to her. He pulled her hands away from her head and began massaging her temples with his fingertips. Her satisfied groans sounded like purring and set his nerves on an excited edge. Forcing himself to go slowly, he massaged her scalp, her neck, then her shoulders. Gradually
the tension drained from Jade’s face and was replaced by a satisfied smile. His fingertips trailed down her sides, stroked her stomach, and slowly made the climb up her taut belly. She breathed deeply. He ran his hands up her sides and across her chest. Propping on one elbow, he stroked her cheek and leaned in close, his lips close enough to feel her breath...
…His ears close enough to hear her snoring.
Chuckling, he carefully rolled off the bed and let himself quietly out of the room. Would his luck with women never change?
Chapter 11
Maddock rose early and enjoyed a long, quiet jog in the dim light of dawn. He did his best thinking when he was on the move, keeping his body and mind in sync. Something about Sleeping Ute Mountain did not seem right to him. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but he had always been one to listen to his instincts, and right now they were telling him that something was just a little bit off. Returning to his room, he unwound with a hot shower, then sat down to do a little research. By the time, Jade appeared at his door he was on to something, but she was in no mood to hear about it.
“Saul is gone,” she said, handing him a slip of notepaper. “He left this at the front desk for me. I’m going to kill him.”
Jade, the note read, I rented a car. Had some things to take care of. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call you this afternoon and we’ll reconnect. Saul’
“He isn’t answering his phone. All of his things are gone.”
“Did he take the artifact?” Maddock asked before he could stop himself. Though constantly annoyed with Saul, Jade was often touchy about criticism directed toward her assistant.
“Of course not,” Jade snapped. “It was in my room.” She dropped heavily into one of the leather padded chairs, picked up the remote and turned on the television. “Do you mind?”
