by David Wood
His mind raced with possibilities as he recovered his breath. The likelihood that even one of the ropes would have broken was remote. But for both of them to not only break but to just happen to break at the same time? Not a chance. Which meant foul play and that something likely had happened to Jade. He scanned the rocky face above, seeing nothing amiss. Self-preservation dictated that he either find a place to hide until he felt certain that whoever did this was gone or that he climb all the way down into the canyon and search for a new way out. Neither one would work, though, because of Jade. He had to find out if she was all right.
It would take an experienced climber to make his way back up to the top. They wouldn’t expect him to climb out on his own, but he was a skilled climber. He didn’t relish the idea of a free climb, but he had no other acceptable choice. Then he remembered what Jade had said earlier. The Anasazi always carved hand and footholds in the cliffs in order to access their homes. All he had to do was find them.
His search seemed to take forever, scanning the weathered cliffs, inspecting each crack and shadow, but when he finally found the first shadowy concave space in the rock, his watch showed that only six minutes had passed. Perhaps he’d be doubly lucky and his hidden enemy had given him up for dead. Without further consideration, he set to climbing.
The ancient holds were eroded in places, some of them no more than shallow pits. He moved as quickly as he could, taking more time where the holds were almost gone. He did not look down, but instead kept his eyes on the top of the cliff. What would he do if someone appeared above him? Hope it was someone on his side, he supposed.
He made steady progress until he was about halfway up when the next handhold simply wasn’t there. He paused, squinting against the sun’s intense glare, and searched for it. His hands burned from scrabbling up the rock, and his muscles were knotted from the awkward contortions the climb had forced upon him. Where was the next hold? It was not long before a memory crashed down on him. The Anasazi coded their hand-holds. If you didn’t start with the correct hand and foot, you could get just far enough along to get…stuck.
Keeping his body pressed as close to the rock as possible, he turned and looked back, seeking a way down. He could see the way he had come, but his feet and hands were all wrong and the intervening space too broad to permit him to move backward. He was in trouble. He certainly hoped Bones was faring better.
Chapter 16
Bones scanned the ruins of Sun Temple. Even now, centuries after the site had been abandoned, it remained an impressive sight. The remains of two towers, its stones fitted precisely together, stood within a D-shaped double wall. A few tourists milled about, snapping pictures.
“It doesn’t look like a clover to me,” Saul said, his constant scowl fully in evidence.
“No, but we need to check it out anyway,” Bones said, wondering how he had gotten stuck with Saul as a partner. “The marker is supposed to be at the southwest corner.” He indicated the direction they should go and led the way.
The walls were short and thick, the craftsmanship amazing. Sun Temple had never been completed, so Bones was skeptical about what they might find, but Jade had insisted they leave no stone unturned, so to speak.
Arriving at the southwest corner, they found a heavily eroded stone with three circles carved against a blurry-edged, diamond-shaped background. Bones knelt and ran his fingers across the surface of the marker up to the point where it curved into the wall. He didn’t see anything here that would indicate Fray Marcos had chosen it as one if his hiding places.
“This is it, huh?” Saul said, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward to gaze intently at the stone. “It looks a little bit like two planets crashing into a sun.”
“It does a just a bit, doesn’t it?” Bones looked all around the stone to see if he was missing anything. He didn’t see anything that indicated a hidden compartment or Marcos’ symbol. “I don’t suppose the three circles could be the leaves of a clover?” he asked, somehow knowing it was not so.
“Doesn’t look like what we’ve found so far,” Saul replied, doubt clear in his voice.
A movement caught Bones’ eye. Someone was moving beyond the farthest tower. That in itself was not strange, but it was the way they were moving—as if they were trying not to be noticed.
“Keep looking down at the rock like you’re interested,” he whispered to Saul. “Don’t do anything else unless I tell you,”
“I hear you,” Saul said. He didn’t offer any argument or ask questions. Maybe the guy wasn’t as stupid as Bones had believed.
He kept an eye on the far tower. There were two men moving slowly around the back of the chest-high structure. They were facing the back of the tower as if admiring the architecture, but it was obvious to Bones that they were watching him just as much as he was watching them. Their appearance was wrong as well. They wore casual clothes like any tourist would wear, but they were neatly pressed and their shirts were tucked in. Their haircuts were perfect. Everything about the way they looked made it seem they had checked in at the office before dropping by the ruins. Their bearing was not that of civilians. Their backs were too straight and they moved with too much purpose to be sightseeing.
Bones turned the lay of the land over in his mind. The men stood between them and the parking lot. The surrounding area offered little cover.
“Are you packing?” he asked Saul.
“Am I what?”
“Carrying a gun.”
“Oh, no,” Saul replied. “Why?”
Just then, the two men rounded the tower and moved toward Bones and Saul at a fast walk. They separated, each drawing a weapon and ducking low as they approached.
“Because I think we’re going to need a little firepower.”
Fatigue gave way to a bout of dizziness as Maddock baked in the sun on the face of the cliff above Square Tower House. Sweat ran into his eyes, but he scarcely noticed. He had considered and dismissed a dozen or more ideas, each more reckless than the next. He had just about settled on trying to slide down the cliff and hoped he survived the fall, when he began to hallucinate. At least that’s what he thought was happening when a rope suddenly appeared six inches from his nose.
He blinked twice but could not dispel the image. He thought of thirsty men in the desert seeing mirages, their minds willing them to believe that which they most desperately sought was before their eyes. But he wasn’t that far gone. Tired, aching, and frustrated to be certain, but not on the verge of death.
“Maddock, are you going to grab on to the stupid rope or not?” Jade’s voice sounded tired and a bit hoarse, but it was her. Looking up, he could see the outline of her form against the bright, blue sky. Hoping this really wasn’t a hallucination, and that he was about to grab a handful of empty air, he reached out and grasped the rope.
“It’s the rest of what wasn’t cut,” she said. “I’ve got it secured to the base of a tree, but I think I’m strong enough to help you up. But you’ve got to hurry.”
Shaking off thoughts of ache and fatigue, Maddock transferred his weight to the rope and started working his way up. Up above, Jade hauled on the rope. At first she seemed just to be dragging him across the rocky face, adding to his cuts and bruises, but then he saw a handhold. She had pulled him back over to the ancient egress. Keeping the rope twisted around his arm for safety, he scrambled up the ancient notches and quickly found himself face-to-face with Jade. What he saw made him grind his teeth in anger.
Her face was bruised, her lower lip split, and her clothing was ripped and dirty. She looked away as if ashamed to meet his eye.
“I don’t know who they were,” she said before he could ask. “They know we’re after an artifact, but they didn’t seem to know what it is. I didn’t tell them.” She kept her back to him, hastily gathering the rope and looping it around her hand and elbow.
“Why didn’t they come down after me? Or wait ‘til I got to the top and take it from me?” Maddock asked. “If they w
anted the artifact, cutting my ropes wouldn’t help them.”
“I convinced them you had just called up to me to tell me that it wasn’t there and that you’d be coming back after you put things right. They slapped me around a bit to make sure I was telling the truth. They finally knocked me unconscious. I assume they cut your rope to slow you down and then took off for Sun Temple.”
“You sent them after Bones?” he said, unable to believe what he was hearing. “How could you…”
“No! They asked me about Sun Temple. I didn’t say anything, but they seemed to already know about it, and that Bones would be there.” She looped the last of the rope around her arm and finally turned to face him. The sight of her injured face brought a surge of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he said, taking her by the hand and heading off at a trot down the path. “I’m worried about both of you. Now, let’s go find somebody for me to take out my anger on.”
“You really think this is going to work?” Saul whispered. They had dived into a nearby kiva and were now squirming their way through the passage that connected it to another kiva on the far side of the ruin-- closer to their car, and hopefully behind the guys with guns, whoever they were.
“It might if you’ll shut up,” Bones muttered. It galled him to possibly be leaving the artifact behind, but he felt that he had little choice. He might have done something bolder had Maddock been with him, but all he had was Saul, and the research assistant didn’t seem like someone to be counted on in a throw-down. Besides, this was the second narrow tunnel he’d had to squeeze himself through in the past week, and it was getting on his nerves.
His shoulders pressed against the edges. Bones was much too big for Anasazi architecture. Saul was a good-sized fellow in his own right though his bulk was spread around a little more evenly.
“Maybe they’re more concerned about the artifact and won’t notice us leave,” Saul whispered.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Bones whispered though he doubted the men would give up so easily. “Either way, I told you to shut up.”
Saul lapsed into sullen silence, broken only by the occasional grunt as he squeezed through a particularly narrow section of tunnel. They finally reached the end of the tunnel. Bones hoped Saul had enough sense to remain quiet while he checked things out. He peered out into the kiva, and along the rim as far as he could see. No one was there. He closed his eyes and let his ears take precedence as his grandfather had taught him when he was a boy. He heard a whisper of dry wind through stunted trees, but nothing else. This sparse southwestern wilderness was so different from the forests of North Carolina where he was raised. He heard no birds singing, no scrabbling of squirrels in the trees. No gentle rustle of a nearby stream. But most important, no voices or footfalls. Of course, they could be waiting out of sight for him to appear. He drew his Glock and sighed. He would have to take his chances.
“I hate these roads,” Maddock muttered as he whipped around another tight curve. There was no direct path to anywhere in Mesa Verde. All the roads twisted, turned, rose, and fell along with the land. And there were just enough tourists to make things maddeningly slow. He whipped around an RV and stepped on it, barely making it around before a mini-van, horn blaring, appeared from around the curve ahead of them.
“Maddock,” Jade groaned. “If you’re going to drive like this, I probably should have just let those guys kill me. Traffic accidents are so… messy.”
“Tell me about it once Bones is okay,” he said. He fished into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it open and glanced to see if he had a signal. He did!
“Maddock!” Jade shouted and grabbed at the wheel. “Keep your eyes on the road!” He had let the car veer precariously close to the edge of a steep-walled canyon.
“Sorry,” he said, this time keeping his vision focused in front of him as he punched up Bones’ number on speed dial.
Bones peered over the edge of the kiva. As he had hoped, the two men had made their way to the far side of the ruin, and now seemed more interested in the sun marker than they were in finding Bones and Saul. The gray-haired man knelt in front of the stone, while the redhead stood with his back to them, looking out across the canyon as if he believed his quarry had gone over the edge.
Bones leaned close to Saul, who had exited the tunnel and was hunched down beside him.
“They’re not looking,” Bones whispered. “We’ll crawl over to the other side of the kiva, and I’ll check again. If they still aren’t looking, we’ll slip over the wall and back to the cars as quickly as we can without making any sound. Got it?
Saul nodded, and together they crawled across the floor of the ancient kiva. When they reached the other side, Bones dared another look and was relieved to see that neither of the men was looking their way. He nodded to Saul, who quietly climbed out of the kiva and began crawling toward their car. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bones hoisted himself up and over the ledge.
Just as his cell phone rang.
He cursed under his breath and took off, bending at the waist to present a smaller target. Saul followed behind, moving faster than Bones would have believed him able.
Something buzzed past his cheek and smacked into a nearby stone, spraying his leg with shards of rock as the sound of a gunshot reached him. He zigzagged, then hurtled the wall that surrounded the site. Bullets continued to fly as they dashed through the stand of trees and burst into the small parking lot. Saul rushed up to their rented Aztek, but he had not seen what Bones had seen.
“Keep going! They’ve flattened our tires!” He drew his Glock and fired off two rounds in the general direction of their pursuers.
Rather than following the road, where their pursuers could easily overtake them in their own car, Bones cut through the forested area of pine and blue spruce that separated the circular parking area of Sun Temple from the Mesa Top Loop Road. There was no way that on foot they could beat these guys to Square Tower House and meet up with Maddock and Jade, but maybe he could raise them on the phone and meet them halfway, or at least get some much needed backup. His phone rang again, and he saw that it was Maddock on the other line.
“Maddock! Where are you?”
“Headed up the drive to Sun Temple. Are you all right? I tried to call you just a minute ago…”
“Yeah, and you almost got me killed. Thanks for that!” Maddock started to reply, but Bones cut him off. “Listen to me. The bad guys are at the Sun Temple. They’re either in their car coming your way or they’ll be chasing us through the woods on your right as you come to the loop.” A bullet trimmed a branch from a nearby tree. “Okay. That would be the latter.”
“Can you outrun these guys for a little longer? I’ll turn around and meet you on the loop road.”
“Can do,” Bones huffed. “I don’t know if Saul is going to make it, though. Gotta’ do what we gotta' do. See you there. And don’t call me back.” He snapped the phone closed, pocketed it, and grabbed Saul by the arm to hurry him along. “Saul, I need you to keep running pretty much straight ahead as fast as you can. Can you do that?” He kept talking as Saul nodded. “Weave around trees when you can, but don’t deviate too far from the direction we’re going. Maddock and Jade are going to meet us. I’ll catch up with you.”
The news that help was on the way seemed to give Saul renewed energy. He took off at a faster clip. Bones ducked behind the first thick tree he could find, dropped to the ground, and waited.
The guys were making no effort to be quiet. Their footfalls pounded on the hard, dry earth, and soon they came into sight. He waited for them to sprint past before coming out from behind the tree. Two of them, one of me. Gotta' make it count.
He took careful aim and fired.
The redhead went down, clutching at his hip. He wasn’t nearly dead, but he was out of the running, as it were. Bones immediately snapped off two more shots at the second guy, but the fellow was quick. At the sound of the first shot, he had veered to the left and dove behind a tree. Bones q
uickly ducked out of sight before the man could return fire.
Bullets struck the ground where Bones had just been standing. He fired a few rounds at the tree where the guy had ducked, and caught a glimpse of him scrambling away. He fired another shot and the man took off running in the opposite direction. Mission accomplished. Now for the next part of the plan.
Maddock whipped the car around the curve, keeping his eyes open for Bones and Saul. He caught a glimpse of something moving in the woods to his left, and then Saul staggered out onto the road. Maddock hit the brakes, the screech of rubber on pavement filling the air. He opened the door out, jumped out, and ran to help Saul, who leaned heavily on his shoulder as they headed back to the car.
“Where’s Bones?”
“Don’t…. know,” Saul gasped, opening the back door and half-falling inside. “Sent me ahead… Heard shots and somebody yell.”
“I’ve got to go back after him!” Maddock yelled, drawing his gun. “Jade, take the wheel and get out of here if anyone shows up.”
“Maddock, you can’t…”
Just then, a figure appeared at the edge of the woods. His casual clothes did not look nearly as sinister as the Taurus semi-automatic in his hand. He caught sight of Maddock and hesitated for a moment before raising his weapon. The brief pause gave Maddock the time he needed. He brought his Walther P-99 to bear and squeezed off two quick shots. The man reeled backward, firing blindly as he stumbled into the safety of the woods. Maddock dropped to a knee and kept his pistol trained on the spot where the man had vanished, but he did not reappear. He was debating whether or not to pursue him into the woods when the screech of tires caught his attention.
A black Pathfinder skidded to a halt next to their car, and a familiar face appeared in the window.
“Need a ride, pardner?” Bones shouted over the cacophony of heavy metal music he was cranking.
“Bones, what did you do?”
