by Alan Baxter
Rose took some time to admire an impressive replica of the grand staircase. Glossy wood swept down from either side to a final central descent, brass edges glittering on every step. A bronze statue of a toga-clad boy holding aloft a torch stood at the bottom. “Imagine it,” she said quietly as Crowley came to stand beside her. “Imagine the people, gliding up and down there. Imagine the dresses!”
He kept silent. Eventually they moved on.
In one display, visitors were invited to press their hand against a block of ice for as long as they could, in order to understand what the passengers felt when they plunged into the icy water.
“Challenge you?” Crowley said, with an impish grin.
Rose smirked. “Sure. Let’s see what you got, soldier boy.”
They counted to three, then each planted a palm flat to the ice. Both acquitted themselves well, but Rose finally gave up with a muttered curse, whipping her hand away and rubbing her palm vigorously against her leg to warm it up.
To prove a point, Crowley kept his hand there for several more seconds, smiling at her, before slowly removing it and wiping it gently on his jacket to dry it.
“What are you?” Rose asked, brow creased. “Some sort of Buddhist monk?”
He grinned. “Not exactly.”
Her frown deepened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He wiggled his fingers like a stage magician. “An enigma wrapped in a mystery, that’s me.”
She slapped his shoulder. “You’re a bellend, that’s what you are.”
They both laughed and Crowley was pleased the mood was genuinely lightened from the discomfort before. They were comfortable with each other, relaxed good friends, even if they might never be anything more. Much as Crowley wished there could be more, he was glad of the friendship and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it.
He pointed. “Check it out.”
The exhibit space was capped off with a large section of the Titanic’s hull. They entered the room, kept dark to recreate the night the ship went down, with only enough concealed lighting to allow them to see the artifact. It gave Crowley a chill to consider that night, April 14th, 1912, the sudden panic and alarm in the darkness.
As they admired it, Crowley noticed an employee standing in the corner, keeping an eye on things. He wondered how much the staff might know of the exhibit’s history. He saw no harm in asking.
He nudged Rose and they approached the employee.
“Hi there.”
The woman smiled. “Hello.” Her name badge said Janet.
“This is quite the exhibit here,” Crowley said.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Janet said. “One of those moments in history that almost everyone in the world knows something about. Everyone’s heard of it.”
“How much more do you know?” Crowley asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there are a lot of stories surrounding the main event, aren’t there? The cursed mummy story, for example. You heard about that one?”
Janet laughed softly. “I have, actually. That, in fact, is quite a story.”
Chapter 40
Titanic Exhibit, Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas
Rose and Crowley exchanged a glance and Crowley shrugged. Rose smiled, then turned back to Janet.
“Can you tell us about it?”
“I can. I really enjoy this story, in fact. It all starts with the Princess of Amen-Ra, who lived some 1,500 years before Christ. After she died, she was laid to rest in a deep vault at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile, in a beautiful wooden coffin. There she lay in peace for centuries, until, in the late 1890s, four young Englishmen, rich and self-important, visited the excavations at Luxor. They were offered an ornately fashioned mummy case. Of course, it contained the remains of the Princess of Amen-Ra.” Janet lowered her voice. Clearly she’d told this story often enough that she’d added theatrics to the retelling.
“The young men all wanted it and drew lots to see who might win the honor of the purchase. The one who did parted with several thousand pounds and had the coffin delivered to his hotel. A few hours later, he was spotted walking out into the desert and was never seen again.”
Crowley grinned. He loved tales like these, but never believed them as fact. “This is shaping up like a classic,” he said.
Janet smiled. “We’ve barely started. Of the three remaining young men, the ones unsuccessful in the purchase, one was accidentally shot by an Egyptian servant, his arm wounded so badly that it had to be amputated. The third man returned home to learn that the bank holding his entire wealth had collapsed, and the fourth suffered an illness so severe that he lost his job and was reduced to selling matches in the street.”
“That really is a litany of bad luck,” Rose said, unable to hide a half-smile. “You think this is all true?”
“Certainly,” Janet said. “But is it a curse or coincidence? Bad luck? I wouldn’t make a call on that.”
“But the coffin is still in Egypt at this point,” Crowley said.
“True, but it was owned by the man who disappeared into the desert and, somehow, eventually arrived in England. Apparently it caused other misfortunes on its way, but they’re not recorded. What is known is that it was subsequently bought by a London businessman. However, after three members of his family were injured in a road accident and his house nearly lost to fire, the businessman decided he believed the stories of its curse and donated it to the British Museum.”
Crowley laughed softly. “That’s not entirely altruistic!”
“Perhaps not. Especially as, according to the stories, as it was being unloaded in the museum courtyard, the truck mysteriously fell into reverse and trapped a passer-by. As two laborers were carrying the casket up the stairs, one fell and broke his leg. The other, until that point in perfect health, died two days later, for reasons unknown.”
“Okay,” Crowley said. “This body count is really racking up. Surely none of this can be true.”
Janet held up one finger, smiling. She clearly did enjoy this story. “It’s when the coffin containing the Princess was put on display in the Egyptian Room that things really got bad.”
“This isn’t all bad enough already?” Rose asked.
Janet began counting occurrences off on her fingers. “Night watchmen frequently heard hammering and sobbing from the coffin. Exhibits in the room were strewn about at night. One watchman died on duty. Others simply quit. The cleaning staff refused to go anywhere near the Princess. The final straw, apparently, was that a museum visitor threw a dust cloth at the face painted on the coffin, and then his child died of measles soon afterward.”
Crowley scoffed. “That’s the most tenuous connection yet! Surely that can’t be attributed to the Princess.”
Janet laughed. “Maybe not. But the museum authorities had had enough and the reputation of the curse was costing them business. They had the Princess of Amen-Ra taken to the basement where they decided it could do no further harm. But in less than a week, one of the people who moved her was seriously ill, and the man who supervised the transfer was found dead on his desk.
“This was all too good, of course, for gutter journalism to ignore. The papers had a field day. One photographer took a picture of the Princess’s coffin and the face on it came out in the photo as a hideous and distorted horror. The photographer, they say, went home, locked his bedroom door, and shot himself.”
“Oh man,” Crowley said, really beginning to enjoy things now. “I want to see the movie of this. Why isn’t there a Hammer House of Horror film about this story?”
“More to the point,” Rose said, “what does any of this have to do with the Titanic?”
Janet smiled. “Let me wrap this up. After the events I’ve relayed so far, the museum sold the mummy to a private collector. There were more deaths, more misfortune, and the new owner hid the thing in his attic. Enter Madame Helena Blavatsky, well-respected occultist. The private collector asked her to lift the curse and, on
entering the house, she immediately felt the evil presence and searched for its source. Without the owner’s help, she found her way to the attic. She informed the new owner that there’s really no such thing as an exorcism, that evil can’t be removed, and that he must get rid of the Princess and her casket.
“Of course, after all the brouhaha before, no British museum would touch it. Finally, the new owner found a brave and skeptical American archaeologist who paid well for the Princess of Amen-Ra and arranged for its delivery to New York. The American came along to England and prepared to accompany his prize home on a new White Star liner making its maiden voyage.”
“Let me guess,” Crowley said. “The RMS Titanic.”
“Indeed. And on April 14th, 1912, the Princess of Amen-Ra took her greatest toll yet, carrying 1,500 souls to their deaths in the icy depths.”
“And that was the end of the Princess, too, then,” Rose said. Crowley thought she sounded disappointed.
“Well,” Janet said. “That’s not the end of the tale. Some say the American collector managed to bribe the crew of the Titanic to put the mummy in a lifeboat, from where she was smuggled on board the Carpathia, the ship that picked up the survivors from Titanic. And that the Princess of Amen-Ra was safely delivered to New York.”
“She just doesn’t quit, does she?” Crowley said.
“Nope. And in America, she brought further tragedy to any who handled the coffin. So eventually she was shipped back to Europe on the Empress of Ireland. And guess what?”
“That ship sank too?” Rose ventured.
“It did. With the loss of 840 passengers. But somehow, the mummy was saved again. Now no one would hold her and she was quickly put aboard the Lusitania, headed back to Egypt.”
“And that one sank too?” Crowley asked.
Janet grinned. “Torpedoed by a German submarine. And no one knows what happened after that.”
Crowley clapped his hands together softly. “Well, I did enjoy that yarn. Thanks for sharing.”
Janet nodded good-naturedly. “My pleasure.”
“I know this is a silly question really,” Rose said. “But is there any truth to it? Any artifacts that might have been the source of the legend?”
“Well, there are so many problems with the story,” Janet said. “First among them that there was no Princess Amen-Ra. The men who are credited with concocting the legend probably got the idea from a display at the British Museum of the Priestess of Amen-Ra.”
“That’s what I was thinking while you told the tale,” Rose said. “I’ve seen that one; it’s still on display.”
“There is one other legend that links Egypt to the sinking of the Titanic, though. Supposedly, a group of passengers were enjoying drinks and cigars, when one, a spiritualist and self-described Egyptologist, began telling the story of a discovery he had made. A Book of the Dead containing a curse so foul that to speak it aloud meant certain death.”
Crowley and Rose exchanged a quick glance, something cold creeping through Crowley’s gut as he did so. Suddenly the good-natured exchange seemed to have a sinister undertone. He saw that Rose was thinking of the spell too, the one Lily was so keen to learn about. “Did the man say what the curse actually was?” Crowley asked.
“Well, according to the story, no one took it seriously and, after a few drinks, they persuaded him to recite the curse. That night, the ship sank, with only one of the group surviving to tell the tale. The survivor said that, as soon as the man uttered the curse, all the candles in the room went out, and the place went dark. An impenetrable darkness that turned the air foul and strangely thick. He immediately fled from the room, leaving the others behind.
“The Titanic went down as the man ran from the room and, though he survived, the others were never seen again. Did they go down with the ship or were they lost in that darkness? The survivor swore the words of the curse were burned into his memory, but he vowed never to recite them. And some people suggest that the curse which was spoken was taken from the coffin lid of the Princess of Amen-Ra. Or the Priestess, depending who you talk to.”
“An impenetrable darkness that turned the air foul and strangely thick,” Rose repeated quietly. She looked at Crowley and he nodded. Those words had disturbed him too, so similar to Shepherd’s yarn.
“It’s a great story,” he said, to lighten the mood.
“And it’s the second time this week someone has asked me about the legend,” Janet said.
Rose quickly dug in her bag and showed a picture of Lily. Janet leaned forward to see and said, “That’s her.” She looked more closely at Rose. “In the low light in here I hadn’t noticed the resemblance. You must be family.”
“She’s my sister,” Rose said.
“Well, I hope everything is okay.”
Rose smiled, a sad, small thing. “So do we. She’s missing.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Is there anything Lily said that might help us? Anything she might have mentioned to you?”
Janet pursed her lips in thought. “She asked about the lost city in the Grand Canyon but I wasn’t able to help her with that.”
“We’ve been following that lead already,” Rose said. “Thank you.”
“Although I remembered something about the lost city after she had gone,” Janet said. “It might not be helpful. But if you find Lily, tell her to look into a man named Seth Tanner.”
Chapter 41
Tanner Trail, near Grand Canyon Village
Rose enjoyed the sensation of workout she got from the rough trail. The hot sun beating down, the warm breeze blowing up from the canyon bed, all contributed to a feeling of action. Doing something positive at last, even if it may well prove fruitless. She shifted her backpack into a more comfortable position, heavy with trail rations, water, rope, a few other essentials. Crowley carried a similar load. The Tanner Trail was categorized as “primitive,” and received little maintenance by crews and few patrols by park rangers. That only made her appreciate it more; the remoteness and wildness suited her mood. It was recommended only for seasoned hikers, being steep, rocky, with little shade, and the only water source the Colorado River far down below. But she and Crowley were both seasoned outdoors people. She glanced across and saw a slight smile playing across Jake’s face. He was enjoying the exercise and fresh air, too.
“This started as an ancient Anasazi and Hopi route to the Colorado River,” Rose said. “It’s called the Tanner Trail now because Seth Tanner was a friend to the Navajo and Hopi, an explorer, guide, and prospector. He improved the trail so he would have better access to his copper mine. I read up about it last night once we decided this was the most likely next step.”
Crowley grinned. “Exactly why I didn’t read up about it.”
“What?”
“Because I knew you would, then you’d tell me about it.”
She punched his shoulder, pleased to elicit a wince. “You make me sound like a swot.”
“Well, you are a bit of a Hermione! But I enjoy the way you relate history, so it’s good.” He looked over, smiled reassuringly. “I mean it!”
“Do you realize you just made a pop culture reference?” Rose winked at him, then turned serious. “Anyway, most people think this trail, leading through Tanner Canyon, is where García López de Cárdenas became the first European to encounter the Grand Canyon.” She looked out over the vast expanse falling away below them, the striated rock walls, distant rounded cliffs and peaks. “Can you imagine being the first to see this?”
“I’m pretty excited being the… whatever I am. Four hundred fifty-ninth millionth or whatever.”
“True. Historians think Tanner Canyon was used as an old horse thief trail. The rustlers would bring the horses this way from Arizona into Utah, then change the brands on the horses en route. Then they’d cross the Colorado River and drive the horses out through the Nankoweap Trail up onto the North Rim. That’s why it used to be called Horsethief Canyon.”
Crow
ley laughed and Rose knew he was impressed with her recall again. She enjoyed showing it off, but especially for him. “Museum brain in action,” he said.
“You know it. But there’s a good treasure story attached to this place too.”
“Is there?”
Rose found herself breathing hard from talking and walking the rough trail. “Let’s break for a sip of water.”
“Sure.”
They sat against warm rocks, sipping sparingly from the canteens, looking out over the impressive expanse before them.
“Long Tom’s treasure,” Rose said. “It’s actually a terribly sad story. In 1910 ‘Long Tom’ Watson discovered papers in an abandoned cabin that he realized were written by outlaws. They described a hoard of stolen gold hidden in a cave behind a seasonal waterfall. A couple of years later, Watson began a search of the area. He found nothing and, after two years of searching, gave up in the spring of 1914.”
“That’s not much of a story,” Crowley said.
“So let me finish! He finally returned home along the Horse Thief Trail from Morgan Point, and along the way he spotted a waterfall. He hiked to it and found a cave behind, and in the cave he found a stash of gold nuggets!”
Crowley laughed. “Always the way. You look for something for ages and only when you finally give up do you find it. That’s not a sad story though. Sounds like a happy ending.”
“Well, it’s not ended. As Watson was leaving with his treasure, he slipped and fell, and broke his leg. He couldn’t carry anything and had to concentrate on getting out alive. He crawled to the nearby Buggelin Ranch. When he’d recovered from his injury, he tried to go back and get his gold, but couldn’t find the waterfall. He ended up committing suicide.”
