by Alan Baxter
“Jakey-boy,” Cameron said. “Everything okay with you guys?”
“Yeah, pretty much okay but we could really do with some good news from you. We’re in a cul-de-sac right here.”
“Well, I’m still working on possible locations for the entrance to this lost city of yours. There are just so many variables. We have no way of knowing which details are authentic and which are false. Right now I could give you at least a dozen locations scattered over various sections of the canyon.”
“The Grand Canyon is a good 450 kilometers long,” Crowley said.
“Right. So you see the problem. However, this Seth Tanner fellow is interesting.”
Crowley let out a sound of frustration. “We tried the Tanner Trail today. Amazing, breathtaking. But a complete dead end.”
“Hmmm. Well, I think there’s maybe more there,” Cameron said. “I’d really like to find out what Tanner knew that led the natives to blind him.”
Crowley sat up from his slump in the couch, suddenly interested. “Wait, what?”
“You didn’t know that?” Cameron said, clearly surprised. “Then again, it’s not something you’d find in a Wikipedia entry.”
“Hey,” Crowley said, choosing not to ignore the insult to his research efforts. “Sit on something and swivel!”
“Well, if you don’t want to know…”
Crowley laughed. “Of course I do. Spill it.” Rose leaned forward, gave Crowley a questioning look. He smiled. “Hang on, old Cam might have got a lead for us. Go on, mate.”
“Okay. Well, late in his life, Tanner went exploring in a remote part of the Grand Canyon. Apparently, he stumbled across a place that he shouldn’t have been.”
“What kind of place?”
“That’s just it!” Cameron’s frustration was clear in his tone. “I’m not sure, but it’s a safe bet that whatever it was, it was either sacred, dangerous, or both. So much so that the Hopi blinded Tanner so he’d never be able to find his way back, or lead anyone there. And what’s more, they threatened to cut out his tongue if he ever told anyone. That’s got to be something worth us finding out about, right?”
Crowley thought about it. Sacred and deadly certainly could describe the Egyptian city, should the thing really exist. And they had to operate on the assumption that it did. But how did any of this help, without knowing more? “So did he take the story to his grave?” he asked.
“Not that I’ve found so far,” Cameron said. “That’s not to say he didn’t, but a copy of his journal turned up a few years ago. It’s now in the collection of the Pioneer Museum in Flagstaff. It appears no one has found it important enough to report on its contents, much less digitize it and put it online.”
“If he was blind, he’d have had a hard time writing in a journal,” Crowley said.
“But he could have dictated to someone else, if he did manage to keep his tongue. I’m just saying it would be worth a look.”
Crowley had to agree with Cameron there.
“If there are any hints in there about where he went,” Cameron said, “I might be able to use those to make sense of the lost city clues I’ve found so far. Maybe determine which are false trails and which might be worth your time following up. “
“We might as well take a look,” Crowley agreed. “We’ve nothing better to do at the moment.”
“Do I detect a note of judgment in your voice?” Cameron joked.
“Frustration, mate, that’s all.”
Cameron’s voice grew serious. “Don’t get complacent, Crowley.”
“Like I ever do!”
“I’m not kidding. Let’s not forget what happened in Denver. Your false identity has kept you off their radar for the moment, but if the lost city is truly what they’re after, you’re bound to encounter them sooner or later. They won’t be leaving this alone or dragging their feet. And I guarantee you, if they’re willing to kill over it, this is about more than some antiquities.”
A sense of dread crept over Crowley. “In other words,” he said, “don’t sit around waiting.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You’re right. Thanks, mate. Leave it with us. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Be careful!”
“We will.” Crowley hung up the phone and stood decisively.
“What did you learn?” Rose asked.
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
She frowned. “On the way where? Where are we going?”
Crowley grinned, took her hand to pull her up. “To steal something.”
Chapter 44
Pioneer Museum, Flagstaff
It was dark as they pulled up the rental car a couple of hundred meters from the Pioneer Museum. Rose sat in the driver’s seat, left the engine running.
“You’re sure about this?”
Crowley was sure, and a bit excited to be doing something proactive again. “Piece of cake. I’ll be ten minutes tops.”
He slipped from the car, pulled the hood of his dark gray sweat top up, and hurried away in the night. Darkness fell as Rose killed the car’s headlights, but he heard the engine continue to purr. By the thin light of a sliver of moon, he made his way along to the Pioneer Museum. It was a small, two-story building of pale pumiceous dacite stone which, according to Rose, had been harvested from an explosive eruption of Mount Elden about half a million years before. The building had several tall narrow windows on each level, a high porch in the center of one long side and a steep tan A-frame roof. The building was used as a hospital until 1938, servicing the county that used to be called Poor Farm.
The place was far from impressive, and not well guarded, both of which worked in Crowley’s favor. But, though no one seemed to be about, he remained on high alert. Cameron’s reminder that dangerous people might be on the same trail as he and Rose was fresh in his mind, making him nervous. After the frightening events at Denver airport, he had not really thought too hard about where those people might be, but that could prove to be a fatal mistake. They had tracked him and Rose once and would almost certainly be attempting to do the same again. And Crowley wasn’t too arrogant to think that he and Rose had learned anything those people couldn’t. It wasn’t so much a case of if they caught up again, as when.
Not wanting to use a flashlight and draw attention to himself, he waited in the shadows, letting his night vision take over. He stared at the small, unassuming building, wondering where he might need to look. Once he felt that his vision was as good as it was going to get in the dark night, he crept around the back. He soon found a back door and spotted the simple alarm system. He moved along the wall, staying in deep shadow, to get a closer look at the tall, white-framed windows. He smiled. As he had suspected, none were alarmed. After all, this wasn’t the sort of museum that had a collection of valuable antiquities. It was a local interest place, the value in the history it recorded, not the items it held.
He pursed his lips, looked from the door to the windows. He could disable the alarm if necessary, but what if security was genuinely lax? He tried the back windows one after another and, after two disappointments, the third one rattled in its frame. It wasn’t latched. He pushed it, but though it shook, it didn’t budge. He spread his feet, braced himself, and got a better position with the heels of his hands against the top of the lower sash. He pushed again and this time it shifted up quickly, releasing a shrill squeal that shattered the silence. Crowley winced, ducked involuntarily against the sound. After a moment, he looked around, but still there was no one in sight, no other sounds but night birds.
He clambered in, leaving the sash up. No need to make added noise or slow himself down should he need to leave in a hurry. He stood in a dim room and looked around. As expected, no fancy security system, motion detectors, or even cameras. Security exit lights gave off a dull glow that allowed him to easily find his way without a flashlight.
He began a quick but thorough exploration of the first floor. Glass cases, glass-topped tables, bookshelves heavin
g with the small minutiae of life in the region for the past couple of hundred years. There were some period dressed manikins, each with small placards talking about life in the pioneer days. None of it was about Seth Tanner, so none of it held his attention.
He made his way upstairs to continue looking on the second floor, wincing at the creak of the wooden steps. His search of the web on the drive here hadn’t turned up a single mention of the journal, much less where in the museum it might be found. Not for the first time, Crowley was impressed by Cameron’s skills at turning up something most people didn’t know existed. He really needed to find a way to properly thank his old pal. Sure, Cameron enjoyed the distraction, but he deserved something more solid by way of recompense. Crowley decided that maybe when all this was over he would shell out for a fine bottle of single malt scotch and go to visit his friend, maybe treat him to a fancy Indian meal too. Cameron liked a good, hot curry.
Crowley looked around the second floor, which wasn’t much different to the first. What if the journal wasn’t on display at all? Perhaps it was stowed away with other sundry bits and pieces, waiting to be rotated out at some point in the future. Or maybe it wasn’t deemed interesting enough to be put out at all. It could be buried in some back office somewhere. Or worse. Did this museum have a basement? What if he’d come all this way only to fail?
His concerns were allayed, however, when he spotted a simple exhibit devoted entirely to Seth Tanner. There were a few black and white photos, one showing Tanner in his middle years, the others as an old man. Even with the dim security lights, it was too gloomy to see any real detail. Crowley clicked on the small flashlight he had brought, cupping the light with one hand to shield its glow. In one photograph, the elderly Tanner stared back at the camera through milky orbs, clearly blind. Crowley was mesmerized by the image. The old man sat with his hands resting on his thighs, barely bent by age. He had a lined forehead, bald to the top of his head, but his hair thick and collar length from the top and down the back. He had a thick, white beard, and an intense expression despite the obvious blindness. He stared, unseeing, directly at the camera, his presence strongly disquieting for no particular reason Crowley could define. He winced at the thought of what the natives had done to the old man, and why. How had they blinded him?
When Cameron had told the story, Crowley had imagined something somehow brutal, like they had put his eyes out with knives or arrows. He chided himself for the unfair stereotype of barbarism. Those white, haunting eyes filled Crowley with a dread he didn’t care to dwell on, nor did he want to dwell on how the blindness had been effected.
He took a step back and shone his light across the exhibit. A brief bio of the explorer, a map of the Tanner trail, and a glass case containing some personal effects. He moved to the case to look more closely. A hand-held pickaxe, a compass, and a journal book. He grinned. That had to be it.
He cursed when he realized he’d left his lockpicking tools in his messenger bag in the car with Rose. He didn’t want to push his luck going back for them now. He looked around and found a small toolkit stashed in one corner, a half repaired chair upside down beside it. He rummaged in the toolkit and came up with a flat-ended screwdriver. It would have to do. He slipped on gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints and began prying carefully at the display case just above the small lock. He worked at it for several seconds, wincing as the wood cracked and split, but managed to pop open the lid without leaving too much obvious damage on the outside of the cabinet.
He took the journal and gave it a quick scan. Lots of hand-written notes and drawings. He pocketed the small leather bound book, then looked down at the open display case. Inspiration dawned. He hurried down the hall to an office he had passed on the way along this level. Through the open door, he’d spotted a shelf sagging from the weight of too many books, some of them quite old. Hurriedly, he chose an old, leather volume roughly the size of Tanner’s journal and took it back, put it inside the glass case. He figured it wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, and the broken lock would be a dead giveaway if it was discovered, but it would pass casual observation. He pressed the lid back down and the wood sat quite neatly thanks to his careful work with the screwdriver earlier. It might go unnoticed for a little while, and that would be good enough.
He headed back to the stairs, then froze at the top of them. From below came the sound of someone moving around. Someone clearly trying to be quiet. The screwdriver was his only weapon. He drew it, held it in a downward grip, and retreated to the other side of the banister at the top of the stairs. He crouched and hid in velvet shadows.
After a moment the silhouette of the figure came into view through the balusters, carefully mounted the first step, and began to slowly ascend. Crowley tensed, ready to spring. And then relaxed.
“Rose, what are you doing here?”
She let out a soft “Oh!” of surprise and jumped, nearly fell back down the stairs. “I didn’t even see you. Or hear a thing.”
“I’ve got experience at not being seen or heard when I don’t want to be. But what are you doing here? I was just heading back.”
“You’ve got it?”
“Yes. Will you answer the question! Do I need to be concerned?”
Rose joined him at the top of the stairs and he stood to meet her eye.
“A car drove past where I was parked, one of those freelance security firms. The driver gave me a long look as he drove past, really slowly. So I thought I’d better move on.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Crowley admitted. “But why are you here?”
“Well, you needed to know where I parked. I didn’t want to risk calling or texting you. What if your phone vibrated at the wrong time?”
Crowley sighed. He supposed that was a good point. “Fair enough. Anyway, I’ve got the journal so let’s get out of here.”
They hurried back down the stairs and Rose headed for the window he had opened. He was pleased she’d had the foresight to look for that and follow him in. She might not have been moving quite as stealthily as he could, but she was smart and came at these things the right way. He had to give her credit, she could become a formidable operative with the right training. She was already super fit and could kick serious butt.
They gave each other a quick smile and Rose went ahead of him, climbing out of the window. As she dropped cat-like to the soft ground there was another sound outside and Crowley froze. A dark shape emerged from the shadow of a nearby tree.
“Stop right there.”
Chapter 45
Pioneer Museum, Flagstaff
“Put your hands up where I can see them.”
Rose raised her hands slowly, palms out. “It’s okay, I’m not armed.”
Crowley quickly, silently, moved into the deep shadow under the window sill. Their only advantage would be if this guy thought Rose was alone. Thankfully, she hadn’t glanced back when challenged, and Crowley credited her smarts again. She worked well under pressure. He carefully peeked over the white wooden sill.
Rose stood with her hands in the air as a man with a flashlight approached. Crowley tensed, his thoughts going immediately to American policemen and their Wild West, shoot first mentality. He let out a sigh of relief when a quick glance reassured him this was no police officer. The man wore khakis and a t-shirt that read BECK SECURITY. His paunch hung over his belt and his knees were close together, aging ankles pronating in. He had to be a least fifty and in pretty poor shape. The guy would be hard-pressed to run more than twenty meters at Crowley’s estimation. A pepper spray sat in a holster on his belt, but no gun. He held a radio in his free hand as he roved the flashlight up and down Rose. Crowley ground his teeth as the man leered and slowly looked her up and down again. This would be no problem though.
“Run!” Crowley whispered, softly enough that only Rose would hear.
She didn’t hesitate, took off away from the startled security guard. The overweight man froze a moment in surprise, then yelled for her to stop. A second later h
e lumbered after her. Crowley gathered himself, tensed. As the guard passed the window, Crowley jumped out and tackled him quickly to the ground. The guard squealed like a stuck pig, thrashing randomly, as Crowley slipped around behind him and locked him in a chokehold. The man coughed and gagged twice, tried gamely to drive his elbow back into Crowley’s ribs. A glancing blow made Crowley wince and he shifted position, locked his legs around the man’s hip and straightened his knees a little. The guard stretched out flat, his back arching against Crowley’s chest. Crowley got a better position with his arm under the guard’s chin and secured his free hand behind. He tightened the elbow across the guy’s throat and the guard’s struggling quickly weakened and in a few more seconds he fell limp, unconscious.
Crowley crawled out from the under the man’s bulk. “Sleep tight!” he said, as the guard stirred restlessly, and ran. He caught up with Rose as she slowed ahead of him. Their car was parked in shadow just another twenty meters away.
“Let’s book!” Crowley said. “I’ll drive.”
Rose flipped him the keys and in seconds they were away.
As Crowley drove, slowing to legal speeds once he hit the highway, he handed Rose the journal.
“What have we got?” he asked. “Let’s hope it’s worth it.”
Rose used her small flashlight to see and thumbed through. “Mostly boring stuff, to be honest. Man, his handwriting was pretty poor. There’s talk about landmarks, some rough maps, cryptic notes about spots where he might dig. By the phrasing I think he’s making notes he can decipher but that anyone else wouldn’t understand.”
“Maybe scared someone would find the journal and beat him to some good mining.”
“I guess.”
“Maybe flip to the back,” Crowley suggested. “Unless Tanner dictated to someone else, he probably didn’t do much writing after the natives blinded him. Let’s see what happened right before that.”
“Good point.” Rose turned to the back, flipped backward through some blank pages. “He’s less careful here, some maps and sketches.” Then she gasped. “Wow!”
