Текст книги "Thunderhead"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston,Lincoln Child
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“On the other side of the ridge,” Nora said, “I saw a star inside the moon, inside the sun. I’d never seen anything like it before.”

“Yes. The sun is the symbol for the supreme deity, the moon the symbol for the future, and the star a symbol of truth. I took the whole thing to be an indicator that an oracle, a kind of Anasazi Delphi, lay ahead.”

“You mean Quivira?” Nora asked.

Aragon nodded.

“And what does this spiral mean?” asked Holroyd.

Aragon hesitated a moment. “That spiral was added later. It’s reversed, of course.” His voice trailed off. “In the context of the other things we’ve seen, I’d call it a warning, or omen, laid on top of these earlier symbols. A notice to travelers not to proceed, an indication of evil.”

There was a sudden silence.

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” murmured Smithback.

“Obviously, there’s still a lot we don’t know,” Aragon said, the slightest trace of defensiveness in his voice. “Perhaps you, Mr. Smithback, with your no doubt profound knowledge of Anasazi witches and their modern-day descendants, the skinwalkers, can enlighten us further.”

The writer rolled his tongue around his cheek and raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

As they moved away, Holroyd gave a shout. He had walked around to the side of the rock nearest the entrance to the slot canyon. Now he pointed to a much fresher inscription, scraped into the rock with a penknife. As Nora stared at it, she felt her cheeks begin to burn. Still staring, she knelt beside the stone, fingers slowly tracing the narrow grooves that spelled out P.K. 1983.

23

AS NORA TOUCHED HER FATHER’S INITIALS on the rock, something inside her seemed to give way. A knot of tension, tightened over the harrowing days, loosened abruptly, and she leaned against the smooth surface of the rock, feeling an intense, overwhelming flood of relief. Her father hadbeen here. They had been following his trail all along. She realized dimly that the group was crowding around, congratulating her.

Slowly she rose to her feet. She gathered the expedition under a small grove of gambel oaks, near the point where the stream plunged into the slot canyon. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits except Swire, who silently moved off with the horses to a nearby patch of grass. Bonarotti was busy cleaning the dirty cookware in the stream

“We’re almost there,” she said. “According to our maps, this is the slot canyon we’ve been searching for. We should find the hidden canyon of Quivira at the far end.”

“Is it safe?” Black asked. “Looks pretty narrow to me.”

“I’ve kept my eyes on the canyon walls,” Sloane said. “There haven’t been any obvious trails that would lead up and over to the next valley. If we’re going on, this is the only way through.”

“It’s getting late,” Nora said. “The real question is, shall we unpack the horses and carry everything in now? Or shall we camp now and go in tomorrow?”

Black answered first. “I’d prefer not to carry any more equipment today, thank you, especially through that.” He gestured past the canebrake toward the narrow slot, which looked more like a fissure in the rock than a canyon.

Smithback sat back, fanning himself with a branch of oak leaves. “As long as you’re asking, I’d just as soon sit here with my feet in the stream and see what victuals Signore Bonarotti brings out of his magic box.”

The rest seemed to agree. Then Nora turned toward Sloane. In the woman’s eyes, she immediately saw the same eagerness that was kindling within her.

Sloane grinned her slow grin and nodded. “Feel up to it?” she asked.

Nora looked at the entrance to the slot canyon—barely more than a dark seam in the rock—and nodded. Then she turned once again toward the group.

“Sloane and I are going to reconnoiter,” she said, glancing at her watch. “We might not be able to get in and back before darkness, so it may turn out to be an overnight trip. Any objections?”

There were none. While the camp settled down to its routine, Nora loaded a sleeping bag and water pump into a backpack. Sloane did the same, adding a length of rope and some climbing equipment to hers. Bonarotti wordlessly pressed small, heavy packets of food into each of their hands.

Shouldering their packs, they waved goodbye and hiked down the stream. Past the grove of oaks, the rivulet burbled across a pebbled bed and entered the canebrake outside the mouth of the slot canyon. Much of the cane had been torn and shredded into a dense tangle, and there were several battered tree trunks and boulders lying about.

They pushed ahead into the cane, which rustled and crackled at their passage. Deerflies and no-see-ums danced and droned in the thick air. Nora led, waving them away with an impatient hand.

“Nora,” she heard Sloane say softly behind her, “look carefully to your right. Look, but don’t move.”

Nora followed Sloane’s glance toward a piece of cane perhaps eighteen inches away. A small gray rattlesnake was coiled tightly around it at about shoulder height.

“I hate to tell you, Nora, but you just elbowed this poor snake aside.” It was meant to sound lighthearted, but Sloane’s voice carried a small tremor.

Nora stared in horrified fascination. She could see the cane still swaying slightly from her passage. “Christ,” she whispered, her throat dry and constricted.

“Probably the only reason he didn’t strike was because it would have caused him to fall,” added Sloane. “ Sistrurus toxidius,the pigmy gray rattler. Second most poisonous rattlesnake in North America.”

Nora continued to stare at the snake, almost perfectly camouflaged by its surroundings. “I feel a little sick,” she said.

“Let me walk first.”

In no mood to argue, Nora stood by while Sloane went on ahead, gingerly picking her way through the broken cane, pausing every few steps to scrutinize her path.

She stopped suddenly. “There’s another one,” she pointed. The snake, disturbed, was swiftly gliding down a stalk ahead of them. It gave a sudden, chilling buzz before it disappeared into a tangle of brush.

“Too bad Bonarotti isn’t here,” said Sloane, moving ahead carefully. “He’d probably make a cassoulet out of them.” As she spoke, there was another buzz directly beneath her feet. She leapt backward with a shout, then gave the snake a wide berth.

A few more harrowing moments brought them to the far side of the canebrake. Here the mouth of the canyon opened before them, two scooped and polished stone walls about ten feet apart, with a bottom of smooth sand barely covered by slowly moving water.

“Jesus,” Nora said. “I’ve never seen so many rattlers in one place in my life.”

“Probably washed down by a flood,” said Sloane. “Now they’re wet, cold, and pissed.”

They continued down the creek into the slot canyon, splashing in the shallow water. The narrow walls quickly pressed in around them, leaving Nora with the uncomfortable feeling that she was along the bottom of a long, slender container. Eons of floods had sculpted the walls of the canyon into glossy hollows, ribs, pockets, and tubes. There were only occasional glimpses of sky, and they proceeded in a reddish half-light that filtered down from far above. With the high narrow walls of the slot canyon crowding out the sun, the air at its base felt surprisingly chilly. In places where water had scooped out a larger hollow, they encountered pools of loose quicksand. The best way to get past them, Nora found, was to start crawling through on her hands and knees and, when the quicksand at last gave way, to lie on her stomach and breaststroke, keeping her legs rigid and unmoving behind her. The pack, oddly enough, buoyed her, acting as a kind of float on her back.

“It’s going to be a wet night,” Sloane said, emerging from one of the pools.

As the canyon descended, the light grew dimmer. At one point, a huge cottonwood trunk, horribly scarred and mauled, had somehow become jammed in the canyon walls about twenty feet above their heads. Nearby, there was a narrow hollow in the rockface, above a small, stepped ledge.

“Must’ve been some storm that put that tree up there,” Sloane murmured, glancing upward at the trunk. “I’d sure hate to be caught in a flash flood in one of these canyons.”

“I’ve heard the first thing you feel is a rising wind,” Nora replied. “Then you hear a sound, echoing and distorted. Someone once told me it sounded almost like distant voices or applause. At that point, you get your butt out as fast as possible. If you’re still in the canyon by the time you hear the roar of water, it’s too late. You’re dead meat.”

Sloane broke out into her low, sultry laugh. “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Now you’ll have me climbing the walls every time I feel a breeze.”

As they walked on, the canyon narrowed still further and sloped downward in a series of pools, each filled with chocolate-colored water. Sometimes the water was only an inch deep, covering shivery quicksand; other times, it was over their heads. Each pool was connected to the next by a pitched slot so narrow they had to squeeze through it sideways, holding their packs. Above their heads, large boulders had jammed between the canyon walls, creating an eerie brown twilight.

After half an hour’s struggle, they came to a pourover above an especially long, narrow pool. Beyond, Nora could make out a faint glow. Taking the lead, she eased down into the pool and swam across toward a small boulder, wedged between the walls about six feet above the ground. A thick curtain of weeds and roots trailed from it, through which came a sheen of sunlight.

Nora crawled under the boulder and paused at the shaggy curtain, wringing the water from her wet hair. “It’s like the entrance to something magical,” Sloane said as she approached. “But what?”

Nora glanced at her for a moment. Then, placing her arms together, she pushed through the dense tangle.

Although not strong, the light of the late afternoon sun beyond seemed dazzling after their journey through the cramped, twisting canyon. As her eyes adjusted, Nora could see a small valley open up below them. The stream tumbled down a defile and spread out into a sandy creek along the valley floor. There was a narrow floodplain, covered with pounded boulders, repeatedly raked by flash floods. Cottonwoods lined the banks of the floodplain, their massive trunks scarred and hung with old flood debris. The creek had cut down through a layer of rock in the center of the valley, creating benchlands on either side that were also dotted with cottonwoods, scrub oak, rabbitbrush, and wildflowers.

The valley had an intimate feeling: it was only about four hundred yards long by two hundred yards wide, a jeweled pocket in the red sandstone. The mellow sunlight fell upon a riot of color: blooming Apache plumes, Indian paintbrush, scarlet gilia. Puffy cumulus clouds, tinged with the afternoon light, drifted across the narrow patch of sky above the clifftops.

After the long dark crawl through the slot canyon, arriving at this beautiful valley was like stumbling upon a lost world. Everything about it—its intimate size, its high surrounding walls, its incredible remoteness, the tremendous difficulties involved in attaining it—filled Nora with the sensation of discovering a hidden paradise. As she looked around, enraptured, a breeze began to come up. As the trees rustled, cotton fell from their catkins and drifted in the lazy air like brilliant motes of trapped light.

After a moment Nora glanced over at Sloane. The woman had a look of intense, suppressed excitement on her face; the amber eyes seemed to blaze as they darted about, scanning first the canyon floor, then its walls.

Light as a cat, Sloane moved silently down the shallow stream to the canyon floor. Nora lagged behind for a moment. Mingled with her awe of the beauty was a fresh certainty: this was the valley her father had discovered. And with this certainty came another thought, awful in its suddenness. Was the place terrible as well as beautiful? Would she find her father’s remains somewhere down there on the canyon floor, or hidden among the ledges above?

But as quickly as it had come, the feeling dissipated. Somebody had found and mailed his letter. That in itself was a mystery, which gnawed at her constantly. But at least it meant that, wherever her father’s bones lay, they probably lay somewhere else, closer to civilization. Still, it was several moments before she followed Sloane to the flat sandy benchland, girded with rocks, well above the flash flood zone. A small grove of cottonwoods provided shade.

“How’s this for a campsite?” Sloane asked, dropping her pack.

“Couldn’t be more perfect,” Nora replied. She unshouldered her own pack, pulled out her soggy sleeping bag, shook it out, and draped it over a bush.

Then her eyes turned ineluctably back toward the towering cliffs that surrounded them on four sides. Pulling the waterproof binoculars from her pack, she began scanning the rock faces. The sandstone cliffs rose in steplike fashion from the canyon floor: sheer pitches, interrupted by benchlands of softer strata that had eroded back to form flat areas. Near the far end of the valley, a large rockfall had dropped a pitched tangle of house-sized boulders that lay in a precarious jumble against the cliff face. But the rockfall led up to nothing; and there was no sign in the valley of a trail, a ruin, anything.

She shook off the sudden cold feeling in her gut, reminding herself that if the ruined city was obvious, it would have been found. Any caves or alcoves formed in those benches above could not be seen from below. It was precisely the kind of spot favored by the Anasazi.

Her father, however, hadseen a clear hand-and-toe trail. Her eyes again swept the lower rock faces, searching for the telltale signs of a trail. She saw nothing but smooth faces of red sandstone.

Nora glanced around for Sloane. The woman had already abandoned her scrutiny of the walls and was walking along the base of the cliffs, peering intently at the ground. Looking for potsherds or flint chips,Nora thought approvingly: always a good way to locate a hidden ruin above. Every fifty feet, Sloane would stop and squint up the cliff faces at an oblique angle, looking for the telltale shallow notches that would signify a trail.

Nora shoved her binoculars into her damp jeans and walked along the cutbanks and rock shelves above the stream, examining the soil profile for any cultural evidence. She knew they should be using the last of the light to build a fire and prepare dinner. But, like Sloane, she felt compelled to keep searching.

It was the work of ten minutes to reach the opposite side of the valley. Here, the stream disappeared into another slot canyon, much narrower even than the one they had crawled through. Narrow stone benches crawled up the red walls on either side, and from the gorge below came the sound of falling water. Carefully, she crept up to its edge. Water fell from the valley in a long stream. A plume of mist rose from where it struck the rocks below, filling the end of the canyon with a watery veil she could barely see through. A small microclimate had developed, and the rocks were thickly covered with moss and ferns. She knew from the maps, though, that the stream ran on through a series of descending waterfalls and pools, each separated by twenty or thirty feet of overhanging rock. It would be impossible to descend without a highly technical climb, and in any case at its bottom the slot seemed too narrow to admit a human being. But there would be no point even in trying: as the maps indicated, the stream ran in this impassable fashion for sixteen miles, until it spilled off the North Rim of Marble Gorge and dropped a thousand feet to the Colorado River. Anyone caught in a flash flood and pushed into this canyon would emerge at the Colorado just so much ground beef.

She moved on, pausing at the large rockfall. It was cool in the shadow of the cliffs, and she shivered slightly. The rockfall, with its dark holes and hidden spaces between the huge boulders, looked like a lair of ghosts. It appeared too unstable to climb. And, in any case, the cliff face behind it was sheer and unmarked by toeholds.

She worked her way back up the other side of the creek and encountered Sloane, who had finished her own survey. The almond eyes had lost some of their brilliance.

“Any luck?” Nora asked.

Sloane shook her head. “I’m having trouble believing there was a city here. I haven’t found anything.”

For once, the trademark smile was missing, and she seemed agitated, almost angry. This city is as important to her as it is to me,Nora thought.

“The Anasazi never built a road to nowhere,” Nora replied. “There’s gotto be something here.”

“Perhaps,” Sloane said slowly, peering again at the cliff faces surrounding them. “But if I hadn’t seen those radar images and the hogback ridge, I’d have a hard time believing we’ve been following any sort of road at all the last two days.”

The sun had now dipped low enough to bring creeping shadows across the valley floor. “Look, Sloane,” Nora said. “We haven’t even begun to examine this valley. We’ll spend tomorrow morning making a careful survey. And if we still don’t find anything, we’ll bring the proton magnetometer in and scan for structures beneath the sand.”

Sloane was still looking intently up at the cliffs, as if demanding they give up their secrets. Then she looked at Nora, and gave a slow smile. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Let’s get a fire going and see if we can dry out these bags.”

After she had scooped out a shallow firepit and built a ring of stones, Nora sat by the fire and changed the damp bandages on her fingers. The sleeping bags began to steam slightly in the heat.

“What do you suppose Bonarotti put in those care packages?” Sloane asked as she piled more logs on the fire.

“Let’s find out.” Nora retrieved a pot from her daypack, then grabbed the small packet Bonarotti had thrust into her hand. She unwrapped it curiously. Inside were two Ziploc bags, still dry, one containing what looked like tiny pasta and the other a mix of herbs. ADD TO BOILING WATER AND COOK SEVEN MINUTES was written on the first bag in black Magic Marker; REMOVE FROM HEAT, DRAIN, ADD THIS MIXTURE was written on the second.

Ten minutes later, they pulled the simmering mixture from the fire, drained off the water, and added the second packet. Instantly, a wonderful aroma rose from the pot.

“Couscous with savory herbs,” Sloane whispered. “Isn’t Bonarotti a prince?”

From the couscous, they moved on to Sloane’s dish—lentils with sun-dried vegetables in a curried beef broth—then cleared away the dishes. Nora shook her bag out and laid it in the soft sand, close to the fire. Then, stripping off most of her wet clothes, she climbed in and lay back, breathing the clean air of the canyon, gazing at the dome of stars overhead. Despite the words of encouragement she’d given Sloane—despite the remarkable meal—Nora couldn’t entirely escape a private fear of her own.

“So what’ll we find tomorrow, Nora?” Sloane’s husky voice, surprisingly close in the near darkness, echoed her own thoughts.

Nora sat up on one shoulder and glanced over. Sloane was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag, combing her hair. Her jeans were drying on a nearby limb, and an oversized shirt spilled across her bare knees. The flickering light threw her wide cheekbones into sharp relief, giving her beautiful face a mysterious, exotic look.

“I don’t know,” Nora replied. “What do you think we’ll find?”

“Quivira,” came the reply, almost whispered.

“You didn’t seem so sure an hour ago.”

Sloane shrugged. “Oh, it’ll be here,” she said. “My father is never wrong.”

The woman’s face wore its trademark lazy smile, but something in her voice told Nora it wasn’t entirely a joke.

“So tell me about yourfather,” Sloane went on.

Nora took a long breath. “Well, the truth is, from the outside he was a traditional Irish screwup. He drank too much. He always had schemes and plans. He hated real work. But you know what?” She looked up at Sloane. “He was the best father anyone could have had. He loved us. He told us he loved us ten times a day. It was the first thing he said to us in the morning and the last thing at night. He was the kindest person I ever knew. He took us on almost all of his adventures. We went everywhere with him, looking for lost ruins, digging for treasure, scouring old battlegrounds with metal detectors. Nowadays, the archaeologist in me is horrified at what we used to do. We packed horses into the Superstition Mountains trying to find the Lost Dutchman Mine, we spent a summer in the Gila Wilderness looking for the Adams diggings—that sort of thing. I’m amazed we survived. My mother couldn’t stand it, and she eventually took steps to divorce him. As a way to win her back, he went off to discover Quivira. And we never heard from him again—until this old letter arrived. But he’s the reason I became an archaeologist.”

“You think he could still be alive?”

“No,” said Nora. “That’s out of the question. He would never have abandoned us like that.”

She breathed the fragrant night air as silence settled into the canyon. “You have a pretty remarkable father yourself,” she went on at last.

A thin trace of light suddenly lanced across the dark sky. “Shooting star,” Sloane said. She was silent for a moment. “You said the same thing, back on the trail. I suppose it’s true. He is a remarkable father. And he expects me to be an even more remarkable daughter.”

“How so?”

Sloane continued to stare at the sky. “I guess you could say he’s one of those fathers who holds his child to an almost impossible standard. I was always made to perform, to measure up. I was only allowed to bring home friends who could carry on an intellectual discussion at the dinner table. But nothing I did was ever good enough, and even now he doesn’t trust me to succeed.”

She shook her head. “I still remember when I was in seventh grade, my piano teacher made all us students attend a recital. I’d worked up this really difficult Bach three-part invention, and I was very proud of myself. But the teacher had this other student, Ursula Rein, who was a true prodigy. She’s teaching at Juilliard now. Anyway, she played right before me, and did this Chopin waltz at about twice normal speed.” Her face hardened. “When my father heard that, he made me get up and leave with him. I was so angry, so embarrassed. I’d practiced for so long, and I thought he’d be proud of me. . . . Oh, he made up some excuse, said his stomach was bothering him or something. But I knew the real reason was he couldn’t stand for me to come in second.” She laughed. “I’m still amazed he wanted me on this expedition.”

Nora could hear the bitter undertone in the laugh. “It doesn’t seem to have hurt you,” she replied.

“Because I don’t let it hurt me,” she said, looking at Nora with a defiant flip of her hair.

Nora realized Sloane might have taken the comment the wrong way. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant, you’re—”

“And you know what?” Sloane interrupted, as if she hadn’t heard. “I don’t ever remember myfather telling me he loved me.”

She looked away. Nora, unsure how to answer, decided to change the subject. “I’ve been curious. You’ve got the money, looks, and talent to be anything. So why are you an archaeologist?”

Sloane turned back to her, the grin returning. “Why? Are archaeologists supposed to be poor, ugly, and dumb?”

“Of course not.”

Sloane gave a low laugh. “It’s the family business, isn’t it? The Rothschilds are bankers, the Kennedys are politicians, the Goddards are archaeologists. I’m his only child. He raised me to be an archaeologist and I wasn’t strong enough to deny him.”

The father again,Nora thought. She looked into Sloane’s face. “Don’t you like archaeology?”

“I loveit,” came the reply, a brief note of passion sounding in the rich contralto. “I never stop thinking about the precious things and the secrets that lie hidden beneath the soil. They’re waiting to teach us something, if only we’re smart enough to find them. But I’ll never be a good enough archaeologist to satisfy him.” She paused a moment, then spoke more briskly. “It’s funny, Nora, but if I find Quivira, you know who’s going to be remembered? You know who’s going to go down in the history books like Wetherill and Earl Morris? Not me. Him.” She punctuated this with a short, harsh laugh. “Isn’t that ironic?”

Nora could not find an answer to this.

Sloane uncrossed her legs and lay down atop her sleeping bag. She sighed, teased her hair back with one finger. “Seeing anyone?”

Nora paused to consider this abrupt change of subject. “Not really,” she replied. “And you? Are you dating someone?”

“Not anybody I wouldn’t drop in a second if the right person came along.” Sloane was silent for a moment, as if thinking about something. “So what do you think of the men in this group of ours? You know, as men.”

Nora hesitated again, not feeling entirely comfortable talking like this about people she was leading. But the steamy warmth of the sleeping bag, and the brightness of the stars, somehow conspiratorial in their proximity, relaxed her defenses. “I hadn’t really thought about them as, you know, potential dating material.”

Sloane gave a low laugh. “Well, I have. I’d pegged you for Smithback.”

Nora sat up. “Smithback?” she cried. “He’s insufferable.”

“He’s in a position to do a lot for your career if this all works out. Funny, too, if you like your humor dry as a martini. He’s led a pretty interesting life these last couple of years. Did you ever read that book of his, about the New York museum murders?”

“He gave me a copy. I haven’t really looked at it.”

“It’s a hell of a read. And the guy’s not bad looking, either, in a citified sort of way.”

Nora shook her head. “He’s about as full of himself as they come.”

“Maybe. But I think part of that is just facade. The guy can take it as well as dish it out.” She paused. “And something about that mouth tells me he’s a great kisser.”

“If you find out, let me know.” Nora glanced at Sloane. “Got your eyes on anybody?”

By way of answering, Sloane fanned herself absently. “Black,” she said at last.

It took a moment for Nora to digest this. “What?” she asked.

“If I had to choose somebody, I’d choose Black.”

Nora shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Oh, I know he can be obnoxious. He’s terrified of being away from civilization. But you wait. When we find Quivira, he’ll come into his own. It’s easy to forget out here in the middle of nowhere that he’s one of the most prominent archaeologists in the country. With good reason. Talk about someone who could do a lot for a career.” She laughed. “And look at that big-boned frame of his. I’ll bet he’s hung like a fire hydrant.”

And with that she stood up, letting the shirt slide off her arms and fall away to the ground. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said. “I’m going down to the stream to cool off.”

Nora leaned back. As if at a distance, she heard Sloane down at the stream, splashing softly. In a few moments she returned, her sleek body glistening in the moonlight. She slid noiselessly into her sleeping bag. “Sweet dreams, Nora Kelly,” she murmured.

Then she turned away, and within moments, Nora could hear her breathing, regular and serene. But Nora lay still, eyes open to the stars, for a long time.

24

NORA AWOKE WITH A START. SHE HAD slept so deeply, so heavily, that for a moment she did not know where she was. She sat up in panic. Dawn light was just bloodying the rimrock above her head. A throbbing at the ends of her bandaged fingers quickly brought back the memories of the previous day: the terrible struggle on the hogback ridge; the discovery of the slot canyon and this hidden valley beyond; the lack of any signs of a ruin. She looked around. The sleeping bag beside her was empty.

She rose, sore muscles protesting, and stirred the ashes of the fire. Cutting some dry grass and folding it into a packet, she shoved it in the coals. A thread of smoke came up, then the grass burst into flame. She quickly added sticks. Rummaging in her pack, she filled a tiny two-cup espresso pot with grounds and water, put it on the fire, then went down to the creek to wash. When she returned, the pot was hissing. She poured herself a cup just as Sloane walked up. The perpetual smile was gone.

“Have some coffee,” Nora said.

Sloane took the proffered cup and sat down beside her. They sipped in silence as the sun crept down the canyon walls.

“There’s nothing here, Nora,” Sloane said at last. “I just spent the last hour going over this place inch by inch. Your pal Holroyd can scan this ground with the magnetometer, but I’ve never seen a ruin under the sand or in a cliff that didn’t leave sometrace on the surface. I haven’t found one potsherd or flint chip.”

Nora set down her coffee. “I don’t believe it.”

Sloane shrugged. “Take a look for yourself.”

“I will.”

Nora walked to the base of the cliffs and began making a clockwise circuit of the valley. She could see the welter of footprints where Sloane had scoured the ground for artifacts. Nora, instead, took out her binoculars and systematically searched the cliffs, setbacks, and rimrock above her. Every twenty steps she stopped and searched again. The morning invasion of light into the valley continued, each minute creating fresh angles and shadows on the rock. At each pause she forced her eyes across the same rock faces, from different angles, straining to recognize something—a toehold, a shaped building block, a faded petroglyph, anythingthat indicated human occupation. After completing the circuit, she then crossed the valley from north to south and from east to west, heedlessly wading through the stream again and again, peering up at the walls, trying to get every possible view of the towering cliffs above.

Ninety minutes later she came back into camp, wet and tired. She sat down beside Sloane, saying nothing. Sloane was also silent, her head bowed, staring into the sand, idly tracing a circle with a stick.

She thought about her father, and all the terrible things her mother had said about him over the years. Was it possible that she could have been right all this time? Washe untrustworthy and unreliable—just a fantasist, after all?