PROLOGUE

K'aalógii held her mother’s hand as they wound their way through the darkened passageway leading out of the remote mountain stronghold. She climbed the hand-carved steps that rose to the forest floor with her head held high, knowing—and accepting—that it would be her last time. 

Her name, which meant butterfly, had been a gift from her father. He had always said that when she was born he’d felt such joy that he could have stepped into air from the cliff-dwelling and flown like a butterfly. The happiest day of his life, he had told her many times.  

K’aalógii felt proud that she’d brought her father joy. Her people had experienced little joy during her lifetime. Now that her father was gone, she had dedicated herself to living by his warrior code, acting with honor and bravery, even during these times of terror.

K’aalógii wondered whether her father might be watching her from the ancestral lands, the Navajo place of origin to which all dead returned. If so, she knew he’d be both proud of and terrified for his daughter, for she had chosen to face “them” with a courageous heart and sharp spear. 

Some said they were demons with long fangs and glowing red eyes, wings like an eagle but skin like a bat. Some said they were the holy people, or ancient, forgotten deities, bent on retribution for the tribe’s mistreatment of the land. Others considered them the spirits of their enemies, forbidden from their ancestral lands because of the evil in their souls, wishing only destruction and death. 

There had been a time when the cliff dwellings had provided safety from their reach. But safety meant little if the remaining tribes starved to death. Those that had tried to hunt for food or till their crops by the river had simply disappeared.

 K’aalógii had even resorted to eating the deerskin tunic that her mother and father had made for her, boiling it with some leaves and shoots gathered near the secret entrance to the mountain stronghold. 

Starvation alone hadn’t extinguished all hope. 

Some taken by the others had returned. They brought with them stones her mother had said were evil and would bring them death and destruction. The returned had carried a message: 

Surrender yourselves, or face the wrath of the others. 

The cliffs would no longer afford protection, they warned. 

The survivors had reacted violently to the message. They had killed the returned, then gathered in a council and decided to fight.     

Now, climbing toward the surface of the plateau, K’aalógii grasped her mother’s hand more tightly as they reached the outside. She had no need of reassurance, but she knew her mother was frightened. 

Her mother stopped and knelt, pushing K’aalógii’s hair away from her face. 

“Now we will wait on the mesa.”    

K’aalógii nodded and squeezed her mother’s hand again. “We will see Father again,” she said softly. She watched her mother wipe away a tear, then straighten and hand K’aalógii the spear. 

It had been the ceremonial spear of her family for many generations. Her father had been given it by his own grandfather. The handle was wrapped in well-worn rawhide and decorated with beads and feathers. The obsidian tip had been masterfully worked to razor sharpness and soundly fastened to the notched shaft with dried sinew. 

K’aalógii had always thought of the spear as heavy and unwieldy. Now she hardly felt the weight in her hand.   

When she stepped onto the mesa top, the hunger that had haunted her simply disappeared. She felt exhilaration at the sight of the stars and the fresh smell of the forest. 

Her mother and she joined the others making their way toward the open mesa; all had armed themselves with whatever weapons remained in the cliff city.  

K’aalógii listened while the others whispered or sobbed softly. She understood much of what was said, even the words not spoken in her Navajo language. Many clans had joined together in fear, remnants of once-great tribes that had lived on the mesa tops for countless generations.  

Tonight the survivors had resolved to leave the stronghold, put aside their fear, and fight these holy people, or demons, or gods, rather than starve to death, waiting to be taken like mice by a hawk. 

The people gathered in a circle, where two women knelt and chipped sparks into dried grass until a wisp of smoke and flame signaled the beginnings of a fire. As the fire grew, children brought dead wood from the nearby forest. A large fire would draw the others, K’aalógii knew.    

An old man dressed in feathers and paint walked into the center of the circle. Wielding a spear more formidable than K’aalógii’s, he thrust the weapon skyward in defiance. He then began to dance and chant, a warrior’s dance passed down for generations in his tribe, K’aalógii guessed.  

As the old man danced and the fire grew, K’aalógii felt her heart and spirit soar. For one last time they had become brave warriors again, joined in a defensive circle around the comforting heat of the flames. 

When the old man raised his spear again, K’aalógii chanted along with him.  

It didn’t take long for the others to make their presence known. The plateau suddenly smelled of thunder and lightning, the very air sizzling around her.   

K’aalógii stood tall, spear thrust high, her other hand held tightly by her mother, who raised her own makeshift weapon. Somehow she stood her ground, even as the people around her dropped their weapons in terror and began running for the thin cover of trees.  

Now only K’aalógii and her mother stood in the clearing, side by side, spears extended before them. 

The roar grew deafening and an unnatural heat burned her skin, forcing K’aalógii to her knees. She drew upon the strength of her father, imagining him standing tall upon the mountain…his scent, his bulk, his eyes, his very presence bringing forth the power of her ancestors.

K’aalógii shouted as a warrior would do, her eyes opened wider, her skin burning as the holy people devoured her.

Southwestern New Mexico

 CHAPTER 1

“Just one more step and you’re gonna get a real good look at the bottom of the canyon,” Garrett Moon said in his laid-back, southwestern drawl. 

Dr. Leah Andrews pulled the binoculars away from her eyes and watched as the toe of her boot slid over the edge of the cliff. A spray of sand floated toward the green valley floor hundreds of feet below. 

“I know where I’m standing.”

Sand and gravel cascaded down the rocky slope behind them, followed by a giant who wore his hair in a short ponytail over a three-day-stubble beard. Only a well-placed sandstone boulder prevented his 280 pounds from barreling over the cliff.

“Delicate as ever,” Leah said. 

Juan Cortez wiped a mixture of sweat and dust from his face. “The coast is clear, but I’d wager those park rangers are sniffing around nearby.” 

“What’d you expect?” she asked, grinning despite the risk. “We are trespassing illegally in the middle of a national park.”

“She smells a cliff dwelling,” Garrett said. 

Juan looked over the ledge and shook his head. “A monkey couldn’t climb that face without modern equipment.”

Tall, anvil-shaped clouds began rolling in from the southwest, signaling the beginnings of a late-season thunderstorm. The winds preceding the storm kicked dust up in flowing red curtains. 

“That’s a hint of things to come,” Garrett said. “You want to be dangling from a rope when that hits?” 

“Speaking of rope, where’s our climbing expert?” Leah asked. 

“Resting on his climbing gear near the top of the mesa, last I saw,” said Juan. 

“Figures.” Leah reached down and hauled up her backpack. “I’ll wake Sleeping Beauty.”

Juan took another peek over the cliff. “You’d think a couple of relatively intelligent guys would have more sense than to rappel down a sheer wall in the middle of a thunderstorm.” 

Garrett grinned and pushed strands of black hair away from his face. “Yeah, but who else would look after her?”

“Don’t let her hear that,” Juan cautioned, “or we’ll both be sporting black eyes.”

“You two better not be whispering about me,” Leah called back as she climbed the slope. 

“We’re just a pair of lowly, underpaid archeologists,” Garrett answered. “Our discussions are purely of a scientific nature.” 

Leah was still shaking her head when she came upon Marko Kinney leaning on his climbing gear, listening to audibly heavy metal through the ear buds of his phone. 

Leah poked at the shaggy young man with the toe of her boot until he killed the music.  “We’re checking out a wall crack.” 

Marko looked up and pointed toward the billowing clouds. “Mr. Thunder Bumper is headed this direction, and he’s looking worked up.”

“Meet me on the other side of the rock bridge with your gear.”  

The rock climber shook his head in disbelief, then gathered his gear and chased her across the rock arch toward a gnarled but sturdy-looking pine tree growing near the mesa’s edge. He dropped the pack, pulled out a nylon-anchoring sling, and wrapped it expertly around the pine tree’s trunk. Marko secured the slings, removed two 165-foot climbing lines from the backpack, and tied them together with a double fisherman’s knot.

Juan and Garrett joined them while Leah fitted herself into a padded climbing harness and fastened the metal waist buckle. Marko fed the doubled line through a standard figure-eight descender, triple-checked all the connections, and patted her on the shoulder.

“You’re cleared to fly,” he shouted over the building storm. 

She nodded and stepped up to the cliff face. As sloppy as Marko looked, he was a fanatic about safety. Because of his attention to detail, Leah felt at least some peace of mind. If her dad had enjoyed the same kind of attention, he’d have been alive today.

Marko climbed into his own harness and threaded another line through the anchoring rings. He’d feed rope as she rappelled in a classic belay technique taught at most climbing schools. If she suffered gear failure, he would serve to break her fall, at least in theory.

Garrett dug out his own harness, peeking over the edge at Leah’s descent. 

“I know you guys are the experts in finding cliff dwellings,” Marko said, “but I’m not thrilled about roping down that cliff face with lightning cracking around my ass.”

“Chances are she’ll shine her flashlight into the crevice, find a dead end, and we won’t be climbing down anyway,” Garrett said. 

The line slackened, and a moment later Marko felt three distinct tugs on the belay. “You were saying?” 

Garrett glanced up at the sky. “I guess we’re climbing down.”  

Marko yanked up the freed belay. “Okay, you’re next, G.” 

A minute later, Marko had a hesitant Juan in his harness and ready to join the others. “They’re waiting for you, Juan.” 

The big man hesitated, then took a deep breath and leaned over the brink of nothingness. All that separated his ample posterior from a three-hundred-foot free fall were two thin strands of high-strength climbing line.  

“Down you go,” said Marko.

As Juan descended, an unexpected gust of wind twisted him around, causing his face to scrape across the sandstone wall, shaving skin off his right cheek. Thunder cracked in the distance as he attempted to gain position against the rock. 

“Damn it, Leah. This isn’t fun,” he muttered. 

“Come on, Juan,” Leah shouted encouragement from the ledge below.

Juan pushed off and rappelled until his shoes touched the ledge. 

“Was that so hard?” Garrett secured him to the ledge. 

“I still have to climb that mother.”

Marko slid spider-like down the line and noted with quiet satisfaction that Leah had already inserted a removable locking-cam inside a weathered crack in the cliff. He crouched to examine the narrow opening. “It’s less than a meter in height.  How are you gonna get inside?” 

“Seriously, Marko?” Leah asked. “Lie down like you’re taking a nap.” 

Garrett winked and patted the young climber on the back. “You’re doing fine.  Don’t let her bully you.”

Leah pushed Marko aside and dug a small flashlight out of her gear bag. “If you want something done…” She dropped down and slithered underneath the scar-like blemish in the rock cliff. Once inside, she switched on the steel penlight and crawled along on her hands and knees through the confining passageway.  Suddenly the path opened into a larger chamber. 

“Garrett, you got the big light?”

Garrett crawled up behind her and handed over the high-powered halogen flashlight. Leah fumbled with the switch and then lit the passageway. 

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

A massive subterranean cavern more than 100 meters deep and 50 meters high stretched beyond even the powerful beam. The light did a fine job of illuminating the pristine remains of an 800-year-old Native American city hidden in the depths of the Gila National Wilderness. 

CHAPTER 2

“I think you just hit the jackpot,” Juan breathed.

Leah only managed a nod. She thought of her dad. How hard he’d worked for years in search of an Anasazi/Mongollon ruin that managed to survive without the plundering that had muddled the archeological record of these mysterious, cliff-dwelling Native Americans. 

She quickly wiped away a tear, hoping that Juan, Garrett, and Marko hadn’t noticed. The beam of the flash penetrated only a portion of the seemingly massive cavern. Even so, Leah easily identified the outline of a cliff dwelling city, with adobe structures built right up to the ceiling, easily three or four stories tall. 

“Let’s introduce ourselves.”  

Garret pulled out two more heavy-duty flashlights, handing one to Juan and the other to Marko.

Marko shook his head and declined the light. “I don’t know anything about this—I’m just here to set ropes. You guys ought to use the good lights.”  

“You’re eyes are just as good as ours,” Garrett said, still holding the light out to Marko. “Everyone in this crew gets an equal shake, regardless of diplomas.”  

Marko glanced at Leah, who nodded and grinned. “Take it; I’ll give my halogen to Garrett and use the penlight. I’m so pumped, I swear I can see in the dark.”  

“I don’t know what to do,” Marko said after taking the halogen. 

Leah pointed to the rear of the cavern. “Take your light and explore.”  

“What should I look for?”   

Leah ran her small flashlight over the wood and adobe structure before responding. “If you run into any cliff dwellers chipping away on arrowheads or painting on the walls, I’d want to know about that right away.”  

Marko looked so shocked that Garrett and Juan chuckled. 

Leah had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. “I’m kidding.” She had to redouble her efforts when he visibly relaxed. 

“One more thing,” Leah said. 

Marko glanced up.

“Don’t touch anything.”   

The climber nodded, then held the light out in front and tiptoed past Leah on his way toward the rear of the cavern. 

“Light up the walls, Garrett. Juan, take look through this mess on the floor—see if you can find something that’s gonna blow me away.”      

Garrett swung his light onto the vertical rock walls while Juan lowered his to the cavern floor. 

Leah noticed right away that the cavern featured pictographs, some of them painted by highly skilled artists, others more crudely done. 

“Ever seen a dwelling with this much art?” Garret asked. 

“Never.” Leah examined the ancient art on the walls, using her smaller light to illuminate the detail. The pictographs appeared to have been painted using ground red clay mixed with water, making a paint-like paste. The one before her featured a number of stick figures that Leah interpreted to be people. Behind them were much taller figures without defined shape, as if they’d been covered in blankets from head to toe. 

“Not sure what this means, but—” Leah stopped short. 

The next pictograph featured the same faceless, oversized figures that Leah could only assume were totemic creatures or some sort of holy people. In this pictograph, the figures had wings sprouting from their shoulders and what Leah interpreted as raptor-like talons serving as legs and feet.  

“I have no idea what this means,” Leah said. “These big, vague figures are odd enough. But wings and talons? I’ve never seen that before.”   

Garrett walked down the cavern wall, illuminating several pictographs at a time. “Leah, how many stick figures are in the pictographs you’ve seen?”   

“Seems to vary; some have four or five, some less. Why?”  

“The ones down here, they’ve got a lot more, but as I work down your way, there’s fewer in each picture.”  

“How many of yours have these big creatures or whatever?” 

“Most of them.” He stopped. “Damn.” 

“Yeah?”  

“I’m sure now. Each pictograph shows fewer of the stick people—the tribe members, right?”     

 “Maybe it represents some kind of epidemic that hit ‘em.” Leah worked her way down the wall. “I’ve never seen something like that documented in such detail, though.”    

Juan spoke next. “You’re gonna want to see this.”  

Leah walked over and knelt beside Juan, using her small light to illuminate several clay pots that had been laid carefully together. 

“That’s not Mogollon or Anasazi.” 

Juan nodded. “Simple coil and pinch construction, then fired and covered in hot piñon pitch. What does that tell you?” 

“Navajo jar. Textbook.”   

“No shit.”   

“What’s a Navajo jar doing in a Mogollon cliff dwelling?”   

“Exactly….”  Juan replied.   

“If you like that,” Garrett said from a few feet away, “this is really gonna blow your skirt up.”   

Leah turned to join him. “What?”   

“I’m scared to get too close. You’d better come over and have a look-see.”   

Leah stood, brushed off her jeans, and used her light to guide her through the debris-filled cavern. 

She knelt beside Garrett, who held the light on the object with one hand while keeping his long hair away from his face with the other.  

“I wouldn’t have a clue,” Garret said, “except I’ve had the pleasure of sitting through plenty of your lectures on ancient Native American cultures—especially the ones that disappeared.”  

When Leah focused on the object, she felt her heart skip and beat and her forearms swelled with goose bumps.  

“Oh my God….” 

Unlike the Navajo jar, this was a large bowl made of fired-clay. The surface was smooth and had been crafted by a skilled artisan, who’d painted it with a series of bold geometric patterns in black and white.

“Well?” Garrett asked. 

“Mimbres burial bowl.” 

“That’s what I thought—but I’d only ever seen one in your slide show, so I wasn’t sure.”  

Leah looked up. “Where’s Marko?”   

“Over here,” the climber replied. “I haven’t found anyone yet, it that’s what you want.”    

“Ha-ha,” said Leah. “Get your butt over here.”

Marko stepped cautiously around the pots and shards, making his way to where Leah, Garrett, and Juan were gathered around the artifact. 

“Take a good look at this.” She illuminated the bowl. “If you see anything like it, anything at all, you tell me right away.”   

“What is it?”  

“It’s a Mimbres burial bowl.” 

“Is it, like, really rare?”   

Juan and Garrett chuckled.  

Leah nodded. “The Mimbres culture consisted of several hundred small villages in southern New Mexico. Sometime around 1200 AD they completely disappeared. The only records we have of their existence are extremely rare pottery samples, like this burial bowl.” 

“Why was it called burial bowl?” Marko asked. 

“Because it was placed over the head of the deceased when they were buried, then a hole was knocked in the bottom of the bowl.”  

Marko shuddered.  

“Weird, right?” Leah gestured at the cavern. “Well that’s nothing compared to what we’re seeing here.”

“What’s that?” Marko asked.

Leah stood. “So far we’ve found evidence of at least three distinct ancient Native American cultures all living within one cliff dwelling and enough pictographs to fill the Louvre.”  

“That’s unusual?”  

“It’s unheard of.”     

She used her light to illuminate the structure. “Let’s spread out. I want to discover as much about this dwelling as we can with the time we have remaining.” She glanced at Garrett. “I’d guess there’s another way in and out of here besides roping down that cliff face. How about if you and Juan see if you can locate it.”   

The two of them nodded. 

“Marko, see if you can find more pottery near the rear of the dwelling. I’m going to search around inside the adobe houses. I want to see just how many different cultures were shoehorned into this dwelling at one time.”   

Within minutes, Leah had found pottery and shards indicating that at one time Navajo, Hopi, Mogollon, Pueblo, and Mimbres Indians had lived in the cliff dwelling. She stopped for a moment to absorb what she’d just discovered. It was the discovery of a lifetime. Unprecedented. A surreal sense of elation unwound inside her, and she suddenly felt better than she had in months. It dulled the nagging pain of a marriage on the rocks and her recent and bitter divorce from her federal-government dream job. It was almost as if—

A sudden scream shattered the silence, followed by the sound of someone breaking through adobe.                               

CHAPTER 3

“Marko!” 

Leah sprinted toward the rear of the cavern, frantically searching for Marko’s mop of hair and goofy grin. He wasn’t that far away from me. She illuminated the floor of the cavern ahead and found a large, round hole that had apparently swallowed the young rock climber.

“Jesus, no,” she whispered, dropping to her knees and crawling toward the false floor. She reached the edge on her belly, terrified of what she might find. 

To her immense relief, Marko lay on a ledge three meters below. 

“Are you hurt?”  

Marko rubbed his head. “That’s a lump I’m gonna to feel tomorrow.” 

Garrett placed his hand lightly on Leah’s shoulder and peered down into the hole. “You probably don’t want to move, my friend.”   

“I think he knows that.” Leah reached down and scooped up a handful of the brittle adobe. “I’ve never heard of cliff dwellers sealing a Kiva with an adobe cap.” 

Leah watched as Garrett ran the tips of his fingers over the edge, rubbing bits of the powdered soil. His eyes worked over every inch of the breach. “That’s too deep for a Kiva, and there’s no reason to seal it off.”  

Leah nodded. One more mystery among many. No one knew why these people, who lived on the tops of the mesa and in the river valleys for thousands of years, would have forced themselves into cliff-face caverns. She looked up into the gloomy cavern, imagining them humping their water up here from the valley, letting their children walk on ledges where one misstep meant instant death. Then, two hundred years later, these people had completely disappeared.

Like her father, Leah had devoted her life to studying the enigmatic cliff-dwellers. Her father had been a mining engineer by trade, but his passion had been archeology. Every weekend, with the blessing of her mother, who preferred tending to her award-winning gardens, he’d taken Leah out into the desert in search of the Anasazi. 

She remembered sitting cross-legged inside ancient cliff dwellings while her dad told her how these magnificent people had lived in the hostile environment of the desert Southwest hundreds of years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic.

He’d passed on his passion for archeology to Leah and he couldn’t have been more proud when she’d earned her PhD from the University of New Mexico in Native American Archeology.  

Her mother’s death from brain cancer when she was just a teen hadn’t been nearly as painful as her dad’s untimely demise, falling while roping down into a dwelling. His sudden and unnecessary death had served to give her a “swift kick in the ass,” as Garrett said. 

The same quest that had cost her father’s life had already lost Leah her job as an archeologist for the Bureau of Land Management. If she were caught today in the Gila National Wilderness, illegally searching for cliff dwellings on government land, her next address would be a federal prison. 

Her dad had always felt their best chance for finding unspoiled dwellings was in the relatively unglamorous Gila National Monument and wilderness in southwestern New Mexico. Unlike well-known sites like Mesa Verde, this area was heavily forested and riddled with twisting canyons and hidden cliffs. The cliff dwellers in this area weren’t called the Anasazi but the Mogollon, named after the man who’d made the original discovery. 

This dwelling, with its unheard-of melding of tribes under a single roof, could well be the Rosetta stone that finally solved the mystery of all the various cliff dwellers.  

Marko had gathered himself and was preparing to climb out of the pit. 

“Wait,” Leah said. “While you’re down there, free-climb all the way down to the floor and take a look-see for artifacts. One more thing—”

“Yeah, I know,” Marko said, sidling down the steep rocky slope.  “Don’t touch anything.”

“Gimme light,” he said a moment later from the bottom of the sub-cavern. 

Leah and Garrett illuminated the sand and stone floor as best they could from above.  

“Better.” Marko bent down and then jumped back against the cliff face. “Shit! The floor is covered with bones!”

****

“What the hell…” Leah had joined him at the bottom of the pit, where skeletal remains lay side by side along with strips of decomposed clothing. The bones were shattered in such a way as to leave no doubt as to the reason these people had died. 

Marko backed away from the remains. “I thought you said cliff dwellers were peaceful.”   

“This was just a child, for God’s sake.” Leah pulled her hand away. “Who’d do that to a child?” 

Garrett stood beside her now. He shook his head. “I suppose they could have been buried here, but it looks to me like they were killed down here and sealed in with adobe clay.”    

Marko wandered down a passageway leading away from the massacre. “I found some more of these drawings.” 

“Pictographs,” Leah corrected.   

Garrett nodded. “It’s starting to make a little more sense to me.” 

“What is?” Leah asked.

“Think about it. What if you’ve got different tribes jammed into one small living space. Everyone speaking a different language….” 

“They might use pictographs to communicate or pass along tribal stories, since conventional storytelling would be difficult.”  

Garrett shrugged. “It’s as good a theory as anything else right now.” 

“Remind me to pay you next time I invite you to present at one of my lectures.” Leah carefully stepped over the bones and walked over to where Marko shone his light on the wall. The first of the ancient drawings was in the shape of a mountain with a vertical face. 

“That doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen in this region. You’ve been on big walls,” Leah said. “Have you seen anything like that?” 

“Maybe Half Dome in Yosemite, if that’s a sheer cliff like it looks.” Marko took several more steps into the darkness. “More pictures here. This looks like a person holding their hands in the air, surrendering or something.”  

“Those are strange-looking mountains. I’ve got a feeling they’re located a long way from New Mexico.” Leah stepped carefully over the remains and lit up the drawing. It was a woman, her hands clearly outstretched over her head. The artist had intended the woman to have a look of terror on her face. “Hmm. She’s not surrendering.”

“What’s she doing then?”

Leah winced. “Praying, or maybe even pleading.”

Marko stepped back from the pictographs. “Okay, that’s enough for me.” 

“Watch your step.” Leah turned her flashlight in the direction of Marko’s feet to make sure he didn’t disturb the bones. The beam reflected back at her, revealing golf ball-sized red rocks scattered in and among the remains. 

“What the hell is that?” she breathed. The way they reflected the light, they looked almost like crystals.

Garrett knelt down and examined the stones. “Granite, I think, but I’ve never seen such a brilliant red coloring anywhere.” 

“I know you kids are having fun down there,” Juan said from the top of the sub-cavern, “but the storm’s getting a lot closer.” 

“Why don’t you climb on down, scaredy-cat?” Leah shouted. “What kind of archeologist is afraid of a little rock slope?” 

Juan’s voice boomed back. “A fat one that’s fallen on his ass one too many times!”  

The sound of thunder echoed throughout the cavern. 

“Seriously,” Juan said, “time to move or we’re going to spend the night here.”   

Leah looked around her for a moment. “I want some of these stones.” 

“You said—” Marko began to protest. 

“We’re not touching anything else. These don’t fall into the same artifact class as human remains, dwellings, or handcrafts. We’ll document the rest when we return.” Leah knelt and carefully picked up several of the reddish, crystal-like stones and placed them in her gear bag. “Okay, Juan, I’m coming up.” 

****

Five minutes later, Leah held her hand out for Garrett as he scrambled over the lip of the sub-cavern. “So,” she said, “we climbing those ropes or what?”   

“We found an entry at the rear of the cavern,” Garrett said. “Sealed but not impassable…much to Juan’s relief, I might add.” 

“I’m not too big a man to admit it,” Juan said with a smile. 

“Pull up and stow the climbing lines, Marko,” Leah said. “The sooner they’re out of view the better.”  

Garrett shone his light on a large opening at the rear of the cavern, still sealed tight with adobe clay. “Guess they didn’t have any plans to return.”

“That’s odd,” Leah said. “Someone took the time to seal the cavern.”  

“The last one out locks the door and turns out the light?” Juan said.

“You wouldn’t leave all those tools and pottery unless you thought you’d be coming back,” Garrett said. 

“I don’t think they were coming back,” Leah said. 

Juan glanced over. “Why?” 

“This place is a mess; did you notice? Pottery scattered, much of it shattered. If they were coming back, they’d have taken it with them or it would have been stacked neatly inside the dwelling. These finished pots were priceless in their day. It’d be like leaving home with nothing but the clothes on your back. No, I think they left in a hurry, and not because they wanted to.”  

“If they weren’t coming back, why seal the entrance?”  Marko asked.  

Leah turned back toward the dwelling. “Those pictographs were painted for a reason, it’s possible they wanted to seal the dwelling to preserve or record their experiences here.”   

Thunder boomed so loud that adobe dust fell like a fine mist from the dwelling. 

“We’ve got all night to talk this out over beers,” Juan said. “Right now, we’ve got to get out asses out of here in one piece.”    

Garrett and Juan carved away at the adobe wall with two collapsible shovels, chopping through the clay until they had an opening nearly a meter in diameter. Bolts of lightning lit a twisting passageway that led to the top of the mesa. 

“When you get to the surface, find cover right away,” Garrett said. “Wicked storm clouds inbound.” 

Leah gave Garrett a sideways and hoisted her gear bag. “See you on top.”

Garrett reached out and lightly grabbed her arm. The grin had disappeared. “I mean it, Leah. Get under a rock, a ledge—any shelter you can find.”

“I understand. You just make sure Juan doesn’t get stuck.”

“Up you go.” He watched her climb through the rock for a moment. “You ready, Juan.”

“You’re sure I’m gonna fit?” 

“Shitty time to find out.”

Juan stuck his head through, and Garrett helped him work his wide shoulders past the newly cut exit. “I’m clear,” he said with more than a little relief.

“You heard what I told Leah,” Garrett cautioned. “Get to cover when you reach the surface.” Garrett turned and looked at Marko. “I’m sending you with most of the equipment.”

“What about the rope anchor—on the tree?” 

“I’ll get it.” Garrett grabbed his equipment bag and crawled through the narrow opening. The sounds of thunder and the smell of the ozone-rich air intensified as he climbed over the boulders toward the mesa. He looked up after a few minutes to find the surface only a few meters above. Water from the cloudburst poured into the passageway before diverting into an eroded natural culvert leading down to the cliff wall.

Leah, Juan, and Marko huddled under a wide overhanging rocky ledge near the cavern’s exit point. Garrett bolted out through the opening and ran toward the cliff. He worked Marko’s knots free and stuffed the straps and the rings in his gear pack. 

Suddenly air sizzled, followed by a blinding flash that obscured Leah’s view of Garrett for a split second. Garrett sprinted for the rock ledge where the others had taken cover. 

“Think you were toast when that bolt came down?” Juan asked. 

“Let’s just say I felt the hands of my ancestors for a second.” He tried pulling his backpack off. “Oops, I’m hung up.” 

Juan chuckled. “If that’s your ancestors, you pissed them off plenty.” He yanked the pack off Garrett’s shoulder and turned it around. The nylon still smoldered from the near lightning strike. Even the zippers had been bent and twisted into painfully unnatural shapes.

Leah glanced at the sky and then shouldered her pack while climbing out from under the rock. “Let’s get out of here before we get caught in a flash flood.”

CHAPTER 4
The sign hung askew over the top of the Silver City, New Mexico, storefront. The white paint, peeling off the wood, had yellowed with age and disrepair. 

Jim Dixon’s Precious Stones and Lucky Strike Tavern. 

Leah glanced up at the sign. “Do a little rock shopping and then celebrate your purchase over a cocktail….” 

Juan peeked into the bar and grinned. “I like it.” 

The only patron was also the bartender. He sat on the customer side of the bar, sipping on a mug of draft beer. “Come on in. Beer’s cold and we’re not known to bite.”   

Leah glanced into the rock shop through a connecting door. The store appeared empty, except for the rocks and fossils displayed in glass cases or hanging from the walls. “Are you Jim?”   

The bartender smiled and shook his head. “I just fill in for Jimmy when we get a load of tourists in looking at rock.” He pointed down toward the end of the street. “He’ll be back in a minute; walked down to the bank.” He slid off the stool and walked around behind the bar. 

“We’ll take a look at the rock store, if that’s okay,” Leah told him. 

“Are you folks here to buy or sell?”

Leah stiffened. “We’re looking for information, that’s all.”

The bartender winked. “You found yourself a little stash of fossil and want to get a price?” He lowered his voice. “It’s all right. Jimmy pays top dollar and he don’t talk much neither.”

Garrett lightly touched Leah’s elbow, guiding her out of the bar and into the shop. 

The bartender called after them, “Come on back and have a beer before you leave.”

Leah studied the rare fossils displayed under glass. “You think he really buys fossils from the parks?”   

“Possibly….” Garrett looked over a few of the pieces on display. “Doubt he’d admit it to us, though.  We might be working undercover for the Park Service.”

“Can I help you folks with something?” A tall, thin man with short-cut brown hair and a face worn by hours working in the desert sun removed his sunglasses and Australian-style bush hat. 

Leah raised one eyebrow. “You Jimmy?” 

He laid a leather-sided briefcase down beside the glass counter and nodded. “Are you interested in fossils? Minerals? I even have a few pieces of Trinitite in the back room.”  

“Trinitite?” Leah asked. 

Dixon nodded. “When they lit off that first atomic bomb back in ’45’ it was so hot the blast melted the sand into a blue-green glass. One old rock hound living nearby collected a whole bunch of it before they bulldozed ten feet of sand over the blast zone.”  

The look of disgust on Leah’s face left no doubt that she was not interested in that glowing piece of history. 

“Cool,” Marko said. “Radioactive?”  

Dixon dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

Leah stepped forward. “What we need is help identifying a chunk of granite.” She pulled one of the crystals from her pocket.

Dixon examined the stone. “Granite for sure, but I don’t ever recall seeing it with this much feldspar.”

“Feldspar?” 

“Granite is composed of feldspar and quartz, along with a collection of other minor accessory minerals: zircon, apatite, magnetite, ilmenite, and sphene.” He stared into a set of blank faces. “In plain English that means granite from this region is whitish or gray with a speckled appearance caused by the darker crystals. Potash feldspar imparts a red or flesh color to the rock.” Dixon turned the granite over in his hand. “I’ve never seen a sample this brilliantly colored, even for the top-quality grades like you might see on a kitchen counter.” He locked eyes with Leah. “Where did you say you found this?”

“Up north,” Garrett said smoothly. “I hadn’t seen anything like it around here.” 

Dixon eyed them warily. “If you have a few minutes, I’ll pull my catalogs. Why don’t you step next door for a beer?” 

Taking Dixon’s advice, Leah bought a mug and tipped it back, letting the cool brew run down her throat. She looked over at the worn pool table just as Marko took a huge slice at the cue ball, knocking it across the room. She had to admit, the cold beer and cozy interior of the bar had a certain calming effect. She smiled as Marko scurried across the room, chasing the bouncing cue ball. 

Dixon walked into the bar with a thick reference book under his arm and dropped it on the table in front of Leah. 

Garrett, Juan, and Marko propped the cue sticks against the wall and watched Dixon find the page he’d marked with a napkin from the bar. The rock dealer paused, and then pulled his reading glasses down low on his nose. “You folks know this stone’s not from around here.” 

Leah shrugged. “We’re not geologists.” 

“Where did you say you found this rock?” Dixon repeated.

Leah simply shrugged, and flashed what she hoped looked like an innocent smile. 

Jim Dixon eyed them suspiciously and then opened the book to a page featuring color photographs of rugged mountain peaks and snow. He tapped on the faded picture. “There’s only one place on the planet you’ll find granite with this feldspar content.”  

Leah read the entry indicated by Dixon, and her mouth dropped open in shock. 

“Antarctica.”

  ****

Once Dixon had left them alone in the bar, Leah shook her head. “This just keeps getting better. Now we’ve got granite crystal originating near the South Pole ending up in a Native American cliff dwelling?”  

“Hoax?” Juan guessed. 

“The adobe clay that Marko broke through was hundreds of years old; so was the adobe that blocked the entrance, for that matter.”      

“This is like a major archeological find,” Marko said, his eyes opening wide. “Maybe the government would let you back into the national parks. You know…if you just told them what you found.”  

Leah’s head snapped around. “Even if I didn’t go to federal prison for hunting Anasazi and Mogollon cliff dwellings on government property, I wouldn’t pass those nitwits one iota of information. Not after what they did.”

Juan emptied his third beer. “Looks like we’re in kind of a pickle; one of the most significant finds in Native American history and we can’t tell a soul about it.”

Garrett’s eyes took on a sly cast. “Well, there’s one person we could tell—and he’s an expert on Antarctica.” He leaned away, instinctively taking himself out of Leah’s reach.  

“Not a chance,” said Leah. 

“I’m only suggesting that if anyone will know about feldspar-rich granite, it'll be someone who’s clocked weeks in Antarctica.” Garrett shrugged. “I know it’s a long shot, but Jack might be your only option. Do you know where he is?”

“Last I heard he was leading Alan Paulson back up Mt. Everest.” She humphed. “Rich asshole’s gonna get both of them killed.”

Marko leaned forward. “The climber, Jack Hobson?”  

Garrett and Juan exchanged glances. 

“It’s not amusing,” she told them.  “Yes, Marko.  Jack Hobson.”

“You know Jack Hobson?”

“Sure, she knows him,” said Garrett. “What’s it been, Leah? Two years now?” He nonchalantly lifted the mug to his lips. 

Leah simply stared down at the mahogany table. 

“Damn,” Marko said. “You were dating a famous mountain climber?”

“Technically,” she said, “I’m still married to him.” 

“Married? You have a different last name.” Marko seemed to say it innocently enough. “Why’s that?” 

Garrett and Juan buried grins in the beer mugs. 

“Would someone please educate Marko on living in the current century?” 

“Wow. Jack Hobson on Mt. Everest,” Marko said. “I bet he’s loving every second of it.”

EVEREST   CHAPTER 5

Jack Hobson swore under his breath as he emerged from the warm, cocoon-like, expedition sleeping bag. He zipped open the reinforced mountaineering tent and studied the storm clouds pounding the summit. 

How the hell did I let Alan Paulson talk me into a late-October climb on Everest?  

If the winds continued howling, they wouldn’t be climbing today. The professional climbing guide and his client, billionaire New Yorker Alan Paulson, had been pinned down at more than 26,000 feet for nearly forty-eight hours.

Jack wiped at his wind-burned face and surveyed the tent. The floor was an appalling mess. Empty food containers, spilled powdered drinks, and fuel stains covered the tent in an unappetizing mosaic. His clothes and his body hadn’t touched soap and water in more than three weeks, and that wasn’t the worst of it; the body begins dying at altitudes above 26,000 feet due to lack of oxygen. 

As Jack pushed himself into a sitting position, every muscle in his thirty-six-year-old body protested. He reached into his internal-framed mountaineering backpack for another thermal shirt. The one he’d worn for the past six days was rancid with the stench of a true world-class climb. Body odor, powdered soup, melted chocolate, and camp fuel competed for dominance in a miasma of disagreeable aromas.

Most world-class mountaineers are lean climbing machines. The less muscle, the less energy it requires to climb. Jack was an exception. When he pulled off the thermal shirt, he exposed a well-muscled torso, much of it developed on an indoor climbing wall installed at his Lake Tahoe home. His longish brown hair, flattened down by the frayed Peruvian-style wool hat he’d worn almost nonstop since they’d left base camp, felt greasy to the touch—another reminder how badly he needed a shower. 

Jack gingerly touched his temporarily bearded face. The combination of high-altitude sun and hurricane-force winds had burned and cut his face to the point where it felt raw. 

“What’s the verdict?” Paulson asked. The billionaire client peeked out from underneath the hood of his goose-down sleeping bag. He held an oxygen mask away from his face with a mitten-covered hand and managed a weak grin.

“The weather still sucks.” Jack couldn’t help but be annoyed at Paulson. “That’s what we get for trying to summit this mother during the fall.” He winked, softening his remarks, though it made them no less true. “How are you holding up?” 

Paulson drew in five deep breaths. “I haven’t slept in two days; I’m breathing in a near vacuum and haven’t taken a bath in weeks. Other than that, I feel damned good.” 

Alan Paulson was a fifty-three-year-old corporate raider who bought control of publicly traded corporations, got rid of the high-paid executives, and either made them profitable or sold them off in pieces. Here in the tent, he hardly resembled the man who could, and did, have powerful men pissing in their two-thousand-dollar suits when he sat before them with a notepad in his hand. Paulson still had the compact, muscular frame of the fighter pilot he’d once been. He wore an oxygen mask over his salt-and-pepper shaded beard, but his eyes still shone with energy and anticipation. 

That’s the beauty of mountain climbing, Jack thought.  It strips away the ego. You can’t tell the true measure of a human being until he’s been living in a tent under squalid conditions for weeks on end. You have to admire these guys, though. For the hundred grand they spend risking their lives on Everest, you could enjoy a hell of a vacation in the Caribbean.

“You guys copy?”

Jack blinked back to reality and then searched the bottom of the tent for his Motorola handheld radio. “I’m reading you loud and clear, Kent.”

“What’s wrong, old buddy? Afraid we’re gonna beat you to the summit?”

“How’s Alex?” Jack said, not trying to hide his concern. 

He was worried not about Kent Nash, his former partner and climbing guide, but about Alex Stein, an Atlanta lawyer whom Jack had tried for months to guide away from this second Everest expedition.

“Alex says he’s gonna kick Paulson’s ass to the top. We’re bivouacked just below; when it clears we’re steamrolling all the way to the top. Alex wants to say hi to y‘all.”

The radio crackled with static as Nash handed it over. 

“Tell Paulson, next time we drop a hundred grand, it’ll include a lot more booze and blondes.” 

The billionaire peeked out of the sleeping bag. “Tell Stein that he should concern his liberal ass with all the empty oxygen bottles and garbage up here. Maybe he ought to commission an Environmental Impact Study before hitting the summit.”  

Jack relayed Paulson’s dig. 

Stein replied between labored breaths. “If I know Paulson, he’s probably already worked a takeover deal with the Nepalese to buy out the Hindu church.” 

Jack and Paulson both laughed between deep breaths of their own.  

When the two wealthy climbers had attacked Everest the first time, Jack had been concerned that the conservative icon Paulson and proud left-wing liberal Stein would clash. To his surprise, they’d become fast friends, sharing political barbs by way of cell phone and even dinners back in the States. Something about the shared hardships of bagging a summit, and perhaps their mutual prosperity, had bonded them beyond politics.

Jack’s relationship with his ex-partner Kent Nash, however, had soured over the past months, in Jack’s opinion because Nash was jealous of Jack’s relationship with the well-known billionaire. Jack’s insistence that Alex Stein’s prior attempt at the summit of Mt. Everest be his last hadn’t helped either. The partners had parted shortly after on less than amicable terms. 

“I’d have Paulson jog over and shoot the breeze in person,” Jack said, “but he won’t climb out of his sleeping bag. How’s your body, Alex?”  

“I’ve been coughing a little blood, but my fearless guide says that’s normal.”

Jack winced. “Put Nash back on the radio.”

Nash got on. 

“It sounds to me like Alex is working into the early stages of HAPE.”  

At high altitude, fluids began collecting in the lungs in a potentially fatal condition known as high-altitude pulmonary disease. On Everest, it wasn’t unusual to push the envelope. But this was Alex Stein, Alex with the friendly southern handshake and easy smile, not an expert climber. 

“It’s a high-altitude hack, that’s all. We’ll see you boys on top.”

Jack tossed down the radio in disgust. “You’ve got to promise me,” he told Paulson, “if you’ve had enough, you’ll tell me.”

“Don’t worry about me, Jacky. I’m going to kick this mountain’s butt and dance all the way back to Kathmandu.”

Jack crawled back into his sleeping bag and used his expedition-style pack as a pillow. He looked at Paulson. The billionaire was wrapped in his sleeping bag, sucking deeply on bottled oxygen. Jack thought about the billionaire’s twenty-eight-year-old trophy-wife. 

I’d take Candice Paulson and the beach over this shit any day, he thought with twisted amusement. 

Jack lay his head back and closed his eyes, letting the roar of the winds lull him to sleep. 

                    ****

Jack opened his eyes to the sound of gentle surf and a warm tropical sun warming his face and shoulders. I’m dreaming, he thought in that half-lucid awareness of the sleeping mind. Jack leaned back into the warm white sand. The sound of the waves crashing on the beach was wonderfully soothing. 

He reached up and felt small, smooth arms surrounding him. It was a tanned and svelte Candice Paulson, rubbing suntan lotion on his back from an old-fashioned Coppertone bottle with the little girl and the dog on the label. The distinctive smell brought back memories of surfing as a kid.

“Jack, is it time?” Candice said. 

“Time for what?” He felt both aroused and confused.

The salt-and-peppered beard of Paulson replaced Candice Paulson’s baby-smooth face as Jack startled from the dream.  

“Storm’s over,” Paulson said. “Time to light the stoves.” 

Jack opened his eyes and mouthed a silent thank you to the utter privacy of one’s dream world. He emerged in a world far less inviting than his fantasy beach and crawled through the tent’s opening. It was just after eleven p.m., and the stars silhouetted the summit in a haunting silver glow. After endless hours of wind, the dead calm seemed positively unnerving.

Paulson’s face looked ragged, but his eyes remained bright with expectation. 

“Show time,” Jack said.