Under The Western Sky. Laurie Paige
“Why?”
“To cover his tracks.”
She shook her head in disbelief as she stared at the ground where once a home had been. “I was here two days ago. No, three. The baby was born on Thursday. I filled out the papers and did the baby’s footprints for the birth certificate so I could file it with the tribal records office.”
“Well, they’re gone now. Someone must have gotten word to them that there was a sting operation going down. Did you get prints on the parents?”
She nodded. “The tribe has us do thumbprints.” Her eyes widened as she realized the implication of his words. “The shop was a fake?”
“A front,” he corrected. “We set it up and let it be known we wanted Indian goods. Good Indian goods,” he added with a significant glance at her.
“The pottery,” she murmured, disappointed in the couple who’d certainly played her for a fool. “I can’t believe they stole those things.”
“Believe it,” he said. “What about the prints? Did you keep a record of them?”
“No. You can get a copy from the tribal office.”
“Fine.”
She observed while he looked over the site.
A large section of coyote fence, which was made from the canes of the infamous ocotillo nailed side by side onto wooden supports, had been loosened and pulled aside in order to drive the trailer through to the dirt lane.
The tracks were brushed out on that side of the fence, too. She recalled something. “He drove a blue pickup,” she told the special investigator. She described the make and model and a dent in one fender.
“What else do you remember about them?”
“Well, they were young, both twenty-one. They belonged to the Hopi. He was a mechanic.”
“Ah,” the detective said.
“Ah, what?”
“Did he work at the garage near the shop?”
“I don’t know.”
His eyes narrowed. “Maybe the mechanic who watched the big chase scene alerted him to the bust. I’ll check on that tomorrow.” He made a note in a little spiral pad, then searched around once more. “There’s nothing here, not even a trash pile,” he finally concluded.
“You’re very thorough.”
Those dark eyes cut to her like the flick of a whip on bare skin. “That’s my job,” he stated, and headed for his vehicle. He didn’t seem to think she was much help.
She trailed behind him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked when they were on the road.
“I’m worried about them and the baby.” She sighed. “Life can be so hard. They don’t have much money. Probably someone promised them a large cut of the profits if they would sell the artifacts. They didn’t mean any harm.”
“Yeah, they were innocents.”
She sighed again. “I don’t think that. Every population has its share of good people and bad. The couple must have desperately needed money, though.” She studied him. “You know a lot about artifacts. Is your interest because you have Native American ancestry?”
He nodded. “My great-grandmother was Sioux.”
“I see.”
“You got time to go out to the dig?” he asked, stopping at the county road.
She was surprised by the invitation. “Yes. It sounds very interesting.”
“I’d planned on coming out and checking over the security at the site this morning. Since we’re this close, it would be simpler to go there now.”
He turned left instead of right and headed past the rock formation that gave the area its name. There were two Chaco culture sites, he told her. He took the road to the second one, which was farther north from where they were.
“Have you been here?” he asked as they neared Pueblo Bonito.
“Once, a long time ago with my father and brothers. I loved exploring the village. It reminds me that people haven’t changed that much in hundreds or thousands of years. They needed shelter and ways to make a living in order to provide food and clothing for their families back then just as we do today.”
“And they built apartment buildings and lived in towns, too,” he added, driving down a road that was off-limits except for park service personnel. “Like the Roman roads, theirs were built to last.”
“Yes,” she agreed. When they arrived at the main ruins, she murmured in awe of the multistory dwellings that backed up to a sandstone cliff, and tried to recall all she’d read about the people who built them. “I’ve forgotten when this area was occupied.”
“The Chaco culture flourished from around 850 to 1250 A.D.,” he told her. “We know of at least thirteen major pueblos. This one, Pueblo Bonito, was one of the leading pre-Columbian villages outside Mexico. It was a hub of commerce, administration and ceremony. See the great house?”
She peered in the direction he pointed as he drove slowly along the canyon. “Yes.”
“It’s four or five stories high and has over six hundred rooms and forty kivas, which were ceremonial chambers. The whole settlement was planned and executed in stages. Can you imagine the knowledge in engineering, architecture and masonry required for such an undertaking?”
“All without powered tools,” she added.
“Yes.”
“What happened to the people who lived here?”
“They’re still around. The Pueblos and Hopi have oral histories of migrations from this area. The Navajo, although they aren’t considered Puebloan, also trace some of their clans back to Chaco.”
Julianne stared at the ruins and imagined the bustling community going about its daily business. Although the park wasn’t crowded, she noticed two groups of people being led through the stone rooms by park rangers. One of the rangers spotted them and waved. Tony waved back.
The road became increasingly rutted. She held on to the grip above her head and tightened her seat belt.
“Not long now,” Tony said.
They arrived at the end of the dirt road. He parked under the shade of a tree and waited at the front of the SUV for her to join him. He held the No Admittance tape up while they ducked under it.
After walking up a shallow arroyo they came upon a cliff. It was not as high as the one back at the village but beautiful in its pastel desert colors. She could see the stone buildings partially revealed under the talus that had fallen on the dwellings over a long period of time.
A shiver danced down her spine as she realized they were the only two living people there. The wind whispered through a copse of willows and cottonwoods, sounding like the sibilant groans of ghosts who still occupied the site.
“You hear it, too,” he said.
“What?”
“The voices of the dead.”
The hair stood up on her arms. She rubbed the chill away and stepped out of the shadow of the trees into the sun. “It’s an eerie place.” She spoke in a soft voice.
He nodded. “Come on.”
Taking her hand in his big warm one, he led the way over the rocky debris. She was glad she had on sturdy sneakers. The going was treacherous.
At the archeological dig, string marked depths and boundaries that had been explored. Tony muttered a curse.
“Anyone could walk in here