Slickrock Paradox (16 page)

HE DROVE BACK THROUGH CORTEZ
and on to Monticello. He waited until he passed through the town and then pulled out his phone and dialed Katie Rain.

“Rain,” she said.

“Is that a greeting, or an invocation?”

“Ah, Dr. Pearson. What's up?”

“I told you I'd keep you in the loop.”

“Yes, you did, and what have you learned?” He told her about his meeting with Peter Anton, and what Anton had told him about his relationship with Kayah Wisechild. He told her about the work they had been doing, but left out any details about where the work had been conducted.

“You think he's being straight up?” asked Rain.

“I don't think so. I think something happened between Anton and the Wisechild girl. I can't swear to it, but there was more going on with those ruins than he's letting on. I just don't know what.”

“You're going to check it out, aren't you?”

“How did you know that?”

“I deal with bones, Dr. Pearson, but I'm a human being. You're easy to read.”

“Yes, I'm going to go and have a look.”

“Would you like to tell me where you're going? Just in case
you
pull a disappearing act?”

“If worst comes to worst, you can look for my car. With my ankle the way it is, I'll be within a day of it.”

“That's not very helpful,” said Rain.

“I'm trying my best,” he said, smiling.

“Call when you get out. Your mother worries.”

“Deal,” he said, and hung up.

He drove past the entrance to the Needles section of Canyonlands National Park and turned onto the track that led off toward Hatch Wash. A plume of red dust followed his Outback, and he had to focus on navigating the rough, winding tracks. He had a recreation map open on the passenger seat, where he marked his turns. The country across which he drove was part of a vast tableland, on top of which a thin veneer of desert life existed, appearing amid swells of iron-red, blowing sand and in the lee of washes and arroyos. For more than an hour he coaxed the Outback over crests of sandstone and across tire-sucking, blowing sand. It was hard driving, working the clutch constantly, and his ankle pulsed. When he finally came to a point where he could drive no farther, he was glad to stop. He parked the Outback in the lee of a giant, twisted juniper, then found a flat rock to sit on, letting the desert's silence ring in his ears.

Silas looked at this watch: it was nearly five in the afternoon. Though there was enough daylight to descend the canyon, there wasn't enough to climb back out. And while he didn't mind hoisting a pack with a stove, food, and a sleeping bag, he felt that his ankle might not bear the additional weight.

He camped where he parked. Sometime shortly after he finished his dinner he heard the whine of a motor. Another vehicle was crawling across the tableland, but it stopped, and he forgot about it. As he curled up in his sleeping bag, his final thoughts were of his wife, and of the witch that Leon Wisechild invoked to lead Silas back to her.

In the morning, the going was much rougher than he expected, and he was glad he had taken his cane. The first half mile was a straightforward, gentle descent of the arroyo leading to Hatch Wash. But within half an hour he was forced to use his hands to down climb steep sections of sandstone, his legs spanning narrow fissures, his body pressed against the side of the perpendicular canyon. He zigzagged his way to the bottom of the side canyon, descending five hundred feet, according to his
GPS
, in little under a mile.

In another forty minutes he'd walked the length of the branch canyon, descended another five hundred feet, and arrived at the juncture with the main stem of Hatch Wash. A trickle of water ran over the slick sandstone exposed where the two arms of the canyon came together. He bent and soaked his hat in the cool water. He cupped a little to his lips and splashed his face. When he stood up, he regarded the land circling around him. He was a thousand feet below the rim, half of which was the sheer formation known as the Wingate Sandstone, the other half a jumble of sloping terraces and smaller cliffs, dotted with boulder fields and junipers. According to Peter Anton's coordinates, he was less than a mile from the ruins, so he walked very slowly down the central canyon, using his cane for support, and scanning the walls.

Other tracks, both human and animal, had left impressions on the canyon floor. His own distinctive three-legged trail joined the indentations of mule deers' cloven hooves, the frantic tracks of lizards, the impression made by heavy hiking boots.

He continued on. It was still just mid morning, so the light wasn't as harsh as it would be later in the day, the shadows not so deep. But he still walked right past the pocket canyon before he realized he'd missed it. Silas backtracked, his face now to the sun, shielding his eyes from the intense glare. In a few minutes he found the unremarkable side canyon, a jumble of fallen rock and a tangle of tamarisk appearing to cut it off from the main wash. He started in.

The narrow defile was covered in deep shadow and the temperature dropped. In places the side canyon was only twenty feet wide and deeply undercut, so that he could walk with one hand trailing along the wall, the canyon arched out above him like a tunnel. In places the canyon floor was a hodgepodge of boulders and Silas had to climb gingerly over car-sized rocks to avoid slipping on the slick stone. He was concentrating on one such effort when he looked up and was confronted by what Kayah had found. He stopped, stunned.

Laid out in three terraces along a nearly perpendicular section of the side canyon was a series of dwellings and granaries, and what appeared to be a central kiva or temple. He looked around, mystified that such a find could go undiscovered for so long. The upper structures were typical cliff dwellings, cemented into a soft recess of sandstone and protected from the elements by the overhang of cliff above them. Several of them boasted two stories, and all had windows and doorways opening onto a thirty- to forty-foot sheer drop to the canyon floor. The lower structures were laid out in a half moon along the terminus of the pocket canyon, and had intact log-supported roofs and several windows opening into the courtyard where the kiva lay.

Silas sat down on a boulder in disbelief.

He had been to ancient Pueblo ruins over the course of the last three and a half years. He had even found a couple that nobody had marked on a map or noted in a guidebook. He had seen large complexes of ruins, the evidence of a sophisticated civilization that had existed in the canyon country until seven hundred years ago, and then mysteriously vanished.

Sitting on this boulder in the shade of this box canyon, he felt as if he'd never seen a thing up until this moment. There was something about the design of this enclave that was in complete aesthetic harmony.

Hatch Wash was by no means remote. Peter Anton and his team had spent several weeks cataloging what they had found. Nevertheless, the ruins before him felt newly discovered, and in the backcountry of south-eastern Utah, that counted for a great deal.

There was little reason to doubt the concern that Anton and Kayah Wisechild and this third man, Williams, would have had for the site's archaeological value. Was it significant enough to stop a major resort development from going up on the adjacent canyon rim? It might not be, but this density of construction suggested that somewhere else scattered through Hatch and its side canyons were other traces of ancient Pueblo civilization: rock art and artifacts. Taken together, and given the pressure to preserve the Canyon Rims region within Canyonlands National Park, it might give pause to the regulator.

Silas took out his binoculars and began to scan the multi-story ruins. The upper structures must have been accessible only by ladders because no handholds or footholds were visible. He examined the smooth surface of the slickrock and could see nothing to indicate another means of approach. In several places, near tiny ledges in front of the doors of the dwellings and granaries, the smooth surface of the stone had been scratched. It looked as if someone had jimmied their way up the slickrock walls to the granaries and cliff dwellings.

He stood and turned his attention to the central kiva. This was new for Silas. He'd seen sites of settlements in the Grand Gulch and Chaco Canyon, where the kiva was an impressively designed sacred space. But this one wasn't on anyone's map. Circular in shape, the kiva's still-intact roof was level with the surrounding canyon floor. The main structure had been dug by hand. The roof had then been constructed from timber dragged into the canyon, which would have been back-breaking labor. The roof had then been covered with chiseled stone. The small hole in the roof would have had a ladder descending into the sacred space. Another opening, not eighteen inches across, allowed fresh air to enter the structure.

At just twenty-five feet in diameter, it was by no means a grand structure, but it was beautiful in its symmetry. Silas peered in through the portal. There was no ladder, and no obvious way for him to get down. He walked to the ground-level portal of the closest building, a low-roofed adobe edifice with four sizable roof beams and windows facing the morning sun. Based on what Anton had told him, he expected a great treasure trove of discovery within, pots, shards, tools, maybe even a basket. With some anticipation he stooped and looked through the low door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He could smell the fecund odor of animal urine and stale earth.

It was empty. He fished his headlamp from the top of his pack and put it on, its powerful beam cutting through the dusty air and brightening the corners of the room. There was nothing in this dwelling. He went to the next, and the next, and found the same thing. There was nothing at all.

He felt a wave of disgust wash over him. Penelope had told him many times of how pot hunters and grave robbers plundered the Southwest of its rich archaeological, cultural, and spiritual history.

A resort on top of the mesa above wouldn't necessarily destroy this site, but the thousands of people who would be drawn to such a destination would demand trails, handrails, walkways, and even jeep access to something as spectacular as this ruin. It would be overrun, as Mesa Verde and Hovenweep had been. While its structures might be preserved by the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the soul of the place would soon be shattered. Silas had heard the arguments before; had even had them from time to time with Penelope. Give thousands of people access to such a place and you allow them to view and maybe even learn a little from it; but in making it easy to reach, the feeling of discovery that he was now experiencing would be gone.

He hadn't fully grasped what Penelope, his own wife, had been arguing for all those years, until now. Silas wondered if she herself might have found this place. If she had, what would she have done about it? He had no doubt that such a discovery by his environment-avenging wife would have led to a tremendous showdown between her and those who wished to plunder this place. She and Jacob Isaiah would have had words, not all of them fit for family company. The
BLM
would have received an earful for even considering the proposal for a resort built near this delicate site.

Silas was drawn back to the kiva. She would have loved this. Penelope had told him about the kiva in Grand Gulch, and what she felt descending into that consecrated space of the ancient Pueblo people. Having searched the other structures, he decided that he would have to see the interior of this one too. It occurred to him, given the state of plunder, that he should look for further evidence of comings and goings, but now his own footprints in the sand covered the site. He would be more careful as he entered the kiva.

He slipped off his pack and took out the coil of eight-millimeter nylon rope that he carried with him. It was just eighty feet long, but for descending into slot canyons and safely getting out, it was perfect. Now he looked for a place to secure it.

Several boulders near the mouth of the structure would suffice. Silas doubled up the rope and looped it around a boulder a few feet back from the kiva. It left him with plenty of line. He put his weight on it and it held. He decided to play it safe and slipped on his climbing harness. He knew he could just drop into the kiva, but he didn't want to risk reinjuring his tender ankle.

He donned his pack again and stepped to the roof entrance to the ruin. He dropped his cane down first, then slipped the rope into his belay device and leaned back over the door. He eased himself down over the rim and felt the cool air inside the kiva beneath him. He pressed his back against the far side of the opening and carefully let his feet fall out below him and then played out the rope, delivering himself gently to the floor ten feet below the kiva's portal.

He stood a moment and let his eyes adjust to the dim light. He could turn his headlamp on, but wanted to get a look at the space in the natural morning glow first. He immediately noted that this room, too, had been plundered of anything left behind by the ancient Pueblo dwellers. The floor was bare and in fact appeared to have been brushed or swept clean. He found the sipapu, the hole in the floor that symbolized the portal through which the ancient Puebloans believed their ancestors first emerged to enter the present world. Next to it was the fire circle, and then the stone deflector, which kept smoke from being drawn up through the ventilation shaft at the foot of the kiva's wall. The deflector itself was constructed of four large stones, cleaved square, each measuring about a foot and a half by two feet. He looked up. The roof and its rectangular door, with his rope descending through it, ten feet above, seemed very high.

He unclipped his belay tool and walked around the room. To the ancient Pueblo people the kiva was the center of cultural and spiritual life. As he slowly circled the space, running his hand along the smooth stone walls, Silas imagined men gathered there, sitting on the low benches along the walls or gathered around the fire. He circled twice, his hand trailing along the cracks and fissures in the wall, as if searching for purchase there.