Canyon Sacrifice

by Graham, Scott

  Chuck grunted to himself as he headed down the rocky trail away from the information board. The young man was right. Chuck should not be setting off into the canyon this time of day in the middle of the summer. The temperature was easily in the nineties at the canyon rim. That meant inner-canyon temps were well over a hundred, dangerously hot, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

  When he was out of the student ranger’s earshot, Chuck ducked into a patch of broken shade beneath a trailside piñon and punched the return-call button on his phone.

  “You’re there?” came the same disembodied computer voice as before.

  “I’m on the phone with you, aren’t I?”

  “Start down into the canyon on Hermit/Boucher.” The person at the other end of the line pronounced the French surname of the old hermit correctly, boo-shay. “Call again from each trail junction.”

  “Should I call from Waldron junction or the Hermit/Boucher split?”

  Little-traveled Waldron Trail descended from farther west along the canyon rim to meet up with the combined Hermit/Boucher trail just above where the two trails diverged. The trail junctions were less than a quarter mile apart.

  “Don’t be smart,” came the quick reply, followed by the rustling of a map. Chuck awarded himself a point.

  “Hermit/Boucher,” the computerized voice said.

  “I don’t know how long my phone battery will last.”

  “Our conversations will be short. Long as you don’t call anyone else, you shouldn’t have a problem. And one more thing: there’s nothing to be gained by lying about your location. We’ll be tracking you.”

  Chuck looked out from beneath the tree. A handful of tourists stood at the overlook railing. A few more made their way to and from the bathroom. A half-dozen or so, finished sightseeing, sat on the sheltered benches at the edge of the shuttle-bus turnaround waiting for the next bus back to the village. No one appeared the least bit suspicious.

  “Anything else?” Chuck asked.

  “Enjoy your hike.”

  The line went dead.

  Chuck put away his phone and stepped back into the sunlight. The student ranger glowered at him from the information board, his arms crossed. Chuck gave him an informal salute and headed down the trail.

  The heat set to work on him within minutes. The pocket of air trapped between his scalp and baseball cap grew oven-hot beneath the blazing sun. Sweat barely gathered on his brow before it evaporated, leaving a grainy film of salt on his skin. Before pulling on his hiking socks and boots in the camper, Chuck had slathered the soles of his feet with petroleum jelly—the lubrication would keep his soles from blistering and peeling off in the intense heat. The jelly turned to squishy liquid as he walked. He sloshed down the trail, his boots twin buckets of hot grease, the air around him thick with the oily smell of an auto repair shop.

  He sipped a mouthful of water every few minutes from a tube leading to a three-liter bladder stowed in his pack. Already, time was working against him. No matter how much he drank, he could not maintain his body’s minimum level of hydration in the extreme heat of the inner canyon.

  Though crowded with day-hikers and backpackers at the beginning and end of each day, the trail was deserted now, the silence broken only by the accusatory rach-chat-chat-chat of cicadas buzzing from trailside tree branches. A steady breeze, hellishly hot, blew upward from the superheated depths of the canyon, scorching Chuck’s lungs.

  He considered explaining to the computerized voice the insanity of venturing into the canyon in the middle of a day as hot as this, but he knew any request to wait until evening to make the descent would be summarily rejected. He’d known what he was in for when he’d loaded up at camp. In addition to the three-liter bladder he was steadily draining, another was stowed in the bottom of his daypack. The question was whether the combined gallon and a half of water was enough to get him to Hermit Creek, where he could cool off, drink his fill, and replenish the two bladders.

  But he wasn’t headed to Hermit Creek, and he knew it.

  In all the time Chuck had spent at the Grand Canyon, he’d never hiked the inner canyon in the middle of a hot summer day. He had, however, floated a raft down the Colorado River through the canyon during a searing July a decade ago. The torturous heat would have been incapacitating had it not been for the cold water beneath his raft. The river ran a refrigerator-like fifty degrees after it was freed from the base of seven-hundred-foot-tall Glen Canyon Dam upstream. The river water through the canyon was so cold, in fact, that an additional hazard to canyon backpackers, along with heatstroke and cliff fall, was death by drowning. Upon reaching the bottom of the canyon, unsuspecting hikers regularly took what they believed would be refreshing dips in the river, only to be shocked by the frigid water and swept to their deaths—though for Chuck, hiking nearly a vertical mile above the river, such a fate was the stuff only of dreams.

  He rounded the last of the trail’s initial switchbacks off the canyon rim and came to a quarter-mile section of trail known as the Chalk Stairs, a series of steps chipped more than a century ago by the Santa Fe Railroad’s trail-building crew into a half-mile-wide slab of sloping limestone along the route previously laid out by Louis Boucher. At the time of their construction, the steps provided a secure means of descent for mule-borne tourists down the pitched slab of white rock to the broad, flat bench of tan Coconino sandstone beyond. But a hundred years of erosion had worn away the steps, resulting in a sloped ditch filled with marble-sized pebbles that made for treacherous footing.

  The sun’s rays reflected off the expanse of limestone, bumping up the temperature a few degrees. Chuck’s body temperature rose along with the air temperature as he edged his way down the hazardous section of trail. He doffed his cap and wiped the long sleeve of his hiking shirt across his broiling brow. If Miguel were trying to kill him, this descent might well do it.

  Waves of heat rose from the surface of the limestone and bounced off the legs of his lightweight hiking pants. His sunscreen-coated face and hands, the only portions of his skin exposed to the sun, were puffy and stiff.

  At last, he left the expanse of sloping limestone and followed the trail, now smooth and flat, across the top of the Coconino sandstone layer, past the Waldron Trail junction, toward the place where, a few hundred feet ahead, the leading edge of the Coconino layer fell away into the canyon. There, the Hermit/Boucher trails divided. Boucher Trail headed west along the top of the sandstone layer while Hermit Trail angled north, dropping through a rare break in the Coconino and into the inner canyon.

  Low yucca, a few prickly pear cacti, and a smattering of chest-high creosote bushes sprouted amid scattered rocks. Otherwise, the area around the trail junction was a desolate Mars-scape of scattered boulders and shimmering sand.

  Chuck hit redial on his phone as he approached the trail split. One ring. Two. Finally, the computerized voice: “We’ve got you at Hermit/Boucher.”

  “How’s Carmelita?”

  “She’ll be fine—as long as you keep moving.”

  Before Chuck could respond, the muffled report of a gun blast sounded directly behind him.

  THIRTEEN

  Noon

  Chuck dropped his phone and dove for cover behind the nearest creosote bush. He knelt, trembling, behind the scant protection of the bush’s spindly branches. He swung around, quickly ascertaining that the closest real cover was several hundred yards away, where a small stand of piñons clung to a north-facing slope below the canyon rim.

  Nothing moved in the direction of the piñons—but the sound of the gunshot had been far closer than the stand of trees. He drew a stream of air past his dry tongue, fighting for control. He held his position, unmoving, his knees hot in the burning sand.

  No follow-up shot came. No sign of an assailant. In fact, as with Chuck’s own predicament, there was nowhere in the immediate vicinity for an assailant to hide.

  Chuck mentally replayed the sound of the shot. It had come from behind him and, though explosiv
ely loud, had seemed somehow stifled.

  He sat back on his haunches and slapped a hand to his forehead, unzipped his daypack, and looked inside. Sure enough, slimy white goo was sprayed across the interior—melted yogurt expelled in the explosion of a previously unopened bag of yogurt-covered pretzels he’d brought from camp. The steadily rising heat had built the pressure inside the vacuum-sealed bag until, like stepping on a balloon, the bag had exploded with the concussive force of a gunshot, spraying melted yogurt and bits of pulverized pretzel throughout the pack’s interior, and sending Chuck scrambling for cover.

  He climbed wearily to his feet. The heat was playing games with his head. How long until it affected his physical abilities as well?

  He zipped his pack closed and retrieved his phone. “Still there?” he asked.

  “Continue down the trail,” came the computerized voice. “Hermit, not Boucher. Call when you reach the ridgeline.”

  “I know where you’re sending me.”

  “Of course you do.” The caller hung up.

  Chuck shoved the phone back in his pocket. Miguel was proving himself every bit as smart as Janelle and Clarence claimed him to be. Somehow, the girls’ father knew the canyon trail system and the correct pronunciation of Boucher. And he knew where to send Chuck, and why.

  Chuck had told a number of people about his discovery over the course of his career. A dozen, maybe more, almost all of them early on. He’d been young and full of himself when he’d first dropped hints to others about his find. The Southwest archaeological community had been different back then, freer, more open. Chuck and his peers had shared secrets with one another they never would today, not after what had transpired in the years since.

  First, the cannibalism dispute. When human coprolite—fossilized feces—containing human DNA was found at two Anasazi sites on the far northeast edge of the Colorado Plateau, many experts took the findings as proof the Anasazi had practiced widespread cannibalism during the closing decades of their collapsing society. Others rejected that conclusion as demeaning and overly simplistic. Little more than two hundred years ago, they pointed out, Massachusetts whalers lost at sea in lifeboats had drawn lots to determine who among them would be killed and eaten so the rest could survive long enough to reach land. As far as those experts were concerned, such heartrending decisions didn’t make cannibals out of eighteenth-century Anglo-Americans any more than the recent coprolite findings made cannibals of the Anasazi.

  Close on the heels of the cannibalism debate was the bust by federal agents after a three-year sting operation of the so-called Bland of Brothers, a group of grave robbers from the small town of Blanding in southeast Utah who pillaged Anasazi burial sites and sold their takings on the black market. The purported leader of the Bland of Brothers turned out to be none other than Blanding’s town doctor, a revered family practitioner who lived in a sprawling house on a ridge overlooking town.

  The physician was said to have led the grave robbers, not for the money he made from the backcountry digs, but for the thrill of the find. It was said he also robbed Anasazi graves to demonstrate his contempt, shared by many in southeast Utah and across the Colorado Plateau, for the government officials charged with overseeing the federal lands that comprised almost ninety percent of the massive desert uplift. When the feds swooped in on the members of the Bland of Brothers with search warrants in hand, the plunder discovered in the doctor’s basement alone—baskets, jewelry, sandals, pots, burial shrouds, even skeletal remains—was valued at well over a million dollars on the black market. The physician and a second member of the group committed suicide in the months leading up to their trial, while several other group members were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

  The cannibalism controversy and Bland of Brothers bust focused unaccustomed attention on the Southwest archaeological community. True to the introverted nature of many archaeologists, those working across the Colorado Plateau provided few quotes to media types sniffing around after the two stories, and clammed up among one another as well. In the wake of the dual controversies, Chuck stopped boasting of his Grand Canyon discovery to his fellow Southwest archaeologists. These days he did the work each contract required of him, submitted his report, took a few weeks off if his schedule allowed, and got going on his next contract. What happened to his reports and the artifacts that came with them was no longer his concern.

  Along with dropping hints about his discovery to fellow archaeologists, Chuck wrote a number of research papers early in his career based on discoveries he made while working various contracts. One, published in the Journal of the Archaeological Southwest, detailed his discovery of several black-slipped Mesa Verde pots near the Navajo town of Chinle in east-central Arizona. Chuck pointed to the large size of the pots, found far south of the Anasazi population center of Mesa Verde, as indication the Anasazi had traded heavy goods over greater distances than his fellow Southwest archaeologists previously believed.

  Another of his papers, accepted after extensive review and published in the prestigious Journal of the Americas, covered his discovery of bits of vibrant, blue-green Yucatan turquoise at several dispersed sites across the Colorado Plateau. Chuck proposed in the paper that his findings indicated the Anasazi Indians and the Indians of the sophisticated Mayan culture on the Yucatan Peninsula far to the south had interacted on regular occasions as trade partners despite the thousands of miles separating their societies. He’d even gone so far as to posit that future researchers might one day discover DNA evidence of Anasazi/Mayan commingling.

  Chuck’s scholarly work leaned unabashedly toward supposition, offering the sort of conjecture considered unacceptable in today’s Southwest archaeological world. Current articles in Southwest archaeological journals were expected to include extensively detailed data sets and numerous corroborating findings. Today’s research papers on the Anasazi were aimed at closure, at proving obscure findings beyond doubt—that most Anasazi flint-knappers were right handed, or all Anasazi sandals were fixed at the sole with a particular type of slipknot. The result was an overall decline in broad archaeological inquiry that, as far as Chuck was concerned, drained much of the fun out of the field.

  It was as if all big-picture thinking related to the Anasazi was forbidden, prompting Chuck to wonder how long he could keep doing what he was doing if the only reason he did it was for a paycheck. He’d considered more than once in the last few weeks, in fact, whether his growing career disillusionment might have played a role in how speedily he’d committed himself to Janelle and the girls.

  Janelle.

  He looked out across the canyon. It was well past noon. The tour with Donald would be over by now. She and Clarence, along with Rosie, would be back in camp and beside themselves with worry. Or maybe they had good news to report. Maybe they’d tracked down Carmelita somehow, meaning Chuck could turn around and head back up to the canyon rim. Either way, it was long past time for him to check in.

  Janelle answered his call on the first ring. “Where are you?” she asked breathlessly. “Your note said not to call, but—”

  “I’m doing what he wants,” Chuck said.

  “And leaving us in the dark.”

  “I know what he’s after. I’ll give it to him, he’ll give us Carm, and we can all go home. This’ll all be over in few hours. You just have to sit tight.”

  “Sit tight?” she asked. Her voice squeaked.

  “What’d you do, Jan?”

  “I . . .”

  “Talk to me, Jan.”

  “He said ‘no cops.’”

  “Janelle.”

  She spoke in a rush. “I posted it on my Facebook page.”

  “You did what?”

  “She’s my little girl, Chuck. Last thing I’m going to do is sit around and do nothing.”

  “But online? What were you thinking?”

  “He said no police. Fine. But he didn’t say anything about anybody else. It was your idea—you said we should be doing something for Carm, an
d that we should keep our eyes peeled. There’s zillions of people here, they’ve all got their computers and their smartphones, and they’re all online, like, all the time.”

  “You updated your Facebook page to say, ‘Oh, guess what, LOL, my daughter’s been kidnapped at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon’? You know what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve sent out an amateur Amber Alert. How long do you think it’s going to be before the police find out?”

  “I don’t care if they find out. Don’t you see? He said ‘no cops,’ in that we weren’t to go to the police. But if it reaches them indirectly, well, okay, fine. Besides, I didn’t say ‘kidnapped.’ I just put up a picture of her and said we think she’s wandering around the village somewhere, and if anybody spots her, would they please post back.” She paused. “It might force his hand, you know.”

  Chuck bit his lower lip. Maybe she was on to something. “It might help,” he admitted grudgingly. “Show him you mean business.”

  “He’ll be checking my page. I know he will.”

  Chuck’s phone beeped, signaling its reduction in battery strength from full to half power. “I gotta go. You hear anything, call me. I’ll do the same. A few hours, I’ll be back, and we’ll get this over with.”

  “Promise?” The ache in Janelle’s voice went straight to his heart.

  “Promise.”

  Two miles farther down Hermit Trail and another thousand vertical feet deeper in the canyon, Chuck wondered whether he’d be able to keep his promise. The air temperature was over 110 now. The ground temperature, far higher, broiled his lubricated feet. Though he was drinking water as sparingly as possible, he’d already depleted his first three-liter bladder and started in on his second.

  He followed the deserted trail as it angled across the face of the ridge separating Hermit and Montezuma basins. The trail topped out on the ridgeline between the two drainages at a commanding viewpoint, then cut back across the west face of the ridge, continuing its plunge into Hermit Basin and on to the backpacker campground at the creek.