Aztec Odyssey

by Jay C. LaBarge

  “That’s why you earn the big bucks, bro,” Charlie joked. “Oh, that’s right, archeology students are indentured servants, I almost forgot. You’re in it for the love of it, not the money. It’s your big brother who makes the big bucks.” Nick just looked at him and shook his head.

  Lunch finished, the brothers hustled over to a hiking and hunting outfitters store on the edge of town and bought gear they needed to supplement what Nick had already brought along. Fresh strap on headlamps, glow sticks, high intensity flashlights, extra batteries, a pickax, foldable shovel, rappelling rope with stop descenders, extra carabineers, high grip gloves, hunting knives, two compound bows, a night vision scope, two pistols, ammo, scent eliminators, face paint and camouflage gear. In short everything needed to get in and out of a difficult location in the middle of the night, and to protect themselves. Charlie took the owner of the shop aside, told him he appreciated his discretion, and paid him in cash, along with a five-hundred-dollar tip.

  Nick walked into the Mesa Verde Park Center and saw the same Ranger who had arranged his previous overnight stay. Exchanging pleasantries, he introduced Charlie, and explained he would like his city slicker brother to experience the same stunning view, if it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.

  “Always happy to accommodate someone with as much expertise and interest as you,” the Ranger replied as he wrote a pass. “We don’t get many people who understand Mesoamerican history nearly as deeply as you. Maybe the occasional aspiring author or research archeologist, but heck, you could give the tours here. Look us up if you ever want a second career.”

  Late in the day they pulled into the parking lot closest to the Cliff Palace and watched the last of the straggling tourists filter out into the fading twilight. They showed their pass as the Rangers closed things down and drove away, then waited until dark to make sure no one was coming back. When they were confident they were alone, they grabbed their gear and walked down the trail. It eventually became more challenging, the path constricted in spots by the rock walls, with thick, sturdy wooden ladders and natural steps up and down at certain points. The night was dark and the moon obscured, so the normal view of the pueblo off in the distance wasn’t visible at all. Nanook led the way, sometimes off path to get around the ladders, and they followed more cautiously with heavy loads, seeing only as far as their headlamps allowed. Finally they came upon a partial tower, dark and foreboding, guarding the narrow footpath in, easily defensible.

  Rubbing his hand along the seams of the stones of the tower, Nick looked up, impressed. “This was well thought out, they carefully controlled the access points. A handful of determined warriors could hold off a much larger force, indefinitely if they had enough food and water.” He grinned at Charlie. “Let’s find where they hid that damn food.”

  They walked carefully along the path to the complex, past the Northern Quarter and the Old Quarter, to the approximate center of the Cliff Palace, an area called the Plaza Quarter. Nick pulled out two diagrams, one a view from above looking down with rooms labeled by function, and another looking at the face of it, showing how things stacked on top of one another.

  “I’ve highlighted the granaries, you can see them interspersed about, with several up there,” Nick said, pointing far up into the dark recesses. “They have all been extensively explored and excavated over time, the remains are what tell the story. No space wasted at all here, they were very efficient in how they laid this whole place out. It evolved over several iterations to what we’re looking at now.”

  Charlie fingered the front view diagram, with several highlighted storage rooms tucked high up in back. “Tell me we don’t have to get way up into those.”

  “We might, but that’s not where I’m starting. Remember the quote from Grandma Ingrid, that the key is behind a wall with food forever. None of the marked granaries on here fit that description, none stand out as something that large.” Nick pulled out another map, similar to the top down view, but the back area was enlarged. “See how the buildings butt up to the very back edge of the cavern? They don’t exactly fit, and they leave two large gaps behind. One is here, in back of the Old Quarter, and the second one is here, in back of the Plaza Quarter.”

  Charlie leaned in for a closer look, adjusted his head lamp and tapped the diagram. “But they say refuse space. They just dumped their garbage back there? These were already explored, right?”

  “This place was abandoned 700 years ago, and it is likely that some people may have hung on a little longer than others. I’m betting as an extended drought set in, order eventually breaks down, and in the chaos of people leaving, what was once their largest granary was emptied. Those who were here last treated the empty space as a refuse heap. We archeologists come along, dig into the layer of trash, and label the space a dump. I’ll bet if we dig completely through the trash layer, we’ll see the bottom and sides were finished in a kind of plaster, to protect it. You wouldn’t do that for a trash pit.”

  “OK, decision time. There are two refuse spaces, which one do we go after?”

  “I’m thinking this one, in the far back of the Old Quarter. It is the larger of the two, and the access is better, easier. If their lives depend on their largest granary, I gotta believe it would be where it was well protected, yet still easy to get at. Let’s do this.”

  They carefully worked their way back into the complex, feeling as much as seeing their way, ducking under low doorways, their headlamps playing off the walls and casting eerie shadows. Nick stopped to orient them in what appeared to be a small courtyard, and then led the way to the final row of rooms tucked the furthest back. They were shorter in height then those closer to the front, constricted by the angle of the cliff. Searching through the rooms they found several backwards facing windows, and two different doorways into the very back edge of the cavern itself.

  “The windows would allow them to dump grain from several vantage points to level it, and also provide air circulation to keep it dry. And the doorways allow people to get down into the cavern, to fill baskets that could have been brought up by rope,” Nick commented as he felt a subtle groove in the center of a window, sloping toward the cavern. “This wasn’t designed as a garbage pit, it only became one when things broke down.” He cracked and tossed several glow sticks into the cavern, gauging its depth.

  Charlie got out two high intensity flashlights and set them on stands in two of the windows, which illuminated a surprising amount of the cavern. Nanook sniffed around and peered over the edge, then wandered back to the courtyard. Huffing, he planted himself facing outward, protecting the only access point to where they were working.

  The depth appeared to be about twenty feet, and Nick descended on a secured rope, with Charlie then relaying some equipment down to him. Nick stepped carefully, seeing grids and test pits on the floor from prior excavations, digging down into the detritus of the years. He started on the far-left hand side of the cavern wall, closely examining it by tapping with a prospector’s hand pick in one hand, while feeling the grooves and rock surfaces with the fingertips of the other. He smiled when he saw the wall had been lined with a sort of plaster, up to a height of two or three feet above the bottom of the test pit. Maybe this wasn’t a trash pit after all.

  He worked his way to the right, listening to any change in the sound of pick on rock, which echoed dully in the cavern. Bats started flying about disturbed by the intrusion, and headed out through the windows and doors, Nanook jumping up and snapping at a few that flew over him. After about fifteen minutes Nick was about three quarters of the way around, and the sound of the pick suddenly made a different, hollower, sound. He looked up at the ceiling, now only a couple of feet above his head, and thought it stopped sloping, which would indicate it should further indent, but the wall did not. He tapped the pick again. Hollow.

  “Hey Charlie, come join the party,” he called out.

  Nick meticulously photographed the area, and then carefully chipped away at seams in the plas
ter, which revealed the same sandstone construction used in the buildings above. But this little section was built slightly differently, the workmanship not as practiced, but well concealed by the finish on the outside. Without warning a section of false wall gave way, tumbling inward, and Nick and Charlie stared at one another for a startled moment. Nick stuck his head into the opening, his headlamp illuminating the interior.

  “C’mon man, what do you see?”

  “Wow, unbelievable. Two time travelers, and maybe a map on the wall,” Nick replied. “Let’s take this apart carefully, because I’m going to want to leave it exactly the way we found it.”

  Nick worked methodically, Charlie stacking bricks in the order they were removed, until there was an opening just large enough to squeeze into. Nick wormed his way in with his headlamp and a bright flashlight, while Charlie held another at an angle. Two mummies were on the floor, seated, legs crossed, facing one another. The male looked like he had been very old and was wearing the traditional garb of the Aztecs, dusty and cobweb covered, while the woman appeared younger, and dressed as an Apache or Navajo. The sealed tomb was perfectly dry and serene, and small items were on the floor around them, some that looked to be Aztec, perhaps from Mexico, and some that appeared Spanish. Items from two worlds, the Old and the New.

  Nick took photographs from every angle, careful not to disturb anything, and then examined the walls carefully. There was what appeared to be a rough map etched into the stone, tracing a meandering route. Toward the top there was a symbol on an intersection of the trails, the figure of a throne, and then several larger panels of codices next to it. One looked vaguely familiar to Nick, but he couldn’t quite place it. He took more detailed photos of the etchings and slipped back out.

  “We’ve got our key brother, hidden where there is food forever! That little throne, where the trails converge, is where we will find it. And I can tell you from reading every ancient map on the area in existence, that location is Chaco Canyon.” Nick pointed the flashlight to the etched codices. “And those are the markers that will help us find exactly where.”

  Charlie stuck his head in for a brief look, and then they put the wall back together. They sealed the cracks as best they could with the dry mortar they had displaced mixed with a little water from the water bladders in their backpacks. Finished, the brothers made their way back out, taking all their equipment and brushing over their tracks. Nanook thumped his tail when he saw them and followed until they stood on the ledge of the Cliff Palace, looking outward, as the predawn sky slightly brightened. They hiked back to the pickup truck and stowed their gear before the earliest tourists or rangers showed up. Nick led Charlie to an overlook, and they sat and watched the sun rise over the mesa, just as it had for countless millennia.

  “You look lost in thought,” Charlie said to Nick, clapping him gently on the shoulder. “I know you’re thinking about Soba, you holding up OK?”

  “Yeah, she’s on my mind. But I gotta tell you, seeing those two mummies, and knowing her back story of being raised as a tribe within a tribe, it gives me an eerie feeling. Like somehow this is all tied together. Maybe it’s just the exhaustion talking, but first things first. We’ve got to find what we came for.”

  Exhausted from their all-night expedition, they found a shady spot and were both soon fast asleep, Nanook alert at their feet. They knew their ultimate fate, and Soba’s, would soon be determined in Chaco Canyon. One way or another.

  Nick called Bidzii while Charlie drove south to Chaco Canyon, and nervously filled him in on the details of Lonan’s death and Soba’s abduction. After getting over the initial shock, Bidzii made plans to meet them at Chaco, which sat on Navajo Reservation land. It was only a short drive for him, in an area he knew intimately from growing up nearby. Nick asked him to bring a couple of specific items along, to better their odds in any sort of confrontation. No firm plan yet, but he was hoping something would coalesce soon enough. One crisis at a time, hottest fire first, he thought as he hung up.

  They drove due south a little over an hour to Farmington, grabbed a quick bite to go, and immediately got back on the road. Charlie was puzzled by something he had seen the prior night with the mummies, in particular on the etched map on the wall.

  “You said you recognized the ‘map’ on the wall, that the trails converged at Chaco Canyon. There was a symbol there in the middle of it, looked like some kind of seat. What does that signify?”

  Nick looked up from his cell phone, busily downloading maps and data about Chaco Canyon. “I can’t be sure, but I have a theory. I think it’s the symbol for a throne, the seat of royalty. It bears a resemblance to the stepped Throne of Montezuma, which I just saw at the National Museum in Mexico City. It was a spectacular find, discovered in 1831 under the city, covered with relief carvings. If that is really what it was meant to symbolize on the map, then Chaco is the right place to be looking.”

  The phone that Nick had been given by the cartel suddenly vibrated. He tapped Charlie and pointed for him to pull over. There, staring back at Nick, was an image of Soba, hands bound, looking terrified. There was also a text message:

  You better be making progress, I am not a patient man. Update me.

  Nick paused, composing his thoughts. He needed to buy time, some separation. He didn’t know if he was being followed now, and frankly wouldn’t be able to tell given the mix of ethnicities of tourists everywhere during peak season. He had to assume there were eyes on them. But he also needed to bluff a little, to test how much rope he would be given. As long as that rope wasn’t around Soba’s neck.

  Making progress but leads imperfect. Searching hard, eliminating false trails. Need some time.

  After he pressed send, he panicked when he realized he would be in and out of cell phone coverage. Had this Eztli even considered that? He quickly added to his message:

  This search necessitates being in and out of cell phone coverage. Please don’t do harm because we can’t reach each other.

  The reply came quickly:

  Be careful rabbit. Time is what you don’t have much of. Send progress update every 24 hours and await my reply, miss it and parts will follow.

  He waited for any additional information, but there was none. Passing the phone to Charlie, he saw his hands were shaking. This was becoming all too real, the image of Soba etched in his mind. The pressure gnawing at the back of his brain rushed to the front, the black dog of depression overpowering him, a migraine forming. Not now, not with so much to accomplish, there was no time for this. He rushed to the back of the truck, his vision constricting into a tunnel, the daylight suddenly blinding him, and fumbled in a cooler for a high caffeine energy drink and chugged it. He grabbed a second one, and stumbled back to the front seat, and drank that down too.

  Charlie knew what was happening, had seen this hit his brother before, back when they found out their mother had fatal cancer. He reached over and covered Nick’s eyes with his own baseball cap. He knew Nick needed two things which were diametrically opposed, caffeine and sleep, and slowly drove on ever smaller roads, until they were within the Chaco Canyon Historical Park itself.

  As they approached the Visitors Center, Charlie recognized Bidzii standing outside with three others. He looked over at Nick and saw he was still sleeping, waved at Bidzii, then put a finger to his lips, be quiet. He parked and walked over, shook Bidzii’s hand and gave his condolences on the situation, and explained Nick needed to sleep off an intense migraine. He let Nanook out, who happily bounded around Bidzii and his friends, Charlie now realizing they were his band mates. Blues to the rescue.

  Finding a place in the shade behind the Visitors Center, Bidzii and Charlie talked intensely while the others looked on, catching up, as Nick slept in the pickup. After about a half hour, Nick wandered over to them, still slightly dazed but his mind coming back into focus. Seeing Bidzii he stumbled over and hugged him, apologizing over and over.

  “Not your fault Nick, not your fault. Others took her. She
knew what she was getting into. But we gotta get her back man, unharmed.”

  Nick stood straight up, the last vestiges of the migraine dissipating. He took off his sunglasses and now saw Atsa, Yas, and Tahoma standing in the shadows, and a grateful smile crept across his face. Fajada Butte was just off in the distance behind them, and something about it made him drift off for a moment, some relevant memory he couldn’t quite get his mind around. He looked back at Bidzii and slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll get her back pronto, Tonto. But first we gotta go find something for leverage.”

  They grabbed a camp site as a base of operations, one of the few left that no one wanted, which was ideal as it was rugged and out of the way. Yas and Tahoma found shady spots to keep lookout, while Nanook habitually positioned himself on the main access point in. Nick, Charlie, and Bidzii reviewed maps and brainstormed about possible places something could have been hidden, as Atsa listened in.

  “Don’t underestimate what we are trying to achieve here gentlemen,” Nick cautioned. “This is something that has been missing 500 years, and fortunes and lives have been lost in its pursuit. History has shown that the more valuable the treasure, the more elaborate the deception. Take Genghis Kahn and his treasure. Supposedly anyone who witnessed where he was buried was killed, and the killers in turn killed by those who didn’t know the location. That location was purportedly under some unknown river, which had been diverted to allow burial, and then redirected back to its original path.”

  Bidzii stared hard at Nick, his look said he’d do anything to find it to get Soba back.

  Nick nodded at him. “What we seek may very well be here at Chaco Canyon, but we’re going to have to earn it. And if we can’t find it, we’ll need a plan B.”