by Siena West
Elena hurried back into the store. “Excuse me,” she asked the woman behind the counter. “Did it rain around here today?”
“Not a drop. Don’t expect any for a while, either. Fourth of July, maybe.”
The land was as dry as old bones scattered over the surface of a vandalized site. So where did Otis Greenlaw drive through mud up to the wheel hubs?
Chapter 8
Desire
Home at last, Elena and the FBI agent unwound themselves from the truck, cramped and stiff after the ride and the hike into the canyon. As she got out, the director noticed a slight hitch in the man’s gait she hadn’t seen earlier.
“Sandy, your leg? Did you pull a muscle or something?” The two had slipped into first names during the day.
The agent grimaced, rubbing his thigh. “Old gunshot wound—there’s titanium in there. It kinks up after a long ride in the car.”
Every light in the ranch house was blazing. Norm hurried to meet them, his face a mess of worry lines.
“I was getting anxious. What happened?” After the wildfire, Norm had become more concerned about Elena’s whereabouts and well-being.
“Nothing, Norm. We got stuck in a huge storm just as we were leaving the canyon, and we had to wait it out. Then we stopped for gas. Everything’s fine.”
Maggie erupted from the kitchen in a blaze of red hair and pink cheeks. It was her turn at kitchen duty, and she’d been up to her elbows in suds.
“Tía! It’s about time. I was getting ready to call the cops. Wait—you are the cops!” Her great laugh boomed into the yard and parking lot.
“Agent Jorgensen, meet the aforementioned Margaret Denny, AKA Maggie. Maggie, please be nice to the FBI agent.”
Jorgensen shook her hand. “Dr. Vargas told me about your research. And your plan to survey on horseback.”
“Oh, no—not you, too? Are you going to talk me out of it?” She glanced daggers at Elena.
“I would never stand between a woman and her archaeological research,” he said, prim and proper as an English professor. A sly grin belied his words.
Elena stepped into the breach before Maggie could retort. “Norm, is there any dinner left? We’re starving. Agent Jorgensen, please stay and have supper with us.”
Exhausted, Jorgensen would prefer to be on the road. But he’d endure most anything to be with the lovely Elena a little longer. He tossed his belongings in the Bureau vehicle and followed her into the house.
* * *
Elena and Jorgensen sat at the polished oak dining table. Norm had made chicken pot pie for dinner and set it aside for them. Although soggy from standing so long, when Norm warmed it in the oven, it was fine. He made fresh coffee and brought in leftover cake for dessert. But nothing would deter Maggie. She finished the kitchen chores and then plunked down next to Elena, listening wide-eyed as they relived their trip to Cholla House.
Jorgensen had been pondering the pot hunting at the ruin. “A helicopter is what pot hunters need in country like this,” he said between bites of chicken pie. “With a helo, they’d be able to get in and out of a cliff ruin fast. Wouldn’t take long for them to do enormous damage.”
“Law enforcement, the BIA, and the Forest Service are the only ones here with access to a helicopter,” Elena said. “We don’t suspect them, do we?” She laughed.
“With their money, the Sinaloa cartel could buy a fleet of helos. And we’d just love to confiscate one used in a major crime.”
“Ever since Maggie here came up with her scheme to survey on horseback, I’ve been thinking pot hunters may have ridden horses to remote ruins. Like Haury did at Cholla House,” Elena said.
“You may be right. It’s too bad it rained—we might have seen tracks, if we weren’t worried about drowning.
“Maggie, you’ve done us a service by suggesting horseback survey. Elena, how about your survey crews look for horse tracks when they find a vandalized site?”
“Agent Jorgensen, this gets weirder by the day. But okay—horse tracks and beer cans. Got it.” Maggie was grinning and poking Elena. “I told you!” She giggled. “Margaret Denny saves the day!”
“Anyway, having seen Cholla House—and if it’s like others around here—it’s clear that pot hunters would need help. The Mexicans wouldn’t understand the region or where to find a ruin. They wouldn’t know anything about local law enforcement. So—they would need a local guide.” The White Mountain Apache Reservation alone covered more than 2,600 square miles of isolated, rugged land that contained hundreds of archaeological sites.
Although it was disquieting to think the cartel had conscripted local people—and upsetting they might be Apache—Elena recognized the economic realities of life on the reservation. Drug money would be hard to refuse, and those caught up would not comprehend the terrible tangle that would enmesh them. The director sighed, regretting the loss of innocence.
At last, Maggie said goodnight. “Pleased to meet you, Agent Jorgensen,” she said, beaming goodbye.
“I’m also delighted to meet you, Ms. Maggie. You come with a lot of interesting history.”
“Oh, pooh,” she said, and left.
Jorgensen pushed back from the table. “I need to get on the road, Elena. It’s late. Can I help with the dishes?”
“No worries. I’ll wash them before I go to bed.”
“Walk me to my car, then?”
The night was dark, with only starlight to show the way. A soft wind stirred the pine boughs. Elena and Jorgensen stood at his vehicle, feeling awkward. A deep pool of shadow cast by the cottonwoods shielded them from the house lights. Before Elena could speak, Jorgensen stopped her words. He pinned her by the shoulders against the vehicle door and took her in his arms. She gasped, and he kissed her, a profound caress that shook her to her toes. Her breath caught, ragged in her throat.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you. It’s been hell trying to stay professional with my archaeological consultant,” Jorgensen murmured.
Elena reached up to bring his face close to her own and returned his kiss with delight. That was answer enough. Their kisses tasted of coffee and chocolate, their skin of dust and the faint, salty tang of sweat.
The two kissed again with more urgency.
“Whoa, caballero,” she whispered, hoping that no curious student was lurking in the shadows, or God forbid, Maggie, watching them. “Ve más despacio.”
Elena’s face was dim in the starlight. Jorgensen wished he could see her more clearly.
“I want to see you again, Elena, and not as my consultant. You differ from any woman I’ve ever met. You’re smart, self-confident, and plucky. It’s impossible not to fall in love with you.”
The agent kissed her; this time, it was soft and gentle. “So, would you be willing to spend time with a battered old agent with a bum leg?”
“Yes, I think I can put up with you, Agent Jorgensen.” He hugged her, his arms warm and strong.
“I don’t know when I can get to the ranch again, and you’re busy, too.”
“There’s no hurry, querido. We have plenty of time.”
God, I hope so, the agent thought.
Chapter 9
Summer Solstice
“Get with the program, Mike!”
The hapless student who had stopped working for a brief rest picked up his shovel with reluctance at Mel’s shout. Above the pueblo excavations arched a cloudless sky of deep, aching blue. It was the longest day of the year—endless, the sun seeming to stand still in the heat. Three days later, El Día de San Juan—the feast day of San Juan—would arrive. On that day, according to Sonoran tradition, the summer-monsoon season would start. In the old days of Tucson, families took picnics to the banks of the Santa Cruz River. They celebrated the saint’s day with watermelon and special dishes, such as a cold tongue and vegetable salad called salpicón. Then the intense thunderstorms the Sonorans called chubascos would assault the land with pelting rain, lightning
bolts, and hail.
The field school would celebrate neither the summer solstice nor San Juan’s day. Norm’s culinary expertise did not extend to traditional Mexican dishes, and regardless, they were working too hard. Mel was relentless in driving her crew because arrival of the monsoon season brought dangers to archaeological excavations. A sea of sticky red mud would cover an exposed room floor. The archaeologists couldn’t work until the room dried. After two or three days of rain, they would be far behind schedule.
The overheated, dry air crackled with tension. The relentless noise of the cicadas in the trees was irritating, the high, intense whine seeming to come from all directions and inside the diggers’ skulls at the same time.
As the morning crept toward noon, the crew realized the excavation in the small northwest quad was nearing the floor. Mel took over, ousting the students and troweling the fill. Soon, she had exposed the rims of two corrugated jars. Not far away, the tops of several thin, upright stone slabs showed in the dirt. Mel relented and let the crew in so she could explain what she had found.
“See these slabs? They’re part of a mealing bin. There’s sure to be a metate—that’s the bottom stone—inside the bin and maybe manos. Might be a receiving stone to catch the meal, too. To use it, a woman kneeled at the bin and braced her feet against the wall. I bet we’ll find more pots, a hearth, and artifacts on the floor. Cool, huh?”
Mel was explaining the process of clearing down to the floor when the ossuary crew ambled over on their way to lunch. The features and artifacts intrigued Caleb, who had been moved to the ossuary crew.
“What’s that square rock thing?” he asked, meaning the mealing bin. Mel explained, and the skinny laborer from Show Low peppered her with questions. “What about them pots? Whad’ya do with them? Is there more stuff down there?”
Her small store of patience exhausted, Mel shouted to the crew. “Show and tell’s over, folks! Time to pack up and get this room covered or we’ll miss lunch!” The crew chief took a Wonder Woman stance.
“Let’s git ‘er done!” Mel roared.
Tim grinned and poked the student next to him. “Now you know why she’s called Mel. She’d beat up anybody who dared to call her Missy.”
When Elena walked to the ramada for lunch, she found that Norm had picked up the mail and distributed it in the makeshift mailbox cubbies. Among the usual garbage was a letter from the State museum. The director opened it with dread, but it was only informing her that the museum had finished the Native American consultation. The tribes had consented to allow the Hopi Tribe to take the lead and speak for all of them.
It would simplify things—one group instead of twenty. Now, they had to wait.
* * *
True to his word, Cole had accompanied Maggie on her inaugural horseback venture across the landscape. The two returned late in the afternoon, horses and humans alike sweating and sore. As he unloaded the horses, Cole moved as if his legs were wooden.
“Look,” he moaned, “I can’t straighten my legs. In fact, I can’t feel my legs. I’m gonna be a bowlegged archaeologist forever.”
Maggie would die before showing her own aches and pains. “Shut up, tenderfoot. It’s nothing a little tequila won’t cure. Anyway, this ain’t no party.”
Cole grinned back at her. They sang the rest in unison. Belting out the chorus of the old Talking Heads song, woefully out of tune, they led the horses into the barn.
Maggie and Cole were nowhere to be seen when the Saturday-night festivities got underway after nightfall. No doubt they had holed up in their tent with arnica and tequila, nursing aching bones and saddle sores. The students celebrated the summer solstice in various ways. Some wandered down to the fire circle in the pasture. Distant voices and the rich scent of burning pine drifted into camp. Others had organized a dance in the lab ramada. The kids pushed back the work tables and benches to allow room for dancing and set up a roaring boom box. Tim and Mel joined the dance group.
Elena sat on her cabin porch, watching as dusk leached color from the land, and the sky darkened from blue to navy and then black. Unlike herself, she was feeling unsociable and rather hoped no one would seek her out.
Comfortable in the dark, Elena opened a fragrant red wine and was savoring it, listening to the shouts and the bass thudding across the lawn. The evening was warm and dry as so often before the monsoon arrived. She was thinking about going to bed and wondering if she could sleep in the pounding din when headlights swept the road. An ancient, decrepit Volkswagen van, its lone occupant the driver, stopped in the road. The driver got out and followed the lights and noise toward the ramada. The kids turned down the music.
Santa María. What must that guy think? He pulls into an archaeological field camp in the wilderness, finds it lit up like a Christmas tree, with Lady Gaga and Beyoncé blaring. Now he knows he’s truly lost.
Elena took pity and went to rescue the man. Her quiet evening by herself had ended.
“This is Carl Cimelli,” Tim said. “He’s an avocationalist who’s come to visit us. Mr. Cimelli, let me introduce Dr. Elena Vargas, our director.”
“Call me Carl, please. I’m delighted to meet you.” He grasped Elena’s hand, enveloping it with both of his. She shivered as they touched. She did not like the sensations she experienced—a mixture of potential danger and something akin to revulsion. This man brought trouble, her senses told her.
Cimelli’s hands were soft, unhardened by shovel or trowel, and warm. He wore a short beard, and a ponytail held back his shoulder-long hair. He must be a child of the sixties, unreconstructed and unrepentant. Even in the dim light, his eyes were intense and brilliant. They seemed to lock onto Elena’s and seek the utmost secrets of her soul. Because of that, his gaze was unsettling.
“I know your excellent reputation,” Cimelli said. “I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, but events interfered. Work always impedes pleasure, doesn’t it?” His voice was startling—deep and rich, overlaid with silky tones blended with smoke and honey. He sounded like an old-fashioned preacher, one who could belt out fire and brimstone.
“What do you do, Mr. Cimelli?”
“Carl, please. You’d call me a New Age jack-of-all trades, I guess. In Sedona, I run programs in past-life regression, consciousness-raising, and Native American spiritualism. Actually, this is a buying trip for me. I have a gift shop, and I’m looking for handmade goods.”
“And you’re an avocational archaeologist?”
“In my spare time, such as it is. I volunteer wherever they’ll have me. I was at the O Bar field school for two field seasons.”
“Is that right? I lectured there last summer, but I don’t remember meeting you.” O Bar was a field school for avocationalists run by the state amateur society.
“I was in and out of camp with family obligations and must have missed your lecture.”
The music and dancing started up again. “It’s too noisy here to talk, Mr. Cimelli,” Elena said. “Come over to my cabin.” Mel and Tim tagged along with them. It was not lost on them that Elena wouldn’t want to be alone with their visitor.
The preacher man accepted a bottle of mineral water. “Thank you. I’m always thirsty. Never got used to the lack of humidity in the West.” His words dripped like molasses into the night air.
“I thought I detected a trace of drawl. Are you from somewhere in the South?”
“North Carolina.” That would explain the sonorous preacher’s voice.
“What are your interests in archaeology, Mr. Cimelli?” Elena asked.
“I’m interested in pottery, the painted wares in particular. I’ve been conducting a little research of my own. Nothing earthshaking, but it’s fun for me.”
“What kind of research?” Mel asked.
“The symbolism of the painted designs on the polychrome pottery. I’ve worked out a kind of hieroglyphic alphabet—something more complex than mere symbols. The pots seem to tell stories.”
&nbs
p; The archaeologists cringed. It was the old “talking pots” scam. Crackpots got it into their heads they could read the messages on pots like a language. Soon, Cimelli would shift the conversation to aliens and pyramids.
The preacher man seemed to sense disapproval. “You’re thinking I’m another John Kincaid. While I respect his work, I’m a little more scientific—at least, I like to think so. If I’m correct, the designs are records of Hopi clan migrations. I would like to compare the inventory of designs on your ceramic vessels to the ones I’ve already recorded on the O Bar pots.”
It was a smooth, hip explanation based on current hot topics in archaeology. But a legitimate researcher would have contacted the State museum and asked permission to look at the vessels in the collections. Driving into their field camp uninvited and unannounced implied bad intentions.
“Mr. Cimelli, you must contact the State museum. We don’t keep pots here at the field school,” Elena said.
“Please call me Carl. How disappointing! But I’ll be happy to go through channels. Would it be possible to tour your dig tomorrow?”
“There isn’t much to see. Sunday is a rest day, and we’ve covered the excavations. But I can show you what we’ve done in previous seasons.” Backfilled with tons of dirt and stones, there would be nothing to pique his interest. As when she had spoken with Greenlaw on that hot morning filled with the scents of horse sweat and his tobacco, her senses told her this man had an unhealthy interest in ancient artifacts.
Cimelli’s elaborate shrug was careless, as if his joints were as well-oiled as his speech. “Another time, then. Can you recommend me to local people who have artifacts to sell? Baskets, pottery, anything beautiful and handmade?”
“You don’t mean prehistoric artifacts, do you?”
“No, of course not. I thought you might know Apache people who do beadwork and basketry.”
“I’m not familiar with such artists. You should check with Tinker Reidhead in Show Low. He can tell you the artisans he buys from on the reservation.”