by Siena West
After lunch, Elena and her crew went back to work in Room 3. She had assigned herself the task of recording room dimensions, while two students, Robert-call-me-Chuck and Anika, pulled the tapes. It was about an hour after lunch when a curious sound made Elena drop her notebook and rush to the front of the alcove. The sound was half howl, half growl—a deep, guttural roar that was inhuman yet not animal. She had never heard such a sound, but her instinct told her what it was.
“Cole!” she yelled. “There’s a flood coming down the canyon!”
“What the fuck?” He dropped his tools and ran to join Elena.
“How can there be a flood?” Cole asked. “It’s too early for storms.”
“Beats me,” she said. “But there must be a storm somewhere to the north or east. What we heard was the sound of water without doubt. Lots of water. And it’s coming right at us.”
Even as she spoke, a huge wall of red water swept downstream past them, booming loud in the silent canyon. They could just see it below the talus slope that spread below the mouth of the cave. The wave front was more mud than water, carrying a debris load of torn branches, gravel, weeds, and grass. Below the surface, the flood was scouring rocks and boulders from the canyon bed. The water was foamy and glistening, moving like an animal, twisting and turning.
“Dios mio,” Elena breathed. “Ricki and Joe. We must get to the camp and make sure they’re okay.”
“We put the camp high enough above the canyon bed so it shouldn’t have flooded, Elena,” Cole said. He was trying to reassure the boss.
“With water this high, I’m not sure.” She turned to the little knot of people who had gathered at the alcove’s edge.
“Stay here. Don’t follow us—it may not be safe.” Her voice was hard as polished stone.
Cole and Elena picked their way down the now well-worn trail that led from Lightning House to the field camp.
* * *
They could not reach the camp. The ruins trail led past the huge boulders that marked the entrance to the alcove, down the talus slope, onto the canyon floor, and then up again to the camp. The canyon bed was now a river, churning with liquid mud. What would have been whitewater riffles in a river of regular flow were cocoa-colored swirls and big waves as the water surged around rocks. When they were near the bottom of the talus, Cole grabbed the back of Elena’s shirt.
“This is far enough. The water could undercut the bank.”
They hiked a few yards upslope and sat on a couple of boulders to watch the rushing water. “It’s not funny, but I expect to see bodies of cows, horses, and deer float by,” Cole said. “Maybe even a boat or a house.” He could not know that other things were floating down the canyon.
The canyon floor made a bend just beyond the trail, and they couldn’t see beyond it to the camp. Elena cursed in Spanish, and Cole was glad he didn’t know what she was saying.
“Let’s go back and wait,” Elena said. “We can’t do anything here.”
“How long will this last?”
“The water may continue to rise for a while. If other canyons empty into this one, there could be secondary waves of water, too.”
“Jesus.”
* * *
Too spooked to work, the students wrote in their field notes, packed their equipment, and then sat around, restless and anxious. An undercurrent of excitement threaded through the chatter along with fear. Ava’s eyes were wide and dark with fright. Emily used her fear as an excuse to curl into the sheltering arms of Matt, a hunky student who had appropriated the blonde.
“What do you think is happening back in camp?” Kristoph asked. The German student and his wife, Anika, were the calmest of the bunch, their usual good humor remaining steadfast during the frightening onslaught of the water.
“I’m sure Ricki and Joe are fine,” Elena said, hoping she was right. “They would have heeded the flood sound and got themselves to higher ground. The camp should be okay.” She repeated her assurance that the field camp was far enough above the canyon bottom to avoid the floodwaters. They’d chosen the camp site for that reason, she told them.
After about an hour, Elena and Cole checked on the water level. It had fallen, to their relief, and only a few inches of water rose above the canyon floor. The water was trickling now. But the damage was astonishing. Debris had piled up wherever there was an obstruction. There were dead and living trees, dead wood and branches, roots, pieces of lumber, and bits of human flotsam and jetsam, like plastic buckets and cans. The flood had uprooted entire trees, and twisted tangles of roots showed where it had undercut the banks.
“Do you think it’s safe to go down the trail?” Cole asked.
“We don’t know how thick the mud is,” Elena said. “It could still be dangerous.”
Back in the alcove, they waited and worried.
* * *
Another hour passed. Elena paced in the front of the alcove, unable to sit still. She was ready to check the water level again when they heard shouts coming from the creek bed.
“Dr. Vargas! Cole! Jesse! Are you guys all right?”
Elena and Cole hurried down the trail. Joe and Ricki had sloshed through the mud and were standing where the trail joined the canyon bed.
“Gracias a Dios, you’re okay!” Elena said.
“We’re fine,” Joe said. “The water came close, but we didn’t lose anything.”
“We’ve been monitoring the water level, and we were just thinking it was okay to hike to camp,” Elena said.
She hugged Joe and Ricki one after the other.
“I was so worried. This storm caught us all by surprise.”
“No shit,” Joe said. “I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain yet—that’s why you started the field school so early.”
Elena shook her head. “You’re right, and I’m flummoxed. That old saw about the best-laid plans—”
* * *
The crew trailed back to camp, their boots making sucking sounds in the red mud on the canyon bed. They found that Ricki and Joe had moved as much of the camp equipment and personal gear as they could carry. They took it as far away from the canyon edge as possible just in case the water rose. Elena and Cole traced the waterline where the rushing flood had nibbled at the terrace bank.
“Too close,” Cole said.
“En efecto.” If the flood had come closer, and if Ricki and Joe could not move the gear in time, the flood would have carried away the tents, food, and possessions.
“We may have to think about moving the camp, if we can find higher ground,” Elena said. “We’ll look tomorrow.”
Ricki served a cold dinner—there hadn’t been time to prepare a hot meal. But the crew loved it anyway. There was nothing like a brush with death to add spice and relish to food. The crew and staff lingered over wine and liquor, telling stories and laughing. After dinner, they scrambled to collect the tents and gear that had been moved and set up their camps again.
In the morning, they would find the body.
About the Author
Siena West is the pen name of an Amazon best-selling professional archaeologist with many years of experience in Southwest archaeology and dozens of professional publications, including books and journal articles. Siena’s journey into writing fiction began with a desire to share her knowledge of archaeology—real archaeology, not the Indiana Jones kind—with the public. A framework of exciting stories and interesting characters in her books moves the narrative along and intrigues readers. She set the Elena Vargas archaeological mystery series in the colorful landscapes and among the diverse peoples of Arizona. The author divides her time between two homes in Arizona. One is in the pine-forest mountains, and the other is in the hot, thorny desert.
Visit Siena online at www.sienawestauthor.com and on Facebook at Siena West Author.
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