by Jon Foyt
on a dig, saying Worthington needn’t worry about getting her pregnant because he learned a few days ago while surveying through that she’s already “been knocked up.”
Suddenly Worthington stands up, his abrupt movement frightening Willie, and demands to know the name of this woman. Clarence stammers out with, “Anna...Anna something or other....”
Worthington belts Clarence in the stomach and then delivers a knockout blow to his jaw. The surveyor slumps to the floor. Willie whines.
A sobering Worthington leaves, climbing down the iron ladder on the outside of the boxcar, and heads back down the dirt road. He visualizes Anna, concludes he is the father, and resolves he must do the “right thing” by her.
As he walks on in the moonlight, amidst the night animal sounds and the soft breezes blowing through cottonwoods, Worthington rounds a bend and is confronted by a bull. He begins to fit the pieces together, concluding that he has been the victim of a planned media attack orchestrated by Quentin Ford IV, and that this bull is really the ILMA chairman. He stares down the bull, and the animal slowly moves out of his path.
Walking on, Worthington comes upon a grotto set in the ruins of an abandoned adobe church. Candles have been lit in the grotto. Their flickering light reflects off the remaining overhead beams. He feels comfortable in the ruins and now sees himself helping Anna save her ruins.
As morning breaks, Worthington walks into Chama to the Gandy Dancer Diner for his breakfast meeting with Edward and Zoe, who tell him that they all need a picnic timeout.
Scene Thirty-Five:
Outside Farmington, in a restored Anasazi pueblo turned into a commercial tourist attraction, Worthington, Edward and Zoe, along with visitors and townsfolk, gather to hear the Farmington Community Band in its musical celebration of Greek-American Friendship Day. Girl Scouts waving little Greek flags march through the picnickers as the band plays Greek music.
Worthington suddenly jumps up and announces to Edward and Zoe that he has the solution to their dilemma, and that he must find a telephone quickly. “Here, use mine,” Zoe says as she extracts a cell phone from her backpack.
To get away from the loud music, Worthington goes into the ruins and finds himself in a series of stone rooms connected by small, square openings, each room larger than the previous one. He phones his father, who once again belittles him.
Moving into the second chamber where he can stand upright, Worthington overcomes his animosity toward his father. He asks about Dusty’s friend in Greece. Dusty tells him about Angelo Angelopolous, the archaeologist with a transportation engineering degree who, being sensitive to preservation of archaeological sites, has built the Mexico City and the Athens subway systems.
Moving into the third room, brightly lit by sunshine coming through a clerestory window, Worthington tells his father he will hire Angelo to oversee the construction of The Windjammer so that Anna’s ruins will be preserved for all time. And, in her honor, Worthington decides to change the name of The Windjammer to The Anasazi Spirit.
Scene Thirty-Six:
Worthington enters the Hotel Bretagne on Constitution Square in Athens, Greece. In the lobby he greets a man carrying a railroad spike and an archaeologist’s trowel.
Angelo takes Worthington on an underground subway tour of Athens, showing him how some of the ancient Greek ruins have been preserved behind viewing glass. The two men hit it off. Worthington’s manner suggests a man who has been put through the wringer but who now sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
Worthington holds a news conference on the Acropolis with the Parthenon as a backdrop to announce the new name for his bullet train. He introduces Angelo to the worldwide media as the Director of Routes and Preserver of the American Legacy, or DR. PAL, for short.
A little Greek girl—Emily’s age—asks Worthington if they build temples to goddesses in America like the ancient Greeks did. “We mere mortals idolize our goddesses in private ways,” he tells her.
Returning to his hotel, Worthington finds Sara waiting for him in his room. Astonished, he hears Sara explain that his photograph in The Washington Post dancing with the two provocative women at Klub Kokopelli showed him as being so vulnerable that she just had to come to his side. In their loving reconciliation she tells him she will stand by him, come what may.
Quentin Ford IV telephones, assuring Worthington how pleased he is with the new name and the hiring of Angelo Angelopolous. He announces he is now supporting The Anasazi Spirit, and that Worthington is to bring Angelo back to Washington so he can stage the social event of the year. All his benefactor friends won’t dare miss this opportunity to contribute to the preservation of America’s Anasazi heritage.
Worthington and Sara embrace. They know now that Quentin’s media mercenaries will be called off, and their family life can rise to a new plateau.
Scene Thirty-Seven:
Fall has transformed the Four Corners, bringing brilliant gold color to the mountain aspen.
Anna Ardmore has transformed, too, from a scientific archaeologist into an Anasazi prospective mother-in-waiting. She has painted her face with red ochre in bizarre markings and, like a Hopi woman, wrapped her hair into large pinwheels on each side of her head. She wears a maternity frock woven with strands of llama wool and decorated with turquoise beads.
Her seminarists are reluctant to say anything to her about her appearance, but they do urge her to leave the ruins and go to the Four Corners Hospital in Farmington. Anna refuses, mystically telling them that on top of the nearby sacred mesa is where she is to give birth. She will summon her midwife, Silver-Bell-in-the-Night, to help bring her baby—who shall be called Popé—into the world.
Scene Thirty-Eight:
The world’s press corps, reporters and television camera crews, gather at the Cross Cultural Trading Post, equipping themselves for the hike into the Noah’s Ark site for a first-hand view of Anna’s Anasazi wheel.
In the Navajo rug section, we see Tony greet Silver-Bell-in-the-Night with a warning that the mother of all storms is coming in from the Rockies. But Silver Bell insists that, for Anna’s sake, they must set off down the trail. “Babies don’t wait for storms,” Silver Bell tells the llama man. Tony explains that he had to house his frightened llamas in the barn, so what supplies Silver Bell needs must be carried in their backpacks.
The two set off down the trail, and the rains begin as the sky darkens. They hike on, and the storm worsens. “It looks like forty days and forty nights of rain,” Tony predicts.
Up ahead, where the trail crosses a normally dry arroyo, a reporter is almost swept away by surging waters. Tony lassos the reporter and pulls him to safety. The reporter turns tail and runs back toward the Cross Cultural Trading Post.
Tony says they, too, should turn back, but Silver Bell insists they continue on. Tony ties his rope around her waist and plunges into the rising stream. As they reach the opposite bank, they see an uprooted cottonwood tree being swept along in the torrential waters.
“One more canyon to cross,” Tony advises as they approach the edge. Lightning strikes a tall ponderosa pine behind them and Tony yells “Look out!” as the pine falls toward them. He pulls Silver Bell beneath the protection of a rock ledge as the tree smashes down in a whoosh, bridging the canyon. “A bridge from heaven,” Tony announces, and they start across.
Looking up the canyon, Silver Bell sees a thirty-foot wall of water careening toward them. She screams that they’ll never make it to the other side. The wave hits, and the ponderosa bucks like a bronco but, straddling the trunk, Silver Bell and Tony hang on. She calls out, “Tony, we rode out the eight-second bell.”
As Silver Bell and Tony’s trail passes above the flooded Noah’s Ark ruins, they watch in horror as reporters float face down in the bubbling waters, and a satellite transmission dish, adrift, points toward heaven. An All-Gossip TV Network camera sinks into the depths.
Silver Bell and Tony reach the mesa top where the seminarists have set up a tent for Anna. Silver Bell rush
es inside to find Anna, her head propped up, her belly large. A concerned Martha kneels by her side, comforting.
Acting as midwife, Silver Bell takes charge, leading Anna tenderly through what becomes a prolonged and difficult childbirth. A weakened Anna, whispering dire premonitions to Silver Bell, implores her to make sure that Worthington Rhodes raises her baby because he possesses the true Anasazi spirit with a pure love of family.
Outside, the rain continues to pummel the tent as the seminarists put up a shelter for themselves and await the birth.
With Silver Bell’s adept guidance, the baby is finally born—a boy. Silver Bell wraps the child in a rabbit fur and turns to present the baby to Anna.
Anna’s face is ashen.
Silver Bell wails, “Anna, Anna, come back.”
Outside, the rain has stopped; the sun is rising on the Four Corners as a saddened Silver Bell emerges from the tent, holding the baby.
As the sun’s first rays strike the distant Sleeping Ute Mountain, we see the mountain stir.
Scene Thirty-Nine, The Epilogue:
With Worthington and Sara by her side, Emily opens her storybook for the little baby cuddled on her lap. She points to the handwritten inscription and reads, “‘Dear Emily, May the spirit of the past be the prologue to your future. As you go through life, protect and nurture this spirit. But you must