by Rachel Lee
“I think I’d be petrified if thunder rolled down that mountain on a cloudless day.”
Gray Cloud laughed. “You don’t need to be frightened. You’re welcome here. But whoever started that slide...he may be in trouble. As for you talking about needing our permission to stop the slides from occurring again? We probably won’t have a problem with that. History is buried in those rocks, a story we want to learn. Within reason, we’ll help make the site safe for you.”
* * *
Stockman made his way to the truck stop on the edge of Conard City and bought one of the burner phones on sale there. He doubted it was needed but the action made him feel like a superspy, a bolster to his self-confidence he was needing right now.
Now if he called Broadus, no one would be able to trace it. Good, yeah? Especially since he didn’t want anything to point his way if someone got hurt.
But he also didn’t understand exactly how a landslide was supposed to scare anyone off. It was the mountains, for Pete’s sake.
“Just make ’em edgy,” Broadus had said. “That’ll slow ’em down and that’s what I want right now.”
Okay. Right now. Did that mean he’d want Stockman to kill someone later? Because Stockman wasn’t a killer. Not by choice. Any deaths in his past had been purely accidental. Like today. He’d never expected the rocks to slide on the lower level and hit that kid. No, he’d expected a clean fall that would make everyone nervous.
But then the kid had been hurt. And the cops had shown up. Over a landslide? But he heard them talking, bits and pieces anyway, and learned they didn’t think the slide was accidental.
So now what? The woman had sent her team into town but she was still camped below the fossil site with that guy, some college professor. The retired soldier turned teacher didn’t strike Stockman as much of a threat. For that matter, neither did the boss lady. Digging up bones was hardly preparation for serious trouble.
And Stockman suspected that at some point he was going to be asked to make serious trouble, to really throw a monkey wrench in the works of this dig.
What was it with that Butler guy, too? Second time he’d shown up, but this time he’d hung around awhile and talked. Somebody else Stockman needed to worry about?
Screw it. He ordered a huge platter of fried ham, scrambled eggs and home fries, savoring every mouthful. He could eat breakfast any time of day.
After he paid his bill, he stepped outside, filled his lungs with the diesel fumes of the rumbling, resting trucks in the parking lot, then headed back to the mountain.
Nobody could have been more surprised than he was when he returned and found Gray Cloud sitting at a campfire with the other two. Hell, that was one guy Stockman had hoped not to have to deal with. Gray Cloud gave him the creeps. The man seemed to see right into you.
Gads. Stockman hung back in the deep shadows, hoping he was invisible to that man’s eyes. Hunkering down, he waited for everything to quiet down so maybe he could work some more mischief at the dig. Frustrate them. Make them walk away, at least for a while.
He hadn’t expected it to be a difficult assignment. Maybe he was wrong.
* * *
The only thing lacking from the group around the fire, Renee thought, was her cousin Mercy. They’d been following separate paths for years, but they’d made a point of keeping in touch and getting together whenever their trails crossed.
Tonight would have been a great night for such a crossing. The wind in the trees stiffened suddenly and she looked up. “Are we getting a storm?” she asked Gray Cloud.
“Maybe. It feels like it.”
“I didn’t think there was anything in the forecast.” Instinctively she looked back to the path up the mountain. She should have found ways to string a few tarps up there. A heavy rain could cause new instabilities they’d have to deal with.
“It isn’t always in the forecast,” Gray Cloud replied.
“No,” Cope agreed. “Big mountains like this can create their own local weather that won’t show up in a forecast. Not enough data points.”
“Or,” said Gray Cloud, smiling faintly, “they will it to be.”
Cope laughed. “I’m not going to argue,” he said, spreading a hand. “All I hope is that if our miscreant is still out there that he gets soaked to the bone. That’s never comfortable on a mountain night. And we can just move beneath a canopy.” He indicated one of them that had been set up to shelter beneath.
“Speaking of canopies,” Renee said. “I was wondering if we should put some tarps up at the site. A heavy rain can make the ground slippery and unstable again. Of course, it’s too late to do it tonight. And they probably wouldn’t have withstood the rockslides anyway.”
“We’re asking the county engineer to come out and look at the situation,” Cope reminded her. “If anyone knows how to stabilize the rock, he will.”
“Good man, Blaine Harrigan,” Gray Cloud remarked. “He’s worked with us several times to protect our heritage from the addition of roads that might be convenient for someone else but useless to us. Invasive. I’ll be glad to hear what he proposes.” Then he eyed Renee again. “Is Claudia in town with the others?”
“Yes, I thought it best not to expose my team unnecessarily.” Renee hesitated. “Did you need something from her?”
“Talk,” said Gray Cloud. “That one may not hear the mountains, but the rocks speak to her.”
Renee nodded. “They certainly do. We’re still waiting for her test results to come in, to see if there’s a reason someone would want to shut this dig down. It seems strange, with the tribe’s permission. It’s not like this land belongs to anyone else.”
“There are many who would not agree with you. And some among the tribe may not be pleased by the notoriety this could bring our way.” He laughed quietly. “Personally, I think we’re so far out of the way that only fossil hounds will want to come look. I’m not expecting to be putting up hot dog stands and neon lights.”
Cope had to laugh with him.
“And no cigar-store Indians,” Renee remarked a bit tartly.
“Ah, you’ve been to the Black Hills.”
“A travesty.”
“The people tried to get the land back.”
“Instead,” said Cope, “all they got was some money they’ve refused to take. There seems to be a disconnect somewhere between the dollar value of land and the sacred value.”
“A distinction that can be very hard to explain,” Gray Cloud agreed. “Regardless, the land was lost. This land isn’t lost, and we intend to make sure it isn’t. The history Renee will pull from the rocks will be fascinating, but not a threat to anyone. As far as we know.”
Renee voiced a point. “Claudia didn’t seem to think there was much here worth wanting except the fossils. So maybe this will all pass away.”
Cope looked a bit quizzically at her. “And when has life ever been that easy?”
* * *
Stockman watched Gray Cloud get up, say good-night and leave. In the other direction, thank goodness. He decided to wait awhile and see if these two got up to anything, and wished he could hear what they said, but he decided that getting closer would be unwise. Ten minutes. Then he’d leave and find a place to call the boss.
* * *
Rising, Gray Cloud laughed, reminding Renee once again of what Mercy had found so attractive in him. At first, Mercy had said, he’d been a pretty much taciturn monolith, worried about his mountain and the new wolf pack she was studying. But he’d proved to have other sides as well, among them the man who could laugh and, except when it came to his mountain, was able to take things lightly. Renee supposed there were plenty of other things Gray Cloud didn’t take lightly as an elder of his people, but Mercy hadn’t mentioned them and Renee hadn’t run into them.
The mountain, though...that was a touchy spot.
She
realized almost abruptly that she was still holding Cope’s hand. All this time! What must he think of her? But he’d made no effort to tug away so she guessed he wasn’t annoyed in any way. Still, they had a professional relationship, and she had seriously breached it.
“Sorry,” she said, starting to pull her hand away. His fingers tightened.
“No need,” he said. “I’m enjoying this. You know, thinking back I can remember plenty of times I sat with my unit around a small fire when we felt safe enough to light one, but I swear I’m quite sure I never held a lovely woman’s hand when I did it.”
He brought a smile instantly to her face, and even though muscles complained a bit because they were growing cold, it felt good to smile. She sought safer ground. “I can see why my cousin is head over heels with Gray Cloud.”
“Easy to see. Are you getting a little cold? I can put more wood on the fire unless you want to crawl into your sleeping bag.”
The day should have left her exhausted. Apart from the slide and Larry’s injury, it had been endlessly stressful. She didn’t think she’d ever really relaxed a muscle from the time of the first rockfall.
But instead of feeling weary to the bone, it was as if Cope’s touch fed energy to her. “A little more wood would be nice. I don’t feel at all ready to sleep.”
“Good enough.”
Of course, that meant he had to release her hand, and she felt the absence of his touch immediately. Get your head straight, she told herself. Stop acting like a kid with a schoolgirl crush. Cope was just being nice to her, taking care of her. He seemed like the caretaker sort.
He gathered some dried wood from a stack her team had been steadily building over the last couple of weeks. It didn’t take much to get the friendly blaze leaping again and shedding warmth in every direction. Renee instinctively held out her hands toward the flames as Cope sat beside her again.
“I have a challenge,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s talk about anything except the crazy things that have been happening around here. We can jaw it to death, but I don’t think we’ll get any closer to answers without more info.”
“It’s true,” she agreed. “I hope Claudia gets the rest of her results back, soon, but even that may not give us answers. So what should we talk about?”
“A sky that has more stars than you can count.” He reached out and claimed her hand again in a gentle grip. “I was amazed once by a friend. She’d lived her entire life in the metropolis we call the East Coast, and she didn’t even know you could see the Milky Way from everywhere on Earth because she’d never seen it. I took her on a nice long drive to a place that didn’t have much light pollution and she was totally wowed. That sky we have up there? Not everyone gets to enjoy it.”
“That’s such a shame. I’ve seen photos of the earth from space and you can see those sprawling places that are simply whited out from lights, but I never thought about not being able to really see the sky.”
“Most people probably don’t even miss it,” he said a bit drily. “How could they? But there are places in the desert where the sky seems close enough to touch, and you can understand why our ancestors found it so easy to believe the gods came from above. Then, if you can lie still on your back long enough, you can actually see the stars wheeling overhead as the earth turns. I call it heaven’s clock.”
Her head tipped back against the bar of the chair as she stared upward at nature’s marvel. “You can tell time by it?”
“I can tell the passage of time. I often have as long as I could see enough sky. If you have a general idea of your latitude you can count the hours between dusk and dawn, which can be really useful.”
She imagined it could, especially if you were a soldier.
“Anyway, I didn’t mean to get geeky about the night sky. It’s just so awesome.”
She couldn’t argue that. And what was more, sharing it with him made it even better. “I think too many of us fail to look up, and I count myself among them. Always busy, always preoccupied, missing the most beautiful things just because we don’t look for them.”
“Life kinda keeps us busy.” He shifted a little in his chair, and the movement caused his hand to rub lightly against hers. “I used to dream of a vacation on a beach somewhere on an isolated island. Nothing but the gentle whisper of waves and the endless sky above.”
“Used to? Why don’t you still dream about it?”
“Dreams are nice but they need to be practical. I could get to a beach some summer, I’m sure, but it wouldn’t be on a deserted island. Too dang pricey.”
“Same here.” She felt him shift to look at her.
“No desert islands for you?”
She stared up at the stars, reminiscing. “You’ll laugh.”
“Promise I won’t.”
“I wanted to travel to the stars.”
She felt him sit up a little straighter. “Be an astronaut?”
“Heck, no,” she admitted. “I wanted to travel farther than the International Space Station or a shuttle flight. I want to lift off and keep going and maybe find another inhabited world.”
He gave a low whistle. “That’s kind of amazing.”
“Also ridiculous, but we’re talking about dreams here. When I was in high school, I’d lie on my back in the grass staring up at the stars like we are right now. Except there weren’t as many of them visible where I was, but a lot anyway. And while I’d lie there, I could almost feel myself starting to fall upward into the stars. And somewhere out there, I was absolutely sure, was another girl just like me, staring up at her own nighttime sky and wondering about the same things. Even after all this time I can remember the image of her I always had. For some reason she was standing at the waterline on a huge beach with an endless ocean in front of her.”
“I like it. That’s cool.”
She laughed a little. “Of course, you’re talking to a woman who when she was a kid could not be persuaded that Lake Michigan wasn’t the ocean.”
“I’ve seen that lake. It’d be hard to persuade anyone it isn’t an ocean.”
“Maybe. Anyway, my great-grandfather captained an ore freighter on the Great Lakes. Maybe that was what gave me my hankering to travel long-distance.”
“Another solar system seems like a much longer trip than taking a shuttle ride.”
“Or sailing the Great Lakes,” she admitted on a laugh. “I always loved the sea, though, so sometimes I wonder how I wound up so far away from it.”
“That can be fixed. When you shut down the dig for the winter, you can head south to the Gulf Coast.”
“Nah, I’ll be back in the classroom and lab.”
“Christmas then. A nice long cruise.”
“What a lovely idea,” she remarked. “I wonder how long it would take me to go stir-crazy.”
He chuckled. “You probably wouldn’t. First of all, most cruise liners are big enough to get lost on. Secondly, they actually let you get off and walk dry land every other day or so. Usually on junkets or what they call shore excursions.”
“I’m not the junket type,” she admitted. “I tend to want to wander on my own, take my own time. If I’m lucky I’ll have a few friends with me who feel the same way.”
He hesitated, then said, “Well, there might be some places you’d visit where you wouldn’t want to wander on your own. Not every country likes us, and not every one is peaceful.”
“True.” She turned a little on her side so she could see him better. “I guess I’ve lived a sheltered life.”
When she’d turned in her chair, she’d released his hand. He took the opportunity to throw a few more sticks on the fire. Embers danced upward until they vanished in the darkness.
“Depends on what you mean by sheltered.”
She tipped her head a bit. “You were a Marine, right? You went
to war. You’ve seen and done things that make me feel naive.”
“Hold on there,” he said quietly. The crackle from the fire was a contrasting sound of cheer. “War is never a good experience. Be glad you’re naive.”
“I guess that came out wrong.” Stirring, she sat up and stretched, then regretted it as the chilly air found its way inside her clothing. “Dang, is it ever going to warm up?”
“At night not so much. You want warmer we should camp in the valley.”
“Too far away. I’m just being a wimp. And I’m sorry if I seemed to be making light of your experiences. I wasn’t.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“Good. I’d never make light of that. I meant only that I feel...parochial. Where have I been? What have I done?”
“Well, you’re here in the wilds of Wyoming making what you believe will be a history-changing find if it bears out. That’s pretty spectacular. You don’t have to go to Belize and discover a new Mayan temple.”
“Lots of those to find,” she remarked.
“Still. Is it true a lot of them are being left buried to preserve them?”
She nodded, pulling her jacket closer around her. “It’s true. They’ve been protected for centuries under accumulated dirt and even growing trees. Exposing them to the air isn’t really good for that limestone. It deteriorates. And then there are the paintings. Much better to save them for future generations with better techniques and equipment. Of course, it seems a lot of them haven’t been found yet. Satellite imagery is picking them out, but then people can’t find a way to get to some of them.”
“I like that. People lived there once and now we can’t find a way to reach them. A giant puzzle.”
“The whole thing’s a puzzle. A huge civilization with major cities and all of it abandoned. The Maya remain, but not the occupied cities. Lots of theories for that.”