The Expeditioners and the Treasure of Drowned Man's Canyon

by S. S. Taylor

  We bumped gently to the ground.

  Thirty-seven

  For a long time, we were absolutely silent.

  “Whoa…,” whispered M.K.

  “You guys.” Sukey whistled. “I don’t think we’re in Drowned Man’s Canyon anymore.”

  We stepped out of the boat. M.K. unhooked the ropes, pushed the button on her vest, and the parachute retracted back into her collar. Then she pushed a button on the bottom of the boat and it retracted back into its utility box.

  She replaced it in her vest and we looked around. We were standing at one end of a small canyon, about the width of two football fields, with steep walls that rose straight up toward the blue skies. There was no way of telling how long it was, as both ends curled away from us, out of sight.

  Directly across from us were more waterfalls like the one we’d just come over, the little rivers emerging from the canyon walls and spilling into small pools that glittered like—M.K. was tugging at my sleeve.

  “Is it… is it gold?” she asked.

  “I think so.” I just stared. I couldn’t help it. I had never seen anything like this golden canyon.

  Every surface shone with white and yellow light. The pools below the waterfalls seemed to be filled with liquid gold; the walls sparkled in the sun.

  “I think it’s a huge gold deposit,” I told them after a moment. “An enormous vein of quartz shot through with gold ore. I’ve read about these but I’ve never seen anything like… Come on, let’s go look at it.” I took off for the nearest wall at a run. They followed me, Pucci flying in crazy circles as though he was intoxicated by the sight of all that gold.

  When we’d reached the wall, I could see that my initial impression had been right. The canyon had been carved out of one giant quartz deposit, with a huge vein of gold running through it. Every surface was shining white, with lines of bright gold running here and there.

  “It’s a gigantic gold mine,” I told them. “The biggest in the world! This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.” I ran a hand over the wall, tracing the veins of gold and the bright white stone.

  “No, it’s not,” Sukey whispered and when I turned to look at her in surprise, I saw that she and Zander and M.K. were all staring at the other side of the canyon. “That is.”

  I followed their gaze and nearly fell over.

  Farther down, a good four hundred yards past the waterfall, high up in the canyon, tucked under the slightly overhanging walls, was an elaborate series of cliff dwellings, terraces, and the squared-off apartment buildings I’d seen in books about the ancient peoples who had made their homes in these canyons. But instead of having been formed of mud or adobe, they all seemed to have been carved out of the quartz and gold walls of the canyon.

  They glittered in the bright sunlight. Beyond them were terraces of green. “They’re cliff dwellings,” I told the others. “The ancient groups of people who lived here built them up high in the canyon walls like that to protect themselves from invaders. They sometimes had secret staircases carved into the rock, or they built ladders out of plant fiber. This is incredible. This has to be one of the most exciting archaeological finds of the last century. I mean, this is on par with the tomb of Tutankhamen, with the ruins at Mycenae, with the ice temple in Lundland!” I was so excited I had to stop to take a breath.

  “Did Dad get here?” Zander asked, looking confused. “Do you think that Dan Foley’s treasure is here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I stared up at the incredible structures. “But if he did see this, I don’t understand why he didn’t tell anyone. This would have made his name. It would have made him the most famous Explorer in the world. We’ve got to get over there and document this. This is incredible. We’re going to be famous! Archaeologists will call these the West Cliff Dwellings.” I saw Sukey scowl and added, “I mean, the West-Neville Cliff Dwellings. I can write a paper on the geology of the canyon and draw the maps.”

  “I’ll bring back specimens of those animals in the cavern,” Zander said. “And they’ll name them after me.”

  “We’ll be rich!” M.K. added. “We can do anything we want.”

  “Gold,” Pucci called out suddenly. “Rich!”

  “I’m glad you’re all with me,” Zander said. “Otherwise, I’d assume I was imagining this.”

  “If we were imagining it, I wouldn’t still be so hungry,” Sukey said. “We need to get something to eat and see if we can clean M.K.’s arm.”

  “You’re right,” Zander said. “I think I saw some fish in the pool underneath the waterfall. Why don’t you all go look for some firewood and I’ll look for plants we can use. Then I’ll see if I can spear a couple fish with M.K.’s knife.”

  “You won’t really be able to do that,” Sukey said.

  “Dad taught him to spearfish,” I told her. “He used to catch striped bass from the beach near our house with a sharpened stick.”

  Sukey looked impressed. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s split up. We’ll find it quicker that way. M.K., are you okay or should someone go with you?”

  “Of course I’m okay,” M.K. said in an insulted way and walked off, her small legs striding across the canyon floor.

  It didn’t take long for me to fill my arms with dry cottonwood branches, and when I returned to the waterfall, I saw Sukey had been similarly lucky. She used Zander’s stick-twirling trick to start a small fire.

  “I can’t wait to tell him it took you only two minutes,” I told her.

  “Are you guys ever not competitive?” she asked me.

  Zander came back holding a fistful of fleshy leaves from some sort of cactus and chattering with excitement. “I think this may be some kind of aloe plant. And I saw these incredible finches. Not any species I’ve ever seen. They must be some variety that lives only in the canyon. I still don’t understand, though. If Dad came here, then how come we never heard about any of these species? Why aren’t these called West finches or something like that?”

  Sukey had been looking around warily and she said, “I was just thinking that. Why haven’t we heard about this place?”

  “Maybe Dad never made it here,” Zander said.

  “But then how did he make the map?” I had taken it out and was checking his calculations. They were perfect.

  Sukey had her pistol out now. “I just don’t like it,” she said. “There’s something strange going on here. Where’s M.K.?”

  We all looked around, but M.K. was nowhere to be seen. “M.K.?” we called. “M.K., where are you?”

  There was only silence.

  “M.K.?”

  In one direction were the waterfalls and pools. In the other, the canyon narrowed and wound out of sight.

  “I think she went that way,” Sukey said. “Looking for wood. Up around that bend over there.”

  We followed her path along the canyon floor, running as fast as we could and calling M.K.’s name. As we came around the bend in the canyon, we saw more waterfalls and some huge rock formations, all of them quartz shot through with gold. Next to one of them there was something lying on the ground. I felt my heart seize up.

  “There’s something up there,” Zander said. “Look up ahead.”

  Sukey’s voice was shrill and panicked. “I think it’s her vest. Is it her vest?”

  We rushed over.

  It was M.K.’s vest, and it was lying in a small pool of blood.

  Thirty-eight

  There’s something out there,” Sukey had her pistol out in front of her now. “Something got her! M.K.! Where is she? We’ve got to find her!”

  We took the vest and rushed ahead, calling M.K.’s name, but we could hear only the waterfalls and the singing of the birds.

  “Pucci, go see if you can find her,” Zander ordered, and Pucci took off, calling her name as he disappeared up ahead.

  We jogged along the canyon floor, searching the glittering walls for any sign of her, but there wasn’t anyone there, just the echoing canyon, and the blue s
ky above its walls.

  It seemed to take forever to reach the end of the canyon; about a mile past the waterfall the walls narrowed down so much that there was no way to get through. “She’s not here,” I called out as I scanned the canyon walls. “We’ll have to go back in the other direction and see if we can find her.”

  “But there’s no way we missed her,” Sukey said. “There’s nowhere she could have gone. I don’t understand.”

  “Well, she’s not here.” At that moment, I caught movement high up in the canyon walls, but when I tipped my head back to see what it was, there was nothing there. I didn’t want to tell them what I was thinking, that whatever creature had stalked Zander in the cavern must have attacked her and dragged her off.

  “Did you see something up there?” I asked Zander and Sukey. “I thought I saw something.”

  “Maybe it’s Pucci. Maybe he found her.”

  But the rocks looked just the way they’d looked before and the sky was empty.

  We started hurrying back the way we’d come, toward the waterfall. But as we went, I had the feeling that someone was watching us. I kept searching the canyon walls. A couple of times, I again thought I caught movement among the rocks, but I didn’t see anything.

  Sukey and I were breathing hard from the running and she had to stop to catch her breath. “I’ll go ahead,” Zander called back to us and disappeared around a turn in the canyon.

  Sukey and I rested for a minute, then started running again. I was so tired, so scared for M.K., that I might not have seen them right away if Sukey hadn’t gasped.

  “Zander!” she whispered, pointing, and I looked up to see my brother standing stock-still in the middle of the canyon. Ten or so feet in front of him, poised in position to attack, was the hugest mountain lion I had ever seen.

  It was much bigger than the cougars I’d seen in zoos or in books, the size of a small horse, with a slick tan coat stretched over its rippling muscles. Its jaws were huge, its mouth lined with shining teeth like pictures I’d seen of prehistoric saber-toothed tigers.

  And there was something strange about its eyes. They were bigger than the eyes of most wildcats I’d seen, and they protruded like a fish’s.

  “Zander,” I said in a low voice, “don’t move. Just stay still.”

  “Look for rocks,” I whispered to Sukey. “Look for rocks.”

  “I’ve got my pistol.”

  “Not yet. He’s in the way.”

  The cat gave a low growl and sank down low on its haunches, every muscle poised as it got ready to attack. We knew it was for real this time.

  Suddenly, Pucci appeared out of nowhere, squawking and swooping, his metal talons out in front of him. He flew at the cat, beating his wings in its face, but the cat just ignored him so Pucci got more aggressive, dropping quickly to take a swipe at the cat’s back with his talons. That got the cat’s attention. He turned quickly to see what it was that had hurt him and batted Pucci out of the air with his paw. The parrot floundered on the ground for a moment before taking flight and trying again.

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned around, I found that Sukey had drawn her pistol and was pointing it at the cat. “Come on now, Zander, move out of the way,” she was murmuring under her breath.

  I put a hand up. “Sukey, be—”

  The cat moved, just a bit, the beginning of its spring, and I felt Sukey tense next to me, ready to fire. But before she could pull the trigger, there was a sort of whooshing sound and then the cat was yelping in pain. From where we stood we could see the long arrow, tipped with black and green feathers, now buried in its leg. It squealed in pain and another arrow flew through the air and pierced the cat’s chest. It died instantly, keeling over, its blank, protruding eyes staring up at the sky.

  Pucci screeched and flew down to make sure the cat was dead, then landed on Zander’s shoulder, nuzzling his cheek.

  I looked up quickly in the direction from which the arrow had come and blinked once, then twice, unable to believe I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. Standing there, about twenty yards away, holding a huge bow made of highly polished wood, was a girl. She was dressed very properly, in a long, black Victorian sort of dress with golden buttons in a neat row down the front and a ruffled white blouse underneath. The skirt of the dress was hitched up at the bottom for hiking and she wore tall lace-up riding boots of black animal skin. Her long, glossy black hair—topped by a black hat—lay heavily over her shoulders.

  “Hello,” she said, breaking into a grin, her broad nose and dark eyes and high cheekbones all seeming to laugh at us. “You must be from the other side.”

  Thirty-nine

  We stared at her. Sukey was still holding her pistol, and the girl, so quickly we almost missed it, reached over her left shoulder and came back with an arrow, stringing it on the bow and aiming it at us.

  “Drop the pistol on the ground,” she said quietly.

  Sukey seemed to be arguing with herself about what to do. Finally, when the girl pulled one hand back, increasing the tension on the bow, Sukey looked down at the dead cougar and threw the pistol down on the ground. The girl moved quickly forward, picked it up, tucked it into her clothes, and had the bow up again before we knew what had happened.

  “Thank you,” I choked out. “You saved my brother, but our sister was out here and now she’s missing. She’s hurt and we’re worried she got attacked by the cat, too.”

  The girl studied me for a minute as though she wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth.

  “She’s only ten,” Sukey told her.

  The girl seemed to think for a moment, then she said, “Everyone stand over there. Don’t move. I can shoot you in a second if I need to. You saw what happened to the cat.” She spoke perfect English, but with a strange accent, one I couldn’t place.

  Zander and I glanced at each other and I knew what we were both thinking: there were three of us and only one of her. But there was something about her that made me think we didn’t have much chance of escaping. Besides, we had no idea where M.K. was and we weren’t going to leave the canyon until we’d found her.

  As though she knew exactly what we were thinking, the girl said, “I wouldn’t try to escape. I’m the best archer in the canyon other than the Keedow’s guards, and you don’t know how to get out.” Then she nodded at Pucci, who was still on Zander’s shoulder. “I don’t trust that bird.”

  Zander whispered something and Pucci flew up into the rocks at the side of the canyon.

  We did as she’d told us, walking awkwardly past the cat, our hands in the air, while she watched us intently. Strangely, it struck me at that moment that she was probably the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her cheekbones were sharp as knives, and her eyes—dark brown, almost black—were slightly turned up at the corners, like a cat’s. Why was she beautiful? I couldn’t quite figure it out. It wasn’t anything specific about her face. It was the way everything fit together.

  When I turned to look at Zander, he was staring at her, too. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.”

  “You’re welcome. They’re really terrible, those cats,” she said. “We call them Arktos. They mostly live in the caverns and hunt the gertom birds. But they probably followed you here. You came through the caverns, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But—”

  “I saw you come over the waterfall. That’s the third one I’ve killed today,” she said. “They must have been hunting you in a pack. They usually don’t do that.” She smiled and held her bow up again, replacing an arrow on the string and pushing it back so the string was taut. The wicked-looking tip of the arrow was pointed right at my heart. “You shouldn’t be here, you know. It’s not good. The Keedow will be mad.”

  This was getting weird.

  “Where are we?” Zander asked.

  She looked at us in surprise. “You don’t know? But why did—” She was interrupted by a grinding noise from above us and we all looked up
to see the sky over the canyon disappearing as—I couldn’t believe it—some sort of stone ceiling closed over us. The huge stone plates seemed to slide right out of the walls of the canyon and I couldn’t begin to imagine the engineering that had gone into it.

  The three of us stared up at it. I didn’t even know how to begin to figure out what was going on. Pucci flew up into the air as though he was trying to figure it out, too, squawking and darting around.

  When it had closed, we found ourselves in low light, as though it was late afternoon, the sun now shining through star- and moon-shaped holes in the ceiling that were just like the ones at the far end of the cavern.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” the girl said. In the strange low light, she looked older, suddenly, her features sharper and her eyes less friendly, more knowing. She smiled again and I found myself smiling back at her, wondering if the coffee-colored skin on her cheek was as soft as it looked.

  The corners of her mouth turned down just a bit. “Someone must have seen. Now I’m going to have to kill you.”

  Forty

  “What? No, don’t do that. Why would you want to do that?” Zander must have been thinking about the skin on her cheek, too, because he blinked once, looking dazed, as though he’d just woken up. He put his hands out in front of him and started walking toward her. “We don’t even know your name.”

  “Stop. Don’t walk any farther,” she said. The bow was up, the string taut under her hand. But she said, “My name is Halla.”

  Zander tried to smile, but it looked more like a strangled grimace. “Please don’t kill us. I don’t understand. Why would you do that? We just want to find our sister. She’s out there somewhere. She was with us and we don’t know what happened to her. We’re worried one of those cats attacked her.”