“It sounds pretty dangerous.”
Longarm gave Miranda a hug. “Don’t worry, we’ll just follow the pack train down to Durango. Then, if I have no other choice, I’ll ask Marshal Palladin to help me make all the arrests.”
“I thought you held him in very low regard.”
“I do,” Longarm admitted, “but his presence might save me from having to shoot the ringleaders and then doing a lot of explaining. I’ve found, over the years, that it’s always a good idea to bring in the local law, even when they are inept and incompetent.”
“I see.” Miranda kissed his cheek. “So, we just go over there for some stew and pleasant conversation?”
“That’s right,” Longarm said. “And try to look relaxed and happy. I don’t want them to think that you’ve already decided you made a bad marriage.”
Miranda managed a laugh. “Okay, I’ll play the fool and try to keep my mouth closed.”
“Oh,” Longarm said, “You don’t have to do that. I know that you’ve plenty of questions to ask of your own concerning the Anasazi, and I urge you to ask them. If nothing else, it should make for a very interesting evening.”
“You’re right about that.”
A few minutes later, they strolled into the archaeologists’ camp, where they were treated graciously by their hosts. It was damned odd, considering how hostile the pair had been at first, but Longarm saw no point in bringing up that fact.
“So,” Longarm began, “you’re here to learn the secrets of these ancient Indians.”
“That’s right,” Lucking said, watching him closely. “Although I must admit, the secrets of the people who walked this mesa many centuries ago are still veiled by time and the elements. At best, my colleague and I will make a few minor discoveries before we are forced by winter to leave this mesa.”
“we were fortunate enough to speak to Mr. Laird down at his museum in Cortez,” Longarm said, “and I expect you probably know him.”
“Laird?” Barker asked, looking quizzically at his partner. “Yes, isn’t that the fellow that-“
Lucking wanted to change the subject. “We believe,” he said, “that these ancient peoples lived far longer up on this mesa than they did in their cliff dwellings.”
“What makes you think that?” Longarm asked.
“The extent of the ruins we are finding up here,” Lucking answered. “For example, we find layers of civilizations one on top of another, indicating that when a structure burned down or was abandoned to the elements, it was later reconstructed and inhabited. We have also found a very sophisticated canal system that was used to channel rain and spring runoff throughout all the fields.”
“What fields?” Longarm asked. “We saw no-“
“The fields,” Barker said, “are now all long since overgrown with stands of juniper, pine, and gambrel oak. You have to understand that this mesa has been abandoned for about a thousand years, give or take a few centuries.”
“Why was it abandoned?”
Barker was more than happy to give his theory, and it was about the same as what they had heard earlier at the museum. Basically, that Mesa Verde had probably been abandoned because of a Protracted drought coupled with deforestation, resulting in a lack of winter fuel and a general debilitation of the soil, which would, as any present-day farmer now understood, fail after repeated plantings of the same basic crops.
“I can imagine that the demise of Mesa Verde’s agriculture would have come about very gradually,” Lucking said. “Probably so gradually that it caused families to relocate over a long period of time rather than a mass, organized exodus of the entire Anasazi culture.”
“I see. Have you found many artifacts?”
“Oh, a few,” Lucking said nonchalantly. “But that isn’t our purpose here, and we leave most of them where they are discovered. We’re scientists, not looters of an ancient civilization. We seek only to learn.”
I’ll bet, Longarm thought, while saying, “That’s quite admirable. Will you return next spring to continue your research and excavations?”
“Certainly,” Lucking assured them. “This is our fourth season up here, and we hope to return for many more years.”
Sure you do, until you’ve gutted this entire mesa and become millionaires.
Miranda asked, “What can you tell me about Anasazi women? Were they, for instance, happy?”
Longarm almost clapped his hands, for the question was precisely the kind that some completely innocent and ignorant tourist would ask.
“Happy?” Barker repeated, glancing at his partner, then back at Miranda. “I don’t know if it will ever be possible to answer that question.”
“What is your own opinion?” Miranda persisted.
“I like to think that they were happy,” Barker said, looking off into the darkness as if peering back across time. “The women would have had to work hard, of course, for their duties were to gather pinyon nuts in the fall, keep the cooking fires going all winter, and gather all the wood, as well as grinding corn and tanning hides and making turkey-feather robes.”
“We saw one of those,” Miranda said, “at the museum in Cortez.”
“Yes,” Barker said, “and they are remarkably warm. We find the bones of many turkeys in the rear of the cliff dwellings, and know that they must have served not only for feathers, but also, in times of famine, as a staple food
