“Oh, my God!” Miranda cried when she peered over the lip of the canyon and saw the impossible trail that she would have to descend in order to reach Cliff Palace far below. “This is insane!”
It was early in the morning, and there had not even been time for breakfast, let alone a cup of coffee. Longarm had seen the two archaeologists pass their camp on the way to the rim just as the sun was breaking over the eastern mountains. It was clear that they had decided to slip away in the hope that he and Miranda would be discouraged from making the descent.
Well, it isn’t going to work, Longarm thought. At least not for me, it isn’t.
“Look, Miranda, why don’t you just stay up here and keep the horses and our burro company while I go down and see the cliff dwelling. Maybe later we can-“
“Oh, no! I’ve been wanting to visit one of these places for years, and I’m not turning back now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’d better be,” Longarm told her. “The last thing we need is for you to freeze up on the side of this cliff and then expect me to somehow help you back up to the top.”
“Go first and I’ll follow.”
Actually, Longarm wasn’t so sure that he wanted to try the descent either. However, if those two scientists could do it, then dammit, so could he.
“Here goes,” Longarm said, starting over the top into a narrow fissure of rock. “For hell sakes, don’t slip and fall on me or we’re both goners.”
“That’s what you are really worried about, isn’t it!”
Longarm didn’t answer. It seemed impossible to him that the scientists could have descended this way, but he’d watched them do it. How the Anasazi had gone up and down here every day in all kinds of weather, carrying rocks, water, their harvest … well, it defied the imagination.
“There are toeholds dug into the rock down here,” he called up to Miranda after he had crabbed his way down about fifty feet. “I sure hope that they don’t require a special sequence.”
“What do you mean, a special sequence?” Miranda called in a strained voice.
“I mean that it’s going to get even riskier when we have to exit this fissure and crab across a sheer rock wall. It could be that I’m supposed to start with one foot or the other. That’s the kind of thing that would discourage any enemy from attempting to enter Cliff Palace.”
“This is crazy!”
“Oops,” Longarm said. “Wrong foot. Miranda, put your left foot into the first toehold, and that way you’ll end up properly after crossing this bad stretch.”
“This is all a bad stretch!”
“Quit complaining,” Longarm said, inching his way down through another fissure and feeling light-headed whenever he gazed down at the canyon floor far, far below.
“Couldn’t we have used ropes or something!”
“No,” Longarm said. “We didn’t bring enough.”
“I think I’m going to faint!”
Longarm glanced up at Miranda. She did look pale, and he could see that there was a shine of perspiration on her face despite a crispness in the morning air. “Don’t look down,” he warned. “Just keep your eyes on your feet and hands.”
“My feet are down, dammit!”
“Take your time,” Longarm said, praying that she would not fall and send them both to their deaths.
Miranda clung to the wall for several minutes, and just when Longarm was about to urge her to retreat back up to their camp and wait for him, she started down again.
This time, he waited until she had traversed the section of toeholds and reached him.
“Too late to turn back now,” he said.
“I can’t believe that anyone could be stupid enough to do this—especially me!”
“It will be easier climbing back up,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “It always is.”
“How could Lucking and Barker carry Anasazi artifacts up the face of this cliff?”
“My guess is that they probably fill a basket, then pull it up on a very long rope. I dunno. I didn’t ask.”
“I wish I were in a basket instead of clinging to the side of this rock like a damned spider!”
“Maybe the worst is past us,” Longarm said. “Come on. The longer we sit here talking, the harder it gets.”
Longarm continued slowly down the trail, and he was immensely relieved because it actually did become easier. In fact, the last stretch was very safe. Then they rounded a boulder and beheld Cliff Palace.
“Can you believe this,” Miranda whispered, clutching his arm. “It’s even grander than I’d imagined!”
Longarm was also in awe of the abandoned city that lay protected from the elements by a great limestone cavern every square yard of which was filled by apartments, elegant winding stairways, and neatly plastered walls. There were also courtyards, kivas, and well-preserved ladders that had once allowed the Anasazi to climb easily from one level of the city to another. When he craned his head back, he could see that the top was blacked by smoke from the fires of its ancient inhabitants.
