his voice. Nora ignored him.
“If you want a reading,” Holroyd said to Nora, “you’ll have to go up top.”
Nora glanced at the soaring red walls, streaked with desert varnish, and looked back at Holroyd. “You first.”
Holroyd grinned, powered-down the laptop, and returned it to his saddlebag. “This is a great unit when it works. But I guess way out here, even technology has its limits.”
“Want me to climb up and take the reading?” Sloane asked, riding forward with an easy smile.
Nora looked at her curiously.
“I brought some gear,” Sloane said, lifting the top of a saddlebag and displaying a gear sling loaded with carabiners, friends, nuts, and pitons. She gave the rock walls a calculating look. “I could make it in three pitches, maybe two. Doesn’t look too bad, I could probably free climb my way up.”
“Let’s save that for when we really need it,” Nora said. “I’d rather not take the time right now. Let’s do things the old-fashioned way instead. Dead reckoning.”
“It’s your gig,” Sloane said good-humoredly.
“Dead reckoning,” Smithback murmured. “Never did like the sound of that.”
“We may not have satellites,” Nora said. “But we’ve got maps.” Spreading Holroyd’s map across her saddlehorn, she stared at it closely, estimating their approximate speed and travel time. She marked a dot at their probable position, the date and time beside it.
“Done a lot of this before?” Holroyd asked at her side.
Nora nodded. “All archaeologists have to be good at reading maps. It’s hell finding some of the remoter ruins. And what makes it harder is this.” She pointed to a note in the corner of the map that read WARNING: DATA NOT FIELD-CHECKED. “Most of these maps are created from stereogrammatic images taken from the air. Sometimes what you see from a plane is a lot different from what you see on foot. As you can see, your radar image—which is absolutely accurate—doesn’t always correspond to what’s printed on the map.”
“Reassuring,” she heard Black mutter.
Replacing the map, Nora nudged her horse forward and they continued up the canyon. The walls broadened and the stream diminished, in some places even disappearing for a while, leaving only a damp stretch of sand to mark its underground course. Each time they passed a narrow side canyon, Nora would stop and mark it on the map. Sloane rode up beside her, and for a while they rode together.
“Airplane pilot,” Nora said, “expert horsewoman, archaeologist, rock climber—is there anything you don’t do?”
Sloane shifted slightly in her seat. “I don’t do windows,” she said with a laugh. Then her face became more serious. “I guess the credit—or the blame—goes to my father. He’s a man with exacting standards.”
“He’s quite a remarkable man,” Nora replied, hearing a slightly acerbic tone creeping into Sloane’s voice.
Sloane glanced back at her. “Yes.”
They rounded another bend and the canyon suddenly widened. A cluster of cottonwoods grew against the reddish walls, late afternoon sunlight slanting through their leaves. Nora glanced at her watch: just after four. She noted with satisfaction a broad sandy bench where they could camp, high enough to be beyond the reach of any unexpected flash flood. And along the banks of the creek were abundant new grass for the horses. True to its name, Hard Twist canyon veered off to the left, making such a sharp turn that it gave the illusion of dead-ending in a wall of stone. It looked ugly—choked with rocks, dry and hot. So far the trip had been an easy ride, but Nora knew that could not last.
She turned her horse and waited while the others straggled up. “We’ll camp here,” she called out.
The group gave a ragged cheer. Swire helped Black off his horse, and the scientist limped around a bit, shaking out his legs and complaining. Holroyd dismounted by himself, only to fall immediately to the ground. Nora helped him to a tree he could lean against until he got his legs back.
“I don’t like the look of that canyon,” Sloane said, coming over to Nora. “What if I scout up a ways?”
Nora looked at the younger Goddard. Her dark pageboy had been tousled by the wind, but the disarray only enhanced her beauty, and the golden desert light made her amber eyes as pale as a cat’s. During the day Nora had noticed several of the company, particularly Black, clandestinely admiring Sloane, whose tight cotton shirt, unbuttoned at the top and slightly damp with perspiration, left little to the imagination.
Nora nodded. “Good idea. I’ll take care of things here in the meantime.”
After assigning the camp chores, Nora helped Swire unpack and unsaddle the horses. They lined up the panniers, saddles, and gear on the sand, taking care to keep the high-tech equipment, in its waterproof drysacks, separate from the rest. Out of the corner of her eye, Nora noticed Bonarotti, armed with brush hook, digging trowel, buck knife, and his oversized pistol, marching off upcanyon on some mysterious errand, khakis still miraculously pressed and clean.
As soon as the horses were unpacked, Swire remounted Mestizo. During the ride, he had talked and sung to the horses constantly, making up verses to fit the small events of the day, and he sang another as Nora watched him drive the sweaty remuda toward the creek:
Once in the grass, he hobbled several of the lead horses and tied cowbells around their necks, then unsaddled Mestizo and staked him on a thirty-foot rope. At last, he placed himself on top of a rock, rolled a smoke, pulled out a greasy little notebook, and watched the horses settle down to their evening graze.
Nora turned back, surveying the camp with satisfaction. The heat of the day had abated, and a cool breeze rose up from the purling stream. Doves called back and forth across the canyon, and the faint smell of juniper smoke drifted past. Crickets trilled in the gathering twilight. Nora sat down on a tumbled rock, knowing that she should be using the last of the light to write in her journal, but savoring the moment instead. Black sat by the juniperwood fire, massaging his knees, while the others, the work of setting up camp done, were gathering around, waiting for a pot of coffee to boil.
There was the sound of footsteps crunching on sand and Bonarotti came swinging back down the canyon, a sack thrown over his back. He dropped the sack on the cook tarp spread out by the fire. He slapped a grill on the fire, oiled a large skillet, tossed in some minced garlic from his cabinet, and followed this with rice in a separate pot of water. Out of the sack tumbled some hideous, unidentifiable roots and bulbs, bundles of herbs, and several ears of prickly pear cactus. As he worked, Sloane came back into camp from her reconnaissance, clearly tired but still smiling, and sidled over to watch the final preparations. Working the knives with terrifying swiftness, Bonarotti diced up the roots and threw them into the pot, along with the bulb and a bundle of plants. Then he singed the cactus ears on the grill, skinned and julienned them, and threw them into the sizzling garlic. He gave the concoction a final stir, combined it with the rice, and removed it from the fire.
“Risotto with prickly pear, sego lily, wild potato, bolitas, and romano cheese,” he announced impassively.
There was a silence.
“What are you waiting for?” Sloane cried. “Line up and
They jumped up, grabbing plates from the kitchen tarp. The cook loaded down each plate, sprinkling chopped herbs on top. They settled back on logs by the fire.
“Is this safe to eat?” Black asked, only half jokingly.
Sloane laughed. “It may be more dangerous for you, Doctor, if you do
Black gave a nervous laugh and tasted it. Then he took a second bite. “Why, this is quite good,” he said, filling his mouth.
“Angels and ministers of grace defend us,” intoned Smithback.
“Damn tasty chuck,” mumbled Swire.
Nora took a bite, and found her mouth filled with the creamy taste of arborio rice mingled with the delicate
