Swire ejected a stream of tobacco juice. “Got a problem?”
“Yeah. A horse-sized problem. Beetlebum over there keeps trying to bite me.”
The horse tossed its head in a mighty nod, then nickered evilly.
“Likes the taste of ham, I guess,” said Swire.
“That’s Mr. Prosciutto to you, pal.”
“He’s just kidding around. If he really wanted to bite, you’d know it. Like I said, he’s got a sense of humor, just like you.” Swire glanced at Nora.
Despite herself, Nora found the writer’s discomfiture covertly satisfying. “Roscoe’s right, I’d rather not make any changes unless we have to. Let’s give it another day.” She climbed into the saddle, then gave the signal to mount up. “Sloane and I will go first and pick out a trail. Roscoe will bring up the rear.”
They moved forward into the dry streambed, the horses pushing through the dense brush. Hard Twist Canyon was hot and close, with none of the charm of the previous day’s ride. One side of the canyon lay in deep purple shadow, while the other was etched in sunlight, a contrast almost painful to the eyes. Salt cedars and willows arched over their heads, creating a hot tunnel in which ugly, oversized horseflies droned.
The brush grew thicker, and Nora and Sloane dismounted to hack a path. It was hot, miserable work. Making things worse, they found only a few stagnant potholes of water that did not keep up with the horses’ thirst. The riders seemed to bear up well enough, except for Black’s sarcastic protest when told they would have to ration water for a while. Nora wondered how Black would react when they reached the Devil’s Backbone, somewhere in the wasteland ahead of them. His personality was beginning to seem a high price to pay for his expertise.
At last they came across a large muddy pool, hidden on the far side of a rockslide. The horses crowded forward. In the excitement, Holroyd dropped the lead rope of Charlie Taylor, his pack horse, who eagerly bounded forward into the muddy pool.
Swire turned at the sound. “Wait!” he called, but it was too late.
There was a sudden, terrifying pause as the horse realized it was bogging down in quicksand. Then, in an explosion of flexing muscle, the animal tried to back out, legs churning, spraying thick mud, whinnying in shrill fear. After a few moments it flopped back into the muck, sides shuddering in panic.
Without hesitating, Swire jumped down into the muck beside the horse, drew his knife, and with two deft strokes cut through the diamond hitch. As Nora watched, two hundred pounds worth of provisions slid off the horse’s back into the mud. Swire grabbed the lead rope and pulled the horse’s head to the side, simultaneously quirting him on the rump. With a great sucking noise the horse struggled free. Swire labored out of the mud himself, dragging the pack behind him. Resheathing his knife, he collected the shaking animal’s lead rope and wordlessly handed it to Holroyd.
“Sorry,” said the young man sheepishly, throwing a deeply embarrassed glance at Nora.
Swire stuffed a plug of tobacco into his already full cheek. “No problem. Coulda happened to anyone.”
Both Swire and the pack were liberally covered in vile-smelling muck. “Maybe this is a good time to stop for lunch,” Nora said.
After a quick meal, with the horses watered and the canteens full of purified water, they set out again. The growing heat had baked the canyon into a kind of oppressive somnolence, and all was quiet save for the clatter of horses’ hooves and the occasional muttered imprecations from Smithback to his pack horse.
“Goddammit, Elmer,” he finally cried, “get your hairy lips off me!”
“He likes you,” Swire said. “And his name’s Beetlebum.”
“Soon as we get back to civilization, it’s going to be Elmer,” Smithback said. “I’m going to personally escort this nag to the nearest glue factory.”
“Now don’t go hurtin’ his feelings,” Swire drawled, punctuating the sentence with a spit of tobacco juice.
Their route branched again into an unnamed canyon. Here, the walls were narrower and well scoured by flash floods, but there was less brush and the riding grew a little easier. At one broad bend, where the canyon temporarily widened, Nora reined in her horse and waited for Sloane to catch up. Looking around idly, she suddenly tensed, pointing toward a cutbank on the inside of the bend where flash floods had sliced through the old streambed.
“See that?” she asked, indicating a long thin swale of stained soil beside what looked like a linear arrangement of stones.
“Charcoal,” Sloane nodded as she rode up.
They dismounted and examined the layer. Her breath coming fast with excitement, Nora picked up some tiny fragments of charcoal with a pair of tweezers and placed them in a test tube. “Just like the Great North Road to Chaco,” she murmured.
Then she straightened up and looked at Sloane. “I think we’ve finally found it. The road my father was following.”
Sloane smiled. “Never doubted it.”
They moved on. Now, wherever the canyon took a sharp bend and the old floor was exposed as a bench high above the stream, they could see charcoal-stained ground and, infrequently, lines of stones. Time and again, Nora found herself picturing her father: riding along this same trail, seeing these same sights. It gave her a feeling of connection she hadn’t felt since he died.
Around three o’clock they stopped to rest the horses, taking refuge under an overhang.
“Hey, look,” Holroyd said, pointing to a large green plant growing out of the sand, covered with huge, funnel- shaped white flowers. “
“Don’t let Bonarotti see it,” Smithback said.
“Some Indian tribes eat the roots to induce visions,” said Nora.
“Along with permanent brain damage,” replied Holroyd.
As they sat with their backs to the rock, eating handfuls of dried fruits and nuts, Sloane retrieved her binoculars and began scanning a series of alcoves in a blind canyon opposite them.
After a minute she turned to Nora. “I thought so. There’s a small cliff dwelling up there. First one I’ve seen since we started out.”
Taking the binoculars, Nora peered at the small ruin, perched high on the cliff face. It was set into a shallow alcove, oriented to the south in the Anasazi way, ensuring shade in the summer and warmth in the winter. She could see a low retaining wall along the bottom of the alcove, with what looked like several rooms built in the rear and a circular granary to one side.
“Let me see,” Holroyd said. He gazed at the ruin, motionless. “Incredible,” he breathed at last.
“There’s thousands of little ruins like that in the Utah canyon country,” Nora said.
“How did they live?” Holroyd asked, still peering up with the binoculars.
“They probably farmed the canyon bottom—corn, squash, and beans. They hunted and gathered plants. I’d guess it housed a single extended family.”
“I can’t believe they raised kids up there,” Holroyd said. “You have to be pretty brave to live in a cliff face like that.”
“Or nervous,” said Nora. “There’s a lot of controversy over why the Anasazi suddenly abandoned their pueblos on the flats and retreated into those inaccessible cliff dwellings. Some say it was for defense.”
“Looks like a no-brainer to me,” Smithback said, grabbing the binoculars from Holroyd. “Who’d live up there if they didn’t have to? No elevators, and Pizza Hut sure as hell doesn’t deliver.”
Nora looked at him. “What makes it strange is that there’s no overt evidence of warfare or invasion. All we really know is that the Anasazi suddenly retreated to these cliff sites, stayed there for a while, and then abandoned the Four Corners area entirely. Some archaeologists think it was caused by a total social breakdown.”
Sloane had been scanning the cliffs with a shaded hand. Now she took the binoculars from Smithback and examined the rock more carefully. “I think I can see a way up,” she said. “If you climb that talus slope, there’s a hand-and-toe trail pecked up the slickrock which goes all the way to the ledge. From there you can edge over.” She lowered the binoculars and looked at Nora, amber eyes lit up with mild excitement. “Do we have time to try it?”
Nora glanced at her watch. They were already hopelessly behind schedule—one more hour wouldn’t matter, and they did have an obligation to survey as many ruins as they could. Besides, it might revive some flagging spirits.
