The roar of an approaching vehicle pulled him back to the present. A Jeep Wrangler topped a rise, disappeared behind the terminal, and reappeared tearing across the tarmac. With a squeal the car leaned into a turn, then stopped hard in front of him. A man jumped out, wide smile on his face, hand extended in greeting. Gregory North Hazelius. He looked just like the dossier photograph, wired with energy.
“
“
“Just a few words I learned from a former student of mine. Welcome.”
Ford’s brief review of Hazelius’s file indicated the man allegedly spoke twelve languages, including Farsi, two dialects of Chinese, and Swahili. No mention had been made of Navajo.
At six feet four, Ford routinely had to look down to meet other men’s eyes. This time he had to peer down more than usual. Hazelius was five feet five, a casually elegant figure in neatly pressed khakis, a cream-colored silk shirt—and a pair of Indian moccasins. His eyes were so blue, they looked like chips of backlit stained glass. An aquiline nose joined a high, smooth forehead, topped by wavy brown hair, neatly combed. A small package carrying an outsized energy.
“I wasn’t expecting the great man himself.”
Hazelius laughed. “We all do double duty. I’m the resident chauffeur. Please, get in.”
Ford folded his frame into the passenger seat, while Hazelius slipped into the driver’s seat with birdlike grace. “While we got Isabella up and running, I didn’t want a lot of support staff hanging around. Besides”—Hazelius turned on him with a brilliant smile—“I wanted to meet you personally. You’re our Jonah.”
“Jonah?”
“We were twelve. Now we’re thirteen. Because of you, we might have to send someone out to walk the plank.” He chuckled.
“You’re a superstitious lot.”
He laughed. “If only you knew! I never go anywhere without my rabbit’s foot.” He pulled an ancient, vile, and almost hairless amputated appendage out of his pocket. “My father gave it to me when I was six.”
“Lovely.”
Hazelius jammed his foot on the accelerator and the Jeep shot forward, pressing Ford back into the seat. The Wrangler flew across the tarmac and squealed onto a freshly laid asphalt road that wound among junipers. “It’s like summer camp, Wyman. We do all our own work—cooking, cleaning, driving. You name it. We’ve got a string theorist who grills a mean tenderloin, a psychologist who helped us lay in an excellent wine cellar, and various other multitalented folk.”
Ford gripped the handle as the Jeep slewed around a corner with a whine of rubber.
“Nervous?”
“Wake me up when we arrive.”
Hazelius laughed. “Can’t resist these empty roads—no cops and sightlines that go for miles. What about you, Wyman? What are your special talents?”
“I’m a killer dishwasher.”
“Excellent!”
“I can split wood.”
“Marvelous!”
Hazelius drove like mad, picking a line and taking it at maximum speed while totally disregarding the center stripe. “Sorry I wasn’t there to meet your plane. We’re just finishing up a run on Isabella. Can I give you a quick tour?”
“Great.”
The Jeep topped a rise at high speed. Fleetingly, Ford’s body felt weightless.
“Nakai Rock,” Hazelius said, pointing to the stone spire Ford had seen from the plane. “The old trading post took its name from that rock. We call our village Nakai Rock, too. Nakai—what does it mean? I’ve always wanted to know.”
“It’s the Navajo word for ‘Mexican.’ ”
“Thank you. I’m awfully glad you could come at such short notice. We’ve managed to get on the wrong side of the locals, unfortunately. Lockwood speaks highly of you.”
The road looped down into a sheltered valley, thick with cottonwoods and surrounded by red sandstone bluffs. Along the outside of the loop stood a dozen or more fake-adobe houses placed artfully among the cottonwoods, with postage-stamp lawns and picket fences. An emerald playing field in the center of the loop formed a vibrant contrast against the bluffs. At the far end of the valley, like a presiding judge, stood the tall hobgoblin rock.
“Eventually we’ll build quarters for up to two hundred families. This’ll be quite a little town of visiting scientists, their families, and support staff.”
The Jeep swept past the houses, making a broad turn. “Tennis court.” Hazelius gestured to the left. “Barn with three horses.”
They reached a picturesque structure made of logs chinked with adobe and shaded by massive cottonwoods. “The old trading post, converted to dining hall, kitchen, and rec room. Pool table, ping-pong, foosball, movies, library, canteen.”
“What’s a trading post doing way up here?”
“Before the coal company moved them off, the Navajo ran sheep on Red Mesa. The post traded food and supplies for the rugs they wove from the wool. Nakai Rock rugs are less well known than Two Grey Hills, but just as fine—finer, even.” He turned to Ford. “Where did you do your field research?”
“Ramah, New Mexico.” Ford didn’t add,
“Ramah. Wasn’t that where the anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn did research for his famous book,
Hazelius’s depth of knowledge surprised Ford. “That’s right.”
“Do you speak fluent Navajo?” Hazelius asked.
“Just enough to get myself into trouble. Navajo is possibly the most difficult language on earth.”
“As such it always interested me—helped us win World War Two.”
The Jeep shrieked to a stop in front of a casita, small and neat, with a fenced yard enclosing a patch of artificially green lawn, along with a patio, picnic table, and barbecue.
“The Ford residence,” Hazelius said.
“Charming.” In fact, it was anything but. It looked crushingly suburban, this tacky little subdivision done up in imitation Pueblo-revival style. But the setting was magnificent.
“Government housing is the same everywhere,” Hazelius said. “But you’ll find it comfortable.”
“Where is everybody?”
“Down in the Bunker. That’s what we call the underground complex that houses Isabella. By the way, where are your bags?”
“They’re coming tomorrow.”
“They must have been anxious to get you out here.”
“Didn’t even give me time to collect my toothbrush.”
Hazelius gunned the Jeep and took the final curve of the loop at rubber-stripping speed. Then he stopped, shifted into four-wheel drive, and coaxed the vehicle off the pavement onto two uneven ruts through the brush.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
They spun their wheels in gullies and bounced around boulders as the Jeep climbed up through the strange, twisted forest of junipers and dead pinons. They bounced along for a few miles. A long steep slope of red slick-rock sandstone loomed ahead.
The Jeep stopped, and Hazelius hopped out. “It’s just up here.”
His curiosity growing, Ford followed him up the slope to the summit of the peculiar sandstone bluff. The top was a huge surprise: he found himself unexpectedly at the edge of Red Mesa, the cliffs dropping away almost two thousand feet. There was no sense that the mesa edge had been coming up, no warning that a cliff lay ahead.
