Page 12 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

M AN, THIS GUY must be loaded!

” said Skip, as they eased up the driveway of an adobe house that sprawled along a ridgetop of the exclusive Circle Drive neighborhood in Santa Fe.

Nora didn’t answer. She had debated whether to bring Skip along.

Her younger brother could be unpredictable and obnoxious at times, but he also had a way of charming people.

After Skip’s misadventure in the Manzano Mountains, he had returned to his previous job as a collections manager at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute and had lately been complaining about his life being boring.

This interview, Nora reasoned, seemed like a harmless diversion.

She pulled the Jeep into an immaculately graveled area in front of an adobe wall with a massive set of carved mesquite doors bossed in brass.

As she parked, the doors flung open to reveal the homeowner himself, framed between them and flashing a big smile.

Edison Nash was a famous collector of Indian artifacts.

Most importantly to Nora, he owned the only two prasiolite lightning stones in existence—until the other two Corrie had found with the body.

Nash was fit and chiseled, curly black hair flopping over his brow, wearing skinny jeans, a cowboy shirt, and ostrich boots.

Nora was surprised; she’d expected someone older, more staid, and standoffish, given his controversial history with the archaeology profession and the Institute in particular.

She hadn’t expected someone quite so young and hip—or welcoming.

As they got out, Nash advanced through the gate, hand extended.

“You must be Dr. Kelly.”

“Nora, please,” she said.

“Call me Edison.” Nash grasped her hand and gave it a hearty shake, then turned to Skip.

“Skip Kelly,” he said, grabbing the hand with enthusiasm of his own.

“Heard a lot about you!”

Nash led them through the gate and up a flagstone path into the house, where they walked into a soaring entryway with diamond plaster walls and skylights.

A gorgeous, carved Spanish Colonial chest stood on one side, while a Mexican Baroque reredos depicting the immaculate conception graced the other side.

The walls above and around them were decorated with a miscellany of rare artifacts, among which Nora recognized beaded Cree firebags, a Chilkat weaving, and a number of Kwakiutl transformation masks—an array of relics so spectacular that she unwittingly halted and stared.

Nash said, “Welcome to my collection.”

“It’s remarkable.”

“There’s quite a bit more,” he said dryly, ushering them down a hall and into his study.

This room was even more stunning, its walls covered with splendid examples of Native American beadwork, painted parfleches, masks, decorated cradleboards, and—she recognized with a start—an extremely rare Lakota ghost shirt.

Nora had refreshed her knowledge of Nash and the history of his collection before the interview.

He’d inherited the collection from his grandfather, a self-made industrialist who, later in life, had traveled the country buying Indian art and artifacts.

But the grandson had outdone the grandfather in his passion for collecting Native American art, and the young Nash had obviously amassed what might be the finest private collection of its kind in the world.

“Please, have a seat.” Nash indicated several plush leather armchairs and a couch.

Nora sank into the sofa while Skip followed suit in an adjacent chair.

In addition to the displays, there was a kiva fireplace in one corner, and a wall of books at the far end of the room.

Nash rolled a chair out from behind his antique desk and took a seat.

Clasping his hands and leaning forward, he said, “I don’t often get visitors from the Archaeological Institute. They don’t seem to like me over there.”

“Why not?” asked Skip ingenuously.

Nash gave a chuckle.

“I know as much about Indian artifacts as any archaeologist out there—but all I have is a BA. That doesn’t sit well with folks who’ve toiled for years in a museum basement getting their PhD. On top of that, they accuse me of being unethical, paying top dollar for important Native American art.” He waved his hand.

“Those academic bumblebees are always buzzing around me disapprovingly. They think only museums should own this stuff.”

“Um, right,” said Nora, realizing the conversation was drifting on a treacherous tangent.

The bad blood between Nash and the Institute had started when the Institute turned down a gift he’d offered of a rare, prehistoric Pima feathered basket because it lacked provenance—in other words, there was no history of where the basket came from, which raised the possibility it might have been looted or acquired illegally.

She quickly spoke again.

“We’re hoping you might help us track down the source of two rare artifacts that recently came to light.”

“Of course. Happy to help. Tell me about these artifacts.”

“They’re two prasiolite lightning stones. Just like the two I believe you own.”

At this, Nash seemed to freeze a moment in astonishment, but his smile quickly returned.

“My, that’s quite a discovery. Can you tell me the circumstances?”

Nora had pondered how much to share with him, and she’d decided it would be useful if he knew at least the basic facts.

“I’m working with the FBI on a case. I’m supposed to keep the details confidential.”

“The FBI?” Nash was surprised afresh.

“Now I’m really intrigued. Of course, I’ll keep anything you tell me to myself.”

“Thank you. The two stones were found with human remains in the Ah-shi-sle-pah badlands. The victim was apparently carrying them when she died, about five years ago. I’ve been asked to see if we can’t trace where they came from, and how she happened to have them.”

Nash was leaning forward in his chair, a look of intense interest on his face.

“How’d she die?”

“We’re not sure, but it appears to have been heat exposure.”

“No kidding.” He seemed to think for a moment.

“And you’ve come to me because I’ve got the only other known pair in existence.”

“That’s right.”

“Would you like to see them?”

Before Nora could answer, Skip said with enthusiasm, “Hell, yes!”

Nora cast him a cautionary glance, but he was too thrilled to notice.

“I keep them in my vault.” Nash stood up.

Nora rose, and so did Skip.

They followed Nash out of the study and down a long hall to a nondescript door.

Nash opened it and shoved aside some old coats to reveal a large steel door at the rear.

After punching a code into a keypad and turning a wheel, he eased the door open, reached in, and flicked on a light.

“Holy crap,” Skip breathed, staring.

It was a walk-in vault, perhaps ten by twelve feet in size, stuffed to bursting with treasure: hammered gold pectorals, Indian peace medals, ceremonial pipes, framed letters, historic photographs of Native American leaders, and many other strange and precious artifacts.

At the far end stood a painted wooden sarcophagus leaning against the wall, containing a full-size Egyptian mummy, arms crossed over its chest. A section of one wall was festooned with Peruvian and Colombian gold ornaments, and other shelves contained small caskets of treasure: one full of loose rubies and emeralds, another stacked with Saint-Gaudens twenty-dollar gold pieces, a third filled with five- and ten-dollar gold coins.

“Come on in,” said Nash.

“There’s plenty of room.”

“Are those real gold bars?” Skip asked, staring into a corner that had escaped Nora’s attention.

“One hundred ingots weighing a kilogram apiece.” He chuckled.

“That’s for when America’s house of cards comes down and fiat currency isn’t worth a damn. I’ve got lots of gold. For example—”

He took a key down from one wall, unlocked a metal cabinet, and slid open a drawer to reveal dozens of gold nuggets reposing on black velvet like so many gleaming eggs.

“Genuine, historic forty-niner nuggets from Grass Valley and the American River. Almost all the placer nuggets were melted down into bullion—these are among the very few surviving.”

“And the mummy?” Skip asked.

“Where’d that come from?”

“Oh, just a traveling companion I picked up in Egypt,” he said.

Nora could see that Nash was having a marvelous time showing off his collection, and that Skip’s enthusiasm was only urging him on.

But she needed to get the conversation back on track.

“Mr. Nash, we’d love to see the stones.”

“Of course.” He opened another drawer full of prehistoric fetishes, with the central compartment containing two lightning stones almost exactly like the ones found with the dead woman.

Nash picked them up.

“Want to see a demonstration?”

“Well—” Nora began, but was interrupted by Skip, who nodded eagerly.

“Hit the lights, Skip, and shut the vault door.”

Skip shouldered the heavy metal door shut and flicked off the lights, plunging the vault into darkness.

After a brief silence, a sudden click - click sounded, then in rapid succession— click-click , click-click —and each time the stones flashed with internal fire of the most lovely, mysterious lime-green hue: just like the pair Nora had demonstrated to Corrie in the FBI lab.

“Awesome!”

“Lights.”

Skip turned the lights back on.

Nash held the stones in front of him, a boyish grin on his face.

“Thank you,” said Nora, despite herself enthralled all over again.

“The FBI asked me to find out the history of your stones, where they were found, by whom—anything that might help identify the woman and learn what she might have been doing.”

“Of course,” said Nash, putting the stones back in the drawer, then shutting and locking it.

“Let’s go back to my study.”

Once they were seated again, Nash leaned forward.

“Those stones are from my grandfather’s original collection. He was a self-made man, no academic background—a high school dropout. But he was a brilliant collector with a good eye, and he picked up stuff back in the thirties and forties before it was considered valuable. But—” here Nash opened his hands—“he wasn’t good at keeping records. He would scrawl some basic information on a piece of paper and stuff it in a box with an item. Specifically, I still have the piece of paper for those stones, but all it says is Gallina, Hibben, 1935 .”

“Hibben?” Nora echoed.

“You mean Frank Hibben, the discredited archaeologist?”

“He explored the Gallina area back in the thirties and wrote several monographs about it. The article I’d recommend is ‘Murder in the Gallina Country,’ published in the Southwest Review in 1951. Still available through JSTOR.”

“You’re confident your grandfather got these stones from Hibben?”

Nash shrugged.

“All I know is what’s on the note. According to his own published work, Hibben tramped all over that country during his lifetime. Allegedly, he wasn’t above keeping some of the artifacts he found or giving them to friends.”

“No indication of where in Gallina they came from?”

“None. The Gallina people lived in a labyrinth of canyons—

Gallina Canyon was the epicenter, but they also spread out in Chama River Canyon and up on Mesa Golondrina—that whole area is rugged as hell and most of it is designated wilderness today. Gallina was a strange tribe—you know much about them?”

“Just a little.” Among mainstream archaeologists, the Gallina were considered a minor group that all other Pueblo Indians disavowed as their ancestors.

Access to their scattered ruins, often in inaccessible cliffs, was difficult; there was no professional glamour in studying them.

“It seems they were wiped out around 00 CE. The entire population massacred. Hibben excavated some of their ruins and found skeletons of people who’d been brutally killed and dismembered, chopped up, feet cut off, babies’ skulls crushed, some full of arrowheads. Their houses were burned, the adobe walls blackened by fire.”

“What do you think happened?” Skip asked excitedly.

“Nobody knows. It’s one of the mysteries in Southwestern archaeology. I have my own theories—but of course I don’t have a PhD, so what I think doesn’t count.”

“What do you think?” Skip asked.

Nora suppressed a smile.

Skip was indeed connecting with Nash, who she could see was enjoying the attention.

“I think the Gallina were up to no good. Witchcraft, maybe. Not that I believe in actual black magic, but witchcraft was a much-feared force among the Pueblo and Navajo Indians. I think the Gallina were some bad dudes, and at a certain point the Pueblo Indians decided to wipe them out. Their sacred kivas—those underground circular chambers they used for ceremonies—were burned, and the murals on their walls defaced and profaned.”

“Sort of like a prehistoric genocide.”

“You might call it that,” said Nash.

“I’ve also got a collection of stone knives from Gallina that came from my grandfather. I had them residue tested, and the results showed human blood. So I think there might even have been human sacrifices.”

“Like the Aztecs?”

“Exactly. You want to see those knives?”

“Yes,” Skip said.

Nora realized the conversation was starting to veer off again, and she felt she had gotten what she needed.

“I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” she said, rising.

“We should be heading out. It’s after five o’clock.”

She could see Skip looked disappointed.

“What about the knives?” he asked.

“I’ve got to run,” said Nora.

Nash turned to Skip.

“You’re welcome to stay and have a look.”

Nora got up and exchanged glances with Skip.

She hesitated a moment.

Skip needed friends—and he could do worse than Edison Nash.

“No problem,” she said with a smile.

“You two stay here and take a look at the knives—I can see my way out.”

“Great!” Skip said.

“I’ll see you at home later.”

“Nice meeting you,” Nash said, rising and shaking her hand.

As she left, she heard Nash’s voice coming from the study.

“Skip, all this talking has made me thirsty. I’ve got a bottle of Don Julio Anejo…”

She almost stopped and went back to fetch Skip, but he’d never forgive her if she dragged him away and humiliated him like that.

He was a grown man, for God’s sake.

She closed the door and went to her car, gritting her teeth, suddenly sorry she had brought Skip at all.