Page 34 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

T HE DIRT TRACK they were driving on ended abruptly.

No sign indicated this was where the wilderness area began, but Skip could nevertheless see it on his GPS.

Ahead, the land kept rising through shelves of yellow sandstone toward the rim of Gallina Canyon, a few miles distant.

Skip was not looking forward to the hike.

Edison had insisted on bringing all kinds of unnecessary stuff in their backpacks, including the cannon-sized revolver, a machete, a trowel, and far more alcohol than they could ever hope to drink.

But Skip had kept his mouth shut and, as a reward for his circumspection, was now stuck with a sixty-pound pack, which included his uke strapped on the back.

Edison, for his part, had a swollen pack that probably weighed twenty pounds more.

Skip was an experienced backpacker and he knew this was no way to proceed, but he felt intimidated and didn’t want to get into an argument with Edison over everything he’d insisted on bringing.

“Ahoy, Navigator! Which way?”

Skip consulted his phone.

There was no cell reception, but he’d downloaded the USGS maps ahead of time.

And the satellite GPS connection was working well, showing where they were on the topo map.

He consoled himself with the fact that it was not a long hike—six miles at most—and after the first gentle uphill part, it would be all downhill.

There were no trails, but the ponderosa-and-fir forest along the rim had broadly spaced trees, and a ridge ahead of them, descending to the canyon floor, looked like a possible way down.

“This way,” he said.

Edison was in an expansive mood and took the lead, hiking fast along the ridgeline.

Soon, views opened up into the canyon—a stunningly picturesque and dramatic rupture in the earth formed by the Gallina River.

Skip could see it far below, a shining ribbon winding in sinuous curves and lined by gigantic cottonwoods.

Beyond the grass-covered canyon bottom stood sandstone walls that glowed in red and orange bands, carved by time and water into otherworldly spires, slots, and alcoves.

They started down and—winding their way along the descending ridge—at last reached the bottom.

By then, Skip’s back was killing him, and he gratefully dumped his pack on a grassy flat above the river—a beautiful, shaded campsite.

It remained cool at eight thousand feet of altitude, and the summer rains had generated an explosion of wildflowers.

“Four hours of daylight left,” Edison said.

“Plenty of time to explore!”

Dumping his pack next to Skip’s, he set off practically at a jog, binoculars in hand, stopping from time to time to scan the canyon walls, benches, and hills above the river, full of excited chatter about the Gallina and their mysteries.

It was, Skip thought, like a fairyland for him.

They forded the river and began scrambling up the steep prominence on the far side, Skip struggling to keep up.

“The roomblocks where the Gallina lived,” Edison panted as they reached the height of land, “will be concealed and hard to find. Most of them are probably up various side canyons.” He scanned the landscape with his binoculars for a moment, then pointed.

“See that slot canyon over there? I guarantee there’s a ruin in that.”

He charged down the far side of the slope.

Skip, barely recovered from the climb after the river, followed.

Crossing a grassy floodplain, they reached the rock wall in which the slot canyon lay, little more than a crack in the sandstone facade—carved by flash floods, the walls sculpted and smoothed.

It narrowed still further as they moved up it, enclosing them in shade and cool stone.

A thread of water wound down over a bed of light sand.

“Whoa!” said Edison, stopping and bending down.

Lying on the pale sand was a perfect arrowhead, knapped from black obsidian.

“Wow,” said Skip, “that’s a beaut.”

Edison slipped it into his pocket.

“Um,” said Skip, “you know, we shouldn’t be taking anything.”

“An arrowhead?” Edison gave a snort.

“Everyone takes arrowheads. I mean, if I didn’t, the next person up here would. Or it’d be washed into the river and disappear forever.”

“Right,” said Skip dubiously, reminding himself of the many arrowheads he’d found—and kept.

They continued up the twisty canyon, jammed with fallen fir trunks and boulders.

The stream of water created a cool, fragrant ambiance.

Suddenly, Edison pointed.

“There!”

Skip looked up and was amazed to see a perfect little cliff dwelling in an alcove about thirty feet over their heads, built on a wide, flat ledge.

The sandstone face that rose above it was covered with petroglyphs pecked into the rock—spirals, images of deer, and a spectacular stylized bear with four-pointed stars on its body.

A steep crack led up to the ruin, evidently used by the former inhabitants.

It was incredible—beautiful.

Without another word Edison started up, making his way along the narrow ledge that slanted upward.

Skip followed. At one point the ledge had fallen away, forcing them to step over a yawning gap, but within a few minutes they had arrived.

The structure was recessed into the alcove, leaving a flat sandstone patio in front as a kind of work area.

Edison crossed it, removed the headlamp from his day pack, and walked over to a dark door leading inside.

Putting on the headlamp and ducking, he entered, Skip following.

“Holy crap,” Skip said as he looked around.

It was as if the inhabitants had just walked out, leaving their stuff behind.

In the rear was a row of corrugated clay pots with stone lids.

A small black-on-white bowl stood in a niche, filled with carbonized corncobs.

Broken potsherds were scattered on the stone floor, and the roof was dark with ancient soot.

“Let’s go into the inner rooms,” said Edison.

His face was shining with excitement.

Bending lower, he went through a still smaller door in the back that led into rooms wedged beneath the lowering ceiling of stone.

As Edison shined the light around, Skip froze.

“Holy mother of God,” breathed Edison, his headlamp illuminating a sprawl of human bones, including a human skull split in two.

Lying next to the pieces of skull was a hafted axe, wooden handle still present, the blade made with the same shiny black obsidian as the arrowhead they’d come across earlier.

Edison knelt and reached out for the axe.

“Better not touch that,” said Skip.

But Edison ignored him.

He grasped the handle and lifted it, turning it around in the beam of his headlamp as it glittered and threw flecks of light around the small room.

He looked at Skip. “This is an incredible artifact. Just look at the knapping—and with an intact handle!” He took off his day pack as if to put the object inside.

Skip swallowed. “Taking that is a felony.”

At this, Edison began to chuckle.

“You don’t think I’m just going to leave it here?”

“I do, actually.”

Edison gave a sigh.

“All right.” He laid it back down among the bones.

“I’ll just leave it here like this, okay?”

“Thanks,” said Skip, feeling awkward.

He didn’t like being put in the position of artifact cop, but taking something like that was illegal as hell, and wrong—and Edison knew it.

“Hey, will you look at this?” Edison cried, his light landing on another object—a stone mountain lion fetish, broken in half.

He reached out and picked up the pieces, examining them with reverence, while Skip looked on in dismay.

“Don’t worry, I won’t take them.” He put them back.

“Let’s keep going. After you.”

Skip worked his way out of the small room and Edison soon followed, joining him in the cool air of the plaza.

“This place is incredible,” Edison said.

“And what we’ve found is just the beginning.”

Incredible wasn’t quite the word Skip would have chosen for this scene of violent death.

Spooky was more like it.

He felt a shiver of creepiness.

They explored side canyons until darkness forced them to return to their packs, where they set up camp.

It was, Skip mused, a place of wonders, chock full of untouched ruins, but also unsettling.

Edison seemed to have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where to find them; it was almost as if he were channeling the ancient Gallina Indians.

Several times he’d vanished among the labyrinthine roomblocks—once for nearly a quarter of an hour.

They had found several other skeletons, many with arrowheads or axe heads mingling with the bones, some with their skulls bashed in.

Edison had kept a few things—arrowheads and several axes—arguing with Skip each time but leaving the truly important stuff behind.

Skip remained uneasy, but said no more about it once they’d left the ruins.

Edison was so thrilled by everything that there was little Skip could have said that would have stopped him anyway.

And there was, he told himself, some truth to the idea that it was only a matter of time before looters discovered the canyon.

In fact, he wondered why they hadn’t already.

That was strange—very strange.

When they got back out, he decided, he would definitely tell Nora about their discoveries.

He’d been noting them on his GPS, dropping pins at every location, many of which had probably never been recorded before.

Even in July, when the sun went down a chill came into the air.

They set up the tent and lit a cheerful fire for dinner.

After a meal of steaks—Edison had brought down a couple of New York strips in a soft cooler pack—and a bottle of wine, out came the bottles of tequila.

Edison cracked the seal of one, pulled the cork out with a pop, took a swig, then passed it to Skip, who took his own good swallow of the fiery liquor.

“Twenty-year reposado,” said Edison.

“Five hundred bucks a bottle.”

“It’s amazingly smooth,” said Skip, taking another sip.

“Only the best,” said Edison.

“Isn’t this place just incredible?”

Skip nodded.

“You could spend a month in here and not explore it all. Just imagine this canyon during its heyday! Those meadows along the river planted with irrigated fields, kids playing in the river, women cooking, men coming back from the hunt with deer slung over their shoulders… And then—” he paused dramatically—

“the invasion comes.” He took a long pull of tequila, eyes shining in the firelight.

“They come in from both ends of the canyon, I’ll bet, in a pincer movement. Warriors are already secretly deployed along the canyon rims. The Gallina are trapped. They run screaming for their dwellings in the side canyons, mothers scooping up their kids. They pull up the ladders, man the arrow ports, and fight like hell. But it’s too late. The invaders are too many, the surprise too great.” Edison swept a dramatic hand over the dark cliff faces.

“It wasn’t just a war. It was genocide. One by one, the Gallina’s cliff dwellings fall to the invaders and they’re massacred: men, women, children, skulls split, brains beaten in. The invaders are not there to steal, but exterminate. They don’t loot the dwellings. Oh no: they leave everything as is, the bodies left where they fell, to show the world what they did.”

At this, Edison rose and bowed extravagantly.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happened.”

Skip applauded.

He was feeling good, his earlier apprehension dispelled by liquor and a full belly.

“Bring out your uke,” Edison said, “and let’s make some music.”

“Sure thing.” Skip opened the lightweight traveling case, pulled it out.

“I thought you had a vintage Martin,” Edison said as Skip pulled out a small blue ukulele with a fretboard of dark wood.

“I do, but no way in hell am I gonna bring that out here. But this—” he patted the instrument proudly—“is a pretty sweet substitute. An Enya 25D, less than a hundred bucks, if you can believe it.”

“Really?”

“Yup. That way, I don’t mind the dings and dirt.”

Edison reached for his own pack and drew out his expensive replica bone flute.

Then he paused, eyes drawn once again to the canyon walls.

“You can tell,” he said, “by how carefully those cliff houses were hidden, and by their arrow ports and thick stone walls, that the Gallina must have been really, really afraid.” Edison’s words were beginning to slur together.

“And with good reason! But here’s the question: Were the Gallina afraid because there were bad dudes out there… or because they, themselves , were the bad dudes?” He laughed and swigged, then handed the bottle to Skip.

Skip had had plenty, but he thought, What the hell?

and took another good pull himself.

He could feel his head starting to reel.

And now Edison leaned toward Skip, his face glowing with liquor.

“My friend, I’ve got a confession to make,” he said in a confidential whisper.

“What is it?”

Without another word, Edison put the flute aside, reached for his daypack, and drew it toward him.

He unzipped the top and felt inside, pulling out a large Ziploc bag with something inside wrapped in a paper towel.

He drew it out. It was the obsidian axe.

Skip stared, a creeping feeling of alarm coming over him, dulled by alcohol but not extinguished.

“I was naughty,” Edison said, now taking another bag, and then another, out of his backpack.

He opened them, then unwrapped and displayed the items within: the obsidian axe; a small but exquisitely painted effigy pot of a bird; a polished stone pipe; a child’s finely woven yucca sandal—and something Skip had not seen in the ruins that Edison must have picked up in secret: a pair of prasiolite lightning stones.