Prologue.
The moon rose slowly over the canyon wall, creating a grey light that made it possible to see. The stillness settled like a shroud around him, the shadows creating visions, the monsters of night that walked the canyons.
Frank Begay shifted, putting out the last of his cigarette, and broke camp. The sandstone cliffs loomed above him, five hundred feet on either side, creating dark, silent shapes in the wash below. The white sand wash of the canyon's bottom shimmered, reflecting the stars. He barely noticed, used to the changes. He stared, looking for any sign of life. There was no one. There never was out here.
Now was the time to do this. Moonrise on the fall equinox, just like he'd been told.
He shivered against the night air. He'd camped in the canyons hundreds of times, lived this life all of his life. But tonight, something was eating at him. Something wasn't right. Tonight, something was …different.
Packed, he pulled his coat closer to his chest, shaking off the evening chill that came after sunset, as he headed down to the canyon floor. He moved silently through the sand, staying close to the edge of the canyon wall so that he wouldn't leave footprints in the wash.
He stopped suddenly, listening. He thought he'd heard - but no. There was only silence - not even a coyote howling at the moon. He shifted his backpack, making sure the contents were secure.
It would be stupid to screw up the job, just because he was spooked.
He could see the slickrock wall where he needed to start the climb. The cave should be 200 feet up. He moved silently up the sharp rise of the canyon side, his boots keeping purchase on the steep, angled rock, careful to keep his cargo safe, switchbacking along crevasses as the angle grew steeper.
Half way up, he stopped on a small plateau, taking a break amongst the bearberry bushes that were the sign that an Anasazi ruin was near.
Ruins - the homes of the Anasazi, the Ancient Enemy- the places of the dead. The places his Navajo ancestors still avoided like a plague, even now nearly 800 years after they'd been abandoned.
He grimaced. It was all stupid superstition. He'd been in hundreds of ruined sites without any problems.
He shifted uneasily as he heard a sound behind him. An owl took flight, its wings shifting the stultified air. He let out a breath, and forced himself to calm down.
Truth was, most of his visits to ruins had been very lucrative. The Anasazi had been basket makers and then potters, and had left huge clay pots when they abandoned the area. There were lots of collectors willing to pay and not ask questions. Being a pothunter had its advantages, especially when you were told where to look and knew sources that could sell stuff quietly.
Besides, his mother had been Hopi and her people believed the Anasazi were the Hopi ancestors; she'd kept hammering on the idea that his father's Navajo family was wrong; that the ruins were just remains of his ancestor's homes; not a place of the dead; not a plague, not the Ancient Enemy.
He closed his eyes, remembering. She'd also spent a lot of time telling him stories about the Katchinas, her spirits that walked the night. Not that she'd ever said the Katchinas walked the ruins, but they had walked the canyons. He remembered the ceremonies of his mother's family; remembered the celebrations, but that was child's play – it was a long time ago.
Katchinas, the Ancient Enemy – all of it. It was all stupid superstition. He'd grown up in Flagstaff off the Navajo and then the Hopi Reservation after both of his parents had died early. He didn't believe in any of their stories anymore.
But …there was still something wrong with the canyon; something wrong with the night. His instinct was screaming at him - and his instinct was very rarely wrong.
He scanned the canyon floor behind him again. The light from the moon bathed the bottom in shadow as well as light. There was nothing there.
He looked around him on the small plateau. There were animal tracks on the ground - turkey and coyote, both long gone. In the dim light, he could even make out the tracks of the deer mouse and antelope squirrel that had wandered through. There was nothing else. There hadn't been for a long time. The scrub oak and the cedar hid his view of the rest of the ledge; but there was no sound, nothing.
He was clearly nuts. He had best get this damned job over with and fast. Probably the thing that was bothering him was that this was the first time he'd been asked to *salt* a site, rather than to raid it. And the timing request - moonrise on the equinox - was bizarre.
He stared up at the cliff rising above him. The walls were sheer, vertical rock. He walked to the side of the plateau, his flashlight angled along the side and upwards. If there was a cave, if his source had been right, there should be Moki steps in the wall, hand and foot holds carved out of the rock a thousand years ago. There. There they were. He pulled out his climbing gear, using the steps for purchase as he gradually made his way up the wall, belaying himself every ten feet. It would be stupid to die out here now, just for a job.
He finally reached the ledge and attached his rope to a boulder on the side to make the climb down easier. He grinned. There was a reason why some of the museum/university types were still trying to relocate this cave. He looked around the cave entrance. The brush was dense, and seeing he was two hundred feet up, it was impossible to locate from below. If he hadn't been told where it was, he'd never have seen it. He would never have looked. He was deep in the canyon, ten miles from any road, another forty to town.
He turned on his flashlight and headed into the cave.
He stared at the ruin that hugged the back wall.
It was perfectly intact. The masonry walls were flawless, the wood roof beams as solid as if they had just been placed there yesterday, not 1000 years before.
It wasn't possible. No ruin was this clean, this perfect. And this one should be a wreck; his source said it had been excavated in the 1890s, and then lost for 100 years. That was wrong; it had to be. Someone had been here. Someone had repaired the place.
He scanned the walls carefully with his light, highlighting the red handprints that were the mark of the Anasazi on the walls, a usual sight in ruins.
Then he saw the petroglyphs.
He stared, mesmerized. Two huge spirals were pecked out of the rock. He traced his hand along the center of the largest and then saw the image of a frog at the bottom. He crouched, staring.
He turned, suddenly, looking back at the mouth of the cave. He could have sworn he heard – but no. There was nothing.
Sweating, he took off his pack. The sooner he put the pots in place, and got out of there, the better. He ducked down through the T shaped entrance to the ruin into the black of the room and set the pots in the corner, as he'd been instructed.
He turned, and his heart stopped.
There was a bright light flicking outside of the building.
He scrambled out, panicked. It wasn't just a light - the entire back wall of the cave was shimmering, a green glow filling the cave.
It was coming. They were coming. His mother's spirits, the katchinas, spirits of the earth, wind, fire, of water and animals were coming through the wall, staring at him, talking, their voices making noises he should understand but couldn't. They must be here to remind of what he'd done wrong in life, desecrating sacred ground, of what he needed to fix. They must.
They stared at him, beckoning.
He had to get out. He had to get away. He grabbed the rope. 50 feet. 50 feet down and then he'd be on the slickrock and could make his way to canyon bottom, to safety.
His hands shaking, he made it past the rope. Now he had to make it down to the canyon floor.
He looked up at the cave to see if they were following. There was nothing, the mouth was in darkness.
He took a deep breath, struggling, panic settling. There was only silence, the silence of the canyon. And yet…
There was something, something on the ledge. It was waiting, he could sense it, smell it. Something was tracking him. He was sure of it. He could hear it rustling in the leaves of the scrub oak.
He turned suddenly, and screamed. It wasn't the katchinas, it was a wolf with the form of a man. A Navajo witch; the source of his grandmother's insanity and his father's death. As he scrambled towards the slickrock edge, he knew that the place was cursed; and that he was cursed as well. That's why it had been lost. He should never have broken the curse.
And then, as the witch caught up to him, he knew it was over.