Horror in Chaco
Canyon
The sun was setting, lighting the huge sky. The air was
arid and cold; it was a New Mexican winter some time in the late
nineteenth-century. At the bottom of the valley, the Doctor, Jamie,
and Victoria stared up at Pueblo Bonito, high up on the crag. The
Doctor had spent all day patiently enduring the American
anthropologist's crack pot ideas on the Anasazi civilization. Jamie
had spent all day patiently enduring the Doctor's smilingly snide
remarks about the American anthropologist. Victoria had spent all day
rolling a rock around in her shoe.
"They're excavating up there," said the anthropologist. "Let me walk up first and give them a halloo, so they don't shoot you on sight." He gave a nervous chuckle.
"Aye," said Jamie.
The Doctor folded his hands and looked patronizing. "I'd hate for this to come to any violence." He turned to Victoria. "It wouldn't do at all to give this young lady the wrong impression of her Atlantic cousins."
Victoria quite liked showing off her bare legs and even though they were in roughly her own period, she'd made a point of wearing short 1960s skirts. The anthropologist was staring at her rather hungrily, and she gave him a sunny smile.
"I'll be back in half an hour," said the anthropologist and began the hike.
"Shall we sit down?" asked the Doctor. "We might as well make ourselves comfortable while we wait." He removed his coat and spread it out on the desert sand, carefully checking for stray cacti that might prick his bottom. Jamie followed suit, and Victoria slowly sank down and rested on her heels, unwilling to expose any part of herself to rattlesnake country.
"Isn't this extraordinary?" asked the Doctor, looking up at the sky, where a sliver of a moon appeared in the dull blue. "We've arrived on the winter solstice precisely. Once we reach Pueblo Bonito, we'll be able to see superb alignment of the stars. Our anthropologist thinks it's some kind of sacrificial site, but it's more like an Anasazi observatory." He sighed and looked happily at Jamie.
Jamie was kicking at a juniper tree root. "When can we go back to the TARDIS, Doctor?"
"Weren't you listening to a word I said?" blustered the Doctor. "We're about to see something extraordinary in Chaco Canyon and–"
"I'm tired and thirsty," said Victoria. "This is all rather dull."
The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and privately denounced them as morons. He regained control of himself to say, "If you're so bored, why don't you take the opportunity for a little nap? That chap will be back to get us soon enough, and you'll be refreshed by the time he arrives."
Without protest both Jamie and Victoria slid into sleep quickly. Despite himself, the Doctor was feeling the effects of the thin desert air as well . . .
When he came to, it was night. The stars were shining brightly above, as was the moon. There was no sign of the anthropologist, but the Doctor jumped up to his feet. Or tried to. As soon as he got up he fell down again. Jamie beside him woke up with a groan. The Doctor felt something attached to his wrist. He pulled as hard as he could.
"Ow, Doctor, what are you doooing there?"
"What is going on?" asked the Doctor heatedly. He pulled at his wrist, slowly realizing that he was handcuffed to Jamie.
"Ohhh, Doctor," moaned Victoria, "I'm tied to this tree, and Jamie's tied to my other arm."
The horrible truth donned on the Doctor: somehow Victoria had been handcuffed to a tree, Jamie had been handcuffed to her, and he, the Doctor, was handcuffed to Jamie. "This is ridiculous!" he shouted. "Where did handcuffs come from?"
"Oh, that was me, Doctor."
"Jamie, why were you carrying handcuffs? And more to the point, where were you hiding them?"
A significant look passed between Victoria and Jamie, one scarcely noticed by the Doctor in the moonlight. "Och, Doctor, I just fooond them in the TARDIS. I thought they were clever, tha' I might have use for them some time."
"Yes, great use they've turned out to be!"
"I didnae handcuff us!"
"Of course you didn't," said the Doctor, with pained deliberation. "But someone did. Probably that wretched anthropologist."
"Well, I'd rather be handcuffed dooon here than climbing up there," Jamie volunteered mutinously.
"That, you ignorant Highlander, was the worst possible thing to say."
Jamie was sulkily silent. Then he burst into tears.
"Oh, Doctor," whined Victoria, "you've made Jamie cry."
"No, I haven't," mumbled the Doctor.
"Yes, you have! And now I'm going to cry too!" And in the night air there were the mingled sounds of Jamie and Victoria sobbing, while the Doctor felt in the dirt for a rock. He hadn't quite decided what to do with it yet.