Canyon Sacrifice (13 page)

First, the cannibalism dispute. When human coprolite—fossilized feces—containing human DNA was found at two Anasazi sites on the far northeast edge of the Colorado Plateau, many experts took the findings as proof the Anasazi had practiced widespread cannibalism during the closing decades of their collapsing society. Others rejected that conclusion as demeaning and overly simplistic. Little more than two hundred years ago, they pointed out, Massachusetts whalers lost at sea in lifeboats had drawn lots to determine who among them would be killed and eaten so the rest could survive long enough to reach land. As far as those experts were concerned, such heartrending decisions didn't make cannibals out of eighteenth-century Anglo-Americans any more than the recent coprolite findings made cannibals of the Anasazi.

Close on the heels of the cannibalism debate was the bust by federal agents after a three-year sting operation of the so-called Bland of Brothers, a group of grave robbers from the small town of Blanding in southeast Utah who pillaged Anasazi burial sites and sold their takings on the black market. The purported leader of the Bland of Brothers turned out to be none other than Blanding's town doctor, a revered family practitioner who lived in a sprawling house on a ridge overlooking town.

The physician was said to have led the grave robbers, not for the money he made from the backcountry digs, but for the thrill of the find. It was said he also robbed Anasazi graves to demonstrate his contempt, shared by many in southeast Utah and across the Colorado Plateau, for the government officials charged with overseeing the federal lands that comprised almost ninety percent of the massive desert uplift. When the feds swooped in on the members of the Bland of Brothers with search warrants in hand, the plunder discovered in the doctor's basement alone—baskets, jewelry, sandals, pots, burial shrouds, even skeletal remains—was valued at well over a million dollars on the black market. The physician and a second member of the group committed suicide in the months leading up to their trial, while several other group members were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

The cannibalism controversy and Bland of Brothers bust focused unaccustomed attention on the Southwest archaeological community. True to the introverted nature of many archaeologists, those working across the Colorado Plateau provided few quotes to media types sniffing around after the two stories, and clammed up among one another as well. In the wake of the dual controversies, Chuck stopped boasting of his Grand Canyon discovery to his fellow Southwest archaeologists. These days he did the work each contract required of him, submitted his report, took a few weeks off if his schedule allowed, and got
going on his next contract. What happened to his reports and the artifacts that came with them was no longer his concern.

Along with dropping hints about his discovery to fellow archaeologists, Chuck wrote a number of research papers early in his career based on discoveries he made while working various contracts. One, published in the
Journal of the Archaeological Southwest
, detailed his discovery of several black-slipped Mesa Verde pots near the Navajo town of Chinle in east-central Arizona. Chuck pointed to the large size of the pots, found far south of the Anasazi population center of Mesa Verde, as indication the Anasazi had traded heavy goods over greater distances than his fellow Southwest archaeologists previously believed.

Another of his papers, accepted after extensive review and published in the prestigious
Journal of the Americas
, covered his discovery of bits of vibrant, blue-green Yucatan turquoise at several dispersed sites across the Colorado Plateau. Chuck proposed in the paper that his findings indicated the Anasazi Indians and the Indians of the sophisticated Mayan culture on the Yucatan Peninsula far to the south had interacted on regular occasions as trade partners despite the thousands of miles separating their societies. He'd even gone so far as to posit that future researchers might one day discover DNA evidence of Anasazi/Mayan commingling.

Chuck's scholarly work leaned unabashedly toward supposition, offering the sort of conjecture considered unacceptable in today's Southwest archaeological world. Current articles in Southwest archaeological journals were expected to include extensively detailed data sets and numerous corroborating findings. Today's research papers on the Anasazi were aimed at closure, at proving obscure findings beyond doubt—that most Anasazi flint-knappers were right handed, or all Anasazi sandals were fixed at the sole with a particular type of slipknot. The result was an overall decline in broad archaeological inquiry
that, as far as Chuck was concerned, drained much of the fun out of the field.

It was as if all big-picture thinking related to the Anasazi was forbidden, prompting Chuck to wonder how long he could keep doing what he was doing if the only reason he did it was for a paycheck. He'd considered more than once in the last few weeks, in fact, whether his growing career disillusionment might have played a role in how speedily he'd committed himself to Janelle and the girls.

Janelle
.

He looked out across the canyon. It was well past noon. The tour with Donald would be over by now. She and Clarence, along with Rosie, would be back in camp and beside themselves with worry. Or maybe they had good news to report. Maybe they'd tracked down Carmelita somehow, meaning Chuck could turn around and head back up to the canyon rim. Either way, it was long past time for him to check in.

Janelle answered his call on the first ring. “Where are you?” she asked breathlessly. “Your note said not to call, but—”

“I'm doing what he wants,” Chuck said.

“And leaving us in the dark.”

“I know what he's after. I'll give it to him, he'll give us Carm, and we can all go home. This'll all be over in few hours. You just have to sit tight.”

“Sit tight?” she asked. Her voice squeaked.

“What'd you do, Jan?”

“I . . .”

“Talk to me, Jan.”

“He said ‘no cops.'”

“
Janelle
.”

She spoke in a rush. “I posted it on my Facebook page.”

“You did
what?
”

“She's my little girl, Chuck. Last thing I'm going to do is sit
around and do nothing.”

“But
online?
What were you
thinking?
”

“He said no police. Fine. But he didn't say anything about anybody else. It was your idea—you said we should be doing something for Carm, and that we should keep our eyes peeled. There's zillions of people here, they've all got their computers and their smartphones, and they're all online, like, all the time.”

“You updated your Facebook page to say, ‘Oh, guess what, LOL, my daughter's been kidnapped at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon'? You know what you've done, don't you? You've sent out an amateur Amber Alert. How long do you think it's going to be before the police find out?”

“I don't care if they find out. Don't you see? He said ‘no cops,' in that
we
weren't to go to the police. But if it reaches them indirectly, well, okay, fine. Besides, I didn't say ‘kidnapped.' I just put up a picture of her and said we think she's wandering around the village somewhere, and if anybody spots her, would they please post back.” She paused. “It might force his hand, you know.”

Chuck bit his lower lip. Maybe she was on to something. “It might help,” he admitted grudgingly. “Show him you mean business.”

“He'll be checking my page. I know he will.”

Chuck's phone beeped, signaling its reduction in battery strength from full to half power. “I gotta go. You hear anything, call me. I'll do the same. A few hours, I'll be back, and we'll get this over with.”

“Promise?” The ache in Janelle's voice went straight to his heart.

“Promise.”

Two miles farther down Hermit Trail and another thousand vertical feet deeper in the canyon, Chuck wondered whether he'd be able to keep his promise. The air temperature was over 110 now. The ground temperature, far higher, broiled his lubricated feet. Though he was drinking water as sparingly as possible, he'd
already depleted his first three-liter bladder and started in on his second.

He followed the deserted trail as it angled across the face of the ridge separating Hermit and Montezuma basins. The trail topped out on the ridgeline between the two drainages at a commanding viewpoint, then cut back across the west face of the ridge, continuing its plunge into Hermit Basin and on to the backpacker campground at the creek.

An unrelenting wind blasted Chuck as he reached the ridge-top viewpoint. Particles of dust rode the harsh breeze, carrying the gritty feel of absolute desiccation. He looked longingly down and to his left at the green slash of vegetation marking the course of Hermit Creek's perennial waters. There would be no wind where the deep, side-canyon walls protected the creek. His nostrils filled with the imagined odors he knew awaited him there—the tangy scent of wild mint, the syrupy-sweet smell of tamarisk, the mineral aroma of wet sand. Openings in the brush along the creek were campsites for backpackers. The new latrine sat well away from the waters of the creek in the center of the open plot he'd assessed and dug.

Chuck turned away from the alluring greenery below. He pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in his call.

“We've got you at the ridge,” the disembodied voice said without preamble. “You're close now, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

Here at the open viewpoint, the connection was clear and static-free.

“You know what you're to get.”

“I don't have enough water. I'll never make it back out of the canyon.”

“Sure you will. Besides, you don't have any choice. Carmelita's counting on you.” The line went dead.

Chuck cursed. The odds that he could make it back up to the
canyon rim without replenishing his water supply at the creek grew longer with each parched gust of wind. He was nauseous and lightheaded. Of all the canyon's killers, heatstroke topped the list, and he was well on his way to reinforcing that statistic.

Hermit Creek was four trail miles deeper in the canyon. With a delay of less than five hours, he could descend to the creek, refill his water bags, and return safely to the ridge after the heat of the day passed.

Or he could do as the caller directed.

His destination lay only a few hundred yards away. And in truth, the delay caused by dropping down to Hermit Creek would be much greater than five hours. The final shuttle of the day from the end of Rim Drive back to Grand Canyon Village departed at 8:30 in the evening. If he visited the creek, he would miss the last shuttle and be forced to walk the eight miles back to camp along the closed road late into the night.

He pictured Carmelita looking to him for reassurance before setting off through the dark to the Mather Campground bathroom. He couldn't leave her to face the coming night alone.

He would not descend to Hermit Creek. He would complete the retrieval here and now, and he would make it back out of the canyon this afternoon. As the caller said, he had no other choice.

F
OURTEEN

2 p.m.

Chuck allowed himself one last yearning look at the greenery along Hermit Creek before turning to face the rugged ridge in front of him. The steep, cactus-studded east side of the ridge was a case study on the near impossibility of off-trail passage in the inner canyon, where every step had to be carefully considered lest an ankle be turned or a leg ripped open by a jagged rock or the hooked thorn of a barrel cactus. Rattlesnake bite was a constant off-trail concern as well, while slips and falls away from the canyon's maintained trails could be instantly or, in the absence of help, gradually fatal.

The off-trail route across the face of the ridge was one he'd traveled a number of times, though he'd made the traverse only when mentally sharp in the coolness of spring or fall, not as he was now—sluggish and unsteady in the middle of a brutally hot summer day. He adjusted his pack, wavering in the heat.

How had the kidnapper known where he was? “
We've got you at the ridge
,” the computerized voice had said. And who was the “we” the voice had referred to?

Chuck faced due north. At his back, the ridgeline separating Hermit and Monument basins descended precipitously from the South Rim. Ahead, the ridge climbed upward in a series of encircling cliff bands to form a flat-topped knuckle of rock and desert scrub known as Cope Butte. The ridgeline fell away again, on the far side of the butte, the final two thousand vertical feet to the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon.

Twenty years ago, as a solo backpacker taking advantage of a long fall weekend off from his studies at Fort Lewis College, Chuck had stopped to rest and take in the view from this very spot. The trail had been crowded with other backpackers that
day. Chuck visited with several of them until the call of nature sent him scrambling away from the viewpoint and down into the Monument Creek drainage in search of a place out of sight of the trail.

His search proved unexpectedly difficult. It took two hundred yards of arduous scrambling along the face of Cope Butte to reach a spot far enough around the east side of the butte to be screened from the trail. It was from his precarious perch there that he spotted a depression in the center of the topmost cliff band encircling the butte's summit massif. The small, cave-like opening was tucked into a south-facing fold in the cliff, 150 feet above where he stood and another three hundred yards around the east side of the butte.