Thunderhead

“Don’t let Bonarotti see it,” Smithback said.

“Some Indian tribes eat the roots to induce visions,” said Nora.

“Along with permanent brain damage,” replied Holroyd.

As they sat with their backs to the rock, eating handfuls of dried fruits and nuts, Sloane retrieved her binoculars and began sca

After a minute she turned to Nora. “I thought so. There’s a small cliff dwelling up there. First one I’ve seen since we started out.”

Taking the binoculars, Nora peered at the small ruin, perched high on the cliff face. It was set into a shallow alcove, oriented to the south in the Anasazi way, ensuring shade in the summer and warmth in the winter. She could see a low retaining wall along the bottom of the alcove, with what looked like several rooms built in the rear and a circular granary to one side.

“Let me see,” Holroyd said. He gazed at the ruin, motionless. “Incredible,” he breathed at last.

“There’s thousands of little ruins like that in the Utah canyon country,” Nora said.

“How did they live?” Holroyd asked, still peering up with the binoculars.

“They probably farmed the canyon bottom—corn, squash, and beans. They hunted and gathered plants. I’d guess it housed a single extended family.”

“I can’t believe they raised kids up there,” Holroyd said. “You have to be pretty brave to live in a cliff face like that.”

“Or nervous,” said Nora. “There’s a lot of controversy over why the Anasazi suddenly abandoned their pueblos on the flats and retreated into those inaccessible cliff dwellings. Some say it was for defense.”

“Looks like a no-brainer to me,” Smithback said, grabbing the binoculars from Holroyd. “Who’d live up there if they didn’t have to? No elevators, and Pizza Hut sure as hell doesn’t deliver.”

Nora looked at him. “What makes it strange is that there’s no overt evidence of warfare or invasion. All we really know is that the Anasazi suddenly retreated to these cliff sites, stayed there for a while, and then abandoned the Four Corners area entirely. Some archaeologists think it was caused by a total social breakdown.”

Sloane had been sca

Nora glanced at her watch. They were already hopelessly behind schedule—one more hour wouldn’t matter, and they did have an obligation to survey as many ruins as they could. Besides, it might revive some flagging spirits. She gazed up at the little ruin, feeling her own curiosity aroused. There was always the chance her father had explored this ruin, maybe even left his scrawled initials on a rockface to record his presence. “All right,” she said, reaching for her camera. “It doesn’t look technical.”

“I’d like to go, too,” said Holroyd excitedly. “I did some rock climbing in college.”

Nora looked at the flushed, eager face. Why not?

“I’m sure Mr. Swire would be happy to give the horses an extra rest.” Nora looked at the group. “Anybody else want to come?”

Black gave a short laugh. “No thanks,” he said. “I value my life.”

Aragon glanced up from his notebook and shook his head. Bonarotti had gone off to gather mushrooms. Smithback pushed away from the rock wall and stretched luxuriously. “Guess I’d better tag along with you, Madame Chairman,” he said. “It wouldn’t do to have you find an Anasazi Rosetta stone while I was loafing around down here.”

They crossed the stream, scrambled over boulders and up the talus slope, loose rocks clattering behind them. The sandstone ahead sloped upward at a forty-five-degree angle, notched with a series of eroded dimples set into the rock.

“That’s the hand-and-toe trail.” Nora pointed. “The Anasazi pounded them out with quartzite hammerstones.”

“I’ll go first,” said Sloane. To Nora’s surprise she shot nimbly upward, limbs tawny in the sunlight, hands and feet finding the holds with the instinctive assurance of a veteran rock climber. “Come on up!” she said a minute later, kneeling on the ledge above their heads. Holroyd followed. Then Nora watched Smithback creep cautiously up the slickrock face, gangly limbs clutching at the narrow holds, his face covered with sweat. Something about him made her smile. She waited until he had safely completed the climb, then brought up the rear herself.

In a few moments they were all sitting on the ledge, catching their breath. Nora looked at the camp spread out below their feet, the horses grazing along an apron of sand, the humans looking like splotches of color resting against the red cliffs.

Sloane rose. “Ready?”

“Go for it,” said Nora.

They crept along the narrow ledge. It was about two feet wide, but the bottom was canted slightly and scattered with fragments of sandstone, which rattled off into space as they inched along. After a short distance the ledge broadened out, curved around a corner, and the ruin came into view.

Nora made a quick visual inspection. The alcove was perhaps fifty feet long, ten feet high at its highest point, and about fifteen feet deep. A low masonry retaining wall had been built at the lip of the alcove and filled with rubble, leveling the surface. Behind were four small roomblocks of flat stones mortared with mud; one with a keyhole door, the rest with tiny windows. The builders had used the natural sandstone roof of the alcove as their ceiling.

Nora turned to Holroyd and Smithback. “I think Sloane and I should make an initial survey. You wouldn’t mind waiting here for a few minutes?”

“Only if you promise not to find anything,” Smithback replied.

Nora unbuckled the hood of her camera and walked gingerly along the facade, photographing the exterior of the dwelling. Although Sloane’s expertise with the large 4x5 Graflex made her the expedition’s official photographer, Nora liked to keep her own record of all the sites she studied.

She stopped to peer more closely at the plastered wall. Here, she could see the actual handprints of the person who had smeared the adobe. Raising her camera again, she took a careful closeup, then another when she noticed a clear set of fingerprints. It was not unusual to find prints preserved in Anasazi plaster and corrugated pottery, but she always liked to document them when she could. They helped serve as a reminder that archaeology was the study, ultimately, of people, not artifacts—something she felt many of her colleagues seemed to forget.

There was the usual littering of potsherds on the ground—mostly Pueblo III Mesa Verde whiteware and some late Tusayan-style corrugated grayware. A.D. 1240, Nora thought without surprise.

Sloane, who had been sketching a quick plan of the ruin, now removed a pair of tweezers and some Ziploc bags from her rucksack. Labeling the bags with a marker, she moved carefully forward, picking up a sampling of potsherds and some scattered corncobs with the tweezers. She placed them in the bags, then marked their positions in her sketchbook. She worked quickly and deftly, and Nora watched with growing surprise. Sloane seemed to know exactly what to do. In fact, she worked as if she had been on many professional surveys before.

Reaching into her bag again, Sloane pulled out a small, battery-powered chrome instrument and moved to a viga that projected from one of the roomblocks. There was a small whining sound, and Nora realized she was taking a core from the roofbeam for tree-ring dating. By studying the growth pattern of the rings, a specialist in dendrochronology such as Black could tell the exact year the tree was cut. As the whining ended abruptly and silence returned, Nora felt a sudden a