“There’s nothing,” Healey murmured, following her around. “Just… nothing.”
Crouch turned to gaze back up the canyon they’d traversed. “And nothing the way we came,” he said. “No wall writings. No caves. Is this where it ends then?”
Alicia squinted at him. “That doesn’t sound like the Crouch I know and love.”
“To put it bluntly — we’re winging it here. One wrong step and the entire mission is thrown out of whack. What if this is that step?”
“We go back to the last place we’re sure of.” Caitlyn said. “The rock waves.”
“If we’re thrown off the path this easily—” Crouch paused.
“Just remember the arches,” Lex said with a shrug. “We didn’t find just one. I’m damn sure there are a hundred of these friggin’ hoodoo things out here.”
Crouch stared at him. “I guess you’re right.”
Alicia noted the downcast faces, the questioning frowns and saw for the first time, a pall of uncertainty and doubt falling across her team. “It’s ultra-important now that we stay strong,” she said. “Keep to our faith. God knows how many times I’ve said that to myself over the years, but belief is everything. Right now. Right here. If we trust in ourselves that we can do this, we will do it.”
The team chalked it up to a misstep and scrambled back up the canyon, this time going against the slope and finding progress hard. Russo and Healey ranged ahead, alert for any sign of Coker’s men. By the time they reached the spot where they’d strayed from Crouch’s ‘perfect’ line, they were sweating and irritable.
“The next person who says we don’t follow the line,” Crouch growled. “Stays in the desert. We follow the age-old philosophy: ‘Your best guess is always your first’.”
Alicia didn’t respond, and was glad to see Caitlyn holding her tongue. The team took a short break for water and a quick scout of the terrain toward their rear and then started forward once more, following the twisting path. The ridge line dipped and rose, wound left and right, led them past breakneck plunges and across narrow rims. The canyon wall widened and narrowed with every turn, constantly undulating, until even Crouch himself began to wonder if this were the correct path. Twice more he took out his improvised map, doubting himself, wondering where they could possibly have gone wrong.
Perhaps the rock waves weren’t in fact part of the land formation they’d already found. What else?
Then, an abnormality in the rolling formation of the canyon walls caught his eye.
“Look here,” he murmured.
The team gathered around. Crouch indicated the canyon wall to his left. A series of orange figures had been carved into the dark brown wall; men, women and animals with curved horns drawn all in a row. The people had arms outstretched and bent at the elbows, the bodies elongated and the legs strangely short. Other creatures may have existed there at one time — faint depictions of turtles, dogs and snakes that had all but eroded by now. The row of figures led directly toward an altar where a figure lay prostrate, a priestly man with a dagger upraised above him, blood running from its blade.
“A warning?” Healey wondered.
“That leads to the mushroom rock.” Alicia drew their attention to the formation ahead. “This, more than anything yet proves we’re back on the right track.”
Crouch eyed her speculatively. “We hope.” The man’s confidence had taken a severe beating after their wrong turn.
The rock arrangement was called a hoodoo — a thin upstanding spire, narrower through the middle, carrying a wider, almost block-like structure at its apex. A mushroom pillar. It rose out of the lands below, impossibly balanced, both a testament and a defiance of the elements that formed it.
Crouch and Caitlyn barely gave it a glance. “Then beyond the known territory of the braves,” they said in unison. Crouch gave the surrounding lands a shrewd frown.
“All this rock,” he said. “Is known as Navajo limestone. The Colorado Plateau, this part of Arizona, is made up of it. All the lands around here once belonged to the Navajo Indians — whose warriors were often known as braves. The Aztec warriors themselves would have respected the title.”
“Going back to the petroglyphs.” Caitlyn nodded at the rock drawings. “The Aztecs are notorious for their belief in human sacrifice. To them it was a religious practice, simply the cultural tradition of the peoples of Mesoamerica at the time. It might not mean anything.”
“Priests.” Russo shook his head. “Always blood-letting at the heart of religion.”
Caitlyn blinked. “Not true. If you’re referring to today you’re referencing gruesome fanatics twisting religion to accommodate their vile needs. In ancient days the priests believed the gods sacrificed themselves so that man may live. The Aztecs, under pain of death, said ‘Life is because of the Gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life… they produce our sustenance… which nourishes life’. What they’re saying is that ongoing sacrifice sustains the universe.”
“Sacrifice in all its forms.” Alicia surprised herself by joining in the debate. “Not just physical.”
Crouch pointed past the mushroom hoodoo. “Navajo. Hopi. Beyond those lands and past the terraces the old map changes its measurements from the Aztec representation of passing days to one of footprints.” He smiled even wider. “We’re almost there, my friends.”
“But how far do the Indian lands stretch?” Lex asked, the ever-present worried expression turning his young face into a middle-aged man’s.
“Not far.” Crouch checked his maps. “I have current and past versions right here. Beyond the flatlands there, where the ground starts to rise.” He pointed at the middle distance. “That’s where they end.”
“Doesn’t look very hospitable,” the biker grumbled.
“All uninhabited,” Crouch affirmed. “No roads. Barely a trail. We’re already past any known site previously claimed for Montezuma’s treasure. Seems the old prospectors didn’t look far enough.”
“Or deep enough.” Caitlyn thought about Lake Mead and then shrugged. “But not to worry about that, eh?”
The team trudged on, dropping further into the lowlands with every step, now being pounded by the rising sun and lack of shade.
“Just great,” Lex complained. “Perfect. We get the high cold mountains at night and the low hot desert during the day.”
“Stop whining,” Alicia sizzled back at him. “Unless you want me to spank you in front of all these folks.”
Lex blinked quickly and shut up, savvy enough to take Alicia at her word. Crouch grinned at them both.
“Smart man,” he said. “I wouldn’t put anything past our Alicia.”
“Sun’s not fully risen yet,” Russo pointed out. “If we hoof it we can probably get among those small mountain rises ahead before it does.”
Crouch led the way, picking up the pace as they entered the expanse of flatland. Green and brown shrubs dotted a hundred twisting sandy paths. In one place a tiny river turned into a mini-waterfall as it suddenly fell into a round man-sized hole cut into the rocky ground — just another remarkable natural spectacle.
As they approached the rising mountains, Crouch slowed and stared at his map. “So we’re nearing the end of the lands of the braves. Up next we have ‘among the terraces’. Out here… ” he scanned their surroundings. “I’m lost.”
“Great observation.” Alicia bobbed her head, blond hair flying. “Out here — everyone’s lost.”
Russo passed among them. “We have company.”
“What?” Lex almost turned to scan their rear but Russo, thinking him the one most likely to turn and give the game away, placed a huge arm across his shoulders.
“Don’t be a dick.”
Alicia also hugged into Lex. “Big unit?”