“I understand,” Jarren said. “I will, of course, make it look like an accident.” He paused. “Elder, with all due respect, do you still believe our source is reliable?”
The Elder’s cell phone vibrated and he glanced down to see that he had received a text message. What he read made his frustration melt away. “Yes,” he said. “In fact, I have just received further proof of the reliability of our source.”
“How so?” Jarren asked, his increased interest clearly evident the tone of his voice.
“When you and Mikkel are picked up, I am going to have them take you directly to a place called Hovenweep.”
Chapter 18
Their surroundings grew more and more barren the closer they came to Hovenweep. The land was beautiful in its own way, with occasional sprinklings of rich greenery or bright desert flowers, but it was a parched, unforgiving landscape with little in the way of trees and even less water.
“Man!” Bones said from the front passenger seat. “I thought Kansas was empty, but this… Hey! Check it out!” He held the travel brochure up in front of his face and scrutinized it with an intensity and seriousness that said to Dane that his friend was being anything but genuine. “It says here that the devil’s outhouse is just a mile or two away. We should check it out.”
“What’s the Devil’s Outhouse?” Saul asked. “Some sort of rock formation?”
“No, dude. I mean this hot, dry, empty bunch of nothing must be where the devil comes to take a dump. We might even bump into him if we’re lucky. I wonder how regular he is…”
Everyone chuckled but Saul, who pursed his lips and folded his arms across his chest. His severe, dour expression now filled Dane’s rear-view mirror in a most unpleasant way.
“I kind of like it out here,” Dane said. “The sea is pretty desolate sometimes, and there’s a heck of a lot more sameness on the water.”
“Not at spring break,” Bones said, still reading the brochure.
A sign directed them to Hovenweep National Monument. The small visitor’s center was visible from far across the desert terrain. Several police cars, lights flashing, took up a large portion of the parking lot.
“I wonder what’s up.” Amanda said, leaning forward to peek between Dane and Bones. “Whatever it is must have just happened.”
“Maybe it’ll be newsworthy,” Bones said. “Give your editor a scoop?”
“I can’t imagine something down here would newsworthy at home, but you never know,” she said. She had told her editor just enough about what Bones had found at Orley’s ranch, plus a few hints about the Dominion, to convince him to let her accompany Bones to follow up on the mystery.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Dane said, pulling into an empty space and shutting off the engine.
The heat blasted him like a furnace as soon as he stepped out of the vehicle. It was even hotter than Chaco Canyon had been, and not a breeze stirred the air. “Now I know how pottery feels,” he said.
“You get used to it,” Jade replied. “It’s humidity that I hate. Makes you feel like you’re drowning in the air. Around here it’s the proverbial ‘dry heat’.”
No one was on duty in the visitor’s center. They looked around for a while before finally concluding that everyone must be at the scene of whatever incident had brought out the police. Dane left a twenty under a paperweight on the counter and they made their way into the park.
The brick path gave way to a primitive trail that wound down into a narrow, twisting canyon, thick with sun-baked rock and desert flora. Amanda clambered up onto a nearby boulder and scanned the canyon.
“Where to, hot chick?” Bones asked.
“I’m not seeing…” Amanda’s voice trailed off as she spoke.
“I thought you said you knew this was the place,” Jade snapped. “You said you were certain of it. But you won’t show us whatever ‘proof’ you claim to have.” The two had argued in the car on the way to Hovenweep. Jade had already researched and subsequently eliminated this site from consideration, the architecture of the ruin with the only known solstice room in the park did not match any of the images on the breastplate.
Amanda slowly turned and stared down at Jade, waiting for a moment to make sure the other woman had finished. “It is very rude to interrupt people, Jade. Didn’t your mother teach you that?”
A slender young woman in a NPS uniform appeared on the trail behind them, cutting off Jade’s retort.
“May I help you?” she asked, shading her eyes against the sun as she looked up at Amanda, who remained atop the boulder, hands folded across her chest. “Are you looking for a specific ruin?”
“Yes, actually,” Amanda said, hopping down. “I’m Amanda Shores from the Deseret Bugle. I’m sort of combining business with pleasure on our trip. The article I’m writing is on Anasazi solstice markers. Do you have any structures in the park of that sort?”
“Well,” the woman said, taking off her brown, mesh ball cap and running her fingers through her coppery hair which she wore in a loose ponytail. “Tracking the solstice and equinox was fairly common among the Anasazi. A room would often have a small window, and the family would follow the course of the sun by marking where it struck the wall on the opposite side. Some buildings were constructed in such a way that the sun would strike a specific place on the solstice, like a corner.
“In this park, Hovenweep Castle is about the only one that fits the bill. But you can’t go there.” The woman’s hazel eyes flitted from person-to-person in Dane’s party. Her mouth was drawn in a tight, nervous frown.
“I didn’t realize it was closed to the public,” Amanda said.
“It isn’t. I mean… it is today. I…” The woman closed her eyes and shook her head. “I apologize. I’m a little out of sorts.” She took a deep breath, looked up at them and started again. “Someone vandalized it just a short while ago. In fact, they broke open the wall in what is called the Sun Room. It’s where the solstice is marked. I guess your question just threw me off.”
Bones muttered something inaudible and Jade made a sound that could have been sympathy but sounded more like annoyance. Dane took a deep breath and released it slowly, taking control of his rising anger. Had there been any doubt before, it was now certain that someone else was on the same trail. And whoever they were, they had somehow gotten here first.
“Did they take anything?” Saul asked.
“There isn’t really anything to take,” the ranger replied, frowning. “The ruins have been empty for a long time. Strange, though. They booby-trapped it.” She didn’t wait for them to ask what she meant. Their quizzical expressions must have been enough. “Whoever it was placed some very large rocks above the doorway, held up with some posts, then tied a trip wire between the posts. The ranger who first investigated the damage didn’t see the trip wire in the dim light.”
“Is he all right?” Amanda asked.
“We think so. He’ll need a few stitches in the back of his head, and he might have a concussion. Anyway, back to your question. You might be interested in the solstice marker at what we call the Holly Group. There is a sandstone wall with a number of carvings: a snake figure, two spiral circles, and some others. Nearby rock formations cause daggers of light to appear on the wall. It actually marks the summer solstice and the spring and fall equinoxes.”