“You’re right about that.”
A few minutes later, they strolled into the archaeologists’ camp, where they were treated graciously by their hosts. It was damned odd, considering how hostile the pair had been at first, but Longarm saw no point in bringing up that fact.
“So,” Longarm began, “you’re here to learn the secrets of these ancient Indians.”
“That’s right,” Lucking said, watching him closely. “Although I must admit, the secrets of the people who walked this mesa many centuries ago are still veiled by time and the elements. At best, my colleague and I will make a few minor discoveries before we are forced by winter to leave this mesa.”
“we were fortunate enough to speak to Mr. Laird down at his museum in Cortez,” Longarm said, “and I expect you probably know him.”
“Laird?” Barker asked, looking quizzically at his partner. “Yes, isn’t that the fellow that-“
Lucking wanted to change the subject. “We believe,” he said, “that these ancient peoples lived far longer up on this mesa than they did in their cliff dwellings.”
“What makes you think that?” Longarm asked.
“The extent of the ruins we are finding up here,” Lucking answered. “For example, we find layers of civilizations one on top of another, indicating that when a structure burned down or was abandoned to the elements, it was later reconstructed and inhabited. We have also found a very sophisticated canal system that was used to channel rain and spring runoff throughout all the fields.”
“What fields?” Longarm asked. “We saw no-“
“The fields,” Barker said, “are now all long since overgrown with stands of juniper, pine, and gambrel oak. You have to understand that this mesa has been abandoned for about a thousand years, give or take a few centuries.”
“Why was it abandoned?”
Barker was more than happy to give his theory, and it was about the same as what they had heard earlier at the museum. Basically, that Mesa Verde had probably been abandoned because of a Protracted drought coupled with deforestation, resulting in a lack of winter fuel and a general debilitation of the soil, which would, as any present-day farmer now understood, fail after repeated plantings of the same basic crops.
“I can imagine that the demise of Mesa Verde’s agriculture would have come about very gradually,” Lucking said. “Probably so gradually that it caused families to relocate over a long period of time rather than a mass, organized exodus of the entire Anasazi culture.”
“I see. Have you found many artifacts?”
“Oh, a few,” Lucking said nonchalantly. “But that isn’t our purpose here, and we leave most of them where they are discovered. We’re scientists, not looters of an ancient civilization. We seek only to learn.”
I’ll bet, Longarm thought, while saying, “That’s quite admirable. Will you return next spring to continue your research and excavations?”
“Certainly,” Lucking assured them. “This is our fourth season up here, and we hope to return for many more years.”
Sure you do, until you’ve gutted this entire mesa and become millionaires.
Miranda asked, “What can you tell me about Anasazi women? Were they, for instance, happy?”
Longarm almost clapped his hands, for the question was precisely the kind that some completely innocent and ignorant tourist would ask.
“Happy?” Barker repeated, glancing at his partner, then back at Miranda. “I don’t know if it will ever be possible to answer that question.”
“What is your own opinion?” Miranda persisted.
“I like to think that they were happy,” Barker said, looking off into the darkness as if peering back across time. “The women would have had to work hard, of course, for their duties were to gather pinyon nuts in the fall, keep the cooking fires going all winter, and gather all the wood, as well as grinding corn and tanning hides and making turkey-feather robes.”
“We saw one of those,” Miranda said, “at the museum in Cortez.”
“Yes,” Barker said, “and they are remarkably warm. We find the bones of many turkeys in the rear of the cliff dwellings, and know that they must have served not only for feathers, but also, in times of famine, as a staple food supply. We have also discovered the bones of dogs, so we know that the Anasazi kept them as pets and probably as hunting partners, in addition to their value as sentries against enemies.”
“Who were the enemies of these people?” Longarm asked, impressed by Barker’s knowledge.
“We don’t know that either,” Lucking interjected. “But consider this. Any agrarian people would have kept food stores that would have been very attractive to a more nomadic people. The nomadic people are always the aggressors.”
“How would they know that there were food stores?” Miranda asked.
“Very simple,” Lucking answered. “There is no doubt that the Mesa Verde Anasazi were primarily farmers rather than hunters or even gatherers. Their population was far too large for wild animals to have sustained their numbers. And as farmers, they would have kept a good supply of seed for the following year’s harvest. If it were lost, they would have nothing to plant and so would quickly perish of starvation.”
“That makes sense,” Longarm said. “Did they store their seeds back inside the caves?”
“Yes,” Lucking answered. “We’ve discovered large bins of old Indian corn. It has all been eaten by rodents and birds that have gone up and under the cavern roof, but the cobs and the rinds from squash remain, giving us clear evidence that the Anasazi understood the great importance of storing large amounts of food during the good years for use during the bad.”
“What would cause the bad?” Miranda asked.
“Rain and snowfall levels can vary considerably along the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. In a good year with abundant water, the Anasazi harvest would be bountiful, unless there was an early frost. But without the precious gift of water, the harvest would fail to materialize. We think that these people stored several years’ worth of winter food in their caverns. And that would have been a major incentive for their enemies to attack.”
“How could they attack anyone down in the face of a cliff?” Longarm asked.
“They would have had a very difficult time indeed,” Barker answered. “To be sure, they would have had to attack during the most vulnerable time of the year.”
“Which would be during the harvest,” Miranda said.
“Precisely!” Barker exclaimed, looking pleased. “And so, because the harvest could be neither ignored nor shifted even by a week or two, the enemies of these people would know when the Anasazi would be most vulnerable to attack despite the inaccessibility of their cliff dwellings.”
“There’s a lot more to think about than first meets the eye,” Longarm said. “A whole lot more.”
“There is indeed,” Lucking told them in his most professorial manner.
They talked for another hour before Lucking began to yawn and then excused himself, saying, “We get up with the sun and generally go to bed with it as well. Good night.”
“Good night,” Longarm said. He turned to Barker and asked, “When is your next shipment of supplies arriving?”
“What makes you-“
“Well,” Longarm said, knowing he was skating thin ice, “someone must bring supplies up here and pack out a few of your findings.”
“Uh … yes. Let’s see. I’m not sure that we will be supplied again this season. In fact, I rather doubt that we will. You see, we will be leaving this camp very soon.
“Of course,” Longarm said, knowing full well that the man was a liar. “Good night.”
“You will be breaking camp and leaving in the morning,” Barker said, looking rather uncomfortable. “I mean, it is not that we don’t trust you to be up here when we are down in the cliff dwellings, but …”