“Step aside,” came Sloane’s voice from behind him. “I said, step aside, both of you.”
Bonarotti hesitated a moment. Then he took a pace back. Black followed, surprised by the sudden cold edge to Sloane’s voice.
Sloane came forward, taking another series of shots. Then she looped the camera around her neck, turned to Black, and took the lantern from his hands.
“Help me in,” she said.
Black placed his hands on her hips, pushing upward as she scrambled over the rocks and into the hole. He could see her light striping wildly across the kiva’s ceiling. Then, suddenly, it receded to a mellow glow. He followed quickly, scrabbling up the rocks, wriggling through the rough hole and sliding down the inner side, face-first, sprawling in an ungainly muddle, spitting out mouthfuls of dust. A distant part of him thought that this was not exactly how Howard Carter would have gone about it.
Sloane had dropped the lantern, and it lay on its side in the dust. Trembling with excitement, Black rose to his feet, grabbed the curved metal of the lantern’s handle, and hoisted it upward. His arm ached with the motion, and electric pains went through his lungs each time he drew in breath. But he barely noticed: this was the moment of ultimate discovery; the defining moment of his entire life.
Bonarotti had climbed in beside him, but Black paid him no mind. Everywhere, from all sides, the gleam of gold sprang out of the murk. Almost snorting with excitement, he bent forward and seized the closest object—a dish, filled with some kind of powder.
Instantly, he knew something was wrong. The dish in his hand was light, the material warm to the touch: not like gold, at all. Tossing the powder from the bowl, he brought it closer to his face.
Then he straightened up, flinging the object away with a sob.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sloane cried.
But Black did not hear her. He looked around the Sun Kiva with a sudden, wild desperation: grabbing things, dropping them again. It was all wrong. He staggered, fell, then rose with an effort. The bottomless disappointment, after such feverish hopes, was more than he could comprehend. Mechanically, he glanced at his companions. Bonarotti stood motionless beneath the ragged hole, a thunderstruck look on his dust-caked face.
Then Black slowly turned his eyes toward Sloane. In his pain and unutterable dismay, he could not quite comprehend that her face, instead of despair, reflected shining, complete vindication.
57
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW HOW MUCH TIME had passed before—at long, long last—Nora felt a cool gush of air stir the damp hair on her forehead. Slowly, the memory of where she was and what had happened returned. Her head throbbed mercilessly as she gulped at the fresh air.
There was a dead weight pushing against her back. She struggled, and the weight moved slightly, allowing a dim light to filter into the cavity. The roar in the canyon had now abated to a deep-throated, thunderous vibration that rattled her gut. Or perhaps it was just her water-clogged ears that were muffling the sound.
Uncramping her legs and turning painfully around inside the cavity, she saw that the dead weight against her back was Smithback. Now he was lying on his side, motionless. His shirt lay across his chest in torn ribbons. The light was very dim inside the cavity, but as she peered more closely she noticed, with horror, that his back was as lacerated as if it had been brutally lashed. The leading surge of the flood had passed over them while they were jammed in the rock shelter; Smithback had shielded her—and taken the brunt of the water’s force—with his own back.
Nora gently laid her head on his chest, placing a trembling hand on his face as she listened. The heartbeat was faint, but at least it was there. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she kissed his hands, his face. His eyelids struggled open, the eyes beneath glassy and dull. After a moment, the eyes focused. His mouth moved soundlessly, his face screwing up into a rictus of pain.
Over his shoulder, beyond the lip of their little crawlspace, she could see the flood about five feet below them, now a smooth sheet of water, surging, falling, and surging again. It had fallen since the first intense rush. And yet Nora was surprised to see that the water seemed to be rising again, not falling. Rivulets were trickling down the sides of the canyon and dripping outside the mouth of the cavity, and she realized that it must be raining hard again in the upper watershed. It was not just their little space that was dark: it was growing dark outside, as well. She must have been unconscious for hours.
“Can you sit up?” she asked. At the effort to speak, a pain stabbed through her temples.
Smithback struggled, wincing and breathing hard. The movement brought small streams of fresh blood trickling down across his stomach and onto his thighs. As Nora helped him into a sitting position, she got a better look at the damage that had been done to his back.
“You saved my life,” said Nora, squeezing his hand.
“It’s not saved yet,” he gasped, shivering.
Carefully, she peered out from their shelter, scanning the rock face above for some hint of handholds. It was polished smooth; there was no way to climb farther up. She looked back down, thinking. They had to get out of the crawlspace, that was certain. They could not spend a night in there. If the temperature continued to drop, Smithback might become hypothermic. And if the water rose farther—or if another flood surge came through—they could not hope to survive. But there was no way out.
No way, except to launch themselves into the current and hope for the best.
The current just beneath their shelter was fast but smooth, a laminar flow that moved straight down the polished walls of the narrow canyon. She watched pieces of debris flashing by, all trending toward the center. If they could make it out into the middle of the current, they might be able to ride it through the slot and into the valley without being battered against the canyon walls along the way.
Smithback watched her, the lines around his mouth tightening as he followed her train of thought.
She returned the look. “Can you swim?” she asked.
Smithback shrugged.
“I’m going to bind us together,” she said.
“No,” he protested. “I’ll only drag you down.”
“You saved my life. Now you’re stuck with me.” Carefully, she peeled off the tattered remnant of his shirt, ripped off the sleeves, and twisted them into a short tether. Leaving as much slack as possible, she tied one end to her left wrist, and the other end to Smithback’s right.
“This is a crazy—” Smithback began.
“Save your breath for the ride. Now look, we’re only going to get one chance at this. It’s getting dark, we can’t wait any longer. The most important thing is to stick as much to the middle as possible. That won’t be easy, because the canyon is so narrow. So when you find yourself getting too close to one of the walls, lightly kick away from it. The most dangerous moment will be when the flood drops us into the valley. Once we’re there, we’d better head for the shore damn quick. If we get swept through into the far canyon, we’re done for.”
Smithback nodded.
“Ready?”
Smithback nodded again, eyes narrow, lips white.
They waited for a surge to subside. Then Nora looked at Smithback, their eyes locking as she took tight hold of his hand. There was a moment’s hesitation. And then, together, they slid out into the flood.
Nora’s first impression was of the water itself: mind-numbingly cold. The second was of the current: it was shockingly strong, infinitely stronger than it had appeared from the rock cavity. As they tore along, she realized there was no chance of controlling their descent: all she could do was struggle to keep from colliding with the murderous walls, blurring past sometimes a foot, sometimes mere inches away. The surface of the water boiled and churned, full of tiny particles of wood and plant material dancing hysterically around them. Deeper, a chaos of gravel and sand churning in the turbulence battered her legs. Smithback struggled beside her, crying out once when the gnarled root of a tree collided with his shoulder.