Anasazi Exile. Eric G. Swedin

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СКАЧАТЬ cave-like opening. Two months ago, while bringing an offering from a fresh deer kill to the palace, he had noticed that one of the hangings covered a small alcove.

      He slipped into the alcove and stood straight with his head turned to allow the hanging to lay flat against his face, chest, and thighs. He clutched a spear tightly in each hand. The tip of the spear on his right pressed ever so slightly against the hanging, creating a narrow gap to see through, and allowing a sliver of sunlight to touch his face.

      He carefully slowed his breathing, summoning the patience of the hunter that he had learned from watching cougars lying in wait for their prey to approach closer. Animals and the gods had taught him well. His eyelids dropped as he waited—totally motionless, completely alert, but almost sleeping. Antelopes in the mountains, normally so skittish, had actually approached him while he waited in this state.

      He stilled his thoughts, as if the very dance of his mind could be sensed and give him away. Time passed, slowly or quickly, he could not tell.

      The chanting grew weaker as the crowd tired. Suddenly the Master was striding past Kartvi’s hiding place, completely naked, as was his habit at all ceremonies. The god moved with confidence. Kartvi’s eyes widened; then he lunged from behind the hanging with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. Despite Karvi’s stealth, the Master heard him and had started to turn when one spear plunged into the small of the Master’s back, where the sensitive kidneys lay. Any other man would have screamed in great pain and gone rigid from shock. The Master only exhaled a little sigh and continued his turn.

      Katvi thrust with his other spear, seeking the spine, and grunted with pleasure as he felt the shock of obsidian meeting bone. The Master fell to the floor and Kartvi paused for a moment as he reached for his knife.

      Kartvi watched in astonishment as the Master heaved himself up on his hands and quickly dragged himself down the corridor and out onto the balcony, leaving a trail of sparkling blood, the two spears still protruding from his body. Kartvi sprang after him with a cry of rage.

      The chanting turned into a single great gasp as the crowd saw the Master emerge, not in glory, but in the gravest distress.

      Kartvi had rehearsed in his mind the many ways that this fight might go and did not hesitate. He plunged the knife into the back of the Master’s neck, breaking the vertebrae and severing the spinal cord, just as his spear had done to the lower back. The Master’s arms and body went limp. The obsidian broke from applying too much pressure, leaving Kartvi with half of his weapon and the rest trapped by the vertebra. Moving quickly, fearing the Master’s proven ability to heal quickly from any wound, Kartvi yanked a spear free and used the head as a blade to saw at the Master’s neck. For a brief moment, he looked into the Master’s eyes, and the look of pure hatred chilled him. He also saw fear in those eyes and it filled Kartvi with the sweetest sensation he had ever felt.

      The head came off and Kartvi stood—covered with gore, dripping blood that glistened in the sun—and held the head high by the hair, showing it to the crowd.

      “This is the Master and he slew my sisters! I am Kartvi of the Cougar Clan! Know my name and remember me!”

      The crowd surged forward. And Kartvi died.

      CHAPTER ONE

      PRESENT DAY, NEW MEXICO

      The day they found the tomb began like any other day for Harry Deacon. He usually only needed four or five hours of sleep a night, so he woke before dawn and, as was his habit, he climbed a nearby bluff. Laying his jacket on a sandstone outcropping, he went through three Kenpo forms. The last dregs of sleep faded before his disciplined breathing and the controlled sharp thrusts of his feet and fists.

      Born in Puerto Rico, raised on the cold streets of Minneapolis, Harry had spent much of his adult life in the desert. He knew five deserts intimately: he had trained in the Mojave and the Sahara, fought in the rocky sands of Iraq and in the high desert of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and now he dug for pottery shards in Chaco Canyon. A thin sheen of perspiration meeting the morning air sent a chill through him.

      He finished his last form and automatically reached for his jacket and weapon. Only the jacket was there, of course. Even after five years of retirement, the ingrained habits of twenty years popped up at the oddest moments. He tossed the jacket across his shoulders and sat down on the outcrop. He was proud of his service, but the memories still tormented him. Maybe that’s why he never slept the whole night through. He usually didn’t dream of what he had done, but of what he had seen, and what he had failed to do.

      The sun peeped over the horizon, sending slivers of light searching among the ruins of Chaco Canyon. Casa Ángeles, the house of angels, stood near the dig. Two large walls met in a corner, sheltering the ruins of what must have been fifty or sixty rooms and the foundations of two kivas, large circular rooms that served as sacred clan centers. As a great house, Casa Ángeles was smaller than most in the Canyon, but it was the ruin near where they had a permit to dig, so Harry thought of it fondly as their house.

      Harry rested his hands on his knees, palms up, closed his eyes and let the sunrise wash over him. In a sense, he prayed; not to the God he had learned to love in Sunday School, or to the vague New Age paganism that his ex-wife embraced, but simply to a higher power, one beyond the mundane concerns of everyday life, one who cared about him. The prayer had no words, just a sense of calm and at peace.

      “Room for two up here?”

      He recognized the familiar voice of Brenda Finnigan and was surprised that he had not heard her approach. He must have truly been someplace else.

      “Cost you twenty bucks,” he said, not opening his eyes.

      He felt her sit down next to him.

      “I’ll have to owe you on that. I’ll pay you when I become a famous archaeologist and the money comes rolling in.”

      “I’ll add it to your tab.”

      She fell silent and he imagined that she too was sitting peacefully, eyes closed, welcoming the sun and the morning. She didn’t usually join him; like most college students, she found rising early an ordeal. He felt her hand settle gently on his hand. Even after a month of digging, her skin still felt softer than his roughened calluses. She lightly held his palm, her fingers wrapped around his thumb, like a small child.

      She was a short woman, only twenty-one, fair-skinned, freckled, and blessed with the red hair of her Irish ancestors. When he first saw her, he was attracted to her vitality, quick energy, and voluptuous hips and breasts. He was twice her age, so he did nothing but look—not like a lecherous old man, but with subtle appreciation. To his surprise, they became friends, without even the subdued sexual charge that often underlay friendships between men and women. Theirs was the friendship of a father and daughter.

      She had once even called him “Dad,” a slip of the tongue that would have delighted Sigmund Freud. He had pretended to not hear, not wanting to embarrass her, but it reminded him of calling his second-grade teacher “Mom.” He knew that Brenda’s own father was often gone from her life, and he himself had never had a daughter. His own son was sixteen years old and living in Chicago. At least Harry thought it was Chicago, maybe James and his mother had moved back to Minneapolis.

      The sun rose higher, warming his face, creating a golden glow behind his closed eyelids. He prayed to be a better person, to improve himself each day.

      “Okay,” she announced. “I’m bored and hungry. Let’s go eat.”

      “You’ve been СКАЧАТЬ