Under The Western Sky

“How far up this way?” he asked, once they were on the highway heading toward Ship Rock.

“Take a right when you get to the Coyote Canyon Road. Go almost to the turnoff to Standing Rock. Turn left—”

“Okay, alert me when we get to the left turn,” he interrupted, a frown line creasing his forehead.

She missed his smile, she realized, as he reverted to the stern investigator of yesterday. Yesterday! Less than twenty-four hours, yet she felt as if she’d lived an eon since then. Studying his handsome profile, it seemed odd that she’d only just met this man.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

“I was wondering if we’d met in another life. You seem awfully familiar.”

“Yeah, right.”

She laughed at his sardonic tone, then concentrated on the road so she wouldn’t miss the dirt track to the couple’s trailer after he made the correct right turn. “It’s coming up. Here. Turn left here.”

He made the turn. A dust trail rose behind them. It was slow going for the next two miles due to the ruts. They rounded the last curve. The coyote fence was there, but the yard was empty.

“It’s gone,” she said. “The trailer is gone.”

Julianne went inside the gate, which had been left open, and walked around the rectangle of yard. A dry creek bed and two rows of stacked rocks indicated where the house trailer had once stood. Faint traces of wavy lines were barely visible in the gritty dirt.

“He used a piece of brush to mark out the tire treads,” Tony told her, squatting on his haunches to study the ground.

“Why?”

“To cover his tracks.”

She shook her head in disbelief as she stared at the ground where once a home had been. “I was here two days ago. No, three. The baby was born on Thursday. I filled out the papers and did the baby’s footprints for the birth certificate so I could file it with the tribal records office.”

“Well, they’re gone now. Someone must have gotten word to them that there was a sting operation going down. Did you get prints on the parents?”

She nodded. “The tribe has us do thumbprints.” Her eyes widened as she realized the implication of his words. “The shop was a fake?”

“A front,” he corrected. “We set it up and let it be known we wanted Indian goods. Good Indian goods,” he added with a significant glance at her.

“The pottery,” she murmured, disappointed in the couple who’d certainly played her for a fool. “I can’t believe they stole those things.”

“Believe it,” he said. “What about the prints? Did you keep a record of them?”

“No. You can get a copy from the tribal office.”

“Fine.”

She observed while he looked over the site.

A large section of coyote fence, which was made from the canes of the infamous ocotillo nailed side by side onto wooden supports, had been loosened and pulled aside in order to drive the trailer through to the dirt lane.

The tracks were brushed out on that side of the fence, too. She recalled something. “He drove a blue pickup,” she told the special investigator. She described the make and model and a dent in one fender.

“What else do you remember about them?”

“Well, they were young, both twenty-one. They belonged to the Hopi. He was a mechanic.”

“Ah,” the detective said.

“Ah, what?”

“Did he work at the garage near the shop?”

“I don’t know.”

His eyes narrowed. “Maybe the mechanic who watched the big chase scene alerted him to the bust. I’ll check on that tomorrow.” He made a note in a little spiral pad, then searched around once more. “There’s nothing here, not even a trash pile,” he finally concluded.

“You’re very thorough.”

Those dark eyes cut to her like the flick of a whip on bare skin. “That’s my job,” he stated, and headed for his vehicle. He didn’t seem to think she was much help.

She trailed behind him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when they were on the road.

“I’m worried about them and the baby.” She sighed. “Life can be so hard. They don’t have much money. Probably someone promised them a large cut of the profits if they would sell the artifacts. They didn’t mean any harm.”

“Yeah, they were innocents.”

She sighed again. “I don’t think that. Every population has its share of good people and bad. The couple must have desperately needed money, though.” She studied him. “You know a lot about artifacts. Is your interest because you have Native American ancestry?”

He nodded. “My great-grandmother was Sioux.”

“I see.”

“You got time to go out to the dig?” he asked, stopping at the county road.

She was surprised by the invitation. “Yes. It sounds very interesting.”

“I’d planned on coming out and checking over the security at the site this morning. Since we’re this close, it would be simpler to go there now.”

He turned left instead of right and headed past the rock formation that gave the area its name. There were two Chaco culture sites, he told her. He took the road to the second one, which was farther north from where they were.

“Have you been here?” he asked as they neared Pueblo Bonito.

“Once, a long time ago with my father and brothers. I loved exploring the village. It reminds me that people haven’t changed that much in hundreds or thousands of years. They needed shelter and ways to make a living in order to provide food and clothing for their families back then just as we do today.”

“And they built apartment buildings and lived in towns, too,” he added, driving down a road that was off-limits except for park service personnel. “Like the Roman roads, theirs were built to last.”

“Yes,” she agreed. When they arrived at the main ruins, she murmured in awe of the multistory dwellings that backed up to a sandstone cliff, and tried to recall all she’d read about the people who built them. “I’ve forgotten when this area was occupied.”

“The Chaco culture flourished from around 850 to 1250 A.D.,” he told her. “We know of at least thirteen major pueblos. This one, Pueblo Bonito, was one of the leading pre-Columbian villages outside Mexico. It was a hub of commerce, administration and ceremony. See the great house?”