Canyon Sacrifice Read online

  This is a work of fiction set in a real place. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Torrey House Press Edition, June 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Scott Graham

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

  Published by Torrey House Press, LLC

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  www.torreyhouse.com

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-937226-31-2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930120

  Cover design by Jeff Fuller, Shelfish • Shelfish.weebly.com

  Interior design by Rick Whipple, Sky Island Studio

  Cover painting “The Chasm of the Colorado” by Thomas Moran, c. 1873, used by permission of the Interior Museum, U.S. Department of the Interior

  For Sue, Taylor, and Logan, without whom…

  CANYON SACRIFICE

  Contents

  Wednesday

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Thursday

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Friday

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  About Scott Graham

  WEDNESDAY

  “To stand upon the edge of this stupendous gorge, as it receives its earliest greeting from the god of day, is to enjoy in a moment compensation for long years of ordinary uneventful life.”

  — John Stoddard

  John L. Stoddard’s Lectures, Vol. 10, 1898

  ONE

  7 a.m.

  A group of middle-aged Japanese tourists gathered in a tight knot twenty feet from the edge of the Grand Canyon, focused on something Chuck Bender could not see. The tourists should have been soaking in the dazzling dawn view from the South Rim of the canyon while spread along the waist-high railing around the Maricopa Point overlook. Instead, they stood huddled together in their matching navy windbreakers, tense and vigilant, cameras forgotten in their hands.

  Chuck slowed his jog and peered around the group. The tourists were staring at a couple standing together at the metal railing. The couple—a heavyset Latino man in his late twenties wearing a hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans, and a woman about the same age, heavier still, in a tent-like sweater and tightly stretched nylon slacks—leaned against the railing at the edge of the canyon, their backs to the tourists. The two were the sort Chuck would have placed far from the park—in a suburban strip mall, maybe, or at least among the hordes of late-rising tourists who would pack the overlook later in the morning. But here they were, among the few who knew to get up early and catch a shuttle out along Rim Drive to take in the enchanting view of the canyon at sunrise.

  Intrigued by the transfixed tourists and out-of-place pair, Chuck came to a stop. He stood, catching his breath, in his running sweats and T-shirt, hands on hips, as the man picked up a stray piece of gravel from a depression in the rough sandstone surface of the viewpoint and launched the rock, underhanded, out and over the railing. The woman sniggered as the stone disappeared where the leading edge of the canyon gave way in a series of narrow ledges. The tourists leaned forward as one, intent on the couple.

  “Just missed,” the woman said. “Try again.”

  The man turned and shot a smug look at the group of tourists. The breeze, coursing up and out of the canyon with the start of the day, swept a strand of black hair across one eye. He threw back his head, returning the strand to its place and revealing a scythe-shaped scar across the left side of his face. The long, ragged slash was pink as a slice of watermelon against his brown skin.

  Chuck moved closer as the man retrieved another piece of gravel from the ground and lobbed it over the railing. Chuck halted between the tourists and couple, close enough to see that the man was targeting a chubby ground squirrel perched on a rock ledge a few feet below the edge of the promontory. The squirrel, easily as fat as the couple, was the obvious recipient of chips and candies thrown its way by scores of park visitors. The stone struck the squirrel a glancing blow on its shoulder.

  “Got him,” the man proclaimed.

  The squirrel jerked at the strike from the small stone. Rather than run off, however, it rose on its hind legs and sniffed at the cool morning air, forelegs aloft, awaiting the food it was accustomed to receiving.

  “Check it out, pendejo,” the woman said, smacking the man on his shoulder. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere.” She stepped back and raised her phone, ready to take a picture. “Again,” she demanded.

  The man picked up another stone, bigger this time. Behind him, Chuck stooped and picked up a walnut-sized stone of his own.

  No longer content to target the ground squirrel with underhanded tosses, the man reared back and let go with a hard, overhand throw. Chuck threw overhand, too, but with much less force. The man’s stone struck the ledge to the right of the squirrel with a solid chock and caromed into the canyon. The sound sent the squirrel scurrying from sight.

  Chuck’s stone struck the man squarely in the back. The man’s thick sweatshirt assured the chunk of gravel did no harm, but the stone’s impact caused the man to jump. He whirled and glared at Chuck. The logo of the Isotopes, Albuquerque’s minor-league baseball team, emblazoned the front of his gray sweatshirt. “What you think you’re doing?” he spat.

  Chuck eyed the man. “You don’t like having rocks thrown at you?”

  The scar on the man’s cheek turned from pink to violet as a storm of emotions crossed his face. Confusion, then dawning recognition clouded by disbelief—then rage. He took a threatening step toward Chuck, who squared his shoulders. The man drew back his fist as he advanced, the woman following.

  Chuck steeled himself. He used his long, solo runs these days to burn through “all the stuff eating at him,” as Janelle put it to the girls. His morning runs were a help, but what Chuck really needed was exactly what this guy in the Isotopes sweatshirt offered.

  The seconds drew themselves out as the man aimed a roundhouse at Chuck’s nose. Chuck reminded himself not to go for the man’s face in response, to avoid the battered knuckles that would result from such a blow. Acting on instinct and adrenaline, he rose on the balls of his feet, pivoted, and released. He threw his punch straight from his waist, using every bit of his coiled energy, which had built steadily in him for weeks now, despite his daily runs.

  Before the man could complete his swing, Chuck buried his fist in the man’s solar plexus, treating the blow as the final, all-out shot at the end of one of his workouts, the man’s gut a stand-in for the heavy bag at the gym. Despite the man’s sweatshirt and layers of fat, Chuck’s blow found its mark.

  It was good to know he still had it in him—the ability to defend himself, his honor, ground squirrels, whatever. It had been years since his last fight. He was north of forty, his sandy brown hair thinning, his blue-gray eyes covered by contacts, the pace of his runs slipping ever so slightly year by year. Regular workouts kept him fit, but age and gravity were taking their toll nonetheless, wrinkles pulling downward at the corners of his mouth, waistline gradually losing its shar
p definition of youth, wrists aching after each workout from too many shots to the heavy bag over the years.

  The man exhaled in a single, drawn-out ooof from the force of Chuck’s blow. The man’s hands dropped to his sides, his legs buckled, and he sank to his knees. Chuck had time to consider a follow-up punch before the woman came at him. Her eyes, framed by thick black makeup, were hot with fury. She lunged over the man and swiped at Chuck’s face. His backward leap wasn’t quick enough to avoid two of her long, red fingernails. They nicked his neck above his shirt, leaving parallel, inch-long cuts just deep enough to draw blood. The woman spun as she completed her swipe, losing her balance and toppling over the downed man. The two formed a tangled heap on the ground.

  Chuck savored the sight of the collapsed couple before he returned to Rim Trail to resume his run.

  Applause sounded behind him. He’d forgotten all about the Japanese tourists.

  Cameras clicked and cheers burst from the group as he departed. The tourists would have a fine story to tell when they got home, wouldn’t they? The American West, a place where even lowly ground squirrels are treated with respect.

  He jogged off along the rim of the sunlit canyon, more than ready for the day to come, looking forward to watching Rosie dive into the pancakes he’d promised to cook up for breakfast.

  TWO

  8 a.m.

  No doubt Janelle would have spotted the fresh scratches on Chuck’s neck even if he hadn’t gone over to where she stood at the picnic table outside the camper as soon as he got back from his run. As it was, she returned his embrace only briefly before holding him at arm’s length, eyes on his neck, eyebrows raised.

  “Tree branch,” Chuck said with a dismissive wave. Then he remembered their pact, her pact really, the one she’d made him swear to on their wedding day three weeks ago. The truth, she’d said. Always the truth between us. Nothing but.

  He smiled. “Well, actually,” he took one of her hands in both of his, “I punched this guy out, and his monster wife about ripped my head off.”

  The gold flecks in Janelle’s hazel eyes glittered in the morning light as she returned his smile. “Look where you’re going next time,” she said, and went back to stirring pancake batter in a large plastic bowl, her quick hands making the work appear effortless.

  She was a city girl, twenty-seven, on her first camping trip. She wore a sequined black leather jacket, electric-purple sneakers, and skinny jeans. Silver hoops dangled from her ears and a small jewel sparkled at the side of her nose. Her high cheekbones and dimpled chin were sharply defined by the early sun angling through the trees.

  Other camps were coming to life around them, people emerging from tents and trailers scattered beneath the ponderosa pine trees that grew tall here in Mather Campground, half a mile south of the canyon rim at the east edge of Grand Canyon Village. The needle-covered ground was speckled with shade and sunlight. Already the chill of the high-desert night was nearly gone, giving way to the blazing August day to come. The smell of wood smoke and frying bacon drifted through the trees. Campers made their way on foot along the network of roads that led to bathrooms spaced throughout the campground.

  Chuck put his arms around Janelle from behind and nuzzled the back of her neck. Her long, straight, dark-chocolate hair, pulled loosely into a ponytail, tickled his face. “Mmmm,” he murmured. “Girls up yet?”

  “You kidding? Late as we got here, I bet they’ll go another hour.”

  He ran the tip of his nose along her cheek. She turned and kissed him hard, pulling the full length of his body against hers, then moved him backward a step with playful fingers that slipped under his shirt to tickle his stomach. “Coffee,” she directed. “Then the pancakes, like you said.”

  “We’ve got an hour.”

  “Not for coffee.”

  They’d arrived well after dark, having made the seven-hour drive from the southwest Colorado mountain town of Durango across the Navajo Reservation in a single push. An archaeologist by profession, and founder and sole full-time employee of Bender Archaeological, Inc., Chuck had ticked off the sites he’d won contracts to survey and dig over the years as they’d passed them along the way: the Baptist Church expansion in Teec Nos Pos, the new Burger King on the west side of Kayenta, the enlarged Peabody Coal transfer yard at the foot of Black Mesa, and, along Highway 160 across much of northern Arizona, the two-year job that had kept him busy into July as things with Janelle had heated up, the right-of-way for a planned electric transmission line across the reservation to Phoenix from the Four Corners Power Plant in northwest New Mexico. Chuck’s one-man firm had provided the required archaeological assessment, with digging, screening, and cataloging of unearthed artifacts as necessary, before construction at each site could begin.

  They’d stopped along the way for Chuck to meet with Marvin Begay in the lobby of the Tuba City Quality Inn. Marvin was the young tribal official in charge of the transmission-line contract, which included a specific focus on the ancient Anasazi Indians who predated the Navajo in the region by a millennium.

  Chuck pulled his camp stove from the back of Janelle’s pearl-gray mini-SUV, fired it up on the metal-mesh picnic table in the center of the campsite, and set water to boiling. He spooned French roast into his drip-filter and poured in the steaming water, sending the heady aroma of fresh coffee straight to his brain. Before he could hand Janelle her filled mug, five-year-old Rosie came barreling out of the fold-out camper set up in the campsite’s gravel drive. The camper’s screen door slammed behind her as she charged barefooted across the site and piled into her mother’s arms.

  Janelle scooped her daughter up in a bear hug. “Preciosa mia,” she whispered into Rosie’s ear, as she did each morning.

  “Preciosa mia, tambien, Mamá,” Rosie recited back huskily.

  Rosie’s throaty rasp, particularly apparent first thing in the morning, channeled her grandfather’s gravelly growl. Everything about Rosie matched Janelle’s father. Rosie was squat and big-boned like her grandfather, and shared his wide face, deep-set eyes, and mischievous smile.

  The girl’s chubby heels dug into the small of Janelle’s back. Animal-print flannel pajamas rode up her legs, exposing round calves. Matted brown hair stood out from the back of her head as if starched.

  Rosie held on tight when Janelle lowered her to the ground, sliding down her mother’s torso like a firefighter descending a firehouse pole until she came to rest seated in the dirt. Janelle stepped out of Rosie’s circled arms, pulled her to a standing position, and patted her on her dusty backside in the direction of the camper. “Your clothes are on your bed, m’hija. Bring the hair brush when you come back out.”

  Rosie turned to Chuck, struck a pose with her hip jutted far out to one side, and gave him a circular wave. “Hey there, stranger,” she said in a pitch-perfect impression of a smoky-voiced starlet from a 1940s Hollywood black-and-white.

  Chuck grinned and returned Rosie’s wave as she sashayed back across the campsite and reentered the camper. He turned to Janelle. “I thought you said we had an hour.”

  “Coffee.” Janelle held out her hand. “Quick.”

  They sat sipping while Rosie bounced around inside the trailer, humming loudly as she got dressed. Chuck leaned back in his camp chair and relished the tang of the coffee at the back of his throat.

  The meeting with Marvin Begay the previous afternoon had gone well. Marvin had been named Director of Anthropological Affairs for the Navajo tribe straight out of college three years ago, just weeks after his uncle, Robert Begay, had been tapped as the first-ever Native American chief ranger of Grand Canyon National Park. Chuck and his subcontracted assistant, Clarence, had completed the last of the fieldwork required by the transmission-line contract a month ago, and the final report on their work was due to Marvin in two weeks.

  The report would detail the scant evidence of past Anasazi presence Chuck and Clarence had discovered along the transmission-line route. Chuck knew the rudimentary evidence he an
d Clarence had come across—a handful of potsherds, a few hunting points—wouldn’t please Marvin. The tribal official had dropped several hints over the course of the contract that Chuck would do well to find something of value along the right-of-way to bolster the contention among a subset of young Navajos, Marvin included, that the Anasazi had been more culturally advanced than the current historical record indicated. To Chuck’s relief, Marvin gave voice yesterday in Tuba City only to the same vague hints he’d made over the preceding two years. That enabled Chuck to offer equally vague assurances to Marvin in return and get back on the road with Janelle and the girls in less than an hour.

  Chuck blew on his coffee and turned his attention to the day ahead. Everything about the last few days had been aimed at getting here—buying the used camper, outfitting it with gear from his garage, bolting a tow hitch to Janelle’s car, and shopping for daypacks and hiking boots for her and the girls.

  “I’m not sure I know how to do this,” he confessed.

  “Do what?” Janelle asked.

  “Be a tourist here.”

  “That’s why we came, Chuck.”

  A loud thump issued through the canvas walls of the camper as Rosie leapt from the sleeping platform to the floor.

  Chuck smiled ruefully. “Our honeymoon.”

  “A few days. Just us. Before school starts. A chance for you to show the girls and me what it is you do out here for months on end, remember?”

  Yes, he remembered. And yes, Janelle was right on all counts. This had been her idea, coming to the Grand Canyon, a place she’d never visited despite her whole life spent six hours away in Albuquerque. She’d insisted on camping, too, an entrée of sorts for her and the girls to Chuck’s archaeological world, the epicenter of which was right here at the canyon.

  The millions of tourists who visited Grand Canyon National Park each year did so for the incredible views of one of the most awe-inspiring geological wonders on Earth. But Chuck’s fascination with the place was different. Though he bid for contracts all across the high-desert uplift known as the Colorado Plateau, which stretched more than a hundred miles in all directions from the Grand Canyon, he bid hardest and lowest for contracts at the canyon itself—and every time he looked into the canyon’s depths and felt his bones tingle with its long history of humankind, he knew why.