The Devil Colony (31 page)

“A.F.,”
he read aloud, and stared up at Seichan.

They both knew those initials, the author of this journal.

Archard Fortescue.

Chapter 23

May 31, 10:12
A.M.
Flagstaff, Arizona

“Shouldn’t be much farther,” Hank Kanosh said from the backseat.

Lost in thought, Painter stared out the window at the passing scenery of the high desert. The midday sun had beat the landscape into shades of crimson and gold, broken by patches of sagebrush and stands of prickly yucca trees.

Kowalski sped along Highway 89. They were headed northeast out of Flagstaff, having landed in Arizona only fifteen minutes ago after a short hop in a private charter from an airfield outside of Price, Utah. Their destination—Sunset Crater National Park—lay forty minutes from the city.

“We’re looking for Fire Road 545,” Hank said. The professor’s dog sat at the other end of the SUV’s bench seat, his nose glued to the glass after he’d spotted a wild hare bounding away from the highway. The dog was now on high alert. “The fire road’s a thirty-five-mile loop off the highway that passes through the park and a slew of ancient Pueblo ruins. Nancy Tso will meet us at the visitors’ center near the park’s entrance.”

Their contact, Nancy Tso, was a Navajo woman, but also a National Park Service ranger. Earlier, Hank had made a few discreet calls, channeling through his contacts, and discovered the names of those who knew the region the best. On the flight here, Painter had read up as well as he could about the area. They all had. Kat had sent reams of information from D.C., but Painter preferred firsthand knowledge. The plan was to interview the guide, to see what they could learn.

Still, Painter had a hard time focusing. He had heard from Kat about the events in Iceland, listened to radio reports as news coverage of the volcanic eruptions spread. The entire archipelago south of Iceland’s main coast was steaming and quaking. In addition to the one on the island, two submarine volcanoes had begun to boil the seas, spewing lava along the seabed and building steadily higher.

A giant volcanic plume was headed for Europe. Airports were already grounding planes. Gray, though, had gotten out ahead of it. He was already in the air, winging his way back to Washington with the prize in hand: an old journal belonging to the French scientist Archard Fortescue.

But would it shed any light on their predicament?

“There’s the exit,” Hank said, leaning forward and pointing.

“I see it,” Kowalski said sourly. “I’m not blind.”

Hank slipped back into his seat. They were all getting testy from lack of sleep. Silence settled over the vehicle as they took the exit off the highway and drove onto a two-lane road. There was no mistaking their destination as they continued the last few miles.

Sunset Crater appeared ahead of them. The thousand-foot-tall cinder cone rose above islands of pine and aspen. The cratered mountain was the youngest and least eroded cinder cone of the San Francisco volcanic fields. Over six hundred volcanoes of different shapes and sizes spread outward from here, most of them dormant, but beneath this chunk of the Colorado Plateau, magma still simmered close to the surface.

As they drove, Painter imagined the earthquakes and lava bombs that must have shaken the region a thousand years ago. He pictured the storm of flaming cinders and swirling clouds of burning ash, setting fire to the world, turning day to night. In the end, the ash field covered eight hundred square miles.

As they drew closer, the singular feature of this cratered mountain—in fact, the reason it had earned its name—became apparent. In the sunlight, the crown of the cone glowed a ruddy crimson, streaked and pooled with splashes of brilliant yellow, purple, and emerald, as if the view of the crater were forever frozen at sunset. But Painter had read enough to know there was nothing magical about this effect. The coloring came from a violent spewing of red oxidized iron and sulfur scoria that had settled around the cone’s summit during its last eruption.

From the backseat, Hank offered a less geological viewpoint. “I’ve been reading the Hopi legends about this place. This was a sacred mountain to the Indians of this region. They believed angry gods once destroyed an evil people here with fire and molten rock.”

“That doesn’t sound like a legend,” Painter said. “It pretty much matches the story told by Jordan’s grandfather—and for that matter, even the history of the place. The volcano erupted here around 1064
AD
, about the same time that the Anasazi vanished.”

“True. But what I find most interesting is that the same Hopi legend goes on to warn that the people who died here are
still
here, that they remain as spiritual guardians of the place. Which, of course, makes me wonder
what
still needs guarding here.”

Painter stared at the red cone, pondering the same mystery. Jordan Appawora’s grandfather had hinted that something lay hidden here, something that could shed light on the ancient people, the
Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev
—Hank’s mythical lost tribe of Israelites.

Kowalski pointed ahead as they passed through the gates of the national park. “Is that our lady?”

Painter sat straighter. A slim young woman climbed out of a white Jeep Cherokee equipped with a blue light bar on top. She wore a starched gray shirt with a badge affixed to it, along with green slacks, black boots, and a matching service belt, including a holstered sidearm. As she stepped clear of the vehicle, she pulled on a broad-brimmed campaign hat and crossed toward the passenger side of their vehicle once it came to a stop.

Kowalski let out a low whistle of appreciation.

“I don’t think your girlfriend back in D.C. would approve of that,” Painter warned.

“We got an agreement. I’m allowed to look, just not touch.”

Painter should have scolded him for his behavior, but in the end he couldn’t disagree with the man’s assessment of the park ranger. Still, as striking as the ranger was, she didn’t hold a candle to Lisa. He had spoken to his girlfriend an hour ago, assuring her that everything was okay. She had hurried to Sigma command, joining Kat as this situation escalated.

As the park ranger reached their car, Painter rolled down his window. She leaned toward his door. Her skin was a coppery mocha, her eyes a dark caramel, framed by long black hair done up in a braid down her back.

“Ranger Tso?” he asked.

She checked the front and back seats. “You’re the historians?” Her voice was rife with skepticism as she eyed Painter and Kowalski.

It seemed her instincts were as refined as her looks. Then again, park rangers had to wear a lot of hats, juggling duties that varied from overseeing national resources to thwarting illegal activities of every sort. They were firemen, police officers, naturalists, and historical preservationists all rolled up into one—and all too often, psychiatrists, too, as they did their best to protect the resources from the visitors, the visitors from the resources, and the visitors from one another.

She pointed to a neighboring lot. “Park over there. Then tell me what this is all really about.”

Kowalski obeyed. As he turned into the parking lot, he glanced to Painter and mouthed the word
wow
.

Again, Painter couldn’t disagree.

In short order, they were all marching down a trail, gravel grinding underfoot. As it was midweek and midday, they had the path to themselves. They climbed toward the crater, passing through a sparse pine forest, along a route marked as
LAVA FLOW TRAIL
. Wildflowers sprouted in the sunnier stretches, but most of the path was crumbling pumice and cinders from an ancient flow. They passed a few spatter cones, known as
hornitos
or “little ovens” in Spanish, marking where old bubbles of lava burst forth, forming minivolcanoes. There were also strange eruptions from cracks—called “squeeze-ups”—where sheets of rising lava hardened and curled into massive flowerlike sculptures. But the main attraction was the cone itself, climbing higher and higher before their eyes. Up close, the mineral show was even more impressive as the lower slope’s dark gray cinders rose up into a spectacular display of brilliant hues, reflecting every bit of sunlight.

“This looped trail is only one mile long,” their guide warned. “You have my attention for exactly that length of time.”

Painter had been making tentative, vague inquiries, learning mundane tidbits that were getting them nowhere. He decided to cut to the quick.

“We’re looking for lost treasure,” he said.

That got her full attention. She drew to a stop, her hands settling to her hips. “Really?” she asked sarcastically.

“I know how that sounds,” Painter said. “But we’ve been following the trail of a historical mystery that suggests something was hidden here long ago. Around the time of the eruption . . . maybe shortly thereafter.”

Nancy wasn’t buying it. “This park has been scoured and searched for decades. What you see is what you get. If there’s something hidden here, it’s long buried. The only things under our feet are some old icy lava tubes, most of them collapsed.”

“Icy?” Kowalski asked, wiping his brow. He’d already soaked through his shirt as the day had grown hot, and the trail offered little shade.

“Water seeps through the porous volcanic rock into the tubes,” Nancy explained. “Freezes during winter, but the natural insulation and lack of air circulation in the narrow tubes keeps the ice from melting. But just so you know, those tubes were mapped both on foot and by radar. There’s nothing but
ice
down there.” She began to turn away, ready to head back to the parking lot. “If you’re done wasting my time . . .”

Hank raised a hand, stopping her, but his dog tugged him to the side of the trail. Nancy had insisted that the professor use a leash inside the park, and Kawtch was clearly not happy about it—especially now that they’d stopped. The dog sniffed the air, apparently still looking for that wild hare.

“We’re pursuing an alternate hypothesis regarding the disappearance of the Anasazi,” Hank said. “We have a lead that the volcanic eruption here might be the cause of—”

She sighed, fixing Hank with a hard stare. “Dr. Kanosh, I know your reputation, so I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve heard every crackpot theory about the Anasazi. Climate change, war, plague, even alien abduction. Yes, there were Anasazi who lived here, both the Winslow Anasazi and the Kayenta Anasazi, but there were also Sinagua, Cohonina, and other tribes of the ancient Pueblo people. What’s your point?”

Hank stood up to her disdain. As an Indian who practiced Mormonism, he was no doubt well accustomed to dealing with ridicule. “Yes, I know that, young lady.” His voice took a professorial tone, practically browbeating the young woman. “I’m well versed in the history of our people. So don’t dismiss what I’m saying as some peyote-fueled fantasy. The Anasazi did vanish from this region suddenly and swiftly. Their homes were never reoccupied, as if people feared moving into them. Something happened to that tribe—starting here and spreading outward—and we may be on the trail of an answer that could change history.”

Painter let this little war play out. Nancy’s face flushed—but he suspected it was more from shame than from anger. Painter had been raised enough of an Indian to know it was rude to talk harshly to an elder, even one from a different tribe or clan.

She finally shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t see how I can help you. If you’re looking for more information on the Anasazi, maybe you shouldn’t be looking here but over at Wupatki.”

“Wupatki?” Painter asked. “Where’s that?”

“About eighteen miles north of here. It’s a neighboring national park.”

Hank elaborated. “Wupatki is an elaborate series of pueblo ruins and monuments, spread over thousands of acres. The main attraction is a three-story structure with more than a hundred rooms. The park is named after that place.
Wupatki
is the Hopi word for ‘tall house.’ ”

Nancy added, “We Navajo still call it
Anaasazi Bikin
.”

Hank translated, glancing significantly at Painter. “That means ‘House of the Enemies.’ Archaeologists believe it was one of the last Anasazi strongholds before they vanished out of the region.”

Painter stared up at the brilliant cinder cone. According to the tale told by Jordan’s grandfather, the birth of this volcano was the result of a theft by a clan of the Anasazi, a mishandling of a treasure not unlike what had recently happened up in the Utah Rockies. He eyed the massive cone. Had a great settlement once stood here? Had it been destroyed, buried under ash and lava? And what about the survivors? Had they been hunted down and slaughtered? Painter remembered Hank’s one-word description.

Genocide.

Maybe they
were
looking in the wrong place.

Painter reached into his shirt pocket and removed the slip of paper that Jordan Appawora had given to him. The kid’s grandfather had said it would guide them to where they needed to go. He unfolded it and showed the pair of symbols to the park ranger.

“These markings may be tied to what we came seeking. Have you ever seen them?”

She leaned over, doubt fixed on her face. But as she studied the sketch of a crescent moon and five-pointed star, her eyes got huge. She glanced up to him.

“Yes,” she said. “I know these symbols. I know exactly where you can find them.”

12:23
P.M.
San Rafael Swell

Kai raced after Jordan through Buckhorn Wash. He rode a black four-wheel all-terrain vehicle while she pursued him in a white one. She kept low, swerving right and left, looking for a break so she could pass him, eating too much of his dust. The screaming whine of the two engines echoed off the cliffs to either side as they sped along the bottom of the wash, following an old off-road trail.

The Swell’s two thousand square miles of public land had little restrictions against ATV use. Over the years, enthusiasts had carved hundreds of miles of trails that crisscrossed the region. A part of Kai railed against such abuse of the land, especially as a Native American.