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"Or a desert," Pitt repeated. "A good bet if we're looking at the coast of northern Mexico."
"On the opposite side of the quipu," Yaeger continued, "we find cables matching the same blue and green colors, but with a different number of knots. This suggests, to the computer, the time spent on the return trip. Judging by the additions and shorter spacing between knots, I'd say they had a difficult and stormy voyage home."
"It doesn't look to me as if you're groping in the dark," said Pitt. "I'd say you have a pretty good grasp of it."
Yaeger smiled. "Flattery is always gratefully accepted. I only hope I don't fall into the trap of inventing too much of the analysis as I go."
The prospect did not sit well with Pitt. "No fiction, Hiram. Keep it straight."
"I understand. You want a healthy baby with ten fingers and ten toes."
"Preferably one holding a sign that says `dig here,' " Pitt said in a cold, flat voice that almost curled Yaeger's hair, "or we'll find ourselves staring down a dry hole."
High on the funnel-shaped peak of a solitary mountain that rises like a graveyard monument in the middle of a sandy desert there is an immense stone demon.
It has stood there, legs tensed as if ready to spring, since prehistoric times, its claws dug into the massive basalt rock from which it was carved. In the desert tapestry at its feet ghosts of the ancients mingle with the ghosts from the present. Vultures soar over it, jackrabbits leap between its legs, lizards scurry over its giant paws.
From its pedestal on the summit, the beast's snakelike eyes command a panoramic vista of sand dunes, rocky hills and mountains, and the shimmering Colorado River that divides into streams across its silted delta before merging with the Sea of Cortez.
Exposed to the elements on the top of the mountain, which is said to be mystic and enchanted, much of the intricate detail of the sculpture has been worn away. The body appears to be that of a jaguar or a huge cat with wings and a serpent's head. One wing still protrudes above a shoulder, but the other has long since fallen on the hard, rocky surface beside the beast and shattered. Vandals have also taken their toll, chipping away the teeth from the gaping jaws and digging their names and initials on the flanks and chest.
Weighing several tons and standing as high as a bull elephant, the winged jaguar with the serpent's head is one of only four known sculptures produced by unknown cultures before the appearance of the Spanish missionaries in the early fifteen hundreds. The other three are static crouching lions in a national park in New Mexico that were far more primitive in their workmanship.
Archaeologists who had scaled the steep cliffs were mystified as to its past, They had no way of guessing its age or who carved the beast from one enormous outcropping of rock. The style and design were far different from any known artifacts of the prehistoric cultures of the American Southwest. Many theories were created, and many opinions offered, but the enigma of the sculpture's significance remained shrouded in its past.
It was said that the ancient people feared the awesome stone beast, believing it to be a guardian of the underworld, but present-day elders of the Cahuilla, Quechan, and Montolo tribes that live in the area
cannot recall any significant religious traditions or detailed rituals that pertain to the sculpture. No oral history had been passed down, so they simply created their own myth on the ashes of a forgotten past.
They invented a supernatural monster that all dead people must pass on their journey to the great beyond. If they led bad lives, the stone beast came to life. It snatched them in its mouth, chewed them with its fangs, and spat them out as maimed and disfigured ghosts doomed to walk the earth forever as malignant spirits. Only those good of heart and mind were allowed to proceed unmolested into the afterworld.
Many of the living made the difficult climb up the sharp walls of the mountain to lay gifts of hand-modeled clay dolls, and ancient seashells etched with the figures of animals, at the feet of the sculpture as tribute, a bribe to ease the way when their time came. Bereaved family members often stood on the desert floor far below the menacing sculpture and sent an emissary to the top while they prayed for the beast to grant their loved one safe passage.
Billy Yuma had no fear of the stone demon as he sat in his pickup truck under the shadow of the mountain and gazed up at the forbidding sculpture far above him. He was hopeful his parents and his friends who had died had been allowed to freely pass the guardian of the dead. They were good people who had harmed no one. But it was his brother, the black sheep of the family, who beat his wife and children and died an alcoholic, that Billy feared had become an evil ghost.
Like most Native Americans of the desert, Billy lived in the constant presence of the hideously deformed spirits who wandered aimlessly and did malicious things. He knew his brother's spirit could rise at any moment and throw dirt on him or tear his clothes, even haunt his dreams with horrible visions of the restless dead. But Billy's greatest worry was that his brother might bring illness or injury to his wife and children.
He had seen his brother three times. Once as a whirlwind that left behind a trail of choking dust, next as a wavering light spinning around a mesquite, and finally as a shaft of lightning that struck his truck.
These were ominous signs. Billy and his tribe's medicine man had huddled around an open fire to discuss a way to combat his brother's ghost. If not stopped, the apparition could pose an eternal threat to Billy's family and his future descendants.
Everything was tried, and nothing worked. The tribe's old shaman prescribed eating a mixture of cactus buds and herbs as a measure of protection while fasting for ten days alone in the desert. A cure that failed miserably. Near-starvation induced Billy to see his brother's apparition on a regular basis and hear eerie wails during the lonely nights. Powerful rituals such as ceremonial chanting were tried, but nothing appeased the brother's evil spirit, and his manifestations became more violent.
Billy was not the only one of his tribe with problems. Ever since the tribe's most sacred and secret religious objects were found missing from their hiding place in an isolated ruin belonging to their ancestors, whole villages had suffered ill fortune. Poor crops, contagious sickness among the children, unseasonably hot and dry weather. Fights broke out when men became drunk, and some were killed.
But by far the worst calamity was the sudden increase of ghost sickness. People who had never before seen or heard an evil spirit began describing haunted visitations. Ghosts of early Montolos suddenly appeared during their dreams, often materializing in broad daylight. Almost everyone, including young children, claimed to have seen supernatural phantoms.
The theft of the wooden idols that represented the sun, moon, earth, and water shattered the Montolos' religious society. The anguish of not having their presence during the initiation ceremony for entering adulthood devastated the tribe's young sons and daughters. Without the carved deities the centuries-old rituals could not be performed, leaving the young ones in adolescent limbo. Without the sacred religious objects, all worship ceased. To them it was the same as if the world's Christians, Muslims, and Jews woke up one morning and suddenly found that the entire city of Jerusalem had been torn from the earth and carried into deep space. To non-Indians it was a simple case of theft, but to a Montolo it amounted to blasphemy that bordered on atrocity.
Around fires in the underground ceremonial structures, the old religion's priests whispered of how they could hear the mournful pleading of the idols on nocturnal winds, pleading to be returned to the safety of their hiding place.
Billy Yuma was desperate. The medicine man had given him instructions while reading the embers of a dying fire. To send his brother's ghost back to the underworld and save his family from further disaster, Billy had to find the lost idols and return them to their sacred hiding place in the ancient ruins of his ancestors. In a desperate attempt to end the hauntings and avoid more ill fortune he decided to fight evil with evil. He resolved to climb the mountain, confront the demon, and pray for its help in returning the precious idols.
He was no longer a young man, and the ascent would be perilous without the equipment used by modern rock climbers. But he had set himself to the task and was not about to back down. Too many of his people were counting on him.
About a third of the way up the south wall his heart hammered against his ribs and his lungs ached from the grueling, effort. He could have stopped to rest and catch his breath, but he pushed on, determined to reach the peak without pause. He turned and gazed down only once, checking his Ford pickup truck parked at the base of the mountain. It looked like a toy he could reach down and snatch up with one hand. He looked back at the cliff face. It was changing colors under the setting sun, from amber to tile red.
Billy regretted not starting out earlier in the day, but he had chores to complete, and the sun was high when he drove to the mountain and began his ascent. Now the orange ball was creeping below the ridge of the Sierra de Juarez mountains to the west. The climb was more difficult than he had imagined and was taking far longer. He tilted his head, shaded his eyes against the brightness of the sky, and squinted up toward the cone top of the mountain. He still had 85 meters (278 feet) to go, and full darkness was only a half hour away. The prospect of spending the night with the great stone beast filled him with foreboding, but it would have been suicidal to attempt the descent in the dark.
