Ride the Rainbow Home (7 page)

Meg lagged behind, enjoying the chance to admire him without being caught. He looked marvelous this morning in a pair of faded blue jeans that fit like a second skin. The play of his long, lean muscles against the fabric as he hiked was something to admire. As he had warned Meg to do, he had layered a lightweight cotton shirt over a white T- shirt that clung to his muscular back and shoulders, exposing his deeply tanned arms. His lion-like mane was bound back at his neck. It lifted and swayed with the light morning breeze. Meg wondered if he knew how positively delicious he looked, and how achingly dear.

Jim stopped abruptly and Meg, too busy daydreaming to pay attention to the pace, almost ran into that magnificent back. "Look," he said.

Meg looked, gasped, and stared. "Oh!" she said, then "Oh!" again.

She had never seen anything like it. She and Jim had walked a couple of hundred yards over nearly flat yellow sandstone and had arrived at the edge of the world. Below their feet, the earth dropped away, opening a canyon more than two hundred feet deep and only half as wide. There the meandering creek had worn its way through layers of red and dun sandstone, cutting an oasis into the desert floor.

"Let's go," Jim said. Meg nodded eagerly and prepared to follow.

The trail was narrow, steep, and cluttered with loose rock. Meg was grateful for Jim's rock-solid back before her, and his hand reaching back to guide her. They reached the bottom and Meg looked around in awe. "I never knew there was anything like this," she said.

"We've tried to keep it a secret," Jim answered.

Her voice dropped reverentially. "It's like another world."

They stood, staring around them at the wonder nature had created. The striped stone walls of the canyon marked the borders of a natural time capsule; Meg could have sworn she'd stepped back an eon or two. Cool, moist breezes blew past her, lowering the temperature by twenty degrees. Palos verdes, mesquite, and sycamore grew abundantly at both the creek side and on ledges along the canyon walls, forming a striking contrast to the barrenness of the desert. An occasional pinon or cottonwood broke the sheer planes of the canyon, its spreading branches reflected in the quiet waters where the creek pooled. In other places, the water rippled and rushed over rounded stones or dropped in lacy flourishes of white.

Meg looked up. The skyline was a narrow strip of brilliant azure. This place was exotic and primal, essential and ageless. And Jim was a part of it. She stared at him, amazed at all she suddenly thought and felt and knew about him. He was now as she had first seen him on the bluff, only now she knew that it was his nature to be here, amid the timeless elements, a part of all that was pure, perfect, and unchanging.

"Come with me," he said, taking her hand, and Meg thought she understood how Eve must have felt when she entered the garden with Adam.

They walked a sandy stretch of beach, a sheer wall of rock towering above them. "Like it?" he asked.

"I love it," she answered fervently. "It's incredibly beautiful, and almost out of time. If a band of Anasazi dressed in loincloths suddenly came around the bend, I doubt if I'd be too surprised."

"I know," Jim answered. "I've felt that too. It's almost as if they're here with us." He paused, looked up as if searching for something, and then pointed. "There. Look."

She did, and caught her breath. "Oh, Jim! I didn't know there was anything like this left!" Above them on the cliffs were centuries-old petroglyphs scratched into the ancient rock of the canyon walls.

"More over here," Jim said, leading her by the hand. "This one is the sign for 'travel.' "

"I wonder how far that artist must have traveled."

"Probably not far. It's likely that a band of Indians lived right here in the canyon."

Meg reached out, gingerly touching the drawings nearest her. "I had no idea," she said. "I've seen the pictographs on the rocks in the Painted Desert, but this is just... just here, not in a park or anything."

"Some of us have been working on that."

"Working on it? How?"

"The rangers at Walnut Canyon, near Flagstaff, are aware of the findings here and in other locations along the Little Colorado. I've done some work with the National Park Service, putting together a proposal to protect this stretch of canyon."

She shook her head. "Is there anything you don't do, Jim McAllister?"

He smiled, dismissing the compliment. "When you think about it, this is just another form of Native American art. Only there isn't any more where this came from."

"You're right about that." She meandered along the canyon wall, tenderly touching the finer selections. "These must be some of the finest petroglyphs in the country."

"They're excellent examples," Jim agreed, "but not the finest. One of the richest finds is in Chevlon Canyon, just outside of Joseph City."

Meg thought of the tiny, poverty-ridden town just west of Holbrook. "Are you trying to protect that stretch too?"

"We've talked about it, but it's on private land and the only access is by a poorly kept dirt road maintained by the county. Besides, there are only a few hundred people in the world who know how to find the place. It's probably safer if we leave it alone."

"I wanted to ask that," Meg said, looking around her at the richness of the find. "If you open this up to tourists, won't that increase the risk of destruction?"

"That's one of the hazards," Jim agreed, "but it seems better than leaving all this unprotected. Here, let me show you something." He led her farther downstream to a place where some local kid had already scratched through an ancient picture to write,
Conner was here
. “Vandalism is already a problem," he said.

"I can see that." Meg's eyes clouded over as she examined the centuries-old art, covered now in scratch-overs and spray paint.

For a time, they merely wandered along the creek, hand in hand, one and then the other pointing out sights worth noticing. After a time, they stopped beside another sheer wall of red, its last two feet mortared closed with gray cinder blocks.

"What's this?" Meg asked, leaning against the red as she examined the block wall.

"A burial."

Meg's hand came away as if she'd touched a hot iron.

"Some local kids crawled in there to check it out, found remains, and notified me. I called friends in the anthropology department at Northern Arizona University and they had a team out here from Flagstaff by the next weekend."

"I guess they must have authenticated the find," Meg said, inclining her head toward the wall.

"They authenticated it, examined and cataloged it, then reburied everything exactly as they believe it was in the beginning. After that, some Boy Scouts came in here and bricked it up as a service project, so nobody else would disturb the site."

Meg nodded her understanding. Then she touched the rock again, this time almost reverently. "Who's in there?" she asked.

"They were children, three of them, apparently all from the same family."

"Oh." Meg felt the wind go out of her. "Three children in the same family. How old were they?"

"The eldest was about three, the youngest just an infant. The middle one was somewhere in between."

Meg thought instantly of Sally's beautiful children and felt a stab of pain for the unknown mother who had buried three children at once. If Jim had noticed the correspondence in ages, he was tactful enough not to mention it.

"My anthropologist friend dated the burial back to around the time Europeans first settled in this area. It's his guess that the whole family contracted one of the many diseases white men brought—smallpox, perhaps. Maybe typhoid or diphtheria. Apparently the adults survived, at least long enough to bury their children. There may have been older children who made it too."

"How sad." Meg's breath caught in her throat. "How very sad."

"Yes, it is." Jim paused. "Now let's find a way to get happy again." He grabbed her hand and ran, dragging her, splashing and protesting, into the creek.

Morning stretched into afternoon as they walked the canyon, shared their picnic, and splashed in deep-water holes. In a place that seemed beyond time, time slipped quickly away. The sun was well past its zenith when Meg sat down to rest in the sand and turned up something hard and sharp. It was a perfectly shaped arrowhead of red jasper. "Oh, Jim."

He sat beside her and took the arrowhead in his hands.

"It's small," he observed, "the sort the local Indians used for hunting birds and squirrels."

Meg looked around her. "Just think. Centuries before our ancestors came this way, people used to live here and hunt here—"

"—swim in this creek—"

"—picnic on this beach—"

Jim turned warm, intense eyes on her. "You are so beautiful. Are you even aware of how lovely you are?''

What Meg was most aware of was how alone they were, alone in all the world. Her chest felt tight. She swallowed hard and her breath came faster.

Jim's jaw tightened. Meg saw his Adam's apple move as he too swallowed and his chest rose and fell with the quickening of his breath. The air between them grew heavy as Jim searched her eyes, plundering her soul.

"Meggie," he said, and then he slowly got to his feet. "I think we'd better go before I do something we'll both regret."

"Maybe—" Meg began, but Jim interrupted.

"Come on," he said, offering Meg his hand. "There's something I want to show you."

Meg tried to cover her disappointment as she got to her feet, brushing sand from the seat of her pants. They walked back along the creek, the way they had come, and Jim soon spotted a nice patch of petroglyphs they hadn't shown her before. She nodded, pretending to be impressed. Though tension still stretched between them like hot taffy, she dared not grab hold of it; if she did, she'd surely burn.

As the shadows lengthened on the canyon floor, Meg and Jim packed up their few belongings and headed back toward Rainbow Rock. In the gathering darkness in the pickup's cab, Meg finally dared to speak again. Her voice was filled with emotion as she said, "Thank you for bringing me with you today. It's a beautiful place you've found, a miracle place. I hope you get it protected."

"Thank you for sharing it with me," he answered. "Meggie?"

"Yes?"

"Would you come out to the farm tomorrow? The McAllisters always do a big Sunday dinner after church."

Meg barely hesitated, remembering all the excuses she had used to get out of visiting the pig farm when they'd been kids together. "I'd like that."

"Shall I pick you up for church too?"

She remembered a few Sundays at church in Rainbow Rock, but shook the ugly memories away. "Sure," she said. "That sounds good."

"I'll pick you up at nine-thirty, then."

"Nine-thirty."

They completed the drive in silence. At the door she strained toward Jim eagerly, trying not to squirm with disappointment when he bent and kissed her cheek.

Chapter Four

“He overcometh all.

He saveth from the fall.

His might and pow’r are great.

He all things did create.

And he shall reign forevermore.”

As Meg reshelved her hymnal, Jim took her hand and clasped it possessively in both of his, then smiled tenderly before turning his attention back to the pulpit. Meg leaned against the pew, breathless. Church in Rainbow Rock had never been like this!

Well, in some ways maybe. She could practically hear the wheels of the rumor mill turning. By lunch half the families in town would be discussing who that woman was with the oldest McAllister boy. She remembered years ago when one of the Ryerson boys had been arrested for fighting. He'd made his phone call as soon as he arrived at the jail, but his mother had already heard about it from four other people.

Jim put his arm around her, coaxing her head onto his shoulder. Meg cuddled, hoping the good citizens of Rainbow Rock were thoroughly scandalized. He was being wonderfully attentive in front of all these people. So why didn't he touch her when they were alone? Was he simply protecting himself from Kim and Cretia, both of whom she'd seen in the foyer? And how much did the temporary nature of her visit have to do with it? Would Jim have the nerve to be even this demonstrative if he thought she was sticking around a while, instead of retreating safely back to Walnut Creek?

The reverend interrupted her thoughts with a particularly booming statement, and when she looked up, Jim was looking at her much the way a starving man might stare at a banquet. She flushed warmly, and then focused on the choir loft, more confused than ever.

Jim made introductions as the service ended. Meg remembered a few people from before, mostly peers of her mother's, and a few who remembered her asked about Lon Ramsdell, her former stepfather, the principal. Meg didn't realize until then that Lon and her mother had covered their tracks by leaving Rainbow Rock before they filed for divorce. It had been more than nine years since their official separation, but it was still news to these people. The knowledge was disconcerting, as though somehow everything had been preserved just the way she left it. Meg shuddered.