Cliff-Hanger (4 page)

“Just a second,” Ashley said, taking hold of Lucky's arm. “I want to talk to you.”

Lucky frowned. “What about?”

“Just…just…about something,” Ashley answered. Then, to Jack, she said, “You and Dad go on ahead. We won't be long.”

Enough other visitors crowded the trail that Ashley and Lucky soon got separated from Jack and Steven. Jack looked back, peering around the clumps of tourists, trying to see what was going on between the two girls. Ashley kept clutching Lucky's arm, while Lucky tried to jerk away. At first Lucky seemed to be protesting apologetically, then she looked angry. Jack was about to run back to them, but his father grabbed his shoulder. “Let them alone,” he said. “What ever it is between them, they can settle it themselves.”

A park ranger named John was talking to a group of tourists at a bend in the trail; Steven decided it was a good spot to wait for the girls.

“This seep spring is where the inhabitants of Spruce Tree House got their water,” John said. “It's still a source of water for the animals in the park. Lots of mornings you can see their tracks and their scat—deer, coyotes, even bears and cougars.”

“What is scat?” a woman asked.

“Animal droppings. They're pretty distinctive.”

Backing up, the woman examined her shoes. With a mischievous grin, John said, “Yeah, you know what the park rules are—don't pick up anything and carry it out of the park.”

That was pretty funny. Laughing at the ranger's joke, Jack didn't notice that Ashley and Lucky were catching up to the group until he heard Ashley say accusingly, “You took something from the burn area. Why don't you just admit it?”

“Hey—what does it hurt if I took one little blue flower?” Lucky shrugged and flashed Jack a crooked smile, as if to say, “Your sister's weird.”

“It wasn't a flower!” Ashley insisted. “I saw you dig up something.”

“Don't be stupid, Ashley.”

“Come on you two, knock it off,” Jack interrupted. “The ranger was talking—”

“It was small and blue,” Ashley went on, ignoring Jack.

“Right. A flower. Look.” Lucky thrust out her hand to show them a withering, pale blue blossom.

“No, something else. You pulled it
out
of the ground. Whatever it was, you better turn it over to the ranger.”

Lucky's words came out hard and cold. “You're a liar!”

Frowning, the ranger named John stopped talking and focused his attention on the two girls.

Lucky's eyes darted from Ashley to Jack, then to the ranger and back to Jack again. “You're crazy!” she shouted. “I didn't take anything! Leave me alone!” Spinning on the tips of her sandals, she began to race up the trail.

“Lucky, wait!” Steven cried.

Her auburn hair flew out behind her like a flag as she ran faster and faster, until she disappeared behind a bend.

The ranger raised his eyebrows. “Did she really take something from the park? That's serious.”

“A wildflower!” Jack shouted. “No big deal!”

He began to hurry after Lucky. Steven followed Jack, but Ashley was far ahead of them. When they reached the ledge where the cliff dwellings stood, Ashley was already there, and Lucky was screaming at her, “You think I stole something? Fine. Go ahead and search me!”

“Lucky, calm down,” Steven commanded. “We can handle this without theatrics.”

Arms out, she stood before Steven, crying, “I can tell you don't believe me. Go ahead! Search me.”

Steven recoiled. The tourists on the ledge stared at Lucky, wondering what was happening with this girl who seemed to be out of control.

Jack moved protectively toward Lucky, but Ashley pushed ahead of him, saying, “OK, if everyone else is afraid to, I'll search her.”

“Go on, put your hands in my pockets,” Lucky insisted, and Ashley did. Next, Ashley dropped to her knees, slapping Lucky's legs, harder than she needed to, Jack thought.

“Here, check the cuffs of my socks. I might have shoved something down there. Right?” Lucky sneered. “How about my shirt? Anything there? Wait, you forgot my hair. Or how about my shoes? Maybe I put it in one of them.”

Ashley just shook her head. “There's nothing.”

Lucky's smile was triumphant.

M
aybe a lot of people freaked out up there on those ledges, because a woman ranger who was standing near the cliff dwellings seemed to know just how to handle Lucky's stormy outburst. Gently coaxing the girl to come forward, the woman said, “The Ancestral Puebloans were a peaceful people, and I believe their spirits are in this place. Can you feel them?”

“No,” Lucky said.

“Me either,” Ashley muttered.

“Stop and listen. The people led a gentle life, hunting and gathering from the land. May I tell you how they lived?”

When the two girls nodded, the woman ranger moved closer to Lucky. “You'll be interested in this, I think. How old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

Lucky shook her head. “Thirteen.”

“Thirteen? And you?” she asked Ashley.

“Almost eleven.”

“Still young. See these?” She pointed to large stones on the ground. “Know what they are?”

Lucky shrugged. “Rocks. Big and little ones.”

“Uh-huh. They're metates and manos for grinding corn. The ancient people made cornmeal that way, and guess what? Even today, Hopi women like me still use the mano and the metate for special ceremonies. Some of us are descendants of the Ancient Puebloans who lived right here in Mesa Verde. Today, many Hopi people live on mesa tops in northern Arizona, in homes that look very much like the ones you see here.”

Jack began to relax a little as the soft voice of the Hopi ranger worked like magic on Lucky, calming her. “Why don't you kneel down,” the woman asked Lucky, “and put your hands on the small stone? That's a mano. Imagine there are kernels of corn under it between the mano and the metate, and you have to grind the corn real fine.”

A small crowd had begun to gather around the ranger. Jack glanced at the metal name tag pinned onto her shirt: Nancy Lomayaktewa. Nancy's black eyebrows curved in high semicircles above her warm, dark eyes; she had a stillness about her that seemed to fit the tranquillity of the dwellings.

“When I was a little older than you,” Nancy began, talking mainly to Lucky, “my grandmother came to get me one day at my mother's home. My mother already had me dressed up in traditional Hopi clothing, with my hair fixed in the squash blossom. That means it was tied up high on both sides. In the museum up there”—she pointed to the top of the hill—“you can see pictures of the squash blossom hairdo because here in Mesa Verde, 800 or 900 years ago, the women wore their hair just that way.”

Nancy took Lucky's thick auburn hair in her hands and lifted it, curving it high. Some of the tension seemed to melt out of Lucky's body as she leaned back against Nancy's touch, as she let herself be soothed by the woman's voice. “When you're a young Hopi girl,” Nancy went on, “when you're not married, your hair's always supposed to be fixed like that. But when you're married in the Hopi way, your hairstyle changes.”

It was quiet on the ledge except for the raucous calling of a pair of Steller's jays. The deep blue of their outstretched wings stood out against the paler blue of the sky. “Go on, please,” Lucky said.

“For the puberty ceremony there's a little house built for you inside your grandmother's or your aunt's home—in a corner, or in a living room or a bedroom. It's covered with heavy canvas because for four days you're not allowed to see the sun.”

Closing her eyes, Lucky murmured, “I wouldn't like that. I don't like the dark.”

“Well, when you're in the little house, the only time you're allowed to come out is after the sun goes down. You're not allowed to wash your face or fix your hair, and by about the third day the hairdo's starting to fall down. The only food you can eat is fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and water. No salt, no fat because you're cleansing yourself.”

Bending over the metate, Lucky tentatively pushed the mano along the sloping rock slab.

“Yes, just like that,” Nancy said. “You stay there in the little house for three days, kneeling like you're doing right now, grinding corn all day. Your relatives will bring in whole kernels of corn, either blue or white,” Nancy continued, holding out her hands as if bearing a gift. “Four grinding stones are set up for you—one really big stone, then each one after that smaller—and you just keep grinding the corn again and again to make it into flour.”

Lucky looked up with faraway eyes. Now Nancy's voice took on a faraway sound, too, as if she'd gone back inside her memory to relive the time and place of her special ceremony.

“On your final day, the fourth day, you get awakened early in the morning, before sunrise. That's when all your relatives come. They take down your hair and wash it in warm water, using the root of the yucca plant for shampoo. Then they give you your Hopi naming, from your clan, and they give you many gifts—things you'll need for your life. And then, when that's done, your aunt or your grandmother who's putting you through the ceremony will take you to the edge of the mesa and will have you greet the sun that's just rising.”

The woman gestured toward the sun. Now, in late afternoon, it was setting, slanting long rays toward them to light the ancient stone dwellings with a golden glow. “When you see the sun rising early in the morning, you only see the forehead of it. That's my Sun clan. The Sun Forehead. My aunt gave me my Hopi name: White Spider Girl.”

Lucky's eyes glittered with tears. “I don't have any grandmother or aunts,” she said. “Or anybody, really.”

Jack noticed Ashley frowning and biting her lip. He could read his sister, and he knew she was feeling bad about the scene she'd caused with Lucky, who, after all, had no mother to love her. Since he was still mad at Ashley, Jack didn't want to hear any apologies from her, not right then; at least not until he'd had a chance to really ream her out for acting so nasty and suspicious toward Lucky. “Is there more?” he asked, wanting to keep Nancy talking before Ashley had a chance to butt in.

“Yes. After greeting the sun you do your praying, then they take you back to your home, and that's when all the good food is made. They teach you how to make the traditional piki bread that's cooked on rocks over an open fire. Piki bread comes from blue corn that's grown by the Hopi people. When you get back, they fix your hair into the squash blossom. Then they cut your sideburns, representing to your people that you've gone through the puberty ceremony.” Nancy smiled, bobbed her head a little, and said, “That's it!”

All the park visitors who'd gathered around to hear the story burst into applause. Nancy took Lucky's hand and helped her to her feet; to Jack's surprise, Lucky leaned forward to give the ranger a hug. More than a hug—for a long moment, Lucky clung to Nancy's comforting figure.

Since peace seemed to have been restored, Steven announced, “I'm going back up to take some pictures while the sunlight's flooding the dwellings this way.”

“Yes, the sun's good right now,” Nancy agreed. “The best place for picture taking is on the back porch of the chief ranger's office.”

“Thanks,” Steven said. “You kids want to come with me? If you don't, you can stay here a little longer. Meet me up above when you're ready.”

“OK, Dad. Later,” Jack said. This gave him the chance, for the first time since they had arrived at these ancient dwellings, to really look around at Spruce Tree House. Situated on a ledge with a wide rock overhang above it, the settlement was the exact color of the surrounding rock.

Nancy had turned her attention to another group of visitors. He heard her telling them that Spruce Tree House was the third largest cliff dwelling in the park, with 114 rooms and 8 kivas, which were small chambers dug into the earth with their roofs at ground level. Kivas were used for ceremonial as well as domestic functions, Nancy was saying; the beamed roofs had collapsed on most of the kivas, but one had been restored and could only be entered by a ladder. She told the group to be sure to look at the hearth in the center of the kiva's floor, as well as at the ventilator shaft on the south side. As Jack climbed down into the gloom of that kiva, he tried to concentrate on where he was, but it was difficult. He was still so mad at Ashley, he found it hard to focus.

Looking around in the dimness of the kiva, he thought how hard it would have been to stay in such a small space during the cold winter months. The base of the ladder rested near a firepit sunk into the floor. It looked as though the Ancestral Puebloans had a choice of either choking from smoke or letting the smoke waft up through the opening above, where the cold air would pour in.

When he climbed back up the ladder, he found Lucky waiting for him. Ashley came up to them and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“Not with you,” Jack replied harshly. “I don't even want you around me after what you did.”

“Honest, Jack—”

“Don't start! Just leave us alone.”

Ashley stared miserably from her brother to Lucky. “Come on,” Jack said, taking Lucky's hand. “Let's climb.” He didn't even glance back to see if Ashley was following them up the switchback trail toward the museum and the other park buildings at the top. As far as he was concerned, she could stay down on the ledge all night.

At the chief ranger's office, Steven had started packing his camera equipment while Olivia stood waiting. “Let's grab some dinner at the restaurant,” she said, “and after we're finished, we can move our things into the place where we'll be staying. You'll love it! It used to be a water tower. It's round, kind of like a medieval castle.”

Jack wasn't sure whether his father had told his mother about Ashley accusing Lucky at Spruce Tree House, about the big, embarrassing outburst. Probably he had, because Olivia didn't ask Jack where his sister was. Anyway, from their vantage point on the chief ranger's porch, they could see Ashley straggling up the trail, looking forlorn, and pouring her heart out to Nancy Lomayaktewa. The role of Mother Comforter seemed to have been thrust on Nancy that afternoon.

All through dinner in the nearby restaurant Jack kept his face turned away from Ashley, while Olivia tried unsuccessfully to smooth things between them. Finally, she mentioned softly, confidentially, “Jack and Ashley, I think I've got a pretty big problem. I went and examined the cougar the rangers caught.”

Jack nodded. “The one that hurt the little boy?”

“What did you find out?” Ashley asked eagerly. “Did it have rabies or something?”

Olivia glanced around, checking whether anyone at any of the tables nearby might be listening before she answered. “From what I can tell, it appears to be disease-free, which is what I expected. The cat is a young, healthy male, about two years old, in excellent condition. I looked over the results of the blood tests. I examined him. Every test that I could think of that could possibly explain deviant behavior came back negative.” Brows furrowing together, she told them, “This is definitely
not
the profile of a cougar that would attack a human.”

“So? What are you thinking?” Steven asked.

“I think they may have trapped the wrong cat.”

Ashley's eyes grew wide. “The wrong one! So, the real attack cat is still out there, loose?”

“Shhh,”
Olivia warned.

“Why should I be quiet?”

Olivia leaned closer and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “Because the park prefers that we don't talk too much about it until I've had a chance to investigate more. The circumstances are too strange. Cougars are nocturnal, you know—they usually hunt only at night. This attack happened in broad daylight. Normally, cougars stay as far away from people as possible unless they're caught by surprise. Not this time. The little boy was with his family—parents, two brothers, and grandparents.”

“Did his brothers run away and desert him?” Ashley asked, staring pointedly at Jack.

“Actually,” Olivia answered, “the brothers saved his life. Both of them chased after the cougar. It had the little boy in its mouth and was carrying him off, which slowed it down enough that the brothers were able to catch up to it and scare it. But before the cougar dropped the child, it gave him some pretty nasty bites on his ear and on one cheek.”

Lucky raised her hand to her own cheek, touching it lightly, shuddering.

“Also, getting back to the animal in the cage, when I examined its scat, I found it full of deer hair. That means the cougar had been feeding just a short while before it supposedly attacked. With a full stomach, it would have had no reason to go searching for another meal. So, why would it have gone after a small child?”

“I don't know. Why?” Steven asked.

“Because maybe the cougar in the cage isn't the cougar that hurt the child. That's why, before we go back to the round house, I've got to call park headquarters and tell them my theory—that they may have trapped the wrong animal.”

After they left the restaurant and while Olivia made her call from a pay phone, the rest of them pulled their luggage from the trunk of the car. As they carried it into the round house, Lucky exclaimed, “This is so cool! It really does look like a castle. I love the circular staircase.”

Clambering down the twisting adobe stairs, Steven commented, “Pretty small castle! I checked—there's only one bedroom upstairs, with only one bed: a double. Olivia, how 'bout if you and I use the pull-out sofa down here in the living room? We'll put Ashley and Lucky in the double bed, and Jack can sleep in the sleeping bag on the floor.”

“Here?” Jack asked. “In the living room?”

“Sorry, son, there's not enough room down here,” Steven told him. “With the sofa bed pulled out, your mom and I will barely be able to walk to the kitchen or the bathroom. But there's another room upstairs—well, it's more like a closet. It's empty, and it's big enough—just barely—for you to roll out your sleeping bag.”