The Vanishing Point (8 page)

They continued in silence for a mile or so before Curt stopped again. “That's Sin Nombre Canyon,” he said, pointing west with his walking staff.

Claire had been watching the ground and could have easily missed the turnoff. The bottom of Sin Nombre Canyon was thick with brush and boulders, but when she looked up, the walls of the side canyon were clear. It was a smaller, narrower version of Slickrock—buff and burnt sienna sandstone streaked
dark
by minerals; a mixture of ledge, rock slides, and indentations in the walls.

“Sin Nombre is full of boulders, and it's easy to get lost in here, so you don't want to lose sight of me. If I start going too fast, you let me know,” Curt said.

“All right,” Claire replied.

Water rushed through this narrow canyon with considerable force, scattering boulders like pebbles. Going over or around them, a form of climbing known as boulder hopping, was a challenge that kept Claire focused. There was no sign that humans had ever been here, yet Claire knew that Anasazi had lived in Sin Nombre and that people had climbed all over it looking for some trace of Jonathan Vail. One of those people was Tim Sansevera, whose absence was casting a pall over her day like a cloud obscuring the sun. Was it due to impulsiveness, error, or something else? The only way to find out was to continue.

After they had climbed for forty-five minutes, Curt stopped for another water break. To Claire, he appeared to be showing a little more excitement as he closed in on their goal. His back seemed less stiff. His eyes were brighter. He finished his drink, put the cap back on the bottle, and pointed to a spot on the canyon wall high up near the rim. “See that?” he asked. “It's a half-moon petroglyph.”

Claire could see something on the canyon wall, but she couldn't identify it as a half-moon or anything else.

“Here.” Curt took a pair of binoculars from his backpack.

She fiddled with the adjustment on the binoculars until she could make out the half-moon.

“Now look to the right of it,” Curt said. “You'll see the entrance to the cave where Tim claims he found the journal.”

Claire moved the binoculars over a rock slide until she came to a small, rounded opening shaped like an
horno.

“How do we get there?”

“That's for Tim to show us.”

“Wouldn't it have been easier to climb down from the mesa?” Claire asked.

“Easier to climb down, but harder to find. I didn't have a compass reading. There are no landmarks to follow on Cedar Mesa, and it can be difficult to find your way. The trees all look the same. I think that overhang up ahead is a good place to begin the climb. It's also the best campsite in the canyon. It's got a southern exposure. It's got a spring. I'm hoping Tim will be there or will have left some indication of where he went.” Curt's face turned red again. “Excuse me. I, um … have to, um, relieve myself again. Too much coffee this morning.”

“I'll meet you at the overhang,” Claire said.

Curt stepped around a boulder. Claire heard branches rustle, a canyon wren call, and then silence. She continued uphill, climbing over a boulder that was as tall as she was. Once the boulder was behind
her,
her only points of reference were the canyon rim, the half-moon petroglyph, and the overhang, a slab of rock that was clearly in sight ahead. From this spot there was no way of telling where Curt had gone. She climbed a little farther, then saw something that resembled a blue tarp beneath the overhang. As she got closer, she realized it was a tent, an encouraging sign that Tim had camped here. Had Curt gotten the plans mixed up? Had Tim intended to meet them here all along?

She called to him, but once again there was no answer. This time she hadn't yelled loud enough to cause an avalanche of echoes. She walked to the overhang, saw the tent and a camp stove. She looked inside the tent and found a sleeping bag and a paperback copy of
A Blue-Eyed Boy,
but nothing else. The soil here was sandy, and there were footprints of running shoes somewhat larger than Claire's leading toward the canyon wall. The footprints disappeared where the slickrock began, but Claire continued in their direction and saw a way to climb the canyon wall negotiating natural stairways from ledge to ledge. A raven flew over and cawed twice. Something rustled in the underbrush. There was a rotten smell—a dead animal or spoiled food. Claire climbed to the top of the overhang, felt the warmth of the sun, heard the sound of flies buzzing, and came across a body lying on top of the slickrock. It was grotesquely swollen, smashed and bloody as if it had fallen from a great height.

“Oh, God!” she cried. This bloody mess couldn't be Tim—yet the head, skewed sideways by the fall, had his reddish-brown ponytail. How do flies find destruction so quickly? she thought absurdly as she knelt to feel for a pulse. There was none. “Tim,” she whispered, and then she began to yell for Curt, screaming until her throat was raw. She heard some sort of response, but she couldn't tell who or what it was or if it was an echo. The stench became unbearable. She poured some water on her bandanna and pressed it to her face. Footsteps pounded the slickrock, and Curt was beside her, red-faced and struggling to catch his breath.

“He must have fallen from a ledge,” he said. “Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

“I'll radio the ranger station for help.”

While Curt got on his radio, Claire mentally compared the pattern on the soles of Tim's running shoes to the footprints she'd seen and found a match. She looked up toward the canyon rim where a vulture had become a warning in the sky. It would have been easy enough for Tim to have fallen while climbing up to the cave or coming back down. Why hadn't he waited for them? When had he fallen?

He had landed on his back, with his backpack beneath him. If there were any clues to be found in the backpack, they were inaccessible. His green eyes were wide open, frozen in a fixed and terrifying stare. She wished there were some way of knowing what images were recorded on the retina, what last sights Tim had seen.

“The BLM will send a helicopter to take the body out,” Curt said.

“How
long will that take?”

“An hour. It's stopping to pick up Ellen Frank and Ray Vigil at the ranger station.”

The thought of sitting here for an hour with Tim's blank, staring eyes was deeply disturbing. “Would you mind if I closed his eyes?” she asked Curt.

“Go ahead,” Curt replied. “I'll spread out his tent to make it easier for the helicopter to find us.”

He walked away, leaving Claire alone with Tim. Curt hadn't said so, but she knew someone needed to stay with the body. Another vulture had joined the first in a leisurely gyre. Claire found it easier to look at Tim once his eyes were closed.

Now that the initial shock was over, the tragedy of his death was beginning to sink in. Tim had a passion for life and for his work and a promising future. This would be a terrible loss for the family and friends who knew him well and loved him. Claire's heart went out to them, especially his mother. Claire herself had a son who was close to Tim's age. The pain she would feel if she lost her own son was beyond comprehension. She made up her mind to track down Tim's mother and tell her what she knew of her son. She would tell her of finding Tim here, but there were things she wouldn't repeat—the flies, the vultures, the blood, the shattered limbs, the stench.

She had turned her back to the body and fallen into a slump, oppressed by thoughts of Tim and his family. Now she glanced up and saw that the vultures were moving into the canyon—perhaps thinking that she had died, too. She stood up, yelled, and flapped her arms, sending the vultures higher. While she was on her feet she could see that Curt had spread the tent over the boulders so it formed a blue rectangle in the middle of the canyon, easy to spot from the air. At least no time would be wasted searching for them.

She wondered what Curt would do with
A Blue-Eyed Boy,
whether it would be considered evidence, whether Tim's death would be treated as an accident or a crime. He had died very close to where his hero had disappeared. Was that merely a bitter irony or something more sinister? He could have met somebody here. The only footprints Claire saw in the sand appeared to be his, but there were other ways to get onto the ledges and into the canyon. There was the white van in the parking lot. And there was Curt, who had been coming out of the canyon as Claire arrived, who was nowhere in sight when she found the body. She thought back to her conversation with Tim. As she recalled, he hadn't told her exactly when he was meeting Curt.

When she stood up, the flies had backed off, but now that she had settled into thought again, they resumed their buzzing. She thought it seemed to be getting louder, but then she realized the buzzing was blending into the sound of the helicopter. She looked up, saw the chopper come over the far canyon rim and cross to this side. The helicopter sound stopped, and Claire assumed it had landed somewhere on the rim, although she couldn't see it.

Curt
climbed back onto the overhang, wiping his face with his bandanna. “The rangers will hike down,” he said. “The helicopter is going to lower a sling and the rangers will load Tim's body onto it. The helicopter can pull you out, or you can climb up to the mesa with me and get a ride back.”

The thought of dangling from a rope in the confines of Sin Nombre Canyon didn't appeal to Claire. “I'll climb,” she said.

“It's five hundred feet.”

“I can handle it.”

The rangers began descending the canyon wall. To Claire they looked as quick and agile as mountain goats leaping from ledge to ledge. When they reached the bottom, they shook Curt's hand and introduced themselves to Claire as Ellen Frank and Ray Vigil. Ellen remembered that Claire had called the ranger station after Tim turned in the journal. She was a medium-sized, deeply tanned woman with a stocky build. Her hair was brown and chopped off just below her chin. Her agility led Claire to place her age at forty or less, although her skin showed the wrinkles of an older woman. Ray Vigil was about the same height. His dark hair was cut in bangs that formed a fringe beneath his ranger hat. Claire's impression was that he was a few years younger than Ellen. That impression was reinforced when Ellen took charge, bending to examine Tim's body.

“It looks like he fell from a ledge. High up, I'd say.”

“Could he have fallen yesterday or last night?” Claire asked.

“I doubt it,” Ellen said. “There are predators in the canyons who would have found their way to a body in the night. The medical examiner will do an autopsy and give us an approximate time of death.”

“Did it rain last night?”

“No. It hasn't rained here for several days.”

“When you climbed down did you see any sign that anyone else had been here?”

“No,” Ray said.

“We'll examine the canyon thoroughly before we leave,” Ellen said. “This is the student who found Jonathan Vail's journal, correct?”

“Right,” answered Claire.

“Do you know where exactly?”

“A cave just to the west of the half-moon petroglyph,” Curt said.

“We may not be able to get there until tomorrow. Would you take a look on your way out?” Ellen asked Curt, making it clear that she was in charge of this investigation and causing Claire to wonder if she intended to take charge of the thirty-year-old investigation as well. At this point, Claire hoped she would.

“Will do,” said Curt in a noncommittal tone.

“Any questions?” Ellen asked him.

“No,”
he answered, once again showing a noticeable lack of curiosity for an investigator.

“Are you comfortable with hiking out?” Ellen asked Claire.

“Yes,” Claire said.

“I'd like to talk to you before you return to Albuquerque. No telling when we'll get done here. Could you meet me at the ranger station tomorrow morning? Say nine o'clock?”

“I'll be there.”

“Let's get going,” Ellen said, turning to Ray Vigil and dismissing Curt and Claire.

Ray got on his radio and spoke to the helicopter pilot. Curt hoisted his pack and started to climb. Claire followed. “Less than a year left,” she wanted to commiserate with him. They had been through a harrowing experience together and she felt a bond, but Curt's stiff back seemed impervious to insult, indifferent to kindness. Some people believed that hiking down was harder than hiking up because of the strain that braking put on the knee muscles. Hiking up was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other slow enough that one didn't run out of breath.

Claire heard the helicopter and stopped to watch it lower the sling down to the rangers. Curt didn't even turn around. He just kept on hiking. Once the body was carried out, Claire would be relieved, knowing that Tim would eventually be returned to his mother. She resumed hiking slowly, searching the rocks for anything that might explain Tim's death. The climbing was slow, but it wasn't treacherous. The ledges were wide and flat, and there were natural steps between them.

Eventually Curt stopped to drink from his water bottle and waited for her to catch up. Claire drank from her own bottle, careful not to look back down into the canyon. By now they were nearing the rim. The drop was close to five hundred feet and precipitous. When they reached the petroglyph, she saw that it was, indeed, a half-moon. She couldn't remember ever seeing a half-moon petroglyph before, but this one appeared old enough to be authentic. She imagined the hands that placed it on the wall several hundred years ago. From here the going got more difficult. The rock slide between the petroglyph and the cave had the potential to roll and slip underfoot. It would be a lethal place to lose one's balance.

“I'd say this is where Sansevera got into trouble,” Curt said. “It's a straight trajectory from this spot to where he landed. He never should have come here alone.”