Dead mountain, p.3
Dead Mountain, page 3
Corrie felt herself color. “Yes, sir.”
“You say it’s not our case. Probably right. But we’re here now, and our reputation is in play—and there’s the possible desecration of a Native American burial site to be considered. That has a tendency to turn into a hot-button issue.” He paused. “So, Agent Swanson—do you have a recommendation on how to proceed?”
“I think we should interview the two students. I’m not sure I trust the sheriff’s department to handle that properly.”
He inclined his head in agreement.
Corrie asked, “How far are we from Isleta Pueblo land?”
“Six, maybe eight miles to the north.”
“So they’d be the NAGPRA-designated tribal custodian of these remains?”
Sharp nodded.
“We should be in touch with them right away. And we also need to get a trained archaeologist out here to document the site and confirm for the record that the bones are prehistoric.”
Another nod.
“I have a recommendation along those lines. Dr. Nora Kelly, Chief of Archaeology, Santa Fe Archaeological Institute. I’ve worked with her before.”
A beat. “She sounds pretty high-powered for a small job like this.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but I think it’s our call to make. When jurisdictional issues are unclear, we’re in charge.”
At this, Sharp’s sleepy face broke into a smile. “Carry on.”
4
WHAT SHOULD I do with these?” Bob Rotherhithe asked, pointing to the two framed Salvador Dalí reproductions that, until five minutes ago, had graced the wall of Nora Kelly’s new office. While Nora had no objection to Dalí, she wondered why Connor Digby had felt pictures of melting clocks would be appropriate for the office of a curator of Southwestern archaeology—especially when there were so many more appropriate decorations close at hand.
“Ask Connor if he wants them,” she said. “If not, donate them to Goodwill.”
“Yes, Dr. Kelly.”
She had tried many times to get Rotherhithe to call her Nora, but he politely refused. So, given her strong streak of egalitarianism, that meant her calling him Mr. Rotherhithe instead of Bob, like everyone else did.
Her new office was modestly sized, but utterly charming: hand-plastered adobe walls, a kiva fireplace, hand-adzed lintels, and a ceiling of vigas and latillas. Dr. Marcelle Weingrau, the president of the Institute, had offered her a much bigger office in the front of the main campus building. It was impressive, with a wall of windows looking out over a courtyard with a rose garden and fountain. But Nora had opted for something smaller, quieter, and harder to find.
As part of the Institute’s open collections policy—items were arranged in storage to be seen by visitors, rather than tucked away in darkness—curators were encouraged to display items in their offices for public viewing. Nora had taken advantage of this philosophy by selecting a beautiful Acoma olla, a painted water jug dating back to the 1910s, for placement in a niche near the fireplace, beside a Navajo eye-dazzler rug. For the opposite wall, she had selected two 1930s paintings by the Taos artist Albert Looking Elk. They would replace the two Dalís. Otherwise, the office would be spare and minimalist: Nora did not like clutter.
Rotherhithe began hanging the two Looking Elk paintings, while Nora advised him on placement.
Next came the rug. This was more involved. She watched as Rotherhithe measured out the wall, made marks, drilled two holes, and affixed a hanging bar, which slipped through a sleeve in the rug.
“Will that be all, Dr. Kelly?” he asked when he’d finished.
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Rotherhithe.”
He left and she settled back in the old, creaky leather chair, took a deep breath, and enjoyed the moment of peace and quiet. She thought how grateful she was to be working at the Institute, in such a beautifully appointed space. The eye-dazzler rug was spectacular, and she knew she’d never tire of looking at it. It was November and the field season was over, but she’d already started formulating plans for next year. Big plans, financed by the new field school endowment set up by Lucas Tappan. Next season’s expedition would involve one of the most enigmatic locations in the Southwest. North of Abiquiu, in the Jemez Mountains, lay a spectacular Ancestral Pueblo ruin called Tsi-p’in-owinge, dating back to the 1300s. She had first hiked to Tsi-p’in as a child, when her father had taken her and Skip to see it. He had loved taking his two children around to remote ruins in New Mexico, far off the tourist trail. Tsi-p’in was one of the most impressive. It was built on a high mesa, surrounded by cliffs, with only a single point of access. Constructed of carved stone blocks, it had once risen four stories and contained at least two thousand rooms, with additional scores of cave dwellings hollowed into the cliffs below. There were thirteen kivas, in addition to one great kiva, carved into the stone bedrock of the mesa. The ruin had never been excavated, and only one survey had been done—and that one was inadequate, poorly conducted, and half a century old. Because it was so remote and inaccessible except by a difficult switchback trail on a steep mountain face, Tsi-p’in had been largely ignored by archaeologists.
The lone path to the citadel lay along a narrow ridge, across which the inhabitants had built no less than three massive stone walls with arrow ports, creating a maze-like pathway that invaders would have to thread even before reaching the massive outer walls of the city. In its day, Tsi-p’in was a most powerful and populous fortress. But there were many unsolved questions about it. First, why was the city built like a stronghold when there was no record of violence or warfare during the 1300s? What were they so afraid of that they built their city far, far above their irrigated fields, requiring difficult daily climbs to access? Were they under threat—or were they themselves the threat to everyone else in the region? Adding to the mystery, the city had been abruptly abandoned around 1475. It seemed all the citizens had just walked away, leaving everything behind. No lasting theory for this had ever been put forward.
Tsi-p’in-owinge was a place of many mysteries, Nora thought, and a meticulous, well-financed survey of the ruin—done without excavating or disturbing the site—would shed a great deal of light. The survey she’d proposed had already been permitted and provisionally staffed, and it would begin in late May, as soon as the mountains cleared of snow. Such expeditions were what she loved most about archaeology—getting out into the wild, away from cell phones and the internet, living in a tent and spending each day uncovering more of the past in all its complexity and fascination.
“Knock-knock?”
Nora’s reverie was interrupted by a head poking around the door, covered by a mop of hair and a cowlick. “Hey, Sis.”
It was her brother, Skip. He had recently taken a position at the Institute as a collections manager. Or rather, retaken the position, after a stint working for Tappan on a special project.
“Come to see my new office?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He eased in. “Cute. Cozy.” Without asking, he took a seat in the chair opposite her desk, leaned back, and put his feet up. “I could get used to this.”
“Off, Brother.”
He dropped his feet. “Has Lucas seen it yet?”
“No. He’s in Massachusetts, dealing with the Marblehead kelp-huggers.”
“Kelp-huggers?”
“You know, the environmentalists who want to break our addiction to fossil fuels—”
“What’s wrong with that?” Skip interrupted.
“Nothing’s wrong with that. Just the opposite. Except now that clean energy is being proposed offshore, where they’ll see it, they’re going all NIMBY.” Tappan was trying to build a windfarm in the Atlantic, fifteen miles from Marblehead and its million-dollar seaside homes, and it was not getting off to a good start.
Skip laughed. “Kelp-huggers. That’s a good one. When’s he coming back?”
“A couple of weeks, I hope. But you never know—he’s got one hearing after another, and those people can talk.”
“Yeah, well, Tappan’s a pretty good talker himself.” Skip placed his hands on the arms of the chair and rose. “Got to get back to work, but I just wanted to check out the new digs. See you for supper.”
The door closed and silence descended once more. Nora rested another moment, then roused herself: she had to get back to work as well. She went to the filing cabinet that had just been moved in from her old office, opened the drawer labeled “Tsi-p’in-owinge,” and removed a rolled-up piece of paper. She flattened it on her desk and examined it. It was a rough map she’d made herself of a curious site on a mesa next to the ruins. It was a circle of stones, around what were four taller standing stones, since toppled, that she believed might have been designed to mark the solstices. She’d taken compass readings and measurements, and now she was trying to determine whether the tall stones, if raised again, might prove her theory true.
Her phone rang. She was tempted to ignore it, but then she glanced over and saw it was Corrie Swanson, calling on her office phone.
“Corrie, how are you?”
“Good! All good! And you?”
She sounded just a little too chipper. “Just settling into my new office. Come by sometime and take a look.”
“I will. Sooner than you think, perhaps.” Her voice trailed off.
Nora sighed. “I notice you’re calling from your FBI number, so you might as well cut to the chase.”
Corrie laughed. “Okay. Two prehistoric burials in a cave in the Manzano Mountains. Vandalized. We need a quick survey to assess the damage and report to Isleta Pueblo, the NAGPRA custodians. You won’t need to excavate the burials, just do a quick survey. It’s a day’s work—promise.”
Nora smiled despite herself. A day’s work—Corrie’s favorite line. It was what she’d said last year, when she discovered a seventy-five-year-old mummified body in a ghost town. A day’s work that ended up taking weeks and almost got them killed.
“Vandalized how?”
“A couple of drunk frat boys were joyriding in the mountains yesterday evening, crashed their car, then took refuge in a cave where there were human remains and some petroglyphs. And naturally trashed the place.”
Nora thought a moment. “I’ve got a terrific field archaeologist, someone who just joined the department, PhD from UNM. His name is Stan Morrison. Lot of energy and smarts. He’d be perfect for this.”
This offer was greeted with a silence. After a moment, Corrie said, “What about you?”
Subtlety was not one of Corrie Swanson’s strong points. “Stan could really use the experience.”
“Well,” said Corrie, “here’s my situation. I’ve got a new mentor who’s replaced Agent Morwood.” There was a brief silence. “The thing is, I want to bring in a top person to make a good impression—and that person would be you.”
Nora understood immediately. A day’s work—she could spare the time to help out a friend. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you, Nora! By all means bring Stan, too. I’m emailing you a bunch of photos now.”
Her computer started dinging as the photos came in: Corrie must have had them all lined up and ready to go. Nora began scrolling through them as Corrie described the site and its location.
“Hold it,” Nora said. A photograph showing the broken rim of a pot was now on her screen, and she increased the magnification. “That broken pot—did you uncover more of it?”
“No. Those photos show the site as we left it. Why?”
“I think that’s a golden micaceous pot.”
“Is that important?”
“Golden micaceous pottery happens to be one of my specialties, and it’s never been found in this area—only in Utah. It’s made of clay with countless tiny pieces of mica in it that are unaffected by the firing process and give it a golden sheen. When do you want me to come out?”
“Um, tomorrow morning? We can’t sign off on the evidence gathering until you do your thing, so the sooner the better.”
“Tomorrow is no problem. How shall we meet?”
“Come by the Albuquerque Field Office at nine, and we’ll go from there.”
“Will do.”
Nora hung up the phone. Golden micaceous pottery, found so far south of its usual range? This could get interesting, she thought.
5
CORRIE LOOKED DOWN at the two ID sheets in front of her, then up at the two young men awkwardly taking seats opposite her and Agent Sharp at the metal table bolted into the floor. They were inside one of the interview rooms at the Albuquerque FO, a spare cinderblock cell painted gray. The ID sheets had been put together in haste and neither had pictures.
“Brandon Purdue and Michael Kottke?” Corrie asked. “Which is which?”
“Brandon,” said one of the young men, raising his finger.
“Kottke,” said the other.
“I’m Special Agent Swanson, and this is Special Agent Sharp.”
The pair fidgeted in their seats, looking nervous.
She took a moment to appraise the two. Even though they had obviously showered and changed their clothes, and it was three in the afternoon, they still looked brutally hungover. Brandon had light brown hair cut short, thin lips, barely of shaving age—a follower for sure. Mike was the alpha male here: black curly hair, beefy, with bloodshot eyes and no doubt a pounding headache to accompany them. According to the ID sheets they were both nineteen. They looked scared—as well they should be. Prior to the introduction, Corrie had been undecided as to what tack to take—sympathetic and understanding, or hard-ass scary bitch. But as she looked at them, she realized they were intimidated enough and pushing things might cause them to shut down, lawyer up, or—worse—get their parents in. It was still too early to know if they’d committed a serious crime or not. Much would depend on Nora’s examination of the burials—if they’d been deliberately vandalized and dug up, or accidentally disturbed.
She glanced at Sharp. He looked sleepy as ever, his eyes half-lidded.
“All right, gentlemen,” she said. “We’re recording this interview. Do you understand you’re here voluntarily to answer questions, and that you’ve waived the right to an attorney?”
They agreed.
“We’re just gathering information at this point.”
“Right,” said Kottke. “We’re okay. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
Corrie nodded. “So what happened? Start with the road accident.”
Kottke looked at Purdue. “Well, we were driving around the national forest, and I guess we took a wrong turn.”
“Were you drinking?”
A silence. “No.”
A lie, but Corrie let it go.
“So anyway, we took a wrong turn and skidded off the road into a ditch. There was no cell reception up there and it was after sunset, so we decided to look for shelter.”
“And how did you find the cave?”
“It was totally by accident. When it started to snow, we went downhill looking for an overhanging rock or someplace. We came to a ravine, saw the cave, climbed up, lit a fire.”
“And then you began drinking?”
“We had some rum to help warm us up.”
“Marijuana?”
“It’s not illegal. I’ve got a medical card.”
“Please just answer the question. We’re not going to charge you with possession. Were you both smoking marijuana?”
“Yeah.”
“What else did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Corrie turned to Purdue. “Is this also your recollection?”
“Yes.”
“How did the petroglyphs in the back of the cave come to be damaged?”
The two young men looked at each other. “No idea,” said Kottke.
“Did you throw rocks at them?”
“I don’t remember.”
Corrie let a beat pass while they did some more fidgeting. Then she said, “I told you we’re not going to charge you with possession. But keep in mind, it’s a felony to lie to the FBI. That includes claiming you don’t remember something when in fact you do. Now: Would you care to strain a little harder to remember?”
They stared back with pale, frightened faces. If it hadn’t been for the damage she’d seen in the cave, she might have felt sorry for them.
“Maybe we did throw some rocks,” Kottke said. “We got pretty messed up by the end of the night.”
“Did you trigger a cave-in?”
“No cave-in, not at all, it was . . . just some rocks that fell from the ceiling.”
Corrie paused briefly. “You found the cave, got drunk, got stoned, then began throwing rocks at the petroglyphs.”
“I guess,” said Purdue. “But I didn’t know they were anything important—I just thought they were graffiti someone had left in the cave.”
“How far back into the cave did you go?”
“Not beyond that point where the rocks fell. It didn’t look safe.”
“How did you discover the burial?”
At this question, both young men grimaced involuntarily.
“That was Brandon,” said Kottke. “I was sleeping.”
She turned. “Brandon?”
“I was trying to go to sleep and this thing was poking me in the back. I looked, and it was the skull.”
“And then?”
“I freaked out. I moved to the side of the cave and . . . well, I guess I must have passed out. Next thing it was morning.”
“So you didn’t try to dig it up?”
“No. No, I didn’t. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”
“And your friend? He didn’t disturb it?”
“He was passed out, too.”
“Was he the one who vomited?”
Brandon looked at his friend. “Yeah.”
Corrie nodded. She was glad it was going to be up to the sheriff whether to charge these kids. She believed what they said about not intentionally disturbing the burial, which would have been a class C felony. Vandalizing the petroglyphs—she wasn’t sure what the statute on that was. It probably fell under ARPA, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.
