Uncertain Justice

He began the trek at sunrise so he could travel a fair distance before the heat of the day made walking a chore instead of an adventure. The afternoons were uncomfortably warm, even at this altitude, though nowhere near as hot as the southern Texas heat of his youth.

Wading across the river in his bare feet, its frigid fingers clawed deep into his groin as it always did. There was apparently an inexhaustible source of icy water because the flow didn't decline as summer advanced. When he got to the other side, he dried his feet and put his boots back on. He walked north, striding along at a comfortable gait.

The leg badly bruised in the fight with the grizzly seemed fine and he walked a good five or six miles, scrambling along the broken shoreline, before it tired ... but then, his other leg was fatigued also. A rest for a belated breakfast let his body recover and he put aside worries about the injury for good.

Here north of the eastern ridge, the river narrowed, running faster and deeper through a series of whitewater rapids where the water boiled and leapt high between the confining banks. A low roar emanated from somewhere in the distance. He wondered if the river dropped over a set of falls or whether more rapids lay downstream.

Abruptly, the river widened again. The current slowed ... but it seemed to have a hidden power now ... a repressed aggression. Miles sensed an impatient urgency in the reduced flow. Something yearned for release. The muted roar was still there, joined now by a faint trembling in the earth.

Ahead, he saw a series of boulders neatly placed side by side across the entire stream. When he came abreast of them, he saw they were in a perfect row extending from bank to bank. He studied them carefully.

The bridge ... for that was what it had to be ... was not natural. Nature doesn't have straight lines. The rocks had been set there for the specific purpose of allowing easy travel from one side of the river to the other.

He thought first of Zeb, but the mountain man had been alone and no one person, even with the three horses he referred to in his journal, could have hauled those big boulders to the river and worked them into such neat alignment. Four had obviously been shaped with tools to make the tops reasonably level. The gaps between the boulders were only a few feet wide--narrow enough for comfortable steps from one to another but there was plenty of space between them to allow a free flow of water. No, Zeb hadn't done this.

Following the line of stepping-stones across the stream with his eyes, Miles saw a well-defined trail beginning at the water's edge and zigzagging sharply up the rocky ridge for fifty feet or more. High above the river, the path ceased climbing and traveled horizontally a short distance below the crest of the bluff. It went around a bulge in the terrain and disappeared to the north and east, following the dips and contours of the ridge that loomed over the river on that side.

The scree on the lower reaches of the mountain that formed the eastern boundary to his valley came right to the water's edge downstream on this side of the river. Probably the talus slope covered the channel where the water had once run because the river made a radical change of direction here. It detoured north for a quarter of a mile around the rock fall before coming back south and then off to the east again. The tangled mass of large and small boulders on this side offered no hope of progress. If he wanted to go on, it would have to be across the river.

Miles scrutinized the rim high above, imagining it crumbling and sweeping down in a massive fall, exposing the granite heart of the mountain and piling up smashed stone, trees, and soil below. It had happened before; some angry god had dumped an immense load of crushed stone here in an ancient cataclysm.

§

Huge boulders fell from the sacred mountain, slamming down on the field nearby. Untold millions of tons of rock and earth crushed everything beneath a gigantic rock fall. Terrible concussions knocked him off his feet. Smaller stones and razor-sharp fragments thrown to great heights began to rain down and bombard his prone body while he choked on clouds of thick dust. He screamed as falling splinters of stone, sharp as the finest flint arrow points, cut open his back. Staggering to his feet he tried to run but his legs had no strength--they gave way beneath him.

The landslide flowed downhill and covered the terraced farms of maize and beans. The seemingly fluid earth chased him, surging ever closer to where he staggered across the bucking ground. The river crossing leading to the safety of the city was almost in sight and he struggled to run faster. He had to be there before the guards pulled the heavy, rough-hewn planks from the supporting boulders. They were there to remove the bridging in case of an attack and they would interpret all the noise and confusion as just that. An instant before the implacable swell caught him, he screamed again, his voice unheard in the hurricane of displaced air.

§

Miles blinked and shook himself, recoiling from the power in the vision of the massive avalanche of dirt and rock. He contemplated the river crossing. The choice was easy--cross over and continue exploring or turn back. But it was too early to go back. He'd planned a full day's trek and he didn't want to go home yet. Something pulled at him to cross the stream and walk the trail along the far ridge.

He checked the holster to make sure the pistol couldn't fall out, tightened the lashings on his fanny pack and canteen so they wouldn't slip, and stepped out on the first stone. It was getting hot; the birds and insects were quiet in whatever shelter they'd found from the sun's rays. The low rumble--it still sounded like water falling some distance away--was the only disturbance.

It was an easy crossing but, by the time he was halfway across, he was thoroughly irritated. The boulders were just too far apart for him to walk comfortably from one to another. He wound up getting a running start on each one to jump across the opening to the next.

Two thirds of the way across the stream, he found rotted remains of timbers that would have spanned the gaps when they were whole. There was no sign they'd been secured to the rock though. Apparently, they had been laid across the stones as a temporary bridge and no one had ever bothered to make it anything more substantial.

Once on the opposite shore, he paused to swallow as much water as he could and then refilled the big canteen. No telling when, or if, the path above would come back to the water's edge. He pressed on.

The trail was old and, judging by the depth of windblown dust, it hadn't been used in a long time. When it had been in use though, there had been heavy traffic on it. Generations of feet had worn away softer rock in places until the path was a narrow passage eighteen inches or more below the surface of the surrounding stone. He tried to imagine how many people it would take, over how many centuries, to wear the rock away like that.

At times, the track wound its way between rock formations rising high on either side. There were drawings of strange enigmatic figures painted on the stone's vertical faces. Later he found similar pictographs cut into the living rock. Once the trail passed between two tall boulders squared off to make precise rectangles of their bases. Tool marks showed they had been deliberately carved into forbidding obelisks.

There were so many painted and carved images there was little of the rock left uncovered. Spirals were a popular theme. They were prominently displayed everywhere--round, square, oblong and rectangular spirals of all sizes abounded ... the openings placed randomly on the outermost line. Some of them seemed to have eyes in the middle ... others did not.

He wondered what all the pictographs meant. Were they religious symbols? Could they be drawings of space visitors from eons past? Dire warnings of fate or the ancient equivalent of "Kilroy was here?" Were they modern art for that ancient time or advertisements for the best shopping along the way? There was no way to know.

Rounding a bend, his eyes were on the cliff wall to his left. It was covered with strange figures and designs from its base as far up the side as he could see. Some of the highest must have been painted by people standing on ledges barely wide enough for a toehold. A gust of cool air swept around the corner and made him grab for his hat. His eyes dropped from the massive decorated wall and flicked to his right front.

Shock held him motionless. The river had gouged a hollow a few yards deep in the rock where Miles had found old Zeb's rock house. Here, eons of running water had carved a mammoth cavern in the rock easily a half a mile long and two hundred yards or more in depth. The water had receded over the millennia leaving the cavern twenty-five or thirty feet above the water ... closer to the stream's level than Zeb's ledge, but still well above the river.

Scattered over the smooth, undulating floor were houses shaped as squares and rectangles. Some of them were two and three stories high but many had only one level. Most crowded close together but others stood far from their neighbors. At the front of the cavern, on both sides, were slender, windowless towers six or seven stories high. Their tops were still far short of the rock ceiling. Some walls had bits missing ... rubble at their feet showed where the fragments had fallen ... but most of the buildings were in immaculate condition. It was beautiful.

He had visited the big Anasazi ruin at Mesa Verde National Park years before and been transfixed by the well preserved ruins of the ancient people. The chamber in the rock at Mesa Verde was huge, but Cliff Palace there was only three hundred feet long. The ruins in front of him dwarfed that site by several orders of magnitude. Cliff Palace would have fit in a corner of this place.

Miles edged forward, his boots crunching through sand and pebbles. He kicked something hidden in the dust. The object tumbled down a series of wide, short steps obviously carved into the water-smoothed rock. Its passage was marked by loud, jarring metallic clangs that broke the cathedral-like silence.

Almost tiptoeing down the steps to where it fell, Miles dropped to his haunches to examine the object. It was an old knife. The blade had been ground nearly all the way through by long service and repeated sharpening. The haft was gone, rotted away probably, leaving only a long metal tang. It had seen hard use in its day but had resisted pitting and rusting. Not a tool of the ancient ones, he thought, more likely something Zeb or another explorer had lost. He let the relic lay where it was, feeling apologetic for having disturbed it.

He continued along the floor of the cavern, climbing short stretches of stairs carved into the living rock where the water-polished surface heaved upward, descending other flights where the surface dropped. He brushed fingertips against building walls whose stones were so tightly fitted with others a piece of paper could not have been slipped between them. Beside the taller buildings lay rough wooden ladders waiting for the next climber to put a foot on the first rung. Others stood silent vigil beside the towers at each end of the giant hollow.

At the far end of the cavern, he stopped at the lip. A hundred yards east of the city, the bluff to the north joined with the slope of the mountain to the south in a sheer rock face that towered hundreds of feet above him. At the base of the cliff, the river disappeared into the earth ... swallowed whole in the mouth of a mammoth cave that led downward into the bowels of the earth. Spray jumped from rocks only to fall again to the water's surface. The river slid into the cave as if something sucked the water toward the center of the earth.

There was a narrow trail, clearly marked and free of dirt and debris, leading down from the city into the cave along the river. Something about it repelled him even as he made his way down and he stopped just inside the cold walls of the dank cave.

Slimy with water and algae, the path led further down. The gloomy atmosphere made him shudder, filling him with a dread he could not rationally explain. A rainbow shimmered briefly in the mist thrown high by the water's turbulence. It disappeared as Miles retraced his route and made his way to the center of the ancient city.

There he found the remains of a huge circular room carved into the floor. Part of the wooden roof had caved in at the rear, but most of it was still intact. He peeked in where the top was open but could see nothing in the darkness. He hadn't expected to need a flashlight--did the batteries even still have a charge? He couldn't remember. There was nothing handy he could use for a torch ... even if he'd had a ladder he could trust to get down into the thing.

A rumbling in his stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten since early morning. He retreated from the subterranean room and sat with his back against another building whose strength he tested carefully. The holstered pistol's hammer stuck him in the side and he unfastened the belt to place it on the floor of the cavern close to hand. Scrutinizing his surroundings curiously, he pulled jerky, some wild onions, and berries from his fanny pack for lunch.

Finished, he stretched his legs out in front of him, testing their strength after the long hike. Satisfied they were holding up well, he was still. In the warm sun, his body slipped lower until his head was pillowed against the wall. Gradually, he fell asleep. His right hand dropped from his thigh to the bare stone.

§

He dreamed. Some of the dream he remembered when he woke but other parts drifted away before he could comprehend. A great panoramic dream it was though. Nothing, it seemed, was too mundane or too magnificent for inclusion. It came jumbled all together. Surely, he thought hazily, it was based on what he'd read in old Zeb's journal. His body jerked fitfully as he dozed.

He watched as young Zeb bade farewell to his parents and a younger sister standing in front of the cabin with its many added rooms his grandfather and father had hacked from a Kentucky wilderness. His legs and back ached in sympathy with Zeb's until an Indian guide taught him the mile-eating walking gait of the plains tribes. There was the smell of stale sweat in his nostrils from long days on dusty trails with no water to spare for washing. Zeb was soon earning a living packing mules and keeping camp for Company men seeking beaver pelts in the great unknown mountains across the vast prairie.

He felt Zeb's disapproval when he learned Jim Bridger and a companion deserted a fellow trapper who had been horribly wounded in an encounter with a grizzly. He shared Zeb's disbelief when the wounded man recovered and hunted down those who had left him behind to die ... only to forgive them the treachery.

Bridger had been only a teenager at the time. Perhaps that was the reason the deep insult had been forgiven. Zeb grew into a tough, seasoned mountain man, honored and respected by those who knew him.

In his dream, Miles rode with Zeb across hundreds of miles across grasslands that seemed to have no end. He gazed at mountain vistas never seen before by Europeans and traveled through high passes on paths known only to Indians who were themselves following game trails worn into the earth by countless generations of wild deer and bear. He thirsted with Zeb as he plodded through dusty high deserts, wondering if they would find the next water hole in time to save their lives.

He saw savage hand-to-hand fights between competing tribes, their faces painted in ferocious patterns and twisted with hate. The bile rose in his throat as he watched a Lakota warrior rip mouthfuls of flesh from the body of a dead foe with his teeth. He watched with horror as a dog soldier cut away the scalp of a lifeless Arrickaree as proof he had killed an enemy. Nausea overcame them as they watched a second warrior hacked off the right hand of the fallen fighter ... a third cut off the left.

He hid in a thicket near a village, sharing Zeb's disgust as Crow warriors lounged in the shade while their wives and daughters slaved away at all the needful tasks in the camp. He knew these warriors employed themselves only in hunting and making war on their neighbors. He grieved when they came across an old Indian woman abandoned to die in the snow when she grew too feeble to work.

Miles took Zeb's anguish as his own when he rode with the mountain man through a fort maintained by a 'Captain Suitor', a man Zeb didn't know personally. They watched as a meal was slopped into troughs for hundreds of Indians held there in abject misery and slavery. He was sickened as he heard of a group of white men who invaded a friendly camp of Indians to provoke a fight--their only goal to kill someone this night. He raged when he heard of drunken whites stealing into nearby Indian camps to kidnap and rape young Indian girls. He smiled with Zeb as mountain men spent their entire season's catch of furs on gifts for their Indian wives.

He cried as whole tribes were wiped out by diseases they couldn't fathom and grieved at the sight of entire wagon trains of immigrants dead from the same cholera and pox. He felt Zeb's contempt at the squalor of the miner's camp and his admiration of the neat appearance of the Saukie's small farms.

He rode with Zeb as the old mountain man grew disgusted with men and all things civilized. He and Zeb mounted strong horses and made their way deep into the mountains. They weren't going anywhere in particular, just getting away from folks. He marveled with Zeb at the beauty of the little valley the first time Zeb saw it and he helped him build a strong home using stones fallen from an old ruin that had once stood on the site.

He met the People, as they called themselves ... short, dark-skinned men and women who lived in the city where he lay. Never very numerous, they fled the violence and cannibalism imported from the great civilization far to the south.

The People wandered north, away from the danger, eventually finding the little valley with the sparkling stream that never ran dry. It was as near paradise as they could imagine.

He wandered the city streets with the old man who spoke for the village. Not a chieftain--they had none--he was an elder who enjoyed the respect and support of many of the village and whose wisdom had been proven through the years. They walked the paths worn between the buildings of the old city. He watched as the walls were covered with an off-white ... almost a pale yellow ... plaster in his dream, making the city gleam brilliantly in the sun. Miles thought he saw a man in buckskins and a round hat of some kind duck into a room further along the ledge. A young woman of the ancient ones followed him in but paused to give Miles a quick smile before she disappeared.

The old one--he'd lived nearly fifty years when the average lifespan was only thirty--led him down a path from the largest of the kivas to a vantage point inside the cave where the stream disappeared underground. At the end of the path, Miles edged out onto a wide outcrop of stone that hung over the falling water and stood, mesmerized as enormous volumes of water plunged down into the darkness of the deep cave. As he watched, he saw many things.

He saw a sober young boy who stayed on the sidelines; he was never asked to join in the neighborhood children's games. He spent too much time reading alone in his room. The youth, friendless in his fourth school in six years, stood alone in the hallway and pretended not to notice other boys and girls walking by.