Archaeology 701
by Swellison

(An Official Rainier University Month Story)

"Man, I can't believe it!" Blair Sandburg's restless hand pushed through his long curls, "How'd you finagle Simon into giving you tomorrow off, and the whole three-day weekend to boot? I thought cops were extra busy on Labor Day Weekend."

"That's the Traffic Squad, not Major Crimes," Jim Ellison observed from the driver's seat of his blue Expedition. "I'm reaching the 'use it or lose it' time limit for five rollover vacation days, and I told Simon either I got a long weekend over Labor Day, or I'd have to take all of the second week of September off. We settled on the long weekend. Simon told me to stay away from monasteries this time, tho'."

"Jim, you liked St. Sebastian's, once you got used to it. Even though it did turn out to be a bit of a busman's holiday."

"I told Simon to relax; we're just going camping at Cascade National Park. Nowhere near a monastery." Jim grinned and turned the sport utility vehicle onto Prospect Ave. A few minutes later he parked along the curb outside his loft apartment. "Hope you're all packed, Sandburg. I want an early start Friday morning, so we can avoid the crowds."

"I hear you," Blair said, unbuckling his seatbelt.

"And I hear your phone ringing," Jim said, his extra-sharp hearing kicking in as he climbed out of the Expedition.

"Damn! I forgot to put the answering machine on!" Blair jumped out of the car and slammed the passenger door shut. He sprinted for the entrance door and disappeared inside. Jim chuckled and followed at a much more relaxed pace. Blair was still on the phone when Jim entered the loft, and the Sentinel turned his hearing down to avoid overhearing Blair's telephone conversation. Jim had already packed for their trip the night before, so he settled into the couch and picked up the newspaper.

Five minutes later, Blair emerged from his bedroom. He sighed, and Jim peered at him over the top of the paper. "What's the matter, Chief? Did you have to turn down a date with Kerry for the weekend?"

"No, Jim. That was Ted Braithwaite, a friend of mine from the University."

"And--?" Jim prompted as Blair fell unnaturally silent.

"Ted's a graduate fellow in archaeology, specializing in the Cliff Dwellers at Mesa Verde. He has a dig planned for this weekend, but Gail, his assistant, was involved in a traffic accident this morning. She's okay; she only has a mild concussion and a broken arm, but she can't go on the dig with Ted." Once Blair started talking, he couldn't seem to stop. "This dig is important to Ted; it took him months to clear it with the Park Service and this weekend is the last free time he has before fall classes start. He asked me to fill in for Gail." Blair's hands rose in appeal. "I owe him, big time. Ted covered for me about a half dozen times in the last two years, after Lash, and when we were protecting Angie Ferris, and the Brackley case--"

"I get the picture, Chief."

"So he's called in a favor and I can't go camping with you, Jim. I'm catching a plane to Colorado tomorrow, with Ted. I'm sorry, man."

Jim folded the newspaper. "Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed, but I understand. Ted's a friend of yours, and it's not in your nature to turn down a friend in need. What exactly do you do on a dig, anyway?"

"Well, a lot of digging and sifting through layers of dirt, looking for artifacts. Ted's got two different sites to excavate - but we'll spend the bulk of the time at the second site."

"Sounds a lot like camping, without the fish."

"There's a lot of work involved - tedious, monotonous, hard work."

"Now it sounds like a stakeout. I've been on stakeouts, Chief. Mind if I tag along?"

"Jim, are you sure you want to?"

"It's either that or hang out in the loft all weekend. I can't see asking Simon to switch my days off again, after I just got this weekend approved. You'll be gone, everyone else is working, and you know I hate going camping alone. Besides, you wouldn't want me working solo while you're in Colorado."

"That's definitely true. Okay, you can join us, if you really want to. Ted certainly won't object to another pair of hands. I'll call him." Blair turned around and headed down the corridor to his bedroom.

* * * * *

"--and you brought a sunblocker, didn't you, Jim?" Blair finished his checklist from the aisle seat on the Air West commuter prop plane. "Not just a lotion, something with an SP factor of at least 20. I know you can dial down your skin's sensitivity, but that doesn't mean that you won't get a sunburn, just that you're not feeling it."

"Yes, Mom," Jim teased from the window seat. They were right next to the propellers, but Jim had tuned them out at the start of the flight from Denver to Durango, using his recently acquired selective hearing skills. Blair had found a lengthy article on improving signal-to-noise ratios in a Journal of Geophysics, absorbed the information and applied it to Jim's Sentinel abilities. After two weeks of testing, Jim could selectively tune in and out any sound or combination of sounds that he wanted. Except Blair's voice. Towards the end of their sound tests, Jim had tried to tune out his Guide's voice, so that it completely disappeared - and he couldn't do it. He could reduce Blair's voice to the faintest whisper, but he couldn't erase it completely from his hearing. The raucous sounds of jet airplanes, explosions, offensive rock music, Jim could eliminate with one thought, but not the enthusiastic voice of his anthropologist roommate. If Blair Sandburg was talking and in the vicinity of Jim, the Sentinel heard him. With practice, he could make the words meaningless and give Blair privacy in his phone and personal conversations, but he always knew when Blair was talking. Like now.

"Hey, Chief," Jim interrupted, "you told me to pack light," he jerked his head upwards, indicating the two wilderness backpacks and bedrolls in the overhead compartment, "and bring a truckload of stuff. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"

"Oh, very funny, Jim. What are you, a sit-down comedian?" Jim smirked and Sandburg rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Jim, an archaeological dig is a highly formalized affair."

"You didn't tell me to pack my tux."

"Jim!" Blair lightly smacked his partner's s upper arm. "I said formalized, not formal. A dig has certain procedures that are rigorously observed, the most important being documentation. Which is why we've got both cameras and notepads..." And Blair was off and running, explaining at great depths the rules and regulations of digs and excavations. Sandburg had barely touched the surface of the area's geology when the plane landed at the Durango Airport.

They disembarked and bypassed the baggage claim area since they'd only had carry on luggage. Blair headed for the airport exit and Jim followed. Ted Braithwaite had taken an earlier flight to arrange for their transportation and essential supplies. Once outside, Blair scanned the parking area, then pointed to a silver Land Rover parallel parked in the pick up/drop off zone. "That's Ted." Blair walked towards the van, waving.

Jim noticed the top-of-the-line British sport utility vehicle had a tan leather interior and was certainly not the rented van he was expecting. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, yeah. Ted always travels in style. He probably borrowed one of his uncle's cars for the weekend."

As they approached, the driver got out of the vehicle. Jim studied the man; he was a few inches taller than Blair, but an inch shorter than Jim. His light blond hair and tan suggested he'd spent the summer out of doors. Like Jim and Blair, the man wore jeans and his rolled-up shirtsleeves accented well-toned biceps. Ted Braithwaite's jeans had Versace emblazoned on the back pocket and his shirt was made of the finest Egyptian cotton. Jim placed his age in the late twenties. He looks more like a cop than a professor, Jim thought.

"Hi, Ted. See you scrounged up some decent transportation for us," Blair greeted him. "Jim, I'd like you to meet Ted Braithwaite, a graduate fellow in archaeology at the University. Ted, this is Jim Ellison."

"Pleased to meet you, Ted," Jim shook hands with Ted, and he felt the archaeologist's cool green eyes giving him the once-over.

"Likewise." Ted glanced at Blair. "I thought you said you were bringing along a student?"

"No, I said I was bringing my roommate, and I did. Jim's not a student, he's a cop."

"Really?" Ted grinned and walked to the back of the Land Rover, opening its back door. Blair passed his large backpack and bedroll over to Ted, who placed the camping equipment in the trunk, next to another backpack and a tightly rolled sleeping bag. "Well, I've never been on a dig with Joe Friday before, should be interesting."

"I'm looking forward to it," Blair said, motioning Jim to add his backpack and bedroll to the pile.

As Jim stowed his gear, Ted spoke. "You two can flip for the suicide seat" -- at Jim's startled look, he explained, "sorry, the front passenger seat."

"I'll take the back," Jim volunteered, "Might even get a little catnap in before we get there."

"Don't go to sleep just yet, officer," Ted said. "We're stopping for lunch before we leave town. Last good food until Tuesday."

"Is that a crack about my cooking, Ted?" Blair asked.

"No, but we need to kill a few hours before arriving at the park, so the rangers can escort the tourists through the site. I figured we might as well get some hot food; it's only half an hour 'til noon."

"Sounds like a good idea to me, I'm starving," Jim said. "Peanuts and coffee is not my idea of breakfast."

"Then let's go." Ted said. Jim hopped into the backseat behind the front passenger seat. Blair closed the back door and he and Ted walked around the Land Rover and climbed into the front seats. Ted started the vehicle and drove away from the airport.

Twenty minutes later, they were comfortably ensconced in a booth at a 24-hour diner. As the waitress took their order, Blair spoke to Jim. "Don't order chicken, we're having it for dinner tonight."

"Oh? I thought we were having C-rations."

"No, we're having chicken tettrazini tonight, I've got the chicken packed in dry ice. The canned stuff doesn't start until tomorrow."

"Okay, then, I'll have the chicken -fried steak, please, miss," Jim ordered.

While they were eating, Ted explained the digging operations. "We're going to be digging at two different sites at the Wetherill Mesa. We'll descend at Long House and make our way to Kodak House, to the south."

"Kodak House?" Blair interrupted, "How'd you manage that?"

"It wasn't easy," Ted admitted. "But once I convinced my uncle, he persuaded the rest of the Park's board members and they okayed the dig."

"Kodak House was named by the original explorer, Baron Gustaf Nordenskiold," Blair explained to Jim, "when he and the Wetherill boys explored the dwellings in the early 1890's. It's where he kept his camera. The House was badly damaged by looters looking for salable artifacts in the late 1890's; they even razed some of the buildings. This was before Mesa Verde was made a national park in 1906."

Jim just nodded; he'd long ago learned that Blair was a walking encyclopedia of information on any given subject.

"Well, we're only spending a day at Kodak House, our main site is Mug House." Ted got back into the conversation.

"Mug House?" Blair's eyes widened in surprise. "Why? I would've thought Rohn's excavation was definitive."

"Don't tell me you've forgotten the first rule of archaeology, Blair." Ted's voice was almost scornful.

"Never excavate any site completely. Leave part of it untouched for future archaeologists with more advanced methods." Blair recited by rote.

"You'll agree with me that archaeology has advanced in the last 25 years, I trust?"

"Sure, Ted."

Jim Ellison took in the conversation around him as he quietly ate his chicken-fried steak. He enjoyed listening to his partner engage in verbal jousts with other intellectuals, but there were definite undercurrents in this dialogue between the two anthropologists. Ted Braithwaite was, in Jim's totally unbiased opinion, a spoiled, rich young man whose family connections and money had given him a shortcut to access and respect, the same respect that Blair had earned through years of hard work, field studies, and paper publishing.

"And my thesis is on Mesa Verde pottery, what better source could I have than Mug House?"

"There isn't one. I guess your uncle worked overtime, getting the rest of the board to grant your site permit there."

"I talked to Dr. Rohn about it, too, Blair. He had no objection to me excavating another room at Mug House - encouraged it, in fact."

"Then I hope we dig up something useful for your thesis, Ted. How far along are you?"

"I'm just about finished with the research, and almost halfway through the paper. Didn't you hear my presentation at the International Anthropologists Association meeting? Oh, that's right, you skipped this year. I bumped into a few professors who wondered where you were. It was held in DC, in March. The cherry blossoms were exquisite."

"I'm sure they were," Blair mumbled, then bit into a juicy Swiss cheese and bacon burger.

Jim wondered what case they were working on in March. Did Blair even mention the IAA meeting? He didn't think so. Something else the kid gave up to keep an eye on me, like Borneo? He made a mental note to talk to Sandburg about any upcoming meetings and seminars the anthropologist should be attending.

The three men finished their meal and piled back into the car. Blair and Ted talked archaeology while Jim caught a catnap in back.

"Wake up, Jim. You've got to see this!" His Guide's voice woke the Sentinel instantly. Jim glanced around, noting that they had pulled off the main road.

"I'm staying in the car," Ted said. "You two want to play tourist, go right ahead."

"Let's go, man!" Blair sprang from the passenger seat and slammed the door closed. Jim hopped out the rear passenger door and they immediately headed down a pathway to the left of the vehicle, Jim falling in behind.

"Don't mind Ted, he's been here so many times the novelty has worn off," Blair explained as they followed the path through clumps of trees and scrub brush. "But your first view of Mesa Verde needs to be at a distance, to get the whole picture and fully appreciate the up close and personal look you'll get later." They reached the end of the trail, a scenic cliffside overlook, where the path had been widened into a circle and an information marker rose from the top of the circle, at the best viewpoint. Jim ignored the park-provided information, knowing that Sandburg could give him a much better description of what he was observing. First, Ellison just looked across the valley to get the normal human's eye-view of the facing cliffs. The lower two-thirds of the opposite cliff was dotted with Douglas firs and grass, with the rocky surface frequently exposed.

"The cliffs are Cretaceous in age, spanning rocks deposited from 93 to 78 million years ago, when the Inland Sea covered most of the American mid-continent." Blair explained. "The top formation is the Cliff House sandstone, which is porous. Over time, surface water, rain and melting snow seep into the porous sandstone. The seepage water dissolves the cement bonding which keeps the sand grains together, causing the sandstone to crumble at the edge of the canyon. Wind and rain wash away the loose sand grains and a little niche or alcove is formed. After hundreds of thousands of years, these little niches become huge alcoves, like natural caves in the cliffs.

"The Anasazi, the ancient Indians native to this area, started building stone dwellings in these alcoves about 800 years ago, after living for hundreds of years on the mesa tops." Blair ended his lecture and watched Jim as the Sentinel took his first good look at the cliffside.

Jim listened to Sandburg's mini-lecture as he gazed at the opposing cliff. The top portion of the cliffside was a weathered orangy-buff colored alcove with clusters of halfway built stone walls utilizing rocks of the same color. Jim recalled that Kodak House had been severely vandalized, but one corner of a three story stone house remained. His pupils dilated and he examined the ruins with his enhanced eyesight. Individual stones used in the walls became remarkably detailed, and Jim noticed that some of the stones used to construct the ruined houses had been molded into precise rock bricks with smooth, flat sides. The entire ruin leaped out at him in exquisite detail, like the marvelously hand-painted designs on Russian lacquer boxes. "It's amazing, Chief. I can hardly believe this was built, what, 800 years ago?"

"Yeah, it was built by the Anasazi in what's categorized as the Pueblo III period. Although it's been proven that Spruce House, one of the other cliff dwellings, has been occupied continuously from 1000 to 1300 A.D., which includes the Pueblo II time frame as well."

"What happened after 1300 A.D.?" Ellison asked, curious.

"Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the Anasazi left, no one really knows why. Several archaeologists have their pet theories, but there's no universal agreement and it remains a mystery to this day.

"Well, now that you've had the scenic overview, let's get back to the car."

Blair and Jim walked quickly back to the Land Rover and settled themselves inside. Ted started the engine and pulled back onto the narrow two-lane road. After fifteen minutes of slow driving, they reached an area where the shoulder had been widened to permit parallel parking. Ted parked the car and he and Blair climbed out of the front seat. Jim popped out of the back and they each collected their backpacks and sleeping bags from the trunk. Ted checked that the car was locked and they headed for the clearly marked trail to Long House. Ted led the way through the trees and scrub, with Blair in the middle and Jim bringing up the rear.

After several minutes of hiking, they reached an open area and Jim realized that they must be on top of one of the Anasazi's cliffs. Jim followed Ted as the archaeologist walked over to the edge of the cliff. Blair had stopped short and was muttering to himself. "Damn, I forgot about this."

Overhearing, Jim glanced sharply at Blair; the kid was visibly nervous, shifting from one foot to the other. Ellison stepped closer to the cliff's edge and peered over the drop. A five-foot wide ladder of steel bars had been hammered into the cliffside, like a vertical set of extra-wide monkey bars. The ladder was sixty feet long and ended at the floor of the alcove that sheltered Long House. Quite a drop, Jim thought, especially for anyone with a thing about heights. He stepped closer to Blair. "Are you okay, Chief?"

"Yeah, I just forgot about..." Blair trailed off, spreading his right hand toward the cliff. "Jim, I don't think I can handle that ladder."

"Sure you can," Jim encouraged. "You did it before."

"No, I didn't."

"But you said on the plane that you'd spent a summer here on a dig," Jim said, confused.

"Yeah, and I did. But my dig was concerned with the earlier Basketmaker Anasazi, who lived on the mesa tops, not the cliffs." Blair fiddled with the straps of his backpack. "I don't think I can do this, man."

Jim heard Ted approaching and he slung off his backpack, saying loudly. "That's a good idea, Chief."

"What's a good idea?" Braithwaite asked, joining the two men.

"Taking the backpacks off and lowering them down to the bottom, instead of climbing down the ladder with the packs on our backs."

"It would make the descent easier," Ted agreed. "But what'll we lower the backpacks with? I didn't bring any rope."

"I did," Jim said, bending over to open up his pack. He extracted a heavy coiled rope and stood. "Why don't you go first, Ted, then I'll lower the packs to you."

"Okay," Ted shrugged out of his backpack and handed it and the attached bedroll over to Jim. Then he walked over to the cliff edge. He turned with his back facing the drop, and stooped. Ted lowered his foot over the edge placed it on a rung and started down the ladder.

Jim looped one end of the rope around Ted's equipment and tied a knot in it. He tugged on it, checking the knot's strength, then glanced over at Blair. "Take your pack off." Not waiting for Blair to remove his pack, Jim stepped over to the cliff's edge. He'd been tracking Ted's progress with his hearing and knew that the archaeologist had just stepped off the ladder and onto terra firma. "Heads up!" he yelled down at Ted and flung the first pack over the cliffside, letting the rope slip through his fingers as the pack fell. Judging that the bundle had almost reached the ground, he tightened his grip on the rope and slowed the backpack's descent a few feet from the ground. Ted caught it and quickly untied the rope.

Jim retrieved the rope, coiling it around his fist and elbow, then stepped back to where he'd left his own gear with Blair. Rapidly tying his pack to the rope, he walked back to the cliff edge and repeated the process with the second load. Retrieving the rope again, he motioned for Blair to bring the last backpack over to him.

Sandburg gingerly approached the cliff's edge, handing his pack to Jim. Ellison tied the rope around the pack and then efficiently dispatched it over the edge. He heard Ted catch the last bag and released the rope. "Okay, Chief, you ready for a little role reversal here?"

"What do you mean?"

Jim grinned. "I'm gonna guide you down the ladder. I'll go first, and you're going to follow."

"Haven't you been listening, Jim?" Blair's hands moved agitatedly. "I told you I can't do this!"

"No, you said you didn't think you could handle this. Well, I think you can -- with a little help from me." Jim's blue eyes met Blair's foursquare. "I won't let anything happen to you, Chief. Trust me."

"I do," Blair took a deep breath. "What do you want me to do?"

"C'mon over here and watch me. See the top rung of the ladder? It's actually on the ground, here, not attached to the side of the cliff, like the rest of the rungs. You turn around with your back to the drop, bend down and grasp hold of the top rung with your hands," As he spoke, Jim approached the right-hand side of the ladder, stooped down and followed his own instructions, then he lowered his feet to the rung six steps below the top one. "Then reach out with your feet, one at a time, for a rung that feels comfortable. After that, it's just a matter of inching down the ladder, lowering yourself one step at a time." Suiting actions to his words, Jim climbed down two more steps of the ladder and stopped. "Your turn, Chief," Jim said, looking up. "Go ahead and start from the left side -- the rungs are wide enough for two." He watched Blair's back as his partner hesitantly bent over and clutched the top rail. Blair stayed in that hunched over position for long seconds, then he extended a leg downward, groping for a foothold. "That's it," Jim encouraged, "just like Simon Says."

"More like monkey see, monkey do," Sandburg muttered, reaching for humor and the next railing.

Jim watched, then lowered himself another step in tandem with Blair. "That's it, just climb down like it's an ordinary ladder," He illustrated his words by quickly stepping down two rungs.

"Wait, Jim!"

Jim looked up and saw that Blair hadn't budged, his heartbeat much faster than normal. "I-I can't go that fast."

"That's okay, Chief. Just take your time," Jim encouraged, frowning slightly upon overhearing Ted's loud sigh and impatient mutter of, "Any day now," from the bottom of the ladder. Ellison watched as Blair shakily lowered his left hand one rung, then put his right hand on the same rung and jerkily placed his left foot and then his right foot on the next step down. After a few seconds Blair repeated the maneuver and stood on the same rung as Jim.

"I'm not really afraid of heights, in the classic sense," he said in a rush. "I just don't want to be like a participle in a badly written paper."

"Huh?"

"I don't like dangling, man." Blair lowered himself another two steps, with Jim descending at the same time, letting Blair set their pace of descent. "That's a little academic humor, get it? Dangling participle?"

"If you say so," Jim said, and they gradually worked their way down several steps. He listened for Blair's heartbeat, which had slowed somewhat, and he kept a sharp eye on Blair's hands, making sure that his partner's white-knuckled grip showed no signs of sweat. "How're you doing, Chief?"

"All right. Jim, did you tell me how many rungs there are on this ladder?"

"No. I didn't think you wanted to know," Jim said as they progressed another three steps lower.

"It'd be easy enough to figure out, though," Blair said, following. "There's sixty feet of ladder, assume a reasonable spacing between rungs, say eleven or twelve inches, take into account the diameter of the rungs, that makes --" His voice trailed off as he calculated the math. "You're right, I don't want to know." They had traveled down seven steps during his conversation.

"Don't tell me you've been counting steps," Jim said, continuing to inch down the railings.

"Uh, yeah."

"Relax, Blair, you're doing fine. Keep up the good work."

"Don't you mean 'down'?"

"Up, down, now you're talking like a traffic cop -- giving out directions."

"A little police humor, huh, Jim?"

Jim could feel the smile in his partner's voice. "Uh huh." They kept quiet for a few minutes, descending. "Guess what, Chief."

"What?" Blair asked.

"I just stepped off the ladder," Blair risked his first look down and saw Jim standing on the rocky surface, grinning up at him. "We've hit rock bottom."

Blair took the last few steps down and then placed his feet on the ground. He shook his head. "Stockbroker's humor?"

Jim grinned, then stared at the marvelously preserved stone structure off to their right. "Wow, Chief. You're right -- close up, this place is awesome."

"'Bout time you two got down here," Ted greeted them sourly. "Grab your packs and let's go. We're wasting daylight."

Jim frowned slightly in Ted's direction, but picked up his backpack and attached bedroll and settled it over his shoulders, as Blair did likewise. Jim took a couple of steps towards the cliff dwelling, stopping and wincing when Ted whistled loudly. "Hey, Joe Friday, not that way, man. That's Long House, for the tourists. We're going to Kodak House, like I told you at lunch. This way." Braithwaite stepped in the opposite direction, following a visible trail that wound south along the cliffside. Blair fell in behind, deciding that a buffer zone between his two companions was a good idea, and Jim brought up the rear again.

"It's about territory, Jim," Sandburg explained in a whisper as they hiked. "We kept him waiting, and he's re-establishing his control. This is Ted's dig, after all."

Calmed by the explanation, or at least his Guide's voice, Jim followed the two anthropologists as they covered the mile or so separating Long House from their destination.

"We're here," Blair said, stepping aside so that his partner could get his first close look at the ruins of Kodak House.

Ellison took in the half-toppled walls, built with layer upon layer of stones, that outlined the locations of twenty or so ancient rooms. He noticed that this site had double decker alcoves, separated by a ten-foot thick sandstone wall. The upper alcove was much narrower than the lower one and Blair explained that it was probably used as a storage area. Both levels had half-built walls of buff-colored stones, and the surrounding area and slope below was cluttered with fallen stones and chunks of bricks. Glancing up, Jim noticed vertical bands of red, gray and green streaking the rock layers above and between the alcoves.

"The bands of color along the rock surfaces are called desert varnish." Blair anticipated Jim's question, talking as he unloaded his gear and set it on the ground. "It's caused by iron oxide and manganese oxide that are dissolved in runoff water that pours over the canyon walls. When the water evaporates, the leftover chemicals stain the rock walls. This sort of patina is very common here and throughout the Southwest."

Ted clapped his hands as Blair finished. "Excellent lecture as always, Blair. However, we're here to dig, not to jaw. As Blair may've already told you, the best places to dig here are the talus slopes and at the bottom of the cliffs." He pointed away from the dwelling's ruins, down the sloping cliffside. "We archaeologists search through the talus slopes for artifacts that the Anasazi discarded by throwing over the cliff, making refuse piles. They also buried their dead on the slopes, because the digging was easier than anywhere else. So stake out a nice spot along the slope and start digging. You're looking for broken, discarded tools, weapons, and pottery pieces, or sherds. Pottery sherds haven't been altered by the climate, and an expert can tell the time and place of their firing. So it's important that you mark the location and note the surrounding rock layer for any sherds that you find, get a photo of them, and a rough sketch." Ted looked back at the ruins. "I'm really not expecting us to find much, this place was thoroughly trashed by fortune seekers before the turn of the century. But maybe we'll find a few sherds, or something."

Ted quickly portioned out the talus slope into three areas, assigning himself the middle chunk, and Jim and Blair the two outer portions. Blair picked up his backpack and checked his watch. "It's almost three now, we'll break for dinner about six. Start at the bottom and work your way up," he advised Jim, with a quick pat on the arm. Blair then walked over to the far right side of the ruins and carefully made his way down the talus slope to his given spot.

Three hours later, Ellison had worked his way up the slope almost back to the ruins. He'd heard Blair knock off about twenty minutes earlier and return to Kodak House, to prepare dinner. Jim stretched and recalled his earlier conversation with Sandburg.

You tried to warn me, Chief, Jim conceded ruefully. Guess I wasn't listening very well. Oh, well, it's almost suppertime. He didn't have much to show for three hours of painstaking labor, but Braithwaite had indicated that he wasn't expecting much from this site.

"Jim! Ted! Dinner in ten minutes!" Blair called from the ground by Kodak House.

Jim and Ted hiked up to the top of the slope and called it a day. They joined Blair at the campfire he'd started in the cleared space in front of the leftmost stone half-wall. Soon Jim and the two academics were eating Blair's open-air chicken tettrazini and baked potatoes.

"This is excellent, Blair," Jim said after his last mouthful of the chicken.

"Glad you liked it, but don't get used to it. After tonight we're on canned food until Monday," Blair reminded his partner.

"It doesn't seem right to have our best food on our worst day," Ted grumbled, setting his empty plate on the ground. "Today was pretty much wasted, anyway. I didn't find a thing, how about you, Blair?"

Blair shook his head, long hair swaying with the motion.

"I didn't find much," Jim contributed, "just an arrowhead and a piece of pottery."

"You found something? Hey, that's terrific!" Blair enthused.

"More like extraordinary," Ted glanced sharply at Ellison in the campfire's flickering light. "No one's found any artifacts here in the last seventy years or so. How'd you manage that, Mr. Friday?"

"Beginner's luck," Jim answered coolly. He extracted a small plastic bag from his back pocket and passed it over to Blair. Recognizing the police evidence bag, Blair hid a smile, then concentrated on the two artifacts inside. He carefully slipped on a pair of disposable plastic surgeon's gloves and withdrew the items from the bag for a closer look in the rapidly fading daylight.

"I'm not sure about the arrowhead, it might be Anasazi, but it could easily be from a much later time period. We'll have to have it analyzed at the University to know for sure. But the pottery fragment," he peered at the patterned piece of black and white pottery. "This is a sherd from a Mesa Verde pottery piece, probably a bowl rim. Look here, Jim," he said, motioning the detective closer, "See the repeated geometric design and carefully painted borders around the rim? That's a classic Mesa Verde pottery characteristic, proof that this piece was made here, between 1200 and 1300 A.D. The colors are also right, black and white.

"See, the Anasazi made clay from the numerous shales found around here, and added some crushed stone to temper the clay to keep it from cracking. They formed the clay into coils by rolling it in their hands, like kids do with Playdough. They shaped the pottery into various vessels by winding these clay rolls one on top of the other, then smoothed and polished the surfaces and added a white coating before setting the pieces aside for days, to dry slowly. Then they used black paint to add intricate geometric designs and borders to their ceremonial pieces, creating trademark black-on-white Mesa Verde pottery -- like this sherd right here. Holding a piece of ancient history in your hands -- it's awesome, man, one of the major perks of archaeology." He smiled at Jim. "Of course, you have to find it first. And that's the other perk -- the thrill of the hunt, on both the intellectual and physical levels. Awesome," he repeated as he carefully restored the artifacts to the evidence bag and handed it back to Jim.

Then Jim and Blair collected and cleaned the dinner dishes while Ted lingered over a cigar. Jim immediately pegged the cigar as different from Simon's usual brand. Probably three or four times as expensive, too.

Finished with the dishes, Blair rejoined Ted at the campfire, and the two began discussing archaeology and gossiping about Rainier's Anthropology Department. Restless, Jim caught Blair's eye and indicated a spot at the other side of the ruins to his Guide. Blair nodded and watched as Jim walked away from the campfire.

The detective settled on the ground in front of the three-story tower, the only almost-intact dwelling at the site, and gazed at the valley spread below him. Noticing the chill in the night air, he turned his sense of touch down, to tolerate the colder temperature. Then his eyes traveled upward, and he took in the myriad stars in the skies above Mesa Verde. Jim knew that he could see more stars than anyone else in Cascade, even with the city's Earthlight reducing his visibility. He had forgotten how much brighter and crowded the night skies looked from locales far removed from Cascade, or any city.

Jim continued perusing the stars, and thought back to his first stargazing trip with Sandburg, camping in Cascade National Park. As part of his military training, Jim knew the names and positions of all the major constellations for navigation purposes, but Blair knew the Roman and Greek myths behind the names. Smiling, Jim focussed on the stars and the constellation of Auriga, sort of a giant octagon, leaped out at him. "And there's Ortega the Taco -- er, Auriga the Charioteer," he remembered Blair saying, the grad student accidentally letting his mnemonic name for the constellation slip out. Then he had proceeded to tell Jim all about Auriga.

Still stargazing, Jim cast his mind further back, to the first time he had observed so many stars in the sky, using his enhanced eyesight, in the jungles of Peru. Jim canted his head slightly to the right, listening with his inner ear as Incacha's even voice patiently explained the Chopec view of the stars and their meanings.

"Hey, Jim. Don't get lost in space."

Instantly he was back in the present, Blair's hand on his shoulder. "Just enjoying the night sky, Chief."

"Good. Ted went to visit the tree, then we're crashing for the night. I suggest you do the same, we'll be getting up at the crack of dawn." Jim nodded, rose to his feet and he and Blair walked back to the campfire.

* * * * *

"We're almost at Mug House, Jim," Blair said, getting a glimpse of the restored cliff dwellings from a bend in the trail. He, Jim and Ted had packed up, hiked the mile back to Long House and then another half mile north to their second dig site. A few steps further, and the three men halted at the front of Mug House. Ted and Blair removed their backpacks while Jim examined the series of rooms and low stone walls that comprised Mug House.

"Baron Nordenskiold and the Wetherill brothers also discovered this site in the early 1890's," Blair explained. "They named the place Mug House because they found four completely intact mugs strung together in one of the rooms. Not very imaginative, but accurate. There've been a few thousand sherds found here since then."

"It feels --" Jim waved a hand in the air, unknowingly mimicking his Guide, " -- old."

"Feels?" Blair checked on Ted's whereabouts. The archaeologist was fussing with the gear several yards away, out of earshot. "Are you sensing something here, Jim?"

"No, not really. It's... hard to describe."

"Try," Blair encouraged.

Jim collected his thoughts for a moment, then spoke. "When I was twelve, my father took Stephen and me to Great Britain. It was one of the few times he took both of us someplace together, I guess he thought it was important that we both knew our family roots. We visited some Medieval castles in England and Wales. They were impressive, even to a twelve-year-old kid. They had thick, dark stone walls, battle-scarred turrets, thin slit windows and draw bridges -- and the atmosphere around them was overwhelming. They all felt very, very old.

"I get the same feeling of-of 'oldness' here, Chief -- only the buildings don't look old at all."

"Well, these ruins don't look old on the surface because the Southwestern Colorado climate is darn near perfect for preserving these types of sandstone dwellings. But your Medieval castles and these cliff dwellings - they could easily fit into the same time frame, age-wise -- which is why they would 'feel' the same to you." Blair carefully kept his voice calm and professorial. Inside, he was practically dancing a jig. Does Jim even know what he said? He felt the atmosphere around those castles when he was a kid, long before the full manifestation of his senses. Does this prove that Sentinel-enhanced senses are definitely genetic? We've got to talk about this some more -- away from prying ears.

"Hey, guys!" Ted said loudly as he rejoined them, "We're here to dig, remember? While you were chatting, I worked out our digging strategy. We'll start with the talus slope, same as yesterday." He glanced quickly at his watch. "It's almost 7:30, let's break for lunch at noon."

Jim and Blair absorbed the instructions, then Jim unslung his backpack and pulled out a sweatshirt. "Take a jacket, Chief," he advised. "The weather's changing."

"I knew the warm weather was too good to last," Blair said, hauling a red and black plaid lumberjack coat out of his gear. Then they split up and started down the cliff, leaving Ted the center portion of the talus slope again.

* * * * *

"That was -- interesting, Chief," Jim said diplomatically as he finished his lunch. Spam and canned pineapple rings served on sourdough bread -- not an award-winning recipe, in Jim's opinion.

"Ummmm." Blair said. "Maybe it would taste better if the Spam was hot, I can try cooking it next time."

Jim didn't want to go there. Glancing over Blair's head, towards the ruins, an unexpected flash of red caught his eye. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"There's something red over in the ruins. It stands out against all the gray and tan-colored stones around here."

"It's probably a wall. The Anasazi sometimes painted the interior walls of their houses, and red was a favorite color. You should go check it out, they occasionally drew things on the walls they painted." Blair rose and started collecting their lunch dishes.

"Think I will," Jim said, getting to his feet also. He headed for the far end of the cliff dwellings and stopped in front of a doorway. The frame was maybe four and a half feet high. Jim stooped and squeezed through it, then was able to stand up inside because the ceiling was gone. Sure enough, one of the interior walls was painted red. He stepped over for a closer look, spying some black squiggles -- petroglyphs -- on the red wall. He cranked up his eyesight and studied the wall in detail. Feeling almost compelled, he reached his hand towards the wall to make contact with the petroglyphs.

"Don't touch that!" Ted yelled, stepping through the doorway. He glared at Jim. "Honestly, any first year anthro student knows better than to touch ancient objects. The oil from your hands can destroy ancient art like this practically overnight. Sheesh. Didn't Blair tell you anything about archaeology before you got here?"

"I'm sorry, Ted," Ellison said, tightlipped. "It won't happen again." Then he walked past the archaeologist and back to the talus slope.

* * * * *

Ellison awoke with a start, heartbeat roaring in his ears. What--? Finally, he remembered how to tone down his hearing. He concentrated a few seconds, and his heartbeat returned to its usual noise level. Practically unaware of what he was doing, he reached for and found Blair's heartbeat. It was slow and steady; his Guide was deep in undisturbed sleep. Jim easily spotted Blair, tucked into his sleeping bag on the other side of the open-air room where they were spending the night.

Earlier that evening, Blair had called this area a kiva, a room that the Anasazi used mostly for religious ceremonies. Blair had pointed out the kiva's main features, including a small hole in the middle of the room, a sipapu, a hole into the Underworld. Talking of the Underworld on a Spam-filled stomach, is it any wonder I had strange dreams?

Jim relaxed back into his sleeping bag, lulled by his Guide's heartbeat. You're my nightlight, Chief, the thought crossed his mind just before he fell back to sleep.

* * * * *

Jim took his last sip of coffee and set the empty cup down on the ground. He, Blair and Ted had consumed a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal and coffee next to the campfire. It was barely 7 in the morning and the weather was definitely chilly, even in his zipped up jacket.

"Okay, since this is our last full day, we're going to excavate that room at the back of the complex, Room 53 is it's official designation," Ted said, snapping the top button of his leather jacket.

"I didn't finish at the talus slope yesterday," Jim said. "I need to go back there and continue digging."

"We found plenty of sherds there yesterday," Ted said dismissively. "Today we need to concentrate on Room 53."

"I've got unfinished business on the talus slope." Jim insisted.

"Hey, guys," Blair joined the discussion. "As I recall, Room 53 is one of the smallest ones here, Ted. If all three of us are crammed in there, we'll just be getting in each other's way. Let Jim go back to the talus slope, at least for the morning, and you and I can get to work on the room site. Are we okay, here?"

Jim smiled as Blair echoed his peacekeeping phrase. "Sure, Chief."

"Sure, Blair," Ted agreed, adding, "If Joe Friday wants to waste his time out in the wind on the talus slope, who am I to tell him 'no'?"

They split up, Blair and Ted headed for the back of the ruins. Jim grabbed his backpack and walked away from Mug House then carefully hiked down the slope. He strode all the way down to the bottom of the cliff, then turned around and started making his way slowly back up it. About seventy feet from the base, he found what he was looking for. Jim stared at the seven-foot tall chunk of buff-colored sandstone, jutting from the slope exactly as it had been in his dream. Well, not exactly. The area around it is more tree-filled than I remember, but I know this rock, all right. Jim peered at the top of the rock, momentarily expecting to see the panther lying in wait; the flat surface, however, was deserted.

Ellison studied the rock carefully, obviously it had dropped from higher ground at some point. Whether it was before or after the Anasazi occupied the area, he couldn't tell. He extended his sense of sight, trying to find evidence that the rock had been chipped or otherwise marked by tools, possibly wielded by the Anasazi. Finding some evidence of scraping at the bottom of the rock, Jim removed his backpack and fished out a gardener's scoop. He hunkered down and began digging at the rock's base. After half of hour of fruitless digging, his supersensitive ears heard the scoop contact something solid. He put the tool down and reached with his hands, sifting the dirt through his fingers to uncover a pottery sherd. Jim slipped the potsherd into a plastic evidence bag and continued his digging, using both his left hand and the garden tool. He soon found a second sherd, and a third and a fourth. Jim halted his digging and took out a notebook, belatedly sketching the area and the locations of the sherds. He also took a few pictures with the zoom lens of his camera, then rose and stepped far enough back to get a few shots establishing the location of the rock.

Jim resumed his digging, turning up a dozen more pottery fragments, including an almost-complete mug. All of the pieces bore geometric patterns similar to the design on the first sherd. As he had now excavated a hole almost three feet deep under the rock, Jim kept an ear peeled for any evidence of the rock shifting position. The rock remained firmly in place and he kept digging. While digging, Jim considered his find. He thought it was unusual to find so many sherds so close together, Like someone stashed them all together. Suddenly, he heard Ted's voice saying, "They also buried their dead on the slopes, because the digging was easier than anywhere else."

Have I found an Anasazi gravesite? Warily, Jim reached out with his sense of smell, figuring he'd been around the morgue enough times to recognize the smell of bones, no matter how old they were. Yeah, it's a burial site all right. Gotta go find Blair.

"Hey, Jim!" Blair's voice came from off to his right. "Looks like you've been digging up a storm, man. Find anything?"

Startled, Jim stood up and looked at Blair. "Sandburg! What're you doing here already? I was just coming to get you."

"I took a break to start lunch, and I thought I'd check up on you first. Did you find something?"

"Yeah. I found a bunch of pottery pieces -- and I think I found a grave."

"A grave? Cool, man." Noticing that Jim didn't share his enthusiasm for the gravesite, Blair said, "Let's see your bunch of pottery pieces."

Jim picked up three of the filled evidence bags from the ground and handed them over to Blair. After a cursory view of the pieces still in their bag, the anthropologist's eyes widened in surprise. With a muttered exclamation, he gently put the bags on the ground and hauled out a pair of surgeon's gloves, which he put on before sitting down. Blair opened the first bag and extracted a sherd. He examined it closely, then compared it to the three other pieces in the bag. "Man, this is--" he waved a hand in the air, groping for the right words, " -- awesome, Jim! No, it's incredible."

"You're losing me, Chief," Ellison said, settling next to his overexcited partner. "I thought Braithwaite said they've found thousands of sherds here."

"They have, Jim - but not like these!"

"What's so special about these pieces? Because they were buried with someone -?"

"No, Jim, that's not it at all," Blair pushed a hand through his curls and tried to calm down long enough to explain the significance of Ellison's find. "You remember yesterday, I told you about the distinctive black-on-white patterns on Mesa Verde pottery? Well, that's their trademark, ceremonial pieces from Mesa Verde are always made by coating the clay with white slip, and then painting patterns in black on them -- black-on-white pottery. But the pieces that you found all have black, white and green patterns on them, which is unique for this area!"

"So they traded with some other, out-of-area tribe," Jim shrugged. "Big deal."

"Actually, they did trade with other tribes, but the traded pottery was usually redware, and very different from these pieces. Mesa Verde black-on-white pottery was only made in this region, and only made in the 1200's -- the last hundred years that the Anasazi occupied Mesa Verde. The patterns on your pieces are clearly recognizable as Mesa Verde patterns, so they must have been made here, even with the added green paint."

"Are you sure it's paint, and not a chemical coating added later, like desert varnish?"

Sandburg picked up a sherd, turning it slowly in his gloved hand, examining its thin rim. "Look, Jim. See how this piece has green along the bottom half? Look at the cross-section of the pottery, along this edge. See that thin line of green that only shows up at the top of the cut edge? That's the last coating applied to the clay, and it was deliberately applied. If the green coloration is the result of later chemical staining, it would've covered the whole sherd, from the top, painted part to the underside, and throughout the cut edge. Also, check out this piece," he picked up a larger sherd, "The green part of the design isn't random; it doesn't overlap the black paint, it follows it in places, and here," he pointed out a section of green zigzags with black dots in every other fold of the zigzag border, "it creates it's own pattern, incorporating black and green together. Bottom line, this is a man-made tricolor piece of Mesa Verde pottery. And the implications of that are astounding."

"What's astounding? And where's lunch?" Ted asked from slightly above them. Jim had heard his approach for a full minute before the archaeologist arrived, but couldn't get a word in edgewise to tell Blair. Sandburg had been on a roll, describing the green pottery.

"Ted! You won't believe what Jim's discovered, here." Blair said, motioning for the other man to join them in front of the excavated hole. "Tricolor Mesa Verde pottery!"

"What? There's no such thing," Ted scoffed, coming to stand next to Blair.

"Take a look at this," Blair said, handing one of the evidence bags to Ted.

After a cursory glance, Ted said, "So you've found pieces with manganese oxide weathering, so what."

"C'mon, Ted! You know better than that," Blair said. "This is the wrong shade of green for manganese weathering, and it's much too precise for any kind of weathering -- that green was painted on, man. Show him that piece I was telling you about, Jim."

"You mean this one, Chief?" Jim asked innocently, handing over the almost-complete green, black and white cup, still in its individual evidence bag.

Both anthropologists gaped at the finely preserved cup, missing only a triangular piece from its top rim and the bottom chunk of its handle. Blair was willing to bet that both of those lost pieces would be found somewhere in excavated hole, or already tucked in one of the other bags.

Ted handed the wrapped cup over to Blair. "Anything else I should see?"

"We think this cache might be part of a burial site, under the rock," Jim said.

"Burial site?" Ted swallowed, seeing a major delay in his thesis, accompanied by a substantial rewrite to account for this newly discovered ancient pottery.

"That would explain why so much pottery is found in one place," Blair said, kicking into problem-solving mode. "Obviously, we don't have the time or the equipment to excavate the burial site now. Our best bet is to take the pieces that Jim found, then fill in the hole and you can make plans to do a proper excavation next summer."

Ted put his best face on. "Sounds like a plan to me. First, let's break for lunch."

* * * * *

Monday, after spending the previous afternoon filling in the hole at the burial site and carefully documenting the location, they left Mug House. Ted strode off first, heading down the trail to Long House and modern civilization. Jim lingered, to take a last look at the wondrous, deserted cliff dwellings while Blair waited.

"Hey, Chief," Jim said, meeting his Guide's eyes. "I'm glad I came."

"Yeah. Me too," Blair said, then they started the long journey home.

The End

Author's note: The green pottery is pure Sandburg BS. The rest of the information about Mesa Verde is true. Sources for Blair's mini-lectures are The Anasazi of Mesa Verde and the Four Corners by William M. Ferguson and Guide to the Geology of Mesa Verde National Park by Mary O. Griffitts.