They cut across the land to the center of the mesa, where the high ruins were, on the roof of the Anasazi world. There was wind up here, constantly drying their skin and blowing their hair, and as he watched her striding ahead, the white sleeves of her blouse fluttered back like little banners. He wondered what had brought her here, coolly avoiding snakes and climbing over slickrock, so far from the rainy hedgerows of Hampshire. But it was hers now. He liked the way she delighted in the land, as if she had made it all up.
At the Pueblo Alto they could see miles in every direction, and she pointed out the faint traces of straight roads coming from the north, then going out the valley to the south.
“Of course, why they had roads is another mystery, since they didn’t have wheels. Not even pack animals, apparently.”
“You couldn’t walk for miles in that,” he said, pointing to the desert.
“But they did. Hundreds of miles. They’ve found macaw feathers that must have come from Mexico-you know, on the Gulf. And conch shells from lower California. Somebody must have brought them.”
They were sitting on the wall, smoking. Connolly felt the heat of sunburn on his face, but the clouds kept moving across the sun, throwing the mesa into cool late-afternoon shadow.
“Right up that road, too,” she said, pointing toward the straight track between South Mesa and West Mesa. “Can’t you imagine it, though? Feathers and beads and whatnot-a whole stream of people, all coming here.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t believe it. Maybe a handful staggering with thirst. It’s some place, though,” he said, looking around again.
“Yes, it makes it all worth it.”
“Makes what all worth it?”
“You know, the Hill. The life there.”
“Why don’t you leave?” he said quietly.
“Where would I go? I don’t mind, really, as long as I can get away like this. Besides, I’ve come this far. I wouldn’t go back now.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” She crushed her cigarette, then stripped it, letting the bits of tobacco blow away. “But it’s true just the same. I like it here.”
“But it has to end sometime. The project’ll be finished.”
“And everyone go home? Do you think so? I don’t know. I used to think that-it was all so temporary in the beginning. But now I think it’ll just go on.”
“It has to end when the war ends. You know what they’re doing there?”
“Everybody knows. We just don’t like to talk about it. It’s nicer to think of it as pure science,” she said, an edge in her voice, “not blowing everything up. Anyway, they’ll want to make another. Something bigger, perhaps. We won’t be going anywhere. You can’t just build a whole city like that and walk away from it.”
“They did here.”
“Yes. But did they walk away?” She got up, tired of sitting, and paced idly, turning over a loose rock with her boot.
“Didn’t they?”
“You like a mystery. What do you think?”
A question in school. He looked out at the landscape and shrugged. “I think they ran out of water.”
“Hmm. That’s the obvious answer, isn’t it?”
“But you don’t think so?”
“They may have. Just moved on to greener pastures. Of course, anywhere would be, wouldn’t it? But then, why not pack up? They just left things, you see. Pots, farm tools. I mean, you’d take your tools. And valuables. Feathers, shells-the sort of thing you’d take with you if you were moving on. Like your good china. Turquoise beads.”
“Turquoise?” he said. “They left turquoise behind?”
“Yes,” she said, puzzled at his interest. “They had turquoise-it was their jewelry. Funny sort of refugees, leaving jewelry behind.”
“Maybe they thought they’d be coming back,” he said, his mind in Karl’s drawer now, wandering.
“But they didn’t.”
“Because they were killed.”
She looked at him. “What makes you say that? We don’t know that.”
“Nothing. I was thinking of something else.” He stood up. “Maybe they were too weak. Maybe there was too much to carry.”
“Jewelry?”
He smiled at her. “You’re reconstructing the crime.”
“They say that’s what archaeology is. Reconstructing the crime.”
“If there was one.”
“There usually is, one way or another.”
“So what do you think?”
She paused, looking out again across the mesa. “I think the Germans came.”
“The Germans?”
“Their Germans. I think they rounded them up and took them away.”
His mind, already distracted, now leaped to magazine photos, a man weeping at a cello.
“Why?”
“Well, there’s never an answer to that.” She shrugged, as if she could shed the thought with her skin. “This is a funny sort of conversation to be having.”
“Maybe they did it to themselves.”
“What? Had some Hitler who led them away?”
“Or just went mad. Blew themselves up.”
She looked at him again, then crossed her arms, holding herself. “Don’t let’s talk about it anymore. We’ll never know anyway.”
“But wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I suppose so. But what does it matter? Maybe it was drought-everyone thinks so. I rather like its being a mystery.”
“But if we knew-”
“Then this would only be a place, wouldn’t it?” She turned to go. “Come on. It’s getting late.”
