Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries Read Online Free Page A

joints. A form of rheumatoid arthritis the doctors said, though they were a little hazy on the exact diagnosis.
    He looked up at the gap where water had eaten into the sandstone rim to form Rinconada Canyon. To the east, in the gap just below the night-blackened horizon, was the stairway, a series of steps carved into the caprock where the ancient road led south to Tsin Kletsin. Here on the meridian line between Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl, the high priests of Chaco had passed on the greatest of their ritual journeys. Now, he, too, followed it, seeking the end of a thirty-seven-year-old mystery.
    “Is the note signed?” he had asked.
    “There is only one word: ‘Kwewur.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
    “Yes,” he’d whispered.
    It was old—a name from a long dead village called
Awatovi. Few whites outside of a handful of southwestern archaeologists and a few folklorists had ever heard the name.
    In the moon’s glow he studied the bit of paper and crumbled it in his palm. His feet crunched loudly in the still darkness. To either side of the trail archaeological sites—the so-called small houses—lay under low mounds of rubble. This part of the canyon was packed with archaeology. The irregular ground surface consisted of mounds—ruined pueblos—and depressions caused by collapsed pit houses. Speckled bits of pottery and flaked stone artifacts glinted in the moonlight.
    Some investigators believed that while the Great Houses filled the north side of Chaco Wash, the south side had been reserved for the lower classes and itinerant pilgrims who came to Chaco Canyon. It was here, some hypothesized, that the Chaco elite had provided a sort of “ceremonial circus” for the masses.
    He strode past the interpretive marker that explained that fact to tourists, and made his way up the slight incline. Atop the knoll, he stopped. The desert was quiet, though in the distance the faint hooting of an owl could be heard. He exhaled again, his frosty breath rising toward the stars.
    “Are you here?” he called out. “Kwewur? Is that what you call yourself?”
    He looked up when dark wings moved through the moonlight above him. The owl hooted right over his head.
    Dale looked down into the great kiva. Yes, he knew this place. Nearly nine hundred years ago the Chacoans had cut this huge hole through the sandstone cap of the knoll, down into the shale. The diameter measured sixty-three feet and five inches, an almost perfect circle. The sheer walls rose ten feet above the concentric stone bench. Thirty-four crypts pockmarked the curving wall.
Dale walked around the western side, looking down at the stone bench.
    Had he been wrong? Was it all some elaborate hoax? Some irritating Halloween trick? He could feel the old Power rising in the air around him. Casa Rinconada’s presence touched the soul. The Anasazi believed that kivas were doorways to the underworlds. Chacoans had used this place to impress the bucolic pilgrims who bore tribute from the far corners of the Southwest. Looking down, shadows seemed to move in the depths of the old Chacoan tunnel.
    He walked around to the southern anteroom that led down into the interior. Park Service rules prohibited after-hours visits to the ruins. His mouth had gone dry as he stepped into the shadowed stairway. Stone grated underfoot; he lowered himself step by step into the gloom. At the bottom, cold stone rose around him, timeworn, silent, and ominous. He called out: “Hello?”
    The faint scurrying of rodent feet on rock met his ears.
    The pain in Dale’s knees became excruciating. White moonlight sliced across the round room.
    With growing unease, he looked around the huge kiva. The stone squares of the foot drums cast black shadows, and the central hearth, so many centuries dark, looked like an inky abyss. The square wall niches seemed to pulse, as though from vibrations coming from another realm. The eerie sensation of hidden eyes ate into him.
    Dale nerved himself, and