chapter 1

the moon had risen just above the cliff behind her. out on the packed sand of the wash bottom the shadow of the Walker made a strange elongated shape. sometimes it suggested a heron, sometimes one of these figures forms of an anasazi pictograph.an animated pictograph, it's arms move rhythmically as the moon shadow drifted across the sand. sometimes, when the goat trail bent and put the walkers profile against the moon, the shadow became kokopelli himself. the backpack formed the spirits grotesque hump, the walking stick kokopelli's crooked flute. seen from above, the shadow would have made a Navajo believe that the great yeinorthern clans cold water sprinklers had taken visible form. if an anasazi had risen from his Thousand-Year grief in the trash heap under the Cliff ruins here, he would have seen the humpbacked flute player, the rowdy gods of fertility of his lost people. but the shadow was only the shape of doctor Eleanor Freidman-Bernard blocking out the light of an October moon.

Dr Friedman-bernald rested now, sitting on a convenient rock, removing her backpack, rubbing her shoulders, letting the cold, high desert air evaporator the sweat that had soaked her shirt, considering a long day.

no one could have seen her. of course, they had seen her driving away from Chaco. the children were up in the grey Dawn to catch their school bus. and the children would chat about it to their parents. in that tiny, isolated service society of a dozen adult and two children, everyone knew everything about everybody. there was absolutely no possibility of privacy. but she had done everything right. she had made the rounds of the permanent housing and checked with everyone on the digging team. she was driving into Farmington, she had said. she had collected the outgoing mail to be dropped out of Blanco trading post. she had jotted down the list of supplies people needed. she had told Maxie she had the chaco fever needed to get away to see a movie, have a restaurant dinner,smell exhaust fumes, hear a different set of Voices, make phone calls back to civilization on a phone that would actually work. . she would spend a night where she could hear the sound of civilization something besides the endless chaco silence silence. maxi was sympathetic. if Max is suspected anything, she suspected Dr Eleanor friedman-bernald was meeting Lehman. . that would have been fine with Eleanor Friedman bernald.

the handle of the folding shovel she had strapped to her back was pressing against her back. she stopped, shifted the weight, and adjusted the back straps.