Anasazi, Vol 1

By S. Watson Maher

Deep in the sandy New Mexico desert near the landmark of Shiprock, an impetuous female archeology student and her dean begin an excavation dig on Navajo land. Unwelcomed by the native peoples because their historical theories are offensive, Kate Darby and Sabastian McEntry soon discover that their exhibition has stumbled upon a truth long hidden. At first the tribal elders try to discourage them but are too worried that refusal will draw curiosity, so they allow the dig until Kate stumbles upon an underground cave that houses the mummified bodies of the supposedly ancient Anasazi. Kate’s work is confiscated by police, and she is drawn into a world of dark magic and voodoo only to discover that the Anasazi aren’t from the Americas and that they are still alive in secret colony hidden somewhere in North America. She and a pair of locals, along with Sabastian, become entangled in a war of good vs evil with the undead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. Watson Maher
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9798566764412

S. Watson Maher

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: S. Watson Maher graduated from the American Film Institute with an MFA in Cinematography (2003). Maher combines visual and verbal story-telling talents to create powerful tales of suspense. Prior to attending AFI, Maher worked at MGM Studios in the Interactive Gaming and Consumer Products Departments. Maher is an award-winning screenwriter and has a BA in Journalism from Baylor University. See Maher's film work at swatsonmaher.com. Maher is Creative Director at V’Doggle Vision Design Tools, Inc., an online film production services hub. NOVELS: ANASAZI VOL. 2, ANASAZI VOL. 1, THE MISFIT MAN, BRAZEN, THE BLOODWELL.

Book preview

Anasazi

Chapter 1 – The Ungrateful Dead

There is a battle of two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, kindness, empathy, and truth. The wolf that wins is the one you feed. Native American Proverb

Las Cruces, New Mexico

It’s dusk. The sun sinks below the horizon. An orange haze creeps across the sky. Angry clouds tumble above. A storm is coming. On the solemn streets, five dark figures walk down an empty dusty alley. They make no sound.

In a jewelry store on a lonely street corner, all is quiet. It’s hot. Flies buzz at the window, bounce off it. The glass is foggy and dirty. A sweaty Mexican clerk in his fifties sits behind the counter waiting for his shift to end. He’s hungry and looking forward to a hardy meal once he gets home to his family for the night. He dabs his brow as he reads the newspaper headline "Danger On The Border". The clerk fumbles with the radio, spins the knob until he finds a news channel. He strains to hear the anchor’s voice through static.

". . . jewelry store robberies along the Mexican American border. And the brazen armed robbers have left only bodies in their wake. Mexican authorities have yet to comment on the grisly and bloody rampage. And the American border patrol has no leads on who the perpetrators may be. Authorities speculate the carnage is the result of Mexican cartels at war. . . "

A bell over the front door rings. Someone has entered. More flies gather outside of the window. The bugs have grown into a swarm. Now they’re inside, buzzing all around. They’re everywhere. The clerk swats at the bugs but can’t get rid of them. He sniffs the air, smells something foul and tries to fan away the stink. But the pungent odor hangs over him.

The clerk looks up and freezes. His eyes bulge at what he sees. Horror and disgust overtake him. Five bald leather clad men stand before him on the other side of the counter. Their skin is sickly pale-blue, the complexion of a corpse. Stitches cover festering wounds all over their bodies. But the wounds don’t bleed. Thick black spidery veins wind around every inch of exposed skin. The strangers are dead-like.

The dead-likes stare at the clerk. Flies buzz around them. The clerk, grimaces. The smell is coming from them. They stink of rotting flesh. His eyes dart from one dead-like to another, hoping against hope that they will leave. But they don’t. Sweat slips down the clerk’s face. He trembles and stutters as he speaks to them.

Si-si-si, Senor. H-H-How can I help you? One of them steps closer. He reaches under the glass countertop and takes out trays of silver jewelry. He’s a monster of a man. He stacks the trays on top of the counter until the display shelf is empty. Outside, the dusk has turned to darkness. The tiny store is alone on the horizon below a full moon and blood-red sky. Angry clouds churn above. Then, gunshots! The store windows flash as firearms unload in a blaze. Then silence. The windows go dark.

Navajo Nation, San Juan County

Rows of tables stacked with dusty relics sit beneath tented overhangs. A nearby sign UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO warns onlookers and visitors to stay clear of the excavation. Students carefully clean pottery and other ancient items. Some dust away the years with dry brushes. Other’s clean the pieces with water. Clouds of dust fill the air, swirl around them everywhere. It’s a filthy man-made sandstorm. Among the workers walks a tall, thin woman with long dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She’s athletic, strong with smoldering blue eyes and lightly freckled skin. Her name is Kate Darby, the excavation supervisor. It’s her dig.

Kate strolls down the aisles between the many tables carrying new artifacts to be cleaned, searching the tables. Something catches her eye. She puts down the little pottery treasures in her hands and pulls a dirty and worn leather bag from her pocket, unwraps a silver Celtic cross with a hint of French design. It has a circle around the crux amid ancient markings that belie its heritage. Kate compares the odd cross to an item on the table. Unsatisfied, she wraps her cross back up and pockets it.

She heads outside the tent and into the searing sun. Dozens of poor Native American Navajo locals and Mexican migrant workers toil in the hot sun, shoveling dirt from trenches that are roped off by more yellow tape. The make-shift barrier says ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG SITE. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH. From afar it looks like a crime scene. Kate hops down into one of the trenches, compares the silver cross from her leather bag to another relic in the dirt. She perks up. They’ve found something.

This is good, she ponders aloud as she stands over one of the Navajo excavators. Three hundred years old at least. If we uncover the Anasazi villa, we’ll re-write Native American history. The field hand glances up at her and nervously eyes the cross. His eyes betray his confidence as he ponders the trinket in her hands. Kate holds it up. The worker shies away from it, refuses to touch it. His gaze drops back down at the ground to the pile of dirt and sun-dried flaky clay where he stands. The dirt covers his feet up to his ankles. Good work, Kate tells him. But he won’t look at her. His body is rigid, his silence obstinate.

Kate doesn’t know what to say. She desperately wants him to be comfortable around her. But this silent barrier that separates her from the locals seems so impenetrable. Try as she might, Kate can’t connect with the Navajo community that fuels her project with much needed labor. She had been on many digs across the United States, in Europe and had even lived in China six months through an exchange program, working on the prestigious Terra Cotta Soldiers excavation. But here, among her own countrymen she’s an outcast – a status based on more than cultural differences. She’d dared to ask the wrong questions. And the cold shoulder treatment reached beyond disagreement between scientists and tribal councils fighting to protect Native American History. They just didn’t want her there.

From the moment she had brought her theories of the Anasazi to the doorstep of the Pueblo and Navajo communities, the Tribal Council had done all it could to undermine her. And why not? Kate had formulated a theory, upon which she had based her master’s thesis, that tribes of the past in this area of North America had once practiced cannibalism. To the Native American population, the thought of it was offensive and unthinkable. Kate had desperately tried to explain that her theories in no way tainted the present-day community or reflected upon their practices in this day and age. But who wants to admit cannibalism was once a family tradition? It tainted the peaceful and loving image of the tribe as protectors of nature and sages of wisdom.

Despite the locals’ loud and boisterous objection, Kate had pushed ahead with her project. She’d won permission to excavate on a technicality – that the location to be explored was located just yards outside the Navajo reservation’s border – and henceforth beyond the reach of the Tribal Council’s power to shut her down. To maintain this barrier and protect her work with legal standing, Kate and her team made sure to steer their efforts away from sacred reservation grounds and in the direction of public lands, an act that cleverly usurped any authority the tribal council might wield. But Kate had gone the extra mile, utilizing a surveyor of Native American descent employed by the state, to mark a clear boundary where Navajo land ends, and federal land begins. Her excavation hugged the line. And remaining within eyesight of the reservation came off as taunting.

It was a pity that things had to be this way. Kate had unearthed a substantial find revealing an undiscovered city in an area previously unknown as Anasazi in Native American culture. What had started with discovering a small abode had led to a multi-family community dwelling. The more she dug, the more she unearthed the subterranean community stretching half a mile in all directions. But a large portion of the ancient villa, complete with thick clay and stone walls, an arena and even a tribal chieftain lodging, ran partially beneath Navajo land. And that’s the way, Kate had decided, things would stay.

What had started as the discovery of a small and humble abode had become multi-family, community dwellings with undertones of military design stretching up to half a mile in all directions. And if her theory holds, the discovery would be the largest in recorded history. But the most important part of the structure, Kate had discovered, runs partially beneath Navajo land rendering that part of it off limits to excavation.

The rest of what lay beneath tribal land would require subterranean tunneling too expensive to even consider. And the legal technicalities could be argued for years in court. To attract investors to cover the cost of underground excavation, Kate must find something amazing. But playing fast and loose with the rules was an unspoken truth ruling Kate Darby’s life. To her, in this endeavor as it had been in many others, the ends always justifies the means. From behind Kate and the worker, a distinct and proper Australian accent cuts through the tension.

Anasazi is the Navajo word for enemy, she hears a male voice declare. Kate looks up and sees Dr. Sabastian McEwen, her dean, family friend and academic mentor. A tag on his shirt identifies him as the excavation’s historical supervisor. Sabastian’s ruddy complexion hints of sunburn and rosacea. Golden ginger locks atop his head fade into long grey out of date sideburns. He looks much older than fifty-one. His Elvis hairstyle doesn’t help. Years of working in the hot sun have worn his youth away. His face is leathery, dry. He blots sweat off his upper lip with the end of a wet kerchief tied around his neck.

He smiles at his prodigy student as he joins Kate with her field hands in the pit. Kate smiles back at him. She’d always had a secret crush on Sabastian since the time she was a girl. It’s a secret she guarded well and never shared with anyone. Now in her mid-twenties and chasing a master’s degree under Sabastian’s loving wing, she can share her life with him as more than a student but less than a lover with a unique bond few people ever enjoy.

Sabastian had been a close friend of Kate’s father. They served in the military together, although Sabastian never let on to exactly what their duties were. And Sabastian long ago promised to protect Kate as if she were his own. Ever since her father lost his battle with cancer, Sabastian had been there every step of the way. It was he who bandaged her scraped knees throughout childhood and inspired her to be a historical treasure hunter. He had wiped the tears from her eyes at daddy’s funeral when she lost her father at the tender age of nine. And Sabastian had stepped in, keeping his promise to love and protect her as if she were his own. Now here they were working in tandem perusing historical accounts of the past, discovering history, bringing forgotten culture back to an eagerly curious world.

Sabastian had never married, and instead had remained true to his one love in life – digging up buried treasures of the ancient world. He’d traveled the globe, become the head of a prestigious archeological program at the University of New Mexico that he had built from the ground up. And with all that burden on his shoulders, he’d cared for Kate as her mother struggled to keep a roof over their heads after her father’s passing.

The stresses of single motherhood had driven a rift between Kate and her mother. Mom had never recovered from losing daddy. She found comfort in alcohol, medicating herself into daily stupors to quell the pain of being alone. She had loved the bottle more than her own baby girl. And Kate had come to resent her for it. Sabastian had tried many times without success to explain to Kate just why her mother drank like she did. Somehow, Kate just couldn’t let go of her ire. She’d watched her mother drown herself in sorrow instead of living life to the fullest. Daddy would never have wasted his life like mom did.

Perhaps someday Kate could forgive her mother, Sabastian hoped, for he too knew the loss of a parent. He understood the impact of crossing onto the harsh reality of no return with things left unsaid, arguments left unresolved. Such is a journey is fraught with regret and cruel finality – one he desperately wants to spare Kate from experiencing. For now, she leans on Sabastian for guidance in her career, which gives him influence, and in turn, allows him to protect her by steering her in the right direction. But his power over Kate is fading fast as she establishes herself in the academic world they both share. Eventually, she will trust him enough to heed his gentle warnings about mum. And secretly, Sabastian hoped that Kate’s mother would not succumb to the cirrhosis building up from years of alcoholic abuse.

Lovingly Kate looks up at Sabastian, wishing he were younger. He wears a university jacket and badge like Kate’s. It flutters in the gentle hot desert breeze. His sand-colored Bermuda shorts leave his knees unprotected. This leg is full of scars – battle wounds he calls them – from his globe-trotting wildlife of antiquity. They look lanky and calcified like the legs of a giraffe.

Better find something soon, he quips in half-truth. The faculty’ll have my head if you don’t. Pulled rank to be here, you know. Kate chuckles, and ignores his assertion and Sabastian continues, Who the hell wants to sit at a desk all day spanking students who don’t have any manners?

You’re jealous! Kate replies, knowing it’s more than just a joke. Sabastian shrugs.

What? Deans can’t do field work? You want to keep all the fun to yourself. Well, I’m not some old fart ya’ know.

Oh, yes you are.

Even so. I was young once, and not too long ago. What’ve we got today, hmm? As he speaks, Sabastian pulls a flask from his vest, drinks, then offers it to Kate.

And still pretending, she adds. Sabastian frowns, then turns serious at what he sees beyond her in the desert.

Company’s back, he says. Kate looks up and sees several elderly Native Americans beyond the yellow tape. One in particular, stands out. He’s hunched, bow-legged. His lower body looks like a skinny horseshoe in blue denim jeans and cowboy boots. His hair is long with salt and pepper streaks. Little wisps of silver locks dance about his eyes in the gentle breeze as he watches Kate and Sabastian. His eyes are intense, black, piercing.

The locals working on the dig take notice of the visitors. They stare back, look away, or pretend not to notice. One by one each worker leaves. Some head to other trenches to get some distance from Kate and Sabastian. Others vacate altogether, gathering down the road at the bus stop. But the shaman pays them no attention. He’s there for Kate and Sabastian who have disturbed this sacred burial ground. And he is unable to stop it. Somehow, he must, for the ground here is foul and poison. It reeks of evil.

Here the mighty and terrifying Anasazi once ruled