In a poorly lit corner of a restaurant in Moab, a woman draws a map on a napkin and slips it to a man. The man studies the paper square carefully and asks her a few questions. He thanks her. They pay for their meals and then part ways.
The man stops at a gas station, fills up his truck, then walks to the corner pay phone and makes three calls. Within hours, he meets five friends in Blanding, Utah, at the Rainbow Café. They conspire under plastic jade lanterns, eating Navajo tacos and egg rolls.
“It's called Perfect Kiva. We'll camp on top of the mesa tonight, then hike into the canyon tomorrow. The site is on our right, up high, the third ledge down. I have the map.”
The six left Blanding in three trucks. The man with the map led them in the dark across miles of dirt roads that crisscrossed the mesa. In a sense, he had blindfolded them. That was his plan, and his promise to the woman in Moab.
Their camp appeared as a black hole in the desert. Each person drew out his flashlight and checked the ground for cowpies and scorpions. One by one, they threw down their sleeping bags and fell asleep. Dream time was kept by the rotation of stars.
Dawn came into the country like a secret. The six had burrowed so deep inside their bags that they emerged like startled ground squirrels after an eight-hour hibernation. The black hole of the previous night had been transformed into a bevy of pifion and juniper. A few yards beyond was a cut in the desert a quarter mile wide.
Camp was erased. Cars were locked. Water bottles were filled and packs put on. The pace was brisk as they descended into one of the finger canyons. For two hours they walked in and out of morning shadows, until, finally, they stood on the slickrock in full sunlight.
The man with the map studied the cliffs, looking for the perfect alcove with the perfect kiva. Placing their trust in the leader, the others kept walking and found pleasures in small things like blister beetles and feathers snatched from the air by sage. The desert heat loosened the muscles and spirit of the group. Joy crept in and filled their boots. A few ran up and down boulders just to see if their courage could hold them. Others focused on birds—a lazuli bunting here, an ash-throated flycatcher there. But the man with the map kept looking.
A raven flew out from the rocks.
“There it is!” cried the leader. “The third ledge down. I'll bet that's our alcove.”
The six began to climb where the raven flew. They hiked straight up, some on hands and knees, through the sandstone scree, until finally, breathless, they encountered the ruins. Upright and stable, in spite of the thousand feet below them, the friends stood in wonder. They had entered an open-sided hallway of stone. Pink stone. Stone so soft that if held it would crumble.
There were figures with broad shoulders and wild eyes staring at them from inside the rock—petroglyphs that not only seized the imagination but turned it upside down. Animals with bear bodies and deer heads danced on the overhang. Walls made of dry-laid stones divided the ledge. Most of them had tumbled with time: no mortar had been used, just the careful placement of stone against stone to house the Anasazi.
Beyond the walls were mealing bins, standing stones that corralled the corn. The manos and metates were gone, but images of women chanting corn to meal were as real as the shriveled cobs piled inside the granary.
Perfect Kiva was more subtle. It was recognizable only by the fraying juniper bark that had shown through the eroded sand. The six sat outside the circle until calm. The kiva seemed to ask that of them. Five slabs of sandstone framed the entrance, which appeared as a dark square on the ledge floor. A juniper ladder with rungs of willow led to the underworld. They paused. The ladder that had supported the Ancient Ones might not support them. They chose not to use it. Instead, they juryrigged a sling out of nylon cording and carabiners and anchored it around a boulder. They moved the ladder aside and, one by one, lowered themselves into the kiva. Perfect Kiva—round like Earth. Hidden in the earth, the six sat.
It took a few minutes for their eyes to adjust. Cobwebs dangled from the wooden ceiling, most likely black widows spinning webs off the cribbed logs and pilasters. Walls bricked, then plastered, created the smooth red circumference of the ceremonial chamber. Four shelves were cut into the walls. Each was lined with juniper lace and berries. Two full moons, one green and one white, faced each other on the east and west walls. A green serpent of the same pigment moved on the north wall, west to east, connecting the circles.
No one spoke.
The six remained captive to their own meanderings, each individual absorbing what he was in need of. An angle of light poured through the hole in the ceiling as the dust in the air danced up the ladder. They breathed deeply. It was old, old air.
The longer they sat in the kiva, the more they saw. There was a hearth in the center, a smoke vent to the south, eight loom anchors, and the fine desert powder they were sitting on. But the focus inside the kiva was on the sipapu — the small hole in the floor that, according to the Hopi, promises emergence. In time, each one circled the sipapu with his fingers and raised himself on the slings. They untied the rope from around the boulder and placed the Anasazi ladder back where it had been for as long as ravens had a memory.
A few months later, in a poorly lit corner of a restaurant in Moab, a woman speaks softly to a man.
“They took the ladder, put it in a museum, and stabilized the kiva. It's just not the same,” she whispers. “They fear aging and want it stopped like an insect in amber.”
He studies her face and asks her a few questions. He thanks her. They pay for their meals and then part ways.
The man stops at a gas station, fills up his truck, then walks to the corner pay phone and makes three calls. Within hours the six meet in Blanding at the Rainbow Café.
“It's called theft in the name of preservation,” he says. “The ladder is held hostage at the local museum. It belongs to the desert. It must be returned.”
The friends move closer around the table.
“Tomorrow—” he says.
“Tonight,” they insist.
Dawn came into the country like a secret.