Marquez set his mind on extracting as many stones as he could in the brief time he had left. His days became longer as he struggled to remove the red crystals with nothing but his miner's pick and a wheelbarrow to carry the ore to the bucket for the ride up to the mine's entrance.
As he walked through the tunnel, he stepped around old rusting ore cars and drills left by the miners when they had deserted the mine. There had been no market for the equipment, since nearby mines were closing down one by one at the same time. It was all simply cast aside and left where it was last used.
Seventy-five yards into the tunnel, he came to a narrow cleft in the rock just wide enough for him to slip through. Twenty feet beyond was the rhodochrosite lode he was mining. A light bulb had burned out on the string hanging from the roof of the cleft, and he replaced it with one of several he kept in a backpack. Then he took his pick in hand and began to attack the rock that was embedded with the gemstones. A dull red in their natural state, the crystals looked like dried cherries in a muffin.
A dangerous overhang of rock protruded just above the cleft. If he was to continue to work safely without being crushed by a rockfall, Marquez had no choice but to blast it away. Using a portable pneumatic drill, he bored a hole into the rock. Then he inserted a small charge of dynamite and wired it to a handheld detonator. After moving around the corner of the cleft and into the main tunnel, he pushed down on the plunger. A dull thump echoed through the mine, followed by the sound of tumbling rock and a blanket of dust that rolled into the main tunnel.
Marquez waited a few minutes for the dust to settle before carefully entering the natural cleft. The overhang was gone. It had become a pile of rocks on the narrow floor. He retrieved the wheelbarrow and began removing the debris, dumping it a short distance up the tunnel. When the cleft was finally cleared, he looked up to make certain that no threatening section of the overhang remained.
He stared in wonder at a hole that had suddenly appeared in the roof above the crystal lode. He aimed the light atop his hard hat upward. The beam continued through the hole into what appeared to be a chamber beyond. Suddenly consumed by curiosity, he ran back up the tunnel for fifty yards, where he found the rusty remains of a six-foot iron ladder among the abandoned mining equipment. Returning inside the cleft, he propped up the ladder, climbed the rungs, and pried loose several rocks from the rim of the hole, widening it until he could squeeze through. Then he thrust his upper torso inside the chamber and twisted his head from shoulder to shoulder, sweeping the beam of his hard hat's light around the darkness.
Marquez found himself staring into a room hewn in the rock. It looked to be a perfect cube approximately fifteen by fifteen feet, with the same distance separating the floor and roof. Strange markings were cut into the sheer, smooth walls. This definitely was not the work of nineteenth-century miners. Then, abruptly, the beam of his hard hat's light struck a stone pedestal and glinted on the object it supported.
Marquez froze in shock at the ungodly sight of a black skull, its empty eye sockets staring directly at him.
<<2>>
The pilot banked the United Airlines Beechcraft twin-engine plane around a pair of cotton-fluffed clouds and began his descent toward the short runway on a bluff above the San Miguel River. Though he had flown in and out of the little Telluride airport a hundred times, it was still a chore for him to keep his concentration on landing the aircraft and not on the incredible aerial view of the spectacular snowcapped San Juan Mountains. The serene beauty of the jagged peaks and slopes, mantled with snow under a vivid blue sky, was breathtaking.
As the plane dropped lower into the valley, the slopes of the mountains rose majestically on both sides. They appeared so close that it seemed to the passengers as if the aircraft's wings would brush the aspen trees on the rocky outcroppings. Then the landing gear dropped, and a minute later the wheels thumped and screeched as they touched the narrow asphalt runway.
The Beechcraft carried only nineteen passengers, and the unloading went quickly. Patricia O'Connell was the last one to step to the ground. Taking the advice of friends who had flown into the resort town for the skiing, she had asked for a rear seat so she could enjoy the fantastic view without its being blocked by one of the aircraft's wings.
At 9,000 feet in altitude, the air was thin but incredibly pure and refreshing. Pat inhaled deeply as she walked from the plane to inside the terminal building. As she passed through the door, a short, stocky man with a shaved head and a dark brown beard walked up to her.
"Dr. O'Connell?"
"Please call me Pat," she replied. "You must be Dr. Ambrose."
"Please call me Tom," he said, with a warm smile. "Did you have a good flight from Denver?"
"It was wonderful. A little rough coming over the mountains, but the beautiful scenery easily offset any discomfort."
"Telluride is a lovely spot," he said wistfully. "There are times I wish I could live here."
"I don't imagine there are many archaeological sites to study for a man of your experience."
"Not this high," he said. "The ancient Indian ruins are at much lower altitudes."
Dr. Thomas Ambrose may not have fit the stereotype of an eminent anthropologist, but he was one of the most respected people in the field. A professor emeritus at Arizona State University, he was an accomplished researcher, meticulous with written reports of his on-site investigations. Now in his late fifties-- Pat guessed him to be ten years younger-- he could boast of thirty years spent on the trail of early man and his cultures throughout the Southwest.
"Dr. Kidd was very mysterious over the phone. He offered almost no information at all about the discovery."
"And neither will I," said Ambrose. "It's best that you wait and see for yourself."
"How did you become involved with this find?" she asked.
"The right place at the right time. I was on a skiing vacation with an old girlfriend when I received a call from a colleague at the University of Colorado, asking if I'd take a look at the artifacts a miner reported finding. After a quick study of the site, I realized that I was in over my head."
"I find that hard to believe of a man with your reputation."
"Unfortunately, my area of expertise does not include epigraphy. And that's where you come in. The only one I know personally who specializes in deciphering ancient inscriptions is Dr. Jerry Kidd at Stanford. He wasn't available, but recommended you highly to take his place."
Ambrose turned, as the outside doors to the luggage drop were opened and the terminal ticket ladies who doubled as luggage handlers began throwing suitcases onto a sloping metal tray. "The big green one is mine," said Pat, thankful a man was there to tote her fifty-pound bag, which was packed with reference books.
Ambrose grunted but said nothing as he manhandled the heavy bag out to a jeep Cherokee that he'd parked in the lot outside the terminal. Pat hesitated, before entering the car, to absorb the magnificent view of the pine and aspen forests ascending the slopes of Mount Wilson and Sunshine Peak across the valley. As she stood enthralled with the panoramic scene, Ambrose took a moment to study her. Pat's hair was a radiant red and cascaded to her waist. Her eyes were a sage green. She stood as if sculptured by an artist, her weight on her right leg with her left knee turned slightly inward. Her shoulders and arms suggested a build more muscular than most women's, no doubt fashioned by long hours of exercise in a gym. Ambrose guessed her height at five feet eight inches, her weight at a solid 135 pounds. She was a pretty woman, not cute or strikingly beautiful, but he imagined she'd look very desirable when dressed in something more alluring than jeans and a mannish leather jacket.
Dr. Kidd claimed there was no better person than Patricia O'Connell to decipher ancient writings. He had faxed her history, and Ambrose was impressed. Thirty-five years old, with a doctorate in ancient languages from St. Andrews College in Scotland, she taught early linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Pat had written three well-received books on inscriptions she had deci
phered on stones found in different parts of the world. Married and divorced from an attorney, she supported a young daughter of fourteen. A confirmed diffusionist, one who embraced the theory that cultures spread from one to another without being independently created, she firmly believed ancient seafarers had visited American shores many hundreds of years before Columbus.
"I've put you up at a nice bed-and-breakfast in town," said Ambrose. "If you wish, I can drop you off for an hour or so to freshen up."
"No, thank you," Pat said, smiling. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go straight to the site."
Ambrose nodded, took a cellular phone from a coat pocket, and dialed a number. "I'll let Luis Marquez, the owner of the mine, who made the discovery, know that we're coming."
They drove in silence through the heart of Telluride. Pat stared up at the ski slopes of Mountain Village to the south and saw skiers assaulting the steep moguls on the run that dropped to the edge of town.
They passed old buildings that had been preserved over the past century, restored and now housing retail stores instead of a sea of saloons. Ambrose pointed to a building on his left. "That's the spot where Butch Cassidy robbed his first bank."
"Telluride must have a rich history."
"It does," replied Ambrose. "Right there in front of the Sheridan Hotel is where William Jennings Bryan gave his famous `cross of gold' speech. And farther up the South Fork Valley was the world's first generating plant, which produced alternating-current electricity for the mines. The plant's equipment was designed by Nikola Tesla."
Ambrose continued through the town of Telluride, busy with the invasion of skiers, and drove into the box canyon to where the paved road ended at Pandora. Pat stared in wonder at the steep cliffs surrounding the old mining town, taking in the beauty of Bridal Veil Falls, which was beginning to cascade with the runoff from the melting snow brought on by the prelude of a warm spring.
They came to a side road that led to the ruins of several old buildings. A van and a jeep painted a bright turquoise were parked outside. A pair of men were wearing wet suits and unloading what looked to Pat like diving equipment. "What can divers possibly be doing in the middle of the mountains of Colorado?" she asked vaguely.
"I stopped and talked to them yesterday," answered Ambrose. "They're a team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency."
"A long way from the sea, aren't they?"
"I was told they're exploring a complex system of ancient waterways that once drained the western flank of the San Juan Mountains. There is a maze of caverns that connect to the old mine tunnels."
Half a mile up the road, Ambrose passed a huge abandoned ore mill, where a large semitruck and trailer were parked beside the San Miguel River below the mouth of another old abandoned mine. Tents had been set up around the vehicles, and several men could be seen wandering about the camp. The sides of the big trailers were painted with words advertising the Geo Subterranean Science Corporation with home offices in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Another bunch of scientists," Ambrose volunteered without being asked. "A geophysical outfit, searching through the old mine shafts with fancy ground-penetrating equipment that is supposed to detect any veins of gold overlooked by the old miners."
"Think they'll find anything?" asked Pat.
Ambrose shrugged. "I doubt it. These mountains have been dug pretty deep."
A short distance later, Ambrose pulled to a stop in front of a picturesque little house and parked next to an old Chevy pickup truck. Marquez and his wife, Lisa, alerted to their coming, came out and greeted them, as Ambrose introduced them to Pat.
"I envy you," said Pat, "living amid such gorgeous scenery."
"Sad to say," said Lisa, "that after a year you don't notice it anymore."
"I don't think I could ever become immune to it."
"Can I get you folks anything? A cup of coffee? A beer?"
"I'm fine," answered Pat. "I would like to see your discovery as soon as it's convenient."
"No problem," said Marquez. "We still have five hours of daylight left. More than enough time for you to see the chamber and get back before dark."
"I'll have dinner waiting," said Lisa. "I thought you might like barbecued elk."
"Sounds wonderful," Pat said, already feeling the pangs of hunger.
Marquez nodded his head at the old truck. "You folks will have a more comfortable ride up to the mine if we take your jeep, Doc."
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the ore cart, making the descent from the portal into the old Paradise Mine. It was a new experience for Pat. She had never entered a mine shaft.
"It feels warmer," she observed, "the deeper we go."
"As a rule of thumb," explained Marquez, "the temperature increases by five degrees every hundred feet you descend into the earth. In the lower levels of the mine that are now flooded, the heat used to be over a hundred degrees."
The ore cart came to a stop. Marquez climbed out and dug into a large wooden toolbox. He handed Pat and Ambrose each a hard hat.
"For falling rock?" asked Pat.
Marquez laughed. "Mostly to keep your scalp from knocking against low timbers."
The dim yellow lights attached to the overhead timbers flickered overhead as they made their way through the damp tunnel with Marquez in the lead. When one of them spoke, the voice sounded hollow against the surrounding rock walls of the tunnel. Pat stumbled more than once on the ties holding the old rusting ore cart rails, but caught herself before falling. She hadn't realized when she'd dressed earlier in the morning, before flying to Telluride, what a wise decision it was to wear a pair of comfortable hiking shoes. After what seemed an hour but was actually only ten minutes, they reached the cleft leading to the chamber and followed Marquez through the narrow passage.
He stopped at the ladder and motioned upward to where a bright light spilled through the opening in the rock ceiling. "I strung lights inside since you visited yesterday, Dr. Ambrose. The sheer walls act as reflectors, so you shouldn't have a problem studying the writing." Then he stood aside and helped Pat up the ladder.
Not having been told what to expect, she was stunned. She felt like Howard Carter when he first viewed King Tuts tomb. Her eyes immediately locked on the black skull, and she reverently approached its pedestal and stared at the smooth surface gleaming under the lights.
"It's exquisite," she murmured admiringly, as Ambrose squeezed through the opening and stood beside her.
"A masterwork," he agreed. "Carved out of obsidian."
"I've seen the Mayan crystal skull that was found in Belize. This one is far more inspiring. The other is crude in comparison."
"They say the crystal skull emits an aura of light, and strange sounds are heard to come from it."
"It must have been lethargic the time I studied it," said Pat, smiling. "It only sat there and stared."
"I can't imagine how many years-- generations most likely, without modern tools-- it took to polish such an object of beauty from a mineral so brittle. One tap of a hammer and it would shatter into a thousand pieces."
"The surface is so smooth, it's flawless," Pat said softly.
Ambrose swept one hand around the chamber. "This entire chamber is a wonder. The inscriptions on the walls and ceiling must easily have taken five men a lifetime to engrave in the rock, but not before an immense effort was spent polishing the interior surfaces. This chamber alone had to have taken years to carve out of solid granite at this depth. I've measured the dimensions. The four walls, floor, and ceiling enclose a perfect cube. If the interior surfaces are out of alignment or plumb, it's less than one millimeter.
Like the classic old mystery novel, we have a drama that took place in a room with no windows or doors."
"The opening in the floor?" Pat asked.
"Blasted by Luis Marquez while excavating for gemstones," replied Ambrose.
"Then how was this chamber created without an entrance and exit?"
Ambrose pointed to the ceilin
g. "The only hint I could find of an infinitesimal crack around the borders was in the ceiling. I can only assume that whoever constructed this cubicle burrowed down from above and placed a precisely carved slab atop the cubicle."
"For what purpose?"
Ambrose grinned. "The reason why you're here, to find answers."
Pat removed a notepad, a small paintbrush and a magnifying glass from a pack she carried on her belt.
She moved close to one wall, gently swept away the dust of centuries from the rock, and peered at the script through the glass. She intently studied the markings for several moments before looking up and staring at the ceiling. Then she looked at Ambrose with a blank expression in her face. "The ceiling appears to be a celestial map of the stars. The symbols are. . ." She hesitated and stared at Ambrose with a blank expression. "This must be some sort of hoax perpetrated by the miners who dug the tunnel."
"What brought you to that conclusion?" inquired Ambrose.
"The symbols don't bear the slightest resemblance to any ancient writings I've ever studied."
"Can you decipher any of them?"
"All I can tell you is that they are not pictographic like hieroglyphics, or logographic signs that express individual words. Nor do the symbols suggest words or oral syllables. It appears to be alphabetic."
"Then they're a combination of single sounds," offered Ambrose.
Pat nodded in agreement. "This is either some sort of written code or an ingenious system of writing."
Ambrose looked at her intently. "Why do you think this is all a hoax?"
"The inscriptions do not fit any known pattern set down by man throughout recorded history," Pat said in a quiet, authoritative voice.