Gray eyes narrowed while Ten silently reviewed his knowledge of the surrounding countryside.
"There are a lot of patches of big sage on Wind Mesa," he said after a minute. "My God, there must be hundreds of places like this on both sides of Picture Wash. That and the presence of year-round water is why the MacKenzies bought rights to this land more than a century ago."
"It was the water and the presence of game that attracted the Anasazi a thousand years ago. Human needs never change. All that changes is how we express those needs."
With the care of a mother returning a baby to its cradle, Diana replaced the rock in its hollow and smoothed dirt back in place.
"That's what is so exciting about the whole area of Wind Mesa," she said as she worked. "For a long time we believed that the Durango River was the farthest northern reach of the Anasazi in Colorado. September Canyon proved that we were wrong."
"Not all that wrong," Ten said dryly. "You talk as though we're a hundred miles from the river. We're not. It just seems like it by the time you loop around mountains and canyons on these rough roads."
Absently, Diana nodded. When she stood up, she was quite close to Ten. She didn't even notice. Her attention was on the area defined by the silvery big sage, and she was looking at her surroundings with an almost tangible hunger.
"This could have been a field tended by a family and watered by spreader dams and ditches built by Anasazi," she said. "Or it could have been a small community built near a source of good water and food. It could have been the Anasazi equivalent of a church or a convent or a men's club. It could have been so many things…and I doubt if we'll ever know exactly what."
"Why not?"
Diana turned and focused on Ten with blue eyes that were as dark and as deep as the storm condensing across the western sky.
"This is Rocking M land," Diana said simply. "Private land. Luke MacKenzie is already bearing the cost of excavating and protecting the September Canyon ruins. I doubt that he can afford to make a habit of that kind of generosity."
"Luke's partner is absorbing the cost, but you're right. Ranching doesn't pay worth a damn as it is. The cost of protecting the whole of Wind Mesa…" Ten lifted his Stetson and resettled it with a jerk. "We'd do it if we could, but we can't. It would bankrupt us."
The sad understanding in Diana's smile said more about regret and acceptance than any words could have.
"Even the government can't afford it," she agreed, rubbing her hands absently on her jeans. "County, state, federal, it doesn't matter which level of government you appeal to. There just isn't enough money. Even at Mesa Verde, which is designed to be a public showcase of the whole range of Anasazi culture, archaeologists have uncovered ruins, measured them, then backfilled them with dirt. It was the only way to protect them from wind, rain and pothunters."
Ten looked around the rugged mesa top and said quietly, "Maybe that's best. Whatever is beneath the earth has been buried for centuries. A few more centuries won't make any difference."
"Here, probably not," Diana said, gesturing to the big sage. "But on the cliffs or on the edges of the mesa, the ruins that aren't buried are disintegrating or being dismantled by pothunters. That's why the work in September Canyon is so important. What we don't learn from it now probably won't be available to learn later. The ruins will have been picked over, packed up and shipped out to private collections all over the world."
The passion and regret in Diana's voice riveted Ten. He was reaching out to touch her in silent comfort when he caught himself. A touch from a man she feared would hardly be a comfort.
"Don't sell this countryside short when it comes to protecting its own," Ten said. "The big sage may be a giveaway on Wind Mesa, but this is a damned inconvenient place to get to. There's only one road and half the time it's impassable. There's a horse trail through the mountains that drops down to September Mesa, but only a few Rocking M riders even know about it and no one has used it in years."
Slowly, almost unwillingly, Diana focused on Ten, sensing his desire to comfort her as clearly as the kitten had sensed its safety within Ten's hands.
"As for the scores of little canyons that might hold cliff ruins," Ten said, watching Diana, sensing the soft uncurling of her tightly held trust, "most of those canyons haven't seen a man since the Anasazi left. Any man. The Utes avoided the ruins as spirit places. Cows avoid the small canyons because the going is too rough, so cowhands don't go there, either. What's hidden stays hidden."
Ten's deep voice with its subtle velvet rasp swirled around Diana, holding her still even as it caressed her. She stared at the clear depths of his eyes and felt a curious mix of hunger and wariness, yearning and… familiarity.
"And if some of those ruins are never found, is that so bad?" Ten asked softly. He spoke slowly, watching Diana's eyes, trying to explain something hehad never put into words. "Like the Anasazi, the ruins came from time and the land. It's only right that some of them return to their beginnings untouched by any but Anasazi hands."
A throaty muttering of thunder rode the freshening wind. The sound seeped into Diana's awareness, bringing with it a dizzying feeling of deja vu; of overlapping realities; of time, like a deck of cards, being reshuffled, and the sound of that shuffling was muted thunder. Her breathing slowed and then stopped as an eerie certainty condensed within her: she had known Ten before, had stood on a mesa top with him before, had walked with him through pinon and sun and silence, had slept next to his warmth while lightning and rain renewed the land…
The feeling passed, leaving Diana shaken, disoriented, staring at a man who should have been a stranger and was not. Thunder came again, closer, insistent. She took a deep breath, infusing herself with the elemental, unforgettable pungency of sage and pinon, juniper and storm. And time. That most of all. The scent of time and a storm coming down.
Closing her eyes, Diana breathed deeply, filling herself with the storm wind, feeling it touch parts of her that had been curled tightly shut for too many years. The sensation of freedom and vulnerability that followed was frightening and exhilarating at the same time, like swimming nude in a midnight lake.
"Storm coming," Ten said, looking away from Diana because if he watched her drink the wind any longer he wouldn't be able to stop himself from touching her. "If we're going to cross Picture Wash, we have to hurry. Unless you've changed your mind?"
Diana's eyes opened. She saw a powerful man standing motionless, silhouetted against sunlight and thunderheads, his head turned away from her. Then be looked back at her, and his eyes were like cut crystal against the darkness of his face.
"Diana?"
The sound of her name on Ten's lips made sensations glitter through her body from breastbone to knees.
"Yes," she said, trying to sound businesslike and failing. "I'm coming."
6
There was some water running in Picture Wash, but the big ranch truck crossed without difficulty. Splash marks on the other side of the ford told Ten that he wasn't the only person who had driven toward September Canyon today. Ten glanced quickly around but saw nothing. They had passed no one the entire length of the one-lane dirt road, which meant that the other vehicle was still in front of them.
Frowning, Ten turned right and drove along the edge of the broad wash. There was no real road to follow, simply a suggestion of tire tracks where other vehicles had gone before. Tributary canyons opened up on the left of the wash, and more were visible across the thin ribbon of water, but Ten made no attempt to explore those openings. After three miles he turned left into the mouth of a side canyon.