Gloria Skurzynski - Mysteries in Our National Parks - Cliff-Hanger - A Mystery in Mesa Verde National Park

A MYSTERY IN MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK

To Joni Alm

beloved daughter, sister, and friend.

Everything blooms under your touch.

Copyright ©1999 Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson

Cover illustration copyright © 2007 Jeffery Mangiat

All rights reserved.

Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents is prohibited without written permission from the National Geographic Society, 1145 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

Maps by Carl Mehler, Director of Maps; Thomas L. Gray, Map Research; Jehan Aziz and Michelle H. Picard, Map Production

The cougar used as a design element throughout this book is from a photograph of a petroglyph taken by George F. Mobley, NGP. The petroglyph is carved into a sandstone wall near the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

The legend on pages 102–104 is adapted from “The Children and the Hummingbird” in Spider Woman Stories, by G. M. Mullett. Copyright © 1979 The Arizona Board of Regents.

Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press and Daisy Mullett Smith.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or events other than descriptions of natural phenomena is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Skurzynski, Gloria

Cliff-Hanger / by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson

p. cm.—(A national parks mystery; #2)

Summary: Twelve-year-old Jack and his younger sister visit Mesa Verde National Park, where they delve into the park’s history while gradually uncovering the mysterious past of their family’s teenage foster child Lucky.

ISBN: 978-1-4263-0965-6

1. Foster home care—Fiction. 2. Mesa Verde National Park—Fiction. 3. National Parks and Reserves—Fiction. 4. Mystery and detective stories—Fiction. I. Ferguson, Alane. II. Title. III. Series.

PZ7.S6287Wcl 1999 98-8716

[Fic]—DC21

Version: 2017-07-06

The authors are extremely grateful to the staff

and rangers at Mesa Verde National Park

for all their generous and gracious help:

Larry Wiese, park superintendent;

Will Morris, chief interpretive ranger;

Linda Martin, supervisory park ranger;

Kathy Fiero, archaeologist; Marilyn Colyer, naturalist;

and Jane Anderson, Steve LaPointe,

Nancy Lomayaktewa, Patrick Joshevama,

Tsuyesua Kelhoyouma, Clyde Benally,

Chad Benally, John Lenihan, Mona Hutchinson, and Gretchen Ward.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

A pair of uniformed officers scanned the truck-stop restaurant, their guns snug in their holsters. Moving only his eyes, the man in the booth looked around. Nearby, a group of ranchers joked with a waitress, who held a full tray perched on her hip.

Pushing his fingertips against his forehead, the man quickly lowered his head. “Behind you. Cops. Two of them,” he said softly to the girl with him.

“Are they on to you?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Reaching across the table, he gave her hand a quick, hard squeeze. “But I can’t take the chance. I’m sorry, baby. You know what you have to do. Make it good.”

The man stood. The girl waited until the waitress was only a foot away from their booth. Suddenly the girl shot to her feet, colliding with the loaded tray. Soup, salad, and drinks went flying. Dishes crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces.

“Look what you did!” the girl screamed at the waitress. “I’m burned! The soup scalded my skin!” Shrieking, she fell to her knees. All eyes were on her as the man moved toward the door. No one saw him leave.

No one but the girl.

The sheer cliffs of Mesa Verde cut into the thin, blue air like the blade of an ax. Jack stared at the photograph of the bluff, with its sand-colored stone splintered by fingers of juniper and pine. It was there that the Ancient Ones had once lived. The Ancestral Puebloans. The People. Against all laws of gravity, they had built their homes on ledges that rowned the mesa. Imagining what it must have been like to live on those dizzying cliffs, Jack traced his finger along the picture to the valley 500 feet below. He envisioned himself as one of the People, a warrior who hunted deer and carried his kill across his shoulders, returning to feed his family. Jack looked again at the impossibly narrow path that led to the cliff dwellings. One false step, he realized, and he would have fallen off the side and been crushed onto the valley floor.

“I’ve got news!” The bedroom door banged as Jack’s sister burst into the room, flushed with excitement. Ashley leaped onto his bed and gave it a bounce, which sent Jack’s Photography Today magazine flying. “You want to hear?”

“Wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to knock?”

“I know. But this is important! It’s about our trip to Mesa Verde National Park and the killer cougar.”

“Hold on—the cougar didn’t kill anybody.”

“Whatever. The point is, something’s happened that’s going to change our whole plan!”

“What?” Jack felt his stomach tighten. He’d been counting down the hours to the trip, scheduled for the next morning. He didn’t like surprises.

“Don’t look so grouchy, Jack. This is good.” Ashley took a breath, which allowed Jack a moment to catch his own breath, even though he’d hardly said a word. “Mom just got a call. From Social Services.”

Immediately, Jack’s fists tensed in resistance. He didn’t want to hear the words he knew were about to come out of Ashley’s mouth, as sure as summer followed spring.

“We’re getting a little girl! She’s on her way now.”

“You call that good news?”

“You know it is. Hey, way to be excited,” Ashley told him, shaking her head with disapproval. She was the one who was easy with people, always eager to share her life with someone new. But Jack wasn’t so open. Especially now. “Anyway, the best part,” Ashley went on, “is that she’s coming real soon. As in any minute now.”

“We can’t get a foster kid tonight,” Jack cried. “It’ll screw up everything! The rangers at Mesa Verde told Mom that with all the visitors streaming into the park, she needs to get there and calm things down before something worse happens. We can’t stay home now.”

“Jack, that’s what’s so great!” Ashley’s smile was wide enough to crinkle her cheeks. “We’re taking her with us! Mom said the girl was dumped at a truck stop down by Cokeville, and no one else can shelter her right now. It’s an emergency, Jack. She’s coming here—it’s already settled.”

“Great. Just great. Now I’ll get stuck baby-sitting some little girl, and I’ll never get to take any good shots,” Jack complained, mentally hanging on to that picture of the cliff dwelling in the photography magazine. It wouldn’t do much good to moan about it now, since his parents had already said yes to the foster child.