She waited five minutes, but the sound did not return. She turned and began retracing her steps. Despite being an experienced woodsman, she hadn’t marked her back trail, and in the dark every trunk began to look the same as every other. Just as she was starting to panic, thinking she’d lost her way, she saw a faint gleam through the trees and headed for the welcoming fire.

18

May 8

TWO MORNINGS LATER, Nora stood near the base of the cliff and looked around. What had been an empty meadow the night before last was now a full-fledged archaeological excavation. And, she had to admit, a damn fine one.

The prep had gone like clockwork. Salazar and Adelsky had gridded out the central site, driving pegs into the ground at one-meter intervals and tying Day-Glo orange string to create a six-by-ten-meter grid—each of the sixty grid spaces representing a square meter, from which every speck of soil would be removed and screened. The proton magnetometer—a device that looked like a high-tech lawnmower—had already been run over the entire area, giving them a rough idea where buried artifacts might be located, especially ferrous objects such as nails, bolts, and tools. Since this was a pristine area, free of human settlement, Nora assumed any ferrous object located in the ground must have been left by the Donner Party. And there were a lot—all concentrated in the middle of the hollow. That was probably where the hearth and the remains of the shelter would be found.

Clive had pitched in with gusto, asking questions about how this worked, or that, showing a keen interest in how archaeology was done and an eager desire to help. He was like an enthusiastic boy, really, thrilled to be on his first dig.

Meanwhile, Maggie and the wranglers were busy shifting their base camp from Hackberry Creek up Poker Canyon, just over half a mile from the site. Peel was leading the pack train to and from the ranch into the mountains on a daily basis. He would pack in equipment, overnight the animals in the campsite, and then lead them out again for another journey. Their living quarters had already been set up along the banks of the creek, and the move should be complete and everything in place by the following night.

At the Lost Camp itself, a large wall tent—cheekily labeled HQ by Adelsky—had been set up adjacent to the archaeological site. It contained worktables and storage containers for sorting, photographing, and conserving the artifacts, along with a computer and Wi-Fi transmitter, attached to solar panels and a small backup generator. The Wi-Fi couldn’t connect them to the outside world, but it would be effective in communicating and transferring files among themselves. The strongbox went into a corner, and on the opposite side was an area for storing the proton magnetometer and other archaeological equipment. Adelsky and Salazar were at the far end of the meadow, finishing up the magnetometer survey. In the aftermath of the storm, the weather had been sublime: warm during the day and above freezing at night.

As she watched, Clive emerged from the work tent and came over to where she was standing. “Beautiful morning,” he said. “I’m really curious to see how this is going to progress. I’ve never worked on a dig before. We historians spend most of our time shut up inside libraries and archives, accumulating dust and withering away.”

Nora smiled. “Nice shirt,” she said, nodding at yet another paisley horror show. “How many of those did you bring? It’s going to get awfully dirty, you realize. That is, if you’re really serious about helping.”

Clive grinned, tugging on the collar. “I know, I know. I can’t help it: I just like paisley. But I am serious. Really. We’re partners and I want to be useful, not just some bump on a log.”

“Okay. I think that can be arranged.” Nora thought back on how solitary her life had been since her husband’s death, how used she had become to working alone. Well, perhaps it was time to engage with life a bit more.

“That’s great,” said Clive. He gestured at the snowcapped mountains. “Sierra Nevada. Snowy Mountains. They sure live up to their name—it’s mid-May and they’re still covered with snow. I can’t believe how thrilling it is to be out here, working on this.” He looked around. “You think we should give this meadow a name?”

The same thought had occurred to Nora. She’d considered “Tamzene’s Meadow,” but decided that wasn’t suitable: even in the early morning sunlight, the damp hollow held little charm. And it was not only because of what had happened here. The rocky walls seemed to loom over them almost menacingly. Where they narrowed at the far end, the cliffs were still topped by heavy scallops of snow. In particular, one vast lip of snow the size of an apartment building hung over the edge of a steep col high above them. It seemed to defy gravity, and she wondered what kept it in place.

“I guess that’s one of the cornices Burleson warned us about,” she said, nodding toward it.

“Good thing the dig site’s nowhere near it. I wouldn’t want to be under that baby when it gives.”

Nora continued her visual survey. The trees that formed the edge of the vale were dark and forbidding, cloaked in almost constant shadow, and many were partially or completely dead. At a low point near the end of the valley, the creek temporarily widened into a black, ice-skimmed tarn before continuing on its sinuous way. All in all, it was—not to put too fine a word on it—spooky.

“Let’s call it Lost Meadow,” Clive suggested.

Nora considered this a moment. It seemed both simple and appropriate. “Good idea.”

At that moment, they heard the distant voice of Maggie, calling them down to breakfast.

* * *

Nora finished her bacon and eggs and gulped the last of Maggie’s strong black coffee. Seated nearby, Salazar and Adelsky were both wolfing down their food. Now that the site was prepared, they knew what the day had in store: serious work.

She rose and put her plate in the dish tub. “What do you say, Jason?” she asked the field assistant. “Ready to get dirty?”

“Damn straight!” He was on his feet in an instant.

“Count me in,” said Clive.

Moments later the four of them—Nora, Salazar, Adelsky, and Clive—were headed back to the gridded-out dig site, Maggie wishing them good hunting at the top of her lungs.

At the work tent, Nora picked up one of the iPads that ran the Institute’s cutting-edge excavation app. As she fired it up, Clive came and looked over her shoulder. “How does it work?”

She swiped open the app. “It’s pretty amazing. You input all the levels, soil types, and every artifact and its position. All you have to do is photograph the artifact and the app maps it in situ using the picture. It stitches all the pictures together to create a complete dig site image, layer by layer.”

“Amazing. Can you teach me…?”

“To use it? Sure. I’ll show you the details. But you’ll also need to know the rudiments of basic dirt archaeology. I’ll show you as we go along. You can observe and follow what we do today, and maybe tomorrow I’ll give you some actual work to do.”

“Thank you, this is very exciting for me. History is always one step removed from the real thing—but right here, to be able to see and feel…It’s so much more immediate, so real. It’s like touching the past.”