She headed over to the livery stables, and there—just as she hoped—was an old set of corrals behind the ruined building. Most of the posts lay on the ground; but half a century ago, the corral might have been intact enough to hold an animal overnight.

She went in and looked around. The corrals were overgrown with dead bunchgrass, and tumbleweeds had piled against the fences. The area was strewn with old trash—broken bottles turning purple in the sun, curling strands of barbed wire, rusted harness buckles and dried-up leather straps.

She paused. There, up against the far corner of the corral, was a patch of white. She went over and found the skull of a large animal, half-buried in sand. The remains of a leather halter were tied around it. She kicked aside some tumbleweeds and exposed more bones—the horse or mule had died at the fence. Nearby, at what had evidently been the gate of the corral, she found a piece of rotten canvas the same weight and color as the pannier in the basement. This was it, then—the missing pack animal. Some rotting clothes lay nearby, falling out of the remains of a canvas pannier.

As she poked around, she made another discovery: a coil of climbing rope and a loop of wire holding rusted pitons, chocks, and carabiners. Corrie had enough experience to recognize this immediately as rock climbing gear.

She called for Nora, who was across the way. The archaeologist came over.

“Poor thing,” said Nora, peering at the scattering of bones. “What a way to die.”

Corrie nodded as Nora knelt beside the bones. “Looks like we can start to reconstruct the subject’s last day. He turned the mule loose in the corral and left one pannier and the saddle by the gate. He carried the other pannier back to his basement shelter. And that’s where he died, evidently in agony—leaving the pack animal shut up in the corral to die as well.”

“Maybe not,” Nora said, as she swept away the sand that partially buried the skull.

“What do you mean?”

Nora pointed, and immediately Corrie understood. The archaeologist had uncovered the front of the skull, and in it, Corrie could see what was unmistakably a bullet hole. It had gone in the skull, but there was no exit hole.

Nora carefully shook the skull and heard a rattling sound. She peered inside and saw the bullet, distorted and flattened. “This mule was shot,” she said.

“Why would he shoot his own animal?” Corrie asked.

“We don’t know he did. We also don’t know why he died in that strange position, all curled up. There are a lot of things here that don’t make sense.”

They fell quiet for a moment.

“What do you make of the climbing gear?” Corrie finally asked.

“I’ll bet he was searching the old gold mine below the rim of the mesa.”

Corrie nodded again. “Let’s get all this stuff into evidence lockers.”

By ten everything had been removed, packed, and sealed except the body itself. Skip had finally risen and cooked everyone a huge breakfast of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and eggs.

“Moving that corpse is going to be a challenge,” Skip said, his mouth full of bacon. “The thing’s as delicate as a butterfly’s wing.” He crammed another strip of bacon into his mouth and chewed noisily.

“It’s going to take all three of us,” said Nora.

After breakfast, they returned to the basement, bringing along a body bag and a large, coffin-like evidence locker. The man was curled up against the basement wall, dressed in an oilcloth duster worn over a checked shirt and canvas pants held up by leather suspenders. The clothes were so desiccated their edges were brown and crumbling to dust. Large sections of his skin were coming off in dry sheets. The remains of an old cowboy hat lay near his head. One hand clutched his chest and the other was thrown out as if pushing something away.

“All right,” Nora said. “Here’s how we’re going to move the body. We’re going to lay the open body bag on the floor next to it, and then the three of us will place our hands under the body and, on the count of three, lift it in one smooth motion and put it in the bag. Then we put the bag in the locker. Okay?”

Both Corrie and Skip nodded.

They slid their gloved hands underneath: Nora at the shoulders, Corrie at the hips, and Skip at the knees.

“One, two, three.” They raised the body up—it was remarkably light—and gently placed it on the unzipped bag.

A strange and unpleasant smell wafted up, reminiscent of very old cheese. Corrie tried to breathe through her mouth.

“Perfect,” said Nora.

“Hey,” said Skip. “Something fell out of his clothes.” He pointed to an object lying on the plastic next to the corpse. It was about the size of a hand, wrapped in a piece of leather and tied around the middle with a thong.

Corrie bent down to look at it more closely. The leather was splitting, and she could see a gleam from inside.

“Let’s open this up,” she said. “Nora, you agree?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Corrie photographed it, and then Nora picked it up with her gloved hands. “Wow,” she said, hefting it. “Heavy.” She delicately picked at the leather knot, worked it open, and unfolded the stiff leaves of leather.

It revealed a spectacular golden cross, encrusted with what looked like gemstones, gleaming faintly in the gloomy light of the cellar.