Sara ten Broek drove her Volkswagen bus down the dirt road at breakneck speed, leaving a rooster plume of dust hanging in the dry desert air. It was hot, very hot. The merciless sun had sapped all the moisture out of the air by mid-morning, making it almost painful to breathe.

Sara swerved around a lone Saguaro cactus, narrowly missing a line of sandstone rocks marking the edge of the roadbed. It was approaching 11:00 in the morning, and she had promised to pick her granddaughter up at the railway station in Las Cruces at 11:20. Even with the way she was driving it was still a good 45 minutes before she would reach the station. It’s not a good idea to leave a seven-year-old sitting alone in a strange and unfamiliar place.

“Damn…!” she cursed through clenched teeth; she wouldn’t hear the last of this, she was certain.

Sara’s son, Sean, had a will as strong as hers, and a mind and tongue to match. They were well suited to each other, although for years they had no contacts to speak of. Alex was the most precious thing in Sean’s life since Terri died in a car accident, and it was with great reluctance he agreed for Alex to come.

Sara had been out in the badlands to the east of almost every place civilized, searching for petroglyphs and burial grounds of the ancients, and didn’t get word of the tragic accident for nearly four days. Sean and Terri were driving on their way home from a rally for a local candidate, when a car crossed the median strip and hit them head-on. The driver had a blood alcohol level of 0.10. Terri was killed instantly, and Sean remained in a coma in the hospital for two weeks.

A close neighbor cared for Alex during that time, as there weren’t any relatives available. When Sara finally received word of the tragedy, she left her diggings and traveled to Albuquerque to visit Sean at the medical center. The meeting was the first since Sara had left the family, abandoned, Sean would say, 24 years ago. Sean was just five, and was hurt deeply by her leaving.

Over the years, Sara couldn’t find words to explain why she had left; she wasn’t sure why herself. Sean hadn’t forgotten the pain, nor had he forgiven her. Sara stayed only long enough to say how sorry she was for Terri’s dying, and ask if there was anything she could do. When Sean said, “no,” she left and quietly returned to her dig site.

Sara and Terri had gotten along famously, in spite of the anger felt and openly expressed by Sean toward his mother. Terri was a free spirit very much like Sara, and somehow the two connected in a very deep way the first time they met. That was a long time ago, and in another galaxy.

Sean refused to talk about his mother, and had intense arguments with Terri around her seeing his mother, especially when she went out to spend time with Sara in her lair amidst the ancient lands of time. On several occasions Terri took Alex with her, wanting her to have a relationship with her grandmother. Sean groused and sulked for days, continuing his long-range and long-time cold war.

Sara loved the ancient peoples she was pursuing; she somehow felt related, albeit only through time. Sean’s view was that she was more related to her time family than blood family, whom she’d abandoned.

Terri marveled at this woman’s strength, not just in being physically able to keep up with her self-imposed and severe regimen at her archaeological digs, but internally. Terri learned so much being around the woman. Terri had tried to share her experiences with Sean, but he became so angry it affected their relationship, so she decided to leave the matter dormant. Terri’s death came as a severe blow to Sara.

Sean was in intensive care for two months, and then in rehab for eight more, just getting his physical strength back. He walked with a limp, and there were scars on the entire left side of his body, including his face, which his doctor said would be dealt with later. He knew the best plastic surgeon for such things, and she was in the Albuquerque area. There would be time enough for that later.

Alex visited her dad daily, although the head nurse had some problems with one so young making unannounced visits and staying beyond visiting hours. The Physical Therapist, one Michael McPherson, took Alex under her wing, and made allowances that secreted her through the minefields and bureaucratic jungles of such modern hospitals. In the end, the head nurse winked an eye and looked the other way whenever Alex ventured through, knowing the medical benefits accruing to her dad for her visits.

Sean’s recovery was decidedly the better for having daily visits from his daughter, although he started to worry that missing so much time from school would affect her education. The next-door neighbor, with whom she was staying while Sean was in recovery, laughed at the idea. Alex was leagues ahead of the rest of the class, and in the neighbor’s view, gave the teacher a run for her money, too.

Sara pulled into the deserted parking lot of the Las Cruces Amtrak station, and screeched to a halt next to the station office. It was 11:48 A.M. Alex was sitting on a wooden bench under the dusty weathered awning on the west side of the train station, looking just a little forlorn, a fact that exacerbated the guilt Sara already felt for being late.

Even though the awning shaded Alex from the sun, it afforded little in the way of protection from the heat. Alex looked up and caught a glimpse of a dusty figure dressed in faded blue jeans and a pathetic lavender cotton tee-shirt piling out of a familiar VW bus, and her eyes lit up like a Roman candle. She jumped up, let out a squeal, and ran over into the open arms of Grandma Sara, who squealed in return. The feelings of attachment were mutual, and both squealed again.

Alex was asleep in the back of the VW bus by the time they reached Sara’s base camp. It was only 4:30 in the afternoon, but it had already been a long day for Alex. Sara carried Alex’s travel bag and stowed it in the large tent she called home, and the two sat down in the shade of the VW bus.

Grandma pulled her cell phone out of her hip pocket, punched a number, and waited.

“Hello, Sean,” she said softly. “Alex is here. Her train arrived a little after 11:30, and she’s fine. And she’d like to talk to you.” She handed the cell phone to Alex, and leaned back against the car’s bumper watching her intently.

“Hi, Daddy. I’m fine. The train ride was fun, and it stopped at all those places like it did before. Yes. Unhh, no, I only waited a few minutes.”

Sara cringed, and closed her eyes.

“Yes, Daddy, I will. OK. Do you want to talk to Grandma Sara?”

Alex looked over at Sara, and she raised her eyebrows. Sara nodded, and held out her hand as Alex handed her the phone.

“Hello again. Yeah, I heard. You know how time seems to get away here at the dig,” she commented, then cringed and kicked herself for apologizing.

“No, she’ll be all right, she’s a tough little girl. Sean, relax, everything will be fine. OK. Umhmm, yeah, I’ll remember: eastbound, out of Las Cruces, be at the station by noon on the 23^rd. Right. Sean, you’ve told me twice, now, OK. Yes. Yes, OK. Do you want to say anything to Sara before we hang up?”

Sara looked at Alex, and nodded her head. Alex blew a kiss to Grandma, who passed it on by saying, “She says she loves you,” into the cell phone. Alex smiled as Sara clicked “End,” and powered off.

The sun rose over the Painted Desert to the east, and it looked as though it was going to be another miserably hot day. Alex didn’t seem to mind the heat. She wore cutoffs, a tee-shirt, sandals, and a wide-brimmed Australian slouch hat Grandma Sara had brought her from a trip to Queensland down under a year ago.

Sara had been up for several hours, having roused herself at 5:30, trying not to awaken Alex. When Alex got up, she looked square into the face of a large straggly-haired dog sitting by her sleeping bag, Harley.

Alex reached up and petted the friendly dog, and got out of her bag. She could smell bacon cooking, and the sounds of Grandma Sara puttering around the morning fire. She poked her head out of the tent, and called out “Good morning!”

Sara turned, and answered “Good morning, yourself, Button.”

Alex joined Sara around the Coleman stove, and picked up two plates, a set of forks and spoons, and two napkins, and set them out on the rustic folding table next to a large boulder. Harley lay in the shadow of the VW bus. The sun was now over the trees beyond the clearing, and the temperature was rising steadily.

Over breakfast, Sara told Alex about her work at the new dig site. She’d discovered an ancient cave, one with cave drawings and articles apparently left by early dwellers of the area. Although most First Nation dwellers in the region made use of caves and hollowed-out sections in sheer rocky cliffs as living spaces, this cave was most likely used solely for religious purposes.

The artifacts and remains left in the cave spoke of ritual practices, not of day-to-day living. Alex was excited, and wanted to see the cave. Sara agreed to take her on a tour after breakfast, which couldn’t be over too soon for Alex.

After breakfast Sara led Alex along a narrow path up an incline that ran alongside a sheer cliff.

Half-way up, the rock of the cliff curved over the path, and just where the overhang caused the walker to stoop to get by, Sara pointed to a place where the rocks came together above their heads and off to one side.

From the path it was all but invisible, but on closer examination, there in the shadows was an opening. Sara boosted Alex up the sloping wall, and she­­­­­­­­­ grasped the edge and pulled herself up onto the ledge. Sara handed up a flashlight and a hard-hat, then putting her hard-hat on, she reached up, and grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up beside Alex. Together, they crawled past the joint in the rocks, and turning on their lights, stepped into the darkness beyond the opening.

The twin beams of their flashlights scanned beyond the entryway, illuminating an otherwise dark expanse of rock walls leading away and downward. Sara gestured with her light, and Alex moved slowly forward. She ducked her head, and moved beyond a narrowing of rocks, and squeezed past a dark rock on the left.

It was smooth, as though polished through centuries of ceremonial touching by sage medicine men. Suddenly Alex’s light dimmed and went out. Sara’s light flickered and brightened, and then it, too, went out, leaving both in darkness deeper than either had ever experienced. Sara reached out and grabbed Alex’s arm and held her tightly. Alex initially was startled, but soon became accustomed to the darkness, and was surprised that she wasn’t frightened.

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“We need to retrace our steps, Alex. I think it’s back this way.” Sara started moving slowly in the darkness the direction she thought they’d come, holding Alex’s hand in hers, and with the other feeling along the smooth rock wall ahead.

In the darkness, Sara could see flashes of light in the direction they were moving. It seemed to be a light in slow motion, a momentary flash, and a gradual dimming into the deep darkness under the mountain. As they drew nearer, the wall to the side dropped away, leaving Sara and Alex standing alone in the darkness.

There was a phosphorescence that seemed to light the space in a silver-blue haze, cold and just this side of darkness. They could see dimly in the dark a flat expanse in front of them that ran off into the distance. As the two watched mesmerized, there was a brilliant flash across the expanse, and Sara shielded her eyes and pulled Alex into her chest.

Then, as the light began to fade, the two could see a vast expanse of a desert plain before them, and beyond and near a low mountain range, a sight eerily familiar to Sara, a cloud of dust and matter swirling and churning upward into that familiar mushroom cloud, at once menacing and beautiful.

Sara’s mouth dropped open, as her eyes fixed on the spectre rising before them. The light from the silent explosion dimmed while the swirling and angry cloud rose higher still, then slowly dispersed to the sides in raging orange and black and then grey. Sara pulled Alex closer and held her tightly to herself, shielding her eyes.

The lights receded, and the darkness crept back over everything, heavy and oppressive. Then, in the darkness Sara could just make out forms at the base of the mushroom cloud, at first indistinct and dark, then, in growing detail. They were utterly destroyed structures in vast piles of rubble, a river clogged with all manner of debris, ragged forms staggering through a landscape of horror, their bodies battered beyond belief, faces contorted and mouths open. But Sara could not hear their screams. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she hugged Alex even harder. Alex could hardly breathe, she was being squeezed so tightly.

“Why are you crying, Grandma?” she whispered.

At first Sara couldn’t respond, her mind was reeling so. “I don’t know, honey,” she whispered in the darkness. “I think it’s okay, though.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and kissed Alex on the forehead. “C’mon, honey, let’s get out of here.”

Sara didn’t know exactly how they found their way out of the cavern. Time seemed to stand still, and yet it passed as though speeding out of control. There was a sensation of ancient walls, smooth and massive; of air stale and oppressive; and a solid floor of rock beneath that undulated through the darkness giving a fully disorienting feeling.

Then, a dim light, a slight zephyr of fresh air, and the welcome sight of blue skies, and they were out in the open air. Sara and Alex sat on a rock outcrop just outside the cave opening, and Sara hugged Alex and cried deep sobbing tears.

Alex had never seen her grandmother in such a state, and her anxiety level began to rise. Anticipating this, Sara said softly, “I’m all right, honey. It’s just that I saw something in there that’s touched something very deep for me, something very personal. These are happy tears, so you needn’t worry your little head about Ole Grandma Sara.”

Then Sara asked Alex if she could use the cell phone for a moment. She dialed a number, and waited.

“Hello, Sean…I am so very sorry…!”