Excerpts

Chapter One Erica gripped the steering wheel as the four-wheel-drive vehicle flew up the dirt road, caroming around boulders and slamming into potholes. Sitting next to her, white-faced and anxious, was her assistant Luke, a UCSB graduate student working on his doctoral dissertation. In his twenties, his long blond hair tied in a ponytail, Luke wore a T-shirt that said Archaeologists Dig Older Women .     "I heard it's a mess, Dr. Tyler," he said, as Erica steered the car up the winding fire road. "Apparently the swimming pool disappeared into the ground just like that ." He snapped his fingers. "It said on the news that the sinkhole stretches the whole length of the mesa, and it's underneath movie stars' homes, and that rock singer who's been in the news, and the baseball player who hit all those runs last year, and some famous plastic surgeon. Under their homes, So you know what that means."     Erica wasn't sure what that meant. Her mind was focused on only one thing: the astonishing discovery that had been made.     At the time of the disaster she had been up north working on a project for the state. The earthquake, striking two days ago and measuring 7.4, had been felt as far north as San Luis Obispo, as far south as San Diego, and as far east as Phoenix, jolting Southern California's millions of inhabitants awake. It was the biggest temblor in memory and was believed to have been what had triggered, a day later, the sudden and astonishing disappearance of a hundred-foot swimming pool, diving board, water slide and all.     A second astonishing event had followed almost immediately: when the pool sank, earth had avalanched into it, exposing human bones and the opening to a previously unknown cave.     "This could be the find of the century!" Luke declared, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at his boss. It was still dark out and there were no lights along the mountain road, so Erica had turned on the vehicle's interior light. It illuminated glossy chestnut hair brushing her shoulders with a hint of cuff, and a tan complexion from years of toiling in the sun. Dr. Erica Tyler, whom Luke had worked with for the past six months, was in her thirties and, while he wouldn't call her beautiful, Luke thought she was attractive in a way that registered in a man's gut rather than in his eye. "Quite a feather in some lucky archaeologist's cap," he added.     She glanced at him. "Why do you think we just broke every traffic law on the books getting here?" she said with a smile, and then returned her attention to the road in time to avoid hitting a startled jackrabbit.     They reached the top of the mesa from where the lights of Malibu could be seen in the distance. The rest of the view--Los Angeles to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the south--was blocked by trees, higher peaks, and the mansions of millionaires. Erica maneuvered her car through the congestion of fire engines, police cars, county trucks, news vans, and the armada of automobiles parked along the yellow police tape cordoning off the site. Curiosity-seekers sat on hoods and car roofs to watch, drink beer, and ponder disasters and their meanings, or perhaps just to be entertained for a while, despite warnings shouted through bullhorns that this was a dangerous area.     "I heard that this whole mesa used to be some sort of retreat run by a nutty spiritualist hack in the twenties," Luke said as the car rolled to a halt. "People came up here to talk to ghosts."     Erica recalled seeing silent newsreels of Sister Sarah, one of LA's more colorful characters, who used to hold séances for Hollywood royalty such as Rudolph Valentino and Charlie Chaplin. Sarah had held mass séances in theaters and auditoriums, and when her followers numbered in the hundreds of thousands, she had come to these mountains and built a retreat called The Church of the Spirits.     "Know what this place was originally called?" Luke went on as they unbuckled their safety belts. "I mean before the spiritualist owned it? Back when ," he said, the word `when' conjuring up parchments with wax seals and men dueling at dawn. "Cañon de Fantasmas," he intoned, tasting the dusty words on his tongue. "Haunted Canyon. Sounds spooky!" He shuddered.     Erica laughed. "Luke, if you want to be an archaeologist when you grow up, you're just going to have to not let ghosts scare you." She herself lived daily with phantasms and ghosts, spirits and sprites. They peopled her dreams and her archaeological digs, and while ghosts might elude, confound, tease, and frustrate her, they had never frightened her.     As Erica got out of the car and felt the night wind on her face, she gazed spellbound at the horrific scene. She had already seen news photos and had heard eyewitness accounts of the event--how the earthquake had somehow destabilized the ground beneath the gated community of Emerald Hills Estates, an exclusive enclave in the Santa Monica Mountains, causing one swimming pool to suddenly sink into the ground and threatening the rest of the homes with the same. But nothing had prepared her for what her eyes now beheld.     Although the eastern sky was starting to pale, night was still a dark, stubborn bowl over Los Angeles so that emergency lights had to he brought in, man-made suns placed at intervals around the perimeter of the site, illuminating one square block of a super-ritzy neighborhood where houses stood like marble temples in the milky moon. In the center of this surreal scene was a black crater--the devil's mouth that had swallowed the swimming pool of movie producer Harmon Zimmerman. Helicopters buzzed overhead, sweeping blinding circles of light over surveyors setting up equipment, geologists moving in with drills and maps, men in hard hats warming their hands on cups of coffee as they waited for daybreak, and police trying to evacuate residents who were refusing to leave.     Flashing the ID that identified her as an anthropologist working for the State Archaeologist's Office, Erica and her assistant were permitted to climb over the yellow police tape keeping the crowd out. They ran to the crater, where Los Angeles County firefighters were inspecting the rim of the cave-in. Erica quickly searched for the entrance to the cavern.     "Is that it?" Luke said, pointing with a lanky arm to the other side of the crater. Erica could just make out, about eighty feet below ground level, an opening in the side of the cliff. "Looks dangerous, Dr. Tyler. You plan on going in?"     "I've been in caves before."     "What in blazes are you doing here!"     Erica spun around to see a large man with leonine gray hair come striding toward her, a scowl on his face. Sam Carter, senior state archaeologist from the California Office of Historical Preservation, a man who wore colorful suspenders and spoke in a stentorian voice. And who was clearly not happy to see her.     "You know why I'm here, Sam," Erica said as she pushed her hair back from her face and looked around at the chaos. Residents of the threatened homes were arguing with the police and refusing to leave their property. "Tell me about the cave. Have you been inside?"     Sam noticed two things: that Erica's eyes were bright with an inner fever, and that her sweater was buttoned wrong. Clearly she had dropped everything and driven down from Santa Barbara as if she were on fire. "I haven't been inside yet," he said. "There's a geologist and a couple of cavers exploring it right now for structural soundness. As soon as they give the go-ahead, I'm going to take a look." He rubbed his jaw. Getting rid of Erica, now that she was here, was not going to be easy. The woman stuck like glue once she put her mind to something. "What about the Gaviota Project? I assume you left it in capable hands?"     Erica didn't hear him. She was watching the gaping hole in the hillside and thinking of heavy boots tramping over the cave's delicate ecology. She prayed they hadn't inadvertently destroyed precious historical evidence. The archaeology in these hills was paltry enough, despite the fact that people had lived here for ten thousand years. The few caves that had been found yielded very little because in the early part of the twentieth century bulldozers and dynamite had brutalized these wild mountains to make way for roads, bridges, and human progress. Burial sites had been plowed under, village mounds scraped away, all traces of previous human habitation obliterated.     "Erica?" Sam prompted.     "I have to go in," she said.     He knew she meant the cave. "Erica, you shouldn't even be here."     "Assign me to the job, Sam. You're going to be excavating. And bones were found, it said on the news."     "Erica--"     "Please."     In frustration, Sam turned on his heel and headed back through the Zimmerman's trampled garden to an area at the end of the street where a makeshift command center had been created. People holding clipboards and talking on cell phones milled around folding metal tables and chairs, where two-way radios had been set up, surveillance monitors, a bulletin board for messages. A catering truck parked nearby was being patronized by people wearing various official uniforms and badges: Southern California Gas, Department of Water and Power, LAPD, County Office of Emergency Management. There was even someone from the Humane Society trying to round up loose animals from the evacuated area.     Erica caught up with her boss. "So what happened, Sam? What caused a swimming pool to suddenly sink into the ground?"     "County engineers and state geologists have been working around the clock to determine the cause. Those boys over there"--he pointed down the street, where men were setting up drilling equipment beneath bright spotlights--"are going to run soils tests to find out exactly what this housing development is sitting on." Sam swept a beefy hand over the topographical maps and geological surveys spread out on the tables, their corners anchored by rocks. "These were brought up from City Hall a few hours ago. This here is a geological survey from 1908. And here's one from 1956, when this area was being proposed for a residential development that never got built."     Erica's eyes went back and forth over the two maps. "They aren't the same."     "Apparently the current builder didn't run soils tests on every building pad--which he wasn't required to do. The tests he did run showed stable ground and bedrock. But that's at the north and south boundaries of the mesa, which it turns out are the two ridges embracing the canyon. Remember Sister Sarah back in the twenties? This was her religious retreat or something and it seems she had the canyon filled in and never got permission or informed City Hall. The work was apparently done without standard compaction procedures and a lot of the fill was organic--wood, vegetation, garbage--that eventually rotted away." Sam's sleep-deprived eyes scanned the street, where fountains and imported trees graced expensively tended lawns. "These folks have been sitting on a time bomb. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole area was on the verge of collapsing."     While Sam spoke, he watched Erica as she stood with her hands on her hips, shifting from foot to foot like a runner eager for the race to begin. He had seen her like this before, when she was "onto" something. Erica Tyler was one of the most passionate scientists he had ever met, but sometimes her enthusiasm could be her undoing. "I know why you're here, Erica," he said wearily, "and I can't give you the job."     She whirled on him, her cheeks two spots of red. "Sam, you've got me counting abalone shells, for God's sake!"     He was the first to admit that putting Erica in charge of a mollusk midden was a waste of her brains and talent. But after the shipwreck debacle last year, he thought it best that she cool her heels in a low-profile job for a while. So she had spent the past six months excavating a newly discovered mound that turned out to be the refuse heap of Indians that had lived north of Santa Barbara four thousand years ago. Erica's job was to sort, classify, and carbon-date the thousands of abalone shells found there.     "Sam," she said, putting her hand on his arm, urgency in her voice. "I need this. I have to salvage my career. I need to make people forget Chadwick--"     "Erica, the Chadwick incident is precisely the reason why I can't put you on this job. You're just not disciplined. You're impulsive, and you don't possess the necessary scientific detachment and objectivity."     "I've learned my lesson, Sam," she said. She felt like screaming. The Wreck of the Erica Tyler, people in inner circles had called the Chadwick fiasco. Was she going to be made to pay for it the rest of her life? "I'll be extra careful."     He scowled. "Erica, you made my office a laughingstock."     "And I've apologized a thousand times! Sam, be logical about this. You know that I've studied every example of rock art this side of the Rio Grande. There is no one better qualified. When I saw that cave painting on the news I knew this job was for me."     Sam drove his thick fingers through his mane of hair. It was so like Erica to just drop everything. Had she even bothered to turn the Gaviota Project over to someone else?     "Come on, Sam. Put me to work doing what I was born to do."     He looked into her amber eyes and saw the desperation there. He didn't know what it was like to be discredited in one's own profession, to be laughed at by colleagues. He could only guess what these past twelve months had been like for Erica. "I tell you what," he said. "A member of the Search and Rescue team volunteered to go back in and take pictures. We should have them any minute. You can have a look at them, see what you make of the pictographs."     "Search and Rescue?"     "After the pool sank, it was learned that Zimmerman's daughter was missing. So the County Sheriff launched a search for her in all that mess. That was how the cave painting was discovered."     "And the girl?"     "She turned up later. Seems she was in Vegas with her boyfriend at the time of the earthquake. Listen, Erica, there's no point in you hanging around here. I'm not putting you on the case. Go back to Gaviota." Even as he said it, Sam knew she wouldn't obey orders. Once Erica Tyler got something in her head, it was impossible to shake it loose. That was what had happened last year, when Irving Chadwick discovered the underwater shipwreck of what he claimed was an ancient Chinese boat on the California coast, proving his theory that people from Asia didn't just come across the Bering Strait, but had arrived in ships as well. Erica had already been enamored of Chadwick's hypothesis so that when he invited her to authenticate pottery found in the shipwreck, she had already made up her mind that this was indeed proof.     Sam had tried even then to dissuade her from jumping to conclusions, to convince her to move slowly and cautiously. But Erica's middle name was exuberance. She had gone ahead with her public announcement that the pottery was genuine and for a while she and Irving Chadwick basked in the spotlight. When the shipwreck was later proven to be a hoax, and Chadwick confessed to having engineered it, it was too late for Erica Tyler. Her reputation was in ruins.     "They said on the news that bones have been found," she said now. "What have you found out so far about them?"     Sam picked up a clipboard, knowing she was stalling for time. "All we have are small fragments but they were found with arrowheads, which was enough reason to call my office. Here's the Coroner's report."     While Erica scanned the findings, Sam said, "As you can see, according to the Kjeldahl test, the quantity of nitrogenous components in the bone is less than four grams. And the benzidine-acetic test shows no evidence of albuminous material."     "Which means the bones are older than a hundred years. Was the Coroner able to determine how much older?"     "Unfortunately, no. And we can't do it through soil analysis since we have no way of determining exactly which soil the bones had been resting in. This canyon was filled in seventy years ago, and then last year the soil was disturbed during trenching for the swimming pool. When the earth beneath liquefied and gave way because of the earthquake, causing the pool to sink, the earth on the sides spilled in. It's all mixed up, Erica. We did find the arrowheads, though, and crude flint tools."     "Which point to an Indian burial ground." She handed him the clipboard. "I take it NAHC has been notified?" she asked, looking around for someone who looked like they might be from the State of California Native American Heritage Commission.     "They've been notified all right," Sam said in a wry tone. "In fact they're already here. Rather, he 's here."     She read Sam's look. "Jared Black?"     "Your old adversary."     Erica and Black had tangled on Native American legal issues before, and the outcome had been decidedly unpleasant.     A young man came running up then, his face smudged with dirt, caver's helmet askew on his head. He held out the Polaroid snapshots he had taken inside the cave and apologized for their amateur quality. Thanking the young man, Sam divided up the pictures, handing half to Erica.     "My God," Erica whispered as she stared at them one by one. "These are ... beautiful . And these symbols--" Her voice caught.     "So what do you think?" Sam muttered as he squinted at the pictures. "Can you identify the tribe?"     When she didn't respond, he looked at her. Erica was staring at the pictures in her hands, her lips slightly parted. For a minute Sam thought she had gone shockingly pale, but then he realized it must be due to the fluorescent lighting hastily strung around the disaster site. "Erica?"     She blinked like someone brought out of a trance. When she looked at him, Sam had the odd notion that, for just an instant, she didn't know who he was. Then, with color returning to her face, she said, "We have the find of the century in our hands, Sam. This painting is vast, and I've never seen such an excellent state of preservation. Think of the native history we could fill in once these pictographs have been deciphered. Sam, don't send me back to those abalone shells."     He released a sigh. "All right, you can hang around for a day or two and give us a preliminary analysis, but"--he held up his hand--"you are to go back to Gaviota after that. I can't put you on this project, Erica. I'm sorry. It's interdepartmental politics."     "But you're the boss--" She suddenly stopped and stared.     He followed her line of vision and saw what had caught her attention. In this chilly hour just before dawn, with everyone unshaven, bleary-eyed, craving coffee and sleep and a fresh change of clothes, Commissioner Jared Black, with not a hair out of place, wore a tailored three-piece suit with French cuffs, silk tie, and polished loafers as if he had just stepped out of a courtroom. As he approached, dark irises glittered beneath frowning brows.     "Dr. Tyler. Dr. Carter."     "Commissioner."     Although an outspoken advocate on Indian issues, Jared Black was himself pure Anglo, having once claimed that it was his Irish heritage that made him empathetic to the plight of oppressed peoples. He addressed Sam Carter. "When do you expect to make a tribal identification of the cave painting?" His tone implied that he wanted an answer soon.     "That will be up to the people I assign to the job."     Jared didn't look at Erica. "I will be bringing in my own experts, of course."     " After we have conducted our preliminary analysis," Carter said. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that that is standard protocol."     Jared Black's eyes flickered. There was no love lost between him and the senior state archaeologist. Carter had vocally opposed Black's appointment to the Commission, citing Jared's extreme prejudice against the academic and scientific communities.     Erica's own clash with Jared Black happened four years ago, when a wealthy recluse named Reddman had died and left an astonishing collection of Indian artifacts to be housed in his mansion, which was to be turned into a public museum named for himself. Erica had been brought in to identify and catalogue the priceless collection, and when she traced them to a small, local tribe, the tribe hired attorney Jared Black, who specialized in land rights and property law, to sue for possession of the objects. Erica asked the state to challenge the suit on the grounds that the tribe planned to rebury the objects without prior historical analysis. "The heritage in these bones and artifacts," she had argued, "belong not just to the Indians but to all Americans." It had been a passionate issue, with crowds picketing in front of the courthouse--Native Americans demanding the return of all their lands and cultural objects; teachers, historians, and archaeologists insisting upon the creation of the Reddman Museum. Jared Black's wife, a member of the Maidu tribe and a passionate Indian rights activist--a woman who had once thrown herself in front of bulldozers to stop a new freeway from being pushed through Indian land--had been among the most vocal in favor of "keeping the collection out of white man's hands."     The case dragged on for months until Jared finally uncovered a fact that had not been previously known: that unbeknownst to state and local authorities, Reddman had dug up the objects from his own property, an estate covering five hundred acres, and had kept them without permission. Arguing that because the objects indicated a living mound--and Erica, although working for the other side, was forced to admit that the estate had most likely been built on the site of an ancient village--Jared Black declared that the property had not therefore legally belonged to Mr. Reddman but to the descendents of those who had lived in the village. The five hundred acres, as well as over a thousand Indian relics--including rare pottery, basketry, bows, and arrows--were handed over to the tribe, which consisted of exactly sixteen members. Reddman's museum was never built, the artifacts never seen again.     Erica recalled now how the media had played up her and Jared's battle in and out of court. One now-famous photograph of the two arguing, snapped on the courthouse steps, had been sold to the tabloids and run under the headline "Secret Lovers?" because a trick of the lighting and the unlucky timing of the cameraman's shutter had captured Erica and Jared in one of those quirky, split-second freeze frames that give the very opposite impression of what is really happening: Erica's eyes wide as she looks up at him, her tongue touching her lips, her body inclined in a suggestive way, with Black, towering over her on the upper step, arms outstretched as if about to sweep her into a torrid embrace. Both had been outraged by the photograph and its false message, but both had decided to let the matter drop and not add grist to the gossip mill.     "And I'm sure I don't need to remind you , Dr. Carter," he said to Sam, "that I'm here to see you keep your desecration to a minimum, and that the instant the MLD is found I am going to personally and with great satisfaction escort you and your fellow grave robbers off this site."     As they watched him go, Sam thrust his hands into his pockets and muttered, "I definitely do not like that man."     "Well then," Erica said. "I guess it's a good thing you aren't assigning me to this case, because that would really annoy Jared Black."     Sam looked at her and caught the hint of a smile. "You really want this job, don't you?"     "Have I been too subtle?"     "All right," he said at last, rubbing the back of his neck. "It goes against my better judgment, but I suppose I can send someone else to Gaviota." (Continues...) Excerpted from Sacred Ground by Barbara Wood. Copyright © 2001 by Barbara Wood. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.