The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

Kai Quocheets stood on the pueblo’s porch as the sun hammered the canyon and badlands of San Rafael Swell. Dust devils danced up through the gulches and ravines. She smelled the scent of juniper and hot sand as she stared out across its expanse of buttes, stone reefs, and fluted canyon walls, striated in shades of gold and crimson.

Even after only a week, it was beginning to feel like home again.

She’d be spending her summer at the pueblos, earning college credits from Brigham Young University. She was taking a Native American studies class on the ancient Pueblo peoples. It involved recording petroglyphs, helping with the restoration of old ruins, and learning the old Hopi customs.

Like discovering how to roast piñon nuts.

“Who burned my best tray?” a voice shouted from inside.

Kai cringed, knowing she had to face the consequences of her crime like a woman. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Two days ago, she’d been officially pardoned for any wrongdoing involving the events in Utah. It seemed that her role in saving the world had evened her karmic balance with the Justice Department. Plus, having the likes of Uncle Crowe and Hank Kanosh as character witnesses never hurt.

But this was one crime she could not escape so easily.

Kai turned to the screen door and entered the deeper shadows of the main room. Iris Humetewa wore oven mitts and held up a scorched tray.

“You have to wait for the coals to burn off.”

“I know, but Kawtch was chewing at his stitches, and by the time I caught him and got his cone put in place . . .”

She sighed, done with excuses.

Kawtch had lifted his head upon hearing his name, wearing a plastic funnel around his neck. They’d had to amputate his front leg. The rifle shot had left little bone and not much nerve, but he was recovering well.

They all were.

Alvin Humetewa’s burns were mostly just deep red splotches against his tanned ruddy skin. The pair of old Hopi Indians had survived their encounter with Rafael Saint Germaine through sheer stubbornness and their wily knowledge of the local terrain.

The Hopi tribe had a saying: Never try to hunt an Indian loose on his own land. It was a harsh lesson for the early pioneers to learn—and one Rafael Saint Germaine had never known about.

Iris had suspected that the Frenchman’s soldiers might come after them. So when she took off with her husband on the ATV, she aimed for the closest sandy bowl and kicked up a cloudy dust storm to hide their flight. Then once she heard the potshots, she rode into an old mine tunnel and trusted Rafael would not stick around long enough to find her and Alvin. She knew he was anxious to go after Kai’s uncle Crowe. Even if he had left men behind, she could cover her tracks and reach help, if necessary.

It seemed there was much Kai could learn from that old Hopi woman.

“I’m sorry, Auntie Iris,” she said. “I’ll polish the tray and make up for it by cooking the next two nights.”

Iris nodded, satisfied, and gave her a wink, expressing forgiveness and love in such a small movement.

The growl of engines drew both their attentions to the front door.

“Looks like the boys are back from their joyriding,” Iris said.

The two headed out to the porch to greet them. A pair of dust-caked figures climbed from ATVs that looked more like fossilized stone than fiberglass.

Jordan peeled off his helmet and wiped his face with a gingham handkerchief. Kai felt her heart stutter as the beam of his smile reached her and grew even wider.

Beside him, his companion popped off his helmet, red-faced and grinning. “I could get used to this,” Ash said.

Major Ashley Ryan and Jordan had become close friends after the events in Yellowstone. It seemed that the National Guardsman had developed a newfound respect for Native Americans.

Jordan reached over and patted the man’s chest, hard, knocking dust off his T-shirt. It read I LOVE INJUNS, and it depicted a cartoon V8 engine wearing a feathered headdress.

“Tacky and offensive,” Jordan said. “Both at the same time. That’s going to get our asses kicked out here one of these days.”

“Kid, that news just made this my favorite shirt.”

With his chest puffed out proudly, Ash climbed up to the porch.

Jordan smiled over at Kai. “Oh, by the way, I think I beat your best time on the Deadman’s Gulch run.”

Iris nudged Kai with her elbow. “Are you going to take that?”

Hell, no . . .

Kai slipped the helmet out from under Ash’s arm and leaped off the porch, her hair flying. “Let’s go see about that!”

2:17 P.M.

Salt Lake City

From one temple to another . . .

Professor Henry Kanosh, a member of the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, was the first Mormon Indian to stand at the threshold of this temple’s Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of the Holies’ chamber at the heart of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City.

Starting at dawn, he’d prepared himself: fasting and praying. He now stood in a vestibule of polished rock, before a door few men knew about. Pounded of raw silver, the portal rose fifteen feet high and eight wide, split down the middle.

In Hank’s hands, he held the one gift he had to offer, the key to the temple’s inner sanctum.

Ahead, the doors parted, and a single figure stepped out.

Hank knelt, bowing his head.

Soft footsteps approached, unhurried, calm.

Once they stopped before him, Hank raised his arms and offered up his gift. The gold plate was taken from his grasp, slipped from his fingers, and gone.

He had recovered the plate at the Old Faithful Inn. While everyone had been distracted by NASA’s call, announcing that they had found a match to the landscape depicted on the canopic jar, Henry had been standing next to the Frenchman’s case. He dared not take both plates, as Rafael would then have noted the theft much sooner. So setting aside greed, he satisfied himself with slipping one free and pocketing it in the back of his pants.

The gold plate belonged with the church. After seeing the re-creation of Solomon’s Temple, he knew that for sure.

Footsteps retreated, again unhurried and calm.

Hank risked a glance up as the doors started to sweep closed.

Brilliant light flowed out from that inner sanctum. He caught a slivered glimpse inside. A large white stone altar. Beyond it, gold shone forth, coming from shelves that seemed to stretch forever.

Were they Joseph Smith’s original tablets?

A tingling washed over his skin, awe prickling the small hairs over his body. Then the doors shut—and the world seemed a far darker and more ordinary place.