Sacred Stones — Del Dowdell

Ryan Taggert was heading back to Denver to step off the guntrail and win a mayoral election.¿ Butfate had something else in store for him as an old man and a young boy stumbleinto his camp in Monument Valley with a tale so desperate it cannot be ignored.Taggert pledges to help the dying man by returning stolensacred stones from an ancient Anasazi kiva.¿ Stones that had brought the old man nothingbut bad luck from the moment he took them.¿Taggert also promises to return his young grandson to his mother holdingdown a stage line outpost in Southeastern Utah in the heart of Utecountry.¿ A woman so unusual, and sodaring, that the Utes call her unoop'ekuntkookwup' mumowts' and fear her powerful medicine.But when Taggert reaches the stage station he runs into anattacking Ute war party which leaves him for dead and steals the boy, hismother, and leaves the station in ashes.¿When Taggert awakens, he finds himself a prisoner of a Navajo woman witha new baby, two horses, and a dead husband.¿Vowing death to the Utes, the widow forces Taggert to redeem herhusband's dead spirit by killing the men who shot him. Tracking the Ute war party into a high mountain canyon,Taggert devises a desperate plan.¿ Usingthe mother, her crying baby, and the spirit of the kiva stones, Taggert attacks.¿But not even the Great Spirit could have conceived what the Navajo womandoes next and Taggert barely escapes with his life and those of the woman andboy.¿ Once on the trail, they arepursued by Utes and Navajos alike who have grown to fear Crazy Broom Woman whose legend has quickly spread across fourstates.Knowing the sacred kivastones are the cause of all their troubles, Taggert leads them to the Pastorasin eastern Arizona along the New Mexico border.¿ There they climb up into a cliff dwelling to find an evenstranger mystery that sends Taggert on the most incredible experience of hislife.For once he steps into the kiva, he is spirited back a thousand years to the time of thedwelling builders, those be