Perched precariously at the top of a rocky cliff, Nicholas had spotted the circle of stones just inside the mouth of a cave.  The afternoon sun had conspired with his omniscient view of the landscape to reveal an artifact of Pueblo Indian history—a Kiva.  For three days he had been hiking the canyons and plateaus of the deserts in New Mexico, hoping to lose himself in the ancient homeland of the Hopi natives.  Once he had sighted the long abandoned spiritual dwelling of these forgotten people, he knew he had succeeded.

"It’ll be nice to get you back home, eh Sammy?"  Nicholas asked his hand sized wooden doll.  Its triangular black eyes and circular mouth made the doll appear in a perpetual state of shock.  The combination of blue, green, and red colors all fighting for supremacy in the designs on the doll only highlighted its apparent hysteria.  Sammy was a souvenir from a Hopi roadside store, which he had visited before setting off on his own.  The doll now occupied a pocket in his oversized hiking backpack, peeking out from his right side.

Several hours had passed since he first sighted the Kiva, and the afternoon sun had now transformed into twilight.  But Nicholas did not want to make camp until he reached the Kiva.  Even in the failing light, he could still make out its most distinctive feature, two wooden poles jutting out from the center of the stony circle; evidence that the great ladder, which led underground into the belly of the Kiva, still remained intact.

"We’ll be there before long.  Do you think any of the precious stones are still buried down there?"  Nicholas wondered aloud to Sammy and nobody. Bringing back an actual sacred stone from the Kiva would make this the trip of a lifetime.  Everyone back at his office would be amazed, and he might even get a few dates out of the story.

As night began to set in, however, he began to shiver in his t-shirt and blue jeans.  The summer sun sped away to the other side of the world, and a blanket of stars accompanied by a full moon replaced the safety of daylight.

Nicholas could still see the eerie glow of the ladder in the moonlight, and he followed it until he stood at the mouth of the cave he had spotted earlier that day.  The black abyss staring back at him made his retinas burn, so he avoided gazing into it.  The circle of stones formed a ring around a cylinder made of adobe, which appeared to erupt from the ground. In the pale and ethereal light, he could still see the opening where the ladder emerged.

"So this is where your people live Sammy?"  Nicholas inquired of the doll.  He knew from owner of the store that such dolls were not made to be mere playthings.  In the Hopi tradition, the doll symbolized the gods who watched over the people—the Kachina.  They lived beneath the ground and emerged through a sacred fissure at the bottom of the Kiva, known as the sipapu.  The superstitious owner of the shop suggested he purchase it for his protection on his journey.  And you will protect me, won’t you Sammy?

"Let’s see what we’ve got down there, shall we?"  Nicholas said as he removed his burdensome pack.  He took Sammy out of the side pocket, along with a flashlight, and made his way to the mouth of the Kiva.

He shone his flashlight inside of the cylinder, and saw a cobblestone floor cracked by years of temperature variation.  To his surprise, the great ladder still seemed quite sturdy.  With the ladder in one hand, and Sammy in the other, he descended into the sacred space.  He could feel the change in the temperature and moisture of the air as transitioned from the wilderness to something made with human hands.  When he reached the bottom, he began to examine the underground room with his flashlight.

"Not that spacious eh Sammy?  But look!  All around the corner you can see the benches where the wind Kachina were supposed to sit!"  Nicholas said enthusiastically.  He never thought that reading a travel brochure could turn someone into an anthropologist so quickly.  Finally, Nicholas spotted the sipapu, a hole about the size of a fist in the center of the cobblestone floor.

"That’s where we find the good stuff Sammy," he whispered.  He sat the doll and the flashlight down by the ladder and made his way to the center of the shrine.  As he knelt and touched the sacred earth with his hands, he found that it was moist and warm.  In rabid anticipation he began to dig, and thick black earth coated his hands.  No more than 20 centimeters down, he felt the unmistakable sensation of a stone so large he could barely grasp it with his fist.  But grasp it he did, and when he pulled it from the earth he saw the unmistakable flash of ruby red in the light.

"My god Sammy it’s . . ." a great crashing noise amid an unmistakable chorus of whispers stupefied him mid-sentence.  Before his mind could even process the events, the ladder crumbled to pieces, smashing his flashlight and leaving him alone in the darkness.  In his panic he dropped the magnificent stone, of which he’d seen only a glimmer.

Nicholas ran to the entrance where the ladder once stood, and looked up into the starry night sky.  But the ceiling was too high, and the cylinder shape of the structure gave him no way to climb.  To his horror, he found no way to escape the Kiva.  In a panic, he searched for Sammy, worried that the doll had been damaged in the collapse.  But, after searching the sacred floor, Nicholas discovered that the doll had disappeared.  Haplessly, he curled in a ball beneath the stars and whispered, 

"Sammy . . . I’m sorry."

No reply ever came.