Try turning the clock back two generations in time and experience the sweltering summer of fourteen-year-old Dalan Dawson-the new kid in town-as he meets the new neighborhood kids in the dusty, small, cotton-farming town of Coolidge, Arizona. His boring summer turns very interesting when Dalan first lays eyes on the brown-eyed, dark-haired Marie Palermo. She is special from his first shy glimpse of the sassy, rich, and very smart girl. Over the next few days, she leads him into an excitement-filled world of ancient intrigue when she invites him to help her explore a newly-uncovered desert cave that lies beneath the ruins of an ancient Anasazi village. From the action of the neighborhood kids' street game-kick the can-to the ancient spiderweb-filled caverns with their long-forgotten treasures, the two teens are caught up in mysteries, muggings, and murders. Who killed the town's high school hero, and who abandoned the three-hundred-year-old Spanish padre and his jewel-encrusted, gold cross? Dalan and Marie's story seems too bizarre to be true - or maybe not.