Still Life With Crows

by Douglas Preston

  Fisk returned his gaze. Frankly, what Sheriff Hazen is saying makes sense to me. He turned to Raskovich. What do you think, Chester?

  When Raskovich spoke, the sound came from deep within his barrel chest. Id say its definitely worth looking into.

  Larssen looked from one to the other. Well look into it, of course, but I sincerely doubt the killer is going to turn up here. This is premature

  Hazen broke in smoothly. Dr. Fisk, with all due respect, I think you should keep your options open as to where the field should be sited. If the killers been trying to influence your decision . . . He paused significantly.

  I certainly see your point, Sheriff.

  But the decisions already been made, Larssen said.

  Nothing is engraved in stone, said Fisk. If the killers from Deeperand I have to say the theory stacks up nicelythen, frankly, this is thelast place wed want to site the field.

  Larssen shut up. He was smart enough to know when to do that, at least. He gazed at Hazen, his face dark. Hazen felt sorry for him. He wasnt a bad guy, really, even if he was a little short on both brainsand imagination.

  Hazen rose. I have to get back to Medicine Creekweve still got a body to findbut Im coming back first thing tomorrow to start my investigation. Hank, I hope we can work together in a friendly way.

  Sure we can, Dent. Hank had to choke out the words.

  Hazen turned to the KSU men. Nice to meet you. Ill keep you posted.

  We appreciate that, Sheriff.

  Hazen plucked a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and fixed an eye on Raskovich. When you get to Medicine Creek, come by my office. Well see about getting you temporary peace officer status. Its the modern-day equivalent of being deputized. Were going to need your help, Mr. Raskovich.

  The campus security chief nodded as if this were the most normal thing in the world, his face a mask of stolidity, but Hazen knew he had just scored big with Chief Campus Doorshaker Chester Raskovich.

  Thirty-Eight

  The discipline of Chongg Ran, invented by the Confucian sage Ton Wei in the Tang dynasty, was later transported from China to Bhutan, where it was further refined over a period of half a millennium at the Tenzin Torgangka monastery, one of the most isolated in the world. It is a form of concentration that marries utter emptiness with hyperawareness, the fusion of rigorous intellectual study with pure sensation.

  The first challenge of Chongg Ran is to visualize white and blacksimultaneously not as gray. Only one percent of adherents are able to move beyond this point. Far more difficult mental exercises await. Some involve simultaneous, self-contradictory imaginary games of Go, or more recent studious pastimes such as chess or bridge. In others, one must learn to fuse knowledge with nescience, sound with silence, self with annihilation, life with death, the universe with the quark.

  Chongg Ran is an exercise in antitheses. It is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It brings with it the gift of inexplicable mental powers. It is the ultimate enhancement of the human mind.

  Pendergast lay on the ground, maintaining acute awareness of his surroundings: the smell of dry weeds, the feeling of sticky heat, the stubble and pebbles pressing into his back. He isolated every individual sound, every chirp, rustle, flutter, whisper, down to the faint breathing of his assistant sitting some yards away. With his eyes closed, he proceeded to visualize the surrounding scene exactly as if he were seeing it with his own eyes, spread out below him:sight without seeing. Piece by piece he assembled it: the trees, the three mounds, the play of shade and light, the cornfields stretching out below, the towering thunderheads above, the air, the sky, the living earth.

  Soon the landscape had taken complete form. And now, having isolated each object, one by one he could extinguish them from his awareness.

  He started with scents. He removed, one by one, the complex perfumes of the cottonwood trees, humidity, ozone from the approaching storm, the grass and leaves and dust. Then, sensation: he proceeded to extinguish, one at a time, every feeling impinging on his consciousness: the pebbles under his back, the heat, the crawling of an ant over his hand.

  Next came sound. The trillings of the insects disappeared first, then the rustling of the leaves, the desultory tapping of a woodpecker, the fluttering and calling of the birds in the trees, the faint movement of air, the distant rumble of thunder.

  The landscape still existed, but now it was a tableau of absolute silence.

  Next, he suppressed in himself the very sensation of corporeality, that innate feeling of having a body and knowing where that body is in space and time.

  Now the real concentration began. One by one, Pendergast removed each object in the landscape. He stripped it away, in the reverse order of its arrival. First the road disappeared, then the corn, then the trees, the town, the grass, the rocks, then the very light itself. A mathematically pure landscape was left: bare, empty, dark as night, existing only in form.

  He waited five minutes, then ten, holding this empty fractal perfection in his head, preparing himself. And then, slowly, he began to put the landscape back together; but it would not be the same landscape he had just stripped away.

  First the light returned. Then the grass rolled over the landscape, virgin tallgrass prairie dotted with prairie aster, wild poppies, cornflowers, rocketweed, and lupine. Then he piled back the bronze mountains of cloud, the rocky outcrops, the shady creek wandering free across the Great Plains. Now other things began to take shape: a herd of buffalo in the far distance; shallow water pans blazing silver in the late afternoon light; and everywhere an infinite array of wild grasses, undulating from horizon to horizon like a great rippling sea of green.

  A thread of smoke came up from below. There were black dots of people moving about, a few ragged tents. Fifty horses were grazing the bottomlands by the creek, their noses in the grass.

  Slowly, Pendergast permitted first the sounds, and then the smells, to return: voices laughing and cursing; fecund humidity; the whiff of woodsmoke and roasting buffalo steaks; the distant whinny of a horse; the jingle of spurs and the clank of cast iron cookware.

  Pendergast waited, watchful, all senses alert. The voices became clearer.

  Didiers buckskin come up lame again,said a voice.

  The chunk of wood on fire.Chucks about ready.

  That boy wouldnt know where to piss lessn his mammy aimed his dingus for him.

  Laughter. Men were standing around, battered tin plates in hand. The scene was still vague, tremulous, not yet fully formed.

  I cant wait to get to Dodge and strip off this goddamned dust.

  Use this to clean out whats in your throat, Jim.

  The late afternoon sun refracted through a bottle and there was the sloshing of drink. There was a clank, the sound of an iron lid settling. A gust of wind swept up a skein of dust, settled back down. A piece of wood popped in the fire.

  When we get to Dodge Ill introduce you to a lady who can clean the dust off another part.

  More laughter.

  Whiskey over here, amigo.

  Whats this youve been feeding us, Hoss, boiled sheepshit?

  No tickee no washee, Crowe.

  Whiskey over here, amigo.

  Gradually, the scene crystallized. Men were standing around a fire at the base of a mound. They were wearing greasy cowboy hats, frayed bandannas, ragged shirts, and pants that looked so stiff from dirt and grease they almost crackled as they walked. All had scraggly beards.

  The hill was a dusty island in the sea of grass. Below, the land swept away, open and free. The thick scrub that then covered the base of the mounds cast long shadows. The wind was picking up, rippling the grass in restless, random waves. The clean scent of wildflowers drifted on the air, mingling the sweet smell of cottonwood smoke, simmering beans, unwashed humanity. In the lee of one mound the men had unrolled their bedrolls and upended their saddles, using the sheepskin linings as headrests. There were a couple of pitched pole tents, badly rotted. Beyond, partway down the hill, stood one of t
he pickets, alert, carrying a rifle. Another picket was on the far side.

  As the wind picked up, more clouds of dust swirled upward.

  Chucks ready.

  A man with a narrow face, narrow eyes, and a scar across his chin stood lazily and shook out his legs, causing his spurs to jingle. Harry Beaumont, the leader.You, Sink, get Web and go relieve the pickets. You eat later.

  But last time

  Any more out of you, Sink, and Ill fish the crik with your balls.

  There was some muffled laughter.

  Remember back at Two Forks, that Lo with the giant balls? The javelina sure did fight over those, remember?

  More laughter.

  Musta had some kind of disease.

  Theyre all diseased.

  You didnt worry bout that when you went for the squaws, Jim.

  Mind shutting the hell up while I eat my chuck?

  From one side, a man began to sing in a fine low voice:

  Feet in the stirrups and seat in the saddle,

  I hung and I rattled with them long-horn cattle,

  Last night I was on guard and the leader broke ranks,

  I hit my horse down the shoulders, I spurred him in the flanks,

  The wind commenced to blow, the rain began to fall,

  Hit looked, by grab, like we was going to lose em all.

  The two pickets came back and propped their rifles on their saddles, then came over with their plates, shaking the rising dust from their shirts and leggings. The cook ladled the beans and stew meat and then went and sat cross-legged in the dirt.

  Damn you, Hoss, this stew is half dirt!

  Aids the digestion.

  Whiskey over here, amigo.

  A broad sweep of prairie rippled now with the wind. The wind could be seen as it approached, pressing the grass down, exposing its paler side, a wave of lighter green. It struck the bottom of the mounds, picking up dust, swirling it up into a curtain. The sun, sitting on the horizon, dimmed abruptly.

  There was a stasis, a suspended moment, and then the sudden pounding of hooves.

  What the hell?

  The horses, somethings spooked the horses.

  Those aint ours.

  Cheyenne!

  The guns get your guns get the guns.

  Instant chaos. The cloud of dust, rising higher, parted and a white horse, painted with blood-red handprints, appeared, followed by another and another. A cry arose. The stream of horses divided, one on either side of the scrambling men: horses that, quite literally, had appeared out of nowhere.

  Aieeeeeeeeeee!

  A sudden hissing in the air. The arrows came from two directions, followed by a tattoo of thuds. Screams, groans, the rattle of spurs, the sound of bodies hitting the ground.

  The dust had now rolled over them, enveloping them in a fog through which could be dimly glimpsed the shapes of men running, falling, spinning. There was a shot, then another, disorganized. A horse fell heavily against the ground. A vague figure fired point-blank into the head of the Indian atop it, sending up a small cloud of dark matter.

  The dust rose and fell in cascading sheets; the wind moaned and muttered; the wounded screamed and choked. The sound of beating hooves faded, stopped momentarily, then resumed.

  Theyre coming back.

  Back, theyre turning back, get ready men.

  The ghostly shapes of the riders appeared again, a second dividing stream.

  Aieeeee-yip-yip-yip-aieeeee!

  Now there was a coordinated volley of shots from those still alive, kneeling on the exposed ground, taking careful aim. Another terrible twanging and hissing of death on the air, the sound of a hundred arrows thudding into dirt and bodies, more falling horses, the crash and clink of bridle and spur, men clawing at their clothes, more firing. A man suddenly appeared out of the dimness, staggering, gargling, trying to pull an arrow from his mouth; another spun around and around with four arrows in his chest; then, abruptly, three more emerged like magic from his back. A horse, standing absolutely still, head hanging, its guts in a steaming pile beneath.

  Another pass, a turn, then another. The smell of blood rose, rivers of it running from the dead horses and men.

  A fifth pass. Now only sporadic shots, quickly silenced by the hiss of arrows. A field in which groaning, wailing, writhing men moved feebly between inert forms. This time the Indians reined in their horses, dismounted, and began walking casually among the wounded, knives out. They became dark forms, bending over dark shapes on the ground. Shrieks, begging, weeping; the wet sound of scalps being ripped away; and then silence.

  A man, lying on the ground, faking death, was dragged to his feet. His pleading cut through the dust and the dying moans: Harry Beaumont. The dark forms of the Indians clustered about him, silent, wraithlike, unhurried. The pleading rose in pitch, incomprehensible. He was grasped firmly, his head pulled back. A flash of a steel knife against the dust; a scream. A piece of flesh tossed aside. The Indians worked on the mans head, arms making short sharp movements as if carving a piece of wood; the screams became hysterical, choked. More red pieces discarded. Another wet ripping sound, more protracted than the others. Another scream. Two final movements, two more pieces dropping to the ground. Another, shorter scream.

  And then, with ropes and poles hooked to their saddles, the Indians were dragging their dead horses away into the curtains of dust, heaping their dead warriors on travois and dragging them away as well. In less than a minute, they had disappeared completely into the dust from which they came.

  Only one man was left, staggering through the dust, crying. Harry Beaumont. He dropped to his knees at the center of the mounds. He had no face left: no nose, lips, ears, or scalp. Just an oval of raw, red meat where his features had once been.

  Rounded.

  He rocked on his knees, head drooping, the blood pooling around his ruined jaws and chin and dripping into the ground. A dark hole opened in the bloody oval and a shriek arose:

  Thon of a bith I curth thith groun I curth thith groun may it forever be damned may it rain blood for my blood guth for my guth damn thith evil groun

  He fell slowly, gargling and twitching in the bloody dust.

  As the wind abated, as the dust settled and vision slowly returned, nothing remained but dead white men. The Cheyenne dead, the dead horses, all were gone. Only the endless grass now, stretching from horizon to horizon. And then a lone figure could be seen rising from a brushy fold in the earth a hundred yards downhilla boy, previously hidden, who now staggered up in terror and ran across the empty prairie, his little figure fading into the orange glow of the horizon until he could be seen no more.

  And then, silence.

  Corrie jumped as Pendergasts eyes flew open, silvery and luminous in the twilight. The hour was up, and she had been about to rouse him. Shed almost woken him earlier, when the birdsong suddenly stopped; but within a minute or two it had resumed and her anxiety had faded. She stood, unsure for a moment what to say. It was now dark under the trees and the muggy night air was filled with the sound of rasping insects.

  Are you all right? she finally asked.

  Pendergast rose, brushing the leaves, dust, and grass off his coat and pants. His face looked drawn, almost as if he was ill.

  I am fine, thank you, he answered. His voice was toneless.

  Corrie hesitated. She desperately wanted to know what he had seen or discovered, but she found herself afraid to ask.

  Pendergast checked his watch. Eight oclock.

  He swiftly collected his documents, papers, and notes, and began striding down the track toward the car. She followed, stumbling in her effort to keep up. He was already in the passenger seat, waiting, when she reached her own door and fumbled in the twilight with the handle.

  Please take me back to the Kraus place, Miss Swanson.

  Right. Okay.

  The car engine turned over, turned again, rattled and shook into life. She turned on the headlights and crept back down the bumpy track.

  Afte
r a few minutes, she couldnt stand it anymore. Well? she asked. Howd it go?

  Pendergasts eyes turned to her, glistening strangely in the night.

  I saw the impossible, was all he said.

  Thirty-Nine

  The light faded and twilight crept into the air. The silent leaves disclosed, in the open area between the mounds, infrequent glimpses of the man and the girl. They had been talking, their low voices a murmur at this distance, but now there was only silence. The man had lain down and the girl was now sitting on a rock maybe twenty yards away, once in a while getting up to look around. The light had died in the west and only a faint glow lay over the landscape, rapidly turning to night.

  The cornfields, dark and still, stretched out beyond the copse of trees. A star had appeared. From his place of concealment, the watcher looked for another star, found it. Then another, and another.

  His eyes turned back to the figure on the ground. What in the world was Pendergast doing? Lying there, silently, like a corpse. Two hours had passedtwo hours, wasted. It was well after seven oclock. And now thatGlobe reporter, Joe Rickey, was soon going to be coming up against his deadline. Not to mention Ludwigs own deadline for the next edition of theCourier. Was this some kind of psychic crap? New Age communication with the spirits? Perhaps therewas a story here after all, only it wasnt the story he was after. Still, it was the only story around, and he wasnt going to move until he saw it through.

  Smit Ludwig shifted his cramped limbs, yawned. The night crickets stopped chirping at the movement, then resumed: a peaceful, familiar sound. The whole landscape was familiar to him. He had spent his boyhood up at these mounds, playing Cowboys and Indians with his brother or swimming down in the creek. Theyd even camped up here a couple of times. The tale of Harry Beaumont and the Forty-Fives, the fact that the Mounds had a sinister reputation, only added to the boyish sense of adventure. He could remember one night in August, camped here, watching the shooting stars. Theyd counted to a hundred and then quit. His brother had left Medicine Creek, was now a retired grandfather in Leisure, Arizona. That was a different era back then. Mothers never thought twice about letting their kids run off and play all day long out of sight. Today it was different. The ugly modern world had come to Medicine Creek, bit by bit. And now, these killings. A part of him was glad Sarah hadnt lived to see this. Even if they found the killer, the town would never be the same.