Thunderhead

by Douglas Preston

  “Thanks, Nora,” she said.

  28

  * * *

  SKIP STOPPED AT THE TOP OF THE RISE, THE SUDDEN dust cloud rolling over the car and drifting off into the hot afternoon sky. It was a parched June day, the kind that only occurred before the onset of the summer rains. A single cumulus cloud struggled pathetically over the Jemez Mountains.

  For a moment he decided the best thing would be to simply turn around and go back into town. He’d sat up in bed the night before with a sudden inspiration. Thurber was still missing, and Skip still felt responsible, in some formless way, for the disappearance. So, to make up, he’d take Teresa’s dog, Teddy Bear, under his wing. After all, Teresa had been killed in their home. And who better to take care of her dog than her old neighbor and friend, Nora?

  But what seemed like such a good idea last night didn’t seem so great now. Martinez had made it clear that the investigation was still active and that he wasn’t to go to the house. Well, he wasn’t going to the house: he was going to Teresa’s place. Still, Skip knew he could get in a lot of trouble just for being here.

  He put the old car into gear, eased off the brakes, and coasted down the hill. He drove past their old ranch house and up the rise to Teresa’s place. The long, low structure was dark and silent, the livestock all taken away. This was stupid, Skip thought. Whoever took the animals probably took Teddy Bear, as well. Still, he’d come all this way.

  Leaving the car running and the door open, he got out, walked around to the front, and called out. There was no answering bark.

  He walked up to the front of the house. The old screen door, taped in countless places with black electrical tape, was shut tight. His hand raised automatically to knock, then he stopped himself.

  “Teddy Bear!” he called out, turning.

  Silence.

  He found himself looking down in the direction of Las Cabrillas. Maybe the dog had wandered down toward their old house. He started forward for the old path, then stopped. His hand slid down to his belt and rested briefly on the handle of his father’s old .357. It was big and clumsy, it fired like a cannon, but it stopped whatever it hit. He’d only fired it once, damn near fracturing his wrists and making his ears ring for two days. Reassured, he continued down the dirt path, then circled around to the back of the ranch house. “Yo, Teddy, you old mutt!” he called in a softer voice.

  He stepped up onto the portal, through the doorless frame and into the house. The kitchen was a whirlwind of ruin, the floor torn apart, holes like ragged eye sockets staring at him from every wall. At the far end of the room, he could see a yellow band of crime-scene tape barring entry into the living room. Several small lines of small, purplish-black pawprints ran from the living room to the kitchen door. Avoiding the prints, he stepped gingerly forward.

  The smell assailed him first, followed almost instantly by the roar of flies. He took an instinctive step backward, gagging. Then, with a deep breath, he moved cautiously up to the tape and peered into the living room.

  A huge pool of blood had congealed in the center of the room, punctuated here and there by the blacker holes of missing floorboards. Involuntarily, Skip gasped with revulsion. Jesus, I didn’t know a human body held that much blood. It seemed to spread in twisted, eccentric rivulets almost to the far walls. At its periphery, countless little pawprints could be seen. He could make out blowfly maggots wriggling in the places where the blood had pooled deeper.

  Skip swayed slightly, and he reached for the doorframe to steady himself. The flies, disturbed, rose in an angry curtain. A camera tripod stood folded in one corner, SANTA FE P.D. stenciled in white along one leg.

  “Oh, no, no,” Skip murmured. “Teresa, I’m so sorry.”

  He stared hard at the room for a minute, then two. Then he turned and walked on wooden legs back through the kitchen.

  Outside, the air seemed almost cool after the dark oppressive heat of the house. Skip stood on the portal, breathing slowly, looking around. He cupped his hands. “Teddy Bear!” he called out one last time.

  He knew he should leave. Some cop, maybe even Martinez, could come by at any time. But he remained another minute, looking out over the backyard of his childhood. Although what had happened to Teresa remained a mystery, the house itself felt somehow tired and empty to him. It was almost as if whatever evil might have lurked here had dissipated. Or, perhaps, gone elsewhere.

  Teddy Bear had clearly been taken away with the livestock. With a sigh, he stepped down into the dirt and walked back up the hill toward his car. It was an old ’71 Plymouth Fury, his mother’s, faded olive green and pocked with rust; yet it was one of his most treasured possessions. The front grille, with its heavy chrome fangs, listed slightly to the left, giving it a shambling, menacing appearance. There were just enough dents here and there around the body to let other drivers know that one more wouldn’t make any difference.

  There, sitting in the driver’s seat, was Teddy Bear. His monstrous tongue hung out in the heat and was dripping saliva all over the seat, but he looked fine.

  “Teddy Bear, you old rascal!” cried Skip.

  The dog whined, slobbering over his hand.

  “Move over, for chrissakes. I’m the one with a driver’s license.” He shoved the hundred-pound dog into the passenger seat and got behind the wheel.

  Placing the gun in the glove compartment, Skip put the car in gear and maneuvered back onto the dirt road. He realized that he felt better than he had all day; somehow, despite the grimness and tragedy of the scene, it was a relief to put this particular pilgrimage behind him. Mentally, he began sorting out his evening. First he’d have to load up on dog food; it would bust his slim budget, but what the hell. Then he’d swing by the Noodle Emporium for some curried Singapore mei fun, and study the book on Anasazi pottery styles that Sonya Rowling had given him two days before. It was a fascinating text, and he’d found himself staying up late, underlining passages, scribbling notes in the margin. He’d even forgotten to crack open the new bottle of mescal that stood on his living room table.

  The car rattled over the cattle guard and Skip lurched onto the main road, pointing the Fury toward town and gunning the engine, eager to put the ranch house far behind. The dog hung his head out the window, the low whining now replaced by an eager snuffling and slobbering. Strings of saliva curled away into the breeze.

  Skip descended the hill toward Fox Run, fitting pot pieces together in his mind, as the desert dirt road fell away and macadam and manicured golf links took its place. Some half a mile ahead, at the base of the long downhill, the road curved sharply before passing the clubhouse. As a boy, Skip had ridden his father’s dirt bike right through where the clubhouse now stood. That was ten years ago, he mused. There hadn’t been a house within three miles. Now it was home to seventy-two holes of golf and six hundred condominiums.

  The big car had picked up speed and the curve was coming up fast. Mentally returning to his potsherds, Skip put his foot on the brake.

  And felt it sink, without resistance, to the metal floorboards.

  Instantly he sat forward, adrenaline burning through his limbs. He pressed the pedal again, then stamped on it. Nothing. He looked ahead through wide eyes. Just a quarter mile ahead now, the road veered to the left, avoiding a huge ledge of basalt that thrust out of the desert. With horrible clarity, Skip could see a metal plaque screwed into the ledge.

  FOX RUN COUNTRY CLUB

  CAUTION: GOLFERS CROSSING

  He glanced at the speedometer: sixty-two. He’d never make the turn; he’d wipe out, turn over. He could throw it into reverse, or even park, but that might pitch the car out of control and wrap him around the ledge.

  In desperation, he jammed on the emergency brake. There was a sudden lunge and a high squealing sound, and the smell of burning steel filled the car. The dog sprawled forward, yelping in surprise. Dimly, he was aware of a party of white-haired golfers on a nearby green, swiveling their necks and staring, open-mouthed, as he flew by. Somebod
y jumped out of a golf cart and began to sprint toward the clubhouse.

  The wheel bucked in Skip’s hands and he realized he was losing control. The basalt ledge yawned ahead, no more than a few seconds away. He turned the car sharply to the left. It twisted beneath him, turning wide, then swinging around in one complete revolution, then another. Skip was shouting now but he couldn’t hear himself over the squealing of the tires. In a dense pall of burning rubber, the car sheered off the road, still spinning, the tires catching first gravel, then grass. There was a tremendous lurch and the car came to a violent stop. A thick wash of cream-colored sand settled on the dashboard and hood.

  Skip sat motionless, fingers glued to the dead wheel. The squeal of tires was replaced by the tick of cooling metal. Dimly, he was aware that he had landed in a bunker, canted sharply to one side. Black, foul-smelling, slobbering lips and tongue hovered before his eyes as Teddy Bear frantically licked at his face.

  The sounds of pattering feet, quick worried conversation, then a rap on the windshield. “Sonny?” came the concerned voice. “Hey, son, you okay?”

  If Skip heard, he gave no sign. Instead, he removed his trembling hands from the wheel, grasped the two ends of the seat belt, and slowly fastened them around his waist.

  29

  * * *

  THE REST OF THE FIRST FULL DAY OF WORK AT Quivira went exceptionally well. The core members of the expedition set to their tasks with a professionalism that both impressed and heartened Nora. Black, in particular, had settled down and was quickly confirming his reputation as a top-notch field-worker. With remarkable speed, Holroyd had assembled a wireless paging network, designed around a central transmitter, to allow the members of the group to communicate with each other from anywhere within the site. The fascination and allure of Quivira worked a special magic on professional and amateur alike. Around the campfire that evening, again and again, conversation would spontaneously cease; and, as if with a single mind, all eyes would be irresistibly drawn up the dark walls of the canyon, in the direction of the invisible hollow where the city was concealed.

  As the following morning drew to a close, early summer heat had settled in the canyon below; but halfway up the cliff face, beneath the shadow of the rock, the city itself remained cool. Holroyd had ascended the ladder, checked in with the Institute, and descended without incident, returning to his task of scanning the roomblocks with the proton magnetometer. Once that was done, he would use a handheld remote for the GPS system to survey the major points of the site.

  Nora sat on the retaining wall at the front of the city, near the rope ladder leading down to the valley floor. Bonarotti had sent up their sack lunches using the pulley system, and Nora opened hers with anticipation. Inside was a wedge of Port du Salut cheese, four generous slices of prosciutto di Parma, and a marvelously thick and dense hunk of bread that Bonarotti had baked in his Dutch oven that morning after breakfast. She ate with little ceremony, washing the meal down with a swig from her canteen, and then rose to her feet. As leader, she was putting together the data for a field specimen catalogue, and it was time to check on the progress of the others.

  She walked beneath the shadows of the ancient adobe walls to the far end of the ruin’s front plaza. Here, near the foot of the Planetarium, Black and Smithback were working in the city’s great midden heap: a dusty, oversized mound of dirt, broken animal bones, charcoal, and potsherds. As she approached, she could see Smithback’s head pop up from a cut at the far end, face dirty, cowlick bobbing with displeasure. She smiled despite herself at the sight. Though she’d never give him the pleasure of knowing it, she’d begun dipping in to the book he had given her. And, she had to admit, it was a fascinating, frightening story, despite the near-miraculous way Smithback had of taking part in almost every important or heroic event he described.

  Black’s voice came echoing off the cave wall. “Bill, haven’t you finished grid F-one yet?”

  “Why don’t you F one yourself,” Smithback muttered in return.

  Black came around the mound in high spirits, carrying a trowel in one hand and a whiskbroom in the other. “Nora,” he said, with a smile, “this will interest you. I don’t believe there’s been a clearer cultural sequence since Kidder excavated the mound at Pecos. And that’s just from the control pit we dug yesterday; now we’re completing the first baulks of the test trench.”

  “The man says ‘we.’” Smithback leaned on his shovel, and held out a trembling hand to Nora. “For the love of Jaysus, can ye not spare a wee drop for a poor dying sinner?”

  Nora handed him her canteen, and he drank deeply. “That man is a sadist,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I’d have been better off building the pyramids. I want a transfer.”

  “When you signed on, you knew you were going to be a digger,” Nora said, retrieving the canteen. “What better way to get your hands dirty, literally and figuratively? Besides, I’ll bet it isn’t the first time you’ve done some muckraking.”

  “Et tu, Brute?” Smithback sighed.

  “Come and see what we’ve done,” said Black, guiding Nora to a small, precise cut in the side of the mound.

  “This is the control pit?” Nora asked.

  “Yes,” Black nodded. “Beautiful soil profile, don’t you think?”

  “Perfection,” Nora replied. She’d never seen such neat work or such potentially rich results. She could see where the two men had cut through the midden, exposing dozens of thin layers of brown, gray, and black soil, revealing how the trash mound had grown over time. The stratified layers had each been labeled with tiny, numbered flags, and even smaller flags marked spots where artifacts had been removed. On the ground beside the cut were dozens of Baggies and glass tubes, carefully aligned, each with its own artifact, seed, bone, or lump of charcoal. Nearby, Nora could see that Black had set up a portable water flotation lab and stereozoom microscope for separating pollen, small seeds, and human hair from the detritus. Next to it was a small paper chromatography setup for analyzing solubles. It was a highly professional job, executed with remarkable assurance and speed.

  “It’s a textbook sequence,” said Black. “At the top is Pueblo III, where we see corrugated and some red ware. Under that is Pueblo II. The sequence begins abruptly at about A.D. 950.”

  “The same time the Anasazi started building Chaco Canyon,” Nora said.

  “Correct. Below this layer”—he pointed to a layer of light brown dirt—“is sterile soil.”

  “Meaning the city was built all at once,” Nora said.

  “Exactly. And take a look at this.” Black opened a Ziploc bag and gently slid three potsherds onto a nearby piece of felt. They glinted dully in the noon sun.

  Nora drew in her breath sharply. “Black-on-yellow micaceous,” she murmured. “How beautiful.”

  Black raised an eyebrow. “The rarest of the rare. So you’ve seen the type before?”

  “Once, on my Rio Puerco dig. It was very weathered, of course; nobody’s ever found an intact pot.” It was a testament to the richness of the site that Black had found three such sherds in just one day’s digging.

  “I’d never actually seen a piece before,” Black said. “It’s amazing stuff. Has anybody ever dated it?”

  “No. Only two dozen sherds have ever been found, and they’ve all been too isolated. Maybe you’ll find enough here for the job.”

  “Maybe,” Black replied, returning the fragments to the plastic bag with rubber-tipped tweezers. “Now look at this.” He squatted beside the soil profile and pointed his trowel tip at a series of alternating dark and light bands. Each was littered with distinct layers of broken pottery. “There was definitely a seasonal occupation of the site. For most of the year, there were not many people in residence, I’d guess fifty or less. And then there was a large influx every summer; obviously a seasonal pilgrimage, but on a far vaster scale than at Chaco. You can tell by the volume of broken pots and hearth ashes.”

  A seasonal pilgrimage, Nora thought. Sounds like Ara
gon’s ritual journey to a city of priests. She decided not to antagonize Black by saying this aloud. “How can you tell it was summertime?” she asked instead.

  “Pollen counts,” Black sniffed. “But there’s more. As I said, we’ve only started the test trench. But already it’s clear that the trash mound was segregated.”

  Nora stared at him curiously. “Segregated?”

  “Yes. In the back part of the mound there are fragments of beautiful painted pottery and the bones of animals used for food. Turkeys, deer, elk, bear. There are a lot of beads, whole arrowheads, even chipped pots. But in the front we find only the crudest, ugliest corrugated pottery. And the food we found in the front of the mound was clearly different.”

  “What kinds of foods?”

  “Mostly rats,” said Black. “Squirrels, snakes, a coyote or two. The flotation lab has brought up a lot of crushed insect carapaces and parts as well. Cockroaches, grasshoppers, crickets. I did a brief microscopic examination, and most of them seem to have been lightly toasted.”

  “They were eating insects?” Nora asked incredulously.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “I prefer my bugs al dente,” said Smithback, with an unpleasant smacking of his lips.

  Nora looked at Black. “What’s your interpretation of this?”

  “Well, there’s never been anything like it in Anasazi sites. But in other sites, this kind of thing points directly to slavery. The masters and slaves ate different things and dumped their trash in different places.”

  “Aaron, there isn’t a shred of evidence that the Anasazi had slaves.”

  Black looked back at her. “There is now. Either slavery, or we’re looking at a deeply stratified society: a priestly class that lived in high luxury, and an underclass living in abject poverty, with no middle class in between.”

  Nora glanced around the city, quiet in the noonday sun. The discovery seemed to violate all that they knew about the Anasazi. “Let’s keep an open mind until all the evidence is in,” she said at last.