Thunderhead

by Douglas Preston

  “No, I don’t,” Nora said, surprised at the sudden excitement that flooded through her.

  “Lying under the stars with someone like you,” he finished. “Sounds kind of lame, doesn’t it?”

  “As come-ons go, yes it does. But thanks just the same.”

  She glanced at the lanky form of Smithback, faintly outlined in starlight, his eyes glinting as he looked skyward. “So?” she said after a moment.

  “So what?”

  “Over the last week, you’ve had your spine realigned by hard saddles, you’ve gone without water, been bitten by horses, almost fallen off cliffs, avoided rattlesnakes, quicksand, and skinwalkers. So are you glad you came along?”

  His eyes turned toward her, luminous in the starlight. “Yes,” he said simply.

  Holding his gaze in her own, she reached toward him in the darkness. Finding his hand, she squeezed it briefly.

  “I’m glad, too,” she replied.

  36

  * * *

  BY MIDNIGHT, A HALF-MOON HAD RISEN IN the dark sky, and the gnarled badlands of southern Utah were bathed in pale light. At the foot of Lake Powell, Wahweap Marina dozed, its jetskis and houseboats silent. To the north and west, the labyrinthine system of narrow canyons leading ultimately toward the Devil’s Backbone were still.

  In the valley of Chilbah, two forms moved slowly up a secret notch. It was less a trail than a fissure in the rock, fiendishly hidden, now worn away to the faintest of lines after centuries of erosion and disuse. It was the Priest’s Trail: the back door to Quivira.

  Emerging out of the inky blackness of the rocks, the figures topped out on the sandstone plateau in which the valley of Quivira was hidden. Far below, in the long valley behind them, a horse nickered and stamped in agitation. But this evening they had left the horses unharmed, just as they had slipped past the cowboy who guarded them without running a knife across his throat. He sat there still, hand on his gun, the ground around him damp with tobacco juice. Let him sit; his time would come soon enough.

  Now, with animal stealth, they scuttled along the wide mesa far above the valley floor. Though the moon laid a dappled byway across the sandstone, the figures avoided the faint light, keeping to the shadows. The heavy animal pelts on their backs draped down over their sides, dragging along the rough rock beneath them. The figures moved on, silent as ghosts.

  After an eternity of movement they stopped, as if possessed of a single mind. Ahead, a well of darkness loomed: the tiny valley of Quivira. Far below, at the base of the canyon, the little stream shimmered in the moonlight. From the higher ground away from the stream, a faint glow arose from the dying campfire, and the even fainter smell of woodsmoke reached the figures peering down from the canyon rim.

  Their eyes moved from the fire to the dim figures that lay around it.

  Several tents ringed the camp, pallid in the dim moonlight. A number of bedrolls lay near the campfire, seemingly flung down at random. With the tents closed and darkened, it was impossible to count the number of the company. They stared long, bodies motionless. Then they eased forward along the brow of rock.

  With consummate stealth they moved along the top of the canyon, pausing now and then to look down toward the sleeping expedition. Occasional sounds drifted up from below: the call of an owl, the babble of water, the rustle of leaves in a night breeze. Once, a belt of silver conchas clinked around the midriff of one of the figures; otherwise, they made no noise in the time it took to reach the top of the rope ladder.

  Here the figures paused, examining the communications equipment with intense interest. A minute passed, then two, without movement.

  Then one of the figures glided to the edge of the cliff face and gazed down the thin ladder. It disappeared back beneath the brow of rimrock. The figure looked out, into the valley. He was almost directly above the camp now, and the glow of the fire, eight hundred feet below, seemed strangely close, an angry nugget of red in the darkness. A low, guttural sound rose out from deep within his frame, at last dying away into a groan that resolved itself into a faint, monotonous chant. Then he turned back toward the equipment.

  In ten minutes, their work there was done.

  Slinking further along the rimrock, they made their way to the end of the canyon. The ancient secret trail wormed down through a cut in the rimrock, descending toward the narrow canyon at the far side of the Quivira valley. The trail was perfectly concealed against the rock, and terrifyingly precipitous. The faint sounds of the waterfall echoed up below them, the water thrashing and boiling its way on the long trip down to the Colorado River.

  In time, the figures reached the sandy bottom. They moved stealthily out of the curtain of mist, past the rockfall, then along the base of the canyon wall, keeping in the deeper darkness of moonshadow. They stopped when they neared the first member of the expedition: a figure beyond the edge of the camp, sleeping beneath the stars, pale face looking deathlike in gray half-light.

  Reaching into the matted pelt that lay across his back, one of the figures pulled out a small pouch. It was made of cured human skin, and in the glow of the moon it gave out an otherworldly, translucent sheen. Loosening the leather thong around it, the figure reached inside and, with extreme caution, drew out a disk of bone and an ancient tube of willow wood, polished with use and incised with a long reverse spiral. The disk flashed dully in the moonlight as he turned it over once, then again. Then, placing one end of the tube to his lips, he leaned toward the face of the sleeping figure. There was a sudden breath of wind, and a brief cloud of dust flowered in the moonlight. Then, with the tread of ghosts, the two figures retreated back toward the cliff face, disappearing once again into the woven shadows.

  37

  * * *

  COUGHING, PETER HOLROYD WOKE abruptly out of dark dreams. Some stray breeze had chased dirt across his face. Or more likely it was dust from the day’s work, he thought blearily, still weeping out of his pores. He wiped his face and sat up.

  It had not been the dust alone that awakened him. Earlier, there had been a sound: a strange cry, borne faintly on the wind, as if the earth itself were groaning. He might have thought he’d dreamed the noise, except that nothing remotely like it had ever existed in his imagination. He was aware that his heart was racing.

  Gripping the edges of his bedroll, he looked around. The half-moon threw zebra stripes of silvery-blue light across the camp. He glanced from tent to tent, and at the still black lumps of bedrolls. Everything was still.

  His eyes stopped at a spot on a small rise, perhaps twenty yards from the campfire. Usually Nora would be at that spot, sleeping. Tonight she was gone—gone with Smithback. Many times during the desert nights Holroyd had found himself looking in her direction. Wondering what it would be like to creep over and talk to her, tell her how much all this meant to him. How much she meant to him. And, always, the last thing he wondered was why he just never had the guts to do it.

  Holroyd lay back with a sigh. Even if Nora had been around, though, tonight he had no desire to do anything but rest. He was bone-tired; more tired than he remembered ever being in his life. In Nora’s absence, Sloane had directed him to clear away a tidal wave of sand and dust that had risen up against the back wall of the ruin, not far from Aragon’s Crawlspace. He hadn’t understood why he needed to dig that particular spot; there were many sites in the front of the ruin that had yet to be studied. But Sloane had brushed off his questions with a quick explanation about how important pictographs were often found at such sites at the rear of Anasazi cities. He was surprised at how quickly and completely, after Nora left, Sloane assumed command. But Aragon had been working by himself in a remote corner of the city, his face dark and severe; apparently, he’d made yet another disturbing discovery, and he was too preoccupied to pay attention to anything else. As for Black, he seemed to yield up all critical sense in Sloane’s presence, automatically agreeing with whatever she said. And so, from morning until dark, Holroyd had wielded a shovel and a rake. And now it seem
ed to him that, even after a month’s worth of baths, he’d never get all the dust out of his hair, nose, and mouth.

  He stared up at the night sky. There was a funny taste in his mouth, and his jaw ached. The beginning of a headache was forming around his temples. He didn’t know what he’d expected to do on the expedition, but his vague romantic notions of opening rich tombs and deciphering inscriptions seemed a far cry from the endless grunt work he’d been doing. All around lay fantastic ruins of a mysterious civilization, while they were immersed in gridding this and surveying that. And moving piles of empty sand. He was sick of digging, he decided. And he didn’t like working for Sloane. She was too aware of her perfection and the influence she cast on others, too willing to use her charm to get what she wanted. Ever since the confrontation with Nora at Pete’s Ruin, he’d felt on his guard when she was around.

  He sighed, closing his eyes against the pressure in his head. It wasn’t like him to be this grouchy. Normally, he only got grumpy when he was coming down with something. Sloane was all right, really; she was just outspoken, used to getting her way, not his type. And it didn’t matter if he was digging sand or breaking rocks. The important thing was he was here—here at Quivira, at this miraculous, mythical place. Nothing else mattered.

  Suddenly, he stiffened, eyes opening wide. That sound again.

  Pushing the blanket to one side, he rose to his knees as quietly as he could. Whatever he’d heard, it had stopped. No, there it was again: a murmur, a low groan.

  But this sound was different from the sound that had awakened him. It was softer, somehow; softer and nearer.

  In the pale light, he hunted around for a stick, a penknife, anything that could be used as a weapon. His hand closed around a heavy flashlight. He hefted it, thought of switching it on, then decided against it. He rose to his feet, staggering a moment before gaining his balance. Then, silently, he moved in the direction of the noise. All had grown quiet again, but the sound seemed to have come from beyond the stand of cottonwoods near the stream.

  Cautiously picking his way around boxes and shrouded packs, Holroyd moved away from the camp toward the stream. A cloud had passed over the moon, darkening the landscape to an impenetrable murk. He felt hot, uncomfortable, disoriented in the close darkness. The headache had grown worse when he stood up, and it almost seemed as if a film lay in front of his eyes. In a detached way, he made out what looked like a patch of highly poisonous druid’s mantle a few feet away. Instead of taking a closer look, he regarded it with uncharacteristic disinterest. He should be resting in his blanket, not wandering around on a fool’s errand.

  As he was about to turn back, he heard another sound: a moan, the soft slap of skin against skin.

  Then the moon was out again. Stealthily, he moved forward, looking carefully to both sides. The sounds were clearer now, more regular. He tightened his grip on the flashlight, grasped the trunk of a cottonwood, and peered through the curtain of moonlit leaves.

  The first thing he saw was a tangle of clothes on the ground beyond. For a moment, Holroyd thought somebody had been attacked, and their body dragged off. Then his eyes moved farther.

  On the soft sand beyond the cottonwoods lay Black. His shirt was bunched up around his armpits, his bare legs were splayed, knees bent toward the sky. His eyes were squeezed shut. A small groan escaped him. Above, Sloane was straddling Black’s hips, her fingers spread wide against his chest, the sweat on her naked back glowing in the moonlight. Holroyd leaned forward with an involuntary movement, staring in shock and fascination. His face flushed, whether in embarrassment or shame at his own naïveté, he could not say. Black grunted in combined effort and pleasure as he sheathed himself within her, thigh muscles straining. Sloane leaned over him, her dark hair falling over her face, her breasts swaying heavily with each thrust. Holroyd’s eyes traveled slowly up her body. She was staring at Black’s face intently, with a look more of rapt attention than of pleasure. There was something almost predatory in that look. For a moment, he was reminded of a cat, playing with a mouse.

  But that image dissolved as Sloane thrust downward to meet Black, again and again and again, riding him with relentless, merciless precision.

  38

  * * *

  WITH A TUG ON THE GUIDE ROPE, NORA brought Arbuckles to a halt. She stood beside the horse and looked down from the crest of the Devil’s Backbone, into the valley the old Indian had called Chilbah. She felt drained, sickened, by the climb back to the top, and Arbuckles was shaking and lathered with stress. But they had made it: his hooves, once again freed of iron, had gripped the gritty sandstone.

  The wind was blowing hard across the fin of rock and several ragged afternoon thunderheads were coalescing over the distant mountains to the north, but the valley itself remained a vast bowl of sunlight.

  Smithback came to a stop beside her, white, silent. “So this is Chilbah, sinkhole of evil,” he said after a moment. His tone was meant to be light, but his voice still held a quiver of stress from the terrifying ascent of the hogback ridge.

  Nora did not reply immediately. Instead, she knelt to reshoe the horses, letting a full sense of control return to her limbs. Then she stood, dusted herself off, and reached into a saddlebag for her binoculars. She scanned the bottomlands with them, looking for Swire and the horses. The cottonwoods and swales of grass were a welcome sight after the long, hot ride back from the sheep camp. It was now half past one. She located Swire alongside the creek, sitting on a rock, watching the remuda graze. As she stared, she could see him looking up toward them.

  “People are evil,” she said at last, lowering the binoculars. “Landscapes are not.”

  “Maybe so,” said Smithback. “But right from the beginning, I’ve felt there was something strange about the place. Something that gave me the willies.”

  Nora glanced at the writer. “And I’ve always thought it was just me,” she replied.

  They mounted their horses and moved forward, making the descent into the valley in silence. Nosing their horses directly toward the grassy banks of the creek, they remained in their saddles while the animals waded in to drink, the water burbling around their legs. From the corner of her eye, Nora could see Swire trotting up the creekbed toward them, riding bareback, without bridle or reins.

  He pulled to a stop on the far side of the creek, looking from Nora to Smithback and back. “So you brought back both horses,” he said, looking at Nora with ill-disguised relief. “What about the sons of bitches who killed my horses—you catch them?”

  “No,” said Nora. “The person you saw at the top of the ridge was an old Indian man camping upcountry.”

  A look of skepticism crossed Swire’s face. “An old Indian man? What the hell was he doing on top of the ridge?”

  “He wanted to see who was in the valley,” Nora replied. “He said nobody from his village ever goes into this valley.”

  Swire sat silent a moment, his mouth working a lump of tobacco. “So you followed the wrong tracks,” he said at last.

  “We followed the only tracks up there. The tracks of the man you saw.”

  In reply, Swire expertly shot a string of tobacco juice from his lips, forming a little brown crater in the nearby sand.

  “Roscoe,” Nora went on, careful to keep her tone even, “if you’d met this man, you’d realize he’s no horse killer.”

  Swire’s mouth continued working. There was a long, strained silence as the two stared at each other. Then Swire spat a second time. “Shit,” he said. “I ain’t saying you’re right. But if you are, it means the bastards that killed my horses are still around.” Then, without another word, he spun his horse with invisible knee pressure and trotted back down the creek.

  Nora watched his receding back. Then she glanced over at the writer. Smithback merely shrugged in return.

  As they set off across the valley toward the dark slot canyon, Nora looked up. The northern sky had grown lumpy with thunderheads. She frowned; normally, the summer rains weren’t
due for another couple of weeks. But with a sky like this, the rains could be upon them as early as that very afternoon.

  She urged her horse into a trot toward the slot canyon. Better get through before the system moves in, she thought. Soon, they reached the opening. They unsaddled their horses, wrapped and stowed the saddles, then turned the animals loose to find the rest of the herd.

  It was the work of a long, wet, weary hour to toil through the slot canyon, the gear dead weight on their backs. At last, Nora parted the hanging weeds and began walking down toward the camp. Smithback fell in step beside her, breathing hard and shaking mud and quicksand from his legs.

  Suddenly, Nora stopped short. Something was wrong. The camp was deserted, the fire untended and smoking. Instinctively, she looked up the cliff face toward Quivira. Although the city itself was hidden, she could hear the faint sounds of loud, hurried conversation.

  Despite her weariness, she shrugged the pack from her back, jogged toward the base of the rope ladder, and climbed to the city. As she clambered onto the bench, she saw Sloane and Black near the city’s central plaza, talking animatedly. On the far side of the plaza sat Bonarotti, legs crossed, watching them.

  Sloane saw her approaching and broke away from Black. “Nora,” she said. “We’ve been vandalized.”

  Exhausted, Nora sank onto the retaining wall. “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “It must have happened during the night,” Sloane went on, taking a seat beside her. “At breakfast, Peter said he wanted to go up and check his equipment before getting to work. I was going to tell him to take the day off, actually—he didn’t look that well. But he insisted. Said he’d heard something during the night. Anyway, next thing I know he was calling down from the top of the cliff. So I went up after him.” She paused. “Our communications equipment, Nora . . . it’s all been smashed to pieces.”