The Dark Place

hole at one end, right? The kind of hole that maybe once had a peg stuck in it?'

'I suppose so.'

'And if it did have a peg in it, what would you guess it was?'

Gideon didn't see why Abe was harping on a twelve-thousand-year-old artifact. “I don't know, Abe,” he said impatiently, a rare way for him to talk to the old man.

Abe took no offense. “So,” he said cheerfully, “guess.'

'An atlatl?'

'Finally,” Abe said, “the light dawns.'

'I don't—” Gideon began, and then the light did dawn. “Atlatl!” he exclaimed. “Of course! An atlatl! My God, I've been—'

'A schlemiel,” Abe said. He settled back against the seat. “Now that I've solved your case for you, Professor Skeleton Detective, I'm going to catch forty winks. Wake me up when we get to Phlegmatic Haven.” In an instant he was asleep again. Or thinking.

Gideon's mind was buzzing. An atlatl. A spear thrower. How could he possibly have failed to make the connection? The atlatl was one of the most primitive of weapons, a step above the hand-thrown spear, a step below the bow and arrow. It had been common among prehistoric hunters all over the world.

Its use took skill, but the principle was simple: The atlatl added an extra joint to the arm, and more length, in much the same way as did the sort of slingshot one whirled around one's head. The spear was laid on the atlatl, its butt against the peg. Both objects were held in the hand and the spear was flung from the atlatl, more or less catapulted from it.

The result was a projectile that could be thrown with many times the force that could be achieved without it. The Spanish conquistadors of Aztec Mexico had found to their considerable discomfort that an atlatl-propelled spear could pierce metal armor. And not five miles from where they were at that moment, at the Manis site, an atlatl- launched spear point had been found deep in a vertebra of a twelve-thousand-year-old mastodon. Certainly there was no doubt about its ability to penetrate the seventh thoracic vertebra of a mere human being.

Gideon frowned as he turned off the road at the big, wooden SunLand sign and drove down the dark entry drive. A doe stepped lightly from behind a pine tree, her eyes beaming back the headlights. She froze momentarily, then bounded across the road in two arcing leaps to disappear into the foliage, her graceful, raised rump remaining as an afterimage. Gideon barely noticed her. Twelve thousand years. And the atlatl he'd found this morning, if that's what it was, was even older. As far as he knew, the atlatl had been extinct in North America for hundreds of years. Until March 1976.

Abe gave a final cluck, cleared his throat, and opened his eyes as Gideon braked to a stop in front of his compact modern home. “Already?” he said. “How about some chess?'

'Chess? It's practically midnight.'

'Well,” Abe said, his voice cracking pitifully, “an old man like me never knows how much time he's got. He's got to take his enjoyment when he can. But maybe you're right.'

When Gideon helped him out of the car, Abe sighed and groaned. “I guess an old man can't expect you young people should want to spend an hour with him,” he said mournfully, “even if there isn't much time left.'

Gideon laughed, but he was dismayed to find his hand completely encircling Abe's upper arm. Through the sleeve of the coat it felt like a dry wooden stick sheathed in loose, papery leather. “Okay,” he said, “let's play some chess. Maybe you can beat me for once.'

Bertha had waited up for them and shuffled off in furry slippers to make some tea. They sat down at the chess table in the den.

'Bertha!” Abe bawled suddenly as Gideon held out his hands, a pawn concealed in each. “Gideon wants another bite to eat!'

'No, really—” Gideon said.

'Quiet, you're a growing boy. So, you agree it was an atlatl?'

'I'm sure it was.'

'You think it was. Don't be so sure.'

'But—'

Abe waggled his hand at him. “All right, let's assume it was. Now, the next question: Who goes around using an atlatl in 1982? Who killed this guy?'

'It was 1976.'

'Oh, that's entirely different. All right, 1976.'

Gideon extended his hands again. “I thought you wanted to play chess.'

'You can't talk and play chess at the same time?'

Abe chose the left hand. “All the time I get black,” he said. “That's how come you always win.'

'Take white if you like.'

'To beat you I don't need any favors. So what do you think? Who killed him?'

'Well,” Gideon said, “there's the atlatl and the fact that he was buried in a hundred-year-old Indian cemetery —'

'So therefore it was Indians who killed him?” asked Abe, a cheerful devil's advocate. “What kind of logic do you call this?'

Gideon pushed his king's pawn up two squares.