Thunderhead

the two children of Padraic Kelly had decided to leave the body where it lay. It was in the redrock country he loved so well, overlooking one of the most beautiful and isolated canyons of the Escalante. No other gravesite could provide more dignity, or more peace.

She felt Skip’s arm around her shoulder again, and she turned at last to face the shelter.

In the dim light of the interior, she could make out her father’s saddle and saddlebags carefully lined up along the back wall of the rockshelter, the leather cracked and faded with age. Beside them was the turquoise skull, beautiful yet vaguely sinister, even here, far from the evil pall of the Rain Kiva. Beneath a thin layer of sand lay her father’s bones. In places the wind had blown the sand away, revealing bits of rotten cloth, the dull ivory of bone, the curve of the cranium; she could see that he had died looking down into the valley below.

Nora stared for a long time. Nobody spoke. Then, slowly, she reached into her pocket. Her fingers closed over a small notebook: her father’s journal, taken from the body by the witch she had shot and restored to her by Beiyoodzin. She opened it and removed a faded envelope she had placed between the pages: the letter that had started it all.

The letter had been addressed to her mother, written just before he had entered the city. But the last entry in Padraic Kelly’s journal had been addressed to his children, written after his discovery of the city, in this very rockshelter while he lay dying. And now, in the presence of both her father and Skip, Nora began to read his last words.

She stepped forward, stopping at the foot of the grave. The cross was still there, two twisted pieces of cedar lashed with a rawhide thong. She felt Smithback’s hand come forward to grasp her own, and she returned the pressure gratefully. After the horror of the last days at Quivira, and even in his own sickness and pain, the writer had been a kind, quiet, and steady presence. He had accompanied her to Peter Holroyd’s memorial in Los Angeles, where she had left his own battered copy of Endurance beside the stone marker that stood in the stead of a grave: his body had never been found. Smithback had returned with her for a memorial service for Enrique Aragon on Lake Powell, when they boated out to the site where, beneath a thousand feet of water, Aragon’s beloved Music Temple lay.

In time, she knew, they would return to Quivira. A handpicked team from the Institute, armed with respirators and environmental suits, would make careful video documentaries of the site. Sloane’s discovery—the micaceous pottery of transcendent beauty and value—would be carefully studied and documented back at the Institute, under the direction of Goddard himself. And perhaps, in time, Smithback would even write an account of the expedition—or, at least, the part of the expedition that would not bring unendurable pain to Goddard.

She sighed deeply. Quivira would wait for her. There was no chance of its location ever being divulged, or becoming public knowledge—the poisonous dust would make sure of that. Almost all those who knew of its location—with the exception of the Nankoweap—were now dead. Those who lived, she knew, would keep its secret.

Nora watched as Beiyoodzin leaned over the skeleton, untied the little buckskin bag, and bowed his head. Pinching out some yellow cornmeal and pollen, he sprinkled it on the body and began a soft, rhythmical chant, beautiful in its simple monotony. The others bowed their heads.

When the chant was done, Beiyoodzin looked at Nora. His eyes were shining, his creased face smiling. “I thank you,” he said, “for letting me put this to rest. I thank you for myself, and for my people.”

It was Skip’s turn. He took the letter from Nora, turning it over and over in his hands. Then he knelt down, gently smoothed the sand away, and placed it into the pocket of his father’s shirt. He remained kneeling for a moment. Then he slowly stood up and returned to Nora’s side.

Nora took a deep breath, steadied her hands. Then she turned to the final entry in her father’s journal and began to read.

To my dearest and most wonderful children, Nora and Skip,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. I have been stricken with a disease, which I fear I contracted in the city I discovered: the city of Quivira. Although I cannot be sure this will ever reach you, I must believe in my heart that it will. Because I want to speak to you through this journal one last time.

If it is within your power, let the great ruins of Quivira lie undisturbed and unknown. It is a place of evil; I know that now, even from my own brief exploration. It may well be the cause of my death, though I do not understand why. Perhaps some knowledge is better left alone, to die and return to the earth, just as we do.

I have just one request to make each of you. Skip, please don’t drink. It runs in the family, and, I promise you, you won’t be able to handle it. I could not. And, Nora, please forgive your mother. I know that in my absence, she may blame me for what has happened. When you are grown, forgiveness will be difficult for you. But remember that, in a way, she was right to blame me. And—in her own way—she has always loved you deeply.

This is a beautiful place to die, children. The night sky is filled with stars; the stream splashes below; a coyote is sounding in a distant canyon. I came here for riches, but the sight of Quivira changed my mind. In fact, I left no mark of my passage there. And I have taken one thing only from it, and that was meant for you, Nora, as proof your father really found the fabled city. For it was there that I learned, for the first time, that I had left my real, my true successes—the two of you—far behind in Santa Fe.

I know I have not been a great father, or even a good father, and for that I am truly sorry. There is so much I could have done as a father that I didn’t. So let my last act as a father be to tell you this: I love you both. And I will love you always, forever and ever, from eternity to eternity. My love for you burns brighter than all the thousands of stars that carpet the sky above my head. I may die, but my love for you never will.

Dad

Nora fell silent and closed her eyes. For a moment, the entire canyon seemed to drop into reverential silence. Then she looked up, shut the notebook, and carefully placed it on the ground beside her father. She turned and gave Smithback a tearful smile.

Then the four of them made their way down the faint path, to the waiting horses and home.

Authors’ Note

The archaeology of this story is speculative in places. However, it is grounded in fact. The history of the Anasazi, the mystery of the Chaco collapse and the abandonment of the Colorado Plateau, the long-sought evidence of a Mesoamerican connection, the use of radar to locate prehistoric roads—as well as the cannibalistic and witchcraft practices described herein—are based on actual research findings. In addition, one of the authors, Douglas Preston, has traveled and lived among southwestern Indian peoples, as recounted in his nonfiction work Talking to the Ground.

The authors made use of information from a number of other publications, the most important of which include: Clyde Kluckhohn, Navaho Witchcraft; Blackburn and Williamson, Cowboys and Cave Dwellers; Basketmaker Archaeology in Utah’s Grand Gulch; Crown and Judge, eds., Chaco and Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Sytems in the American Southwest; Kathryn Gabriel, Roads to Center Place: A Cultural Atlas of Chaco Canyon and the Anasazi; James McNeley, Holy Wind in Navajo Philosophy; David Roberts, In Search of the Old Ones; George Pepper, Pueblo Bonito; Hester, Shafer, and Feder, Field Methods in Archaeology; Lynne Sebastian, The Chaco Anasazi; Levy, Neutra, and Parker, Hand Trembling, Frenzy Witchcraft, and Moth Madness; Mauch Messenger, ed., The Ethics of Collecting Cultural Property; Chris Kincaid, ed., Chaco Roads Project, Phase I: A Reappraisal of Prehistoric Roads in the San Juan Basin; Tim D. White, Prehistoric Cannibalism at Mancos; Christy Turner, Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest; and Farouk El-Baz, “Space Age Archaeology,” Scientific