Thunderhead

“You mean you’re going to turn down a half-million-dollar gift, just like that?” the woman cried.

“I’m afraid so. I’ll have them carefully crated and returned to you.” He coughed into his handkerchief. “I’m very sorry, Lily.”

“I’m sure you are.” The woman spun around and left the office abruptly, leaving a faint cloud of expensive perfume in her wake.

In the silence that followed, Goddard settled onto the edge of the table, a thoughtful look on his face. “You’re familiar with Mimbres pottery?” he asked.

“Yes,” Nora replied. She still could not believe he had turned down the gift.

“What do you think?”

“Other institutions have killed Mimbres pots in their collections.”

“We are not other institutions,” Goddard replied in his soft whisper. “These pots were buried by people who respected their dead, and we have an obligation to continue that respect. I doubt Mrs. Henigsbaugh would approve of us digging up her dear departed Harry.” He settled into a chair behind the worktable. “I had a visit from Dr. Blakewood the other day, Nora.”

She stiffened. This was it, then.

“He mentioned that you were behind in your projects, and that he felt your tenure review might go poorly. Care to tell me about it?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Nora said. “I’ll submit my resignation whenever.”

To her surprise, Goddard grinned at this. “Resignation?” he asked. “Why on earth would you want to resign?”

She cleared her throat. “There’s no way, in six months, I’m going to be able to write up the Rio Puerco and Gallegos Divide projects, and—” She stopped.

“And what?” Goddard asked.

“Do what I need to do,” she finished. “So I might as well resign now, and save you the trouble.”

“I see.” Goddard’s glittering eyes never left hers. “Do what you need to do, you say. Might that be searching for the lost city of Quivira?”

Nora looked sharply at him, and once again the chairman grinned. “Oh, yes. Blakewood mentioned that, too.”

Nora remained silent.

“He also mentioned your sudden absence from the Institute. Did it have something to do with this idea of yours, this search for Quivira?”

“I was in California.”

“I should have thought Quivira was somewhat east of there.”

Nora sighed. “What I did was on my own time.”

“Dr. Blakewood didn’t think so. Did you find Quivira?”

“In a way, yes.”

There was a silence in the room. Nora looked at Goddard’s face. The grin was suddenly gone.

“Would you care to explain?”

“No,” said Nora.

Goddard’s surprise lasted only for a moment. “Why not?”

“Because this is my project,” Nora said truculently.

“I see.” Goddard eased himself off the table and leaned toward Nora. “The Institute might be able to help you and your project. Now tell me: what did you find in California?”

Nora moved in her chair, considering. “I have some radar images that show an ancient Anasazi road leading to what I believe is Quivira.”

“Do you indeed?” Goddard’s face expressed both astonishment and something else. “And just where did these images come from?”

“I have a contact inside the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was able to digitally manipulate radar images of the area, canceling out the modern tracks and leaving the ancient road. It leads straight into the heart of the redrock country mentioned in the early Spanish accounts.”

Goddard nodded, his face curious and expectant. “This is extraordinary,” he said. “Nora, you’re a woman of many surprises.”

Nora said nothing.

“Of course, Dr. Blakewood had reasons to say what he did. But perhaps he spoke a little precipitously.” He placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. “What if we make this search for Quivira our project?”

Nora paused. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Goddard withdrew his hand, stood up, and walked slowly around the room, looking away from her. “What if the Institute were to fund this expedition of yours, roll back your tenure review? How would that sound?”

Nora gazed at the man’s narrow back, absorbing what he had just said. “That would sound unlikely, if you don’t mind my saying so,” she answered.

Goddard began to laugh, only to be cut short by a series of coughs. He returned to the worktable. “Blakewood told me about your theories, about your father’s letter. Some of the things he said were less than generous. But it happens that I, too, have long wondered about Quivira. No less than three early Spanish explorers in the Southwest heard these stories about a fabulous golden city: Cabeza de Vaca in the 1530s, Fray Marcos in 1538, and Coronado in 1540. Their stories are too similar to be fiction. And then in the 1770s, and again in the 1830s, more people came out of that wilderness, claiming to have heard of a lost city.” He looked up at her. “There’s never been a question in my mind that Quivira existed. The question was always exactly where.”

He circled the table and came to rest on its corner once more. “I knew your father, Nora. If he said he found evidence for this lost city, I’d believe him.”

Nora bit her lip against an unexpected well of emotion.

“I have the means to put the Institute squarely behind your expedition. But I need to see the evidence first. The letter and the data. If what you say is true, we’ll back you.”

Nora placed a hand on her portfolio. She could hardly believe the turnaround. And yet, she had seen too many young archaeologists lose credit to their older, more powerful colleagues. “You said this would be our project. I’d still like to keep it my project, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, perhaps I do mind. If I’m going to fund this expedition—through the Institute, of course—I would like control, particularly over the personnel.”

“Who did you envision leading the expedition?” she asked.

There was the slightest of pauses while Goddard steadily met her gaze. “You would, of course. Aaron Black would go along as the geochronologist, and Enrique Aragon as the medical doctor and paleopathologist.”

Nora sat back, surprised at the rapidity with which his mind worked. Not only was he thinking ahead to the expedition, but he was already peopling it with the best scientists in their fields. “If you can get them,” she said.

“Oh, I’m reasonably sure I can get them. I know them both very well. And the discovery of Quivira would be a watershed in southwestern archaeology. It’s the kind of gamble an archaeologist can’t resist. And since I can’t go along myself”—he waved his handkerchief in explanation—“I’d want to send my daughter in my stead. She got her undergraduate degree from Smith, just took her Ph.D. at Princeton in American archaeology, and she’s anxious to do some fieldwork. She’s young, and perhaps a little impetuous, but she has one of the finest archaeological minds I’ve ever encountered. And she’s highly skilled at field photography.”

Nora frowned. Smith, she thought to herself. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said. “It might muddy the chain of command. And this is going to be a difficult trip, particularly for a . . .” She paused. “A sorority girl.”

“My daughter must go along,” said Goddard quietly. “And she is no ‘sorority girl,’ as you shall discover.” An odd, mirthless smile flashed briefly across his lips before disappearing.

Nora looked at the old man, realizing the point was nonnegotiable. Quickly, she considered her options. She could take the information she had, sell the ranch, and head into the desert with people of her own choosing, gambling that she could find Quivira before her money ran out. Or she could take her data to another institution, where it would probably be a year or two before they could organize and fund a trip. Or she could share her