Thunderhead

“First things first,” Nora interrupted. “You got my message?” Skip nodded and passed over the satchel. Nora unlooped the leather straps and looked inside. Her father’s old Ruger lay at the bottom, shoved into a battered holster.

“What do you want it for, anyway?” Skip asked. “Some academic rivalry that needs settling?”

Nora shook her head. “Skip, I want you to be serious for a minute. The Institute’s agreed to fund an expedition to Quivira. I’ll be leaving in a couple of days.”

Skip’s eyes widened. “Fantastic! You don’t waste any time, do you? When do we go?”

“You know perfectly well you’re not going,” said Nora. “But I’ve arranged a job for you, here at the Institute. You’ll start work next Monday.”

The eyes narrowed again. “A job? I don’t know jack shit about archaeology.”

“All that time you spent, crawling around the ranch on your hands and knees with Dad, looking for potsherds? Come on. Anyway, it’s an easy assignment, first-year stuff. My associate Sonya Rowling will show you around, get you started, answer questions, keep you out of trouble.”

“She cute?”

“She’s married. Look, I’ll be gone about three weeks. If you don’t like it by the time I get back, you can quit. But it’ll keep you occupied for the time being.” And maybe keep you in a safe place during the day, she thought. “You won’t mind looking after my place while I’m gone? And you’ll leave my stuff alone, for a change?” She shook her head. “You use my shower, you steal my hairbrush . . . I ought to start charging rent.”

“I didn’t steal your hairbrush!” Skip protested. “I mean sure, I used it, but I put it back. I know how neurotic you are about that kind of thing.”

“Not neurotic. Just neat.” She glanced over. “Speaking of looking after my place, where’s Thurber? Didn’t you bring him?”

A funny look came over Skip. “That’s what I wanted to tell you,” he said in a low voice. “Thurber’s missing.”

Nora felt the air leave her lungs in a sudden rush. “Missing?” she repeated.

Skip looked down abjectly.

“What happened?”

Skip shook his head. “Don’t know. It was the second night you were gone. He was fine the first night, or as fine as he ever gets. When I came in the second night and called for him, he was gone. It was weird. The door was locked, all the windows were shut. But there was this funny smell in the air, almost like flowers. There was some dog barking like mad outside, but it didn’t sound like Thurber. I went outside anyway and looked around. He must have jumped the fence or something.” He sighed deeply and looked at his sister. “I’m really sorry, Nora. I looked all over for him, I talked to the neighbors, I called the pound . . .”

“You didn’t leave a door open?” Nora asked. The raw anger she’d felt the night before, the feeling of violation, was gone, leaving only a strange and terrible fear behind.

“No, I swear I didn’t. Like I said, everything was locked up.”

“Skip, I want you to listen to me,” she said in a low voice. “When I got home last night, I could tell something wasn’t right. Somebody had been in the apartment. The place was dirty. My hairbrush was missing. There was a strange smell, the same one you noticed. And then I heard some scratching, and went outside—” She stopped. How could she explain it: the humped, fur-covered figure, the strange lack of footprints, the feeling of utter alienness that had come across her as she stood in the dark, flashlight in hand? And now Thurber . . .

Skip’s skeptical look changed suddenly to concern. “Hey, Nora, you’ve had quite a week,” he said. “First that thing out at the ranch, then this expedition coming together out of nowhere, and Thurber disappearing. Why don’t you go home and rest up?”

Nora looked into his eyes.

“What?” he asked. “Are you afraid to go home?”

“It isn’t that,” she replied. “I had the locksmith out this morning to install a second lock. It’s just that . . .” She hesitated. “I just have to keep a low profile for the next day or two. I can take care of myself. Once I’m out of Santa Fe, there won’t be any more problems. But, Skip, promise me you’ll be very careful while I’m gone. I’ll leave Dad’s gun in the bedside table drawer in my apartment. I want you to have it after I leave. And don’t go by the old place, okay?”

“You afraid the Creature from the Black Lagoon will get me?”

Nora rose quickly. “That’s not funny, and you know it.”

“All right, all right. I never visit that broken-down old shack anyway. Besides, after what happened, I’ll bet Teresa’s watching that place like a hawk, finger on the trigger.”

Nora sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am right. You wait and see. Black Lagoon, zero. Winchester, one.”

11

CALAVERAS MESA LAY SLUMBERING UNDER the midnight sky, a shadowy island rising out of an ocean of broken rock—the vast El Malpais lava flow of central New Mexico. A screen of clouds had moved over the stars, and the mesa lay still underneath: silent, dark, uninhabited. The nearest settlement was Quemado, fifty miles away.

Calaveras Mesa had not always been uninhabited. In the fourteenth century, Anasazi Indians had moved into its south-facing cliffs and hollowed out caves in the soft volcanic tuff. But the site had proved uncongenial, and the caves had been abandoned for half a millennium. In this distant part of El Malpais, there were no roads and no trails; the caves remained undisturbed and unexcavated.

Two dark forms moved among the silent broken rafts and blocks of frozen lava that lapped the sides of the mesa. They were covered with thick pelts of fur, and their movements had the combined swiftness and caution of a wolf. Both figures wore heavy silver jewelry: concho belts, squash blossom necklaces, turquoise disks, and old sand-cast bow guards. Beneath the heavy pelts, naked skin was daubed with thick paint.

They reached the talus slope below the caves and began to ascend, picking their way among boulders and rockfalls. At the bottom of the cliff itself they rapidly ascended a hand-and-toe trail and disappeared into the dark mouth of a cave.

Inside the cave, they paused. One figure remained at the mouth while the second moved swiftly to the back of the cave. He pushed aside a rock, revealing a narrow passage, and wriggled through into a smaller room. There was a faint scratching sound and the wavering light of a burning splinter revealed that this room was not empty: it was a small Anasazi burial chamber. In niches carved in the far wall lay three mummified corpses, a few pathetic broken pots left beside them as offerings. The figure placed a ball of wax with a bit of straw stuck into it on a high ledge, lighting it with an uncertain glow.

Then he moved to the central corpse: a gray, delicate form wrapped in a rotting buffalo hide. Its mummified lips had drawn back from its teeth and its mouth was open in a monstrous grimace of hilarity. The legs of the corpse were drawn up to the chest and the knees had been wrapped with woven cords; its eyes were two holes, webbed with shreds of tissue; its hands were balled up into shriveled fists, the fingernails hanging and broken, gnawed by rats.

The figure reached in and cradled the mummy with infinite gentleness, removed it from the niche, and laid it down in the thick layer of dust on the cave floor. Reaching into the pelt, he removed a small woven basket and a medicine bundle. Tugging open the bundle, he extracted something and held it up to the uncertain light: a pair of delicate bronze hairs.

The figure turned back to the mummy. Slowly, he placed the hairs in the mouth of the mummy, pushing them deep into the mummy’s throat. There was a dry crackling noise. Then the figure leaned back; the candle snuffed out; and absolute darkness fell once again. There was a low sound, a mutter, then a name, intoned again and again in a slow, even voice: “Kelly . . . Kelly . . . Kelly . . .”

A long time passed. There was another scratch of a match, and the wax was relit. The figure reached into