Thunderhead

the trees with their calls, and the leaves dripped with water that caught and fractured the bright rays of the rising sun.

As she emerged from her tent, her boots sunk into soft wet sand. The creek had risen, she could see, but only slightly—these first rains had been soft enough to soak into the sand without running off. But now the ground was saturated. They had to get out of the canyon before another hard rain, if they didn’t want to be trapped by rising water . . . or, God forbid, something worse.

She glanced toward the row of packed equipment, arranged the night before for transport out of the canyon. They were only taking the minimum they needed to get back to Wahweap Marina—food, tents, essential equipment, documentary records. The rest was being cached in an empty room in the city.

Uncharacteristically, Bonarotti was up early, tending the fire, the espresso pot just signaling its completion with a brief roar. He looked up as Nora came over, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Caffe?” he asked. Nora nodded her thanks as he handed her a steaming cup.

“Is there really gold in that kiva?” Bonarotti asked in a quiet voice.

She eased herself down on the log and drank. Then she shook her head. “No, there isn’t. The Anasazi didn’t have any gold.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Nora sighed. “Trust me. In a century and a half of excavations, not one grain of gold has been found.”

“But what about Black? What he said?”

Nora shook her head again. If I don’t get them out of there today, she thought, I’m never going to get them out. “All I can tell you is, Black’s wrong.”

The cook refilled her cup, then turned back to his fire, silent and dissatisfied. As she sipped her coffee, the rest of the camp began to stir. As they approached, one at a time, it was clear to Nora that the tension of the previous day had not gone away. If anything, it had increased. Black took a seat by the fire and hunched over his coffee, his face dark and inflamed. Smithback gave Nora a tired smile, squeezed her shoulder, then retreated to a rock to scratch quietly in his notebook. Aragon looked distant and absorbed. Sloane was the last to appear. When she did, she refused to meet Nora’s eyes. A resolute silence gripped the camp. Nobody looked like they had slept.

Nora realized she had to establish a momentum, keep things moving toward departure, not allow anyone time to brood. She finished her cup, swallowed, cleared her throat. “This is how it’s going to work,” she said. “Enrique, please secure the medical gear we’ll need. Luigi will pack up the last of the food. Aaron, I want you to climb to the top of the rim and get a weather report.”

“But the sky is blue,” protested Black, with a distasteful look at the dangling ladder.

“Right here, it’s blue,” said Nora. “But the rainy season has started, and this valley drains off the Kaiparowits. If it’s raining there, we could get a flash flood just as sure as if it were raining directly on top of us. Nobody goes through the slot canyon until we get the weather report.”

She looked at Sloane, but the woman hardly registered that she had heard.

“If it’s clear,” Nora continued, “we’ll make the final preparations to leave. Aaron, after you get the weather report, I want you to seal the entrance to the Sun Kiva. You broke into it—you leave it just as you found it. Sloane, you and Smithback will take the last of the drysacks up to the caching spot. As soon as Aaron gets the weather report, I’ll take a load out through the canyon, then make sure the site is secure.”

She looked around. “Is everyone clear on their duties? I want us out of here in two hours.”

Everyone nodded but Sloane, who sat with a dark, unresponsive look on her face. Nora wondered what would happen if, at the last minute, she refused to go. Nora felt sure that Black wouldn’t stay behind—deep down, he was too much of a coward—but Sloane was another matter. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, Nora thought.

Just as she was rising, a flash of color caught her eye: Swire, emerging from the mouth of the slot canyon and coming down the valley. Something about the way he was moving toward them filled her with dread. Not more horses, please.

Swire sprinted across the creek and into camp. “Someone got Holroyd’s body,” he said, fighting to catch his breath.

“Someone?” Aragon asked sharply. “Are you sure it wasn’t animals?”

“Unless an animal can scalp a man, cut off his toes and fingers, and drill out a piece of his skull. He’s lying up there in the creek, not far from where we put him.”

The group looked at one another in horror. Nora glanced at Smithback and could tell from his expression that he, too, remembered what Beiyoodzin had said.

“Peter . . .” Nora’s voice faltered. She swallowed. “Did you go on to check the horses?” she heard herself ask.

“Horses are fine,” said Swire.

“Are they ready to take us out?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then we have no more time to waste,” Nora continued, standing up and placing her cup on the serving table. “I’ll take that load out through the slot canyon, and pick up Peter’s body on the way. We’re just going to have to pack it out on one of the horses. I’ll need someone to give me a hand.”

“I’ll help,” said Smithback quickly.

Nora nodded her thanks.

“I will go, too,” said Aragon. “I would like to examine the corpse.”

Nora glanced at him. “There are things here that you need to do—” The sentence went unfinished as she saw the significant look on his face. She turned away. “Very well. We could use a third hand with the body. And listen, all of you: stay in pairs. I don’t want anyone going anywhere alone. Sloane, you’d better go with Aaron.”

Nobody moved, and she glanced around at the faces. The tension that had drawn her nerves tight as a bowstring—the fear and revulsion she felt at the thought of Peter’s body, broken and violated in death—suddenly coalesced into exasperation.

“Damn it!” she cried out. “What the hell are you waiting for? Let’s move!”

45

SILENTLY, AARON BLACK FOLLOWED SLOANE toward the rope ladder. Their private discussion the night before had resolved nothing. At the last minute, Sloane would refuse to leave; Black felt certain she would. But when he questioned her, she had been impatient and evasive. Though he would never admit it to her, Black’s own intense desire to stay had been slightly tempered by fear: fear of what killed Holroyd, and, worse, of what had attacked their horses and equipment; and now, added to that, fear of what had mutilated Holroyd’s body.

Reaching the base of the ladder, Sloane pulled up onto the first rung and began to climb. Black, irritated when she did not wait to see him safely into the harness, pulled the reinforced loops into place around his waist and crotch, tested the ropes, and started up. He hated this climb; harness or no harness, it terrified him to be swaying five hundred feet up on a cliff, hanging on to nothing but a flimsy nylon rope.

But as he mounted the ladder, slowly, one painful rung at a time, the terror began to abate. A phrase began running through his mind; a phrase that had never been far from him since he first discovered the Sun Kiva, stuck in his head like a singsong melody. As he climbed, he recited the entire passage, first silently, then under his breath. “And then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold.”

Everywhere the glint of gold. It was that final phrase, more than anything else, that kept repeating itself in his mind like a mantra.

He thought back to his childhood; to when he was twelve years old and had first read Howard Carter’s account of discovering the tomb of Tutankhamen. He remembered that moment as well as he remembered the passage itself: it was the very moment when he decided to become an archaeologist. Of course, college and