Thunderhead

Skip picked up the yellow mescal worm and rolled it between finger and thumb. “Sorry about that. If you want to talk to Watkins, I guess you’re going to have to call him yourself.”

5

NORA SAT AT A WORKTABLE IN THE Institute’s Artifact Analysis Lab. Lined up in front of her, beneath the harsh fluorescent light, were six bags of heavy-mil plastic bulging with potsherds. Each was labeled RIO PUERCO, LEVEL I in black marker. In one of the nearby lockers, carefully padded to eliminate “bag wear,” were four more bags marked LEVEL II and yet another marked LEVEL III: a total of one hundred and ten pounds of potsherds.

Nora sighed. She knew that, in order to publish the report on the Rio Puerco site, every sherd had to be sorted and classified. And after the sherds would come stone tools and flakes, bone fragments, charcoal, pollen samples, even hair samples; all patiently waiting in their metal cages around the lab. She opened the first bag and, using metal forceps, began placing artifacts on the white table. Glancing up at a buzzing light, she could see a corner of white cloud scud past the tiny barred window far above her head. Like a damn prison, she thought sourly. She glanced at the nearby terminal, blinking the data entry screen into focus.

TW-1041

Screen 25

SANTA FE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Context Recording / Artifact Database

Site No

Area/Section

Plan No

Accession No

Coord

Provenance

Recorded by

Site Book Ref

Grid Square

Context Code

Lev/Stratum

Trinomial Desig

Excav Date

Lev Bag         Of

Artifact Description (4096 chars max)

CONFIDENTIAL—DO NOT DUPLICATE

She understood precisely why this kind of statistical research was necessary. And yet she couldn’t help but feel that the Institute, under Murray Blakewood’s guidance, had become shackled by an obsession with typology. It was as if, for all its vast collections and reservoir of talent, the Institute was ignoring the new developments— ethnoarchaeology, contextual archaeology, molecular archaeology, cultural resource management—taking place outside its thick adobe walls.

She pulled out her handwritten field logs, tabulating the artifacts against the information she entered into the database. 46 Mesa Verde B/W, 23 Chaco/McElmo, 2 St. John’s Poly, 1 Soccoro B/W . . . Or was that another Mesa Verde B/W? She hunted in the drawer for a loup, rummaging unsuccessfully. Hell with it, she thought, placing it to one side and moving on.

Her hand closed over a small, polished piece of pottery, evidently the lip of a bowl. Now this is more like it, she thought. Despite its small size, the fragment was beautiful, and she still remembered its discovery. She’d been sitting beside a thicket of tamarisk, stabilizing a fragile basket with polyvinyl acetate, when her assistant Bruce Jenkins gave a sudden yelp. “Chaco Black-on-Yellow Micaceous!” he’d screeched. “God damn!” She remembered the excitement, the envy, that the little fragment had generated. And here it was, sitting forlorn in an oversized Baggie. Why couldn’t the Institute devote more energy to, say, learning why this fantastic style of pottery was so rare—why no complete pots had ever been found, why nobody knew where it came from or how it was made—instead of ceaselessly numbering and cross-tabulating, like accountants of prehistory?

She stared at the potsherds spread out in a dun-colored line. With a sudden movement, she pushed away from the desk and turned toward the phone, dialing information.

“Pasadena,” she said into the phone. “The Jet Propulsion Laboratory.” It took one external and two internal operators to learn that Leland Watkins’s extension was 2330.

“Yes?” came the voice at last, high-pitched and impatient.

“Hello. This is Nora Kelly, at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute.”

“Yes?” the voice repeated.

“Am I speaking to Leland Watkins?”

“This is Dr. Watkins.”

“I’d like a moment of your time,” Nora said, talking quickly. “We’re working on a project in southeastern Utah, looking at ancient Anasazi roads. Would it be possible for you—”

“We don’t have any radar coverage in that area,” interrupted Watkins.

Nora took a deep breath. “Is there any way we might cooperate in getting some radar coverage? You see —”

“No, there is no way,” said Watkins, his voice growing nasal in irritation. “I’ve got a list a mile long of people waiting for radar coverage: geologists, rain forest biologists, agricultural scientists, you name it.”

“I see,” said Nora, trying to keep her voice even. “And what about the application process for such coverage?”

“We’re backed up two years with applications. And I’m too swamped to talk to you about it. The shuttle Republic is in orbit right now, as you probably know.”

“It’s rather important, Dr. Watkins. We believe—”

“Everything’s important. Now, will you excuse me? Write if you want that application.”

“And the address—?” Nora stopped as she realized she was talking to a dial tone.

“Arrogant prick!” she shouted. “I’m glad my brother boned your girlfriend!” She slammed the phone into its cradle.

Then she paused, staring speculatively at the phone. Dr. Watkins’s extension had been 2330.

Reaching again, she slowly and deliberately dialed a long-distance number. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Give me extension 2331, please.”

6

WITH A HEAVY SIGH, PETER HOLROYD SETTLED himself on the old tractor-style seat, turned the right handgrip to retard the spark advance, and kicked the engine into ferocious life. He sat for a minute, letting the motorcycle warm up. Then he dropped into first, turned out of the complex into the California Boulevard traffic, and headed west toward Ambassador Auditorium. A thin haze hung over the San Gabriel Mountains. As usual, his eyes—raw from a long day of poring over massive computer screens and false-color images—smarted in the ozone. Free of the purified atmosphere of the complex, his nose began to run freely, and he hawked a generous blob of phlegm onto the blacktop. A small plastic image of the Michelin tire mascot had been glued to the gas tank, and he reached down to rub its fat belly. “O God of California traffic,” he intoned, “grant me safe passage, free of rain,