The Scorpion's Tail

by Douglas Preston

  “The what?”

  “The three oldest and greatest Swiss watchmakers. Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet. Each of their watches containing hundreds of pieces, made with the most meticulous care. And all hidden from view, working quietly and perfectly together.”

  As he spoke, a shine had come into Jesse’s eyes.

  “What about Rolexes?” Corrie asked. “I thought they were the best.”

  “They have some iconic designs. But they’re basically tool watches. They aren’t made with the same fanatical care, and they don’t have things like perpetual calendars or…” He stopped talking, apparently noticing how Corrie was staring at him.

  “Go on,” she urged.

  He shrugged. “Why bother? I could never afford a watch like that in a million years. Not even if I sold—” And here he went silent again.

  Corrie decided to let her silence match his own for a minute. Here was a man who spent all his time alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t used to sharing them with others.

  “You said your great-grandfather only cared about two possessions,” she said casually after a while. “What was the other one?”

  He looked at her a minute, as if balancing an innate suspiciousness with an urge for companionship. “An old drawing,” he said at last.

  “Why was it so precious to him?”

  “Who knows? It was another one of those things passed down in the family, like some holy book or something. My mom wore a cameo her whole life, even though it turned out to be a fake. People grow fond of things.” He hesitated. “Besides, it’s long gone.”

  Corrie could feel him withdrawing, closing up. At the same time, her mind was working, putting together some of the things Gower had just said. Even though it turned out to be a fake…

  She looked around, her gaze stopping at the toolshed. There was something defensive in the way Gower had responded to her question about it. And the padlock on that shed looked suspiciously new, compared to everything else around the place.

  “That toolshed—would it be possible to take a look inside?”

  “Why?” Gower asked, his voice rising in pitch. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned the shed.”

  “It’s curious-looking, I just thought—”

  “You just thought. You just thought you could come out here, tease me with vague promises about that cross, and then ask more questions. What do you think is in there? A meth lab, maybe?”

  “No, I—”

  “All these bullshit implications about being a kindred spirit, about Kansas, pretending to be interested in watches…what you’re really trying to do is pump me for information! You fucking cops are all alike!” He was on his feet now, shouting, eyes watering. “And to think I almost bought it! Get out! Get the fuck away and don’t come back!”

  Corrie realized there was nothing she could say. He had flown into a sudden, irrational rage, bipolar style. She had seen it in others before, and there was only one way to respond. And so, while Gower was still yelling, she stood up, descended the steps, and walked briskly back to her car.

  34

  NORA SAT BACK on her heels and contemplated the completed excavation of Gower’s old campsite at High Lonesome. She’d opened six square meters, encompassing the heart of the campsite, uncovering Gower’s firepit, his trash, a rotten tent, and an alarming number of empty bottles of Rich & Rare. It had been a strange and unpleasant day: a high screen of clouds had covered the sun, and strong gusts of wind blew tumbleweeds about the ruins, depositing a thin blanket of dust over everything, including her hair and eyes.

  The excavation, on the other hand, had gone beautifully and much faster than she’d expected. She was glad of that. While Weingrau hadn’t objected to her taking more time off from the Institute, she seemed a little less enthusiastic about Nora’s absence than previously. Adelsky had done an excellent job at the Tsankawi excavation, but without her he had inevitably fallen somewhat behind. And she felt uneasy about all the time and attention Connor Digby was getting back at the Institute, where he had temporarily taken over some of her administrative duties and seemed to be doing a fairly competent job.

  She shook her head and banished those thoughts. She’d spent ten years at the Institute; Digby had a few weeks. He was five years younger than her, with a publication record that, while fine, couldn’t compare with hers. There was no way he would be promoted above her. It was small-minded and even a little paranoid of her to worry about it.

  She turned her attention back to the dig. Most of the items she had uncovered had been photographed and packed away, including a very unusual object wrapped in leather that she recognized as a Native American medicine bundle. In eleven hours, she and Skip had managed to complete the work that she’d initially estimated would take two days. On top of that, the results had been spectacular. What they had found was going to completely overturn their previous ideas. It was, she thought with some satisfaction, going to blow the case wide open.

  Skip packed away the last of the tools, then closed and latched the lid of the equipment box. “How about a couple of frosty ones to celebrate?”

  Nora had to smile. Skip never missed a chance to crack a beer, but she had to admit this evening seemed especially appropriate. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Coming right up.”

  “Let’s close this up first,” she said.

  “You’re the boss.”

  They rose and together pulled a large plastic tarp over the excavated area, pegging it down carefully. Then they retired to their own campsite, fifty yards distant. Nora was glad the wind had finally abated and they could enjoy the evening without breathing dust.

  Skip rummaged in the cooler and returned with two bottles of Dragon’s Milk, chips of ice still clinging to the sides. He opened them both with a flourish, handed one to Nora, and sat down next to her, cross-legged. He raised his bottle in salutation. “Here’s to an amazing dig.”

  They clinked bottles and drank.

  “So,” said Skip, “what’s your take on all this?”

  “Well,” said Nora, “first thing, it’s clear that Gower had a partner—given there were two bedrolls in that rotten old tent. And I’d guess, from the amount of charcoal in the firepit and all that trash in the dump, they were here for quite a while—perhaps two weeks.”

  Skip nodded. “And the medicine bundle?”

  They had found the medicine bundle inside the collapsed tent. It was made of fringed buckskin, much shriveled by age and rain. Nora had carefully unwrapped it and removed the items in it—a prehistoric bird point, a small agate fetish of a wolf, braided sweetgrass, a bundle of small feathers and sage, and five tiny leather pouches of dried earth.

  “I think it probably belonged to his partner,” she said, “which would mean he was Native American. I would guess Apache.”

  “How do you know?” Skip asked.

  “It’s what’s called a mountain soil bundle. Four of those inner pouches contain earth gathered at the summits of the four sacred mountains, and the fifth would contain soil from the person’s home area. Only Apaches and Navajos make bundles like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gower’s partner was Mescalero. All this land here was their traditional homeland.”

  “So where’d the partner go?”

  She fell silent a moment, musing. “The partner must’ve cleared out fast. To leave that mountain soil bundle behind makes me think he was in a panic. And he never came back for it.” She paused to take another sip of stout. “With today’s discoveries, I think we can put together a clearer account of Gower’s last day alive.”

  Skip rubbed his hands together melodramatically. “Goody.”

  The sun had sunk behind the Azul Mountains, and a purplish mist filled the desert floor below. Dark clouds were swiftly moving in, leaving only a thin band of lighter-colored sky above the mountains, which was soon extinguished. Nora could see lightning flickering beyond the mountains, too far away for the sound to reach them. It was one
of those evenings that felt dark and ominous, as if the end of the world were approaching. With the setting of the sun, the temperature was declining rapidly.

  “Let’s build a fire and then I’ll tell you my theories.”

  “Deal.” Skip cut some grass and sagebrush with his knife as a starter, and a moment later a fire flared up, casting a warm pool of light in the rising darkness.

  Nora began. “The date is July 15, 1945. Gower and his partner—”

  “Wait. We need to give his partner a name. Otherwise, what kind of a story would it be?”

  “Okay, let’s call him X.”

  “No, that’s no good. Too clichéd.” Skip paused. “Let’s call him A, for Apache.”

  Nora rolled her eyes. “So they’d been camped up here for a couple of weeks. They were looking for something out there in the Jornada del Muerto or the foothills of the San Andres.”

  “Treasure!” said Skip, cracking another bottle.

  “Maybe. Or a lost mine. Or something of value left in the old Gower farmhouse. Anyway, they were camped here. A was probably looking out over the same landscape we’re looking out at right now. It might have been an evening just like this one, with dark clouds moving in and a storm approaching. I read up on the Trinity test, and it turns out the firing was delayed because a lightning storm passed over.”

  “Must’ve worried them, the bomb getting hit by lightning and all.” Skip’s eyes gleamed in the firelight.

  “It did. So Gower is out there in the desert, riding his mule. A is back in camp, waiting for him to return. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to either of them, the Manhattan Project is about to culminate its top-secret work by testing the first atomic bomb.

  “Night falls, and the hours pass. By chance, Gower’s route takes him near ground zero. The bomb is sitting on top of a hundred-foot metal tower, wired up and ready to go. The scientists are in their bunkers, waiting out the passing thunderstorm. Finally, just before dawn, the weather clears. At five twenty-nine AM they push the button and the bomb explodes. The test is a great success—except that Gower is caught by the fringes of the blast. Back in camp, A has a ringside seat to the explosion: a direct view of the Trinity site, twenty miles away. You have a line of sight to Trinity from here—right there.”

  She pointed into the indistinct expanse of nothingness between the mountains, filled with purple shadows. It gave her the creeps, looking into the empty, demon-haunted desert, where one of the most significant events in human history had taken place.

  “Must’ve scared the crap out of him,” Skip said.

  “That’s an understatement. Can you imagine what A felt when he saw a flash of light brighter than the sun? And then that monstrous fireball, the size of a city, punching up into the sky, along with the searing heat. A minute later, the wave of overpressure would have hit him, along with the terrible roar of the explosion. Nothing like this had ever been seen before in the history of the world. Even the scientists who knew what to expect were awed beyond belief and rendered speechless. Oppenheimer compared it to the radiance of a ‘thousand suns.’”

  She paused, still looking out toward the desert. “Gower was badly hurt. He’s lucky his eyes didn’t melt, which happened to so many at Hiroshima who were looking up when the bomb went off.”

  “So what do you think A did after he saw the explosion?”

  “What can he do? He waits for his partner to return. Think of the guts that took. It was probably ten hours or more before Gower struggles back to High Lonesome. And what does A see then? Gower: bleeding, his skin burned red and coming off in sheets, his hair and clothes singed. The mule, too, was probably bloody, its hair burnt. Both received a massive dose of radiation and were dying. One of the symptoms of radiation poisoning is severe mental confusion and a raging, unquenchable thirst. So Gower’s raving mad. A probably tried to help him, but Gower soon died, most likely screaming in agony.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I can’t even imagine what that partner must have thought: witnessing the blast and then seeing his partner transformed into a gibbering, flayed monstrosity. It must have seemed like the work of the devil.”

  “How do you know A didn’t split the moment he saw that blast go off?”

  “Like I said: He wouldn’t abandon his partner. And he was a religious man: not Christian, but a believer in the Apache tradition, as evidenced by that medicine bundle. In Apache belief, you must bury the dead. It’s a sacred obligation. So A had no choice but to bury the body of his friend and partner, which he did.”

  “So you think Gower was deliberately buried?”

  “Yes, and I’m kicking myself for not realizing it earlier. A doesn’t search the body, so he doesn’t realize Gower is carrying a gold cross…or if he does know it, he’s beyond caring.”

  Skip tossed a few more sticks on the fire, and it flared up, beating back the encroaching darkness. “So he buried him in the cellar.”

  “Yes, because that’s where the wind-blown sand had drifted in and was soft and deep and easy to dig. Now I understand why the body was in that strange hunched, quasi-fetal position: that’s the traditional flexed position of Apache burials. The one arm sticking out probably just flopped out that way when A dumped the body in the hole. As soon as Gower is in the ground, A flees. He did his duty, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t terrified. So terrified that he leaves everything behind—the mountain soil bundle, tent, bedrolls, and the rest of that stuff we uncovered in the campsite. Except…he does one other thing before he leaves. He puts down the mule to relieve its suffering. And he never returns—or dies before he can. Otherwise, that mountain soil bundle wouldn’t have still been here.”

  “So what happened to him then?”

  Nora was silent for a moment. “This happened seventy-six years ago, so A is probably dead. Doesn’t take a mind reader to guess it probably changed the course of his life.”

  “I wonder if he ever told anyone.”

  “I doubt it. They were illegally trespassing in a closed military area. Gower’s disappearance was never explained. I’m sure he took his secret to the grave.”

  “Yikes.” Skip finished his beer. “You know, creepy stories always make me hungry. Dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  An almost full moon just peeked over the ridges to their left, above the mountains, struggling through a brief opening in the clouds.

  “Another beer?” Skip asked.

  “No. Actually, yes. What the hell.”

  They sat by the fire in folding chairs. Skip prepared the coals and tossed a couple of steaks on the grill, along with some poblano chilis and corn. They watched everything sizzle for a few minutes. Then Skip forked the steaks over and turned the chilis. Suddenly he paused, then stood up, facing the rising moon.

  “I just saw a shape,” he said quietly. “Moving on the ridge up there, against the moon.”

  Nora stood and looked. “What kind of shape?”

  “A person.”

  “Sure it’s not an animal?”

  Skip squinted up at the fuzzy moon, already disappearing back into the scudding clouds. “Maybe. But it seemed too tall and thin for an animal.”

  Nora scanned the mountain ridges, now black in shadow. “No one in their right mind would be up there at this time of night.”

  “Well, if they decide to pay us a visit, I’ll say hello with my Remington 870.”

  “Don’t let your trigger finger get too itchy,” Nora said. “But keep that shotgun loaded and in your tent.”

  “I’ll cuddle it all night,” Skip said with a laugh.

  The steaks were now done, and Skip served out dinner. Nora ate with gusto. Skip, as usual, had prepared the food to perfection, the steaks juicy and pink, the poblanos charred just right, the corn roasted in the husk, shucked and slathered with butter. A few times she glanced up at the mountains above them but saw no light or trace of life—nothing but blackness.

  “Hey, Skip,” Nora said when they were finished. “Bring out your Gibson an
d give us a song. Let’s chase away the gloom. I managed to give myself the creeps telling that story.”

  “‘Old Chisholm Trail,’ coming right up.” And Skip ducked into his tent.

  35

  NORA WOKE IN the middle of the night, her heart suddenly pounding. It was pitch black, the moon having been obscured by clouds.

  “It’s me,” murmured Skip, hovering just outside her tent flap. “Talk in a whisper.”

  She sat up. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s someone out there in the dark.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I heard voices. Get dressed.”

  Nora quickly pulled on her jeans and shirt. She poked her head out of the tent. Skip was crouching by the tent, hidden in the dark, holding the twelve-gauge. The fire had gone out, and the blackness was complete.

  “Where are they?”

  “There,” said Skip, pointing. “Listen.”

  She listened intently, but all she could hear was the faint sound of wind stirring the fabric of the tent. She stared into the darkness, and then, suddenly, she saw a brief flare of light, as if someone had lit a match and then immediately snuffed it.

  “Shit, you see that?” Skip whispered.

  “Yes.”

  They waited. Nothing. Nora’s heart was pounding harder in her chest now, so hard she was having trouble focusing on the sound out in the darkness. The seconds ticked by.

  There was a faint crack of a broken twig.

  Nora held her breath, trying to get her heart rate down. Skip raised the barrel of his shotgun and aimed it into the unbroken sea of darkness against the mountains.

  “They can’t see us,” he whispered, “unless they’re wearing night vision. Which I doubt.”

  “What do we do?”

  Skip was silent, still aiming the shotgun. Nora heard—or thought she heard—the sound of a faint whisper. She touched Skip, and he nodded that he, too, had heard it.