Black Wings of Cthulhu (Volume Six)

by S. T. Joshi

  He wasn’t looking glad now.

  “After that . . . incident two months back, the whole dig nearly got shut down. Nothing was ever found at the site, though. After the sheriff’s department lost interest in one more meth statistic, everybody got back to work.” Frank frowned. “But the questions never stopped. And the board of regents started asking their own.”

  Cassie couldn’t blame them. Along with the body in that crime tape photo, there had been several large black-on-white potsherds littering the ground.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “Julie’s working at this site?”

  “No, but her department’s involved. When Joshua called her about his dead pothunter problem, she did a little digging into the area’s history.”

  He gestured toward the envelopes in her lap.

  “I’m guessing it’s all in that letter, but strange things have happened there before. Just not lately. Julie wanted to go check into it herself, but she’s a teaching assistant now. She suggested that maybe the site director could take on a volunteer—”

  Cassie stiffened. After what she’d seen in that “outlier” two years ago, she’d limited her archaeological involvement to working through her magazine piles. Weirdness found her often enough these days without her going looking for it, let alone accepting invitations to look.

  Besides, this was a lousy time to be away from Twenty Mile. There were cows and calves to be moved for the winter, two-year-olds headed for market—that chore list she and Frank still had to discuss ran at least two pages. Whatever his nephew thought might be going on around Bandelier could wait.

  When she said as much, though, Frank shook his head. “Maybe you’d better check through that letter first.”

  The last time he’d sounded this serious about anything but ranch business, it had been January. And she had been snowed in down in Warren, Wyoming—a very small town with a very big weather problem. Which turned out to be neither meteorological nor natural.

  Cassie gave the chore list on the porch railing a parting glance. “Guess I’ll go do that,” she said, draining the last of her coffee.

  One more test. “And then I’m guessing I’ll have to get McAllister’s box out.”

  Frank didn’t even blink.

  2

  TWO MEATLOAF SANDWICHES AND WAY TOO MUCH caffeine later, Cassie was certain of only one thing: pothunters were the least of Joshua Yellowtail’s troubles.

  His letter left no doubt that he suspected this. Fanned out on her desk in all its single-spaced glory, its margins crawled with handwritten notes and rough sketches. Most of the contents came from a log he’d been keeping on his laptop since being hired at the site.

  After the first couple of pages, she’d hauled Daniel McAllister’s box from the bottom of her closet.

  Her hands shook as she unwrapped the old quilt she used for camouflage, even after telling Frank about the box last winter. Post-Warren. The battered beer carton—labeled C. BARRETT PLEASE OPEN in black marker—was another souvenir of Zia House. And the unasked-for legacy of its caretaker: a former professor of Southwestern archaeology who’d fallen victim to unsanctioned curiosity, alcohol, and the Outside.

  She’d first met McAllister while searching for a missing fellow student. Rather than helping her find the guy, he’d shared his own experience with the brand new paradigm Zia House’s recently discovered “outlier” represented. He’d also lent her a monograph that had wrecked her sleep, but probably saved her life.

  She’d never gotten the chance to return An Ethnographic Analysis of Certain Events Associated with Earthen Structures in the Vicinity of Binger, Western Oklahoma, in the Year 1928. Instead, she’d added it to the box she’d found while unpacking her Jeep afterwards. Along with a stack of his own field journals, McAllister had included a letter. Heavily annotated with references to the Binger monograph and several other sources, it linked Southwestern sites and myths to others less familiar.

  And far, far older.

  After rereading that letter a few months ago, she’d shoved it behind the bookcase next to her desk. Retrieving it would be a pain, and she doubted she’d forgotten its contents—however much she’d tried to. McAllister hadn’t said much about pots or Bandelier, anyhow.

  Not in those pages. But in his journals?

  C. BARRETT PLEASE OPEN. As if I have a choice. Lifting out the worn hardbound notebooks, she began searching through them for significant terms. Bandelier, of course (both the Swiss-born anthropologist and the site), but also Frijoles Canyon, Tyuonyi, Pueblo III Era, Pueblo IV Era, and Jemez Mountains. On a hunch, she included black-on-white.

  Even so, she didn’t find much at first. Before his academic— and legal—fall from grace, Daniel McAllister’s specialty had been the Chaco Phenomenon. It was only later, with grants and university support long gone, that he’d turned to more obscure sites.

  But when he had—

  Cassie’s fingers tightened on the stained page she’d been skimming. In the center, under the notation cavate wall? Frijoles Canyon area? and an illegible date, McAllister had sketched a petroglyph. One unlike any she’d seen at the sites she’d visited, or in the few related books she owned.

  And not one she’d have overlooked.

  She examined the sketch more closely. It was winged, definitely; but not the stubby wings of a parrot or a macaw glyph. Nor the mere lines of a dragonfly. These were widespread and strong, fully as large as the body. But the body of what?

  Neither bird nor insect seemed likely: the outline was blocky and crablike, with crooked lines suggesting multiple pairs of legs. A small knob bristling with shorter lines and one longer, curled line (proboscis?) topped it off. Something mythical, then; or spiritual.

  Or worse.

  Cassie’s frown deepened. Last holiday season, she’d volunteered at a charity workshop outside Sheridan—and learned more than she wanted to about Authentic Ancient Designs for a Stronger Community.

  Maybe McAllister had, too. Underneath the sketch, he’d added some fragmentary notes. Pennacook Winged Ones myth? Vermont floods 1927? The Akeley incident?

  None of these referents helped, but a faint chill traced her spine. The next few pages held three more sketches. One was labeled Petroglyph National Monument, recent discovery. The other two came from more obscure sites still close to Bandelier.

  Though all the glyphs were similar, they weren’t identical. One showed that longer curled line uncurling—toward a possibly human figure. In two others, the wing positions suggested flight. And in one of these two, the crooked lines bent around (grasped?) something.

  She held the notebook closer and squinted. A circle, maybe. Or a cylinder. Or a pot.

  Asked around the [illegible] pueblo, McAllister’s notes continued underneath. Not many recognized it. Those who did— all elders—reluctant to explain. Finally tried trading post at [illegible] & got wild tourist story about moon-flyers—

  That story took up the next several pages. McAllister’s speculations and commentary occupied a few more. When she finally finished, Cassie left the journal open and returned to Joshua’s letter, wishing she’d made herself a stiff rum and Coke instead of more coffee.

  He hadn’t noted any strange petroglyphs at the new site, but there were plenty of pots. Most had been found far in the backs of cavates, nestled in small groups. Almost all had their mouths sealed, though no insects or spiders were entangled in the webbing. No sherds or damaged ceramics had been found— only whole vessels, in remarkably fine condition.

  At least until the pothunters found them.

  Cassie swore under her breath as she read. Meth addicts were tireless scavengers, but that excess energy made for twitchiness—and sneaking around with flashlights didn’t help. Things were bound to get broken. Since there were plenty of pots, nobody cared all that much.

  Nobody but Joshua’s boss, one Dr. Antoñia Alvarez. According to him, she took every sherd like a personal injury; or the remains of some endangered species. Their particular blac
k-on-white design was, so far as she knew, unique to the site. She’d sent out samples and photos to several other scholars, without success.

  In a last-ditch search for clues, she’d even given one fragment to a chemist friend at the university. Results hadn’t come back yet, but she felt certain—

  Cassie’s breath caught. A unique ceramic design. An extremely localized petroglyph. And both from around the same previously untouched site.

  Grabbing McAllister’s journal with its “tourist story,” she laid it next to Joshua Yellowtail’s letter and started comparing. Joshua’s boss hadn’t said anything about moon-flyers, but she had mentioned a local rumor about the summer night walks at Bandelier. A few years back, one of those walks featured a full moon—and some very strange shadows had flitted across its face.

  Everyone knew there were bats in Frijoles Canyon, but even the ranger leading that walk hadn’t been able to convince a few observers that they’d seen bats. The result was an article in the Santa Fe New Mexican, which Joshua had helpfully photocopied.

  Cassie read it over a couple of times, checked McAllister’s sketches, then brought up a moon-phase app on her phone and entered the date on that not-just-pots photo.

  Five minutes later, she was packing.

  3

  EASING HER JEEP DOWN THE BOULDER-STREWN TRAIL she’d barely found on Joshua’s map, Cassie felt cold sweat down the back of her neck. On this afternoon of flawless skies and piñon-scented breezes, she was driving into trouble. And she knew it.

  Despite all the details she’d been rereading these past two days on the road to New Mexico, Frank’s nephew hadn’t told her everything. Not about his past month at the site, anyhow. Those last pasted-in logs hadn’t just been briefer; they’d been vaguer, as though he’d been struggling not to say something.

  What he had managed to put in was disturbing enough.

  While trying to identify that black-on-white design, Dr. Alvarez had taken her sherds and questions all the way to Gallup, Mecca of trading post junkies. Even the shop owners there couldn’t help—which hadn’t stopped them from passing on local rumors about the Bandelier area.

  Some of those rumors were even weirder than McAllister’s. Alvarez hadn’t known to ask about petroglyphs, but moon-flyers (or something similar) still came up. Like the Roswell aliens, there were no well-documented sightings, and a fair number of others involved alcohol. There was little agreement about their appearance. Some said crustaceans, some said bats or insects, and others claimed that they shifted forms or resembled something else entirely.

  Almost all sightings had happened around full moons.

  Since none of these stories involved ceramics, Alvarez had eventually given up and returned to her site. Later inquiries around Museum Hill in Santa Fe hadn’t yielded much more, aside from one docent at the Wheelwright whose Navajo great-grandmother had advised her to stay out of those canyons.

  Meanwhile, despite Joshua Yellowtail’s best efforts, pothunters kept raiding. Night after night, they found new caches. Morning after morning, Alvarez picked up sherds and swore. Joshua suspected someone on her team was feeding information to the looters. Alvarez was sure of it—which was why she’d pushed through Cassie’s paperwork.

  And my last volunteer experience went so well.

  Cassie death-gripped the wheel as one front tire almost dropped into a hole. Beyond it, the trail widened into a clearing with a few other vehicles. After parking her own, she reached into the glove compartment for her carry pistol, checked it, and holstered it beneath her shirttail.

  The process still felt awkward, but there was no sense being stupid. Not after last winter. Finances were always tight at Twenty Mile, but Frank had looked relieved when she’d signed up for permit classes. No more worrying about being pulled over with the big .44 she used to hide as road medicine. No more going into situations unprepared.

  Assuming the situation could be prepared for.

  As she walked down into the narrow canyon, she was surprised by the number of cavates pocking its walls. None of the articles Joshua had sent mentioned past inhabitants. Aside from ceramics, there had been little of archaeological interest: no trash middens, no tools or weapons. And until two months ago, no human remains.

  Meeting the gaze of those blind shadow eyes, she felt her breath catch. If humans hadn’t been digging into the tuff here, what had?

  A few minutes later, the flapping of a bright blue tarp told her she’d arrived.

  “Cassie?” One of the three people under that tarp—a youngish man in a khaki uniform shirt—raised a hand to shade his eyes. “Cassie Barrett?”

  Cassie grabbed the strap of her backpack and trotted the last few yards.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, mostly to the woman beside him. “I did have a map, but—”

  Dr. Antoñia Alvarez waved away her apology. “Maps don’t work too well out here.”

  Alvarez was forty-something and fit, though her dark eyes had darker shadows under them. She’d been sitting at a folding table with her laptop and a tray of potsherds, but set them aside as Cassie approached.

  “Don’t know why I bother.” She glanced ruefully at the sherds. “I have no idea where most of these came from, and there’ll be more tomorrow.”

  Her gaze shifted to a thin blonde girl packing up equipment nearby.

  “We’ll take care of that, Kit. You can go on back to town.”

  Cassie expected the girl—a grad student?—to head out immediately, but she took her time. Alvarez stayed quiet until she’d disappeared up the trail.

  Joshua Yellowtail seemed equally uncomfortable.

  “Glad you could make it, Cassie,” he finally said. “After talking to Uncle Frank—”

  “He was all right with it. For a few days, anyway.”

  Joshua’s expression didn’t change. Both of them knew how little Twenty Mile could spare even one pair of hands right now. When Alvarez motioned toward an empty chair, Cassie sat gratefully.

  “Your paperwork came through fine,” Alvarez said. “Julie Valdez said good things about you, and you’ve had enough applicable coursework to keep my department happy.”

  She handed her a volunteer form and a pen. “Of course, it’s still a short-term position.”

  Cassie nodded. “Like maybe three days?”

  Alvarez gave Joshua Yellowtail a hard look. “I thought we discussed—”

  Not telling me what the hell is really going on down here?

  “I checked the date on that picture with the crime tape,” Cassie finally said. “It was a full moon, two months back. And the pots—or at least the sherds—around here got you some ‘moon-flyer’ rumors in Gallup.”

  Her hand fastened on the backpack propped against her chair.

  “There have been other rumors like that, in this part of the country.” And petroglyphs to go with them. Which means a long time. “Three days and nights from now is also a full moon—the Harvest Moon.”

  Cold certainty shot down her spine.

  “So what happened here on the full moon last month?”

  For a moment, there was no reply but the distant cicadas.

  Then Joshua picked up his phone, opened it to a picture, and passed it over.

  It was a night shot, slightly out of focus. The body of a young woman—fully dressed, ratty jeans and a tank top—sprawled on dirt. She’d been pothunting: a nylon knapsack gaped open for her latest find, now shattered on the ground nearby. Even in flash glare, Cassie recognized its distinctive design.

  That wasn’t what made her breath catch, though.

  “How did she—?”

  “No clue.” Joshua’s voice was tight. “But I think I found her right after it happened, whatever it was.”

  Both of them glanced down at the phone. At the girl’s face twisted in a frozen shriek, mouth wide open and bloody.

  “I was checking one of our latest find spots,” Joshua continued. “Thought I heard somebody back in a cavate. Not close, so I thought I�
��d come up quiet and nail them when they crawled out.”

  He hesitated.

  “A couple of minutes later, I heard buzzing up ahead—but not like insects. Not like any insect I’ve ever heard, anyhow. Almost felt like it was going through my skull—or maybe inside it—”

  Another silence. Longer.

  “—and then there was this one short scream. A girl’s. But it wasn’t cut off. More like choked off, like somebody shoved something down her throat.”

  Still staring at the phone screen, Cassie forced herself to nod.

  “By the time I got there, she was . . . like that. The buzzing was gone. And there were sherds everywhere—”

  He glanced a question at Alvarez.

  “Go on,” she said. “Might as well tell it all.”

  “After last time, I figured we’d get shut down for good if I called in another death. So I didn’t.” Joshua raked a hand through his short hair. “I put the body in a cavate looters had already emptied. And then I picked up every last piece of that pot.”

  Cassie’s stomach clenched.

  “It’s not as though dead tweakers are anything new around here,” said Alvarez. “Santa Fe gets a lot of runaways. Some are on drugs when they show up; others find them.”

  Her hands tightened on the edge of the table. “It doesn’t help that we’ve got our own local dealer—maybe meth cook, too—with a sideline in artifacts. Trades drugs for pots and whatever else they bring in, which is plenty.” Her knuckles showed pale. “From looting my site!”

  Joshua shot Cassie a here we go again look.

  “Just this morning,” Alvarez continued, “I finally got a chemical analysis of the clay from one sherd. Not what I was expecting. Basalt, a lot of it—and even armalcolite.”

  Cassie frowned. “Armalco-what?”

  “It’s a mineral. Pretty rare. And the first place they found it was the moon.”

  Joshua looked dubious. “Moon pots?”

  Reaching into her backpack for McAllister’s field journal, Cassie flipped to the petroglyph sketches. Moon-flyer sketches. Selecting the one carrying a circle, she pushed it across the table to Alvarez.