Thunderhead

by Douglas Preston

  “What’s a ZST?” the unrepentant Smithback asked. “Some kind of birth control?”

  Nora shook her head. “It stands for Zero Site Trauma. The idea that an archaeological site should never be physically disturbed. People like Aragon believe any intrusion, no matter how careful or subtle, destroys it for future archaeologists who might come along with more sophisticated tools. They tend to work with artifacts that have already been excavated by others.”

  “ZST groupies consider traditional archaeologists to be artifact whores, digging for relics instead of reconstructing cultures,” Sloane added.

  “If Aragon feels that way, why did he come along?” Holroyd asked.

  “He’s not a total purist. I suppose that on a project as potentially important as this, he’s willing to put his personal feelings aside to some extent. I think he feels that if anyone is going to touch Quivira, it should be him.” Nora looked around. “What do you make of these walls?” she asked Sloane. “It’s not soot, it’s some kind of thick dried substance, like paint. But I’ve never seen an Anasazi room painted black before.”

  “Beats me,” Sloane replied. She removed a small glass tube and a dentist’s pick from her pack. Then she glanced with a quick smile at Nora. “May I take a sample?” she paused. “Madame Chairman?”

  It’s not funny when Smithback calls me that, Nora thought. And it’s even less funny coming from you. But she nodded wordlessly, watching as Sloane expertly flaked a few pieces into the glass test tube and stoppered it.

  The sun was now low in the sky, painting long contrasting stripes along the ancient walls. “Let’s get back,” Nora said. As they turned to walk out on the ledge, Nora glanced back at the reverse spirals on the wall behind the ruin. She shivered briefly in spite of the heat.

  19

  * * *

  THEY WERE FORCED TO MAKE A DRY CAMP that night. The horses were thirsty and off their feed, and by sundown the expedition had made serious inroads into their own supplies of water. Aragon received the skull with the wordless disapproval that Nora had expected. They turned in early, saddle sore and weary, and slept hard.

  Shortly after starting out the following morning, they arrived at a triple intersection of narrow canyons. Despite careful examination, Nora and Sloane could find no more traces of the ancient road here; it was either buried or had washed away. The GPS laptop was still not functioning, and Holroyd’s map was of little help: at this point of the journey, the underlying topographical elevations on the map were ludicrously off. The radar data became a confusing maze of color.

  Nor could Nora find any sign that her father had ever come this way. In the tradition of Frank Wetherill and the other early explorers, Nora knew her father sometimes marked his trail by scratching his initials and a date into the rock. Yet, to her mounting anxiety, she had yet to see any graffiti by him or anyone else, save the occasional petroglyphs of the long-vanished Anasazi.

  For the rest of the day, the group toiled up through a warren of fractured canyons, moving deeper into a surreal world that seemed more a landscape of dream than anything of the earth. The mute stone halls spoke of eons of fury: uplift and erosion, floods, earthquakes, and the endless scouring of the wind. At every turn, Nora realized her dead reckoning grew more difficult and prone to error. Each fall of the horses’ hooves took them farther from civilization, from the comfortable and the known, deeper into an alien landscape of mystery. Cliff dwellings became more numerous, tucked slyly into the canyon walls, remote and inaccessible. Nora had the irrational feeling, as she stopped for the tenth time to pore over the map, that they were intruding onto forbidden ground.

  By evening they were so exhausted that dinner was a cold, silent, impromptu affair. The lack of water had compelled Nora to institute severe rationing. Bonarotti, forced to cook with no water and dirty dishes, grew sullen.

  After dinner, the group gravitated apathetically toward the campfire. Swire joined them after giving the horses a final check.

  He sat down beside Nora and spat. “Come morning, these horses won’t have had decent water for thirty-six hours. Don’t know how much longer they can last.”

  “Frankly, I couldn’t give a damn about the horses,” Black said from across the fire. “I’m wondering when we’re going to die of thirst.”

  Swire turned to him, his face flickering in the light. “Maybe you don’t realize it, but if the horses die, we die. It ain’t any more complicated than that.”

  Nora glanced in Black’s direction. In the firelight his face was haggard, a look of incipient panic in his eyes.

  “Is everything all right, Aaron?” she asked.

  “You said we were going to reach Quivira tomorrow,” he said huskily.

  “That was only an estimate. It’s taking longer than I anticipated.”

  “Bullshit.” Black sniffed. “I’ve been watching you all afternoon, struggling with those maps and trying to get that useless GPS unit to work. I think we’re lost.”

  “No,” Nora replied. “I don’t believe we’re lost.”

  Black leaned back, his voice growing louder. “Is that supposed to be encouraging? And where’s this road? We saw it yesterday. Maybe. But now it’s vanished.”

  Nora had seen this kind of reaction to the wilderness before. It was never pleasant. “All I can say is we’ll get there, probably tomorrow, certainly by the next day.”

  “Probably!” he repeated derisively, slapping his hands on his knees. “Probably!”

  In the flickering light, Nora looked around at the rest of the group. Everyone was filthy from the lack of water and badly scratched from heavy brush. Only Sloane, sifting sand thoughtfully through her fingers, and Aragon, wearing his usual distant expression, appeared unconcerned. Holroyd was staring into the campfire, for once without a book at his side. Smithback’s hair was wilder than ever, his bony knees covered with dirt. Earlier in the afternoon he had complained, eloquently and at great length, about how if God had meant man to ride a horse he would have put a Barcalounger on the animal’s back. Even the fact that the apathetic Beetlebum had stopped trying to bite him had been little comfort.

  It was a desperate-looking group, and it was hard to believe that the change had taken place in less than forty-eight hours of difficult travel. Jesus, Nora thought, if they look like that, what must I look like?

  “I understand how concerned you all are,” she said slowly. “I’m doing the best I can. If any of you have any constructive ideas, I’d like to hear them.”

  “The answer is to keep going,” said Aragon with a quiet vehemence. “And to stop complaining. Twentieth-century humans are unused to any real physical challenge. The people who lived in these canyons dealt with this kind of thirst and heat every day, without complaint.” He cast his dark, sardonic eyes around the group.

  “Oh, now I feel better,” said Black. “And here I thought I was suffering from thirst.”

  Aragon turned his dark eyes on Black. “You are suffering more from an undifferentiated personality disorder than from thirst, Dr. Black.”

  Black turned to look at him, speechless with rage. Then he stood up on trembling limbs and made his way silently toward his tent.

  Nora watched him walk away. What was happening here? What seemed so simple on paper—the Anasazi road, the descriptions in her father’s letter—had grown hopelessly complicated on the ground. It would only get worse: tomorrow afternoon, if her navigation was correct, they would hit the Devil’s Backbone, the massive hogback ridge that separated their canyon system from the even more remote and isolated system in which Quivira was hidden. On the map, it looked impassable. Yet her father had ridden over it. He must have. Why didn’t he leave any signs behind? But as she asked the question, she realized the answer: he wanted to keep the location of Quivira a secret known only to himself. For the first time, she understood the vagueness in his letter had been deliberate.

  The group began to break up, leaving Smithback restlessly dozing and Aragon gazing thoughtfully into
the fire. Nora felt movement nearby, then Sloane sat down beside her.

  “This campsite isn’t all bad,” she said. “Look what I just uncovered.”

  Nora glanced down in the direction Sloane indicated. There, lying half-buried in sand, was a perfect arrowhead, pressure-flaked out of a snow-white agate flecked with pinpoints of red.

  Nora picked it up with great care, examining it closely in the light of the fire. “Amazing, isn’t it, how much they loved beauty? They always chose the loveliest materials for their stone tools. That’s Lobo Mesa agate, from an outcrop in New Mexico about three hundred miles southeast of here. Think of how far they were willing to trade to get the really nice stuff.”

  She handed it to Sloane, who was looking at her curiously. “That’s quite a nice piece of identification,” she said with real admiration. She took the point and carefully laid it back in the dust. “Maybe it should lie here, after all.”

  Aragon smiled. “It is always more fulfilling,” he said, “to leave something in its natural place than to lock it in a museum basement.” All three fell silent, staring into the dying flames.

  “I’m glad you spoke up like that,” Nora said at last to Aragon.

  “Perhaps I should have done it long before.” There was a pause. “What do you plan to do about him?”

  “Black?” Nora thought. “Nothing, for the moment.”

  Aragon nodded. “I’ve known him for a long while, and he’s always been full of himself. With good reason—there’s no better geochronologist in the country. But this is a side I hadn’t seen before. I think it’s fear. Some people fall apart psychologically when removed from civilization, from telephones, hospitals, cars, electric power.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Nora said. “If that’s the case, once we’ve made camp and set up communications with the outside world, he’ll calm down.”

  “I think so. But then again, he might not.”

  There was another silence.

  “So?” Sloane prompted at last.

  “So what?”

  “Are we lost?” she asked gently.

  Nora sighed. “I don’t know. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

  Aragon grunted. “If this is indeed an Anasazi road, it’s unlike any other I’ve encountered. It’s as if the Anasazi wanted to eradicate any trace of its existence.” He shook his head. “I sense a darkness, a malignancy, about this road.”

  Nora looked at him. “Why do you say that?”

  Silently, the Mexican reached into the pack and removed the test tube containing the flakes of black paint, cradling it in his palm. “I performed a PBT with luminol on one of these samples,” he said quietly. “It came up positive.”

  “I’ve never heard of that test,” Nora said.

  “It’s a simple test used by forensic anthropologists. And police. It identifies the presence of human blood.” He gazed at her, his dark eyes in shadow. “That wasn’t paint you saw. It was human blood. But not just blood: layers upon layers upon layers of crusted, dried blood.”

  “My God,” Nora said. The passage from the Coronado report came back to her unbidden: “Quivira in their language means ‘The House of the Bloody Cliff.’” Perhaps “bloody cliff” was not merely symbolic, after all . . .

  Aragon removed a small padded bag and carefully pulled out the small skull they had discovered at Pete’s Ruin. He handed it to Nora. “After I discovered that, I decided to take a closer look at the skull you found. I reassembled the pieces in my tent last night. It belongs to a young girl, maybe nine or ten years old. Definitely Anasazi: you can see how the back of the skull was flattened by a hard cradleboard when the child was a baby.” He turned it over carefully in his hands. “At first, I thought she had died an accidental death, perhaps hit by a falling stone. But when I looked more closely, I noticed these.” He pointed to a series of grooves on the back of the skull, near the center. “These were made with a flint knife.”

  “No,” Sloane whispered.

  “Oh, yes. This little girl was scalped.”

  20

  * * *

  SKIP KELLY SAUNTERED DOWN A SHADED WALKWAY of the Institute’s manicured campus, rubbing bleary eyes. It was a breathtaking summer morning, warm and dry and full of promise. The sun threw a silken illumination over building and lawn, and a warbler was sitting in a lilac bush, pouring out its heart in rapturous song.

  “Shut the hell up,” Skip growled. The bird complied.

  Ahead of him lay a long, low Pueblo Revival structure, clothed in the same subdued earth tones as the rest of the Institute’s campus. A small wooden sign was set into the ground before it, ARTIFACTUAL ASSEMBLAGES spelled out in sans serif bronze letters. Skip opened the door and walked inside.

  The door closed behind him with a squeal of metal, and he winced. Christ, what a headache. His mouth was parched and tasted of mildew and old socks, and he dug a piece of chewing gum out of his pocket. Oh, man. Better switch to beer. It was the same thing he thought every morning.

  He looked around, grateful for the dim illumination. He was in a small antechamber, bare of furnishings save for two display cases and an uncomfortable-looking wooden bench. Doors led off in all directions, most of them unmarked.

  Another squeal of metal on frame, and one of the far doors opened. A woman stepped out and approached him. Skip looked at her without interest. Mid-thirties, tall, short dark hair, round oversized glasses, and a corduroy skirt.

  The woman extended her hand. “You must be Skip Kelly. I’m Sonya Rowling, senior lab technician.”

  “Nice outfit,” he replied, shaking the proffered hand. Dressed up for the Brady Bunch reunion, he thought. Nora, I’ll get you for this.

  If the woman heard the compliment, she gave no sign. “We expected you an hour ago.”

  “Sorry about that,” Skip mumbled in reply. “Overslept.”

  “Follow me.” The woman turned on her heel and walked back through the doorway. Skip followed her down a passage and around a corner into a large room. Unlike the antechamber, the space was filled with equipment: long metal tables, covered with tools, plastic trays, and printouts; desks piled high with books and three-ring binders. The walls were hidden by row upon row of metal drawers, all closed. In the corner nearest the door, a young man was standing in front of a keyboard, talking animatedly on the phone.

  “As you can see, this is where the real work gets done,” the woman said. She waved at a relatively empty desk. “Have a seat and we’ll get you started.”

  Gingerly, Skip eased himself down beside Sonya Rowling. “God, am I hung,” he muttered.

  Rowling turned her owlish eyes toward his. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Hung. Hung over, I mean,” Skip added hastily.

  “I see. Perhaps that explains your lateness. I’m sure it won’t happen again.” Something in Rowling’s gaze made Skip sit up a little straighter.

  “Your sister says you have a natural talent for labwork. That’s what I intend to find out in the next couple of weeks. We’ll start you off slowly, see what you can do. Have you had much field experience?”

  “Nothing formal.”

  “Good. Then you won’t have any bad habits to unlearn.” When Skip raised his eyebrows, she explained. “The public thinks fieldwork is the be-all and end-all of archaeology. But the truth is for every hour spent at the field, five are spent in the lab. And that’s where most of the important discoveries are made.”

  She reached over and pulled a long metal tray with a hinged top toward them. Lifting the lid, Rowling reached inside and carefully removed four oversized Baggies. Each had the words PONDEROSA DRAW scribbled hastily across the top in black marker. Skip could see that many more sealed Baggies lay in the dim recesses of the tray.

  “What’s all this?” Skip asked.

  “Ponderosa Draw was a remarkable site in northeastern Arizona,” Rowling replied. “Note I say was, not is. For reasons we don’t fully understand, potsherds of many different styles were found there, s
cattered in apparent confusion. Perhaps the place was some kind of trading center. In any case, the owner of the land was an amateur archaeologist with more enthusiasm than sense. Over three summers in the early twenties he dug the whole site and collected every last sherd he could find. Scoured the site clean, above and below the surface.” She gestured at the bags. “Only problem was, he tossed all his finds together in a single pile, paying no attention to location, strata, anything. The entire provenance of the site was lost. The sherds were eventually given to the Museum of Indian Antiquities, but were never examined. We inherited them when we acquired the museum’s collection three years ago.”

  Skip stared at the bags, frowning. “I thought I was going to work on Nora’s Rio Puerco stuff.”

  Rowling pursed her lips. “The Rio Puerco dig was a model of archaeological discipline. Material was carefully gathered and recorded with a minimum of on-site intrusion. We stand to learn a great deal from your sister’s finds. Whereas this . . .” She gestured at the bags, letting the sentence drop.

  “I get the picture,” Skip said, his scowl deepening. “This site is broken already. There’s nothing I can do to make it worse. And you’re going to make me cut my teeth on it.”

  Rowling’s pursed lips curved into what might have been the shadow of a smile. “You catch on fast, Mr. Kelly.”

  Skip stared at the bags for a long moment. “So I guess these are just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Another good guess. There are twenty-five more bags in storage.”

  Shit. “And what do I have to do, exactly?”

  “It’s very straightforward. Since we know nothing at all about where these potsherds were found, or their position relative to each other, all we can do is sort them by style and type and do a statistical analysis on the results.”