Thunderhead

“That guy’s awfully low,” said Holroyd, staring upward.

“He ain’t just low,” Swire said. “He’s landing.”

They watched as the plane dipped, its wings waggling an aviational hello. It straightened its line, then touched down, sending up two fins of water in a flurry of spray. The engines revved as the plane coasted toward the tangle of logs. Nora nodded to Holroyd to take the raft out to meet them. Inside the cockpit, she could see the pilot and copilot, checking gauges, making notes on a hanging clipboard. At last the pilot climbed out, waved, and swung down onto one of the pontoons.

Nora heard Smithback whistle softly beside her as the pilot took off a pair of goggles and a leather helmet, giving her short, straight black hair beneath a shake. “Fly me,” he said.

“Stow it,” she snapped.

The pilot was Sloane Goddard.

Holroyd had reached the side of the plane by now, and Goddard began swinging duffels into the raft from the cargo area behind the plane’s seats. Then she slammed the hatch shut, slid down into the raft, and gave the copilot a sign. As Holroyd rowed back through the tangle of debris, the plane turned and began to taxi down the canyon, where it revved its engines and began its takeoff. Nora’s eyes moved from the vanishing plane back to the rapidly approaching figure.

Sloane Goddard was sitting in the rear of the raft, talking to Holroyd. She wore a long aviator’s leather jacket, jeans, and narrow boots. Her hair was done in a classic short pageboy, almost decadent in its anachronism, that reminded Nora of a Fitzgerald-era flapper from a 1920s fashion magazine. The almond-shaped, brilliant amber eyes and sensuous mouth with its faint, sardonic curve lent an exotic touch to her features. She looked almost Nora’s age, perhaps in her mid- to late twenties. Nora realized, quite consciously, that she was looking at one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen.

As the raft ground to a halt on the shore, Sloane leaped nimbly out and came walking briskly into camp. This wasn’t the ski

Still gri

“Nora Kelly, I presume?” she said, eyes twinkling.

“Yes,” Nora exhaled. “And you must be Sloane Goddard. The belated Sloane Goddard.”

The grin widened. “Sorry about the drama. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I’d like to meet the rest of your team.”

Nora’s alarm at this easy tone of command abated at the words your team. “Sure thing,” she said. “You’ve met Peter Holroyd.” She indicated the image specialist, who was now bringing up the last of the woman’s gear, then turned toward Aragon. “And this is—”

“I’m Aaron Black,” Black said out of turn, approaching the woman with an extended hand, his belly sucked in, his back straight.

Sloane’s grin widened. “Of course you are. The famous geochronologist. Famous and feared. I remember your paper demolishing the Chingadera Cave dating at the last SAA meeting. I felt sorry for that poor archaeologist, Leblanc. I don’t think he’s been able to hold his head up since.”

At this reference to the destruction of another scientist’s reputation, Black swelled with visible pleasure.

Sloane turned. “And you must be Enrique Aragon.”

Aragon nodded, face still inscrutable.

“I’ve heard my father speak very highly of your work. Think we’ll find many human remains in the city?”

“Unknown,” came the reply. “The burial grounds for Chaco Canyon have never been found, despite a century of searching. On the other hand, Mummy Cave yielded hundreds of burials. Either way, I will be analyzing the faunal remains.”

“Excellent,” Goddard nodded.

Nora looked around, intending to complete the introductions and get underway as quickly as possible. To her surprise, Roscoe Swire had abruptly shuffled off and was busying himself with the horses.

“Roscoe Swire, right?” Sloane called out, following Nora’s eyes. “My father’s told me all about you, but I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“No reason we should have,” came the gruff answer. “I’m just a cowboy trying to keep a bunch of greenhorns from breaking their necks out here in slickrock country.”

Sloane let out a husky laugh. “Well, I heard that you’ve never fallen off a horse.”

“Any cowboy tells you that is a liar,” said Swire. “My butt and the ground are tolerably well acquainted, thank you.”

Sloane’s eyes twinkled. “Actually, my father said he could tell you were a real cowboy, because when you showed up for the interview you had real horseshit on your boots.”

Swire finally gri

Nora waved toward the writer. “And this is Bill Smithback.”

Smithback swept an exaggerated bow, cowlick jiggling frantically atop the brown mop of hair.

“The journalist,” said Sloane, and Nora thought she heard a brief note of disapproval in Sloane’s voice before the dazzling smile returned full-proof. “My father mentioned he’d be contacting you.” Before Smithback could reply, Sloane had turned toward Bonarotti. “And thank God you’re along, Luigi.”

The cook nodded in return, saying nothing.

“How about breakfast?” she asked.

He turned to the grill.

“I’m ravenous,” Sloane added, accepting a steaming plate.

“You’ve met Luigi before?” Nora asked, sitting down beside Sloane.

“Yes, last year, when I was climbing the Cassin Ridge on Denali. He was operating the base camp kitchen for our group. While everybody else on the mountain was eating gorp and logan bread, we dined on duck and venison. I told my father he had to get Luigi for this expedition. He’s very, very good.”

“I’m very, very expensive,” Bonarotti replied.

Sloane tucked into the omelette with gusto. The others had instinctively drawn round again, and Nora wasn’t surprised: the younger Goddard was not only beautiful but—sitting there in the wilderness in her leather jacket and faded jeans—she radiated charisma, ironic good humor, and the kind of easy self-confidence that came with money and good breeding. Nora felt a mixture of relief and envy. She wondered what kind of impact this new development would have on her position as leader. Best to get things established right away, she thought.

“So,” she began. “Care to explain the dramatic entrance?”

Sloane looked at her with her lazy smile. “Sorry about that,” she said, putting aside the empty plate and leaning back, coat thrown open to expose a checked cotton shirt. “I was delayed back at Princeton by a failing student. I’ve never failed anybody, and I didn’t want to start now. I worked with him until it became too late to mess with commercial airlines.”

“You had us worried back there at the marina.”

Sloane sat up. “You didn’t get my message?”

“No.”

“I left it with somebody named Briggs. Said he’d pass it along.”

“Must have slipped his mind,” said Nora.

Sloane’s grin widened. “It’s a busy place. Well, you did the right thing, leaving without me.”

Swire brought the horses back down the canyon from their grazing ground, and Nora went over to help with the saddling. To her surprise, Sloane followed behind and joined in, deftly saddling two horses to Swire’s three. They tied the horses to some brush as Swire started on the pack animals, throwing on the pads and sawbuck packsaddles, hooking on the pa