Thunderhead

Nora looked at her solid figure, her rattled but capable face. She knew the woman didn’t believe her, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. “Next time I will,” she said.

“I hope there won’t be a next time,” said Teresa gently. “You need to either tear this place down, or sell it and let someone else tear it down for you. It’s becoming a problem, and not just for you.”

“I know it’s an eyesore. But I just hate to think of letting it go. I’m sorry it’s caused trouble for you.”

“I would’ve thought this might change your mind. Want to come in for a bite of something?”

“No thanks, Teresa,” Nora said as firmly as she could. “I’m all right.”

“Maybe,” came the reply. “But you better get a rabies shot anyway.”

Nora watched as her neighbor turned onto the narrow trail that headed back up the hill. Then she eased into the driver’s seat of her truck and locked all the doors with a shaking hand. She sat quietly, feeling the air move in and out of her lungs, watching Teresa’s dim form merge slowly with the dark bulk of the hillside. When at last she felt in full control of her limbs, she reached for the ignition, wincing at a sudden stab of pain in her neck.

She turned over the engine, unsuccessfully, and cursed. She needed a new vehicle, along with a new everything else in her life.

She tried it again, and after a sputtering protest the engine coughed into life. She punched off the headlights to conserve the battery and, slouching back against the seat, gently pumped the accelerator, waiting for the engine to clear.

To one side, a flash of silver winked briefly. She turned to see a huge shape, black and furred, bounding toward her against the last twilight in the western sky.

Nora slammed the old truck into gear, punched on the headlights, and gu

She jammed the accelerator to the floor as the truck slewed across the ranch road, spraying mad patterns of dirt, whacking a cholla. And then, the thing was gone. But she continued to accelerate down the road to the outer gate, wheels pounding the washboard. After an unbearably long moment, her headlights finally picked up the outer cattle guard looming from the darkness ahead, the row of old mailboxes nailed to a long horizontal board beside it. Too late, Nora jammed on the brakes; the truck struck the cattle guard and was airborne. She landed heavily and skidded in the sand, striking the old board. There was the crunch of splintering wood and the boxes were flung to the ground.

She sat in the truck, breathing hard, dust smoking up around her lights. She dropped into reverse and gu

In the glow of the headlights, she could see the damage. The row of ranch mailboxes had been a rickety affair to begin with, and they had recently been supplanted by a shiny new set of post office boxes that stood nearby. But she could not back up: there was no choice but to go forward.

She jumped out and, glancing around for any sign of the figure, moved around to the front of the truck, picked up the rotten, abandoned mailboxes, and dragged them aside into the brush. An envelope lay in the dirt, and she grabbed it. As she turned to step back into the truck, the headlights caught the front of the envelope. Nora froze for a moment, gasping in surprise.

Then she shoved it in her shirt pocket, jumped into the truck, and peeled back onto the road, careening toward the distant, welcoming lights of town.

2

THE SANTA FE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE stood on a low mesa between the Sangre de Cristo foothills and the town of Santa Fe itself. No affiliated museum opened its doors to the public, and classes were limited to invitation-only graduate seminars and faculty colloquiums. Visiting scholars and resident professors outnumbered students. The campus sprawled across thirty acres, its low adobe buildings almost invisible among the walled gardens, apricot trees, tulip beds, and rows of ancient, blossom-heavy lilacs.

The Institute was devoted almost exclusively to research, excavation, and preservation, and it housed one of the finest prehistoric southwestern Indian collections in the world. Wealthy, reserved, and much wedded to its traditions, it was looked on with both awe and envy by professional archaeologists across the country.

Nora watched the last of her students leave the low-ceilinged adobe classroom, then gathered her notes and slotted them into an oversized leather portfolio. It was the final class of her seminar, “The Chaco Abandonment: Causes and Conditions.” Once again, she was struck by the unusual attitude of students at the Institute: quiet, respectful, as if unable to believe their good fortune in being granted a ten-week resident scholarship.

Stepping out of the cool darkness into the sunlight, she walked slowly along the graveled path. The Pueblo Revival buildings of the campus, with their organic sloping walls and projecting vigas, were painted a warm rust color by the morning light. A thunderhead was developing over the mountains, dark beneath but topped with a spreading crown of brilliant white. As she glanced up to look at it, a sharp pain lanced one side of her bruised neck. She reached to massage it as a dark shadow seemed to come across the sun.

Passing the parking lot, she traced a circuitous route toward the rear of the campus, turning at last down a flagstone walk columned with lombardy poplars and old Chinese elms. The walkway ended at a nondescript building whose small wooden sign read simply RECORDS.

Nora showed her badge to the guard, signed in, and went down the hall to a low doorway, stopping at the cement steps that led down into the gloom. Down to the Map Vault.

She tensed for a moment, the darkness of the stairs bringing back another unwanted memory of the evening before. Again, she felt the broken glass stabbing into her skin, the tightening claws, the sickly sweet smell . . .

She shook the memory away and started down the narrow steps.

The Institute’s collections contained i

How strange, Nora had always thought, that such a place would be guarded by Owen Smalls. Resplendent in beat-up leathers, heavily muscled, Smalls always looked like he had just returned from a harrowing expedition to the farthest corners of the earth. Very few who met the man realized he was an Eastern boy from a wealthy family, a summa cum laude graduate of Brown University, who if placed out in the desert would be dead or lost—or both—within the hour.

The steps ended at a metal door with a small casement window, a red light glowing above it. Nora dug into her bag, extracted her security card, and inserted it into the slot. When the light turned green, she heaved the door open and stepped inside.