Thunderhead

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.”

Skip licked his lips. This was going to be worse than he ever imagined. “Could I get a cup of coffee before we start?”

“Nope. No food or drink allowed in the lab. Tomorrow, come early and help yourself to coffee in the staff lounge. And that reminds me.” She pointed a thumb at the nearest wastebasket.

“What?”

“Your gum. In there, please.”

“Can’t I just stick it under the desk?”

Rowling shook her head, unamused. Skip leaned over and spat out his gum.

Rowling passed over a box of disposable gloves. “Now put these on.” She tugged on a pair herself, then placed one of the artifact bags between them and unsealed it carefully. Skip peered inside, curious despite himself. The sherds came in a variety of patterns and colors. Some were badly weathered, others still quite fresh. A few were corrugated and blackened with cooking smoke. Many were too small to clearly determine what kind of designs had been painted on them, but some were large enough to make out motifs: wavy lines, series of diamonds, parallel zig-zags. Skip remembered collecting similar sherds with his father. Back when he was a kid, it had been okay to do that. Not anymore.

The lab technician removed a sherd from the bag. “This is Cortez black-on-white.” She laid it gingerly on the table and her fingers moved back into the bag and withdrew another sherd. “And this is Kayenta black-on-white. Take a careful note of the differences.”

She put the sherds into two clear plastic containers, then drew another sherd from the bag. “What’s this?”

Skip scrutinized it. “It looks like the first one you drew out. Cortez.”

“Correct.” Rowling put the sherd into the first plastic bin, then drew out another sherd. “And this one?”

“It’s the other. Kayenta.”

“Very good.” Rowling placed the sherd into the other bin, then drew out a fifth sample from the bag. “And how about this?” There was a slightly sardonic expression on Rowling’s face, a faint challenge. It looked almost like the second sherd, but not quite. Skip opened his mouth to say Kayenta, then closed it again. He stared, reaching deep into his memory.

“Chuska Wide Banded?” he asked.

There was a sudden pause, and for a moment Rowling’s face lost its assurance. “How in the world—?”

“My father liked potsherds,” said Skip, a little diffidently.

“That’s going to help us a lot,” she said, her voice warming. “Maybe Nora was right. Anyway, you’ll find all sorts of good things in here: Cibola ware, St. John’s Polychrome, Mogollon Brownware, McElmo. But see for yourself.” She reached across the table and pulled over a laminated sheet. “This shows you samples of the two dozen or so styles you’re likely to find from the Ponderosa Draw site. Separate them by style, and put any questionable sherds to one side. I’ll come back and check on your progress in an hour or so.”

Skip watched her leave, then sighed deeply and turned his attention to the overstuffed Baggie. At first, the work seemed both boring and confusing, and the heap of questionable sherds began to pile up. But then, almost imperceptibly, he grew more sure in his identification: it was instinctive, almost, the way the shape, condition, even composition of the sherds could speak as loudly as the design itself. Memories of long afternoons spent with his father, pacing over some ruin in the middle of nowhere, came back with a bittersweet tang. And then, back at the house, poring over monographs, sorting and gluing the sherds onto pieces of cardboard. He wondered what had become of all their painstaking collections.

The lab was quiet except for the occasional keytaps of the young technician in the far corner. Skip started when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“So?” Rowling asked him. “How’s it going?”

“Has it been an hour?” Skip asked. He sat up and looked at his watch. The headache was gone.

“Just about.” She peered into the bins. “Good heavens, you’ve worked your way through two bags already.”

“Does that make me teacher’s pet?” Skip asked, massaging his neck. In the distance, he heard a rap at the laboratory door.

“Let me look over your work first, see how many mistakes you’ve made,” Rowling replied.

Abruptly, a high, tremulous voice rang out on the far side of the room: “Skip Kelly? Is there a Skip Kelly here?”

Skip glanced up. It was the young technician, looking very nervous. And easing past him, Skip could see the source of his nervousness: a large man in a blue uniform. The man walked partway toward Skip, the gun, baton, and handcuffs on his belt clinking slightly, then stopped. He hooked his hands in his belt with a slight smile. The room had fallen silent.

“Skip Kelly?” he asked in a low, calm baritone.

“Yes,” said Skip, going cold, his mind racing through a dozen possibilities, all of them unpleasant. That asshole neighbor must have complained. Or maybe it’s that woman with the dachshund. Christ, I only ran over its back leg, and—

“Could I speak with you outside, please?”

In the solemn darkness of the anteroom, the man flipped open an ID wallet and aimed it in Skip’s direction. “I’m Lieutenant Detective Al Martinez, Santa Fe Police Department.”

Skip nodded.

“You’re a hard man to reach,” Martinez said in a voice that managed to be both friendly and neutral at the same time. “I wonder if I could have a bit of your time.”

“My time?” Skip managed to say. “Why?”

“We’ll get to that at the station, Mr. Kelly, if you don’t mind.”

“The station,” Skip repeated. “When?”

“Let’s see,” said Martinez, glancing first at the floor, then at the ceiling, then back at Skip. “Right about now would be nice.”

Skip swallowed. Then he nodded toward the open laboratory door. “I’m at work right now. Can’t it wait until later?”

There was a brief pause. “No, Mr. Kelly,” the policeman replied. “Come to think of it, I don’t believe it can.”

21

SKIP FOLLOWED THE POLICEMAN OUT OF THE building to a waiting car. The detective was enormous, with a neck like a redwood stump; yet his movements were light, even gentle. Martinez stopped at the passenger side and, to Skip’s surprise, held the door open for him. As the car pulled away, Skip glanced in the rearview mirror. He could see a pair of white faces framed by the open door of the Artifactual Assemblages building, watching motionlessly, dwindling at last to invisibility.

“My first day on the job,” Skip said. “Great impression.”

They pulled through the gates of the compound and began to accelerate. Martinez slipped a stick of gum out of his breast pocket and offered it to Skip.