Thunderhead

“No,” she murmured.

Sloane looked back at her, unblinking.

“No,” Nora repeated, more loudly, backing up into the darkness.

Slowly, tentatively, Sloane’s hand dropped toward the gun.

In a sudden, desperate movement, Nora snapped off her light and wheeled away, sprinting into the close, concealing darkness.

The camp lay a hundred yards off—no protection there. Sloane stood between her and the city. And the flood had cut her off from the other side of the valley. In the direction she was headed, that left only one option.

Her mind worked furiously as she ran. Sloane, she realized, was not the kind of person who could bear to lose. If she had refused to even leave Quivira without opening the kiva, was it possible she would allow Nora to take her back to civilization—in shame and humiliation—to face life in ruin? Why did I provoke her like that? Nora raged at herself. How could I have been so stupid? She herself had demonstrated to Sloane exactly how stark her choice was. Nora, effectively, had signed her own death warrant.

She dashed as quickly as she dared along the rocky base of the cliff, making for the landslide at the far end. Fitful tongues of lightning guided her way. Scrambling up the talus of broken boulders, she searched for a hiding place, not daring to use her flashlight for fear of betraying her position. Halfway up the slope she found a suitable hole: narrow, but still large enough to fit a human body. She wedged herself as far inside as she could and crouched in the darkness, gasping for breath, trying to sort things out, raging with frustration and despair.

She glanced around her hiding place. She had managed to crawl fairly deeply into the landslide. Still, it was only a temporary option: it would only be a matter of time before Sloane searched her out. And Sloane had the spare gun.

Her thoughts returned to Smithback, lying asleep in the medical tent, and her hands clenched in anger. He was a sitting duck. But no: there was no reason for Sloane to enter the tent and find him. Even if she did, there was a chance she would not kill him. Nora had to cling to that hope—at least, until she found some way to stop Sloane.

There had to be a way. Bonarotti and Swire were out there, somewhere. Unless they were part of the conspiracy, too . . . she shook her head, refusing to let herself follow that line of speculation.

Perhaps she could find a way to sneak back into the camp, steal away with Smithback. But that would mean hours of cautious waiting, and one way or another Sloane would certainly act before then. Nora knew she couldn’t climb up to the rim and escape—not with Smithback behind, injured, in the valley. As she crouched in the darkness and turned over her options, it dawned on her, with a desperate kind of finality, that in fact there were no options at all.

60

BEIYOODZIN MADE HIS WAY ACROSS THE slickrock plateau, far above the valley of Quivira. The heart of a second, smaller storm was passing overhead now, and it was very dark. Beneath his feet, the irregular rock was slick with rainwater, and Beiyoodzin walked with great care. His old feet ached, and he missed the presence of his horse, tethered back in the valley of Chilbah. The Priest’s Trail was impassable for all but the two-legged.

The trail markings were irregular and vague—a small, ancient cairn of rocks here and there—and the way was difficult to make out in the darkness. Beiyoodzin needed all his skill simply to follow it. His eyes were not as strong as they had once been. And he was all too aware that the single most difficult stretch lay ahead: in the tortuous, dangerous descent along the ridge of the narrow slot canyon at the far end of the valley.

He wrapped the sopping cloak tighter and moved on. Though his grandfather had hinted of it, Beiyoodzin had never believed that the Priest’s Trail could be so demanding, or so long. After arrowing up the secret cut in Chilbah Valley, it followed a long, complex route across the high plateau, wriggling for miles through the stunted junipers, in and out of dry washes and steep little ravines. He urged his tired body to move faster. It was late, he knew; perhaps too late. There was no telling what might have happened, or what might be happening, in the valley of Quivira.

Suddenly, he stopped short. There was a smell in the air: a lingering smell of woodsmoke, damp ash, and something else that brought his heart into his mouth. He looked around, eyes wide to the darkness, letting the occasional tongues of lightning guide his way. There it was—in the shadow of a large rock, as he knew it would be—the remains of a small twig fire.

He looked around quickly, carefully, making sure he was alone; making sure the creatures who had made this fire were long gone. Then he crouched, sifting the ash with his fingers. He pulled the remains of root strips, burned and brittle, from the small pile, rubbing them appraisingly between his fingers. Then, brow furrowing, he began to sift more quickly, fingertips impatiently brushing the ash aside. One hand closed on something, and he drew in his breath sharply: the petal of a flower, limp and withered. He brought it to his nose. The scent confirmed his worst fears: beneath the heavy smell of woodsmoke, he could still make out the lingering odor of morning glories.

He stood up, brushing his fingers on his wet trousers in agitation. Once, as a child in the village of Nankoweap, he had seen a terrible thing: a very old man, a bad man, partake of the forbidden datura flower. The man had flown into a rage under the influence of the drug, lashing out violently at all in his path with several times his normal strength. It had taken half a dozen young men of the village to subdue him.

But this was worse. Much worse. Those he was tracking had taken datura in the ancient way, the evil way, mixing it with psilocybin mushrooms, buttons of the mescal cactus, forbidden insects. The unholy spirit would take possession of them, bring great strength to their limbs and a murderous frenzy to their minds; make them oblivious to their own pain, or the pain of others.

Kneeling, he said a brief, fervent prayer in the darkness. Then he rose again and continued down the trail with redoubled speed.

61

BONAROTTI SAT LISTLESSLY ON THE SMOOTH rocky ground of the Planetarium, his back against the unyielding wall, elbows resting on upraised knees. He stared out into the darkness, beyond the curving shelf that hid the great city. The valley was dark, lit infrequently by livid forks of lightning. A thin curtain of water fell across the entire length of the overhanging lip of rock, cloaking the entrance to Quivira. There was no longer any reason to leave the comfort of the dry city. In fact, there was no reason to do anything, except wait out the next several days with as much comfort and as little inconvenience as possible.

He knew that he should feel vastly more disappointment than he did. Initially—during the first minutes of his realization that the secret kiva held, not gold, but merely countless ancient pots—the feeling of dismay and shock had, in fact, been overwhelming. And yet now, here on the outskirts of the city, all he felt was a vast ache in his bones. The gold would not have been his, anyway. He wondered why he had worked so hard, gotten so uncharacteristically caught up in the excitement of the moment. Now his only reward were limbs that felt u