Thunderhead

On the other hand, if they could just reach the redoubt at the top, they might be able to hold the skinwalker off. The Anasazi had built this tower for a single purpose: defense. Sloane had a gun. And they might even find a cache of stones at the top that could be lobbed down into the tower.

“Go on!” Sloane whispered urgently.

Nora checked her flashlight. Its beam was growing feeble. But she had no choice: they could not make the climb in total darkness. Sliding the lit flashlight into her shirt pocket, she reached for the first pole, testing its sturdiness. Taking a deep breath, she placed a foot in the first notch. Her other foot went on the first small stump of rock, projecting from the tower wall across from the notch. She hoisted herself up, spreadeagled over open space. She climbed as fast as she dared, trying not to think of the swaying of the pole under her weight, creaking with dry rot and shedding powdered wood. Sloane followed behind, her frantic climbing shaking the brittle structure still further.

Reaching the first platform, Nora stopped to catch her breath. As she crouched, gasping, she heard a faint clatter from outside the tower: the sound of a pole ladder being thrust up against adobe walls.

Instantly, Nora leaped for the second pole, Sloane following. She scrambled upward, vaulting up the swaying pole, listening to the crackling and splitting of wood beneath her feet. This ladder felt much less secure than the first. As she neared the top, she felt its supports begi

Just then, she heard the patter of footsteps below. A dark form momentarily blotted out the dim rectangle of light at the entrance to the tower. Beside her, Sloane cursed under her breath.

For an instant, Nora found herself unable to move, as the terror of the encounter in the abandoned ranch house returned to her in full force. Then she was shocked back to the present by the deafening blast of a pistol shot. The echoes died crazily within the confines of the tower. Heart in her mouth, Nora angled the flashlight downward. The figure was swarming up the first ladder, swift and sure. Sloane raised her weapon again.

“Save your bullets for the top!” Nora cried. She urged Sloane onto the third and final ladder, its ancient geometry faint in the beam of her light.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sloane whispered.

But Nora simply pushed her up the ladder without a word. It was time to take a desperate chance.

Taking a firm hold on the stone shelf, she drew her leg back and kicked at the bracing of the second pole as hard as she could. She felt it shudder with the impact. She kicked at it a second time, then a third. Below, she could hear a desperate scrabbling as the figure rode the shaking structure. Summoning all her strength, Nora kicked at the pole once again. With a shriek of rending wood, the pole lurched outward about six inches, whipsawing itself into a notch of rock. Nora heard a muffled roar from below. Chancing another look down, she saw the skinwalker lose its grip and begin to fall away toward the base of the tower. Then, catlike, it lashed out, grasping a set of supports. It clung there for a moment, swinging in and out of the dying beam of Nora’s light. Then, with careful deliberation, it began climbing toward her again. Nora kicked out once more, trying to knock the pole away completely, but it was now jammed fast.

She leaped for the third pole and climbed, arms and legs protesting, toward the third shelf and the hole leading to the redoubt at the top of the tower. Moments later she was onto the ledge. From the small room beyond, Sloane reached out a hand to help her in.

Crouching beneath the low ceiling, Nora swept her flashlight around the room. It was tiny, perhaps four by six feet. Above her head, a small ragged hole led up onto the roof of the tower. A disarticulated skeleton lay in a heap against one wall. Her heart sank as she saw there were no stones, no weapons—nothing they could use to defend themselves except a few useless bones.

But they still had the gun.

Shielding the flashlight, Nora leaned back out into the cool dark shaft of the tower. Two bobbing red eyes reflected the feeble beam: it was on the second ladder again, and coming inexorably closer.

She shrank back into the redoubt and looked at Sloane. A pale face stared back at her, drawn with fear and tension. Beneath it, the necklace of micaceous beads gave off a faint golden sheen. Nora cupped her hand over the light. A part of her could not fully comprehend what was happening: stuck here, with the woman who had caused the death of her friends, while a creature out of nightmare was climbing toward them. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

“How many bullets?” she whispered, shining the veiled light toward Sloane.

Mutely, Sloane held up three fingers.

“Listen,” Nora went on, “There’s no time left. I’ll turn off the light, and we’ll wait here in the opening. When it’s close, I’ll aim the beam, and you fire. Okay?”

Sloane suppressed a cough, nodded urgently.

“We’ll only have time for one shot, maybe two. Make them count.”

She snapped off her light, and together they moved toward the opening of the redoubt. As Nora inched out cautiously, she became acutely aware of every sense: the cool air rolling up from the darkness of the tower, the hard metal of the flashlight in her hand, the smell of dust and decay from the redoubt.

And the sound of scrabbling claws on wood, growing closer, ever closer.

“Get ready,” she whispered.

She waited a moment, then another, then she snapped on the light.

And there it was below her, terrifyingly close. With an involuntary cry, she took in the petrifying image: musky wolfskin; feral eyes; tortured, howling mask.

“Now!” she cried, even as the roar of the gun drowned out her voice.

In the faint beam, she saw the skinwalker jerk to one side, pelt flying wildly about him.

“Again!” she shouted, fighting to keep the dwindling pinpoint of light on the twisting figure. There was another blast, superimposed by a muffled howl from below. As the light guttered out Nora saw the figure crumple in on itself and fall away, swallowed by the well of darkness.

She dropped the useless flashlight into the gulf and listened. But there was nothing: no groan, no rasping intake of breath. The faint glowing rectangle of doorway far below them betrayed no movement, no twisted shadow.

“Come on!” Sloane said, pulling her back into the redoubt and urging her toward the hole in the ceiling. Grasping the adobe framework, Nora pulled herself up onto the roof. She backed away from the opening as Sloane came up behind, gasping and coughing.

Here, far above the ruins of Quivira, it was cool, with a faint breeze. The dome of the alcove was only a few feet above her head, a rough, fractured surface. Nora stood motionless, exhausted. There was no parapet on the tower; the roof ended in open space. Beyond it, the city lay stretched out below her feet. The moon was struggling to show itself behind an expanse of fast-scudding rainclouds, and there was the whisper of rain. The pale illumination, waxing and waning, gave the roomblocks, towers, and plazas a fleeting spectral glow. Moist air brushed her cheek, stirred her hair. She heard a faint flutter of wings, a low wind in the valley. Somewhere out in that valley lay Smithback’s body.

She turned quickly toward Sloane. The woman was kneeling at the opening in the roof, gun drawn, staring intently downward. Nora came over, and together they waited in tense silence. But no sound or movement came from the darkness below.

At last, Sloane stood and backed away. “It’s over,” she said.

Nora nodded absently, still staring into the dark cavity, her thoughts clouded, her mind troubled.