Shadow on the Sun (10 page)

“
Who are you
?” he gasped.

The man stopped a few paces away.

“
Look
,” he said, and he stretched out his arms.

Corcoran recoiled against the tree, the beginning of a scream strangled in his throat. He stood there for a moment looking at the man with eyes that had lost their sanity. Then his vibrating legs gave way, and he slid down to a half-sitting position on the tree roots, looking up stupidly at the man and what the man was becoming.

When the monstrous shadow fell across him, he tried to scream, but there was no strength in him. Mouth yawning open in
a soundless shriek, he went limp against the tree. He barely heard the inhuman screech that filled his ears.

 

A trembling
Finley pulled up his horse.

He didn't want to enter that glade. A moment before, Corcoran's two horses had come bursting out of it and passed him, their eyes mad with terror. He wanted to turn and follow their frenzied gallop across the meadow. The scream still seemed to ring in his ears—a sound the like of which he had never heard in all his life.

Only after a long while could he force the shuddering mare to enter the glade.

It seemed to be deserted. No tall figure stood there waiting for him; there was no sign of Al Corcoran. Finley sat stiffly on the fidgeting horse, his eyes moving over the silence of the glade.

Then he saw the pieces.

T
hirty
minutes before he saw the low line of Picture City's buildings in the distance, Professor Albert Dodge knew in a flash of angry revelation that he was going back to Connecticut.

He'd had enough, more than enough. Odd that it took this last abortive foray into the hills to make him realize it. God knew the disenchantment had been mounting for at least a year. Perhaps this last, frustrating trip was a disguised blessing.

Under the circumstances, he wasn't sure who was more of an idiot—“Appleface” Kelly or himself for believing Kelly. “Oh, yes, sir, Perfessor. There is sure as hell some broken pots out there, some bones, too.” Dodge could hear the man's assured voice repeated in his memory. “Moron,” he muttered. He'd soon discovered that the pot shards were dry clay formations and the bones leftovers from wild animal kills.

Then it had begun to rain.

Rain? he thought irascibly. More like horseback riding underneath a waterfall. In less than twenty seconds he'd been drenched. No shelter at first. He'd tried to stop beneath the overhang of a piñon tree. That had been a waste of time. After several minutes of that, he'd been forced to move on, the rain alternately coming straight down on top of him or blowing into his face with the violence of buckets of water flung at him by some deranged antagonist.

On top of that, his horse had slipped and fallen.

By the time he'd located the small cave, he was dripping wet and screaming vehement curses at Kelly, the sky, the land, life itself.

The cave helped precious little. He'd crawled into it nonetheless, over still-moist animal droppings and the remains of small, partially devoured creatures he could not identify.

There he had cowered, while the rain poured down, at last falling into a sluggish sleep despite his dread that some wild animal—a coyote, a cougar—might clamber into the cave and attack him. It would have been a fitting conclusion to Kelly's Folly, he thought. To be ripped asunder by some ravenous beast.

All he'd gleaned from this infernal little outing was a fallen horse, a bruised side, a chilled body, and mud-caked clothes where he'd fallen from the horse. He was lucky, he supposed, that he didn't have a broken leg or worse; the damned, skittish animal could have landed square on top of him.

No, he was going back; that was suddenly, definitively settled. Back to Fairfax College if they'd have him. What a fool he'd been to leave there in the first place, and for what? Heat, wind, dust, rain, snow, the company of fools and no archaeological results worth a tinker's damn.

Unless one counted that single, bizarre experience. Dodge shuddered. Would he never be able to shake it from his mind? Well, that was not surprising. He was, as a matter of fact, astounded at himself
for not having left the territory immediately after it had taken place.

Except, of course, that it had taken no more than a month for logic to refute the apparent evidence of his senses. Really, it couldn't have happened as he recalled. Something in the drink the shaman had given him. For protection, the old man had cautioned. Perhaps something in the fire smoke he'd been compelled to inhale throughout the ceremony. Even—it was not inconceivable—that the shaman had placed him into some involuntary state of mental control.

But certainly—
certainly
—he could not have actually seen what he thought he saw.

 

If only
I had a pick, a shovel, Finley had kept thinking.

What he'd been compelled to do was torturous and ghastly. He'd seen victims of Indian raids in the past, seen a village of Apaches slaughtered by the cavalry.

He'd never seen anything remotely like this.

He didn't want to dispose of the pieces but knew he had no choice. If anyone from Picture City—or God forbid from Fort Apache—saw what had happened here, there would be no doubt whatever in their minds that Braided Feather's tribe had violated the treaty with a massacre.

He might not have even known it was Al Corcoran if it hadn't been for the head lying yards distant from the mangled body parts, as though it had been hurled aside in some maniacal rage.

The look on Al Corcoran's blood-streaked face was virtually a duplicate of the one on Little Owl's face—an expression of total, unutterable horror.

Finley had kept his eyes averted as he'd reached down until he felt Al Corcoran's hair. Then gingerly, grimacing, sickened as he
did it, he'd picked up the ripped-off head and carried it back to where the dismembered body lay.

He'd hoped, for several minutes, that the rain had been severe enough to soften the earth so that he could dig a shallow trench with his knife and hands. But scant inches below the muddy surface, the earth was, as always, brick hard, making that impossible.

He'd been forced to gather together the shredded, torn remains and cover them as best he could with large stones and small boulders. Throughout, he'd tried to look at something else, anything else but the hideously butchered leavings of what an hour earlier had been a man.

It was not always possible. Jarring sights kept stinging at his eyes and brain. Corcoran's left hand and wrist dangling purplish veins and arteries. His right arm, the hand clutched into a rigid, white fist. His left leg almost pulled loose. The trunk of his body, chest and belly, ripped apart as though by the claws of a raging bear; his internal organs strewn across the blood-soaked ground.

He tried not to think about what might have done this to Corcoran. He knew only that it wasn't any of Braided Feather's people.

But what it had been was something he could not address at the moment. It was enough to cover over Al Corcoran's torn and mutilated form.

He could not allow himself to visualize what sort of being was capable of such horrible savagery.

 

As Dodge
rode into Picture City, a bitterly ironic memory struck his mind. Him ranting to the Fairfax Board of Governors that archaeology was supposed to be a living science, not some musty, dry-as-bones collection of facts dredged up in classrooms.

“Oh, yes,” he muttered sourly. Well, he'd be happy to return to
musty fact collections just as soon as stagecoach and train could get him back to civilization.

He looked down at himself as the horse clopped slowly toward the hotel. Never had he looked more pitiful. By God, he'd have these damn clothes burned before he left town. But first a bath, sleep, and then a decent meal with copious whiskey as a side dish.

Then—
hallelujah
—to the stagecoach office to reserve a seat on the morning coach to White River and all parts east. Back to genteel, sensible surroundings.

“Amen,” he muttered.

He left the horse at the livery stable. Thank God he'd only rented the use of it. Selling it could take forever.

“Looks like you took a tumble,” the man at the stable said with a grin.

Dodge only grunted and turned away, feeling a slight sense of pleasure that he'd never bothered to learn the man's name.

The journey along the plank walk to the hotel made him wince. His stockings were still damp inside his boots, and his mud-stiffened trousers rubbed against the skin on his legs; the long coat, still wet, weighed him down oppressively.

“So
there
you are, Perfessor,” Harry Vance said as Dodge entered the lobby. “You been out all night?”

“Obviously,” Dodge answered curtly. “My key, please.”

Harry slid the key from its slot and handed it over. “Lots of excitement here this morning,” he said.

“Oh?” Dodge turned for the staircase.

“Yes, sir. Ol' Braided Feather and a passel of his braves come riding in.”

Dodge stopped and looked around. “Why?” he asked.

“Seems they come to see this man,” Harry answered.

“They came in to see a
man
?” Dodge sounded dubious.

“
Some man
though,” Harry said. “Matter o' fact, he come in here last night lookin' for you.”

Dodge felt a slight chill waver through his body. “Me?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Asked for you by name. Weird-lookin' duck he was.”

Dodge swallowed; his throat felt suddenly dry. “Why, what did he look like?” he asked. He felt as though somebody else had asked the question.

“Well, he was powerful tall,” Harry said. “I mean
powerful
tall, mayhaps six foot five inches.”

“Yes?” Dodge asked, barely audible.

“He looked sort of like an Injun, but I don't think he was,” Harry said. “Had a”—he gestured vaguely at his neck—“big . . . thick . . .
scar
around his neck,
all
around it. Awful-lookin' sight.”

No, thought Dodge. He thought he heard a faint voice speak the word aloud in his ears. No, it wasn't possible.

“Told him you wasn't here,” Harry said, wondering about the blank stare on Professor Dodge's face. “He went upstairs anyway. That was peculiar, too. He had mud on his boots and tracked it on the carpet in the upstairs hall. But the tracks, they stopped by the window at the end of the hall. The window was open and the man was gone. We thought maybe he'd gone in your room so we took a look, 'scuse that. He wasn't there though. So he must have jumped from the window. From the second floor though?”

Dodge felt as if he were about to faint. His head felt very light and there was a buzzing in his ears. No, this is wrong, he thought. It wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

“Where—” He coughed weakly. “Where is he now?” he asked. He was appalled at how weak and strained his voice had become.

“Ain't seen him since this morning when the Apaches rode in to see him,” Harry said. “You know who he is?”

His voice trailed off on the last two words of his question because Professor Dodge had turned away and moved abruptly toward the stairs. Doesn't look too steady, Harry thought. He watched the professor start up the steps, holding tightly to the bannister. Was it his imagination or had the blood drained from Dodge's face? He certainly looked disturbed enough. Who
was
that weird duck anyway? He'd have to tell Ethel about this right off.

Dodge heard the thump of his boots on the steps but could barely feel his feet. He seemed to have gone numb all over. He kept shaking his head with tiny, jerking movements. There had to be another explanation for this. It could not possibly be what it seemed.

He twitched in shock as a sob broke in his throat. “No,” he whispered.

He half-ran, half-walked down the hallway, unlocked the door to his room and pushed inside. Closing the door quickly, he relocked it, his hand so palsied by fear that he could barely manage it.

Then he stumbled to the bed and dropped down on it heavily. He felt completely drained of strength. He had not felt such a sense of dread since that night in the shaman's wickiup when . . .

“No!”
He drove a fist down weakly on the bed. It couldn't be! It was impossible!

Impossible.

 

When Finley
got back to town, he left his horse at the livery stable and started toward the hotel. He wanted more than anything to strip away his clothes and take a hot bath, he felt so befouled by what he'd had to do. He could still smell the sickening odor of Al Corcoran's mutilated flesh.

It was when he was taking his key from Harry that he asked offhandedly if Professor Dodge had come back yet.

“Yes, he has,” Harry told him. “Just got back about”—he checked the wall clock—“oh, fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”

“And he's in his room?” Finley asked.

“Far as I know,” Harry answered. “Leastwise, haven't seen him leave.”

“What's the number of his room?” Finley asked.

“Twenny-nine.”

“Thanks,” Finley said, turning away.

The bath would have to wait, he thought. Dodge was the only one who might be able to shed some light on this unnerving situation. He couldn't imagine why that grisly-looking man would want to see Dodge, but at least it was a start—and all he had to go on at the moment.

Reaching the second floor, he walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the door to Room Twenty-nine. He twitched his head a little to the left, thinking he heard a gasp inside the room. Then there was dead silence. He waited for Dodge to open the door.

When nothing happened, he knocked again, a little more loudly.

There was no response. Could Harry have been wrong? he thought. Had Dodge gone out again?