The Madness of Cthulhu Anthology (Volume One): 1 (13 page)

We visited a couple of other promising outcrops, one of which turned up a jaw with diminutive crenated teeth reminiscent of the
Iguanodon
.

After our supper Ashley drew our attention to an unusual halo about the moon (three nights past full) which shone almost red as blood and which greatly piqued Profeßor M.’s curiosity who suggested it might portend a coming dust storm. Reed would not look upon or speak of it.

June 6th:
I am pleased to report Marsh has decided to remain with us a few days more before returning to the eastern states. We returned to the new discovery which is probably of a
Laosaurus.
Three fir trees grow in an isolated clump near to the site and so we have christened the spot “Three Trees Quarry.” The wind was blowing hard—seeming to confirm the Profeßor’s suspicions—and with every blow of the pick the gusts blinded up with dust and grit. But we managed to unearth a fine femur and some other bones before returning to camp. Reed’s demeanour is beginning to gnaw at my nerves and I daresay those of all of us.

June 7th:
Weather windy as yesterday. It blew so hard and the dust was so intolerable we were forced to make a short day of it, much to Profeßor M.’s disappointment. Men washed their clothes back at camp. News has come to us of a great strike and attendant excitement at the North Park Mines and Reed has spoken of travelling there rather than staying on with us, talk which rightfully has angered Marsh.

June 9th:
Reed’s thirty-first birthday. I did a small coloured sketch of the lake and its surrounding painted bluffs to place above his cabinet of foßils back in Nebraska honouring his finds, the hardships he has faced, and his diligence. I will be the first to say Bill Reed is as fine an instance of the fact that education is hardly confined to those who have attended university but much is learnt by sharp wits put to the service of keen observation.

Which makes all the odder his continuing insistence that Marsh’s artefact from Quarry No. 4 poses some unspoken threat to our party. He has actually gone as far as offering to purchase it that it might be returned by his hand to the spot where it was discovered. He talks increasingly in riddles that I find unsettling and Profeßor M. is adopting a decidedly belligerent attitude toward him for which I cannot fault our employer.

We returned to the diggings containing the curious little
Laosaurus
dinosaur. Its bones are hollow, and its appearance in life must have been akin to a kangaroo though with a disproportionately small and lizard-like skull. Its claws measure a good inch, and Marsh thinks it to have been ten feet in length.

Our labours were once more very unpleasant, as the gale of wind was blowing, blowing dust in blinding clouds as quickly as we exposed the bones. It lifted airborne also particles of dry clay besides our papers, books, and packing materials, all being constantly spirited away so that we wasted much time in chasing them about the sandstone bluffs. Notwithstanding we stubbornly persisted tooth and nail and were rewarded by exposing a lot of bones. I sketched the bones
in situ
, but only with great difficulty, the wind nearly ripping my [sketch]book from my hands and constantly blinding me with dust. Left early for camp, finally having had enough. Reed worked hard but muttered inceßantly about both North Park and the artefact and the storm’s being a portent of some sort. I fear for his sanity, and perhaps it would be best if he moved on.

June 10th:
Despite continuing dust storm, returned to Three Trees and found more bones. Reed returned to camp in advance of the rest of us. When I suggested he might attempt to steal the Profeßor’s artefact, Marsh took it from his pocket, aßuring me that was quite unlikely.

We all returned to camp about noon as heavy clouds loomed up over the south. The clouds loosed hailstones the size of bantam eggs, and yet through it all the dust blew. The heavy clouds rang with thunder and there were constant flashes of lightning in the sky, but no rain. The thunder and rushy noise of the hail brought with them an even greater sense of deep solitude than we have become accustomed to. I found Reed in the tent quite near tears, and he received a smart upbraiding from Profeßor M. They argued after I removed myself to the shelter of one of the wagons.

At sunset the storm at last abated taking with it the dust (finally!). Before supper I killed a large jackrabbit with a stone but it was stunted and somehow disquieting to look upon. I wisely did not allow Reed to see it, as its eyes had the same oily sheen as the water flooding the now abandoned No. 3. I did not dreß it, for we immediately judged it unfit for eating. Even with this grim event, I was greatly relieved at the storm’s departure and a peaceful night free of the howling wind.

June 11th:
An extraordinary and uncanny occurrence was last evening visited upon the camp—seeming to bear out in the worst poßible ways Reed’s anxieties—and has left the party in a state of disarray. Profeßor M. has departed for Como station and vowed never to speak on this matter. Also asked the same of us, and I am certain he would not be pleased were he to learn I am setting the event down, though I do so only for the purposes of my own memory. What was witneßed, for all its horror, I cannot wish to forget as it hints at a world even more distant and ultimately impervious to our understanding than the bygone ages and their fauna hinted at by our diggings.

As the weather grew leß inclement, we departed in the early morning at half past five o’clock for the
Laosaurus
site. Reed did not accompany us, complaining of a headache and begging off. But Marsh and Ashley and I paßed the morning excavating and were rewarded with an ilium and most of the beast’s tail. The sun was bright and the sky clear without any clouds in view. After our lunch however there came a clamour from the direction of the lake almost identical to that cacophony heard at Como by Reed and me on the afternoon of the 27th. We had only just returned to work removing a layer of hard clay we hoped would reveal additional bones of the Dinosaur, when the booming cry split the air and I would say almost seemed to rend it apart. We all stopped our work and sat stock still, listening should the sound recur. I will confeß there were goose bumps on my arms and the small hairs upon the nape of my neck had stood up at the booming. Marsh stared easterly, the direction from which the sound had seemed to emanate and Ashley sat staring at his boots. After some minutes Marsh turned toward me and he was clearly unsettled. He asked if I knew the source of the booming, and at once I told him I did not but reported we had heard it on the one other occasion. He sat rubbing his beard muttering to himself for several minutes before we got back to work—though we no longer were poßeßed of our former enthusiasm and returned to camp quite early, having exposed no more bones of the
Iguanodon
-like creature.

In camp we found Reed engaged in an argument with Carlin and the cook. The latter we learned had been plucking several sage hens [
Centrocercus urophasianus
] for our supper, fine cock birds. I have mentioned already that some in the camp are not fond of the fowl partly from prejudice and partly on account of its strong sage-like flavor. However Reed was all in a rage not over those early objections but was raving all the while swinging one of the partially plucked birds about by its broken neck. It was a sight. All the while—though Carlin tried his best to calm him—Reed shouted that all the game hereabouts has become poisonous and how we must confine our meals only to dry goods and canned foodstuffs. As we joined Carlin in attempting to urge Reed to simmer down the head of the sage hen parted company with its body and the corpse went sailing away into one of the tents. I saw then that indeed the bird’s blood was afflicted with the same unwholesome sheen I’d noticed in the eyes of the jackrabbit. Straightaway we agreed with Reed and this at last eased his distreß to a degree, though not entirely. Profeßor M. instructed the cook to dispose of the sage hens and to bury them well away from camp. Reed disappeared and spent the next hour or so alone in his tent while Carlin, Ashley, Marsh, and I mulled over the poßible source of the contamination, at last agreeing it must originate from some mineral impregnating the local water table, first witneßed when Reed struck the spring that flooded Quarry No. 3 more than two weeks ago now. It was resolved that we must unfortunately—as Reed had advised—cease relying on the plentiful elk, black-tailed deer, grouse, &c. and send a man post haste to Medicine Bow for extra supplies. Here it was that Marsh announced his plans to leave us the next day, and I can hardly say I was surprised.

I spoke of the events which followed sunset as extraordinary and uncanny, but it would be more truthful to refer to them as
inexplicable
as I cannot imagine science shall ever discover an explanation for them.

After sunset and our supper we were sitting about the fire having a second cup of coffee. We did not resign ourselves to the disagreeable prospect of a dry meal, in spite of our misgivings about the water though perhaps we should have. No one detected any unusual flavour. Reed had joined us, but sat a little ways apart with his rifle acroß his knee as the rest of us talked (he had refused the coffee). Our conversation was largely of the Profeßor’s imminent return to the East, but also on the
Laosaurus
as well as the prospects of finding more remains of primitive mammals. Also talk of cavalry movements and Indian troubles. It should be said Profeßor M. has a great sympathy for the natives regardleß of the dangers they have posed to his collectors.

Our second pot of coffee finished, Ashley retired to bed. Carlin produced his Jew’s harp which has so often provided us with a small measure of entertainment and he played a number of tunes as the silence of night stole over the camp. Reed was first to note the absence of the usual nocturnal noise from coyotes & owls & such other nocturnal birds as we have become accustomed to. Carlin stopped playing and it was plain that Reed was in fact correct. There was not even a breath of wind to stir the graß or the canvas of our tents and wagons. It was an eerie silence and disconcerting after the strangeneß of the day.

I think none were in the least surprised when Reed again pleaded with Marsh to divest himself of the artefact and they argued over the thing. The Profeßor remained adamant in his determination to see the admittedly hideous object safe in the Yale collections. I could not fault him over his insistence that so peculiar a find ought be studied and conserved. But Reed cursed and spat into the fire, which I think we all understood as good as his spitting on Marsh himself, and then Reed went to stand muttering at the furthermost reach of the firelight.

At this point Carlin pointed to the sky but before he could tell us why and before we could ask him, Reed raised his gun and fired two shots into the darkneß, hollering loudly at something he had apparently seen but which still remained hidden to the rest of us. In an instant we were all on our feet and I had drawn my Colt revolver in anticipation of what I aßumed was an imminent attack on the camp either by an animal or by redskins or bandits.

This is when the woman stepped out of the darkneß, or it seemed more that the night parted like a theatre curtain to reveal her. Reed lowered his rifle and stepped back, putting distance between her and him. I call her a woman but in truth I readily acknowledge this to be only an approximation, the best word I know to describe what stood before us. Certainly no other description would come any closer to the truth of it. So I will say “her” and “she” and “the woman” and be satisfied with that as I may be. She stepped out of the darkneß, taking only one step toward us. Her movement was as slow and smooth and graceful as a lion bracing itself to pounce upon its prey, which is not to say she struck me as poised to attack, because this was certainly not the impreßion I had. There were in that moment and surrounding her many
contradictory
impreßions and I am at a loß to explain many of the feelings she inspired in me. Afterwards—though we did not talk a great deal about her or the events that were about to unfold—I got the notion my companions felt very much the same.

There she stood before us, and her skin and hair were as white as a fresh snowfall. No blemish sullied that whiteneß and I swear it almost burned my eyes to gaze upon. Her own eyes were a bright blue and shone as if imbued with an inner light, as though perhaps an inferno had been stoked within her skull. She was obviously no Indian, not even an albino individual of that race. Her arms and legs were disproportionately long, relative to her body, so that she must have stood a good seven and a half or even eight feet tall, much taller than any of us. Indeed the lankineß of her arms and legs gave her a faintly insectile semblance. She was both grotesque and unspeakably beautiful, wraithlike as anything ever dreamt up by Mr. Poe and still glorious as an Olympian goddeß, as are so many aspects of Nature. Yet nothing I’d ever seen in all my explorations and studies had prepared me for the sight of her. She wore not a stitch of clothing, and was hairleß save that on her scalp. Still I will say that I felt not the least bit of carnal excitement, for the sight of her was far to [
sic
] strange to permit such arousal.

Profeßor Marsh called out to her, his voice quavering somewhat. I had never before heard him shaken, but it was clearly the case that he was now shaken. The woman tilted her face to one side as if regarding him with an intense curiosity. He called out to her again, but she made no reply and I suspected she either did not speak English or might be a mute, even deaf and dumb.

And then I happened to glance upwards, recalling how Carlin had pointed heavenward immediately prior to her arrival (though I wondered if poßibly she’d been standing just out of reach of the firelight for sometime). I saw what he had seen, and by God I do wish I had not. Towering above her, even as a cottonwood tree will tower above a pebble—such was the scale—was some indistinct
shadow
that blotted out any evidence of the stars. She had approached from the south, and in that direction it was as if—I dare
write
this down only because I mean these pages never to be read by any man—as if a titanic form stood, blotting out both the stars and moon. It was not clouds, as only seconds before I am sure the stars had shone brightly in a clear summer sky. Later, in our hasty discußion, we did all reluctantly agree on this fact. It was one of the very few we did agree upon. The enormity of that eclipsing shape was almost beyond comprehension and as I stared at it, I could discern the faintest of silhouettes, and also saw that it shifted the slightest bit to and fro, not unlike a man shifting from one foot to the other. Before my eyes were drawn back to the woman, I wondered how such an abomination could move without drawing from the very earth beneath our feet temblor waves to shame even the most terrible ocean tempest.