Ancient Shores

14

Walhalla, Cavalier, and Fort Moxie, like prairie towns across the Dakotas, are social units of a type probably limited to climatically harsh regions. They are composed of people who have united in the face of extreme isolation, who understand that going abroad in winter without checking the weather report can be fatal, who have acquired a common pride in their ability to hold crime and drugs at arm’s length. From Fort Moxie, the nearest mall is eighty miles away, and the nearest pharmacy is in Canada. The closest movie theater is within a half-hour, but it’s open only on weekends, and not even then during the hunting season. Consequently these communities have developed many of the characteristics of extended families.

Mel Hotchkiss was sitting in the kitchen of his home on the outskirts of Walhalla half-listening to the Snowhawk and enjoying his customary bedtime snack, which on this occasion was cherry pie. He was just pouring a second cup of coffee when she conducted her exchange with the unfamiliar voice. Something untoward was obviously happening. He put the pot down, intending to walk over to the window and look out toward Johnson’s Ridge, when Little Ghost delivered the remark that galvanized the area: Son of a bitch, I hope it’s not radioactive.

An eerie green glow did hang over the top of the promontory.

Ten minutes later, having paused only to call his brother and a friend, Mel, his wife, his three daughters, and their dog were in their pickup with a couple of suitcases, headed west out of town.

Within an hour the population was in full flight. Beneath the baleful light atop the escarpment, they loaded kids, pets, jewelry, and computers and took off. Those few who, out of principle, refused to believe in anything having to do with astrology, numerology, crop circles, or UFOs were nevertheless bullied into leaving their warm homes by frightened spouses and well-meaning teenagers. They headed southwest toward Langdon, east to Fort Moxie, and north to the border, where the closed port was defended only by warning signs and highway cones. But nobody planned on stopping for international niceties, and the flood rolled into Canada.

State police flew in a Geiger counter and by about one-thirty in the morning pronounced the area safe. Radio and TV stations broadcast the news, but by then it was too late. The town lay effectively deserted, and its roads were littered with wrecked and abandoned vehicles.

April, John Little Ghost, and the Snowhawk listened to the reports and watched the long lines of headlights moving away on the two-lane roads with a growing sense of horror.

Fortunately, nobody died.

There had been three fires and a half-dozen heart attacks. Several men had intercepted Jimmy Pachman as he was trying to get out of his driveway and forced him to open his gas station. The men paid for the gas, but Pachman claimed he’d been kidnapped. Police, fire, and medical facilities had been strained to the limit and would announce before the end of the week sweeping reviews of their procedures. The City of Walhalla spent nine thousand dollars to rent equipment and pay for overtime out of its perennially hard-pressed treasury. And there was talk of lynching some of the people on Johnson’s Ridge.

Max found out over breakfast. It was, he decided, the same effect that had lit up the boat in Tom Lasker’s barn and scared the bejesus out of Ginny. Except this time it was on a wider scale. This time there would be lawsuits.

He left his bacon and eggs, called the security station to talk to Adam, and got April. “It has not been a good night,” she said.

“I don’t guess.” Max took a deep breath. “I’m on my way.”

He passed several wrecks along the highway.

Police helicopters roared overhead.

At the turnoff to the access road, a man in a Toyota was arguing with the cop on duty. The cop spotted Max, rolled his eyes, and waved him around. This action infuriated the driver of the Toyota.

Max took his time going up, noting the large piles of snow on either side where the plow had gone through. At the crest he passed one of the Sioux security people. This was the topside traffic coordinator, looking cold, carrying a radio in one hand, waving Max on.

The 8:00 A.M. shift had arrived and begun removing the tarps. Max took a long look at the Roundhouse. In direct sunlight it was hard to see whether it was putting out any illumination of its own. He stopped the car in his accustomed place and sat holding one hand over his eyes, trying to get a good look.

“It faded with the dawn,” April told him a few minutes later.

“Just like the boat.”

“Yes. Except that this time it wasn’t just a set of running lights that came on. The entire building lit up.” They’d taped the early-morning news shows. April ran one of them for him. The segment included views from an aircraft. The top of the ridge glowed softly.

“More like phosphorous than electricity,” he said.

“That’s what we thought.” She sipped coffee. Outside, they heard a few cheers.

Max looked through the window but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Any reaction yet from the city fathers in Walhalla?” he asked.

“Reaction? What do you mean?”

He sighed. “I think we threw a scare into the town last night. They are probably not happy with us.”

She smiled. “Max, nobody’s dead. Although I’m going to see that Adam grounds the Snowhawk. We don’t need any more live broadcasts up here. At least not by our own people.”

“The who?”

“Andrea Hawk. One of the Sioux security people.” She explained how the incident had begun.

“Well,” said Max, “maybe we can ride it out. Chances are that before this is over, Walhalla will have an NBA franchise.”

The phone rang. April picked it up, listened, frowned. “You’re kidding.” She listened again. “Who?” She gave Max a thumbs up. “We’re on our way.”

“What?” asked Max.

“We’re inside,” she said.

While the main effort was being made in front, one of the security people had got through a door near the rear. At the stag’s head.

A crowd had already formed. At its center stood the man of the hour. “Well done, George,” said Adam Sky, who arrived simultaneously with Max.

The man of the hour was George Freewater, a young Sioux with an easy smile. But Max saw no entrance. Tom Lasker came around the curve of the building from the other direction.

Freewater, standing beside the stag’s head, beamed at them. Then, almost casually, he extended his right hand, tugged his glove tight the way a ballplayer might, and touched the wall. Directly over the muzzle.

The stag’s head rode up and uncovered a passageway. The crowd applauded. They also backed away slightly.

The passageway had neither windows nor doors, and it was short: After about twenty feet it dead-ended. There were no features of any kind, save for a half-dozen rectangular plates about the size of light-switch covers. These were mounted on the walls waist high, three on a side.

April made for the opening, but Freewater grabbed her sleeve. “Let me show you something first.”

“Okay. What?”

“Watch.”

Voices in back demanded to know what was happening. Someone was trying to identify herself as UPI.

Without warning, the door came back down. No seam or evidence remained that it had ever been there.

“What happened?” asked April.

Freewater was looking at his watch. “It stays up for twenty-six seconds,” he said.

“Thanks, George,” April said. She pressed the stag’s muzzle.

The door didn’t move.

She looked at Max. “What’s wrong?”

Freewater ostentatiously removed one of his gloves. It was black and quite ordinary. “Try it with this,” he said.

April frowned, pulled off the mitten she was wearing, and put on the black glove. “Does it really make a difference?” she asked.

The smile was all the answer she needed. She touched the wall, and the passageway reappeared.

“I’ll be damned,” said Lasker.

Max noticed a wave of warm air at the opening. The interior was heated.

April compared the glove with her mitten. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Freewater didn’t know. “It only works,” he said, “if someone is wearing my glove.”

“How could that be?” asked Max.

“Don’t know,” continued the guard. “Bare hands won’t do it, either.”

“Odd.” April looked down the passageway and then again at the glove. “George, if you don’t mind, I’m going to hang onto it for a few minutes.” She stuffed it into a pocket and looked at Max. “You ready?”

“To do what?”

“Go inside.”

Max’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding?” he said. “We could get sealed in there.”

“I’d like to go,” said Freewater.

“No. No one else. I’ll feel better if you’re out here to open the door if we can’t do it from the inside. I assume both gloves work?”

They tested the other one, and it did. “Give us five minutes,” April said. “If we’re not out, open up.”

“April,” said Max, “you know how the Venus flytrap works?”

She smiled at Max as if he were kidding and stepped into the passageway. Max hesitated, felt everyone’s eyes on him. And followed.

The space was barely six feet high, maybe four across. It was too small, almost claustrophobic. The walls were off-white and so thick with dust it was hard to make out their composition. Dirt covered the floor.

“We’re getting heat from somewhere,” said April. She held out her hands to detect air currents.

Max was looking for a door opener. The only thing he saw that offered itself as a candidate was the series of six plates. Two pairs were directly across from each other. The fifth and sixth seemed positioned near either end of the passageway. He fixed the one closest to the entrance in his mind so he could find it when the door closed and they lost their light.

April ran her palms across the wall and then wiped the dust from them. “Heat seems to be coming from everywhere,” she said.

The door started down. Max resisted an urge to duck under it while he could, and watched it shut.

The lights did not go out. A gray band running horizontally across the back of the door gave them enough illumination to see by. When Max wiped his sleeve on the band, it brightened, and in a moment he was looking through it at the people on the other side. “It’s transparent,” he said.

April grinned. “Okay,” she said. She also had been studying the wall plates. She approached the one at the far end of the corridor and put on Freewater’s glove. “You ready, Max?”

“Do it.”

She inhaled. “It’s one small step for a woman….” She touched the plate. Pushed it.

Something clicked in the wall. A door opened up directly in front of her. They were looking into a rotunda. “Yes,” breathed April. She stepped inside.

The light was gray and bleak. Just enough to see by.

“This is it,” she said. “Main stage.”

It was empty. A few columns reached up to connect with a network of overhead beams. And that was all. A trench ran from the middle of the floor toward the other side of the dome, which would have been the front.

The door slid down.

He felt a momentary twinge until he saw a plate identical to the ones outside.

“That’s our channel,” said April, indicating the trench. “Boat came in through the front, tied up right here.” There were even a few posts that would have served the purpose.

It was getting hard to breathe. “Heads up,” Max said. “The air’s bad.” How could it have been otherwise?

They propped the doors open and used a couple of blowers to circulate fresh air inside. When they felt it was safe, they opened it up for their people and for the journalists.

The trench was about fifteen feet deep. The dimensions were sufficient to accommodate the boat. They’d have had to fold the mainmast over to get it inside. But it would have worked.

Four rooms opened off the passageway. Two might once have been apartments or storage areas but were now simply bare spaces. The others contained cabinets and plumbing. The cabinets were empty. A sunken tub and a drainage unit not unlike the device on the ketch suggested one had been a washroom. The other appeared to be a kitchen.

Max noticed almost immediately a sense of anticlimax and disappointment. April especially seemed down. “What did we expect?” he asked.

It was just empty.

No interstellar cruiser. No ancient records. No prehistoric computers. No gadgets.

Nothing.