Black Mountain

NINE

Matt Kearns pulled into the Asheville University car park and let the pickup’s engine rumble to silence. He sat in the cabin and inhaled deeply, enjoying the sylvan charm of the green campus, and the bright blue midmorning.

‘Now this is stress relief.’

He pushed open the door, which gave a protesting squeal of hinges crying out for oil, and stepped down from the cabin just as two girls in tight, light blue university T-shirts went past. He afforded them a wide smile and ran his hand up through his shoulder-length hair. ‘Go the Bulldogs,’ he said, and made a bat-swinging motion in the air.

One of the girls giggled and flashed a set of the whitest teeth he’d ever seen outside of a toothpaste commercial. He continued watching them as they disappeared around the corner. Yep, still got it, he thought, as he put both hands on the centre of his back and stretched, breathing in the clear air.

Matt looked around at the campus — some new buildings in amongst the old, but still recognisable. Given its focus on liberal arts, it was hard to call the university traditional — it was more progressive, more… fun. Not academically as rigorous as Harvard, of course, but a different, freer atmosphere. Did anyone not look back on their university days fondly, he wondered.

He smiled. Standing here in the sunshine, he felt an almost physical lightness, as though the warmth and clean air were scouring the dark corners of his soul. It had been several years now since he’d assisted in a joint scientific — military mission below the Antarctic ice. He’d survived, but many hadn’t. His comfortable life had been devastated by the revelation of another world, an ancient place where monsters slithered in the dark and people, people he’d loved, had died horribly. He hadn’t coped well. His relationships fell away, his work suffered. Though Harvard had extended his time off on compassionate grounds, he knew he’d never be able to remain there, trapped by wretched memories. He’d been looking for a fresh start, and when his old linguistics professor had sent him a message telling him he had retired, Matt had asked for his job.

Asheville had jumped at the opportunity — and why not? Matt was a big fish — internationally respected, many papers published, Harvard pedigree, and references from leading public and private officials. Even from senior military figures — though these he’d kept in his top drawer. If he never saw a military uniform again, he’d die happy.

The job had been formally offered, and now he was down here to meet the faculty. Fact was, he needed this job, not for the money, but for his sanity. He suddenly felt like he had a future again.

Ahh. He tilted his head skyward and let the sunshine bathe his face. It had been nearly a dozen years since he’d left Asheville, but the place that held the best memories for him was the centre of the campus universe — the library. Matt sauntered across the quadrangle, his longish hair and boyish looks allowing him to blend smoothly amongst the milling students. The Ramsey Library loomed before him, still able to evoke in him feelings of excitement and anticipation. It was an impressive structure, with square columns giving it an aloof, presidential appearance. Inside it was a different, warmer place, rich with information.

He walked through the front doors and resisted the urge to turn into Cafe Ramsey, still tucked just inside the doorway. As in his day, students sat there sipping coffee, heads down over the books open on their tables. What had changed, though, was that most of them took notes on tablets or computers.

Matt tutted his disappointment when he noticed another change — the automated donut maker had been replaced by an enormous pay coffee machine. That’s progress, he thought.

He continued through to the library, taking a well-remembered path to his favourite hangout — the Research Centre. It was there that his languages professor, Henry van Levin, had imbued in him a sense of wonder at how ancient civilisations could still speak to scholars today through languages that were, in some cases, more works of art than written words. Together they had pored over pencil rubbings of the Rosetta Stone from ancient Egyptian to Classical Greek. He had got to know the Persians via 5000-year-old proto-Elamite scripts, and read fragments of the first Hebrew Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It had ignited a passion in him that had turned into his career. He hoped old van Levin was in today; there was so much he wanted to discuss with him.

As Matt made his way towards the front desk, he saw the familiar dark blue uniform of the police force. Two officers, one large, one small with a bristling moustache, were engaged in a muted but animated conversation with a middle-aged woman, possibly the head librarian. Matt approached with his hands jammed in the back pockets of his jeans, acting casual. He suspected he was invisible amongst the milling students. He leaned on the desk beside them and glanced at several glossy prints the officers had spread on the counter top. Each showed a piece of stone covered in symbols. His interest piqued, he edged closer.

The woman had folded her arms and was shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, Chief Logan, but our language anthropology department these days covers how languages interact rather than their linguistic roots. We haven’t looked at ancient languages for a while, not since Professor van Levin retired.’

That answers the question of whether he’s in today, Matt thought.

The taller officer, Logan, nodded glumly at the woman. ‘Thanks, Ms Steinberger, it was a long shot anyway. Thought we’d try locally before sending it outside for assistance.’ He made to gather up the photos, then stopped. ‘Just one more thing: any ideas on where we could get some answers?’

Matt craned his neck to see over the smaller officer’s shoulder. The officer turned and made a face at Matt. Matt pulled back slightly and made a face back. The policeman muttered something and turned back to the desk, squaring his shoulders to make it difficult for Matt to see. But Matt was at least six inches taller than the officer and by standing on his toes he was able to look over the man’s head.

The officer swung round. ‘Whatta ya think you’re —’

‘Cherokee, possibly Catawba,’ Matt said.

The policemen just stared at him, so he went on. ‘Strange — looks like a mix of the two. Definitely a Native American proto-language, though. Where’d you get them?’

The two policemen and the librarian stood with their eyebrows raised, still staring. Matt pushed past the smaller officer and went to pick up one of the prints. Chief Logan put a large, blunt finger on it to stop him. ‘And who might you be, son?’

Matt stuck a hand out. ‘Matt Kearns, professor of archaeological studies at Harvard University. Well, ex-Harvard. I’ll be taking up a position at Asheville University. I specialise in ancient civilisations and protolinguistics, and that, sir, looks like a museum-quality artifact. May I?’ He stuck out his other hand, palm up.

Chief Logan ignored his outstretched hands and looked into Matt’s eyes. Probably trying to check if he was about to spring a student joke on the local police, Matt thought.

The chief shrugged. ‘Okay, I’ll bite.’ He indicated himself and then the man next to him. ‘I’m Logan and that’s Markenson. What can you tell me about these?’ He briefly shook Matt’s hand, then swivelled the pictures around for him to see.

Matt lifted the prints carefully, squinting at each, and finally going back to the clear image of the stone with the rough figure behind two arrows. ‘I think this predates most of the tribes from around here — the arrow fletch is too simple for it to be Catawba, but maybe very early Cherokee. Ancient, very ancient, even bordering on Paleo-Indian. I’ve only ever seen this type of imagery in cave art, and that was dated to the First People to arrive after the Ice Age — nearly 10,000 years ago.’

Matt squinted again and brought the picture so close to his nose it almost touched the print. ‘The stone itself doesn’t look that old though. My guess is that it’s a reproduction.’

Markenson crowded in. ‘So it’s just a copy?’

Matt kept staring at the photograph. ‘Uh-huh, produced maybe in the twelfth or thirteenth century from an earlier design — you’d need to carbon date the stone for accuracy. You could say it’s a bit like touching up an old painting or sculpture. Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep this warning in place and legible for a very long time — perhaps thousands of years.’

‘It’s a warning?’ Officer Markenson tilted the photo in Matt’s hand so he could look at the image again.

Matt leaned one arm on the officer’s shoulder and pointed to the carvings. ‘There are two things here — a warning, and a protective talisman. See the arrows — one’s pointing left and the other’s pointing right? The one facing right means protection, and the left one is meant to ward off evil. Not sure what the figure behind the arrows is supposed to represent — never come across that form before. Some sort of mega fauna — cave bear maybe, or a spirit totem?’

Markenson shrugged Matt’s arm from his shoulder.

Matt flicked the photograph with his finger. ‘Any more stones? I’m betting this warning is part of a longer narrative — images like this rarely exist as stand-alone glyphs, they’re nearly always part of a detailed chronicle. That’s how the First People handed down their stories through the generations.’

Chief Logan pulled another print from the folder he carried. ‘We’ve got no more pictures of the stones, but what about this?’ He handed the picture to Matt.

Matt looked at the snow-shrouded image and frowned. He picked up the photo of the carved stone and held it close to the new print. The figure’s hulking shape, the long powerful limbs — it was hard not to see the immediate similarities between the carving and the figure in the other photograph.

He looked at Chief Logan, who raised an eyebrow in question.

Matt shrugged and handed back the prints. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

‘You got that right. Anything else you can tell us, Professor Kearns — about the stone or the figure?’

Matt slowly shook his head. ‘No, but I’m around for a while — probably permanently actually. I’d like to see the stone in person, and where it came from. I could probably tell you more about its provenance then, and what its creator was trying to tell us… or warn us about.’ He thought for a second or two. ‘It might have come from some sort of ruins, I suppose, which means there could be other valuable artifacts in the area. But the figure…?’ He shrugged again. ‘Don’t know. Not really my area. Could be a cave bear, as I said, or maybe an ape — but there’s nothing like that in the mega-fauna record. At least, not round here.’

Logan nodded and grunted. The ME had thought the blood trace on the Jordan woman’s glove had come from some kind of great ape. He turned to his partner. ‘Markenson, you checked on the Kringle Brothers’ circus, didn’t you?’

The smaller officer shrugged. ‘Sure, nothing really relevant. All they got is some mangy chimpanzee that’s older than Methuselah and has to have his bananas mashed ’cause he’s got no teeth.’

Logan nodded, then looked back at Matt as though considering something. He sucked in one cheek and made a clicking sound with his tongue. He turned to the doorway.

‘Chief Logan?’

Logan turned back to Matt and raised an eyebrow.

‘That strange figure in the photographs… it looks familiar to me, but it’s not my field. I deal in languages and ancient civilisations. But I do know someone who could help us out. I could make a call, maybe get him up here to identify it. Might give you a lead.’

Chief Logan stared at him, but Matt could tell his focus was elsewhere. He shook his head slowly. ‘Don’t really have any budget for that, Professor Kearns.’

‘We’ll do it for a round of beers,’ Matt said, surprising himself with his determination to help.

Markenson took a step towards Matt and waved his hand back and forth in front of his face. ‘Not a chance.’

Logan grasped his officer’s shoulder and pulled him back. There was a weariness in his voice when he spoke. ‘Professor Kearns, I’ve got a man lost on the mountain, a woman zoned out in hospital, a lion on the loose and a small child missing. Not to mention weird shit going on all over town. Right about now, we’ll take all the expert help we can get.’

‘We don’t need civvies in on this, Chief,’ Markenson protested. ‘They’ll just —’

‘You got it, Chief Logan,’ Matt cut in, and reached over the top of Markenson’s shoulder to shake Logan’s hand.

They swapped contact details, then the large police chief guided his still remonstrating officer out of the building. Matt thought of the chief’s words, weird shit going on. He stopped dead. What am I doing? He felt a chill of fear go through him. Memories threatened to overwhelm him. He shook his head. No, he thought. It is time to live my life again. He headed out of the library.

He knew exactly what he was doing. He loved mysteries, especially those from ancient times. This would be an exciting professional challenge. And he knew someone else who would dig this job just as much as he did.

Matt grinned. ‘Is that the best brown-butter pecan you’ve ever tasted?’

In response, Charles picked up his empty plate and made a show of licking it. His tongue made a squeaking sound as it ringed the plate. An old woman at the next table clicked her tongue in disgust. Matt turned to her and whispered, ‘Just out of prison.’

‘So this is where you’re running away to?’ Charles said. ‘Not bad. Anything interesting going in anthro for me?’

Charles Schroder was professor of physical anthropology at Harvard and one of the few friends Matt had managed to hang on to after the Antarctic experience. Short, with a round face and thinning blond hair, Charles had been nicknamed ‘Charlie Brown’ in school, not helped by the fact that his surname, Schroder, was also the name of one of the comic book character’s friends.

He looked at the folder Matt had brought with him and became more serious. ‘So, what have you got for me, Kook? Why all the excitement?’

‘Charlie, this is such a cool town. As well as looking like something out of a postcard and having the best pie in the state, it’s given us this…’ He flipped open the folder and spread out the pictures Logan had emailed him like playing cards in front of his friend. Then he removed a sheet of typed paper and placed it face down on the table.

Charles studied the pictures individually, then came back to the hulking figure in the snow.

Matt leaned forward ‘It’s not a bear, is it?’ He was trying hard not to pre-empt anything or put ideas in his colleague’s mind.

‘Duh… maybe a man in a bear suit? C’mon, Matt, this is a hoax. Where’d you get these? From some teenager? Or maybe a middle-aged farmer who reported he’d been abducted by aliens and probed — and I bet you know where.’ Charles laughed.

Matt raised his eyebrows. ‘From a woman who’s now in hospital in, so I’m told, a terror-induced catatonic state. Her husband is missing up on the mountain.’ He turned the sheet of paper over. ‘She had blood on her glove — not hers, not anyone’s really. The lab only managed to come up with an approximate match…’ He waved his hand over the page, indicating that his friend should read it for himself.

Charles read the ME’s report, then frowned. He retrieved the photograph of the snow-shrouded figure and this time drew a magnifying glass from his pocket and studied every inch of the print. He pursed his lips and put down the magnifying glass to sip some coffee, then picked it up again and returned to his examination, this time reciting soft observations.

‘Hominid. Long arm-to-leg ratio, broad chest, short lower back, flat face, large domed cranium with bony ridge above forward-facing eye sockets providing stereoscopic vision.’ He drew back a bit from the print and squinted. ‘Hmm, prominent pectoral girdle and dorsal scapula, powerful ribcage that looks flatter front to back.’ He lowered the print, but held onto it. ‘And a Medical Examiner’s report that indicates a genetic match to some type of unknown primate. Okaaay, what is this?’

Matt brought his fist down on the table. ‘That’s exactly the right question — what the hell is it? But I think you know.’

‘Maybe.’ Charles frowned at the print again.

Matt leaned across the table. ‘C’mon, buddy, say it.’

‘No.’ Charles dropped the print and put his head in his hands. ‘No, I won’t, I can’t, they’ll burn me.’

Matt grabbed his friend’s arms and chanted, ‘Say it, say it… c’mon, you can do it.’

The woman at the next table clicked her tongue at them again.

Matt turned to her. ‘It’s for his therapy — the doctor says it’s good for him.’

Charles groaned and said something too softly to hear. Matt stopped shaking his arms but held on. ‘Louder, Charlie Brown; say it out loud.’

‘Momo, Nuk-luk, Mogollon, Skunk Ape, Fouke Creature, Old Great One…’ He looked up as his speech slowed. ‘Sasquatch… Bigfoot.’

Matt let his arms go. ‘And… bingo!’

Charles sighed and sat back. ‘Matt, I think you need someone a little more like my uncle, someone who likes to dabble in the exotic.’

‘Oh right, your uncle who went missing in Southern China around 1935? That’s a big help. Listen, Charles, I think there’s something weird going on up in those mountains. I’ve been doing some research on the history of the area. There’s a Native American legend about a place called the Jocassee Gorge — dates back to 1539, when the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto documented some Southern Cherokee picture-script. Jocassee was supposed to be the daughter of a great chief. On hearing that the young warrior she was in love with had been killed in battle, she paddled out into the centre of the Whitewater River. The legend goes that she didn’t drown, just disappeared, and the gorge became known as the Place of the Lost Ones.’

An old man sitting at a nearby table moved his head slightly. His face was turned away, but one large rubbery ear was pointed at Matt and Charles.

Matt pulled a pen from his pocket and grabbed a napkin. He drew two sets of symbols on it and turned the napkin around for Charles to see. ‘But… look at this.’

Charles stared at them for a moment, then looked up and shrugged. ‘Same.’

‘Almost the same, Charlie Brown, except for these small wavy lines and some extra shading. The first is the Cherokee symbol for lost, but the other symbol’s much older — it translates as great, in the sense of size. I’ve seen the de Soto transcripts, and I think he got it wrong. I believe the legend was referring to something a lot older than the missing chief’s daughter. I don’t think the script referred to the “Lost Ones” but the “Great Ones” — as in a race that was great in size.’ Matt threw the pen onto the table and sat back folding his arms. ‘Charles, we have got to check this out.’

Charles mimicked Matt’s actions, an I’m-not-convinced-yet half-smile on his face. ‘Matt, I’m delighted to see that something has finally fired you up again, but what I see here is a partially obscured simian or protosimian shape. It could be a dozen things, and all you’ve got to support your theory is a carving and a photograph — and a bad one at that — of a man-shaped thing that could have come straight from the file of Sasquatch sightings that gets a run once a year on the Discovery Channel. If we’re not careful, we’ll end up driving into a wall that has ridicule and bye-bye career written all over it.’

Matt knew he had his friend hooked the moment Charles started using the word ‘we’. He laughed and shook his head. ‘Not a chance — I’m way too good a driver. Hey, we’re just doing a little consulting for the local police force. Where’s the harm in that? And you’re probably right — it’s probably nothing more than some overdressed camper lost in the snow.’ Matt paused for dramatic effect. ‘But then again, it might not be. After all, the Native Americans have numerous legends that refer to the Big Man, the Hairy Man or the Big Brother of the Forest. The Cherokee, Dakota, Sioux, Algonquin and dozens of others had stories about the Chiye-tanka long before white men showed up. Even the word Sasquatch is from a near-extinct First Nation language called Halkomelem — it means hairy giant.’

The old man turned to look at Matt and Charles, then turned back to his empty plate. Matt noticed his rising voice was attracting attention so he sat forward to speak more conspiratorially.

‘You know, Charles, little people were just legends, or make-believe, until they discovered the hobbit in Indonesia.’

Charles was staring down at the table top, seemingly lost in thought. ‘Homo floresiensis,’ he said softly, ‘found in the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. A magnificent find, and one that proves some legends are real.’ He looked up at Matt and narrowed his eyes. ‘You said consulting… they’d pay us as well?’

Matt just jiggled his eyebrows.

Charles’s mouth split open in a broad grin. ‘Okay, buddy, I’m in.’

The old man rose from his seat as soon as the two younger men left the cafe. His thick, slicked-down white hair and faded light blue chambray shirt seemed to glow under the neon lights as he stepped lightly to their table. The perfectly pressed shirt, fastened up to the neck, hung on a frame reduced to sinew and brown leather over the man’s nearly ninety years. He placed one brown, wrinkled hand on the napkin, turning it slightly to study the symbols the long-haired young man had drawn. He mouthed the Lakota word he had heard the man use, Chiye-tanka, then crushed the napkin and pushed it into his pocket.

He left the cafe and followed the two men along the dark street.