Fatalis

Chapter Nineteen

Grand had spent several hours going through the computer files, books, magazines, and Web sites looking through Chumash art. Every time he found an image of an animal he enlarged and enhanced it.

Grand didn't find what he was looking for and at three-thirty in the morning he finally gave up and went to bed. He would start again when he was fresh. Or at least fresher. He was so far behind on sleep that it would take a week of doing nothing just to get back to normal.

Fluffy followed him to the bedroom. The Lab hopped onto the foot of the bed, circled his spot twice, then literally fell across the quilt. Grand envied the dog, who was asleep within seconds. The Chumash had had that right too. Animals were superior to humans in many ways. More efficient, certainly.

The scientist pulled off his sweatclothes and slipped under the covers. Grand sat there, his back against the headboard. He looked at the dog.

"We make a good team, Fluff," he said.

Fluffy's head rose an inch.

"You come up with good ideas and I do the legwork," Grand said. "I only wish I knew which one of us screwed up tonight."

Fluffy continued to look back at him, patiently and politely.

"I still like the idea," Grand said, "so it must've been me who screwed up. We'll try and figure this out tomorrow. Right now, sleep."

Fluffy agreed and laid his head down. Grand stretched out too, sliding his tired, swollen feet under the dog. He'd done a lot of climbing and it was good to give them a rest.

He lay there and thought about the idea. It was sound. What he'd seen tonight when he looked at Fluffy was something that a Chumash shaman would have seen and pondered and might have painted.

The fact that Grand hadn't found any precedent didn't discourage him. Perhaps if he could figure out whether the images in the passageway related to the paintings of the mountains-

Later, he told himself, looking over at the clock. Do this later.

Grand shut off the light, punched up the pillow, and settled his head in the middle. He closed his eyes. The rain was stopping. The night was still.

He wasn't going to have any trouble sleeping tonight. It had been a long day but a challenging and also rewarding one. If nothing else, he'd reconnected with Tumamait. It was a tentative step but one he'd needed for a long time. And he had a mystery to solve. Because of that, because his passion had somewhere else to go, his thoughts of Rebecca were dreamy rather than sad. He saw Rebecca sitting at the dining room table on her day off, catching up on newspapers, journals, and correspondence. He could still smell the sweetness of her neck, feel her under the pink terrycloth robe. He could smell the Kona coffee she loved, taste the melted butter of an English muffin on her lips. He smiled as he remembered a song she once improvised to get him away from his computer late one night. She had called it "Chumash," a love song about a man and his art, and she sang it to the tune of the old Association song "Cherish."

Rebecca was so alive in his mind and senses. How could he want to send her spirit away? If he did, then he'd lose these precious moments along with the bad memories.

Or would he? Wasn't there a place he could keep the happy times and still allow her spirit to rest, let himself get on with the business of living?

After a few minutes Grand was too tired to focus on the things Tumamait had said. Consciousness grew heavy and black. But before he surrendered it entirely, the images from the lower cave came back vividly, like the last, memorable bangs of a fireworks display.

Grand cracked his tired eyes. He didn't see how he could be wrong. He had seen the images from the cave in his living room.

The desk lamp gleaming in Fluffy's eyes. A pair of white crescents, side by side.

Grand shut his eyes again. He wondered where a Chumash shaman might have seen those same images. In what animal and under what circumstances? By sunlight? Moonlight? Firelight? And why would he have painted them in that passageway? Had that cave been inhabited by wolves or bears at some point in the past? Did the Chumash believe that one of their gods lived below? Did they think that this was the entrance to C'oyinashup, the lower world?

And if they did, were they right?

It was the last thought Grand had before surrendering to sleep.