Fantastic Stories Presents the Fantastic Universe Super Pack #3. Fredric Brown
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George Arthbut and Sidney Hunt were both out of New York, on the staff of the Natural History Museum. George was an ethnologist who specialized in what could be reconstructed about the prehistoric Indians of North America, with emphasis on those of the Southwest. He was a tall, lean, gracious bald man in his early sixties.
Sidney was an archeologist who was fascinated by the ruins of the same kind of ancient Indians. Medium-sized, with black hair that belied his sixty-five years, he and George made an excellent team, being the leaders in their field.
They had come west on a particular bit of business this spring, trying to solve the largest question that remained about the old cliff dwellers and the prehistoric desert Indians, both of whom had deserted their villages and gone elsewhere for reasons that remained a mystery.
One theory was that drought had driven them both away. Another theory ran to the effect that enemies wiped them out or made off with them as captives. Still another supposition, at least for the Hohokam desert people, the builders of Casa Grande whose impressive ruins still stood near Coolidge, had to do with their land giving out so they could no longer grow crops, forcing them to go elsewhere to find better soil.
No one really knew. It was all pure guesswork.
*
The two scientists meant to spend the entire summer trying to solve this riddle for all time, concentrating on it to the exclusion of everything else. They drove west in a station wagon stuffed with equipment and tracking a U-Haul-It packed with more.
George drove, on a road that was only two sand tracks across the wild empty desert between Casa Grande Monument and Tonto National Monument where cliff dwellers had lived. It was here, not far ahead, in new ruins that were being excavated, that they hoped to solve the secret of the exodus of the prehistoric Indians. The place was known as the Hohokam Dig.
They topped a rise of ground and came to the site of the dig. Here the sand tracks ended right in the middle of long trenches dug out to reveal thick adobe walls. In the partially bared ruins the outline of a small village could be seen; the detailed excavation would be done this summer by workmen who would arrive from Phoenix and Tucson.
George stopped their caravan and the two men got out, stretching their legs. They looked about, both more interested in the dig, now they were back at it, than setting up camp. They walked around, examining various parts of it, and the excitement of the promise of things to be discovered in the earth came to them. “This summer we’ll learn the answer,” Sidney predicted.
With skeptical hope George replied, “Maybe.”
It was early afternoon when they set up camp, getting out their tent from the U-Haul-It. They took out most of their gear, even setting up a portable TV set run on batteries brought along. They worked efficiently and rapidly, having done this many times before and having their equipment well organized from long experience. By the middle of the afternoon all was ready and they rested, sitting on folding chairs at a small table just outside the opening of their tent.
Looking around at the dig Sidney remarked, “Wouldn’t it be easy if we could talk to some of the people who once lived here?”
“There’s a few questions I’d like to ask them,” said George. “I certainly wish we had some to talk with.”
He had no more than uttered this casual wish than there sounded, from all sides of where they sat, screeching whoops. The naked brown men who suddenly appeared seemed to materialize from right out of the excavations. As they yelled they raised their weapons. The air was filled, for an instant, with what looked like long arrows. Most of them whistled harmlessly past the two scientists, but one hit the side of the station wagon, making a resounding thump and leaving a deep dent, while two buried themselves in the wood of the U-Haul-It and remained there, quivering.
George and Sidney, after the shock of their first surprise at this attack, leaped to their feet.
“The car!” cried Sidney. “Let’s get out of here!”
They both started to move. Then George stopped and grabbed Sidney’s arm. “Wait!”
“Wait?” Sidney demanded. “They’ll kill us!”
“Look,” advised George, indicating the red men who surrounded them; they now made no further move of attack.
George gazed about. “Oh,” he said, “you think somebody’s playing a joke on us?”
“Could be,” said George. He ran one hand over his bald head.
“Some dear friends,” Sidney went on, resenting the scare that had been thrown into them, “hired some Indians to pretend to attack us?”
“Maybe Pimas,” said George. He peered at the Indians, who now were jabbering among themselves and making lamenting sounds as they glanced about at the ruins of the ancient village. There were eighteen of them. They were clad in nothing more than a curious cloth of some kind run between their legs and up and over a cord about their waists, to form a short apron, front and back.
“Or Zunis,” said Sidney.
“Maybe Maricopas,” said George.
“Except,” Sidney observed, “none of them look like those kind of Indians. And those arrows they shot.” He stared at the two sticking in the U-Haul-It. “Those aren’t arrows, George—they’re atlatl lances!”
“Yes,” said George.
Sidney breathed, “They aren’t holding bows—they’ve got atlatls!”
“No modern Indian of any kind,” said George, “uses an atlatl.”
“Most of them wouldn’t even know what it was,” Sidney agreed. “They haven’t been used for hundreds of years; the only place you see them is in museums.”
An atlatl was the weapon which had replaced the stone axe in the stone age. It was a throwing stick consisting of two parts. One was the lance, a feathered shaft up to four feet long, tipped with a stone point. The two-foot flat stick that went with this had a slot in one end and two rawhide finger loops. The lance end was fitted in the slot to be thrown. The stick was an extension of the human arm to give the lance greater force. Some atlatls had small charm stones attached to them to give them extra weight and magic.
Charm stones could be seen fastened to a few of the atlatls being held by the Indians now standing like bronze statues regarding them.
George whispered, “What do you make of it?”
“It isn’t any joke,” replied Sidney. He gazed tensely at the Indians. “That’s all I’m sure of.”
“Have you noticed their breechclouts?”
Sidney stared again. “They aren’t modern clouts. George, they’re right out of Hohokam culture!”
“They aren’t made of cloth, either. That’s plaited yucca fibre.”
“Just like we’ve dug up many times. Only here . . . ” George faltered. “It’s being worn by—by I don’t know what.”
“Look at their ornaments.”
Necklaces, made of pierced colored stones, hung about many of the brown necks. Shell bracelets were to be seen, and here and there a carved piece of turquoise appeared.
“Look at the Indian over there,” George urged.
Sidney looked to the side where George indicated, and croaked, “It’s a girl!”
It was a girl indeed. She stood straight and magnificent in body completely bare except for the brief apron at her loins. Between her beautiful full copper breasts there hung a gleaming piece of turquoise carved in the shape of a coyote.
At her side stood a tall young Indian with a handsome face set with great pride. On her other side was a wizened little old fellow with a wrinkled face and ribs corrugated like a saguaro.
Sidney