CHAPTER 3

A Bow and A Book

 

“re you worried about the prowler?” asked Pearl, her mouth stuffed with cabbage and mashed potato.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetie. It’s bad manners,” chided Margo gently.

Casey noticed that his mother made no attempt to answer Pearl’s question. Pearl swallowed her food and washed it down with chocolate milk. She licked off part of her chocolate moustache and repeated her question.

“At school today, Skippy Porter told me that his mom said there’s a prowler in the neighborhood. Is that why we have new locks all over the place?”

Well, that’s the direct approach, thought Casey, surprised that his little sister was so observant. I guess at six years old, the direct approach is the only approach.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Pearl, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. Who wants dessert?” asked Margo in a bright voice. She knew that sweets would provide a welcome distraction. “There’s tapioca pudding in the fridge.”

Pearl might be easy to distract, but Casey could tell that his mother had something on her mind. When dinner was over, he grabbed a jacket, headed outside, and leaned against the side of Oliver’s Volvo. Margo and Oliver walked out onto the porch, and Casey slumped down a little farther behind the station wagon, hoping for an earful.

“Do you have to go to school tonight, Oliver? I’m frightened and I don’t like the idea of our family being scattered all over town.”

“You and Pearl will be safe at home, and Casey and I will be at school. Nothing’s going to happen,” said Oliver patiently. “Why don’t you give that friend of yours a call? You know who I mean. That woman from the PTA that you had lunch with last week.”

“Oh, Dot Clydesdale? She’d probably like a little company. Her husband had to go away on business so she’s all alone. Dot said something about having just adopted a new puppy. Pearl would enjoy having a pet to play with for an evening. But don’t stay late.”

“I just want to get a look at this shipment of artifacts,” said Oliver. “We’ll be home by nine o’clock. Everything will be fine, Margo. We can’t live our lives in fear.”

Casey waved to his mother as the Volvo pulled out of the driveway. Nothing scary seemed to be creeping in anywhere. It was just another uneventful autumn evening. People walked their dogs or sat on porch swings reading newspapers just like they always did. Many of the porches boasted Jack-o’-lanterns lit by flickering candles. The Volvo sailed past the shops on Simoleon Street, now dark and shuttered after the end of the business day, and began winding up College Hill.

A traffic light turned red and Oliver drew the car to a halt. He glanced over at his son who was huddled in the passenger seat, staring out the window, and obviously lost in thought.

“Hey, Casey,” said Oliver. “How’s your pal, Bobby, doing these days?

“Okay, I guess. We’re in the same algebra and English classes. I think he’s happy to have somebody like me around who can help him with his homework.”

“I’m glad you made a friend,” said Oliver. He grinned over at Casey. “Bobby’s sister is certainly pretty. Maybe you’ll find romance in Whistlebrass.”

“With Bootsy Bamberger?” gulped Casey. He could feel his face getting warm and red. Just thinking about Bobby’s dazzling twin sister made him feel like his head might explode. Casey gave his reflection in the side mirror at critical once over. Skinny. Red hair and freckles. Yep. Total geek.

“Dad, Bootsy is seriously out of my league. Besides, Bobby said she likes some giant knuckle dragging guy on the football team. She’s not going to be interested in me. Next to the kind of gorilla that Bootsy goes for, I’d look like a red tipped kitchen match wearing sneakers.”

He leaned back in his seat, arms crossed. It was definitely time to change the subject.

“Dad, I saw a weird spiral design made out of little stones down by the river. It was really cool, but kind of creepy too. Why do you think anybody would go to all that trouble? Not very many people even use that path.”

“I don’t know, but it sounds intriguing. Maybe you can take me to see it on Saturday,” said Oliver. “In the meantime, try to stick to the main sidewalks. I’ll feel more secure if I don’t have to worry about you kids wandering around on some deserted stretch of riverbank.”

The car rolled to a stop in front of Bridewell Hall, a fortress of brick and terracotta complete with a massive tower and stone gargoyles glaring down from the roof. The oldest building on campus, Bridewell housed dozens of classrooms and offices. The archaeology lab was on the second floor. They walked up to the twin glass entry doors. Oliver pulled one of them open, ushering Casey in with a wide sweep of his hand.

Oliver nodded to a wiry security guard in his early sixties who was seated behind a paper strewn desk. “Everything okay here tonight, Mr. Pike?”

“Yes, Professor, pretty quiet,” said Humphrey Pike. “Keeping everything locked tight.”

When they reached the lab, Oliver unlocked the door and clicked on the lights. In the center of the workspace were two unopened wooden crates nearly four feet tall. On a long work table, a much smaller crate sat open. The treasures it had contained were neatly arranged on packing straw.

“Victor has collected some wonderful things,” said Oliver. “He’s been studying several obscure Native American tribes. Lately his focus has been on the Kokinoke. There’s very little known about them, and these artifacts are extremely significant.”

Casey crouched, his chin almost touching the work table, and studied a ceremonial bowl carved with ritual symbols. He resisted the urge to trace the etched surface with his fingertips. Some of these fragile pieces could literally turn to dust if handled improperly.

“That’s quite something, isn’t it?” asked Oliver. “It might have been used to honor their god of war or battle. It’s crafted from a human skull. You can see the suture lines where bone is knitted together, and I am quite certain that dark stain is blood.”

Oliver pried open a second crate with a crowbar and fished around in the excelsior. He gently extracted one relic at a time, examined it in the light, describing it to Casey as he cleaned away packing dust with a sable bristled brush. Casey recorded descriptions of the objects and sketched the relics with an ebony pencil.

Oliver gently placed a bow on the work table next to an unadorned buckskin bag.

“This is amazingly intact considering that it’s probably over a thousand years old. It’s even still got the rawhide bowstring. I can’t imagine how it could have survived. This couldn’t be the original case or the leather would be in much worse condition.”

The bow was coated with white paint, yellowed with age and crazed with hairline cracks. A shallow groove carved into the wood corkscrewed down from the tips of the bow’s limbs. The central riser section was carved with odd symbols and embedded with stones. One stone in particular caught Casey’s eye. It was white and shot with silver streaks, just like the one at the center of the spiral he had seen earlier that day along the riverbank.

“How odd,” said Oliver. He had pulled a small book bound in stained and weathered leather from one of the crates. He flipped through and tossed it on the counter. “This is Victor Wilberforce’s personal journal. Maybe he dropped it in by accident. When I call tomorrow, I’ll ask if he wants me to ship it back.”

Casey picked up the journal and browsed through pages covered with odd Kokinoke symbols encircled by a sea of scribbles. Heavily inked drawings showed Kokinoke artifacts, juxtaposed with sketches of strange outsized rooms and what appeared to be floor plans. There was an elaborate drawing of an archer holding a bow and arrow. The first forty pages were filled with meticulously printed and detailed notes. On the more recent entries, the precise lettering deteriorated into a jumbled scrawl.

“Wow. Hey, Dad, take a look at this drawing! It’s a spiral inside of a circle. This is the same design I saw down by the river,” said Casey. “He’s drawn smaller darker shapes toward the center, and there’s even a white triangle right in the middle. It’s exactly the same. Don’t you think that’s pretty weird?”

“It’s definitely a coincidence, but it’s not impossible for you to see two similar designs in two different places,” said Oliver as he pulled on his jacket and checked his pockets for his car keys. “It’s something else I can mention when I call Victor tomorrow. Now let’s get home before your mother explodes.”

You don’t get it, thought Casey. This is completely weird.

With time to concentrate on Victor Wilberforce’s scrawls, he might be able to decipher some of the secrets connected to this disturbing little mystery. He told himself that it really wouldn’t be stealing if he simply borrowed the book. After all, he could return it the next day and no one would ever need to know. With only a tiny twinge of guilt, he slipped the battered journal into the pocket of his jacket.

Oliver clicked off the light and headed out the door. Casey followed along, lost in thought and unaware of the ice cold eyes that watched him intently from the shadows of the dark hallway.