Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (25 page)

The centurion waved his arm and shouted something to his men to exit the temple and, as I was swept along with the hurrying soldiers, I noticed that my surroundings had changed. The night was the same, and the trees and the men, but still something had been altered; my perception of reality had changed. Never again would I be able to observe the world in the naive fashion I did before. The crushing reality of the thing in the pool had put an end to that forever. I watched almost disinterestedly, as a score of soldiers began to pull on a set of ropes fastened to various parts of the temple. Suddenly, a spurt of dust puffed out from the top of one of the pillars and with a loud scrape, it was pulled from its age-long position and hauled down. Then, with its equilibrium shattered, the rest of the building fell in upon itself, creating a heap of shattered masonry that choked off the watery aperture from which that common head had given hellish birth to the many bodies.

Abruptly, I was “awake” again with the bright afternoon sunlight striking me through the stunted trees. Looking about me, the weathered rubble that I had earlier studied with curiosity, took on a dimension of dread horror and sinister depression. I stood up and began slowly backing away. I turned and ran, but tripped almost immediately at the edge of the hill, falling to my knees in the shallow water surrounding the site. Dazedly, I stood, feeling the warmth of the liquid as it saturated my clothing. Then, a soft gurgling sound attracted my attention. I faced in its direction and spied the slow emergence of water, steaming and still flowing from the fissures at the base of the hill.

I admit, at the time I must have been psychologically imbalanced. I fled in panic, fear even. Of just what, I am still not quite certain. But no matter how far I ran, I could not outrun the dreams and especially the nightmares. I ran as far as I could, and when I could not run any farther, I turned inward, and ran some more. Those were desperate times for me, until I learned how to cope with my new awareness. The revelation given me had been too sudden, the human brain has not been trained to deal with such enormities. But over time, in the peace of a sanitarium (I am unafraid to admit it), I learned to deal with it by utilizing the outlet of the written word.

Thus began my second career; with the mission of seeking out the truth wherever it exists. My fingers now fly over a keyboard, my words like swords, thrusting out blindly in the hope of striking home. I wrote that book at last, but Harvard University Press did not publish it. When I returned to the university after my breakdown, I was eager to incorporate what I had learned into my lectures, but I was reprimanded by my superiors for veering into areas that were too speculative. I turned to expressing myself in my papers, but the department head took exception to my insistence on the importance of Shub-Nigurath or Ubbo Sathla or Abhoth, and I was summarily fired. But as it turns out, it was the best thing they could ever have done for me. I found a new publisher, Nighthaunt, and though they are better known for their line of cheap vampire novels, they made my first mass market paperback,
Fertility Gods From Inner Space
(not my title, incidentally), a best-seller. As all of America now knows, my name became a household word with appearances on the Oprah, Geraldo and Donahue shows. I have become a frequent advisor for such programs as
Inside Edition
and
Unsolved Mysteries
. I continue to compose at a fever pitch, filling the New Age shelves with such titles as
UFOs in Hollywood
,
The Paranormal Conquest of Washington
,
The Lennon Conspiracy
,
Alpha Waves and the Hidden Anti-Gravity Folk
,
Saucer Agenda
,
Ancient Gods in Milwaukee
and
Was Alhazred From Mars?

Of course, I was shunned by my peers and denounced as a crank; I admit, the rejection struck me hard. I fell upon evil times, succumbing to drink, etc. I was denounced for trying to disseminate my ideas as a modern snake-oil salesman. But then, I realized, how could they know? What I was saying was so beyond their ken that they could not but react as they did. I have found that I cannot blame them. I am content to point to such giants in the field as Eric Von Danniken and J. Allen Hyneck who have stood by my side. I know now that I was chosen, the scales were cast from my eyes, I have a mission. I must educate the world, slowly, but surely in the new revelation…Oh, I admit also, to some doubts late at night when those awful scenes will once more impress themselves upon my consciousness. It is then the harsh words of my critics questioning my sanity strike closest to home and I wonder: am I mad as they say? The only answer I can come up with is that I do not know. Thus the only criteria I have is what others think. And if that is the final proof of my sanity, then I swear to redouble my efforts to convince the world at large of the truth of my revelation and when they at last believe it too, how then can I be mad?

t was not quite sunset, but the sun was melting like an orange lozenge against the horizon as a lone rider urged his mount up the steep trail that zig-zagged along the face of the mesa. The man held the reins loosely in his hand, allowing the animal to pick its own way on the unfamiliar path. A half mile below, the pale thread of the trail unwound to the foot of the formation and disappeared amid the dull browns and reds of the valley that stretched into the distance. In that distance, the bed of the valley suddenly tilted upward against steep walls that hemmed it in from every side and denoted the true level of the land in this part of Oklahoma Territory. This valley, with its intermittent formations of flat-topped mesas, was once the location of an antediluvian sea; or so learned men back east said. Marshall John Rowan shrugged his shoulders in an unconscious indication of his attitude toward easterners.

He did not deny that looking at the valley as a dry sea-bed did make it seem as though there might be something in what they said. And the fact that the recent slide he had passed the other day when negotiating his way into the valley had exposed what the professors called petrified wood bolstered their argument. But that all seemed so strange and phony to him. He was used to driving longhorn on the Chisum, scouting Indian country along the Bighorn, and tracking outlaws across prairies, what mattered was day-to-day survival in a west that was still largely without law and order, not speculating on what might have been millions of years before.

Rowan sensed more than he felt his horse’s hesitation as it neared the crest of the climb, and gave it a few encouraging jabs of his heels. It leaped forward to the end of the path leaving Rowan just time enough to take in the eerie sight of a dozen or so of beehive-shaped cones, almost as tall as the mesa he was climbing, spread out over the floor of the valley, their strange shadows creeping slowly over the bottom of the ancient sea. And they were odd; in all his wanderings across the territories, he had never seen natural formations quite like those, even though on the face of it, they were not spectacular or even out of place. Nevertheless, the sight of them in the fading yellow light, affected him strangely.

He made a leap from his horse that lifted him a good six inches from the saddle as the animal reached the summit and the edge of the Indian village that rested there. Rowan had spotted the guards and lookouts long before but had ridden on unmolested. The farther he had come, the more certain he was that he would be allowed to enter the village. He had been by no means certain of the reception he would have once he reached the valley, as the Indians that inhabited it were generally of unknown character. Even the other tribes in the area: the Pawnee, Wichita, and Caddo, had little contact with them. Something about bad medicine and the valley being off-limits for all tribes. Though he was determined to enter it, Rowan wondered at the power of the medicine commanded by these Indians hidden in this valley which protected them from the usually predatory habits of their fellows. But hadn’t he heard something about these particular Indians being of different stock from those of the American west? Something about their being descendents of even older cultures from farther south in Yucatan or Peru? But there he was, going for that eastern speculation again. He shook his head and forced himself to pay attention to the warrior that was approaching him from the village.

The man held up a hand, saying, “Greetings man from the outside. I am Ke-ho-te-ho, he of the silent footsteps.”

The lawman did not bother to hide his surprise. He’d been told by local Wichita that this tribe didn’t speak English. He raised his own hand. “Greetings, Ke-ho-te-ho. I am called Rowan, enforcer of the law of my people,” he said tapping the tin star on his vest.

“It is good. We have been expecting you to come. I welcome you to our village. Enter in peace.”

Rowan had to admit he was relieved at the friendly welcome. He hadn’t been at all sure of his reception by the tribe as they were a solitary people, feared and avoided by the other tribes in the area. Still, he wasn’t about to let his guard down on account of a smiling face and soothing words; he dismounted, but kept his hands near his Colts.

Leading his horse, Rowan followed the Indian toward the village proper, pushing his hat back on his head with a thumb.

“I have come in search of a white man. Stories have come from your valley that one such may be found here.”

“Yes, such a one has lived among us for many moons. You shall see him shortly.”

Rowan was surprised again by the open admission of the presence of a white man in the village. Indians by now knew of the rage engendered in white men at the thought of others of their kind in the hands of red men; the senseless bloodshed of villages wiped out if even a suspicion was harbored by local officials. Yet this had openly admitted to a white man being in his village. But less of a surprise was the presence of Johnson Kent in the area. After all, he had been on Kent’s trail for a good six months, ever since being handed the assignment by the Territorial Marshall’s office. It seemed that Kent had disappeared along with a companion, Israel Paulson, while on a cattle drive along the Goodnight-Loving trail almost a year before. The drive foreman tried to find them or their remains, but couldn’t stay too long and delay the drive. When he finally completed it, he reported the incident to the Territorial Marshall’s office and from there it was passed from officer to officer as leads were dried up in their respective jurisdictions. Usually such disappearances were accepted as a matter of course by local lawmen who had enough to do keeping the peace and apprehending those who disrupted it. In the Kent case however, the Territorial Governor, anxious to make the territory attractive to prospective settlers, had applied the political pressures to keep the search alive. Finally it was his turn, and after weeks of crisscrossing the territory, he at last hit on his first solid lead — that a white man was rumored to be living in an Indian village in the Devil’s Gullet, a valley deemed very bad medicine by the surrounding tribes. But here he was, and certain of having found his man. “How do you mean, Ke-ho-te-ho, that you have been expecting me?”

“Our friend, Ken-te-ni-pa, he of the silver hair, knew you would come to look for him and our spirit-talker made powerful medicine to confirm it. In his visions, he saw your image and our scouts were told to allow you to pass.”

Rowan did not reply to that beyond a noncommittal grunt, and looked out over his guide’s shoulder to the village ahead of him. It was not as poor as he might have thought a village located in the barren wilderness of the Gullet would be, but neither was it a prosperous one. The tribesmen stood about, curiosity marking their faces, as he passed among them. They were not the faces of men frustrated with their position in comparison with other tribes; instead, Rowan thought he saw the sort of pride there of those who have offered a great deal in sacrifice to a higher calling. That they would continue stubbornly in their thankless task, misunderstood though they might be by other tribes, did not matter. They took pride in their appointed task. But just what that task was, Rowan had no idea and did not really care. Why would an otherwise healthy people sequester themselves in such desolate surroundings for as long as they had for no appare

He had little time to ponder the question as his short walk among the simple domiciles of the village came to an end before a wooden frame hut whose walls were formed of the skins of animals stretched taut over the poles. He turned to Ke-ho-te-ho, who had hung back within the protective semi-circle of the gathered tribe clustered inquisitively around him and the entrance to the hut. “Is the white man inside?”

The Indian waved a hand toward the doorway. “Yes. He is waiting for you.”

Rowan looked around at the circle of people, not sure what to think of the situation. The last thing he wanted to do was to show any doubt or fear before them. Without taking his gaze from Ke-ho-te-ho, he held out the reins he had in his hand, indicating his expectation that someone should take him. He felt them snatched from his grasp, and without a backward glance, stepped into the dark opening in the hut.