Frozen by Jay Bonansinga

village, healing people. . . you know.”
    Grove looked at him. “A medicine man, is what you’re saying?”
    Okuda nodded. “That’s why the Copper Age is such a fascinating period—anthropologically speaking—because basically, before then, there was no such thing as a métier or specialty.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œPeople basically did everything for themselves before the Copper Age. They farmed, they took care of their kids, they built their own shelters, they hunted, they basically did everything. But right around four thousand BC, people started developing specialties.”
    â€œYou’re talking about occupations?”
    â€œExactly. One guy would come and build stuff for you, another guy was good at making tools, another guy could repair things. This changed everything.”
    Grove was pondering, swirling the ice cubes in his glass of scotch. “A traveling medicine man.”
    â€œIt’s all speculation, of course,” Okuda went on, “but we can tell a lot from the artifacts that were found on him and around him. He was so well preserved in that snow capsule, we recovered a lot of stuff that just blew the lid off conventional thinking. Like the axe blade.”
    â€œWhat about it?”
    Okuda’s eyes practically twinkled. “Up until now we thought axe blades from that era were all primitive and flat, pounded on rocks. But Keanu’s is flanged , with ridges, very advanced. It’s like digging up the tomb of a medieval warrior and finding a twelve-gauge shotgun.”
    â€œDo you know anything about his language, his culture, his religious beliefs?”
    â€œAgain it’s all guesswork, but chances are he spoke a language called Indo-European. Basically most European languages come from this parent language. In terms of religion, polytheistic is my guess, especially when you consider the tattoos.”
    â€œTell me about the tattoos.”
    â€œThey’re not like today’s tattoos, which are pretty much simple ornamentation—‘mom’ and ‘born to lose’ and whatever. Keanu’s tattoos were located in hidden places like his lower back and on the inner part of his ankle. Which suggests—to me, at least—that they’re designed to give him some sort of supernatural power or protection.”
    The waitress returned with the drinks. Maura watched Grove. The profiler was thinking, gazing off into the fragrant shadows, as the waitress awkwardly cleared the empties and replaced them with fresh drinks. The silence hung over the table like a pall, and for a long time after that, and throughout most of the remaining conversation, Maura found herself wondering what was going on inside Grove’s head.
    What dark vein had they tapped?

    The wind sluices down the dark corridor of skeletal trees. It whistles past the shaman like a banshee howling in his ears. He takes one step at a time, his grass-netted boots sinking into the snow up to his knee. His feet are numb, and he can barely see his hand in front of his face as he climbs the crevasse. He’s almost there. Almost at the plateau.
    He pauses to catch his breath.
    Gazing back over his shoulder, he sees the valley of larch trees spreading off into the distance like a great animal skin draped over the land. The sun lies on the horizon in streaks of magenta and gold. The temperature is dropping. It will be dark soon, and the darkness brings with it new dangers. He must hurry now.
    He hears the scream again. It starts out low, as always, coming from a great distance, then rising in one great ululating howl that pierces the wind and echoes down across the valley. It is a primal death wail—half animal, half human—that penetrates the shaman’s marrow and shoots through his soul like a sudden ZZZZZAP!
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    â€œWhat!”
    Grove’s eyes jerked open in the dark room, his face pressed against the pillow, the linens