The Last Stand Page 14

  “Knock it off, Pete, I’m no schoolboy.”

  “So let your foot hang over the side tonight. You’ll find out.”

  “And the natives are out of the loop, right? They get a free ride?”

  “For sure, man.”

  Joe muttered something, got up from his rock and climbed into his shorts. When he tossed Pete his old blanket, he said, “Your sister’s very, very hot sauce is doing things to me again. Where is it?”

  With a forefinger, Pete pointed to the north where the corner of the hogan blanked out the stars.

  * * *

  They took the Ford pickup out of the barn at dawn. It was six years old but the engine hummed to a tune that only a top mechanic could play. It had a big eight-cylinder power plant that drove a four-by-four train with all the goodies the dealership could put on it. Some were expensive extras like the GPS system that could plot your present position in the world right down to the inches of space your feet occupied. Discreetly built in under the dash was a VHF radio. Joe nudged Pete who sat in the middle and said, “That VHF is illegal, pal.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s for marine use.”

  “I told you, all this used to be part of an inland ocean.”

  “Who owns the truck?”

  Without taking her eyes off the road, Joe’s sister said, “It’s mine. I paid for it in cash. All the taxes have been tendered.”

  “This baby must have cost twenty-five grand!” Joe said.

  “More,” she told him calmly, “and if you’re wondering about illegalities, there’s an AK-47 rifle under the seat with five hundred rounds of ammo and two G.I. boxes of old-fashioned hand grenades from WWII beneath the tarp in the truck.”

  Joe felt a damp sweat come over him.

  The beautiful Indian princess added, “And to keep you from running to the authorities to turn us in, remember that now you are a co-conspirator or an accessory. Take your pick.”

  Only Joe’s eyes moved to take in his companions. Neither one was smiling at all. Softly, he said, “You’re just kidding, aren’t you?”

  Ten seconds passed before Pete let the grin show. “As the British say, just pulling your leg, old man.”

  Even Running Fox let out a chuckle and the tip of her tongue flashed wetly across her lips.

  Joe felt better now. “Who’s on the other end of the VHF?”

  “About a dozen others. All good guys, y’know? They all also got regular CB so we can stay in touch if the hills don’t get in the way.”

  “They have Global Positioning, too?”

  Running Fox swerved around a rattler sunning in a dirt tire track and said, “Just us, city boy. All our red brothers think it’s stupid having an instrument to tell you where you are.”

  “Stupid?”

  “Of course. Everybody has to be someplace and everybody is right where they are wherever it is. Like us. We don’t have to look at the GPS to know where we are.”

  “Why not?” Joe quizzed.

  “Because we’re right here, even when we’re moving.”

  Joe wasn’t about to argue with that bit of Indian wisdom. “Where’s your antenna?”

  “Topside. It’s got a little tribal flag attached to it. Looks like an ornament.”

  “So we’re riding in a ‘Q’ ship right?”

  “Right you are, Man-From-The-Clouds. A real ‘Q’ ship, a plain old freighter plowing along the ocean swells and when the enemy sub sees her, he doesn’t want to waste an expensive torpedo on her so he surfaces to blow her away with the deck gun. And when all the crew is out of the sub to watch the fun, BAM! The ‘Q’ ship drops the phony disguise around her big gun and that baby lets the first round go and tears the sub apart. Just to make sure, she fires a couple more eight-inch armor-piercing explosives at the waterline, then closes up shop and goes looking for another sucker.”

  Joe poked his forefinger into Pete’s arm. “She a real girl?”

  “You’d better believe it, bluecoat. Incidentally, she’s a history buff.”

  “I suppose she studied karate, too,” Joe whispered.

  “Black belt,” Pete whispered back.

  Ahead, the tire tracks made a long sweeping turn to the south, avoiding a wide area of rock outcroppings that came up out of the sand like teeth, rows of them forming nasty-looking semicircles, like a family of sharks looking at survivors in a leaky lifeboat.

  Before he could ask, Pete said, “Monster Teeth Hills. Beneath all those vicious incisors is the silent monster. He is quiet. He never moves.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He just kills, paleface.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because nobody who ever went in there ever came back.”

  “Who do you know who went in?”

  “We can’t mention their names or we get it too.”

  “Like it’s taboo.”

  “Joe, you’re getting more Indian every day.”

  Leaning over, Joe hissed in Pete’s ear, “Your sister taboo?”

  Pete’s eyes widened and out of the corner of his mouth he mumbled, “Taboo? Taboo is sissy stuff. That female is deadly!”

  “One more question.” This time Joe brought his voice up. “This here pickup runs into big bucks. Where do you get the money for all of this?”

  “Fossils,” Pete said seriously. “Artifacts. Some are even legal. For eight years this area has come up with some prime pieces of history.”

  “History isn’t a big money-maker, Pete. I fly a piece of ancient history and it costs me a bundle to get it off the ground.”

  “Too bad yours isn’t made of yellow metal.” He smiled gently. “Like those little feet.”

  Joe’s smile was just as gentle and he said, “Old buddy, don’t try to give me any snow job. If there were any gold deposits under this sand, news of the find would hit the computers in the same hour and you’d have the prospectors pouring in the way they did at Sutter’s Mill. This time they’d come with all the new technology, dump your sorry cans out of the rez so fast your eyes would click together.”

  “You’re the one who told me the government couldn’t run us off our land again!”

  “Who said anything about the government? I’m talking about private enterprise. And those guys can do anything they want.”

  For a second Pete’s eyes clouded.

  Joe said, “You still got gold thoughts in your head, haven’t you?”

  Behind the wheel of the truck Joe saw a small twitch at the corner of Running Fox’s mouth. Even a sidewise glance at her made his stomach feel as if someone had punched him there.

  In front of the truck the terrain turned into soft rolling hills. Seemingly buried into one was another hogan built of red clay bricks and strengthened with poles that stuck out a good two feet. Off each one hung strings of edibles and beside the door, drying in the sunlight, were two hides of animals foreign to Joe. Past the hogan was a corral where a pair of horses were tethered with a half dozen goats lying in the shade of the planking that made up the corral.

  Joe pointed at the chimney. “No smoke coming out. Nobody home?”

  Pete nodded. “Sure. He’s got a generator in back. Runs an electric stove and refrigerator.”

  “You know him?”

  “Uh-huh. He’s my cousin, like sixth or seventh. Same tribe.”

  * * *

  The dirt road had been rising steadily for a good five minutes. Then, when they had suddenly reached the apex, it was as though the whole world had been exposed. From horizon to horizon the hills had flattened out and in one glance you could see a panoramic view of a totally different way of life.

  Ahead in the distance the buildings of the reservation complex stood out in the clear air, distant, yet wholly visible. Some were of cinder block, others of adobe, and here and there were old log structures standing firm in their midst, remnants of another age, still sturdy, vibrant tradition flaunting itself in the face of modern civilization.

  On the near
side of the area Joe could see the activity that was enclosed by a wire fence. A small oval encompassed a raked-out four-acre area and modest stands of boxes and barrels made a seating place for spectators. Some refreshment stands were half erected and smoke had already started to curl up from slow-burning fires at the perimeter of the grounds.

  “What’s happening?” Joe asked.

  Running Fox jerked the wheel, missed a rut in the road and said, “Big feast day. Everybody shows up.”

  Joe pointed out the window. A mile away the small dot of a building sat alongside a carefully graded runway that seemed to be about a hundred feet wide and half a mile long. He squinted, and saw the outline of a windsock dangling from a pole on the south side of the small building.

  Before he could ask, Pete told him, “That’s our airport, the one I told you about.”

  “A sand runway?”

  “Nope,” he said. “No sand. That’s packed hard stuff. Once an old C-47 came in there. Some government plane. No problem. Today a few more will be in.”

  “Indians?”

  “Come on, Joe, we don’t own airplanes.”

  “Then who?”

  “Guys looking for more little feet,” Pete said.

  “Come on.”

  Very seriously, Pete said, “They’ll be looking for Miner Moe.”

  “Why?”

  “Word got around old Moe has latched onto something new.”

  “Damn.”

  “Maybe I’d better tell you something else, too,” Pete said.

  “Oh?”

  “Somebody may have spotted you here last night. If so, word’s gone around—talk travels fast in these parts. Some on the rez may already know where you spent the night. That includes a young man known around here as Big Arms…who has big eyes for my sister.”

  Behind the wheel, Running Fox looked grim.

  “He’s willing to fight for her,” Pete said.

  A cold sweat seemed to form on Joe’s chest. He felt it run down into his beltline, then the sweat started under his arms and he knew the sun wasn’t up that far or shining that hot. “Fight who?”

  “You, man from the skies,” Running Fox said. She was looking straight ahead, very serious. “He’s going to think he’s got a rival now.”

  “Word goes ’round about your staying with us,” Pete said, “people will draw their own conclusions.”

  Joe leaned back and let out a laugh. “Like I’m a threat to him. I’m probably twice his age. Anyway, nobody knows me. Nobody knows anything about me. Hell, I haven’t even met anybody except you two.”

  “They call him Big Arms for a reason,” Running Fox said softly. “He picks up train wheels. He plays with tree trunks. Sometimes he lifts cars right off the ground.”

  “A whole car?” Joe asked.

  “Only from the front or back bumper,” Pete explained. “He can’t get his arms around the whole thing.”

  “Good for him,” Joe said. “He must be some bruiser.”

  Running Fox and Pete nodded together.

  “And how am I supposed to fight him?” Joe asked.

  Something in Pete’s tone of voice made Joe’s blood run cold. “You better find a way, White-eyes.”

  The sweat around Joe’s waist got even colder.

  CHAPTER 6

  With some shopping for essentials out of the way, along with plenty of curious looks cast in Joe’s direction, they headed to the one place Running Fox said they could get the parts they needed. A blacksmith shop and horse stalls were on one side of the building and on the other a very carefully disguised machine shop. The walls were lined with shelves stacked with parts and four stripped trail bikes leaned up against a workbench waiting to be repaired.

  Willie Joe was a grizzled old guy with a full head of coal black hair and eyes to match. When Pete introduced him, the handshake said that Willie still had a lot of years in him.

  “What do I call you?” Willie Joe said. “Can’t have two Joes around here.”

  Pete said, “Call him White-eyes, Willie. He’s in our playground now. You know he ate a snake?”

  Willie Joe let a little laugh rumble out of his chest. “Damn,” he said, “you’re not one of Custer’s boys after all, are you?”

  “You guys sure hold a grudge,” Joe said.

  Willie asked, “How do you like my works, Joe?”

  “Neat, but why hide it?”

  “We don’t want the tourists to get wise. They come in here looking for old range culture…tom-toms, war whoops, big feather headdresses, all that kind of stuff. They don’t like to see us modernize.”

  “I hope you’re modernized enough to have a phone in here.” He’d left his cell back on the plane.

  “Sure. In the office. This got to be a long-distance call, so I hope you got a credit card.”

  “No sweat.”

  Willie indicated the plywood-sided office in the back corner. Joe told him thanks and walked toward it, tugging at his wallet in his pants pocket. He got his telephone charge card out, dialed the number of his home base, and got old Davie on the phone.

  The dispatcher was gruffly pleased to know that Joe was alive and 819 was intact and soon to be repaired. Joe had called just in time to scrub search parties that were scheduled to leave from four different airports to look for his sorry remains somewhere along the prescribed cross-country flight course.

  “When you coming back?” the old dispatcher demanded.

  “As fast as I can get out of this sand trap,” Joe told him and hung up. Going back to the front of the garage, Joe spotted some framed black-and-white eight-by-ten photographs featuring a good-looking young guy in near-hippie clothes, his arms full of books, and a large brick building in the background. Another was of the same guy, arms outstretched to pick a football out of the air, surrounded by the concrete structure of a stadium.

  “You a college man too, Willie?” Joe asked cautiously.

  Willie snorted. “Of course, White-eyes. Got a degree in geology, then took a year at Colorado School of Mines, and don’t ask what I’m doing here. This place is a cash cow. Any of the red brethren, they come here from miles around. Heck, I get trade from five hundred miles away.”

  “Motorcycles?”

  “Sure. They’re great things in this open country. If a guy owns one, then he’s got the wherewithal to fix it.”

  “‘Wherewithal’?”

  “I took courses in English, too. The Prof was a German. We finally made a melting pot out of this country.”

  Running Fox came in from a back room, her arms heavy with parts boxes. She looked at Willie and raised her eyebrows. “He giving you the local history, Joe?”

  Joe just grinned back.

  “The times they’re a-changin’,” Pete cut in. He glanced at Willie and asked, “You going to the big powwow, Willie boy?”

  “Sure,” Willie told him. “Gonna be more fun than usual.” Then his eyes shifted toward Joe and he said, “Gotta see the white-eyes fight old Big Arms. Man, everybody’s waiting for that.”

  “When did you hear this?” Joe blurted. They’d been on the rez only, what, an hour by now? Word did travel fast around here.

  “Everyone’s talking about it, pal. When you drove down with Foxie here…”

  “Willie Joe!”

  Her tone put Willie in his place quickly.

  He said, “Anybody who even looks twice at Running Fox here, old Big Arms takes on.” He paused briefly, then added, “Whether that ‘anybody’ wants to fight or not.”

  “Look, I’m a tourist. I got lost. Pete found me and took me in. All I want is to get my plane fixed and get out of here.”

  Very softly, Pete half-whispered, “You want that Big Arms slob to nail my sister?”

  Nobody heard what Joe muttered under his breath.

  Running Fox broke the sudden silence. “Let’s clear the air here, citizens. I don’t care what you think and I certainly don’t care what Big Arms thinks. I don’t have anything to do with that anthropoid typ
e and he’d better stay the hell away from me.”

  Sequoia Pete paid the bill for the Harley parts and the solongs were silent. Almost funereal. Outside, a small group had collected and stared at the visitor as if it would be the last time they would look at him alive.

  Joe shook his head. “Man, I should have stayed with my plane until they sent a search party out.”

  “You afraid of Big Arms, Joe?”

  “Come on, I never even met the guy.”

  Pete nodded at a figure across the street. “Well, there he is, White-eyes. He’s watching you and if you so much as blink, he’ll have your head.”

  “Don’t you have any police around here?”

  “Both of them are chasing a bootlegger up in the hills.”

  “Just two cops?”

  “It’s Federal land, Joe. The FBI come out here sometimes. Gotta be a big deal, though.”

  Joe stopped and turned, looking straight at Big Arms, and the air went quiet. No bird chirped, no kid yelled and even the wind died down.

  Big Arms was weight-lifting huge. He stood well over six feet, his bare waist rippling with musculature. His legs filled out his dungarees and his boot-clad feet were placed straddle-legged on the pavement.

  He could have been handsome, but his expression made a cruel mask of his face. He looked like he wanted to spit when Joe’s eyes met his.

  To one side, Running Fox was watching Joe. Very softly, she said, “Let him alone, Joe.”

  Just as softly Joe whispered back, “I can’t.”

  “You see why they call him Big Arms,” Fox said.

  “Of course.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of him?”

  “He forgot something, doll.”

  “What’s that?” she asked him.

  Joe didn’t answer. He started across the street and a muted gasp from the onlookers hovered in the air. Big Arms didn’t budge. His mouth twisted in a quiet sneer as Joe got closer. He was waiting for a groveling-style apology, a sniveling plea of remorse begging to be let off the hook and not be punished by this huge animal of a man who gloried in his brute strength.

  Then Joe stepped up on the sidewalk, that final push of his foot giving greater impetus to the power behind the fist that cracked against the side of Big Arm’s jaw and the guy dropped like a poleaxed steer into a crumpled heap on the packed clay earth.