The Last Stand Read online

  This time the gasp wasn’t muted. It was if the whole town had let its breath out all at once. They had just witnessed the impossible.

  Only Running Fox, suddenly at his side, had stayed placid. “How’d you do it?” she asked.

  “Pretty hard to grow muscles in your jaw.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I guess that fight is still on.”

  “Only way it won’t happen now is if you run.”

  “Why should I run?”

  “He’ll never let you do that to him again.”

  “Then I’ll have to think of something new, won’t I?” He walked casually over to the pickup, Running Fox beside him.

  For a few seconds she didn’t say anything, but thoughts were running through her mind. “Joe…please don’t play him down. He’s a dangerous man. Many Thunders—that’s his real name—was the star football player at state school until he went to the tryouts for a pro team where everybody else was as big as he was and he didn’t make the grade. He quit school, got all wrapped up in that attitude of his. And now he’s going to be worse than ever.”

  “And he wants you,” Joe said quietly. Before she could answer he added, “Can’t blame him for that, though.” He reached out and took her hand in his and squeezed it gently before letting it go.

  “There’s more to it than that, Joe.”

  “Like what?”

  “This is Indian country. It has its own culture. Certain rules are bred into us. You may just see poverty, but there’s pride, too. This is a defeated nation, Joe. It’s been trampled into the ground, cast aside, made fun of in the movies, totally ignored in the scheme of things…”

  “Hey, I’m in your back yard. Hell, your brother even taught me to eat a snake. There’s nothing I could teach him about survival out here.”

  “You sure taught him something, White-eyes.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how you could take Big Arms down with one shot.”

  Joe said, “He won’t be easy to sucker punch again, will he?”

  Running Fox shook her head sadly.

  “Better think of something else, huh?”

  “Won’t do much good. Many Thunders will be ready.”

  “How’s this fight going to come off?”

  Solemnly she said, “There will be a circle of watchers. There will be no place to run. You will have to face the enemy and fight.”

  “For how many rounds?”

  “There are no rounds. When one is dead or disabled, the other will be the winner.”

  “And Big Arms is pretty good at this, right?”

  Fox’s nod was sad. “There were three before that he challenged. A visiting tribal chief from the Elko reservation. Big man. About three hundred pounds. Very fat, but strong too. They had to take him to the hospital near Jenkins City.”

  “So what was that fight about?”

  “The visitor wanted to sit with me at a feast.”

  “And the others?”

  “One was a local cowboy. Did the rodeos, won a lot of medals, made the motorcycle circuits and won there too. He was fast and Big Arms had to run him down, but he smashed him just once in the chest, broke his ribs, then dislocated his jaw, and for good measure picked him up and slammed him into the ground.”

  “Lived through it?”

  “Barely. He sold his motorcycle and hasn’t even ridden a horse since. Keeps some sheep up at his ranch. If he had the nerve he’d shoot Many Thunders down like a dog.”

  “You say ‘Many Thunders’ with a sneer, Fox.”

  “How do I say ‘Big Arms,’ Joe?”

  “Like you enjoyed seeing me punch him out. As a matter of fact, I think I saw signs of pleasure on a few other faces too.”

  “Can I offer you a sincere piece of advice?”

  For a few seconds, he studied her expression. It revealed nothing, but there was a serious note in her voice. He said, “Certainly.”

  Slowly, she turned her head and looked at him and for the first time he saw that her eyes were not exactly black at all. There were blue flashes there and a tinge of green.

  Running Fox said, “Our people still have the old ways. If you were to have a bad dream, or feel the wrong medicine in your mind, you could run to a safe place until you know it is time to return. No one will think bad of you at all.”

  “How would Big Arms react to that?”

  “He would say nothing. He would know that he was the winner even without a fight. The people would all know that too and would understand.”

  “What about you, Pretty Fox?”

  “It’s Running Fox.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I would understand too,” she told him.

  “What would you like me to do?” Joe asked her softly.

  Something new had happened to her face. A sudden and quick expression she tried to hide, couldn’t, then disguised with a gentle smile. “I would like you to do exactly what you are going to do,” she said to him.

  Across the street, Sequoia Pete was coming toward them, several boxes of parts for his Harley under his arms. He tossed everything in the back of the Ford pickup, got in beside Joe and Running Fox and turned the key in the engine.

  As they drove out, heads turned toward them, expressions on the faces curious, but with no animosity at all. Joe said nothing, but thought that they would have made great spectators in the Roman Coliseum when the gladiators chopped each other to pieces. Or one did all the chopping on his little opponent.

  * * *

  One plane sat at an angle off the dirt runway. The pilot had shut it down where he had pulled up. To start it would blow dirt everywhere and since there were no chocks under the wheels, that little Cessna could take the corner right off the building with its prop.

  “Who’s the junior birdman flying that machine?” Joe asked Sequoia Pete.

  “Probably Maxie Angelo,” Pete told him. “He acts like he owns the state. He owns the plane, but he doesn’t fly it. The Baxter kid is usually at the wheel.” He turned his head and spat. “Lousy flier, that one. Can’t make a cross-wind landing at all.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Comes in head-on into the wind no matter there’s no other runway. Twice he almost what do you call it…?”

  “Ground looped?”

  Pete nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. Luckily for him, he was alone. Old Maxie is one of those nervous types who’ll crack you open if you shake him up.”

  “Mean, huh?”

  The expression on Pete’s face told Joe he agreed with the remark, but he said nothing.

  “He wears a gun,” Running Fox said quietly. “A flat automatic, probably a .38.”

  “How would you know that?” Pete demanded.

  Without taking her eyes off the road she said, “Out here that’s the smallest size that would do any good. He’s a city type. He’s the kind we can do without.”

  “Running Fox,” Pete said, “you never should have taken that psychology class in college.”

  Joe gave him a gentle nudge. “You have a better opinion, pal?”

  “Nope. She’s probably right. Hell, she’s always right. I don’t like the guy either. Nobody does.”

  “Then why’s he here?”

  “He’s got money, paleface. He buys artifacts. He pays the drunks to find pottery shards and arrowheads. Once Charlie Fourlegs brought in something he had wrapped in a worn-out gunnysack and Maxie Angelo gave him four fifties for it. Charlie went on a drunk that lasted two weeks, almost killed himself. When he was over his hangover he had the shakes for another two weeks.”

  “No family to share the wealth with?”

  “Sure, but Charlie’s an alky. I told you, the Indian culture is going down the tubes.”

  “Where’s Geronimo when you need him, right?”

  “Right,” Pete agreed.

  * * *

  Outside the hogan the sun had almost settled to the horizon, the small hills sending out long, mighty shadows, the faces of the m
ountains in the distance painted a grimacing black. Even the shimmering lights from the packed sand changed colors second to second and the air had cooled to a pleasant temperature. Joe breathed it in deeply.

  It was too nice an evening to spoil with small talk, so Joe and Pete just sat there in the canvas camp chairs sipping at a cool beer and inside Running Fox cleaned up the eating area. Pete had warned him about trying to help out with the housework. That was woman’s work, he told his friend. Maybe the liberals wouldn’t like it, but out here they could keep their mouths shut up or land headfirst in a slit trench.

  “I like those rules,” Joe told him.

  Pete just Indian-grunted his assent, then turned and grinned. “You think we’re only partly civilized?”

  “Hell no,” Joe said. “Anybody who can catch a snake, skin it, eat it and burp to boot is fortunately very uncivilized.”

  “You’d better believe it,” Pete replied.

  Behind them Running Fox’s feet shuffled almost soundlessly in the sand and she eased herself into the other camp chair with a motion like pouring milk into a pitcher. She had changed into a soft golden leather outfit that was beautifully beaded with symbolic native designs, her black hair spilling down her shoulders in soft, lusty waves, the ebbing light making it glint as it swirled.

  Joe had to hold his breath. She was gorgeous before, even in her working clothes. Now there was no description that came to his mind except a strange wonderment, a feeling of how could this be?

  Damn, he thought. She was one amazing beauty. She was completely out of place in the desert. She was the original All-American Girl. Miss America! Hell, she could make any of those stage queens shrink next to her.

  Pete stopped looking at the horizon and turned to Joe. “Pal, you should see your face.”

  Running Fox smiled a little herself. “Squaw make you uneasy, Joe?”

  He started to say something, but Pete interrupted with, “She knows what she did to you. I told you, she does that to all the guys.”

  “Man, I’d hate to turn her loose in the big city,” Joe told him.

  “Why’s that?” she asked softly.

  “Because you’d hear cars crash and people bump into each other and whistles blowing…”

  “What would you do, Joe?”

  “I wouldn’t want to tell you.” This time he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m just glad there’s nobody else here to share you with.”

  Running Fox shifted her position and crossed her legs. It was a very deliberate move. The last of the evening sun glistened off her skin and for a brief moment she was a magazine cover model, something absolutely incredible, a rare gem sparkling in an inaccessible area, a grand delight that made a man’s body ache and his mind pulse with wild thoughts.

  It was totally dark before Pete flicked a match to a kerosene lamp and the yellow glow brought a soft light to the area. Breaking the silence, Pete said, “You want to get your plane fixed tomorrow, Joe?”

  “Sure, but I haven’t explained…”

  “Come on, Sis already figured out what’s wrong with it.”

  “How could she?”

  “You told her.”

  “What?”

  “Sure,” Pete said, “you told her it stopped running. Bang. Just like that. No noise. No warning. Just sudden quiet. Plenty of gas, plenty of battery. Just no-go. Right?”

  Joe bobbed his head. “Right.”

  “Means it’s electrical,” Running Fox explained softly. “No big deal. I’ll fix it in the morning.”

  All Joe could do was shrug. The world was upside down. His instruments had stopped working, his maps had blown out of the cockpit, he was going down deeper and deeper and he didn’t even have a cold beer left.

  CHAPTER 7

  Running Fox’s expression was that of an amateur, but dedicated, artist looking at a Da Vinci painting in the Louvre. There was a glow in her eyes and the pleased pursing of her lips made Joe’s mouth water. Her heavy breathing was noticeable as she ran her hands over the metallic skin of the BT 13A. Her fingers made little petting motions on the plastic cockpit hood and when she opened it and slid it back, it was as if she was undressing her lover.

  Joe asked, “Like my baby?”

  After a moment Running Fox said, “She’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

  Sequoia Pete gave Joe a gentle nudge and whispered, “Up till now it’s been nothing but Harleys and old cars.”

  “Can I sit in her?” Running Fox asked without turning her head.

  “Slide on in,” Joe told her.

  “This cushion…”

  “That’s my parachute. Flip the metal clasps out of the way and sit on it.”

  For a moment she studied the situation, then threw her leg over the fuselage, got her hands in the right places and slithered down into the seat. Her eyes roamed lustily across the instrument panel, her tongue touching her lips in a sensual gesture.

  Pete remarked, “You may never get your plane back, Joe.”

  With a grin Joe told him, “She’s a two-seater, pal. I may never want to.”

  * * *

  For a brief second their eyes met, their minds on the same thought. Somehow, mighty Big Arms had to be taken out of the action.

  And old 819 was just an antique training plane, the buffer between a primary Stearman biplane and the advanced AT6. The Vultee Vibrator was far from being a P-51, the great piston-engined fighter of those years long ago.

  They both saw the comparison. The outlook was plain. One punch did not a victory make and the next time there was a head-on approach Big Arms would smash the old trainer to the ground and make a victory pass right over him.

  * * *

  Running Fox didn’t take long with the flight manual before she nodded and began unfastening the nuts on the cowling. Joe followed her every move and in twenty minutes she put her wrench down and tapped an innocuous-looking connection with a greasy fingertip. “Your trouble, White-eyes. Something fried the vibration snubber that used to be here and the connection just shook loose. No noise, no sparking, just a sudden quieting of an athletic, but granddaddy, engine.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “Sure. It’s a standard part we use on Harleys. I have a couple in the tool box.”

  Thirty minutes later the cowling was back on, grease wiped off hands and the paper towels stuffed in the garbage collector in the back of the pickup.

  Pete and his sister stood back soundlessly, their eyes on Joe.

  He gave them an Air Force salute, legged it into the cockpit, made sure the controls were unlocked, then set the prop and gas controls in the proper positions and pumped the choke. He yelled “Clear,” watched until they nodded back, then moved the ignition switch to the left, waited while the starter turned over to speed and flipped the switch to start.

  And start it did, with a blast of smoke from the exhaust, then settled down to the pleasant throaty roar of that great radial engine. When he was thoroughly satisfied, Joe cut the power, locked the controls and climbed out of the cockpit.

  “Beautiful,” he told the two standing beside the wing. Pete said, “You can’t wheel that plane off on this ground, old buddy. You need some kind of runway.”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “Just one. I have two tires in the back of the pickup. If we tie one on the other we can drag them along and smooth out some kind of roadway. It’ll be rough but should get you off.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “You crack up and die and we bury you out here with the lizards.”

  “Thanks a bunch.”

  “My pleasure. Want to give it a try?”

  Joe nodded. He turned and stared at the worried expression on Running Fox’s face. “Maybe you have a better idea?”

  Fox shook her head after a moment and walked to the pickup. The three of them dragged the tires out, fastened them one atop the other, then snagged the chain hook into the spoke of the lower one. Pete got out a rake and with the handle pull
ed a furrow along the sand, checking back constantly to make sure it held a straight line, etching a guide to make sure they had a straight path. What loose rocks marred the line they tossed aside, along with some half-buried scraps of colorful butsunbleached wood that Pete explained were bits of branches from long-dead trees. After an hour of steady dragging, the tires had laid down a respectable runway, carving into fairly stable hard-surface dirt. When they finished they topped off the fuel tanks in the wings from the containers they’d brought with them in the truck.

  “Instant airfield,” Pete said.

  Joe walked the length of the takeoff area twice until he was certain that the tires of the plane would be well-supported and when he finished he got back to his friends. “I’m going to make one go-around, land, and if the ground holds, we can get out of here.”

  “To where?” Pete asked him.

  “To your home airport, pal.”

  “Think you can listen to a clever Indian brave, buddy?” There was a serious look on Pete’s face and Joe felt invisible fingers go up his back. “Those other big city guys with their plane aren’t the kind I’d want on my side in combat duty, friend. If I were in your shoes I don’t think I’d want them to know I had a plane and could fly it.”

  “Why not?”

  Pete tapped the side of his head. “Native intuition.”

  Joe nodded. “You got it, Pete. Old George Custer should have been smarter than to even get near the Little Big Horn.”

  “Him slow learner,” Pete said.

  “Him deader than hell, too,” Joe answered.

  Running Fox kicked some sand at Joe’s legs. Before she could ask, Joe said, “Don’t get your feathers riled, pretty girl. I’ll give you a ride right now.”

  She went over and delicately brushed the sand from Joe’s pant legs with the toe of her boot. “Me happy squaw, White-eyes.”

  “Get in that back seat, college girl. And no more native talk.”

  “Right on, buster,” she said as she scrambled into the plane.

  When Joe checked her seat belt and shoulder harness out, adjusting it to fit securely, he told her not to touch the stick and to keep her feet off the rudder pedals. The throttle and prop controls were his to adjust and all she had to do was look and enjoy. There would be no violent maneuvers to make her sick, but, he said, if she did feel a little nauseous, she should pick up the mike, thumb the button and let him know.