The Last Stand Page 17

  Sitting on a box outside the general store was an old crone swathed in multi-colored clothing, a high feathered hat on her head and a lit pipe in her hand. The adults all made some gesture of respect toward her as they passed, but they didn’t stay to speak. Twice, she said something to a pair of boys who had played too close to her and whatever she said scared them into instant submission before she waved her hand and they both broke and ran.

  “Who’s that, Pete?”

  “That’s our resident witch, buddy. She casts a spell on you, you’re done.”

  “She just park out on the road like that?”

  “White-eyes, she’s like the six-hundred-pound gorilla. She sits wherever she wants. The whole rez is scared of her. They say she pointed her finger at Old Paulie’s wagon and the wheels came right off.”

  “Why?”

  “Old Paulie called her something ugly, that’s why.”

  “Hell, she’s just an old lady, Pete.”

  “Yeah, well even Big Arms is scared to death of her. Somebody told him she would turn him inside out if she laid eyes on him again.”

  “I thought Big Arms wasn’t afraid of anybody.”

  “Our resident witch isn’t just anybody.”

  Joe stopped. “I think I’ll go meet her.” Then, before Pete could grab him, Joe walked over to the old lady, smiled, held out his hand. When she took it, she looked directly at him and her eyes widened and widened some more until they were momentarily huge, then she smiled too and squeezed his hand.

  “I’m Joe Gillian,” he said.

  The old lady nodded. “You White-eyes,” she said. Her voice was soft and unexpectedly clear.

  Joe could think of nothing to say at all. He just nodded back and kept smiling.

  “Poor Big Arms,” she said in a near whisper as her eyes grew huge again for a second.

  The crowd on the street had come to a standstill. It was as though they were all holding their breath.

  “Friend,” Pete told him when he was back in the truck again, “you sure like to tempt fate, don’t you?”

  “I don’t believe in that witch crap,” Joe said.

  “She’s not some nice old lady, buddy. They say she’s put some pretty heavy spells on a lot of people who offended her.”

  “I didn’t offend her. I said hello.”

  “She said something to you, didn’t she?”

  Joe nodded. “She called me White-eyes.”

  “Man, I don’t think I should be near you any longer. You’re probably on her list now. I could be killed by a lightning bolt or something.”

  “I thought you were college-educated, brother.”

  “I’m culture-conscious, flyboy. I still have a lot of Indian in me. I’ve seen too much of this supposed superstition stuff turn into reality.”

  They reached the edge of town, got off the roadway and turned toward the sun, walking quietly until Pete pointed out the cramped building seemingly built into the rise of a low hill. There was a rickety corral to one side built of old, weathered two-by-fours with a watering trough and a half-full feed box inside and a pair of placid brown mares nibbling at a pile of straw.

  Both horses looked up a moment when they approached, and satisfied, went back to eating. Pete identified the nearest one as old Miner Moe’s horse, then went and knocked on Long Weed’s door.

  After a few seconds, Moe’s pal pushed the door open and squinted at the two men. “Man,” he said hoarsely, “that powwow’s not till tomorrow. What you come get me for now?” He looked at Joe and narrowed his eyes. “Who you, pardner? I ain’t seen you around before.”

  “This is Joe Gillian, Long Weed. Good buddy of mine.”

  “Come in for the killing?” Long Weed grinned. “Old Big Arms got him another sucker.”

  “I’m the sucker,” Joe told him.

  “You?” Long Weed said disbelievingly.

  “Somebody has to be,” Joe said.

  “Damn. How’d you put old Big Arms down right out in front of the town?”

  “I sucker-punched him,” Joe said.

  “You guys want to come in?” The smell of stale smoke and something unpleasant cooking came out the open door and Pete shook his head. “We just came to see if Miner Moe’s horse was here.”

  “Yup. Came in by himself. Moe must be scavenging somewhere and let the critter run loose. He always comes back. Had some blood on his flank this time. Moe okay?”

  “He’s resting,” Pete said. “Had a little trouble.”

  “He hurt?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “I told him he shouldn’t go anywhere alone anymore.”

  “He didn’t, Long Weed. Somebody held him down and poured a bottle of booze into him.”

  “Why?”

  “They wanted to get something from him.”

  “Damn,” Long Weed said. “What were they after?”

  “You think Miner Moe had anything valuable, something really worth stealing? Not by anybody around here, but by outsiders?”

  Long Weed frowned, stepped out of the doorway and sat down on the old board sill, indicating for his visitors to do the same on the dirt. When they were all readjusted, Long Weed said, “Moe was always talking about his secret stuff, but hell, everybody has secret stuff. Not worth anything, but it’s still secret stuff. You got to have something to talk about out here if you ain’t got TV.”

  “So what did Moe have?”

  “Oh, he was always picking up something in the desert. He’d tell some damn big stories about funny people from way down south, how they come up this way carting their secret stuff, then getting killed off or something, and he found a lot of their goods. You believe that?”

  Pete and Joe looked at each other briefly.

  “Never said where he hid the stuff, or what exactly it was. I’d guess it was all in his mind.”

  “You really think so?” Joe said.

  Long Weed shrugged and spit between his feet. “He showed me a few things, but other guys got stuff like that too.” He spat another dribble, hitting the heel of one worn-down boot this time. “Said he had a cache in a box where the moon went down.”

  Joe watched Pete go tense.

  Pete said, “Where would that be, Long Weed?”

  “Who the hell knows? He was drunk when he said it. Anyway, that’s what I thought he said. Couldn’t have been much anyhow because old Moe never had nothing to spend. You gonna leave his horse here?”

  “Moe’ll come pick him up.”

  “Okay then. You tell my partner to get sober and come the hell home.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The Federal Agents had made no attempt to be inconspicuous about their arrival on the reservation. Long-body pickups hauled their trailers to a camping spot on the edge of town and four government sedans parked nose-out for a quick exit right beside them. The small group of men were in casual clothes, looking very much out of place, but as if they were deliberately doing so. And they were. They wanted everyone to know they were there and who they were.

  The tall slim man in the pressed jeans and dark blue Polo shirt was obviously the team leader and although none wore holsters or insignias, you automatically knew there was a badge in their pockets and a government-issue firearm strapped to an ankle or discreetly hidden under their untucked loose shirts.

  Nobody paid any attention to them. Four times a year they made routine stops at the reservation, held closed meetings with the elders of the tribe, took typed notes of Indian requests back to Washington where they were promptly filed, and after spending a week of leisure away from the city, they would leave and nobody would miss them at all.

  But this was not a routine visit. One had been made just a month before and never had the schedule been interrupted since the reservation had been established. There were two new men in the group who didn’t wear the same garb as the others. One had a nearly military bearing and wore starched khakis, a loose-fitting jacket of the same material around his shoulders. The other was older and had an
expression like the professors that came from the state school to study Indian culture, make inspections for hidden relics the people would unearth on government property, and confiscate them.

  Pete nudged Joe with his elbow and nodded toward the new encampment. “The troops are here.”

  “Somebody in trouble?”

  “Somebody will be,” Pete answered. “This isn’t a regular stop, that’s for sure. A pair of new guys are with them. They’ve never been on this run before.”

  “Maybe they came for the powwow.”

  “Not these jokers. When they change their routine something big is going on.”

  “How about that other bunch that flew in?”

  “You tell me,” Pete said.

  “Well, they’d probably file a flight plan. They’d be on record someplace. They’re on government land, so any business they do would have to be scrutinized by a regulated authority.”

  “Flyboy,” Pete told him, “you don’t know souvenir hunters like we do. The residents on this protected land are dead broke and have no qualms about doing business with shady characters as long as cash money changes hands. And where is the regulated authority to scrutinize their business tactics?”

  “Okay then,” Joe said, “just how much worthwhile stuff can be found in this area?”

  “Enough to attract guys like Maxie Angelo. And we’re not the only group that feeds his business. A lot of people from other tribes come and go. They deal in clay pots and old jewelry that brings a small fortune from museums and private collectors.”

  “You know these people?”

  “Sure. We’re probably cousins.” He paused a moment and shook his head. “Like they say, Indians are just Indians.”

  “Like Big Arms is just an Indian?”

  Pete said softly, “Brother Joe, you scare me. Do you know that? You make my insides go all flaky. You come down out of the sky with a six-pack of cold beer and some candy bars like it’s picnic time and everything gets turned upside down. Do you know my sister is starting to flip over you?”

  “She’s flipped over my airplane, that’s all.”

  “The hell she is. Right now, she’s worried sick about what Big Arms is going to do to you.”

  “So?”

  “And that’s what scares me, brother. You can fly the hell out of here any time you want and instead you got to pull that big ape’s chain. And there’s no way you can keep him from tearing you apart. You think he doesn’t know how Fox feels about you? Man, Big Arms is chewing nails until he can get to fight you again. That sucker punch you laid on him was just a teaser. An insult. Something that can never happen again.” Pete paused and took a deep breath. He turned his head slowly and stared at Joe. “I’m going to miss you, my friend.”

  “Why, you going somewhere?”

  “You’re scaring me again.”

  “Maybe I’ll scare Big Arms.”

  Almost sadly, Pete shook his head. “Not this time, Joseph, not this time. Big Arms doesn’t know fear. He choked and killed an adult bear one time when it went for his dog.”

  He turned his head and looked at Joe and his eyes narrowed. Joe’s eyes were bright. “We ever going to get something to eat?”

  Pete shook his head, then grinned. “Sure. We’ll stop at Little Eagle’s place right up the road. He’s got good hamburgers, only he serves them on bread, not buns. Got snake, too, if you’re interested.”

  They cut around a couple of teenagers on old motorcycles, kids out eyeing the squaws who dutifully gave them sidelong glances. One boy gave a half-hearted wave and got a halfhearted wave back.

  Ten ramshackle cars were parked outside Little Eagle’s building. One side had been made from an old Coca-Cola billboard and the rest of scrap lumber, with a roof of a half-dozen layers of black tarpaper. Pete didn’t see the last car until he pulled in next to it. This was a Ford Explorer covered with desert dust, the side windows blacked out by whatever was on the inside. The plates were from California and some kid had written in the dust on the rear cargo gate, “WASH ME.”

  “That’s Maxie Angelo’s rig,” Pete told his friend. “His low-profile stuff. On the outside he rides in a chauffeured Mercedes.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “He did business at the State U, one time. Donated some ancient artifacts like a reputable citizen. We saw him. Couldn’t miss the slob.”

  “He know you?”

  “Sure. Come on in. I’ll give you an introduction.”

  “You don’t like him.”

  “Like I enjoy cobras in my back yard.”

  “No cobras in these parts, old buddy.”

  “There’s one now,” Pete replied.

  Maxie Angelo could have been typecast by any movie studio. You’d start with a face like Capone’s, work in a little Luciano, touch it up with some John Gotti, add a splash of egotistical stupidity, and you’d have Maxie Angelo. It would make you wonder how such obvious creeps could even exist in an orderly world. But this was far from an orderly world. It was a world where a scorpion could live in a city and a rat could dwell in a penthouse.

  The guy sitting beside him was in his late twenties and wore a built-in snarl that said he hated everybody, knew everything, and only worshipped at the throne of money. There was a sharpness there too, the animal astuteness of some feral beast.

  Pete seemed to feel Joe’s scrutiny and said quietly, “The kid is Maxie’s pilot. He’s ferried his box in here four or five times. He’s a mean one. Got a knife in his boot and carries a chrome-plated .25 automatic in his back pocket.”

  “Tough?”

  “Stupid. That chrome reflects light like a mirror. Someday he’ll pull it out and wonder why he got killed.”

  Maxie saw them come in and nodded. The gesture wasn’t friendly recognition at all. It was wary, like one dog sniffing another. He said, “Hello, Pete.”

  “Hello, Mr. Angelo.” He waved his thumb at Joe and said, “Here’s Joe Gillian from white man’s country.”

  Maxie shot a thumb at his pilot. “Meet Ted Condon. He flies my plane.” The pilot sipped his coffee, not even bothering to nod. “You taking a vacation out here, Mr. Gillian?”

  “A short one,” Joe told him.

  “Long drive from the east,” Maxie said.

  “Worth it.”

  “Not much to do in these parts.” His statement posed a question.

  Joe said, “Came out for the big powwow tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” Ted Condon chipped in. “Heard something special was happening then.”

  “Heard that too,” Joe told him with a tight grin, then sat down on the upended box at the plank counter.

  Little Eagle walked over, his eyes going over Joe as if he were peering through a microscope. The whole town had been talking about the white-eyes Big Arms would kill and here he had this amazing curiosity right in front of him. He didn’t try to disguise his inspection at all. This white-eyes had already taken down the monstrous Big Arms with a single blow so great that everyone who saw it happen described it differently.

  When he finished, he said, “You want hamburger?”

  And everyone heard Joe when he said, “Your sign tells me you got snake.”

  Little Eagle remarked, “Five-footer. Fresh killed this morning. You want fried…got it in pan now.”

  “Fried it is.”

  Little Eagle forked out two big white ovals of rattlesnake and served it up on a paper plate with a side dish of tortillas. The silence in the room was total when Joe bit into his first forkful. He mixed in some tortilla, washed it with coffee and had another bite. Pete ordered the same delicacy and halfway through Maxie Angelo and his pilot had enough, paid their bill and left.

  Pete waited until they both had finished and went outside into the hot desert sun again. “Joe,” he said, “you are a pisser. You are one hundred percent off your rocker. Tell me, do you want to be buried or cremated?”

  “I thought you Indians put the dead out in the sun to mummify.”

 
Pete didn’t have time to answer. Maxie Angelo’s Ford Explorer had left and in its place was a clean black Ford Taurus with only a patina of local dust on its surface. The two men who came out of it didn’t have to wear an FBI insignia on their shirts to identify them. They were athletically trim, purposely composed, with expressions that told you they were experts in the game they were playing. They were used to others being intimidated by their peculiar behavior and when it didn’t happen here, a noticeable squint came to their eyes.

  Sequoia Pete said, “Hello, Mr. Walker. Good to see you again.”

  “Pete.” He nodded. “This is my assistant, George Chello.”

  “And this is my brother…blood brother…Joe Gillian.”

  They all shook hands and suddenly Mr. Walker threw a sharp glance at Joe and said, “Gillian? Joe Gillian?”

  “That’s me,” Joe agreed.

  “You a pilot?”

  Joe nodded. “Why?”

  “We had a notice the other day about some old-timers’ club of guys flying antique planes. One never showed up. They assumed he went down in the mountains someplace. Could that be you?”

  Joe let out a short laugh. “Most likely. I put down in the desert and would have ended up a skeleton if I hadn’t been saved by my Native American buddy here.”

  “No radio?”

  “Our planes have original equipment. That long-range stuff hadn’t even been invented then. For a BT 13A anyway.”

  George Chello’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Damn, that’s early 1940s stuff!”

  “Fun to fly.”

  “You guys are crazy,” Chello said.

  “That’s what I’ve been telling him,” Pete added. Then, “What’s happening, Mr. Walker? You come out here to eat snake?”

  “We came out here to see you two.”

  “Why?”

  “Can we sit in my car and talk?”

  “Sure,” Pete said. “Just get the air-conditioning going.”

  Walker got behind the wheel, Pete sat beside him, and Joe and Chello got in the back. When they were comfortable, the A/C going full blast, Walker said, “We have heard some information about an arrowhead you brought back from the desert. Is that true?”