The Last Stand Read online

  “Man, I have boxes of arrowheads…”

  “This wasn’t an ordinary arrowhead, Pete. I think you know what I’m talking about.”

  “I found it,” Joe said simply.

  Eyes darted toward him.

  “It was imbedded in a bone of a small animal,” Joe said. “The animal was hit, but ran off with the arrow still in him. I gave it to Pete here.”

  “Did you know what it was?”

  “Not until Pete told me. Why?”

  “That’s classified information,” Walker said. “Where did you find it?”

  “That’s classified information,” Joe said.

  “You know what we could—?”

  “You could do nothing, Mr. Walker. Now, let’s stop the garbage and tell us what this is all about. I have a small idea based on rumors, but I’d like to hear it firsthand from you.”

  “What have you heard?” Walker said.

  “It drives Geiger counters off the wall, right?”

  The two FBI agents glanced at each other, then, with silent agreement, both nodded.

  Pete said, “Mr. Walker, everybody on this rez knows about that mineral. The Anasazi medicine men used it in their rituals and passed down stories about it that still come up when the old ones sit around the campfire and tell wild tales. Hell, man, Chief Johnny Elk gave two samples to the State U before he died. The lab was going to do a big study on them.”

  “Those samples have been missing for over ten years,” Walker said.

  “Missing?” Pete said, “The way a Geiger counter was supposed to react to that stuff there’s no way you couldn’t track it.”

  Walker didn’t answer.

  Pete said, “It was stolen, wasn’t it?”

  Walker still didn’t answer.

  “Big government secret, Mr. Walker?”

  “We’re going to confiscate that arrowhead, Pete.”

  “Oh, boy,” Pete said. “Do I take it that we’re into some international chicanery?”

  “Not really.”

  “Mr. Walker, let’s get down and dirty. None of that stuff has ever been found outside this reservation, and we covered one heck of a lot of square miles. It’s scarce, but it’s here and, so far, it’s only been a toy, something the old men played with when they couldn’t hunt anymore. Maybe at one time it wasn’t a toy, and now it looks like it isn’t a toy anymore at all.” He paused, and stared at Walker, his eyes hard and bright. “So what is it, government man?”

  At first Walker didn’t answer.

  Joe said, “Do we need clearance from Washington?”

  The two FBI men looked at each other and when Walker spoke his voice was hoarse and low. “I have to watch my words.”

  “Why?” Pete asked him.

  “Because national security is at risk.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Joe said.

  For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. Walker frowned in thought, then asked, “Well, what do you know about it so far?”

  “It pushes the needle on the Geiger counter to the limit. At least that’s what I hear.”

  “And it sure isn’t radioactive,” Pete added. “At least so far nobody’s died from being exposed to it.” He gave the FBI man a look. “Or have they?”

  “No.”

  “You try crushing the samples, Mr. Walker?” Pete asked.

  Ten seconds went by before Walker said, “Only extreme pressure could make it flake.”

  “Yet somebody made that arrowhead,” Joe said.

  “They never had equipment that could exert that kind of pressure in those days,” Walker replied.

  “But they did it.”

  “Yes. We don’t know how.”

  Walker’s expression said they might be discussing the atomic bomb.

  “It’s all about power, isn’t it? Something you’re looking for because if you find it it’ll give you control.” Joe pointed toward the horizon. “It’s like the stories of the lost mine over there in the Superstition Mountains. A hole in the ground filled with billions of dollars worth of gold. Enough to buy an air force or a hundred nuclear submarines. Find it and you can upset governments or install own your own. This mineral you’re looking for must be even more powerful.”

  The rest of Walker’s face was unreadable, but his eyes weren’t. They were trying to see inside Joe’s words to where the secret truth was, to discern what information he had and what Walker could use to pry it loose. He said, “Don’t screw around with me, pal.”

  “No way, friend. You’re FBI, we’re just citizens. Trouble is, we’re inside a vest pocket like a hidden ace in a card game. We know about that arrowhead I found out there in the desert, but can’t quite remember where we found it. Now, if you’re nice, you’ll buzz off and let us roll all this wild information around in our heads. I have more to do than worry about stuff some ancient Indians made.”

  “What have you got to do?” Walker demanded.

  “I’ve got to fight a gorilla tomorrow.”

  Walker gave Joe a long stare. “Good luck,” he said, and spit out the window.

  When they got back in the truck, they watched Walker drive off and Pete said, “He’s a good actor, isn’t he?”

  “You think he’s acting?”

  “I’ve seen him pull some pretty rough stuff.”

  “He wasn’t acting, Petey Boy. He doesn’t know a damn thing about that arrowhead or any other samples they’ve located. He only knows what he’s been told, that it’s damned important they get hold of more of it. The big question is who told FBI about that arrowhead?”

  “The FBI has an in with some of the big mouths around here and somebody got to a telephone and passed the word.”

  “That somebody acted awfully quickly.”

  “A buck’s a buck.”

  “You know where the arrowhead is right now?”

  Pete nodded. “Running Fox has it, remember?”

  “She on the ball about keeping these things quiet?”

  “Joe…are you kidding? She’s beautiful and smart, but secrets aren’t anything she can keep. By now half the women on the rez will have the story about your great generosity and will probably embellish it with you coming down out of the blue and getting ready to knock out Big Arms again just for her and—”

  “Buddy, hold it, hold it,” Joe cut in. “Your sister and I—”

  “At ease, brother. I know my sister. I know the ways she tossed guys over her shoulder. Even the big chief types from the other tribes who came this way to make their points went home holding their heads in their hands. The Profs from the State U tried hitting on her along with the jocks and she out black-belted them all.”

  “Hell, Pete. I’m not climbing her frame. All I am to her is a white-eyes who owns an old crate.”

  “Man,” Pete said, “you’re the joker in the deck. Whether you like it or not, you have to be the winner in this damn game. You don’t even have a choice.”

  “Why?”

  “You know what they used to tell the Roman soldiers who were going off to war?”

  “What?”

  “Either come home with your shield or on it.”

  “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it.”

  “Sure. Big Arms is supposed to kill me.”

  “That’s what he’s planning.”

  “He’s planning murder?”

  Pete shook his head. “No, it’ll be a fair fight. Just you two, and this time you won’t be able to sucker him. He’ll be ready for anything you try and while you’re trying, he’ll break your neck.”

  “And what will you do, blood brother?”

  “I’ll have to watch.”

  “Not help?”

  “It’s supposed to be a fair fight. The audience will all agree. Even the FBI will be watching and when you’re dead they’ll bury you wherever you want to lie.”

  “And I got no chance at all, right?”

  “Right. I don’t like it, but right it is.”

/>   “I thought I was the wild card,” Joe said calmly.

  Pete took a step back and stared long and hard at him. Finally, he said, “That’s what really scares me, flyboy.”

  * * *

  Miner Moe lay still and stretched out, the sheet rolled down to his waist and his hands folded across his stomach, his chest barely moving with his shallow breathing. They came into his room softly, almost soundlessly, and stood by his bed. Moe either heard them or sensed that they were there and his eyes opened enough to show his pupils, large and black. They moved slightly, taking in Joe and Pete at the foot of the bed. Joe said, “He looks like a cat.”

  “Sort of,” Pete said. “He’s got four more lives to go, I think.”

  Joe put his hand over Miner Moe’s and asked, “Can you hear us, buddy?”

  Moe’s answer was a slow blink. After a long moment, he took a deeper breath and made a small nod.

  “Don’t talk if it bothers you, Moe.”

  Moe’s tongue licked over his dry lips. Joe picked up the ChapStick from the bed table and ran it over Moe’s mouth.

  Moe nodded his thanks and whispered, “The bastards made me drink the whole…damn bottle.”

  “Who, Moe?”

  Moe’s eyes opened a little wider while he searched his memory. “That kid. The one…who…”

  “Maxie Angelo’s pilot?”

  Moe’s head made another nod.

  Joe said, “Where’d he find you?”

  “I was…at Long Weed’s place.”

  “Alone?”

  “Long Weed was up…on the range. I was waiting…for him.”

  Moe closed his eyes for a few seconds and Joe asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did he want, Moe?”

  “He…got talking about finding things in the desert. He even…showed me a couple of pieces.”

  “Gold?”

  Moe made a barely perceptible nod. “One was…a feather. Pure gold.”

  “You sure?”

  “I…have one just…like it.”

  “You tell him that?”

  “Maybe. I remember he…took out the pint bottle. I guess I had a drink.”

  “How many, Moe?”

  “We finished the pint. He went out to his…car and got another one. Then…” His eyes slid shut.

  “They took you out to the desert and dropped you there, Moe. Do you remember any of that?”

  A crease deepened on his forehead. He said, “The bastards…they got my map!” He half rose into a sitting position then fell back, exhausted.

  “Map of what, Moe?” Pete asked

  “My treasure. Damn, they got my treasure. All them years…”

  “How much was there, Moe?”

  Moe was staring at the ceiling now, answering absently. Pete bent over and said, “How many horses would it take to carry it, Moe?”

  Softly, Moe answered with, “That you Sequoia Pete?”

  “Yeah, Moe, it’s me.”

  “Four horses, Pete.”

  Joe said, “That’s a lot of weight.”

  “Think their plane could take it?” Pete asked.

  “Not in a single trip.”

  “They’d never get back in here to make a second one.” Then he thought for a few seconds and added, “But one haul out ought to set them up for life. Hell, the weight of the gold is nominal. It’s the historic value of the pieces. The price would be a thousand times the value of the metal.”

  “All gone,” Moe said weakly.

  “You can’t remember where you hid it?” Pete pressed.

  Moe’s blank expression said it all. He had stashed it in a place that could only be found with latitude and longitude markers. And these he had not committed to memory. Joe raised his eyes to meet Pete’s and the conclusion was plain to both.

  The silence that followed was like thunder. Then Pete reflected quietly, “A long time ago I saw surveying equipment at Long Weed’s place. It was real old stuff.”

  Joe leaned over. “Were you ever a surveyor, Moe?”

  A full half minute went by and Joe said, “He’s falling asleep again.”

  But Miner Moe struggled through the lapse and forced his lids open to stare up at the two men. “Once…I studied…” A small smile crinkled the corner of Miner Moe’s mouth. “Correspondence,” he half-whispered.

  “That’s what happens on the rez in wintertime,” Pete said. “Nothing to do. They try correspondence schools. Try anything.”

  “You don’t pick up surveying that easily, pal.”

  Pete said, “He wasn’t surveying. All he wanted was a location to stash his treasure.”

  “You’ve been reading my mind,” Joe said.

  “What have I left out?”

  “The coordinates, blood brother.” Pete looked at him blankly.

  “The big ‘X’ that marks the spot,” Joe said.

  On the bed Miner Moe had laid his head back on the pillow and a few little bubbles came from the corner of his mouth. His lips worked and some muscles moved in his cheek.

  “He’s trying to say something,” Pete said.

  Joe put his head down, his ear close to Moe’s mouth. The words were almost inaudible, but Joe heard them clearly enough. When he stood up again he told Pete. “Old Standard Oil map, he said. Top corner. Top corner.”

  “That’s what he said?”

  “That’s what he said. At least that’s what it sounded like.”

  “He didn’t have anything on him when we found him,” Pete reminded him.

  “So where would he hide anything?”

  “I’d say we ought to shake down Long Weed’s hogan again. Whatever he wrote it on had to be kept out of the weather and Long Weed’s place was about as permanent a spot as Moe ever had.”

  “The odd couple, right?”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  The two of them took a long look at Moe before they turned to leave. When they did, Mr. Walker and another FBI man stood there silently.

  “Outside,” Walker said.

  It wasn’t an invitation.

  CHAPTER 9

  The big Ford van the government men operated out of was packed with modern technology and staffed by experts with all the earmarks of long service. Pete and Joe sat side by side facing four interrogators. There was a water carafe in the center of the table with six glasses around it, a fresh box of Kleenex, a clean ashtray with no cigarettes nor matches. In one corner was a small icebox. An empty metal wastebasket sat beside it. No empty beer cans. No Coke bottles. No smell of smoke.

  “Nice,” Pete said. “What do we talk about?”

  “A crystal arrowhead,” Walker said.

  “My buddy here found it.”

  “Yes. And he gave it to you.”

  “Right.”

  “And we want to know everything you know about it.”

  Pete leaned forward, resting his chin on his fists. “Come on, Mr. FBI man, what could poor ignorant Native Americans know about it?”

  “Quit being a smartass,” Walker told him.

  “Then say something sensible,” Pete snapped. “I not only graduated from the State U, I have a master’s degree in geology, too.”

  This was news to Joe, and apparently to Walker as well.

  The silence only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed like an hour. Finally, Walker nodded. “I’m going to assume you know a little more than I supposed about this mineral.”

  “You assume correctly. It’s a power source, isn’t it?”

  The sudden shifting of eyes from one interrogator to another was a giveaway. Walker leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He made a motion with his finger to the man on his right, who put his hand under the table and touched something that made a small snick.

  “We are not being recorded now,” he said.

  Joe said, “Why?”

  Walker said, “Whatever that material is, one ounce of it has more potential than ten tons of pure uranium. It represent
s a source of energy never before known to man.”

  “Not to white man, maybe,” Pete said. “The ancient ones shaped it, Mr. Walker. We can’t even dent it, but they made it into trinkets.”

  Walker didn’t argue. “In time we’ll do the same.”

  “But not into trinkets,” Joe said.

  Walker’s eyes were cold agates when he looked at him. “No,” he said. “Not into trinkets.”

  “Weaponry?” Joe said.

  “If necessary,” Walker said flatly.

  “But first you have to find more of it.”

  “We have the means to do that.”

  “Then what do you need us for?”

  Once again the eyes around the table all looked for each other and somehow they came to an agreement.

  Walker said, “We need that arrowhead. It’ll be the largest piece we’ve got at this time, the only thing that we can use to locate the mother lode, so to speak. And if we can’t locate more, it’s that much more important that we have this piece. Other specimens seem to cut off the innate power before we can control it. Picture an electric bulb where the filament burns briefly but doesn’t throw off any light.”

  “Damn,” Pete mused. “You guys have a problem, don’t you?”

  “Not if we have that arrowhead,” Walker said.

  “And you want me to give it to you?”

  “Correct.”

  “Let’s put some figures on the table,” Pete said. “What’s the offer?”

  Without hesitating, Mr. Walker said, “Millions if it comes to that.”

  Pete just bobbed his head slowly, “What could I buy with that?”

  “You can buy anything you want,” Walker said.

  “But I don’t want anything,” he said. “Me pretty dumb Indian.”

  A voice said, “You can be a pretty dead Indian.” The man across from Joe had abject patriotic hatred in his expression.

  Very slowly, Pete got to his feet and Joe followed him. Nobody else moved. This time Pete’s eyes were as cold as theirs and he said, “I’ll think all this over. Very carefully. I’ll try to remember what I did with that ridiculously expensive piece of nature and get back to you. Okay?”

  There was no answer.

  Pete went on, “Suppose I don’t want it to change hands?”

  “Something could happen to you.”