The Last Stand Read online

  Her eyes flashed to her brother and he simply looked back at her and dropped his head.

  “Change the…? That arrowhead?” she asked.

  “Where is it?” Joe asked.

  With the kind of a smile only a beautiful woman could give to a man, Running Fox dipped her hand into a pocket of her jeans and held it out to them. In her palm was the arrowhead.

  “You know,” Joe said, “the Trade Towers in New York City went down, the United States Congress is at each other’s throats whether or not we should be fighting a war, the stock market is going wild like a runaway roller coaster, the millionaires who stole everyone’s money are facing jail terms, and here we are out in the desert holding all the cards.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Running Fox asked.

  “The powers that be have all the guns,” Joe told her.

  “Oh?”

  “We have the cartridges.”

  It took a few moments for it to sink in.

  Pete took a step forward and said, “We’re in the asshole of the United States and yakking about a lousy arrowhead and somehow it’s going to affect world affairs. Are we crazy or something? Damn…”

  “World War One started with an archduke and his wife getting killed in a remote part of Europe. That one washed itself out, then Hitler came along and the world came apart again.”

  Running Fox said, her voice deadly soft, “You want the arrowhead?”

  “No,” Joe replied, “but if we knew where you were going to put it…”

  “It’ll be in the outhouse,” she said, “behind the west hole.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The day of the dying happens too fast. The sun comes up and it shines in your face and tells you it is time to arise and die the hard death that has been written for you and there is no way you can escape the momentous finale that circumstances have laid on you, and all you can say is, “Oh, shit.”

  A nasty expletive but warranted.

  Out in the sand is old 819, sitting there idle, waiting for her flyboy to take her back into the blue, wondering if it will ever happen or not, a metallic thing that never breathed life but had a life that others could breathe into her, and there she sits, waiting.

  “I’ll be back,” Joe said silently.

  819 said, “I’m waiting.”

  * * *

  The day of the powwow began long before dawn. The cook-fires burned, but not on the ground or in handcrafted brick structures. Sears had supplied the metal cookout charcoal trays and while it was still dark, the glowing embers were like fireflies. Then, as the sun rose, the encampment came to life, a quiet sort of medley, and what you first noticed was the lack of noisy, running kids. Everyone was busy. Everyone had a job to do.

  Joe turned his head and glanced at Pete. His native friend stood there, arms crossed against his chest, his buckskin pants a pale gold in the early light. He wore moccasins and his chest was bare. Stuck in his hair was a single white feather. Pointing to it, Joe asked, “That come from an eagle?”

  Without turning, Pete replied, “Hell no, White-eyes. That’s a duck feather. Took it off a kid last year.”

  “I thought only big brave bucks could wear a feather like that.”

  “I’m big,” Pete said.

  “So how’s the bravery thing?”

  “I’m entitled. I support a mess of sisters.” He paused, then added, “How’s your bravery thing?”

  “Why?”

  “Look over there, blood brother.” He nodded toward the outlying fires.

  A small circle of people gathered around a motionless living statue of pure muscle. In the early light the oil on his skin glistened wetly, giving off a prism-like glow when he moved. There was a reverence in the way the onlookers watched him. The Egyptians did it when their Pharaoh rode past them in his chariot. The Aztecs did it when Cortez came into town. Reverence mixed with fear.

  “What are you thinking about, flyboy?”

  “Y’know, pal,” Joe said, “Belshazzar once felt just like that slob.”

  “Who?”

  “He was the king of Babylon,” Joe told him.

  Puzzled, Pete asked, “Big man?”

  “The biggest. He was king of the entire area.”

  “So what happened?”

  “A hand wrote something on the wall of his big, beautiful teepee.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It told him to get out of town.”

  Pete thought about it, then shook his head. “Flyboy, you got a screw loose.”

  Joe just asked, without expecting an answer, “You got any chalk, buddy?”

  Across the field Big Arms had shifted his position ever so slightly so that he was looking directly at Joe. There were a couple hundred feet between them, but Joe could see the hunger in the man’s eyes. Not a challenge, just a hunger to kill, then savor the blood flowing from a broken body. You just had to look at him to know what his body language was saying. Everyone knew. It was something they didn’t want to witness, but they were going to have to watch it anyway and any who opposed the action would have to face the same kind of destruction themselves.

  “Where’s the FBI when you need them?” Joe asked.

  Pete told him, “They’ll be here.”

  “Won’t they try to break up the fracas?”

  “They won’t disrupt any tribal customs, pal.” He paused and shifted his eyes away. “Besides…they won’t be able to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Big Arms does it so quickly. It’ll be over before you even feel it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s better like that.”

  “Balls. What are you going to do?”

  “Nobody can carry weapons at the powwow, Joe.”

  “What about the FBI?”

  “They’ll all be on the east side by the cars. It’ll be over by the time they see what’s happening. No way they can get to you.”

  “So explain the program. Hell, I’m an out-of-towner here. You guys want me served up on a platter like a chicken and I don’t even know the rules of the barbeque.”

  “You scared, Joe?”

  “Curious,” he told Pete.

  “Damn,” Pete said. “You’re just like Crazy Horse. Nothing bothers you. Down you come into our desert, take apart the native champion with a sneak punch and you haven’t even got goose pimples when he’s about to turn you inside out.”

  “I thought Indians were supposed to be taciturn,” Joe said.

  “Your civilizing ruined us.”

  The crowd had grown noticeably by now, although the sound of its conversation was subdued. Every so often heads would turn toward where Joe and Pete stood and Joe knew they were talking about him. Suddenly he asked, “They hate me, Pete?”

  His friend’s face drew taut, worry lines plain by the corners of his eyes. He shook his head, the feather in his hair wagging like a parent’s finger. “Buddy, they like you. What they couldn’t do, you did with ease. You know what you did? Big Arms was the black knight around here. He took what he wanted, did anything that pleased him, and nobody could complain at all. Then you walked right up to him and blammo.”

  “It was a sucker punch.”

  “Yeah, but you did it. You put him on his back and O-U-T for the first time in his life and everybody in the village saw it.”

  “Big deal.”

  “It was,” Pete said softly.

  The sun was well up now. The groups around the campfires had eaten and had merged into other groups, men with men, women with women, and the kids scrambling about in quiet play. A crowd of young bucks stood circling Big Arms, admiring their champion.

  Nobody bothered to look at Joe at all, except with sorrow, real or feigned.

  Behind them Running Fox said, “Big dust clouds over the highway. Must be a hundred cars on the road.” There was no smile on her face at all.

  “I thought this was a private party,” Joe remarked.

  “We have telephones,” Fox said.

>   “Hell,” Pete said. “Nothing exciting ever happens in this place and if it does the news goes out like a rooster after a hen. You’d think Evander Holyfield was fighting Mike Tyson in the middle of the town.”

  “Which one am I?” Joe asked.

  “According to the odds, you’re the hero, but you’re dead meat, flyboy.”

  “Then why isn’t everybody crying?”

  “Like you said, we’re taciturn.”

  Far away, somebody laughed. The sound carried on the breeze.

  “How is this going to happen?” Joe asked.

  Pete held his finger out, pointing to the center of the field. “See that stick? When the sun is directly overhead it will throw no shadow. You will walk out there and Big Arms will be waiting. All the crowd of men will close in behind you, the women behind them so they won’t see you die.”

  Joe turned slightly and looked at Running Fox. There was a very odd expression in her eyes. “Where will you be, doll?”

  “Right here waiting for you.”

  Joe winked at her.

  Consternation showed on Pete’s face. His eyes flicked between his sister and his friend.

  Quietly, Joe said, “I’m going into the village. I won’t be long. You suppose they’ll think I’m running away?” He nodded toward the collecting throng.

  “Not if I go with you,” Running Fox said and held out her hand. Across the field Big Arms was watching them. Joe pointed his forefinger and thumb at him in a pistol gesture and walked off holding the gorgeous Indian maiden’s hand as if he’d already won her.

  A gasp came from the onlookers. Big Arms had fire in his face.

  They took the truck to the center of town and, going up the main street, stopped outside the garage. Joe told Running Fox to stay in the cab and he went inside. He stayed for twenty minutes, then came out wearing a new set of cotton gloves. Fox stared at them wonderingly, but said nothing. Joe told her where to go and she pulled away from the curb.

  The streets were empty. Even the raggedy-looking mongrels had followed the crowd out to the battlefield where they could lick up the blood and howl their appreciation of the stupid pageantry into the dry, still air.

  “Turn here,” Joe said and Running Fox took the long street that intersected with the highway a half-mile away. The expression in her face betrayed a moment of doubt: was he going to make a break for it after all?

  Then Joe held up his hand for her to stop and she stepped on the brake. The truck eased to a halt opposite the chair the old lady was seated on and he got out, walked over and kissed her on the top of her head. She raised her eyes and Joe saw the dampness in them.

  He said, “You’re all alone here in the village.”

  “I have my little people. Only I can see them.”

  “I have my little people too,” Joe said. “They tell me when I can get in trouble up in the sky. Like when a storm is closing in around me.”

  Her voice had a cracked softness to it. “They didn’t tell you this time, did they?” Something deep and dark was in the way she said the words, as if she had seen it all earlier, all the events of the past few days.

  Joe shook his head. “I got down okay.”

  “You had to,” the old lady said.

  “Why?”

  “Because somebody had to save Running Fox. Because somebody had to do the big thing.”

  Joe asked, “And what is that?”

  “You will know,” she told him.

  “Not if Big Arms kills me.”

  “Big Arms can’t kill you, Man-From-The-Sky.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Big Arms can’t kill big White-eyes.”

  Joe nodded.

  “You know that?” the old one asked.

  “That’s why I came to town,” he told her.

  When he got back in the truck, a scowl pinched between Running Fox’s eyes.

  She said, “The shadow of the stick will be getting very short now,” and her foot leaned heavier on the gas pedal.

  * * *

  The circle of people opened to let Joe through. The ground had been cleared of any tiny obstacles and the grass had been trampled into a green flatness that gave off a pleasant sweet odor. The stillness was like a storm that had already broken but hadn’t touched the earth yet.

  In the exact center Big Arms stood, naked to the waist. His huge pants had been cut off at the knees and his calves were like giant hams. Even his slow, steady breathing made the unseen forces beneath his skin ripple and flow like a mighty dynamo.

  Joe looked at the stick. There was no shadow now. The sun was directly overhead. Big Arms reached down and pulled the stick out of the ground between his thumb and forefinger, throwing it into the crowd. He didn’t smile. He grimaced. He was death let loose for its moment of triumph.

  Joe took his gloves off and dropped them in the dust.

  Slowly, very deliberately, he walked up to the huge bulk in front of him and heard the man say with a sneering tone, “White-eyes, you die now.”

  But Joe had assumed a loose prizefighter’s stance, fingers curled into loose fists, hands held protectively in front of his face. It had no effect on Big Arms at all. From the muted hum the spectators knew what was coming and it was going to be primitive savagery that everyone might not enjoy but would remember for a lifetime.

  The sinews tightened in Big Arms’ forearms as he lifted them. There was only a second between life and death now.

  Only Big Arms heard it when Joe said in a low whisper, “Old lady say Big White-eyes win.”

  And his hands flashed open and the big white eyes painted on Joe’s palms were staring at Big Arms with a grisly humor only he could see, and before he could move at all, Joe’s right hand closed tight and went hard into his throat where there was hardly any mass to protect him. The brute’s breathing came to a sudden, wounded standstill. Spit ran out of the prairie giant’s mouth in a long dribble and while his hands clawed at his neck his knees gave way and he collapsed into a twitching piece of tortured human that could only jerk and drool on the dirt of the arena.

  There was no sound from the crowd. They hadn’t seen what they had expected to see, but the results were satisfying enough.

  It was over.

  Silently, Running Fox had come up beside Joe and her hand slipped into his. “Will he die?” she asked. There was no emotion in her tone at all.

  Joe shook his head. “He’ll survive. He’ll recover slowly, but he’ll live. If he learned anything, he’ll behave.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “The old lady will tell you what to do.”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “I’ve made dead stick landings before.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ll know when I teach you to fly.”

  Running Fox held onto Joe’s hand as they walked back to the truck. When they went by the small knot of FBI personnel, Joe winked, got a wave back.

  * * *

  Pete was holding the door of the pickup open for them and a strange expression pulled at his eyes.

  With the sun at their backs, Joe and Running Fox paused at the open door, stood still for several seconds, then Joe’s hands went to her shoulders and turned her around slowly.

  Her lips were red and full, more exotic than ever, inflamed with excitement. There was the barest tremble to her bottom lip and her eyelids half-shrouded her pupils. Then her arms went around Joe’s back as he brought his mouth down to meet hers and someplace across the sand of the plains thunder rumbled in applause while Pete simply shook his head in amazement. Because Indian maidens didn’t do things like that. Especially with a white-eyes flyboy.

  Others had seen them too. They had been peeking from the protection of their vehicles forty yards away. They had children now, but they too had been young once, as she was. They smiled and nodded at one another. They knew what had happened and did not disapprove.

  * * *

  On the way out the steady
stream of traffic was like a march of army ants, coming in from all directions and then funneling into a single long parade of pickups, gaudily painted heaps packed with young people, occasional campers and dozens of small trailers hooked on to older sedans. Joe glanced at his watch. “They’re starting the powwow kind of late, aren’t they?”

  Pete shook his head. “It’s a three-day affair, buddy.”

  “I thought the big fight was to be the main event.”

  “It was,” Pete said. “The big story comes in the telling, White-eyes.” He shot a sidewise glance at Joe’s hands where some of the paint still showed. “It will get bigger and bigger with every telling. From now on you will be like Sitting Bull.”

  There was a sudden break in the traffic and four new sedans and a pair of SUVs rode into view, one behind the other. Joe didn’t catch the license plates, but Pete nodded toward them and said, “There are some of the money shoppers. Cash and carry. They’ll park, the ones with antique valuables will offer their merchandise and gladly take a fraction of what they’re really worth and everyone will go home happy.”

  “No sales tax?”

  “Ha.”

  “Just cash deals?”

  “Right,” Pete said. “No booze or cigarettes. They can trade for that stuff later. Out of sight of the Feds, of course.”

  “Damn.”

  “Won’t last long,” Pete remarked.

  “Why not?”

  For the first time Running Fox spoke up. “The red man is getting wise to the white civilization’s ways. They’re opening casinos, most on their own reservation property, and there’s little the government can do to stop them. It’s all legal, bankable and taxable. The public feels so badly about the poor Native Americans they flock to the tables.”

  “But the money men are coming in for the powwow, aren’t they?”

  “Not for the ceremonial stuff,” Pete told him. “They don’t even give a damn about the artifacts that got dug up in the hills or snatched from old gravesites. These guys aren’t dumb. They’re after the heavy stuff. Gold. Statues, ingots…anything of that sort that comes their way. Laws forbid them from peddling artwork, but melted down it can still come to a hell of a lot of money.”