Kitt Peak (15 page)

The winged figure danced before Thomas, the song becoming choked with sadness. Other tribes swooped down upon the Tohono O'otam, and ravaged them, and stole their goods. Then a blue-suited swarm of white men came, and herded them like cattle, pushing them up against the sacred mountain until they were pressed tight into its cracks and fissures. And soon, very soon, they began to grow old and die. . . .

"I hated my father for what he was," the voice said, becoming suddenly very close and loud. Thomas saw the beaked mask of the eagle close by his own face. "Growing up, I lived with the people the white men called the
Papagos,
the bean people, and I saw what it had done to them. What it had done to my mother. I saw both worlds, and I liked the world of the Tohono O'otam better, even though the other squaws called me half-breed.

"It was a world of dreams, of the past, but these were people of God. They came from the earth, and the sky, and they were destroyed when their dream world was destroyed. I wanted to bring that dream world back to them."

The masked face was very close. In Thomas's mind, it filled the whole of the earth, stretching from horizon to horizon, from earth to the stars.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Lieutenant Mullin? I think you do. I hated my father, yet I loved him. He spoke very highly of you, and I think you know what I'm talking about. The Tohono O'otam will be a great tribe again. They will fly with the eagles again. I think you know what it's like to be an outsider, to want to soar, but be tied to the earth by the white man. The white man doesn't matter, the Apache doesn't matter. After what happens tomorrow, the foolish Apache will be hunted from the earth. The white men will never let Lone Wolf get away with what he will do. In Lone Wolfs mind he is a great chief, but he is only foolish. When he is gone, this land will be free for my people again, and we will return to the land of dreams."

"You're . . . mad," Thomas heard himself saying, from a great distance away. "You killed those young women out of revenge for how they treated you when you were young. The arsenic has made you . . . mad."

"You're wrong," the masked face said. "The arsenic has made me powerful. It made me see who I am. Do you know where I read about it? In the white man's school. I found it in a book. The Arsenic Eaters in the mountains of Austria have taken it for centuries, and it has made
them
strong."

"You're . . . insane. . . ."

The huge masked face pulled back a little. Again Thomas felt his mouth being opened, something forced in, followed by the wetness of water from his canteen. The masked face pulled all the way back.

"Dream your own dreams, Thomas Mullin," the eagle said. "I have given you only peyote. I will return with something for you to see, before you must die."

The eagle raised its wings; Thomas closed his eyes, and when he opened them the eagle was gone.

And Thomas dreamed. He saw many things in his dream. In it, he was Sherlock Holmes, in deerstalker cap, pacing through a room that looked like both his aunt's house in Boston and 221B Baker Street. A pile of magazines lay on a table; when he approached, he saw that they were
Strand
magazines, with his own face on the cover, holding a magnifying glass. A banner across the top of the magazine read, "New Thomas Mullin mystery inside!" On the mantle of the fireplace was a Persian slipper holding tobacco; he filled his calabash pipe and lit it. His violin lay cradled on his favorite chair. He picked it up, put it under his chin, and began to play. . . .

For a long time, he listened to the music. Characters appeared before him, dancing. Bill Adams was there, dancing with his Indian scout friend, Tahini. Both of them had horrible rictal grins frozen on their faces. Lincoln Reeves appeared, in his cast, dancing awkwardly with Mary Murphy. Marshal Murphy looked on, scowling under his red locks. The little Murphy boy, Joshua, wove between the other dancers. All of them were turning to-ward him; he thought they were urging him to play faster, so he did. They continued to speak, but he could not hear them above the music. In the dream, he closed his eyes for a moment, and saw a whirling emptiness within himself. Suddenly he knew why Holmes took cocaine. He saw the same emptiness of inaction within himself. He saw the same fear of inactivity, the same ennui that came when he was not challenged. It was a hole that had to be filled with something. Suddenly, he knew himself better than he ever had. And he knew what the crawling, tingling feelings of superstition he had felt were. They were not fear of the unknown. Bill Adams's daughter did not know of the unknown any more than he did. No one did. The unknown was beyond the pale. Holmes would not deal with it, because it was irrelevant to him. It either was there or it was not, but to Holmes it did not interfere in the everyday, which was where Holmes had to operate. For Thomas it was the same. It was not the unknown that had scared him; it was himself. And now he saw himself better than he ever had; knew that, like Holmes, it was inactivity, the lack of challenge, that would destroy him. . . .

He heard voices calling to him above the music. He opened his eyes, and saw the dancing spinning fast
before him as he played a
kind of devil's trill on the violin. And yet the dancers were trying to call to him as they spun, holding them high in her out stretched wings. The girl below her shrieked as the eagle brought the blades down.

Thomas drove himself forward at the eagle, striking it as the blades came down, missing the girl. The eagle did not go down. Thomas grabbed at the winged hands and the two blades were dropped to the ground. Thomas fell back, lay on the ground as the eagle rose and turned on him. At his feet were the two blades, and he picked them up. He stood, crouching, waiting for the rush.

"So dreams have not been enough for you," Bill Adams's daughter said sadly. "From the way my father spoke of you, I thought you would understand me."

Breathing hard, the blades in front of him, Thomas waited.

"I'm going to have to bring you in to Tucson," he said.

"Of course." She reached into her costume, produced the peyote bud laced with arsenic, and put it in her mouth. Then she raised her wings up high, turned, and leapt from the promontory, shouting, "I fly for my people, into the sun!"

Thomas rushed to the edge of the promontory and looked down. For a moment, his mind thought it saw the winged body arch out into soaring flight toward the rising sun,

The eagle reappeared, dragging another figure, a young girl, with it. The girl thrashed in the eagle's grip, screaming, trying to break free, and the eagle threw the girl to the ground, slashing across her leg with the talon-like blade it held. The girl cried out, fell to the ground, gripping her leg.

The eagle approached Thomas, who now felt the dreams fading. He saw hard rocks and the stars fading in a dawning sky. Yet when the eagle came close, he feigned drunkenness, looked into the eagle's eyes as if the drug was still upon him.

"Good," Bill Adams's daughter said. "You have dreamed, and are dreaming." She reached into her costume. "In a little while, I must give you the final dream, with this." She held a peyote bud coated with gray powder. "But first I will show you how greatness is returning to my people, how I have made them great again by letting them worship me."

She raised her wings, turned back to the young girl who lay panting on the ground, looking up at the eagle in terror.

The eagle dragged the protesting girl to the edge of the promontory and lay her there. She turned around to face Thomas, outlined by the growing dawn.

"Behold the greatness of the eagle!" she cried, drawing out two long talon blades and
as it shouted in exultation. Then there was a short scream, and what had only been illusion became reality, as the body was dashed on the rocks below, and lay finally silent; a white, crushed figure in the morning of the new day.

Thomas turned, panting, to look at the terrified young girl who lay holding her leg, looking up at him.

"Is it over?" the girl asked, fearfully.

Thomas dropped the talon-blades. In his mind, the drug still swirled, leaving him weak and disoriented. For a moment he thought he was back in 221B Baker Street, and had to shake his head to clear it.

"No, it's not," he said to the young girl, as he helped her to her feet. "It's just begun."

Lone Wolf was in position by three o'clock. It had all gone flawlessly. Two miles outside of Tucson, they had changed into the clothes from the mining camp, and, when they were finished, they looked like any other Indian scouts working for the company who had come into Tucson for the day. The spot that had been selected was perfect; hidden and unobtrusive, and far enough away so that no one would even check it. That was the beauty of the Walthers rifle; an accurate shot at three hundred yards was not only possible but expected. Through the sight, the platform next to the train station laid out in bunting was square between the crosshairs. And on the top floor of this hotel, the farthest from the train station in the city, a hotel that was often used by Indian scouts because of its unsavory location and cheapness, no one would give them a second thought.

"Le-Cato was an old fool, but he did well in reserving our place here," Lone Wolf said, thinking of the old man he had left lying in the sun. Perhaps after all of this, he would go back and give the old fool a chiefs burial. He had died like a dog, but perhaps he deserved to enter the afterlife with dignity.

Perhaps.

Lone Wolf leaned out of the open window and glanced down at Curling Smoke, who stood out on the street, watching to see if any interference would come. The old brave nodded up at Lone Wolf, signaling that all was well. So, too, did the others who lounged against poles or sat feigning sleep under eaves up the street, halfway to the train station.

All was well. All would be well.

Lone Wolf felt an excitement course through him. This was like a buffalo hunt. He had heard somewhere that this President, Theodore Roosevelt, had hunted buffalo, and had spent time in the West. Perhaps, then, he would know what it was like to be the buffalo as he died, how the hunted felt.

Looking through the Walthers sight again, zeroing in on the bunting-festooned platform, Lone Wolf had to suppress a warrior's shout. When the fat little white man, the buffalo, stepped out onto that platform

"Soon," Lone Wolf hissed, between his teeth, hearing the assents from his braves behind him. "Very soon."

"Bully!"

Mawdrey winced. It was hard enough for the Secret Service man to take care of the President when he was merely doing his job. It was much worse when Roosevelt became enthusiastic, which was most of the time. But it had been even worse lately, since this western trip had brought out something in Roosevelt even beyond enthusiasm. Mawdrey himself couldn't understand it — every town and city they'd been to looked much same: dry, drier, and driest — but the President had worked himself into a veritable rapture, and seemed to be soaking up every drop of what-ever there was in this Godforsaken country to drain — certainly not water.

And now . . . Tucson. The city, flat and wide, nestled into the bowl of a nearby arid mountain, was growing slowly in view ahead. Already Roosevelt had been hanging half out the window of the observation deck, studying the tired-looking saguaro cactus, waving at a startled rancher, who had stopped to study the presidential train as it chugged by.

"Mr. President," Mawdrey attempted.

"I said absolutely
bully!"
Roosevelt shouted, as he moved from window to window, staring out at the scenery. "Look at that sky! Look at that desert floor, those mountains! My
God,
it's all magnificent!" He pointed in the distance. "What is that huge peak, there? Isn't it a marvel? Jenkins, find out what it is!"

Jenkins rolled his eyes, walked to the window, looked out, went back to study a geological map rolled out on a table.

"It's . . . Kitt Peak, I believe, sir "

"Marvelous! Solid as granite!"

"There's some talk about erecting an astronomical observatory there, perhaps the National Observatory itself. But there's been some trouble with the local Indians"

"Trouble? What trouble?"

"It's considered a sacred peak by the Papagos, who have their reservation nearby — "

"Trouble?" Roosevelt shouted. "There can't
be
trouble! I won't
allow
trouble! Put it on your list! Let's get it fixed, make everybody happy! Is that — "

Roosevelt was peering intently out of one of the windows, looking down toward the desert floor near the tracks. Suddenly, he threw the window open, leaned halfway out, opening Mawdrey's sleepy eyes wide, sending the Secret Service man leaping forward to hold Roosevelt from climbing straight out of the window.

"Mr. President — !"

"A roadrunner! By God, I saw a roadrunner! Capital!"

Roosevelt pulled himself back into the railroad car, moved to a window on the opposite side of the train, peered out.

"What time do we get in?" he asked Jenkins, who checked his watch, and then a timetable laid out next to the map.

"Forty minutes from now," Jenkins said. "Exactly four o'clock. The University of Arizona has a new band, and they will play a short tune while you step off the train. Then you will speak for four minutes."