The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (61 page)

“You are ordered to immediately descend the mountain with Gray Dog, my scout, and then once at the base return to camp there and select five good horses. I hear you can do that, at least, from what your colonel has informed me?”

“Yes, sir, I know horse flesh well enough.”

“You are to take this satchel and guard it with your life. You are to return to the coast near Constantinople and board the first transport out of this country. Get back to Washington as fast as you can travel. Ride hard, ride fast.” John Henry slid a large leather sack toward the private. “Travel in civilian attire and speak to no one until you’re home again. You are to deliver this to the White House. That letter inside the satchel will get you access to the president personally. Deliver this into his hand with the letter. Is this clear?”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Excuse me?” Thomas said as he shot Jessy a look.

“I don’t wish to go, sir.”

“And we don’t want to lose such a good trouper, but you go on and do what Colonel Thomas says. He chose you special.”

The boy straightened and then nodded his head. “Make my way home the best and fastest way possible, yes, sir, Colonel,” he said sadly.

John Henry nodded his head at Jessy for assisting in convincing the young Rebel. Thomas could see why Taylor was so close to his men. He knew them and they were loyal to a fault.

John Henry retrieved a smaller leather bag and tossed it to Willard. “There are six thousand dollars’ worth of gold double-eagles inside. That should be enough to get whatever transport you see fit to travel on.”

“Choose the best, Sammy boy, this one’s on old Honest Abe. Perhaps board the liner
The City of Paris
, go first class.”

Willard smiled for the first time. “Yes, sir.”

John Henry stood from his chair and approached the boy. He held his hand out to Sergeant Major Dugan, who placed something there.

“It took the sergeant major here all day to dig these up. I think you should have them.” He handed Willard the items. They were a set of gold corporal’s stripes. The boy looked up at the Yankee officer. “We couldn’t very well send a mere private to meet with the president of the United States, now could we?”

“No, sir,” Willard exclaimed with excitement as he looked at the two stripes of a corporal that sat in his gloved hand. He looked over at Jessy to confirm that he had actually been promoted. Taylor smiled and nodded his head.

“You go on now, Sammy boy, do the regiment proud, and be sure to insult the Yankee president as much as you can while you are his guest.”

“Sir?”

“Good luck, Willard,” John Henry said as he saluted the boy who immediately returned it. With one last salute to Taylor, John Henry’s messenger boy left.

“I guess lives can be sold for the cost of two cloth stripes, huh?” Jessy said as he tossed the cigar aside and looked at Thomas, who said nothing.

“Gray Dog, it’s time for you to go also.”

The Comanche said nothing. He looked at Dugan, who spit a stream of tobacco juice that landed outside of the opening.

John Henry held out the second letter to the scout. “Get this to Lieutenant Parnell. Ride fast and get it to him before tomorrow morning. He’s expecting company and I hope these orders will help him. If not we’ll have a nice little surprise waiting for us when we leave this mountain.”

Gray Dog slowly reached out and took the letter. He raised it to his face and then sniffed the envelope.

“You’ll stay with Lieutenant Parnell, understand?”

Gray Dog looked up and then shook his head in the negative.

Thomas knew he wasn’t saying he did not understand. Gray Dog was flat-out telling John Henry he wasn’t leaving him.

“This is important, and you must go or many a boy may very well die down there.”

Gray Dog turned and looked at Dugan. The sergeant major was about to say something and then stopped. He thought about it and then faced the boy he found he had come not only to admire, but actually like, and for Dugan to say he liked another human being was astounding.

“You go on, boyo, do like the colonel says. We will try and get along without you.”

Gray Dog lowered his head and started to turn.

“You may as well take this with you. I was waiting to give it to you on our return.” Thomas actually looked embarrassed. “I figured you would be of age by then.” John Henry swallowed as he looked at his adopted son. “But it seems time has run out on me.” He slid the cloth-covered package toward Gray Dog.

The Comanche touched the package but made no move to pick it up. He only looked from it to the colonel.

“Colonel Taylor, well, back then he was Lieutenant Taylor, found this in your village the day … the day your family was killed. He took it and delivered it to me because he knew I was close to your father, No Water. Its time you have it. It may come in handy when you meet with Lieutenant Parnell and if things get bad.”

Gray Dog finally reached for the parcel and slowly undid the twine. He let the cloth fall to the petrified decking as he saw what Taylor and John Henry had delivered into his hands. It was his father’s headdress, a war bonnet with more than seventy-five eagle feathers arranged along the train. From headband to tail feather the war bonnet was more than six feet long. Gray Dog’s father had been one of the legendary Comanche warriors of that time. Gray Dog held it up and let the feathers unroll to their full length. He smiled like John Henry had never seen before. The Comanche turned and showed Dugan.

“Now ain’t that somethin?” the sergeant major said as he started to spit again, but instead held it in check. “Your pa would be real proud right about now.”

Taylor saw the grudging respect the sergeant major was showing the young brave.

John Henry reached out and took Gray Dog’s hand. He wanted to hug him but knew that would only embarrass him. He shook the hand and then turned away.

“Good luck, son,” was all he said.

Gray Dog looked confused and then made up his mind that he would do as he was told. He straightened and with the war bonnet in hand stepped up to Taylor, who had saved this magnificent gift for him, and held out his hand, and Jessy took it and stood at the same time. The handshake was exaggerated with wide up-and-down shakes. Taylor smiled and nodded.

“Godspeed, Gray Dog.”

The Comanche turned away and left.

John Henry looked up and his thoughts turned sad as he expected not to see the boy again. He faced Taylor.

“Yes, Jessy, you’re right. Some things can be bought pretty cheaply.”

25

It had taken Captain Jackson’s reorganized work crews thirteen hours to clear the lowest level of the raised living quarters of the Ark. It was a small percentage because the rest of the five-story structure was in thick and unyielding ice. Jackson and his ordnance men claimed if they had the time and the right equipment, such as phosphorous charges, they could clear most of the communal living area that saw its last use more than thirteen thousand years before.

Thus far Ollafson, who had recovered from his initial shock at not being able to remove much in the way of artifacts, was as excited as a schoolboy as he moved the oil lamp from one location to the other. Raised areas for bedding, the petrified remains of fire pits, and huge lumps of frozen and prehistoric vegetation. All of this could have kept botanists busy for a hundred years identifying strange and extinct plant life. In one corner of a small alcove on the highest mark of the living quarters, in a place where a child would retreat to play alone, Claire came across what looked like a child’s rag doll embedded in the ice. It had taken her with the assistance of Sergeant Major Dugan over five hours to remove it.

The doll was now sitting upon a table on a piece of sailcloth for examination and return to American soil. When holding the sodden mess in her hands it was far more unrecognizable than it had been when it was embedded in the ice. The ancient materials were not reacting to the air all that well and the huge discovery was quickly turning into a pile of mush. Claire cursed herself for not having sample jars available.

The sun had set more than six hours before, and everyone in camp felt the loss of light and a gloom settled over everyone, especially since the thrill from this afternoon had worn off. As for Steven McDonald, Claire had been shocked to see the British captain standing in line for chow at dusk. She had stepped up to him and he had actually smiled and greeted her as if nothing strange had happened that afternoon. She had informed John Henry of the spy master’s reversal of attitude and she could see in Thomas’s eyes that his concern was great, maybe even as great, to order the elimination, or expulsion, of the British intelligence officer. Claire didn’t know if John Henry had it in him to order Steven eliminated, but the strain and guilt of sending Gray Dog off to an unknown fate was weighing heavily on the colonel’s mind.

“You know, for a master spy you seem to be taking this academia thing to the extreme,” said a voice behind her, which startled her so much it made her drop the large brush she had been using to search the walls of the Ark for any more Angelic Script. Personally she hoped she would never see any of the symbols ever again.

“If there is one place on this planet you do not sneak up on somebody, this is it, Colonel,” she said with her hand trying to still her heavily beating heart through the thick coat.

Dugan snickered and spit his tobacco and then decided to get out of there and get some coffee. John Henry watched him go and then faced Claire again.

“Tomorrow I am going to have our British friend escorted from the mountain and delivered back to his people.” He paused and then looked into her eyes. “Unharmed.”

Thomas could see the relief in her eyes.

“Thank you. Call it professional courtesy, or a favor to me. He doesn’t need to be killed, at least not as much as our French friend Renaud.”

Thomas lowered the hood of his coat, intentionally not answering her relief with a comment. After all, he did not want her to think he had grown too barbaric over the years. But if the career military man had his druthers he would hang any person caught spying for any nation, including his own; he despised them that much. It bothered him that Claire was a spy, and he knew he would have to come to terms with that.

“As to your question, I feel I have a certain obligation to Professor Ollafson,” she said with a nod toward the busy professor in the far corner where he was examining the remains of the large, communal fire pit in the center of the large room. “He needs me more than the nation does at the moment and I figure I can spare him at least that little bit of dignity.”

John Henry paced to the gallery and then looked down upon the areas the naval engineers had cleared of ice. It was expansive and he imagined most articles that made up the Ark’s interior had been stripped by the survivors for use in home building and for heat. He could imagine just a portion of the Ark would have provided wood for enough housing for several large families, and as he looked around at the many giant holes in the structure he could see that was exactly what had happened.

“You have to hand it to the old bastard, though, he surely did what he told the president he could do. I never would have believed it.” Thomas’s eyes scanned the area beneath that used to be alive with every animal the family of Noah could save. It must have been a horrid and fearful voyage for the family of man.

“You know, Colonel—”

“John Henry. It’s about time we drop the formalities, especially since we may end up here for eternity.”

Claire smiled like she had been complimented by the school’s most eligible boy.

“Finally, some common sense has been displayed by our fearless leader. John Henry, then. You need to remember something. There are many historians, even those adamantly refusing to believe the tales of the Bible as based on reality, that are coming around to believe that the Bible, though flawed, is the greatest historical text in history. There are men”—she smiled at Thomas—“and women who are making new discoveries every day in the field of archaeology that are being taken as serious revisions to the atheist point of view. In other words, John Henry, it is becoming very evident that every story in the Bible, no matter how outlandish or strange, has a basis in fact. Each tale has an origin, no matter how much that tale has changed as it was handed down, generation by generation.”

Thomas turned from his high vantage point. “You have placed some deep thought into this, haven’t you?” he asked as she reached down to pick up her brush.

“I guess the professor has rubbed off on me a bit.”

“More than a bit, I would say.”

“Oh, my dear. Allow me to assist in transcribing these symbols.”

John Henry saw Ollafson in the doorway watching them.

“Well, on that cheerful note, I’ll be turning in.”

“I have to get these symbols interpreted.”

Ollafson returned to the bent and broken doorway and made to get his materials.

“Not without at least two soldiers in here with you at all times,” Thomas said, capturing Claire with his eyes as he raised his fur-lined hood.

“I’m not going to argue with that. I wish Gray Dog were here. That boy has a sixth sense when it comes to seeing our angelic host.” She saw the sadness in John Henry’s eyes at the mention of Gray Dog and Claire wished she had not brought it up.

Thomas took a last look around the room and tried his best to keep his face straight as he thought about the boy and his descent down Ararat with the young Rebel soldier, Private Willard.

“I wish he were here also,” he said and then looked closely at Claire. “Good night, Miss Claire.”

“Good night, John Henry.”

She watched the large man leave and wondered if the colonel would ever be capable of letting go of the vivid memories of his wife. Claire didn’t know if it was deep-seated love, or the fact that he blamed himself for her loss. Perhaps both emotions ruled what the colonel did in life. She sighed and then smiled as the professor came back in full with his former enthusiasm.