The Scorpion's Tail

by Douglas Preston

  “Not only that—it appears to include directions to where the treasure was hidden.”

  “And look here, it mentions the Sierra Oscura. That’s the range of hills north of Victorio Peak.” He exhaled. “This is incredible. It means Doc Noss was a fraud and con all along, claiming he’d found the treasure on Victorio Peak!” He paused. “‘At the base of E—’…That could refer to a hill or landmark in the Sierra Oscura—the real hill.”

  “Is that still on the White Sands Missile Range?” Nora asked.

  “Yes, but near the north end, on the Jornada del Muerto side of the mountains, not far from the Trinity site.”

  Not far from the Trinity site. “Have you heard of this Reina de Oro mine?”

  “No. It was clearly one of many pre-Revolt mines, of which all historical documents were lost during the rebellion.” Chavez took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. “There’s something I wasn’t going to tell you yet, but—well, this document changes everything.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It has to do with the gold cross found on the body of James Gower. At first I thought it was mere speculation on my part, but now…”

  He placed the glasses back on his nose. “A little background first. In 1519, as you know, Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico and eventually conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the largest city in the New World. It was ruled by the emperor Montezuma, who had staggering amounts of gold, silver, and other precious objects in his treasury. The Spanish destroyed Tenochtitlán in 1521 and carried away its treasure. Almost all of it was melted down into bars to ship back to Spain. But some of that gold was reworked into holy objects for use in the New World.”

  He tented his fingers, voice deepening.

  “Montezuma wore a large gold forehead ornament with the likeness of the god Quetzalcoatl on it, studded with precious stones. It was the fundamental symbol of his divine authority. After Montezuma’s death, the Spanish pried out the stones and melted down the gold—and remade it into a cross. It was a highly significant action, you see. They did it for the same reason they built churches on top of Aztec temples and sacred places: to transform the symbols of pagan worship into Christian ones.”

  “And that was the cross Gower was carrying?”

  “I believe so.” His eyes shone. “The very cross scholars long believed was lost to history—or just a legend.”

  “But how do you know it’s that cross?”

  “Those little stamps I’ve been scratching my head over? The ones I thought were hallmarks or maker’s marks? They were not. They were, in fact, Nahuatl glyphs: one for the name Montezuma, and the other a syllabic glyph for Jesus. When I saw that, I wondered if it might be the cross. But that’s an extraordinary claim, and I was searching for corroborative evidence. This letter is that evidence. The cross was believed to have been carried up into New Mexico around 1600, so it would naturally be found with the ecclesiastical treasure.” He tapped the computer screen with a long finger. “This treasure.”

  A soft knock came at the door, and the president’s assistant came in. “Sorry to bother you, but, Nora? That FBI agent called your office phone. I heard it and picked it up. She’s been trying to reach you.”

  “My office phone?” Nora pulled her cell from her pocket. During their session with the Spanish letter, it had gone dead. “Thanks.” After congratulating Chavez and promising him a bottle of Dom Pérignon, she went to her office and called Corrie from her landline.

  “Nora, I’ve been trying to reach you all morning!”

  “Listen, Corrie, I’ve got some incredible news. I found Nantan Taza, the old Apache. He’s alive. And he gave me a—”

  “Hold up, Nora,” Corrie said sharply.

  “What is it?”

  “The phone…might not be good. We need to meet. In person. Somewhere safe.”

  “Can you come to the Institute?”

  “Yes.” A pause. “No. Not safe enough. Come to my apartment in Albuquerque.”

  “When?”

  “Around six, please.”

  49

  I WARN YOU,” said Watts, as he and Morwood stood in the parking lot outside Cascabel Tavern, the light of a blinking neon cactus framed against the evening sky. “This place isn’t too friendly to law enforcement.”

  “So you said.” Morwood pulled out a glossy of Rivers and another glossy, blurry and indistinct, of the guy in the MP uniform who had killed him and handed both to Watts. “I’m going to let you do the talking. You look like one of them, and I don’t.”

  “Well, damn, Agent Morwood, I told you to wear a cowboy hat and jeans,” said Watts with a grin.

  Morwood snorted. “Hell will freeze over first.”

  Watts heard some yelling, followed by a woman’s shrill voice at the other side of the dirt parking lot. Two guys appeared, swinging their fists at each other while the girl hollered, thoroughly enjoying the fight.

  “Kind of early for that, don’t you think?” Morwood said. “It’s barely six.”

  “Never too early at the Cascabel. Besides, I’d much rather go in there now than wait until midnight.” Watts tugged the brim of his hat and strode across the lot, Morwood following. He pushed open the saloon doors and entered the bar, fragrant with the smell of cheap perfume and spilled beer—and choking with cigarette smoke, even though it had been against the law to smoke in a New Mexico tavern for fifteen years.

  Watts glanced around as they headed to the bar but didn’t see anyone he knew. He ordered a cup of coffee while Morwood ordered a glass of seltzer. The bartender was enormous, well over six feet, solid as a cast-iron boiler. He had a big black beard and a ponytail, and his facial expressions made it clear that he didn’t approve of their drink choices.

  Watts took out his sheriff’s star and placed it on the bar.

  The man eyed it, then looked up at Watts. “So?”

  “I was hoping to ask a few questions about a guy who used to come in here. Pick Rivers.”

  The bartender looked at him steadily, then turned to Morwood, staring at the ID hanging on a lanyard around his neck. “You a fed?”

  “FBI.”

  Another long stare at each of them. Then the bartender said: “You guys look smart. If you want my advice, I’d finish your drinks and go on out. This isn’t a good place for you, I guarantee it.”

  “How about answering a few questions first?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Aren’t you curious to know why we’re interested in Rivers?” Watts asked.

  “Not particularly. He’s a loudmouth asshole.”

  “We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

  At this the bartender fell silent. Watts could see he wanted to ask how Rivers had died, but he didn’t.

  “He was murdered,” Watts added.

  Now he could see the bartender was even more intrigued. He stuck out his hand. “Sheriff Homer Watts.”

  The bartender, taken by surprise, took the hand. “Bob Glen.”

  “Yeah,” Watts went on. “Rivers was assassinated. In the hospital, if you can believe it. Some guy came in and injected a deadly drug into his IV.”

  Glen said nothing.

  Watts removed a glossy of the killer. “This guy.”

  Glen looked at it. “Shitty photograph,” he said. “Can’t see his face.”

  “That’s the problem. Look, Mr. Glen, we’re not here to bust anyone’s balls or get into politics. We want to find out who killed Rivers. That’s all.”

  Glen leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Look, if I answer a few questions, will you guys get out? I’ve had enough trouble in here already, and I don’t want my place trashed again.”

  “Sounds like a deal,” said Watts. “Do you know if Rivers was involved in looting or selling of relics?”

  “Yeah, he used to brag now and then about how he’d dug up some ruin, found pots and shit like that.”

  “And did he ever say who he was selling to? Or working with?
”

  “I got the impression he was working for himself. He was too fucked up back then to work with anyone. But after he got out of the Graybar Hotel, he stopped coming around. I sort of got the idea he’d straightened himself out—”

  “Fee-fi-fo-fum!” came a drunken voice from behind them. Watts turned to see three guys in full cowboy regalia coming up, boots thumping, spurs jingling. All three had the rough red faces of the drinking class, and he recognized them as the Sturgis brothers. They had a ranch out in Arabela, where they had set up concrete bunkers, shooting ranges, obstacle courses, a solar panel array, a ten-thousand-gallon fuel tank, and an arsenal of weapons, all ready for the coming apocalypse. They weren’t real cowboys, just a bunch of doomsday-prepper assholes who illegally overstocked their federal grazing allotments, for which they paid almost nothing—anti-government guys on the government dole. They rounded up their cows with ATVs and airhorns and didn’t even own horses.

  “I smell the blood of a fed,” the drunken man finished, coming up to Morwood, the other two crowding around his stool. Morwood looked the man up and down, saying nothing.

  The bar had gone quiet, and the other patrons were looking their way, some standing up to get a better view.

  “Hey, Sturgis,” said Watts, “we don’t want any trouble, okay? We’re just asking a few questions about a homicide. This guy.” He pulled out the glossy of Rivers.

  Sturgis swiped the glossy out of his hand and flicked it away like a Frisbee.

  Morwood stood up. Watts could see all three of the Sturgis brothers were open-carrying, as usual. Everyone in the bar, it seemed, had a piece strapped on. He was glad he was wearing his brace of six-guns.

  Morwood remained surprisingly cool for a guy in his late forties and not in especially good shape facing a giant gorilla of a man. “Do you really want to go there, Mr. Sturgis?”

  “Yeah, I do. I really want to go there.”

  There was a long silence while the two of them looked at each other. Then Sturgis reached out and plucked Morwood’s shield hanging on the lanyard. “Remember Ruby Ridge,” he said, and leaned over and spat on it.

  Now the silence in the bar was total. Watts waited, tense, ready to reach for his Peacemakers. He had no idea what Morwood would do next or what might happen.

  Slowly, almost leisurely, Morwood pulled the lanyard over his head, and then—hands out at his sides in a nonthreatening posture—he walked still closer to the gorilla. “Well, I really don’t want to go there. So we’ll be leaving now. Maybe we’ll see you boys another time.”

  All eyes were on the faces of the two men staring each other down. Only Watts noticed that as Morwood was speaking he was also deftly and quietly polishing his badge on Sturgis’s loose shirttail.

  After a tense silence, Morwood turned and walked to the saloon doors, Watts following. Behind them, catcalls and whistles erupted. At the entrance, Morwood looked back.

  “Remember Oklahoma City,” he said in an iron voice.

  They crossed the parking lot and Morwood got into his truck, Watts sliding into the passenger seat. When they were out on the highway, Watts turned toward Morwood. The FBI agent’s face was neutral, collected, smooth, showing no sign of what had just transpired.

  “That took self-control,” Watts said.

  “Yes. It did.”

  “That was assault, cut-and-dried.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Watts said, “what are you going to do about it?” He didn’t add that he, personally, would likely have punched the lights out of the son of a bitch; but, he had to admit, that would have taken them all into unknown territory.

  “Suffice to say, a rain of shit is going to fall down on Mr. Sturgis—I just have to decide how hard. But we’ve got more important things to do right now. Besides, my badge needed polishing.”

  They turned on Highway 380 and headed east. The sun was almost touching the horizon as they cleared the pass through the Azul Mountains. To the south, Watts caught a glimpse of a tiny trail of dust, illuminated in the setting sun. He stared. That was the start of the BLM road to High Lonesome.

  “Hey, Agent Morwood?”

  The agent looked over.

  “Are your people doing any work over at High Lonesome?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, then, I think we’ve got a problem.”

  50

  NORA ARRIVED AT Corrie’s apartment just as the sun was setting over Sandia Crest. Corrie was waiting at the door, and she ushered her in. Nora was eager to deliver her news, but Corrie stopped her from speaking and led her into a second bedroom she had turned into an office, with a computer on a table and piles of manila folders and paper on the floor. A nearby trash can was overflowing with more paper.

  “Sorry,” Corrie said, shifting the stacks out of the way. “I’ve been so busy with this case, I can’t find time to do anything else. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork an FBI agent has to do. There’s even more at the office.”

  She pulled a chair up and positioned it next to the desk, in front of a tripod where she had set up her cell phone as a video recorder. “Sit down, Nora. I’m going to take notes and videotape your statement.”

  “I always wanted to be a social media star,” said Nora, trying to lighten the mood.

  Corrie didn’t smile. “I’ll sit here and ask questions.” She turned on the cell phone video and sat down. “Okay. Tell me about your journey to Nantan Taza and what you discovered. Everything you say is going to be logged as evidence in the case.”

  This was a side of Corrie that Nora had rarely seen. She began by describing the horseback journey, finding the dying Taza, and giving him the bundle.

  At this, Corrie abruptly paused the recorder. “Wait. You gave him the medicine bundle? You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “But…” Corrie could barely choke out the words. “That was evidence. Evidence. You knew that. Do you have any idea how hard I had to fight just to get that damned dirty old sack out of the frigging building?”

  At this, Nora’s excitement faded behind an upwelling of irritation. “That ‘dirty old sack’ just happened to belong to someone. And I had to give it to him in order to get something in return. Something valuable.”

  “Just how the hell am I going to explain this to my boss?” Corrie asked, raising her voice. “I’m already on his shit list. Your waltzing off with this piece of evidence—which I signed off on, remember?—is going to be the last nail in the coffin.”

  “So now you’re trying to lay this on me?” Nora said, her own voice rising accordingly. “I didn’t ask you to show up at my dig site, with your sob story about how you’d messed up, begging me to drive halfway across the state to help you. I should have known better. I’m the one doing you the favor.”

  “That doesn’t justify what you did. I trusted you with that evidence. I expected you to act within the law. And besides, once you saw the site I could barely drag you away from it!”

  “That’s like a drug pusher blaming a buyer for getting addicted!” All the pent-up frustration and annoyance she’d been holding back—more than she’d realized—came tumbling out at once. “Well, guess what? You’re not the only one with work troubles. By wasting all this time helping you, I’ve put myself totally behind schedule on my dig…and I’ve risked losing a really important promotion. And that’s on you.” She stood up. “Whatever. I’m done. I’m out of here.”

  “Nora—wait.”

  “Go to hell.” She turned to leave the room.

  “Nora, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this was causing you such problems.”

  Nora hesitated, breathing heavily.

  “You said you got something valuable in return.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I can use that as an excuse, keep us both out of trouble.”

  Fury vented, Nora felt herself cooling down. It wasn’t like her to blow her top—that was more Corrie’s department. She wondered
if she should demand an apology and realized she wouldn’t get one. Anyway, she’d been out of line as well.

  Corrie continued. “It’s not considered unreasonable for an FBI agent to give something in exchange for information of value.”

  Nora forced herself to turn and sit down again.

  “All right,” Corrie said, “if you’re ready, let’s resume.” She turned the recorder back on.

  Nora took a deep breath. “After I gave him the medicine bag,” she began once more, “Taza asked me to fetch a wooden box. Inside were two items: a heavy gold watch decorated with constellations, and a piece of parchment with a Native American drawing on one side and faded Spanish script on the other.”

  “A piece of parchment?” Corrie asked, leaning forward with an astonished expression. “Was it cut in half?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  Corrie didn’t answer the question, instead asking another. “What did the old man tell you about it?”

  “He said that the Jornada del Muerto and all the surrounding land, all of WSMR, once belonged to the Apaches. Many centuries ago, he said, his ancestors encountered a group of friars hurrying down the Spanish trail with soldiers and mules. They attacked the pack train and pursued it into the foothills, where the Spanish fled, looking for a defensible site. They took refuge on a small peak. The Apaches surrounded them, but the Spanish soldiers kept them at bay while the mules were unloaded and their cargo placed in the mountain. The Spanish defended themselves for a while longer, but they had no water and eventually the Apaches prevailed and killed them all. A day later, the Apaches caught a boy from the pack train, carrying a letter down the Camino Real. He had escaped from the peak during the fight. The Apaches took the letter from him. The boy said it was terribly important and was written to the high chief of Spain himself. The Apaches kept the parchment, not knowing what it was but believing it to be of great significance to the Spanish. At some point many years later, one of the keepers of the parchment drew pictures on its back. Sacred pictures, he said, of a battle where Geronimo defeated his enemies. The pictures were to counteract the negative power of the written words on the other side.