by Greig Beck
“Hey, Stitch, I’m at the Wyndam Perry, about half a mile down the road from you,” Greg replied. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m just checking in, then I’ll grab a quick shower and we should meet up. What’s your bar look like?” Mitch looked along the corridor to the small open area of the Holiday Inn bar. He swore he saw tumbleweeds blowing through it.
“Not bad, plus I think I see free bar snacks.” Greg chuckled. “Also…”
“Stop there, you had me at free bar snacks.” Mitch checked his watch. “Be there in under an hour.” He started up the steps to his room but paused. He jogged back to the desk.
The cheery-faced check-in clerk raised his eyebrows and continued to smile. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, maybe. Do you know a Native American man by the name of Johnson Nightbird?”
His smile widened. “What’s he done now?”
“I’ll take that as a yes, and also that he’s still alive.” Mitch felt relieved. “I’m a doctor from Eldon and just wanted to ask him some questions about some consulting work he did for our museum a while back. Might need his services again.”
The clerk pulled out a notepad. “I’m Otoe too. Old ‘J.N.’ is a legend around these parts. Knows everything about everything.” He leaned forward. “He’s a shaman, you know.”
“A wizard?” Mitch asked.
“More like a spirit talker and wise man. But he’s a powerful one.” He began to write on the notepad but paused to look up. “You’ve got a car, right?”
Mitch nodded.
“Good, then you turn right on the 64, then left onto the 77 and stay on that for about 12 miles until you get to the 15.” He drew a detailed diagram as he spoke. “Then you head along that toward the settlement of Red Rock itself. But, most importantly, just before you get there, turn left onto the 160.”
Mitch traced the route with his finger and nodded, following it easily. The clerk went on.
“About half a mile along the 160, you’ll come to a small turn-off with a mailbox that has a carved eagle on top. Take it and follow that all the way to Johnson Nightbird’s place. It’s right on the edge of Red Rock Canyon Creek.”
The clerk straightened, smiling. “He doesn’t have a phone and is a little short-tempered these days. So, if you don’t get shot in the first few seconds, remember to say hello to him from Jimmy at the Inn.”
Mitch chuckled. “You’re joking, right?”
Jimmy continued to smile.
*****
“Cheers. To good days.” Greg clinked his beer glass up against Mitch’s.
“And even better ones to come,” Mitch replied, and then they both sipped.
“So how are you these days, Mitch? I mean, really?” Greg watched him.
Mitch knew what he was getting at. After Syria, he had carried around a lot of guilt, blaming himself for walking his team into an ambush and also for the loss of the Kurdish woman.
Then Cindy lifted him out of his dark days only to die of cancer. His depression came down on him like a ton of bricks, and he began to believe he had poison touch syndrome, where anyone he loved would die.
“I’m good. In fact, real good these days. Eldon has, ah, exceeded my expectations.” He lifted his glass in a toast.
Greg grinned. “Oh, that good, huh? Who is she then?”
“No one really. Just the vice mayor, is all.” He chuckled. “We’re just friends, but, who knows, she’s pretty cool.”
“Pretty cool or pretty hot?” Greg pressed.
Mitch nodded. “Both.”
“I look forward to meeting her.” He put his glass down. “Now tell me why you raced out of Eldon like your hair was on fire. What’s the rush, and what the hell is with those people back in the seventies that suffered some weird, never heard of before, disfiguring infection?”
“That’s just it—I think it has been heard of before. Maybe many times. We just didn’t recognise it, or the time span was too great,” Mitch replied. He sat forward, talking softer. “And in fact, I think whatever this infection is, it has happened many times in our history.”
“And what does that have to do with Red Rock?” Greg asked.
“There’s someone here who knows more about it than we do.” Mitch pulled out his phone with the picture of the people becoming petrified and turned it around. “This is Angel Syndrome, which as far as I know hasn’t affected anyone here just yet. Or at least none that I know of. But it did back in the seventies. And I believe it also happened long ago.”
“The museum artifacts?” Greg’s brows went up.
“Yeah, these guys.” Mitch changed the picture to the petrified people in the museum. “This image of a family group was found in the depths of some caves below the town.” Mitch handed Greg the phone.
Greg frowned as he swiped between the ancient statues and the people in the CDC images.
“Almost identical.” He looked up. “When?”
“They were found at the turn of the century. But the real kicker is they’ve been dated to around 12,000 years ago.” Mitch scoffed softly. “Whatever is going on, has been going on for thousands of years.”
“Could be something in the indigenous animal population that surfaces seasonally, but on a long cycle. Did you know that armadillos were found to spread Hanson’s disease, leprosy? In the Gulf states, some mating seasons the little bastards would wander closer to human populations, and bingo, people were catching the disease. Was a mystery how every second year, or decade, there’d be outbreaks, and it was only when they tested the local animals that they found their biological reservoir.”
“Interesting. Never thought about that,” Mitch mused.
Greg shrugged. “Well, thank God you don’t have any outbreaks now.”
“Maybe we don’t have any obvious outbreaks, yet. That is, unless we head them off somehow.” Mitch shrugged. “The sheriff is barricading off the mine, so hopefully we can keep people out and away from the water. But there’s an old Native American called Johnson Nightbird who described the infection to the museum. He was in Eldon back in the seventies. He also said that the people had become servants of Adotte Sakima—the tree god.”
Greg sat back slowly. “I don’t understand.”
Mitch shrugged. “That makes two of us. It’s somehow all connected but I don’t know how. And that’s why we need to talk to him.”
“And I’m guessing why we’re here.” Greg drained his beer and put the bottle down. “So, what do you hope to find out from this Nightbird?”
Mitch shook his head as he stared into his beer. “I don’t know yet. But I do know that the Otoe-Missouria tribe has been in this area for thousands of years and are one of the oldest in the country. Maybe entwined in one of their legends is an answer, or a clue, or something that can give us an idea of what it is we’re dealing with.”
“Well, sooner or later, you’re going to have to bring in the CDC. My contacts in there were a little suspicious about why I wanted to dig those old cases up.” He stood with his empty bottle. “Another?”
“Sure.” Mitch drained his own drink. “Just remember, the mayor wants it handled locally for now. I’ll play by his rules for a little longer.”
“Okay, you’ve got to do that. But keep in mind, the CDC has national and international expertise. Plus, they must know something about this Angel Syndrome as they’ve dealt with it before.”
Mitch looked up and shook his head. “No, they dealt with it by simply locking it away.” He scoffed. “And what happened to all the children? Did they die or become petrified like their parents? Or are they still alive somewhere?”
“Mitch, we’ve both worked for the military and know what a tripwire is for. They asked me a hellova lot of questions about my basic searches. I kinda got the feeling if I asked any more, I’d set off some alarms and then someone is going to show up and start asking me, us, a lot more questions. Are you ready for that?”
Mitch shook his head. “No, not yet. I still don’t understand
what it is I’ve found or even what I’m looking for.” He smiled. “And that’s why I want to speak to this old Otoe elder.”
“Did you make an appointment?” Greg asked.
“Nope. And only just found out where he lives an hour ago,” Mitch replied.
“Hope he speaks to us. You better take him something… I dunno, like a house-warming present.” Greg grinned.
“Good idea.” Mitch went to the bar and bought a carton of cigarettes. He settled on Marlboro. He slid them on the table and Greg picked them up, cocking an eyebrow.
“Marlboro? Seriously? Is that a good idea? Don’t cowboys smoke those?” He chuckled.
“Pfft, how old are you, 80? They retired the Marlboro Man decades ago.” Mitch shrugged. “If he doesn’t smoke, he can give them away.” Mitch finished his second drink and stood. “Just don’t tell anyone a doctor is handing out cigarettes.”
“I’m sure he’d prefer a bag of kale and a scented candle,” Greg laughed.
“Even I’d shoot me for that sort of gift. Let’s head out early tomorrow, 6:30 am, I’ll pick you up. Should only take us an hour to get there, and hopefully track the old guy down.”
Greg toasted his friend. “May you live in interesting times.”
Mitch grinned. “Isn’t that an old curse?”
*****
Mitch slowed as he spotted Greg standing out front of his hotel. The military medical man jumped into the rental.
“Let’s go find ourselves a nightbird,” he said as he buckled up.
Mitch followed the instructions given to him by his desk clerk and headed firstly out across flat highway for several miles toward a line of ragged, low-lying hills.
As they left the main highway that held a lot of the gas stations, hotels, and malls, they saw nature reclaim the landscape, where concrete turned to trees, waving grasses, and exposed pink stone.
It also meant that the roads became less smooth, and in no time, they were traveling along tracks with deep potholes that tested their suspension and jarred them to their back teeth.
“There.” Mitch pointed through the windscreen.
It was a mailbox with an American bald eagle carving on top. There was no name or number on it, and Mitch guessed you just had to know whose it was. And you would if you lived out here.
Mitch turned slowly onto the path and headed on up.
“Should be only a few hundred yards now. Keep a lookout for a house. Or an old guy with a shotgun.” Mitch chuckled as he drove about ten miles per hour as both men scanned the forest for a sign of Johnson Nightbird’s dwelling place.
Then they passed through a large stand of trees and saw just up ahead nestled in among some huge trunks there was a cabin. Smoke curled from a stone chimney and the yard was strewn with automobiles, some were the color of earth as all their paint had rusted away, and another looking like someone was attempting to either take it apart or put it back together.
“This must be the place,” Greg said.
Beside the house was a pile of chopped firewood six feet high.
“This guy is supposed to be in his late 70s and chopped all that wood himself?” Mitch observed. “Impressive.”
“They must make ‘em tough out here,” Greg replied.
They pushed open their doors and stood in the pleasant, dappled sunshine.
Mitch drew in a deep breath of clean air until the rifle shot made both of the ex-military men crouch and reach for sidearms they didn’t carry anymore.
“Hold your fire,” Mitch yelled.
The pair moved forward with their hands up. “Do. Not. Fire.” Mitch tried to see where the shot had come from.
“What do you want?” The response came from the tree line. “You from the bloodsucking IRS?”
“Tree line, ten o’clock,” Greg said softly.
“No.” Mitch let his eyes slide to where Greg indicated. “I’m a doctor. From Eldon. I just have a few questions.”
He saw then the shape just behind a tree trunk, the barrel of the rifle still pointed loosely in their direction. It slowly lowered some more.
“Show me some ID.” The man half-stepped out but cradled the gun in his arms.
Mitch took out his wallet and tossed it over. “Medical ID is in the slot.”
Greg did the same. The man picked them up and kept his eyes on the men. “You boys don’t look like doctors. More like cops.”
“Nope, check the ID,” Greg replied. “We just need your help or advice on something. Something we think you might be able to help with.”
The man stepped out a little more, and Mitch was finally able to see him clearly—he had white hair past his shoulders, faded jeans, and a stained chambray shirt. Though he was slim, and stood no more than 5’9, his forearms and hands were large and strong—cutting firewood would do that to you.
“Johnson Nightbird, we presume?” Mitch said.
“That’s me.” He checked the ID and lowered his gun. “ID could be faked, but what the hell. I ain’t no conspiracy nut.”
He walked up onto the deck and placed his gun by the door. Mitch and Greg followed, and he handed back their wallets.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Nightbird.” Mitch held out the cigarettes. “These are for you.”
Johnson looked at them. “Where’s my firewater?” His eyebrows rose. “Or my blankets?”
Mitch just stared.
“Could you be any more patronizing, you pair of white-eyed devils?” The man glared.
Mitch shook his head. “I, I, just…”
Nightbird snatched the cigarettes. “I’m only shitting you—I love Marlboro.” He turned to Greg. “What did you bring me?”
Greg held his hands wide. “Goodwill and a nice smile.”
“In that case, I might still shoot you.” Nightbird winked. “Come on, let’s grab a beer and sit a while.” He turned. “Beer is three bucks a bottle.”
Mitch laughed. “You got a deal. And my buddy will pay.”
The trio sat on the front deck, Mitch next to Nightbird and Greg on the floor decking with his back to the wall. In the distance, they could just hear water cascading somewhere and guessed it must have been the Red Rock Canyon River.
“Peaceful,” Greg said.
“That’s why I like it here. Makes me humble,” Nightbird replied. “When you have very little, these little things are the big things.” He eyed the pair. “You guys say you were doctors?”
Mitch nodded. “I’m a general practitioner, and Greg’s a medical research guy.”
“Our doctor is on a fly-in, fly-out basis.” Nightbird’s mouth turned down. “I’m on the Otoe head council for the city. And fix cars in my spare time.” He nodded to the least rusty-looking wreck. “Working on that one now.”
“Good work,” Mitch replied.
“Yeah, right.” Nightbird winked and toasted Greg and Mitch who also sipped their beer. “Well, why did you boys drive all the way out to see an old injun?”
Mitch lowered the bottle. “You were there in Eldon in ‘77…during the outbreak,” Mitch said.
Nightbird nodded slowly. “Yep.”
“And also assisted the museum for its display on the Eldon Angels?” Greg added.
“Always happy to help.” Nightbird watched them.
Mitch could tell now he was avoiding giving away anything until they showed their hands first. They had nothing to lose, Mitch thought. “It’s happening again.”
Nightbird lowered his beer. “Of course it is,” he said softly while staring straight ahead.
“It’s the mine water, isn’t it?” Mitch asked.
Nightbird bobbed his head from side to side with his mouth turned down. “That’s the end result. Not really the cause. I told them nearly 50 years ago to close that mine. All they did was fence it off.” He turned to the pair. “I’m betting the fencing has come down, huh?”
“Yeah, and now we are getting all sorts of infections—rashes—and after we did some analysis found that it might be corrupting the mamma
lian genome,” Greg said.
Nightbird shrugged. “I don’t know what that means, but I do know that people should be kept as far from that mine as possible. Especially when it has welled up.” He turned. “Hey, tell me, has there been any tremors lately?”
“Yeah, a mild one a few weeks back,” Mitch replied. “Does that have something to do with it?”
Nightbird grunted. “It is in the legend.”
“Of the tree god?” Mitch replied.
“Adotte Sakima.” The old man turned slowly to him. “What do you know about it?”
Greg quickly called up some of the images of the petrified people from the CDC’s files and handed it to the Native American.
“Just like the group in the museum, but these poor souls were alive in the seventies,” he said.
Nightbird looked at them and then sighed. “Now they too are forever servants of the Tree God.” He handed the phone back.
“Tell us about the legend.” Mitch sat forward. “Everything you know.”
“Everything I know.” He snorted softly.
Nightbird tilted his beer back and drank half the bottle. He lowered it and stared out over his property.
Mitch thought he was about to ignore them, but after a soft burp, he began to speak as if in a trance.
“In the time before the beginning of time, before mankind was born into this great land, and maybe before any animals set foot here, there was just the water.” He closed his eyes and lifted his chin as he spoke.
“A great island floated in an ocean as vast as the eye could see. It was attached by four thick ropes reaching up to the sky, which was made of rock then. There was no sun or stars and because everything was dark; there was no need for eyes. One day, a water beetle named Dayuni’si volunteered to explore underwater and found mud there that he brought back to the surface. He eventually brought up enough to make an island. He liked what he had done so he continued his work until he had brought so much mud to the surface that he created the Earth. As the Earth hardened, they pulled a sun out from behind the rock and made a rainbow.
