Indiana Jones and the Unicorn's Legacy

by Rob MacGregor

  Even then, Mara couldn't find Aguila. She waited two days and finally left. The second time she made the trip she stayed three days, and only when she was about to leave did he finally show up. He stepped out of his door as if he'd been there all along and asked what she wanted. Mara was sure the place had been vacant and that he must have snuck inside when she wasn't looking.

  Aguila had studied her drawings, and then told her that she needed more drawings in her collection before he could say anything about them. She'd sensed that he would tell her nothing about the staff if she asked, so she'd left and returned a month later with several new drawings of petroglyphs and pictographs.

  At first, Aguila seemed impressed that she had done what he said, but then he told her he would take her to a place where she would find many more rock paintings and etchings. They walked for several hours until they reached a place she later learned was known as White Canyon. Aguila said it was a special, sacred place and that she could always find sanctuary here. He showed her ancient pueblos tucked under overhangs that had been perfectly preserved. Even their wooden beam ceilings were intact. He also showed her where there were springs with clean, cool water bubbling from the earth.

  Mara spent hours carefully copying paintings and carvings of shape-changing shamans, animals, and mysterious symbols. Finally, when she presented her drawings to Aguila, she said she had a special request, and told him that she was interested in recovering the unicorn's horn, the staff which he'd bought at the pawnshop. Aguila had acted as if he didn't hear her. He'd simply examined her drawings, then remarked that she was still missing an important one that she would have to find on her own.

  "But what about the staff?" she'd asked in frustration.

  "When you find the rock drawing, you will have the key to your quest," he answered. "Then the staff will be yours for the taking." She persisted, asking where to look and what to look for, but he only told her that she must find it on her own.

  After returning to her home, she found out what a truly unusual place she had visited. It was not until 1883 that the first non-Indian had entered White Canyon. A prospector named Cass Hite had passed on tales of the huge stone bridges and ruins he'd discovered. Then in 1904, a National Geographic expedition visited the canyon, and four years later Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the area a national monument. A short time later the names of the bridges were changed from Edwin, Augusta, and Caroline to the Hopi names: Katchina, Sipapu, and Owachomo. Although the Hopis had never lived in the canyon, it was thought that they were descendants of the Anasazis.

  Mara had written Indy about her experiences and drawings, but she hadn't mentioned Aguila. He was an important contact and she didn't want to do anything that would endanger her relationship with the old Navajo. She'd said nodiing about him to anyone, with the exception of Rosie, in whom she'd confided everything.

  Suddenly, Mara's thoughts were interrupted by a voice from behind her.

  "Come with me now."

  Aguila stood on top of another boulder ten feet away. In spite of the steep incline and loose rubble on the canyon slope she hadn't heard him approach. But that didn't surprise her. She was used to Aguila's peculiar way of coming and going. She hadn't seen him for a couple of hours and had assumed he'd wandered off on one of his inexplicable jaunts.

  "Where have you been?"

  "I wanted to give the Utes a chance to leave. If I were here, they would've been too afraid to show themselves."

  "Do they have reason to be fearful?"

  He laughed. "Not today."

  She didn't like his answer. "Do you hurt people with your magic?"

  He looked out at Sipapu Bridge for a moment. "There is an old story of two witches who ascended from the underworld at the time when mankind was young. One of them brought corn to feed the people; the other brought death so that the earth wouldn't be overpopulated. But death, or even the thought of it, caused such horror that all witches became evil in the eyes of the people."

  "But you're saying that some do evil and others don't?"

  "What you call evil and good is not as easy to understand as some might think. What about you? Are you good or evil?"

  "Well, I don't think of myself as an evil person, if that's what you mean."

  Aguila chuckled softly. "All of us have the dark and the light within us. But remember this: the wolves who get into trouble are usually weak and inexperienced. Most are greedy and cast spells to make themselves rich at the expense of others. The dark rules their weaknesses and eventually brings them to their knees."

  Mara nodded. "There's a saying: A little knowledge can be dangerous."

  "Exacdy. The powerful wolves work with the natural forces rather than against them. No brute force or exhibitions of power are necessary, only magical nudges."

  "And you are one of the powerful ones?"

  "Sometimes, I do display certain powers to wake people up." Aguila started walking back toward the ruins where Mara and the Utes had been camped.

  "Are we going to find Indy and my father now?"

  "We'll meet them at my house."

  "What about the staff?" Mara asked. "Tomorrow is the solstice."

  "You will have it at sunrise, if you know where to look."

  "What? Aguila, that's not fair. You said you would take me to it on the solstice."

  "Have you found the sacred drawing?"

  "Yes." She hurried past him and into the shelter. She pointed at the floor as Aguila peered through the doorway. "Here!"

  He looked at her drawing. His expression gave no indication of what he thought. Now, suddenly, she wasn't so confident. "Well, am I right?"

  He nodded. "The right symbols, but the wrong location. You still must find them."

  "But I don't know where to look."

  He shrugged. "Keep looking."

  With that, Aguila left the shelter and climbed the path toward the mesa top and the horses.

  Mara was furious. "Wait. Where do I look? I don't have any idea. It's too late."

  When he didn't answer, she hurried after him. "Aguila, please, don't do this to me," she pleaded. "I don't have time for these games."

  Aguila mounted his horse. "You have plenty of time, if you don't waste it."

  Indy cleared the rubble carefully away from the small canvas sack. He had no idea what was inside, but he knew it had something to do with Mara. Quite a coincidence. He'd dreamed of seeing an eagle lose a feather, and now he'd found one at the spot he was supposed to look. A lucky feather. He'd leave it at that.

  "What is it you got there?" Smitty asked as Indy lifted a small canvas sack from the sipapu.

  "Don't know."

  "It ain't that ivory staff. I can tell you that right now."

  Indy opened the bag and found a rectangular object inside that was wrapped in cloth like a mummy. Whatever it was hadn't been here long, because the cloth was in good condition. He carefully unraveled the cloth until he was holding a leather-bound book. The leather was brittle and cracked, and Indy opened its cover as if he were handling the wings of a butterfly.

  "It looks like a journal of some sort," Indy said as he sat on the floor of the kiva. Smitty moved closer, holding the lantern over his shoulder as Indy quickly paged through the book. It seemed to be a family history, but the ivory staff was at the center of it. "Mara's made some notes here at the end."

  "Let me see that," Smitty said, grabbing for the book.

  Indy held it out of the old prospector's reach. "Hey, take it easy. What are you doing?"

  "If that's my daughter's diary, I should get it. Until she shows up, I'm the rightful owner." Smitty's fists were clenched and he looked as if he were about to punch Indy.

  "You told me your eyes aren't very good. I'll do you a favor and read it aloud."

  Smitty hesitated, then nodded. "Just get on with it."

  What was wrong with him, anyhow? Indy wondered. He held the journal up to the light and started with Mara's notes.

  Now you've read the history o
f my family's association with the unicorn's horn. I discovered this record among my mother's possessions after her death, and of course I became curious about what had happened to the mysterious staff. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find it. I remembered seeing it once as a child, and recalled my mother scolding me, telling me never to touch it. She called it an alicorn, a word that I'd never heard. She said it had been in the family for a long time, but that it was best left alone. I never saw it after that day.

  When I didn't find the staff anywhere in the house, I went to Bluff and asked my father about it. He was gruff with me and said he didn't know anything about it, and not to bother him about such trivial matters. He denied ever having it, but I didn't believe him. We argued, and I brought up all the old stuff about him never being around when I was young, that his drinking was the reason my mother left him, and how he hadn't even responded when I telegramed him of Mother's death.

  He stormed out of the house, and I went to my room to pack. I decided to leave right away for Rome and my last year of study, even though I'd planned to stay another week. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but at the time I thought that even Mussolini seemed more reasonable and compassionate than my own father.

  "Well, I'll be damned," Smitty muttered. "She compared me to some no-good dictator. I suppose I should've told Mara right out what I'd done with it, but she put me on the defensive and I got a stubborn streak."

  "Listen to this," Indy said, and read the next line.

  That was when Rosie knocked on my door, and told me Smitty had pawned the staff, and that she knew who had bought it. She'd never told Smitty, even when he'd started to ask about it. She was afraid that he would find it again and everything would go bad.

  Smitty kicked a stone and cursed. "I can't believe that woman. My own wife. She knew all along and never told me. Who bought it from Neddie? Does she say?"

  Indy found the name. "Yeah, she does. It's Aguila. He's the one."

  "For crying out loud. Let's go back and have a talk with that old Indian. He's been playin' games with us."

  Indy wanted to keep reading the journal, but he knew Smitty was right. He had the feeling that Aguila was not only the key to finding the staff, but also the key to locating Mara, and that's what mattered most.

  "Neddie, I think we need a little more practice before we go onstage together," Shannon said as he laid the saxophone down in its case.

  "What do you mean? Look, we've already got an audience."

  The wrinkled shopkeeper gestured toward the dozen or so people, mostly Navajos, who watched them as if they were wild animals in a cage. Shannon didn't blame them. The combination of the old man's bagpipes and his saxophone created a sound that could be mistaken for the call of a couple of strange beasts in heat, or maybe the howl of a rabid creature, or both.

  "Well, they didn't have to pay to hear us," Shannon said. "On the other hand, we didn't have to pay them to listen, either."

  "That's the spirit, young man. Now are you ready to try another one?"

  "That's it for me, today, Neddie." Shannon had walked over to the trading post nearly two hours ago to get another opinion on Aguila. But if Neddie or the others knew him, they weren't letting on.

  "What's your hurry, Jackie?"

  "I've got to go see about dinner. Rosie promised to make me something special."

  "Probably Navajo pizza. That's her specialty. It's like a pizza on fried Indian bread."

  "Sounds good," Shannon said. "It'll be a nice change from Smitty's mutton soup."

  When he reached the house, he noticed a dusty Packard parked on the street. It hadn't been there when he left, and he wondered if another boarder had arrived. As he approached the back door, the smell of frying dough wafted through the screen door. "Let me guess," he called out, stepping into the kitchen. "Navajo—"

  Rosie was sitting at the kitchen table and a man was clutching her braid near the back of her head. He held a revolver in his hand, and he was pointing it at Shannon's chest. "—pizza... What's going on?"

  Shannon recognized the man as one of those who'd accosted him at Sand Island, the one with the heavy brow and flattened nose. But his attention shifted as another figure stepped forward from the parlor. "What's it look like, a bloody picnic?"

  Walcott. His left arm was in a sling and a cigarette hung from his lip. "What are you doing here?"

  "What do you think, Shannon?"

  "I don't know, but I've had enough of this."

  Walcott pointed to the table, and winced as his bad arm slid to one side. "Sit down!"

  Shannon glanced at the thug and revolver, then did as he was told. "What do you want from us?"

  "Where's your pal Jones?"

  "He's gone."

  "We already know that. He's looking for Mara. Where did he go?"

  "I don't know."

  "I think you do, and we'll wait right here until you tell us."

  "We can beat it out of him," the thug said.

  "We'll do this my way, Jimbo," Walcott said. "I've been waiting for years, and I can wait a little while longer."

  "I find it hard to believe that you're running around the desert looking for a phantom unicorn's horn," Shannon said in a derogatory tone.

  Walcott smiled and nodded to the Bible that Shannon had left on the counter. "If you believe in the Bible, then you must believe in unicorns."

  "Maybe they existed once, but they're long gone now," Shannon responded.

  Walcott blew smoke toward Shannon. Perspiration beaded on his forehead; he looked flushed. "All except for one certain legendary unicorn's horn, and it's going to be mine."

  "What do you want with it?"

  "You could say it's been an interest of mine for some time now, and considering my past experiences with Mara and your buddy Jones, I think you can understand why I might go the extra step to get the artifact."

  "Where did it come from?" Shannon asked.

  "First tell me where I can find Jones, and I'll fill you in on all the details."

  "He doesn't know where the horn is," Shannon shot back.

  "But he knows where Mara is, doesn't he? And she knows where it's hidden."

  "I already told you," Rosie insisted. "She doesn't know where it is any more than Professor Jones does. Now just leave them alone, and leave us alone."

  Walcott adjusted his arm in the sling. "How can you be so sure she doesn't know?"

  Shannon suddenly realized he might know a way to get these guys off their backs. "Why don't you take a shortcut and ask an old Indian named Aguila?" Shannon said. "He probably knows where the staff is. He's the one who bought it."

  "No!" shouted Rosie. "He's my grandfather!"

  Walcott dropped his cigarette on the kitchen floor and crushed it. "Now we're getting somewhere."

  Jimbo shoved Rosie's head toward the table. "Start talking, squaw. Where do we find Grandpa?"

  "Easy, Jimbo, easy," Walcott said.

  "You won't be able to find him," she said, gasping for breath as the ranch hand loosened his grip.

  "Either you take us to him now, or you both die." Walcott's voice was cold and hard and Shannon didn't doubt that he meant what he said. "What's it going to be?"

  "Leave my grandfather out of it. I'll take you to where the staff is hidden. I know the place."

  "So the truth finally comes out!" Walcott crowed. "Where is it?"

  "Hovenweep."

  "Ah, hidden in an Anasazi ruin," Walcott said. "How clever. You knew all along and you didn't even tell ol' Smitty."

  The way Walcott talked about Smitty, as if he were a friend, bothered Shannon. But then, everything about Walcott bothered him. "Okay, now you know. So leave us alone."

  "Not quite, Shannon. We've got an archaeological excavation ahead of us tonight, and you and Jimbo are going to be my excavators."

  14

  The Journal

  As the sun vanished over a ridge in the distance, its rays created an aura around Aguila's darkened hogan. Near the front door, the
dog yelped at Indy and Smitty, and a couple of chickens pecked in the dirt. But there was no sign of Aguila. Still, they waited by their horses at what Smitty considered a respectable distance.

  "I don't think he's here," the old prospector said.

  Somehow, Indy wasn't surprised. He was exhausted from the trip and was sure Smitty must've felt the same way. But he was also relieved that they'd managed to negotiate the harrowing trail out of the canyon without a single slip up, so to speak, and it would've taken only one to ruin a perfectly good life.

  Smitty held the reins of both horses. "I'll take them out back and look around," he said.

  "While you're doing that, I'll wait in the car and catch up on my reading." Indy patted his pocket, which held the journal.

  Smitty hesitated a moment. "The rest of it's stuff about the past, right?"

  "Looks that way." Actually, Indy hadn't finished reading Mara's entry, but no need to tell Smitty.

  "You come across any more references to me, you let me know."

  Indy chuckled. "Will do, Smitty."

  It felt good to ease behind the wheel of the Ford again. Yesterday at this time, he didn't care if he ever saw the car again. But that was before his horseback ride through Kane Gulch. He took out a candle from his pack and lit it. Then he opened the journal to the first page. The entry was dated October 24, 1798.

  My name is James Rogers and I am beginning this diary to record all that I know about a certain relic from antiquity which came into my possession in the year 1787. I am speaking of an unusual ivory sceptor, which, if one is to believe its previous owner, was made from an alicorn, that is, a unicorn's horn. In appearance, the relic is straight and slender, rather than curved as one would expect from an elephant tusk. It also has peculiar ripples along its entire shaft, which creates the illusion that it is twisted. The staff measures forty-two and a half inches in length from hilt to point, which is capped in silver. It is approximately one and three quarters inches in diameter at its hilt and gradually narrows to a point.