Kitt Peak

by Al Sarrantonio

  Adams let go of Tahini and fell back. He seemed to be listening. Then, suddenly, he screamed, and his eyes opened impossibly wide, and he began to thrash in Tahini's grip.

  "No! No!" Adams cried, trying to cover his face.

  "Bill!"

  "Get Thomas Mullin — " Adams went suddenly limp, collapsing in Tahini's arms. Tahini once again checked for a pulse. There was none.

  "Jesus spirit ..."

  He lay Adams's body back on the ground. The man's neck was rigid, his head thrown back, his mouth locked open in a scream he would never make. His eyes were nearly bulging out of his head.

  Hands shaking, Tahini grabbed for Adams's bottle, which had rolled away, half-spilled on the ground. He brought it to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank until warm numbness spread through him.

  Jesus, he thought, they'll blame you for sure now. They already had you once and let you go; this time they'll stick you in that cell and close the door forever. Or hang you by your neck.

  Lowering the bottle, seeing that it was empty, he stood, and looked down at Bill Adams's body.

  Sorry, old friend, but I've got to do this. Got to do it for me.

  Retrieving the shovel from his own pack, he found a place off under the rocks, and began to dig.

  Two hours later, as the sun was starting to fall toward the west, Tahini was done. The grave was Indian style, shallow, covered with rocks. Then he shielded the front of the rock overhang with larger rocks, blending it into the scenery. He would tell Jellek this spot was no good for the road they wanted, steer him to one of the alternates. Tomorrow he would survey an appropriate spot and head back to camp. With any luck, they would never find Bill Adams.

  Inappropriately, Tahini found himself crying. Adams's own bottle had long since been emptied, and he had the remains of his own, sitting cross-legged on the ground, facing the sun. Closing his eyes, he said all the prayers he knew, Christian and otherwise, praying for forgiveness and guidance. He ended by asking the Great Spirit to guide his steps.

  Rising unsteadily, as the sun lipped the far horizon, he approached Bill Adams's mount, untied it from its spot under a rock overhang, and slapped it across the flanks to make it run.

  "Gallop far, my friend," he said, bringing the bottle back up to his lips again.

  Above him, on the rock overhang, he heard a sound. A few pebbles clattered down, falling nearby.

  Tahini looked up.

  "Great Spirit. . ." he mumbled. Then, his eyes widening, "No . . ."

  Something tall and wide spread its wings above him.

  "Oh, no," Tahini said.

  As the thing dropped down upon him in a flutter of feathers, he held the empty bottle out futilely in defense and supplication.

  Chapter Seven

  Lincoln Reeves felt more than a sense of annoyance.

  I should have known, he thought. I should have known the old man would take off without me.

  Adjusting himself on the saddle, Lincoln thought about just how long it had been since he had ridden a horse like this. Five years. In the past year, since he had taken over the sharecropper's farm, the only horses he had dealt with had been tied to a wagon or a plow. It made him feel inadequate, settled, and strangely old.

  Old, at twenty-eight.

  He laughed.

  Sore butt tonight.

  He had been lucky to find Marshal Murphy waiting for him at the station. If Murphy hadn't been there, he might have gone to Gates at the hotel, and from what Murphy had diplomatically told him that would have been a bad move. But Murphy had seemed like a decent sort, and the very fact that Lieutenant Mullin had trusted the lawman to meet him and tell him where Thomas was headed was enough for Reeves. He tried to be madder at Thomas Mullin but found himself incapable of more than annoyance.

  The old man could have waited for me.

  Thinking on that, he knew how foolish it was. Thomas would have wanted to get moving right away, not hang around in Tucson, pretty as it was. Reeves promised himself he would see the sights before he left, after this business was over.

  Momentarily, guilt assaulted him, thinking of his wife and child. He hadn't even sent the telegram he'd promised when he got in, just picked up the saddled and provisioned mount Thomas provided for him, and headed out.

  I'll have to send that telegram as soon as I can.

  Once again, he was torn between home and here. It was a hard thing to admit to himself that he missed this life. In a way, he even missed the Army. If Lieutenant Mullin had stayed in the Army, he knew he might very well have stayed with him, despite Matty's wishes. But that was something, thank heaven, that he didn't have to agonize over, since the Army eased Thomas out as soon as Grierson retired. Though they'd done it gently enough, and made it look grand, it had been obvious to everyone that Captain Seavers, now back in Washington after his disastrous tenure at Fort Davis, had used all his power — or at least all the power that his own marriage to a general's daughter had given him — to eject Thomas as quickly and ignominiously as possible. It had all left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, since, if there had been any justice in the world, Thomas would have had a command instead of an honorable discharge. . . .

  Ride, Lincoln, don't think.

  But thinking was part of what he missed. In the time he had been with Lieutenant Mullin, he had learned how to read, and how to think. Thomas's was the sharpest mind he had ever met, and the man was a marvel. He looked at the world under a microscope, and saw things no one else did.

  Which reminded Reeves that Lieutenant Mullin had ridden out without him.

  Couldn't wait an extra day for me.

  Laughing, feeling already at home in the saddle despite his sore butt muscle, Reeves kicked the mount forward to find his old friend.

  But by nightfall, he hadn't done that. He had found the markers on the map Thomas left with Murphy easily enough, but there was no sign of the old man there. He had expected a camp, but found only saguaro cactus and smooth desert plain. The Baboquivari mountains lay in the distance, rising shadows out of the coming night, and Lincoln felt suddenly alone. His annoyance with Thomas threatened to turn to anger, a feeling easier to deal with than the growing apprehension he felt, a black man in a strange area alone. . . .

  Think, Lincoln. Think.

  He could almost hear the old man speaking to him. Thomas might have been impulsive, but he wasn't foolhardy or unkind. Even if he had been here and gone, he would have left signs.

  Think.

  Lincoln dismounted at the spot indicated between two low hills, hugging the one on the right. There was a ring of cactus nearby, just as on the map, a virtual planter's field of saguaro marching up the shallow hillside. He was sure he was in the right place.

  Think.

  He tethered the horse to a nearby cactus and stood examining the landscape in the failing light. At worst, he would stay here the night and go on in the morning. But go on to where? Thomas had to have left a sign.

  After a frustrating half hour of scouring the patch of land, by the end crawling on his hands and knees, Reeves was ready to give up and settle in for the night. Only a sliver of sun lay above the horizon, and soon that would be gone.

  Lincoln kicked at the ground in frustration.

  Suddenly, the line Thomas was always quoting, from Sherlock Holmes, rose into Lincoln's mind.

  After you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

  "Ah," Lincoln said, to no one in particular, feeling foolish even as he said it.

  But what was impossible?

  Plenty.

  Already growing frustrated, as he did every time he tried to think like Thomas Mullin, Lincoln again kicked the ground.

  After you have eliminated the impossible .. .

  Well, it was impossible that Thomas would have left him out here on his own, wasn't it? Unless there was a damned good reason. What would that reason be?

  He had found Adams.

  But still, he would hav
e left a clue as to his whereabouts. Unless he had found Adams at this exact spot, and was already heading back to Tucson to celebrate.

  No...

  Again Lincoln kicked the ground. His head hurt.

  The sun was almost gone.

  Lincoln raised his eyes to watch the departing light. There in his line of vision was a nest of cactus, three or four in an almost straight line. Lincoln stepped slightly to the left, and now the cactus was in a straight line.

  And something was fluttering from the arm of one of them.

  "Ha!"

  Just as the sun dipped below the west, Lincoln tore the piece of paper, which had been speared on one of the cactus's pricks, and held it out to read. In the glow of twilight, he slowly made out the words, reading them aloud in the way Thomas had first taught him to read:

  DUE WEST ELEVEN MILES, THEN DUE SOUTH THREE. MEET YOU AT THE BASE OF KITT PEAK 2/14. WILL WAIT. MULLIN.

  "Ha!" Lincoln shouted, and this time was filled with pride for his accomplishment, small as it had been. He also felt sure that this area was secure, or Thomas would not have let him stay here on his own.

  So something important had happened, and Thomas had gone off in search of it.

  And tomorrow he would meet up with his old friend.

  Washed in relief, Lincoln broke down his saddlebags and made a simple camp. In a little while, a small fire was crackling, and Lincoln was finishing the remains of canned beans, sitting on his bedroll. It was just like the old days.

  In the night, old desert sounds returned to him, and he felt at home.

  With only a little guilt, Lincoln remembered that he had forgotten to send that telegram, and that there would be hell to pay from Matty when he got back to his real home.

  Chapter Eight

  Under the stretching, infinite, pale blue bowl of the desert sky, Thomas Mullin felt liberated. His mind had not been clearer in years. He thought of Sherlock Holmes, entrenched in his stuffy chambers at 221B Baker Street, and wondered how Conan Doyle could ever fool his readers into thinking Holmes could solve anything. Wreathed in pipe smoke, hemmed in by claustrophobia, Thomas knew that he himself would merely go mad.

  But to each his own.

  Two days in the saddle, and he already felt ten years younger. Boston seemed like a bad dream now, a nightmare interlude in what had been a life of action. A man makes his own world, Thomas decided; starting from inside his head and working his way out to the physical world. For Holmes, his stuffy apartments were merely the props that made his inner world comfortable; for Thomas himself, the wide expanse of the desert made his mind sharp and content. It was something he had never realized; and he knew now that he would never return to the life he had been leading in Boston. For him, this infinite sky and dry dust of land was the key to his youth of mind and his mental health.

  Murphy's warnings to take care had so far proved needless. The two men he had met, one white, one Indian, had proven friendly and unheedful of his color. The white man had, indeed, been a former army scout, and after introductions, he and Thomas had quickly fallen to swapping names and postings. It had turned out they had at least five friends in common, two retired, the other three still active in northwest duty. And they both shared similar concerns about Theodore Roosevelt.

  The Indian had proved less chummy, but more useful as far as Thomas's present task was concerned. He not only knew the surveyor, Tahini, but knew where to find him. They worked for the same mining concern, and the Indian, named Kohono-si, had provided Thomas with exact directions. It would only take another half-day's ride to reach the spot where Tahini was presently working.

  When Thomas had thanked Kohono-si for the information, the man had merely grunted and said, "If you go there, be guarded. I told Tahini this, too."

  "What do you mean?" Thomas had asked, but Kohono-si had merely grunted again, mounted his horse, and ridden in the opposite direction.

  As the ride would bring Thomas into night-fall, he was faced with a dilemma. Since he had originally thought Tahini would be in the area he had written Reeves about, he had the option of waiting for Lincoln or riding on ahead. Though filled with impatience, he had decided to be fair and wait for the young man. He didn't quite admit to himself that he wanted his young Watson's company, which was true.

  But Kohono-si had changed his mind. A half hour after Thomas himself had reached the cactus-ridden spot of their meeting, the Indian had ridden up, stopped his horse, and stood staring down at Thomas.

  "Something wrong?" Thomas had asked. The Indian looked troubled, yet unwilling to speak.

  "You wouldn't be here if you didn't have something to tell me."

  "You are the man who fought Pretorio," Kohono-si said solemnly.

  "That's right," Thomas said. It occurred to him that his mount was ten feet away, with his rifle in its sling.

  "I salute you for that," Kohono-si said. When nothing else was forthcoming, Thomas said, "Thank you."

  Kohono-si still seemed to be battling himself. He looked off to the mountains in the near distance. "Pretorio was a bad chief, and his braves killed many of the Tohono O'otam."

  "I know that. He killed many braves of many tribes."

  Kohono-si grunted. Continuing to look off toward the mountains, he said, "But he is dead, and this is today. Because you are a friend of the Tohono O'otam, I want to warn you that the eagle is in the sacred mountain. The eagle is angry with the Tohono O'otam."

  Now he finally looked at Thomas. "Be careful of the eagle. He resides in the sacred mountain, Oto-A-Pe, the one you call Kitt Peak. Do not anger the eagle."

  Thomas scratched his chin and said, slowly, "Kohono-si, are the Tohono O'otam going on the warpath?"

  Kohono-si looked away, toward the mountains. "This I cannot say. But I know the eagle is angry with Tahini. Tahini was to be on the Council of Elders, and he shunned this for the white man's job and liquor. The eagle is angry."

  "Kohono-si, is the white man named Adams near where Tahini is working?"

  "This is all I will say."

  With that, the brave turned and rode away. Thomas, analyzing the conversation, quickly left Lincoln Reeves a message and set out toward the spot where Tahini would be.

  With a hard ride, Thomas still reached the area after nightfall. It was too late to do anything, so he made camp in a secure place, covered on three sides by rock outcroppings. He made a small fire and ate his dinner. Then he read by firelight for a while, a dog-eared copy of the Strand magazine containing an old Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches." He knew the story nearly by heart, and found his mind wandering away from it to stare at the drawings accompanying it.

  He was thinking about Bill Adams. There was more to this story than Adams had let on. Though it was obvious that Adams cared for his daughter, in the years Thomas had known the man, he had only spoken of her three or four times. Once he had even referred to her as a 'half-breed.' That didn't preclude his love for her, but Adams's reaction to her going back to her natural home could not be the whole story.

  And there was something eerie about this place. Thomas recalled the feeling he had had once, in the Davis Mountains, when the cry of a deranged man had led him, briefly, to superstitious thoughts. Then, he had berated himself for those thoughts, because they were something Holmes would never feel. And though in the end the superstitions had turned out to be based all too much on reality, to this day the tinge of mysticism itself, he was convinced, had been something tangible. Holmes would not agree; to that rapier-like mind, everything could be reduced to the everyday; but Thomas was not so sure that things were so black and white. Was there an afterlife? He didn't know, and didn't much care. The question was, was reality a wider concept than Sherlock Holmes would be willing to accept? Were the boundaries of the real world wider, and softer at the edges, than the great fictional detective would admit? Though the Hound of the Baskervilles had turned out to be nothing more than a poor, starved animal, was there something to the feelings the beast had e
ngendered in those he had frightened so terribly?

  Thomas didn't know. But he was determined to keep an open mind.

  And that feeling was with him again. Analyze it, he thought. Let it fill your mind, and pick it apart, and see what it is.

  He put down his magazine, and closed his eyes. His ears were sharp, his fingers so sensitive that the merest desert breeze tingled across them. He heard no cry of eagles, no cry of a deranged man, even, but still, there was something there, something tilted at the edge of the world... .

  Bah. He opened his eyes, and decided that unless he could feel this thing, grasp it tightly with his own hands, it would remain to him only a vague concept. Holmes's way, the way that Thomas led most of his life, might very well be closer to the truth.

  He turned, saw the outline of a prone human body not four feet from where he had left his horse.

  Momentarily, a chill rose up his back, but he suppressed it.

  He rose and approached the body. An Indian lay face down at the base of one of the rocks hemming in Thomas's camp. The arms were outstretched. In the flicker of firelight, Thomas could see vague lines running up the arms toward the hands.

  He bent closer.

  The lines were scratches; on closer examination, deep gashes.

  Rummaging for a stick, Thomas bent closer and hooked the man's sleeve up. The gashes stopped near the elbow line.

  The man's face was turned away from him. Thomas climbed over the body and bent close. Cursing at the bad light, he ran back to the fire and fed it with kindling until it burned brighter. Then he returned to the body.

  The face was marked with gashes, also.

  Carefully, touching only clothing, Thomas turned the body over.

  The front of the Indian's tunic was covered with deep cuts. So were the palms of the hands. He had tried to ward off his attacker until he had fallen. Most of the work had then been done on the chest, deep slicing cuts that had gutted and bled the body. They were not the sharp strokes of a knife blade, however, but wider, more ragged.