A paleontologist. A sacred dig site. A Vietnam-era machine gun. And a murder buried deeper than any dinosaur fossil.
In Carnivores and Herbivores, Michael A. Black blends the tension of a modern-day standoff with the long shadows of American history — both tribal and federal. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, this story has it all: mobsters in moccasins, intergenerational trauma, and the clash between old grudges and ancient bones.
At the center? One hell of a cold case and a dig site that might reveal more than just prehistoric predators. “Carnivores and Herbivores” appeared in the June/July 2019 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Michael says:
Every time I hear that title, I’m reminded of my friend, Big Joe Barnes. Joe was a giant of a man, brave and smart and courageous. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant on the Chicago Police Department. He was a good friend of my buddy and brilliant author, Dave Case. It was our custom for the three of us to meet at a local McDonald’s on mornings that we all were off work. We’d talk and laugh, and one of Joe’s favorite expressions in talking about dividing people into types was the “carnivores and herbivores.” I told him I was going to write a story using his metaphorical expression. Unfortunately, Joe passed away before the story made it into print, but like I said, every time I hear that title, I think of him.
Carnivores and Herbivores
By
Michael A. Black
I was looking down at the three sets of dinosaur tracks, trying to envision the scene in my mind when the first rounds bounced off the rocks about thirty yards in back of us with the unmistakable accompanying staccato bark of a rifle on full auto.
“Hit the dirt!” I said, recalling my old Army training. As I flattened out I glanced around and saw my grad students were still upright and looking dumbfounded. The Indian laborers we’d hired began to scatter. I yelled again for everyone to get down and this time it seemed to register. The students ducked and squatted. More gunshots sounded, but I saw no rounds bouncing anywhere close. After a few more seconds of silence, I began scanning the sloping mountain before us. A dark form rose up, silhouetted by the afternoon sun, a man holding a rifle, his long shaggy hair hanging down around his shoulders. He stood motionless for close to thirty seconds, then raised the weapon over his head with his right arm and emitted a war cry.
“Get outta here,” the silhouette shouted. “You’re trespassing on sacred ground.”
The voice was unmistakable: Sammo One Horse. “This is the land where the giants walked,” he continued. “The Ahke. Now get out.”
I made it a point never to argue with a man with a rifle, but I wanted some assurance that he wouldn’t open up on us. But I figured Old Sammo could have hit us with his first shots if he’d wanted to.
“Mr. One Horse,” I yelled back. “It’s Rick Strohm. We mean no harm or disrespect, but we do have permission from the Tribal Council to be here.”
Old Sammo snapped the stock of the rifle back against his shoulder, aiming it directly at me.
“Listen, whasitshu, I ain’t here to argue.”
“We’re unarmed,” Judy Raincloud, one of my grad students yelled. “You can’t threaten us.”
“Judy,” I said. “He’s doing a pretty good job of doing just that.” I shifted and yelled back up to him. “Okay, we’ll leave.”
I felt the sweat trickle down my back as I waited. A full thirty seconds later Old Sammo finally spoke again.
“Better listen to him, little rainbow girl,” he said. His voice boomed down over us from his perch on the peak. He adjusted his stance and I saw he was wearing blue jeans and a tan chambray shirt that was stained with perspiration. “Now all of you got one minute to get your stuff and get the hell outta here or this crazy Injun is gonna start having some real target practice.” For emphasis he fired off another quick burst into the air and then disappeared.
I waited about forty seconds and then got to my feet and began dusting myself off. “Everybody grab your stuff and pack up. We’re leaving.”
Judy came running up to me accompanied by Randy Crawford, another grad student. Unlike Judy, he wasn’t Native American.
“I can’t believe you’re letting that old drunken, crazy creep scare you off,” Judy said. Her dark brown eyes glared at me with a mixture of defiance and disdain.
I smiled. “It’s never a good idea to argue with an armed man, especially if he might be drunk and crazy.”
She frowned. “But we have a right to be here. Their Tribal Council okayed it, didn’t they?”
“That doesn’t count for much when a guy’s got a gun and is shooting at you,” Randy said. He was making sense, despite his infatuation with Judy. Most of the males in my class shared his adoration. She was gorgeous.
Our labor crew was gradually filtering back toward the first set of tracks which led down the slope and into the canyon. I glanced at them wistfully.
“Well, is that all you have to say, Dr. Strohm?” Judy asked. “Cut tail and run as soon as things get a little rough.”
“Judy,” Randy said. “You’re not being fair.”
She turned on him and started to deliver another harangue, but I cut her off.
“Look, we’ll go report the incident to Chief Walks as Bear. We’ve gotten some preliminaries done today, and I don’t want to risk anyone getting hurt, by design or accident.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Randy said and began picking up our portable equipment. “What about that big stuff?”
We’d had a backhoe and a bulldozer hauled out there to do the heavy lifting, but the flatbed truck was gone. I figured the machinery would be safe enough. “I doubt Old Sammo would have much use for them.”
Judy stood there, her hand shading her eyes as she studied the peak where the shots had come from.
“I doubt he’s still up there,” she said. “Probably crawled back into his whiskey bottle.”
She was one of my brightest students, but she been raised off the reservation by white step-parents and ironically seemed to have an ambivalence about her own native heritage that alternated between scorn and condescension. I grabbed the tripod with the camera and laser measuring device and headed for our Tahoe. “Like I said, we’ll stop and talk with Bear. He’ll get things straightened out.”
Although the tracks had long been known around these parts to the Indians, the recent discovery of a fossilized, battered skeleton of a Euoplocepalus had been unearthed by an earthquake. That, along with footprints of not just one, but a pair of Tyrannosauruses, had set the paleontological society salivating at the prospect of another big find. These new predator tracks, and the almost-intact Euoplocepalus skeleton led to the conjecture that the T-rexes may have hunted in packs. Or perhaps the two big carnivores had fought over the fallen herbivore, adding speculation that one or more mostly intact T-rex skeletons could be buried within the mountain. It was long known to be riddled with caverns and caves. The mouth of one prominent opening lay about fifty yards past the tracks. I wondered if the inside would yield any further bones.
Since the intact discovery of the T Rex, Sue, in 1990, dinosaur remains had been worth their weight in gold, and then some. But this one was on the Reservation and considered sacred ground by many in the tribe. The unexpected seismic shift had occurred nearly two years ago, and the University had been in constant negotiations with both the U.S. Government, regarding the Federal Antiquities Act, and the Tribal Council, which controlled what happened on Indian land, where the tracks and remains were found. Everyone involved was aware of one overriding fact: complete dinosaur skeletons were worth a lot of money. The breakthrough came when the Tribal Council expressed interest in building a gambling casino, to be built on Indian land near the main highway, and applied for a Class 3 gaming license. Suddenly, everybody was on the same sheet of music, and permission for the University to conduct the dig for the remains was approved, with an undetermined sum going to the tribe once the skeletons were unearthed. Considering the poverty that had plagued the reservation folks for decades, I saw our dig as a good thing for everybody. Apparently, Old Sammo One Horse didn’t agree. But like I said, I wasn’t about to argue my case against a man with a rifle.
I had noticed something of another artifact, however. Sammo’s rifle had looked, and sounded like an old style M-16. Before completing my degrees, I’d spent a tour in Iraq right after high school and was more than familiar with weapons. The M-16A1 rifle had replaced the M-14 during Vietnam. The tendency of the weapon to overheat and jam earned it the nickname, “Jamming Jenny,” during the late 1960’s. By the time Desert Storm rolled around a couple of decades later the military had modified the rifle to fire three rounds bursts when switched to FULL AUTO mode. This improved the accuracy as well as eliminated the overheating problem. Sammo’s gun had fired continuously, not in three round bursts. In a certain way, it was a modern-day dinosaur. I wondered where he’d gotten it.
“The light stuff’s packed up, Dr. Strohm,” Randy said.
I scanned the ridge once more. There was no sign of Old Sammo, but I didn’t want to press our luck.
“Let’s call it a day.” I motioned for the others to get into our SUV’s and beat feet out of there, but couldn’t resist turning and taking one more wistful glance at the whole scene. The tan, sandy earth was punctuated by outcroppings of smooth rocks that held the circular tracks of the herbivore. They stretched farther and farther apart, possibly indicating a quickening of its pace as the big T-rexes bore down on it. The quadruped had probably been engaging in an all-out run at the end. The enormous three-toed tracks of the carnivores were interspersed between those of the herbivores as they disappeared into the side of what was now the mountain. I wondered what other clues the network of underground caves might hold, once they were uncovered.
I imagined the massive, hugely muscled legs of the two bipedal T-rexes coiling and flexing under the pebbled, mail-like skin, the claws of their small, delicate arms opening and closing in anticipation, their huge jaws snapping at the fleeing Euoplocepalus, its huge, mace-like tail swinging back and forth. I could almost see the saliva slathering from between the spike-like teeth of the T-rexes, their nostrils snorting vaporous clouds of steam as they inexorably gained on their prey…
“Dr. Strohm?”
It was Randy. I turned.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, just watching this little drama play itself out.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” I heaved a sigh and lamented the demise of imagination in this current generation, helpless without their smart phones and tablets.
“We’re, ah, all ready to shove off.”
I nodded and turned back toward the parallel rows of tracks and wondered if Old Sammo was up there on his holy mountain watching and waiting, maybe deciding to line me up in his sights. I waved, in case he was, and walked back to our vehicles.
On the way back I saw a big, black SUV coming toward us leaving a cloud of reddish dust in its wake. As it got closer I saw it was an Escalade with the special vanity plates and I knew it was Rod Lone Elk, one of the tribal councilmen. His vehicle slowed and I did likewise. We stopped side-by-side and his window lowered with electronic ease.
“Hey, Strohm,” Lone Elk said. “Quitting for the day?” His hair was swept back in a huge pompadour, its jet black look seeming a bit incongruous with his time-worn face, which looked like carved leather. But then, the councilman was a bit vain. I wondered if his customary unperturbable look was the result of his Indian stoicism or Botox treatments.
“Yeah, we ran into—”
“That crazy Sammo One Horse started shooting at us,” Judy interjected. “Chased us off.”
“What?” Lone Elk’s face twitched fractionally.
“Just a little problem,” I said. The last thing I wanted was to bring a hothead like Lone Elk into this. “I was on my way to talk with Tribal Police Chief Walks as Bear about it.”
“No need for that,” he said. “I’ll handle this.” His arm moved toward the gear shift. “That crazy idiot.”
“Mr. Lone Elk,” I said quickly. “We were all finished for the day anyway. And I’m sure Chief—”
“I’ll take care of it.” His voice was a growl.
“He does have a rifle,” I said.
Lone Elk’s lips pulled back into a smile and he brought up a silver-colored semi-auto. “That old fool knows better than to mess with me.”
The tinted window went up and Lone Elk took off in the direction of the sacred mountain, and the dinosaur tracks. It looked like another confrontation was brewing, but instead of being between dinosaur species, it was more akin to some intertribal warfare. I hoped it wouldn’t escalate into something unfortunate.
“What kind of gun was that?” Randy asked.
“A Smith and Wesson forty-five oh six, from the looks of it.” I turned to Judy. “I wish you wouldn’t have told him that about Sammo.”
“Why? It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Her lips pursed in defiance. “Maybe he’ll do something instead of running away.”
I didn’t answer as I shifted the Tahoe into gear and hit the accelerator. I needed to see Bear more than ever now.
***
David Walks as Bear squinted at me over the wisps of steam that rose from his coffee cup. Randy, Judy, and I sat on the other side of the big desk in his rather small office. The Reservation Police Station was a converted store with one office (his), a mid-sized squad room, and two “detention cells” which were nothing more than a couple of benches with steel rings bolted to the benches. His once black hair, which he still kept military-short, was peppered with gray, and he was wearing a blue uniform shirt and jeans. A Sig Sauer P223 9 mm was holstered on his belt. His huge deputy, Fat Ernie, stood leaning against the door jamb listening to our conversation.
“He mentioned the land where the giants walked,” I said. “The Ahke.”
Bear smiled. “That’s from the Cheyenne. Not Sammo’s tribe. He’s part Pueblo and part Comanche.”
I shrugged. “Whatever he is, his rifle was pure Government Issue.”
“You’re sure it was full auto?” Bear asked.
“Rock and roll,” I said. “Plus, it didn’t fire in three-round bursts.”
He raised both eyebrows. “You know, Sammo and his half-brother, Charlie Raging Bull, both were in Vietnam. As the local legend tells it, they shipped back two plaster statues in their hold baggage when they ETSed back to the World.” Bear grinned. “Word has it that those statues contained two sixteens that had been listed as combat loss.”
“That’s one way of explaining it,” I said.
“I can’t believe this.” Judy got up and put both hands on Bear’s desk. “This drunken old coot took a shot at us, and all you two,” her hand waved back and forth between him and me, “want to talk about is what kind of gun he had?”
Bear took a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, well, it is an interesting topic.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “He tried to kill us.”
Bear smiled. “Believe me if he’d wanted to hit you, he wouldn’t have missed.”
“Why” she said. “Because he’s a Native American?” She spat out the last two words with disdain. “And you all know how to shoot?”
“Native American?” Bear’s smile never left his face as he pointed to himself. “You talking about this old Indian?”
Judy’s lips twisted into a sneer. “Just get your facts right. Indians are from India. You’re a Native American.”
Bear’s face registered mock surprise. “Me? You mean somebody whose ancestors were originally born in this country?” He made a show of exaggerated contemplation, and then pointed to me. “You must be talking about him, too, then.”
Judy’s head swiveled, a look of confusion creasing the space between her eyebrows.
“Look, Bear,” I said. “Sammo may have fired over our heads, but he did scare the hell out of us. And he delayed the dig that it’s taken me eighteen months to set up, not to mention slowing down the money that’ll help finance the casino.”
“Ah, yes. The casino.” Bear took another sip of coffee. “The red man’s revenge.”
“So you’re not going to do anything?” Judy asked.
Bear smiled again. “I’ll put the word out I want to talk to him.”
“You might want to move a little faster than that” I said. “We ran into Rod Lone Elk on the way here. He wasn’t happy and he took off to go lock horns with Sammo.” Bear’s face remained placid until I added, “He had a gun, too. A big old forty-five.”
Bear’s brow wrinkled and he leaned forward, setting the cup down on the desk. He motioned to the huge Reservation Police deputy, who was still leaning on the doorjamb.
“Go check things out,” Bear said.
Fat Ernie, who didn’t look “fat” at all, just big, nodded and straightened up.
Bear moved to the window and looked out. “Ernie, better go out the back way. Our buddy’s across the street probably waiting to bend your ear about his buried treasure conspiracy theory.”
Ernie snorted a laugh as he left.
I craned my neck to try and see whom they were talking about, but couldn’t.
“You’re just sending him?” Judy asked. “One guy?”
“Actually, he’s more like one and a half.” Bear grinned, but Judy apparently didn’t appreciate his joke. “He’s the best tracker I got.”
“Yeah, right,” Judy said. “Is this just your way of blowing us off, or what?”
“I’ll let you know when you can go back.” Bear sat back on his chair and put both of his highly polished boots on the desk. “After all, dem bones been out there for what, sixty million years? Another twenty-four hours or so ain’t gonna make that much difference.”
Judy looked ready to argue, but I stood up and touched her hand. “Sixty-five million, but who’s counting?”
I cocked my head toward the door.
Outside I told everybody to break for the day and I’d call them later with an update. Judy hung back as the others were getting their gear and came up to me.
“Is that it, then?” she asked. Her dark eyes looked full of anger. “A drunken Native American shoots at us with a machine gun, and nobody wants do anything?”
Before I could answer we heard a roar of a dirt-bike and saw Fat Ernie taking off from behind the reservation police station in the direction from which we’d just come. His oversized form looked ludicrous on top of that rather diminutive motorcycle.
Before turning back to Judy I saw a rail-thin man with gray hair and neatly trimmed mustache standing about ten feet away scrutinizing us from the shade of the awning on the front of the general store.
“Let’s just let the authorities handle this.” I felt like telling her to go get in touch with her Native American heritage, but didn’t. I’d been her age once upon a time, and thought I had all the answers.
“Authorities. Yeah, right.” She smirked and shook her head as she walked away with Randy hot on her six.
“We meet here tomorrow morning at eight,” I called out after them.
The older white guy with the mustache was staring at me. He was impeccably dressed in a tan shirt, gray slacks, and looked like a transplanted college professor. I wondered if the University had sent him to check up on me. Our eyes met and he nodded to me. I nodded back.
He dropped the plastic water bottle he’d been drinking from into the overflowing trashcan and sauntered over with a smile on his face.
I opened the door of the Tahoe but didn’t get inside. My curiosity was piqued.
“Howdy,” the man said, extending his hand. I detected a trace of Oklahoma in his accent. “I’m Special Agent Mark Boudrow, FBI.”
I took his hand and started to introduce myself, but Boudrow shook his head.
“I know who you are, Dr. Strohm.”
I grinned. “Don’t tell me my reputation has finally caught up to me? What’s the Bureau want with me?”
Boudrow drew in a long breath. “Actually, I’m retired now.”
I waited to see where this conversation was going. Finally, Boudrow said, “Professor, I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee and discuss some things with you.”
“A cold beer sounds better,” I said, motioning toward the local bar. Boudrow’s face flashed an uneasy expression, but he nodded.
I wondered what a retired FBI agent, who was obviously a bit nervous going into an Indian tavern on the Reservation, was doing here, and, more importantly, what he wanted with me. Then it dawned on me. This was the guy Bear had mentioned… The conspiracy theorist.
The bar had a few of the regular patrons sitting around getting plastered and a couple more were shooting pool in the dingy lighting. The smell of cheap booze was redolent. We each got a beer and headed to an isolated table near the back. Boudrow immediately took the chair against the wall so he could monitor the door. His eyes swept around, surveying the room. I sat there watching him.
He grinned. “Sorry. Old habits die kinda hard.”
“I bet they do.” I took a swig of my beer.
Boudrow hadn’t touched his.
“When I worked in the Oklahoma Field Office,” he said, “there were strict rules against driving through the rez at night. A lot of the Indians would get so drunk they’d pass out on the roadway and get run over.”
I said nothing, wondering where this conversation was headed.
“I worked some of the follow-up homicide investigations after the Wounded Knee occupation during the seventies,” he said. “Richard Wilson’s GOON squads killed a lot of people. Most of them went unsolved, like the murder of that black civil rights guy. The Indians thought he was an FBI spy. Never found his body to this day.”
“I read about that.”
Boudrow’s fingers rotated the beer bottle, but he had yet to take a drink.
“A lot of those unsolved cases stick with you after you retire,” he said.
“I’ll bet they do.”
Boudrow stared at me for a good five seconds. “Back in eighty-one my partner, Joe Flynn, and I were assigned to track some Native American radicals calling themselves the AIW. The American Indian Warriors. Ever hear of them?”
I shook my head. “I was just a kid back in eighty-one.”
Boudrow emitted a low chuckle, but it was devoid of mirth. “I guess just about everybody’s forgotten now. Except me.” His eyes held a look of intensity. “The AIW was a radical offshoot of the larger, better known militant Indian groups. They robbed banks, hit armored cars. Joe and I tracked them to this area. Interrupted one of their robberies.”
I vaguely remembered something about this.
Boudrow continued. “We caught them in the act up in Henderson, about forty miles north. Came up on the three of them as they were hitting an armored car just outside a bank.” He stopped and took a quick drink from his bottle, looking like he wished it was something stronger. “They’d shot the two guards and were loading the money bags in to an old red pickup. Our mistake was giving them a verbal command to raise their hands. They turned and opened up on us like it was the Little Bighorn.”
I watched him closely. He bit his lip, then released it.
“We took one of them down. Wounded a second, but we were totally outgunned. I was wounded.” He touched his left shoulder. “Joe took one through the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. I held him in my arms as that pickup sped off with two of them.”
“They got away?”
He nodded, a sad look on his face. “Never did find them. They wore masks.” Something akin to a smile touched his lips. “Ex-presidents, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy. The dead one at the scene, Joe Dull Knife, aka Nixon, had roots down this way.”
“What about the other two?”
“Johnson and Kennedy vanished into thin air.” Boudrow took a long pull from his bottle. “Nobody on the reservation would give us any cooperation. We couldn’t prove it, but I was certain they were from this area.” He set the bottle down and licked his lips. “I heard you had a run in with an Indian out at your dig site today.”
Still wondering where this was going, I nodded. “A minor one. Nobody was hurt.”
Boudrow’s eyes narrowed. “What was that girl saying about a machine gun?”
I grunted a laugh and drank some more beer. “It was only a rifle.”
“What kind?”
The tone of his voice set me back a step.
“An M-Sixteen?” he asked. “Full auto?”
I nodded.
“Let me guess,” Boudrow said, leaning over the top of the small table that separated us. “It was an old Nam-style weapon that fired full auto and not in three-round bursts.”
This set me back another step. I hadn’t told anybody but Bear about that.
I said nothing.
After an awkward ten seconds of silence, Boudrow’s face took on a new intensity. “Doctor Strohm, the weapons those AIWs used against us back in eighty-one were Nam-style rifles.” He shook his head. “I can still feel those rounds ripping through our car. Cutting us to ribbons.”
“You’re saying that you think it’s the same gun?”
“If it was being fired by Sammo One Horse, I’m sure of it.” He looked at me. “Those Indians wore masks, but I’m sure the two that got away were Charlie Raging Bull and Sammo.”
“Old Sammo hardly seems the type.”
“Why? Because he crawled into a bottle thirty years ago, like so many of the other Indians around here?”
His voice had picked up volume. I glanced over to the pool table and saw several of the players eyeing us.
“Charlie Raging Bull disappeared right after the incident,” Boudrow said. “Never seen again. Most likely he died from his wounds. But the money was never recovered, either. Estimated to be over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
I let this information settle a bit. I wasn’t sure why Boudrow was telling me this or what he wanted. We sat in silence for the better part of a minute. Finally, he said, “I need you to take me out to that dig site.”
“The dig site?”
“Don’t you see?” He leaned forward on the table. “That’s got to be where One Horse stashed everything. The bank bags and the money. If there’s a chance I can recover some evidence… Maybe the remnants of one of those canvas bags or even some of those rounds that came from that rifle today, I could bring in Joe’s killer.”
“Look, Mr. Boudrow, I’ve had enough trouble just getting the tribal council to agree to let us complete the dig, not to mention having gone ten rounds with the Federal government ironing out the potential problems with the Federal Antiquities Act.”
“Dammit.” His hand thudded against the table top. “I swore all those years ago that I’d bring Joe’s killers to justice. You can help me do that.”
I was at a loss for words. I looked over and saw we’d attracted the attention of more of the Indian patrons. I lowered my voice as I spoke. “Look, it’s considered sacred Native American ground. If they think we’re nosing around to find evidence of some kind of crime, so more things could be disturbed, they’ll shut things down in a hurry.”
“All I’m asking you for is a little cooperation.”
“Let me think about it.”
Boudrow bristled. “Listen, I swore on Jeff Flynn’s grave that I’d close it one day. Thirty-eight years.”
“Yeah, well, that dinosaur’s been eluding us for a lot longer. Sixty-five million.” I got to my feet.
Boudrow stared up into my eyes for a long moment, and then got up as well, the intense expression still on his face.
I wondered if he had a life-sized cardboard copy of J. Edgar Hoover in his hotel room.
***
Bright and early the next morning I was standing in front of the Tribal Police Station waiting for Bear to give me an update. Judy and Randy had ambled up looking kind of tired and I wondered if they’d made it a late night, but I didn’t ask. From the look on Randy’s face, and the frown on Judy’s, I didn’t think it had gone very well. I nodded a good morning to them, and then turned my attention to the health clinic about four buildings away. It was staffed mostly by a nurse practitioner and she did pretty well administering to things on the Rez. The doctor usually came down twice a week from Henderson, the largest town in the area, unless something major came up. Today should have been one of his off-days, but I noticed his car was parked in front of the facility. Bear’s car was down there, too, and so was the black Escalade I’d seen Rod Lone Elk driving yesterday.
“So are we going to wait around here all day, or what?” Judy asked. Her voice had that familiar whine to it, and I didn’t envy Randy, if he was going out with her.
“I’m waiting for Chief Walks As Bear,” I said. “If he gives us the all-clear, we’ll go back to the dig site.”
She rolled her eyes, lifted her arms, and let them fall so that her palms slapped the sides of her legs. I tried to remember if I’d been that recalcitrant in my youth.
Randy’s voice interceded, like a tweak of reason. “Ain’t that his ride down there, Dr. Strohm.”
I nodded, took another look down the dusty street, and told them to wait while I checked things out. I also saw not-so-special ex-agent Boudrow wearing a ball cap and wrap-around sunglasses lurking by the Escalade.
As I approached, I saw Bear walking briskly out of the clinic talking on his cell phone. He was moving toward his car, and I quickened my pace to intercept him.
“Hey, Bear,” I called out.
His head swiveled toward me, still talking on the phone. As I got to within a couple of steps of him, he terminated the call and gripped the door handle.
“I ain’t got time to talk right now, Rick,” he said.
“All I need to know is if it’s all right for us to go back out to the dig site.”
“No.” He opened the car door and got in. I reached over and grabbed the top so he couldn’t close it.
“Can I ask why?”
Bear looked up at me with those hard, brown eyes. “Because the situation’s changed a bit, whashoo.”
I smirked. “Wahchischoo is more like it. That’s the pejorative term for white boy around here, isn’t it?”
Bear rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t even dignify that with a response, but I said whashoo.”
“Well, as a whashoo, don’t I at least rate an explanation?”
His lips compressed into a thin line. “Okay, if it’ll get you out of my hair.” He pointed to the Escalade. “Look familiar?”
“That Rod Lone Elk’s car?”
“It is,” Bear said. “He was murdered yesterday. Ernie found him and brought him back last night. Well, early this morning, actually.”
“Murdered?”
He nodded. “Right now, I’m waiting for the feds to get here.”
“The feds?” I said. “The FBI?”
“Any violation of the Major Crimes Act that occurs on Indian land falls under the jurisdiction of the feds.”
“That is correct,” a voice said. We turned as Boudrow came around the corner. “I assume they’re sending an agent up from the Denver office?”
Bear shot him a hard look, saying nothing.
“You know,” Boudrow said, “I worked quite a few reservation cases when I was with the Bureau”
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Bear said.
Fat Ernie walked out of the clinic. He was wiping a wet towel over his face, and his long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. His uniform shirt was stained with smears of blood.
“I’m gonna head back out there, boss,” he said.
Bear blew out a breath and got out of the car. “You been beating the bushes all night, brother. Go home and get some sleep.”
Fat Ernie started to protest, but Bear was having none of it. “That’s an order. Now, vamoose.”
The big deputy looked down, nodded his head, and then said, “All right.”
The three of us watched him shuffle over to his dirt bike, straddle it, and knock back the kickstand. As the high whine of the engine tore through the serenity of the morning, I turned to Bear.
“What happened?” I asked.
Bear heaved a sigh. He looked almost exhausted as his deputy. “Ernie found Lone Elk’s body last night. Brought him and his car back.”
“His body?” Boudrow asked. “He didn’t preserve the crime scene?”
“We do things a little bit differently out here,” Bear said. “But there wasn’t much of a crime scene, per se.”
Boudrow shook his head. “Sounds pretty unprofessional.”
Bear was obviously irritated. I jumped in with a quick question.
“You said he was murdered? How?”
Bear heaved another sigh. “He was shot. Looks like with his own gun. You said yesterday he was carrying a forty-five, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “A Smith and Wesson, forty-five-oh-six, if I remember correctly.”
“It’s missing,” Bear said. “Ernie found a forty-five shell casing next to the body.”
It was my turn to nod. “You think Sammo did it?”
“It’s looking that way,” Bear said, his face taking on a new grimness.
I ran the shooting scenario through my mind and was having trouble adding things up. “Sammo had that rifle. Why would he use Lone Elk’s pistol?”
Bear’s face tightened. “Whoever killed Lone Elk shot him execution style. Up close and personal.” He touched the back of his head. “Anyway, all I can do is speculate. I got to wait for the FBI to arrive so I can turn things over to them.” Bear’s face took on a mirthful expression. “Those twenty-two years I spent on the State Police don’t count for squat.”
“I think you’ll agree,” Boudrow said, “that the Bureau is the preeminent law enforcement authority, and best suited to handle a situation like this.”
Just then one of those black, non-descript Ford sedans turned off the highway and onto the dirt street of the Rez’s main drag. It slowed in front of the Tribal Police Station and Bear reached into the car, flipped on his overhead lights, and hit a yelp of his siren. The sedan rolled toward us, trailing a cloud of reddish dust in its wake. After coming to a stop, two men in suits got out. They were a salt and pepper pair, one white and one black. The black guy was about six-four and stretched his hand out toward Bear. “Special Agent Joe Barnes,” he said. “This is my partner, Special Agent Case. You Chief Walks as Bear?”
Bear shook the big man’s hand. “Been waiting for you to get here. I’ve already started to mobilize local resources and get some helicopters from the county sheriff.”
“I was told you have a suspect?” Barnes asked.
One of Bear’s men came running out of the front door of the Tribal Police Station with an excited look on his face. “Boss,” he called, and motioned for Bear to come quickly. He jumped into his squad car and the two FBI men got into theirs, leaving Boudrow and me to walk the distance. As we approached, I saw them conversing about something and then they got into their respective vehicles and took off, stirring up another cloud of dust. By the time Boudrow and I got to the Police Station, they were gone and the uniformed man who’d summoned them had gone back inside and closed the door. Judy and Randy were still standing there.
“You hear what they were talking about?” Boudrow asked.
Judy wrinkled her nose in confusion and looked at me. “Who’s he?”
“Retired FBI,” I said, jerking a thumb toward the tribal patrolman inside the station. “You hear what he told Bear?”
“Yeah,” Randy said. “They found Sammo’s pickup truck up in Henderson.”
“So are we going back to the dig site, or what?” Judy asked.
“There’s been some trouble,” I said. “We’d better postpone things for today.”
“Yeah, right.” Judy’s head lolled back and she snorted. “And I set my alarm early for this.”
Boudrow and I watched them walk off toward Randy’s car. I was more than a bit miffed at her behavior.
“That little gal’s kind of smart aleck, isn’t she?” Boudrow asked.
I felt my face flush. “Kind of.”
“Maybe you can give her a bad grade,” Boudrow said.
“I’m considering it.”
“Henderson’s forty miles north of here.”
“I know.”
“So,” he said, drawing out the word. “How about you and me go out to the site and you can show me where those rounds hit yesterday?”
I took a deep breath. The frustration of the situation, and Judy’s impertinence, were weighing on me. “Even if we went out there, it’d be like looking for the proverbial needles in a haystack.”
Boudrow shrugged. “Possibly. But I’ve got a metal detector in my trunk, and can cover a lot of ground.”
“Why don’t you wait and just tell Barnes and his partner about your suspicions?”
“They’re already pretty busy. I doubt they’d have the time or the inclination to listen.”
“Or maybe you don’t want to let someone else get any of the credit?”
Boudrow’s head jerked slightly and I realized I’d hit him with a cheap shot. The man’s partner had been killed, and Boudrow himself had been wounded. He had a very personal stake in all this.
“Sorry,” I said. “That was uncalled for. But I’m still not certain we should go out there. Bear might—”
“He didn’t forbid you to go out there, did he? And if One Horse is all the way up in Henderson, it should be pretty safe.”
I could see the intensity in the man’s face as he spoke. A personal stake… I reached into my pocket, pulled out my car keys, and motioned toward my Tahoe.
***
About twenty minutes later we were approaching the mountain. I slowed our approach, coming to a stop on the roadway that wound past the dig site. The backhoe and bulldozer were still there, but I thought the dozer looked to be in a slightly different position than it had been yesterday. This concerned me. We’d left the keys to both in a locked box on the side of the backhoe. I figured they’d be safe enough since someone would need a flatbed to remove them. We were out in the middle of nowhere and either one would run out of gas long before they could be driven very far. I parked and we got out. Boudrow put his hands on his hips and asked, “Are those the dinosaur tracks?”
I stepped next to him, gesturing. “Yeah, those quadrupedal tracks were left by a Euoplocepalus, an armored herbivore. Those bigger, triangular three-toed prints were from a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rexes.”
“Carnivores chasing their dinner, huh?” He emitted a quick laugh. “Doesn’t look like a lot’s changed in sixty million years.”
“Sixty-five million.”
He nodded as his eyes followed the trail of the tracks.
“They lead right up to that solid wall,” I said. “They already recovered some scattered bones of the Euoplocepalus. I’m hoping behind that wall there’s an intact T-rex skeleton. Or two.”
“Looks like we’re both searching for hidden answers, doc,” he said. “Where was One Horse when he took that shot at you?”
I pointed to a high ridge jutting out about sixty feet up the slope.
“Take me up to where you saw him,” Boudrow said. “I’ll need to check the trajectory of the rounds to figure out where to look.”
“We’ll have to drive around to the other side and climb up there.”
I took one more look at the winding sets of fossilized tracks and drove around to the other side of the mountain. Where we parked there was actually some shade, so I felt lucky. Maybe things were starting to turn around, and I’d actually be able to come across some big bones.
It took us about fifteen minutes to find the way up to the natural abutment, but once we located the path-like trial, the climb went quicker. We got to the point where I’d seen Sammo holding the rifle.
“I think it was about here,” I said.
Boudrow’s face stretched into a broad grin. “Good guess.”
About thirty golden shell casings sparkled in the sunshine. He took out a pair of latex gloves, slipped them on, then pulled a plastic bag from his pocket. He stooped down and began gingerly picking up the casings.
“These are almost as good identifiers as the projectiles.” Boudrow dropped them into the plastic bag. “The extractor makes distinctive marks as it ejects the casings. But I’ll need the projectiles to get an exact ballistic match.”
The sun was nearing its midmorning apex and the heat was getting pretty intense. I was about to tell Boudrow to make his trajectory estimate so I could retreat to the shade and air conditioning of the Tahoe when a distinctive yet familiar sound became audible.
The high whine of a motorcycle engine cut through the hot desert air. We turned and I moved to the edge and peered over it. A man on a dirt bike was approaching fast. A very large man… Fat Ernie.
He pulled past the bulldozer and headed for the mouth of the cave, coming to a stop in front of it. He stood straddling the motorcycle and looked around slowly.
I was about to call out when Boudrow put his hand on my arm and leaned close. “Let’s see what’s up before we let on that we’re here. Everybody’s kind of jumpy.”
His words made more sense to me as I watched Fat Ernie continue to scan the area. I thought maybe he was looking for Sammo, but something seemed slightly off to me. Why would he come back here, if they’d found Sammo’s truck forty miles north? Plus, Bear had told him to go home.
Finally, Fat Ernie slammed down the kickstand and got off the bike. After hiking up his pistol-belt, he unstrapped a backpack from the motorcycle and ambled toward the substantial mouth of the cave. He’d changed his shirt. This one had no blood on it, but he’d already sweated through it in several places.
This wasn’t making a lot of sense and suddenly I was beginning to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Had something changed?
“Maybe we’d better go check with him,” I said.
Boudrow nodded and placed the bag of brass into his pants pocket. We started back toward the Tahoe.
It took us less time going down. As we drove around the base of the mountain I made another fleeting glance at the dinosaur tracks and wondered if I’d ever get the chance to study them. But Bear had a point. They’d been there a long, long time, and they wouldn’t be going anywhere. I pulled up by the bulldozer and we got out of the SUV. We walked past Ernie’s dirt bike to the mouth of the cave. As we drew close we heard a couple of voices coming from inside the damp darkness. One of them was harsh and guttural, the other twisting into a keening moan.
“You want some more, old man?” It sounded like Fat Ernie. “I got plenty more for ya.”
I looked at Boudrow and his head jerked back. Putting a hand on my arm, he bent down and lifted his right trouser-leg, unsnapping a blue steel, snub-nose revolver from an ankle holster.
Ernie’s gritty tone continued. “Now tell me where it’s at, or I’ll really put some hurt on you.”
“Like you ain’t been doing that already?” The other man’s voice was hardly more than a croak, but I recognized it just the same. It was Sammo One Horse.
We moved to the edge of the cave. Illumination shone from within. The harsh voice continued, along with a cry of pain. Boudrow brought his revolver up and moved with a swiftness through the opening.
“Freeze,” he said. “FBI.”
I followed in behind him. The cave opened into a large cavern with stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Farther inside, in a large, clear area, one of those circular, halogen camp lanterns lit up the whole cavern. Someone had obviously cleared a pathway a long time ago that led farther into the mountain. Sammo lay on the flatness of the floor, his arms and legs bound with rope. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and the same tan, chambray shirt he’d been wearing yesterday had several bloody patches seeping through the material. Fat Ernie stood over him holding a knife. His wide face turned toward us.
“Glad you’re here,” he said. “I just captured a murder suspect. We been chasing him and I figured I’d come back here and—”
“Can it,” Boudrow said, still aiming the revolver at him. “This is no arrest and we both know it. Now drop that knife.”
“Okay, Mr. Treasure Hunter,” Fat Ernie said, slowing turning toward us and letting the knife fall from his fingers.
Sammo said nothing.
“Now,” Boudrow said. “Easy does it. Unsnap your pistol belt and let if fall to the floor, then step away.”
“You’re making a big mistake, wachitshoo,” Fat Ernie said. “I’m a duly authorized officer of the law.”
“Just drop that damn belt,” Boudrow said.
Fat Ernie complied and took a half step back.
“Go over and pull it toward us,” Boudrow said to me.
As I moved forward Fat Ernie’s right leg shot up, stirring a cloud of dust. I recoiled and suddenly he was holding a big, silver-colored semi-auto.
A shot echoed as the muzzle of the gun sent a flame about a foot in front of the barrel.
My hearing immediately shut down and I jumped to the side, peripherally seeing Boudrow crumble, his revolver spitting out rounds as well. Fat Ernie kept firing his gun as he grabbed the pistol belt and ran toward the mouth of the cave.
Boudrow was prone on the ground now. He fired one more round at Ernie’s disappearing form.
Seconds later he rolled over and grabbed his side. A crimson stain was seeping through his shirt.
I ran to him.
“How bad you hit?” I dragged him over to the side to the cover of some stalagmites.
“Bad enough.” He groaned, his head jerking toward Sammo. “Pull him out of the line of fire.”
Glancing toward the opening, I picked up the knife and moved over to Sammo. His arms were tied behind his back. I cut those loose first, then went to work on the bonds around his legs. His body odor was pungent, and I noticed a large stain of urine around his crotch.
“Yeah, I know I stink,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his wrists. “Been here all night.”
“That big stainless forty-five looked familiar,” I said as I sawed through the ropes. “Is that Rod Lone Elk’s gun?”
Sammo nodded. “He came up on me and Lone Elk yesterday. Took us both prisoner, then shot him in the head. Took the keys to my pickup and left me here, tied up.”
“And he was trying to get you to tell him where you buried the stolen loot from the armored car robbery, wasn’t he?” Boudrow said.
I could tell the pain was getting to him. I glanced around and saw Sammo’s rifle lying a few feet away. The upper and lower receivers had been separated. I scurried over to it.
“Won’t do no good,” Sammo said. “He field-stripped it. Took the firing pin.”
I cursed.
“Let me take a look at that,” Sammo said, crawling to Boudrow’s side.
“Keep your damn hands off of me,” he said.
Sammo stopped, looked at the other man. “You got something against Indians?”
“I got something against killers.”
“Look,” Sammo said. “I tended to a lot of combat wounds in the Nam.”
“I’ll bet that didn’t help Charlie Raging Bull much, did it?” Boudrow’s words came out through clenched teeth.
Sammo stared at him for a solid five seconds, then smiled. “You know, I thought you looked familiar. A little older, a lot grayer. Glad you made it. Sorry about your friend.”
“So you admit it?” Boudrow asked. “You were there? You were the third man?”
Sammo nodded. “Yeah, I was young and stupid. But I didn’t shoot nobody. All I did was drive the car.”
Boudrow started to say something else, but the loud noise of the bulldozer stopped him. It pulled into the mouth of the cave, effectively blocking any exit.
“Looks like Fat Ernie’s got us trapped,” I said. I reached over and turned off the lantern, plunging the cave into semi-darkness. Some daylight still filtered in through the opening.
Ernie’s voice echoed through the cave moments later. “Hey, federal man. You’re interfering with the arrest of a murder suspect. I advise you and your friend to come out now, so I can take that crazy, old Indian in.”
Boudrow held his finger to his lips and whispered, “He’s trying to get you to answer. Wants to pinpoint our position.”
“For a white guy, you got some combat smarts,” Sammo said, his voice low as well. “Except you brought a pea shooter to a gunfight. Gimme your gun. I’ll sneak along this ledge and get behind him.”
“Go to hell,” Boudrow said. “I’m saving one of these rounds for you.”
Sammo shook his head and smirked. He winked at me and began crawling along the edge of the wall. The ledge he was talking about ran all the way above the cavern to the entrance.
Boudrow grabbed Sammo’s leg. “Where do you think you’re going?”
He stopped and whispered. “I’m half Pueblo. Cave dweller.”
Boudrow pointed the small revolver at him. “Stay here.”
Sammo’s leathery face creased as he emitted a brief chuckle. “If you’re in a hurry to bring Fat Ernie running, whachitshoo, then go ahead and pull that trigger. Otherwise, save your strength and start putting some pressure on that wound. If you don’t, you’ll bleed to death a lot quicker.”
“How many rounds you have left?” I asked.
Boudrow grunted. “Two. It’s a five-shot.”
“And a snub nose to boot,” Sammo said. My eyes were getting used to the darkness and I could see him crawling away from us.
“Get back here,” Boudrow said.
“Washoo,” Sammo said to me. “Get ready to turn on that lantern and pitch it when Fat Ernie comes back. Maybe it’ll give your friend here a chance to drop another Indian.”
Boudrow started to mutter a curse but it got caught up in a groan. I squirmed next to him.
“How about giving me the gun?” I said. “You’re hurt too bad to shoot accurately.”
His breathing was becoming labored. “Can you handle one?”
“I was in Iraq. Army.”
A few more ragged breaths, then I felt him gripping my hand, forcing the gun into it.
“I think you’ve only got one shot left,” he said. “I didn’t want him to know that.”
Marvelous. I hunkered down and thought about calling for help on my cell phone, but doubted I could get a signal inside here. But Fat Ernie was under the gun, too. He’d either have to come in to get us, or take off, and if he did that, he’d be leaving witnesses who could implicate him in the murder of Rod Lone Elk, not to mention abandoning his dream of finding the money. No, his choices were limited. On the other hand, time wasn’t exactly on our side, either. Boudrow was bleeding to death, the exit was blocked, and a desperate and heavily armed man was after us.
The bulldozer’s engine started again, and a shiver went down my spine.
The large, shovel-like blade rose and then slammed into the earth. It raised again and crashed down, angling up this time with a growing mound of dirt in its steel maw.
He was going to bury us alive in here.
A surge of panic started to overtake me. A thought flashed through my mind as to how that Euoplocepalus must have felt millions of years ago being stalked by a big predator.
Suddenly I heard Sammo yell, “Lantern, washoo.”
I turned on the lantern and held it in the air, standing at the same time in the hope of getting a clear shot. I caught a glimpse of Fat Ernie’s grinning face as he sat behind the wheel of the bulldozer. A massive stalactite fell from above and crashed down onto his head. His big form crumbled onto the wheel as the bulldozer maintained its forward momentum, colliding with the wall opposite us and continuing its sideswiping trek as huge amounts of dirt were stripped from the side of the cavern. Finally, it collided with a massive stalagmite and stopped.
Sammo shouted, “Use that gun, dammit.”
I realized he’d dropped the stalactite on Ernie.
I scrambled over to the bulldozer, its treads still rotating against the floor, stirring up twin clouds of dust. Holding up the lantern I shone it toward the big man still seated behind the wheel. Sammo was next to me now.
“No need for the gun, huh?” he asked.
I shook my head as the light danced over Fat Ernie’s bloody head. It canted unnaturally to the side, his sightless eyes staring back at us.
“Better shut that damn thing off.” Sammo pointed to the bulldozer and waving his hand at the dust cloud. “It’s hard enough to breathe in here as it is.”
I tucked the revolver into my belt, went around to the back of the cab and climbed up. My hand brushed against Fat Ernie’s wrist as I turned off the key. The diesel engine shook under me like a dying beast before vibrating to a halt.
“I’ll go get Mr. FBI,” Sammo said, pausing to grin. “Since you got his gun.”
I nodded and looked to my left. In the illumination provided by the lantern, I saw the bulldozer blade had scraped a long gouge in the wall of the cave, knocking off layers of accumulated dirt. Something white peeked out at me from a section of the wall about three feet off the ground. I jumped down and went to the spot, carefully using my fingers to brush away the excess. The hollow eye socket of a human skull stared back at me. I recoiled, then held the lantern up for a closer look. Using the knife, I broke loose more of the packed on dirt. A cheekbone and some teeth were visible now.
Behind me I heard Boudrow grunt.
“That’s him, isn’t it? That’s Raging Bull.”
“Yeah, it’s him, all right,” Sammo said. He had one of Boudrow’s arms slung over his own shoulder and was helping the wounded man walk. “He died on the way back. Buried him here all those years ago. Figured it was a good place as any for him. Indian land.”
“I knew it,” Boudrow said.
Sammo laughed as he and the FBI man moved along.
“But don’t go looking for the money, washoo,” Sammo said. “I burned it and sprinkled the ashes over his grave, so he could take it with him on his journey.”
Boudrow had been right, I thought as I looked at the bulldozer and then watched them amble toward the opening, huddled together like young lovers. Carnivores and herbivores… a battle of life and death.
Not much had changed in sixty-five million years.
The End
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