CH. 8
Discoveries
Early, before sunrise, Randy awoke. The excitement of what he thought he witnessed the previous night broke his vacation sleep-in routine. He found Adrian asleep on his bedroll looking exceptionally and unusually comfortable. In his hand he held the end of a large feather from a Golden Eagle. Randy went over to the dwindling fire and stirred the embers, tossing another few sticks onto it. Daniel came into the camp with a couple of deceased Rabbits and Randy looked at him with a smile of greeting.
"You better get those on the fire before Adrian wakes up or he'll freak out."
Daniel tossed one of the Rabbits to Randy indicating he should help prepare them. He pulled his knife. Randy retrieved his camping knife from his sack and set to work with Daniel. The rabbits did not look like rabbits once they were on the fire, for Adrian's benefit. They were finished cooking before Adrian even woke up.
Leland joined them, having been awakened by the aroma from the fire. He joined Randy and Daniel, noticing Adrian was still sleeping. He thought that was odd. He knew Adrian was always up before sunrise, if he even slept at all. "What did you give him?" he motioned to Adrian as he sat by the fire to ease the morning chill. Daniel tapped the bag on his belt, and then picked up a small round cactus like plant. "Peyote?" Stottlemeyer raised his brow in surprise. Daniel gave a quick nod. "Let's not tell him, okay?" Randy pulled his fingers across his lips like a zipper and Daniel again nodded his agreement.
Adrian began flinching at a dream that was invading his mind. He kept seeing the cave and faces of men, women and children with tears in their eyes. The faces were familiar, yet unfamiliar, like the feeling he had when he first saw the eagle overhead when they had stopped on the highway. Stottlemeyer, Randy and Daniel watched him with interest.
"You know, Daniel. There was a time, not that long ago,"
"Last week," Randy piped in.
"Last week in fact," Stottlemeyer cast an annoyed look at Randy for the interruption. "When that man right there would never even have considered wearing anything other than a long-sleeved button up shirt and a three button Blazer. The fact that he's wearing what he is right now and that he's even lying on the ground is a huge step for him."
"It's a miracle!" Randy added.
Daniel nodded acknowledgement. Suddenly, Adrian stirred awake. He looked up at the dimming morning stars for a moment trying to get his bearings. 'Where am I?' he asked himself. He felt three sets of eyes on him, and he slowly turned his head toward the warmth of the fire. He squinted, trying to discern the aroma coming from the fire and lifted himself to his elbow.
"Good Morning!" Randy greeted him with a grin.
Stottlemeyer had a big grin as well, stirring suspicion in Adrian's mind. He clumsily threw his blanket aside and quickly stood up, wiping himself down of any invisible debris that might have attached itself to him. "Why?" he asked nervously.
"Just is," Randy shrugged.
Adrian slowly walked over to the fire and Daniel handed him a plate of meat. He sat down and watched as the three men before him ate and he decided it was safe, especially since his stomach had cast its vote for food.
"So, where'd you go last night?" Randy inquired.
"To bed."
"I don't think so, Spirit Man." Daniel shot Randy a look of surprise. Randy explained. "It's my name for him, in the comic book I'm writing about him. See when we were driving here, he was like, talking to this eagle he saw in the sky."
"Randall," Stottlemeyer warned gently.
Adrian rubbed his brow with his forefinger. "What do you mean?" Adrian asked.
"The comic book, remember?"
"No. I mean what you said about last night."
"Oh, yeah. I saw you, back over there." He gestured half turning to the trees behind him. "An eagle landed on your arm, it was amazing!" Adrian's hand dropped to his knee in disbelief.
"Randy, you were high," Stottlemeyer reminded him.
"No I wasn't. It was after Daniel gave us that drink. I guess he gave you something different."
"I don't remember," Adrian stated, forgetting he held a feather in his hand.
"Well, what's that?" Randy's eyes were bright with knowing.
Adrian looked down, seeing the feather. It was about ten inches long and the most brilliant gold color. It shimmered as the first rays of sun streamed through the trees into the camp. Adrian stood and walked over to his gear. He placed the feather carefully into his duffel bag and then pulled his holstered pistol from it and clipped it to the back of his belt. He stood and faced the men. "Let's go," Adrian said simply and walked out of the camp.
"I guess we're goin'," Leland said sarcastically, slapping his knees and standing.
Stottlemeyer and Randy retrieved their guns as well, and then followed their strangely confident friend. Daniel doused the fire making sure there was no smoke. He quietly went to Adrian's bag and found the feather. He stared at it in awe. It was considered a great honor when an eagle gifted someone with one of its feathers. The eagle had left his feather as a gift for Adrian. He tucked it into his shirt and then left the camp by a different path.
The three detectives discovered a revealing vantage point across the narrow canyon from the cave they had found the first night. The red rising sun had become a brilliant, hot yellow by eight-fifteen am, when they hid themselves on the bluff above, obscured by a small rock outcropping. They peered over the edge, Stottlemeyer using Binoculars.
"You're right Monk, it is a cave."
"Randy was right actually," he pointed out.
Randy was surprised by this vote of confidence from one of the two men he looked up to. He smiled to himself proudly.
Stottlemeyer glanced at him. "Good job, kid." Stottlemeyer went back to the glasses in his hands.
Randy was beside himself now. "Well, you know. It wasn't that hard to-"
Stottlemeyer cut him off and continued his assessment of the scene below them. "There's a lot of activity going on down there. I count ten armed men." He passed the binoculars to Adrian who studied the cave.
"Heavily armed. AK 47's, M-16's, A few high-powered hunting rifles, and a few shotguns. They're all Arians and- wait!" he looked harder at what he saw. "There's our lost clan."
Randy held out his hand to Adrian for a turn at the scene, but Adrian passed the binoculars back to Stottlemeyer, not noticing. After a moment he verbalized it. "Can I see?" Stottlemeyer passed the binoculars to Randy after a few more moments of study. "What's in those boxes?"
"What boxes?" Adrian grabbed the glasses from Randy, annoyed that he'd missed something.
"They're hauling boxes from the cave. They look heavy, takes two men to carry each one," Randy reiterated.
Stottlemeyer was next and watched as they placed the boxes in the bed of a pickup truck, then disappeared back into the cave.
"These guys just aren't out here. There must be a base camp," Adrian surmised as he slumped back behind the rock.
He self-consciously rubbed the dirt off his jeans and shirt, then boots. He was so into getting the dirt off that he almost stood to further his cleaning radius until Stottlemeyer and Randy yanked him back to a sitting position.
"Shall we explore a little bit?" Stottlemeyer suggested.
They quietly slinked down the small embankment to the flat land of the bluff, well away from being seen, and scanned the desert. Stottlemeyer raised his binoculars and looked for signs of life. As he passed the lenses across the landscape, he saw a small structure. He stopped on it. "Bingo!"
"What have you got?" Adrian moved in next to Stottlemeyer.
Randy stood off a few yard, his right hand shading his eye and looking into the vast plain. He wanted more than anything to feel what Adrian had felt the night before, to know what Monk knew.
Adrian looked at the young man before taking the binoculars from Stottlemeyer. "She'll find you," Adrian said, raising the glasses to his eyes.
"What?" Randy asked.
Adrian gave him a confuse look. "Huh?"
"You just said, 'she'll find you.' What does that mean?"
Adrian shrugged. "I don't know," he said, quietly, turning away uncomfortably. He had no clue what it meant. He had no clue why he said it. He cocked his neck toward his lifting shoulder and adjusted his jaw. It meant something. They would eventually find out, he supposed. It would come together. Things just seemed to do that out here. Stottlemeyer elbowed Adrian to bring his mind back on the structure out beyond them. He pointed in the general direction.
Adrian peered through the lenses. "Looks like an old barn, maybe a ranch. I can't tell from here. We should check it out," he said, handing the binoculars to Randy.
As the sun continued to rise, so did the temperature. They paced themselves for the half-mile they estimated the barn to be. "It's so hot," Adrian finally said.
"It's the desert," Stottlemeyer pointed out.
"Where's the water?"
"I'm sure there's a well at the ranch."
Then a roadrunner crossed their path at blinding speed.
"What was that?" Adrian whined again.
"A Roadrunner. Come on for someone who knows all sorts of mundane facts you didn't study up on your indigenous Arizona birds?"
"No, sorry. It must have slipped my mind. So why isn't it on the road?"
"Cuz he'd be squashed!" Stottlemeyer answered. "What's your problem, you've been doing so well?"
"Must be the sun frying my brain."
"It didn't fry your brain yesterday."
Adrian shrugged. "I was prepared yesterday."
Randy came up to the two men with a friendly black and white critter in his arms. "Hey guys, look at the cat I found. You think he's a stray?"
Adrian jumped back at the thought of a cat being near him.
Stottlemeyer started backing away quickly. "Randy, that's not a cat!"
"But he's purring."
"It's a skunk!"
Adrian froze. Randy carefully put the animal down and bolted.
"Run Adrian!" Leland yelled.
Adrian faintly heard Leland call as his voice faded in the distance. Slowly Adrian's legs worked again. He turned, tripped, scrambled back to his feet, and took off like an Olympic sprinter. For the distance Randy and Stottlemeyer had already covered, Adrian easily overtook them and passed them, adrenaline fueling his fear. He was blind to where he was running and didn't see the small pond until he was right on it. He skidded to a stop, but his companions didn't notice and plowed into the back of him, all three taking a loud plunge. They all came to the surface sputtering but calmed quickly, carefully listening and scanning the area to judge whether they'd been heard or not. The waves calmed and they relaxed. There was no indication that they had alerted anyone to their presence. The barn was now only 100 yards away.
"Here's your pond, Adrian," Stottlemeyer whispered with sarcasm. He wiped his face and waded toward cover. Randy dunked himself again, enjoying the momentary respite from the sun. This wasn't exactly what Adrian had intended, but he was glad for the refreshing water.
They cautiously made their way through the bulrushes and onto the bank on the other side of the pond. In the heat of the sun, they would dry quickly. Stottlemeyer lead the way to the barn, trotting from one form of cover to the next. There wasn't much. An old, dilapidated wagon from ages past, a stack of old crates and then the barn door. There was a slight wind picking up causing the barn to creak with its age and instability. The barn was at least twenty feet high inside at its peak with a semi-full hay-loft and ten refurbished horse stalls on either side of the main isle. They all had bars on the doors and slide locks.
There was a separate hall off to the left that housed another wagon, not as bad off as the other, but quite old never-the-less. The men spread out and investigated the old structure. Adrian went into the hall and poked around the wagon. As he looked through his fingers at the ancient mode of transportation, he stopped and bent himself to the side. He looked closer at the side of it. Was that blood he saw? It was quite old and had soaked into the eroding wood. He straightened. He had a bad feeling about this.
He hesitantly peered into the back of the wagon and found an old gray tarp spread there. He pulled it aside quickly. Adrian let out a saddened gasp. There, under the tarp were the skeletal remains of a man and a woman. The man wore a medallion of bone and silver with a wolf carved into it.
"Leland!" Adrian whispered loudly around the corner of the hallway. Stottlemeyer turned to see Adrian wave him and Randy over. Their eyes met the contents of the wagon. "These are Daniel's parents."
"How do you know that?"
"The bone structure is that of a man and a woman and the medallion has a wolf on it. The wolf clan is Daniel's clan."
"Oh, no." Stottlemeyer sighed. "Well, we'll have to tell Daniel and get them buried when we get this solved."
"No. Captain. Daniel can't know about this. His parents are dead, he witnessed it. That's all. We can't even bury them."
"Why not?"
"To the Navajo, death and speaking of the dead is taboo," Adrian explained quickly. "Come on. We need to keep looking."
He covered the remains of Daniel's parents again and they proceeded to the other side of the barn to spy through the cracks of the wallboards. There was a ranch house as they suspected. It stretched away from the Barn to the West, which had almost camouflaged it from an Eastward viewpoint. There were a few men milling about. There were several picnic tables and several more men at those tables cleaning automatic assault weapons. There was desert camouflage netting draped over part of the ranch house as well as the few trucks they had parked there.
"This is a military compound," Stottlemeyer spoke up quietly.
"Captain, I know who this group is," Adrian realized. They stepped back from the wall and started back to the other end of the barn. They'd seen what they needed to see. "Remember the group the FBI lost track of about five years ago?" he continued.
"Yeah, the 'Sons of Thunder'. They disappeared right out from under them right before they cast their net to haul them in."
"Right. They left no trace. They must have come to Arizona and hid on Navajo land."
"They waited this long to make sure they weren't discovered," Randy suggested.
"And what better place for training than the Reservation, where no one would bother them," Adrian added. "We need to go to the cave and find out what they're doing there."