by Max McCoy
"Of course," the clerk said. "I'll be happy to make the arrangements. Do you have any preferences?"
"I don't care what line or what the accommodations are. And anywhere in southeastern New Mexico will do. I'll ride in a cattle car if I have to."
"You may have to."
"Thanks," Indy said. "I'll be in the cafe."
Indy sat down at a window table. By the time the waitress had brought his coffee, the clerk had told him that he was booked on a train leaving at one that afternoon.
Indy looked at his watch. He had more than an hour to wait.
"Thanks," he said. "What do I owe you for the rooms?"
"Including the damages?" the clerk asked.
"Well, it wasn't exactly my fault."
"Yes, but you are responsible for the window and the broken furniture."
Indy sighed. He took out his wallet and shelled out three twenty-dollar bills.
The clerk made a noise deep in his throat.
Indy added another bill to the stack.
"Ah," the clerk said, and scooped up the money.
Indy regarded the contents of his wallet. He had barely enough money to order lunch and pay his way to New Mexico. He didn't exactly know how he would finance the trip back. He hated to wire Marcus Brody for money. It seemed as if he was always calling on Brody to get him out of one jam or another.
"Adventure is expensive." He sighed.
"Beg your pardon?" the waitress asked as she refilled his cup. She seemed barely out of high school. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and her blue eyes sparkled when she looked at him.
"Sorry," Indy said. "Just talking to myself. What's your cheapest lunch special?"
"That would be the ham and eggs."
"That's breakfast," Indy said.
"It's cheap," she said.
Indy nodded.
As he waited for his food he took out Baldwin's journal. He skimmed through it until he found the place where he had left off the day before. In the last entry he had read, Baldwin and his men had been stranded and were facing certain death because, the resupply ship had failed to arrive at their base camp. So Baldwin had set out aboard the Pluto to seek help.
June 28, 1902: Miserable weather and rough seas. Compass headings are next to useless this far north, and we haven't seen enough of the sky to be able to fix our position. I have set a course for Ellesmere Island by dead reckoning, but this is mere guesswork. Rations are running low. A ferocious storm is brewing.
June 28, addendum: The storm has struck and the Pluto has taken a terrible beating. The mast has been torn away and we are shipping water. Two of the men have been swept overboard, leaving the four of us to bail water—and to pray. Reynolds, I'm afraid, has gone mad.
June 29, 1902: Lost at sea. We have patched up our little boat as best we can, and now our fate is entirely in the hands of Providence. We drift with the current. Reynolds, the poor devil, has been reduced to a babbling idiot. We have been obliged to bind him hand and foot to keep him from doing harm to himself or the rest of us.
July 1, 1902: Curiously, the speed of the current has increased. We have passed a number of ice floes. The sky still has not cleared sufficiently, however, to take our position. Reynolds gnawed through his bonds, slipped over the side, and drowned himself before we realized that he had set himself free. May God have mercy on his soul.
July 2, 1902: We are flowing along with the current at what could almost be called a clip, and we are encountering more and more ice. We have managed to augment our diet with a little fish. Also, every so often we spot a bird or two—gulls, perhaps—decidedly unusual for this climate. Surely we will make landfall if only our little Pluto can hold out.
July 3,1902: Still we proceed with the current. There is a dark smudge on the horizon—it could be terra firma, or a bank of low clouds. Without sunlight, it is impossible to tell. The climate is surprisingly temperate, although the thick cover still obscures our view of the sky.
July 4, 1902: Independence Day. We are nearing land. The curious tide is sweeping us into a bay protected by black volcanic cliffs. It is a coastline that I do not recognize. It is not Ellesmere Island or Franz Josef Land. It resembles the rocky coast of Iceland, but we could not have possibly traveled so far in so short a time. And unlike the true polar regions, which are merely huge masses of ice floating on a near-frozen sea, the coast we now see is firmly attached to the crust of the earth. Could this be the Pole? Or an as-yet-undiscovered—dare I say it—continent? We will soon have a chance to explore this mysterious region at close quarters. We are drawn inexorably toward the treacherous-looking rocks that stud the bay.
July 5, 1902: Our boat has been dashed to pieces upon the rocks, with the loss of all on board—except one. Would God that it were not so, that I had perished instead with my crew. Providence, however, has deemed that I must suffer yet a little longer. I am marooned upon a bleak and craggy unknown shore, unlike anything I have encountered before in the Arctic. From the wreck I have managed to salvage one rifle, half a box of cartridges, some clothes, and a knife. I have no choice but to abandon this barren coast and trek inland in search of food. A river empties into the bay—or, I should say, astonishingly flows inland from the bay—and like the explorers of old, it will be my path. Addendum: Evidence that I am not the first to visit these shores. I have found a yellowed human skeleton slumped against a curious stone obelisk. From the shield and ax lying close by the remains, I presume that this ancient explorer was Viking. Around his bony neck I found a double-terminated crystal of Icelandic spar hanging from a rotting piece of cord. I slipped the curious thing in my pocket. The obelisk itself is approximately one meter in height, and along with a runic description of the mythical land called Thule carries a warning in Anglo-Saxon: I am all colors and I am none. Circle me backward and you are undone. I have no idea what the warning means, but could the description of Thule be an indication that I am in some remote part of Iceland? Viking superstitions aside, I have little choice but to continue my inland journey.
July 6, 1902: Success! Shot a polar bear today and ate bloody chunks of it raw. Although I have flint and steel, there was no fuel with which to make a fire. Beefsteak never tasted so good. It's been said that polar-bear meat is dangerous for civilized men to eat, but I will risk illness rather than certain starvation. But the shooting of the bear has done more than fill my stomach: it has confirmed my suspicions that I have landed not in Iceland, but somewhere in the Far North.
July 9, 1902: The sky has cleared with dramatic results, allowing the aurora borealis to burst forth with all the dazzle of a fireworks display. The stars are clear, but unfortunately the tools I need to fix my position (the sextant and the star tables) were lost with the wreck of the Pluto. The only clue I have is Polaris, around which the rest of the sky revolves. If not for my aching limbs and the blisters on my feet, I would seriously suspect that I had passed from the land of the living. How can the very laws of nature be abrogated here? The mysterious river continues to flow inward through this hellish landscape, drawing me closer to the most prominent of the volcanic peaks on the horizon. A dull reddish glow envelopes the summit. Curiously, I have discovered that the crystal taken from my Norse predecessor glows curiously when pointed in the direction of the peak.
The waitress brought Indy's food. He thanked her, took a few bites, then glanced out the window. The sun was out and the snow was turning to slush. Indy could hear the yapping of dogs. In front of the theater, Professor Rand was herding his performers into their bus for the trip to their next engagement. Across the street from the cafe, a black Pontiac plowed through the mess and pulled up at the bank. When a pair of men in dark suits got out, Indy noticed that the taller one had an overcoat draped over his left arm. Indy smiled. The tall man was cursing because he had stepped in a hole and filled his shoes with ice water.
July 15, 1902:I have either gone mad or am witnessing the greatest wonder of the natural world. As impossible as it seems, the ri
ver now appears to be flowing uphill, toward the smoldering peak. Also, it seems as if the aurora borealis is being sucked down from the sky, a glittering celestial river that likewise disappears into the cone. What could be the meaning of this amazing confluence?
July 17, 1902: Having spent the better part of the past forty-eight hours climbing, I am exhausted and ailing but have nearly attained the summit. The Viking crystal fairly sparkles with some kind of energy. I am convinced that I will perish in this barren and beautiful place, but my curiosity drives me on. I want to bathe in the glow of the celestial waterfall before I die.
July 19, 1902: The Top of the World. Within the cone is a maelstrom of swirling water and atmospheric energy leading down into the bowels of the earth. The wind howls relentlessly. Lightning pops and cracks inside the storm like sparks from a giant Catherine wheel. And most amazing of all, there appears to be a man-made path leading down into the heart of the maelstrom.
"I wonder what's going on across the street," the waitress said. Her left hand was on her hip and her right held a steaming pot of coffee.
Reluctantly Indy glanced up from the journal.
"Sorry?"
"At the bank," she said. "That guy is acting awfully peculiar."
Indy looked across the street. The taller of the two men he saw get out of the Pontiac was standing nervously on the top step of the bank, the overcoat still over his arm. Down the street, a beat cop was making his rounds.
"Don't know," Indy said.
"Maybe they're robbing it," the waitress joked. "That would be okay with me, as long as they give me some of the money. Say, handsome, is there anything wrong with your food?"
"Pardon?"
"Your food," the waitress repeated. "You've hardly touched it. Is there anything wrong with it?"
"No, no," Indy said. "It's fine."
"How about some coffee?" she asked. "Do you want a refill?"
"Sure," Indy said distractedly.
My strength is failing, but I shall try to continue. How ironic that the scientific discovery of the age might be lost with my own death...
Suddenly the sound of gunfire brought an abrupt end to Indy's reading. The tall man standing on the top step of the bank had thrown back the overcoat to reveal a Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine. His companion had just emerged from the bank, a bagful of cash in one hand and a smoking revolver in the other.
The waitress dropped the pot of coffee on Indy's leg.
"That's hot!" Indy cried, shoving away from the table.
"Oh my gosh," the waitress screamed. "It's Wilbur Underhill!"
The beat cop was crawling beneath the rear axle of a farm truck. The tall gangster trained the Thompson on the truck and the gun began to chatter. The vehicle rocked back and forth as if it were some kind of mechanical beast shaking itself free of glass and chrome. A bullet skipped like a stone from the pavement beneath the truck, ricocheted from a light pole, and shattered the window of the cafe.
A large dagger of broken glass hung for a moment at the top of the frame, and then dropped as if in slow motion. Indy turned his head just in time to avoid decapitation, but not quickly enough to keep the tip of his left ear from being nicked.
"Who's Wilbur Underhill?" he asked as he pulled the waitress beneath the table with him.
"Just the most notorious bank robber ever," she said.
"How come I've never heard of him?" Indy asked. He was probing his ear with his fingers, making sure that it was still attached and mostly intact.
"You're not from around here, are you?"
Indy reached up to snatch the journal from the top of the table just as a stray slug punched a hole in the napkin dispenser, followed by another stray that entered the cafe with a buzz-saw whine and shattered a stack of dinner plates along the back counter.
"They call him the Tristate Terror."
"Must be because of his aim," Indy said as he examined the blood on his fingertips.
"This is exciting, isn't it?" she asked.
Before Indy could answer, she grabbed the lapels of his coat and kissed him full on the lips. His eyes bulged in surprise and for an instant he forgot about the flying lead above them.
Indy pulled back and wiped the lipstick away with his cuff.
"You don't get out much, do you?" he asked.
Outside, there was a deafening crash.
The gangsters had made it to their Pontiac, but in their haste to escape had collided with the bus carrying Professor Rand's Vaudeville Canine Review and Dog Circus, direct from Harlem for one night only. The bus had overturned. The front fenders of the Pontiac were so badly crushed that the wheels wouldn't turn. The gangster with the revolver was slumped over the wheel. The Pontiac's horn was blaring.
Professor Rand, dazed but unhurt, crawled through the shattered windshield of the bus. The tall man with the machine gun kicked open the passenger's door of the Pontiac and regarded the overturned bus with rage.
Inside, the dogs were whining anxiously.
"This is what I think of your stupid mutts," the gangster shouted. He put the Thompson to his shoulder and took aim at the bus.
"Oh no," the waitress said. "He's going to shoot the dogs."
"No, please," Professor Rand pleaded.
"Shut up," the gangster said.
The professor put his face in his hands.
There was an impotent click as the gangster pulled the trigger. The gun had misfired.
"That does it," Indy said as he climbed out from beneath the table and jumped through the vacant window frame onto the sidewalk.
"Uh-oh," the waitress said.
The gangster regarded the jammed Thompson with disbelief as Indy strode across the street, dusting shards of glass from his clothes.
"Are you the heat?" the gangster asked.
"Worse," Indy said. "I'm a dog lover."
The gangster grasped the gun by the barrel and swung it like a baseball bat. Indy deftly caught the Thomspon and wrenched it away.
"You could hurt somebody with this," he commented.
Then he dropped the gun and hit the gangster squarely on the chin with his best haymaker. The gangster sprawled backward on the pavement, unconscious.
From the cafe, the waitress clapped. Then she ran out and peered at the gangster from behind Indy's shoulder.
"That's not Wilbur Underhill," she said. "I knew it wasn't all along. Wilbur would never try to kill an animal, you know. Just people."
"A real humanitarian," Indy said. "But who is this guy?"
"Oh, that's just Wilbur's cousin. Wally Underhill."
The policeman who had hidden beneath the farm truck had crawled out by now and was handcuffing the stunned gangster that had been behind the wheel of the Pontiac. Professor Rand had released the dogs from the bus and was sitting in the middle of the street while they swarmed around him.
"Looks like a happy ending," the waitress said as she and Indy walked back to the cafe.
"Not quite," Indy said as he searched the table where he had been sitting when the trouble began.
Baldwin's journal was gone.
4
Apache Gold
The Guadalupe Mountains
New Mexico-Texas Border
In the twilight before dawn, near the summit of Guadalupe Pass, the old bus ground to a stop in front of the Pine Springs Cafe. The door swung open. The driver, who had grunted noncommittally for the last seventy miles while Indy had attempted conversation, uttered the one word that so far had escaped unbidden from his lips:
"Out."
Indy gathered his gear and stepped down, then turned and touched a finger to the brim of his hat. "Nice chatting with you," he said.
"You easterners talk too much," the driver said.
Then he closed the door and the bus was rolling and bouncing again, down the same trail that the old Butterfield Stage had used, before the Civil War.
Indy's feet still ached from his late night chase, but at least his ear had stopped bleeding.
He shouldered his pack and regarded the cafe. Judging from its cracking paint and generally aged appearance, the building might have served as one of the original stops on the Butterfield line. The screen door made a sound like a dying cat as he swung it open. Indy peered cautiously into the darkness inside, unsure of whether the place was open.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot," a woman barked from the inside. "You might let the critters in."
"Sorry," Indy said, and quickly closed the door behind him. "Didn't know you had an insect problem."
"Good Lord, I'm not talking about bugs," the woman said. "I'm talking about rattlers. We've got some big ones up here. The herp-ah-tologists say there ain't no such thing, but I've seen some ten- and twelve-footers. They're generally dormant this time of year, but they love to crawl up onto anything that's warm."
"I'll remember that," Indy promised.
The woman struck a match and lit a kerosene lantern on the countertop, then replaced the smoky globe and turned up the wick. The warm light revealed an ample woman in her fifties.
"You're up with the chickens," she said. "Want some breakfast?"
Indy nodded.
"You betcha," the woman said. "Best place to eat in Pine Springs. Only place to eat in Pine Springs, actually." She wiped her palm on her apron and stuck out her hand. "My name's Bertha. What's yours, honey?"
"Jones."
"Please to meet you, Jones," Bertha said. "What'll be your pleasure? We have eggs and then we have more eggs."
"Scrambled would be just fine," Indy said.
"What brings you out to the middle of nowhere, Jones?" Bertha poured Indy a cup of coffee before he could ask for one, then began to break eggs into a bowl.