It seemed that an ancient text had been recently translated that described the journey of a great caravan from the Mongol regions to establish trade with a mysterious nation that lay along a distant sea and was now called Egypt.
The story, inscribed by a survivor had been preserved on plates of silver that had been buried for nearly three thousand years in the tomb of an ancient Mongolian Emperor.
Shelby Grant enjoyed his teaching, and he spoke with a voice still deep and resonant. His enthusiasm for his subject was clear, and the professor knew that this time he would hold at least some in his audience as if they were glued.
"Mighty had been the Kahn and powerful had been his empire. To his kingdom had come travelers seeking trade in spices, scented woods, and fine cloths. Tempted, the Khan had assembled a caravan of three hundred camels and placed a favored son in command.
"Guided by the traders, the caravan would journey to the western sea, and if the land proved as rich as described, trade would be established.
"To demonstrate his wealth and his power, and to be certain of its understanding, the great Khan's finest smiths had poured a shield of gold. In concentric circles and in four languages, gold carvers had inscribed the history of the Khan's dynasty, so that all encountered could know of the Khan's greatness.
"Skilled jewelers then mounted precious stones in great numbers along the edges of the shield, and other gems of magnificence and splendor separated the circles of writing. Rubies encrusted the center of the shield which was capped by a jewel of a thousand cuts that was larger than an egg.
"The powerful caravan entered the desert, and upon occasion a messenger was dispatched to report to the Khan on the progress of the journey. The caravan wound across other deserts and pierced mountain ranges so high that breathing became difficult. On occasion the strength of the caravan was challenged by brigands, but the warriors of the great Kahn swept them away as minor annoyances."
His audience followed the old professor's tale with ears and eyes. There were sketches of the probable shape and size of the gift shield, and Grant had chosen photographs of laden camels that still traveled the spice routes of Asia and the Middle East.
The historian digressed from his story of the ancient adventure to explain the real value of the shield if it existed today. Of a certainty the gold and jeweled gift would be worth fortunes, but historically such a find would be nearly invaluable because, like the famed Rosetta Stone, the Shield of the Khan would deliver the same message in four ancient languages. One of the languages would be the Khan's Mongol of a thousand years before Christ, and another would be that of the travelers, which might be the Egyptian of that time. The other two tongues? Who could know, perhaps they would be languages still uninterpreted—and wouldn't that be a find almost beyond imagining?
The historian returned to his storytelling.
"A command of special guards surrounded the gift to the king called a Pharaoh, and their task was to protect the shield of gold with their very lives.
"During its journey, the great shield was carefully protected by thick wrappings of silk and it was carried on a camel of unusual strength and passivity. The camel was specially groomed and decorated, and its feeding was a duty of honor allowed only to the beast's appointed guardians.
"Precious water was provided to clean the lips of the special camel and the hooves were painted the Khan's royal color ... which was blue."
Clicker Bell snapped upright, and he saw the Colonel's mouth open.
Maynard said, "Blue?"
"Yes, blue, Greg. Now, if I may continue?"
Grant pretended to be annoyed, but he had planned on just such a reaction. He saw Clicker Bell staring, and Greg Maynard's eyes almost bulged.
The teacher inserted a slide that showed a portion of the original writing on silver.
"The Camel-of-the-Shield, for that was its name, was festooned with bells of gold. Wherever it grazed, necklaces of golden bells hung about the camel's neck."
"Bells? Golden bells?" Maynard was asking the question that burned in Clicker Bell's mind.
Again Grant frowned in pretended annoyance. "Yes, bells, Greg. Is there something wrong with the acoustics in this room?"
Maynard shook his head and remained silent.
"This information has been difficult to assemble. As usual, there was some here and more there. We have our friend, Edward Deladier, to thank for our translation of the silver plates from modern French into English, and together we have pieced this story into its present form. Now, if I may resume my comments...." Grant glowered at the Colonel as if expecting another interruption.
"Somewhere, on a vast desert, the caravan encountered a storm of unprecedented violence. The descriptions inscribed on the silver plates are vivid because in the confusion of the storm all was lost. Tents blew away and little was recovered. The camels broke free and ran with the storm. The guards of the Camel-of-the-Shield were last seen running after the fleeing animal with the gift to the Pharaoh still strapped to its back.
"Broken, the survivors turned back and began the long return to their Kahn, but they were now fewer, and they were without supplies. Eventually, they were set upon, and some were taken into slavery.
"It is unclear how many eventually returned to their own country, perhaps only the survivor who recorded the disaster."
Grant had been showing slides of great desert storms that included sand storms and even tornadoes. Now he returned the engraving of the golden bell to his slide projector.
Shelby Grant smiled before continuing, and his pleasure in his own cleverness was apparent.
"Of course, a few present have guessed the next point to consider." He inserted a masked photograph beside his drawn replica of the golden bell.
"Perhaps too often we here have heard Greg tell of his and Clicker Bell's short campaign in the Iraqi desert, and we will all recall that Bell found a camel buried in the desert. That camel had blue hooves and...." He uncovered his second slide, and as most had expected, it was a size-matched photo of one of Clicker's golden bells.
"Even the amateur will see that there is a remarkable resemblance between the bells worn by the Camel-of-the-Shield and those found by Clicker."
The meeting became a confusion of voices. Clicker saw Sydney fingering the bell hung about her neck, and he found himself answering questions without awareness of what was being asked. He steadied his mind, recalling how gold fever had shaken his men when he had first uncovered the gold bells and determined that he would not succumb to it.
Eventually, the important question was asked.
"Could you find that place again, Clicker?"
Bell avoided looking directly at Greg Maynard. "Probably not. That is a big desert, and there is no chance at all of getting back in there anyway."
Attention turned to Maynard.
"Could you find it, Greg?"
"I know less than Shooter does. We could find the radar site easily enough, but from there on the land looks all alike. We were in that desert about eight years ago, and everything will have changed by now."
Maynard's eyes were expressionless as they met Bell's. Good. The Colonel understood.
Bell's glance caught Sydney's, and he suspected that she had also understood the message being passed.
The fact was, Clicker Bell could go back to that hide as easily as he could find his lodge. His instinct had been to conceal the fact, to hold his cards close to his chest. If his camel could be the shield-carrying animal ... whew!
If word of the possibility of relocating the camel got out, archeologists and treasure seekers would descend on them like a cloud. He and the Colonel would at least need time to think about it
When they had a moment alone the Colonel said, "We'll talk about the camel later on over at your place. That suit, Shooter?"
"That will be best, Colonel."
Now was the time. Clicker sank into a hammock slung between aspens. Maynard chose a lawn chair that comfortably raised his feet.
/> They tossed their caps, Maynard's baseball cap and Clicker's Marine boonie onto a table between them.
Clicker said, "You want something to drink, Colonel?"
"Nope, I'm fine." Maynard took an instant to gather his thoughts.
"I don't see any major problem in finding that hide, do you, Click?"
"Nothing to finding it, but I don't know just how we get in, dig like hell, and get out—even if that camel is the one we're talking about"
"Yeah, we are still dropping ordnance on Iraq. I doubt Baghdad would be agreeable to Americans poking around in their desert."
Bell looked across. "You thinking of trying for that camel, Colonel?"
Maynard laughed shortly. "Of course. Aren't you, Clicker?"
"I'm just evaluating the possibilities, Colonel. I don't know if I really want to go into that part of the world again. I'm surprised that you do."
"Well, I don't! But, just imagine if that camel was the one carrying the shield and that the thing might be buried there only a few feet from where you were digging."
"Yeah, makes me wish I'd spent more time with the shovel."
"We couldn't have gotten it out, anyway, Clicker. We were loaded and damned uncertain about what we were doing."
"If I had found that shield, I think I could have dragged it, oh, maybe a thousand or so kilometers."
"Like hell you could have, and if you did, the Jordanians or the Israelis would have taken it away from us."
"You've got that right, Colonel. Did you know that the customs guy at the border pocketed my Bic lighter? What a jerk. The thing might have been worth fifty cents."
"There's another problem, Shooter."
"Which is?"
"Shelby Grant said that he and Deladier had this all worked out about a month ago, but they were waiting until this meeting to make the announcement and the presentation.
"That means that we have to wonder who else has learned about this during that month."
"Oh man, you mean they may be coming here to put us to the question? What a pain in the butt."
"That's not the part I am thinking about. What I am wondering is, who else could point out the hide? If I got wind of this and wanted to go after your camel, I would not come to you. I would be finding out who else could get me there, and I would be doing it quietly and very swiftly."
Clicker thought about it. "Given the location of the radar site or the air strip, some of my team could find the hide. Giacamo, my Assistant Team leader might remember the map coordinates, anyway, but none of the others ever knew them."
"That air strip can't be top secret, Clicker, and it might be on every map of Iraq ever produced.
"You're suggesting, Colonel, that someone might already be on their way, and if not already en route, they could be very soon."
"Not that fast, perhaps. Getting into Iraq and out again will be at least as large a problem as finding the hide and digging out the shield—if it is even there."
"Even if it is the right camel, it probably shed its load long before he went down to stay."
"You're probably right."
There was mutual silence before Bell said, "It wouldn't hurt to give my recon team a call and see if anyone had been asking around."
"You have numbers, Click?"
"I've got Giacamo's, and he might have someone else's. We can start there."
Maynard sat up, stretched his body, and snatched Clicker's boonie hat from the table.
"I expect I can have an old acquaintance still on duty get us last known addresses, if you have the names. No social security numbers, I assume."
"Never had 'em, Colonel."
Maynard perched Bell's boonie cap on his balding head and pulled the brim low to block the sun. He hopped onto the low stone wall that protected the edge of Clicker's bluff from the steep slope to the lake and stood the way Bell had first seen him through his ten-power Unertl telescopic sight—hands on hips, feet comfortably spread.
Maynard looked across the expanse of the lake. He sighed deeply before saying, "I can't believe we are even considering leaving this piece of heaven to go clumping around that worthless desert in search of some unlikely Holy Grail."
Clicker was savoring a pithy response when the bullet penetrated Greg Maynard's chest.
Bell saw the bullet exit amid a spray of blood and perhaps flesh. Maynard collapsed like a punctured balloon, and his limp form thudded onto the stone wall before sliding onto the grass only yards away. Training took charge of Clicker's stunned mind, and he rolled from the hammock and struck the ground on his belly.
Clicker Bell's mind came to life. Staying well below the wall height, he swarmed his way to the Colonel and flipped the semi-conscious form onto its back.
All thumbs, he ripped Maynard's shirt open and saw a puckered entrance wound in the right chest. Maynard's chest heaved, and the hole wept blood. Damn, a lung hit and a bad one.
Bell snatched at the Colonel's shirt pocket and got the cellular phone. He dialed nine-one-one, and got an immediate response.
"This is Clicker Bell at the Sixplex Ranch. There has been a shooting, and I have Colonel Greg Maynard down with a sucking chest wound.
"I want the life support helicopter on its way right now with someone who knows something aboard. Can you manage that?"
The dispatcher demanded that Clicker stay on the line, but Bell had other plans.
He watched Maynard's chest as he dialed and saw the rise and fall of breathing. Blood bubbled at the Colonel's mouth, and that was not good.
"Sydney! Your Dad's been shot down at my lodge. Get down here with a roll of plastic—like Saran wrap—as fast as you can make it."
He hung up with Sydney's panicked voice in his ear. He redialed from memory and got General Aviation at their small airport.
"Gene? Clicker Bell at the Sixplex. You can see the emergency helicopter out your window, can't you?
"Good. Colonel Maynard's been shot in the chest. He's hit hard and bad, and I need to get him straight to the hospital in Sheridan.
"What I'm asking is that you get over there on the double and kick some asses until they get airborne. I don't want them jerking around, waiting for somebody who's late or just making safety checks. I want 'em in the air and fire-walled as hard as they can go.
"You'll do it? Great, Gene! Start now." Bell hung up.
Maynard was coming around, and Clicker raised him while fighting clothing from his upper body.
Maynard tried to talk, but Bell quieted him.
"You got shot in the chest, Greg. No idea who or from where—yet.
"You're hit hard, but I don't think it's fatal. We know what to do, and the helicopter is already on its way."
Warriors could be talked to that way. They did not require sugary reassurances or false promises. All they really required was as clear a picture as could be painted.
Sydney raced up and braked hard. Bell got her to get low and crawl the last few yards. Even standing, he doubted anyone could get a shot, and not until Maynard had mounted the wall had there been a target. He thought that, but he did not depend on it. He kept Sydney on her knees.
The daughter clutched a roll of Saran wrap, and Clicker told her how to use it
"I'll hold him up enough that you can get the roll under him. What you will do is wrap him firmly, but don't squeeze. We want to shut off both the entrance and the exit wounds so that air doesn't suck into his lung."
He supported and Sydney wrapped. Greg Maynard barely responded, but he kept breathing, and that kept them encouraged.
Clicker said, "Get some blankets from the house and two pillows—but stay low. He emphasized the latter and reminded himself that Sydney had not wasted effort on a lot of how-could -this-have-happened questions.
He kept a knee under Maynard's back so that his patient's chest stayed high. Inside, Maynard's lung would be leaking blood, and he must not let his friend strangle or choke.
The other partners arrived in one vehicle, and Bell ordered them to
stay low and well away.
Sydney was back with an armload of bedding. They propped the wounded man and packed blankets on and around him.
Clicker scrabbled away to direct a pair of owners to stand in the open field and wave the helicopter to a safe landing. He reminded them not to stand under or near where the aircraft was coming down. They should just point to where they wanted it. Bell recalled bloody incidents when that basic safety had been ignored.
He got back to Sydney and held the Colonel's hand in his own. He placed his fingers on Maynard's pulse and was pleased by its steady beat.
The Colonel's eyes opened, so Clicker began to talk. ''Someone over across the lake shot you, Colonel.
"I'll find out more as soon as you are on your way to Sheridan. Sydney will fly up with you, but I'll stay here and get on the trail while it is hot."
He saw the questions in Maynard's eyes and his lips attempted to form words. Bell guessed at what might be asked.
"I know the bullet came from way out by the angle it passed through your body. That means from across the lake and fairly high on the far side." Maynard's head nodded, so Bell continued.
"That is a very long shot, Greg, so it might have been a wild bullet floating around from some target shooter, but ... well, I don't like coincidences much." Again Maynard's head nodded.
Bell heard the beat of helicopter blades. It sounded like their ambulance chopper, which was only a surplus Huey, older than its pilots.
After a moment, Maynard also heard, and his lips quirked. He spoke despite Bell's raised finger.
"Damn it, Shooter, this is years too late. Won't even get a Purple Heart."
The partners were mildly indignant at Bell's hearty laughter
Chapter 8
There was more to do, and Bell barely watched the chopper's departure. Cell phone to his ear, he held a thumb up toward the medevac's closed door, but he expected Sydney was soothing her father and would not see.
Sheriff I. B. Boynton came on line with his usual brisk address.
"Boynton."
"Clicker Bell at the Sixplex Ranch, Sheriff. You picking up the action out here?"
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