Whack Job

by Mike Baron

He was immediately suffused with a deep shame.

  God forgive me.

  He couldn’t stop the thoughts from coming. All he could do was handle them as a person of integrity.

  They resumed their climb. Neither had breath for conversation. A pika emerged on top of a boulder and furiously scolded them. The final hundred meters were virtually vertical. Otto was glad he’d brought gloves to deal with the jagged shards. Winner was first to hoist himself over the top followed by Otto minutes later. Otto found Winner sitting with his legs splayed, panting, drinking water and staring at the spectacular view. Mountains marched away in waves to the west as far as the eye could see, many of them gleaming with snow. High above a pair of dissipating contrails crossed in the azure sky.

  “Quite the view,” Winner said.

  The top of the mountain was gently domed, sloping up to a center point that glowed carmine in the afternoon light. Winner got to his feet.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  “Be right with you,” Otto replied, squinting back the way they had come. The tiny figures on the lawn seemed agitated, the tall figure of Witherspoon unmistakable. Otto removed his binoculars from his backpack and zeroed in. Witherspoon appeared even taller in a black beaver skin hat, something a mountain man might wear. He was planted on the veranda behind a telescope trained on the mountain. On Otto. Witherspoon pointed toward the mountain, made an emphatic gesture, and a figure who stood close to the house went back inside.

  Uh-oh, Otto thought. He got to his feet, turned and climbed the final dozen meters to the summit where Winner stood with his legs spread, hands on hips.

  “Look at this.”

  Otto joined Winner and stared at the unnaturally smooth surface of what appeared to be a red globe, approximately forty centimeters in diameter, buried in rock to its northern latitudes.

  For a moment neither spoke.

  “What is it?” Winner said, kneeling and extending his hand.

  “Careful…”

  Winner touched the rock with his index finger, then splayed his fingers across the surface. “It’s warm--probably from the sun.”

  “We’re in deep shit,” Otto said. “Witherspoon pointed at us and pitched a fit.”

  Winner looked up. “Really? What do you suppose they don’t want us to see? This?”

  Otto cautiously extended his own hand until it rested on the red stone. He rapped it with his knuckles. It felt like rock. He removed his pocket knife and tried to make a scratch. The rock was impervious. He picked up a shard of granite and tried that. Otto had never seen anything like it. It looked artificial, but why would anybody make such a thing, come up here and bury it? It looked like a bowling ball. And how had they done it? The top third of the stone protruded from gray granite as if it had broken surface from below. Just eased on through as if the rock were porridge.

  Were there similar rocks atop Mounts Archimedes and Isosceles?

  Winner saw what Otto was doing, picked up a jagged rock tooth and wanged it against the red stone. No mark.

  “I wonder if it’s some kind of monument,” Winner said.

  “To what? By whom? And how did they sink it in the rock like that?”

  “Ancient cultures had a lot of knowledge which unfortunately just got lost. I believe that at one time Atlantis was the center of civilization, and their technology was far more advanced than ours. But all of it was lost, unfortunately, in some kind of cataclysm we can’t even imagine.”

  Otto thought that was a lot of speculation but said nothing and reminded himself that although Winner seemed normal, he was still a movie star and they believed all sorts of crazy shit.

  Let the brain waves wave. Think outside the box. He could use all the help he could get. Otto turned and looked south toward Mt. Isosceles where the snow gleamed in the lowering sun. He knelt, steadying his binocs on a natural cairn. Did he see a gleam of red at the summit or was it his imagination?

  Otto rotated 110 degrees toward Mt. Pythagoras, Its summit was lost in a fluff of cotton candy. The eagle was back, circling over the lake. Winner tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a sandwich wrapped in foil.

  “Had the Stanley make up lunch.”

  They ate in companionable silence approached by several fearless pika to whom Winner tossed crumbs. When they finished Winner gathered the trash and jammed it in a paper bag, which he put in his knapsack.

  They returned to the red dome like moths drawn to flame. Otto removed his cell phone and used the camera function to take several pictures of the rock from various angles. He immediately uploaded the image to the National Security Director.

  “Gentlemen!” a man shouted. Otto quickly shoved the phone in his pocket.

  Bob Casey and another man, a giant with a black beard who might have been Paul Bunyan strode toward them in camo outfits. Both men were red-faced and sweating heavily.

  Otto and Winner waited like guilty school boys.

  ***

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “Blood Oath”

  Monday afternoon.

  There was a road, if you could call it that, up the backside of the mountain. You could wrest a 4X4 to within two klicks of the top. The two employees said nothing as they led their chastened guests grimly down the back slope, rocks skittering with every step, to their bashed ancient Toyota Land Cruiser.

  “Put on those seatbelts, gentlemen,” Casey said. “It’s a matter of liability. You should understand that, Mr. Winner.”

  “I’m very sorry,” the actor said hanging his head.

  “There’s a reason we have rules, gentlemen,” Casey said pedantically. Otto braced himself for a lecture but Casey fell into silence.

  The road had a forty degree grade in places. Casey proceeded at a dead crawl. Several times Otto feared the old SUV would tip over.

  Below the timberline the rutted path gave way to a gravel road that wound through the forest. It took a half hour to work its way back to where the pavement ended, by Otto’s and Winner’s cabin. The parking lot was now more than half full and men were heading toward the lodge trailing rolling suitcases or hefting backpacks. Casey pulled up beneath the log porte-cochere. “Mr. Witherspoon is waiting for you in his office. Arthur, would you show them the way?”

  The lumberjack got out and led them into the lobby, which contained a dozen men waiting to check in. They looked distinguished, semi-famous. Otto spotted a popular radio talk show host. The lumberjack hustled the boys through the lobby, walked down the hall and motioned with a ham-like hand to Witherspoon’s open door.

  Witherspoon waited primly behind his desk, hands folded before him. He gestured for Otto and Winner to sit in captain’s chairs. The lumberjack quietly but firmly shut the door. Otto felt like a schoolboy called before the principal.

  Witherspoon reached into his pocket and put on a pair of pince nez, resembling Uncle Creepy more than ever. “Gentlemen, there’s a reason we have rules. It’s a matter of liability. Did you read the by-laws as I requested?”

  “We’re very sorry,” Winner said with genuine contrition.

  “Several men have lost their lives attempting to scale those peaks.”

  “I understand. It won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not, Mr. Winner. It took some persuasion to get certain board members to approve your visit. The last actor we invited to the Grove was Ronald Reagan.”

  Otto had been looking at Witherspoon the whole time. “I’m sorry too.”

  “Look,” Winner said. “If you’re worried we’ll talk about what we saw up there, don’t.”

  Witherspoon shifted his gaze back to Winner. “What did you see?”

  “That red sphere buried in the rock. Come on. That’s why you don’t want people going up there. Let’s not pretend it’s not there.”

  Witherspoon clasped his hands again and leaned back, weighing his words carefully. “Gentlemen, that sphere is believed to be an Anasazi artifact dating back six thousand years. It wasn’t discovered until after Pawnee Grove wa
s established. We are an institution that puts a high premium on privacy. We choose not to make that artifact known to the scientific world not only to preserve our privacy, but to preserve this area which is virtually untouched since the founding of the Grove.”

  Otto was unaware the Anasazi had ever crossed the Rockies but he said nothing. It was a plausible story. He badly wanted to ask about the other two peaks but he forced himself to remain silent.

  Winner felt no such reticence. “What kind of ancient artifact has a perfectly smooth surface like that? It looked like a bowling ball!”

  “Ancient peoples had far more skills than we credit them. Look at the Mayan calendar, accurate two millennia into the future. Look at the pyramids. A Mayan pyramid was recently discovered in Georgia. It’s entirely reasonable to suppose the Anasazi quarried the rock elsewhere, chipped away at it until it was spherical and then polished the surface until it was smooth.”

  “Very possible,” Otto said. Left unsaid was how the stones had been sunk into the rock.

  “Mr. Witherspoon, once again, we apologize. I appreciate the invitation and I will do nothing to jeopardize our stay here.”

  Witherspoon smiled grimly. “Gentlemen, Pawnee Grove has always looked to our Native American heritage for guidance.”

  He opened his top desk drawer and withdrew a sheathed hunting knife with a sheep’s horn handle. “Gentlemen, are you prepared to take a blood oath?”

  Winner giggled. “You’re kidding.”

  Witherspoon reached into a side desk drawer and withdrew a brass candle holder with a pan-like base and a three inch fat white stub. He set it on the desk and lit it with a kitchen match. He ran the edge of the blade back and forth across the flame, waved it around until it cooled and handed it to Winner.

  “If you want to stay you’ll swear on the blood of your ancestors and the blood of your children that you will say nothing about the mountain top now, or ever.”

  Winner ran the blade across the palm and held it up to show Witherspoon the bleeding cut. “I so swear.”

  Witherspoon took the knife and handed it to Otto.

  “Mind if I sterilize that first?” Otto said. “Not that I think my good friend Gabe has AIDS or anything.”

  Witherspoon produced a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a box of tissues, which Winner used to clean his palm, and Otto used to clean the blade. Otto drew the blade across his left palm, feeling the razor-sharp steel brutally slice the flesh. He held up his hand. A drop of blood fell on Witherspoon’s desk.

  “I so swear.”

  “Well then, gentlemen, you may want to freshen up. We meet for cocktails in fifteen minutes.”

  ***

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  “The Blood of the White Man”

  Monday evening.

  Light fell early in the mountains even in summer. By the time Otto and Winner showered and put on fresh clothes, guests had already begun to gather on the broad stone veranda overlooking the lake. From the veranda, a verdant lawn descended fifty meters to the rock where the trucked-in soil stopped and nature began. Efficient-looking men in blue blazers and tan slacks were setting up folding chairs facing the lake and a wooden dais that had been carried out. Citronella torches surrounded the seating area.

  On the veranda white-liveried attendants dispensed drinks from a portable bar. A buffet table contained cold cuts, buns, salads and condiments. Otto wore cargo pants and a yellow knit golf shirt with a tiny golfer embossed in red. Winner wore sharply creased gray Dockers and a red and blue Hawaiian shirt with the tails out. They made their way through the murmuring crowd to the bar. Otto got a beer and a bottled water. Winner got a gin and tonic. People acknowledged the famous face with smiles and nods. They saw Goldfarb across the way glad-handing a well-known producer.

  A tall man with graying hair came up and stuck out his hand. “Mel Tyler, Tyler Aeronautics. Say, my boy thinks you rule the world, Mr. Winner.”

  “Please call me Gabe.”

  They shook hands. Winner promised to give Tyler a signed copy of his boxed DVDs. The ringing of a cook’s triangle cut through the conversation. Everyone looked to Bob Casey who was banging on the gong with a soup tureen. “If I may have your attention, people, please take your seats on the lawn for the invocation and impromptus.”

  The sun was a burnt macaroni strip over the mountains as Otto and Winner took seats on the end of the third row. A quick head count showed at least fifty campers. Amidst the quiet rustling and clinking of ice, Witherspoon emerged from the main lodge wearing an Indian war bonnet that made him seem even taller and carrying a war club/pipe. As he walked toward the podium a half dozen employees as well as a half dozen campers seated in the first row began to bang on pots and pans and even a set of bongo clubs that someone had brought while chanting “Hey na na na…hey na na na…”

  Against the majestic backdrop of Mt. Pythagoras, to which a narrow band of gold clung to the very top, Witherspoon took his place behind the dais. Gripping the sides of the oak dais, which bore a bas relief carving of a bonneted warrior astride his horse above the Grove logo, Witherspoon waited for the murmur of conversation to die down. Men in blue blazers wheeled out carts loaded with thermoses and red solo cups.

  Witherspoon held the club toward the lodge. “Dog brothers!” he thundered in a sonorous voice. The valley was a natural amphitheater, his words bouncing off the rocks and pinging back. “Welcome to the 118th annual gathering of the tribes and celebration of our father the sun and our mother the moon!”

  Applause, war whoops, whistles. Otto looked around. Fortune 500 CEOs stomped their feet and stuck fingers in their mouths. Some of them looked soused already.

  Witherspoon fixed the audience with a steely glare and a twinkle in his eye. “Tonight we honor those brave warriors who have gone to the valley of eternal spring, those who walk among us, and those yet to come. I hold in my hand the speaker’s pipe. Whomsoever holds the speaker’s pipe must be listened to.”

  “Bad grammar!” someone yelled.

  The attendants began filling solo cups and passing them down the rows.

  “As we weep for those needlessly slaughtered, we pray for the souls of their killers for we are but mud following in the Great Father’s image. The world was once a garden of Eden riding on the back of a great turtle! Then the white man came, he raped, he pillaged, and he took!”

  Boos and hisses. Witherspoon tamped it down. “Kind of like you, Bill,” he said looking at the software billionaire in the first row. The billionaire laughed along with the rest of the crowd.

  “My ghost warriors are now handing out the blood of the white man, which we drink in atonement and to mark the passing of another year in which we have all grown wiser!”

  Laughter and jokes.

  Witherspoon held up a cup. “Wankantanka hear our prayer! Thank you for the rain and air! Thank you for the food we eat--the corn, the schnapps, the buffalo meat..”

  Someone muttered, “The ostrich roams the great Sahara…”

  Otto surreptitiously upended his bottled water, emptying it. While all eyes were on Witherspoon he carefully poured half his drink into the bottle, screwed the cap back on and slipped it into a pant pocket. It was full dark now and nobody paid him the slightest attention.

  “Drink up, dog brothers!” Witherspoon cried. The tribe needed no urging.

  Otto put a hand on Winner’s arm and sniffed what remained of his own drink. He dipped the tip of his tongue in the red mixture and concluded it was a Bloody Mary with an odd, subtle undertone. He quietly poured the remainder of his drink beneath the chair.

  Winner followed suit, but he had already taken a sip.

  “As you know,” Witherspoon boomed, “we have a serious side. Pawnee Grove was always intended to be a modern Chautauqua, a place where the foremost thinkers of the day could present new ideas. It was here Henry Ford first articulated the idea of the automobile assembly line. Mark Twain outlined what he believed to be the future of the newspaper business. In recent ye
ars the subjects of have ranged from faster-than-light travel to new ways of extracting natural gas.

  “A record number of you have requested the pipe tonight so we may not get you all in, but there’s always tomorrow night. It’s first come, first serve. Mel, the speaker’s pipe is yours.”

  The tall aeronautics executive stood and approached the podium, accepting the ceremonial pipe with a grin. Witherspoon stepped down, sat in the front and removed his war bonnet. Sis Boom Ba’s eerie wail drifted faintly from the kitchen.

  “Dog brothers!” Tyler began brandishing the pipe. “It was in 1994 that Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first proposed an orbital elevator to carry men beyond earth’s gravitational boundary. The geostationary orbital tether would have to be a minimum thirty-five kilometers in length. That’s twenty-three miles. Until recently, such a project was deemed unfeasible because we lacked the knowledge and materials. Could such a thing support its own weight without crashing back to earth? Where is the best place to build such a thing?

  “I am pleased to announce that Tyler Aeronautics has developed a carbon nanotube that meets all the requirements of the geostationary orbital tether…”

  The engineer paused gripping the sides of the podium. He grinned. An orange glow gleamed behind his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak and a tiny cloud of vapor escaped. Otto bolted from his seat and before anyone could stop him, leaped onto the podium, ducked, hefted Tyler in a fireman’s carry and ran toward the lake.

  ***

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  “Bonfire”

  Monday night.

  The water was shockingly cold. Within seconds, Otto’s toes had gone numb. He staggered in up to his waist and dropped the bigger man into the lake. Vibration transferred through the water. Otto felt the explosion and staggered back, falling, turning over and swimming away beneath the surface as the engineer erupted in flame. A wash of super-heated water rolled over Otto. He stood, shielding his eyes from the boiling conflagration, dimly aware of a stirring and muttering on the lawn, chairs overturned, tables upended, men running for the trees.