by David Knop
I opened doors of the few vehicles parked in front of the command center hoping an ignition would hold keys.
“Maybe you better quit feeling sorry for yourself, first,” Leslie No Name Ponsford said.
I was so blinded by self-pity; I’d almost run into the man sitting in his sedan. “How’d you kno—.” Apparently, my private thoughts were written on my face. “I thought you was dead.”
“Me too,” No Name said.
“I need your car,” I said.
“Your ass,” he said.
“I gotta get to the groundbreaking. Gonna be a shootout for sure between the Chivington rednecks and the Utes. Lot worse, too.” I didn’t want to turn him off with my asteroid theory.
No Name smiled as he stared through the windshield. “Shooting? Get in.”
I hurried around the car, climbed into the passenger’s seat. No Name stomped the pedal before I could close the door.
From the passenger seat, No Name looked like a mummy. Bandages circled his skull to hold in his brains, for all I could see. Bandages covered wounds on his face. Discolored skin peeked out from under the gauze. He wore an arm sling and a neck brace. The shaking Grizz had given him must’ve bruised every vertebrae and cartilage from head to tail bone. “You doin’ okay?” I asked.
He kept his eye on the road. He hit seventy on the dirt road. He said, “What kind of dumbass question is that, Romero?”
“Right.” I took comfort in his testiness. The Lakota would recover from Grizz’s attack.
“You?”
“Lost my job,” I said.
“No surprise.” He kept the sedan at a smooth eighty-five once we hit the hard surface road.
“Listen,” I said. No Name lifted an eye when I described my peyote trip to Senawahv’s sacred place. I figured his survival from the jaws and claws of an eight-hundred-pound grizzly might have increased his sensitivity to the works of the spirits.
“So, what happened to Pokoh?” No Name asked. “That son-of-a-bitch Grizz tried to kill me.”
“Been fired.”
“Bullshit. A spirit? Fired?”
I said, “Canned, busted, disenfranchised, stripped of rank. You know, defrocked.”
“Well, it’s an interesting story you got there,” No Name said.
I leaned over for a better view of the speedometer. Ninety. “Faster, dammit.”
No Name chuffed, then punched it and we flew low until traffic near the ceremony slowed us. “What time?” I asked.
“Quarter to nine.”
“Shit.” I got the words out as my heart crawled up my throat. “Push it.”
The big Lakota put his red flasher on the dashboard, and we made time cruising the left lane. If No Name ever worried about his future, it wasn’t while driving. Visions of a fireball heading toward the center of the ceremony burned in my brain.
At the ceremony site, we passed two groups of men gathering at opposite ends of the parking area. No Name parked in a roped-off lot reserved for VIPs and slid the keys under the seat while eyeing me.
“What?” I asked.
“Them,” he said, facing the two groups. I recognized them: Chivingtons and Utes. Indian-haters and hating Indians. Some Chivingtons wore cavalry shirts, the old dark blue kind, some of the Utes wore war paint on their faces. Wannabes, every one of them: pseudo warriors wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots and fake soldiers—recruiting rejects too drunk, stoned, or wacked out to make it in the military. Everyone packed heat.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Ten to nine. Calm down, man.”
I nodded to shut him up. My only concern was to get everyone out of here.
Traffic was building on the road and more people congregated near the area roped off for the golden shovel ceremony. I scanned the sky looking for evidence of Pokoh’s asteroid but only managed to white-out my vision.
I said, “Let’s check out the area, see how hard it is to get everyone out of here without creating a panic.”
No Name shook his head.
The Utes and Chivington gathering in the parking area complicated matters. Both groups, intent on creating trouble, could jam up traffic easily.
Elsewhere, people were working hard. A sound truck parked near a cleared patch of scrub while a technician placed microphones on the podium erected on a square of red carpet. Workers prepared displays, tables, and tents. Others hung banners on poles.
Red Pine hardware displayed Southern Ute tribal wealth: mobile drilling rigs, flatbeds with huge gas valves strapped on, and mobile field lighting lined up like big-eyed robots.
A half-dozen natural gas tanker trucks ringed the ceremony grounds. All Red Pine equipment sported the corporation’s circular, two-feather logo. Each sage green truck was personalized with Ute spirit names, an homage to the tribe’s traditions; Queogand for Bear, Teahshooggoosh - Deer, Coyote - Yeodze, Wolf - Shinab, and Pari for Elk. One truck’s name, the closest to me, was hidden by a pile of brush. I wondered if those trucks were empty or full of natural gas. They made me nervous.
Food trucks set up shop. The smell of red chilé beef enchiladas, fresh corn tortillas, and the crackling hiss of onions frying in iron pans reminded me I had not eaten since yesterday.
A county fair atmosphere evolved as a mariachi group offloaded their instruments from a panel truck. The local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars rumbled in with a World War II, M-3 Halftrack. Sales booths took shape for Colorado Ski Country USA, the Telluride Ski Resort, and Telluride’s historic Hotel Columbia. The La Plata County Sheriff’s Mounted Patrol pulled in towing horse trailers. Members of the mounted group were volunteers, and to my relief, Lettau’s thugs were not among them.
The image re-formed in my head: a sun-hot asteroid closing in on men, women, children. A hot flash followed by a skull-crushing explosion. A pile of ashes, everyone here, smoldering in the cratered earth.
I shook the image away and turned my attention to the Southern Ute Police Department officers directing traffic on the highway and at the entrance to the site. As Utes, they were my best bet to reverse the traffic flow and I rushed toward them devising a believable plea about evacuating the area. I came up with zip—Pokoh, Ute spirit, asteroid. Nothing. Nada. No one, not Reel, not No Name, took my story seriously. I couldn’t expect strangers to even listen. I abandoned the idea and trotted back to No Name, blood pounding in my brain.
As I passed the armed Utes and blue coats, I took a quick weapons count. Open carry is legal in Colorado, and I counted three dozen pistols and a dozen rifles between the two groups. Know the enemy, my DI used to say.
To No Name, I said, “I’m gonna use that sound truck over there and close the ceremony.” I set out for the truck, “I’ll tell’ ‘em the whole thing’s been cancelled. Won’t say why, I’ll just say go home.”
“Won’t work.”
I stopped, turned. “Why?”
“After they stop laughing, they’ll stone the shit out of you for ruining their weekend entertainment. Some of them are half in the bag already.”
Loud yells came from the direction of the Utes and Chivingtons. Hostility had deepened with a flock of middle fingers and raised fists.
“We’ve got to get everybody out of here.” I pushed my face upward into No Name’s mug, my anxiety secreting from my skin like sweat. “I’m gonna talk to the Utes. They’ll listen to me,” I said pointing in their direction.
No Name glared down at me. “Who’s gonna believe your shit? Look at those assholes eye-locking each other like a bunch a coked-up wolverines. They’re haters, both sides are waiting for an excuse to shoot,” he said. “Your crazy-ass story will just get ‘em riled up. One shot and a full-blown firefight breaks out. Innocent people will get hurt.” He pointed to the road. “Look at the traffic,” he said. “No one’s going anywhere.”
Traffic had jammed up and stopped dead as the Ute and Chivington hate bubbled like a steam cooker. Like my head. When the sh
ooting started, everyone would be dead and done. Exactly what Pokoh had hoped for. And an even better reason to shut this down.
No Name studied me for a minute, then said, “Reel’s got SWAT teams hiding out. Just in case.”
“She never told me that.”
No Name shook his head. “Need to know don’t include you.”
“What time is it?”
“Jesus, Romero, its ten-goddamn-thirty.”
“I gotta call Aunt Pris to hear what’s new, but I got no phone.”
“I’ll call Reel, maybe she knows.” The big Lakota got her on the phone and said he’d heard stories about an asteroid and wanted a warm and fuzzy that they weren’t true. He listened without expression, then punched off.
“She said a telescope in Hawaii discovered an unusual object. Oumuamua they call it. Means messenger who reaches out from the distant past. Came from another solar system and travelled here at super speed.”
“Could you get to the point?” I kept my eyes on the testosterone baking at the edge of the site in the high-country sun.
No Name said, “Oumuamua broke up last night. Hawaii tracked the debris until solar flares obscured the picture. Couldn’t relocate it due to a software failure. Anyway, they expect some big chunks headed for the Southwestern U.S. Can’t tell exactly when, where, or if, they will hit.”
A messenger who reaches out from the distant past. I recalled the Peruvian, my bar stool informant, saying an asteroid had been sent by their gods to warn the Incas of their cataclysmic demise by the Spanish. My gut twisted into a knot. Oumuamua linked the distant past and present with a warning of catastrophe.
More armed men arrived. All armed. I paced back and forth, to dampen my blood pressure.
“You got a firearm I can borrow? I’m feeling a little naked, here,” I said.
No Name shook his head. “Isn’t La Plata Sheriff’s Office looking for you?”
“For sure.” I said.
No Name crossed his big arms over his chest. “So you want me, an FBI agent, to give you my weapon? You? A fugitive? A cop killer, no less. Ha! Forget it.” No Name walked away chuckling. I watched him tour the area, check out the Utes as they glowered at the Chivingtons who returned the expression in a macho stare down. He walked to his sedan, opened the rear door, closed it and returned.
“I’ll be damned if I can’t find my personal Glock. Must’ve fallen out of my belt when I was driving,” he said, walking away. “Damn!”
No Name wasn’t the best actor I’ve ever seen, but he kept his back to me as I walked over to the sedan and groped under the driver’s seat. I found a Glock 26 and slipped it under my belt at the small of my back and covered it with my shirt tail.
I walked over to where he stood. “What time is it?”
No Name checked his phone, said, “Eleven. Give it a rest, Romero.”
I seethed in frustration. A door in my aching head opened and my Marine drill instructor walked in; dressed in Smokey Bear hat, knife-edge creases, and mirrored boots. He glared at me like I was the lowest life form to ever pollute this miserable earth.
“Obstacles got you defeated, Romero?” he asked.
“Sir, no, sir.” I lied.
“When trouble comes, they send for the hunters, not the hunted. They send in the sons-of-bitches. You a hunting’ son-of-a-bitch, Romero?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“You do not fight because you hate those in front of you. You fight because you love those behind you.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” My voice grew stronger.
“What do Marines do in the face of obstacles?”
“Charge, sir!” I yelled.
My DI nodded at the hostile groups behind me. “What do Marines do when outnumbered?”
At the top of my lungs, I said, “Marines don’t count that way, sir!” He smiled, then faded to a green haze and drifted away.
To my left, people milled about the displays talking, eating, and buying souvenirs, oblivious to the loathing between the Utes and Chivingtons not thirty yards away. Shouting and racial epithets erupted along with a flock of bird-fingers shot towards the sky.
The rivals inched closer to each other, chests inflating the closer they came. A few more feet and there would be fists, chaos, and shooting.
My smoldering frustration turned to rage. I said. “Let’s get those lovebirds out of here and herd them down the dirt road over here. I pointed to the road that lead to a farmhouse and away from the highway. That’ll make room to get the others out.”
“What lame-ass scheme you got now?” No Name asked.
“Walk in like we own it.” I could taste my anger. “Go violent. Go crazy.” I headed for the belligerents.
“What the fuck, Romero.” No Name said, to my back. “You’re gonna get your ass killed.”
I’d had it with the doubters and the haters. “I’m done with talk.”
“Get your ass back here and help me,” he said, pointing to his neck brace and arm splint. I helped him remove the bandages and brace.
I walked over to the group. My arms pulsed with blood, ready for anything, but my mind was as clear as a mountain lake. Most of the belligerents paid no attention to me as I elbowed my way through, their eyes glued on each other.
I announced my presence with my best son-of-a-bitch, a sidekick to the leg of the nearest Ute. The victim buckled. No Name put down a Chivington with a punch to the throat. He collapsed like a wet sandbag.
“Enough! Nobody wants trouble here! Pack it up and leave the area!” I said, holding my badge in the air. “Now!”
No one moved.
The Chivington lay gagging on the ground until his fellow rednecks recovered enough to pull him aside. The Utes made no move to help their comrade while eyeballing me, stunned, it seemed, by two fools inserting themselves between sixty armed belligerents.
“You heard me,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here. Take that road.” I said, pushing the Ute nearest me toward the dirt road. I stood ready to throw feet and fists. A few Utes turned to go, then stopped when the Southern Ute Police, who had been watching from the highway, trotted our way.
The tribal police’s arrival provoked the Chivingtons into a thunder of profanities. The Utes reciprocated. Some shook their fists. Others glared, then palmed their pistols.
No one gave ground. My evacuation plan had started and stalled in less than a minute.
Chapter 38
The warble sirens grew louder as La Plata County Sheriff’s vehicles approached. My cue to exit.
I abandoned No Name and the Ute police, while the La Plata deputies trotted toward us. I scanned for a hiding place. I spotted a Red Pine truck fifty yards away and sprinted toward it.
The sirens had generated new booing and yelling from the two hostile groups. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but I didn’t need to. The trading of offensive labels had raised the belligerents’ temperatures to boiling.
I scrambled behind a Red Pine tanker truck. Crouching near the front fender to see if I’d been spotted by the deputies, I glanced up at the vehicle’s door. In the middle of the two-feathers logo, the word Pokoh had been painted. How strange that name would end up on the very truck I had picked. I crawled underneath.
Brush piled up under the truck’s frame hid me, offering some safety until I focused on an object directly above my head. Taped between the 3500-gallon LPG container and the truck’s fuel tank was a bundle of explosives—six bundled sticks of GEL-X Extra—wired to a cellphone. I’d seen this sort of improvised device in Iraq.
Then it became clear. An explosive devise rigged under a truck named Pokoh had to be the defrocked spirit’s Plan B to create bloodshed and ignite an Indian race war. The bomb under this truck was payback for my testimony before Senawahv. Pokoh’s grand fuck you.
Pokoh had threatened a space object for mass destruction, but it was a hollow threat because he’d lost his power. And I’d fallen for it.
I craned my neck to find any hidden cables from the yellow bundle, then rubbed lightly over and around the explosives with my fingers and found none. When my hand passed close to the phone, it lit up. My heart stopped. The screen read eleven-forty-five then went black.
Fifteen minutes.
The techs at the podium began sound checks. Pokoh had said he planned for high noon. With everyone gathered at the podium, mid-day would allow him to achieve maximum effect.
It was now or never. Fuck the possibility of arrest and chances of getting shot, I would grab the mike on the podium and tell everyone to run. I would scream “bomb” until they did.
As I pulled myself toward the rear of the truck, No Name’s alligator boots passed by my hiding spot along with the black trousers of three others. Sheriff’s deputies. Lettau talked among them.
A plan suddenly flashed. I could drive the truck down the dirt road where the GEL-X would blow far away from everyone. I’d been down that road before: it led west to the old farmhouse where Grizz had mauled No Name.
If I could drive through the middle of the crowd and get some distance down that road, the separation would save lives when the truck exploded. If I could get behind the wheel without being stopped. If the keys were in it. If I could get it out of here without getting shot. I hate ifs.
Fifteen yards away, No Name talked loudly to guarantee the attention of the La Plata County deputies. No Name pointed in every direction but mine yet stole glances in my direction. As the deputies looked away, I pointed to the undercarriage and signed bomb then gestured with hands at two and ten, drive truck. His eyes grew wide. He nodded, turned his attention back to Lettau.
Crawling from beneath the truck, I kept the vehicle between me and the deputies. I jumped into the cab and lay on the seat praying to my ancestors the driver had neglected to remove the keys.