Arnie had to think. What was the best answer? These fellows liked playing detective, finding their own clues. "No, sir. The fella I got it from told me what was inside, though. Four arrows, an eagle skull, and some, er…" Damn, how do you describe it? It was just brown powdery shit. "And some sacred powder."
"And who did you get it from?"
"Fellow on the res. Old family, but he didn't want me to say. He's afraid of the Traditionals getting revenge on him."
"I'm going to have to open it to determine the value."
"Quite so," the Indian said, still looking in the fish tank. The anthropologist shot him a nasty look. What was up with these two? An Indian who talks like a Brit; if that didn't just beat the ugly off an ape.
"It's okay with me," Arnie said. "Looks like them ends just come off like bottle caps." That's exactly how they had come off when he opened it.
"Jolly good, old chap," the Indian said. "The fish say that it's been opened before."
"Thank you, Running Elk," said the professor. He seemed kinda ticked.
He set his briefcase on the table next to the bundle, snapped open the lid, and removed some white cotton gloves. "We don't want to disturb the integrity of the contents," he said, slipping on the gloves. "I'd prefer to do this in the lab, but I assure you I'll be careful."
You can blow the damn thing up for all I care, Arnie thought, as long as the price is right. But what was the deal with the Indian and the fish tank?
The professor removed the end of the wooden cylinder and placed it on the table. He removed one of the four arrows and studied its length. When he looked at the point his face lit up. "My God, Running Elk, do you see what I see?"
"What? What?" Arnie said. Was this good or bad?
The Indian looked up from the fish tank. "Oh, capital! He's promised them one of those plastic bubbling scuba divers if he sells it."
"What?" Arnie said.
The professor scowled at the Indian and held the arrow up for Arnie to see. "Mr. Houston, you see this arrow point?"
"Uh-huh."
"This is a small-game point, and the flaking is not the pattern you find on Crow points from the buffalo days."
"So?"
"So, I think this bundle is from the time before the Crows split from the Hidatsa. If that's the case, this bundle may be priceless."
Arnie saw a swimming pool appearing in his backyard, with a whole shitpot of girls in bikinis sitting around it, rubbing oil on his back. "How can you be sure?"
"I'll have to take it back to the university to have it carbon-dated." The professor put the arrow back into the bundle. From his briefcase he pulled out a sheaf of forms. "I hope you'll understand, Mr. Houston, the university can't bond something like this for its full value, but I could write a guarantee of perhaps two hundred thousand until the return." The professor waited, his pen poised over the form.
Arnie pretended to think about it. In fact, he was thinking about the new swimming pool. Now it was indoors and had a big hot tub full of dollies. "I guess that will be all right," he said. The professor began writing on the form. "We should have it back to you within the week. I'll see to it personally that it's handled carefully. If you'll just sign here." He pushed the form over to Arnie.
There it was, $200,000.00 in big black numbers. It was all he needed to see. Arnie signed and pushed the paper back to the professor.
The professor closed his briefcase and got up. "Well, I'd like to get this back to the lab by tonight and start the work on it. I'll call you as soon as we know for sure." He picked up the bundle and headed for the door.
"You take care now. Thanks," Arnie said, holding the door for them.
"No, thank you, Mr. Houston."
"Cheerio," the Indian said as they climbed into the Blazer. "Oh yes, your mates said they'd like a Flipper video and a bit of brine shrimp to eat."
Arnie watched the Blazer pulling away. Boy, the old professor was sure giving Running Elk hell for something. Eggheads. He wondered for a minute why the Blazer had mud on the license plates when it was so clean everywhere else. Hell with it, it was time to celebrate. A buddy had given him the number of a little dolly who for two hundred dollars would come over in her cheerleader outfit. He'd been saving it for a special occasion and it looked like it was time to dig out that ol' number and see if she really could suck the furniture out of a room through the keyhole.
As soon as they were out of sight of Arnie's house, Sam took the Indiana Jones hat off and smacked Coyote with it. "What were you thinking? You almost blew it."
"The fish said he tricked someone to get that bundle."
"And what did we just do?"
"That's different. It was a Crow bundle."
"You wanted to blow it, didn't you? Why didn't you just hump his couch or something? Why didn't you just tell him the truth?"
"Well," Coyote said, "if your trick worked it would make a good story."
"I'll take that as as compliment." Sam was no longer angry. They had the bundle; now it was time to think about the next part of the plan. He believed what Pokey had told him about the power of the bundle, and all Pokey had ever asked of him was to be believed. He said, "Coyote, will you help me get Pokey out of the clinic?"
"Another trick?" Coyote asked.
"Of sorts."
"I'll help, but I won't go to the Underworld with you."
CHAPTER 33
Doors
Some of the color had returned to Pokey's face and someone had taken the braids out of his hair and brushed it. He opened his eyes when Sam entered the room.
"You got it?" Pokey said.
"It's in the car," Sam said. Coyote came in behind him.
Pokey grinned. "Old Man Coyote."
"Howdy," Coyote said. "How many times you died now, old man?"
"A bunch. It's plumb wearing me out," Pokey said. "The medicine man got tired of singing the death song and went home. I think he got scared." Pokey pulled a cassette out from under his covers and held it up. "I got it on tape for the next time."
Sam said, "Pokey, we have the arrow bundle. What do we do now?"
"Ask him," Pokey said, pointing to Coyote.
"I ain't going," Coyote said. "He has to go alone."
"Samson needs a medicine man to sing the bundle song."
"That's why we're here," Sam said.
"You want me? I didn't think you believed I had medicine, Samson."
"Things change, Pokey. I need you."
"Well then, get me out of here." Pokey started to sit up.
Sam pushed him back. "I don't think you should be walking."
"Samson, I done told you, I had my death vision. I don't die in no hospital, I get shot. Now help me get up." He struggled to a sitting position and Sam helped him turn so his feet hung off the bed. "You're right, I don't think I can walk."
Sam turned to Coyote. "You promised to help."
The clinic was officially closed for the day, but the skeleton staff of two nurses was still on. Adeline Eats sat in the waiting room with her six children, who were all green with flu, insisting that she wasn't going anywhere until they got treatment, even if she had to wait all night.
For the twentieth time, the nurse at the window was explaining that the doctor had gone home for the night, when she heard the hoof beats on the stairs. She dropped her clipboard and ran out of the office to see a black horse coming down the stairs, an old, half-naked man bouncing on its back. She ducked back into her office to avoid being trampled and looked up in time to see a man in a corduroy jacket running behind the horse out the front door.
The nurse ran out into the waiting room to the front door, which dangled in pieces on its hinges. She watched the horse stop beside a white Blazer and rear up. The old man, his gray hair streaming in the wind, let out a war whoop and fell into the arms of the man in corduroy. Then, as she watched, the horse started bubbling and changing until it was a man in black buckskins. The nurse stumbled back in shock. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped a foot off the ground. She came down holding her chest. Adeline Eats said, "You got room for my kids now, or what?"