“Key? What key?”
“Remember the riddle,” Sean continued. “It said there was a key.”
“Do you know where this key is?”
“I think so. When the bones of the man were discovered at Rock Eagle, there was only one other artifact recovered with his body: a quartz arrowhead.”
“Quartz?” Allyson inquired.
“Yes. It was an odd material for natives to use, considering they made most of their weapons from flint in the early days. Spearheads and arrowheads were almost exclusively made from the soft, gray stone. So, when the archaeologists found one that was made from quartz, that naturally seemed strange.”
“And you think this arrowhead is the key to the chamber?” Joe looked hopeful.
“I do. It’s the only thing that could make sense.”
“Where is this ‘key’ then?”
“It should be at the museum at Rock Eagle. My guess is, it should be on display there.”
“How do we know that Jurgenson won’t get it before us?”
“We don’t,” Sean said with determination. “But if Tommy’s smart, he will take them to the totem poles first, which should give us enough time to get the key.”
“And just how do you plan to do that?” Allyson asked skeptically.
He answered with a sly grin. “I’m sure the museum can make an arrangement for one of its principal contributors.”
Chapter 53
Between the majestic peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the plains of southern Georgia lies a happy medium. Putnam County’s rolling hills. A little further south, the golf course famous for dogwoods, azaleas, and green jackets rested quietly awaiting that fabled weekend in early April.
One of the perks of being wealthy was the ability to attain the unattainable. And no sporting event in the world was less attainable than a ticket to The Masters at Augusta National.
Being an avid golfer, Tommy had paid an outrageous amount of money to make the pilgrimage to the annual tournament amongst the pines and flowering bushes. Sean had tagged along more for the story than anything else, but was dazzled by the immaculate beauty of the course. He had gawked at the explosion of colors and had wondered at how the groundskeepers could shape nature into such perfection.
Tommy’s mind snapped back from the brief daydream as he and his two captors approached the welcome center of the Rock Eagle Historic Site. The lengthy drive seemed to take forever and his legs ached from inactivity.
Brown signs pointed the way to a picnic area nearby. Ulrich had not said much for the last few hours. The SUV came to a stop in front of the building, and the three men got out amid a flurry of school children. Apparently, their field trip had run a little late. Tommy wasn’t sure if he would rather be in his current situation over having to drive one of the buses back with the screaming kids on it.
“Where to, Thomas?” Ulrich interrupted his thoughts.
Tommy glanced around for a second then pointed to an enormous pile of rocks about sixty feet away.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about Rock Eagle was that it looked as if someone had been standing on a thirty foot high scaffold, directing the placement of the stones. Why they had done it was a whole other matter.
Tommy led the way over to a historical information plate that stood a few feet from the base of the stone bird’s tail. An elderly couple had just finished reading the placard; they were slowly making their way back towards the parking lot.
His eyes scanned the raised metal words. He’d probably read hundreds of those things over the years. According to what the sign said, a sort of earthen wall had originally surrounded the bird effigy. It went on to say that the entire stone representation was raised about 4 feet higher than the rest of the ground around it. Historians could not offer a logical explanation as to why it was there but a few details were mentioned that Tommy thought interesting.
Of course, he already knew the story. Archaeologists had assumed the sites to be mass graves, but the remains of only one human had been found at both Rock Eagle as well as the sister site of Rock Hawk — only a few miles away. He was also aware of the quartz arrowhead that had been recovered from the bones of the male skeleton in the pile of stones before him, a little detail that needn’t be mentioned to his captors at the moment.
Ulrich seemed unimpressed by the information. “What does this mean?”
“Nothing. I just thought there might be some helpful info here. It’s just the story about how this place was discovered. Maybe we should check out the welcome center and see if there is anything helpful in there.”
Ulrich only thought for a second before he nodded and fell in behind Tommy, who was headed toward the old wooden building.
Having been there a few times, Tommy remembered that inside the information center, artifacts on display were few in number. The three men entered through the single glass door and casually made their way over to a map in the corner of the room. A small group of school children were filing out of the facility, complaining that they had to go back to school. If they had been able to understand the concept of time, they would have realized that by the time the bus got back, school would be out for the day.
Ulrich seemed uncomfortable around the children, and the guard, in particular, looked a bit out of sorts.
Tommy smiled to himself as he stepped closer to a poster-sized aerial photo of the location. “Okay. This is us,” he said as he pointed at the building in which they were standing, marked by the usual “you are here” dot. His finger then traced the outline of the giant stone bird effigy from where they’d just come a few minutes prior.
“This is Rock Eagle,” he stated. He then moved his hand to another, similar formation opposite of the one he’d just mentioned. “And here is Rock Hawk.” He tapped the map and took a step back. Staring at the map, Tommy was puzzled by the entire scene.
“So where is the chamber hidden?” Ulrich asked plainly.
Tommy gave him a “drop dead” look. “Beats me. There’s a lot of land between the two formations. Rock Hawk is about seven kilometers from here. It could be anywhere.”
The clock on the wall read that the time was 4:25. Right on cue, a nondescript woman wearing the light brown button up shirt of a parks worker announced that the building would be closing in five minutes.
Tommy ignored the woman, still gazing at the map in an effort to find a hint, anything that might show them the way. The screaming voices of the elementary students just outside the windows made thinking difficult.
His mind wandered to the ancient people who built those places. The reason behind Fort Mountain was clear to him. A three dimensional stone replica of the Nile was a clue to the early settlers’ mysterious past, but the giant rock bird effigies stumped him. Though animals were revered in ancient Egypt, it was still unclear why they would be here, unless that’s all it was: a clue to the past.
Perplexed, he pulled the sketch of the amulet he’d found out of his pocket. His eyes poured over its contents. The clue on the back was clearer, but not complete. They’d found the birds of which the riddle spoke, but something was still unsolved. Tommy examined the picture of the birds again in hopes that there was something that would spark the answer.
His two captors remained calm, standing a breath away, but Tommy could sense the urgency in Ulrich’s eyes. The man had become extremely impatient, jittery even. It was a characteristic he’d seen in many treasure hunters throughout his life. The closer they came to their goal, the more inexperienced treasure hunters hoping for unimaginable wealth could almost taste their dreams of a life of ease and luxury. Even this trained killer seemed to have caught the fever. Or was it something else that bothered him?