He glared at Ulrich. “Shooting the old man was a mistake, but leaving him alive was a bigger one. He gave us the final clue.” Sean laughed. “Although, I have to admit, convincing the park that the IAA center needed to borrow this arrowhead for analysis was a bit more difficult than it should have been.”
Tommy stepped away from his kidnappers. “Thanks, gentlemen. It’s been real.” He smiled, “So, Sean, how did you know that the arrowhead was the key?”
Wyatt handed the little rock to his friend. “I remembered seeing a presentation about this place a few years ago. The speaker had mentioned the oddity of the quartz arrowhead that had been buried with the body in the bird effigy. That’s when it clicked with me, “The key with sacred bones does lay.”
Realization washed over Tommy’s face. “Of course. I should have thought of that.” He raised the arrowhead to examine it more closely, admiring the precise detail. Every edge of it appeared as though it had been shaped by a laser.
The pinkish-white stone was small, only about three inches long and half as wide. “It must go into the mouth horizontally.” He walked back to the pole while his captors eyed him warily.
Then, he motioned toward Allyson. “Who’s the girl?”
“Allyson Webster,” she answered.
“She’s with Axis,” Sean added.
“An agent? Really? Did you make a phone call or something?”
“Actually, no. Pretty sure she was already on your trail.”
Allyson just smiled back, obviously not interested in giving away any more details.
Wyatt turned his attention to Ulrich and the bewildered guard, “Now if you two boys don’t mind, please move out of the way.” He waved his gun in a motion indicating they should step to the left. “First, though, you are going to need to go ahead and drop those weapons that you’re carrying in your jackets. And do it real slow. I have more than enough excuses to waste you two right now.”
They complied, carefully reaching into their jackets, then dropping the guns to the ground.
“Good. Now step away.”
The two shuffled sideways, moving away from the pistols. Ulrich never took his cold gray eyes off of Wyatt. Even unarmed, the man’s gaze was menacing.
With his free hand, Sean reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Keeping the gun leveled at the two men, he held up the device up to his face.
“Detective, we got ‘em.”
“What do you mean you got ‘em?”
“We got Tommy and the guys that kidnapped him. Me and Joe are holding them at gunpoint as we speak.”
“What’s your location?” Morris’ voice sounded urgent.
“A couple of miles from Rock Eagle, standing in front of eight big totem poles.”
“Okay, I’ll get the local authorities over there as quickly as I can. Will and I are on our way, we’re about fifteen minutes from there.”
“You drove down here?” Sean was a little surprised at the cop’s persistence.
“Like I said, I got a lot of questions for you. You won’t be able to answer them if you’re dead. And I thought you could use some backup.”
“Don’t worry about us, Trent. The situation is under control. See you in a few.”
Tommy had been busy taking a closer examination of the quartz and the mouth of the owl. “I hope we don’t need to get it back out.”
With that, he cautiously slipped the arrowhead into the mouth of the chiseled bird. It was a perfect fit. With his index finger, Tommy pushed the quartz all the way into the open hole. As the projectile went deeper, there was a click then a few more until it was completely inside.
Suddenly, the large totem pole and the earth underneath their feet began trembling. For a brief second, Sean took his eyes off the two men, bracing himself by bending his knees slightly. His gun, though, stayed pointed at them. The entire group took a few steps back, not sure what was happening.
The seven smaller poles began to move slowly. To the left, all the rods were sinking into the ground. On the right, they were rising but the post in the center never moved. The bizarre event lasted for only a minute, but when the pillars had stopped moving, their heights had changed to a more staggered look, like a staircase.
All five witnesses stood in silent awe for a minute, gazing at the oddity.
“So, what now, Schultzie?” Sean broke the silence.
Tommy looked perplexed. “That should have been it. Something‘s wrong.”
“Maybe you didn’t do it right,” Joe chimed in.
“No. Pretty sure that was it and that had to be the key.” He looked around as if expecting some kind of sign from heaven to point the way to their goal. None came. “I don’t understand.”
The two captives stood silently while the others attempted to solve the problem; Ulrich’s eyes locked on Joe like a rattlesnake eyeing its prey.
Sean looked curiously at the scene. “Mac, keep an eye on those two.”
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
Tossing the gun to Tommy, Sean ignored his friend’s question for a moment and walked over to the totem that had lowered to where the top was only about four feet high. “They’re steps,” he finally answered. “The ancient natives had a ritual for new warriors. It was the final test they had to pass. They had to stand on top of a pole like one of these for an entire night. If they could accomplish this without falling off, they would be initiated.”
“Realization came to Tommy. Of course. How did I forget that?”
“Beats me,” Sean said, hopping up onto the short log. “You’re the expert on Indians.” He grinned cynically down at his friend.
“Hope you know what you’re doing.”
“It’s only about five or six feet in between them. The problem isn’t the jumping, though. It’s the landing. The gradual escalation isn’t going to help either.”
He steadied himself on the two foot wide platform and leapt to the next one, making it look easy enough. Below, Tommy rejoined Joe and their new prisoners, still watching as Sean jumped to the third pole.
He made it to the center pole with relative ease. Again he repeated the maneuver up to the fifth. The platform was up about fifteen feet at this point and the jumping was becoming riskier each time. Thinking ahead, the final leap would be to a height around twenty-five feet, a point at which the danger would be broken bones or worse. He tried to shake the fear from his mind, but it was still in front of him as he made the next two leaps. The lack of concentration nearly cost him on the seventh as he shorted the distance by about a foot. His fingers caught the front lip of the stone, gripping tight and his feet dangled below. Tommy made a quick movement to get below him in case he fell.
Struggling to keep his hold on the top, Sean hung over the ground, kicking his legs in an effort to worm his way up. With his right foot, he found the nose of a wolf’s face sticking out of the front of the tall facade and used it to brace himself while he hugged his way onto the platform.
His allies below exhaled a breath of relief as Sean hoisted himself up and readied for the last jump. “I’m okay,” he assured them. “Just lost my concentration for a second there.”
He let his eyes search the surroundings for a brief second, hoping that the location would be revealed from his current vantage point. It wasn’t. So, with trepidation, he moved to the very edge of the pole. He was surprised at how much his legs were burning at this point. Sean took pride in the fact that he exercised regularly and had very high endurance for physical activities. This routine must have been working out body parts that he was unaccustomed to using.
With every last ounce of leg power he could muster, Sean launched himself across the void. This time, adrenaline must have taken over because he almost over shot the thing, landing on the very back edge and waving his arms like a gymnast on a balance beam to keep from toppling over.