The Sandy Steele Mystery MEGAPACK®: 6 Young Adult Novels (Complete Series). Roger Barlow
he wiped the streaming perspiration from his face and neck, pointed to a mass of black clouds in the west and muttered, “Thunderstorm weather. A good day to lie under a tree and take siesta.” Mostly, though, the Ute gritted his teeth and kept silent as the pickup fought its lonely way across the fringes of the Painted Desert.
It was mid-afternoon and the sticky heat was stifling when they reached the great box canyon where the Hopis were supposed to be living.
“I don’t like the feel of this place,” Quail said as he stopped the truck on a high bank that overlooked the trout stream pouring out of a narrow cleft between two buttes. “Look at those thunder clouds piling up. I should not wish to lose my car in there.”
“We don’t matter, of course,” Ralph grunted. “How far is it to Ponytooth’s place?”
“About half a mile, I think,” the Navajo answered.
“Then let’s leave your precious hunk of junk out here and walk in.” Ralph set off down a faint trail at a fast lope that the others found hard to match.
Around a sharp bend in the canyon they came at last to a heap of sandstone ruins. The little group of circular pueblos looked as old as the surrounding hills. Most of the walls had crumbled or been knocked apart in some strange manner. Only one had a roof of pine or cottonwood beams, light poles and bunch grass. In front of it a tiny old woman sat smoking a long pipe.
Her face, brown as chocolate, was a mass of wrinkles. But her black eyes, which peered out of the folds of a heavy wool blanket, or manta, were sharp with intelligence.
She made no answer to their questions in English and Navajo. When Ralph spoke to her in the basic Shoshonean language, however, she pursed her lips and pointed up the canyon with them.
“Ponytooth is probably up there hunting somewhere,” Chief Quail said. “We’d better find him before it gets too dark.”
Half a mile farther up the stream they found the old Chief. He was stalking a jack rabbit with, of all things, a bow and arrows. Slanting rays of sunshine that broke through the gathering clouds showed that he was dressed in the ancient Hopi costume. It consisted of a woolen poncho, or blanket, with a hole cut in the center, through which he had thrust his white head, baggy trousers slit up to the knees on the sides, deerskin leggings wrapped round and round his spindly shanks, and beautifully woven sandals. Only his belt, which was mounted with large silver discs, showed that he was a person of importance.
“I didn’t know that clothing like that existed any more, except in museums,” Ralph said softly.
The Hopi shot the jack rabbit through the heart, retrieved his arrow, and came toward them, carrying the animal by its long ears. When Hall went forward, with outstretched hand, the Hopi showed no surprise whatever.
“No spikum English mush,” he said gravely in return to the oilman’s greeting.
Chief Quail tried him in Navajo—and got a cold stare in return.
“I think I can make him understand what we want, if it’s O.K with you, John,” said the driller.
At a nod from Hall he spoke at great length in Shoshone clicks and gutturals.
Chief Ponytooth listened, at first politely, then with a growing frown. At last he held up a hand and replied with a torrent of words. As he spoke, thunder rolled in the far distance.
“He says,” Ralph translated, “that he is an old man. Soon his body will be placed in a crevice in the rocks, and his spirit will go northward to join those of his ancestors at a place called Sipapu. Meanwhile, however, he has been ordered by the Hopi Council to live here in the ruins of Awatobi, a pueblo or village that was destroyed by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago because the tribe had killed all of their Christian missionaries.
“Although he knows that the Navajos claim this territory as part of their reservation, he declares that it is part of Tusayan, an ancient province belonging to the Hopi and their cousins, the Moqui. So long as he stays here, he believes, neither Navajos nor palefaces will dare to steal this land.”
“Tell him we don’t want his confounded desert,” Hall said impatiently. “Tell him we won’t kill a single jack rabbit or harm a piece of sagebrush. Try to make him understand that all we want to do is to remove oil from far beneath the ground. In exchange we will give his people money so they may build schools and hospitals.”
When this was translated, Ponytooth straightened his bent back and glared at them defiantly. His face, under its broad white hairband, took on a haughty grandeur. Then he spoke again, waving his skinny arms and beating his breast for emphasis.
And the thunder rolled nearer with every sentence he uttered.
“He says”—Ralph shrugged—“that neither the Navajos nor the palefaces have ever given his people anything. They have always taken things away—cattle, wheat, the spirits of young warriors. They are his enemies until the end of the world. He is weak and old now, but you can only take this land by killing him.”
A spatter of cold rain emphasized the Chief’s meaning.
“We had better leave this place,” Quail said as he gripped Hall’s arm. “It must be raining hard farther up the canyon.”
“Not yet,” Hall snapped. “Ralph, tell the Chief that we understand how he feels and that we will go, if he wishes. But warn him that if he does not accept the fair offer we wish to make him, other men may come and take this land from him, as they took other things from his ancestors. Try to make him understand that we are his friends.”
The Chief understood the last English word.
“Frens!” he screamed. “Frens! Frens! Frens!”
In the rapidly gathering darkness the canyon walls echoed with his shouts. “Paleface, Navajo, never frens to Hopi!”
Chief Ponytooth, last of the Pony Clan, burst into wild whoops of sarcastic laughter. At the same moment, thunder rolled deafeningly above their heads, lightning danced about the canyon walls like angry spirits, and the rain began coming down in bucketfuls.
“Out!” yelled Chief Quail. In his excitement he forgot his careful grammar. “Water come. We die!”
He spoke too late. A roaring sound had begun far up the canyon. Before they could move, it grew deafening. At the same time a five-foot wall of yellow water swept down upon them like an express train.
After that, things happened too fast to be described. As he ran madly toward the canyon wall with the idea of climbing out of reach of the flash flood, Sandy slipped on a bank of wet clay and fell headlong. Ralph grabbed him by the collar and barely managed to drag him to safety.
Hall let out a wild yell as the dry sandbank on which he had been standing a moment before absorbed water like a sponge, turned to quicksand, and began to suck at his legs. Just before the wall of water struck, Donovan snatched up a long branch and held it out. Hall grasped it and, in turn, was pulled to comparative safety.
By this time the little trout stream had turned into a raging torrent. A great pine tree in its bed, roots torn loose by the tremendous sudden push of the water wall, came crashing down. A branch caught Ponytooth across the thighs and dragged him from sight beneath the flood.
Chief Quail, who was nearest to the Hopi, acted instinctively. He plunged into the frothing, rock-filled water and fought it with all the power of his massive shoulders. A moment later he was tumbling downstream with the old man held tightly in his arms.
While the others watched spellbound in the gathering darkness, the Navajo fought the cloudburst. Fifty yards downstream, he managed to hook a leg around a rock that still held firm. His face purple with effort, he finally succeeded in pulling his apparently lifeless burden to the top of a dry ledge.
Almost as quickly as it had come, the flood subsided. Dripping, cold and shaken, the little party headed back toward the pueblo ruins. Chief Quail walked ahead, carrying the Hopi in his arms.
An hour later