Billy Buckhorn and the War of Worlds, page 5
“Oh—excuse me,” the other archaeologist said. “I didn’t know.”
“Every one of these spiraling mound sites along the Arkansas and Lower Mississippi Rivers features a cave within a mile or so,” Stevens said. “There are at least a half dozen of them, maybe more.”
Stevens waited to see if his listeners were getting the significance of what he was saying.
Ethan was the first to speak. “Since the Mound Builders believed that caves represented portals to the Underworld—”
Chigger interrupted Ethan with a burst of unexpected revelation. “There may be more Horned Serpents in those caves, and the nearby spiral mounds were created as places to worship them . . . or feed them or keep them from attacking people—like the people of Skull Island built a big place to sacrifice victims to keep King Kong from killing everyone in the village.”
After a pause to mentally digest the logic of Chigger’s outburst, Stevens simply said, “Absolutely. Good analogy.”
Chigger smiled as Ethan took a closer look at the mound sites on Stevens’s map.
There were nine locations, the most northern one being the Spiral Mounds Archaeological Site the team was already familiar with. There were three additional sites in Arkansas, also scattered along the Arkansas River.
The other five were located near the Lower Mississippi River, including one located near the place where the Arkansas River joined the Mississippi River. The southernmost mound site, called the Three Rivers Mounds, was in Louisiana.
“You’re certain those mounds are all spiral mounds with a coiling snake path around the outer surface?” Ethan asked, not immediately accepting his colleague’s conclusion.
“No, I’m not,” Augustus answered. “It’s a working hypothesis that I’m going to test out by visiting every one of those sites as soon as possible.”
A thought immediately popped into Chigger’s mind, but he kept it to himself for the moment.
“From the few archaeology reports on these mounds I’ve seen, they’re thought to be older than Cahokia and may have been built by people who held competing religious beliefs,” Stevens added.
Lisa, who’d been actively watching Chigger ever since he’d arrived and still didn’t trust him, said, “Chigger, you look like you’re about to explode. Out with it. What’s going on in that little mind of yours?”
“I think it’s a bad idea to go poking around in those caves,” he said, relieved to be able to voice his concern. “More serpents might mean more purple crystals.”
“The thought of more Uktenas never crossed my mind until now,” Billy said as he processed the new information. Looking at Chigger, he added, “I think it’s better to know if this is true as soon as possible and not wait to be unpleasantly surprised by it later.”
Billy’s mind quickly churned through possible scenarios as he consulted the calendar on his cell phone before coming to a conclusion.
“Spring break is in a few days,” he said. “I think that would be a good time for us all to visit a few caves and nearby mounds, starting with the one Chig and I explored last Thanksgiving.”
Chigger smiled and then frowned. “I can’t go on a trip like that,” he realized. “I’m not allowed to do anything with Billy or anything that has to do with tribal medicine.”
Lisa’s mind had also been churning with possible scenarios. “What about this?” she asked with an excited air. “A couple of years ago when I was going to school in St. Louis, Dad created an educational program to encourage Indigenous students to explore archaeology as a career.”
“That’s right,” Ethan replied. “It was very successful.”
“Dad, you could pretend to start a program here and select Chigger as your first recruit,” Lisa explained. “Spring break would be the perfect time for the program’s first expedition!”
“That’s a great idea!” Chigger said enthusiastically. “How are we going to convince my parents to go along with it?”
“What if Dr. Ethan Lookout and Professor Augustus Stevens showed up at your home to announce that you’d been selected for this prestigious honor?” Stevens said.
“They’d think there’d been a serious mistake,” Chigger responded with a frown. “The idea that their son had been chosen for such a lofty-sounding project would make them laugh.”
But the frown slowly transformed into a near grin.
“But it’s worth a try,” he said. “They know all about me exploring the cave by the river and the discoveries we made at Spiral Mounds, so they might be fooled into believing it.”
“I guess it is worth a try,” Ethan said, looking at Billy, “since Billy wants both Chigger and Lisa involved.” He mulled over the idea some more. “And we really wouldn’t be ‘fooling’ your parents about anything, because you will be involved in a real archaeological exploration.”
“Lisa, thanks for the idea,” Chigger said humbly. “It means a lot.”
“I did promise Billy that I’d give you a chance to redeem yourself, so here it is,” Lisa said.
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Billy said as he took the wooden box out of his backpack. After opening it, he removed the black felt covering to reveal the Aztec mirror with its pulsating purple glow.
“What the hell is that?” Stevens asked. “It’s glowing purple, sort of like the dark crystal did.”
Billy briefly explained that Chigger had apprenticed himself to a so-called traditional healer named Carmelita Tuckaleechee and then retrieved the object from her burnt-out cabin after her demise. It was a lot for Stevens to take in, but he was one of the few people in the world who’d seen the Horned Serpent!
“I’m hoping you have a clue about why it’s pulsating,” Billy said, looking at Chigger.
Chigger, in turn, looked at his burn-scarred hands. “The throbbing in my hands is synchronized with the purple pulsations in Tuckaleechee’s viewer,” he said. “Like I told you, Billy, my whole body has been feeling it. I think something has reactivated the purple gem in the bat cave, or some other stone like it.”
“The bat cave?” Lisa said. “What’s the bat cave?”
“You guys may call it the crystal cave, but it’ll always be the bat cave to me,” Chigger said. “The bats were what forced Billy to fall off the ledge to the ground below.”
He looked at the black obsidian object before continuing. “Now I feel like this thing wants me to do something. Like it’s calling me. It’s creepy.” He folded his arms and buried his hands under his armpits to protect them. “But I don’t dare touch that thing. It might start controlling me like the crystal did.”
“I’m going to get out Blacksnake’s medicine book again and study the page that mentions this mirror,” Billy said. “Maybe I can figure out how to translate the language written there.”
He noticed that Chigger had started sweating and looked a little distressed. He put the device back in its box, and his friend was able to relax.
“I’ll get everything prepared for our spring break archaeological expedition,” Augustus said. I think it’ll be a very productive trip!”
Meanwhile, about five hundred miles southeast of Tahlequah at the Three Rivers Mounds site, a handsome Native American man named Greyson Greenstone was also getting ready for spring break. It was, after all, one of the busiest times of the year for his Serpent World tourist stop.
Serpent World featured one of the largest exhibits of reptiles in North America, and families from neighboring states often visited the snake farm, as some people called it, with their kids who were off from school at that time. Admission was only twenty dollars for adults and ten bucks for kids.
This attraction sat on the same piece of land that the Three Rivers Mounds sat on, purchased many years ago by Greenstone, who was a member of the local Natchez tribe. The mound site was also open to tourists, and a separate admission fee of only ten dollars per person gave you access to a set of exterior stairs that took you to the apex of the Chief’s Mound, a flat-top earthen pyramid.
In the site’s interpretive center, on a three-panel display, you could read all about the Indigenous people who built the mounds, how they constructed the mounds, and their cultural beliefs. Many mound sites featured flat-top earthen pyramids, also known as platform mounds.
Greenstone was extremely proud of his Indigenous lineage, which generations of his family had recorded very well. Oral histories, aided by genealogical research, confirmed that on his father’s side, he was a direct descendant of Moctezuma, chief of Mexico’s Aztec Indians when the Spanish invaded and conquered them in 1521.
On his mother’s side, he was a direct descendant of Monkata, the Snake Priest, also known by some as the Serpent King.
The saddest thing in Greenstone’s life was the fact that he didn’t have anyone to pass that lineage down to. The son he loved and treasured so dearly had died at age sixteen from an overdose of street drugs laced with fentanyl. The boy—whom his father had named Tesoro, or Treasure—had seemed to gravitate toward trouble and other troubled teens for most of his short life.
Greenstone’s wife, Tesoro’s mother, left soon after, another emotional blow to the man who remained stuck in the anger phase of grief. That anger became a motivating force bent on revenge that he carried out through a practice of the dark arts coming from both branches of his family tree.
Fast-forward to the present time, where Greyson Greenstone now headed up the Serpentine Foundation. Three Rivers Indian Mounds Park and Serpent World were two-thirds of the successful nonprofit organization’s operation. The third part was Serpentine Enterprises, a business program that used prison inmates of the nearby Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola to produce jewelry crafted from the beautiful green-tinted serpentine stone.
This high-profile program was the pride of the prison’s warden, because it was a part of the correctional facility’s rehabilitation process, preparing inmates to return to a life without crime after prison. The jewelry was sold in the Serpent World gift shop and online, with a portion of the proceeds going to the inmates who produced the pieces.
“I want you all to be on your best behavior tomorrow,” Greenstone told the members of his staff who’d gathered for an impromptu meeting. “We’ll be hosting Thomas Two Bears, hopefully to finally seal a deal I’ve been counting on.”
“But tomorrow is the monthly welcoming ceremony in the inner chamber,” protested one employee. “Do you want him to witness that?”
“I do indeed,” Greyson replied. “He needs to experience fully what we’re all about, so he’ll understand the power our organization wields.”
“So, will Nahash Molok be present to perform the ritual?” another employee asked.
“He will,” Greenstone replied. “So act accordingly. That will be all for today.”
The following morning in the Cherokee Nation, Dr. Cecil Lookout and Professor Augustus Stevens arrived at the Muskrats’ mobile home after Chigger had left for school. Hearing a couple of knocks at her front door, Chigger’s mother opened it and was startled to see two nicely dressed men standing there.
“You guys must be lost,” she said. “Or trying to sell me a vacuum cleaner.”
“Is this the Muskrat family’s residence?” Ethan asked. “Are you the mother of Charles Checotah Muskrat?”
“What’s he gone and done now?” she replied, assuming the worst.
“What he’s gone and done is get himself selected for a special educational program,” Stevens said. “May we come in to discuss it?”
“I suppose—as long as you ain’t serial killers or trying to sell me something.”
She led the two into the kitchen, where she poured them each a cup of coffee. Then they proceeded to spool out the tale of the once-in-a-lifetime offer that would give her son the rare opportunity, during spring break, to explore the past through archaeological excavations while still a high school student.
“How much is this rare opportunity gonna cost me?” she asked. “We can’t really afford any additional expenses, ya know.”
“No cost involved,” Ethan replied. “And we’ll provide room and board while he’s in the program.”
“What’s the catch?” she said. “There’s gotta be a catch.”
“No cost, no catch,” Ethan replied. “Only opportunity. And Chigger has shown a real interest in this field. He could make a career out of it.”
“I’ll talk to his father about it tonight when he gets home from work,” Mrs. Muskrat said. “Since there is no cost, I doubt he’ll have any objections. It will be a good way to keep Chigger out of trouble while he’s not in school.”
After leaving the Muskrats’ house trailer, Ethan and Augustus went their separate ways, each with preparations to make for the expedition and duties to attend to.
On his way back to Wesley’s house, Ethan finally got the phone call from the Department of the Interior he’d been waiting for. He couldn’t wait to get back to tell Billy, but he arrived at the house to find Lisa and Billy having a serious conversation on the porch. They broke it off as he approached.
“I’ve got some good news,” he told the couple with a smile.
Neither responded.
“Gee, Dad, what’s the good news?” he said mockingly while looking at Lisa. When he still got no response from either of them, he forged ahead. “Remember me telling you about the Department of the Interior’s new investigator?” he asked with obvious enthusiasm.
“No,” Lisa said.
“Not really,” Billy confirmed.
“I told you about it just the other day.”
Neither teen replied.
“Okay, let’s start over,” Ethan said. “The DOI—that’s the Department of the Interior—has appointed a new NAGPRA investigator to look into cases of stolen Native American remains and artifacts.”
“That does sound like good news,” Billy replied with mild enthusiasm. “And what does that mean exactly?”
“We’ll find out exactly when the investigator, an Arapaho woman named Raelynn Little Shield, gets here tomorrow,” Ethan replied. “I believe she has an update on the search for the Sun Chief’s staff, cape, and skeletal remains.”
“Well, that is pretty good news,” Billy said with more enthusiasm. He stood and walked to the far edge of the porch. “But what we need are immediate leads that reveal the location of the stolen goods as soon as possible,” he said, turning back to Ethan and Lisa.
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Ethan replied. “But let’s keep things positive!”
“Yeah, keep it positive,” Billy concluded. “I am hopeful that this Raelynn person is the right one for the job.”
As a matter of fact, Raelynn Little Shield thought she was the perfect person for the job. She felt lucky and proud to be the first official NAGPRA investigator, a brand-new position within the US Department of the Interior. The thirty-year-old Arapaho woman from Crowheart, Wyoming, had gotten her double college degree in law enforcement and anthropology, hoping that someday she’d be able to do exactly what this job called for.
In the 1800s and much of the 1900s, anthropologists, archaeologists, and various other “collectors” dug up Native American burial sites wherever and whenever they felt like it. They carried their findings—including skeletal remains and cultural items buried with the deceased—back to whatever museum or university they worked for.
That began to change for the better in 1990 when Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, commonly called NAGPRA. But the law really didn’t have much in the way of “teeth,” meaning there wasn’t much done to enforce the law or investigate violations of that law. Until now.
The newly appointed secretary of the interior, a Native American woman, had made a lot of changes that provided for the inclusion of Native tribes and individuals in federal government operations they’d formerly been denied.
But the whole process was more than just a job to Raelynn. It had personal meaning to her, because a few of her own ancestors had been dug up and their skeletal remains carted off to a museum in Chicago for further study. She had witnessed firsthand how little respect earlier generations of white Americans had for anything to do with Native Americans.
So when Little Shield’s first assignment was to take on the legal case brought by the Lookout family of the Osage Nation, it felt like she would finally be able to apply everything she’d learned and personally experienced to a significant, worthy cause.
Raelynn drove the rental car from the Tulsa airport to Grandpa Wesley’s home, which only took a couple of hours. Using her phone’s navigation system, she easily found the older white frame house located east of Tahlequah. The investigator collected her briefcase, designed to resemble a Plains Indian traveling bag, from the back seat and headed toward the front porch.
She was surprised to see a small collection of older Natives on that porch gathered around a young Native man who appeared to be doctoring one of them. It was a classic traditional Native setting, played out on reservations all across the country, except that this tribal doctor appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen years old.
An elder stepped out of the house and approached Little Shield, calling to her.
“You must be Ms. Little Shield,” Cecil said with a broad smile. “Boy, are we happy to see you! Come on inside.”
As the Arapaho woman crossed the porch, the young Indian doctor excused himself from his patients and followed the investigator into the house. He noticed the small deerskin medicine pouch she was wearing.
“You must be the Billy Buckhorn I’ve heard so much about,” Raelynn said, extending her hand.
Billy shook it, saying with a smile, “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
He held on to her hand for a couple seconds, not immediately allowing her to withdraw it, to see if there were any images that appeared in his mind. His ability to “read” people when touching them had shown up shortly after being struck by lightning last September during the Labor Day weekend. Since then, the ability had appeared sporadically.
