Chapter 25

The next morning, we were ready to board the Dassault and fly back to Irving. Suddenly, the Hunter was blocking our path to the airplane, flapping his huge wings and looking me squarely in the eye.

“Mom?” asked Alexis. “What’s he doing?”

“Everybody get back!” I said in no uncertain terms. “Bear, call Cap in the cockpit. Get everybody off that plane. NOW!” I started running away from the jet. We didn’t have a terminal, as such, here at Whirlwind North, as it was known, but we’d find someplace to take cover. “Come on! MOVE IT!”

It didn’t take long to get our pilots off the airplane, when they got a message like “Get off the airplane NOW.”

About a hundred yards away, we were crouching in a small dip in the landscape. Both Rock and Bear had their handguns out and were looking around. The four Wokitas, who were always traveling with Jim and Alex, were half crouching and looking for trouble. But they had no idea where it was coming from.

“Lexi, what’s up?” Cap asked. A good question, I thought.

“Damned if I know,” I answered. “But the last time Hunter showed up – out of the blue – he saved my life.”

Rock was on his phone, too. “Jed, there’s some kind of trouble at the airport. I don’t know what it is, but Lexi says it’s real ... Okay ... We’re in a little dip about a hundred yards from the plane. Be careful approaching. Aside from the mysterious trouble, the dogs are on alert, and you’ll never hear the end of it if they think YOU are the problem ... Yeah, me too.” He laughed.

“Cavalry is on the way. Alex, you’re in charge of making sure the dogs don’t attack any of our people.”

“Right, RockDad. But I don’t feel any bad guys nearby,” said our remote danger senser.

Hunter was over head, about 50 feet up.

We watched, not knowing what to be on the alert for. A few of the Shoshone troops came roaring up to about a stone’s throw from us, and got out of their pickups, M16s at the ready.

It was very quiet. Alex said, “The grouse are running away. That’s strange. Why aren’t they flying?”

BOOM. A few seconds later there was another BOOM.

We ducked down, of course, as the first explosion threw the parts of the Dassault into the sky. The second explosion came from some parts of the plane that were already in mid-air.

Rock was on the phone again, but he just got a busy signal. He looked around and saw one of the Shoshone gunslingers on the phone too.

My phone rang. It was Jed. “Hi, Jed ... Yeah. The plane had two bombs on it. We’re all okay ... Okay. Get one of your explosives guys out to look at the parts of the plane ... and check our car out for practice. We’ll take a ride from your guys back to our hacienda ... We’ll figure out what to do after that ... Right. See you there.”

“Come on, guys. We’re going home with the cavalry.”

I looked up into the sky but couldn’t find Hunter anywhere. Guess we’re safe now.

I got into a pickup with Bear and a Shoshone, who looked as big as a mountain, was driving. He handed me the M16. I looked at him and said, “I hope you don’t expect me to use this.”

“Nope. Just keep it handy.”

Rock and the kids got into another pickup. Theirs had space for a crew compartment. The driver pushed his M16 into some spring-loaded mount on the dash.

Cap and Rob got into a third.

Alex called to the Wokita perimeter guard. They seemed to be perfectly happy keeping pace on the outside of every truck. I noticed that the other drivers were giving them plenty of space.

Our little parade set off at a leisurely pace for home. When we got there I placed a conference call to Linc and Washburn down in the Naabeehó Bináhásdzo, and to David, who called in Fingers, in Irving, TX. Jed Somerville got there before the call was set up.

“Okay, here’s the situation,” I started. “There were two bombs in the Dassault. Hunter, the guardian sent by the Great Spirit, is the only reason we didn’t get on. Cap and Rob got out of the plane, and we are all fine. Shaken up a bit, but we dodged two bullets this morning. I don’t have any other information.”

It was kinda humorous, because there was silence on the phone line for about fifteen seconds. That, apparently, was the military mind at work. Picture it, as the old woman on the ‘Golden Girls’ TV show would say, actually thinking before talking. Wow! It would never happen anywhere else in America.

Linc broke the silence: “Okay, let’s step up our perimeter watch at all facilities.” That got a “Rog” from Washburn, and an “Already done” from Somerville.

“If we can make a suggestion,” threw in David. “First off: Anybody think we should involve the US Government Investigators? They have a hell of a lot of expertise to call on.”

Linc shot that idea down: “A Federal investigation means we might get an answer by Christmas.”

“Right,” said David. “So, no Feds. I’ve got a genuine SEAL trained explosive expert here. I’d suggest just closing off the airport and touch nothing. Fingers and I can get there sometime today, probably. We’ll fly commercial to Casper and rent a car. Fingers will take over finding out what happened and what equipment was used. I will take point on finding out who and when the bombs were planted.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Linc said. “I’ll also come up to the Piaqogwaiq and help with the ‘who and when’ part of things. Sam can handle the security on the Navajo Res.”

“What can we do?” I asked.

“I’d say,” said Jed Somerville, “the most important thing for you to do is stay safe. You and the kids.”

“We can do more than just sit here. We’ve got nine Wokitas, a squad of Shoshone with M16s, and three expert martial artists inside providing protection – two of whom are expert shots and one who can hit the broadside of a barn ... I don’t mean we’re going out on patrol. But we’re not going to just sit here eating Doritos and watching ‘Pretty Woman’ reruns.”