Chapter 27

The boys and I were waiting at the cave for Chas to arrive. His UFH drove up the bumpy road slowly, while we sat in our Suburban watching. I was eating a very messy meatball hoagie, while Rock had a turkey and avocado, and Bear was chowing down on a prosciutto and salami special. By the time UFH got there, I was using baby wipes to clean up.

Chas was in the front seat, not getting out of the truck. After several minutes more, Chas stuffed papers in his satchel and got out. He trudged up the hill to the cave / laboratory. I went out to meet him.

“Hi, Chas. You look like you’re thinking hard.”

“Yeah. Hi, Lexi. Did you notice that 1481 had less lithium than the others did? Not on a percentage basis. Just LESS in actual size. Was there less of a sample? I didn’t notice that in the sample sizes we had when we went to USC. 1481 was the sample from the crystals I used to make the bottle, so I was particularly interested in it.” He brushed past me, in a hurry. He was still talking to himself when his talking was out of my hearing. Naturally, I tapped into his mind. He was still grappling with the 1481 sample, and formulating a series of questions he was going to pose to S2D2.

I headed back to the SUV. “We’re not going to get much from Chas. He’s discovered some anomaly in the samples we sent to USC and he’s focused on that. Let’s head off to Wild Mustang’s.”

Rock disagreed. “No. Let’s head to the shooting range. We need to shoot a couple of magazines.”

I looked at him. Then I tested his thoughts. Interesting. There were two trains of thought. Over on track two, the locomotive was chugging along the idea that all three of us needed to keep our shooting skills up to snap. Track one, however was the more interesting to me. This locomotive was speeding along on the express track. He wanted to see if he could countermand one of my ideas. One of the ‘more equal’ status ideas resulting from our joining.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll bet that broadside of a barn is trembling in its ... uh ... rafters. Or something.” I smiled at him.

‘I’ll bet you read my mind, din’cha Whirlwind?’ he thought.

Damn! He’s getting smart. I sent him a warm, juicy picture of us kissing.

Off we went to the shooting range in ‘Burnside North – Population: Growing.’ I had improved significantly since the first time I scared the broadside of a barn. Now, I could hit the bullseye target with every shot. Not that I hit the CENTER of the bullseye, you understand, but I hit somewhere on the target.

I took off my ear protection and watched as Bear and Rock were hauling in the targets they had demolished. They were disputing the accuracy of their respective shooting. Rock was the winner this time. “Show offs!” I said. “I won’t bother to show you mine. They all went through the same hole in the exact center!”

Rock laughed, but Bear was more polite. “We bow to your excellent marks-womanship, Annie Oakley,” said my Shoshone hubby.

“Damn straight!” I smugly said to him on the way back to the SUV. We spent about a half-hour cleaning the weapons. Well, I spent a half-hour. They were each done in about five minutes. I couldn’t get all the parts to fit. Finally, Bear just took the handgun from me and snapped the damn thing together, lickety-split. Then he handed it back to me. “I could’a done it,” I sulked.

“But we wanted to get out of here before sunset,” he replied. “There’s shorter days in the winter, ya know.”

So ... so, we got all our guns put together. Ahem. Now it was getting on to dinner time, and we were going to Wild Mustang’s house, like I said.

We got there just in time to see the old Medicine Man relight his cheroot and push back in his rocker on the front porch. He was watching a little lizard at the edge of his porch. It scurried under the porch out of sight when we drove up.

Mustang scowled at us when we exited the SUV. “Now see what you done! You scared poor ol’ Elmont to hiding under the porch. Oh, well. He’ll be back sometime tomorra ... How you doing Lexi? I can tell that Rock and Bear are doin’ jes’ fine, from the grins on their faces.” He stuck the cheroot in his mouth and chewed on it. “What’cha doin’ visitin’ an old Injin, today?”

“Well, we were just checking on the lizard census that just came out,” I said. “I guess we can check Elmont off the list. He’s present and accounted for.”

“Yep,” he said, then he lapsed into one of those extended silences.

Rock came to the rescue. “You know, Grandpa, that the Burnside North High School is studying the lore of the Navajo. Do you know anybody who could visit the school and tell them some interesting history of the Navajo?”

He took his cheroot out of his mouth and spit out some errant tobacco flakes. “Ya know, I think I could rustle up some ol’ guy who might could tell ‘em some interesting facts. Heck, I lived through most of that history. Did I ever tell you about how my pa led Kit Carson across the desert?” He stood up and herded us into the house. “See, they was runnin’ out of water and...” His story trailed off into the dusty trails of remembrance as we headed for the dinner table.

A new girl was in charge of dinner tonight, but she had made dinner for two. “Have you all met my niece? Lorilee’s a descendant of Kit Carson. He was her great grand-pappy who happened to spend time with a Navajo girl. She eventually married into the Moon family, where Lorilee became the granddaughter of Katy of the Moon, and in due course, my niece.” He smiled.