Chapter 36

By the time we got Chas into the back of the lab cave, we had about a couple of dozen braves with M16s who’d spread out in the hills above us. They quietly just disappeared into the brush and trees. I hope they had something to eat and drink. I worried about stuff like that.

I saw several pick-ups go down the road, each seemed to be filled with armed ‘Auxiliary Deputies.’ And a little while later, the pick-ups came about half-way up the road – about to the factory site – and set up another roadblock.

I tuned in to Linc’s mind. He was watching a helicopter landing about a hundred yards to the factory side of the roadblock. Barry Goldwater and one of his aides clambered out. Linc asked the pilot to park the chopper another football field down the road. Why do we measure everything in ‘football fields?’

Goldwater just watched as one platoon of Aux Deputies marched off into the desert and just disappear against the desert landscape. They were outfitted in ghillie suits that made it all but impossible for anyone to see the men, even if you knew where they were.

Barry walked over to Linc and the Police Chief and commented that, “We’d have won that damn Vietnam war if we’d just have hunkered down like they just did.”

Linc, who after all had been in Vietnam, said, “Getting a good shooting position wasn’t the only thing we needed. But that was then, and this is now.” The Senator was discussing things with the Police Chief when the Channel 10 news van pulled up to the SUVs that were blocking the road.

“Why don’t you set up over there?” Linc suggested.

“We’ve got two cameras,” Fred said.

“Oh ... well, how ‘bout 10 and 2 o’clock behind us then.”

“Can I put a mic on your combat vest, Deputy Lincoln?”

“You mean, I’m going to be famous?” Linc laughed.

“And anybody within several yards of you.”

A Chevy Suburban with the distinctive Navajo paint job pulled up. Chairman Panther Strike got out with a younger man and Tall Feather unfolded himself from the third row of seats.

“Why don’t you park back near the helo?” Linc suggested. ’This is going to be some party,’ was the thought in his mind.

Panther Strike introduced his group, after he greeted Goldwater and the Police Chief. “This is Tim Painted Horse, the Attorney for the Nation, and everybody but Mr. Goldwater should know Mr. Justice Tall Feather. He’s here to represent the Court of Appeals in case there’s a Constitutional question.”

Tall Feather was a Justice on the highest court in the Navajo Nation? And he was part of the group that handled the intruders who showed up to try and kill me?

Standing off to the side was Crying Wolf and Desert Flower, who strode up and introduced themselves as the lawyers for The Spirit of the Hunter. “We have obtained an Order of No Entrance, from Judge Mesquite,” said Flower.

About twenty minutes later, a posse of cars came cruising up the road. Linc said to Mr. Goldwater, “I hope there won’t be any gun play, but if there is, take cover behind our vehicles. You won’t get shot by any of us.”

“I’ll stand up by the Chairman and the Police Chief,” said Goldwater. Would we see him taking cover if there was gun play? Of course we wouldn’t. Not if there was a camera recording the scene. Linc handed out combat vests to the Chairman and the Police Chief, and went back to get one more for Goldwater.

The same fellow from the last time got out, accompanied by a nattily attired younger man.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wendt. Did you see the signs this time?” said Linc.

Wendt said nothing. “I am Rudolph Santiago, Deputy United States Attorney for the District of Arizona. I have a paper for you Deputy Lincoln. It orders you to allow us to have access to this so-called research facility.

“I’ll take that,” said the Chief of Police. He took the court order from Mr. Santiago and handed it to the Painted Horse, the Nation’s Attorney. Painted Horse took a minute to read the document, then he tore it in half.

“We have Navajo laws that say that document has no effect here,” said Painted Horse. “And there are long standing U.S. Federal Court decisions and Navajo Court decisions that say so, too. The previous precedents were established by treaty in the 19^th century and reaffirmed in court cases in 1949.

“Ms Desert Flower represents the owner of this road and the lands surrounding it. Ms Desert Flower?”

Painted Horse offered her a mini-bow and Flower stepped forward. She handed Wendt a document. “That is the Order of No Entrance that bars you from entering on our property. You may, if you like, represent the Department of Energy in Judge Mesquite’s court within seven days. His court sits in the Navajo Administration building in Window Rock.”

Wendt handed the papers to his attorney, just like the Navajo Police Chief did. Santiago folded it up and put in his jacket pocket. Not as grand a gesture as Painted Horse’s but equally dismissive. He gestured to the cars and about a dozen U.S. Marshals got out and started to advance on Linc, Washburn, the Police Chief, the Chairman, and Senator Goldwater.