Dance of the Bones

As the quarrel escalated, tension crept like a thick fog throughout the room, and the rest of the bar went dead quiet.

“I don’t want to fight you, kid,” Amos said in a conciliatory tone while calmly pushing his stool away from the bar. No one noticed how he carefully slipped his right hand into the hip pocket of his worn jeans, and no one saw the same hand ease back out into the open again with something clenched in his fist. “Come on, son,” he added. “Take a load off, sit down, and have a beer.”

“I am not your son!” John growled. “I never was, and I’m not having a beer with you, either, you son of a bitch. We’re done, Amos. It’s over. Get some other poor stooge to be your pack mule.”

Big Bad John Lassiter never saw the punch coming. Amos’s powerful right hook caught him unawares and unprepared. The blow broke John’s cheekbone and sent him reeling backward, dropping like a rock on the sawdust--covered floor. Big John landed, bloodied face up and knocked cold. In the shocked silence that followed, with all eyes focused on John, no one in the room noticed Amos Warren slip the brass knuckles back into his pocket. No, it hadn’t been a fair fight, but at least it was over without any danger of it turning into a full--scale brawl.

As John started coming to and tried to sit up, several -people hurried to help him. Amos turned back to the bartender. “No need to call the cops,” Amos said. “Next round’s on me.”

As far as the bartender was concerned, that was good news. He didn’t want any trouble, either. “Right,” he said, nodding in agreement. “Coming up.”

It took several -people to get John back on his feet and work--wise. Someone handed him a bar napkin to help stem the flow of blood that was still pouring from the cut on his cheek, but the wad of paper didn’t do much good. The damage was done. His shirt was already a bloody mess.

“See you tomorrow then?” Amos called after John, watching him in the mirror as he staggered unsteadily toward the door.

“Go piss up a rope, Amos Warren,” John muttered in reply. “I’ll see you in hell first.”

That was the last thing John had said to him—-I’ll see you in hell. They’d quarreled before over the years, most recently several times about Ava, but this was the first time they’d ever come to blows. In past instances, a few days after the dustup, one or the other of them would get around to apologizing, and that would be the end of it. Amos hoped the same thing would happen this time around, although with Ava standing on the sidelines fanning the flames, it might not be that easy to patch things up.

Lost in thought, Amos had been walking generally westward, following the course of a dry creek bed at the bottom of the canyon, some of it sandy and some littered with boulders. During monsoon season, flash floods carrying boulders, tree trunks, and all kinds of other debris would roar downstream. As the water level subsided and the sand settled, there was no telling what would be left behind. In the course of the day, Amos had seen plenty of evidence—-spoor, hoof prints, and paw prints—-that indicated the presence of wildlife—-deer, javelina, and even what Amos assumed to be a black bear. But there was no indication of any recent human incursions.

At a point where the canyon walls narrowed precipitously, Amos was forced off the bank and into the creek bed itself. And that was when he saw it—-a small hunk of reddish--brown pottery sticking up out of the sand. Dropping his heavy pack with a thud, Amos knelt on the sand.