“How big is the structure you’re intending to demolish?” Vanderwald asked.
“The size of the Pentagon.”
“That much will be a million two.”
“Cashier’s check?” Hickman asked.
“Gold,” Vanderwald said.
11
CABRILLO STARED AT the musk ox horns on the door, then reached over and lifted a fish-shaped iron door knocker and let it slam against the heavy planked door. He heard the sound of heavy footsteps from within, then it grew quiet. Suddenly a small hatch in the door the size of a loaf of bread opened and a face peered out. The man had shallow cheeks, a tobacco-stained gray beard, a mustache and bloodshot eyes. His teeth were stained and grimy.
“Slide it through the hole.”
“Slide what through the hole?” Cabrillo asked.
“The Jack,” the man said, “the bottle of Jack.”
“I’m here to speak to you about renting your snowcat.”
“You’re not from the trading post?” the man said with more than a hint of disappointment and despair.
“No,” Cabrillo said, “but if you let me in to talk, I’ll go down and get you a bottle afterward.”
“You’re talking Jack Daniel’s,” the man asked, “not the cheap stuff, right?”
Cabrillo was cold and growing colder by the minute. “Yes, made in Lynchburg, Tennessee, black label—I know what you mean. Now open the door.”
The peephole closed and the man unlocked the door. Cabrillo walked into a living room decorated in squalor and disarray. Dust from last summer coated the tables and upper edges of the picture frames. The smell was a mixture of old fish and foot odor. A pair of lamps on two side tables cast pools of yellow light into the otherwise dark room.
“Pardon the mess,” the man said. “My cleaning lady quit a few years ago.”
Cabrillo remained near the door—he had no desire to enter farther into the room.
“Like I said, I’m interested in renting your snowcat.”
The man sat down in a battered recliner. A liter bottle of whiskey sat on the table at his side. It was almost empty, with barely an inch left in the bottom. Then, as if on cue, the man poured the last of the bottle into a chipped coffee mug and took a drink.
“Where are you planning on going?” the man asked.
Before Cabrillo could answer, the man had a coughing fit. Cabrillo waited for the end.
“Mount Forel.”
“You with those archaeologists?”
“Yes,” Cabrillo lied.
“You an American?”
“Yep.”
The man nodded. “Pardon my manners. I’m Woody Campbell. Everyone in town calls me Woodman.”
Cabrillo walked over and extended his gloved hand to Campbell. “Juan Cabrillo.”
They shook hands, then Campbell motioned to a chair nearby. Cabrillo sat down and Campbell stared at him without speaking. The silence sat in the room like a brick on a potato chip. Finally, Campbell spoke.