1

The small, decrepit office on the top floor of the government building was from another era, which was to say nobody but the present occupant had used it in sixty-four years and eight months. It was not that there were dark secrets in its walls or malevolent ghosts from the past hovering below the shabby ceiling; quite simply, nobody wanted to use it. And another point should be made clear. It was not actually on the top floor, it was above the top floor, reached by a narrow wooden staircase, the kind the wives of New Bedford whalers climbed to prowl the balconies, hoping—most of the time—for familiar ships that signaled the return of their own particular Ahabs from the angry ocean.

In summer months the office was suffocating, as there was only one small window. During the winter it was freezing, as its wooden shell had no insulation and the window rattled incessantly, impervious to caulking, permitting the cold winds to whip inside as though invited. In essence, this room, this antiquated upper chamber with its sparse furniture purchased around the turn of the century, was the Siberia of the government agency in which it was housed. The last formal employee who toiled there was a discredited American Indian who had the temerity to learn to read English and suggested to his superiors, who themselves could barely read English, that certain restrictions placed on a reservation of the Navajo nation were too severe. It is said the man died in that upper office in the cold January of 1927 and was not discovered until the following May, when the weather was warm and the air suddenly scented. The government agency was, of course, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.

For the current occupant, however, the foregoing was not a deterrent but rather an incentive. The lone figure in the nondescript gray suit huddled over the rolltop desk, which wasn’t much of a desk, as all its little drawers had been removed and the rolling top was stuck at half-mast, was General Mac­Ken­zie Hawkins, military legend, hero in three wars and twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This giant of a man, his lean muscular figure belying his elderly years, his steely eyes and tanned leather-lined face perhaps confirming a number of them, had once again gone into combat. However, for the first time in his life, he was not at war with the enemies of his beloved United States of America but with the government of the United States itself. Over something that took place a hundred and twelve years ago.

It didn’t much matter when, he thought, as he squeaked around in his ancient swivel chair and propelled himself to an adjacent table piled high with old leather-bound ledgers and maps. They were the same pricky-shits who had screwed him, stripped him of his uniform, and put him out to military pasture! They were all the goddamned same, whether in their frilly frock coats of a hundred years ago or their piss-elegant, tight-assed pinstripes of today. They were all pricky-shits. Time did not matter, nailing them did!

The general pulled down the chain of a green-shaded, goosenecked lamp—circa early twenties—and studied a map, in his right hand a large magnifying glass. He then spun around to his dilapidated desk and reread the paragraph he had underlined in the ledger whose binding had split with age. His perpetually squinting eyes suddenly were wide and bright with excitement. He reached for the only instrument of communication he had at his disposal, since the installation of a telephone might reveal...