The Secret of the Stones (34 page)

Chapter
52

Southeastern
Tennessee

“You
sure that was a smart thing to do, tellin’ that cop where we’re headed?”
 
Joe cast his friend a skeptical look in
the mirror.
 
“I mean, why wouldn’t
he just set up a road block and bring us in?”

“I
don’t think he will do that.”

“Well,
why did you tell him where we were going, then?”

Sean
smiled, “Because, Mac, we might need some help when this thing goes down.”

“Well,
I don’t like it.”
 
Joe cast a
glance at Allyson who had remained somewhat silent the last few minutes.
 
“Isn’t there someone you can call on
this?
 
I mean, you work for Axis,
right?
 
Can’t they do something?”

“I’m
not sure what they would do at this point.
 
The FBI is already involved.
 
As Sean knows, our agency tries to keep a very low profile.
 
I’m afraid we might be on our own in
this one.”

Sean
nodded in agreement.

“On
our own again, huh?” Joe echoed.
 
“Great.
 
So, tell me
something, Sean, how did you figure Rock Eagle was the next place we need to
go?”

“The
thought had crossed my mind before.
 
It seemed like the only logical spot on the continent.
 
But what really gave it away was when
the sexton started talking about an altar.”

“An
altar?”
 

“Yeah.
 
The history of Rock Eagle and Rock Hawk
is a pretty big mystery, as I’m sure you know.”

This
time Joe nodded.
 
“Yep, those are a
couple of odd spots for sure.”

Allyson
was confused.
 
“What is this place
you guys are talking about?”

“Rock
Eagle and Rock Hawk are located down in east Georgia, fairly close to Augusta,”
Sean explained.
 
“The names “eagle”
and “hawk” refer to two giant stone effigies that are in the shape of birds.
 
Rock Hawk, was built out of a darker
stone, so it appears almost black.
 
A few miles away from there, Rock Eagle was constructed out of white
stones.
 
They are actually quite
amazing designs.”

“So
what does this have to do with the golden chambers?”

“Well,
the riddle mentions a raven and a dove.
 
Maybe whoever gave the name Rock Eagle and Rock Hawk was just trying to
help keep the mystery hidden.”

“Makes
sense,” Joe added.
 
“I’d never
actually considered that before.
 
And the altar?”

Sean
smiled.
 
“Glad you remembered.
 
When the first excavations were done at
the sites, researchers believed that the stone mounds were some sort of mass
graves.
 
They expected to find dozens,
if not hundreds of human remains underneath.”

“Did
they?” Allyson asked.

“No.
 
In fact, they only found two skeletons,
one at each site.
 
Turns out, the
bones found at the Rock Hawk site were of a female and those discovered at Rock
Eagle were that of a man.
 
What
tipped me off, though, was an odd little detail of the story.”

He
paused for a moment, reflecting.
 
“It is said that Indians from many parts of the region would pilgrimage
to both sites to place stones there.
 
Over the years, there must have been hundreds and hundreds of rocks
brought from all over the southern part of the continent to be placed on the
giant stone birds.
 
Generations of
Indians traveled to the altar where “the sacred bones lay.”
 
The two people buried there must have
been extremely important.
 
Perhaps
even the first natives to settle the area.”

“According
to the new theory, the first Egyptians to settle here.” she realized.

“Exactly.
 
They were the father and mother to a
new nation.”

The
moment was heavy in the truck, as the last little detail sank in.

“So,
you think these two birds will lead us to the chamber?”
 

“More
than that, Allyson.
 
I think the
birds watch over it.”

Joe
and Allyson cast a questioning look at him.
 

“Think
about it.
 
The medallion Tommy
found has two birds on it divided by some kind of line or pole.
 
I think that line marks the location of
the first chamber.”

“You
know,” Joe added, “I think you might be right.
 
But how do we find that line?”

“Well,
I wasn’t sure about that until I remembered another oddity in the area.
 
You see, the two birds face each other,
even though they are miles apart.
 
Almost exactly at the midpoint between them, a set of totem poles were
erected.”

“That
is interesting.”

“Even
more fascinating, these totems were built out of stone, not wood.
 
Now why would the natives go to so much
trouble?”

“They
wanted them to last forever,” Allyson jumped in.

“Exactly.
 
But there is one more piece to the
puzzle.
 
And if I know Tommy, he
has already figured it out.
 
If
he’s smart, he will take those guys to the totems without the key.”

“Key?
 
What key?”

“Remember
the riddle,” Sean continued.
 
“It
said there was a key.”

“Do
you know where this key is?”

“I
think so.
 
When the bones of the
man were discovered at Rock Eagle, there was only one other artifact recovered
with his body:
 
a quartz
arrowhead.”

“Quartz?”
 
Allyson inquired.

“Yes.
 
It was an odd material for natives to
use, considering they made most of their weapons from flint in the early
days.
 
Spearheads and arrowheads
were almost exclusively made from the soft, gray stone.
 
So, when the archaeologists found one
that was made from quartz, that naturally seemed strange.”

“And
you think this arrowhead is the key to the chamber?”
 
Joe looked hopeful.

“I
do.
 
It’s the only thing that could
make sense.”

“Where
is this ‘key’ then?”

“It
should be at the museum at Rock Eagle.
 
My guess is, it should be on display there.”

“How
do we know that Jurgenson won’t get it before us?”

“We
don’t,” Sean said with determination.
 
“But if Tommy’s smart, he will take them to the totem poles first, which
should give us enough time to get the key.”

“And
just how do you plan to do that?” Allyson asked skeptically.

He
answered with a sly grin.
 
“I’m
sure the museum can make an arrangement for one of its principal
contributors.” 

Chapter
53

Eastern
Georgia

Between
the majestic peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the plains of southern
Georgia lies a happy medium.
 
Putnam County’s rolling hills.
 
A little further south, the golf course famous for dogwoods, azaleas,
and green jackets rested quietly awaiting that fabled weekend in early April.
 

One
of the perks of being wealthy was the ability to attain the unattainable.
 
And no sporting event in the world was
less attainable than a ticket to The Masters at Augusta National.
 

Being
an avid golfer, Tommy had paid an outrageous amount of money to make the
pilgrimage to the annual tournament amongst the pines and flowering
bushes.
 
Sean had tagged along more
for the story than anything else, but was dazzled by the immaculate beauty of
the course. He had gawked at the explosion of colors and had wondered at how
the groundskeepers could shape nature into such perfection.

Tommy’s
mind snapped back from the brief daydream as he and his two captors approached
the welcome center of the Rock Eagle Historic Site.
 
The lengthy drive seemed to take forever and his legs ached
from inactivity.
 

Brown
signs pointed the way to a picnic area nearby.
 
Ulrich had not said much for the last few hours.
 
The SUV came to a stop in front of the
building, and the three men got out amid a flurry of school children.
 
Apparently, their field trip had run a
little late.
 
Tommy wasn’t sure if
he would rather be in his current situation over having to drive one of the
buses back with the screaming kids on it.

“Where
to, Thomas?” Ulrich interrupted his thoughts.

Tommy
glanced around for a second then pointed to an enormous pile of rocks about
sixty feet away.
 

Perhaps
the most amazing thing about Rock Eagle was that it looked as if someone had
been standing on a thirty foot high scaffold, directing the placement of the stones.
 
Why they had done it was a whole other
matter.
 

Tommy
led the way over to a historical information plate that stood a few feet from
the base of the stone bird’s tail.
 
An elderly couple had just finished reading the placard; they were
slowly making their way back towards the parking lot.
 

His
eyes scanned the raised metal words.
 
He’d probably read hundreds of those things over the years.
 
According to what the sign said, a sort
of earthen wall had originally surrounded the bird effigy.
 
It went on to say that the entire stone
representation was raised about 4 feet higher than the rest of the ground
around it.
 
Historians could not
offer a logical explanation as to why it was there but a few details were
mentioned that Tommy thought interesting.
 

Of
course, he already knew the story.
 
Archaeologists had assumed the sites to be mass graves, but the remains
of only one human had been found at both Rock Eagle as well as the sister site
of Rock Hawk—only a few miles away.
 
He was also aware of the quartz arrowhead that had been recovered from
the bones of the male skeleton in the pile of stones before him, a little
detail that needn’t be mentioned to his captors at the moment.

Ulrich
seemed unimpressed by the information.
 
“What does this mean?”

“Nothing.
 
I just thought there might be some
helpful info here.
 
It’s just the
story about how this place was discovered.
 
Maybe we should check out the welcome center and see if
there is anything helpful in there.”
 

Ulrich
only thought for a second before he nodded and fell in behind Tommy, who was
headed toward the old wooden building.

Having
been there a few times, Tommy remembered that inside the information center,
artifacts on display were few in number.
 
The three men entered through the single glass door and casually made
their way over to a map in the corner of the room.
 
A small group of school children were filing out of the
facility, complaining that they had to go back to school.
 
If they had been able to understand the
concept of time, they would have realized that by the time the bus got back,
school would be out for the day.
 

Ulrich
seemed uncomfortable around the children, and the guard, in particular, looked
a bit out of sorts.
 

Tommy
smiled to himself as he stepped closer to a poster-sized aerial photo of the
location.
 
“Okay.
 
This is us,” he said as he pointed at
the building in which they were standing, marked by the usual “you are here”
dot.
 
His finger then traced the
outline of the giant stone bird effigy from where they’d just come a few
minutes prior.

“This
is Rock Eagle,” he stated.
 
He then
moved his hand to another, similar formation opposite of the one he’d just
mentioned.
 
“And here is Rock
Hawk.”
 
He tapped the map and took
a step back.
 
Staring at the map,
Tommy was puzzled by the entire scene.
 

“So
where is the chamber hidden?” Ulrich asked plainly.

Tommy
gave him a “drop dead” look.
 
“Beats me.
 
There’s a lot of
land between the two formations.
 
Rock Hawk is about seven kilometers from here.
 
It could be anywhere.”

The
clock on the wall read that the time was 4:25.
 
Right on cue, a nondescript woman wearing the light brown
button up shirt of a parks worker announced that the building would be closing
in five minutes.
 

Tommy
ignored the woman, still gazing at the map in an effort to find a hint,
anything that might show them the way.
 
The screaming voices of the elementary students just outside the windows
made thinking difficult.
 

His
mind wandered to the ancient people who built those places.
 
The reason behind Fort Mountain was
clear to him.
 
A three dimensional
stone replica of the Nile was a clue to the early settlers’ mysterious past,
but the giant rock bird effigies stumped him.
 
Though animals were revered in ancient Egypt, it was still
unclear why they would be here, unless that’s all it was: a clue to the
past.
 

Perplexed,
he pulled the sketch of the amulet he’d found out of his pocket.
 
His eyes poured over its contents.
 
The clue on the back was clearer, but
not complete.
 
They’d found the
birds of which the riddle spoke, but something was still unsolved.
 
Tommy examined the picture of the birds
again in hopes that there was something that would spark the answer.
 

His
two captors remained calm, standing a breath away, but Tommy could sense the
urgency in Ulrich’s eyes.
 
The man
had become extremely impatient, jittery even.
 
It was a characteristic he’d seen in many treasure hunters
throughout his life.
 
The closer
they came to their goal, the more inexperienced treasure hunters hoping for
unimaginable wealth could almost taste their dreams of a life of ease and
luxury.
 
Even this trained killer
seemed to have caught the fever.
 
Or was it something else that bothered him?

The
woman in the brown shirt had started closing up her counter and was about to
announce that the park was closing when Tommy had a thought.
 
His eyes locked onto something in the
picture.
 
“Excuse me…Miss?”

“Yes,
sir, can I help you?”
 
The response
from the frumpy woman was forced.
 
She must have been tortured by the high-pitched voices of the youth all
day.
 
Her eyes had bags under them,
and her hair was tangled like she’d been running her hands through it in
frustration.
 

“I
know you’re about to close, but I just had a quick question for you.”
 
Tommy’s understanding seemed to ease
her frustration momentarily.
 
“This
picture here, with the totem poles…where was it taken?”

He
knew well that the ancient Mississippian Natives of the area had constructed
many such monuments, but the ones he was looking at in the picture seemed
different than most.

“Actually,
it was taken just a few miles from here.
 
If you look right here in this area,” she pointed to the map at a spot
between the two bird formations.
 
“There are eight Totems here in a place the Indians used to call, “Khan
Ug.”
 
They are remarkably preserved
and scientists have dated them to before the time of Christ.
 
The most interesting thing about them
is that they are some of the only stone-made totems on the continent.”

“Did
you say there are eight in this location, and they are made out of stone?”

“Yes.
 
And another interesting point of note
is that the location is exactly three and a half kilometers from Rock Hawk and
Rock Eagle.
 
This demonstrates that
ancient Indians who lived here might have actually been using the metric system
long ago.”
 
She looked at her
watch, obviously done being courteous.

“I’m
sorry to bother you,” Tommy could hardly contain his excitement.
 
“But how would we get there?”

She
gave them an annoyed sigh and then a few quick directions before excusing
herself to finish closing up.
 

Tommy
nodded his head in the direction of the door and the two men followed him back
outside.
 
The sidewalk area in
front of the building was finally void of the noisy children.

“So
we are going to the place on the map?”
 
Ulrich asked as they neared the vehicle.

“Looks
that way.
 
I’d say the place is at
least worth taking a look at.
 
It’ll be getting dark in a little while, and that’s pretty much the only
guess I’ve got at this point.”

Ulrich
looked awkwardly at the prisoner.
 
So far, Tommy had been right on with every guess.
 
And, surely, they were getting
close.
 
It just seemed too
easy.
 
Still, he had no other choice.
 

The
woman’s directions had been accurate, and it only took about five minutes to
get to location she’d shown them on the map.
 
As seen in the picture, eight tall stone carvings ominously
stood in a small patch of grass.
 
The setting was surrounded by an amphitheater of looming oaks and narrow
pines.
 

Tommy
slammed the door of the truck carelessly, unable to take his eyes off of the
magnificent structures as he stumbled toward them.
 

Seven
of the poles were similar in height, around fifteen feet from what he could
tell.
 
But the one in the middle
was different in every way.
 
First
off, it was several feet higher than the others.
 

The
differences didn’t stop with mere height.
 
More intriguing was that each of the other seven totems displayed
carvings of animal groups.
 
One had
birds, another showed cattle and other agricultural animals, and so it was with
each monument.
 
Though each one
contained different animals, the animals were part of a similar species
group.
 
On the largest piece of
stone was a representative animal from all of the other seven, like some kind
of montage.

Moving
slowly with both guards in tow, Tommy walked from one pike to the next,
examining the intricate handiwork:
 
he stopped at the largest one in the middle and ran his hand over the
face of a fierce looking cat, a cougar as far as he could tell.
 
Then, he stepped over to the other
three, his face alight with admiration.
 

“Amazing,”
he finally broke the silence.
 
“It
must have been an extremely painstaking effort to create them.”
 

The
silent guard seemed to be slightly interested.
 
Ulrich was less intrigued.
 
He stood, arms crossed with a stern demeanor.
 

Tommy
stopped at the last sculpture and examined it closely.
 
The animals on it were foxes, wolves,
dogs, coyotes, and what looked to be something like a hyena.
 
He traced the stonework with his
finger, still amazed by what the ancients could do.