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?"

60 CLIVE CUSSLER

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.

"You don't look like an academic to me," he said at last.

SACRED STONE 61

"What's an archaeologist supposed to look like?"

"Not like someone who has been in battle," Campbell said, "like

someone who has had to take another man's life."

"You're drunk," Cabrillo said.

"Maintenance drinking," Campbell said, "but I don't hear you

denying anything."

Cabrillo said nothing.

"Army?" Campbell said, staying on the topic.

"CIA, but it was a while ago."

"I knew you weren't an archaeologist."

"The CIA has archaeologists," Cabrillo noted.

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Cabrillo motioned

for Campbell to remain seated and walked over to the door. An Inuit

dressed in a one-piece snowsuit stood with a sack in his hand.