There was a general nodding and murmurs of agreement. Solomon turned to the trucker. ‘But you don’t trust Billy-Joe here to ask it?’
The trucker shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I do not.’
Solomon looked over at Rita now. ‘And you just want this to be over.’
Rita said nothing, but it was clear which direction her opinion lay.
‘Then why don’t you ask the last question? Everyone knows you here, I assume, so no one will think you’re working with me on some kind of con. So you ask the question, I’ll try and answer it, the wager will end, one way or another, and everyone will get what they want.’
The mutterings started up again and Billy-Joe frowned as he took in the proposal. ‘But if you ask the last question and he cain’t answer it, who gets the quarter?’
‘You can have it,’ Rita said. ‘And if he gets it right I’ll stand him a meal on the house. That work for ya?’
Billy-Joe nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, sure. I guess.’ He looked up at the trucker. ‘You OK with that?’ The trucker frowned hard as he tried to figure out the new angle and when he couldn’t see one he nodded and sat back down on his stool.
‘And no more damn bets,’ Rita said, lifting the hatch in the counter and stepping out into the main diner area. ‘Let’s get this thing over with so we can all get back to our dull, uneventful days. Can’t handle all this excitement on a Wednesday lunchtime.’ She strode across the floor to the display case of Native American souvenirs, snatched the framed photograph from the wall above it then walked back to the counter. ‘Here’s my question,’ she said, and laid the photograph down on the counter in front of Solomon. ‘Tell me what that says.’
The room went quiet as Solomon looked down at the photograph. It had been taken in a cave, the flash of the camera lighting the centre but falling away to a deep black at the edges. Some of the symbols had caught shadow, showing that they were petroglyphs, carved into the rock not painted on the surface, meaning the message they carried was important. Solomon studied the symbols and opened his mind ready for the usual flood of facts that came in answer to any question. But this time was different. This time the information that came was indistinct and inconclusive, more like a bank of fog than a clear flowing river, and in the silence of the room he caught a whisper, one man confiding to another at the edge of the crowd. ‘He ain’t gonna answer it,’ the voice said. ‘That’s written in Suma and ain’t a man alive as can read it.’
Solomon focused on the symbols, using the word he’d overheard to shine new light on them:
Suma … Zuma … nomadic hunter-gatherers … descended from the Mogollon peoples … first mentioned in 1630 in despatches regarding Franciscan missions … allied themselves with the Spanish and gave land for Catholic missions in exchange for help in subduing their main rivals the Apache … the Spanish converted some of the Zuma and betrayed the rest … last known Zuma brave died in 1869 and the native language was lost … scholars believe it may have been Uto-Aztecan or maybe Athabaskan …
Solomon tried translating the symbols using each of these languages in turn. Neither made sense. He needed more information.
‘Where was this photo taken?’ he asked.
‘About a mile north of here,’ Rita replied, her green eyes studying Solomon with curiosity. ‘There’s a system of old caves on the edge of this land. Why you askin’?’
‘Because different peoples have different meanings for things depending on where they come from.’ Solomon held up the photograph and pointed to a symbol near the bottom of the message. ‘This one, for example, the broken arrow. To the Northern Suma it means peace, but to the Western Suma it means a broken promise. Now I’m guessing it is Western Suma, and that’s how this place got its name, but I wanted to check before I answered the question. There is a steak dinner riding on it after all.’
The hum in the room deepened and smiles spread on the faces of those who’d bet on the stranger.
Solomon’s eyes drifted across the markings, their meanings emerging clearly now he could filter it through the knowledge of their origin.
‘It’s an agreement,’ he said, ‘between a man named Three Arrows in the Wind and a white man from across the great sea to the east – European, I’m guessing. It doesn’t say the man’s name but he’s represented here by a symbol that looks like the head of a cow or maybe a buffalo.’ Rita stiffened and Solomon looked up. ‘You know who that is?’
She nodded. ‘The conquistador who first came here in 1534 was a man named Álvar Núñez Cabeza deVaca. Cabeza deVaca is Spanish for …’
‘Cow’s head,’ Solomon said, finishing her thought. He looked back at the photograph, translating the symbols easily now as his eyes drifted over the petroglyphs. ‘DeVaca did a deal with the chief in this area. He was promised safe passage across these lands, everything from the Snake River in the south, to Two Bears Pass in the west, Three Arrows Cave to the north, and Flat Rock to the east.’ Solomon looked up at Rita. ‘Do those landmarks mean anything to you?’
She nodded. ‘They used to call the Rio Grande Snake River on account of the way it meanders through the land. Flat Rock is now a town, and Two Bears is what they now call the Double Bluff Pass. The caves mentioned are the ones this message is carved in. What else it say?’
Solomon studied the edges of the image where the flash had not quite reached and the petroglyphs fell away into darkness.
‘It looks like deVaca made this pledge in the name of someone else,’ he pointed at a petroglyph disappearing into shadow and only partially visible. ‘See that symbol. I think that denotes deVaca’s chief, but without seeing it properly I can’t say for sure.’
‘Bullshit!’ All heads turned as the man in the booth rose from his seat, his newspaper abandoned behind him. He walked over to the counter, people stepping out of his way as he came and stopped in front of Solomon. ‘You don’t know what those markings say. No one does. The last man alive that could speak the local Suma dialect died over a hunnert and fifty years ago.’ He looked Solomon up and down like he was a curiosity in a roadside museum. ‘We’ve had people through here trying to figure out what those markings say, people from all kinds of fancy colleges. Now if they couldn’t figure it out why in the hell should anyone believe that you can? I think you’re full of it, mister. I don’t think you know what this says any more than I do.’
Solomon smiled. ‘Well, sir, you are entitled to your opinion. However, as far as the laws relating to gambling in the great state of Texas go, you are not a party to this wager and so your opinion does not matter, legally speaking.’ He turned to Rita. ‘As the person who took over the bet, the only opinion that matters as to whether I answered the question or not is yours.’
Rita looked over at the man from the booth and nodded. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Nobody can prove what these symbols say one way or another so I guess it was kind of a dumb question for me to ask.’
The man from the booth looked pleased, though several members of the crowd did not as they saw their potential winnings slipping away.
‘However,’ Rita continued, ‘seeing as I ain’t the kind of person as would cheat a man out of a meal because I went and asked him a dumb question.’ She turned back to Solomon and pointed at the menu on the wall. ‘Let me know what you want. You just won yourself a wager.’
The diner erupted in noise. Men who’d bet on Solomon whooped in victory and those who’d bet against him shook their heads in disbelief.
The man from the booth leaned in and pitched his voice low so it slid beneath the noise. ‘You’re lucky Rita has such a kind and generous heart,’ he said. ‘You