****
The next day was colder yet but clear, and at mid-morning the Bear Claw was moved to the new laboratory building from the Dome of Elders of the Great Lodge. From the lab Ed, Mary, Mouse, Talking Bear and White Cloud watched as without ceremony it was carried towards the lab by six straining braves, trailed by anxious looking Jack and Doc. The artifact was contained in a sturdy steel box twice the size of a very large suitcase. Under it was a tray of hot coals, and around that was a canvas tent-like enclosure that kept out some of the cold. The whole apparatus weighed nearly three hundred pounds, and the artifact itself added roughly two-hundred pounds more.
A path had been shoveled through the snow down to the ground such that the men did not risk slipping but their burden was heavy. When the six straining men were half-way to the lab from the lodge Ed and Mary were astonished to recognize that one of them was the New York State Border Guard John Running Bear!
"Yes, it is indeed the man you knew as the Border Guard John Running Bear," Mouse confirmed.
"Is he a Mohawk disguised as a Mohican disguised as a Border Guard?" Mary asked.
"No, he is a Mohican disguised as an NSA agent now acting as a Mohawk," Mouse clarified, though the statement only further confused Ed and Mary. "Running Bear leads a complicated life, but he has recently wisely decided to join our cause for a time."
"And he works for the NSA?" Ed asked. "Those are the guys that are looking for the jants and Jerry Green!"
"Yes," said Mouse. "His NSA assignment is to follow you in the hope that you will lead them to Jerry Green."
"But we have no idea where Jerry Green is!" Ed said.
"True," said Mouse. "Right now John's true objective is to keep the NSA off the Reservation by being here himself. He has agreed to keep the jants here a secret from the NSA, and to keep our other secrets from the NSA also."
"And you trust him?" Ed asked.
"I have confidence in my ability to read his thoughts," Mouse explained. "That makes me an excellent judge of his character. Besides, if we cannot contain the Stone-Coats we will use him to inform the US Government with immediate credibility."
"We will?" asked Mary.
"Only as a very last resort." Mouse admitted.
The box containing the Bear Claw was finally safely placed in the lab. There it sat atop a heavy steel table with a hole cut in the middle that was positioned in the center of the elongated lab building. Below it a kerosene heater burned, providing direct heat to the bottom of the containment box. White Cloud quickly attached leads to connectors on the box, and activating and accessing the lights, video cameras, microphone, and temperature gages inside the box.
Meanwhile Running Bear exchanged greetings with Ed and Mary, and was introduced to Jack and Doc by Mouse. "I have read all your papers concerning Native American ancestry," Running Bear told Jack, surprising everyone except Mouse. "You have contributed much to our understanding of our ancestors."
"And I have heard of you also," Jack responded. "As a Native American rights advocate in a number of court cases, you have helped deny my access to a number of important archeological sites."
Running Bear smiled. "Now that you are officially a Native American you will be able to access some of those sites."
That caused Jack's jaw to drop. "By the gods, I hadn't thought of that! Maybe there are more advantages to being a Native American than I realized!"
"Yes!" said Running Bear, with a small smile. "We Native Americans are truly living the dream!"
"Holly shits!" exclaimed Doc, when the computer monitor abruptly came to life. Ed, Jack, Mary, White Cloud, Mouse, and Talking Owl collectively gasped and stared, while Running Bear stoically watched everything with great interest. Filling the screen was the sharp bedazzling image of the Bear Claw!
Ed was astonished. He had seen incredible mineral exhibits in natural history museums where dazzling gemstones were displayed, and what he was looking at now reminded him of those, except this was more spectacular than anything he had ever seen before. How the hell had it been constructed? It was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen! It was shaped like a clawed finger-tip perhaps two and a half feet long and thick as his thigh. The claw itself was over a third of its length, and seemed to be a single flawless, translucent gemstone, pointed at its tip, with a sharp, serrated, inner edge designed to cut into whatever it grasped.
The 'finger' tip it was attached to was covered with plum and fist-sized, multiple faceted scales that also glinted clear/white in the light. This 'skin' appeared to be a coat of gigantic many faceted diamonds! Beneath those outside scales there was a vague impression of semi-translucent elongated crystals of various shades of blue, green, and red. There were dark streaks of black also, threaded around and throughout the crystals.
"How is its surface so sparkling clean?" Mary asked. "Did you guys hose it off after you pulled it out of that ashy fireplace?"
Talking Owl shook her head. "Dirt doesn't accumulate on it. It absorbs whatever collects on its surface."
"The scales and the claw look like diamonds!" Jack exclaimed.
"Possibly they are diamonds," White Cloud agreed. "That is something we hope to determine. It can't be ice, not at two-hundred degrees Fahrenheit."
"That's the temperature of our thermometer inside the box," noted Doc. "We still have to confirm that it is also the temperature of the Claw. But I suspect you are right; it is some sort of mineral and probably not ice. Quartz perhaps."
"Likely," agreed Jack. "Living in Giants' Rest Mountain would provide access to plenty of quartz. Quartz is the defining abundant mineral in granite, and it is damn near as hard and durable as diamond, being silicon based. Only carbon, silicon's close cousin in the periodic table, forms stronger multiple covalent bonds and harder materials, with diamond the hardest material of all."
"Let's rotate the object to get some other angles and lighting," suggested Doc.
"Angles and lighting!" Jack exclaimed. "Damn! We've simply got to rig up some sort of laser and measure optical refractive index! And that Geiger counter better get here soon too!"
White Cloud turned a crank that caused the center portion of the box's bottom to slowly revolve, along with Claw that sat atop it. Light from the small light-bulb in each box corner reflected and refracted off and through the artifact, causing a dazzling multi-colored light display.
"Wow!" exclaimed Doc. "This reminds me of a disco light show back in the 80's."
"Its surface where it broke off from the rest of the Stone-Coat doesn't look any different than the rest of it." noted Mary. "It has the same big shiny scales covering there as it has everywhere else."
"Yes," agreed Doc. "It healed itself. It's as though a layer of skin has grown over the broken surface. I can see why the Tribe concluded that it's still alive."
"Alive?" Ed remarked. "So far we've seen nothing but rock and no signs of life at all! Give me a gem collection and some Elmer's Glue-All and I could produce something very similar."
"True, it will take more than what you see here to convince some of you that Stone-Coats and this Bear Claw live," said Mouse aloud, before switching to telepathy. "LEAVE YOUR WIFE AND FRIENDS HERE WITH THEIR CAMERAS AND LIGHTS, RACCOON. THEY CAN INFORM YOU LATER ABOUT WHAT THEY FIND. IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO TALK TO TURTLES."
"I'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO THAT FOR MORE THAN A WEEK, OLD MOTHER. WHAT WILL HELP ME THIS TIME?"
"RUNNING BEAR AND TALKING OWL WILL TAKE YOU TO A PLACE NEAR WHERE SEVERAL TURTLES DREAM AND MAINTAIN THEIR LONELY VIGIL, RACCOON. THEIR THOUGHTS WILL BE LOUDEST THERE."
"WHERE IS THAT?" Ed had to ask. "NEAR THE CREEK MAYBE? I WAS THERE FOUR DAYS AGO."
"THE SITE IS NEAR HAIRLESS BEAR," Mouse replied. "TALKING TURTLE GROWS WEAK. WE HAVE DECIDED TO STATION HUMAN WATCHERS TO OBSERVE HAIRLESS BEAR. YOU AND RUNNING BEAR WILL TAKE THE FIRST WATCH."
"SWELL."
****