“Arizona,” says Wolf, looking up from his examination.
“What?” I ask.
“Arizona,” he repeats. “Napkin say, “ANOZI. Map say AR. Then hole, but over here A. Napkin is backward. AR from map. IZONA from napkin. No space for more letters. Only one way fit.”
“Plus the ZON from root cellar map,” adds Tuf. “That clinches it.”
Wolf nods.
“You, my dear Injin friend,” says Sir Jacob. “Are a master of puzzles.”
“Also, Injin scholar and gentleman,” says Wolf, smiling.
“And a smartass,” I say.
Wolf beams. Heck, we are all beaming. Not sure why, still the same planet.
But different. Earth. And, we are the lucky fuckers who get a do-over.
It turns out this place, the east side of Rio Rojo, is Old Arizona. The place them pilgrims plan to bring back to life.
“New Arizona, we’ll call it,” says Tuf, after he explains it all to the rest of his clan. “If it pleases the council.”
“Let’s call a meeting,” says a thin man in the crowd.
The pilgrim elders head off into the trees to confer and decide for themselves.
We heathens continue to try to glean more information from the faded old map. We find a few more decipherable letters here and there. Mostly blurs.
“It is official,” says Tuf, after they return. “New Arizona.”
Jake pulls a bottle of bubbly out of his cart and we all have a toast.
“To Earth, our long forgotten homeland,” says Jake raising his glass.
“May it never return to what it was five hundred years ago,” says Spud.
“Hear, hear.”
“This time we shall do it up properly,” says Jake.
I drain my glass and look back at the map.
“So, if all this huge area here was called Arizona. I wonder what the rest here, where we live, the whole area from here west to the ocean. I wonder what it was called.”
Mose looks at Sir Jacob, who shrugs, “We don’t know.”
“Maybe we should call it Arizona West,” says Spud.
“No,” says Wolf, with his customary finality. “Injin Country.”
“West Arizona. Not bad. Although I was thinking New Britain,” says Jake. “We could have a Queen. I could be knighted.”
“Still a’ hopin’ eh, Sir Jacob?” says Mose, with a laugh.
“One must never lose hope, Sir Stephen.”
Mose chuckles at his old nickname. Then nods. “Hell yeah, I could be a real knight, too.”
“West Britannia?” I offer.
“Already called MadDog,” says Wolf. “Good Injin name.”