The Secret Sister

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Christy stiffened at the mention of her sister’s name.

  Johnny didn’t notice her reaction any more than he noticed Cain’s aching progress toward him, a quarter inch, stop and wait, a half inch, stop, a quarter inch…

  Stop.

  Wait.

  “Would you have found it if I hadn’t told Jo there had to be something around the Sisters?” Cain asked.

  Christy’s nails dug into her palms.

  Johnny glared and swiped his hand across his mouth again. Then he grinned like a boy. “No, I wouldn’t have found it. I didn’t have to. I just let you do all the thinking and Jo do all the fucking. She picked you clean, got all your secrets.”

  “Did she?”

  “She got the Sisters,” Johnny said roughly. “After that, who cares what else you know?”

  “What happened?” Cain asked. “How did you end up spitting blood?”

  “All gone to hell. People dying, dead, more gonna die.”

  Abruptly he began chanting in a low voice. The atonal, alien words made the hair on Christy’s nape stir.

  “You need help,” Cain said.

  “Just some dirt, man. Just dirt and then get outta here before they catch me.”

  “Who’s after you?”

  “Sheriff. He’ll never catch me if I get a head start. I know this country too good. As good as you.” Johnny laughed, coughed, spat.

  Cain inched closer.

  “Was I you,” the Indian said, “I’d go back in the mesa country and not come out for a time. They’re planning on killing me and blaming you.”

  Christy threw a quick look at Cain. His expression hadn’t changed. He looked calm, relaxed…

  And a foot closer to Johnny.

  “They?” Cain asked. “Who?”

  “Find out the hard way. I ain’t never seeing you again.” Abruptly Johnny straightened and thrust the shotgun at Cain. “Back up!”

  “I’m just trying to help you,” Cain said.

  Johnny drew a ragged breath and laughed like a demon in one of Hutton’s paintings. “I don’t need you. I got me a plan. I’ll take care of that bastard Autry and all the rest. All I need is some dirt, and my BLM buddies will take care of me.”

  “You have friends in the BLM?” Cain asked. “That’s a switch.”

  “Yeah, ain’t it? I been a pothunter all my life, and now my only hope is the Bureau of Land Management.”

  With his injured hand, Johnny reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a small burlap bag like the ones natives used to sell Anasazi beans to tourists.

  “Just dish me up a couple pounds of dirt from that hole over there,” Johnny said, gesturing to the kiva. “Then I’ll be on my way. Any questions you got, you ask Danner. He’s about fifteen minutes behind me.” Johnny tossed the burlap sack toward Cain. “Fill it.”

  Cain caught the sack with one hand. He seemed to hesitate.

  No! Christy screamed silently. He’s still too far away. Don’t do it!

  Chapter 31

  Cain reached the same conclusion. Too far. Slowly he turned toward the kiva that had been used as a burial place for human bones. He dropped into the small chamber. Using his hands, he began filling the small bag.

  “How many skeletons were in here?” Cain asked after a minute.

  “Two.”

  Johnny heaved himself away from the rock’s support and went to the grave to see what Cain was doing.

  “Male, female, or both?” Cain asked.

  “Both women. Prettiest grave goods you ever saw too. Turquoise, jet, abalone. I damn near rusted my zipper.”

  Motionless, Christy stood at the edge of the heap of broken timbers, trying not to attract any attention to herself. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of movement, movement that was pacing every motion Johnny made.

  Moki, belly flat on the dirt, creeping forward out of the shadows. He was gathered like a great, living spring, trembling and waiting for the moment of release.

  Christy’s heart beat so loudly she was sure Johnny would hear it.

  “Did Hutton get everything?” Cain asked.

  “Dunno. I took everything in sight, but I didn’t have a chance to dig this baby out.” Johnny wiped his eyes. He had trouble lifting his left hand. “The bitch got him too. She cut off his balls and fed them to him.”

  Cain stopped throwing dirt into the sack. “Who, Jo?”

  Johnny didn’t answer.

  “Do you know where Jo is now?” Christy asked before she could stop herself.

  He turned to look at her. “If she’s smart, she’s gone. Autry will kill her if he gets his hands on her.”

  “No,” Christy said starkly.

  The emotion in her voice caught Johnny’s attention. He stared at her a long time. “Don’t I know you?”

  She looked away hastily.

  Cain was watching her with dawning understanding.

  And fury.

  “Wait a minute,” Johnny said. “You’re the sister, the redheaded reporter from New York.”

  Ice slid down her spine.

  “Autry thinks you were in on this with Jo,” Johnny said. “She set it up to look that way. She’s a cunning bitch. Was I you, I’d disappear.”

  “I’m not in on anything with anyone,” Christy said.

  Johnny laughed, coughed, spat blood. “No skin off my ass. Hutton’s going to beat the truth out of you one way or the other. He likes bathing pretty women and putting baby powder on them and then hurting them where it doesn’t show.”

  Christy felt the pressure of Cain’s stare, but she couldn’t make herself meet his eyes. His expression was a study in stark shadow and hard white light. He was utterly still.

  “Do you know where Jo is?” she asked Johnny again.

  “Why? She double-cross you too?”

  “Something like that.”

  “She’s a real snake queen, ain’t she?”

  Christy took a step toward Johnny, forcing him to cover her with the gun. The movement exposed his weak side to Cain.

  It took a few moments, but Johnny realized that he couldn’t cover both Christy and Cain with one shotgun.

  “Back up,” he snarled to her.

  Instead of obeying, she took another step, opening the distance between herself and Cain, forcing Johnny to choose between them.

  “Do you have any idea where Jo might have gone?” Christy asked urgently. She didn’t let herself look at the gun barrel that veered between her and Cain.

  And then the shotgun was pointing only at her.

  “Get over with Cain,” Johnny said. “Now, bitch, now!”

  A savage, snarling shadow leaped from the darkness, going straight for Johnny’s throat. The surprise was so complete that he couldn’t bring the shotgun to bear on the dog. It was all he could do to throw up his injured left arm in self-defense.

  Cain lunged up the rubble slope out of the burial chamber. As he shot out of the hole, Moki’s jaws closed on Johnny’s injured wrist. The big man screamed and twisted aside, flailing and stumbling under Moki’s weight. But even as he staggered, he lifted the shotgun muzzle to the dog who was hanging from his wrist.

  Barely three seconds after Moki attacked, the shadowy alcove exploded with the searing flash and savage thunder of a shotgun in a closed space. The blast beat against Christy. She couldn’t even hear her own screams. Blind, deaf, she fought to reach Moki.

  “Get down.”

  A second after he yelled, Cain knocked Christy out of the line of fire. Head ringing, she felt blindly in the dirt for a stone big enough to use against Johnny Ten Hats.

  The Indian flung Moki’s limp body aside and in the same motion spun toward Cain. The shotgun came up, pointed right at Cain’s chest. There was no way Cain could reach Johnny before he triggered a shot. There was no cover for Cain and no time to seek any.

  Christy screamed in futile denial.

  The shotgun’s hammer fell on an empty chamber. Johnny hadn’t had a chance to reload.

&
nbsp; Cain didn’t give him one. He attacked with the same snarling ferocity as Moki had. Instantly Johnny used the shotgun as a club. The blow caught Cain on his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Furiously Johnny tried to work the shotgun’s pump action, to reload.

  His wounded hand slid off the pump, useless.

  Christy’s fingers closed around a rock the size of an apple. While Johnny cursed and tried to work the pump one-handed and Cain struggled to his feet, she hurled the rock at Johnny. The range was close and the target was big. The stone hit him in the side of the face with a solid thunk.

  Johnny yelled and staggered backward, instinctively trying to get out of range. As he retreated around the ruined kiva, he clamped the shotgun under his left arm and tried to work the pump with his good right hand.

  Cain raced along the tangled wreckage of the ruins. He caught Johnny in the window at one end of the alcove and lunged. Kicking and cursing, the men disappeared through the window in a tangle and landed on the rocky face outside the alcove.

  From deep within the alcove came a spectral vibration that was more sensed than heard, as if masses of stone were slowly, slowly shifting. A timber groaned and exploded into splinters.

  The sounds stopped.

  Christy clawed to her feet, another rock in her hand. She reached the edge of the alcove in time to see Cain land a short, chopping blow on the point of Johnny’s right shoulder. Abruptly the man’s arm went limp.

  The shotgun clattered on stone, bounced, then skidded down the steep slope to the sheer drop below. Seconds later, the gun vanished over the brink of stone. With an inarticulate cry of rage, Johnny threw himself at Cain and bore him down to the stony ground through sheer weight. Whatever damage had been done to the Indian’s right arm was only temporary. Johnny grabbed Cain in a crushing bear hug.

  The two men thrashed around on the stone lip of the precipice, rolling closer and closer to death.

  Finally Cain butted Johnny’s chin hard enough to daze him. Johnny had enough sense left to lower his chin and protect his Adam’s apple, but doing that left his face wide open. A short, hammering blow from Cain’s forehead broke Johnny’s nose. Another blow in the same place made Johnny scream, yet he didn’t let go of his crushing hold.

  Instinctively Johnny turned his face aside, protecting his ruined nose. Cain wrenched an arm free and chopped across Johnny’s throat. The Indian began choking and gagging.

  And he didn’t let go.

  “Give it—up,” Cain panted harshly. “You can’t win—and you know it!”

  Finally Johnny let go and rolled to his hands and knees, retching and fighting for breath. Cain got painfully to his own feet and stood with his head down, hands on his hips, breathing in great gasps.

  “Cain,” Christy yelled. “Watch out!”

  He turned just as Johnny lunged for him. Cain tried to duck beneath the tackle. He almost succeeded. Johnny’s weight landed on the backpack Cain still wore. Johnny’s momentum threatened to sweep Cain over the edge of the canyon to a death on the rocks far below. With a raw cry of effort, Cain straightened his legs and back, using every bit of his strength to literally throw off the attack.

  Johnny sailed out over the cliff like a massive black fledgling launched too soon from the nest. Seconds after he vanished below the stone lip, an eerie chant rose in his wake.

  It stopped abruptly.

  Christy ran to where Cain knelt, staring over the edge of the rock face. She took his arm and tried to pull him away.

  “Get back from the edge,” she said. “Damn it, Cain. Get back! It’s not safe.”

  Slowly, he turned toward her. His eyes were coldly luminous. The wild exhilaration of survival was mixed with the bleak finality of having caused a man’s death.

  Then he focused on her. The look in his eyes changed to a contempt so deep that she backed up. He swept her with an icy glance.

  “I shouldn’t have worried about disinfecting Jo’s clothes before I gave them to you, should I?”

  Chapter 32

  “Are you all right?” Christy asked tightly, ignoring his words.

  In answer, Cain forced himself to his feet. Without a word he headed back for the alcove.

  “I heard a timber break just after the shotgun went off,” she said.

  But as she spoke, she was grabbing the lantern and going into the alcove.

  “Moki is back here somewhere,” Christy said.

  “I know.”

  “Moki,” she called softly. “Where are you, boy?”

  A faint whimper came from the darkness beyond the ring of lantern light. As she turned toward the sound, he grabbed the lantern from her and went swiftly to his dog.

  “Easy, boy,” he said gently as he knelt. “Let’s see how bad it is.”

  Moki lay stretched out full length, motionless. Yet at the sound of Cain’s voice nearby, the dog’s tail stirred in a feeble wag.

  “Hold this,” Cain said curtly.

  She took the lantern and held it up. The dog’s front quarters were drenched with dark red blood.

  Lantern light wavered, dipped, shivered.

  “Hold still, damn it,” he snarled.

  “I’m trying.”

  He looked up. She was trembling all over. Her left arm braced her right in an attempt to hold the light steady. Tears ran silently, steadily, down her cheeks. She was as pale as salt.

  “If you’re going to faint,” he said, turning back to Moki, “put down the lantern.”

  She hissed something between her teeth.

  Very gently he probed in the bloody fur. Moki whined once and flinched. Other than that, the dog made no protest.

  “Hold the lantern closer,” Cain snapped.

  When she leaned forward, the lantern light revealed a long furrow through the fur and muscle at the front of Moki’s shoulder. White bone gleamed.

  Steel clanged on stone as Christy set the lantern down.

  “You faint and I’ll leave you where you fall,” he said.

  “Kiss my ass.” Her voice was strong and every bit as cold as his.

  He looked up in surprise as she peeled off her jacket and handed it to him. “What’s that for?”

  “Moki.”

  Cain picked up the lantern and held it overhead, ignoring the jacket.

  “Dogs go into shock just like people do,” she said tightly. “He needs warmth. Put the jacket over him.”

  Instead, Cain stood up and peeled off the backpack and then his own shirt. The light transformed scrapes and bruises from his brief, brutal fight with Johnny Ten Hats into dark smears across bare skin. Cain folded his shirt into a broad, flat pad and very gently placed it over Moki’s wound.

  Without looking at her, Cain grabbed the jacket she held out. He was much more gentle as he eased the jacket beneath the dog and wrapped it around him.

  When Cain finally did look at Christy, she wished he hadn’t.

  He hated her.

  “I didn’t dare tell you Jo-Jo is my sister,” she said.

  “Why the hell not? If you had, Johnny might still be alive.”

  “Bullshit,” she snarled. “He was riding a one-way ticket to hell. You just happened to be the one who punched it.”

  Cain turned back to Moki. He worked quickly, for the alcove was cold and the dog looked very small against all the stone.

  With an effort, Christy reined in her adrenaline-frayed temper. “I didn’t know you. How could I trust you? Local gossip wasn’t very comforting.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, disgusted.

  “And…Jo-Jo had warned me that you were dangerous.”

  “Shit. Johnny was right. Whatever the scam is, you’re in on it with your sister.”

  “No! Listen to me,” she said urgently. “Jo-Jo called me, said she needed me, had to see me. I hadn’t seen her for twelve years. How could I turn her down?”

  “Ever tried the word no?”

  As Cain spoke, he took a knife out of the backpack and slashed a slit in the back of Chr
isty’s jacket.

  “If it had been your brother calling you,” she asked, “what would you have done?”

  Silently Cain tied the two new ends of the jacket into a tight little knot and looped the arms around Moki’s neck. Then he made another knot to secure the dressing. Finally he looked up at her. His eyes were almost opaque.

  “I’ve killed two men,” he said. “Both times there was a lying little slut involved.”

  Christy drew a ragged breath and looked around the shadowy alcove. Jo-Jo and Johnny and Hutton had ransacked a thousand years of history. Now they were fighting over the spoils. They didn’t care who got hurt in the battle.

  “I wish,” she said distinctly, “that none of this had happened. If I’d known what it would cost, I wouldn’t have involved you.”

  “I kept you last night because I thought you needed help,” he said as though she hadn’t spoken. “What a laugh. Did Jo-Jo send you to finish the job Johnny botched?”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong about me.”

  He ignored her and talked softly to Moki, soothing him with voice and gentle touches. Then he eased his hands beneath the dog and lifted him carefully.

  Moki whimpered and struggled a little when Cain shifted the dog’s weight to his arms. A few words calmed him.

  “I saw a canvas tarp in the first kiva, at the bottom of the ladder,” he said. “Get it. I’ll wait on top of the rim for you.”

  “What right do you have to judge me and—”

  “Just get the tarp,” Cain interrupted savagely.

  She grabbed the lantern and headed for the kiva. She scrambled down the ladder, grabbed the tarp, and climbed up to the surface. When she reached the sandstone slab that had nearly sealed off the alcove, he was already climbing up the mound of rubble. He seemed to be moving effortlessly, finding his footing without a problem on the uneven slope.

  She took a deep breath and wondered what Cain was using for nerves. Her legs no longer shook, but the whiplash of adrenaline still gave her hands a fine trembling.