Naked Edge

by Pamela Clare

  She followed him up the rocky, winding trail to the top, listening as he told her about the great surge of hot, volcanic rock that had created the butte, the wind picking up and tousling her hair as they neared the summit.

  And then she was there on the highest point of Mesa Butte, the four directions stretching out before her. The summit was flat. No plants. No trees. Nothing but an empty liquor bottle. She took one step forward--and regretted it.

  The dizziness hit her, making her head spin. Trying to shake the feeling, she drew air into her lungs, reminded herself that the rock beneath her boots was solid. But it didn't seem to help. Her stomach sank toward the ground, her knees turning to rubber, her lungs too constricted to draw breath.

  Gabe caught her around the waist and drew her up against the hard wall of his chest. "Easy, Kat. Open your eyes."

  She hadn't realized she'd closed them. She did as he'd asked and found herself looking up into his eyes.

  "Now breathe. Slowly. That's the way." After a moment he moved to the side, the view opening before her once more.

  "Don't--!" She grabbed for him.

  Warm fingers clasped hers. "I'm not going anywhere."

  Reassured by his presence, she looked at the chain of white-capped mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see to the west, then she turned in a slow circle, seeing the sweat lodge and Grandpa Red Crow's pickup below to the south. Open prairie spread like an undulating sea of grass to the east and beyond that the skyscrapers and brown cloud of Denver. To the north stood a cluster of farmhouses separated from the road by the conjoined rivers. What she didn't see was Grandpa Red Crow.

  "Are you up for a view off the edge?"

  Kat shook her head. "No, I don't think I..."

  "I bet you can." He drew her forward, stepping over the whisky bottle. "Just try. Trust me. Keep your eyes on me if you have to."

  Holding fast to his hand, she followed, a feeling of exhilaration sweeping through her as, step by baby step, her fear began to lessen.

  An arm's length ahead of her, Gabe stopped at the very edge and looked down. Something--surprise?--flashed across his features, then a muscle clenched in his jaw. He turned to her. "We're going back to my truck--now."

  Something in his voice, something in the hard look on his face, set her heart to pounding. She stepped forward, felt his arm catch her around the waist, holding her back from the edge--but not so far back that she couldn't see.

  There, two hundred feet below, dressed in his red shirt and black vest, lay Grandpa Red Crow, shattered upon the ground.

  Her knees gave way, the world spinning beneath her feet, and her heart seeming to burst in her chest. Strong arms held her fast, drew her back from the precipice. As if from far away, she heard herself scream "No!"

  CHAPTER 5

  GABE KNELT BESIDE the old man, knowing before he checked for a pulse that he wouldn't find one. No one could fall that far and survive. Cold to the touch, Grandpa had been dead for a while, his head at an unnatural angle to his body, his eyes staring unseeing at the sky.

  In the distance Gabe could hear the approaching wail of sirens. But there was nothing anyone could do for the old man now, except try to figure out how this had happened. Had he fallen--or had he been pushed?

  Gabe's instincts told him it was the latter.

  He stood and took a step back from the body, not wanting to disturb a potential crime scene more than he already had. Then he saw it.

  A potsherd.

  The same reddish color as the soil and painted with black lines, it lay in pieces beside the body. Though Gabe was no archaeologist, he'd bet his ass that it was an American Indian artifact, part of a small bowl judging by the curved shape of the pieces.

  What the hell?

  This could not mean what he thought it meant.

  From behind him, he heard the soft sound of Kat's weeping. He turned to find her walking slowly toward him, her face wet with tears and lined with grief, her gaze averted from the body. He'd told her to stay in the truck, not sure how much of a mess he'd find and hoping to spare her memories she didn't need. Falling two hundred feet could do serious damage to the human anatomy.

  "You don't have to see this, Kat."

  But she didn't seem to hear him, sinking to her knees in the dirt near the old man's feet. "H-help h-him! L-like you helped m-me."

  "There's nothing I can do, honey. It's too late."

  She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed a hand to her mouth, clearly struggling to believe that someone she loved was gone forever.

  Gabe knew only too well what that was like--disbelief, shock, grief so strong it ripped through you. He walked over to her and knelt beside her, then, unable to do anything else, drew her into his arms and held her. "I'm so sorry."

  She was trembling, probably as much from shock as from grief, her hair soft against his cheek, her fingers curling into the fabric of his coat, her quiet sobs tearing at him. "I-I t-talked to h-him just a f-few hours ago. H-how could he be d-dead?"

  "It doesn't make sense, does it?"

  "Why w-would anyone want to k-kill him?"

  "We don't know for sure that's what happened. It could be an accident of some kind. Maybe he got too close to the edge and slipped." Strictly speaking, what Gabe said was true, and yet his gut told him she was right.

  The old man had been murdered.

  The fire truck arrived first, the approaching sound of its siren seeming to bring Kat back to herself. She stiffened, drew away from him. "I-I'm sorry."

  Gabe cupped her tear-streaked cheek, forced her to meet his gaze. "You have no reason to apologize. I only wish I could have done something for him."

  She sniffed. "Thanks."

  He drew her to her feet, watching as she wiped the tears from her eyes and somehow found the inner strength to put her grief aside. By the time the fire truck had arrived, the haunted look in her eyes was the only sign of the anguish she was feeling, her courage making him want to protect her all the more.

  Two firefighters took in the situation at a glance, realized there were no lives to save, and giving Gabe a nod, went to stand by the truck, waiting for law enforcement.

  Hatfield and Chief Ranger Webb were the first on the scene. Webb drew Gabe aside. "Want to tell me what the hell you're doing out here with her, Rossiter?"

  Gabe filled his boss in, watching as a sympathetic firefighter brought Kat bottled water and a blanket. He'd just finished bringing Webb up to speed when a squad car pulled up and Frank Daniels got out, all blond crew cut and Kevlar.

  Gabe saw Kat tense, her body going rigid as she recognized the bastard. Then he met Webb's gaze. "He is not going to question her. He's not going anywhere near her. He's already brutalized her once, and that was before she ripped him a new one in her news article."

  Webb leaned in, his voice dropping to a pissed-off whisper. "Do you know how bad this looks--the two of you together? It's damned hard for me to argue that your complaint against Daniels is legit when you're fraternizing with her and watching over her like a guard dog."

  "We're not fraternizing. I told you--"

  "You met her here for a nice afternoon of cultural exchange. Yeah, you told me." Webb rolled his eyes, obviously not believing it. "You let me deal with Daniels, got it? If this is ruled a homicide, BPD is going to claim jurisdiction, and the last thing we need is you turning this into some kind of interdepartmental dick fight."

  "Me? He's the asshole who ignored our jurisdiction and--"

  "Stay away from him, got it? And if you can manage it, stay away from her, too!" Webb jabbed a finger in Kat's direction.

  But Gabe had no intention of leaving Kat to go through this alone.

  IT DIDN'T SEEM real.

  None of it seemed real. Not the police cars and flashing lights. Not the gloved officers going inch by inch over the ground. Not the yellow crime-scene tape.

  Faces swam in and out of her vision. Sirens wailed and fell silent. Snatches of conversation drifted just beyond reach of
her conscious mind.

  "You think it was someone stealing artifacts?"

  "We'll see what the autopsy and toxicology results say."

  "Did she identify the body?"

  He was dead. Grandpa Red Crow was dead.

  She knew she ought to find her cell phone and call Glenna or Uncle Allen so they could let everyone else know. She ought to call the paper and get a reporter and photographer out here. But she couldn't seem to think straight long enough to figure out where her cell phone was. And then an officer started asking her questions.

  How did she know the deceased? How had she spent her day? When had she arrived at the butte? Why had she come here? What had she done once she'd arrived at the butte? When had the body been discovered? Who'd found it?

  Gabe came up from behind, his nearness and the sound of his voice more reassuring than she could have imagined. He stayed with her as she answered the officer's questions, his presence steadying her, holding her together.

  And then she saw Officer Daniels walk over to Grandpa Red Crow's body, a large black plastic bag under his arm, an EMT following behind him with a gurney. He dropped the bag on the ground and unzipped it.

  A body bag.

  "No!" She hadn't realized she'd shouted until she heard her own voice.

  Everyone fell silent, staring at her.

  Gabe whispered in her ear, a warning tone to his voice. "Kat, you can't--"

  On a surge of anger and grief, she pulled away from him, ducked beneath the yellow tape, and went to stand over Grandpa Red Crow's body. "Not you! I don't want you touching him! I don't want you near him, not after what you did!"

  Daniels glared at her, clearly recognizing her. Then his gaze flicked nervously toward Gabe and the other police officers, a mask of indifference sliding over his face. "Are you trying to get yourself arrested? Interfering with a police officer is a crime."

  Her heart pounding, her rage moving toward tears, she met his gaze straight on, forcing words past the lump in her throat. "He was wicasa wakan, a holy man, and you treated him like garbage! You will not touch him!"

  For a moment she thought Daniels would arrest her. Then he stepped back, jerking the gloves off his hands. "Have it your way."

  "I'll do it." An EMT stepped forward. "If that's okay with you."

  Kat nodded, turned to Gabe. "He trusted you. Could you...?"

  But she couldn't say it, her throat suddenly too tight to speak.

  She saw in Gabe's eyes that he understood. "Yeah, I'll help."

  Shaking his head and laughing, Daniels walked away.

  Kat watched as Gabe put on gloves and, with the help of the EMT, carefully placed Grandpa Red Crow in the body bag and zipped it shut, cutting off the old man's last view of the sky, the ripping sound of the zipper so painfully final.

  "Hagoonee'" She whispered farewell to him in Dine and then repeated it in his language, tears blurring her vision. "Toksa ake."

  She watched until his body was loaded into the waiting ambulance, then turned and started walking, needing to get away from here.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Gabe overtook her with his long strides.

  She tried to think. "Home."

  "You're not driving anywhere, honey, not like this." He stepped in front of her, blocked her path, one big hand on her shoulder. "You're too upset. Give me your keys. I'll have Hatfield drive your truck to my place."

  It was a measure of how upset she was that she did as he asked, fishing her keys out of her pocket and putting them in his upturned palm. "Where will I go?"

  "You're coming home with me."

  IT WAS DARK and snowing by the time Gabe pulled into his driveway, small, icy flakes blowing on a frigid wind. He parked in the garage and looked over to see Kat with her hands folded in her lap, her gaze focused on nothing, a look of devastation on her sweet face. He wished there were something he could say or do to make this easier for her, but he knew from experience that there wasn't.

  He reached over, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "Hey, we're here. Let's get you inside."

  Once indoors, he lit a fire in the fireplace and told her to make herself at home, then headed into the bathroom to wash up. Hands and face clean, he crossed the hall to his bedroom and found it exactly as he'd left it--buried in dirty clothes, his bed unmade, climbing and ski magazines strewn across the floor.

  You're a pig, Rossiter.

  Yes, he was, but most of the time it didn't matter. In the three years he'd lived here, he'd never once brought a woman home. He'd bought the house with the money he and Jill had set aside for a climbing trip to Everest, needing to escape their old condo and anything that reminded him of her. Since then, whenever he'd been with women, it had always been in their space. He preferred it that way because it meant he could leave whenever he chose.

  Knowing he'd left Kat alone, he quickly changed into jeans and a T-shirt, picked up his climbing and ski porn, then gathered up every piece of putrefied clothing he could find and carried it all downstairs to the laundry room, where he unceremoniously dumped it on the floor. He'd do something about clean sheets later. She could have the bed, and he would sleep on the couch.

  His mind on dinner, he walked back into the living room and found her sitting on the couch in front of the fire, still wearing her coat and looking as if her entire world had come crashing down. He reached for her jacket. "I'll take that."

  Her motions wooden, she stood, took off her jacket, and handed it to him, revealing a silky lavender sweater that clung a little too nicely to her curves. Without speaking, she sat again, her hands in her lap, her gaze on the fire.

  He hung her coat, then walked over to his entertainment center, which acted as a sort of bar, and poured her a double Bushmills, figuring that the best and perhaps only answer to a moment like this was twenty-one-year-old Irish whisky.

  He walked over to her, sat beside her, and pressed the tumbler into her hands. "Drink. It will help clear your head."

  She looked at him, then looked at what he'd placed in her hands and shook her head. "I don't drink. Grandpa Red Crow says..."

  Tears filled her eyes as she realized what she said, her chin quivering, her grief palpable.

  "The rules don't apply tonight, Kat. Even nice Navajo girls get to sip a little whisky when they've been through what you've just been through. I'm sure Grandpa Red Crow--"

  She raised the tumbler to her lips--and tossed back almost the entire drink.

  "--would understand."

  Her eyes went wide, a shocked expression on her face, her entire body shuddering. She gasped, coughed, gaped up at him.

  He took the tumbler from her hands. "I said sip, honey."

  KAT TOOK ANOTHER sip. How could anyone drink this stuff? It was like swallowing fire, the whisky burning its way down her throat and into her stomach, where it smoldered. She shuddered, her eyes watering.

  Now you know why they called it firewater.

  She'd just gotten off the phone from telling Glenna the bad news--as if the poor woman needed more bad news. Glenna had at first refused to believe it. Then she'd burst into tears, thanking Kat between sobs for calling and promising to spread the word, her grief making the horrible events of this day inescapably real.

  From the kitchen came the sound of Gabe's voice as he ordered pizza. She'd told him he didn't need to worry about feeding her, but he hadn't listened.

  "You need something in your stomach to soak this up," he'd said, pouring her a second, smaller drink. "Just sit back and try to relax. I'll be in the next room."

  Feeling almost numb, Kat glanced around, seeing her surroundings for the first time. She sat on a blocky sofa of brown leather, a matching ottoman in front of her. An enormous plasma screen TV hung on the wall across from her, liquor bottles and glasses sitting on top of the wooden entertainment center beneath it. Beside them sat a little stereo into which Gabe had plugged his iPod. CDs and DVDs stood in rows on the shelves below, spilling onto the floor. A stack of magazines with n
ames like Ski, Outside, and Rock and Ice sat on the polished wood floor on the left end of the sofa, while a fireplace stood to the right. The walls were bare--no art, no family photos, no pictures of friends.

  Feeling a little dizzy, Kat relaxed into the sofa cushions and took another sip. Maybe it was the heat of the fire, but she felt flushed, the tension inside her slowly melting away--but not the sadness. It was still there, sharp and aching.

  He's gone. Grandpa Red Crow is really gone.

  With no warning, it hit her, a wave of grief so strong it seemed to tear out her heart. Tears blurred her vision, spilled down her cheeks, a torrent of pain washing up from inside her, cutting off her breath.

  She didn't know Gabe was there until he took the drink from her hand, set it down on the floor, and sat beside her. "I know there's nothing I can say that makes this any easier, but I want you to know that I really am sorry."

  She could hear in his voice that he meant it, but she closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, not wanting him to see her come apart. "H-he was a father to me. He was the only m-man who... When I first came to Denver... he w-was there for me. He taught me so much. H-he called me Kimimila. That m-means Butterfly."

  Then Gabe's arms went around her, and he drew her against the hard wall of his chest. "It's okay, Kat. Let it out."

  And she broke.

  Holding on to Gabe as if to save herself from falling, she wept as she'd never wept before, her heart seeming truly to shatter. She would never see Grandpa Red Crow again. She would never hear him sing the songs or play his flute in the inipi again, or listen to his stories, or turn to him for advice. She would never be able to tell him how much he meant to her or thank him for all he'd done.

  Everything he was, everything he knew, was gone.

  She had no idea how much time had passed, but slowly her tears subsided, the sharpest edge of her grief blunted. Gradually, she became aware of other things. The strength of Gabe's arms around her. The steady thrum of his heartbeat against her cheek. The hard feel of his chest. The warmth of his body. The scent of the outdoors that seemed to cling to his skin. The gentleness of his hand as it stroked her hair. The rhythm of his breathing.