Nora pulled herself up in time to see Gary raise his gun. She hoped he aimed for the tires or, better yet, shot like bad guys in movies and missed them entirely.
Heather raced from the parking lot, squealing a right onto the street, throwing Nora to the floor and sending the door swinging again, which took out another clump of Nora’s hair and gave Charlie a new set of bruises.
Nora struggled to right herself and pull Charlie’s feet inside. The vehicle swayed around corners and bumped through rough intersections, tossing Nora from side to side. With difficulty she managed to catch the door on one of its swings inward and snick it shut. She checked Charlie.
With his eyes closed he hummed tunelessly. He was conscious again, so they hadn’t killed him, but enough pain medication flowed through him that the car door didn’t seem to hurt him. For now he floated in a happy place.
Which was much more than could be said for Nora. She climbed to the front seat and looked out the window. They sped down a forest road, packed smooth but unpaved.
Heather stared down the road. “One thousand two hundred eighty-two what?”
Nora didn’t have the patience for a game. “What are you talking about?”
“What are you counting?”
She didn’t realize she was still counting. “Moments until I lose my grip on sanity.”
“You could have stopped at five.”
A giggle welled from somewhere in Nora’s gut. It rose to a full boil of belly laughs.
Heather swung from the packed dirt road onto a trail and they slammed into rocks in the road, bouncing high enough to make Nora’s head bang the roof.
Nora only laughed harder. Tears cascaded down her face.
Heather ventured a glance at her, then quickly back at the road. She swerved, throwing Nora against the door with a crash.
Nora’s sides hurt. She was hysterical, and some part of her knew it. Soon she’d come completely unhinged.
Heather braked hard, made a nearly-ninety-degree turn, drove into a thicket of pines, and killed the engine. “Knock it off,” she growled at Nora.
Nora sobered. There was nothing funny about this. What was the matter with her, anyway? She looked back at Charlie.
He knelt on the floor of the backseat. His voice sounded like he spoke around a mouth of cotton balls. “You girls know how to stage a jailbreak.”
“You’re a freak,” Heather said to Nora, with as much irritation as a teenager can pack into a few words. And Heather was particularly skilled in that area.
Maybe they weren’t exactly safe, but Barrett wouldn’t find them here. They needed a plan. Nora took a breath but instead of words, she let out a laugh and started again.
Heather rolled her eyes. Then she smiled and chuckled despite herself. Soon her laughter joined Nora’s in a tango of hysterics.
After a time, they settled down, wiped the tears from their eyes, and grew quiet.
“Charlie?” Nora asked.
“Don’t suppose you grabbed some meds on your way out the back door?” he piped in.
She shook her head.
“Ah, well,” he said.
Heather turned to the backseat. “You said you know a lot about people on the Hopi rez.”
Charlie sounded fuzzy. “I spent a fair amount of time out there when I was young. Good people.”
“Benny said I was from a powerful clan.”
Charlie’s words slurred even more than usual. “Are you Hopi? You look Hopi.”
Frustration edged Heather’s words. “Benny knows me.”
Charlie’s eyes drooped closed. “To know you is to love you.”
Heather reached over the seat and took Charlie’s hand. “Do I look like anyone you know?”
Charlie struggled to open his eyes. “You’re a vision. A beauty.”
“That’s not what I mean. He called me Sikyatsi.”
Charlie’s head dropped back and he mumbled something that might have been a name, but it strangled in a deep snore.
Heather twisted in the driver’s seat and glared out the wind-
shield.
Nora wanted to comfort Heather, but she wasn’t sure how.
Heather looked back at Nora. “Are you going to tell me why we kidnapped Charlie and what we’re running from?”
Nora opened her door and stepped into the forest. She had to think.
Heather got out and walked around to her. “I saw Poppy coming out of the elevator while Officer Buttface interviewed me. Was he visiting Abigail?”
Nora nodded.
“Did he see you?”
Nora shook her head and finally spoke. “He was nice to Abigail but he wanted to know where I was. When he found out you were going to ask Charlie about your family, he got really upset.”
Heather raised her eyebrows, adding insult to the sarcasm of her tone. “Oh good, she does something more than nod her head and laugh.”
“Can you stop with all the smart-alecky attitude?”
Heather plopped down on a rock. “Sorry. I’m scared, okay? I don’t know what to do about Poppy and I’m probably in trouble with the law too.”
“You? Scared?” Nora sat down next to her. “You can blow up my lift, run in and out of the rez, go all Starsky and Hutch through town, and now you tell me you’re scared?”
Heather put her chin in her hand. “I do what I have to do.”
Nora stared into the silent forest, the Ponderosa pine thick and dark.
What was that? A flash of blue? Her heart lunged, followed by a flare of anger. No. This was crazy and she wouldn’t look, wouldn’t let her imagination and more hysteria make her believe the kachina man followed her.
“We’ve got to figure out what to do.” Nora’s voice sounded harsher than she expected.
“About what? Charlie in the backseat of my car? Poppy wanting God only knows what from you?” She licked her dry lips. “Poppy …
Poppy ordering that man to kill Big Elk? Ordering Gary to arrest you?”
Nora rubbed her forehead.
“You know, when you do that, you look just like your mother,” Heather said.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if someone said something today that wasn’t disturbing on some level?” Nora glared at Heather.
“And that’s her look too.”
“Gaa! Stop it.” Nora couldn’t help her outburst.
Heather laughed. “Really. You’re almost as good at that you-low-life-scum look as Abigail.”
“I’m an amateur compared to her.”
Heather nodded. “She is good. She’s got that Queen Abigail attitude, you know. But you’re like the Lady Di of the family. You’re classy and royal and seem sort of above everyone else. But you’ve got that soft vulnerable thing going on too.”
Nora narrowed her eyes in irritation. “You’re full of shit.”
Heather burst out laughing. “Not Lady Di at all.”
A small grin tugged at Nora’s mouth before she remembered what a terrible mess they were in.
“We had to get Charlie out of there because your father threatened to hurt him.”
The teasing smile vanished. “Not Charlie! Why would he do that?”
“Whatever Charlie might know about your family is something Barrett doesn’t want you to find out.”
“And he’s going to hurt Charlie to keep him from telling me?”
“I think so.”
Heather looked at her skeptically. “Where did you come up with this?”
Nora told her about the conversation she’d overheard.
Charlie mumbled from the backseat, his eyes still closed. “A cold wet can of liquid painkiller might keep me alive.”
Nora opened a side door and put a hand on Charlie’s forehead. He didn’t feel feverish. One good thing. “I’m sorry, Charlie. It’s almost dark. M
aybe we can do something soon.”
Heather leaned through the open back door and gently kissed Charlie’s cheek. “I’ll protect you from Poppy.”
After Heather’s calculating and calm attack of the situation, this tenderness surprised Nora. Just when Heather seemed like nothing but a Barrett clone, she flashed a human side.
Charlie took hold of Heather’s hand and patted it. “You gotta stop trying to clean up Barrett’s messes. He’s a big man and he makes big problems. You can’t make up for him and you’re going to kill yourself trying.”
Heather’s eyes shimmered with tears. “You’re probably right.” She cleared her throat. “He’s not even my real father, so I don’t know why I feel responsible for the evil he creates.”
Nora stood close to Heather. “Whatever Barrett is up to, it’s not your burden. It’s hard enough living your own life without having to make amends for someone else.”
Heather nodded. “I know you’re right. But in Hopi, we believe in balance. I should be able to balance Poppy’s bad with my good.”
Nora put an arm around Heather’s shoulders. “Are you telling me that because Abigail is my mother, I am responsible for all her actions? That’s a chore I’m not willing to take on.”
“The Hopi elders say that two or three righteous people are enough to fulfill the Creator’s mission. Some say even one truly righteous person can save the world.”
Charlie smiled at Heather, still only half lucid. “You are good, no denying that. Let your goodness shine and leave Barrett off your scales.”
Heather looked at the ground. “It would be different if he were my real father, I guess. Are you sure you don’t remember Sikyatsi?”
Charlie shook his head. “It sounds familiar but my memory isn’t as good as it used to be.” He looked stricken. “We should have brought Abigail with us. She’s not safe when Barrett is on the loose.”
A spear of apprehension shot into Nora. “This is insane.”
Charlie said. “Let’s get the goods on Barrett and we’ll all live happily ever after.”
“I’d settle for all of us living.”
Charlie’s head then fell back and he snored.
After several minutes of silence, Nora shrugged in frustration. “Cole thinks Scott’s murder is at the crux of everything.”
Heather considered. “Okay. Then I guess we need to do some research.”
“What do you mean?”
Heather walked to the back of the RAV4. “Don’t get mad at me.”
“Did you blow something else up?”
Heather shot her a withering look. “I said I was sorry about that. I didn’t know you very well then.”
“I’m not forgiving you yet. When we’re safe from Barrett and your environmental and ethnic brethren, you and I are going to have a talk.”
At least Heather looked contrite. She opened the back of the vehicle and reached inside to pull out a box.
That stupid box. It contained grief, anger, pain, and rejection. Nora remembered when Maureen’s roommate brought it to the lodge. Why hadn’t she burned it?
Heather looked at her with a mixture of embarrassment and guilt.
“It’s okay,” Nora said.
Heather carried the box to a flat rock and bent over it. She rummaged beneath odd items and pulled out a sheaf of paper. “Why was Scott working for Poppy?”
“Barrett? Scott worked for Barrett?”
Heather waved the paper. “This is from Southwest Consultants.”
The box held her dead husband’s possessions from a life she didn’t know existed.
“Southwest Consultants is Poppy’s uranium company.”
Nora hadn’t known that. But then, why would she care? “Okay. But I don’t know why you’d think Scott was working there.”
“He’s got a whole stack of papers from them.”
Forty-One
Nora stirred herself and took the sheet of paper from Heather. It bore Southwest Consultants’ logo. A matrix covered most of the page with printed column and row headings and Scott’s scribbled figures in the boxes. “I don’t know what this is,” Nora said.
She stomped to the box and peered onto it. Just what she wanted, to paw through the remnants of Scott’s secret life with another woman. Her stomach flipped and landed with a dull ache.
The first few items looked innocent enough. Racing magazines and old bike gloves. Under that she extracted a framed snapshot of Scott and Maureen standing in front of his backpack tent with a river in the background. Nora tried not to remember lying in that same tent next to Scott on so many of their own camping trips. When had she stopped backpacking with him? Two years ago, three? Something at Kachina always needed attention and even if she found downtime, the thought of strapping on a forty-pound pack and traipsing into the woods exhausted her.
She’d been stupid to think Scott, the man who loved an audience, would be happy alone while she worked. The pain of her loss made her want to fall to the ground and curl into a tight ball.
She started to put the frame on top of the magazines, but she didn’t drop the frame as she intended. Instead, she raised her arms over her head and brought the frame straight down on the edge of the rock, shattering the glass and breaking the frame into two separate pieces held together by the photo inside. She picked up the mess and ripped at the picture and, with a final violent flourish, threw it into the trees.
“Wow,” Heather said. “I never heard anyone scream like that.”
Nora turned around, suddenly aware that her throat hurt. “I screamed?” She swiped at tears.
Heather nodded. “Feel better?”
“Not really.”
“Want me to go through that stuff?”
Nora shook her head. “It doesn’t do any good to deny the truth. I need to face it and put it behind me.”
Heather’s mouth twitched.
“I know. It sounds like Abigail.” Nora scowled at her.
Seeing his things so neatly in the box hurt nearly as much as noticing Maureen’s arm around Scott’s waist in the photo. Scott didn’t organize or keep anything neat. This had to be Maureen’s doing. She took care of him, nurtured him. Nora forced herself to think the last … loved him.
Nora pulled out the stack of charts wrapped in a rubber band. The pages showed dates for twice a month. She flipped to the end of the stack. Over three years. He told her the affair ended two years ago. It had never ended. Damn it. Damn him.
She sank to her knees and gasped for air.
Heather materialized at her side, stroking Nora’s back. “I’m sorry.”
Nora struggled through the haze of anguish. She had something to do; exactly what, she didn’t know. She couldn’t fall apart. The world slowly took shape around her.
Heather stood next to her, uttering soothing words.
After many minutes, Nora pulled herself to her feet and cleared her throat. “Abigail called that one right. I wasted seven years on Scott.”
Focus, Nora. Take care of business. It’s what you do. She picked up the pages again. “What could these be?”
Charlie croaked from the backseat. “Bring them here and let me look.”
Nora jumped. Charlie was like some spook that raised himself from the dead to spout prophecy and then collapsed, only to rise again.
She hurried to him to see if he looked close to death. She realized she didn’t even know exactly what injuries he suffered in the explosion, other than a burned hand. But his face showed a healthy bit of color and his eyes sparked with life.
Charlie pushed himself to sit with his back against the door. With his good hand he took the page Nora held. He stared at the paper for a full minute, maybe willing his eyes to focus. Finally he handed it back to Nora. “Those are well logs. Scott was a logger for Barrett. He was checking groundwater.”
“How do you know?” Nora asked.
Charlie smiled with reminiscence. “Protested a coal mine a couple of decades ago. Right before I lit the fuse in the office, I saw some logs like that. The company wanted to prove the water content.”
The situation mushroomed in her mind, overwhelming her. “Who was Scott?”
Nora spun from Charlie and paced the clearing, anything to drag out the gremlins gnawing at her sanity. “I knew our marriage wasn’t as good as it used to be. I didn’t know how to make it work but I tried. Everything I did backfired. I should have known he was having an affair. I probably did on some level. But how could I have not known he worked for Barrett for three years?”
Charlie studied the page. “Did Scott know anything about water?”
Nora couldn’t stop pacing. “He had an undergrad degree in environmental science. He knew a little about a lot of things. And yeah, I think he took some hydrology classes.”
“So Barrett hired him to track groundwater,” Charlie said.
“Why would he want to do that? Why not hire him outright with McCreary Energy?” Heather asked.
“There’s something in the groundwater that interests Barrett and he doesn’t want anyone to know about it,” Charlie said.
Heather considered this. “Wouldn’t Scott have needed an office and a lab to do the testing?”
“Maureen. Maureen was a graduate teaching assistant at the university,” Nora said.
They both looked at her.
“She worked for a biologist.”
“You knew her?” Heather asked.
Nora tried not to think about it. “She had a project tracking a vole or something out here a few years ago. She and some field techs camped on the meadow on the other side of the mountain. Scott probably met her there. Or maybe she chose to come here because they were already together.”
Gradually Nora forced her mind from the Wronged Woman track. She didn’t have time to mourn for a husband or life she never really had.
Heather frowned. “So Poppy hired Scott on the side. Looks like Scott took samples every two weeks from,” she counted on the page, “ten wells. He hired Scott on the sly to keep the findings secret.”
Tainted Mountain Page 26
