He stilled.
Ford was never a fidgety person, at least not that I’d noticed over the last week. I’d never seen him so much as wiggle a pencil unnecessarily. Compared to the utter motionlessness of that moment, he might have been as wriggly as a landed trout all week. “Gang problem?” Heaviness settled around us, kind of like the shift in cabin pressure when a plane takes off.
“Yes, gang problem. Or drugs. Or both. I just got mugged.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. I barely noticed. The oddity of thunder in February was overwhelmed by the verbal dam that had broken. “And no, it wasn’t some meth head looking for some spare cash. These guys had assault rifles. Assault rifles!”
Ford reached out, the tips of his fingers settling briefly on my forearm. “Shit. Are you okay?”
I held up my still-shaking hands. “Does it look like I’m okay?”
His lips pursed, and I regretted snapping at him. “Look,” I said, “I’m not the kind of person to overreact. I don’t get hysterical. I don’t freak out. But something about this whole thing has me losing my damn mind.” I lifted the coffee mug to take a sip. Maybe it would help warm my still-too-cold insides.
“You said assault rifles? Are you sure it wasn’t hunting rifles or shotguns? We have a lot of hunters in this part of the state.”
I set the coffee down. Was he being serious? “I know the difference.”
He held up a placating hand. “Look, I didn’t mean anything by it. A lot of people, especially if they’re not familiar with guns, can mistake—”
“Stop.” I jabbed a finger at him. “I know I may look like some kid who doesn’t know his ass from a BB gun, but I’ve seen enough to differentiate between military and civilian-grade weapons. When the Oliveira drug cartel took over parts of Acre, Brazil, they may have had a few shotguns, but they relied on AK-47s and AR-15s, not Grandpa’s 20 gauge.”
Ford opened his mouth. Closed it. Finally, he said. “Right. You know your guns. What did they want?”
“That was the weird part. They wanted my field notes.” Okay, the whole not-speaking thing was weird too, but the field notes was the weirdest.
“Your field notes?” He narrowed his eyes until only a thin line of dark brown iris showed through his lashes. “Wait a minute. Were you doing field observations? Where were you?”
I didn’t appreciate Ford’s tone. “No. And even if I was….” My words trailed off under the wave of disapproval pouring off Ford. Who was he to disapprove of me or my actions?
“Dr. Tierney made it clear that you were not to go into the field without me.” He spoke in a low, growling tone that sent shivers through me. I told myself they were shivers of apprehension, not attraction. Unfortunately I wasn’t a good liar. Never had been.
“I wasn’t out in the field. And even if I was, I know what I’m doing. I’ve been in more dangerous, more isolated places than a scenic overlook off a major highway.”
Ford leaned forward, the heat of him, that indefinable force he seemed to carry with him, pressed against me. “And have you ever been held at gunpoint for your work before?”
Well, no. But my field notes were just that—a collection of location and species data. It’s not like the journal contained my bank codes or internet passwords. “That’s just it,” I said. “Why would someone steal my field notes?”
“Where did they find you?”
I gave him the mile marker information for the parking lot I’d found.
He looked past me, through me, as though trying to picture the location. “Who knew you were going there tonight?”
I shook my head. “No one.”
“No one?” he asked. “You didn’t tell anyone where you were going? Not even a roommate? Or a girlfriend or wife?”
With anyone else, in any other situation, I would have thought he was fishing. But Ford didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would beat around the bush to find out if I was seeing anyone. Of course, he’d have to be interested, or nosy at the very least, to even care. It made me feel a little better that he assumed girlfriend or wife, though. Not because I wanted anyone to think I was straight—I wasn’t going to lie about something like that—but because it meant my bumbling behavior and inappropriate attraction to him wasn’t as noticeable as I’d feared.
I shook my head. “No roommate. Or wife. Or boyfriend.” I let the last word sink in a bit and waited for his reaction.
Sadly, I was disappointed. No raised brow of interest. No recoil of disgust. Ford was a master of the neutral face. “Then they must have followed you.”
I shook my head. “I was there for almost two hours. Why wait to approach?”
“Probably because it was full dark, and you’d be less likely to see anything useful in identifying them.”
I slumped back into my chair. “Yeah, that makes sense. I still don’t get it. Why would they want my notes?”
“You’re well-known, well-respected in the field. Maybe someone is either trying to steal your research to use as their own, or they want to delay your research. Are you working on any special projects?”
I barely heard the second half of his statement. “Well respected?”
He shrugged his shoulder, a short, irritated—or maybe embarrassed—gesture. “Yeah, well, I’ve read some of your articles.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Your discoveries in Romania were groundbreaking, and your work there helped me establish the framework for my thesis.”
I smiled, unaccountably pleased by that information. Then I mentally shook my head and focused on the issue at hand. “I’m not actively working on any particular research project right now.” At least not on any projects I could claim. Somehow I didn’t think he’d be all that interested in my thunderbird search. “As soon as the BLM project gets underway, I’ll be more organized. I doubt tonight was any kind of academic espionage. From what I’ve seen, you’re the only grad student who’d have an interest in my research anyway. Unless….” I let my voice trail off and grinned at him. “Were you by chance stalking me through the state park?”
He snorted and leaned back in his chair. “As if.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, didn’t seem to be your style. And besides, you don’t have any ink.” I lifted my coffee and took another long drink. Now that the panic had dissipated and warmth suffused my body, I could drink the beverage for the simple pleasure of it.
“Ink?”
I looked at Ford over the rim of my cup, taken aback by his curt question. I set the coffee down. “Yeah. One of the guys had a tattoo of some kind on his forearm.” I pointed to a spot on the underside of my arm, just below my wrist, to show him. “Some kind of snake or something.”
Ford leaped to his feet, simultaneously pushing the table forward and his chair backward. I slapped my hand over my coffee mug to keep it from being knocked over. My ears popped as another wave of staticky pressure rolled over me. Just like on a plane. I wiggled my jaw, trying to ease the tension. I looked around, but no one else seemed to notice anything odd. Maybe it was some kind of stress-induced physiological reaction?
Ford loomed over me, the first clear emotion—anger—I’d ever seen crossing his expression. No, not anger. Fury. “What kind of snake?” he gritted out.
I frowned up at him. “I don’t know. I didn’t see the whole thing. It might not have been a snake at all. It could just as easily have been a lizard or a dragon. I only caught a glimpse of scales. I saw what could have been ventral scales, which made me think snake. But, honestly, it was dark, there were guns, and I didn’t pay that much attention to the details of a criminal’s body art.”
“You’re sure it was here?” Ford showed his arm and ran his finger along the point where the sleeve of his sweater ended.
“Yeah. You know someone with a reptile-like tattoo there?”
“No,” he growled, “not exactly.” Then he muttered something under his breath. It sounded like “coincidence,” but I couldn’t be sure. He scrubbed his palm acr
oss his forehead. “Shit. Your thunderbird notes. Did you have those with you?”
My jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
He dropped into the chair hard enough it creaked under his weight. Pressing his fingers over his closed eyes, he said, “Tell me you didn’t have your thunderbird notes with you.”
“Of course not. First, my research is extensive, and I’d hardly carry it around with me. Second, why would anyone be interested in my thunderbird research? It’s a personal interest, one I tackle in my free time, not something worth stealing.”
“You’re not the only freak interested in discovering thunderbirds, Simon.”
That sounded ominous. “Well, no. There are several people, both individuals and organizations, who have an interest in the thunderbird mythology. And, yes, some of them are a little sketchier than others, but I can’t imagine any of them would track me down to a small city in Wyoming to steal my field notes.”
“Some idiots believe a lot of things. If they’re crazy enough to chase fairy tales, they’re crazy enough to do stupid things in their quest for them.”
I should have been pissed that he’d basically just called me an idiot. But it didn’t look or sound like he meant me specifically. Even if he did intend the words for me, it wasn’t the first time I’d been called crazy. I’d heard it a lot in my lifetime, and my father and grandfather even more so. And, honestly, I was too tired to give a shit at the moment.
Before I could form any kind of appropriate reply, someone bellowed from the counter. “Ford! Lines!”
Ford rolled his eyes and muttered something like “Damn it, Donnie” under his breath. I looked toward the counter and saw a sandy-haired man who was probably about my age, waving between Ford and the line that was more than five people deep. Ford bellowed back, “Power trip much?”
At my raised brow, he explained. “Donnie was promoted to general manager a couple of months ago. And now suddenly he worries about the lines. Not too long ago, it was me reminding him of the customers.”
“I should be going anyway,” I said, looking at the clock behind the counter. “Thanks for the coffee. And, well, for talking me down from my panic attack.”
“Oh, we’re not done.” He bent forward, resting his palms on the table in front of me. “We will continue this conversation later. And Simon?” He waited until I looked at him. “No more solo field trips.”
Part of me knew I should resent the domineering way he was ordering me around. Another part of me really liked it. Ridiculously so. I’d always had a thing for dominant guys, and this aura of command he carried would fuel my fantasies for months. That he was a student only made it slightly awkward. And deliciously taboo.
I nodded, accepting the order.
“You need to file a police report.”
I nodded again.
“Ford!” the man called Donnie shouted again.
Ford muttered unintelligibly under his breath before storming to the front of the café, invisible energy crackling in his wake.
Chapter Four
I FILED the police report. Not because Ford ordered me to do so, but because it was the right thing to do.
I sat in an uncomfortable chair facing a potbellied, middle-aged officer who seemed not at all pleased to have his quiet Sunday night interrupted by claims of men with assault rifles in the state parks. When I explained what happened near the park, he gave me that look. The one that said I was probably some crackpot and he was only filling out the paperwork so I’d go away and leave him in peace.
“Have you been drinking this evening?” Bored brown eyes examined me over the rims of his reading glasses.
I huffed out a sigh. “No, I haven’t been drinking.”
“Uh-huh.” The cop, whose name badge spelled out HUDSON, made a little note on the form in front of him. After enough time had passed that he could have written a damn novel, he looked back up. “Did you recognize any of these men?”
I should have known better than to go through this. If it wasn’t for the possible threat these guys placed to the community, I’d have told the officer—and Ford, for that matter—to shove his police report. “They were wearing masks. Those dark, full-face things you see in military movies.”
“Uh-huh.” He made another note. “Mr. Coleman—”
“Dr. Coleman,” I corrected.
“Dr. Coleman. You should know, filing a false police report is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year—”
“Look, Officer Hudson, I know this sounds crazy. If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it either. No one wishes more than me that it hadn’t happened. But I assure you, three black SUVs, and at least two armed and masked men held me at gunpoint and took my property.”
Hudson made a point of reviewing his notes. “Your notebook.”
“Yes,” I gritted out.
I left the station forty irritating minutes later. I didn’t hold out much hope that they were going to find anything. In fact, I suspected they were going to dump my statement into the dark recesses of a drawer marked “delusions.” But at least I hadn’t been charged with a misdemeanor.
Was that what it had been like for my relatives to tell their tales and have no one believe them? If so, I could see why they were so adamant about proving themselves, even decades later.
Back at home, I’d barely hung my coat up when my phone quacked at me. I smiled at the familiar ringtone. Years ago, I’d set my phone to quack like a duck whenever my grandfather called. My mother cringed at the noise. I didn’t know if she objected to the not-very-refined sound or if she resented the relationship I had with my grandfather. I’d been named after him, but they were a little disturbed by how closely I followed in his footsteps. I knew absolutely that she blamed him for my interest in cryptids, especially thunderbirds.
I wondered if somehow Grandpa knew I needed someone to talk to. It wouldn’t be the first time a phone call came at exactly the right time. Hitting the Accept icon, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, Gramps. What’s up?”
“Hey, kiddo. How’s Wyoming treating you?”
My breath caught a bit. Every time I spoke with him, it seemed his voice grew shakier and weaker. It was a constant reminder, a subtle countdown to the day he’d no longer be a part of my life. I made sure my own tone was light, free from worry, when I answered. “Oh, you know. The semester just started, so things are a little unsettled. I’m getting there.” For a second I considered telling him about my evening. He’d always given me good advice, or just let me vent if that’s what I needed. And he always knew which I was looking for without me having to clarify. But he didn’t need any additional stress in his life. I pulled my phone away for a second to check the time. It was after ten here, which meant it was almost midnight in Illinois. “A little late for you, isn’t it?”
Grandpa snorted. It was weaker, rougher than it used to be, but I took comfort in the sound. “I’m retired, boy. I set my own hours.”
I bit back a laugh. He might set his own hours, but Loretta, the nurse at the assisted-living facility Grandpa stayed at, would take away his phone if she knew he was up so late. The thought sent guilt eating at my guts. I hadn’t called in a few weeks—too busy with the new house, new school, new job. I shouldn’t have let it go so long. Grandpa had stage four lung cancer, and his condition was worsening almost daily. Weeks-long gaps in phone calls were inexcusable.
“So, what’s up? You know I’m happy to talk with you, but it is a little late for you to call.”
He harrumphed, and nostalgia and grief nearly overwhelmed me. I was going to miss that about him. “I got a strange phone call.”
“A phone call? From whom?”
“Called himself Richard Smith. Said he was a researcher. Claimed to be interested in the family legends.”
Doubt twisted in my gut. “The family legends?”
Another wet cough and a wheezing breath. I knew the muffled sound I caught next was him spitting into a tissue. Lung cancer sucked.
; “In fact,” Grandpa said after clearing his throat, “seems he ran into an artifact from 1897 that he thought I’d be interested in.”
I stilled. It couldn’t be. “You don’t actually think….” I couldn’t bring myself to voice the question. What were the chances after all this time?
Back in the late 1890s, an ancestor of mine had shot a huge bird out of the sky. Its feathers were pitch-black, so dark that light didn’t reflect off them but was instead absorbed into the filaments. He claimed its wingspan was nearly twenty feet—larger than any living bird on record, then or now. It had a hodgepodge of features that, in combination, didn’t fit any other known bird species. According to his journal entry—and a very badly executed drawing—the animal had a relatively narrow sternum with unusually strong flight muscles, a broad wingspan with primary feathers that tilted up like an Andean condor. Instead of the condor’s nearly featherless neck and head, this bird’s head more closely resembled the shorter-necked, sleek-feathered, and hook-beaked golden eagle. Unlike either the condor or the eagle, it also had a pair of long paddle-shaped feathers that stretched out nearly a yard behind the broader, denser tail feathers.
So my relative did what anyone would do with such a creature. He dragged the local newspaperman—the only person in a fifty-mile radius who had a camera—to take a picture of the fantastical bird. The Arizona newspaper even ran the article. But not too long after, all copies of the newspaper and the photographic image plate had disappeared.
Grandpa snorted. “He wanted me to believe it, but I doubt it. The guy was shifty. Tried too hard to convince me the newspaper was real without giving away too many details. No, he didn’t have some long-lost edition of the Tumbleweed. Thanks to Grandpa Coleman’s notes, I knew what the article said and what the picture would have looked like. This guy was full of bullshit.”
I deflated. I should have known. After all, my family had been searching for proof of the existence of thunderbirds—or at least proof that we weren’t all completely crazy—for generations. There was no way some random researcher would have found it and also known its significance to my family.
Chasing Thunderbird Page 4
