by Aimée Thurlo
Hearing other footsteps, Gabriel turned around and saw his father approaching from up the arroyo. His hair was gray now and touched the top of his broad shoulders. The familiar face, with all its stubbornness and pride, refreshed Gabriel’s spirits.
“Hello, son,” he greeted. As he looked at Lanie, a smile lit up his face. “I have heard about you. I’m glad to meet you face-to-face.” He glanced at his eldest son, and Gabriel knew with that one look that his father approved of his choice. “We don’t use names here, but you know who I am.”
“The resemblance is there,” she said quietly, looking at the eldest Blackhorse. “I would have known you anywhere.”
“Sit down, please,” the hataalii said. “We don’t have much time.”
Gabriel tried to shake his uneasiness. Many said that Rudolph Harvey knew things before they happened, but right now, his gut told him he really didn’t want to know what lay ahead.
The healer looked at Lanie, his gaze deep and searching, then he focused on Gabriel. His expression was one of open concern. “Ask whatever you wish.”
“Tell us how to fight what the bowl is doing to her,” Gabriel said.
“First you must recover it. Then you must take it to where the skinwalker who crafted it was killed. The owner of the bowl,” he said, nodding to Lanie, “must break it there. That will release the witch’s chindi. You,” he said, looking at Gabriel, “as the guardian, must bury the shards inside your medicine bag along with the flint-hawk fetish and sacred pollen.”
“But if I’m linked to the bowl, then how can I break it without destroying myself?” Lanie asked.
“You are the only one who can destroy the bowl. If anyone else tries, they will die in the attempt. Since you are the rightful owner of the bowl, it is your responsibility. You will never be truly free as long as it exists. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Can you tell us where the skinwalker died, so we know where to take the bowl?” she asked.
“No. I don’t have that information. That is something you must find out for yourselves.”
The hataalii’s eyes were filled with sympathy. “You will face great odds, but you have each other. He is your guardian,” he said, looking from Lanie to Gabriel. “That role has been his destiny all along.”
“My guardian has a direct link to the bowl’s past, so his role is understandable. But why was I chosen?”
Harvey stared at a piece of quartz in his hand for a long time, as if in a trance.
Gabriel captured Lanie’s gaze, and shook his head, cautioning her wordlessly not to interrupt him. Harvey was a gifted crystal gazer. Normally that meant a finder of lost things and a diagnostician, but Harvey’s gifts clearly exceeded that. Whatever he revealed to them now might save their lives in the not too distant future.
Harvey finally looked up, his gaze on Lanie. “Your past had its share of darkness, but that darkness never claimed a victory over the goodness in you.” He drew in a long, clear breath. “An even greater darkness is now seeking to destroy that balance inside you. You have on your side the feelings between you and the guardian. Love is full of light and carries its own power. But you must embrace those feelings and allow them to fill your heart.” His voice was strong, and his words rang with the spirit of truth.
Lanie looked at Gabriel and smiled. “Love charts its own course. It didn’t need my permission to grow and deepen, but no matter what happens, I will never be sorry I met you.”
Harvey smiled and nodded in approval. “Depend on your guardian as he will depend on you. In that partnership lies your survival. You need the flint hawk’s protection, and the guardian needs you to destroy the bowl. The evil in that bowl will try to destroy you both—make no mistake about that. And neither of you can succeed without the other.” He stood up. “Now you must go, and act quickly.”
As Harvey walked off into the desert, Joshua stood beside his brother. “Don’t worry. The healer will get back safely. He often goes away for several hours.” Joshua looked at Gabriel. “When I heard about the trouble, I packed up, ready to leave, but I was told that I couldn’t join you in this fight. All I’d do is make things more difficult for you.”
The elder Blackhorse came to stand beside his sons. “I also would have left to come to your aid, but the hataalii assured me that I, too, would be more of a hindrance than a help. I’m no longer the lawman, the guardian of Four Winds.”
“This duty falls to me,” Gabriel acknowledged. “I will see it through.”
AS THEY TRAVELED back to Four Winds, regret filled Lanie’s voice. “I am going to hate destroying that bowl. When I was pushed into the well, it actually helped me survive.”
“You have to destroy it. Look at what it’s doing to you now. If you don’t do as the hataalii says, it’ll either own you or kill you.”
As the moon slipped behind the clouds and she stared at the gathering darkness descending over them, Lanie fought a sick, growing fear. Although facing danger alone was scary, facing it with a loved one was terrifying. The possibility that Gabriel would be harmed or even lose his life in the battle that lay ahead filled her with suffocating dread.
The aches and pains corkscrewing through her body as a result of being separated from the bowl intensified…but they were nothing in comparison to the heartache she felt when she thought about losing Gabriel. She swallowed back tears, gathering her courage. They’d handle this to gether. One way or another, they’d protect each other and see this through;
LANE WOKE UP shortly after dawn the next morning. She moved slowly, stretching carefully. Pain was her constant companion these days. She felt as old as a biblical patriarch. Uncomfortable, she got out of bed and dressed.
The house was still; nobody was up yet. Lanie walked to the living room and drew open the curtains. As light streamed into the room, she saw an envelope that had been slid underneath the door. It had her name on it. She gathered it up and tore it open. The note inside had been printed in block letters.
The bowl is yours if you convince the sheriff to clear the roadblocks and turn his souped-up four-wheeldrive vehicle over to me. If you don’t, I’ll start setting fires until all that’s left of Four Winds are ashes and rubble. Go to the library this morning for a demonstration. If my terms are accepted, have the sheriff fire off three rounds into the air at the crossroads before the highway. More instructions will follow.
The letter T was scrawled at the bottom of the page. Lanie ran down the hall to wake Gabriel, but as she reached his door, he opened it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, buttoning his shirt.
“How…?”
“I don’t know. I woke up early and I felt…” He stopped, trying to find the right words. “I felt your fear.”
She held out the note. “This was slipped underneath the door.”
He read it and then headed quickly down the hall. “Call Jake Fields. Tell him to get out of the library building.” Gabriel ran for the door.
Lanie rushed to the phone just as a sleepy Marlee came out of her bedroom. In between rings, she explained the note. Finally, after the eighth ring, Jake answered, grumbling into the phone.
“Don’t ask me to explain, just get out of the library now!”
“Lady, I’m not going…”
“Someone’s planning to burn it down.”
“Why the heck didn’t you say so?”
He didn’t hang up. She heard the phone hit something, then the noise of something being toppled over. “Jake?”
Not getting an answer, she rushed out the door and jogged all the way down Main Street. She arrived breathlessly at the library several minutes later. Everything looked fine. Maybe it was a hoax after all.
As she drew closer, she saw Gabriel dragging Jake out of the building. Then suddenly, Jake pulled away, his arms raised in a military fighting stance.
“Look here, Sheriff, I’m not—”
The earth shook, and the air reverberated with a breathtaking blast that sent glass flying everywhere. Gab
riel and Jake were tossed away from the building like mannequins. As they scrambled to their feet, fire erupted inside the library.
The street had been empty, but quickly people started arriving from nearby houses. Lanie looked for signs of the fire department, then realized that she’d never heard anyone mention one. Maybe Four Winds didn’t have fire protection, and that was why the threat had been so effective.
Lanie joined people dragging lengths of garden hose from their yards, linking them together to spray small streams of water at the burning structure. As her gaze shifted to the ever expanding blaze inside the library, she knew it was a hopeless battle. The others must have known it, too, yet everyone kept working. Lanie realized then that the fighting spirit was alive and well in Four Winds. Even more important, she was now part of it.
Chapter Seventeen
Alma stood with Lanie beside the charred building. Smoke still curled up from the embers, and some of the men were still extinguishing hot spots with garden hoses.
“Our beautiful library…it’s gone,” Alma said. “I can’t believe it. I hope we have enough insurance to cover the building and most of the contents. But some of the collections were irreplaceable.”
Lanie glanced at Jake, who was helping Gabriel search the ruins for the device that caused the fire. “That poor man! Where will he live now? He’s just lost all his possessions and his job!”
“Nobody ever loses their job in Four Winds. If anything, he’ll be working twice as hard to build a new library. In the meantime, he’ll more than likely move to Marlee’s.”
Gabriel came over and took Lanie aside. “The town got off lucky. That fire could have spread to Main Street if the wind had kicked up. We don’t have a fire department here—we share with the next town, and theirs was already on another call.”
“Maybe the flint hawk is helping us now.”
He nodded. “Yes, I believe it is. Jake and I escaped the blast unharmed. But now it’s my turn to buy us all some time. I’m going to fire off those shots and let Ted think we’re playing his game.”
Lanie watched Gabriel leave. Fear for his safety lay like a cloud over her soul. With one last look at the ruined library, she turned and walked back to the shop with Alma. “May I have today off? I’d like to go back to Marlee’s and help her prepare a room for Jake.”
“I’ll tell you what. Give me an hour, and help me with some catalog copy. It’s got to be faxed in by ten this morning. After that, you can go back to Marlee’s. That sound fair?”
“Sure.”
Alma opened the door, went inside, then stopped in midstep. “What’s this?” She picked up the small folded sheet of paper from the floor.
Lanie felt herself grow cold all over. It looked like the note she’d received back at Marlee’s.
“Your name’s on it,” she said, handing it to Lanie. “Secret admirer?”
“Hardly.”
She opened it with trembling hands. Ted’s block printing caught her eye immediately. She dropped down in a chair and read the message.
If I hear the shots and my terms have been accepted, then come to the old abandoned barn just outside town. I want you both there and in plain view. No one else! To show my good faith, I’ll come out into the open, unarmed. You get the bowl, and in exchange, I get the sheriff’s Jeep and no roadblocks. This will be your last chance to get the bowl back.
“My dear, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What on, earth does that note say?”
Lanie shook her head. “Believe me, Alma, if’s better you don’t know.” She stood up and hurried to the door. “I can’t stay, I’m sorry.”
Lanie walked out of the shop and rushed to the site of the fire. She had planned to ask for directions to the crossroads where she knew Gabriel would be, but as she approached, she saw him still there by his vehicle talking to some men.
Taking him aside, she handed him the note. As he read it, she watched his expression grow deadly.
“I’m tired of playing cat and mouse. Let’s go now. I’ll fire off the shots, then continue on to the meeting place.”
Gabriel spent several moments on his radio. Once finished, they were on their way. The landscape was nothing more than a blur past Lanie’s window. She was sure she’d never ridden in a car going that fast before. It was both exhilarating and frightening. Yet what seemed the most ironic was that she was having that experience because of the happenings in a small town called Four Winds.
Gabriel arrived at the crossroads, screeching to a stop. Then, standing by the side of the road, he fired three rounds into the soft bedding inside an arroyo where the bullets would impact safely. Before slipping into the driver’s seat again, he reached into the back and handed Lanie a bulletproof vest. “Put this on and don’t take it off until I tell you.”
“But what about you?”
“I can shoot back—that makes me a harder target. You won’t be armed.”
She considered his logic, and it made sense. She wasn’t sure if that was because of the fever, but she accepted his argument.
Gabriel drove to a ridge overlooking the abandoned ranch and looked at the dilapidated barn surrounded by pines that stood on the property. He studied everything that would be in their path as they slowly approached from the highway. “There’s a third player in this—remember that. We could be walking into an ambush.”
“Why don’t they just make a run for it with the bowl?”
“They have to stack the deck a little more in their favor first. They want the roadblocks down first to make sure no one tracks them easily. With my Jeep, they can travel across terrain like these mountains without a problem. Using my police radio they can monitor communications, and with a few supplies on hand, the thief gives himself several options, including hiding out in the mountains until the heat is off. After things cool off for him, he’ll undoubtedly ditch my vehicle, and take off in something that won’t attract so much attention.”
“Are the roadblocks down now?”
“No. They just moved farther back down the road. The state police will continue looking for someone of Ted’s description, instead of stopping everyone. It isn’t as effective, but it’s better than nothing. Since the barn is up on a hill, Ted can see the main roads from there.”
“Once they have the Jeep and we have the bowl, do you think they’ll just leave us alone?”
“I won’t lie to you, so don’t ask a question like that unless you want a blunt answer.”
“Tell me.” Lanie tried to keep the fear from her voice, but her hands were shaking.
He took a deep breath, then let it out again. “We know that your death will increase the value of the bowl. It’s to their advantage to get you out of the way before they leave the area.” He paused and met her gaze. “But first they have to go through me.”
THEY ARRIVED at the abandoned barn fifteen minutes later.
Gabriel parked behind cover of some boulders. The area was dotted with piñon and juniper, and to their left, the forested area rose from the base of a hill. “Stay low to the ground until we know what we’re up against,” he said, grabbing the shotgun.
Gabriel slipped out and placed the shotgun on the ground by the base of the largest boulder, then crept forward. As he did, Ted came out from inside the barn.
“I’ve been waiting for you two long enough!” he yelled. “Come on, now, guys. I don’t have all day.” He held out the bowl, touching it gingerly by its sides. “I’m not packing a gun, so let’s get going on this. Set down your side arm, Sheriff. Otherwise, I’m going to get nervous, and I doubt any of us here knows exactly what’ll happen if I drop this bowl.”
Gabriel stood where he could be seen, dangling the keys from his finger. “Here are the keys to my Jeep.” He tossed them toward Ted, but made sure they landed just out of his reach. “Leave the bowl exactly where the keys landed.”
“I want Lanie out in the open, too, then I want you both to step away from the vehicle,” Ted ordered, setting the bowl down.
Gabriel motioned to Lanie, and they began edging sideways, weaving in and out among the boulders, making it impossible for anyone to get a clear shot at them. But a clearing stood directly in their path and was unavoidable. The moment they reached it, a bullet whizzed by and a rifle cracked.
Gabriel dove for cover, pushing Lanie to the ground beside him. “Stay down,” he yelled, reaching for the backup revolver in his boot.
“You made it too easy, Sheriff.” Ted laughed. “I’ll have your vehicle, the bowl and both of you dead.”
Gabriel saw Ted reach inside a dilapidated feeding trough and pull out a rifle. “You won’t get away with this, Burns. The state police are still manning the roadblocks—they just moved back out of sight. They’ll be on your tail the second I don’t report in:”
A barrage of gunfire pinned them down. Gabriel knew Ted was advancing, while his partner held them in position.
“Just in case you’re thinking of shooting me, Sheriff,” Ted yelled out, “keep in mind I’ve got the bowl in my jacket. If I fall, or if a stray bullet hits me, it’s history.”
Gabriel cursed under his breath as he helped Lanie crawl behind the base of a large stump. “Here,” he said, handing her the small revolver. “Point and squeeze the trigger if there’s no other option.”
“Where will you be?”
“Hunting.”
Gabriel slipped among the rocks and the trees, melding into the shadows. Stealth would be their only ally now. He considered going for the shotgun. It was less than ten yards away, but then opted against it. Instead, he reached for the knife at his belt. Ted would have to pass him here before reaching Lanie. If he could neutralize Ted, he’d even out the odds and take the bowl. He was sure Ted’s partner would not risk damaging the artifact with more gunfire.
Ted advanced confidently while his partner continued to cover him. Gabriel waited, muscles tense.
As Ted passed by, Gabriel reached up and yanked him to the ground. After one well-placed punch, Ted’s body grew limp. “See that, buddy boy? I didn’t have to damage you or the bowl.”
