Tracking Bear

by Thurlo, David

“No, it’s more than that. The driver is coming for us.”

  “Because he’s got a lead foot and driving like a bat out of hell? That just makes him a victim of his own stupidity.”

  The pickup on steroids was closing, less than fifty yards behind them, and Ella couldn’t see the driver because of the tinted glass. Having first sped up a bit, Ella now decided to cut her speed, so she’d be able to maneuver without risking a rollover.

  “Okay, now I believe you,” he said, as the truck closed in. Blalock unfastened the safety strap on his gun and checked his seat belt and shoulder harness.

  Wary of the sound of a weapon being fired inside a vehicle, Ella rolled down her window completely, and Blalock did the same on his side, doubling their options. She looked ahead, noting the oncoming lane was clear. “I’m going to hit the brakes at the same time I move to the shoulder,” Ella said. “He’ll have to swerve and should zip past me if I time it right. Then we’ll take off after him.”

  “Go for it.”

  Ella hit the brakes and the tires screamed, but the Jeep tracked properly without fishtailing. The driver of the pickup suddenly pulled up to her left, but instead of racing past them, swung the heavy pickup into the side of the tribal unit.

  Ella hadn’t expected that move, and the wheel nearly jerked out of her hands. She hit the brakes again, trying to let the pickup by, but the driver sideswiped them again by the left rear fender, and she barely kept her unit on the road.

  “Okay, that’s it.” Blalock pulled out his weapon. “Lean back, Ella.”

  As the pickup came close and rammed them again, Blalock reached over in front of her and fired off one shot. The round struck the windshield of the truck, but missed the driver.

  The shot must have unnerved the driver because he suddenly swerved hard, nearly losing control of the pickup, then roared away.

  Ella had to fight to maintain control of the Jeep, her ears still ringing from the blast of the handgun. “We have a flat!” she yelled, steering toward the side of the road and trying to resist the temptation to hit the brakes. The Jeep slowed, weaving slightly, and they eased off onto the shoulder, coming to a stop just before the big curve leading into Shiprock, less than three miles away.

  “Did you see the license plate?” Ella asked, her body shaking with anger and from the sudden burst of adrenaline that had shot through her system.

  “It had been removed,” Blalock said, unfastening his seat belt.

  “Too bad.” Ella called Dispatch, but had to listen carefully. Her ears were still ringing.

  “Are you hurt?” Blalock asked.

  “No, but my damned ears are ringing. You?”

  “I’m fine—pissed off, but fine.” He stepped out of the unit and took a deep breath, then walked around for a moment, taking a look at the front tire, which had lost its tread from one of the collisions with the big truck. “Did you get a look at the driver? He seemed hunkered down, or maybe it was the fact that he was sitting higher up. All I saw clearly was a baseball cap and some kind of jacket.”

  “Dark hair, too. Sunglasses. Dark-skinned or good tan.” She paused, then added, “And there was a pro-NEED bumper sticker stuck to the back bumper.”

  After they changed the flat and determined that the scratched paint and dented body wouldn’t affect the operation of the vehicle, it didn’t take long to reach Shiprock. Ella dropped Blalock at his office, then went to her station and made out a full report. The chief wasn’t going to like another tribal car needing major body-work, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Searching for Big Ed but not finding him, she left the written report on his desk, then drove home.

  Though it was dusk, by the time she got there Ella could see her daughter eating her dinner outside, a few feet away from the pony. The animal was not in the corral, but tethered near Dawn’s bedroom window, munching on the remnants of a flake of hay.

  “What’s this?” Ella asked, going directly to the back, where Rose and Dawn were huddled up in their winter coats, standing against the outside wall.

  “Your daughter insisted on eating with the pony,” Rose said with a sigh. “But when she finishes, she’s going right to bed.”

  Ella looked at her daughter’s face. “You know you can’t do this every night, right? The pony needs time to be a pony, and that means being by himself.”

  “But I want to be with him. Ponies need friends, too.”

  “You wouldn’t want to be at school with your friends all the time, would you? You like playing by yourself sometimes, too. At night it’s time for the pony to eat his dinner and rest. That way the pony can be your friend, but still be true to himself. Then you both will have balance and harmony, and walk in beauty.”

  Dawn nodded somberly. “Okay.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw Rose looking at her in surprise. Ella smiled, looked at Rose, and, in a soft voice, added, “What? I do accept the old ways, Mom. I just can’t live them the way you and my brother do.”

  Ella saw the spark of hope in Rose’s eyes and bit back a sigh. Rose would never stop hoping that she’d embrace the old ways fully. But that hope would always remain unfulfilled. As much as she wanted to believe wholeheartedly in tribal traditions, she’d never be able to do that. Her heart would always be caught in the middle—torn between who she was and who she thought she should be.

  After dinner, Ella put Dawn to bed and read her a story about a young mouse and his adventures. Before she’d gotten to the last page, Dawn was fast asleep.

  Ella returned to the living room, and found Rose sitting on the sofa, talking to Herman Cloud.

  These days it didn’t bother Ella that her mother was spending time with Herman. What bothered her was that her mother went out on more dates than she did. Herman nodded when she came in, and started to stand. Ella motioned him to sit, then, with a rueful smile, she plopped down into her mother’s favorite chair. If her mother wanted privacy, she’d let her know soon enough.

  “Daughter, I was very proud of what you said to my granddaughter about harmony and balance.” She smiled. “You may become a traditionalist yet.”

  “Mom, that’ll never happen. But that doesn’t mean I don’t value the beliefs that have kept our people strong. They’re a part of our heritage, beliefs I’d like my daughter to understand and respect. Of course, what she ultimately chooses to do with that knowledge in the future will be up to her.”

  “Then I will hope that she’ll choose to be a traditionalist.”

  Ella laughed. “We’ll see. You never give up, do you?”

  Rose just smiled.

  “Speaking of that, I need you two to help me with something. I have to find the scientist—the father of the patrolman who was killed,” she said, avoiding proper names out of respect for her traditionalist mother and Herman.

  Herman nodded. “I know who you mean.”

  “I think he’s in danger, but I’m not sure he knows or cares. I was told he went camping, so he’s probably in one of the more remote areas still accessible by vehicle, perhaps the mountains or foothills. I was hoping that you could get word out to the Plant Watchers, and ask them to contact me if they see him or spot signs of a campsite around this part of the Rez.”

  “We’d be happy to do that for you, daughter,” Rose said.

  Leaving her mother alone with Herman, Ella went into the kitchen, grabbed a plateful of olives as a snack, then went back to her room. Sitting at her computer, she retrieved e-mail from Harry. Reading on, she smiled at his accounting of one assignment where everything had gone wrong.

  Rose came in as Ella finished answering her e-mails. “I worry about you, daughter,” she said, and sat down at the edge of her bed.

  “Things are dangerous for all our officers now,” she answered, thinking she meant the budgetary and equipment problems.

  “No, I mean the side of you that’s not a cop.”

  Ella smiled ruefully. “Is that still there?”

  “The fact that you have to ask is
why I worry,” Rose said. “You need to get out more and just have fun.”

  “I was thinking about that myself,” she answered with a chuckle. “How are things between you and Bizaadii?” she asked.

  “I care for him, and he for me. And he shares my concerns about the land and, in particular, the reclamation efforts that have failed so miserably.” Rose took a deep breath, then continued. “It saddens me to see our land lying waste, poisoned, and no one trying hard enough to fix the problem. That’s why many my age have died of ch’ééná, a sadness for what’s gone and can never return. But with Bizaadii I can share those feelings and that makes them easier to bear.”

  “It was never like that between you and Dad, was it?” Ella asked.

  Rose shook her head. “I loved him. He had courage, and there was something about him, a presence, that made him stand out in any crowd.” She smiled, reminiscing. “Your father could sway people with only a smile. But he believed in the Christian God with all his heart. That made things difficult for us.”

  “You each remained true to what you felt was right, but I remember the toll it took on you both.” She recalled the arguments long into the night. Rose had wanted to bring up her children as traditionalists, but Ella’s father wouldn’t hear of it.

  Eventually, as a teenager Clifford chose to become a traditionalist like Rose. Ella had opted for neither her mother’s nor her father’s way. That had left her searching for her own identity and desperate to get away from the Rez.

  Now she’d returned home for good, but sometimes walking the path she’d chosen was the most difficult of all. Inside, she was as alone as she’d ever been.

  “Will you ever marry your marshal friend?” Rose asked her softly. “Do you even want to?”

  “A part of me does, but then I stop to think about it, and reality crashes down on me. As a marshal he wouldn’t be here half of the time. And when he was here, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee that I wouldn’t be off working on a case. Our lives are too alike in some ways to make them converge.”

  “Remember that your job is only part of who you are. Don’t sacrifice everything for your career. Nothing is worth that price.”

  “I know. Someday I’ll retire, Dawn will be all grown up, and I’ll find myself alone,” Ella said, anticipating her mother’s objections.

  “Yes, that’s a possibility. And if all you’ve ever known and loved is police work, when that’s no longer there you may have a more difficult time adjusting to what remains of your life.”

  “I know,” Ella said quietly. “But I have to follow the path that’s right for me—whether it’s easy or hard makes no difference.”

  “In that way, we’re the same.” Rose sighed, then stood up. “I better get some sleep. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to the group that’s planning to sue one of the old uranium companies. I’d like them to address the issue of reclamation again and make that part of their suit.”

  Ella gazed at her mother as she walked out of the room, her back straight and tall. Her mother had changed. Rose was stronger now than she’d ever been. She’d come into her own and walked the new path she’d chosen with the kind of confidence that came from knowing she was in the right. Her mother’s courage came from that sure knowledge and, because of it, she’d be unbeatable.

  Without news about Kee or the pickup that had collided with her and Blalock, except that the pickup was probably one reported stolen in Farmington, Ella and Justine set out the next morning to find Delbert Shives. They’d been told that he would be in his office at the power plant, where he worked half days.

  “We’ve been around this guy many times, but all we really know about him is that he’s a chemist, worked with Kee Franklin at one time, and has been coordinating visits for the police departments and the local power facilities. I wonder what the real Delbert Shives is like away from the job,” Ella said.

  “He’s been on his best behavior around police officers, but I’ve heard that he’s a strange bird. I asked one of my cousins who works at the power plant, and she said that Shives doesn’t get along with many people. He does his work, and he’s very good at what he does, but he’s a pain to deal with.”

  “What we want from him is information about Kee. Focus on that, and we’ll keep hammering him until we get something.”

  “If what you told me already is correct, he hasn’t worked with Kee for a long time,” Justine reminded her. “He may not know anything useful.”

  “If all I get from him is an insight into Kee that’ll help me narrow down his whereabouts, I’ll be happy.”

  They arrived at the power plant’s administration offices a short time later. After introducing themselves to a receptionist, a young Navajo woman in her early twenties, they waited.

  Delbert Shives came out to greet them moments later, smiling and apparently in a good mood. “What can I do for you, ladies?”

  “Is there someplace we can speak in private?” Ella asked.

  Shives gave her a surprised look, then nodded and took her into his office, which was next to a room labeled Chemistry Lab. “This sounds serious,” he commented, shutting the door behind him. “What’s going on?”

  “We understand that you worked with Dr. Kee Franklin in Los Alamos,” Ella said, taking a seat.

  His eyebrows went up. “Yes, I did, back when I was a lot younger. But I can’t talk about it. My research work remains classified.”

  “We don’t need any details of the work itself. We want to learn more about Dr. Franklin,” Ella said.

  “May I ask why?”

  “It’s all part of an ongoing police investigation.”

  He took a seat behind his desk and gazed at them with a thoughtful, penetrating look. “He didn’t get killed, too, did he? Or is he a suspect in his son’s death?”

  Ella shook her head. “As I said, I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  “All right. I’ll try to answer your questions, just don’t ask me about the research itself. I’d have to get special clearance before I could discuss it, even though it was years ago.”

  “Were you well paid for your work at the labs?” Ella asked.

  “Definitely,” Shives said without hesitation. “I was working through a subcontractor, though. Dr. Franklin was the one making the big bucks and had a permanent staff position.”

  “Yet he quit,” Justine interjected.

  “The problem with Dr. Franklin is that he’s an idealist. He should have been in medicine or one of the life sciences. A physicist…well that’s more like death science,” he added with a smile.

  “You think Dr. Franklin quit because he couldn’t support the more destructive applications of his work?” Ella said.

  “That’s what I thought. Once he started preaching at the labs about the abuses of the mining industry and at the uranium mills, the handwriting was on the wall. He was becoming antinuke, which made him a security risk and an embarrassment to the labs. He knew he didn’t have long before he was given the choice either to quit or be fired, so he did what he had to do.”

  Ella wondered about this bit of new information. No one at the labs had mentioned it. It sounded logical under the circumstances, and it was the kind of situation that would have been kept from the public. “Have you stayed in touch with Dr. Franklin since he left the labs?”

  “Not at all. I haven’t seen him for years. All I know is that he ended up teaching at a junior college in Los Alamos.”

  Delbert’s phone rang. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, picking up the phone and turning away from them.

  Ella studied his office, then her glance fell on the newspaper sticking out from the bottom in-and-out tray on his desk. It was a recent edition of the campus newspaper from the community college in Shiprock. Ella could see that one of the lead stories was about a lecture Kee had given.

  Either it was coincidence, or Shives was playing coy with them about Kee Franklin, trying to appear uninformed and uninterested. Ella tuned in to the conversation
and heard him call the person at the other end of the line “Margaret.”

  Ella waited until he hung up, then followed up on her suspicions. “I couldn’t help but overhear you mention someone by name. Are you regularly in touch with Margaret Bruno?”

  He nodded. “We have a common interest, security at the local power plants and mines. As you know, at her request I’ve been introducing her to local enforcement groups, and I helped her set up your team’s training session at the power plant. Did you need to speak to Ms. Bruno? She left me her cell number.”

  “I think I have it somewhere. I just wanted her to know how much we got out of her pursuit driving workshop. Will you tell her for me next time you speak?” Ella asked.

  “Certainly.”

  “Our workshops have ended. Is she still giving workshops on the reservation?” Justine added.

  “No, but she hasn’t left the area. She’s staying in Farmington with me right now.” His face turned red when he saw Justine’s jaw drop. “Margaret is my foster sister, Officer Goodluck. We grew up together.”

  The news surprised them, but she didn’t comment. Justine merely nodded.

  “If you have no more questions, ladies, I really should get back to work,” Shives said.

  “One more thing. Do you recall if Dr. Franklin ever mentioned having a special camping spot on the reservation, or in this area?” Ella tried to sound casual.

  He shook his head. “Sorry. Dr. Franklin and I worked together, but we were never close friends. We seldom spoke of anything that didn’t pertain to work. When he was at Los Alamos Labs, he was always totally immersed in what he was doing, and he had no patience for chitchat.”

  “Okay,” Ella said, and stood. “Thank you for your time.”

  As they walked out, Justine glanced at Ella. “What the heck were you looking at on his desk?”

  Ella told her. “I think he’s lying to us. Now we have to figure out why.”

  “I’m still working on that background check you wanted.”

  “Great, but don’t waste time on the years he was connected to the labs at Los Alamos. Concentrate on the last, say, five years. I want to know what he’s done since he worked with Franklin. And see what kind of evaluation he’s getting at the power plant now.”