Hunter Moon

by Jenna Kernan

  That had left Clay and Kino in the middle of the mess. Clay had skipped school to go hunting, escaping into the woods. He’d failed everything and been left back, but he’d just kept cutting class. She’d reminded him that without his diploma the marines wouldn’t take him. That was when he’d confessed that it killed him to come to school and have her ignore him.

  Then his father had been murdered.

  “I couldn’t stand it,” he said. “I thought you wouldn’t talk to me because of my dad. He ruined a lot of things. Then he died, and I thought, finally, it will get better.”

  Izzie had gone to the funeral. Clay had not. But he was back in school and his grades came up. Sometimes they would study together in the school library. He’d hit the books and studied hard. He just made it through his sophomore year and she her junior year. She’d really thought he’d make it into the US Marines. Then, over the summer, his mother had gone to that competition in South Dakota. Seven months short of his seventeenth birthday...

  “Then your mother and sister died. Or we thought your sister died.”

  He clasped his hands together and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Did I tell you that Kino is taking Lea up to South Dakota after they see some sights? He’s going to find her. I just know it.”

  She rested a hand on his forearm. “I hope so.”

  He smiled and placed his hand over hers. “Iz, I was so angry at the world and myself back then, I couldn’t see straight. The only good thing in all that time was you.”

  She resisted the pull to move closer. That had always been the way with him. She was too old now for her mother to keep her from seeing whoever she pleased. But Clay was now working for the livestock manager, who had her cows. Would they really fire him for seeing her? And hadn’t she caused him enough trouble?

  “I shouldn’t have gone out with him. But I was so desperate to see you.”

  Clay gave her a look of confusion.

  “Seeing Martin was the only way I could think of to be with you.”

  He gave his head a quick shake as if he did not believe his ears, and he gaped. She held her breath, waiting for him to call her all the things she called herself, a coward, a traitor, a child. She had been all of that and more. But he just stared, and she exhaled, realizing the next breath had to choke past the lump in her throat.

  “Is that true?” he asked, his voice now a low whisper.

  “Yes.” Tears stung her eyes. She lifted her chin and fought a battle against them and lost. “It was stupid. They forbade me to see you. But when I was with Martin, you were there. At least in the beginning.”

  “Before he started bragging.”

  Izzie gasped. “About us?” Shock dissipated, to be replaced with outrage. “I never once. We never! It’s a lie.”

  He let his hand slide from hers. She returned them to her lap.

  He met her gaze. Held it. Then he nodded his acceptance of her declaration. My Lord, no wonder he stayed away. And Martin had pressed her so hard.

  “Did he tell you why I broke up with him?”

  Clay lifted a brow. “He said he dumped you.”

  Izzie made a sound of frustration and swiped at the tears. Then she stared out at the blue waters where once they had all dared each other to jump from the cliffs. Clay had jumped first. Back before her parents had heard the rumors about Clay. Before they had made it impossible for her to see him. Before Clay took a gun and robbed a store.

  She watched the golden sunlight of late afternoon glint on the water in wide bands. She thought that their relationship had become like that lake, just the surface visible and so many secrets hidden beneath the calm water.

  Her anger burned away, leaving her hollow and more tired than she could ever remember.

  “Clay, will you tell me what happened that day?”

  He hesitated, then answered with his own question. “Haven’t you heard the story?”

  She had. Several versions. Rubin had no connections and so had gone to federal prison. Clay, the son of a drug trafficker and meth addict, had a war-hero uncle in the FBI, a brother on the tribal council and another on the police force. He’d gotten off easy. That’s what folks said. But she was no longer interested in that story. She wanted his story.

  “The paper said the records were sealed because you were a minor.”

  He pursed his lips and blew out a breath. “What do you want to know?”

  Chapter Nine

  Clay waited with a hollow resignation for the questions. In the seconds before she spoke he decided to tell her everything. Couldn’t be worse than the rumors. Could it?

  “Why did Rubin go to prison, when you went to a detention center?” Izzie asked. “Was it because of your uncle, like everyone says, or something else? And why did you say that you will not be set up again?”

  He tried to think to consider his reply, but Izzie’s questions buzzed about inside his head like a hive of angry hornets, stinging him. The poison of his past seeped into his bloodstream, making him as cold as the chilled lake waters.

  He’d been so angry back then. Sick with anger, drowning in it. Angry at his father for getting killed and angry at Clyne for picking the marines over his miserable broken family and at Gabe for leaving to ride the rodeo circuit and then sending most of his money home. Angry at the need for that money and the way his mother watched for the mail. Angry that his older brothers found a way out that left Clay and Kino behind, at Kino for idolizing his druggie father after his death, at his mother for driving to South Dakota to win a contest only to die, and angry at the drunk driver who crossed the center line to use his pickup truck as a battering ram against his mother’s Honda Civic.

  All the same stuff that happened to him had happened to Gabe and Clyne, but somehow they’d never missed a step as Clyne took over providing for the family and Gabe took over managing the household. It was as if they didn’t even miss them. Only Kino had faltered, fixating on his need to avenge their father, as if he deserved it, which he didn’t.

  “I always meant to tell you, Izzie.” He cast her a glance and was immediately sorry. She glared at him. She was not the open-minded girl she had once been. Perhaps he was lucky that she even cared to ask. Or perhaps she didn’t care about him so much as worrying about what kind of a man she had chosen to read sign.

  “But you never did,” she said.

  “Hard to. I called. Left messages.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I didn’t know that.”

  He sat back on the log as realization struck. Her parents never told her. Of course they hadn’t. But he had also tried in person.

  “You wouldn’t speak to me. I tried, that day outside Elkhorn Drugs. And again after church.”

  “I remember I was with my parents, who had forbidden me to speak to you. My dad threatened to turn me out if I was seen with you.”

  Clay dropped his head, and his blunt cut hair fell in a curtain about his face. It didn’t hide his shame. Who could blame them? If Izzie had been his daughter, he wouldn’t have allowed her within a mile of him.

  “Clay, my father is dead, and my mom, well, she and I are having troubles. And I want to hear. Will you tell me, please? I’ll listen. I promise.”

  It was all he could hope for.

  “First, tell me what you think you know.”

  “All right.” She looked skyward and drew in a long breath.

  “I know that there was a robbery. Martin shot the clerk. The clerk was Native and a few years older than me. I didn’t know him, but I know his family. Rubin was with Martin in the mini-mart. You waited in the car. Their driver. I know you took them to and from the convenience store in that car of yours.”

  She didn’t say it was a worse piece of junk than the truck he now drove. His first car, more Bondo than metal unless you counted the coat hanger holdin
g up the muffler. He’d been saving up then and now, for what he didn’t know. A truck, a bus ticket, a fresh start, a chance to make something of himself.

  Izzie gathered a strand of hair, absently sliding her fingers along the length. “I know it was a 2001 hatchback. Terrible choice for a getaway car.” She arched a brow and then continued. “I know Gabe was the patrolman who came after you. I know that Martin fired at him with a pistol, and Gabe killed him with a single shot. I know it was a closed coffin. I know that you and Rubin were arrested. You went to Colorado, and Rubin went to a federal prison for four years, the maximum they could give him because the crime happened on the Rez, and Rubin is Native.”

  That was all so.

  “You were charged with aiding and abetting and with fleeing the scene and...what else?”

  “Conspiracy to commit a crime. That means they say that I knew about the planned robbery beforehand and didn’t tell anyone. Anything else?”

  “I know I wrote you in Colorado, and you never wrote back.”

  That piece of news hit him hard in the gut.

  “I wrote you back,” he said. “Three times. But I never got another letter.”

  Her gaze flicked to him. “You wrote?”

  He nodded. Izzie’s generous lips pressed thin. She was puzzling it out, deciding if he was lying or if her parents had taken them.

  “Why should I believe you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Nobody does. Not even the courts.”

  Clay leaned back, gathering his knee and lacing his fingers around his shin as a counterbalance.

  Izzie turned toward him, sitting sideways on the log.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  He felt so tired, but he faced her and gave her a look, making sure she wanted to hear. She nodded.

  “Tell me.” It wasn’t a resounding affirmation of faith, but that needed to be earned. From what he’d seen since returning more than six years ago, not many folks were even willing to hear his side.

  Izzie waited.

  It was a start. But the telling was hard. He didn’t like it because it made him look stupid. He had been a fool. A fool for Izzie. A fool to trust Martin. A fool to go with them that day.

  “I got my GED,” he said.

  Her nostrils flared, and she angled her head, staring, still waiting.

  “Okay, listen, okay...where to start?” His throat was dry. He shifted nervously and then thought that this just made him look guilty, as if he was thinking up a lie. He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders as he once did before nodding at the handlers to open the shoot at the rodeo. Eight seconds on a whirlwind, that was what Clyne called riding a bucking bronc. This was worse. “That day, Rubin cut school. Martin and me, we’d already dropped out. Martin unofficially—me, well, my paperwork was submitted and filed.”

  Izzie shook her head in disapproval. “You were so close to graduating.”

  “I was miles away from graduating. I needed to get out of here. Thought if the marines wouldn’t take me I could make a living riding broncs.”

  “Like Clyne and Gabe,” she said.

  But he hadn’t rode broncs until after juvie.

  “Anyway, Rubin’s father is a trucker. He hauls different stuff.” Clay didn’t want to say anything that might make Izzie a target, so he kept it general. This kind of information was dangerous.

  “He works for the cartels,” said Izzie.

  Clay raised his brows in surprise.

  “That’s what my father said. But he hauls regular stuff, too. Potato chips, cigarettes.”

  “Women,” said Clay.

  This time Izzie’s eyes went wide.

  “That day, well, Rubin said his dad had a big job, very hush-hush. Rubin thought it was weed. It was usually weed, but when we got to his place, there was the back of the trailer in his big barn and a blue port-a-john beside it. I saw a hose leading under the closed gate of the truck, through that little opening in the back. Rubin’s dad was home, but drunk, so Rubin stole his keys and opened the back. Rubin wanted to take some pot, sell it.”

  “But not you.”

  “Izzie, Clyne was home then. Recovering from the injury. Taking charge. He was on me pretty hard. He had me working for the tribal headquarters, and Gabe had just joined the force. He thought it would be a good idea to use the new dog to check my room and car for drugs.”

  “Good for them.”

  “Yeah. I was glad to have them home. Anyway, when we opened the gate it was full of women. Girls, really. Mexicans. They were so young, and they started screaming. Rubin’s father came and cuffed Rubin across the mouth. Chipped a tooth in the front. He said the girls were on their way to Phoenix that night. The cartels promised them jobs as hostesses and waitresses, but they were going to end up in strip clubs and bars and massage parlors from here to Atlanta.”

  Izzie looked as sick as Clay felt. “What did you do?”

  “I decided to tell my brother. Gabe could come out and stop this. They were people, you know, not drugs. Kids. Younger than me, mostly. But I didn’t tell that to Rubin or Martin. Martin actually asked if he could have one of them for the day.”

  “One of who?” Izzie’s voice rang with outrage.

  Clay mopped his forehead with his hand.

  “A girl. He wanted one. Rubin’s dad laughed and said sure, if he had two hundred dollars.”

  And there it was. The reason for everything that followed.

  He didn’t understand it because at that time Martin was still dating Izzie. Anyone who had a girlfriend as pretty and sweet and smart as Isabella Nosie didn’t need to take some child. The idea of paying two hundred dollars to rape a girl made Clay sick. They hadn’t looked older than thirteen.

  “Then we left, and I thought it was over. But it wasn’t. Martin said he wanted a pop. So I stopped at that store. I just wanted to get away from them, you know, forever. I was done. But they went in, and I didn’t drive away...” God, he’d been stupid. So stupid.

  “And?”

  “And...” His shoulders rounded. “I had a flip phone. I used it. Called Gabe. He was new on the force then. Riding along with John Wilcox. I told him about the girls, and then I heard the shot. Gabe heard it, too. I told him it was gunfire and where I was. Later the attorney said I knew what they were doing and just got cold feet. Rubin and Martin ran back to the car. I dropped the phone between my legs. Gabe heard most of it.”

  “You didn’t know what they were planning beforehand?”

  “That’s what the judge asked and the police. Everyone. No. I didn’t know.”

  Clay met her disbelieving stare and shook his head.

  “Did you tell them all this?”

  “Yes. Repeatedly.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That I must have known or at least suspected. That was why I called Gabe. That I would have seen Martin’s gun. That he would have shown off with it.”

  “Well?”

  “He didn’t. But I saw the gun when he got back in the car. I saw the money, too. A fist full of it. Martin dropped it on my car mat, and they both howled like wolves. Told me to drive and I did. Martin said he had his two hundred dollars and then some.” Clay wiped his brow again, remembering.

  “Are you crazy?” Clay had said. “I can’t be part of this. My brother’s a cop.” And he’d just called him and given them their location. And his phone was still connected.

  “But you are a part, bro. Might even let you join the Wolf Posse. I’ll talk to Randall.”

  The Wolf Posse was a gang, and his grandmother lived in fear that Clay would join.

  “I don’t want to join. I told you.”

  “Well, the marines don’t want you.”

  His ears buzzed with adrenaline. What was happenin
g? The panic welled in his chest, constricting. His mind flashed an image of the last time he felt this fear, when he had opened the door to his dad’s kitchen, seeing him lying in a pool of his own blood, and his little brother Kino huddled under that kitchen table crying.

  “We gotta bring the money back,” said Clay.

  “Bring it back? I just shot a guy. I’m never going back.”

  “You shot him? Who?” asked Clay.

  “He got one right here.” Martin used the barrel of his gun to point at his own cheek. “Ow. Still hot.”

  That’s when the siren blared. Clay saw the familiar car speeding up behind them. He knew it. One just like it was parked in his grandmother’s yard every night. It was either Gabe or one of the other guys on the force. There were only twelve of them. Clay slowed down.

  “Are you crazy?” yelled Martin waving the gun. “Go. Go.”

  He did, running like a child from a consequence, knowing he’d never outrun this. His junker hit top speed. The wheels shimmied, and the steering went mushy. Behind him the police car gained.

  “Why?” said Clay.

  Martin had half turned in his seat to stare out the window at the approaching car.

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you do this?”

  “For the money, stupid.”

  “The money. You shot a man for money. You lied to me for money.”

  “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Yeah? So where’s the pop?” Even as he said it, Clay knew how ridiculous that sounded.

  Izzie’s voice jarred him from his memories.

  “Is that why Rubin was charged with armed robbery and you weren’t? You didn’t go in?”

  “Yeah. Surveillance tapes showed that Rubin drew a knife. Martin shot the clerk after he opened the register and before the guy could hit the silent alarm. Shot him in the face. He died alone on the floor behind the counter, and Martin had his money.” Clay fought against the self-loathing and the urge to go back and count all the places he could have made different choices. “Martin told me to head back to Rubin’s place. I told them I had to go pick up Kino from school, which made Martin laugh.”