by Jenna Kernan
He caught movement from the dining room, and then the sound of a pistol shot pinged. Clay ducked back into the hallway, crouching behind the wall, knowing from the bullet hole that now pierced the Sheetrock above him that the wall offered no protection.
He pushed the call button on his phone. Dropped the phone in his breast pocket and then reached for the rifle.
“Don’t shoot. It’s Clay Cosen.”
“Clay?”
He knew the voice but could not place it.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Arnold Tessay. Don’t shoot.”
Arnold Tessay? What was the councilman doing here? Was that his vehicle? Clay tried to recall if Tessay was related to Rubin. Apache family trees were complicated. It wasn’t hard to trace everyone back to a mutual relation. Then Clay’s brain reengaged. Tessay had fought hard against Izzie’s permits. He’d insisted on the quarantine of her herd. And he was cousin to Rubin’s father.
“Did you shoot Rubin?” asked Clay.
“I’m putting down my gun. Come out.”
Clay thought he wouldn’t do that just yet. He hoped Gabe had picked up but couldn’t check without releasing one hand from the rifle.
“I called Gabe. He’s on his way.” He said that loud enough for his brother to hear, if he’d picked up. “Why are you here, Mr. Tessay?”
“If you’re staying, I’m going.”
There was a thump, like something heavy hitting the bare floor. A moment later Clay heard the back door open and close. He took a look into the room, where Rubin’s body remained. But now there was a pistol just beyond his outstretched right hand as if he’d died with it in his grip. Clay turned and saw the bullet hole in the wall and a new kind of terror welled.
Through the open front door, Clay saw movement in the yard. He rushed to the entrance. Arnold stood beside the sedan.
Clay stared in confusion. “You can’t leave the scene of a crime.”
“Hell, boy. I can do anything I want. I’m a tribal councilman. And you’re a convicted criminal who just killed a man.”
“I didn’t kill Rubin.”
“Well, that rifle in your hand says different. It’s the murder weapon, and it’s got your prints all over it. The pistol shot came from Rubin’s gun. Unfortunately, he missed. Won’t matter. You didn’t.” Tessay removed the work gloves he wore. “Have fun in prison.”
Clay stared in horror at the rifle as Tessay laughed.
The councillor slid behind the wheel. “Two drug dealers. They’ll believe the worst and think they’re better off with you both gone. Be hard on your grandma, of course. But she’s got three good boys. That’s something.”
Clay couldn’t even speak. His numb fingers extended, and the rifle clattered to the ground.
Tessay pointed at the rifle at Clay’s feet. “See now, I thought you would have shot me. That’s why I took out the bullets.”
“You made Rubin call me. Lie to me. Get me over here.”
“Well, he works for me. Worked. And it’s no lie. Izzie is in trouble. Big trouble. Cartel is on the way to her place now. We tried to get her off that land. Lord knows, I tried. If it hadn’t been for that stupid, greedy Floyd Patch, she never would have been up there in that pasture counting her herd, nosing around. I got to go.” He started the engine.
“Why? Why take Izzie’s land?”
“It’s the perfect spot for a mobile meth lab. I’ll have it under renourishment for three years or so. That gives the cartel boys time to cook product without worrying about the Feds. As tribal council member, I’m alerted to any joint initiative with the federal authorities. Gives me time to warn them and them time to move. Scourge of our community—drugs. But very lucrative.”
Clay now understood why Gabe could never find the meth labs they knew were operating on the Rez.
“You betrayed your people.”
Arnold snorted. “Like hell. The cartel don’t sell here. They sell to the whites. I’m just doing my part to help them destroy themselves. Think of it as a modern version of the Ghost Dance, a way to make them all disappear.” He closed the door and placed an elbow on the lip of the open window.
Clay took a step in his direction and met with the snub-nosed barrel of a pistol.
“I’ll tell them what happened here.”
Arnold laughed. “Great. You do that.”
“They won’t believe you,” said Clay, his stomach twisting tighter then the cinch around a bronco’s belly. They would believe him. Every word.
Tessay grinned like a man holding a winning hand. “Wait for your brother and find out who he believes. You or the evidence. Or you can run after your girlfriend. You might get there in time to get shot, too. If I were you, I’d be heading to Mexico. Give me a call from there. I’ll hook you up as a driver, like I did for your dad.”
That information staggered Clay a step. He regained his balance as Tessay backed out and drove away. Before the dust had settled, Clay heard Gabe’s voice, far away and tiny. He drew out his phone.
“Did you hear that?” Clay asked.
“Some. Just you, really. Stay there.”
Clay was already running to his truck. “You’ve got to get to Izzie. She’s in trouble.”
“Stay there. I’m sending units to her now.”
“I’ll meet them.” He was closer to Izzie’s place than police headquarters. Closer than home where Gabe had been. He’d get there first. He had to.
* * *
CLAY MADE IT to Izzie’s place in record time. He found the house empty, and so he headed to the barn to find Max Reyes sitting on a roll of hay, his head in his hands as if he were crying. Max was a hand for hire, but since Eli had been providing her branding irons to Patch, she was shorthanded.
“Where is she?” asked Clay.
Max Reyes startled and shot to his feet, reaching for the closest weapon, which turned out to be a flat shovel used to clean stalls. His hands trembled, and his eyes were wide.
“I couldn’t stop them. They would have killed me, too.”
The idea that Izzie was already gone washed over him like cold rain. Clay stepped forward, and Max swung the shovel. Clay caught it and wrenched it from his hands. An instant later he had Max off his feet and pressed to the wall of Biscuit’s stall. Clay’s gaze flashed from Max to the place where her horse should have been.
“Where is she?”
“They called me. Told me to tell her that her cattle was wandering on the road again up by the drug cook site. An accident, they said. It would look like an accident.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know.”
Clay banged him up against the stall, and his hat fell off.
“Fifteen minutes, maybe.”
“Why didn’t she take you?”
“I told her I’d follow in the truck.”
Clay dropped Max, who sprawled on the dirty ground. Clay glanced around. He needed a horse. A fast horse. He made his choice and was lifting the saddle when Max came at him. He should have stayed down. Clay dodged the punch and countered with one of his own, hitting him square in the forehead. Max’s eyes rolled up, and he fell so hard that Clay felt the impact of his head hitting the dirt-packed floor through the soles of his boots.
He took one more moment to look at Max, who was breathing but unconscious.
“I ought to kill you,” muttered Clay. Instead, he tied Max like a roped calf, with all four appendages locked behind him. He had to get to Izzie.
Clay lifted his phone to warn her and saw he had no service. Izzie had no service, either. Not until she got up to that improved road and he hoped like crazy that she wasn’t there yet. The urgency pressed him on.
Clay gathered from her barn what he could in a hurry. Rope, saddle, blanket, machete that
Izzie used for cutting bailing twine. He always carried a lighter, knife and phone. And from his truck he grabbed his saddlebags that held his fishing kit, hooks, line, sinkers and some hunting gear. As he mounted up he wondered if having a gun would just get him killed quicker or keep Izzie alive. For the first time since returning from the elite Native American tracking unit of Immigration and Customs, known as the Shadow Wolves, he wished he carried a rifle in his car like every other Apache he knew. But everyone he knew wasn’t a convicted criminal. Everyone he knew didn’t understand the difference between a conviction with a deadly weapon and a conviction with none. The difference between him and Rubin Fox.
He had no idea how many they’d sent to kill Izzie or how they intended to make it look like an accident. But the images of her in different deadly encounters swam before him as he pressed his heels to the powerful mustang she called Red Rocket and hoped the gelding lived up to his name.
He rode to the upper pasture, hugging the fence line. Praying he wasn’t too late.
Chapter Twenty-One
Izzie kept glancing over her shoulder. Max should have been up here by now, and the longer he took the more unsettled she became. She used to be at home here, on this land, in the pasture. And if not happy, at least content with her purpose. She used to look forward to fulfilling her promise to her father, turning over the ranch to her brothers and finally beginning a life of her own. But gradually, year by year, her dreams and goals had begun to disappear. She was nearly twenty-five now. Was it already too late?
Back when she had received her Apache name, Medicine Root Woman, at the Sunrise Ceremony, she had known what she wanted to become. Then her father died. And she learned that she was good with cattle. Managed to increase her herd. But she didn’t like cattle. They were stupid and needy and fearful. She liked horses. Thought she might raise them one day. In her heart, in the places she didn’t admit aloud, she wanted to be a large animal vet. Schooling took time and it took money. Neither of which she had. Her time was not her own. The money belonged to her brothers, or it would, someday.
What would happen then, when the boys could do a man’s work and she gave them what was theirs? What would she do then?
Her eye tracked movement, always looking for gopher holes that could break a horse’s leg and harm the cattle that got themselves in every manner of predicament despite her best efforts to give them safe pastures. She spotted the large black SUV the moment it appeared from the road that led up the mountain. The size, clean exterior and shiny newness made the vehicle stand out. As it approached she noticed the tinted windows, and the hairs on her neck lifted. It looked like what she imagined might be used in the president’s motorcade. But here, on Apache land, such trucks meant only one thing: drug business.
She glanced about for the nearest cover and found the rocky slope and wooded area that led to the improved road. As she turned she saw Clay, charging up the hill on her chestnut mustang, Red Rocket. He was waving her toward the woods. His speed and the wild gestures only liquefied her unease into a cold breaking wave of panic.
She didn’t look back toward the fence or the approaching vehicle but tore across the open ground at a full gallop, scattering the cattle that separated her from cover. The first sound she heard over the cattle’s mooing and snorts was a single pop. Her heart, already pounding in her chest, seemed to stop.
She’d been around enough firearms to recognize the sound of a rifle shot. She flattened to her horse’s back as more shots sounded. It wasn’t clear if they were shooting at her or at Clay or both. She glanced to him, seeing Clay motion her down and then dropping out of sight himself. Now all that was visible of Clay Cosen was his leg swung over the saddle as he gripped the cantle between his thigh and calf muscles. His mount, Rocket, continued on, familiar with this unusual mode of riding.
They used to ride like this as children, imagining themselves in a time when her people wore red headbands marking them as army scouts and warriors.
Izzie swung herself from the saddle, looping her elbow over the saddle horn and her knee over the cantle. The cattle surrounded her as Biscuit continued at a lope through the herd that swallowed them up.
Beyond the fence the pop, pop, pop of gunfire continued. She hoped they didn’t hit her cattle. Glancing forward, she saw the trees and the exposed gray rock. She and Clay broke from the herd together, separated by only fifty feet.
“Who are they?” she shouted.
“Cartel. Here to kill you.”
Her fingers still gripped the reins, but they were numb now and bloodless.
Why, she wondered. Why did they want her dead? The land. The permits. It had to be.
Their horses climbed the steep outcropping of rock, Izzie first, Clay just behind on the narrow animal trail. Another series of shots sounded, and Biscuit stumbled, dropping to her forelegs.
Izzie cried out as her weight shifted, and she fell beside her horse. She was on her feet and tugging the reins, her gaze fixing on the stream of blood now flowing from her mount’s shoulder.
“Oh, Biscuit!” she cried.
“Leave her!” shouted Clay. He landed beside her, still gripping Rocket’s reins, and tugged Izzie to her feet.
“No,” she howled, but he propelled her along, using Rocket’s large body as a shield between her and danger. They reached the cover of the series of large boulders and pines. Bullets sparked off the rock, sending sharp shards of stone flying. Only when all three of them had reached cover did Clay release her arm. Rocket’s barrel heaved, and foam fell from his mouth as the gelding recovered from the hard ride up the steep hill.
Izzie dropped to her knees, also panting as she struggled to fight the urge to vomit.
Clay was pressed to one of the boulders, peering back at the shooter’s position.
“Three I can see,” he said. “Can’t tell how many still in the car. Two, maybe.”
Izzie swallowed and then crawled next to him, gathering Rocket’s reins. Behind them, Biscuit gained her feet and was limping painfully up the incline after them.
“I have to get her.”
Clay reached out and grabbed Izzie’s shoulder.
“They aren’t shooting at Biscuit. You go out there, and she’ll get hit again.”
Izzie dropped to her seat as tears burned from her eyes and flowed down her cheeks in splashes of hot pain. Biscuit didn’t deserve this.
She glanced at her mare’s wound and the blood, then up to Biscuit’s head. There was no blood coming from her horse’s nose. It looked like the bullet had hit muscle and bone. Not her lung. Izzie rubbed her own chest in sympathy. Then her eyes went to the rifle sheathed and tied to the front of her saddle, mostly for killing snakes and gophers.
“The gun.”
Clay glanced back to Biscuit. Then without a word he leaped up and exploded over the ground, running. He grabbed the rifle from the sheath tied to her saddle, and Izzie heard the sound of more gunfire. Clay threw himself down, and Izzie sat with both hands clutching her throat. Had they shot him or was he taking cover?
Clay began moving, using the downed logs and low rocks as he crept back up the incline. Izzie wished she could return fire as the gunshots continued, pinging off the rock. It was the longest thirty feet she had ever seen. But as Clay made his heroic approach, Izzie realized something. She was a fool.
All these years she had let her need to be the perfect daughter ruin her chance at the one good thing in her life, her love for Clay Cosen. She loved him, irrationally and with all her heart, and if that made certain members of this tribe turn up their noses, then so be it. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need her spotless reputation or her mother’s approval, either. She needed Clay.
And she needed them both to get out of this alive.
Clay fell in beside her, breathing heavily. She threw herself into his arms, and he hugged her w
ith his one free arm.
“Thank you for coming for me.”
“Thank me when we get out of here,” he said. He moved to rise, and she let him go. She’d always turned to him in times of trouble, and he had always been there for her. Izzie felt the creeping unease as the truth crawled over her skin like spiders. She had used him. Was using him right now. This wasn’t his fight. It was hers. Clay deserved better than a fair-weather friend. And that was exactly what she had been. When he’d turned to her, she had turned her back.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as the tears came harder.
Clay squeezed her hand. “Izzie, I need you to pull it together.”
“I was so mean to you.”
“What?”
“I didn’t even come see you when you came home.”
He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Izzie, there are guys shooting at us. Can we talk about this later?”
She sniffed. Nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Clay peered over the rise.
“What are they doing? Are they coming?”
“No. One got in the car.”
Leaving? They were leaving.
“Thank God,” she whispered.
Clay continued to watch. “Where are the other two?”
Izzie peered over the rock and watched the SUV as it climbed the road and then turned.
“Where are they going?”
“Going to pull in above us. At least that is what I’d do.”
Izzie’s heart hammered. They were now trapped between an open pasture and the road.
“Gabe is coming,” said Clay. But his gaze was flicking about as he took in their position and the enemy who was now capturing the higher ground.
Izzie looked toward the road. “They’re waiting for us to leave this cover.”
