Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  She took a deep breath and tried not to cry. “I don’t—”

  A sudden noise from below interrupted her words. Hunter stepped to the edge and looked over.

  “They’re starting a fire. Trying to kill us with the smoke, or at least to block any possible escape route.”

  “Ohmigod.” Her knees grew weak again and she clung to him in fright. Fire.

  “We have to jump for the other side now for sure. This shaft we’re in will act like a chimney. The flames may or may not kill us here, but smoke inhalation definitely will.”

  “Uh…” She was paralyzed, near hysteria.

  “Trust me, Bailey,” he said as he shoved her ahead of him into the blackness at the back of the shelf. “And when I say jump, bend you knees and go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Hunter was grateful that Bailey seemed to be staying so strong. At the last moment, he’d taken her hand and gone with her. Together they’d landed on a bigger shelf, in a much narrower shaft that seemed to go straight up.

  Now, he was urging her to move as far back as possible into this darker slot. He couldn’t help but worry about extreme heat and the real potential for lack of oxygen in the narrower shaft. Sheltering her body with his own, he quickly ripped a strip from his shirt and wet it with canteen water.

  “Here,” he said as he handed her the cloth. “Keep this over your mouth.”

  She whimpered, but took it.

  As his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, Hunter realized they had entered a new, smaller shaft and that the granite outcropping in the cliff would probably protect them from direct flames. But he knew it offered little protection from the smoke and the heat.

  “Keep inching farther into the shaft. As far as you can go,” he urged.

  Hunter poured half the remaining water in the canteen over Bailey’s head and splashed the rest over his own. Just as he finished, he heard the roar of flames starting up the main shaft behind them.

  Bailey sobbed and pushed herself deeper into the narrowing slot. He tried to follow, but discovered the backpack wouldn’t fit. Turning to shrug it off, he felt a gust of heat on his face and shut his eyes against the scorching blast.

  He swung around and shoved his body up tightly against Bailey’s back, trying desperately to protect her. The roar of the fire deafened him, but he swore he heard her cry out.

  Was this going to be their end?

  Then he felt her grabbing the front of his shirt and trying to drag him closer. She tugged, and he managed to squeeze his face farther into the narrow opening.

  As she pulled and he inched farther into the increasingly tighter space, he noticed the shirt on his back growing hotter. He wasn’t too sure what he could do if it suddenly burst into flames. Hating to think what would happen to Bailey if he became a human torch, Hunter began to murmur a ceremonial song of protection for her.

  Just then, he felt cool air touch his face. A draft of oxygen was coming from somewhere in front of him, pulled toward the fire that was running up the other shaft.

  He’d moved as far into the opening in the rock as he could go, but his rear was still exposed. At least Bailey had a chance of making it.

  Closing his mind to the fire and its potential consequences, he stood stoically as his back took the brunt of the heat. If he lived through this, he would find that Skinwalker Dog and kill it—along with the two goons, who were too stupid to live. And he would see the baby reunited with its mother no matter how difficult that task turned out to be.

  But as he slowly lost consciousness, and his spirit began melting with the heat, his mind turned to Bailey. If he lived, he had no idea what to do about her.

  She was passion and she was poison.

  Nope. He had absolutely no idea what to do at all.

  8

  Their hiding place in the dark shaft had been silent, with no lingering sounds of the crackling fire, for what seemed like hours. Bailey opened her eyes and took a deep breath of the cool, life-giving air coming from the crevice before her. Her nose was buried as deep as possible in the tiny opening.

  She could feel Hunter still jammed tightly against her back. But he was so quiet. So deathly quiet.

  “Hunter?”

  He didn’t make a sound. Did that mean he wanted her to keep quiet, too, so as not to give away their position?

  Suddenly panicked, she twisted around and faced his chest. Nudging him slightly in complete silence, she expected him to give her a sign in return, indicating things were okay.

  Instead, his whole body crumbled where he stood. He went down backward in a heap on their narrow ledge.

  Gasping, she knelt beside him and looked around. Everything was dark. There didn’t seem to be any flames remaining in the shaft, just a few glowing embers here and there. But her nostrils were still assailed with the stench of smoke and ash.

  She touched Hunter’s cheek, and her throat closed with dryness and fear, plus the bitter, choking taste of charcoal. Crying softly, she bent to croak in his ear. “Can you hear me? Please don’t be dead.”

  He made no sound. No movement at all.

  Tendrils of pure hysteria reached out, grabbed at her chest and punched at her stomach. What would she do? How would she get out of here?

  Looking down into his beautiful, blackened face in the starlight, Bailey realized it really didn’t matter. If Hunter never left this shaft alive, then she didn’t want to, either.

  It was a huge revelation. One she hoped she wouldn’t have a lot of time to consider. If their end was near, let it come fast.

  At that moment, a strange bird call sounded down the rock chimney, a singsong whistle that almost scared her to death. Looking up the shaft, she saw the outline of something large bending over the edge of the mesa, staring down the cleft and blocking out most of the starlight.

  Skinwalkers! Where the heck was Hunter’s gun? She crawled around his body, searching frantically in the dark for his rifle. Those damn Skinwalkers would not get away with killing them so easily. Not if she still had the strength to pull a trigger.

  One more spine-tingling call reached her ears just as her fingers touched hot metal. “Ow!” She couldn’t stop her yelp of pain.

  “Cousin?” A man’s soft call echoed down the shaft. “Ms. Howard?”

  “Huh? Who is it?” She coughed and fought for air. Her throat was clogged with fear and emotion, along with plenty of thick, black soot.

  “Stay where you are. I’ll come for you.” The deep masculine voice did not sound threatening, but chills of alarm ran along her spine.

  Bailey forgot the probably useless rifle and gave up on the idea of killing anyone. She turned and crawled back to Hunter’s inert body. She leaned her cheek on his chest so that her body was covering and protecting his. If this was a trick and the Skinwalkers attacked them down here, she didn’t want to look at the bastards as they took their lives. Let them stab her in the back and get it over with.

  But as her own thudding heart began to calm, she heard another stronger beat coming from under her ear. Hunter’s life was not yet lost. And Bailey vowed that if it came to the ultimate, she would gladly give up her life to save his.

  She heard heavy breathing behind her as someone or some thing reached their small, dark shelf. A beam of light clicked on and ran an eerie glow over both her and Hunter.

  “Ms. Howard? It’s all right. I am Lucas Tso, a cousin of Hunter Long’s. I have…”

  Hunter stirred, lifted his head and rested his body on his elbows. “Where…” His words choked off as he began coughing and wheezing.

  Bailey sat up beside him. “Hunter. My God. Are you okay?” Her own words were squeaky and hoarse.

  She didn’t know what to do to help him while he was racked with horrific spasms of coughing and gasping. She dug her fingers into his shirt and tried to help him breathe by holding him upright. But her efforts seemed useless.

  Gentle hands came from behind and pulled her away from Hunter. “Let me see if there’s somethin
g I can do.”

  A dark form of a man knelt beside Hunter’s body and began soft chanting. There was enough light for her to realize that he also was easing a canteen to Hunter’s lips and helping him take small swallows between gasps.

  “Quiet,” the stranger said soothingly to Hunter. “Do not try to speak until you are out of this smoke-saturated shaft. I can understand your meaning without the words. It was smart of you to start a fire so we could spot this cleft in the mesa. The smoke was visible for many miles, but—

  “No!” The man interrupted himself as he gripped Hunter by the shoulder and tried to make him stay still. “You will be first, the woman next. Calm down, cousin. Let me help you find the harmony in your body.”

  In a few moments, Hunter’s coughs had lessened to wheezing, and Bailey felt her own tension begin to ease.

  The stranger stopped chanting and turned to her. “Ms. Howard. I’m a member of the Brotherhood and we’ve been searching for you two for most of the day. The Bird People led us to the area, but we had trouble finding you until we smelled smoke. Now Hunter will not participate in his own healing until you have taken at least a sip of water.”

  Lucas handed her the canteen. She took one gulp of cool water and began to spit up.

  “Sorry,” Hunter’s cousin said as he took back the canteen. “We must get you both out of here so your lungs can breathe in healing fresh air. I’ll help you climb up the rope. My cousin refuses to go until you are safe.”

  “Rope?” she managed to ask with a rasp.

  “Don’t worry. I can carry you. It’ll be okay….”

  “I can’t leave without Hunter.” She was crying past the hoarseness and the fear. “Take him. I’ll wait.”

  Bailey was prepared to stand her ground and refuse to go without seeing Hunter to safety first. But then her old college lover reached out in the darkness and took her hand. His big, warm fingers squeezed hers. She felt the connection, knowing immediately what he was trying to say.

  “Please.” She was whining, and even in the dark she could see Hunter wince. “I’m okay, really. You go ahead.”

  He tightened his grip in stern silence, and she understood her continued refusal would be a lost cause.

  “Come now,” the cousin told her gently as he tugged on her shoulder. “If you can relax, it will only take a few minutes to get you to safety. The faster we go up, the faster I can come back down for him.”

  “I can relax,” she said softly. It was the one thing Bailey had learned she was capable of doing to help. Though it didn’t seem like much of an accomplishment.

  Hunter’s cousin had not been lying. After a short time spent over his shoulder, she found herself sitting on solid ground and dragging in huge gulps of life-saving fresh air.

  “You will be safe here with me until our cousin can bring up Hunter Long,” a different stranger said, bending over her and holding out a canteen. “I’m Michael Ayze. I’m also a member of the Brotherhood and another of Hunter’s relatives. Try taking deep breaths and small sips of water.”

  Bailey wasn’t frightened. She also wasn’t going to take a sip, or anything else, for that matter, until she was sure Hunter was safe.

  She turned her head just as Lucas disappeared back down into the still-smoldering slash in the flat ground, their personal chimney shaft in the mountain. Going onto all fours, she tried to crawl over to the edge. But after one small, halting advance of her body, everything went suddenly dark. She slipped away into a comfortable unconsciousness.

  Hunter had finally found his voice again, though it might take him days to lose the raspiness when trying to talk. He’d coughed up enough black stuff in the last hour to make him positive cigarettes would never be a temptation in his lifetime.

  They were all up on top of the mesa, under a small clump of juniper trees. The group could stay here in relative safety as his two cousins gave him and Bailey some time to recover before they went after the baby.

  His cousin Michael had administered a short healing rite to help him clear his lungs, and was now mixing medicines with water to give to Bailey. Lucas had plastered Hunter’s blistered back with soothing salve before he went off to scout the area.

  Nothing could be done to make Hunter’s singed hair look any better. But luckily, his rifle had cooled off and wasn’t cooked, and the backpack was sooty but still in one piece.

  Bailey had been resting with her head in his lap for the last fifteen minutes. Her short, sudden blackout before he was rescued had turned out to be residual exhaustion and lack of oxygen. They knew she needed sleep more than anything else to help her body recover. But they couldn’t give her very much time.

  Hunter was absolutely amazed how, despite everything she had been through, she still hung in there with him. The tension that had kept him so strung up for the last few days should begin loosening its grip now that his cousins had arrived.

  They could take Bailey to safety. She would be all right.

  He watched as Lucas moved in from the shadows, returning to where they lay hidden under a few juniper and piñon trees. His cousin had been looking for the Skinwalkers or any sign of the baby.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked in a raspy whisper.

  Lucas came closer so he, too, could keep his voice low. “The Skinwalkers must believe you two are dead, because most of them have left the area. But the Skinwalker Dog you saw took no chances. He posted one of his goons at the bottom of the crevice, even though the vines and brush you climbed have burned away, and there is no possibility of anyone getting down that way. They seem unaware or unconcerned that there is a shelf and footholds to climb up the inside of the shaft to this mesa.”

  Hunter smiled in the dark. The hired Navajo henchmen he’d seen were not Skinwalkers and didn’t have any of their powers. One normal human would be easy to overpower if necessary, and such a man would undoubtedly not be bright enough to find his way up to the top of the cleft.

  “Before you started after us,” he began, “had you heard the reasons for taking the child? Is a ransom to be paid?”

  Lucas lowered his voice even more. “The Concho family is rich, but money is not what the kidnappers are after. Your brother went to the Concho ranch shortly after you began tracking. Old Hastiin Willie claims he has something special the Navajo Wolf is after.

  “He wouldn’t say what, but Kody convinced him to let us protect his property with a special ceremony using some of the chants Shirley Nez’s uncle found in those parchments before he died.”

  Hunter nodded, but winced internally at the mention of Shirley Nez. He missed the Brotherhood’s old mentor and wished she was still alive to give them advice.

  “Willie Concho seems to know all about this new Navajo Wolf—and about the Brotherhood.”

  “Which side is he on?”

  “The winning side, would’ve been my best guess.” Lucas smiled wryly. “That is, until his granddaughter was kidnapped.”

  Hunter tried to focus on their objective. “While you were out did you see any sign of a hidden cave entrance? Or hear any baby’s cries?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I saw a couple of possibilities, but have not yet had a chance to scout them. I wanted to check on your condition first.”

  Hunter bristled, but quickly reminded himself of the value of harmony and balance. “I am fine.”

  “And the woman?”

  That was a question he found harder to answer. “I believe she will be fine, as well. Though she needs to go back to civilization. Her body is strong, but her harmony is fragile. She requires a sing and should—”

  Bailey opened her eyes and lifted her head. “If you’re talking about me, I’m doing okay. Good enough to help rescue Tara. I intend to stay.”

  He wanted to demand she do as he said, but knew it wouldn’t be smart in her condition. “That would not be wise,” he muttered instead.

  “Well, nobody ever said I was the brightest kid on the block. I’ve done lots of things in my life that weren’t ex
actly brilliant. But this one is important. So I’m sticking with it until it’s over.” She sat up and crossed her legs.

  Her straight back and set jaw clearly said she had made up her mind. Hunter sighed and rolled his eyes.

  He gave up for the moment and turned to his cousin. “After you rest for a while, will you and Michael continue searching for another way to the Skinwalker cave? There was cool air in our faces on that narrow shelf. I believe that must mean the source of the fresh air is from a deep cavern. Maybe the right cavern.”

  “We will search. But as we do, both you and Ms. Howard must sleep. You will be no help to the child if you’re dead on your feet.”

  Hunter nodded and turned to Bailey. “That meet with your approval, slick?”

  She screwed up her mouth as if she tasted something sour. “I’m not sure I can sleep. I’m too tense.”

  “You will sleep,” Lucas told her. “And you will be able to help when the time comes. Don’t let your secret doubts turn you away from the harmony that’s inside you.”

  Bailey looked at him as if he had suddenly grown wings. Hunter couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across his face. He took her hand and silently let their connection give her strength. The force between them was still powerful and electrifying.

  He would get her through this by sheer determination.

  She woke up alone, lying on her folded arms under Hunter’s space-age-material blanket. She must’ve been asleep for a couple of hours. As Bailey rubbed her eyes and sat up, she realized that the gray, predawn light had begun to illuminate the mesa where they’d spent the night.

  Glancing around for Hunter, she discovered he hadn’t gone far. Just over to the east rim of the mesa, to face the rising crimson glow. He was chanting dawn prayers.

  As he finished throwing bits of pollen into the air, and repacked his supplies in the medicine pouch, Bailey looked about in the growing light. What a strange place this was. It seemed at first glance like a flat desert, with bits of shrubs and short evergreens sticking up like green birthday candles on a dull beige cake.