Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  The most amazing thing, though, was the existence of the disappearing canyons. She knew the narrow shafts were right below her. But sitting here on the mesa surface and looking out, you’d never guess the steep-sided gashes were even there until you came to the very edge and looked down. It would be easy to run right over the side of a hundred-foot dropoff if you weren’t paying careful attention.

  Hunter came back to squat beside her, his familiar grin plastered in place. “How are you feeling? Hungry?”

  She frowned. “Everything hurts, and I told you I don’t eat in the morning.”

  “You must drink water.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Give me the canteen.” She was getting crankier and crankier. But damn it, her body was sore, her clothes were a wreck and she needed a hairdresser and a candy bar in the worst way.

  Taking a sip of the metallic-tasting water, she remembered why she wasn’t at home or at some nearby resort or spa. Tara. The biggest reason she had not gotten out of this godforsaken wilderness when she’d first had the opportunity. The baby was worth all the discomfort.

  Then she looked into the sexy, stormy eyes of the man beside her, who was currently studying her face. He was arrogant and frustrating most of the time, but she owed him her life. And now she owed him her heart. He was also worth every bit of what she’d been through.

  “Have you changed your mind about letting one of my cousins take you back to your father while we keep looking for the baby? Michael Ayze has a Jeep hidden in a wash a few miles away.” Hunter’s voice was a raspy whisper.

  “Not on your life, bud.” She tried to get to her feet, but overbalanced with the canteen in her hand, and slipped back down on her rear end. “I haven’t been through everything so far just to walk away right before we rescue Tara. Nuh-uh. Not happening. Forget about it.”

  Hunter eased to his feet and helped her get up. “I’m a Tribal Police special investigator. I could insist you go, or else have you locked up when we get back.”

  It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Don’t be such a jerk. You know I have to see this through. Stop bugging me about going back.”

  He heaved a heavy, put-upon sigh and made her chuckle.

  Bailey wanted to change the subject. “Tell me about your cousins,” she asked, while handing him back the canteen. “They’re both yummy looking, but they seem pretty stoic. What’s their background and how come they belong to this Brotherhood deal? In fact, why do you belong?”

  He took a sip and then gazed out at the lavender-shaded mountains visible to the north, in what must be either Utah or Colorado. “When I was a kid, I spent summers with the family of my mother’s uncle, as a shepherd. My great-uncle, Hastiin Raymond Gashie, found time to teach me the Navajo Way, along with lessons on how to track. He wanted me to appreciate who I am in relation to the People and to the world around me.”

  Bailey put away the canteen and kicked out the cricks and cramps from hours spent lying on the hard ground. Hunter turned to watch her, grinned then held out his hand again.

  “Come look at the beauty of this morning,” he said.

  Going to his side, she took the offered hand. Immediately she felt warmth, electricity and awe in nearly equal measures. Standing by his side gave her the strangest feeling. True companionship, perhaps? That was something she knew very little about, so maybe that was it.

  She wanted to be his friend—and his lover. But this feeling was something more undefined and special.

  “The view is spectacular,” she told him truthfully. It was one of the most amazing sights she had ever beheld.

  Morning sun shone down on the valley, causing the rich red earth to glow. To the west, stark gray monoliths rose like lonely sentinels out of the orange-colored sand. In between, across the floor of the valley, enough plant life grew to add a whimsical touch of green and silver to the landscape.

  What she was seeing surely must be what poets meant when they used the word splendor.

  “Few outsiders ever get to see this sight,” Hunter told her without changing the direction of his gaze. “When I was a kid, my uncle taught me to pay attention to places. To really see what your eyes could show you, and to memorize it so you can bring the places back to your mind when you need them.

  “More than that,” Hunter continued, “my uncle felt a Navajo should walk the ground, touch the stones, smell the cedar and breathe the desert dust. He taught me to enjoy a rare summer rain, watch a mother prairie dog feed her young and listen to the rocks as they speak to us in the wind.”

  Bailey was fascinated. The man was a poet, along with being an advocate for nature. Who would’ve thought?

  Hunter turned to gaze into her eyes. For a moment it seemed as though he was still looking at the spectacular vista, because his face carried that awed expression. But he was staring directly at her with those brilliant eyes.

  He shook his head lightly and smiled. “Sorry, what I meant to say is Dinetah is a part of who we are as Navajos. The land is in our bones and buried in our spirits. It is our religion and our family. There’s supposed to be a balance in nature, and the Dine learn early how to follow in that same stream of harmony.

  “The harmony between the sacred four mountains is in danger now. Skinwalkers are working to destroy the balance we usually manage to maintain with little effort. But there are some of us who will not allow that to happen. My cousins and I risk all to fight off the evil. We do so because it is part of who we are.”

  He dropped her hand and went to spread out the blanket under the tree. “Sit and rest for a few more minutes. Michael and Lucas will be back soon, and then we’ll have to go.”

  She did as he suggested and waited until he joined her there.

  “My cousin Michael is a brilliant man, an expert in anthropology,” Hunter told her when they were settled. “He was a professor at Yale University. But when he heard about the Skinwalker terror in Dinetah, he came back to do what he could to help. Now he teaches part-time at the Dine College and says it was a mistake for him to ever walk away from Navajoland.”

  Bailey thought of the big burly man with kind eyes, and was surprised to know he was a professor. But when she considered it further, she realized what she had been seeing was superintelligence shining from those eyes.

  “My cousin Lucas is another story.”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s nice but, um, strange?”

  “Not really all that strange,” Hunter hedged. “He’s a ‘sensitive.’ One who hears others’ thoughts and can sometimes see the future. He’s been a tremendous help to the Brotherhood. In fact, Lucas Tso is an uncommon man in many ways. Besides those gifts, he’s also a famous silversmith. His jewelry and paintings have been shown in galleries all over the world. He’s been a medal-winning, iron-man triathlete, and no one on the reservation would stand a chance against him in a footrace.”

  “Can he really hear people’s thoughts?”

  Hunter laughed. “Don’t worry. He would never pry into your secrets or dreams.”

  A long, shrill whistle broke the dawn air. Hunter touched a hand to her arm in order to calm her fears, and a moment later Michael and Lucas appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

  “We found another way into the cavern, cousin,” Michael said when he came close. “But we’re going to have to move fast if we are to rescue the child.”

  “I have heard the thoughts of the Skinwalker Dog,” Lucas added. “We must stop what is happening. Now. Before it is forever too late to help the little girl.”

  9

  Bailey sat on the piñon needles back in the old coyote cave, fuming and choking down another MRE. Hunter and Lucas had gone off to rescue the baby, and she and Michael were stuck here together, waiting for them to return.

  “I don’t understand,” she said past the dry paste that was gluing itself to the roof of her mouth. “Did they have to go all the way to the San Juan River? Is that how they planned to sneak into the cave?”

  Michael was sitting Indian-style beside the fire pit. H
e turned those warm, intelligent eyes her way.

  “The San Juan isn’t far, and it’s extremely low this year due to the drought. You may never have seen the beauty of the river when it was in its glory.” His brown eyes took on a wistful dreaminess. “But not too long ago, crystal-blue waters snaked around golden sandstone buttes streaked with desert varnish—uh, those are mineral deposits that look like burnt chocolate.

  “Still today,” he continued with a sigh, “it’s a magical, ancient place laced with hidden pictographs and cool grottos. Not as sacred to the People as Canyon de Chelly, certainly. But water means life in the desert, so the river is a part of what it means to be Dine.”

  Michael shifted and smiled. “I know that wasn’t what you asked, but I become a teacher at every opportunity. My cousins did not go to the river because the water level is so low. Much of the long-lost landscape is now revealed, and every crevice is wide open. It would be impossible for us to find a way into the Skinwalker cavern from that direction without being spotted.

  “But Lucas Tso and I uncovered what is probably one of the big cavern’s smaller tributaries. Actually, the opening we found is quite near the chimney shaft where you and Hunter were nearly burned alive.”

  Michael hesitated after speaking those graphic words, then continued. “This smaller entrance we found could be called a back door into the huge main chamber of the cavern. Hunter had been certain such a thing must exist, because you heard the baby’s cries and he felt the fresh air. And he was right.”

  “But if it’s a back door, why couldn’t we all go? Why are you stuck babysitting me while Hunter and Lucas go to get Tara?”

  “You’re a bright woman. You must realize that Hunter would not be in top form as long as he was worried about your welfare. He might make mistakes—mistakes that could cost someone’s life.”

  She almost opened her mouth to deny that Hunter gave a damn about her welfare. After all, he had never said he cared. That’s what had broken them up years earlier, and today very little had changed where he was concerned. He was still the closemouthed charmer he’d always been and probably always would be.

  But it would sound too ungrateful and childish, even to herself. He had saved her life, several times.

  So she said the next thing that was waiting to jump out of her mouth. “Does Hunter date lots of women? Do you know if he’s ever been married?”

  “Don’t you think those questions would be better asked of my cousin himself?”

  “Hunter would never answer me straight out. The man is infuriating. My life is an open book—literally. And I know so very little about him.”

  The corners of Michael’s mouth tipped up in the semblance of a smile. “Yes, even I read in a magazine that you were married once a while ago. How long did the union last?”

  She waved her hand dismissively, no longer embarrassed by the question. She’d heard it enough times to have a dozen snappy comebacks ready. This time she picked the simple truth.

  “Forty-seven hours and twenty minutes. My father’s lawyers had the marriage annulled. Thank goodness.”

  “You didn’t love the man?”

  “Hell, no. I was drunk out of my mind. It would’ve been a terrible mistake to stay with him. He was a worse drinker than I was back then. And a movie stuntman to boot. I can’t imagine any more terrible combination than danger and alcohol.” She shook her head. “Two years after I last saw him, I heard he’d been crippled in a stunt. My guess is he was drunk that time, too.”

  “Then why did you marry him?”

  It was a fair question. But one she didn’t intend to answer. It had taken her years of therapy to understand that her ex-husband’s looks, his long mahogany hair and gray eyes, had reminded her of Hunter. In a booze-and drug-filled haze, she’d picked a guy who looked like the man she had always wanted and could never have.

  “Just a drunken stunt of my own,” she told his cousin instead.

  Michael’s expression softened. “People are rarely so honest. Thank you.”

  She shrugged. “You might as well know that I’m also a drug addict. But I’ve been to rehab. I’m cured.”

  “I was under the impression that addicts have no cure in the Anglo world. One slip and you’ll return to your demons. Isn’t that so?”

  “I’m cured. In my case it’s over.”

  For a few moments Michael studied her face in the soft afternoon light coming from the cave entrance. She could tell he thought she was deluding herself by believing she was completely cured. But he didn’t say it.

  Instead, he asked a question. “I think I’ve also heard that you spent your childhood summers in Dinetah with your grandmother. True?”

  Bailey nodded. “But for just a few weeks at a time. That is, until the two summers I was in college. Then I stayed longer, to spend the time with Hunter.”

  “But if she was like most Dine grandmothers,” Michael said with a wide smile, “I’d imagine she couldn’t resist giving you lessons on being Navajo.”

  Laughing, Bailey remembered all the legends and stories she’d been told. “I think being Navajo must mean you can’t stop yourself from talking too much.”

  “You are also Navajo. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but…” She was Navajo. And though that side would not consider it special, her Anglo side was proud of it. But she hadn’t bothered to think about being Navajo in such a way before. Maybe that’s why she always had too much to say in every situation.

  Michael smiled again. “Hunter Long has never married,” he told her, in a change of subject she welcomed. “But he hasn’t talked to me about why not.”

  Shifting, he raised his eyebrows in thought. “In the Brotherhood we each have a…well, I guess you would call it a specialty. We don’t speak of it, but each of us is better at some things than the others.”

  “What’s Hunter’s thing?” she asked, interrupting him.

  “I call him the ‘muscle,’” Michael said with a chuckle. “He never stops moving. He’s constantly searching for the evil ones, and when it comes down to a battle with the Skinwalkers, Hunter is the first one to draw his knife.”

  Yes, that sounded like Hunter, though she didn’t want to think of him in any battles. “What’s your specialty?” she asked Michael.

  “I’m the brains of the outfit.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I know that with this build I don’t look like I’m terribly smart. But I am one to think things through carefully before I make any moves. Perhaps I sometimes spend far too long thinking.”

  He barked a laugh at his own expense and then continued. “My cousin Hunter has a lot of anger inside him. Too much to stand still or to try being reasonable. It’s easy to read the anger in the way he reacts.”

  “But he smiles all the time,” she argued. “And he can be so gentle and charming.”

  “Yes, I agree with you. The anger seems at war with who he really is.”

  “Why do you think he’s that way? What’s he got to be angry about?”

  “I have no idea. But I’m convinced that’s why he’s never had a serious relationship with a woman. The anger scares him sometimes.”

  Bailey had to think about what Michael said. Really think about it. Why would Hunter have all that pent-up anger? His childhood? Maybe.

  “Don’t be so nervous and upset over the Skinwalkers possibly hurting Hunter or the baby. I can guarantee it will be okay.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Michael pointed to her hands. Looking down, she found herself rubbing them together nervously. Wringing her hands? She must need that chocolate bar far worse than she’d imagined.

  Stopping her jerky, unconscious movements, she forced herself to quietly fold her hands in her lap. “I’m okay.”

  “My cousins will be back soon with the child.” Michael’s voice was soothing. “Everything will be all right. The Brotherhood has been gifted with a few sacred chants that can keep the Skinwalkers at bay. So far, it’s been our best defense when they come after us.�
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  “Maybe you need a better offense.”

  He chuckled again and nodded. “I’m working on it. If we can hold off the attacks long enough to allow us to keep looking for the answers, I know we’ll find them. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Shifting, he stood. “I’m going to stand lookout at the cave entrance. Can you sleep for awhile?”

  She shook her head, but knew there weren’t many choices. “I’ll try to rest. Thanks.”

  Positive she could not will her eyes to close nor her brain to stop whirling, Bailey lay back and stared at the fire. There couldn’t be any rest for her until Hunter and Tara were sitting right here beside her and they all were truly safe from the Skinwalkers.

  The Skinwalker Dog was currently in his human persona, and sweating like a pig. Running his forefinger between his neck and his too-tight collar, he picked up a cell phone and called his boss.

  He needed to be extremely careful during this particular conversation with the Navajo Wolf. If he said too much, or accidently expressed something the wrong way, he would likely be dead before the sun came up tomorrow.

  Greeting the Wolf cordially, the Dog started with his best news. “I have the map in my hands. Willie Concho delivered it exactly as he was instructed. We found no evidence that he’d brought the FBI or anyone else with him, either.”

  After a second’s silence, the Wolf replied, “Is the map in good shape? Are the markings still readable after all these centuries?”

  “I’ve only given it a quick glance. Seems okay to me, though.”

  “Good. Excellent. And the child?”

  “We did like you told us and used a doll for the tradeoff with Concho. If the FBI or anyone else had stopped our exchange, we still would’ve had the baby to deal with. But since we’ve got the map now, what do you want us to do with the kid? She’s starting to be a big liability.”

  “There should be no violence, but she cannot leave the desert. Find a way to quietly get rid of both the kid and the old caretaker woman we hired.”