Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  Taking another bite of her Navajo breakfast burrito, she couldn’t get over how good it tasted. Scrambled eggs, beans, peppers and potatoes in a fry bread wrap. Yummy, but probably a thousand calories.

  A stray thought ran through her mind. She’d much rather be tasting Michael’s lips. Kissing him wouldn’t add the pounds like this burrito would. However, being that close to him would probably be a lot more dangerous to her well-being than any high calorie food.

  The very pregnant young Anglo girl who’d taken her money came out from behind the cash register to swipe at the table tops with a wet rag. “How’s everything taste?”

  With her mouth full, Lexie could only smile and nod.

  “Been a busy morning,” the girl supplied to fill up the gap. “You’re not from around here. Where’re you headed?”

  The short, barrel-chested Navajo cook standing behind the grill looked up at her just then, and Lexie had the feeling he was paying close attention to whatever she would say. She forced a swallow in order to answer.

  Before she could get a word out, though, both the girl and the cook froze and looked over her head as somebody came through the door behind her. Lexie turned, but she hadn’t really needed to look. She knew who was standing there, just by the sudden electricity in the air.

  “You ready to go?” Michael asked with a frown as he towered over her.

  “In a minute. I’m not—”

  “Now.” Taking her elbow, he helped her from the chair.

  “But I’m not done.”

  He picked up the waxed paper wrap containing the rest of her burrito and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “Bring the coffee. Let’s go.”

  Furious, but too embarrassed to say anything in front of strangers, Lexie grabbed her coffee cup and went outside beside him.

  By the time the air-conditioning had disappeared with the closing door behind them, she was winding up to really let him have it. “Just who do you…”

  The rest of the words stuck in her throat as her plastic coffee cup dropped to the pavement, spewing coffee everywhere. There, in front of her eyes and painted in white on the side of Michael’s red pickup, were the words Get Out Witch!

  She was speechless. Was it meant for her?

  “Sorry,” Michael mumbled as he opened her door and helped her inside. “I should’ve warned you.”

  He slammed the passenger door behind her, picked up her now empty cup and pitched it into a barrel by the door and then climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “Buckle up,” he urged in a low growl. “We’re taking a detour into the mountains.”

  “But what do those words mean? Can you wash them off?”

  He grimaced. “Apparently rumors are flying about the white witch who’s living with me. I didn’t think the word would spread this fast.”

  Michael set his jaw. “Whatever they used for paint won’t wash off. But we can cover it with dirt until I can get it painted over.”

  Shifting in his seat and hesitating with his hand on the ignition, he turned to fully face her. “Look, witchcraft and evil are a way of life out here. And right now, suspicions and rumors are running high. But any time someone is accused of being a witch or a Skinwalker, the People usually will grow to fear and despise them. Isolation is the worst thing to happen to a traditional Navajo, but that’s what occurs in cases like this.

  “It’s something you need to consider again,” Michael continued. “That, along with other things, like the danger from Skinwalker Bears for instance. Maybe it would be better if you left Dinetah now rather than later. I can lend you the money to get a fresh start somewhere else.”

  Stunned, Lexie blinked her eyes and took a moment, trying to decide what to say about his huge change in direction. Michael was studying her closely, probably waiting for her to break down again.

  “I’m not evil and didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally managed. “We’ve been through this before and for the last time, I’m not leaving.”

  She’d said the words as calmly as possible and steeled herself to continue. “My son deserves to get to know his family and to learn about his heritage. I’ve decided Jack is staying. And I am certainly not going to walk away from my child.”

  Michael twisted back around to face the windshield and cranked the ignition while he mumbled something under his breath. He no doubt must be thinking she was a stubborn and crazy white woman not to turn tail and run away.

  But he didn’t know about her mission. And he probably wouldn’t believe her even if she told him.

  Lexie had no place else to go. No place else calling her name where she was needed as much.

  She and Jack were definitely staying. No matter what superstitious gossip was going around.

  It seemed like only a few minutes later when Lexie felt the pickup straining to climb one of the mountain grades. The scenery out her window looked less and less like the desert she’d expected to see around Monument Valley and more and more like the pines and cedars near Michael’s home.

  “Where’d you say we were heading?”

  “We’re taking a small detour,” he answered. “I’ve learned that the hataalii we seek for your Sing has gone on a pilgrimage to his birthplace in the mountains.”

  Lexie stared at him, feeling confused. “But I thought the more important part of our excursion today was trying to find those petroglyphs you’ve been talking about. The ones connected to the Skinwalkers.”

  “Both things are equally important. When the Sing is completed, the witch stigma will disappear and we can concentrate on finding the petroglyphs.”

  She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t imagine he could see her while he watched the road. “You sure about the witch stuff going away after the Sing? I wonder if it will. And I can’t help thinking your work finding the Skinwalker parchments has to be much more vital than any stupid gossip about an Anglo woman.”

  Michael forced himself to take a breath, waiting until the sudden and unusual burst of pride he’d just experienced faded away again. Lexie was beginning to care more about the Navajo and their war with the Skinwalkers than she did for herself. All his talking and lessons must be sinking in. She was coming around to the Navajo Way of harmony within self—and to the power of community.

  Of course, he still couldn’t stand the idea of her being ostracized or being in any physical danger due to the Skinwalkers. Intending to keep her safe, he vowed to continue searching for the old hataalii who could give her the blessing.

  He glanced up at patches of blue sky peeking through the shelter of the pines above them. Here, high on the western slope of the mountains of his homeland, billowing clouds only hinted at the gloom he’d found in the valley below. True, a few thunderheads towered above lower cumulus clouds and were definitely fringed by rain shadows. But those distant harbingers of potential rainfall shouldn’t cause them any trouble.

  A break in the tension he’d been experiencing since early this morning finally allowed him to relax for a second. Normally optimistic, Michael was pleased to find himself once again believing everything would work out.

  The Skinwalkers would be vanquished by the Brotherhood in the end. Lexie’s unwanted visions of the ghosts would go away and leave her in peace. Jack would have the opportunity to learn the Way and grow closer to his clan. He and Lexie would somehow come to…

  They would come to what? What did he want for their relationship? Where could they go together in the end?

  Michael glanced up then and spotted the unmarked turnoff to Tocito Wash straight ahead. He guided his pickup onto the gravel road.

  “How far do we have to go?” Lexie asked as they bounced along the washboard bumps.

  “Hastiin Todacheene’s maternal clan are Tachiìnii, the Red-Running-into-the-Water Clan. Years ago, I spent time with them during a drought. My mother’s clan helped them out by bringing hay in for the sheep during the emergency.

  “I’m hoping I can remember where their hogan was located after all this time.”
r />   “Do you think it will take much longer to get there?”

  He shot her a look. “Got someplace you have to be?”

  Seeing a shiver tremble along the skin on her arms, Michael wished he could take back the smart remark. “What’s up, Lexie? Aren’t you feeling well?”

  “I’m fine. But, well, I don’t know. Something feels…off…all of a sudden.”

  As they rounded a sharp curve in the road, a family compound could be seen in the distance a quarter mile below them. It would take quite a while to reach the place due to the many switchbacks and the slow going on the gravel.

  “We’ve got them in sight. See there?” As he pointed, it occurred to Michael he wasn’t seeing any signs of life in the family’s compound.

  He had hoped Lexie would have a chance to get out of the truck to stretch, and he’d wanted the time himself to ask about the old hataalii. But no smoke coming from cookstove chimneys and no sign of animals in any of the pens told him those had been fruitless wishes.

  Just then an ominous shadow came out of nowhere and threw darkness over the whole scene. Michael felt the evil like ants crawling across his spine.

  But it was far too late to go back.

  10

  L exie turned her head when she heard his intake of breath and watched as Michael’s whole body tensed. His hands gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. His eyes narrowed on the road ahead.

  “Is something the matter?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Probably not.”

  Okay, now he was being just plain weird again.

  “Well, I smell something…funny.” Lexie wrinkled her nose as she sniffed the air.

  Michael slowed the truck. “Funny, how?”

  “Um. Like barbecue.”

  Michael rolled down his window and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything. You can’t be hungry again. It hasn’t been two hours since you had breakfast.”

  “Which you didn’t let me finish,” Lexie said with a scowl. “For your information, I’m not hungry. But it does smell like something’s cooking.”

  The damn man was doing it again. He was being insufferable.

  Lexie turned to stare out her window, folded her arms over her chest and decided to sulk until they reached the house they’d seen from back up the mountain. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d had to face a Skinwalker Bear and then had someone threaten her with words drawn in paint on the side of Michael’s truck? Apparently not. She also had to suffer through an interminable ride down the mountainside with an arrogant jerk who claimed to be alert to everything but her.

  They ought not be here at all. If it had been up to her, they’d be in the desert trying to find the cave with the petroglyphs. Not on some wild-goose chase, looking for an elusive medicine man who might or might not exist.

  In fifteen minutes Michael pulled up in the yard of the house they’d seen, but it didn’t look like anyone was home.

  “Is it possible they’ve gone shopping and will be back today?” she asked as they both sat quietly in their seats.

  “Maybe. But highly unlikely. The weeds have grown up in the paths and the windows are clogged with sand and pine needles. There aren’t any sheep in the pens. It might be they’ve taken the sheep to winter pasture, but it’s awfully early in the season.”

  They sat in the truck another five minutes in absolute silence with Michael sitting stiff and alert.

  Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Why don’t you knock on the door? Do you think they’d mind if we climbed down from the truck for a moment to kick out the kinks?” She reached for the door handle.

  “Navajos don’t knock at a hogan. They wait to be invited in.”

  Opening her door and leaving it ajar, she turned back for a second. “I’m going to walk around the pickup for a while. I won’t go near the house until I’m invited.”

  She jumped down and closed the door. But when she came around the pickup, Michael was standing right before her.

  “Okay,” he said. “You stay here by the truck then. I want to check on something around the other side of the hogan.” He took off at a good clip through the tall weeds.

  Heck no, she wasn’t going to stay here all by herself. Lexie raced to catch up. “What are you going to check?”

  He frowned as she kept pace beside him. “The front of the house faces east. I need to see the north side.”

  “Why?” she asked breathlessly. He really needed to slow down.

  “It’s possible someone died here and the family abandoned the place.”

  “Abandoned?”

  “In the old traditions, if someone dies inside a hogan their chindi will be stuck in that place. The rest of the clan will prepare and bury the body close by, then knock a hole in the north facing wall hoping the evil spirit will leave. After that the family will go away for good.”

  “But what if the chindi does leave? Can the family come back?”

  He shook his head. “They won’t. No matter what.”

  Just then, the two of them turned the corner of the house and found a completely intact north wall. “Looks like no one’s died here,” Lexie said with an out of breath huff.

  Michael ran his hands through his hair and looked frustrated. “I don’t understand it. I was so sure…”

  As his words dropped off, Lexie began hearing a strange noise coming from somewhere higher up the mountainside behind them. It sounded like crackling cellophane, punctuated occasionally by another noise sounding more like someone popping those little air pillows that make up clear plastic packing material used to wrap breakables. She’d done that kind of popping herself. It was kind of addictive.

  “Michael…”

  He turned a frustrated gaze in her direction. “What? I don’t know what we should do next. Or where to look—”

  “But Michael,” she interrupted, growing alarmed.

  “Don’t you hear that noise?”

  “What noise?” He swung around, standing still to listen.

  At that moment, his whole demeanor changed. She watched him straighten, while his body snapped to attention.

  “Move!” he shouted as he suddenly grabbed her arm and began to run.

  “What is it?” she screamed back as they dashed together toward the pickup.

  “Fire. Coming right at us. Get in the truck now!”

  Rounding the corner of the house, she looked up the road past the pickup. To her horror, the whole side of the mountain appeared to be ablaze. Everything, all the pines and cedars they’d driven through, every bit of it was burning while the flames licked and jumped from tree to tree. It seemed as if the fire was headed right for them, just like he’d said. A wall of fire raced down along the edge of the gravel road they’d traveled.

  They made it to the pickup, jumped in and turned the engine over in ten seconds flat.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they buckled up in record time. “We can’t go back.”

  “We have to outrun it. But the road peters out another half mile down the valley.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we hope this pickup can make it through the rocks and sand to the wash a mile or so beyond. There should be water running in the wash after those rains we had.”

  As they drove past the hogan, outbuildings and pens, Lexie heard Michael begin chanting under his breath. She hoped whatever he was singing could stop a fire, because if not they were in a whole world of trouble.

  And she was most definitely not ready to die today.

  Michael clung to the steering wheel as they bumped and bounced off the gravel and down the rocky slope. He hoped he’d guessed right about the direction of the wash. The last time he’d been there was at least fifteen years ago.

  Swinging the wheel to the left around a patch of tamarisk trees and buffalo berry sheep food, he noticed the sky above them was growing dark again. The wind had changed and was blowing the black smoke in their direction.

  He didn’t dare push the truck
any more than he already had. One wrong move and they’d either head off the edge of a twenty-foot drop or become stuck in shifting sand.

  “Can you reach my phone?”

  Lexie spun to look at him. Her eyes were wild and her whole body was tense.

  “Where is it?” she said through chattering teeth.

  “In my jacket pocket. We need to report the fire. Maybe the firefighters can bring a helicopter out here to rescue us.”

  She leaned to look up at the thick smoke above the truck and shook her head. “Do you think they could land through all that?”

  “Try calling.”

  Ducking under her own seat belt and reaching all the way around him, she managed to get the phone out of his pocket. But not before bumping her chin on the wheel a few times.

  She sat back in her seat, while he gave instructions on which phone buttons to push. She did it, listened for a second then turned to look at him with alarm in her eyes.

  “There’s no signal. Nothing’s happening.”

  Michael said a few cusswords in Navajo. What good was having brand-new Brotherhood satellite phones if the signal couldn’t get out from under thick layers of smoke?

  “Never mind,” he spat out as he battled to keep the truck from spinning in the sand. “Sit tight. We’ll get ourselves out of this.”

  Managing to keep them from disaster, he began spotting drainages as they careened down the mountain-side. Which meant the wash could not be far ahead. The thick clouds of smoke had broken up somewhat, too, leaving patchy skies above them. Maybe they were going to make it after all.

  Finally, with the pickup barely edging over the last rough patch, he found himself heading down into the steepest canyon yet. There right below them, streaming swiftly over the gravel bottom, was a few feet of real running water. He couldn’t remember a nicer sight.

  “I see the water,” Lexie exclaimed. “But how is it going to save us?”

  “We’ll see,” he said, trying to maintain his calm.

  “But first we’re going in. The truck needs cooling off. I’ve been smelling the tires burning for quite a while.”