All the images and colors were surreal to her, as if she’d been living under a cloud for most of her life. Where was the hazy filtered sunlight of regular mornings?
They left the grazing land and headed up the rocky foothills of the Chuska range. The sky was cobalt-blue with puffy white clouds in a dotted pattern, seemingly spaced in particular designs across the heavens.
“What’s that?” Cisco asked as he pointed off to their right.
“The Hogback?” She turned to look at the jagged peaks of sand and rock resembling the spine of a razorback hog.
“Did someone build it like that? And if so, why?”
“Those shapes were designed by nature. Wind and erosion take the top layers of soil and sand and leave those steeply tilted feldspar and sandstone peaks.”
“Hey, geologist. To me it looks like a dinosaur was buried there and just the spiny back is protruding.”
Sunnie laughed at his images. “Every kid who goes to school around here learns about the geology of the place. It’s hard not to. But I didn’t know you had such a fanciful bent, Bounty Hunter. In my opinion, it looks like a row of sentinels, standing guard for the Dine against the plundering hordes of time and weather.”
The sound of her laughter sent waves of hot, sweet silk down to settle in Cisco’s gut. He forgot about being annoyed and managed a smile at her image of soldiers. It was just as fanciful as his dinosaur had been. Yet hers was absolutely right for her. Whatever had made her this way, sentinels and war were a part of Sunnie’s life.
It made him wonder what he could do to give her a break from thinking and breathing Brotherhood and Skinwalkers. She was so strong and did her best to stay tough, even managing to convince herself that she didn’t care whether she lived or died. But he’d seen the purplish smudges under her eyes and noted the bleak look. No one who didn’t care about living could possess as much passion as she’d shown last night. He didn’t buy it for one minute.
“I guess I haven’t told you yet why I’m investigating that old murder,” he said before he thought it through. He’d wanted to take her mind off war, but now the spotlight would be thrust at him.
She tilted her chin. “No. You haven’t.”
No turning back now. He would have to tell her the story. But maybe this would be for the best. There were times when he needed someone to confide in. And she came from the reservation and knew the people involved.
“I’m doing it to fulfill my mother’s last wish.”
“Oh? Well, that’s good. Then you’ll have a kind of closure, right?”
He shook his head but didn’t turn away from the road ahead. “So far, the investigation has only brought up more questions than answers. Questions I could’ve done without.”
“That’s a shame. But what was your mother’s wish?”
“She wanted to know what really happened to my father and why he never returned to us.”
“Well, it’s good that you—oh. You think the murdered man was your father?”
“I know he was.”
Sunnie reached over and tenderly laid a hand on his arm. “Researching the old facts of his death must be hell for you. Are you positive the dead man was your father?”
Nodding, Cisco swallowed back any leftover emotion and began the tale of what he’d learned. “I’d never known my father’s last name. He supported us and showed up now and then, but he never stayed long. When he disappeared for good, it changed our whole lives. After Mother died never learning what happened to him, I went to visit her sister in Mexico. That’s where I found his last name and that he’d worked for the U.S. government. My mother had written it in a letter.”
Sunnie made no comment, but he knew her mind was whirling with questions. And the answer she wanted was the hardest one to say.
“Apparently,” Cisco began again slowly, “my father had been employed as what’s known as a ‘disguise master’ for the U.S. Marshals Service. He built new images for people in the Witness Security Program and was supposedly the best at his job.
“But he quit suddenly one day,” Cisco added. “Told his supervisors that he was moving with the family back to his wife’s homeland on the Navajo reservation.”
“You said your mother was from Mexico. Was he lying?”
Cisco took a deep breath. “No. He was never married to my mother. We were not the family he’d meant.”
“You mean…” She shook her head and turned to look out the windshield. “I really am sorry. That must’ve been a difficult fact for you to learn.”
“It was. But the worst was yet to come. When I found the articles in the paper about his murder, there were pictures of his Navajo widow and grieving children.”
“Children? You have siblings you didn’t even know you had? Are they still on the reservation?”
He nodded but couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“Have you called them? Told them?”
When he said nothing, Sunnie’s eyes took on a panicked expression. “What was your father’s name?”
With a deep sigh he said, “Sam Long.”
“Oh. My. God. That’s why I remembered hearing something about the murder. And that’s why you acted so strangely to the name Long. Hunter and Kody Long are your half brothers.”
After the worst news was out in the open, the two of them fell into a sullen silence. Cisco knew she would want to know more and could just hear her thoughts nagging him to tell Hunter and Kody who he really was. Tough. He wasn’t ready yet. He wasn’t even sure now that he should’ve told her.
It didn’t take them half an hour more to reach the other side of the mountain range and the wooded cliffs and meadows where the Plant Tender’s cabin was located. It was a much easier climb than coming down the day before in the snowstorm had been.
Sunnie directed him to pull up in front and stop. “Don’t get out of the Jeep just yet,” she advised. “In Navajo tradition we wait to be recognized and invited in.”
“But I thought Ben’s wife was non-Navajo. An outsider, like me.”
She nodded. “Tory came to the reservation without knowing the traditions, that’s true. But she’s had a couple of years of immersion and training in the Navajo Way
. She’s the New Plant Tender and should be treated with the respect of her position.”
He nodded but didn’t really get it. Still, if Sunnie wanted to wait for an invitation, they would wait in the Jeep.
Minutes went by, but nothing happened. Sunnie began rubbing her arms as though she were getting colder.
“What if Mrs. Wauneka isn’t here?”
Sunnie shook off the suggestion. “I saw her SUV beside the cabin as we pulled up. Ben said she would be waiting.”
They sat another few minutes in silence.
“Tory used to live in this cabin,” Sunnie told him. “Back before she and Ben got married. The Old Plant Tender left it to her after she died. Maybe Tory’s in the shower or on the phone or something.”
“Maybe.” Cisco was getting a bad feeling about this. “Are you sensing anything strange? Any Skinwalker vibes?”
She shook her head. “No. But I agree things don’t seem right. The cabin must have a Brotherhood circle of protection around it. They would never leave the Plant Tender and her place unprotected. Still…”
Looking toward the cabin with the first real sense of foreboding he’d seen on her face, Sunnie continued, “Maybe we should at least go knock on the door. What if she’s fallen and broken something and can’t get up?”
Cisco climbed out of the Jeep and went around to Sunnie’s side as she eased out of her seat, too. “How old is she?”
“In her late thirties.”
“Healthy?”
“Very.”
“Then it’s unlikely that she’s sick or injured.” He took Sunnie’s hand and pulled his .38 from his jacket pocket. “If something goes down in there, you need to act fast. Do what I tell you. If I say run, run like hell.”
“All right.”
Cisco was surprised to hear Sunnie agreeing so easily to his instructions. She must be really afraid for her friend. It made him even more nervous than before. He had a moment, one second, when he fervently wished Sunnie was armed. She could protect herself just fine. But it was too late now to do anything about it.
The intensity of the situation escalated when they reached the cabin’s front stoop. There were no sounds, not inside the cabin nor from the surrounding forest.
Sunnie dropped his hand and knocked on the door. Nothing. Then she tried the knob and found the door open.
She opened her mouth to call out, but Cisco laid a hand on her shoulder to keep her quiet. “No noise,” he whispered. “I’ll go first.”
“But…”
He shot a warning glare in her direction and took a half step inside. Sunnie was right on his heels. He eased behind the front door and dragged her flat against the wall with him. If they were going to search this cabin, they’d do it right. Like shadows.
Listening for any sounds, he didn’t hear so much as the murmur of an electric clock or a computer. Nothing seemed out of place in the living room, but it was difficult to judge with all the plants strewn around on nearly every surface.
“Where is she?” Sunnie murmured with panic rising in her voice.
Taking it one room at a time, Cisco carefully led the way, winding around the cabin. Nothing seemed overturned as if there had been a struggle. Every room, every leaf, was perfect. It looked as if the occupant had just stepped away for a moment and would soon return.
When they got to the kitchen, the first thing they spotted was the back door standing wide-open. “Oh, thank goodness,” Sunnie said. “She must be out back gathering plants or herbs. Let’s go call her.”
She dashed out the door before he could stop her. He followed behind, but slowly. Things were still all wrong.
“Hold it,” he said when Sunnie began calling out and walking toward the woods. “Just how far does this invisible protective line extend around the house?”
Turning back to him, Sunnie smiled. “About fifty feet. But there aren’t any Skinwalkers around here. I’d know if they were waiting. You can hear it. Come on. I want to find Tory.”
He caught up to her and grabbed her by the hand again. “Slow down. Things aren’t right. Don’t you feel it? Let’s not rush off and make trouble for ourselves.”
“But…”
Just then, a loud shriek from a large bird came from above their heads. Sunnie immediately froze and looked up.
When she spotted a benign circling hawk, her breathing came easier. It was not a Skinwalker raven or vulture getting ready to attack them. But as she stared at the raptor for a moment, she realized the bird was trying to tell them something. This must be one of the Brotherhood’s Bird People allies. But what was it trying to say?
“What’s going on?” Cisco asked.
He was so close that she felt the heat from his body and could even feel the shimmering tension in his muscles.
“Uh…” How to tell him about Bird People? “That hawk seems to want us to follow. Maybe it can lead us to Tory.”
“You’re kidding. You want to follow a bird? Like a dog or something? How?”
The hawk began circling lower and lower. Low enough to fly below the tree limbs.
“Son of a bitch,” Cisco said with a shake of his head. “Okay, but you keep low, too. I don’t like any part of this. It’s too weird.”
Within another fifty feet the trees began to close in around them. Still the bird winged ahead of them, staying just in sight.
The hawk finally landed in the low-hanging branch of a ponderosa pine. Sunnie raced to the spot below it.
As she noticed one of Tory’s protected herb gardens, her stomach flipped over. Every plant had been crushed and the muddy dirt from the melting snow was trampled with deep scrapes and prints.
“No. Oh, no. Tory, what’s happened to you?” she called out to her absent friend as she fell to her knees.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Sunnie could see Tory’s smiling face in her mind. The image of the last time they’d been together as Tory laughed and joked about Sunnie’s recovery from the Skinwalker attack was as clear as if it had been yesterday. Tory was so caring, so giving. She’d always believed that Sunnie could be cured of anything and had made being injured almost fun with her sarcastic wisecracks and tender touches. Tory was the first real friend Sunnie had ever known.
How could anything bad happen to her?
Cisco reached Sunnie’s side, laid a steady hand on her arm and bent down to study the ground. He knelt in the dirt, inspecting the scene. What he found made him stiffen his back. Blood. Not enough to mean someone had been murdered here but enough to mean someone had put up a fight on this spot.
“I don’t think she’s dead,” he told Sunnie softly. “It looks like they surprised her here and took her away. I believe she struggled with them, but I don’t believe they killed her.”
“What?” Sunnie raised her head and he saw the shock in her eyes. “She can’t be dead. Not her. She can’t….”
Cisco draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “No, there’s not enough blood evidence, only enough for a scuffle. I’m sure she wasn’t killed here. But they’ve taken her for some reason.”
Sunnie pushed him away and broke down then. Just bent in two and crumbled over in a heap, sobbing hysterically and pounding her fists into the dirt.
It was a sight he never would’ve believed. The strong woman sniper. The tough but sexy-as-hell female to whom he’d felt such a link. He’d even spilled secrets to her he hadn’t intended to tell anyone. Now she was a solitary, scared woman worried about her friend.
His heart ached for her. Her tears drove nails into his gut and messed with his brain. He wanted to soothe her fears, but he wasn’t sure she would let him.
Cisco looked around them then and noticed the hawk had already gone. There was no one nearby and not the slightest noise nor breath of air. All of a sudden he didn’t like the idea of being out here in the forest and so exposed.
“Let’s get you back inside,” he said as he gently lifted her in his arms. Damn. He couldn’t stand seeing her weak like this. It was killing him.
Carrying her back to the cabin, Cisco’s mind raced with ways to help Sunnie’s friend. Anything to get his Sunnie back. He actually knew the best way, but his spirit still resisted.
By the time they entered the kitchen again and he’d slammed the door behind them, he was shaky as hell and ready to kill someone in order to put things right. He gently lowered her into a chair at the kitchen table.
Sunnie’s tough veneer came back in an instant. She popped right back up and stood toe-to-toe with him.
“You’re the bounty hunter,” she said as she smacked him in the chest. “You find people. Find Tory.”
A tiny niggle of relief about her being back in control snuck into his mind. He had to stifle the grin he felt.
The smile was fairly easy to hide, but his hands moved without his permission. Before he knew it, he’d buried one hand in her hair. Cupping the back of her neck with the other, he hauled her tightly to him.
“You’re damn straight that’s what I do,” he said with a hoarse cough. “We’ll find her, míja. But you have to stay strong.”
She leaned her head against his chest and sighed. “Help me.”
Those words undid him. He buried his face in her hair and babbled tender, soothing Spanish in her ear. “Si, si. Mi amor…”
Sunnie pulled back to stare up at him. Looking into her eyes, he became so flustered he couldn’t think of anything to say. So he let his lips do the talking in a desperate, aggressive kiss.
A moment later he lifted his head and pushed her away just as aggressively. “Dammit all to hell. I let you get to me. Like never before. Stop that.”
“Cisco, stop what? What did I…?”
He backed away when she stepped closer. “Quiet,” he growled in a whisper. “
Just keep quiet. I have to think.”
She fisted her hands but left them at her sides. Too bad. He was itching to go a few more rounds.
There seemed no way out now. He was going to have to do what he’d dreaded.
Dismal and grim-faced, he reached into a pocket and took out both his cell phone and Hunter’s card. After vowing to stay out of his half brothers’ way while in Navajoland, it was time to suck it up and admit defeat. Cisco had little choice but to give in and call the Brotherhood for help.
Nearly half an hour later Sunnie heard a car door slam and stepped out on the porch to wave in Kody Long and Michael Ayze. She’d known Cisco was not eager to talk to Hunter again. Lucky for him, Hunter was not the brother who’d arrived. Now she had to decide how to go about introducing Cisco to his other brother.
“Ya’at’eeh,” Michael said. “May we step inside?”
She nodded.
Kody spoke up and said, “Mind if I head out back first? I’d like to see the scene of the kidnapping for myself. Maybe there will be some clues to where they’ve taken her.” He disappeared around the side of the house.
Sunnie nearly collapsed with relief at having the Brotherhood involved in finding Tory. They would know what to do. Michael stepped through the threshold, and she introduced the brilliant professor to Cisco.
“So how do you fit into all this?” Michael asked Cisco almost immediately.
“I don’t fit into the kidnapping. I came here with Sunnie to borrow Tory Wauneka’s SUV. We discovered her missing. Called the Brotherhood to help.”
“What did you need the Plant Tender’s SUV for? What are you doing on the rez?”
Sunnie didn’t know for sure what Cisco would say. Michael was not his relative, but still. Saying too much might cause him more trouble and more questions than he wanted to handle right now.
“I’m here investigating an old, cold murder. And after driving through a snowstorm, Sunnie and I needed better transportation. Dr. Ben offered. We took him up on it.”
Books by Linda Conrad Page 124
