by Aimée Thurlo
Dana shook her head, trying to push those thoughts away. She didn’t need this-not now or ever. Love was undependable and never everything it was cut out to be. If you looked to it searching for security, you found yourself standing on quicksand. If you relied on it for companionship, you found yourself alone.
Her mother’s life had unraveled after her husband’s death. Friends’ dreams had shattered as forgotten wedding promises led to bitter divorces. She was better off alone-living in Haven. Her carefully structured life didn’t need the kind of distractions-and heartbreak-a man like Ranger would bring.
“Are you okay?” he asked after a long silence.
“No,” she answered in a quiet voice. “I hate violence. Now I’m stuck in the middle of something I never dreamed could happen-not even in my worst nightmares.”
Ranger took his eyes off the road just long enough to reach for her hand. “We met under difficult circumstances, but we’re in this together now…to the end. You don’t have to feel alone.”
His callused palm felt strong and incredibly masculine. Ranger was asking her to lean on him, and heaven knew there was nothing she would have liked more. “You don’t trust me, not really. Why are you offering me your friendship?”
“I’m a human being and I know when another human being is hurting,” he said, his voice gentle.
She was hurting and the warmth of his touch held out the comfort of gentleness-something that was sadly lacking in her life at the moment.
“There’s no reason for us not to help each other, is there?” he asked. “The man we knew and lost would have wanted it that way,” he said, reminding her of Hastiin Sani.
She was ready to yield to his reasoning when reality came crashing down on her, reminding her that caution and survival were inexorably linked. “What are you doing?” she asked, seeing him turn off the headlights as they approached her home.
“If someone’s watching your house, we don’t want to advertise our arrival.”
Despite the fact that everything looked normal, fear pressed in on her until she could hardly take a breath. Death was following her.
She glanced over at Ranger. Although alert, he appeared calm and in control of himself and the situation.
“How can you do this and stay so composed? After all you’ve seen today, don’t you just want to scream?”
“Screaming’s not my thing, sweetheart,” he said, his eyes suddenly dancing with laughter.
He drove around the flower bed in the center of the circular driveway and parked facing the lane. If they had to leave in a hurry, they’d already be facing in the right direction.
When he stepped in front of her and led the way, Dana fell into step behind him. Outside the rez, a man would step back and let a woman pass first, then catch up and open the door. Navajo customs dictated that the man lead. In case of trouble, he’d be the first to face it.
Dana couldn’t help but notice that Ranger seemed ready-almost eager-for a fight. Ranger wanted…maybe needed…action. Pain took many forms.
When he reached the entrance, Ranger suddenly froze. She followed his gaze and, even in the moonlight, could see the dark imprint of a boot just below the door lock. That, and the splintered trim, told them both that the door had been kicked in.
Either from their movement across the old wooden porch, or because of a slight increase in the breeze, the door swung back about an inch. Her heart started to beat so fiercely she could hear it pounding in her head. Through the haze that clouded her mind she felt Ranger grip her forearm.
“Get back in the truck,” he whispered.
She was turning around when, from somewhere inside the house, she heard a metallic click.
Ranger pushed her out of the way, then kicked the door just below the knob. It slammed into whomever was standing just on the other side.
There was a groan, then a thud, as the intruder crashed to the floor. A shot went off an instant later, shattering the glass transom just above the door.
Ranger grabbed her hand and they ran to the truck. Dana dove inside the passenger’s seat while Ranger took the wheel.
“Stay down!” he said.
She ducked, looking over as Ranger turned the key and the souped-up engine roared to life. She heard gravel flying as they lurched forward, and took the turn onto the lane faster than she’d ever imagined possible.
Dana bumped her head against the door as she raised up to see how fast they were going. “Slow down!” she yelled. “You’ll lose control.”
“I won’t lose control,” he said in a surprisingly even tone. “But you’re gonna want to fasten your shoulder belt.”
As she clicked it in place, she saw a bright flash of light in the passenger-side mirror. “A truck came around from behind my house. Now someone is getting in. They’re going to chase us!” Her voice went up an octave.
“They won’t catch us, not in this truck. Now hang on.”
Ranger turned sharply to the right onto the eastbound lane, roared down a hundred yards to a bypass, then made a hard left turn, reversing directions and heading west.
Dana saw their enemies enter the highway, passing in the opposite direction across the median. A few seconds later, the vehicle had made the same maneuver as them, and came up right behind them. “They’ve got a huge truck, loads bigger than this one!”
He glanced in the rearview mirror, at the same time finally turning on his own headlights. “Six-wheeled pickup. Hot, but it’s just a stock model.” He reached into his jacket and tossed her his cell phone. “We’ll be back on the reservation in five minutes. Press nine. That’ll connect you straight to the tribal police. Sergeant Sonny Buck. Tell him what’s happened, and give him our location.”
She pressed the number. It only rang once before a man answered. “Sergeant Buck.”
Dana spoke clearly, but her words came out as fast as her racing pulse. “At least one of the men is armed. He took a shot at us.”
“You’re on highway sixty-four?”
“Yes, heading west, approaching the curve around Hogback.”
“We’ll send backup from Shiprock. Can you lose them?”
She relayed the question to Ranger, who was concentrating on his driving.
“I can’t outrun them without endangering those people in the slow-moving cars up ahead. That means the punks chasing us are going to close in.”
Dana found and pressed the speaker on the phone so that the sergeant could hear Ranger directly and vice versa.
“You’ve got backup on the way, Ranger. Until then, use your best judgment,” the sergeant said.
Ranger focused on the two cars they were quickly approaching. The cars were side-by-side, taking up both lanes. Judging from the four or five heads sticking out the various car windows and all the waving going on, it looked like two carloads of teens talking back and forth.
He might be able to get around them by passing on the outside shoulder, but to do that and maintain control he’d have to slow down. He flipped on the emergency flashers, hoping to get the attention of the drivers ahead. A girl in one of the cars looked back and waved, laughing.
The driver chasing Dana and Ranger wasn’t acting as friendly. As Ranger cut his speed and whipped to the right, the six-wheeler came up on them quickly. Ranger glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a man with a skinhead haircut lean out of the passenger’s window, aiming an auto-loader handgun.
Ranger weaved more to the right, trying to throw off his aim. “He’s trying to shoot out a tire,” he said. “Hold on.”
As Ranger rotated the steering wheel back to the left, two shots rang out, but both missed the wheels and ricocheted off the pavement, clanging into the bed somewhere near the tailgate.
The gunshots got the attention of the teen drivers immediately. The kids at the windows ducked back inside and the driver on the right braked hard, swerving onto the shoulder. The driver on the left side pulled into the right lane and accelerated immediately.
Ranger whipped the
pickup to the left again, speeding past both teen vehicles. “Finally a little more highway.”
The six-wheeler was right on their tail, and the heavy vehicle’s massive bumper struck their lighter pickup in the right side of the tailgate. Physics took over. Ranger fought to keep them from rolling over as they skidded at an angle down the asphalt. Trying to straighten out their vehicle meant running onto the center median and into the drainage channel. “Hang on!” he shouted.
Dana clung to the arm rest and the seat, staring ahead in horror as they went on the carnival ride from Hell. They bounced hard, nearly running up the other side onto oncoming traffic, before Ranger could steer away without flipping them. He braked hard, and they slid down the center of the shallow trough, throwing up a cloud of dust. Their pickup came to rest just inches from a culvert.
Ranger glanced in the right-side mirror. “They’ve pulled off to the median behind us, and are getting out of their truck. Get your head down low, like you bumped your head. And stay down. When they get here, I’ll handle it.”
“But-”
“There’s no time to explain,” he whispered, slumping down and lolling his head back and against the windowsill on the left, as if he were injured. “Trust me.”
Using the side mirror, he saw them coming up the drainage ditch. His left hand was low, on the door latch.
“Stay in the car, no matter what happens next,” he whispered, unfastening his seat belt with his thumb and letting it wind up.
He kept the engine running, listening to it. He knew this truck’s engine as well as he knew his own heartbeat. It was still growling, low and deep, raring to go.
Biding his time, Ranger watched the pair inch closer. Then the chunkier, muscle-laden weightlifter-type with the buzz cut picked up his pace, holding the auto-loader casually down by his side. Ranger closed his eyes, feigning unconsciousness, and listened for their approach.
The footsteps stopped, close, and Ranger could hear the man breathing. Putting his entire upper body into the move, Ranger suddenly threw open the door. The metal panel slammed into the weightlifter’s stomach. As the man stumbled back, Ranger jumped out and kicked the knee of the second man, the driver. The man screamed in pain and reeled back, but Ranger threw up a roundhouse kick, slamming him in the temple. The man went down hard, out for the count.
Ranger spun to face the beefy guy, who was on his knees among the weeds, searching frantically for his pistol. Suddenly Dana rushed forward, a two-foot piece of split pine, perhaps lost from a load of firewood, in her hand. She swung and coldcocked the man squarely on the head. He fell forward like a sack of flour.
“Nice hit, but didn’t I tell you to stay in the cab?” Ranger demanded.
“I don’t always do what I’m told.”
Before he could respond, they heard the squeal of brakes from a vehicle close by. “Get in,” he said, gesturing toward the pickup. “That might be their backup.”
They were already in motion as Dana fumbled with her seat belt. They bounced back onto the highway in the oncoming lane, then Ranger did a one-eighty and drove back slowly in the opposite direction. Almost as an afterthought, he rolled his window down and turned on the radio, blaring out a country western tune.
“Why are we going, what, forty-five miles an hour with Brooks and Dunn blowing out the speakers?” she asked, nearly shouting to be heard over the music.
“They’ll expect us to hightail it to the rez-my turf-where I can hide easily. But I’d like to throw them a curveball. If the guys in the six-wheeler are conscious or their backups are still around, they won’t take a second look at a slow-moving vehicle coming from the opposite direction.”
“Yeah, with the radio blaring.” She sat up and shifted into her seat to look at him. “Not a bad tactic. So what’s next?”
Ranger gave an approving nod. He liked Dana. Instead of complaining about bruises, or the way things had gone down, she was going with the plan and was ready for the next round. “You have a lot of guts. This is far from what you’re used to, but you’re catching on fast.”
“I learned a long time ago that life has ups and downs, and survival means learning how to bounce back stronger than before.”
He’d heard the echo of painful memories that wound through her words, but that was only because he had a habit of really listening to people, and reading between the lines. Dana wasn’t asking for his sympathy. She was simply stating a fact.
“I work for Birdsong Enterprises. We’re going back to Farmington to switch vehicles,” he said, turning the radio off now that they were past the area where the confrontation had taken place. As they’d gone by, he’d noted with satisfaction that the six-wheeler hadn’t moved.
“Birdsong…the stock car racing family?” she asked.
He nodded, picking up speed to match the posted limit. “I work in their auto performance shop.”
“The Birdsongs will let you just borrow one of their cars?”
“Sure.” The Birdsong brothers weren’t full Navajo, but the tribe was one of their racing team sponsors. The Brotherhood of Warriors usually bought their modified pickups and cars from the Birdsongs, too. The brothers had learned not to ask questions, especially since the warriors’ financial backing came from the tribal president’s special fund.
Ranger reached for the cell phone and made a call. “Tony, this is Ranger. Hope I didn’t wake you up, buddy, but I need a new set of wheels ASAP. What’s available?”
“We’ve got that new model everyone in law enforcement is salivating for-and we’ve made some improvements on it, too. It’ll run circles around every bad guy on the road. And guess what, The Ringer just came out of the shop an hour ago, and she’s ready to roll.”
Ranger smiled. He’d driven the generic-looking pale blue sedan. It was disguised to look like something Granny might drive to her quilting group, complete with knitted baby shoes dangling from the rearview mirror. Yet it had a racing and handling setup that could beat most high-performance vehicles. It had started out as a joke, but once everyone at Birdsong had gotten involved, it had ended up being one of the fastest cars around. Everyone wanted a chance to get behind the wheel. The car was hot, and constantly being tweaked to raise the bar a little higher.
“It’s gotta be The Ringer. Can you meet me in the parking lot of the Terminal Café-West Side Mall? We’ll trade keys. You can take my truck.”
“I’ve always had my eye on that truck of yours. What do you say I keep your little jewel for the weekend?”
Ranger laughed. “Yeah, fine.”
“Any other way I can help?”
“No, I’ve got it covered. Thanks,” Ranger answered, keeping it vague.
Switching off the phone, Ranger glanced over at her. “I’m going to borrow one of Tony Birdsong’s best kept secrets.”
Dana didn’t press him for more details. As he headed back to Farmington, Ranger wondered about the woman next to him. What she lacked in training, she more than made up for in spirit. He found himself liking her more by the hour.
Uploaded by Coral
Chapter Six
Dana looked at her watch. “It’s two a.m.,” she said, yawning. “I’m tired, and I’m just not thinking straight anymore. I need some sleep. Can we go back to my place and get a few hours of sleep? I understand criminals don’t return to the scene of the crime.”
“Who gave you that lesson in crime fighting? Was it in your teacher’s manual?” he teased.
“I heard it on TV,” she answered, annoyed. “But it makes sense.”
“Not in this case. They wanted you badly enough to go after you at home, then on the road, despite the fact that you’re being protected. Never assume what the bad guys will or won’t do.” He glanced over at her. She was tired so her resistance would be low. Now was the ideal time to press her for answers.
“You’re a witness…maybe more.”
“More than what?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“You tell me. I’m on your side, Dana.
You must have noticed that by now. Whatever it is you know, or are keeping secret, is making you a target. Tell me what it is. Then I can pull some strings and hide you somewhere, maybe out of state, until these guys are caught.”
She shook her head slowly. “I’m not going away. I’ve got business here.”
“Business?”
“Yeah. I’m a teacher in Shiprock.” Although she knew he was a good ally, she had a secret she’d vowed to protect. It would probably be better for her not to talk at all right now rather than risk any slipups. “I’m going to lay back for a few minutes. If I fall asleep and you need something, wake me.”
“I could use some company, too. Talk to me. I need to stay sharp.”
Dana was more convinced than ever that he wasn’t playing fair. Then again, nothing about this had been fair-not from the moment she and Hastiin Sani had been kidnapped.
“So we’ll talk, but don’t expect much,” she said, yawning.
“Tell me, how did you and our medicine man become friends?”
It appeared to be an innocent question, but she could practically feel the undercurrent there. “You already know how it was for me growing up. Back then, the medicine man was my unofficial guardian angel. He was always there for me, no matter what.”
“And you remained close friends all these years?”
She nodded. “He was one of my character references when I applied for my teaching job in Shiprock. Lately, he’d become very involved with some tribal consulting work so we hadn’t gotten together since the beginning of the school year. I was really happy to see him when he showed up at the parent/teacher conference I’d scheduled with his son and wife.” Her voice shook and she lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. “And you?” she finally added.
“I’ve known him for a very long time. He’s the man I’d always look to for answers.”
“Then you’ll miss him as much as I will,” she said with a soft sigh.
His face remained without expression for a moment, then his eyes softened and he nodded solemnly.
