by Aimée Thurlo
Marlee said nothing and, as the phone on Gabriel’s desk began to ring, she let herself out of his office. With the attacks on her, she should have expected it. She’d raised more questions in his mind than answers, and he was the sheriff, after all. The prospect saddened her. She’d tried very hard to leave the past behind her, but no matter how far she’d run, it still dogged her footsteps.
LUCAS PARKED HIS TRUCK in the snow-covered driveway beside old man Simmons’s home, killing the engine before it could backfire. Arnold Simmons was the only current resident of Four Winds, not related to the Blackhorse family, who had experienced the peddler firsthand. Simmons’s destiny had taken him from abject poverty to the fortune of a wealthy man.
Arnold was ill a lot nowadays, but not from the flu. His complaints were mostly those that came with old age. He had to be past ninety. Although Simmons could have easily afforded the hospital stay Lucas had recommended, even a private suite, he’d refused to leave his home and go among strangers. As a Navajo, Lucas understood that decision far better than most people could have.
Lucas knocked on the back door, then, knowing it was always left unlocked, entered. He called out to his patient, but only silence greeted him. This was unusual, because Simmons usually had the TV on, tuned to a news channel.
Uneasiness spread over Lucas as he walked toward Sim-mons’s back bedroom. The house didn’t feel right He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew something was very wrong.
Lucas reached the last door of the long hallway, and looked inside. Simmons appeared to be asleep.
“I’m here, Mr. Simmons,” he called out, then stopped. The curtains hadn’t been opened, though it was nearly noon, and the TV remote was on the nightstand. That wasn’t at all like Arnold. He loved daylight, and felt the night with all its secrets was only one more enemy of the aged;
Lucas approached the bed, but Arnold didn’t move at all. As he touched the old man’s wrist to feel for a pulse, he had his answer. The body was cold. Arnold Simmons had passed away sometime during the night.
Lucas exhaled softly. He’d liked the old man, as most people had. Lucas admired the way Simmons had faced the world on his own terms. He’d bought one shovel from the peddler, and through a series of events, had come into a fortune. Yet, for him, nothing had essentially changed. He’d remained a man who took pleasure in little things, from a sunrise to his much loved potted marigolds sitting on the windowsill. It looked as though they needed water. Lucas poured a generous portion from the bottle on the nightstand.
Lucas left the bedroom, closing the door behind him, and sat down wearily on the living-room couch. As he filled out the form required by the state, he felt an oppressiveness settle over him. Navajo teachings taught that Death was not an enemy. Without it, old men wouldn’t give way to the young. It was part of the balance and the harmony of things.
Yet, as it was with many of his tribe, he did not like being around the dead. Unlike Joshua, he didn’t believe in the chindi, the evil in man that stayed earthbound and was said to pose a danger to the living. Still, he’d never quite been able to develop the ability to remain at ease around the dead like most of his colleagues who helped the ill or injured.
Lucas telephoned the Santa Fe funeral home that served their community, but was told that because of highway conditions, it would be hours before the body could be taken away.
It was not natural for the living to remain with the dead.
Pushing such thoughts aside, he called his brother to report the death. Gabriel was at the high school, dealing with other issues. Two teens had decided to square off, and the administration hadn’t been able to cool their tempers with threats other than jail. Lucas asked about the boys’ physical condition, but they’d only inflicted bruises on each other, and he wasn’t needed.
He called next to find out about repairs to the clinic. One of the local contractors, a friend of Joshua’s, was making a written estimate now, but thanks to the weather, work couldn’t begin for another day, at the earliest.
Lucas paced around the room, then stopped by the window to stare at the snow outside. The temperature had risen slightly throughout the morning, and the snow was starting to melt a bit. But that wouldn’t last long. Once the sun went down, the temperature would drop by thirty degrees or more and the partially melted snow would, by morning, become a layer of ice, as treacherous as it was beautiful.
Beautiful things were often the most dangerous. He thought of Marlee. Her softness called out to him, offering him things he’d long denied himself. Lucas stared at the phone, thinking of calling her, yet knowing he wouldn’t. Suddenly the cellular phone rang.
“It’s me,” Marlee said.
As he heard her voice, he wondered what link had formed between them that had compelled her to call at just that moment. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I was just wondering how things were going for you, and whether you had any more news on the flu epidemic. I’m going to be visiting the seniors’ center this afternoon, and I know they’ll have lots of questions.”
“Reassure them as much as you can that there isn’t anything to worry about.”
There was a lengthy silence before she spoke again. “Then why do you sound so depressed? What’s happened?”
He smiled. So she could sense his moods now, too. Maybe he’d become too easy to read. He told her about Arnold Simmons.
“I’m really sorry to hear that. Let me come over and keep you company. Duties like that are easier when they’re shared.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“No, probably not, but I’d like to.”
“Okay. I’ll see you shortly, then.”
Marlee arrived fifteen minutes later, and Lucas couldn’t deny he was glad to see her. Desire tugged at him, tormenting him even in this place that, until now, had been filled only with death.
Marlee handed him a thermos of coffee, and opened the sack she was carrying. “I know you’re probably not hungry, but I brought you something to eat anyway. It’s mostly snacks you can pick at through the afternoon.”
“Thanks.” Lucas took the thermos from her and, as their fingers touched, he forced himself to suppress a shudder. He wanted to hold her, to feel her softness and warmth against him. In this house of death, she was a light burning bright, beckoning to him.
He did his best to concentrate on her words as she told him about her meeting with Gabriel. “People are sure getting scared,” she said. “Your brother has his hands full right now.”
“There haven’t been any more emergencies this morning so, with luck, maybe the flu outbreak has already started to level off.”
She met his gaze and held it. “Do you really think so?”
Her eyes, so pleading, so soft, almost destroyed him. There was an intensity in their depths that spoke of hidden passions held in check. Lucas wanted to kiss her, to drive all the fears and concerns out of her mind and fill her only with a need for him.
“Do you?” she insisted.
He struggled to remember her question, but before he could answer, his cellular phone rang again. Lucas identified himself quickly, listened for a moment, then spoke. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Keep her warm. And don’t worry. High temperatures aren’t that unusual in children her age.”
He concluded the call, clipped the phone to his belt and grabbed his jacket from the chair. “Mrs. Vega’s baby is ill, and so’s her husband. She’s worried about the baby’s temperature, but from what she’s told me, I’m more worried about Bob. He’s got another medical condition that makes anything like the flu much more complicated. He’s not one to complain, so things usually get out of hand before I’m called in. I’ve got to go.”
“I’ll stay with Mr. Simmons’s body until the mortuary people come by.”
He looked at her in surprise, grateful that she’d offered but unwilling to force such a task on her. “You don’t have to do that”
“I know, but I think somebody shoul
d be here. Mr. Simmons always treated me well. Just leave whatever papers I’ll need to turn over to them to make it legal.”
“I’ll do that And would you do another favor for me? Keep your ears open when you go to the seniors’ center later. Senior citizens tend to speak their minds, and I’d like to know what they think this illness is. From what you told me about your conversation with Gabriel, there’s a lot of speculation going around and I’d like to know what’s on people’s minds. Can you do that?”
“Is there something in particular that’s worrying you?”
Lucas handed her the papers she needed. “When I’m treating a patient, I usually know exactly what’s needed to restore them to health. It’s an instinct that has never steered me wrong. Yet lately all I get is the gut feeling that I’m missing a vital piece of the equation.” He rested his hand on the door handle and looked back at her. “I need answers, and unless I find them soon, superstition and fear may deal Four Winds a fatal blow.”
Chapter Eight
Marlee sat by the window, waiting. Two hours had passed, and no one had come by for the body. The snow had continued to slowly melt outside, but now a thick, blanketing fog had crept in, reducing visibility to a dozen feet or less. She’d never seen weather like this in Four Winds before.
She tried not to think of it as an ill omen, but it was difficult not to do so. First the flu epidemic, and now this crazy weather was forcing her to pay closer attention to the stories she’d heard about the peddler, and wonder if there’d been more truth to them than she’d thought.
She heard a sudden dull thud, then another. Gooseflesh dimpled her arms as she realized the sound had come from the back, from Mr. Simmons’s room.
Wild images rushed into her mind. It didn’t seem very likely, but perhaps Lucas had made a mistake and Mr. Simmons wasn’t dead. She’d heard of cases where a patient’s heart had started beating again without any medical intervention at all. The possibilities urged her forward, and she ran back to the bedroom. If he’d awakened suddenly, he’d probably need her help.
Marlee threw open the door, then stopped in midstride. The blanket still covered the body. She reached underneath, intending to check Mr. Simmons’s pulse, but the cold temperature and pallor of his skin told her that the man was indeed dead.
She was standing next to the bed, trying to come up with an answer to what had happened, when something hit the windowpane hard, making it rattle loudly.
Marlee’s hands began to shake. Someone was trying to scare her. Holding on to that knowledge, and determined not to give them the satisfaction, Marlee picked up the cellular phone Gabriel had given her. She dialed, but the call wouldn’t go through. All she could hear was the sound of loud static. She tried Lucas’s number next, but ended up with the same results. The weather was obviously playing havoc with cellular-phone communications. Once again thumps rattled the door, this time in the back.
Hoping that a land-line call to the sheriff’s office would get through, Marlee used Simmons’s phone and dialed the dispatcher. A young woman answered and quickly assured her that she’d radio Gabriel and he would respond.
While she was waiting, Marlee took another look out the living-room window. The fog was as thick as before, and whoever was out there was using it as a smoke screen. Marlee studied the snow on the ground just below the window and saw fragments of snowballs beside the house. She stared at them in muted anger. Someone had been pelting the house.
Suddenly a loud backfire cut through the gloom of the fog, and she saw the approaching headlights of Lucas’s truck.
She walked out the front door, glad to see he was back. As Lucas stepped down from the vehicle, the strength and confidence he exuded with each step bolstered her own courage. Lucas’s bearing sent out a challenge that few would have dared meet. With him around, she knew nothing would be allowed to harm her.
“Did they pick up the body?” he asked softly.
Marlee suspected that Lucas had avoided using Mr. Simmons’s name out of respect for Navajo traditions. “No. He’s still here.”
Lucas’s gaze was keen and thorough as it searched her face. “Something else is wrong. What’s happened?”
She filled him in quickly, telling him about the snowballs. “It’s probably just a kid who ditched school, but I’d still like to throttle him.”
“Let’s go take a look around,” he said.
Gabriel arrived just as Lucas and Marlee found a trail of footprints leading to the road.
Marlee repeated her story to Gabriel. As she finished speaking, Lucas looked at his brother. “Normally I would have said that it was some teenager out messing around, but recent events put a whole new slant on this incident.”
“It’s not a young kid, either, not by the size of those tracks,” Gabriel said, crouching down.
“This isn’t a stunt I would associate with the same person who vandalized my home,” Marlee commented thoughtfully. “I wonder if it’s a high-school kid cutting class because he’s angry that his friends are all out sick. Throwing snowballs at a house is an act of frustration more than anything else. And if it’s a neighbor trying to pick on poor old Mr. Simmons, they’re too late to bother him anymore.”
“You may be right, either way,” Gabriel said.
Lucas stood up slowly, hearing the sound of another vehicle approaching. “The funeral-home people are here,” he announced, then walked out to meet them.
After the body was taken away, they locked up the house and took another look around outside. “Are you getting on top of this health problem our town is having?” Gabriel asked, photographing the imprints in the snow. “I’m getting a lot of pressure to pull in troops from Santa Fe’s state labs.”
Lucas shrugged. “They won’t come, not unless we start having a string of deaths. Bad as it is, what we’re facing here isn’t a crisis, not by their definition. We’d be lucky to get the doctor I work with to make a special trip out here. I’ve got a feeling he’d be reluctant to stay even for a few days, because then he’d have to refer his patients to another doctor.” Lucas lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
“What’s bugging you?” Gabriel prodded. “There’s more to this, right?”
Lucas nodded. “I’ve been keeping tabs on my patients, and by now, some of them should have shown improve-ment. But that’s not the case. They’re not worse, mind you, but they’re certainly not getting better, either.”
“When exactly did this whole thing start up?” Gabriel asked
“About the time of the peddler’s visit. For a while, I thought maybe it was a virus that he’d brought with him to town, but I’ve looked into that. It just doesn’t fit. The people I treated had not been in contact with the peddler, or with us, prior to their coming down with the flu. And it would have to be a real short incubation period. He was only here a few hours before the first cases were reported.”
Gabriel nodded slowly. “Shadow, you’re good at what you do. You’ll find the answers.”
Just then Lucas’s cellular phone rang. It was such a bad connection Marlee could hear the static even from where she was standing. The transmission faded in and out, and Lucas had to repeat much of what he was hearing to confirm the caller’s message.
As Lucas closed the handset, Gabriel gave his brother a worried look. “Did I hear that right? The girls’ volleyball team has come down with this?”
“Yeah, and it all came about in just a matter of hours. They’d volunteered for a recycling project earlier today, gathering newspapers and cans, and all were fine then. But now they’re in the locker room, most of them too sick to go back to class. Their coach is worried about even letting them go home.”
“Let me ride over with you and see if I can help,” Mar-lee said. “I can keep records, and help you interview the kids. Maybe we can come up with a theory as to how this started and why no one’s getting better.”
“I could use a hand,” Lucas agreed with a nod. “Normally I can deal with this town’s minor aches a
nd pains, and there’s a doctor I contact for advice, prescriptions and referrals. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, times aren’t normal.”
Gabriel accompanied them to Lucas’s truck. “Keep me apprised, Shadow.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Marlee and Lucas walked into the school gym. A woman wearing slacks, a school sweatshirt and a whistle on a rope around her neck jogged up to them. Marlee recognized Mrs. Peterson, the girls’ head coach.
“These kids are really sick.”
“Tell me everything you can about what led up to this, and how the symptoms started,” Lucas said.
“I—” Mrs. Peterson stopped and looked at Marlee curiously. “I know you run the boardinghouse, but why are you here?”
“I’m helping our medic today. There are too many sick people for him to also have to handle the record keeping and all that.”
“Oh, okay.” She led them into the locker room.
The entire room had an eerie silence marred only by sporadic bursts of coughing. Kids were lying down on the benches or sitting on the floor, leaning back against the lockers. A couple of the girls, apparently untouched by the sudden illness, were off by themselves in a corner, talking quietly.
Marlee followed Lucas from one patient to the next, lending her support, asking pertinent questions and filling out the medical forms. As she listened to the descriptions of how each of the kids had become ill, and what they’d been doing before that time, a pattern began to form in her mind.
While Lucas spoke to the gym teacher, Marlee went to talk to one of the girls who seemed particularly unaffected by the symptoms that were plaguing her classmates. She listened closely to Tina, a sixteen-year-old with long brown hair and a hesitant smile.
“What have you been eating or drinking, and where?” Marlee asked, repeating the same questions she’d asked all the others.
“I’ve been on a really strict diet. But it’s good for me. Heck, I’m not sick, and that’s a big plus. I feel a little woozy from time to time, but that’s because of the diet”
