by Aimée Thurlo
“We’ll have help shortly,” she told Nick, a moment later.
“We need to find Koval. Harry could be wounded—or worse.”
“Nah,” a familiar voice coming through the brush said. “I took a hit, but the vest kept me in one piece.” Koval stumbled over to them, rubbing his chest. “I left the cruiser for a closer look and Coyote’s man caught me off guard. He shot me at close range twice. The hits incapacitated me for a bit, but the vest held.”
Koval glanced down at the chief. “Wanna borrow my cuffs?” The detective removed a set of handcuffs from his belt, groaning from the effort, and tossed them on the ground beside Nick. “Looks like I missed all the fun.”
“Fun? Men!” Drew snapped, and threw her hands up in the air. “You’re all nuts!”
Koval looked at Nick and shrugged. “Women. So emotional. How’d you end up with her anyway?”
“Luck of the draw,” Nick answered.
Drew glared at Koval and then back at Nick, but before she could say anything else, sirens filled the air.
TRAVIS STOOD NEXT TO NICK as the chief was loaded into the rear seat of a cruiser. “Not a bad job, bro,” Travis said. “Johnson’s already offering a deal, volunteering to rat out Slick for the shootings, and Franklin for dealing with Coyote. But that’s just frosting on the cake. The AK was still in the chief’s trunk, and his prints will be all over the weapon and the case he used to carry it from the station. The local FBI and ATF have warrants to search for more weapons inside his house, too. The crime scene team is heading there next, and I’m going over to help them out. Do you need anything from me before I leave?”
Nick’s gaze stayed on Drew, who was seated on the step of the crime-scene van, giving her statement to Captain Wright and Detective Koval. “When I thought I was about to die, I found that I only had one regret,” Nick said, slowly. “I’ve spent too much time thinking about the past. That’s not living—that’s wasting life.”
“And now you’re ready to look ahead?” Travis followed Nick’s line of sight and watched Drew for a moment. “You’ve got a winner there, bro. She’ll drive you crazy, but you’ll never get bored.”
“What I have to do now is put the past behind me for good. It’s time for me to have a Sing done.”
“I know the right hataalii for this,” he said, writing down a name, phone number, and drawing a quick map. “He can probably do a ceremony right away for you at Long Mountain, if you make the call now. Once summer arrives, you can return and have a full ceremony done, with all our family present and your new wife.”
“Wife…” Nick smiled. “That’s not a done deal, not yet, anyway.”
By the time he finished making the call, Drew was ready to go. Nick walked her back to the pickup, and away from prying eyes gathered her into his arms. As he held her tightly against him, he struggled to find the right words to tell her how much she meant to him.
Instead of the flowery language he knew women loved, all he could come up with was, “You did good out here today.”
“You’re just saying that because I didn’t argue with you.”
“Don’t ruin it.” Bending down, he took her mouth in a long, tender kiss, filled with all the emotions he hadn’t been able to put into words.
When he drew back at long last, he heard her sigh. “I’ve made arrangements to see a medicine man—what we call a hataalii,” he said. “It’s time to go to Long Mountain. Will you come with me? Afterwards…there are things I need to say to you.”
“Where’s Long Mountain?” she asked. “Not that it matters,” she added, before he could answer. “I’ll be ready to go whenever you are.”
“We have to leave right away. Part of the ritual has to be concluded before dawn, and there are preparations to be made.”
“Lead—I’ll follow—for now,” she added, with a hint of a smile.
He laughed. “Is it always going to be this way?”
She smiled. “You already know the answer.”
Epilogue
They arrived well past midnight. Long Mountain wasn’t really a mountain—it was a large rock formation west of Kayenta, on the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation. As they arrived at the site, the hataalii, wearing the traditional blue sash of a medicine man around his forehead, greeted them. A much older Navajo man, his assistant, stood behind him. Both were wrapped in blankets to ward off the winter cold.
“We can begin whenever you’re ready,” the hataalii said.
Drew took a seat to the north of the fire, while Nick sat on the medicine man’s left. The other Navajo man maintained the fire.
The hataalii studied the moon and stars above them, positioned himself, then began a monotone chant. At certain points, he pressed bundles of herbs against Nick’s body. Then, at long last, he untied the thread that bound all the bundles together.
“This will free him,” the hataalii whispered, as he went past Drew, then continued chanting.
Although Drew didn’t fully understand the ritual, she could feel its power. Something assured her that after it was over, neither Nick nor she would ever be the same again.
The medicine man applied a salve to Nick’s face and then placed some on Drew’s. “This blackening will frighten evil and make it fear you,” the hataalii said, helping her understand.
THE RITUAL CONTINUED WITHOUT interruption until first light. As the sun peered over the eastern horizon, the hataalii nodded. “Now it is beautiful again.”
Bowing his head in respect, Nick answered. “Thank you.”
The medicine man handed Nick a token of the ceremony—an eagle feather. “You’ve now been freed. This token symbolizes the indestructibility of your spirit. Take it and go in beauty.”
After the hataalii and his assistant drove away, Drew and Nick stood side-by-side. In the first rays of dawn, with the streaks of blackening on his face, Nick looked primitive and wild, and a master of his element.
Nick took the ceremonial token he’d received and pressed it into her hand, wrapping her fingers around it. “The Navajo Way teaches that whatever happens to this ceremonial token will also happen to me. I now give it to you, the woman who taught me about love, along with my heart. Will you walk the trail of beauty with me today and for as many tomorrows as we’re given?”
“Yes,” she whispered as his lips closed over hers.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6483-4
ALPHA WARRIOR
Copyright © 2010 by Aimée and David Thurlo
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