“I know. You told me,” Red Feather replied. “That’s why I’m calling. As I recall she was quite smitten with you.”
“That was all show,” he assured. “She knew Caroline and I were married.”
“Yeah, but you developed a solid relationship with her, right?”
“I did, yes. Why?”
“Because I need help from the FBI,” he said. “I need to speak with an agent I can trust—someone who will listen. It sounds like Julie Love is trustworthy.”
“You bet she is,” Wolf replied. “She is a phenomenal interrogator.”
“That could come in handy,” Red Feather noted.
“I can make the introduction.”
“It has to be tomorrow, Wolf,” Red Feather insisted.
“Tomorrow it is. I’ll get on it and call you back at this number.”
______________________
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
______________________
“Where are we going?” Rose asked.
“Deep into the heart of the res,” Red Feather answered. “To the home of my closest friend, Yellow Wolf. He has extra room. We will be safe there.”
“Won’t Lenkov try to find us there? If he has the new sheriff in his pocket . . .”
He shook his head, “He might try. He won’t succeed. No one from the sheriff’s department has authority on the res, including Tilden. The tribal police hate white men authority and resist any interference from them. We will be safe.”
“How long will we have to hide out?” she asked.
“Depends. Hopefully Agent Julie Love will call me soon,” he said.
“I have a job in Chicago, Red,” she said. “I can’t just hide out and ignore it.”
“You have a way out, you know,” he replied.
“What is that?”
“Call Lenkov and take the deal,” he said. “You sign the NDA and take the money. You’ll be rich. You can go back to work.”
“And let my grandfather’s murderers go unpunished and allow the coal company to poison the reservation?”
“That’s the downside,” he said.
“Never,” she replied. “I couldn’t live with myself.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Rose and Red Feather made it to the reservation border without incident. Deputy Tilden, rather Sheriff Tilden, had no idea Four Bears would warn me about the warrant.
We were twenty minutes away from Yellow Wolf’s house when Rose’s phone rang. Rose answered and spoke briefly to the person on the other end.
“Hold on a minute,” Rose said. “I’m putting you on speakerphone.”
Rose switched it to speaker, “This is Rose Summer. With me is my friend, Red Feather.”
“This is Special Agent Julie Love with the FBI,” said the voice on the other end. “Wolf tells me you’re dealing with a sticky wicket down there.”
“That’s right,” Red Feather said. “It’s very late Special Agent Love. I wasn’t expecting you to call tonight.”
“I keep odd hours,” she replied. “Tell me the story.”
Red Feather and Rose took turns explaining things to Special Agent Love, who occasionally interrupted with a question, but for the most part, listened carefully and quietly.
At the end, Love recapped what she’d heard, to make certain she had the facts straight.
“You have amazing recall, Agent Love,” Rose said. “You seem to have a firm grasp on what we are dealing with here.”
“So, this guy Vlade Lenkov has a serious weed up his ass for both of you, I take it,” Love said.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Red Feather replied.
“And Tilden has a warrant out for your arrest on a chickenshit assault charge on his thumb breaker?” she added, “a bodyguard twice your size?”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“And you say the CEO is a fella named Paulson—C.H. Paulson?”
“Correct.”
“How far away from this friend’s house in the res are you?” Love asked.
“His name is Yellow Wolf,” Red Feather responded. “We are now less than ten minutes out.”
“Good,” Love replied. “Tell me Yellow Wolf’s address. I’ll see to it that two burner phones are delivered to you there by ten o’clock in the morning. After you hang up, turn the phone off and remove the battery. Tilden is now ass-deep in this, and if things are as desperate for Lenkov as you say, they will go outside the law to track you down, on or off the res. When you get to Yellow Wolf’s house, hunker down and stay put. Make no calls. Make sure Yellow Wolf keeps his mouth shut. Got it?”
“Roger that,” Red Feather said.
“Thank you for helping us,” Rose said.
“Not a problem,” Love replied. “I owed Wolf a big favor. He helped me catch a killer. He says Red Feather is a class act, so you guys owe this special attention to Wolf.”
“What’s the next step, Special Agent Love?” Rose asked.
“First thing tomorrow, I’m going to get the final report on that autopsy, and then figure out where we are with the liquid chromatography test, the one that detects the presence of that poisonous flower. If it’s not complete, I’ll get it expedited.”
“Monkshood,” Red Feather interjected.
“Right,” Love affirmed. “If that poison was in the system of Eli Summer and it caused his death, I’m going to get real interested in this.”
“It will,” Red Feather said. “I’m certain of it.”
“I’m also going to see if we have a file on Mission Mining and check into the death of Sheriff Ford. For now, you two lay low and let me do my job.”
“Works for me,” Rose said.
______________________
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
______________________
“I can’t thank you enough for letting us crash here, Yellow Wolf,” Red Feather said. “This is Rose.”
Rose extended her hand. The large Cheyenne man shook it and smiled.
“It’s not a problem, Red,” he said. “Happy to help. I gather all this is on the down low?”
“As low as it gets,” Red Feather replied. “I got attacked off the res.”
“He kicked the guy’s ass and he filed an assault charge,” Rose added. “Tilden has a warrant out on him.”
Yellow Wolf shook his head, “The Cheyenne will never get the benefit of the doubt on that one. You can stay in the guest house as long as you like. It hasn’t been lived in since my mother died. It’s not much, but it has a bed and running water. There’s an old pot-bellied stove in there, too—keeps the place nice and warm. Do you need food?”
“No thanks,” Rose said. “We picked up some along the way. Besides, you’ve done enough.”
“I’ll pull your car into the barn,” Yellow Wolf said. “I doubt the Tribal Police will give them the time of day but, just in case, no one can see the car inside the barn. That’s a rental, right?”
Rose nodded.
“I’ll check it out for low-jack,” he said. “If it has any kind of tracker, I’ll find it and disable it.”
“Thanks, Yellow Wolf, you’re the best,” Rose said.
“Naw, Red Feather is the best,” he said, grinning. “The rest of us are just trying to keep up.”
Twenty minutes later Rose and Red Feather were settling into the tiny, one room cabin which sat about fifty-feet away from the main house. The inside was cold. Red Feather filled the stove with wood and lit the fire, then pulled the bed to the center of the room to be near the fire.
Rose used the bathroom and came out wearing a heavy robe. The floor was cold on her feet. She zipped toward the bed and dug in under the covers.
“It’s late, Red,” she noted. “Why don’t you come into the bed and get warm?”
“I was going to pull up a couple of chairs and give you the bed,” he offered.
“After the sex we had earlier?” she replied, scoffing. “Bullshit. Peel off that shirt and take off those pants and
get in here. I’m cold.”
Red Feather laughed, “It won’t be cold in here for long. This room is small and that stove puts out a lot of heat.”
She watched Red Feather as he stripped down to his boxers. She pulled the covers back as he slipped into the bed. She pulled the blanket over them both and slid in next to him. He wrapped his arms around her. She kissed his chest and immediately reached inside his boxers and wrapped her fingers around his cock.
“Speaking of putting out heat,” she said, “This slugger of yours was burning hot earlier. Think I could get him interested in a repeat performance?”
Red Feather felt his penis beginning to stiffen immediately when she touched him. “I was thinking that, with everything that’s happened, this would be the last thing on your mind.”
“I could see why you’d think that,” Rose replied, stroking and massaging his staff, “but thanks to you, we’ve had an autopsy performed on my grandfather, and he’s being tested for poisoning. You got the FBI looking into this for me and you moved me to a safe place.”
She felt his manhood coming fully to life and continued to stroke it. She reached up and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth. He moaned as she continued to stroke him and kiss him deeply.
“I guess what I’m saying is,” Rose said, climbing on top of him, “is that right here, right now, at this moment, this amazing man in front of me is what I am most focused on.”
She sat up and loosened the belt on her robe, pulling it away, revealing her totally naked body.
“I like that,” Red Feather replied.
She was straddling him, her crotch pressing his rod against his belly. She began gyrating her hips on his cock, the wetness from her vagina covering his erection.
“You like that?” she asked, her gyrations rubbing his stiffness against her labia. Her breasts were moving up and down with the rhythm of her hips. She could tell he was getting more and more excited.
“I love it,” he replied, cupping both her breasts in his hand, running his thumbs over her nipples.
She raised herself, reaching behind her and grabbing his cock, guiding it into her. She moaned loudly as her hip movement brought his full length in and out of her, “No man has ever made me feel this way,” she gasped.
“Stop,” he sighed. “I want to taste you.”
“What do you want me to do?” she whispered.
He pulled her forward. He grabbed her thighs with his hands and pulled her until she was sitting on his chest, near his chin.
“Lean back,” he whispered. She smiled as she did so, using his thighs and knees to support herself. Red Feather slid his hands under her buttocks and pulled her onto his face. She cried out as his tongue entered her. She began moving her hips slowly as his tongue lolled around her labia and then found her clitoris.
“Right there,” she moaned. “Don’t stop, Red.”
“You’re so wet,” he rasped. “Is this good?”
“It’s the best, baby, it’s the best,” she said, gasping. He continued to use his tongue on her, slow at first, then faster.
“Oh my god, Red, I’m going to come.”
Her hip movement began to quicken as she neared orgasm. He continued to lick her clit over and over. He felt her intensity building and building, until finally she stopped moving and stiffened, as if every muscle in her body had been suddenly paralyzed. She cried out loudly as the orgasm electrified her body.
She climbed off him, breathing heavily in near hyperventilation, “Oh my god, that was so incredible,” she gasped, slipping off his belly, and lying next to him on her side, lying opposite of him, her head facing his calves. She wrapped her arms around his legs. Her breasts were pressing against his thighs, her right arm draped across his knees, kissing his calves. She was perspiring and taking deep breaths.
Red Feather turned on his side, facing her, placing his right hand on her right buttock, pulling her close, kissing the high fleshy area of her right thigh, just below her pubic hair. He could feel the warm dampness of her perspiration and the deep rhythm of her chest expanding and contracting against his thighs and his cock, which now rested against her upper abdomen.
“Oh my god,” she rasped. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
She kissed his right knee as her fingers roamed his smooth, rock hard thighs.
“You’re right,” she said. “It’s really warm in here now, but only half the heat was generated by the stove.”
He chuckled, gliding his hand across her behind. He tapped it lightly and playfully, “You’re right about that. You had this motor running.”
She chuckled too, “And that tongue of yours was on fire, love.”
She pulled her body away just far enough to slide her hand down to his cock, still rock hard. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled the head of it up to rub against her right breast. She heard him moan.
“I thought you might be taking a breather,” he said.
“I did,” she said, still breathing heavily, but beginning to slow some. She ran the head of his staff around and over her nipple lightly, “I just want to make sure I keep you interested. I don’t want you falling asleep anytime real soon.”
She squeezed the base of his shaft to accentuate her point.
“I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening,” he said.
She sighed, “Fate is a funny thing, isn’t it?” she said, continuing to stroke him against her nipple.
“How so?” he asked.
“I mean, less than a week ago, I was in Chicago, preparing for my biggest case ever as a lawyer,” she said. “And now flash forward a few days later and I am hiding out in Montana from a Russian mobster who wants to kill me, holed up in a tiny cabin on an Indian Reservation, having the best sex of my life with the most perfect man I’ve ever met.”
“Well, when you put it like that . . .” he began. “Look, it’s all going to be ok.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” she replied, “but I have hope as long as you are with me. I’m just so grateful you came along when you did. On our drive here, I was thinking about the possibilities. If you hadn’t been here I may have very well sold Summer Breeze to those bastards, poisoned the reservation and allow my grandfather’s murderers to get off scot free.”
“You’re a very smart woman, Rose,” Red Feather replied. “You would have figured it out.”
“I may have, yes, but without you here they would have likely killed me by now if I didn’t sell. We know they are fully capable of murder. I feel so bad for the sheriff.”
“The sheriff was doing his duty,” Red Feather responded. “Rose, it’s not your fault. His job was to serve and protect. He knew the risks.”
She nodded, her eyes welled with tears.
“I know. I am so grateful to have you here with me. You’ve been such a blessing to me.”
“Well, we still have a long way to go, Rose,” he said. “Maybe we should get some sleep, now. What do you say?”
She smiled at Red Feather, “Not on your life, not just yet,” she said. “I have some business to complete.”
She scooched down and squeezed his shaft tighter, kissing it gently, “Unless you are really, really tired,” she continued.
“It’s funny,” Red Feather said. “Suddenly, I’m wide awake.”
______________________
CHAPTER NINETEEN
______________________
Rose and Red Feather slept until ten o’clock in the morning. They woke to a knock on the door. A non-descript man in a black sedan had brought two boxes containing cell phones to the door, one marked ‘Red,’ the other marked ‘Rose.’ The delivery man left before Red Feather could answer the door. There was a note inside Rose’s box. It was from Special Agent Julie Love. It read:
I have made an initial inquiry. You are onto something big. There are two numbers programmed in each phone. My private number is one. The second number is only to be used in an emergency, if you need help. I
f Lenkov or Tilden find you, call the second number. Help will never be more than five minutes away. Call no one else, but keep your phones charged and turned on. Wait for my call.
Rose read the note twice and passed it on to Red Feather to read. He read the contents carefully, “It looks like you and I are stuck here for a while. I can think of worse things,” he replied.
She smiled, “Me too. You did it again, Red. The FBI is on the case.”
They had brought some food and basic essentials. They made love again, showered and made breakfast.
Just after noon Special Agent Love called Rose’s phone, “We got the results back from the liquid chromatography test,” Love said. “I told you, based on the results of the test, I could get real interested in this case.”
Rose put her on speaker. Red Feather stood near her, “What did the results say?” Rose asked.
“Red Feather was right,” Love said. “Your grandfather’s death was caused by asphyxiation. Toxic levels of aconite were in his system. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus,” Rose said.
“And it turns out your man Lenkov has quite a large FBI file,” Love continued. “He has Russian mobs connections. The bureau has had their eye on him for quite some time. So far, he’s been untouchable.”
“How does the Russian mob fit into a coal mining company?” Red Feather asked.
“I had the same question,” Love replied. “I found out the answers from reading the file. As it turns out, a holding company tied to the Russian mob owns thirty-nine percent of Mission Mining’s common stock. The Russians have been trying to assert themselves in all sorts of American energy interests, including . . .”
“Coal,” Red Feather finished.
“Correct,” Love said. “The mob leveraged their stock position to plant Lenkov into the organization as head of security, but his real objective is to grow Mission Mining as quickly as possible and position the Russians for a hostile takeover.”
“So, by acquiring my grandfather’s land . . .” Rose began.
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