Black Rock Guardian

by Jenna Kernan

  Chapter Two

  FBI field agent Beth Hoosay sat in the silver F-150 pickup with tribal police officer Jake Redhorse, waiting for full dark. Redhorse had parked across the highway and out of sight, but with a clear view of the roadside bar favored by bikers and Jake’s older brother, Ty Redhorse. In the bed of the truck was her motorcycle, prepped and ready.

  Earlier in the day, the tribal police detective, Jack Bear Den, had tried and failed to get Ty to meet with her. So they would do it the hard way.

  It was beyond Beth’s comprehension why the Turquoise Canyon Apache tribe’s leadership had voted to keep Ty on the reservation instead of turning him over to the authorities for trial. And he was walking around free.

  That was about to change, in twelve hours to be exact. Because Beth was about to meet Ty on his own turf tonight and with the advantage of him not knowing who and what she was. She had backup, but she did not intend to need it. The agents could hear everything she said and had eyes on her outside the roadside bar. Once she was inside, it would be audio only because Beth insisted that the other agents would never blend in a place like this. They’d be spotted as outsiders instantly.

  She, on the other hand, had been in this joint once before when she was younger and more rebellious, after her dad had died, and she’d had the gall to date a guy who owned a bike. Worse still, he had taught her to ride. She was grateful for that much. The rest of their relationship had been less positive because it seemed to her that he’d wanted her only as an accessory to his chopper. Her mother said the bike would be the death of her and that the guy had been interested only because of her unique looks, which blended Native heritage with her father’s Caribbean roots, and made her seem exotic to the son of a soybean farmer. Sometimes she just wanted to blend in. But today her looks were an asset and the reason she was here.

  Beth had been handpicked for this assignment because she was Apache on her mother’s side. Not Tonto Apache, like Ty Redhorse. Her Native ancestry came from the line that fought with Geronimo and lost, which was why her reservation was up in Oklahoma instead of here, where they had lost to the US Army with the help of this very tribe. She tried not to let it bother her, but many on her rez still thought the Tonto Apache were more desert people who could not even understand their language. They spoke a language that only they and God could understand.

  Beth didn’t care about old grudges. She cared about having a rare and shining opportunity to make a big case. The possibilities were so enthralling they made her chest ache. She wanted this, wanted the respect and acclaim that came with a bust of this importance.

  Another truck pulled into the lot and a lone driver slid out and hiked up his jeans before slamming the truck door. The parking area was nearly full. They did good business on any Friday night, and tonight was no exception. Many of the men inside were just coming from work and others had no work but arrived when the bar was most crowded. She knew the establishment was most busy between five and eight and closed at midnight, except on weekends, when the place closed at two in the morning. It was approaching eight and she was beginning to worry that Ty might not show.

  “He’s usually here by now,” said Jake. His voice sounded hopeful. “Maybe I should go in with you. It’s a rough place.”

  “I don’t need an escort, patrolman.” She let him know with her tone just what she thought of his advice. Showing up with a police officer that everyone here knew was a terrible idea.

  Beth had plans. She would investigate the missing women, tie their disappearances to the Kuznetsov crime family and make the kind of case that got a person noticed in the Bureau, and with that notice came the kind of posting Beth craved. Truth be told, she didn’t like Oklahoma or the field office in Oklahoma City, known for the bombing of the federal building. She wanted a major posting with status in a place far away from the flat, windy plains. Unlike the army, the FBI measured rank with cases, postings and a title. So she set her sights on a major case, a major posting in a major office. The plan was to run a field office before she hit thirty-five. And Ty Redhorse could get on board or get out of her way, preferably in a small prison cell in Phoenix.

  “That’s him,” said Jake, slumping down in his seat.

  Beth smiled as Ty Redhorse roared into the dirt lot on a cream-and-coffee-colored motorcycle. The sled was a beauty, a classic Harley from the nineties, all muscle and gleaming chrome. She could not keep back her appreciation. She admired power.

  Beth and Jake sat in the dark tucked up against the closed feed store across from the watering hole. Behind them, her guys sat in a van, their view blocked until Jake took off.

  Ty had worked all day in his auto body shop according to surveillance. He had given no sign that his left shoulder had been recently ripped open while he was crashing through a picture window in a home in Antelope Lake. But that was the story his oldest brother, Kee, had told.

  The man in question was trim and muscular and wore no helmet. He rolled to a stop right before the bar, as if he owned it, and Beth wondered if that space was reserved for him. His chopper fit perfectly between the black trucks that she knew belonged to members of the Wolf Posse, the tribe’s one and only gang. Ty cut the engine, and the world went quiet. Then he planted his booted feet on both sides of his beautiful bike and rocked it to the stand as if it weighed nothing at all.

  His driving gloves ended at his palms, giving her a flashing view of fingers raking through his shoulder-length black hair. He wore it blunt-cut in a traditional style so old she did not even know where it originated. The wind had done a job tousling his hair and he took a moment to set it right, raking his fingers back over his scalp. Then he threw a leg over the seat and dismounted the bike like a cowboy coming in off the range. He glanced around and looked right in their direction, gazing at them for a minute. Beside her, Jake held his breath and scooted lower in his seat.

  “He can see us,” whispered Officer Redhorse, more to himself, she thought, than her.

  “Not unless he has night-vision goggles,” she said, not whispering. He’d have to be some kind of jackrabbit to hear her from clear across the road. But she could hear him, thanks to the setup from the tech guys.

  His gaze flicked away to a teen who was straddling an expensive new mountain bicycle that was, of course, black. On the boy’s head sat a yellow ball cap, sideways, bill flat. He wore a new oversized black satin sports jacket. Beth made him for about thirteen because of his size. The gang colors were yellow and black, and Beth knew that recruitment started early. Ty went over to him.

  “Who’s that?” she asked Jake.

  “Randy Tasa. Lives up in Koun’nde. He’s in the ninth grade.”

  “Long bike ride.”

  “His sister, Jewell, is probably inside. She’s Faras’s girl.”

  Faras Pike was the current head of the Wolf Posse and one of the targets of her investigation.

  Beth lifted the cone so she could hear them.

  “Whatcha doing out here so late, Randy?” Ty asked. His voice was deeper than his brother’s and held a dangerous edge.

  “Deliveries.”

  Deliveries, my ass, thought Beth. The boy was selling weed to the customers. He was too young to get anything but a slap on the wrist, making him the perfect pusher for the gang.

  “Let me see,” ordered Ty.

  The boy obediently reached into his coat and showed Ty the freezer bag filled with what Beth believed to be smaller baggies of weed.

  “You make any money?” asked Ty.

  “Some.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Was he actually shaking down a child?

  “I’m supposed to give it to Chino.”

  “Did I ask you what you were supposed to do?”

  The boy held out an envelope. Ty snatched it from him, took the weed and then took his cap. “This bag is light, Randy.”

  “No. I sw
ear.”

  “Light,” he repeated. “I’m telling Faras that you’re a thief.”

  “No.” Randy was crying now. “He’ll kill me.”

  “He doesn’t kill children. Run home, Randy, and don’t come back or I’ll put a cap in your ass.”

  Randy wiped his nose and Ty took one menacing step toward the boy, grabbing the handlebars of the new bike. “I said run.”

  The boy sprang from the seat and ran as fast as his sticklike legs would carry him. He was too young to be hanging around a bar. But not too young to have his services bought for a ball cap and a new bike. Ty might have done the boy a favor.

  Beth pushed aside that thought.

  Jake shifted in his seat. Yeah, she’d be uncomfortable, too, if this gem of humanity was her big brother. Luckily, she had no siblings and was free as a bird. She could pack everything she needed in the saddlebags of her bike and head to LA, DC or NY. But first she had to make a big case. Would her mother even notice she was gone?

  Ty let the bike fall and headed for the door of the bar, carrying the weed in his leather bomber jacket, which was black, of course. Jake insisted that his brother operated on the fringes of the gang. Jake said that Ty’s responsibility was only to keep the gang’s cars running. All evidence pointed to the contrary.

  He had enough weed on him right now for her to get a conviction, but since he was on the rez, arresting him would just get her in hot water with Lieutenant Luke Forrest, who headed this operation. She reported to him, for now. So she watched Ty walk away and ignored the bad taste in her mouth. If she got a break, she’d catch Ty Redhorse with something far more serious than a bag of weed. She didn’t expect to get that lucky. Most of her luck came from hard work and taking the occasional risk.

  She reached for the door release.

  “Wait,” she ordered Redhorse. “Don’t leave unless you see me leave with your brother. Then follow us.”

  Beth had dressed in clothing that showed she was a woman but also concealed her high-performance liquid chromatography, abbreviated as HPLC and commonly known as pepper spray, her service weapon and handcuffs. On her right hand she wore a series of carefully selected rings designed to inflict maximum damage and lacerate skin should she have to throw a punch.

  What she intended was to charm and pick up Ty Redhorse in front of all his buddies on his home turf. Tomorrow, well after all the customers in this watering hole had assumed that he’d made a successful score, Beth would let him know who and what she actually was. She suspected that Ty did not want Faras Pike, the leader of the posse, to know what he had done to help his older brother, Kee, and that he was on less than stable ground with the gang. A little more shaking might just get him on their side.

  Risk and reward, she thought, and slid from the truck and onto the packed dirt parking area.

  “Help me get my sled down,” she said.

  Jake lowered the back gate and set the metal ramp. Because of the intentionally disabled starter motor, Beth needed to bump-start her motorcycle. She released the straps holding her bike and mounted the seat, then rolled it down the ramp in second, using the incline to get it going fast enough to allow the engine to engage.

  She roared across the street, anticipating Ty’s face tomorrow morning at eight, when he saw her walk into the interrogation room. Between now and then, she intended to find out everything she could about the second-oldest Redhorse brother.

  Chapter Three

  Ty walked into the roadhouse and glanced about. The mix of the usual patrons filled the stools surrounding the rectangular bar, which had seating all the way around except for the hinged portion that allowed the help in and out.

  Beyond the center altar to drinking was the stage, which rose a good sixteen inches above the floor level but was dark because the musical entertainment didn’t begin until nine. By then most of these men—working men—would be home with their families. They just needed a short transition between one and the other.

  There were exceptions—men who were not drinking after work because they were still on the job. The first, Quinton Ford, sat on a bar stool. Quinton was lanky with close-cropped black hair and a hawkish face that bore acne scars on his gaunt cheeks. One hand rested in his open jacket as he used the half-lowered zipper like a sling. Ty knew his hand was on the grip of a pistol. Quinton faced the door with the other hand on his untouched beer. His eyes met Ty’s, and Ty nodded to Faras Pike’s man. Quinton raised his chin in acknowledgment and then his gaze flicked back to the door.

  Ty was no threat to Faras Pike.

  There were tables to the left and everyone knew the ones under the wall of highway signs, stolen from all over the state, were reserved for Wolf Posse members. There at his usual spot was Faras Pike, the leader of the tribe’s gang. Perched on his knee was his current favorite, Jewell Tasa.

  Jewell wore a glittery sequined gold crop top that featured an unobstructed view of her midriff, which was tight and toned. Jewell’s skinny jeans and biker boots made her a shimmering billboard of gang colors. Her makeup was thick, ringing her eyes like a raccoon, and her long black hair had been bleached blond at the tips.

  Faras spotted Ty before Jewell did, and lifted her from his lap. Then he gave her rump an affectionate pat to send her off to the group of women at the nearby table. She spotted Ty and sauntered past him, hips swaying as if advertising what he could not have.

  The unattached women at the table gave Ty encouraging smiles. He was not interested in more entanglements with the gang, no matter how tight they wore their clothing. So he turned his attention to Faras.

  The head of the Wolf Posse was small with a face that had been handsome once, but the smoking, drinking and responsibilities of his position weighed heavily on that face and Faras now looked like a man nearing forty, instead of twenty-eight. His hair was drawn back in a single braid and he wore a hoodie, jeans, cowboy boots that were all black and several thick gold chains around his neck. His take on the black-and-gold color scheme. His ears were pierced and he wore diamond studs in each that Ty very much feared were real.

  Seated between him and the bar was his second man, Chino Aria, his newest favored muscle. Chino could handle most situations if he didn’t have to think or make any decision on his feet. Chino’s appeal came from his size and bulk. The tattoos on his neck and bald head helped discourage trouble.

  Ty cut a direct path for the two men.

  “S’up, bro?” said Faras as he came to a stop before the circular booth and table.

  “That little shit, Randy Tasa, is stealing your stash, is what’s up,” said Ty. He slid into the vinyl seat beside Faras. Chasing off Randy was a risk, because his big sister, Jewell, was already in the Wolf Posse and becoming Faras’s favorite.

  Chino looked none too happy at Ty’s appearance, judging from the way his mouth tugged down on his broad jowly face.

  “Randy Tasa? He don’t work for me.” Faras snapped his fingers before Chino’s face, redirecting his stare from Ty to Faras. “Chino, we recruit Tasa?”

  “Yeah,” said Chino.

  “When were you going to mention it?”

  “First night, boss. Wanted to see how he worked out.”

  Ty scowled. You didn’t earn a bike like that in one night. Chino was lying and Ty wondered why. It occurred to him that Randy would make a very good spy, keeping an eye on his big sister’s business. But that was the sort of thing he’d expect Faras to pull. Perhaps he’d underestimated Chino?

  Chino laid his beefy fists on the table, challenging Ty with his stare. Ty set the bag of weed on the padded bench between him and Faras.

  “Yo, don’t bring that in here,” said Faras, sliding away.

  “He was smoking the product instead of making sales. You get him that bike?”

  Faras lifted a brow at Chino, who nodded. Faras glared. He knew how to recruit kids into the gang. Up until this
minute, Ty thought the decision of when and who was recruited had rested solely with Faras. From the way he was glaring at Chino, perhaps Faras did as well.

  “You picked it?” asked Faras.

  Chino nodded.

  Ty broke in. “Well, he tried to sell it to me for fifty bucks.”

  “That little puke,” said Chino, coming awake. Unfortunately, he forgot he was sitting in a booth and so, when he stood, the bench did not move back and he collided with the table, sending their beer bottles sloshing to their sides.

  Faras swore.

  “Sorry, boss.”

  Chino used his sleeve to prevent the river of beer from reaching Faras’s lap.

  Ty tossed Randy’s cap onto the puddle of beer. “I took his bike. It’s out front.”

  Faras sighed and lifted a finger to Sancho, the head barkeeper, who was always very attentive to Faras, met his gaze and pointed to the spilled beer. One of the bartenders was out from behind the hinged counter and mopping up before Chino had even sat his big fat butt back down.

  “I’ll need to find a replacement,” said Faras. “Deliveries, you know.”

  Ty knew there was no stopping that. But Randy had a future. He was a runner. A good one. If he was smart and lucky, he might just run out of Turquoise Canyon and make a life that did not involve allegiances to the posse. One little minnow, escaping the net. Ty felt a longing for a freedom from such allegiances, or at least to become something other than the family poster boy for wasted potential. He wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  Kee had been asked to join the Turquoise Guardians right out of med school, as if it was a foregone conclusion. Gaining admission to the tribe’s medicine society was a coup that Ty coveted. But to be asked to join Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of that medicine society, well, that was an honor above all others. Last month, they’d asked Jake to join.

  “Chino, get rid of this and get me another beer,” said Faras.

  His man grabbed the baggie Faras pushed at him under the table, tucked it into his jacket and slid out of the booth. Then he hurried to the bar.