Eagle's Last Stand (15 page)

Chapter Sixteen

They drove past the grove of trees and parked out of sight around a curve in the road. On foot, they advanced quietly, circling around from the opposite side of the stand of cottonwoods. Rick finally stopped about fifty yards from where he’d seen the flicker of light. Using the binoculars he’d pulled from the glove compartment, he searched the low, marshy area carefully. “No one’s there now, but I’d like to take a look around anyway.”

They walked up a small wash that drained the marshy spot—Rick was alert every step of the way—but there was very little ground cover. Soon he caught a flicker of motion to his left.

“Officer Sells,” the man said, immediately identifying himself and stepping out from where he’d been crouching beside a juniper. “I swept the area coming in from the west at the other end of this wash. Subject’s gone. Wanna take a look?”

Rick followed Sells to the location and saw a small medicine bag lying on the ground. It was made of the skins of horned toads. “That’s a witch bag,” he explained to Kim. “It’s the opposite of a medicine bag.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “The flicker of light, whether it came from a mirror, rifle scope or binoculars, was no accident. Someone wanted us to find this. It’s a way of saying they’re not through yet.”

Officer Sells radioed Bidtah, explaining that they’d found no shoe or boot prints, just faint moccasin impressions.

“Someone sure hates you,” Sells told Rick after ending the transmission.

“Yeah, but they don’t know me very well. If anything, this just makes me more determined to find them.”

Sells nodded, then began the walk back to the crime scene.

* * *

O
NCE
INSIDE
THE
SUV, Rick gazed at her for a long moment. “If you’re in this for the duration, so be it, Kim, but you’ll need to carry the right weapons.”

“I qualified with several infantry weapons in the army, including handguns,” she said.

“Not those kinds of weapons.”

“You’re referring to traditional Navajo protection, like fetishes and medicine bags, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes. It’ll show respect for our culture and traditions, which means people on the Rez will be more likely to trust you. It’ll be late by the time we get there, but Pablo Ortiz lives at the rear of his store. He’ll welcome us even if it’s after hours for him.”

“Mr. Ortiz of Southwest Treasures?”

He smiled as they drove east toward Hartley. “You know him?”

“Only by name.”

They pulled into the rear parking lot of Southwest Treasures instead of parking at the curb.

As Rick got down from the SUV, Pablo Ortiz, a short, rotund Zuni tribesman with gray hair and a wide smile, came out to greet them.

“Welcome, Rick! You picked a great time to visit. After hours is always best. No interruptions.”

After Rick introduced Kim to Pablo, they went inside and Pablo led them up the stairs into a tiny kitchen.

“My friend needs a
jish
and a special fetish. She’s helping me on a case,” Rick said.

“Then come with me into my work area.” He took them into the small living room. At the center of the room beneath a bright overhead light was a sofa, a leather recliner and a metal tray with various grinding and polishing tools.

Following her line of sight, Ortiz smiled. “My special pieces are finished there, but the initial work requires a more secure surface.” He pointed to a bigger wood table on the north side of the room. Above it was a shelf containing handsaws, mallets, chisels and stone rasps and files of all sizes.

“I have three finished fetishes. I don’t know who they’ll go to yet, but the spirit inside the stone will know its owner.”

Kim walked over to the larger table. “Is it okay for me to take a closer look?”

“Go ahead,” Ortiz said.

“We were looking for a—” Rick started but grew silent when Ortiz held up his hand.

The first fetish was a small bear made of jet. The second was a beautiful blue-turquoise lizard. The third was a horse made of alabaster, with a turquoise heart line etched from its mouth to its heart. Feathers adored its back.

“This one is gorgeous,” she said.

Ortiz smiled at Rick, then glanced back at her. “Horse chooses you, as you’ve chosen it,” he said.

“What do the feathers stand for?” she asked.

“They are an offering to the spirit of the fetish and increase its power. Feathers, blue ones in particular, are powerful medicine.”

Ortiz looked at her for a moment. “What led you to choose Horse?”

She told him about Hosteen Silver’s note, adding, “This one reminded me of fearlessness and freedom.” She looked at the small figure in her palm.

Ortiz smiled. “Good. The match is complete.”

“Thank you, uncle,” Rick said. “We’ll also need a
jish,
one with protective qualities.”

His uncle walked across the room and picked up a small leather bag from a collection of five. “This has pollen, a crystal and a sprig from a powerful good luck plant. It’s perfect for Horse and you,” he said, handing it to Kim.

She carefully placed the small fetish in her pouch and, following Ortiz’s directions, sprinkled it with pollen. Then after asking permission, she added the flint arrowhead to its contents.

Rick paid the customary amount and Pablo Ortiz thanked him. “Be careful, both of you. Something tells me you’ve yet to face your worst enemy.”

“Thank you for the warning, uncle. We’ll remember,” he said.

As they left, heading back to the Rez, Kim felt different somehow. “Thank you for this,” she said, her hand on the small pouch now attached to her belt. “It was pretty amazing how your foster father mentioned Horse, and the right one was here waiting for me.”

“Pablo’s got an instinct for things of this nature. I was the hardest to read of all my brothers. Even Hosteen Silver was unsure which fetish would be right for me, so he brought me here. We stayed for several hours, shared a meal and just talked. Pablo wanted to know what my plans for the future were.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen, but even back then I knew what I wanted. I told him I needed to lead a life with a clear purpose. One where I’d be challenged and each day was different from the last. My goal, even back then, was to join a federal agency and do undercover work.”

“So you became someone else for a while and brought some bad people to justice. Yet the act of surviving isn’t the same as living life, either.”

He looked at her for a moment and then focused his eyes on the highway. The SUV’s headlight beams were quickly swallowed up by the yawning black void ahead. The only other lights were stars in the dry desert sky.

“Rick, no warrior wears his armament all the time.”

She wanted to reach him, to connect. She understood why he’d closed himself off, yet she knew he’d never find happiness until he learned how to lower his guard and let people in.

Silence ensued but she didn’t press him. Looking around into the darkness surrounding the SUV made her feel claustrophobic. “I’ve lost track of where we are and where we’re going,” she said at last.

“My foster father’s old cabin. I have a feeling that the code I need is inside one of the books Gene is storing up there.”

“Tell me more about the cabin,” she said. “What can I expect?”

“Daniel and Gene lived there with Hosteen Silver the first year they came to stay with him. It’s small, just two rooms, and when they arrived there was no running water. They had to carry containers uphill from a well that was near a spring on the property.”

“Even a few gallons of water are heavy. That would have been a tough workout.”

“Yeah it was, but Hosteen Silver saw it as a way of making the guys too tired to stir up trouble. They were both pretty wild back then, so he’d decided to challenge them and teach them to work together.”

“Did you have heat?” she asked. “A woodstove or anything?”

“There’s a woodstove for cooking and a well-designed fireplace. The temperature tonight will go down into the low forties, so I’ll make a fire as soon as we get there and warm us up. Since Daniel uses the cabin when he goes hunting, we’ve added a generator and electricity.”

“And running water?”

“Just cold, and trust me when I say
cold.
”

She smiled. “We can heat some up on the stove if necessary.”

Almost two hours later, Rick pulled up to a wood cabin in the middle of a small clearing a few miles inside the pine forest.

It took a few minutes to find the key, but they were soon inside the solid-looking log structure with its corrugated metal roof.

Kim looked around. It was small, yet despite the frigid temperature in the room, had the comfy feel of an oasis, a touch of civilization in the middle of the wilderness. It was furnished simply, just a couch and one easy chair, but the beautiful, cream-colored sheepskin rug by the fire caught her eye. It looked incredibly soft and fit the cabin’s rustic atmosphere.

“I’m going to build a fire,” Rick announced. “My brother stacks the wood next to the generator shed, so I’ll turn the electricity on while I’m out there.”

As he left, she kept her gloves and coat on to ward off the chill, and looked around. There were no photos on the walls, but on the desk near the corner there was a framed photo of Holly, Daniel’s wife, holding a baby.

After Rick came back in, she watched him start the fire, using wadded-up newspapers to get the kindling lit in a hurry. Rick moved with purpose and confidence, the quintessential man.

Once the fire was going, he glanced up at her. “You’re freezing, aren’t you?” he asked, standing to full height again.

She’d wrapped her arms around herself tightly; her gloves were still on. “Guilty,” she said with a tiny smile. “My heavy coat is still at my apartment.”

He came over and, opening his own jacket, pulled her against him.

The gesture had been completely unexpected and took her by surprise. Nestled against him and his warmth, she felt protected, secure. She loved feeling his heartbeat against her. He was strong and steadfast, and she melted against his rock-solid chest.

He tilted her chin up and kissed her tenderly. “You’re safe with me—always.”

His heat was intoxicating. “I just wish...”

“What? You can tell me anything, you know that, don’t you?

“You’ve told me before that I don’t see the real you, Rick, but how can I, when you won’t let me in? You want me to trust you, to lose myself in your arms. I want that, too, but you’ve put up a wall between us,” she whispered. “Let go. Trust me, just as I trust you.”

He didn’t ease his hold. He kept her pressed against him. “I learned to protect myself by keeping everyone at bay. It was the only way I knew to keep life from kicking me in the gut. As time went by I guess those instincts became part of who I am.”

“It’s a good enough way to live if you plan on spending your life alone, but most of us want more than that.”

“I wanted no part of love. At best it’s an illusion, a fantasy that quickly fades. At its worst, it’s a tool used to manipulate people you care about.”

“But you’re close to your brothers. You love them.”

“What binds us are loyalty, integrity and honor. Those attitudes—commitments—are more reliable than romantic love.”

“For those to remain strong, they have to be rooted in love,” she murmured, her face nestled against his neck.

“I have feelings for you, Kim, the kind you can always count on. I’ll be there for you no matter what,” he said, easing his hold and brushing his palm against the side of her face.

“But you’re still fighting this. Why?”

“Because of what I see in your eyes when you look at me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You see who you want me to be, not who I really am.”

“What I see is the man who protected me, who shielded me with his own body. You saved my life.”

“And took others,” he said. “I’m not a choir boy.”

“What you are is a man who’ll risk everything to do what’s right, one who isn’t afraid of anything—except letting people get close,” she said. “But for us to have more than just a snapshot in time, you have to open your heart.”

He released her and stepped back. “Kim, there are things about me you don’t want to hear. Once they’re said, we’ll never be able to go back to the way things are now.”

“You care for me, but you’ll never trust my feelings for you until you stop keeping me at arm’s length.”

Rick nodded slowly. “All right.” He brushed a kiss on her forehead and moved farther away. Restless, he began to pace, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. “I thought I was perfect for undercover work—cold, focused and able to think on the fly, but there was more to the job. White hats versus black hats are a myth. There are many shades of gray. The longer you’re in, the more you understand bad guys are seldom totally evil.”

He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair, struggling to find the right words. “When you begin to see parts of yourself in the people you’re there to bring down, you start to question what you’re doing. That’s when things begin to unravel.”

“So why didn’t you ask to be pulled out?”

“It had taken me more than a year to infiltrate that human trafficking cartel, and my work was finally providing valuable intel—names, places and events. I was real close to shutting down the entire operation,” he said, staring into the fire.

Minutes passed, but she didn’t interrupt. Some things couldn’t be forced.

“Then the head of the cartel ordered me to kill a man—his competitor, another trafficker. I would have been doing the world a favor, but I wasn’t there to do the cartel’s dirty work.”

He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I made the decision to let fate handle the outcome. I arranged a meet, knowing he’d try to kill me and that only one of us would walk away. Self-defense was something I could live with.”

Another silence ensued before he continued. “We met in a church parking lot, which turned out to be an ambush. I was set up. A wedding was going on inside, so he’d planned to use a knife instead of a gun. It was a brutal fight. The man was strong and fast—a former soldier. My training was better, though. Soon I had him pinned against the side of a car. I was about to finish him off when he looked directly at me—helpless.”