Tracking Bear (30 page)

Blalock didn’t seem in a mood to talk much, so she allowed the silence to stretch.

Finally, he met her gaze. “I gather you think Kee Franklin is in some kind of trouble?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But I don’t think he really understands what he’s gotten himself into.
He’s smart, academically, but he’s out of his league on this. When it comes to street smarts, his opponent is holding all the cards.”

When they started out again, silence fell between them. About ten miles from Shiprock and just inside the Rez by Hogback, Ella began to feel uneasy. The badger fetish began to feel warm against her throat.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, glancing back in the rearview
mirror.

Blalock who’d been leaning back with his eyes closed, sat up. “What’s going on?” he asked, instantly alert.

She glanced in her rearview mirror again. “There’s a sand-colored pickup quickly closing in on us.”

He glanced in the side mirror. “It’s one of those hot six-wheelers with the big V-8 engines, but so what? He doesn’t know this is a cop car. You can wait until he passes, then pull
him over if you want.”

“No, it’s more than that. The driver is coming
for
us.”

“Because he’s got a lead foot and driving like a bat out of hell? That just makes him a victim of his own stupidity.”

The pickup on steroids was closing, less than fifty yards behind them, and Ella couldn’t see the driver because of the tinted glass. Having first sped up a bit, Ella now decided to cut her speed,
so she’d be able to maneuver without risking a rollover.

“Okay, now I believe you,” he said, as the truck closed in. Blalock unfastened the safety strap on his gun and checked his seat belt and shoulder harness.

Wary of the sound of a weapon being fired inside a vehicle, Ella rolled down her window completely, and Blalock did the same on his side, doubling their options. She looked ahead, noting
the oncoming lane was clear. “I’m going to hit the brakes at the same time I move to the shoulder,” Ella said. “He’ll have to swerve and should zip past me if I time it right. Then we’ll take off after him.”

“Go for it.”

Ella hit the brakes and the tires screamed, but the Jeep tracked properly without fishtailing. The driver of the pickup suddenly pulled up to her left, but instead of racing
past them, swung the heavy pickup into the side of the tribal unit.

Ella hadn’t expected that move, and the wheel nearly jerked out of her hands. She hit the brakes again, trying to let the pickup by, but the driver sideswiped them again by the left rear fender, and she barely kept her unit on the road.

“Okay, that’s it.” Blalock pulled out his weapon. “Lean back, Ella.”

As the pickup came
close and rammed them again, Blalock reached over in front of her and fired off one shot. The round struck the windshield of the truck, but missed the driver.

The shot must have unnerved the driver because he suddenly swerved hard, nearly losing control of the pickup, then roared away.

Ella had to fight to maintain control of the Jeep, her ears still ringing from the blast of the handgun. “We
have a flat!” she yelled, steering toward the side of the road and trying to resist the temptation to hit the brakes. The Jeep slowed, weaving slightly, and they eased off onto the shoulder, coming to a stop just before the big curve leading into Shiprock, less than three miles away.

“Did you see the license plate?” Ella asked, her body shaking with anger and from the sudden burst of adrenaline
that had shot through her system.

“It had been removed,” Blalock said, unfastening his seat belt.

“Too bad.” Ella called Dispatch, but had to listen carefully. Her ears were still ringing.

“Are you hurt?” Blalock asked.

“No, but my damned ears are ringing. You?”

“I’m fine—pissed off, but fine.” He stepped out of the unit and took a deep breath, then walked around for a moment, taking a look
at the front tire, which had lost its tread from one of the collisions with the big truck. “Did you get a look at the driver? He seemed hunkered down, or maybe it was the fact that he was sitting higher up. All I saw clearly was a baseball cap and some kind of jacket.”

“Dark hair, too. Sunglasses. Dark-skinned or good tan.” She paused, then added, “And there was a pro-NEED bumper sticker stuck
to the back bumper.”

After they changed the flat and determined that the scratched paint and dented body wouldn’t affect the operation of the vehicle, it didn’t take long to reach Shiprock. Ella dropped Blalock at his office, then went to her station and made out a full report. The chief wasn’t going to like another tribal car needing major body-work, but it couldn’t be helped.

Searching
for Big Ed but not finding him, she left the written report on his desk, then drove home.

Though it was dusk, by the time she got there Ella could see her daughter eating her dinner outside, a few feet away from the pony. The animal was not in the corral, but tethered near Dawn’s bedroom window, munching on the remnants of a flake of hay.

“What’s this?” Ella asked, going directly to the back,
where Rose and Dawn were huddled up in their winter coats, standing against the outside wall.

“Your daughter insisted on eating with the pony,” Rose said with a sigh. “But when she finishes, she’s going right to bed.”

Ella looked at her daughter’s face. “You know you can’t do this every night, right? The pony needs time to be a pony, and that means being by himself.”

“But I want to be with
him. Ponies need friends, too.”

“You wouldn’t want to be at school with your friends
all
the time, would you? You like playing by yourself sometimes, too. At night it’s time for the pony to eat his dinner and rest. That way the pony can be your friend, but still be true to himself. Then you both will have balance and harmony, and walk in beauty.”

Dawn nodded somberly. “Okay.”

Out of the corner
of her eye, Ella saw Rose looking at her in surprise. Ella smiled, looked at Rose, and, in a soft voice, added, “What? I do accept the old ways, Mom. I just can’t live them the way you and my brother do.”

Ella saw the spark of hope in Rose’s eyes and bit back a sigh. Rose would never stop hoping that she’d embrace the old ways fully. But that hope would always remain unfulfilled. As much as she
wanted to believe wholeheartedly in tribal traditions, she’d never be able to do that. Her heart would always be caught in the middle—torn between who she was and who she thought she should be.

After dinner, Ella put Dawn to bed and read her a story about a young mouse and his adventures. Before she’d gotten to the last page, Dawn was fast asleep.

Ella returned to the living room, and found
Rose sitting on the sofa, talking to Herman Cloud.

These days it didn’t bother Ella that her mother was spending time with Herman. What bothered her was that her mother went out on more dates than she did. Herman nodded when she came in, and started to stand. Ella motioned him to sit, then, with a rueful smile, she plopped down into her mother’s favorite chair. If her mother wanted privacy, she’d
let her know soon enough.

“Daughter, I was very proud of what you said to my granddaughter about harmony and balance.” She smiled. “You may become a traditionalist yet.”

“Mom, that’ll never happen. But that doesn’t mean I don’t value the beliefs that have kept our people strong. They’re a part of our heritage, beliefs I’d like my daughter to understand and respect. Of course, what she ultimately
chooses to do with that knowledge in the future will be up to her.”

“Then I will hope that she’ll choose to be a traditionalist.”

Ella laughed. “We’ll see. You never give up, do you?”

Rose just smiled.

“Speaking of that, I need you two to help me with something. I have to find the scientist—the father of the patrolman who was killed,” she said, avoiding proper names out of respect for her
traditionalist mother and Herman.

Herman nodded. “I know who you mean.”

“I think he’s in danger, but I’m not sure he knows or cares. I was told he went camping, so he’s probably in one of the more remote areas still accessible by vehicle, perhaps the mountains or foothills. I was hoping that you could get word out to the Plant Watchers, and ask them to contact me if they see him or spot signs
of a campsite around this part of the Rez.”

“We’d be happy to do that for you, daughter,” Rose said.

Leaving her mother alone with Herman, Ella went into the kitchen, grabbed a plateful of olives as a snack, then went back to her room. Sitting at her computer, she retrieved e-mail from Harry. Reading on, she smiled at his accounting of one assignment where everything had gone wrong.

Rose came
in as Ella finished answering her e-mails. “I worry about you, daughter,” she said, and sat down at the edge of her bed.

“Things are dangerous for all our officers now,” she answered, thinking she meant the budgetary and equipment problems.

“No, I mean the side of you that’s not a cop.”

Ella smiled ruefully. “Is that still there?”

“The fact that you have to ask is why I worry,” Rose said.
“You need to get out more and just have fun.”

“I was thinking about that myself,” she answered with a chuckle. “How are things between you and
Bizaadii
?” she asked.

“I care for him, and he for me. And he shares my concerns about the land and, in particular, the reclamation efforts that have failed so miserably.” Rose took a deep breath, then continued. “It saddens me to see our land lying waste,
poisoned, and no one trying hard enough to fix the problem. That’s why many my age have died of
ch’ééná
, a sadness for what’s gone and can never return. But with
Bizaadii
I can share those feelings and that makes them easier to bear.”

“It was never like that between you and Dad, was it?” Ella asked.

Rose shook her head. “I loved him. He had courage, and there was something about him, a presence,
that made him stand out in any crowd.” She smiled, reminiscing. “Your father could sway people with only a smile. But he believed in the Christian God with all his heart. That made things difficult for us.”

“You each remained true to what you felt was right, but I remember the toll it took on you both.” She recalled the arguments long into the night. Rose had wanted to bring up her children as
traditionalists, but Ella’s father wouldn’t hear of it.

Eventually, as a teenager Clifford chose to become a traditionalist like Rose. Ella had opted for neither her mother’s nor her father’s way. That had left her searching for her own identity and desperate to get away from the Rez.

Now she’d returned home for good, but sometimes walking the path she’d chosen was the most difficult of all.
Inside, she was as alone as she’d ever been.

“Will you ever marry your marshal friend?” Rose asked her softly. “Do you even want to?”

“A part of me does, but then I stop to think about it, and reality crashes down on me. As a marshal he wouldn’t be here half of the time. And when he
was
here, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee that I wouldn’t be off working on a case. Our lives are too alike in
some ways to make them converge.”

“Remember that your job is only part of who you are. Don’t sacrifice everything for your career. Nothing is worth that price.”

“I know. Someday I’ll retire, Dawn will be all grown up, and I’ll find myself alone,” Ella said, anticipating her mother’s objections.

“Yes, that’s a possibility. And if all you’ve ever known and loved is police work, when that’s no
longer there you may have a more difficult time adjusting to what remains of your life.”

“I know,” Ella said quietly. “But I have to follow the path that’s right for me—whether it’s easy or hard makes no difference.”

“In that way, we’re the same.” Rose sighed, then stood up. “I better get some sleep. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to the group that’s planning to sue one of the old uranium companies.
I’d like them to address the issue of reclamation again and make that part of their suit.”

Ella gazed at her mother as she walked out of the room, her back straight and tall. Her mother had changed. Rose was stronger now than she’d ever been. She’d come into her own and walked the new path she’d chosen with the kind of confidence that came from knowing she was in the right. Her mother’s courage
came from that sure knowledge and, because of it, she’d be unbeatable.

Without news about Kee or the pickup that had collided with her and Blalock, except that the pickup was probably one reported stolen in Farmington, Ella and Justine set out the next morning to find Delbert Shives. They’d been told that he would be in his office at the power plant, where he worked half days.

“We’ve been
around this guy many times, but all we really know about him is that he’s a chemist, worked with Kee Franklin at one time, and has been coordinating visits for the police departments and the local power facilities. I wonder what the real Delbert Shives is like away from the job,” Ella said.

“He’s been on his best behavior around police officers, but I’ve heard that he’s a strange bird. I asked
one of my cousins who works at the power plant, and she said that Shives doesn’t get along with many people. He does his work, and he’s very good at what he does, but he’s a pain to deal with.”

“What we want from him is information about Kee. Focus on that, and we’ll keep hammering him until we get something.”

“If what you told me already is correct, he hasn’t worked with Kee for a long time,”
Justine reminded her. “He may not know anything useful.”

“If all I get from him is an insight into Kee that’ll help me narrow down his whereabouts, I’ll be happy.”

They arrived at the power plant’s administration offices a short time later. After introducing themselves to a receptionist, a young Navajo woman in her early twenties, they waited.

Delbert Shives came out to greet them moments later,
smiling and apparently in a good mood. “What can I do for you, ladies?”

“Is there someplace we can speak in private?” Ella asked.