Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged

by Andrews

  A piece of netting hanging vertically along the rock wall would require someone with great skill to hang it here, a purpose for hanging it—and if it has a purpose then someone has to check the net! The last thought gave me a nanosecond of hope. Whether you're catching minnows, animals, or people, you set the trap, and then you check it later. So someone will come. An Indian, I thought, in this land of tribal people. An Indian would be nimble enough to find a way down the abyss, although the idea seemed heart-stopping. Let's hope he checks it daily and not weekly.

  I was starting to shake from the cold air, the fear, and the light wind that whipped through the canyon. Even if he comes to check the net, how in the world would he ever be able to get me out of here? It would take a rescue helicopter.

  I strained and stretched gently, not knowing if the netting was even meant to hold something as heavy as me, and tried to catch a glimpse overhead to understand what I was tethered to. A sturdy but supple rope seemed to be wound around a large wooden ring, then ascended to a place I could no longer see, too far away for me to bend my head and neck back and look without losing my grip.

  God, please get me out of here and teach me something later. And whichever way it goes, please always take care of Callie Rivers and don't let anything bad ever happen to her and please take care of Elmo. Amen.

  I don't know how long it had been, or what time it was, but my heart roared into action when I heard the whir of the helicopter blades. Callie’s gotten help, I thought joyously. And ten minutes later when they whizzed through the center of the canyon, their blades at eye level, I was certain that after one more pass they would see me. They made seven more trips before I realized someone had placed the net precisely in a spot that shielded rescuers from view and, despondent, I wondered if that was intentional.

  The sound of the helicopter receding made me tear up and feel sorry for myself. I closed my eyes and tried to meditate, but my hands and arms hurt from holding onto the rope.

  Suddenly, my body moved horizontally, jarring me into the realization that I was being towed along like clothes on a wash line headed who knew where, but no matter; it had to be better than here. At some point the towing stopped and I was being hauled up vertically. The sporadic and shaky pulling was nerve-racking, but made me hopeful nonetheless. I thought about calling out, but I didn't want to do anything to stop my being lifted up. It could be a rescue, but if it was, someone would be calling out to me. I had a strange gut feeling this wasn't a rescue, but merely a retrieval of prey. And then as I could see the rocky ledge, the reeling-in stopped.

  I hung in stillness, waiting for whoever it was to pull me in, but they didn't. Can they see who I am? Did they expect a human and not an animal? Do they intend to leave me to die? My shoulder and arm were half numb, and I tried to readjust without suddenly coming loose from the only thing keeping me alive. Craning my neck to see any sign of life at the top of the cliff, I looked directly overhead and spotted a ledge jutting out maybe twenty feet above me. I had fallen too far down for any rope to rescue me. Someone overhead knew a special path that led to this ledge, and they'd tied the netting to something on that precipice. Maybe that's why the net had jutted out enough for me to fall into.

  For a control freak, this is fucking purgatory, I thought. I can't get out unless someone wants me out. I can't get word to anyone. I can't even pee...unless it's in my own pants. That thought made me so angry that tears gathered in my eyes again, and I shut them tightly and steeled my jaw, determined not to let my emotions get the best of me.

  "If somebody did this to me, I'll kill him as soon as he pulls me up," I said softly, and then I must have dozed off for a few seconds from sheer exhaustion, the wind rocking me in the netting as you would a shivering child.

  My eyes slammed open, my heart pounded my chest as if attacking me, and I heard her voice as clearly as if she were beside me.

  "Teague."

  I looked around quickly, trying to spot her.

  "Teague," Callie said, "I will find you."

  Certain Callie was with me right now, I started to speak and then realized, of course, there was no way she could be.

  Find me. Did she mean find me now or find me in our next lifetime? I hoped it was both. Her voice speaking my name tore my heart out. "I love you, Callie," I whispered, and as if my very words had activated a mechanism to save me, the pulley system began moving me again, only vertically this time.

  In another three or four minutes, my feet slammed into the rock and hands grappled with my ankles. Then like a giant marlin hauled in flopping, body banging into the rocks, I was hoisted higher to firm ground.

  Face down, I felt the earth—flat and solid beneath the stretched-out length of my body, a mother's warm hug—indescribably comforting and solid and reassuring. Breathing in with undisguised relief, I chose to ignore the fact that a stranger had rolled me like a Cuban cigar and instead focused on my surroundings so I could make my escape: a tree to my left, a smooth canyon wall. Then I realized I was at a lower altitude than the canyon overlook from which I'd fallen.

  Must be a ledge or area below where I fell, with a trail leading down to it.

  He leaned his dark face with its smiling white teeth into mine and said, "You don't fly too good."

  "No, Jesus God, I thought I was dead! How did you find me?"

  "Shaman," the man whispered almost inaudibly as he pulled the netting away from my body and packed it like a parachute. "Go back to your cabin," the man said, almost murmuring, and somewhere in the labyrinth of my mind I wondered how this strange man knew to find me, knew I was in a cabin.

  But my thoughts gave way to images of Callie running toward me, arms outstretched. I staggered to my feet and caught her, our bodies slamming into one another, unable to hold back our sheer physical joy.

  Not saying anything above the tears, but clutching her to me, I realized I didn't care about anything else but Callie Rivers. I'd felt this way once before when she'd been kidnapped during a case we were working on, and I wondered why in between that time and this, I couldn't remember this intense state of adoration when I was arguing with her, or when I was angry with her, or when I felt momentarily trapped.

  I held her face and looked into her eyes, experiencing it all now, then pressed her forehead to mine as if to program the intensity of this moment and my love for her through my thick skull and onto the storage disc of my brain.

  "My heart left my chest and went over that ridge with you. I thought I'd lost you."

  "You mean you couldn't psychically know I would be safe." I tried to tease her.

  "I did know, but I didn't believe my knowing because it's too close to my heart."

  As we stood locked in each other's arms, she turned, seeming to feel a presence in the air, and I felt it too, a painful energy like the warning tingle you get before touching a hot wire.

  "Let's get out of here," Callie said. When she took my arm, I was wobbly and weak and gently complained of her tight grip, predicting I was blue under my shirt from hanging on the rope.

  "Wait a second, I want to get a closer look at what I was suspended by—some sort of netting."

  Callie protested my wanting to get near the spot where I'd been hauled up and prevented my taking a step in that direction, but I couldn't see any net or sign of my rescue.

  "If I wasn't dizzy and all my body parts throbbing, I'd say none of this ever happened. Where did the net and the Indian guy go?"

  Not answering, her arm around me, Callie helped me walk back up the treacherous canyon trail to the car, the path so narrow and rough and steep it was slow going. "Did you hear me?" she asked. "The entire time you were down there, I called to you with my mind."

  "I heard you tell me you would find me."

  "I did and I always will."

  "How did you know I was down below the ridge?"

  "Manaba told me," she said, and I was too out of breath to quiz her further.

  About the time I knew I wasn't up to walking much far
ther, the parking lot appeared ahead and slightly above us. Leaning against the white Jeep and touching the metal door handle was almost a religious experience. Salvation brought to me by Chrysler. Sitting in the leather seats of my Jeep felt good, solid, warm. Callie drove, taking my hand, and we rode in silence.

  "The man who rescued you has to be involved in Nizhoni's disappearance, yet there's no way he could have arranged for you to take a plunge over that edge," she finally said, unable not to discuss in detail the bizarre event that had led to my near death.

  Callie momentarily stopped the car, leaned over, and gave me a kiss that was all longing for the present, the future, and always. It seemed that having nearly lost me, she had intensified her desire for me, which I already thought was record breaking. Unable to express how I felt about her without crying, I stuck to the tactical.

  "Was a helicopter looking for me?"

  "The moment you went over and I couldn't see you or hear you, I phoned the police, the sheriff's department, the park service, and Manaba. I was frantic. I don't think there was time for a helicopter. You were down there for what seemed like a lifetime, but it was really about ninety minutes."

  Beginning to shake, my teeth nearly chattering, a habit I had of getting more petrified after a near-death experience than during, I whispered, "Jesus, that was.. .terrifying."

  "How did you happen to fall right where the net was placed? How was a net there... of all the places around the canyon?"

  "I wouldn't have gone over if it hadn't been for the wolf." As I said it, goose bumps raced up my legs. "As I was catching my balance the wolf appeared and lunged at me."

  "I never saw a wolf." Callie clutched my hand and spoke into the air. "So he sent you over the edge."

  "He who?"

  "The man whose name I won't speak, the energy I won't evoke. Someone must have sent the Indian man, and he saved you. Was Nizhoni saved by him too?"

  I was getting over my fear and getting into being pissed. "I don't know what's going on, but it's getting to be less about Manaba and more about us. Some kind of energy attacked you, and a phantom wolf threw me over a cliff. If Manaba told you where I was, she's in on it along with the Indian man who saved me. Maybe they killed Nizhoni and simply chose to rescue me."

  "If they were killers, why rescue you?"

  "Maybe because she knows you love me, and she did it as a favor."

  "They didn't murder Nizhoni because she's not dead."

  "Then your shaman's lying to you."

  Callie nodded, for the first time admitting that Manaba was lying.

  She dialed the police department and sheriff's department to tell them I was safe—reporting the time I was rescued, my inability to name the rescuer, but describing the location.

  I could hear the squawk of male voices over bad radio equipment as they exchanged information, and I thought about how small we are in the world when we search for one another—police merely troops of ants all dressed alike, driving the same cars, fanning out across the unknown to locate one lost ant.

  Suddenly I was thinking about life as one giant search party— searching for a house, a job, a mate, the meaning of life, not to mention the search for socks, glasses, and car keys—and before I could search for anything else, I lost consciousness—my mind searching for a nap.

  Chapter Eleven

  There's something wonderful about bed after a big scare. Soft and warm and comforting, it seemed to embrace me, let me find solace in Callie and fall asleep, leaving the frightening event behind so we could wake up and begin again the next day.

  "I've been shown one thing, how very much I want to spend every minute with you," I said, putting my arm across Callie's middle as we sat propped up against the pillows, resting my hand on the inside of her thigh and letting out a deep sigh.

  Under the arm that had snagged the net, bad bruises on my ribs led down to discolored areas below them. My arm muscles were excruciatingly sore and my leg muscles only slightly less so.

  Callie took body lotion and slowly, carefully massaged my arms and legs, and when I asked if she thought body lotion healed bruising, she said it wasn't about lotion. It was about massage and realigning the energy in my body.

  Lying on my back, I closed my eyes as she rubbed the cream up my thighs, over my belly, up my chest, and over my breasts before her hands gripped my shoulders, pausing a moment and then retracing her steps, her hands never losing contact with my skin. Soon the long, relaxing strokes were narrowing their path until she was rubbing a single track between my legs and laid her entire weight on my body, her lips pressed to mine. "Your body took quite a battering," she whispered and laid her head on my chest.

  "Happens in life."

  "You need to treat yourself better."

  "Maybe you could do that on my behalf."

  "I will," Callie said, and rolled me over so she could massage my buttocks and slide up and down my back with her naked body, her large breasts brushing my spine, her body getting closer to me with each stroke until her entire voluptuous form was gliding up and down me gently, each pass of her soft skin making me quiver with anticipation. Finally, she lowered herself onto me, refusing to allow me to turn over, and glided one hand under me, stroking me, while fingers of the other slid into me and her body rocked up against me, creating the sensation that she had more hands than was humanly possible and making me break out in a sweat that could have been the change, but who cared.

  My body wet, every other part of me hard as she hydroplaned down me, into me with measured rhythm, taking me to the edge of the orgasmic cliff where I hung on, not wanting to fall over, not wanting it to end, holding on as long as I could and then sailing, soaring, explosive, climax. Breathing...panting...breathing...panting.

  "Where did you learn that?" I moaned.

  She nibbled my ear in response.

  "You are so good," I whispered.

  As I poured a cup of coffee at the kitchen counter, Callie slung her arms around me, ambushing me from behind. Undeterred by my squeals and the splattering caffeine, she plopped her chin on my shoulder and announced how pleased she was to be driving me sexually insane, admitting it made her love me even more.

  "I think of your body as a Mount Everest and myself as a skilled climber who has no trouble making it to the top."

  I whirled and grabbed her. "You are so cocky."

  Elmo let out a deep bark, startling us both as Ramona Mathers peeked through the plate-glass window, her hand shielding her eyes as if she was trying to focus and see if we were home. I shouted for her to come in. Three clomps on the steps and she was through the doorway.

  "What in the world happened yesterday?" she asked without any introductory protocol. Something about your falling off the canyon ridge. Did you?"

  "Yes, and was rescued by a Navajo trapper, I'm guessing."

  "Why the hell were you standing so near the edge? Do we have to put a harness on you like a three-year-old?"

  "My thoughts exactly, and I would have welcomed one as I dangled like a yoyo whipping around in the wind thinking my demise was eminent," I said, my supercilious tone an attempt to cover how seriously frightened I was. "Now I realize someone wanted me to die—like Nizhoni supposedly did."

  "Are you saying someone wanted you to fall into the canyon, at the spot where Nizhoni fell, and live to discuss it?"

  I made a mental note that Ramona said at the spot where Nizhoni fell. How would she know that?

  Callie nodded affirmatively as I added, "I was actually thrown over the cliff by a wolf who wasn't really there."

  Ramona paused. "You're obviously not sharing that with anyone?" Although her tone was flippant, I felt she was telling me not to, and why wouldn't she want anyone to know? Because she didn't want people to think I was crazy? Because she didn't want wolves maligned? Because she knew something about Nizhoni's death she wasn't telling?

  "Who told you I went over the cliff?"

  "The Native American community is abuzz about the rescue by o
ne of their own."

  "And you have a hotline to that community?"

  "I've had this cabin for thirty-five years and hire Indians to help me occasionally."

  "Did you know Nizhoni?"

  "One of my clients knew her.. .I didn't. Speaking of the dead," Ramona intoned, "I've gotten word to a connected friend and had to call in a chit, so I hope this is all worth it in the end. But when the offices open next Monday, if you're still inclined, I can file the necessary documents to get the body exhumed. Jot down the woman's name, date of birth, date of death—"

  "Time of death is approximate," Callie said, walking to the kitchen counter and locating a piece of paper with the information on it and handing it to Ramona.

  "Nicely done, Sherlock." Ramona's tone was intimate as she held Callie in her gaze.

  "Did Barrett go back to L.A.?" I asked to break up any sexual energy Ramona was about to toss Callie's way, marveling that her sexual battery never seemed to go dry. The woman could be turned on faster than a light switch.

  "No, actually, she stayed over," she said, her eyes still locked on Callie's, but the words had a playful sound to them as if she was at that moment thinking of Barrett in bed with her. "I like your friend a lot."

  "Which one? Because the one you're staring at is taken." I mimicked her playful tone rather than say her gaze was annoying the hell out of me.

  "Sweet." Her eyes broke away from Callie to connect with mine and let me know she was merely joking. "I'm meeting Barrett for breakfast, so I have to run. Only came by to see if you were still breathing." Ramona left, looking a little more graceful than I remembered her.

  "They're just fucking each other," I said. "And she'd better stay away from you."

  "I'm just fucking you too," she said, reaching into my pants suddenly. "But that doesn't mean I'm not mad about you. In fact the two are definitely related."