Perfect. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated—as if Maria’s chances at success hadn’t already been slim. Now there were two men the size of small Jarbidge monsters for her to contend with.
Clyde closed the gap between him and Maria in seconds. He reached behind her, pulled up the back of her shirt, and took Maria’s gun from her holster. “This is mine now.”
Maria’s fingers fumbled for a second before finding what she needed. She pulled hard on the Mace can attached to her backpack and it came free in her hand. A stream of liquid shot from the small nozzle with more force than even Maria expected. Clyde’s open eyes were doused in the stinging wetness. His hands flew to his face. The gun slipped from his grip and went flying twenty feet into the air, landing in a clump of thick bushes.
“What’s going on?” yelled Dillan.
Clyde dropped to his knees screaming, scratching at his face and using every profane word invented. “Shoot her. Just do it now and shoot her!”
Maria waited for the searing pain, but none came. She glanced backward to see why Dillan hadn’t followed his brother’s command. Dillan was stumbling backward, face frantic, eyes focused on a part-furry, part-leathery red-eyed Jarbidge monster. His gun hung down at his side.
Maria noticed the beast was smaller than it had been before, and it was not as corporeal. The Shoshone girl’s days of haunting the mountain were almost over. Regardless, she was keeping Dillan busy for the moment. Maria needed to act quickly.
Clyde wiped frantically at his face as he stumbled to the bushes where Maria’s Glock had landed. Maria rushed toward him, slipping her knife out of its sheath and concealing it in her palm.
“Clyde, tell me where Justin is. Now!”
“Never! We saw you point to where the treasure is hidden in the side cave. We don’t need you anymore.”
Maria seethed. “Clyde, tell me where Justin is or you’re going to die. And so will your brother. I’ll make personally sure of that.”
“The only person who is going to die is you.” Clyde turned from the bush where the gun had fallen landed and stared at Maria. Sweat dripped from his brow.
Maria stood still, letting him come. The metal blade felt cool in her hand. It was all about placement. Clyde was a big, muscular man. A stab wound would only slow him down, not kill him. But Maria also had the element of surprise.
When Clyde was nearly to her, Maria pushed forward with all her leg strength, her arms swinging upward and outward, the knife tip pointed forward. Clyde saw the weapon too late. His trajectory was already set in place by the laws of physics.
Maria plunged the blade just below his ribcage, her strength and skill combined to embed it deep into his flesh.
He roared in pain and fell back, knife protruding. This was Maria’s moment to attack. Advantage never lasted long in a fight—and the knife was now Clyde’s property.
Maria spun around and laid a roundhouse kick to Clyde’s swollen face. He gasped, and tried to regain his breath. Even with Clyde injured, a hand-to-hand fight with him would not end well for Maria. What she really needed was her gun, hidden in the snarled mess of bushes. She shoved past him and dove into the thorny jumble. Her hands reached frantically about, seeking the familiar feel of metal.
But to no avail.
Moments later, she was violently yanked backward. Clyde had a hold of her shirt. Several front buttons popped off as Maria fell onto her back, landing on a cluster of rocks. Shooting pain radiated down her leg.
“Ahhhh!” The noise escaped her mouth without her permission.
Clyde gurgled, the knife under his chest moving as he did. “Do you have any idea … how much of our lives … we’ve wasted looking for treasure?” He was quickly losing his breath. Maria had placed the knife well.
“I have no idea,” Maria said. “And I really don’t care.” She pushed off the ground and shot forward, planting her palm directly over the hilt of the knife and pushing it even further into the man’s chest.
Clyde screamed and fell to his knees, pulling Maria down with him. She yanked up on the knife, successfully causing more blood to ooze from the opening. She didn’t see his raised fist coming toward the side of her head, but she felt the impact. It knocked her over onto the rocky ground. Her head connected with something sharp. Wetness dripped from her temple.
Maria’s sight blurred a moment but came back into focus only to see something that took her breath away.
Dillan stood twenty feet away. The Jarbidge monster was gone and his rifle was once again poised on his shoulder.
Maria was a sitting duck. Her gun was lost. Her can of Mace used up. And her knife was buried deep in Clyde’s chest. But something in the distance distracted Maria from thinking of her impending death. A dozen yards behind Dillan, like a desert mirage, a group of people approached. The leader, an attractive broad-shouldered man with a prominent Roman nose, was running straight toward Dillan.
Rod?
Next to him was a wiry and lean black-haired man—older but with a timeless face that gave no hint as to his real age.
Jim?
The two men were accompanied by a handful of others who looked suspiciously like members and friends of the Kanab Search and Rescue team.
Was this what happened to people right before they died? Did they see random people from their past? Is this what the member of her black ops team had experienced in Tehran? Maria was certain her time had finally come.
Then a yell filled the air.
A rifle blasted.
Someone screamed.
Maria was pretty sure that someone was her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
There’s no such thing as a casual visit to Jarbidge, Nevada. You have to want to go there, as it requires driving some 50 miles of washboard dirt roads and hairpin turns. The most remote town in Nevada, it lies on the floor of a canyon carved into aspen-rich mountains.
“THE SHOVEL REBELLION” BY FLORENCE WILLIAMS, MOTHER JONES, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2001.
Death was a strange place. It was very noisy with lots of voices.
To be honest, she’d expected better. Maybe a bright light? Some harp music? At least a bit of peace and quiet.
Maria’s eyelids fluttered open to find the eyes of a very human-looking angel looking at her. He had a five o’clock shadow on his face.
“Rod?” Her voice was barely audible.
“Jim, she’s conscious.” Rod looked anxiously around him while cradling Maria’s head in his lap. “Do you think we can move her?”
Jim appeared at Rod’s side. “She’s bled so much. I’ve got it somewhat under control, but moving her will open it all up again. I’m not sure she can take the pain.”
“Maria has the highest pain threshold of anyone I know. But the bleeding—is it really too bad to move her? What can we do?”
“Rod?” Maria said it again. She wanted him to look at her. To tell her she was alive. That Justin had been found and everything was okay.
Rod turned back to her, fear embedded deep into his eyes. “Shhhh, don’t move. I’m right here. You’re safe now.”
“Justin?” Maria whispered his name like a prayer.
Rod shook his head. “We don’t know where Justin is.”
“Clyde or Dillan? Didn’t they tell you where Justin was?”
A cloud shrouded Rod’s face. “Both men died before we could get them out of the canyon. Clyde died from a knife wound, and Jim shot Dillan trying to stop him from shooting you.”
The universe might as well have crashed down on top of Maria. Everything a waste. Both men. Dead.
Neither had revealed where Justin was hidden.
And now they were gone.
Was it Maria’s fault?
Of course.
Guilt crashed over her as fresh and gut-wrenching as the day she was rescued from the Tehran prison two years ago.
She had failed Justin just like she had failed her fallen comrades.
Hope didn’t exist in her reality.
/> Maria’s eyelids closed. If only she could die. She wouldn’t have to face Beth, her best friend, and tell her what had happened. How she had failed them.
“Maria? Maria?” It was Rod who spoke. “You have to stay with me, Maria. I need you here with me.” His hand gently caressed her.
A tear escaped down Maria’s cheek.
“How is she doing?” asked a voice Maria recognized. Her eyes slowly opened to see Grant behind Rod and, next to him, Natalie. They must have been part of the Search and Rescue team who had come to find her. They were both white-faced. In shock.
Jim kneeled over Maria. A strange smell entered her nostrils. He held a tablespoon of purple berries. Using his thumb and inner palm, he crushed them into a paste. “Maria, you have to swallow this. Do you understand? You must swallow it.”
“No.” Maria turned her face but the pain the movement caused her made her stop short. “I want to die.”
“No, you don’t,” said Jim.
Rod leaned down and put his mouth right next to her ear. “Maria, you have to live. Please. Please live. For me.” Tears streamed down his face, dripping off his jaw onto Maria’s neck. She felt the cool wetness for a moment, but then it dissipated into the burning pain that filled her left side.
“The bleeding has picked up. We don’t have much longer.” Jim’s voice was firm.
Rod’s lips brushed against Maria’s forehead. He sat up. “Grant, help me get her onto the emergency gurney—hey, watch out!”
Natalie, who had been standing next to Grant, slumped over. Grant tried to grab her before she hit the ground but was too late. “Nat? Nat? You okay? Rod, I think she passed out. She’s in shock.”
Chaos reigned. People moved all about.
Jim took Maria’s face in both of his hands. “You will eat this paste. Understand?”
Maria had no strength left to argue. The way his eyes bored into hers, she was hypnotized to do his bidding. “Yes.”
He scooped the berry paste into her mouth. The clump of fruit, which mostly consisted of skin and seeds, made Maria gag.
Jim forced her mouth shut and commanded her to swallow.
So she did.
The action caused so much pain inside her body she cried out. Rod held her hand tighter. He whispered over and over.
Maria.
Maria.
Maria.
Her name turned into the wind whistling through tree branches and the river rushing through canyon walls until at last Maria heard nothing.
When Maria awoke, the whoosh of helicopter blades and the sway of her body told her she was no longer in the Jarbidge wilderness. She lay on a gurney, an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. After an unsuccessful attempt to move, she found her arms and legs were strapped tightly to her body. Next to her were machines, some beeped while others flashed lights. All of it added to the muddiness in her mind.
What had happened? Where was she? Had Justin been found?
Slowly, details crept back into her consciousness. Her confrontation with Clyde and Dillan. The fight. The arrival of Rod.
Speaking of Rod, he sat at the foot of the gurney, his fingers wrapped around her ankle. He spoke to a medic who sat next to him. The conversation was audible, but Maria’s mind struggled to place words with meaning.
Another medic sat a Maria’s side. Looking over monitors and checking her IV.
The bright lighting inside the helicopter was the only reason Maria could see much of anything. Her eyes could hardly open, but she did manage to see some things out the thin slits. The medic watching her hadn’t noticed she was awake. Speaking would be impossible for Maria. And with the oxygen mask on, no one would hear her if she tried. Observing was all she could do.
Next to Maria sat Natalie. She was upright on a gurney with Grant next to her holding her hand. Around her bicep was a blood pressure monitor, and on her finger was a clip to monitor her oxygen levels. Natalie and Grant looked like they’d been through a war. Maria knew she looked a hundred times worse.
Where had Maria been shot? What part of her body was damaged? Ever since eating the mashed berries Jim had concocted for her, Maria’s pain had lessened significantly, but that didn’t mean the injuries were any better.
Exhaustion coaxed Maria to shut her eyes and succumb to slumber, but she fought its numbing power. She had to know what was going on. Clyde and Dillan clearly had been in Jarbidge to intercept her, but how had the two of them known she would be there? Had the two brothers been following her in Kanab for the past week?
Had those two awful men been the ones who had yanked Justin from his bed, tied him up, gagged his mouth, and shouted threatening words into his face? The thought was horrifying.
Dillan’s words to Maria, the ones he spoke to her before she plunged the knife further into his chest, were cryptic at best. He’d said he’d been looking for treasure all his life, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. How had the Veil treasure become such an obsession for him? And what had the two brothers planned to do in the Jarbidge wilderness? They had wanted Maria to divulge to them where the treasure was hidden. That much was clear. But what had their plans been to do with Justin? Where had they been keeping him for the last week?
Clyde and Dillan had looked so much alike. Their uniform physical build and wide almond eyes were too much of a coincidence for them to not be related. Not to mention their cleft chins.
Maria’s whirling thoughts halted. Where had she seen that chin before?
Think.
Maria wished someone could tell she was awake, but it was as if her body was paralyzed. She tried to make some kind of noise to let them know she was conscious but failed.
Grant and Rod began to speak to one another. Maybe it was best if Maria fell back asleep after all. She was of no use to anyone in this condition.
With Grant conversing to his brother, Natalie turned her head Maria’s direction.
Maria tried to wiggle her index finger—maybe that would signal to Grant’s girlfriend that she was awake.
Nothing.
Natalie leaned her head back against the wall of the helicopter and let out a long sigh. The cell phone in her hand illuminated and a name displayed on the screen in full sight of Maria. “Nathan Porter – dad’s cell.”
The phone made no noise but must have vibrated to alert Natalie. She turned it around and startled when she saw the number. She quickly swiped the phone to off and looked around the crowded space.
The girl was even more white-faced than before.
Nathan Porter. Why was that name so familiar?
Despite the lullaby effect of the berries Jim had fed Maria, a curiosity about the name sparked her mind to action.
Nathan Porter. Who was that?
Maria relaxed the muscles around her eyes and inhaled the fresh oxygen. Obviously the name belonged to Natalie’s dad, but where else had that name come up recently? Had Clyde mentioned it? Was it a name she’d read in one of the articles she’d photographed in the Red Dog saloon?
No. None of that sounded right.
If Maria had been functioning at a hundred percent it wouldn’t have been so hard. But as it was, she could hardly remember her own middle name. Over the last week, during her comings and goings from Kanab to Phoenix to Jarbidge, she had met a number of people. Had any of them been named Nathan Porter?
Think. Think.
Despite her efforts, the small chamber in the medical helicopter amplified her fatigue and she felt her body sinking back into slumber. When it really came down to it, if she couldn’t remember where she’d heard the name that meant it probably wasn’t that important.
And yet….
Something told her it was.
Maria had to stay awake. She cracked her eyes open again. Rod’s hand still rested on her ankle. She tried to move her leg, but the gurney straps held her fast and she seemed to have no control over her muscles.
If she screamed would someone hear her?
Sadly, Maria couldn�
��t force enough air in her lungs to do much more than a pathetic groan which didn’t make enough noise to reach the end of the plastic oxygen mask on her face.
Nathan Porter? Who was he?
Again, her mind came up blank.
The lack of strength, her inability to move, and the head fuzz were all creating a build-up of panic inside of Maria. She was useless. Would she ever be able to move normally again?
What if she were decrepit for the rest of her life? She must be feeling what old people like Steven Veil felt like with their stooped frames and fragile bones.
Wait!
The thought of the old man shuffling into the police station triggered the memory Maria had been seeking. In her mind, she replayed the scene of Agent Carter questioning Steven Veil and his assistant about the use of the Veil riddle in Justin’s ransom note. The assistant had introduced himself as Nathan Porter. Maria was sure of it. That had been his name.
Nathan Porter.
Could it be the same man? It wasn’t a super unique name. Was it just coincidence?
But as Maria recalled the odd look on Natalie’s face after she’d seen the name of her father pop up on her phone, Maria knew it wasn’t. Natalie definitely hadn’t wanted to answer the call. In fact, seeing the name had made Natalie appear … alarmed.
At last, Maria’s mind was alert.
If it was the same Nathan Porter, why would Natalie not have mentioned it when the whole town was talking about the riddle in the ransom note being Steven Veil’s? Natalie must have known for whom her father worked. How many millions of hits did that riddle pull up online? Six or seven at least.
Maria stared at the face of Grant’s new girlfriend. Yes, she was pretty, but was she as innocent as she acted? What did they really know about her?
Racking her brain, Maria tried to remember. Grant had told them Natalie had come to see the Grand Canyon but had stayed longer to do some volunteer work at the animal sanctuary. That was something that happened often with tourists. Nothing too unusual. However, Natalie had jumped into Grant’s life so quickly—accompanying him to Phoenix and on Search and Rescue missions. They’d all assumed the two must have great chemistry, but maybe it had been more of a ploy on Natalie’s part to insert herself into their circle.
Paranormal Mystery Boxset Books 1-3: Legends of Treasure Page 72