A Man Without Love

by Beverly Bird

  She grieved for Lisa Littlehorn, but worse than that was seeing Jericho’s face. The strong, arrogant man was crying unabashedly.

  She pushed to her feet, her fists clenching. She took two steps toward them even as she knew she had to leave them alone.

  She was an outsider. He hated her. She couldn’t comfort him, shouldn’t even try. And yet something drew her inexorably, keeping her moving until she stood by his side.

  He looked down at her, and at first she would have sworn he didn’t even see her. But then he touched her hair, one finger winding into a flyaway curl.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said faintly. “I did everything I could think of, everything I knew how to do.”

  His hand slid behind her neck, pulling her forward. At first she resisted, startled and wary. But he only leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.

  “I know, Cat Eyes. I saw.”

  Chapter 5

  Nothing changed between them after Lisa died, and everything changed. Jericho’s demeanor was as arrogant and forbidding as ever, but suddenly Catherine began catching his gaze when it rested upon her. It was always narrow, searching. It made something roll over in her stomach, made each nerve ending feel exquisitely raw and exposed. She couldn’t concentrate when he was doing it.

  A little more than a week after the latest Tah honeesgai incident, he arrived at the clinic with Shadow. They stood together just inside the door and Shadow was grinning.

  Jericho dropped his jacket on the chair. “You going home today?” he asked shortly.

  Catherine blinked. “Who? Me?”

  Jericho shrugged and Shadow grinned even wider. She patted her jeans pocket and went to sit down in the desk chair.

  “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, brother.”

  “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  Catherine wasn’t sure she understood what was going on, and it was apparent that Ellen didn’t, either. The nurse’s gaze moved suspiciously from brother to sister before she snapped, “Well, we have business to attend to.”

  “Where’s the map?” Shadow asked. “Give it to Lanie. We’ve all looked at it a hundred times. Maybe a fresh perspective will help.”

  Jericho snorted rudely. “That’s like asking a bird to find something in the deep blue sea,” he muttered.

  “Maybe,” Shadow said. “But have you got any other ideas?”

  Catherine felt Jericho’s gaze come around to her again. She fought the urge to shiver and forced herself to meet his eyes.

  Oh, those eyes.

  She jumped when he thrust the folded map at her, the one she had seen them looking at on the day she had arrived. Her gaze moved to each of them uncertainly and she opened it on the desk.

  “Is this where the Mystery Disease has broken out?” she asked.

  Jericho moved up beside her, close enough that she was aware of the smoky scent of him again. She closed her eyes briefly and tried not to think about it.

  “No. It’s where all the victims spent their time in the days before they came down with it.”

  “Two Gray Hills,” she said suddenly. She remembered now.

  His eyes narrowed on her. “Come again?”

  “Lisa’s brother said they were on their way back from there when she got sick. And didn’t Grandmother Yellowhorse say her son had been up there as well?”

  Ellen made a deprecating sound. “Tommy and Lisa have nothing in common.”

  “No, wait,” Jericho said. “Look, three others were in the vicinity of that clan, too.”

  “But three out of how many?” Ellen demanded.

  “What is it now—twenty-six cases including Lisa?” Shadow asked.

  “No, there’s no thread.” Jericho scowled. “Five doesn’t make a heavy percentage.”

  “And Tommy was ghost-witched,” Ellen persisted. “He wasn’t even a victim of the disease. That leaves four. Only fifteen percent.”

  “Who’s new up there?” Shadow asked Jericho. “Anybody?”

  Jericho moved away. Catherine breathed again.

  “Only one guy that I know of,” he said finally. “Becenti, he calls himself. Can’t remember his first name. He say’s he’s from L.A., that his father was a Navajo. Who knows?”

  “The tribal council wouldn’t let him settle here if he wasn’t,” Shadow observed.

  Jericho lifted one shoulder. “There’ve been questionable people hiding out here before. Takes a while for the council to catch up with them. I know those guys. They don’t send anybody packing until they’re sure.”

  Catherine felt a dull, warm flush creep up her neck. Questionable people. She supposed, in a manner of speaking, that that was what she was...a wolf in sheep’s clothing, masquerading, pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

  No. She was a qualified extern. She had done three years of med school. If she was hiding here, then at least she was trying to do what she’d been assigned to do in the meantime.

  Then she realized what they were getting at, and all thoughts of her own dubious role here vanished.

  “You think this stranger is...is hexing people?” she asked disbelievingly. Did they actually think that was what was causing the ailment? This was the twentieth century!

  Shadow sighed, rubbing her eyes. “It comes on so quickly,” she said. “And it’s just happening here, on the Res. What else could it be?”

  Viral, carried by a contaminant unique to the region... Catherine grimly kept her mouth shut.

  “I need a cup of coffee,” Jericho snapped suddenly.

  He went to her new pot and poured himself a cup. He took a hefty mouthful then he coughed, looking down at it incredulously. “What’s this?”

  Catherine felt herself flushing. “Coffee.”

  “The hell it is.”

  He looked back at the pot, then he grabbed her tin, prying the lid off. He pulled out the bag inside.

  “French vanilla?” He slammed the lid back disgustedly. “Pretty little coffee for a pretty little city girl.”

  Catherine stiffened. She didn’t know if she ought to be insulted or flattered. “Then don’t drink it.”

  “I won’t.” He pushed the cup at her. “Here. You finish it.”

  She had an absurdly hard time putting her mouth where his lips had just touched. It seemed so intimate—like if she closed her eyes she could feel the warmth of them there. She looked up to see him watching her closely again. Suddenly she was sure he knew what she was thinking.

  Awareness prickled over her skin. She found herself trapped in his eyes again and she wrenched her own away. But then her gaze fell right back to his mouth.

  “Hello?” Shadow said quietly. They both turned to her sharply.

  Shadow brought her feet down off the desk and rested her elbows there instead. “I’d like to point out that while it’s vitally important to find out where this disease is coming from, it’s equally important to consider where the People think it’s coming from. We’ve virtually got a panic on our hands here.”

  Catherine managed to nod, keeping her eyes carefully averted from Jericho. People had been in and out of the clinic all week, whispering rampant tales of shadowy forms running as fast as cars, transforming themselves into coyotes or wolves as they went. Wolfmen.

  “We must have had twenty people in here this week, looking for something to ward off the threat,” she mused aloud.

  “Emetics,” Jericho said shortly. His voice sounded strangely absent, as though he was thinking of something else.

  “Purgatives? Why?” She couldn’t help it; she looked at him again, but he did not glance her way.

  “They think that if any of the wolfman’s evil is inside them, they can get rid of it by throwing up.”

  “That could be dangerous! If they do it often enough, it could open them up to all sorts of problems.”

  “We need to do something,” Shadow agreed. “I think you should do a sort of communal sing, Jericho, something to throw blanket protection over everybody in thi
s region.”

  Catherine chewed her lip. She couldn’t argue with the sense of that. If the people thought they were safe, they would stop weakening themselves with forced vomiting and that certainly wasn’t a bad thing.

  She saw a fleeting spasm of grief cross Jericho’s face. “I’d have to talk to Uncle Ernie,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s possible to alter the rites. They’re all designed for one individual patient. I’m not sure if they can be adjusted to protect the People as a whole.”

  “Can you find out?” his sister asked.

  He hesitated, then went to look out the door. “He’s not himself these days, but he’ll want to help,” he said to the sky.

  “Lanie, I think you better come to this one, too.”

  “Me? Why?”

  Jericho’s tone suddenly sharpened. “Why?” he echoed, looking back at them.

  “Why?” Ellen demanded.

  Shadow studied them all as though they were addled. “Tah honeesgai doesn’t just affect people of Navajo blood. It hit the Ganado Trading Post, too—remember? And personally I think it’s cruelly unfair to leave Lanie vulnerable and unprotected against this wolfman’s evil.”

  Catherine felt her head begin to spin. Sound medical reasoning was getting all tangled up with superstition again. She thought the sing was a good idea to placate the People’s fears, but now they were talking of hobgoblins again, as succinctly and reasonably as though one might walk in the door at any time.

  “I’ll...uh, I’ll take the risk,” she decided.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Shadow persisted. “You treated Lisa. Of all of us, you’ve been the most exposed.”

  Medically that was true, assuming the ailment was communicable. But Catherine doubted if a sing would help matters if it was.

  Incredibly, Shadow kept on. “What if the wolfman blew corpse poison all over Lisa? You would have come in contact with it while you were helping her.”

  “Corpse poison,” Catherine repeated slowly. In spite of herself, her skin crawled. “May I ask what that is?”

  Suddenly she felt Jericho come up behind her again. His hands closed over her hips and he turned her to face him. Neither of them saw Shadow’s brows shoot up. Neither of them heard Ellen gasp.

  “You may,” he said quietly.

  He was out of his mind, and he knew it. He was playing with fire, but curiosity got the best of his reason. He had to see if she would react to his touch again, if it was real or contrived, her awareness of the simplest things such as drinking from the same coffee cup. He felt something tremble through her again as he held her, and he knew he was damned. There was no more potent lure than her awareness of him, whether she was a fragile, Anglo city girl or not.

  “It’s the ground-up dust of a dead man’s flesh. Wolfmen sprinkle it on their victims. It carries their evil.”

  Catherine nodded, barely willing to move. He could have told her that the United States was on the brink of World War III. She wouldn’t have cared.

  “Wouldn’t that victim know if he was...ah, being sprinkled upon?” she whispered.

  “Not if he was sleeping. Not if he was dreaming.”

  “Oh.” Her own dreams were going to be interesting tonight.

  She needed to move away from him. This was insane. They didn’t even like each other. She thought he was arrogant and rude. He seemed to think she was some kind of fragile hothouse flower. Yet the warmth of his hands seeped through her jeans, and she was acutely aware of his nearness, so male, so volatile. No matter what they felt about each other, her physical attraction to him was undeniably real and it left her shaken this time as it never had before.

  Jericho moved away first. Cold air rushed at her when he was gone.

  “Leave Lanie out of this. She’d be a distraction.”

  “For who?” Shadow wondered dryly. “You or the people?”

  Both. “The people. They need to lose themselves in the chants. Can’t do that when someone’s watching them like she’s waiting for them to grow horns.”

  He was talking too much, an impulse he rarely succumbed to. But he had the distinct feeling that he had just stepped into a gilded cage, closing the door behind him. And now his sister was trying to throw away the key.

  He did not want Lanie McDaniel at the sing.

  He needed to scorn her, to dislike her. She took everything so seriously to heart, and that irritated the hell out of him. But there was something genuine about it too, an intense, fierce caring. He remembered watching her with Lisa Littlehorn, thought of the way she shivered beneath his hands and how she had stared at his hands when he had told her about Lance.

  Yes, there was something intense about her. Something uninhibited and hot just underneath the surface. And she was, impossibly, still here. Despite the isolation, despite losing a patient, she hadn’t run...yet.

  Anelle had been ready to go with the first lonely moan of Navajo wind.

  He was beginning to think there was an outside chance she wasn’t a fragile broken dove at all. In any case, he definitely didn’t want her watching with those wide green eyes while he was trying to perform an important rite. Watching him, speculating about him...

  No.

  He grabbed his jacket off the chair, suddenly in a hurry to be gone from here. “I’ve got to talk to Uncle Ernie. Might not even be a sing if he doesn’t know a way to adapt it.”

  His boots thumped heavily on the stairs outside. Ellen bolted after him. Catherine’s breath left her in a long, uneven rush.

  It was probably best if she didn’t go. It would only irritate him, and she certainly didn’t need to solicit any more of his rancor. Nor did she need to see any more of him than his constant appearances in the clinic demanded. Subconsciously, she scrubbed her hands over her hips where he had touched her.

  “Someone really ought to remain here at the clinic,” she told Shadow. “Look what happened the last time you all took off for a sing.”

  But Shadow shook her head. “If anyone’s going to get sick, they’re going to do it right there. I have a feeling that once word of this ceremony gets out, everyone within two hundred miles will come. They’re all frightened badly.” She stood and moved for the door as well. “Just think about it, Lanie. I really don’t like the thought of leaving you unprotected.”

  When she was alone again, Catherine thought of very little else. Unfortunately, all the pros and cons were caught up with images of Jericho.

  * * *

  She was just about to lock the door and go back to her own trailer when another car pulled up. This one definitely did not look as though it belonged on the reservation. It was a shiny if nondescript rental car, bearing none of the ravages of sudden desert rains or the brutal New Mexico sun.

  Her heart slammed up into her throat. She had not given serious thought to Victor for days, had truly started to believe that he would never find her here. Now she realized this barren, arid land left her nowhere to hide, and there was certainly no one to hear her scream.

  She backed up hard, her heels stumbling against the door frame. Then the car door opened and Richard Moss emerged.

  “Oh!” Relief made her legs wobbly. She held on to the knob and laughed breathlessly.

  Richard eyed her curiously as he approached. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “No, but I’ve spent the afternoon talking about them.” She led the way back inside.

  “I warned you these people were different.”

  “I’d call them superstitious and scared. Would you like a cup of coffee? I just turned the pot off. It should still be warm.”

  He agreed and she poured a cup for each of them. He took the chair and Catherine sat on the desk, her legs swinging.

  She looked at him for a moment, with his easy, open features. Now that her panic was past, she wasn’t sure when she had ever been so glad to see anyone in her life. Richard was a friendly face, a rush of reality, a piece of the world she had known for twenty-nine years before coming to
this rugged, unwelcoming land.

  “You’re a little far from Albuquerque,” she mentioned finally. “I thought you said you avoided the field.”

  “I usually do, but now the field has something going for it.” He eyed her appreciatively. Odd, Catherine thought, but for all his easygoing charm, his perusal was somehow even less comfortable than Jericho’s. Jericho’s gaze was certainly breathtaking, but Richard’s was...awkward.

  He noticed her hesitation and moved over it smoothly.

  “I volunteered to be the one to interview you regarding the Littlehorn case. You handled it, didn’t you?”

  “Had to. Kolkline was nowhere to be found.”

  Suddenly, she straightened. Good Lord, she was even starting to talk like Jericho—short, clipped sentences that were fast, unpretentious and to the point. Or maybe it was just life on the Res wearing off on her. Living here, being alone so often with death creeping up on her cruelly seemed to reduce feelings and issues to their bare, vital essentials.

  She dragged her attention back to Richard.

  “I need you to tell me everything that transpired,” he was saying, “from the time the girl got here to the time she died.”

  Catherine slid off the desk and moved around beside him to unlock the bottom drawer. “That’s easy enough. It’s all in the file. I wrote everything down. Believe me when I tell you there’s been ample time to keep records.”

  He glanced over them. “Good. Can I take this?”

  “I don’t see why not, as long as you return a copy to me.”

  “It would be my pleasure.” He flashed a grin at her then read for a moment. “Well, you did everything you could do.”

  It was a comfort, yet Catherine flinched. “The last voice she heard was mine, telling her everything was going to be fine.”

  Richard shrugged. She was a little startled at his coldness. Of course, she had seen it in other doctors as well. When one was surrounded by death, one tended to distance himself from the emotion of it. But it was something she had never really learned to do.

  “We’re groping for ways to treat this thing,” Richard said. “If she had made it into University we would have done what you did, only a little more of it. Of course, we could have drawn blood for tests. Posthumously, our hands are tied. These folks don’t believe in autopsies. It’s infuriating, really. We need information if we’re ever going to beat this bug.”