by Beverly Bird
“Well,” Schilling said, “the attempted murder thing’s a criminal charge under the jurisdiction of the local cops. It’s not my problem, and as far as I know the cops don’t know where you are. I won’t plan on telling them. That’s the least I can do to thank you for handing me Victor Landano, especially since your disappearance isn’t costing the government anything. Normally it requires the U.S. Mint to hide informants in this sort of situation, but you took off on your own.”
“That’s big of you,” she managed.
“As far as the other charges are concerned—the federal issue of racketeering and the senator’s murder—your testimony would be hearsay anyway. Now that we’ve got proof, we don’t need you any longer. Get lost, Catherine.”
“I thought I had.”
“Then stay lost. Stay there. Start over.”
She hung the phone up very carefully, turning around, looking out over the coffee shop. No one was watching her this time. She went to the counter for a cup of coffee, desperate to warm the ice inside her. She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. Relief tried to lift the weight off her shoulders, but fear wouldn’t let it.
She wasn’t in danger...yet. She had two more weeks, give or take.
No one was following her, warning her to keep quiet, watching her and waiting for her to talk. Victor hadn’t sent anyone yet.
She thought of the possum and suddenly she felt faint. She didn’t bother to go back to the pay phone to call the health department and report it.
Chapter 13
Three days later, Ellen was still distraught. Catherine couldn’t bring herself to care. Except for the times when he had been doing his sings, it was the first time since she had come to the Res that Jericho hadn’t appeared in the clinic.
The place had a hollow, cold feeling without him. Where was he? It frightened her how much she needed—wanted—him to come back. It wasn’t just because she felt protected when he was near. His absence left a gaping void inside her, and the sure knowledge that she had hurt him only gnawed it wider.
When she heard a vehicle out front around lunchtime, she leaped up from the desk to look out the window. Her heart sank slowly down to her toes again. It wasn’t Jericho.
“He won’t come back, you know.” Ellen said. “Not until your tour is up. He’d be crazy if he did. Your kind is nothing but trouble and he has the scars to prove it.”
“I know,” Catherine murmured, more from a faint need to fight back than anything else. She got the desired effect—Ellen blanched—and it made her feel instantly awful.
“He told you?” Ellen asked disbelievingly.
He hadn’t told her anything more than she’d told him, Catherine thought. God, what a strange attraction they shared, all built on hunger and shadows...and, she allowed, instinctual truths. She knew the kind of man he was, saw his strength and loyalty every day. No words had been needed to tell her of those things, and they had been enough to make her love him.
She was saved from trying to explain to Ellen—even if she were inclined to, which she wasn’t—when she recognized the woman getting out of the truck that had just arrived. “It’s Bessie,” she said, startled.
Ellen went to the other window to look out. “Louie will be getting out of the hospital soon. She’ll want pollen to protect her hogan from further trouble.” She moved back to the shelves to get it as Bessie came inside.
She had another young boy with her—presumably Louie’s brother. They hesitated self-consciously in the door and the boy tried to hide behind Bessie’s legs.
“Here,” Ellen said. “I’ve got the pollen all ready for you.”
Bessie flushed. “I’ll need that too, but I came for the doctor.”
Shock flew across Ellen’s face, but it was nothing compared to what Catherine felt. “Me?” Catherine asked.
“She’s not a doctor,” Ellen snapped. “She’s an extern. If you want that kind of help, I’ll try to find Kolkline.”
She was halfway to the phone when Bessie stopped her. “No. She saved Louie, not that other man.” She pulled the little boy forward. “This is Leo,” she told Catherine. “His school sent him home last week until I give him tetanus.”
“Give him— Oh.” Catherine grinned. “You want the shot.”
“And they said I need some kind of form to take back to them to prove it.”
“Okay. But I still have to call Kolkline,” she cautioned, “just to get him to approve it.”
“Just so long as that man doesn’t stick him. He made a bad bump on Dana Strong Deer’s arm. Her mother told me.”
Catherine sighed. “That’s because it’s not supposed to go in the arm.” What had Kolkline been thinking? But then, he had probably been drunk, not thinking at all.
She went to the phone and tried the number he had given her. No answer. She tried University, but he didn’t respond to his page. Catherine was too glad of a patient, of anything to take her mind off Jericho, to care. She got one of the emergency-room residents to okay the shot—dubious protection at best, but she figured her externship was already screwed to the wall anyway.
She filled a syringe and motioned Bessie and Leo into one of the exam rooms. “Okay, drop your drawers, big guy.”
The little boy thrust his chin out. “I want Jericho.”
Catherine grimaced. Oh, so do I.
“He can’t,” Bessie told him. “He’s up on the mountain.”
Mountain? “Where?” Catherine demanded.
Bessie looked at her oddly, then something in her expression must have touched the woman in her. “Beautiful Mountain,” she explained. “That big one on the horizon right outside. Uncle Ernie has a hunting cabin way up top. I saw Jericho two days ago and he said you could do the shot. He’s not allowed to do it anyway. The school won’t take the form with his signature.”
“No...I mean, yes, that’s right.” Finally, reluctantly, Leo pulled down his jeans. Catherine hunkered down to give him the shot. When she straightened, a wave of dizziness swept her so badly she had to close her eyes.
It was getting to the point where if she didn’t sleep soon, she really was going to collapse. Oh, Jericho, come back.
“What does he do up there?” she asked. She went to a drawer in one of the cabinets to get the form she would need, citing the Emergency resident’s name first, then signing her own.
“He goes there when his life’s been unbalanced.”
“Unbalanced,” Catherine repeated, giving her the form. Her stomach cramped painfully. Oh, God, what had she done to him with those few short, nasty words, with her evasions? It had just been her temper and her panic!
Did he care that much?
“Our people believe that when trouble comes it’s because we’ve gotten out of balance with nature,” Bessie went on. “Since nature can’t be changed—it just is—we have to bring ourselves back to peace with it.”
Trouble, Catherine thought. Maybe Jericho’s didn’t have anything to do with her after all. Maybe he was worrying about Tah honeesgai.
Somehow she didn’t like that any better.
She went with Bessie and Leo back to the front room. Bessie looked embarrassed. “We have no money, but my husband will bring a sheep the next time he comes out this way.”
Catherine was taken aback. What on God’s green earth was she supposed to do with a sheep? What was she supposed to tell the Service? Presumably, they would want to be reimbursed for the cost of their vaccine at least.
“That’ll be fine,” she answered. She’d figure it out later. She still had five hundred dollars left. “How’s Louie?”
Suddenly Bessie grinned. “Great. He wants to come home. Those nurses want him to, too. He sneaked out of that room and gave them all a scare.”
“Boys are something, I guess.” Catherine thought she and her sisters had been a handful.
“Oh, they are. I think the Holy People have a special place in the afterworld for their mothers. It’s a place where we can close our eyes sometim
es.”
Catherine laughed, then, suddenly, she felt self-conscious. “Thanks,” she said. She motioned at Leo. “No one’s actually wanted my services before.”
Bessie shrugged. “Our people have learned not to trust the government too much. We always get burned—we lose leases on our mining lands, get cheated out of thousands of dollars for those houses they tried to give us in our land dispute with the Hopi. Our kids get bumps on their arms. Trust takes time.”
“Yes,” Catherine agreed. Yes, it did. And sometimes it just...happened.
Bessie finally left with Leo in tow. The little boy got halfway to the truck, then turned back to wave shyly. Catherine felt her heart constrict and she waved back. Apparently she had passed muster with him as well.
She stayed at the window for a long time, watching them go. Only then did she realize that Ellen had left too. Finally, she thought, she could get something done without sparring with the nurse and explaining her every move to assuage her suspicions.
Still, she didn’t leave the window. She kept staring up at Beautiful Mountain.
* * *
The rain started in the late afternoon. The first drops spattered angrily against the window, taking Catherine by surprise. She had almost forgotten the fury of the first downpour that had greeted her arrival here, and she had given up hope of ever seeing the brown Ford again. But now she wondered dismally if it was going to get pushed even further down the wash.
The clinic remained deserted. She sat at the desk, resting her chin on her hands, watching as the rain gathered momentum. It hurled itself against the windows and drummed at the roof.
The angels are crying. That was what her mother had always said. Suddenly, she could hear her voice again as clearly as if she was standing beside her.
Catherine wished fervently that there really was such a thing as chindis. She would give anything for some of her mother’s practical advice right now. Mary Callahan had never allowed her life to be turned upside down by a man—or by anything else, for that matter, Catherine thought. She had always been a serene, quiet presence in the midst of Paddy’s blustering and the chaos of six children in one small home. She always knew just the right thing to do in any situation.
Catherine covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Mama,” she groaned, “what have I done?”
Everything had seemed right at the time...repeating faithfully to the FBI what she had heard, trying to the best of her ability to do what they had asked of her. It was her country, after all, and she had been raised to respect and honor this land that had taken her parents in. But then it had failed her, so she had run—straight into the arms of a hard, uncompromising man with a heart of gold. She had never intended to get involved with him, had known it was the worst possible thing she could do under the circumstances.
Some things are stronger than we are, Catie. Fate has her plans and there’s no sense fighting her.
“I know, Mama. I know.” Mary had always said that when it started to look as if you were going to sink, it was time to stop fighting and swim with the tide.
She was sinking. Fast. And Catherine was so very tired she couldn’t fight anymore. She could only pray that sooner or later Jericho would reappear and give her a chance to explain.
Sleep, Catie. Everything seems better when the sun comes again.
Catherine finally put her head down on the desk and did exactly that.
* * *
The storm made the mountain road nearly impassable. It had never been graded, was really no more than tire ruts, but the sand still slid downward in oozing waves of mud. If he had any sense at all, Jericho knew he would pull over and hike the rest of the way to his house.
But he had been gone for the better part of two days, and he told himself he needed to go by the old windmill. So he kept easing the Rover gently down the trail, his foot on the brake to slow himself when gravity and the mud pulled with too much momentum. He kept going even as he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get back up the mountain tonight, not until the sun came again and dried everything out.
No big deal. It had happened before. It was a price he had known he would pay often when he had built on the slope.
He made it to the windmill. Lance was nowhere in sight, but he had left a half full bottle propped neatly against the brace. Jericho got out and stood in the downpour, staring at it.
He had known Lance wouldn’t be at the windmill in this weather.
He grabbed the bottle and tossed it into his truck. He’d come this far, he thought. He should probably run by the clinic trailers and make sure everything was all right there as well. They were right on the way to Shadow’s hogan, and he would have to bunk down there for the night.
He got in, slamming the Rover’s door hard behind him. What the hell was he doing?
Trying to find balance, he thought. Trying to find peace. He hadn’t gotten it in Uncle Ernie’s hunting cabin. The Holy People had barely spoken to him. They rarely did when they knew the answers he sought were right in his own heart and all he really had to do was look inward and find them. If he had ever doubted that, he would have gone straight to the old man himself instead of wasting time in the solitude of his cabin.
But the thing he couldn’t get past was that Lanie had a point, and he’d just needed to think about that. He hadn’t told her a damned thing about his own life. He didn’t like to talk about himself; some things were private. And the past was past...but sometimes, like chindis, it woke up and haunted you.
His past had come alive again lately. It was impossible to love again and not reckon with old horrors.
Love again. How had he let it happen? Then he realized that he probably had never had any say in the matter. Fate just was; when it started spinning, a man was helpless. Fate was nature. Nature could not be changed.
Lanie “Cat Eyes” McDaniel matched him, he thought. Somehow, on some inner level, they fit nicely and the secrets hadn’t stopped it from happening. It just was, and he was not going to get balanced within himself until he got balanced with her first.
No small task, he thought, his jaw hardening.
Not only was there the issue of whatever it was she wasn’t telling him, but she was going to leave. Soon—in less than two weeks now. This externship thing would be over and she would go off somewhere to take a residency. Back to one of the big cities where she belonged, maybe even the city she had come from, sandals and all.
The pain that brought to his heart was strong enough to take away his breath for a moment. Then it came back in a harsh burst as he drove around the canyon where she had shot the tarnation out of those bottles. The land rose there, and when he reached the top of the rise he saw that the lights were still on in the clinic trailer. His brows knit.
He looked behind it. Her place was dark, though ten o’clock had come and gone. He knew she usually went to bed early—he had passed by here a thousand times in the past few weeks and all the lights were always out by this time. So something else had happened. Something was wrong.
He cursed himself viciously. He had been a fool to leave her unprotected, to go seek balance that he had known from the start he wasn’t going to find at the cabin. He brought the Rover to a hard stop and hurried up the steps, easing the door open cautiously this time. Once again his breath left him as he realized that she might not even be alive. That doll...
The possibility almost crippled him when he saw her at the desk, slumped over lifelessly. For a moment, pure, unadulterated terror made it impossible for him to move.
“Lanie,” he growled hoarsely. “Cat Eyes.”
She didn’t stir, but he finally managed to do so, crossing the room in three long, hard strides, grabbing her, wondering how it was that whenever he lost something too precious there was never an issue of an Anglo God or Navajo Holy People, only someone bigger and stronger than he was, some higher being. And God help him, he needed Him now.
Catherine screamed at his touch.
The sound stunned him, and
he actually staggered backward a few steps. She leaped to her feet, then her legs went out from under her, seeming to simply fold as if someone had neatly and surgically removed the bones from them. He made a fast move to grab her again, but the desk was in the way and she sank to the floor with a tiny, helpless gasp.
“Jericho.” She shook her head like a little dazed animal. “Jericho?”
Catherine tried to scramble to her feet again. She made it halfway before the room began to spin. She had to hold onto the desk to keep from going down again, but then his strong hands held her and it felt so good, so right.
She dug her fingers into his leather jacket, clutching him. “You’re all wet,” she said inanely. Of all the things she wanted to say to him, needed to tell him, where had she come up with that?
“And you’re sick,” he answered too harshly.
She scowled before her temper came back. She held onto it this time—marginally. “I’m exhausted. I haven’t been able to sleep at all. Someone’s trying to drive me crazy, and then you disappeared, and now you just wander back in and grab me—I thought you were the damned wolfman, and all you can say is I’m sick?”
He absorbed her outburst with one raised brow. “You don’t believe in wolfmen,” he said finally.
She let go of him and sank weakly into the chair again. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. I don’t—if it’s not—oh, who knows?”
His other brow went up. “Whatever you say.”
She looked at him, her eyes narrowing as her heart skipped a beat. Yes, he was back, and suddenly it occurred to her to wonder what that might mean.
“Did you get balanced?” she asked cautiously.
He looked vaguely surprised. “Who told you where I was?”
“Bessie.”
“Did you ask her?”
She hesitated. “More or less.”
He nodded once, as though this pleased him, but then he took a step backward, away from her. He ran his hand through his hair. “We’ve got to talk.”