I fight the urge to make a gagging sound at Hastiin’s overblown manners and say, “We know about the goddamn monsters. I killed the one in Lukachukai when your Boys didn’t show, and we saw what they did to Crownpoint. I know better than anyone what you’re up against. If you had half a brain, you would ask me about it instead of ignoring me.” Hastiin’s still staring at Kai like I didn’t speak, and I have to fold my hands in my lap to keep from slugging the man. Seconds pass by, and the Thirsty Boy doesn’t even blink. But his busy fingers have stilled and he’s gripping the edge of my window, the only sure sign he heard me.
“You are such an asshole,” I mutter. I lean back and stare at the ceiling of the truck, asking the heavens for help dealing with men with their heads up their asses. I’m pretty sure no help will be forthcoming, but I feel the need to ask anyway.
Kai’s eyes are a little big. He nods slowly at Hastiin. “I appreciate your concern. But I’m feeling pretty confident Mags and I can handle it. So we should get going.”
“There’s also reports of a fire south of here in Tse Bonito. Expect they’ll be evacuating. Best if you turn around.”
I sit up. “Fire?” Tah is in Tse Bonito. Granted, the chances are slim that the fire has anything to do with the old medicine man. He’s in the middle of town, surrounded by friends who can help him. Most likely it’s a brush fire along the freeway. Common enough. Still dangerous in this drought, though, and I’d like to get through it in case it spreads across the road and traps us on this side of the mountains.
“We should go,” I say to Kai as I reach for the keys in the ignition.
Hastiin’s hand shoots out, quick as a snake strike, to grip my steering wheel. Now he looks at me, eyes hard and uncompromising. “I’m afraid I wasn’t asking.”
“Now you want to talk to me?” I shout, exasperated.
A muscle twitches in his cheek.
I rein in my irritation and summon all my calm to say, “If there’s a fire in Tse Bonito, we’ve got to get down there.” I sound entirely reasonable.
He shakes his head no. “Too risky.”
“Too—”
“You should let us go,” Kai interrupts. He’s leaning forward, sunglasses off, eyes locked on Hastiin. “We need to go and you should let us go. We won’t be a problem. Please.”
Hastiin rubs at his cheek, fingers scratching across his beard. He’s staring at Kai, and his mouth’s open, like he’s going to say something. But he snaps it shut, steps away from the truck, and without another word, motions us through.
I don’t wait. I start up the engine and move forward. Past all the mercenaries with big guns.
“I really thought he wasn’t going to let us go,” I mutter, eyes on the Thirsty Boys we pass, who only look at us with the bored expressions of men used to taking orders.
“Sometimes you just need to use the magic word,” Kai says, leaning back in his seat. He looks over his shoulder at Hastiin standing there. When Kai turns around, I catch a small smile on his lips. He slaps the truck console, making me jump. “So what do you think?” he asks.
“I think nobody cares when I say ‘please.’ ”
“No, about the monster reports. Think we should head back to the mountains? Find that scouting party he mentioned?”
I shake my head no. “If we see monsters, we’ll kill them. But it’s a waste of time to run down every unsubstantiated rumor when we have a lead on the source. Let the Thirsty Boys look for the monsters. We need to find the witch creating them. Chasing monsters is like cutting off the limbs of the tree when we need to take out the trunk.”
He’s looking at me, something unreadable in his eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just, I’m impressed.”
“Why, you think I’m all point gun and shoot, ask questions later?”
“A little.”
“Thanks.”
He laughs. And I smile along with him, some of the earlier tension between us melting away. “So you think that fire he mentioned is anything we need to worry about?” he asks.
“Probably not.”
He shifts in his seat. “Yeah, you’re right. But do you mind if we swing by my grandpa’s place? Since we were thinking of stopping in Tse Bonito for batteries anyway.”
Longarm’s warning to stay out of Tse Bonito should give me pause, but the Law Dog’s threats have never meant much to me. We’ll be careful and stay out of sight. Besides, if there’s really a fire, the Law Dog is bound to have his hands full with that.
Kai shudders, rubs his hands up and down his arms.
“You okay?”
“You ever get a chill, like someone walked over your grave? I’m sure it’s nothing. Just . . .” He shivers again.
I don’t say anything, but I do give the truck a little more gas.
We’re silent after that, both of us lost in our own thoughts, until Kai says, “So what did you do to make that Thirsty Boy so pissed off ?”
I roll my eyes. “That man can hold a grudge until the end of time.”
“No kidding. I thought that Law Dog hated you yesterday, but this guy . . .”
“Yeah.” I wave a hand in the air, like our encounter with the Thirsty Boy has left a haze behind that needs clearing. “Everybody hates me. I get it.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Why do you assume I did anything?” I ask, mildly outraged.
He chuckles. “I’ve known you twenty-four hours and even I can tell that you have a gift for pissing people off. Are you saying you didn’t do anything?”
“Fine. I cost him some money once, a few months back. That bounty hunt I told you about. It’s a long story, and it’s stupid, if you ask me, but he will not let it go.”
Kai nods thoughtfully. “Did you pay him back?”
“Pay him? It doesn’t work like that. It was a bounty that went wrong. I don’t actually owe him anything.”
“But you said—”
“Then I misspoke. Forget it.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah, maybe.” He shrugs. “Maybe I’ll help you fix it.”
“It’s been six months. How are you going to fix it?”
“Leave it to me.”
“I don’t want you paying—”
“No, nothing like that. I’ll just talk to him.”
“Talk? You might have been able to bullshit Longarm yesterday, but Hastiin is a whole other story. He’s not an idiot like that Law Dog. He’s just . . . annoying. Stubborn.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about it. Damn. Look at that.”
I follow his gaze out the windshield in front of us. We’re pulling up to the Tse Bonito turnoff of Highway 134. Before us, thick black smoke billows skyward, sickly clouds marring the otherwise immaculate blue sky.
“What is that?” he whispers as I slow my truck to a crawl. It’s not a brush fire, that’s for sure. “Is that . . . ?”
Foreboding floods my body, gripping me in the gut and sending blood roaring through my head. The fire is rising up from somewhere near the heart of the warren of shops, near the place where Tah lives.
“Oh . . . ,” I hear myself say.
Kai’s voice sounds a million miles away, wrapped in cotton, down a well, deep below water, when he says, “I think Tah’s hogan is on fire.”
Chapter 19
I drive past the place where Tah’s hogan was yesterday. Or as close to it as I can get. Law Dogs have barred access to Tse Bonito’s main road with blue-and-white sawhorses that read POLICE LINE and are diverting traffic down the two-lane highway that runs east and west out of town.
It takes all my willpower not to ram my truck through that police line and head straight to Tah’s door. A small voice in my head pleads with me to stay calm, to keep breathing and think. But my hands are rattling so hard I can barely hang on to the steering wheel. My breath is short and stuttering and all my thoughts are the color of pitch.
A dozen Dogs in CWAG khaki are
All but one man, who has his back turned to the fire and instead scans the crowd, searching faces and committing bystanders to memory.
“Longarm,” I whisper.
“Damn.” Kai’s voice is tight, and for once, he sounds completely serious. He’s recognized the Law Dog too, yesterday’s confrontation probably as fresh on his mind as it is on mine. Longarm’s wearing his cowboy hat and dark sunglasses, so I can’t get a good look at his face, but I have a feeling that he’s scanning the crowd looking for me.
I make myself drive until I’m maybe a quarter mile past the barricade. To my left, Tse Bonito proper gives way to the dusty dirt fields of the fairgrounds, abandoned and fallow this time of year. To my right are rows and rows of empty sheep stalls—metal, rusted, and temporarily deserted, the community herds out grazing at this hour. I pull the truck over near the stalls. Another truck won’t be out of place here, and it will be hours before the sheep are brought in for the night.
I throw the truck into park and turn off the engine. The damp grassy smell of sheep wafts through my open window, but overpowering that sweet familiar scent is the odor of burning wood and hot metal.
We sit there for a moment, both of us watching the billowing smoke, until Kai says, “I’ll go find out what happened.”
I reach behind me to pull the shotgun down. Only then do my hands steady and the voice in my mind starts to calm.
He pauses with his hand on the door. His eyebrows knit together in a frown. “What are you doing?”
“Same as you. Going to get some answers.”
“With a shotgun?”
“You got a better idea?”
“Yes. About a dozen.”
I open my mouth to tell him what I think of his ideas when the dull black casing of the Glock catches my eye. I hesitate. I prefer my shotgun—range, familiarity, and no one has ever called me subtle—but stealth has its merits. I remember the cops at the blockade. I put the shotgun back and palm the Glock into the pocket of my leather coat.
Kai watches me. “At least let me go first. Try to talk to them before you get all aggro.”
“No,” I spit, sharp and dismissive. “I let you talk yesterday, and look what happened.” I open the driver’s side door and slide out. The smell of burning things is even stronger outside. The ground under my feet is solid, but it feels like at any moment it could crack open and suck me down.
“Yes, look what happened yesterday.” He’s angry now too. “I got us out of there and nobody got hurt.”
“Nobody? You call this fucking nobody?”
I curse myself for leaving Tah there by himself. An old man who doesn’t even own a gun. I was so intent on my feud with Longarm, so convinced I was the one he was after. So willing to let Kai take over and talk our way out of things.
“Maggie.”
I round on Kai. “I know you made some kind of deal with Longarm yesterday. What was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean no way the Dog just lets us walk away like that. Longarm was gunning for us and the next minute you’re telling me he’s just letting us walk? What was it?”
He licks his lips. “It wasn’t like that.”
“The hell it wasn’t. I was there. What did you tell him? Was it Tah? Did you trade our freedom for Tah’s?” I’m shouting the words, hand gripping the Glock in my pocket without even thinking about it. I know I sound crazy, but all I can think about is Tah. Alone. Scared. Maybe . . . oh God.
“What? No. That doesn’t even make sense. You saw me talk to him. You were there the whole time. Why would he even want Tah?”
“You tell me.”
“Hey, we’re on the same side. I’m on your side. What kind of monster do you think I am?”
My voice is cold when I answer him. “I don’t know what flavor of monster you are yet, Kai. But I have a feeling I’m going to find out.”
“Jesus Christ,” he hisses. “Listen to yourself. I didn’t do anything to hurt my own grandfather.”
“Then how the hell did—?”
“I have a way with words, okay? People listen to me. Like your friend back there, Hastiin. And I got Longarm to listen to me. It’s nothing as nefarious as you’re making it out to be. He wanted a story, so I gave him a story. Juan Cruz and all that. That’s it. Believe me. That. Is. It!”
I hear him, and I know he’s right. The Dogs don’t care a thing about Grandpa Tah. I know Kai’s making sense. But I also feel like he’s lying to me about something, only I can’t quite figure out what.
My hands are jittery again, and the adrenaline’s starting to demand action, but I keep staring at that burning hogan, trying to remember how I’m supposed to breathe.
“We don’t know he’s dead,” Kai says quietly. He’s come up beside me now. Close enough to touch me. Brave man. “Let me at least go talk to them, find out what happened. I can do this. Make them listen. Please.”
It’s not the “please” that makes the difference. It’s the thought that maybe Tah is still alive. Hope that dangerous hadn’t even occurred to me.
Images flood my mind, unbidden, and I try to shake them off. But all I can see is Tah trapped in his hogan as the flames rise around him, engulfing his kitchen, the peeling Formica table, the blue tin coffee cups. I remember the ridiculous dance he did when he surprised me with the sugar. The way he called me shí daughter.
Daughter.
That word means something in Navajo. It means family but also responsibility. It was my responsibility to keep Tah safe, and I’ve failed spectacularly at the thing that mattered most.
“Somebody needs to die, Kai, and I need to be the one to kill them.” I look at him when I say this, hope he understands that I’m pleading now. His eyes are a little wide and his face is solemn. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but it doesn’t seem good.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he says. He reaches out to me, but he stops short, like a dog that’s been beaten. He lets his hand fall back by his side. “That’s all I ask. Let me see what I can find out, and if it looks like . . . if it looks bad, then we’ll figure out what to do next. Fifteen minutes,” he repeats.
I look at his hand, the one that almost touched me. And the strangest thought occurs to me: Coyote was right about Kai having nice hands.
“You’ve got ten.”
We leave the truck there. I scan for traffic before hustling across the road toward the shelter of the low-slung buildings that line the fairground side of the highway. Kai hurries to stay by my side.
“What’s the plan?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Can you stay out of sight? If Longarm sees you, it’s all going to go to hell.”
I remember the look on the Dog’s face yesterday, the sure knowledge that he would kill me if he thought he could get away with it. Staying out of sight sounds fine to me.
“I’m going to try the Juan Cruz angle again, just try and get information.”
“You think that’s smart?”
“He won’t try anything. Too many people watching. Remember how he was with you yesterday? He’s afraid of a crowd.”
I raise my eyebrows, stare at him for a moment as he keeps pace with me. He grins. “Hey, I’m not just a pretty face.”
I ignore that. “Ten minutes,” I remind him. “I’ll stay at the edge of the crowd. I can’t have eyes on you the whole time, so as soon as you know something, meet me back here.” I look around. Spot an abandoned stew stand on my right, a dozen feet off the road. I point to the structure. “If you’re not back in ten, I’m coming to get you. Don’t take any chances. They will hurt you, Kai. Trust me on this.”
He gives me his high-wattage smile like it’s no big deal. All I can do is hope he knows what the hell he’s doing.
We’re approaching the bulk of the bystanders. Men and women, most of them in bathrobes or pajamas, hair askew or in long sleeping braids, all looking like they dressed in a hurry in the dark. They’re crowded together, probably three dozen deep, quietly talking to their neighbors or just watching the fire. None of them even look back at us. I wave Kai away and slow down. Move myself into the crowd, blending in without a problem.
Kai slows to a fast walk and keeps going forward, his stride resolute as he heads straight for the wall of blue-and-khaki uniforms. I can see him muttering to himself, gesturing in low circles, rehearsing his lines.
Tse Bonito’s getting hot again, the sun unmerciful and the fire magnifying the already miserable heat. I still have my wool cap on, but now I’m starting to sweat. I keep it on anyway. It’s as good a disguise as I’m going to manage right now. I pull it down tight and keep my head low, let myself flow into the crowd. I’m itching for my shotgun, but the Glock sits unobtrusively tucked in my pocket, reassuringly close at hand, and that will have to do. It’s only moments before I’m sucked into the mass of murmuring onlookers, just another girl come to stare at the fire.
“They said it was an explosion,” says a woman to my right. She’s wearing an old red bathrobe that’s gone pink and threadbare, belted tight around her waist. Her heels hang off the back of a pair of plastic yellow flip-flops. She bobs her head left and right as she simultaneously tries to get a better look at what’s going on and gossip with her closest neighbor.
“I heard it was a lightning strike,” says another woman, looking back over her shoulder to join the conversation.
I jerk my head up. Lightning strike. Neizghání.
“Right here in the middle of town!” she continues. “Did you hear it? The thunder?”
“Probably vandals,” the man with her suggests, his tone dismissive. “There’s gangs around here, enit?”
“I never saw any gangs before,” his companion counters.
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