“I don’t know. That’s just what they’re saying.”
I swallow past the sour taste in my throat. Nothing any of them are saying makes any sense.
Another voice farther down, so low I almost miss it. “I heard them saying there was an old man living in there.”
A few heads turn. “The medicine man?” the robed woman asks.
The woman pulls back, alarmed. “He was just at my shop the other day.”
“Have you seen him?” I blurt before I can think better of it. “Do you know if he made it out? Before the fire got bad.”
The woman who asked about hearing thunder stares. Her eyes take me in, missing nothing. The look she gives me rips something open inside my chest.
“Nobody’s seen him,” she says softly.
I step back away from her. Another step. And another. Until I stumble into someone behind me. I turn and mutter an apology. Head down, I work my way back through the crowd the way I came. There’s more people now. Too many. The crowd’s almost doubled, all standing and gawking. I have to push my way through, knocking into a shoulder, dodging someone’s elbow. And I’m sweating more, a little of the panic from this morning trying to make itself known. I force it back, force myself to breathe and move. Keep moving, keep moving, until I’m almost running. And finally the crowd breaks.
I stumble out into one of the narrow dirt streets of Tse Bonito. I’m a little unsteady on my feet, but I can breathe again and there’s some space here. The street I’ve ended up on is deserted. Dark trailer windows and plywood stands stretch a hundred yards in front of me, but, thankfully, no people. The stew stand I pointed out earlier is to my right. Three half-walled sides and a long rectangular kitchen in the back. It’s the kind of thing families build to sell food on busy market days or for the annual fair days. I brace a foot against the plywood siding and, grabbing a pole for support, pull myself over. I hunker down low behind the waist-high wall, lean my back against the solid, and pull my knees up. Close my eyes and count to ten. Then to ten again. Until the feelings of panic pass.
I know I can’t stay here. I have to move. But which way? To where?
I’ve got to get back to Kai. His ten minutes is up by now, and either he’s found out what happened to Tah or he’s talking his way into a jail cell. I take a deep breath and haul myself back over the side of the stall. I can’t do the crowd again. I’ve got to find another way around, so I decide to cut through town. It will bring me within sight of Tah’s hogan, and then I can circle back around on the far side of the barricade and see if Kai’s still there.
I keep my shoulders hunched and cap securely down as I cut between the buildings, weaving silently through the smoke and emptied-out town toward Tah’s hogan. The fire is louder here, a living thing. The smoke gathers around me like fog. I push through, chin tucked in my shirt, breathing in shallow gasps to keep from inhaling the poison. My eyes water and I squint into the distance, anxious to find Kai.
I finally spot him, an unmistakable bright purple and teal smudge in the smoky air. But he’s not alone. He’s walking with Longarm, the Law Dog’s arm slung across Kai’s shoulder in a friendly one-armed hug.
I was right. Kai did make a deal.
My vision blackens with rage. My hands clench. I remember the feel of his throat under my blade this morning, the pulse of his heartbeat beneath my hand. How easy it would have been to simply press until crimson flowed from his throat. Until he gurgled and drowned in his own blood and looked at me with dead eyes, like he did in my dream. K’aahanáanii croons a prelude.
I’m moving before I can think, already gripping the Glock still tucked in my pocket. I watch Kai stumble and Longarm’s hug tighten to hold him upright. Something silver flashes bright in the smoky air and I stop. There it is again. Something Kai’s holding in his hand. No, not in his hand. Around his wrist. He’s in handcuffs, and Longarm’s dragging Kai along beside him, barely conscious.
I curse myself for an idiot. So ready to see betrayal at every turn, just like Kai said. When nothing could be less true.
I watch as they turn down a narrow alley between food stalls and hurry to follow. I catch sight of them again as they walk down the middle of a street paved with sifting ash. I see Kai sway dangerously close to Longarm, stumble again before Longarm heaves him back onto his feet. I lose sight of them as they take a sharp right and disappear around the back of a tin-sided shack. I hesitate. If I cross the road to follow them, I’ll be exposed for the time it takes me to get over there. But if I wait too long, they might disappear, and the next time I see Kai, it could be from the other side of a jail cell. Or worse.
For a moment I am tempted to let them disappear into the haze. Let Kai deal with whatever the Law Dog has in store for him without me. I remind myself that Kai Arviso is not my problem and that I barely know him. But then I remember Tah’s face when he called his grandson “Big Medicine” and how he bragged about how he could heal Dinétah. And even if Tah’s wrong, he entrusted Kai’s safety to me. And damn it all, Kai wanted to be my friend.
So I keep my head low, eyes constantly searching to make sure I’m not seen, and I cross the road.
I turn the corner past the shack.
And freeze.
I watch in horror as twenty yards in front of me, Longarm draws back a massive fist and aims for the back of Kai’s head. Kai never even sees it coming.
The impact snaps his neck forward, his chin cutting into his sternum. He stumbles, tries to lift his arms up, but they’re cuffed behind his back. Longarm doesn’t wait for him to recover. He circles around and grabs Kai’s head between his hands. Brings his knee up hard into his face, driving his head back with so much force that for a moment, Kai’s spine seems to bend backward. Then his feet come out from under him and he slams into the dirt. His head strikes the dusty ground so hard it bounces.
Longarm draws back a metal-toed booted foot. He kicks once, twice, a half dozen times, one after the other, striking Kai’s ribs and kidneys. Kai’s body flops and shudders like a rag doll.
I stare stupidly, stunned by the sudden violence.
The only thing my brain is able to process is that Kai hasn’t made a sound. A brutal beating from a man twice his size and he hasn’t cried out once.
And then I see the blood. A lake of red. Spreading around his head.
A flash of memory sears my mind like wildfire. The taste of terror and helplessness flares on my tongue. A flash of the evil born on a cold February night. My vision blurs, then sharpens to something preternatural. Time slows. And expands. K’aahanáanii, Living Arrow. Bloodlust, white hot, flows through my veins, catching fire and spreading.
Longarm’s bent over, the big man breathing hard from his awful labor. He rests his hands on his knees, surveys his work. With a grunt he pushes himself up straight. Takes a few steps back and I watch as his hand goes to his hip and he releases the gun from the holster at his side. Slowly, slowly, his arm swings around. To point the gun at Kai.
I am moving. My own gun is free, gripped two-handed as I run forward. I must scream, because he turns toward me. His jaw slack and his eyes wide with surprise.
I am Living Arrow and I don’t hesitate. I don’t second-guess myself. I don’t worry about being a monster.
I pull the trigger. Once, twice, five times altogether.
Each time putting a bullet into Longarm’s face.
Chapter 20
Shaking. My hands are shaking.
With adrenaline and rage. But fear, too. The suffocating fear that I am too late.
I slide to my knees at his side. Rest trembling fingers on his neck. His skin is painted red with blood, and my hand comes away sticky with it. But his pulse is strong.
“Kai.” I shake him gently. I dab at his face with the edge of my sleeve, trying to clear away the bloody mess around his nose and mouth in order to ease his breathing. He’s got something stuck in his mouth, and I ease his lips apart to remove his tie. Silvery blue stripes. Longarm had stuffed it d
own his throat.
I shudder. I work to hold on to some of the clarity and fury of Living Arrow, but my clan power has fled.
“You’ve got to wake up, Kai. We’ve got to move.” I shake him again, this time harder. He makes a sound. Heaves and coughs as he pulls air into his deprived lungs, and then instinctively tries to curl his knees up to his body, huddling into himself.
“No, no.” I pull at his shoulders, try to straighten him out. He’s too weak to fight me. I use the tip of my knife to break open the handcuffs and try to lift him by his arms. But he’s dead weight, and the loss of adrenaline has left me without the strength I need to move him. I freeze, sure I hear footsteps. Nothing. But I know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds us.
Bile rises in my throat and panic threatens to crest over and drown me. I force it down. Focus on the here and now.
I need to move Kai. Get us both out of sight before more Law Dogs come to see why Longarm hasn’t come back. Longarm. I spare a glance over my shoulder. What’s left of the Law Dog lies crumpled in a heap a few feet away, his face little more than raw meat.
I expect to feel some emotion at seeing him like that, seeing what I’ve done, but I don’t expect to feel satisfaction. Longarm’s words from yesterday fill my ears. Maybe you shouldn’t be hunting monsters. Maybe someone should be hunting you.
“Mags?” Kai’s eyes are open, bare slits.
I swallow, school the grin of relief trying to break across my face. “Can you move?” I ask him.
He nods, small and weak, but it’s a nod. Together we get him to his feet.
“We’ve got to get back to the truck,” I say. “You need a doctor, and we need to get as far away from here as possible.”
He makes a grunting sound that I take for a “yes.”
“If I can get you out of town, I know a place we can lay low for a while. Get you looked at. Figure out what happened to Tah, if he’s okay. But we—” I stop. Kai’s looking behind me. I know what he sees. I wait for him to recoil in horror. To demand to know how I could have done such a thing. To look at me and see the monster.
His eyes are wide, his face ghost-pale and blood-smeared. He swallows big. “Go,” he says, gingerly lifting his arm so I can slip under to hold him up.
We make it ten feet before he turns his head and vomits. I hold him while he heaves, again and again, until his stomach is empty and he’s reduced to a wet painful panting. I wait as long as I think is safe, conscious that every second we stand here is another second we’re exposed.
“We’ve got to move, Kai.”
He nods again and immediately shudders. “My head,” he slurs, his tongue thick and clumsy.
“You probably have a concussion,” I say, pushing him forward on shuffling feet. “Nausea is common, dizziness, memory loss.” I tick off the symptoms. “Totally normal.”
“Not the dead guy’s face making me sick?” he says, laughing weakly. A laugh that turns into a harsh cough and ends in a gagging noise. He works to catch his breath.
I grin, irrationally grateful for his morbid joke. “Just keep your feet moving, okay?”
We start up our awkward shuffling again. I catch a glimpse of my truck parked on the side of the road just two hundred yards away. Two hundred yards that stretch before us like two thousand.
I’ve opened the passenger’s side door and am helping Kai in when I hear the first shouts. Every muscle twitches, wanting me to look up, to confirm that they’ve found Longarm’s body and that they have noticed us. But I keep my head down and hurry over to slide into the driver’s side, mindful of not drawing attention.
I start up the engine and pull onto the road. Safely behind the wheel and moving, I allow myself to glance back at the scene we left only minutes ago. I can make out figures in khaki uniforms. There is noise and movement and a sense of alarm as they hover over Longarm’s body. I don’t allow myself to rubberneck, but instead face forward and try to blend in with the traffic on the road. I turn onto Highway 264 and drive past the northbound turn that goes back to Crystal, instead heading east into the Checkerboard Zone, the one place in Dinétah where Law Dogs don’t have any jurisdiction.
Kai’s slumped against the door. His eyes are shut, mouth slack, breathing shallow. I shake him to wake him up. “No sleeping with a head injury,” I warn him.
He cracks one eye open. The skin around it is already turning black and purple, the swelling forcing it closed. “I didn’t know you cared, Mags,” he whispers through dry, bloodstained lips.
“I don’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I turn away from him to watch the road.
We’re silent as we speed out of town and into the open desert. The red rock cliffs of Tse Bonito give way to low rolling hills, wide expanses of drought-brown earth and dry scrub. The sky is clear, a sacrilege of spotless brilliant blue, all signs of fire and smoke lost as the miles pile up behind us. After a while Kai speaks again, his voice thick and wheezing like he’s having trouble breathing. “Where are you taking me?”
“Woman I know owns a place out in the Checkerboard Zone. Land out there is still broken up from the Allotment Period—one acre’s Navajo land, the next bilagáana land, and she’s on the kind of land where CWAG and Navajo cops aren’t welcome. More importantly, her place is behind twenty feet of razor wire and half a dozen AR-15s. Assuming she lets us in, it’ll give us a safe place to figure out what to do.”
“Assuming?”
“Grace Goodacre can be hard to read. We’re not exactly friends, but she’s known as a safe place when you’re running from the law. If there’s anybody she hates in this world, it’s the Law Dogs.”
I look over at Kai. He’s watching my fingers drum nervously on the steering wheel. I still my hands. “I’m bringing some serious heat her way,” I say by way of explanation. “I just hope she’s feeling generous today.”
Kai nestles down in his corner between the seat and the door. He closes his eyes again, wincing as spasms of pain cross his face. “You’ll convince her,” he says. “I have total faith in you.”
I bite my lip and give the truck more gas, not nearly as confident in our welcome. I check the rearview mirror for the third or fourth time in the last minute. It’s still clear. No one is chasing us. But I can’t relax until we’re inside somewhere safe and hidden and Kai has someone to look at his injuries. Then I’ll let myself think about what to do next. About Longarm. About Tah.
“He’s dead, Maggie.”
Kai’s eyes are open and fixed on me. I try to swallow, but something is stuck in my throat. He sags a little and turns away to gaze out the window to the distance beyond us.
“You don’t know that.”
“Longarm said he saw his body.”
“Longarm’s a fucking liar.”
“Why would he lie? I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you loved him like family.”
“No.”
“I—”
“There’s Grace’s place,” I say, cutting him off. I point with my lips to the structure coming up on our left.
There, in a clearing off the side of the highway and otherwise in the middle of nowhere, sheltered behind metal fencing three times as tall as the tallest man in Dinétah and tipped with circles of razor wire, sits Grace’s All-American. The All-American is a bar. More of an oversize shack, really, it is approximately eight hundred feet across and half as deep, sheeted in gray paneling meant to resemble wood but mostly just looking like the aluminum siding that it is. A vintage neon sign blinks OPEN or CLOSED depending on the time of day and the juice in the generator, and plastic banners older than the Big Water declare the All-American THE HOME OF THE KING OF BEERS. Of course, Grace doesn’t serve Budweiser anymore since St. Louis drowned along with the rest of the Midwest, but the sign remains, optimistic. Everything else about the place screams “Abandon All Hope!” There’s only one way in and one way out through those metal gates, and that’s through the heavily armed guard in the bulletpr
oof gatehouse.
I slow the truck, pulling up to the entrance. I roll down the window and come to a stop.
A black kid, no more than fourteen, steps out of the gatehouse. He’s decked out in full-on military fatigues and combat boots, and he points an automatic rifle at me. He has light brown skin and an incongruous mass of red kinky hair and bright freckles, and his hands are more like puppy paws around that gun, but I know better than to underestimate him.
“You look like your mom,” I say, greeting him.
“Bar doesn’t open until sundown,” he says, his voice unimpressed.
“I’m not here to drink. I’m here to see your mom.”
He frowns. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Maggie Hoskie. She knows me.”
The kid looks me over. I can see his keen eyes evaluating me, taking in the shotgun on the back rack, the blood smeared across my face and hands, and finally resting on Kai, who has closed his eyes and seems to be sleeping again. “What the hell happened to him?” he asks. “He’s not dead, is he? He looks like shit.”
“He’s not dead. Law Dogs got him.”
Something in the kid’s shoulders relaxes, and he grins, looking like the teenager he is. “Fucking Law Dogs,” he says, mustering all the outrage of someone who’s never had to deal with them up close.
“Yeah,” I agree. “You think we can get in and see Grace now?”
He has an old-fashioned walkie-talkie strapped to his belt, and he pulls it out and turns away from me to talk to whoever is on the other end. With his back to me, K’aahanáanii whispers to me that it would be simple to pull the Glock I still have tucked in my pocket and put a bullet through the back of his skull. Of course, the other guards would come running, and I know whoever is dumb enough to kill one of Grace’s sons won’t get far. But Freckles would still be dead.
I shake off the thought, force myself to take a few breaths to tamp down K’aahanáanii.
He turns around, smiling, and waves me through. “Mom’s behind the bar!” he shouts as I pull through the gates. “She said park around back. Someone will show you where.”
Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World Book 1) Page 14