Toni, Ryan and Jill were innocent, as innocent as any of the slaughtered women and children at Claremore Mound, Jennie had been born far too late to save those innocents, but these three, at least, she could, and would, rescue.
So they would somehow have to lure the goons away- and while they were gone, David and Mooncrow would pick up Toni and the kids as scheduled, and take them to the offices of Women's Shelter. Once Toni signed the divorce papers and request for a restraining order, Mooncrow would sever all ties to Rod in a special ceremony of purification. Then, thugs thrown off the track, mundane and spiritual connections to Rod Calligan parted, she and her kids should be safe from Rod, the hit men, the Evil One, and the mi-ah-luschka as well.
Jennie still was not entirely certain how the hit men figured in all this-who had brought them in to take Toni and her kids, not why Rod had hired them to take care of her. There was some part of the picture still missing; some mundane connection she had not seen in her Eagle-guided vision. Somewhere there was someone who wanted a handle on Rod Calligan; she guessed it was some kind of silent business partner who was as deeply into this thing as Rod, if not more so. Well, fine. That was one thing she could try to track down later.
Meanwhile, it was time to play hare and hounds.
Or perhaps, Kestrel and Black Birds. ...
She drove slowly past the Calligan house, paused as if to stop, and then pretended to spot the Lincoln on the corner.
She was near enough to see the faces of two of the three men through the windshield of their car, and it was one of those moments when she wished she had a camera. The expressions on their faces were absolutely priceless. She had never seen anyone quite so stunned in her life-unless, perhaps, it had been a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.
A sudden impulse hit her to thumb her nose and cross her eyes at them. She fought it down, although it was terribly tempting. She had to make them think she was as startled to see them as they were to see her; had to make her "rabbit" attractive enough that they would leave the target they had staked out in order to finish the job on her.
So she pretended to gasp, threw the truck in reverse to spin it around, and took off.
And as she had hoped, they reacted to the bait she had thrown out; acting with atypical impulse, they came right after her!
And as she fled, the remains of her meal bumped her leg. She looked down, and the half-eaten cone caught her eye.
This, she could not resist.
She reached down and grabbed the cone; she slowed, just a little, swerved, just a little-
-and tossed it out the back window.
The white yogurt hit the middle of the windshield of the Lincoln with a hearty spack.
She couldn't help it; the gesture had been so heyoka that she burst out laughing. The yogurt looked like a huge bird-dropping in the middle of their windshield.
Surprise!
The men slowed abruptly, reacting to the sudden impact; slowed just enough to give her an edge as she sped off. Now she certainly had their attention! And given the care that they had taken so far that their vehicle take no damage, this would surely ensure that they followed her!
This time she had a route planned. This time they were not ready with their police gear.
This time it was broad daylight.
The first thing she had to do was to get onto country roads that she knew, and they (hopefully) didn't--get them out where there wouldn't be civilians in the line of fire. And onto roads where that big, heavy Lincoln town car would be at a disadvantage and her light Brat would have the upper hand. This was a fine line she had to follow; she had to keep them close enough that they would not give up. Yet she had to make certain they didn't catch her.
This time she was not unarmed; her .38 and five speed-loaders were on the dashboard just under the steering wheel, in a special tear-away Velcro holder she'd designed herself. If a gun battle started, she was ready for it. If they cornered her, she was ready for them. She hoped.
But the plan called for nothing so violent; in fact, the plan called for her to lead them straight into the speed trap at Catoosa. She was fairly certain they had a number of things in that car that the cops would find very interesting. And even if they didn't, well, she had filed assault charges while her bruises and injuries were still fresh, creating mug portraits of all three for the Tulsa P.D., and pointing out these three had committed assault and impersonated police officers. So-with any luck, they would at least spend some time cooling their heels in a holding tank.
And with no luck-she had enough connections in the department to find out where they, lived; even though a check on their license number had revealed a post office box, there were other ways to get their addresses. A professional hit man did not want himself exposed. Chances were that a discreet visit by, say, three of her large and muscled occasional employees would persuade them that Tulsa was no longer a good place to operate.
All that means I have to survive this though, she reminded herself, as she sped down a series of turns that would take her out into farm country and two-lane gravel roads. She took a quick look in the rearview mirror. They were right on her tail, and from the look of it, they were perfectly well aware that the safest way to get rid of someone in Oklahoma was to run him down, then refuse to take the sobriety test. So they're going to see if they can't crash me, then act drunk. Right. I just hope they didn't pony up the three grand for the evasive driving course! And I hope that they are still as worried about scratches on their pretty Town Car as they are about catching me. If they actually decide to ram me off the road-they outweigh this little Brat by about twice.
Rod Calligan stood in the shade of his office, a frown on his face, arms crossed over his chest, watching work progressing on the mall site. And it was progressing; that was why he was frowning.
All of the Indians had come back to work yesterday, with no explanations. All of them. By law, since they'd been out sick, he had to take them back. And the "accidents" had stopped, at least yesterday and today. So it was business as usual; better than usual, since they seemed to be determined to make up for the "sick time" off by working twice as hard. If they kept working like this, he was going to have a difficult time finding a rationale for shutting work down unless he blew up another dozer. . . .
He was so busy watching his industrious crew that he didn't notice the commotion in the air above the site until more than half of the workers stopped what they were doing and began pointing up at something in the sky. He squinted, shaded his eyes with one hand, the other hand going automatically to the fetish in his pocket, and looked in the direction they were pointing.
By the time he spotted what they were looking at, virtually everyone else on the crew was already intent on it-
"It" was an aerial battle, a kind of dogfight, with three scrawny black birds chasing something else, a swift little brown bird about the size of a blue jay or a robin.
What the hell? he thought, fuming, fingering the fetish in his pocket. Work had completely ground to a halt while the men watched, the Indians among them cheering the bird being chased as if it were their personal friend.
It swooped low enough to the ground, and near enough to him, that he saw it was a hawk or falcon, though smaller than he'd thought hawks were supposed to be, with brown and gray feathers, a speckled breast, and black markings around its eyes.
He should have been pleased; this was throwing delay into the work again, and that was what he wanted. But he wasn't; the very sight of that bird escaping the black ones over and over sent him into an unthinking rage.
If the Indians seemed to think that the hawk was their friend, he felt the same about the other birds. Hawks were vermin; they took game that rightfully belonged to human hunters. The black birds were probably protecting their own nests from a bird that would kill their young! And just when it looked as if the black birds finally had the little hawk cornered-
A raven flew up out of nowhere, croaking alarm and flapping wildl
y, distracting the black birds enough that they missed their strike! The Indians cheered wildly as the hawk arrowed right between a couple of pieces of equipment, did a wingover, and climbed past her pursuers.
Damn them! Calligan thought, his stomach sour with anger. Damn them, damn them!
Without any idea of who he was damning, or even why....
Jennie wiped sweat out of her eyes, and clutched the wheel until her knuckles ached. Her stomach was in knots; her shoulder and back muscles tighter than banjo strings. She was in trouble; trouble she hadn't anticipated.
A few moments ago she had narrowly missed getting forced over, and only got away by hitting the brakes, doing a bootlegger turn, and shooting off in the opposite direction she intended to go. Now she was going the wrong way to hit that speed trap in Catoosa. She needed another plan.
And another route! This was a bad road for the Brat and a good one for the Lincoln. Lots of straightaways-
Highway 20, she decided. It's all curves, all those little crossroads where traffic comes up out of nowhere-and there's that climb up from the Verdigris River that's all switchbacks! That's it!
If she could just get there-the bluff rose a good two hundred feet up, maybe three, offering one of the most spectacular views in this part of Oklahoma. No way that boat of a Lincoln was going to be able to keep up with the Brat on those switchbacks!
And then-then straight on 20 until she got to Lynn Lane-then Lynn Lane to Eleventh Street-
Did these guys know there was a major copshop on Eleventh? If they did, they might not realize how close to Lynn Lane it was, especially not if they never came at it going south. She might be able to lead them right up to the door- certainly she could trick them into something stupid, like speeding along there.
Right now, she didn't care if she got caught and they didn't! Right now, she was more concerned with escape.
The Lincoln loomed up in her mirror. She floored it. First, get to 20!
That damn bird kept getting away! Rod wished passionately he had a gun, he'd have shot the damn thing! And his crew was acting like the spectators at a horse race; in no way was he going to get them back to work while this was going on. His hand was clenched so tightly on the fetish that it ached; his eyes burned and watered from staring into the bright sky.
Larry Bushyhead watched the young female kestrel slipping just ahead of the talons of her pursuers with his hands clenched tight, and a knot in his stomach. When she twisted out of their clutches yet again, he cheered her wildly, as if by his cheering he could give her the strength and the spirit to keep going.
There was more to this than some strange birds chasing a little falcon; he knew it in his bones. This meant something, something important.
These weren't just birds. This was an omen-or a reflection of something else, some deadly hunt elsewhere. Those birds were like nothing he had ever seen before, and he knew his birdlife. There was a sinister, not quite natural air about them. If only he knew what it was-
But since he didn't, he did what he could; he stared at the little dot of a bird and willed her strength, speed, stamina. Willed her all the power he could. If only he knew enough about Medicine, so that he could help her with Medicine power!
And beside him, he sensed every other Indian on the site doing the same thing.
Fly! he told her, prayed for her. Fly, little girl! You can do it!
But he knew by her faltering wingbeats that she was in trouble.
Jennie was definitely in trouble. Her guts were filled with the ice of pure fear; she bit her lip and tasted blood.
She hadn't reckoned on the fact that she would be going uphill. All the advantages of her smaller car were outweighed by the fact that the engine was smaller too.
The bad guys were catching up to her, and there was still about a half mile of switchbacks yet to go.
Come on, she begged her laboring engine. Come on! Just a little farther-
The Lincoln loomed up in her rearview mirror again, filling it.
Fear closed a cold hand around her throat.
Come on, you can do it-
The man driving was smiling.
And he vanished from her mirror as he pulled into the left-hand lane.
He's gonna force me off the road-
And right here, "off the road" meant down. About a hundred and fifty feet worth of "down." No one could survive a drop like that.
They turned, together, and he was right at her rear bumper; he nudged the accelerator and came right alongside. A blind corner, a left-hand switchback, loomed right up ahead-the last turn before the top-if she could just keep him from forcing her off there-
Then, a flash of inspiration.
There's two pedals, stupid! she screamed at herself just as he pulled alongside, grinning at her across his partner in the front seat. Use the other one!
No more than a hundred feet from the corner, she jammed on the brakes.
He went sailing by, staring at her, mouth agape with shock-
Just as a bus rounded the corner up ahead. In his lane.
He had just enough time to react; he jerked the wheel wildly to the right-
At the same instant that the bus driver, in a panic, jerked his to the left to avoid the oncoming car…
Jennie could only watch, hand stuffed into her mouth, as the bus tried to swerve back into its own lane, and hit the Lincoln a glancing blow along the driver's side, just in front of the rear wheel.
Just enough to send it spinning right over the edge, tumbling over the side of the bluff.
The kestrel went into another dive, but this one had the feeling of desperation about it. The Black Birds were right on her tail, and she was either going to plow into the dirt of the Arkansas bluffs, or fly right up into their claws. Do something! Larry Bushyhead told the white eye of the sun, fiercely. Help her! Do something!
And at that precise moment, someone did do something.
The kestrel skimmed the surface of the river, the Black Birds following-so intent on her that they paid no attention to anything else.
Like the pair of Bald Eagles that suddenly dove down out of the sun, straight for them.
Larry watched in stunned joy. He remembered something a falconer friend had once told him. "If you want to really know what the fastest bird alive is, ask someone who just had their prize peregrine falcon taken by an eagle."
The Eagles were like twin thunderbolts-and evidently no one had ever told them that Bald Eagles were fish and carrion eaters, because they were obviously after those Black Birds, and the Black Birds didn't even know they were there!
A second later, they knew all right-but by then it was too late.
It happened so quickly that Larry could hardly believe it. Just the two plummeting Eagles, and three little explosions of black feathers as the Eagles fisted their prey, knocking the birds out of the sky and into the river.
They fanned their wings and tails to brake down, then made a graceful, leisurely circle to land on the sandbar beside the skinny black bodies. Larry found himself cheering like a madman as they made their fly-by, and it seemed to him that they bowed once, like star performers for an appreciative audience, before bending to dine.
The kestrel soared wearily up into the air, and was lost in the blue of the sky.
Larry cheered himself hoarse, then turned-
And found himself staring into the face of his boss, Rod Calligan.
A face that was transfixed with such rage and hate that for a moment, Larry didn't even recognize him.
The bus bounced off the wall of the bluff and skidded along it to a halt, the white-faced driver fighting the wheel and the momentum of multiple tons of steel and plastic and passengers. The passengers themselves screamed loudly enough to be heard over the shrieking of air brakes, the scrape of metal on rock; and the dull thud of an explosion as flame blossomed over the edge of the curve.
The bus slid to a stop mere inches away, just off her bumper. The driver stared down at her through his windshie
ld, statuelike, whiter than marble.
Jennie just sat, frozen, her hands clutching her steering wheel, her heart trying to beat its way out of her rib cage.
It was the shrieking of the passengers that finally galvanized her into movement. She slammed the Brat's door open and sprinted for the bus, certain from all the noise that there were people sprawled in various states of broken all over the interior.
But miraculously, no one was hurt.
The driver was in a complete state of shock, as well he might be, but Jennie and a couple of the passengers who had their wits about them began helping the others out of the bus. Within a few moments, more cars appeared on both sides of the road, some of whose drivers had seen the plume of flame and smoke from the Lincoln. One driver had a cellular phone, and two had C.B. radios; all three called police and ambulances.
Jennie stayed there anyway, as the only witness to the entire "accident." She told the police, when they finally arrived, that the driver of the Lincoln had been trying to pass her on the blind curve, and that the bus driver had pulled off the best "save" she had ever seen in her life.
Since no one in the Lincoln survived to dispute her version of the story, and the driver honestly did not remember much besides seeing the Lincoln on the wrong side of the road and swerving to avoid it, the cops were perfectly willing to believe her.
It was only when she finally pulled her Brat away from the scene that she saw what was written on the side of the bus.
Eagle Tours.
David gritted his teeth and went on with his part of the "plan," even though he wanted to go chasing right after the three guys in the Lincoln as it sped off after Jennie's Brat. This whole thing depended on everyone doing his part, doing it right, and doing it without interfering with the rest of the plan. He wouldn't help either her or Toni Calligan by rushing off and doing something stupid.
Toni was not even aware of what else was going on. But the dual threat of her soon-to-be-ex husband and the mi-ah-luschka was probably more than enough for her. She was white as a sheet under her makeup and healing bruises, and the two kids, poor little mites, were clearly just as terrified when David came to the door. He wondered what had been going on in that house in the past forty-eight hours-
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