Black Raven's Pride

by Aimée Thurlo

  “Facts, information, witness accounts. Anything that would give us a clear idea about what happened between the time the theft occurred and the deaths of Isabel and James Maes.”

  Captain Mora nodded. “I know why this is important to you, Deputy. I was talking to some old-timers today and I finally learned who Tall Shadow was. But you’ve known from the moment I showed you the letter, haven’t you?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Now you’re in this because you can’t stand the questions this case has raised about your father’s integrity. But you may do a lot of harm to yourself and your family if you don’t back off.”

  “I don’t believe my father played any part in what happened to Eden’s family and his name deserves to be cleared.”

  “My father was the investigating officer on this case and I can tell you that he worked on it day and night. Back then, I was thinking about following in his footsteps, and I paid attention to everything he did or said. Father hammered at every detail, but he never got anywhere.”

  “I will find the truth,” Nick said.

  “It may not be as freeing as you think.”

  Nick left Mora beside the portable building and went back to join Eden. She’d moved away and was waiting for him under the covered back porch of the station. Seeing the fear and concern etched on her features made him want to take her into his arms, but this wasn’t the time or the place. Danger lay everywhere now and he couldn’t afford to forget that for one second.

  EDEN WATCHED Nick as they climbed into his Jeep and got underway. More than anything she wished there was something she could do to protect him, but she knew he wouldn’t walk away now.

  Nick drove her home and walked her to the door, but didn’t go inside. “I’ll say good-night here,” he said.

  There was something dangerous in his eyes, a new resolve that she couldn’t understand. It frightened her.

  The look remained as he brushed his knuckles on her cheek gently. The tenderness of the gesture had a sadness in it that nearly brought tears to her eyes.

  “If you can’t prove your family’s innocence, what will you do?” he asked. “Have you thought about that?”

  “I’ll have made so many enemies on this pueblo by that point, my only choice will be to leave.”

  “So you’d just walk away from me again?”

  Her throat tightened. “Eventually you’d find someone else.”

  “I haven’t in all these years. That should tell you something.”

  Without giving her a chance to answer, Nick turned and walked back to his vehicle. He’d never spoken of love. It was one of the things that Nick never did, no matter how much she might have wanted to hear the words. But perhaps he was right not to. She just didn’t know anymore. Maybe if no words of love were ever said between them, their parting, when it finally came, would hurt a little less.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was still the weekend, so Eden decided that the time had come to take a new direction in her search for the truth. Although she’d spoken to a lot of people, she hadn’t tried Maria Lassiter yet.

  The elderly woman had spent the last twenty-five years or so living in virtual seclusion. Maria had left her home along the river valley where most of the pueblo’s residences were located and moved to an old house in the forest near the sacred lake. No one ever mentioned her by name or had anything to do with her because many believed she was a witch. But Eden remembered her mother telling her that Maria was simply a woman who’d experienced too much heartbreak in her life. She’d lost her husband and only son in a car accident off the pueblo, and the tragedy had destroyed her spirit.

  Her mother had often said that Maria knew more about the secrets of the pueblo than anyone else. People were used to ignoring her during her supply trips to the pueblo and they often continued private conversations around Maria, oblivious to the fact that she was there.

  Maria would be an ideal person to question since she’d been around during her mother’s time—but, of course, there was no guarantee Maria would even want to talk to her. She’d heard stories that Maria would run off most visitors with a shotgun.

  After dropping Christopher off at Mrs. Chino’s, Eden headed out. That section of pueblo land, one the villagers usually only visited for firewood and herbs, had always seemed inhospitable to her. She didn’t know how anyone managed to survive so far away from roads, stores and electricity.

  Eden was driving up a nearly indistinguishable dirt trail when she heard a siren click on and off behind her. Looking in her rearview mirror, she saw it was Nick behind her. She stopped, but there was no place to pull over.

  As he came up to her car, she stepped out to meet him. “What on earth are you doing all the way out here?” he asked.

  The heat from his gaze made a shiver course up her spine. “I might ask you the same question! You’re the last person I expected to run into.”

  “I’m patrolling the outer areas today. And you?”

  She tried to peer ahead through the thick growth of tall pines. “I’m looking for Maria Lassiter’s house.”

  “Are you nuts?” he roared. “She may just shoot you if she’s not in the mood for visitors.”

  “I’ve heard the stories. But she won’t hurt me.” She saw the skepticism on his face. “I’m not turning back, Nick. But you should get out of the area as soon as possible. Seeing a cop isn’t going to put her at ease.”

  “True,” he admitted, “but if you’re going, so am I.”

  Instinct told her nothing she could do or say was going to get him to change his mind. “If you won’t go, then at least ride with me. If she sees the tribal unit, she won’t even come to the door.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Call it woman’s intuition.”

  “Why? ’Cause I can’t argue with it?”

  “That’s one reason,” she admitted. The other was the promise of trouble in his eyes. He wasn’t a man used to proceeding slowly and with patient gentleness when someone opposed him and that was exactly the tactic they’d need to use. If they stayed together, she could at least try to influence him and get him to hang back a bit.

  She stayed at the wheel, and they rode together to the end of the track. As she saw the house for the first time, a long shudder ran through her. “Dear heaven, I never expected it to be like this!”

  The paint on the trim around the windows was nothing more than a memory and the logs stacked upon each other looked like they were ready to roll away. Mud had been applied by hand to cover the joints between the crooked timbers, but it had crumbled away in several spots already.

  “People have come out and tried to help her, but she won’t tolerate any interference with her life. This is her choice,” he said softly.

  “How can you truly try to help someone you’re afraid of? My guess is that, at best, they were just going through the motions.”

  “Maybe, but she’s always said no. Every time. Some say that she’s finally gone insane.”

  “If she has, I can’t say I blame her,” Eden snapped. She didn’t believe in witches, and she hated the injustice that had been done to this woman. Maybe it took one outcast to really understand the plight of another, but whatever kept Maria out here was only partly due to choice.

  Eden parked fifty feet away from the gray weathered front door, then turned to Nick. “Wait for me here.”

  “No.” He left her car before she’d even opened her door, then walked up to the door and knocked loudly.

  Eden sighed. If he yelled out ‘police,’ she’d sock him herself. “Go easy, will ya?” she whispered, catching up to him.

  He gave her an unblinking look. “I am.”

  Catching a glimpse of a stooped figure moving just beyond the paper-thin curtain, Eden stood by the window. “Miss Lassiter, we don’t want to bother you, but I really do need your help. I’m Isabel Maes’s daughter.”

  There was a long silence, then finally the door opened. “Last time I went down for supplies, I heard you were ba
ck, asking around about your past.” She looked at Nick, as if trying to decide what to do about him.

  “He only came—” Eden started.

  “Because he’s involved, too,” Maria finished, then with a nod invited them inside. “I hear people talking when I go to the pueblo for supplies,” she added.

  Eden looked at Maria, studying the woman that was part legend, part enigma. Maria had to be in her eighties now. Her face was a road map of deep furrows that attested to a life of hardship and sorrow. She wore a long dress made of simple blue cotton that had been darned and patched in many places. Although she couldn’t quite stand up straight, her dark eyes were so bright and alert that they captured Eden’s attention instantly. This woman was as sane as she was, perhaps even more so.

  “I wondered if you’d come talk to me, or if you’d be too afraid,” Maria said.

  “I’m not at all afraid of you,” Eden said gently. “I don’t believe in witches.”

  “That’s not very sensible of you. There are such things,” she said, then when Eden shook her head, smiled. “But I’m not a witch. If I were, I would have cast some very big spells on certain annoying people a long time ago. But, being thought a witch serves me, so don’t tell anyone I’m not. As long as they believe it, they’ll stay away, and that’s what I really want.”

  “But why? It’s got to be so lonely out here!”

  She graced Eden with a rare smile. The gesture was kind, and softened her features. “What you see as lonely I see as peaceful. Out here, I don’t have to worry about anyone except myself. I have all I need.” Maria gestured for Eden and Nick to take a seat on a simple cot covered with several quilts.

  Nick remained standing near one of the windows, his face as inscrutable as a sphinx.

  Eden could tell Nick was uncomfortable in the nearly empty house, as if the silence and the loneliness had seemed familiar to him.

  “Your alliance seems an unlikely one,” Maria said, looking at Nick, then back to Eden. “There were rumors that Paul Black Raven played a part in your family’s troubles,” she added, making it a point then not to look at Nick.

  “Do you think that’s true?” Nick asked, pressing her.

  Maria stared at the floor a long time before replying. “Paul was a man who had a lot of power and wasn’t afraid to use it. And he did want James Maes to take his wife and child and move away from the pueblo. But I don’t believe Paul would have framed anyone. He would have seen a scheme like that as beneath him.”

  Nick seemed to relax marginally, but Eden could sense that this woman’s determination to let no one get close to her, and the price she was paying for that decision had struck a chord with him. Perhaps he saw a bit of himself in her. Nick protected himself well. There was a barrier around his heart he allowed no one, even her, to get past. Yet if anyone could understand that, she could. It was a survival skill that life had taught them both.

  “Can you tell me anything that will help me find the real thieves?” Eden asked. “My mother’s not guilty of anything, but I have to prove that before others will believe me.”

  “Be very careful what you do. The real thieves have spent years covering their tracks. The more you push to find them, the greater the threat you become, and that makes every day more dangerous than the last.”

  “I can’t turn back now. It’s too late for that.”

  Maria nodded. “Then keep a close watch on your enemies. Men like Samuel Runningwater will never give up trying to run you off pueblo land. Don’t underestimate him, though his daughter takes care of your son. Runningwater will incite the people against you every chance he gets. To him, you’re a reminder of a scandal he wants the people to forget. He may not have been part of the daily business of the Center, but he was the one who suggested to the religious societies that they store their treasures in that building. He promised everyone that it was the safest place in this pueblo. Now that you’re back, he’s afraid people will remember that and it’ll cost him the election for pueblo governor.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the other employees at the Cultural Center? Who hated my mother enough to do this to her?”

  “Isabel had many enemies. Although she was a good woman, she was an Anglo who married one of our own. Lots of people didn’t approve of her but, at the top of that list, I’d have to put Theresa Redwing. She loved James and hated your mother because James left her for Isabel.”

  “I never knew that,” Eden said.

  “Isabel didn’t know either,” she answered. “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust Theresa. Years have gone by, but the heart has a long memory.”

  “Do you think she framed my mother out of jealousy or revenge?”

  “No. It’s more likely that Theresa knows who did and has never said, because it served her purposes. But to actually plan something like that and carry it through, is beyond her. Theresa has never been much of a thinker.”

  “What about the Kormans?” Nick asked.

  Maria shook her head. “Marc’s sense of duty would have prevented him from doing anything against the Center. Do you know how he got his job in the first place?” Seeing Eden and Nick shake their heads, she continued. “Marc lived on land adjacent to the pueblo all his life. Jack Mora, Captain Daniel Mora’s father, was our head of police at the time. One day Daniel got lost while deer hunting when a storm came up. He was gone for two days. It was bitterly cold but there was hope because Daniel was a smart boy and he knew the land. He built a snow cave and stayed warm and even managed to find something to eat, but things were looking bleak. That’s when Marc Korman found him. He was the one who brought him back.”

  “Captain Mora never said anything to me about that,” Nick said thoughtfully.

  “I think he prefers to forget the debt he owes the Anglo, but he won’t. He’ll honor that.” Maria continued. “Months later when the pueblo council decided that they needed to find someone who knew our arts and crafts to operate the Center, the council offered Marc the job. He’s been associated with it ever since then.”

  “Sounds like Mora owes Korman, but what would have stopped Korman from stealing from the tribe?” Nick pressed.

  “Pride. He always managed the Center like it was his own business, and liked the sense of power it gave him. A man like that is not after wealth. He simply wants to feel important.”

  “What about his wife?” Eden asked.

  “His first wife was a beautiful woman. She died giving birth to Patrick. But the second wife, Rita, along with that lazy brother of hers, are too self-absorbed to plan out a theft like that. Twenty years ago Rita spent most of the time she wasn’t working, outside playing, taking part in white-water rafting and hot air balloon rides, that sort of thing. She desperately wanted her white friends to see her as a free spirit. Of course that was the last thing she was. She cared too much what everyone thought of her.”

  Maria stood up slowly. “Now I’ve told you all I know. I’ve done so in payment for the kindness your mother Isabel showed me many years ago. When no one else spoke to me, she did. And every holiday, she always came with a basket of food. I never had the chance to do much for her, but now I’ve helped her daughter. That balances things.”

  Eden stood up. “Thank you for the help you’ve given us.”

  “I would like to ask something of you two in return.”

  Eden glanced at Nick who nodded. “Name it,” she said.

  “Never tell anyone that you talked to me today.”

  “Why?” Eden asked, suddenly worried about Maria. “Are you afraid that people will come after you?”

  She laughed. “Not in the way you think. They’re afraid of me, remember?” She paused then grew serious. “But if people find out that I’ve helped you, they’ll start taking notice of me when I come into town. Many of the younger women, the ones who don’t believe in witchcraft and such, will take it upon themselves to come and visit. After that, they’ll want to fix this and that around here and, before I know it, my life will not be my
own. I’ll either have to spend the last of my days arguing with them, or having do-gooders underfoot all the time.”

  Eden smiled. Maria had a point and her mind was crystal clear. She’d never really met anyone more capable of looking after herself. “We’ll keep our visit to ourselves. Promise.”

  As Nick received a call on his handheld radio, he stepped outside. Eden started to follow him, but Maria pulled her back.

  “One more thing,” she said in a whisper-soft voice. “I’ve watched Nick Black Raven’s face when he looks at you. He feels deeply for you, but you have to trust in that. You’ve both seen firsthand what lies and secrets can do. They poison everything. Don’t let it happen to you two. Fight for what you want and let the blood ties between you guide you right back into each other’s hearts.”

  Eden stared at her. By blood ties, had she meant Christopher? Surely there was no way this woman could know that Christopher was Nick’s son. “Everyone has secrets,” Eden said softly.

  “You have one chance left, if your love is strong enough.”

  Eden stared at Maria, trying to figure out if, by some miracle, the woman had managed to guess the truth. But there was no way of finding out without tipping her own hand. “Thanks again for seeing us, Maria.”

  Eden met Nick by her car and drove him back to his tribal unit. A shiver of longing passed through her as he captured her gaze. The invisible boundaries between them seemed to melt away into nothingness whenever he looked at her like that. There was an intensity in his eyes as if nothing in his world was more important than she was. Aching for him in a way she never would have believed possible, she forced herself to look away, shattering the magic of the moment.

  Nick got out of her car. “I have to get back to work,” he said. “Will you be all right?”

  She would have been if only she could have stepped into his arms, if she could have kissed him and forgotten everything else… But those were only wishes. “I’ll be fine, Nick.”