The Last Warrior

by Kylie Brant

  Heaving a sigh, he brushed off his jeans and turned back to the wide clearing between the two bluffs. Using the binoculars he scanned the face of both cliffs, noting the numerous slotlike openings. Plenty of caves in a place like this. Although there was no sign of more vehicles, there were plenty of tire tracks indicating several had been here earlier.

  Keeping the rifle ready, he headed toward a good-size opening in the cliff face nearby. When he saw Delaney round the bluff and start toward him, his mouth flattened. He shouldn’t have expected otherwise, but was it so damn difficult for her to follow a simple instruction?

  In the next instant, Joe saw what she carried and anger replaced frustration. Keeping a wary eye on the area around them, he waited for her to reach him before biting out, “What’d I tell you about touching my gun?”

  The revolver looked totally out of place in the hand of a woman wearing cropped pants and a top the color of sour apples. But then, her expression looked out of place, too. Her face was settled in a taut, grim mask, and he had an instant understanding of how she had survived in the world’s trouble spots.

  “I believe you said something to the effect that if someone tried to blow your head off, you’d be most appreciative of a little help.”

  He snorted, reached for the weapon. Not surprisingly, she stepped out of his reach.

  “I’m no marksman, but I know how to release the safety and fire. I’ve even been known to hit something, now and again.”

  “And the flashlight?” She carried his heavy Maglite from the Jeep in her free hand.

  She looked down at it. “It’s pretty heavy. If I ran out of ammo I figured it’d make a good club.”

  He studied her for a moment, reevaluating. That she wasn’t a woman to stay tucked safely away while the action was going down was growing more clear by the minute. He held out his hand, waiting. His jaw tightened when, rather than handing over the gun, she slapped the flashlight in his outstretched palm. He couldn’t see her eyes behind those damn shades, but he knew they’d be mutinous.

  “You check out the caves and I’ll keep watch outside.”

  The suggestion had merit, but that didn’t lessen his irritation. He tucked the flashlight under one arm, took off the binoculars, and held them out to her, the strap hanging over one crooked finger. “Take these to that cluster of rocks over there. Call out if you see anything at all. And try not to shoot off any of your body parts. Or mine.”

  Turning, he headed into the nearest opening in the cliff wall. He could just make out her muttered, “Don’t worry, I happen to be quite attached to my body parts,” and he swallowed the retort that rose to his lips.

  Because given half a chance, he had a feeling he could get quite attached to them, too.

  The first cave was barely deserving of the name. He had to crawl inside and the sweep of the beam from his flashlight told him that it didn’t get any more inviting. To humans, at least.

  Some openings in the cliff face were merely good-sized cracks. Others, he discovered, were large enough to provide shelter to any number of four-legged or slithering creatures, none of which he was particularly interested in meeting up with. Given the sheerness of the cliff, he didn’t think he needed to worry about the openings above him. There was no visible way to reach them.

  After he’d done a quick check of one bluff, he repeated the search on the one opposite. And it was there that he hit pay dirt. Hidden behind two twin rock spires was a cave at ground level. He shone the beam of the flashlight inside it, found it deserted. To avoid a major concussion, he had to duck to step in, but once he’d entered two or three feet, he could stand easily.

  It was obvious that someone had been here before him, and left in a hurry. There were kerosene lanterns placed at regular intervals along the cave floor against the walls. The opening was fairly deep; it meandered back through the bluff for at least fifty feet. At one point it widened to an area approximately half that size, and here he found more lanterns, piles of blankets and a heap of empty unmarked cardboard boxes.

  A bat swooped toward his head, and Joe dodged, using the flashlight to explore the extent of the cave. It ended against a rough rock wall, and in the corner he found cartons of bottled water, dried packaged food and litter a foot deep. He kicked through the trash, which seemed to consist mostly of food wrappers, empty water bottles and cigarette butts.

  He doubled back, switching off the flashlight when he hit the opening again. Blinking rapidly, he ducked out of the cave into the sunlight.

  “What’d you find?”

  Delaney’s tone was impatient, but at least she’d stayed put this time. She stepped out from the rocks toward him.

  “Someone has been here. Several someones.” He looked up at the sky, gauged how much sunlight he had left.

  “What about that guy who fired at you? Any chance you could follow his tracks and see where he went?”

  “Sure, if you happened to bring an ATV along with you,” he said with mock politeness.

  Her chin angled. “You don’t have to get snippy. A Jeep can go off road.”

  Snippy? He tried to remember if he’d ever had the word applied to him before. He didn’t think so. He was pretty sure he would have remembered it. “The Jeep may do cross-country for a while,” he allowed, “but it’s not going to be much use where the terrain gets rockier. The earth is too hard in the desert to leave tracks.” Joe figured he had less than an hour’s worth of sunlight left. Not enough time to try and trail the guy, even if it had been possible.

  He went to where the space widened between the two formations, and crouched down to study the ground. The earth was dusty here, crisscrossed with tire tracks. He was aware when Delaney stopped her bored fidgeting and wandered off, but he let her go. The danger here had passed. She’d be safe enough.

  Dusk was settling in before he finally rose again, satisfied. At some time there had been at least two ATVs and a truck here.

  One set of tracks had a wider wheelbase than an SUV or a pickup. A utility van, maybe? One of the tire marks had an odd tread that didn’t match any of the others.

  Joe looked around, but didn’t see Delaney. Rising, he jogged back to the Jeep and got his investigative kit. Returning, he found the clearest print of the track and took several pictures of the distinctive tread. Then he measured the front and back tire track depth and width and jotted down his findings in his notebook. Noting Delaney was still nowhere in sight, he put down the flashlight and camera, retrieved the rifle and set out after her.

  He could see her once he rounded the edge of the sandstone cliff, still a couple hundred yards away. Narrowing his eyes, he noted she had a cardboard box tucked under one arm.

  Joe jogged up to meet her. “Funny time to go shopping.”

  She slapped her free hand to her heart, staggered in feigned shock. “A joke from Joe Youngblood? Will wonders never cease?”

  “I joke,” he replied, affronted.

  “Sarcasm doesn’t count. Here.” She thrust the dusty box at him. “I think this fell off that ATV. One of its tires must have blown. I saw pieces of rubber. But this is the only parcel I found.”

  He ripped open the tape holding the flaps shut. Peering inside, he experienced a quick jolt of excitement.

  Syringes. Still encased in their original plastic packaging.

  She voiced his inner question. “What would he have been doing with a box of syringes?”

  “Probably nothing legal.” He took the box from her and headed back to the bluffs. She fell into step beside him. “Which explains why they wanted to keep you out of here.”

  “They?”

  “There’s been a lot of activity here recently. I don’t know what kind of operation you stumbled on, but whatever it was, someone went to a lot of pains to hide it.”

  “So good work, Delaney, on leading me back here,” she said in a painfully bad imitation of his voice. “Say, did I remember to congratulate you on finding that box? I didn’t? Well, gee, I guess that makes me a g
reat big…”

  “Good job.” His lips twitched, but he wouldn’t let himself smile. No use encouraging her. “I need to take another look inside that cave before we leave. I didn’t see any used syringes in there, but there’s plenty of litter. I may have missed something.”

  Delaney followed him to the entrance of the cave, then looked around, prepared to wait. Joe set the box and rifle down, then in one motion rose and swiped the gun she still held in her hand.

  “Hey!”

  Ignoring her protest, he shoved the gun in the waistband of his jeans. “I prefer to keep track of all the weapons myself. Call me paranoid.”

  “That’s not the first adjective that springs to mind.”

  He gave her a hard look, but said only, “I won’t be long. Don’t wander off.”

  His orders were starting to wear thin. “Maybe you’d like to tether me to one of the rocks,” she suggested politely. But when he disappeared into the cave without responding, she sighed, scanned the ground carefully and then sat down. She’d known spending any amount of time in his presence was going to be a strain, but it was probably better this way. When she was thinking of how much he annoyed her she wasn’t considering the way his jeans hugged his narrow hips, or the inverted V made by shoulders tapering to waist.

  Much.

  He’d been inside about five minutes when he called out, “Delaney. Come in here a minute, will you?”

  She looked up from the drawing she’d been making with her index finger on the sandy ground. “What?”

  His voice was more impatient now. Imagine that. “I need you to come hold this light.”

  Staring blankly at the entrance of the cave, she swallowed hard. “In…there?”

  No way. Though her body remained frozen in place, her mind was scrambling for safety. Absolutely not. A cave was closed. Confined. The walls would press in. The air would get scarce.

  As if oxygen were already in short supply, she hauled a greedy gulp of it into her lungs as she struggled to her feet. Her brain shouted Run! Still she didn’t move. Couldn’t.

  Joe reappeared in the cave’s entrance. “What’s the matter? You aren’t afraid of bats, are you? Because there aren’t that many of them. The activity scared them off.”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “Well then, come on.”

  It was worse, ten times worse with him standing there staring at her. Delaney struggled to keep her face expressionless. To keep the panic that was sprinting up her spine from showing. A man like him could never understand. Had Joe Youngblood ever been afraid of anything? Doubtful. Fear made you weak, and she couldn’t imagine him ever feeling weakness.

  Which made her doubly reluctant to show it in front of him.

  She took a step forward, half-surprised when her foot moved. Another step. Then another. She was even with the entrance of the cave now, and its opening threatened, like a toothless mouth ready to swallow her whole. She stopped next to him, took the flashlight he handed her, then watched him retreat into the near darkness.

  Don’t think about it. Just do it.

  Some post-traumatic stress therapists recommended just this sort of thing, she recalled as she inched farther and farther into the cave. A desensitization experience, under safe conditions, could lay fears to rest for good. And this was safe. Perfectly safe.

  She looked over her shoulder. The entrance was still there, the low dusk light spilling inside. There was an escape route. It was all right. She’d be all right.

  “I need the light over here.”

  Delaney followed his voice, trying to ignore the shadows crowding in, surrounding her. She concentrated on the beam of the flashlight before her. The darkness couldn’t engulf her as long as the light held out. Surely they wouldn’t be in here long enough for the flashlight battery to die.

  Joe gripped her shoulders and guided her to the position he wanted, seeming not to notice the stiffness in her limbs. “Point the light at the center of the floor here.” He crouched down, began stacking up empty cartons then moving them quickly out of the way. “The guy on the ATV must have cleared all those boxes out of here, but I have to wonder why. At some point they had a truck out there. Why couldn’t they have used it to haul stuff?”

  “A truck?” Since his words offered a distraction, she seized on them. “Maybe there was something large stored in here that they took away.”

  Joe finished stacking all the bigger empty cartons and bent to sift through the remaining litter on the floor. “More than likely it would have needed to be dismantled before hauling it out of here. You couldn’t manipulate something of any size around those rocks out front.”

  There was a chill in the air, she was almost certain of it. Surely it came from the cool rocks and not from her sweat-slicked skin. She could feel the blood pounding in her veins, and realized with a start that she was panting. The thin tether she had on her control was slipping.

  Joe was saying something, his usual expressionless voice holding a note of excitement, but she couldn’t concentrate on his words. The inner chamber of the cave was shrinking, the walls moving in on them with sly sliding movements. The beam highlighting Joe shook in her fingers. She gripped it more tightly, but couldn’t hold it steady.

  The entrance is still there. There’s a way out. I can just walk out.

  But she couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder, just to be sure. All she could see was the pile of rubbish Joe had stacked.

  Delaney stumbled back, straining to see around the pile. In the dim recesses of her mind she knew the entrance was present. It was only feet away. But the path to escape was blocked. It was blocked.

  Emotion abruptly overcame reason. She bolted. The flashlight released from her numbed fingers, bounced on the hard cave floor and switched off, throwing the interior into complete darkness. She crashed through the makeshift barricade, stumbling over a carton, nearly falling. But she didn’t stop her forward motion toward the entrance. Toward air. Toward freedom.

  She burst out of the cave with dizzying speed, tripped over a rock, went sprawling. Her fall drove the breath from her chest and she lay there, lungs heaving, feeling the still-warm air chase the chill from her skin.

  It was long moments before she could drag herself upright, draw up her knees and rest her forehead against them. Slowly, panic receded, to be replaced by all-too-familiar symptoms. Her head was pounding in the aftermath of the episode, her body weak. Dizzy. It was the height of irony that only hours earlier she’d been congratulating herself for having conquered the panic. For having found her strength again.

  Had she really thought the fears had been driven away? They had only been hiding, waiting until she let her guard down before rushing in to ambush her again. The realization was bitter.

  But more bitter by far was finally raising her head, looking up to see Joe Youngblood gazing down at her, with something suspiciously close to pity on his face.

  Chapter 4

  Captain Tapahe stared at the used syringe in the plastic evidence bag Joe held, his face creased in thought. “It might have been a lucky break for us that Carson stumbled upon the area. If it’s as remote as you say, chances are we never would have known anything was going on there.”

  “Once we get this syringe back from the lab we’ll have a better idea just what kind of operation it was.” Meaningfully he waved the bag at his captain. “Just how long do you think we’ll have to wait for results?”

  At Tapahe’s hesitation, Joe felt a familiar frustration. The Navajo Tribal Police was hopelessly underfunded. There wasn’t enough money to regularly update basic equipment, much less purchase new expensive lab facilities. Most of their forensic evidence was sent off the reservation, to languish at the state crime lab for weeks or longer.

  “It’s not like this ties in with any of our open cases,” the captain began.

  “We can’t know that until the tests are completed,” Joe argued. He hooked a chair with a backward swipe of his ankle and
dragged it over to sink into it. The late nights spent on the drug case were beginning to wear on him, coupled as they were by lack of sleep, which had begun to elude him at precisely the same time his ex had decided to run off to Window Rock with his son. “They might find traces of crystal ice in the syringe.”

  Tapahe nodded. “We’ll send it in. I just can’t flag it as high priority at this point. That doesn’t mean we won’t still get the results eventually.”

  Eventually. Joe swallowed his irritation. Eventually usually meant after a case had gone to trial. He wasn’t going to be able to depend on lab results to help determine what had been going on at that cave site.

  “I got something else.” He showed the captain the photos he’d taken of the tire tracks. “I spent a couple hours on the computer trying to match it against the tire manufacturers’ tire tread images, with no luck. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  Tapahe studied it. “Looks like a Mexican recap, to me. I did a stint on Border Patrol when I was starting out. I think they still do these in some places down there. You salvage a worn-out tire by replacing the original tread with new rubber. They sort of melt it on, pressing a tread into it when the rubber is still soft.”

  “Mexico, huh?” Joe looked at the photo with renewed interest. The crystal ice that had started showing up on Navajo Nation lands was thought to come from there. It was far more pure and lethal than the meth manufactured in the homemade labs in remote areas on the reservation. “I’ve got a friend on Border Patrol. I think I’ll give him a call.”

  “Let me know if you get something. In the meantime-” Tapahe cast a look at the clock on the wall “-I better get back to President Taos. He’ll be reassured to hear that the person shooting at Carson probably wasn’t expressing a statement on the council’s decision to hire a non-Navajo for their book project.”

  At the man’s dry tone it struck Joe that the captain had frustrations of his own. The difference was, his came in the form of bureaucrats and paperwork.