by Beverly Bird
“Where did he go? Where’s our grandfather?”
Madeline’s eyes were narrow and searching. “Who knows where he goes? What happened over there with the boy? It wasn’t nothing.”
Ellen shook her head. “No, no, it wasn’t.”
She grabbed her purse and ran back to the arroyo. The first thing she had to do was get Ricky out of here, after all. Then there would be time to find Uncle Ernie.
* * *
The Navajo Nation Inn was packed. It was a weekend, the beginning of tourist season, and cars with out-of-state plates filled nearly every parking space. Ellen stopped in front of the adobe-faced office, but she didn’t turn off the engine.
“Here you are.”
He looked across at her. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She felt something wild and panicked start inside her. She was not going to spend the night here with them. Was that what he was suggesting?
“I’ve got to— ” she began.
“Go. I know. But not yet. You’ve got some explaining to do first.” He pushed open his door. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
She didn’t have much choice. Ricky was sound asleep in her back seat. She could hardly drive off with him.
Dallas was gone nearly ten minutes. She slid down in her seat, resting her head against the back of it. She knew instinctively that she wasn’t going to be able to lie to him about this. When he came back, she was going to have to try to explain the concept of wolfmen. But that was all she would tell him. He was going to have to form any subsequent theories on his own. She sure as hell wasn’t going to mention that she was Ricky’s birth mother and that maybe there was a tie, a connection....
No, she couldn’t tell him that, at least not until she talked to Uncle Ernie and found out one way or the other. Besides, telling him who she was had never been part of her plan. Though when she thought about it, she realized she’d never had a plan. She’d stuck that stupid letter in the mailbox and everything had mushroomed from there. But she knew now, beyond a doubt, that she wasn’t going to make matters worse by opening that whole extra can of worms. The truth would only disrupt their lives. And it wasn’t necessary, assuming that what Ricky saw had nothing to do with her. And considering what Ricky saw and everything else that had happened tonight, she doubted very seriously if Dallas would ever bring him back to the Res anyway.
He pulled open the passenger door and slid into the car beside her. “Room 312,” he said in a clipped tone. “I called your tribal police from the desk. They’ll be out to look at the car in the morning. They don’t feel it’s necessary to go rushing down there tonight since no one was hurt.”
She shrugged noncommittally and let her car coast forward, looking for room 312.
“You people sure don’t hurry about anything, do you?” he went on.
“It’s Navajo time. Half as fast as the rest of the world.”
He made a short, grunting sound as she stopped the car in front of the room.
Ellen didn’t wait for him to order her inside. It wouldn’t do any good to fight him anyway. She would tell him what she knew, then she could get out of here. Go home. Think. It was late. She’d try to find Uncle Ernie tomorrow, in the sunlight. He would probably be somewhere around the Kinaalda site.
Dallas half pulled, half lifted Ricky out of the back seat and carried him to the door. The boy was exhausted; he barely stirred. Dallas shifted Ricky’s weight in his arms in order to dig the room key out of his pocket, then he tossed it in Ellen’s direction.
Ellen opened the door for them and followed them inside. Dallas settled the boy on one of the two double beds. Then he dug in his pockets again for some change.
“Come on.”
“Now where?” she asked wearily.
“There’s got to be a soda machine around here somewhere. I’m thirsty.”
And you don’t want to take the chance of Ricky waking up and hearing us, she thought. Since she didn’t either, she followed him back outside, waiting as he locked the door behind them.
The soda machine was right around the corner in a little breezeway. Dallas pushed in the change and retrieved two cans, handing Ellen one. She drank deeply, then she sighed. She didn’t wait for him to start questioning her.
“He did see something.”
“I was pretty sure of that. I was just trying to downplay the whole thing for his benefit. He’s never been prone to imagining things, although he’s had some pretty wild dreams after playing those video games of his.”
Ellen nodded. “I think it was a wolfman.” She peered at him for his reaction. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if she had struck him.
“One of those witches you were talking about earlier?” he managed.
Ellen set her jaw. It was always like this, trying to explain to someone raised Anglo. First there would be disbelief, then there would be scorn. But anyone raised Navajo knew.
“They’re as inherent and real a part of our culture as the air the People breathe,” she said defensively. “Things happen here in this land, things that don’t happen anywhere else. But you don’t have to believe that. You just have to know that we do.”
His face cleared. She waited for the scorn to come next. To her surprise, it didn’t.
“I’m an architect,” he answered slowly. “I believe in black and white, in angles and squares, in beauty that’s drawn in lines. But I’m willing to concede that not everyone does.”
“Good. Because for a little while here, you’re going to have to try to suspend reality and entertain something more...supernatural.”
“Go on,” he said tightly.
“I told you a wolfman is a Navajo witch. In daylight hours, he’s someone just subtly different from the rest of us. Usually he has too much of something, like sheep or wealth.”
“I’ve noticed you guys aren’t too big on material trappings.”
“Accumulation is against Navajo doctrine.”
“So you embrace poverty.”
He saw something flare in her eyes. “No,” she answered stiffly. “We’re raised to share what we have. If you keep giving things away, you don’t have much left for yourself. We’re raised to take what we need and leave some for the next guy. He might need it more. Poverty isn’t the goal— it’s the result.”
Another interesting concept. Suddenly Dallas realized these Navajo were full of them. It was something else to think about later, back in his condo. But right now he was standing in neon and moonlight with a beautiful woman he had thoroughly enjoyed touching, and she was trying hard to explain something to him that he wasn’t sure he could understand.
Suddenly Flagstaff seemed very far away.
“So,” he prompted with a rough sigh, “wolfmen neglect this doctrine.”
“Among others. They don’t follow the Navajo path. They don’t have hozro.”
“A lot of us are unhappy,” he pointed out. “That doesn’t make us evil.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t if you’re Anglo, because you don’t know any better. But if you’re Navajo, you keep trying to adjust yourself.” Like she had over the years, she thought. “You adapt.” You learn to keep people at arm’s length, she thought, especially the kind of people who can make you hurt again. “Unless you’re a wolfman,” she finished. “Then you don’t care.”
He thought about it. “Okay. I’ll buy that. You obviously know more about your people than I do. What I want to know is why you think what Ricky saw is one of your witches.”
“Because while they’re only marginally different by day, at night they...change. They’re also called skinwalkers or shape changers. At night they can transform themselves into any animal they choose. That’s how they get from place to place to perform their spells.”
He looked startled. “Ricky thought he saw a horse.”
She nodded.
“But it disappeared.”
“They can move very fast, faster than an automobile. They can also fly.”
“That’s what he thought he saw.”
“I know,” she said a little impatiently. “That’s why I’m bothering to tell you all this.”
“So what would a wolfman want with Ricky?”
“I really don’t know. But I’ll talk to Uncle Ernie and try to find out.” Unless it had something to do with her, she thought again. Unless the wolfman knew who she was, knew her tie to the child. Witches knew everything. They saw into the future, into the past.
She shuddered a little. Something in his eyes sharpened. “So what do we do about it?” he asked.
“Take him home,” she answered. “Don’t come back. Heed the message on the car. Whoever the wolfman is, he doesn’t want Ricky on the Res.”
Dallas’s face hardened. “I don’t think I’m willing to do that.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer right away. He put his can down on top of the machine and seemed to move closer to her until it was difficult for her to breathe. She tried not to look at him but he put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to his. His eyes probed hers as though he was searching for something he couldn’t quite name.
“First of all, because that’s what this character obviously wants me to do and I don’t take real well to being scared off,” he said after a moment. “It’s not my nature. I tend to bare my teeth instead and charge right back.” I used to, he thought. And I have for the past week...and damn it, it felt good.
Ellen found she had no problem believing him. Still, she tried to argue. “But if it’s in Ricky’s best interest— ”
“It’s not,” he interrupted. “I won’t teach him to run from trouble, either.”
“You could be endangering him!” she snapped.
“I’d protect him with my life.”
That both shook her and comforted her. She knew intuitively that it was true.
“Why else?” she asked finally. Let it go.
“Because I haven’t felt the way I did dancing with you in a very long time,” he said softly. “And now that I have, I don’t think I can just walk away from that either. Not yet.”
The feeling drained out of her legs. Half of her had hoped he wouldn’t mention it, and the other half had known he would.
“Nothing happened,” she protested.
He shook his head very slowly. “Hey, lady, don’t kid yourself. If there hadn’t been hundreds of people around, if Ricky hadn’t screamed, it damned well would have. And neither one of us would have cared.”
“Not then,” she allowed shakily. “Now. Now I would.”
“Me too, probably. At least I would have thought twice about it afterward.”
“So it’s wrong. For both of us.”
“Maybe.”
“Let it go, Dallas. Just...let it go. I don’t want— ”
“Sure you do. And so do I.”
So he would explore it, he thought, just a little, just enough to find out why it was happening, with her of all people. His hands found her shoulders and he pulled her toward him again, but slowly this time, degree by infinitesimal degree, watching her for her reaction. Panic first...and then something flared in her eyes and her breath caught. The lure of that was too much. For whatever reason, she did something to him, something powerful.
He pulled her the last of the way to him abruptly and hard. One minute she thought she had the chance to stop this, then she no longer wanted to. A small cry got lost in her throat. He moved his hips against her.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked, his voice husky. “We started something back there. I’m kind of curious to see where it takes us.”
“I— ”
He swallowed whatever it was she had been about to say. She hadn’t really thought he would kiss her— something in the tension of his body made her think he wouldn’t cross that line. But then his hands moved from her shoulders, into her hair, holding her head still as his mouth came down and covered hers.
Eight years, she thought, eight years since a man had touched her like this, and he had really been just a boy. And this time it wasn’t an accident like when they had fallen in the arroyo; it wasn’t a dance. It was real and deliberate and she knew she had to take a stand.
She hadn’t thought he’d use his tongue, either, but he did, the pressure of his mouth forcing her own wider so that he could sweep inside.
He moved his hands to her hips, turning them both around so that they stumbled back against the wall, mouths clinging. He pressed into her again, pinning her there hard. She was vaguely aware of the concrete against her spine, of the full weight of him crushing her breasts, making them ache. All the rest of her senses were concentrated on the feeling of his mouth on hers. He lifted his head to bite her bottom lip. She was startled, but before she could react to the hurt of it, his tongue slid over it, soothing it. She began to shake with wanting him.
And then his hands came up to cover her breasts.
She jumped at the contact, desire and horror tangling inside her, each demanding that she heed them. But he didn’t really do anything, she thought, rationalizing why she didn’t pull away. He didn’t run his fingers over her nipples. He didn’t do any of the things that might have terrified her, might have driven her past control. He only held her, his touch very still, as though he was simply exploring the feel and weight of her in his hands.
Three years, Dallas thought, yet the need had never bothered him before. Now it was driving, intense— he had to taste her, had to find his way into the warm, damp recesses of her mouth. He slanted his head sideways, hungrily, for better access, sweeping his tongue past her teeth.
In one part of his mind he wondered what he would do if someone walked around the corner and found him groping at her like this, like a teenager. But stronger than that was the memory of her bending over when they had been back at the Kinaalda, of that chain swinging and nestling, swinging and nestling, and he’d had to touch her, had to know if he had been right. He was. Her breasts were a perfect handful, full and firm.
He heard himself groan against her mouth and he finally splayed his fingers to cover her more completely. Involuntarily, his fingers clenched.
That terrified her. Ellen finally pulled her mouth away from his, gasping. “This is crazy! I don’t want this!”
“You could have fooled me,” he answered hoarsely.
She got her hands up to his chest and pushed hard. They stumbled apart a few steps and she dodged around him. Then she turned and ran. She didn’t care that her purse was still in his room. Her keys were in her car. Getting away from him, from the threat of him and the temptation was all that mattered. She groped for the door handle and yanked at it.
“See you in the morning,” he said quietly. His voice was strained and she noticed that he didn’t try to stop her.
She ducked into the car, throwing one last wild look back at him. He raked a hand through his dark curls, then he plunged his hands into his pockets to watch her go. She thought he looked like a man who had just witnessed a magic trick and couldn’t for the life of him figure out how it had been done.
She found the keys and twisted them in the ignition. Start, start, please, start. It did and she shot the gearshift into reverse, stomping on the gas.
“No way,” she whispered again. “This is crazy. No more.”
Chapter 7
She was still saying that two days later.
“Absolutely not. No way. I just won’t do it. I don’t care what he wants—he can’t just pull my string and expect me to salute.”
Ellen was seated on the opposite side of Barbara Bingham’s desk, in the chair that Dallas had used over a week before. The high heels that Ellen had returned to her after the sing sat perched beside Barbara’s blotter, dust still clinging to them like a red patina. Ellen glared at them as if they were somehow responsible for this nightmare. In a way, they were. If Ernie hadn’t accosted Barbara, the woman might be more willing to oversee the remaining visitations.
But she wasn’t, and Dallas didn’
t want her anyway. He was throwing his weight around, demanding Ellen’s presence. Who did he think he was?
“It makes sense,” Barbara mused. “You’ve developed a rapport with them.”
“I have not.”
“For heaven’s sake, he just called to say you left your purse in his motel room.” Her voice was vaguely censorious.
Ellen jumped out of the chair. “You’re hearing a rattle and seeing snakes, but it’s only the wind going through the branches,” she snapped. “Okay. One more time. His car was vandalized at the Kinaalda. You more or less left me in charge when you took off, so I gave him a lift up to Shiprock. That’s it.”
“Maybe where you’re concerned. He says he wants you to be there next weekend.”
“Who died and left him in charge of this whole affair? The other parents don’t get to snap their fingers and have everything their own way!” she said exasperatedly.
“Mr. Lazo got involved in this Tsosie issue in a unique manner,” Barbara reminded her, a mild rebuke. “His whole situation is unique. I’ve contacted the commission and they’re willing to let you supervise these visitations, given your existing involvement. Ricky knows you. He’s barely met me.” She eyed her shoes. “Not to mention the fact that I simply cannot leave this orphanage unattended for two days to run all the way out to Vaughn.”
Ellen stopped pacing to stare at her. “Two days? Why two?”
“Well, it’s quite a drive to that Bosque Redondo place. Especially for the Lazos.”
“So let them stay overnight. It’s only a six-hour drive for me.”
“So you’ll do it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I don’t believe you have a choice.”
Anger and frustration were beginning to make her head hurt. Panic made her want to cry. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t spend two more days with Dallas Lazo. Barbara didn’t know what she was asking.
Ellen wanted him, and he wouldn’t let her hide from it. He pulled things from her she didn’t want to feel. He bullied her, damn it, and she was a woman who rarely let that happen any more.