A Man Without a Wife

by Beverly Bird

  Ellen had refused to get into the back seat where she couldn’t see, so they had crowded onto the front passenger seat together. It had been against his better judgment then, and it was now. Even as dread made his heart move sickly, he was aware of the warm weight of her, of her thigh pressed against his left one. Every once in a while she was forced to reach down and brace a hand against his knee. He found he was glad she was with him, was strengthened by her fierce determination.

  He wanted to wrap his arms around her. He wanted to push her away. He felt so damned betrayed.

  “Do we have any idea at all where we’re going?” he asked harshly.

  “I’ve got a few hunches,” Mac answered. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “What kind of hunches?” Ellen demanded, her voice as husky as warm velvet.

  “Well, for starters they were talking about putting that power plant northwest of Shiprock, right?” Mac asked. “I thought I read something about it pulling water from the San Juan.”

  “Yes,” Ellen agreed, her voice stronger. “I read that, too.”

  “I’d guess that if Ozzie is behind this Saguaro thing, then he probably has some ties to the country he’s going to stick it in.”

  “Maybe he owns land there,” Dallas contributed, but Mac shook his head.

  “It’s Res land. No one owns it, and everybody owns it, except us Anglos living here by marriage. But if he’s chosen it for the plant site, then he must be familiar with it. Maybe his people are from that area.”

  “Is there anything out that way big enough to burn the way Ernie said?” Dallas asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah, there is,” Mac answered slowly. “There’s a ruins site outside Teec Nos Pos. I never worked it because it looked shallow, but I checked it out a few months ago when I was leaving Kokopelli’s Canyon and looking for a new dig nearby. I ended up going to Chaco, but I remember some storage building being there—some warehouse or something. It struck me because it didn’t belong. It’s outside of town about seven miles, maybe six miles east of the ruins I looked at. And the ruins are in a canyon that’s as long as a highway. It snakes sort of eastward. Maybe it wanders right on up to the warehouse. I don’t know. I didn’t go down that far inside it.”

  Ellen’s heart thumped. She leaned forward to peer through the windshield and felt Dallas’s warmth press into her from behind. Then she gasped and felt hot tears pool in her eyes all over again. Thank you, Holy Ones, thank you.

  Dallas made a groaning sound beside her. The sky ahead of them was faintly orange. It was far too late for a sunset. Something was burning, something just a few miles ahead.

  “Faster,” Ellen urged Mac. Finally, finally, she felt Dallas touch her again. A strong arm closed around her waist, his hand gripping her left arm. She wondered if he was even aware of doing it.

  Then there was no time to care, because they were closer and something was burning. The sky wasn’t just orange, it was alive with flames, an inferno feeding upon itself. Every once in a while the fire would seem to twist, flaring with explosions that came from inside it. Even as they watched, it briefly took the shape of a building—a warehouse. Then the roof beams seemed to explode, sending up a shower of sparks.

  Mac brought the Explorer to a careening stop. It bounced and lurched. Ellen shoved at Dallas. He finally found the door handle and pushed, and she spilled out of the truck behind him, looking around wildly.

  She didn’t see a canyon.

  The last of the sparks descended on her like a gentle fiery rain. She gasped and swatted at them.

  “This way,” Mac said. “I think the hole would be over this way.”

  He took off ahead of them, then Dallas gained speed and was right behind him. Ellen ran, trying to catch them. When she reached the arroyo Mac had remembered, she tripped hard onto her hands and knees, gasping for breath. Ahead of her, she saw Dallas plunge down the side.

  “No!” she screamed, but it was too late. She remembered the way he had fallen in the Kinaalda arroyo a lifetime ago, and she had a sense that this one was deeper. The land all around was far more rugged. He wouldn’t make it, she realized, didn’t know how this land could twist, jut, impede. She got up again, her breath ragged and painful, and went after him.

  She heard him curse when she was halfway down the slope. Her blood went cold. “What? What happened?”

  “Come here,” he said hoarsely. “Over here. Give me a hand.”

  She found him at the bottom. She struggled to help him up, then started running again and realized that he wasn’t behind her. She stopped, looking back desperately. He was limping.

  “Oh, my God,” she moaned. “You did hurt yourself.”

  “Just let me lean on you. I’m fine.”

  “No.” She shook her head frantically. “Dallas, let me go. There’s no time. Let me find him. You can catch up.”

  He looked at her for a long time, too long. It felt like an eternity as her heart hurtled and every instinct she possessed screamed and railed at her to find Ricky. But she held herself still and met his eyes, deferring to him though it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

  I love him, Dallas. I’d die before I let anyone hurt him. “I can get to him faster,” she breathed instead.

  He’s my kid—mine. Go away and stop tangling up my life, damn it. We did just fine without you and we’ll do just fine again. But she was right. She would be able to find him much more quickly without him.

  “Yeah,” he said instead, though he’d never meant to. “Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Ellen ran. Where was Mac? She had lost him. The canyon spread out ahead of her, black upon black. The warrior’s moon had changed now and there was only a thin white light from the orb in the sky. Shadows shifted all around her, dangerously, mocking her.

  A little boy could be anywhere, in any one of them, she thought wildly, and she didn’t dare call out for him. Where was Ozzie? Was he even still human? Had he changed yet?

  She slowed to a walk, creeping, listening, her ears straining, but all she could hear was the thunder of her own heart. The canyon floor was littered and gnarled with rabbitbrush and juniper and cottonwoods. She moved into the sandy wash bottom at the center, glancing left, right, then straight ahead again. What was she looking for? Then she heard it—a low rumble, a quiet growl, right behind her.

  The hair on her nape lifted and every Navajo instinct she possessed had her muscles turning to water. She cried out in spite of herself and whirled. Twin eyes, too red, too malevolent, peered out from the shadows in the wash bottom. They seemed to gleam with fury and with something else, too—with an evil kind of glee. The wolfman. She made a thin, mewling sound of terror.

  She could no longer think of him as Calvin Ozzie. Ozzie was a man she had seen occasionally in the Navajo newspaper. He was real. This...this horror, was something else, something from her native childhood, something she had heard of but had never seen. It was what she had been taught to fear as deeply as death, evil, badness, everything that went against the Navajo way. And now, dear Holy Ones, it was snarling at her.

  At her. Not at Ricky. The realization leaped at her like a single flash of sanity before her fear muddled everything again. If he was concerned with her, then he would leave Ricky alone.

  She moved toward the animal—a wolf. Jericho had been right, she thought wildly. And then she remembered what Uncle Ernie had said about love protecting the child.

  “You can’t have him,” she whispered desperately. “You’ve already lost him. It’s too late. We’re here now, and we love him.”

  The snarling came louder.

  “That was you in de Chelly, wasn’t it?” she realized suddenly, understanding. She gave a wild, little laugh. “That badger was you. And you ran because we were stronger. Because we love him more than you hate him. Until you took him from Flagstaff, you couldn’t even get him alone. And when you did get him alone you were too worried about where your damned pictures were to kill him right away. And now it
’s too late, because we’re back. We’re back, and we’ve already shown the pictures to everybody.”

  The wolf moved. At first he was just a low, crouching form in the shadows in front of her, his eyes bright, but suddenly he came up, his hackles rising, his teeth bared, glimmering wetly in the moonlight.

  Ricky was behind her.

  She knew it instinctively, suddenly, as certainly as she knew her own name. He was somewhere behind her and the wolfman had to go past her to get to him, and he could...he could, because there was only one of her and he could run so fast, as fast as he had to.

  Suddenly a memory came to her, old, forgotten, one she had deliberately blotted out long ago. And it was a flash, too, like realizing that as long as she kept him occupied he would forget about Ricky. She saw herself sitting outside that cave, in darkness like this, feeling Ricky roll inside her, the swell of her belly moving like a wave. Staring at it, transfixed and amazed, putting a hand there, feeling it, life, her child. Then there was another memory, his black eyes still squeezed closed, his hair damp and flattened against his skull, the nurse carrying him away from her.

  She screamed and threw herself at the wolf.

  One more chance. She had one chance to make it right again, to put everything back the way it had been before she’d written the letter. She lunged reflexively, grabbing for the animal’s scruff, knowing she’d never be able to hold him. She wasn’t strong enough. But the wolf went still for a moment, stunned, and she groped for his neck, squeezing.

  He turned his fury on her. She held on anyway, sobbing now. She had to do this. For once in her life, she couldn’t fail, couldn’t take the wrong turn for the right reasons. She felt claws rake down her ribs and she screamed again at the pain, then his teeth closed at her throat. She felt her blood gush and she twisted her head back and forth, back and forth. Get away! Then she was holding only air.

  She staggered to her feet, the blood, hot and slick, sliding down her throat, to her chest, but she found the strength to scream again for Dallas. Somewhere, in all that darkness, he was out there.

  “Get him! He’s going after him! This way!”

  She ran again, stumbled to her knees, and struggled up as she heard footsteps. Whose? Was it Dallas or Ozzie? She knew Ozzie had changed again.

  There was a rustle in front of her. Ellen froze. The juniper in front of her moved, rattled and Ricky popped out.

  “Ellen? What are you doing here? What was that animal? Are you hurt?”

  They were the sweetest words she had ever heard in her life, the only words she thought she ever needed to hear. She swayed with them, then she closed the distance between them, grabbing him, hauling him close. Finally she saw Ozzie on the other side of the squat, little tree.

  She screamed again and pushed Ricky behind her. There was a flash and a cracking sound at the same time, and she thought crazily, briefly, that the fire at the warehouse must be getting worse. Then she felt the pain, red-hot and shattering, radiating out from her shoulder. She could barely stand any more. The hurt was everywhere and her knees felt like air, and every time her heart beat her vision blurred with it.

  Finally she understood what had happened.

  Ozzie had shot her.

  Chapter 18

  Somehow she found the strength to keep Ricky behind her. He was wild with indignation, trying to get to Ozzie.

  “Geez, why’d you shoot her? She didn’t do anything! She didn’t take your stupid pictures!”

  Ozzie brought the gun up again.

  Ellen finally fell, dragging Ricky down beneath her. She felt someone pulling at her, trying to take him away from her and she screamed again, twisting to fight. It was only Dallas. He moved in front of both of them but she could still see Ozzie. And then she saw Mac barreling out of the darkness, hitting Ozzie from behind, taking him down.

  The gun flew from his hand. She groaned and crawled for it even as Dallas joined Mac. There was nothing wrong with his hands or arms. Ellen saw one blow take the man in the stomach, another crack up beneath his jaw. But she had no more strength, couldn’t hold on. Darkness pressed in on her vision and she heard Ricky’s voice like a muted echo from another room as she pulled the gun beneath her.

  “Hey, Dad, he didn’t hurt me. I got away from him. Don’t kill him.”

  The world was black. Ellen swam through it, through too many shadows, knowing she couldn’t be in this place, wherever she was. She needed to get back, needed to get to Ricky, to Dallas, to tell them...something.

  She felt pressure against her shoulder, and something else leaning hard into the side of her throat. She fought it fitfully.

  “We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Dallas said.

  “No time.” Was that Mac’s voice? She tried to open her eyes and see, but she couldn’t find the energy. She heard Dallas swear, then Mac spoke again.

  “Unless I badly miss my guess, Cat and Shadow and the babies are still at the trailer. Come on, grab her arms. I’ve got her legs. We’ll take her to the clinic. Ricky! Your job is to keep your dad’s shirt pressed against her throat there.”

  He can change again. That was what she needed to tell them. It wasn’t over. Ozzie could go back into an animal. Dallas was Anglo—he wouldn’t remember that. Mac wouldn’t either.

  They lifted her, carried her, and pain shot through her all over again, leaving red-white starbursts behind her eyes. Then the light started flashing. She remembered the fire and finally managed to open her eyes.

  But it wasn’t the warehouse. The building had burned all it could burn, she realized as they got her back up the slope. It was just embers now, the few remaining flames no taller than a man. The light she had seen was police cars. Tribal-police cars.

  She closed her eyes again. Sleep now...she could go to sleep. The cops were Navajo. They would know what to do with Ozzie.

  * * *

  The next time she opened her eyes, she was in the clinic on a table in one of the exam rooms. It felt ungodly hard beneath her back.

  She struggled to sit up and Dallas came into her line of vision. She thought his hands trembled when he pushed her back down again.

  “Don’t. And don’t be stubborn about it.”

  There was something awkward about his voice, something different, and then she remembered. Not the nightmare in the canyon—that was something she doubted she would ever forget. But his anger came back to her, the fact that he thought she had betrayed him, that things weren’t the same any more because he knew who she was, that things would never be the same between them again.

  Pain shimmered through her, not as physical as that radiating out from her shoulder and her throat, but just as real and breathtaking. She stopped fighting his restraint. There was no sense in getting up, because there was nowhere she particularly wanted to go.

  Saint Catherine’s face replaced Dallas’s. Ellen saw that she held a syringe.

  “No! I have to—”

  Cat stuck it into her arm anyway.

  She felt darkness swimming in on her again. She had to fight it. “Ricky?” she asked. “Ozzie?”

  Dallas came back. “Ozzie is wherever you guys take wolfmen, I guess,” he answered. “The cops have him. They were going to get Uncle Ernie to do something or other to demobilize him.”

  “The cops... How’d the cops get there?”

  Mac’s voice answered from a corner of the room she couldn’t see. “My wife took over after I left. She called them and tipped them off.”

  “How’d they know where to go?”

  “Chopper,” Dallas said. “They found the fire from the air and radioed in to tell the cars where we were.”

  She nodded. Too much darkness, she thought, and it was coming back too fast now. “Where’s Ricky?”

  “Right here,” came his voice, but she couldn’t see him either. “You should have seen yourself, Ellen, fighting with that wolf. It was like a movie!”

  “Take him home, Dallas,” she managed.

  “What?” He h
ad to lean closer to hear her. And impossibly she smelled it, very faint, very distant, but lingering on his skin—that cologne, sharp and clean and strong.

  She thought that more than anything else, that was what she would remember about him forever.

  She couldn’t watch again, couldn’t stand it this time, couldn’t see Ricky go. Because this time he would go with Dallas. This time he would go with her whole entire world.

  “Take him home,” she said again. “Tuck him in, safe and sound. Make...everything right again. That’s all I wanted.”

  She didn’t think he would argue with her and she was right. She was releasing him from any responsibility toward her, making it easy, and they both knew it.

  He let out a rough breath and said something that sounded like “Thank you,” but he was already moving away from her and she couldn’t be sure. Then the darkness surrounded her again completely, and somehow she knew he was gone.

  * * *

  They let her out of the hospital on Tuesday. It was election day, but neither Shadow nor Ellen was voting. Ellen supposed, when everything was said and done, they didn’t need to. They’d already pretty much had their say in the matter.

  Shadow and the babies were in the maternity ward, three floors above her. Madeline and Martin, Cat and Jericho, Mac and Ernie, had been riding the elevator back and forth for the better part of three days. Their company was alternately annoying and blessed, Ellen thought, struggling with the clean jeans someone had brought her.

  The door swished open behind her. Her heart leaped so hard it hurt. She hopped around on one foot, but it was only Saint Catherine.

  “Need help?” Cat asked neutrally.

  “No,” Ellen answered automatically. “Will you just go away?”

  “I can’t, not if you want to be released. I’m your doctor.”

  Ellen sat down hard on the side of the bed. One of these days, she thought, she was really going to have to thank her for saving her life. It was getting to be a habit. Cat had already done it once when she had contracted the mystery disease that had been killing people all over the Res. Ellen sighed and rubbed her temples.