Hunter Moon

by Jenna Kernan

  “I want someone who is working for me—not the tribe. Plus he made it very clear that I’m a suspect in whatever is going on up there.”

  “You?” He laughed right in her face. The sound was hard. “Isabella Nosie? The girl with all As in high school. The good girl, sings in the choir, took over for her dad, helps raise her brothers and has never made a mistake in her life?”

  That was just one step too far. She planted a fist on her hip.

  “I made one.”

  His laughter died and their eyes met. She read the hurt in his expression as her words hit their target. They both knew the mistake she meant. She had loved him.

  Clay sagged back against the truck bed as if she’d slapped him. Izzie felt terrible.

  “I’m sorry, Clay. I didn’t mean it.” Actually, going out with Clay had been the best thing that ever happened to her. Until she’d let her parents run him off. Why hadn’t she stood up for herself?

  Because she’d been sixteen with dreams of college and a career, and, after his mom had been killed by that drunk driver, Clay was so angry and reckless, she barely recognized him. Then her father got sick and she’d made that promise. The next thing she knew, she had become responsible for her brothers and mother, and now she might lose it all.

  “Will you help me?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll just do it myself.”

  She turned to go, and he captured her wrist. She paused and he released her.

  Clay removed his hat and struck it against his leg. His face went bright, with two streaks of color across his prominent cheekbones. Did that mean he did care what happened to her? Her heart fluttered at the possibility, and she cursed herself for a fool.

  Clay regrouped, releasing her as he looked down his broad straight nose at her. He was scowling now and his nostrils flared. He’d never looked more handsome.

  Clay didn’t wear his hair long, like his brothers Kino and Clyne. Neither did he wear it buzzed short like Gabe. Clay chose a length that was neither fashionable, functional nor traditional. His black hair ended bluntly at his strong jawline with bangs that he either swept back or let fall over his piercing eyes. His brow was prominent and his eyebrows thick. His black lashes were long and framed his deep brown eyes. She’d always wondered why he didn’t recognize his model good looks, but Clay seemed unaware of how he turned heads.

  She met his hard stare, gnawing on her lower lip.

  “If you are involved with anything illegal up there, you best tell me right now.”

  She gaped as the shock hit her like a slap. He couldn’t really think she had anything to do with this. Could he?

  He looked serious enough. “Because I will not be dragged into another mess.”

  “I’m not involved with anything illegal.”

  He continued to stare, lips pressed thin and colorless.

  She threw up her hands in disgust. “Okay! I swear! I’m not involved in anything, and all I know is someone cut my fences, half my herd is gone, I’m missing cattle and now I owe a fine.”

  “What is it you want me to do, exactly?” he asked.

  “Check the fields for tracks. Tell me everything you can. Maybe poke around in the upper pasture.”

  “The crime scene, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty bucks?”

  He shook his head. “I want a cow for my sister’s Sunrise Ceremony.”

  “Your sister?” Some of the fight drained out of her, replaced by shock. Izzie touched the gold crucifix, rubbing it between her thumb and index finger before letting it drop. “I thought Jovanna was...”

  “So did we. She’s not. Just missing. We are going to find her.”

  Izzie absorbed that bit of news. It was really none of her business, but she remembered the bright and happy little girl who left with her mother for her first contest and never came back. If they could find her, they’d need every bit of that cow to feed all the company and relatives who would attend. A homecoming and a Sunrise Ceremony. Goodness, there would be hundreds of people.

  “She’s been gone a long time,” said Izzie.

  Clay said nothing to that.

  “All right, then.”

  He replaced his hat. They were close to a deal. Once she’d known him intimately. But then he had been a boy. This man before her had become a stranger.

  He made a sound of frustration in his throat.

  When he met her gaze, she braced, knowing he had reached a decision. And also knowing that once Clay Cosen settled on a course it was nearly impossible to change his mind.

  Chapter Three

  When he finally spoke, his voice was tight, clipped and frosty as the snow off Black Mountain.

  “All right. One cow. My pick.”

  It took a moment for Izzie to realize that she had won. She blinked up at Clay, recovered herself and nodded.

  “My pick,” he repeated. “And if you are lying to me or dragging me into something illegal, I will turn you over to Gabe so fast, little brothers or no little brothers.”

  It was a threat that hit home, for while her mother still ran the household, Izzie owned the cattle. It was a sticking point between her and her mother, for her father had left the entire herd to his eldest daughter instead of his wife. Her mother, a righteous woman with a knack for scripture, also had a habit of spending more than her husband could make. And though her father had had trouble telling his wife no, Izzie did not. Which was why she had increased the herd by forty head and also why her mother was equally furious and proud of her. Izzie planned to keep her promise and pass her father’s legacy to her brothers. Up until today she had done well. Up until today when she had lost fifty-one head. Her shoulders slumped a little, but she managed to keep her chin up.

  “That’s a deal.” She stuck out her hand and pushed down the hope that he would take it.

  He stared at her hand and then back to her and then back to her hand. Finally he clasped it. The contact was brief. But her reaction was not. She felt the tingle of his palm pressing to hers clear up to her jaw. Why, oh why did she have to have a thing for this man?

  Clay broke the contact, leaving Izzie with her hand sticking out like a fool. Clay rubbed his palm on his thigh as if anxious to be rid of all traces of their touch. She scowled, recalling a time when things were different.

  “When do we start?” she asked.

  “Sooner is better. Tracks don’t improve with time.”

  “Let’s go, then. We can take my truck.”

  He hesitated, glancing to his vehicle. She followed his gaze, noticing he did not have a gun rack.

  “You want to bring your rifle?”

  “Don’t carry one.”

  She frowned, thinking she had not heard him correctly. Clay hunted. He fished. Surely he had a rifle. It was part of life here. Shooting at coyotes and gophers and rattlesnakes, though she usually took a shovel to the snakes. Everyone she knew carried a firearm. But everyone she knew had not been charged with a crime.

  He was allowed to carry one. His rescue earlier today proved that. Was it because he now knew the difference between robbery and armed robbery?

  “What did you use earlier?”

  “Belongs to the office.”

  She eyed him critically. He didn’t just look different. He was different in ways she could only guess at.

  “You don’t hunt anymore?”

  “Sometimes with my brothers. I mostly fish.” He glanced away, and his hands slid into his back pockets as he rocked nervously from toe to heel, heel to toe.

  Finally he looked up. She met Clay’s gaze, and his expression gave nothing away.

  “Still want my help?” he asked.

  Izzie nodded.
/>   He glanced toward his house, and she realized that he must not have eaten yet, since she’d caught him before he even made it to his front door.

  “I’ll buy you a burger after,” she promised.

  His mouth quirked. “Okay.”

  He strode past his battered pickup toward her newer-model Ram with the double wheels front and back and the trailer hitch behind. Oh, how her mother hated this truck, even though it was a used model.

  Izzie watched Clay pass. His easy gait and graceful stride mesmerized her until she realized he was headed toward the driver’s side. For a minute she thought he meant to drive. Izzie still had two years’ worth of payments on her truck, and nobody drove it but her. But instead of taking the wheel, Clay opened her door for her and stepped back.

  She felt her mouth drop open but managed to hold on as she nodded her thanks and swept inside the cab. He waited a moment and then closed the door before rounding the hood and removing his hat. Then he slid in beside her, hat in his lap. He fiddled with the seat controls, sending his seat as far back as it would go, and still his knees were flexed past ninety degrees. Then he sat motionless as she headed home.

  “Who do you think cut your fences?” he asked as they rolled down the narrow mountain road from his place and toward hers out past Pinyon Lake. Here the forest lined both sides of the road with the pavement creating a narrow gap in the walls of pines.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Anyone threatening you or trying to buy you out?”

  “Buy me out, no.” She remembered something, and she squeezed the wheel. “But my neighbor did ask me out a few times.”

  “Who?”

  “Floyd.”

  Clay straightened. “Floyd Patch? He must be close to forty.”

  She and Clay were both twenty-four. He was born in February and she was born on the same day in March. There was a time she had joked that she liked older men. But that didn’t seem funny right now.

  “He’s only thirty-six.”

  Clay rolled his eyes and brushed the crown of his felt hat, but said nothing. He considered the ceiling of the cab for a long moment. His usual posture, Izzie recalled, when he was thinking.

  She smiled at the familiarity. It seemed that so much about him was the same. But not everything. Izzie steered them onto the main road, deciding to take the long way back to keep from the possibility of encountering her mother on the road. Izzie glanced at the clock, realizing her mother would likely be home because the boys should be climbing off the school’s late bus about now. Clay’s voice dragged her back to the present.

  “Clyne said he was on the agenda a while back. I saw him talking to my boss a time ago about the tribe’s communal pastures.”

  Who was he talking about?

  “Which ones to close for renourishment.”

  Patch, she realized. Her neighbor.

  “I heard Donner say that Patch was asking the council to impose a lottery for grazing permits again.”

  Izzie clenched the wheel. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Lotteries mean ranchers might get grazing land clean on the other side of the reservation.”

  Clay shrugged. He had no horse in this particular race.

  “You think Floyd wants my permits?”

  “Don’t know. But if he can’t get the council to change the way permits are distributed, he could get them by marrying you.”

  Izzie let out a sound of frustration. “Those permits and the cattle don’t belong to me. They are my brothers’.”

  “Whose name is on the permits?”

  Izzie said nothing because they both knew that a minor could not own permits. Of course you had to be of age and Apache to even apply. As long as she didn’t miss the October first application date, which she never did, then the permits were hers until her brother Will was old enough to apply in her place. That was the way it had always been. She hadn’t come up with the system, but now she was starting to wonder if Floyd was indeed interested in her permits.

  She turned on the cutoff that took her up the mountain, and Clay cast her a glance, wondering, no doubt, about her choice of routes. This way wasn’t faster.

  “Daylight is burning,” he said.

  “I know.” She increased her speed and leaned forward, as if that would make them climb the hill quicker.

  “Did you go out with him?”

  She had to think for a minute about who he meant.

  “No. No, of course not.”

  “He’s got twice your herd.”

  “But not enough land to graze them. He’ll have to sell some or apply for another permit.”

  “Or add them to the communal herd.”

  She and Clay shared a concerned look.

  “Can you tell if he is the one who cut the fences?”

  “Maybe.” He toyed with his hat. “Let’s start on the lower pasture?”

  “Sure.” She’d have to drive by the upper area where the shooting had been. Would the police still be there? “Then I want you to see the road and the place where the tribe is taking fill. They’ve leveled a wide area, for their trucks, I guess.”

  “To get at the hillside?”

  “All they told me was that pasture permits didn’t keep them from timbering the forest or exercising mineral rights. But this isn’t timbering. Well, some is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They aren’t choosing which trees to take to thin the forest or clear the brush or whatever. They clear-cut a patch in the middle of the forest about fifty-by-fifty feet.”

  Clay frowned and rubbed the brim of his hat with his thumb and index finger, deep in thought.

  Both she and Clay stretched their necks as they passed the new gravel road leading into the forest, but she saw nothing remarkable and no evidence of police activity. Whoever had shot at them was long gone. They passed the spot where his truck had been parked and arrived a few minutes later at the lower pasture, where most of her remaining cows milled close to the fence.

  Izzie wished she had risked the shorter ride, as the sun was already descending toward sunset. It had been hard to give up the long days of August, but the air was already cool up here at the higher elevations, and so she shrugged into her denim coat, then realized Clay did not have one.

  Clay pointed at her rifle, hooked neatly to her gun rack behind the seats.

  “Take that,” he said.

  She did. He had told her to take one of her rifles but left the second firearm in place. Was that because he knew she was a better shot or for some other reason?

  “You had a gun earlier,” she said checking the load and adding a box of cartridges to her coat pocket for good measure.

  “Have to. Part of my job.” He tried to step past her. She blocked his path. He stopped and faced her.

  “Why don’t you own a gun, Clay?”

  “No one wants to see an ex-con with a rifle in his hands.”

  “But you weren’t charged with a felony. You are allowed to own one, right?”

  “Right.”

  He raked his fingers past his temples and lowered his hat over his glossy black hair that brushed the collar of his shirt.

  “Can we get started?”

  She extended an arm in invitation. He continued, walking the highway, scanning the ground.

  “Do you think the police are done investigating up there?” she asked, indicating the site of the shooting. “I didn’t see any activity.”

  “For the day, maybe. But I’m not poking around in their crime scene.”

  Clay already had his eyes on the ground; she kept hers on the trees far above them, perhaps two miles away. For a shot you would need a scope and some luck to make the target. But still she held her rifle ready as she searched for more gunmen.

  She fo
llowed behind him as he walked the highway. No one drove past. This road was too far from anything or anyone and was rarely used, except for today, of course.

  Clay headed toward the pasture, and all the curious cows that had crowded the fence line fled in the opposite direction. She resisted the urge to count them.

  He had already stepped through the fencing and stood lifting the upper strand of barbed wire to make her passage less difficult. Then he continued on, following some trail clear only to himself. She could see the routes the cows took along the fence line. She followed until he stopped and then glanced past him at the knee-high yellowing grass. The parallel tracks of a small vehicle were clear even to her.

  “What the heck is that?” she said.

  “ATV. Came from up there where the fence was cut. Saw the tracks this morning, but with the shooting, it slipped my mind until you showed up in my driveway. He rode down this way, in a circle, gathering your herd. Cattle tracked that way.” He pointed.

  “He?” she said.

  “Could be a she. Won’t know unless they get out of the vehicle.”

  They walked a bit farther on. The grass was flat by the fence. She could imagine her cattle pressed up against the barbed wire.

  “Stopped here and then headed that way.” He pointed back the way the vehicle had come.

  “What was it doing on my land?” She had a sick feeling in her stomach as she looked at the grass flattened on both sides of the fence line. They’d exited there. But how?

  Clay advanced to the fence and touched one of the wires. It fell, snagging the one below it and bringing that down, as well. Clay pointed to the splice, where someone had reconnected the cut line exactly beside one of the barbs using thin pieces of wire.

  “You’ve been rustled,” said Clay.

  “But they didn’t steal them.”

  “No. Just drove them to the road and called the livestock manager so we’d come scoop up your cows.”

  “Who made the call?”

  “Don’t know. But you best ask and take a few photos of this. You got a phone that does that?”

  She shook her head. Clay withdrew an older model smartphone and began photographing the line and the break and the one remaining patch. Then he photographed the pasture and, for good measure, took a short movie.