Hunter Moon

by Jenna Kernan

  “...ruin her reputation and call into question every blasted decision that I make all in one... You hearing me, son?”

  Clay collected his wandering thoughts and nodded as his fist tightened on the stiff coils of rope. He never meant to hurt Izzie, but his boss saying that kissing him would ruin her reputation didn’t sit well, even if it were true. So he said nothing, because he needed this job and wasn’t likely to get another.

  His boss knew his way around cows and also politics. Donner had kept his job by staying neutral in contentious issues and staying out of controversial decisions. But if you asked him, he’d only say that he didn’t set tribal policy, he just enforced it.

  “Did you know that your uncle Luke and I were teammates?”

  Played basketball together, Clay knew.

  Donner continued. “He assured me that you’d do the job and not cause me a lick of trouble.” Donner glanced at him for a long moment before returning his attention to the road. “You’ve caused me more than a lick already.”

  Clay stilled, waiting to hear that he’d be fired.

  “I’m real sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

  “Your actions reflect on you and your family, Clay. Now they also reflect on me. You should know that by now.”

  He sure did. Clyne was a tribal council member. Gabe was chief of police. Even his younger brother was a patrolman. While Clay’s claim to fame was spending eighteen months in a juvenile detention center and six months looking for work before his uncle intervened. Why had Donner said yes?

  Donner had accepted his uncle Luke’s request to hire Clay when no one else would. Now Clay wondered if his boss had acted to help an old friend or to curry favor from an up-and-coming FBI officer and war hero.

  Clay’s uncle was everything Clay was not. He had a clean record, no skeletons in his closet. He’d distinguished himself in Afghanistan and was recruited into the FBI. He had prestige, position, influence, power and the respect of everyone on the Rez.

  Clay wondered again if it was possible to regain what he had lost that night on Highway 4.

  He’d made a mistake. But would he be forever marked by that error like a cow after contact with a hot branding iron?

  Clay thought it might be different after he’d come back from the Shadow Wolves. Being a member of that elite tracking unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried some serious distinction. But not for Clay. Things here were the same as always, and folks just assumed that Clyne or Uncle Luke or Gabe had asked someone else to throw Clay a bone.

  He watched the pastures roll along. This was Floyd Patch’s grazing area. Rocky with clumps of woods and farther from the stream that cut through Izzie’s property. Floyd had to dig a well for water.

  “One more thing, son.”

  He turned his attention back to Donner.

  “If you are right about the activity up top, well, Izzie might be involved.”

  He blinked in stunned surprise. When he found his voice it was to issue a denial. “She’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  He didn’t of course. But he did know Izzie. “She’s never been involved with that sort of thing. Never.”

  “Well, here’s something to chew on—her mother once had a gambling problem, which is why her dad left her.”

  Clay didn’t know Izzie’s dad had ever left her mom.

  “Then she found God and blah, blah, they got it worked out. But he left the herd to Izzie. Too much for one little gal, my opinion, but that’s not my business. Word is that her mom’s got some unpaid debts. People with financial trouble can make some bad choices.”

  Clay sank back into the seat. Was it possible? Was Izzie’s mom still a gambler? Did Izzie have unpaid debts? Clay didn’t want to believe it, but he’d learned from hard experience that things were not always what they seemed.

  “Don’t hitch your wagon to that horse, son. Right now, Izzie is in trouble, and she is trouble. Best keep your distance.”

  When a friend was in trouble, wasn’t that when they needed you? Clay remembered when everyone he counted on had left him. But not his family. They had stuck.

  A tribal police car passed them, pulling in front of their truck and leading them the rest of the way to the Nosie place.

  Donner turned the wheel with a grunt, and they headed up Izzie’s drive. They passed a police unit parked by the fence. Pizarro pulled beside it, and Donner stopped in the drive.

  Izzie stood before the gate. She had all the cattle in the lower pasture and waited by the fence, her face stoic and her posture erect. Clay’s heart hitched at the sight of her, alone with only one hired hand, Max Reyes, to help her. Must have taken them all morning to round them up.

  “Any results on the blood work on her cows?” asked Clay.

  “That’s between your brother, Gabe and the state. We just do as we’re told.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come on. Jeez, I hate this part.”

  He’d expected to see Gabe there, but it was Kino waiting in the squad car. He stepped out as Donner descended. Clay hung back with Kino as Donner and Izzie exchanged a few words. Donner handed over the order of collection.

  He and the other two boys got to work. They didn’t need the horses or ATV. Just used their lariats to shoo the herd to the truck. Clay drove the first load in with his coworker, Roger Tolino, riding shotgun. Once they had them in the tribal quarantine area, they returned for the second load.

  Izzie clutched the order of removal in her hand like a stress ball, watching in silence as they gathered her remaining cows. Beside her, her mother smoked a cigarette and focused her attention on Clay and the distance he kept from Izzie.

  Clay had never seen Izzie look more downcast, not even after Martin’s death. Then, at least, she had wept. Now she stared like a woman in shock. He wanted to go to her, comfort her. The urge to do so was strong and unrelenting.

  But he couldn’t.

  Still his eyes found her often. Izzie did not look at him. She had her attention only on her disappearing herd.

  Gabe arrived, and he and Kino spoke by the fence. His brothers did not help or speak to him as he did his job and they did theirs. Clay and the others went to work loading up the remaining eighteen-odd cows. But before Clay climbed back in the cab, Gabe pulled him aside.

  “Grandma is worried about you,” he said.

  “I’m all right.” But he wasn’t. His heart hurt for Izzie, and he felt as he had after the trial when the records were sealed because of his age. It would be better, they all said. But it wasn’t. In the vacuum of knowledge, folks had just made up their own stories, theories, speculation. Most were worse than what had actually happened. At least in the versions he had heard, he didn’t come out looking like a damned fool.

  Which was worse—to look a criminal or a fool?

  They’d be doing the same to Izzie soon. Her name would be linked either to drug activity on her land or bovine sickness. Which was worse?

  The girl with the sterling reputation was about to take her first trip through the mud.

  Clay should find some satisfaction in that. His reputation was the reason she’d cited for breaking them up. But Martin had had her parents snowed. They’d believed he was a gentleman. He hadn’t been. Still, you didn’t speak badly about the dead.

  Gabe cleared his throat, and Clay returned his attention to his brother.

  “Grandma says she wants you to come to supper tonight.”

  “All right.”

  Gabe turned to go, and Clay reached out, clasping his elbow, drawing him back.

  “Any results from the state?”

  Gabe glanced around as if seeing who might overhear. Then he walked away without a word.

  But Kino lingered, then spoke. “Asphyxiation,” Kino said. “No bloo
d work yet.”

  “Mechanical or...?”

  “Clay, it’s an ongoing investigation. Okay?”

  Kino gave him a pained look as Gabe, now Kino’s boss, retraced his steps, coming to a stop beside Kino.

  “Her cows aren’t sick, are they?” asked Clay.

  Gabe adjusted his felt hat so the brim shaded his eyes that now glittered like a hawk’s. “Stay out of it, Clay,” said Gabe. “It’s bad business.”

  Chapter Eight

  Izzie waited in her pickup outside the offices of the tribal livestock manager because Clay had called. Left a message. Said it was important.

  Finally Clay appeared, carrying a saddle over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. She straightened and stared, drinking him in like a glass of cool water on a hot day. It was well past five. His clothing was dirt-smeared and dusty. He tossed his saddle in his truck and removed his work gloves.

  She slid out of her pickup. At the sound of the door closing, he turned in her direction.

  His brow quirked and a smile played on his lips. But it vanished by the time she reached him. He smelled of horse and sweat. Why did she find even that appealing?

  Clay propped himself against the closed gate of his battered truck. He was tall and handsome, his dark eyes glittering as he looked her up and down. Did he notice that she’d changed out of her work shirt and into a gauzy peasant blouse? That her jeans were clean and her lips glossed? Izzie swallowed back her nervousness. This was about business, she reminded herself. Yet she had taken time to brush out her long hair. Now she was embarrassed that she had dressed as if going on a date. She tucked her hands in her back pockets as her heart fluttered and kept walking until she was close enough to see his long lower lashes brushing his cheeks.

  “You wanted to speak to me?”

  He nodded. “You look pretty.”

  So he noticed. She blushed.

  “Want to go somewhere more private?” she asked and then thought her words sounded like an invitation she had not meant to extend.

  His brow quirked again.

  “I mean, so we won’t be interrupted.” She pressed her hand to her forehead as she made matters worse. What was wrong with her? She didn’t generally trip over her own tongue. Must be the lip gloss.

  Clay chuckled. “I know what you mean, Isabella. My truck or yours?”

  “Mine.”

  “Good choice.” He extended his hand, and she led the way. He scooped up his saddle and followed, dropping the gear into her truck bed. She glanced at it and then to him.

  “Some things have been going missing around here.”

  “Ah.” She reached for her door, and he beat her there, opening it for her. She could get used to this, Izzie thought, as she slipped behind the wheel. He rounded the hood, giving her time to admire his easy gait and powerful frame. The good girl after the town’s bad boy. The cliché made her wince. But she’d never gotten over him or her body’s reaction every time she got near him.

  She pressed a hand to her flushed face as he swept up into the cab.

  “The quarry?” he asked, instantly choosing the place where they had spent happier days.

  “Sure.”

  The drive took only fifteen minutes, but it felt like forty as the silence stretched. She actually blew out a breath of relief when she put her truck in Park. They walked side by side to the water and sat on the log everyone used as a bench to watch their friends leap from the top of the quarry into the deep water below.

  “Do I make you that nervous, Izzie?” he asked.

  “Clay, I’m all tangled up around you.”

  “Because of Martin?”

  And there it was, the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, the topic they had never spoken about.

  “There is a lot about Martin and me that you don’t know,” she said.

  “That so?”

  “I thought you wanted to talk about my cattle.”

  “Sure. My brother tells me that the three we found up on the hill all died of asphyxiation.”

  “What? How do you asphyxiate a cow?”

  “By removing all the oxygen from the air.”

  She sat back and stared out at the cliffs, the still water and then back at him. “How do you do that? Like carbon monoxide poisoning?”

  “Not CO2. Blood tests aren’t back yet. But if someone was cooking crystal meth up there on your land, the gases released could kill anything that got upwind.”

  “How do you know that?” Izzie asked as she gave him a long assessing look.

  Clay sighed and looked away, his earnest expression replaced with disappointment. “I looked it up on the internet.”

  “Do you think that was wise?”

  He held her gaze. “I’ve never been wise around you, Bella.”

  Her lips parted, and her heart seemed to pound in her throat. She slid closer turning her attention to him. He started talking.

  “The poison is called phosphine and it kills things. Also causes visible damage to the lungs, liver and nervous system. Convulsions, coma, heart failure. And—” Clay drew a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket “—a fluorescent green sputum.”

  Izzie took the sheet, scanning over the page. “Like my cows!”

  She skimmed the symptoms, and he used an elegant index finger to point to the spot. There it was.

  When she glanced up, it was to find Clay watching her closely. “So you didn’t know?”

  Izzie’s brow knit, and then realization dawned and she stiffened. Briskly she folded and returned the printout. “What are you implying?”

  He met her hard glare with one of his own. “I told you when you hired me that I won’t be a part of anything illegal. Not even for you, Izzie. If you knew they were on your land, you best tell me right now.”

  Her hands fisted, and she folded her arms defensively over her chest.

  “Izzie. I mean it. I’ve been down this road before. I will not do it again.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “I don’t trust anyone. Not anymore.”

  She sighed heavily and threw up her hands in aggravation. But she answered his question—again. “I did not know.”

  “Word is that you got money troubles.”

  She gasped. “Who told you that?”

  He shrugged. Izzie looked away.

  “Is it true?” His voice held a note of tenderness now.

  “Yes. Mom has...some debts.”

  “Then they aren’t your debts.”

  Izzie sighed. “Not technically. But someone has to pay the bills. She spends everything she can get her hands on and more.”

  “Gambling.”

  Her brow lifted. “No. Not anymore. Not since I was a kid.” Izzie placed her elbows on her knees and cradled her chin in her upturned palms.

  “She likes nice things.” And so Izzie had shut down their line of credit at the bank. Removed her mother’s name from the accounts. But the damage was done. Her mother had a nice new car, leased, and Izzie had a car payment and a six-thousand-dollar loan against her precious truck.

  “And you are covering for her.”

  “What am I supposed to do? She’s my mother.”

  “How?”

  She lifted her chin from her hands and turned to meet his stare. “I am not involved with manufacturing drugs, Clay.”

  He nodded and looked out over the lake. “I believe you.”

  She didn’t know if she should be insulted or relieved. Izzie stared at the abandoned quarry as she thought about it. Finally she said, “That means a great deal to me.”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “It shouldn’t. I’ll believe just about anyone.”

  She cast him an odd look, and he shook his head and fell into silen
ce. It hurt her to realize how much his past still haunted him. She wondered if she might make that a little bit better by sharing the truth.

  “Clay, I want to tell you something...something about Martin.”

  Now Clay looked uncomfortable, his eyes shifting everywhere but back to her as his hands braced against the log, stiff and straight on either side of his body. He looked as if he were preparing to throw himself from the log and right into the lake.

  “I want you to know why I went out with your friend.”

  He flinched, and then his mouth tipped down, making tight lines that flanked his mouth.

  “Because you preferred him to me?”

  “No. Because my parents would not allow me to go out with you after my cousin told them you were selling weed.”

  “I never...” He stopped, as if the arguing was useless.

  She believed him. But after his father died, Clay had changed, taking his anger out in rebellion. Skipping school, getting into fights. When the drunk driver killed his mother, he’d changed from rebellion to recklessness.

  “You scared me back then, Clay. You were so wild. And after my aunt caught my cousin with the pot, he said you sold it to him. My parents had just gotten back together, and I didn’t want any more fighting. So I said all right.”

  He bowed his head as the muscles at his jaw turned to granite.

  “Did your cousin tell you who really supplied him with the weed?”

  She shook her head.

  “Martin. He supplied everyone back then.”

  Izzie gasped. “I didn’t know that.”

  “He was very careful. While I...well, I was a train wreck.”

  “You were not.”

  But he had been. Back then, Clay had so much anger in him. He wouldn’t tell her why, but it had begun with the trouble between his folks. Around that time, the Twin Towers fell and Clyne had joined the marines right after. Was that really fourteen years ago? Gabe, just shy of turning sixteen, had been too young to join. But Clay said he had wanted to. She knew that things had been rocky between their parents but it had taken their mom two more years before she left Clay’s dad for good. Gabe, then eighteen, had found his escape riding the rodeo circuit.