Hunter Moon

by Jenna Kernan

  His grandmother referred to the name given to Lea by the shaman on the last day of her Sunrise Ceremony. Kino had told him Lea’s formal name, but he could not recall. But he knew Izzie’s. She was called Medicine Root Woman. It was a powerful name, grounded to the earth with a touch of magic in the strong medicine. Izzie was strong, he knew, for only someone so tough could carry the responsibility she bore.

  “It is Bright Star Woman, and Lea is bright and giving. She is the balance Kino needs to keep him from seeing the world as full of nothing but bad people. Forgiveness and justice, a good match.”

  Was his grandmother referring to his brother’s relentless hunt for their father’s murderer? Clay had gone along to protect Kino, but not for any need for vengeance. His father had given them life, but he was a bad person in many ways. Much of Clay’s anger had come from knowing exactly what his father was and did.

  “You need balance, too.”

  “I’m balanced.”

  His grandmother patted his hand in a pacifying way. “Maybe you can take a few days off and go up to South Dakota with them.”

  “Grandmother, I’m not joining Kino on his honeymoon.”

  “But if you go, then they can have a real honeymoon instead of following your sister’s trail, visiting with Bureau of Indian Affairs and the foster family we know had her as a baby. You should go instead of Kino and Lea.”

  “I’m not a police officer.”

  “You are his brother. You’re smart and the best tracker on the reservation. You might even be as good as your grandfather Hex Clawson and better than my father.”

  That made Clay’s eyebrows lift in surprise. This was high praise indeed.

  “Jovanna has left no tracks.”

  “Everything that moves leaves tracks,” she said, repeating the words Clay had heard many times and used often himself. “My husband taught me that.”

  “Yes, Grandmother. But I have work here.”

  Glendora slipped her hand from the crook of his arm. “What work is more important than finding your sister?”

  Keeping Izzie safe, Clay thought.

  His grandmother waited, but when Clay did not reply she exhaled and then motioned toward the gathering. “Come on, before those ribs are as leathery as jerked beef.”

  They moved just outside the fire’s light.

  “Look who’s here,” called his grandmother.

  He was received with hugs and hoots and slaps on the back. Finally someone handed him a beer. Nice to be treated like the guest of honor instead of the lost sheep.

  Kino stepped forward and hugged him.

  His younger brother released him and asked, “Everything all right?”

  “Sure, sure. Congratulations.”

  Kino gave a half smile and still managed to look happier than Clay had ever seen him.

  “Good thing you didn’t shoot her that day you met,” said Clay.

  Kino gave him a playful slug to the arm.

  “Hey, quiet about that.”

  They exchanged a smile. Kino was getting married. The thought struck him, and Clay’s heart gave a funny little flutter.

  Kino’s friends circled closer, returning to their conversations interrupted by his arrival. There was Bill and Javier, his brother’s two closest friends. Kino’s bride-to-be, Lea Altaha, was with her family at Salt River, making this a low-key bachelor’s party. The woman Kino would marry was also the one he had rescued from the cartels down on the border three months earlier. Lea had worked with an aid organization, providing drinking water to those illegals crossing the desert. As Shadow Wolves, he and Kino had been charged with tracking and apprehending those same illegals. Yet somehow the two had set aside their differences and made a good, strong match.

  Clay went to joint Clyne and Gabe. Clyne offered a smile, but Gabe, less tolerant of Clay’s general lack of regard for the time, cast him a look of disappointment.

  “Here he is. At last,” said Clyne. “I’m famished.” He was the one who played well with others and who was a master at both negotiation and consensus building. A leader by any measure.

  Gabe, ever the investigator, was more to the point. “Where have you been?”

  “I had to stop by to see a friend.”

  Gabe’s brow swept down over his dark eyes. “What friend?”

  Clay changed the subject. “Any word on the dead cattle?”

  Gabe looked to the heavens as if for patience, then flicked his gaze back to Clay. “You were with Izzie Nosie?”

  “No. But—”

  “Good. Because you can’t work for her and keep your job. You know that, right? Conflict of interest.”

  “She asked me to do her a favor.”

  “And you’ve done it. So stay away from her.”

  Clay felt the need to challenge, but a glance toward the banquet table showed his grandmother watching them from a distance with worried eyes.

  “Anything from the necropsy?” he asked, hoping the dead cattle might prove his suspicions.

  Gabe’s face went expressionless. “Clay, you do not want to get in the middle of my investigation. And that is what this is, an active investigation. Keep out of it.”

  He didn’t remind Gabe that it was only an investigation because Clay had tracked the cattle, found the dead cows and called him.

  “You hear me?” asked Gabe.

  “I do.” Clay could turn his back on just about anyone and anything. But not family and not Izzie. He felt like a deer being tugged in opposite directions by two hungry wolves. Someone was about to be disappointed. But either way, the deer lost.

  Chapter Eleven

  Izzie had a call in at nine on Monday morning to the state veterinary offices. As an interested party, listed on their report, she was entitled to a copy of their findings, and even though Clay had raised the possibility, she was still speechless when she heard the results.

  All three necropsy reports indicated that her cows died of complete cardiopulmonary collapse. There was fluid in their lungs and irritation of all respiratory membranes. The cattle also showed extreme kidney and liver damage. Blood work revealed low blood potassium and high levels of magnesium.

  “Consistent with poisoning,” finished the vet on the phone. “Want a fax copy or US mail?”

  “What caused this?” asked Izzie.

  A pause, then, “Ah, we are turning this over to the FBI. You might want to contact an attorney.”

  Izzie gripped the phone, blinking like an owl as that bit of information settled in. She’d never been in trouble a day in her life. She’d always done exactly what was expected even when she wanted to do otherwise.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” she said.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No. I... Thank you.”

  “Yeah. I’ll drop a copy in the mail. We have your address.” The vet hung up, leaving Izzie gripping a phone connected to no one.

  Dizziness rocked her, and she had to sit down hard in one of the vinyl-cushioned chairs at her mother’s kitchen table. Next she set the phone on the plastic tablecloth festooned with yellow daisies and used the same hand to wipe the sweat away from her forehead.

  Clay had been right. Those cows had inhaled something that had come out of those trailers, something that had stopped their hearts.

  Izzie folded her arms on the table and rested her head on her arms. She closed her eyes. Poison, drugs, Clay had said. Something popped into her mind, and she lifted up from the table so fast she swayed.

  “Clay was right! They were poisoned. And I have proof.”

  They had to give her the cattle back.

  Izzie drew on her denim jacket and headed for her truck. Thirty-three minutes later she was standing in front of Dale Donner’s desk demanding that he release he
r cows.

  Donner eyed her from behind a battered, overladen desk, tipping back in his swivel chair. She recalled that her father had been happy at Donner’s appointment, saying he was a fair man. His shirt stretched a little too tight over his belly, and his hands gripped the arms as if deciding if he should take the trouble to get up or not. “My cows?” she said again. “State vet says they are not contagious.”

  “Well, I don’t have that report yet,” said Donner, sounding peeved.

  “Call and get it faxed. I’ll wait.”

  He lifted his brows. “That could take a while.”

  She wondered if she might have had better results if she had tried a different approach. More honey and less vinegar. But she had already set herself down this road, and it was too late to backtrack.

  “I want my cows back.”

  “I’m sure you do. But you can’t have them until I have the report, and then you still owe a fine on the ones we rounded up off the road.”

  “But someone cut my fences and chased those cattle out of my pastures.”

  “I don’t have the police report corroborating that, and even if I did, you have to file an appeal.” Donner pushed his desk chair back and rolled on castors to the filing cabinet, where he retrieved the appropriate form. He used his legs like a child on a scooter to return to her and handed over the pages. “My advice is that you pay the fine, get your cattle back and then file the appeal. If it goes through, we’ll reimburse you.”

  She didn’t want to do that because it involved selling her cattle, which took time and cost her money. “How long do appeals take?”

  “Well, you have a right to a hearing in tribal court, but you have to make a petition for a hearing within three business days of notice of impoundment, and that would be today. You just made it.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he just kept talking.

  “Once the tribal court officer gets that form—” he pointed to the pages now gripped in her hand “—then the tribal court has seven business days to hear your request. Let’s see, that’s by next Tuesday at the latest, but they don’t meet on Tuesday. So Wednesday it is. Now you have to have evidence. Can’t just be your word. Witnesses and physical evidence is best. Police report, surely. Vet report and anything else you can think of.”

  “But you can’t sell my cattle in the meantime?”

  “Twenty days after notice of impoundment. We hold auctions every Thursday. Let’s see.” Donner consulted the business half of the wall calendar on the overcrowded bulletin board behind him. “That’s October eighth.”

  Izzie wanted to ask where Clay might be, but resisted. She filled out the paperwork while she waited. When the fax machine chirped to life, Donner collected the pages and made a copy for himself.

  “I can release the quarantined lot. Not the impounded ones, though.”

  “You’ll bring them to my place.”

  Donner rubbed his neck. “You have to arrange transport.”

  Izzie’s face went hot. “But you took them.”

  “As a precaution.”

  She flapped her arms, and the appeal fluttered against her leg. “Fine. I’ll be back.”

  She stomped from the office and took both the appeal application and fax pages across the street to tribal headquarters.

  After that, Izzie took Donner’s advice and spoke to Victor Bustros about selling a few of her cattle at Thursday’s auction to pay the impoundment fine and hoped she get it back on appeal. Victor Bustros handled the brand inspection and auctions on the Rez. Izzie calculated carefully how many of the cattle she needed to sell to and pointed out the cattle picked to Bustros’s assistant, who marked them with paint. She hoped they got a fair price, because her checking account was dangerously low. She wondered, not for the first time, what her mother spent the grocery money on, because for a cattle family, they certainly ate a lot of beans.

  Since Izzie did not have the extra money to have her recovered cattle trucked back home, she was left with only one alternative. She called her part-time hands, Max Reyes and Eli Beach. They arrived with the horse trailer and three of her horses, including Biscuit.

  The rest of the day was spent moving the released portion of her herd slowly from the quarantine yard to her permitted grazing land.

  By day’s end she was hot, hungry and angry at no one and everyone. She thanked Eli and Max, who agreed to go retrieve the horse trailer while she saw the horses settled. It wasn’t until she returned to the house, bone tired and dragging her feet with fatigue, that her mother stepped from the front door and greeted her with a worried expression. She extended her arm, offering a white legal-sized envelope.

  “This came for you. I had to sign for it.”

  Izzie studied the tribal stamp and seal. Her mother had not opened it.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Might be the necropsy results or the official release from quarantine. Could be their acknowledgment. I’ve requested a hearing about the cut fences. I don’t think I should have to pay a fine when someone is messing with me.” Izzie slit the envelope with her finger, leaving a ragged flap of torn paper. Then she drew out the enclosed letter. She scanned the page. Her ears started ringing.

  “No, no, no,” she whispered. She reread the words to be sure she understood, and then her arm dropped to her side, still clutching the letter.

  “What is it?”

  “Notice from the general livestock coordinator.”

  “Pizarro?”

  Izzie nodded. “They have scheduled our pastures for immediate renourishment.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Izzie stared at her mother. “It means the cows can’t graze here.”

  Her mother shrugged. “Good. Sell the damned things. I hate cows.”

  With that her mother left her only daughter standing alone in the yard. Izzie managed to wait until her mother was out of sight before she began bawling like a newly branded cow.

  How was she going to keep the cattle for her brothers if she had no place to graze the herd?

  Izzie retreated to the barn and her favorite horse, Biscuit. She held Biscuit’s coarse mane and wept for a good long while as Biscuit listened to Izzie pour out her problems. Her horse knew more about Izzie than any person living, though all secrets were safe with her mare. It was only after she had cried herself out that she realized that something stunk, figuratively.

  First her cattle were rustled to the road, then three cows were poisoned by something that stopped their hearts, and then, on the very day she got half of her cattle back, she lost her grazing rights.

  “Who pulled those permits, Biscuit?” Izzie asked.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Monday after Kino’s wedding, Clay found himself back in the saddle assigned to the tribe’s communal herd and the task of separating mothers and yearlings for calf branding. The job was taxing but he thought his weariness stemmed more from the festivities than from the work. The wedding was beautiful and he’d enjoyed himself. But today, unexpectedly, the memories of the celebration filled him with an unforeseen melancholy. He wished Izzie had been there with him. If he had asked, would she have come?

  The day was cold with a gusty wind that lifted stinging bits of sand and dirt. Clay drew up his red kerchief over his mouth and nose and refocused on the mother who had cut away, bringing her back with the others. She and her twins trotted through the shoot into the correct pen. Roger Tolino worked the shoot, closing them in and Clay swung round for another target, but his mind still lingered on the wedding.

  Clyne had no date, either. His eldest brother had said that it was one thing to take a woman out on Saturday night but quite another to invite her to your brother’s wedding. Clyne did not want to give any of the women he dated the idea that he was interested in more than a night’
s diversion. Clyne was a strange guy, very vested in tradition and community, yet unable to find an Apache woman who stirred him in more than the obvious places. He’d even been up to Oklahoma a time or two on business that Clay suspected involved opportunities for more than just tribal networking.

  Clay wondered what Izzie would say about that. He imagined all the things that he wanted to tell her about Lea and Kino. How they met as adversaries and now were newlyweds. It gave him hope.

  Clay worked his way through the morning surrounded by the bawling of calves and shouts of the men. The pounding of their hooves reminded Clay of the women’s pounding feet as they danced in a circle at his little brother’s reception.

  The wedding had been a wonderful celebration, with a mix of a church service and Apache dancing and song. Clay had been so proud to stand with his brothers at the altar and witness the match, but was surprised by all the unexpected emotions that his little brother’s wedding stirred.

  His brother Gabe was the only one of them to bring a date. He had gone with his usual go-to for such occasions, Melissa Turno, a classmate and assistant to the director of the Tribal Museum. His older brother had not had a serious relationship since his fiancée, Selena Dosela, had broken their engagement immediately after Gabe had arrested her father.

  Unlike Gabe, who played it safe, or Clyne, who didn’t play at all, Clay wanted to give Izzie the wrong idea. But he didn’t think she felt the same.

  Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he would have liked to see her dance with the women of the Salt River Reservation while he beat the drum and sang with his brothers. How he would have been proud to bring her as his date. To show everyone that she was his girl. Only she wasn’t. Might never be.