by Renee Simons
"It wouldn't be near Le Mirage, would it?"
"That'd be easy," Mike said with a shake of his head. "No, I'm afraid it's in the Black Hills, just outside the park."
"I'll need a map," Zan said. "Could you provide one?"
"I can," he said. "And company, too, if you want."
"Thanks, but I can't risk your safety. I'll take the map in the morning, if that's possible."
He nodded. "I'll have it by the time you're ready to leave. Do you want to use the pickup?"
"I'll use my RV. It has an extra gas tank and heavy duty suspension. And a portable generator." She shrugged. "I'd rather have four walls around me than camp out."
Zan left to purchase supplies for her trip. Although she wasn't sure she'd find Stormwalker, she bought steaks for two.
Early the next morning, Mike helped her decipher his lines and markings. He briefed her on key landmarks and the places where she would encounter rough going.
"Let me go with you. I know this country."
"Thanks for the concern. I'll be fine." She handed him the keys to her car. "Take her out on the road once or twice." He'd grinned. "It will be my pleasure."
As the powerful custom engine ate up the miles to Emma Redfeather's house, Zan began to experience a heady sense of enthusiasm. Her pulse quickened and she found it difficult to suppress a smile. She wasn't sure if the cause was the sense of an adventure about to begin or the anticipation of once again being with Stormwalker if she found him.
Rolling down the window, she let the early morning wind touch the side of her face as it rushed past. Still cool, it served to clear whatever cobwebs clung to her mind after the attack. She found herself reviewing what had happened, searching for some fact she'd initially missed or had forgotten, but by the time Emma's house came into view, she knew there was nothing.
Stormwalker's grandmother was working in her garden and beckoned to Zan to join her. "Can I help?" Zan asked.
"I'm pulling weeds," Emma said.
Zan smiled at her. "I think I can handle that."
They knelt between neighboring rows of the summer's last crop of vegetables and worked in comfortable silence. Finally, Zan asked, "Has your grandson been here?"
Emma chuckled. "And I thought you came to see me."
Zan blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude, Grandmother."
"I'm glad you called me that," Emma said. "I hope it will mean more between us someday."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"You have some feelings for my grandson, haven't you?"
"I sure haven't fooled anyone," Zan said, "except maybe myself."
Emma smiled warmly at her. "Just so you're not fooling yourself, any more."
"No, Grandmother, not anymore."
Emma shook her head once in satisfaction. "He stopped here on his way. Said he was going away to make things safer for everyone but didn't say where."
"How long ago was that?"
"Yesterday," Emma said. "Just after the sun came up."
"Did he say how long he planned to be away?" Zan asked. When Emma shook her head, Zan began pulling idly at another patch of weeds, estimating traveling time to Le Mirage. She looked up, saw the mountains at the horizon line and silently wondered if her search would take her that far.
"Why does Billy Winter hate your grandson?"
"You got time?"
"For answers I do."
"When Stormwalker was a child, the other boys taunted him and called him 'White Eyes'. He came to me and asked why his eyes were not a warm, honest brown like everyone else's. I knew that the white-man scientists had ideas about how such things could or could not happen. But I was not one of those and I said, 'Perhaps some long forgotten wasichu lived among us and left an echo of himself in our blood. Maybe this white man who should remain buried in time has come back to life in you as a sign from Wakan Tanka.'
"He wanted to know if I could make some medicine that would change him to be like everyone else. I told him no medicine exists to make a man into something he is not. Even Old Elk didn't have such power.
"'You are who you are meant to be,' I told him. 'Your eyes are of the sky, the oceans, the four-legged who roams where he wishes. Ours' are of the earth. If you are made different, perhaps it is meant for you to see what we cannot, to go where we cannot. Your eyes, like your strength, are gifts to be used wisely and for the good of your people.'
"So he ran with the pack of boys, some older, some younger, all of them getting into this kind of mischief or that, most of the time managing to escape without doing damage to themselves or others.
"With patience, he endured the taunts and jokes about the difference that set him apart from the others, about the gentleness they saw as timidity, about the good mind that often guided them away from serious harm. He'd been taught never to use his physical strength in anger and he took no action, knowing he could put an end to the torment any time he'd had enough.
"One day he decided the time had come. He knew he didn't have to prove anything to himself, but he did have to prove himself to the others, or they would never leave him in peace.
He challenged each of the boys to a contest based not on strength but on skill. Each opponent chose the sport in which he excelled, but when it was finished, he had beaten them all, each at his own game.
"Now, instead of making him the butt of their teasing, they chose him to be their leader and never again called him anything but Stormwalker or Kola, which means friend. All except the one whose place he'd taken. His name was Billy Winter."
"Is it possible that what happened back then could have been enough to turn Billy against him forever?"
Emma shrugged. "Sometimes when the hurt is too deep to touch, a man will defend the pain he can reach. So a test of skill becomes more important than it should and the real hurt festers unseen until it can no longer be contained."
Zan considered her words. Although she wanted the facts behind Emma's cryptic message, intuition told her she would have to find them elsewhere.
Even so, Emma had said a lot. The animosity between Stormwalker and Billy Winter was old and ran deep, and such great anger often took the place of great love. That these bitter enemies had once been close friends made sense. She nodded and looked at the horizon again.
"Why do your eyes wander so far?" Emma asked.
Worry skittered along her nerve endings and the need to see Stormwalker's face tugged at her. "I have to find your grandson. I don't want to offend you, but it's necessary."
"I know, Granddaughter," the old woman said with a smile. "We will have time later on, when everything is settled."
Zan had the road to herself. The sky was a bright autumn blue and the breeze, though warm, had lost its blazing heat. The fields of grass bordering the highway had begun to fade from summer yellow to autumn brown. Within days, the aspen and cottonwood leaves would turn as well and the brief but potent Dakota summer would be over.
She had a feeling she would find Stormwalker at Le Mirage and made that her next stop. She followed the streambed as far as the woods bordering the meadow. After parking the camper beneath a rocky overhang, she entered the woods. When she broke through to the other side of the trees, she saw the vista stretched out before her, as breathtaking as it had been the first time she'd seen it.
She looked for signs of a campfire or footprints along the stream bank, but found nothing. That didn't surprise her. He always destroyed evidence of his visits, brushing away his tracks and packing out any refuse to preserve the unspoiled nature of the place.
She turned her back to the water and stared at the stately Ponderosa pines in silent frustration as an inner voice chided. He's a woodsman and a hunter, for heaven's sake! And he knows this country by heart. He could have been here and gone without your ever knowing. Or he could be somewhere else entirely.
"This was a really stupid idea," she muttered in disgust.
"You got that right," Stormwalker said from behind.
Star
tled by his soundless approach, she nevertheless caught the anger beneath his even tone. It goaded her, stirring her, enabling her to ignore the wild beating of her heart and a jolt of pleasure that set her head spinning.
She turned. "Why did you leave the way you did? Without any explanation?"
"After what happened in the barn, I wanted to keep you out of danger. Why did you follow me?"
"To tell you everything we know about your setup."
His eyes lit up. "You found my reports."
"And more. Let's go to the RV and I'll show you."
"I'd prefer you just tell me and leave. You're in danger around me."
"Where's your campsite?"
"My horse is picketed in the trees. Why?"
She ducked behind him and pushed at the small of his back. "Get moving."
"No." He faced her. "Go back home."
"Listen to me. I ran from the Agency when Dar died. I ran from the police force when I got shot. I'm not running again."
"You don't have to prove anything to me."
"Only to myself."
He held her close. "I missed you."
"I missed you something fierce." She felt his lips warm on her skin and raised her mouth for a kiss. "So will the horse be okay overnight?"
He nodded. "I saw to her earlier."
"Then let's see to the humans."
Dinner preparation turned into a minor production thanks to the cramped quarters. As she stowed the dishes in an upper cupboard, Stormwalker slipped his arms around her waist.
"Could you manage to postpone that until later?" He placed a soft kiss against the back of her neck. "I need more of a reunion than we've had so far."
Zan smiled. "What did you have in mind?" She turned in his arms, into a kiss that welcomed and warmed and answered her question without words.
He lifted his mouth from hers long enough to whisper, "I hope that bunk is big enough for two."
"I don't think we'll need a lot of room," she said, molding her body to his.
Stormwalker drew her to the bed and lay down with her on top of the spread. There was no turning back from the first explorations of lips and tongue, from the tantalizing shedding of clothes, from naked bodies touching, from hands rediscovering form and flesh that had haunted their memories. No turning back until those memories had been reaffirmed. When their need for each other had been satisfied, they held each other on the narrow bed, enjoying the warmth and comfort of each other's arms.
Zan stirred finally and pulled Stormwalker to the computer. "Before we fall asleep, I want you to see what I found."
"Bare bottoms and all?" He grinned at the change in her.
She ran a hand along the line of his strong jaw. "Who's to see us except us?" But she slipped on his shirt and handed him his jeans. "Just for warmth," she said.
She had copied everything pertinent to Stormwalker's case onto new CDs and now loaded them, one by one until he'd seen it all. He seemed more at peace than she'd ever known him to be, except for some dark emotion that still hovered in his eyes and took the edge off her happiness. When she probed, he shook his head and smiled.
"I need to absorb it and make sure it's real. That's all." He lay down on the bunk and closed his eyes.
She battled her disappointment. Had he expected more, some irrefutable proof, perhaps, of Dar's involvement? Or was he merely angry that her complicity, unwitting though it had been, had ruined his life.
She sat down at the computer and scrolled through the database as if the mere act of blurring the damning words on the screen would make them less objectionable. A salutation flashed into view that raised a lump the size of a turnip in her throat.
"My dearest love," it said.
Her vision blurred. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her chair and took long, deep breaths. Minutes passed before her agitation lessened. Finally, she felt calm enough to go back to the screen.
"If you are reading these words, things have not gone well for me. So I feel compelled to tell you the truth. What you're about to learn belongs to you to use as you see fit. It saddens me to say this, but by the time you have finished reading what follows, you will curse my memory."
Zan pulled her chair closer to her desk and began to skim the long, rambling account, picking out the salient points. He and Northstar – she recognized Ian's code name – had been a twenty-year team, devoted to advancing the cause of their "mother" country.
She skipped the laundry list of their activities, stopping as her gaze picked out the most important phrases: "patriotism subverted by the greed of a third partner," "stealing money earmarked for the purchase of encryption codes," "Iceman." She jotted down the third partner's code name and continued.
"That is the part you must hate most," she read, "that I used your trust in me to divert attention from our operation and place suspicion on the major."
Tears of anger and shame trailed down her cheeks and blurred the words on the screen. Dar had been duplicitous but she had been naive to believe his declarations of love. More than naive. She'd been stupid. She swiped at the tears and read on.
"I want you to believe I truly loved you, as no other woman I have ever known. My heart breaks because of the hurt I bring you, but I had a job to do, a mission that took precedence over my love.
"Finally, there's the $1.5 million. If I am dead, find my killer and there you will find the money. Find the money and you will have the killer."
"Damn you, Dar O'Neill. May you rot in hell."
She shook off her anger to perform the one remaining task. Bringing up the personnel files, she typed in the code name, Iceman, entered the I.D. number and with no surprise at all, watched Kenny Becker's name run across the top of the screen.
*****
She woke abruptly from a dream in which a dozen drums beat in her ears in a long, confusing barrage of sound. She opened her eyes expecting the noises to cease. They continued and became more clearly metal slamming against the camper with such force it rocked on its springs.
At the same time, she felt herself being dragged from the bunk to the floor. Stormwalker pulled the mattresses over her. "Stay down till I get back."
He left Zan protected by two layers of foam padding from the bunk. After dressing, he crawled into the cab, where he reached beneath the dashboard to hotwire the ignition. When the engine failed to turn over, he popped the hood release and slipped out.
A barrage of bullets peppered the camper but somehow managed to miss him. He moved around to the front of the camper and in the darkness, felt around under the hood. The distributor cap was missing. Determined to get Zan out of the camper and to safety, he crouched low and came around to the side taking the brunt of the attack, barely avoiding two men heading toward him.
He slipped back into the shadows. The intensity of the firing had diminished to the sound of one automatic weapon. With his route back to her cut off for the moment, he had no choice but to draw off the two men, leaving behind only one, with the hope she could handle whatever came at her.
He started for the woods, making just enough noise to attract attention. When he was sure they followed, he picked up speed. In the trees, he ran a broken course through the underbrush, doubling back, crisscrossing his own trails and leading the men over a jumble of rocks and hilly terrain that split the forest down its middle. When the sounds of their movements trailed away, he moved quietly, taking the shortest route back to the camper.
For Zan, the wait seemed to last an eternity. The bombardment continued and she realized that the RV was being fired upon with large caliber ammunition that so far didn't seem to have penetrated the outer shell.
"Where did he go?" she whispered, concerned for Stormwalker's safety.
He'd been asleep when she crawled in beside him after reading Dar's letter. There had been no time to talk, to tell him about the confession that vindicated him or to find out how he felt about her now that they'd pieced together the puzzle. Was he angry? Disappointed? Did his knowing even as muc
h as he did change the way he felt about her? How did he feel about her? He'd wanted and needed her. He'd cared about her. But he'd never mentioned love. Maybe now he never would.
The fusillade broke into her thoughts, pounding like cannon fire through the foam padding. She heard glass break and resigned herself to the fact that the computer would be destroyed.
As the attacker continued firing, bullets ripped through the wooden cabinets. When the shooting ended, she forced herself to tick off three minutes before crawling from beneath her shield.
She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Though she couldn't pick out details, the destruction was plain enough as she crawled across a floor littered with broken glass and splintered wood that stung her bare legs and palms.
She loaded her revolver as a powerful light came flooding through the broken windows, destroying the cover of darkness she'd counted on for protection.
"You'd better finish dressing," she whispered. "Or you're going to embarrass the hell out of yourself."
In a corner, she located the rest of her clothes and the boots she'd kicked off earlier in the evening. The faint smell of gasoline permeated the interior. She suspected that at least one of the fuel tanks had been punctured and knew she should leave immediately.
For convenience, she'd parked the camper with the passenger side facing out. She headed for the driver's door but found she'd parked too close to the wall of rock and couldn't open the door wide enough to squeeze through.
The odor intensified, leaving her no choice but to take her chances outside. She opened the passenger door only enough to allow her body to ease out sideways. A shot rang out. The jarring impact of a bullet in her upper arm slammed her back against the camper. Fighting off the pain, she slid to the ground and peered into the darkness. A second shot split the silence and punctured the metal where she'd just stood. Aiming for the flash, she got off two shots. Her efforts resulted in a grunt and a volley of bullets that flew wide of the mark. The camper exploded as she crawled away. The force of the concussion knocked her flat. With her assailant's steps moving closer, she managed to slip her revolver beneath the belt of her jeans and fasten one button of her denim jacket to conceal its presence. Exhausted and in pain, she lay still, waiting for him to approach. Flames roared, metal crackled. The heat washed over and around her and blood flowed from her wound.