Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  With a wide flourish, she turned her palm up and raised her eyebrows, urging him to continue.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “But so help me, if you even make one sound that resembles a snicker, you’re dead meat.”

  She crossed her forefinger over her heart. “Promise.”

  Okay this was it, now or never. “Look, Teal, for the last several years I’ve lived up in these hills all alone except for my grandmother. I run through the woods near here alone in the early mornings for my daily training. About two years ago I noticed something odd while I was out there.”

  How would she take what came next?

  Saying nothing, she let him hang himself with his own story. Everything he had ever said to her probably seemed odd.

  “At first the birds, mostly the hawks and eagles, started following me as I ran,” he began again. “Not like they were trying to get me out of their nesting territory or anything. But like they were just checking up on me. Watching out for me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Just listen. After a few weeks, they started showing up everywhere I went. If I was outside working with the sand or at silversmithing, they would sometimes even land on my head.

  “It spooked me for a while. I felt like I was living in some horror movie where the birds are out to get the humans.” He stopped to watch her reactions. She was listening carefully and not laughing.

  Here went all or nothing. “Then one day, one of the biggest hawks spoke to me. At first I thought it was all in my head. At that time, the noise from other peoples’ thoughts was deafening sometimes. But this creature wasn’t human, and it wasn’t just in my mind.”

  Teal said nothing and gave no indication of what she was thinking. It was one of those rare moments when Lucas would’ve killed to get his old gifts back.

  “Now it seems,” he continued, not knowing what else to do. “The Bird People have turned out to be good allies for the Brotherhood—it’s that Citizen’s Watch committee I was telling you about, remember?”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  Uh-oh. He could visualize bad jokes coming right up ahead.

  “You explained that Bird People term before, but you didn’t mention they were your allies,” she said with a completely straight face. “What kinds of things do you do for each other?”

  “Are you making fun? You promised.”

  “Not at all. I want to know.”

  “It’ll take a bit of explaining. You want some more coffee?”

  She nodded and he poured her another cup from the rapidly cooling carafe.

  When they settled down again, he began. “I wouldn’t mention this to a stranger. But you are no longer strange to me.”

  He saw her bite her lip to keep in the smile. Still, she stayed quiet, took a sip of coffee and let him continue.

  “There’s a secret war going on across Dinetah, Teal. I am one of…”

  “War?” she interrupted as she sat straight up in her chair. “What kind of war? Why doesn’t the Bureau know about it?”

  He waffled his hands, palms down in a placating gesture. “Calm down. I said it was secret. There’s a good reason why we don’t want outsiders to know. Give me a chance to explain.”

  She flopped back against her chair and let out a breath. “This had better be good. You’ve really gotten off topic here. But this new war stuff may make for a good story.”

  “You’re being judgmental again, Bright Eyes. But I’ll agree that it’s hard to accept some things until you see them with your own eyes.

  “I’ll start at the same place where I came in,” he continued. “Several years ago, a woman who was then known as the Plant Tender—the person who helps gather the herbs and potions for Dineh medicine men—went to a cousin of mine, Dr. Ben Wauneka, with a fantastic story. Ben’s both a hataalii, a trained medicine man, and a licensed medical doctor. So he’s pretty skeptical about things.

  “Well, the Plant Tender told him that she’d discovered a terrible truth.” Lucas hesitated to say these things to Teal. But he’d started so there was no choice except to finish.

  He took a slug of cold coffee and began again. “It seems a mystery man, who’d seemingly come out of nowhere, had taught himself a few of the ancient Navajo witchcraft secrets. And he’d formed a new cult of Skinwalkers in Dinetah.

  “Worse than any of the previous Skinwalker cults that have shown up in our land throughout history, this one uses modern technology combined with those old secrets in order to cheat, steal and grab power from the People.”

  “And this bad guy is still out there?” she interjected again.

  Studying her for a second, Lucas decided she was dead serious and not trying to be funny. “We’ve tried to catch him and have been close several times. But his power is strong and he sends lackeys to do all his dirty work. We’ve taken custody of Skinwalker warriors throughout the years. But every time, the ones we capture die mysterious deaths that we know are the Wolf’s doing. We’ve never been able to interrogate any of them.

  “All we really know,” Lucas continued. “Is that this guy has mastered taking the form of the Navajo Wolf. The People have always considered the Wolf to be the worst of the evil ones.”

  Teal looked skeptical, but she let him continue.

  “We also know that his underlings can change their shapes, too. They have appeared as snakes, ravens, mastiff dogs and vultures. All legendary witch figures for Navajo traditionalists.

  “But back to my involvement with the Brotherhood. My cousin Ben became convinced that the Plant Tender was right. The two of them decided to form a strategic alliance of good Dineh medicine men to fight off the evil ones. Ben began asking men he felt he could trust, his own clan cousins, to join a secret brotherhood in order to fight the scourge.”

  “Why not just go to the cops? The FBI?”

  Just listen to her, Lucas thought. Teal was actually asking questions that sounded like she might be taking his story seriously. What a woman.

  “Several reasons,” he said. “First off, if I came to your boss with this story, what do you think he’d have to say about it?”

  “Chris?” Teal gave that a moment’s consideration. “Chris would think you were nuts. Probably have you locked up for psychiatric observation.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “The Navajo Tribal DPS would no doubt be more receptive because they’ve grown up knowing about Skinwalkers. In fact, my cousin Hunter Long is a tribal cop and he’s one of our Brotherhood warriors. But there’s not much the police can do to help us with this war, so we keep the knowledge of it limited to a few people.”

  “Why can’t they help you? What does it take to fight off these bad guys? A stake through the heart or maybe garlic necklaces?”

  “Bad joke, Bright Eyes. Actually, the old Plant Tender dug up an ancient piece of knowledge about how to combat the terror. Now the Brotherhood has special medicine-man chants that can weaken the Skinwalkers enough for us to fight them off with guns and knives as if they were real humans.”

  “You said the old Plant Tender. What does that mean? How old?”

  “The old Plant Tender died in battle with the Skinwalkers. We now have a new Plant Tender who helps us gather and take care of our sacred plants.”

  “She died? Really? How?”

  “She was attacked by Skinwalkers who had turned into vultures and a raven.”

  “Oh, come on now. I’ve listened to your story patiently, but expecting me to accept that is ridiculous.”

  “I saw it, Teal. With my own eyes.”

  “Right,” she said with a wry grin. “So what does any of this have to do with the Bird People? And more to the point, with how you knew to come back to check up on me?”

  “The Bird People have become our allies in the war. They’ve helped us many times. They even assisted by killing off the vultures that attacked the Plant Tender.”

  “And…?”

  “And I am their contact in the Brotherhood. They talk to me and I…”

&
nbsp; “Oh, crap. They really talk to you? Hell, then it must be true.”

  9

  “W hat do you mean? Did you hear the Bird People talk?”

  Teal cringed inside. Damned man was going to make her explain the whole thing, wasn’t he?

  She shrugged as if it meant nothing. “I didn’t think it was the birds at the time. Even now, I suspect I was dreaming. Birds do not talk to people in real life.”

  Lucas sat there across the table, staring at her with obvious empathy and companionship in his eyes. Two of a kind, he must be thinking. Two weirdos who can hear birds speaking English.

  Well, she wasn’t ready to be labeled a nutcase. Not yet anyway.

  Turning the conversation, she tried to find out how serious Lucas was about hearing the birds. “So…You’re saying that the birds told you to turn around and come back? How’d they know the ABS brakes had been tampered with?”

  “Their leader told me they saw someone sabotage your car.”

  “Oh? Who was it?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “No, of course not. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to interrogate this leader of theirs, either, will I?”

  “Maybe. We can ask him the next time we see him.”

  “You can’t call them up? Uh, with a bird caller or whistle or something?”

  “It doesn’t seem to work that way. They’ve always just shown up when they were needed.”

  “Right.”

  “Look, Teal. I admit this is a tough concept. But we’re not crazy. There’s two of us now who can hear them. I can speak to them, too. Maybe we’ll find out that you have that same gift.

  “But it doesn’t make us both nuts,” he assured her.

  “No? Then what does it make us?”

  “Just a little different than the others.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “But we’re in this together. We’ll have each other to discuss things with.”

  Teal took a deep breath and tried a watery smile. For a brief second she wondered if Lucas’s grandmother had been feeding them both hallucinogens. It didn’t seem likely. But from now on, she was going to be a lot more careful about what she had to eat and drink.

  The next morning, Teal stuffed the last of her Burger King breakfast sandwich into her mouth and washed it down with stale coffee. She was riding in Lucas’s SUV as he drove them toward the Black Mesa mine to interview one of the managers. They still had a good hour to travel, even after they’d left the fast-food place in Chinle, Arizona.

  After a decent night’s sleep, she woke up having come to a conclusion. She was not crazy. And she had not heard birds talking, either, no matter what Lucas said.

  What she’d heard in her head were her own cop’s gut instincts telling her to be careful. Simplest answer, if you thought about it rationally.

  Which was not easy while she was hanging around Lucas.

  The animal magnetism he gave off seemed to be turning her brain to mush. She’d come to another conclusion, too. There would be more times for them to be together sexually before her investigation was over. After all, she was living under his roof.

  She wanted one more time between them, so there would be. In the meantime, the two of them would not be talking about any of those woo-woo things he believed in so fervently. She was afraid to tell him what she really thought about them. That could be a huge turn-off to their budding sexual relationship.

  She crammed the empty breakfast bag under her seat and propped her feet up on the dashboard. With every mile that passed by her window, the scenery seemed to make another drastic change.

  It was all vast, to be sure. Lots of open space. Lots of nothing but rocks and brush. But it was ever-changing rocks and brush.

  Every spread-apart farm or ranch or whatever they called them seemed very much like the last one, however. There would be one big house on the property with one or two of those eight-sided outbuildings alongside it. Old cars scattered around throughout the yards, some of them up on blocks. Every house had a basketball hoop stuck high on either a telephone or electric pole. And most even had a similar rusty yellow school bus parked somewhere nearby.

  The farther they traveled, the more she noticed the sweeping beauty of the land. They were driving on a semidesert, high plateau, and it was easy to see water would be precious in this kind of environment.

  “How much rain do they get around here?” she asked.

  “Not a lot. Between seven to twelve inches a year. There’s an underlying groundwater source that keeps springs alive for the People and their animals in between rains. It’s called the Navajo Aquifer.”

  “No wonder we haven’t seen very many houses along here. There wouldn’t be enough water for everyone.”

  “There still isn’t enough water. Some people have to have their drinking water delivered by truck.

  “But that isn’t the only reason the houses are far apart,” he continued with a completely straight face. “There’s an old joke that says we build our houses far apart because we Navajos don’t like living near Navajos.”

  A laugh erupted from her mouth before she could call it back. She was going to have to get used to Lucas’s wry and dry sense of humor.

  The road took a wide curve and up ahead was a stop sign. They hadn’t seen any sign of life at all for about fifteen minutes. But now they turned onto a major blacktopped highway, U.S. Route 160.

  “We’re a few minutes out of Kayenta,” Lucas told her. “Would you mind if we stopped there for coffee?”

  “Not at all. I’m getting hungry, too.”

  “Again?”

  She threw him a disgruntled look. “Feed the lawmen when they’re hungry or pay the consequences, buster.”

  His lips narrowed, but his eyes crinkled up in a smile. Maybe Lucas would have to get used to her wry and dry sense of humor, too.

  As they traveled southwest, Teal noticed another big change in scenery. One side of the road, the north side, had become wild-looking desert with a deep, narrow arroyo carrying a small amount of water at its bottom, and behind that was a high ridgeline. The hills that made up the ridge and ones that could be seen behind those were monstrous bluffs and buttes of every pink-orange hue she’d ever seen.

  “Look there at the small herd of whitetail deer, Bright Eyes.”

  “Wow. How do they live out here?”

  “The arroyo carries enough water to maintain a kind of plant life, even in this desert.”

  Teal had also started noticing the other side of the road, where taller plants than she’d seen before were growing in profusion. That side’s scenery wasn’t nearly as wild as the other, but it was still empty of structures. All that could be seen were waist-high sage, cedar and juniper trees. Yellow flowering bushes at least six feet tall brightened up the otherwise gray-green vistas, but she couldn’t name any plant that would flower so brilliantly in the fall.

  The outskirts of a town came into view and she and Lucas began reading the billboards for places to eat in Kayenta.

  “That nice motel up ahead has a good place to eat,” Lucas told her. “We’ll stop there.”

  “I’d rather we’d stop at the drive-in advertised down the road. I haven’t seen one of those old fashioned eat-in-your-car places in years.”

  “Aren’t you tired of sitting in the car?”

  “Nope.”

  They stopped at the drive-in, and though each ordered quite differently, Teal and Lucas were fairly happy with their choices.

  Once they’d finished eating, Teal squirmed around and began locking her seat belt down for the next part of the trip. “Ugh,” she muttered when her bottom leaned on something with rough angles.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She reached under her back end, but finally figured out that what she was sitting on was something in her own pocket. Pulling the plastic envelope free, she remembered that these were yet another pair of unwashed jeans. One of these days she was going to be forced into doing more laundry than ju
st rinsing out her underwear.

  “It’s the evidence envelope with the mud scrapings from the dead man’s boots,” she told him. “I tried to give it to the crime scene supervisor at my house yesterday. But he told me his team had gathered plenty of evidence from the dead man’s body already and still had his shoes to work on.”

  “They didn’t need that sample, then?”

  “No. But I forgot to throw it away.”

  “Don’t.” Lucas took the plastic envelope from her hands and stared at the mud inside. “This is unique mud. Have you had a chance to really study it?”

  “I’m not sure I would’ve known what I was looking at even if I’d had time.”

  He smiled at her and held up the envelope. “See those sparkly particles sprinkled through the reddish mud that’s rapidly drying?”

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  “I’m not sure. Looks like…” He hesitated. “I need a second opinion. Let me call the friend in the Navajo DPS I was mentioning earlier, Hunter Long. He’s one of the best trackers in the West and knows this area better than anyone else. He’s also in the Brotherhood. Mind if I have him meet us later?”

  “Okay by me. If you think that’s important.”

  “Remember, Bright Eyes. Water is scarce out here. If the one who died walked into mud right before he was murdered, then we need to find out where he was when it happened.”

  “Yes, I agree that would be worth a look if we can find it.”

  “Hunter Long will know where to look.”

  Twenty minutes later, Lucas pulled the SUV off the side of the highway at the turnoff to Black Mesa. The foliage was denser here than it had been back up the highway at Kayenta, so he parked in the shade of a stand of Russian olive trees.

  Hunter had promised to meet them within the hour and wanted to accompany them to see the mine manager. Lucas was glad for the extra company. It had been all he could do to keep his hands off Teal. With Hunter along, his mind could stay on things that were more important at the moment than his physical desires.

  Ever since he’d touched her and tasted her for real instead of just in dreams, he could barely think of anything else. But he had to start thinking with his brain instead of with other parts of his body. The more he considered the method of the dead man’s death and that someone had tampered with Teal’s car, the more he was convinced all this was Skinwalker related.