Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  Once she’d made the turn, Teal found the air becoming fresher. “I’m going to live,” she mumbled aloud.

  “Keep moving, Bright Eyes. You will live. We have saved you.”

  We? There was more than one other person in this mine shaft with her?

  Teal shrugged off the concern not only for her safety from intruders, but also for her sanity. And using the flashlight beam pointed straight ahead, she picked up speed.

  There was no time to consider the circumstances. Now was the time simply to save her own life.

  Lucas was barely breathing hard as he topped a rise, approaching the gold-mine entrance located straight up the hill. He had the fold-up shovel in one hand and an ax in the other, and he’d even managed to throw a rope and tarp around his neck in case he needed them to get her out. He’d been gone for just under twelve minutes. Another hundred yards and he’d be there.

  Glancing up to the sky, he noticed the last specks of an orange glow streaking out from the western sunset. The first of the evening stars could already be seen blinking in the northern sky.

  What would he do when it became too dark in the tunnel to dig? He hadn’t even considered bringing back a flashlight. But he did have matches. Maybe he could build a fire and find the right materials to make a torch.

  At the thought of a fire, Lucas dragged in a deep breath and smelled smoke. Was his mind playing tricks?

  He slowed his pace and looked around. Then he spotted it. A thin plume of smoke coming from the top of the hill above the mine shaft’s entrance.

  Wildfires were entirely possible this time of year, but there was little fuel in the way of brush or trees nearby. What caused the fire and how close was it?

  A low buzz and a high nasal trumpeting coo-coo call sounded directly off to his left. He hesitated to look away from the mine and Teal’s prison for even a moment, but finally he turned to the noise.

  “The smoke is from the mine shaft, Brother.” The raspy voice was coming from near the ground.

  Lucas searched the shadows and spotted a burrowing owl emerging from his burrow in the rock. He was taken aback because he’d never before known an owl of any sort to talk to him. And the People had always considered the burrowing owl to be evil.

  But as he stared down at the small, cute creature, Lucas decided this particular bird must have come with a message. Such an innocent-looking being couldn’t possibly have evil intentions.

  “Have you been sent from the Bird People’s army?” he asked the owl.

  “I have come to offer assistance. The woman’s trouble could be fatal and she must be saved now.”

  “But how?” Lucas demanded with a catch in his voice. “What can I do to reach her?”

  “There is a way, Brother. But we must hurry. Even now the smoke chokes her.”

  “How? I’ll try anything. Do anything. Help me.”

  “A hole exists in the mine shaft. A hole not big enough for a human.”

  “But if it’s not big enough, then she can’t get out that way and I can’t get in.”

  “Another solution will save the FBI woman.”

  “What? Tell me.” Lucas was screaming now. Frantic and close to hysteria, he wanted to shake this tiny creature who had supposedly come to help him.

  “You must use the power given only to you. The power that your brother humans shun. You can change over, enter through the hole and see well enough in the dark to lead her to fresh air.”

  That statement took Lucas a moment to process. “What power?” He was ready to try any solution but he had absolutely no idea of what the owl meant.

  “You alone can talk to the Bird People, Brother. You alone can take the form of your allies.”

  “What? No.” Lucas’s gut reaction was to try anything else and not consider what this creature was suggesting.

  Turning into another species was witchcraft and even such thoughts were considered taboo. He didn’t dare.

  “Is that possible?” he asked the owl with fear in his heart. “A human can become a bird. Just like that?”

  “No time left to question. The woman suffers.”

  Torn and verging on panic over Teal’s well-being, Lucas made a snap decision. The ramifications and regrets could come later.

  “Help me,” he begged the owl. “Whatever it takes. Help me to reach her.”

  “Very well, human.” The owl ducked into the burrow, pulled out a leather pouch with its beak and dropped the thing at Lucas’s feet. “Take these herbs as I say the chant that will make it happen.”

  Lucas never hesitated. He opened his mouth to down the herb potion he’d found in the pouch, while the owl spoke ancient words that Lucas had never heard before.

  As a Dineh medicine man, he thought he’d heard every chant, every ceremony. But this one was something new. If he could’ve cleared his head of the fear for Teal, he might’ve tried memorizing the words. But as it was, he could scarcely breathe, let alone take the time to think.

  As he swallowed the herb potion, his vision blurred. Gray, hazy edges took over his multicolored world.

  Still the owl’s chants went on and on. Lucas’s every muscle began to contract. He felt his body tighten, his arms and legs shrink.

  Closing his eyes, he concentrated on what was happening to his body and felt every cell altering—changing to something—something not human. Then all of a sudden he felt intense pain, strong enough to double him over.

  Lucas collapsed to the ground and moaned. Was he about to die? Had the owl poisoned him?

  “Get up, Brother Owl.”

  Confused and disoriented, Lucas forced his eyes open. His world was no longer the familiar colorful place it had been just moments before.

  “Spread your wings,” the burrowing owl demanded. “Prepare to fly with me above the trees.”

  Lucas did as he was told. With one flap, the complete feeling of exhilaration zinged throughout his body.

  As a child he’d had an overactive imagination. Many times he’d tried to fly like his friends the birds. He had a few scars to prove it, too.

  But by the age of ten, he’d channeled his imagination into creative work, his art, and forgotten all about a childhood spent daydreaming of soaring above the trees.

  Now this owl was offering him a golden opportunity. Though the colors of the world he had always loved had disappeared, leaving him with black-and-white images that held no real appeal, he couldn’t wait to fly.

  After a few tentative tries, Lucas followed the owl into the air. Swooping and soaring on every updraft, he found himself enjoying the freedom of flight and becoming greedy for more and more air time.

  On one daring glide, flying low against the treetops, Lucas drew in a breath of smoke-filled air and finally remembered his original objective. Saving Teal.

  “Show me the right hole to reach the woman,” Lucas demanded as he flew.

  The owl turned a spiteful, evil grin in his direction and narrowed his beady, yellow eyes. “Foolish human. The thing you most despise is what you have become.

  “You who wished to belong with the others have dared to change forms. Your Brotherhood and family will shun you as a witch. You wanted to belong? Now you do. You belong with us, Skinwalker.”

  “No!” The pain of realization hit Lucas hard. How could he have done something so unthinking? He’d let his fear for Teal and his fantasies overtake his entire upbringing. Everything he had ever learned about the Navajo Way told him changing forms was wrong. Yet given the opportunity, he’d jumped at it.

  Anger, guilt and frustration swamped him with emotions he’d seldom experienced. He wanted to kill the Skinwalker owl who’d tricked him.

  Doing a barrel roll in the sky, Lucas turned, determined to do real damage to the owl. But as a more experienced flyer, the owl ducked, flew low and disappeared from Lucas’s limited view.

  Now what?

  His anger evaporated with the owl’s disappearance. But the overwhelming guilt remained. He desperately wanted to change back
to human form, save Teal and then begin repenting his unfortunate choices for the rest of his life. Was he instead destined to spend that life as a Skinwalker?

  Teal inched out of the narrow opening and fell on her knees in the twilight. Gasping the clean fresh air, she thanked whatever lucky star she was under for saving her life.

  She’d made it out of the mine. Thank heaven.

  For what had seemed like hours, she’d followed the cavern walls, moving uphill and always staying to the right. The last narrow passageway had been a tight squeeze, but then she had seen the dim light at the end of the shaft and pure determination had carried her all the way outside.

  Alive. And safe.

  Sitting back on her heels, Teal tried to gather her senses. Where was she? And could she find Lucas’s location from here?

  It had seemed to her that she’d traveled miles underground away from the deadly fire and the caved-in mine entrance. But within the confines of the dark and soundless cavern, she could’ve been traveling in circles for all she knew.

  Her throat was still sore from the smoke and she badly needed a drink of water. There would be no calling out for help from her for a while. And her cell phone still had no signal bars out here in the desert.

  Maybe she could figure out where she was by the stars. She had learned a little celestial navigation in survival training. But when she looked up, she discovered the skies above her had turned gray with intermittent cloud cover. No moon and few stars. No help from that direction.

  In a few moments, she found herself getting cold and wrapped her arms around her body in a tight hug. As dank and chilly as it had been inside the cavern, outside here in the dusk of this high desert, the night air was becoming downright frigid.

  Coughing, laughing and crying all at the same time, Teal murmured, “Lucas, where are you? I need you.”

  “The man who protects you has committed a grave error.”

  She stood and twirled around, looking for the man behind the low bass voice. “Who are you? Where are you?”

  “I am known as Accipiter striatus, Bright Eyes. I am of the Sharp-Shinned Hawk Clan, born for the Bird People. We are your saviors.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Teal raised her hands to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut.

  A big bird was sitting about five feet away on a low sage branch…and talking to her! Had she lost consciousness? Or had her brain been so deprived of oxygen in the smoky mine shaft that she was hallucinating.

  This could not be happening.

  With her eyes closed, she didn’t hear anything for a few moments so she decided to sneak her eyes open for a peak. Perhaps this was just a terrible dream after all.

  “We should hurry. The one who speaks to us needs you.”

  Reality blurred, then vanished as Teal stood staring at the hawk who was addressing her in a formal manner. What had he been saying? In a moment, she overcame her fear and settled into a good case of the jitters.

  This…uh…bird was talking about Lucas.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she sputtered. “Was he injured in the explosion or cave-in?”

  “The man has allowed himself to be tricked. We are now protecting him from harm, but every minute brings him closer to destruction.”

  “Tricked? How? By whom?”

  “The Navajo witch came to him and offered a chance to become one with them. It is against nature’s way. The man should not have accepted.”

  “Witches? Oh, you mean the Skinwalkers.” Panic and fear for Lucas tumbled through her in a much worse case of near-hysteria than she’d had for her own safety.

  “What have they done to him? Tell me,” she demanded.

  “We chased off the intruder, but the man has been left behind in the form of the evil one. He seems to be our clan brother, but he is not.”

  “He’s in bird form? But why? Why would he do such a thing?” Teal was more than confused.

  Lucas had changed over? It was really, truly possible? And she had been so smug and sure such things were simply naive superstitions.

  “He tells us he thought to save you. He did not trust us, his allies, to do the job.”

  He’d wanted to save her and allowed the Skinwalkers to trick him. Oh, Lucas.

  “But what can I do? I don’t know how to change him back if he can’t do it for himself.”

  “His arrogance in making the change has left him with no memory of the Brotherhood chants. His brothers have arrived at the mine but do not recognize their own.”

  “You think I could talk to him, then. Translate his words for the Brotherhood?”

  “You are his only hope. But we must hurry. The longer he stays in unnatural form, the less chance he will have to return.”

  “How far is it? Will it take us long to reach him?”

  “Not long, Bright Eyes. We will lead.”

  Teal pulled out her cell phone and checked the status bars. Nothing yet.

  In a few minutes it would be pitch dark except for a couple of stars that appeared every time the cloud cover broke. So she turned on her flashlight beam and prepared to make her way through the sand and boulders to find the man she’d left behind—the man who had been protecting her back.

  She only hoped it wouldn’t be too late to help him.

  12

  L ucas ducked behind a boulder downhill from the mine entrance. The Brotherhood had arrived and were setting up floodlights and searching for him.

  But there was nothing he could do to make them understand his current predicament. His words would be lost in a flutter of wings and the sound of birdcalls.

  He wanted to curse at them. They were too late. Their help was useless to him now. Instead, he eased down into a crack at the base of the boulder and hid, afraid of noises from the dry brush around him.

  The Bird People were guarding him from the skies. But that wouldn’t shield him from the many dangers that awaited him on the ground. Snakes, in particular, were a disaster just waiting to happen. But it was the nature of a burrowing owl to nest under the rocks and sand, not high in a tree above the rattlesnakes and other animal predators.

  Trying to rediscover his true spirit, Lucas fought the urges of the evil ones. The longer he stayed in this form, the angrier and greedier he became. He felt there was no hope to overcome the Skinwalker forces coursing through him.

  Why shouldn’t he simply remain a bird? He liked soaring above the trees. He’d been dreaming of this for longer than he’d been dreaming of Teal.

  And speaking of her, this would be a perfect excuse to leave her behind. To get her out of his thoughts once and for all. After all, she didn’t understand their connection and would be leaving him in the end anyhow.

  Yes. Finally freedom from the invisible tether that had tied him to visions of Teal for most of his life. It would be a huge relief. Freedom. Freedom to soar. Freedom from dreams and from the Brotherhood.

  Exactly what did he mean to his Navajo cousins in the Brotherhood anyway? They who had teased and shunned him as a child. They had turned him into a freak sideshow when they needed him to become the “sensitive” for the Brotherhood. He owed them no real allegiance.

  The longer he listened to Kody and Hunter Long calling out his name, the more bitter he became. They were the blood brothers of the Brotherhood. True clansmen with the same mother, who had no room in their lives for a man with no parents and whose only talents were artistic.

  He was not a fighter and had never done battle. They didn’t really respect him.

  Growing ever more furious now, he tried to think of ways that a bird could get even with humans. Perhaps he would contact the Skinwalkers and make a deal.

  A rustling noise sounded off to his left and sent an alarm through his body. Was it a predator? Could he fly away in time?

  Through the soft night air, Lucas heard a woman’s voice whispering his name. Teal.

  “Lucas. It’s me. I can understand your words, so please answer me.”

  He didn’t want her to see him
like this. It was bad enough that he hadn’t found a way of protecting her from Skinwalker evil. Now he couldn’t even help himself.

  “The Bird People told me what happened,” Teal said. “Let me help you. I can translate.”

  Lucas was torn. A big part of him wanted to stay hidden and skip seeing the scorn in her eyes when she looked at him in the form of a Skinwalker.

  But this was his Teal. Just looking at her reminded him of all that she meant to him. What had he been thinking before when he’d wanted his freedom?

  She was his everything. All balanced in black and white, she shone brightly even when he kept edging over into the gray.

  Another huge part of him couldn’t bear taking the risk of losing her for good just yet. Never being able to hold her in his arms again. Never…saying goodbye.

  Trying to keep his voice from carrying the sudden spurt of fear mixed with sorrow that he’d felt, Lucas hopped out of the boulder’s shadow and spoke to her. “I’m here. But I’m not sure what you can do.”

  “Oh, Lucas,” she said with pity in her voice. “Don’t you know I would do whatever it takes to help you? You allowed yourself to be tricked trying to save me. I have to do what I can for you in return.”

  He couldn’t stand the look on her face. The combination of sympathy and repulsion was something he’d never thought he would see stamped across her beautiful features.

  Teal knelt beside him. “Please. Let me tell the Brotherhood what’s happened. The Bird People say your cousins know a chant that’ll bring you back. But we have to hurry. Your time is running out.”

  “They may not want to help me. What I’ve done is too big a mistake.”

  “Don’t say that. The Brotherhood is honorable and loyal. They won’t desert you. I know they’ll help.”

  If it had been anyone else in the universe begging him to help himself, Lucas would’ve turned them down and let embarrassment and guilt ruin his life. But because it was Teal, he agreed to go up the hill with her to confront his cousins.

  Kody and Hunter began a series of chants that Lucas thought he should remember but couldn’t place. Standing his ground before them, he watched for signs of condemnation in their eyes. But he didn’t see the scorn he’d expected. He saw sympathy and some pity, and something suspiciously like real concern.