Abe rummaged through his jacket pocket for the small flashlight he carried on his key chain. It wasn’t long before the narrow beam picked up the distinct markings of snapped juniper branches and tire ruts heading through the brushy area. “Over here!” he shouted.
Even in the rain, they could tell a vehicle had backed about ten yards into the brush.
“They came in here, then left. See where a car drove out?” Hosteen tried his radio again but still could not get a signal. “Goddammit. I need to get a roadblock set up and call for assistance. I don’t like the looks of this. Freeman, I want you to get back to the trail and find the search party. See if they came up with anything. I’ve got to drive somewhere I can get a signal and radio this in.”
Abe felt the blood drain from his face and a cold chill course through his body as the realization hit him. He breathed in short gasps, didn’t seem to be able to get enough oxygen. “You think someone came in here and took Emily and the girl? I’m going with you.” Rain dripped off his ball cap and light windbreaker, and he shuddered. “You might run into them along the way.”
“No, you’re not. You’re going to do as I say. Now get going before the search party arrives and walks all over the possible evidence. That’s the best way to help right now.”
Abe considered arguing but changed his mind. Will rode his motorcycle down here, he thought. I’ll take it and follow those tire tracks myself. Will can watch things at the camp.
“All right, Hosteen. Quit wasting time talking—and you better have the cops looking for a Chevy van.”
He turned and crashed through the brush until he saw Will, illuminated in the rain by the light of his motorcycle, kneeling over something in the path and chanting in a tormented voice.
Emily! he thought.
He ran toward Will. When he neared the motionless shape in the road, he realized Will was looking at an animal of some kind—a coyote. It was only the hide and head. Will, startled by the noise, swung around and clenched his fists, his face contorted in anguish. He dropped his hands to his sides when he realized who it was. His eyes brimmed with tears as he stared helplessly at Abe.
“They’re gone,” he said. “See the dart on the ground? It’s from a tranquilizer gun. They must have immobilized Emily before she could do anything. I’m going after them.”
Abe’s stomach churned when he saw the dart, the empty syringe still attached. “No, Will, wait. Let me take the bike. We found tracks from their van I can follow, and you should stay here to talk to the family—they need you. And somebody has to keep people away from the crime scene.”
Will rubbed his forehead and inhaled deeply. “You don’t understand. I let my people down. I let Emily down. How could this have happened?”
“It’s not your fault. Please, Will, stay and keep watch. And don’t let anyone touch the coyote or dart, or anything else. Keep them off the crime scene. There might be tracks—if the rain doesn’t wash them away.” Abe could feel his heart pounding, the taste of fear in his mouth, the tightness in his muscles. He knew he had only a little time before the tire tracks near the pipeline disappeared as well. “We’re wasting time, Will. Hosteen will be back as soon as he can call in for assistance.” He reached into his pocket. “Here’re the keys to the truck. You can take it to my place and stay there tonight.”
“I’ll stick around here for a while. I’m gonna do a powerful ceremony—Nayeejii Aʹcha Soodiziz, the Dangerous Way Protection Prayer—for Emily and Lina. And for you. I’m gonna sing it till all of you get back. Go on. But be careful, brother.”
Abe put a hand on Will’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “We’ll find them,” he said, trying to convince himself as well as Will. He knew Emily might be dying from the tranquilizer dart, and he hated not knowing how or where to reach her. He quickly mounted the bike, rolled it off the kickstand, fumbled with the switches, and jumped on the starter a couple of times. When the Chief rumbled to life, he turned the bike around and headed back through the brush in the direction he had come.
The rain turned to a drizzle, leaving the pipeline slick and tread marks hard to see. It didn’t matter, though. Abe knew the direction they were headed, and with the canyon on one side and dense brush on the other, there was no place to turn off. This section was relatively smooth and flat—nothing but the slippery surface to keep him from driving fast.
He had covered about three miles when he noticed a well-lit area and what appeared to be a flame in the sky ahead. As he got closer, he realized the fire was coming out of a flare stack at a natural-gas pumping station. A portable generator attached to a truck supplied power for a floodlight. A dirt road, heading north-south, intersected the site. Unfortunately, the trucks and equipment vehicles parked nearby made it impossible to distinguish one set of tracks from another. A group of men stood close to a cluster of tanks, pipes, pumps, and drilling rigs. Abe scanned the vehicles, looking for any sign of a white Chevy van. When he didn’t spot it, he approached the workers, hoping someone had seen it and could tell him which direction the van had taken.
Too late, he realized his mistake.
A half dozen men, dressed in red coveralls, stared at him as he dismounted the bike and began walking his way. One, a heavyset man with a potbelly, clutched a plumber’s wrench in his hand. Abe stopped in his tracks, locking eyes with the racist lout he had decked at Doc’s Diner. While the others looked on with smirks on their faces, the oil-rig worker slowly walked toward Abe, swinging the wrench back and forth.
“Well, whaddya know? Look at the piece of shit that just blew in. I bet you’re the punk who’s been messing with these valves, too. Trying to make more trouble for us, aren’t you, squaw-lover?”
Abe put his hands in the air. “I didn’t come here to make trouble, and I haven’t touched anything.” Abe’s mouth went dry, and he licked his lips. “Look, if you’re itching for a fight, just name the place and time. We can settle things later. All I want from any of you is information, and I’ll be on my way. It’s urgent. I’m looking for some missing girls. Someone took them. Did anyone see a white Chevy van go by?”
“What if we did, asshole?” said the guy with the wrench.
“Just tell me which way it went.”
The brute stopped less than a foot away. They stood eyeball-to-eyeball when the rigger grinned, swung the wrench, and smashed it into the side of Abe’s right knee.
Abe gasped in pain and doubled over, grasping his knee with one hand. He held up the other in surrender. “Just tell me which way, you son of a bitch,” he croaked before an uppercut caught him in the solar plexus, and he tumbled to the ground.
The gas-line worker, like an animal smelling a kill, began kicking him in the side and head. “That’ll teach you to mess with me, you worthless piece of shit.” He raised the wrench above Abe, ready to deal another blow, but the other men jumped in and pulled him away.
Abe lay in the mud, gasping for breath, struggling to remain conscious. He heard shouting: “McCaffey, you crazy fool. You’re going to kill him. Let’s clean up the job and get the hell out of here before someone else shows up.” The floodlight went out, car doors slammed, engines roared—then there was nothing but the steady drip of rain.
“Goddammit. I told you to stay at the crime scene. What the hell did you think you were going to do?”
Abe’s eyes fluttered open wide enough to recognize the angry face of Joe Hosteen. The Navajo police officer helped him to a sitting position, and Abe groaned in pain. He shivered from the cold, blood oozed from his split lip, his head throbbed like a beaten stepchild, and his knee felt twice its normal size. When he tried to stand, the knee buckled and he stumbled to the ground with a grunt.
“You need a doctor,” Hosteen said.
Abe waved him off. “I’ll be okay. Gotta move around is all.” He clambered to his feet and cautiously tested his leg. “Did you find anything?” He cringed and bent over, holding his knee as a new spasm of pain shot through his body.
“N
o. As soon as I got within range, I called the dispatcher. They put out an APB, but nothing yet—backup crew and crime-scene investigators are on the way, and Emily’s brother is standing guard.” Hosteen shook his head in disgust. “Jesus Christ. What did you think you could accomplish by taking off on your own?”
“Thought there was a chance I could catch up with them, or at least see which way they went.” Abe held his jaw and wiggled it back and forth. Nothing appeared broken. And though one eye was nearly swollen shut, his tongue told him all his teeth were intact. “Saw a work crew here, so I stopped to ask if they had seen a white Chevy van. This guy jumped me—McCaffey, they called him.”
Hosteen raised an eyebrow.
“We had a run-in a few days ago. He made some crude remarks about Emily.”
“Get used to it.”
“That’s what Emily told me,” he said, rubbing his knee.
“Can you make it back to my vehicle? I’m dropping you off at the hospital. Then you can file a complaint.”
Abe shook his head. “Where’s Will’s bike?” he asked, looking around.
“Back there.” Hosteen pointed with his head. “Someone must have kicked it over.”
“Help me stand it up. I’ll ride it back and talk to Will, try to find out if they learned anything. I’m not quitting—I’ll try to find their tracks.” He moved toward the motorcycle, stopped, and faced Hosteen. “There was an Anglo guy at the ceremony. I saw him standing beside a white truck—Ford, I think. He was alone and talking on a portable radio. When I went to my truck to get a jacket, he was gone.”
“I’ll check it out. Listen, Freeman, you’re in no condition to do any riding. You need to take care of your knee. I know Emily’s your girlfriend and you want to find her—I don’t blame you—but don’t try being the Lone Ranger. Go home, stay out of the way, and let the Indians do their job.” Before he left, he gave his number to Abe. “Call me if you hear anything.”
13
Wednesday, April 11, 1990
Unknown Location
Emily’s eyes shot open. She tried moving and discovered that her arms and legs were pinned down, strapped onto something flat—a cot or gurney. She was inside a moving vehicle. Men’s voices, sounding hollow and distant, echoed in her head.
“Oh, fuck.”
“What the hell’s wrong?”
“I remember the girl’s case. She’s diabetic.”
“Shit. What do we do now?”
“I don’t know. We can’t let the boss know we screwed up. I’ll figure out something.”
She lifted her head and immediately felt a rush of nausea. “Lina?” she whispered, twisting her head from left to right as she searched for the girl. A wash of dizziness swept over her, and she closed her eyes. Emily wasn’t sure if she was actually hearing voices or just dreaming.
She drifted off to sleep again, then awoke, thinking she was drowning. Her body was drenched in sweat. Struggling against her bonds, Emily opened her eyes to see a man’s face peering down at her.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good. I was afraid the dose of ketamine in the dart might have been too powerful, but your vital signs look good. I did practice on the coyote first, though, and estimated his weight before I increased the dosage for you,” the man said.
She blinked, blinded by the glare of an intense beam of light on her face. Her head pounded and her stomach clenched in panic. “What were you talking about? Where’s Lina?” she said, her voice sounding far away and disconnected from her body.
“Nobody was talking. Don’t worry about the girl. She’s sleeping peacefully.” The man’s accent was Midwestern, a flat monotone. He shined the light on the inert figure of Lina, strapped to another gurney. “I just took her pulse rate and blood pressure—a little low, but there’s nothing to worry about. She should be waking soon. Chloroform doesn’t stay in the body long, so I gave her a little more to prevent her from waking up too early and becoming overanxious.”
They were moving along a bumpy road. Emily choked back the bile in her throat. “Where are you taking us?”
“You’re going to like it there. We didn’t plan on bringing you along, but you were in the way—a problem. So, lucky you, you are one of the chosen ones now, too. There is no greater honor than to be selected by our Divine Prophet and leader.”
When Abe returned to the crime scene, the police had already arrived and taped off the area. Will, rain dripping from his battered hat, stood off to the side by a clump of bushes listening to a group of Navajo men. Charley Nez, his face contorted with rage and grief, was shouting at him in Navajo.
Will looked up when he heard the motorcycle, and Abe saw his friend’s stricken features in the glare of the headlight. The others turned their backs, and Will walked wearily toward Abe.
“They don’t want me around. Some of my people are saying I brought an evil curse—that I am practicing clizyati, the Witchery Way. That I have performed a perverted ceremony, invoking evil.” He stopped when he saw Abe’s bruised, blood-streaked face. “Get behind me on the bike, and I’ll take you to the truck. We’ll load it up, and I’ll drive. I can’t do any good here—I’ve already told the cops what I know.”
Abe nodded and slid back, giving Will room to climb onto the motorcycle. He was soaked to the skin, shivering, and feeling each ache and pain brought on by the beating. “We’ve got to go after them, Will.”
When Will stopped beside Abe’s truck, he pulled the loading ramp down and rolled his bike into the Toyota’s bed, jumped in the driver’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition. Abe limped in beside him on the passenger side. They rode in gloomy silence until reaching the highway.
Will pulled a cigarette from the pack of Marlboros in his shirt pocket and shook one out for Abe. “I’ve got to take you home, Abe. You’re in no shape to go after anyone. You didn’t find Emily, but do you want to tell me what you did find?” Though he seemed to be trying to sound calm, Abe could hear the tremor in Will’s voice and see the shaking hand that held the package.
Abe put the cigarette between his bruised lips and accepted the proffered light. If there was ever a time to start smoking again, it was now. “Trouble, and not the kind I was looking for.”
Smoke began to fill the vehicle’s interior, so Will cracked a window, his eyebrows forming question marks under the brim of his black hat.
“I was following the tracks of whoever took Emily and the girl. I ran into a work crew at a pumping station, so I stopped to ask if they saw anyone.” Abe inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with noxious smoke, knowing he wasn’t doing himself any good but savoring it just the same. “Turned out to be the same asshole I had a run-in with last week. He slammed my knee with a wrench, sucker-punched me, kicked me a few times for good measure. He might have killed me if the others hadn’t pulled him off. Guess I lost consciousness for a while. Pricks only had to tell me which way the vehicle went.” His right elbow on the window frame, his pounding head resting in his palm, Abe groaned. “We have to look for them, Will—now—before it’s too late. What do you think they want with these girls? With Emily? They might . . .” He didn’t want to give voice to the thought that had been tormenting him. “They might kill them. Maybe they’re that crazy.”
Will’s voice trembled when he spoke. “Abe, don’t think like that. I want to go after them as much as you, but where are we going to start in the dark—in the rain—in the condition you’re in? Tomorrow, we start early. Now you’re going home to soak in a hot bath, take a couple of aspirin, or smoke a joint. You’re no use to anyone in the condition you’re in, and neither am I. The cops are on it. I’ve got to go home, break the news to Mom, and line up some more family to help in the search.”
Abe had forgotten about Bertha. The news that Emily was missing would be hard on her, but he wasn’t ready to quit. “I know, Will, but I’m betting it was a Chevy that took them, and it turned north, into Colorado. We could go after it now.”
“Go where, Abe? There won’t be any tracks
to follow on the highway.” This time, it was the Navajo with the voice of reason—unlike before, when Will had persuaded him to go along on a wild-goose chase to Arizona in search of a killer. “Better we wait, talk to the cops, and see if they got any leads.”
Abe ran a hand through his hair, took a long draw on the cigarette, and stared out the window into the black night. “I don’t know what to do, Will.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “What did the cops find at the scene so far?”
“The tranquilizer dart. They’re sending it to the lab for analysis. Sis’s radio was on the ground, and there were two sets of prints leading off into the brush. The ones going out appeared deeper than those coming in, meaning they were carrying something heavy.”
The weight of the day felt like it had fallen on Abe’s eyelids. He leaned his head back and fell into a fitful sleep.
He was awakened a short time later by the sound of a siren. A white Ford Explorer, emergency lights flashing, raced past them from the opposite direction. Abe rubbed his forehead, felt pain ripple through his body. “Hosteen going back to the scene,” Abe said, his voice thick. “I wonder what he found. I’m going to call the station when I get home. What’s your take on him, Will?”
“Don’t know much about him. He left the rez as a little kid. Seems a bit standoffish. Keeps to himself. Emily doesn’t have too many good things to say about him.” Will shrugged. “His mother was an activist, and a few people didn’t like it. She butted heads with the higher-ups one too many times, and they made a pariah out of her. The family wouldn’t take her in, old man was gone, so she disappeared one day. I guess Hosteen was born in Albuquerque.”
“How good a cop is he?”
“I hear he’s blunt but smart. Doesn’t care about making friends. Ambitious, nontraditional, like his mother.”
Abducted Innocence (Emily Etcitty) Page 7