by KJ Dahlen
Renegade frowned. “Cloves? No I don’t think so, but hell it’s been so long since I’ve been home, I just don’t remember anyone smelling like cloves.”
“Well someone drove me from Alpine to Austin,” Kalinda stated. “It was a big blue truck. When we got to where we were going, he pushed me out of the truck and took off. He didn’t even stay to tell anyone I was even there.”
“He abandoned you, outside, in the dark?” Silas growled. He glanced at his son and his grandsons. “You weren’t much more than a baby yourself, the fucking bastard.”
“One of the nuns found me a few minutes after he left.”
“When we find this guy, I’d like a few minutes alone with him.” Tate shook his head.
“You might have to wait in line boy.” Silas growled deeper.
“It might be a very long line there Tate.” Bear sneered as everyone there agreed.
Kalinda looked around. “But really. He saved my life didn’t he?”
Then men all grumbled, as they wouldn’t really agree with this statement.
Kalinda had to believe this. If she had been left there in the tribe, they would have killed her to keep her quiet. Even though she had no real idea what any of it meant at the time. Whomever dropped her off could just have easily killed her and he hadn’t. To her, this was the conclusion she had finally resolved in her mind, now that she knew everything.
Chapter Four
A short time later Kalinda stood beside the window looking out into the back yard, holding her baby girl and rocking her while Rosa slept in her arms. At eight months old, she was getting big enough that Kalinda couldn’t hold her very long anymore but she loved these moment of bonding with her daughter.
She was still so confused by the day’s events. Was what she remembered the truth about what happened that fateful night nineteen years ago? Had the beating she took that night four years ago been part of all of this? Was the accident when she was run off the road another attempt on her life? It was almost too much to even think about.
She knew her dad wasn’t drunk when they were arguing. Even at three years old she’d seen him drunk often enough before to tell when he was and when he wasn’t. The words she’d heard before in her dreams were only echoes of what she remembered until now.
After her memories had returned this afternoon, their harsh words became clear to her. She remembered everything they had yelled at each other. The woman she remembered she now knew was her mother, Luna. She had been a sweet woman always smiling and a very loving mother, not only to her but also to her baby sister Rachel.
Rachel was only coming on to two years old. She hadn’t even had her joining the tribe ceremony yet when she died. Kalinda was afraid to close her eyes right now. She remembered Rachel crying at the sound of their parents yelling and screaming at each other but she had been only a baby. What happened at the time hadn’t been her fault. She began crying at the sound of their angry voices. She’s been scared and her fear kept her crying. Kalinda tried to hush her, she knew all too well how her father reacted to the sound of a crying child. It didn’t help, Rachel didn’t want her, she wanted her mother and when she couldn’t get to her, she creamed all the louder. Then he father turned on them. He had snatched the smaller child out of her arms and at first, he just shook her yelling at his child to shut up. Rachel cried all the louder calling out for her mother. Luna tried to get to her child and then Joshua flipped out. In her nightmares, she never remembered the look on his face but now she remembered it. The way the rage inside him twisted his features into something she didn’t recognize. His eyes glowed red and he lifted her sister up into the air. He was screaming at her, telling her over and over that he was going to give her something to scream about. Then he threw her hard against the wall.
She kept seeing her father throw her sister out of the way. Then she heard her mother’s scream as she watched Rachel smash into the wall then fall to the floor. Joshua must have known what he’d done in a moment of clarity. Kalinda crawled into a corner after that and prayed her father wouldn’t see her and hurt her the same way.
She looked down at her sweet baby’s sleeping face and vowed that her daughter would never know the same pain she had known. She would kill Jack if he ever hurt her, but then he was more of a real man than her own father had ever been.
Jack would never hurt her or their daughter just to feel like a man. Jack was a far better man than her own father would ever think of being. She knew Silas and Tate both had raised him and his brothers to be better men than most.
She knew he joined just now her without hearing him enter her space. Her heart beat a little bit faster as she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. His scent filtered into her lungs and the sense of being safe she got every time he was close moved over her gently.
She closed her eyes and waited for his arms to wrap around her waist. Which they did. Leaning back, she laid her head on his chest.
“What a day, huh?” Jack whispered low. “Not exactly the wedding day I hoped I could give you. I wanted so much more the day we finally got married.”
“Oh my love, it wasn’t so bad.” She chuckled as she took Rosa and laid her back in her crib. “I remembered my past today, as painful as it was I did remember it. I haven’t been able to do that in nineteen years.” She took his hand and led him out to the main room.
“But again, not the way I planned our wedding day.” Jack sighed as they walked down the hall.
She turned her head and looked up at him. “I got what I wanted today. I now share your name and can finally call you my husband.”
“I should have done this a long time ago. I just never thought I had the right to drag you into the mess we were in with Bandit and Snake.”
“I would have had your back anyway. The same as I know you’ll always have mine.”
When they got into the main room, Jack smoothed his hands down her shoulder to her arms. “So what are you going to do about what waits for you in Alpine?”
“I don’t know. If I go back, they will try to kill me but I don’t want them to get away with what they’re doing either.” Shaking her head she admitted something to him she felt needed to be addressed, “I don’t think you know what it’s like to be an Indian in today’s society. People look at you with scorn, like the last two hundred years haven’t passed. They think you’re a savage, ready to strike out without a cause. Prejudice still exists and it’s very much against those of us who aren’t white. Even the black people have more than we do. All my life, I never knew which tribe I belonged to. There is more than one tribe in Texas. I didn’t even know if Texas was where I could call home. Growing up in the orphanage, I took shit no child should have to live with. They called me names and the nuns didn’t stop it.” She looked down at her daughter and her look softened. “I pray that Rosa never has to deal with that kind of crap. I want her to live free and grow strong with who she is and what she will become. If what Renegade tells us is true, we will have a son and another daughter.”
Jack shook his head. “Not while I live and breathe. No one will harm her and she has a huge family to protect her.”
She sighed. “I never had that and I am glad she will. While I never asked to be born in that family, I won’t be roped in by what my family is doing by allowing it to go on. Please don’t ask that of me. I can’t sit on the sidelines and let what they are going to do happen. What they’re doing is just wrong. Besides, as long as it goes on, I will have to fear for my life.”
“No one here will allow that sweetheart,” Jack assured her.
“What can we do though?” Kalinda asked. “If we don’t do anything about this, then we are just as guilty as my family.”
“We could try to contact the FBI,” Harry suggested from behind Jack.
“That won’t work.” Renegade joined them.
Everyone else came closer as well.
“Why not?” Harry asked. “Those are federal lands, most reservations are.”
Renega
de shook his head. “But that’s the point. The government moved the Apache tribe to that area but they never formally made the land a federal reservation. They always meant to but it never happened. But at the same time, the people living there are a tribe recognized as such.”
“Meaning what?” Creed asked.
“The Apache tribe isn’t regulated by white man’s law,” he explained. “We have our own laws, our own police force, and our own prisons. We are ruled by a Council of Elders. White man’s law has no authority on our people. Not unless the crime happens off Tribal lands.”
“Can’t we go to the Council then? Surely, they can stop this from happening?” Daniel suggested.
“If Michael has been paying them off to keep his secret, it wouldn’t do any good, and he would find out, not only about the threat to Joshua but also that Kalinda is still alive and prepared to tell them what happened that night. Michael and his sons can’t afford for that to happen.” Renegade shook his head.
“There has to be something we can do without letting them know she’s still alive and well, and where she is.” Creed looked frustrated.
“Maybe, but that would take time, time we may not have,” Renegade suggested.
“What are you thinking about boy?” Silas watched the other man carefully.
“The drugs,” Renegade offered.
“What about them?” Tate asked.
“If Michael or his kids are pushing drugs, they have to have routes and dealers set up. First, we identify the drugs then we follow the dealers. If nothing else, we might be able to get that poison off the streets. Our people have enough problems with alcohol and unemployment, they don’t need that shit too.”
“Plus, if they are dealing, it’s not only your people that are getting hooked on that shit,” Bear suggested.
Daniel stepped up. “But first, we need to identify what drug it is and where its showing up. Then we have to link it back to the Moons. That’s going to take time, like he said.”
“Maybe we can cut that time in half,” Harry suggested.
Everyone turned to look at him. “How you gonna do that son?” Tate asked.
Harry glanced over at Annie and shrugged. “Annie and I have certain skills the police are interested in obtaining. If we work with them, they might be able to speed up the process.”
“Is that something you want to do?” Tate asked.
“I guess it wouldn’t be so bad, not top billing you understand, but this is for family.” Harry shrugged. “If we can identify the drug, we can find its routes, easier and faster than the cops.”
“How do we do that with all the drugs out on the streets?” Jack wanted to know. “If it’s a designer drug, it could be any damn thing.”
Kalinda was searching through her memory, thinking back to when she was a toddler. There was something there teasing her but she wasn’t grasping anything. She knew it was important but she just couldn’t remember what it was. She began to pace. The whole time she was remembering back, back to when she was a little girl.
Then a thought came out of the blue to her. She turned to Jack and Harry. “Look for something with peyote in it.”
“Peyote?” Renegade barked. “Are you sure?”
Kalinda nodded slowly. “I’m sure. My dad and his brothers used to disappear for days going after the stuff. It was the only time my mom wasn’t afraid of being at home with us. I really don’t think she liked him all that much. She acted totally different when he wasn’t around. Free and happy.”
“Well, that should make it easier to find out what drug it is anyway.” Harry nodded.
Annie stepped over to Harry and was visibly shaking. “We may not have to look that far. I think I know where we can find it.”
“How?” Tate asked.
“The name of the drug is Vision Quest and it’s been around for a while now. At least seven years.”
“Annie?” Harry asked in concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Seven years ago, I had a very close friend get hooked on a brand new Designer drug called Vision Quest.” Shaking her head, she remembered the heartbreak she felt when died. “Colette was my roommate the first year I was in college. Then she got mixed up with the wrong crowd and partying too hard. I didn’t know her anymore after that. When she called me the night she overdosed, she said she didn’t feel good. I rushed over to where she was staying but everyone there was passed out. They had gotten a hold of some Vision Quest and it wasn’t a good batch. The manufacturers had cut it with rat poison. Three of the seven people there died that night. I held my friend Colette while she passed out then passed away. It broke my heart.” She looked over at Kalinda. “I found out about the peyote when I hacked Colette’s autopsy report. I’d never heard of anything mixed with that particular drug before. I mean I knew the Indians used it in their ceremonies sometimes but I never heard of any kind of drug with it in there.”
“So they’ve been putting it out there for at least seven years?” Kalinda remarked in a horrified whisper.
“It’s been longer than that, I’m afraid,” Renegade told them.
“How do you know?” Silas looked over at him.
Renegade sighed as he put his fingers through his dark hair. “I spent two years in the military ten years ago. I ran into it then too. One of the guys I was with dealt it on the base. He got caught but he would never tell the MP’s where he got it.” He shrugged. “He said he’d rather spend time in Leavenworth than give up his dealers. He said he’d live longer behind bars than he would if he gave them up.”
Kalinda felt a cold shiver down her back. The more information she found out about her family the more she wished she never would have remembered anything about them. She ran down the hall to one of the bathrooms. She closed the door and locked it before she burst into tears.
She tried to stop the sounds of her sobs but she couldn’t quite do it. Grabbing a hand towel, she sobbed into the material and it became soaked from her tears. Suddenly, the door burst open and she looked up to see Jack on the other side with his foot raised as if to kick the door a second time.
He hadn’t needed a second kick as the first one busted the lock. Jack charged inside, taking took one look at her tears and knelt down in front of her.
Kalinda wrapped her arms around his shoulders and soaked his shirt with her tears. He just held her and let her cry. Finally, she stopped weeping and just held him close. “How can you stand to be in the same room as me?” she whispered.
“What the absolute fuck are you talking about, wife?” He growled.
“My family is absolute trash. Made up of murderers, thieves and drug dealers. The scum of the earth.” She backed up and dared to look at him. “How can you bear to even look at me after everything you’ve heard today?”
“I can look at you because I love you. And you are nothing like your so called family. You couldn’t hurt anyone if your life depended on it.” He stared at her with nothing but love in his eyes. “I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you three years ago. Something in my soul recognized something in your soul. You are the only woman in the world I could ever love. I know this and so do you, I think.”
Kalinda nodded. “I do know that. I think I fell for you the moment I saw you too. You and I, we fit. You make me feel safe and I’ve never had that before. Now I know why. I’ve been running and hiding all my life but I never knew why. But I just don’t know if I can bring this kind of trouble to your family. I’ve got a target on my back now. One I’m not sure I can shake.”
“Not for long,” Jack promised her. “I can’t breathe without you and Rosa in my life. I wouldn’t even want to try.”
“Can we just go home now?” she asked with a whisper. “I can’t take anymore more good news today. I just want to be alone with you and Rosa. I want to be with the only family that matters to me. I want to lose my mind in your arms while our child sleeps.”
“Yeah, I want some alone time with you too.” Jack groaned. “Lola took the bab
y home and is waiting for us to get there.”
Jack lifted her up in his arms and carried her out the back door. Every step he took brought him one step closer to the house they built on club land. As soon as his feet touched the front porch, he dropped her down to her feet. Turning her into his arms, his mouth covered hers.
For a moment or two it was all about the kiss. Before they could get too carried away, the door behind them opened and when he looked up he saw his brother Creed standing there with stupid grin on his face.
Creed had his arm around his own woman Lola and while Lola’s face was bright red, Creed’s face looked pleased by what he saw. He cleared his throat and mumbled, “We’ll be leaving now. Baby’s already for bed as I’m sure you are too. Congrats guys.” Creed and Lola moved from the doorway and a moment later, Kalinda and Jack were alone again.
Jack lifted her into his arms again and whispered in her ear, “What do you say we turn in early tonight?”
Kalinda smiled and her mind was running crazy with possibilities. “I’d like that.” She dared to reach down a little past his waist and her hand brushed across his hardening cock under his jeans.
Jack groaned at her touch and he hurried her into the door. Closing it and making sure it was locked tight, he followed her to check on Rosa. The baby was sound asleep. He reached for her hand and silently dragged her to their bedroom.
Chapter Five
As much as he wanted to shut the rest of the world out of their room tonight he knew he couldn’t. He had to leave the door open so they would hear their daughter if she needed them during the night. He swung Kalinda around in his arms and took her mouth with a hunger he hadn’t felt before. He had never wanted her quite like this before. The need for her was always present and he was used to acting on it but for some reason, tonight’s need was just a bit more than usual.