She chuckled at the skinwalker legend. What had prompted such a ludicrous belief? She also wondered what other legends might pertain to werecoyotes. Pablo’s words came back to mind. Chupacabra! What could he have seen?
The hours passed slowly. Madison dozed off.
*****
The desert fell silent.
Black as the night itself, Puwhakah prowled on two hind legs, slightly hunched under the invigorating glow of the full moon. Its clawed feet elicited only the faintest dribble of gravel down the slope leading to the ranch. The delicious smell of fear from the horses in the enclosure far below made its spine prickle. Puwhakah discerned with delight the frantic beats of their panic-stricken hearts, the rush of warm blood pumping through their veins.
These intoxicating sensations filled Puwhakah with new vitality. What fun to desecrate the skin of its host, distorting the human features into a fierce feline appearance. A thing of beauty.
Through the fortuitous invasion of this host, Puwhakah’s dark soul could finally experience life again. Now that it had found a tractable human to inhabit, it would regain its full powers through the thrill of killing.
What a rush, worth all the burn and the sting of traveling through lightning strikes. Even pain could be pleasurable. Anything to feel alive. Too long had Puwhakah been banished to a futile, unheeded shadow. It refused to be ignored any longer.
Poor, stupid, helpless animals below. Puwhakah relished their whimpers of terror. They knew they would soon die, and no one could help them. The dogs were dead. And at this time of night, humans slept so soundly, they wouldn’t notice the sudden quiet.
Sure, they would lament in the morning, but by then Puwhakah would be long gone, melted back into smooth human skin, walking in the light of day, hidden in plain sight, inside its unsuspecting host.
Soon, Puwhakah would have enough life force to take over the host completely, to roam the world unimpeded, night or day, transforming at will, full moon or not, enjoying life beyond limitations.
The scent of prey pulled Puwhakah down the slope, toward the mouth-watering blood of young animal flesh. But animals were only the beginning. Soon Puwhakah would be ready to feed on human life force, just like in the old days.
Puwhakah suddenly paused, holding his breath. A presence, watching. A holy one. How could this be? But the foe did not attack. Why? Should Puwhakah kill his enemy now?
*****
Madison awoke with a start. How long had she been sleeping? Damn the wine. The full orb of the moon had traveled west through the starry sky, and the distant howl of the coyotes had ceased. Had she embarked on a fruitless hunt?
Her thoughts returned to Kal as she went into the darkened house to refill her coffee mug. The moonlight streaming through the skylights allowed her to see without having to turn on the lights. Shouldn’t he be back by now? Or did he intend to stay out all night? She knew nothing about the man. He could be involved in drugs, illegal trade. And why should she care? She didn’t intend to date him.
Back on the deck, striated clouds scurried across the moon, projecting moving shadows onto the desert floor. Madison saw something creeping among the bushes toward the house. She heard a distant growl. Could it be Felix? No. It was too big for a bobcat or a coyote. It was as tall as a man, but even at this distance, she could see it didn’t walk like a man. Was it her predator? What if it were human? She dare not shoot.
Through the magnifying lens of the M-14, Madison discerned a stocky body standing on two hind legs, and the distinct head of an animal. It didn’t look like a bear. Definitely a beast, but what kind? The legends of skinwalkers came back to mind and she shivered at the thought of pure evil.
Madison shook her head. There were no such things as skinwalkers. She aimed through the scope again. The beast rushed straight at her, lumbering from side to side as it ran. What was it? The incredible speed and bulk of the animal would make it lethal. When moonlight glinted on a jaw full of sharp fangs, her survival instinct took over, negating any reasonable explanation. As the animal raced toward her in the dark, Madison aimed for the chest and fired.
The silenced shot barely popped in the quiet of the desert night. Through the scope, Madison saw the beast go down and heard a faint groan. Pulling her sidearm out of the holster, she left the M-14 on the table and ran down the steps, toward the downed animal, fifty feet away. She stopped short when she reached the spot where she’d seen the beast fall, heart beating hard. There was nothing there.
She knew she’d hit the mark. She never missed. And the M-14 always dropped a living target, no matter how big. Her flashlight revealed a glistening pool of crimson blood on the ground. She recognized the tracks of last night’s predator, the same large hind foot. But what she had shot wasn’t a bear. Now the wounded animal had fled. How far could it go, losing so much blood?
With a flashlight, she followed the blood trail as it meandered through the desert landscape. To her surprise, the trail ended. How could the bleeding suddenly stop, along with paw prints and broken twigs? Confused, Madison searched for more of the strange tracks, in vain.
At least the beast wouldn’t kill tonight, and would probably die of infection from its wound, but she’d let a wounded animal escape. Jake would enjoy pointing out that blunder. Damn.
Disgusted, unable to search in the night for an animal that had simply vanished, Madison returned to the house and packed up her gear. The hunt was over. The creature certainly wouldn’t come back for her to finish it off. She would have to track it again in the morning.
Tomorrow, in broad daylight, she might be able to pick up the trail, and find out where Kal had spent the night.
Chapter Three
Emerging from deep slumber, Kaletaka heard the front doorbell chime.
Who is it?" He blinked in the rays of morning sun streaming through the skylights of the living room. Yawning, he stretched but sharp pain shot up his arm and shoulder, folding him in two. Blood streaked his left arm.
He lay on the brown leather couch, his clothes in disarray. Not again! And this time he was hurt and bloody.
The doorbell kept ringing, hurting his sensitive ears.
"Go away!"
A stench filled the house, the sickening, coppery sweetness of blood. The viscous liquid oozed from a puncture wound in his upper left arm. Through the glass pane of the living room, he saw the tall, skinny silhouette of Darryl, his agent, climbing the three steps to the back deck. Wearing designer jeans and tan polo shirt, Darryl knocked on the glass door then opened it and walked inside.
Why the hell hadn’t he locked that door last night?
Darryl stepped into the living room, staring at the floor. "There is red paint on your parquet." Looking up, he raked his short sandy hair. "And you look like shit."
"I feel worse." Propping himself on his right elbow, Kaletaka sat up. His whole body ached.
"What happened?" Chirpy as usual, Darryl went straight to the kitchen, dumped the old coffee in the sink and prepared a fresh pot. "Did you drink too much and get into a bar fight? Not a good idea with your low alcohol threshold."
"I had dinner with Madison, the cute ranger I told you about. Then I left the house. The very sight of her rifle chilled me like red hot metal plunged into cold water." Prying away long black tresses stuck to the skin, Kaletaka probed the sore spot and winced. "You know me and guns."
"I know." Darryl made a deafening racket in the kitchen, looking for mugs.
Fresh blood soaked Kaletaka’s fingers. "After that, I remember nothing."
The coffee percolated, the aroma making Kaletaka sick to his stomach.
"That drunk, uh? So, how was dinner? Spill it." Darryl’s smile vanished as he walked into the living room cup in hand, and looked at Kaletaka. He made a disgusted face. "Looks like you were stabbed in the bicep."
"It’s probably nothing, or someone would have taken me to the emergency room." But the wound pulsed with fire.
"Unless there was no one to take you to the hosp
ital." Darryl took a long gulp of coffee and shook his head. "One of these days you’ll die on these little outings by yourself."
"You have a vivid imagination." Kaletaka forced a chuckle, but if, as he suspected, he was a skinwalker, he would have stood alone. The very idea of contributing to such evil made his skin crawl.
Darryl pointed to the wound. "You should clean that up before it gets infected."
"Right." When Kaletaka stood, the wound pounded with each heartbeat and more blood oozed. He felt faint and his head swirled. "By the Great Coyote!"
Darryl grabbed his good arm. "Easy does it, man. Let me help you."
"Thanks." Kaletaka leaned on his friend.
Darryl set down his cup and helped him remove the vest. "Can you climb the stairs?"
"Not sure I can." With Darryl holding his good arm, Kaletaka lumbered up the steel and glass stairs along the wall. By the time they reached the top, he panted from the effort and leaned on his friend as he crossed the bedroom to the master bath.
After washing off the blood, Kaletaka examined the wound in the bathroom mirror. A round entry wound. "This is not a knife, but a gunshot."
Darryl frowned, staring in the mirror. "Are you sure?"
"Positive." Turning over to check the back of his arm, Kaletaka saw no exit wound. "And the slug is still inside. It’s a big bullet, too." The kind that could have come from Madison’s rifle?
"That’s serious, man. You should see a doctor."
"No doctor." Kaletaka never did trust them.
"Could your ranger with a gun have shot you last night?" Darryl grinned. "Did you give her reason to?"
"I told you, I left, then I can’t remember." Kaletaka’s irritation hardened his tone. He shivered at the thought of what might have happened. Who, other than Madison, had such a gun? And who would want him dead? Kaletaka had no enemies.
Darryl shook his head. "Let me drive you to the emergency room, man."
"No. With this kind of wound? They’d have to call the police. I like to stay as far away from law enforcement as possible." Kaletaka washed the area with soap and water, wincing at the sting and the lancing pain whenever he touched his arm.
Darryl hovered behind him. "But you need medical attention, maybe even surgery."
"It’s a flesh wound, not life-threatening. I can extract the bullet myself."
"That’s crazy." Darryl nervously raked his sandy hair. "You’ve never done it before."
"Yes I have. My brothers used to run into trouble with the Reservation police all the time."
"But doing it on yourself? That’s harsh, man."
"I can do this." Out of a bathroom drawer, Kaletaka took the knife with the turquoise handle he’d made as a teenager. "Just don’t let me pass out."
Darryl nodded gravely, he looked pale. "Wait. I need more coffee for this. Want some?"
Kaletaka shook his head and regretted the sudden movement.
Darryl disappeared and his steps clanged down the glass stairs.
Kaletaka grabbed the candle from a floating shelf and the black matchbook next to it. Striking a match, he lit the candle then held the knife blade over the flame to sterilize it. He bunched up a clean washcloth from the stack on the counter and stuffed it in his mouth. Bent over the sink, he took a deep breath and dug into the wound. The cloth muffled his scream as the blade prompted acute pain and more bleeding. Great Coyote, please help me.
Kaletaka delved deeper into the gash and labored on the wound with stern resolve. Sweat dripped from his brow. His eyes watered, and he clenched his jaw. When he stopped to catch his breath, Darryl returned with two mugs of coffee and set one for him on the granite counter. Kaletaka ignored it.
Darryl’s pale face turned whiter. "If you don’t mind, I can’t watch that without hurling. I’ll be in the bedroom if you need me."
Kaletaka nodded and removed his gag. "Wimp!"
After Darryl left again, Kaletaka staunched the blood with a towel, then bit on the cloth and kept digging. Finally, he reached the bullet. One more grating of blade on bone, and he nudged the projectile loose. Slowly, excruciatingly, he drew the metal lump through the flesh wound and brought it to the light.
The misshapen, bloody slug dropped and pinged into the soap dish.
With a sigh of relief, Kaletaka spit out the waded washcloth. "It’s done, you can come back now."
Darryl appeared, coffee mug in hand and grimaced. "At least all that bleeding will prevent infection. What are you going to put on it?"
"I usually prefer natural remedies."
"Like the Aloe Vera you smear on your burns from hot metal?"
"But this is a gunshot. It calls for white man medicine."
Darryl looked almost green now. "I don’t feel so good." He ran to the toilet and vomited.
"Wimp." Setting his jaw again, Kaletaka emptied the bottle of peroxide on the wound. It hissed and foamed, stinging as it flooded the hole. The bleeding stopped. After applying antibiotic cream from his emergency kit, he called to Darryl. "Can you help me here?"
Darryl stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sorry about that, man."
"Help me pull the edges of the wound together and pinch them into place with butterfly stitches."
"You think that will hold?"
"I can only hope."
It took several stitches. Then with Darryl’s help, Kaletaka covered the area with gauze and tape to protect the wound from outside contamination.
Flexing his arm gingerly, Kaletaka tested the stitches. "Good work... for a wimp."
Darryl made as if to punch the wounded arm, stopped mid strike and smiled devilishly. "Say that again?"
Kaletaka chuckled. "It doesn’t hurt as much now, at least as long as I remain still." He swallowed a handful of Tylenol with coffee to dull the pain further. "Now I have to clean up the blood from the leather couch."
"I can do that."
"Thanks. I’ll check the backyard." But Kaletaka would look for clues of what happened last night. "I have no idea where I left my motorcycle."
*****
Madison felt guilty as she pushed open the door to Jake’s office. She’d botched the job once again. She expected Jake to welcome her with a snarl after her preliminary report. Instead, she found him legs stretched, feet on the desk, hands locked on his chest, seemingly in good spirits.
Jake grinned suggestively, as if he enjoyed his authority over her, and motioned to the chair across from him. "So, you shot the bear? Congratulations."
She sat with reluctance, hoping this wouldn’t take long. "My report never mentioned a bear. Even in the dark, it didn’t look like a bear to me."
"What else could it be?" Jake rose and went to close the door of the small office.
"Dunno. Never seen the likes of it." Madison resented his patronizing attitude.
"You saw the animal, tell me what it was." Jake returned to his chair. He was handsome in a blond, blue-eyed jock kind of way, but he didn’t have the feral grace of Kal, not to mention the kindness, the manners, and the respect Kal showed her.
"For all I know it could have been a man in a beast outfit." The thought chilled Madison’s blood. Could she have shot someone in disguise? That would be horrible.
Jake stared at her for a second, the grin all but erased. "It’s not Halloween. People don’t walk the desert at night in costumes."
"I don’t know what I saw, okay?" Even in the best of moods, even when he wasn’t making a pass, Jake still set her on edge. She found his proximity distracting. When would her transfer go through?
Jake kept his gaze down as he shuffled papers on his desk. "As far as I am concerned, this case is closed."
"Closed?" Although relieved, Madison didn’t understand Jake’s new attitude. He was usually so thorough. "What’s the hurry to close the case? Is there something more urgent?"
He pushed an assignment sheet in front of her. "I want to make sure White Eagle doesn’t abuse his permit for fetching golden eaglets. The permit allows him t
o take only two."
"I see." Madison scanned the sheet. She’d have to be out of town for a few days. She hid her disappointment. Somehow, she’d hoped to keep working close to Kal.
"The sonsovbitches have driven golden eagles to extinction on Hopi land. I want to make sure they don’t pillage government land next."
"To their credit, the Hopi do help preserve the wilderness in many other ways." Why did she feel obligated to defend such barbaric customs?
Jake glanced up, his expression cold and detached. "You have a problem with the assignment?"
"No, sir. Not at all." But how could she redeem her professional image in the department by babysitting White Eagle? "The Hopi chief isn’t going to be happy about being monitored."
"He is not supposed to suspect anything. You only watch from afar and report any infraction. Under no circumstances should you interfere or even let your presence be known to the tribe. Understood?"
"I get it." Her smartass tone escaped unbidden.
Jake raised a contemptuous gaze. "Then leave. I have work to do."
"Yes, sir." The abrupt dismissal surprised her. Jake usually tried to keep her around as long as he could to harass her. Madison was glad to get up, grab her assignment sheet, and scurry out of the office.
Walking down the hallway, she tried to read the details of her orders, but the letters blurred. Images of her evening with Kal danced in her head. Before she left on her new mission, she’d pay him a visit. She at least wanted to thank him for his hospitality. Besides, Jake might consider her former assignment over, but Madison wanted to follow up on the tracks of the animal she had shot.
*****
From the window of his workshop, Kaletaka spotted Madison snooping around his backyard again. Blood rushed to the lower core of his anatomy, and apprehension sent needles along his spine. Had she shot him last night? Was she coming to finish the job?
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