Navajo's Woman (10 page)

"I want you to wait until I check things inside. You're right about something being wrong. Things don't seem quite right to me, either. I've got an odd feeling."

"What sort of odd feeling? Mine's a sick churning in my stomach, as if we're walking into big trouble."

"Mine's a gut reaction, too." Joe visually surveyed the area around the hogan. "It'll be dark in a couple of hours, so why didn't Eddie and Russ just stay the night and then head out at daybreak? They couldn't know that we were following them. This is unfamiliar territory to them, and they could easily get lost once the sun sets."

"You think something—"

"I'm not thinking anything," he told her. "Not until I've spoken with the shaman."

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"All right.I'll stay here. You go on in and then come right back out and let me know that everything is all right."

Joe nodded,then removed the rifle from the leather sheath attached to the saddle. Andi gasped. He gave her a warning glare to stay where she was and to be quiet.

The door stood wide open. Carefully, ever mindful that anything or anyone could be waiting inside for him, Joe entered the hogan. It took his eyes a couple of minutes to adjust to the semidarkness inside the round structure. The sparsely furnished interior had been ransacked. Tables and chairs overturned.A kerosene lamp broken. Unease ate away at Joe's gut like a strong acid.

Then he saw the figure of an ancient Navajo sprawled half on the bed, half on the floor, his long white hair matted with red blood, barely dried. On closer inspection, Joe realized that this weathered man of indiscernible age must be Edmund Kieyoomia. The revered shaman had been shot—once in the head.

But his body showed signs of having been severely beaten. Joe would bet his life that this was not the handiwork of two scared boys on the run. Whoever had killed the oldyataaliihad fought with him first, and from the looks of the room it appeared that Ed-mund Kieyoomia had put up quite a struggle.

Joe knew that once the shaman's body was removed, through a corpse hole made in the north side of the hogan, the house would be boarded up, but the corpse hole would be left open as a warning. A body could be taken away from the house, but the evilchindiwould remain forever.

"Joe!" Andi called from the doorway. "What's keep-ing you so long?"

Damn! Why couldn't she have stayed outside where he'd left her?"Don't come in—"

She rushed into the hogan, took one look at the scene before her and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Chapter 6

Joe rushed to Andi, grabbed her and dragged her outside, then pulled her into his arms and held her while she shiv-ered uncontrollably. "Calm down." He rubbed her back, comforting her as best he could.

"The old shaman is dead. There's nothing we can do to help him."

Andi sucked in several deep breaths, then lifted her head and stared into Joe's dark eyes. "I'm okay.

Hon-estly. It'sjust. . .well, seeing. . ." She disengaged herself from Joe's hold. "What do you think happened? You don't believe that Russ—"

"Neither Russ nor Eddie killed the shaman," Joe re-assured her. "My guess is that Bobby Yazzi's real mur-derer, or someone he has hired to hunt down the boys, did this."

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"Oh, God!"She grabbed the front of Joe's jacket. “Does that mean he—he.. . ? If he caught Russ and Eddie here, he would have killed them, too."

"We can't be a hundred percent sure that the boys were evenhere," Joe told her. "But my guess is that whoever's tracking them followed them here. From the looks of the shaman, I'd say he fought his attacker. Since there would have been no reason for the boys to leave before morning, I figure that Edmund Kieyoomia detained the tracker so that Eddie and Russ could get away."

"You think he saved their lives?"

"I do."

"Now what?Where could the boys have gone from here? Where dowego from here?"

"We return to Jefferson Nastas's home," Joe said. "My guess is that Russ and Eddie will go back there to pick up the track. They don't know these hills and I think they're smart enough to realize their best bet is to get away from this part of the country as fast as possible."

"So what are the odds the boys will still be at Mr. Nastas's when we get back there?"

"I'd say notgood ," Joe admitted. "I think we probably crossed paths with the boys on our way up here.

They could have seen or heard us and kept out of sight until we passed and then they went straight down to get the track."

"Maybe they'll tell Mr. Nastas where they're going," Andi said hopefully.

Joe shook his head. "They'll know that not only are we looking for them, but that the person who killed the old shaman is still after them, too. If they're gone when we get back, our best bet is to go straight to the nearest Tribal Police station and report the murder scene we found here and let the authorities know the boys have a track.Possibly a stolen track.And that someone—probably the person who killed Mr.

Kieyoomia—is following Eddie and Russ."

"I can't believe you're willing to trust the police."

"I want to find the boys and I'd like to do it before the police do," Joe said. "But the police aren't our enemy and they aren't the boys' enemy either. They're in a po-sition to help us locate the boys. It's better for Eddie and Russ if the police find them first and not the killer. If you have a better suggestion on where to go from here, then tell me."

Andi balled her hands into tight fists. "I don't know." Andi fumed. "But I do know that if we go to the police and tell them we found the shaman's body, then they're going to ask us what we were doing and—''

"And we will tell them the truth."

"What if the police think the boys killed Mr. Kie-yoomia? Aren't they in enough trouble already?"

"Withholding the truth will not help Eddie and Russ."

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"Oh, yes, by all means, let's make sure the truth comes out. It doesn't matter who gets hurt by the truth.

You haven't changed at all. You still have to do everythingby the book!"Andi stormed away from Joe, stomping around the side of hogan in an effort to vent her frustra-tion.

Hell! He couldn't say or do anything right as far as Andi was concerned. Her problem was that she always thought with her heart and not with her head. But she was a woman. What else could he expect?

She said that he hadn't changed—hell,she hadn't changed any, either. She was still only too willing to prejudge him, to assume the worst about him. Why couldn't she understand that help-ing Eddie and Russ was as important to him as it was to her? Yes, he did hold Russ responsible for dragging Eddie into a bad situation, but that didn't mean he blamed the boy for anything else.Certainly not murder.

Joe looked around and didn't see Andi, so he circled the hogan and found her on the far side, bent over, picking something up off the ground. He halted and waited until she had the object in her hand before he approached her. "What did you find?"

She jumped and gasped. "Damn it, you scared me half to death."

"Sorry." He glanced down at the square brown wallet she held.

"What have you got there?" When she hesitated and clutched the object all the tighter, Joe suspected she rec-ognized the item. "Does it belong to Russ?"

"Yes," she replied, her gaze meeting Joe's, her ex-pression issuing him a warning. "It's Russ's. I gave it to him this past Christmas. It's handmade and one of a kind."

"Look through it and see if you find anything that might help us."

"I'm surprised you trust me. I'd think you'd want to do it yourself."

"I trust you a lot more than you trust me." He nodded to the wallet. "Take a look."

She opened the wallet and inspected it thoroughly."Four dollars.His driver's license.A picture of Doli and me. One of ourfather .A library card. That's it."

"Nothing to help us.Nothing to give us a clue as to where they might be going from here."

"Joe?"

"Yes?"

"Will you tell the police about this wallet?"

"It'sevidence," he replied, then turned and walked away.

He had to contact the police as soon as possible and tell them about finding the shaman's body. Of course, the authorities would want to know why he and Andi had made a trek up into the mountains to see the old man. He wouldn't lie about that. Besides, it wouldn't do any good to lie. Too many people knew about his and Andi's search for their kinsman.

But did he have to mention that Andi had found Russ's wallet? If he were totally honest, he would. But in
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what way would telling the police about the wallet help them track down Edmund Kieyoomia's murderer? If he said anything about the wallet, Andi would see it as yet an-other betrayal.

What the hell was he going to do?

"They left my horses and took the truck," Jefferson Nastas said. "I could see that they were frightened, but when I asked, they would not say why."

"How long ago were they here?" Joe asked.

"Just as the sun set, they came. I asked them to stay the night, but they would not. They said they must go, that if they stayed I would be in danger, too."

"Did they tell you where they were going?" Andi asked.

“No. They only said to tell you both that they will not come home. Russ said this to me. The other one, he said nothing."

Andi eyed Joe, waiting for his response, knowing that Mr. Nastas's comment only gave credence to Joe's as-sumption that everything was Russ's fault, that her brother had dragged Eddie into this intolerable situation, into in-escapable danger.

"Mr. Nastas, Andi and I are going from here to the police station in Echo City," Joe explained. "We will report the murder of Edmund Kieyoomia. I'm sure the police will want to question you."

"The young braves did not do this bad thing," Jeffer-son said. "I will tell the police I believe this."

"Thank you," Andi said. "We, too, know that Russ and Eddie aren't murderers."

At least,sheknew it, Andi thought. And surely Joe did, too. He kept saying that he didn't think Russ was capable of murder, but was he only telling her what he thought she wanted to hear? If he gave the police Russ's wallet, she'd know how he truly felt. If Joe believed Russ was innocent, there would be no need to implicate him, to give the police evidence that would prove her brother had been at the scene of a second murder. Was Joe capable of bend-ing his principles just a fraction in order to protect some-one she loved?

They said their goodbyes to Jefferson Nastas and headed out for Echo City, the nearest town. Joe asked to drive, and she gladly handed over the keys. She didn't know how to get to Echo City without a map and she hated trying to find an unknown place when she was driv-ing in the dark.

Where were Russ and Eddie?she wondered. And just how long would it take before the police caught them in the stolen truck? All it would take was for one policeman to spot the truck. And if her brother resisted arrest, what then? The thought of Russ being shot, perhaps fatally wounded, flashed through her mind. She hadn't realized that she'd gasped aloud until Joe questioned her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"What?"

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“Is something wrong?'' He kept his gaze fixed on the dark, lonely highway.

"Joe, we've got to find them. Sooner or later, either the police or the real killer is going to catch up with them. We have to get to them first."

"Keep one thing in mind," he said. "There are a lot of places those boys could hide out and keep safe for quite a while. Just hold on to the thought that even if they're acting irrationally by running away, they're both pretty smart. They're well aware that they are only two steps ahead of both the law and a killer."

"I know we have to report the shaman's death, but I can't help feeling as if we're wasting precious time."

"Andi, we have no idea where to look next. We don't know if the boys even stayed on the reservation.

They could be anywhere. We're going to have to regroup and hope we get another break, something that will lead us to them again. And we can pray that if we don't find them first, the police will."

“And what happens if they resist arrest?''

"Eddie would never—"

"But Russ might," she said. "That's what you were going to say, isn't it?"

"If you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that it was what you were thinking."

Andi crossed her arms over her chest and scooted up against the door. Yes, that was exactly what she'd been thinking, but she would never admit it to Joe. Never! She closed her eyes and uttered a silent plea.

Please, God, please, keep Russ and Eddie safe.

"We've got to ditch this track," Russ said. "The police can recognize it too easy. We're just lucky we've gotten this far in it."

"Why don't we go home? Or at least, let's call our mothers," Eddie said. "Believe me, my uncle Joe won't stop looking for us until he finds us."

"I don't trust your uncle Joe, and you know why. I'd no more turn myself over him to than I would to the police."

"You trust your sister, don't you? Mr. Nastas said that she'swith Uncle Joe. She wants us to turn ourselves in. She knows we can't keep running forever. She and Uncle Joe just want to help us. We should have waited for them at Mr. Nastas's house."

"Will you quit being such acrybaby! " Russ screamed as he gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fe-rociousness. After taking a deep breath, he said, "I'm sorry, Eddie. It's just that Andi is crazy if she thinks Joe Ornelas gives a damn about me. Yeah, sure, he cares what happens to you, but he's probably already got me pegged as guilty. He's not going to give me a break."