Blackening Song (39 page)

Ella slipped into the chamber, staying in the shadows, and took her first clear look. The skinwalkers had painted their shoulders red and white, and drawn yellow spiders on their arms. At the far side of the circle was a small basket filled with a reddish substance.

Ella struggled to see the face of the man who was leading the ritual, but it was concealed in shadows. He dipped
one hand into the basket and sprinkled some of the powder onto something on the ground before him. She edged in closer, keeping a low profile, and saw it was a human leg. The skin seemed to be festering and rotting. She swallowed quickly, afraid she was about to vomit.

The leader began to chant again, all the while sprinkling more powder on the leg. The skin seemed to shrivel right before her
eyes. The woman beside him took some of the dust and placed it inside a pouch.

Ella angled for a better vantage point, but before she was completely in place, she heard her brother’s voice rise in a chant that countered the cadence of the skinwalkers’ rite. The clash of sounds echoed frighteningly in the confines of the chamber.

The leader jumped to his feet, and she recognized Peterson Yazzie.
“Don’t move. You’re under arrest,” she snapped, bringing up her pistol. She felt foolish—the words seemed so out of place here. Should she read him his rights next?

Two of the men threw some powder in the air and flooded the cavern with a bloodcurdling cry. Ella coughed as the reddish cloud filled her lungs.

Suddenly a large bear appeared where no animal had been, forcing Wilson back into the
tunnel. Four wolves with turned-down tails appeared from the further recesses of the cave and ran directly toward her and Clifford. Their teeth flashed in the dim firelight. Their eyes glowed. Clifford raised his ax and lightning seemed to fly from its razor-sharp blade, incinerating the animals before they could complete their leap.

A woman skinwalker came toward Ella, chanting and unafraid.
Ella felt herself sinking into murky blackness. She struggled to make her hand work, but her fingers seemed frozen around the pistol.

Then something flew past her, and an instant later the woman fell to the ground, transfixed by Wilson’s stone spear. Ella turned around and saw him trying to untangle her shotgun from the rifle sling. She had no time to grab it. Catching a glimpse of movement,
she pivoted and spotted Peterson running down one of the side tunnels. She snapped off a pistol shot, but it ricocheted and he was gone.

Three men and one woman remained standing, held at bay by Clifford and his flint ax, which he was swinging back and forth menacingly. Wilson struggled to get into a position to use his rifle without hitting Clifford.

Clifford shouted, “Go after him! We can
handle things here.”

Ella needed no further encouragement. She shot into the darkened tunnel, determined to catch Yazzie before he escaped the cavern. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she could hear the hollow sound of running footsteps ahead. She increased her speed, her thoughts clearing and her instincts awakening. Then she ran around a natural bend of the passageway and into an ambush.
The woman’s eyes glowed fanatically in the harsh light of the lantern she carried. Before Ella could bring her pistol to bear, the woman threw a handful of white powder directly into her face.

Ella choked and gasped for air. She staggered. The woman’s image shimmered and grew. Ella blinked furiously, unable to focus clearly.

The woman seemed to slowly split in two. Ella stared intently, trying
to figure out which was the real image and which was the illusion. Both images came closer, and Ella fired once at each as she staggered back, slamming against the tunnel wall. Her heart was hammering too fast for her to draw in a breath. She sank slowly to the ground, her knees weak.

One thought pounded through her hallucinogen-clouded brain. Peterson was going to get away unless she got moving
again. Ella felt a rumble, then the cavern walls shook. Or was that an illusion?

Using all her willpower, Ella slowly rose to her feet. At first her steps were halting, and once she fell, hard, on her knees. The effort to remain upright seemed to take all her energy. Surely Peterson and the woman had reached the exit by now, but she had to maintain pursuit.

The cave rocked beneath her again,
but this time she managed to stay on her feet. No, she would not give up. Peterson would not elude her.

A new surge of energy shot through her limbs, and she felt steady once again. Now if she could only figure out which way to go. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Instinct was the only ally she had in this all-encompassing darkness. Still, she’d relied on it often as a federal cop,
and had always come through alive.

The cave continued to shake as she moved on, and several times she felt the vibrations of a tunnel collapsing somewhere behind her.

Finally she saw a faint glow of moonlight ahead. She hurried on, knowing she didn’t have far to go. As she stepped outside, through a narrow crack in the rocks, the ground shook again. She drew in a breath of fresh air, and her
mind seemed to clear.

Before she could even glance around, the tunnel behind her collapsed. Dust flew out, then slowly settled. In anguish she stared at the rubble where the cave opening had been. Her brother … Wilson. Had they made it out? Ella glanced around, hoping they would somehow appear in the dark, unharmed. She shut her eyes for a second, reaching out mentally. Surely she would feel
it, somehow, if anything had happened to them.

Ella didn’t want to be the only one left to continue the battle. But now it was up to her. She wouldn’t give up. She gathered her courage and walked away from the blocked entrance, trying to figure out exactly where she was.

She stood amid the low walls of the old church ruins, the wooden foundation forms of the new church just yards away. The skinwalkers’
chamber had been directly beneath the old ruins. The ill-fated church, with its blood-soaked catacombs below, had been the perfect place to foster fear and welcome the
chindi.

The wail of a coyote rose slowly from the top of the mesa. Its ululating cry sounded almost like human laughter. Ella broke into a run, heading toward the residential community just a mile or so away. She’d borrow or steal
a truck there and continue the pursuit.

*   *   *

Ella was out of breath when she reached the construction site for the new college. A vehicle was speeding up the road toward her—probably someone investigating what he or she had perceived to be an earthquake.

As the pickup drew near, she recognized Samuel Pete behind the wheel. She wasn’t sure whom she could trust, but she’d take her chances
with him.

Ella stepped into the center of the dirt road and flagged him down.

“I need your truck. I have to get someplace fast!” She yelled, wondering what he was thinking. At the moment, she had to resemble a crazy woman, what with her dirty, haggard appearance, her flint knife, and the pistol still in her hands.

“Get in, I’ll take you. Does this have to do with the earthquake?”

“That was
no earthquake. Tunnels and caverns beneath the church site were collapsed, probably with explosives. Let me take your truck. You can wait here. It’ll be extremely dangerous for anyone to be with me right now.”

“Then it’s begun,” he said, and again waved for her to get in. “Your brother warned us that a confrontation was coming, and that no one would be able to stay on the sidelines.” He gestured
to the rifle rack behind the seat of the cab. “I’ve got a Winchester with me, and I can use it. My eyesight’s as sharp as it ever was.”

“I could use the help, but you’ll be risking your life,” Ella said bluntly.

“I’ve been your family’s friend for a long time. If you need my help, you’ve got it.”

Ella gave him directions to where she’d first entered the tunnels. “Go as fast as you can.”

Samuel
nodded. “I understand you’re afraid to trust anyone, but I have a right to know what I’m facing if I’m to fight it alongside you.”

Ella considered his words. They’d all trusted Peterson Yazzie, and he’d been working against them from the beginning. On the other hand, she didn’t really have anything to lose by telling the old man what had happened. She filled him in, concluding, “It’s possible
Clifford and Wilson were able to backtrack and get out the way we came in.”

“If there was a way out, your brother and his friend would have found it. They could be on Yazzie’s trail right now.”

Ten minutes later, they could see the disabled vehicles, still parked outside the building. Ella looked around, searching in the glare of Samuel’s headlights for her brother and Wilson.

“Drive closer,
but stop before we reach the cars. Then I can use the truck for cover while I look around.”

As Samuel parked, Ella spotted two figures hurrying toward them. She had her pistol out in a heartbeat. “Stop! FBI!” she called out.

Then she recognized Wilson, who was supporting Clifford’s weight and hauling him along. Her brother’s arm was looped around Wilson’s shoulder. Ella lowered her pistol and
rushed to help. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. I was so worried about you both.”

“Two skinwalkers escaped,” Clifford said, forcing himself to stand unaided, “but they’re somewhere nearby. We made sure they couldn’t reach their vehicles. Somebody made it to the Bronco, though. I heard it leave.”

Samuel Pete, hurried toward them, Winchester in hand. “We can’t stay, Nephew,”
he said, using the term out of custom, not kinship. “You’re in no shape to fight now.”

“Neither are they,” Clifford answered with a tiny smile. “We’ll stay.”

His bravery tugged at Ella’s heart. He was exhausted, and injured, yet he’d never lost the courage to fight. “It must be Peterson who got to the Bronco, but I think I know where he went,” Ella said with certainty.

Clifford had his rifle
in a sling over his shoulder, and a bloody-looking stone ax in his hand. Wilson carried a rifle and a big flint spear. Samuel Pete held out his keys to Ella. “Here. Take my truck. If your brother wants to remain here, I’ll stay and help. Both of these warriors look like they still have some fight in them.”

“We’ll be okay,” Clifford told Ella reassuringly. “Do you still want to run Peterson down
and arrest him?”

“You couldn’t keep me from it. He’s gone bad as both a cop and a Navajo. He’s betrayed everything I value.”

“Then go,” Clifford said.

Samuel Pete took an ammunition box from a shelf behind the driver’s seat, then stepped back. “She’s all yours. Good luck.”

Ella headed straight for the highway. Time was short. She couldn’t allow Peterson to leave the Rez. As a cop, he’d know
only too well how to hide deep within the Anglo world, covering his trail.

As she raced down the highway, the indigo skies started turning to purples and deep blues. Traces of light fringed a few thin clouds on the horizon. Dawn. She felt relief washing over her. She preferred the daylight, where any fight would be stripped of the overtones traditional beliefs might give it.

Ella pressed down
on the accelerator, watching the needle climb to ninety. The truck was out of tune and lurched frequently in complaint, but she refused to let up on the gas. As she prepared mentally to face her enemy, Ella knew she’d be shouldering the full weight of expectations—expectations others had of her and ones she had of herself. In her worst childhood nightmares, she’d been utterly alone, fighting an
evil monster she couldn’t defeat. Now she wondered if those nightmares hadn’t somehow foreshadowed what would come.

Nothing mattered more than the capture of Peterson Yazzie. Her father’s murderer would face justice, and she would bring him down, or die trying.

Ella slowed down, took the truck out of gear, shut off the engine, and coasted to a stop in front of the police station, in hopes of
achieving the element of surprise. There was only one vehicle in the parking lot—the Bronco, as she had anticipated. The office staff wouldn’t be in for at least two hours, and the field units were out on patrol. Ella glanced at the horizon, already lit up in magenta and orange, and smiled grimly. The sun would be up very soon.

Walking silently toward the entrance, she heard an animal growling
nearby. Immediately her heart started pumping overtime. She drew her weapon and glanced about. The stone knife was in her belt. She hadn’t forgotten the coyote she’d shot at close range, but hadn’t killed.

The growling stopped.

Ella hurried toward the door, checking both sides of the station’s long, covered porch. If her hunch was right, Peterson would be acquiring weapons. As she approached
the entrance, an old woman wrapped in a gray blanket stepped onto the porch.

Something compelled Ella to stay behind a big round porch support. Despite the blanket that kept the woman’s face in shadow, there was no doubt in Ella’s mind that this was a trick. As the old woman moved closer, she realized what had alerted her—the woman moved like a man. Ella kept her pistol in hand, but didn’t bring
it to bear. She kept her distance and waited, studying the situation.

The first rays of dawn came over the horizon, striking the rooftop of the two vehicles in the parking lot. The golden beams filled the air with the promise of warmth, and a curious calm fell over everything.

The figure stepped toward the wall, seeking darkness. “I don’t fool you, and you’re not fooling me,” Yazzie said loudly.
“Don’t try to keep me from leaving. I don’t want to kill you.”

The barrel of a riot gun had risen from below the blanket and was pointed in her direction. “My powers fade at daybreak, but the buckshot is real. It’ll do the job as well on you as it did on the dispatcher inside. Move aside.”

Ella had raised her pistol as Yazzie had moved, and now had it aimed at his chest; both hands gripped the
nine-millimeter in a combat stance. The stone knife—magic or not—was no match for his shotgun. “You’re not going anywhere, not unless you have a death wish.”

“Don’t be a fool. There are other places on the reservation like the one that’s been destroyed. The evil that you’re trying to fight is as old as the desert itself. We didn’t create it, we just used it. Even if you kill me now, there are
others to contend with, perhaps even some you think close to you. It wouldn’t be over. So what purpose would it serve?”