Chilling Effect (14 page)

drawn, tight expression or the worry that clouded her eyes.

Although she couldn’t know exactly what he planned to say

to her, her look blazed a warning:
Not in front of Lily.
He nodded once, almost imperceptibly, just enough movement to assure her

he understood.

“Ruby, Lily, how are my two favorite ladies today?” He smiled

down at the girl as he fell into step beside the pair.

Lily giggled for a second but then grew serious. She contem-

plated him, wide-eyed. “Did you know that some kids don’t go to

school year-round like we do? Becky Proudfoot told me her cousins

in New Jersey don’t have school
all summer
.”

He considered everything he knew about Ruby Smith’s preco-

cious daughter. Th en he nodded. “Th ose poor kids.”

“I
know
.”

Beside her, Ruby indulged in a proud maternal smile. Th en the girl switched gears and pointed to the twisted wreckage across the street. To his eye, it wasn’t recognizable as a Jeep, but somehow she knew.

“What happened to Aroostine’s car? Is she okay?”

Lily’s eye fl ew to her mother’s face, seeking reassurance. Ruby

cleared her throat. Before she could speak, Boom crouched beside

the girl, meeting her on her eye level. Her luminous eyes were already fi lling with tears.

105

MELISSA F. MILLER

“Lily, listen carefully. Aroostine’s car blew up but, this is important, she wasn’t inside when it happened. I saw her with my own two eyes, run clear of the car before it exploded. She and her husband

didn’t die.”

Ruby’s eyebrows shot so far up her forehead they seemed to

meet her hairline.

“Do you promise?” Lily asked.

“I promise.”

“Where is she? Is she hurt? Can I see her?”

Boom answered her questions in order and honestly. Childless

himself, he knew that some people would frown on telling a girl

Lily’s age the truth. Bunkum, that was what he thought of that.

Children, after all, are people living in this imperfect world. It wasn’t his place to shield her from reality. But he took pains to explain it on a level she could understand.

“I don’t know where she is. She ran away, so I don’t think she’s

badly hurt or she wouldn’t have gotten far. And since we don’t know where she is, we can’t see her.”

“But I want to see her.”

“I’d like to, too.”

She chewed on her lower lip and considered the information

he’d given her.

“Will she come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did someone try to hurt her?”

“Maybe. I don’t think the police have decided yet if the explo-

sion was an accident or on purpose.”

Ruby pulled a face at that. He shrugged at her. Everyone with

two brain cells to keep one another company was well aware that the car bombing was intentional. But Chief Johnson hadn’t yet made

the offi cial call. So his answer was technically true.

106

CHILLING EFFECT

Th e girl dropped her eyes to the ground but asked no more

questions. He suspected she was thinking about her neighbor, mur-

dered just one day earlier, but he respected her right to her private thoughts and said nothing.

Ruby cleared her throat again. “Listen, Lil, let’s get you home, and you can get started on your homework. I’m going to ask Mr. Cowslip

to stay with you tonight while I’m at work. Would you like that?”

Lily’s head snapped up. Her worried eyes now shone with

excitement. “Really? Will you, Mr. Cowslip? After I do my home-

work will you tell me about the Dream Daughter?” Her eyes darted

from her mother’s face to Boom’s.

He smiled. For all their infatuation with technology and the

world off the reservation, the children of White Springs loved nothing better than to gather in a tight circle around Boom and hear him tell stories of their people and the old ways of living.

“I’d be honored. On one condition.”

“Okay?” the girl breathed.

“Stop cal ing me Mr. Cowslip. Cal me Boom—or Grandfather.”

She smiled up into his face, and it was as if the sun itself had

slipped from its anchor in the sky and beamed out from the girl’s soul.

Ruby placed the mug of steaming tea on the scratched but polished

table and handed him a honey dipper and pot of honey.

“Local?” he asked.

“From Mary’s bees.”

He swirled the viscous, golden liquid into his hot drink. She

glanced at the closed door to Lily’s bedroom, where she’d set up the girl with a glass of water, a plate of apple slices, and her school books.

“You’ve done a good job with her, Ruby.”

107

MELISSA F. MILLER

She fl ushed with pleasure and pride at the compliment and let

her long eyelashes fl utter down to her cheekbones.

“Th ank you, Boom. I’m trying so hard. She’s a special girl.”

“Yes. She is.” He sipped his tea.

“Is everything you said true—about Aroostine and her hus-

band?” She asked the question in a low, husky voice, barely above

a whisper.

“Of course it’s true. Th ey’d just left my home—they’d come to

ask me to help keep watch over you and your daughter.”

Ruby made a small sound, a little mew. He paused to let her

speak, but she said nothing.

He continued, “I was watching from my doorway. Th ey got

into the vehicle and immediately got back out. Joe checked the

engine, seemed satisfi ed that everything was in order, then started the engine. Aroostine started to get into the passenger side, but

something must have seemed wrong to her. She crawled beneath

the car and emerged a moment later, screaming Joe’s name. Th ey

ran toward the fi eld and seconds later . . . the Jeep was in fl ames.”

He stopped here, and the two of them sat in silence. He was pic-

turing the scene. He wondered what images were running through

her mind’s eye.

Finally, she spoke. “Why did they run? I mean, once they were

free of the fi re. Why didn’t they come back and ask you for help?”

Th at question had been running through his thoughts for hours.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure we’ll ever see them again, Ruby.

Th ey may not be sure who they can trust here. Or they may just be

too frightened. Or . . .”

“Or what?”

He could tell from her tone that she knew what he didn’t want

to say. He sighed. “Or they may be regretting their promise to help you. Th ey don’t have any real connection to us, to our people. Th ey 108

CHILLING EFFECT

may have decided you and Lily aren’t worth getting mixed up in our

bloody battles, Ruby.”

Her chin jutted out. “Th ey wouldn’t do that.”

Boom placed his palms fl at on the table and pierced her with

a look.

“We don’t know them. And they don’t know us. I hope I’m

wrong. But if I’m right, you have my word that I will take care of

you and Lily. Now, it’s time for you to kiss your daughter good night and get up to the casino for your shift. You don’t want to give Lee any reason to be suspicious of you.”

She blanched at the reminder that she was about to totter into

the lion’s den on four-inch heels for an eight-hour shift of slinging drinks at drunk white tourists.

“Give me strength,” she muttered.

“Ruby Smith, if there’s one thing you have in spades, it’s

strength.” He fl ashed her a comforting grin and was gratifi ed to see a small smile bloom on her tense lips.

109

When the sun threatened to dip behind the distant purple moun-

tains, Aroostine stopped walking and turned to face Joe, who’d been lagging about a half step behind. He jerked to a halt.

“Is something wrong?”

“It’ll get dark fast out here once the sun sets. We should fi nd

a good spot to stop for the night, set up our shelter, and get some dinner.”

“Dinner as in a burger and fries or dinner as in another handful

of grass and berries?”

She gave him a wistful smile.

“Sorry.”

Th en she narrowed her eyes in thought. She had planned to skip

making a fi re. She was confi dent they’d be able to stay warm for one night without one. Plus it would be a hassle to start one without the benefi t of matches, and smoke would be a telltale sign, liable to lead bad guys right to them. But . . . a fi re would give them more options CHILLING EFFECT

for food. And there was something comforting about sitting in front of a fi re on a dark night. Th e heat, the light, the dancing fl ames.

She scanned the horizon. Nobody was going to fi nd them, not

out here. Not tonight.

“What?”

“Do you think you could catch a fi sh or two with your bare

hands?”

“Maybe. Probably. Why?”

“Let’s fi nd a shelter then you go down to the stream and catch

us some dinner while I get a fi re going.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

His bravado couldn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t at all certain

he could catch a fi sh without a rod. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d given him the easier of the two jobs.

“Great.”

She turned and surveyed their immediate surroundings. For

just one night, there was no point in constructing a shelter. It made more sense to fi nd a natural shelter. Her grandfather’s voice sounded in her mind:

Location fi rst. High and dry ground—uphill from the stream.

Southern exposure to take advantage of the sun’s heat and light. Facing
east to capture the sun’s early rays for warmth.

She identifi ed the general vicinity that would satisfy all of her

grandfather’s requirements just over the next ridge. Before she

headed toward it, she turned to Joe and pointed. “I’m going to

head up that way and get a fi re started. Good luck.”

He blew her a kiss and headed down toward the stream. She

hoped it took him a good long while to either catch a fi sh or give up because it had been about two decades since she’d started a fi re without a man-made fi re starter.

It’s like riding a bike
, she told herself, even though it was nothing at all like riding a bike. She trudged up the hill. Shelter fi rst. Th en 111

MELISSA F. MILLER

the fi re. She scouted and rejected a handful of options—a fallen log, a tangle of boughs. Th en, in the foothills of the mountain, she spotted a rock outcropping that checked all the requisite boxes.

Home sweet home.

She sidled into the space between the rock walls and pounded

on them with her hands. No loose stones or debris came crashing

down on her. She swept the ground clear of twigs and pebbles with

her feet. Th e sleeping arrangements would be adequate once she

lined the ground with leaves for bedding.

Time to tackle the fi re.

She worked quickly, gathering rocks to create a low, semicircu-

lar wall and digging out a shallow bowl of the dirt within the space.

Th en she loaded her arms with dry, dead tree branches and carried

them to her fi re pit. Each time she brought back an armload of

sticks, she scanned the brilliant, cloudless sky overhead.

Uneasiness had been building in her veins ever since she’d spied

the beaver watching them on the ridge. She couldn’t shake the idea

that her spirit guide was portending danger. A snippet of a documentary on unmanned drones that she must have seen months earlier

kept spooling through her mind. A scrawny boy, no more than six,

maybe younger, was pointing to the cloudy gray sky overhead and

explaining to the fi lmmaker in halting English that the parents in his village no longer let the children play outside when the sky was blue.

Th e clearer the day, the more likely a drone attack. Everyone knew, he said, that the bombs didn’t fall when the sky was dark and cloudy.

A low-fl ying hawk swooped by, and its shadow blocked the sun

for a second. Aroostine’s entire body tensed and she froze, wait-

ing for the light and blast that would mean the end. Th en the bird circled away and the sun returned. She exhaled and dropped the pile of kindling to the ground with the rest.

She knelt on the hard earth beside it and worked to regulate

her breathing. As her heart rate slowed, her fear and anxiety began 112

CHILLING EFFECT

to turn to hot anger. Anger at whomever was out there, wishing her

dead. Anger at the penny-pinching desk jockey who’d approved the

use of a civilian site to test armed drones. And anger at the scientists and military strategists who’d created a weapon that could destroy

a life without conscience.

Th at same documentary had included a piece about the distant

operators of the drones. Young men, mostly, barely out of their

teens, who remote controlled the bombs from thousands of miles

away. Watching the action on a screen, as if they were playing video games. And the distance seemed to make the destruction as unreal

to those boys as a video game. Th ey didn’t have to lock eyes with

the target, didn’t have to hear the screams, see the hot blood and

disintegrating body parts.

Th ey simply jerked their joysticks, pressed their buttons, and

watched the distant, grainy explosions as their bombs hit their targets. “Bug splats” they called the dead; evidence—according to a

psychologist who’d been interviewed—that they were so far removed

from the battle they didn’t even regard their victims as human. Th e psychologist had warned that this sort of warfare—detached, clean,

mechanical—was unlike any that had come before it and would

likely take an eventual toll on the bomb operators that no one would be prepared to address.