Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2 (10 page)

Begay sipped a can of soda and looked at the cold fireplace like he was considering Palmer’s question. It felt to Palmer like he had interrupted some kind of ritual that Begay took part in at the end of his working day, like he was rushing him right now when he needed time to sit down and decompress from the day.

“I’m not supposed to be drinking these,” Begay said, glancing down at the can of soda that was practically swallowed up by his hand. “Angie won’t be happy, but this is like a special circumstance.”

Palmer guessed Begay was either pre-diabetic or he already had the disease. To each their own poison, he wanted to say but didn’t.

“Who’s the murderer?” Palmer asked again, staring at Begay, waiting for an answer.

Captain Begay stared at the dark fireplace like he was collecting his thoughts. “I don’t think you’re going to like what that old woman had to say.”

“Try me.”

“She says the Ancient Enemy killed John and Deena.”

“What’s that? Some kind of Native American legend?”

“It’s a monster. The words she was using tonight actually translate more as skinwalkers or shapeshifters, but the words still equate to roughly the same thing.”

Palmer didn’t say anything—he had learned a long time ago when to stay quiet and listen. He waited for the captain to continue.

Begay took another sip of his soda and then spoke. “I know this Ancient Enemy legend is something that you’re not going to believe, but you asked me what the old lady said so I told you.”

Palmer still didn’t respond. He had a total of twelve bodies now in two different locations with varying degrees of mutilation, no obvious clues left behind by the killers so far, and seemingly no motive, so he was open to hearing any theories right now. Even one as far-fetched as this Native American legend might be. A clue still might somehow surface in it, some random piece of information that might send Palmer in a different direction. His earlier theory of Navajo protestors came back to him. If that theory was true, and things had gotten out of hand, then maybe these people would cover up their crimes with some Ancient Enemy or skinwalker legend. Maybe the pieces were beginning to fall into place. And maybe it was time to play his cards with Begay.

“Do you know of any people or a group of people living around here who might protest something like the archaeological dig site?”

Begay’s eyes narrowed even more as he studied Palmer for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe some of the local people wanted to protest the archaeologists. Maybe things turned violent. Things went too far.”

Begay didn’t answer. He finished the rest of his can of soda down in a few quick swallows. Then he got up and went behind the bar. He grabbed another can of soda out of the small refrigerator and took his time walking back to his leather chair.

“So, that’s your theory?” Begay finally asked after he sat down in the chair, the springs creaking, the leather crackling. “You’re thinking that some Navajo radicals did this?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just throwing ideas around.”

Begay didn’t look like he believed that.

“I need to explore all possibilities,” Palmer added.

Begay nodded like that was perfectly reasonable. “There are some who oppose the excavation of artifacts … of our ancestors … on our land. They protest sometimes, and they make their views clear. But they know that the choice is up to the council. I’ve never seen any real violence, though. Maybe some property damage here and there, some theft … but murder? And brutal murders and mutilations like these?”

“Maybe whoever did this is trying to send a stronger message.”

“But there wasn’t a clear message left behind,” Begay said.

“Maybe ‘don’t come here anymore’ was the message left behind.”

“There were no clues left behind,” Begay reminded Palmer. “These guys would have to be master criminals to leave no clues behind.”

“No clues that we know of yet. Our guys will find some clues eventually.”

Begay sighed in frustration. “You have to admit that this is not a normal crime scene. You saw those bodies, the way they were arranged together, forced together. The skin peeled off carefully in some places. Bones and muscles literally torn from the body. You saw that John and Deena’s faces were peeled away.”

“There’s an answer to all of that,” Palmer said.

“You think protestors did all of this to send a
message
?”

“Our guys will find the clues,” Palmer said again and then realized how accusatory his voice sounded.

Begay’s eyes shifted to the doorway.

Palmer turned around in his chair, expecting to see Begay’s wife standing there. But she wasn’t there.

“It’s late,” Begay said, dismissing the conversation for the night. “I’ll show you to your room.”

“Look,” Palmer told him. “I don’t want to argue with you or upset you, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions either. Let me talk to the forensics guys in the morning and see what they’ve got. Then we’ll take it from there.”

“Agreed,” Begay said.

Moments later Begay showed Palmer to the guest bedroom down the hall and then left him alone.

Palmer entered the bedroom which had been turned into a “cute” guestroom. It was homey with homemade blankets and local art on the walls. No TV or phone, but that was okay—he was ready to close his eyes for a few hours. He could still see the touches of their daughter’s presence in the bedroom: some old photos of her on the walls, a collection of horse riding trophies and ribbons on top of the dresser.

He took off his suitcoat and laid it over the back of an antique chair. He unclipped his belt and laid that over his suitcoat, but he brought his service pistol to the end table and set it down next to the lamp. He removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, stripped it off. He found an extra hanger in the small closet and hung his button-down shirt and pants up on it. Only in his T-shirt, boxer-briefs, and socks now, he dug his pint of vodka out of his duffel bag and took a sip. His mind had been going a hundred miles an hour all day and now it was time to let his thoughts wander. Sometimes when he quit focusing so closely on a case for a few hours, new angles of looking at things would come to him.

After a few more nips from his bottle of vodka, Palmer screwed the cap back on and set it down next to his gun. He made sure the bedroom door was locked, turned off the lamp and crawled into bed. The sheets smelled fresh, the blanket was warm.

He lay there for a moment staring at the dark ceiling, thinking about his conversation with Captain Begay. It was true that things weren’t adding up with these murders, but he wasn’t ready to blame these atrocities on some Native American ghost story just yet.

Colorado—the cabin

S
tella held on to Cole’s jacket as he drove the snowmobile down the lonely snow-covered road that wound through the seemingly never-ending woods. David was tucked in between them. It wasn’t a comfortable ride, but necessary. They were heading south, back to Cody’s Pass. Heading south probably wasn’t the best of ideas, going right back to the town where Cole had robbed the bank and a man was killed, but they needed to get away from that cabin and the horrors that were there.

But it would follow them. The Ancient Enemy would never give up until David was dead and David’s threat to that thing’s existence was eliminated.

Stella’s hands were freezing even though she had gloves on. Her fingers were starting to cramp up from holding on to Cole’s coat for so long now. Cole had told her before they left to beat on one of his shoulders if she needed to stop. But she didn’t want to stop—she wanted to put as much distance between them and that thing as possible.

David seemed okay. He held on to Cole, his arms around Cole’s waist. He had the hood of his coat up over his head, the drawstring cinched, but he was blocked from most of the freezing wind by Cole and Stella’s bodies.

There wasn’t anyone else on this road; the snow was too deep for most vehicles. This was the same road Stella and David had been driving on a few days ago when the blizzard hit, when Cole and his band of criminals had run her Suburban off the road and then carjacked it.

That seemed like such a long time ago.

The events of the past few days swam through her mind even though she wanted to forget them. She and David had fled from the archaeological dig site in New Mexico, driving farther and farther up into these snowy mountains in Colorado. A massive snowstorm moved in and the blizzard got much worse as Stella drove up this mountain road. And then Cole had run out in front of her Chevy Suburban and she ran off the road so she wouldn’t run him over. Cole and his band of bank robbers took over her truck and all of them continued up the road. But her truck’s radiator had been damaged and the engine started to overheat. They had no choice but to take refuge somewhere. The first place they found was a driveway that led through the woods to Tom Gordon’s cabin in the middle of a giant clearing.

Tom Gordon’s cabin. She remembered Jose and the other bank robbers finding the owner of the cabin stuffed down inside the large freezer in the kitchen, his eyes torn out without a trace of blood left behind. That cabin where all the other horrors had happened, where the rest of Cole’s crew had been killed one by one and taken over by that … that thing out there, the Ancient Enemy that had followed her and David from New Mexico.

Stella couldn’t explain exactly what that thing was—the Ancient Enemy. But she’d begun to form some theories … these were theories she hadn’t even shared with Cole yet.

But she knew two things right now as they sped down the snow-covered road.

One: That thing … the Ancient Enemy … whatever it really was—it would be coming after them again, even if it was injured somehow (which she wasn’t sure of and David didn’t seem to know, either). It wasn’t dead; she was certain of that. And she was sure that it would come after them … after David. It still needed someone to kill David before he became too powerful to fight it, before he gained enough knowledge to fight back.

And that led to number two: They needed to get back down to the Navajo lands. If David was a true shaman like he seemed to be, then he needed some kind of training before that thing caught up to him. She never should’ve taken him away from the Navajo lands, but she didn’t know of David’s true power at the time. She couldn’t have known it until she’d seen the Anasazi writings and symbols he had scribbled down inside the notebook in the cabin. When they got back down to Navajo lands, Stella would find an old man she’d heard stories about—a man named Joe Blackhorn. Supposedly he lived alone in a remote corner of the Reservation. She’d never met the man before, and she had no idea if he was even still alive, but she’d heard the rumors about him. They had to try to find him; they didn’t have any other choice.

What if Joe Blackhorn didn’t want to help them? What if they would be putting the old man in danger just by trying to find him?

But what choice did she have? She had to help David, not just for his own sake, but for everyone’s sake. This monster wouldn’t stop after David was dead; it would just keep killing and killing and there would be no way to stop it once David was dead.

This was their only option, and that meant traveling south. And since this road was the only one that led south around here, they had no choice but to go right through the town of Cody’s Pass again.

It seemed likely that cops in this county would still be on the lookout for the bank robbers, but maybe they would be widening their search now, figuring that the criminals were already long gone from the area. But she and Cole still needed to be careful; they needed to be smart.

It would probably be better to drive right on through Cody’s Pass, but the roads were still so bad and they needed to find a vehicle they could drive out of the town; they couldn’t use this snowmobile all the way to the next town with the three of them on it. And they desperately needed a few hours to rest, and they needed some food.

Stella’s face was cold, but at least Cole was blocking a lot of the wind with his body as he drove the snowmobile. He drove fast, the trees and hills of snow raced past them in a blur. They had grabbed Frank’s hat and gloves for David while they were boarding up the windows last night in their preparations to leave the cabin. They’d also found another hat and pair of thick gloves in Tom Gordon’s bedroom for her. But even with the extra gloves and hats, it still didn’t feel like enough protection against the biting wind as they raced down the road.

She watched Cole’s wide back, his gloved hands gripping the handlebar grips and her thoughts turned to him. What was his next move? How long was he going to stay with them? She suspected his primary goal had been escaping the cabin and the terror that had stalked them. Now that they were away from the cabin, what would he do? He had a good share of the stolen money shoved down into his socks and coat pockets. Would he just ditch them now or would he travel with them part of the way? He also still had his gun. Would he hurt them? Would he demand the money back that she had stuffed into her own coat pockets and socks? He seemed like a good man deep down inside … he hadn’t turned on her and David in the cabin when he’d had so many chances to. But she had to remind herself that he was a career criminal and she would have to be wary of him. She would have to be ready for anything.

She didn’t really expect Cole to go all the way down to New Mexico with them. This wasn’t his fight. Yeah, he’d lost his little brother at the cabin, but this monster was too big to fight. Too dangerous. But she also didn’t expect him to ditch them just yet. At the very least, she figured that she and David were good cover for him to get out of this area of Colorado. Once they were farther south, he might leave them, but she would make damn sure that he didn’t hurt them. She hadn’t gone through everything that she and David had gone through just to have Cole put a bullet in their heads once he felt he was safe.

So she didn’t really have any other choice than to trust Cole for now, but she needed to think of things from his point of view. He was a man wanted for robbery and murder. She’d seen his face, she knew his name, she knew details about the bank robbery. He would ultimately be a suspect in the pile of burnt bodies left behind at the cabin. It was only a matter of time before the police got to the burning cabin, discovered the bodies and realized that at least one of the criminals was still at large in the area. It was only a matter of time before the local police, the state police, and maybe even the FBI, were combing the area for him. And that would make Cole a desperate man … and desperate men were dangerous.