Tribal Blood

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“Sure.” He scraped his knuckles over the stubble on his jaw. “Well, stop by anytime. Love company. Don’t get much, though.”

They were off a moment later with David waving after them despite the dust they kicked up. The rainy season had come and gone. They were back to hot, dry days and cold, clear nights.

Jake met them en route with three other vehicles. Colt drew his pistol and flicked the safety off.

Kacey was suffering from the end of another contraction, so she spoke through gritted teeth as she clutched the wheel. “Don’t shoot your brother.”

He nodded and holstered his weapon before leaving the vehicle. Kacey watched as he greeted Jake with a nod. Kacey knew the two men who exited the next vehicle. The first was Detective Jack Bear Den. No mistaking him because he was the biggest man she knew. From the opposite side of the SUV came tribal police chief Wallace Tinnin. He was limping, as if he’d injured his foot. The chief had come to speak to her high-school class her senior year. It had been the January awards assembly and he had shaken her hand when she made the honor roll. Had that only been ten months ago? Yes, she realized. Just months before she had been taken.

The next two cars were black sedans with tinted windows. FBI, she guessed. She didn’t recognize the man or woman who exited the first vehicle but was surprised to see they both appeared to be Native American.

From the next sedan came two white men with short military-style haircuts and dark glasses. They had the same stony expressions as the Secret Service men who guarded the president.

Jake approached her door and she leaned out the broken window.

“We’re going to transfer you to Detective Bear Den’s unit, Kacey. That be all right?”

She nodded and he opened the door.

Colt was already speeding away from the vehicle.

Jake helped Kacey rise and then looked across the hood to Colt.

“Good to see you, brother,” he said.

Colt looked away.

Jake glanced to her and she shook her head. She did not understand any better than he did why Colt would not speak.

“Did he talk to you?” Jake said, his voice low.

She nodded.

Jake released a sigh and escorted her toward the SUV. On her way, they paused for introductions. The man was FBI field agent Lieutenant Luke Forrest of the Black Mountain Apache tribe. The woman was FBI explosives expert Sophia Rivas, also of the Black Mountain Apache people.

“Are you the one who saved our town?” asked Kacey.

“Well, I had some help.” She glanced at Bear Den, and Kacey sensed their relationship might be more than professional. “But I set the charges.”

“Colt says you stopped the river from destroying Piñon Forks.”

“That’s true. Why don’t you sit with me? I have a few questions.”

Kacey cast a look at Colt. She was not leaving him.

“We’re riding with Bear Den and Colt’s brother,” she said.

“All right. I’ll just come along. That be okay?”

Kacey glanced to Colt, who inclined his chin.

“All right.”

The contractions were now just an irregular flurry of spasms across her belly and back.

She walked past the last two men, who scanned her from head to toe.

Once past them, she asked Sophia Rivas who they were.

“Our guys. They’re taking possession of your vehicle.”

“Evidence?” asked Kacey.

Rivas smiled and nodded. “We sure hope so.”

Bear Den held the rear door of his SUV open for Kacey. She struggled to climb inside. She wished she had something better to wear than the ugly sheath of a dress they’d given her. But what was important was getting to her friends before something happened to them. Those men, Oleg and Anton, they couldn’t fight against all these law-enforcement officers.

Could they?

Colt slipped in beside her and she gripped his hand, fingers laced. He gave her comfort and she hoped she did the same for him. Jake took the front seat. Rivas climbed into the opposite side, so Colt slid to the middle of the broad back seat, separating her from the FBI agent.

Jake Redhorse told them that the FBI had opted not to notify the Darabee police of their presence based on the information she had given Officer Redhorse. So they sailed through town and back toward the house she had fled only four hours earlier.

Her contractions were no longer increasing in strength or frequency and they interfered little on the ride back from the rez to Darabee. What was going on? she wondered.

Still, her body concerned her less than the tic Colt displayed beneath his eye and the way he repeatedly flexed and stretched his free hand like a beating heart. His breathing was irregular, as if he were in pain.

She answered all Rivas’s questions as they rode back down the mountain and through the settlement of Turquoise Ridge. Bear Den asked a few questions as they covered the road between Turquoise Ridge and Koun’nde. Then Jake told them some things that she hadn’t known.

A classmate of hers and Colt’s, Zella Colelay, had delivered a baby girl on September 23, the Saturday before last. She’d left the infant in Jake Redhorse’s truck and he was being granted temporary custody of the baby by the tribe.

“You’re getting custody?” asked Kacey. She did not quite keep the disbelief from her voice. A single man wanting custody of a baby was unusual.

“Lori Morgan and I are back together now. She’s agreed to be my wife.”

Kacey blinked at this news. She knew that Jake and Lori had once been a couple. Rumors were that Lori had got into trouble and the teens had been encouraged to marry before the baby came. Colt had confirmed it and told her that the miscarriage had wrecked the relationship. Now it seemed a new baby had brought them back together again.

“Congratulations,” said Kacey.

Jake grinned. “Thanks. Just got married.” He lifted his left hand, showing the gleaming gold band. Jake looked to Colt. “I wanted you there, brother. Have you stand up with me.”

Colt lifted his shoulders and shuddered.

“What about Zella?” asked Kacey. “What will happen to her?”

Bear Den took that one. “She’s been relocated, faces charges for abandonment of the infant. But she’s young, and with the circumstances, I doubt she’ll receive more than community service.”

“One more thing,” said Jake. “The baby. It’s white.”

Kacey frowned and rested her hands on her belly. How could Zella deliver a white baby? Did he mean the baby was a mix of Apache and Caucasian or what some here called a mix-up? Was Zella like her and the rest of the captives? Had this happened to her but somehow she had evaded capture? “Does Zella have a boyfriend?”

“No. She told us she has never been with a boy.”

Kacey gasped. Just like her, Marta and Maggie. She needed to speak to Zella. Kacey turned to Colt to tell him that Zella might be one of them and she noticed he was trembling.

Colt’s eyes were darting about and his leg was bouncing like that of a junkie coming off a high. She pressed a hand to his knee.

“You okay?” she whispered.

He jumped at her touch and then clutched her hand so hard she winced. Colt had not even visited his family since his return from Afghanistan. Now he was surrounded by people.

“I need to get out of this car,” he said. “We’re trapped back here.”

“Pull over,” said Kacey.

Bear Den glanced back at them in his rearview mirror.

“What?” said Bear Den.

“We can’t stop,” said FBI agent Rivas.

Colt’s gaze flashed to the closed door.

“The baby. Pull over,” said Kacey.

He did and the line of cars behind them stopped, as well. The lead car drove a few yards on and then noticed the delay and also pulled over.

Kacey tried the handle and found it locked.

Bear Den was quick for a big man. He had her door open an instant later and Kacey slid sideways, legs out of the SUV. Colt bolted past her and ran a few feet. Then he stopped, facing them, panting. His complexion was gray and his eyes were wild.

“Colt?” said Jake, hands raised.

Colt had his hand on his pistol.

“Take your hand off the weapon. No one is going to hurt you.”

“I have to go back,” he said. His eyes were wild as he searched for escape.

“Colt. Kacey needs you,” said Rivas.

Colt stared at her, his expression tortured. “I’m sorry. I thought I could...”

“It’s all right, Colt. You don’t have to go,” Kacey assured him.

“Don’t get in that Humvee, Kacey,” he said, pointing at the SUV. “Don’t go. They’ll take you.”

Kacey’s blood iced. It was her greatest fear, to be taken again, by the Russians, the feds, the Darabee police. Her throat went so dry she couldn’t even swallow and she wanted to go with him.

“Not a Humvee,” said Bear Den, his words an aside to Tinnin.

“Colt,” said Rivas. “You’re scaring Kacey.”

Kacey headed toward Colt. She needed to touch him. Bring him back and save herself from the terror now crawling over her skin like scorpions.

“Don’t,” said Bear Den, clasping her arm and holding her back.

Colt made a feral sound between a snarl and a roar as his eyes were pinned on the place Bear Den touched Kacey.

“Let go,” said Kacey.

Bear Den’s hand dropped away. Kacey continued forward to Colt as he drew his pistol, holding it down and at his side. Behind her, she heard handguns leaving their plastic holsters. When she reached Colt, she took his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his.

“I’m here, Colt. You’re safe. You’re home.”

His body relaxed and his breathing slowed. “Stay with me,” he said.

“It’ll be all right.”

“Don’t go with them.”

“I have to. I promised them, my friends, that I would send help. I have to go. Can Jake take you home?”

He nodded. The pistol slid from his fingers, thudding to the ground.

“All right. Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”

It was what he had said to her before he shipped out for boot camp. I’ll be right back. That had been nearly two years ago.

He shuddered and turned to Jake, who was already holding his brother’s abandoned handgun. The two brothers walked back along the line of cars to Jake’s police unit, which had been driven by Chief Wallace Tinnin. Jake helped Colt into the rear seat and then shut him in. Colt’s eyes darted about the closed compartment. What had happened to him? Kacey wondered. Jake hurried behind the wheel as Colt locked his fingers together behind his head and ducked like an airline passenger preparing for impact. The vehicle made a U-turn and sped away.