Bad Medicine (44 page)

A stocky Anglo she’d
never seen before kicked the pistol out of her grasp just as it cleared her holster. “You’re going to lose this fight, squaw,” he laughed. “Your good luck has just run out.”

Ella ignored the pain shooting through her body, using adrenaline to stay alert and evaluate her situation. The second man, almost a head taller than the first, held a lug wrench in his hand like a club. It was obvious they
intended to finish her off. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Decent, hard-working white men are suffering because of your racist laws. You’re working to take away their jobs. It’s time you had a fatal car crash.”

As the stocky man grabbed at her, Ella jumped to one side. Every muscle in her body screamed, but by the time she scrambled to her feet, her backup pistol was out of her boot and
in her hand. She fired two shots at her closest attacker, the shorter man, and he went down hard with two hits in his chest.

“You only have two shots in that little derringer, Indian. Your luck just ran out,” the other spat out, waving the lug wrench back and forth to taunt her.

Ella knew her chances were slim, but maybe she’d still be able to pull off a miracle. She certainly couldn’t afford
to give up. Ella fell to her knees as if exhausted, clutching her head with one hand and groaning. It wasn’t much of an acting job. As her adversary moved in confidently for the kill, she threw a fistful of sand into his face.

He staggered back, covering his eyes, and Ella scrambled to her feet and kicked him in the groin. When he doubled over, dropping the wrench, she clasped her hands and delivered
a blow to the back of his neck.

The man fell to the ground, stunned, but not unconscious. Ella quickly grabbed her fallen pistol, then dragged her adversary over to the Jeep, handcuffing one hand to the frame. Moving back, she tried to clear her thoughts. Glancing over at the man she had shot, she saw he hadn’t moved. Blood covered his chest and she knew he was dead or dying.

The other man tugged
at the handcuffs, struggling to free himself. “This vehicle’s dripping gasoline. Can’t you smell it?” He glanced down. “It’s running onto my shoes and pants. We’ve got to get away from here.”

“
I
intend to get away. You, I’m not worried about. Let your Brotherhood buddies bail you out of this one.” She wouldn’t let him die here, but it wouldn’t hurt to let him think so. Fear could expedite the
kind of deal she’d never get from him otherwise. “Like they say, what have you done for me lately?”

“You can’t leave me here. You’re a cop,” he added, his voice rising.

“Yeah, one very pissed-off cop. I’ve got more important things to do than worry about what happens to slime like you,” she shouted, climbing down the hill slowly, looking for an approaching car.

“Come back! I can help you neutralize
The Brotherhood. I know the leader, Anderson. I’ll also identify the man who killed Bitah. It was Truman. I was there when he hit him with that gun-stock. And Anderson hired us to kill you. We were waiting at the highway junction, knowing you had to pass by sooner or later. A while ago we spotted you up on the way to the hospital. We were supposed to run you off the road, making it look like
what happened to the senator’s daughter. If you survived the wreck, we were to finish the job, then set the Jeep on fire to destroy your body.”

Ella knew she had his attention now. The threat of being burned to death could soften the hardest criminal. She stopped to listen, but still looked back and forth down the road, not moving toward him at all.

“Why did Anderson want me dead?” she asked.

“He hates your guts, trust me. And he wanted to kill you to prove how much power we have. You’ve managed to survive everything he’s thrown at you, even the bomb in the van. If we could take you out, others would have been very reluctant to fight us.” He glanced down at the pool of gasoline around his feet. “I’ve answered you. Now get me away from here!”

Ella turned around slowly. “You’re willing
to testify in a court of law?”

“I know enough to convict Anderson. That’s my deal. I give you the testimony you need, you get me the hell away from here.”

“That’s almost enough to save your life. What else have you got?” she pushed, pretending to be trying to make up her mind.

The man tugged at his handcuffs, almost in a panic. “Come on, let me loose. I won’t try to run.”

“Keep talking. Oh,
and by the way, if you keep moving around like that, you might cause a spark with those metal cuffs,” Ella cautioned.

“Okay, okay.” He grew still. “Noah Charley was taking money from The Brotherhood for keeping us informed about the Fierce Ones. Charley told Anderson that Bitah was planning to sabotage the heavy cranes and drag lines to shut down the mine. But it turns out Charley was lying about
that. We grabbed Bitah, and once we found out the sabotage idea was crap, we decided to work him over just to make a point. Bitah fought pretty well, but he was outnumbered. Finally, Truman nailed him, and that was it.”

“Then Noah Charley took off,” she said, remembering the tracks that had been left at the scene.

“Yes, yes. He suddenly realized he was the only witness who wasn’t one of us.
Nobody has seen him since. We never could figure out who paid Charley to tell us about the phoney sabotage, and why he was so willing to deliver Bitah to us.” He glanced at the ever-widening pool of gasoline around him, fear in his eyes. “That’s all I know. Now you’ve got to get me away from this death trap! Please?”

Ella nodded. She couldn’t prove it unless they found Noah Charley and persuaded
him to talk, but she was suddenly certain Howard Lee had used The Brotherhood to keep Bitah from exposing his theft of the peyote buttons. Lee had committed murder all right, but it was Bitah’s, not Angelina’s, death he’d engineered.

Ella got the cellular telephone unit from her Jeep, and her shotgun, then unhooked her prisoner, cuffed his hands behind his back, and, at gunpoint, forced him to
climb uphill with her. He was so relieved to still be alive he was almost eager to cooperate. After making him lay facedown, she managed to get a call through to Justine.

“Where have you been?” Justine demanded. “All hell has been breaking loose out here.”

“No time to explain now,” Ella replied wearily. “What’s going on?” She looked over at the man she had shot. His eyes were open and expressionless.

“When Phillip Cloud arrived, he found the officer assigned to follow Lee lying there, wounded but conscious, about fifty yards from your brother’s house. Lee had ambushed him, armed with a pistol. Your brother and I came out and drove Lee away. After making sure Loretta and the baby were alright and that help had been called for the wounded officer, we left Cloud to watch over Clifford’s family,
and went after Lee. We lost the trail in the area of scrub oak and piñon west of your brother’s home. We’re about to head down to the road to see if we can pick up the trail again.”

“I’ll rendezvous with Clifford at the road. You go back to the house and get a car. I need you to pick up a prisoner for me. I’ll leave him handcuffed to the bridge. Get him to the station and have him write out a
statement. He’s going to blow The Brotherhood wide open for us. There’s another one of them here, too, but he’s dead.”

Once assured that Justine was on the way, she walked her prisoner back down to the road, handcuffed the man to a sturdy portion of the bridge railing, and reached for his truck keys.

“Someone will come along soon to collect you,” she said, climbing into the man’s truck.

She
was relieved to hear the rumble of the big V-8 engine. The truck was still in good condition, except for the passenger’s side exterior and a dent in the rear bumper.

Ella sped down the highway, glad for the first time that her new transportation had such a powerful engine. With the exception of some sheep, however, there were no signs of life along this stretch of road. As she cleared the next
rise, she spotted a figure at the bottom of the hill waving his arms, trying to flag her down. There was another person on the ground at his feet. As she drew near, she recognized Clifford as the man standing.

Ella pulled to a screeching stop. She didn’t recognize the wounded man, but she did recognize the uniform shirt. He was a school bus driver. His shirt had been torn at the shoulder, and
herbs had been placed over the wound there to staunch the flow of blood.

“I followed our enemy,” Clifford said as she came up, “but he reached the road long before I could. Apparently, he laid down in the middle of the highway, and this poor man stopped to help him. When he left the bus to see what was wrong, our enemy shot him with a pistol, and then took the bus. There are eleven second- and
third-grade children on board.”

The bus driver’s voice was fierce with concern. “I shouldn’t have stopped, but I thought the man needed immediate help. He was flailing his arms but couldn’t seem to get up. I know it’s my fault, but you’ve got to do something to get those kids back safely.”

Ella rushed back to the truck for her cell phone, and called Justine, asking her to relay the message to
the station. “They say we have no more units in the immediate area, but one way or another, I’ll find backup for you,” Justine said, her voice fading in and out.

“Forget backup. Get people looking for the bus!” Ella ordered as Clifford and the driver came up. “You two stay here. I’m going after Lee.”

“He’s not alone. There is another,” Clifford warned.

“No, there was only one man,” the driver
argued.

Clifford shook his head. “You’ll need me with you, little sister. Your quarry has help from someone even stronger than him. I sensed it, and you will, too, when you reach him. You can’t go into this alone.”

“If you’re talking about Randall’s
chindi,
you’re wasting your time,” Ella said, starting the engine. “I’m not worried about anything that’s not flesh and blood.”

“Then worry now.
There’s another powerful skinwalker working with him,
not
a spirit. I’m right about this, trust me. I sensed the second person’s presence.”

Ella knew the value of intuition. It was all too often based on information processed by the subconscious and as valuable a tool for survival as anything could be. “You’ll have to stay here. We can’t both leave the driver.”

“I’ll go with you. I’m not staying
out here alone with a skinwalker on the loose.” Before Ella could stop the driver, he climbed onto the back seat, sinking into the cushion with a groan.

“I don’t have time to argue with you two,” she said. “Get in, big brother. We’re going.”

Ella floored the accelerator, holding the wheel with both hands. Trucks were not known for handling ease at high speeds, but this big baby held the road
pretty well. She’d already experienced that fact earlier, the hard way.

Three minutes later, at a speed near ninety, she saw the bus about a mile ahead. “I’ve got you now,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “You can’t outrun me and get away, so all I have to do is wait until you run out of gas. I’ll be right on your tail the whole time.”

Despite her bold words, Ella felt a tingling at the
back of her neck. There was going to be trouble. She glanced at her brother. His eyes were narrowed, and he was Singing softly under his breath. He looked a million miles away, his forehead furrowed deep in concentration. Yet she knew he was aware of every detail of what was happening.

Ella slowed down to fifty, following her intuition. Suddenly the brakes of the bus squealed, and the massive
vehicle turned in a tight circle, the driver’s side tires leaving the road. For a hair-raising moment, she thought the bus was going to tip over.

As it finished the loop, the bus began accelerating toward them down the middle of the road, on a collision course.

Ella stared at the vehicle, her hands tight around the wheel. He was trying to force her to give way so he could make his escape. “Hang
on and make sure you’re buckled up!” she managed through clenched teeth, slowing the truck to under thirty-five.

“Move to the shoulder,” the bus driver yelled.

“No. Not yet,” she whispered. A warm, feverish glow spread over her as she listened to her inner voice.

“Swerve!” the bus driver yelled again.

Ella held the truck steady, playing the crazy game of chicken. “No. He’ll turn into us. He
wants us dead, and is perfectly willing to die along with us to get his way.”

The bus was so close she could see Howard Lee’s face clearly. His expression was one of rapt concentration. Heeding her inner voice, Ella suddenly threw the stick shift into low, stomped on the gas, and swerved sharply to the left, fishtailing up the hillside adjacent to the road. The bus would not be able to follow
them there.

Glancing in her rearview mirror, Ella saw Lee try to follow. Before he could get far, the bus bogged down in the soft sand. Ella braked hard to a sliding stop and jumped out of the vehicle, shotgun in hand. As she moved down toward the bus, she saw Lee forcing the children across the road. A short distance away on that side was a steep drop-off to a deep canyon.

Ella tried to angle
for a clear shot, but there were too many children and, in a panic, their movements were erratic at best. Clifford had followed, and she handed him the shotgun. “Stay here,” she ordered. “I’m going around.”

Ella hurried toward Lee, crossing the road quickly and taking cover in the junipers. The children were nearly at the edge of the cliff, which jutted out over the sandstone-lined canyon. The
young hostages were almost all crying, too frightened to do anything except obey Lee’s orders.

Ella knew Lee hadn’t seen her yet. She glanced around, discovering a small shelflike ledge below the top of the cliff. It was about ten feet down and ran around to an area she could approach without being seen. There would probably be enough handholds and footholds to get to the top after that. Most
important of all, the element of surprise would work for her. He’d never expect her to come at him by climbing straight up the cliff face.

Ella successfully made it to the ledge undiscovered, then inched her way around. As she reached up to start the vertical climb, she suddenly felt dizzy and sick. She gasped, trying to draw in a breath. The air around her seemed to grow thick, weighing her
down.