that was the end of anything they might have had. Maybe someday he would be able to tell her why he hadn’t shown mercy in spite of her pleas. Someday. But right now was not the time.
Heather retrieved her rifle and moved along a ridge of rock before stopping to turn back to him.
Bill resisted the urge to hoist her over his shoulder and hog-tie her. Instead he hurried to catch up as she moved farther away. At least he could try to prevent her getting shot. If the shooter really was Oscar … He shook away the notion. Deal with the situation as you would any other, Cloudman.
He caught up with her when she stopped to peek over the top of a hunk of granite.
They stood silently, their breaths the only sound.
He strained to see any sign of movement or spark of light.
Nothing.
“They must have gone,” Heather whispered, her damp curls brushing his cheek. “Choo Choo is probably hiding around here somewhere.”
Bill shook his head. “I’m going to take the trail down to the bottom. Don’t follow or you might get hurt. If there’s trouble, call for help.”
“But what about …?”
“If your dog is down there, I’ll bring him back.” Without waiting for an answer, he drew his weapon and moved down the dark slope between two massive walls of stone. The strange insulating quality of being enveloped in rock awed him, as it had since he was a little boy, scrambling through South Dakota’s labyrinthine trails. He’d always felt most at home deep in some stone passage with no people nearby, yet still surrounded by the hidden crush of life that filled every pore of this place. His aunt Jean used to chuckle at him and say, “Why do you think God made those cliffs so high, Billy? Because He wanted you to look up.”
Tonight the isolation held a tone of menace. He slowed his pace, listening for the slightest noise or movement. The far-off whine of a coyote floated through the canyon, answered by a yowl from the other side. The gunshots hadn’t scared them away any more than had the locals’ determined efforts to dissuade them from eating their chickens. Coyotes were persistent.
He grimaced, thinking of someone else who fit that description. Crazy woman, almost got herself killed waving that rifle around. That bravado could be deadly. Didn’t she realize what she was walking into?
No, she didn’t. And he didn’t know for sure, either. Not until he got a visual.
Breath controlled, body inching along in painful slow motion, Bill pressed on.
He eased around another pinnacle of rock, feet as silent as he could make them on the red earth. He flicked on a pen-light. A partial shoe print caught his attention, pressed into the dry powder of the path. He bent to look closer. An athletic shoe, worn, from the look of the impression. The air seemed to thicken around him.
Farther along he caught a tire impression, small and narrow, blurred in the dirt along the trail. He waited until a cloud passed over the slice of moon before he moved closer.
Even as he crept around the corner, he knew he was not alone. Was it instinct or was his subconscious hearing what his ears could not? Didn’t matter. The feeling that had kept him alive for an entire career hummed in his body. He took a deep breath. “Give it up, whoever you are.”
The stillness was split by the sound of a dirt bike revving to life. Bill had time to press himself against the rock wall as a helmeted figure on the churning motorbike shot forward, gripping the handlebars with one hand and swinging a short-handled shovel with the other.
The shovel caught Bill in the shoulder, cutting through his shirt and into the muscle, spinning him off balance.
He rolled out of the way, tried to aim and found the bike already vanishing down the rock passage.
Pounding footsteps echoed through the canyon and Bill knew it was Heather before she ran into view.
Her mouth rounded into an O when she saw him. “Are you okay? Who was it? Did they hurt you? What happened?”
He straightened, a lance of pain arcing across his shoulder. “Too many questions.”
She huffed. “Well … take them in order, then. Are you okay?”
Pulling a hand away from his shoulder, he saw that his fingers were bloody. “Mostly. Good news is he got me with a shovel.”
“Who? How is that good news?”
“Wasn’t a gun and the shovel seems to indicate he was just a fossil hunter.”
“Just a fossil hunter?” She fisted her hands on her hips. “Last I heard, stealing fossils from private land is a crime and taking them from public land is a felony. And they shot at me, remember?”
“Shots were meant to scare you, not kill you.”
“Well, that’s comforting. At least I found Choo Choo. I put him back in the house.”
The exasperation on her face almost made him smile as he holstered his weapon. “Got to get a call in to the cops. You’re not on reservation property, but it wouldn’t hurt to let the Tribal Rangers know, too,” he said, taking out his phone as he started up the trail. She sighed loudly and fell in behind him.
“Bill,” Heather whispered, dogging his heels, “why do I get the feeling you aren’t telling me everything?”
He finished talking to dispatch and clipped the phone to his belt. “You heard every word of that call. Maybe your career makes you paranoid.”
“And maybe you’re trying to cover something up.” She squeezed in on the path next to him. “Why didn’t you want to talk about the vandalism?”
“Just didn’t.” He felt her eyes on him and he quickened his pace. “I’ll see you home. Captain Richmond will meet us there to take statements.”
He pushed on until they reached the small wood-sided cabin. He scanned the windows for any sign of movement, more out of habit than concern. Maybe Heather didn’t live alone; maybe she’d gotten married or something. He had to shake his head at that notion. Who would have the fortitude to try to corral an unpredictable creature like Heather? He’d come close, he’d thought, and that had ended in disaster. A vivid picture of his grandfather Mel sprang into his head, working with a massive wild mare crazed by a piece of barbed wire wrapped around her foreleg.
He’d stood there for hours, just watching, talking low and soft to that animal when she’d come close. Bill could still hear the frantic pounding of the hooves, the enormous body thrashing inches from his grandfather. The moment she went still, Grandpa Mel removed the wire with one swift snip of his cutters before he’d let her free to find her herd. The horse had looked at them both for one long moment before she thundered away and Bill thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He wondered why looking at Heather brought up the old memory.
Heather pushed past Bill and opened the door. She left it ajar, so he figured she meant him to follow. Then again, she might just as easily slam the door in his face. Though he’d rather pull out his teeth one by one than admit it, the severing of their relationship had cut him to the core and now the disequilibrium he felt at having her near rolled around inside him.
