it was true. Tate could get turned around in his own backyard. Put him on his Harley cruising a freeway, though, and his brother could tell you which direction he was going by the smell of the wind he was bucking.
Still, he should have stopped the old woman. Koko was seventy-six and had no business taking off in the middle of the night to answer a damn vision on a mountain.
“She packed her rucksack. Took some food.”
“Anything else?”
Tate scratched his chin. “Her medicine bag and a couple of blankets. That knife you gave her was on her hip.”
“Dammit, Tate, we’ve been getting snow in the high country for a long week. What the hell were you thinking, letting her go?”
His brother pointed to a two-inch cut on his muscular arm. “Koko did that three months ago, remember? Took after me with that knife when I told her I wasn’t goin’ to haul her to Brownin’on the back of my Harley. I ended up bleedin’ like a stuck pig all the way to town with her ridin’ behind. That was the day she had that vision of Delsin Yellow Wolf. And it was the real deal, you know. He’d damn near cut his arm off in that meat saw. Koko saved him, like she did Pekono and Lucky years back. And Maggie and Earl’s brother, Pinky.”
Jacy glanced at the flesh wound on Tate’s arm. “What I remember over that deal is you getting gut-sick over a damn scratch.”
“I never got gut-sick.”
“If you bled, you got gut sick. You never could stand the color red in liquid form unless alcohol was in the mix.”
“You’re an asshole, Moon, bringin’ up a man’s weakness in public.”
“And you’re an asshole for letting Koko take off in the dead of night.”
The brothers stared a hole through each other for a long minute. Then Jacy stood. “Which way did she go?”
“Like I said, I couldn’t tell.”
“Did you even look for tracks?”
Tate stood, tipping his chair over. He hoisted his jeans over his beer belly, then tossed his head, sending his long Native-American hair rippling over his shoulders and down his back. “Insultin’ me a second time is a mistake, little brother.”
“You plan on taking me on drunk?”
“Like you said, I ain’t that drunk yet.”
“Meaning you’re really going to get gut-sick when I pop you in the nose and blood starts flowing?”
“That’s it, you got a fight comin’ your way.”
“Earl just got this place put back together from the last time we went head to head,” Jacy reminded. “You got a problem with me, we’ll settle it outside.”
The all-night crowd headed outside the minute they saw the brothers on their feet. Tomorrow’s news would keep the Sun Dance busy, and if you had seen the scrap firsthand chances are you would get offered a free drink or cup of coffee to tell your side of the story.
Tate knocked his shoulder into Jacy as he staggered past him, then out onto the front porch.
Jacy limped after him, his thoughts on his grandmother instead of the fight. He recalled that the morning news had reported fresh snow on Sinopah Mountain. He was trying to recall how much when he stepped out into the predawn crisp air and straight into Tate’s fist.
Prisca liked to fly. The idea of traveling to places unknown had been exciting at first. But today she didn’t like flying at all. The aircraft was too small, and the pilot almost as young as she was—that meant his experience was in question. He had also insisted that they leave the airport after dark.
The idea of flying into the unknown—the Montana mountains in the black of night—had made her nervous before she boarded the toy airplane. Still, she had few choices open to her, and so she’d climbed aboard wishing she had fortified her courage with a stiff drink. Too bad she wasn’t a drinker.
She should be thankful that this particular independent pilot wasn’t asking questions.
She had flown into Missoula after two unsuccessful weeks of hunting for Bjorn Odell. It was as if the Onyxx agent had disappeared off the face of the earth. Upset, but not giving up, she had decided to bypass number twelve on the list and concentrate on number twenty-one—the controller who had aided Bjorn Odell’s mission from afar.
From what she knew of controllers, after having watched Otto in action, she understood that without one at the helm of a mission nothing was possible. Odell might be the person directly responsible for her mother’s death, but Jacy Madox had put Odell on target.
She hoped the information in his profile was accurate and that he was still living in northern Montana somewhere near East Glacier. That is, unless he’d moved, as it appeared Odell had done.
The pilot, Marty, seemed to know the area she’d inquired about. She had taken that as a good sign. His plane, though small, looked seasoned, and he’d taken off with the experience of a pro.
But what was that noise she kept hearing?
Otto had been calling her cell phone since she’d left their flat in Vienna in the middle of the night. Of course she hadn’t answered him—not even the dozens of text messages he’d left. He sounded more than a little upset, and that’s why she hadn’t told him her plan, and she didn’t intend to speak to him until she’d done what she’d come to do. Not until her personal business was finished.
He wouldn’t be able to follow. She had taken precautions—changed her name twice—careful not to leave a paper trail of any kind.
She nodded as the pilot pointed to the black shadowy peak ahead. She had told Marty that she was a wildlife photographer on an assignment. He seemed eager to buy into her story, had gladly accepted the cash she’d offered. She’d even brought a camera along. After all, a photographer without her equipment would look suspicious, and the equipment had made it easier to conceal her father’s gun.
The aircraft gained altitude as it passed over a mountain range. Marty called it the Flathead Range. She had noticed a constant change in temperature since leaving Missoula. She shivered in her seat and instinctively pulled the black stocking cap further over her ears.
The airplane caught an air current, and she felt it in her stomach. More noise. A constant rattling now.
She snuggled into the seat, determined not to worry. Nothing was going to go wrong. It couldn’t. She had a date with death, and she was the executioner.
Chapter 3
Koko followed the mountain trail from memory. It was narrow and overgrown, a steady climb upward. It was pitch-black out and cold enough to see her breath. The scent of snow was in the air, but she paid no attention to the time of day or the weather conditions.
The vision was strong and she felt the urgency of it. That’s why she hadn’t questioned it, not even with the knowledge that she was racing toward something that hadn’t happened yet. That was the case sometimes, and she knew there was a reason for it. Soon she would know what it was.
