Blackening Song (19 page)

“It’s nothing you can deal with, trust me.”

“If we work at cross purposes, we’re going to jeopardize this entire investigation,” Blalock warned.

“Believe me, the leads I’m following are closed to non-Navajos. They involve our religious practices and beliefs.”

“Are they linked to the case?”

“Probably not directly. I’ll have to see it through and let you know.”

“You’re still not playing ball. I made a gesture of good faith, and you’re
throwing it back in my face.”

“No, not at all. I
am
cooperating with you.” Ella opened the door and stepped out of his car. “I gave you a name I’m willing to bet you haven’t come across in your investigation. When I have something concrete, I’ll contact you.”

“Yeah, sure, only I better not hold my breath.”

“I want an arrest made and this case closed as soon as possible. I have much more at
stake here than you do. Don’t forget that.”

As Ella headed back to her mother’s truck, Blalock whipped his car around and drove off, leaving a trail of dust and the smell of burning rubber in the air. She hoped she hadn’t just lost a valuable source of information. His instincts had been right—she was keeping things from him. Blalock would have laughed in her face if she’d mentioned skinwalkers,
or he would have decided they were like a terrorist organization and turned the reservation upside down looking for them. Doing that would create a panic that would give even a stupid crook enough time to hide … and her opponent was anything but stupid.

Although Ella knew she’d done the right thing, she still felt a little guilty. Blalock had gone through a lot of bureau paperwork to make up
that packet for her mother. He had even had the commendations bound into a portfolio. She leafed through the papers quickly, memories of past successes filling her mind and giving her confidence a much-needed boost. Ella took a deep breath. She slid the folder back into the envelope, set it on the seat, and resumed the drive home.

When she got there, Ella saw her mother, sitting on the porch
knitting, with Loretta in the chair beside her. Ella felt her stomach muscles tense with nervousness. If her sister-in-law would give her a chance, Ella would try to mend fences with Loretta.

It looked like she wasn’t going to get that chance. Loretta had stepped off the porch and was walking away, in the direction of her home. “Don’t go!” Ella called, hurrying to catch up to her.

Loretta waited
for Ella. Her expression was unforgiving. “I just came to visit your mother, and let her know
she
is welcome to stay with us.”

“What did she say to that?” Ella asked.

“She changed the topic,” Loretta admitted. “I don’t think she’ll come.”

Ella nodded slowly. “I figured as much, but it was nice of you to make the offer.” She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to proceed. “I’ve been
hoping for a chance to talk to you. I want to apologize for what happened with FB-Eyes.”

Loretta’s face lost some of its hard edge. “This has been hard on all of us. I know you’re doing your best to help.”

Loretta looked as if she’d aged ten years since the last time Ella had seen her. Yet she was still hanging tough. In her own way, she was as proud as Rose, and wouldn’t accept consoling words
easily. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to clear my brother’s name,” Ella said firmly. “But I need your help. I don’t want dissension between us at a time when we need to maintain a united front.” Ella paused. “I love my brother, though he makes me crazy sometimes.”

Loretta’s expression softened and she smiled sadly. “You make him crazy too, you know. You’re both too set in your own ways.”

Ella smiled back. “Okay, I’ll admit that.”

“Truth is always hard to refute,” Loretta baited her. “For me too. So forgive my anger toward you. There’s no place for that now, as you say.”

Ella glanced back at the house. “How did Mom seem to you?”

“She’s a strong woman. You don’t have to worry about her. She’ll go on with her life. You already have her thinking of the future. She has many hopes
for you and Wilson.”

Ella groaned. “There’s nothing to hope for!”

“Maybe, but it’s a distraction, a pleasant one, that keeps her mind occupied. There’s no harm in it.”

Ella wasn’t convinced, but decided not to argue the point. “If you hear anything helpful, or if you need anything, please call me?”

Loretta nodded. “I will. I want my husband back as soon as possible. I miss him.”

The words
were spoken simply, but the raw emotion behind them communicated clearly to Ella. “Would you like me to walk home with you?”

“No, it’s not necessary. My uncle will meet me soon.”

Loretta headed up the mesa. Ella waved and went back to the truck for the groceries. Putting them away in the kitchen, Ella noticed three iced-tea glasses in the sink. Rose came into the room and rinsed the glasses.

“Wilson drop by again?” Ella asked.

Rose nodded. “I hope you two are getting along okay. He usually stays longer than he did today.”

Ella sighed. “It might be a good thing that he left early. If Wilson’s around all the time, he’s going to start interfering with what I have to do.”

“There’s more going on between you than the search for answers. You know it as well as I do.”

She hated to do it,
but she couldn’t allow her mother to build false hopes. “Wilson and I are friends, but that’s all it’ll ever be. He loves the reservation, and his teaching post here. My career will always keep me away. We’ve both made choices, and my job is as important to me as his is to him. When summer’s over and classes begin in the fall, we’ll both be too busy to do anything but write an occasional letter.”

Rose shook her head. “You inherited every bit of your father’s stubbornness, but he had more sense.”

Ella followed her mother to the living room. Rose sat in the easy chair next to the lamp and began to knit. The only sound in the room was the clicking of her needles. Ella picked up a crafts magazine from the coffee table and leafed through it.

After an eternity, Rose glanced up. “I didn’t mean
to speak harshly to you.”

“It’s okay, Mom.”

“I miss your brother—you know that—and Wilson’s presence has helped. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come home. The house seems very, very empty when I’m here alone, yet this is my home, where I belong.”

Ella felt tears welling in her eyes. She remembered, all too vividly, what it was like to face the death of your mate. After Eugene
had died, she’d wandered aimlessly around their apartment. What her mother was going through was far worse. She’d lost the man with whom she’d shared her entire adult life. Her mother and father had been like counterweights that balanced each other, and now, with his senseless murder, everything was off-kilter.

Ella gave her mother a hug. “We’ve both had our losses. After mine, I was lost too.
But I learned there were many reasons to pick up the pieces and go on. You have even more hope and support than I did. You have Clifford and me, and your own home. Lean on us, but never give up hope. The hurting will stop.”

“You’re right, of course. I’ll eventually find new things to fill the empty spaces inside me.” Rose walked to her husband’s desk and sat down heavily. “But right now, our
whole family is in trouble.”

Ella glanced at the commendation binder Blalock had given her, which she’d left on the table closest to the door. She considered showing it to her mother in hopes of distracting her, then discarded the idea. This was no time to remind her mother of that disastrous church service. As her mother turned to look out the large bay window, Ella placed the binder on a bookshelf.

“Did my daughter-in-law tell you what’s been happening?” Rose asked.

“You mean about the police following her?” Ella said, gesturing for her mom to join her on the couch.

“No. This is more serious. I think she’s in trouble, though she doesn’t fully realize that yet.”

“How so?”

“After FB-Eyes came back to ask more questions, she insisted on leaving the hogan and moving in with her brother,
Paul. They’ve both seen coyotes around the house at night. They stay just out of rifle range, in the shadows.”

Ella suppressed the shudder that traveled up her spine. “They must be after the sheep.”

“Paul’s not sure what to do. He called earlier, asking for you.”

“I’ll go call him back.”

Rose shook her head. “He’s not home. By now, he’s at the chapter house. He said he’d be there until six.”

Ella remembered Navajo-style local government. Chapter houses were like grange halls in a lot of ways, places where many of the Dineh came together to voice problems and complaints. “Paul used to be one of the headmen. Is he still?”

“Yes, and he has more influence than ever. He’s the one who reports to the Tribal Council on local affairs.”

“I’ll drive over to the chapter house and meet him there.”
Ella hadn’t thought of Paul as a possible suspect because he idolized Clifford. But he was in a position of power, or at least influence, and that could corrupt almost anyone. There were enough politicians—on and off the Rez—to back up that notion. She assumed Paul was on somebody’s list of involved parties and made a mental note to look at his file, if he had one.

“Good idea. He said he was
just going over to do some paperwork. You’ll have all the privacy you need.”

“Mom, have you noticed anything or anyone around our home when I’m gone?”

“No, nor when you’re asleep. I keep watch sometimes.”

Her mother’s admission that she hadn’t been sleeping was distressing. “You know, if you ever want to talk, come and wake me. I don’t mind, really.”

Rose shook her head. “It’s all a process.”

“Of grieving?”

“That, and of learning how to cope with this new life I’m forced to lead.” Her smile was broken, mirroring the pain inside.

At that moment, Ella wanted to arrest the man who’d taken her father’s life more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. She’d never seen anyone look so alone.

“There’s something else you should know. I think Paul’s really afraid. If you weren’t my
daughter, I don’t think he’d go to you for help. He’s afraid of trusting anyone, particularly the police and that man, FB-Eyes.”

Ella nodded, remembering Blalock’s behavior at the hogan. She couldn’t blame Paul for his reaction, particularly given Blalock’s history with Navajo suspects. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Mom.”

“Do your investigating and stop worrying about me. I’m not the helpless
old woman you sometimes think me to be.”

“I never…”

Rose held up a hand. “Go. I’m counting on you to clear your brother.”

“I
will
do that, though it may take me some time if Clifford won’t come forward and speak for himself. Don’t lose faith in me, please.” Ella knew she had failed her mother once, by not acting on the threats against her father. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if her mother
thought all her help would be so ineffective.

Rose answered her unspoken thought. “You’re my daughter. My love for you isn’t measured in what you accomplish or fail to achieve. It’s there. Always.”

Ella hugged her mother tightly. Knowing the strength of her mother’s love revitalized her, but she wanted respect too. “Just hold on, okay? All this will end soon, and Clifford will return.”

A few
minutes later, Ella drove slowly away, trying to make sure she didn’t come across any hidden arroyos or holes as she headed cross-country. She’d save at least forty-five minutes going this way, if she could stand the bouncy ride, and she was eager to meet with Paul. Maybe he could give her a new lead. At the moment she was desperate to find a trail that would yield positive results.

As she slowed
down to traverse an area crisscrossed with rain-spawned furrows, she caught a flash of a mirror or windshield in her rearview mirror. Someone was tailing her. She drove over the next hill and stopped the truck, engine still running, near the cover of some boulders. She glimpsed Blalock’s pickup coming up the slope behind her. In the blink of an eye, he killed the engine and coasted behind a cluster
of tall brush, gliding out of her line of vision.

Crafty, but not enough. He probably hadn’t expected her to take such an isolated shortcut. Ella downshifted and headed straight into a big canyon she knew practically by heart. She’d camped there many times when she was in the Girl Scouts. The area was a maze of hairpin curves, and arroyos so deep they could swallow a vehicle whole. Hard ground,
where sandstone had been exposed would hide her tracks. To the southwest, Shiprock seemed to nod its approval as she drove into the wash.

Ella headed directly into the narrowest part and smiled, thinking she could almost hear Blalock cursing her now. The canyon split into three channels and he’d have no idea which one she’d selected. Sooner or later, he’d learn that she was on her own turf and
that the bureau was wrong about one thing: being an outsider was no advantage here.

Despite that, Ella had to give him credit. He was a skilled agent. Clearly his instincts had told him she was withholding information. That’s why he was trying to follow her now.

After long minutes detouring around red and orange cliff faces that could hide entire stacks of buses, she stopped and turned around
in the seat, searching out the rear cab window. There was no sign of Blalock. Unless he’d followed her tracks precisely, she’d be willing to bet he was stuck in the mud in a side channel. There was a section at the base of one of the cliffs that was famous locally for its soft sand beds, which ran for a quarter of a mile or more.

She slowly wound her way back to her original route. If Blalock
didn’t surface by early evening, she’d come back for him. No sense in letting him walk the fifteen miles back to town.

Satisfied that she was now free to go to her meeting unwatched, she increased her speed. Though she’d lost time eluding Blalock, she should still make it to the chapter house before Paul left.

Ella had almost crossed a two-mile stretch of alkali flats when she noticed another
vehicle in the distance. Although it hung back a quarter of a mile and was moving slowly, she thought she recognized the pickup as the one that had tried to run her down on her first night home. Her flesh prickled uneasily and she reached down to touch the butt of her handgun.