Blackening Song (34 page)

To his credit, Wilson gave her the directions without any hesitation. “I’ll meet you there.”

“No. Blalock is with me. I’ll talk to you later.”

Heading east, Ella drove through a grove of trees and across a narrow wooden bridge. Below, the irrigation
canal was half full of muddy water. Heading toward the river, they passed several corn- and alfalfa fields and a small wood-frame house. Two children played beside an old car up on cinder blocks. A single, bright light, high on a pole, illuminated the yard.

As they drove past, one of the kids, a long-haired girl in a T-shirt and jeans, made a face at Blalock. He laughed, then sobered when Ella
looked at him in surprise. He checked his pistol, placing his extra clips in his jacket pocket for easy access.

About a mile from the hogan, Ella headed into a shallow arroyo and parked. “We’ll have to go in on foot from here. I don’t want to tip off a sentry, if there is one.”

“It’s already too dark for us to spot any guards if they’re in the shadows. Then again, the darkness can work in our
favor.”

Abruptly, Ella held up a hand, signaling Blalock to remain still. A soft, muffled sound was coming toward them.

Ella tensed and drew her pistol. Blalock, weapon already in hand, cocked his head to one side, indicating that he’d go around and try to take the person by surprise.

Ella crouched down and waited. Blalock wasn’t about to take anyone by surprise, regardless of what he thought.
He was making enough noise to wake the dead. What he would do was flush the person toward her, and that suited her just fine. She scarcely breathed as she listened for the muted steps that Blalock’s passage almost obscured.

Then she heard a soft rustle in the outcropping of tumbleweeds a few yards to her right. Someone was there. She aimed her weapon and kept it steady as the man appeared. The
barrel of her pistol was trained on his chest, and when he saw it, he stopped abruptly, his eyes widening.

Recognizing Wilson, Ella broke her stance, quickly pointing the barrel up. “What the hell are you doing here?” she said in a harsh whisper.

“I came to help,” Wilson answered. “My pickup is just ahead, around the bend.”

Blalock emerged from the bushes amidst a symphony of snaps and crackling
twigs. His gun was aimed at Wilson’s head. “Don’t move, pal. Don’t even breathe.”

“It’s okay,” Ella whispered quickly. “Put your weapon down.”

“He appears out of nowhere and you’re ready to trust him? Not with my neck, you don’t,” Blalock challenged, a hint of anger in his voice.

“Chill,” she snapped. “He’s the one I called to get the location of this place.”

Wilson’s face was a carefully
crafted picture of serenity. “If I’d wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have approached you so openly.”

“What openly? You scarcely made a sound. Good thing our hearing’s sharp.”

“There might be others around,” Wilson replied softly. “We must keep quiet. What’s going on, anyway?”

“Loretta’s been kidnapped, and Police Chief Clah could be responsible,” Ella said quickly, and explained about the bug.

“Are you sure about this? He’s your father-in-law.” Wilson was as surprised as she had been.

“The more I think about it, the more I know I’m right,” Ella muttered sadly.

“Then Randall is one of them,” Wilson said.

Ella knew he meant a skinwalker, and her stomach sank even further in revulsion.

“His hogan has a death hole punched in the side, but that wouldn’t stop them,” Wilson continued,
disgust apparent in his tone and attitude.

“We’ve got to know exactly how many people we’re dealing with, and where they’re positioned. Loretta is probably being held inside the hogan. We have to come up with a strategy to get in there and free Loretta,” Ella whispered.

“If guards are posted outside, we could take them out and raid the hogan,” Blalock said. “Let me take a look. I’ll come up
with a plan that’ll work.”

“You can’t go,” she said flatly. “You make too much noise. Wait here for me.” She slipped through the gathering shadows and disappeared.

TWENTY-ONE

Wilson watched Ella go, then stood silently, looking all around him. FB-Eyes did the same. Wilson had never hunted a man before, but he knew the agent had. Would FB-Eyes be better than his opposition today? Wilson hoped so, for the sake of Loretta, Ella, and himself.

Blalock stared at Wilson, then mouthed, “How much time do you estimate she’d need to get there and back?”

“Five minutes.
Unless she’s discovered.” Wilson rubbed his bottom lip with his index finger in a calculating gesture. “But she won’t be.”

“Oh, excuse me. You have a crystal ball?” Blalock spat out. “What’s your part in this, anyway?”

“I’m on her side,” Wilson answered calmly, knowing it was probably not enough for FB-Eyes.

“And what’s she after? It used to be her father’s murderer, but it’s more than that
now.”

Wilson remained silent.

Time seemed to drag as the men waited impatiently for Ella to return. When she finally appeared, deadly intent and determination were etched clearly on her features. Wilson didn’t need more than one glance to know they were about to take action.

*   *   *

“I counted four armed men. One stays by the hogan; the other three are patrolling. They’re nervous and at
each other’s throats. One almost shot another by mistake just a minute ago. The hole in the side of the hogan has been patched. The entrance is no longer covered with a blanket. There’s a solid wooden door that’s padlocked from the outside.”

“Big deal. We’ll force the padlock with a lug wrench,” Blalock said.

“Fine, but you’ll have to get past the armed men first,” Wilson replied quietly.

“Get to the point, Clah. Is your sister-in-law being held there?”

“Yes.”

“You saw her?”

“No, but they’ve got someone inside. They took food in, and from one of the disgusting remarks I overheard, I know it’s a woman. I don’t need the I.Q. of Einstein to figure out the rest.”

“Let me call the bureau and get a SWAT team in from Farmington.”

“Are you crazy? The minute they come onto the reservation,
word will get out, and Loretta will be dead.”

“If there’s four of them and only two of us, then she’s liable to end up dead anyway.”

“Three,” Wilson corrected.

“Yeah, right. Just what we need. Civilian cannon fodder.” Blalock shook his head. “All you’ll do is add to the casualty list.”

“Wilson Joe may be a civilian, but out here, people learn to shoot and hunt early in life. It’s part of our
way,” Ella said.

“Yeah, but the game we’re after shoots back,” Blalock replied acidly.

“More incentive for me to be accurate,” Wilson countered. “Tell me, FB-Eyes, what the hell are you complaining about? I’m offering to help you, and it sure looks like you’re going to need a hand.”

“Three against four does improve the odds,” Ella agreed.

“Let me round up a few of my cousins,” Wilson offered.
“It won’t take long, and then we’ll outnumber them easily.”

“No,” Ella replied flatly.

“The ones I’ll pick will never betray us, no matter what happens,” Wilson insisted.

“Just get Paul. He’s at my mother’s house,” Ella said. “Then it’ll be four against four.” She considered sending Wilson for Clifford, but she couldn’t trust Blalock not to arrest her brother and she didn’t have time to argue
with him about that. “We’ll sit tight, then move in at dawn. If we’re lucky, they’ll be half asleep.”

As Wilson left, Ella turned to Blalock. “You still with us on this?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really. You started this with your damn fool illegal bug. I think it’s only right you see it through.”

Blalock glared, then nodded reluctantly.

“I have some equipment—I shipped it in. It should
give us an edge.”

Blalock smiled slowly. “I should have known you’d have something up your sleeve.”

“Let’s just say I came prepared.”

“With what?”

“Flash-bangs and enough tear gas to choke an army.”

“This is starting to look more like a workable plan.” He smiled again, but there was no joy in it.

Ella led Blalock over to her pickup and unlocked the trunk.

*   *   *

It was nearly dawn by
the time they were all ready, at the ridge east of the hogan. Ella gave Blalock four flash-bang grenades.

“What are those?” Paul asked, worried about his sister’s safety.

“They’re like enormous firecrackers. They’re called flash-bangs because there’s a flash, and a bang, and that’s about it. But they do incapacitate, and that’ll give us time to move in.”

She picked up the tear gas canisters.
“I’ll use these. My goal is not to exchange gunfire anywhere near the hogan. I don’t want a stray round to hit Loretta, and we have no way to warn her.”

Wilson had been keeping watch; now he joined the others. “We have to move now. There’s a pickup heading this way. It should be here in about ten minutes.”

“Let’s get to it,” Ella said.

They split up, moving toward the hogan from four different
directions. If the assault was simultaneous, the element of surprise, and their enemies’ confusion, would all work to increase their chances of success.

Ella watched the hogan, then glanced at her wristwatch. Another minute passed. Right on time, the loud flash-bangs landed to the left of the hogan door, where two of the men were talking. The concussion wave rushed past Ella like a wall of air,
and she flinched.

Ella hurried forward, shotgun ready. The two men were lying facedown, stunned, and would remain that way for a while, but there were two others, undoubtedly behind cover somewhere. She crept silently through the brush, stalking the missing pair.

She advanced cautiously, searching for signs of the two guards. It was as if the earth itself had swallowed them. She kept her senses
sharp and her weapon ready.

Finally she heard a barely perceptible shuffling noise, about fifteen yards to her left. Ella froze, listening until she heard it again. Pinpointing the sound, she saw a rifle barrel poking through some scrub bush, aimed at the hogan.

She moved closer. With the rifleman in her sights, Ella opened her mouth to order him to surrender, when a shot cracked through the
air. On instinct, she dove to the ground, rolling and firing a round at the gunman in front of her. She didn’t hit him, and he was gone before she reached solid cover.

The shot had come from the direction of the hogan. Ella crawled forward. Abruptly she saw Clifford staggering away from the door of the hogan, clutching his chest. Blood poured through his fingertips.

For a moment, Ella couldn’t
breathe. When had her brother come here, and how? The world seemed to spin out of focus. With effort, Ella shook herself free of the anguish that knifed through her as Clifford fell to the ground.

Blalock advanced toward her brother, pistol in hand, ready to shoot again. Ella fired into the air, shouting, “Don’t!” The thought that Blalock had been their enemy all along turned her blood to ice.
She brought her pistol to bear, intending to shoot Blalock, then noticed the horrified look on Blalock’s face as he stared at the body on the ground.

Blalock stepped back, shock etched plainly on his face. Ella realized he hadn’t known who he was shooting at. Her brother had created a disguise, making use of shadows and an ordinary wig. As usual, Ella had recognized him anyway—but Blalock hadn’t.

Hearing a car engine start up, Ella spun around. The two gunmen had reached a Jeep at the bottom of the rise. As they sped away, she felt relieved—she wouldn’t have to contend with them now. She started running toward her brother, but before she’d taken more than a few steps, she suddenly heard the metallic rasp of a shotgun shell being fed into its chamber.

“Stop.” The whisper-soft voice had
come from directly behind her. “He’s a dead man, Daughter-in-Law. It’s over for you and for your family. We tricked you. My men will double back and take out the rest of your companions. You’ve lost.”

Ella slowly turned around to face Randall Clah. “Why are you doing this?” She didn’t want to believe he was involved, but the truth was there in the twilight before her. His eyes gleamed unnaturally,
illuminated by the approaching dawn.

“For power. More power than you have ever dreamed of. It’s right there, just waiting for us to take. People like you hold us back. You’re afraid. You don’t even try to use the advantages that real magic can give you.”

“You’ve lacked for nothing all through your life, Randall, and your family lives very comfortably. What more do you want?”

“All the abilities
you and your family have. For generations, your ancestors have been able to command respect and fear. Then you and your brother came along. You both waste your powers by not using them to get what you want. Your loss is our opportunity.”

Ella knew now why he had never liked her, and had opposed her marriage to his son. “My brother is a Singer. How can you say he’s thrown anything away? He’s using
everything he knows, all that he is, for the benefit of the tribe.”

“Neither of you has developed your abilities fully. You both saddle yourselves with useless rules. That’s why we’re stronger, and why we will win. After your clan has ended, the People will come to us. We’ll be in control, giving or withholding our help as we see fit, and destroying those who get in our way.”

“Jealousy and envy
are poor excuses for what you’ve done. You’ll still lose. We have many relatives. What makes you think this legacy, handed down through generations, will die with Clifford and me?”

“You two are the only ones with any real power. First we destroyed your brother’s reputation. Now we’ve taken his life. That order will be reversed in your case, but the outcome will be the same. In the end, we’ll
be the ones people respect. The Dineh will consider us heroes for getting rid of your family and their hold over us.”

He raised his shotgun. A single rifle shot rang out. For an instant she wasn’t sure what had happened. The pain she expected did not come. She glanced down at herself, noting in muted shock she wasn’t injured. Looking up, she saw incredible surprise in her father-in-law’s eyes.
Without a sound, he fell to his knees, then crumpled to the ground, lifeless.