Cold River Resurrection (21 page)

“Take me to the Black Bear Restaurant, Daddy. Take me and Jennifer now or lose us forever.”

On the way to the restaurant, Smokey wondered how he could be so lucky. He shivered.

The dream seemed so real. He knew luck was not real, it was made. And it could be taken away.

On the mountain.

And that’s where they were going.

In the end, he wished he could have taken it back.

Never gone back to the mountain.

Never with the people he loved.

C
hapter
50

Cold River Indian Reservation

Bald Peter Mountain, Forest Road 6574

Smokey shut off the engine and looked out over the valley below them. Jennifer leaned against the passenger door with her arm around Laurel. They both had their eyes closed, the events of the night and lack of sleep catching up with them. In the end, Smokey had decided to keep Laurel with them. She had grown up in the mountains, he could keep an eye on her, and he gave in when Jennifer and his daughter told him that they didn’t want to be separated.

“Besides, Dad,” Laurel had reasoned, “I protected Jen once, and I can do it again.”

Smokey wasn’t so sure that he bought her line of reasoning, but he didn’t tell her otherwise.

At just after noon, it was hot. He had left the air conditioner in the Suburban off, not wanting to start their hike in a blast of heat. He got out and walked to the front of the car and leaned against the hood. They were parked on an old logging landing at the top of Bald Peter Mountain, the closest road to the area where Jennifer had found the hand.

Down the slope the tree line was at mid
-mountain. To his right the burn area of 2007 was a black slash in the forest. Mount Jefferson rose up in front of him, dominating the landscape. The mountain had always been a part of his life. His family home in Sidwalter was on the northeastern slope of the mountain, twenty-five miles from here. What they were about to do should be a walk in the woods, and even though it was rugged territory, it wasn’t that far as the crow flies.

We need to find the woman and the reason for her being here. And if the reason isn’t apparent, we’ll leave and deal with the rest of it later. Maybe I should take the fight to the bad people. Go on the offensive with some warriors. Leave Jennifer and Laurel home.

They were laughing about something when he walked to the back of the SUV.

“What?” He smiled as he got to the back. The
y were getting too chummy.

“Daddy, we were thinking, Jennifer and I, that you really know how to show two girls a good time.” She had her arm around Jennifer’s waist.

“Stick with me,” Smokey said. “You haven’t seen anything yet.” He opened the back door and removed a pack. He wore camouflage pants and a sleeveless camo shirt and “boonie” hat. He had a pistol belt with pouches for ammunition and other gear. In the back of the SUV he laid out a small submachine gun, an H & K UMP, and a short-barreled .308 caliber sniper rifle. Both had slings. He handed packs to Jennifer and Laurel; a small one for his daughter, a medium sized pack for Jennifer. When they put on their packs, he handed the machine gun to Jennifer.

“Let me know if this gets too much for you,” he said.

She put the sling over her head and adjusted the rifle.

“It’s fine. Just show me how it works sometime.”

“Daddy,” Laurel said. 

“What?” h
e said, not looking back. He started down the trail. They had to go down into the Parker Creek area, Laurel knew, before starting toward the mountain.

“Daddy, you think I can stay with Jennifer until our house is built again?”

Smokey didn’t answer. He motioned for Laurel to join him. She ran up to him and he dropped on one knee, and untied the leather thong that held the carved figure of the
spilyay
, the coyote. As Jennifer looked on, he explained the significance of the necklace.

“This is a
wahayakt.
”

“I’ve heard of it before
, Dad, but I thought it was a necklace of a
spilyay
.”

“It is, but it is much more than that. If you are about to go on a hazardous journey,
if a friend gives you something that is special to that friend, well then, if you get into trouble, you can call upon the
wahayakt
and you will have the strength of the friend as well.”

“I will be as strong as you?”

“Stronger than me,” Smokey said with a grin. He kissed Laurel on her cheek and stood up. Jennifer met his eyes and nodded her approval, then shook her head slightly side to side and smiled.

“Laurel, I carried this in Afghanistan, Uncle Nathan carried it in Viet Nam. It has a lot of strength with it.”

Laurel held up the necklace to show Jennifer, and Smokey walked down the steep trail toward the trees. The July sun was right above him, and it was getting hot.

Laurel and Jennifer had a plan. When things returned to normal (and even at nine, Laurel didn’t think things were ever going to be quite “normal” again) she was going to go to Portland and spend a month with Jennifer. They would get up late, play video games, play with dolls, then go down to a little restaurant by the Willamette River and have lunch.

And t
hen shop.

Unless, of course, her
dad wanted to spend the month with them.

That would be cool. Get him off the rez. They didn’t have a house anyways.

It felt good with her dad, to be out with him, and she knew she was lucky. A lot of her school friends didn’t have dads or even moms to take care of them and were being raised by
tutu
or aunts. She didn’t think of her mom much, but it was hard for her when her dad was gone to that place, Afghanistan. She had looked it up on a map and that didn’t mean much, just a place on the map that was a different color from the other places on the map. A kid at school, Dean Whinishut, said that her dad was killing Al Qaeda, over there, that some rag heads had bombed the World Trade Center. That had scared her, since she was in pre-school when her dad first went there, and she had cried. She cried a lot the first time her dad went there, and cried when he left for the second time, but he wasn’t gone long then, he got hurt, and he came home.

She told him that he couldn’t go back after that.

That Šiyápu chief of police, Chief Martin Andrews (Dad liked him) had hired her dad back.

And now this stuff. But her
daddy would always protect her, and would protect Jennifer, she knew that. He always would, no matter what happened.

He will always take care of me. And I will take care of him.

My daddy. And now there’s Jennifer. If I have to drag him to her place in Portland, I will, but I won’t have to drag him, you know?

Jennifer lagged behind, slowly walking downhill behind Laurel, listening as Smokey and his daughter bantered back and forth. The day was beautiful. The sun was warm, and as they entered the tree line, the shadows created by the Ponderosa Pines were welcome and comforting. The mountain view was blocked by the trees now, but she caught occasional glimpses of the snow fields thousands of feet above them. The mountain had been so much a part of her landscape the past few days, she was used to it.

Smokey. Ah, God, what do I do?

Jennifer knew that it would be all too easy to forget her life (such as it was) in Portland and come here. She knew that she could be a mother to Laurel, and she and Laurel both knew it. Laurel was so sweet, had such a need for a mom that it was almost painful to watch.

And maybe you have a need
, too, Jen. You have been so careful, so aloof, so just alone, that maybe it’s time. After all, Jen, you will be thirty this year. Admit it, you’re good with her, and you like her. Could come to love her. And you can edit books from here.

Smokey. Maybe it’s just a foxhole kind of attraction. People attracted to each other because they have been thrown together in stressful situations. But that was just her way of protecting herself, because she knew at every level that the attraction she had
for him was real, and was returned. She thought that they both knew it, and they were feeling their way through the newness.

God, I wish I weren’t so awkward in these things. But I am, and maybe that’s good. Don’t want to be a slut. Or, maybe I do, but don’t want to appear to be. And it’s good that he is awkward
, too. It’s cute.

She had asked Laurel about Smokey, and Laurel told her that he hadn’t dated, hadn’t seen anyone since he had been in Afghanistan, since her mother had died a few years ago.

“He’s been waiting for you,” Laurel had said, grinning, and Jennifer blushed. This kid really wanted them to get together, and Jennifer worried about that, too. What if it didn’t work?

Her sweatshirt was wet between the straps of her pack, and she stopped to pull it off. She looked up the trail and saw that Laurel and Smokey had stopped, fifty feet ahead. Smokey bent down and said something to his daughter, and they both laughed.

Jennifer smiled. Their laugh about her made her feel good. Part of them. She stuffed her sweatshirt in her pack and walked toward them, wearing a sleeveless top, jeans and tennis shoes. A beautiful day in the mountains, with two people she was falling helplessly in love with.

She pushed away thoughts of why they were here . . . looking for a body with answers.

She walked up in the shadow of a large pine tree and threw her arms around both of them.

“Hi, guys. Want to kiss me?” She laughed as they both kissed her, Laurel tickling her in the side. As she danced away from the tickle, Jennifer saw Smokey looking at her, serious, questioning.

“What?” she said, dancing away from Laurel.

“Well,” he said, “we decided that we both like you. That, well, that . . .”

“That we want to keep you,” Laurel yelled. She threw her arms around Jennifer, and they hugged. Jennifer looked over Laurel’s hair, smiled at Smokey and nodded.

“I want to keep you two, also.”

“For sure?” Laurel said.

“For sure.”

Ohmigod, she thought. Here I am, wearing borrowed jeans, borrowed tank top, borrowed tennis shoes (and they all fit pretty good, thanks to Sarah Greywolf) with people I just met, and I feel like I belong here. I could use a few less bad guys shooting at me, but I would never have met Laurel and Smokey. And, Jennifer girl, they did put their lives up for you. Don’t forget that. 

I haven’t even missed my cat. What’s up with that. And  now I know that people who don’t have a life, have a cat.

Plant people.

Chia
pet people.

Goldfish people.

Might as well have a gerbil.

A gecko.

Mom had been telling me that I needed to get out more, to have someone else take care of my cat. She never liked Carl. She didn’t think he could produce anything resembling a grandchild worth spoiling, and the little bit I told her in the past few days had mom salivating. She was a realist. She didn’t worry too much, thought that if I survived, I would go on an ovulating quest.

Well,
Mom, I certainly have tried to speed things up in the past few days. And if I’m not ovulating, I must be close. I feel like I’m in heat when I get around Smokey.

Laurel had as
ked a lot of questions, like, “Have you ever been married?” And “Do you like kids?”

Oh, and the great question, “Will you and Daddy give me a baby to take care of?”

Jennifer had blushed again at that one, but she thought about what her answer should have been.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

But that had been a day ago, a day before the house burned down, before the shooting, a long time ago. Now she would have said a lot of things. Things she would answer tomorrow. When they got back.

After all, what could happen here in the mountains?

Just a hike, let Smokey take care of the yucky stuff.

After all, we are alone.

Aren’t we?

Chapter
51

Near Sunriver Resort

“We know where they are? Right?” Enrico Alvarez glared at the gang banger, his voice flat and hard. His killing voice, his soldiers whispered. He was sitting by the pool with a towel around his middle. A waiter appeared with lunch and he waved him away.

“We have them in sight,”
Roberto said.

“And where are they?” Alvarez asked.

“They just left their car, up on a logging road. They are walking toward the mountain.”

“The woman’s there
, right? And the
policia
we’re going to kill?”

“Yeah, and you’re gonna love this. The cop’s little girl is with them. Makes it easy to see them, she’s wearing a red shirt.” He grinned.

“Show me,” Alvarez said. “I want to see where our men are.”

Justine put a map of the reservation on the table. “Here is w
here we think the hooker’s body is. We have been able to hike in there since they stopped flying the search and rescue helicopters. They will see the cop and the woman coming.”

Alvarez leaned over the map.

“We have another group following them from the landing where they parked. From long distance, using spotting scopes and GPS systems, we know about where they are going, so our people shouldn’t be seen.”

Alvarez grunted. He had seen it all, and knew that his men could still fuck it up. “How far is this, from the Madras Airport to the spot on the mountain, by helicopter?”

“Uh, maybe fifteen minutes, if we know right where to go. They flew fire suppressant helicopters out of the airport for the 2007 Lightening Complex fire in the same area on the reservation. Ten to fifteen minutes. The airport is only two miles from the reservation if you fly straight to the river.”

“Get the chopper there, standing by at the airport. We’ll bring the Lear up from Sunriver. This better work or Kal-leed and that Indian cop won’t be the only ones rotting up there on the mountain.”

Alvarez waved lunch over.

“Kill the cop,” he said. “Don’t hurt the woman or the
nina
if you can help it, especially the woman. If the
nina
gets killed, so be it. If the woman and kid are alive, they’ll be going back with us.” 

“We’ll show them a good time before they die.”