Hunter Moon (6 page)

Chapter Eight

Izzie waited in her pickup outside the offices of the tribal livestock manager because Clay had called. Left a message. Said it was important.

Finally Clay appeared, carrying a saddle over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. She straightened and stared, drinking him in like a glass of cool water on a hot day. It was well past five. His clothing was dirt-smeared and dusty. He tossed his saddle in his truck and removed his work gloves.

She slid out of her pickup. At the sound of the door closing, he turned in her direction.

His brow quirked and a smile played on his lips. But it vanished by the time she reached him. He smelled of horse and sweat. Why did she find even that appealing?

Clay propped himself against the closed gate of his battered truck. He was tall and handsome, his dark eyes glittering as he looked her up and down. Did he notice that she’d changed out of her work shirt and into a gauzy peasant blouse? That her jeans were clean and her lips glossed? Izzie swallowed back her nervousness. This was about business, she reminded herself. Yet she had taken time to brush out her long hair. Now she was embarrassed that she had dressed as if going on a date. She tucked her hands in her back pockets as her heart fluttered and kept walking until she was close enough to see his long lower lashes brushing his cheeks.

“You wanted to speak to me?”

He nodded. “You look pretty.”

So he noticed. She blushed.

“Want to go somewhere more private?” she asked and then thought her words sounded like an invitation she had not meant to extend.

His brow quirked again.

“I mean, so we won’t be interrupted.” She pressed her hand to her forehead as she made matters worse. What was wrong with her? She didn’t generally trip over her own tongue. Must be the lip gloss.

Clay chuckled. “I know what you mean, Isabella. My truck or yours?”

“Mine.”

“Good choice.” He extended his hand, and she led the way. He scooped up his saddle and followed, dropping the gear into her truck bed. She glanced at it and then to him.

“Some things have been going missing around here.”

“Ah.” She reached for her door, and he beat her there, opening it for her. She could get used to this, Izzie thought, as she slipped behind the wheel. He rounded the hood, giving her time to admire his easy gait and powerful frame. The good girl after the town’s bad boy. The cliché made her wince. But she’d never gotten over him or her body’s reaction every time she got near him.

She pressed a hand to her flushed face as he swept up into the cab.

“The quarry?” he asked, instantly choosing the place where they had spent happier days.

“Sure.”

The drive took only fifteen minutes, but it felt like forty as the silence stretched. She actually blew out a breath of relief when she put her truck in Park. They walked side by side to the water and sat on the log everyone used as a bench to watch their friends leap from the top of the quarry into the deep water below.

“Do I make you that nervous, Izzie?” he asked.

“Clay, I’m all tangled up around you.”

“Because of Martin?”

And there it was, the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, the topic they had never spoken about.

“There is a lot about Martin and me that you don’t know,” she said.

“That so?”

“I thought you wanted to talk about my cattle.”

“Sure. My brother tells me that the three we found up on the hill all died of asphyxiation.”

“What? How do you asphyxiate a cow?”

“By removing all the oxygen from the air.”

She sat back and stared out at the cliffs, the still water and then back at him. “How do you do that? Like carbon monoxide poisoning?”

“Not CO
2
. Blood tests aren’t back yet. But if someone was cooking crystal meth up there on your land, the gases released could kill anything that got upwind.”

“How do you know that?” Izzie asked as she gave him a long assessing look.

Clay sighed and looked away, his earnest expression replaced with disappointment. “I looked it up on the internet.”

“Do you think that was wise?”

He held her gaze. “I’ve never been wise around you, Bella.”

Her lips parted, and her heart seemed to pound in her throat. She slid closer turning her attention to him. He started talking.

“The poison is called phosphine and it kills things. Also causes visible damage to the lungs, liver and nervous system. Convulsions, coma, heart failure. And—” Clay drew a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket “—a fluorescent green sputum.”

Izzie took the sheet, scanning over the page. “Like my cows!”

She skimmed the symptoms, and he used an elegant index finger to point to the spot. There it was.

When she glanced up, it was to find Clay watching her closely. “So you didn’t know?”

Izzie’s brow knit, and then realization dawned and she stiffened. Briskly she folded and returned the printout. “What are you implying?”

He met her hard glare with one of his own. “I told you when you hired me that I won’t be a part of anything illegal. Not even for you, Izzie. If you knew they were on your land, you best tell me right now.”

Her hands fisted, and she folded her arms defensively over her chest.

“Izzie. I mean it. I’ve been down this road before. I will not do it again.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone. Not anymore.”

She sighed heavily and threw up her hands in aggravation. But she answered his question—again. “I did not know.”

“Word is that you got money troubles.”

She gasped. “Who told you that?”

He shrugged. Izzie looked away.

“Is it true?” His voice held a note of tenderness now.

“Yes. Mom has...some debts.”

“Then they aren’t your debts.”

Izzie sighed. “Not technically. But someone has to pay the bills. She spends everything she can get her hands on and more.”

“Gambling.”

Her brow lifted. “No. Not anymore. Not since I was a kid.” Izzie placed her elbows on her knees and cradled her chin in her upturned palms.

“She likes nice things.” And so Izzie had shut down their line of credit at the bank. Removed her mother’s name from the accounts. But the damage was done. Her mother had a nice new car, leased, and Izzie had a car payment and a six-thousand-dollar loan against her precious truck.

“And you are covering for her.”

“What am I supposed to do? She’s my mother.”

“How?”

She lifted her chin from her hands and turned to meet his stare. “I am
not
involved with manufacturing drugs, Clay.”

He nodded and looked out over the lake. “I believe you.”

She didn’t know if she should be insulted or relieved. Izzie stared at the abandoned quarry as she thought about it. Finally she said, “That means a great deal to me.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “It shouldn’t. I’ll believe just about anyone.”

She cast him an odd look, and he shook his head and fell into silence. It hurt her to realize how much his past still haunted him. She wondered if she might make that a little bit better by sharing the truth.

“Clay, I want to tell you something...something about Martin.”

Now Clay looked uncomfortable, his eyes shifting everywhere but back to her as his hands braced against the log, stiff and straight on either side of his body. He looked as if he were preparing to throw himself from the log and right into the lake.

“I want you to know why I went out with your friend.”

He flinched, and then his mouth tipped down, making tight lines that flanked his mouth.

“Because you preferred him to me?”

“No. Because my parents would not allow me to go out with you after my cousin told them you were selling weed.”

“I never...” He stopped, as if the arguing was useless.

She believed him. But after his father died, Clay had changed, taking his anger out in rebellion. Skipping school, getting into fights. When the drunk driver killed his mother, he’d changed from rebellion to recklessness.

“You scared me back then, Clay. You were so wild. And after my aunt caught my cousin with the pot, he said you sold it to him. My parents had just gotten back together, and I didn’t want any more fighting. So I said all right.”

He bowed his head as the muscles at his jaw turned to granite.

“Did your cousin tell you who really supplied him with the weed?”

She shook her head.

“Martin. He supplied everyone back then.”

Izzie gasped. “I didn’t know that.”

“He was very careful. While I...well, I was a train wreck.”

“You were not.”

But he had been. Back then, Clay had so much anger in him. He wouldn’t tell her why, but it had begun with the trouble between his folks. Around that time, the Twin Towers fell and Clyne had joined the marines right after. Was that really fourteen years ago? Gabe, just shy of turning sixteen, had been too young to join. But Clay said he had wanted to. She knew that things had been rocky between their parents but it had taken their mom two more years before she left Clay’s dad for good. Gabe, then eighteen, had found his escape riding the rodeo circuit.

That had left Clay and Kino in the middle of the mess. Clay had skipped school to go hunting, escaping into the woods. He’d failed everything and been left back, but he’d just kept cutting class. She’d reminded him that without his diploma the marines wouldn’t take him. That was when he’d confessed that it killed him to come to school and have her ignore him.

Then his father had been murdered.

“I couldn’t stand it,” he said. “I thought you wouldn’t talk to me because of my dad. He ruined a lot of things. Then he died, and I thought, finally, it will get better.”

Izzie had gone to the funeral. Clay had not. But he was back in school and his grades came up. Sometimes they would study together in the school library. He’d hit the books and studied hard. He just made it through his sophomore year and she her junior year. She’d really thought he’d make it into the US Marines. Then, over the summer, his mother had gone to that competition in South Dakota. Seven months short of his seventeenth birthday...

“Then your mother and sister died. Or we thought your sister died.”

He clasped his hands together and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Did I tell you that Kino is taking Lea up to South Dakota after they see some sights? He’s going to find her. I just know it.”

She rested a hand on his forearm. “I hope so.”

He smiled and placed his hand over hers. “Iz, I was so angry at the world and myself back then, I couldn’t see straight. The only good thing in all that time was you.”

She resisted the pull to move closer. That had always been the way with him. She was too old now for her mother to keep her from seeing whoever she pleased. But Clay was now working for the livestock manager, who had her cows. Would they really fire him for seeing her? And hadn’t she caused him enough trouble?

“I shouldn’t have gone out with him. But I was so desperate to see you.”

Clay gave her a look of confusion.

“Seeing Martin was the only way I could think of to be with you.”

He gave his head a quick shake as if he did not believe his ears, and he gaped. She held her breath, waiting for him to call her all the things she called herself, a coward, a traitor, a child. She had been all of that and more. But he just stared, and she exhaled, realizing the next breath had to choke past the lump in her throat.

“Is that true?” he asked, his voice now a low whisper.

“Yes.” Tears stung her eyes. She lifted her chin and fought a battle against them and lost. “It was stupid. They forbade me to see you. But when I was with Martin, you were there. At least in the beginning.”

“Before he started bragging.”

Izzie gasped. “About us?” Shock dissipated, to be replaced with outrage. “I never once. We never! It’s a lie.”

He let his hand slide from hers. She returned them to her lap.

He met her gaze. Held it. Then he nodded his acceptance of her declaration. My Lord, no wonder he stayed away. And Martin had pressed her so hard.

“Did he tell you why I broke up with him?”

Clay lifted a brow. “He said he dumped you.”

Izzie made a sound of frustration and swiped at the tears. Then she stared out at the blue waters where once they had all dared each other to jump from the cliffs. Clay had jumped first. Back before her parents had heard the rumors about Clay. Before they had made it impossible for her to see him. Before Clay took a gun and robbed a store.

She watched the golden sunlight of late afternoon glint on the water in wide bands. She thought that their relationship had become like that lake, just the surface visible and so many secrets hidden beneath the calm water.

Her anger burned away, leaving her hollow and more tired than she could ever remember.

“Clay, will you tell me what happened that day?”

He hesitated, then answered with his own question. “Haven’t you heard the story?”

She had. Several versions. Rubin had no connections and so had gone to federal prison. Clay, the son of a drug trafficker and meth addict, had a war-hero uncle in the FBI, a brother on the tribal council and another on the police force. He’d gotten off easy. That’s what folks said. But she was no longer interested in that story. She wanted
his
story.

“The paper said the records were sealed because you were a minor.”

He pursed his lips and blew out a breath. “What do you want to know?”

Chapter Nine

Clay waited with a hollow resignation for the questions. In the seconds before she spoke he decided to tell her everything. Couldn’t be worse than the rumors. Could it?

“Why did Rubin go to prison, when you went to a detention center?” Izzie asked. “Was it because of your uncle, like everyone says, or something else? And why did you say that you will not be set up
again
?”

He tried to think to consider his reply, but Izzie’s questions buzzed about inside his head like a hive of angry hornets, stinging him. The poison of his past seeped into his bloodstream, making him as cold as the chilled lake waters.

He’d been so angry back then. Sick with anger, drowning in it. Angry at his father for getting killed and angry at Clyne for picking the marines over his miserable broken family and at Gabe for leaving to ride the rodeo circuit and then sending most of his money home. Angry at the need for that money and the way his mother watched for the mail. Angry that his older brothers found a way out that left Clay and Kino behind, at Kino for idolizing his druggie father after his death, at his mother for driving to South Dakota to win a contest only to die, and angry at the drunk driver who crossed the center line to use his pickup truck as a battering ram against his mother’s Honda Civic.

All the same stuff that happened to him had happened to Gabe and Clyne, but somehow they’d never missed a step as Clyne took over providing for the family and Gabe took over managing the household. It was as if they didn’t even miss them. Only Kino had faltered, fixating on his need to avenge their father, as if he deserved it, which he didn’t.

“I always meant to tell you, Izzie.” He cast her a glance and was immediately sorry. She glared at him. She was not the open-minded girl she had once been. Perhaps he was lucky that she even cared to ask. Or perhaps she didn’t care about him so much as worrying about what kind of a man she had chosen to read sign.

“But you never did,” she said.

“Hard to. I called. Left messages.”

Her jaw dropped. “I didn’t know that.”

He sat back on the log as realization struck. Her parents never told her. Of course they hadn’t. But he had also tried in person.

“You wouldn’t speak to me. I tried, that day outside Elkhorn Drugs. And again after church.”

“I remember I was with my parents, who had forbidden me to speak to you. My dad threatened to turn me out if I was seen with you.”

Clay dropped his head, and his blunt cut hair fell in a curtain about his face. It didn’t hide his shame. Who could blame them? If Izzie had been his daughter, he wouldn’t have allowed her within a mile of him.

“Clay, my father is dead, and my mom, well, she and I are having troubles. And I want to hear. Will you tell me, please? I’ll listen. I promise.”

It was all he could hope for.

“First, tell me what you think you know.”

“All right.” She looked skyward and drew in a long breath.

“I know that there was a robbery. Martin shot the clerk. The clerk was Native and a few years older than me. I didn’t know him, but I know his family. Rubin was with Martin in the mini-mart. You waited in the car. Their driver. I know you took them to and from the convenience store in that car of yours.”

She didn’t say it was a worse piece of junk than the truck he now drove. His first car, more Bondo than metal unless you counted the coat hanger holding up the muffler. He’d been saving up then and now, for what he didn’t know. A truck, a bus ticket, a fresh start, a chance to make something of himself.

Izzie gathered a strand of hair, absently sliding her fingers along the length. “I know it was a 2001 hatchback. Terrible choice for a getaway car.” She arched a brow and then continued. “I know Gabe was the patrolman who came after you. I know that Martin fired at him with a pistol, and Gabe killed him with a single shot. I know it was a closed coffin. I know that you and Rubin were arrested. You went to Colorado, and Rubin went to a federal prison for four years, the maximum they could give him because the crime happened on the Rez, and Rubin is Native.”

That was all so.

“You were charged with aiding and abetting and with fleeing the scene and...what else?”

“Conspiracy to commit a crime. That means they say that I knew about the planned robbery beforehand and didn’t tell anyone. Anything else?”

“I know I wrote you in Colorado, and you never wrote back.”

That piece of news hit him hard in the gut.

“I wrote you back,” he said. “Three times. But I never got another letter.”

Her gaze flicked to him. “You wrote?”

He nodded. Izzie’s generous lips pressed thin. She was puzzling it out, deciding if he was lying or if her parents had taken them.

“Why should I believe you?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Nobody does. Not even the courts.”

Clay leaned back, gathering his knee and lacing his fingers around his shin as a counterbalance.

Izzie turned toward him, sitting sideways on the log.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

He felt so tired, but he faced her and gave her a look, making sure she wanted to hear. She nodded.

“Tell me.” It wasn’t a resounding affirmation of faith, but that needed to be earned. From what he’d seen since returning more than six years ago, not many folks were even willing to hear his side.

Izzie waited.

It was a start. But the telling was hard. He didn’t like it because it made him look stupid. He had been a fool. A fool for Izzie. A fool to trust Martin. A fool to go with them that day.

“I got my GED,” he said.

Her nostrils flared, and she angled her head, staring, still waiting.

“Okay, listen, okay...where to start?” His throat was dry. He shifted nervously and then thought that this just made him look guilty, as if he was thinking up a lie. He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders as he once did before nodding at the handlers to open the shoot at the rodeo. Eight seconds on a whirlwind, that was what Clyne called riding a bucking bronc. This was worse. “That day, Rubin cut school. Martin and me, we’d already dropped out. Martin unofficially—me, well, my paperwork was submitted and filed.”

Izzie shook her head in disapproval. “You were so close to graduating.”

“I was miles away from graduating. I needed to get out of here. Thought if the marines wouldn’t take me I could make a living riding broncs.”

“Like Clyne and Gabe,” she said.

But he hadn’t rode broncs until after juvie.

“Anyway, Rubin’s father is a trucker. He hauls different stuff.” Clay didn’t want to say anything that might make Izzie a target, so he kept it general. This kind of information was dangerous.

“He works for the cartels,” said Izzie.

Clay raised his brows in surprise.

“That’s what my father said. But he hauls regular stuff, too. Potato chips, cigarettes.”

“Women,” said Clay.

This time Izzie’s eyes went wide.

“That day, well, Rubin said his dad had a big job, very hush-hush. Rubin thought it was weed. It was usually weed, but when we got to his place, there was the back of the trailer in his big barn and a blue port-a-john beside it. I saw a hose leading under the closed gate of the truck, through that little opening in the back. Rubin’s dad was home, but drunk, so Rubin stole his keys and opened the back. Rubin wanted to take some pot, sell it.”

“But not you.”

“Izzie, Clyne was home then. Recovering from the injury. Taking charge. He was on me pretty hard. He had me working for the tribal headquarters, and Gabe had just joined the force. He thought it would be a good idea to use the new dog to check my room and car for drugs.”

“Good for them.”

“Yeah. I was glad to have them home. Anyway, when we opened the gate it was full of women. Girls, really. Mexicans. They were so young, and they started screaming. Rubin’s father came and cuffed Rubin across the mouth. Chipped a tooth in the front. He said the girls were on their way to Phoenix that night. The cartels promised them jobs as hostesses and waitresses, but they were going to end up in strip clubs and bars and massage parlors from here to Atlanta.”

Izzie looked as sick as Clay felt. “What did you do?”

“I decided to tell my brother. Gabe could come out and stop this. They were people, you know, not drugs. Kids. Younger than me, mostly. But I didn’t tell that to Rubin or Martin. Martin actually asked if he could have one of them for the day.”

“One of who?” Izzie’s voice rang with outrage.

Clay mopped his forehead with his hand.

“A girl. He wanted one. Rubin’s dad laughed and said sure, if he had two hundred dollars.”

And there it was. The reason for everything that followed.

He didn’t understand it because at that time Martin was still dating Izzie. Anyone who had a girlfriend as pretty and sweet and smart as Isabella Nosie didn’t need to take some child. The idea of paying two hundred dollars to rape a girl made Clay sick. They hadn’t looked older than thirteen.

“Then we left, and I thought it was over. But it wasn’t. Martin said he wanted a pop. So I stopped at that store. I just wanted to get away from them, you know, forever. I was done. But they went in, and I didn’t drive away...” God, he’d been stupid. So stupid.

“And?”

“And...” His shoulders rounded. “I had a flip phone. I used it. Called Gabe. He was new on the force then. Riding along with John Wilcox. I told him about the girls, and then I heard the shot. Gabe heard it, too. I told him it was gunfire and where I was. Later the attorney said I knew what they were doing and just got cold feet. Rubin and Martin ran back to the car. I dropped the phone between my legs. Gabe heard most of it.”

“You didn’t know what they were planning beforehand?”

“That’s what the judge asked and the police. Everyone. No. I didn’t know.”

Clay met her disbelieving stare and shook his head.

“Did you tell them all this?”

“Yes. Repeatedly.”

“What did they say?”

“That I must have known or at least suspected. That was why I called Gabe. That I would have seen Martin’s gun. That he would have shown off with it.”

“Well?”

“He didn’t. But I saw the gun when he got back in the car. I saw the money, too. A fist full of it. Martin dropped it on my car mat, and they both howled like wolves. Told me to drive and I did. Martin said he had his two hundred dollars and then some.” Clay wiped his brow again, remembering.

“Are you crazy?” Clay had said. “I can’t be part of this. My brother’s a cop.” And he’d just called him and given them their location. And his phone was still connected.

“But you are a part, bro. Might even let you join the Wolf Posse. I’ll talk to Randall.”

The Wolf Posse was a gang, and his grandmother lived in fear that Clay would join.

“I don’t want to join. I told you.”

“Well, the marines don’t want you.”

His ears buzzed with adrenaline. What was happening? The panic welled in his chest, constricting. His mind flashed an image of the last time he felt this fear, when he had opened the door to his dad’s kitchen, seeing him lying in a pool of his own blood, and his little brother Kino huddled under that kitchen table crying.

“We gotta bring the money back,” said Clay.

“Bring it back? I just shot a guy. I’m never going back.”

“You shot him? Who?” asked Clay.

“He got one right here.” Martin used the barrel of his gun to point at his own cheek. “Ow. Still hot.”

That’s when the siren blared. Clay saw the familiar car speeding up behind them. He knew it. One just like it was parked in his grandmother’s yard every night. It was either Gabe or one of the other guys on the force. There were only twelve of them. Clay slowed down.

“Are you crazy?” yelled Martin waving the gun. “Go. Go.”

He did, running like a child from a consequence, knowing he’d never outrun this. His junker hit top speed. The wheels shimmied, and the steering went mushy. Behind him the police car gained.

“Why?” said Clay.

Martin had half turned in his seat to stare out the window at the approaching car.

“Why what?”

“Why would you do this?”

“For the money, stupid.”

“The money. You shot a man for money. You lied to me for money.”

“I didn’t lie to you.”

“Yeah? So where’s the pop?” Even as he said it, Clay knew how ridiculous that sounded.

Izzie’s voice jarred him from his memories.

“Is that why Rubin was charged with armed robbery and you weren’t? You didn’t go in?”

“Yeah. Surveillance tapes showed that Rubin drew a knife. Martin shot the clerk after he opened the register and before the guy could hit the silent alarm. Shot him in the face. He died alone on the floor behind the counter, and Martin had his money.” Clay fought against the self-loathing and the urge to go back and count all the places he could have made different choices. “Martin told me to head back to Rubin’s place. I told them I had to go pick up Kino from school, which made Martin laugh.”

“So you drove away?”

“He had the gun.”

“The phone. Was it still on?”

“And connected. Gabe came after us. Usually the patrolmen ride alone, but Gabe was new on the force. A rookie. I kept watching for them in the rearview, and finally, there they were. Eight months on the job and here he was arresting his brother for armed robbery.”

Izzie pressed her index finger to her lips and shook her head, as her eyes went wide.

“Rubin panicked and started screaming. I told Gabe I was going to hit the brakes, but Rubin thought I was talking to him and he braced against the dash.

Clay remembered that moment of perfect clarity, the moment when he realized two things simultaneously. First, he had only tolerated Martin because he couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing Izzie anymore. And second, he would never again put blind trust in another person.