E
lla raced along the side of the ditch, catching up to the taller boy, who’d managed to take hold of some roots extending out from the side of the embankment and was clinging to them desperately. Ella stopped, reached down, and grabbed his wrist.
Just then Clifford came up. “Pull him out,” Ella told him quickly. “I’ve got to go after the other one.”
“Go. I’ve got things here,”
Clifford said, reaching out for the kid.
As Clifford took over Ella shot after the second boy. He was being swept down the ditch at an alarming speed, rolling along, unable to right himself. Carrying the branch her brother had brought, Ella sprinted down the bank. She had to catch up to him before he reached one of the irrigation gates. Once there, he could easily get sucked down a culvert and
end up trapped in a pool at the bottom.
The ditch continued in a wide curve, making almost a ninety-degree change in direction. Hearing a yell somewhere ahead, she managed to get a fix on his position. Ella cut across the field, running so fast that she almost fell into the ditch herself before she could stop. Dropping to her knees she held out the branch as the boy drew closer.
“Grab on!” she
yelled, but the current was still spinning the boy and he couldn’t bring his arm around in time.
“Help!” he cried.
Ella saw the desperation in his eyes as the current swept him past her. Like too many kids on the Rez, he didn’t know how to swim. In a panic, he was fighting the water instead of bobbing up and down and taking advantage of the fact that bodies floated naturally. At this rate he’d
tire soon, so she had to do something fast.
Ella sprinted to catch up again and saw the closed diversion gate ahead. It was designed to direct water into the field to her right. Running as fast as she could, she managed to overtake and pass the boy, arriving at the gate a few seconds ahead of him.
Lying down, she looped her legs around the sturdy metal post where the water wheel was attached,
then looked upstream. The boy was almost there. Hanging on to solid ground only by her legs, she pushed off the bank with her arms, held her breath and lunged out into the water. The cold current was a shock.
As she reached out, the boy slammed into her right arm at the inside of her elbow. Grabbing on to him, she held on tightly. Their combined mass in the water swept her around, and her head
kept going under as she clung to the boy, bringing her left arm around to encircle him completely.
Ella struggled to keep her ankles locked around the only anchor, the threaded steel post that operated the irrigation gate. Her lungs about to burst, she noticed that the boy wasn’t struggling now, even though his head was below the surface as well.
Just as she was about to run out of air, she
felt a firm grip on her ankle, then on her other leg. Concentrating on holding on to the boy, Ella felt herself being pulled out onto the bank. When her head finally came out of the water, she gasped for air.
“I’ve got you,” Clifford said, dragging her onto dry ground.
Ella raised her head and looked at the boy, who had her arm in a death grip. His eyes were wild and his breathing ragged.
“You’re safe now. Just rest for a moment and catch your breath.”
Terror, cold and dark, lit up his eyes and shivers racked his body. In her gut Ella understood and knew that he was as incapable of unclenching his fingers from around her arm as he was of flapping his arms and flying to the moon.
Clifford crouched beside her. “The other kid’s safe. Are you both okay?”
“I am. Our boy here just
needs a few moments to get over the shock.” She was incredibly cold, and the slight breeze felt like ice cubes on her skin.
Ella reached over with her free hand and placed it on the boy’s shoulder. “Just relax.”
The boy nodded.
Ella watched his eyes, and saw him break through his fear to find bits and pieces of sanity. He was probably ten, and this had undoubtedly been the worst experience
of his life. “You’re all right. It’s over now.”
She could see exhaustion taking over as his fear retreated and his breathing evened. Finally, he let go of her arm and sat up. “Thanks for pulling me out,” he said, then seeing her pistol and the handcuffs on her belt added, “Officer.”
Ella glanced at Clifford and saw him nod in approval. The boy’s companion, an older brother judging from their
resemblance, was there now too, standing and watching, his arms wrapped around himself for warmth.
“You going to arrest us?” the boy managed, looking at her, then Clifford.
Ella shook her head. “Just stay out of the ditches this time of year.”
The boys looked at each other. “Okay,” the younger brother said quickly and his brother nodded and added, “Yeah, okay.”
“Then get home and out of those
wet clothes,” Clifford motioned toward a house in the distance. “Hurry.”
The older boy reached down, grabbed his brother’s arm, and pulled him up to his feet. “Let’s go before they change their minds!”
The two kids ran off.
“Remind me to tell my son about this,” Clifford said, shaking his head slowly.
“I will,” Ella nodded, climbing to her feet and reaching down to confirm that she still had
her weapon and phone. The pistol
would need to be dried out and cleaned but she had no idea whether her cell phone would still work.
“I know who they are. I’ll mention this incident to their father, too”, Clifford replied. “But something’s bothering me. The ditches are dry this time of year unless someone is irrigating and everyone does that real early in the morning because of evaporation loss.
This shouldn’t have happened.”
“I know. Let’s go to the main gate and find out what’s going on.” Ella looked around, verifying that she hadn’t dropped anything, then started walking back upstream with Clifford.
“The closest bridge is this way,” he said cocking his head. “But first I’ve got to pick up the plants.”
“If there’s no indication that the gate came open on its own, then I’m going to
assume that this was done to slow me down. After everything that has happened recently I’m getting the distinct impression that some people just don’t want Agent Thomas found, at least not anytime soon. Maybe they’re hoping he’ll die on his own and save them the trouble of getting to him themselves,” she said. “These people are really pissing me off.”
“That’s pride and frustration talking. You’re
going to have to put all that aside if you’re going to find the Anglo man in time. Concentrate on what you know. On some level all the pieces have to make sense and come together. Find the pattern and then you’ll be able to restore harmony.” He paused for several moments. “There’s something else I can do for you. I’ll call on the powers of Thunder to help. Do you remember the stories?”
She nodded.
“Thunders have the ability to find things, but not all were good, right?”
“I know you’re a modernist, but I’m glad that you’ve held on to some of what you were taught,” he said, pleased. “And you’re right. Winter Thunder is not used in sandpaintings because he’s unreliable and can cause problems, and White Thunder isn’t just a troublemaker—he’s evil.”
When they reached the irrigation ditch’s
main gate directing flow from the river, Ella crouched down and studied the wheel and control mechanism. It was intact and there was no sign of
tampering. “No fields are being irrigated. That means someone deliberately opened this. There’s no other explanation.”
As she examined fresh vehicle tracks nearby, she noted that the soil had a high clay content here. The only thing she could tell from
the tracks themselves was that they’d come from an SUV or a large truck, and one of its tires had a small gash across the tread.
“Let’s get going. We have a long hike, and I’m freezing,” Ella said.
They jogged this time, cutting another five minutes off the journey and slowing down only long enough for Clifford to pick up the plants he’d set down when they’d found the boys trapped by the water.
But by the time they reached Ella’s SUV, arrows of pain were shooting into her legs and her muscles felt tied into knots. “Remind me not to jog that fast when I’m freezing to the bone.”
Her brother looked at her and grinned. “Don’t blame it on the cold. You just haven’t been jogging enough lately and you’re a little out of shape and cramping up. That’s why you’re tired.”
She looked over at him
and realized he wasn’t even winded. “You’re so irritating.”
“You’re still competing with me. After all these years you should have realized how useless that is.”
“Excuse me?”
“Since junior high you’ve always tried to do everything better than me. But it never worked. I’m just bigger and stronger.”
“You’re hallucinating. Bigger ego and stronger under the arms, maybe.”
Clifford laughed.
Ella
drove him back to his hogan without another word. No one could annoy her more than Clifford. They were blood and she loved him, but she could have cheerfully strangled him at times.
“You know I’m right. So why bother to get angry?” he said as he got out of the car.
“I’m not angry,” she called out the window to him. “And you’re not right. I was better running long distances in track than you
ever were, and
our
girls’ basketball team went to state, not the
boys’. Your memory’s faulty. Maybe you’ve been inhaling too much piñon smoke lately.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll concede the argument.”
She wanted to run him over. Instead, she put the vehicle in gear and drove off, making sure she stirred up a large cloud of dust during her departure.
When she reached the main road leading
toward the highway, Ella pulled over and checked her cell phone. It had been in her jacket pocket, and with the flip top cover closed had remained dry except on the outside. She decided to risk it and punched in Teeny’s number. Surprisingly, it worked. “Have you gotten any leads on Rainwater at all?”
“All I have at the moment is hearsay. I spoke to one of the vendors over across from the high
school.”
The words ‘over, across’ were used frequently, but they could mean almost anything—across the street, or across the river.
“Which vendor?” she asked.
“He didn’t want me to say.”
“Fair enough. What did he tell you?”
“Not enough for you to follow up on, not yet. Let me work on this a while longer. I’ll contact you when I’ve got something. But since I’ve got you on the phone, I want
to give you a heads-up. They’re starting to sell kneel-down bread again near the hospital. That used to be your favorite.”
“Still is,” she said, smiling and surprised that he’d remembered.
“Okay, then, that’s it.”
“Wait—” she started, but he’d already hung up.
Teeny’s memory of their high school days was surprisingly good. Kneel-down bread was made from freshly ground corn, a process done
while kneeling, thus the name. It was cooked in pits dug into the ground and was a little smaller than a tamale. It was especially delicious with ground beef and chile. Kneel-down bread was a staple in autumn on the reservation and just thinking about it made her mouth water.
Unfortunately, there was no time to stop for food now. It was
late afternoon and she wanted to talk to Krause, the funeral
home owner, but she would need some serious leverage to get anything from him.
Ella called Justine next as she headed home to change clothes. “What have you found?”
“I’m still at Blalock’s office going through Agent Thomas’s case files. But the only thing here that has any reference to the Mesa Vista Mortuary is a sheet from a memo pad that somehow missed the trash. It was behind the filing
cabinet next to the baseboard.”
“In your opinion, could someone have broken in and stolen the file?”
“The window latch could be slipped loose, I guess, so it wouldn’t have taken an expert locksmith to get in,” she said after a pause. “Or the lock could have been picked. It’s not impossible, but if someone managed that, then we’re not dealing with an ordinary burglar.”
“The more we get into
it, the more I know there’s nothing ordinary at all about this case, partner,” Ella said. “Someone’s been holding us up every step of the way, and pulling our strings.” She told Justine what had happened when she’d gone to see Clifford. “Send Tache to the irrigation ditch to take photos of the tracks left by the vehicle that pulled up there.”
“Okay. Where are you off to now?”
“I’m wet—or at
least my blouse and sleeves are. Thankfully, my cell phone didn’t fall into the drink. But I’ll need to get dry clothes, so I’m stopping by the house. After that, I’ve some things to do on my own.”
“What are you up to?” Justine said immediately.
“Nothing you want to get involved in,” Ella answered flatly.
“I’ll meet you at your mother’s house.”
Ella was about to say no, not wanting to let
her partner in on what she was planning, but Justine beat her to the punch by hanging up.