Wind Spirit [Ella Clah 10] (30 page)

Ella kept her binoculars on the spot where Hunt’s assistant had climbed out of the van. She couldn’t see anyone at all, but the top of the black bag was visible beside a gnarled old cottonwood tree. Across the road from the tree a red survey flag, nothing more than a strip of bright plastic, was tied to a bush.

“X marks the spot,” Ella muttered to herself. “All I have to do now is wait for Cardell to show up.”

Ella ducked down as the Chevy van reached the highway less than a quarter mile ahead, then waited until the van passed by on the opposite side of the four-lane road, heading back to Shiprock.

Once the woman was gone, Ella checked to make sure the black bag hadn’t been disturbed, then quickly drove farther east, maneuvering around so she could stake out the black bag from a better vantage point. As she drove, Ella called Justine and updated her, telling her to leave Hunt and come to provide backup for her.

Parking on the side of the ditch road opposite the bosque, Ella climbed out of her vehicle and walked quietly down the field side of the narrow irrigation ditch, which was dry at the moment. Chances were Cardell would approach from the bosque side where concealment was possible. Beyond that was the river, and on the far bank, Navajo land.

Knowing Justine was probably fifteen or more minutes away, Ella hoped that Cardell would take his time making
the pickup. Crouching low, she moved up the embankment to take a look.

Cardell was already there! He had to have crawled up on his belly, or else darted out from behind cover while she’d been moving forward. Wearing a desert-style camouflage shirt and jeans, he was nearly invisible in the shade of the cottonwood tree. As a squirrel scampered into some brush, Cardell’s gaze swept over the area and came to rest on her.

“What the hell,” Ella grumbled, and stood up so he could see her clearly now though he was a hundred feet away. The former officer was barrel-chested and nearly six feet tall, but didn’t appear to be armed. “Police officer, Mr. Benally. I need to ask you a few questions. Don’t move.” She placed her hand on the butt of her pistol and held out her badge as she started walking toward him.

Benally grabbed the bag and ran into the bosque.

“Crap!” Ella sprinted across the narrow road after Cardell. Maybe having the food would slow him down.

Cardell ran parallel to the river, moving west, zigzagging around trees and brush, occasionally hurdling a low log or branch and cradling the plastic bag against his chest.

The ground was quite sandy in places, with stubborn clumps of grass that made the surface uneven and hard to run in. But her hands were free and she could make better speed than Cardell, who was protecting his food source.

Ella thought about yelling out at the man, but she needed the air if she was going to close the gap between them. Benally was several years older than she was but obviously in good shape. She could have used a horse right now. She wasn’t getting any younger.

Suddenly Cardell swerved to the left, heading for a narrow gap in the willows that lined the river’s banks. He didn’t have a chance making good time along the shore, she knew that. The river bottom was quite rocky along this section, and
the steep banks dropped down almost twenty feet to the river level.

The river itself was split into two channels here, divided by a half-mile-long sandy island nearly in the middle. It also made a long curve and the inside channel was narrow and deep. He’d have a hard time swimming across with the bag.

Ella slowed down as she bounded up the ten-foot-high ridge of sandy earth held in place by the purple-gray willows and some kind of long-bladed grass. Now she could smell the river, the damp earth, and the vegetation that was blessed by abundant water most of the time. Cardell Benally was down below there somewhere, hiding.

The bosque was thick in this section and several old cottonwoods had long branches dangling out over the rocky riverbed. When she didn’t see Cardell, she looked for tracks, and spotted them immediately.

Moving along the high ground above the river, she stopped to listen and heard the trickle of water to the right, and some kind of creaking noise. Looking up through the foliage she saw two ropes had been tied to a stout cottonwood branch, one about four feet above the other. From the direction they led, she knew instantly that Cardell had prepared a rope bridge so he could cross the river and avoid pursuit by a vehicle.

Ella ran up to the branch, climbed up the rough bark two feet, then grabbed the top rope, inching her feet out onto the bottom strand carefully like a tightrope walker. On an afterthought, she took her cell phone from her waist and placed it into her breast pocket.

Cardell had his side to her, and was thirty feet farther out along the drooping ropes, sliding his hands and feet along, crossing over the narrow rushing water just two feet below him. He was almost across already and approaching the anchoring tree growing out of the island.

If she tried to swim the gap instead of crossing over the rope bridge, she’d be swept fifty yards or more downstream and probably be exhausted by the time she made it across. This was the only way. Hanging on tightly, she began to slide her feet along the bottom rope, holding on to the top rope for balance as she inched out over the water.

“Go back!” Cardell yelled, his voice just audible above the sound of the river. He’d obviously felt her body motion once she stepped onto the rope.

“You come back here, Cardell. I’ve got to take you in for questioning,” Ella shouted, but she didn’t bother looking in his direction. She was concentrating too hard on keeping her balance as she slid her feet along the rope.

“Don’t you believe in justice, Clah?” Cardell yelled back.

“That’s not my call, Benally. We only investigate and arrest. You were a cop, you know that.” Ella glanced up and saw that he’d already reached the far side and was scrambling onto the other tree.

Cardell wedged the food bag between a junction of two lower branches, then turned around to look at her. “Go back, Clah. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Innocent people don’t hurt others,” Ella yelled back, now reaching the halfway point. She was confident enough now to keep her eyes on Cardell as she inched along the rope by feel alone.

“Get ready to grab onto the bottom rope, please,” he yelled, and Ella saw that he had a shiny hunting knife in his hand.

“No!” Ella watched helplessly as he chopped the upper rope with the blade. It quickly went slack in her hands and she found herself swaying back and forth. Knowing she’d never be able to walk the bottom rope without something to hold on to for balance, she bent down as carefully as she could. Grabbing the bottom rope firmly, she allowed her feet to slip off the rope into the rushing river.

The water was freezing and she gasped, but she managed to hold on tightly to the still-attached bottom line so she could keep the current from sweeping her downstream. Holding her upper body above the water, her legs not touching the bottom, she kicked to help out her straining arms.

“Just pull yourself along arm over arm, Officer. You’ll be okay,” Cardell said reassuringly, then disappeared into the brush along with his black food sack.

“Thanks for nothing,” Ella yelled, then realized she needed to save her strength for the ten feet she still had to go.

Less than three minutes later, sore muscles protesting, Ella hauled herself up onto level ground and looked for tracks in the sand. She found them right away. As she moved in that direction, she brought out her cell phone, which, after shaking it a bit, still worked.

The sound of a car engine distracted her for a second, and she turned in time to see a pickup heading south away from the river. Cardell would be long gone before Justine could reach the spot and she wasn’t about to catch him on foot.

“Justine?” Ella sat down on a dry rock, noting that she still had to wade across a slow-moving, shallow lagoon before she’d be across the river completely. “Take the bridge just west of Hogback and go down the dirt road on the south side of the river. I’ll be waiting for you, on foot.”

“What about Cardell Benally?” Justine asked.

“He got away. I got wet.”

The following morning as Rose, Ella, Boots, and Dawn were at the breakfast table, the Hollywood producer called. Ella spoke to the man for several minutes asking, as Kevin had suggested, for time to get an attorney who could handle the negotiations. When she hung up and looked back toward the table, Ella saw Rose’s gaze riveted on her.

“I’m surprised he called you on a Saturday. He must really
want you to sign.” Seeing Ella shrug, she added, “You sounded prepared. Were you?” Rose asked.

“I’d spoken to my daughter’s father about this already. But to be honest, if nothing comes of it, I won’t exactly go into mourning. I have some serious misgivings.”

Hearing footsteps behind her, Ella turned her head and saw Justine come in through the kitchen door. Hoping she’d brought some good news, Ella offered her a cup of coffee, then went into the next room with her. “I thought I detected a gleam in your eyes, Justine. Do you have something for me?”

“The bad news first. Nobody has managed to find any sign of Cardell Benally south or north of the river. But on the good news side, after dropping you off at your vehicle yesterday, I called my gunsmith in Farmington and asked him about a tracker. He called me back this morning and gave me a name. The best one in the area is supposed to be a guy named Daniel Smart.

“Paul, the same gunsmith who helps me with the special pistol grips I need, asked one of his fishing buddies about Daniel, and get this—Daniel isn’t available right now, according to his family, because he’s hired out.”

“I know that name. Do we have an address on the Smarts?”

“Such as it is. They live in a small, protected valley in the foothills near Toadlena, south of Shiprock. They have no phone and no running water unless you count the spring outside.”

Ella had heard about the Smarts, a family of hard-core traditionalists who grew their own food and stayed away from modernists as much as possible. There were three boys in the family but the middle son had moved away. The oldest, Daniel, had enlisted in the military but returned after his hitch was up. The youngest, Raymus, had been home-schooled and must have been in his twenties by now.

“I think Big Ed might be able to tell us more about this family. He has relatives down that way. I’ll go talk to him. In the meantime, see what you can find out about Daniel Smart. I’ll meet you back at the office later.”

“Try to stay out of the water today, Cuz,” Justine suggested solemnly, taking a sip of coffee.

After Justine left, Ella went back to her room. Justine’s joking about water had reminded her of something. The orchid that Emily had given her was in the window, but it looked terrible. The leaves were turning brown, and the flowers had all fallen off.

“
Shimá
,” Dawn said as she came into the room. She always used the Navajo word for “mother” that Rose had taught her. “Will you take Wind and me for a walk today, too?”

“I can’t promise. I’m not sure what time I’ll be back, Pumpkin. But I’ll try.”

Dawn walked to where Ella kept the plant and looked at it. “It doesn’t like it in your room. It’s sad here,” she said in a pouty voice. Then brightening up as an idea came to her, she added, “Can I have it?”

Ella looked at her daughter and got the distinct impression that this was important to her. “What would you do with it?”

“Water it and make sure it’s happy.”

“How would you do that?”

“I can learn from
Shimasání
,” she said, referring to her grandmother. “Maybe I can make it pretty again.”

Ella brought down the small pot. It wasn’t going to survive where it was now anyway. “All right. We’ll take it to your room.”

Rose, who was bringing laundry down the hall, saw them. “What are you doing with that?”

Ella explained.

Rose looked at her granddaughter. “This kind of plant is difficult to keep. It may die no matter what you do. Are you sure you want to try and save it?”

Dawn nodded.

“All right then,” Rose said.

Ella placed the small pot in Dawn’s windowsill, then kissed her daughter good-bye.

As Ella headed for the door, Rose came to meet her. “Your daughter is growing up quickly. She wants to be given more responsibility. Yesterday she told Boots that she wanted to feed the pony herself. She barely managed to carry the flake of hay but, somehow, she did it.” Rose paused. “She reminds me a lot of you at that age. You were just as independent as she is and hated it when anyone thought of you as a baby.”

“But she’s still a child,” Ella said softly.

“Yes, but the personality of the woman she will be someday is starting to take shape right before our eyes.”

“I wish I could stay home with her more,” Ella said, then looked down at her wristwatch.

“Go,” Rose said, reading her mind. “Your work is important also.”

Giving her mother a quick hug, Ella rushed out the door. Someday she’d figure out how to be all things at once.