Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1 (8 page)

As Madeline drank her latte, she worried about that little girl. Not much younger than Nelly was, and so drained she couldn’t even cry. It had to be some strain of the flu, but she hadn’t heard anything about a new one making the rounds. Madeline kept taking samples, but the lab wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get the results back to the White Sandy Clinic. Not even the Center for Disease Control was returning her calls. No one in the outside world was in a hurry to do anything for the clinic.

Well, she was going to do something—Rebel be damned. The battle lines had been drawn. She had a fresh supply of IV drips and two new poles in the back. She had the sinking feeling this flu would get worse before it got better. She could only hope to get her patients vaccinated before people’s immune systems got too weak to fight off any other infections. Which lead her thoughts straight back to Rebel again.

She caught herself. That had been last week. Today was Saturday. She was not going to think about sick little girls and dying grandmothers. She was not going to think about Rebel today at all. She was going to finish her to-do list, get her sister a lovely present, and then she was going to do something fun. She deserved a little fun today. After she got Mellie’s present, she was going to watch a movie in a dark, air-conditioned theater while eating overpriced, over-salted popcorn, and that was that. Didn’t matter what was playing. Trans fats and sodium be damned.

She threw her empty cup under the seat and checked her reflection. Thanks to blasting the a/c, her hair was good. The necklace Mellie had given her as a going-away present—a huge, sea-green disk of turquoise on a brown leather strap—hung just above the deep V of her favorite girly shirt—a pink, short-sleeved sweater that was thick enough she didn’t have to wear a bra with it if she didn’t want to. She’d even applied some lip gloss in hopes of getting better service today. Plus, her bag was a Hermes—a twenty-year-old Hermes that she’d inherited after her mother died—but still. Nothing got service in an art gallery like the announcement that money had entered the building. It had felt good to dress up a little. Mellie would be proud. She felt less like a doctor in the trenches and more like a normal woman.

It took less than twenty seconds. “May I help you?” The saleslady was the kind of delicate redhead that probably earned money on the side doing
tasteful
modeling sessions for
serious
artists. Like Mellie had done for a while.

“Yes. I need a gift for my sister.” She bit back Mellie’s
something Indiany
. “Something nice.”

The saleslady’s eyes hit the turquoise, the bag and the boots in one fell swoop. Then she smiled warmly. “Of course. I’m sure we have something you’ll both love.”

Yeah
. Madeline mentally snorted.
Something expensive.

The tour began with sculpture and moved on to paintings. They paused so that Karen, as the young saleslady insisted Madeline call her, could get them some coffee. Then they continued on to jewelry.

Nothing was quite right. There were some beautiful things, things Mellie would like, but nothing sang to Madeline. Not at those prices, anyway. She kept thinking how many antibiotics she could get for a two-thousand-dollar, signed Fritz Scholder print.

“We also have some lovely Native beadwork. Original pieces,” Karen offered as she led the way up a sweeping set of stairs behind a velvet rope. Madeline kept her smirk to herself. That’s what a Hermes bag got a girl. Behind the velvet rope.

“Original is good.” After all, Mellie was one of a kind. She’d like something no one else had.

This was more like it. Shirts dripping in color, moccasins with every square inch covered in tiny beads, hair ornaments, chokers—all definitely ”Indiany” Her eye was immediately drawn to a long, green—well, bag, she guessed, with an old-style pipe next to it, all under a glass case at the end of the aisle. “That’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?” Karen perked up with hope as she unlocked the case. “It’s a ceremonial pipe bag. Brain-tanned buffalo hide, hand-carved soapstone pipe on a locally harvested cottonwood stem. Not a reproduction, but an original. One of a kind.” She took out the bag. There was something oddly sensual about the way her fingers stroked the fringe. “It’s by a local artist. Jonathan Runs Fast. He’s one of our top sellers, and is perhaps the most important artist in this medium in the world. His work is in museums. Mr. Steinman—the gallery owner—got one of his pipe bags in the Museum of the American Indian in Washington.” She held it out to Madeline. “Go on. You can hold it.”

Madeline moved carefully. She wasn’t likely to drop something like this bag, but still... The leather was as soft as any baby’s bottom. “Wow.” She didn’t know leather could be better than silk. This was brain-tanned? She’d overlook the gross factor. She didn’t have sheets this soft, for crying out loud. She studied the complicated pattern on the body of the bag. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“The buffalo on the prairie after the spring rains, I think.”

Madeline squinted, but she could see the brown things were supposed to be the buffalo, and the green would be the grass. Abstract, but also representational. Mellie would totally groove on this. “He carved the pipe himself?”

Karen’s eyes were glowing with something between desire and awe. “He does everything by hand—even hunts the animal and tans the hide.”

A man who both hunted and wielded a needle and thread? She would believe that when she saw it. “A local artist?” She didn’t know any local artists, but she knew semi-local Indians. She might be able to get non-gallery verification about this sales pitch. Clarence had to know someone who knew something. Clarence knew everyone.

Karen pointed to a framed sheet of paper next to the pipe. “He lives somewhere out on the White Sandy Reservation, not too far from here.”

Madeline froze the moment the word
White
was out there. That was local. Too local. Moving at what felt like a glacial pace, her eyes found the paper. There, under the title “Jonathan Runs Fast: Traditional Master of Fine Art” was a picture. Sure, the guy in the picture was minus the straw cowboy hat, and his white, button-up shirt was underneath a dark sports coat. But the man in the picture looked exactly like her professional pain in the ass—the vaccine-hating, non-translating Rebel himself.

“Sure,”
his voice came back to her.
“I work. For me, myself and I.”

“Do you know anything about him?” she got out, hoping she didn’t sound like she was having a coronary event. One of the most important artists in the country was spending his free time telling her patients not to get the flu vaccine? What the hell? The shock that twisted through her gut was beyond physically uncomfortable. It was downright painful.

“Oh, my,” Karen said, her eyes going dreamy. “He’s such an...unusual man. He goes by the name Rebel. Mr. Steinman—the gallery owner—says he lives in a tent in the middle of nowhere. Mr. Steinman said he doesn’t have a phone, doesn’t own a car.” Karen’s tone of voice made it clear she thought the whole thing sounded like something out of a romance novel. No wonder the saleslady looked like she was in love with the bag. She was in love with Rebel. “He’s...amazing.”

The shock twisted again, like a scalpel cutting without anesthesia. “Oh?” What kind of amazing were they talking about here? And why did that matter? Madeline choked down the confusion that swirled in her throat as she scanned the rest of the sheet. Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico. Gallery shows in Rapid City; Taos, New Mexico; New York City; and Washington, D.C. Best in Show awards. Notable Recognitions. Outstanding New Artist.

The pain in her ass was an Outstanding New Artist. He had an MFA.

His name was Jonathan. Jonathan Runs Fast.

“How do you get a hold of him if he doesn’t have a phone?” How did anyone get a hold of him? If Jonathan
Rebel
Runs Fast didn’t have a phone, how did he know when to show up at the clinic? The confusion was swirling right on up to cyclone territory. Fast.

“We don’t.” Karen leaned in and dropped her voice from saleslady to co-conspirator. “Mr. Steinman went looking for him once, got lost and was almost eaten by a coyote. Mr. Steinman said that Rebel rode up out of nowhere and rescued him. He said Rebel took him back to his camp, and it was nothing but a tent in the middle of nowhere. He said Rebel was some sort of medicine man, said he kept souls in his tent. Mr. Steinman said he’d never been so afraid of dying in his life.” She looked over her shoulder in fear. “Mr. Steinman doesn’t like the clients to know that, of course...”

“Of course.” She could just see it too. Rebel appearing on that one-blue-eye, one-brown-eye horse of his, chasing off wild animals and rescuing clueless white men. But that was all she could see right now. Because a medicine man? He thought he was a
medicine man
? Some quack with a Fine Arts degree was telling her patients what to do? Her cyclone of confusion had her heart pounding so hard she thought she was going to start popping blood vessels in her ocular cavities. Maybe she already had, because she was seeing red.

“But we don’t have to get a hold of him. He usually shows up right after we sell one of his bags.” Karen looked like she wanted to pet the bag again. “He usually makes ten or twelve a year, and they go quickly. One of a kind.”

Madeline was barely aware of clutching the bag to her chest like she was afraid to let go of it. “How much?”

The smile was barely contained victory. “Mr. Steinman has been shopping that particular work around. The pipe and the bag were designed as a set—”

Rebel
had designed them as a set. “How much?”

Karen was openly beaming now. “A private collector in Okinawa expressed interest—”

Screw Japan. “How much?”

“$3,700.”

She had known he had a real name—she’d always known. A real name that was well known. A real name that meant something.

She thrust the bag out to Karen, whose face was aglow with commission expectations. Madeline would have spent that money on supplies anyway. And since Robin Hood Rebel seemed to take it upon himself to overcharge the rich and pay the medical bills of the poor, she might as well get something besides irritation out of the deal. “I’ll take it. And you don’t know how to get a hold of him?”

“No. He’s unreachable.”

We’ll just see about that.

By the time she was in the car, she was beyond pissed. He’d tricked her—no, tricking would be a good joke. He’d flat-out lied to her. He’d lied about his name, about where he got the money to pay all those medical bills, about what he did with his life. He’d jerked her around for fun, and God only knew what his sick motives were for jerking around innocent, sick people.

He was about to find out that no one jerked Madeline Mitchell around.

She snapped open her phone and gave thanks that she’d both bothered to put her staff’s numbers in it and that she was in a city where she got service. She dialed Clarence first. Clarence knew everyone. Clarence knew Rebel.

It was only when he picked up that Madeline realized that she was about to make a fool of herself. She couldn’t just tell Clarence she was going to kill Rebel, and could she have directions to his secret hiding place, please? “Uh, hey, Clarence,” she backpedaled quickly, trying desperately to figure out how not to sound like a raving lunatic. “Uh, listen, I was looking for something arty for my sister, and—”

“You should ask Rebel,” the big man said with a yawn.

Excellent. She’d woken him up. But asking Rebel was
exactly
what she had in mind. Try to sound casual. Casual. “Oh, yeah. I’ll do that. Do you know where I can find him?”

“He ain’t easy to find.”

So I heard.
She took a cleansing breath. “Would Albert know? I was going to call him next.” Like Albert would even understand her. She was pretty sure Albert and Rebel were related, but she hadn’t even gotten close to cracking the family code on the rez. She waited. She’d call Albert if she had to, but she didn’t think she’d have to.

Finally, Clarence sighed so heavily she swore she could hear him roll his eyes. “You don’t have to bother Albert. It’s summer. Rebel’s got a spot down on the White Sandy. Go west by the burnt-out bar until the road ends. Should be a short walk after that.”

The burnt-out bar. She’d driven past that on her way off the rez today. “Thanks, Clarence. And sorry to bother you on the weekend.”

“Yeah, yeah. And, Doc? Don’t get lost.” He hung up.

She wasn’t worried about getting lost. Rebel had rescued Mr. Steinman, after all.

By the time she got done, someone was going to need to rescue Rebel.

The road ended with no warning. One second, she was driving way too fast on a gravel road; the next, a gate overgrown with wild trees appeared out of nowhere. Madeline slammed on the brakes and careened to a stop with inches to go. Her heart, which had already been pounding in a simmering rage, kicked back up another notch. Damn that man. He was out to foil her at every turn.

A short walk, Clarence had said. But she didn’t see a river, or a creek, or anything that passed as water. Didn’t matter. Nothing—not even a gate—was going to keep her from putting that man in his place. She fished out a half-full water bottle and headed west as fast as she could in her boots.

After ten minutes, she began to wonder about the
short
walk she was on. After twenty minutes, she began praying for a hat to block the hot sun. By the time she’d been wandering around in what seemed like circles for half an hour, her feet were killing her and her water was gone. Suddenly, she crested a small hill and saw water. Stumbling through gnarly underbrush, she ran.