Shifting Dreams (28 page)

“Anyone.” She blushed and sat back in her seat. “And we should probably—”

The shot rang out, shattering the window and piercing the seat between them where Caleb had been leaning only seconds before.

Jena gasped and pulled back, the safety glass shattering and falling in one chunk onto her lap. Caleb cursed and immediately rammed the truck into gear, gunning the engine so the dust flew behind them. “Hold on!”

His first instinct was to jump out of the truck and pursue whoever had shot at them, but he had Jena with him, and he had to get her to a safe place first.

She was tugging at her seatbelt. “Let me out.”

“No! Are you insane?”

“Let me out, Caleb!” She’d unbuckled herself and was… taking off her shirt?

“What the hell are you doing?” He finally pulled over when she forced open the car door. “Jena!”

“I’m finding out who shot at us.” She shucked off the rest of her clothes in seconds and before Caleb could put the car in park, Jena was gone. A loud flapping sound echoed in the truck as a wild shriek filled the air. He pulled over and ran around, but she was in the air, soaring into the night, a shadow against the moonlit clouds.

He let out a harsh breath. “What the hell?”

She was gone. Turned into a hawk and took off. What was he supposed to do with that? He kicked the truck tire and cursed, then reluctantly bent down and gathered her clothes. Belatedly, he realized there was still a gunman out there who had taken a shot at them. And Jena was in the air.

How hard was it to shoot a hawk? He had a feeling it was pretty difficult, but he had no real idea, and the thought of her in danger made him sick.

Caleb went back to the truck, throwing her clothes in and pulling his gun out from under the seat. He dug around in the torn-up upholstery until he pulled out the fired round. Between hitting the window and the seat, it was hard to tell, but it had to be a rifle round of some kind. Probably a 30-06. Animals couldn’t fire weapons, so whoever was shooting at them was human, or had been. Caleb wondered whether Jena could tell who the shooter was if he shifted to animal form. Would the shooter stay human or shift? An animal would have a far easier time running and hiding in the desert than a human. And if he did that…

There would be a rifle sitting out in the hills all by its lonesome.
 

Caleb tucked his 9 mm in the small of his back and headed back up the road.

Chapter Nineteen

The light of the waxing moon shone down on the desert, creating stark shadows as she soared. The wind lifted her, a warm thermal pushing up from the sun-warmed sandstone along the canyon floor. Her sharp eyes roamed the ground, not looking for color or contrast. No, she was looking for movement.

A sudden cool breeze lifted the speckled white feathers of her breast, and from the corner of her sharp, golden eye, she saw it.

A figure, larger than the squirrels and rodents she usually hunted, moving nimbly over the rocks.

Bobcat!

With an instinctual shriek, she dove.
 

It was the greatest rush, her addicting speed, and the reason she rarely shifted to anything else but her natural form. As a red-tailed hawk, her dive could reach well over five hundred miles an hour. Her talons landing in the soft fur of her prey, clutching before she beat her wings and soared away. Jena screamed again, swooping and circling as the cat darted between the shadowed tumble of boulders on the hillside.

Not prey. She wheeled and beat her wings to watch again. This bobcat was no dumb animal, but a wily shifter in natural form. He knew she would be looking for him, so he kept away from open ground, darting in and out of the rocks, leading her farther and farther from the truck where Caleb waited.

Where was he going? She felt for the right current of air and tilted her broad wings, so the high wind lifted her, hovering as she scanned the desert landscape. The bobcat was thick, marked with the dull, spotted coloring that concealed him well in the rocks. If he had been stationery, she would have never spotted him. But he leapt and darted, zigzagging back and forth to draw her attention while still remaining infuriatingly out of reach.

Jena shrieked again, her eyes never leaving the small cat. How far could she track it? How far would he run?

Why?

Suddenly, her human consciousness took over from instinct and Jena shrieked again.

The animal was leading her away from Caleb.

She was just about to dip into the breeze and fly back to the canyon when she heard the gun shot.

Chapter Twenty

Caleb jogged back down the road, then past the weedy edge before he crawled up the rocks. The road they were driving passed through a large section of canyon, but there was a jagged wash that cut through it, the kind he’d been taught to avoid since childhood. Animal tracks covered the sand in the bottom, leading away from the road and up into the rocky crevice old water had carved. With a grimace, Caleb followed them, tension thick as his feet sank into the sand.

Rain in the desert was a funny thing. Monsoons dropped vast amounts of water into the harsh landscape in short bursts, blowing away as quickly as they came. Often, that water ran over the rocks and sand, filling dry creek beds and traveling at lightning speed. A dry desert wash could fill with water from fifty miles away, tumbling and taking anything in its path as it cut through the rocky ground.

You didn’t linger in a wash. Especially when there had been rain, like there had been only an hour before. If you were in a vehicle, you crossed it as quickly as possible. If you were on foot, you did the same. Caleb tried to ignore the hair that rose on the back of his neck as he moved quickly, keeping to the firmer edge and avoiding the soft sand in the middle. Red walls rose on either side of him as he jogged.

He saw the tracks end, then change, a muddled scrabbling in the dirt before new tracks emerged. Footprints—small for a man, but large for a woman—finding purchase in the sand, then disappearing up the side of the creek bed. Whoever made them must have scanned the area as an animal, followed the wash up from the road, then shifted in order to fire the weapon. Which meant if Caleb climbed those boulders that had tumbled down from the edge, he would likely find the spot the shooter had aimed from and, if he was lucky, the weapon, too.

He smelled it before he heard it, the scent of rainwater that blew past, alien in the dusty air. His heart sped up, and he ran toward the edge, scrambling up the sandstone boulders, grabbing onto the wizened roots that had been bared the last time the water rushed past. He was halfway up when his foot slipped and stuck between them.

He cried out, despite his attempts at stealth. Before a curse could cross his lips, he heard the low rumble, like distant thunder.

Just his luck, the water was coming.

Caleb shook his head. “No, dammit. I’m not dying out here.”

He panted, pulling on his leg, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Shit! Are you kidding me?” He was going to be swept away in the rush. For a second, he almost laughed. Thirty-five years of life, twelve years in some of the toughest law enforcement assignments he could find. Shot at, beaten up… and he was going to bite it in a flash flood like old drunk Russell Begay had when Caleb was ten. He grunted and tried to twist his leg to the side, but something had shifted beneath his foot, trapping his foot firmly in the large rocks, which were too big to lift. Too bad he wasn’t old Begay, who had the skinniest damn legs Caleb could ever remember seeing on a man. The things looked like sticks. Old, twisty… sticks.

He blinked and stilled, slipping into his mind as he focused on the childhood memory. He’d never tried to force a shift when he was this panicked. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his mind and ignore the sound of the water, which was growing louder by the second.

Old. Skinny. Wizened from age and too much drink.

Caleb felt his clothes grow loose on his frame. The pressure on his leg lightened. It was the most dramatic shift he’d ever made, and he fought back the initial nausea, pulled his leg free, then scrambled up the side of the rock wall only seconds before the muddy water whipped by.

It churned past in a roar, at least six feet deep and thick with sand, rock, and the remains of a rusted old car. Caleb lay on his back, panting and looking up at the moon as he heard an owl hoot and small creatures move in the desert night. The water splashed up the rocks, soaking him, annoyed that it had lost its prey. Caleb turned and gave the dark water a smile before he lifted his hands. He stared at the wrinkled old skin, wishing he had a mirror to satisfy his curiosity. Did the picture in his memory match the face he would see? Would it be different or exact? There was no way of knowing and he still had a mission, so Caleb shifted back to his own body and held still, waiting for the twisting in his gut to pass. He stared into the dark sky.

Where was Jena? Would she be able to find him? Caleb sat up and pulled the 9 mm from the small of his back, thankful it hadn’t fallen or moved when his body had. He looked around for footprints, scowling when he realized he’d made a mess of the sand at the edge. It was too dark to see much farther than a few feet in front of him, even with the bright moon. He took a few steps forward, then stilled. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, listening.

The churning water. A scampering sound and an owl’s hoot. A coyote far off in the distance. A rustling in the juniper bushes. Gravel crunched with a whisper.

More rustling… Something was in the brush behind him.

He opened his eyes and took a few steps forward. It grew quiet again. If he hadn’t been paranoid, he would have missed it, mistaken it for the breeze or his imagination. But it wasn’t. He slowly cut his eyes to the right. The area around the dry creek was tangled with low juniper and cottonwoods that had found some hidden moisture in the canyon floor. He continued walking, more curious to see if the animal followed or was just passing through. The grip on his gun tightened.

Jena said the claw marks looked like bobcat, but unless Cambio Springs made much bigger bobcats than he was familiar with, whatever was following him was something else. Something larger, with a soft step and a larger body that shifted the brush. From the corner of his eye, he caught more footprints. Keeping his ears open, he crouched down.

They were light, almost delicate where they had pressed into the sand. He looked around to see where they might lead and spotted it. Just over the edge of a boulder, was the barrel of a rifle, black in the silver moonlight. He crawled up the rocks until he was in the same position the shooter must have taken.

It was an old lever-action Winchester. Nothing distinctive about this one. Still, he would run the registration, if it had one. Considering how long families stayed in the area, it was entirely possible that the rifle had been passed down. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was no registration on file, particularly since the old rifle had been used to take a shot at a cop. Still crouching behind the boulder, he put himself in the attitude of the shooter and imagined lifting the weapon, aiming toward the point where the road crossed the gully.

It was an easy distance for a good shot. A challenging one for an average shooter. Had the bullet been intended to scare them? Kill them? Would he have tried to kill both Caleb and Jena, or was only one of them the target? He puffed out a frustrated breath and suddenly realized that he hadn’t heard any rustling in a few moments.

It was quiet. The sounds in the brush had disappeared and an ominous silence took their place. No birds chirped. No insects hummed. Something was still out there. His only consolation was that it was in animal form and he had guns.

Caleb stood, grabbing the rifle. “Want to come out and introduce yourself?”

Nothing. Or was there? He heard the shifting of a foot—or paw—to his left. A slight motion in the cottonwoods that shivered and stilled.

“You the one that shot at us? Or were you just watching?”

He tried not to look around. He was no animal and had too great a respect for their stealth to imagine he could spot it if it didn’t want to be found. But did it? There was still no sound but his own rapid heartbeat and deep breaths. The longer he waited, the more tension filled the air.

“Maybe you didn’t have anything to do with Alma’s death.” He looked, but there was nothing. “Whoever you are, at least give me an idea of what I’m dealing with here. Wolf? Bobcat? Snake?” It wasn’t a snake. “There some bunny rabbit shifters that no one’s told me about?” he shouted into the desert. “I’m getting bored now, so I think I’m going to just take this nice rifle here and go back to my truck. Figure I might be able to get some prints off of it if I—oof!”

He didn’t even hear the attack. The massive weight slammed into his back, knocking him to the ground as two sets of claws dug into his shoulders. His mouth tasted sand as he tumbled forward, both guns flying out of his hands.
 

Mountain lion. It sprang away as he rolled.

“Holy—wow.” The giant animal crouched in front of him. He’d never seen one up close. “So that’s why they call you a lion. Not a kitty cat, are you?” It was massive, probably measuring eight feet or more from nose to tail. It snarled once as Caleb rolled toward his gun. The rifle lay in the dirt, knocked out of his hands when the animal had pounced. “Not really a lion either, are you, shifter?” It snarled again, its whiskers twitching in what might have been a laugh.