Wind Spirit [Ella Clah 10] (19 page)

Minutes ticked by and Justine began to grow restless. “If she waits any longer and I have to keep smelling that fry bread, I’ll die of hunger.”

Ella was about to risk barging in on the woman when she finally turned and waved at them. Ella and Justine left the unit and walked toward her. As they drew near, Ella saw recognition flash on the woman’s face.

“Stop there,” she said as Ella came within ten feet of her. “I live in Shiprock too, down by the river behind where the old trading post used to be. I know who you both are.”

“We’re looking for a Navajo man who may have been camping here a few hours ago,” Ella said.

“Just my husband and me here now. Look around.”

The answer, as curt as it was fast, let Ella know that the woman knew exactly who they were looking for. Not only that—she had no intention of helping them catch Cardell Ben-ally.

Ella took a deep breath. “The man we’re searching for is wanted for questioning only,” she began. “He may have been leaving this site when you arrived.”

“I know who you want,” she admitted, “but you’ll have trouble finding any
Dineh
willing to help the police catch him.
You people should have taken care of the real problem—that half-Navajo radio talk man. He stirs up all kinds of trouble and then stands back and pretends it’s not his fault. Well, this time he paid for the trouble he created. If the police had muzzled that man years ago, none of this would have happened and the councilman’s wife would not have died.”

“We can’t restrict what a person says on the radio. He has the right—”

She held up a hand. “And we have the right to do as we please.”

“If you believe that you have the right to withhold information, you’re mistaken. The man I’m after is wanted in connection to a serious crime. To shield a criminal is to become an accessory. You could go to jail.”

“You should direct that anger onto the radio man who started all this though he doesn’t even live on Navajo land.”

The woman continued on a tirade directed toward George Branch, and when she started to repeat herself, Ella decided that the woman was deliberately trying to keep them there. Perhaps Benally had parted within the past hour and was still in the area.

“Let’s go, Justine,” Ella finally said, starting to walk away while the woman continued to rant.

Justine took one last look at the woman, apparently decided not to speak, then glanced up at the sky. “Going to rain anyway.”

Back in the SUV, Ella fastened her seat belt immediately. “Let’s get moving. She was trying to keep us here, so Cardell probably hasn’t been gone long.” She paused, then added, “What bugs me is that now he’s seen as a hero and the Tribal Police as the bad guys.”

“In a lot of ways, Cardell’s type of justice is something people can get behind. That eye-for-an-eye stuff is a lot more direct than the courts,” Justine said, climbing in and fastening her seat belt.

Ella glanced over at Justine. “Vigilante justice never fixes the problem. The only thing it does is start a new one.”

“Do we keep working our way around the lake?” Justine asked, starting the engine.

Although Ella thought it would probably be a waste of time, she knew they had to try. “Let’s keep at it.”

They met with a tired Payestewa an hour later. Lucas’s sour expression said it all. “Benally’s probably left the area, and for what it’s worth, I think you’re going to have one heckuva time finding him.”

“He’ll head back to the Rez soon,” Justine said. “He’ll be more protected there than anywhere else.”

“Not everyone will shield him,” Ella said. “We’ll find him.”

“I love your optimism, but it can be tough to make progress when the tribe closes ranks,” Lucas said. “If you don’t need me anymore, I’ll be heading back.”

“Okay, we’ll take one last pass by the area where he was seen last,” Ella responded, catching Justine’s eye, who nodded.

Before long the sky began to darken even more, a breeze began to build, then raindrops appeared on the windshield. Justine slowed, turned on the wipers, and was forced to watch the road closely.

“We’re never going to find him in this weather in the forest.” Ella shook her head, trying to peer out the side window at a forest road that led to a campsite farther downhill. There was a silver-gray pickup just visible beneath a pine, and she couldn’t tell from the angle if someone was in the cab.

The SUV fishtailed slightly as the rain started to beat down hard now. “The road is getting a little slippery too. I doubt we’ll get stuck anywhere, but visibility is getting low . . .”

Justine reached over and turned on the lights. “Getting to be an actual downpour.”

Ella checked back into the side mirror and noticed the gray pickup had come out of the side road and was now following them. The driver had on his lights too, and they glared in her eyes.

“We’ve got company. Where did he come from?” Justine asked, speeding up a little as the pickup drew closer.

“One of the campsites. Maybe it’s a fisherman who decided to call it quits.” Ella saw the outline of the driver, but the rain on the window and the driver’s windshield distorted everything.

“He’s in a hurry, but I’m not going to go any faster. The mountain is a long ways down, and I’m not familiar with these roads,” Justine said, staying focused on her driving. “Too bad we can’t give the guy a ticket for tailgating.”

They continued on for another half mile, but the pickup remained right on their tail. Between the downpour and the cooler air around the lake, a cloud layer descended, and wisps of fog began to appear in the low spots. “Ella, next wide spot in the road, I’m pulling over and letting this idiot by. See if you can catch his plate number. Maybe we can ask a local officer to pull him over and give him a hard time.”

“Whoa!” Justine exclaimed suddenly, maneuvering their vehicle around a large boulder that had washed off the hillside and into the one-lane road. It had been barely visible, even with the windshield wipers at high speed.

“To hell with this, I’m pulling over now until the downpour subsides. I’m not used to rain this heavy,” Justine grumbled, slowing and watching over to her left. “Help me look, will you?”

“Right,” Ella added, hearing the beat of water on the hood and roof of the vehicle. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Hang on.” Justine touched the brake lights and pulled
over as far as possible but suddenly there was an increase in the glare from behind. “Go ahead, you bas—”

Justine’s curse was cut off by a loud thump on the hood of their car. Ella saw something red hit the hood, bounce off the windshield right in front of her, then pass over the car, landing somewhere behind them in the road.

Their unit slid to a stop. “Call it in,” Ella yelled, jumping out into the rain to see what had struck them.

The rain was freezing and Ella began shivering, but it was the scent of gasoline that got her heart beating overtime. “Turn off the engine,” she shouted back at Justine.

Looking over at the windshield, she saw a thin stream of clear, pungent liquid that was obviously not water flowing down the glass. Turning, Ella spotted the outline of a plastic gasoline container lying by the side of the road.

“I smell gasoline,” Justine yelled across the hood of the car. “Did we break a fuel line?”

“No, that idiot hit us with an open gas can when he passed by. Talk about road rage!” Ella yelled back.

“At least the rain will wash it off.” Justine looked back toward where the red container was resting, now in the stream of muddy water flowing beside the inside slope of the road.

“You don’t suppose that was Benally?” Ella yelled, ignoring the downpour and checking the car, looking for damage or any place the gasoline might have seeped inside.

“If so, he’s getting away. Do I risk starting the car again? One spark and we’re an instant bonfire,” Justine said.

“Use the radio, I’ll grab the container in case he left some prints. In a minute, we should be safe enough to roll.” Ella looked up into the rain, her face soaked along with her clothes. It was easy to wish she were out on the front porch at home, watching this downpour from a dry spot, a cup of coffee in her hand, like a normal New Mexican.

Neither of them had been able to read the vehicle plates, and they had no luck finding the silver pickup. Neither did the county sheriff’s deputies. But the water had washed away the gasoline, along with most of the vehicle’s wax job, and the smell was gone by the time Ella and Justine reached the reservation.

The rain was just a memory now, and the ground here, out of the mountains and over forty miles away, was dry. Though tired and uncomfortable in her still damp clothes, Ella’s thoughts remained on the case.

“I have a real bad feeling about this manhunt,” Ella said. “Despite what I told Lucas earlier, I think we’re facing a big problem. People need heroes, and stories about someone like Cardell can grow into legends in a hurry. If the pickup that doused us with gas turns out to be his, he’s also on to us in a big way, and is not above trying to stop us permanently. If we don’t get results fast, we’ll never be able to build a case against him or Lewis Hunt. Any evidence can disappear, and alibis can be bought and paid for if we give them enough time. Call Sheriff Taylor and Farmington PD and ask them to bring in Benally if they locate him. And when we get to the station, check that gas can carefully for prints. If we can lift any that belong to Cardell, Hunt can squawk all he wants and it won’t help his brother-in-law get out of this one.”

“Right. I’ll take care of it.”

“And turn up the heat, will you? I’m freezing.”

Sometime later they finally arrived at the station, their clothes dry at last. It had been a miserable, frustrating, nerve-wracking day and the next two hours didn’t improve the matter. Unable to put it off any longer, Ella had been forced to work on some overdue reports.

When she finally finished and reached for her car keys, she’d had it. It was time to go home. She’d take off early tonight and spend some time with her daughter. She wouldn’t be any good on the job if she didn’t wind down.

Ella said good-bye to Justine, who was still in her lab trying to lift some fingerprints from the textured plastic gas container. As Ella walked out to the parking lot and approached her SUV, a cold chill enveloped her. Written in the dried-up water spots of the hood was the word “
chindi
.”

Ella stared at the one-word message, anger building inside her. Every day she put on a badge she worked to restore order. To even imply that she was in league with the
chindis
was beneath contempt. This kind of attack on her—and on her integrity—infuriated her.

Justine walked up to her, followed her line of vision, then glanced back at Ella. “I couldn’t get squat from the gas container, too uneven a surface. But maybe there will be some prints here. Want me to give it a try?”

“Go ahead. I can’t press charges—this isn’t even a misdemeanor—but I’d like to know who did it. The implications go way beyond a joke or harassment—at least to me.”

As Justine went to get her kit, Ella spotted the top half of a bird feather on the ground and picked it up. There was nothing remarkable about it except for the fact that it was dusty and scuffed up. Checking the finish of the car, she saw traces of the feather on the hood. Unless she missed her guess, the perp hadn’t used his finger at all.

Fifteen minutes later they’d checked all the prints they’d lifted, but unfortunately there were no surprises. Most of the ones that had enough points to get a match belonged to either Ella or Larry Jim, the police mechanic.