Читать книгу The Warrior's Way - Jenna Kernan, Jenna Kernan - Страница 12

Chapter Four

Sophia unpacked, then used the bathroom, checked her hair and reworked her ponytail before heading back across the open ground with the darn kerosene lamp held high to light her way.

She knocked and entered. The smell of fry bread made her mouth water and brought her back to some of her earliest memories. Meadow motioned her to a chair and the group sat to eat baked chicken with a tangy sauce, mashed potatoes, corn, three different types of casseroles, including one of a noodle pudding that was especially good, and the fry bread, golden brown and piping hot. Sophia knew how much trouble it was to turn the simple ingredients for fry bread into dough and appreciated the effort as much as the flavor.

After the meal, several newcomers arrived and both Morgan and Meadow were absent. Their shaman greeted her formally, as if they had not just shared a meal, his smile flanked with vertical lines. Then he motioned her forward to meet an older man, who wore his hair cut blunt at the shoulder. About his neck was a bolo of the tribe’s great shield inlayed with stone. The river, she noted, was a fine blue spiderweb turquoise.

“Sophia, this is our executive director, Zachery Gill.” The older man extended his hand as Kenshaw continued speaking. “Gill is the new leader of our tribal council. Zach, this is field agent and explosives expert Sophia Rivas.”

Gill had a fleshy tanned face and was dressed simply in a cotton shirt and jeans with no indication of his rank outside the ornate bolo.

“Welcome to Turquoise Canyon, Agent Rivas. Thank you for answering our call for help,” said Gill. He motioned a broad hand to the empty chair and she took a seat. Gill sat to her left as everyone took their seats. The circular dining table had transformed into a war room.

Each attendee introduced themselves by clan, family name and first name, and ended with their position. They were tribal law enforcement, tribal council and warriors of Tribal Thunder.

When Jack spoke her stomach fluttered and she mentally scolded herself for her very physical reaction to the man that was seated on the far side of the table, which she now realized resembled a medicine wheel with each section made from a different color of wood. Jack sat at one point and she at another of the four directions. Did he notice that the line bisecting the table seemed to connect them?

Finally the circle came back to their shaman. Kenshaw rose as he addressed the gathering. “Some of our tribe have been elected to protect the language, some care for and teach our young people, and still others guard our heritage. These men and women have one mission, the survival of our people, and each and every one is prepared to defend our tribe with their lives. They are at your service, Agent Rivas.”

“While I appreciate the offer, no one is going to die as a result of my visit. I’m just here to have a look at the reservoir system. I’ll report back to my field office if I see any gaps in their existing protective plan. I can assure you that no one is going to compromise the power grid.”

There was a general shifting of chairs and postures. You didn’t have to be a master at reading a room to know that the tribe members here disagreed.

Director Gill spoke to Sophia. “Jack was just telling us about your plan to create a makeshift dam with a series of controlled blasts at the narrow point of our canyon.”

Her eyes flashed to Jack’s and held. “That was not at all what I advised.”

Gill continued as if she had not made an objection.

“We feel, that should the Skeleton Cliff Dam fail, we would not have time to evacuate our people.”

“I can assure you, it is very safe, protected by our Bureau and the state highway patrol.”

“Yes, we know. We have seen them and our warriors have gotten past them. Back to my point—if the dam was to fail, how long would we have to evacuate?”

Gotten past them? That wasn’t good at all.

“That would depend on the scale of the breach.”

Gill lifted his thin brow at her. “Total breach.”

She drew a breath and released it. There was no way to deliver hard news but directly.

“Minutes,” she said.

* * *

JACK WATCHED SOPHIA’S face as she delivered the news that the two settlements along the river, Piñon Forks and Koun’nde, would not have enough warning to evacuate.

“But they could be moved to higher ground now. You have three towns. Those in the lower two could move to...” She lifted her gaze to the ceiling as she tried to retrieve the name of their third and smallest town.

“Turquoise Ridge,” Jack said.

She smiled at him and his stomach trembled in a way that he hadn’t experienced since middle school, when all his hormones had been popping in different directions. He grimaced. The woman was near desperate to be clear of them all. He knew that, but still he could not deny that, even knowing she couldn’t wait to be rid of him, he was still imagining what she’d look like out of that suit.

“They could relocate there,” said Sophia.

Zachery Gill took that one. “We have only sixteen hundred members. Over nine hundred live on the rez, nearly all of whom live along the river. Turquoise Ridge is for our miners and loggers. There’s nothing up there but rock and ponderosa pine.”

“But it’s high ground,” she said.

“It’s impossible. We even asked FEMA for temporary housing. I’ll bet you can guess the answer.”

Judging from the pressing of her full lips, Jack felt that she did. FEMA would not provide emergency housing before an emergency and the federal and state officials had indicated that all was safe regarding the reservoir system.

“Did you say you got men past the security?” she asked.

“Men and women. The road across the top of the dam is blocked with one concrete barrier on each side and a state police vehicle on the east side. We were allowed on tours with only our tribal identification cards and saw the inner workings of each dam during public tours. We were allowed to walk up to the top of the dam.”

“Single individuals could not carry enough explosives to destroy a dam. At worst they’d damage the power station.”

“We have a twenty-four-foot police boat, which had been seized from the property of a drug dealer convicted on their rez. We use it for water rescues and search-and-rescue.”

He had her attention.

“We were able to bring it and a flat fifteen-foot Zodiac with a load capacity of 250 pounds simultaneously within ten feet of the base of the dam. We were there nearly forty-five minutes before there was a response.”

Sophia was no longer meeting the director’s gaze. Instead she was staring into space. A moment later she reached for her phone.

“I need to check in.”

“You’re on leave,” reminded the shaman.

“But if what you say is true then I need to report this.”

Zach smiled. “We tell you this for two reasons. One, because we wish you to see that we are vulnerable.”

They waited but Zach said no more. Sophia glanced at Jack, the look of confusion evident. He did nothing but glance back to the executive director. But now there seemed to be a steel band around his ribs squeezing away the air from his lungs and making it hard to draw a full breath. If just looking at her did this to him, he really, really needed to avoid touching her. Yet he could think of nothing else.

Sophia inadvertently rescued him by directing her expressive dark eyes at Gill.

“What is the other reason?”

“You are here and you are listening.”

“Yes, but I can’t help you blow up the canyon. It would be an ecological disaster for the river, not to mention destroying the water supply to both Red Rock and Mesa Salado Dams below this position.”

“We disagree,” said Kenshaw. “Creating a temporary dam of rock and debris would actually save both dams from the flood and debris that would at best test the limits of their infrastructure. All reservoirs are at their limits now after a record rain. We believe this is what BEAR has been waiting for. The rains have come and gone and the water is high.”

“I can’t help you do this.” She folded her arms. The action lifted her breasts.

Jack stared and when he finally tore his gaze away, it was to meet Ray’s knowing glance. Jack wanted to knock the smirk off his face. Ray had settled down since marrying Morgan and taking on the role as father to Lisa. They were now expecting their first child, but there was still devilment in him. Ray leaned toward Dylan Tehauno and whispered something. Dylan’s gaze snapped to Jack, and he stared with wide eyes full of surprise. Jack had a reputation for being very selective when it came to women. Jack shook the thoughts from his head and realized Kenshaw was speaking, his voice as hypnotic as the wavering notes of a flute.

“No need to decide and no action to take. Tonight we will pray and dance and perhaps then know better what direction to go.”

“Folks will be arriving soon,” said Gill to Sophia. “You are welcome to join us. Tomorrow Jack will take you to the reservoir system. You can see if you think the protection is adequate. After that we will talk again.”

Sophia stood. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I think I will turn in. Early start tomorrow.”

Actually they would start late. Jack wanted her to see the day tours, but also night surveillance because Kenshaw was right. It was not that hard to get past one state police car parked at one end of each dam. Closing the bridge spanning the dam was a predictable security measure. But one Humvee followed by a tractor trailer could knock the concrete barrier aside without even slowing down.

There were many things Jack wanted to show Sophia Rivas. But he would stick to the ones relating to the reservoir system. For now.

Jack followed Sophia out of the council lodge. He paused to grab her kerosene lantern. The lantern was unnecessary really, because of the waning moon, now in its quarter. The silvery light reflected back on the placid surface of the Hakathi River.

“You forgot your lantern,” he said and offered her the handle.

She made a sniffing sound. “I don’t like them.”

“Lanterns?”

“Yes, lanterns—they smell,” she said.

“I like it—it smells like—”

“Poverty,” she said, finishing his sentence.

He cocked his head at the odd association. Did she mean that people used kerosene when they had no electricity? For him the association of the lantern brought back memories of camping along the river as a boy, but perhaps she did not have electricity in her home on Black Mountain. His tribe had some homes on propane up in Turquoise Ridge, but most everyone had electricity and septic tanks. Hadn’t she?

“Well, we don’t need it. It’s bright enough.”

She just kept walking until she reached the front porch facing the river. All the cabins faced the river so he understood why she had picked the wrong one. Close, just one off, but this was his cabin for as long as she stayed with them.

“Um,” he said. Should he tell her or let her figure it out on her own?

She rounded on him. “You had no right to take an offhanded comment and present it to everyone as if I had suggested blowing up your reservation as a viable option.”

“Seemed like a plan.”

“It’s a disaster. It will ruin the canyon and it will boomerang back to me. Your little stunt in there could cost me my job.”

She worried about protecting her career while he worried about safeguarding the lives of everyone here.

“It wasn’t a stunt, Sophia. I’m trying to save my people.”

“That’s our job—the FBI’s. And we can do our work more efficiently without a bunch of lunatics performing a ghost dance and then blowing themselves to smithereens.”

The ghost dances had been used in a vain attempt to remove the scourge of white men from the west by the Sioux people, who followed the great spiritual leader the Anglos called Crazy Horse. His real name was which literally meant “His Horse is Crazy.” But Jack understood the reference. Their shaman called for all the people to come and pray and dance tonight. Like Crazy Horse, Kenshaw Little Falcon believed in the old ways. But he also honored the new. In other words, pray but also act. Her comparing his tribe’s gathering to the ghost dance was both insult and honor.

“How about you wait until tomorrow to see what you think of the job the authorities are doing?”

She stiffened and placed a hand on the latch.

Behind them the string of headlights marked the arrival of the tribe, as they wound along the river road like a great, brilliant snake.

On the great open area between the main lodge and the cabins, the central fire was being lit.

“Are you sure you won’t come?” Jack motioned to the gathering place. “I’d love to watch you dance.”

“I haven’t danced for a long time.” She sounded wistful.

Dancing was a form of prayer for their people, a way to communicate to the great divine while still connecting to the earth.

“You could just sit on your porch and watch. Then come join us if you like,” he said.

“Maybe.” She pulled the latch and the door cracked open. She regarded him now, really looking up at him.

He went still under her inspection, hoping that she liked what she saw. His nostrils flared as he tried to bring enough air to sustain him, but each breath brought her delicate floral scent to him. He breathed it in, making it a part of him. He swallowed but his throat was still dry. He was looking at her mouth now, thinking what it might be like to kiss her slowly at first and then...

“I’d better go,” she said.

“Sophia?”

She stepped closer. Oh, boy. He was about to tell her that she was at the wrong door, but maybe it was no mistake. Maybe she knew exactly which cabin this was. That thought made his wiring short-circuit. His blood rushed and his breathing quickened as the desire drowned the rational part of his mind.

“Yes?” She brushed the tips of her fingers down the center of his chest.

“This isn’t your cabin.”

She stepped back. Damn, he should have kissed her first and then told her. But then he might not have wanted to tell her. Not when his bed was only a few short steps away.

He wanted her in that bed more than he had wanted anything in a long time.

Car doors slammed and headlights swung into the field they used for parking. Voices reached them as the people began to gather.

Sophia looked around her. “Which one is mine?”

Jack pointed and watched her go. He didn’t follow. Not just because he was needed in the drum circle, but because they needed Sophia’s help. Kissing her, sleeping with her, might make it easier to convince her. But it also would lead to the bloody same questions women always asked.

Why don’t you look like your brothers? Why are you so big? Have you ever thought about speaking to your parents?

Jack let his hand trail over his wallet. Inside were the answers. But he just couldn’t bear confirmation that his mother had deceived his father and he was the visible sign of that infidelity. Everyone suspected. No one spoke about it. Except the women he dated. That seemed to make them feel they had some right to turn him inside out. It didn’t. Never had. Never would.