Enemy Way (12 page)

“Doc, since you work the ER, will you be passing on care of my mother to another physician soon?”

“If I went strictly by hospital protocol I would be, but I’d like to see this through to the finish and no one’s voiced any objections. We’ve known each other for quite a while, so trust me, she couldn’t be in better hands. I was an orthopedic surgeon before I decided to specialize in emergency medicine.”

“I do trust you, Doc. I know my mother has the best care on the Rez.”

Ella thought about
her promise to bring Two to the hospital as she hung up. Her mother was meeting her end of the bargain, now she’d have to figure out a way to get the dog to her mom. Driving on, various scenarios played through her mind, all ending in disaster.

Five minutes away from the reservation line, Ella glanced down the highway, aware of the old building that had once been the infamous Turquoise Bar. Old
time drivers in the county still slowed down instinctively as they approached the Hogback, though the once-crowded tavern had been closed for years. Public pressure had forced their doors to close. There had been just too many fights, too many accidents, and too many of The People dying of exposure after passing out drunk.

Now the booze was coming from other sources off the Rez just a little
further away. The route of the drunken drivers had just lengthened a bit more, placing more motorists in jeopardy than before.

SIX

As Ella pulled into the hospital parking lot, serious concerns filled her mind once again. From the moment she entered the hospital, a sense of oppressiveness filled her. Some places seemed geared to crush the human spirit and, in her opinion, hospitals were a prime example. The strong disinfectant smells, the impersonal, institutional look of every hallway, and the sameness of the staff’s
pastel uniforms, all seemed to conspire to dampen optimism. Knowing that her mother had to remain here for the time being just made everything seem worse.

When she entered her mother’s room, no one was there. An icy hand gripped her heart and her stomach sank. Did they have to take her back into surgery?

A nurse walked around her and into the room, giving Ella a distracted smile. “She’ll be
back in a few minutes. She’s downstairs in therapy right now.

Ella drew in a long, ragged breath, suddenly aware that she’d stopped breathing. “How is my mother doing?” she managed, surprised at how calm her voice sounded when her heart had practically stopped beating.

“She’s trying, but therapy is painful for her at this point with all the bruises and strain she experienced. Movement is necessary
to stretch the muscles and keep them strong, but it can cause a lot of discomfort.”

Ella nodded. The thought of her mother’s pain, and the pointless accident that had caused her suffering, made Ella ache as well. “And mentally, are her spirits up?”

The young Navajo woman hesitated for several long moments. “She seems better, but I suspect that’s because she’s set a goal for herself, getting
out of that wheelchair and onto crutches. I’ve seen this with patients before. Becoming focused helps them, but it has a downside. Sometimes patients have unrealistic expectations, and when they fail to meet their goals right away, they become despondent.”

As she finished speaking, a middle-aged Navajo nurse appeared at the door, helping to wheel Rose inside. Rose’s eyes lit up as she saw her
daughter.

Ella gave her mother a hug. “How are you doing, Mom?”

Rose shrugged. “Your brother explained what you were doing in Santa Fe. How did it go?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to read politicians,” she said, helping to lift her mother back into bed.

As Rose settled in, Ella saw the pain mirrored in her eyes. Her chest constricted. It was hard to see someone you loved suffering and
not be able to help.

“Tell me about your work, Ella. What has been happening?”

Ella hesitated, knowing how her mother liked and respected Wilson Joe. He’d been a close friend of Clifford’s for years, and a frequent visitor at their home until he’d become engaged to Lisa Aspass.

“I need something to think about, Daughter, besides myself,” Rose encouraged, taking a tiny pill from the nurse’s
hand along with a cup of water.

Ella considered it. Perhaps getting Rose involved in news outside the hospital would be a good thing. They spoke about some of her mother’s friends, the latest gossip, but then when her mother specifically asked about Wilson Joe, Ella felt a cold chill envelope her. Deciding she couldn’t keep the truth from her mother, Ella recounted what she could about the murder
of Wilson’s fiancée.

Rose listened intently, shaking her head from time to time, but she didn’t seem especially surprised by the news. “You know, I don’t like to speak ill of people, but I always felt that young woman wouldn’t come to a good end. There was something odd about her.”

“Mom, you barely knew her,” Ella scoffed.

“True, but I did talk to the girl a few times when she was with your
friend. There was something insincere about her, even when she was flattering Wilson. The expression on her face never seemed to match what she was saying. I think what she wanted most was to be the one to marry him, like it was a contest or something.”

Ella considered her mother’s words. Rose had an unerring instinct about people but, in this particular case, Ella had a feeling her mother’s
assessment was colored by her perception of what Lisa had taken from Ella. Rose resented the young woman who, in her eyes, had stolen the man she’d wanted for her daughter.

Aware suddenly of the silence stretching out between them, Ella glanced back up at her mother. Rose had a faraway expression on her face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes becoming focused once more. “But I have to
warn you about something. My intuitions are rarely wrong, and I feel that Death follows us all now. I’m not afraid for myself, but for you and Clifford. You’ve got your whole lives ahead of you.”

“Mom, I’ve got news for you. So do you. We all need you to stop talking as if you’re ready to throw in the towel.”

Rose exhaled softly. “Don’t you remember the stories I used to tell you when you were
a child? Death is not an enemy. The reason the Hero Twins spared him was because he was a friend. Without Death, the old people wouldn’t make room for the young, and without the freshness of new ideas, there would be no renewal, just an endless repeat of the old.”

“I won’t listen to you talk this way. Death has a purpose, but it’s not one
you
can fill yet. Your grandson looks to you to tell him
the stories about our people. None of us can do it as well as you can.” Hearing footsteps behind her, Ella turned around and saw Carolyn Roanhorse come into the room holding a small paper bag.

She smiled broadly at Rose. “I’ve brought your favorite brand of chocolates. I saw them at the mall in Farmington, and thought of you,” Carolyn said, handing Rose the box from the sack.

Rose looked down
at the box a bit hesitantly, murmured a thank you, then opened the container. She offered a piece to Carolyn and Ella, took one for herself, then set the box on the table beside the bed.

Her mother’s lack of enthusiasm struck Ella hard. She knew that Rose had few weaknesses as potent as her love for these gourmet chocolates, and rarely closed the lid on a box with only three pieces gone. Was
it because Dr. Roanhorse was the medical examiner and the candy might be contaminated with ghost sickness, or was it something else? She glanced at Carolyn, and knew that the worried look etched on the ME’s features matched her own.

“I’m really tired right now,” Rose said looking at the women. “Thank you for coming to see me, but would you mind if I tried to get some sleep now?”

Ella kissed
her mother good-bye and then walked out into the hall with Carolyn. “I thought she might be a little anxious seeing you, having come so near death herself. But it’s that depression of hers, nothing else. She worries me,” Ella said.

Carolyn nodded in agreement. “I dropped in earlier, and she seemed almost cheerful for a while until we saw a patient wheeled by on a gurney. Then she got tired again.
Rose desperately needs something to bring the spark back into her eyes. The chocolates didn’t help much. I would have suggested that you bring her grandson here, but children can find hospitals frightening, and it would only make things worse if he started crying.”

“Mom would never approve of bringing Julian here anyway, even if his parents did. But I’ve had another idea. The only problem I’ve
got now is working out the logistics.” She told Carolyn about the promise she’d made her mother to bring Two for a visit.

“Are you crazy? What are you going to do, put a hat on his head, a coat on his back, and teach him to walk on his hind legs?”

Ella smiled. “Not quite. But you know what? If you and I work together, we’ll be able to pull it off. And we wouldn’t be bringing Two into her room,
just someplace nearby where she could go in her wheelchair.”

“Okay, let me give this some thought. I owe your mom big time as you darned well know,” she said with a tiny smile.

Ella chuckled. Carolyn would help her find a way, somehow. It wasn’t in her nature to walk away from a friend … or a challenge.

As Ella left the hospital and drove down the highway, her thoughts slowly shifted back to
the murder case. Following an impulse, Ella took a right turn, and headed toward the housing area where Lisa had lived. She’d only gone about half a mile when an old compact car raced past her. She recognized the driver, Lillian Peshlakai, almost at the same time she noticed that all the car windows had been smashed.

In a heartbeat, a pickup filled with boys flashed by. The passenger in the front
seat had a baseball bat half out of the window.

Ella switched on her emergency lights and siren and called for backup as she did a quick 180 and gunned the Jeep’s engine. Abruptly the pickup ahead swerved and raced down a dirt road that led to the river, suddenly no longer pursuing Lillian.

Ella followed them through the shower of sand and gravel that pelted her windshield, using the dark outline
of the pickup to lead the way. Her Jeep bounced along the washerboard road between two dried-out alfalfa fields, and Ella was jolted painfully against the seat belt several times. Her one consolation was knowing that the driver of the pickup was having a much harder time maintaining control at that speed. The truck was fishtailing wildly.

The boy with the bat leaned out the passenger-side window,
bringing the bat up to toss at her windshield. Ella swerved to her left and ducked just as he threw. Looking up a second later, she saw in her side mirror that the bat had missed the car completely. It was tumbling down the road behind her now.

The pickup widened the gap, exploding up a narrow canyon. When it hit a soft spot, the truck nearly overturned, the left-side wheels leaving the ground.
The door on the passenger’s side suddenly flew open and a boy swung out, clinging to the door for dear life.

Suddenly, the pickup slid to a stop a few feet from an area filled with jagged boulders. The boy managed to hold on and jump to safety as everyone tumbled out of the cab and raced off in different directions. Ella braked hard and slid sideways, effectively blocking the road. Grabbing the
pepper spray, she took off after the boy who’d been clinging to the door. He’d thrown the bat.

The boy reached the river about fifty feet ahead of her. Pushing off the sandy bank, he leaped into the icy water, and floated quickly downstream. The water wasn’t more than four feet deep, but Ella couldn’t see going for a swim in the forty-degree water. She ran along the riverbank, trying to keep
the boy in sight, aware that he was slowly working his way toward the other bank. As Ella crashed through a stand of willows, cursing the fact that she eventually would have to go into the water, she suddenly came face-to-face with a large wire and steel flood-control barrier blocking the bank.

Ella knew that by the time she found a way around or through the rusty maze, it would be too late.
The Normandy-Beach-type obstacle had defeated her for now. Losing sight of the boy, she began walking back, using her hand-held to talk to the other officers who were approaching the scene.

When Ella returned, she was surprised to see Lillian Peshlakai waiting with two officers near the abandoned truck. The moment she saw Ella, Lillian beamed her a grateful, relieved smile.

“I came back with
help as soon as I could. I can’t thank you enough for what you did!”

“It’s all part of my job. No thanks are necessary,” Ella said. “Why were they chasing you? What happened?”

“I arrived home after buying my groceries, just like normal. Usually the gang kids aren’t hanging around that early in the day, so I wasn’t watching. As I stepped inside the house with a bag of groceries, I heard a noise
outside. I went to the window and saw four boys taking my groceries out of the car and throwing them out into the driveway and everywhere. They were joking that the Many Devils were taking over the whole neighborhood. One got out a can of spray paint. Then one of the boys saw me standing by the window watching.”

Lillian’s voice broke, and Ella saw the fear and anger that contorted her features.
“Take your time,” Ella said gently.

Lillian took a deep breath, then continued. “The boys rushed to the door before I could lock it. The one with the spray can said that they should paint my house on the inside, too. I panicked and tried to hold the door shut, but they pushed real hard. I knew I would lose, so I jerked it open real fast and the boys pushing fell to the floor. I ran right over
them, and when one tried to grab my foot I kicked him right in the face.

“I reached the car first and got my key in the ignition, but they came after me,” she said, her words coming even faster now. “When I saw they had a baseball bat, I ducked. It was just in time, too. Glass went everywhere. I was so scared!

“The one with the bat kept hitting the windows. I just pressed down on the accelerator
and backed out of there without ever looking up. I figured I’d go to the police station. I was sure they wouldn’t follow me all the way there. But then you passed by. I was really glad to see you. I figured you’d need help though, so I pulled over the first squad car I saw, but they were already on their way to back you up. I decided to come along too then, in case you needed me to identify anyone
you caught.”