Indigo Blue (12 page)

“I’ll go back for Lobo, honey, just as soon as it’s safe.”

“Why?” she wailed. “Why did someone shoot him? He never hurt anyone. Never!”

Keeping an eye on the hillside, Jake ran a palm down her slender back, trying to comfort her in the only way he knew. Dear God. Had that bullet been meant for her?

She was so frantic about the wolf that Jake risked going back out into the open. As he bolted out the doorway, he veered to the left and dove into the brush. Blackberry vines snagged his shirt as he belly-crawled toward the laurel tree. Lobo lay where he had fallen. His left shoulder, once padded with muscle and thick fur, was now a gaping hole. Blood was everywhere. He could scarcely believe it when he saw the wolf still breathing.

After scanning the hillside, Jake rose, scooped Lobo into his arms, and ran back to the shack. Indigo met him at the door. He nudged her aside, barked at her to stay down, and took the animal to a corner. Indigo dropped to her knees beside him. Seeing how gently she hugged her pet nearly broke Jake’s heart.

She didn’t cry. Jake would have welcomed tears. Instead, she sat back on her heels and placed a reverent hand on the wolf’s forehead. Jake stripped off his shirt.

Though he didn’t particularly like the wolf and knew he would probably die, Jake couldn’t let him go without a fight, not when Indigo loved him so. He made another trip to the window to check the hillside. Then he pulled his knife and cut a strip of wool from his shirt for binding. The remainder of the garment would do as a pad. With enough pressure applied to the wound, perhaps the bleeding could be stopped.

Returning to Indigo, he grasped her shoulder and drew her out of his way. “Let me do what I can,” he said softly.

The interior of the shack was cloaked in shadow, which gave him poor light to see by. Using his knife, Jake carefully probed for the lead. Indigo leaned forward beside him, her shaking hands hovering, her silence eloquent testimony to her grief.
My best friend in the whole world.

Jake hadn’t called on God for a long while, other than to take His name in vain. But he prayed now. Not for the wolf, but the girl. It was going to half kill her if Lobo died.

Jake’s knife tip scraped the lead. Cautiously, he inched the mass upward. At last, the ball came free of the mangled flesh and
kerplunk
ed on the dusty wood floor.

Working quickly, Jake folded the remains of his shirt and clamped it over the wound. He held the pressure for a while in hopes he could stop the bleeding. The wolf was still alive, which in itself was unbelievable. Now that Jake had examined the wound more closely, he knew there was no hope. Most of one shoulder was gone. If Lobo lived, he’d be badly crippled. It would be kinder to let him go.

So why was he doing this? At best, he’d give Indigo hope where there was none. A glance at her face answered that question. Her blue eyes were huge and frightened, pleading with him to save her pet. Jake tried to remember being her age, and only one thing came clear. At nineteen, he had still believed in miracles. It wasn’t up to him to disillusion her. Life would do that soon enough.

“I-Is he g-going to die?” she asked in a shrill voice.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. It doesn’t look good.”

She laid a tremulous hand on Lobo’s head again. “He can’t die, he just can’t. Lobo? Do you hear me, my friend? You can’t die. You can’t leave me . . .”

Using the strip of wool, Jake bound the wound, then moved back to the window and left her to her grief. What he heard made him feel sick. He wished she would wail and sob. Anything would be better than those heartfelt whispers and shaky pleas. He couldn’t imagine loving anything that much, and the realization made him feel hollow.

He scanned the hillside and tried not to think. It was a time for craziness, he supposed. The feeling that he no longer knew himself or what he wanted, that his life was missing something vital, was a product of the madness.
You’ve despised him all your life, and now you’ve become just like him.

As those endless minutes stretched into an hour, her whispers abated, and she slumped against the wall, holding a vigil that Jake knew would end in her pet’s death. He regretted that, but right now, his main concern had to be getting her out of here. He kept seeing her, arms stretched skyward before she lay on her side. Had that bullet missed its mark?

The thought terrified Jake. All he had on him was a stinking knife. Why in hell hadn’t he brought a rifle? And where were the horses? If that bastard walked up to a window and started blasting, Jake couldn’t put up much of a defense with nothing but a three-inch knife blade as a weapon.

He peered at the hilltop. The sun had dropped. They didn’t have much daylight left. Two hours, possibly three. What if he couldn’t find the horses?

“Indigo, can we make it back on foot before dark?”

A shadow that blended with shadows, she stirred slightly. “We can’t move Lobo.”

Jake’s gaze slid to the wolf. Didn’t she understand that there was no hope? “Honey, we can’t stay here with him.” The time had finally come to tell her of his suspicions. “I think that bullet might have been meant for you.”

She drew a sharp breath, clearly appalled. Then she looked at the wolf. “If Lobo dies, I’ll wish it’d hit me.”

Jake could only stare at her. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes.”

He combed his fingers through his hair, fighting down an unreasoning anger, not at her, but at that bastard on the hillside.

“Is there anyone you know of who might try to shoot you? Think hard, Indigo. Anyone at all?”

“No.” She moved again, a shadow in the gloom, her hair a dim glow around her shoulders. “I think whoever did it meant to hit—” Her voice cracked. “A lot of people hate Lobo. They’re afraid of him. He’s been shot at before. Whoever did it probably thought killing him would be funny.”

Funny. Jake felt as though he might vomit. As recently as yesterday, he might have shot the wolf himself. But he never would have done it knowing the animal was a pet. It was inconceivable to Jake that another man had. But it was easier to believe that than to think someone had meant to kill Indigo.

“Whoever did it took a big chance. If he had been a hair off, he would have hit you.”

“A good marksman is seldom off,” she replied. “If the bullet had been meant for me, it would have found me.”

Jake prayed she was right.

“I still think we ought to get out of here.”

“No,” she said simply. “I can’t leave Lobo.”

Jake swallowed. “Honey, he’s not going to make it. You know that.”

“He might. The bleeding’s stopped, I think. If we move him, it’ll start up again. He’ll die for sure.”

Jake propped an elbow on the filthy windowsill, planted a hand over his face, and sighed. “You can’t risk your life for a wolf, Indigo.”

“You say
wolf
as if it’s something dirty.”

“I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”

“No, but it’s how you feel. He’s different, not a dog, so you don’t like him.”

Jake sighed again. “I’m sure I would’ve come to like him, given time. But even if he were a dog, my vote would be the same. Your life is far more precious than an animal’s.”

“I’m different, too.” Her voice came to him in a thin whisper. “Lobo and I, we’re alike. I know you don’t understand, but we’re friends. Not ordinary friends, but special. You don’t leave your friend to die alone.”

“If he loves you as much as you love him, he’d want you to go. It might not be safe here.”

“And it might not be safe out there in those woods,” she came back. “The horses have run off. If someone meant the bullet for me, we could get shot going out there to look for them. We’re as safe here as anywhere, maybe safer. And—Lobo—he wouldn’t desert me, no matter what the danger. I won’t do less for him.”

Aside from her irrational loyalty to the wolf, she had a point. Jake kept his gaze riveted to the hillside. He considered searching for the horses, but what if the rifle-man came down to the shack while he was gone? More than likely, it was as she said, and she was in no danger. But that was a gamble Jake couldn’t take. He considered striking off for Wolf’s Landing to get help. He scotched that idea for the same reason.

“Who knows,” he whispered. “Maybe you’re right and staying put is the best idea. Your mother knew we planned to come back this way. Maybe she’ll send someone out to look for us.”

“She won’t know where we stopped. The horses aren’t here.”

That was true. Jake slumped against the wall. Maybe, just maybe, luck would be with them. Maybe the bullet had been meant for Lobo. Maybe Loretta Wolf would send someone to find them, and the saddle would draw attention. Maybe the man who shot Lobo was miles away by now. Maybe everything would come out perfect.

It was one hell of a lot of maybes.

BY MIDNIGHT, JAKE REALIZED HE HAD never understood the true meaning of the word
endless
. He measured the seconds by the muted and sluggish ticking of his pocket watch. The moon had surely frozen in one position. Even the wind had stopped blowing. Silence closed in around him, an awful, horrible silence that seemed to be waiting.

Jake had never been afraid of the dark, but tonight the moon-touched blackness of the woods seemed threatening. Though not a draft of air stirred, the shadows seemed to shift and move toward the shack. When he stared long enough at a shape, it took on the outline of a man. Sweat beaded at the nape of his neck and trickled down his spine. At times, his heart pounded so hard he felt sure it would beat its way through his ribs.

He kept seeing Loretta Wolf’s guileless blue eyes. She had trusted him to bring her daughter safely home. Now, here he sat, armed with nothing but a knife when a madman with a rifle might lurk nearby. One well-aimed shot would take him down. After that, Indigo would be on her own.

Behind him, she sat in rigid silence. She seemed aware of nothing but the wolf. Her stillness unnerved him. Maybe it was the Indian in her, but the way she grieved didn’t seem natural.

A cramp knifed up his thigh. He changed positions to ease it and accidentally thumped his boot on the floor. The sound seemed deafening. His arm brushed the grimy windowsill, and the dust filled his nostrils. Hunching his bare shoulders to ward off the cold, he kneaded his leg and stared at the hillside.

Sudden movement made him turn. Lobo, a silver-and-black wraith in the moonlight, shoved himself up with his uninjured foreleg. Golden eyes fixed on the window, he stretched his neck and let out a low howl that rose eerily to a mournful crescendo.

Jake had never heard a wolf howl from up close, and the sound sent a chill washing over him. It seemed to go on forever. Indigo moved closer to the wolf and hugged his massive chest. A ragged sob erupted from her.

“Oh, Lobo, my friend.”

The anguish in her voice made Jake’s throat ache. With a sinking sensation, he realized that the wolf was baying at the moon to herald his own death. Indigo, so attuned to him, had already concluded that and was helping him sit erect. Lobo tipped his head back and howled again. The effort clearly drained him. He slumped against his mistress, no longer able to hold himself up. His third howl was pitifully weak.

Indigo took up the lament, her voice shaky and shrill. Jake listened, unable to identify one of the languages she used. Some of what she sang sounded like Latin, which he recognized from his days at university. The rest, he guessed, was in Comanche.
Ein mea-dro. Ein habbe we-ich-ket.
A death chant, sung with tearful clarity for Lobo because the wolf no longer had the strength to do it himself.

As if Lobo understood, he leaned his head against her breast. In the moonlight, his golden eyes seemed to glow. Jake had the unnerving feeling the animal was beseeching him to do something, but he had no inkling what.

After a few minutes, Lobo’s strength ebbed, and he sank across his mistress’s knees. Measuring the seconds by the painful thudding of his heart, Jake watched the glow fade from the wolf’s eyes. He knew the exact instant when the last bit of life slipped from Lobo’s body. He said nothing; he couldn’t.

Though she must have felt her pet’s sudden limpness, Indigo never paused in her chanting. She stroked the wolf’s head with gentle fingers and sang ceaselessly, as if the animal could still hear her. In the dim light, she looked like a full-blooded Comanche. Until tonight, Jake hadn’t realized how deeply her father’s ways were ingrained in her. He could almost hear the alien drum-beats of the Comanches thrumming in the night.

Jake had the crazy sensation she was made of moonbeams, and that if he stood and let his shadow fall across her she would disappear. Her chant went on and on. The minutes slid into an hour, the hour into two. She was still singing when the first pink streaks of dawn touched the horizon.

 

When it turned daylight, Jake deemed it safe to leave Indigo and search for the horses. Just as she had done all night, she was still kneeling and holding Lobo clasped in her arms when he returned. Jake slowly approached her, uncertain what to say.

“Indigo?”

Her lovely eyes didn’t seem to focus on him.

“Indigo, I found the horses and got Buck saddled up. I think we should head back to Wolf’s Landing now.”

Her arms tightened around the wolf, and she whispered, “
Nei-na-su-tama-habi, nei-na-su-tama-habi. Kiss, hites.
”

Jake hunkered beside her. Dark shadows etched her high cheekbones. He heaved a sigh and skimmed a hand over her hair, wishing to God he knew how to make this easier on her.

“He’s gone, honey. It hurts, but you have to face it.”

She shook her head. “No. He isn’t gone. Never gone.”

She tipped her head as if to listen. The morning wind funneled under the eaves of the shack and made a whining sound. She closed her eyes as if she heard something Jake couldn’t.