Renee Simons Special Edition (69 page)

"Bare bottoms and all?" He grinned at the change in her.

She ran a hand along the line of his strong jaw. "Who's to see us except us?" But she slipped on his shirt and handed him his jeans. "Just for warmth," she said.

She had copied everything pertinent to Stormwalker's case onto new CDs and now loaded them, one by one until he'd seen it all. He seemed more at peace than she'd ever known him to be, except for some dark emotion that still hovered in his eyes and took the edge off her happiness. When she probed, he shook his head and smiled.

"I need to absorb it and make sure it's real. That's all." He lay down on the bunk and closed his eyes.

She battled her disappointment. Had he expected more, some irrefutable proof, perhaps, of Dar's involvement? Or was he merely angry that her complicity, unwitting though it had been, had ruined his life.

She sat down at the computer and scrolled through the database as if the mere act of blurring the damning words on the screen would make them less objectionable. A salutation flashed into view that raised a lump the size of a turnip in her throat.

"My dearest love," it said.

Her vision blurred. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her chair and took long, deep breaths. Minutes passed before her agitation lessened. Finally, she felt calm enough to go back to the screen.

"If you are reading these words, things have not gone well for me. So I feel compelled to tell you the truth. What you're about to learn belongs to you to use as you see fit. It saddens me to say this, but by the time you have finished reading what follows, you will curse my memory."

Zan pulled her chair closer to her desk and began to skim the long, rambling account, picking out the salient points. He and Northstar – she recognized Ian's code name – had been a twenty-year team, devoted to advancing the cause of their "mother" country.

She skipped the laundry list of their activities, stopping as her gaze picked out the most important phrases: "patriotism subverted by the greed of a third partner," "stealing money earmarked for the purchase of encryption codes," "Iceman." She jotted down the third partner's code name and continued.

"That is the part you must hate most," she read, "that I used your trust in me to divert attention from our operation and place suspicion on the major."

Tears of anger and shame trailed down her cheeks and blurred the words on the screen. Dar had been duplicitous but she had been naive to believe his declarations of love. More than naive. She'd been stupid. She swiped at the tears and read on.

"I want you to believe I truly loved you, as no other woman I have ever known. My heart breaks because of the hurt I bring you, but I had a job to do, a mission that took precedence over my love.

"Finally, there's the $1.5 million. If I am dead, find my killer and there you will find the money. Find the money and you will have the killer."

"Damn you, Dar O'Neill. May you rot in hell."

She shook off her anger to perform the one remaining task. Bringing up the personnel files, she typed in the code name, Iceman, entered the I.D. number and with no surprise at all, watched Kenny Becker's name run across the top of the screen.

*****

She woke abruptly from a dream in which a dozen drums beat in her ears in a long, confusing barrage of sound. She opened her eyes expecting the noises to cease. They continued and became more clearly metal slamming against the camper with such force it rocked on its springs.

At the same time, she felt herself being dragged from the bunk to the floor. Stormwalker pulled the mattresses over her. "Stay down till I get back."

He left Zan protected by two layers of foam padding from the bunk. After dressing, he crawled into the cab, where he reached beneath the dashboard to hotwire the ignition. When the engine failed to turn over, he popped the hood release and slipped out.

A barrage of bullets peppered the camper but somehow managed to miss him. He moved around to the front of the camper and in the darkness, felt around under the hood. The distributor cap was missing. Determined to get Zan out of the camper and to safety, he crouched low and came around to the side taking the brunt of the attack, barely avoiding two men heading toward him.

He slipped back into the shadows. The intensity of the firing had diminished to the sound of one automatic weapon. With his route back to her cut off for the moment, he had no choice but to draw off the two men, leaving behind only one, with the hope she could handle whatever came at her.

He started for the woods, making just enough noise to attract attention. When he was sure they followed, he picked up speed. In the trees, he ran a broken course through the underbrush, doubling back, crisscrossing his own trails and leading the men over a jumble of rocks and hilly terrain that split the forest down its middle. When the sounds of their movements trailed away, he moved quietly, taking the shortest route back to the camper.

For Zan, the wait seemed to last an eternity. The bombardment continued and she realized that the RV was being fired upon with large caliber ammunition that so far didn't seem to have penetrated the outer shell.

"Where did he go?" she whispered, concerned for Stormwalker's safety.

He'd been asleep when she crawled in beside him after reading Dar's letter. There had been no time to talk, to tell him about the confession that vindicated him or to find out how he felt about her now that they'd pieced together the puzzle. Was he angry? Disappointed? Did his knowing even as much as he did change the way he felt about her? How did he feel about her? He'd wanted and needed her. He'd cared about her. But he'd never mentioned love. Maybe now he never would.  

The fusillade broke into her thoughts, pounding like cannon fire through the foam padding. She heard glass break and resigned herself to the fact that the computer would be destroyed.

As the attacker continued firing, bullets ripped through the wooden cabinets. When the shooting ended, she forced herself to tick off three minutes before crawling from beneath her shield.

She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Though she couldn't pick out details, the destruction was plain enough as she crawled across a floor littered with broken glass and splintered wood that stung her bare legs and palms.

She loaded her revolver as a powerful light came flooding through the broken windows, destroying the cover of darkness she'd counted on for protection.

"You'd better finish dressing," she whispered. "Or you're going to embarrass the hell out of yourself."

In a corner, she located the rest of her clothes and the boots she'd kicked off earlier in the evening. The faint smell of gasoline permeated the interior. She suspected that at least one of the fuel tanks had been punctured and knew she should leave immediately.

For convenience, she'd parked the camper with the passenger side facing out. She headed for the driver's door but found she'd parked too close to the wall of rock and couldn't open the door wide enough to squeeze through.

The odor intensified, leaving her no choice but to take her chances outside. She opened the passenger door only enough to allow her body to ease out sideways. A shot rang out. The jarring impact of a bullet in her upper arm slammed her back against the camper. Fighting off the pain, she slid to the ground and peered into the darkness. A second shot split the silence and punctured the metal where she'd just stood. Aiming for the flash, she got off two shots. Her efforts resulted in a grunt and a volley of bullets that flew wide of the mark. The camper exploded as she crawled away. The force of the concussion knocked her flat. With her assailant's steps moving closer, she managed to slip her revolver beneath the belt of her jeans and fasten one button of her denim jacket to conceal its presence. Exhausted and in pain, she lay still, waiting for him to approach. Flames roared, metal crackled. The heat washed over and around her and blood flowed from her wound.

The attacker's halting progress and labored breathing confirmed that her bullet had done damage. Finally, he shifted her onto her back with the toe of his boot. She kept her eyes closed and tried not to breathe as he knelt beside her. In a sudden move he jerked her to her feet and she found herself looking at Billy Winter.

"Get in the Jeep. You're gonna drive." Blood drenched the front of his shirt and his features contorted with pain and a rage he made no attempt to hide.

She wasn't sure she could handle a jeep with only one good arm, but she knew reasoning with the man would be futile, or worse. "Where are we going?"

"Emma Redfeather's house." He wheezed and then coughed. A trickle of blood stained the corner of his mouth.

"I've only been there once. You'll have to navigate."

They made the trip in a silence punctuated by the man's coarse, labored breathing, an occasional direction ground out from between his teeth and even more rare but vicious curses uttered in a barely audible tone. Finally, they reached their destination. Winter shoved her in front of him and pressed his gun muzzle against the small of her back. He kicked open the door and pushed her into the room.

Emma sat by the hearth. As if the sight of two bleeding visitors was an everyday occurrence, she got to her feet and walked toward them. "Come in. And bring that one with you. You had some trouble, I see."

"I need your help, Grandmother."

She led him to a cot near the fire. "You lie here, while I tend your wound." She motioned to Zan. "Sit here, in the rocker." She looked at her arm. "That one is worse off. First him, then you."

Zan nodded. She'd seen kindness in the old woman's eyes and knew her choice had been governed by urgency. She leaned against the high back and watched her work.

Chapter 12

Stormwalker had returned to the burning camper just as the Jeep left with Zan at the wheel and Winter on the passenger side. He'd questioned the vehicle's slow and erratic progress, but having trailed them to his grandmother's house, found blood staining the steering wheel as well as the seats. His concern for Zan eased marginally when he looked through the window and saw she was the least injured of the two.

But only marginally. She'd been attacked twice helping him and he could think of no way to protect her if she refused to keep a safe distance from him. Unless he took off somewhere she had no hope of finding and without her knowing he'd gone.

He'd remained on the porch until Unci signaled it was safe to come in. Now, just after daybreak, while Zan rested from the effects of her wound and Grandmother slept the sleep of the righteous, he looked in on Winter. He found him awake and staring at him.

"How are you feeling, Bill?"

"Like someone ripped out a lung."

"Why the hell did you go after the camper?" Stormwalker asked in a harsh whisper. "You know the woman uses it for an office, that she would likely be inside."

"Why should I protect her?" Winter's laugh got lost in a fit of coughing. "Anyway, you can see I'm the one who needed protecting."

"Why did you join with the others? Why involve yourself in the white man's war?"

"Because you're in it."

"You hate me that much."

"More."

"Mind telling me why?"

Neither spoke as a gust of wind tore across the prairie and shook the house.

"I'm not about to discuss my life story with you," Winter said finally. "It's none of your damned business."

"I believe you're responsible for our house going up in flames, and you've tried to kill me – more than once. It's my business, all right."

"It wasn't me did it all."

"But you were involved. So talk to me. Or you'll talk to the sheriff."

The injured man remained silent for perhaps a minute. Stormwalker waited patiently until he began to speak.

"Do you recall we were born the same night?"

"I remember sharing a lot of birthdays with you."

"That old lady sleepin' in the chair came to help my mother during the blizzard. That's how come she wasn't around when you were born. It was practically the only time I had somethin' you didn't. And that's why I agreed to look out for her. 'Cause without her, I might not have made it into this world or survived growin' up." He went silent.

"Go on."

"When we were kids, you had all the things I didn't – a father who loved you, a grandmother that had everyone's respect, a fine, big house. You had so much it never mattered to you that leadership of the boys fell to me. Until the day you decided you wanted that, too. Then you took my place at the head of the pack and I was left with no choice except to follow you like the others did, or strike out on my own. You took it all, even. . . ."

"What did I take?"

"Never mind," Winter said hoarsely. "You have all the motivation you need to put me away."

"Why did you go in with those guys? I can't believe it was because I won at a test of skill thirty years ago."

The cot creaked as Winter shifted position.

"We knew each other well in those days, Bill, called each other cousin. How many times did we lie in our beds and talk about our dreams? Or follow my grandmother and help her hunt for herbs and plants for her medicines?