The Ties That Bind (40 page)

Kara squeezed my shoulder. "I'm with you on that."

We both turned back toward Sage, who was still talking to

Simmons. River stood very close to her, protective. "So for real," I said to Kara. "What made you guys come back?"

"Weird feeling. River told me what Sage said when she called from Purcell's and I felt like a total ass because you were right, and it wasn't about Shoshana. He and I talked about it for a little bit and he said he wasn't feeling good about what was happening and he wanted to come back up and make sure everything was okay. Very guy-like." She laughed a little. "But I thought it was a good idea. So I came along. Mom would kill me if I didn't keep an eye on you."

"Well, it's much appreciated. Sorry for dragging you out here again."

"Um, hello. It was my decision in conjunction with River's. You're my sister. It doesn't matter how far I have to travel to make sure you're okay." She poked me in the stomach. "You didn't drag anybody out here. Except maybe Sage, and in this case, I think it's the other way around."

I laughed. "Bingo."

"Okay, Simmons says she's on her way with Agent Martin and a couple of other people. It'll be another half-hour or so," Sage reported as she hung up and handed the phone back to Kara. "I told her to call your number if she needs to."

Kara nodded and gave the phone back. "Then you should hold on to this."

Sage looked at her, then at the phone. "Okay."

"Is she bringing an ambulance?" I asked. "Or somebody with medical training?" I hoped Nestor didn't need either of those, but given what we'd seen at his house, it was a good idea to have someone on hand who could take care of him.

"She said she'd call the Shiprock service and see if they could be on standby."

"So how about we all go wait at the turn-off?" I pleaded. "And maybe we could send Kara for burgers or something."

She smacked me on the arm.

"Hey, come on. I'm weak with hunger. I haven't eaten anything but a couple of bites of beef jerky since before lunch. Could you get me a Diet Coke, too?"

She smacked me again and for a moment, things were almost normal. Almost.

"Quiet." River pushed between me and Kara to stand a few feet away, listening. Sage moved next to me and took my hand in the dark. I pulled her closer and her body against mine both calmed and comforted.

"What?" Kara asked after we'd given River a minute.

"Shh."

I sensed rather than saw him raise his arm toward us in a "stop" motion. We all shut up, and I listened, too, trying to figure out what he'd heard, categorizing sounds of a desert night. The remnants of a wind as the air cooled, the rustling of dry grasses. Distant engine noise from one of the highways... and something else. Yelling? I listened harder. "What the hell is that?" I whispered.

"Sounds like somebody's shouting," came Kara's response in the dark.

"In a bad way," Sage added, pressing against me harder.

"I'm gonna check it out." River moved toward his truck, and I heard his boots in the dirt on the road.

"Nuh-uh." I let go of Sage and grabbed his arm as he passed. "If that's Monroe, they might have guns. And I am not going to let some asshole shoot my partner's brother's butt off. Besides, we have to wait for Simmons."

"River, don't." Sage took over the conversation. "K.C.'s right. It's not just Monroe you need to worry about." Her words were low and barbed. I winced, all too familiar with a sibling showdown. "You said yourself you didn't want to go to that wash the last time we were out here. Why the hell do you want to go now, in the dark?"

He said something I didn't catch and Sage said something back. I moved away a bit, giving them space, and picked Kara's light-colored T-shirt out of the darkness. She was standing where River had just been.

"Something's going on out there," she said. "Do you hear that?"

I shoved my hands into my pockets and concentrated on listening, on picking out different sounds. More faint shouting and then something that sounded distantly metallic, like a car door closing. Too far away to know for sure. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, growing more uneasy by the second and the Very Bad Feeling had started hovering around my head again, like a vulture circling roadkill. "We need to get out of here," I whispered. I pulled Kara with me, back toward the vehicles. "We're all leaving," I announced. "We'll wait at the turn-off."

Sage started toward the rental but River didn't move. Kara stood next to me, and I sensed her hesitation.

"Nestor's out there," River protested. "We can't just leave him."

"We're not," I corrected. "Help is on the way."

"We owe him some support," he argued.

"And we're giving it to him." I shifted into rational mode. Sage had told me once it was my most stubborn manifestation and I used it now, with extra rational juice. "The police are on the way and they've got much more experience than we do dealing with a potential hostage situation. This isn't a goddamn movie and we're not the freakin' X-Men. Let the experts handle it, because if we try to help Nestor without them, we might make things a lot worse for him." I opened the driver's side door of the rental car, adding finality to my pronouncement. What the hell did River think we could accomplish, pulling some crazy Lone Ranger stunt?
"Pardon us, Clint. But do you mind if we just take Nestor to the hospital to get checked out?"
I started to get into the car, hoping Sage would follow and River would see the error of his ways and drive Kara back to the highway. If he didn't, then Kara could go with us. But then, he'd be out here by himself and we couldn't leave him alone.
Dammit
.

In the glow afforded by the dome light over my head, a standoff ensued. River, arms folded over his chest, glowering at me. Sage, frustrated, glaring at River. And Kara, worried, not looking at any of us but rather, staring into the darkness toward the wash. The Very Bad Feeling sank its talons into my shoulders.

"Guys," she said. "Someone's coming."

I got out of the car, but I left the door open, ready for a quick getaway.

River strode over to Kara and stood with her, peering down the road. "Sounds like it." He turned abruptly and went back to his truck, where he rummaged around behind the seat. I looked over at Sage, seeking clarity. Or at least reassurance. From her expression, both were in short supply.

"It's a car engine," Kara informed us. She sounded relieved. After all, dealing with bad guys driving cars was easier than dealing with something that may or may not have supernatural powers. Humans and cars I understood. Navajo witches I didn't.

I listened for a few seconds. Definitely an engine. And revved up, coming closer. No headlights. What was up with that? Was the vehicle even on this road? Or was it on the highway and we were just freaked out and assumed it was on this road?

The noise increased in volume, like it was coming closer. Still no lights. The Very Bad Feeling urged me to get into the rental car and drive very far away, in the opposite direction. "Okay," I said, "If it's on this road, the driver's got no lights on and might not see us." And thus will plow right into either the rental car, River's truck, or both. And all of us, as well. That scenario did not please me. River flicked on his headlights and left his door open so that his dome light was on, as well. His headlights lanced into the night, but nothing beyond the road and slices of desert on each side broke their field. The noise of the approaching engine was much louder. Definitely on this road and headed right for us.

"It's almost here," Kara stated in a monotone I recognized as her "I'm trying not to freak out" tone.

River joined us, holding a rifle in such a way that it pointed at the sky, resting against his right shoulder.

"Holy shit," I blurted. "What are--"

"Get out of the way," he shouted. "Everybody,
move
." He grabbed Kara with his free hand and yanked her off the road, pulling her past the rental car and into the desert.

Chapter Twenty-Four

SAGE GRIPPED MY arm and dragged me after River just as two headlights lasered past the boundary River's had established. I tried to watch over my shoulder as Clint Monroe's truck barreled straight for our vehicles and an inane thought flashed through my mind, that I wished I'd bought the optional insurance coverage at the rental car place. Fuck. And then I tripped and stumbled, trying to regain my footing in the soft dirt beyond the road. Sage let go of my arm as I fell onto something sharp that jabbed me in the right thigh. No time to deal with it. I started to get up and Sage's hands were on me again, hauling me to my feet but I didn't run. I stood, staring, waiting for Monroe's truck to slam into the rental car, bracing for the sound of metal on metal and the explosion of glass.

Instead, Monroe's truck went into a full skid as the driver tried braking then it veered off the left side of the road, barely missing the front end of River's truck. Dirt and rocks flew through the air, swirling in the glow of River's headlights, obscuring my view. I thought Monroe's truck was airborne for a second as it sailed off the berm that separated the side of the road from the desert before I heard it slam to earth in a cacophony of groaning and rending metal mingled with the scrape of rock, dirt, and brush and then an aftermath of grating, crunching, and wounded creaks as the truck settled into its own wreckage like a dying animal.

Dust and dirt billowed over River's truck and then the rental car, dissipating before it engulfed us. Nobody moved. Instead, we all seemed to be holding our breaths, waiting for something to happen. Long moments passed and I thought maybe we'd end up finding a dead guy behind the wheel of a bunch of mangled metal that had once been a vehicle.

"Goddamn--" came a voice from the direction of the wrecked truck. "--Christ..."

I exhaled in relief. Good. One live guy, at least. River started moving in the direction of the wreck, brandishing his rifle like someone who'd had long experience with it. Visions of a shootout flashed through my head, with River braced against the bed of his pickup, his rifle trained on whoever had been driving Monroe's vehicle.

Kara, Sage, and I followed him. He stopped at the front of his truck, waiting. I peered past River's pickup, my gaze drawn by a lone headlight pointing north, toward the highway we'd come in on. From what I could tell, Monroe's truck rested on its side, driver's door to the sky, maybe a hundred feet from us. Had he rolled the truck? Or did his momentum tip it that direction after he skidded, hit the berm, then landed, still traveling? And speaking of the driver, what was he doing?

"Hey," River called, into the darkness. "You okay?"

We all kept quiet, waiting for a response. Something that might have been scrabbling in dirt caught my ear. "Sounds like he's opted to keep quiet," I muttered.

River tried again. "Driver! You all right?"

Silence. River adjusted his stance, which made me even more nervous.

"Guess we'd better go check on him," he said.

I licked my lips and stared hard at the shape of the overturned truck. What if Monroe had a gun? What if Surano was with him and they both had guns? I glanced at Sage, who was looking at me, a question in her eyes. I shrugged, not sure what to do.

"They don't know who we are," Kara said. "We're just concerned Samaritans, wanting to lend a hand." She looked over at me.

"True," I said. "Flashlight?" I asked River.

"Yeah. Hold on." He leaned into his truck.

"You okay?" I asked Sage.

She nodded. "He's going to go over there," she stated, pissed.

"Probably. I'll go with him." I said it before I'd even thought about it.
"Excuse me?"
my rational self asked.
"You're going to do what? Why don't you just throw yourself off a cliff?"

"Ready?" River held up the flashlight--a big, heavy Maglite-- and I took it from him. "Maybe you'd better stay here," he said to Sage. "Simmons'll be here soon."

She frowned.

"Look," he continued. "If they're hurt, we're assholes for not helping. And if they don't know who we are, then we'll be okay."

Sage looked at him with an expression that I swore I'd seen in a movie, on Godzilla right before he fried something.

"Nestor could be over there." He was almost pleading, a younger brother trying to get his implacable older sister to agree with him.

"River's got a point." Kara inserted herself between River and Sage. "Somebody's got to check on the truck, and somebody's got to stay here in case Simmons comes. I don't think anybody should go over there alone, and I don't think anybody should stay here alone. So River and K.C. can check on the truck and you and I can stay here, running interference."

"This is messed up all around. But that's the most logical solution." I looked at Kara to avoid Sage's Godzilla eyes and flicked on the flashlight. "We'll be right back," I said, then started walking. Please don't let that be my "famous last words" line, I thought, as River joined me and we started picking our way around the sage and cactus toward Monroe's truck.

"Be careful," Sage called after us.

"We will," I called back, thinking that I really needed to pee, that I wished I'd never heard of Farmington, and that I had super powers. I thought of Chris, then, and hoped that when this was all over, she'd still speak to me.

"Anybody there?" River directed the question to the truck, a dark hulk looming about thirty feet distant against the night sky. "Hello?" He was holding the rifle in such a way that he was prepared to use it. I swallowed hard and shined the flashlight's beam on the truck. It was, indeed, lying on its side, driver's door to the sky. The roof was facing us, so we couldn't see into the cab.

"Shit," I muttered. We'd have to go closer so we could look inside the cab through the windshield. I shined the flashlight over the back. No sign of anyone, and that creeped me out far more than if I saw a body.

"Hey," River tried again. "Anybody in there?"

We both stood, waiting. Something that might have been a soft groan greeted us.