Desperado Lawman

“No!”

Connor’s arm shot out as she stumbled by him. Almost losing her balance, she struck blindly out at him.

“Let me by, Connor. I’m going to be—”

Five years ago she’d gone backpacking in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Tess recalled. It had been in the weeks following the Joy Gaynor incident—which was why, on her third morning out, she’d found herself standing on a ledge a hundred feet above a valley staring into the charcoal predawn and waiting for the sun to show itself over the horizon before doing what she’d decided to do.

The sun hadn’t shown itself. Instead the heavens overhead had split open with a crash so loud that she’d clapped her hands to her ears in pain and had nearly fallen from the ledge.

But she hadn’t fallen, and the dozens of lightning strikes that had lit up the mountains over the next hours hadn’t touched her. It had been as if some Great Being had chosen that way to show her that her time to die wasn’t upon her yet, no matter what she’d intended.

When the storm had passed, she’d hiked out of the mountains, had driven back to Albuquerque and had handed in her resignation at work—just a formality, since she’d known she no longer had a future with any legitimate newspaper. Within days she’d landed her job at the Eye-Opener, and although she’d known she couldn’t put the past completely behind her, gradually she’d learned not to dwell on it.

But she’d never forgotten how that first crack of lightning in the Sangre de Cristos had sounded, Tess thought now—as if the very mountains themselves were being split asunder. So, as Connor jerked her backward, her first thought was for Joey, still hiding under the metal bedstead and a prime target for any bolt of lightning following the one that had just lit up the night in front of the motel unit, so close to Connor’s parked sedan that it actually seemed to have come from the car.

Her second thought was the realization that what she’d just seen wasn’t lightning at all, but an explos—

“Take cover! The gas tank’s going to blow next!”

Before she could react to Connor’s hoarse command, a deafening whump! came from the vicinity of the sedan. Tess had a glimpse of the car lifting off the pavement before a towering fireball of yellow flames hid it from view.

“Dammit, woman—down!”

One strong arm snugging her tightly to his body, his other hand spread protectively wide against the back of her head, Connor pulled her to him. She felt herself flying through the air, his arms around her.

They hit the motel room floor heavily a heartbeat later, Connor on the bottom and taking the brunt of the fall. In one swift movement he hooked an ankle around the nearest leg of the dresser, yanking it in front of them, but not before Tess felt a stinging sensation in the back of her thigh.

Against the front of the dresser she heard several fast thuds, as if tennis balls were being volleyed at it. Across the room the telephone jingled once and smashed to the floor. With a high, icy sound of glass shattering, pieces of the dresser’s mirror flashed around them, while sheered-off metal from the explosion outside turned into flying shrapnel.

The bed was in the safest area of the room, shielded by the half-open door of the unit from the storm of debris. Thank God she’d told Joey to hide under there.

From the parking lot outside came a metallic groaning noise that ended with a jarring crash. The abrupt silence that followed was broken only by the roar of flames.

“The car just collapsed onto its axles,” Connor muttered from somewhere near her ear. “You okay?”

He was still holding her, but as he spoke he loosened his grip and peered intently into her face. Tess nodded.

“I…I’m okay.” She heard the tremor in her voice and changed her nod to a shake of her head. “No, I’m not okay. How could I be? I…I killed a man, Connor. He was going to kill us and I didn’t have any choice, but I took a life. I killed a man.”

“You killed my car. I killed Malden,” Connor said abstractedly. He began to get to his feet. “We’ve got to get Joey out of here before the police arrive and decide to engage in a jurisdictional pissing contest with me. I’d win, but I don’t want to waste time getting into it with—”

He paused, his glance sharpening on her. Swiftly he sank back down beside her and took both her hands in his. “I killed him, Tess. I fired just before you did, and my bullet caught him in the upper chest. Your bullet was lower, which was why it ricocheted off the pavement into the car’s gas tank.”

The apparent lack of emotion in his voice was belied by his tight grip on her fingers. Virgil Connor wasn’t the man she’d first seen him as, Tess thought slowly, her gaze locked on his. She had the sudden certainty that he wasn’t even the man he saw himself as. He’d glimpsed her horror at the belief that she’d been responsible for taking Malden down, and some part of him had needed to take that horror away from her.

He got to his feet, pulling her up with him. She saw the spasm of pain that crossed his features, and realized with a start that a similar spasm had involuntarily crossed hers.

“You’re hurt.” His brows drew together. “Where?”

“My leg twinges, that’s all. I think I pulled a muscle when we landed on the floor.” He was all business again, she noted. She followed his lead. “Forget me, what about you?”

As she spoke she remembered what had happened just prior to Malden’s death. She bit back a gasp.

“You were shot, weren’t you?” Placing one palm on his chest, she began to draw aside the right lapel of his jacket. His hand clamped around her wrist, but too late to stop her.

Beneath the suit fabric one whole side of the formerly white shirt was drenched in blood. This time her gasp was audible.

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor,” she said decisively. Releasing his lapel and shaking off his hand, she stepped out from behind the dresser. “Joey!” Ignoring the state of the room, she sped over to the relatively untouched area near the bed and knelt beside it. “Joey, it’s safe to come out now. Are you all right?”

“I think so.” Amazingly, as the nine-year-old scooted out on his back from under the bed like a mechanic from under a car, his eyes shone with excitement. “Wow, that was something, huh? What happened—did they use a rocket launcher or—”

His mouth dropped open as he surveyed the room. “Holy sh—”

“They didn’t use a rocket launcher,” Tess interjected quickly. “And Joey, listen to me—both of those men who came to hurt us are dead. One of them doesn’t—” She took his hands. “One of them doesn’t look so good, so when we walk out I want you to keep your eyes on me, okay? This isn’t like in the movies, and I don’t want you to see it.”

Partly visible, hunkered down on the other side of the door, Connor was covering Petrie with a blanket. But she didn’t want to take the chance of Joey catching sight of anything that might fuel his already-disturbing nightmares.

“Okay, Tess.” Joey swallowed. He squared his shoulders, his gaze still on hers. “I won’t look, but I’m not sorry they’re dead. They came here to kill me, didn’t they? They prob’ly didn’t figure on running into you.”

Connor had been right, Tess thought helplessly. She should have nipped Joey’s hero-worship of her in the bud two days ago, but now wasn’t the time to set him straight. She stood.

From somewhere farther down the row of units came raised voices, the first she’d heard since Connor had opened the door to Malden and Petrie. Obviously, some of the motel’s guests were gathering the courage to investigate.

“I guess they didn’t,” she said weakly. “But Connor was the one who mostly fought them off, and he got hurt. We’re going to have to take him to a hospital right away.”

“No, we’re not.” Connor strode toward them. “For all we know those two weren’t working alone. We’re going to put some distance between us and this place, and then I’m going to contact Jansen again and arrange a secure meet.”

Before she could protest, he went on, his tone impatient. “It’s not your call, Tess. Come on, let’s go.”

The body by the door was just a shape beneath the blanket Connor had thrown over it, and although Malden still lay outside on the walkway, mercifully his prone figure was obscured by shadows. Still, as she hurried Joey by, Tess found herself envying Connor’s seeming unconcern.

He was Belacana, non-Navajo, she reminded herself. To him a dead body was just a dead body. Even if he understood what an Enemy Way was, the concept of a warrior undergoing a ceremony to rid himself of the ghosts of those he’d killed wouldn’t fit his logical view of the world.

She didn’t know how much credence she put in the old beliefs herself, she thought unhappily as they headed across the parking lot. All she knew was that she wished she had some—

“I got corn pollen,” Joey said beside her in a small voice. His backpack slung over his shoulder, he fumbled under the grimy neckband of his tee. “I think you’re supposed to sprinkle some on your tongue and your head. That’s what Mac told me when he gave it to me, anyway.”

“Mac? John MacLeish?”

Connor was ahead of them, but from the stiffening of his posture as she spoke, Tess knew he’d heard her reference to the man the FBI was hunting. Too bad, Agent, she thought with a spurt of defiance. If you think I’m going to take this opportunity to see if Joey’s memory’s starting to come back, you’re wrong. Right now us two Dineh have more important business to attend to.

“Yeah. He said the worst thing that could happen to a man was if he forgot who he was and where he came from. He told me I should be proud to be one of the People.” Joey glanced up. “Some kids had been ragging me, calling me a dumb Indian.”

“I see.”

She did see, Tess thought. The hardscrabble environment of the streets was a perfect breeding ground for ignorance and racism; although also, from what she understood Joey to be saying, equally a place where a homeless man’s rough kindness could reveal itself in giving the gift of pride to a child. For the first time she found herself wondering what kind of person the mysterious MacLeish was. A killer, yes, judging from the Agency’s case against him. But he’d seemingly behaved with compassion and sensitivity toward the boy.