Kylie Brant - The Last Warrior

Delaney quickly found herself losing track of time, as she stopped by vendors and got wrapped up in conversation. One woman explained at length how she wove the brightly colored rugs she displayed and what the figures on them symbolized. She was more than happy to pose for some photographs when Delaney asked, and even agreed to talk to Delaney at a later date, when they’d have more time to discuss the craft she’d learned from her grandmother before her.

There were booths displaying old items rather than new, and Eddie explained that some of the vendors engaged in what would most accurately be called a swap meet. Others sold used goods, and business seemed to be brisk.

As promised, Eddie eventually led her to the booth with “the best” corn cakes and while he wrangled good-naturedly with the pretty girl selling them, Delaney stepped a little ways away and took more pictures. The crowd was thinning a bit, the sun merciless overhead. She caught sight of a little girl, no more than three or four, and she smiled, enchanted when the child grinned in return.

Delaney indicated her camera. “Would you like to take a picture?” The girl swiftly turned to check with her mother, who was on the other side of the booth straightening the turquoise necklaces and rings. At the woman’s nod the child scampered over. Delaney helped her cradle the camera, showed her how to look through the optical viewfinder and take a picture of her mother before she straightened and looked around for Eddie. It wasn’t the sight of her guide flirting with the clerk, that caught her attention, however. It was the man standing a couple hundred feet past him.

The ground seemed to rock beneath her feet. She closed her eyes, reopened them, expecting to discover that the man was a stranger, like the rest of the people in the crowd. But he wasn’t. He was the man in the composite the police artist had done. The completed sketch of the person who had shot at her, days before.

Without conscious thought she moved closer to Eddie’s side, blocking the man’s view of her. He was four or five booths down, on the same side of the street. She peered around Eddie’s form, waiting to get a better look at him.

After several seconds he faced the vendor, holding up two hatbands and talking rapidly. While the clerk brought out another tray of wares to show him, the man glanced around, giving Delaney a full view of his face.

Her last shred of doubt was dashed. This was the man who’d wielded the rifle. She shifted again, before he could catch sight of her. “Here you go.” Eddie turned and handed her a piece of corn cake. “Best taste and the best price. You’ll thank me later.”

“I’ll thank you now if you’ll do something for me.” She gave him a nudge to get him to move a few inches away. “Look to your right at the man picking out hatbands.” She sighed as he looked past her. “No, your other right. There. See him? Black hat? Red-and-black shirt?”

“The guy buying the concha shell band? He’s getting ripped off. Sheballa does the best workmanship, but I don’t see him here today. He’s usually set up at the end of this row.”

“Eddie,” she whispered urgently, “Concentrate! I want you to take my camera. Saunter closer, casually,” she stressed, “and act like you’re taking pictures of the vendors and the wares. Make sure you’ve got him in every picture you take, but don’t act like you’re taking his picture. Got it?”

“Not really.”

She took the corn cake and tripod from him and shoved the camera in his hand, showed him how to focus and snap the shot. “Quickly. Before he leaves.” Giving him a little push, she faded behind a trio that stepped up for an order of fry bread and Eddie looked around, seeming a little lost.

In a moment, however he raised the camera and ambled away. Delaney let out a breath of relief. Her plans for the rest of the day abruptly morphed. She wanted to get these pictures to Joe, to see if he agreed that the man was the one they were looking for. She moved to keep Eddie and the man in sight, while still keeping people between them.

The stranger was leaving. Eddie continued to snap pictures, as she walked up behind him. “Let’s see what you got.”

The guide looked at her oddly, but handed over the camera and took a piece of the corn cake she held. “Okay, do you want to tell me why a guy buying a hatband is so important for your book? Because if you’ve got a thing for hats, I’ve got a half dozen of them at home, all with better-looking bands than the one that guy bought.”

“Sorry.” She set down the tripod and viewed the pictures he’d taken, surprised at the number he’d managed with clear shots. “Nice job. Maybe I could make a photographer of you.” Then she happened across one plainly focused on the bosom of the girl they’d passed earlier on the way to the market. “Or maybe not.”

“I said I was flexible,” he reminded her, his mouth full of corn cake. “Never said I was blind. Or stupid. What the heck is going on?”

She started strolling in the same direction as the man they’d photographed, heading away from the flea market. “I think I know that man from somewhere.”

“So instead of going up to talk to him, you take secret pictures of him.” He took another bite, swallowed.

“Well, he sort of tried to kill me a few days ago so I’m not feeling especially friendly. C’mon.” She hastened her stride, keeping her head down. “I want to follow him.”

But Eddie had stopped in his tracks. “He tried to kill you? Why?”

With an impatient gesture she hurried him along. “I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t like photographers. Maybe he prefers blondes. Whatever his motive, I’d like to find out, wouldn’t you?” There was no use telling him what she knew about the man’s motives, which was depressingly little. “The police are looking for him and I want them to find him, so let’s go.”

They trailed him for a block or so, lagging well behind, but keeping him in sight. When he got into a pickup Delaney attached the zoom lens to her camera. She stepped into the street, brought the camera up again and took several pictures as he was driving away.

Eddie watched her, clearly at a loss for words. “Well, now what? You still want to go to Monument Valley?”

“Maybe later.” She lowered the camera, staring after the truck pensively. “First I need to go to the police.”

“You’re getting to be a popular guy, Joe.” Vicki Smith didn’t bother to try and hide the curiosity in her gaze when she showed Delaney and a strange man to the computer he was logging off of.

He rose, looking from Delaney to the man he assumed was the guide the council had hired for her. “I thought you were going to Monument Valley today.”

“We were. But first we went to the flea market. You’re not going to believe this. Look.” She held the LCD screen of her camera up to him and began flipping through the pictures Eddie had taken.

He looked obediently, his brows rising when he saw one in particular. “I’m not sure that young lady would appreciate your interest in her cleavage.”

Her sigh was exasperated. “Men. Look at the guy in the hat. Does he seem familiar to you? At all?”

Joe looked closer, and recognition flickered. “Maybe. Let’s get these on the computer screen for a comparison.”

He shot a look at the man standing silently behind them. “And you are?”

“That’s Eddie Bahe. My guide. Eddie, special investigator Joe Youngblood.”

Bahe, who had looked more than a little uncomfortable since he’d come in, looked distinctly more so as Joe continued to stare at him. He smiled weakly. “I’m going to be helping the lady out while she’s on the Rez.”

“Don’t tell me. That was your handiwork we saw on the camera.”