Aimée Thurlo - Restless Wind

“Did you tell him where the hogan was?” she asked.

“No, I said I didn’t know. There was something…off…about him and I trust my instincts. But I noticed that he spoke to some of the other customers, so it’s possible someone else gave him that information.”

She got directions to Hastiin Dííl’s medicine hogan, then stood up and thanked Jonas.

“Dana, you be careful out there,” he said. “I know you’re in the thick of things right now, and from what I heard on the news, you have some bad people looking for you.”

“One of those bad people might be the guy in the baseball cap. If he’s still hanging around, will you try to delay him?”

“You bet I will.”

When they returned to the store area, the man in the cap was no longer in the building. Dana hurried out to the sedan and was soon on her way. As she pushed the car along the pothole ridden road, the Carrizo Mountains ahead and just to the west, she began to wish that she’d taken Ranger’s truck instead. The sedan might have been able to do one hundred on the highway without a problem, but on this type of road, she needed the suspension system of a truck. The car bounced along in protest, sounding as if it were ready to fall apart any second.

As she came out of an arroyo, Dana caught a glimpse of a plume of dust rising high into the air behind her. Someone was following her. Maybe the man in the cap had spotted her, waited within sight of the parking lot, then gone after her once she’d left.

Despite the danger, there was one bright spot. If the guy had managed to get Hastiin Dííl’s location, he wouldn’t have been following her now. He would have taken the lead.

There was no way she was going to lead him to the Singer, so she pulled off the road where it crossed a shallow arroyo, then drove down the center to a spot where it curved. Slowing down to a crawl, then coming to a stop, she turned off the engine, got out of the car and waited where she could see the road from behind cover.

Soon, a brand-new, red pickup roared past, traveling at a fast clip. Though it was a test of her patience, she returned to the car, climbed inside, then remained stationary for another twenty minutes, listening. Nobody came back from the direction she was heading, so the red truck had continued on.

Finally, not willing to wait any longer, she drove back out to the road, grateful she hadn’t gotten stuck in the soft sand. This terrain was difficult and, since she’d been without a cell phone, she would have had no way of calling for help if she’d become stranded.

Watching the ground ahead anxiously, Dana flinched when she heard a loud bang, like a gunshot. Almost simultaneously she heard a loud pop just to her left, followed by a whoosh just outside. The steering wheel nearly jerked out of her grip as the car abruptly pulled to the left.

Her left front tire had obviously gone flat and it was no accident. Stopping now would be suicide. She was under attack. Struggling to maintain control, Dana let off the gas, fighting the impulse to hit the brakes as the vehicle slid downhill at an angle. She couldn’t afford to roll the car.

Glancing in her side mirror, she saw a man running after the car, rifle in hand. Another one carrying a pistol was coming from her left, running to intercept her car. She stepped on the gas pedal and the engine roared but the car just fishtailed. There was no way to pick up speed on this terrain with a flat.

It was time to bail. Dana swerved hard to her right, hit the brakes and jumped out. She raced up the canyon, hoping the car would block her from any more gunfire. All she had to do was make it around the curve in the big wash. Hearing the distinct whine of a bullet passing overhead, she ducked and ran even faster.

Dana tried her best to stay on hard ground and not leave a trail as she searched for a place to hide. She wasn’t armed and although she could defend herself, her chances against two armed men weren’t good.

The only thing working in her favor was that they clearly wanted her alive. Otherwise, they would have both blasted away at the car when she slowed down to enter the arroyo. They wouldn’t have aimed for the tire, either.

That gave her some hope. Trujillo undoubtedly knew about her photographic memory, and the attack meant he was pulling out all the stops to get her back and force her to tell whatever she remembered. Of course after they were finished, they’d kill her, just like they had Hastiin Sani.

Dana kept moving-slowly, and in a crouch-and stayed in the shadows offered by the nearly vertical fifteen-foot-high sides of the wash. Her chances were slim, especially if she was forced into a sandy part of the arroyo that would show her tracks, but she refused to give up. She stood still and listened. Less than a hundred feet away was the man with the pistol searching for her footprints on the hard ground, and the one with the rifle was at the top rim of the arroyo, watching with binoculars.

Before she could decide what to do, Dana felt a stirring in the air and, out of the corner of her eye, saw a fleeting shadow. Suddenly Ranger stepped out of a narrow crevice in the arroyo, less than three feet away.

Her heart was hammering frantically but before she could say a word, he placed a finger to his lips. He indicated with a thumb the approximate location of the two men, then gestured ahead to the center of the arroyo. It was piled high with windblown tumbleweeds the size of washing machines.

Ranger moved into the bramble and Dana followed. It had seemed impassable but, somehow, Ranger found a pathway through the thicket.

They made headway quicker than she’d thought possible, circling and ducking beneath the sticky barrier. She could hear the men behind them, feeling their way along, cursing constantly, but still closing in. Her heart pounding, she looked ahead for Ranger’s truck, but it was impossible to see any farther than ten feet ahead.

“Through there,” he said and pointed.

They reached the truck moments later. He’d parked in a wide, shallow part of the arroyo, near where the road paralleled the wash. Ranger dove behind the steering wheel as she climbed in and fastened her belt. In a heartbeat they were on the move.

She kept her eyes on the road behind them, but no one pursued. “I don’t understand. Why did you come after me after I took off? You don’t even trust me, yet you risked your life for mine again.”

He paused for a moment before answering her, searching for the right words. “You’ve been holding out on me,” he said at last. “I’ve known that all along. But I still trust my instincts about you.”

Tears of frustration stung her eyes. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t tell him what she knew. Her dying friend had trusted her with his biggest secret and she wouldn’t let him down.

“How did you find me?” she asked at last, her voice as unsteady as she felt.

“I was ordered to give you a chance to run away. I’ve been tracking you for hours. I didn’t know where you’d go, but I was sure it wouldn’t be to Trujillo,” he said. “And I know you didn’t stop to call him, either.”

“Who ordered you?” she pressed.

“I can’t tell you. In fact, I’ve probably said too much already.”

She nodded slowly, understanding. From everything she knew about him, he was a man of honor. She had a feeling that Ranger’s name had been on the portion of the list she hadn’t seen. But there was no way for her to know for sure. If Ranger really was a part of the Brotherhood of Warriors and she asked him outright, he’d deny it. He had his own loyalties and oaths to honor, too.

“ Trujillo wants me-and it’s not because I’m his friend,” she said at last.