Jenna Kernan - Shadow Wolf

“Yeah, well, I don’t like sending my guys home in body bags.”

Kino wanted to tell them they weren’t his guys but wisely kept his mouth shut.

Rubio spoke again. “That rattle in the wound might link this to the Cosen murder.”

“Oh, this again?” Barrow threw up his hands. “Listen, that was ten years ago. And their father wasn’t crossing the border—he was found in his home. I know because I looked it up.”

“He had a bullet wound in his chest and a rattlesnake rattle plugging the hole,” said Kino. “Just like that guy.” Kino pointed at the body being stowed in the refrigerated truck.

“Right. So it has to be the same guy. Where’s he been for ten years?”

“I don’t know. Prison? Or maybe no one noticed the rattles. You don’t do autopsies on all the bodies.”

“We do on all the ones with bullet holes,” said Barrow.

Kino glanced at Clay, who shrugged. For reasons he did not understand, Clay seemed fine with letting their father’s killer go free. At least, he wasn’t driven to find him. None of his brothers seemed to share his coal-hot need to bring this guy down. Restless spirits haunted the living. That was what his grandmother believed. Kino believed it, too, because his father’s murder had haunted him every day for all ten years since Kino had witnessed his death.

Barrow turned to Rubio. “I request a copy of their report.”

“Report?” said Clay. Thus far they had been blissfully free from paperwork. That alone almost made up for the heat.

His captain rubbed his neck and glanced at Barrow.

“I’ll get you something.”

“What about my witness?” asked Kino.

“ Your witness?” Barrow snorted. “You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t sue your ass. Don’t think she’ll want to see you again.”

“She’s the only one who’s seen his face,” said Kino.

Captain Barrow stopped, turned and glared. “You think I missed that part?”

“No, sir. She can identify him.”

“Yeah?”

Kino nodded. “So she needs protection.” Unless she was one of them. He pushed that unwelcome thought aside, not wanting to consider Lea as a criminal. But she had broken a lot of rules.

“I’ve already arranged for tribal to keep an eye on her overnight. She’ll be at the station for a while yet. I want to speak to her.”

Rubio turned to Kino. “So this guy took the drugs. He’s either robbing the smugglers or he was their contact. That makes him local. This is his territory.” Rubio looked to Barrow. “Roadblocks?”

“In place. And an APB on the vehicle.”

“Sir.” Kino spoke to his captain. “I’d like to volunteer to keep watch over the witness tonight.”

Rubio’s brow arched. “You’re a Shadow Wolf, son. Not local tribal police or border patrol. That’s not our job and this is not your murder investigation.” He pointed at the tire tracks leaving the area. “That’s your job.”

Kino opened his mouth to argue but his captain gave a slow shake of his head.

“He might come after her,” Kino said.

“He might. Tribal or border patrol will handle it. Either way, you’re out.”

Like hell, he thought.

Chapter Five

Kino should have let it go. But he couldn’t. Lea Altaha was the key to the entire thing. He could no more leave her be than he could drop the search for his father’s murderer.

“I’d like to help in the investigation. I’m a police officer.”

Rubio sighed and looked at Barrow. The border patrol captain’s face reddened.

“Not here you’re not,” said Barrow, looking to Kino’s captain for backup.

Rubio’s usually impassive face remained unchanged, but his eyes took on a hawkish quality. “BP inspects, detains, deports. ICE enforces and we look for signs.”

Barrow’s expression turned smug. “Exactly.”

Captain Rubio directed his comments to Barrow. “But as a Shadow Wolf? That means he sees things others can’t. And to use your own words, we’re supposed to be coordinating operations. So I expect to be kept in the loop regarding Altaha.”

“Hmm,” said Barrow. “Well, I’ve got to check those barrels and get those Tohono O’odham Indians off the warpa—” He glanced at Rubio, Kino and Clay. “Uh, all right, then.”

Barrow walked away.

Clay watched the BP captain retreat. “Was he about to say ‘warpath’?”

“Sounded like it,” said Rubio. “Americans. Still think they run everything, including this border.”

Rubio left them to go talk to the guys from ICE.

Kino met the cold look his brother cast him, a look that said Kino had, unfortunately, acted exactly as Clay had expected. His brother’s words replayed in his mind. They say go left and you go right.

Barrow had said that Lea was now their witness. Well, Kino needed that description. And that meant he would see her again.

Barrow was already having the barrels pulled down from the Oasis truck.

Kino nudged Clay. “What do you know about their captain?”

“He took early retirement up in Tucson. Police detective, I think.” Clay watched Barrow. “Been in charge here a few years. Guys say he’s a pain in the butt about procedure and, man, you better be where he tells you or else.”

So he had way more law enforcement experience than Kino did. He knew things, had seen things, but he wasn’t Apache. He couldn’t read sign.

Their captain returned, studying the ground as he approached. “You two think you can find that truck—the one with the missing back window?”

Kino and Clay nodded simultaneously.

“Check in if you find anything.”

Dismissed, the brothers climbed back into their SUV. From the twin-tread access road, they could see that the last vehicle leaving this way had turned south. So they turned south. Then they stopped at every turnoff on either side of the road, looking for matching treads.

One small road, that had been leveled once or so within the past six months, had a set of tracks coming from the highway and back into the desert. There had been another vehicle coming from the correct direction and the tread matched, so they followed the matching tread marks and ended up at a small ranch just inside the rez. The truck had pulled in here. A few hundred yards up, they found a squat little house, sheep pens, sheep and a pickup truck with the back window blown out. Clay covered Kino as he stepped out into the heat and examined the bullet holes. They’d found the truck. Now where was the driver?

“I’m calling Rubio.” Clay lifted his radio and spoke to their captain.

Then they headed for the modest one-story home that had the appearance of BIA housing written all over it. The bureau’s Housing and Urban Development oversaw most tribal housing and Kino recognized the look from Black Mountain. The structure was one floor set on a concrete slab, built from cinder blocks and painted the same drab brown as the sand. Someone had added a porch, which lilted and sagged. The plywood roof had been left unpainted as it darkened and curled. The windows were dirty and the paint was peeling. The yellowing stain on the door had all but worn off, exposing the lower portion of wood to the harsh sun. That was what happened when you had to wait for HUD to do the maintenance. Still, if it was anything like Black Mountain, even crumby housing was scarce.

Clay and Kino hadn’t reached the lopsided step when a man appeared in the half-open door. He was middle-aged, tall, slim, with a distended belly that said he liked beer more than food. He was white but the desert sun had burned him to a brownish pink, and the deep wrinkles on his work-worn face showed he didn’t spend all his time drinking. Although the red spider veins that covered his cheeks and nose indicated he had an earnest commitment to that pursuit. Kino wondered if he owned a sweat-stained straw cowboy hat.