In the Barren Ground Page 9

  Oh, Jesus—when was she going to cut a break?

  Pulse racing, Tana shoved through the people massing around the fight. Another chair went flying. Glass tinkled. It crunched beneath her boots. The floor was slippery with spilled drink.

  “Step aside, RCMP.”

  No one seemed to hear her.

  “Police!” she yelled. “Step aside!”

  As she got deeper into the fray she recognized the two men at the center of the melee. The big young gun on the attack, his long black hair flying loose, eyes psychotic, sweat gleaming, was Jamie TwoDove—the man she reckoned had made the bracelet Selena Apodaca had been wearing when she was killed. Like a lunatic he was laying into Caleb Peters, the band chief’s son. Blood oozed from a cut on TwoDove’s brow. Peters was trying to defend himself while two guys grappled to pull TwoDove off him. A row of glasses went smashing across the bar. A woman screamed. The bartender bellowed. He was waving a baseball bat and looked red enough in the face to use it at any moment. Bar stools went crashing. A man crawled along the floor. Tana tripped over him and went down hard. She halted her fall with bare hands. A shard of glass sliced her left palm. She slipped again in beer, cursing as she shoved herself off all fours and back onto her feet, being jostled in the crowd. Several guys were now yelling: fight, fight, fight, fight!

  She heard the sickening crunch of a fist connecting with flesh and cartilage.

  Adrenaline exploded through her. She grabbed the guy in front of her by the collar, yanked him aside. He spun around, and threw her a left hook. His knuckles cracked across her cheekbone before she saw it coming. She was blinded for a moment, sparks of light firing through her brain, the blow resounding against the inside of her skull. A coppery taste leaked down the back of her sinuses. She grabbed her baton, and swung it across his shoulder. “Police! Everyone stop. Stand down. Put that music off!” she yelled at the barkeep.

  He didn’t seem to hear.

  A guy with a massive beard got TwoDove into a stranglehold. TwoDove kicked wildly to free himself, going purple in the face. More stools went flying as his boots connected with them. Someone grabbed TwoDove’s legs. He started to howl, spittle foaming onto his lips, chin.

  “He’s gonna die if you cut off his air like that—let him go,” a woman screeched.

  Tana muscled into the fray, going for her pepper spray, but before she got off a blast, an explosion rocked the air. Sound slammed against her eardrums. Deafness began to ring in Tana’s ears. Her eyes watered.

  Everyone fell silent in shock.

  Dust, bits of wood wafted down from the ceiling where the deer-horn chandelier swung.

  “Turn that music off!” she yelled, pointing at the barkeep. She spun around, heart thumping, looking for the source of the gunshot.

  O’Halloran stood just inside the doorway, shotgun in hand, eyes narrowed, body stiff.

  “Put that down,” she commanded him. She was shaking, blood leaking down her cheek. Everyone was silent, watching. Apart from TwoDove, who was being muffled while his legs thumped against the bar counter.

  “You heard the officer,” O’Halloran said. “Everyone step back. Party’s over.” He did not put the gun down.

  Tana hesitated. She didn’t trust him. Her brain raced. Civilian safety was her number-one priority. TwoDove was in medical distress. She needed to get him out of here. She swallowed, holding O’Halloran’s gaze, silently warning him to stay in check, then she turned and pushed through to TwoDove, going for her cuffs.

  As she got one of his wrists cuffed, he flung her off with superhuman strength, like nothing she’d ever experienced. She went flying like a small flea, backward and into the wall. The impact punched the breath out of her lungs, and for a second she was winded, immobile.

  TwoDove bent over double, and like a bull he barreled full-bore for Tana’s stomach. She went for her baton again and swung her hips sideways in an attempt to avoid the impact, but his massive shoulder connected hard with her waist. She grunted. TwoDove crashed into the wall as Tana smashed her baton down across his shoulders. He staggered, and dropped to all fours on the glass-littered floor. He panted, struggling to regain his breath, drool stringing down from his mouth. She grabbed his hair, yanking his neck back as she pulled his cuffed arm behind his back. She reached for his other arm, pushing him flat to the ground with her knee. Shoving his head to the floor, she cuffed his other wrist.

  Breathing heavily, she said near his ear, “Jamie, can you hear me?”

  He gasped for breath.

  “Listen to me, Jamie. Focus.” She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t want anyone to hurt you. I know about Selena, okay? I know you’re having a hard time. Jamie?”

  He stilled at the sound of Selena’s name. “Jamie, can you hear me? Nod if you can hear me.”

  He gave a small nod, started crying. “I’m Constable Larsson. I was with Selena and Raj earlier today. I was coming to find you, to talk to you. It’s okay, I know you hurt. I know you’re mad at the world that this could happen. But I’m going to help you through this, okay? Did you hear me, Jamie?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re coming with me. I’m going to take you where you can sleep this off. I’ll get someone to look at the eye of yours, okay?”

  He began to sob deeply. His muscles, the iron-like tension in them, easing.

  She got off him, helped him to his feet. She was shaking inside. Adrenaline pounding. “Okay, we’re going to my truck outside, nice and easy. You understand?”

  Tana steered him toward the door. People stepped back in silence, watching. Some dude near the pool table whistled. Others laughed. She knew they were judging her. Testing her. She knew she’d made a mistake going into the fray like that on her own. But shit, what in the hell …

  O’Halloran remained standing in the doorway, blocking her way. She reached him. His gaze locked with hers, and a smile curved slowly across his mouth. “Not bad, officer.”

  “Put that thing away, understand?” she said quietly to him.

  The grin tugged deeper at his lips, and his eyes danced. “That your way of saying thank you?”

  “I was doing fine.”

  “Were you?”

  She pushed TwoDove past him, and out of the doors, started down the stairs with him. The cold air was bracing and welcome. Her dogs yipped and whined in the back of her truck.

  TwoDove broke loose suddenly and ran, hands behind his back. She took off after him, slipping on ice, her dogs barking like crazy. Maximus launched out of the truck bed and chased, his teeth latching onto TwoDove’s pant leg as Tana reached and grabbed him.

  TwoDove kicked at Max, who growled and shook the pant fabric. “Fucking dog—get that fucking dog off me!”

  “Hey, hey, listen to me, I’m on your side. Jamie.”

  “Get those fucking wolves off me. Fucking wolves …” He began to sob again, and Tana realized he was amped up on far more than just booze and grief. She propelled him toward the truck. The light bar on top was still pulsing red and blue into the night, chasing garish color over the snow. She yanked open the back passenger door, placed her palm at the back of his head. “Get inside. Mind your head.”

  She shut him in, where he was safely behind the grid in the rear of her truck cab.

  “Max, come here, you okay, bud?” She crouched down, and felt along his ribs. He squiggled and licked her face. He seemed fine. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But next time you better stay in the truck, or you’re going to get me in big trouble, okay, boy? Come, hop.” She opened the tailgate for him, hooked her arms around his belly, and hefted the big old guy into the truck bed where Toyon wiggled with glee.

  She slammed the tailgate shut.

  Music had started back up inside the Red Moose. Northern lights danced softly in the sky, above the speared tips of an army of black spruce. Her lights continued to strobe the night air.

  Great big judders suddenly took hold of her. Then dizziness. She g
rasped the top of the cold tailgate with both hands, gripped hard, and rested her head on the backs of her hands for a moment, catching her breath and orientation.

  “You okay?” She jumped. Her gaze shot toward the sound. O’Halloran. He stood outside the saloon, on the porch of the Red Moose. Studying her. Shotgun in hand. Her police lights throwing the craggy shape of his face into flickering relief.

  No smile now. Something very still about him.

  “You okay?” he said, again.

  “Fine.” Angry for allowing him to have witnessed her moment of weakness, she started around her truck for the driver’s-side door.

  He thumped down the stairs in his heavy boots, came crunching over ice toward her. She reached for the door handle, but he clamped his hand firmly over her wrist. She froze. Glared at his hand.

  Wind caught her hair and she realized it must have come loose from the neat bun at the nape of her neck.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said, so softly it threw her. “Look at me.”

  She did, slowly.

  He hesitated. Then cupped the side of her face, and angled her head to the light. “Needs a stitch, or five.” She felt his warmth, his breath, the cold roughness of his palm. He smelled like soap. His calloused thumb wiped a trail of blood off her cheek. He seemed to come closer, even though his body made no movement at all.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re very fine, Constable Larsson.”

  “Step back.” She yanked open her door, and wavered, dizzy. She clutched onto the door for balance, wishing to hell he’d just go away. Damn him for coming out here, for zeroing in on her weak, lonely moment. For seeing her like this.

  “I saw you take quite a blow to your gut. Your hand is hurt, too.”

  She breathed in, deeply, then out, nice and slow, taking a moment to commandeer her balance, her focus. But a sudden raw fear sliced across her mind. A new fear. Her baby. Was her baby all right? Emotion burned sharp into her eyes.

  He touched her elbow, and she snapped her body tight and upright, heart racing back up to speed. “Stay clear, please. Do not touch me.”

  “Get into the passenger seat,” he said. “I’m driving you back—”

  “Not on your life, bud.”

  But his touch on her elbow remained steady. “Come.”

  “You need to step back, sir. This is an RCMP vehicle. A civilian does not drive this vehicle.”

  “So says the officer of the law,” he said quietly. “A strong Mountie who can stand against the wild, wild northwest all by herself. Well, let me tell you something, Constable, the rules, they don’t quite apply out here. Do they?”

  Another wave of dizziness seized her. She braced her palm against the truck, feeling sick suddenly, sick as a dog. She hung her head down, trying to get the nausea to pass.

  She felt his hand move to her shoulder.

  “Get in. I’m taking you to the doc.”

  “There is no doctor in town,” she said.

  “Figure of speech. The clinic. Nurse.”

  “I need to get TwoDove into lockup. He needs medical attention. You can’t drive this vehicle. You can’t—”

  “Then we’ll get him into lockup, and I’ll bring the nurse to you both.”

  She closed her eyes. God help me. I need to do this—I do need to see a nurse. I need to tell someone I am pregnant. Wind wafted the tendrils of hair that had come loose across her face. She felt her vision going. She felt the gentle touch of her gran’s hand in the soft sough of the breeze, a Dogrib elder who’d helped raise her when her father had finally taken Tana away from her mother …

  You can’t do everything alone, Tana, my child. You need to learn how to ask for help. You need to let people help you. Everyone needs a tribe. Man is not strong without tribe …

  But allowing a civilian to drive a police-issue vehicle? She’d be in such shit. She was already in shit. She started to pass out. Low blood sugar. She needed something sweet. Food. She’d hardly had any of Big Indian’s stew. No sleep for days, really …

  He caught her as her knees buckled. “Come.” He took her arm, led her around the truck, helped her into the passenger seat of her own cop truck. And there she sat, with her prisoner in the back who’d fallen asleep and was snoring noisily. O’Halloran closed the passenger door. The window was open at the top and she was grateful for the cool air. He turned his back to the truck and stood a moment with his shotgun at his side. It was as though he was fighting something inside himself—a rugged, lone, northern cowboy silhouetted against the eerie pulse of red and blue light outside. And she heard him say, “Fuck it!”

  Then he whirled around, marched across the front of her truck, climbed into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door.

  He sat silent for a moment, then reached across and flicked off the bar lights like it was something he did every day. He fired the engine.

  As he drove, Tana put her head back and closed her eyes as she tried to fight off the rolling waves of dizziness. The way her body was taking control frightened her. It made her feel so damn vulnerable.

  “So, you don’t want to fly cops, but you’re okay to drive them?” she said with her eyes closed.

  He didn’t reply.

  Tana realized that the last time she’d let someone care for her, just given over to him in a way that had made her vulnerable, was with Jim. It had been the first time in her life that she’d truly trusted a man would care for her. With respect. With love. And he had. And look where that had gotten her.

  Her head pounded.

  “Sin! Sin, sin, sin … Selena … sinned!”

  Her eyes shot open. She spun around. TwoDove was babbling in his sleep. Drool shone down the side of his mouth. His eyes fluttered open suddenly and then seemed to roll back inside his skull before his lids shuttered closed again. Worry pinged through her. She glanced at O’Halloran.

  “What’s he on? Do you know?”

  “’Shrooms.”

  “Mushrooms?”

  “They’re occasionally hallucinogenic. Especially if combined with tons of alcohol.”

  “I suppose you supply those, too?”

  No mirth toyed across his mouth now.

  “The locals gather them in the fall,” he said. “They dry them, make tea. Old Twin Rivers tradition.” They neared the tiny Twin Rivers church, a peeling, white clapboard building with a small wooden spire and a cross on top—legacy to the Catholic missionaries who had once tried to save the indigenous peoples of this place. O’Halloran turned the wheel, taking the truck into what passed for Main Street. In summer it was a wide strip of gray, glacial dirt and gravel. It was now white, hard-packed snow and ice, flanked by clapboard buildings, a portable library, cabins, the clinic, the Twin Rivers General Store and Diner. The diner windows were ablaze with yellow light, and a rainbow of Christmas lights twinkled along the eaves. A group of youngsters huddled outside, smoking, cigarette tips flaring orange in the night.

  “They’ll have my badge for this,” she said softly, watching the kids as the studded truck tires crunched down the snowy street.

  “You try to police urban style out here, Tana, on your own like this, it’s going to break you,” he said, as quietly.

  She turned to him in shock at his use of her first name. His profile was rugged, harsh. His hands strong on the wheel.

  “Like it broke the others,” he said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Crash helped Tana shuffle Jamie TwoDove up the stairs. Jamie was a big-ass dude, his weight heavy on their shoulders. They managed to maneuver him into the police station, and toward the small lockup wing that contained two cells. Her dogs followed them in, nails clicking on the wooden floors.

  Jamie stumbled and Tana paused, breathing hard.

  Crash glanced at her.

  She was quite bloodless and strained-looking under dusky skin. Soft, dark hair escaped messily from what had once been a controlled bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes, he noticed, were a warm mahogany brown. Up close, he
r lashes looked very soft and thick and long.

  “Let me do this,” he said softly.

  “I need to get him into the cell myself. You stay here.”

  He snorted. Stubborn woman. Feisty as all hell. Showed no fear. He let her take Jamie, watching closely as she battled to manipulate the massive young man into the cell. The room was tiny with a narrow cot and a small barred window up near the roof on the back wall. Through the bars Crash could see the undulating green light in the sky. Tana edged Jamie backward and onto the small bunk. She guided him down onto the mattress and into a prone position with his head turned sideways on the thin pillow so that he wouldn’t choke on his own drool, or vomit, should he throw up.

  “You okay there, Jamie?” she said, smoothing hair off his face.

  Crash was struck by the gentleness in her touch, the compassion in her tone for a guy who’d just tried to beat the shit out of her. And whom she’d just whacked with her baton.

  “I’m going to lock that cell door, okay, and fetch the nurse to take a look at you. Then you can sleep it off and we’ll talk in the morning.”

  Crash leaned against the wall, folded his arms, crossed one boot over the other, and studied her through the cell bars, intrigued. He told himself part of the reason he was still standing here right now was because he’d made it his business to know exactly what was going down in this area of the north, and who was playing and buttering up whom. He was also interested in learning what, exactly, had triggered TwoDove—why he’d laid into the chief’s son like that. Ordinarily Jamie was a pretty docile guy. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to get a good read on how capable a cop she was going to be in town, and how that might screw with his own plans.

  Jamie moaned, then muttered, “Never have, she shouldn’t have … place of bones … Bad … Bad, mess with the lonely ones. Told Caleb. Bad shit. Bad move … lovely bones …”

  Crash frowned.