Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(73)

“That what you’re trying to tell me, champ?”

Leroy took a few steps from the rail, the porch light framing him like a shroud. “Listen up good here, bubba. All I’m saying is, your own being harmed is surely cause to do hurt, but it’s a lot harder to win a fixed fight. You don’t catch yourself, you’re playing by their rules, just like I was, those times the belt should have been mine and I ended up holding my own pants up. You getting the point here, bubba?”

“If you’d known the fights were fixed in advance, would it have made any difference?”

“Not that I can see.”

“That’s my point, champ. The fight I intend to have tomorrow is something different altogether.”

“You’re talking about the minerals guy, looks like somebody glued some extra flesh on him?”

“And the man he’s working for, who’s hiding so much shit, he probably forgot where he put it all. Whatever I do to them won’t be enough, champ.”

Leroy Epps turned his empty gaze down the street an instant before Cort Wesley spotted the truck coming, slowing as it drew up to his mailbox before pulling into the driveway.

Cort Wesley realized Leroy Epps was gone and Caitlin was starting to stir, her eyes peeling groggily open and fastening on the truck just as the driver’s side door snapped open.

“Looks like we got company, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said, rising, as Ela Nocona climbed out of the driver’s seat of the truck and then dragged Dylan out of the back.





70

SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

Cort Wesley had carried Dylan upstairs to put him to bed, after a terse explanation from Ela.

“You want to be a bit more specific?” Caitlin said to her, listening to the sounds coming from upstairs.

“He got himself in a scrape with some of my cousins,” Ela explained.

“Involving drugs again? Peyote?”

“I think they maybe forced him to take some, yes.” Ela eyed the door. “I really should be getting back.”

“That would be back to the place where Dylan was assaulted and tied to a tree with baling wire, according to what you’ve just told me.”

“I can’t talk to you about this,” Ela said, reluctant to meet Caitlin’s gaze.

“Well, then, can you talk to me about why his assailants, these cousins of yours, left him out there, what they expected to happen next, exactly?”

Ela continued to avoid Caitlin’s gaze. “He was snooping around where he didn’t belong. They just wanted to teach him a lesson, maybe scare him a little.”

“Does that include forcing him to ingest a dangerous drug?” Caitlin felt her thinking veer, midsentence. “Oh, that’s right—you’d already forced him to do pretty much the same thing.”

“I didn’t force him to do anything.”

“And what about that Miraculous Medal of his that we found near the body of that construction worker?”

“What about it?”

“You think it got up and walked out of wherever the two of you were prior to that time?”

“I think Dylan lost the medal earlier in the day. I can’t explain how it ended up where it did.”

Caitlin could feel the heat rising behind her cheeks, a dull ache in her teeth from clenching her jaw. “And what do you suppose he was doing in the woods tonight, when he got jumped?”

“I have no idea. He snuck out after I fell asleep.”

“You do drugs when you’re at school, Ela?”

“Peyote isn’t a drug.”

“Oh no?”

“Not the way you mean it.”

“And how do I mean it? Or let me put it another way: How would you feel if those disabled kids you came back here to teach knew you were using?”

Ela had moved almost imperceptibly toward the door, putting distance between her and Caitlin. “Could you ask Dylan to call me tomorrow, please?”

“I don’t believe he’ll need me to remind him. And I’d like you to answer my question before you leave. Serious mind-altering drugs weren’t in Dylan’s vocabulary until last week, as far as I know. Would you like to tell me different?”

“I’m sorry,” Ela said, sounding as if she had to pull the words up her throat. “I’m sorry about all this. I don’t know what else to say.”

“How about that you’ve decided to tell Dylan to reenroll at Brown, now that the protest is over?”

“That’s up to him, not me.”

“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, when I stop by to sort out whatever happened on the rez tonight.”

“You’ve got no authority there, Ranger.”

“That didn’t stop my great-great-granddad, and it’s not about to stop me, either, not anymore. How about I start with those cousins of yours Dylan calls the Lost Boys? On account of the fact that I’m guessing they take their marching orders from you.”

Ela shook her head, looking almost bemused as she headed the rest of the way to the door. “Why would I tell them to tie Dylan to a tree in the middle of a peyote trip, only to let him go and bring him home?”

“I don’t know, Ela. Why don’t you tell me? Why don’t you tell me what your grandfather and everyone else on your reservation is hiding? Why don’t you tell me why there’s a secret chamber in a cave overlooking White Eagle’s land that looks like something from a horror movie?”