Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(8)

8


For every one of his forty-seven years, Tribal Police Sergeant Jim “Tall Bear” Pino had lived here on the Santa Clara Indian Reservation. For more than half of that time he had been a tribal policeman.

It was hardly normal procedure for non-tribal police departments to call Indian police on things that were not considered Indian affairs. But Yolanda Martinez, a 911 operator for the Espanola police, was his third cousin by marriage, and she had sounded spooked.

Always, when they were children, Yolanda had come to Tall Bear whenever she needed help or reassurance. He had been the big brother she never had. While the years had sent them their own families and their own paths to travel, Yolanda and Tall Bear had remained close. Tonight, a dread premonition had made Yolanda call him and play the 911 recording over the line.

Although the Espanola Police had several squad cars on the way, Tall Bear was on duty and he was closer to the intersection described in the call. Tall Bear's tribal police cruiser was a Jeep Cherokee that had traveled country that most people thought only a man on a horse could reach. While he would never win any road races in the vehicle, it allowed him to use roads across tribal lands, which shortened the distance to his desired destination.

Crossing one last cattle guard, the Cherokee's wheels spewed a cloud of dust as Tall Bear left the dirt road to climb up onto the pavement of New Mexico Highway 30. There was no traffic tonight, and he did not switch on the police light bar atop the vehicle. No use broadcasting his imminent arrival.

As he rounded the bend in the highway from which the junction of Highway 30 and Highway 502 were visible, Tall Bear discovered the reason for the complete lack of traffic. A small line of cars and trucks were stopped at a roadblock just west of the road junction.

Switching on his flashing police lights, Tall Bear maneuvered the Cherokee around the waiting traffic, through the Y intersection, and west along Highway 502. The roadblock consisted of a couple of unmanned construction barriers with blinking orange lights. Perhaps a hundred yards beyond the barrier, at a bend in the road, the lights of a police vehicle cascaded through the woods.

Odd. Even the local police departments never set up haphazard roadblocks such as this. There should at least be one deputy manning the point where traffic was blocked.

Tall Bear eased the Cherokee off the highway, around the barriers, and then back onto the pavement again, moving the vehicle forward much more slowly now. If his black hair had not hung to his waist, it would certainly have been standing straight up on his head. He was close enough now to see the flashing police light bar in the woods to the side of the highway clearly, but he could see no other vehicle lights.

Why didn't the police car have on its headlights and parking lights?

As he angled the Cherokee toward the spot, Tall Bear got the answer to his question. There was no police car. The flashing police light bar had been connected to an automobile battery and hung from a tree branch to make it appear that a police car had pulled into the wood line.

Suddenly, the night air seemed to take on a chill that had not been present moments before. The 911 message had said there would be death here. As he stared at the flashing light bar in the tree, Tall Bear believed.

Leaving his own police lights flashing, Tall Bear grabbed the heavy flashlight from the floorboard, touched the handle of the 45-caliber revolver that hung in its holster, strapped to his side, and moved into the woods. Within seconds, he was away from the lights, moving west, parallel to the highway, a shadow among the shadows.

As a small boy, Tall Bear had worshipped his grandfather. The old man had taught him to hunt and fish, not with rifle and pole, but in the old ways of their people. His grandfather had instructed him to read trail sign, to understand what the earth said with each bent blade of grass, with the sudden silence of the insects, with the faint smells that hung on the breeze.

So few of the young people cared to learn the old ways now. They had been seduced by the call of the white man's world, lulled by the lethargic drone of the television, hunting only on an Xbox. But Tall Bear had stayed true to his ancestors, passing the old knowledge to his own sons. Here in the dark woods, as he moved silently among the trees, the voices of the ancients whispered to him.

The curve in the highway swept Tall Bear beyond sight of the roadblock, although a flicker of police lights lit the tips of the tallest trees. Continuing westward, the smell of cordite brought him to a halt. Someone had been blasting, although this smell was different from the dynamite used by road crews. It wasn’t gunpowder either.

He was close now. The scent of spilled diesel told him that much. From high up on the ridge above, the sound of a helicopter rose in volume as it passed overhead before banking away to the north.

Tall Bear stepped to the edge of the road, trying to catch sight of it, but if it was up there, it must have been flying without lights.

Now that he had stepped out of the wood line, Tall Bear could see a light shining up into the trees from the far side of the road, no more than a hundred feet from where he now stood. It was a headlight.

Crossing the highway, Tall Bear moved more quickly now. Whatever the danger, there had been a wreck and the possibility that someone lay injured in the wreckage pulled him forward.

As he got closer, the extent of the accident became clear. A truck had left the highway at high speed, its momentum wrapping the cab around a tree, sending the overturned trailer sliding past the cab in a motion that had almost ripped it free of its moorings.