Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(47)
He cracks one eye open. The skin around it is already turning black and purple, the swelling forcing it closed. “I didn’t know you cared, Mags,” he whispers through dry, bloodstained lips.
“I don’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I turn away from him to watch the road.
We’re silent as we speed out of town and into the open desert. The red rock cliffs of Tse Bonito give way to low rolling hills, wide expanses of drought-brown earth and dry scrub. The sky is clear, a sacrilege of spotless brilliant blue, all signs of fire and smoke lost as the miles pile up behind us. After a while Kai speaks again, his voice thick and wheezing like he’s having trouble breathing. “Where are you taking me?”
“Woman I know owns a place out in the Checkerboard Zone. Land out there is still broken up from the Allotment Period—one acre’s Navajo land, the next bilagáana land, and she’s on the kind of land where CWAG and Navajo cops aren’t welcome. More importantly, her place is behind twenty feet of razor wire and half a dozen AR-15s. Assuming she lets us in, it’ll give us a safe place to figure out what to do.”
“Assuming?”
“Grace Goodacre can be hard to read. We’re not exactly friends, but she’s known as a safe place when you’re running from the law. If there’s anybody she hates in this world, it’s the Law Dogs.”
I look over at Kai. He’s watching my fingers drum nervously on the steering wheel. I still my hands. “I’m bringing some serious heat her way,” I say by way of explanation. “I just hope she’s feeling generous today.”
Kai nestles down in his corner between the seat and the door. He closes his eyes again, wincing as spasms of pain cross his face. “You’ll convince her,” he says. “I have total faith in you.”
I bite my lip and give the truck more gas, not nearly as confident in our welcome. I check the rearview mirror for the third or fourth time in the last minute. It’s still clear. No one is chasing us. But I can’t relax until we’re inside somewhere safe and hidden and Kai has someone to look at his injuries. Then I’ll let myself think about what to do next. About Longarm. About Tah.
“He’s dead, Maggie.”
Kai’s eyes are open and fixed on me. I try to swallow, but something is stuck in my throat. He sags a little and turns away to gaze out the window to the distance beyond us.
“You don’t know that.”
“Longarm said he saw his body.”
“Longarm’s a fucking liar.”
“Why would he lie? I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you loved him like family.”
“No.”
“I—”
“There’s Grace’s place,” I say, cutting him off. I point with my lips to the structure coming up on our left.
There, in a clearing off the side of the highway and otherwise in the middle of nowhere, sheltered behind metal fencing three times as tall as the tallest man in Dinétah and tipped with circles of razor wire, sits Grace’s All-American. The All-American is a bar. More of an oversize shack, really, it is approximately eight hundred feet across and half as deep, sheeted in gray paneling meant to resemble wood but mostly just looking like the aluminum siding that it is. A vintage neon sign blinks OPEN or CLOSED depending on the time of day and the juice in the generator, and plastic banners older than the Big Water declare the All-American THE HOME OF THE KING OF BEERS. Of course, Grace doesn’t serve Budweiser anymore since St. Louis drowned along with the rest of the Midwest, but the sign remains, optimistic. Everything else about the place screams “Abandon All Hope!” There’s only one way in and one way out through those metal gates, and that’s through the heavily armed guard in the bulletproof gatehouse.
I slow the truck, pulling up to the entrance. I roll down the window and come to a stop.
A black kid, no more than fourteen, steps out of the gatehouse. He’s decked out in full-on military fatigues and combat boots, and he points an automatic rifle at me. He has light brown skin and an incongruous mass of red kinky hair and bright freckles, and his hands are more like puppy paws around that gun, but I know better than to underestimate him.
“You look like your mom,” I say, greeting him.
“Bar doesn’t open until sundown,” he says, his voice unimpressed.
“I’m not here to drink. I’m here to see your mom.”
He frowns. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Maggie Hoskie. She knows me.”
The kid looks me over. I can see his keen eyes evaluating me, taking in the shotgun on the back rack, the blood smeared across my face and hands, and finally resting on Kai, who has closed his eyes and seems to be sleeping again. “What the hell happened to him?” he asks. “He’s not dead, is he? He looks like shit.”
“He’s not dead. Law Dogs got him.”
Something in the kid’s shoulders relaxes, and he grins, looking like the teenager he is. “Fucking Law Dogs,” he says, mustering all the outrage of someone who’s never had to deal with them up close.
“Yeah,” I agree. “You think we can get in and see Grace now?”
He has an old-fashioned walkie-talkie strapped to his belt, and he pulls it out and turns away from me to talk to whoever is on the other end. With his back to me, K’aahanáanii whispers to me that it would be simple to pull the Glock I still have tucked in my pocket and put a bullet through the back of his skull. Of course, the other guards would come running, and I know whoever is dumb enough to kill one of Grace’s sons won’t get far. But Freckles would still be dead.