Tribal Blood

Why didn’t they all just leave him alone?

The door opened and a hand appeared on the top of the driver’s-side window. Small, slim and gripping hard as if the driver had to haul himself out of the car. Colt lifted the rifle, using the scope to aim at where he knew the center of the driver’s torso would be in just a moment. Should he kill the bastard or just shoot out the windshield beside his head? He shifted between his two targets. This or that? That or this? A smile twisted his lips. He’d learned a lot from the US Marines but even more from the insurgents who had held him for three days.

And then the target’s head popped up above the door frame like a fox leaving its den. Colt’s hands went numb and he dropped his rifle.

It had been eighteen months, but he knew he would never forget that face. That was his former girlfriend, Kacey Doka. She’d tried to convince him not to join up after he graduated. Not to leave her behind. He had explained that if she wanted to get off the rez, this was their way. He hadn’t wanted to go because he loved it here, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But Kacey could and he loved her enough to try to give her what she wanted. It had cost him, deeply.

He had planned to give the signing bonus and his pay to her, but she wouldn’t take it. She wanted them to go together, but he had committed himself. How had he messed that up so badly? She had not answered his letters. When he’d finally made it back home on a psych discharge, her home was the only place he’d stopped before coming here. Kacey had left, her mother said, months ago. She hadn’t been back, wasn’t expected back. But she sure was back now.

Kacey glanced up the hill toward his position, the sunlight highlighting her black hair blue. Colt flinched. Had she heard him drop his rifle? He watched her glance back the way she had come. From here, he could not see much of the road because of the trees. But she would have a clear view.

What was she doing here after all this time? He’d been home for months. Had Ty called her? That thought made his stomach flip. The only thing worse than being a walking basket case was having Kacey Doka know about it.

“Colt?” she called to him.

He pressed his back to the flaking bark of the ponderosa pine and squeezed his eyes shut.

Go away, Kacey. Please.

“Colt, it’s Kacey!” She was shouting now. Judging from the sound, she was cupping her hands to her mouth to amplify her voice. “I need to see you.”

No, you don’t. Not like this.

Ty had sent her. Damn his meddling older brother. Colt had told him he didn’t want to see anyone. That he wasn’t ready. Had Ty given up hope that he was improving? But he was. He made it through more than one day without a panic attack. But the nights were very long. He knew his lack of sleep wasn’t helping. But he wouldn’t take anything that Ty had offered.

“I’m in trouble, Colt. Please, please answer me.”

Trouble?

Colt’s eyes opened as he pushed himself off the tree. What kind of trouble could she be in?

Was this a trick?

Despite her mother’s neglect, Kacey had done well in school, missing only when her mom took off, leaving Kacey to take care of her siblings. Ty told him that Kacey had been accepted at Phoenix University and planned to use her Big Money for as long as it lasted. Big Money was what they called the allotment of the tribe’s revenue distributed annually, but kept in trust for members under eighteen. The distributions often went for vehicles, something big and flashy. Colt noticed that there never was another new truck after that first one. He knew thirty-year-olds still driving that Big Money truck. So he had not spent his on a vehicle. Instead he kept his for them, him and Kacey. He figured his pay, his bonus and Big Money could get them a house right here on the rez.

He was certain that if he could get them their own place and provide her a real home, she would change her mind about leaving. To do that, he’d enlisted in the Marines. That was when she’d ended it between them. When Ty told him she’d gone, Colt had been expecting it.

Had she used her Big Money to run away?

She’d loved him once. He knew that. And he had loved her, which was why he wasn’t going to let her see him now. It would kill those feelings she’d held as surely as a snake crushes a baby bunny.

But he could see her. He’d give himself that at least. Just for a minute and then he’d go.

“I’m coming up there. Don’t you shoot me, Colt Redhorse, or so help me, I will tell your mother.”

His mother liked Kacey and she was worried about him. Ty had said so. And his mother wasn’t well. Why didn’t Ty tell him that Kacey was back? He could have used a little warning to prepare.

He heard the crunch of her footsteps as she crossed the gravel on the road. Her tread was slow and heavy. And she gave a cry as if she was in pain. Colt popped his head around the trunk of the tree. What he saw made his jaw drop.

Was Kacey pregnant?

She was! Very, very pregnant and she was holding her swollen belly as her face twisted into a mask of pain. His eyes widened. He’d seen that same expression on his mother’s face when she went into labor with his little sister, Abbie. He’d only been six, but the fear made the memory stick.

Was Kacey in labor?

That was impossible. You’d have to be crazy to come up here to deliver a baby. He craned his neck to see her as she momentarily disappeared from view behind the trees. She was heading for the trail they had used to climb up to his family’s cabin. She knew the way.

Kacey had been a part of his family, had spent more time living in his house than in hers. Not that he blamed her. But she’d go home when her sister Jackie or Winnie would come and tell her that their mom was gone again. Running drugs for the Wolf Posse, Ty said, taking her cut in either money or product.

Colt moved parallel to Kacey as she walked along the road toward the trail, catching flashes of Kacey between the tree trunks. She looked thin, despite her swollen belly, and pale as if she had not been in the sun in months. Her gait was a scurry that combined the side-to-side rocking motion of a woman far along in her pregnancy with a girl in a hurry. She held both hands under her belly. Why did she keep looking behind her?

Kacey stopped, hunched and turned toward the road. What could she see that made her eyes round and her mouth swing open like a gate? Kacey ran now. She ran to the woods and rock outcropping with a speed he would not have believed possible.

“They’re here! Colt, do you hear me? They’re going to take me again.”

Again?

Oh no, they are not.

Colt didn’t know who they were or why they were after Kacey. What he did know was that they wouldn’t succeed in reaching her. He had the high ground, a rifle with extra rounds and the will to kill anyone who threatened Kacey. He might be a mental mess, but he remembered what it felt like to be in love with her. But now that memory only made his chest ache and his breathing hitch. Whatever part of him that understood how to love a woman had died back there in Afghanistan. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t protect her. He would, with his life.

Colt moved to a position that gave him a good vantage of her car and waited as the second vehicle approached. Colt lifted the rifle, pressing the familiar stock to his cheek and closing his left eye. The crosshairs fixed on the gray sedan.

He felt centered, calm, relaxed.

The first shot sent a bullet at the driver’s side of the windshield. The glass should have shattered into tiny cubes but instead remained intact. The second shot went to the passenger’s side. If there was a passenger behind the windshield, he should now have a bullet in his head, but instead the glass showed only a tiny nick. Colt was using .38 long-range ammunition. That windshield should be compromised. But it wasn’t and he knew why. The glass was reinforced.

“Bulletproof,” he muttered.

He had not seen that since Afghanistan. This was a very expensive vehicle. From within the luxury auto, someone shifted the sedan’s gears and the car reversed direction with a spray of gravel.

Colt marched down the hill. When he reached the road, the car was turning around. He got two shots into the side of the vehicle with nothing but damage to the paint. He missed the shot at the rear tire. The next shot pinged off the rear window of the retreating sedan. Who the heck was after her?

Whoever it was, they had money—lots of money.

He put a hole in the license for no reason except as a final farewell and a good riddance. If they came back, he’d use a hand grenade on their asses.

Colt turned to the woods, where Kacey now stood beside the outcropping of rock she had used for cover. She bent forward at the hips, clutching her belly with one hand and the boulder with the other, eyes pinched shut. Colt had a sickening feeling that while he had been up here brooding over Kacey’s departure and collecting the bits and pieces of his mind, Kacey had been in real trouble. He was equally afraid she was going to have that baby right here and right now.

Chapter Two

“They’re gone,” Colt said, his voice slightly deeper than she remembered. He was at her side in an instant, rifle slung over his shoulder. His long black hair hung straight and loose past his shoulders. She met his stare, seeing the familiar espresso color of his irises, just slightly lighter than his pupils. His skin was bronze from the sun and his brows were thicker than she recalled, balancing the rich brown of his eyes and the symmetrical nose that seemed small by contrast to his wide mouth and full lips. The cleft in his chin looked deeper and his face leaner. He’d lost weight but gained muscle, she realized, making his body look harder and more dangerous.

She was safe. For the first time in months and months, she was safe and she was home. The joy bubbled up inside. She threw her arms around his neck, kissing him full on the lips. The warm familiar scent of pine and warm male skin enveloped her. He stiffened as their bodies met, his hands coming up to her shoulders, and for a moment she thought he would push her away. For another heartbeat, he hesitated and then he gathered her up and held her as his mouth took hers, deepening the kiss. She was home in his arms and everything would be—

He gripped her shoulders, increasing the tension as he pushed her to arm’s length. He stared at her, panting and feral, like a mad dog. Then he pressed his hand over his mouth and wiped away her kiss. The pain in her stomach morphed from sorrow at his rejection to another contraction. She grimaced and groped behind her for the solid security of the rock, seating herself as the contraction gripped her.

He was not the boy she recalled, the one who kissed her and told her that he’d come back for her. That boy had been joyful and optimistic. But the man before her was taller, leaner and harder than Colt Redhorse. There was a wildness around the whites of his eyes that reminded her of a mustang the instant he feels the rope cinch around his neck. Colt’s nostrils flared and he stepped back, his gaze sweeping down to her bare feet and then back up to her face.

She imagined what he must think, and the shame sent a guilty flush into her face, making it burn with heat. Kacey placed a hand on her distended belly and the other on the hollow below her cheekbone. Somehow in just over a year, everything had changed between them and they were strangers.

Beneath the skin, her muscles were contracting, sending pressure all the way around to her back. This one was worse. She hunched and groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.

“You shouldn’t do that. I’m not... I can’t.”

She heard the blast of air as he forcefully exhaled.

“They’ll come back for the baby.”

Colt glanced down the road in the direction of their retreat.

“Should I bring you to the clinic?” he asked.

Her reply was a shout. “No!”

Colt flinched. “All right. Where, then? Your mom’s?”

“They’ll look for me there. My sisters and brothers, I don’t want anything to happen to them.” Finally the pressure in her back eased and she could straighten. That was when she noted that Colt had one arm around her. The other she gripped, squeezing with a force that matched the contraction. She released his arm and saw the white print of her hand disappear as the blood returned to his forearm.

How long would this go on? It had been over an hour already.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Ty said you agreed to come home after your discharge if you could come here.” She didn’t mention the reason for his discharge. Had Ty told her that his kid brother had been a POW, rescued and returned stateside?

“So you came here looking for me?” Colt asked.

She lowered her gaze. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

He made a sound in his throat and then said, “I’m honored.”

Kacey’s mouth dropped open and her gaze flashed to him. Colt smiled down at her and for a moment everything was good again. He was here with her and she knew he would protect her.

She looked up at him, noting the unfamiliar breadth of his shoulders. His hair gleamed with good health. She reached up and fingered a strand, placing it on his chest and pressing it into place.

“They didn’t make you cut it,” she said. His hair still reached to his chest and she was so glad.

“Nope. Just made me wear it tied back and under my shirt or in a bun.”

“A bun?” Imagining that made her smile. He smiled, too.

His wide mouth drew back to reveal white, even teeth. He’d had the chip in the front repaired and now she could not even remember which tooth he had damaged. His jaw was more prominent, as were his cheekbones.

“You’re too skinny,” she said.

He pressed his mouth closed, still smiling as he nodded. “That’s what Ty says, too.”

“You see him? How is he?”

Colt shook his head. “I don’t talk to him.”

Her brow wrinkled. “But you said—”

“He comes sometimes. He talks to me. I let him see me. But I don’t speak to him. I don’t speak to anyone.”

Her frown deepened.

“But me?” she asked.

He blew out a breath through his nose. “I guess so.”

“How long have you lived like this?”

“Since they released me.”

“Released?”

Didn’t she know? But she didn’t. He could see it in the wide earnest expression that showed nothing but confusion. Well, he sure wasn’t going to tell her.

His lips went tight. He led her down to the car. “Let’s get you out of here.”

She took a few steps and then stopped. “I can’t go to one of the settlements or the police.”

“Why?”

“They’re looking for me. They’ll take me again.”

His eyes shifted and one hand went to the strap of his rifle. “Who?”

“Those two and I don’t know who else. I heard more of them. But I’ve only ever seen Oleg and Anton. Oh, and one other guy. I don’t know his name.”

“Oleg?”

“Russians.”

He looked back toward the road. “They have an armored car.” He swung the rifle before him, lifting it to his shoulder. “Plug your ears,” he said.

She did and he took a shot. The bullet punched a hole in the rear door of the car she had stolen.

“That one isn’t armored.” He swung the rifle so the strap held it behind his back. “Okay. Let’s go farther up into the ridge. There’s a second cabin.”

“Anyone know that?”

“Ty.”

“Let’s go.” She allowed him to help her to the car and flushed as he pulled the safety belt over her distended belly and clipped it in place. She sank into the seat, closing her eyes.

“How long did they have you?” he asked.

She turned to him, opening her eyes. “Since February.”

“February!” He straightened, his brow sweeping down over his dark eyes. That was eight months.

“Yeah.”

“Everyone said you ran away.”

“I didn’t.” She reached and gripped his hand. “Colt, there are more of us. More like me and they’re all from Turquoise Canyon.”

Now he was staring down the road where they had gone. “I could call Jake. Maybe he could pick them up.”

“You have a phone?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“They’ll kill Jake.” The next contraction built across her middle.

He gripped her door frame and glanced down the empty road. “But you said there were others.”

Her eyes widened. “Yes. Three others. They have Marta Garcia. She was in my class in high school. They took her before me. And Brenda Espinoza. She’s five months pregnant. And Maggie Kesselman. They’re all like me.” She motioned to her belly. “Marta’s due any day.”

“What will happen to them now that you escaped?”

A cold shot of terror ripped through her. “I don’t know.” But the possibilities terrified her.

“We have to tell Jake,” said Colt.

His brother was the newest hire on the tribal police force and she knew he could be trusted.

“I think so.”

Her back cramped. “Oof!” she said and clutched her middle.

“We’re getting you somewhere safe. But I need to find a woman to help you.”

“No. Anyone who sees this baby is in danger. Colt, I wish I could have thought of a way by myself. But I’m scared. I need your help.”

“But I’ve never—”

“Neither have I.”

He shook his head and she saw something she had not seen before in him: fear.

“Colt Redhorse, you left me once. Don’t you dare do that again.”

She’d told him not to go. She’d felt something terrible would happen to him. As it turned out, something terrible had happened to both of them.

“I promised to come back.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. But you were gone.”

She glowered at him.

“I’ll get you somewhere safe, Kacey. I promise.”

Kacey sighed. The air here was so sweet and clean. She thought of the musty basement where she’d been kept for months and shuddered.

“So, call Jake. All right?” he asked.

She nodded.

He rounded the hood at a run. A moment later, they were in motion on the rough road, heading back toward the center of Turquoise Ridge.

* * *

COLT HEADED FOR David SaVala’s claim. It was close and David could be trusted to deliver a message to Ty. Ty could get to Jake. Then Colt was going to take Kacey to his cabin and help her bring this baby into the world. Colt planned on keeping this car hidden but close in case he needed to get Kacey to a hospital. With luck, Ty would be here soon.

Colt had three older brothers and his younger sister. The oldest brother was Kee, newly board certified as a doctor. Colt wished he could bring Kacey to him, but she would not go near the clinic. He planned to find out why. His next oldest brother was Ty, who, unlike Colt, had made it through his service in the US Marines to be honorably discharged. His tales of the service had convinced Colt to join.

But Ty had not chosen to enlist. He had signed to avoid federal prosecution after he and their father were arrested for armed robbery. Ty had already been in the Wolf Posse, the tribe’s gang. The tribal leadership felt he needed discipline, so a deal was struck. Charges dropped if Ty enlisted. His father had previous arrests, so the tribe allowed federal prosecution. Now Ty lived between the gang who had claimed him and the family that couldn’t keep him from choosing that life. Ty had often said it was easier to leave the military than a gang.

Finally there was Jake, the newest member of the Turquoise Tribal Police and six years Colt’s senior. Jake had looked after him when their father went to prison. Colt had been lucky. He’d sort of had three fathers.

“Ty lives in Koun’nde. He has a phone. If I can get SaVala to lend me his phone, we can take it far enough to get service and call Ty and Jake. Then I can call Kee and ask him to come deliver this baby.”

She had her eyes closed again and was blowing through pursed lips. Sweat beaded on his brow.

“Kacey?” he whispered.

She turned her head to look at him, her cheeks puffing out and in as she blew.

“They won’t get you,” he promised.

Her head dropped to the headrest. He knew she was already nineteen, but she still looked like the girl he’d first loved, still loved. Why had he left her? She’d been right about everything. Something terrible had happened to him and to her. He’d been so sure that the Marines would be a shortcut to what she wanted, with money to provide the life away from her mother and the shadow of his father. He’d been trying to prove he was strong like his brother Ty and smart like Kee and good like Jake. But he wasn’t any of those things. He was a fragile wreckage of a man who couldn’t even talk to people since...well, since everything that had happened over there.

He hadn’t had the chance to be a hero. He’d just been taken like a sheep from a pasture to the butcher truck. Fate had made him the last lamb in line.

He pressed the web of his hand between his thumb and index finger to his forehead, trying to ease the pounding. He was in a car again and there was not enough air. He released his head to grip the wheel, bracing for the blast, waiting for it.

This time he’d be ready.

Colt was not going back there now. Kacey needed him. He was here on Turquoise Canyon and he had to stay focused. But he knew he wasn’t keeping the panic attack away. He was only postponing it. The doc at Walter Reed in Maryland said he needed counseling and put him on the list. With luck, it would be decades before they would get to his name, because he wasn’t talking about that with anyone ever. No one who wasn’t held by insurgents could possibly understand.

His gaze flicked to Kacey, who sat with her head dropped back on the headrest but turned toward him. She smiled at him, her face relaxed and her hands laced over her belly. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose braid that lay on her shoulder. Her once soft, round face had changed. Her deep brown eyes were still bright, but there were dark smudges beneath them. Her lips were full and pink, but her jaw and pointed chin seemed too prominent in her thin face. How much weight had she lost? Kacey had always been slender, but now she was skinny, way too skinny. How much had they given them to eat?

Not enough—clearly.

The rations that he’d been given during his captivity rose in his mind and he pushed the memory of that down. One sure way to be of no help to her was to think about that.

No one understood that the captivity wasn’t as hard as the memories that just would not go away. It wasn’t getting better with time. It was worse. Colt gripped the wheel. He hated cars, trucks, anything that rolled. No one in his family understood. They were worried, but they didn’t get it. He could not think about it, but he was stuck somehow. Afraid all the time.

Kacey was now looking in the side mirror, watching for trouble. Perhaps she could understand, he realized. Because she’d been a captive, too. But then she’d also understand that he was the very last person capable of helping her. That was why he was leaving her with his brother. Any one of his brothers was a better choice than him.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Almost there,” he said to himself as much as to her.

Chapter Three

Kacey’s body relaxed. The contractions were not as strong now, fading as if taking a pause. How long did labor last? Hours? Days? She didn’t know. Her mother just went to the clinic and came home the next day with a brother or sister. Kacey assumed that by tomorrow at this time, she would have a baby. But exactly what happened in the meantime was vague.

She’d learned about childbirth in high-school health class. At the time, the lesson seemed theoretical. The abstract phases of birth just one more thing to be memorized and spit back on a quiz. Stage I—Early Labor. Stage II—Active Labor. Stage III—hand the baby to a nurse and take a nap.

Colt pulled off the road and up a short turnoff that was composed of two ruts in the yellow grass. A cabin came into view against the ridge, sitting up on concrete blocks. The step before the front door was clearly slag rock from a turquoise vein. She was Turquoise Canyon Apache, so she recognized what base rock surrounded a vein of the precious blue stone.