than be in the clutches of that man.”
Suddenly, the cruel, leering face of Felix Tighe, a homicidal wacko who tortured her until she was rescued by David Grale and company, flashed in her mind and she shuddered with fear and revulsion. Kane would be much worse. “I can’t go through something like that again, do you understand, Ned?”
Ned Blanchet, high school dropout, steady ranchhand, a cowboy straight out of the pages of American mythology, looked at the woman he loved, realized what she was saying-
Lucy smiled. “Oooh, you know when you do that Western man thing it gets me all hot and bothered.”
Ned touched his index finger to his straw hat and threw an extra heaping of country on his twang, “Well, ma’am, you’re jist gonna haf-ta rein in that lil’ mare in heat and pay attention,” he drawled. “I’ve been trying to conjure up a way to save our hides, and I might just have come up with something.”
When darkness had fallen, the sliver of the moon still behind the mesa, Ned slipped from the cabin. Squirming forward like a snake, he dragged along a milk gallon jug full of kerosene he’d siphoned from the cabin’s lanterns. Every couple of feet, he stopped to listen; he didn’t hear anything, which made him think there wasn’t much time left.
He doused the hay bales with kerosene and started to turn back for the cabin when he spotted the other man crawling toward the house. Ned had been obscured by the bales or the man might have seen him as he wormed his way past only fifteen feet away.
Drawing his gun, Ned picked up a pebble and tossed it so that it struck the man on his head. “Pssst,” he whispered, not wanting to shoot a man in the back. Faster than he’d anticipated, the terrorist tried to turn and bring his rifle to bear. But the heavy slug from Ned’s Colt knocked him into the next world.
Ned sprang up and bolted for the cabin. Fortunately for him, the other attackers were surprised by the sudden shooting and didn’t know if it was their man or one of the defenders who pulled the trigger. Their aim was off by the time they figured it out and tried to stop Ned from reaching the door.
Ned burst through the door and rolled across the floor as bullets slammed into the wood. Jumping up, he yelled to Lucy, who was standing over by the window directly opposite the hay bales, “Wait until I give the word.” He tossed her his Colt, grabbed his old rifle, and moved into position next to the window on the other side of the door. “Okay, now,” he said.
Lucy stepped in front of the window and aimed the flare gun he’d given her earlier from his emergency gear at the spot she thought would be right for the hay bales. She pulled the trigger. The flare streaked across the yard and, skipping once off the ground, struck the bales, which went up with a
The sudden explosion of light caught two of the terrorists halfway across the yard to the cabin. Blinded by the intensity of the fire, which caused their night-vision goggles to overload momentarily, they were sitting ducks for Ned, who shot them both before ducking back.
Ned looked out and saw two more terrorists running from the shadows toward the house, their guns winking red flashes as bullets crashed into the logs on the front of the cabin and came in through the window striking the back wall. Lucy dropped the flare gun and fired the Colt.45 over and over, attempting to hit anyone trying to make his way to the door.
Trying to jack another bullet into the chamber, the old rifle jammed. Ned looked up just as one of the terrorists started to throw something. The man stumbled but still managed to toss whatever he was throwing forward. Ned heard it bounce off the cabin just before it exploded with a deafening clap and a flash of brilliant light, knocking him against the back wall.
Stunned and half-blind from the blast, Ned looked over at Lucy who was frantically trying to reload the revolver, just as the door of the cabin was kicked in. One of the attackers stood there with his rifle aimed at Lucy. He held his fire and instead swung his gun over to Ned.
At the exact moment Ned expected a bullet to end his life, the man lurched forward a step, dropping his rifle. He looked down, as if in amazement, at the razor-tipped arrowhead and six inches of shaft that protruded from his chest. Dropping to his knees, the man murmured,
Ned and Lucy looked at the dead man, not comprehending. But they were grinning a moment later when they heard a familiar voice from just outside the cabin door. “Ned, Lucy…don’t shoot. It’s John Jojola.”
“Yahoo!” Ned shouted. “It’s the cavalry!”
“Don’t be insulting,” Jojola answered stepping into the cabin. “It’s the Indians who are saving your pale butt.”
“One of them is a Vietcong Indian,” Tran added, slipping in behind him.
“Okay, yahoo, it’s the Indians and Vietcong,” Ned laughed.
“If you guys are finished talking nonsense, I’d like to get out of here,” Lucy said. “It’s been a really long day.”
Jojola turned on his flashlight, the beam of which caught Lucy standing half-naked in her bra.
Ned whistled. “Yeehaw! Now, that’s what I call a nice pair of hooters.”
“Hooters?” Lucy hissed. “Ned Blanchet, you’re a dead man.”
The room went dark again as Jojola turned off the flashlight. The door opened and a dark figure ran out of the cabin. “Not if you can’t catch me,” Ned shouted over his shoulder.
“Here’s my jacket,” Jojola said, holding it out in the direction he’d last seen Lucy.
Lucy’s angry face loomed out of the dark and into the partial light from the moon and stars outside. She glared at Jojola. “Men,” she muttered, then left the cabin yelling, “Ned, you cowardly piece of shit, you get your ass back here so I can kick it.”
Over by the cottonwood tree a “coyote” yipped with glee. Then laughed. Then Ned howled in pain. “Damn, getting shot hurts.”
19
John Jojola’s dead…and they tried to kill my kids. Karp stood near the witness stand, waiting for the hearing to start, anxious for it to start and take his mind off the news from New Mexico. It was three days later, but the anger still boiled up inside his gut until he had to force himself to look about the courtroom just to keep from hitting something.
Fortunately, everyone else was also occupied. Guma was behind the prosecution table but with his back turned to Karp as he leaned over the bar in earnest conversation with Detective Fairbrother.
Over at the defense table, Emil Stavros sat surrounded by his defense team, trying to look involved though his three main attorneys hardly acknowledged his existence while they conferred behind him. Stavros was wearing a bright orange jail jumpsuit, having been locked up in the Tombs ever since violating the conditions of his bond. The judge had agreed with Guma’s argument that the little jaunt to upstate New York proved he was a flight risk. Every once in a while, one attorney or another would lift his head and peer over at Karp or Guma, like a quarterback surveying the opposing defense from the huddle, then go back to talking strategy.
Or lunch plans, Karp thought, surveying the defense lawyers. Someplace they could be seen by the media, like the Tribeca Grill. They’d protest that they weren’t supposed to comment,
Three days since the attack in New Mexico and Karp was still fuming. Marlene had gone to Taos to check on her daughter and Ned, and more tragically, to attend the memorial service for John Jojola. According to the
