off the blacktop, Diana Ladd suffered a momentary panic.
For years, she had steeled herself against the possibility of Andrew Carlisle's coming after her in the same way she had prepared herself for the possibility of a snakebite. With Carlisle, as with the neighborhood's indigenous snakes, you assumed a certain amount of risk and did what you could to protect yourself.
Rattlesnakes rattle a warning before they strike, and so had Andrew Carlisle. The last time she had seen the man in the hallway at the courthouse, he had mouthed a silent threat at her when his accompanying deputy wasn't looking. 'I'll be back,' his lips had said noiselessly.
Over the years, she had learned to live with that threat, treating it seriously but keeping her fear firmly in the background of her consciousness. Most of the time, anyway, but the arrival of unfamiliar cars always brought it to the forefront.
The tires bounced down the rough, rocky road, and the headlights caught her in a piercing beam of light, blinding her, trapping her silhouetted against the night sky. She stood there paralyzed and vulnerable, while fear rose like bile in her throat.
From near the base of the ladder, she heard Bone's low-throated warning growl. The urgency of the sound prompted her to action, jolted her out of her panic. The headlights moved away. In sudden pitch darkness, she scrambled clumsily toward the ladder.
'Bone,' she called softly, hoping to reach the ground in time to catch the dog's collar and keep him with her, but the tall, gangly hound didn't wait. Still growling, he raced to where the rocky, six-foot wall with its wooden gate intersected the corner of the house. The wall would have stopped most dogs cold, but not the Bone, a dog with the size and agility of a small mountain goat. Bounding from rock to rock, he scrambled up several outcroppings to the top, then flung himself off the other side.
As the car pulled to a stop in the front drive, the dog hurled himself out of the darkness toward the car, lunging like a ferocious, tooth-filled shadow at the front driver's side tire. Using the dog's attack as cover, Diana slipped into the house unnoticed. She was already in the living room when the trapped driver laid on the horn.
Cranking open the side panel of the front window, she called, 'Who is it?'
The driver must have rolled down his window slightly, because the dog left off attacking the tire and reared up on his hind legs at the side of the car, barking ferociously.
.'Call off this goddamned mutt before he breaks my window!' an outraged voice demanded.
'Who is it?' Diana insisted.
'Detective Walker,' the voice answered. 'Now call off the dog, Diana.
I've got to talk to you.'
As soon as she heard the name, Diana recognized Brandon Walker's voice.
A sudden whirlwind of Memory brought the buried history back, all of it, robbing her of breath, leaving her shaken, unable to speak.
His voice softened. 'Diana, please. Call off the dog.'
She took a deep breath and hurried to the door. 'Oh'o. Ihab,' she ordered in Papago, stepping out onto the porch.
'Bone. Here.'
With a single whined objection and a warning glare over his shoulder at the intruding car, the dog went to her at once and lay down at her feet.
Brandon Walker switched off the headlights and the engine. Cautiously, he opened the door, Peering warily at the woman and dog waiting on the lighted porch.
-Are you sure it's all right? Shouldn't you tie him up or something?
That dog's a menace.'
'Bone's all right,' she returned, making no move to restrain the animal.
'Why are you here? What do you want?'
'I've got to talk to you, Diana. There's been an accident.'
'An accident? Where? Who?'
'Out on the reservation. Your son David's been hurt.
Not bad, but - - .'
'Davy? Oh, my God. Where is he? What's happened?'
Hearing the alarm in Diana's voice, the dog rose once more to his feet with another threatening growl. Diana grabbed Bone's collar and shoved him into the house, closing the door behind him.
With the dog safely locked away, Brandon Walker moved closer. 'It's not as bad as it sounds,' he reassured her quickly, 'but the Indian Health Service doctor can't do anything about either treating him or letting him go until they talk to you. Your phone isn't working.'
Diana's hand went to her throat. She looked stricken. 'I forgot to put it back on the hook when I quit working.'
She started toward the house, leaving him standing there.
'Wait. Where are you going?'
'To call the hospital and get my car keys,' she said.
Two minutes later, she emerged from the house and headed toward her car, a tiny white Honda.
