84

Standing in the front room of the old trading post and looking out the now-broken front window, Liana watched the scene play out using the pair of field binoculars. She supposed that she should’ve been looking down the scope of the enormous black rifle, but the powerful machine scared her. She was, of course, qualified in handguns, assault rifles, and shotguns, but the power of a .50 BMG caliber sniper rifle was a whole other world than what she had experienced. The recoil of an AR-15 was almost nonexistent, but the Barrett kicked like a professional soccer player was practicing on her shoulder, almost dislocating it with her earlier shot. Still, with the situation escalating, the time was coming when she would have no choice but to slide in behind the scope.

As Frank moved closer to John Canyon, she had also moved closer to the Barrett rifle. She wondered if it was possible for this thing to tear her arm completely off. Could it break her collarbone? The concussion wave had given her a headache after one shot.

The rifle smelled of gun oil and the remnants of packing grease now cleaned away.

When, still looking through the binoculars, she saw Frank pull the pin on Tobias’s grenade and then leap to the side, Liana didn’t hesitate. She tucked the butt of the rifle tightly into her shoulder pocket and sighted down the scope. One of Canyon’s thugs was starting to head around the truck toward Frank. She sighted in on a place in front of the young man, and having no more time to consider broken collarbones or dislocated shoulders, she squeezed the trigger and unleashed one of the massive bullets into the truck bed just in front of the young thug. He fell back in fear as the truck seemed to have been smote by the hand of God.

Then, within the blink of an eye, the spot where the blockade had stood became a rolling mushroom cloud of fire, smoke, and dust. Taking her eyes away from the scope, she saw vehicles flipping over as they were blown upward like they weighed nothing. As the dust settled, the fire gave way to clouds of smoke. She couldn’t see much of what was going on even when looking down the powerful scope.

A part of her was glad that she couldn’t see what was happening. Not only for the fact that she didn’t want to see Frank bleeding out or unconscious, but also because she really didn’t want to have to use the Barrett against anyone down there. They were mostly kids. Kids from her community.

But then she supposed that most of them were actually her age or older. She was certainly capable of making her own choices, and so were they. She thought about what Frank had told her regarding ghosts coming back to haunt you. The Diné people believed that, when a person died, all of the bad things they had done could be left behind in the form of what they called a chindi. It was a tragedy to have someone die in a home, as the hogan would need to be torn down, and most Diné were hesitant to be in the presence of a corpse under any circumstance. For fear of the chindi following them home.

She wondered if the ghosts Frank had warned her about were the chindi of all the people he had killed, following and tormenting him. She didn’t want that for herself, but she also wasn’t about to sit out this fight. This was as much her battle as it was Frank’s. Perhaps even more her battle. John Canyon might’ve done a lot of good for their community and created a lot of new jobs for the reservation, but he also corrupted and twisted people through the business he conducted, his real business, the transporting of drugs that would be a blight upon the youth of the belagana and the Diné alike. He was a criminal, and she was a cop. It was her responsibility to do something.

But what could she do. She scanned the area through the scope of the rifle, but she could only make out vague shapes moving within the fog.

She needed to do something. She needed to get down there. Frank could be hurt. He could be dying. But this was also the opportunity to turn the tide, and Frank and his brother needed all the help they could get. After a few seconds of trying to find a target through the scope and seeing nothing but a cloud of smoke that only seemed to be getting thicker, she screamed aloud in frustration. Dropping the rifle, she paced the floor a few times to get her brain working. Think Liana, she told herself. But in the end, all she could really come up with was to grab one of the AK-47s they had procured from Canyon’s men and run down the long drive as fast as she could. The more she thought of that idea, the more she didn’t like it. She would be exposed for a long time, and by the time she reached the blockade, the fight would have been over.

She needed a faster way to get down from the top of the bluff, where the old trading post sat, to the base, where Canyon had erected his barricade. She needed something that could traverse that distance fast, something with wheels.