Jake was never so glad to see Kai as now. Once she crawled away from the ledge, he ran into the cave to help her to her feet. The air inside the cave was dusty, but a helluva lot more breathable than that outside. Kai’s hair was in disarray, and a light coating of dust covered her from head to toe. She coughed violently a few times and sat up as he trotted toward her.
She had the biggest grin on her face as she took the pouch from her vest. “We got it!”
Jake pulled off his bandanna and knelt down in front of her. Wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his arm, he grinned and took her proffered gift. Their fingers touched, and a powerful sensation of love ripped through him as he met and held her intense blue gaze, which mirrored his joy.
“Yeah, we did it,” he murmured. “Let me see this mask….” He carefully removed it from the pouch.
Kai pulled the water bottle from her belt again and chugged down the rest of the contents in a few gulps. Wiping her mouth, she looked outside the cave. There was nothing but darkness, the wind wailing and screaming so loudly it shocked her. Rocket and Booster were well inside the cave, quietly chewing their cuds and acting as if nothing was wrong. Swinging her gaze back to Jake, she saw he was covered with red sand. His face was grimy with sweat and dirt.
“You need a bath,” she chortled, watching his face light up as he removed the crystal mask from the pouch.
Grinning, Jake nodded. His eyes, however, never left the mask in his hands. “This, is beautiful…. And it’s just like I remember. It’s real, Kai…You did it….” Looking up at her, he saw the crazy smile on her lips.
“No, we did it, Jake. We’re a good team.” She drank deeply from the second bottle of water, then stopped and offered the rest to him.
“Thanks,” he murmured, taking the bottle. “I didn’t have much time out there to drink in that sandstorm.” He put the bottle to his lips and finished off the contents in a hurry.
Kai sat resting on her heels, her hands on her thighs. Watching Jake’s Adam’s apple bob up and down with each gulp, she was once again reminded of his maleness. Something warm and good stirred deep within her body, a yearning for him—in all ways. Taken by surprise, she avoided his hooded eyes after he’d put the bottle aside. Did Jake feel it, too, when their fingers met? That feeling, crazy as it was, of goodness? Hope for the future? She hadn’t been very optimistic lately.
“Well,” she said, pointing to the mask, “what do you think? The real McCoy, right? You’re the one who’s seen it before—or at least remembers it.”
Cradling the mask gently in his hands, Jake nodded. “Yeah, it’s real, Kai. I know this is going to make the elders back at the res very happy. Not to mention every member of the Paint Clan.”
Frowning, she ran her fingers over her hair and felt the grit on her scalp. “We have to get home first. What about this storm? How long do you think it will last?”
Shrugging, Jake replaced the mask in the pouch and gave it back to her. “Could be hours. I don’t really know. Cold fronts create these storms, and if it’s a major one, the storm could go on for the rest of the day before it loses power.” Wiping his face with his fingers and feeling the grit on his flesh, he turned and looked out the cave mouth. “Seems to be lightening up a little, however. Maybe, if we’re lucky, it will run out of steam in another hour and we can head home to Yulara today.”
“Let’s see who this wallet belongs to,” Kai murmured, withdrawing it from her vest and opening it up. “Hmm…Giles Rowland…”
“The guy skewered on the point down there?” Jake asked, looking at the wallet in her hand. She pulled out several pieces of identification. There was a huge amount of bills in it as well.
“Yeah, the wallet was right next to the pouch. It probably was in his back pocket when he hit that point…” Kai narrowed her gaze on the credit card. “Look at this—Marston Enterprises.” She looked over at Jake. “Robert Marston?”
“I’d bet on it. Looks like Rowland had his boss’s credit card and the stolen totem.”
Nodding, Kai looked at a white business card. “Here it is—Robert Marston. His Hong Kong address. And phone number. The works.” She handed it to Jake.
“That pretty much implicates Marston to this theft. Chances are he was the one who hired Giles here, and two other dudes who have the other two totems.”
“Well, we know where Giles ended up,” Kai murmured, looking back at the darkened lip.
“Got what he deserved,” Jake said in a growl. “Here’s another pieces of evidence—A business card for antiques down in Lima, Peru.” He saw Kai’s eyes go wide with surprise. His mouth twitched. “Your dream showed another totem going to Peru.” He waved the card toward her. “And here’s your double check. You’re on a roll, Kai.”
Hearing the pride in his voice, she managed a slight smile and studied the card in disbelief. “This is just amazing, dude.”
“Yeah, I know. When you’re in the flow, as my mom would say, synchronicities and double checks abound right, left and center.” Jake pulled out the wad of U.S. dollars. “Must be at least ten grand here by my estimate,” he said, fingering through the one-thousand-dollar notes.
“Marston probably gave him the credit card and cash to make sure he’d get to Hong Kong to deliver this to him.”
“Yeah,” Jake said dryly, “but Giles had other plans for that mask and himself. He was on the lam until he screwed up thinking this cave was a great place to hide his asset. The only mistake he made was not realizing the floor didn’t go all the way to the wall back there…pity.”
Kai couldn’t disagree. “Once we get mounted up and out of here we need to call Mike and tell him what we’ve found.”
“Right on. Pieces of a puzzle is what we’re finding.”
Looking at her watch, Kai realized that barely an hour had passed since they’d arrived. “Seemed like I was down in that cave a lot longer than this indicates,” she muttered, pointing to the watch on her wrist.
“When you’re in a cave, time stops existing,” he told her, getting to his feet. Holding out his hand to her, he said, “Come on, let’s dig into our supplies on the camels and try and clean up a little.”
Without hesitating, Kai took Jake’s hand. How good it felt to wrap her fingers around his, dirty and gritty as they were. She felt his strength and saw the tenderness burn in his eyes as she rose to her feet. Releasing her, Jake helped her climb out of the harness. Her hand tingled as she helped him roll up the nylon ropes. Hefting one of the rolls over her shoulder, she walked through the cave with him to the camels, who lifted their heads and watched them with interest.
“You grab some water and a washcloth? I’ll put these ropes into Rocket’s supply pack.”
“Right.” Kai went over to Booster and patted his fuzzy head. The camel’s ears moved back and forth, his huge brown eyes adoring as he gazed up at her. As Kai opened one of the saddlebags she heard the howl of the wind begin to abate. Looking out the cave entrance, she gasped. “Wow! Look, Jake!”
He turned. “Good news. Looks like the worst of the sandstorm is over. Why…I even see some patches of blue sky up there….”
Laughing, Kai quickly pulled a gallon of fresh water from the bag and placed it on the ground. “That means we can leave real soon.”
“Yeah.” Jake grunted, strapping the buckle shut on the canvas container. “I’d like to get out of this canyon before nightfall. If any of Marston’s guys come flying around looking for us, we’ll be long gone.”
“I seriously doubt those boys would be flying in this, wouldn’t you?”
Jake turned and walked over to where Kai was squatting. “They can’t fly in it. That sand would pit the blades of their helo so fast they’d fall out of the sky. Besides, those kinds of copters don’t have the instruments to fly in a sandstorm.” He knelt down next to the wide metal bowl Kai had filled with water. She was already scrubbing her face and arms to get rid of the sand.
“Then, assuming they are still hunting us, we’d be wise to leave here and ride until dark. They won’t be in the sky until tomorrow morning at dawn at the earliest.”
Jake took the washcloth. The wetness felt good against his face, which smarted and burned from being pelted with sand. No fool stayed out in a sandstorm, but Kai had needed his help with those ropes.
“Right,” he murmured. The coolness made his skin feel better. Kai was drying her face and arms. She looked beautiful to him. “We need to take a different route back. Throw them off our track. We’ll figure out another way to Uluru. Go a direction they aren’t expecting.”
Kai handed him the towel. “You think they’ll try to find us?”
“I think we’d better assume they will, don’t you?”
Grimly, Kai stood up. Resting her hands on her hips, she saw that the sky was becoming more blue by the minute. The trees were barely moving now, the shrieking wind a mere inconstant breeze. “Yeah, we’d better.”
“Just keep that elephant gun handy,” Jake warned her. Standing, he tossed her the towel and took the bowl of dirty water outside, emptying it on the roots of one of the gum trees that had held the ropes.
Forewarned was forearmed. Kai saw the grim look on Jake’s reddened features. She took the headlamp and stuffed it in her pack. “Do you think I should carry the mask on me? Or should I put it in the pack here?”
His mouth twitched. “I don’t know. Do what you feel?”
Following her intuition, Kai gently eased the mask back into her vest. It fit beautifully, and she felt better that it was on her person.
“Okay, let’s mount up and get out of here,” Jake told her, throwing his leg over Rocket’s back.
Turning Booster around, Kai followed Jake and Rocket out of the cave. The path was now covered with an inch or two of red sand that the storm had carried in. It didn’t matter; there was only one way in and out of the box canyon.
Shutting her eyes, Kai tried to deal with an unexpected and overwhelming emotion that surged within her now that her quest was half done and she had time to think. Ooranye reminded her strongly of Grams in so many ways. Their skin color might be different, but their hearts and minds were similar. Did all medicine women grow into this kind of loving being? What had gone wrong with her mother, then? How could she have made such a bad choice in husbands? Why would she cut her life and possibilities short by staying with a man like Kai’s father? The questions pummeled her, soothed only by the gentle swaying, the soft whoosh of Booster’s padded feet as they met the desert floor.
Once out of the canyon and into the open desert again, Jake rode up alongside Kai, the camels moving in sync with one another, almost as if they were in a military drill. Jake momentarily absorbed Kai’s profile. She wore her nylon baseball cap with the neck flaps to protect her from the blazing sun, her long-sleeved cotton shirt, a pale peach cotton camisole beneath it, along with her Rail Riders and dusty boots.
Jake had wanted to tell her how much he liked sharing the hut with her yesterday afternoon, when she’d combed out her long, silky hair, which reminded him of ebony shimmering between her fingers. Watching her twist the gleaming strands into one long braid between her shoulder blades was a secret pleasure he always looked forward to. Swallowing hard, Jake kept all his revelations to himself. Would there come a day when he could share such observations with her?
“Hell of an adventure we’re on,” he murmured sympathetically to her. Their legs touched from time to time as the camels swayed in unison.
Shrugging, Kai twisted her shoulders to try to get rid of the grief she felt over leaving Ooranye. “Yeah…unexpected. I’m feeling really emotional about leaving Ooranye and the people of Kalduke.”
“I didn’t know what to expect from this mission, either. I wish we had time to go back and tell her we found the mask. Goodbyes are always hard.”
Kai gave Jake a sideward glance and saw the sadness in his shadowed face. “Did Ooranye remind you of your mother?”
One corner of his mouth lifted. Jake pulled the bill of his baseball cap over his eyes. “Yes, in some ways.”
“I was wondering to myself if all medicine people are like Ooranye.”
“My mother was like her, but not all are,” Jake cautioned. “I’ve seen some selfish, greedy ones whose main interest is in stalking power. All of them men,” he said almost apologetically. “When people connect with the power of Mother Earth—” he gestured toward the sky, now a pale blue above them “—the universal energy is a heady trip for them. As Ooranye said, the energy is neutral. What it becomes is dictated by what lies in a person’s heart.”
“Well,” Kai whispered, blinking rapidly, surprised at the tears that came, “your mother, Grams and Ooranye all have hearts as wide and flowing as this endless desert we’re on.” Kai gestured gracefully toward the horizon. A flock of green-and-yellow parakeets flew over them, heading, Kai was sure, to the rock hole oasis at Kalduke for their fill of water.
“Don’t forget,” Jake told her gently, “you have the same heart as they do. It’s in your blood, your genes. It’s there….” His eyes connected briefly with her blue gaze. He’d never seen Kai so moved as she was now, their conversation touching her in an unexpected way. Jake saw the stubborn set of her mouth, her refusal to cry, and he ached silently for her. He wanted to reach out, drag her over to his camel, set her on the saddle in front of him, so that she could lean back and discover how much love could assuage the pain she always carried.
Of course, all that was fantasy. Still, he held out hope because she’d come to him in the hut and allowed him to hold her. Hope sprang strongly in his chest as he drowned in the aqua color of her eyes, which spoke so eloquently to his heart and soul.
“I look at them and think that’s not me. I don’t have what they’ve got. I never did.”
“Yes, you do, Kai.” Jake gave her an intense look. “You were chosen to find the crystal mask precisely because you do have that same wide, deep-hearted compassion that they have. You’ve never been given a chance to get in touch with that part of yourself. Real life intruded. You made different choices, Kai, but they weren’t wrong ones.” Jake glanced fondly toward Kalduke, which lay somewhere over the red horizon. “By going on this mission, by finding the mask, you’re getting training you never received before.”
Kai smiled grimly. “Yeah, dude, it’s called ‘on the job training’ and the learning curve is steep. We could’ve died if we didn’t do things right. We’re not out of danger yet.”
They had tried to call Mike Houston after leaving the canyon, but the sandstorm had caused local interference. They still hadn’t received a call from Medusa to tell them about the helicopter registration or Marston Enterprises, and she and Jake remained very much on guard.
Shrugging, Jake said, “Every medicine person runs that risk, Kai. And I don’t feel you’re going to die. You’re already successful.” He grinned. “You’ve got the mask.” He gazed around the desert, which was coming alive once more. “The energy around us, even though it’s invisible, is still here with us. Medicine people have learned how to open themselves up and allow this universal energy to run through them and help them.”
“I guess I’m learning how to get out of my own way?” She smiled ruefully.
Chuckling, Jake looked up at the soft azure sky. “It’s called life, Kai.” He returned the sheepish smile he saw tugging at her luscious mouth. “You’re a fast learner in my book.”
Kai heard the pride in Jake’s tone, and her skin prickled beneath his hooded, burning gaze. “I guess I’m the last to believe in my people’s spirituality—or myself in relation to it.”
“Life has conditioned you differently,” Jake said soothingly, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t open yourself up to what is a natural heritage for you to tap into and use.”
Looking ahead, feeling the heat as the sun’s rays burned silently over the undulating landscape once more, Kai said, “I wish Mike would call. I’m sitting on pins and needles about those jokers in the copter.”
The call from Medusa came that evening as they sat around a small campfire. Kai was pouring billy tea from the blackened kettle sitting on the grate over the flickering fire when the phone buzzed. She looked up, kettle in hand.
“Answer it, will you?”
Jake nodded and pulled the device off his belt. “Carter here.”
Kai heard Jake talk in low tones. She moved away from the fire and poured more of the strong tea into his cup, which he held out to her. Moving to her saddle, she poured some into her own tin cup, then returned the kettle to the edge of the grate to keep warm. As she sat down cross-legged near her saddle and picked up the cup, Jake finished the transmission. He shut off the phone with the punch of a button, folded it and slid it back onto his belt.
“There are two helos at Yulara,” he told Kai. “That Huey and the Bell Longranger we saw when we got off the commercial flight at the airport.”
“Right.”
“The Bell Longranger is registered to a Dudley Dawson, from Alice Springs, the largest town in the Northern Territory.”
“It’s roughly two hundred miles northeast of Yulara.”
Jake nodded. “Yes.”
“Anything on this Dawson dude?”
Shaking his head, Jake muttered, “Nothing. He’s a local entrepreneur. He also runs a big restaurant in Alice Springs, and hosts one-, two-and three-day treks out into the Gibson Desert for tourists by Jeep, helo and on foot.”
“No prison background?”
“He’s clean,” Jake said. “However, that Huey belongs to Marston Enterprises. Robert Marston is the owner. So those two dudes work for him. He said the Huey is a tourist helo and that it’s a legit company at Yulara.”
“Bingo,” she murmured, sipping her hot tea.
“Mike said Marston is a multimillionaire media mogul from Canada. His passion is collecting museum quality items from around the world.” Raising an eyebrow, Jake added, “And Mike dug up a lot of stuff on this guy. He’s a shady character. Some of the people who work for him were caught stealing Native American pipes from the Blood tribe in Canada at one time. In another theft from a local museum in the Black Hills, South Dakota, a number of sacred items to the Sioux people were stolen. The men were caught with the goods two days later, trying to get them through Seattle, Washington customs. They didn’t admit working for Marston, but a customs investigator found a tie with him. The man has never been directly charged.”
“Robert Marston’s the one, then. I feel it in my gut, Jake.” Kai stared at the small flames licking up into the darkness. In the background, somewhere in the night, she heard the howl of a pack of foraging dingos.
“Houston said Marston’s too smart to be caught. He pays off his henchmen through third-and fourth-hand sources, so they never know he’s involved in it.” Jake eased back on his saddle, which was covered with the thick wool blanket that acted as a pad for it. “Except this time. Those were Marston’s men. They were wearing the logo on their polo shirts. They’re flying one of his copters but they run a helo operation out of Yulara.”
Exhaustion pulled at Kai. “And what is Mike going to do? Alert Australian authorities that we’re being tailed?”
“He can’t go to the police with hearsay,” Jake muttered. “All we can do is stay alert.”
Nodding, Kai said, “We know that old helo of theirs doesn’t have night-stalking equipment on board, so we should try and get a good night’s sleep under our belt. Tomorrow, we’ll reach Uluru, and five miles beyond that, we’ll be at the Mulga Station and can drop our camels off with Coober.” She was still sweating profusely. The heat was unbearable. Heatstroke or sunstroke were a genuine possibility in this oven they called the Red Center.
Finishing his tea, Jake got up and brushed the sand off his trousers. “I’m in agreement. I’m going out to check on Rocket and Booster. Hit the sack. We’re both ready to keel over.”
Nodding, Kai pulled out the saddle pad and stretched it out on the sand to lie on. It was a good seven feet long and three feet wide. The thick wool prevented the saddle from hurting the camel’s hump. Lying down, Kai turned her back toward the fire, nestled into the thick, padded saddle that acted as her pillow, and closed her eyes. Within moments, she spiraled down into a very deep sleep. The unbearable heat of the day took a toll on her as nothing else ever had, and the only way she could deal with it was to sleep a good eight hours. Nestled nearby was the pouch containing the crystal mask.
The dream began later. Kai found herself riding Booster near Uluru. Terror sizzled through her. Unable at first to pinpoint why she was so scared, Kai heard the whapping sounds of a helicopter coming toward her. A helicopter? Frowning, Kai twisted around on Booster. The helo was coming in swift and low. There was gunfire! Throwing herself forward on the camel, Kai saw the helicopter zoom past, and someone fire a rifle out the door toward her. Tracer bullets flashed through the darkness.
Then the helo turned and began to fire at another unseen target. Jake! Oh, no! Screaming his name, Kai saw him galloping ahead of her on Rocket. He had a pistol in his hand and he was firing back at the helicopter. Breathing hard, Kai screamed a warning. She watched in horror as the stream of red tracer rounds stalked him. No!
Jerking upright, Kai gulped and choked for air. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest. It was dark. The familiar sounds of crickets singing, a far-off cry of a dingo, were all that she heard. Perspiration trickled down her temples. Hands shaking, Kai wiped her face and leaned forward as she brought her knees up against her body. The fear was real. Her stomach churned violently. Forcing herself to steady her breathing, she finally looked around.
The fire was out, with nothing but a few orange coals glowing. In the starlight, she saw Jake sleeping on the opposite side of the fire. He was snoring softly. All was right in his world. Rubbing her face, Kai turned and reached for her bottle of water near the saddle. She drank in huge gulps, trying to put out the fire in her knotted belly, to douse the fear that was eating her alive.
Sitting there, under a beautiful river of stars moving silently above her, Kai wondered what it all meant. All her dreams had come true, thus far. Jake…She groaned softly and buried her face in her hands. They were in danger. Was this dream a forewarning? Or just some crazy thing cobbled together by her subconscious that meant nothing?
After capping her water bottle, Kai lay back down. Sighing, she shut her eyes. She had to get some sleep! But for the first time in a long time, she felt completely vulnerable.