The Dance
Even as that last thought went through her mind, she was on her feet and moving out of the trailer, tucking the Glock at the small of her back. She covered her mouth and nose against the blast of sand outside as she strode across the small backyard.
Darkness had fallen and Jackson had turned on the outside lights. The illumination looked murky in the swirling sandstorm. It also looked like he had every light in his house turned on. She banged on his back door and he opened it almost immediately.
He still hadn’t removed his cowboy hat. He gestured for her to step inside and shut the door as soon as she crossed the threshold. “What’s up?”
She turned to face him and said, without preamble, “You need to go visit your daughter in Fresno.”
“Do I?” His faded, intelligent gaze met hers. “I was getting ready to have a poker game. Got six people coming over. They’ll start showing up any minute now. I expect we’re gonna pull an all-nighter if you find you need anything.”
She glanced around the kitchen and expelled a breath. He had brewed a fresh pot of coffee, set out snacks and cards, and pulled the chairs back around the table. Apparently Jackson had been doing more thinking as well. “Wish you’d go to Fresno instead.”
“Like I said earlier, it won’t be good highway driving tonight. Maybe I can leave for Fresno tomorrow, when things are looking a little clearer,” said Jackson. “And when we know that dog is out of the woods.”
“Maybe.”
“We’ll keep the noise down, but all the lights on,” Jackson said. He went to the counter, scooped up her license, registration and ticket, and handed it to her. She folded it up, stuffed it in her back pocket, and stood with her hands on her hips, looking out the back window at the trailer.
Seven people. Seven witnesses, with cars lined up in the street out front and all the lights blazing in the house. Would that be enough to stave off anyone who might come by looking to silence Luis for good?
She kept coming back to Rodriguez, goddammit. If dumb and mean had realized how badly they had fucked up, they wouldn’t have called Rodriguez to clean up their mess. They would have just circled back around themselves to find Luis and finish what they’d started. They must have either thought they’d already killed him or the desert would finish him off soon enough. They’d been careless.
No, Rodriguez got involved because he had a dialogue with someone else. Someone sent him out to get proof of death. And the next beast up that food chain was Bradshaw Senior.
Which meant this involved an issue that was larger than a simple hate crime or personal matter.
Was it a large enough issue that it might endanger a well-meaning veterinarian and six other innocent people? It could be. It very well could be.
Thumbs hooked in her pockets, she drummed her fingers against her hip bones. She said, “Why don’t you play your poker game in the trailer? Either that, or we can move the dog into the house.”
Surprise flickered over Jackson’s battered features. He moved to stand behind her shoulder and looked out at the trailer too. “Why would we want to do either of those things?”
She told him, “Because I’m going out.”
He frowned. “Going where?”
“Didn’t you say people hang out in the bars during these storms?”
“Yeah, but maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to join them tonight.” He sounded troubled.
“Don’t see why not.” She gave him a bland smile. “I’m just going out for a beer.”
The sandstorm had started to die down when she left. She took the Glock, but when she pulled into the parking lot of the first bar, after a few minutes’ thought, she left the gun in her glove compartment.
Inside, she had a nonalcoholic beer, chatted with locals and learned some things.
The population number listed on Nirvana’s welcome sign was misleading, since it included everyone in Nirvana County. The town itself had around five hundred residents, all of whom either worked directly for the mining company or their local businesses were indirectly dependent on it somehow.
Built on an underground spring and located near the mine, Nirvana was one of the many small towns that had been a stopping point along the Transcontinental Railroad. Now it was a stopping point for Greyhound Lines. The town boasted its own Safeway supermarket, and its two bars were located at either end of Main Street. There were also two motels, three gas stations, and a family-style diner/casino off the interstate exit.
One of the gas stations was a combination truck stop/fast-food joint/casino, open 24/7. If Claudia weren’t in such a grim mood, she might have smiled. You could eat, gas up, and gamble, all at the same time. Just in case you felt you needed to do all those things in a hurry.
Another gas station sold liquor and carried a selection of movie rentals. The third hadn’t yet discovered a successful enough niche to diversify from its competitors. She remembered seeing that gas station earlier. It had looked shabby and neglected.
The most important thing she learned was what Bradshaw Junior and his boys looked like. Soon as she got those descriptions, she paid for her drink and drove down Main Street to the other side of town.
It was in the second bar that she hit the jackpot.
She knew who they were as soon as she pushed through the door. Four strapping guys, each around thirty years old, stood together by the pool table. They fit perfectly the descriptions she’d been given. A couple of them held pool sticks but they weren’t playing. They were drinking and talking in low voices, their expressions tense and edgy.
Shucks, looked like they weren’t having a good day.
Also looked like they might be working themselves up to do something about that.
Junior was dark-haired and handsome. According to the locals, he was the spitting image of Bradshaw Senior. He stood around six-two, and he had the muscled body of a college football player, with years of self-indulgence starting to thicken him around the middle.
She paused just after stepping inside, and she stared at the foursome until one of them looked up and saw her. Just so happened, it was Junior. She liked that. She gave him a long, level look, which he returned.
Hook baited and line cast.
Then she headed for the bar. This time she ordered a real beer. The bar was much like its counterpart, casually decorated and comfortably worn. This one had black-and-white photographs of the silver mine hung on the walls. Randy Travis sang “She’s My Woman” loudly over the sound system. An indefinable something separated the locals from the travelers who had stopped for the night. She wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was how people talked to each other.
She leaned her folded arms on the bar and nursed her beer.
They kept her waiting all of ten minutes.
“Heard you found my dog,” someone said behind her. “He got loose the other day, and I’ve been looking for him ever since. I was just fixing to go get him.”
The talker was Junior, she saw as she glanced over her shoulder. He was smiling. He looked relaxed and confident, a man who was sure of his world and his place in it. He was dressed in jeans and a lined flannel shirt like the other local men, but his haircut would not have looked out of place in a country club.
One of his friends stood at his shoulder, while the other two came up on either side of her at the bar. She looked at the bartender, who had somehow become busy at the other end of the room. That was just fine with her. She wanted the bartender to stay out of the way.
She turned around to face Junior and said, “You heard wrong. He’s my dog now.”
Junior came closer, his big body moving with a smooth athleticism he had not yet lost. His smile deepened, his eyes full of sociopathic charm. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Tell me what the vet bill was, and I’ll double it. In cash. Then you can hit the road again, and put this whole thing behind you.”
She took a pull on her beer and set the bottle down as the guys on either side crowded closer, their expressionless faces oddly menacing. They were all taller than she was and built like football players.
She met Junior’s eyes and said, “Fuck off.”
Astonishment wiped the charm off Junior’s face. He lunged forward until his body pressed hers back against the bar. His hands gripped the bar on either side of her, and he came nose to nose with her.
“You must be one incredibly stupid bitch,” he said.
Hook swallowed.
“I know you did it,” she said. Her voice was soft and even as she looked full bore and unblinking into his eyes. “You shot him, and then you beat him. Then you tied a rope around his neck and you dragged him, God knows how far. And you didn’t do it alone, because there were two different-caliber rifle bullets in him, and I’ve got both of them. So your friends can fuck off too.”
“Did you hear me offer the stupid bitch money,” Junior said to the man on her left.
“Why yes, I did, Scott,” said his friend. “I heard that loud and clear.”
“It could have been so easy for you to walk away,” Junior told her.
Tease the line out. Let the fish run.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she told him. “You can’t do anything in here. It’s too public. Unless you’re going to fuck that up too. Really, I don’t think you understand the definition of stupid and who it applies to.”
She watched with interest as fury swallowed his handsomeness and turned him ugly. There you are, she said silently. Now you’re showing your real self.
“Outside,” Junior said to the others. He stepped back, and the men on either side of her suddenly moved closer, each one grabbing her by the wrist and bicep while they hid the maneuver from the rest of the bar with their bodies.
“Scream and I’ll break your arm,” one of them whispered.
She didn’t scream.
Junior and his third friend moved in from behind. By the time they hit the door, they were almost running and had her completely lifted off the ground. She jerked, trying to get her arms free, but the pressure to her arm sockets was brutally painful.
Junior said, “Take her out back.”
She looked up as they rushed her around the corner of the bar. The storm had died down, but the night sky was still sullen and overcast. A couple of cars were parked out back near a spiky tangle of desert shrubbery and a line of yucca trees.
The spot was a little too close to public activity for her taste, but it was still private. None of the other buildings or houses was nearby, and with the loud bar music, no one inside would hear any screams. The one weakness would be if someone arrived in the parking lot around front and heard something, but there were a lot of ways to muffle noise.
“What I want to know is why you did it,” she said.
“Who the fuck cares what you want to know?” Junior said contemptuously.
“There’s a story to this,” she said. “And it wasn’t personal. Rodriguez wouldn’t have gotten involved if it had been, not unless you pulled something royally asinine, like getting caught with your dick out in public. Not that you’re beyond that, at least from everything I’ve heard.”
“I’m going to enjoy making you hurt,” he said. “And I’m going to hurt you a lot.”
“No, Rodriguez would have gotten involved only if his job depended on it,” she continued. “That would mean this matters to your father somehow, and I think what matters to your father is the silver mine. How’m I doing so far? Am I hot or am I cold?”
“You’re dead fucking meat, is what you are.” He said to the others, “Right here.”
She tightened her abdomen muscles against a blow. They slammed her down, stomach first, against the trunk of one car and held her bent over. The cold of the metal trunk bit through her jeans and sweatshirt. Junior moved up behind her, putting his hands at her waist.
Time to reel in the fish.
She started to laugh. “Wow, are you inept. You can’t even do this by yourself.”
He grabbed her by the hair, cruelly pulling at the roots. “Back up,” he snapped at the two that held her arms. They let go of her as he pinned her with the weight of his body. He hissed in her ear, “You should have stayed silent. Should have moved on. Should have taken the money when I offered it. There are so many ‘should haves’ you should have done, so I figure that means you asked for this. You’ll be begging before we’re finished with you.”
As he talked he reached around her waist to the front of her jeans, searching with hard fingers for the fastening.
She didn’t have enough room to leverage out a serious blow. No normal human woman could have broken his hold.
But she wasn’t quite a normal human woman.
Telekinesis can be a finicky Power. Some people could manipulate things from a distance away. Others, usually those with a lesser degree of Power like her, needed to be able to touch what they wanted to shift.
Since Claudia’s aptitude for telekinesis wasn’t much, she’d had to work to figure out what she could and couldn’t do. Someone else might not have bothered, but the army was interested in her talents, and they spent a lot on training her. She was interested too, and she worked hard at every opportunity they gave her. As a result, what she could do was well thought out and well practiced.
She could hit like a motherfucker. Kick like one too. From a standstill, she could throw a roundhouse punch that could bring a two-ton troll to its knees.
She had to be careful when she was fighting those of the Elder Races who were faster than she was, and whose bodies were more durable. She had to think strategically. Turned out, she was good at doing that too. Fighting was a dance like no other, as each one of her opponents became her partner for a deadly brief period of time.
She had maybe eight inches of space to work with. That was more than enough. She struck back with her elbow and hit Junior’s midsection.
Junior coughed out all his breath and crumpled to the ground. She twisted around.
He had no air in his lungs with which to speak. His bulging gaze was astonished. It asked her, What the fuck?
So she answered his question. She showed him what the fuck. She kicked him in the chest, using her foot to leverage his body weight. The blow lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the back of the building several yards away. When his three friends rushed her, she showed them what the fuck too.
When she finished with the would-be rapists and walked away, all four of them were on the ground. Two of them were unconscious, and one of them was crying.
Because Junior wasn’t the only one who had a hellish temper.
Claudia had a hellish temper too.