A Man Without Love Read online

  “Is this storm supposed to clear?” She leaned forward to look up at the sky.

  “Always does, way too soon.”

  “Will the car be safe if I just leave it?”

  “Probably won’t be just where you left it.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The Rover lurched to a stop in front of one of the mud houses Richard had mentioned. She stared at it, then wrenched her gaze back to the stranger.

  “You’re here,” he said.

  “This can’t be Shiprock. It isn’t a...a town.”

  “Not hardly.” When she continued to looked at him blankly, he added, “Shadow Bedonie lives here. That’s who you said you were looking for.”

  Catherine twisted to look back down the road they had traveled. “What about my car?” she demanded.

  “It’s late in the season. It shouldn’t go far.”

  Suddenly she gaped at him. “You’re doing this on purpose,” she realized. “You’re giving me a runaround. Why?”

  He glanced down at her muddy sandals as though they somehow said it all. “I brought you up here to help out Shadow.”

  “And any friend of hers is a friend of yours?” she snapped.

  “Not really.”

  She fell silent, stupefied at his antagonism.

  She looked back at the hogan and pushed open the truck door. As soon as her feet sank into the mud again, she cried out in alarm and pressed back. Just to the right of the dwelling, the desert dipped into a chiseled culvert. A rush of water came along it, foaming and strong.

  A moment later it had surged past, leaving a roiling stream in its wake. Catherine’s jaw dropped. Now she understood. She had parked in the same sort of depression, only it had been deeper, wider—a wash. The one she had left her car in would carry a lot more water.

  She gasped, looking back at him. He almost smiled, but it was anything but a pleasant expression.

  “Too late now,” he drawled.

  Chapter 2

  Catherine wanted badly to choke him. Because she didn’t trust herself not to, she turned away from him abruptly and went to the hogan.

  She had nearly reached the dwelling when a flock of sheep and a scattering of goats came bleating and trotting around the far side. She dodged through them determinedly, but the sound of the Rover door opening behind her finally made her steps falter.

  She knew beyond a doubt that he wasn’t escorting her to the door out of courtesy. And she had been right—he was fast. Almost before she spun about to look back, he was beside her.

  “You got a hell of a dander up for a city girl who doesn’t even know where she’s going.”

  The rain had flattened her hair against her forehead. Catherine pushed it back. “I’m trying to find Shadow.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “What?” Why had he brought her here, then? Dear God, was he working for Victor?

  Her terror must have shown on her face. He studied it for a moment, narrow eyed, then he waved a hand at a corral behind the hogan.

  “Her horse is gone.”

  His tone was like a slap in the face—as though any imbecile would know that Shadow Bedonie owned a horse. And suddenly her dander was up—but it had nothing to do with living in Boston these past several years. She came by it more honestly than that. She was a Callahan. Before Victor had found it necessary to polish her up to suit his monied image, she had been born the daughter of Irish immigrants.

  He turned away from her and looked out at the desert. She followed his gaze. A woman cantered toward them on horseback, as impervious to the downpour as the man was.

  “Hey,” he said when she reached them.

  Catherine scowled. In that one syllable, his voice held more warmth than in any of the sentences he had spoken to her. Apparently, he didn’t hate everybody.

  The woman swung her leg over the horse and dropped to the ground. Her face split into a grin. “Jericho! You stay away too long.”

  To Catherine’s amazement, the woman hugged him hard and he allowed it. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail and it glistened wetly, like a black waterfall to her waist. Her features were perfect enough that they didn’t need anything to flatter or soften them.

  “Zuni,” he said. His cryptic response obviously meant something to her, because the woman nodded. “The pottery wasn’t ours.”

  “That’s a relief.” Finally, her gaze moved to Catherine. She looked confused for a moment, then she smiled again. “You must be Lanie McDaniel. I’m Shadow Bedonie.”

  Before Catherine could take her outstretched hand, Jericho interjected. “I found her down in Chaco Wash. Figured she was one of yours.”

  His voice had hardened abruptly. His animosity was truly beginning to sting, though Catherine couldn’t fathom why it should. With any luck, this reservation was so big she would never see him again. He didn’t matter. Victor mattered—Victor and his gun and his friends. Standing here in this downpour mattered; she was beginning to shiver. But a cold, handsome stranger was the least of her worries.

  Yet she heard herself demand, “Why?”

  His dark gaze passed over her in a dismissive look. He didn’t answer.

  “One of her what?” she persisted.

  “Broken doves.”

  The woman laughed nervously and intervened. “Jericho thinks I have a problem taking in lost souls and championing lost causes. Mostly I just try to preserve our heritage and occasionally I take in stray animals.” She looked at him again. “Lanie has two feet, not four, and she’s with the health service. Jack Keller asked me as a favor to help her get settled and I said I didn’t mind.”

  Jericho lifted one shoulder. “I rest my case. It’s not even your job. You work for the museum, not for Jack.”

  “It’s something I care about. Ellen and Kolkline need help.”

  “Not this bad.”

  He turned away. Before Catherine knew she was going to, she stepped in front of him to block his way.

  “Have I done something to offend you?”

  “Offend?” He repeated the word in a mocking tone, and she flushed.

  “Couldn’t you have just told me my car was going to get washed away?”

  “What would you have done about it?” His gaze said she clearly wasn’t capable of much.

  “You could have helped me push it to higher ground!”

  He looked at her sandals again and she fought the urge to curl her toes. His eyes were so hard, so black and unfathomable, yet they burned.

  “Thought I’d let you see for yourself.”

  “See what?” Then, suddenly, she figured it out.

  He didn’t think she belonged here. Were the Navajo that clannish, that defensive against outsiders? She looked back at Shadow with her clear eyes and her easy smile. No, she decided. With this man, it was something personal.

  She took an instinctive step away from him. He strode past her without another look, his broad-shouldered silhouette becoming more and more obscured by the rain.

  “Thanks for going to Zuni!” Shadow called after him as he reached the Rover.

  Jericho didn’t answer.

  * * *

  The hogan was rustic and cozy in a rough-hewn way. Catherine looked about and decided Richard’s description had been decidedly uncharitable.

  It wasn’t actually round, but six sided, built of logs that drew in above the walls so that a sort of beehive roof was achieved. The only mud in evidence was an adobelike substance packed between the logs. Though the rain continued to drum down outside, the dwelling was dry and comfortable. It was complete without being cluttered. A single bed was pressed against one side, covered with a beautifully woven Native blanket. A wood-burning stove sat in the center and teal blue wildflowers dripped from planters hung about the walls.

  Catherine found herself wishing that Shadow would invite her to sit by the stove to rest awhile and warm herself. She knew somehow that she would be warm here, inside and out.

  Instead, the wom
an handed her a towel to dry off. She followed Catherine’s gaze as she looked back at the open doorway.

  “The Holy People—our gods—prescribe that all openings should face east to let in the sun. Spiritually, it’s a place of birth and beginnings. There’s the added advantage that almost all of our storms come down from the Chuska Mountains, and they’re west of here. So with the doors facing east, we stay relatively dry.”

  “What about at night?” Catherine asked. “Don’t animals come wandering in?” She was remembering what Richard had said about the sheep and the goats.

  Shadow shrugged. “Not usually.”

  “Doesn’t it get cold in the winter?”

  “The stove throws off a lot of heat, and the place isn’t that big. It’s easy to warm it. In the worst weather, I hang a blanket over the door.” She paused. “I’m not as traditional as some of our people, but I was raised in a place like this and old habits are hard to break.”

  “And Jericho?” Catherine heard herself ask. “Is he traditional?” Who cared?

  She did. Catherine could not figure why, but she was curious.

  Shadow shrugged again. “It depends on the issue. In some ways yes, in others, no.” Suddenly, her expression turned apologetic. “I know my brother seems...rude sometimes. He’s a private person, slow to take to strangers.”

  “Your brother?”

  Shadow laughed.

  “You’re as different as night and day,” Catherine blurted. “You’re warm. He’s so brusque and remote.”

  As soon as the words were out, she was appalled at herself. For someone who desperately needed to hide here, she was not doing much to endear herself. This was just the sort of impulsiveness that Victor had always tried to drum out of her.

  But Shadow was unoffended. “It seems that way until you get to know him,” she allowed. She took the towel back. “Come on, I’ll show you the clinic and where you’ll be staying.”

  * * *

  Jericho shifted the Rover into gear, but he didn’t let up the clutch. He waited, watching until his sister and the Anglo woman came back out of the hogan and headed around to Shadow’s truck in the rear.

  There was something about this stranger, something that irritated the hell out of him even as it tried to wrap hot, treacherous fingers about his gut.

  Maybe it was the hair, he thought, that cascade of wild black curls that beckoned for a man’s fingers to tangle in them. Or the eyes—she had the wide, wary eyes of a cat looking out from the mountain at night. She had legs up to her neck, but although she was tall there was nothing big about her. She was fine boned and slender with ivory skin and classic Anglo features.

  And one or two spattered freckles on the bridge of her nose.

  She was a wounded bird, all right. He would have known it even if she hadn’t asked for Shadow. It was there in the desperate pitch of her voice. She was shaky, frightened of her own shadow...but she did have a temper.

  Once or twice, he had thought she would come at him like a little, wet terrier, her teeth bared.

  He grinned and almost choked when he realized he was doing it. He wished like hell his sister would stick to dogs and mules and questionable archaeological finds.

  It didn’t matter. This dove was not only vulnerable, but he smelled a faint aura of money and culture on her, as well. Jericho knew from firsthand experience that this unforgiving Navajo land would quickly send such a woman packing. She’d run home, muddy sandals, big green eyes and all. And if she didn’t run, she would crumble, just as Anelle had done.

  The pain of that memory was old but it made him flinch anyway. He took his foot off the clutch abruptly and the Land Rover shot forward.

  No, he thought, Lanie McDaniel wouldn’t be underfoot for long.

  * * *

  Catherine’s eyes widened and she gave a little gasp as the truck bounced wildly. Her head nearly hit the roof, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around the arm rest.

  Shadow spared her a quick glance as she swung away from the road and headed out onto open desert. “You okay? Just hang on and lock the door.”

  Catherine pried her fingers loose to do as she was told.

  “This reservation is huge. You’ll find it’s a lot easier to travel this way, as the crow flies. Otherwise, you’ll be driving all day to get from Point A to Point B.” She paused to wrestle with the wheel as they hit a particularly rough stretch, then she added, “Also, they excavated the top layer of soil to make the roads. Without that, all you’ve got is mud when it rains. Only a few of the main arteries are paved.”

  Catherine noticed that the unmolested desert did indeed give better traction. The tires of the four-by-four truck were able to grip rather than slide.

  Suddenly their way was blocked by a herd of sheep, too big to be driven around. Shadow slowed down to nose the vehicle gently through the animals.

  “Don’t they wander away?” Catherine asked. Richard had been right. She saw no fences to contain them.

  Shadow let go of the wheel long enough to point to a large cluster of brush shelters farther out on the horizon. “They’ll roam, but their owners will follow them. That’s a sheep camp. This would be the...” she paused to think “...probably the Yellowhorse outfit.”

  “What’s an outfit?”

  “Sort of a group of extended relatives, smaller than a clan but larger than a family. Clans are a bloodline sort of thing—we’re all born to the ones our mothers belong to. That makes for hundreds upon hundreds of clan members, and we don’t even know most of who we’re related to that way. Outfits are made up more of second and third cousins, aunts and uncles by marriage, that sort of thing. There’s usually a matriarch holding it all together. These Yellow-horses are a traditional people. Most everybody living out here, south of Beautiful Mountain, is traditional.”

  They climbed out of a wide culvert, and suddenly the mountain itself lunged up from the horizon like a mighty sentinel standing guard over the craggy land. Catherine’s head began to spin. Between the camp and the wandering sheep, it did feel as though the last two hundred years had never happened.

  Women moved around the brush shelters in long tiered skirts of vibrant hues—mostly royal blue. Catherine caught sight of a man riding a horse at a distant edge of the flock. He wore a bandanna across his forehead. His hair was long and sleek and black, and his muscled chest was bare. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a quiver of arrows hanging over his shoulder.

  A quick laugh sneaked up on her. Victor would never think to look for her here. It was as far removed from his world of dark, crowded restaurants as the moon was from the sun.

  Shadow looked at her curiously.

  “It’s wonderful,” Catherine said, and realized she meant it.

  They approached the mountain and came to another road. This time Shadow turned onto it. The tires threw mud up behind them and wings of water spewed up on either side of them as they passed through places that were awash. Finally, Shadow turned onto a smaller side road and two trailers appeared on the desert before them.

  Catherine jolted. They looked incongruous—a flash of modern America in the midst of stark, endless land. Well, maybe not modern, she allowed. The first trailer was gleaming silver metal, but the one that sat behind it was painted a white color that had long since gone to gray brown.

  A rust-ravaged Toyota sat nearby between a huge metal barrel and a growling generator in the parking area, a space of raw sand where the grass and the brush had been stripped away. Shadow stopped behind the Toyota. They got out and slogged through the mud toward the silver trailer.

  “You don’t have to worry about water here,” Shadow told her, waving at the barrel. “That tank is filled twice a week by a truck that comes down from Shiprock.”

  “Where’s that?” Catherine had gotten the distinct impression from the health service that the clinic was in Shiprock.

  Apparently not so. Shadow motioned at the road. “A hundred miles or so.”

  They went up three
wooden steps into the clinic. Catherine’s jaw dropped. Given the sheep camp and Shadow’s quaint hogan, she had expected primitive conditions. The place was small, but most of the equipment looked brand-new, scarcely used. Everything was immaculate.

  A nurse came out of one of the back rooms at the sound of their footsteps. At first impression she was stunningly beautiful, but as soon as she saw them her face hardened. Her eyes turned hostile as they moved from Shadow to her, then back again.

  Catherine felt her heart sink fast. Apparently the nurse didn’t want her here any more than Jericho did. She’d been on the reservation less than a day, and already she’d made two enemies through no legitimate reason she could figure.

  “Lanie McDaniel, Ellen Lonetree.” Shadow made the introductions brightly, but Ellen did not respond.

  The silence lengthened. Shadow cleared her throat. “Well,” she said finally. “Dr. Kolkline isn’t around?”

  Ellen’s face finally changed expression. She looked incredulous. “Are you kidding?”

  “I’m supposed to be working under him,” Catherine ventured.

  Her contribution earned a glare from Ellen, and the nurse turned abruptly and went back to the other room. Shadow shrugged apologetically.

  “Well, you’ll meet him sooner or later. He spends most of his time at University Hospital.” She hesitated, then apparently decided to be frank. In many ways, she reminded Catherine of her father, preferring honesty, however brutal, to polite evasions that would only make things messy later on.

  “Abe Kolkline is sort of a society dropout,” she explained. “He shows up occasionally, but not many of our people feel a need for his Anglo medicine. The Mystery Disease has changed things some, but there still isn’t much of a demand for his services. He usually hangs out in Albuquerque unless Ellen calls him to come here.”

  Something in Shadow’s eyes told her Ellen didn’t do that often.

  Shadow motioned to the door and Catherine followed her outside again. “She’s a respected healer in her own right,” Shadow went on as they crossed to the other trailer. “She’s very good with herbal cures, with more traditional, holistic approaches. But she went to nursing school because it was the only way the health service would allow her to officially work the clinic. I guess she has reason to resent Anglo medicine. The doctors they’ve sent us either don’t care or don’t understand the People’s spiritual needs, and they’re very intertwined with their health according to Navajo doctrine. As for the externs...” She shrugged as she worked a key in the trailer door. “Well, let’s just say they put in their time and they’re all the service can afford by way of assistants. They leave again as soon as their elective is up, and some of them don’t even stay that long.”