âThereâs a mass murderer on the loose.â
âYou didnât forget already?â Ten Bears asked.
âNo,â Annja said slowly. âI didnât.â
âLet us professionals handle him. We do a bad enough job without any help.â
She wasnât sure quite how to take that. He seemed like a man who, for all his cockeyed banter, took his job very seriously. She also didnât think his tongue was more than halfway in his cheek, and wondered just who wasnât doing their job quite so well.
âOne more thing before you go,â he told her as she started for the door of his small office. âWe got us some young South Plains braves here in western Oklahoma who donât much like white-eyes. And they play rough. Tempers are extra short right now since some of them donât like it that we got us a great big new casino opening up in a few days.â
He laughed at her expression. âDonât worry,â he said. âThey canât fire me for calling them braves. Any more than they can make us Indians call ourselves Native Americans. That fight we won, anyway. Maybe itâs a trend.â
She had to laugh. She found herself liking the lieutenant. âMaybe it is.â
But as she left she found herself thinking, I donât believe in werewolves.
But there are plenty of things I donât believe in that have a nasty habit of turning up anywayâ¦.
â¦THE ENGLISH COMMANDER TOOK JOANâS SWORD AND RAISED IT HIGH.
The broadsword, plain and unadorned, gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade. The broadsword shattered, fragments falling into the mud. The crowd surged forward, peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards from the trampled mud. The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd.
Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.
Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France, but her legend and sword are rebornâ¦
Standing in the open door of the RV with a mug of coffee steaming in his hand Paul Stavriakos cursed the freezing wind and wondered why heâd ever moved to the Great Plains.
âEither go or stay, but shut the damn door,â Allison York called from the bed. âThat wind is freezing.â
Paul sighed and stepped down to the grass, still dry and tan from winter. He shut the door behind him. The wind howled around him.
Dawn was still a drizzle of red along the horizon. Clouds hid the stars overhead.
The land was all tilted planes. It was flat, in a way, but flat that tipped this way and that in big plates furred in yellow-brown grass. There wasnât much relief; but it was deceptive land, with more hollows and heights than first struck the eye.
âNot enough to cut the damn wind, though,â he muttered to himself.
Lights appeared in the trailer that Donny Luttrell shared with TiJean Watts. The battered Toyota pickup with the camper shell belonging to Dr. Ted Watkins from the State Archaeological Division was rocking on its suspension more than the windâs buffeting would account for. Paul hoped he was pulling on his jeans. The muffled swearing coming from inside seemed to support that thesis.
âEver wonder why those old Indians picked a miserable spot like this to make their camp?â
Paul turned. Eric James was swinging off the back of his old buckskin gelding. He wore a sheepskin coat and a battered felt cowboy hat. The hair hanging in thick braids to either side of his head was gray as slate. The wide face between, the color of Oklahoma clay, had a tough and weathered quality but was barely lined. A full-blooded Comanche and full-time rancher, he owned the land where they stood.
He returned to his saddle for a moment, then turned back to Paul. He held white bags with a colorful logo in each hand.
âBrought doughnuts for you kids,â he said. âHope you make decent coffee. Wasnât carrying that in my saddlebags.â
Paul smiled. It felt as if ice was cracking off his face. The digging season seemed to start earlier each year. The ground wasnât fully frozen. That was about all you could say for it.
Then again, he thought, itâs getting harder and harder to beat the protestors out here. Digging in colder and worse weather was one way of keeping them at bay as long as possible. Even so, theyâd be out there with their signs and their shouting as soon as the day warmed up.