No Mercy

SEVEN

Callused fingertips caressed my cheek. Mmm. Nice. I angled my face into the insistent touch. And a piece of grass poked up my left nostril like a railroad spike.

I froze. Where the hell was I?

I wiggled my arms and legs. Not tied up. Definitely on the ground. Not in the desert. No sand shifting beneath me, but sharp rocks and dirt with the faint odor of skunkweed.

No skunkweed in Iraq.

“Shit.” I couldn’t remember where I was.

“Hey. Take it easy.”

The male voice didn’t ring any bells. “Where am I?”

“In Clementine’s parking lot.”

Clementine’s. Things started to come back to me. Sort of. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I came out here to take a leak and I tripped over you.” Heavy pause. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine as long as you didn’t actually pee on me.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t.”

“Good.” I tried to sit up but didn’t quite manage it.

“Easy.” Then, “How much’ve you been drinking?”

“Not enough to make me pass out.” I made it into a sitting position and opened my eyes. My rescuer squatted down. The young hottie with the great grin who’d gallantly given up his bar stool. “Cowboy Troy?”

His white teeth lit up the night like a beacon. “Trey. Not Troy.”

“Well, Cowboy Trey, thanks for not leaving me out here to get run over. Although I feel like I’ve been a speed bump for a cattle truck.” I scooted back until my spine hit solid metal. I lifted my arm and touched the back of my neck. Even that little motion made me wince. Nice goose egg. No blood, though.

“Maybe I should get John-John or Muskrat. See if they can help you. I ain’t real good with first-aid stuff.”

“No.” I gripped his forearm. “John-John will freak out and blame himself.”

“Maybe he should. It ain’t right, letting a pretty woman wander out here alone at night. He don’t have the most trustworthy customers.”

“Except you, apparently.”

Trey grinned. “He should’ve asked me to escort you to your truck. It would’ve been the high point of my night.”

I blinked. “You flirting with me, Cowboy Trey?”

“Yeah. Is it getting me anywhere with you?”

I didn’t answer. I felt too crappy to flirt back.

Encouraged, he scooted closer. He plucked a piece of dried grass out of one of my braids. “You’re in no shape to drive home, Mercy.” Trey stood, stuck his hands out, and jerked me to my feet.

The second I was vertical… hello, vertigo. I fell right into him.

“Come on. My rig is over here. I’ll take you home.”

“You know where I live?”

“Everyone knows where you live.”

I frowned at his odd comment. He helped me into the passenger’s side of his truck.

Next thing I knew, Trey shook me awake. I sat up, as stiff as if I’d suddenly developed arthritis. Even after a short nap my head felt like a cannonball teetering on my shoulders. I squinted at the darkened windows of the kitchen. Would it have killed Sophie to leave a light on?

On the porch, Trey said, “Key for the door?”

I snorted. “Please. Like everybody else in this county, we don’t lock the door.”

“Makes it easy. Whoa. Steady. Where is your room?”

“Upstairs. The one in the far left corner.”

“I’d offer to carry you-”

“Not necessary.”

We trudged up the stairs, Trey following behind me in case I fell backward. I insisted on stopping in the bathroom first, where I downed two codeine-laced Tylenol I’d hoarded for emergencies. With the way my head screamed, this qualified.

I stretched out on the bed. The last thing I remembered was giggling as Trey pulled off my boots.

The mattress jiggled. I cracked one eye open at a time. Bright sunlight burned through the blinds, creating a cockeyed pattern across the patchwork pillow. I raised my gaze.

And saw a naked man roll out of my bed.

Holy cow. A muscled back and an excellent backside were inches from my face. The second I saw those lean hips swivel, my eyes snapped shut. As much as I wanted to see the front side of his body, I was too embarrassed to look.

“Mercy? You awake?”

I groaned. What had I done last night? I rolled over. Looked down at what I was almost wearing: a white lace camisole that doubled as a bra and my bikini panties with big red lips and the words kiss my ass printed everywhere. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

Clothes rustled. I peeked over to see Trey sliding wrinkled jeans over his smoothly muscled naked ass. “At the risk of sounding like an idiot, what happened last night after we came up here?”

“My ego is crushed you don’t remember.”

I think I stopped breathing.

“Just kidding.” He gave me the million-dollar smile that’d so thoroughly charmed me last night before I’d knocked back a hundred shots. “Nothing happened. You undressed yourself to what you’re wearing now. I bunked down with you because you were really out of it.”

Passed out next to a strange man. In my own bed. Yeah, I’d taken stupidity to a whole new level. I kept it light; wasn’t his fault I was an idiot. “Sorry you had to babysit me.”

“It’s all right. Wish it’d turned out different. Maybe next time it will.”

Flattering, that he wasn’t scared off by my haggard morning appearance. So why in the light of day did his megawatt smile seem forced?

“You want me to run you back to Clementine’s so you can get your truck?”

“If it’s not too much trouble. Let me hop in the shower first. I’ll meet you downstairs.” I snagged my robe and made a beeline for the bathroom.

Clean, dressed, and in need of caffeine, I was in fairly decent spirits considering the knot throbbing on the back of my neck and a hangover… until I realized I’d sent Trey downstairs without warning him about Sophie.

Crap. I wouldn’t have put it past Sophie to whack him over the head with the cast-iron frying pan and tie him up with the clothesline cord before asking questions.

But the kitchen was empty. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee lingered in the air. I’d sort of expected Trey to be sitting at the table, patiently waiting for me. I peeked into the living room.

The toilet flushed, the old pipes rattled, and the bathroom door creaked open. Sophie stepped out in a cloud of rose-scented air freshener and frowned at me. “What?”

“Ah. Have you seen-”

“If you’re looking for that young feller, I think he’s out by the barn.”

I refused to blush. Dammit. I was a thirty-eight-year-old woman. This was my house. I would not feel guilty for having an overnight male guest in my own house. I blurted, “Nothing happened.”

She rolled her eyes, clucked her tongue, and shuffled to the sun porch.

Back in the kitchen, the screen door slammed as I filled my coffee cup. I turned around as Trey trooped into the kitchen with Sheriff Dawson trailing behind him.

I managed not to choke on the hot liquid. What was Dawson doing here at eight thirty in the morning?

“Good. The coffee’s done.” Trey sauntered over, snagged a cup from the rack, and poured, acting like he’d been in my kitchen dozens of times. He glanced over at Dawson. “Sheriff?”

“No,” Dawson said curtly. “I didn’t come here to drink coffee.”

“So why did you darken my doorstep this morning?”

His hard gaze zoomed from me, to Trey, and back to me. “Because when I drove past Clementine’s this morning, I noticed your truck was still in the parking lot. I wanted to make sure everything was all right and you made it home okay.”

Trey and I exchanged a quick look. I didn’t give a crap if Dawson misread it. “Thanks for your concern, but as you can see I’m fine.”

When Dawson continued to stare, I bristled. “Is there something else you need, Sheriff?”

“The other reason I stopped by was to ask you some questions about what we talked about last night.”

“Refresh my memory. Some things from last night are a little fuzzy.” I smiled coyly at Trey. I didn’t care if Dawson misread that look either. “And some things not so much.”

“Fuzzy from too much to drink?”

“No, fuzzy from someone smacking me in the back of the head with a tire iron.”

Dawson was by my side in two steps. “Where were you hit?”

“Forget it.”

“Like hell. Where?”

“On the left side of my neck.”

“Let me see.”

The words fuck off danced on the end of my tongue. I bit them back and angled my neck so he could look.

Dawson’s dry fingers lightly traced the swollen spot. I withheld a shiver at his touch. “Did someone look at this?”

“No.”

“When did it happen?”

“About half an hour after you went into the back room.”

“Why didn’t you report this?” Dawson’s gaze lasered into me. “I was right there in the bar.”

“After you made a big point of telling me you were off duty?”

His mouth tightened. “I’m on duty now.”

“I’ll go get the truck ready,” Trey said, and vanished.

What a little chickenshit.

Dawson pointed to a chair. “Park it. I want to talk to you.”

I sat.

“Last night you talked about digging for answers in the Yellow Boy case. I’m here to ask you to stay out of it.”

“Why?”

“A number of reasons.”

“Give me two.”

“First off, I’m not convinced this is a homicide. The county coroner’s report was inconclusive as to the nature of death. But she’s tagging it as accidental.”

“That’s one.”

“Two, if I do suspect foul play, as you so eloquently phrased it last week, I can’t have you running around spooking people before I get a chance to talk to them.”

“You’ve had time. My understanding is you haven’t contacted any of the people who might know anything about why Albert ran away.”

“Who told you that? Estelle?”

I nodded.

“Mercy. Think about it.” Dawson angled forward, the picture of sincerity. “Nothing I do is enough. Albert was her child. She wants this case solved yesterday. She doesn’t realize things don’t happen overnight or like it does on TV.”

“So you are working on Albert’s case?”

“Yes. Just because I have other daily duties occupying my time doesn’t mean I’ve blown the case off.” He frowned. “There’s some funky things happening around here. Things that don’t fit. But it’s nothing I can share with Estelle at this point.”

“Why not? God, Dawson, give her something. Some hope that whatever secret thing you’re working on might eventually lead you to why Albert is dead.”

He didn’t say a word. Which in my mind meant everything he’d just said was a bunch of hogwash. I stood. “Fine. I’ll tell her you’re doing your best and she shouldn’t worry.”

“And you’ll stay out of it?”

I smiled at Trey through the screen door. “Come on, cowboy. We got places to be.”

A chair scraped. Dawson loomed over me. “I mean it. There are plenty of other things to keep you busy without messing in my business.”

“Like what?” If he suggested joining a quilting club, I’d club him.

“Like have you made a decision on whether you’re selling this ranch?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Gee, Sheriff, the way you keep bringing it up makes me think you might have designs on it yourself.”

“I don’t. But some folks around here do.” He dropped his guarded expression for a second. “That knot on your neck wasn’t an accident.”

His words sent goose bumps across my flesh. I looked at Trey. He had the oddest expression on his face. Probably he was as confused by this cryptic conversation as I was.

We left, and I didn’t look to see if Dawson followed.

Hope’s Honda was parked out front when I returned home. She and Sophie looked up when I dragged ass into the kitchen.

My sister smirked. “Hear you got yourself a new beau. Or was he hanging around because you were babysitting him?”

I should’ve let it slide. Instead, I spun the chair around and straddled it. “Tell you what. If you dish the dirt on the guy Theo, who’s been warming your bed, I’ll return the favor.”

Her face went as milky white as the tea in her cup.

“Didn’t think I knew, did you? How long before you planned to tell me?”

“Mercy, be nice,” Sophie warned.

I ignored her. “When you bringing him by so I can meet this great new love of your life?”

“See? That’s why I didn’t tell you. Because you’d get all sarcastic and mean.”

Sophie patted Hope’s hand and murmured to her, her shiny black eyes shot deadly daggers at me.

My focus shifted to a bottle of pills in the middle of the table. Thank God. A jumbo container of aspirin. Just what I needed to stop the throbbing pain in my head.

“Hey! Gimme that! It’s mine!” Hope said, trying to snatch the bottle from me.

“Relax. I’m just gonna borrow a couple.”

“You can’t. It’s private!”

Private aspirin? I turned the bottle in my hands to the read the contents. A prescription. In the name Hope Arpel. For prenatal vitamins. Prescribed by Doc Canaday.

Two months ago.

My mouth dropped open. “You’re pregnant?”

She wouldn’t look at me. Sophie suddenly seemed mighty interested in the cow and chicken wallpaper border above the refrigerator.

Stay calm. “That is why you’ve been so sick? And you didn’t think I deserved to know? Instead, you let me worry because no one could figure out what was wrong with you?”

“It’s not your job to worry about me. I’ve been doing just fine without you.” Her self-righteousness vanished, and her chin wobbled. “I knew you’d come back and take over everything.”

“Someone had to.”

“This baby’s got nothing to do with you and is none of your business.”

“Wrong. As Dad made me executor of his estate, everything that happens within this family or on this ranch is my business.”

No smart answer from Hope.

“How far along are you?”

She and Sophie exchanged another look.

“Tell me, goddammit.”

“Stop swearing at her,” Sophie said sharply.

“I will when she answers the question.”

“Three months or so.”

My mind whirled. “Did Dad know?”

Hope shook her head.

“This Theo guy is the father?”

She glared at me.

“Am I the only person who doesn’t know?”

“No. She didn’t bother to tell me neither.” Levi was sagged against the doorjamb separating the kitchen from the living room.

My anger escalated at the hurt look on his face. Damn my selfish sister.

“Levi, honey, I can explain-”

“Save it, Ma. Aunt Mercy is right. She ain’t the only one who’s been worried about you. But like usual, you don’t care about nobody but yourself.”

“That’s not fair!”

“You know what ain’t fair? If you think I’m gonna be your built-in babysitter once that brat is born. I won’t stick around. You can’t make me. You probably wouldn’t notice if I was gone anyway. But I can guarantee you Theo ain’t gonna be changing diapers. He’ll expect you to do it since he follows the ‘traditional’ ways of the Indian, the separation of men’s and women’s duties within the tribe and home.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. I take his culture class; you don’t. And he’s a different person around me than he is around you.”

Sophie tried mediating. “Why don’t we all just calm down and talk about this, eh?”

“Screw that. I’m outta here.” Levi stormed out before anyone could stop him.

Hope jumped to her feet. I blocked the door. “Let him go.”

“No. I have to explain.”

“You should’ve explained long before now.”

She blinked back tears.

I hated it when she cried, but I steeled my resolve not to let her off the hook this time. “Give him some time to sort through this. He’s hurt, and he has a right to be upset.”

“But I need to talk to him!”

“No, you need time to figure out why you kept something this important from him. He is your family. I am your family. What were you thinking, shutting us out?”

Her eyes thinned to malicious slits. “You don’t have kids and you haven’t been around him, so what makes you think you know anything about how he’s feeling, huh?”

“It’s obvious he’s pissed off at you. And how do I know that? Because you’ve pissed me off more times than I can count, sis. So leave him alone. You’d better figure out a way to make this right with him, because he sure as hell deserves better than you’ve given him lately. And so do I.”

I slammed the door with enough force the screen popped out and bounced off the porch slats. I didn’t care. It would still be there when I returned, just another damn thing in my life I’d have to fix.

Levi peeled out across the pasture on an ATV, Shoonga racing alongside him, and he headed south toward Old Woman Creek. I could’ve let him go. But I suspected he’s spent more time alone than he’d let on. I hopped on an older four-wheeler, trailing behind him. If he noticed me following and it made him mad, so be it. He could take his anger and frustration out on me.

He killed the engine beneath a cluster of cottonwood trees. Thin puffs of dust kicked up as he shuffled to the ledge of the steep bluff.

I doubted he’d do anything stupid, like pitch himself over, but I wondered how many teenagers’ last thoughts before suicide were ones of remorse.

Levi backed away and dropped to the ground. He huddled into a ball and shouldered Shoonga aside until the dog flopped beside him. It reminded me that Levi might act tough and grown-up, but he was still young and vulnerable.

Shoonga panted heavily, too tired to bark at me as I climbed off the machine and ambled across the hard-packed soil.

“I ain’t gonna kill myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Levi said.

“I’m not.”

“Then why’d you follow me?”

To see if you needed me. “To see your secret brooding place.”

Levi straightened up. “How’d you know I had one?”

“All teenagers have them.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.”

“Where was yours?”

“Which one?” I plopped beside him and narrowly missed jabbing my ass on a tiny barrel cactus.

“You had more than one?”

“Don’t you?”

His cheeky smile was there and gone. “Yeah.”

“I liked to keep people guessing. I thought they’d gnash their teeth and weep and wail, distraught with guilt if they couldn’t find me in my usual spot.”

We watched a red-tailed hawk perform a loop-de-loop and soar higher on a thermal.

“Didja ever tell anyone where you was going?”

“Nah. But I think they knew. How about you?”

“Not usually. Ma don’t care. This is my favorite, but there is another spot with one old gnarled tree. It’s like I can see for a thousand miles.”

I knew that place, but was surprised he did, as it was fairly isolated. “How’d you stumble across it?”

“The person who showed it to me meets me there sometimes.” He tossed a flat piece of toffee-colored sandstone over the edge. It made a hollow chink. “She’s cool. She listens to me whenever I’m mad at my mom. Which has been a lot lately.”

“My brooding spots were directly related to who I was mad at. If it was Sophie, I usually stomped around the kitchen. Drove her crazier than if I’d taken off and left her in peace.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“If I was mad at my dad, I hid in that grove of old elm trees. I’d climb to the highest branch so I could see far away, since that’s where I planned to go.”

“Is that the grove where you practice target shooting now?”

“Yeah.” I fiddled with a knobby cottonwood twig and peeled the bark away, revealing the whitish-green meaty wood. “If your mom pissed me off, which was pretty regularly, I holed up down by the creek. I’d stand on that big boulder, shaped like a chef’s hat, and whip rocks in the water.”

Neither of us spoke. The hair on the back of my arms prickled from the heat. The occasional insect buzzed past my ear. No wind meant the leaves in the trees were as quiet as the air between us.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” He absentmindedly scratched behind Shoonga’s ears.

“No clue. What she did was wrong, Levi. I’ve explained the reasons for her actions most of her life. I guess maybe it’s easy for her to avoid taking responsibility for anything.”

“See? You’re still doing it. Making excuses for her.”

Smart kid. “You’re right.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna do it anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Make excuses. And I’m sick of hers. She’s gonna be pissed, and Theo will give me a lecture on respecting my mother if I say anything, and I cannot deal with either of them.”

“Does Theo do that a lot?”

“What?”

“Try to act like your father?”

“Shee. If he ain’t yelling at me, then he’s ignoring me. Whenever Ma starts crying, which is all the time lately, he starts acting like it’s my fault… like if I were a better kid, she wouldn’t be sad. I hate it. Makes me wanna run away like Albert had been doing.” Levi nudged me with his shoulder. “Hey, maybe I could stay with you at Grandpa’s house for a while. I used to stay there a lot. That’d be fun, doncha think? You and me hanging out? Like we did that summer you were here? When you showed me how to make those cool native friendship bracelets?”

Like I needed more friction in my life, especially between my sister and me, but Levi needed someone on his side. Truthfully, it touched me he’d remembered those funky, wildly popular friendship bracelets we’d made the year he’d turned seven. I’d been determined to reconnect with my nephew during the four short weeks I’d been on furlough. And because the “craft” gene skipped me, I’d secretly burned the midnight oil, learning to braid, just so Levi and I could do an activity together that interested him. Some people are scared of guns; I have the same reaction when faced with embroidery floss.

“So what do you say?” Levi prompted.

“Sure. But I want you to do one thing first. Go home. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel.”

“About what?”

“About how she treats you. About your issues with Theo.”

“In other words, make sure Ma knows it wasn’t your idea.”

“Pretty much.”

“All right. I’ll do it tomorrow. I won’t be around tonight.”

“Where you going?”

“Out.” He sighed. “Trying to make new friends sucks, eh?”

Thorny silence again. No easy way to lead up to what’d happened to his friend, so I dove right in. “Speaking of friends… Do you think someone killed Albert?”

Levi looked at me strangely. “I dunno. Why?”

“His mom doesn’t think his death was an accident.”

He didn’t seem surprised by that observation.

“She thinks someone killed him and dumped his body here,” I added.

“Is she blaming me because he was found on our land?”

Our land. I liked how that sounded coming from him. “No. Why?”

“Because me and Albert were fighting for a while before he disappeared. He was drinking and shit all the time, not just on weekends. Every bad thing he was doing revolved around that Warrior Society. It pissed me off. That’s really the only reason I wanted to join, so I could see for myself why everyone thought that club was so fucking great, because it sure wasn’t great for Albert. But I’d never do nothing, to like, hurt him. Man. He was my friend.”

“Relax. She asked me to poke around, see if I could find out anything new from you or his other friends.”

“Good luck with that. None of them Warrior Society guys will talk to you because you’re white.”

My automatic rebuttal-I’m not entirely white-stayed stuck in my mouth.

His head fell to his chest, his hair blocking his face. “They ain’t talking to me for the same reason. Seems everyone I know is ignoring me or is dead.”

Poor kid. “I’m not dead.”

“Yeah, but you were ignoring me up until a couple of days ago.”

Oof. Guilt kicked me in the gut.

“Gramps is gone. And I miss having Albert-the old Albert-to hang out with. Me and him could talk for hours.” He toed the ground, unearthing stones, sending a mini-rock slide over the edge. Shoonga barked at the sudden noise, and Levi petted his head. “I could still talk to him, I s’pose, but he ain’t gonna answer back so it won’t be the same.”

Sometimes I thought if I talked to my dad out loud I could pretend he was there. But the Gunderson women already had the reputation for crazy behavior, no need for me to add fuel to the fire. “You have anyone else you can talk to?”

“One other person. She’s been through some nasty shit in her life, so it’s like she knows what I’m talking about.”

I didn’t ask if “she” was Sue Anne. I stood and brushed the dust from my butt. “Don’t stay out here too long, okay? Call me and let me know what’s going on.”

“Thanks, Aunt Mercy.”

“No problem.” I resisted the urge to ruffle Levi’s hair. Instead, I reached down and rubbed Shoonga’s sun-warmed fur. When my hand brushed Levi’s, I squeezed it once before I backed off.

He didn’t watch me drive away. He stared straight ahead, lost in his own misery.

I knew exactly how he felt.