Chapter 11

“We going inside?” Kai asks.

“Hmm?” I keep my gaze on my trailer, waiting for something, some sign to let me know what I’m walking into. We pulled up a good ten minutes ago, but I’m still sitting in the driver’s seat, unwilling to move.

“Inside. This is your place, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got a visitor.”

He turns his head to look briefly around the empty driveway. “How can you tell?”

“Lightning. And you hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly.” I rub my hands on my pants, psyching myself up. “I’ve got dogs, three of them. Rez mutts, not afraid of anything. And right now I don’t see them anywhere, but mostly, I don’t hear them.”

And there it is. A flicker of a curtain. A face peers out, only briefly, and then the curtain falls.

I let out a sigh, somewhere between relief and disappointment. I recognize that face. Part of me thought for a moment it might have been Neizghání in there. What that reunion would look like, I’m not sure. But I don’t need to worry. That wasn’t Neizghání’s face in the window.

“I want you to wait here,” I tell Kai. “Get the shotgun out of the back. If I don’t come out in fifteen minutes, come in with the gun. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to shoot anybody, but try to look menacing if you can. I’ll probably be okay.”

“Probably?”

“Yeah. He’s likely just here to talk, but I won’t want to be alone with him any longer than that.”

Kai’s staring at the windows of my single-wide now, his face somewhere between thoughtful and nervous. My visitor hasn’t come back to the window for a second reveal, but I can feel the air around us thickening, the dread heavy enough to make me jittery.

“If he won’t hurt you, should I really come in waving a shotgun?” Kai whispers, even though we’re alone in the truck.

I nod and whisper back, “Sometimes you need to make a good first impression.”

The look he gives me is incredulous. “With a shotgun? Who the hell is in there?”

I’m pretty sure that first question was rhetorical, but I answer the second one best I can. “An old frenemy. His Navajo name is Ma’ii. You probably know him as Coyote.”

I open the truck door and step out. The high desert has finally begun to cool off as evening approaches. The faint smell of ozone flavors the air, remnants from the lightning that my houseguest used for transportation. A sense of the uncanny sets my senses on edge, and something animal and instinctual in me tells me not to go into my home. That what waits for me in there means me harm. That instinct isn’t wrong exactly. It’s saved me more than once in dealing with the Bik’e’áyée’ii. But this time I’m not listening. Coyote has come calling, and I want to know why.

I push down the impulse to run away and take the few steps up the dirt path to the front stairs. I bound them in one leap and open the door.

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