“What? Who would do that?” Guilt slid through her. “It’s because you’re with me. It has to be. Someone is taking his dislike for me out on you.”
“Or trying to warn me away from asking too many questions.”
“Leonard wouldn’t do this.”
“I didn’t say he did. Though we didn’t ask questions of anyone else.”
“More likely, it was Jimmy.” Ella couldn’t see an officer of the law doing something so destructive, but who else? “That’s why he was gloating when he walked away. We should report this, but to whom? If Jimmy did do it, reporting it would be futile since he’s the head of the tribal police. He’d probably tell everyone that I put some kind of curse on your truck.”
Tiernan swept the light over the ground around the car. “Look at this,” he said, stopping the flood of light near one of the tires.
Ella gasped. A raven’s track. “Our telling anyone about it will only make people take a closer look at me. They’ll think I did it myself.”
Tiernan smudged the scratching with his foot until it disappeared. “Let’s go over to the petrol station, see what they can do for us.”
Ella’s pulse rushed through her as she walked with him. What did the sign and the slashed tires mean? Was it simply a warning to leave the rez? Or something more?
At the gas station, she stopped at the door. “I’ll wait outside for you.”
So she could think.
Part of her wanted to run back to Sioux Falls, but the other part was angry. Not about to be scared away, Ella closed her eyes and thought of her father and his strength in the face of terror. She could see him as he was that last day before fire tore at his flesh.
I will not let anyone drive me away, Father.
You are brave, Ella.
I’m frightened. I don’t know if I can do this.
You can do anything you choose. You learned well, daughter. Now you must use what you know. Use your mind the way I taught you.
It has been too long.
It is time.
“They can’t do anything—not tonight.”
Tiernan’s voice jerked Ella back to the situation.
“The lad told me to come back in the morning when someone could get me a price on new tires and then have someone go fetch them from Custer.”
“I’m really sorry—”
“’Tis not your fault.”
“In a way it is. If I hadn’t involved you, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I volunteered, remember.”
Tiernan gave her a blinding smile that made her heart skip a beat. This time, she fought the invisible link that threatened to bind her to him.
“After what happened,” she said, “I’m not holding you to anything.” Who knew how far the culprit would go next?
“Something as inconsequential as ruined tires is not going to change my mind.”
“What if it’s more?”
“We will take things as they go. As my grandmother always says, ‘Do not be lookin’ for trouble, Tiernan, lad, for trouble is sure ta find ye soon enough.’”
Ella smiled. “All right.”
Tiernan’s expression said he wanted to tell her something more, then shifted into neutral. “I guess I should be walking, then.”
“I’ll drive you, of course.” She caught his wrist and tugged on it. “The house is this way.”
Flushing with inexplicable feelings, she let go of him. They walked in silence, giving her time to wonder why they seemed linked together. What was it that had brought them together in the first place? And why did she feel like a battery that was plugged in and charging every time he was near her?
They arrived at the house without her having the answer. “Here we are.”
“No lights on to welcome you home?”
“The grandparents go to bed early. Electricity is one expense they can limit. Besides, I’m used to finding my way through the place. This used to be our house,” she admitted. “I don’t have to go in. I have the keys on me.”
Pulling them from her purse, she jingled them at him and then unlocked the SUV.
Within minutes they were back on the winding road cutting first across reservation land, which soon gave way to refuge land. Ella wasn’t fond of driving this road with its dips and drop-offs and hairpin curves during the day. At night the road could be treacherous, so she took it slower than normal. Undoubtedly the reason another set of lights in her rearview mirror approached so fast. The driver put on his brights and flicked them several times.
“Oh, great, this guy is in a big hurry.”
Tiernan glanced back. “Isn’t he getting a little too close?”
“For my comfort, yeah, but he’ll get tired of waiting for me to speed up and will just go around us.”
Only he didn’t.
The brights in her mirrors nearly blinded her. She couldn’t make out anything other than the vehicle was a dark, old model truck. It stayed directly behind them so close that Ella felt as if it was right in her trunk.
And then it was.
The first time it was a tap.
“Hey!”
And then the tap became a bump, making Ella speed up whether or not she wanted to.
“What the hell does he think he’s doing?” Tiernan muttered, now turning in his seat as far as the seat belt would let him. “’Tis impossible to see anything beyond the brights.”
But Ella could see that no matter how fast she went, the truck behind was staying glued to her rear, trying to make her go faster.
The SUV veered toward the drop-off, the tires spewing gravel from the side of the road. The breath caught in Ella’s throat and she jerked the wheel so the SUV careened away from the edge to the other side of the road. An oncoming car made her jerk the other way to correct. The SUV swayed and went up on two wheels and then back down to four with a hard thunk.
“We’re going too fast!” If she didn’t slow down, they could capsize or go over the embankment. She looked up into the rearview mirror and saw the lights approaching from behind again. “I can’t control it.”
“Calm down, darlin’, ’tis a fine job of driving you’re doing. ’tis only your nerves making you think you can’t control the vehicle.”
As Tiernan spoke, he placed a calming hand on her shoulder. The effect rippled through her until at last, she breathed easier.
“What did you do to me?”
“Convinced you of my confidence is all.”
But how? What magic did he use on her?
She didn’t ask, rather aimed her full concentration on getting them safely to flat land. Able to see the full road and any oncoming vehicles ahead, she straddled the line and halfway through the next curve sped up, finally putting some distance between them and the truck.
Though she was barely familiar with the road, she remembered that at the end of this hilly stretch there was a straight run across a flat piece of land that went on half a mile. They were almost there.
“Hang on, I’m going to get a look at whoever is trying to run us off the road.”
“What are you planning on doing?”
“Just watch.”
A couple hundred yards into the flat, she slowed and put the SUV into four-wheel drive, then circled onto unpaved road. She clicked on her brights just in time to get a good look at the side of the truck as it passed them and sped on.