“We saw what you did on the set!”
“The fire started before I got there.”
“Not the fire, what you did to make Marisala leave the building.”
“What is it you think you saw?” Ella asked, looking around to those who’d been on the set.
A wide-eyed woman looked around wildly and told the others, “She made Marisala fly with her!”
Ella started. Through journeying, she’d made a mental connection with Marisala—had others been able to see what had been in their minds?
“Black magic! Evil!”
“I saved a woman’s life!” Ella countered. “Someone else is at work here—someone who lives on the rez.”
“Get her!” came an hysterical voice. “Keep her from hurting anyone else!”
No matter that she’d tried to talk them down with truth and logic, they weren’t listening.
Two men grabbed her and Ella prayed that she could survive without resorting to magic. She couldn’t hurt them—that wasn’t the way, she reminded herself even as the frenzied crowd surrounded her and the men dragged her toward the church. Though she screamed inside, no sound passed her lips.
Wearing a venomous expression, Ami Badeau walked alongside her, saying, “I told you we take care of our own!”
This wasn’t happening, Ella thought, her chest squeezing tight. Not again. Not to her.
She’d been so careful not to raise suspicions. Knowing using her powers would be dangerous, she’d refused until today, but she hadn’t been able to let Marisala die.
Why couldn’t they see that?
As had happened fifteen years ago, The People weren’t themselves. Their faces had changed, their eyes burned with madness.
All but Leonard, who came running from the direction of the casino. “What are you doing? Have you all gone crazy?”
“We’re taking care of the plague that threatens the rez,” someone said.
Leonard argued, “Wasn’t it enough that you killed Ella’s father?”
“We destroyed but one evil,” Ami reminded him. “She is following in Joseph Thunder’s footsteps!”
Leonard tried to get between Ella and her captors, but two men waylaid him and dragged him away.
“You won’t stop us,” Ami said.
A man added, “It’s the only way to cleanse the rez!”
As she was dragged along, Ella looked around frantically. Where were the tribal police to stop this madness? She spotted Jimmy Iron Horse in front of the government building. He wasn’t with the crowd this time, but he wasn’t trying to stop it, either. He stood, staring out at the scene, grasping the railing, his posture stiff, his expression intent.
Was he the one responsible for the green-tinged sky? Ella wondered, suddenly noticing the shift in the elements. The wind soughed and the earth itself tilted under her feet and the air grew thick with evil promise.
Nathan was nowhere to be seen! Was he sitting back and laughing over her plight?
Her gaze went back to the government building. Or was Jimmy Iron Horse manipulating them all?
Voices rose into a chant and Ella smelled smoke. One woman was dancing, another singing a death chant. She was pulled into the open circle and stopped before a post on which the track of a raven had been burned. Wood was stacked nearby, some of it already burning.
What should I do? Tell me!
Her heart thumped with a strange beat. As men with burning torches approached, her head went light. The flicker of power blossomed inside her even as she fought the two men who were holding her from tying her down.
Terrified, Ella felt her mind opening….
The sky darkened… the clouds stretched… the earth rumbled….
Then the pounding of hoofbeats made the crowd turn and split in two as a big red roan thundered through the town, straight for the church.
“Aaiee!”
“No, it’s not possible!”
“He’s come back for revenge!”
The rugged man seated on the horse had long hair decorated with a single feather and features as craggy as the Badlands. He raised bronzed arms as if he were going to strike them all down with magic.
People scattered, and one tripped, then screamed while trying to get away.
Ella couldn’t believe her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Could it? What she was seeing couldn’t be real.
Still, she whispered, “Father?”
Chapter Fifteen
“Take my hand.”
Ella did as he bade. As they touched, her expression changed and her eyes widened. “You’re not—”
Before she could finish and give him away, Tiernan pulled her up and she hooked one foot in the stirrup and swung her other leg behind him. Her arms wrapped around his waist and she lay her head against his back and his body responded with repressed emotion. Letting go of a war cry he’d heard from many a cinema sound track, he urged the roan forward and headed straight out of town. People had to jump out of the way so he didn’t hit them. He didn’t look back, didn’t stop until they were far up into the hills and away from the insanity.
Only when he was certain they were safe, when he could no longer sense the evil that had overtaken Ella’s old neighbors, did he look for a place to stop Red Crow. He found it in a dense area of ponderosa pines through which flowed one of the area’s many mountain streams. A two-foot ribbon of water rushed over chunks of rocks.
Tiernan helped Ella dismount, her skirt fluttering up. ’Twas the gloaming, the time between day and night, and the forest made it seem even darker. Though what he wanted was to scoop her into his arms, he brushed her hair back from her face instead, looking for cuts or bruises. He couldn’t see well enough to be satisfied.
“Are you all right?” he asked, hard-pressed not to check over every inch of her. That would require more touching than he could stand. “Not hurt in any way.”
“I’m fine.” Ella was staring at him as if she really was seeing a ghost. “How did you—”
“Carrie, the head of makeup, she said she could make me look like anyone, and I took her at her word.”
Pulling off the wig and the prosthetic that had given him a blade of a nose and high, wide cheekbones, he knelt down next to the stream, pulled out the tube of cleanser Carrie had given him and started removing the makeup and bits of glue.
Ella took out her cell and flipped it open, cursed under her breath and flipped it closed again.
“No signal,” she said, shoving it back in her skirt pocket. “The grandparents must be going crazy wondering what happened to me. If they saw you from a distance, who knows what they thought. You even fooled me for a moment and I was up close.”
“I guess Carrie did a grand enough job for me to pass in the dim light.”
Ella crouched down next to him. “But how did you know what Father looked like?”
“Internet research.” Tiernan removed his shirt and used it to wipe his face clean. “I found an article about your da and printed it to read later. There was a photo of him. I gave it to Carrie.”
“Whatever gave you the idea? You couldn’t have known you would need to do something so drastic to rescue me.”
“Indeed, I could,” he countered. “McKenna instinct. Or call it whatever makes you comfortable. When you wouldn’t let me come with you, and so many people were so hostile, I just knew something terrible was at hand. I couldn’t let anything happen to you. The ghost of your da was the only thing I could think of that would make an angry crowd hesitate long enough for me to get you out of harm’s way.”