Changing Woman's Hair (eBook)

Jan D. Payne (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
380 Seiten
Rabbit Hole LLC (Verlag)
9798991062510 (ISBN)

Infos

When Marin Sinclair discovers teenager Garret Washburn in danger from a deadly conspiracy involving bootlegged alcohol, wolf-witches, an election campaign, murder, and an unknown bomber, she looks to Navajo Nation Police Sergeant Justin Blue Eyes and federal agent Cullen MacPherson to help protect Vangie Tso's son from the dark forces at play.

Drawing from her own life story in the Four Corners area of the Navajo Nation, author Jan D. Payne offers readers a journey into the heart of the American Southwest in a modern-day romantic suspense series. Writing characters who navigate diverse cultural influences to explore the lines between the seen and the unseen, the modern and the traditional, the present and the past-she creates a world where the impossible becomes possible, and mythical legends may come to life. Jan is a member of Western Writers of America and Women Writing the West. She and her husband live in the Leech Lake area of northern Minnesota with their three big dogs-Kaibab, Rudi, and Orrin. Visit her website at: jandpayne.com

Textauszug

CHAPTER ONE

„„„„„„

Justin Blue Eyes was focused on the late model truck parked across the road ahead, approximately a mile from the town of Toyei, Arizona—population thirteen at the last census—and about a third of the way along the hundred and fifty miles of highway between the Navajo Nation Police headquarters in Window Rock and his own police substation in Tuba City: the place he wished to be, the place he’d planned to be, for the coming weekend.

With less than four hundred officers to cover the twenty-seven-thousand square miles of the Navajo Nation, Sergeant Blue Eyes didn’t question, or even resent, the need for extra duty tours, but the strain of long hours and little sleep over the past month was beginning to show. He was tired, irritable, and had been looking forward to getting back to his own office in Tuba City for a few days. He’d come on duty in Window Rock this morning at four a.m., and when the call came through less than an hour later to investigate the probable stolen vehicle near Toyei, the assignment had naturally fallen to him.

The desert pre-dawn morning was dark; he let his headlights illuminate the scene while he ran the truck’s plates. The report came back as he’d expected, matching the description of a stolen vehicle made two days ago at the Window Rock station. Justin again read the statement made by the owner of the truck, a Mr. Harold Barber, who gave the duty officer a vivid report of the theft, insisting that skinwalkers—Dinéh wolf-witches—forced him to stop and then stolen his vehicle. They’d done so by blocking the highway with a barrier of fire, and when they threatened him with long, fiery whips, Mr. Barber left his truck and ran. He had headed back to Window Rock, on foot and in the dark. He was picked up by Raymond Yazzie, on his way home from his job at a local casino, and Raymond gave Mr. Barber a ride back to the police station to make a stolen vehicle report.

Raymond Yazzie was a friend as well as a relative of Justin’s—a second or maybe a third cousin—and when Raymond said Mr. Barber was almost incoherent with fear, Blue Eyes believed him. Besides, Mr. Barber made a vivid job of describing the hooded, man-like creatures with red, glowing eyes and fire-whips who took his truck and left him on foot.

Talking about wolf-witches, or skinwalkers, was something people living here usually didn’t do, though most everyone had a story or two about a medicine man who abused his magic for evil purposes or refused to follow the lifestyle requirements of the Beautiful Way and remain in harmony with the universe.

Blue Eyes could count three, maybe four, inexplicable incidents in his own life—not skinwalker incidents, but supernatural all the same—things that had happened during his years on the rodeo circuit. He wasn’t inclined to judge someone else’s supernatural experiences too harshly, but in his years as a police officer, most of the mischief attributed to skinwalkers was sparse on actual details. The stories he heard—and as a policeman he’d heard plenty—often proved to be drug-induced or an attempt to control a kid’s misbehavior, or just outright lies told for the story value.

Toyei wasn’t the middle of nowhere—not by reservation standards—and people here knew with the speed of reservation telegraph whose truck was where … and why. Anyone from around here would know that leaving a stolen truck, almost new and parked in the road, would attract attention. Someone had either wanted this truck called in right away, or that someone wasn’t from around here.

He was betting on the latter.

There’d been a spate of similar incidents lately—vehicles taken by supposed skinwalkers—the thefts spread out along the miles of lonely reservation highways, but this vehicle was the only one yet to be recovered. Word on the police telegraph was the vehicles were being taken to Phoenix and sold on from there, so why would this truck show up here?

Blue Eyes picked up his handset and radioed it in, said “no” when asked if he needed backup, resisting the impulse to ask the dispatcher who he had in mind to send if he’d said yes. He agreed to wait for patrol support later this morning and signed off.

The cab’s interior was hidden from his view—he’d walk closer when it was light enough to see—but from here the dark blue single-cab looked innocent enough, skewed along the side of the road with its front tires buried in slush. Still, something was off … something he knew with a cop’s long-developed sixth sense, and he lowered his window to wait for the sun to come up, letting his ears and nose process the scene.

Dawn was the traditional time for morning prayers, for the offering of the sacred corn pollen in earth’s four directions—the time to sing the Bluebird Song and prepare for the coming day. Not that he sang many sacred songs these days, but hozoji—harmony—was the goal when dealing with the array of supernatural forces at work in this world. The Holy People concerned with such forces could be either beneficial or harmful to one’s well-being, so it was best to keep them on your side.

He relaxed his shoulders and pushed into the seat, stretching his back and legs, letting the desert morning’s hush envelop him in that quiet intensity emanating from the vast expanse of earth and sky. The small desert noises that usually signaled the day’s start—the trickle of sand down a beetle hill, the click of stones from a skittering lizard—were buried today under the thin blanket of snow, but he heard the usual soft sigh of Nilch`i—the ever-present Holy-Wind of breathing, of talking, of laughing—the wind of one’s soul. The light breeze almost, but not quite, masked the sound of bees buzzing through the morning air, and a crow’s harsh call sounded overhead as the sun topped the horizon. He breathed in the sweet scent of juniper, the sharp tang of pinyon pine, and the whiff of woodsmoke from someone’s morning coffee fire.

Times like this he missed smoking.

The familiar ritual of lighting the tobacco, taking the first deep inhale, and exhaling the smoke in one long breath always made it easier to think, had given him time to reflect on the coming day. But smoking, for him, would be forever tied to drinking. A tobacco habit was impossible to indulge without craving alcohol, and it had been easier in the long run to quit them both. He had quit, for more than ten years now, though there were plenty of folks around to say he hadn’t quit soon enough.

He was one of them.

Still, he missed smoking—and drinking—the more so when he was tired or stressed. He should have at least remembered to bring coffee. He had an interview to do at noon today with Garret Washburn, and he needed to be quick-thinking enough to out-maneuver the teenage boy—who was another once or twice removed cousin—and whom Justin suspected was involved in bootlegging.

Marin Sinclair would be there, too, as Garret’s guardian—temporary guardian, she'd insisted—and the thought of seeing her today was a pleasant one. It had been several weeks, maybe more, since he’d been to Vangie’s home in Shiprock—two weeks since Vangie died—and Marin was busy with all the affairs a death brought. If it was up to him, Marin would move in with his widowed sister, Frannie, and let Justin take over the management of Garret’s affairs. He wouldn’t mind managing Marin’s affairs as well, and he’d been working around to telling her so for most of the summer, but Marin had been preoccupied with Vangie, and rightly so.

The sun rose higher, the buzzing of the bees a pleasant undertone to his thoughts of romance. Bees meant water, and out here, water was everything. Their monotonous humming and the sun’s growing warmth reminded him time was passing but still he sat, reluctant to approach the truck before that elusive something fell into place, the something he knew was wrong.

The snow would melt fast now the sun was up, but before long the mornings would be cold enough for the snow to stick around. Then, even on sunny days like today, there’d be little real heat, and scant rain … and no desert blooms to keep the bees busy.

As easy as that, the missing piece clicked into place.

Justin stepped out of the truck, the warmth from the sun changing from one breath to the next to a sudden, cold chill. Shivering, the snow blowing in small flurries around his boots, he straightened and let the familiar mental shields lock into place before he began to walk a slow, wide circle around the stolen truck. He was careful where he put his feet, scanning the ground as he walked, and he stopped a good ten feet away from the truck, square on with the front bumper.

The windshield was misted with morning condensation and a brown film, but his first glance revealed enough to knock the air from his lungs—his mind suddenly honed to a single concern that pushed all other thoughts aside as he became laser-focused on the body inside.

He took a step nearer, and recognition turned the hard lump in his gut to liquid fire. It burned its way up from there as he stood taking in details of the scene, his fists clenched and the bitter taste of hot bile in his throat. He walked the same wide circle as before back to his SUV and reached inside for the radio, standing a moment with the microphone in his hand before slamming it, hard, against the steel door frame—once, twice, three times—and leaving it dangling as he walked back, careful where...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9798991062510 / 9798991062510