Dyed in the Wool by Joyce Lekas

Author:Joyce Lekas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: native american, reservation life, weaving, stepparenting, navajo culture, environmental action thriller, woman chemist
Publisher: Joyce Lekas

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Why had Chumseh followed her?

The sound of the pickup truck rattling its way down the mountain made Annie’s chest feel tight, her palms damp. She spent a few moments trying to find the path that Chumseh had used to reach her and finally gave up. So she returned to the canyon rim and headed back the way she had come, detouring around fallen logs and rocky debris. Chumseh had been gone for at least a half-hour when she found her car again. In the deepening gloom, she moved cautiously toward it, finding to her relief that it stood unharmed where she had left it.

She climbed in and turned the key. Click. Nothing. After a few minutes of trying, she knew that nothing would. She lifted the hood and played the flashlight’s beam over the engine. Several wire ends stuck up like orphans and the empty space revealed that the battery had been removed. She searched the brush around the car and looked under the car, branches clawing at her face and hands as she scrabbled on her hands and knees. Finally, she stood. No one knew where she was, except Chumseh. Was he coming back? What was the point of warning her, then leaving her stranded? She leaned on the car trying to think. If he intended to come back, she needed to get out of here. If not, she still needed to get out of here. It would be a long walk out, but there was no point in making herself a target. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. Dead. She shoved it back into her jeans pocket.

Reaching into the car, she combined the rest of her water into one small bottle—not much for a long walk, but better than nothing. The sky was still light as she started down the mountain. She’d have to hurry to get as close as possible to the highway turnoff before darkness set in, in about an hour. Her water bottle nested in the sling with her left arm; her flashlight was tucked in her back pocket. Four or five miles to the turnoff, a few more to the main road, then she would head south. She had passed a small settlement a few miles before she headed up the mountain and surely could find a telephone and more water there.

She followed her own car tire tracks to the rocky clearing and began to stumble on the rough surface. Like a moonscape, what had seemed straightforward in the car became disorienting on foot, with tall ponderosas rimming the broad area and dimly visible mountain tops in every direction. She tried to cross in the center as she had in the car, then decided she should follow the western edge—which she guessed was on her right—so she could spot the herding camp and use it as a marker.

At the edge of the scree, all she found were trees and shrubby undergrowth. She followed the rocks to an open area, where she was relieved to see the barely visible outlines of the camp.

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