Chapter 9: Shadows of the Past
Hearing a voice behind them and seeing a flashlight beam shining on them once again, Alice and Cora sat paralyzed for several seconds in front of the hole behind the rock. Their breathing came in rapid, short gasps as each woman was afraid to turn around, thinking the two gunmen had returned. Processing the question they'd been asked, it occurred to Cora's shocked and grief stricken mind that wanting to know if they were ok would be a very strange thing for the killers to ask them. Slowly turning around to face the speaker, she and Alice squinted through the brightness at the dark silhouettes of the two men standing behind the flashlight.
"It's ok, I'm Officer Edison Nez of the Navajo Tribal Police. This is Officer Harrison Clah." said the speaker as he identified himself and the other man standing along side of him. "We've come to get you ladies out of here. Are either of you hurt?"
As the officer shined the light on both himself and his partner so that the women could see them, Cora and Alice both let go a sigh of relief to see the two policemen standing before them. Rising to their feet on shaky legs, they held each other as they faced the officers.
"No, no we're not hurt. But our husbands…" Cora felt herself begin to choke and she stopped in mid sentence as she attempted to tell the officers about Wolf and Uncas. Seeing her sister was unable to continue, Alice mustered up the strength to speak for her.
"Our husbands are dead. Two men killed them and pushed their bodies into this hole." she said, fighting to keep herself under control as she indicated the pit behind them. "They were about to kill us too, but they suddenly ran out of here instead."
"We know." said Officer Clah. "Another officer, Dave Yazzie, apprehended them. They're both in custody as we speak. Come on. Let's get you two out of here."
"NO!" shouted Cora, having recovered her voice. "Our husbands are down there! We're not leaving them! You have to send some men down there to get them out! My sister and I are not leaving here without them!"
"We'll see to it your husbands are taken care of, but for now you have to come with us up to the surface. Please ma'am." stated Officer Nez firmly.
Feeling too physically and emotionally drained to argue, Cora and Alice relented and allowed the two officers to escort them out of the cavern. Taking one last look back at the hole, the women then glanced around the cavern as they walked, remembering how much fun they'd had when they first explored it with Uncas and Wolf. Now the place held nothing but horrible memories for them and as much as they hated to leave their husbands behind, they both could not wait to get out of the place.
As they reached the top of the stairs to the tunnel leading out of the caverns, the sisters could see the area outside was lit up from floodlights and the headlights of multiple police units whose radio chatter and flashing red, blue and white lights created an eerie scene.
Stepping out into the open, Alice and Cora looked around at the flurry of activity surrounding them. Numerous police personnel moved about, some placing things into large evidence bags and others going over the black pickup and camper with a fine toothed comb. Officer Dave Yazzie stood near one of the patrol units talking to a man who appeared to be his superior.
Nearby, a couple of officers sat inside of their units with the driver side doors open while they wrote something down and the interior lights enabled the women to see the gunmen sitting in the back seats looking totally resigned to their fate. Alice couldn't help but notice both men looked quite disheveled and wondered if they had gotten into a fight with each other. Both were bloody with bruises all over their faces and one of them had an eye that was black and swollen shut.
With one hand between their shoulder blades and the other holding their elbow, the two officers escorted Alice and Cora over to a waiting ambulance. Approaching the ambulance from the side, the women could see two medics were busy doing something as they stood outside facing the open back door. Coming around toward the back of the vehicle, both women stopped dead in their tracks. Sitting on the floor in the door of the ambulance getting their right arms bandaged up was none other than Uncas and Wolf.
Frozen, Cora and Alice were afraid to believe what they were seeing was real. Both men had white dust covering most of their clothing and traces still on their faces and hair. Looking from one to the other, Cora's eyes settled on one of the men.
"WOLF!"
Crying out his name, Cora ran over to the man she thought she'd never see again. Jumping on the back bumper of the ambulance and hurling herself on him, she flung her arms around his neck and sat on his hips as she burst into tears of joy. Wolf fell backward onto the floor of the ambulance from the force of her body hitting his. He held her tightly to him, relieved that she was unharmed and safe in his arms.
"Alice?"
In shock from the events of the evening and from witnessing her husband's murder Alice could not move as her mind denied what she was seeing in order to protect her from any more pain. As much as she wanted to, she was unable to believe he was alive out of fear she would discover she was hallucinating and that the man that she was looking at was, in reality, a total stranger.
Watching him get up and walk over to her, her body jumped and stiffened when she felt his warm hand touch her arm and she heard his voice again.
"Baby, are you ok?"
Looking at the hand on her arm, she saw the ring she had bought him on their first wedding anniversary and she looked up into the familiar, warm onyx eyes of its owner.
"Uncas?" she said in a barely audible whisper.
Seeing him smile and feeling his arms embrace her, Alice slowly put her arms around him and buried her face into his chest as tears involuntarily streamed down her cheeks. Hearing his heartbeat, she knew she was not hallucinating, that he was indeed alive and she clung to him tightly, afraid that if she didn't he would disappear forever.
"Uncas! Oh god, I thought I'd lost you!" she said, crying so hard she could barely get the words out.
"Shhh, I'm right here. I'm alright. It's all over now. It's all over." he softly whispered to her as he kissed the top of her head and nuzzled his face into her hair while slowly caressing her back.
Moving her hand up to his right shoulder and running it down his arm, Alice felt the gauze as he flinched.
"Ahh!" shouted Uncas, sucking air in through his teeth.
"You're hurt! Oh my god, you did get shot!" cried Alice as she pulled away and saw for the first time the bandage on his arm. Frantically she ran her hands over his body as she looked for more wounds before Uncas took her hands in his to stop her.
"It's ok, it's not that bad. Wolf and I zigged when we should have zagged and we each got a wing clipped, that's all. Considering how many bullets we managed to dodge, I'd say we did pretty good!" Uncas told her as he led her over to the back of the ambulance where Wolf and Cora sat.
Cora stood up and threw her arms around Uncas, holding him tight as she whispered a prayer of thanks that he, too, was alive and safe. Alice did the same to Wolf, finally releasing him and looking him up and down, before gently touching the bandage on his arm.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm alright. It's just a scratch. I've had worse." he said, remembering the day back in 1877 when the two miners had ambushed him.
Just then, the two medics came over with blankets for Wolf and Uncas, as well as for Alice and Cora. As the medics checked the sisters for shock, Officer Dave Yazzie approached the group.
"How are you ladies doing?" he asked. "Officers Nez and Clah said you were both in quite a state when they found you down there. Are you ok?"
"We are now." said Alice, snuggling up next to Uncas as he sat down next to her and put his good arm around her shoulders.
"I can't even imagine how terrified you both must have been, thinking your husbands had been killed and then nearly getting killed yourselves by those two over there." said Dave, nodding his head toward the patrol vehicles departing with the gunmen. "I'm just glad everyone is safe and things turned out ok. Listen, I want to thank you guys for what you did tonight. When I asked for your help, I never intended for you to go after those men, but I guess since your both with the Sheriff's Department back home I shouldn't be surprised. It's hard to stop being a cop. I'd have probably done the same thing myself."
When the medics announced they were ready to transport them to the hospital, Dave told the two couples his lieutenant said they'd been through enough for the night and since they got Wolf and Uncas's initial statements, they'd get everyone's full statements in the morning.
Climbing into the back of the ambulance, Uncas and Wolf were instructed to lie down on the gurneys. Alice and Cora each sat in a drop seat next to their husbands and before they started the bumpy ride to the main road, the sisters were each given an IV for shock, despite their protests that they were fine. Uncas and Wolf also received IVs containing antibiotics for their wounds and ice packs for their hands. Once the ambulance started moving, Cora noticed the dust on the twin's clothes.
"What's all over your clothes?" she asked. To answer her, Wolf explained the events that took place after he and Uncas dove behind the rock.
"Fox and I were trying to take cover behind that big boulder. We'd just about made it when we both got hit in the arm, so we decided to take a sliding dive behind it. When Fox got hit he dropped his gun and since we're both right handed, neither of us felt sure we'd be able to fire my gun so we snuck out from behind the boulder into the darkness where those guys couldn't see us. We threw ourselves down behind another rock and landed in a patch of powdery white stuff that must have been from the minerals down there. Anyway, we were covered in the stuff." said Wolf as he slapped his leg and a poof of white dust rose up from his jeans.
"That's when you girls screamed and the men went after you." continued Uncas. "We ran after them and were creeping up behind them so that we could jump them when 'Blanket Woman' and her friends showed up."
"'Blanket Woman'?" said a surprised Alice. "Is that why those men were so scared? Where was she? And who were her friends?"
"You two didn't see her?" asked Uncas. "She was standing right in front of you both with about half a dozen Anasazi warriors who definitely meant business. Wolf and I could hardly believe what we were seeing and we barely managed to get out of the way when those men ran past us."
"After they left, Fox and I were about to come over to you but 'Blanket Woman' stopped us. She shook her head and smiled and held up her hand, then nodded her head for us to go after the gunmen. We knew 'Blanket Woman' would keep you safe so we took off after them. Those two idiots were in such a panic, they didn't see us following them." said Wolf.
"Once we got outside we stayed in the shadows and ran to the far end of the ruins." said Uncas. "That's when Wolf got the idea to pretend we were ghosts. Those two were already so scared that it didn't take much to push them over the edge. With this white stuff all over us and the flashlight with the bandana on it, all it took was a howling wolf and a barking fox to get things started. After a couple of 'ghostly appearances' we were able to scare the shit out of them. One of them even wet his pants!"
"If I hadn't been ready to kill those two bastards I would have laughed my ass off," Wolf added, "but I wasn't in a laughing mood. When someone tries to kill my family I take it damn personal."
"So do I." said Uncas. "When we finally got right on top of them, Wolf and I couldn't hold back anymore and we let them have it." he said, indicating his bruised knuckles. "It's a good thing Dave Yazzie came along when he did or we would have kicked the shit out of them."
"How did all those police get there so quickly?" asked Cora.
"Dave said he decided to check out the ruins while on patrol and everyone else, including the ambulance, was on their way back from a drug bust on another part of the reservation. They happened to be passing by the area when Dave radioed in for backup. Talk about sheer luck!"
"That wasn't luck." said the medic, who had been listening to the conversation. "It was the Ancient Ones protecting you. Sometimes they appear to us as shadows of the past. The one you call 'Blanket Woman' has been a guardian watching over Annie Tsosie since she was a baby. She is Annie's great-great grandmother, who died on the Long Walk of the Navajos back in the 1800's. She protects Annie and, because you are taking care of Annie by looking after her camp, she thinks of all of you as family and protected you as well."
"Ohhh!" said Alice. "We'll have to give a special thank you to 'Blanket Woman' and her friends."
Arriving at the hospital, Uncas and Wolf had their wounds treated. Cora also informed Wolf's doctor of how he had been heavily sedated by the tranquilizers and, as a result, he had to endure some additional tests to make sure he had not suffered any permanent damage from it.
After the brothers were given a clean bill of health and released, they found Dave Yazzie waiting to give them a ride home. On the ride back to the camp, he gave Uncas back his gun, which the crime lab had found in the cavern. He also informed them that the gunmen had been identified as Brandon and Mark Lester, the sons of Tom Lester who owns and operates the Shelter Rock Trading Post. While being interrogated, Mark started singing like a bird and told of how he, along with his brother and father, had found a treasure trove of pots and artifacts at the ruins and had been illegally digging them up and selling them on the black market for years, along with stolen pawn from the trading post.
He also admitted that the three of them were responsible for all of the mysterious deaths and disappearances at the ruins and of how he and his brother pushed the rock down off the top of the cliff, intending to kill the couples as they walked back from the ruins the other day. Mark had said he was sure they had killed Uncas and Wolf and, like Alice and Cora, he too thought the twins had fallen into the hole. Mark also told of how his brother, Brandon, had laced the water bottles with tranquilizers.
Dave then said a buddy of his in the police lab did a rush on testing the water in Wolf and Cora's bottles and confirmed that they did indeed contain a lethal amount of an extremely powerful tranquilizer commonly used to sedate large animals such as livestock. Wolf's blood tests showed traces of the tranquilizer in his system, legally confirming the police labs findings. Dave said his buddy told him it was a good thing Wolf hadn't taken more than a tiny sip. A couple of good swallows and he would have died almost instantly.
Author's note: Well, we are almost to the end of this story. There is one more chapter to go. I'd like to thank all of you who take the time to give your reviews. It really helps us authors to know what our readers think. The final chapter is in the works and will soon be ready for posting. Oh, by the way…you didn't think I'd really kill Uncas and Wolf did you? I still love those guys!
