Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames Read online

  JACK DEL RIO

  By Richard Paolinelli

  The Complete Trilogy:

  Reservations – Betrayals - Endgames

  Other Tuscany Bay Books by Richard Paolinelli

  NOVELS

  Maelstrom

  Escaping Infinity

  JACK DEL RIO SERIES

  Reservations

  Betrayals

  Endgames

  NOVELLAS

  The Invited

  Legacy of Death

  NON-FICTION

  From The Fields

  Perfection’s Arbiter

  ANTHOLOGY APPEARANCES

  Beyond Watson (Belanger Books)

  Holmes Away From Home (Belanger Books)

  Copyright 2017

  This novel is a work of fiction, and any similarity

  to real persons or situations is purely coincidental.

  First Edition, 2017, Tuscany Bay Books

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.

  Find out more about Richard Paolinelli at his website:

  www.scifiscribe.com

  RESERVATIONS

  By Richard Paolinelli

  Other Tuscany Bay Books by Richard Paolinelli

  NOVELS

  Maelstrom

  Escaping Infinity

  JACK DEL RIO SERIES

  Reservations

  Betrayals

  Endgames

  NOVELLAS

  The Invited

  Legacy of Death

  NON-FICTION

  From The Fields

  Perfection’s Arbiter

  ANTHOLOGY APPEARANCES

  Beyond Watson (Belanger Books)

  Holmes Away From Home (Belanger Books)

  Copyright 2015

  This novel is a work of fiction, and any similarity

  to real persons or situations is purely coincidental.

  First Edition, 2015, Oak Tree Press

  Second Edition, 2016, W&B Books

  Third Edition, 2017, Tuscany Bay Books

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.

  Find out more about Richard Paolinelli at his website:

  www.scifiscribe.com

  To Cheryl Ann Paolinelli,

  may the next quarter century’s journey

  be even better than the last

  PROLOGUE

  Every culture in the history of mankind, no matter how long its stay on Earth, has had its share of legendary creatures of both good and evil nature. It is given to very few of those creatures to be seen as both sacred and profane; for its appearance to be as much fervently hoped for as it was to be fearfully dreaded. For the Diné, who would call themselves “The People”— despite others that forced the misnomer “Navajo” upon them — this duality of good and evil can be found in their legends of Coyote.

  Coyote, so says the legend that has been passed down the generations for nearly millennia, helped the Grandfather Spirit create the First Man and Woman. It had been Coyote who convinced Grandfather Spirit to make First Woman, even going as far as transforming himself into a woman just to show Grandfather what First Woman should look like so First Man would find her more to his liking.

  Mostly the enigmatic Coyote is known to the Diné for his terrible deceptions; a trickster who delights in the mischief and suffering he brings. It was the mischievous Coyote according to one of the stories that tricked the woman Changing Bear into becoming his wife before turning her into an evil person that killed her very own brothers.

  Nevertheless, there was one upside to even the worst of the legends of Coyote. For more often than not, Coyote’s tricks would turn back against his original intentions. Many times the final outcome of his machinations would bring about good for those he’d intended to do evil to. Despite his less than successful track record, Coyote remains the subject of dire warnings whenever stories about him are told.

  “If Coyote crosses your path,” a Diné grandmother warns a young child in the warmth of a campfire, “turn back. Do not continue on your journey. You will have an accident and be hurt or killed.”

  The Diné had migrated south with the Apaches from the lands the modern world knows as Canada. They brought their legends of creation and the warnings of the wicked trickster with them wherever they travelled. So much so that sometimes the tribe members took on some of Coyote’s less than desirable characteristics themselves.

  The tribes began as nomadic hunter-gatherers, constantly on the move, looking for food and game wherever they could find it. When they encountered the Pueblo Indian tribes in what is now the American Southwest, they finally settled down for good. The nearest Pueblo neighbors, the Hopi and Zuni, like all of the other Pueblo tribes, had become experts at cultivating the land. Growing and harvesting crops and raising horses and cattle, the Pueblo tribes had set down deep roots and gladly taught the Diné what they knew.

  For some time the tribes got along quite well. Trade flowed in both directions and the Diné even began incorporating learned Pueblo art techniques into a style all their own. There were the occasional raids by the Diné and the Apache of course, with the blame, no doubt, laid at Coyote’s feet. For the most part, the tribes were at peace, and while respectful of one another’s unique legends, they each maintained their own traditions.

  When the Pueblo tribes revolted against the Spanish in the late seventeenth century and drove the invaders out, the Diné saw it as a good thing. When the Spanish came back in full force to bring the recalcitrant Pueblos back in line a scant twelve years later, Coyote’s handiwork was clearly seen by the Diné.

  It was the Spanish who would bring the new name for the Diné — Navajo — and the tidal wave of settlers that poured into the New World from all across Europe would make the name stick — to those from the outside world at least.

  For nearly two more centuries the Navajo held their territory, traded with and raided against the neighboring tribes even as Spanish control of their territory eventually gave way to the new American country. Then came the Long Walk in 1864 that saw the Army march over nine thousand Navajo hundreds of miles to the southeast. Many a Diné felt Coyote had now taken to wearing blue coats over white skins and walked on two legs.

  Even when they were allowed to return to their longtime home, they returned to find several Army forts had been built on their lands; all to keep a close eye on the Diné. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that the Zuni and Hopi tribes had not been so uprooted. Nor did it escape notice that upon their return, the Hopi had gained some new land at the Navajo’s expense, and that later transactions continued to add to the Hopi’s holdings while subtracting from the Navajo lands.

  There were many more disputes as the years passed. Much blood was spilled on both sides and far too many injustices, also committed by both sides, were swept under the rug in the name of peace or profit. It was not an easy way, but the Navajo scratched out a living among the mesas, red rocks and dry soil in the arid Southwest on a reservation that spanned three states: Utah, New Mexico and most of the northeastern quadrant of Arizona.

  The tide finally seemed to turn with the Code Talkers, a group of Navajo men that served in World War II. They had brought great honor and a grudging acceptance to the tribe. Then uranium was found on the reservation. The promise of an economic boon to the Navajo from mining the highly-sought metal also brought the misery of lung disease and cancer from less than safe mining practices that were not halted until decades had passed.

  “It had to be Coyote,” the old ones would whisper, “another of his tricks played upon the unwary.”

  It was the Navajo’s use of
much more safer metal that turned out to be their economic salvation. For nearly a century, Navajo silversmiths produced jewelry fit to be displayed in any museum in the world, especially when they began working in stones of turquoise and coral into their designs.

  Intricate designs to be worn around the neck, the wrist and fingers drew people of all nationalities and colors to the cities in and around the reservation. The monies they earned put food on the table and a roof over the families’ head.

  So the Navajo settled into their top industry, tourism, and carried on as best they could. Still, even as they traded with each other, there was resentment and distrust lingering from past wrongs at the hands of the white men, as well as the Hopi and Zuni tribes.

  Some continued to blame it all on Coyote’s mischief. A few, while very respectful of the old legends, told Coyote to go to the devil. They set out to put to rest the old injuries for good and lead their people to better days.

  Martin Kinlichee proudly numbered himself among that small group. His maternal uncle, who had raised him after disease had claimed both of his parents, had been one of the Code Talkers. It was from his uncle — whom he’d been named after — that young Martin had been instilled with a strong sense of duty to his family and his people. Encouraging Martin to balance a profound respect for the past with an eye toward progressing into the future, his uncle had set him on the path toward politics early on.

  Martin had opened his first business the same year he got married and was elected to the Navajo Nation Council just three short years later. He actively recruited like-minded members of the tribe to run for office, as well as to send their children off to college to return well prepared to be the leaders of their generation.

  On the day the doctors told him that he and his wife would never have children of their own, Martin grieved for a time, then promptly became a second father to his brother’s only child, as well as dozens of others; both friends and strangers. He refused to simply stand quietly by when help was needed.

  When one of his many protégées, Paul Chee, had been found brutally murdered along with his wife, Betty, Martin had shared the Nation’s sorrow and outrage. Paul could have easily risen to be President of the Nation in less than a decade by Martin’s reckoning, and would have been one of the greatest leaders in its brief history. While the Navajo Nation Police tried in vain to solve the horrendous crime, Martin turned his attention to the young daughter the Chee’s had left behind to be raised by her only remaining living relative.

  He placed the child’s grandmother in a job that would allow her to earn enough money to support them; made sure that when the child graduated from high school a scholarship was provided to send her to college. She had returned to the reservation in a law enforcement role and remained one of Martin’s greatest sources of pride.

  Young Chee was just one of the many lives Martin and his wife had touched through the years. When cancer stole Martin’s wife away, nearly everyone in the Nation turned out for the memorial service. Many wondered if the loss would break the old man, but even at the age of sixty he still looked, as one of his old political opponents had remarked, ‘As if he’d been carved right out of one of the large red rocks’ that populated the reservation; the interior of the man made of even stronger material.

  His full mane of white hair did not make him look like an old man. Combined with his hawk-like features, he looked more like the thunderbird of ancient lore. Martin would feel the loss of his wife every day, but he channeled his grief toward his life’s goal of making his people’s lot in life far better when he was done with this earth than it had been when he’d drawn his first breath.

  Now he found himself on the brink of realizing his goals. His latest protégé now held the highest office in the Nation, and years of very secretive behind-the-scenes negotiations were finally beginning to bear fruit. With any luck, by the end of the year at the latest, a very large step would be taken towards a working partnership between the three area tribes that could lead to a permanent end to the generations of resentment and distrust.

  ONE

  Martin Kinlichee knew he should be a very content man as he approached the final years of his life, but for a full week now, his dreams had been invaded by nightmare images that defied interpretation. A young man fleeing across the desert, running for his life with everything he had, only to be felled just short of the safe haven he’d been trying to reach. An older woman impaled by a spear, agonizingly pinned in death in an upright position. A younger woman, trapped in a cold and dimly lit passage, struck repeatedly and mercilessly by a flashing blade before being engulfed in flame.

  He had never clearly seen the faces of the unfortunate victims, although he knew each of them were undeniably Navajo. Worse still, he had felt certain that he knew each of the victims personally. Standing in the background of each horrific vision was Coyote, laughing in maniacal delight at the carnage it witnessed and was no doubt responsible for.

  This night’s dream had been no different as Martin had witnessed a Navajo man clinging to the edge of a cliff, slowly losing his one-handed grip as he dangled over the abyss below. Standing above the helpless man was Coyote, with his ever-present maniacal laugh howling in sheer delight at his latest victim.

  Awaking with a start, Martin levered himself out of bed and softly padded down the hall to the kitchen. He’d gone to his old friend Nathan Roanhorse for help, but the old medicine man’s efforts had failed to bring any relief. He’d even tried the medication he’d been given at the Indian Hospital in Fort Defiance with no better results.

  Martin heard a noise behind him and turned to find himself standing face to face with Death. The old Navajo knew full well it had come to claim him. The only thought in his final moments of life was how ludicrous it was that it would come for him in his kitchen of all places.

  He had lived a long, full life; the thought of his demise did not fill him with much fear. As the initial shock of seeing the intruder come to life directly from his dreams to invade his house began to fade, he was puzzled as to the exact form Death had taken. The body, while covered in the fur of a coyote, was clearly that of a man’s from the shoulders down. The head was that of a coyote, the smoldering red coals that were its eyes sitting above wide-open jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth.

  The apparition moved towards him, an open-palmed hand reaching out as it closed the distance between them in the small, moon-lit room. Martin took two quick backward steps, kicking aside the glass he had dropped to the floor just moments ago, splashing water across the hardwood floor before backing into the counter. The Coyote had him well and truly trapped with no avenue of escape.

  Even as the reaching hand flattened itself on his chest, Martin’s mind rebelled against what it was seeing. The Coyote of Navajo legend was not a bringer of death. Coyote was a trickster, an ancient con artist who might keep a man off-balance with his failed schemes, but he never fully succeeded. Yet, Coyote never killed a human; at least not directly anyway.

  Regardless, here was Coyote in the flesh. The fur-covered hand that he clearly felt as it made contact with his chest just above his rapidly-beating heart, was warm and all-too solid. Martin felt a slight sting with its touch, followed by heat and a searing pain that quickly began spreading across his chest.

  He gasped, partly from the increasing pain, but mostly in surprise as Coyote stepped closer. Fully bathed in the moonlight streaming in from the lone window, Martin could now make out every feature of Coyote and discovered to his horror an all-too-human, very familiar, face below the Coyote’s head.

  A crushing pain lanced through Martin’s body, buckling his knees as seemingly every ounce of strength instantly fled his body. As he fell to the floor, he forced his eyes open for one last look at his tormentor and its true face below the fur and fangs.

  Now, lying face down in a pool of water, the dreams that had plagued him made perfect sense. He knew indeed each and every one of the victims, who was in jeopardy as well as why they wou
ld die, and now, with sudden clarity, that all he had done would be for nothing.

  Unable to make a sound in his final moments of life, Martin raged in his mind against the knowledge he could not share, the warnings he could not give and the lives he would not save.

  As the never-ending darkness claimed him he could only hope that somehow the Coyote’s history of eventual failure in his schemes would hold true once more; that someone would come forward to stop this all-too-human incarnation which stood laughing over him.

  TWO

  Jack Del Rio felt the projectile whip past his head and heard it angrily impact the wall behind him.

  That was entirely too damn close, Del Rio thought to himself as he crouched his tall, lean frame a little further down, no longer feeling as safely concealed in the place he’d chosen as shelter. His gun was drawn; he was ready to return fire, but while his quarry could fire away indiscriminately, Del Rio’s hand was stayed by the hostage. A pretty young blonde who’d gone to work at the bank that morning like any other day, never expecting to find herself right in the middle of a gun battle before lunch, was being used as a human shield by the gunman.