Courage Under Fire (Silver Creek #2) - Lindsay McKenna Page 0,87
them because their greenery is like a wire brush and the wood is thick and too strong for her to break off any of it, even small branches.”
“Let’s hope she’s doesn’t try it once, and find out the hard way,” Cari muttered, turning around. They had made it to Page, Arizona, on the first day. A woman who was a raptor rehabber had invited them to put Valkyrie in her center while they took a nearby motel. Chase had made the reservation and he’d gotten two rooms. A part of her wanted one room. But was she ready for that? For actual, physical connection with Chase? Her heart instantly leaped into the fray and shouted, Yes! while her head warned her to continue at a pace comfortable for her. Was Chase feeling the same, needing her like she wanted him? Afraid to ask, she pointed toward the left. “There’s a canyon coming up, the road is really close to the edge of it, so be careful.”
“I see it,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, we won’t slide over it.”
“Better not! It’s two thousand feet deep, Chase.”
“A mini Grand Canyon. But this area has all kinds of weird geology. Look at those white limestone mountains rising up and out of that yellow soil.” He hitched a thumb to her right. “And then you get lost in clumps or groves of juniper and probably some piñon thrown in, a few flat plains, and then a series of hills. All this used to be shallow ocean millions of years ago.”
“It’s desolate. I see absolutely no water. Dry as a bone.”
“You don’t have to live out here,” he teased.
“But I wonder what Valkyrie can possibly find to hunt for?”
“Must be something, because there’s a resident red-tail about twenty miles ahead of us. Right?”
“I suppose you’re right. I just worry about her.”
Laughing, Chase said, “That’s rich. She’s our Wild Child, the one that’s always in hot water, danger, or in some kind of weird situation that hawks aren’t supposed to get into at all. I think she’ll do just fine out here in this desert area. There’s plenty rodents out here. And snakes. Red Tails are big snake eaters. You know that.”
“I do. I suppose I’m not looking at this area through her eyes,” Cari grumped.
Chase frowned. “There’s a vehicle . . . maybe two or three, coming up behind us at high speed.”
She twisted around. They were on a flat piece of desert, the canyon on their left, less than ten feet away. “Who is it? I mean, who’s speeding on this narrow, two-lane asphalt road?”
“I don’t know,” he growled, looking hard at the outside rearview mirror.
“Maybe Border Patrol?”
“I don’t see any emergency lights flashing. The lead vehicle looks like some kind of army vehicle . . .”
Cari looked through the skylight, which they had open. The temperature at noontime was in the eighties, but the air was fresh and she preferred it over air-conditioning. Just as she reached forward to press the button on the dashboard to close it, hollow, thunking sounds struck their truck.
“GET DOWN!” Chase yelled, suddenly stomping on the accelerator. “Those are bullets!”
She wanted to scream as she ducked, putting her head to her knees, trying not to cry out in terror.
“Who?” she shouted.
The truck fishtailed, the speed so sudden that the rear wheels were sliding back and forth on the pavement.
“Don’t know!”
The roar of the engine filled the cabin. Wind whipped in through the skylight.
THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.
“Why are they shooting at us?” Cari cried out, gripping her knees, burying her head between her knees. Chase could get shot. Killed!
Gritting his teeth, Chase held the wheel, moving up to ninety miles an hour, the canyon a blur on his left. There was no place to pull over. They were bracketed by a white limestone mountain on the right and the canyon on the left. He heard Valkyrie shrieking.
Escape! That’s all he could think of.
The vehicles came upon them so swiftly, that he had no time to do anything but try and outrun them. He saw dark-skinned Hispanics in desert camouflage gear leaning out the windows with military rifles, firing wildly at them. They appeared to be drug runners. As they got closer and closer, they began firing constantly at them.
A bullet blew out the rear window, sparkling glass fragments showering through the cab. Then the front windshield blew out.
Valkyrie screamed, flapping madly around.
A bullet struck the front left tire. A huge bang! Suddenly, the truck lurched to the left.