I Am Called Shaman - Rebecca Reeves The Shaman Series

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was used to push cattle up to the cooler mountain meadows in the summer. Cowhands had survived out here on beans, biscuits, and the occasional peach. They earned about three dollars a day. They couldn’t have paid me enough money to ride up this precipitous hill in a wagon.

      As soon as David and I were well out of earshot, I said, “It’s him, isn’t it?”

      The three shots the dog heard and the impact they’d had on his girl’s body had already given me the answer to that question, but I never revealed my gift to anyone.

      Though no one was near us, David looked around before saying, “We’ve got the three round burst.”

      The three round burst was the SK’s most defining signature. It was also the one piece of information that had been kept from the public. It was a well guarded secret within the law enforcement community, and it was information I wasn’t supposed to have.

      “We still have to confirm the distance,” David said, “but, yeah, we think it’s him. If we can find the hide where he took the shot from, we might finally catch a break.”

      “What happened to Emmett Reese?” Agent Reese had been in charge of the SK case for as long as I could remember and, while I’d never met him, I’d spied on him at plenty of crime scenes.

      “It’s been ten years, Abra. He retired. It’ll be Parker Delaney’s case now.”

      “He’s not good enough.”

      “Let’s hope he’s a fast learner.”

      When we reached the base of the Munds trail, David stopped and turned to me. “Are you sure you’re up for this, Abra? You can still back out, and you know I’d understand.”

      “I just need to get centered,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

      I stepped away from him, closed my eyes, and drew in a long, slow breath. I held it for a moment then exhaled. I repeated the process a couple more times until my fingers tingled around the smooth handle of my walking stick. Over the years, I’d added bits of fur, fang, and feather to the shaman staff gifted to me by the Native American woman. The amulets increased the power of my gift or, at least, my belief in its power.

      To David or any onlooker it would appear that I was merely practicing yoga breath and stretching now as I raised my arms out from my sides as if conducting a symphony, and that was exactly what I was doing — conducting an orchestra of animals, asking them to join me in a concerted effort to bring my father’s killer to justice.

      Heartbeats filled my body. I filtered out the buzzing swarm of human beats around us, and felt for any from above, in case the SK was lurking around, watching the aftermath. He wasn’t.

      Next, I focused on the animals.

      Raven cawed from a nearby tree then took flight.

      My message sent, I lowered my arms and opened my eyes.

      “Let’s go find him,” I said.

      “Lead the way, Shaman.”

      Chapter Three

      1:00 p.m.

      David stayed behind me and we hiked in silence so Sundara could concentrate. We kept to the side of the narrow trail; the center was dusty dry, pummeled by decades of cowboys and cattle then hikers and mountain bikes.

      The Cabela’s imprint was crystal clear, as was the dog’s two-nail autograph. Their story unfolded as we continued to climb. The dog had been full of energy on the way up. His tracks darted on and off the trail at intervals then disappeared into the chest high shrubs. Tired, and apparently content, he’d stayed close to his girl on their way back down. Many people had trekked through here yesterday, but they’d been the last to traverse this section of the Munds trail.

      While David and I read the tracks on the ground, Sundara read the tracks in the air. I often wished that my gift included being able to experience her sense of smell, especially when the mock orange and mountain mahogany began to bloom, but I didn’t envy her today with the harsh smoke from the controlled burns. She sneezed, then trotted ahead with her nose held high, gathering intel even though her search wouldn’t officially begin until we were at the top of the mountain, upwind of the search zone. There, I would start her at the perimeter of the grid we’d plotted.

      Sundara had to first recognize and eliminate all the common background smells, meaning the flora and fauna, then she could focus on the scents that did not belong, and by her training — that meant humans. By bringing her up the much traveled Munds trail, I was maximizing the use of the Sherlock Holmes theory by which all air scenting K9s were trained: eliminate all other odors, and the ones remaining must be the truth.

      We were eliminating one scent trail at a time, beginning with the girl and her dog then a hiker who’d left the trail to pee, and so on, but my ulterior motive in requesting the Munds trail was the dense foliage. We’d locate the SK’s hide, I was sure of that, but I was also searching for animals that had seen the SK. If I found any witnesses to question, I’d need the foliage to conceal my activities from David.

      Sundara had taken to the brush a while ago, but hadn’t reported anything yet.

      Raven soared across the dingy sky with two red tail hawks. He stopped his forward momentum, tucked his wings, and performed two tight barrel rolls before plummeting to the earth. At the last moment, he spread his wings and glided over our heads. He landed in a tree about three-quarters of the way up the hill to the left of the trail. He had good news.

      All searches are conducted on the buddy system. David and I were supposed to stay within sight, or at least sound, of one another. We were getting closer to Raven, and I still hadn’t figured how I was going to break away from David.

      David stopped and scanned an area to the right of the trail. “Abra, let’s check out that boulder over there. It could have been a good platform to shoot from.”

      “You mind if I wait for you here? I want to mark the trail where Sundara comes out at.”

      “Sure, I’m not going far.”

      As soon as he was a safe distance away, I stepped off the trail to the left and ran as fast as I could.

      The tree Raven was perched in had grown out of a crack in the side of a rock formation; the formation jutted out from the side of the mountain like an upside down water glass. Its sheer vertical face was fifteen feet high, its sides slightly rounded. A deer path crossed underneath it. Sundara was waiting for me there.

      I searched the ground for clues. The talus, a mixture of crumbling slate rock and bits of lava, didn’t hold a print well. It was like tracking over broken glass. The earth had been displaced, but the lines were ambiguous. The only print I was sure of was that of one bobcat.

      Sundara urged me to the left side of the summit.

      A human had gone up here. The footprints had been scuffed out, but he’d missed one. It stood out plain as day.

      I lifted my foot and compared the prints. Mine was much smaller, but the tread was the same. The Vibram sole tread pattern is the most common on US-made boots — men’s, women’s, and children’s; a little detail I picked up when David had his favorite pair of boots resoled for the third time.

      David was carrying our supply of yellow evidence flags, so I backed away from the print, gathered several stones, and built a makeshift cairn that would alert others to the evidence, if that’s what it turned out to be.

      I went back to the summit. At the juncture where the escarpment melded into the mountain, the elements had formed a natural staircase. Sundara waited while I climbed the steps to the top of the outcropping.

      The top was table flat, fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep. I didn’t need my binoculars to see that this location had a clear line of sight to the girl’s camp. The humans below scurried about like a village of prairie dogs.

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