Eye of the Wolf Read Online Free

headed for the door. The Bates Battlefield was in the middle of nowhere, over rough dirt roads that snaked across bluffs and down into valleys. Before he sent a platoon of law enforcement officers into the badlands on a wild-goose chase, he intended to check out the place himself.

3
    THE MURMUR OF voices ran through the tribal courtroom, and every few minutes a new blast of cold air shot past the opened doors as someone filed inside. Vicky Holden squared the yellow notepad on the table and checked her watch. Almost one. At any moment, the door on the left would swing open and her client, Frankie Montana, would appear. Two tribal attorneys sat at the table across the aisle, pulling papers out of briefcases, heads tilted together in conversation. She glanced back at the knots of people—all related to Frankie, she suspected—settling onto benches arranged like pews in a church. Lucille, Frankie’s mother, was two rows behind. Vicky managed what was meant as an encouraging smile.
    The call had come this morning. Vicky had arrived at the office at seven-thirty, ahead of the secretary, Annie Bosey, who had followed her from the one-woman law practice she’d been struggling to keep afloat to the new firm that she and Adam Lone Eagle had started. Vicky wasstill shrugging out of her coat when the phone had started to ring. The answering machine would pick up, she remembered thinking. The ringing had stopped. A moment later, it started up again. What was it about an unanswered phone that had always bothered her? The unsettling sense of an emergency at the other end, a dread of the news? She’d reached across the desk and lifted the receiver.
    â€œVicky, it’s Lucille. You gotta help us.”
    It had taken a moment to place the name and the voice. Lucille Montana. Lucille Yellow Plume when they’d gone to school together at St. Francis Mission. Vicky hadn’t spoken to the woman since October, the last time Frankie was in trouble.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” she’d asked. Six months ago she’d gotten the circuit judge to dismiss a breaking and entering charge against Frankie. The sheriff’s investigators had made the serious mistake of continuing to throw out questions after Frankie—who knew his rights cold—had asked for an attorney. A year ago, there had been a couple of DUIs and an assault complaint. It had taken all of her legal skills to keep the man out of prison. So far he’d spent only a few months in the Fremont County jail and another short time in the tribal jail.
    â€œThe rez police come and arrested Frankie last night” Lucille said. “I told ’em, he’s a good boy, staying out of trouble, hardly drinking anymore.” A rising screech of panic came into the woman’s voice. “It’s harassment, Vicky. That’s all it is. You gotta get him out of jail.”
    â€œWhat are the charges?” Vicky kept her own voice calm.
    â€œThey say Frankie assaulted three Shoshones over at Fort Washakie Friday night. Assaulted!” The woman forced a laugh—she might have been clearing her throat. “It was those Shoshones assaulted Frankie. You gotta help him, Vicky. He’s got a right to protect himself.”
    Vicky had told the woman that she’d look into the matter. Then she’d pulled her coat back on, stuffed a notepad inside her briefcase, and headed out of the office and down the flight of stairs to the entry of the office building on Main Street in Lander. She almost collided with Adam—coming through the door, the collar of his topcoat turned up, flecks ofmoisture shining in his black hair, the little scar on his face red with cold. A handsome, modern-day warrior, she’d thought, a man that women followed with their eyes when he walked down the street.
    â€œWhoa!” Adam set both hands on her shoulders, as if she were a pony he wanted to corral. Specks of light flickered in his dark eyes.