Strong Cold Dead by Jon Land

me for what happens next.”
    Then he backpedaled, along with the rest of his men, dispersing into smaller groups to continue waiting out the situation.
    Caitlin turned back around to face Dylan. “Let’s talk.”
    *   *   *
    â€œI’m taking some time off from school,” Dylan started, after they’d moved into a shady grove off to the side of the entrance to the reservation.
    â€œLike a few days? A week?”
    Dylan hedged. “More like a semester.”
    â€œI don’t recall your dad mentioning anything about that.”
    â€œThat’s because I didn’t tell him.”
    Caitlin gazed back toward the line of protesters.
    â€œHer name’s Ela Nocona,” Dylan resumed. “We met in Native American studies class back at Brown.”
    â€œThen I guess this would qualify as primary research.”
    â€œI’m trying to do something important here.”
    â€œLet’s hope your father sees it that way,” Caitlin told him, as Ela Nocona joined them in the grove.
    She was grinning wide enough to dapple her cheeks. “I didn’t think Dylan was telling the truth,” she said to Caitlin, clearly impressed, her tone suggesting they were old friends.
    â€œAbout what, Ela?”
    â€œAbout you. I told him I had to see it with my own eyes.” She continued to smile, seemingly in admiration. “And now I have.”
    â€œPeta Nocona was a great Comanche chief who fathered an even greater one in Quanah Parker. Any relation?”
    Ela Nocona tried hard not to look impressed. “I believe I’m Quanah Parker’s grandniece,” she said.
    â€œAnd you go to Brown, too.”
    â€œI’m a senior,” she told Caitlin. “Summa cum laude.”
    â€œSo are you taking some time off from school too, Ela?”
    â€œThe tribal school was short a teacher,” she said, without hesitation.
    â€œShe works with disabled kids,” Dylan chimed in.
    â€œFar too many here, unfortunately. Ten times the number found among Caucasian children,” Ela explained, not bothering to elaborate.
    â€œA noble pursuit for sure,” Caitlin nodded, “as long as those construction workers don’t plow you over with backhoes and front loaders.”
    â€œI didn’t come back here to man a protest line, Ranger,” Ela said, her broad shoulders stiffening noticeably. “But this is our land. No one has a right to spoil it.”
    â€œIncluding your tribal elders, who sold off the mineral rights?”
    â€œThat shouldn’t have been their decision. They should’ve put it to a vote.”
    â€œI heard they did,” Caitlin noted, “and that an overwhelming majority supported opening up these lands to drilling.”
    Ela stiffened. “That vote wasn’t legitimate. I made the elders let me address the crowd at the meeting, but they wouldn’t let me introduce all of my research on the Bakken field up in North Dakota and what oil did to the Indian lands there.”
    â€œSounds like their call, to me.”
    â€œDylan told me you were there when his mother was killed,” Ela said suddenly. “He said you shot it out with the man who did it.”
    â€œClose enough, I suppose,” Caitlin said, looking at Dylan again. “Did I mention your dad’s on the way?”
    Dylan swallowed hard. “You told him?”
    â€œLeft him a message as soon as I got word myself, via an anonymous phone call to my cell number. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, ma’am?” she asked Ela.
    â€œMe?”
    â€œBecause the caller specifically mentioned Dylan Torres being on the scene. Not something a random person would make note of. Like they were doing me a favor. Or maybe that person wanted me involved in whatever’s going on here.”
    Some of Ela Nocona’s long black hair strayed into her face and she whisked it off, only to have the