“Our friend’s gone. We can’t do anything more for him. One of the other kidnappers is also dead. But the man in front of me breathes. He may be able to tell us who was responsible for all this. We’ll take him outside first.”

The building shook as something crashed to the ground. “Time to move,” Ranger said, getting to his feet quickly.

“I’m not leaving Hastiin Sani’s body here! I’ll drag him out myself if I have to,” she said, choking back a sob. “I owe him that at least.”

“Don’t speak the name of the dead,” he ordered.

His tone captured her attention, jolting her into remembering. Mentioning the name the recently deceased had used in life was said to call his chindi-the evil in every man that stayed earthbound after death. Belief in the chindi was strong among New Traditionalists and traditionalist Navajos. Even modernists respected the custom.

“I’m sorry,” she said, then as she breathed in another lungful of smoke she began coughing again.

“Take shallow breaths and let’s work quickly,” he said. “I’ll carry this man outside. I managed to close the door to the bedroom, so we should still have a clear path. But I’ll need you to take the fire extinguisher, just in case. Afterward, if we can, we’ll come back for the dead.”

Despite the intense sorrow that lay over her like a heavy weight, his logic got through to her. The smoke burned her lungs and her eyes as she led the way with the extinguisher. The door to the bedroom was now on fire, and flames were attacking the door frame and licking at the kitchen ceiling. Soon the whole adjoining wall would go up. The heat was stifling, and the smoke so thick it was like walking through a dimension of Hell. If they’d waited any longer, their way out might have been blocked.

They rushed past the red-hot, burning door, got the unconscious man outside and laid him beneath one of the pines. As Dana looked back, she saw smoke billowing from every window now. Suddenly there was a blast of hot air, and the remaining windows exploded in flames.