Last of the wild detectives

Chapter One

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. And that one night, I couldn’t resist it.

It’s what made me leave my father’s tent, my short, three-year-old legs stumbling through the brush and over the dry soil of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

It was 1965 and Daddy was a scientist leading a large crew to understand the changing biodiversity of plants in this remote area of China. When my mother died the year before, I was brought along with him everywhere.

Most people can’t remember what happened to them at age three, but this is imprinted forever on my brain. That blushing sky. And the horses.

What happened under those purple clouds made me who I am today: Kelsey Malone, private detective. Some people say I’m disabled. My misshapen skull makes my head tilt a bit to the left and my left eye is a bit sunken. My left arm is twisted and small. But I have gorgeous hair, don’t I? Thick and brown, with golden highlights. Like a horse’s mane, my daddy used to say. And when I drape this sweater over my arm, ever so casually, you don’t even notice the stunted limb, right?

But I don’t work too hard making others comfortable in my physical presence. That’s their problem. I’m actually hyper-abled. I am special. I have always known that. And my disabilities – my superpowers – have found their purpose.

I can hear silent emotion. I feel unexpressed anger. Hidden intention. I don’t need the air around me to vibrate. Sound and emotion travel to me in ways that other people, even scientists, don’t understand.

I hear the pounding heart of the angry. I sense the wicked blood coursing through the veins of the guilty.

Last week I heard the fear of a lost dog. He was blocks away, but I found him. His back hind leg was busted up. Damn cars. I scooped him up and put him in my car, listening for his direction to take him home. His breathing picked up as we got closer. It’s like a game of hot/cold. Ever play that? I got him home easily.

The week before I was hired by the local police to hunt down a cartel-dealing ex-convict who was on the run with a few million dollars and a long rap-sheet of violence. Personally, I don’t care how you make your money, but don’t hurt anyone. That’s my line. He crossed it. I could smell his nervous sweat from a thousand feet. The wind was in my favor. He was also ever-so-slightly tapping his right back heel on the boards of the shed he was hiding in. Didn’t take me long.

Do you think my superpowers are unusual? They’re not. Animals all around us can sense everything much more intimately than humans. And I’ll tell you this – if more animals had opposable thumbs, humans would be in serious trouble. If they could tsk, tsk their disapproval at our inadequacies, and we’d know it’s true.

My specific superpowers came from a horse, that purple night in the Gobi. A Przewalski's mare -- the queen of her wild herd -- fast dwindling as the last remaining, truly wild horses. Queen was old and wise. Strong and smart. She understood the threats to her family.

When I was out chasing the purple dusk, Queen was disciplining her herd; sending them to the next steppe. Head high, ears back, tail swishing, she moved everyone where she needed them. I watched from behind a tall shrub. They looked like flocks of birds, moving with each other’s movement as one.

And then I was gone.

And then I wasn’t.

I just couldn’t move. Queen was standing over me, large nostrils next to my face, breathing hard. The dampness of her breath entered my nose and mouth until I coughed. I rolled over on my side, my head aching. My left arm limp. I had been trampled by the herd.

I felt my father’s footsteps before I heard him yell. Or I felt each step travelling through the ground to me. And I knew it was his footstep. So I waited.

He cried, scooping me into his arms, but I just looked at him with one open eye. Back in his tent, he cleaned my wounds while I just stared at him, understanding his angst. I didn’t want to show my pain and somehow was able to. A few whimpers as he wrapped my arm and head.

There would be no hospital care for a week, as the research team had already left the site while my father finished the project and boxed up the equipment. They were coming back with the Range Rover for him in four days and the drive to the hospital was another three days. By then, my head wound was healing over with “proud flesh” which stunned the doctors. One of the nurses recognized it because she was a horse owner – it’s a unique ability horses have to heal their wounds by producing granulation tissue. But it’s not attractive, as you can see. My arm would have had to be rebroken to be put back in place and my father – too soft-hearted, if you ask me – couldn’t put me through any more pain.

I was young enough that I adapted to my disabilities. And my new superpowers. I could hear, see, smell and understand as a horse. Queen wanted her wildness to live on. And that's what makes me a damned good detective.