Chapter 16: Sudden Terrors

The days of August slipped away with warm days and cool nights, broken only once by a late summer thunderstorm. It dumped a brief but torrential cloudburst on Silver City and the surrounding mountains. A flood of water and debris surged down Jordan Creek through the center of town but did little damage, other than making it difficult to ford the creek near the small south side campground.

When late August arrived the high desert nights turned chilly. Yellowing leaves appeared in the quaking aspen groves along the creek and up the mountain sides. They grew around the springs and up the hillside gullies. Very soon the aspens would become a mass of yellows and golds above delicate white-barked trunks. The tall, slender trees stood tightly together as if huddled for support against the coming winter snows.

It was a brilliant afternoon. Ranks of towering nimbo-cumulous clouds rose from the distant Oregon plateau, sped eastward across the Owyhee valley lands, and skimmed over the Owyhee peaks. Steve and Marie sat together, resting from their hike to the top of War Eagle Mountain, then down to a grassy hillside on its lower flank.

They were strongly attracted to each other. This astonished both of them. They thought such an attraction unlikely in the extreme, if not completely impossible. Steve never considered forming attachments. His work with the agency would doom any marriage attempt. The idea of raising a family was even more unthinkable. He was always going away, sent on long and dangerous assignments in hostile locations. Marie never found any man among her people who could accept her strong personality or her witching ways. As for any white man who might accept her culture, her lifestyle, or her beliefs and abilities—it was simply unthinkable.

They sat in companionable silence. Steve returned a soft squeeze when Marie's hand slipped into his, almost unconsciously. They gazed out across the valley, seeing the sprawling townsite with its multi-storied rough planked Main Street buildings, the terraced cabins under rusted sheet metal roofs along the side streets, the steep mountainsides surrounding them, and the magnificent, towering white clouds racing across the heavens above them.

"He must not kill again," she spoke softly, not turning her head.

Several minutes passed before Steve responded.

"He was a haunted man after the firefight in the Pahsimeroi, but then when he came out of the hospital he seemed ... I don't know, I'd have to say he was at peace. Something happened to him, something powerful, when he was thrashing around in that hospital bed. We thought he was going to tear himself up. The nurse, the orderlies, they had to strap him down, sedate him. Later that morning he was exhausted and angry that he couldn't move, but then he was at peace. His eyes ... they lost that haunted look."

"That is why he cannot kill. It would scar his soul horribly to be the warrior again. His struggles will continue, and I believe he will succeed. He will overcome whatever stands against him and us, but I say again: Michael must not kill. You must agree to this, and help him overcome our enemies without killing."

"You do realize how difficult that could be... " Steve gestured.

"Of course. But there is always another way. Think on it. I have already done so. I have taken counsel with my elders, and I have informed those of my clan who are here to help. We will prevail in this ... and I know that you will respect this. I feel it in your heart, that you also despise the killing. But it is such a strong part of your culture, your training, your reflexes, that you must struggle to overcome your instinctive use of deadly force. I know in my heart that you will try, you will try very hard, because you believe me that it is the right thing to do."

Steve lay back on the dry, soft grass. The right thing to do... he thought to himself. Yes, the right thing to do. The question is, how to do it?

Marie remained upright for another moment, then lay back on the soft grass. She snuggled closer to Steve, grasped his hand more firmly, moved her other hand across to rest on his chest. She raised his hand in hers, pulled it across to her face where she placed a soft kiss on the back of it, then laid it gently between her breasts.

"Yes, dear Steve," she murmured to him. "I know that you will find a way to avoid the killing."

Their watcher lay concealed across the valley above the town cemetery in a clump of scrub brush. His binoculars focused on Marie and Steve while they lay on the grassy outcropping. He felt a strong sense of resentment toward the couple as they chatted and dozed in the warm sunshine, sharing the day. He couldn't be sure, but he thought that they were aware of his surveillance and had begun playing games with him. Lately they'd been taking long side trips, either hiking or driving their SUV on the primitive roads into the canyons surrounding the ghost town. Mike, his primary target, never joined them so the three could not be taken together. Mike didn't venture far from safety; he never went outside the town limits to be taken without alerting others. This had become an exceedingly slow and frustrating assignment. His temper and the patience of the outlying strike teams wore dangerously thin.

He lowered his binoculars and reached for his small water bottle. When his hand grasped it, an arrow with a razor-edged broadhead struck the bottle, piercing it through. It was torn violently from his hand. A bleeding slit opened in the edge of his hand where the razor edge slashed across it. Blood sprayed across his face and shirt when he jerked his hand back.

His cry of pain echoed around the valley. He leaped up and lost his footing, tumbling headlong out of the brush. Panicked, he threw his leg forward, trying to catch his balance on the steep slope. He fell into a somersault, bouncing downward in a crashing, tumbling fall, head over heels, crying and grunting with each hard bounce. He rolled, tumbled and crunched a hundred feet down the slope and crashed up against a tree. That broke two of his ribs. He lay on his side, bent awkwardly around the base of the tree. Pain rolled in waves over him as he gasped for each shallow breath.