Dreams~Shadows of the Night

by Olivia Claire High

  “Tragedy most often is. Would it be possible to bring her body back here?”

  The sadness in Hamilton’s eyes deepened.

  “She’d already been buried. They had no choice because of the climate. But I can make arrangements to have the team return and exhume her remains if that’s what you want, Mr. Marsh.”

  Put into words, the idea sounded repugnant.

  “Perhaps it had been fated that Marie would end her days among the unique plant life she’d been so eager to study. Let her be. But I do want you to see what our people can do about finding out more on Josh Dallas. I’d like to have something more conclusive to tell his family.”

  Hamilton nodded.

  “I’ve already sent instructions.”

  >>>>dreams<<<<

  Catherine smiled and handed Tom a glass of wine.

  “Here, maybe this will help.”

  His fingers grabbed the slender stem like a lifeline and he immediately gulped down a couple of deep swallows.

  “You should have told me your cousin was coming.”

  “Why, so you could start worrying that much sooner? Or end up not coming at all?” She patted his arm. “It’s only dinner with a woman you haven’t met before.”

  He swallowed more wine.

  “I’d rather walk over hot coals in my bare feet.”

  “Oh come now, it won’t be that bad and you needn’t worry about her bringing you any fruitcake because my cousin doesn’t bake,” she said in a laughing voice.

  “I’m lousy at socializing and I’m so nervous I can’t even remember her name.”

  “It’s Nancy Mills.” Her smile faded. “We need to try and get our minds away from what’s happened with Josh. I thought this evening might help us both, Tom.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for being such a wimp about this dinner thing.”

  “You’re not. I need to check on dinner. I’ll leave you to answer the door.”

  “Wait!” He started to grab her arm, but stopped when she lifted her eyebrows at him. “Okay, okay, I can do this.” He drained his glass, as she walked away.

  The doorbell rang a couple of minutes later. He took a deep breath and yanked it open before he could lose his nerve. He stood, rooted to the floor, facing the petite woman with hair the color of ginger and big brown eyes that suggested welcoming warmth.

  “Hi, you must be Tom. I’m Nancy,” she said cheerfully, holding out her hand.

  The brief touch caused the air to leave his lungs in a quiet little whoosh.

  She tilted her head to one side and grinned. “Aren’t you going to invite me in? I do believe I’m expected.”

  “Huh? Oh! Sure.” He stepped back and caught the scent of flowers as she moved inside. “Um, Catherine’s in the kitchen,” he mumbled thinking his voice sounded like he was talking through sponge rubber.

  She gave him another smile.

  “I’ll go say a quick hello.”

  He watched her walk away. She moved with just enough sway of her slender hips to make a man want to follow her and right now he realized he was that man.

  Later, as they sat at the dinner table, Tom could have been eating sawdust for all he knew. Nancy consumed his thoughts. He’d never reacted to a woman like this before.

  It was a new and heady experience. He asked if he could walk her out to her car when the evening ended.

  “I enjoyed tonight. Thanks for coming.”

  A soft light came into her eyes. “I was about to say the same thing. I don’t usually do blind dates, but I made an exception because I trust Catherine’s judgment. I’m glad I did. It’s been fun.”

  “That’s good.” He blew out a little breath, gearing himself up to issue his request. “Um, may I call you sometime?”

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” She pulled a business card out of her purse.

  Tom watched her flip it over and write on the back before handing it to him. “That’s my home phone, but you can call the shop, too. I own a boutique with my mom, Priscilla.”

  He fiddled with the card.

  “I swear this isn’t a line, but I feel like something special happened here tonight. For me, anyway,” he added, as his cheeks grew hot.

  “I certainly hope so. That’s why I gave you my number.” She scooted onto the front seat of her car, flashed him a final smile, waved, and pulled away from the curb.

  >>>>dreams<<<<

  An hour later in his apartment, Tom sat stunned listening to Hamilton’s message. He phoned Catherine. “I just got an update about Josh. I’m coming back to your place.”

  “What did they say?” A sob caught in her throat. “Oh God. Is he dead?”

  “No! He’s not dead. Hold on until I can get there and I’ll explain everything.”

  The drive back was sheer torture. He’d been ready to tap dance on the clouds. Now tension hung heavy, weighing him down. Catherine all but pounced on him when she opened the door. He led her to a chair and relayed his bad news.

  “I met Marie Rabb the day they left. She was a very attractive woman, and I’m ashamed to say I was jealous thinking of how much time she’d be spending around Josh. But I admit, she sounded quite excited about the job and apparently very dedicated. Being kidnapped must have been horrible for her. I may not have liked her, but she certainly didn't deserve to die that way. Was Josh ill, too?”

  “I don’t know. He left with a native woman before the rescue team got to him and even the natives didn’t have any idea where she was taking him.”

  “If only he had waited a bit longer he would have been there when the rescue team arrived. Are you going to go see his family again?”

  “Not right now. The company CEO, Douglas Marsh, has already notified them personally.”

  “You’d think my nightmares would have prepared me better for this, but they never quite do.”

  “Knowing something ahead of time doesn’t always ease the burden.”

  “No it doesn’t.” Her eyes clouded with sadness. “Josh and I had barely begun and now it looks like our time together is over.” Silent tears slid down her pale cheeks, slender ribbons of grief.

  He pulled her into his arms.

  “It’s not over. He’s going to be in our lives again,” he insisted in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

  Chapter Eight

  Josh blinked his eyes several times trying to bring his surroundings into sharper focus and caught brief glimpses of flashing colors through the masses of greenery. Birds? Flowers? He wasn’t sure. The whole scene resembled a watercolor painting left out in the rain.

  He held his hand up in front of him. It looked blurry around the edges and when he wiggled his fingers they appeared to melt together. He stared at them and found it strangely fascinating as though he were caught up in a psychedelic hallucination.

  Light and shadows swirled around him twisting everything into odd shapes. He shook his head trying to clear it, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t distinguish between what was real and what had become a product of his confused mind. Josh wasn’t sure what was happening to him, but he sensed he was slowly coming unraveled.

  A hodgepodge of sounds came at him from every direction, distorted and difficult to differentiate. Weariness bit into him like an animal clawing at his body. He stumbled often, falling to his knees or sometimes on his face when he wasn’t quick enough to catch himself. Each rising to his feet pushed his waning strength ever closer to its fragile limit.

  Sad Eyes seemed to understand his difficulty and often tried to help him, but her small stature was no match for his size. She sat by him patiently waiting while he struggled to right himself. His biggest fear was that he wouldn’t be able to get up at all and he’d end up lying there until Orlando or some marauding animal found him. That and his need to get to wherever Sad Eyes was going gave him the will to go on. Sometimes she would reach into the mesh bag that held their meager supplies and pour out a small measure of water for him. But with the unquenchable thirst that raged t
hroughout his body, it was never enough. She’d brought along a small cache of food as well, but Josh could barely manage to swallow a few bites.

  He’d become so accustomed to being surrounded by the cocoon of thick foliage that when Sad Eyes suddenly led him through a break in the jungle barrier he stood swaying in confusion, as the impact of the sun in the open space hit him. Struggling to make sense of his new surroundings, Josh finally realized he was looking at what appeared to be a road of sorts. He turned to Sad Eyes wishing he could find a way to thank her; yet Orlando had left him with nothing more tangible to offer , just his gratitude.

  Suddenly, huge drops of rain pounded against his sensitive flesh. He flinched as water quickly began slashing down in heavy sheets. Along with his blurred vision, Josh found it even more difficult to see but thought he could make out a few crude houses lining either side of the rutted lane. He began to understand that Sad Eyes had brought him to some kind of a settlement.

  He touched her gently on one bony shoulder in a gesture of appreciation. She smiled shyly before gesturing toward the houses and pointing to the sky reminding him that darkness would soon envelop everything within its claustrophobic cloak. Josh waited for her to lead them on once more, but she shook her head and pointed to the houses again telling him in her own way that he no longer needed her.

  He nodded and concentrated once more on putting one foot in front of the other; stopping briefly to wave a last farewell, as Sad Eyes slipped back into the jungle.

  Josh set off again, staggering through the rain as his body reeled with illness and fatigue.

  The downpour had turned the dirt road into a quagmire of soft mud that sucked at his boots. He kept losing his balance and slipping until he was spending more time on the ground than on his feet. Night’s heavy shade slid down obscuring everything behind its murky darkness. Someone lit a lamp in the house nearest to him and Josh gratefully used the small beacon to guide him there.

  When he arrived at the house he stood at the base of the small porch and reached out, trying to grab hold of the slender railing. But his hands were slick with mud and they kept sliding away from the wood. He sank to his hands and knees, laboring to get each breath. When he raised his head he saw someone walk by a window.

  Realizing he didn’t have the strength to go any farther, Josh gathered his rapidly waning energy and called out, but the sound of the rain on the tin roof muted his voice to nothing more than a hoarse whisper. He tried once more and waited, but still no one came.

  Too weak to form the words again, Josh collapsed onto the ground. He lay silent and defenseless covered in mud and pelted by silver darts of rain. His heavy eyelids drooped closed. His body had given out and he felt his mind shutting down as well. He felt oddly at peace knowing he didn’t have to fight anymore. His last coherent thought before everything faded into nothingness was that Catherine’s nightmare had come true.

  >>>>dreams<<<<

  Raymond and Hannah Daniels had been serving as missionaries in South America for over twenty years, the last eight in the Amazon region. Unfortunately, no matter how hard they tried, most of the natives refused to be Christianized, but their faith and perseverance kept them there. The small settlement they’d carved out of the jungle was a humble monument to their dedication and determination to continue doing God’s work.

  Following his nightly ritual, Raymond sat reading aloud from a well-worn Bible opened on the table in front of him while Hannah relaxed in a rocking chair with her head leaning back. She listened to him as he strained to be heard above the din of the heavy rain, when a sudden, unfamiliar noise made her lift her head.

  Certain she’d heard a sound beyond the rain and her husband’s voice, she looked inquiringly at him, but he continued to drone on. He could very well have heard something, but he hated to have his reading interrupted. Requesting that he stop was like asking a dedicated athlete to break his stride, but curiosity compelled her to get up and walk to the window.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, looking up, and staring hard at her. The irritation in his voice was obvious.

  “I thought I heard a moaning sound.”

  “It’s probably some poor beast looking for shelter from the rain. Come sit down.”

  Determined to satisfy her curiosity, she peered through the glass. The heavy rains always reminded her of frenzied weeping. Straining to see through the thick veil of water, she saw a shape at the bottom of the steps. “Something's there! Please go look.”

  He abruptly pushed his chair back, scraping the legs on the wooden floor.

  “Hannah, dear, I know you’d like to give aid to every poor animal that comes to our doorstep, but you must know we can’t save them all.”

  “But what if it isn’t an animal?”

  “That’s a strange thing to say. What else could it be?” He waved her reply away. “Never mind, I’ll go because I know you’ll continue to be distracted if I don’t.”

  “Thank you, Raymond. It should only take you a few minutes,” she added with a sheepish look. She thoughtfully handed him a rain slicker while he grabbed a flashlight off a shelf.

  He snorted out an annoyed grunt and opened the door to the scent of rain. She watched from the doorway as he stomped down the steps to scan the dark form with his torch. He leaned down for a closer look, and the light almost slipped from his hand. He drew an audible breath. “In the name of God! Hannah, come quickly!”

  Her heart jerked at the sound of his startled shout and she hurriedly pulled on a raincoat before rushing outside. Her hands flew to her mouth when her eyes followed the flashlight’s beam. “Dear heaven! It’s . . . it’s a man. Is he alive?”

  “Barely.” Raymond knelt in the mud and ran his hands over Josh’s body. “There don’t seem to be any broken bones, but he’s burning with fever. Let’s get him inside.”

  Working together, they carried Josh into the front room where they lay him on the bare floor. Raymond flung off his slicker and kneeling down, began to unlace Josh’s boots.

  “We’ll have to clean him up to see if he has any injuries. Get some water and towels while I start getting these filthy clothes off of him.”

  Hannah hurried away, shedding her raincoat. They set about easing Josh’s ragged garments from his body. Neither spoke, as their bathing revealed the multitude of insect bites along with his cuts and bruises. But Hannah couldn’t stop the hiss from her sharp intake of breath at the sight of his ravaged chest.

  They cleaned his body as thoroughly as they were able to before carrying Josh to a small bedroom where they lay him gently on the single cot there. Hannah covered his nakedness with a sheet and tucked it around him.

  “He’s going to need careful tending.”

  Raymond nodded.

  “Yes, I know. Try to get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”

  Days blurred one into the other, as they nursed Josh. Hannah looked at Raymond while she prepared the daily broth they would trickle into Josh’s mouth.

  “How is he?”

  “Still delirious.”

  “Oh, that poor man. I’m so worried about him, Raymond. I fear death is whispering at the door. How much more of this can his body take?”

  “Man can endure many things and survive. Being young is in his favor.”

  “I wonder who he is and what he’s doing here.”

  “Without identification we’ll have to wait until he can tell us himself. But listening to his ranting, I’d say he’s an American by his accent.”

  “I agree and I think he lost a woman close to him. When I was with him this morning he kept pleading for someone named Marie not to die and then he started sobbing.”

  Raymond closed his eyes for a moment. “May God rest her soul,” he prayed.

  She gnawed on her lip.

  “How do you suppose he got those terrible slashes on his chest? They look to be fairly recent, since they're not fully healed. It upsets me every time I see them and my heart cries to think of the pain he must
have had to endure.”

  “It’s obvious the marks didn’t come from something that happened in nature and considering his other wounds it looks to me as though he’s been deliberately mistreated.He may well be fleeing from whoever abused him.”

  Her hand shook as she poured the broth.

  “Who would do such a terrible thing?”

  “Wicked people, my dear – very wicked people.”

  >>>>dreams<<<<

  Plagued by the illness that raged through him, Josh thrashed about on the narrow bed. He often shouted out in anger and just as quickly cringed in fear. His fever finally broke on the morning of the sixth day, but by then he looked more dead than alive.

  He lifted his leaden eyelids and strained to focus on the barren room. It had the distinctive odor of sickness mingling with the smell of dampness and mold. He stared at the plain wooden floor and rough unpainted walls before sleep took him once again.

  The next time he awoke Josh noticed a woman kneeling at his bedside. She appeared to be praying. His brow pleated in a frown. He had no sense of familiarity for her or the simple room.

  “Are you praying for me?” he asked in a raspy whisper.

  Hannah’s head jerked up and she struggled to her feet swooping toward him. She touched her palm to his forehead and sighed.

  “Praise the Lord, your fever is gone.”

  Josh licked his dry lips. They felt like sandpaper.

  “Water, please,” he croaked.

  Hannah raised his head and because he was too weak to help himself, she guided a glass to his mouth. He tried to drink in greedy gulps, but she doled out the precious liquid.

  “I know how thirsty you must be, but it’s best for your body to take in liquids slowly.” She set the water aside and helped him lie back down on the pillow.

  He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he felt incredibly weak.

  “Who are you?”

  She gave her name and told him about Raymond and how they’d found him lying outside in the rain.