by Sharon Sala
The sun was halfway between zenith and horizon when he pulled into Larner’s Mill, but the relief he imagined he would feel was not there. In fact, the urgency of his quest seemed to have taken on darker overtones. An unsettled feeling had taken root in his belly, and try as he might, there was no rational explanation for the emotion, other than the uncertainty of his quest.
When he pulled into the parking lot of the small community hospital and got out, he found himself wanting to run. But to where? Instead, he took a deep breath and entered through the emergency room doors.
A nurse glanced up from a desk near the door. “May I help you, sir?”
“I want to talk to one of your doctors,” Wyatt said.
She slipped a fresh page on a clipboard and held a pen poised above the lines.
“Your name?” she asked.
“Wyatt Hatfield,” he said.
“And what are your symptoms?”
“I’m not sick. But I was here before. Last winter, in fact. I had a car wreck during a blizzard. I was…”
“I remember you,” she cried, and jumped to her feet. “Dr. Steading was your doctor. You were the talk of the hospital for some time.”
“Why was that?” Wyatt asked.
“You know,” she said. “About how lucky you were to have had that donor show up when she did. With such a rare blood type, and the blizzard and all, there was no way we could access the blood banks in the bigger cities as we normally might have done.”
The expression on Wyatt’s face stilled as he absorbed the nurse’s unwitting revelation.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I am one lucky man.” He gave her a smile he didn’t feel. “So, could I talk to Dr. Steading? There are some things about the accident that I don’t remember. I thought maybe he could give me some help.”
“I’ll see,” she said, and shortly thereafter, Wyatt found himself on the way through the corridors to an office in the other wing. When he saw the name on the door, his pulse accelerated. He knocked and then entered.
“Dr. Steading?”
Amos Steading arched one bushy eyebrow, and then stood and reached over his desk, his hand outstretched.
“You, sir, look a damn sight healthier than the last time I saw you,” he said, his gravelly voice booming within the small confines of the office.
Wyatt caught the handshake and grinned. “I suppose I feel better, too,” he said.
Steading frowned. “Suppose?”
Wyatt took the chair offered him, and tried not to show his uneasiness, but it seemed it was impossible to hide anything, including an emotion, from the grizzled veteran.
Steading persisted. “So, did you come all this way just to shake my hand, or are you going to spit it out?”
Wyatt took a deep breath, and then started talking.
“I know I was in serious condition when I was brought in here,” he said.
“No,” Steading interrupted. “You were dying, boy.”
Wyatt paled, but persisted. “The reason I came is…I need to know if, in your opinion, I could have suffered any residual brain damage.”
Steading frowned. That was the last thing he expected to hear this man say. His eyes were clear and bright, his manner straightforward, and he’d walked into his office like a man with a purpose. None of this hinted at any sort of mental disability.
“Why?” Steading asked. “Are you suffering memory loss, or…”
Wyatt shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
“So…?”
“So, I want to know what exactly happened to my head,” Wyatt growled.
“You had one hell of a concussion. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d gone into a coma.”
Wyatt started to relax. Maybe this would explain what he thought he’d heard. Maybe his head was still lost in some sort of fugue.
“But you didn’t,” Steading added. “After surgery, you pretty much sailed through recovery. There’s a lot to be said for a young, healthy body.”
“Damn,” Wyatt muttered beneath his breath. One theory shot to hell.
This time, both of Steading’s eyebrows arched. “You’re disappointed?”
Wyatt shrugged. “It would have explained a lot.”
“Like what?” Steading persisted.
The last thing he intended to admit, especially to a doctor, was that he was hearing voices. They’d lock him up in a New York minute. He changed the subject.
“I understand that I was given transfusions.”
“Transfusion,” Steading corrected. “And damned lucky to have that one. Whole blood made the difference. I’m good, but I don’t think I could have pulled you through surgery without it, and that’s the gospel truth.”
“I’d like to thank the person who cared enough to come out in such a storm. If it wouldn’t be against hospital policy, could you give me a name?”
Amos Steading’s face fell. He rocked backward in his chair, and gazed at a corner of the ceiling, trying to find the right way to say the words.
“If that’s a problem,” Wyatt said, “I’ll understand. It’s just that I’m trying to make sense of some things in my life, and I thought that retracing my steps through that night might help.”
“It isn’t that,” Steading finally said. “It’s just that you’re about a day too late.”
Wyatt straightened. An inner warning was going off that told him he wasn’t going to like this.
“That young woman…the one who gave you blood…she, along with her family, died sometime last night. I heard about it when I came in to work this morning.”
Oh, God! Oh, no! Was that what I heard…the sound of someone crying out for help?
Wyatt’s voice broke, and he had to clear his throat to get out the words. “How did it happen? Was it a car accident?”
“No, a fire at the home.”
Wyatt shuddered, trying not to think of the horror of burning alive.
“Yes, and a real shame, too, what with her and her brother so young and all. That night when the EMT dragged her into the room where I was working on you, I remember thinking she was just a kid. Wasn’t any bigger than a minute, and all that white blond hair and those big blue eyes, it’s no wonder I misjudged her age.”
It was the description that caught Wyatt’s attention. He’d seen a woman who looked like that. A woman with hair like angel’s wings, whom he’d mistaken for a girl until an errant wind had moved her coat, revealing a womanly figure.
He blanched, and covered his face in his hands. There was something else about that woman that had been unique, and only Wyatt was privy to the fact.
Somehow, when his guard had been down and his defenses weak, she’d insinuated herself within his thoughts. He didn’t know how it had happened, but after what he’d just heard, he was firmly convinced that she’d done it again last night, presumably at the point of her death.
“My God,” he muttered. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows upon his knees and stared at a pattern on the carpet until the colors all ran together.
“Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news,” Steading said. “Are you all right?”
Wyatt shrugged. “I didn’t really know her. It was her kindness that I wanted to acknowledge. It’s a damn shame I came too late.” And then he had a thought. “I’d like to see. Where she lived, I mean. Do you know?”
“Nope, I can’t say that I do. But you could ask at the police department. Anders Conway could tell you.”
Wyatt stood. “I’ve taken up enough of your time, Dr. Steading. Thanks for your help.”
Steading shrugged.
Wyatt was at the door, when he paused and then turned. “Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“What was her name?”
“Dixon. Glory Dixon.”
A twist of pain spiked, and then centered in the region of Wyatt’s heart. “Glory,” he repeated, more to himself than to the doctor, then closed the door behind him.
“Damn,” Amos muttered. “In fact…damn it all to he
ll.”
Wyatt navigated the winding road with absentminded skill. He’d gone over the side of one Kentucky mountain. It was enough. Remembering the directions he’d been given, he kept a sharp watch for a twisted pine, aware that he was to turn left just beyond it. As he rounded a bend, the last rays of the setting sun suddenly spiked through a cloud and the waning light hit the top of a tree. Wyatt eased off the gas. It was the pine. He began looking for the road, and sure enough, a few yards beyond, a narrow, one-laned dirt road took a sharp turn to the left. Wyatt followed it to its destination.
The clearing came without warning. One minute the road was shadowed and treelined, and then suddenly he was braking to a sliding halt as his fingers tightened upon the steering wheel, and his breath came in short, painful gasps.
“Dear God.”
There was little else to say as he got out of the car and walked toward the blackened timbers. Yellow police tape was tied from tree to tree and then from fence post to the bumper of what was left of a pickup truck—a vivid reminder that death had occurred here.
The fact that the shell of a washing machine and dryer still stood, while a house was gone, seemed obscene, too vivid a reminder of how frail human life truly was. Smoke continued to rise from several locations as cross beams and a stack of something no longer identifiable smoldered. An unnatural heat lingered in the cooler evening air.
Wyatt stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the weight of despair that hung over the area. Last night he’d heard a cry for help and had been unable to respond, and yet when he’d needed help most, she had come. The burden of his guilt was almost more than he could bear.
“Ah, God, Glory Dixon. It was you, wasn’t it? I am so, so sorry. If I had known, I would have helped.”
“Do you swear?”
Wyatt spun. This time the voice he just heard had been behind him, not in his head. And when a young woman walked out of the trees, he thought he was seeing a ghost. It was her! The woman from the street!
He looked over his shoulder at the ruins, and then back at her, unable to believe his own eyes. Suddenly, a puppy darted out of the woods behind her and began pouncing around her feet. Wyatt stared. He’d never heard of a ghost with a dog.
He stood his ground, fighting the urge to run. “Are you real?”
Glory sighed, and Wyatt imagined he felt the air stir from her breath. And then she was standing before him, and he looked down and got lost in a silver-blue gaze. An errant breeze lifted the hair from her neck and shoulders, and for a moment, it seemed to float on the air like wings. Once again, Wyatt was reminded of angels.
“Why did you come?” Glory whispered. “How did you know?”
The sound of her voice broke the spell, and Wyatt blinked, trying to regain a true focus on the world around him. Unable to believe his eyes, he grasped a portion of her hair between his fingers. Although it was silken in texture, there was nothing unearthly about it.
“I heard you call my name,” he muttered, as he watched the hair curl around his finger.
Glory gasped, startled by what he’d revealed, and stepped back. Dear God, did I give him more than my blood? Have I given away part of myself?
Then drawn by the horror she couldn’t ignore, her gaze shifted to the pile of blackened timbers, and without warning, tears pooled and then tracked down her cheeks in silent misery. Wyatt groaned and opened his arms, and to his surprise, she walked into his embrace with no hesitation.
In his mind, holding her was like trying to hold sunshine. She was light, fragile, and seemed to sway within his arms with every beat of his heart. Her shoulders shook with grief, and yet her sobs were silent, as if the agony just wouldn’t let go.
“I’m so sorry about your family,” Wyatt said softly, and closed the gap between his hands until she stood locked firmly within his grasp. “But everyone’s going to be so happy to learn that you survived. As soon as you’re able, I’ll take you back to town.”
She went limp, and for a moment, he thought she was going to faint. Instead, it seemed more of a physical retreat. Sensing her uneasiness, he immediately turned her loose.
“I can’t go back. Not yet,” Glory said quietly.
Wyatt couldn’t hide his surprise. “Why ever not?”
“Because this wasn’t an accident. Because someone tried to kill me, and my daddy and brother suffered for it.”
Before he thought, Wyatt had her by the arms. “What the hell do you mean, ‘someone tried to kill me’? Are you saying that this fire was set?”
“At first it wasn’t a fire, it was an explosion. The fire came afterward.”
Unable to look at him, she turned away. He was bound to doubt. Everyone always did.
“Well, hell,” Wyatt muttered. “Then you need to tell the police chief. He’ll know what to do.”
Glory spun, and for the first time since she’d walked out of the woods, Wyatt saw a light in her eyes and heard fire in her voice.
“No! You don’t understand! They’ll come tomorrow…or the next day…to go through the ruins. When they do, they’re only going to find two bodies, not three. And then whoever it was that did this will try again. I need time to try and figure out what to do.”
Wyatt frowned. “What do you mean, whoever did this? I thought you knew.”
She shook her head.
“Then how do you know it wasn’t an accident?”
Glory lifted her chin, silencing his argument with a piercing look he couldn’t ignore.
“I see things. Sometimes I know things before they happen, sometimes I see them happen. But however my knowledge comes…I know what I know.”
Wyatt took a deep breath. He knew for a fact that he’d been hearing some things of his own. Right now, it wasn’t in him to doubt that she might…just might…be able to do more than hear. What if she could see? What if she was for real?
“Are you telling me that you’re psychic?”
“Some people call it that.”
Wyatt went quiet as he considered the ramifications of her admission.
“Why did you come to the hospital to help me?”
Her chin trembled, but her words were sure. “I saw your accident as it happened. I heard your cry for help…and because I could come, I did.”
Daring the risk of rejection, Wyatt reached out and cupped her face with his hand. To his joy, she withstood his familiarity, in fact, even seemed to take strength from the comfort.
“How can I thank you, Glory Dixon?”
“By not giving me away. By helping me stay alive until I can figure out why…and who…and…”
“It’s done. Tell me what to do first.”
Again, she swayed on her feet. Wyatt reached out, but she pushed him away. Her gaze searched the boundary of trees around the rubble, constantly on the lookout for a hidden menace. Fear that she would be found before it was time was a constant companion.
“You need to hide your car. Maybe drive it around behind the barn, out in the pasture.”
“Where are you…uh…?”
“Hiding?”
He nodded.
“When you’ve parked your car, I’ll show you, but we need to hurry. There’ll be no moon tonight, and the woods are dense and dark.”
Wyatt headed for his car, and as he followed her directions through the narrow lanes, wondered what on earth he’d let himself in for. Yet as the beam of his headlights caught and then held on the beauty of her face and the pain he saw hidden in her eyes, he knew he didn’t give a damn. She’d helped him. The least he could do was repay the debt.
A few minutes later, they walked away from the site, following what was left of a road overgrown with bushes and weeds. The air was already damp. Dew was heavy on the grass, blotching the legs of their jeans and seeping into the soles of their shoes. The bag Wyatt was carrying kept getting caught on low-hanging limbs, but Glory seemed to pass through the brush without leaving a trace. It would seem that her fragile, delicate appearance was dec
eiving. He suspected that she moved through life as she did through these trees—with purpose.
The pup ran between their legs, barking once from the delight of just being alive. He ran with his nose to the ground and his long, puppy ears flopping, yet a single word from Glory and he hushed.
Something silent and dark came out of a tree overhead and sailed across their line of vision. Instinctively, Glory threw up her hands and gasped. Wyatt caught her as she started to run.
“I think it was an owl,” he said gently, and held her until she had calmed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not usually so jumpy. It’s just that…” Tears were thick in her voice as she pushed herself out of his arms and resumed their trek.
Visibility was nearly zero, yet Glory moved with a sure sense of direction and Wyatt followed without question. Night creatures hid as the pair walked past, then scurried back into their holes, suddenly unsure of their world. Wyatt heard the rustling in the deep, thick grass, and even though he knew what it was that he heard, he couldn’t prevent a shiver of anxiety. This was a far cry from the safety and comfort of the Tennessee home where he’d been recuperating. It reminded him too much of secret maneuvers he’d been on in places he’d rather forget.
He clutched at the bag over his shoulder and caught himself wishing it was a gun in his hands, and not a duffel bag. Twice as they walked, Glory paused, listening carefully to the sounds of the woods through which they walked, judging what she heard against what she knew should be there. After a time, she would resume the trek without looking back, trusting that because Wyatt had come, he would still follow.
Just when he was wondering if they would walk all night, they entered a clearing. Again Glory paused, this time clutching the sleeve of his shirt as she stared through the darkness, searching for something that would feel out of place.
The instinct that had carried Wyatt safely through several tours of duty told him that all was well.
“It’s okay,” he said, and this time he took her by the hand and led the way toward the cabin on the other side of the yard.
The night could not disguise the humble quality of the tiny abode. It was no more than four walls and a slanted, shingle roof, a rock chimney that angled up from the corner of the roof, with two narrow windows at the front of the cabin that stared back at them like a pair of dark, accusing eyes.
