Chapter 49

Ashley's head hurt. Bad. So badly, she hardly noticed the lesser aches in the rest of her body. Thoughts wandered through her fuzzy mind; she stirred and turned.



Dreams; bizarre, disturbing dreams. A white tomb encloses her. Dancing lights were full of ominous shapes. Something black and hideous bending over her. Claws touching her neck and then someone carrying her, holding her gently against their warmth, a familiar reassurance. She heard the snap of resin and smelled mesquite. Her eyelids fluttered open. Above her, an oddly familiar ceiling of golden logs glowed in the light. A man bent over a weathered stone fireplace.



"Dad?" She mumbled. "Dad? Did Mother come back?" The man got up and crossed the room, a blur in Ashley's foggy vision.



"Dad?" She cried again as she called, lifting her head. Large, gentle hands touched her shoulder. "It's okay, Ashley. Lie back down."



Her eyelids fell closed and she drifted off to dream again. The next time she stirred, her images were calmer; more of a peaceful dream, she awoke calmly. Gingerly, she levered onto her elbows and looked around. She was alone in a spacious log cabin that gave her the sensation of stepping back in time, into the cabin in which she'd grown up.



The wind whistled in the eaves. Across the room, a fire leaped in the hearth of a stone fireplace. To one side she saw a rough-hewed padded rocker and ottoman.

Wood flanked the other side. In the center of the room was a crude wooden table with a couple of chairs tucked underneath.



Where was she? How far from Meri and the Missons' base camp?



Who had brought her here?



A door opened and she cautiously turned her head. A man in a flannel shirt and loose denim jeans stepped into the room. His body filled the door, top to bottom, side to side. A wild bush of black wavy hair fell over his shoulders, and his thick eyebrows were separated only by a scar-like crease. Thick eyebrows separate only by a scar. Her brain slowly processed the familiarity.



Dave?



"Dave!" She called in uncertainty as though she was seeing his doppelganger.



"How are you feeling, Dana?" He asked, chasing away that image. This was no lumberjack's imagination. This was Dave.



"Okay, I guess." Dana tentatively touched her aching head. Someone had neatly bandaged it.



"Did you do this?"



"As well as I could," Dave answered.



She saw now that he held a metal basin and some medicinal supplies. He crossed the room in two long strides and put them on a table beside the bed. His shoulders cast her in complete shadow and his hands were as large as the iron frying pan her mother once used.



A brotherly pat on the back could send her flying across the room—not an easy task since she was no featherweight herself. She supposed she should be apprehensive, but all she could think was.



"Meri. Missons. Wolves," she said, abruptly swinging her feet to the floor.



A mistake. She grabbed her head and leaned forward.



"Don't move so suddenly," Dave directed, shifting to her side.



"But...but, the wolves. I have to...”



"Wolves?" He smiled, his face transforming as if a light had come on behind it. Metamorphosing into the normal Dave she knew in the office.

The crease between his eyebrows disappeared, and the brackets softened. For the first time, Ashley noticed his eyes. Blue, flecked with dancing lights of the gold. Soft, gentle, immensely sad.



But he'd asked a question, and she must answer it and immediately get his help. She will understand what he was doing; heck who he was later.



The pain in her head was a nuisance, of course, but nothing she couldn't ignore.



"I'm here for the Missons, I have to report about the slaughter, and Meri is bent on killing all the animals, especially the wolves, just in case there really are wolves. I have serious doubts because the killings aren't consistent— "



"You've lost me. What are you talking about?" His smile vanished, leaving Ashley to wonder if she'd imagined the transformation.



"Are you a hermit or—" She stopped abruptly. He was obviously not everything in his head. He'd come to her aid.

Not that she'd needed it. She would have woken up eventually and dug out the Ranger. Nevertheless, she had to quit biting the hand that fed her, or in this case, pulled her from danger or ranger.



"I'm sorry. I get so involved I forget the whole world doesn't revolve around our profession. The bang on my head didn't help, either.

Anyway, people have been killed in Arizona and a pack of wild wolves is blamed for it. I'm sure you understand how important this is to me. I can't go back to work without a positive report for Mr. Johnson."



Dave frowned skeptically.



"There are no wolves up here. People have big imaginations. Some say pterodactyls still fly through the canyons."



"I'm not getting through to you, am I?"



"I know you have someplace to go, but I also know you're in no condition to go there." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Just get a rest, you'd need it."



"It's okay. I can do it." Annoyed by his dismissal, she struggled to her feet, despite the protests of her bruised muscles. But her head wouldn't be ignored. Her vision blurred and she groped blindly for the headboard.



"Don't push yourself." He put a supporting arm around her back. "You took a nasty bump."



"I'll walk you around the room until you get your legs back"



"I had a concussion?" She asked eyes as wide as they can be.

She got no response, Instead, he nestled her firmly under his arm and urged her into a first step.

By the second trip around the tiny room, her feelings of dependency started getting uncomfortable.



"I think I can manage now." She pulled away and began walking alone.



"You are not as strong as you think, Ashley," Dave said, leaving her to walk to his tablet of metal medicine container.



"So where am I, Dave?"

"You're in my home."

"I kind of figured that one out. Where is it?"



She got no answer. This time, it ticked on her patience, she's lost most of it.



"You didn't answer my question." Obviously he didn't understand this wasn't just idle curiosity.



"Where are we?"



"Up some distance from the road."



"How did you get me here?"



"I have my ways."



"Looks like you'll be here for a few days at least."



"No, oh, no. I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Naturally, you'd be better off in a hospital, but we'll never get out of here in this storm."