Warrior Heart

by Laura Kaighn

  Striding through the Pompeii’s onboard medical facility, Michael Bear Coty pouted. The ship’s chief physician was waiting for him. “Yolonda, you’re wearing your hair up these days.”

  “Good reason to,” Dr. Sheradon countered with a flattened frown. “You, of all people, can understand the grief a Kin Companion experiences when one loses his Bondmate. Yesterday Noah tried to scramble up my hair and pry open my skull. We lost good men and women in that battle.” Her pale lips drew a regretful pout.

  The captain glanced around the room. Four injured crewmembers rested on beds, while several Kin Companions slumped in cages of various sizes. “And you blame me for their deaths.”

  Smiling without humor the older doctor reassured, “Of course not, Captain. You were under orders to defend the Mytoki city.” She paused. “I do blame you for this.” Sheradon waved him toward a large mesh crate with a dog inside. The Alaskan malamute was a gray and white mass of powerful muscles, at the moment prone and whimpering.

  “Injuries?”

  “Nothing that couldn’t be repaired. I had to reattach his left paw after that Orthop monster clipped it off.” Sheradon caught Coty’s gaze in hers with such an intense stare, then, that he was transfixed by her next words. “What do I tell him about Tankawankanyi?” The doctor’s steady voice paused in her appeal. “What his mind tells him? That Vesarius is dead? These Kin may be more highly evolved than their domestic ancestors, Bear, but Tundra can’t understand time travel. Genetic engineering has its limits.”

  Coty strode to the malamute’s cage. He knelt to inspect the seventy-two kilo canine as Sheradon continued berating his back. “All Tundra knows is that when he woke up in pain, Vesarius wasn’t here. Nor could he sense the Commander’s picture words.” For effect the doctor added, “He’s in mourning and will probably die.”

  Coty shoved to his feet, confronting her. This close they were almost eye to eye though Sheradon was centimeters shorter. “Why? Sarius isn’t dead.”

  Outwardly calm, Sheradon’s voice nonetheless cracked when she asked, “How do you know? From your description, his wounds-”

  “Doctor, you know Vesar are different. A chest wound isn’t fatal-”

  Sheradon slanted a brow. “If treated promptly, no. But in a human neither is a plasma shot through the gut.” Her ice-blue eyes blinked with impatience. “Look, Captain. We don’t know where Vesarius is, whether he’s getting medical attention or not. I can’t help him, but I can help Tundra.” Sheradon straightened her angular chin. “I need you to bond with him. It’ll save his life.”

  “Me?” Coty stepped back from her proximity. “Why me?” Yolonda Sheradon’s compassion often fostered tension between them. Especially since Achilles...

  The doctor interrupted his thoughts. “Because you were bonded to a canine Kin once. Tundra’s strong-willed, like Achilles. He likes you. It’s the only way, Bear.”

  “No.” Coty waved an insistent arm at her. “He has to wait for Vesarius. I don’t want another Kin Companion, Doctor. Find somebody else.” He spun and marched from the room.

  “Coty,” Sheradon called after him, but the door hummed closed on the captain’s rocky shoulders.

  * * *

  Vesarius dreamed of plasma fire. Waking suddenly, it took him a moment to reorient himself. Darkness engulfed him. He lay on his stomach amid dank and rotting vegetation. He sputtered dirt from damp lips. A chilled breeze brought the scent of new leaves, marking the season of growing things. Shivering Vesarius drew in his bare arms. He then raised himself off the ground in an effort to stand and instantly felt sick. He retched for a moment. Then, spitting, the Vesar cursed his weakness.

  Forcing his left leg up under him, Vesarius stiffly tilted vertical. He then hopped to the nearest tree. There the man leaned panting for several moments. If he was to bleed to death, Vesarius would do so on the way to the roadside. He was, after all, a Vesar warrior.

  Vesarius pushed off from his brace to take a tentative step onto his injured leg. He winced but did not fall. The Vesar calculated he had a mere seven hundred, four steps to go. Thus he limped from tree to tree, avoiding lichen covered boulders and exposed roots. Soon Vesarius was sweaty instead of chilled.

  He waited for another hover to light his way. When none came the Vesar guessed it was early morning. He continued over the damp forest floor. His leather boots squished through mud holes and snapped twigs. Then, feeling faint, Vesarius slid to the leaf-coated ground at the base of an old scraggly trunk. Closing his eyes until the nausea left him, the Vesar warrior was soon unconscious once more, slumped against his bark-covered support.

  Chapter 2: Savior in Blue Jeans

  Dorinda Tanner strolled through Thelma Howard’s Big M Market. Scrutinizing the shelves, she picked only those food items she would need for the day. Dorinda had just cashed her bimonthly paycheck at the Fleet Bank and decided to do some shopping while she was in Old Forge – one of the four towns under the municipality of the Town of Webb in the west-central region of New York’s Adirondack Park.

  Yet, as Dorinda set a can of soup into her basket, she heard the hushed voice of the store’s proprietor chatting about her from the back room. Dorinda stalled her browsing. She tilted her auburn head to confirm the gossip. Thelma and June. Adjusting her silver-framed eyeglasses upon her slender nose, Dorinda realized they were probably setting her up with another man. She brushed bangs away from her ivory face then glanced at her watch. Nine-thirty in the morning. If she was to get those finals graded and still have time to work on her book, Dorinda had better prepare a quick dinner tonight. Casey won’t mind macs and cheese. She returned to her shopping.

  “First the PTO, then the Wildlife Program,” Dorinda heard Thelma declare. “Now she’s quit the rescue squad. She’s isolating herself, June. She hasn’t had a man in over two years.” Dorinda scowled at the claims. “Perhaps after a Cherokee like Mike Tanner, she doesn’t think the rest of them are worth it.”

  “So much for the luck of the Irish,” another woman’s voice murmured from the back room. “She’s far too young and pretty to be living alone, not wanting any close ties. There’re quite a few locals who’d love to court her. She’s the sweetheart of the middle school, you know. My grandnephew’s got a crush on her himself.”

  Through her four years of teaching English literature, Dorinda had learned patience and to calm her patriarch’s inherited temper. Face flushing, Dorinda pressed her lips against a rebuke. She headed for the front register with her half-filled basket. In the crook of her arm she cradled a bag of dogfood. Dorinda glanced back in time to see Thelma Howard tromp out from the deli and grin with brightly painted lips.

  “Good morning, my dear,” Thelma greeted sweetly as she waddled behind the glass-cased counter to the timeworn register.

  “Morning.”

  The older woman considered Dorinda from atop wide-rimmed reading glasses. The spectacles had Thelma’s rosy cheeks seem as though they belonged to a sun-baked Mrs. Claus. “So nice to see you. How is Casey?”

  Smiling politely Dorinda set the dogfood onto the counter. She calmed her ire toward the middle-aged woman by inhaling a deep breath before answering. “Casey’s fine, Thelma. I need to get her annual flea collar. Caught her chewing herself last night.” In illustration, Dorinda plucked the aforementioned item from her basket and plopped it before the store owner. “Don’t want Casey contaminating the rest of Dr. Brooker’s patients on Friday.” Quickly she emptied the remainder of her order onto the countertop.

  Eveready for controversy, Mrs. Howard continued her pursuit of small talk. “Season’s starting early. Must take a lot of squinting to find such a small critter in all that fur.” Thelma typed the grocery prices into the cash register and bagged the items as she spoke. “Shame you have to hide those pretty green eyes behind spectacles.”

  “Collies are my love,” Dorinda admitted, ignoring the latter comment with a shrug. Ultra-sensitive, myopic eyes were the reason for her glasses, not any inherent shyn
ess. She slid the bag of dogfood toward the register then picked up a recent issue of the Adirondack Express. Tucking the free newspaper under her arm, Dorinda overlooked the rest of the news rack. “Casey’s all I have.” She chose a New York Times and placed it on the glass counter to be rung up as well.

  “Well, dear, it doesn’t have to be that way, out there in those woods all alone.” Dorinda cringed at the comment. She’d fallen right into that one. “It’s dangerous,” Thelma continued. “No neighbors but the seasonal campers across the way at the campground, some blue herons, and an osprey or eagle or two. And don’t forget that rogue she-bear.”

  “It’s Penny,” Dorinda interjected. “And she’s too old to be any real trouble. She just comes by to eat my blueberries. I’m glad to share.”

  Mrs. Howard wasn’t finished her argument, however. “Well, one can hardly see the dirt trail that leads in from the Uncas Road to your place. Tourists are so unpredictable these days. You have to be more careful.”

  With a checked smile Dorinda shook her head. “My cell phone comes inside with me every night. And Casey lets me know when the raccoons are in the neighborhood. Hardly a dangerous environment.” Besides, I like the peace and quiet, and the solitude.

  “At least you’ve got electricity.” Thelma sighed, totaling the bill. “Morgan and GTE saved you from living in the nineteenth century.”

  “What’s wrong with living in the nineteenth century?” Dorinda challenged. “My favorite writers lived back then. Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau.” Dorinda passed Thelma two twenty dollar bills. On Monday she’d finish her grocery list at the Super Duper in Eagle Bay after school. Or maybe she’d take a drive into Boonville to the A&C Market. The weekend would be too full of end-of-the-school-year preparations for Dorinda to go through her stash of coupons until then. She sighed tiredly. Just one more week and I can become a hermit for the summer. Then Dorinda frowned, jolted from her wistful daydream.

  Thelma was considering her from over her dark-framed glasses again. Tilting her head in commitment, the general store proprietor offered, “Jeff Dunkin finalized his divorce yesterday. He’s an awfully nice man, Dori-”

  Dorinda’s lips drew a line of controlled anger. “I had a feeling that’s what you and June were scheming back there. Thelma, I’ve told you before. I’m not interested.” Why was every older woman and younger bachelor in the Town of Webb trying to set her up in a permanent relationship? She wasn’t ready for another man. After losing Michael, I don’t want another man. “Jeff’s wife left him for a richer man. For good reason, I suppose. He’s too old for me.” Dorinda could feel her tongue tense against further comment as she scooped up her grocery bag.

  Thelma chuckled. “Dori, that’s the oldest excuse in the society tabloids. I do hope you’re not that bad of a writer. You’re not teaching that trash to those impressionable seventh graders at the Webb School.” Leaning forward onto the counter Thelma seemingly swallowed her criticism at Dorinda’s continued silence. “I’ve been wanting to ask you. Are any of us local folks in this book you’re writing? You know, small town America, frontier-minded, forever-wilders?”

  Dorinda glanced toward the hard tile floor for a moment then at her groceries. She adjusted her slipping eye frames before considering her answer. “It’s fiction, Thelma. A mystery novel. My main character is a naturalist studying the endangered songbirds of the Adirondacks.” Dorinda set the bag atop the counter with a sigh and elaborated. “He meets some local townsfolk who dislike his opposition to a land deal that’d bring some ten thousand new tourists into the area.”

  “Sounds like Michael Tanner versus the New York State Legislature,” Thelma interjected. The woman shot her a concerned stare. “You sure this story’s fiction?” When Dorinda’s rounded chin remained squared and her lips silent, Thelma grinned and patted her on the hand. “You live your life the way you want, Dori. Old Forge’s a place out of time. It may be 1999, but here we’re a lot less sophisticated than those city politicians in down east Albany.” Then, peering over her glasses Thelma added, “Not a bad place for one as scholarly as you. Thoreau would have loved you, you know.”

  Unable to hold her annoyance before the compliment, this time Dorinda beamed. “Thelma, you really are a piece of work. You know the people in this county better than Clerk Simon.” Hefting the bag of foodstuffs onto her slim hip, Dorinda nodded her goodbye. “Tell June I said hello.” Turning to the exit, Dorinda stepped down the concrete landing and onto the sidewalk of the Adirondack hamlet of Old Forge. She let her gold-green eyes skim the wide, clean streets and wooden-shingled shops nearby. This was not quiet enough for her, she realized, as a squadron of children roared by on their in-line skates. Even this early on a Saturday morning the tourists were rolling in. By van and carload, their food boxes, linens and suitcases were piled and peeking out the back windows.

  July would be even more infringing on Dorinda’s privacy. She was glad she lived on the north point of Eighth Lake. The state owned land around her provided a forested buffer from goggling tourists and cameras. It had all seemed happier when Michael was alive. Dorinda Tanner could ignore the clatter back then.

  Sighing Dorinda stepped over to her Jeep Wrangler, opened the passenger side and plopped the grocery bag onto the front passenger seat. With a shove of seatbelt, she secured her bounty. When Dori straightened again someone cleared his throat. Stiffening in dreaded anticipation, Dorinda turned around to confront the man.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Tanner. Can I talk with you a moment?”

  A stout, middle-aged man with dark, thinning hair and a navy uniform and badge stood beside her Jeep. “Sheriff Cooper, what can I do for you?” Dorinda released her held lungs, glad it wasn’t Jeff Dunkin.

  The Town of Webb police officer tugged at his sagging beltline with one pudgy forefinger looped into his trousers. “I got a call from Randolph Brown this morning. Seems he heard some strange noises in the woods last night. Said it sounded like it come from your place, east of him.”

  Dorinda blinked at the information. Was she about to be blamed for something? “Well, that’s nearly two miles. What kind of noises did he hear?”

  “Randy said they sounded like gunfire but different. Tinny and higher pitched, around two in the morning. Did you hear anything? Or were you shooting off that gun of yours again to chase away Old Penny and her cubs?”

  Dorinda’s back stiffened. “Mr. Cooper, I haven’t touched Michael’s revolver. Not since that night you came to tell me it wasn’t a burglar. Almost two years ago? Last night I was working late on my novel. I fell asleep at the kitchen table. Casey woke me.” Dorinda shook her head. “What I heard sounded like cracking branches.” She steadied her eye frames and shrugged away the memory. “I thought perhaps it was kids shooting bottles or something at the Dunning Hermitage.”

  “If you heard something suspicious, why didn’t you call me? This is a state park,” Cooper reminded. “Mischief like that’ll bring in the rangers. Or worse, state troopers.”

  Frowning Dorinda lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I forgot to bring my phone in last night.” She gestured at the cellular unit plugged into the vehicle’s cigarette lighter and wedged between the groceries and the Jeep’s passenger bucket seat. “I’ll be sure to report any further disturbances to your office.”

  “You do that, young lady. And if you hear any noises coming from the woods toward the Uncas Road this afternoon, it’ll be my men looking for spent shells and debris. I’m in the midst of a poaching investigation with the rangers. I’m too busy to worry about young women living alone with loaded pistols in their closets.”

  Dorinda clenched her jaw but kept silent. Who’s he to treat me like an undisciplined child? Why does everyone insist I not be alone? Michael Tanner was dead more than two years now, and Dorinda had been self-sufficient ever since. “Is that all, Sheriff?” she asked feeling the veins at her temples pulse.

  “Yes, Ma’am. I appreciate your time and cooperation.” Cooper grunted his farewell
with a tip of his hat. The sheriff tugged again at his sagging trousers then swaggered back to his patrol car parked beside the Big M’s frontage to Route 28.

  Shaking her head, Dorinda strolled to the driver’s side of her own vehicle. She hopped up onto the seat and started the Jeep’s engine. Then, pushing down the clutch, Dorinda shifted into reverse and backed out of her parking space. Her braided hair flipped one last goodbye to the Big M as she pulled away. To ease her nerves, Dorinda quickly popped in a cassette tape. She listened to the quiescent piano of Mozart’s “Moonlight Sonata”.

  Dorinda sighed. If the community only knew what losing a husband as special as Michael Tanner felt like. His dedication to the Adirondack woods was the only thing that kept her here. The birds had been his favorite.

  Dorinda’s thoughts drifted along with the peaceful music from the Jeep’s stereo cassette deck as she passed the towering spiral tubes of the Enchanted Forest’s Water Safari. Soon she was headed north, out of town and into the wilderness of the Adirondack Park.

  * * *

  Blinking awake to the morning sun, Vesarius cursed the wasted time. He could now see the full extent of his injuries and grimaced at the fleshy gouge below his groin. With nothing to cover it, the wound was now speckled in leaf debris and moist humus. Rising shakily to his feet, Vesarius was more determined than ever to reach the roadway. Injuries such as these, open to the damp air, were fatal if left unattended, even for a Vesar warrior.

  A bird flapped over his head cackling a warning. Two other similar voices joined in with a harsh “jay-jay”. Twisting to squint into the sunlight, Vesarius raised a hand to shade his eyes. He saw the birds perched on a high sweeping evergreen bough. Their blue, white and black plumage was unmistakable. With an enlightened inhale Vesarius realized the Arch’s destination.

  “I am on Earth,” he rasped. The warrior had spotted two blue jays, and they wanted him out of their woods. Vesarius turned from the reproachful birds to hobble toward the sandy roadway now visible through a break in the undergrowth. A short-tailed rodent, scrounging through the leaf litter, darted for cover at his jerky passage. Vesarius stumbled on. He would not give up now.