by Sharon Sala
Adam laid a hand on Jonah’s back.
“It’s dead, son. Old Sun-Catcher here was only hunting. It’s what dogs do, you know. Come on, put it down and let—”
“No, Papa. I will fix it.”
Adam’s heart hurt for his son’s confusion.
“No, Jonah. You can’t—”
The air went out of Adam’s lungs all at once as Jonah sucked in his breath, then exhaled on a moan. When his eyes lost focus and his expression changed, Adam almost panicked. He didn’t know what was happening, but clearly his son was somehow traumatized by the little animal’s death.
Jonah laid the small bloody squirrel on the ground and began running his fingers up and down the body.
Adam could see the puncture marks on its neck, as well as on its belly. Old Sun-Catcher had done his worst.
Jonah cupped the tiny head, then laid the palm of his hand on top of the belly.
“Jonah…stop, son. That’s enough. The little fella is—”
The words froze at the back of Adam’s throat as he felt himself being enveloped by something still and dark—something so heavy that he could no longer move.
There was a dull ringing in his ears, and he could no longer hear the sounds of the birds that had been singing, or the tap-tap of a woodpecker who’d been hammering on a nearby tree.
He watched in disbelief as his little boy bent over the squirrel. How could Jonah move when Adam felt unable to even take a breath? Then the air began to shift.
At first Adam thought it was a breeze; then he realized it was more like a vibration. The tremors rocked against his body from every direction, and even beneath his feet. Was this an earthquake—or the end of the world?
A faint light enveloped the child and the squirrel as Jonah’s small, grubby fingers gently spread across the animal’s belly. When the squirrel’s back legs began to twitch, Adam thought he was seeing things. When the animal’s tiny belly began to rise and fall, Adam heard his neighbors’ swift, indrawn breaths. When the squirrel’s black eyes opened and his nose began to twitch, Wilson’s wife, Patty, groaned, then began to pray. Adam recognized the chant but did not understand the words. It didn’t matter. At this moment, a prayer in any language seemed more than appropriate.
Suddenly Jonah rocked back on his heels and put his hands in his lap. As he looked up at Adam, the smile on his face was nothing short of beautiful. At the same time, Adam felt the air around them change, and the light that had enveloped the boy and the squirrel disappeared.
“Look, Papa, I fixed him. I did good, right?”
Adam didn’t know he was crying until Jonah stood up and laid his hands on his father’s cheeks.
“Don’t be sad, Papa. The squirrel is okay. See? I fixed it just fine.”
The squirrel was up and running as Adam began to come to himself. Old Sun-Catcher glanced longingly at the squirrel, then fixed his gaze back at Jonah, as if waiting for permission to move.
“Go on, Sun-Catcher. No squirrel today,” Jonah announced.
The old dog jumped up and loped off as Adam reached for Jonah and pulled him close.
Wilson and Patty stared at Jonah without speaking. When their oldest boy started toward Jonah, they grabbed him, then took the kids and left without explanation.
Adam felt their fear, but there was nothing he could do to change it.
“Jonah…oh, Jonah…what did you do?” Adam whispered, still unable to believe his own eyes.
Jonah pulled back and stared at his father.
“Papa, did I do something bad?”
Adam sighed. He heard the tremble in his son’s voice and saw the tears in his eyes, which was the last thing he’d meant to achieve. He hadn’t meant to scare Jonah, but he was scared—as scared as he’d ever been.
“No, no, nothing bad, son. Not bad at all.”
Jonah relaxed and then smiled as he blinked away tears. “Okay, Papa,” he said, and sank into Adam’s lap.
Silence lengthened as Adam sat with his arms around Jonah, trying to find words for what he’d seen. Finally, there was no way around it but to ask.
“Jonah?”
Jonah tilted his head so that he could see his father’s face. “Yes, Papa?”
“How did you do that?”
“Do what, Papa?”
“Fix the squirrel. How did you do that?”
Jonah’s eyebrows arched as his eyes widened. Adam found himself staring at his own reflection.
“I just fixed what Sun-Catcher broke, that’s all.”
Adam felt sick. This was so far out of his comfort zone that he didn’t even know what to say or how to say it. Still, he had to know.
“Have you ever done this before…I mean, fix animals that were, uh, broken?”
“Sure, Papa. All the time. Just like you. I fix just like you.”
Two
West Virginia
Present Day
T hin wisps of smoke from the dying embers of a campfire spiraled upward through the skeletal limbs of the barren trees. Before morning, frost would cover the ground.
A man slept near the dying fire, wedged as tightly beneath the overhang of rock at his back as he could get. A large mountain lion lay stretched out on the outcropping of rock above, chewing on the haunch of a deer that it had taken down earlier in the day.
Suddenly, it stopped in mid-chew and lifted its head, sniffing the air. Its ears suddenly flattened against its head, and a low, warning rumble came up its throat.
The man was awake within seconds. He rolled out from under his covers and stood abruptly.
“Easy, boy,” he said softly. “I hear it, too.”
The cougar hissed.
The man turned and stared straight into the big cat’s eyes. For the space of a heartbeat, he and the cougar were as one.
Go. Now.
The cat grabbed the deer leg it had been eating and disappeared into the darkness.
The man turned back around and fixed his gaze on a small opening in the stand of trees in which he’d taken shelter. His nostrils twitched once as scents were carried to him on the air.
One dog. One man. One gun.
He smelled skunk on the dog, filth on the man and gunpowder. The gun had recently been fired.
He kicked dirt onto what was left of the coals, then stepped back into the shadows.
Chock Barrett paused beneath a stand of pines to catch his breath. As he did, he pulled a small penlight out of his pocket and checked the compass on his watch. It was hard to stay true to a direction when going uphill through such a heavily wooded area. Not only was this part of the Appalachians wild and brushy, but the population of the mountain that walked upright was definitely in the minority.
Still, the last decent bit of information he’d had on the man known as Jonah Gray Wolf was supposed to be good, and the bounty would be worth all the crap he had to go through to get it. The only problem with bringing the man in was that the authorities would view it as kidnapping, which meant staying under the radar, because it wasn’t the law that wanted Jonah Gray Wolf. It was a man named Major Bourdain.
Bourdain—the only man Jonah regretted healing. But he’d done it, and Bourdain had been after him ever since, shelling out money to anyone willing to hunt for the man who dispensed miracle cures through his hands.
Barrett dropped the penlight back into his pocket, shifted his gun to the other hand and started forward, then suddenly caught a whiff of something completely out of order.
Wood smoke. The dog beside him whined.
He grinned, revealing a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth. Maybe he was about to get lucky. He shifted the backpack off his shoulder and felt through a side pocket for the tranquilizer darts he was carrying, then slipped one into the rifle before pocketing the others in his coat. His step was softer, his stride slower, as he started forward, guided by stray beams of moonlight filtering through the tree limbs onto the forest floor.
The intruder was close now. Despite the chill of the night, Jonah Gra
y Wolf could smell sweat from the man’s unwashed body. Seconds passed, and then he heard a twig snap a few yards to his left. His nostrils flared slightly. It was his only reaction to being stalked.
A leaf shifted somewhere above him.
The cougar.
It had sensed trouble and come back.
Jonah didn’t understand the connection between himself and animals, but he had long ago accepted it; it was as odd and complicated as his ability to heal others.
The cougar huffed once—a soft, almost undetectable cough—as a message to Jonah that it was there. To the untrained ear, it would have sounded like nothing more than wind shifting the leaves on the floor of the forest.
Jonah glanced back at his camp. In the dark, it still appeared as if he were in the bedroll, asleep. If whoever was on the mountain turned out to be just a hunter who’d smelled the smoke of his fire, he would most likely pass by the camp without revealing himself. But if it was one of Bourdain’s men…
A few more seconds passed, then Jonah saw a shape emerging from the shadows on the far side of his camp. From where he was standing, he could see the man, as well as his rifle. But then, any hunter would be carrying. It remained to be seen exactly what it was that this man was hunting.
Jonah saw him pause. As he did, the dog that was with him suddenly yelped as if it had been shot, then pivoted and bolted back into the trees. Obviously, the dog had smelled the cougar. Too bad the man’s olfactory senses were not as keen. It might save him some trouble.
When the dog bolted, he heard the hunter curse softly. For a moment, he thought the man was going to leave, too. Instead, he watched as the hunter raised his weapon and fired straight at Jonah’s bedroll.
Jonah flinched, but didn’t move. At least now he had an answer. The end of the tranq dart was sticking out of the bedroll at the place where his chest would have been.
The hunter lowered the weapon and swaggered toward the bedroll, then used the barrel to lift the covers. His posture changed when he realized the bedroll was empty.
“What the—”
Jonah stepped out of the shadows.
“You missed.”
Barrett jerked as if he was the one who’d been shot. He was already scrambling to reload his rifle with another tranquilizer dart as Jonah emerged.
“Stand back!” Barrett shouted, as he shoved the dart into the chamber and swung the rifle straight at Jonah’s chest. “It’s nothing personal, buddy, but a million-dollar bounty is too good to pass up.”
“You’re never going to collect it,” Jonah said.
Barrett grinned. “I’ve got a rifle here that says otherwise.”
Suddenly the cougar on the rock ledge above their heads made itself known with a scream that ripped through the night. Jonah had heard it before, yet it never failed to raise the hair on the back of his neck.
Barrett jumped back in panic as he looked up and saw the cougar. Cursing wildly, he swung the rifle toward the cat and was about to pull the trigger when Jonah spoke.
“You shoot that cat, and I will kill you.”
Barrett shuddered, then nervously swung the rifle back to Jonah. As he did, the cat shifted position, readying to pounce.
“You shoot me, and the cat will kill you,” Jonah added.
Barrett was sweating profusely beneath his hunting gear.
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” he yelled.
The cat snarled warningly.
Barrett was shaking. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Suddenly the million dollars wasn’t as appealing as it had been. He swallowed nervously and wished he’d left with the dog. Even though it was dark, there was just enough moonlight for him to see the cougar’s powerful haunches and big head. Picturing the teeth and claws that came with it, he took a shaky step backward while thinking he needed to regroup. He lowered his rifle.
“Look. I’m leaving now. No hard feelings…okay?”
“Sorry, but I have all kinds of hard feelings,” Jonah said. “How do I know you won’t come back and try again?”
The answer died in Barrett’s throat as the cougar suddenly leaped down from the ledge. When it crouched beside Jonah and fixed Barrett with a motionless stare, he began moving backward.
“No, no, oh, God…don’t let it get me. Please, don’t let it get me!”
“What’s your name?” Jonah asked.
“Chock Barrett.”
“So. Barrett. You need to shut up now.”
Barrett obeyed. He was too scared to argue. Long silent moments passed while his gut tied itself into a knot. He was promising God and himself that he would be a changed man if he could just get out of this mess alive and in one piece.
Jonah pointed to the gun.
“Toss the weapon,” he said.
Barrett tossed it toward the bedroll. “Now can I go?”
“Empty your pockets,” Jonah said.
Barrett dumped the rest of the loaded darts beside the rifle.
“Everything,” Jonah said.
Barrett started tossing things out, but he wasn’t pitching his car keys, no matter what.
“That’s all. Now can I go? I won’t tell anyone where you are. I swear.”
“You lie,” Jonah said softly, and stomped on all the darts until they were in pieces.
Barrett began to beg. “I didn’t know…they said the animals protected you, but I didn’t think—” He shuddered. “You’re supposed to be a healer. You can’t let me die.”
“Yes, I can,” Jonah said.
The cat hissed warningly.
Barrett began to shake. “No, no, you heal people,” he wailed.
“Not if I don’t want to,” Jonah said.
Flop sweat dripped from the tip of Barrett’s nose, and he was shaking so hard he could barely stand. When Jonah began moving about the campsite, packing up his things, Barrett thought maybe this was over. He started to pick up his gun when the cougar screamed a warning.
“Oh! Crap! Call it off! Call it off,” Barrett begged.
Jonah paused in the act of packing his bedroll to glance at the cat, then at Barrett.
“He’s pissed,” Jonah said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t move.”
“But you can make him—”
Jonah shrugged. “I told you. Not if I don’t want to, and frankly…” He paused to pull the tranq dart from his bedroll and then ground it under his heel. “I don’t have any warm feelings toward you whatsoever.”
Barrett shuddered.
“What are you going to do?”
“Obviously, I’m leaving,” Jonah said, then kicked some more dirt onto the smoky embers, shouldered his backpack and headed out of the clearing.
Barrett’s heart kicked so hard he gasped. The son of a bitch was leaving him here with a wild animal? No way.
“Wait! Wait! The cougar. What about the cougar?”
Jonah paused to look back. The cougar was flat on the ground, readying to pounce.
“Like I said, I’d suggest you don’t move,” Jonah offered, then walked away.
Barrett couldn’t believe this was happening. His rifle was too far away to use as a club, and the darts were all broken. The cougar didn’t move, and neither did he.
Jonah was all the way off the mountain and down onto the highway by the time dawn broke. About two hours ago, he’d come upon a truck. Guessing it belonged to Barrett, he had let the air out of all four tires.
Unless Barrett did something stupid, the cougar would eventually leave to return to his feeding. In fact, Jonah figured that had already happened and that Barrett was probably on the way down, possibly to resume his hunt.
Of course, the four flat tires he’d just left on the truck were going to slow him down even further. Jonah didn’t take chances. A million dollars was incentive enough to give anyone a second wind, make him say to hell with cougars and resume the hunt. Jonah was tired—so tired—of being the prey.
Jonah was correct in every assumption except the one that Barrett might resume the
hunt. Barrett was so terrified, he’d almost passed out. But it was also sheer terror that had kept him upright. He could only imagine what would happen if he was unconscious. Would the cougar consider him a midnight feast and start chewing on his head, or would it just take a bite right out of his belly and go from there? This was a nightmare, and he wanted to wake up.
When, after two long hours, the cougar suddenly got to its feet, Barrett flinched. Was this it? Was he going to have to fight for his life?
Instead of bared teeth, the cougar showed its disdain for Barrett by urinating on the gun. Then, in one leap, it disappeared from the campsite, leaving Barrett alone in the dark and almost afraid to believe it was over. He stood for a few moments more, listening, praying he wouldn’t hear the sound of something moving on the leaf-covered floor of the forest.
Blessed silence.
Without a second look at his rifle, he turned and bolted out of the clearing, heading down the mountain the same way he’d come up. His legs were shaking and his chest was burning, but he didn’t let up on the pace. Once he tripped on a tree root and went sprawling, plowing up dirt and rotting leaves with his face. He got up quickly, spitting dirt and leaves as he went.
By the time he reached his truck, he was crying like a baby. Even though the moon had disappeared behind gathering cloud cover, he saw the four flat tires. It didn’t matter. If it meant leaving this mountain on four rims, that was the way he would go.
He dug in his pockets for the keys and hit the remote for the door before he even got them out of his pocket. As soon as he heard the lock release, he catapulted into the seat, slammed the door, then hit the locks. The distinct click signaled a shutdown of the adrenaline that had been racing through his veins. Within seconds, he began to shake.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.”
His tremors were so violent that he found it difficult to catch his breath, and he kept looking out the window into the darkness, just to reassure himself he was still alone.
Long minutes passed before his nerves began to settle. At that point, he began to focus. The last time he looked, he’d had a flask in the glove box. A shot of the hard stuff would be a welcome distraction, but when he leaned across the seat and popped the small door open, he found nothing but papers.