“This is good,” I said.
She bit her bottom lip and gave me the sweetest smile. Her cheeks were flushed. Her amber eyes sparkled. Her hair was all wild and tangled around her. She looked radiant and more alive than anyone I’d ever seen. She was beautiful. “We’re going home,” she said.
A wave of longing flowed through me, followed by a sharp jolt of reality. Home, right—Boulder and Ipod. Suddenly, things weren’t so funny anymore.
I ran my fingers through my hair and dropped her hand. I pretended to focus on the tree, restraining the urge to take her into my arms for at least one real kiss before we went home. It wasn’t right. She wasn’t mine. Besides, we had to get out of there. I needed to focus. I’d deal with all that when we got home.
“What now?” she asked.
“Let me run you through the process for getting home,” I said. “It’s not hard. Rub your temples like I did earlier. Concentrate on being inside your head as if you were just floating in your mind. You’ll get this wild sensation of a matrix; lit up in white, all filigreed like lace. See it in your mind. It has rings like a spider’s web. Anything?”
“A lacey pattern against black, kinda glowing?”
“That’s it. Latch on to it. Let it become a part of you. Make it stronger.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding.
“Now find the tree’s rings. Can you see them?”
“I think so…concentric circles?”
“Yes. Here’s the one you want.” I touched her temples and sent the vibrational pattern to her mind. “Anything different?”
“Yes, one of the rings is glowing gold. There’s a spot on it that is brighter than anywhere else.”
“Excellent. Focus on that spot. Now feel down in the dirt for the tree roots. Let the pattern of the roots overlay the matrix. I’ll stand with my back to the tree. You stand in front of me. Lean back so our bodies touch as much as possible. Think of the tree house. Feel its vibration. Long for it. Feel yourself move towards it. Your energy will lock on and harmonize. Let me know when that happens and I’ll add an energy boost. At that point, we’re good to go. Got it?”
She nodded. “I need a minute.”
“No problem, but make it fast,” I told her.
The Indian stood watching thoughtfully.
A.J. pulled off her pack and turned to him. “Thank you, my friend, for saving our lives.”
He reached out and touched a lock of her hair. “Aaajaay,” he said slowly. He untied the pouch around his neck and pulled it off. Opening it, he took out some kind of talisman. It looked like maybe a piece of a foxtail held together by a string of beaded leather. “Aaajaay,” he said again, holding it out to her.
Her mouth fell open, and she stared at him, eyes wide.
“Hosa?” she asked, staring at the charm and then at the Indian. “Hosa!” Her knees buckled, and she sat abruptly on the ground before I could catch her.
“A.J.?” I ran to her and crouched down. “What the heck is going on? Are you okay?”
She looked at me as if she’d seen a ghost. Then she broke out laughing. “I don’t freakin believe this,” she said finally. “I don’t freakin believe it.”
“Believe what?” I demanded.
She just smiled. “Wait for it,” she said, standing back up.
The Indian watched us solemnly. She stood back up and held her hand out to him. He placed his charm in her hand and stepped back…almost reverently. I was lost. What was going on?
“See this?” she asked, holding out the Indian’s lucky charm.
“Yeah,” I answered, not catching the significance.
She took a lock of her hair and held the two together. They matched. They matched perfectly.
“It’s mine,” she said intently. “It’s my hair!”
“No way!” I said astounded, looking from her to the hair to the Indian. “No way.”
“Way!” she said, nodding emphatically. “I’ll explain later. As you say…long story.”
“Hosa,” she said, smiling. She pointed to me. “This is Constantine. Constantine, this is Hosa.”
He struggled with my name. “Connastatine.”
“Hosa,” I said, resisting the urge to shake his hand. I didn’t know how they handled introductions back in the Indian world. I stood there stupidly and then raised my hand, palm up like I’d seen on TV. He did the same and nodded gravely.
“I hate to break up this little reunion, but we have to go,” I said to A.J.
She nodded. “Wait a second. I want to give him something to thank him for saving our lives.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out the knife. She opened the largest blade and showed it to the Indian. His eyes opened wide as he watched her open and close it. “You try,” she said, handing it to him.
It took him a second but he got it open. Then she showed him the other functions while he watched her in absolute fascination. After making sure he knew how to work it, she crouched down and sliced off the top strap on her slipper. Then she did the same to the other side.
“He likes Velcro,” she said to me in explanation. She took one of the straps, fitted it together, and pulled…fraaaappp.
Hosa’s face broke out into a wide grin. I pulled out my phone and started filming.
“See?” she said, smiling at me. “We could have freakin bought Colorado with Velcro alone.” She took a strap, tucked it through the ring at the top of the knife and then walked over to Hosa and looped it through the rawhide, holding up his loincloth. She let it hang there for a second. Then she ripped open the Velcro and took the knife off, and then put it back, closing the Velcro together once again. She took his hand, pulled it to the strap, and told him to try it.
For a very amusing moment, Hosa, the gigantic, gentle Indian, practiced ripping the Velcro open and closed, and taking the knife off and on. He stood there looking like he’d just won the Olympic Gold, his hand resting on the knife. It would have made a hysterical Saturday Nite Live sketch.
She riffled through her pack. Suddenly, she laughed. “Beads! How freakin fate is that?” She pulled out a plastic box of multi-colored beads…jade, lapis, and silver. She opened the box and showed Hosa. Then she pulled out a spool of fishing line and poked a piece through a silver dove and a couple of beads. “It’s very strong,” A.J. said to him.
He was obviously impressed.
“Lex was going to make a necklace,” she said to me.
She dumped out the rest of the pack and sorted through the contents, making two piles. She stuffed a few things into her big hoodie pockets, leaving the rest on the ground. When she showed him the matches, I thought he’d have a heart attack. He thought those were magic for sure. “Save them for winter,” A.J. told him.
He nodded, totally serious.
She beckoned him over to where there was a break in the trees, showing a mountain in the distance. She held the binoculars up to her eyes and scanned the sky, following a hawk cruising on the wind. “Look,” she said, pulling him down and holding the binoculars up to his eyes.
He grabbed them and stood up, moving them in front of his eyes and away and back again. He stood with his mouth open, watching the bird soar down through the breaking dawn to land on the top of a broken pine tree.
A.J. gathered up the gifts and stuffed them in the pack. “We have to go,” she said, handing it to him.
He took the necklace from around his neck, and gently put it over her head.
She reached up, touched it, and said, “thank you, my friend, Hosa.”
“We gotta go,” I said, urgently, watching the sun appear over the horizon. We could shade now, but we were putting Hosa in danger. “Thank you,” I told him, pulling A.J. back towards the giant aspen.
“Peace,” A.J. said to the Indian, holding up her hand up, palm out.
He did the same.
Then she split her fingers into the peace sign, tears running down her cheeks. He looked at her with what I could only call reverence. His eyes watered, and for a moment, the
aspen grove was quiet.
A boom shattered the silence.
Hosa’s knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground, mouth open in surprise. Blood spurted from his thigh. He writhed in pain.
“Hosa!” A.J. screamed. She started to run to him.
I grabbed her and shoved her behind me. “Get down!’ I yelled, trying desperately to focus enough to shade—
There was another boom and the weight of a sledgehammer slammed my chest. I went flying, bringing A.J. down with me. Then time morphed into slow-motion madness.
At first there was no pain—just intense pressure. I tried again to shade, but I couldn’t lock on. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t do that either.
Then my air began to run out.
A.J. crouched over me, her eyes like saucers. Tears ran down her face as she called my name.
I lifted my shaking hand to my chest and it dripped bright red. I looked at it in surprise.
Then the pain hit.
A wave of fire screamed through me. My left lung cramped with excruciating violence. Each breath was a knife, stabbing me in the chest—over and over. The fire burned, searing, harsh, and violent. I struggled just to think…and I thought, A.J. Where’s A.J.? I have to save her. The world around me reeled. I fought to focus. I tried calling her name, but no sound came out…just a bubble of blood.
Someone shrieked, “Nooooo!”
Shade! Shade! I screamed in my head, but I couldn’t focus enough do it…and the pain, the pain. The pain was burning me alive. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
Another boom.
And then nothing.
“Constantine!” I screamed. The front of his shirt was red, and the stain was spreading fast. Ohmygod! He was hurt!
He was hurt bad.
Twitching erratically, he clutched his hand to his chest. He lifted it and blood dripped off his fingers. He stared at me, his mouth struggling to form words that never reached the air. Then his body jerked. His head fell back and he let out this terrifying moan.
I heard a sick, cackling laugh, and I looked up to see Joe tearing into the aspen trees, jerking, weaving, and waving a pistol. That stupid, stupid, son of a bitch shot my Constantine! And he was running towards me. Transfixed by fear, my brain froze. And my heart pounded so hard, it hurt to breathe. I searched frantically for something to use as a weapon. There was nothing. I had nothing. I had absolutely, freakin nothing.
But damn it! I wasn’t dead yet.
I leapt into frenetic, adrenaline action, ripping open Constantine’s shirt. Blood flowed out the wound and ran down the sides of his chest. I tore off my hoodie and flung it aside. I ripped off my pajama top and stuffed the soft side on the wound. I pressed hard, desperate to stop the bleeding.
The air pushed down on me, thick, heavy, and suffocating. Every movement I made was against the tide. I struggled to focus. Stop the blood. That’s all I knew. I needed to stop the blood. Me. There was no 911. “Constantine,” I cried again. “Please, please, be okay.” And in that horrifying moment I knew. I loved him! I did. I had to save him.
He let out a heartrending moan.
I let out a sob.
His eyes fluttered open. He stared up at me, trying desperately to speak. I heard a tattered whisper in my mind, but I couldn’t understand it. He took the bullet meant for me, and now he was going to die. I poured all my energy into him, but something was wrong. I was depleted by the run. I needed my tree. I needed any tree. He jerked with a spasm and sprayed me with blood. And then his eyes closed and he went limp.
“Noooo!” I screamed into the madness, willing for it to stop, willing for him to live, willing him not to leave me. In the distance, Remy Zero wailed, “Just save me…” It was sickening surreal, that horrible part in the movie, right before somebody dies.
I hated that part!
Joe stopped about thirty feet away, laughing like a lunatic. He fired a shot that scattered dirt over top of us. We’d pushed him over the edge, that’s for sure. He was practically foaming at the mouth. He hurled curses at me, calling me a witch, drawing it out, trying to scare me.
He did. I was terrified. He had a gun.
I had nothing.
Laughing manically, he fired a shot in the air just to screw with me. He fired another one at my feet, toying with me like a cat with a mouse.
I shoved the terror back with blazing determination. Looking the devil in the eye, I yanked the pepper spray out, and sprayed it in his direction. He backed off, sneering, and shaking wildly. I sprang into a crouch, ready to launch myself at him. But the second I let go of Constantine’s wound; it started gushing. I couldn’t leave him. And I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing.
But I wasn’t about to let the psycho see me cave.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” I hissed, trying to fake him out. “You’re going to regret the day you messed with me. You’re right. I am a witch and I put a curse on you. You better run now, or you’re a dead man. Go! Be gone!”
It didn’t work. He didn’t run. But he quit taunting me. He lowered the gun and spit on the ground. Then he got this crazed sneer on his face. “Time to die, witch!” he shrieked. He fired, the gun shaking with his fury.
I flinched as the bullet grazed my shoulder. Pain seared down my arm, but I ignored it. The psycho fired again, but he was out of bullets. He swore as he struggled to reload.
Trembling with fear, I tore my eyes away from him. I bent down and touched my cheek against Constantine’s, my tears mingling with his blood. “I love you,” I choked out, sobbing. “I love you,” I said again. If it was over, I had to tell him.
He lay silent on the ground.
An ugly snicker from Joe jerked me upright. He came closer this time, obviously no longer afraid of me. Stopping ten feet away, he swore and made the sign of the cross. He raised his gun again.
I shut my eyes and held my breath, trembling with terror. But there was a thwack and a then slurping sound.
Not a boom.
I looked up to see a knife sticking through the psycho’s throat—Hosa’s knife.
Joe fell without sound, his hate-filled eyes turning empty as the life filtered out of them. He hit the ground, twitched, and then was still.
I looked around in disbelief. Hosa was propped on one elbow, face white from blood loss. His expression was grave. He gave me a little nod when our eyes met. I nodded back and turned to Constantine who was breathing in slow, staggering gasps.
A chance, we had a chance.
I knew this part. Maybe not life and death, but I knew hurt, and pain, and injury. I knew something about putting back together what a psycho had torn apart. I had practice with Ipod. I leapt into frenzied activity, shooting a look of gratitude at Hosa. “Press on your leg!” I yelled. “Stop the blood!” I wanted to help Hosa, but I wanted to help Constantine more.
Con’s face was white and his eyelids were bruised purple. His shallow breathing came in sharp wheezes as if someone was pounding on his chest. His hands rested limp at his side. His nails and lips were turning blue. I pressed my palm flat over the cloth and focused on stopping the gushing blood. This wound was big, way bigger than anything Ipod ever had.
I needed more.
I wasn’t touching a tree, and I couldn’t drag Constantine without letting go of the wound. I put my palm to the ground, searching, connecting, begging for help from the huge, ancient matrix of roots beneath me. Hurry, hurry!
There was a second of nothing.
And then…the aspen grove responded.
The air vibrated, and not just one tree, a chorus of trees, thousands of them sang their power. I gathered that power, and I pulled. I pulled hard. I pulled power from the ground, through Constantine’s back, pushing the bullet right through his chest. It just popped through the wound with a little sucking sound.
I grasped for the bullet, but my shaking fingers slipped on the blood. I took a corner of the shirt and used it to yank it out and stuff it in my pocket. I flowed calm across his f
orehead and pain relief down his chest. He’d need it for what I had to do next.
I pressed hard on the wound and focused on his lung. Somehow by touching him, I could see the lung—where it was torn, where it needed reinforcement—like I had a split screen in my head, one side showing a good lung, and the other showing his damaged one. I made his hurt lung match the one on the screen. I knitted it together and made it move up and down, pump oxygen through his body. I made it whole.
He gasped for air, clutching his throat.
“Slow…take deep breaths,” I told him, touching my hand to his cheek. “It’s okay. You were shot, but the aspen grove is healing you. It’s over. We’re safe.”
He grabbed my arm and looked up at me, his eyes wide. I brushed his hair back and tried to smile to reassure him. His eyes closed again as he fought for air. His ragged breathing evened out. The color seeped slowly back into his face. His fingernails turned pink. He coughed up a pool of blood from his lungs. I turned him to the side so it could flow out onto the ground. Then I turned him back and wiped his face off with my bloodied pajama top.
He took a real breath.
I let mine go.
I turned to the wound itself, blood vessels to reattach, nerves to calm and restore function to. Then I fused the cracked rib and knit the muscle of his chest back together. I did it all without thinking. Something inside me just took over as if I’d done it a thousand times before. I didn’t question it. There was no time.
I began to breathe in harmony with him, tuning my energy to his frequency, and slowly pulled his breathing, his heartbeat, to a slower pace. I pulled the cloth away. His skin was red and angry, and there was a big, ugly scar where the bullet had pierced his chest. But it was closed, no stitches needed.
He opened his eyes, his beautiful, blue eyes, and my heart sang in harmony with the aspen trees. He looked up at me, and I could feel his heartbeat, strong and pulsing.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, became the song my mind sang, over and over. Thank you, thank you…keeping time with his heart.
“Just lie still,” I said to Constantine. It was hard to leave his side, but he was no longer critical. I could speed up the healing later. I needed to move—this was triage. “I’ll be right back. Hosa’s hurt too.”
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