Good Medicine

by Bobby Hutchinson

  The wooden pathway that led into the forest was a revelation. Meticulously constructed, just wide enough for easy walking, she wandered along it, marveling at the magnificent old-growth timber. Birds sang their evening songs, a woodpecker hammered at a dead tree, a stream gurgled below her as she crossed a wooden bridge.

  Soon she was deep in the forest where rays of sunshine trickled down through giant pine trees, scattering like golden dust. A sense of peace came over her.

  Coming to Ahousaht had been a good thing. Before she left Vancouver, Jordan had set up a series of telephone appointments with Helen, the next one early tomorrow morning. She’d be able to tell the psychiatrist that finally—finally—the low-grade anxiety that had plagued her for months was easing. She felt confident that soon it would disappear altogether.

  She walked briskly for about twenty-five minutes, laughing a little at the unpredictability of the pathway as it led up and around and down again. It was a game, following the twists and turns.

  At one particular spot where there was a sturdy railing, Jordan stopped and leaned against it, looking down at a deep, stagnant pool and wondering if fish could live there. Small, delicate purple and pink blossoms poked up out of the mossy bank and in spite of the clouds of mosquitoes hovering over the water, the idyllic scene looked like a drawing from a book about fairies Jordan had loved when she was a little girl.

  It seemed a perfect spot to sit a while and dream in the quiet evening—if the mosquitoes didn’t eat her alive.

  Impulsively, she bent over and slid one leg and then the next through the gap in the railing, reaching with her toes for solid earth.

  Damn, the walkway was higher than she’d thought.

  Grunting, she let go and landed badly off balance. Lurching sidewise down the sharp incline, for an instant she was certain she was going to end up in the water. The ground that had looked so solid was actually marshy, and her right leg slid out from under her at a sharp angle. Pain tore through her upper thigh and groin, and she let out a loud yelp.

  She fell, hitting the ground hard.

  CHAPTER NINE

  JORDAN LAY STILL for a long moment, dizzy and half-sick with pain. When she tried to ease herself to her feet, she realized she’d torn muscles and tendons. The pain shot through her thigh, her groin and up into her abdomen. Gasping, she crumbled back down on the damp ground.

  “Dumb,” she muttered. “Dumb, dumb, dumb. Idiot. Silas warned you—”

  This wasn’t helping. She lay still, trying to think what she should do. What she could do. The answer was not very much. It was going to be dark soon.

  Her pulse began to hammer. She’d never been out in the woods at night in her life, and the thought terrified her.

  She did her best to suppress the fear, trying to figure out whether there was any way she could get back up on the walkway. If she could use the handrail for balance, maybe she could hop along on one foot.

  Yes, and you can hop for half an hour on one leg? Hello, Wonder Woman.

  At least she could get to higher ground. Here, the earth felt soggy and damp. Gritting her teeth, she tried to stand again, but there was nothing to use for balance. The pain took her breath away.

  Scrap that idea, she thought when she got her breath back. Which left what? There was no chance of getting back up on the walkway, much less making her way back to the village. She was already a mosquito magnet, slapping frantically as they landed on her.

  She hadn’t told anyone where she was going, either.

  It’s okay, she assured herself, trying not to panic. People use this path all the time. Someone probably walked along here not long ago on their way to the beach to watch the sunset, and they’ll come back before it gets really dark.

  But she hadn’t passed anyone, and she couldn’t hear any voices. She hollered a few times, just in case, but all she heard was the echo of her own voice. And the birds had stopped singing for the night.

  Don’t panic. Try to pull yourself up again. Put on your shirt so the bugs can’t eat you alive.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she dragged herself backward, using her arms for leverage. Clawing her way up the slope, she cursed out loud at the agony of it. But at last, puffing hard, she reached a place where the ground was dry and collapsed, moaning.

  After a while she struggled her way into her sweatshirt, swearing viciously when every movement hurt.

  Her hands and legs were filthy, her cutoffs and pale yellow shirt stained and grubby, her hands scraped raw from trying to break her fall. She was already thirsty, and she half wished she’d crawled down instead of up, although the scum on the pond wasn’t inviting. But it was water. Her mouth was dry, her throat parched, and she knew it wasn’t only thirst. The truth was, she was scared out of her skull at being out here alone in the dark.

  Maybe someone would need medical assistance and come to her apartment to get her… But unless it was a dire emergency, it was unlikely they’d raise the alarm before morning. Why hadn’t she thought to bring her cell phone?

  Because you wanted an hour’s peace, an hour totally to yourself.

  She hollered another half-a-dozen times, but the light was fading fast, and she had to face the fact that no one would come along tonight.

  Her heart began to hammer, and it was all she could do to stop from crying. She, Doctor Jordan Burke, was about to spend an entire night in the woods alone, injured, with no shelter, food or water. What a story that would make for the gossip mill at St. Joe’s.

  She tried not to think about cougars and bears and whatever other wild animals hunted in these primitive woods.

  She looked at the watch on her wrist. It was already past nine.

  What time did it get light? Five? Five-thirty?

  Eight solid hours of darkness before dawn came again.

  She rolled into a ball, closed her eyes and began to recite the Latin names for the muscles of the body, but the image of Silas Keefer kept intruding. Where the hell was a healer when you needed one?

  SILAS MOVED SILENTLY through the forest, making every step a prayer. He’d fasted all day, aware of the spirit that had been calling to him. He walked swiftly until at last he reached the sacred spot deep in the forest.

  Stopping inside a ring of alders, Silas made a ceremonial offering of a pinch of tobacco to the spirit of the place. He arranged his sleeping bag on the ground and sat, watching the last of the color fade from the sky. He waited, softly chanting the words Sandrine had taught him. Dusk became deep darkness, and hours passed before the ego barrier slowly dissipated and his mind became peaceful and open to guidance.

  The vision came as it always did for him, in pictures that flickered across his mind like stark images in a black-and-white film, silent phantoms clothed in symbols.

  There was the raven, the messenger, the symbol of change. And there was his friend, his personal totem, the bear—except that in this vision, the bear was female, with a cub. And the cub was in danger. He saw fear and monumental love. And death.

  When the vision faded, Silas stretched his aching legs, his heart heavy with foreboding. Death in a vision didn’t necessarily mean physical death. It could be an indication of profound change, an ending and a new beginning.

  Sleep was slow in coming. When it did, he dreamed of his father, Angus Keefer. But in the dreams Angus was no longer angry at Silas. No longer angry that he had abandoned everything Angus valued.

  Instead, Angus was very old and he was dying. He was holding out a gold wedding ring. “Take it, please,” he begged Silas. “It’s the ring of truth—it’s all I have to give you. It will heal the two parts of your spirit.”

  But Silas shook his head and walked away. He heard his father weeping, and his heart ached with the sound of the old man’s pain, but he didn’t turn back.

  He wanted nothing from his father. Angus gave nothing for nothing.

  If you have a choice between being right and being kind—be kind. Sandrine’s voice, chiding him.

  The next dr
eam was vivid, sensual—and unnerving.

  It was dark. He was immersed in water as warm as blood. It covered every inch of him from head to toe. And yet he felt no need to breathe. Inside the circle of his arms was a woman, facing him. He couldn’t make out what she looked like, but her skin was as familiar to him as his own. Their legs were entwined, their naked bodies pressed tightly together. His erection was urgent, demanding, and she whispered, inviting him, urging him, to come into her.

  His intense desire warred with fear. If he entered her, he would lose something, some part of himself he needed to survive.

  In the dream, the feeling he had for her went far beyond desire, far beyond love. It was as if he held the other half of himself, but his fear was overwhelming, and he fought to escape, gulping in lungfuls of the water, suddenly aware that he was drowning—

  He bolted upright, heart pounding. It was the deepest hour of the night, the hour before dawn when the stars and moon were gone and light seemed only a distant memory. He heard the echo of the terrible sound he’d made, the lost and desolate cry that warbled back to him in the darkness.

  He didn’t sleep again. With the first gray light, Silas rose, willing the unsettling dream out of his mind. He meditated instead on the vision, trying to figure out whom or what the bear cub might represent.

  The voice came to him, very faint and far away, and at first Silas thought it was an animal in pain. But then he realized it was human—too distant to tell whether it was a man or woman. He heard the urgency. Whoever was calling was in need.

  He turned in the direction it came from and quickened his pace.

  THE BLACKNESS HAD BEEN thick and deep, when exhaustion finally claimed her. Jordan had fallen into a kind of stupor, far from sleep, but not really awake, either, when she heard the animal snuffling and grunting. An instant later she smelled it.

  The odor was pungent, and she could smell it growing stronger from where she huddled, trembling and curled into a tight fetal position. Shaking, she could hear herself making tiny whimpering sounds she couldn’t control.

  It seemed an eternity passed while she waited for the thing’s jaws to clamp on her body or claws to rake through her flesh. Her eyes were wide open, straining to see into the thick darkness. Finally, she saw something. Two small bloodred eyes staring down at her.

  Bear.

  She’d witnessed death, at times horrible death, and now she faced her own. She’d often wondered whether she’d find the fortitude to be brave when the time came. Now she knew she wasn’t brave at all.

  The bear’s head was moving from side to side, close enough that Jordan could’ve reached out and touched it. She could smell her own fear as the perspiration trickled down her sides. Surely the animal could smell it, too.

  With one last grunt and snuffle, the bear moved. Jordan caught the full odor of its foul breath and gagged. Bile burned her throat and she shut her eyes tight, knowing it was the end. Time stopped, and she never knew afterward how long it had taken for her to understand that the animal was gone.

  For the first time all night, Jordan had slept, exhausted and drained and dreamless.

  When she woke again, it was beginning to get light, and she propped herself on an elbow and started calling for help.

  She was thirsty and stiff and bone weary. Mosquitoes had bitten her face, neck, wrists and legs.

  Someone had to rescue her soon. It was just a question of time. She fantasized about a mug of steaming strong coffee, a hot shower, painkillers—a toilet. She had to pee really badly, and she couldn’t figure out how to accomplish it. The pain in her groin had gotten much worse overnight. There was no way she could get her shorts down and squat.

  She let out a long, drawn-out, hopeless moan and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, Jordan, where are you hurt?”

  “Silas?” She opened her eyes and saw where he stood on the walkway, looking down at her. Trying to sit up, she flinched and cried out. “God, Silas, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve pulled a muscle in my groin, I can’t get up.”

  The relief and gratitude she felt was overwhelming.

  “Oh, Silas, it was so dark, and there was a bear! I know it was a bear. It was so close to me I could smell its breath—it was awful, I really thought it was going to kill me….”

  “A bear?” He stood motionless. “Did it speak to you?”

  “Speak to me? Silas, I thought it was going to eat me. It was this huge thing, making a sort of grunting noise.” She shuddered. “And it stank so bad, and it moved its head back and forth, swaying—God, I thought it was going to attack me. But then it walked away.” She waited. And waited. Why wasn’t he hurrying to help her?

  Instead, he just stood there and stared. At last he said in a conversational tone, “How did you manage to get down there, anyhow?”

  And that’s when Jordan began to get irritated.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I SLIPPED OFF THE WALKWAY last evening and fell,” she said, doing her best not to snap at him. The man was only trying to understand. And she knew as well as anyone that doctors were impossible when something was wrong with them. “I’ve been here all night. I can’t walk, I can barely move.”

  He grunted. “Hurts like hell, pulling a groin muscle.”

  Nothing like stating the obvious. She tried to shift position so she could see him better and grimaced. “Ouch. Damn it to hell, owowoww. Yes, it hurts, it hurts like fury, Silas. Now could you please—?”

  He was giving her the strangest look. Why the hell didn’t he do something instead of just standing there as if she were a macabre exhibit?

  She was getting dangerously short-tempered.

  Finally, in one lithe, easy motion he swung down beside her. He took the pack off his back and pulled out a water bottle, crouching down beside her. Handing it to her, he surveyed of the ground, probably looking for bear tracks to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

  She tilted the bottle up and gulped again and again, not stopping until the water was gone, at which point her thirst was slaked, but her bladder was really going to burst.

  “Not much for sharing, huh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Good thing I’m not thirsty.”

  She ought to be grateful, but instead she just felt angry at him for being so damned casual and good-natured and—and fit.

  “Guess we better get you back to the village. Exactly how did you do this again?”

  She scowled at him. “I said, I accidentally slipped down from the walkway and my leg slid out from under me in the mud. Now, please, please, get me out of here.”

  The question was how. Jordan looked up at the walkway. He’d have to hoist her up and over the railing, which would take brute strength on his part and a disgusting amount of pain on hers. The very idea made her cringe. She didn’t do agony well at all.

  “I could radio for a helicopter.”

  “Oh, could you do that, please?” Just for an instant, she thought he was serious. His teasing grin told her otherwise.

  “If I had a radio, that is.”

  “I don’t exactly find this funny,” she snapped.

  “Neither do I.” But he was still smiling. “I’m gonna have to pack you out, not a cheering thought. I hope for the sake of my back you don’t weigh a lot heavier than you look.”

  She glared at him. “Why not just go and get help?” Although the thought of spending another hour here by herself brought her to the edge of hysteria.

  “Let’s give this a try first.” Settling his pack on his shoulders, he slid one arm under her thighs and the other around her back. She tensed in anticipation of pain, and the embarrassment of being carried like a child.

  He paused. “Try to relax, you’re stiff as a board. And hold on to my neck.”

  She did, and discovered that his neck was as muscular as most men’s biceps. She squeaked as he lifted her, and he grunted. It didn’t hurt as much as she’d anticipated, and he didn’t seem to be straining too much with her weight once he was on his feet. He bounced
her a little, adjusting his grip, and that did hurt.

  “Ow! Go easy, please.”

  “Your wish is my command. Low pain threshold, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  She could feel the hard, sinewy muscles in his shoulders and his arms underneath her legs. Her bare, bitten, muddy legs, which she hadn’t shaved for a week.

  “You been here all night, you probably have to pee, right? Do you want me to help you—?”

  She was a doctor, and bodily functions were pretty much taken for granted, but something about Silas propping her up as she yarded down her shorts made her decide she’d rather die of a burst bladder.

  “I think I can make it back to the village, thanks.”

  “Let’s just hope I can, and I don’t even have to go.” He let out an exaggerated grunt and made his way down the slope, circling the pond. “Good thing we’re going down instead of up.”

  “What are you doing? Aren’t you going to use the walkway?”

  “It’s too hard to get you up there from here. There’s a path through the bush, it’ll connect back up where the ground’s closer to the walk.”

  He moved into the woods with assurance, and sure enough, there was a path of sorts. For all his seeming nonchalance, she noticed that Silas was careful not to let branches slap her face or snag her feet. He moved cautiously, without a single misstep.

  “I really appreciate this,” she said through gritted teeth. It was the anticipation of pain that kept her on edge.

  “I hope so.” He pretended to groan. “I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up in traction.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, aren’t you supposed to be an outdoorsman? And don’t you think I feel stupid enough without you complaining about your back every second minute?” And why was she snapping at him like this? He was doing his best to help her.

  “Doesn’t hurt to feel stupid once in a while. It’s good medicine for subduing the ego.” He laughed, and then grunted again as the ground slanted uphill. “So you were out all night, huh?” He was puffing a little, and she could feel his body giving off heat from the exertion.