The Man from Shadow Valley

by Regan Forest

  As if it hurt to move a single muscle of his body, he lay still, not welcoming conversation, his breathing labored. She felt she ought to let him rest.

  Cody moved his hand to find hers and grasped it tightly. “I dreamed it, Ellen—the storm, you, the branch breaking above you.... It’s how I knew....”

  She sucked in her breath. “You dreamed about the storm before it happened?”

  “Yeah...”

  “But how could—?” Ellen’s voice halted. She shook her head in confusion. “You told me you never remember dreams.”

  His grasp remained strong, despite the weakness of his voice. “I don’t. The storm made it come back...somehow. I knew you were in danger....”

  “You dreamed about the branch?”

  He nodded slightly—all he could manage with the headache.

  Ellen wanted to blurt out, And I dreamed about you before I met you! Why? What forces are playing with us in our sleep? Trying to keep her voice calm, for his sake, she asked, “You dreamed it the night before?”

  “No. A long time ago.”

  “How long?”

  He winced. “My ribs are killing me. Every breath hurts. I don’t know why they’re so damned stingy with the morphine....”

  Ellen fought back tears, because her tears would only make things worse. She asked, “Shall I get a nurse?”

  “Anybody with a needle will do.” His breath came in a ragged moan. “Threaten them if you have to.”

  She pulled her cold hand away from the grip of his hot one and turned toward the door just as a nurse entered with pain medication and asked Ellen to step out.

  Had he been hurt in his dream? Did people feel pain in dreams? She returned five minutes later when the nurse left. Cody was already breathing easier. She asked, “Better?”

  He didn’t open his eyes. “I’m getting sleepy.”

  “Sleepy is good. Is there anything you need before I go?”

  “Will you explain the situation to Buster?”

  “Oh! Buster! Where is he?”

  “At the station. Make sure they’re taking—”

  “Taking care of him. Sure. Don’t worry.”

  Ellen gazed at his pale, unshaven face, hoping he hadn’t yet drifted into sleep. “How long ago?” she asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “You said you had the dream a long time ago. A week? A month? How long?”

  His eyes remained closed, his breathing unchanged. He wet his lips with his tongue and muttered, groggily, “I was twelve.”

  “What? You don’t mean twelve years old?”

  “Yeah...”

  “But—” Ellen stopped herself. He was too sleepy to talk. Was he confused because of the strong drugs? she wondered. No, he had said twelve because he meant twelve. But what could a dream Cody had at the age of twelve have to do with her?

  She studied the still form in the bed, and his handsome face. Cody was helpless in sleep, his strong hands were limp, his thoughts no longer cunning. She wondered what he had been like as a little boy, innocent in sleep. There was nothing innocent about this man...and yet, Ellen felt a strong desire to take care of him, hold him, take his pain away.

  A tear found its way down her cheek. “Cody...” she muttered. “Cody...who are you? Why do I love you?” With the tears moist on her face, Ellen bent over him and touched her lips to his forehead, then his mouth. A soft kiss.

  Only afterward, walking away from the sterile environment of the hospital, did Ellen remember Meredith’s warning.

  As anxious as she was to try to talk to him again, Ellen didn’t return in the afternoon because Cody needed to sleep. Instead, she spent an hour trying to find Buster, then saw to it that he had food and water. Lucky I’m not superstitious, Ellen told herself every time she thought about the kiss. Each time she said it, an unfamiliar fear would surface.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Cody was more receptive to company. He was awake and alert, clean-shaven, and listening to a small radio that sat on the bedside table. But he lay quite still, guarding against the pain in his ribs.

  Ellen entered his room wearing a pale yellow sundress with pearl buttons to match the pearls at her throat. She smiled. “I found your dog sniffing at the very spot where you got hurt.”

  Cody smiled. “I guess he sensed something was wrong.” He gestured toward the table. “Would you turn off the radio?”

  She did, saying, “You look much better than yesterday.”

  “That isn’t saying much. I feel like hell.”

  Ellen drew a chair close to the bed and sat down. “Cody, I’m so sorry this happened. I’ve already thanked you for saving my life, but I’m not sure you remember, so I must thank you again. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in the hospital.”

  His gray-blue eyes, lucid now, looked up into hers. “There’s nothing to thank me for. I’m just glad I had the forewarning.”

  “The dream, you mean.”

  “The dream came several times over a period of months when I was twelve. I had forgotten until the storm began to trigger the memory. I knew I had to go out in it, but I didn’t remember why until I heard the branch creak.”

  Ellen wondered if the blow to his head might have affected his memory and he had only imagined a long-ago dream. “You said there was a girl—”

  “I know she was you.”

  “Come on. You lived in Denver. You didn’t know me.”

  Cody gazed at her with an expression she had never seen. “I’ve been lying here thinking about it for hours. I’m sure it was you. In the dream you were a kid, too. And yes, I must have known you, Ellen. I didn’t live in Denver. I grew up here.”

  She gave a start. “In Shadow Valley?”

  He nodded. “I lived in a house at the end of Pebble Street, the one with the round windows under the eaves.”

  Ellen could only mutter, “Pebble Street?”

  He stirred restlessly, moving his legs under the blanket, wincing with the discomfort in his ribs. “You would have been only eight when I was twelve. But I would have seen you with the other kids. I knew it was you who was in danger.”

  Tightness constricted her throat. “The house at the end of the street where Buster lived... Oh, I...I do remember you now! You had Buster and a black-and-yellow bike and...” She paused, confused. “Why don’t I remember your name?”

  “Because I was Kevin Reilly then. I changed my name when I went to Denver with the band.”

  The blood drained from her face. Kevin Reilly? She did remember Kevin Reilly but would never have made the connection. She could scarcely make it now. She gazed at him, awestruck. “Once you chased away some kids who were taunting me on the way home from school. They were calling me names and you rescued me. Oh, not because you knew me. It was because I was one who belonged to your world—Pebble Street—and I couldn’t defend myself. You knew....” Her eyes glazed with painful memories.

  Cody recognized the look. “Yeah, sure I knew. But I don’t remember the incident you’re talking about.”

  “You wouldn’t. It was just one of a thousand scrapes you were into all the time. You big kids were so mean and always in fights. But I thought for years about it, how you defended me. I pretended you secretly liked me.”

  He smiled. “It must have been true, even though I was occupied with being tough and worldly, and you were—”

  “One of the insignificant little kids,” she interjected.

  He nodded. “Nevertheless, it must have been true that I noticed you and liked you, or why else would I have had the dream? It was the nightmare I told you about. Scared me to death because it was so real. The girl under the tree. The storm. The branch tearing off the tree and hitting her.”

  “It hit her?”

  “Yeah. It’s as vivid as if I’d dreamed it yesterday. I rushed up to warn her and the branch fell on us both. I thought it was how I was going to die.” He reached up and rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. “It’s crazy! A dream comes true sixteen years
later! I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “It’s very strange....”

  “More than you know, Ellen. Something about the storm really tugged at me and forced me out into it. I knew there was danger. I saw you in the streetlight and remembered.”

  Ellen was tempted to tell him she, too, had dreamed of him before they met, but he wasn’t well enough to hear it! It had been difficult enough telling him she didn’t want a relationship. Now, her pulling away made even less sense. Those dreams meant something; she knew it. But what?

  “Cody,” she began carefully. “Were you ever inside the Whitfield mansion?”

  “No. Were you?”

  “Only in my imagination and my dreams.”

  “And I was in there with you, in your dream.” He smiled. “I’m flattered that you’d dream about me. It’s a good sign. It means I have been in your thoughts.”

  For a dozen years? I hardly think so. Ellen bit her lip. Obviously, mention of the mansion had no effect on him, wasn’t important to him, so he had no connection with it. How could he, anyway? A kid from Pebble Street...

  There had to be some way to keep him from dominating her thoughts—waking and sleeping. To try to set her world back upright again. To focus on her lifelong plans. Pain stabbed at her heart each time she thought about never seeing Cody again. She forced away the thought and touched his limp hand. “There’s so much I don’t understand,” she whispered. My own feelings included. “I want you to get well and get out of here.”

  A silence fell over the room, filled only by the sounds of the hospital—a tray clanking somewhere in the hallway and a muffled summons for a doctor on a loudspeaker. And the sound of Cody’s breathing, shallow breaths against his bandaged ribs.

  She whispered, “Are you all right?”

  “I will be soon. Don’t worry about me, Ellen.”

  “Is there a lot of pain?”

  “I said not to worry.”

  His voice had lost some of the strength it had earlier, and his eyes were not as bright. “You’re getting tired,” she said. “All this conversation is taking your energy. You need to sleep. I don’t want to make it worse by being here.”

  “You could never make anything worse.” His eyes closed.

  Ellen’s sigh shook with deep inner pain she scarcely understood. “I’m going to let you rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  THROUGH THE DISTRACTIONS of the day, thoughts of Cody’s kindness worked their way into her consciousness. While stopping by the station with a box of dog biscuits for Buster...while making her grandfather’s favorite vegetable soup...while waiting on her customers, thoughts of Cody pushed through. He was lying in a hospital because of her, because he cared. His caring overwhelmed her.

  She was taking an order when Cody’s taped voice came over the radio again. At the sound of his voice, tears filled her eyes. A new kind of longing gripped her—a longing for the way she felt when she was with him.

  Ellen took a bag of homemade cookies from the café and stopped by the hospital on her way home from work. The corridors were deserted at that time of night, long past visiting hours, and the sole nurse at the desk allowed her to go in “for a moment.”

  Cody was asleep. Trembling, Ellen gazed down at him, studying his handsome face in the light from the hallway, remembering the secret kiss she had given him, remembering her embarrassment over her runaway emotions just hearing the sound of his voice on the radio. What’s happening? her heart cried out. What’s happening to me? If it’s love, love hurts....

  Quietly she set the bag of cookies on the table and bent to kiss his forehead as she had done before. If it was bad luck, the damage had already been done. If she could have held him in her arms while he slept, she would have. If he didn’t know...

  “Sleep peacefully,” she whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Ellen couldn’t know in that quiet moment that tomorrow she wouldn’t be seeing him at all.

  8

  CODY DRIFTED INTO SLEEP thinking about her. She seemed so close and so distant at the same time. He felt her touch, like in a dream.

  Deep in the night, his dream took shape.

  The old Whitfield mansion on the hill looked younger than its years as he, wearing a tuxedo, wandered up from the gate and entered through the front door without knocking. As if he were expected there.

  In a gold and pink foyer, from which the stair curled upward, he was aware of something lurking in the shadows and knew the house was haunted. He couldn’t see a spirit being, but he could feel its chill.

  More curious than frightened, he walked through a white-pillared archway into a candlelit dining room. A woman in a pale blue gown stood with her back to the door. She turned suddenly. Ellen! The instant he saw her, he knew he had been in this mansion before, with her, though he couldn’t recall when.

  The woman he knew he loved walked toward him slowly, smiling, as if she had been expecting him. Her gown rustled like distant music. Dancing candle flames shone on her pale hair and caught the brilliance of her sparkling earrings. Her face was radiant—she was more radiant than he had ever seen her. When he was close enough to look into her eyes, he could see a reflection of himself.

  Something heavy came down on his shoulder. Instantaneously, he believed it was the ghost whose presence had been so strong in the mansion—the ghost trying to prevent him from getting close enough to Ellen to touch her. A light shone in his eyes....

  A woman’s voice—not the wail of a discarnate spirit—startled him.

  “Wake up. Time for your medication.”

  He forced open his eyes, furious that the dream had been interrupted. No light was showing through the window blinds. “What the hell time is it?”

  “A quarter to five.” The nurse didn’t smile as she pushed up his sleeve and swabbed his arm with cold alcohol.

  After the injection, there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. He would soon be disturbed again for the morning hospital rituals. Besides, his mind was whirling and heavy with what he had been seeing before he woke. That dream...it was vaguely familiar, as if he had dreamed it before.

  Cody lay watching the sky gradually begin to lighten outside the window, unable to let go of the magical sensations of the dream.

  It was then, still floating in the magic, that he realized it was the first time he had remembered a dream since shutting out the dream of his death in the storm. That storm had broken the seal on his dreams! He could remember again. And he remembered Ellen looking at him in a way she never had in the “real” world.

  Maybe someday, he mused in the gray hospital room, maybe someday she would understand the way he felt. Hell, even he didn’t understand the way he felt. He only knew he loved her. He felt certain he had dreamed of her—not just last night but before. And in the dreams he loved her. Long ago.

  * * *

  ELLEN TOSSED RESTLESSLY, tried to get back to sleep and couldn’t. What had wakened her so suddenly at a quarter to five in the morning? The house was still and the birds hadn’t yet begun their wake-up concert. Yet something had pulled her abruptly out of a fine and lovely dream.

  The mansion again. The candles in the dining room were lit and Cody had appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in a tuxedo as if for a special celebration.

  When she walked closer to him, she could see in his eyes the reflection of herself. Then something bright shone in her eyes—something she couldn’t identify in the silence of the night.

  She lay for a time in the dark, until fear began to creep over her. Something was wrong! The house was unnaturally still. It was always still at five in the morning, but this was different now. Deeper than silence, the house felt more empty than it had ever been.

  With an urgent cry, Ellen shot out of bed and rushed down the stairs. Before she entered her grandfather’s room, she summoned enough willpower to stop herself.

  “There is no need to panic,” she told her rigid body and her pumping heart. “He wouldn’t wa
nt you to panic. Just remember, Gramps wanted to leave and he was ready.” She remembered he had told her the angels had been coming to him in the night....

  * * *

  FOUR DAYS LATER, in the afternoon, a thick cover of clouds hung low over the valley, threatening rain. Why couldn’t there be sunshine to say goodbye in? Ellen wondered, as she wrapped a dark sweater around her shoulders. But Gramps had never minded bleak skies.

  What Emory Leo Montrose hadn’t liked was ceremony. He had pointedly instructed his granddaughter that his service be a simple one, for although the family had been in Shadow Valley since the silver mine opened in 1880, there were very few of the old miners left, and they were tough old men who had finished with tradition long ago. Ellen and her grandfather had kept mostly to themselves in the ten years since her grandmother died. Like Cody, she had lost her father in a mine accident—the same mine accident. Her mother had run away from Pebble Street and died in a Denver charity hospital. She, like Cody, was the last of the line. He might go on remembering the stories of the mining days; she would not. Not after today.

  Maybe she should have told Cody about her grandfather so he’d understand why she hadn’t been back to see him, but there had been so much to do. And Cody had problems enough of his own right now. When Ellen thought about it after the fact, she realized neither of these reasons was valid. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit she just hadn’t had the strength to deal with the emotional overload. No one understood how it was between her and Gramps. Her grief wasn’t something she wanted to share with Cody or anyone. So she hadn’t been to see him, and he would wonder why.

  At the graveside the preacher’s voice droned on as a light wind blew in scattered raindrops from the mountaintops. A dozen neighbors gathered around, but Ellen scarcely felt the presence of any except the mysterious small figure with a veil over her face, wearing gloves to hide her diamond rings. In this whole town I have only one friend and she is in disguise...always in disguise. Meredith was here, and for that Ellen was grateful.