THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART TWENTY-EIGHT:

Eden pulled on her coat. "You're not going without me, Mike Johnson!"

He looked at the set of her shoulders, the raised chin. "All right, Eden, but at least change those shoes for some boots, will you?"

As she sat on a bench to do that, Mike snapped the leash on Wadsworth. The dog had been pacing back and forth at the doorway ever since they'd called him back to the house, making

low whining noises in his throat. Mike knew that the bond between a blind person and their guide dog was the absolute culmination of thousands of years of human-canine relationship. Marshall had explained to him once that as he and Wadsworth made their way together through the world, Wadsworth completely saw them as a unit. The decisions he made about where to walk were not made based on what was best for him or even what was best for Marshall, but on what was best for THEM. For Wadsworth, now, his other half was missing.

"Ready," Eden announced, tucking her pants' cuffs into the high tops of her boots.

"Hat?" Mike said simply.

She grabbed a knitted cap off the rack. "Hat."

As Mike opened the door, Wadsworth lunged forward with such force that Mike's arm was nearly jerked out of its socket. "Holy cow!" he exclaimed, running to keep up with the usually self-controlled dog. "I've never seen him act like this."

"He's never lost Marshall before," she said quietly.

"What about the gully?"

"He knew right where Marshall was. This is different. Now Wadsworth's hurting."

The winter darkness had settled in completely by the time they headed out in Mike's truck. As they drove down the road, Eden kept her eyes on the blackness of the forest surrounding them. He was out there somewhere. He was either alone or with two dangerous men. She didn't know which was worse. She closed her eyes, remembering him leaning over her chair, his chin on her head, his hands doing marvelous things to her neck. He had to be all right. The world would simply spin off its axis without Marshall to keep it steady.

They arrived where her car still sat at a crazy angle in the ditch. At least seven squad cars, their lights flashing were parked around it. The night shift EMTs were there, too, as well as several men Mike knew from town. He got out of his truck, taking Wadsworth's leash from Eden.

"K-9?" asked a state patrolman Mike didn't recognize.

"Guide dog. Belongs to the man they've taken hostage."

"The hostage is...blind?" the trooper asked, raising his eyebrows. "You hear that, Malloy?"

Another trooper looked over at them. The two of them had just arrived and not been completely filled in yet. The second trooper looked at the dark woods and the snow. "Good God!" he said softly.

Mike saw Pete ahead down closer to the stream and led Wadsworth that way, closely followed by Eden. "Pete!" Mike called out. "Got his dog here."

"Good," Pete replied, rubbing his gloved hands briskly together. "Bring him on down and let's see what he picks up."

One hand manning the leash and the other under Eden's right elbow, Mike made his way down to the bank just to the right of where the stream flowed under the bridge. "Tracks lead off that way," Pete said, nodding toward the bridge. "I've got crews working both sides of the creek in that direction. Ma'am," he said, touching his hat brim as Eden approached.

"We've got to find him soon," she said earnestly. "It's not just that he's blind," her eyes brimmed briefly, "but he's very sick."

Pete looked at Mike. "Why in the name of all that's holy would they take a sick blind man as hostage? What on earth were they thinking?"

"It was me," Eden said, her voice low.

"What was that, Ma'am?"

"They planned on taking me, you see," she continued, biting her lip, "but he made them think

it would be better to take him."

Pete met Mike's eyes again as Mike shrugged slightly and said, "He loves her."

Pete smiled gently at Eden. "We'll find him, Ma'am. Don't you worry about that. The creek that way runs right past town. I've got officers all over the place there in case they try to steal another vehicle. We'll get them before the night's out."

Wadsworth, however, was not the least interested in the downstream portion of the creek. Marshall's scent came down to the bank and simply stopped. It didn't go either way. But some deep instinct of connection made him pull upstream.

"Now, that is strange," Pete said, watching the dog. "The only tracks go that way, yet the dog says 'no'. What do you make of that, Mike?"

"I think we need to look both directions," Mike stated. "Wadsworth always seems to know where his man has gone."

"All right," Pete sighed. "I'll send a crew upstream, too, then. But it's too damn dark now to see much of anything. I'll have them do a sweep tonight and if they don't find anything, we'll have to wait till morning, I'm afraid. Nothing to do about it."

"But," Eden protested, "you can't just leave him out here all night. You can't."

"Ma'am, I assure you we're doing our level best and we'll continue to do it. But there's not even a moon tonight and there's only so much can be done in present conditions."

There was a large rock nearby and Eden went dejectedly to it and sat down, holding her mittens to her cold cheeks. Distant flashlights flickered up and down the small stream, accompanied by men's voices.  She watched it almost dreamily, thinking how they reminded her of fireflies on a hot July night, neighborhood children chasing after them. Only this was different. Cold and deadly and different. Some time later someone offered her a cup of hot coffee from a thermos. She drank without tasting it. Mike had taken Wadsworth a ways upstream, hoping for some eventual sign of a scent. They came back two hours later, cold and wet, but with Wadsworth

still staring off into the upstream forest.

"He's up there somewhere," she said to Mike. "I know it because Wadsworth knows it. He's

not downstream. They're just wasting their time." She put a mitten over her eyes. "They're

just wasting their time, Mike," she repeated.

"We'll come back at first light, Eden. Everybody will. It'll be easier then, ok?"

"What about him, Mike? What about him all night long? Is that going to be easier for him?"

He knew it wouldn't, but except for a few die-hard searchers who kept looking downstream, everybody else packed up for the night. Pete came up to them. "We'll have patrols out all night," he explained, "especially near the town where they're likely to look for another car. And five

of my best men will keep looking all night despite conditions. We'll find him. We'll find them all."

Mike drove her back to the inn. He spent the night in a spare guest room so he could take her

to the stream again as soon as the sun was up. She lay miserably in the bed she shared with Marshall, clutching his pillow, hardly closing her eyes all night. Wadsworth, who had a special place he usually slept between Marshall's side of the bed and the chest of drawers, lay with his side pressed against the door, his head cocked, listening.


Marshall was hot and began to push at the needles and leaves that covered him. He reached his right hand out, feeling for Wadsworth. "Ah, there you are, boy!" he said affectionately, then chuckled. "No, no! Now you stop that!"  Wadsworth just would lick his face whenever he got

a chance. "You want to go out, don't you?"  He sat up, his lips curving in a smile. "Give me just a minute, boy, I seem to be a bit tired this morning."

His head was brushing against the low-hanging branches of the evergreen and he batted at them, trying to make them stay away, but they kept getting right back in his face.  "Darn curtains!"

he grumped. "Wadsworth, 'mind me to get new curtains. I don't think I like these any more."

He swayed, bracing his hands on the ground on either side. "I'm supposed to go somewhere, Wadsworth," he said, then began to shake with violent coughing. When it was over, he leaned forward, his hands pressed to his body. "Think I broke my chest, Waddy." Despite the pain, he
smiled again. Waddy. That's what she called him. Waddy. He liked that. Who was that who called him Waddy? He couldn't come up with her name just then. Oh, well. He liked her whoever she was even if he couldn't remember her name. Putting an arm around Wadsworth's neck, he asked seriously, "Do you 'member where I'm supposed to go?"  He didn't know why, but he had this driving urge to go...somewhere. Was he late for class? Was that it? He tried to think what he was lecturing on today. "Can't," he said. "Can't think what that was."

Crawling out of his little bower, he managed to stand only by clutching at clumps of the evergreen beside him. "Don't feel so good, Wadsworth," he said. "Don't feel so good at all." 

He felt for the dog. "No harness? Where'd you go and leave your harness?"  Damn it! He really needed the harness to hold onto. Especially since he couldn't remember where he was supposed to go. Maybe Wadsworth remembered and just wasn't telling? That was probably it.

He was really thirsty. "You got a canteen on you, boy?"  His legs just suddenly folded and he

sat down hard in the slushy snow. Becoming aware his right hand lay palm-up in some sort of little puddle, he lifted a bit of the icy water to his lips. "Good," he sighed, then scooped up more and more handfuls of the snowmelt, finally wiping his wet glove across his face. "Better."  His hands found Wadsworth again. "We gotta get going, boy. Someplace I have to be."

He staggered to his feet. Which way? He tried going uphill a few steps but it took too much effort so he turned around and began going the other way.  "Come on, boy," he called and walked straight into a tree. He stood there, surprised, feeling the large, rough trunk with both hands. "It's a tree," he announced to Wadsworth. "What's a tree doing here?"  He pushed himself away from it, feeling clammy and cold and hot all at once. "I like trees," he said conversationally to the dog. "Do you remember 'Evangeline'? Lots of trees in 'Evangeline.' "

He smiled to himself. He might not remember where he needed to go, but he remembered 'Evangeline.' So as he stumbled down the long slope, falling, getting up again, tripping on roots, getting tangled in large bushes, none of it seemed to bother him. He quoted 'Evangeline' as he went. Wadsworth had written it, which was pretty damn good for a dog.

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks.
You listening, boy? S'important.
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic..."

His voice droned on and on in between fits of coughing and times when he fell and had a hard time getting back up. Once, when he'd fallen on his knees, he lifted his head and said quietly, "Down hill. That's where I've got to go...down hill." He still couldn't remember exactly
why that was important, but somehow it was. "This is the forest primeval," he whispered again. There was...something...about that word 'forest'. Maybe the hill he had to go down was there?

If he just kept walking, maybe he'd find it?

"Come ON, boy!" he called again. Wadsworth kept wandering off. He didn't like it. He wanted Wadsworth beside him, where he was supposed to be. He paused, holding onto a slender tree

for support. "Wadsworth!" he called as loudly as he could manage. But the dog didn't come. Suddenly he felt terribly, terribly alone. "Wadsworth," he breathed, then his chest hurt so bad he just slid down the tree and sat on the ground. "I miss you," he said, but it wasn't the dog. It was something else...somebody else...someone he yearned for with his whole being.

Every part of him ached and throbbed and all he could manage any more were rapid, shallow breaths, but even those hurt to take. He'd long ago pushed his muffler off his head, but now he untied it completely, letting it drop beside him. "So hot," he mumbled. "Too hot."  Yet his feet
were almost numb with cold.  Very slowly he simply folded forward, then as he slumped to one side, murmured, "Eden, where are you?"

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