THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART THIRTY-TWO:

Even though they'd walked the better part of the day, now they ran. Mike had Wadsworth's leash in his right hand and Eden's hand in his left. She ran with her mouth open, gasping for breaths in the cold air, but she ran as fast as she could. When they got to where Marshall had crossed the creek, Wadsworth splashed across it with hardly a break in his stride. Eden almost fell, but Mike kept her on her feet.  When the trail turned left near the lake and they knew he'd gone in the right direction, Eden panted, "Let him go, Mike. Let Wadsworth go now."

They paused only long enough for Mike to unhook the leash from the dog's collar and Wadsworth was off like the proverbial shot, his large body moving in a long stride that sent

him along the shoreline much faster than the humans could keep pace.

He ran along the scentline of his other half, actually beyond scenting, running now only on heart
and instinct. He knew. Nothing else existed for him now but this knowing. He rounded a curve

in the shoreline, heading like an arrow for the dock.

Still running, Mike called his crew. "Get to Harold's," he panted. "Our man's there." He also called Harold, alerting him. He didn't know if Marshall had made it to the door or what. But he'd definitely made it.

When she got around the curve, Eden saw Marshall. Stumbling, she started to fall, quickly steadied by Mike. "Oh, God!" she gasped. "It's him!"

Both Harold and Martha had shrugged on coats and as they were coming out on the porch,

saw Eden, Mike and the others running along the shore from the right. The EMT vehicle,

lights flashing, raced down the drive and whipped to a stop at the near end of the parking area.

But Wadsworth was already there, had circled around Marshall twice, nudging him with his nose and, getting no response, settled near his head, his long muzzle resting across Marshall's temple.

Marshall had fallen forward when his shin struck the plank edge of the dock. He lay from the waist up on the wet boards, his arms curved around his head, his left cheek down, so that his

face was turned away from the house. His legs rested on the ground, about three feet in from

the shoreline where the dock was built low to the land. He had been right. It was his last fall. There was no more getting up.

Mike was the first to reach him, having to physically push Wadsworth to the side so he could tend to Marshall. His fingers flew to take a quick pulse. Still alive, but racing on overdrive.

He touched his cheek. Burning hot. He was just gently turning Marshall on his back when

Eden ran up. "Is...is...?"

"He's alive, Eden. But he's sick." His eyes met hers gravely. "And I mean really sick."

Butch dashed up with a med kit. They turned Marshall so his legs were on the dock and Mike listened to his chest, his own lips set grimly. "Think it's pneumonia?" Butch asked softly.

Mike nodded. "Get the stretcher up here!"

Eden was on her knees on the other side of Marshall, her hands hovering over him as though

if she touched him, he might break or dissolve or otherwise disappear before her eyes. His lips were parted, his breaths coming in painfully short little gasps. He tried to swallow, seemed to work at the effort of it for ages without an intake of breath, then finally managed, gulping at

the air like some landed trout, but not really getting any. Mike clapped an oxygen mask
on him and before Eden knew what was happening, Marshall was on the stretcher and two

men were hurrying with him to the open back doors of the emergency vehicle, Mike running beside it, holding equipment.  They hustled him into the vehicle, one of the men starting an IV while Mike got on the radio to the hospital.

It was all a blur to Eden, who heard words like "cyanotic", "possible involvement of both lungs," "extreme respiratory distress."  Wadsworth stood with his front paws on the rear bumper, whining. Both he and Eden had ridden in the vehicle on the day she'd met Marshall. But now Mike leaned out the back. "Sorry, Eden. Got the whole crew this time. I'm really

sorry, but you and Wadsworth will have to find...."

"I'll take them," Harold announced firmly. "You go ahead, Mike. We'll be right behind you."

Martha looked at Eden. The young woman seemed ready to fall over herself. Dark smudges lay under both eyes, she was wet and dirty and looked on the point of exhaustion. Martha put her arms around her, leading her to their car as the rescue vehicle's sirens came on and it began

to speed down the drive.

Harold drove and Martha sat in the back seat because she didn't want to take her arms from around Eden. Wadsworth perched, tense, panting, to Eden's left.

"I...I...didn't get to touch him, Martha," Eden whispered, her voice breaking. "After all this time, I didn't get to touch him." Tears began to track rapidly down both cheeks.

"You will, dear heart," Martha soothed. "Really soon. You will."

"I don't think he knew I was there," Eden continued in her cracking little whisper. "I don't think he knew anybody was there."  She wiped at her cheeks. "Did you see his face, Martha? Did you see his face?"

"Hush, sweet one. It'll be all right now. You'll see. It'll be all right."

Eden tipped her chin up. "He did it, you know. He did it all by himself. All that way. By himself."

"How in blazes he do that?" Harold wondered aloud. "Didn't think it was possible. All that

way. And sick, too."

Eden's hand went to her neck. She'd found Marshall's muffler in the forest and even though

it was damp, splattered with mud, and spotted with bits of pine debris, she'd wrapped it around her neck. Now she twisted its long ends around and around her hands. Right at the moment, it was all she had of him.  Then Wadsworth whined, his nose pressed to the window, and she knew
she had more than a muffler.

When she got to the hospital, Marshall had already been whisked away to some deep inner part of the emergency department. She had to wait. On a vinyl seat with a long crack in it, she waited, twisting the muffler in her hands, Wadsworth half under the chair, his forequarters between her boots, whining softly now and then.

She closed her eyes, her mind going over the long trail Marshall had made, seeing again all the mashed snow where he'd fallen, the little place under the low pine where he'd nested, the pit at the end of the fallen tree. How had he managed? How had he kept going for so long?

Martha had her own worries for Marshall, her own rather profound motherly concern for him, but she tried to set it aside and offer only comfort to Eden, not wanting her to know she could use some herself.  She went to the cafeteria, trying to pick out simple things for Eden, and sat beside her, offering her nothing whole but her heart. The food she placed in Eden's fingers
little bits at a time, watching as the young woman sometimes lifted them to her mouth rather unaware.

After several weeks, or was it years, Mike came into the waiting room, squatting by Eden, one hand on her knee, the other stroking Wadsworth neck. "They're still working on him," he said, his voice gentle, quiet.  "I'll let you know when you can see him, ok?"

He stood and Harold followed him toward a coffee machine. "How bad off is he?"

Mike looked back across the room at Eden, shaking his head. "Bad, Harold. Damn bad."

"Any danger the young fellow might not...?"

Mike shut his eyes and nodded.

"Geeze," Harold sighed. "And her already a widow 'n all."  He looked at Eden. "You going to give it to her straight?"

Mike sighed. "I don't know. Guess that's up to what the doc decides to tell her."

"Who's tending him?"

"Hersholtz."

"Good man. He'll do right by him."

"Problem is, Harold, when Marshall was already sick and should've been warm in bed, he was out there in the icy water, climbing hills, falling over and over. I lost count of how many times

I could tell he'd fallen. Just so damn many times. And this thing got a really deep grip on him while he was out there. Temp's a bit over 104. He had to be fighting for breath for hours."

"You've got to remember, Mike, she followed every step he took. She knows where he went,

saw the places with her own eyes. She's got to have a pretty good idea what he went through."

Mike looked back at Eden again. "You should've seen her, Harold! Pushed Barry down flat when he tried to stop her going up Cooper's Ridge. Didn't take any guff off Pete, either. Just spoke her mind and did what she needed to do. Then she stayed right with Wadsworth and me no matter how rough the going got. But, you know, Harold, every minute that I was up there on that ridge and then making my way down to Miller's Run, hard as it was to get through there,

I kept thinking, good Lord, what if I was doing this with my eyes closed? Once in a while I'd even shut them, just trying to get the feel of it. But I knew where I was. He wouldn't know that, wouldn't know what lay in front of him or either side, which way was easier. I can't even imagine what that was like for him." He shook his head slowly. "Just can't imagine."

"They confirm pneumonia yet?"

"'Fraid so, Harold. Both lungs. Settled in real good, like I said."

Harold sighed, looking across the waiting room where his wife sat tending to Eden. "Martha's gone and let herself get all attached to that feller, almost like he was one of her sons. Be hard

for her, too, if he doesn't pull through."

More time passed. Eden dozed briefly on Martha's shoulder. Mike took Wadsworth outside

for a bit. It seemed like everyone in the small, rural hospital remembered Marshall and Wadsworth from their previous time there just over a month and a half ago.  Everyone who saw Wadsworth wanted to stop and pet him or talk to Mike. Wadsworth, though, wasn't having any of it. He was on edge, making a lot of little noises, constantly on alert and watching. Not once

in all that time that he sat under Eden's chair did his head go down on his paws. He'd found Marshall only to have him taken away moments later. And, now, there was no scent of him in this waiting room. It was not where he wanted to be. Running in the track of Marshall's scent

in the forest had been better than this.

A man in scrubs, with glasses and a fringe of white hair circling his head, walked into the waiting area. He came straight to Eden. She and her little group were the only ones there this evening. He introduced himself as Doctor Hersholtz. He was going to let her see Marshall briefly.  But not Wadsworth. Not yet anyway.  Marshall was in the ICU right now. It was no place for dogs, he said firmly.  Mike had to hold on tightly to Wadsworth's collar as Eden walked away with the doctor. She could hear his feet scrabbling on the tile floor behind her

and her heart broke for him.

As they walked, Hersholtz talked with Eden about Marshall. He had severe streptococcus pneumonia in both lungs, had been cyanotic when he arrived at the hospital because his lungs weren't able to oxygenate his blood well enough. He told her Marshall was on oxygen
therapy and intravenous antibiotics and that she would see a nasal canula as well as various tubes and wires that were monitoring his heart and other vital functions.

Ok, she thought. He'll have IVs in his arms and one of those clear tuby things they gave you oxygen through these days. That would be all right.  He'd had that back at the end of October. She walked into his room, finding the bed cranked up a bit to ease his breathing. The tuby thing was there, coming in across his cheeks to his nose, and an IV was hooked up to his left arm. His hospital gown had been put on so it opened to the front and there were several wires attached to his chest, which she figured must go to the heart monitor. What she wasn't quite prepared for was the tube that disappeared inside him between two of his ribs. She couldn't say exactly why, but it was the sight of that tube in that place that rather got to her. His eyes were closed and

once in a while his head turned restlessly back and forth on the white pillowcase.

"The tube, there...," she indicated his ribs. "Why is that there?"

"He's dealing with a pleural effusion, I'm afraid.'

Why did he have to add the 'I'm afraid', she wondered silently, waiting for him to explain.

"Fluid has accumulated between his pleura...that's the thin, transparent membrane covering his lungs, and the membrane that lines the inner surface of his chest wall.  When the pleurae around the lungs become infected, it's called pleurisy."

She'd heard of that, but never really understood just what it was. "What does the tube do?"

"Well, Marshall's fluid has become infected as well. That's empyema, and we have to drain it because antibiotics don't penetrate well into the pleural cavity."

"What does all that mean?"

"It means he's very, very sick. We're hoping to prevent sepsis or the need to intubate him."

"You mean he might need to be put on a respirator?"

"We're hoping it doesn't come to that.

"But it might?"

"It might, yes," he nodded.

Marshall mumbled something.

"Is he conscious?"

"Not really," Hersholtz said. "Man's had one hell of a time. We're trying to get his fever down but he's got an excess build-up of carbon dioxide in his blood. I imagine he's had a heck of a headache due to that, and that build-up, in itself, causes disorientation that leads into a semi-conscious state. That'd be bad enough even if he'd spent the last 24 hours in bed, but he didn't. Man went to his physical limit and then kept going. Wet and freezing cold, to boot. Had some frostbite on his feet, but we're tending to that and it should be ok. But as my grandfather would say, 'He's plumb give out.' I truly have no idea how he didn't die on that ridge."

He looked with an assessing eye at Marshall. "His total exhaustion combined with all this makes it harder for him to fight, you see. He fought so long just to get off the ridge, he hasn't got much left in him to fight this sickness that's trying to take him down."

"It's not going to take him down, Doctor," Eden said. "I'm not going to let it."

"That's why you're here, Ms. McLaughlin. I want you to talk to him, let him know he's got someone he needs to fight for." He turned to go.  "Don't mind if he doesn't seem to hear you. You talk to the man anyway."

When Hersholtz had gone, she pulled a chair as close to the side of the bed as she could get, gently enfolding his right hand between both of her own. His right ring finger was in a splint. Her eyes roamed over what she could see of him above the bedding. He was clean now, but the washing also served to reveal the deep bruises forming almost all over him. She'd thought his experience in the gully had bruised him, but that was nothing compared with now. At one time or another as he'd struggled down the long ridge, almost every part of his body must have impacted rock or tree or stump.  She couldn't see his legs, but she'd seen the marks in the

snow where he'd fallen to his knees over and over.

She kissed the back of his hand and leaned closer, her mouth close to his ear. "I'm here," she whispered. "It's Eden, Marshall. I'm right here beside you, my love. You made it. You showed everybody and you made it back. All the way back to the inn, Marshall. All the way to the inn. Now you've got to make it back from this hospital room. You hear me? There's this bed in our room upstairs in the inn and I need you beside me in it. I need you beside me," she choked a bit, "in my life, Marshall Sinclair. You hear that? I love you. Please, Marshall. Please don't leave me."  Tears again tracked down her cheeks.

His head turned a couple of times, his lips moving slightly. It seemed like he was trying to say something but she couldn't make it out.

"What, Marshall? What are you saying?"

He mumbled something unintelligible, then very faintly she heard, "Snow. Can't die...in snow. Can't tell Eden...died in snow. Can't." His head turned more. "No. Not in snow. Can't. Not Miles. Can't."

She sat back in her chair, her lips parted. She understood what he meant and more tears came.

Leaning forward again, she said firmly, "Yes, Marshall, that's right. You can't die in the snow like Miles. You can't. You've got to fight. You hear me? You've got to fight to come back to me."

"Fight," he mumbled then faded too much for further words.

She sat beside him for as long as they'd let her, stroking his hand and arm, talking to him. When they made her leave, she was surprised to find Martha and Harold still in the waiting room.

"Wanted to drive you home for a change of clothes, maybe a hot bath," Harold smiled.

Suddenly the both of them seemed unutterably dear to her and she let them guide her to Harold's car. Mike had been walking Wadsworth and came, putting the dog in the back seat.

He stood silently under a streetlight, watching Harold's car as it turned out of the lot.

Eden held out her hands and Wadsworth could smell Marshall on them. It was as close as he'd be able to get for a while.

Hersholtz had told her to get some sleep, that she'd have a long vigil ahead of her and she was too done in herself right now. He promised the hospital would call if anything changed in the night. As they drove back to the inn, Eden explained what the doctor had said about Marshall's condition. Harold just pressed his lips tightly together as he drove home in the winter night.

Eden bathed and, wearing a thick flannel nightgown, the one Marshall liked the feel of the soft material, she got in bed. Wadsworth lay against the door as he had the night before, but she called him over and dropped Marshall's muffler down where he could sleep beside it.  But he picked the muffler up in his mouth and carried it to the spot by the door, setting it down and finally lowering his head to let his muzzle rest atop it.

ON TO PART 33

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