THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART FIVE:

Would the dog go to the inn, or at least to some other place? She wasn't used to dogs that did what one wanted them to. Connie had some sort of little, fluffy thing that only seemed to bark constantly and was always under your feet. Her younger brother had a mutt Miles had brought for him one day, some stray he'd found in an alley. But Spike was only interested in eating and that was when he wasn't more interested in sleeping. So far Wadsworth continually amazed her. She hoped to God he'd keep doing that. But what if he got somewhere and nobody noticed the little paper? What if it slid loose and was even now lying in some puddle?

She shivered, chilled through, much of her hair plastered in wet strands across her face. The rain ran down her back, funneled by her jacket collar because she was leaning forward over the man. Most of the mud was washed off his face now, but some watery portions of it had pooled over his closed lids. With her fingers she gently tried to brush it away. Then she curved both of her arms around his head and leaned way forward so that her body was only a couple of inches from his face.

He'd awakened as the first cold raindrops spattered his cheeks and gradually became aware he was lying on his back again, his head resting on something fairly soft. He didn't move, though.

At even the thought of moving again his body said, "No."  So he simply lay quietly, feeling the rain pelting down on him. He was cold completely through, and though the rain increased that, there was also something good in the way he felt it washing away much of the mud, especially the mud caking his face.  He remembered the fall now, remembered lying there, trapped, with mud rising around him. He understood now why he couldn't hear. But the rain was running in rivulets down the sides of his face, into his ears, and gradually some sense of sound began to return.

He was also aware of fingers wiping his face. He had no idea to whom they might belong, but it involved too much effort to try and puzzle it out. Whosever they were, they were helping rid him of the mud and all he felt was a quiet sense of gratitude.  They stopped for a while and then returned to his eyes. He could feel them gently passing over his lids. His eyes still hurt, though, and he knew he had mud under his lids as well. He tried to open them, thinking maybe the rain might wash there, too, but couldn't seem to manage even that. Then the rain almost completely stopped hitting his face and he smelled, what was that, roses? Yes, a definite scent of roses was just above him,  faded considerably but still there. He almost laughed, knowing that was ridiculously impossible in the midst of this late-Autumn rain. It had to be a trick of his mind.

He remembered as a boy talking with his grandmother about heaven. He thought it must smell
like roses, like the roses his mother had over the archway that framed the entrance walk to their house. But she, and she knew about such things, said, no, heaven smelled like lilies, not roses.

But he was too cold now even to think and felt himself drifting again.

Harold pounded through the puddles as fast as he could go, trying not to lose sight of the big dog, praying all the while he didn't have a heart attack. There, just ahead, where the wide path began to peter out, he could see two people as the dog ran up to them.  For just a moment he paused, leaning forward, his hands resting on his thighs as he breathed heavily. Then he started forward again, realized he'd never seen the woman before, but that it was Marshall prone on the ground.

As he dropped to his knees beside the two figures, the woman, who had been leaning forward, jerked up, startled by his presence.  "Harold Malone," he introduced himself, "from the inn by the trailhead."

"Oh, Mr. Malone!" she cried, tears of relief sparking in her eyes. "Thank God!"

"What's happened to Mr. Sinclair here?"

"You know him?"

"Sure do. He's staying at my inn.  Been there a good month already."

"He's hurt. I don't know exactly where, but his dog led me to him. He had fallen in a deep gully back further in the woods."

"Damn! I told the man to keep to the flat part of the trail." 

Eden let the remark pass, only a vague second given to why Mr. Malone would say that. "He walked this far with me," she explained, "but then he collapsed again. I sent the dog...."

"Yeah, found the note. Good idea young lady.  My wife's called the rescue unit. They should be here before much longer. But why are you out here?"

"Eden," she said, "Eden McLaughlin. I checked into the inn just this morning. Martha said you were at the store."

"You a woods-walker sort, too, eh?"

She smiled slightly. "Was hoping to gather some leaves. Then Wadsworth kidnapped me."  She turned to pat the wet dog. "He's one smart boy."

"That kind usually are. Have to be, I guess."

"German shepherds?" she asked, not getting his meaning. But before he could say more,  five men came running down the trail. Wadsworth stood, moving to place himself between Marshall and the men, but Eden said, "It's ok, Waddy. They're here to help him."

He eyed them carefully as they came near then moved back to the far side, sitting close, putting one forepaw on Marshall's left arm where it lay in the wet leaves.

"What we got here, Harold?" one of the men asked.

"Fell into the big gully," Harold said. "Don't know exactly how he's hurt. Lady says he walked this far."

Mike looked from the man to the dog still wearing the harness. "Good Lord, Harold, why in heaven's name would he be near the gully?"

Eden, almost paralyzed herself with cold and fatigue, couldn't understand the references they kept making. "The path had been washed out," she added, "and the edge crumbled."

"That's got to be 25, 30 feet down," Mike whistled, kneeling in Harold's place as the innkeeper moved aside. Another man helped Eden to her feet, wrapping a waterproof blanket around her, leaving Marshall flat on the ground. "You said he walked here?"

"Yes, but it was very hard for him. Oh, and he was almost buried in mud back in the gully. I'm pretty sure his eyes are full of it. He came all this way with them closed. Don't know how he did it."

Mike gave her an odd look and turned to his examination of the man. "Who is he?" he asked Harold.

"Sinclair, Dr. Marshall Sinclair. From Pittsburgh."

"Doctor?"

"One of those PhD sorts, not a doctor doctor.  Teaches Lit at Duquesne."

Eden looked at the man lying so quietly on the leaves. Somehow she hadn't...expected. She puffed her cheeks out, shaking her head. That made it all the more strange, finding him at the bottom

of a gully like that. One just did not stumble upon literature professors in gullies every day.  Then something about the way he was lying on his back, arms at his sides, eyes closed, hit her. Oh, my God! That was IT!  Now she knew who he reminded her of.  It was Maximus at the end of Gladiator. The neat beard and dark hair only accentuated it. All he needed was armor. The resemblance was absolutely striking. She, of all people, should have noticed it sooner. But the mud. The mud had caked so thickly that she'd not really seen his face until the rain started.

Marshall was vaguely aware that things were being done to him. He felt the prick as the IV needle was inserted, felt hands probing him here and there, knew he was being lifted onto something.  The scent of roses was gone. Then whatever he was lying on was picked up and began moving.  Men were talking but he was too tired to listen. He wanted the roses back.

The next thing he knew he was in some sort of moving vehicle and someone was tucking a heating blanket around him, saying something about low core temperature. He wondered who they were talking about. He'd missed completely the scene where Harold had offered to drive Wadsworth the 15 miles to the little community hospital that served the area, missed that Wadsworth was having none of it, had broken free and jumped into the back of the EMT vehicle. Eden was sitting in a small jumpseat, still shivering. Mike wanted her taken to the hospital, too. The dog would make it damn crowded, but he grinned wryly. "Let him be," he ordered the man who was trying to grab the harness. "He's earned the right to stay with his guy." 

Marshall drifted in and out, aware from time to time of things going on around him. He felt his wet clothes being peeled off, knew he was being washed and then warm blankets placed closely around him. But he'd found a nice fuzzy place in his mind and lay his consciousness down in it, curling it into a tight, warm ball until it disappeared.

"How is he?" Eden asked the nurse. She was standing in the doorway of the room and was clean herself, dressed in baggy green scrubs, a woolen blanket around her shoulders.

"He'll be asleep for a while now," the nurse replied, finishing her adjusting of his IV drip. "Pain meds, you know."

No one would really tell her much and when she saw Mike turning a corner at the far end of the corridor, she ran after him. "Look," she said, when he, too, hesitated, "I'm the one who found him and he's got nobody here but me. Please, Mike."

He looked at her a moment. Her hair was dry now but had been brushed straight and simple to her shoulders. She had dark smudges of fatigue and stress around her eyes. But she was still very pretty, and was looking at him earnestly with those emerald eyes of hers. "His left shoulder was completely dislocated," he said softly, "and it seems he's pulled a lot of tendons and muscles in that area. Has a bit of a concussion and his right wrist is lacerated where you said that branch had pinned him. Main thing is his core temp got so damn low. If he'd spent the rest of the day down there, he'd probably be dead by now, that is if he didn't drown in the mud first." He put his hand on her arm. "So you really did save his life, you and that dog of his."

"Wadsworth! Where's Wadsworth?"  She'd forgotten about him.

Mike smiled. "One of my men hosed him down, got him all clean, found some food for him. From what I hear tell he's lying behind the nurses' station watching every person who comes and goes."

"They let him in the hospital?"

"Dogs like that, they get to go most everywhere. Betsy, the head nurse, has a thing for dogs, it seems. She's the one who decided he could stay. Not sure Doc Peterson knows it, though. Probably why Betsy's got him sort of tucked away there. Speaking of which, where're you spending the night?"

"Nice couch in the lounge. I just sort of wanted to...be here."

"Let me see if I can arrange a room for you. I'll talk to Betsy. Hospital's kinda quiet tonight. Sometimes they do things like that. Loyal dogs, heroic women.  They deserve a break."

She smiled. "I'm not very heroic, Mike."

"Hey, in my book you are.  Took guts, you know, going down into that gully, getting him out. Not sure how a little thing like you managed it, anyway."

"I had to," she said simply. "It had to be done and I was the only one there."

He grinned. "That's what I mean."

"About that room? I think I'm going to fall over any second."

"Back in a jiff," he said, then pointed to a small bench in the hall. "Sit!"

Obediently, she settled in the vinyl seat, pulling the blanket around her tightly.  Her left arm throbbed a bit where the long scrape had been bandaged.  Closing her eyes, her mind was filled with the image of Marshall's face as the rain began to wash the mud away.

Mike returned in about five minutes. "I've got...," he began, but saw she'd fallen asleep.  A big man in his mid-40's, with silvering hair and a moustache to match, Mike gently scooped her up and carried her down the hall. 

ON TO PART 6

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE

BACK TO PART 4

BACK TO INDEX