subconscious-some wishful thought, he believed-and he blacked out, imagining he'd never wake again in this life.
Overhead, Andrew Bryce let fly with the arrow meant for Lucas Stonecoat, but it had gone astray, high into the sky, because he was clawing at his back where the melon-sized hole in his chest had originated when the hunting bullet ripped into him. He twirled, knowing he was dead, pirouetting on recoil and to face his killer.
“I'll see you to hell, woman!” he cursed Meredyth Sanger. “No, I think you'll be quite lonely there, Helsinger One!”
She used the stock of the gun to shove the dead man over the side and into the rocks below where Lucas had unsuccessfully hidden.
Meredyth wasn't sure if there were others nearby still stalking Lucas and her, so she held fast to the rifle, climbing down to Lucas, praying he was still alive. He looked quite dead.
Panting, listening for any flicker of noise or movement, she made her way to Lucas, finding him still breathing, the arrow in his side looking nasty and menacing. Lucas had stripped away his shirt at some point, likely to throw the dogs off, and his body was painted with streaks of blood.
She feared for his life, grabbed him up in her arms and held him tightly to her, reassuring him, speaking gently and soothingly into his ear, telling him that Randy was getting help, that help was on the way. She cried as she spoke, the huge Remington rifle at her side, but no one came and Lucas's blood began to discolor her skin, bra, and panties.
He could barely speak, but she found Lucas mumbling some gibberish about a creation myth, saying “My forefathers believed that their homeland was in the center of the universe… pictured Earth as a floating island suspended by four cords from the heavens, and the sky was made of solid rock.”
“Shhhh,” she tried to get him to rest.
“Before the island was created, all men lived above the rock sky…”
She tearfully pleaded, “Don't you die on me, Stone-coat…”
“But it became crowded above the sky, so the water beetle was sent down to explore the water world beneath the floating island. It was the beginning of this world…”
“Hold on, Lucas… Damn you, hold on. Don't you go dying on me,” she said in a threatening voice, which disintegrated into tears.
EPILOGUE
Dawn woke Meredyth where she had fallen asleep beneath Lucas's weight. Her eyes opened in reaction to the noise of a helicopter, which came slowly over the rocks, first sounding like a chain saw, then a lawn mower, until suddenly it was deafening. She saw it go over so quickly she hadn't time to react. It had the HPD logo on it, and she dared guess that Randy had gotten to Captain Phil Lawrence.
She lifted the rifle so its stock was balanced against the rock and fired a distress shot into the air.
“Damn noise is enough to wake the dead!” Lucas shouted at her as he came to.
“Lucas! You're all right.”
“Shot all to hell, if you call that all right. God, I got pain to complain about now. Damn, but this arrow in my side is annoying as hell.”
She laughed and kissed him, his face grimy from perspiration and dirt.
Ouch! Owwww! Easy, easy on me,” he complained.
They heard horseback riders, and over the stones now rescuers appeared, followed by Phil Lawrence and Randy Oglesby, alongside of whom stood Fred Amelford and Jim Pardee. They all saw Meredyth, the rifle and Stonecoat. Beyond them, they saw Bryce's dead body. Not far off in another direction, they saw what remained of Bullock.
“Damned dead people strung all along the gulch!” shouted Lawrence down to them. “I can see that Stonecoat's a bloody mess, but are you hurt, Dr. Sanger?”
“No!” she returned. “But Stonecoat is hurt badly, and he's lost a lot of blood. We need to airlift him out of here to the closest trauma center.”
“You got it!” Lawrence radioed for the chopper to return to their quadrant.
“So, what happened to the water beetle after he dove into the great ocean world?” she asked.
He only hazily recalled telling her of the creation story. “He dove below the waters and came up with mud, and on that mud the earth's land masses were built, and then he returned to the sky people.”
'To tell them there was a land for them?”
“No, he then told the buzzard to fly down to see if the island of the earth was dry enough for the animals and ready for the Ani-yun-wiya, the chosen people, to oversee it. And everywhere the buzzard's wings touched the earth, which was still soft and mushy, a valley was created, and whenever the buzzard lifted his wings, there came into being a mountain. This, it is said, is why the Cherokee country is covered in mountains.”
“That's beautiful, Lucas,” she said. “You came back… like a War Woman of the Wolf clan,” he said.
She smiled at the images, and shook her head. “I only did what I had to do. “You got Bryce,” he said. “I wanted Bryce for myself.”
“You got all the others. You couldn't have all the fun. Not fair.”
“You saved my life,” he said again. “And you stayed with me through the night. You renewed my spirit.”
The deafening noise of the helicopter swooped up his final words and he could not hear her reply. A basket was lowered down to Meredyth, who helped a stubborn Lucas, who wanted her to take the ride up before him, buckle into the basket.
She leaned in over him where he sat in the basket, his legs dangling now. She pulled him close and shouted, “Behave at the hospital!”
He stared into her bright blue eyes, and still amazed at the depth of her courage, shouted, “You weren't supposed to be within miles of me, yet you were here, and you saved my life.”
“I got lucky.”
“I'll never be able to repay you.”
“The hell you say.”
He kissed her and she returned his kiss, unsure of the future or if they had a future together. She yanked on the rope and they took him and his carriage up, the electronic winch doing its work. She watched as Lucas was hauled safely into the chopper and the big black-and-white machine swerved off and away per Phil Lawrence's orders.
Randy and Phil Lawrence were very near her now, having made the difficult climb down to her. With Phil taking charge of the weapon and Andrew Bryce's body, she hugged Randy and began to cry again. Randy held her for a long moment before he draped a coat he'd brought from Mrs. Bryce's closet around Meredyth's shoulders. She buttoned up and thanked Randy.
“I brought a change of dry clothes for you. They're up in the Jeep.” He pointed overhead.
Together, they made their way back up the sloping rocks. From the gulch below, Phil Lawrence began coordinating the effort to recover the additional bodies before wild animals should get any of them.
“Stonecoat did a hell of a number on this bunch of creeps,” Randy commented.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You get the sense that God was on his side?”
“God and you,” countered Randy.
“And you, Randy… and you…”
They'd made the treacherous climb up to flat land. “Captain Lawrence told me to take the Jeep,” said Randy, pointing.
“He thought you'd want to get over to the hospital as soon as possible.”
She nodded, going for it and climbing into the passenger seat, feeling weak and wasted. “I hope he's going to be all right. I got him into this, you know.”
“I rather doubt that anyone gets Lucas Stonecoat into anything he doesn't want to get into,” Randy countered as they tore off for the main road and the hospital.
Stonecoat survived his injuries, including a broken kneecap, adding scars to his already scarred body. He
