 
### Speak Rain

By P. Edward Auman

Copyright 2013 P. Edward Auman

Smashwords Edition

ISBN:

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# Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to my Native American friends in Iowa, Arizona and Utah and for the remembrance of their amazing and ancient cultures.

### Prologue

Rains in the western desert were by definition rare, of course. But during winter at least the mountain ranges of the Rockies collected feet and feet of snow upon them. In summer thunderstorms would move through and provide some moisture at times, cooling the dusty valleys and turning the northern and eastern faces of the mountains dark green. Despite the previous years of drought, it was this very variety in weather and terrain that attracted Daniel Tremon to the small town of Woodland Hills after the death of his wife.

Indeed, it was then strange when the second fall he'd spent living in the shadows of the Rockies turned from a particularly dry and worrisome summer to a swamp of hard rains separated by periods of heavy drizzle and fogs. From the end of September until December the clouds never left. The sun never shone. People began to fade into the shadows and their humanity seemed muted from Dan's perspective.

During the first two weeks, the residents of Woodland Hills rejoiced that rain had finally begun. Predictions of a wet winter and plenty of snow pack for the summer watershed started immediately. By the fourth week of straight rain people had to work a little harder at being chipper. But mid-November attitudes had changed, and many wondered when the snow might start falling. Temperatures were unusually warm for the season, but the rain chilled and kept many indoors all the time. The townsfolk themselves seemed to be disappearing. Fewer and fewer dogs were walked down Dan's street. Almost no one raised a friendly hand when passing each other on the road. Spirits were depressed so much that Dan felt a thick blanket was smothering him as he tried to continue with his life. And then his employer laid him off.

By December Daniel's attitude wasn't much different than those around him, and he felt he understood why there seemed to be more domestic disputes and down right odd behavior to which the sheriffs were having to respond almost nightly. The rains imposed on every activity, and Dan decided he was ready for a change.

### December 2

### Dream

Sleep didn't seem to come well at all for the last couple weeks. When the rains first started months earlier it was something that lulled Daniel to sleep. He liked the patter against the windows and as it collected or rained a little heavier he loved listening to the sound of the water running through the gutters. But lately the rain only seemed to worry him and tended to keep him up until the early hours of the next morning. Wind frequently joined the rain, sometimes banging loose pieces of siding on the house adding to the tension. Since he'd been let go from the manufacturing plant with a very healthy severance he had determined he wasn't working this holiday season, and meant not to until the spring, so late nights themselves didn't necessarily hurt. But not ever getting sleep except for dozes in his porch chair was indeed hurting. Both physically and mentally.

On the evening of December 2, about a week after Thanksgiving, Daniel made preparations for bed yet again. He was hopeful on this particular night and so he'd turned off all the lights, set his alarm for the next morning and brushed his teeth before climbing into bed. Then an odd thought struck him: perhaps he should say his bed-time prayer?

He hadn't said a pray since his mom stopped making him do it at age nine. This was indeed a very unusual idea he had. What would he say? Did he even think someone was listening? Because he felt like he wanted to "spice things up a little," and because a little zombie induced bite of one of the neighbors as the solution not only seemed like an inappropriate way to break the monotony of rainy weather but was also unappetizing, Daniel sat up in bed, legs folded together and said a prayer.

"Dear God.

I'm actually not sure why I'm doing this. But I figure since we haven't talked for a while, maybe I should....Maybe if I had been praying all this time I might still have a job."

Daniel hesitated. It was difficult for someone to really know how to start a polite conversation who, although not atheist, hadn't really believed in a supreme being of any kind before and had never had an inclination to communicate with him or her either. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to get across, and so the idea of praying started tuning up the alternate voices in his head to object. It might be a lot like learning of a long-lost Auntie and being told a friendly phone call was in order: conversation doesn't flow even though as family you might think it should.

After a lengthy pause he figured he'd better say something, so as not to be rude.

"You know, God,...I think we really need to stop all this rain.

If you can hear me, we could really use some snow around here too. It's not right. Something seems like it's messed up.

...Maybe a little more rain in the summer would be good so we don't have another drought. But I'm thinking it's probably time to turn off the sprinklers for this winter and start the ski season."

Another hesitation. Many thoughts poured through Daniel's brain. Some of them coalesced into complete ideas his other _selves_ might want to converse with him about. The leading indication from these seemed to be that perhaps God doesn't take people seriously if they hadn't really thought out what they were going to pray about. Then, it hit him. Daniel didn't really know how to end the prayer. He tried to remember what his Mom had taught him three decades earlier. He knew you've got to put the Lord's name in there somewhere...that's sort of what seals the deal.

"Anyway,...I hope you can help us all out.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen."

Perhaps not the most graceful of prayers, but it certainly was a humble one. He took one more trip around his bedroom, flushed the toilet to finish business there, and then as a habit poked his nose through his bedroom blinds.

Of course there was no moon shining, or if it was it had hidden behind a thick layer of storm clouds as it had almost non-stop for the last couple months. Still, a few lights from neighbors reflected off of wet surfaces, and sure enough a light drizzle continued into the night. He was just about to turn around and make the final effort to lay his head on a pillow to attempt sleep when something caught his eye in the back yard.

There were shadows moving along the back property line moving eerily across the aging cedar fence. The fence seemed to provide the greatest contrast in the gloom but Daniel certainly couldn't make out shapes. A nice new contemporary white vinyl fence ought to take care of that...a project to be put off now that he had no steady income. Because the front and one side of his property had not had a fence ever installed deer frequently moved about his yard looking for food. It was a somewhat less common occurrence this late Fall because of the rain and because there seemed to be plenty of food up in the higher elevations free of snow where the deer normally bed down. Yet something did not seem quite right about these shadows and, while he tried hard to convince himself they were indeed deer, that's not the impression they gave. These shadows appeared to move in awkward, deforming shapes rather than the slow, graceful and intent movements of deer simultaneously looking for food and keeping an eye on the houses and streets around them for danger. They were also fleeting. No shadow seemed to stay long, sometimes one bubbling up from the side of another, but in the darkness and gloomy drizzle Daniel began to lose focus and couldn't make out much that could be identified at all. They were just blobs swarming about slightly more dark than the rain-soaked gloom around them.

Just, as he made a determination that is was either trees blowing mildly or deer pecking around for some of the out-of-season blossoms and weeds that had begun showing up, a pair of eyes very quickly turned and then rushed at the window Daniel stared through. It shocked him and he let out a grunted curse. As he pulled back quickly from the blinds he thought for sure something or someone was going to be crashing through the glass momentarily.

Nothing did. Daniel's heart raced though, and he could hear it pounding in his ears. _Maybe I'd better check the doors again,_ he thought. Something about the pair of eyes...no...it was an entire face, but so dark only the eyes really caught his attention initially, seemed so human. It would be better safe than sorry to ensure his locks were in place if nothing else.

Finally a short, but nervous few minutes later, Daniel was in bed, trying hard to keep his eyes closed while also convincing himself that all the noises from outside were just rain and deer, and those inside were just his imagination. Indeed, relatively speaking he had an easy time going to sleep for some reason. He dreamed many colorful dreams, most of which he couldn't entirely remember, but he knew they were generally pleasant.

In the last few hours of sleep Daniel dreamed he was standing in a meadow he could tell was still high up in Woodland Hills, overlooking the forest on this side of the mountains, the valley and lake below and he smelled fresh air and caught the sight of the first brightening signs of blue sky on the horizon behind the mountains across the valley. It smelled of fresh rain and a spring breeze and it was a welcome change from the sour, dank experience he'd had in the rain these past months.

While he stood taking it in, someone beside him spoke. It didn't surprise him and barely caught his attention initially.

"I think you should go on a trip, Daniel," the familiar voice said.

"Uh huh," Daniel replied. "Where to? It's almost Christmas."

The voice then placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in to continue the conversation. Daniel rolled his eyes to the right to catch the speaker standing there with lazy interest. The speaker was one of _himselves_. He was smiling at him invitingly, and the experience was neither shocking nor confusing. Daniel let _himself_ continue to speak.

"You should go to the old canyon lands and mesas. Go see the parks..." his _self_ cooed convincingly and smiled as he did so.

The doppelganger maintained his touch on Daniel's shoulders as he stepped around his back and then smiled into Daniel's left ear. This time however, the voice was deeper...and older. It sounded much like an interview he'd heard a very old Native American give on television recently. It sparked of wisdom and was soothing, while the voice became raspy at the same time. Daniel's eye rolled to the left and caught the glimpse of a tall Indian wearing a black cowboy hat replete with eagle feathers in the band and some dull rancher's clothes.

As the Indian gestured to the left, _the south_ , Daniel's mind clarified for him, his vision was whisked through valleys and then into canyons rapidly, as though flying in a plane at incredible speeds. The terrain was changing from the softened and forested Rockies he lived in to red rocks and odd crevices in the earth. As his vision moved on towards grand peaks just beyond the canyons and rifts it seemed to swerve and swoop from side to side and then delve in amongst the ridges and fins of rock standing up from the earth in defiance of gravity. It was a beautiful and inspiring view of places he'd only seen in post cards and magazines before; places he thought must be in the Goblin Valley, Canyonlands National Park, the Grand Canyon and other places nearly inhospitable to humans, yet comforting for that very same reason.

The moving vision had not yet found a place to rest, nor to focus on when it came to an end.

"You should go see the Mesas and canyons," said the Indian. "You should go find her..."

At that moment Daniel sat bolt upright in his bed and said rather loudly, "Who?!"

~~~

When sleep did return in the early morning, a new dream took the place of the friendly guide. He could see nothing but a shadow moving around him, never fully taking form. But it spoke to him. _Stay here!_ it would say to him. Daniel sensed a vague threat behind it too and it chilled him. After what little morning light arose to wake him, he found himself in a cold sweat and quickly showered to pull himself out of the dream world.

### December 4

### Heading South

It took an extra day for Daniel to really make a determination about a trip to the south to tour some of the parks. As he searched the web for places to stay and things to visit he settled on two parks in particular that he wanted to see: Arches National Park in the south east corner of Utah; Mesa Verde in the south west corner of Colorado. If he felt there was time he'd drive around to a few other places as well including the scenic loop through Silverton and Durango, Colorado. Perhaps the Grand Canyon and some of the other parks and historical markers would make it into his digital camera as well. But the one place that caught his attention the most was Mesa Verde. It was almost the first place that came up in his searches for parks and an image of a cliff dwelling along the mesas had haunted him until he made the final decision he was going to go.

Camping supplies wouldn't be hard for him to come by although he didn't have a tent. When he looked into places to stay he decided to rent a cabin at a KOA in Cortez because he knew he would need some heat at night, even if the dreary weather had kept temperatures above normal. It was more expensive than he wanted to spend with his remaining severance pay savings but it had a wireless internet connection and electricity to each site and would serve him rather well as a base of operations.

Weather was not going to be a problem. The Mesa Verde National Park website indicated normal high temps for December were in the 40s and 50s, but when he'd called for information the answering ranger said they had had a lot of rain with daytime temperatures still in the 60s on the mesa top. The policies of the park required pre-arranged Ranger-escorted trips down into the cliff dwellings during the fall and winter, so he proceeded to book tours on the sixth, one to the _spruce tree house_ dwelling and another to the _cliff palace_. The rest of the exhibits along the mesa top roads were all open for visits and even the museum had stayed open a little extra longer since they were still getting visitors in this unusual weather.

Cortez, Colorado should also have been in the 40s for highs in December but the KOA director said he'd seen nothing but 60s for highs, dipping into upper 30s at night. He indicated a heated camper trailer or a tent heater would be wise, but he had a few campers who had been doing fine without either. Dan figured the little kerosene heater he'd kept from his trips he spent with his late wife should be plenty.

A few preparations for the trip went a little askew as Daniel started preparing. The day before, December third, he'd ask a neighbor who lived on the cul-de-sac behind him if he had any fuel he could use for his heater and lamp. He knew David liked to camp a lot and always had half-filled "extras" of just about anything one could need while camping. But when David answered the door bell that evening something was not right. Daniel thought at first it may be that David was drunk, or perhaps drugged. The conversation had not gone well.

"Yes?" David inquired....Unusual because when Dan visited the greetings were much less formal and David usually was pleased to see him.

"Uh, hi David," Daniel started. "I was wondering if you happened to have a little left over kerosene I could use for the next couple weeks while I go on a little trip?"

David stared for a minute, seemingly trying to focus his eyes in the drizzly rain and early dusk of December. Finally, "Do I know you?"

Daniel's reply was a somewhat startled blurt. "It's me, Dan....I...uh...I know I haven't seen you for a little while because of the rain, but I was just hoping you might have some camping gear I could borrow."

"Dan?" David stopped to ponder a moment, his eyes rolling around at their feet while he considered. "Dan Tremon...from the next street over?"

"Yes!" Daniel said with a bit of a laugh, but feeling no real humor. "Of course!"

"Oh." David's voice was rather listless and uninterested after that. "I don't really remember you very well for some reason. But I guess you could borrow my kerosene bucket...that shouldn't be a problem. Let me go open the garage."

As the front door closed on Daniel, he stepped off the porch and moved around to the garage door. He attempted to stay as much under the protection of the eaves as he could to stay dry. The door didn't open very soon. He had just about decided David got lost on his way through the house to open it and was going to give up when it finally started moving and the motor driving the belt made its buzz while it worked. In the rain and dark the motor itself sounded tired and straining to do the job.

Once the garage door was up and Daniel stepped in he found David standing mid-way down the steps from the house into the garage and his wife, Ruth, was holding the door into the kitchen slightly open above him. David looked about a little but never looked at Daniel directly as he gestured and explained to his wife.

"This is David...from around the corner. He just came to borrow something."

Ruth replied quietly, "Oh, yes...I think I remember."

Ruth and David had hosted Daniel and occasionally a female friend from work to a couple dinner parties in their home and once an all-day Saturday marathon and critique of the _Lord of the Rings_ movies while they avoided the July heat just this past summer. Certainly Ruth should remember Daniel. He was, in fact, beginning to feel ill-at-ease with having visited the Normans at all that night when David finally brought the odd conversation to a quick close.

"What was it you wanted again?"

Dan smiled as best he could and asked, "The kerosene...if it's not a problem."

"Sure," David replied, "it's over in that front corner of the garage. Go ahead and take it."

David's only movement was a weak gesture with his arm to the location of the red 5 gallon kerosene bucket he had to offer. Not a muscle on his face moved or showed expression. Daniel moved quickly to snag the handle on the bucket and step outside the garage, and when he turned to express thanks David and Ruth both just nodded slowly without saying a word.

As Daniel walked down the driveway he pulled his coat up over the back of his neck and head to prevent it from getting wet in the rain, but he still felt something cold tickling the hairs there. Without looking directly back at them, he sensed and knew that they simply stared at him as he trudged past their lawn and down the street two houses before ducking between the second and third house to cut through the yards to his own home. He heard the garage motor start up about the second step he took out of view of the Normans and began to feel a little warmth returning to him.

_Zombies_ , he thought with a smirk, although he couldn't tell if he had thought it or one of his other _selves_ had thought it to him rather loudly.

His coat was in fact getting uncomfortable in the 55 or 60 degree evening with all the moisture and he decided to let it drop back down to his shoulders. The hair on his head started dripping rain into his clothes by the time he made it onto his porch but he didn't notice. His other _selves_ were standing in the background of his mind murmuring, apparently trying to decide how to engage Daniel in a conversation about what just happened, but it never came to fruition. All the while the soft rain seemed to have a voice of its own pattering and echoing in his head. _Stay. Must not leave._ The more Daniel resisted the chilling resonance the more he was determined to go.

On the second morning, December fourth, the kerosene, a sleeping bag and some blankets, several changes of clothes, as well as his laptop and a few other personal items were tucked into the covered bed of his pickup and the space just behind the driver's seat. The drive to Cortez was to be about 5 or 6 hours and he felt like he had plenty of time to get started out. He decided he'd stop at the breakfast shop down in the valley below him before hitting the interstate.

With everything else prepared and the home locked up, Daniel stared at the gray of the valley and lake around him. Sometimes in a lush green spring the lake looked brilliantly blue. Under cloud cover it was often a more menacing but interesting green-gray. In those cases the lake reminded him of the coloring of clouds just before an impending tornado front was moving through when he lived in Iowa and then southern Michigan on the outskirts of the Detroit suburbs near the "thumb" of the Michigan mitten for a while. But today, and every day since late September, the mountain lake was deathly gray. The mountains across the way, the lake and even the hills of trees around him looked as though someone had washed them in a dirty watercolor rinse. To Dan, even the country about him seemed to be zombifying...just like David and Ruth, and everyone else willing to come out in the rain.

### ~~~

Finally, much later in the day than he'd originally planned, Daniel stopped begrudging the rain and climbed into his truck. Woodland Hills happened to have a fairly evenly sloped path down to the valley so the road down was a straight and lengthy one, progressing four miles straight down the hill past an elementary school, some farms and the beginnings of the next closest town, Springton, on the valley floor. The road teed into the state route that ran out to the freeway, but he didn't turn left to get there, instead turning right to grab a bite to eat at the local morning coffee gathering place.

The rain had picked up from a drizzle to full scale showers, as though it knew what Daniel was planning and didn't want him to escape. Three cars, or more accurately, pickups, were parked outside the local gas station that doubled as a grill and coffee shop for the farmers in the area. If the British have tea time, post-three-pm was coffee and bullshit time in the few booths in the grill area. Non-farmers and people new to town were generally glared at, or given silent nods while the coffees were sipped.

Daniel was a good ol' boy at heart and had hit it off relatively quickly with the farming coffee club and was invited to sit down within three months of moving in...an unheard-of record. Today was apparently an off day though. No one bothered to even tip a cap towards him when he entered.

Daniel ordered a day's special of fish and chips, not terribly popular with the farm group, and then got his cup to fill with a Mountain Dew. He'd ordered a large. If he was going to drive for several hours he was going to need some _quick juice_ to keep him running. He then turned to the group of rednecks in the first booth and said, "Howdy."

The response was underwhelming. The eldest tipped his cap at him and mumbled, "Daniel."

The rest sat stewing over their cups of coffee. Most cups were down by a half already, and none seemed to be steaming, and none had been drunk since he walked in. Dan guessed they'd sat there for quite some time already.

"What's wrong, boys? You all seem half asleep."

John, one of the younger farmers that participated in the group regularly was sitting closest to where Dan stood and slowly looked out the window before replying gruffly, "Just kinda worn out. I need to see some sun."

"Ya, I know what ya mean," Dan replied.

But it appeared no one was going to invite him to sit down or converse. A few quiet minutes later after he'd retreated to the grill counter sipping his soda, the cook gave Daniel his fish and chips and he took it out to his truck to leave.

Dan's pickup was a hard-starter. While he held the key in the start position and waited for the loose old engine to rumble to life he swore under his breath. It wasn't so much about the truck, or even the rain as it had gotten even heavier while he was inside, but rather the attitude of the good 'ol boys in the dinner. Of course, the farmers here never expressed real enthusiasm nor commonly uttered particularly positive statements if you just looked on the surface, but the conversation underneath was an expression of camaraderie and general wellbeing when it flowed. The lack of interaction inside left a sour taste in his mouth, like he was being excluded or perhaps he'd walked in on a sensitive topic.

Once the truck was idling smoothly Dan threw the column shifter into reverse and checked his mirror before turning his head through the back window to back out. When he did he swore he saw a man standing at his tailgate looking at him, but it was so dark and the figure was so shadowed that there were no features at which to look. It was the glint of amber or red in the pair of eyes that truly made Dan jump when he saw it.

Immediately Daniel threw his right arm over the bench seat and flicked his head to see who the figure was. But when he turned there was nothing but rain and reflections off the tarmac and a few other lonely surfaces from the pair of halogen lights whose sensors had not allowed them to turn off once the sun came up for the overwhelming duskiness the rain produced.

He checked the mirror one more time, subconsciously trying to make sure the figure wasn't still standing there. Seeing nothing, Dan swore under his breath again and started to back out. For some reason an edge to his trip was beginning to sink in such that he was actually hesitant to turn around again to look through the back window to backup. He just idled slowly out of the parking stall in reverse without looking, secretly hoping nobody _real_ was standing behind him and then threw it into drive to get on his way.

Something was not right in Woodland Hills and Springton. Daniel was sure of it. Pulling onto the freeway, though it seemed more deserted than he expected, lifted weight from his heart and he began enjoying his now cold fish and chips.

~~~

With such a late start, Dan was hurrying a bit more than he felt he should. At this point he knew he would not get to the KOA before they closed shop, so he called ahead. After some mildly friendly chatter they agreed to put the reservation slip in a BBQ that now served as a decoration sitting just outside the main office. He could just pull in and setup since he had already paid online with a credit card.

The freeway certainly had some dull sections, and the rain, ranging from light sprinkles from higher clouds to downright torrents where it seemed it must already be after sunset made it tedious as well as dangerous. But along the way a few of the sites and attractions caught his attention. The rocks began turning red, and with all the rain the Pinion trees and Oak Scrub shown rich, dark greens in contrast, cheering him even more.

By the time he'd hit Moab and stopped for gas, the clouds had occasionally broken and shone on the red rock fins and canyons he was passing through. There was one point along the route where a natural arch was shaded by cloud but the sun illuminated the landscape beyond. Dan took several pictures he thought might be good enough to blow up and frame for his study back home. _Perhaps,_ he had thought, _this will turn out to be a really good trip for me._

Darkness had fallen as the sun set so early in the desert as the Winter Solstice neared. During this season the campground closed its office at 5:00PM but he didn't make it until well after seven so it was well that he'd made arrangements. As he entered the grounds just outside of a sleepy Colorado town the fresh and well-manicured gravel crunched under his truck wheels. He was wearing his lighter jacket but had the windows down, guessing that the outside temperature was likely still in the upper 50s. Although the valley below Mesa Verde, his intended trip for the following day, was quite a ways further south from his home he was still surprised and mused pleasantly at the idea that it was in the 60s in December down here as he pulled in front of the log-cabin office and got out to retrieve his paperwork.

As he bent over the paper-clipped bundle of papers and brochures for local attractions and parks in the shadow of the fluorescent light in the lot he heard a gentle and smiling voice behind him, and it took him by surprise because he hadn't heard anyone walking on the gravel.

"98?"

Dan turned trying to stifle his shudder at the scare. "98?"

A young looking woman, considerably shorter than him in a forest green slicker and an odd looking wide-brimmed hat smiling brighter than the Cheshire, had spoken. Her smile was intoxicating and there was an energy Dan hadn't experienced for a few months since the rains started up north.

"Ya!" she replied, playfully pointing at the stack of papers Dan held in his two hands. "Are you lot 98?"

"Uh..." followed by a cleared throat and a nervous look at the reservation sheet. "Ya, I guess I am."

"Well, I knew it anyway. There's really only one lot in that row left anyway so I figured that'd be you." The young lady stuck out her hand and continued the introductions. "I'm 97. My name is Rachel."

Dan took her hand gladly and was moderately disappointed to find her hand was gloved. Her shake was quite hearty, and even though it seemed to involve her whole frame somewhat comically, it was genuine and welcoming.

"I'm Dan."

For a moment, Dan stood somewhat stupefied and decided shuffling his papers was a good distraction until Rachel responded, her smile fading somewhat as she worked on her next statement. It was then that Daniel learned how deliberate Rachel was and that seemed to him all the more appealing.

"Well," she started, "I'll let you set up your camp first because it's late, but if you want to come sit by my fire I've got some hot cocoa...even some S'mores supplies...um...I think. I might have eaten them all, but I'll look."

"Oh! Well..." Dan thought about this. A KOA is not a singles bar. Considering he was in a town smaller than his own in the Southwest Desert it may actually be considered impolite to turn down an invitation to a camp fire. And Rachel's smile seemed to locked in place awaiting his next words. So he smiled and agreed he'd come over for a bit, but that the S'mores weren't necessary.

Rachel's glee was immediate.

"Sounds great! I've got the Smiths from 99 coming too. In fact, I think they're there already. I was actually just getting some cocoa packets from the vending machine here because...well...I think I've used all those up too."

"Ok," Dan sniggered. "I guess you have a sweet tooth?"

It was hard to imagine considering she was a good 6 inches shorter than he but probably still couldn't weigh much more than one-hundred pounds. In fact, after a few minutes more conversation as she paced quickly away to the row of small camp stalls Dan would begin regretting the extra twenty-five or more he was carrying on him. But it wasn't important anyway considering he had to be ten or fifteen years her elder.

"Ya, I guess I do," she'd replied. Her smile kept warming Dan, as though he hadn't just missed out on warm conversation for the last couple months in rainy Woodland Hills, but had never experienced it before. It was like a brand new sensation. But he shuffled a bit before asking his next slightly less friendly question.

"What's with the hat, anyway?"

"Oh!" Rachel replied. "I'm actually a forest ranger, and this is my Ranger's hat."

A puzzled look squirmed into Dan's countenance. "What are you doing at a KOA camp then?"

"Well...I worked this past season at the Mesa Verde Park just up the road and now I'm off. Sort of between jobs you could say."

Dan didn't think ranger's had "between jobs" times. His confusion must have played on his face just as easily as puzzlement because Rachel took it on assumption to keep explaining.

"I am probably going to transfer to the Canyonlands for a year, and...well...I'm one of the ranger educators...I'm one of the ones that gives tours. I don't patrol or carry a gun or anything."

"Oh, I see." _But not really._

"Ya. I'm kinda a pacifist, really. Normally all but a couple educators leave the park for the winter. And those that stay don't get too many requests for tours. See, we have to take people down to the dwellings during the winter because it can get too snowy and slippery."

"I'd heard that. In fact, I have a tour scheduled in a couple days from now, but they say it's probably going to be in the 60s still."

"Really?!" Rachel responded happily. "I think I'm the one scheduled to give you the tour. It's my last one and we only had a couple people call and ask for the sixth."

"Oh great! I'm sure it will be a lot of fun then!" And Daniel meant it. Rachel had an energy that was lifting his spirits considerably.

"Ya, great! Have you ever been to Mesa Verde?"

"No, I don't think I've been this far south ever, really. Well...except when I went to Las Vegas once for a convention."

"Well!" Rachel leaned in conspiratorially and continued, "it's better when there isn't a huge group. It's almost like you can feel the spirits there of the people that built it."

"Ya?"

"Oh ya! ...And it can be pretty spooky too!"

"I'm not too sure I'm in to being spooked right now."

"Ah, don't worry. A ranger wouldn't let anything bad happen to you." A genuine smile of pride shown on Rachel's face. It wasn't often that Dan met someone that truly loved their work, but Rachel clearly did.

"Anyway, because I'm not too sure where I'm going next or what time of year the parks I put in for are going to need me, I decided to take the holidays off. Since I'm not working, they can't house me there, and _voila!_ Here I am camping at a KOA camp!"

"Gotcha. But you're working tomorrow?"

"Ya. I got kinda roped into it because another ranger left on Monday too. But now that I know who's on the tour I'm excited. Between you and the Smiths, it should be fun!"

"Oh! So the Smiths are here for that too?"

"No...But I'm working on them. They need a break."

At this Rachel nodded her head and welcomed him to come over to the fire one more time. Her gait was quite intense, clearly on a mission to entertain her guests. Dan thought he could just make out the shadow of a pair huddled around a smallish fire near some other tents setup.

_Cute kid,_ he thought. Still he was smiling as he hopped in his truck and pulled it around into the first row of lots the camp hosts were using for the brave December campers and parked in number 98. After about 15 minutes of getting gear into his rented cabin, which was actually a fairly comfortable and permanent large canvas tent with two lights inside, Dan gave up trying to seem occupied and committed to sitting with Rachel and the Smiths around the camp fire glowing just thirty feet away. It was too dark and he was actually a little too interested in the camp fire and cocoa, and company, to spend any more time getting comfortable alone.

~~~

The conversation turned out to be very enjoyable, despite the cold and an occasional start of sprinkles. Rachel mostly told stories about Mesa Verde and some of the other desert national parks she'd worked in as the Smiths asked her questions. Daniel learned the Smiths, who were likely in their 60s he guessed, had stopped at the KOA en route coming home from Texas. Apparently they'd just sat in, watching grandkids for a couple months while their daughter got settled from a divorce. Other siblings had gotten involved and the elder Smiths seemed to be avoiding getting back home to whatever phone calls, emails and other interferences were likely soon coming from their several children and grandchildren. A short break to enjoy some crickets and quiet evenings in the middle of now-where, Colorado, seemed appealing to Dan just as much as the Smith's made it sound.

Rachel's hot cocoa was some fairly neutered Swiss Miss from a packet in a vending machine, just as she had told him earlier. Dan put three packets into his one big mug of steaming water from the fire that he was offered and that carried him through the hour of chatting before they'd all agreed they were ready to get some sleep.

Both Dan and the Smiths offered to help douse the fire and clean up a bit. Rachel was using a vinyl tent that was much smaller than the ones like that which he rented. He thought it looked a bit cold, but didn't remark upon it. After getting to know Ranger Rachel a bit more, he thought he would offend her, insinuating that she couldn't handle it or something. A crappy song he'd heard on the way down about some Ms. Independent throbbed in his head as he thought about it and he decided just to leave it alone for now.

In the end, Rachel wrapped up her blanket and a few other items and wished them all a good night, stepping into her tent. Daniel and the Smiths left somewhat together, although it wasn't much of a walk. Each lot was about 20 or 25 feet wide by 30 or 40 feet deep. It didn't offer a lot of privacy from tent to tent, but in some ways without much else immediately around the campground there was comfort in that too.

As Dan stepped around a little spruce planted in the igneous rock décor at the corner of his camp lot Mrs. Smith said to him in a lowered, gravel-y voice, "She sure smiles a lot, doesn't she?"

Mr. Smith chuckled but the comment still took Dan unaware, so he turned to look at the Smiths. Mrs. Smith turned back as they continued on and gave him a friendly wink. Without a suitable response Dan just smiled awkwardly and raised a hand to say goodnight, stepping into his tent much the way Rachel had when it was decided the visit was done. Only after he'd gotten inside the heavy canvas and turned off the front entrance light did he smile a bit and huff at the thought. _I'm smiling too, though_ , he thought, glad he'd left Woodland Hills behind for a while.

December 5

Hearts on Sleeves

Through the night and morning of December fourth and fifth Daniel's dreams were not as pleasant as his arrival in Cortez. When he awoke he recalled voices repeatedly telling him he can't do this and won't be able to do that. David and Ruth's voices were in the mix. His own father's voice, though long dead, lectured him too. Among many familiar voices there was also one which seemed the most unkind of them all, and it was that voice which spoke to him most frequently through the night.

He did not recognize to whom the main voice might belong. It was deep, and it rumbled through his sleeping ears as it spoke like thunder from a nearing storm. Indeed, wrapped in the sound of it there seemed to be multiple voices echoing the same words repeatedly. Upon waking later in the morning it occurred to Dan that the speaker he heard might not be a human at all, so gravely and distorted as it was. The words were more felt than heard in the dreams, as if another mind were forcing thoughts upon his own rather than conversing with him.

The last dream of the night was a singularly imposing dream which he was able to recall focused on the dread and degrading owner of the voice. It frightened him from the onset, though Daniel did not know entirely why. He could not wake from it despite his efforts and he was forced to run through its course to the end.

In the dream Dan found himself in a forest, dark and wild, but beyond the fairly small clearing in which he stood there seemed to be a glow of light outside of the ring of trees encasing him. He would take a few steps towards a wider gap in the thick and interlocking trees, but each time as he got just close enough to the gap to see that each opened to a trail beyond the ring of trees which lead up the hill towards the light, a shadow stepped from between the trees and blocked his path.

"You cannot go that way. It is not for you," the shadow would say, the owner of the cruel and deranged voice that had been berating him all night long.

Its rebuttal to Dan's attempts at escape came across as a challenge as well, but the shadow loomed so large in his dream, that Daniel knew it best to continue to look for another way. Yet every time Dan would find a break in the tree line as he scanned the perimeter of the small field the shadow barred that way too and told him the same thing.

Finally, Dan gave up his pursuit of an escape path in disgust. Standing in the center of the clearing he then looked up for some encouragement. Indeed the trees parted slightly just above his head but the vision changed in that direction and confused Daniel even more. He felt as though he were sitting at the bottom of a pool looking up through the shimmering surface and he could see Rachel, the ranger, moving about, preparing a meal at the edge of the pool as she might in her own camp stall. Dan raised his hand to her and could not reach nearly far enough to break the water. As he did, many faces gathered about the edge of the pool and glared down at him, smirking, some pointing and mocking. David, Ruth, several other neighbors and former co-workers, even the recently-met Smiths were there and deriding him for his inability to reach out of the hole in which he stood.

As Daniel began lowering his hand in frustration, Rachel noticed him from the view above. She looked down and flashed her beautiful smile, extended her own hand, breaking the shimmering surface above, and asked, "Do you want my help?"

Dark mist intruded above and hid the view of Rachel as well as all the taunting acquaintances and Dan's arm dropped to his side again. The dark voice spoke to him again immediately in front of him and Daniel jumped as he looked down.

"You can't leave here, Daniel," the shadow said in a grumble. "And you must come back."

~~~

The dream itself did not wake Dan, but it was certainly a factor a couple hours later when, at 7:18 his eyes slowly came apart and he checked his watch. A car had just started, small from what Dan could tell, but with a noisy aftermarket exhaust, and pulled out from where he guessed the camp office might be. Whomever was driving it crept slowly, clearly trying to keep the idle low and the impact on the few quiet crackling fires and birds monopolizing the waking hours minimal. The tires cracked the gravel together almost soothingly.

Eventually, after the car had left, a few more people were up and about making noise, and the sun started climbing over the Mesa to the south on this slow-starting December day Dan arose. Outside the air was quite crisp and he'd guessed it might have dropped down to the upper 30s overnight. Dew had collected on just about everything, making the bench at the picnic table in his lot unappealing. A glance around told him all he wanted to know: Rachel was apparently gone, although the Smiths were enjoying a fire in her stall.

"Did you two scare Rachel away?" he asked as he stepped over the decorative barrier of rock between the two camp lots.

"No, no," Said Mrs. Smith with a smile. "She just had some things to do up at the Mesa and in town she said. I suspect she'll be back this afternoon."

Unconsciously, Dan's mood fell a little. But he moved to start making his own preparations.

"Would you like some flat cakes and coffee, son?" Mr. Smith inquired this time. He didn't speak as much as Mrs. Smith, but that wasn't saying she was particularly chatty either.

"Oh? You have all eaten then?"

"Oh yes. We've been here four days already and the good ranger has been up a good hour or so before us every day with plenty of food....Apparently she likes to cook too."

Daniel thought about it for a minute and then agreed, opening up a folding chair leaning against the table in Rachel's lot, hoping it was not wet. He enjoyed some very buttery and perhaps vanilla flavored pancakes and conversed lightly with the Smiths for about thirty minutes before deciding he really needed to get more productive.

Following the meal he checked in with the camp host at the office, bought a small chug jug of skim milk and headed into to town in his pickup to gather a couple bottles of water, a pair of better-suited hiking boots, and on a whim a greeting card from the super store. The card didn't really say anything except a silly comment and sketching of a dog with comically huge eyeglasses indicating the pup was, "Glad to 'see' you!" His intentions were to write a thank you note and leave it with Rachel following their tour the next day. He wasn't sure how much longer he'd stay at the camp, nor how long Rachel had planned either. But he figured it was a good way to show his appreciation, and also leave it as an open invitation to more talk later if she liked.

Though the rest of the day had limited appeal as Dan shot a little pool in the camp office and awaited a return from Rachel, an early return was not to be the case until evening when Dan had left the camp again to go try out a local Mexican restaurant the Smiths had recommended. Many of Cortez' residents and visitors on his venture brought up the unusually warm and wet weather. One did make note that the Sleeping Ute range had finally received some snow at the tops in the last 24 hours. Daniel pondered the timing with his drive down to the area, and Rachel returned while he was away.

~~~

Pulling into lot 98 after dinner, Daniel saw a fire glowing in the lot next to him along with three shadows now familiar. He parked the truck and nodded at the loungers when Mr. Smith raised a hand to say hello and took his food into the canvas cabin. He had been pleased to see there was a small refrigerator included in the cabin when he unpacked the night before and stored his groceries in it for the "special" surprise he was considering tomorrow after the tour. After storing them he exited and went over to the fireside.

The conversation mostly revolved around kids and grandkids and Rachel seemed to have a lot of opinions about the psychology of parenting for someone so young, single and apparently, as Dan gathered during other topics of discussion, an only child in her own family. Daniel amused himself listening to Rachel concur and advise the Smiths on how to handle the feuds boiling up around the divorce back in Texas. But to his surprise they in turn seemingly took her suggestions seriously and responded in a manner that they were considering her words. Whether this was cute or weird, he couldn't decide. But eventually conversation turned to the tour for the next day. Apparently the Smiths had committed to attending and wanted to know more about the Mesa.

"One of the sites we'll see has a couple windows painted like it was a face to warn people away."

"So these cliff dwellings really were forts?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"Well...we can't be absolutely sure of anything. We just go by the clues and make good guesses. But Cliff Palace and most of the others were actually dwelling places. There were even farms in the valleys below them," Rachel answered. "It's just they're likely more easily defended dwellings than living on the mesa above or down in Cortez Valley below. We know there was a lot of fighting for resources by 1000 or 1100 AD."

Mr. Smith interjected, "And then they just all disappeared not long after that?"

"Well, they were there for a hundred years or more....But...ya...they just sort of leave."

"And not long before European explorers started showing up in the Americas..." Smith pondered. "Interesting. What drove them away, you wonder."

Rachel took on her Ranger's tone in answering these questions but was also very clearly excited by them. "You can't be sure...but I'm thinking it was the lack of resources like trees and maybe some of the fighting we know was going on in this valley. They would have known about it, and that's why we think they moved down from the mesas in the first place."

Dan's interest was piqued by the motives for building the beautiful structures he'd seen on the website and started asking questions as well.

"You'd think that would be very tedious living, going up and down and in and out of those caves to their farms or whatever....Wasn't it dangerous too?"

Rachel knew she'd hooked her entire audience at that point and leaned back in her chair to reply. "Yes. We think the mortality rate was well over fifty percent for infants and toddlers."

"Eeesh!" replied Mrs. Smith. "From falling?"

"Again, we can't say for sure, because there would probably be a lot more health threats then too. But...ya...we definitely found signs on skeletons of broken bones and such very often. On everyone of every age, really."

There was a pause while Mr. and Mrs. Smith considered the tragedy of it all. For Dan that wasn't too surprising or even terribly interesting. He felt a sort of, _what would you expect_ , indifference about it. But Rachel had a different view.

"When you think about the souls that lived there, you have to kind of wonder...and a lot of people say they feel some bad vibes when they're in the dwellings."

Dan prompted, "Really?"

"Ya. There's a painting of another face inside one of the rooms that we'll see. It isn't really a pleasant picture. Some think it's a religious ceremonial drawing but most people get pretty creeped out in there. I don't know what it is."

Everyone took a sip of their coffee and Dan crunched a s'more Rachel was able to provide this time around.

"For me, I just feel like there's a bunch of old souls hanging around there...like they want you to know they were there."

Mrs. Smith shivered. Mr. Smith took her hands and excused themselves saying they're sure they'll learn a lot on the trip tomorrow, but that Mrs. Smith didn't deal too well with "spooky." It wasn't a curt departure because they'd both been yawning and getting drowsy anyway, but it was a fairly quick maneuver to leave. After they'd gone Rachel snickered a little and elbowed Dan who was sitting relatively close next to her.

"What about you? Does the idea of spirits send you packin' too?"

Dan smiled back. "No. I can get spooked...and I think there are definitely souls around. But it won't scare me off. As a matter of fact, I suppose you could say it was a spirit that sent me down your way in the first place."

During the course of the next three-and-a-half hours huddled around the fire, Dan tried to explain a lot of what he'd been experiencing the last several weeks in cautiously chosen words. He even ended up detailing the dream about the Indian who'd sent him on the trip to the south. Rachel interpreted it as a 'vision' just as he had initially, but it seemed clear she was not entirely comfortable with the description. Dan thought perhaps she wasn't quite ready to believe him and backed off at that point talking about spirits.

There was also a lot of discussion about the rain, and again Rachel put on her old-wizened-woman look and expounded on the effects of global warming. But more importantly, the two of them got to know each other pretty quickly, and Daniel learned he really like Rachel. He wasn't sure what that meant to him, because he still felt she was too much his younger to ask her out for drinks. But he was glad for her company and didn't particularly want it to end when he went home. He began to devise what he'd write on the greeting card he'd give her tomorrow after the tour that could interest her in perhaps maintaining a pen pal...or email pal...if rangers even had access. Feeling ignorant, that was a question he thought he might have to pose in the next day or two as well.

When he left the camp, Rachel stood and gave him a hug and thanked him for listening to her. It lasted longer than he might have expected and he grew a little uncomfortable. Her smell was that of pine, oak and clean forest soil, and he found himself dreaming of a forest again the night of the fifth, but with no darkness or blocked paths to follow, and therefore had a good night's rest.

December 6

Dwellings and a Soul

Rachel apparently wanted to keep their date for the tour fairly business-like as she was gone by the time both the Smiths and Dan were up and moving about the camp. Dan thought he'd heard that small car rumble to life and leave again earlier and decided it must be Rachel's ride. He thought it was probably an appropriate thing: small and vocal like her.

Breakfast was the Denny's in town, but after returning to the camp he decided to shave in the bathroom and shower area on the backside of the camp office. All cleaned up, he then prepared a couple sandwiches for the day. The tour appointment was at 1:00PM, but he intended to go up a little early and visit the museum near the Spruce Tree House before meeting Rachel and her audience there. The visitor's center itself on the mesa near their other tour location, Cliff Palace, was closed from November through March, so there was no sense trying to hunt down a souvenir, at least not from within the park itself.

Parking in the museum lot next to the four other cars there, the area seemed to Daniel to be a grounds of several small out-buildings connected by a tarmac path and had a cute, touristy look to it. Hand-carved signs directed visitors to the ranger's office, a facilities building or the museum among scrub oaks and various low desert bushes. The museum building itself appeared to be older than the others around it and it had various levels and nooks and crannies, almost as if an old house had been converted many decades ago, or perhaps added on to. Dan couldn't decide on his own how that might have come to be up on the top of this mesa with little appeal to anyone but perhaps cattle ranchers, but he felt very at home while looking through the dioramas and displays of artifacts. A small wood fire burned in the entrance lobby, keeping the one remaining ranger staff there moderately warm, while the rest of the building was still shaking off the near-freezing temperatures the mesa top must have dropped to during the night.

The officer at the counter was dressed in full ranger's regalia but by Dan's estimate had to be about one-hundred and two years old. He asked if he could assist and Daniel politely explained that he was there for the scheduled tours at one and that he just wanted to look around the museum for a while. In the immediate room behind the ranger's desk was the hallway lined with glassed-in dioramas of the construction of various living quarters the Native Americans had built through the centuries.

Dan looked through the dioramas for nearly twenty minutes even though there were only five of them, progressing from the early first few centuries AD through about 1200 AD. The first few stages up until the 600's or so held his curiosity due to the nature of the homes' construction. They were called "pit houses" and they appeared to be sunken nearly head-height into the earth. Later stages seemed to have stones and such to line the perimeter dirt walls, but all of the evolutions of pit houses had wood and thatch roofs. There was an explanation that roofs frequently caught fire and were often rebuilt, but the people had devised a very ingenious way of building a fire in the middle of the pit, evacuating the smoke through a central hole in the roof, which was apparently also the entrance, and a fresh air intake drawn from one side of the pit through tunnels up to the surface. The fresh air was directed by stones, apparently to reduce the draft and prevent it from blowing out the fire, or spreading the smoke throughout the room.

As he continued to look through the dioramas until the era of the second millennium he learned that the pits had progressed to become the "kivas" of the cliff dwellings. Those were the gathering places and family rooms of the dwellings and were apparently sometimes used for religious purposes. While everything about the constructions and their development over about 1000 years was amazing, Dan still wondered how the stackings of rocks had managed to survive another eight or nine hundred years afterwards until the present. He stood marveling at the last diorama of the cliff palace and little figures tilling the earth in the valley below when the atmosphere in the museum seemed to change suddenly.

Daniel felt as though someone was standing just behind and to the right of him, looking over his shoulder. The feeling was so strong and his heart was racing so that he was stalled, stuck in the position seemingly unable to move his body. He began to wonder if this is what a possession might feel like, remembering various horror films he'd seen from time to time. _What is going on?!_ he thought. Dan had never been out of control of his old body to the best of his memory and the overwhelming feeling began to sink his spirits deeply. The room seemed to be darker than it had been when he entered, as if a cloud had shadowed the sun suddenly.

Slowly moving his eyes to the left to peak up the hallway, he could just see a corner of the ranger's desk jutting out from the opening. It was a mere twenty-five feet away, yet it seemed so far. He realized intuitively that the old man had left without catching Dan's attention. Perhaps he was somewhere else in the museum straightening up or something, but Daniel felt very, very alone at that moment...and yet not at all alone.

Once he had the strength to return his view to the cliff dwelling diorama he noticed a pair of red glints in the glass and stared. Allowing his eyes to focus back to the glass rather than the diorama inside he could see a ghosted and opaque image of himself, looking terrible, and the vague outline of a shadow standing behind his right shoulder. The glints seemed to be the creature's eyes. With noticeable intent, the eyes lowered as if they were then looking at the diorama and the figures in and about the dwelling.

Daniel looked to the display as well and found a new fear welling up. The figures were moving! More accurately, it was as if a film was being projected in slow motion, ghosted over the diorama by way of the window reflection. It seemed to depict the figurines in the valley and at the opening of the cave dropping their various objects in fear and rush to collect children and belongings in and around the dwelling. Something horrible was happening and it was happening quickly to these people, even though Dan was being shown each nuance of panic at a painstaking and heart-breaking pace.

Able to lift his eyes back to the shadow, Dan was finally able to whisper after three false starts, "What is it?"

The shadow's eyes had met his for the question and then lowered again. Daniel returned his gaze to the dwelling in the cliff again. Most of the stick figures had climbed back down to the valley floor and were rushing altogether out of scene. There seemed to be a pause, yet he still was unable to move, frozen by his own fear. Finally, out of one of the structures in about the center of cliff buildings and just above the largest of the Kiva's he saw a face and perhaps a shadow of a body peer from an opening. Then a waterfall gushed from the cliff faces above. It filled the valley, washing away the plantings and natural trees alike. It seemed to catch enough of the cave lip that the dwellings were filling with water. All remembrances of the figures who had just fled were being washed out and into the valley below.

Ghost images of water stopped flowing and the real figurines still stood. Daniel looked to the glass again and the shadow behind him was gone. He was also able to make his body kinetic again, turning quickly to see if the being who stood with him and showed him the vision could be detected anywhere else about him.

"You okay, young man?" said a spindly figure with an aged and cracking voice down the hallway in the opening. It was the ranger.

"Did you see anyone else come in here after me?"

"Bah! No, of course not. We don't get anyone in December really.... Well, except for this year of course because it's been warmer than usual."

"So no one?!" Dan pleaded. He found his feet would take direction again and he hesitantly headed back to the front counter while asking.

"No! No one!" The ranger moved back behind the counter as Dan approached and rested his tired frame on his right arm perched atop the counter.

"Ok," Dan nervously searched his pockets and appeared as if he were looking for something to the ranger, but even Dan didn't know what. "So...where did you go then?"

"I haven't gone anywhere," he replied. "I've been right here the whole time....Didn't you hear me on the phone?"

Daniel glanced furtively at the ranger and back to his pocket searching.

"No. No, I guess I didn't."

"Well, son, you probably need to hurry if you want to see any of the other exhibits before your tour. You only have another half an hour."

"Okay...thank you." And Daniel shuffled out the museum door quickly. _A half an hour? I had almost two hours when I arrived I thought._ Checking his watch, sure enough it was nearing 12:30 already.

He went back to the pickup in the lot through the winding paths and sat at the wheel. He stared dumbfoundedly out the window for a few minutes puzzling over what had happened to him. It was something that _happened_ to him. The whole experience was not his, and not in his control. Something put him into the situation of unease and weird visions and that neutered not just his ego, but to some extent he was beginning to question his sanity.

After a few minutes of self-contemplation, Daniel opened his sack and had one of his two sandwiches and downed a can of soda he'd bought as well. The meal did not sit well so he put his head back against the back glass of the truck cab resting and thinking at the same time. _There is something after me_ , he consciously acknowledged for the first time. With that a world of opportunities opened before him, but not of the possible outcomes seemed pleasant. What if he was in real danger? What did this person or thing want from him? Time slipped quickly towards 1:00 while he stared straight into the scrub in front of his parked truck until Rachel and the Smiths happened to toddle by his front bumper on the way in from the parking lot.

The Smiths were holding hands and Rachel walked behind conversing from there. But as she approached the first corner of Dan's truck she waggled her fingers and smiled unreservedly.

"Going to come in?" she yelled.

Unrolling the manual-cranked window on his side, Dan replied, "Oh, of course....Just have a little indigestion."

"Okay. Just come to that Ranger's office next to the museum in the next two minutes or you miss your tour, sir!"

Dan mustered a grin and nodded.

He thought for a few minutes more about the events of the last few days. Of course, that expanded to the last two months or more to a time shrouded, for the most part, by heavy clouds and a rain. A lot of rain. Why were things so down back home? And why were they so nice here in near the four corners? And most of all, why is this thing attacking him down here? The only thing he could think of was... _He wants me to go back home!_ Yes, that must be it.

Generally, even in this supernatural line of thinking, Daniel always applied logic. His mind simply worked in an analytical way, and he was proud of that. In this case, it didn't make any sense for some ghost or something to be haunting him because he hadn't ever known anyone that would be angry after they died. There must, therefore, be an agenda. And in Dan's mind, the present agenda was to get him back home to Woodland Hills.

Taking out a piece of paper and an old pencil from a mileage record book he used to keep, he wrote down several words that came to him immediately as he thought about the thing which gripped him inside the Museum. He was sure it was the same as the one at the gas station, outside in his backyard, and who else knew where. In quick printed text he formed a short working list.

Ghost

Wraith?

Demon

Spirit

Poltergeist?

Soul

Checking his watch it was 1:01PM and he knew he was going to be in trouble with Rachel. But he sniggered for just a second as he realized two out of the three names were models Dodge had produced in the past. _Soul_ was another car, and _wraith?_...he realized that was a movie that featured a Chrysler prototype car as the McGuffin for a good wraith. _Charlie Sheen_ , he thought. _Yeah. That was a cool movie when I was a kid._ Perhaps he was over-reacting to an over-active imagination. He slipped the paper under the flip down console in the middle seat and hopped out to run to the Ranger's station.

~~~

"Ah! So you will be joining us Mr....Tremon, is it?" Rachel greeted as Daniel approached the Rangers' office.

The Smiths and another couple were waiting with her. All smiled, but Mrs. Smith's hid a bit of mischief behind it. She winked when she knew she had Dan's eye for a moment.

"Alright!" Rachel said as she tucked a couple pieces of paper in a fanny pack she had under her Ranger's coat. "I think we're all set. If you will just follow me past the museum here, we'll be taking a fairly easy path down to the edge above Spruce Tree House and stop there for a moment."

The path through the oak was pleasant, and though there was a spittle of rain in the air it was mostly dry along the walkway itself providing sure footing. Here and there Daniel observed some peculiarities he didn't see too frequently in Woodland Hills. Along the side there was a very small cactus growing, looking very much like the pot shaped cacti one might see in animated movies and such, except that it stood only about 3 inches tall and wide.

"Ra...Miss," Daniel stumbled nervously and thought perhaps he should address her formally while they were touring. "I see a little cactus here. Are there any of the big Saguaro cactus on the mesas too?"

Clearly Rachel hadn't really pondered that question before. "Well, no. We're really too high in elevation for that. I'm not really sure why that's managed to grow there. But we have a pretty odd mix of growth here. I think part of it is because the elevations change so much, and maybe part of it is the Native Americans who lived here propagated species from other areas of the southwest."

Perhaps Ranger Rachel had never thought about the cactus before, but she definitely had answers. He liked that. She knew her job just as well as she seemed to enjoy it. That was admirable to Dan.

As they tromped down the path a little four-inch lizard skittered across in front of the party. Everyone paid it a respectful glance as it clambered over a rock and hid from view, but it seemed odd to even see one out. The temperatures had climbed to the low 60's already so it was very comfortable, but Daniel didn't think the animals came out too much once winter had started settling in. About them the sky was a lighter shade of gray and even a stab or two of winter sun shone through throwing highlights on certain regions of rock about them as they descended a little from the mesa top. But around the mesa and off into the distance there were certainly very heavy clouds weighing in their thoughts about December weather. Only a single bird flew during this first stage of their hike and it seemed to be simply moving from one side of the gorge ahead of them to the other, perhaps alighting in a nest there. It was definitely not on the hunt, and that seemed more appropriate to Dan considering the impending storm front in the distance.

Finally they stopped in an area sequestered on three sides by giant boulders thirty or more feet tall about them. There were hand rails continuing from the path they had already followed out to the apparent edge of the mesa, but here was a widening area of tarmac and several signs providing information and directions. There seemed to be two or three pit houses, or Kivas in the area immediately behind the area Rachel had taken up to address the five of them.

"Behind me you will see a couple pit houses that we have dated to about 900 AD. These are the more sophisticated pit houses and are the last stage before building the Kivas we'll see in a moment down in Spruce Tree House," she announced sounding official.

"One of the pits has been reconstructed so you can see how they may have assembled the wood and thatch roofs.

A third pit is over here just to my left. You can see a ladder coming up out of the ground. In this case what we seemed to have found is a Kiva-type construction with the stones not only used to line the walls but to create an arched ceiling and then back-filled with earth to insulate.

If you happened to visit our museum or have been here before you may have heard about the 'chimneys' these people made to keep the houses warm. The earthen pit house has this feature too, and in fact it's how we happened to find this building. Once the 'chimney' was found we were able to locate a small hole in what seemed to be a man-made chamber, but the inside had been filled with all sorts of things, including earth, some skeletons of both animal and human, pottery, and other remnants."

Rachel's expression changed mildly from lecturer to co-conspirator but she maintained her formality in tone as she continued.

"We're not really sure why they would have filled up this room."

"I was just going to ask!" chortled the man in the other couple who had joined the tour.

Rachel smiled and laughed a little with it, but this was not the one he was familiar with. He thought of it as her "formal" smile she must use while on tours, just like the formal tone she used while leading the group as well. It was familial and comfortable enough for the audience at hand but certainly practiced.

"Everyone does," she continued. "That's why we actually have two archeologists who focus on these pit houses each year during their work on the Mesa. To date we just don't have any real ideas. The human skeletal remains appeared to be just fragments from a couple different complete skeletons and were probably previously buried and brought here later. There doesn't seem to be any reason for the pottery or other animals either. Some of the pots appeared to be just thrown in and broken while they were filling it in, and others are so far just shards of pottery we haven't found yet.

It's difficult to guess why they might have done it, but it probably happened late in the 10th century just as they were getting ready to move down into the cliff faces below."

Then Rachel stepped aside somewhat purposefully and said, "If you would like to explore the three pit houses here you may take about ten minutes and then we'll continue down to Spruce Tree House. Please be careful climbing in and out of the earthen kiva as it is a small opening and inside the rough stands only about four-and-a-half to about five feet tall at the opening."

Daniel did peak in all three and was impressed at the construction. In some ways he felt these homes in the earth would be more comfortable than his own back in Woodland Hills. He longed for a more simple life and that drew him to reflecting about what he'd do for work in the spring. When his turn came to enter the covered kiva he quickly shook those thoughts off and scolded himself, remembering that he'd come just to relax and enjoy himself for a while.

Inside the kiva it was considerably darker than even the gray and drizzly exterior had been. He let his eyes adjust and realized a pit home may not, in fact, be the place for him. He felt claustrophobic. But at the same time, there seemed a sense of loss to him standing in the room. The building had a very physical sense of being emptied out. It was a sensation of people having been, and then being no longer that struck him. It was like heat flowing out of a building in winter. Even though the heater will run, the same set temperature in winter feels colder than summer because the heat is escaping from the room. The kiva seemed to be doing the same, drawing energy out of him, giving Daniel a chill despite the coat he was wearing that was too warm for the sixty-degree weather.

When Daniel emerged out of the hole, Rachel motioned and called for everyone to rejoin the group. As they did Daniel stood next to her, subconsciously trying to shake the cold he'd felt.

"That was a weird sensation in there," he mumbled quietly to her.

Rachel turned her head abruptly and searched his face for a moment. It surprised Dan a little and he reflexively leaned back a bit from her. Then she regained her composure and watched the group assembling. Whispering she replied back to him.

"I know what you mean I think."

"Ya?" Dan attempted a whisper back but his voice was too deep to be terribly quiet.

"Ya. I don't like it in there. Even in the summer."

Then as the other four lined up before them and struck poses of anticipation, Rachel quickly returned to her tour mode.

"Alright! Are there any questions?"

No one had one they wanted to address, but everyone joked lightly about not having much elbow room in these homes.

"Let's head down to Spruce Tree House."

~~~

The trail down from the kivas near the ledge of the mesa was considerably more inclined and difficult. It was suitable enough in the summer for most visitors to the park, young or old, but had there been snow or ice it would be terribly dangerous and could potentially even take someone unawares over the face of the cliff. Rachel had warned them, too of the potential for black ice and there ensued a short jovial conversation amongst all six of them about the likelihood in the 60 degree weather. Still the same, Daniel kept his eye open per the instructions, knowing it probably got well below freezing the night previously.

As the group approached the dwelling every one of the visitors were gawking and snapping photos, including Daniel. The idea that the living spaces had sat here in the cliff for nearly a thousand years without crumbling was amazing from his perspective. Prior to moving to the Rockies he'd lived in a larger city where land had become so valuable, even in a down market, that people would buy fifty-year-old homes, pull the house down and start over again with a contemporary home. But even without that intervention, Daniel knew most modern construction would not last more than a few decades unkempt, let alone a full millennium.

"...Many of the areas have of course deteriorated so there are some structures which we know were here within Spruce Tree House which no longer exist," Rachel was continuing on her ranger's explanation as part of the tour once they had stopped a few yards from the cave. "Like the kivas above, the ones in this dwelling, and all the dwellings in the park, would have had a wood-log and thatch roof. Those are gone, but if you look at the wall of the main tower and some of the other standing walls you will see some of the framing wood that they used to build the multiple floors."

"Is that the original wood too, then?" asked the woman from the other couple on the tour.

"Some of it is!" Rachel was in her element and clearly loved speaking about how humans had so affected the landscape. "However, we've begun a sort of restoration in the last five years or so, because even just since ranchers first found these dwellings we're beginning to see some pretty significant deterioration. I guess you could say it's lucky modern society found them when they did instead of one-hundred years later or many of the rooms would not still be standing throughout the park."

"But how do you know how old they are?" asked Mr. Smith.

Before Rachel answered, Daniel leaned to him and mumbled, "The graffiti."

Mr. Smith smiled back and leaned in closer, "What do you mean?"

"Inside a lot of the rooms there was a spray-painted sign that says 'Kilroy was here. 1002 AD."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Smith chuckled with Daniel, and that caught Ranger Rachel's schoolmarm eye. It surprised Daniel a bit that she had the capacity to elicit such scorn when her countenance normally radiated such joy. But the momentary look was apparently just a play, because her smile returned and she scolded 'Mr. Tremon' and explained they had more sophisticated means than that.

"Most of the carbon dating actually put the logs in the framework at very late in the tenth century AD. But because we can also date the trees in the valley back to a certain date, as well as other artifacts in the dwelling and around it we know that Spruce Tree House was probably began just after 1000AD and completed by before 1200 AD when they suddenly disappeared.

At any one time we think there were between 100 and 120 people living here, but there are more rooms, including the kivas, than that. So it could be that some were for storage. We know that some were also used for ceremonial purposes, and some of the kivas were used as family gathering spots."

After pointing out a few other features and expounding on the anthropologists' ideas about the people that built the dwellings Rachel invited them to move into the dwelling to check out the rooms, provided they stay in the roped areas and not attempt to climb anything. Daniel poked around some of the front walls and stuck his head inside a window. Then he returned to Rachel's side while the others kept peering in amazement. The gentleman from the other couple shot photos of just about everything, including using his scoping lens to capture the cliff faces on the other side of the ravine where a few smaller dwellings had been built.

"So...where did these people go when they all suddenly left?"

Rachel's reply was official enough, but Daniel detected some nervousness about it.

"Generally they moved further into the desert and became the pueblo-building Native Americans."

"But...?" Dan pressed.

"Well...I feel like I know you well enough I can tell you something and you won't freak out on me or think I'm crazy, right?"

_There it is,_ thought Daniel. _I knew she wanted to talk about something._

"Of course not, but...what is it?"

"Well...I've been working at Mesa Verde for about four seasons already. I used to really love coming in here and looking at the rooms and imaging the people. It gave me a sort of weird feeling to think about these incredible old souls that would have been here...sort of like the dwellings were still alive, keeping people warm."

Dan nodded, "But now you're feeling a little creeped out by it all?"

"Ya," Rachel nodded. She did not turn to face him but looked up and scanned the Spruce Tree House buildings as if she was looking for something. "How did you know?"

"Well...you kinda mentioned it last night. But I'm also noticing you don't like to get too close the buildings...you're just letting us crawl around them here on our own."

"Ya....I guess I'm just not as excited about it anymore. Maybe that's why I'm looking for another park to work in."

"No. I don't think so."

This time Rachel did turn to face him a bit. While not unpleasant this was the first time her expression was entirely serious and intent since he'd met her.

"I think you're feeling something or you saw something that's made you really uncomfortable. Did you?"

She turned back to gazing at the construction and folded her arms around her as if to keep herself warm. Before answering she dropped her eyes to her feet and leaned back against a rock outcropping behind her so that her bottom was perched on the rock and her legs were kicked out in front of her. She crossed one foot over the other almost as though she was trying to force herself to be casual about the conversation. But the charade didn't last long. A tear fell from her left eye, which she wiped away and sniffled at before continuing.

"Earlier this year I started feeling like someone was watching me. I would go on the tours for Cliff Palace and swear someone was following us down the hike into the dwelling and it would sit there and just watch me. Crazy isn't it? To think something is there following me when there's fifty other people making a racket the whole time?"

"No," said Dan. "I don't think so. In fact, I've been sort of feeling like that the whole time I've been down here...even at the campground."

"Really?!" Rachel startled.

"Well..." Daniel found himself back-peddling a little as he did not want to worry her while he'd just gotten Rachel to open up a little. "Not in the campground itself, per se. But sometimes I feel like there's someone watching me from just outside of the area...Just outside of my view."

"Ya." Rachel returned to kicking the earth with her one relaxed foot. "Anyway...one time, I think I saw him."

"The guy who's been watching you?"

"Yes, but...I wouldn't say it's a guy necessarily." Rachel looked up from where she was leaned at Daniel to judge his expression when she explained, more tears were flowing down. "I think it was a ghost or something."

"Really?" Daniel's inquiry was quiet and soft though. He wanted to hear more, because it felt good to know he wasn't the only one haunted by this craziness.

"Ya," she replied sniffling and wiping her face with gloves again. "He felt like an old soul that was here when the people still lived here....But he's really angry."

"He seems pissed off to me," Daniel replied. Fortunately, that elicited a smirk and grunt from Rachel. He was glad he could buoy her up a bit.

"He does." Rachel stared at Spruce Tree House. "It's silly, I know, but even though I didn't ever see him anywhere but the Cliff Palace, I look at these other dwellings and I'm scared. I don't know why. I'm just scared. I feel like there's ghosts all around me when I'm in there, and I just can't do it anymore."

"I understand."

"Do you? You're not just trying to calm me down when you really think I'm crazy?"

"Nah." Daniel was now shuffling his feet too, and avoiding looking at her as well. It wasn't because he did have a tough time acknowledging what she was saying, he just subconsciously didn't want to expose his own feelings right then either. She needed a listener, and as a friend, that's what he was trying to do.

"You may actually be crazy," he smiled. "But I don't think you're crazy about this."

Rachel then stood up, and stepped to him. She placed a gloved hand on either side of his face and aimed him square into her eyes.

"Look at me."

He did. Her eyes were so bright blue and seemingly desperate to find something that he did not dare look away.

"Tell me you believe me."

"Yes, I do. I do, Rachel. I've seen this thing."

Her hands fell and slipped into her parka pockets again. Head cocked with a confused look on her face, she quietly asked, "Where have you seen it?"

"It's been harassing me at my home. I think it's been around ever since the rain started in October. I can't say that I really _saw_ it until about a week ago now. It's kind of partly why I came down here for a break. But I saw it in my yard and in my dreams!"

Rachel finally took a step back, giving Dan a little more comfortable elbow room between them. She squeezed her brows together and thought about this for a moment. Then she started to turn away to lean against the rock again.

"You're just teasing me, I think."

Daniel did something he felt was a little forward then, since he'd only known her for a couple days. He grabbed her hand and held it in both of his for a moment.

"No! Rachel, I've seen this thing here! In the museum, just before you saw me in my truck!"

"Now that _is_ crazy!" She said, smiling again, but she was searching his face with her eyes again. Doubt was clearly departing and she awaited his explanation.

"While I was looking at the dioramas I had a...well...I don't know what else to call it, so please don't laugh at me. I think I had a vision. But he was right there standing by me when it happened. _That's_ why I was sitting in my truck for a bit...it completely freaked me out....I seriously think he's trying to scare me away from here."

He had almost slipped. In his mind Dan had nearly said, _to scare me away from you_. But Dan was still uncomfortable offering his mind, and his heart, to the young woman so openly. He wondered why etiquette had to be so restricting. He was feeling a connection with Rachel, but his instincts told him he should say so and in turn freak her out too.

She smiled, gratefully, and replied, "I wondered why you didn't get out and walk in with us...you seemed like you were a little more interested in me than that."

Dan returned the smile but stammered as he said, "Well...yes...I mean...I think you're a pretty neat lady. I like listening to you."

Rachel's smile broadened, but she looked down at Dan's extended hands. "Um...you're still holding my hand."

Quickly, Daniel released her hand and cleared his throat. "Sorry. I didn't realize. I just want you to believe me."

"I do."

Rachel put her gloved right hand on the back of Daniel's neck and moved to pull his face down to hers as the top of her head fell well under his chin when they both stood upright. She planted a very quick but warm kiss on his check and whispered a thank you. Daniel did not quite know what was intended by the gesture but thankfully he didn't have the opportunity to open his mouth (or at least use it for something other than gape since his jaw was already notable dropped) and say something stupid.

Their conversation was cut short by another throat cleared nearby. Mrs. Smith was within a few paces and flashed a teasing grin their way. Her husband and the others were still wandering about the ruins and flashing as many pictures as a smart card could hold, it seemed.

"Well, I do like to see when we're all getting along," she huffed. "It's nearing 2:30 though and I'm wondering about seeing that Cliff Palace before it gets much darker...or rains. You know it's been getting dark by about 5 already."

"Oh! Yes!" Daniel replied suddenly energetic again. "I forgot, I actually have a really nice bar-b-que planned if all of you would be willing to let me cook for you?"

"And it doesn't rain!" replied Mrs. Smith. "Of course we'd love to join you!...Wouldn't we dear?"

Rachel smiled her precious smile at the elbowing Mrs. Smith had just given her.

"Of course!" she added to the conversation. "I'm not a big meat-eater, but I do love a bar-b-que."

_Dang!_ Daniel thought. _I should have thought of that before buying everything._

"OH!" Said Rachel, "I almost forgot! Did you all know about the Luminaria tonight?"

"The what?" Dan asked reflexively.

Mrs. Smith shook her head and Rachel looked frustrated with herself.

"So...there's a special little event we're doing tonight. It's free to the public. You meet in the museum up above any time from 4:00 to 9:00PM and there's music and such. Then you can hike down here and we're putting up lights throughout Spruce Tree House."

Rachel then checked her watch.

"In fact, my guess is some of the rangers will be here in the next hour to start setting up. We should really get going if we want to see cliff palace and still make it here. Maybe we could have the bar-b-que for lunch tomorrow?"

"Oh. Yes, of course."

"I don't have to attend if I don't want to. But I was thinking I'd come for the music and stuff. Maybe take a last few pictures since they only do this once a year...Would that be okay?"

"Sure. We can do that," Daniel replied.

Mrs. Smith, now rejoined by Mr. Smith, nodded and mentioned it would be a great send off before they left the campground the following morning. With that Rachel gathered the others and directed them to the Cliff Palace for their next tour.

~~~

Park rules required the group to travel back around the Spruce Canyon branch of the Chapin mesa to get around to the Cliff Palace. Rachel, who had said normally they don't even give guided tours of any site but Spruce Tree House, was quick to identify the liability issues of escorting people around in a Ranger's vehicle during winter. It was a modification of normal park schedule to bring the small group to the cliff palace after November, but seemed justified as the temperatures were still so pleasant in this, the almost second week of December. In fact, the entire trip on the Mesa so far was devoid of the soul-crushing rainfall Daniel had left behind at home, and the sun had even peered out once in a while.

The parking lot for Cliff Palace was larger even than the one for the museum and Spruce Tree House. Dan found himself looking forward to this part of the tour, imagining that it must be even more spectacular than the last dwelling. Rachel had gone on ahead from the last location and so he had not seen her depart, but he did hear a familiar rumbly car down the road. Its exhaust seemed to be reverberating through the oak forests. When Dan pulled in to the lot there were a few cars, more than the three he had been expecting to see. He had already pinned the big dually pickup for the Smith's, even before he watched them get back into it. The other couple was apparently driving around in a small cross-over as they were just hopping out of it as he arrived. That meant Rachel either tooled around in the old Chevy pickup he saw there, or one of the two non-descript small cars. Dan figured rangers likely didn't make a whole lot to afford a new car, so he took comfort in believing that both he and Rachel preferred something reliable with a bed for hauling stuff. Try as he might to remind himself that Rachel was better as a friend...a very young friend, than someone he might have feelings for, so he tucked that happy thought about simpatico pickups into the back of his mind.

A brisk stroll down another pleasant path which featured a closed-for-the-season souvenir and snack shop brought him to a hand-rail enclosed landing with a large boulder at the head. Rachel had taken up position there at the rock to make her next spiel.

"As you can see to my right over the balcony there is a steep incline down to the Cliff Palace. The path down is not too terribly bad, and we've never lost anyone yet! But I must warn you that you will be climbing approximately 100 feet of ladders, the longest of which is just about the last one to get back out of Cliff Palace and stands seventeen feet.

Every once-in-a-while we'll get someone who needs to pause, or needs a little extra help or encouragement. But again, it is a bit of a climb and if you have heart trouble or a fear of heights you might want to reconsider visiting Cliff Palace."

Rachel glanced around the group, but with none speaking up, she continued.

"Okay. We're going to go along the path to a small landing with some places to sit almost directly underneath this boulder. Will you all please join me there while we discuss some of the research that has been conducted at Cliff Palace and some of its features."

A few minutes later the group was assembled and sitting on what appear to be man-made ledges and stairs underneath a boulder. It was well that they had cover as the rain finally did pick up a little, increasing to a slow drizzle.

"Now this particular dwelling housed upwards of 100 people and is the largest single construction in the park. It was found in December 1888 when the Wetherill brothers and a Mr. Mason were looking for cattle and they stumbled upon this site. The mesa next to this one was named after the Wetherills..."

The explanations went on for about ten or twelve minutes. At times one of the other four asked Ranger Rachel some questions and she elaborated in good detail. But the entire time Daniel couldn't take his eyes off the rooms in the cliff. There were some very high up tucked against the roof of the cave. One room seemed to have three most notable windows and there was some coloring around them as if someone had tried to patch the stonework, or painted over something. He was about to ask when Rachel mentioned it herself in her presentation.

"We think they actually made those windows to look like a face. In fact, there wasn't a lot of room in that area, and based on what was found there our best guess as to its purpose is that it was a look-out room.

Now, you can see how the area around the three windows have been colored by some pigment. We found that to be a paint or dye made from roots of some local plants. Again, we're not sure why they would have painted that area, except to make it look like a face."

"You're saying the Indians had painted that?" Dan asked incredulously.

"Yes! That's actually in the original state almost 900 years old."

The woman from the second couple spoke up for the first time, asking, "Why would they paint it? Is it supposed to look like a face?"

"We think so. All we can figure is that for anyone coming up from the canyon or from the other side from the top would see that as a sign... Perhaps they were telling threatening tribes that they are watching and can see them coming."

Now the gentleman again spoke up. "So would the people in the other cliff dwellings be a threat?"

"No. From what we can see there was never really any fighting or signs of violence in these dwellings other than just injury from falls and the like. From what we can tell, these mesa dwellers were all one big happy family, and likely traveled at times to Cliff Palace to participate in some of the ceremonies, particularly in the largest kiva you see at the far end.

But we do know that out in the valley near Cortez there were a number of battles. They seem to be fights resulting over resources. We really can't determine any other reason for these pueblo peoples to have left the mesa except that the resources, such as trees, were clearly disappearing."

"But it's like a forest here," said Mrs. Smith.

"True. But of all the material you see here, whether dead or living only dates back to about 900 years ago. You can see that the main material in their quarters was stone and adobe, and that they even took time to shape the stones. That seems to imply that that was either the best resource, or the most available at the time these buildings were assembled from about 1150 AD to almost 1300 AD. But they did need wood. Can you think of why?"

Rachel had obviously reverted to her summer-time wrote presentation, even posing questions as she might if there were children in the group.

"Fire!" said Mr. Smith. "How else would they have kept warm?"

"You got it. It seems like they burned through their local resources and the most logical explanation of their departure seems to be that they ran out of the ability to warm themselves.

Sweeping her arm across the view of the valley behind her, Rachel continued the thought. "Unfortunately, it takes a good couple-hundred years to grow some of these taller oaks you see around us. As it took longer and longer for them to go out and bring items back to the cave it probably became less of an advantage to live here after that."

"What about moving back on top of the mesa?" Dan asked.

"Well, it would appear that they had used up most of the resources there too. And, it's tough to come by enough water up there, whereas down here they could collect pools of water during rain that would pour down from the cave entrance. We know that they also had springs towards the back of the caves where water would seep through the earth and collect in a large number of these dwelling places. It's probably another reason they moved down here in the first place."

"So by 1000 AD everyone just packed up and left it all behind?" frowned Mrs. Smith.

"Well...by 1300, really. This particular dwelling we think was started sometime in the 1100s and was likely done with well before 1300."

Following a quiet Q&A, Rachel led them down to the structures and Daniel noticed she was considerably less comfortable. She pointed out the method of assembly and made a point of indicating the mortar contained urine and other chemicals to help act as a catalyst. She showed them were repair work was done, explaining that they had determined it would be better to preserve the dwellings even if modern material was needed than to have them just fall apart. Lastly, she pointed out the largest kiva and an adjoining set of rooms, one with a window just above it. She invited everyone to look into the window where an ancient drawing was found but to not actually enter the room. Daniel noticed an edge the others probably didn't when she made the request.

While the others poked around and each took a turn looking in the room Daniel simply stood nearby Rachel watching. Both wore an expression of apprehension as if they were awaiting something terrible to happen. A roll of thunder sounded overhead and Dan knew they were not going to be able to extend the visit to Cliff Palace as long as they had at Spruce Tree House. The climb back up the path could become a bit nasty if it rained heavily.

Finally, with everyone else looking into the kiva or taking photos of each nook and cranny, Daniel left Rachel's side to look inside the room. It was dark. Even on a sunny day it would likely have taken a moment for eyes to adjust. But along the wall opposite the window he peered through there was definitely a collection of markings. They did not appear to be the ancient cave art found in Europe and other locations which Daniel had seen on on TV. These marks looked more modern, more deliberate, and perhaps more stylized. It appeared to be a series of large and small arcs formed together into what might be a face, or a mask. The largest of the markings curved upward and outward from the center and could have represented the horns of a goat or who knows what.

As Daniel gazed he could make out etchings in the wall around the design. None of it made a whole lot of sense to him but it gave him a chill. He thought of ancient peoples sitting here in the room working on the art and wondered if they had any idea who might later be a part of their legacy. When his penetrating stare attempted to center on the design again, a strange bewilderment came over him. He was unable to actually focus his eyes. It was as if a fogged up mirror was preventing him from seeing his reflection clearly. His eyes teared up bit he was not able to pull himself away from the window either. Indeed his frame had been frozen again, just as it had in the museum, and he dreaded what would happen next.

There, across the very small room was the shadow seemingly addressing him again. The most recognizable feature being the glints of red in the center of its head, it wanted him to see something. He could not avert his eyes. The shadow seemed to coalesce into a more discernible shape this time though, the head mimicking the shape of the markings on the wall beside it. Arms lifted from its side in a questioning gesture.

Lightning struck again much closer this time. As it did Dan jumped, the first opportunity to move again, but still unable to withdraw from the room. There were people! Several men and a woman were either standing or sitting near the shadow. The light reflected on their darkened skin and dark hair. As the light faded again he could still see them. They turned and watched Daniel while the shadow slowly turned cocked his head back and forth.

Spittle fluttered from Daniel's mouth as he tried to speak. In fact, he was attempting to scream but he was still locked by the presence before him. In his mind he considered saying a sort of prayer like he'd done the previous week before first seeing the shadow in his yard and thought better of it. Instead he repeated in his mind what he thought he might be saying out loud to the shadow. The figure extended his right arm to Daniel as he began the recitation.

You can't hold me! I don't allow you in my mind!

You cannot hold me! You have no right!

The thoughts were so loud it was no wonder Dan thought he might be saying them out loud. The words virtually echoed about the room until the shadow dropped his arm and released him. Daniel could move again. He began pulling his shoulders out of the window. The other people in the room were gone now as light started filtering in past his own frame. But the shadow was bobbing its head as though he were acknowledging the request Daniel had made, but only reluctantly.

As he stood up, Dan placed his hand against the exterior wall of the room and took a deep breath. He looked about to where the others were. The other four guests were getting ready to return to Rachel, but she in turn had put her hands to her mouth and returned Dan's worried look. They remained that way long enough for Dan to appreciate she understood what just happened. Then he nodded as he pulled away and started walking towards her.

Rachel became the ranger again and started giving directions as calmly as she could.

"Folks, unfortunately, I promised you several ladders than just the few you see here at the dwelling. Our exit is actually on the southern end of the cliff. Let's please hurry for your safety before this rain storm really hits hard."

As the other two couples trudged up the small ravine, Rachel showed them the path up, which consisted of several ladders just as she had promised, each made of thick wooden logs. She took a moment to point out several hand-holds the archeologists supposed had been carved out by the dwelling occupants to make their ascension to the mesa top when they lived here. Soon all but Rachel and Daniel were on the ladders. Daniel gave a cold, forced smile to Rachel and put hands to the ladder to begin his climb.

"You saw, didn't you?" Rachel asked quietly. Her head was turned down obscuring her face with the brim of the ranger's hat from the others now nearly at the top of the climb.

"Yes," Dan replied. "Same room?"

"Yes."

They did not speak any further until they were all gathered on top.

"Thank you for visiting the park today. We can't possibly give you all the details of the dwellings at Mesa Verde, particularly of the other 180 locations located throughout the park. But I hope this has sparked your interest. The museum and ticket sales at Far View are closed at this time of year, but I hope you will browse our Spruce Tree House Museum and take a look at our presentations of ancient and modern Native American art there.

As a reminder, particularly since we somehow failed to let the Smiths and Mr. Tremon here know about it, we do have our Luminaria presentation tonight beginning at 4:00PM and running until 9:00PM where we light the path and buildings of Spruce Tree House and host music at the museum and park center. Park entrance is free after 4:00PM and refreshments are free.

Please pass on your experience to friends and family, and as you depart the park, please be sure to travel safely. These storms can bring some surprises sometimes!"

Everyone, including Dan, expressed appreciation. A few questions were asked about the Luminaria Holiday event and it sounded like all were interested. After the other couple headed to their car, Mrs. Smith continued the conversation.

"Honey, Mr. Tremon here offered to make us a delicious bar-b-que this evening for dinner. But as we talked about it I think maybe we'll put that off until tomorrow for lunch and come see this Luminaria tonight."

Oh! Great idea!" Mr. Smith replied. "I bet the dwellings are really pretty with the lights on them."

"Will you be coming tonight, Rachel?" Mrs. Smith inquired again.

"I..." Rachel was a little hesitant in providing an explanation. Dan understood why, he thought, but he was glad to think the Smiths might just put it off as her timidness rather than a fear of anything further."

"Really, I'm not sure... I wasn't going to." She turned to Daniel looking for direction. "How about you?"

Attempting to make the conversation much more natural, he replied, "Ya. I think I will. It could make for some great photos. Besides, maybe you two can teach Rachel and me some classy dance moves if they're playing music."

Mrs. Smith chuckled and Mr. Smith outright laughed at the idea saying that he hadn't danced for nearly thirty years. But an agreement was made all around that they would see each other by about six later that evening. Daniel lingered as the Smiths moved to their own car and drove away. As she was smiling out the passenger window at them, he was pretty sure he knew what Mrs. Smith was thinking about him and Rachel waiting to speak. He only wished it was the type of nervous conversation she likely presumed it would be.

"So..." Started Dan.

"Ya...so..." Rachel started walking abruptly back to the beginning of the trail where the tour began. "Did you really see something?"

"Yes. Rachel, there's something wrong down there."

Rachel stopped and turned to him, snorting a derisive laugh. "That's what I'm talking about. I can't stay here. But I asked a couple other people about it and they just laughed it off."

"Who did you talked to?" he continued even though she'd turned again and was walking briskly towards the closed shop.

"Oh...just some other rangers."

"And they didn't believe you?"

"Well...I think they sort of believe I felt or saw something."

The walk was so purposeful it pounded Rachel's frame and Daniel had trouble keeping up even with his long stride. As she continued to talk her voice bounced with the hits and was erratic.

"I guess everyone feels creepy in some of the dwellings, especially that room. But they made fun of me and told other people."

"I'm sorry," Dan said. "Hey! Can you hold still for just a minute?"

She finally paused. Both of their breathing was beginning to mist. The rain that had started up also brought some colder air with it. It was finally beginning to feel like fall and both were ready to drop the whole conversation and find somewhere warm to get the tension to release them.

"Are you going to come to this Luminaria thing tonight or not?"

Rachel replied that she would.

"Alright then. Just relax. You're done here now. Enjoy this evening and then go ahead and move on. It's not your issue anymore."

Again Rachel replied minimally, only nodding her head. She withdrew her keys and started walking towards the old pickup Daniel had pegged.

"I'll see you there," Dan offered as he raised his hand goodbye. He was at a loss of what to really do to help Rachel. He didn't really know her that well and he was still having trouble authenticating his own experience he'd just had, let alone have the means of understanding why it was apparently common.

As Rachel's exhaust echoed away from him, Daniel hopped into his own truck, started it, and awaited it to warm enough for the idle to even out. He returned to camp thinking he'd see both the Smiths and Rachel getting ready to return for the event at the museum a little later, but never did.

~~~

Night had settled already as Daniel drove back up the winding path on the northeast side of the park towards the road branching towards Chaplin Mesa and the Spruce Tree House. It was rainy and cooler than it had been that last few nights at that time so he'd brought his warmer winter coat. Pulling into the museum parking lot he guessed there were a good thirty cars or so—many more than he would have expected. Most of the plates were from Colorado and Utah though so he imagined it was people from neighboring towns that must come to enjoy the lighting of the dwelling each year.

Candles lit the walkways from the maintenance shop, the chief ranger's office and the museum. It warmed him to see and for others to be milling about smiling and listening to some light music. The lights and atmosphere reminded him of one Christmas he'd spent in Florida and their evening trip to the decorative Disney shopping center there, despite the increasing cold of the Mesa. Unfortunately, he noticed that most visitors were dressed in formal attire and he'd worn his boots and jeans on the assumption it was an outdoors experience in the cold.

Just as Dan began contemplating returning to the campground from his embarrassment Mrs. Smith walked up to him quickly from a small group.

"Mr. Tremon! I'm so glad you did come. Please, I want you to meet some friends from Texas that just happened to come tonight!"

A slender, elderly, man who was probably a good ten or fifteen years older than the Smiths greeted him.

"Ah, they say it's a small world, and sure enough we can't go anywhere without running into Ted and Janine," he smiled.

_So the Smiths had first names,_ thought Daniel. The elderly couple in that moment became a representation of all then things Daniel had hoped for with his late wife. Perhaps a retirement with a loving partner was still in the works for him, but he did not think so when being honest with himself. He would love to have someone like Rachel in his life, but he somehow also knew he couldn't try to hold an active young woman to his slowing interests. How could he be justified in taking the ranger out of her to settle down in little old Woodland Hills.

Dan returned the smile and offered handshakes as well. After a short introduction and conversation, the gentleman offered to take Daniel's name and number and see if one of his contacts back in Dan's area had any work for him. It was a blessing Dan hadn't even thought about since leaving home and he has glad then to have made the Smith's acquaintance on the trip. _Maybe_ , he thought, _not everything is messed up. Maybe I even imagined most of that with this shadow thing._

"So...have any of you happened to see Rachel here yet?"

"Of course," replied Mr. Smith, now Ted if Daniel was to take them literally at their offer to address one another by first names. "She's in the museum I think trying to stay warm."

"Great! If you'll excuse me for a moment."

Ted continued as Dan moved to walk away, "Son, you might be a bit under-dressed though. Just a warning."

Both couples smiled as they took sips of their drinks and watched Daniel head into the museum. He was already uncomfortable enough; he didn't really need Ted driving the point home. But once inside he felt the advice ringing through his head, if only momentarily.

Rachel was standing by the front counter and speaking with a couple, nodding and smiling gently. Her hair was done up so that her neck was exposed. Glistening against her skin was a fairly spectacular pearl and diamond necklace, but even more notably for Dan, her dress was a black, narrow formal gown that exposed her shoulders. It hugged her waist and hips and flowed down nearly to her ankles.

Daniel couldn't help the moderately stifled guffaw and exclamation under his breath as he approached her. "Holy crap!"

Rachel caught his eye and excused herself from the couple, smile changing from her typical Cheshire grin to a pleasant but thin-lipped one. She walked gracefully and placed her hands folded before her when they met in the middle of the room.

One eyebrow rose as she responded to Daniel's gape. "What's wrong with you? Haven't you ever seen a girl try to look pretty before?"

"Well, bu-shah!..." he struggled. "Of course, but...you're so...you look terrific! I guess I'm sort of used to the tom-boy ranger."

She slapped his upper arm playfully, harder than Daniel might have expected from a slender, shorter and very much more feminine figure than his own, laughing with a snort as she did so.

"Look, I'm allowed to be a woman sometimes!"

"Alright, alright! I get it."

Then Dan stepped back and gazed for a moment trying to take in the vision.

"Wow! I just can't believe how great you clean up."

Smiling, Rachel took him by the arm and walked him into one of the adjoining art exhibit rooms.

"Alright. So what about you? Did you forget your tuxedo or do you only own cowboy clothes?"

"Well..." again caught by his embarrassment Daniel tried to explain, but it only came out as a whine about not being told. He concluded with, "So it's not really my fault."

"Fair enough," Rachel replied amicably. "I don't suppose you have that other jacket you were wearing earlier today?"

"It's in the truck still I think. Why?"

"Because as pretty as you may think I look, I am freezing my arms off here!"

"Oh! Sure! I'll go get it for you."

"I'll walk with you," she said as they exited the museum from one of the side doors. "I just don't really want to put on my ranger gear. Too many park questions from those that know me as it is."

"Not a problem." Daniel removed his winter coat and put that around Rachel's shoulders. "Why don't you just wear this and I'll wear the jacket."

"Thank you."

They walked quietly to the truck, Rachel putting her arm through his again. Daniel recollected his dates with his late wife nearly two decades earlier and something clicked in recognition. _I guess I do know how to be a little bit romantic after all_. Guilt at not taking time for it either before or after he and his wife had married before she died so many years earlier made the moment with Rachel a bit less comfortable. But he was still glad to have met Rachel, and wondered if he should clear the air with her, since they may never see each other again after a day or two.

At the truck, Dan pulled out the lighter jacket he tucked behind his seat and put it on. Rachel stood waiting, anticipating they would head back to see the lighted Spruce Tree House path and the dwelling. The rain had held off reasonably well for the last couple hours and had only begun lightly sprinkling since Daniel arrived at the museum. The prospect of putting a holiday glow on the environment seemed to both Rachel and Dan a very good way to end their time there.

But then Rachel noticed the envelope slightly tucked under middle fold-down seat console.

"What is that there?"

"What?" asked Daniel turning his head around awkwardly as he'd been all set to close the door and return to the walking path.

"That envelope there that says, 'Ranger Rachel'?"

She gave Daniel a cock-eyed look and one of her glamorous smiles, then reached for the envelope, pushing past Dan before he had a chance to react.

"Well..." he stammered. "I haven't really written anything in it yet..."

"No," Rachel snickered. "I guess you haven't really....What's this supposed to mean? 'Glad to see you'?"

"Well...I'm not sure. I think I was mostly going for generic..."

"Definitely that..." Rachel replied still smiling.

"And...uh...inoffensive."

"Well...you've covered those very well. I think it's what you write in this type of card that really matters."

Daniel closed the passenger door to the truck and they started walking back to the party and towards the lighted path down the hill from the museum. Rachel put her arm in his once again.

"Ya...that was sort of the intent anyway..."

Rachel turned her head to look up as they walked and continued, "So...what were you going to say?"

"Um..."

Since Daniel was a little reluctant she stopped walking and turned him to face her.

"So...Daniel?"

Dan found himself smiling irresistibly back at her own winning smile.

"Well...I was thinking I'd ask if you'd like to keep in contact after you leave Mesa Verde and I head home."

Rachel started walking again and pulled him along by the arm.

"So...like...you want to be pen pals or something?"

_How stupid it sounds when she's teasing me about it!_ Daniel thought. This wasn't exactly going the way he was hoping. That was part of the reason a moderately anonymous greeting card left with her after their last chance at a face to face interview was possible was part of the original plan. As they kept walking she seemed to sense she made him uncomfortable, try as he might to hide his face reddening.

"You know, I feel like we've gotten to know a lot about each other in the last couple days."

"Ya."

"Well...if we're going say some sort of goodbye here I think you should buck up and say it like a man." She slapped his back a little playfully and snickered again while she did it.

"Oh!" Dan snorted. "I guess...well...that's not really what I meant here!"

"No?"

"No! I...uh...actually, I really was hoping I could see you again."

"Really?"

"Of course! I think you're a pretty neat lady and,... well...I just didn't want to meet such a person and not have anything come of it."

Now halfway down the path towards the Spruce Tree House dwelling they could see the rooms lit from within and it did indeed provide a warm glow. It was as if this dwelling, anyway, had life and family flowing through it again.

"I see," Rachel replied stopping them so they could look at the dwelling. Her smile dimmed somewhat, not unpleasantly but with a sense of complacency. "You wanted to take some pictures didn't you?"

Dan fumbled, thankful for the distraction and took out his camera, framing and zooming it such as to provide a variety of compositions even from the one position on the hill. Rachel had released her hold on his arm so he could work.

"I guess I should tell you, I'm really, really not interested in a relationship right now."

Standing up from a photo he was taking from the knee, Dan replied, "Oh! Not a problem! That's not really what I meant either!"

It was perhaps a little too enthusiastic of a reply, but if Rachel had sensed an overcompensation she was kind enough to let it drop.

"It's just...I don't really know what I'm doing for the next little while. And...well...the last boyfriend I had was back in college almost ten years ago and he was pretty much a jerk."

"Oh! No! Absolutely, I understand!" replied Dan, again over-exuberantly.

"Do you?"

Rachel's brow was furrowed. Dan pondered it for a moment but then nodded trying to make sure she was comfortable with him still.

"You see," she continued, wrapping her arm through his once more, "It's not that I wouldn't like a relationship with you."

Daniel swallowed a little harder than he expected. _What's going on here?!_ He thought. _Oh God, please don't let me mess this up. I don't want to hurt her._ He still didn't have any predilection towards a deity listening to him, but the emotion was raw enough he wanted to hedge his bets if at all possible.

After a short pause Rachel began again, assuming her audience was too rapt to give any indications himself.

"I think I'd really love to be a very close friend. Would that be okay?"

"Oh, yes! Of course. That's what I was hoping!"

He didn't know any more if that really was what he was hoping or if he'd been trying to find more there or not.

"That way, I can still feel like I can look around and grow up some more before I get serious about anything again."

"OK," Daniel's strong vocabulary was back at it again. "I'm totally good with that."

"Thank you," Rachel said quietly. Looking at him again to catch his eye, she said more loudly, "I really do mean it! I want to keep you close to me!"

"OK! Sure! Not a problem. I would like that too."

Daniel felt as though he wasn't sounding sincere enough. It may have been the fact that he was trying not to push too much in one direction or the other. He found he cared a great deal about Rachel, perhaps as much as his first wife, Natalie, but that he wasn't sure if that was romantic love or just a familial concern. He knew if they kept in contact there would come a time where he'd need to define that for himself.

"Wait? Did you say you were in college _ten_ years ago?" Dan tried to play off the awkwardness with some humor.

"Yes!" Rachel giggled. "What are you trying to say?"

"Well...you're definitely not such a kid as I thought you were."

"So you thought I was a kid, eh?" Yet her smile remained.

"No, no. That's not what I meant." He was caught in his bi-polar interest in Rachel yet again.

"Well, I was speaking about my boyfriend, and that was when I was a sophomore."

"Oh, gotcha," Daniel replied.

They'd started slowly walking back up the hill together. Apparently a trip into the dwelling itself wasn't going to happen, but he felt that was okay. He'd taken some truly beautiful pictures and was satisfied.

"AND! I started college when I was seventeen!" Rachel teased.

"Alright, but that all means that I'm actually _not_ old enough to be your father after all."

Rachel laughed heartedly and replied, "I suppose that makes you feel better then?"

"Most definitely!"

They shared a laugh but it was true. He felt like he could justify his conflicted feelings better now that he knew Rachel was more of a peer than child. At the top of the hill Rachel made motions to part ways. It would seem she'd had her fill of Mesa Verde and was checking out at last.

"Tell you what," Rachel sparked and flashed her smile again.

The rain drizzling now and a lightning strike out in the distance on the mesa top couldn't ebb their enjoyment.

"I think you've earned at least one good ol' kiss!"

Daniel was surprised and bent to allow her the angle as she grabbed his shoulder. But she then released her other arm from his and used it to direct his face until she could plant a warm kiss on his right cheek. She held him there for a moment and her lips were soft and kind. Dan was indeed glad he'd shaved that morning even if he hadn't dressed quite appropriately. Then she released him. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but he was so thoroughly warmed by her touch that he was glad she opted not to make anything more romantic out of it.

"That ought to do, for a good friend, I think," she said.

"It was wonderful," Dan replied, standing upright again. "Say! Would you mind if I took a picture of you to remember you before I go?"

"What?! You need a picture?" she teased. But she began setting up a pose for him anyway.

"Ya, you know...I don't know that many pretty girls that can wear a uniform one day and such a dress the next! I gotta have something to brag about when I get home."

"Sure, sure. You're going to tell everyone you've got a new girlfriend. Just don't let me catch you putting this on your nightstand or anything."

"No, of course not. This is so I can remember you!"

He found he was having a difficult time remembering his wife lately and regretted only having a few photos. Perhaps photos had a way of keeping people alive for him so he didn't want to miss the opportunity again.

~~~

After Daniel and Rachel parted, Dan drove back into Cortez and it was still only a little after 8:00PM. He decided to stop at the Mexican restaurant the Smiths had recommended a couple days back and sit at the bar for a while. He thumbed through the digital display and wondered if he shouldn't be trying to get more back to life. Perhaps the loss of his job this past year, meeting Rachel, and seeing new things were all events trying to ring his doorbell, trying to get him to answer the better things in life that were knocking at the door which he'd set aside in his despair.

Outside the rain was falling considerably harder. It reminded him of what he thought probably awaited him further north at home and the grey mindless-ness amongst his neighbors. Although he didn't know exactly what night Rachel would be heading out, the thought of his own departure in the next day or two finalized any remaining opportunity. He determined he would leave the drink half-finished and spend one last night with Rachel...if it didn't rain out a camp fire.

After starting up his truck and letting it warm for a moment, a queer sense of dread was working to lift his eyes to the rearview mirror. He fought it, as he recalled the last time he'd had that feeling in his truck back home at the gas and grill station. A vision of the shadow that had left him alone for the past twelve hours was the last thing he wanted to experience right then.

But of course, as he looked there was a clearly defined shadow standing in the rain glaring at him with red glints in its eyes. Daniel turned around slowly, half scared at what he might see and half sensing he was losing control to this ghost again.

No one stood behind the truck. There was only rain and steam rising from his exhaust directly behind the tailgate.

He turned back and checked the mirror again, but the shadow still stood this time. Its essence seemed somewhat more physical this time, as though he were actually seeing someone standing there. Even the rain seemed to glisten on the dark clothing or skin that hung loosely from it. There were adornments on its head that he hadn't really noticed before and he had a flashback to the face drawn in the room above the Kiva in the Cliff Palace dwelling.

Daniel's breath caught for a second only after staring at the shadow in the mirror. It took his body a moment to reply to what he was seeing. Quickly he turned about and it was gone again when looking through the rear window.

Turning back to the mirror one last time the shadow was gone. Daniel huffed again trying to calm his pulse back down. As he looked back to the instrument cluster and put the car into reverse something caught his attention in the outside driver's mirror.

It was him! It was the shadow, fading in and out somewhat amidst the rain and the swirling exhaust steam. Whatever it was walked from the tailgate along the bed towards his door. Daniel could hear a set of fingers rubbing along the truck bed and making the hollow sounding streak upon it, like window cleaner squeaking as it is wiped off. Dan's breath was failing him again and he could feel his heart pounding away at the extra flesh he carried in his neck. It was coming for him!

Just as he the figure should have been stepping into view of the driver's window, Daniel turned and yelled as a clustered pile of steam rolled past his door back towards the restaurant. There was no one there. He turned his head back farther and still no one that he could see. A check in all the mirrors revealed nothing either.

As the heat started trickling from the vents in the dash and his pulse slowed to a manageable pace, Daniel released the brake and quickly departed from the parking lot. Whatever nightmare he was in was clearly not over simply because he'd made friends with Rachel.

~~~

Upon returning to camp, number 97 was dark. Rachel's tent was still there but nothing else was going on. The Smiths in 99 also seemed to be out cold with no lights on and no activity. He retired to his canvas cabin and, while browsing through the photos on his digital camera again, decided it was time to go home tomorrow. Perhaps a stop or two at the other parks would be good, but he had to face facts that life wasn't going to pause for him permanently. And the rain outside was damping his desire to stick around the four corners area anyway.

Just as he was kicking off his shoes to get ready for bed, he heard Rachel's exhaust-heavy pickup pull in and stop near the camp office cabin. The door slammed loudly with a rattle of the metal body and then quick solid footsteps rushed to their line of camp lots. Just as Daniel thought she was moving past his and into her lot the footsteps stopped and she called out to him in a raspy voice.

"Daniel?" she inquired. "Are you there? Are you awake still?"

Something had made her lose her joyous tone she'd had earlier in the evening. Dan stood to unzip and open the flap of the cabin tent and beckoned her inside.

"Man, am I glad you're still awake! I need to talk to someone."

"Sure, sure," he said, trying to evoke a soothing voice. But Dan himself was still a little shaken up too. "Come and sit down."

Together, Daniel and Rachel unfolded another cot that was part of the rental and scooted them closer together. By the time Rachel sat down and Daniel was about ready to speak she was sobbing and so buried her face in her hands.

Dan moved from his cot to hers, sitting down beside her and taking her in his arms. He held her tight and tried to let her feel what he needed himself: a warm, fellow human body that was there to watch over her.

"What is it? What's got you so shaken up?" He asked. His own voice faltered a bit, with a shiver about mid-sentence on his second question.

"I saw him again," she sniffled. Tears began at the moment she finally felt free to speak about it.

Dan tried not to flinch or reveal anything too un-nerving that would dis-settle Rachel either. He knew regardless of his own experience or interpretation a good listener would let her work it out first. Then when they were back at ease perhaps they could plan what to do about it.

"The shadow thing?"

"Yes!" she hissed. "Of course! He's following me everywhere. I'd started driving back down the mesa and was thinking about my plans. When I got to that big lookout closer to the entrance of the park I saw a lot of lightning out in the valley and decided I wanted to take some pictures and see what could get on film."

"So..." Daniel lightly snickered, trying to warm up her emotions at the same time as shivering frame. "You're saying you thought it would be a good idea to stand on a tall cliff and snap photos while a thunderstorm rolled towards you in the night?"

Rachel snickered too, perhaps more loudly than she would have intended but she found herself needing an emotional release and laughter was always good medicine.

"Ya...I guess that was a little silly....you'd think a Ranger would know better."

"Well, alright. So you're taking some beautiful photos of lightning, which I sure hope you're going to let me have some copies of, and what happened?"

"He came to me! I mean, he wasn't just standing there, or was my imagination or anything, he actually came with the storm and came to see me!"

"How do you know?"

"Okay..." Rachel stood up to try to explain. Her hair was still wet and she looked tired. Daniel noticed for the first time parts of her coat and her pants had mud in them. He guessed she'd probably had fallen, but waited to hear her whole story. A pair of near lightning strikes brightened the side of the canvas cabin for an instant and then darkened again. Rachel paused and awaited the thunder as he she were timing it...or perhaps she was just waiting to see what would happen next.

"While I was taking some photos trying to catch the lightning a huge downpour started a ways away at the base of the mesa and came rushing towards me. I tried to run back towards my truck, but when I did there was this man standing by my driver's door and it scared me terrible, so I stopped. Only, he started walking towards me and I could see it was that same shadow I saw in the Cliff Palace and his eyes were glowing. They were, like... flickering kind of...like they were shorted out lights or something.

At first I thought it was one of the rangers I'd told about the shadow and was playing a trick so I said something..."

"What did you say?"

Rachel started pacing the cabin a bit again, leery to bring up the entire vision in her mind again.

"I'm not sure...something like 'Nice try' or something."

"And what happened?"

"He said my name!" Rachel had turned back and locked Daniel's eyes with hers and she seemed to lose some of her color again. "He didn't sound like any of the rangers I knew..."

"Well...what did he sound like?"

The pacing continued and another lightning struck outside. Daniel guessed it was even closer than the last one, but it did not put Rachel off track this time. She seemed to want to confront the experience she'd been describing head-on now.

"It wasn't really human....In fact, Dan...I'm not sure he so much as said my name as I heard it in my head."

Dan grunted and mumbled, "I think I know what you mean...Ideas in your head that seem to be coming from someone else or something..."

"Exactly!" Rachel was becoming more animated. Dan felt he was at least making some headway getting her to overcome her fright at least as she sat down next to him again to continue. "He kept walking towards me a little, but then when he was getting close enough to really make him out some lightning hit right nearby. By the time I realized he wasn't there anymore he appeared on a boulder just a ways from my right overlooking the valley."

There was a pause while Dan contemplated. Rachel had tried to demonstrate something about the change in position of the shadow with her hands but they ended up held a little before her lap in a questioning stance. It was as if she were awaiting an answer. Her mouth hung slightly open and her brow and eyes furrowed waiting for Daniel to say something. Finally he did.

"Hmmm...Did...he say anything more on the rock then?"

"Well it was weird." Rachel turned her gaze from Dan to her hands which became reanimated with the direction. "He turned his head towards me and I saw his eyes again. He was holding some kind of stick or...staff or something. And he said something again. He said, 'Leave Him.'"

"Leave Him? What does that mean?" Daniel wondered. Rachel returned her gaze to him but her face expressed concern now more than fright. "Are you sure he didn't say something more like... 'Leave here'?"

Rachel shook her head and looked down at her hands clasped together in her lap. "No. I know he said, 'Leave Him'. Besides, it was still like...in my head...not out loud. Kinda hard to mistake that."

Now it was Daniel's turn to rise and pace the room a bit. "But that doesn't make any sense. Who are you supposed to leave?"

"Well..." Rachel still refused to look up. It was as if she were hiding something. "I'm pretty sure he was talking about you."

"What?!" It was Daniel's turn to furrow his brow. "Now that really doesn't make sense. We're going to be leaving here separately pretty quick anyway."

"Well...I'm sure that's what he meant."

"Okay. So...why would he want you to leave me? What does that mean? No pen pals after all?"

"Ya...that's what scares me even more about this thing..."

"What?" Daniel was starting to lose patience a little. It wasn't with Rachel at all, but at trying to understand why this creature was following him and making people miserable. He hadn't done anything to cause the ire that he knew of. It was just like he was being singled out by a bully at school.

Daniel sat down again when Rachel didn't respond immediately and he took her folded hands into his. They were still very cold. He tried to warm them, wrapping them in his fingers, at the same time he tried to capture her attention again. It wasn't working. She inclined her head towards him a bit and nodded a pair of short nods so he spoke again.

"What is it? What scares you?"

Rachel swallowed hard before answering. "I...I think it knows what I'm thinking. He...I would say he knows how I feel."

Daniel startled, sitting up right again, but clung to her hands.

"Are you saying you were hoping to be a little more than pen pals?"

In light of the threat they were discussing, that did little to make Daniel feel better, though he thought it should.

"Yes," she replied. "I mean, nothing serious. I still don't want a relationship or anything...It's just...you know. I like you a lot and I was sort of thinking I would come up and visit you at your house in a week or two depending on if I found anywhere to go."

She finally looked up at Daniel and was biting her lower lip a bit and releasing it. Dan felt his expression must have been comical, but only after he'd had a moment to think about it, because she snickered and gave a small snort for just a second and then smiled from the left corner of her mouth.

"Now...don't get any ideas! That's not what I'm talking about. I just...thought it would be nice to be able to hang out now and again when I get chances like we have the last few days."

Daniel put her hands back in her lap and held them with one hand while he put his near arm around her and gave her tight squeeze.

"I'm not thinking anything. I'm just trying to figure out...well...I'm trying to figure out two things," Dan said.

"Ya?"

"Ya. First...why wouldn't you have said anything about that before? And secondly...why would this thing even care?"

"Ya..." Rachel replied. "Well...on the first one: I really kind of just decided that as I was leaving the park for the last time. I was hoping I'd catch you tonight or tomorrow morning before you left so I could get your address and a map."

"Okay....So...he does understand what you're thinking. At least this is starting to make a little more sense." It wasn't really, but Daniel felt that it should and was clinging to the hope of getting an understanding. "But why would he care whether you see me again or not?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Couldn't say. But...that's the feeling I was getting from it."

After a minute or two pondering the situation, Daniel turned to Rachel and said, "I think I need a drink."

"I've never had alcohol before...but I think I need one too." She smiled but her demeanor was more of exhaustion than thirst.

"Oh!" startled again, Daniel wondered whether this was the right time. _Peer pressure's not good enough reason to start,_ he thought _._ But as he considered the moment he realized if ever there was a time to begin drinking for Rachel, tonight was probably the night. "Okay, but...you better have something pretty mellow."

"Mellow?"

"Ya...and...probably better make it a half, or you'll regret it."

~~~

The pair had suited up in their coats, huddled under the hoods and made a dash for Daniel's Truck. They were both feeling much more lightened of their depression and both were looking forward to a place with more people around and some friendlier conversation. That was not to be the case though.

As Daniel turned the key and idled his truck to warm it, Rachel found a piece of paper tucked into the console on the seat between them. It was the grocery list of names Dan had written at the museum the day before just before the tour.

"What is this?"

Daniel took the sheet from Rachel and when he saw what it was his heart jumped. It wasn't the list that he'd created itself that spooked him. The lines of names he was quizzing himself over were still there as he'd written them.

Ghost

Wraith?

Demon

Spirit

Poltergeist?

Soul

The fright came from several rough marks made on the paper. "Ghost" and "Spirit" had been marked with a sort of check mark shape in what appeared to be almost artist's charcoal medium. "Wraith" and "Poltergeist" has been crossed through and smeared almost as if a finger dirtied with that same charcoal had been run across the two words. _Soul_ , the last word on the list, was circled twice.

Daniel shivered. He wasn't sure who would have marked the sheet but he had a pretty good guess considering they'd unlocked both doors to get in.

In the light of the dash and the radio they'd made out the answers they'd seen so far. Rachel could tell something wasn't quite right and so she inquired, her brow thoroughly furrowed yet again.

"What is that? Did you write it?"

"Yes...I wrote it," Daniel replied holding two opposing corners lightly with one pinched forefinger and thumb at either. "But I didn't mark it like this."

"What?!" Rachel was not ready for another round. She started cussing under her breath as she fumbled with the door handle on her side. "Shit! Shit! Shit!!"

As she escaped from the truck and stomped inside the cabin again, Daniel quickly shut off the engine and palmed the key to head in after her. Once inside Rachel paced while he tried to console her somewhat.

"Look whoever did it..."

"Whoever!!?" She plopped down on her cot again and rubbed her temples with her hands on either side of her face. "You know who it was! This is ridiculous! Why is he doing this?"

Daniel sat down beside her and tried to wrap his arm around her again when she noticed he was still carrying the note.

"Ah!" she cried in hysterics. "Why did you bring _that_ in here?!"

Quickly setting down the sheet, he stood to hold her and calm her down. To do so he had to turn her about and get her looking away from the cot as her eye kept drifting there and aided in continuing the sobs.

"Why?" she cried. "Why? Why?"

But Daniel couldn't answer that just yet. A plan was forming in his head though that it was indeed time to figure out why. Neither one of them, together or apart, could possibly go on like this. He felt it was time to either prove or disprove this apparition and do something about it.

"Now...you okay?" He held her back at arms' length to look at her eyes as she responded.

"Yes," she nodded but stared at the sheet of paper on her cot. "Yes. I think so. Can you get rid of that paper?"

"Sure...but let's first just take one more look at it."

"Why?!" Tears had traced down her cheeks but there were none flowing at that moment. She sincerely wanted to understand what he was thinking. She thought she had an ally and he was acting like this was a curiosity.

"Calm down! Please. I want to just see if we can figure this thing out logically."

"Logically!?" Dan had picked up the paper and she sat down on her cot, straight-backed and rigid. "How do you do that? We're caught up in something I don't think anyone can really understand."

Her comments were a plea. She felt the best plan was to evacuate, just leave it all behind and get away to a new place and forget about it all.

"I think there's something more here on the paper and I want to figure it out."

"But why?" Her hands were once again held out pleading, searching for an answer. "Why can't we just leave it alone?"

Daniel fixed her eyes and waited until she could stop glancing at the list in his hand and focus on his.

"This thing has been harassing me for more than a couple months now. And...I know this sounds weird..."

Rachel gave a sarcastic huff and cocked her head, but she didn't interrupt otherwise.

"...but...I think this thing is controlling the rain."

"How would it do that?" Again, sarcasm, but the nervousness hadn't left either.

"I don't know...but like you said...this thing isn't really behaving like reality anyway. Maybe we need to figure out what's real about it and then work on that."

After a long pause, Rachel folded her arms and replied. "Okay."

Daniel took out of a small nightstand sack he'd had tucked under his cot an old pair of reading glasses he'd inherited from his grandfather. He normally didn't have an occasion to use them but in this case he wanted to magnify the paper just under the list. There were extremely faint smudges and the paper had been slightly deformed, as if a wet finger had been run across there in a pattern. An idea came to life in his mind about the responses, dimly at first. But in the end he was resolved that it was a wet finger that wrote on the paper after his notes. Because it was dry now, even after following him inside in the heavier rain, he realized these markings could have been made any time since he wrote the list. Perhaps it had been marked earlier just after he wrote it and joined the group for the tours. He explained all this to Rachel suggesting that perhaps the truck had been unlocked at that time. Not being a particularly good salesman, and not being sold on the idea himself he could not convince Rachel either.

"I don't think this proves that someone did it...everything else we've seen and had happened does _not_ make this seem like it's just a joke or...that someone _real_ is stalking us."

"That's true..." Daniel had to concede.

He dropped his eyes back to the paper and started tracing the shapes in the paper and light smudges just below his list. By starting from the left going right like he was writing in English the wide distortions in the paper didn't make a whole lot of sense, but as he completed the word he realized it seemed he was forming English letters...it was just mirrored!

On a hunch he flipped the paper over and tried tracing it again. The letters appeared to be capitalized printing though strung together by extra swipes. S-H-A-M-A-N he spelled out. Daniel didn't recognize the name and stared at it a moment trying to sound it out, his lips silently moving.

"What is it?" Rachel asked, her brow still deeply furrowed.

"I think it says, 'Shaman'."

"Shaman? What says 'shaman'?"

"There seems to be a word added at the bottom. It's very big and very faint, like someone used their finger to try to write it on the paper. Anyway, I think it says S-H-A-"

"Yes, I know how it's spelled," Rachel interrupted testily.

"You know what that means?"

"Of course," she looked away while responding. Her face relaxed for a second and then the deep lines in her forehead returned. "I'm part Hopi, remember?"

"Oh. It's Hopi?"

"No..." she flapped her arms frustrated at her sides and stood up. Pressing her right hand to her forehead and her left sitting akimbo on her hip she paced while she explained. "Shaman isn't a Hopi word specifically. Many tribes use the word. It means a medicine man basically. Well...at least it does nowadays."

She stopped pacing and dropped both arms in a show of defeat. "Why would he write shaman on the list?"

"Who do you mean by 'he'?" Dan pressed. He knew what she meant but he wanted to approach it logically and determine what they were dealing with in as scientific a manner as possible. His tone was that of a lab coat, stark and bland, although not very sincere in its questioning either.

"Oh, Daniel! Please don't over analyze. I'm tired. This thing is trying to communicate to us...only..."

"Only...?"

"Only we should _ignore_ it!"

Lightning struck outside and the thunder arrived less than two seconds away. By the lesson Daniel had in his youth that meant it was within about two miles. And it seemed the strikes were coming more frequently now as well while the storm passed over them.

Rachel sat on her cot and Daniel sat on his. Neither spoke for a few moments. Then with her head down, weary, Rachel determined to make a better situation out of it.

"Daniel..."

"Yes?"

"I would like to sleep here tonight....Do you mind?"

"No! Of course not. Uh...let's see. I have a few extra blankets and things. And we can keep this heater going."

"Good. I don't want to go outside again at all, and all my stuff is in my truck in my lot next door."

"Not a problem. You can use my pillow and just go right to sleep."

Rachel asked, "I know this seems a little childish, but...could we leave the one light on at the entrance?"

"Tell you what...I'll put this little LED lamp I've got on. It's not quite so bright it will keep us awake...but I think it will do the job."

Daniel knew what she was feeling as he felt it too. It was hard now to not picture the shadowed creature standing behind him or watching him in a mirror. Nevertheless, light did keep him awake, so a dimmed luminescence would be the better option. And he was determined to let both Rachel and himself get a good night's sleep. He did not want to let the thing hounding them to win in as many battles as Daniel could manage to keep in his control, no matter how tiny.

The fear driving Rachel through the evening had clearly both worn off and taken its toll: she'd fallen fast asleep still in her coat. As Daniel lay down he thought he could smell her pleasant pine and earthen oak smell mixed in with the damp rain smell of the air and her coat. He wondered if a ranger became permanently infused with the smell of the parks, and amused himself falling to sleep imagining bottling a perfume like that.

As the storm raged and then passed on both slept with troubled and dark dreams that neither could remember later. Both awoke several times in a haze and watched and listened closely for something in the darkness outside the tent. But nothing further happened. Finally, in the early morning hours, Rachel reached over to Dan's cot to clasp his hand in hers. They held until morning and received the rest they needed.

December 7

Homebound

Two shadows sat in the early morning as the December 7th slow-rising sun peaked over the very northern tip of the mesa. The mood was subdued but Rachel had smiled once or twice while they made coffee and got a fire going.

"Kinda wished I'd gotten drunk last night after all," Rachel teased.

Dan gave her a smile but replied that he felt better not having been the one that started her.

The Smiths awoke before too late and greeted them and then went about cleaning up their supplies and loading their vehicle. Early in the process Dan caught out of the corner of his eye a worrisome stare Ted gave them. He looked as though he were concerned, but a racket Janine caused loading the pots and pans into the car brought him back to attention to the task at hand.

In parting, both Ted and Janine came over and wished them well. Janine smiled a lot and gave them both a hug, but if she suspected anything such as the conversation Daniel and Rachel had had the previous night she didn't show it. Ted on the other hand continued to gauge Dan with a parental eye. As they stepped away from lot 98 and headed to their own car, Ted raised his hand one more time and mentioned his friend that should be calling Daniel with a job within the week.

Daniel had almost forgotten with all the excitement, both of touring the Luminaria with Rachel and then the dark soul trying to work his way into their thoughts. A new job when he returned might be just the thing to get him back on track and forget all his fears. But a large piece of him wanted to understand what was happening as well, and he knew he would not be able to just let it go.

Once the coffee was drained, Rachel asked, "Daniel...I'm assuming your home has more than one bedroom. Is that right?"

From his chair Daniel tried to guess at what Rachel meant and even in a morning mental state figured it out pretty quickly.

"Rachel, would you like to come stay at my house in Woodland Hills?"

"Now...no relationship, right? I just need a place to go and I'd like to spend a little more time with you to see if I can get this _thing_ off my back."

"Of course. I have two other rooms. I've got a spare full sized bed and a separate bathroom downstairs. You're welcome to stay as long as you need," he replied. Dan felt a little like the fatherly figure again, but he liked that. He wanted to make sure Rachel was safe and he felt he had invested some time with her. He was also hoping he might learn more about the dwellings, the Hopis and perhaps the shadow while she stayed with him as well.

"Deal. I will be a model house guest. I'm not even sure what to think about a full sized bed instead of the bunks we have in the ranger's cabins I usually stay in."

Her relief and her smile both cheered Daniel tenfold.

"I want to just do a couple things down here first and might spend one more night. Are you going back pretty quick?"

"Actually," Dan said, "I think I'm going to go ahead and head back today. I will probably stop and look at another park or two on my way home, if the rain holds light like it is now. Maybe go up from Durango and do part of the loop through the San Juan?"

"Ya, that's a really pretty area. Alright, give me some directions and I'll see you tomorrow night. I really appreciate this, especially since we haven't known each other long."

Daniel smiled and nodded agreement.

"You're not some weirdo that's going to lock me up or anything, are you? Just fooling me? Maybe trying to spook me a bit?"

They both laughed as well as they could but the accidental mention of the thing following them dissettled both again.

"No, no. Besides, you asked me if you could stay, remember?"

"Ya. But keep in mind I'm telling my family where I'm going, so they'll be waiting to hear from me."

"Gotcha. No tricks. You stay as long as you need or until you go to the next park."

Daniel detailed how to get to his home and warned her it'd been very rainy up there as well for the last couple months...probably more so. She acknowledged the information and promised to bring all her rain and winter gear. Then she returned to her camp while Daniel packed up and got ready to go.

December 8

Arrival

While Daniel did get some great photos, despite the rain, on the way home during the afternoon of the seventh, the rain did limit how long he spent making his way back to Woodland Hills. He thought he'd stay in a hotel in Telluride after all since Rachel wouldn't be to his house until late the following day. The Gold and Silver Train tours seemed like a fun thing to do as well, but this late in the season they were significantly less appealing and the mountains in the San Juan had definitely received some snow at the higher elevations. The warmth and familiarity of his own home held such attraction for his tired and rain-soaked body that he called it early and didn't stop anywhere else on the way.

On the morning of the 8th Daniel awoke and made himself some eggs. He opened the heater vents in the downstairs bathroom and bedroom since they'd been shut with all the doors closed to reduce how much of the home he'd been heating. Cleaning supplies from his master bedroom bathroom were brought down and the place shined like it hadn't since he bought it. Flowers seemed like a bit too much, but he thought if he would be hosting the home should have a bit of a woman's touch, so he laid out the dining table with placements and a full setting for four like his mother used to with regularity even if no one would be dining there for a few days. He spent a little time trying to organize how his utensils, kitchen tools and dinnerware were arranged in the cabinet but realized he didn't know if there was an order things generally should be in, or if that was up to an owner's preference. Most pieces just ended up neatly stacked where they were usually stored anyway.

In the same vein, a trip to the store yielded a few more supplies than he would regularly stock. He tried to make sure soaps and shampoos were available in the bathrooms and he bought a holiday no-flame candle that he'd hoped would make the place seem a little more cozy. The downstairs gas fireplace was turned on and he set the thermostat that controlled it a little higher so it would come on and help give a little more comfort. Lastly, he went to the lots down the hill in Springton and looked for a nice, chubby spruce Christmas tree. But in that effort he came up blank. Both lots had a few trees out, muted in the sprinkling rain and gray clouds, but there was no one on the lots to sell them.

Springton itself, with the gas and grill and a few shops, seemed almost dead. There were indeed a couple cars driving about, tires making their sticky noise as the moist tarmac sloshed water around them. At the station, a pair of trucks was parked out front and one car with a loan woman wrapped up in coats stood in the middle island of pumps trying to stay warm while fueling. The red neon trim lights that decorated the entire rim of the eves around the building were still on in mid-day and the lights over the pumps were also full aglow. It wasn't as if the temperatures were really any lower than they had been when he left on vacation, but the gloom seemed to be seeping into those few souls interested in coming out on a rainy day. Looking for some signs of life, Daniel decided to pull into the station and order a lunch.

Once he'd sat down with his pastrami burger and fries the only other local club member of the gripe patrol in the place turned around in his booth to say hello.

"Been away for a while, eh?" Turner asked. It didn't seem a very friendly greeting but the man was genuinely trying to include Daniel...perhaps because there was no one else.

Daniel, being somewhat refreshed with the idea of having Rachel visit and having escaped the Springton and Woodland Hills environments for a while, put forth some effort to be friendly. He stood from his table and joined Turner at his.

"Ya. Did a little vacation."

"Oh ya? Seems like a novel idea...maybe I should get away from all this wet cow shit and mud..." the man replied.

"Well...it was pretty wet where I was too," Daniel answered, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Ya? Really?...after all these years of droughts and we just keep getting rain this fall."

After swallowing Daniel asked, "So where's all your buddies? Get their boots stuck in the mud?"

"Ya..." Turner' eyes dropped and he crossed his arms on his chest.

_Not the way to start a conversation today, I guess,_ thought Daniel.

"Actually, there's been fewer and fewer coming these past few days."

A little at unease with how to proceed, Daniel was content to stuff a few more fries in his mouth and just listen casually. He poured out some catsup on the fry carton while Turner continued.

"I'm sure some of it's got to do with the attacks lately."
Daniel's hands lowered. He looked to Turner to read a reaction but the gentleman turned to look out the window.

"Attacks?"

"Ya. I'm not sure what's going on. I've heard people with that...what do you call it? Seasonal Disorder?"

Nodding, Daniel kept him going and tried to remain casual by stirring his catsup onto a fry or two. None of them made it to his mouth right away though. He'd suddenly lost his appetite as well.

"...Seasonal Affective Disorder! That's it!" Proud of his knowledge Turner turned back to engage Daniel and to steal a fry, but still with lowered eyes and countenance. "SAD I think they call it."

"Ya? So...what's happened, though?

"Well...first there was Mrs. McCatney...you know...who owns that apple orchard that don't grow nuthin anymore. She apparently pointed her husband's old Greenwing he'd left her at the mailman."

"Really?" Dan stopped chewing his latest mouthful. He was beginning to regret coming home. "Why'd she do something like that? She finally go senile?"

"No. No," replied Turner. "Well, at least I don't think so. It's the same story everywhere. She accused him of stalking her and coming around her house and getting in the barn and stuff. So...I guess after she'd had a rough night one night with all them storms she goes out and meets him at her box when he pulls up."

"No shit?"

"No shit, sir," Turner drawled. "Of course, Sam denied he'd ever been around except to deliver mail, but she was sure of it. Said he was using some little red lights to look around and was peering in her wind'r at night an stuff."

"Wow. That doesn't sound like her."

"No, not really. So I suppose you _could_ say she's finally going a little crazy there by herself. But then how do you explain everyone else?"

Turner clearly was warming up a bit to conversation now that he'd received the bounty of a fresh audience for all the town gossip. They talked of probably nearly ten incidents in Springton, Woodland Hills and the farms around them before Turner excused himself to go bring in the dairy. The one that really turned Daniel's appetite was the explanation of Ruth and David.

From the explanation Turner gave, Ruth had used an axe to sever David's left arm. David was still in serious condition and they had not been able to reattach the arm at all. It had been completely separated and it had taken several whacks, mutilating the arm. Ruth remained in custody at the prison down in Green Fork. The only explanation she'd given, as it had been represented to the gossipers and the little local bi-weekly newspaper, was that David had "turned evil and was trying to kill her." David hadn't been quoted at all, either too ill to talk or unwilling to make a statement, Dan couldn't be sure which.

Ruth, and David for that matter, had seemed the nicest people in all of Woodland Hills earlier in the summer. It was hard for Dan to think that even in the poor state in which he'd left them that either would actually resort to violence. Guilt played against his revulsion and he couldn't decide what he wished for more, having stayed at home and kept something from happening or deciding to stay on vacation longer. Perhaps he could go away and just never come back?

But then, he knew he couldn't. The rains and the shadow had followed him where he went and started making matters worse for Rachel. He determined then that none of the craziness going on near his home was going to penetrate it. He would protect Rachel and try to reduce the news of such horrible behaviors from getting to her ears as well.

Half of the sandwich was gone, but Daniel didn't even want to save the rest when he decided to leave. It was time, he felt, to go await Rachel's arrival.

~~~

Once Daniel had arrived home and unloaded a few things from the truck he went looking for his holiday decorations. He found a two-foot tall imitation Christmas tree that stood in a decorative burlap sack. It was pre-strung with colored lights and he decided that it would probably have to be good enough considering he was still running on the severance pay rather than full time work. If there were to be a live tree this year, perhaps he would pull a tag from the county and go cut one down with Rachel in the designated areas next week.

Lights were placed in the eves. He'd bought a mix of discounted LED white and red lights on sale following the holidays last year and he tried to wrap the porch posts with red and the eves done in white. The only thing he didn't like about them was that the 'white' LED's generally shown blue-ish. But with the old wreath he'd found in his storage hung on the front door, he felt he did a pretty good job making the home seem welcoming. He retired to a recliner in his bedroom and waited.

~~~

It wasn't until a little after 7:00PM that Dan's cell phone rang. The wind had picked up a bit outside and the rain was pelting the window panes. He'd opted to skip dinner, at least until he knew if Rachel was going to make it or not. When the call came he tensed slightly. An old fantasy book he'd been reading about witches and a druid had distracted him somewhat but he was still a little on edge, and had been increasingly worrying about whether or not Rachel was coming.

"Hi, Dan!" Rachel's familiar voice rang through. He could sense a smile in her voice and that cheered him considerably.

"Oh! Hello, kid! You almost here? Or are you not going to make it now?"

"OOOOOhhh no! I told you I was coming and I am. Are you at home now?"

"Ya, sure. Why?"

"Well...I tried the home number you gave me but it just buzzed busy. You been paying your telephone bill?" Rachel's voice was raised somewhat. The ride in her truck in the rain must have been pretty noisy.

"Hmmm...no...it should be working."

While Rachel continued to talk he picked up his home phone and sure enough it was completely dead.

"I should be there by about 8."

"That'd be great. I'll turn on the porch lights and the Christmas lights I put up for you."

"Awwww," she teased, "You shouldn't have. But, hey! Have you had dinner already?"

"Nope. Not yet. I wasn't sure what time you'd be here and I wasn't really that hungry."

"Well, I was wondering if I could make something for you."

"Of course! What do you need? I can make a run if I need to."

They discussed the ingredients and Daniel found he had all of them. She was going to make some 'Navajo Tacos' to which Dan's reply was a tease both about being Hopi and about being only 1/8th Native American at that. They teased and taunted back and forth like old college friends and Daniel was glad he'd prepped the house a little nicer for his guest, but couldn't quite get his concern over the increasing strength of the storm out of his mind. He instructed her to drive safely and they hung up.

~~~

At about 8:10 Daniel heard a loud rumbling exhaust coming down the street towards his home and he knew it was finally time for a house guest. The gravel in his driveway crunched and headlights flashed in the front window as he left the bedroom to get to the doorway. He put on his coat in a hurry so he could help Rachel unload.

"Well, hello again, stranger!" Rachel greeted him in an overly friendly tone.

Daniel was very happy to have her there finally and even the rain seemed to slow a little as he caught her warm smile. But he thought there may be something more at hand going on for her to press the warmth so much.

"Howdy. Welcome to Tremon Manner. May I take your things inside for you, Madam?"

She chuckled and slapped his shoulder as she pulled out an old style green canvas backpack from the passenger seat through her driver's door.

"Now you _are_ silly, old man."

"Don't you have anything else?"

"Well...there's a couple small bags there, but this is pretty much it. I can grab them after we have something to eat. I'm starved!"

"Oh! You are? I hope you're not making a lot of food this late..."

"Nah...I just want to make something to warm up to," she replied.

He offered again, and she allowed him to grab the couple small bags in the passenger foot well. Then he welcomed her inside. Something was definitely a little on edge hidden beneath her pleasure, but he decided that was something she should bring to light when she was ready. For the time being he graciously showed her to her room downstairs and explained where a few things were. She in turn complemented him on the Christmas décor and once or twice asked where he'd gotten some of the pieces, and in just about all cases he indicated they were from his mother, even when some of them had been things his late wife had brought to their collection.

Then Rachel headed to the kitchen to make a meal. She hadn't even taken off her coat before she started asking for a large frying pan and olive oil. He still wasn't convinced from their earlier phone call about the Navajo Tacos idea that she could adequately deep fry tortillas in a frying pan, but he kept quiet. He didn't like being questioned when he was cooking so he was sure she wouldn't either.

Once her concoction was completed, both the Fry Bread and the taco fillings, they sat down to enjoy it together. Dan found himself into the second of servings when Rachel realized something. She stood but slapped her hands down on the table before her exclamation.

"Dimmit! I forgot the most important part!"

"What is it?" Daniel said with a giggle.

"Oh...you don't happen to have any of that chocolate-hazelnut spread do you?"

"What?"

"Crap. I can't believe I forgot. The desert taco is the most important part. It's the whole reason I wanted to make them," Rachel said as she left the table and went back to the kitchen cabinets looking through Daniel's spices and such.

"What is it?"

"Oh, I dunno. It's like a nice donut or something. You'd love it."

She kept rooting through his cabinets and pulled out the cocoa along the way he'd notice, along with a few other items. By that point, Daniel put his napkin down and strode over to try to help in her search.

"Don't you have any peanut butter?"

"But of course, madam," he replied, opening the large pantry cabinets to the side of his refrigerator. "Right here. Chunky or creamy?"

She snatched at the jar in his right hand and said with a smile, "Creamy of course. Don't give me any of that crunchy crap. That's what you give the dog when you want him to stop barking."

"Well, actually..." he began, but his protest was not permitted.

"Ah! Ah! No, you let me take care of this. It's bad enough I didn't think to get the good stuff, it at least has to be creamy."

Daniel returned to his seat while Rachel mixed up a few ingredients. She returned with what looked like a chocolate flavored peanut butter.

"Okay! When you're done with your taco there, you take one of the fry breads and you spread this on it."

Rachel began working hers and Daniel's brows raised a bit as he watched, taking a bite of his own taco. It looked to him as though she had more chocolate peanut butter than fry bread by the time she was done. Her reaction as she took her first bite made Daniel change his mind about the remaining bit of his second taco. So he set it aside and took up a new tortilla and slid the cocoa confectionary over to his side.

Daniel's own spread on the fry bread was meager, much like he'd put jam on his toast: just enough to taste. Apparently this was not satisfactory for the chef because she reached over and lifted another huge knife full of the peanut butter.

"That ain't going to do it. See..." she directed as she spread a nearly half-inch thick frost across the top, "this is how you do it the right way."

The first bite was definitely a bit over-stated. But as Daniel chewed and the cocoa and whatever other flavors she'd mixed in took over he relished it. Rachel also picked up a second fry bread, having finished her first, and equally spread it as thick as the first.

"Now, you see, Dan," Rachel spoke with an authoritative, parental voice, "this is why I don't need a relationship right now."

"Oh, really?" he smiled.

"Ya. See...as long as you have chocolate, you don't need anything else."

"Yet, you seemed to want to be around friends anyway, didn't ya?" He meant it as a jest but Rachel's mood became a little more somber as they ate. Her smile was still there, but she didn't pursue anymore witty comebacks.

"I guess you're right," she said in a more subdued voice. She caught his eyes directly to express her thanks. "I really do appreciate this."

"Not a problem! Like I told you, I think you're a pretty neat person, and..."

"Shhh! I'm talking!" she teased again, but her tone was still lower than it had been during her arrival.

"Okay....Sorry."

Daniel took another bite of his fry bread. In his mind he was already calling it his 'Navajo Donut' to go along with Rachel's Navajo Tacos, but it was indeed one of the better treats he'd had in a long while.

"I just..." Rachel toyed with her fry bread, picking off small bits to put in her already full mouth she was trying to speak around. "I just feel like I can trust you, you know? And...well...I guess I needed a break. I think this will be fun."

"Sure!"

She rolled her eyes at him to warn him to silence again before continuing. "If you want to, you know, show me some cool parks or anything, or want to go see a movie for Christmas or something, I'm all game. Oh! And I'll pay my own way and everything, too! But...I don't mind just relaxing and catching up on some television or reading or something too."

She seemed to conclude and to be waiting, so Daniel spoke again. "That sounds really nice for the holidays. Just one thing."

Her broad smile warmed him again as she had a habit of doing. "Oh? What's that?"

"Well, if you're my guest...and I may have a new job here in a little while...you have to let me pay for the dates."

"What?" she grinned. "Remember! No dates! Just...having fun with a friend, right?"

"You bet. You have to let me pay for my house guest's entertainment. Deal?"

"Alright," she acquiesced. "But not necessarily every time."

"We'll see."

"Okay. Deal then."

~~~

Before they retired to bed, the pair took a tour of the house. It wasn't very big so it didn't take long, but they were caught lingering at the window in the attic space. The previous owners had made a small room in the attic among the rafters that also included a small dormer on either side of the room. The area appeared to have been re-framed correctly as there were heavy beams added to the remaining rafters, but some of the drywall, particularly the ceiling hadn't been done and there were various jagged edges and shapes to the framing behind the walls shown by the one lamp Daniel had placed up there. It was not at all insulated yet and so it had been too hot in the summer to use at all, and he'd imagined that once winter really hit and the snow fell it would be far too cold to enjoy it either. But in a cool, rainy, moody room the opportunity for some reflection and light chat about the mountains and area around them seemed just right.

What had drawn them towards the south facing dormer was a couple of lightning flashes that appeared to have struck higher up on the mountain. The thunder rolled through a few seconds later, and the heavy rain prevented them from actually seeing the hills behind Dan's house at all. But they took in what view there was and watched the rain. For a moment the environment seemed a cozy little place to watch the storm.

Then a near lightning strike changed the situation. Its light was bright, and close enough to startle both. Rachel bumped into Daniel in her effort to step away from the window. Before either could react or retreat they both saw something coming from the shaded trees in the next yard.

"What is that?" Rachel whispered.

"I don't know," Daniel returned in a grumbly, low voice.

A shadow was moving quickly through the neighboring yard and then along the fence that stood at the back of Daniel's property. It was low, but it did not present itself as a dog or perhaps one of the neighborhood's notorious goats would. Indeed it seemed to float along the fence line and then stop midway, its mass turning to inspect the house, perhaps even to look into the very window from which Rachel and Dan were watching.

"It's him," Daniel snarled.

He grabbed Rachel by her elbow before she could even respond and pulled her with him back down the stairs. While he did not know why they needed to move back down from that window, Dan did feel a terrible urgency to get away from the roofline trapped in that cornered dormer. About midway down the stairs Rachel protested but kept moving with him.

"Are you sure?" she asked, having to catch her breath somewhat between steps. "I mean...I didn't see its eyes or anything!"

"I know, but I'm getting to where I can sense it."

Once back to the living room Daniel left Rachel standing for a moment and ran into the bedroom. Hearing ruffling and what was likely a few foul words under his breath, Rachel called out to Dan. She was not sure what she should be doing at that moment. He appeared from the master bedroom door with a shotgun that he quickly popped two shells into as he strode past her, into the kitchen and towards the back door of the house.

"What are you going to do?" Rachel asked, voice pitched higher than she herself was accustomed to.

"I'm going to see if this thing is real enough to hurt!" he replied.

As he opened the back door Rachel placed her hands on his left arm trying to restrain him.

"Stop! You can't discharge a weapon within the city limits!"

Dan did stop. The door was halfway open and he hadn't glimpsed any shadow or anything to cause alarm, so his head turned back to Rachel. She was gaping at him, eyes glistening. He shouldered the shotgun and started laughing.

Rachel too first took a nervous laugh and then smiled and giggled at the same time as she wiped her eyes quickly.

"Can't discharge a weapon in the city, eh?" They were both chuckling loudly and for an instant Rachel leaned her head against his upper arm. "What will you do, Ranger? Arrest me?"

Standing upright again she slapped his arm playful as she was wont and teased him back.

"Well, you're the one who said he can 'sense' when it's around."

His laugh subsiding but still in somewhat good humor he pulled the door all the way open and took the first step out the door onto the stairs there. Rachel followed slowly, both of them peering around the yard. There was no sign of shadow or anything else. The rain was still drizzling but not quite so intense and somber as it had been over the last few weeks. Upstairs held no further appeal for the evening, but Rachel went about making some coffee in hopes of allowing their nerves to relax and to get ready for bed after a long trip up and the minor fright they'd just experienced.

~~~

Dan clicked on a smallish, and old, tube-type television and the news played, broadcast from the larger city nearly 100 miles away. The anchors predicted more rain in the intermountain area, though much of the rest of the country would remain dryer than usual. While nothing directly quotable was said, both Daniel and Rachel got the feeling the weatherman didn't have a very good explanation for the sharp distinction between what seemed to be an everlasting low pressure cold front in the west, but he did express gratitude for all the water and a hope that more snow would be collecting at the higher elevations as December wore on.

Rachel stood from the table, preparing to put away the cups and head down to the room Daniel had given her, when an ambulance followed by a fire truck could be heard coming through the main road in Woodland hills starting down by the city hall and volunteer fire station. Both remained still while they heard the fire truck blare its large air horn as it turned the corner off the main road and onto the crossroad to Daniel's street. A few seconds later it did the same as it turned onto Millridge Lane towards Dan's home. Bright red lights flashed about the room even though they were a good four houses away from the corner. The open lots permitted a lot of the light to fill the neighborhood, while the many trees cast dark and flickering shadows in the moving light. For a moment they thought the vehicles were making straight for their house, but they roared by, sirens blaring on the ambulance.

While he stepped out on the porch to see just what the problem could be, having still a hesitant feeling about whatever it was they saw moving through his backyard, he noted that a few other neighbors also had been alerted. Janice from a few houses down had also stepped onto her porch in a robe, but seemed to just stare blankly at the trucks as they rolled up the street. Lights were on in a few other houses with people peeking out, but their expressions were blank. They seemed to be playing the curious cat just for the sake of an ancient duty in the sleepy town rather than any real interest this time.

Then Rachel grabbed his right arm and pointed. At the end of the street and just around the corner the homes and trees were also glowing and flickering but not with the red lights of the fire truck. An amber glow illuminated the bottom of a column of smoke rising up into the drizzly clouds and night air. The effect made it seem the fire smoke was bumping against a great ceiling and fanning out along it to make a canopy over the end of the street.

"Crap!" muttered Daniel and he shoved around Rachel to grab some boots and his coat and then started towards the fire.

Rachel didn't move. She knew it best to stay out of the way of an emergency crew of which she was not a part, and she had the same feeling about Daniel at the moment. It would be better if someone was going to tell him to stay out of it that it would be better if someone else functioned as the irritant. They were both too high-strung at the moment still to begin an argument.

At the end of the block it was the McCarren's home that was ablaze. There were only five or so people with the two vehicles, rushing to connect a hose to the fire hydrant across the street and to set up a perimeter. Daniel could see Mrs. McCarren standing on their front lawn, her face held a cold, stone expression, as though she herself didn't have any personal investment in the home going up in smoke. Eventually, one of the hastily-clad firemen wrapped a blanket about her shoulders and started walking her away from the work at hand. He caught Daniel's eye, and not seeing anyone else in attendance from the neighborhood he led her in his direction.

_Where is everyone?_ Daniel thought. The one other time a fire broke out in someone's garage over the last year it seemed like the entire town arrived to fill the streets and watch the action. For this one there were barely a few glances out of the neighboring windows whenever there was a particularly loud crack as the fire or the emergency workers yelled instructions.

"Keep her here!" said the fireman.

Daniel thought he recognized him as one of the younger volunteers with the city FD. That was good in a way. It meant at least that the locals in the organization behind emergency services in town were not so mesmerized by the rains that they would ignore their pagers. He expected that a truck from Springton down below would be arriving shortly, but he could not see it coming from that particular location. The road up the hill was not in view even with no smoke or fire.

His arm around Mrs. McCarren to prevent her from leaving didn't seem to have much effect. No motion was made whatsoever. In fact, McCarren didn't even lean into Dan to seek a little comfort or shed a tear at all. She was just as much a zombie as her neighbors around them. Suddenly he thought of her husband as three fire fighters began spraying across the top of the garage and second floor to start abating the blaze.

"Where is your Husband?" Daniel asked.

She just shook her head slowly, arms crossed before her.

"Mrs. McCarren! Where is your husband? Was he at home?"

Her gaze at the home continued while she finally answered, "I'm not sure. The last thing I remember was Jonathan saying he had a way to stop the rain. He was going on and on about the rain and how he was going to scare it away or something."

"Scare it away?!" A sense of dread came upon Dan then.

Taking her by the shoulders to face him, Daniel lifted Mrs. McCarren's chin to get her to look at his face. At that her eyes seemed out of focus and dazed.

"Where is he, Mrs. McCarren? Where is Jonathan?"

"He went out to the garage...he said he had a plan and he went out to the garage," she was nodding her head slightly as though she were confirming for herself what had happened. "He went out and the next thing I knew those men were telling me to come outside."

The men she spoke of seemed to be the man dressed loosely in a fireman's coat and the EMT wearing mostly casual clothes with his emblazoned coat that arrived in the Ambulance. They must have been first into the house. That probably didn't go very well with the chief and the firemen on the main truck, but the main portion of the house really hadn't been in flame when they arrived. It was a breach of procedure that the ambulance workers were likely to be forgiven by default during the rest of the crew since they immediately went to work setting up the hoses.

"You're saying he's in there, where the fire is?"

Both Daniel and Mrs. McCarren turned to look at the home and the front of the garage had been completely engulfed. The one window on the side of the garage had broken out and there were flames shooting up to the height of the peaked eve above it, perpetuating the flames as the firemen tried to dowse the roof first and then aim at the structure. Finally, the elderly woman seemed to come out of her comma. Her jaw dropped and quivered and tears starting forming quickly behind her thick glasses.

"Jonathan!" she moaned and started to move to the home. Daniel's grip easily prevented it, but then her knees seemed to give way and he found himself holding her up.

Another truck with the Springton logo emblazoned on the side in gold and an ambulance with a private company name arrived. The firemen bounced out and started giving instructions to both their own team members and those volunteers already working the fire. Already, the volunteers were taking heat for not getting some water into the broken window nor checking the back side, and in fine, generally doing a poor job of putting the fire out. Daniel felt bad for them, even while he himself stumbled at what to do for Mrs. McCarren now sobbing heavily against his coat.

"Is she alright?" asked one of the contracted ambulatory workers as two of them rushed to him and a third removed a stretcher from the back of their vehicle.

"I think she may be suffering from shock or something now," Daniel replied, and they took her from him and quickly sat her on the stretcher.

The female ambulance worker arrived with the stretcher, then began wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Mrs. McCarren's arm and took control of the situation, as Daniel turned to watch the fire. He stood for a few moments more and realized he really had nothing further he could do and started backing away, half side-stepping, and half walking backwards as he continued to watch the efforts. If Jonathan McCarren had entered the garage, with whatever idea he had about ceasing the rain, he must no longer be. The fire was intense and hot and with all walls of the garage blackened and issuing flame no one would have lived through it.

_What could he have been thinking_ , was the last thought playing in Daniel's mind when his awkward retreat from the scene bumped him into Rachel. He was startled but she quickly took him by the arm and continued walking him back to his home.

"Did you learn anything?" she asked.

Now it was Daniel's turn to give blank expressions. He was still trying to turn over the few words he'd had from Mrs. McCarren and resolve in his own mind what might have happened in her garage. It was beginning to seem as though the whole town was going insane and the only driver of it was the rain. Yet, when they needed the rain to, say, put out a fire, it sprinkled or withheld.

"Wait a minute!" Daniel said, addressing Rachel but putting his energy into turning back to the fire.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

Daniel took four or five steps back from her and stood. After a second or two she watched as he clasped his hands before him and became very quiet.

Again she inquired, "What are you doing, Daniel?"

His voice was gruff when he replied. She couldn't tell if he was angry or crying. The explanation may not have been entirely clear as she tried to listen over the noise of the fire and of the people working to put it out.

"I'm trying something."

"What?" she cried loudly. "What _are_ you doing? Just tell me."

Then, with a great crashing sound of heavy drops on the streets and roofs behind them, a wall of rain rushed toward the fire poured down upon them. It instantly drenched the two of them standing in the street and began running into their collars turning everything wet. It reminded Daniel of the super, intense storm cells he had seen in the Midwest when he was young. He raised his head and smiled. The rain was so intense he could see the fire crew exhibit difficulty even seeing what they were trying to hose down. After about forty-five seconds of the flood the fire hoses were shut off. Daniel raised his head as best as he could against the torrent and smiled.

Rachel could not understand why Daniel continued to stand in the near midnight, rain pouring so hard it would likely flood the road in a moment, watching flames die on a garage a hundred yards away. But her perception changed somewhat.

"What have you done?" she asked this time.

Daniel turned slowly and smiled at her as he did. "I haven't really explained why I came down to the park yet."

She held herself with arms wrapped tightly. Her hair had flattened entirely to the side of her head. As water freely flowed as in a stream across from the terraced yard to her right, over the top of the road in inches depth and then into the declining yards below them to the left, Rachel shook her head.

"No...I guess you haven't....I mean you told me a little. But why did you come down? Was it because of the rain?"

He walked up to her and put his arm around her as he said, "I think it's time I told you."

~~~

After Daniel recalled the whole story of the night of the second and his dream when he was instructed to head south, Rachel felt she might be speaking with a mad man. However, as they sipped yet another cup of coffee and the clock passed 2:00AM on the night of the eighth, she also recognized a number of unusual and coincidental events in their own meeting and discussion of the shadow that was woven into both of their lives separately until that point, and now seemingly together as well. She mused on whether she could trust her own senses in all this while Daniel continued to explain his actions earlier in the night.

"...So...since experimenting with a little prayer seemed to do something that night...I did it tonight too."

"Are you telling me you believe God is watching over you?" The question was not entirely discrediting the idea, considering the fall of rain appear practically on command. But Rachel did want to understand what Dan's perspective was.

"I'm not sure," he replied. He stood and took their mugs over to the sink and began rinsing them out. "I'll tell you what though. This shadow, whatever he is..."

"He?" Rachel said, a very tired smile at the corner of his lips. "How do we know it's not a woman?"

"Fine, then," he replied. "'It', whatever it is, practically told us it's a ghost."

"It did," Rachel hesitated, "but it also says it's a Shaman."

"Do you understand what it meant by that?"

"Well...from my great-grandpa, yes. But a Shaman really is a healer. That note had other things circled and..."

"And...he doesn't seem to be healing anything, does he?" Daniel surmised.

"'It'," Rachel continued.

"Okay...If it is...or _was_ a Shaman, a healer, what is it doing scaring people and controlling the rains?"

"Yes...makes you wonder." Rachel had folded her hands together and put them to her lips while she pondered the implications.

"So then, anyway...it some sort of being...something not necessarily alive. I figured...what's good for the goose is good for the gander."

Rachel's eyes were suddenly alert. "So...if it exists then you figured God does too?"

"Yes!" Daniel's voice was alternated between a hiss and whisper. "Although, I don't know if I'm going about it the right way, exactly."

"What do you mean?" Rachel equally lowered her voice in a conspiratorial tone.

"What I mean is...I'm not sure I understand how things work exactly. Or if there is even a god out there listening, but I _do_ know there's something else out there at work besides what we understand....And I mean to make it work for us now."

Rachel held her chin up with her two gathered fists a while longer. She considered again whether she should contact someone about a failing mind. The harm in that is she would be turning in her own predilection to believe in life after death, or at least in the effect of some other beings upon her life. Why should she be frightened by her previous confrontations with the shadow in the cliff dwellings if there was not something behind it of which to be afraid. In that context she decided there must also be an influence for good in the game as well, just as her parents and grandfather had taught her. Perhaps it was time for them to take control.

One question remained.

"Let me ask you this then," she said, as she placed her hands on the table as she addressed Daniel.

"Alright. Go ahead."

"Did you have to tell him to turn off the rain? Or is it going to just stop after the fire is out?" She was smirking.

"No, no," he laughed quietly in the still house. The fire department and scurry had died down and there was little noise in the neighborhood anymore, but the one remaining truck idling and monitoring for flare ups.

"So...then...Can you tell the rain to stop completely?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think I can."

"Why not?" It was a fair question, but she wasn't pressing belligerently. She was developing a plan of attack.

"Well...I've asked before. Even that night I had the dream. I asked it to stop and turn to snow or something."

"I see."

Daniel continued in his hushed voice. "I've been asking for the last couple hours too since the fire."

"It's died down," she observed.

"Yes, but it hasn't quit. And..."

The hesitation put Daniel ill at ease. There was something more to be said, but for some reason it wouldn't come. His lips shimmied around the words and tears came to his eyes a bit. Rachel worried he would say something dreadful perhaps that she hadn't considered. But that was not the case. She took his hands in hers and looked him in the eye.

"C'mon. You've got to trust me at this point." Rachel's eyes were pleading. "What is it?"

"Well...I think being around you helps keep this shadow...and the rain at bay."

She held his hands more tightly.

"Why would you think that?"

"Just look, Rachel," he replied. This time Daniel's voice was raspy with emotion rather than the budding conspiracy against the shadow in the rain. "Every time we're together the rain dies down quite a bit...unless we want it heavier. But when we're apart..."

"Is when he attacks!" She finished. "That's why when I was leaving the park he practically washed me out."

"Yes, exactly! I think that's what it is. He doesn't want us to work together!"

Rachel nodded and released Daniel's hands. Subconsciously she wanted to be able to determine the path they followed on her own terms as well, and not feel compelled to a specific action.

"But why?" She asked.

"I don't know...but I'm betting together we're something he can't fight very well."

"Okay, look," she slapped her hands down on the table, although not with much force. "You're starting to sound like a movie or something. That's the kind of stuff when two people have found 'true love' and all that crap."

Daniel snickered despite the tears still drying on his cheek.

"Well...that's why I felt a little awkward about it."

"Awkward? You were tearing up."

"Ya... I know. But..." He was still searching for the right way to phrase what he was feeling. "I think we were meant to work together..."

"No relationship." Rachel was smiling but she'd crossed her arms before her again.

"That's the problem. I'm not talking about a romance. I'm talking...I think we're both dangerous to him, and together...he must have something to fear. I just feel like...we're _meant_ to be a team...and I don't know. I care a lot about you...even if it's not romantic."

There was a momentary pause before Rachel replied.

"We've started calling it a 'he' again."

"I know...I think it's a him," Dan nodded.

"Actually, so do I."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I guess I do," Rachel conceded, swiping her right hand across the table a bit, hoping in a sense for more coffee.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Well...I've got this theory..." she replied.

"Let's hear it."

"So...my great grandfather had some stories to tell, and as you know I'm part Hopi Indian from his line."

"Okay...that could partly be why he's there in the cliff dwellings harassing you: some sort of connection there."

"Yes maybe," she hesitated again, trying to lay out how she might explain. "I think he might be from those pueblo people, actually. Like...he wouldn't be Hopi, the Hopi were long after the cliff dwelling people. But we're likely descendants...maybe one of several different tribes that came from them and the people who dwelt in the Cortez valley."

"Alright, I'm following you so far. Maybe that gives you some advantage over him?"

"Maybe. But it also means our traditions were probably from theirs. Our archeologists even say many of our symbols in our early writing are similar to the ones in the dwellings...although sometimes they're backwards, or maybe sideways from the way we wrote them."

Daniel leaned back in his chair. He was learning far more from a few minutes of brainstorming with Rachel than he thought he ever could doing his own research at the city library two towns up the state route, even with an internet connection and a librarian to help.

Rachel continued, "Anyway, I think what he was trying to tell us is that he was a Shaman in life...and that would make him a man."

"You didn't have women shaman?"

"No...I don't think so. We had women healers in some of our traditional stories, but...the shamans themselves were always men."

"Okay...we'll agree to call him a 'he' then."

"Agreed....Besides, that makes the thing seem a little more manageable," she added.

Daniel was inclined to agree. Theoretically if it had been human once, an Indian Shaman at one time, then it might be reasoned with...or overcome somehow.

"There's more though."

"Go ahead," Daniel prompted.

"See...I think he might be an Earth Spirit now. It is believed that sometimes, when a shaman had a really strong effect on the tribe he was in, or where he lived he might sort of... _graduate_ to being an Earth Spirit when he died, instead of his soul going on to be part of the Great Spirit or creator."

"I don't follow exactly. What is an Earth Spirit?"

"Well..." Rachel again tried to find the right words to explain what she'd been taught in her youth. Her parents generally did not keep any of grandfather or great grandfather's traditions and most of what she'd learned was before she'd turned eight. "My grandfather once tried to explain something Great Grandfather had said about a Shaman who had become an evil shaman of the wood."

"Like a... _forest shaman_ or something?" Daniel tried.

"Yes!" Rachel's voice had become stronger as she and Dan worked out together what was in her mind, and she tried to quiet it back down to a whisper again. "That's exactly right. And I think it happens a lot! But...in this case, he said the forest shaman had gone insane or something."

Daniel felt like he was digesting incredible information as an archeologist might. Once he learned an idea as new as this one was to him the neurons in his mind continued firing and jumping from one understanding to the next. He was beginning to form a plan on how to disarm this shadow. He had to let the creature understand that he knew about him. Fear subsides as understanding grows, and Daniel intended to control the shaman with sufficient knowledge.

"Supposedly, two families fought over animals in a forest, not really that far from here down in that same general area as the Sleeping Ute mountain and the mesas. Once, by entrapment, one family slew an entire family in the forest and left them to rot. Within the year, all the trees within a few miles had died. The animals had moved on, and the tribe had to move hundreds of miles away before they could get enough wood and food."

"Hmm..." Daniel replied. "Sounds like justice to me."

"Maybe...but the reason they had to move so far was this forest shaman was...like...punishing them. They said it went insane. It would do things like grow trees in the middle of their pueblos and even in their hunting teepees if they left them setup for long. They would cut them and a few days later six of them would be springing up, six or twelve inches tall overnight."

Rachel and Dan stared at each other assessing what one another was thinking, neither coming to any conclusion. Both felt they should consider the other completely nuts, but both acknowledging that their own ideas were just as unbalanced. Rachel decided she'd better end the story and let Daniel do with it what he would in his own mind. She was still trying to find a means of stopping the rain herself as well.

"They said he'd gone insane because he was no longer healing, he was hurting. He was no longer taking care of the forest, but using it to harm and frighten the people. They learned they could not go into the forests nearby because many would be lost and never return."

"So...this thing that's been harassing us...he's like a _water_ shaman, maybe? And now he's using the water against us. But why? And why so many droughts for so many years too? If there's a water shaman here you'd think he'd help keep things going right."

"Unless he's really gone insane over something! I don't know," Rachel replied. "You know, Grandfather could have been interpreting G.G. wrong. Or maybe G.G. was spicing up the story a bit. But...I think it may be at least partly true. If these souls stay on earth...maybe they go insane after a while....Or maybe they get angry sometimes."

~~~

As Daniel was shutting his bedroom door following Rachel's insistence they go to bed and try to get some sleep, she called up to him from the bottom few steps of the stairway.

"Dan? You'd better come down here."

Once he'd come down her concern was immediate without her explanation, but he listened as he made his way across the basement to the source of a very wet carpet. The rain had fallen so hard for so long while Dan was "putting out the fire" that the window wells in the back two bedrooms towards the uphill slope of the back yard must have actually filled with water. Looking out the window in the room he'd intended for Rachel it was clear the water had even risen up about a third of the way up the window pane. Cracks in the cement wall or even through the edge of the stucco sealant from window to cement must have leaked through. A good portion of water likely came in through the small felt gasket between the side-sliding pane and the stationary one. It was a mess.

Rachel and Daniel exchanged a look of frustration at first having inspected the window but something about it made them feel more at ease. They laughed together until Dan turned to gather up the bedding that was still dry and head upstairs.

"I guess you need some practice," Rachel said still chortling.

As he climbed the stairs ahead of her, arms laden with blankets, Dan asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well..." she replied, "Maybe you did turn the rain on for that house...but if you did, I think you need to either work on your aim, or you need to do something to turn it back off again."

Dan snorted. "I guess I do need some practice then."

Rachel was offered Dan's bedroom for the night, though she tried to resist at first. Ultimately, they were too tired and Ray relented and quickly climbed into bed while Daniel used the blankets he'd brought up to prepare the couch. Before laying down, he decided to try an experiment.

"Dear God," he started. "...Or whoever might be listening that's on our side...I'm sorry I haven't kept saying prayers since last week, but I...I think we need some serious help here.

Can you please show us what we're supposed to do about this water shaman?

I know there's some reason Rachel and I can both sense this thing and that it's decided to attack us, but...I don't know what that reason is..."

Daniel thought for a moment pressing his forehead tightly into his knuckles folded together in front of him. The pressure was intense enough he would regret it later as his skin was sore from it. But for the moment it helped him concentrate.

"I think maybe you meant for us to do something about it. So, God, if you're there, can you please give me the strength to protect Ray, and to get rid of this thing for good?

Anyway...any help you can give me would be appreciated.

...Name o' Jesus.

Amen."

Daniel thought his mind may want to wander or that it would be ill at ease while he awaited an answer, a sign, or _something_ to let him know his prayer had been heard by someone. But he fell asleep quickly.

~~~

As had been the case with many nights since he first thought he'd seen the shadow in his backyard, most of the dreams fled quickly in the morning and could not be remembered, save one.

Daniel was standing in his kitchen, watching a man sitting at his laptop on the kitchen table. All around him, the sights and sounds of the kitchen and the rooms beyond were clouded by a darkness that seemed to be pressing in upon him. But in the shallow area between Daniel and the figure at the laptop there was a warming, yellow light. It was not brilliant, but it was warm.

As Dan stepped up to the right side of the man where his hand would briefly move a mouse and click on something the light cast shadows and shapes on both his own and the other man's clothing and faces. It was flickering, as if it were produced by camp fire. As he sat down, Daniel noticed it was he, himself, sitting at the laptop.

The _other_ Dan nodded and glanced at real Daniel and smiled. He typed several strokes at the keyboard and then his left hand covered his chin in a thoughtful repose, right hand drifting back to the mouse again.

"What are you doing?" Dan asked. He felt no fear and the question was friendly.

The reply was equally warm and friendly.

"I'm researching."

The real Daniel took a sip of a cup of coffee he found in his hand and the warmth filled him even more.

"What are your researching?"

The _other_ Dan smiled and nodded again before replying. "Knowledge is power... I am arming myself."

The real Daniel watched for a moment. He could see text that was just slightly too far out of focus to be able to read on the screen. There were pictures suffering similar issues with clarity, but he got the general impression he was seeing an article about Native Americans and religious ceremonies. He could see in one black and white picture an Indian male with his hands both raised, one clutching a stick or something that was smoking, the other holding some other round objects. The man wore an old western hat and a plaid shirt with jeans. Behind him in the background was a large open space with mountains in the distance.

Again the _other_ turned to Daniel and caught his eye, but he did not smile this time.

"He's trying to watch us, you know."

Daniel looked up and just through the haze and darkness around him he could make out the rear kitchen door with its pane of glass open, blind drawn up out of view. While he looked shapes in the glass moved. Dan's eyes brought the vision into focus well enough that he could make out the now familiar red flicker of the shadow's eyes. They penetrated like daggers, burying themselves in the darkness between them, looking for a target.

"He cannot see you right now...At least not very well," the _other_ said as he continued to type on the keyboard.

"Why not?" Daniel asked, but now his forced voice was raspy and parched. He found he could not swallow in the dream and it was uncomfortable.

When Daniel looked back to the man at the laptop he noticed the hand on the mouse had changed. It was older, and had liver spots across it here and there. He looked at the _other's_ face and found the hair had turned white, the skin dark. It was the Native American Daniel had met in his dream a week earlier. It surprised, but did not startle him. He awaited the answer to his question respectfully.

The Indian put both his hands in his lap and turned in the chair in which he was seated enough to face Daniel better. His face was wizened but friendly, and the smile created a great many vertical creases on either side of his face that also bespoke friendship.

In that same older, accented voice he'd heard in the dream before his trip the old man responded, "You ask for help. Now he cannot see for a while."

"How long?" Daniel asked breathlessly.

The old man stood up and pulled the chair he was sitting in back a bit.

"Not long." He then gestured with his right hand to the chair in front of the laptop and spoke one last time before walking into the darkness about them. "You have work to do."

"Wait! I need to know what to do!"

But there was no further communication from the visitor.

December 9

Building Defense

Though they both awoke rather late, about 11:00AM, Rachel and Daniel felt refreshed, having received better sleep than either had had in weeks. Ray went about making some eggs for breakfast while Daniel pulled his laptop out of his backpack in his bedroom closet and prepared it for use at the kitchen table. He found Rachel was a bit of a sloppy guest, having left her clothes from the night before draped around the footboard and floor around the bed. But he decided that whether or not that was a normal pattern for her, he found it a little appealing anyway. It was nice to know a beautiful, young woman such as Ray also had some personable, if not bad, habits.

Together they were strangely quiet towards one another, but not uncomfortably so. Daniel thought perhaps Rachel was waiting for an opportune moment to mentioned what she'd experienced in the night. After all, that was Daniel's plan.

"So...Rachel?" Daniel started the conversation after Ray sat down with two plates of scrambled eggs and some toast. "What are your plans for the next few days?"

Rachel's initial response was a hum with a mouth full of egg and a pleasant smile. Once she'd smiled she replied, "Oh...I don't know. I thought I'd hang around and bum off your hospitality. Maybe steal a beer out of the fridge. Watch some football"

She smacked his shoulder from around the corner of the table as she laughed and took another bite.

Daniel smiled too, but wanted to stay on track. "Well...no, I mean. I wondered if you had any plans to maybe travel around a bit. See the area?"

"None that I'm aware of," she hinted.

"Well, I was thinking maybe you could hop on my desktop computer in the basement and see if you could do some research, while I work on this one."

"Ya...I guess I could do that. What are we researching?"

"I want to understand a little more about Native American traditions."

"Oh really?" Rachel's smiled enveloped Daniel and wished he could think of something fun for them to go do together, but the closest movie theater and real restaurants were a good twenty miles away.

The morning had at last been one without rain or sprinkles tinkling the metal of the gutters and downspouts outside. But it was still foggy. In many ways, though it was a slight improvement, the fog made it very unappealing to go driving around looking for something with which Dan could entertain his guest.

"Ya. I want to see if we can come up with a way to get rid of this water shaman."

Rachel put her fork down and sipped her coffee. "Boy, you sort of took to that name, didn't you?"

"What? 'Water Shaman'?"

"Ya.... You know...those were just stories. I don't know that you should put a lot of faith in them."

The somewhat less gloomy day seemed to be helping Rachel put aside their fears or even thoughts about the shadow they'd been dealing with. Daniel thought perhaps, if he'd been a psychologist, that she might be in a state of denial. So, rather un-clinical-like, he pushed to get her back on track.

"Yes, I know. But..." Dan took a sip of his coffee too and paused.

"But, what?" Rachel asked, a little impatiently.

"Well...I think I know why you don't want to talk about this very much."

Rachel snorted. "Oh yeah? Why is that?"

Clearing his throat, Daniel tried pushing just hard enough to get her talking openly again. "I said a little prayer last night..."

Rachel put down her cup and closed her hands around it, warming them with the coffee. She stared below Dan's chin line so that he could not read her reaction well.

"...and I got some answers. I need to do some research about Native Americans and their ceremonies."

"Told you that, did he?" Rachel asked in a raspy voice.

"Who?"

"G.G.?"

"Your great grandfather?" Daniel asked.

"Ya," she replied. Some melancholy returned, but Dan wasn't sure why this would be upsetting in itself. "I said a prayer last night too."

"Really? I kind of got the impression you didn't pray."

"Well...I don't really. But I got to thinking about things my grandfather and G.G. told me when I was young. I...remember them saying a tribal healer would burn a Bahos...a 'prayer stick' is what you might call it....So, since I didn't think you wanted me burning a wrap of tobacco in your house last night," she had been gesturing with her left hand a little bit as if apologetic about this explanation, but in describing the stick Rachel finally looked at Daniel's eyes again and smiled again. "...and of course I don't have any tobacco. So, anyway, I just sat on the bed and imagined I was burning a Bahos and said a little prayer."

Daniel leaned back in his chair and folded his arms in front of him. Once again he found himself at the altar of Rachel's ancestral knowledge, wondering why he even booted up the laptop.

He asked, "What is the point of the Bahos then?"

"Well, I don't know. It's supposed to be a way to...I guess appeal to the 'Creator'. It's supposed to invoke healing and good feelings."

"I see," Dan replied. Synapsis fired throughout his brain further developing his plan to eliminate the water shaman's influence.

Rachel perked up a bit, shifting in her seat and trying to hold Dan's gaze more frequently as she spoke. "In fact, I didn't really realize it until just now while I was trying to explain it, but the idea is to use the prayer sticks to invoke the elements and nature to help you."

" _Really_!" Dan leaned forward intently and engaged their conspiratorial whisper they had shared as they spoke the night before. "How do you do that?"

"Well...I think generally we burn the tobacco and that's for setting the prayer wishes free...but...if you needed help with say, growing your crops, you could bury them in your field."

"Or!...you could..."

"...release them in a river...or a lake!"

Dan concluded the simultaneous thought for them, "...to help with rain."

"Yes!" Ray exclaimed. "Dan! I think we should do that! Where would we put them?"

"Well...okay...so I have a question about that then..." he confided.

"Shoot!"

"You're saying you can put a Bahos in the ground to heal a field for crops, right?"

"Yes!"

"So, if this thing has followed us from here all the way down to the four corners area and maybe further..."

Rachel's face turned to a frown and deep furrows in her brow developed as she considered the situation.

"...where do we put it?"

They were silent for a moment.

"There's another little problem..." said Rachel. "Or maybe it's the answer, I don't know."

"Okay. What is it?"

"It's not just one Bahos. The idea, as G.G. told me through my grandfather, is that the number of prayer sticks you offer determines how sincere you are about what you want."

Daniel shrugged slightly, "So we have to make a bunch then....We'll make a ton, just to make sure we do the job right."

"Ya..." Rachel said. She tapped her front teeth with a finger nail on her right hand index finger as she pondered. "The thing is, I'm pretty sure G.G. said they would make _thousands_ of them for some things...like that forest shaman that went insane...I'm pretty sure if they'd tried to calm him down they'd have been a whole hell of a lot of prayer sticks..."

"So...we could do that if we had to..." Daniel was hesitating a bit. "Maybe we need to...you know, to go on a little drive and drop them off in every river or pond we can find."

"Yeah...that's kind of what I was thinking. But...we may also just need to find the source of his element for him...you know...like his den."

Daniel thought, stymied yet again. "I would think that would be down at the Mesa in the dwellings, wouldn't you? I mean, this flood of rain has been going across multiple states here in the Rockies for going on three months now. We can't possibly try to cover every waterway. Maybe we need to try this plan of attack first."

"No..." Rachel said. She looked into Dan's eyes with a much more serious look this time. "I don't think he'd be at the dwellings necessarily."

"Why not?"

"Well, I don't know if we need to look at rainfall measurements or something, but consider...It's been terribly heavy rainfall right here! Like right around your home! I'm thinking his home is here too."

The idea was intriguing. It was true, at least in Daniel's perception, that the news and his limited travels in the last week seemed to indicate the heaviest rains since it all began were in the particular valley and mountains where he lived. It seemed likely that there was no coincidence in that.

"Do you think he's taken up residence here because of me?"

"Possibly," Rachel hemmed and hawed a bit. "I would think a vengeful elemental or shaman or whatever this is would probably single out a person or maybe a group of people...even if they made it miserable for everyone."

For a while they sat and picked at the eggs and toast. While they did, at one point, Daniel keyed in the words 'Bahos' and 'Prayer Stick' on a search site while Rachel watched, but he didn't immediately click on any of the higher ranking results. It was more distraction while he contemplated than anything else.

"If I were to try to pin you down, say, just based on your gut feelings, do you think this thing is from around here?" Daniel asked.

"Yes." Rachel nodded her agreement. "I'm pretty sure he is. I wouldn't be too surprised if we could find him just above the ridges here behind your house in these mountains somewhere."

"That's what I was thinking too," Dan acknowledged.

Just then the Dan's cell phone rang, sitting on the kitchen counter near the sink. It startled both of them, and Rachel actually stood up before Daniel did. Neither would admit it later but they had been taken off guard by the idea of normal worldly activities intruding on their supernatural game plan they were developing. It was as if they'd sequestered themselves into a world of ghostly shamans and prayers separate from their daily lives. Indeed the phone call was a little confusing for Daniel to take in for the first few moments as well.

"Hello? Daniel Tremon?" the voice on the other end said. The speaker in the phone was loud enough that even held closely to Dan's ear Rachel could hear both ends of the conversation in the quite kitchen.

"Yes?" Dan replied.

"I understand from Mr...." clarity wasn't perfect. Rachel couldn't quite make out the name nor all of the sentence that followed it. But the most important part came through freely once Daniel stopped pacing. "So I'd like to schedule an interview with you, perhaps next week on the twelfth?"

"Sure! Ya, ya!" Dan replied, "of course. So you're Ted and Janine Smith's friends that I met a couple nights ago in Mesa Verde?"

"That's right!" Ray could hear the gentleman say. It was friendly, elderly sounding voice, but deep as well. "I have an opening for..."

The rest was drowned out by Daniel's movements and shuffling to find a paper and pencil. He quickly jotted down a phone number and an address. Ray wanted to impose and ask repeatedly, "What is it? What is it?" like an impatient child, but she held her tongue. She thought, _maybe things are looking up already_.

After hanging up, Daniel smiled at Rachel. "It sounds like I have a new job, thanks to meeting the Smiths down there in Cortez!"

Ray grinned, "Don't get your hopes up yet. I heard him say 'interview', not 'job'."

"Yes, well," Dan continued grinning. He wasn't sure if Rachel was really trying to put a little damper on his excitement or just teasing him. "I think it's pretty definite. He basically told me when the start date would be if I was available and how much money and everything."

"Wow! That does sound good!"

"Yeah..." Daniel put the slip on the fridge under a magnetic picture frame that held a photo of both he and his late wife. Ray noted she'd come back to that at some point, but didn't want to bring down Dan's mood right then. "I have a meeting with him on the twelfth next week."

"Well...I guess I probably could just hang out. Bum off of you and watch football all day if you're going to be wealthy again."

"Sure," Dan replied. He grabbed his coat off the couch in the living room and his keys from the kitchen counter. "C'mon!"

"Where are we going," Ray laughed. But she rose and headed towards the bedroom to get her coat as well.

"I think this is cause for a celebration!" Dan hadn't felt so much positive excitement since the rains had started. _Or maybe since I met Rachel, actually_ , he thought. He paused at the door considering that.

"So we're headed down to the grill to get a milkshake, Potsy?" Rachel engaged his humor. "Where are we going to go to celebrate?"

"Let's head in to town! The _big_ town tonight! You know...maybe a fancy Italian Restaurant or sum'n," he said in his best Little Paesano impression. "Besides, I've got to get a new suit and clothes for my interview."

December 12

Introductions

The previous three days Ray and Dan spent doing research on the water shaman and ways to disband an evil spirit's hold over the land or a home. The problem they were running into is that even in the era of the internet there were little authentic instructions available online. Frequently ideas about spirits and healers, prayers and exorcisms among the various tribes and even individual families and web owners from a specific tribe gave conflicting ideas and instructions. Ultimately, the two had decided that the soul of the creature stalking them must have a fairly wide territory it tried to maintain, but they felt that it was centralized, or at least presently residing in the immediate area around Daniel's home. _That_ , Daniel repeatedly asserted to himself, _gives us an advantage_.

While they built their case and prepared for Daniel's interview on the twelfth, Rachel had implemented a regime of sitting together cross-legged in the living room and placing a tobacco wrapped prayer stick into a bowl of water between them and quietly meditating or praying. To one side she would also place a prayer stick on a small stone bowl she found in the kitchen and burned it, and to the other side she would fill a small terra cotta planter with dirt and bury another prayer stick. This was done each night relatively close to bed time for the two. Daniel recognized it was mostly a hedge against any nightmares or attacks while they slept, but for the most part it seemed to be working. The rain itself hadn't stopped but it seemed stable and light most of the time, and this alone provided some comfort.

In spare moments when they weren't research, talking or praying, Rachel had spent time looking for postings at the various parks. There were openings, but she seemed disinterested in them. Neither she nor Dan understood whether that was because she was looking for some resolution to the water shaman situation, or if she was just naturally in a bad funk over her career prospects. Daniel suggested, only once, trying as best he could to make sure he didn't mean with himself, that perhaps it was time Rachel developed a relationship with someone again. His intent was that perhaps finding a so-called _soul-mate_ would give her some direction, and likely a good number of goals to start working towards. But Ray would have none of it. In some ways that discouraged Daniel from entertaining the idea of finding someone to be his companion in his wife's absence as well.

For his part, Daniel also had activities he worked on singularly. He was practicing to see if he could control the rain more. He had some success, enough that he could during high spirits acknowledge that he had indeed slowed or increased the rain at his command. However, during quieter and more solemn moments, such as after he tried to advise Rachel in dating, he could just as easily describe it all as wishful thinking. He wasn't sure what he was expecting. Certainly he couldn't make the waters tower upon itself like he'd seen in a movie about Moses. But he was also unsure of why he'd have any effect at all. Nothing in their research indicated any reason that Daniel could think of in his past or about him that should give him particular surreal skills such as controlling rain, nor of prescience about an evil spirit stalking them. It was as if the darkened soul had just selected him for its own reasons.

~~~

On the night of the eleventh, or more accurately the early morning of the twelfth there was a different response to the prayers in Daniel's dream.

Daniel was standing in the middle of his street looking down into the valley and in the dream he knew immediately he was looking at the production plant building where he would be speaking to Ted and Janine's contact and likely starting a job. While it was drizzly all about him, far across the valley near the mountains on the opposite of the large lake he saw beams of penetrating sunlight. Within the vision he flashed to the location where the sun struck and saw grasses lightly blowing and a few daisies in the fields as well as sunflowers growing up a hill at the base of the opposing mountains.

The old Indian was at his side then and placed his right palm upon Daniel's left shoulder.

"Not the time to leave yet," the old man said.

"Why not? It's all falling into place," replied Dan in a monotone, still staring about the valley.

"Not the time yet."

They watched for a few moments together. As they did, Dan noticed the openings in the clouds moving across the lake north of him by many miles and was at once saddened and happy with the view of the sun reflecting on the small waves in the water of the lake.

"Gonna move north this time."

"What is?" Daniel asked.

"That break there. Gonna move north now. It's not the time to leave yet."

"I have to go down there. Things are going to change for me finally."

The raspy, aged voice changed to his own in reply and the figure, though now a vision of one of his _other_ selves was stepping back from Daniel.

"You shouldn't go there yet, Daniel. It's not the time for it."

As the figure that had sat with him dissipated Daniel sensed and knew without looking that a large, dark cloud was forming behind him from the ridge above his home and it was growing to cover his home and where he stood. He felt a strong wind and heard the howl as the storm approached him. Heavy drops of rain spattered his face and he knew, thought the rain no longer frightened him in the dream, that he would have to turn back to the storm and take care of Rachel and shutter up the house to fend off the wind.

He awoke, not entirely disturbed, but irritated with the vision. It did not dissuade him from his plans for the twelfth in the least though.

~~~

The morning started with many of the same familiar trappings of Daniel's last days with his former employer, except that following his shave and brush he put on a nice charcoal grey business suit with a stark white shirt and red striped tie. Rachel had tried to encourage a little more style, and the saleswoman at the store had shown him a collection of suit, shirt, tie, socks and shoes that leaned on the olive side and was very complimentary. On this issue, Daniel was the one that would have none of it. He felt the suit needed to be like his pickup: able to serve in any capacity. And he didn't want to pay $175 for shoes he was likely to wear once.

Breakfast was quick and light. Toast with jam and some peaches from a can were Rachel's selection to start his day off right. The truth was in the time they'd spent together already Daniel had lost five pounds, mostly due to Rachel's more balanced and lighter meals. Avoiding twice-daily trips to the convenience store for large sodas was helping significantly as well.

Having accomplished all he could to forestall his appointment with things to do at home, he finally went for the door. Rachel was shooing him out and granting well wishes. For one split second, Daniel almost leaned in to give his wife a peck on the cheek goodbye. And then his mood sobered up quickly as he recalled that Rachel was _not_ his wife. It was a depressing realization for him.

Thoughts of how to celebrate as he drove down the hill and towards town were also muted since he realized he didn't really have a life partner with whom he would take into town and share a meal and perhaps a drink. In many ways, Rachel was currently the love of his life, but only in the contexts they had defined. Only in that he wanted to be able to ensure she was happy and safe. It was not the same relationship one could possibly have with a spouse or lover whom would share ones bed and to whom one could discuss anything openly...even if his wife had teased at times. That sort of relationship, as Daniel's poor soul was achingly discovering during Rachel's visit, was one that he would likely not see again. Not unless Rachel changed her mind about dating. Otherwise it was a fleeting camaraderie that could only possibly provide some joy while she yet stayed in Woodland Hills with him, and afterward decayed like a cut rose. Though many people maintain a friendship through years even with great distance between them, Daniel was not particularly good at that and wasn't willing to pester Rachel unto old age with emails and letters updating each other on his otherwise boring life.

The last thought Daniel had before entering the packing company for his interview was certainly not focused on the task at hand. It was: _I hope I can do right by Rachel, but she's going to have to move along pretty soon I think...before I get my heart broken._

~~~

Not long after Daniel had headed out the driveway in his old beater truck and she had settled into the couch with a throw-blanket to read a book or two she'd found in his shelves, Rachel heard the clear sound of thunder rolling down the mountain and from just over the other side of the ridge behind the house. The rain picked up within twenty minutes and she tried to force the atmosphere to be the cozy, stay-at-home-and-read-a-good-book day Ray used to imagine these rainy days were when she was growing up.

A brilliant triple strobe of lightning that shone simultaneous from almost every window in the home regardless of its facing told her she might be in for another very serious storm. Her hair was already on end when the thunder clapped only half a second later. The windows resounded and she felt as though the home had been stepped on by some goliath titan of weather attempting to stomp Daniel's home flat. She rose quickly from the couch, dropping the blanket on the floor.

Then the lights went out. The cloud overhead combined with the very low December 12 angle of sunlight made for a nearly night-time scene in the home. She looked out the larger picture-frame window at the front porch and could see the imposing black cloud roiling over her and moving outwards away from the town towards the larger cities in the valley below. She could still see lights in several of them, so Daniel was likely not to notice the power outage until he was done with his interview and headed home. But Springton just below had also lost its lights. She could see two, or perhaps three cars driving down the main street through town and past the convenience store, but its tall sign and the red neon lights that surrounded its eves were all off. It wasn't as though they would normally be during daytime, but there was nothing but gray around her and immediately below Woodland Hills in town either.

Rachel felt a sudden and near panic-inducing need to be out of the house and she started to move to grab her coat to hop into her own truck and head down the hill immediately, paying no regard to her sweatpants and t-shirt attire. Then she saw him reflected in the front window. He was slowly approaching her from elsewhere in the house.

Turning to face her attacker, the dark soul she was fully expecting to visit now was not there. _Where is he?_ she thought. Wind suddenly blew terrifically at the back corner of the house facing the ridge. A couple flaps of vinyl siding could be heard banging about against the outside of the wall. The vents up in the attic howled momentarily and then silenced again, though the wind kept rising and falling.

Another brilliant flash of lightning focused more behind her, to the front of the house, indicating the storm was overtaking the entire mountain also shown a light upon the basement stairway well. There were two shadows there. Her own she recognized and then there was a taller one aside her own. Even in that nearly three second short pulsing of light on the wall she could see the shadow's height growing and bobbing as though its owner was walking towards her from behind. She shrieked at the shape utterly shaking her whole frame.

Again she turned expecting to see the angry shadow with red eyes and hints of war paint and tribal mask reaching for her. Again nothing, and no one stood before her.

Rachel's eyes darted back and forth looking for the assailant. Resting her hand on the rail of the stairwell she traced it slowly as she stepped back towards the archway into the kitchen. Her hand bumped the much larger and detailed newel that she recognized as the one in the middle. While she continued to scan the darkness and attempted to make out the various lumpy shadows of couch, side-stand and then the cabinets in the kitchen, she scraped her fingertips around the outside edge of the newel and then regained possession of the rail as it continued out the other side. With three very slow steps she was at the end of the rail on that side of the stairwell. It was just the short rail extending from the last newel at which she then stood to the wall and she'd be practically in the kitchen.

Light flashed all about the home and the thunder struck instantly. Had the power not been out already, that strike may have hit Daniel's home rather than the outbuilding just behind his back fence in the neighbors' yard. Rachel only gasped this time. There was something building at the bottom of her mind that the shadow was actually looking for her, and she wanted to be sure not to signify where she was with another scream. Her eyes glanced about the kitchen looking for the beast.

So intent was Rachel on finding a glowing pair of red eyes or a misshapen dark face mask peering at her that she entirely missed the obvious for a few seconds. The back door was open. It wasn't clear if it had been the terrible wind or if it had simply not been shut correctly by either herself or Daniel at some point since last night. But as she watched, the wind pushed it slowly open. The tile floor before the doorway was slightly illuminated over the rest of the home as what little daylight could get through the storm attempted to creep inside.

Nervously, Rachel took a few steps towards the doorway at the back of the kitchen. As the wind finished moving it open and then it swung back closed by a few inches the rain was driven onto the tile by another burst of wind. As her eyes redirected to the lit rectangular space in the doorway lightning flashed again from upon the mountain. There a shadow, with a few odd shapes jettisoning from an overly large head moved in from outside.

Without looking up, Rachel recognized the shape of the war-mask in the shadow and she knew the Shadow was seeking her no more. He had arrived.

Stepping backward for the first few feet, Rachel yelled, "You go away! You're not allowed in this home!"

But the shadow's eye's glowered and pulsed a brighter red for a moment. It hissed at her. "Ha'u..." it said.

The word was a long, drawn out reverberation that sounded a lot like someone grunting a reply. _Hah-uh_ , it might have been, had it not been for the hiss and length in which the greeting had been pronounced. It stopped Ray in her tracks for a moment.

Then the shadow stepped onto the tile from the doorway. It was a methodical and deliberate gait it made towards her. At each step, water dripped from the shadow's form onto the tile but it gave off whiffs of steam as well. There was a sizzle with the steps and suddenly Rachel felt waves of anger emanating from the creature as it seemed to size her up.

No longer was the shadow an enigmatic emblem or sign. It was no longer manifesting itself as a messenger or warning as Daniel and Rachel had hoped even in their fears. It had come for her. And it was a physical entity encroaching upon Rachel's presence as well as her sanity.

She turned quickly and ran through the front living room, into Daniel's bedroom and slammed the door, quickly turning the lock on the inside of the handle. Ray viciously pulled down the retractable stairway Daniel had shown her before and raced up it into the attic. Tugging on the built-in side-rails of the stairs to see if she could get it to close behind her, Rachel realized quickly that she could not from up above the stairs. Instead, hearing a pressing wind on the bedroom door, _inside the house!_ , she fled to the back dormer and turning to watch the stair opening fell backwards, landing hard on her hips. She managed to scrabble on hands and knees into the corner of the dormer behind a chair Daniel had placed there and next to the small bookstand under the window. Another flash of lightning shown through the one window above her head, and below she heard the slow moan of the hinges on the bedroom door opening. Whenever Daniel would move the door while Rachel lay quietly down stairs in her bedroom she would alternately hear it squeal and pop as some friction in the hinges would catch and then release during its motion. They did so now as she listened for the shadow.

She caught the sound of the sizzling again as though rain were falling on hot coals at the campgrounds. The smell and feel of moisture quickly filled the attic, but strangely the stairs did not groan with the weight of a person's foot. For a few seconds, long enough for Rachel to hear how fast her own heart was beating, she thought perhaps, just perhaps, the creature had stopped. Had it entered the home just to make itself known again?

Then, peaking around the inside corner wall of the dormer area, Rachel could see steam rise through the stairway hole. A darkened shadow of a figure rose from it, one step at a time, the masked and painted face turning towards her as chin, and then shoulders, rose above the height of the floor.

Rachel drew in her breath sharply when the one lone light at the peak of the unfinished attic space flared to life. Glancing about she noted the bedroom light was also now shining up from the bedroom below the stairs.

The dark creature before her seemed somewhat more human suddenly than it ever could have before. The dim lights created shadowed areas of muscular structure. The body appeared to generally be in proportion now, aside from the dressings or mask that adorned the creatures head. Its face was a maze of black and red paintings and darkened skin between. The eyes too seemed somehow more human as he began walking slowly towards her. There were whites at the corners and there was a hint of a dark iris and pupil in each. But behind it, perhaps through each eye, there glimmered the red flame that spoke of hatred and anger still.

When the figure had walked across the attic to Rachel she was near blacking out. Her breath was raspy and racing, and her heart beat so solidly against her breast she thought she may be having a heart attack. She felt some recognition and acknowledgement that she would die now as the figure stopped before and knelt down. He leaned towards her and placed dark hands upon her shoulders, pressing her further into the corner and down to the floor.

Slowly moving his face within inches of Rachel's face, cocking his head slightly to the right, the dark man grinned, showing white but fang-ish teeth, and hissed his greeting, "Haaaaa'uuuuuuuu."

Rachel slipped unconscious with the vision of the being before her pressing upon her, steam hissing and voice grating upon her ears.

~~~

Exiting the packing plant following his interview Daniel wondered why he'd bothered to buy a suit at all. He knew the job was nearly his before even coming for the formalities, and aside from a few minutes' worth of getting to know Daniel, the owner had no need of extending typical interview questions nor discussion of past salaries or experiences. They did not, in fact, even sit down during their interview together. Mr. Johnson, as Daniel fortunately recalled the name just before being let into the office by the receptionist, simply informed him that he was ready for him to start on Monday and explained some of the benefits and perks of working at the plant. He indicated that there would be a Christmas party announced the following week after Daniel started as well, and that Dan was welcome to bring that charming young ranger he'd heard from Ted and Janine was going to be in town for a while. That suggestion threw Daniel off guard somewhat as he wasn't aware that anyone else was privy to that information. But he did not have time to reflect upon it at all, let alone suggest that they weren't particularly on those kinds of terms just yet, before he was led by the receptionist again out to the floor and shown where he keep a supervisor's glass-enclosed office managing the staff.

In all, Daniel was feeling extremely grateful that things were lining up so completely. Even in these harder times, the salary mentioned by Mr. Johnson, was significantly above his last employer that had laid him off. There seemed nothing at all to concern himself with in the world as he began pondering just what sort of a dinner Rachel might be willing to let him take her out to for a celebration. He secretly hoped he could coax her into wearing the beautiful evening dress she had worn at the Lumnaria in Mesa Verde. Perhaps one last perfect evening he could enjoy before she moved along and found that position at the next park assignment.

Instead, as his truck trundled out of the parking lot and turned up the road heading back towards Springton and Woodland Hills, he noticed the peculiar absence of light on the hill. The storm cloud had nearly made its way through the valley and down to the lake, but he hadn't noticed it much beyond the cool breeze that flipped his coat corners walking from building to truck. Now, however, it seemed threatening and he watched several strikes of lightning hit locations around the hill and just before him in Springton. There were about 8 miles that still set Springton at the base, and Woodland Hills another 3 miles above it, apart from the larger cities in the valley. For the most part the others had all grown into one mellow suburban complex, spreading from the local university outward. But experience told him in dark weather like this as he exited the bigger cities and made his way up the state route he should see the convenience store sign lit and the familiar red neon. None of that shown. Above, there should have been a number of homes lit, both with the warming light from windows, and also from the number of homes that would normally sprout Christmas lights for a few short weeks this time of year. This past season with all the rain, it seemed as though there had been virtually no decorative bulbs placed at all. But to have the foothills as dark as the mountains above was unsettling and Daniel found his foot was getting heavy on the accelerator.

~~~

The truck stumbled several times after being thrown into park and having the key ripped from the ignition behind Daniel as he raced up the porch into the house. The front door was swinging, though the wind had died down some from what he'd felt driving through the front of the storm through the valley. There were no lights on. Daniel's home, like the rest of the town, was completely dark.

"Rachel?!" Daniel called.

He took a few steps towards the kitchen to see if something had happened to her. There he noticed that the back door as well as all the windows which could open were. Water glistened about the kitchen, filling various containers and pooled on the counter tops here and there, as well as on the tile below his feet. When Dan turned back into the living room to head down stairs he noticed the carpet was squelching as well. It was as if it had rained inside the house.

"Ray?!!" Daniel's voice held more of an edge.

A feeling was creeping into Daniel's chest that he'd not known before. It was akin to a mother's panic when she recognizes her child has wandered away in a store. Yet, somehow, Daniel knew already that he wasn't going to come across Rachel talking with a friendly store clerk in the next aisle over. The house was empty. It felt empty. A deep vacuum pulled the heat out of Dan's body as he moved through the living room. His world was beginning to freeze around him. Dan's home, and perhaps all of Woodland Hills as far as he knew, had become a ghost town and it echoed and chilled like an old, vacant graveyard might.

Just as he rounded the end of the basement stairwell rail to check for Rachel in her room, he caught a glimpse of the attic pull-down ladder through his bedroom door. Turning into the bedroom he stopped and peered up into the attic, which was now absolutely pitch-black from where he stood. He called Rachel's name again. Before going up, he rushed to his bathroom door just to make a quick double check that he wouldn't find her there, injured, trying to bandage herself. Many frightening possibilities played out within Dan's mind and he wanted to silence each of them, becoming desperate to know exactly where Rachel was.

Tearing up the pull-down into the attic, Daniel instinctively reached out for the switch to the light there, but of course it did not respond after flicking it up and down repeatedly. He could see faint light coming in from the dormer window and started making his way there slowly. Lightning flashed again outside, though the thunder was a good four or five seconds off and muted somewhat by the heavy clouds, he could see that there was a puddle in the dormer.

Stepping around the same corner of the dormer from which Rachel watched her captor rise through the stair hole Daniel noticed there had been a struggle, though not a terribly violent one. The chair was moved out of position and a couple of the books had been pulled off the shelf, as if Rachel had grasped them from the floor. In the puddle there was a piece of notebook paper.

Daniel picked the paper from the floor and shook off the standing water that came with it. The paper itself was soaked, but the ink was mostly intact and he realized he was looking at his brainstorming list about the shadow again. All of the would-be labels were now completely crossed off with a new marking, except for the word "soul".

Fingers began to go numb and he half sat, half fell into the chair in the dormer. As the page shook in his hands he realized there was something bleeding through from the other side. He turned it over and found new writing on the back of the paper. It read: _Mine now._

Daniel knew exactly who the line meant. Rachel was gone. But where? Where could this crazed shaman soul have taken her? Was it even possible for him to take her against her will?

The house creaked and groaned under the pressure of more wind as another flash and some rolling thunder passed through the home and verily through Dan's own body.

December 20

Answer

In the afternoon of December the 20th Daniel had already attempted to put himself into a drunken stupor by nine in the morning and was starting to painfully come back out of it again. The past several days went, but they did not go willingly. Every attempt at reconstructing what had happened or where Rachel was went from bad to worse.

First, there was the matter with the sheriff's office. They told him of course that he couldn't report a missing person for a full 48 hours, and that as she wasn't related, and was living there temporarily that there was no reason to suspect anything but a voluntary absence. When he pressed about the open doors and windows, the person on the other end tried to console him a bit and indicated she'd schedule a deputy to swing by and check it out.

Ultimately, the deputy had actually been sent to determine if there was a domestic abuse case going on or if Daniel had something to do with Rachel's absence himself. Since he hadn't really tried to clean out all the water he had found when he returned home within that first 12 hours, and because he had pointed out that her pickup truck was still in his driveway, along with all her belongings in her bedroom, the Sheriff had decided to call in some support and took statements.

When the lead investigator indicated she needed to take him down to the station to get a full statement to start a filing, she explained it had become a preliminary crime scene investigation, but that they still weren't quite ready to go forward with a missing person's report until more facts were known. Together, three sheriffs and an FBI agent eventually called in on the day after Rachel's disappearance and Dan spent a total of thirteen hours at the station. He was grilled several times, but he resolved early on not to discuss the shaman nor any of the supernatural experiences that he'd shared with Rachel. He realized within a couple hours that law enforcement was not very likely to be able to provide any help in the situation unless it was to perhaps find her body at some point. He resigned himself to getting through the interrogation and then move on with his own plans for finding Rachel. Fear began gnawing at his stability, especially as the questions persisted, that if someone did indeed find Rachel's body somewhere they would very likely presume him the attacker.

Discussions around the sheriff's office about the increasing violent acts going on in Woodland Hills and Springton and outward from there only convoluted the direction the investigation was going in, and that too added to Daniel's ill-ease. Eventually, between the evidence at the home, or lack thereof, and a corroborating story from Mr. Johnson at the packing plant the sheriff's office let him go.

The FBI agent was the one to give him the news. "Mr. Tremon, although he says he barely knows you, Robert Johnson at your new place of employ seems to think you're innocent of any...foul play that may have happened here. "

"Great..." snuffed Dan in return. The handcuffs he'd been asked to wear for a while had been removed but he was still in very bad sorts about the accusations.

"Also, Mr. Tremon," the agent continued, "He sincerely hopes you find her so you can enjoy the company party, and he wants you to know how much he regrets anything happening to 'that lovely young ranger.'"

Looking up to see if the agent was dredging for more information he replied huskily, "Thank you."

"You're free to go for now, Mr. Tremon. But obviously...if you have anything more to report...any new information that comes up..."

"Of course. You bet. I'll be down here right away," he replied. Under his breath he added, "Bullshit."

As he exited the office and one of the junior deputies offered to drive him back home, the deputy put his left hand on Dan's shoulder in an effort to console him and said, "We'll check with you on the fourteenth. If she hasn't shown up we'll start a search and put out an APB."

"Ya, but what if she's hurt somewhere, or lost? Don't they say the more time goes by the less likely you will find someone?"

The sheriff took up a more defensive posture, placing his hands on his belt akimbo and nodding his head somewhat.

"We can't afford the resources for an all-out search unless we _know_ she's gone," he replied. "She's a grown woman, Mr. Tremon. If she went out for a stroll she's more likely to find her way back than she is to stay missing. If she didn't...I'm not sure where we'd even begin looking. Woodland Hills is a small town...I doubt anyone up there is managing to keep her secret somewhere."

Daniel turned away and shut the door. To himself he muttered, "But you sure as hell could spend the resources grilling me for the whole day."

Though loud enough to be heard, the junior waiting for Dan at the sheriff's car pretended not to hear Dan's retort.

~~~

The rest of the days passed with equal success. Attempts by both the sheriffs and Daniel to contact the phone numbers for family listed in Rachel's cell phone had yielded nothing but voicemail. No one had a particularly good explanation for Daniel about why her father or other members of her family and friends would want to get answers. It was on the second day, the fourteenth when Ray's dad did call the Sheriff's office and indicated they hadn't heard from Rachel at all, but that he wanted to be contacted as soon as they'd heard. _What good would that do if you don't listen to your voicemail for two days?_ Dan wondered.

The person from the sheriff's office that had called to inform Dan of her father's response explained that in the west a lot of people tend to ignore their voicemail if even that. Dan had learned that in the southwest and intermountain areas it's sort of a practice when you didn't get ahold of someone to just keep calling over and over until you reached them. _How stupid!_ he found himself thinking as he pondered why being rural meant ignoring your voicemail. His patience was diminishing quickly, and by the fourteenth, even with the assurance that an officer was coming up to begin a formal search and take specific statements for the missing person's report, he had bought himself a couple cases of beer and a whiskey bottle and kept himself desensitized somewhat that way. It reflected in his attitude towards the police though.

A search was indeed begun on the fourteenth. Two sheriffs canvassed the whole town of Woodland hills, although only half the homes had answers at the door. Towards the end of the day the two reported to Daniel as the primary contact. Their feeling was that most people weren't answering because they were already gone on holiday vacations, but Daniel felt it was more likely the strong and continuous rain that had been falling since the twelfth. It wasn't as heavy as it had been at certain times in the last three months, nor when he had called the rain to help with the fire, but it was constant. And it was dreary.

As an aside, Mr. Johnson had called Dan to tell him not to come in the following week after all. There was an initial pang in Dan's throat at hearing it, but Johnson went on to explain he didn't think Dan should have to try to work when he needed to deal with Rachel's disappearance. Daniel thanked him at that time. He did still try to work the first couple days, but quickly found Mr. Johnson was correct: he could not focus on work to even determine what his responsibilities at the plant entailed. So he let Johnson's receptionist know he would indeed be taking the rest of the week off. She wished him well and reminded him the plant was going to be closed through the long weekend for Christmas. He let her know it was unlikely he would attend the company party too.

~~~

The evening of the twentieth was finally noticeably colder than the past weeks of rain. While the news indicated a current temperature at 6:00PM of about fifty degrees, Daniel's own thermometer outside the back door was reading in the lower forties. Rain was almost constant, but fortunately not in torrents. Having spent the afternoon doing the same as he had for the past eight days yielded no results and no satisfaction that would permit him to sleep well either. He'd asked the sheriff's station again for a status with no other leads. Rachel's father had finally called them twice in the past week, but when Daniel inquired to the sheriffs why none of Rachel's family had come up to investigate he got the same explanation that he was expecting a little too much of her Native American culture to expect they would think or respond the same way he did. In essence he was told that the sheriff's department approached the missing person's case the same way Rachel's own family likely did: either she will be found safe and they will be grateful, or she won't and they will continue to be remorseful. Daniel didn't trust the evaluation from the sheriff and couldn't imagine a parent would just sit around waiting for news.

Between Mr. Johnson's muted reaction and casualness about beginning work, Rachel's family remaining fairly non-communicative, the sheriffs, and most of all the entire town of Woodland Hills that seemed to have permanently gone to bed during the storm Daniel was getting edgy. He felt the presence of the water shaman constantly pressing upon him. It was hard to turn off the lights because the darkness would rush in upon him so quickly and forcefully, even during the day, that it felt like he was being constricted.

"You can't beat yourself up about it forever, you know Mr. Tremon? It's not your fault. I'm sure if she loves you and she's okay she'll be back as soon as she can," the female deputy he last spoke to had told him.

It was little consolation and actually seemed offensive. _They all think she's my lover!_ he thought to himself. But the truth was, aside from the signs Dan recognized, there wasn't really a whole lot of sign of struggle. The doors had been locked from the inside, though the sheriffs clearly did not believe that once they arrived. Even with the truck left behind it was felt that with Rachel's recent departure from the Mesa Verde staff and no solid employment elsewhere yet that she likely just wanted to disappear.

The good that came of the twentieth was the conversation about Rachel's family. He'd been reminded that the creature seemed intertwined with the cliff dwellers and perhaps later the pueblo building and Hopi Indians as well. Something sparked in his head after he'd hung up and poked around on the internet a little more about shamans, prayer sticks and cursed lands. He recognized that perhaps he was not seeing his role in the right manner. He was the only one, aside from Rachel, that had put two and two together and figured out what the shadow was, as best as he could determine anyway. And, he was probably the only one left who'd made contact with the shaman too.

By 7:00PM Daniel had setup burning prayer sticks about the house and on the porch and back steps. He'd taken the last few up to the attic where he believed Rachel was abducted. Having spent many hours looking into Native American traditions as well as other spiritual means of defending against the water shaman he decided to hedge his bets.

Daniel took out a mat he'd had tucked in his mud-room closet and laid it on the floor of the attic space. It was dark with the single bulb on and it was very cold. But he knelt down and faced the window in the dormer. The prayer sticks in the attic continued to smoke lightly. In front of him Dan placed a small bowl from the kitchen and then dumped the contents of a small potpourri kit one of his neighbors had given him as a house warming gift when he first moved in. He pressed one of the prayer sticks into the sweet smelling items until they started to smoke as well. By the time he'd returned the prayer stick to its container at his side the rose petals and other items started a small flame and he knew it wouldn't last long. A cross on a necklace he'd had buried in his junk drawer in the nightstand by his bed had also been hung from the dormer window latch. He had also thought about trying to get ahold of some holy water but knew that would be a very unlikely scenario as the closest Catholic church was many, many miles up the freeway and it was already late on the eve of the Winter Solstice. His motley collection of artifacts would have to do.

With a glance around the attic once more, Daniel folded his fingers together before him. He pressed his hands to his chin and thought for a moment and then let them drop into his lap while he spoke.

"Dear God...or whoever may be on our side up there.

I need some help.

I don't think You intended for Rachel to be taken, and I feel like I need to do something to get her back safe.

Can You help me find her...

And help me find a way to get rid of this water shaman."

For a moment he listened. The window and then the roof above him started reverberating with the sound of hail pelting the surfaces. He hesitated to conclude his prayer with an "Amen" and so he waited out the storm. Soon the sound became a roar on the exposed sections of roof trusses and he had to open his eyes. Somehow the light bulb seemed considerably more dim, and then lightning struck the foothills in view from the dormer. It was only a half second later when the strike bounced around the room and shook the window.

Still Dan waited. He wasn't sure what else he should say but he was determined he wasn't going to quit until he'd heard some sort of answer that might help.

Lightning struck three more times in rapid succession. Then the rush of hail seemed to move along the mountain range past his home. The noise slowly returned to a rinsing of water upon the roof and in many ways it became relaxing. Running water in the rain spouts and the soft white noise on the house were actually soothing him with familiarity.

"God...please help me know where to go," he added in a whisper.

Lowering his head, Daniel closed his eyes once again. Instantly an image of his surroundings came to his mind as though his eyes were still open. In the dormer a watery visage of Rachel cowered before him. He felt the residual presence of the shadow in the same moment he turned his head and saw the water shaman approaching her from the stairwell hole to his right. He advanced upon her, and then Daniel switched positions in his vision. He became the one cowering in the corner under the book shelf as the shadow hunched over him and reached out.

The shaman's shadowy hands closed about his shoulders gripping him and its face suddenly flickered with the angry flit of candle flame light upon it, bathing the face in horrid reds and yellows among the shadows. He could see the creature was grinning and his eyes were wide. The man-thing seemed at once much more human than Daniel had thought, and at the same time a wildly crazed demonic soul. War paint in dark reds and inkish black marked his brow and cheek bones as well as his chin. Upon his head was a band with dark protruding shapes rising above and falling below to hang alongside his face. In that moment Daniel knew that if he gave in to the shaman he would kill Dan. So he resisted. He turned his face and attempted to put his arms up in front of him. Then the vision went dark, as if Dan had blacked out, but only momentarily.

When his eyes cleared and the vision continued he was being held at arms' length by the throat. He tried to look down as best as he could and the shaman's face was there grinning at him again. It turned and looked out the dormer window into the distance. Daniel too was able turn his head and higher up on the hillside was a small light flickering violently in the rain. It had the warmth but the inconsistency of a camp fire.

Then Dan found himself standing at the dormer, hands upon the book shelf and looking out the window. He glanced around the room again checking for the shaman but he was gone. His gaze returned to the light on the hill and suddenly, as it had when he first had his vision of traveling south two weeks earlier, the view moved quickly along towards the fire light. The homes of Woodland Hills quickly flew beneath him, rain spattering upon their mostly asphalt roofs. Yet there were no lights, no smoke from chimneys. The town was deadly quiet except for the patter of heavy rain. Still the sound of the rain, non-violent or threatening as it had been at times when the shaman tried to make his presence known, was affirming and strengthening.

Following the town the vision quickly moved into the maples, oaks and pines above the town. His view slowly descended into the forest as it yet progressed. Not far from the town above the last road after it had changed from tarmac to dirt and then failed completely his traveling vision began picking up the pace dodging in and out of stands of trees. A small stream crisscrossed his path before him on the forest floor. The trees grew thicker and he had the sensation of the earthy smell he loved so much. _Rachel!_ he thought.

As his movement took him further up the mountain, occasionally dipping between small vales and depressions and up over rises and ridges the little stream had cut in the landscape the light of the fire ahead grew and he knew he was closing on its location.

Finally, after several minutes the flight slowed down and he stood at the edge of a spring, the source of the stream he'd been loosely following upwards. Above the spring was a rocky outcropping and the fire burned brightly there above his head. He could not see the clearing there but he knew, _he knew_ , that Rachel was there.

"Rachel!" he called out.

Daniel stepped around the spring water's edge and approached the moderate climb to the north side of the rocky outcrop above it. As he did so the sky above the clearing, still above his reach and view, turned bright with the light of a full moon directly overhead. The rain had stopped, and only runoff from the leaves fell from trees in the ring around the area. It was tranquil and Dan felt energy flowing into him. He quickly placed his hands upon a rock at shoulder height, planted a foot on another and tested its slippery hold.

He called again, "Ray? Rachel? Are you up there?"

As he was about the heft himself up the first step of a short climb he felt a warm hand rest on his shoulder. Turning his head he saw the old Native American in his hat and cowboy shirt smiling friendly.

"You aren't ready to go up there yet, son."

Dropping his foot and swinging his arm down to his side again, Dan asked as he would plead with a parent for instruction, "Is she up there?"

The old man smiled and nodded. "She is, but you are not ready yet."

"What do I have to do?"

"Fight him for her release," the man said. As Dan glanced away to the rocky edge and back again the old man had changed to Daniel's own dopple-ganger as he had in the two other visions.

"Fight him," the _other_ said.

Dan stepped back from the climb and looked about at the trees above and the moon.

"Why doesn't she answer me?" he asked, turning to face the vision of the old Indian who had returned in place of Daniel's reflection again.

"She is frightened," he responded.

Clouds began closing in on the opening above the clearing. Rain drizzled into Daniels face and the moon was hidden again.

"She is trapped by her fear and has given in to the ancient one. She can only hear _his_ voice now," the raspy old man's words fell.

"Ancient one," Daniel whispered.

Then it was dark.

~~~

Daniel lifted his head off the mat in a start. In front of him the potpourri was flaming up in an unsettling fashion and a few embers were landing all around on the mat and the dry subfloor. He quickly stamped out the fire and embers and began picking up his items he'd brought to seek some assistance. It was time and he knew what he had to do.

Rushing through the house Daniel found his heavy winter coat, some old steel-tipped work boots, a flashlight and some other items. He found his old hiking backpack that had a waterproof lining and started throwing in anything he could think would be useful on his trek. He wasn't absolutely sure how to find the clearing with the fire but he at least knew where to start and he knew if he followed the stream he'd find there he could get to Rachel. During his rummaging he found two flashlights and threw one in the pack and held the other in his hand. He contemplated bringing a weapon, such as his gun. But he knew when it came down to it, the shaman was not going to be taken down by a bullet. The only way he could think of to fight the shaman was to confront and resist the shaman. He prayed someone would let him know what to do once he got there.

Before leaving the house Dan turned on every single light. In the back of his mind he wanted it to be a sort of beacon for his return. Once he charged through the front door to start up his truck he was surprised at just how comfortable the air and the rain felt. It seemed warmer than when he'd set up his meditation, and the steady but lighter rain was comforting too. But the darkened houses, even at 10:30, were a little unsettling. He felt there should be Christmas lights on at least some of the houses; his stark white LED strings were the only ones he could see. It was as if the season didn't even exist and he knew that had something to do with the shaman as well.

_It's doing what I say now,_ he thought, knowing he meant the rain, but unaware of how or why that thought came to him. Then, mostly to reassure himself in his plan, he whispered, "You're losing control, shaman. I hope you're ready for a fight."

December 21

The Recovery

Rumbling up the dirt road as far as it could go before getting stuck in mud, Daniel's truck rumbled and groaned as if it were a reluctant hunting dog. Daniel patted the dash and gave it encouragement feeling a push to end this once and for all.

"Something got you spooked, old girl," he said, jovially.

Once the tires spun up in the mud with no forward motion even at idle, Daniel killed the ignition and got out. The rain seemed to steam slightly on the hood as he went around the front end to grab his pack out of the passenger side.

It was quickly heading towards midnight and the morning of the Winter Solstice. Daniel was sure the moon he'd envisioned was above somewhere, turning the tops of a thick blanket of clouds to a silver satin. But below the rain still fell. To ward off the wet from his skull Dan pulled the thin hood out of the zip-up collar of the winter coat. Between the warmth of the cap he had on underneath it and the bulky coat itself he was already getting too warm just climbing up from the truck to the first rise. He flipped on the flashlight to find a path before him.

Once he'd mounted the top of the first ridge above the dirt road he could see a fairly clear shot over the canopy from within his grove of scrub oak to a small canyon head where he was sure the stream and its spring source would be found. But he gazed first across the rises and falls to give him a heading first. He knew if he wasn't careful and didn't pick up the specific stream he'd seen in his vision relatively quickly there were dozens of other canyons and runoff vales that he could stumble through before realizing he'd picked the wrong trail and had to re return to start all over again.

The inverted 'V' at the top of the canyon, likely just hiding the rocky outcrop and grove where he hoped to find Rachel, was at least a 500 foot rise, and maybe closer to 1000 feet. It looked to be as much as two miles away from Dan's current location. That surprised him. The towering mountains of Woodland Hill's backyard were so close that during snow storms his home would be dumped on while just a few blocks away where the foothills dropped suddenly towards the valley floor might get just a smattering. If the spring were really two miles into the canyon then it was very deep into the footing of the mountains. Even in summer it would be a cool area with very shortened hours of daylight hidden by peaks and ridges of the grand mountains around it.

Daniel could not look too far up and down the front of the range because low clouds and heavier rains here and there in the distance obscured the view. Soon, one of the fog-like clouds moved in alongside him and hid the view he had been taking in, bringing him back into focus. He started down that first ridge looking and listening for a telltale signs of a brook. The first several hundred feet seemed to have a sort of trail to follow, but it may just have well been a deer track than anything humans had maintained by the repeated use of it.

Darkness seemed to swirl in behind him and soon, his distance from the truck seemed indeterminate. He switched the flashlight in his hand off. It was making it difficult to focus on the surroundings by blindingly illuminating one spot at a time.

~~~

Thirty minutes after leaving the truck behind Daniel was convinced he'd started up the wrong rills in the mountain's foot. _I should have found a stream by now,_ he thought. Yet little signs were available that any regular flow of water other than runoff flowed through the path he was following.

He leaned against a large maple that had, as yet, not lost quite all of its leaves, to ponder. Closing his eyes he tried to replay the vision he had seen earlier in the night. _Over_ , a raspy voice said quietly in his mind. It took him by such surprise he had to look about to see if anyone had actually been following him. As he did he could see that the side of the valley in which he stood to his right was very steep and climbing more sharply than that of the ridge to his left. The valley had been traveling mostly south-east during the last several minutes and suddenly seemed clear to Daniel that he hadn't gone over enough rises to get into the canyon where the stream flowed.

_Over_ , he went. Climbing the steep hill and looking into the next valley Daniel heard the distinguished sound of water rushing over small stones and drops. The rain had fed the stream well and it was nearly a raging river. He half climbed and half slid through the mud to the valley floor. Peeling back the near-bare branches of a few aged maples and some youthful aspen trees he saw the stream glimmering in what little light there was to be found. It was a welcome sight. He imagined Ray was standing on a precipice up the stream waving and blowing him kisses. He'd done it. He'd found the route to hunt down the monster and bring Rachel back.

~~~

Climbing up the valley, loosely following the flow from the spring, became more and more difficult. The closer he was to the stream the more saturated the ground was with water and Daniel found himself having to stop frequently to pull his boots with his hands up out of the mud. He started making a practice of crossing the stream where there were larger boulders on which to do so in an effort to maintain contact with it, but generally kept his path wallowing back and forth from ridge top to ridge top on either side of it. He was keeping dryer that way, somewhat, and he was also able to make out a little distance up the valley ahead as he did so. On reflection, he felt that's why the earlier vision may not have stuck strictly to the path of the stream either.

Nearly two hours had passed since leaving the pickup behind on the road and Daniel clamored over a rocky shelf in the valley where the stream formed a small waterfall for a couple feet. Above was a mucky swamp-like area with a pool reflecting in the middle of it. A dry summer season might have made the area a nice place to stop and take a drink from the waterfall and throw rocks into the pool, but in the rain the entire flat was miserable and covered with scum from decaying leaves and other things.

Daniel backed up against the south-eastern ridge, keeping the stream somewhat to his right. He sat down on a large boulder near a spruce tree to take a brief rest.

_Damn!_ he chided himself. The one thing he'd forgotten to bring was a canteen to drink from. Plenty of water flowing all around and pouring upon him but he didn't think of a way to keep himself from getting dehydrated. He looked up, contemplating dropping back down the rock ridge to get a drink from the waterfall when he saw two red flints flash at him from across the marshy pool.

It was the shaman. He stood there in deep shadow, watching. No expression could be read. It was just observing. They locked stares for only an instant and then the shadow bounded up the ridge on that side of the valley, shaking trees and causing a stone to come tumbling down the hill back towards the marsh, clunking on large rocks as it rolled.

Daniel had tensed. His fingers were attempting to carve holds into the stone upon which he sat. After a moment of silence except for the drips of rain from trees around him Daniel started reasoning again. _Maybe it was just a deer._ But it wasn't. He knew there were no more questions in this game of shadows. He was coming for the shaman and the shaman was preparing for him in turn.

The waterfall lost its appeal after the confrontation. Daniel adjusted the pack on his shoulder and stood up to follow the stream on. He decided to stay on his side of the stream as much as possible. While the shaman did not hold the same power over him, Dan still felt fear and exercised caution. It was one of the reasons he didn't care for hide-n-go-seek as a kid: the surprise leap from cover of someone for whom he was looking as he came near to their hiding spot was not a pleasant one for him.

~~~

Above the marshy water landing the climb through the valley and up either side of it to the ridge tops got more and more difficult. There were larger boulders to climb. There were hills nearing sixty-degree inclines. The stream was becoming smaller as it had less runoff from the ridges to fill it towards its source but it was more rapid. Time crawled along with what seemed to Daniel very little progress. The alcohol he'd stopped drinking nearly eighteen hours earlier had long since burned off and the residual headache he had been entertaining prior to his prayer in the attic was ancient history. Now his body ached with prolonged and unanticipated use. His shoulders started to nag at the pack he was carrying and his thighs and calves felt as though they would cramp up entirely if he stopped moving.

But as he broke over yet another rise he realized: the rain had stopped. Moonlight was brightening the group around him.

He looked up and could see a white smudge, still mostly hidden by cloud but definitely there. It was a solid presence in the dark and it was smiling upon him. The area before him on his path had widened a bit and a small meadow through which the stream flowed was filled with grasses rather than snow as it might normally be this time of year.

Here the stream slowed and widened and made several pools in the rock. It was cleaner than the marshland he'd left behind and the whole scene was very inviting. If he had to guess he'd say the temperatures were climbing as well. Relishing the break in precipitation of any kind he removed his coat and laid it with his pack on a boulder to the south side of the stream. It was time to get that drink he had passed on earlier.

The pool itself seemed to be lined and kept by the granite and river rock bedding of the mountain's roots. It was clear and blue and fresh. Daniel squatted down and splashed one hand into the reflected moon and made a small scoop to bring a small sip to his lips. It was indeed refreshing.

He took another scoop. He found himself watching the moon reflecting on the water and in the back of his mind grew irritated that he hadn't made more time for living like this before. Though incredibly tired, he felt new. Air, water and earth were giving him life and the moon his energy. A fleeting thought of home and work rushed past his consciousness and he resolved that if he must go back to normal work-a-day life after recovering Rachel he would make it a habit to hike into the canyons above his home at least once a week if not more often.

Wanting to get a better fill of the water, Daniel knelt on his right knee and stretched his left hand out to balance himself on a rock, scooping with his right hand again. But his left missed its mark. There was no rock or perch beneath his palm and it dove heavily into the pool. Having lost his balance in the surprise his left hand plunged into loose silt and soil at the bottom of the pool and he slipped nearly up to his shoulder, right arm waving about for a purchase, legs sprawling out behind and to his right.

"DAMNIT!" he yelled.

He quickly tried to right himself with what balance he had, but his left arm and shoulder would not lift. He was caught! The bottom of the pool had somehow grasped him and he did not have the strength to pull himself out.

Lightning flashed somewhere up above on the mountain and it surprised him. He looked about the meadow as the thunder quickly peeled through the air raising the hair on the back of his neck. And then he saw the shaman again.

He was there, arms at his side, observing. The shadow stood on the other side of the pool in the grasses. This time teeth clearly shown at him in the moonlight, along with the red glinting eyes. Satisfaction played out on the creature's face.

Daniel quickly regained his knees under him and planted his right hand on the shore, but still he could not pull his arm out of the pool. Lightning flashed again and with the boom of the thunder shortly after he heard the rasp of heavy rains rushing down the mountainside towards him, striking leaves and ground and splashing about him. The moon was fading behind another thick cloud ahead of the current storm surge and Dan's heart murmured. He was trapped. And this fight looked like it would become deadly very quickly.

A low laugh that could have been distant thunder had Daniel not looked across the pool to see the shaman raise his head in jest, rolled at him. Still his hand, arm and shoulder remained deep in the pool. The shaman had won! He should have been more careful. Of course he should have known the water would be dangerous. Why hadn't he brought his canteen or done _something_ other than plant himself right into the devil's own element?

He was on the shaman's turf and playing by the shaman's rules and he realized, perhaps the whole abduction and months of misery had been all for this. Why would the shaman be pursuing him so?

Then he heard a new sound. He looked up the hill towards the stream flowing into the water in which he was imprisoned. Rushing water moved around the stones and shore about the pool and rose up Daniel's shoulder further. It pooled around his legs and his knees quickly chilled in several inches of water about him. The water itself was burying him!

As the water climbed quickly to his chin Dan sputtered and blow the liquid from before him. He pulled and splashed trying to release his arm. His head turned sideways, the water neared his waist and submerged his left ear. He cursed at the water as he pulled and pulled but he knew as he did it was too late. _Drowning!_ he screamed inside his head. In many months after winter had finally come and passed he knew his body would be found and someone in the coroner's office was going to be perplexed at how he managed to drown in the middle of a peaceful, serene meadow in the roots of the mountains he loved.

The figure standing on the opposite side began laughing. It reverberated deeply and seemed to be full of the thunder still echoing around them as well.

Raising a dark staff the shaman said, "Um ason piw a'ni!"

It then turned and left through the tall grasses in the field.

For a minute, as water splashed about his chin and left side of his face Daniel watched the figure walk away, perplexed. _It spoke!_ His mind reeled. The implication that almost immediately came to mind was that the shaman was still human...mostly. And if he was human than he can be dealt with! Either by reasoning or by force, there surely must be a way for Daniel to stop him from attacking.

"NO!" Daniel yelled. "Stop!"

But the figure was already gone.

Dan closed his eyes and focused on the seconds he had left before his nose and mouth were under water. He ran through the experiences of the last few weeks and thought about attempting to call the rain or command it somehow as he had done for the fire in Woodland Hills. Instead his mind latched onto a word and screamed it inside his skull. _Rush!_

Suddenly the swell of water all around him gushed before him past the bounds of the small pool area in the meadow and out through grasses. The stream quickly returned to its normal volume and at the same time Dan tugged his arm easily free of whatever had bound him to the bottom of it.

A low laugh emanated from beyond and above the grasses on the west side of the stream and Dan supposed the shaman had climbed further up the vale towards the origin spring. It was time to follow. It was time to fight back.

~~~

Having grabbed his coat and locating his pack towards the edge of the flat spot towards the drop to the climb below, Daniel found that the soaking he'd received was not all that uncomfortable. The deluge from the heavens had stopped with his command to _rush_ , but the moon was still hidden and it remained dark. If he were to be asked or gave a guess he would suggest the temperatures were in the comfortable 70s, or at least in the 60s. In truth the temperature in the meadow had dropped below 40 degrees. Something in him was changing in regards to the water, and though he did place his coat back around his shoulders, he felt he really didn't need it.

As he prepared to start hiking up the east side of the stream again, he muttered to himself a little bit and wondered what exactly was going on. His enemy was clearly a man. But he was a supernatural man at best, not a ghost or even a soul who had died and left body in the earth, but a spirit of some kind who somehow managed to maintain his grasp on life, physically effecting the world around him. _Maybe_ , thought Daniel, _he's sort of evolved into something more_. But he felt there must be a spiritual side to the difference between the two of them as well, particularly since the shaman would have started out as a sort of holy person in the cliff dwelling. At least that was the fairly solid conclusion he chose to stand on at that moment.

Above the meadow area the forest closed in around the increasingly sharply inclined V' of the valley floor. It became dark with the canopy even more so than the meadow without moonlight. The stream represented the whole of the bottom of the valley as the elevations continued to rise and Daniel struggled to maintain balance with the sharp hill to his left. For a short time he tried following the dwindling stream from the west, simply stepping over the small bubbling flow. Eventually though, Dan ended up splashing his boots through the stream itself. The steep sides and the very dense collection of scrub oaks standing beneath the pines and other evergreens became too much to move through, though his confidence in his path grew with every step. A transition from canyons and swallows carved by runoff and small rivers like the stream he followed rose in front of him. The pitch of the mountainside changing from a difficult climb through the valley to a near cliff face in front of him told him he was very near the spring.

Finally the last opening in the forest came into view. Daniel knew it when he saw it. There was a final eight foot climb up another rocky outcrop, but right in the center the little stream burbled off the top of it and fell forming the path he'd just trekked. It was clear there was no more valley left above him and indeed granite boulders and sharp faces jutted out on either side of him.

The landing he found himself in had just opened enough for him to pace about four or five wide steps in either direction of the stream. He set down the pack and after a moment removed and stored his coat in the pack as well. Using one of the flashlights was tempting, but he knew Rachel was just above him. He felt it. He could practically smell her wonderful natural aroma, distinct from the heavier, detritus smell of the forest in which he presently stood.

But that meant He was there as well. It wasn't more than a few seconds, but it seemed like minutes to Daniel as he stood there waiting and trying to get a feel for what was likely to happen once he popped his head over the ridge and struggled to stand up upon the flat above. Posturing somewhat to reassure himself in his confidence he stood hands akimbo and looking up to the source of the fall of water in the middle of the rock outcrop when the shaman addressed him for the last time.

"Um pitu?" the shaman said in a gruff and full voice. Then he laughed as he had in the meadow landing below. "Good."

_English!_ Daniel's mind exploded. The possibility of communicating and perhaps persuading the shaman had just opened itself up to him in full glory. _I can talk to him!_

Daniel placed his hands to the rocks on the west side of the stream and began climbing. There were enough hand and footholds it was a quick climb and he soon stood at the edge of the rocky outcrop staring into the clearing. He had arrived. A small pool flowed into a short run of a stream which then fell over the outcrop and began its long journey down through the valley through which Dan had just risen.

It took a moment for Daniel's eyes to adjust to the scenery around him. This landing was a good deal wider than what he'd expected, very much like the meadow, only without grasses and smaller growth. There was a break in the canopy but no moon shone. Very tall spruces, pines and cedars mingled with a patch of quaking aspens that seemed to span out far to the east and were just beginning to turn the yellow Dan would have expected in the fall, surrounded him entirely. Aside from the small pool of water the rest of the ground had a collection of leaves, needles and small branches rotting into the soil that begat them in the first place.

There along the back of the clearing, in the shadow of the first line or two of trees loomed the shaman. He was pacing through the forest, carrying his staff and eyeing Daniel all the while. A glimmer of light opened a few trees beyond where the shaman was pacing and he could then see as the shaman turned to walk back the opposite direction a set of teeth gleaming in a wicked grin. The shaman laughed again, yet refused to step into the clearing. The light that shone seemed to land upon a small figure a good fifty yards into the forest. It was as if a spotlight were highlighting Rachel huddled up against a boulder taller than he himself stood. Dan could not tell if Ray was conscious or what.

"Why did you come?" the shaman asked as he stopped moving.

Daniel steadied his feet and prepared for only things he could imagine. He was not sure what to expect, but he knew the shaman was awaiting a real answer.

"I came to bring Rachel back home!" he called out.

The shaman started strutting again. He toyed with the staff as he moved and used it at times to brush aside branches. It was as if he was considering Daniel's answer.

"Where is home? She does not belong to you," the shaman challenged.

"And she doesn't belong to you either!" Daniel hollered back.

The Shaman stopped his pacing back and forth and withdrew backwards into the forest slowly towards Rachel.

"Then come, rescue her," the shaman said in a lower voice. But he chuckled just the same after speaking the words.

Daniel started to move around the small rippling pool, the raindrops increasing upon the surface and wetting his already-drenched clothing further. The shaman's shadow had nearly disappeared into the trees but Dan noticed a movement. The dark soul had propped the staff out to his right side and had raised his left hand towards Daniel and the pool.

"Rise," the shaman said, voice intermingling with the thunder again.

The small pool began to swirl quickly and before Dan had made the short distance around it there stood a towering water spout that moved and blocked his path. Taking a few steps back in defense he also noticed miniature streaks of lightning emulating those in the sky, but which were clearly not in synch with the natural strikes. The spout was alive and began moving towards him. The shaman was going to try drowning him once more!

Daniel realized he would not be able to escape the spout quickly enough so he planted his feet, lowered his head and raised both hands to the spout. He started to speak a command as he had learned in the meadow before but was swallowed up whole just before he could mouth it.

For a moment, despair crept upon the lonely mortal wrapped up inside the spout again as it had in the meadow. As it had for the past three months. But his recovery came much more quickly this time. He knew the answer! He could control the water just as the shaman could but he had inspiration that gave him strength as well!

Thinking of Rachel and the moonlight that bathed her in the distance, Daniel drew his arms up against his chest and then thrust the outward to his sides with force, imaging the water spout bursting from the inside out and thought in his head, _away!_

Water and sheet lightning blew away from Daniel in a sweeping one-hundred and eighty degrees before him. It moved in a twelve foot wall to either side and into the forest in front of him. He fell to the ground next to the now burbling spring again and his knee drew up into his chest, pressing the air from him and stunning him momentarily.

"FALL!" the shaman yelled as the wall of water and energy made its path through the forest. He yelled in fury at his lost control.

Looking up, Daniel could no longer make out the shadow or to where it may have fled. But as the water neared Rachel it dispersed just at the edge of her tiny lighted circle. From afar he could see her raise her head warily and turn towards him. She raised one outstretched hand towards Dan, but before he could respond he was struck by a new attack.

Icy hail pelted Daniel's body in waves of unimaginable volume. It struck at him vertically from within the forest, mingling with the rain falling from above. Wind tore through his clothing and coat pushing him backwards. Eight steps forward and then...Daniel fell.

~~~

Shaking off the effects of a fall into a great pit Daniel tried but couldn't determine how long he'd been lying in the bottom of it. Rain was pouring in from the sky and the water collected in a muddy mess beneath his back. It was rising quickly, beginning to trickle into one ear. The rain was so heavy it created a roar that bounced about in the forest above and fell into the hole heavily.

As he stood up in the hole, Dan noticed the shadow above him at the edge of the pit. Lightning flashed around the creature again and the shaman's teeth shone metallically.

"Why do you fight?" the shaman said with humor in his voice. But it was a laugh that chilled Daniel.

As he looked for handholds along the side of the pit, he replied, "I've come to bring Rachel back with me!"

The shaman laughed again in his thunder and folded his arms before him around the staff. Dan started and then slipped, then turned to the opposite wall to try it. Rain water had filled the pit up to his shins by that time.

"Why do you fight?" the shaman asked again in a lower tone, but without any additional compassion. "She is not yours."

Struggling to find any root, any handhold, any solid possibility of climbing out of the pit Daniel put his hands at his side and tried a new approach.

"Because...I love her," he said.

The Shaman guffawed his derision, uncrossing his arms again and tipping the staff from one hand to the other, then back again, before responding with an outstrecthed gesture of his free arm.

"You have not even been with her, fool!"

"Wha?..." Daniel sputtered wiping a little mud from his face. "What are you talking about?"

The Shaman started pacing back and forth at the edge of the pit where he had stood. "You do not love her...and she does not love you! I know this! You have never been together even once!"

Understanding glimmered in Daniel's mind.

"Just because we're not lovers does not mean I don't love her!"

He threw his arms at the wall beneath the shaman and drove his hands into the muddy edge hoping for purchase. He flexed his arms with all the strength that remained in them and then drove his right foot into the wall violently. He was able to raise himself a couple feet in this way. The shaman sneered at him.

"You have no business with this woman!" the shaman growled. "And you have no business to usurp my control in this region!"

_So that's what this is about,_ Daniel's mind echoed back at him. He thought it must have been one of his "other" selves trying to instruct him again. Desperately he tried to listen to what the voices in his head could tell him, hoping beyond hope it would give him an edge, some leverage, to manipulate the Shaman.

"You can't have both!" Daniel yelled. "She would never stay with you!"

The shaman took to pacing again and then turned. His mouth seemed to unhinge and open wide showing glowering teeth and let out a guttural howl and hiss at the same time.

"You can't be a Shaman of rain _and_ have the love of a mortal woman at the same time!"

The Shaman calmly folded his arms around the staff one more time. Eyes alternately glinted red and electric blue with reflection of nearby lightning strikes on the mountain.

"That!...I know," he said. He presented a smug grin following his assessment.

Daniel played his final pitch more quietly, "Let us go. Please?"

Nodding his head at Daniel as if he were trying to mesmerize him the reply finally came: "Trade."

Daniel slicked the dripping rain from his hair back so that he could see more clearly. "What?!"

Anger welled up as Dan tried to understand what the Shaman wanted.

"Let us trade?" the Shaman cooed.

~~~

After moments of standing in the pit contemplating with the rain water rising above his knees, Daniel finally fell upon an idea, the success of which was only limited by whether or not it could actually work. And Daniel knew it could work for him.

Raising his hands to his sides he gestured with both hands and said, "Raise!"

The pool of mud and rain water in the pit began to roil and bubble around him. The skies flashed lightning all around the vale in which he was trapped, filling the sky with strobes of white and blue flashes. Rain fell rapidly and the rushing sound fell upon him again, as it had during the fire. As the pool water started to rise the Shaman's visage appeared at the edge of the pit again from whatever he was doing with Rachel and glared with glinting eyes, staff gone and the elongated misshapen prongs of the headdress missing.

As the water rose, so did Daniel. It had swollen up to his belt line and then lifted him, his arms still outstretched. The volume of water seemed to expand as well and as Daniel and the water crested the edge of the pit it picked up speed, rushing upon the Shaman. Lightning flashed all about Daniel and the torrents of rain picked up again. As the water swell knocked over the Shaman, Daniel willed it to rush into and through the woods towards the one glimmer of moonlight still hovering over Rachel. She warily lifted her head from the rock and stretched her hand to Daniel as he came through the trees riding a mounding hill of water.

Once within a few feet of Rachel, Dan's arms lowered and the water dispersed around the two of them in an outward wash. Ray was trying to stand, using the rock to balance her. Before she nearly fell face first he was with her, holding her, warming her as best as he could, soaked through with water. And then she collapsed into his arms. Scooping Rachel into his arms, Daniel looked about for any sign of the Shaman and then turned and began his retreat from the mountain side.

He had willed the water to surround and wash the Shaman away from the land, but he knew the idea was impossible. A water Shaman cannot merely be washed away.

As they made their descent Rachel seemed to stir in and out of consciousness. Approximately thirty minutes down the hill and past the meadow already, as Daniel was making good time, large, beautiful flakes of snow began making their way in through the canopy and onto the open areas.

_Well, that's different at least,_ Dan thought to himself.

By the time the end of the dirt road where the truck had been left was in sight, the snow was beginning to collect and there lay a half to one full inch on the ground, stirring with his boots. The temperature had dropped below freezing and he held Rachel to him as tightly as he could while he carried her.

Finally, with the truck nearing ahead of them, Rachel stirred and placed her head as close to Daniel's neck as he could. She wrapped her loose arm around his opposite shoulder and held him tight to fight of the cold. Eyes warily rolling to catch sight of the truck and a promise of warmth she finally spoke.

"Dan?..."

His reply was hoarse and he huffed with the exercise of carrying over a hundred pounds down the mountain side. "Yes, Rachel?"

"I think..." she stuttered with the cold, "I may be ready to have a relationship now..."

Daniel smiled. He could feel her smile as well against his neck.

Epilogue

Daniel's Story

Daniel sat staring at his new self in the mirror for a moment after applying the shaving cream. It had been four months since the events leading to his exchange with the Shaman and he'd still not gotten use to the visage.

Things in Woodland Hills and the surrounding areas began to return to normal almost immediately on the twenty-first of December. They'd had four months of typical snowfall, and Dan had to assume all the other areas, Mesa Verde, Cortez, the Arches and further up north from him along the Rockies were all within normal precipitation amounts. The citizens of the area were considerably more friendly again as well. It seemed the opportunity afforded him during his confrontation with the Shaman was all for the better of everyone around him.

There was only one fallout from the events: Rachel seemed to immediately sense the change in Daniel after returning home on the morning of December 21st and had quickly reversed her openness to a relationship with him. She constantly appeared nervous about him, and rarely conversed. The new Daniel for his part acted as though her choice was just fine with him. She stayed on for a short time at the house while he got into the rhythm of working at the packing plant and putting his life in order, but he could not hide the new outlook he had and she soon left him. Ray had found an opportunity at Yosemite in California which was a year-round position. She packed and left within twenty-four hours of confirming the position with not even a kiss, hug or any real display of emotion at all. And so she was gone.

Considering the new light in which Daniel saw the world it was not a terrible thing to have Rachel go. In fact, he found it easy to let her go since he hadn't even been the one to initiate his interest in her in the first place. Instead, after learning a little more about the contemporary conditions of courtship he'd settled on another young woman at the plant and started dating her: the secretary to the president of the company no less.

As he raised the blade to the right side of his check and began the gentle strokes downward to remove the weekend stubble, his face was lost in steam on the mirror. But before wiping he could sense the slightest of shadows among the mist. Red eyes glinted at him and a shadowed form materialized.

"You can manifest yourself already then?" new Daniel said after the initial shock.

The shadow nodded.

"How do you like being a Shaman?" he asked another question as he began shaving again.

Again the shadow replied with a nod, but this time only singularly.

Daniel tried to maintain a casualness about the conversation, even though if he admitted openly to himself it did carry some small amount of fear with it.

"You took to using snow so very quickly. I'm impressed!" Dan continued with another stroke on the opposite side of his face.

"Tell me," he asked working on the space below his nose and on his chin, "Are you satisfied with our trade?"

A soft grumble came from the shadow standing in the mirror. Daniel knew the old Daniel Shaman was there standing directly behind his right shoulder, but did not think he would be able to see him, so he continued to watch the figure in the mist on the mirror. There was no staff and no headdress. Daniel Shaman had no war paint upon his face either. It was simply a darkened face with glinting eyes.

"Yes," the Shaman whispered.

"Rachel is safe. I have done no harm."

The Shaman nodded his head.

As the new Daniel finished his shave and rinsed the Shaman remained.

"What is it?" Daniel asked. "Why do you linger then?"

It took a moment before the rain Shaman's reply, as though it was a concentrated effort to make his voice heard.

"Others..." he finally growled.

Daniel put down his towel. "Yes? Have you met them?"

"Yes," the Shaman replied.

"Does it surprise you there are others?"

Another moment of thought, more to focus on the words than the idea, and the Shaman replied, "No."

"Have you spoken with them yet?"

"Only one..." the Shaman nodded, "But I didn't know there would be others."

"Well there are," Daniel said and then attempted to turn and leave.

A hand on his shoulder prevented him from turning.

"Is that a problem for you?" Daniel asked. "I would think you should like company. Just because I didn't, does not mean they won't be agreeable with you. Just do your duty with the waters."

The Daniel Shaman released Dan's shoulder and nodded. "I was just surprised....Is there more you should tell me?"

Daniel stood with his hands on either side of the bathroom basin and pondered for a moment.

"No, Daniel. There is nothing more for me to tell you. Do your duty well for as long as you wish. Let me go and live the remainder of my live now."

Daniel turned and exited the bathroom. He hollered back to the mirror, "Thank you for the visit. I need to attend to my employment now...and so do you I think."

The shadow in the mirror was gone.

Rachel's Story

Standing in the lobby of the lodge in Yosemite, Rachel unwrapped the quick-lunch packages she generally picked up as meals for her tours and duties. It was raining outside, the first rain of the season following a heavy year of snowfall. The weather report indicated it might rain just a bit in the afternoon, but late April was very early in the season for rain and the precipitation would likely return to snow as the sun went down. She took a cautious bite of her sandwich contemplating it.

_Could it be Daniel?_ she thought. She didn't think so. She imagined a Shaman was bound to at least some sort of defined geographic area, even if it was likely a very large one.

Her memory remained vague of the last few minutes in the possession of the original Shaman. She had only come to marginal consciousness just as Daniel began fighting the Shaman and was still mostly out of it when she was carried from the forest.

But one thing stuck in her mind above all other cloudy images from that week she was entwined in the Shaman's web: Daniel's last words.

Dan's bare-chested figure loomed over her while she clung to the rock upon which she had awoken. He had nearly disappeared into shadow, but his voice was still calming.

"I have traded with the Shaman, Rachel," he said.

She had tried to shake off the fog in her mind as she listened. She'd tried to ask why he would trade, but never got her answer directly. He was explaining things but his voice kept fading in and out. She never knew if that was her own wariness at the time or something about his new existence. One statement stood out in her mind, one that she later vowed would not be part of the deal.

"We're trading so that I can do good, and he wants out...and...he wants you."

Ray later recalled shaking her head and finally mustering a response, "No! Please don't go yet. I need you."

Her mind slipped again into sleep as she heard Daniel's last words echo in her head, "Don't let him fool you. I am something different now. You can be new too."

Once her mind was fully hers again back at Daniel's house in Woodland Hills the following day she knew the figure of Daniel moving about his house and looking through just about every possession he owned was not really Daniel. He did not speak the same. He acted lost initially. He was awkward. And he was very needy. He plead for attention, and she refused it, recanting what he had told her she had said on the descent from the mountain: She was definitely no longer ready for a relationship with _him_.

Never once did Rachel confirm for the new Daniel what she knew, but she became quickly certain he was aware. If he didn't realize the real Dan had spoken with her before he rescued her and returned her home, new Daniel probably did within a day or two. And it was time for Rachel to leave.

A friend had gotten her a job with the coveted Yosemite Rangers and it was the perfect opportunity to start fresh. She'd never been to California before and Northern California and the Sierra Nevadas from Yosemite to Lake Tahoe were absolutely beautiful. Within the first week, her friend had taken her on a tour of the San Francisco Bay Area as well. It was all a new and unique environment for her. On the return to the park they came through Pleasanton on 580 and took Highway 5 south before heading east on highway 140 towards the park. They had decided to take 140 instead of 120 through Manteca and Modesto so that they could stop for some popular pizza in Mariposa.

On the southern route from Highway 5 there were a couple rises where Rachel could look directly east and see the sun just settling into the crevice of Yosemite nearly seventy-five miles away. It was a beautiful sight, and in many ways, the park became home to her in that moment. She thought she might remain there for a long time, particularly because she'd hoped if she stayed in one place long enough she might be able to make contact with Daniel, the new Rain Shaman, once again. She considered loving someone again a very real possibility, but she needed to know what Daniel felt before moving on.

###

# About the Author:

P. Edward Auman is a noted anthropologist studying the cliff dwellers of the Southwest. He has also dabbled as mechanical engineer who functioned as the first test pilot of United States Space Shuttle program. He was retired from service after suggesting by radio to the control center that he play chicken with Major Tom before returning to Earth. Edward has also written the definitive explanation of string theory which, in layman's terms, relates more simplistically to guitar 101 in college than to the potential quantity of parallel or simultaneous universes. However, the activity for which Eddie is most famously known is his creation of 43 clones to assist him in all of his many ventures. 42 clones survive today, following a mishap with a gene-splice bio-fuel algae agent, to which Eddie responded, "42's probably good enough. It is the normally accepted answer to the Universe and everything in it anyway."

# Discover Other Titles by the Author at Smashwords.com

The Old Silk Hat, A Frosty The Snowma Prequel – released 12/23/2012

Speak Rain – released 1/27/2013

Troll Brother – A Y.A. Contemporary Fantasy – Spring/Summer 2013

Untitled YA Contemporary Fantasy Novel – "Sprites" Book 1 – 2013

Untitled Vampire Series, Book 1 – 2013

More to come 2013/2014

# Connect with Me Online:

www.PEdwardAuman.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/pedward.auman

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@PEdwardAuman

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/PaulAuman

### Sample - Troll Brother

### First Draft

On a Saturday in May, Robert decided to go explore a little more of the sharply inclining foothills above his home in Maple Springs. The little town sat at the foot of a mountain which rose to nearly 10,000 feet. It certainly wasn't the largest mountain in the Rockies, but it was quite grand, especially if it was one of your first mountains you'd ever seen, let alone live next to. And there were canyons, sloughs, and slopes covered in scrub oaks, maples, aspens and alpine evergreens to explore. Compared to the life he'd just left behind in Iowa it was excitement every direction he turned. To the northwest, a lake glistened below and in the distance he could see a valley full of larger towns where he went to school, shopped with his mother and did normal kid stuff. But all around him to the east, south and with a little hook of a mountain point heading west he was surrounded by the grandeur of cloud-scraping mountains and he wanted to be part of it.

All of his plans for that warm May day came crashing down when his mother put a stipulation on the adventure. She wanted his little brother Ricky to go with him.

"Please, Robbie! I _need_ your help with this!" Mom was begging.

She held out the sandwiches she made for him. They were meant as a bribe because they were three of his favorites: peanut butter and jelly, but with cocoa hazelnut spread instead of peanut butter; a cheese and mayonnaise sandwich on white bread; a seafood salad sandwich on a small roll.

"Mom! I can't take Ricky with me! He's going to slow me down, and...Er...what am I supposed to do if he gets hurt?"

"You'll take one of the cell phones. It has GPS. You just call me and I'll come running. If you go past where you have reception then you're going to be in big trouble anyway." Robert thought her pleading expression was pathetic.

He wanted to say something about how the puppy-dog eyes look doesn't work when he uses them on her, so why should they work in reverse. But he thought better of it. Mom was a feisty redhead, and that's one thing his father had warned him about often: _Never make a redhead mad, unless you want to spend days and days more than sad!_ Dad wasn't much of a poet, but that little slogan stuck in his head whenever he felt like arguing with Mom.

"You know...I'm technically too young to babysit, I think..." Robert said, reaching deep into the pockets of his mind for the last few excuses he could possibly find.

Mom stood akimbo and prepared for a more drawn out fight. But she kept her cool for a bit longer.

"Look at him, Robbie! Seriously, I can't get everything done for the party tonight if I'm dealing with that!"

Robert did look. All his remaining effort to argue fell flat and he resigned himself to taking little Ricky for a little walkie. Ricky, had just finished building a fine scouter's fire by crumpling little bits of fire, throwing in some sawdust he got from Dad's workbench in the garage and leaned several of Dad's old toy cabin logs inwards together to form the fire 'teepee'. He had just tipped a little nail polish remover from Mom's bathroom into the pile to ensure a good start and was flicking a lighter he'd found in the kitchen drawer of emergency items. The display was setup and ready to go on the tile in the kitchen just a few feet from the table.

With Mom's desperation showing brilliantly in her eyes, Robert did the grown-up thing and stopped Ricky just pre-explosion and asked him if he wanted to hike up the slope and look for some snipe. Secretly, he wondered why Mom and Dad never thought of just putting Ricky on a chain in the front yard. If it worked for dogs, maybe it would work for crazy kids that failed obedience school too.

Dropping the lighter, Ricky dashed to his bedroom saying, "Let me get my pack and some exploring stuff!"

The lighter skittered across the floor and hit one of Mom's shoes, bouncing off. She looked at the other scorch marks on the tile here and there. They could come out with some cleaners and some elbowgrease, for the most part. But the grout in some areas and one of the cabinets that stood a little too closely to where Ricky tried his last practice bonfire would never look quite right. As she stared she held out the sandwiches to Robert. He took them eagerly and went to find Ricky to see if he could hurry him a long a little, or at least prevent him from getting distracted with his latest home-built potato cannon. The family had all generally agreed it was best to have Ricky destroy the house and be in view, instead of allowing him to roam the neighborhood unchecked, destroying anything that caught his attention. But a potato canon in his room was bound to break a window or punch a hole through the wall into Robert's room.

_Maybe military school would be able to train him?_ thought Robert. But then he thought more wisely. _Nah. That probably wouldn't even be a challenge for Ricky._

