Morning Light

  “How interesting.” She rubbed Malachi’s nose. “Poor baby. It’s awful trying to walk through stuff like this when you can’t see, isn’t it?”

  The gelding chuffed and whickered, nudging her with his nose. Loni smiled and gave him another scratch. Watching her, Clint recalled his dating checklist and gave her high marks for loving animals. There were a lot of areas where she’d earned high marks, he realized.

  With a sigh she zipped up her fleece jacket against the evening chill. “We may as well make camp here then. In full darkness, using a flashlight, wouldn’t we run a risk of losing Trevor’s trail?”

  “The tracks haven’t been disturbed by the wind as much on this side of the ridge, but there is that possibility if he stops following the creek. The water will take the easiest downhill course, which may not always be due north. If the boy’s using a compass, he might get worried and follow the needle instead of the water. In that case we could lose him.”

  “God forbid. I’ve been praying and trying to strengthen my abilities, which I’m almost certain gave me that gut feeling earlier, but there’s no guarantee until I’ve practiced more that I’ll get any gut feelings tomorrow.”

  “So you’re taking my advice about trying to gain control?” He made no attempt to conceal his pleasure at the news. “That’s great, Loni.”

  He glimpsed that glow in her eyes again.

  “I was a little scared at first,” she confessed. “But then, after thinking about it, I realized that was dumb. God won’t help me strengthen my abilities and then leave me to my own devices.”

  “No, that isn’t how He works. Just always remember to keep Him close, and you’ll do fine.”

  Clint began tending to his horses. The animals had put in a hard day and deserved some pampering. He was pleased to have Loni assist him. She still had a tendency to move in too close behind an animal, despite his constant warnings, but she’d learned a lot otherwise. When it came time to rub the horses down, he heard her talking to them as if they were human, and she seemed to enjoy handling them now that her fear was abating.

  “How come Uriah always raises his head to look down his nose at me when I’m talking to him?”

  “He’s using his binocular vision.”

  “His what?”

  “Horses have both monocular and binocular vision. In monocular mode, excluding their blind spots, they have a radius of vision that ranges from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty degrees.” Clint pushed against Bathsheba’s flank to turn her slightly as he rubbed her down. “When you’re riding Uriah he will mostly be in monocular mode, his eyes working separately. Picture a clock lying flat on the ground, and yourself in the saddle, sitting at twelve o’clock and facing forward with the clock numbers all behind you. In monocular mode Uriah can see from the left side of his nose to an angle of about eight o’clock behind your left shoulder and from the right side of his nose to an angle of about four o’clock behind your right shoulder.”

  She rubbed the horse’s velvety muzzle. “That’s amazing. Talk about having eyes in the back of your head.”

  Clint chuckled. “It really is amazing when you think about it. The problem is, in monocular mode Uriah has a blind spot the width of his nose directly in front of him. When you stand in that blind spot to pet him, like you are right now, he has to raise his head and focus binocularly down his nose to see you.”

  She combed her fingers through Uriah’s black fore-lock. “I’ll be darned. When I first met him it frightened me when he threw his head up and rolled his eyes at me like this.”

  “It scares most greenhorns. They think the horse is spooked. Not so. He’s only focusing. You ever tried to look through a set of binoculars at something close up?”

  “No.”

  “Try it sometime. Damned near impossible. You have to back off a little to see.”

  “It must be horribly confusing to see monocularly with two eyes.”

  “For us it would be. The horse sees the left side of the trail separately from the right, two entirely different pictures. Fortunately he possesses interocular transfer, so he recognizes what he’s seen with his left eye when he sees it with his right, and the monocular vision gives him a much broader view than ours, protecting him from predators. One of these times you may be riding happily along, and Uriah will suddenly spin around and throw up his head. You’ll think something spooked him. But the truth is, he’s just seen movement monocularly. He’s spinning and throwing up his head to focus binocularly so he can tell what moved and how far away it is.”

  “So the monocular vision isn’t very clear.”

  “No, and because the horse evolved as a prey animal, he uses monocular vision most of the time to keep an eye out for danger.” Clint grabbed the curry-comb to remove the tangles from Bathsheba’s tail. “Their perfect vision is twenty/thirty-three on the human scale, so it’s not nearly as clear as ours. Their depth perception in monocular mode isn’t very good either, thus the spinning and focusing when they see movement.” He looked over Bathsheba’s withers to make eye contact with Loni. “That’s why your habit of approaching a horse from behind is so very dumb. He can’t see you until you step into his monocular range. Always talk to the horse so he knows it’s you approaching. Otherwise he’s liable to spook and kick you clear into next week.”

  “Have you ever been kicked?”

  Clint chuckled. “Does a bear shit in the woods? Yes, ma’am. Had a horse break my femur once. Trust me when I say you don’t want it happening to you.”

  When the animals had cooled down enough to drink, Clint and Loni led them in pairs to a flat spot along the stream to consume their fill of water. Then they strung the high line and fed all the equines a ration of alfalfa cubes, working together yet again. Loni had once told Clint that she was a fast learner, and she hadn’t lied. Once he showed her how to do something, she remembered every step the next time. Definitely a lady who had potential as a horseman’s wife.

  The thought gave Clint pause. But then he wondered why. On so many levels he and Loni just seemed to click. He’d gone with his gut on all the other big decisions of his life. Why not on this one?

  After setting up camp Loni went searching for firewood. It still wasn’t fully dark, so she enjoyed the opportunity to stretch her stiff legs, confident that she wouldn’t get lost because she could still see the horses and the tent. She had almost a full armload of nice-size branches when she came across footprints. Trevor’s. When she looked more closely, she also spotted Nana’s tracks, following behind the boy’s.

  Setting the wood down, Loni followed their trail for a way. She wasn’t entirely certain why. It was just a feeling she had. Moments later she understood. Up ahead was an outcropping of rock, and as she drew closer, she saw an opening. It was the cave where Trevor and Nana had slept the first night. She felt certain of it.

  Picking up her pace she covered the remaining distance in only seconds. At the cave opening, the ceiling of which hit her about chin-high, she leaned over and went in. Silence. Light from outside illuminated the interior, creating a shadowy gloom. Loni spied a candy wrapper lying on the ground. When she picked it up, an image of the child and dog sharing a chocolate bar flashed through her mind. Smiling sadly, she sat there for a while, trailing her fingertips over the disturbed earth where Trevor and Nana had lain.

  “You had me worried.”

  Loni glanced up to see Clint leaning down to peer in at her. “Sorry. This is where he slept the first night. When I saw it I had to come in.”

  Clint moved forward, shoulders hunched to keep from hitting his head. “Nice digs. He’s a smart kid. Sleeping in here protected him from the wind and probably from the cold as well, to a certain degree.” He sat beside her. “Picking up anything?”

  “Only memories.” She patted the dirt beside her. “This is where they cuddled together that first night when I heard the wolves.”

  “Maybe we’ll hear them tonight.”

  Loni shivered and ru
bbed her arms. “Oh, I hope not.”

  He chuckled. “No worries. You have me to protect you.”

  “I’d hate for you to have to shoot a wolf.”

  “Me, too.”

  She sent him a wondering look. “You like wolves?”

  “Never been around them, but I’ve seen photographs, and I think they’re the most gorgeous creatures on earth. Aside from horses, of course. There’s a huge political battle being waged right now over their growing populations in Montana and Idaho. Ranchers are up in arms because their livestock is threatened, and activists are up in arms because the reintroduced wolves were once indigenous to those areas. They want the ecological balance to be restored.”

  “Which side are you on?” Loni asked, almost afraid to hear his answer.

  “I lean real hard toward protecting the wolves. Dumb answer for a rancher, I know, and I might change my mind real fast if they moved into the Crystal Falls area and started killing my horses.” He gave her a sheepish look. “I know it’s not masculine to admit it, but my horses are my babies. I’d take on a chain saw bare-handed to save one of them. I’m sure there are ranchers who raise cattle and have prize bulls or cows who feel the same way. Same for sheep ranchers, I reckon. You build your line year by year, improving on it with your breeding choices, and money can’t replace one of those animals if it’s senselessly killed.

  “That said, my heart breaks at the thought of decimating the wolf population. Yes, they’re predators, but so are humans. We’ve only prettied it up by raising and harvesting our meat. I hope they find a way to protect the livestock and the wolves. If we can send a rocket to the moon, it seems to me we should be able to set up electronic perimeters of some kind around pastureland to protect livestock.”

  “I never thought of that. An electronic field, you mean?”

  “They’ve proven that deer avoid high-frequency beepers installed on automobiles. Use of the device has reduced roadkill. I can’t remember by how much, but it’s substantial. Most states haven’t passed a beeper law because there’s a concern that the natural migration paths of the deer might be interrupted, and also that some deer might be afraid to cross a highway to reach water. But what if something like that could be installed on fence lines that repels wolves but doesn’t bother the deer, cows, and sheep?”

  Loni had to bite back a smile. He was in dead earnest, making her realize how badly she’d misjudged him that first night at her house. Clint gave a great deal of thought to some environmental issues, and in her book, they were all important. “Let’s hope someone’s thought of that and they’re working to invent something.”

  Once back at camp Clint unearthed a portable cell phone charger, connected his phone to it, and then dug a fire pit while Loni gathered rocks to encircle the depression.

  “I’ve never seen one of these,” she said of the portable charger as she took a seat beside it on her folded sleeping bag. “It runs on batteries so you can charge your phone anywhere?”

  “Sure does.” Using a lighter, Clint ignited the dry pine needles he’d piled under the wood as tinder. “It comes with a wide selection of adaptors. I’ll recharge your phone, too, as soon as mine’s done.”

  “My mom hasn’t called back. I’m thinking we must be out of signal range.” Loni dug her phone from her pocket. “Sure enough. It says, ‘No service.’”

  “Tomorrow we’ll find a high spot to call out. I should check in with my dad, too, just so he won’t worry, and you can ring your mom to fight with her some more.”

  Loni laughed. “We don’t normally quarrel like that. The Cheryl Blain thing has been almost as hard on her as it’s been on me. She’s protective of me now in a way she wasn’t two years ago, so afraid something like that will happen again.”

  “When you talk about it, I get the feeling that the Blain situation happened long ago. It’s only been two years?”

  “A very long two years. It seems like a century. Some things are so devastating that they eclipse everything else until you begin to heal.”

  “My dad told me that once when he was talking about my mother’s death. He said that for a very long time, everything before and after seemed surreal, like in a fuzzy dream, and his only reality was the pain of losing her.”

  She nodded. “That’s exactly it. I didn’t know Cheryl, and I didn’t love her, but I was there, and I felt what she felt. For me it was up close and personal. I couldn’t sleep well for months, and even now I still have the nightmares.”

  “I can’t blame your mom for never wanting that to happen to you again.”

  Her eyes misted. “Thank you for that. Mom can be a little overwhelming at times, but her heart is in the right place. We’re close, she and I. She’s always been my support system, the only person, aside from Gram, who really understands me. Her meddling in my personal life is mostly my fault.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’ve leaned on her, always stayed in the Seattle area until now. I bought a house in Lynwood, just across town from them, to keep the familiar around me. I even started my business there. It sounds weak, I know.” She shrugged and glanced away. “If I’d set up shop in Seattle, my clientele probably would have tripled, but even though the city isn’t that far away, the traffic makes for a long commute. I wanted to be closer to my parents, closer to my childhood home, and closer to Gram and her homemade chocolate-chip cookies. She lives only a few blocks away. In a very real sense I never left the nest.”

  “That isn’t being fair to yourself,” Clint countered. “It’s not as if you lived with your folks. I count on my family, too. All of us kids live right there on the land where we grew up, within shouting distance of Dad. We socialize. When something goes wrong we circle the wagons. What the hell’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, I guess. I did live with my folks for a while, though. After I sold my house, but still had my business on the market, I couldn’t find a rental that would take Hannah.”

  “So? That’s how it should be. You needed them. They were there for you.”

  “Yes, but in the process of being there for me, my mother changed. She saw firsthand how insane my life was, with people phoning or coming to the door at all hours, both day and night. She watched me lose weight, get circles under my eyes, and jump at my own shadow. Now she’s like a tigress protecting her kitten, frantic to keep me safe. We weren’t really fighting when we talked. It’s more like we’re trying to reestablish a healthy playing field.”

  Clint bent low to blow on the feeble flames. “I know you weren’t really quarreling. I was just giving you a hard time.” He glanced up. “I wish my mother were around to fuss over us. Losing her was hard on us all, especially Samantha, the only girl.”

  “I think it was probably hardest on you,” Loni pointed out. “Samantha didn’t have to contend with feelings of guilt.”

  “Oh, yeah, she did. Still does, I think. In her mind our mom died to give her life.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Clint sat back on his boot heels. “She and I have always been thick. When she was tiny and Dad had to work, it was my job to watch out for her. My feelings for her are more paternal than brotherly, I think, and in return, I think she feels more dependent upon me than my brothers. In some ways I’m like a second dad to her.”

  “It must be great to have a large family. I have only Deirdre. We’re very close, but I’ve often wished I had more siblings, and so has she.”

  “Family is important.” He watched the fire catch, his expression solemn. “Now that the subject has come up, something’s been troubling me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “At first you were so convinced that Trevor was my son. Have you changed your mind about that?”

  “You asked me not to talk about it.”

  “I’m rescinding the request. It’s uncanny how accurate your visions seem to be. You were so certain at the beginning. Can you explain why?”

  Loni looped her arms around her knees. “No
, I can’t. Some things just come to me in the visions, and I simply know, if that makes any sense. It came to me that Trevor is your child, and in answer to your question, no, I haven’t changed my mind about it.”

  During the tension-laden silence that followed, Loni recalled the translucent crimson that had tinted some of her visions. She wondered if she ought to mention it to Clint. Since he had broached the subject, she decided she should. “In the very first vision of Trevor, it came to me that his life would be in danger and only you would be able to save him. Do you recall my telling you that?”

  “I do, yes.” His firm lips twitched in a suppressed smile that deepened the slashes bracketing his mouth. “I thought you were crazier than a loon at the time.” He met her gaze, his own alight with self-derisive laughter. “I’ve come a long way, baby.”

  Loni smiled back at him. “Yes, you have.” She thought carefully before she continued. “How open are you to the possibility that Trevor is your son? I don’t want to upset you.”

  “Now that I’ve come to know you, I’m open to almost anything. It’s still extremely difficult for me to believe Sandra would have kept my child from me, though. On the other hand, I’ve come to trust in you and your insights far more than I ever trusted her. I mean no slight to Sandra. She was a fabulous person. But you, Loni MacEwen, are fabulouser.”

  “Fabulouser?”

  “A deliberate error, and there you go again, unable to accept a compliment. Repeat after me: ‘Thank you, Clint.’”

  She grinned. “Thank you. Is that better?”

  “You’re getting there.”

  “If it won’t bother you to talk about it, there is something I haven’t mentioned. In the early visions I had of Trevor, sometimes everything was bathed in red. For many clairvoyants a crimson overlay signifies blood, and judging by how much I saw of it, I believe Trevor will be gravely injured, and somehow you—and only you—will be able to save his life.”

  A thoughtful frown pleated Clint’s brow. Then his gaze sharpened on hers. “Of course!” he cried. “It’s all finally making sense. I have type O-negative and CMV-negative blood. I’m what they call a baby donor. If I don’t go in to donate every fifty-six days, the phone starts ringing. Blood like mine is in huge demand. That’s why you got signals that only I can save Trevor. If he were badly injured and needed an emergency transfusion, my blood type is universal.”