Set in the present, but in a universe where TSBS never happened, and the future is the one depicted in Susan's GDP series.

Routine Disclaimer: They aren't mine, because sometimes we just don't get what we want in life. Paramount and Pet Fly Publication don't want them anymore so I don't see why I can't have them, but there it is, I don't. (Pout) I don't make or get any money for this or you would have bought it at a bookstore!

Thank you's to Susan for letting me read wonderful stories that let me escape to whole other worlds, heck to at least five new universes! Can't thank you enough for all the enjoyable reads. And to Eileen who makes it all happen somehow. Web Wizard Extraordinaire.

Warnings; Well, this one is sort of therapy for me. There were so many times the writers made me crazy with how the had written some episode. Heck, in my universe TSBS never even happened cause that show was more than I could accept. So this is an angst and soul baring marathon, as I exorcise my demons.

Oh…Rated PL for potty language, these guys have mouths on them that would definitely not be accepted in polite society. But the last time I tried to wash their mouths out with soap; well Blair was too fast for me, and Jim too big. So forgive or don't read.

The Whole / Skyepony July 2001

I don't know what they used on me. My nose feels like I had inhaled acid and my mouth tastes like I'd licked a chemical spill! And no three hangovers could equal this headache. I also feel like a jackass. All my training, as a bad ass Covert Black Ops Ranger and then as a cop, and they'd taken me as easy as a kindergartener.

After finishing a really tough case I had been due to meet Sandburg at noon at the loft. Blair had rushed over to the University to tie up some loose ends to free up his weekend. We were going to grab a quick bite then catch the Jags exhibition game at two. When I'd arrived home I found the stairs that would take me up the three flights to the loft roped off and freshly painted. The pungent odors required me to tune down my sense of smell as I headed into the elevator that happened to be working for a change. As the rickety doors rumbled shut I pressed the button marked with a well-worn '3'. The car lifted slowly about ten feet and then quivered to a halt. For a moment I thought the stupid thing was just stuck again. It happened so often I usually just avoided the elevator entirely. But I instantly went rigid as I distinctly heard a click that had nothing to do with the familiar sounds of the elevator. Then the lights went out. Instinct took over and my pupils sprang wide, granting me clear vision even in the tiny amount of ambient light. My hand flashed to my gun holster even as a high-pitched hiss filled my ears and a cloud of gas engulfed my head. I held my breath and pounded the 'door open' button. When nothing happened I jumped up onto the handrail and reached for the emergency hatch in the elevator car roof. I can't say I was surprised when it refused to open. Bright flashes were appearing before my eyes as my oxygen starved brain signaled for me to breath. Running out of ideas I'd fired my whole clip at the roof hatch along the hinge hoping to weaken them. I had pounded against it as the last of my strength sloughed away from my limbs. I remember falling back to the floor and exhaling in a blast and then helplessly whooping in a deep breath, blackness enfolding me immediately.

Coming to was no picnic, but my training warned me to feign continued unconsciousness. I felt the cold metal of handcuffs joining my wrists.

I dialed up my senses and spiraled them out carefully. I heard the steady thrumming beat of a propeller and engine and the air around me was bitter cold and smelled of fuel and metal. Cracking my eyes open just slightly I found myself staring at a curved metal wall with a small boxy window in it. Dim orange tinged light streamed in through layers of dirt. Without moving anything except my eyes I quickly scanned my immediate area. A plane. Old propeller type, no insulation or seats so not a passenger carrier. From the inside it looked like an old DC3 converted for cargo. I sorted through the loud engine and wind sounds and filtered them out as Sandburg had taught me. With hearing cranked up I immediately tagged three heartbeats. Two were about forty feet ahead of me on the other side of a barrier, probably the cockpit. Also a small tinny radio announcing some scores. After a few moments, two unfamiliar male voices started bickering “Yes! I knew they'd do it. They won. You bet the Jags wouldn't win. You lose. You owe me ten bucks.” Congested nasal voice, southern drawl. “Yeah, but in sudden death overtime. I said by the end of the game. When the clock ran out they were tied!” Another southern drawl, thicker, more bass. Then I digested what they were saying. The Jags game over! Shit! I'd been out at least three hours!

Since the bad guys were otherwise occupied and either didn't know or didn't care that their captives were regaining awareness, I opened my eyes, rolled over and focused my senses on the owner of the third heartbeat. That rhythm was as familiar to me as my own face. When I heard it a moment ago only the fact that it was steady and strong had kept me from going postal. I had hoped that this time at least whoever got me had left the kid out of it. But if there was one constant in my universe it was that where there was trouble, there would be my partner.

When I rolled over I found that a steel cable connected my cuffs to the planes wall with about four feet of slack. Pushing up onto my knees I shuffled over to the still figure lying across from me. I could just reach him at the limit of the cable. Curled on his side almost in fetal position, Blair Sandburg looked like a sleeping young bohemian. Layers of Salvation Army clothing bundled under a heavy navy pea coat cocooned around him. Leather gloves over wool bulked out his small hands. I couldn't help a bemused smile escaping. When he was asleep the kid looked so damn young! Even with a faint five o'clock shadow across his jaw there was such innocence on that face.

I reached out a hand and brushed his long curly chestnut locks from where they had fallen across that unguarded face. Hard to imagine that childlike visage masked an incredible intellect. Blair Sandburg had once been an un-endangered academic. Regardless of his youth he was already known and respected. A well-traveled anthropologist. He had managed to make it to his mid twenties without once being kidnapped or nearly killed. Despite living among primitive peoples in dozens of foreign lands.

No, it wasn't until he joined up with me in the 'civilized' city of Cascade that he got the privilege of being shot at, kidnapped, and threatened on a regular basis. Like now. Damn I hate this feeling of guilt. I basically can't function without him, but without me he could do fine, hell better than fine, he'd be a damn PhD by now if not for me. Yet he stayed. What had started out as a short, mutually beneficial exchange, he studies me I get help with my errant senses, had become a strong, binding friendship. And now here he was being kidnapped…. again.

Extending all my senses toward Sandburg I was careful not to focus to strongly on one and zone out. I doubted the kid would appreciate having to pull me out of a zombie funk with the headache he was going to have when he came to. And he would have a headache; I could smell the bitter acrid odor of the same gas that had been used on me clinging to his clothes. But no smell of blood, thank god. His breath was forming frosty clouds each time he exhaled and he was shivering. I'll always wonder why the hell he ended up in Cascade. Anything under 90 degrees Sandburg considered a cold wave! He was an orchid living in an icebox?

Without consciously thinking about it I reached forward to pull his coat closed and was surprised to find my hands coming in contact with web straps. “What the hell??” Not the padded leather straps of his backpack as I had thought, but heavy nylon webbing? I shifted him slightly and now saw the dark parachute on his back. With his hands cuffed like mine it meant that our captors had gone to the trouble to put him into the chute before cuffing him. My stomach clenched at the idea. Why? The kid was terrified of heights and these bozo's went and put a parachute on him. I doubted it was out of concern for his potential safety.

Leaning forward as far as the cable permitted I practically put my mouth right to his ear to be heard over the drone of the plane. “Come on Chief, time to wake up.” For a moment his head turned slightly toward my voice and a grimace flashed across his face. He mumbled something incoherent but his eyes remained closed. Then abruptly as I patted his icy cheek he began thrashing his bound arms wildly. I grabbed his shoulders and tried to shake him awake and out of what nightmare gripped him.

“No! Let me out! Open the doors…. can't breath…” His voice climbed in panic and he push hard against me. Damn. They had obviously trapped the kid the same way they'd gotten me. I could just imagine what he had felt when he had found the stairs painted and the elevator the only option. Sandburg had a distinct dislike for elevators since being held hostage in one being dropped by a maniac. That little episode had gotten worse when he'd discovered a bomb as a co-passenger. No, Sandburg and elevators had parted company whenever possible from then on. So he would have gotten on the elevator already nervous. Then the lights going out and the gas pouring down, smothering him. I had been trained for dealing with some pretty frightening shit in the Rangers, the kid had been learning the hard way, by experiencing it. His pulse and respiration went from calm and steady to ballistic in full-blown panic attack overdrive.

Grabbing his flailing hands I pulled him into a tight embrace that restrained him and comforted me. “Easy Sandburg, you're okay.” I murmured gently. Yeah I know. How can a tough as nails, lone wolf Covert Black Ops Ranger let a scrawny brain trust flower child get to be more a part of his soul than even a kid brother? I still don't quite know how it happened. It sure hadn't been anything I ever had a chance of avoiding. I had every intention of staying a loner, never risk getting to close to anyone after losing too many as a man, soldier and cop. When I had first meet this hyper kinetic generation x'er I had figured to deal with him for a week or two, at a comfortable distance, get a handle on my senses and then blow him off. But Sandburg had simply bulldozed over my emotional 'keep out' signs, plowed under my tough guy walls, and generally ignored all my 'don't touch' signals. He might not be the biggest or meanest dog in the pound…… but he was by far the most tenacious.

“Jim?” Blair's voice was barely a whisper, confused and hopeful at once. But plenty loud enough for a Sentinel who's hyper senses were even more hyper to every sound, feeling, and movement of the younger man. I eased him back so I could look into his face. Puffy eyelids began to open but almost immediately his face withered with pain and he squeezed his eyes back shut. Having experienced the headache from the gas myself I could guess the kind of pain he was feeling. Then I noticed he was hurting so much he holding his damn breath! I grabbed his shoulder, hard! Then barked out a loud, alarmed “Hey, breath Sandburg!” only to hear his heart go into overdrive. Great, scare the shit out of him when he isn't even awake yet. Gritting my teeth I managed to rein in my own anxiety to speak in a calmer, persuasive voice. “Deep and steady Chief” I encouraged him, “I know you have the headache from hell… but it's from the gas. It'll ease up in a few minutes.” A moment later I was rewarded with the sight of half open eyes. Bloodshot, but misty blue and bright with eager intelligence, Sandburg's eyes pretty much telegraphed everything. He winced as his eyes opened a little wider and began to flicker rapidly over our surroundings. That's my Guide, always the curious observer. Putting on my best 'everything's going to be fine' smile I asked…“Hey Chief. Guess what?”

“If you're eavesdropping big guy, I'm fine.” I murmured with amusement. “Freaked for a sec… but everything's okay now.”

Suddenly the elevator jerks once and stops rising. Then the car is plunged into total blackness. The bird is back in my chest in a single heartbeat and my breathing starts to race to catch up. “It's just stuck, I'm fine. It's just stuck, I'mfineItsjuststuckI'mfine,I'mfine” As the mantra starts to become incoherent babble a cloud of damp, smelly mist shots into my face.

Almost the second I feel the stuff my head starts to spin. Gas! Shit no! I felt as if someone had taken a thick wet cloth and held it across my nose and mouth. I couldn't get any air. My hands reached through the dark to pound on the elevator doors, fingers clawing at the seam between them. “No! Let me out! Open the doors…. can't breath…” As the darkness that surrounded me began to seep into my mind and body I wondered if the gas was lethal. Was I dying? As the feeling left my body a part of me thought of my Sentinel. If he was listening to my struggle. Helpless to aid me. It would be hell for him. Unable to speak I sent a quiet prayer up, “Take care Jim. I'm sorry big gu….” Everything stopped.

Coldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcold… The first returning thought I had was I was damn cold! From a distance I heard a droning rumble that made my head hurt and my teeth ache, but all my attention was pulled toward the fact that I was freezing. I tried to draw into myself and struggled to wrap my arms around my torso for warmth. But my wrists seemed connected somehow.

Still more asleep than awake I felt cool air breathe by my ear and I thought I heard a voice. But an engines drone blanketed it. The cold, damp mist across my face caused me to flash back. I was back in the elevator suffocating in gas. Throwing my arms up I slapped away something icy that touched my cheek. A pair of strong hands grabbed my shoulders and began to shake me. Still trapped in the fear of the nightmare I fought even harder. Then iron hard arms wrapped around me like a straight jacket. But just as I was about to launch all my strength into one last bid for freedom my senses delivered simultaneous messages. I'm not a Sentinel mind you, but I am a trained observer with a great memory. And I am also the Guide who had had to find stuff that wouldn't send my Sentinel into allergic fits. So when my nose picked up the combination of herbal scents that clung to the body restraining me I felt a wondrous calm come over me. Then a much-remembered voice murmured into my hair, “Easy Sandburg, you're okay.”

All the fear flushed away and I struggled to lever open eyes that seemed to be glued shut. Finally I managed to at least get my lids to half-mast and instantly regretted it. I've had some headaches in my life, but nothing like the one now attempting to bore out of my head through my eyeballs! I cringed at the pain, slamming my eyes back shut. I didn't realize I was also holding my breath until Jim squeezed my shoulder and snapped, “Hey, breath Sandburg!” his voice took on a coaxing sound. “Deep and steady Chief, I know you have the headache from hell… but it's from the gas. It'll ease up in a few minutes.”

Only the fact that I trust Jim implicitly made me try squinting my eyes open again. It still hurt, but slightly less, so I risked going a little wider. As some degree of focus kicked in I saw the gleam of metal on both sides of me. Looking up at Jim with obvious questions on my lips I saw him paste on that 'hey look I'm not worried' smile that never fooled me. But playing along I arched my eyebrows in inquiry as he gave a chipper, “Hey Chief. Guess what?”

Sandburg was playing along, I knew that. He was the king of obfuscation, so he always pegged me whenever I tried to pretending things were fine when they weren't.

As I watched him look around again I could almost see the little Cray computer in his head reviewing and categorizing everything. Gassed, plane, handcuffs, Jim tethered, different particulars, same scenario. Hostages, again!

Two topaz blue eyes opened further in the dim light and caught me in a pain filled but steady gaze. “This gets old after a while big guy.” My partner ground out between gritted teeth. “I have a paper due Thursday and this is already gonna cut into my research time!” He reached up to push his hair out of his eyes and shook his pounding head when the handcuffs rattled from the movement.

Leave it to Blair to prioritize his survival after his classes. I saw his gaze look around again and then come back to the cable holding me to the far wall of the plane cabin. He pushed off his heels to scoot across the floor on his butt toward me, awkward with his wrist clamped together. He had only moved a foot or so when he froze. His cuffed hands came up to tug at the web straps around his shoulders. Then he tried to twist his head around to look at his back. Since he wasn't the Blair from the Exorcist he couldn't manage it. So he than tried to reach behind himself to pull what was behind him around to his front, but the handcuffs made that impossible also. “This isn't my backpack?” He looked up at me with a question in his expression.

I couldn't think of anything to say except the fact. “Uhh, no it's a parachute.” I winced at my own words. Way to go Ellison that definitely was delivered with great empathy! I saw the kid go rigid and color drain from his face. I almost didn't need Sentinel hearing to catch his heart rate lift off for the stratosphere. “Parachute!” he barked. “What the hell am I doing wearing a parachute for?” He pulled at the straps but when he couldn't find a way to yank the offending item off he glared at me. “Parachutes are for jumping out of planes.” He hissed as if it was somehow something I had arranged. “Been there, done that, didn't like it. I'm am sooooooo not even going to consider jumping out of any more planes! So what's the plan? Who the hell has us this time? Where is this plane taking us? What do these wacko's want?”

I knew waiting for him to take a breath was a waste of time; Blair could be in the Guinness book of records for run on sentences. “Easy Buddy! You're babbling here.” He swallowed a couple of times then looked sheepishly at me. “Sorry Jim.” Then he shivered, tried to wrap his arms around himself and gave me a half smile. “Man, one of these days we'll get nabbed by someone who forces us to Florida and ties us up on lounge chairs on a nice warm beach.” Pointedly ignoring the parachute he wore Blair finished scooting over to sit by me.

Taking steady deep breaths he pulled his legs up almost into the lotus position. He looked like he planned to try to meditate. Instead he turned back to me. “Okay Jim, I'm cool. Let me try this again. Who, What, When, Where and Why?” I rolled my eyes at his coded inquiry. The scary thing about Sandburg was I really pretty much understood him. Maybe I have taken so many trips into the Sandburg Zone that I can now speak the language like a native.

“I don't know Chief.” I answered honestly. “ I just came to about 5 minutes before you did.” I tilted my head toward the front of the plane, “I can pick up two guys in the cockpit. Don't recognize their voices. They haven't been back here since I woke up”

“No hints what their agenda is huh?” He stated more than asked. Twisting around he reached behind me and tugged experimentally on the cable attached to the cuffs I wore. “I don't suppose they are up there discussing that this is all a plot the guys put them up to, to throw us a really kinky surprise party?”

He gave me one of his wickedly mischievous smiles and waggled his eyebrows. I couldn't help but chuckle. “No such luck Chief. The only thing they've talked about so far is the results of the Jags game.”

Sandburg's eyebrows froze and he looked stricken, “Oh Man! We missed the game! That is so not cool.” Then he looked at me expectantly. “Did you catch the score? I have fifty riding on the Jags by two.”

“Fraid' not Chief.” I said, barely able to keep from smiling. “You'll have to see if you cleaned Rafe out again AFTER we get out of our current mess. Okay”

“Awh Jim. You're still pissed that you lost the big pot to me…. again, on poker night. I can't help it if I am just naturally gifted.” He lifted an eyebrow and gave a mock look of hurt when he heard me snort at that.

“Well, you keep living in denial big guy.” The unmistakable Sandburg smirk flitted across his partners mobile features then just vanished as he switched gears suddenly. His eyes bore into mine. “Okay… what's the plan?” Absolute confidence in me radiated from his expression. Jeezzz, he had been dragged through one snafu after another with me and he still was certain that I would get us out of anything. For such a brain he sure was slow on the pickup about my limitations.

I lifted my cuffed and cabled hands up between us. “First off, do you still have your knife? I'd feel a lot better minus the bracelets.” He nodded and tried to reach for his back pocket, but with his own wrists cuffed he couldn't manage it. Finally he pushed up on to his knees, “You'll have to get it Jim.” Kneeling on all four he shifted around to move his back to me.

“But watch your hands buddy!” He snickered and his butt wiggled suggestively as I pulled at the cable to free enough length to reach up toward his back pocket. I snorted as I reached out, “You ain't my type kid.” Just as I got to the end of the tether my ears honed in on to the pair in the cockpit. “We're almost at target area Jake.” Nasal drawl said suddenly. “Automatic pilots on. Time to play!” Movement and the squeak and click of a door handle turning.

Grabbing Blair's pocket I yanked backward. “Sit down Chief! Our hosts are coming.” Falling and scrabbling he managed to plop into a slightly off balance recline next to me before the cockpit door had swung fully open.

Who ever these guys were, they were taking no chances. A gun was the first thing through the opening. The hand holding the weapon was attached to a tall, weight lifter stocky blonde guy dressed in camo gear. Around his upper arm was a black band with a bright orange sun with a flag behind it embroidered on it. I couldn't help rolling my eyes, the Sunshine Patriots strike again!

“Oh Shit!” Blair exclaimed when his eyes caught the armband. “Not you guys again! What is it with you? Don't you have lives or is being sanity challenged inbred wacko white supremacist's militia a full time job?”

I winced as Sandburg's tirade took off. God, we'd had this conversation at least a dozen times. When would the kid ever learn to stop pissing off guys with guns? “Sandburg!” I growled through gritted teeth, glaring at him. “Shut up!” But I knew it was already to late.

Sure enough the boot camp rejects face screwed up with rage. “You stupid Kike! You need to be taught some respect.” He swung a booted foot straight for Sandburg's head. With the awkward angle he was sitting in Blair couldn't get out of the way. I lunged in front of my partner, to the limit of my restraint with my wrists crossed to block and deflect the blow.

Catching the steel-toed missile across my palms I twisted it and shoved with as much power I could manage at the end of my line. The combination of his momentum and my push was enough to spin the jerk half around and impact him with the far wall of the planes cabin.

If blondie was angry before, he was cataleptic now. His face was blistering red and his eyes promised murder as he brought up the gun aimed straight for me.

Before I could stop him Blair suddenly surged to his feet planting himself between the gunman and me with his cuffed hands held out palm up in a consolatory gesture. “Hey, chill guy. Sorry. You got the gun that makes you the boss. Message received.” His voice held no hint of fear, but his heart was back up to mach 10 and was so loud I figured it could be heard across the room.

My vision unconsciously telescoped in on the gunman's finger. When I saw it tighten slightly I tugged desperately at the cable that held me helpless to intervene. Just as I was about to shout and try to distract attention to me, a second tall camouflage clad figure immerged from the cockpit. “BILLY! Kincaid said alive!” He snapped sharply.

Blair's expression was intense, as his eyes never left the gunman. I continued to strain against the cable trying to get enough slack to get my hands on my partner. I wanted to pull him out of the line of fire. Wanted to push him behind me to some level of safety. Wanted to strangle him for taking such a chance!

But apparently 'Billy' had enough discipline or fear of Kincaid to obey orders. For a moment his eyes meet Sandburg's with deadly humor and he smiled. It was the smile of a cruel bully as he prepared to torture a puppy. “Yeah, alive,” he sneered and then chuckled. “For now.” He stepped back a few feet, still holding the gun even with Blair's chest. “But you'll wish I'd put you out of your misery here Jew boy.”

Sandburg took a step back, bringing him into range of my grasp. I grabbed the chute strapped to him and pulled, hard. He stumbled back and I continued to tug into he was on the far side of me. “Jim!” he yelped as he gyroed his arms wildly to keep his balance. “Shut up and stay!” I growled with barely contained fury.

With the kid behind me I remained focused on our captors. They had dropped their voices to a faint whisper, but for Sentinel hearing they may as well have been using a bullhorn. “I'd love to just shoot the long-haired fag right in front of the cop.” Billy hissed, his eyes never leaving Sandburg. “Well that isn't the plan Billy.” Jake commented with a sneer in his voice. “Or do you want to tell Kincaid you let the little guy push your buttons and got you to go against orders. The plan is for both of them. So get over it and let's get going or we will miss the target area.”

“Okay, okay!” Billy shook his head in momentary defeat, and then he looked up and met my glaring gaze. I felt a moment of pleasure as he took a startled step back on realizing the feral predatory nature of my thoughts right then. If he had come in range I would have gladly taken his gun away from him and feed it to him in a blink.

Unconsciously registering that I had labeled him the biggest threat to Blair, Billy again brought his weapon up and waved it nervously at me. “Okay Ellison, we know all about you and your 'Black Ops' military ninja assassin crap. So you are staying leashed until I give you the key. Get it?” He tried to sound intimidating but it didn't come off with the tremble in his hands as I continued to focus exclusively on him. Taking a deep breath he pulled a key out of his pocket and held it up for me to see. “This is the key to your cuffs.” Then he used the gun to point to the back towards the dark tail section of the plane. “Back there is your parachute.” Following his point with my sight I turned up my vision. He was telling the truth, there was a parachute lying against the far wall.

As I turned back toward the pair in front of me I tensed as the other man, Jake, motioned for Blair to come to him. “Get over here boy.” He drawled condescendingly. When Sandburg didn't move Billy swung the gun to aim at me. “You heard him! Get moving before I put a bullet in the cop.” Seeing Jake look over at him Billy commented, “Not kill him Jake, just wound him…hurt him a little.” He smiled at the thought. Before Jake or Billy could think on the idea too much though, Blair calmly stepped around me and walked back toward the pair.

I made a grab for the kid as he went past, but he was prepared and stayed just beyond reach. “Chief, get back here!” I snarled. But he kept going.

When he was about a foot in front of Billy he stopped and just stood there. Jake nodded and moved backward to the hatch door in the planes side. He released the pivot handle and yanked the bar inward then revolved it once. The door made a soft sucking noise as the seal let go. Then the door shifted into the cabin a few inches. I had to tune down my hearing when the sound of wind roaring past increased as Jake pulled on the door to pivot it inward and around until it banged against the interior wall. The temperature in the plane cabin plunged from bitter cold to breath snatching frigid.

When the door first opened Blair had seemed to almost shrink in on his self as he was hit by the icy blast. But then his eyes caught their first sight of the ground flying by in the last light of dusk, hundreds of feet below. I doubt he even felt the cold as adrenaline kicked in. The kid began to back away from the open hatch. His heart was fluttering at a mad pace and I could smell the fear radiating off him. He spun around and his stormy blue eyes nailed mine. I watched his eyes go to my back to the tail of the plane and back. I realized that as afraid of heights as Sandburg was, right now he was more afraid of the fact that I wasn't wearing a parachute while he was. Without my Sentinel vision to confirm it he didn't believe there was a parachute for me at the back of the plane. In his minds eye he was picturing me flung from the plane to plunge to my death while he was forced to float down watching. And I watched a familiar and terrifying glint come into his eyes. The steely, stubborn damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead conviction of a Sandburg about to do something absurdly impossibly dangerous and heroic. I wasn't fast enough to shout to him that he was jumping to the wrong conclusion, that there was a chute for me. Seeing him tense, I just knew that he was about to fling himself at Billy to try and push him into my range. Yup, hundred and thirty pound Blair was about to tackle a two hundred pound muscle man with a gun.

Like I said, I was once a macho military type, and it takes a bit to spook me. But that look in Blair's eyes sent chills down my spine and nearly fogged my brain with panic. He was going to get himself killed and I was bound here about to watch it. His nightmare about me was my nightmare about him. As I saw him begin to charge the gun toting Billy I bellowed at the top of my voice, “Billy!” I was hoping to grab his attention for the moment Sandburg needed. It was almost a relief to see the gun shift to aim right at me.

What Sandburg had not registered in his equation was Jake. Just as my partner began his turn Jake spun around and pounced from behind, wrapped his arms around the kid's upper body. With his arms pinned to his sides Sandburg twisted and struggled, trying to slam his head back into Jakes head and stomp on his feet. The way he was thrashing Sandburg probably would have worked his way free pretty quickly. But as soon as Billy realized I was trying to distract him he spun, strode up to Jake and his flailing captive and stuck his gun right in Blair's face. “Settle down boy, or we finish this now!” He snarled. I could tell by his tone and heart rhythm he meant it, so when Blair continued to fight I called out to him. “Come on Chief stop. Blair! Listen to me will you!” I watched as he just halted all at once, turning those desperate eyes on me. I was not surprised to see guilt and apology in those smoky blue depths. “Sorry Jim.” his voice was pained and forlorn, “I blew it.”

I couldn't help a slight smile. “First off Chief, there is a parachute.” I saw him blink; he hated it when I read him like a book. “Second you didn't blow anything. I'm the cop remember? My job to take on the bad guys. This is my mess. I'm the one that's sorry. Sorry I got you dragged along for the ride.” At the mention of 'ride' Blair caught my eyes again and whispered Sentinel soft, “Wouldn't ever have wanted to trade the Roller Coaster back for the Merry Go Round man, not ever!” He threw all his conviction and passion into those few words, conveying a world of faith in me, in our friendship, and in his choice to remain at my side.

I felt my heart swell and for a moment it was just my partner and I absolutely in synch. I smiled and felt my confidence return that some how we would get out of this in one piece. Blair's own face split with one of his grins that could eclipse the sun. Yeah, we would be okay. Together we were unbeatable.

“Okay Ellison, this is the way it's going to be.” Puffed up will self importance Billy still stood a couple of feet out of the circumference of the half circle I could manage at the end of my cable. “Kincaid feels that because of you two he and several of his best men have been rotting in prison for the past three years. Well they all escaped two nights ago. But he's a little worried that that much time in captivity might have taken some of the edge off our soldiers of America's liberation. He feels it's only right that you help them get back that edge. So in three days there is going to be a training exercise.”

The doofus was standing at attention now, like spouting Kincaid's orders made him a General or something. How did Jim, who'd been a real soldier, keeping from laughing in the jerks face? I was just about to comment when Jim's eyes caught mine again. The warm affection we'd shared only a few moments ago was replaced in his eyes with a glare of warning not to open my mouth, or else! It sometimes bothered me to think how well he has gotten to know and anticipate me over the years. Not that I didn't do the same to him…. but I'm the Guide, that's my job description!

Returning his gaze I conspicuously clamped my lips together, okay big guy mum as a mummy, that's me. I'd keep my opinion of dysfunctional Patton wanna be's to myself. I was so damn relieved that Jim had said there was indeed another parachute that despite our continued hazardous situation I felt oddly lighthearted. But I knew that was probably the adrenaline rebound and I needed to focus back on the here and now.

“A training exercise to track and neutralize proven enemies of the movement. You two can figure out who that is. Can't yah?” Billy was warming to the idea of a literally captive audience. “Girlie man here jumps first. Then you get the key.” I couldn't help a gulp of fear. I had jumped out of a plane once before and it had been one of the most frightening moments in my life. Back then I had done it because Simon was in danger, which had helped to distract me from my terror. Then just earlier the thought that they were going to pitch Jim out had displaced my concern for myself. But now that Jim had confirmed Billy's words about a parachute for him, the thought of jumping out of a plane in near darkness had reengaged my panic meter. I tried to keep it toned down. Judging from how tense Jim was he was in full 'Blessed Protector' mode, desperate to protect his tribe, and I tended to rank damn high in his particular tribal hierarchy. His jaw was clenched tight and I knew his teeth would be turned to powder at this rate.

“If you guys want to play fox and hounds with Sandburg and I, why not just let us jump together?” Jim asked from where he was crouched at the end of his steel leash. “What's the fun for you guys if he breaks his neck on the drop?” He was obviously more than willing to jump from a plane if it meant us getting away from these jerks. He just didn't want me to be separated from his protection.

“Hell cop…. like I said, we know all about you.” Billy snorted contemptuously at Jims attempt to reason with him. “Kincaid thinks that if we let you loose you might be able to take this gun away from me. Maybe even take us both out.” He waved his gun depreciatively in my direction. “But if your partner's already out the door, and you have to choose between fighting us or helping him…… well best money says you'll follow the Jew boy. Though heaven knows why?”

Billy was backing away from Jim towards me and Jake, who still had my arms pinned to my side, as he continued. “So there ya go. He jumps, you follow. Maybe you will break your necks. And if not….. well when we find you, let's just say we're planning a reeeeeeaaaallll warm send off.” He snorted and hooted at his own perceived hilarity. Me, I was getting less comfortable by the moment.

When Billy came even with Jake and I, he turned to glower down at me with contempt. He could see how pale I was, the shivers I couldn't control and knew I was afraid. Hell, I was terrified, plus man was it ever cold! But I wasn't the least bit bothered by his opinion. I've been sneered at by a lot better class of criminal, but that was usually the prelude to me watching them get their ass's kicked or locked away by my partner. I preferred being looked down on by bad guys. Being underestimated or considered non-threatening had kept me alive more than once.

“Scared Jew boy?” He looked from me to Jim and back again. “What is it with you Ellison? You were a soldier! You see what's happening to this country. You should be one of us! Why do ya hang out with this…?” He looked me up and down like he was hunting for a suitable insult. Then a wicked smile crossed his face and I just knew what was coming. “Or is it maybe the two of you are more than partners?” He snickered and reached his gun up to flip my hair off my shoulders. “Kincaid seems to think you two are a couple of bastards. Maybe you're just a 'couple'.” And with that he went off in a gale of laughter. The jerk with his arms pinning mine snorted in my ear as he laughed also. He squeezed harder, “You need a little hug sweetheart.” he crooned and then cackled harshly.

Across the room Jim was watching the scene with a deceptively neutral face. But I tend to be able to read what's going on below the surface of my Sentinel. If Billy and Jake had a brain cell to spare between them they would have recognized the glow in Jim's eyes as the same one a cat has as it looks at mice. As that picture popped into my head at that moment Jim's tongue unconsciously swept slightly out to wet his lips, completing the image of a predator licking his chops. Suddenly despite our situation I lost it and a derisive laugh escaped. This was not what the bad guys expected obviously because Billy got all pissed off and slung the butt of the pistol across my face. With Jake holding me I couldn't dodge. The blow was enough to almost put my lights out and I couldn't help a yelp of pain. My legs went to mush and only Jakes grip kept me upright. Through the ringing in my ears I heard a snarling growl, “What about Kincaid's hunt?” the Sentinel was spitting the words through gritted teeth. “Hurt Sandburg and Kincaid will get you for ruining his little game.”

Jake either agreed with Jim or didn't want the gash in the side of my head to bleed on him, because he was nodding and trying to rush things along. “Billy, Kincaid said not to mark 'em up to much, that's why we used gas. Let's get them out and get to the rendezvous.” Since my legs wouldn't hold me yet, Jake just continued his hold around my upper body and dragged me like a sack backwards toward the open hatch. I knew what was coming so I shook my head trying to clear it and flickered my eyes back to link with Jim's. In a sub-whisper only a Sentinel could hear I breathed a quick “Don't do anything stupid! I'll be okay Jim, I'll try to meet you halfway.” As I was hauled around into the hatch I heard Jim shout “Go limp on the landing Chief!” and then a none to gentle shove took me from the icy chill of the plane to the subzero numbing cold of freefall.

Don't look down, don't look down. As I plummeted I had to consciously fight down my terror. My arms seemed petrified and it took all my strength to bring my cuffed hands up to the ripcord. I yanked it so hard a part of me was surprised I didn't pull the release cable and handle clean out of the gear. With a prayer I looked straight up and was immediately answered by a blossom of dark fabric jumping high and then flinging itself wide in a mushroom of silk and webbing. I'd forgotten what it feels like to decelerate from seemingly terminal velocity to zero in a fraction of a second. The jerk as the chute bloomed and filled felt like I had already hit the ground after jumping ten floors, then I was yanked up at the same mad speed.

Unfortunately as my body's downward momentum was suddenly slowed, gravity pulled my head to my chest and I found myself looking down. For a moment the world just stopped,……

then I felt a pain in my chest, and I realized I wasn't breathing. It took a second for my clearly fixated mind to stop zoning on the dark ground and let a gasped breath whoop into my lungs. And again, and again. When breathing resumed some measure of automatic function, I again found myself processing what I could see awaiting me. Below was a vast ebony expanse. In the plane our altitude has kept us in the extinguishing glow of dusks last light. But on terra firma it was already past sunset. I was parachuting into lord knows where in the f!#$% dark! “Shit. This sucks!” I think I sort of screamed it, though the wind snatched the sound away before I could even be sure I had said it aloud.

A stray gust of wind spun my chute, and therefore me, around to face the opposite direction. I saw the silver reflective twinkle that was the plane I'd been pushed from. I saw several impressive mountains all around, their snow covered slopes caste in pastel dyes of reds and gold's by the suns last rays. And even though I did not have Sentinel eyesight my heart soared as I saw another silken flower, tiny and distant, blossom in the sky beneath the vanishing plane. Jim, in promised parachute, on his way.

For a moment, when I saw them push Sandburg out of the plane, a rage so black settled over me that I almost pulled my arms out of their sockets straining against the damn steel cable that restrained me. Even as my sight instinctively followed Blair's fall, categorizing landmarks and direction, I was visualizing snapping Billy and Jakes necks! In spite of my hearing automatically latching onto his heartbeat as it retreated behind me. I wanted to get to these two and destroy them! I know, I know, I'm a cop, but sometimes a deep and ancient something inside me went all primal. Sandburg would try to explain it, but all I know is that when that part of me takes over my priority's become a little narrow. First protect the Guide. Next kill anyone who threatens the Guide. Third protect the tribe.

Yeah I know, sounds sort of Neanderthal. The kid had called me a throwback the first time we'd meet. To prove him right I'd proceeded to lift this guy who I outweighed by at least eighty pound and had five inches on, and slung him up against the wall. Nothing like picking on someone smaller than you to prove what a macho man you are.

I didn't even notice when Jake pulled Billy through the door to the cockpit. But suddenly overlapping the sound of Blair's hummingbird fast pulse was Billy's nasal voice. “Okay Ellison, here's the key,” something small and silver arched toward me through the air, “Your choice, whatcha gonna do?” Then the sound of the heavy door being closed and locked.

As dim as the cabin of the plane was my Sentinel sight pulled away from the shrinking circle of my partners parachute to shutter down to only the key as it flew across the room. It plunked to the floor just inches away from my farthest reach, but I barely paused. Lying flat I easily reached out my booted foot, snagged the key with the heel and pulled it into range.

My hands unlocked the cuffs in a blur and as soon as the cable dropped away I began to stalk toward the cockpit door. I wanted their blood, wanted to snap them in half. But immediately I restrained the beast within. My partner needed me, and no delay for vengeance was acceptable.

I stuffed the cuffs and key into my pocket as I ran to the planes tail area and grabbed the parachute lying there. As I lifted it and looked it over I felt a wave of relief wash over me. A part of my suspicious self had feared that as some sick joke I would reach the chute just to find it was an empty pack or rigged to not work. But the rational cop part of me knew that they would have realized that if the chute was useless I wouldn't be able to jump and would have all the time I needed to get through the door, no matter how thick, and get to them.

Even as I was sliding my arms through the straps on the chute I was running back toward the hatch door. Every second that passed was taking me miles further from where ever the kid was landing.

As I stepped over some packages on the floor by the exit I noticed a fire ax on the wall and snatched it quickly. A tarp lying just by me feet was also grabbed up even as I was leaping from the plane.

As I began to fall through the brittle cold air I maneuvered to turn my body so I could see Blair's chute, far behind and below me. Telescoping my vision I could see him clearly. His parachute had deployed properly thankfully and he was floating down at a sedate pace. I further zoomed in and saw that the entire side of his head was covered with blood from the gash at his temple. But even as I worried about how alert he was after that blow, the wind carried his muttering voice across the miles to me. “This like sooooo sucks! It's cold, it's getting dark, and I'm in a damn parachute headed for some f*&King black forest, who knows where, where a bunch of psycho testosterone G.I. Joe poster boys want to play hide and seek with real ammo! Like, lets take everything Blair's afraid of and stick it in one place and just see how long before I'm looney tunes gibbering in fear!” I couldn't help but smile in spite of everything. Blair never considered himself brave. He was the first one to admit that a lot of things scared him. What he had never seemed to realize is that not being afraid doesn't make you brave, only stupid. True heroism is to be stark staring terrified of something and go ahead and do what needs to be done anyway. Anyone who really knew my partner knew that he had repeatedly hurled himself into horrific situations to do what had to be done. His academic training had never prepared him for what came up in his life with me, yet every time he consistently adapted and held his own.

Now he, a through and through agoraphobic, was hundreds of feet above the ground with nowhere to go but down. He would have had every excuse to be screaming the whole way. But though his heart might have been causing sonic booms it was going so fast I listened to his running tirade and knew he would be okay.

I held off pulling my ripcord as long as possible. By flattening and moving my body to the horizontal, keeping my arms and legs close in I could increase my forward momentum. I could essentially direct my line of glide, taking me nearer and nearer my partner's location. But I could only risk that for a few moments. The plane hadn't been very high when I'd jumped. If I waited to long my landing would be to fast and hard not to cause injury. I'd be no good to Blair or myself with a few sundry broken bones.

When I had covered several miles toward Blair I couldn't push my luck any further and yanked the cord, watching my own chute billow and fill above me. The jerk of the halt almost pulled the ax and tarp I'd clung close to my body, out of my hands. But I managed to hold on. As my decent became a gentle glide I used the time to quickly wrap the ax in the tarp and tie it into a tight package. I would drop it just before landing. It wouldn't be smart to be carrying something sharp when I hit and rolled.

As I looked up I watched a gust of wind grab Sandburg and pivot him around like a puppet on strings. Now he was facing me, and almost instantly I saw a bright smile envelope his pale and blood crusted face. I knew he had spotted my parachute, knew he knew I was alive, knew I was going to find him. With Sentinel sight the faith in me that poured out of those expressive eyes of his would have been a frightening burden if I didn't have the same absolute faith and confidence in him. Weird but true. Whatever had brought the two of us together had found for each of us someone to complete and improve us. Where he was weak I was strong, where I was weak he was strong. We supported each other with unshakeable loyalty and trust. Well mostly. Due to a rather dysfunctional upbringing I frequently screwed up on trust issues. But somehow again, where I sometimes dropped the ball on trust, he could be relied on to give me twice as much as I deserved, so I guess even that balanced out?

I knew at this distance without Sentinel enhanced senses the kid couldn't possibly hear me, but he knew I could see him, probably hear him. “Hey Jim. Cool. Wow, how'd you manage to get over there?” He looked down and his heart rate jumped again. “I tell you Big Guy, when we haul Kincaid in this time I want ten minutes alone with him in a room before you send him away so far he'll need a rocket ship to get back!” I saw him tremble as he looked up at me. Even at this range I could see a heartbreaking panic in his eyes. He was almost to the canopy of the trees and with a closer view he realized how fast he was dropping.

There was a catch in his voice as he glanced up and then down again. “Well here I go again. Wish me luck.” He was so pale; I wished he could hear me. But he couldn't. Any words of encouragement or promise that he'd be okay would be torn away by the glacier wind that whipped around us. So I just breathed a soft heartfelt whisper, “Good luck Chief.”

I was still miles away and hundreds of feet above Blair when first he then his chute slid below the treetops and vanished. I tried to follow him down with my eyes, to track his voice or his heartbeat with my ears. But whatever fluke of the wind had let me hear him before wasn't enough to penetrate the trees.

As soon as I could no longer see or hear Sandburg of course my damn senses started to go on the fritz. Stuck suddenly with normal vision I strained to see landmarks that I could use to triangulate his position once I landed. With my sight not zoomed in to such a tight focus I could now see the territory we were in. There were several tall, stark mountains stretched out below, and not the familiar ones near Cascade. My best guess was the coastal mountain range of British Columbia. They were less than an hour north of Cascade by plane and some parts were incredibly isolated…. just the thing for Kincaid to have his little 'war games'. I would have preferred the Rainier mountain area if I had any 'druthers', both Blair and I knew the area well. This would be unknown territory that increased the odds against us.

I looked up at my chute and cursed its common umbrella shape. If it had been the rectangular precision type parachute I could have steered my decent almost to the exact point my partner had landed. As it was I could tell I was going to come down a long hike from him, through some unpleasantly harsh terrain.

“Ouch! Shit, oowww, ouch, ouch, damn, ooh, blast! Ouch, ouch!” What the hell? I must be hitting every damn branch on the whole damn tree! I couldn't see anything and I was sure the parachute must have been torn away in the first few feet of falling through the treetops. Because that's what I was doing… falling. I would jerk to a halt for a second, swing once or twice and then fall again, hitting every limb and branch possible. Then snag again, pause, and then drop. After my first close encounter with a limb I pulled my arms with my cuffed hands up to protect my face and head. I obviously wasn't doing to great a job since one of my eyes was now glued shut by what I was sure, due to the sting, had to be my blood.

I jerked to a halt again. After a few seconds without a resumption of the falling crap I cautiously lowered my arms and looked around. Or I tried to anyway. It was pitch ass black everywhere. The sun had set and no glow of any kind penetrated the evergreen stand.

I looked down trying to figure out how far from the forest floor I was. But I could be dangling a foot from the ground or fifty. I just couldn't see. An icy gust of frigid air puffed across me, starting me swinging like the pendulum on a clock. Well, it was to damn cold to stay up here; I could already feel the tingling threat of frostbite on my cheeks and ear tips. I would have to get down and start hunting for shelter and Jim.

I patted the web straps across the front of my chute pack, locating the pull release. Once I snapped it open I'd drop like a rock whatever distance it was to the ground. Not a thought someone who's afraid of heights really enjoys. But I couldn't stay here and freeze either.

I took several deep breaths to try and prepare. I was swaying back and forth on the end of my puppeteer's strings and it was starting to make me nauseous. I moved my hands to the release and looked down again to try to see what I might land on.

Just as I began to pry open the snap I heard a loud crack like a shot just above me! Instinctively I looked up into the dark trying to see what was happening. At that moment I was at the highest point of my outward pendulum swing. I didn't see the limb just above on which my chute had snagged, I didn't see it bend and finally snap from horizontal to vertical in a heartbeat. All I saw was a denser dark mass move across the black backdrop that was my world. I couldn't see, but I could feel. As my eyes tried to track what was happening above me my pendulous swing back in became faster as the limb gave way entirely. Suddenly even faster than I was going down, I was going sideway. I felt a change in the air. The way you can feel something in front of your face even with your eyes closed, I was heading right into something!

Tree trunk! The image roared through my brain. Had to be! I was swinging straight into a fuc………………………..

Crashing through the trees on a parachute drop is one of the most dangerous hazards of landing. You could break your neck, get blinded or snap every bone in your whole damn body? As I was lashed and flayed by pine needles and branches I was wincing and cursing the whole way down. As soon I broke through the canopy I flung the pack of ax and tarp as far from me as I could. Sentinel vision came on-line and I saw the ground rapidly approaching. Just as I'd told Sandburg to do, I bent my knees and went limp for the fraction of a second before actual impact.

I landed and broke through a crust of snow. The thick powder sucked me in to my knees but the wind still had my chute. I was dragged out and wind sailed like a sled across the icy blanket. It was a struggle as I tried to gather the spaghetti of dozens of lines to dump air from the parachute to get it to collapse. After being yanked off my feet several times luck finally came my way and the chute snagged on a fallen tree. A fast scramble and I managed to grab the main chute and bundle it up. For a second I lay on top of it, panting a bit for breath. I am in excellent condition but between the gas, the cold, the altitude and the adrenaline I'd been running on, I felt like I had run a marathon.

Climbing to my feet I was able to dial up my sight enough to generally see around me. I carefully extended my sight and hearing bit by bit but quickly reined back in when I felt the subtle narrowing of my hearing that sometimes pre warned of a zone out. In the dark, snow covered landscape with so little variation the potential for being drawn by any sudden change into over focusing on one sense was just to high. With Sandburg I could have managed fine, somehow his presence seemed to always provide an anchor in any circumstance with any distractions. But he wasn't here and if I was going to get to him it was going to be by using my training and skills, not my enhanced senses.

“Uggggggghhhhhhh… id slomun ged da lizenz od da trug?” I could hear my voice and it sounded strange, even to me! Damn my head hurt. My first priority was to open my eyes but for some weird reason that was taking more energy then I seemed to have. I was floating in darkness, and it felt like I had no arms or legs? Funneling all my will into opening my eyes I finally managed to crack open the right one. But the darkness continued, and something painful ground into my eye.

I guess pain is enough to trigger instinctive movement even when the head is too mushy to think cause I suddenly found myself rolling onto my back. I spit out something wet and slushy. Apparently I'd been laying face down in the snow. Being face up wasn't helping much though. It was pitch black everywhere. Oh God! Am I blind? Adrenaline pushed through me like acid, spreading horrible pins and needles everywhere in my body. And then, straight above me through a picture frame of treetops, I saw the stars, and my fear eased.

Struggling to sit up I realized I was numb with cold. Not good. And the icy cold around my wrists was frosty metal, I was wearing cuffs?? Oh yeah, now I remember, elevator, plane, parachute, Jim! Needed to get to Jim. First things first though, these cuffs had to go! Forcing myself to my knees I tried to get to my feet but my equilibrium was a no show. I found myself falling forward and coming up against the rough solidity of a large tree trunk covered with dozens of thin soft cords. The parachute? I couldn't see anything much through my right eye, and my left one was glued shut by something cold and sticky, which considering the events of the day just had to be my own blood. But my gloved hands moved up the cords and soon came on the diaphanous soft panels of silk. Grabbing hold of as many cords as I could reach I hauled with all my strength. I felt the snagged chute resist for a second. Then there was a ripping snap and I barely ducked to the side as parachute and snagging branch both slammed to the ground practically on top of me. “Way to go Sandburg!” I ground out self depreciatingly to myself, “Bean yourself with a branch and freeze to death. Dimwit!” Shaking my horribly pounding head with disgust at my near call, I quickly bent and felt my way along the strands to the parachutes body. Tugging it free of the branch it was partially wrapped in I finally had it loose. Gathering the panels and doubling their layers I pulled the whole length over myself loosely. I hopped up and down and flapped my cuffed arms a few times until the pins and needles in my feet and hands had receded. All the trees surrounding me considerably buffered the wind, and the parachute helped cut what remained. Under the protection of my little make do pup tent I would be temporarily protected from the elements for what I needed to do next. I was getting chilblains though just thinking about it. Oh hell, can't get my belt off with my cold hands in two pairs of gloves. Fast as possible grab the gloves on my right hand, yank em off, stuff em in coat pocket, grab belt buckle and pull belt loose. Zipper down, deep breath…. okay…. pull pants down to ankles, cold, cold, cold, spin pants back to front, cold, cold, cold, stuff right hand in back pocket, grab knife, oh soooo cold, pull pants back up, yes! Cold, cold, cold, cold, dammmmmnnnn cold! I would kill for a heating pad for my butt!

But butts aside, I had my Swiss army knife. It took only a second to feel through the one or two blades until I felt the pinpoint end of the awl. This would have been a lot easier with a light. But a hell of a lot of practice had taught me this was something done more by feel than sight anyway.

Okay now awl point into handcuff keyhole. Push up, down, right, left…. scrunch a little in juuuuussstttt there! YES! I am the man! Jim had taught me to pick locks 'just in case' and had seemed almost miffed when I got faster at it then him. He claimed my smaller hands and fingers gave me the advantage. Me, I just figure it's a matter of motivation. Since I started being an 'observer' with Jim I've been cuffed by wwwaaaaayyyy to many nut cases. For him it was just another skill. For me I considered it a matter of survival!

The second cuff took even less time than the first and finally the cold bracelets fell to the ground. I picked them up and stuffed them in my coat pocket, grabbing my gloves at the same time and pulling them on. With my hands finally free I slid out of the straps of the chute pack and harness. With it now in front of me I gathered all the cords from the chute and sliced them free of the parachute and the harness. Doing it by feel in the darkness under the chute took an extra couple of seconds, but soon I had them lose.

I took a few more minutes to roll all the cord into a manageable ball, sparking memories of helping Naomi roll yarn when I was a kid. I think I was about seven the year she decided to try to knit or crochet all her own and my clothes. Jeez, I can still remember that puke green sweater she made with the turtleneck that ended up longer then both the uneven sleeves!

It felt good to laugh after all the day's tension so I chortled away as I stuffed my cord ball back into the chute pack and slipped it onto my back.

Reaching into my other coat pocket I fished around and found the knit wool ski hat I had stuffed in there just before climbing into the elevator this afternoon. Whoa…can't believe this all started just a few hours ago. I really missed my Fargo hat in this weather, my whole body fells like a Popsicle, but my ear tips were little ice cubes on the sides of my head. Which should have felt good considering the pounding headache I had, but rather than feeling like a comforting ice pack, it just felt like freezer burn on top of throbbing pain.

But there was nothing I could do about the cold right now. It was to dark to find dry wood to start a fire. To windy to risk staying out in the open. And to cold to hunker down in the lee of a tree and try to rest.

Hopping up and down a few more times to get my blood moving faster, I gather the parachute around my shoulders and head like a weird hooded shawl. Looking straight up gets me the comforting tableau of stars and the hint of a glow promising moonrise soon. But the fact the view lacks dimension reminds me I'm operating one eyed. I scrub at the caked, gummy blood across my left eye with a gloved hand. Soon the eye is sort of open, and very much burning. OOOOwwwwwwhhhh. Grab some snow and scrub away the salty, burny blood. Ouch. Well that was fun. NOT. But at least I can see, sort of, out of both eyes now.

I am the world's worst navigator; let me admit that now and save embarrassment later. Even if it were light I wouldn't have really found a map or sun direction to be much help. But I do know up from down. I had seen the mountain I was on, and the valley I had floated over to get here. And Jim had obviously landed further along the path the plane had taken. That meant he was on the other side of the valley. Therefore I needed to go down off this mountain and across the valley and up the next mountain to find Jim. Logical huh. So as the ancient proverb went, 'the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step…yadda yadda yadda' Time to get stepping.

I slammed my fist into the tree trunk with enough force to tear my glove and probably broke a knuckle at the same time. But at least the pain helped me reined in my useless rage as I came upon another impassible barrier. The first few of hours I had made good progress toward the distant valley that separated the peaks Sandburg and I had landed on.

In the manner I'd been taught in the military to stretch endurance and maintain pace, I'd alternately jogged and walked downhill. Even in the dim light of the stars I was able to just slightly dial up my sight and see clearly enough without worry of over focusing or zone out. The miles fell away behind me.

But then the sparse forest had transformed into a treacherous series of granite landslides crusted with snow, impenetrable tangles of dead fallen trees, sudden rocky drop offs and crevices that turned into cul-de- sacs.

I was constantly being deflected from any hope of going in a straight line towards where Sandburg's chute had dumped him. For every meter forward I had to backtrack or go sideways two. Also the irregular landscape and obstacles made any pace faster than a walk usually impossible.

Finally I'd seen a break in the dark barricade ahead and rushed forward anticipating finally a change in my luck. And it changed okay, it got even worse.

Here I stood looking at the valley that was my goal, just ahead. It was reflecting so much light from the quarter moon that had risen at last that to my only slightly dialed up sight it seemed like day. Absolutely nothing stood between me and that straight stretch of flat, even snow that was probably a meadow valley during spring. Absolutely NOTHING. I was standing on the edge of at least a three hundred foot cliff! Looking off to the left and right showed this damn sheer face went on as far as the eye could see.

Just to plain pissed off to even worry about the possibility of a zone, I extended my vision down the flat expanse of rock below me. Though I could see occasional fissures and blemishes on the nearly marble smooth surface, they were way to far apart to function as hand and foot holds. So even if I was anxious enough to try climbing down in the near dark, it was a lost cause from the start.

With no other option available I turned and began to follow the cliff face east since it seemed to incline slightly more downhill then the other direction did.

Staying right on the edge of the cliff as I walk provided a relatively unobstructed route. The rock buttress had accelerated the wind across its face up over this shelf thus sweeping clean any soil long ago. With nowhere to root the ledge margin was devoid of tree or brush to slow me. An occasional boulder or crevice would be no bother at all. Feeling much less thwarted I eased up my pace until I was almost jogging along again.

The first couple of hours hadn't been too bad. Slow, but doable. I had zigged and zagged through the courses of trees at a pretty steady rate. Things had even gotten a little better when the moon had finally risen past the jagged horizon of mountain peaks. Though not full, the air was so clear up here that the moonlight shone unfiltered and glorious glancing off of snow.

But even though I could see further, as time went on I began to stumble more and more. Tugging my multiple folds of parachute tighter around me at that moment my toe seemed to hone in on and lodge below a small tangled root. I could almost visualize myself as in slow motion I keeled forward to plunk full face into the snow, again.

Rolling wearily onto my back I just lay there for a second. Shit, I was cold! The clothes I was wearing when this miserable day had started were fine for short duration dashes around the frigid environs of Cascade, but they were never meant for someone planning on high altitude mountain climbing. Thank goodness at least my boots were expensive waterproof insulated hikers. Jim had given them to me on my last birthday, and if not for them I knew my feet would already be either badly frost bitten or frozen clean through.

My immense dislike for the icy winters of Cascade had served me well in that today like any snowy day I was dressed in multiple layers of clothing. Layering retains heat better as the trapped air between the layers is warmed by the body, sort of like how animals trap air between the layers of hair. So even though I wasn't exactly dressed for polar exploration, my jeans over sweatpants and navy pea coat over sweater over sweat shirt over two flannel shirts over cotton long johns was so far keeping me alive and moving.

The parachute, once folded repeatedly, was an added layer of protection by acting as a pretty effective windbreaker. The chill factors from the gusts that scurried over and around me would have cost me serious heat lose without the layers of silk cocooning me. But no matter how I looked at it, I knew I was getting into trouble. I recognize I am more susceptible to the cold than most, plus I was over tired from the physical and emotional marathon this day had been. I hadn't eaten in almost twelve hours and calories are needed to generate body heat. I had been hiking for about five hours without rest. If I kept this up I knew I would pretty soon fall down and not be able to get up again. If that happened I was dead.

I began to look around at my surroundings less as ground I had to pass over on my way to Jim and more as clues to finding some form of shelter. I needed to get some rest, and for that not to turn into a rest of the permanent kind meant I also had to get a viable, sustained fire going.

Wherever Jim was, he would expect me not to be stupid and succumb to the hazard that claimed most people inexperienced in cold climate survival. He was a veteran woodsman and instinctual survivor, and on our not infrequent camping trips he had tried to drill me on every conceivable emergency situation.

I knew how insidious hypothermia was. I also knew that one of the most attractive dangers was to fall asleep without a heat source. Sleep could slip into coma into dead rrrrrrreeeeeaaaaaalllllll fast in these elevations.

It was to easy to think short term solutions out here and start deadly vicious cycles. To get warm inexperienced people might try to run to generate heat, but that would cause you to sweat. The sweat would than cool in the very cold you were trying to ward off. The chilled sweat would then conduct heat away from the body. So you had to exert even more to get warm, which causes you to sweat more, etc, etc, etc. Until you can't go anymore, exhaustion sets in, the sweat freezes and the core temperature drops like a stone. You never even feel yourself pass out and fade away.

I knew what was happening, and also, thanks to 'hope for the best but plan for the worst' Ellison, I had the knowledge and skills hopefully to keep me alive.

I kept my eyes sweeping back and forth in the reflected glow from the moon on snowscape. Night vision is quickest to pick up movement, but peripheral vision could frequently be sharper than direct focus in poor light. By keeping my eyes moving I hoped to snag any difference in density in the gray on gray around me.

It took me close to another hour of trudging through the now ankle deep snow before I noticed what looked like a line of darker darkness off to my left. Praying as I stumbled towards it I knew if I did not find what I needed in the next few minutes it would be too late. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped. And it was starting to snow heavily. My life expectancy could be counted in minutes out here in the open.

Finally I was standing in front of mounds of boulders and slabs of granite piled like a child's Lincoln logs across the mountainside. I scrambled into the lee side of the mad construct, and after climbing over a fractured section of boulder, found myself loosing my footing and sliding down the far side of the rock to be engulfed by absolute dark.

Even as I managed to land on my feet I felt my heart begin to pound from the fear of the absence of light. Though the star and moonlight had been very dim to my unenhanced sight, the loss of even that gentle luminance was unnerving.

It took my eyes a moment to begin to differentiate in the gloom and realize that there was still faint light to be seen. Ahead and above me a faint silver was painted across the arched rock face of the boulder I had slid down into what I know realized was a small cavern. The space above where I had come through was only a yard across and wide where the overhead slab nearly touched the long curve of the boulder.

Quick as I could manage I dumped my chute hood and cape and pulled and chivvied up the boulder and out the hole. Looking back where I had come from I rapidly jogged around the scattering of trees, snatching up twigs, branches, and pine needles, anything that could act as fuel for a fire. I made several trips to the hole, dumping my load and scurrying out for more.

When I finally was stumbling more than walking and my vision was blinking in and out between single and double I slid back through the hole myself. Dropping onto my mound of collected treasure I set a fire pit almost directly below the hole above. When I had a proper teepee of tinder and wood built I dragged the rest of the fuel to the back of the ten or twelve foot deep cave.

Moving back to my fire to be I removed gloves from generally numb hands. Digging into my pocket I pulled out my ever-faithful Swiss army knife. Clapping my bare hands together several times to get blood and feeling back I then shaved several tiny curls and strips of wood from a branch and lay it on the top of the small mound of tiny twigs and pine needles just in front of the fire.

Fumbling with still frigid fingers I then removed my belt buckle. A beautiful handcrafted thing. A beaten silver and brass lozenge that had as it's center a very ancient chipped arrowhead. Hundreds of years old, the arrowhead had been carefully struck bit by bit by some long ago hunter out of the hardest stone manageable for such a task, flint! Now centuries later here I kneel, an errant anthropologist, striking a twentieth century knife blade across that olden artifact praying for a spark.

I was so tired that when the first flash jumped from the flint I was too out of it to respond fast enough. Biting my upper lip in concentration I forced myself to focus and struck the knife against flint again.

This time I was ready when the spark leapt out to fall on the little pile of jumbled wood trimmings. A soft breath from me across the infant ignition caused a momentary flare of flame that hungrily embraced the tiny curls and twigs and doubled and then tripled in size. Flicker became flame and with a few more gentle puffs of air quickly consumed the tinder and eagerly dug into the progressively larger branches set by.

As the fire grew from the fast burning young wood to wrap around the cured thick boughs, I held my hands to the wondrous warmth. I didn't even care about the pain of the pins and needles of retreating frostbite.

I watched the smoke from the fire sweep away and scoot straight up and out the hole above that formed a natural chimney. Well at least I wouldn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Next off were my boots and the two pair of socks I always wore in winter. With some alarm I saw several areas on my feet and toes that had the unnatural white of dead frostbitten flesh. Damn, hope I wouldn't loss any toes from all this! But there was very little I could do other than try to warm the lumps of cold flesh and hope to get the circulation going again.

Grabbing several grapefruit sized roundish rocks I piled them around the fire pits. After a few minutes of absorbing as much heat from the fire on as many parts of my anatomy as I could manage in the circumstances, I hauled on one pair of socks and put my boots back on. The second pair of socks and my inner wool gloves I laid over some of the now quite warm rocks I had encircled the fire pit with.

In the dancing glow from the flames I could clearly see to the back of my little cave sweet cave. I grabbed the parachute and dragged it to one side where the walls where just about a body length from the fire pit. Far enough to not have a stray spark cause trouble but near enough to get maximum warmth from the blaze.

Using my feet as rakes I pushed all the dirt and debris I could find to that same area. I stopped when I had a several feet long by couple of feet wide by about four inch deep pallet of sand, dead leaves, pine needles, and other stuff blown into this vault by many seasons.

Laying the parachute with half of the silk on the pallet and half off I soon had a many-layered bed/nest to rest on. I made a quick check in the rocks several crevices to be sure that no snakes were slumbering away the winter here. As the temperature rose from the fire the last thing I needed was a bunch of snakes waking up in a bad temper from having to get up to early.

When I finally had everything set to my exhaustion-fogged mind's satisfaction, I put several very thick, slow burning chunks of wood across the fire. Then retrieving my now toasty warm gloves and socks I put them back on and climbed into the parachute and pulled all the loose folds over me like a blanket.

As I lay there, to tired to think, of course all I could do was think! Where was Jim? Was he okay? How where his senses doing? I had to figure since they had gassed me that they had probably done the same to him. One of the negative things associated with his heighten senses was his unpredictable reaction to drugs and the like.

He had seemed okay in the plane, he had used at least vision and hearing that I knew of and not seemed to have difficulty. But that had been with me right there.

That was one of the more peculiar things about the Sentinel stuff. When I was with Jim he had pretty much control of his senses with little or no hassle and almost no risk of zoning. Early on in our partnership when I had figured this out I had thought that I would be obsolete and unnecessary very shortly.

But that isn't what happened. I had assumed all Jim needed was 'a partner to act as guide', someone to ground his senses, anchor him when he extended them. So I had prepared myself for the inevitable time when Simon would assign a 'real cop' to take over my place at Jim's side.

But though I had taught Simon how the Sentinel senses worked, and Jim was occasionally partnered with others from Major Crimes, for whatever reason I was the only one the Sentinel would latch on and anchor to. I was also pretty much the one who could pull him out of a zone in just a few seconds. Jim would usually respond to Simon on this too, but it took a lot longer.

I have yet to figure out why this is. I mean I know I'm a damn good anthropologist. But a super cop with hyper senses doesn't need someone to explain the mating rituals of obscure primitive tribes or authenticate a Zuni mask. He needs some one who isn't towered over by bad guys, spooked by danger, or detests guns. Someone special like he is.

Jim pretty much has most of the traits of the ancient Sentinels. His being a cop was like those guardians of old watching over the tribe. Loyal, unswerving and most of all, protective. When we had first meet I think Jim had seen me as representative of a threat to the tribe. I remember he had actually growled! I'm sure that he'd assumed I was an anti establishment, druggie, anarchist. Not exactly someone to welcome with open arms to your clan.

Or maybe the reason that Jim had chosen to form some tie with me instead of more capable cop types, was the protector's need to protect. From almost the very beginning Jim had tended to behave like I was a kid brother who needed looking after. Aggressive and gruff toward me yet murder on anyone other than him that picked on me.

For a moment I saw in my mind a cavalcade of vignettes. Jim trudging through a snowy forest, clambering over tangles of dead tree trunks and branches, prowling a stretch of rock ledge, crouching by a fire. Looking at me, into me, intense blue eyes focused unwaveringly. I felt a wave of affection radiate toward me and his commitment to rejoin with his partner flow over me.

I know, it's only wishful thinking, my exhausted brain creating an image of what I hoped for. Yet somehow I felt comforted.

I knew deep inside that Jim was fine. He'd been an awesome, lethal soldier. A survivor. Even before his senses had come on line, he had excelled. With the added advantage as a Sentinel, well let's just say I pity the fool who ever got between him and where he was headed.

I felt my eyes starting to close at last, though I was shivering so hard my teeth were chattering the relative warmth oozing from the fire across my nest was relaxing. There was enough wood to slow burn for hours and in a short time would fill the small cavern with warmth enough to keep me from freezing to death.

I'd just catch a little nap, recharge my batteries. Then I'd head down slope again. I needed to find Jim, needed to know he was okay. Then screw Kincaid and his whole tolerance challenged army. Jim would get us out of here, around, over or through all challengers!

As I was pulled deeper into sleeps embrace I felt my heart swell with my own affection for the big, anally fixated, tough guy with the marshmallow heart. My big brother, and somehow connected more than even blood could have bonded us. The only term I could use was soul brother? Jim would never accept such a 'mystical mombo jumbo' type explanation, but it was the only thing that really came close to describing the need, yes and even love I felt for the big guy. Why is it some men can't say 'love'? There was nothing carnal in how I felt about Jim, but no words really exist but love to describe it. Having been practically raised in communes I had no problem saying it. Yet the word love had such strong sexual connotations to it that often people assumed you couldn't mean one without including the other.

Yaaaawwwwwnnnn…maybe someday I'd do a study of restrictive vocabulary in   relation to cultural moral's and gender   role models… I really could see a basis for……….   ssssssssnnnnnnnnooooozzzzzzzeee

Damn Kincaid! This was going to be the last time that psycho slithers out of custody and comes hunting my guide and me! My partner, my city my friends, …. All endangered twice before by that useless bucket of slime.

What… hell I'm pacing again. Great Ellison, things aren't bad enough now you're wasting heat and calories stomping around. Get back by the fire and stay out of the snow! The snow that was falling quite heavily right now mind you. Even animals know when to get under shelter.

I climbed back under the lean-to that I had cobbled together from fallen branches and logs when the weather had turned even more bitter and the snow began. Covered with the tarp it formed a windproof cubby where I had no difficulty starting a blazing warm fire. I was tired to the bone and yet had not been able to climb into the insulating pile of pine needles and leaf litter I'd gathered and covered with the chute. I crouched by the fire, staring out into the flickering confetti of moonlit snow falling across the valley below. Every few minutes I'd find myself striding up and down the cliff edge, looking across the valley, coming dangerously near zone out in some unconscious effort to see beyond the dark and the distance to where Blair was.

I hoped to hell the kid wasn't still out in this. He knew plenty about roughing it in warm climates, all those anthropology projects with primitive tribes and exploring ancient sites had taught him how to manage pretty well. But he had always gone to tropical sites. He had known nothing about cold weather camping and survival until I'd put him through my own version of boot camp. Each time we'd gone camping I'd shanghaied him and drilled him like a recruit. But I'd had to. Sandburg's almost pathological dislike of cold would never let him volunteer to go out into the frigid Cascade woods to learn survival techniques.

But he had learned, that super-sponge brain of his had soaked up everything I'd said and shown him. Add that to the kid's innate crazy inventive nature, I knew that he had the smarts and skills he needed, which gave me some comfort. But what nagged at me, was despite a upper atmospheric I.Q., to many times Blair just ignored what his brain said and followed his heart…. like a lemming, even over a cliff!

And I knew that he would do everything he could to get to where I was. He was always worried about me. Yeah, weird but true. He was smaller, less trained, but he was always worried about me. His inclination would be to plow into trouble in an effort to meet up with me. But I knew he understood the hazards. I just had to hope that his brain would kick in and tell him he couldn't help me if he froze to death out there.

During our first few days, when I first noticed his concern for me I'd thought that the kid was worried about losing his guinea pig. He had called me his 'holy grail' at the beginning after all. So when he'd jumped into trouble to protect me the first few times I'd totally misunderstood his motivation.

All my life I'd been in what Sandburg called 'barter' relationships. You do something for me I do something for you. My father had held out the carrot of his attention, trips and rewards if I was the strong, disciplined, trophy winning, perfect son. The military offered acceptance, advancement and a feeling of accomplishment in return for obedience and putting my butt on the line.

So when I had first meet the kid I'd naturally taken the stance that he wanted something from me in return for helping with these goofy senses. And that was fine with me. I wanted the arrangement to be that cut and dried. Clear boundary's and easy to understand expectations. It was hard for me even to consider working with him. Heck, when I looked at him the first time all the cop in me saw was the wrapping. The long hair, the funky hippie clothes, and for crying out loud the earrings!

I'd never been taught to look below the surface. He was after all the image of my expectation of a druggie, therefore he was a druggie. Add to his outfit the fact that he had so much energy he seemed like the Tasmanian devil on speed, well lets just say I had him all neatly labeled.

And then within minutes of me throwing his ass up against a wall, he saves my life, for the first of many times. He risked becoming road kill to keep me from becoming a hood ornament on a garbage truck. That had not been something I expected.

Nor was I the least bit pleased those first few days when he wheedled his way into my case and quickly made significant contributions. He supplied myriad obscure facts that were pivotal to figuring things out on the case. And he looked at things with such a freshness and enthusiasm that the whole Major Crime's team was energized. All in all he pissed me off.

On top of that he seemed to pull answers and solutions to problems with my senses right out of the air. He quickly had me able to focus and control them for the first time in my life.

And that was the worst part. Or at least that's what I thought back then. For the first time in my life I needed someone else, had to rely on another.

I had been raised to believe that real men did not need others. Yet once I got past my groundless assumptions about the kid I was pulled into the Sandburg zone and I realized there was something very special about this frenetic young man.

A kind of uncanny polarity existed about Blair. As soon as my senses started to stabilize I found myself queuing onto him, his heartbeat, breathing, smell and voice. His presence is like a lodestone, letting me extend my senses without risk of drifting away into the oblivion of overload.

What's odd is that though the guy is very confident about his capabilities in his field, and is more than willing to accept the existence of Sentinels and Shaman's, ghost's and more, he can't see himself as somehow just as special. He hasn't really faced the improbability that he, the Sentinel fanatic, and I, a Sentinel both ended up in Cascade. That he stopped his world travels just in time to be around when my senses went crazy. That Alex Barnes, another globe trotting Sentinel chose Cascade as her next target and ended up under Blair's tutelage. Wayyyyy to many things to be mere coincidence.

It's taken me years to accept the fact that there is more to the world than my nice flat black and white 'reality'. Hell, I see panther spirit guides and get pep talks from Incacha my previous Shaman, who happens to be dead! So finally excepting that some kind of destiny is at work with Sandburg and I is not as much a reach for me as it would have been before.

Blair may not see, or want to see, that he isn't just my guide; he is 'The Guide'. He still thinks that with some training eventually anyone can be a Sentinel's guide. He claims his ability to focus me is just know how, not a predestined link, a genetic advantage. But I no longer buy that. His ability to understand the emotions and motivations of others is too sharp to just be his 'psych minor' at work.

It was too prodigious to put down to charm either. Here was a guy who managed to endear himself to women and men alike. The guys at Major crimes would never accept an outsider among them, yet they had allowed Sandburg wholly into their tight little group. Simon, my Captain, was as tough a nut as they made, never likely to stomach a ride along with his best detective, much less put up with the off the cuff cavalier attitude that was Blair's trademark. Yet he had endured Sandburg's addition to his well-oiled crew with almost no resistance. And I normally would have never tolerated the weird and bizarre stuff associated with the kid, yet I had let him into my job, my home and even that unassailable fortress, my heart.

No, there was more to Sandburg than could be explained easily. Within the first few days I had found myself attuned to him almost to the point of a psychic bond. Some said we were two complete opposites. I have to agree to some degree, but I see also that our nature's and gifts are what my partner, Mr. Science, calls mutually symbiotic. I have the enhanced senses, the aggressive streak and disciplined focus. He has the people skills, the empathy and compassion and the innovative genius. We seem like flip sides of the same coin, or maybe the same soul.

The main thing we share is an overwhelmingly protective nature. For each other and for the people we feel responsible to defend, the 'tribe' as the kid calls them.

But right now I was miles away from my tribe, and my guide was neither safely under my protection or even where I could get to him. And as time passed I had begun to lose the hard gained controls on my senses. Without Blair's presence I had tried to keep all the dials turned down, but now sudden spikes where slashing through me every once in a while. One minute everything would be stable, and then wham! My hearing would go off the scale and then vanish. Then my nose would be overwhelmed by thousands of stray scents, then nothing. Sometimes one sense, sometimes several together, skittering out of control and then reining in.

And here I am on the stupid ledge again, staring down into and beyond the valley. My eyes see nothing but snow and reflected moon glow and I dial it down to avoid a zone. But just as I begin to turn and force my steps back to my shelter a spike strikes and my sense of smell and hearing soar beyond my standard limits. Serendipitously just then the wind shifts and I suddenly catch a familiar draught of wood smoke, herbal shampoo, sweat and musk. At the same time my ears latch onto the gentle thub dub, thub dub that is a metronome that instantly calms me. Sandburg's pulse is steady, unworried, and overlaid by snuffling snores. It is just a moment and the spike flickered off leaving the weird rebound where normal senses feel like being deaf and numb. But I barely notice as the sense of relief washes through me.

The caged animal feeling evaporates and I move back to the lean to. Lowering myself to the insulating layer of organic debris I had gathered, I am so tired that it feels like the most expensive mattress possible. Finally I yield to my body's demand for rest. I pull the parachute over me like a blanket. As I close my eyes for a fraction of a second I seem to see Sandburg, curled in a cave, like me buried in folds of parachute silk while a fire gutters nearby. I know its wishful thinking built around the flash of smells and sounds I had caught. But imagined or not I feel sure that my guide is at least safe for the moment. Sleep claims me with no resistance.

The blank panther crouched low to the ground, ears laid so flat to it's skull that they were invisible. Large golden eyes focused intently on the tree line before them. It's nostrils caught the threatening scent and the great cats lips folded back in a snarl revealing sword- like teeth. The branches just ahead rustled ominously and the danger was in the open.

The sound of something tapping rapidly right by my ears, something running across my face and horrendous cold combined to pry me out of my deep sleep. When my eyes cracked open a little I didn't recognize my surroundings and the arm I tried to swat whatever had run across my face wouldn't lift. My body was tangled in some soft light swaddling. Adrenaline pumped for a few moments, but before I could really get rolling into panic my memory kicked in. Cave walls, parachute and a now extinguished fire. Yep! Just my luck, the lousy dream was reality!

My ears still registered a steady, fast Morse code type tapping. It took a second for me to realize it was my teeth chattering. Damn I'm COLD!! Carefully unwrapping my silk cocoon I scuttle to the fire pit. I rebuild and stoke the warming flames in record time.

Faint rose tinged light dimly traces pale rectangles on the sand and snow below the opening to my refuge. I can't believe it's dawn. I had slept through the night! Somewhere out there was Jim, probably looking for me, and here I was snoozing through it. Great Sandburg, just great!

I moved to the incline of shale and rock that under hung the boulders that formed roof and wall and door of my small cave. It took a bit to scramble back up the boulders and out into the first light of a clear, snow free morning. I looked around and was pleased to see that I was only a short hike from the valley below. Now that I could see better I picked my way to a place where a crest of rock protruded out from the mountainside over the valley. I approached to within a few feet of the edge but my fear of heights convinced me it was unnecessary to get closer. From my elevated perch I chose some clearly visible landmarks to speed my progress, in the right direction, through the wide spread of trees in between.

I scanned the mountain across from me; the one Jim had landed on. Maybe hoping to see something. Like in the movies, maybe lights reflected off a mirror or even smoke signals. Some evidence of where he was and that he was all right. But the sun hadn't yet climbed fully over the peaks around me and dark still clung to the other summit like spilled ink.

With a frustrated sigh I had to admit this was another one of those times I was really envious of Jim's Sentinel senses. Though this was probably even to far for him. “When we get out of here big guy, we ARE going to test your range!” I muttered the promise for the zillionth time. Jim's aversion to testing was right up there with my own to guns. But times like this just showed the need to know more about how to best utilize them. For all I knew Jim could hear me or see me from a similar lookout point on his mountainside.

Looking directly across the chasm between I felt a smile pull my face, “Hey Jim, if you can hear me I'm going to be headed for that big stand of trees with the Cassie's head shaped boulder off to the left.” I yelled into the wind, just in case. After a moment's thought I continued. “Um, that's my left, your right. Should make it by midday or so. I hope to find a Deli or Salad bar on the way, cause I am like seriously hungry here.” Just to prove my point my stomach growled intensely. Chuckling I turned from the edge, but then swung back for a second…. “Take it careful Jim. See you soon.”

I trudged quickly back to my cavern, dropping down into it to gather my small pack. Stuffing the parachute back into its pack I felt something skitter across by foot. The stuttering glow from my fire showed a large rat and other rustles nearby pointed to him, or her, not being alone. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers and all that. I finished stowing the chute, ripping a large square out first. Gathering several egg sized rocks I withdrew behind the fire. Almost immediately several good-sized rats oozed from nearly invisible crevices to check out the warm pallet where I had slept. The fire blinded any who turned toward me in the dimness. With my silk sling and rocks I was prepared and five minutes later I had four rats beheaded and skewered on branches above the fire. Taking my parachute silk bag up out of the entrance I filled it with snow and then used my knife to pry several plate-sized pieces of bark off nearby trees.

Back in the cave I laid the bark on the hot rocks around the pit and poured some snow on it. In moments I had a long drink of fresh water, followed by a meal of baked rat. I had no problem eating this less than affectionately thought of food source. In India once on some research I'd stayed with a tribe of people who were known as 'Rat catchers' who the farmer's paid to rid their field of rats. They all ate their catch and were grateful for the protein source, especially since the rats were fat on corn. I'd been welcomed among them and gotten past my hang up's on strange food sources quickly. Not exactly chicken, more like a cross between chunky tuna and pork, once you got past the idea of rat.

Within half an hour of sun full up I was regretfully extinguishing my fire. I had relieved myself, and even warmed some water for the luxury of a quick wash up. Starting down the slope I was rested, fed, rejuvenated. No longer struggling in the dark I moved with confidence and pretty good speed. Keeping the early sun always my left even I couldn't get lost right now, but something else was also leading me. A tug that I couldn't pin down was pulling me along. When I veered off to the right of my track I would feel this subtle impulsion to swing back. Hey, my Mom's a dyed in the wool flower child; I was raised believing in Karma and 'vibes' so I had no problem processing the idea that I was being directed to Jim's side. We were a team, and if whatever powers that be periodically sent me indelicate hints to that effect. Hey I'm cool.

It had surprised the hell out of me that I had slept at all, much less all night. Despite the disturbing panther dream I had to admit the rest had reenergized me. Before dawn I had been up and set several snares made from strong braided parachute silk thread. By the time the sun crept into sight I had a fat snowshoe rabbit and two small quail hens cooking over the re-stoked fire.

I quickly ate what I could and pushed what was left into my pack with the chute and the tarp. The bitter cold would keep it from spoiling better than any refrigerator. Tying the ax across the pack I started off again only a short time after sunrise started to traverse the far peak. Even though my own area was still in deep shadow I began jogging along the ledge that lead me steadily downhill.

I had only been traveling for a short time when my peripheral vision picked up movement in the distance across the valley. Stopping on an uncluttered slab with a clear view outward I saw a blur of brown against white and green move toward the edge of a crest. I figured it was probably a bear slow to go to hibernation, which worried me some considering Sandburg was sharing real estate with it.

Almost without thinking about it I found my senses zeroing in on the form. Sight quickly separated the blurred colors into a distinct image, navy blue coat over wiry build. The newly ascending sun burnished chestnut curls to a coppery hue only partially covered by a dark woolen cap.

Relief flooded through me as I saw he was uninjured and seemed to be in good condition regardless of the cold. As I watched Blair moved cautiously to within a few feet of the edge of a drop off. Obviously skittish about the height he stopped a couple of yards back and scanned the valley below.

Then, like a compass finding north, his dark blue eyes swung unerringly straight toward me. For a moment I thought he actually could see me, even over the distance that neared the limits of my Sentinel sight. But I saw disappointment then frustration flit across his features. Faint enough that I almost didn't catch it he muttered, “When we get out of here big guy, we ARE going to test your range!” The intensity of that promise had me wince, I knew he meant it and I was in for some serious guinea pig time when we got home.

I felt guilty that I could see him but he couldn't see me, and I knew he was worried about me. I tried to think of a way to signal him. If the sun was angled more toward me than him I could have used my belt buckle, reflecting the light. But I was still firmly in shadow. If I'd known he was almost within sight I could have thrown damp pine needles on my morning fire and sent a smoke signal. I didn't love the second idea much either though because if Kincaid's people were already in the area I didn't want to make it any easier for them to find me and eventually Blair.

Suddenly Sandburg's voice bellowed out in his highest volume. “Hey Jim, if you can hear me I'm going to be headed for that big stand of trees with the Cassie's head shaped boulder off to the left.” I turned toward my left only to hear him continue with amusement noticeable in his voice, “Um, that's my left, your right.” Chuckling at how well he knew me I switched my gaze around to the right. Sure enough at the base of the cliff I was trying to navigate a group of trees stood sentry over a large boulder. Looking at it I thought it's convoluted surface was like a cauliflower, but once my partners description took hold I did indeed see the short hair and angular face of the pushy forensic specialist we had worked with. Blair glanced at the sun as he resumed, “Should make it by mid day or so. I hope to find a Deli or Salad bar on the way, cause I am like seriously hungry here.” Now his gaze went to his own stomach and though I couldn't hear it some how I just knew his guts had just growled. I saw a smile spread across his face and was sure I had guessed right. Then he turned to leave the crest, but he immediately turned back, his face troubled, and much softer spoke a quick, “Take it careful Jim. See you.” Then he moved away back into the woods.

I tried to follow his progress, but the trees were too dense and he vanished within a few paces. At the same moment my senses cut off like a switch had been thrown. I shook my head in frustration but didn't try to push it. I needed to get to the boulder Sandburg was headed for. Unfortunately there was still about two hundred and fifty feet of sheer drop between there and here. If I continued downhill I would be moving in the opposite direction but it wouldn't help to reverse because there was no way down from where I had come from. I had to follow the downward slope and hope at some point to be able to swing back in around.

Resuming a fast jog I stayed by the ledge for over two hours. Then the slick polished surface vanished and was replaced by a sweeping stretch of fractured and tumbled rock ranging from mammoth boulders to marble like shale. I recognized it as a long run out landslide. It extended down the incline from the distant peak to the ledge for what looked like a good two or three miles. With no choice but to cross I was forced to a slipping, twisting, and bobble of a walk that was excruciating in its slowness.

Even with extreme care I fell more than once when an angular rock twisted treacherously below my scrambling feet. My heavy clothing and gloves saved me from multiple shredding cuts, but not the heavy blows and bruises that my crashing weight earned.

After another hour and a half of this nerve-racking torture I finally hauled myself over a rock wall bordering the slide. I huffed out a heavy sigh of relief when I found myself back on the granite ledge path I had followed earlier.

Glancing at my watch I found it was after ten in the morning. When my eyes panned across the valley below I was aggravated to note that my ridge had twisted around enough to block my view of the area my partner was working towards. If Blair where anywhere near his anticipated schedule he would be half way across the valley by now. For a moment I felt profound disappointment that the mountain blocked my view. I don't exactly know why but I really wanted to see the kid and follow his progress, maybe just my protective streak. What was even more confusing was I found myself listening for him even at this distance.

“Can't believe I miss hearing marathon mouth ramble through a forty volume explanation of the cultural significance of toilet paper in modern society or some other shit!” I muttered aloud to myself. Part of the reason I'd thought he was on drugs in the beginning was what I remember calling 'his incessant yammering'. Now I was distracted by it's absence? What was that about?

I shook off the weird moment of self-analysis, which was more Sandburg's type of crap, not mine. With firm ground under my feet once more I took off at a fast jog again. After another hour of rapid progress luck finally came my way. A clear switch back trail across the front of the cliff, about ten feet wide swung downhill and back towards where Blair was. In spite of being in need of a short respite I immediately continued my rapid gait down the new path.

Now that I was moving back in the right direction I figured I would be in the vicinity of Blair's boulder rendezvous two or three hours after the mid day time period he had aimed for. Also I could feel the weather was starting to deteriorate with the soggy chill that warned of snowfall imminent. I really hoped that when Sandburg got to landmark he didn't head off searching for me. No matter how smart my partner might be, he was the most directional hopeless guy I had ever known. There had been a couple of times that he had managed, even with a compass and map, to start off on a simple hike and ended up in the backside of nowhere. The thought of him tromping around in poor visibility on a friggin' mountain was not something to instill confidence.

Two hours later I had come back around to a point I could see across the valley. Unfortunately I could see I was also running out of path. The jutting slab of rock that formed my bridge down the rock face had been steadily narrowing over the last hour. And farther ahead it was still narrower. What had been wide enough to drive a vehicle down at the beginning was now only three odd feet wide. In the not to far down distance I saw the ledge was less than a foot out from the cliff face.

I continued down the shrinking granite projection, I had come to far to waste time and retrace my steps. Sandburg would have probably gotten to his boulder site by now; I needed to prevent him going off hunting me.

Maybe if I got closer I could shout down to him from up here. Even as the thought occurred my peripheral vision caught movement again and my eyes zoomed in on my partner. There he was, barely half way across the valley, shuffling across the snow on what looked like ice ski's? Whatever they were, they were long, thin and pretty close to the same color as the snow, tied to his feet by yards of parachute cord.

His eyes were down, focused on the snowy stretch just ahead of him. In his gloved hands he held a long branch, as thick around as his wrist, and at least twice as long as him. My mind tried to figure why he was wasting energy carrying that for. Weirder still, he was holding it horizontal to the ground? He looked like one of the performers on the high wire with a balance pole grasped in front of him.

Though the long flat valley was devoid of trees I knew he wasn't hauling the branch along for firewood. Even from the other peak he could clearly see that once he got to this side there were trees and deadwood aplenty. It was way to big to be a weapon, too cumbersome to work as a staff, or club.

As I continued to follow his progress I saw him suddenly halt. He stood marble still for several moments, then very, very slowly shifted back several steps. He turned at a ninety-degree angle to his previous course, went several yards and then swung back to aim toward the cliffs where I presently perched. From some distant point my ears picked up a muffled creaking and crinkling.

'Shit!' Suddenly I realized what the stick was for and fear burned through me. The beautiful valley, white and virgin of any blemish wasn't a valley… it was a frozen lake! And from my partners cautious progress I knew beyond a doubt that it wasn't frozen solid yet! For a second I felt that hot rage that sometimes took over my nature. I was going to kill Sandburg, if he didn't get himself killed first! What was he thinking for God's sake?

Just at that moment I heard a high pitched crack, like a small pistol shot. Blair suddenly listed heavily to the right. His ski, foot and most of his leg vanished below the snowy blanket. I unconsciously held my breath as I watched him throw himself forward with his waist across the long branch that now lay below him in the snow. He just lay perfectly still for several heartbeats. With his weight distributed over a wider area by the staff he was able to drag his leg and ski back up through the broken ice. Inching forward slowly on his belly, keeping the branch directly below him he eventually was several yards from the small hole he had caused. As I watched him climb slowly and cautiously to his feet again I felt throbbing in the sides of my face and had to force apart my clenched jaw.

For almost an hour I continued to watch him ease across the partially frozen expanse of water. Alternately praying and cursing as he twice more broke through the icy crust and dunked one part or another of his body.

Finally though he was getting much closer to the shore on this side and without the deeper, faster moving water the ice layer seemed thicker and more secure. When he had realize this fact I noticed his gait picked up speed until he was shuffling forward with the rapid sweeping stride of a cross-country skier. But he still kept the pole balanced in front of him.

As I stood there, my back leaning against the cliff face, I felt almost weak kneed with relief. Shaking my head I was already working through the lecture I was going to blow Sandburg apart with. How many times was he going to risk his life before someday his luck ran out? God may look after mad fools and Englishmen, and apparently Anthropology students, but there was no sense pushing things.

Turning back to my own problem I continued down my trail, getting closer and closer to the approaching form of my partner. Even as I began to look forward to our reunion, I found myself scooting along sideways on a five-inch wide ledge, my back pressed hard against the cliff behind me. Finally the ledge petered out, to narrow for even my heels alone to find purchase, and I was still about a hundred or more feet above the cliff base.

Standing for a moment I caught my breath and looked around for my partner. I felt my heart lift as I realized how close he was now. With normal vision I could see him clearly. Maybe a quarter mile ahead and to my left he still trudged steadily along. At his present pace he would be at this side's shore in less than an hour. If I could find a way down from my perch I could head straight along the cliff base and join him in about that time.

With my decision made I carefully inched myself around so I was now facing the cliff. I tuned my sense of touch up slightly, not enough to really focus too much, but to give me some edge finding hand holds through my gloves. Sweeping my arm out I found the surface peppered with a great many jutting's and indentions. With a deep, calming breath I shoved my toes into a small crack and my fingers onto a finger thick protrusion and lowered myself down the first few feet of my climb down.

In the Ranger's they'd taught us to climb almost any kind of promontory, in any kind of weather, so I had no concerns of my climbing capability. My main worry was my lack of proper equipment. Leather and wool gloves slipped around incessantly forcing hasty movements when the gloves threatened to slid off my hands as I clung to this or that. My boots were warm and well insulated, great for walking, but without the sole support to help carry weight across the whole foot when the toes were crammed into tiny toeholds.

After about an hour's slow, tedious progress I had made it more than half way down. But I was huffing like a walrus on the beach and sweat was pouring down my face in spite of the frosty breeze. My eyes were almost zoned on the unchanging granite only inches in front of my face. My ears could hear only the pounding of my straining pulse. Small quivering cramps were washing through my arms and legs with each stop to find the next hand or foothold.

Pausing for a moment to shake feeling back into my left hand I stood almost spread eagle across the face of the cliff. If I had the energy I would have twisted my head to see how far I was from the ground. Couldn't be too far now though.

Suddenly in seeming slow motion I felt the glove on my right hand slip an inch up my fingers as rigid digits pulled out from the drag of my weight on them. My left hand was still at the side of my body were I had been letting the blood rush back into it a moment before. Now suddenly my upper body had nothing holding it in place. Both my feet were firmly rammed into sturdy crevices, but my weight pulled me away from the cliff surface. As I began to fall backwards I scrambled both my hands over the surface, desperate to grab any hold. My fingers snagged and ripped away from several projecting small ridges, but could not find enough purchase to halt my backward momentum. My arms started to windmill even as I began to pitch over backwards.

As I felt my feet pull from their niches and begin my fall into eternity I thought to myself, “Sandburg is going to be really pissed at me for this one.” A brief sound of rushing air, several sharp pains at several points on my body, a distant remembered voice, my imagination for sure, then the dark floods up and washed everything away.

Well, I can't just stand here. Think Sandburg, THINK! I had climbed, slid, scrambled and tumbled down the damn mountain to the edge of the snowy expanse that I thought was a valley. When I had gotten to the edge in the lee of a tree that had fallen out across the smooth blanket of white I had taken one step out and immediately slipped through a thin film of ice into frigid water. It was a LAKE! A stupid, immense, friggin' lake and the damn thing wasn't completely frozen! Who did I piss off in the great beyond to get this kind of luck? I was here, Jim was over there, and there was an endless f*#%#ing half frozen lake between. Naturally. And it extended to the horizon; it would take days to go around!

Okay. There had to be a way across. I just had to think of it. THINK. I was good at that. But I was a little out of my element here. I might be Jewish but to my knowledge only one of the chosen people had ever been documented as walking on water. And though the lake had a definite crust of ice over its whole surface, I knew that near the deep areas that would be film thin. The thought of a sudden plunge into those frigid waters had me shivering.

Suddenly a wedge of three large ducks swooped down and skidded to a landing on the snow covered ice sheet. I noticed none of them broke through the crust even as they pushed their way ashore. They were leaned forward on their broad feather covered breasts, spreading their weight over a larger area. That was the thing; if I laid flat on my stomach I would probably not break through the icy shell. But I'd never get through the snowy blanket that covered it, and it would take so long to crawl across that I'd freeze to death long before reaching the other shore.

Spread out my weight. Frontiersmen had invented snowshoes to spread their weight to prevent their falling through deep snow. When it was impossible to push through shoulder deep drifts, a person could easily skim along the top with snowshoes. But even if I had them, snowshoes would still allow too much weight in a concentrated area for the ice I would have to cross. No I needed something bigger, broader. Something like, something like…… YES! That would do it.

Now that I had an answer I surged with renewed energy. Tree. I needed a good tree. Nope. Nope. Not that one. Yeah that would work.

I found a healthy youngish evergreen and taking my knife quickly sliced through the outer bark on the trunk. I cut and pried away until I had skinned off a four foot long by two foot wide square. Since the tree trunk was circular the chunk of bark was curved. I sliced it along its length to make two long planks. With a piece of dead wood I scraped the outer rough surfaces to knock down or break off any irregularities. When I'd gotten the roughest areas trimmed and smoothed the planks were slightly narrower but still thick enough….. I hoped.

Then I trimmed off sections of parachute to wrap them in. Next I needed straps. Leather would have worked best but I was NOT going to sacrifice any of my jacket. Braided parachute cord would have to do. Looking out across the lake I tried to think of anything else that could give me an edge… in case.

Well it couldn't hurt to have a little extra insurance. As it was I could only pray Jim wasn't to near. If he saw me doing what I was about to do…. well he would probably have me cleaning the grout in the bathroom….. with a toothbrush…. again! He really tended to go ballistic when I had one of my 'harebrained' ideas that risked my being hurt.

That was part of the inequity of Sentinel and Guide. Jim thought it was perfectly all right for him to risk his life day in and day out. As cop and Sentinel and friend he figured it was part of his role. When I would read him the riot act for unnecessarily placing himself in harm's way, he'd just sort of give me that 'hey that's the job' spiel. But man, when ever trouble finds me, which I have to admit happens way to often, Jim goes all crazed Blessed Protector on me. If he had his way he'd handcuff me in the truck whenever I'm out of the loft.

I noticed a sapling, about twenty feet tall, just on the rim of the woods. About three inches across it was arrow straight with few angular branches. Taking a triangular rock I hacked away at its narrow base until almost through it. Then a hard push and it fell over. I couldn't resist a chuckled “Timberrrrrrrr” even though the junior evergreen barely made a sound as it slipped to the ground. A few more minutes with my rock and I had trimmed all the branches and had formed a sturdy but lightweight pole.

Returning to the edge of the icy span I tied my silk covered ski's to my feet. Standing carefully I lifted the pole and held it horizontal to the icy floor as I moved out onto the lake.

Luckily the freeze near the shore was quite thick in several areas undisturbed by current or traffic. The snow that covered it was not very deep, but still made seeing any thin spots impossible. A cold, harsh wind swept across the open area, swirling and shifting the snow around me as I trudged on. My extra long and wide skies were cumbersome and exhaustingly heavy, but they did the trick. Most of the time I skimmed across the snowy blanket barely sinking in at all.

But as I got nearer the middle of the lake even my non-Sentinel ears picked up the crinkle, crackle, snap, pop around and beneath my steps. Dark striations like lightning bolts shot outward from my back trail. Fissures angled down allowing water to lap up shallowly around my ski's.

Once past mid way I was exhausted but realized I couldn't risk stopping even a moment to rest. Only the fact that I kept moving prevented the fractures caused by my weight from growing large enough to fall away beneath me.

By the three quarter mark I was so worn out that my stride had more in common with the shuffle of a ninety year old man than a cross-country skier. And as I slowed the frequency and severity of the fissures I caused increased. The first time I fell through I thought I would have a heart attack. I had tripped slightly and gone onto my right knee on the front of that ski. The combination of stationary weight and impact snapped the ice just below in a rectangular slab that bobbed away below the surface.

As my support on that side of my body disappeared I was thrown off to that side. The front of my ski and knee vanished into the frigid water and I was toppled forward. My upper body slammed across my sapling pole, pounding my left hip, angled across my abdomen and chest and slapping solidly below my right arm. I waited for the pole to crash through the ice also, plunging me to a cold and unavoidable death. In my heavy clothes, boots and pack I'd sink like the proverbial stone.

But the pole spread the impact and weight out sufficiently to suspend me, mostly dry and relatively unhurt. I was rigid with fear for several minutes, fighting nausea and panic that squeezed my throat closed. It wasn't the cold that had my teeth chattering at that time. I doubt I could have moved just then even if someone had offered me a million dollars. I thought for sure in another second the whole section of ice below me would pivot and dump me. After a couple of minutes the numbing cold of my knee managed to push into my consciousness and shove aside my terror, ……. a little.

I was convinced that as soon as I tried to drag the limb back out of the water the added burden on the ice would be the last straw and doom me. But I couldn't stay like this until spring either.

Moving so slow you could have been timed me with a sundial I dragged the now soggy wooden ski and leg out of the ruptured ice. I shifted sorta onto my side pulling the wet leg across to rest on the other dry one.

Moving my arms until I had wedged them on the pole, I levered my upper body forward further across its length. By wiggling back and forth with my elbows just behind the narrow staff I could push it and myself a few inches ahead at a time. In my mind I visualized those war movies where the soldier holds his rifle across his arms and dragged himself forward on his elbows. I figured I must have looked something like that.

Once I was several yards from where I'd fallen through I cautiously pulled myself to my knees, my grip on the balance pole probably leaving dents. When the surface remained firm and solid beneath me I clumsily pushed myself back onto my ski's. When catastrophe didn't smite me I began my slow shuffling stride again.

The next hour was a nightmare as I fell through the ice twice more, each time rescued by my simple sapling. My gaze was tunneled down to the few inches of snow and ice where my ski would next tread. I was quaking from exhaustion, cold and unrelenting fear. Everything had ceased to exist beyond my microcosm of misery.

But then the condition of the snow and ice beneath me penetrated by numb mind and I realized I had moved onto an area of thick, sturdy freeze. I lifted my eyes for the first time in what seemed like a century and saw the shore there, just a few hundred yards away. After what I'd just gone through it seemed only a jaunt away. Somehow the knowledge that I was almost to my goal rejuvenated me. I was still freezing cold, so tired I was cross-eyed, but I was almost to where Jim was. That made the difference and I pushed off with a confident stride……. but I still kept my balance pole extended in front of me. Hey I'm not crazy! Or at least not as crazy as some people think.

As I got within a hundred yards of the shore I suddenly felt the hairs on my neck bristle and a chill that had nothing to do with my wet clothes shot through me. I found my head pivoting of it's own accord to look to the cliffs that stretched along the shore side mountain face for miles. And there, plastered like a spider across the seemingly smooth granite face was a brown clad figure. With absolute certainty I knew that it was Jim. And what was worse….. I knew he was in trouble. As my eyes strained to see him more clearly I felt my heart begin to pound. That feeling of impending disaster, like a passenger in a car about to strike a tree, swept through me.

Damn, how the hell did he get there? He hung like a limpet about thirty feet up a solid one or two hundred foot unblemished face. As far up and sideways as I could see there was nothing that looked vaguely like a traversable course to where he now clung. I found myself starting to whisper a fervent prayer for his safety, only to watch in horror, as just then he seemed to tilt away from the vertical slab and began to plummet backwards.

“Jim!” My screamed denial burst forth unconsciously. My mind stuttered with anguish, it seemed like I was watching a movie in stop motion animation. Click, his arms were straight out from his body like wings spread for flight. Click, his body rotated now with his head lower than his feet. Click, his hands clawing at negligible outcroppings. Click, his left shoulder impacts with the cliff wall as his somersault reaches full vertical. Click, now horizontal to the wall as his leg glances off a ridge extending out from the lower cliff. Click, my view is obstructed as he vanishes behind the canopy of the row of trees lining the base of the cliff.

From somewhere I heard a muffled voice muttering a long litany of curses interspersed with an occasional harsh 'he's alive, he's okay'. I came back to myself realizing that the voice was my own. I was shuffling across the ice as fast as my legs could manage, ignoring the cracks and starring of the ice extending from my progress. The nearer shore ceased to exist as my eyes maintained unwavering line of sight to where I had last glanced Jim. My beeline took me at an angle to the shore but if I had gone in there I would have had a longer road around the perimeter to swing back to the cliff.

Finally I waded through the shallow slush on the eroded bank below my goal. I flung aside the pole and ski's and began scrambling and slipping up and over the embankment into the trees. Pine needles and branches slapped and burned my face as I raced unheeding through the woods.

Within a few minutes I burst out at the base of the cliffs. I stumbled to a halt and a choked cry forced it's way from my lips. The cliff bottom was a pile of rocks; boulders, slabs and shale mounded up against the granite face and spotted with patches of snow. And a third of the way down the incline of loose and scattered stone was Jim. He looked like a discarded rag doll, slung haphazardly on the pile, twisted partially on his side and back with his legs uphill and his head toward the ground.

I thanked God for the heavy snow the previous night. I could see the Jim sized imprint in the deep layer of powder that the wind across the lake had slammed into the cliff face to fall and pile at its base. He would have died instantly if he had struck the rocks they pillowed.

It took only a few minutes to clamber up the shifting incline to reach my unmoving friend. I resisted the urge to immediately try to straighten him and move his head uphill. His position looked so unnatural and uncomfortable, teetering across his overstuffed pack. I blanched when I noticed the pack had an axe in it! Shit, if he'd hit at a slightly different angle he would have driven the blade through the back of his head!

With infinite care I begin to examine him where he lay. Pulse strong, breathing steady but rapid. His face pale beneath a mask of blood, but I could easily see the dozens of cuts and scrapes that they originated from. None were large or appeared dangerous. Any wound to the head would bleed volumes but I knew they were the least of my worries.

My hands move to the back of his neck, praying to find no bulge, swelling, or other evidence of possible spinal injury. I found I couldn't feel adequately through my gloves. I didn't even feel the cold as I quickly peel both sets off. I don't have Sentinel touch, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt nothing abnormal. My hands glided feather light across first his right forearm then upper arm, then switched to the other arm.

Even without Jim's moan from my contact with his left shoulder I couldn't miss the odd bulge at the point of the collar bone. Dislocated, badly. Just below that a large hematoma hinted at a break or crack in the humerus bone. If it was a fracture it thankfully was not compound. If the bone had ripped through the skin I doubted I would have had the skill to safely reset it. Jim was the guy who'd been a Medic. What I knew I had picked up in my many travels and what he had drilled into me. Luckily setting clean breaks I could manage. If it wasn't broken, well immobilizing it wouldn't hurt.

With delicate care I lowered the arm back to the ground and continued to examine him, wishing again for Sentinel sensitive senses. Remembering all I could I checked his abdomen, sides and back, pressing gently but missing no area. No sign of rigidity that would have meant possible abdominal bleeding. No severe reaction to the pressure on his low back. Hopefully that meant no bruising or damage of the kidneys. No other breaks I could find. Lots and lots of cuts, even through his thick clothes. And judging from his unconscious squirm when I touched the slight swelling on his left ankle he might have another fracture there, but not that I could feel for sure.

I tenderly straightened Jim's legs. Easing his injured arm out of the strap to his pack seemed too likely to cause pain, so I just sawed through the material with my knife. Tilting him further onto his side I was able to slide the pack off his back and move it to behind his head and shoulders. Then grabbing the axe I slide back down the incline. I found a young tree and stripped two foot-long flat panels of bark and several flexible branches. I left the axe and scrambled back up to Jim.

Laying out my supplies I trimmed the bark strips to the proper length, cut and folded parachute silk padding, measured out cord and set everything right next to Jim. Sitting next to his injured limb facing his upper body, I lifted his arm slowly onto my lap, carefully wrapping both my hands around his wrist. Then I extended my left leg until my heel rested in the armpit of his coated shoulder.

“This is gonna hurt Jim. But it has to be done.” I whispered Sentinel soft between my own clenched teeth. Steeling myself I began to firmly push with my leg while I pulled the left arm straight out.

I flinched as my partner began groaning and tried to pull himself out of my grasp. But I continued the steady pull until I felt the telltale pop of the bone-head slipping back into it's joint. My stomach did a flip-flop and I realized I had bitten my lip when I tasted blood. There was no time for me to freak out, my partner needed me, but it took concentration not to let nausea get rolling.

Maintaining a sturdy hold on Jim's wrist with one hand I gathered the padding and bark and wrapped it snugly around the suspicious area that might be a bone break. When I was finished and had tied the rigid supports in place I sat back and took a shaky breath. Looking at Jim's pale face I was somewhat relieved to see the grimace that had been there begin to relax and his moans had stopped.

Taking some silk I wiped the blood delicately from his face.

I looked up at the sky gathering my focus. I wished I could spare a few minutes to meditate. Hurting Jim had hurt me, but from the way the clouds above were churning the snow was going to make a return appearance soon. The temperature was dropping and my watch showed it was almost three in the afternoon. At this altitude night would come fast and soon.

Reaching out I laid my hand on Jim's chest. Once he had admitted that he used my heartbeat to anchor and steady him sometimes. What he didn't realize was even though I didn't have Sentinel senses, there were times when I found my own stability connected to his presence. Feeling the rise and fall of his breathing as it leveled out and calmed eased my own anxiety.

The need to find shelter had to be my first priority. The chances of concussion, shock, internal bleeding, and lord knows what other injuries already endangered my best friend. I wasn't about to let hypothermia add to the stress his system was dealing with.

Looking along the cliff side I saw no hint of a cave or overhang. But the granite wall curved away out of sight not to far from me. I had to move him, and one direction was as promising as the other. We needed to head downhill anyhow, so that was the deciding factor. I shucked off my pack, removed the parachute and covered Jim with it. I pulled the chute out of his pack and was surprised to find a waterproof tarp and what looked like some cooked meat also inside.

Quickly unfolding the tarp right beside Jim, I took infinite care to slide him onto its length. His own chute joined mine covering him. I placed the now empty packs under his head and splinted arm to cushion them.

Once I had folded the sides of the tarp up over my partner's form I gathered the top corners and slowly began pulling it down the incline. The rubble shifted and twisted under my feet and almost set me sliding several times. But eventually I had pulled him clear of the rocks onto the snow cover between the cliff and trees.

Checking to see that bumpy decent hadn't done any more damage I was shocked to hear a muffled “Chief?” as I peeled back the tarp. Light blue eyes squinted up at me as the soft daylight struck them. Instinct cut in and the Guide in me held my hand above his face to shade his glazed eyes. “Dial down your sight man.” I crooned soothingly. “But don't touch the pain dial yet. I need to know where and how bad you're hurt.”

The questioning look he turned on me and then the wince as he concentrated gave me a clue of just how much his head hurt. After a few moments he blinked and looked up at me, then shifted to try to sit up. I reached out to grasp his shoulder. “Stay put, Jim.” He winced as his body reinforced my command. Laying back he huffed in pain and weakness, but never removed his eyes from my face.

“You okay?” He asked softly.

The pain was washing back and forth through me. Part of me resisted trying to think of why I hurt. I couldn't remember anything much and my head was pounding like there was a mule inside trying to kick its way out.

Returning to consciousness was unpleasantly like enduring a root canal. Without meaning to though I felt myself coming back to my body bit by bit. Movement? Yeah I think I'm moving. But I'm lying down? Ouch…I'm on my back and either I'm moving or the ground under me is. Senses… try to tune in.

First hearing, but I quickly realize the pain in my head won't allow me to focus enough to hear even normal sound past the ringing buzz that fills my skull. Then I pry open my eyes. But all I see is darkness. Darkness or blindness? Please not blind again. But as I dial up my sight to its limit I notice a faint pattern in front of me, and a trace of light. Something is covering my face; it's cold and smells like plastic.

Where am I? I try to remember but I can't think straight. What's the last thing I do remember? Think Ellison. Damn I hurt! Why? I…. I….fell? Yeah I fell from….. something. Obviously where ever I fell from I landed on my head, cause it hurts even to think.

A sharp stab in my back then my thigh grabs my attention. Ouch. I'm being dragged along some really rocky ground, that's what's happening.

I try to move to get free of whatever I'm cocooned in. But when I start to lever myself up, as soon as I put pressure on my left arm a electric current of agony lances from the limb straight to my pain filled head. I almost throw up and black out at the same time. But instead I clench my jaw and drag a deep breath in to try to ride out the wave of pain and only go to gray.

A moment later when I am able to think again I notice I'm not moving, or being moved, anymore. I am on soft, level ground and even without enhanced hearing can make out the crunch of steps on snow moving from near my head to my side.

As I lay there I suddenly feel all my senses come on line. My ears are pulled unerringly past the crinkle of plastic, whoosh of wind, snap and crackle of tree branches brushing together. There. My personal metronome, thub dub, thub dub.

“Chief?” I managed to croak through a throat that seemed lined with sand. Straight away the material covering my face is pulled aside and I am assaulted by blazing light so bright it hurts. Immediately a hand casts a soothing shadow across my eyes and Sandburg's soft voice whispers reassuringly “Dial down your sight man.” And as I begin to comply he quickly follows up with a stronger, “But don't touch the pain dial yet. I need to know where and how bad you're hurt.”

It takes a little to find the dial through the pain but I finally manage it.

His face is just above me and as I see him up close for the first time in so many hours, it all comes rushing back. All that happened, and Sandburg's little hike across the lake. I remember my fear of losing him and my anger at his recklessness. I try to push myself up, forgetting what happened last time. A strong grasp on my shoulder steady's me as the pain strikes again. “Stay put, Jim.” His voice commands. I fall back fighting the dark. Again I manage to hold on to consciousness partially by focusing on his face. He's pale and his dark sky blue eyes advertise his worry and exhaustion and something else I can't quite pin down. The hand on my shoulder is icy cold and shivering.

Some 'Blessed Protector' I am. How long have I been out? It's obvious that he's been taking care of me. There is a splint on my left arm and I'm swaddled in warm layers of parachute silk. What has the kid had to deal with? “You okay?” I ask, worried that he was neglecting his own hurts to care for me.

He looks at me for a long moment, that odd something still in his eyes. “I'm fine” he reassures quietly, but there is a kind of brittleness beneath the words. I monitor his heartbeat and it doesn't accelerate like it always does when he's lying. But I can't shake the feeling, something's wrong.

“Jim!” The grip on my shoulder tightened, “Jim, come on back…” He thought I had zoned, and I wasn't about to tell him I was doing my human lie detector impersonation. He's funny about privacy and such.

When I focused on his face again he nodded. “Okay Jim, I need you to run a self diagnostic here. Use your sense of touch but just dial it up enough to catalogue what hurts, where and how bad.” The easy cadence of his voice was irresistible and my senses immediately began to do as he asks.

“Left shoulder and arm, throbbing but not bad.” I volunteered immediately. When he pointed at a bloody bruise about three inches below the shoulder I ran the fingers of my good right hand over the site. Reading the question in his expression I supplied the results. “The bones slightly cracked but not broken.” Noticing the splint I threw in a heartfelt. “You did a good job setting it.” But my compliment went unnoticed as he slid a sling of chute silk over my head and around my injured arm.

“Right hip, just bruised. Ribs on the right, bruised, no breaks.”

“How about your head?” He directed quietly.

“Several bumps but otherwise intact.” I supplied, leaving out the part about the splitting headache and barely suppressed nausea. I figured I had a concussion, but he didn't need anything more to worry about.

“How bad is the headache?” Busted! I should stop trying. He seemed to read me with the accuracy of a mirror.

“It was pretty bad,” I admitted, “But it's easing up already.”

“Okay. What about the ankles?” I hadn't felt anything wrong with my ankles, but then I hadn't tried to stand yet either. Dialing up my sense of touch down there I rapidly found that my left ankle was echoing my heartbeat in unpleasant hot jabs. Focusing more carefully I traced a sense of heat all along the area the muscle joined the bone.

“Left ankle, sprained not broken.” I diagnosed with certainty. “Just needs to be wrapped tight and it'll be fine.” My Medic training coming to the fore there.

“Anything else?” He was all business today I thought. Normally going this long without turning whimsical and he'd be going into wisecrack withdrawal. I couldn't remember him cracking a single smile since I had come to. Yes, something was definitely up.

“Nope.” Hey, I can do monosyllabic. Before Sandburg I had almost withdrawn so much that most of my vocabulary was yes, no, and the Miranda.

“Good.” He responded as he used strips of our ever-useful parachutes to tightly bind my ankle. “It'll be dark soon so we need to find some shelter. Can you see anything down that way.” He pointed downhill and I followed with my eyes, dialing them up to their limit.

“Can't be sure Chief. I see several areas of shadow that could be jutting slabs or caves. But these cliffs curve off to the east and I think there is a good chance there are caves not to far downhill.” I supplied, thinking back to some of what I'd looked down on during my journey.

“How do you know what's beyond the curve?” He asked with a momentary flash of curiosity returning the familiar light to his eyes.

“I covered most of that ridge trying to find a way down.” I shook my head remembering my frustration at the time. “Had to go miles before I found a trail leading back down this way.”

“Trail?” Sandburg queried, looking up the cliff face I had fallen from.

“Yeah trail, Sandburg.” I said with a chuckle. “It's about a hundred feet up and five inches wide, but its there.”

“A hundred feet.” Sandburg's voice was barely a whisper but I caught it and also caught the strange inflection.

“You okay Chief?” What was going on? His expression was blank, or maybe hard was a better description. Hard expressions and Blair Sandburg was a combination that did not bode well.

“Fine Jim. I'm just fine.” His voice was absolutely level, no inflection at all. But I knew Blair, and he was upset. About what I didn't have a clue. But definitely pissed.

“You don't sound fine buddy. You want to tell me what's up?” I thought it was a reasonable enough question. But Blair just seemed to ignore it as he finished tying off the bandage.

I considered pushing things, but when I took a good look at him I saw a man very near the end of his rope. He was exhausted yet still he kept moving, kept working, kept doing. Suddenly even though I didn't know what was going on I felt it was not a good time to force anything. He had enough to cope with right now. Neither of us was in good shape and we were still a hell of a long way from home and there were still lunatics with plans for us.

To underscore the situation at that moment it decided to start snowing again. Blair was right; our priority had to be getting to shelter. Lessons learned earlier about not putting weight in the wrong place, I carefully kept my injured arm tight to my chest as I shifted onto my right arm and began to push to my knees.

“What are you doing!” Blair's voice was a harsh snap. He had stood and been moving toward the trees below when he noticed my movement and swept back.

“Like you said Chief, we need to get to shelter. And I can't very well get there on my butt.” I tried to make some levity of it. But I was worried. I knew I was going to have a struggle to navigate the snow with my injuries. But I knew Blair would not leave me. And if tonight were as cold as last night, being at the base of this cliff would be like being in a quick freeze. The wind would slam against the cliff and the coldest air would sink and compound the wind chill factor.

“Just stay there Jim.” Tiredness mixed with strained patience colored Sandburg's voice. “I'm putting together a travois, stay put and I'll bring the makings here.” Without even waiting to see if I planned to comply he jogged down the incline and within moments I heard the slap, crack of an axe.

Not being the best sit still type, I went ahead and got to first my knees and then my feet. Or maybe I should say foot. Though I managed to stand, as soon as I tried to walk on the left leg the sprained ankle complained…. loudly. Walking was going to hurt like hell. I swayed but stayed upright.

I was balancing carefully when Blair dragged two narrow saplings up. Straightening from his hunched over pulling, he looked at me standing there and I actually saw a momentary flash of what looked like anger spark in his deep blue eyes. But his expression remained neutral.

Not saying a word he dropped the stripped young trees nearby and laid them out in a “V” on the ground. Grabbing the ball of cord by the packs he plopped down to sit on the snow and began tying the tip of the “V” together.

“Sandburg there is no need to make that. I admit I am not up to running a marathon.” I made a point of putting my weight on my bad leg, pretending it didn't feel like ground glass in my ankle. “But I will manage without you having to pull me on that thing.”

Sandburg drew a deep breath, not immediately looking up at me. Then he lifted his head and fixed those smoky blue eyes of his on me. Letting his breathe out in a soft sigh he looked me up and down once. “Jim. Your eyes won't focus and your jaw is clenched so you can stop trying to pretend you aren't in pain. Your leg is twitching and can barely hold you up. You can't use crutches without exacerbating the inflammation from the dislocation. Yes, there is a need for me to make this.” And he put his head down and continued his task.

“Hey, eagle eye, who's the Sentinel here.” I should have known that he would catch it. He is a trained observer. And though his logic was undeniable I didn't like the idea. Logic or no, he was already exhausted. How did he expect to haul my butt around? I outweighed him by seventy plus pounds for crying out loud!

I started to open my mouth to argue. But I noticed his rigid stance, and own clenched jaw.

What the hell was going on? Blair the bright, easy to read, talkative one, was acting like me before I'd met him. Withdrawn, non-communicative and a dozen other adjectives I was always being accused of.

“Okay Chief. Give me a clue here! What exactly is going on in that head of yours? I don't know what I've done but it obviously has got you major league pissed off.” He froze, but did not look up at me. I noticed his hands where quivering, and somehow I knew that it wasn't from his sensitivity to the cold. “Come on buddy. You are always nagging me about 'opening up', 'expressing my feelings'. How about you practice what you preach here? What the hell did I do?”

He stands there, tittering on one good leg. Concussed, his arm in a splint, his ankle wrapped, dried blood still visible in his short hair. And he wants to know what he did? I feel unfamiliar rage, but I also can't stop shaking with fear and desperate frustration. There wasn't a prayer of ever making him see. Making him change. And someday…..

It suddenly was just too much and I found I couldn't keep working on the travois like nothing was wrong. I slumped forward, my elbows on my knees and resting my throbbing head in my cold gloves. Fighting back tears, I just sat there. I was too tired to fight and I knew that was where this was headed.

“Drop it Jim.” I forced out through gritted teeth. But I knew he wouldn't. Jim calls me tenacious, but I'm amateur class compared to him.

“No chance Sandburg. We're not going anywhere until you tell me what's up.” He began to hobble toward me as he spoke. “You're starting to worry me here kid.” He had almost reached me when his leg buckled and he nearly fell.

“Shit!” I bolted to my feet grabbing the elbow of his good right arm and steadied him. Maintaining my hold I helped him totter to a fallen tree and sit down.

He looked at me with a sheepish expression on his face. “Thanks Chief.” For a moment I felt my own protective instincts over ride my anger. But then just as I was starting to feel some of the anger evaporate I watched him struggle to get back up.

“Jim, please just stay there until I finish the travois.” I think I was pleading a little, but I really was tired. Backing a few steps I knelt by the travois again. “If you fall again you just might manage to compound fracture that arm, and I am so not up for blood and gore right now.”

He looked up at me and now I saw irritation starting to flush behind his own eyes. “You sound like you're angry at me because I got hurt Sandburg? I got news for you Darwin, it isn't like I had a choice here.”

“You did have a choice Jim.” I couldn't stop the whispered words escaping through my lips. Even knowing the can of worms I was letting loose, I just couldn't shut up. I didn't need to look up to know that his face had gone stone like. I could feel the gathering fury even from feet away.

“What the HELL are you talking about!” He bellowed in that voice he usually reserved for intimidating murderers and other sundry criminals. In one cat like movement he was up and hobbled across the space between us grabbing my coat sleeve and hauling me up as close to his face as my five foot nine could get to his six two.

“Spit it out Sandburg. You've had a bug up your butt since I came to.” He didn't seem to feel the sprained ankle as he almost lifted me off my feet to come to eye level with him. “Just what choice do you figure I had here? I'm a Sentinel for God's sake, not Superman!”

I snapped. Exhausted, cold, scared, and damn furious, I just exploded. “NOW you figure that out huh!” I shouted as I yanked out of his hold. Both of us stumbled back a step but I was back in his face in a heartbeat. “A little late though. How about you remember that the next time you decide to climb down a f#%&ing hundred foot sheer cliff!” My eyes rose heavenward, “A HUNDRED f#%&ing feet and you CHOOSE to climb down with no f#%&ing safety equipment, in f#%&ing freezing weather, all f#%&ing ALONE!” I barely paused for breath before continuing to scream right into his face. “Not Superman? Then maybe you think you're Spiderman. The only reason you are alive is because a f#%&ing snow drift just HAPPENED to be there to keep your head from being exploded on impact like a f#%&ing MELON!” I was starting to shake uncontrollably but ignored it to draw in a breath to scream some more.

He beat me to it. As soon as I stopped my tantrum he jumped right into the opening. “Watch your mouth! I DID NOT HAVE A CHOICE!” His own volume was about the same as mine but his deeper bass voice reverberated more. “I walked that ridge for MILES!” He shouted, poking his finger into my chest to punctuate. “The damn thing went on forever. I would have had to hike to China before I would have gotten down following the stupid ridge. And it was going AWAY FROM YOU!” Again the finger poked.

Slapping his hand away I jumped even more into his personal space. “And you had to take insane chances because I am so incompetent that you can't trust me to stay alive without you? That's it isn't it? You just can't trust that I might be able to look out for myself long enough. You just knew if you didn't rush to my f#%&ing rescue I'd fall off a mountain or something! Amazing isn't it… I managed to stay alive for almost thirty years ALL BY MYSELF! But none of that matters, does it? I'm not the big strong testosterone Alpha male type like you and the others, so that means I'm f#%&ing helpless.” I clenched my fists, wanting desperately to hit something. “You think I don't notice that you, Simon, and the guys call me “KID” at least once a day?” I pinned his eyes with my own, trying to make him see. “You take stupid unnecessary chances like climbing down that cliff because you just don't respect that I can look after myself.” My anger was washing away, replaced by the drained emptiness I had been holding at bay. “You're going to get killed Jim……and I will be the cause. How am I supposed to live with that, man?”

Jim suddenly grabbed hold of my left shoulder with his good right and shook, hard. His raging anger was painted over his face. “What the hell are you talking about? I climbed down that cliff because it was the only way down. Yeah, I wanted to find you as soon as possible.” Suddenly his face got a look of fear on it. “Not because I thought you COULDN'T take care of yourself, but because I was afraid you WOULDN'T!” He began to hobble backwards pulling me with him. When his knees touched the fallen tree he sat back down and continued to tug at my arm until I sank down next to him. “Sandburg, that first day, why did you save me from that garbage truck?”

Confrontation was replaced by his insatiable curiosity. He looks up at me like I just grew a second head. I knew he'd think it was a stupid question. “Duh, because you were about to become road pizza?” He shook his pale, tired head. I tried to reach up and thwack the back of his head but he was sitting on my left and that arm wasn't responding right now. “Smart ass! What I am asking is why you did something that you knew could get you killed?” Again the look.

“I knew you were zoned man, you were helpless. If I hadn't got to you in time….” He shivered at the thought.

“But I was almost a stranger and I'd just come close to assaulting you Chief, why risk it?” I asked seriously. I knew he just didn't see it, never would unless I put it in black and white right in front of him.

He cocked his head and took a deep breath, his expression starting to look irritated again. Like he was explaining a law of nature to a slow child. “Stranger or no Jim, I couldn't just stand by and let you get killed. Even though you had acted like a world class dick I had to try to help.”

“And when you stepped in front of a bullet to save that kid who was on the sidewalk when that gang punk did that drive by shooting? She was a stranger too.”

“For God's sake Jim? She was eleven years old! Of course I had to try and save her. Anyone would.”

“No Chief, anyone wouldn't! Most people write off strangers and even friends when it comes to putting their ass on the line. Even people who want to do the right thing have a survival instinct that makes them hesitate, weigh the odds, see if it's worth it. But not you!” I swung around slightly to face him, forcing the words out with as much intensity as I could muster. I could feel the helpless fear rising in me, which always came out expressed as anger.

“Not you. You follow your heart Chief, and your heart values everyone's life more than your own. And when you care about someone, you don't even think about jumping out of planes or facing down killers!” I was almost shouting by the last words. “You are upset about me falling off a cliff? Well while we're on the subject of insane chance taking, you want to discuss risking crossing a barely frozen lake when you could have gone round or just STAYED PUT!”

He had the grace to look a little embarrassed by that, but then his own temper seemed to flare right in front of me. “Stayed PUT! In other words wait for you to come rescue me. Well I took a lot more precautions crossing that lake than you did coming down that cliff. And I was doing okay until I looked up and saw you taking a dive straight into the rocks!” His anger flipped off his face like a switch had been thrown and was replaced by a terrible heartbreaking lost look. “I didn't know how you could survive that fall….. I just stood there, knowing you had been killed, me watching, unable to do a thing about it. And knowing the only reason you would have attempted such a precipice was you were taking the shortest route to get to me. Because of that damn “Blessed Protector” crap… you had gotten killed!” His voice had climbed up the scale again, but no longer with anger, but instead a soul reliving despair it could not survive. He was shaking and pale and his eyes had lost all focus, as they seemed to be trapped seeing that moment all over again.

His heart was pounding faster and faster, his breath becoming short desperate gasps. Damn, I hadn't realized the kid had actually seen me fall. Then he had rushed to my side; sure I was dead the whole time. Never taking time to let what he had seen and felt be processed. He had been occupied taking care of me, thinking of how to get us out of here. But now…. now he was facing the event undistracted. Knowing Blair I could barely imagine the horror of watching, impotent, as someone he cared for fell head first to the ground.

Oblivious to my aching limb I slipped off the sling and wrapped my arms around my partner, brother, friend, soul savior. Pulling him forward I ignored the throb in my left upper arm to hug him tight to me. For horrible seconds he didn't even notice, an almost sub vocal whimper of hopeless pain breathed from his lips. Panic attack or shock, he was far away, tortured by his worst fear come to reality.

“Blair, I am so sorry. Come on buddy, I'm okay, it's over. We're both okay and we are together. I know I scared the shit out of you, but that door swings both ways. I practically had a heart attack watching you fall through the ice over and over again. Tell you what Darwin, I may not be an anthropologist but I don't think even the Eskimo's ever tried that rig you had. Classic Sandburg, that's what that was.” I was unconsciously rocking gently back and forth, stroking his back with my right hand while my left nested lightly in the hair along his neck that had escaped his woolen cap.

I don't know exactly how long it took. I was so focused on his heartbeat, the shivers that ran in waves through him, the rigid cold of his posture, that I semi-zoned on him. But then the arms that had been hanging limp at his sides moved stiffly up and around me to first tentatively then with heart wrenching need return my hug. “Jjj imm” he stuttered softly. “Please man, you can't die, not ever, and especially not for me.” He turned his pale serious face up to catch my eyes with his own. “You have to promise me man, promise. No more repeat performances. You are too important. And not just the Sentinel. Ellison the cop and Jim the good man, they're needed man. What would Simon do without you, Joel, Henri, Rafe you're an irreplaceable friend to them. And Cascade needs all the good guys it can get. You just can't go throwing it away man. Promise me!”

In those deep blue eyes I saw such love, unashamed and given with absolute trust, to me. Blair had had quite a few devoted lady friends whom he shared a joyous physical relationship with, I'd even been forced to enduring listening to one of them gush about how 'glorious' a lover the kid was. But for him sex and love were two different things, though he still hoped someday to find 'THE ONE' woman that he felt deeply for and enjoyed physical attraction with. To him sex was a simple normal physical release. He was not the least bit embarrassed about the subject or the act. He was way to free spirited about several things that made my teeth grind. All those years bouncing through one commune after another I guess. When he'd first moved in he had totally thrown me by not seeming to notice or care if he was naked. He ran from the shower to his room on a regular basis until I laid down an additional 'house rule'. He'd not really understood my discomfort until he got to know my father, the 'Puritan' as he referred to him.

It was almost frightening how deeply Blair was capable of feeling and loving. And the thing was that he was like a cornucopia, every day he met new people who he immediately considered friends and threw himself into helping. He was betrayed and forgave, hurt and forgave, misled and forgave. All the things he had lived through and yet he still began each day like a clean slate, willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. With a courage beyond explanation he risking trust and love when the rest of us had become cynical and calloused. There just didn't seem to be a limit to his love…. or his energy. I had never met anyone like him. And there he sat, begging me to promise not to risk my life to save his if the occasion arose again?

“No can do Blair. Can't promise, and I won't lie.” I saw him start to argue but I was finally going to say this and I wouldn't let him stop me. “No, be quiet for just this once and listen to me. And I mean realllly listen!” He snapped his mouth shut at that, bird quick as he was just starting to 'but' at me.

“No 'buts' Chief, you know how hard it is for me to open up, so don't give me any chance to think to much and clam up.” I saw that serious expression twitch slightly at those words. Yeah, he knew getting me to talk about 'feelings' was about on a par of getting me to volunteer in a kissing booth. He realized this because he had tried and failed at both before.

“I'm not going to promise to stand by and consider the odds if you are in trouble. And not because I think you're some helpless 'kid' that has to be rescued. We call you kid because of the way you look at things Chief, always fresh and unjaded. But hell Blair, you made your bones as far as the guys where concerned when you had Kincaid twisted inside out your first week. You've proved a couple of hundred times that you are more than able to either talk or maneuver yourself out of trouble. You've backed up all the guys and they all trust you implicitly with that responsibility.

And it's not because I am a cop and it's my job to try and save anyone who is in jeopardy. You are a citizen of Cascade buddy, and just as much entitled to police protection as anyone else.

And it's not because I am a Sentinel and you are my Guide. Though I have to admit there are times when I am not sure if that 'primitive throwback' crap of yours isn't all that can explain some of my less then subtle need to keep track of you and know you are safe.” I shook off the dismayed feeling that realization always brought. I NEEDED Sandburg. But I couldn't let myself be distracted. “One of these days you are going to find out that the Guide is probably more important than the Sentinel if I'm right about there being some weird cosmic karma about you and I meeting. But that isn't the reason I will never, ever willingly let you be hurt Chief.”

“It's because of who you are. Damn it Darwin, you can so clearly see what makes other people tick, but when it comes to seeing what's in the mirror, you are blind, deaf, and if not dumb, definitely oblivious!” As I paused to catch my breath, not being as able to manage run on sentences the way he could, I saw Sandburg open his mouth to jump in. But I shook my head sharply and continued.

“Shut up and let me finish. God, I should have had the guts to say this out loud before Chief….. guess I just hoped somehow that you'd figure it out with all that gray matter of yours.” I saw him blush slightly at that and with a fond smile I reached up and brushed the powdering of snow off his shoulders and head. Then I gripped his shoulder firmly and caught and held his eyes intently.

“Blair, you talk about the good guys. YOU are the good guys, you are the best!” I saw him start to argue and I tightened my shoulder hold. “You are! Without a doubt you are the most unique man I have ever met. You have a heart that is bigger than most countries. I have never seen someone so generous, caring, and compassionate. And for all the crap you spew about being afraid, you are the bravest person I know. When you believe in something or care for someone, its damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. That's what really scares me most. You don't recognize how unique and valuable you are. I'm terrified YOU will think too little of how important you are and throw away YOUR life for me.”

“I see so much of the dark side of people, and before you came along I'd come to pretty much think that the whole world was going to hell in a hand basket. Then you sort of splattered into my life. Your chaotic energy, the joy and wonder you always feel, your optimism and trust even when you've been royally screwed a few times. And the fact that no matter how many times I failed you, distrusted you, accused you of betrayal, you cared about me and always came back. You always saved me from myself.”

I lowered my head for a moment trying to put words to feelings I was unused to expressing. “Chief, the world has lots of protectors. There are soldiers, cops, and I guess even a few Sentinels if Alex and I weren't totally genetic snake eyes. But the world has very few genuinely good people.” I looked back into his eyes; swirling into their deep azure depths, then shake myself. “Having you for a friend has meant a lot to me. Even if my enhanced senses vanished tomorrow I know I would still be okay with it as long as I knew I'd still have you in my life.” I take a deep breath, “I don't know any other words than just to admit that you've become my soul, I love you more than a brother.”

I sit here on dead tree in the freezing snow somewhere I don't even know where. Normally I would say that was my personal prescription for hell…. but I never felt warmer. I was tempted to reach up and pinch myself. I had to be dreaming! Jim “ the only way I will get in touch with my feelings is if someone guts me and lays them on a table for me to autopsy” Ellison, not only expressing his emotions, but in whole paragraphs! The sheer wonder of it had me gaping at first in shock. But then the actual words penetrated my wonder.

I had figured out at the beginning that Jim was extremely protective. Enlisting in the military, then becoming a cop, he had gravitated toward situations he could act as defender of others. The Sentinel nature had taken that tendency and pumped it up to the next level.

Thus I had always presumed that his over the top mother hen routine with me was just because he thought of me as both a member of his tribe and a young amateur unable to protect myself in his hard sometimes-brutal cop world.

Even once we became friends I had felt that he considered my safety his personal responsibility since his need for a guide meant I sometimes ended up in danger. Whenever I was hurt, the guilt he felt was tangible.

What I hadn't quite been able to get a handle on was why it hadn't been very long after smoozing my way into his home that I had found myself becoming protective of him? I may not be able to kill a man with my bare hands, or load and fire a weapon in two point eight seconds, but to protect Jim I've learned I can do whatever I have to. It was almost weird realizing my compulsion to safeguard him.

I admit that I was really grateful when he let me into his work, his home and all. And it really blew me away when that first week came and went and went and went.

Then the first time he'd called the loft 'our home' was a trip. Home was something other people had. I'd rarely had a house much less a home. Naomi was constantly on the move. Different country, city, residence every few months. Until coming to Rainier as a teen I had not stayed in any one place for more than a year, ever! So maybe I told myself it was just gratitude at the start.

Other things had been firsts to. Though I had made friends everywhere I went before, the relationship that quickly formed between Jim and I was not something I had every felt before. Maybe it was what it felt like to have a brother. A big, gruff, anally fixated brother, who had to try to make order out of my chaos, while I was just as busy trying to get him to loosen up.

It hadn't been easy for him, but first with hair ruffling, neck locks and friendly pats, then finally hugs, Jim had lowered his impressive barriers and drawn me into his heart. Learning about his past, all the people he'd lost and had left him made me realize the courage it took for him to risk it again. And weirdly I who had originally thought he was the only one who had to change had found that though I had always been friendly with people, I to had some barriers. I had learned to never bond too much with anyone because it hurt too much when eventually Naomi and I would move on.

Recognizing that Jim had problems because he'd always been left and I had problems because I was always leaving gave me more empathy for his reactions to things then I think he realized.

Now, in hindsight, I could see how the whole Alex disaster was a predictable extension not just of the Sentinel territorial imperative but Jim's pre-emptive abandonment defense mechanism. As soon as the Sentinel sensed another Sentinel's spore on me, Jim's traumatic history had him assuming I was going to leave him… so he began to push me away before I left.

I have grown a lot since that time, I hope! I know now that some things have to be said, out loud, over and over so they are believed and remembered.

That's why I made a point of regularly telling Jim that I would never leave, could never leave. This was where I belonged.

And thanks to Naomi and my less constrictive upbringing, I had no problem with telling him regularly that I loved him.

The first time I said the words he'd chuckled and ruffled my hair. The next time he realized for me the words were special and I meant them. Naturally he'd assumed I meant in a sexual way, hell he's an uptight establishment cop, what else would he think? So he'd blushed, smiled nervously and then decided to ignore it and change the subject.

Once he figured out my sexual radar only blipped for members of the opposite sex, he'd been more comfortable hearing the words, even pleased. But though he showed by his actions that he wanted me to stay, needed me, he had never once, ever actually managed to say any deep, emotion charged words out loud.

But I had been okay with that. He came from a world where 'real men' don't cry, or admit hurt, or say the 'L' word to another man. But I knew that he appreciated what I did for him, respected my contribution, and felt affection toward me.

We'd been in some pretty tight situations and all, hell I'd been dead and brought back for crying out loud, and Jim's most vocal response had been a wry joke or a concerned but controlled inquiry as to if I was alright.

And now in this icebox with scenery he suddenly erupts into a verbal monologue rife with heartfelt emotion including the “L” word?

All these thoughts flashed through my mind in just a fraction of a moment. With him staring expectantly and my mouth gaping open, I finally snapped out of it.

“Ummm Jim? You are scaring me here man.” I spoke softly. “Either you've got the mother of all concussions or we are in the deepest shit we've ever been!” I leaned closer to him, looking into his eyes with concern, the pupils weren't exactly even, and he did seem a bit unfocused.

I froze. What the hell? I try to get Blair to recognize that he's more than he realizes. And I finally work up the courage to try and tell Mr. Sensitive that I have grown enough to be able to say deep meaningful things, admit I care, OUT LOUD,…. and he thinks I have a concussion! Now he's leaning forward looking into my eyes like he's trying to see into my head and checking for Martians.

I couldn't help it. The total asinine incongruity of the moment was priceless. I threw back my head and roared with laughter.

God I did love this guy! Every time I think I finally have figured him out, know what he's thinking, he shows me that only the Guide has the map to the Sandburg zone!

I froze. What the hell? I try to get Blair to recognize his own unique gifts. Plus I finally work up the guts to try and tell Mr. Sensitive that I have grown enough to be able to say deep meaningful things, admit I care, OUT LOUD… and he thinks I have a concussion! Now he's leaning forward looking into my eyes like he's trying to see into my head and checking for Martians.

I couldn't help it. The total asinine incongruity of the moment was priceless. In spite of the fact that I knew it would crank my splitting headache up a notch, I threw back my head and roared with laughter.

God I did love this guy! Every time I think I finally have figured him out, know what he's thinking, he shows me that only the Guide has the map to the Sandburg zone!

I pulled him into a one armed hug, then reached up and gave him a noogy to his head as he batted at my hand with a frustrated grumble. “Jiimmmm! Quit it!” He half hissed and half whined. Pushing away he turned back toward me. His expression was completely serious.

“Okay Chief, I surrender. I gave it my all and you didn't hear a word I said. So let's can this until later and find a place to get in out of the cold.”

He tilted his head looking at me askew again. “I heard you Jim, and like I said, it scares me. Unless you figure we're as good as cooked I can't see you trying to come up with all that.”

Well I had never pretended to be the great communicator, which was Blair's niche. So instead of getting him to see himself as I did, and let him know my strong bond with him, my role reversal had unnerved him. Typical Ellison. Screw it for now, but I was so pissed that all that emotional energy had been blown away for nothing. Now it was a matter of stubbornness. I would get through to him yet.

“Well Sandburg, our situation is about par for us. Definitely in it, but not any deeper than normal.” I paused for a moment and thought about that statement. “Hell Chief, drugged, kidnapped, parachuted, frozen, when did this mess become routine for us…..?”

He smiled at that, reaching over he took my injured arm and pointedly slid it back into its sling. “Hey, you're the cop. You gotta get a life that doesn't involve pissing off every low life or high tech felon in the territory!” He climbed off the tree trunk and stood for a second looking up at the dimming sky as it spat flurries of snow onto us.

Already his mind is changing gears, as is mine. It was only a little past three in the afternoon, but with the cloudy overcast they were definitely running out of daylight.

He moved over to travois and I watched him knot branches between the crosspieces. When I started to stand up he shot a glare at me that somehow made me feel guilty, I'm not quite sure why, and convinced me not to budge just yet. All thought of arguing with him about the rig had vanished. He was right; there was no way I could navigate over uneven terrain with any speed on a sprained ankle. If I stayed off it for a few hours I would probably be able to use it tomorrow, if I forced it now it might be days.

In a rare moment of introspection I knew it was one of those times where if I let my pride and stubbornness direct my actions then I'd not only be cutting my own nose off, but making things even harder on Blair. And he was so strung so tight I could almost hear his nerves twang every time he glanced at me.

The travois was completed very quickly. I had to wonder where he had practiced that little skill to the point he could do it so fast? He folded one of the chutes and cushioned the thing, then took the tarp and spread it over the silky padding, leaving most of it laying over the edges.

Still squatted next to the rig he looked up at me as he patted the surface meaningfully, “Okay, time for me to tuck you in.”

There was something in his eyes, a granite hardness that I recognized. Few people understood that there was a steel core under that warm fuzzy exterior of my partner. He wouldn't have survived all he'd been through otherwise. Gazing into that “give me any shit and I will rip you a new one and smile while I'm doing it” look I had to chuckle at a fond memory that came to mind.

Once upon a time the guys at Major Crimes had said that Blair 'didn't have a mean bone in his body'. Then one day a Robbery cop had let a collar break free and get his gun right in the middle of station. I had stepped off the elevator and immediately caught a bullet in my arm. Once it was obvious it was only a flesh wound and the perp was restrained, quiet, unassuming Anthropologist guy had morphed into Avenging Angel from hell guy. Simon had arrived to find the Robbery officer backed up into the wall, Sandburg up in his face, reaming him up one side and down the other about correct procedure.

Simon had rescued the visibly shaken officer by distracting the furious teaching fellow by asking him to ride with me to the hospital. Reminding my partner that I might not be able to control the pain dials had instantly transformed him into the Guide version of 'Blessed Protector' mode.

After the word of that episode got out there had been a subtle but noticeable shift in how Blair was treated at the station. The guys in Major Crimes had respected the animated younger man, but from then on all the officers in the whole precinct knew that getting on Ellison's bad side could get you terminally dead, but it wasn't smart to piss off the 'little guy' either unless you'd had rabies shots.

I had no doubt that if I fought him on taking this particular ride he would not only blow his top, but that in the end he would win. Our normal roles were completely reversed, he wearing his frayed temper right out there to see, and me pussy footing around trying to not set him off. Damn this was weird!

Carefully I hobbled obediently to his side and eased onto the travois. When he saw I wasn't going to argue anymore it was like the fire in his eyes extinguished to be replaced with a warm gratitude and affection.

“Thanks Jim.” He whispered Sentinel soft as he began covering me with the second chute. He smiled almost shyly, like he was embarrassed by his fit of anger. I reached up with my good arm and thwacked him softly on the back of his head. “Don't mention it buddy,” I said with a chuckled threat, “and I mean that. When we get back you WILL NOT mention this to the guys.”

Now he smiled, fully and with unrestrained joy. “Me? Now Jim, would I tell the guys about this…….. especially when I can hold it over your head for say…… oh, a two week suspension of the house rules?” It was astonishing that Blair was so damn good at poker since there were times every emotion he felt was broadcast from his eyes better than a TV screen. As tired as he obviously was his eye's shouted mischief, and yeah, love to. His level of anxiety about me was still pretty high, but my acquiescence on this had obviously surprised and relieved him.

He grabbed my chute pack from where he had cut it free from me earlier. As he started walking back to me he hefted the bag and his head tilted in curiosity. He'd removed the tarp, axe and chute, but it still wasn't apparently empty?

Reaching cautiously into the container his eyebrows climbed as he withdrew a cooked haunch of rabbit and half a bird. Looking over at me I smiled and answered his unspoken question, “Breakfast doggie bag.”

Nodding he picked up his own pack and slid the food into it then flopped the weight on the travois at my side. He elevated my splinted arm on it and then began enfolding me in silk and tarp folds again. I fought the urge to push away the swaddling but I knew I would need the warmth they offered if I wasn't moving around. But I did roll my eyes when he made a point of tucking the edges in.

He made soft 'tisk tisk' noises and then reached up and patted me on the head. I had done the same thing to him a dozen times, and as if reading my mind he grinned widely at my glowering expression and chirped a happy “paybacks a bitch ain't it big guy?”

“Laugh now Sandburg, but I know where you live and….” I trailed off suddenly when I noticed an odd tingle under my sore arm. Noticing my distraction Blair's face went from smile to frown in a blink. “Jim?”

I pushed away the cover of tarp and grabbed the chute pack from under my bad arm and pulled it onto my chest. With slow precision I began passing my palm back and forth over the heavy material. “There's something here. But I can't quite pin it down.”

Nodding in understanding he immediately dropped into Guide mode. “Okay, don't push it. Deep breathe, release, again. Now do you feel it or hear it?”

“A little of both. Kind of like when you lean against a amplifier.” I tried to describe the sensation that was really just a flicker of something on the edge of my senses.

“Dial up touch first, and then piggyback your hearing if you get any variance.” He spoke confidently as his hand rested reassuringly on my shoulder.

Changing from my palm to just the tips of my fingers I flitted them feather light across the surface again. With Blair's soft voice murmuring a steady litany of “easy, breathe,” I worked an even pattern side to side. Focusing was made more difficult by the pounding headache that would not seem to quit. Eventually I crossed the reinforced area where the harness straps connected. As my fingers ghosted across the stitching it was like I touched a mild electric charge.

Dialing up my hearing and extending it down the connection of my touch I was able to latch on to an infinitesimal droning hum.
Pressing the surface where sensation and sound were strongest, I felt a disk shape deep in the doubled over fabric of the strap.

I flinched slightly as a loud click sounded near my ramped up ear. “Sorry Jim. Dial it back to normal.” Sandburg said as he gently reached in and began sawing at the stitched area with his Swiss Army knife.

In short order the stitchery gave way and as the strap separated what looked like a very thick quarter fell out. I caught the metal disk and zoomed in on it with hearing, sight, and touch. “Damn.” I growled through my teeth, which I had unconsciously clenched at this sight from my past.

“It's a tracking device, isn't it?” Blair asked with only the barest trace of doubt in his voice.

“Yeah, it's an oldy goldy. They have ones that are much smaller and more powerful now. Kincaid must have gotten it from some retired intelligence operative or maybe they even sell them at Army/Navy surplus these days?”

I shook my head in anger. As if reading my thoughts, AGAIN, my partner who had been concentrating on the device tiredly remarked. “I guess this means that Kincaid really does mean to come in here after us huh Jim?”

No way to deny those were my thoughts exactly, I could only nod as I answered. “Yeah buddy, I kinda hoped those two on the plane were just trying to psych us. It seemed stupid to go to the trouble to hunt us down when the mountain or the cold might have killed us right off.”

Blair picked up the device and examined it curiously. “Any chance that we're out of range?” He queried hopefully. His expression showed he pretty much knew the answer already, but he always figured things would eventually have to go our way.

“Nope. This has a pretty wide range.” I reached over and took the tracker into my palm, feeling the nagging tingle from it. “But there is some good news, long range can't pinpoint much more than a general area. They'd have to already be within 10 miles for this thing to start being useful directionally.” I tossed the disk into the air. “I'll flip you for who gets to smash it.”

As the silvery shape flipped end over end in the air I unconsciously found myself focusing on the glint of reflecting light.

“Come on Jim. Follow my voice here.” From some far off point I heard the steady thump thump of his heart and warm but concerned voice calling to me, pulling me back from the smothering gray fog.

With a start I woofed in a deep breathe and became aware of my surroundings again. Looking at Blair's worried expression I knew I had zoned, big time. “I'm okay, Chief.” I said with not a little embarrassment. “Didn't see that one coming, sorry.”

“You're concussed, in pain and exhausted Jim! I'd be more surprised if you didn't zone man?” He shook his head in aggravation at me for my seeing my weakness as something to be ashamed of. He was never very patient about what he called “irrational macho self flagellation.”

No I didn't have to look it up, I did go to college for crying out loud. I may not be in my partner's league, but I'm not illiterate!

Deciding to distract us both from the recent zone out I looked at the tracking device in Sandburg's hand. “Well, looks like you won the toss by default. Bash away Chief.”

He looked at me, then the tracker, then back to me. THAT look came into his eyes, the one that always made the little hairs on my neck stand right on end. He was having an idea, but one of 'those' idea's. The kind that he knew would be having me wonder when I took a left turn out of normalcy and into the Sandburg zone.

It took a half hour to make the damn goofy scheme happen. No, correction. One hour. After the thirty minutes I spent calling him six kinds of crazy and swearing there was no way in hell I could or would do what he proposed.

But of course I did, I always did. So with his voice anchoring me I had spiraled out my sense of smell and hearing. Once I'd zeroed in on a target we'd traced the entrance and bolthole of its hideaway. Then I'd started a small smoky fire at the front door while Sandburg waited with a large sack made from parachute silk at the exit.

Yep, the two of us had gone bunny hunting! Then once we had our hapless hare I had helped put a slapped together cord harness on him, uh her? It! Then we had slipped the tracking device into the harness and let Mr. Cottontail go.

As he watched the rabbit haul butt into the distance for a moment all Blair's exhaustion and worry dropped away from his face to be replaced by one of his trademark grins. And somehow his delight made all the weirdness worth it.

“I would love a videotape of when those jerks track down that tracker man.” Sandburg's chuckle was like a twelve year old who's pulled off a particularly nasty dirty trick. “Alice in Wonderland redux.”

I shook my head at the thought of Kincaid and his men plowing through the woods armed to the teeth, tracking what they think are Blair and I only to end up pouncing on some rabbit warren! Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing that either.

Just as I was imagining this fun scene I felt Sandburg's eyes latch onto me. I turned to see him standing by the travois, patting its padded surface. “Your carriage awaits Milord.”

Seeing the warning in his eyes I knew that I had to ignore his exhaustion and accept his help, trust him to do what needed to be done.

Like an obedient child I limped over to the rig and lowered myself onto it. He piled all our supplies on and around me. Then he again wrapped me in my parachute and tarp swaddling until I felt like a papoose.

“Cozy?” Blair asked as he tucked in the last of the packaging. If I could've moved my arms I would have bopped him. His smile was positively smug. But I felt a soft warmth bloom in my heart as I realized that extending this kind of trust in him had been just what he needed from me.

But I had to act in character, wouldn't want him to worry and all. I mean when I poured my heart out earlier, he'd freaked.

“One crack about 'pig' in a blanket Chief, and you are on kitchen duty for a month when we get home.” I snarled.

Cocking his head to examine his finished wrapping job, he looked me straight in the eyes and deadpanned, “Pig! Hey that is like soooo politically incorrect man. How about 'cop in a comforter', or 'detective in a duvet', or 'Sentinel in a spread?” He kept up his monolog as he hitched the straps at the front of the travois over his shoulders, leaned forward, and pulled off into the snow.

Damn, Jim weighed a ton! It was lucky the snow cut down the drag or I might have ended up not being able to haul him. After having a tantrum about it I could just imagine having to admit, 'Um, hey Jim, guess what, you can't walk and I can't drag you.” But once I got the rig going I was able to keep it moving.

At first I ached everywhere. My shoulders where the straps pressed, my damp, half frozen legs, my pounding head, all combined to make me miserable. It wasn't quite so bad when I looked back and realized that Jim had fallen into a deep sleep. He had probably fought to not succumb but with his injuries I was glad he was sleeping.

To handle my own discomfort I concentrated on a meditation mantra and soon managed to ease into a fugue like state that I imagine isn't to far from one of Jim's zone outs.

The afternoon plodded into night without my really noticing. I was moving, one foot, step, then the other, leaning always forward. I wasn't really aware of picking a route, though I somehow instinctively avoided the deep drifts of snow and progressed unerringly downhill.

I could barely see now, moonlight just throwing enough light to let me navigate the few feet in front of me. I couldn't think very clearly and I recognized this. I attributed it to not having eaten since dawn and being tired to the bone and well past cold to freezing. The fact that I felt no concern or alarm at this situation should have told me I was well past rational also. But I didn't really seem to even be aware that I was the one doing this, I felt almost like an 'observer', pardon the pun, watching this icy zombie trudge across a gray and silver-blue moonlit landscape.

“Chief?” A voice from somewhere distant. Muffled but oddly compelling. I was too tired to follow it to its source so I just kept on. “Sandburg! Come on buddy, stop already!” This was louder and closer, and the straps over my shoulders where jerking and flipping around making me bobble drunkenly. I was thrown off balance, listed sideways and then I was on my knees struggling to rise and finding I couldn't seem to coordinate my limbs enough to do so.

Suddenly two steel bands circled my upper body, pulling my back against a hard but warm surface. I stopped trying to rise and for a second allowed my mind to try to solve the mystery of why I wasn't walking anymore.

“Easy does it.” A worried voice crooned softly just by my ear. “You're okay Sandburg, just relax for a minute.” That voice, it drew me from the cold numbness with a promise of warmth and caring. I tried to clear my vision, focus on my surroundings, but I just couldn't seem to make my sluggish mind stir to the task.

The steel bands released me and I felt heavy warm gloved hands begin to briskly rub my arms. “Damn you're half frozen.” The voice that I knew but couldn't seem to place was talking steadily as the hands forced sluggish blood back into my limbs. I winced as my arms became infused with a million pins and needles of returning sensation. I squirmed trying to get away, whimpering in discomfort. The hands moved to my face, firmly cupping it between them. “Talk to me buddy. You in there?” A large blurry face floated just in front of my eyes. I worked to bring the image into focus.

As the hands continued to cradle my chin I found my gaze trapped by two sapphire blue pools. From somewhere deep within, my soul blazed in response, untouched by cold or exhaustion. Recognition forced past numbness.

“Jim?” I could barely manage a whisper. I felt weird, like I hadn't used my voice in a century. But he obviously heard me, his face split with a wide affectionate smile.

“Yeah Chief. Welcome back.” He lowered his splinted arm and patted my cheek with the other. “Let's get in out of the cold Sandburg, we need to thaw you out before something important freezes and falls off!”

Looking around I found we where kneeling in the snow. Beside us loomed the same damn cliff I'd looked at when I first started off. How the hell was Jim planning for us to 'get out of the cold'?

Jim saw my expression and guessed its probable cause. “Trust me Blair, or if not me… my nose.” He tapped the side of his flared nostril.

In spite of everything I felt the familiar tingle of curiosity. “You smell shelter?” I couldn't quite get my mind around that idea.

Jim just smiled a little wider as he struggled to his own feet then helped drag me up to stand in front of him. I saw that he was able to bare more of his weight on the left leg now. Obviously resting the ankle had done a lot of good.

Unfortunately as I was noticing his improved mobility, I was noticing I seemed to have lost mine. My legs felt like they had been disconnected. They refused to respond to my commands to move and didn't even prove capable of baring my weight. As I started to ooze back down I felt Jim latch onto my arm and lever it over his own shoulder to lift and support me. “I got ya.” He wrapped his splinted arm around my waist pulling me against his side.

I imagine we looked like two drunks holding each other up. Jim limped toward the dark rock face with me stumbling along as he half dragged me with him.

As we got nearer the granite wall I still could see nothing we could use to shelter us from the cold, wind and snow. When we were standing right up against the rock face I turned to Jim with eyebrows raised in query.

He cocked his head upward pointedly. Following his line of sight I was able to discern a slight variation in the shades of black and gray above. The moon's glow reflected off what looked like huge chunks of rock tilted haphazardly, the probable results of a landslide. A ledge extended a few feet beside it but had been fractured by the slide further on. It was only maybe eight feet above the ground, but well out of my reach. I noticed several hand and foot holds I could use but without a word Jim put his good hand on his knee, forming a stirrup.

Since trusting Jim was almost instinctive I didn't even ask, just put my foot in his offered hand and pushed off. Even as weak as I felt it was only a matter of standing up. Balancing in Jim's hand as he straightened brought the ledge just below my chest level. I pulled over the rim and then rolled to my back for a moment.

Lying down when you are through and through exhausted is not terribly smart. Within a moment of becoming horizontal my eyes drifted closed.

Jim must have heard my heart rate and breathing change as I fell asleep; because almost the moment I relaxed he bellowed none to subtly, “Sandburg! Not now! Get up and give me a hand here.”

With a groan I rolled onto my belly and looked over the edge down at my best friend and very impatient Sentinel. The minute he saw my face he began barking orders. “Anything to tie a rope to up there?” Normally Jim with his greater height could have just jumped and caught hold of the ledge and pulled himself up. Due to his injury I guessed that he planned to use his good arm on the rope as he used his feet on the numerous footholds. “And be careful,” he suddenly added, “I smell old animal remains, with our luck there is a back door to that cave and some bear will come home unexpectedly.”

Even as I levered myself to a sitting position to look around in the dim moonlight I couldn't keep the image of some of the gory movies I'd seen with Grizzly attacks in them.

“Thanks Jim,” I muttered with aggravation, “I really, really needed that little bit of information to make this whole night just perfect!” I was just about to launch into a further complaint of his choice of comment when I found a rocky protrusion about waist thick. “I found a tie off Jim.” I didn't bother to move, he'd be able to hear me fine.

“What do you want to use for rope?” I asked as I tested the outcrop for strength. When I didn't get an answer I pivoted and crawled back to the edge to look down.

My timing was perfect as a tightly wadded up bundle of parachute soared up and slapped into my face, knocking me back on my butt.

“Sorry Sandburg.” Jim's voice was a little too amused for me.

“Hey Jim…..” Sentinel soft I whispered knowing it would draw him to instinctively dial up his hearing. “BITE ME!” I barked it loud enough to sting but not really hurt him.

I heard him grunt then growl. “Smart ass.” I snickered as I hauled the chute to the rock and tied it off, flipping its length over the ledge side. A minute later my pack with our few supplies flew up over the edge to plop down almost next to me. He had cut that close on purpose.

My eyes went to the end of the ledge and I wondered how Jim had sensed a cave from the travois. Despite my weakness I stumbled to my feet and moved toward the crevice I could just barely discern.

I had to turn sideways to shimmy through the opening into a deep darkness that my eyes could not penetrate. It was definitely warmer out of the wind, but my nose caught the distinct whiff of animal musk and decay. Suddenly I felt very exposed. “Whoa. Too dark.” I muttered and then retraced my steps unsteadily back into the moonlight.

Turning around I came face to face with Jim, whose expression was not pleasant.

“Sandburg…” he growled as he leaned in until his face was only inches from mine, “what part of 'be careful' did you not understand. So of course you ignore me and go into that cave, alone, when you can barely stand up!” The heat in his eyes made me flinch.

I was just getting up a snide response when I suddenly found that either Jim was growing taller or I was shrinking. It took a second for my sluggish mind to realize it was neither. My legs were giving out? As a gray fog seemed to gather around me I felt myself wilting down like the wicked witch after water hit her in the Wizard of Oz.

“Hell!” I heard Jim's concerned exclamation as gray dissolved to black.

My anger dissolved into alarm and guilt as Sandburg suddenly sagged in front of me. His heart went crazy for a moment and I caught his jacket as his eyes lost focus and then fluttered closed. My splinted arm was unable to bare his dropping weight, but the other held on fast and lowered his unmoving form to the ground with infinite care.

“Great Ellison.” I snarled at myself with self-loathing. “He half kills himself hauling your sorry ass around. And you, you sleep through most of it and pounce when he does what he always does, follow his insatiable curiosity.”

I knelt at his side and extended all my senses toward him. Heart rate up. His breathing was even but with a trace of a congested wheeze, hopefully just the hours of breathing frigid air. Temperature slightly elevated, around 100. Exertion, lack of food and rest, any of which could account for it, but I'd stay tuned in to him incase it was also the warning of impending pneumonia.

I needed to get him warm. Turning to the opening in the cliff wall I took Sandburg's Swiss army knife and scrunched through the entrance. I had to exhale strongly to be able to fit through. It probably had once been a much larger opening but a sliding slab of rock had lodged across it relatively recently, leaving only a narrow crevice now.

Once inside I scaled up all my senses immediately. Though the crevice was small, enough moonlight entered through it to allow my Sentinel vision clear sight.

The cave was about thirty feet deep and almost that wide. I quickly scanned it with sight, hearing and smell. Even in these altitudes mice and rats thrived, as a small group scurried away from my entrance through breaks in the wall.

A heavy animal musk drew my eyes to a large pile nearby. I could hear no heart beat so I cautiously advanced. Nudging it with my boot heel a large bear skull upturned, displaying empty eye sockets. The mound of the dead beast's fur and bones lay sprawled undisturbed. Around the cave several smaller remains spoke of the prior meals for the bear.

Since there was no other way in or out of the cave then the tiny entrance I had barely managed, the landslide must have sealed the bear in it's den to suffer a slow death of starvation. But the bear's misfortune would be to our benefit.

Squeezing back out the crevice I collected the chute I had used to climb up with and rammed it into the pack. Then I carefully dragged Blair to the opening. Taking the pack I shoved first it then myself back inside. Kneeling I reached out and grabbed my partners wrists and gently maneuvered him between the rocky edges.

Once I had him inside I quickly pulled the parachute out and wrapped it around him. I again massaged his arms and legs to bring some warmth to them. Unconsciously I rechecked that his vital signs where still okay.

While I was working on him Blair mumbled a nonsensical disgruntle complaint and tried to squirm away from my hands. I kept kneading away and as I moved to his arms I saw his eyes twitch a bit then slowly open and blink groggily.

“Hootendotdalice?” He groaned incoherently as he twisted his face back and forth searchingly. For a second I couldn't figure out what he said, and then mouthing it slowly to myself I caught it. Who turned out the lights? Ooookay. He was still more asleep than awake but he was beginning to rouse as his confusion began to turn into fear. I realized suddenly that though I could see clearly, to Sandburg it was pitch black.

Taking off one of my gloves I cupped his cheek soothingly. “Easy buddy, just rest. Go back to sleep Blair. Everything's going to be fine.” At my touch and calm voice the blossoming panic faded from his features smoothing into a drowsy innocent smile. He turned slightly to press his face into my hand.

“Jim?” His voice was fading even as he murmured the question. His eyes fell closed but he forced them back open and tried to find me.

“Right here partner.” I affirmed softly as I stroked a loss lock of hair off his face. “You listen to me and just get some sleep buddy. I'll take care of things for a while.”

He fought his eyes open again to stare toward my voice. “You need rest to.” His voice gained a little strength as his stubbornness began to fight back his exhaustion.

I sighed as I thanked the powers that be for sending this precious but obstinate light into my life.

“Hey! Who's the Blessed Protector here?” I whispered softly so as not to bring him anymore awake. When I saw him start to shake his head I patted his cheek lightly. “I'm good Chief, I got two or three hours sleep on that contraption of yours getting here.”

Even in the dark his eyes somehow focused right on where my face was. I could actual see him thinking! His face announced that even as tired as he was he could tell if I was lying. I leaned closer and assured him again. “Not trying to obfuscate Chief. I promise.” At my use of his pet expression I was rewarded with a bright smile, and I guess he believed me because I saw him visibly relax.

His eyes fluttered open and closed a couple of times as he continued to fight sleep. He mumbled something even Sentinel hearing couldn't make out. When his lids fell again I was just set to climb to my feet when his hand snaked out like it was guided by radar and caught mine.

Looking down on his now untroubled face I was struck again by how he could look so young even with day old beard stubble. Still kneeling next to him I heard his heart settle into the familiar rhythm that I could pick out of any crowd. He snuffled softly a couple of times and then shifted further into the folds of the parachute, trying to tunnel into warmth. In the process his grip on my hand loosened and fell away.

I waited a moment letting him descend even more deeply into slumber, then quietly stood and moved out of the cave.

Keeping one ear tuned in to Sandburg in case he woke, I went back down the chute rope. My ankle and arm were aching from the recent exertions I had put them to, but neither felt like I had done anything to delay healing. I barely limped as I retraced our earlier tracks through the snow.

Grabbing the travois I pulled it to the base of the rock face just below the cave. Carefully removing our limited supplies, I left the frame still tied together. We had plenty of cord and the travois might be needed again.

Leaving everything piled there I grabbed the axe and moved to several nearby deadfalls. I bit off more than I could chew right off and tried to split a large trunk. The first time I swung the axe two handed the recent dislocated joint was still inflamed enough to shot such pain through me that I almost zoned on it.

My eyes winced closed as I fell to my knees hissing in agony. My good hand gripped my burning shoulder as I rocked back and forth grinding my teeth.

It took me several minutes to find the pain dial without Sandburg. But eventually I managed to tune it down to a throbbing reminder instead of an electric cattle prod zapping.

Despite what my Guide might say, I am capable of learning. Once the pain had faded enough for me to function again I slid my left wrist into my coat front to act as a sling. Holding the axe with my right hand close to the head like a hatchet I found several mid sized branches that I could chop off with short one-handed swings.

In a short time I had a pile of usable firewood, which I then augmented, with any big dead branches I could drag that where lying around.

Unable to use two arms forced me to make a dozen trips to get the wood to the cliff but I finally had as much as I felt we'd need for tonight and tomorrow morning.

Wrapping everything into manageable bundles and tossing them up to the ledge took only a few more minutes. Then before I maneuvered back up to the cave I set out several parachute cord snares.

On my return I found my partner curled into almost fetal position under the mound of parachute, only a few strands of chestnut curls showing which end hid his head. When I lifted the cover I saw his pale face and the shivers that wracked him.

Once I had all my various supplies inside I started a fire right by the entrance fissure, which would siphon out the smoke but not the warmth. Then I went to the mound of bear remains. Dialing down my sense of smell I let my practical side override my natural repulsion for dead animals. Efficiently I removed the stray bones and gathered the desiccated hide up to move a short distance from the fire.

Spreading the fur side up on all the loose-leaf litter I had pulled together I then turned to the quivering pile of parachute and Sandburg. He was still deeply asleep and I was loath to try to wake him to relocate nearer the fires warmth. If not for the arm injury I would have just carried him from point A to B. But I knew better than to test the arm's limits again.

Instead I grabbed the part of the chute he was lying on with my right hand and dragged it and him to one side of the bear fur pallet I had made. I gently eased away the segment of chute that was on top of him and flipped it over onto the fur. In his sleep Blair began pawing around trying to regain the missing cover, little muffled grumbling noises coming from his mouth.

Pulling up on the chute under him I smoothly rolled him over and into the chute on the pelt by the fire. As I dropped the rest of the material back over him he immediately pulled the fabric close around him and curled up tight again.

Next I unfurled the tarp and laid that over the heap of fur, chute and anthropologist. Soon after I saw the pile stop shaking and heard a contented snuffle and sigh drift out of the folds of material.

It was amazing how much Sandburg enjoyed the simple sensation of being warm. Once after a particularly long drawn out icy stakeout the kid had turned down a night on the town with a very sensuous fellow teaching assistant to rest by the fire in the loft layered in blankets. He had been totally thrilled just to be warm and wasn't the least bit aggrieved by missing a chance for a different type of 'hot' night.

I considered going to check my snares but when I nearly dislocated my jaw with an unstoppable yawn I realized I also needed more sleep than the nap I'd had on the travois.

Going to the fire I stacked heavier logs in a teepee over the flames. As the smaller branches burned away the larger logs would drop into the blaze to replace them.

Once I had the fire pit set to burn through the night I went over to the pallet and swiftly joined my partner in the toasty nest.
When I first pulled and maneuvered my way into the folds of chute silk next to Sandburg his back was to me. Knowing his aversion to cold I was sure that even in his sleep Blair would pull away from my frigid clothed body. But within a few seconds of my climbing beside him my Guide unconsciously rolled over, tunneled closer to me and burrowed his head almost into my shoulder.

At first he shivered a little from contact with the cold material of my clothing. But then as I absorbed some heat from him and the fire I watched the comfortable smile return to his face and listened to his nearly sub vocal, 'Ummm warm…'

It's funny; when I was in the military there had been a few occasions when survival had demanded me to huddle with others in my team in order to share body heat. It had been a practical, straightforward process.

But none of the soldiers in my unit had ever tried to use me as an oversized teddy bear. Sandburg on the other hand was burrowed half under me, and his gloved hands where fisted into my jacket like they were super glued. But that's not the funny part, no; the funny part is I don't mind. In fact the idea that the kid draws not only warmth but also such comfort from my presence gives me an odd pride. In the old days I would have died before feeling, or worse, showing, the kind of big brother affection I feel for this hyper kinetic poster child for Ritalin.

My own comfort at having Sandburg safely under my protection began to lull me toward sleep. Just before I dropped off I felt his curled head move back from under my chin, smoky azure eyes blinked sleepily up at me. I knew it was to dark for him to see; the tarp blocked any of the fires light from penetrating. But Blair sometimes saw with other senses no less acute then my Sentinel ones. He knew it was me there, and his smile became happy for a moment as he mumbled a sincere but groggy, “Good night Jim, sleep well.”

“Good night Chief, same to you.” I whispered softly back into the curl covered ear attached to the head already burrowing back under my shoulder. I was asleep by the time he stilled.

The panther roared in rage as trees parted and a large brown bear stomped into the clearing. Rearing back on huge muscled legs the mammoth creature swung a platter-sized forepaw pronged with claws at the ebony panther. The cat oozed swiftly under the blow and swatted his own clawed paw out to rake a bloody track along the ursine flank. Quickly following up first blood the panther sprang to the immense opponents back striving to achieve a killing stroke at the jugular. But where the cat had speed and agility, the bear had speed and size. With a bellow like thunder the towering monster shook furiously. Long thick tangled strands of fur matted the beast's hide and prevented the panther's claws from penetrating sufficiently to hold on or inflict real damage. Flung from his enemy's back, the cat slammed into a tree trunk and struggled desperately back to his feet just in time to receive a vicious backhanded swat from the mammoth. Knocked a dozen feet the black panther lay on its side too dazed and hurt to move. Blinking to clear blurred vision the cat struggled to gather himself as he saw the brown mountain barrel toward him. But before the monstrous carnivore could avalanche over the cat a flash of gray shot from the tree line. With a howl of fury the young wolf body slammed into the side of the bear, momentum allowing the smaller creature to bowl over the much larger opponent. Pushing the advantage of surprise the wolf leapt up onto the back of the great bear, snapping onto the exposed neck. But the shear size of the beast was the wolfs undoing. So large was the monsters neck that the wolf's jaw could not encompass it. Barely drawing blood the wolf suddenly felt raw fire ignite his shoulder as the bear reached over its head and swatted the small canine from its neck. The gray wolf landed badly and tumbled several more feet as the giant brown reared up right over him. But before the fatal blow could land the brown roared in pain as the panther again pounced onto the broad furry back.

What? When? Huh? I woke up suddenly from a really deep sleep. When I opened my eyes I was momentarily disturbed as I found myself in pitch dark with my face up against something coarse. The last I remembered was the trek through the snow ahead of the travois. When I thought back I vaguely recalled stopping, and Jim, and a dark cave. How long had I been here? Was this the cave I thought I remembered?

Now that I considered my recollections I identified the coarse fabric my face was smushed up against. Jim's coat? My gloved hands where tightly twisted into it's front? I was curled up against his sleeping form like a kitten by its mother. Oh Shit! He'd kill me if he woke up and found me plastered up against him like this.

I vvvveeeerrrryyyyy slowly opened my hands to release my hold of him. Then I began to inch away from his form lifting our fabric cover, allowing soft firelight to fall across us.

Of course since I was consciously trying to not wake him up my heart started pounding like a trip hammer. Which is the single most guaranteed way to wake a Sentinel.

Even as I started to shift away from him I felt Jim stir. Holding my breath I tried to calm my frantic heart rate, hoping he'd go back to sleep. Looking up toward his face in the faint firelight I saw one of his eyes open and focus on me. I knew he'd blow my doors in for using him for as an oversized hot water bottle. I waited for the growling voice to tell me to move my skinny butt a reasonable distance away on the makeshift bed we shared.

Instead, I felt a large hand pat my head gently and a drowsy voice murmur, “Go back to sleep Sandburg, it's still a couple of hours til dawn.” His eye closed and the hand dropped away.

Wow, thank god for a sudden attack of mellow! Rolling my own eyes in relief I carefully eased further away from my nearly superimposed position. When he felt my movement Jim's eye opened again and this time he did growl, “Settle down will ya Chief.”

“Sorry big guy,” I whispered apologetically, “but I gotta get up man.” I saw his other eye open drowsily and his brow crinkle in confusion.

“Huh?” Was his only reply.

“Go back to sleep Jim, but I neeeeeeddd to get up.” I began to carefully squirm away from my partner out of the cocoon we where in.

My movement naturally brought Jim the rest of the way out of his own sleep stupor. “Sandburg, it isn't going to be light out for a couple of more hours, like I said. So WHY do you need to get up RIGHT NOW!”

“Because when ya gotta go, YOU GOTTA GO!” I said through almost clenched teeth. I guess between that and my body language the coin finally dropped.

“Oh!”

That's my Sentinel, master of the monosyllabic response. But though a smile struggled across his face he did quickly move and pull all the myriad covers off me and make way as I hopped up and bolted through the tiny cave opening.

As cold as it was standing on the other end of the ledge in the pitch dark, I barely registered the temperature as I relieved the urgent demand of my bladder.

From inside the cave I heard Jim's definitely amused “Hey Darwin, carefully not to let it freeze off.”

I quickly finished up and scurried back into the caves warmth. Kneeling next to the fire now, Jim had taken the leftover rabbit and bird from the pack and shish ka bobbed them by the fire to warm up. Even though it had barely felt the heat yet, the smell of warming meat began to rise in the vicinity. Though usually not a carnivorous type, my stomach immediately let me know that it was empty and unhappy about it. When had I last eaten?

Just as I knelt next to my best friend my stomach let off a reeeaaalllyy loud rumble. Jim's eyes lit with humor. “Yep, that definitely was a wolf's growl Chief.” He chortled in that deep bass of his.

I knew exactly what wolf he was referring to. After Jim had learned about our spirit animal's he'd been unusually curious about why he had a panther and I had a wolf.

“Cat and dog Chief?” He'd remarked, thinking of them as natural enemies “Wouldn't you think a Sentinel and Guide would have spirit animals that are, if not the same, at least similar?” It had taken a while to explain a bit about my theory that personality was the core of spirit animal type. Jim was fast, stealthy, generally a loner. I was more inquisitive, persistent, and social. These traits dictated the shapes of our spirit animal's, the spirit animals didn't dictate our actions. Or at least that's what I believed.

Actually I was grateful to have the wolf. Despite Incacha's bequeath of 'Shaman' status to me, I didn't have anything special about me, unlike Jim. With my luck I could have just as easily ended up with a prairie dog!

But right now I was a ravenously hungry academic. The vegetarian in me was completely submerged and I eyed the game on the spit with salivating enthusiasm.

“Hungry Sandburg?” Jim inquired facetiously as he adjusted the meat closer to the flames. His own eyes glowed with barely contained hunger also.

I had watched my partner plow through so much food at a sitting that he was barred from our local 'all you can eat' establishments. So I was a little concerned about stepping between a famished Sentinel and the limited food supply.

“Ummm, we aren't going to arm wrestle over who gets what, right Big Guy?” I let a little trepidation into my voice.

The full bold laugh that was so rare for the ex Ranger was a delight to hear. “No Chief, this is just the appetizer. I set out snares. Give me a few minutes and we will have the main course.” With that he climbed to his feet and headed for the exit.

Looking out into the darkness that devoured the fire's light just inches from the crevice opening I moved to Jim's side. “I'm not THAT hungry man. Why don't you wait for morning?" I knew that the moonlight would be enough for Sentinel sight. But I didn't know what else might be out there. I'd put money on Jim against any bad guy in the world, but even a Sentinel didn't necessarily have an edge over mountain lions or other wild animals.

Seeing my dislike over the idea my partner stopped and looked at me in inquiry. “What's up Chief? Intuition acting up?” He asked seriously. There had been several occasions in the last year of so where I'd sort of picked up the vibes of danger before it struck. At first Jim had deflected even discussing the events. This from a man who had was just starting to accept his own visions. But as time has passed he'd conceded that I could sometimes sense trouble. He liked to joke that I got into trouble so much that I'd gotten to where I could now recognized it at a distance.

Shaking my head to assure him that I hadn't had any 'weird tingly' warning as he referred to the episodes, I just waved an encompassing hand at the pre dawn blackness outside. “Nah, not that…. but this is when the predator's are out looking for their breakfast to.” I shrugged shyly. “I'd really hate for you to end up a meal. What if you meet up with a wolf? You couldn't outrun it with that ankle, man.” My brows climbed as an image suddenly formed in my overly vivid imagination. “Jeez Jim, my spirit animal eating my Sentinel. I'd be seriously Karma screwed if that happened.”

Jim was staring at me intently. I could tell from his expression that he wasn't exactly sure if I was kidding or not. Early in our relationship he'd learned that he sometimes unintentionally hurt my feelings by denigrating my deep belief in some pretty diverse religious and moral codes. He stood there, trying to figure what comment was safe.

I decided to give him a break. “Facetious time. I just don't think it makes sense to go out in the dark when you're injured. And when it will be light soon.” Moving to the exit I shivered as a freezing draft came through. “And a little warmer to.” I wrapped my arms around myself and scurried back to the fire, hoping Jim would follow.

“Not many predators at this elevation Chief.” He looked down at me with confidence, trying to help me believe that. “And I don't feel the cold as much as you, plus I can turn the cold dial down a bit.”

“I promise to look both ways before crossing the street. Please dad, may I go out and play?” He squatted by me to look me square in the eyes. “I will be careful Chief, I just want to go ahead and get started since we are up.” His eyes went stone hard as he continued seriously, “Kincaid plans to drop in sometime in the next forty eight hours, and I want us as far down the mountain as possible. You stay put. I'll be back in no time and we'll head out with a good supply.” For a moment I saw something like anxiety flicker through his eyes. A need to get us out of the area, NOW!

Recognizing his instinctive Sentinel protective imperative, I thought maybe it was just the natural recognition of the threat Kincaid's impending arrival represented. Part of him was loath to leave me alone even for a few minutes now that he had me under his protection. But he also knew that to get off this mountain we needed to take advantage of any opportunity for gathering supplies. The logic of removing us from the potential threat of Kincaid requiring him to keep both of our strength up, won out with the ex-Ranger. But the Sentinel part of him was not happy.

From my viewpoint it had only been forty-eight hours since I'd been snatched practically from my own doorstep. For Jim it had already been forty-eight hours and we weren't as far along as we should be.

If first he and then I hadn't been in such bad shape yesterday I had no doubt he would have hard marched us halfway down the mountain by now.

An additional problem was I knew he was itchy from inactivity. He'd been strapped to the travois for hours, then been trapped in the cave even longer. Even with his injuries the Sentinel needed out. Like his spirit animal Jim hated being caged.

Though I would have preferred for both of us to just crawl into the warmth of the cave and stay there, I knew this was one of those times when comfort concerns move to the back of the bus.

“You've got two hours Ellison, then I'm coming to get you!” I tried to growl out the response the way my partner always seemed to. But Sandburg genetics didn't include the intimidation gene. I saw humor and affection infuse his gaze. He didn't even try to pretend to quake in fear. His humor evaporated a moment later when I suddenly hacked several deep moist coughs. I hadn't even felt a tickle of warning. When I saw him edge toward me I knew he was extending his senses to check me out. Though definitely not up to running a marathon I knew I was okay. I just needed some rest, and WARM! Looking into his concerned face I made a shooing motion. “Beat it big guy. Sooner you're gone, sooner back.”

Smiling at me reassuringly he seemed to just fade away through the opening. Obviously his ankle felt a lot better since I didn't see even a trace of a limp or hear any sound of his departure.
As silent as his feral spirit animal he had melded with the dark.

Huffing an accepting sigh I went to the fire and began to build it bigger for the game meat I knew would be forthcoming on Jims return. I tried not to listen to the wind, or spend too much time focused on the cloying darkness spilling in the entrance.

Jim would be okay. He liked roughing it; he thrived on all this 'character building challenge' crap. And he was a Sentinel. He'd be back soon and everything would be fine. Somehow it always had and always would be fine as long as we were together.

I managed to stay distracted for about fifteen minutes before I started to get antsy. Another bout of coughing hit and made sitting around very unattractive. I started to run through everything I knew that could be of use for survival. Not as much as I would like right now. But just as I started to feel useless a memory of years ago popped into my head. YES! There was another food source to help out our larder. One I was perfectly suited to find.

I jogged along tentatively at first. Testing my ankle to see if the sprain had truly eased up. When I found a pace just below the point the joint complained, I maintained there.

Lord but it felt great to get out of that cave and pad through the ebony fingers of tree trunks laid across the glistening opaque blanket of snow. I felt the zing of my blood moving faster through to long sedentary limbs. And heard my own breathing pick up pace as the snow deepened or the path rose up demanding more from me.

The need to get out and extend myself had been almost physically painful. I was tense and recognized it. Too many hours of unrelieved threat to Sandburg was frustrating enough, but I was also having damn dreams of being attacked by bears. Correction, my and Sandburg's spirit guides being attacked by a bear, a really big bear. Not the stuff for a restful slumber. But I needed to focus on reality now.

Dialing up my sight and hearing I swiftly glided among the trees to the various points I'd laid out snares. Two of the snares near each other had been raided of their captured rabbits by a predator. Sorting through the blood and fur patches I found small paw prints. About the size of a fox, but heavier judging from the spore. I vaguely remembered my training on tracks… wolverine probably.

But despite the opportunist's theft, there were plenty of catches left. This area must never have had much human visitation since the animals were not snare savvy. Four rabbits of various sizes, a quail, and three ring necked pheasants had been snagged. Another snare held only a single tail feather of a wild turkey. I had heard the wily fowl was tough to catch, but boy how many meals might such a bird have provided.

I carefully removed the snares and obliterated any evidence that I had been there.

Content with my haul I headed back toward the cave, removing any traces of Sandburg and my journey the previous day as I went. I was anxious to get us out of here. Not only was it obvious that Blair's was coming down with something thanks to his dunking in icy waters the day before. Something was starting to nag at the edge of my consciousness, a warning that was setting off the Sentinel.

As soon as I was within sight of our refuge I cast out my senses, striving to latch onto Sandburg's scent and sound. My growing apprehension needed the reassurance his presence offered. Immediately the crackle of the fire, the smell of smoke, cooking meat and musty bear fur came easily to me.

The only thing missing was my partner?

At the base of the cliff face I twisted around, dialing up my senses as far as I could. No tracks, but it had snowed steadily while I had been gone, burying all trace. But there was no way that anyone could have found their way here, grabbed Sandburg and left without me hearing. I had only been gone a couple of hours!

A switch seemed to be thrown in my head. Jim Ellison, cop, faded to the background, letting the more primal Sentinel and the deadly Covert Ops Ranger kick in. Anything that stood between my Guide and me was going down!

With deadly fury I stalked toward the trees, and immediately screwed up. As my hearing scanned further and further out around me I realized too late that I was slipping into a zone out. I struggled uselessly to haul myself back, to stop the spiral into oblivion. But I couldn't.
Then, just as I lost all contact with my faculties, my hearing bounced off some distant distraction then dragged me back from the edge as it snagged a distant but familiar babble. “Yes! Perfect! Oh man, this is so cool.”

Unerringly anchored by that sound and the muted heartbeat beneath it I rapidly covered the distance to where Sandburg was on his knees at the base of a tree. Digging like a dog he was totally unaware of my presence as dirt flew back from his gloved hands. He also didn't seem to note that he was panting harshly and had a bubbly wheeze from just the slight exertion.

Before I could open my mouth to ask what the hell he was doing, he grabbed hold of some thick tangle in the ground and yanked with all his strength. There was a soft pop and the object of his tugging suddenly came free. Not expecting the release Blair fell over backwards to land on his back right at my feet.

Looking up from his reclined position as he lay there he saw me but seemed oblivious to the circumstance and smiled. “Hey Jim!” he crowed happily. “Look at this man. Manna from heaven big guy.” He held up hands that were fisted around wads of dirt and roots.

“Playing in the mud Sandburg?” I growled, both pissed and relieved. Not three hours ago he had been worried about me going out to face potential wildlife, and here he was out in the woods, unarmed, unprotected and unaware of possible danger.

Noticing the total lack of amusement in my voice or expression Sandburg caught on that I was not pleased. For a second his face struggled between delight and contrition. But he just couldn't hold in his discovery. “Umm I would have left a note big guy, but no pen, no paper! And you see I remembered something from when I was on a research expedition to Canadian native sites. The lead researcher was an Algonquian, Ojibwa. Really held to the 'old ways', knew just everything about how the natives up here lived and survived.”

Rolling over and springing to his feet he again waved around his full filthy hands while he shook his head like a dog, shaking off snow. Dirt covered lumps and strands lay in a tangle across his palms. Nearby on the ground was a pile of even more of the mess.

Looking back and forth between his enthusiastic face and the odd treasure he offered, I just shook my head in hopeless frustration. “You are certifiable Sandburg.” I growled, “What is that crap?” My sense of smell brought me the rich odor of earth mixed with a sharp almost stringent tang that permeated the globs.

“Tubers Jim!” He plucked a crusted strand that looked like black ping pong balls on a string. “This one, man roasted it tastes like celery. And this one,” He waved a deformed carrot shape now. “It tastes like a really mild squash.” Bending over to reach for more of the pile he came up suddenly short as I grabbed the collar of his jacket and hauled him back straight.

“Jim?” he squawked as I held him almost on tiptoe. The look on his face showed me that he was now completely aware of why I was pissed and was lining up several primo obfuscations.

“Sandburg,” I rumbled in a low tone with my nose almost touching his, “do the word's 'stay put' have any meaning to you?” I tried one of my patented 'put the fear of god in the bad guy' glares. “I came back and you went poof! We need to wrap up and get out of here.” The itch to get moving was becoming overwhelming. Nothing I could pin down, but somehow I knew time was running out. I felt furious at Sandburg for not being where I had left him. I didn't even notice when I let go of his jacket and began pacing around him. “What if you'd gotten lost, or hurt? What about those predators you were worried about earlier. You figure just because the sun came up they vanished, like vampires?”

“Jim?” Sandburg's tone dropped, subtly shifting to a murmur. “It's okay big guy. Take it easy. We're going. We're out of here!” He extended his arm toward me slowly. “Jim, look at me okay. You need to focus here and now.” His hand brushed my uninjured arm, than caught my forearm. I felt the irrational urge to slap it away. But just as my snarling face turned toward the unacceptable restraint, his eyes caught mine.

“Deep breath.” He crooned softly. I was pulled into the gray blue swirls of his iris's and felt a calmness wrap around me, caging the building rage. It felt like I had been sleepwalking and now was awake. Blinking as I sucked in a breath, the sudden cessation of the massive tension I had felt building left me feeling washed out. I looked around at the woods. The moment my gaze shifted off my partner the feeling of danger returned with a vengeance. I heard a growl, and realized it was me. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end.

A light touch moved up my arm to pat my cheek whisper soft. “Whoa, come on Jim, you are starting to freak me out here. Something has got the Sentinel on full alert and I need to know what.” I recognized the voice but ignored it except to use it as an anchor. My hearing was spiraling out further and further. Catching and discarding one sound after another. Finally I found and held the noise that had been worrying at the edge of my senses. There!

This was getting scarier by the second. I had seen Jim in his Covert Ops persona and seen it enhanced by the Sentinel senses. This was totally different! The rational man seemed almost submerged in some weird instinctual persona.

The last time anything vaguely like this had occurred was when Jim's normally logical self had been drowned in the Sentinels instinctive reaction to the lethal female Sentinel, Alex Barnes. First territoriality then a mating urge had had the modern cop turned almost Neanderthal. He'd expelled everything, me included, out of his territory and then even defended the murderous bitch he'd been pursuing.

The thought that something was triggering the Sentinel to the point of Jim not being in control was not what I needed right now. The last time I'd ended up dead. No, I did not want a repeat of that episode…..ugh ugh… no way!

When he started to snarl I felt my own hair stand on end. Great. Just great. I had to get my partner back in the driver's seat before this got dangerous, for both of us. I needed to get him to focus on me, my voice. It had always worked before. I needed to catch his full attention. But I had to do it in a way the Sentinel wouldn't consider aggressive. No way I wanted to trigger any alpha male display.

Trying again I moved my hand tentatively up his arm to his face, tapping his cheek gently. “Whoa, come on Jim, you are starting to freak me out here.” I pleaded softly, wondering if Jim was even aware of what was happening. “Something has got the Sentinel on full alert and I need to know what.”

Instead of responding, Jim's face became even more stony and distant, like he wasn't even hearing me. Seconds plowed slowly by as he stood rigid as a statue.

Worried that he might have zoned I cupped his cheek softly with my palm. “Jim?” I moved around to stand in front of him. “Knock knock, anybody home?”

His head cocked suddenly to the side in the familiar posture of him focusing on some sound. Immediately his face twisted into an angry snarl. Growling low in his throat again he grabbed my wrist, snatching my hand away from my face.

Wincing at the crushing grip I reached my other hand over to pry at his fingers. “Owww owww. Come on man, let up. You're going to break it.”

Acting like he hadn't heard me he began striding away, dragging me along by my trapped arm. I felt like a recalcitrant child being hauled behind a parent toward a spanking. If my wrist didn't feel like it was being mashed to paste I could almost laugh at the image.

Gritting my teeth I slammed my heels into the snow and soil, hissing with increased pain as I managed to put on the brakes. As the throbbing got unbearable I fisted my other hand and pounded it into the top of his clutching hand.

“Damn it Ellison. LET ME GO!” Pain, adrenaline and panic overtook fear of setting off the Sentinel. As my blow landed the compressing agony let up immediately, leaving a residual ache and tingle of returning circulation.

Shaking my wrist and flexing my fingers I stood there for a minute just enjoying the easing pain. Jim hadn't moved and as I looked up I saw him staring at me with that same stony glare.
“What the hell is with you Jim?” I half shouted. Normally I go out of my way to avoid confrontations with my partner when he seems to be in aggression overload. But even knowing that some instinctive 'alpha male' crap was going on didn't ease my own temper.

When my partner made a grab for my arm again I just managed to jump away from him. “Keep off man!” I barked at him, shifting from foot to foot, ready to run if I had to. My level of anger was off the scale and I was through and through scared. We were in the middle of nowhere, with a lunatic due to come hunt us and the one of us with the most training was acting like his mind was missing in action?

We stood there staring each other down. The intensity of his glare was dimmed when he again tilted his head and began to grind his teeth.

As I studied his stance, the tension that radiated from him, I was caught in an undeniable déjà vu. This was exactly how he had looked that horrible day I'd come home to find all my things thrown out of the loft.

Jim had stood there in a room stripped of all furnishings yet still looking like the walls were closing in on him. Defensive and frustrated he had never looked more like a caged panther.

And here he was looking just like then. Why?

“Jim?” Reining in my own fear I stopped backing away from him. When he didn't try to grab me I took a step closer.

“What do you hear Jim?” I whispered so as not to hurt him, recognizing that he had his hearing cranked all the way up. I needed to know.

“Engines.” Just the one word, growled out between clenched teeth. But I'd take a monosyllable from Jim over the silence any old day.

“What kind of engines?” I felt the thrill of hope. “Could it be help?” The chance that we could have been found this fast was small, but a guy can dream all right!

“No!” Another bitten off word response. Man this was like pulling teeth.

“Is it Kincaid's men?” I asked, even though it had to be.

“Yes.” Damn. It hadn't been three days yet. Duh, like I should really expect some murderous menace like Kincaid to do what he says he'll do.

Well as much as Kincaid was bad news, I was more worried about what Jim was going through. Reading his body language and drawing the inevitable conclusion I decided to confirm the worst.

“Jim….. Is there another Sentinel with his men?” I whispered so softly the words were barely a breath. And even as I said it, Jim was already snarling an answer.

“YES!” The unrestrained fury in his tone was shocking, and a bit confusing. When Alex had showed up on Ellison's Sentinel radar he had reacted negatively because of an invasion of his territory. Once the two had moved their interaction out of Cascade Jim had switched from defensive of his space to enraptured by the female of his kind.

But that didn't make sense in this situation. We were out of Cascade, so Jim shouldn't feel this violent about the other Sentinel. But if anything he was reacting more severely then with Alex. He was now facing away from me, pacing with his head cocked toward the same direction no matter where his feet went.

“Okay, there is another Sentinel.” I didn't even realize I had spoken out loud until his head snapped around to focus his feral gaze intently on me. Oh shit. He was getting worse by the minute now.

“First things first big guy. How far away are they, or him?" A sudden thought occurred to me. “Or her? Is this other Sentinel a guy or girl?”

Jim just stared at me for a few seconds, until I was worried he wasn't even able to functionally follow a conversation in his present state. But then he took a deep shuddering breath and seemed to calm slightly as he continued to look at me. Several other, slow, deep breaths followed that first.

Slowly his hand came up, and for a second I tensed thinking he might be about to grab me again. He paused, than when I didn't bolt he tentatively brought his large hand to rest on my shoulder. As I sensed the care he took not to panic me all my fear of minutes earlier flushed away to be replaced with the absolute trust and faith I had in my friend and partner. Even with the Sentinel putting a little too much sharp to his edge, Jim would never intentionally hurt me.

The urge, no, the NEED to destroy the other Sentinel was so strong I felt like I would explode from my skin if I didn't go and obliterate him right that second. My mind was red glowing rage. I had a deep overwhelming desire to meet the threat the challenger presented yet keep him as far as possible from what was mine.

My ears where locked on the distant mechanical noises that encircled the interloper. My sense of smell had already isolated his infuriating scent. If he came any nearer I would find him and kill him to protect what I would not, could not share or surrender.

“Okay there is another Sentinel.” I swung around toward His Voice which was there suddenly smothering the rage, cooling the hot fury that had burned away all rational thought.

My hearing sprang back to focus solely on him. “First things first big guy. How far away are they, or him? Or her? Is this other Sentinel a guy or girl?”

Just listening to him gave me an anchor. I worked to gain control, taking a deep centering breath as he had taught me. I felt as if I were pushing away suffocating gray layers of confusion. Had I been zoned?

As my vision soared into his familiar azure eyes the need to touch him, to assure myself he was there with me took hold. Vaguely remembering that he had fought me when I had last touched him I reached out very slowly like I would to a spooked colt. When he tensed and I smelled a draft of fear come off him my own stomach twisted. He was afraid of me! ME!

Something inside me started to fracture from the realization that he was fearful of my touch. But just as I traced the source of the pain I felt to my heart his expression shifted to one of deep abiding trust and his fear mellowed to the familiar tang that was his base scent.

My hand lowered to his shoulder as carefully as I would stroke fragile crystal. Immediately with the contact a soothing calm slid into me, relaxing the unbearable tension that had had me strung as tight as Odysseus's bowstring.

With the relaxation came a clearing of my thoughts. I was having a tough time just remembering what I'd been doing for the last few minutes and that bothered the hell out of me!

“Chief?” I looked first at him then our surroundings. How did we end up here in the woods? I'd gone and cleared some snares I'd set last night, then headed back to the cave. Then…umm, then I heard something. I started focusing on my hearing and quickly fastened on a sound clearly foreign to these pristine reaches. Motors, trucks and ski-sleds. Shit! Kincaid already? And someone else? My nose caught a waft of an unfamiliar yet recognized scent. A smell I knew, that meant danger, a threat, sommmeeee……

“Come on back.” The voice, and a hand making steady small circles on my shoulder pulled me again into the here and now.

Sandburg looked positively freaked though. “This is getting out of hand Jim.” He was maintaining a clear view of my face and a constant contact with my arm. Like he could see or feel when I started to lose myself in this weird new type of quasi-zone.

“What is going on Sandburg?” I couldn't quite hide both the anxiety and little bit of anger in my voice. “For some reason my senses are going crazy and taking me on side trips into la la land.”

“Jim man, you gotta listen to me here.” His voice was intense and brooked no argument. “Do not, I repeat, do not crank up any of your senses right now.” He reached down and quickly bagged a bunch of dirt crusted roots and then latched back onto my arm. “With Kincaid already coming we need to get back to the cave pronto. So make like a Ranger and lead the way.”

“Sandburg?” I growled in aggravation, wanting answers now. But those engine sounds had only been a couple of hours away. I was tempted to dial up my hearing just to confirm my estimate, but Blair wouldn't have insisted I not use my enhanced senses without a good reason. And he was right about the cave. With unmanageable terrain on both sides, this valley like tract would force Kincaid and his men practically right up the same way we had come down. Our only viable strategy right now was stay hidden.

“How did you know Kincaid was coming?” I asked curiously as I began to carefully pick my way back toward the cliff side. I had only just heard him a minute before.

“You told me.” He said it so matter of fact, like the idea I didn't even remember it didn't faze him.

“When?” Stopping I swung around to glare at him.

“Not now Jim!” He was bouncing from foot to foot in growing anxiety. What ever was going on with me plus the impeding arrival of one of Blair's least favorite psycho's definitely had the kid moving rapidly toward a panic attack. He was panting and I could hear the wheeze and bubble of the still present congestion in his lungs.

Deciding to accept that he was right about my rotten timing I forged ahead again. I wanted to get Sandburg out of the chill and get him to tell me what the hell had been happening to me! With great care I selected rocky outcroppings, downed tree trunks, and high animal trafficked trails to avoid leaving any trace of our journey. Sandburg followed, being uncharacteristically silent as he pointedly tread in my tracks, mimicking my stealthy progress.

In a very short time we were back below the cave entrance and Sandburg went up the makeshift rope this time quick as a monkey. As soon as he made the ledge he swung around and drop to his stomach to help me up, but I waved him back.

“Get in the cave and extinguish the fire. I'm going to police up this area to get rid of any tracks we left last night.” I snapped the orders with the tone my many years as an Officer had left me. The one Sandburg frequently chose to ignore, though I was pleased to see him give a nervous nod and disappear through the crevice entrance.

Taking branches thick with pine needles I swept the area, being totally random in my course. People trying to erase tracks in sand or snow frequently made the mistake of just brooming over their tracks. This left a noticeably regular pattern that was just as easy to follow as the original tracks had been. By sweeping erratically over the whole area as I backed toward the cliff face I obliterated our tracks and left no disparity in the snowy expanse.

Climbing to the ledge my arm complained only slightly the use and I was quickly in the cave with my partner.

Sandburg had been busy. As I had instructed the fire pit had been extinguished. But our packs now bulged with our combined supplies. It was obvious that he was preparing for us to make a run for it.

I moved toward him, and was a little confused to find him grinding something into a thick paste between two flat stones.

“Jim, come here man.” He motioned toward me with his elbow as his hands continued to work. “I need to get you ready just in case what I think is happening, is happening.” That made about as much sense as he usually made, even someone as experienced with the Sandburg zone as I was, couldn't follow that logic.

“Sandburg, what is going on?” As much as I was trying to run through various strategies to deal with Kincaid and his group, I was also concerned with what seemed to be happening to me. Or the Sentinel? Hell I'm starting to sound like 'Sybil', talking like the Sentinel is a whole other person.

“Sit, sit.” Blair again waved me toward him and I squatted right next to where he sat cross-legged on the sandy floor. As soon as I was in range he took a large dollop of the goo he'd prepared and smeared it across my upper lip.

“Ugh! God what is that stuff?” I pawed at my lip as a smell like dead carrion bored through my nostrils. But as my hand went up to wipe away the foul mixture Blair batted it quickly away.

“Leave it Jim. You need to leave it there to keep you from smelling anything else for a little bit.” He placed the stone with the remaining vile stuff near the back of the cave where he had moved the pallet and bearskin.

Just as I was about to make a comment the distant intrusive sound of engines caught my normal hearing ears. Sandburg must have heard them also as his head cocked for a second then he swung immediately toward me again.

“DON'T turn up your hearing Jim. It is important you just listen to me. Hear my voice man. Focus on me.” He was standing next to me now, pulling insistently on my arm as he continued a steady drone of talk.

When I turned to again ask why, he just kept up the constant litany. “I'll explain it all as soon as they've gone by Jim. But right now I need you to trust me here. You need to just hunker down here with me, and we will wrap this bearskin around us both. Right, good. Good.” Matching action to intent I soon found us both huddled at the very rear of the cave cocooned in the remains of an unlucky relative of 'Smokey'.

The sounds of motors of various sizes swelled, filling the cave. The high scream of snow-sleds arrived first. Their fast engines pushing them by only a short distance from us.

A few minutes later the more bass thudding roar of several powerful vehicle engines could be heard echoing through the whole area.

“Four trucks, and a couple of jeep's.” I guessed out load, though the noise from them made it a safe guess Sandburg couldn't hear me.

Then the caravan of rough terrain vehicles moved away further up the mountain.

As soon as the sound had faded to a minor roar I was up and headed for the entrance. But I had barely gotten halfway when something snagged my jacket arm and braked.

“No senses Jim!” My partner barked in a near panicked voice. He released my jacket and moved to stand in front of me.

“You need to keep the dials down to normal.” His tone had already dropped two notches into that steady almost hypnotic murmur he used to help me 'center' as he called it.

“What I NEED Sandburg,” I ground out between clenched teeth, “is to understand what is going on. You are like a cat on a hot tin roof. And it looks to me like you are less concerned with Kincaid then with throwing my senses all out of whack?” I scrubbed at the stuff under my nose, but the odor clung undiminished.

I was feeling strangely antsy myself. I wanted to follow those dangerous noises as far as I could and resisting the urge to extend my senses was almost physically painful.

“Why the hell are you suddenly so adamant that I not use my sense's. I need to keep track of them. We need every advantage we can get and the sense's are pretty much it.” I had begun to move around Sandburg, again heading for the entrance when he pointedly stepped in my path, blocking me.

“Jim, come on, sit back here with me for a few minutes and I'll try to explain what I think is happening.” His hands were up on my chest, pressing slightly to maintain contact and prevent me moving forward. Somehow his touch helped me resist the near compulsion to get out and track the enemy.

Nodding agreement I followed him back to the bearskin. With the fire out the warmth of the cave was already leaching away and Sandburg was shivering from the chill and the post fear relief.

As usual seeing him uncomfortable made me uncomfortable and I pulled the fur up around his shoulders, after I had positioned myself right next to him to share my own body heat.

“Okay Chief,” I grunted roughly as I heard his amused sigh as I fussed over him, “start talkin'.”

He waited until I was relatively settled before he turned toward me with his body language screaming excitement, and a little alarm. I could barely see his face since the ambient light from the cave entrance wasn't enough to see clearly without using my enhanced sight. But even in the dim light I recognized his expression was alight with that 'Eureka' kind of look he got when he figured out a puzzle. His eyes all wide and calculating as he mentally added more and more connections to the picture. Like I said earlier, the kid was a natural born detective, he just detected on a much larger scale than why and how a criminal did something.

“Well first off Jim let me preface this by reminding you that you, Jim Ellison, are a educated, confident, and competent man of the twenty first century. You have excelled at everything you have turned your hand to and are pretty much an excellent example of a modern male.”

Oh brother, when Sandburg started off with a flattering professor type assessment of me I knew I was reeeaaallllyy going to hate what followed.

“But?” I supplied with my voice dripping a combination of suspicion and sarcasm.

Which of course he ignored and barreled right ahead. He was in lecture mode and was oblivious to anything but his subject. “But you are genetically first and foremost a Sentinel.” He was speaking faster, ignoring the periodic coughs between sentences. He warmed to his subject. “Your 'core self' if you will, is that of an instinctual, enhanced, protector. You normally modify the instinctual behavior to conform to the norms of the society in which you where raised. But only as long as it doesn't directly conflict with the need to protect your 'tribe'.” Now his hands began to move, flitting all around to punctuate his sentences.

“But out here, in the 'wild' you are less reminded of social strictures. Plus the concussion from your fall may have muzzied your thoughts a little and let the pre-cultural inborn imperatives to supercede the nutured impulse controls you have in place.”

Muzzied? Pre-cultural inborn imperatives? “Whoa Darwin, back to English please.” I couldn't keep the humor from my tone. Jeezz there were times when his intellect started oozing out his mouth and he didn't even realize he was speaking advanced textbook.

“Huh?” He stiffened at the interruption, but only for a moment. “Oh! Sorry. Okay. Let's see. You can take a wolf pup and raise it as you would a dog. Teach it not to hunt, to respect boundaries, not to bite strangers. All that kind of 'socially expected behavior' stuff. And as long as everything stays pretty stable in the physical and emotional environment, the wolf will be able to act like a dog.”

He paused, more for effect than breath I think.

“But a wolf is still a wolf. If threatened it will still take your hand off at the wrist.”

“We are talking about me here aren't we Sandburg? I thought you were the wolf of this pair?” I had to admit I wasn't yet catching whatever my partner was trying to explain.

“Not spirit animals! Follow me here guy. Yeah. You're like the wolf. You were born a Sentinel, enhanced and programmed to protect the tribe at all costs. But you were trained by society to conform to certain rules of behavior. You compete but have to 'play nice'. You have to catch the bad guy but instead of smearing him into paste on the wall you have to read him his rights.”

I wasn't too happy with the image that was starting to build from his wolf/dog parallel. As I began to see where this was headed, I didn't like it at all.

“But now out here societies 'rules' aren't as tangible. You are injured, cut off from your territory, and have at least one member of your tribe to protect. Me.”

“So I am a werewolf, and the threat from Kincaid is causing me to revert to my 'programming'?” I purposely expressed that in a way that would jerk his chain. I was not exactly pleased to think of myself as some throwback responding to knee jerk instincts beyond my control.

“Jim. Man this is exactly what I meant in my diss about your 'fear based reactions'. These instincts are NOT, I repeat, NOT a threat to your own self-determination. They exist to give what you already have quicker, sharper, stronger responses. But you are still YOU. The Sentinel is YOU….. there are no two halves. You don't 'turn into' the Sentinel like Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk.” His voice was both exasperated and determined now. He paused for a moment to cough harshly but then stared intently at me, he was going to get through to me no matter what.

“Well genius, if I am the Sentinel then why can I remember whatever happened earlier in the woods. Hell I barely remember anything, so why's that?” I was snarling at him now. My dislike for the implications of this was starting to simmer hotter by the minute.

“You CAN remember. You just DON'T WANT to.” He barked right back at me. “Think about it. Several times in your life you had sudden upheavals or traumas, and what did you do each time. Suppressed it. When you were young and your senses started to come on line, you denied their existence. When your mother left, you suppressed most of your memories and your senses. When Bud, your mentor/coach was murdered, you suppressed the whole event and everything around it. The crash in Peru and the death of your men… you still can't remember much of anything can you?”

His voice was a challenge for me to deny the truth of his words. But I couldn't. Every bit of it was true.

“So what you're saying is that everything that happened earlier today I was in control of, but since I wasn't comfortable with it I wiped out my own memories?” My earlier growing anger was sputtering out, to be replaced by doubts, and worry.

“Exactly!” Blair pounced in triumph. “All your memories are still there, waiting until you trust enough to let them surface. Like when you remembered about the murder of your Coach when you felt it was safe to. When you were all grown up and could catch the bad guy.”

I listened to his delighted voice and smiled to myself. He may be right about the rest of this crap, but he was wrong there. It hadn't been the fact that I was all grown up and a cop that had made me feel safe enough to remember the terrible events of that summer. It hadn't been the fact that as a big strong cop I was then able to find and punish the perpetrator to put right an old wrong.

It had been Blair. Blair who accepted my enhanced senses and me. Who would always accept and welcome me into his heart and never see me as a freak. It had been my father's aversion to my 'unnatural' abilities that had caused me to suppress that whole summer. Locking away every memory until a bright and loving heart had thrown wide the locks and let the sun into all the dark, dark places.

“So if I want to remember, I can.” I wasn't sure if I was saying that to myself or in answer to my partner.

“Yep, I can help, but you have to want it or no go.” With him sitting next to me, warm and alive, I felt a security that belied our situation.

“I want to remember Chief, I think I need to come to terms with this for both our safety.”

“Cool man.” Was his happy response to both the words and the intent.

“But Chief….?” My question trailed off.

“What is it Jim? Second thoughts?” He wanted to help so much sometimes he seemed almost in distress.

“Can I dial up my sight now, it's kinda dark in here. AND can you neutralize this damn rotten goop you smeared on me?” The odor had been so foul I wondered if I'd ever be able to smell again or had it blown my nose's fuse entirely. “And what the hell was it for?”

“I guess dialing up your sight won't cause any trouble. Just keep away from the hearing and smell dials entirely. You see Jim, that's sort of part of what happened earlier.” He paused and as I gratefully dialed up my sight I could clearly see his eyes become contemplative and his face scrutch up in thought.

“Do you remember finding me out in the woods rooting?” He began tentatively.

I concentrated, reviewing the trip back to the cave. As I got to the part where I extended my hearing only to find Sandburg gone, my whole body got tense.

“What is it Jim, what do you remember?” His hand was on my shoulder, softly flitting from there to my arm, stroking and rubbing reassuringly. Draining the tension out as fast as it formed.

“You weren't in the cave, I couldn't hear you so I turned up my senses to try to find you.” The obstructive gray wall that previously had kept me from going beyond this point was no longer more than a slight opacity that I easily saw past, with him to anchor and secure me.

“I heard engines, several of them, and snow-sled motors, so I focused in tighter to try to hear who it was, friend or foe.” The tension was starting to climb again; I felt a definite threat from the memories.

“You realized it was Kincaid and he was a threat to both of us. And right then I wasn't where you could find me. Sorry Jim. My timing sucked. Your needed to protect your remaining tribe member, me, and I'd gone and disappeared on you. Must have thrown your protective instincts into overdrive.” He was assessing this new bit of information even as his presence was reassuring me and allowing me to continue.

“It wasn't just Kincaid.” I ground the words out, trying to relax my jaw that was tightening the further into the memory I went. “There was more, a smell.”

“The other Sentinel.” Blair's voice was barely a whisper, soothing and careful. Helping to stabilize the bubbling anxiety I felt.

“You knew?” This came out with both a little shock and frustration. How had he known?

“I figured it out after you went all defensive and territorial. That particular body language is a little hard to forget.” He tried to be flippant about it, but I suddenly flashed on what event and what body language he was remembering. Damn could either of us ever totally get over that day?

“Try and take this step by step Jim. Can you tell me what you remember? How you felt?” The need in his voice acted almost like a compulsion on me.

“I remember somehow, as soon as my senses nailed him I just knew he was like me. And from somewhere I also knew, knew in the deepest part of me, that he was a threat and had to be dealt with.”

“Why? Can you try to remember what made you feel that way Jim? I mean can you figure out what motivated the impression he was a threat?” His voice now almost hypnotic in tone and cadence, directed me deeper into my memory of the time.

“He was a Sentinel, but not in control. His senses where making him nuts. He was growling and complaining the entire time I listened in.” I could clearly remember now. Piggybacking my hearing to the smell, ignoring the roaring engines that surrounded him.

“He was snapping at Kincaid about how all the load noise was blowing his head off, and the light was to bright for his sunglasses to manage. Then his smell and touch were cutting in and out because he'd start to cough and choke one minute and then curse and say his jacket felt like sandpaper.”

Listening in had been like reliving my own discomfort when my senses had been out of control, swinging up and down one minute to the next. If Sandburg hadn't found me it wouldn't have been to long before sensory overload would have gotten me a one- way ticket to the funny farm.

“What he said, that's what clued you to the fact he was enhanced also?” His soft question pulled me back from memories of an even earlier time.

“No. I knew he was a Sentinel from his scent. It was like what I smelled on you when you had been with Alex, and then later when she and I meet.” Even as I said the words I tried to call them back, to rephrase them or take the tone of betrayal from them.

Luckily though Blair knew what I meant and didn't let the words unearth any old hurt. Instead he let his scientific mind latch onto the implications.

“So Sentinel's DO give off a distinctive type of scent! Or maybe a specific pheromone. I wasn't absolutely sure. I wonder if there might be some kind of litmus test for Sentinel abilities based on that trait.” There was an excited trill to his voice now. “That's why I put that compound under your nose. I figured if smell had set you off before I needed to completely obliterate any chance of you smelling the other Sentinel. I didn't want you reverting to the non verbal Gort stand in again.”

Almost as soon as he digested the new piece of Sentinel data his face turned to me impatiently. “Go on man, this is like so cool!” I only shook my head in wonder.

“He was on one of the snow-sleds, he was Kincaid's hunter in case the tracking device failed.” I was growling a little now, and tried to keep control of the anger that the memories had tagged with them. “He was supposed to go ahead and find where we were and lead the rest to us. He was dangerous and had to be stopped.” The last bit came out with the conviction one would discuss killing a venomous snake in your home.

“Again man, why? I mean from the sound of it his senses weren't really an advantage at the time, more like a distraction. What made you label him a more urgent threat than the rest of Kincaid's lunatic corps?” The persistent question, gently asked prevented me snapping out that it was obvious. So instead I tried to analyze my feelings just then.

“He wasn't able to really control his senses to perform at their peak, but he still had them. If they spiked at the wrong minute he might smell or hear or see some trace of our route and follow it.” I still felt the urge, even with just remembering him, to go and track him down. Pre-emptive strike.

“So you felt he was a threat because he was more able to lead Kincaid to us then a un-enhanced man would be. So even though he was a secondary danger compared to Kincaid, he was primary because through his senses he could lead the greater danger to us?” It took me a moment to follow that convoluted bit, but then shook my head at his misunderstanding.

“No. He was the major threat because as a Sentinel without control if he found us he would be driven to challenge me.” I was almost spitting out the last there. The gathering anger was starting to get more than even Sandburg's steadying presence could ameliorate.

“Okay, you've lost me here.” My partner's face was screwed in a tight frown of confusion. Shaking his head he looked up at me trying to understand.

“I don't get it. Firstly with his senses playing hide and seek the other guy would guarantee being beaten by a more powerful, more in control Sentinel. Secondly he wouldn't even know he's a Sentinel, you and Alex didn't when you came 'on-line' as it were. So he wouldn't know what these impulses he's having mean. Remember even when you smelled Alex scent on me you didn't figure out the weird feelings and visions you were having was because another Sentinel had invaded your territory. So even if he did sense your presence like you sense his, he wouldn't know what it means. Furthermore we aren't in your territory. Cascade is heaven knows how far from here man. And I doubt if he lives out here normally either, so it isn't his territory. So you don't have anything for him to challenge you for.”

“Yes, I do!” My voice hissed as I spat out the words vehemently.

“Huh? What?” He looked at me with those quiet, innocent eyes. He really just did not get it.

“YOU!” I almost shouted what to me was so damn obvious. But all I saw was continued bewilderment in his expression.

“Me? Jim man, you are like making no sense here. I am part of your 'tribe' so you feel you have to protect me. So maybe you feel because I'm valuable to you I'd be valuable to him. But I'm nothing to this other Sentinel, other than a target Kincaid has pointed him at. He's just one of the gang, with the same whacked out agenda of the rest of those jerks. Find us, catch us, kill us.”

“No.” I could remember the feelings the other Sentinels spore had brought to the surface. I also remembered the knowledge or memories that had sprung full-blown into my head from some unknown but undeniable source, fanning my rage. Almost like a vision delivered start to end in a flash.

“If he catches your scent he will come for you. He may not even know why. But he will be drawn to 'acquire' you by any means necessary, and he'll try to kill anything that gets in his way.” If his hand hadn't been clinging to my arm, soothing some of the tension from me I would have gotten up right then and there and started stalking the 'other'

. Now that I was remembering clearly the earlier event I was also reliving the intense need to both get Sandburg somewhere else, fast, and confront and kill this competitor for My Guide.

Because that is what I knew now. With complete conviction I KNEW, Blair was not just a teaching fellow who happened to have an interest in Sentinels and happened to find me. He was a predestined extension of me, just as I was a predestined extension of him. PERIOD.

“You need to chill some Jim and try to logic this out. I think maybe what happened with Alex and me and being out here in constant hazard has maybe pushed your instincts a liitttllee bit overboard into paranoia. Where are you getting these wild ideas? I mean did you hear him talking to himself or something? Listen to what you 6're saying! Your reading stuff into the situation that doesn't exist.” Sandburg's expression was priceless. Odd that the guy who always seemed so open minded about the weird and unusual seemed so intent now on denying what I saw as obvious.

“He's a guy who might just have a little more chance of detecting us then those other losers, but what makes you think he would be impelled to fight to get ME?”

“Because I would if I were him.” I knew I was going to have to explain my new surety. Not just to get him to understand the immediate risk the other presented. But also for once and for all let him see who and what he was.

“Because I would if I were him.” He said with absolute conviction in his voice. He was looking at me with such intensity I could feel it even though the faint light made it difficult for me to see him.

Damn. Now what. Was this a Sentinel flashback to when his failure to react lethally to Alex's invasion of his territory had resulted in my death? Something had caused him to create this weird challenger scenario and cast me as the prize. I hoped to hell this wasn't some obscure symptom of brain swelling post concussion.

I quickly squashed that idea, no negative thoughts! Think only good things. Positive things. Yeah, I'm an anthropologist in the middle of the frozen armpit of Hades, being hunted by the entire reject cast from Deliverance and my best friend was either suffering a paranoid episode or was hallucinating from a head injury. Yep, positive thoughts R' us!

“Okay, so it is essential that we just avoid him. Stay downwind, and downhill. If those creeps are all following the tracking device now that bunny may keep them hopping.” I paused as I heard myself, “Sorry, forget I said that. Anyway, it may be a while before they figure out they've been had. So lets get moving. Your ankle seems to be in pretty good shape and we've had a good nights rest. So let's just go!” I clambered to my feet with every intention to get headed downhill. Except I didn't get far as Jim caught hold of my wrist and didn't let go and didn't get up.

Unfortunately it was the same wrist he'd latched onto in the woods earlier and it was still unpleasantly sore. I gasped as the joint throbbed in renewed discomfort.

I couldn't see Jim well, but as soon as I felt the pain I felt his hand drop away and him jump to his feet beside me. “God Blair, I'm sorry!” His voice was dripping with guilt.

Ignoring the soreness I made a point of reaching out and using that hand to grab his arm. “It's okay big guy. It doesn't hurt, you just sort of caught me off guard and the twinge threw me.” I hoped with his senses not fully tuned in a little obfuscation could sneak by.

“It's not okay Sandburg. Your wrist is seven shades of yellow, black and blue. It's swollen and it 'twinges' as you call it, every time you move your hand.” His self loathing was getting more pronounced, I had to distract him. Jim had guilt down to a fine art.

“Listen, forget it. Do you think maybe we should follow those truck tracks back down the mountain? I'm not a tactician but if those trucks made it here then they must have found relatively even terrain. And they've torn the ground up so much our tracks would be hard to distinguish if, I mean when, the other Sentinel comes hunting. I think we should like get going as soon as possible, don't you?” I couldn't see him well enough to know if he fell for it so I just stood waiting.

I felt him shift next to me and a hand gently took my elbow, “Come on Sandburg. Let's move to the front. The rocks that were near the fire are still holding some heat and it's a bit warmer. Also it's light enough for you to see better.”

For the moment the seething anger that he had been displaying for so long seemed to be completely locked down. His touch on my elbow was extremely light and careful.

Apparently he was just exchanging the aggressive mode for the 'Blessed Protector' mode. Wrapping all his senses and thoughts around me had managed to distract him from his instinctive hostility over the other Sentinel's presence.

Once he had me resettled near the entrance, pulled the bear fur around me and carefully checked out my wrist he moved directly opposite me in the light and sat. I looked at the intense concentration on his face, reading the effort he was taking to organize whatever he was going to say.

“Jim, don't you think we need to get going here.” He was staring at me now and it was starting to creep me out. “I mean Kincaid's an ass and all, but when he finds our bunny friend he's going to figure there aren't that many ways down off this mountain side. He'll start downhill at mach six after us.” I looked expectantly at him. But he didn't budge.

After an aggravatingly endless few minutes he finally shook his head and began speaking.

“There is no way to outrun them on foot, Chief. Not with them on snow-sleds and all terrain vehicles.” He seemed preternaturally calm now, like he had everything figured out. What was weird is that even though I didn't agree with his assessment of the other Sentinels menace, I felt calmer also, my absolute trust in him negating any doubts.

“Oh.” Was all I could think to say.

He laid his hand on my forearm. “It's okay Chief. Rule number one, when you can't fight, run, when you can't run…….hide!”

For a moment his gaze left my face to travel around the cave. “We've got enough food for two to three days, water from snow, shelter from the worst of the cold, even plenty of wood for fire if they get far enough away to risk it. Our best strategy right now is to hole up and stay invisible. Maybe they'll get frustrated and go home.”

Then his eyes returned to me. First he was obviously turning his senses to scanning me, so I tried to slow my breathing to minimize my conspicuous congestion. But all that did was get me started coughing again. His expression showed his concerns but also something else. I recognized it now. It had been just such an expression in Peru when he'd finally decided to tell me about the vision he'd had. The first time he'd seen his spirit animal, the black Jaguar. The vision that had made him consciously choose to be the Sentinel.

“Okay, so we are stuck here. But what about the 'other'? You were worried about him being able to track us.” I watched his self-control slip a little on that reminder. But the flash of rage was gone almost the moment it materialized.

“They've going pretty far up the mountain. With all the snow we've had covering our trail, they don't have any idea of where to start looking for us.” He looked out the entrance crevice. “As long as the other Sentinel doesn't get in the immediate vicinity he can't accidentally zero in on us.” His gaze returned to me.

“You really shouldn't be using your hearing Jim” I really hadn't wanted him to risk that. It seemed that hearing the 'other' had been what triggered the earlier violent regressive behavior episode.

I got a bemused smile from him for that. “It's okay Chief. I didn't until just now, and I skirted away from 'Him' as soon as I catalogued his voice.” Then his expression became serious again.

“Jim. You want to tell me what else is going on.” I asked softly. “Did you have another vision?” There was less curiosity in my tone than concern. Jim's visions had historically been a bit traumatic. His loss of his senses in Peru, Incacha's death, Alex's incursion and my drowning, had all been wrapped up with his side trips into symbolic dream imagery.

A brief flash of pride glistened from my partner's eyes. “Damn you're good Darwin.” He murmured admiringly. “Not a 'vision' as much as some kind of innate knowledge that I never accessed, or remember accessing before now.”

“Huh?” I dissected that little sound bite. “Innate knowledge? As in 'hunch' or as in inborn instinctual knowledge like how birds know migratory routes they have never flown?” There were so many possible interpretations of what Jim was implying. The scientist part of me was anxious to pounce on any detail, especially if it added to my pitifully poor amount of documentation related to the mystical side of the Sentinel phenomenon.

I looked into my partner's oddly tranquil face. Jim, tranquil? This was certainly…..ummm, unusual. Even at rest he always seemed tensed, suspicious, ready to pounce. So like his spirit animal, Jim was always on guard, prepared to respond to any threat. Tranquil just wasn't what I normal associated as a Jim type verb?

“Sort of on the line of a memory.” He said in a mellow tone. “Except what I know isn't from my own experience.” Raising his gaze he captured my eyes with his. A contented small smile eased the normally harsh line of his mouth. He seemed to be aware of only me, mesmerized by my presence. And his breathing had taken on a soft rumble to it, like a cats purr.

“I think it's some kind of ancestral memories Chief. Stuff I've always known, but never been taught. But I avoided accepting. Just like at first I didn't really accept the senses. Then when I did, I still treated the Sentinel traits as something separate from me, like Jekel and Hyde, me and the Sentinel.” His hand came to rest on my ankle just in front of him, his thumb moving in a slow circle on the sock over skin and bone. It seemed like he wanted to retain some physical contact as he discussed whatever these new ideas were.

“But it's like you said, I was born a Sentinel. And with that inheritance came a sort of subconscious knowledge that my other half, my guide, was out there somewhere. And as soon as I meet you, I knew.”

I listened in shock and excitement. Quivering with the need to ask questions, it took all my self-discipline to remain silent. Jim appeared almost drowsy he was so relaxed. Was this a rebound from his earlier hypersensitivity and tension?

“Now that I recognize it I realize I have relied on some innate information since the beginning.” His dreamy affectionate gaze stayed focused on my face. “From the very first day Chief. I knew I was supposed to listen to you.”

There was no way I could prevent my eyebrows climbing in disbelief at that statement. “Uh, Jim. Was this epiphany before or after you threatened to arrest me and slammed me into the wall?” My voice was gentle but I had to bring a little perspective to this. For some reason he was remembering that day with a bit of 'spin doctoring'.

The smile that lit his face would have had every lady at the station his willing slave. He chuckled fondly and leaned forward to thwap me gently on my forehead. “Actually it WAS exactly when I plastered you to the wall.” Bringing his eyes even with mine he kept his face so close I could feel the warmth of his breath stir the short ruff of my two-day growth of beard.

“Can you remember it Chief? I had just pushed you back into the wall and I was ready to rip your face off. You got pissed and essentially threatened me, and I just sort of stood there. I felt strange, kind of stunned. It didn't last long, not even a minute. But then I sort of followed you around obediently listening, and then blew up and ran away like I had a demon on my tail.” The expectant look on his face made me dredge back up the memory of that day.

I found it a little hard to think of then real clearly. I had been pretty freaked, I'd found a real, honest to God Sentinel, but he was a very big, very aggressive, extremely angry giant that had pounced on me. Yet I had wanted him to stay.

But with his prompting I did vaguely remember being surprised when my adrenaline-triggered threats hadn't earned me a smashed face. The intimidating giant had indeed just suddenly paused and looked vague and disconcerted as I rallied enough to insult and threaten him.

It was startling, but looking back I realized he was right. As soon as he pointed it out I could remember feeling a kind of rush, a thrill that I had put down to the fact that I had found a Sentinel at last. But thinking back I remember also feeling an odd 'rightness' about being with this man, even if he was a representative of the legal system that had frequently persecuted Naomi and me for our lifestyle.

Yeah, I had wanted him to stay, to listen, and to tell me all about himself. The need had been physical as well as emotional. It was one of the things that had driven me to follow after him. Who knew that garbage truck would be bearing down on him? Hell! Who knew I could find the courage to jump in front of the truck bearing down on him? I hadn't thought, I'd just acted. Like Jim had accused me of earlier.

“What happened back then Jim?” I whispered quietly, shamed to know I had been oblivious to something apparently pivotal to my Sentinel.

“I found My Guide!” His murmur was a little awed. But I felt his statement was kind of anticlimactic.

“So?” My confusion in my tone. “What else man. I mean yeah, that's when we meet…. but what else, what has that got to do with 'ancestral memories” et cetera.”

His hand moved to cup my befuzzed chin. “You don't get it Sandburg. A cop with hyperactive senses didn't just meet an anthropologist who would help him figure it out. 'I', Jim Ellison, Sentinel, meet 'you' Blair Sandburg, my destined Guide. And I knew it as clearly as if I had someone sit down and explain it all to me. I told you earlier that Sentinels have a certain 'scent'. Well so do Guides, especially their own Guides!”

My face had gone pale and my eyes were flared wide. Before I could speak though his hand dropped from my face and a guilty sorrow enveloped his expression.

“And as soon as I felt it, the idea of some kind of connection to you, some weird dependence, not being in charge scared me so bad that I suppressed it all. S.O.P. for me like you said. And I ran. As if I could run back to when I wasn't different, wasn't responsible for things I couldn't understand and control. I locked away the conviction that smelling your scent had clued me in to what and who you were to me.” He looked shamefully at me, “I'm so sorry Chief. If I'd had the guts to open up and accept what I was offered then, all the things you went through, none of it would have happened.”

I could see he was confused. And I wasn't sure I could properly explain what I needed him to understand. Right now it was all so clear to me, so obvious. I don't ever remember feeling this way. So together, assured and secure in my purpose as a Sentinel. And equally sure in the unbreakable connection between My Guide and myself. I understood what had always eluded me before.

God I felt so great! With Blair sitting there, my hand registering the flutter of his pulse through a small vein in his ankle, I easily dialed away the discomfort of my healing shoulder and ankle. The warmth in my heart dispelling any chill I felt from the cave.

For a moment I just sat there absorbing the sight, smell, sound, and feel of My Guide. Completely saturating my senses with him. Part of me noted the slight elevated temperature and his continued congested lungs; I would keep a close eye, or ear, on him. My guide.

As if somehow vibrating in sympathy to my own deep sense of well-being, I noticed that the pallor and tension in Blair also seemed to be draining away. But the curiosity in his eyes lost none of its intensity.

He reached down to gently lay his hand on my forearm. “Jim, I hear you but I'm still not getting it. I'm sorry, I'm really trying. You said that when we first meet you knew I was your guide. Your predestined guide? Can you like give me a play by play because I seem to be a little behind the learning curve here?”

Right then, feeling the way I did, untroubled by the warm affection and yeah, even love I felt for the invaluable soul across from me, if he'd asked I'd have ripped out my own heart and served it to him on a platter. He held it already, even if only metaphorically.

I cast my memory back to that first day at the University. The loud drums, chaotic messy room, the crazy grin. Pretty much everything possible to set my teeth to grinding. I remember thinking, 'This is a stupid move Ellison. This kid can't help you. Hell even if he could you can't trust a jerk like this with the fact that your senses are going crazy. You can't let your vulnerability be known by a stranger.'

Responding to some impulse I reached up with both my hands, ignoring the tiny twinge from the splinted arm. Gripping each of his shoulders gently I pulled him slightly closer so that I could stare deep into his kind eyes.

“Do you remember what you were feeling back then Chief? When I slammed you into the wall….. you just didn't seem….. well, as intimidated as I would have expected.”

I saw a glitter of mischief in those topaz windows to his soul. He snickered. “Well I was so blown away that you had shown up I don't think anything could have brought me down. And I'll be honest with you big guy, I just knew you wouldn't ever really hurt me.” For a moment his eyes held a kind of wonder…. he had been absolutely positive! HOW COME? Radiating trust he tilted his head and inquired, “What were you feeling Jim? Can you explain it?”

I scowled dramatically, remembering only to clearly. “Well Chief, truth be told I was pretty disgusted with myself for even being there. When I'd seen you in the hospital and then the REAL McCoy, came in, I knew you were running some kind of scam. But I couldn't give up on the chance you really could help. But I'd come hoping maybe some old, scholarly professor type had sent you. And then there you were, the antithesis of my every expectation, Revenge of Woodstock!”

Blair's eye's glowed with affectionate joy at my description.

“Uh, Jim… You do realize I wasn't even conceived yet when Woodstock happened.” He snickered. “And you weren't quite eight man, so what makes you think you know what a Woodstock dude looks like?”

I reached to pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen forward across his face, hiding the gesture by finishing with a finger tap between his eyes.

“Obviously Sherlock, I watched the Movie of the Week version. Better than Cliff Notes.” I intoned with my best mock Basil Rathebone.

“Hey, you mean you watch something other than ESPN?” He challenged with bogus shock. Then his expression became solemn. “I hope you know Jim, I really was sure I could help you. I admit I was totally jazzed on finding a Sentinel. I'd been fanatic about Sentinel's since I was nine. When Tina called from the hospital about you, I HAD to get you to come to me man. I would have done anything, just ANYTHING. But I would NEVER have jerked you around.” The blue of his eyes shaded to gray as he scanned my face for confirmation that I did indeed accept that truth.

“You still don't get it Chief.” I felt light with relief that what I now knew would soon ease Blair's own concerns about us. “I think it all happened just the way it was meant to happen. Some weird fate was definitely at work then.”

I could see that my calm discussion of what I normally referred to as 'the hocus pocus stuff', was surprising my partner. But I just continued my reminiscing. He'd catch on. “When you started slinging around all that stuff about Sentinel's, I figured you were just some crazy kid. I'd lost hope. So I guess I started to lose it.”

Eyes rolling Blair responded to that with a bland. “Yeah, I remember.”

As I began to explain, in my mind the whole scene played again. “Listen you neo-hippy witch doctor punk, I could slap you right now with larceny and false impersonation, and you are heading real quick for harassing a police officer. And what's more your behavior has given me probable cause to shake this place from top to bottom for narcotics.” I'd snarled the words with all the venom that my fear and confusion at the time had accumulated.

And then it had happened. Only now, years later, could I remember the series of discoveries that I had been unprepared to accept and had thus repressed.

I'd slammed the kid up against the wall, getting some perverse satisfaction from his wince at the force I used. But instead of the fear my behavior usually provoked, it just seemed to piss the flower child off. “Hey Joe Friday relax okay, look, you mess with me man, and you are never going to figure out what's up with you”

But at the same moment he was snapping back at me, my sense of smell spiked and for the first time I smelled Blair. Beyond the herbal shampoo and aftershave and deodorant. Or the tea on his breath or the feta cheese salad he'd had for lunch. HIS scent. A subtle mixture of a warm woody odor with sharp natural tangs like rain and musk. And the moment I inhaled that aroma something inside of me vibrated with instant recognition and profound possessiveness. I immediately found my pulse attuning to reflect his. And I was consumed with the unshakable certainty that I was meant to have this person beside me, and would do anything to keep him there. Like for Siamese twins who have been separated, when they see their other half and long to have back that vanished closeness.

The shock of that revelation stunned me into silence. And the gently drone of THE Voice reached down into me for the first time, taking control with an unrealized power.

“Now I know about your time spent in Peru and it has got to be connected with what's happening to you now.” He'd bounced with excitement, not even noticing the disoriented look I'd worn. I struggled with the inner compulsion that directed me to hand over control to this other. But I'd always been a leader, a warrior, an officer, my natural need for dominance warred with a simple straightforward instinct; 'trust him, follow him, protect him'.

“Let me just show you something here. This is a monograph by Sir Richard Burton, the explorer not the actor. It's over a hundred years old.”

Before me was a picture of an ancient warrior in a dusty old tome. As soon as my eyes focused on the image a repressed memory flashed to life. A native with a bright, noble continence, and a name, Inchaca. Words spoken in a humid jungle years before and buried under pain and loss and fear. “There will come a time when you will go back to your own lands Enquiri. Your true heart brother and Shaman awaits you. I have done what is within my powers to prepare you. He has waited a very long time, until you were ready to see what only he can show you and believe what you could not allow yourself to accept as true before. But now you are who you always were but had locked away, and he has become what you have always needed and sought.”

With the trigger of the flashback, all my senses had then enveloped the bubbling, enthusiastic being in front of me. Heart brother, Shaman. Yes! Seemingly so young I still sensed an incredible mind and knowledge attuned to my own gifts. And then came the surety that somehow I was destined to stand with this boy, man, teacher, student, dreamer, for the rest of my life. No labels such as 'Guide' or 'Sentinel', only that two who were one, bound by destiny.

But even as my heart swelled with faith at the rightness of this, unyielding logic and cynical reasoning that had been pounded into me for years rebelled. I had been raised to only believe in what could be proved, touched, explained. Dreamers were losers, my father had extolled. Reality was competitive, unpredictable and unfair. In William Ellison's house there was no such thing as destiny. And people, who could hear, smell, taste, feel, and hear more than others were freaks.

This feeling of predestination defied all I had ever been taught, so it couldn't be real. Somehow whatever was driving my senses crazy was giving me hallucinations. That was it. This wild eyed kid with his talk of Sentinel's and dissertations was just some whacked out yoyo who wanted to use my problems to manipulate me or something. Hypnotic suggestion or something. This was all crap. I couldn't have these feelings. And furthermore I would never let another exert this kind of control over me. I had to get out of there……

So I had pushed away from the kid, ignored the intoxicating scent and buried the intuitive certainty, just as I had buried knowledge so many times before! Just that quick it was all blanked out and I had practically run out of the building.

“But I felt the pressure to return Chief. It was like I was splitting in half. One part of me wanted to get as far from you as possible and the other screamed to run back and stick to you like glue.”

Right then looking at Blair I imagine he was feeling like splitting in half also. The scientist in him was positively sparking with excitement, wanting to explore every contingency of my revelation. The Guide and Shaman meanwhile were contemplating the implications of such an instantaneous bond.

I watched his every thought flash through those so expressive eyes. He'd never accepted my theory that he had always been a Guide and the same genetics that had uniquely enhanced Sentinel's also enhanced their Guide's. As long as I had known him he'd seen himself as just a guy with incredible luck. His interpretation of events was that I would have, could have, managed with anyone who could figure out how to keep me focused. That I'd bonded with him because of the simple expedience that he had been the only available option. In Sandburg's mind if another person had discovered my senses and tried to help me, I would have bonded with them just as a matter of course.

Unfortunately I had pretty much echoed that error for the first few years of our partnership. That had all changed after 'The Fountain'.

After Incacha came to me and told me how to revive Blair I had been faced with irrevocable proof that there was more to the Sentinel/ Guide thing than visions.

Until then I'd convinced myself that I'd hallucinated what I'd seen when we'd gone to Peru to rescue Simon and Daryl. Returning to where I'd lost my men, reeling from the realization that Sandburg was leaving for Borneo. Blair was right; I was the king of repressing. I just figured the whole panther schtick and conversation with my own image had been the result of worry, heat and post-traumatic stress.

But at the fountain Blair had come back, impossibly, unbelievably, when I'd done as Incacha instructed. I'd felt the power pulse from my hands into the cold, still form laying before me, seen the panther intercept and merge with the wolf and heard the stilled heart stir again.

At the time Blair seeing the same vision had spooked me. So I had used by usual coping mechanism, denial. But as I had had to face the facts of that day's event, it made it impossible for me to continue to deny the mystic nature of the bond between us. And further surety came when Alex placed me in the ancient reservoir and plied me with the drug that extended my senses far beyond their prior limits. It had been repeated images of Blair, beside me, covering my back, standing in the face of one danger after another, which had pulled me back from the addictive appeal of such power. His image had guided me, as always, back to my own path.

In the months that followed I'd began to piece together my own theory on the Sentinel and Guide. Even not remembering large pieces of the puzzle I still was sure of one thing; Blair would have been a Guide even if I had continued to suppress my own gifts. We probably wouldn't have connected. He would have lived out his life as My Guide without me. He'd have continued to teach and research and hunt for 'any' Sentinel. He might even have found one; Alex was proof that there definitely were others. Jeez, the thought of Sandburg finding that amoral sociopath first makes my stomach turn over with fear.

But I am sure that no matter what else could have happened, Sandburg would never have achieved with another the 'connection' that we have. He had been able to direct Alex how to stop the painful problems involved with her enhanced senses. Even shown her how to stabilize her erratic gifts somewhat. But she had always had to stay tuned down, though still more acutely aware then non-enhanced people. Without her own Guide she could never fully extend herself. And maybe that was what had driven her to seek the additional enhancement the grotto had offered.

I think that Alex had wanted Blair to be 'HER Guide'; desperately driven by a need she couldn't even have explained. I think she was so obsessed to claim any Guide that she had challenged me for the only one she knew of. Unfortunately all the weird crap going on made my senses more a disadvantage than an asset. I was so out of whack the fight in the warehouse, if Connor hadn't intervened, would have probably ended with my death.

I think when that failed she had gone to Blair with the intention of taking him and forcing him into guiding her. But somehow some instinct must have made her realized what I have finally figured out. Blair was specifically my guide and could be no one else's. He could help another Sentinel with the basics, but to extend a Sentinel's senses to their fullest took the soul deep trust of a mutually powerful bond. Just as she had recognized that having a Guide would strengthen her powers, she had realized that lack of a guide was a weakness. In a classic distraction she had taken from me the one thing denied her.

If she had found her own Guide earlier in life would she have become the merciless woman she had? Why hadn't she found her Guide? I had to wonder if the fact that she had perverted the whole purpose of the Sentinel gifts, veered from the true path of protector to become predator, had caused her to miss meeting her own destined companion of the soul. If I hadn't met Blair, what would I have become?

I was convinced that Sandburg had been 'MY' Guide since birth, maybe even before? Hell. I don't know how predestination works. But I do know that Blair and I were working our way towards each other from around the world and through our lives.

Being a detective, naturally when we'd first meet I had tried to do a little digging of my own concerning Sandburg. It was difficult. Backtracking the kid was like figuring the path through a labyrinth. Between his expeditions as wiz kid anthropology student and Naomi's wanderlust, Sandburg's feet had touched every continent on the globe.

That hadn't surprised me any. What had been weird was the realization of how often we had almost but not quite met. When as a nine year old my senses first manifested as much as I can remember it was in spring, the same month Blair was being born in a commune near Seattle. When I'd gone to camp in Wyoming at ten, Naomi had brought her baby boy to a commune not six miles away. When my father had gone on an extended business trip I'd been left with my grandparents in San Francisco. Naomi had been living on a houseboat not a block away. When I enlisted on my eighteenth birthday, I had been sent to boot camp in North Carolina, and low and behold, one nine year old Blair Jacob Sandburg is happily studying in a gifted child program in the town just beyond the base limits.

Even Peru, even then, when my team was shot down, a bright-eyed twenty one year old was part of an expedition to ruins just across the border.

So many near misses. But if what I suspected were correct then it wouldn't have made any difference. Back then if we had meet I wouldn't have been able to accept him. And Sandburg, he wouldn't have had either the knowledge he relied on, nor do I think he would have been so willing to finally settle down if he hadn't traveled so much already.

No, it had all been choreographed by something far out of our control. We were together now and that was that.

But what about Blair? When I had tried to get Sandburg to accept that as much as I was extra gifted in the senses department, he was mutually endowed with some preternatural talents, he'd dropped into scientific 'oh there's an explanation for that' jargon.

I'd never gotten him to acknowledge any of his way too exact spontaneous insights, or his on the nail hunches or ability to seem to know what people were thinking as anything but 'luck'.
The ease he could BS somebody into believing almost anything. He wouldn't even admit it wasn't natural to always be able to hit the right pony at the track, and never lose at poker.
He just couldn't, or wouldn't, see it as anything but luck, or coincidence or anything but a very real ability to see more than the rest of us, even Sentinels, could see.

Maybe I wasn't the only one with fear responses. I remember when as a little kid I had had to face the reality that I was seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and tasting stuff my family and friends couldn't. The day I'd realized I was 'different'.

It hadn't been a happy day. My father had made me feel bizarre, unnatural, even perverted. I had been so upset by my own parent's reaction that I had suppressed my senses for twenty odd years.

Was it possible that unconsciously even free spirit individualist Sandburg didn't want to be 'different' either. He always seemed so up. Appeared to take everything in stride, like his whole weird upbringing had been wonderful. But I don't think Blair had ever had the wanderlust that Naomi had.

Though Blair loved his mother deeply, I don't think he had appreciated the nomadic life much. In those early days I remember the odd hungry look when we were working together. In all I had learned about my partner, I had never learned of a single ongoing relationship or strong bond with anyone except his mother. Lots and lots of short-term friends and acquaintances. And dozens of girl friends. But no best friends, no supportive family, and no home to run to when things were bad.

The day when I'd stopped calling him a 'ride along' and started to call him my partner Sandburg's incredible eyes had looked at me with such unimaginable joy and thanks I had felt oddly heartsick that something so simple could mean so much.

Continued part 2