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 claw