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“I don’t want you to go after that
predator,” she said. “Something about it frightens me.”
“It’s just an animal, baby. It can be
killed like any other animal.”
She sat up. “How can you be so sure?”
“If it was a spirit being, I’d know.
It’s not. It’s a clever hunter, and I don’t put down at all what its dangers
are. It’s good at what it does. I am too though.”
She sighed and headed to the creek and
again waded out, splashing water over her slender body. Nudity was as natural
to her as life. He joined her and after washing as best he could went back to
pull on clothes.
“What do the spirits tell you?” she
asked as she put on her dress, this time adding a pair of panties she had
tucked in a small sack along with the uneaten lunch.
“Nothing about this beyond it’s a bear.
They can tell me what they know or sometimes what they are willing for me to
know. There are higher beings out there, that know more, but I haven’t seen
them around this ranch—yet.”
“You still think there is something here
the Damons want. What about the spirits? Is there something here, that they
want?”
Buttoning his shirt, he considered that.
“Maybe. Nothing is usually ever as simple as it looks. You know, Myra, you have
a gift too, don’t you?”
“What do you mean? I told you I quit
seeing the spirits when I was a little girl. I don’t see them now. You aren’t
really thinking I can suck life from a man, are you?” She laughed.
“No, although you have a gift there
too.” He laughed there too. “No, what I mean is something else. You healed me
last night. Did you know you were doing it?”
She stared at him. “I did? No… well
maybe a little. I have with calves… I will feel the heat going through me but
you? You think I healed you?”
“Baby, I know you did. I should have
been stove up a week after what happened. I had at the least a cracked rib.
Those don’t just go away, but after you holding me and your body against mine
all night, the pain nearly disappeared.”
He could see her considering that.
“Could I have healed Clay then if I’d gotten to him in time?”
“You want to blame yourself for
something, don’t you?”
“I don’t… All right maybe I want to
think I can fix whatever goes wrong.”
“There are some things meant to be. I
don’t know why your son had to die when he did. I haven’t asked-- if even the
guides around here would know. But does it matter now? I don’t believe you can
bring the dead back to life… although.” Now he grinned. “You brought part of me
back to life; so maybe.”
“Do you think I could see and talk to
spirits too again?”
He nodded as he went to the horses to
tighten their cinches. “I think you could do that and a lot more. It only takes
wanting it. With your family heritage, it’s probably there, just untouched.”
She smiled then. “Like I was until the
day you drove into the ranch yard.”
“Like we both were.”
