Wyatt

The beginning

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Let him go.

Forgive yourself.

Love.

Dying was easy. Those who died, they left. They crossed over to the beyond. It was simpler than living in the wreckage of a place where their lives had mattered. Wyatt had lived how many lifetimes? A boy in a tribe? A beloved son of a shaman and his Golden Hair? Brother? Friend? Lover? Then husband, and finally brother once more.

Standing there amongst the field of trees he’d leveled, Wyatt stilled.

He was a brother. The family he’d raised with Quanto made him a brother again.

“Who knew you were a sentimentalist?” MacPherson snarled, the shadow staggering as it formed like a twisted mirror before him. The filaments of its essence still tangled around him, but they kept sliding as though they couldn’t find purchase. Nor could the creature escape, not while the shield Wyatt kept up with a thought blockaded him.

The thing had made the mistake of trying to attack Jessica before Wyatt even realized she was there. Refusing to allow it to strike had jerked him out of the hellish cycle of reliving his worst mistakes—and his most profound regrets.

Ignoring the creature, Wyatt dragged himself to the spot where he’d found Adam’s body. His twin passed here, alone. They’d come into the world together, yet he hadn’t been there when his brother passed.

Father was.

Morning Star had come for his son. The spiritwalker had guided him away. The memory, half-forgotten, had stirred deep within Wyatt, but his heart overruled his spirit. His need.

His want.

Alone.

“Then keep me,” the creature whispered. “And we will never be alone again.”

“You’re not my brother.” Straightening, he slid his hands into his pockets. All the armor he’d worn over the years—his duster, his hat, even the swords he’d forged, all the items he used to keep everyone at a distance had also been to trap his pain inside.

Willow and Quanto had come the closest to punching through the shell he held so tightly to him. His pain had become who he was, and Wyatt was done with the pain. He was done with the loss.

Raising his head, he freed his hands then lifted them to the sky. Prayer did not come easily to him, nor did the songs of his people. He’d tuned them out for so long, martyring himself for a loss he couldn’t forgive himself over.

The very young have to learn, and often repeat the lessons when they don’t. The old song thudded in time with his heartbeat. The creature yowled, but Wyatt ignored him as he began to dance. Somewhere, the drums began to beat and fire crackled. He could hear his tribe, the chatter of familiar voices, the playful shouts of children, and then they were there, dancing around him.

Across the fire stood Morning Star, and next to him the proud Golden Hair. By their side, his brother. Their welcoming smiles shattered the ice festooning his heart. Adam bounded to his feet and clapped his hands to the drum rhythm, and they danced together.

A sense of freedom invaded him as he danced with his brother, weaving with the other men and women who rose to join them. Some faces were familiar, and others only half-forgotten images. When Adam caught the hand of a woman and pulled her close, Wyatt’s heart nearly swelled to bursting.

Willow greeted him with the breeze of a kiss to his cheek. Then came a taller warrior, a proud chief who gripped his shoulders. Another, a shaman who reminded him of the girl Blue. His kind eyes held no reproach.

More bonfires lit, and as far as the eye could see, the people danced upon the hills and their songs joined with the sky as the moon shone upon them. The great bear roared, the wolf howled, and the owl screeched.

Below them, the river ran. And as the sun began to edge the sky, the breath in his throat caught. The buffalo stretched as far as the eye could see. Riveted, Wyatt could barely take a breath. It was everything he remembered, and more peaceful than he’d ever imagined.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder. The familiar pressure invited him to turn his head, and he found Quanto’s quiet smile waiting for him. “Now you understand.”

Beyond him, Morning Star nodded. Then Golden Hair. And finally, his brother…

“It’s time,” Adam said, grasping his forearm with his hand. The contact so familiar and alien transported him to his youth when anything was possible. “I always knew this is where I would be needed. That was what I saw during the vision quest. This world needed me. As more of our spirits came, they would need someone to tend to their wounds.”

“The new world, it needs you,” Golden Hair told him as she joined them. The light caress of her hand on his cheek. “You are their guide, as you have been their shield.”

“The time for punishment is over.” Father loomed before him, the man’s strength a legend and even then, Wyatt had never remembered it perfectly. He took Wyatt’s face in his hands. “Let the demon go.” With them at his side, he opened his hands and the darkness which had fought to cling to him went to ash, spilling away from his hands and into the fire. There it grew incandescent, then exploded upwards like colorful fireflies.

All his anger.

All his grief.

All his self-loathing.

All his pain.

His family embraced him. For a sweet, perfect moment, he was a little boy again, dancing with his brother around the fire as his parents watched over him. They ran through the woods. They learned to hunt. They cleaned their first skin. Prepared the first poultice.

It was so easy to look back on those times, to their simple perfection. Those memories had never left him. A horse whinnied and punctured the reunion. Goliath trotted through the gathering and the proud horse tossed his head as Rudy slid out of the saddle. A welcoming call came from the far side, and his younger brother waved to him as he walked to greet the strangers.

Morning Star put his hand on the horse and for a moment, Wyatt stared, dazed.

The gathering faded until only Wyatt, Goliath, and his father stood in the clearing. All the moonlight gathered to pool over the proud shaman. “Now you are ready to listen. This spirit has never abandoned you, Wyatt. You did not want to hear us. We are always with you. When the time comes, we will be here.”

Goliath took three steps away from Morning Star and the old man faded. Like the drums, the memory left behind a taste of wistful sweetness. As wonderful as it was to see them, he didn’t want to stay. In part because…

Jessica!

Spinning, Wyatt jerked his attention away from the otherworld. It took him a moment to locate her, lying still across the clearing from where he stood. Pain spiked along his leg as he limped hurriedly toward her. For the first time in years, he felt every damn injury from the bruises littering his ribs, to the burns on his hands, and the cuts along his flesh. He’d almost forgotten how bad the pain could be.

It didn’t matter.

At her side, he dropped to his knees. The coppery scent of blood warned him it might be bad, so he used careful hands to peel back the jacket, then her shirt. Blood and grime coated her cheeks, but it was the deep puncture in the right side of her abdomen that concerned him. Placing a hand over it, he applied gentle pressure with his gift.

Cradling her cheek, he damn near sagged in relief at the drum of her heart. It still beat.

“You’re touching me,” she whispered, the chastisement weak but still present.

“I am,” he said, relieved she still had the strength to argue with him. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

“You can’t.” She fumbled with pushing his hand off her side, but lacked the strength to dislodge him. “You need the blood.”

“In your body, yes I do.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Stop fighting me. You’re going to need the strength to fight with me later.”

Those stunning eyes opened. The light within them had dimmed, but still existed. “We have to fight later?” Was that a complaint?

“You’re very stubborn,” he said, shifting the pressure as he found a way to tighten the skin together. He couldn’t heal her all the way, but if he could slow the bleeding, then he could gather the herbs, a poultice. Afterward, he’d build something to cover her. Already he’d begun to sort it together, and he began shifting the fallen trees, those not too bound by the earth. A lean-to would do for now.

“It’s called strength of character,” she wheezed on a half-laugh. But the rattle in her chest eased. She was still too pale beneath the dirt. As the wood continued to stack, it began to block the cool wind. “What are you doing?”

“Giving us shelter.” Until he got a good look at the wounds, he didn’t know how long she would need to heal.

“I could always, you know…take us somewhere.” Her voice faded some as her eyes began to drift shut.

“Eager for escape, are you?” The jest worked, because she opened her mouth then closed it again.

Finally, she said, “I’m not running.”

Those were the best words he’d ever heard.

The blood slowed, and he began to look for something to secure the wound. Neither of them were clean. His clothing was too thin, and manufactured. It even itched. It took him a couple of hours to finish the shelter, build a fire, and hunt the herbs and leaves he needed.

Leaving Goliath to watch over her, he made several forays into the surrounding countryside. Fortunately, he remembered camping here. Remembered the local flora well enough to make do.

By the time he’d made a poultice and bound her side, he was ready to work on her leg. His own injuries, he could ignore. Fresh water to clean them both up. A fire to keep them warm.

At the first fingers of dawn, he rested against the saddle inside the lean-to with Jessica pressed against him. He’d found a blanket still miraculously secure to Goliath’s saddle. Someday, he’d figure the horse out, but for now he was grateful for what supplies the animal had managed to bring with him.

His eyes burned, and Goliath had even gone to his knees, lying nearby as though to share his warmth with them both. A yawn split his jaw, and fatigue weighed him down.

It had been a long time since he’d been this tired. Touching two fingers to the pulse at Jessica’s throat, Wyatt relaxed further.

The beat was strong and steady.

“You’re tired.” The soft words roused him, and he blinked to find her gazing up at him.

“So are you,” he told her. “You should rest. The fire will keep for a time, and I’ll hunt in a little while.” It would take time, but they would both heal. Everywhere the sunlight touched in the little valley, it seemed to chase away curls of fog as though those tethers to the past were gone.

“I will, after I know you can sleep.” The statement puzzled him, and he ran a hand over his face. Whiskers rasped his fingers, and he paused to stare at his sore palm. There were blisters on his fingers. A lack of hard work left them too smooth, not like…

“I’m alive,” he assured her, the realization sinking in. More than that. “And I want to live.”

“Then go to sleep, son of Morning Star. I’ll look after you.” She pressed her cheek to his shoulder and it was as though it was all he needed. His eyes closed, and for the first time in centuries, Wyatt dreamed.

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Jessica

Morning Star Valley, a New Day

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She barely remembered the first couple of days, only that Wyatt was alive and seemed intent on keeping her that way. By the third day, sore and aching, she’d wanted out of the lean-to. It had taken her until the fourth to make the trek to the stream. The cold, clear water stung nearly as much as her injuries, but even the deep wound on her side had shrunk.

On the seventh morning, she’d woken to the sound of wood on wood and a crunch of board. Limping outside, she steadied her gait by keeping a hand on her side. It was still very tender. Whatever herbs he’d found and treated her with seemed to pull the pain away while encouraging healing each day.

Goliath grazed lazily in a patch of sun. Though mountains surrounded them, the snow seemed to cling to their tops while green began to spread in the valley. Over the last few days, the fallen forest no longer spread out around them like giants dropped in the playground.

He’d moved them, some with his abilities, others with pure force of will. Even now, he stood wearing nothing more than what was left of his torn trousers, as he secured a fresh log atop another one. The layout was shaped like a large house.

The scrapes and bruises along his ribs had faded, and though he still seemed pale beneath his ruddier skin, she could see the line of muscles beginning to grow taut. Though she’d been well enough to port them back, he’d refused each time she’d offered.

“You’re awake,” he said by way of greeting, an easy smile curving his lips. It was an odd expression on a man who, though he still looked like himself, appeared so different.

“As are you,” she murmured, then pulled the blanket tighter around herself as she padded out into the grass. The sun was warmer than the shade. She needed to find better clothes, and she missed her duster. “What are you doing?”

“Building.” He walked to greet her.

“Here?” Wasn’t he returning to the ranch? To…

“Here.” Joining her, he stretched an arm out to sweep the horizon. “These mountains. The closest town died about forty-five years ago. In winter, the mountains are impassable.”

Overhead, a hawk rode lazily on the wind, it’s low cry an invitation. Jessica looked to Wyatt. “You want to stay.”

“I want us to stay.” The declaration startled her. “First, I build this house and you heal. Then I’ll build the items we need, hunt for the others…it could take time.”

“A lifetime.”

“Our lifetime,” he said slowly. Facing her, he cupped her cheeks. “I haven’t been a man in a long time. I haven’t been a shaman in even longer. My people—they’ve moved on and they are happy.”

Shock rippled through her. There was such a sense of utter peace in his eyes. It was so at odds with the being she’d encountered that dark night at the edge of the ranch. “Your family…?”

“The family will be fine. They have each other. They survived.” So much certainty.

“You’ve seen them?”

“I don’t have to,” he said, his gaze cutting away to somewhere else. “I can feel it. They were fine before. We took the true threat to them with us.”

Was he seriously not returning to them? “Won’t they grieve?”

“Life is a circle,” he reminded her, his gaze warming as he looked into her eyes. “We live, we grow, we move on. We grieve those who move ahead, but we know we’ll see them again. The man they knew as Wyatt—they would rely upon him for choices they need to make on their own. I am not that man anymore.”

Maybe it was her exhaustion, but he sounded almost fanciful. That would take some getting used to. “Then who are you?”

“Hania.” He said the name and it seemed to flow over him, a proper cloak and crown for the man he was. Warrior spirit. “That was the name the spirits gave my father when we were born. Hania and Ahanu.” He laughs. “Adam and I used our mother’s names when we roamed. Somewhere…somewhere along the way, I forgot that I had ever been Hania.”

It suited him.

“If we stay, what if they need us?”

“They have each other.” Wyatt—Hania sounded so confident. “Tell me, Chepi, will you stay with me? Make your life with me among the fields and the mountains and the streams? Others will come, and we will be here waiting for them.”

Chepi? How the hell…? The name had been taken from her, and she barely remembered it, yet it fit her.

“The spirits do talk, you know.” The corner of his mouth kicked a little higher. “We have lived our lives for everyone else, Chepi—my Jessica. I want to live my life with you. To truly live.” He lifted a rueful hand. “Blisters and all.”

“Is this your way of courting me?” The sensation was altogether alien.

Chepi—fairy—had always seemed a fantasy. After all, she’d been fighting a war for generations. A war that was…over.

Glancing across the pristine valley, she sighed. “We’ll call it Morning Star.”

“The mountains and woods do not need a name,” he reminded her, but his pleased smile fanned the flames within her.

“No, but we do. This will be Morning Star Valley, where spirits and fairies live.”

With his thumb beneath her chin, he tilted her face to his. “Together?”

Studying his eyes, she smiled. She believed. They needed time to heal, to grow, and to love.

“Ask me again when the house is built.” It was absolutely the right thing to say because he laughed. The sound carried in their peaceful valley then beyond.

No, she couldn’t hear spirits; she could only hear him.

He was right; the time for a man called Wyatt had passed. The witches wouldn’t need the bounty hunter known as Quinn.

The Fevered had been born, they had grown, and they had each other.

They had time…they all did.