Hannah Alexander - Double Blind

Canaan waited.

She continued to stare at her hands. She said no more.

From the Navajo side of his ancestry, Canaan had learned to be comfortable with long stretches of silence during conversation. Busy, useless chatter bothered him. Sheila, obviously, would not inflict that annoyance on him. She used to be quite a talker. Until her mother’s death.

When she finally raised her head, he saw tears in her eyes.

He suppressed a groan. What now? Two crying females in one day. He was not ready for more tears.

“Sheila, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

“Oh, stop it.” She dashed the tears away with an impatient swipe of her fingers. “Please get a different welcoming committee next time.”

He stood up. Time for a quick and merciful departure. “Why don’t you take a rest, and I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready in the cafeteria.”

“That’s an improvement. Why couldn’t you have said that when you first got here?” She stood and walked him to the door. She even managed a tentative smile, a well-remembered smile. With the quick jolt of recognition also came the memory of the sense of loss he’d felt for so many long weeks after she’d left.

He returned her smile. “See you in an hour or so.”

“Right. Thanks for the warning.”

The scent of death…it has haunted me for weeks. Even as I stand in the bright sunlight and watch the life that teems in the children at this great school, I catch that scent. The spirit of the wolf is rumored to enjoy death, and when that spirit comes over me, I catch that passion.

But when that spirit does come over me, I am no longer myself. I am the wolf. My voice changes, my back bows. I walk less upright. The skins I use to cover myself fit me as if they are my own fur. These fools who say there is no other spirit but the precious Lord they serve at this school…they understand so little of the true realm of power.

Let them keep believing there is no such power. The children know. The adults never believe them. And when an adult happens on the truth, I see to it—the spirit of the wolf sees to it—that this adult is silenced forever, no matter the loss to me.

I miss my hogan today, where the smoke of the cedar fire engulfs me like a magical caress. The winds of change drive the heat of the sun through this school and bring a growing threat to me. I must be ever more vigilant, not only to the task before me, but to detection. That would ruin all I have worked for in my life—and the deaths of others would be in vain. As always, though I work with others who also crave the wealth and power we have labored for all these years, I am alone. No one else truly understands the soul-searing power of the spirit of the wolf.

P reston Black sat on the deck of Graham and Willow Vaughn’s log lodge on the shore of Table Rock Lake, listening to his giggling nieces, Lucy and Brittany, at play by the water. He’d never have dreamed he would love babysitting so much, but those two little charmers captured his heart the first time he met them last year.

A movement caught his attention from across the lake. Blaze Farmer was paddling a canoe from the boys’ ranch on the other shore, about a quarter mile away. Preston knew it was Blaze because it was time to exercise the horses, and also because Blaze was the only Hideaway citizen with skin the color of espresso.

When Preston’s sister and brother-in-law had left him in charge of the place for two days, he had not agreed to do all the chores, keep the horses watered and exercised, the chickens fed and eggs collected. Blaze was in charge of that, for which Preston was deeply grateful. Keeping up with a nine-and six-year-old was enough to keep him occupied.

He appreciated that occupation right now. It couldn’t have come at a better time. He’d been able to do little besides worry about Sheila and brood about their situation. He’d searched the Web countless times for the diseases endemic to the Southwest. That had been a mistake. Squirrels in the Grand Canyon carried fleas that carried the plague. Although anthrax had not been mentioned as a concern at the school at this point, he’d discovered that this nasty little killer could be found in the wool of sheep, which were raised on Navajoland.

He’d harassed nearly every medical person in Hideaway, including Graham and Willow, with questions about hantavirus. This, of course, was fruitless, because hantavirus was not endemic to Missouri, and those who worked in the Ozarks focused on Ozark illnesses.

Hantavirus was the deadly virus that most often occurred in the southwestern part of the country. Deer mice were carriers of this strain of hemorrhagic fever. The droppings from these mice spread the disease through the air.

Though Sheila had assured Preston before she left that the buildings at the school were new and closely monitored for rodents, he knew all the monitoring in the world couldn’t catch everything.

But his real fear wasn’t over the diseases in the area. Yes, the principal had died from the effects of a microogranism, but Sheila’s mother had not, and neither had the Hunts. Preston couldn’t help connecting the deaths of Sheila’s mother and Wendy—both of whom worked in the school clinic. He might be stretching it a bit, but he couldn’t shake his worry.

The canoe was almost to the lake’s halfway point—a distance of about six hundred feet—and Blaze waved. As Preston waved back, the cell phone chirped from his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. Sheila. At last.

He flipped open the phone, eager to hear her voice, yet determined not to let on how badly he missed her, or how much he worried. “Are you there yet?”

“I’m here.” She sounded tired…and something more.

Sheila Metcalf was an eternally upbeat person who tended to lift the spirits of others—without irritating. Many perky people got on Preston’s nerves, but for as long as he had known Sheila, her presence had soothed him. Their relationship hadn’t always been comfortable, but being in her company was like a good day of fishing on James River.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The barest of hesitations alerted him further. “It’s been a long drive,” she said. “It’s hot, and I’m tired.”

“What happened?”

“What makes you think—”

“Did you find any sick people?”

“I just got here—how am I supposed to have done that?” The fatigue in her voice had quickly turned to irritation, not a usual response from her.

“Did you have trouble on the road?” he asked.

No reply. Which meant she’d had trouble on the road.

“Did the Jeep break down?” he asked. “I knew you should have taken mine.”

The continued silence disturbed him. He watched as Blaze moored the canoe to the small dock about a hundred feet down the gentle slope of hill from the house.

Lucy and Brittany ran to greet their good friend. Brittany hurled herself into his big, strong arms while Lucy hung back, suddenly shy. Lucy adored Blaze Farmer; she had informed Preston that she was going to marry Blaze when she grew up. Preston had a feeling Lucy might have some competition.

The handsome young college student could have an active social life if he weren’t so busy, completing three years of study in two years, helping out at the boys’ ranch that he called home, working part-time at the hospital for his foster mother, Dr. Cheyenne Gideon, taking care of most of the animals in town—Blaze intended to become Hideaway’s first full-time veterinarian.

Just watching the kid work made Preston tired.

“There was something in the desert.” Sheila’s voice was shaky as it reached Preston over the receiver.

His full attention snapped back to her. “Something like what?”