“Holy - !” Luke gasped, and bolted from the room for the nearest phone.  Pete was on his knees in a congealing puddle of blood, holding Sarkozy’s left wrist in his paws.  A bloody fragment of a broken milk bottle lay nearby, and the Hungarian fox lay unresisting on his bunk.  His eyes were closed and the exposed skin on his nose looked pale.
        Luke snatched up the phone as two or three curious furs poked their heads into the open door.  “Hello, Jane?  Yeah, it’s Luke . . . well, of course I sound winded!” he said, his voice edged with irritation.  “Look, please call Doctor Travers and tell him . . . yes, yes, just tell him that he needs to get down to the police station pronto, or we’ll have a dead guy on our paws!”  He hung up without waiting for an answer and headed back to where Pete was helping their prisoner.
        “Jane’s calling the doctor,” the otter said. 
        “Great,” the bobcat said, rubbing his nose against his shoulder.  “Always happens,” he muttered, “you get your paws busy and your nose starts to itch . . . What the hell caused you to call me, Kelso?”
        “Well,” Luke replied, “I went to see Doc Thomas, and we were talking.  Next thing I know - I could see it, you know, clear as I’m seeing you now.”  He shrugged helplessly.  “I had to call you.”
        Pete nodded.  “So Windsong’s helping you.  That’s good.  And good job recognizing what the trouble was and calling me.”  He flashed a toothy grin of approval at the otter, an expression that changed as a fur stepped into the room.  “Doc!  I’m glad you’re here.  He’s still breathing.”
        “So I see,” the elderly red squirrel said in a soft British accent, stepping around Pete and placing his bag at the foot of the bed.  He rested a paw against the fox’s neck and closed his eyes briefly, then peeled back one of Sarkozy’s eyelids and frowned.  “Luke,” Travers said, “you got any whisky in the place?”
        “There’s a bottle upstairs in my room,” Pete said.
        “Good lad,” the doctor patted the bobcat on the head.  “Run up and fetch the bottle for me, Luke.  And some clean water.  Now, Pete, I want you to take your paws away from his wrist.”
        “He’ll start bleeding again,” Pete protested.
        Travers’ ears laid back, an impressive sight on a red squirrel.  “Don’t sass me, boy.  I brought you into this world.  Now, I have to see just how bad the wound is, so take your left paw away . . . that’s good . . . now the right . . . good job, you held the wound closed long enough that it scabbed over.  ‘Course, all that fur in there helped.  I’ll have to clean it before I do any stitching – ah,” he smiled as Luke came through the crowd of onlookers at the door with a bottle of brown liquid and a jug of water.  He also had several towels under one arm.  “Good, Luke.  Now, come over here.”
        Luke stepped closer and put the jug and towels down on the bed, then passed the bottle of liquor to the doctor.  The red squirrel pulled the cork from the bottle with his teeth, spat it out and took a healthy swallow of the whisky, then offered some to Pete.  The bobcat didn’t bother to wipe off his bloody paws, grabbing the bottle and drinking deeply.  “That’s enough,” Travers said, taking the bottle out of the lynx’s grasp.  “Luke, sit on this young fox.”
        “Why?”
        “Because when I pour this whisky on his wrist he’ll wake up, sure as you’re standing there,” Travers snapped.  Luke complied immediately, taking a seat on Sarkozy’s stomach.  “Good.  Pete, take his arm and hold it still,” and when the arm was secured Travers started pouring the liquor over the long, deep cut across the fox’s wrist.
        Sarkozy twitched, his eyes coming partly open as he feebly tried to move.  One of the onlookers commented “Waste of good booze” as Travers started wiping at the wrist with a towel.
        The doctor glared at the one who made the remark.  “Shut up,” he said.  “While I’m at it, two of you go over to my office and get the stretcher.”  Without waiting to see if his orders were being followed, the squirrel bent to examine the wound.  “Hmm . . . one laceration . . . doesn’t look like he hit any of the tendons.  Luke, pass me a towel, please.”
        He took the towel and wiped away some of the clotted blood, then wrapped the wrist up securely in the cloth.  “That ought to keep him until we get him over to my place,” he said.
        Pete shook his head.  “He’s a wanted fugitive.  He has to stay here.”
        “We need him on a table in my surgery so I can stitch him up, or he’ll be a dead fugitive,” Travers riposted.  Just then two canines entered with the stretcher and unfolded it.  “Pete, you and Luke get him onto the stretcher now,” the squirrel said.  “That towel ought to hold.”
        Pete stayed close to Sarkozy the whole way up the road to the doctor’s office, something that amused Travers.  “Don’t worry, Pete, he’s not going anywhere,” the doctor said.  “He’s lost a lot of blood, but you saved him.”
        “Wasn’t just me,” the bobcat said, jerking a thumb at Luke as he walked alongside. 
        “Hmm.  Well, good job then, the two of you.”


1900:

        Pete had left halfway through the procedure, claiming that he needed a bath to wash all of the blood from his fur.  He also needed to mop up all of the blood before it turned stale and started to stink.  Luke stayed in the surgery while Travers expertly cleaned and shaved the fox’s wound before suturing it closed.  “There we are,” he said as he tied the last knot and deftly snipped the end of the thread.  “Ten stitches, but he’ll be right as rain in a few days,” and the squirrel punctuated this comment by pulling off his rubber gloves with harsh snapping sounds.  He took off his thick eyeglasses and blinked a few times.
        “That’s good work, Doc,” Luke said, craning to look at the bandaged area on Sarkozy’s arm.  He glanced at the blood on his own paws and remarked, “I need to get home.  Linda will kill me for missing dinner.”
        “Eh?  Well, then, you scoot along home then,” Travers said.  Nodding to the unconscious fox he added, “Your friend’s not going to be waking up soon, and when he does he won’t run very far.” 
        Luke washed his paws and, after checking on the prisoner one more time, left the surgery.


        The bus didn’t run after six o’clock, so he had to walk the entire way home, and he was both tired and hungry by the time he reached his house. 
        His wife was sitting on their front porch with a small basket at her feet, and he could hear the click of her knitting needles as she worked on a hat and mittens for the coming baby.  “Hello, Luke,” she said quietly as he approached the house.
        He braced himself.  When she was quiet, his wife’s mood could best be described as ‘explosive.’  “Hello, Linda,” he said in a matching tone, stepping into the glow of the front porch light. 
        She glanced at him, then sat up straight, her ears standing up and her paws clenching around her knitting.  “Good Lord, look at you!  What have you been doing?” she exclaimed as she saw the blood on his shirt.
        Luke sat on the porch steps and said wearily, “Well, I went to talk to Doc Thomas, and I think he can help me get things sorted out.  While I was at his house our prisoner tried to kill himself.”  He looked at the dried blood on his sleeves.  “He’ll live.”
        “And here I was going to light into you for being late and missing dinner,” Linda said as she started to get up out of her chair.  “Come inside and I’ll fix you up something, then we need to get that shirt in the sink to soak or that blood’s never coming out.”  As she rose he went to assist her, and he kissed her as soon as she was standing.  “What was that for?” she asked.
        “Just wanted to do it,” he said, smiling.  “You look beautiful tonight.”
        She patted his face with a paw and headed inside, leaving him to pack up her knitting and switch off the front porch light.


        Later that night he drifted awake and lay there, listening to his wife’s breathing as she slept.  He closed his eyes and relaxed, and the World shifted around him again.
        This time he was not overlooking the forest, but was on the shore of a sea.  The sky was the same though, and as he looked around he saw the Bear waist-deep in the water, fishing.  “What now?” Luke asked.
        “Patience,” the Bear replied, reeling in his line and casting again.  “It will come to you.”
        “That’s what Doc Thomas said,” the otter commented, looking up at the sky.  “The darkness is getting closer.”
        “True.”
        “Going to tell me how to handle it?”
        “No,” the Bear replied, playing a fat salmon on the end of his line.  “You will know what to do.”
        “Some spirit guide you are,” Luke huffed, and the Bear turned to him and smiled.


August 12, 1935
0700:

        “Good morning, Luke,” Linda said as he walked into the kitchen the next morning.  The otter looked fresher after a bath and a session with his furbrushes.  “Sleep well?”
        “Yeah,” her husband replied, stretching, then kissing her.
        “I’m glad,” she said, returning the kiss before pouring him a cup of coffee.  She jerked and some of the hot coffee splashed out of the cup.  “Oh!”
        “What’s wrong?  Should I get the midwife?” Luke asked, his eyes going wide.
        “No, no, it’s not like that,” she hastened to assure him.  “He just kicked, that’s all.  I am getting close, though,” she said as he helped her to a chair.
        “Maybe I should stay home today,” he offered.
        She waved him away.  “You eat your breakfast and go on to work,” she said.  “I’ll be fine.  Mother Jezebel will be by later this morning to help with the garden, and if anything happens she can run and get help.”
        Luke buttered a slice of toast and dipped it into the yolks of his fried eggs.  “Well, if you’re sure . . . “
        She smiled at him.  “I’m sure.”


0900:

        The ferry from Canada eased into the Barnes Island slip at the scheduled time, and only a few furs disembarked.  The ferry saw some regular business back and forth between the Anarchcracy and the British dominion, mostly people buying or selling produce or other wares, or offering to sell their labor for an honest wage.  Any arguments between Seathl and Ottawa seemed very far away, and even when Canada had broken off relations ten years ago over fishing rights the ferry still ran and commerce still made its merry (and profitable) way.
        Two furs stepped off the ferry together.  There was nothing about them that would arouse any suspicion; one of them, a stocky lynx, carried two axes over one shoulder, while the fox accompanying him carried a knapsack full of tools.
        As they walked up the short road to Kyuquot, the fox murmured, “Do you think he came this way?”
        “Maybe, Doug,” the lynx replied, shifting the axes on his shoulder.  “I figure we stop here for a couple of days, then maybe we try further up the coast, eh?”
        “Fair enough, Bob,” the fox said with a nod.



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