Luke interrupted.  "Wait a minute.  Let me get this straight.  You're ... a scientist or something, right?  And ... you ran just because some guy took over in Germany?"  He shook his head skeptically.  "Well, ain't that something."  A glare from Sarkozy.  Luke grinned at the jumpy fox.  "Go on," he said as he leaned against the doorjamb.
        The fox leaned back on his bed, regarding his bandaged wrist.  "I ... went to England first.  I speak English rather well, you see, and that country has always been a refuge for exiles."  His tail
flicked under the sheet.  "But ... England's government is sympathetic to the Germans.  I was approached at my hotel ... and offered a job."
        Luke glanced at Doc Travers, busily engaged in cleaning his instruments.  "Doing what?"
        Sarkozy paused.  "They ... they wanted me to help them with a project."  He looked pained.  "There may be another war, and they offered me a great deal of money to help them."
        Doc's expression was impassive.  "Sounds like a good deal.  Why didn't you take their offer?"
        Sarkozy smiled.  It was not a nice smile. "Did you serve in your country's army, Doctor?"
        "No."  The red squirrel shook his head.  "I emigrated here a year before all that foolishness started."
        A slight nod from the fox.  "My brothers went to serve the Emperor on the field of battle.  Two never returned.  One left an arm on the banks of the Isonzo."  Sarkozy gave a shallow sigh.  "Since then, I have sworn to have nothing to do with weapons."
        Doc Travers nodded and sat down as Sarkozy continued.  "I told the British no.  They persisted.  I fled ... they threatened, you see - "
        "Torture?"  the doctor said, aghast.
        Sarkozy's eyes were haunted.  "I had to get away, you see.  So I went to Canada."
        Luke snorted.  "Bad choice.  Remember, they're still part of the British Empire."
        “I knew that,” Sarkozy said quietly.  “But I had hoped their leaders would at least be sane.  I was found in Montreal, and taken to Ottawa.  The offer was made again, again I refused.  I managed to escape them and headed west.”
        “To Saskatchewan.”
        Sarkozy nodded.  “They caught me and put me in jail, making up charges that I was a . . . what word?  Swindler, yes?”  At Luke’s nod, he added, “I did not mean to kill that guard, but I struck him too hard.”  The fox looked downcast.  “I am sorry.”
        Silence reigned for several moments before Luke straightened up and stuck his paws in his pockets.  “Interesting story,” he said, “but it doesn’t change a thing, really.  You’re charged with fraud and murder by the police in Canada, and you’ll have to go back there as soon as you’re well enough to go.”  Sarkozy gaped at the otter, looking as if he were about to start crying as he laid back on the bed.
        Doc Travers beckoned to Luke, waving him over to the far side of the room.  He edged close to the otter and whispered, “Are you sure?  He sounds very sincere.”
        Luke shook his head slightly.  “Can’t do it, Doc.  I’ve got orders, and so has Pete.  You don’t want us to get in trouble, now do you?”  He stepped away from the red squirrel and moved to the door as he said, “I’ve got to get to the office.  I just stopped by to see – “
        Sarkozy grabbed at Luke’s paw.
        The otter gasped as the World he knew wavered again, and he shook his head and pulled his paw from the fox’s grasp.  “What the hell is it with you?” he demanded as the fox gave him a look that was equal parts mystified and frightened.  “I’ve had to see the town shaman about that, because every time I touch you . . .”  His voice trailed off.
        Only once had he touched Sarkozy and not felt his surroundings fading away, and that was when the fox lay near death in his cell. 
        He then made a quick decision.
        Luke dragged up a stool and sat, extending a paw as he took several breaths to center himself.  “Take hold of my paw, Sarkozy,” he said.  “Doc, keep an eye on us, please.”
        The fox studied the otter warily, then complied.

        This time the World receded and he let it happen, leaving him standing again on a featureless plain.  The sky was the same, complete with the impending darkness in what he now knew was the East.
        “You are closer to understanding,” and he turned to face the Bear as It smiled at him.
        “I think so,” Luke said.  “The darkness is somehow connected to Sarkozy, is that it?” and as he asked a form flickered into existence on the plain, a thin fox with the Bear’s outline superimposed over the image.
        “You are very close now,” Bear said.
        Luke started thinking.  The Bear was not Coyote; It wouldn’t be going to all this trouble to trick him.  No, there was something else . . .  “Sarkozy is telling the truth,” he said.
        The Bear smiled.
        “And the darkness . . . someone or something is chasing him.” 
        A nod from the totem.
        “You’ve been helping him,” Luke said.  “Guiding him here.”
        “Yes.”
        “Why?”
        Silence.
        “Wrong question, I know,” Luke said wearily.  He had thought he could trip up the Bear and get a complete answer to his question, but the totem was obviously way ahead of him.  “I need to figure it out for myself.”
        “True.”
        “I knew . . . “
         “. . . you were going to say that.”
        Luke blinked.  He was still sitting in the doctor’s surgery, Sarkozy clinging to his paw with an expression of mixed apprehension, shock and curiosity.  Doc Travers was seated nearby, and as the otter stirred he said, “Good Lord, Luke!  Are you all right?”
        “I – I think so,” he replied.  “What time is it?” he asked, hoping that he hadn’t been in a trance too long.
        Travers glanced at the clock.  “Nearly ten o’clock.  You’ve been like that for quite some time.”
        “Nearly two hours,” Luke said, disengaging himself from Sarkozy and running the paw through his headfur.  “I have to get to work,” he said, lurching to his feet and swaying momentarily.  “Take care of him, Doc.”


1015:

        “Kelso!  Where the hell have you been?” Circling Eagle said as the otter walked into the police building.  Luke’s partner, Jack, stared at his friend as Luke closed the door behind him.  “I was about to call your wife to find out where you’d got off to.”
        “Sorry, Pete,” Luke said, nodding to Jack as he added, “Can we step into your office?  I think I found out a few things.”
        The bobcat looked at the fox, then nodded, and once the office door was closed Luke said, “I stopped by Doc Travers to look in on Sarkozy.  While I was there, he told me what he said was the real reason he’s here,” and he swiftly recounted what the fox had told him.
        “Interesting,” Pete said, “but it doesn’t prove a thing.”
        “I know, but let me tell you what happened next.”  He described what he had seen.  “That’s what made me late getting here.”
        Circling Eagle frowned, his whiskers drooping.  One of the many things that made Rain Island unique from most other nations was its judicial system.  Testimony from recognized shamans was considered truthful until proven otherwise. 
        The trick was that Luke wasn’t a shaman. 
        “No way to corroborate this,” the bobcat said flatly.  “Even under oath, Luke, I doubt that a court would even hear you out.”
        “We could have Doc Thomas take a look,” Jack offered.  “C’mon, Sarge, it’d be a way to know, once and for all.”
        The bobcat thought it over, then nodded.    “Tom’s the only one in town with the right training and the license,” he said, “so Luke, you and Jack go on over to his house and see if he’ll agree to spiritwalk Sarkozy.  We have a magistrate coming up from Naikoon in a few days to rule on whether we should put the prisoner on the ferry back to Canada.” 
        “Okay, Pete,” Jack said, his brush giving a flick as he walked over to the door.  He and his partner stepped out of the office.

        The two walked up the hill toward the Windsong house and Jack asked, “So, are you going to get licensed as a shaman?”
        The question brought Luke up short, and the otter’s tail swished as he replied, “Never thought about it, Jack.  I only had the basics that Mother Hanakan taught us in school.  Tom was the one who felt the call, you know.”
        “Nothing says you can’t go back to it,” the fox observed, smiling in passing at a pair of young vixens who smiled back, then giggled to each other.  One looked back in time to catch Jack winking at her, and she burst into another fit of giggling.
        “I guess,” Luke said.  “But I’ll have to talk to Linda – and I’m not going to talk to her about it until after she’s had the baby.”  He scuffed his boot across a tuft of grass.  “I’m not giving her any more to worry about than she already has.”
        “Well, you shouldn’t worry about it either,” Jack said, “and you know I’m thinking about you and Linda.”
        The otter smiled and clapped his partner on the shoulder.  “Thanks, Jack.”

        They didn’t find Windsong at his house, and belatedly recalled that he would probably be down at the market, selling the excess produce that he grew in his family’s plot.  “Why didn’t you remember that?” Jack asked with a grin.
        “Why didn’t you?” Luke riposted, and as the two started back down the hill he paused.  “I promised Linda I’d have lunch at the house.”
        “Hmm, must be getting close to noon, at that,” Jack said.  “Tell you what – you go have lunch, and I’ll tell Tom what’s going on.”


1300:
 
        Doc Travers looked up from his newspaper (the Kyuquot Clarion, containing stories telegraphed from the main national paper in Seathl, always arrived in the afternoon), ears flicking.  Someone was knocking on his door, and he got up to investigate.  “Hello!” he said as he opened the door, “What can I do for you, young man?”
        The muscular fox smiled and took off his cap.  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said.  “Do you need any work done?”
        “Hmm.”  The red squirrel put a paw to his chin.  “What can you do?”
        The fox grinned and jerked his thumb at the knapsack full of tools a few steps lower on the porch.  “I’m a journeyman carpenter, sir, but I also know bricklaying and plumbing.”
        The doctor thought a moment.  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” Travers said.  “Part of my fence – over on that side, to your right - needs some repairs.  Go on down to the lumber yard and get what you need.  I’ll call ahead so you won’t have to pay, and I promise to pay you a fair wage if you get it done by sundown.  Fair?”
        “That’s fair of you, sir,” the fox said, and put his cap back on.  “My name’s Doug.”  He put out his paw, and the red squirrel shook it.
        “John Travers,” the doctor said, and went back into the house to place a phone call. 



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