Good Medicine by Bobby Hutchinson

injured, with no shelter, food or water. What a story that would make for the gossip mill at St. Joe’s.
    She tried not to think about cougars and bears and whatever other wild animals hunted in these primitive woods.
    She looked at the watch on her wrist. It was already past nine.
    What time did it get light? Five? Five-thirty?
    Eight solid hours of darkness before dawn came again.
    She rolled into a ball, closed her eyes and began torecite the Latin names for the muscles of the body, but the image of Silas Keefer kept intruding. Where the hell was a healer when you needed one?
    S ILAS MOVED SILENTLY through the forest, making every step a prayer. He’d fasted all day, aware of the spirit that had been calling to him. He walked swiftly until at last he reached the sacred spot deep in the forest.
    Stopping inside a ring of alders, Silas made a ceremonial offering of a pinch of tobacco to the spirit of the place. He arranged his sleeping bag on the ground and sat, watching the last of the color fade from the sky. He waited, softly chanting the words Sandrine had taught him. Dusk became deep darkness, and hours passed before the ego barrier slowly dissipated and his mind became peaceful and open to guidance.
    The vision came as it always did for him, in pictures that flickered across his mind like stark images in a black-and-white film, silent phantoms clothed in symbols.
    There was the raven, the messenger, the symbol of change. And there was his friend, his personal totem, the bear—except that in this vision, the bear was female, with a cub. And the cub was in danger. He saw fear and monumental love. And death.
    When the vision faded, Silas stretched his aching legs, his heart heavy with foreboding. Death in a vision didn’t necessarily mean physical death. It could be an indication of profound change, an ending and a new beginning.
    Sleep was slow in coming. When it did, he dreamed of his father, Angus Keefer. But in the dreams Angus was no longer angry at Silas. No longer angry that he had abandoned everything Angus valued.
    Instead, Angus was very old and he was dying. He was holding out a gold wedding ring. “Take it, please,” he begged Silas. “It’s the ring of truth—it’s all I have to give you. It will heal the two parts of your spirit.”
    But Silas shook his head and walked away. He heard his father weeping, and his heart ached with the sound of the old man’s pain, but he didn’t turn back.
    He wanted nothing from his father. Angus gave nothing for nothing.
    If you have a choice between being right and being kind—be kind. Sandrine’s voice, chiding him.
    The next dream was vivid, sensual—and unnerving.
    It was dark. He was immersed in water as warm as blood. It covered every inch of him from head to toe. And yet he felt no need to breathe. Inside the circle of his arms was a woman, facing him. He couldn’t make out what she looked like, but her skin was as familiar to him as his own. Their legs were entwined, their naked bodies pressed tightly together. His erection was urgent, demanding, and she whispered, inviting him, urging him, to come into her.
    His intense desire warred with fear. If he entered her, he would lose something, some part of himself he needed to survive.
    In the dream, the feeling he had for her went far beyond desire, far beyond love. It was as if he held theother half of himself, but his fear was overwhelming, and he fought to escape, gulping in lungfuls of the water, suddenly aware that he was drowning—
    He bolted upright, heart pounding. It was the deepest hour of the night, the hour before dawn when the stars and moon were gone and light seemed only a distant memory. He heard the echo of the terrible sound he’d made, the lost and desolate cry that warbled back to him in the darkness.
    He didn’t sleep again. With the first gray light, Silas rose, willing the unsettling dream out of his mind. He meditated