The concept of the Highlander universe and the character of Duncan MacLeod were created by someone else. They belong to someone else. Actually, they belong to a bunch of people - Gregory Widen, Peter Davis, William Panzer, the folks at Gaumont, and those at Rysher Entertainment, as well.
They do not belong to me, and I'm borrowing them without permission. Because Highlander-The Series is my favorite TV show, and because this story has been written out of love with no hope of monetary gain - I hope they'll forgive the transgression.
This story is mine as are characters of Sara Jane MacKensie, Wolfgang Kroeger and various minor players - so please don't take them anywhere without letting me know.
*****************************
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep."
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost
Danny Chou sat perfectly still and concentrated on the sounds that filled the night. Crickets chirped. Katydids chattered. A slight breeze whispered through the leaves. His heart thumped against his breast bone. Something had snatched him from a sound sleep. Something he'd heard. Something he'd felt. He didn't know what had caused him to wake with such a start, but it left an uneasy residue.
Next to him, Mei Lin slept, curled on her side, breathing slow and steady. Love for his wife filled his heart and soothed his jangled nerves. He ran his hand over her long silken hair. She stirred, but continued to sleep. Once more, he tuned into the night sounds of the forest. Normal sounds, he supposed. Country sounds, alien to a city boy's ears. Bustling traffic, sirens wailing and garbage trucks whining their way through the streets at 5 a.m. - those were the sounds that usually lulled him to sleep. He chuckled, then he nestled down into his sleeping bag, again.
He had just slipped under the edge of sleep when rough hands dragged him from the tent. He barely had time to inhale when the first fist slammed into his face. The snap of his cheek bone breaking added nausea to the toxic brew of pain and confusion. More fists and a club pummeled his back, and he curled to protect himself from being kicked in the stomach.
"Stop ... please stop," he pleaded, gasping for air as one of several pairs of boots found a target at the base of his spine. *Mei Lin* ... *Kim*. He lifted his head to search for signs of his wife and daughter, but another blow brought it down. Screams of terror sliced into his heart. *I must protect them ... I must*. He fought for the strength to get up, but he couldn't move, and the men continued to beat him.
A harsh voice rasped close to his ear, "Filthy gook - you should have stayed where you belong." Then the sharp point of a knife pierced his side. And another ... And another.
The last thing Danny Chou remembered before the dark oblivion sucked him under was the searing agony of the knife wounds ... and screams fading into silence.
****
Sara's foot slipped off a wet rock and into the water. Tensing the muscles in her other leg, she flung her arms wide and held her balance. Only the good boots she wore prevented her from twisting her ankle. She glanced at her watch, and realized she'd been hiking for more than four hours - time for a break. Leaning against a large boulder near the edge of the stream, she took a long swallow from her water bottle, then closed her eyes.
The morning sun angled through the cover of fragrant pines to warm her face. Peace and rush of euphoria swirled around her like a warm mist as the soft chorus of the forest enveloped her. A slight breeze sighed its way through the leaves. The stream gurgled as clear water danced over rocks. Birds chattered and chirped as they went about their daily tasks. Then human voices broke through the murmur of the forest - angry voices coming from the top of the cliff behind her.
Sara opened her eyes and frowned. An unintelligible shout tinged with fear echoed over the valley, chilling her on this warm day. Branches snapped. Something heavy crashed through them as it cleared a path, then landed with a muffled, but sickening thump. The silence closed in, then the natural sounds of the forest resumed.
Fear gnawed at Sara's gut. For seconds that felt like centuries, she couldn't move. She held her breath until it threatened to burst her lungs. She strained her ears listening for more foreign sounds, but heard nothing except a faint rustling of the brush. Disturbed by human passage? Or just the wind? She couldn't tell. She moved cautiously away from the shelter of the boulder and looked up. Nothing.
Following the direction of the sounds, she edged carefully around an outcropping of rock to her right. She found no evidence of human activity here either. Picking her way among the rocks that littered the edge of the stream, she moved into the small clearing. She examined the band of sand that hemmed the rushing water, then the cliff itself with a critical glance. Something had fallen from the top. Something big enough to make quite a racket. It had to be here. Then she saw it. About a third of the way up, a ledge jutted out from the nearly sheer surface. An arm swathed in blue cloth dangled over the edge.
Like waves tossed upon the shore by an angry sea, questions sprang up to batter her brain. Male or female? Dead or alive? Accident or malicious action? Was she in danger?
Stunned, she stood motionless and listened again, then she swept another glance over the cliff. Her senses whispered that she was alone. She hoped they were right, then her instincts kicked in and spurred her to action.
A few steps across the sand brought her to the base of the cliff. There she shrugged off her backpack and dug out her climbing gear. A skilled climber, she reached the ledge in minutes. Pausing a moment with her hand on the edge, she took a deep breath to steel herself for the sight she was sure to face.
"Come on Sara," she scolded, speaking aloud to bolster her courage. "You've seen blood and gore before."
Images of other bodies flashed before her as she hauled herself up onto the ledge. Doing research at the hospital and in the morgue, she'd seen them all - accident victims, crime victims - mostly all dead or injured from something other than natural causes. The things a writer had to do to inject a little authenticity into her work.
The ledge was larger than it appeared from the ground, but the body left little maneuvering room. Seeing no other option, she swallowed the slight nausea that rose in her throat, then dragged herself over the lifeless form.
She knelt next to it as she slipped the extra rope from her shoulder. He was dead all right. No doubt about that. *Damn shame*, came a response from someplace deep within her - someplace a lot lower than her brain. She shook her head as she gazed down at what was still a handsome face despite a deep gash near the hairline, various other cuts and bruises too numerous to inventory.
A dark red stain crept over the rock beneath his head. She shifted her knee to avoid it. *Probably a broken skull.* She shuddered. And judging from the angle of the body, a broken back as well. Hoping her eyes were deceiving her, she reached for his throat to check for a pulse. Long dark hair tickled her fingers, but they found no life-sustaining throb.
Feeling like an intruder, she searched his pockets for some identification. She found nothing in the front pockets except three quarters, two nickels, a dime and half a roll of spearmint Lifesavers with green and silver foil smoothly tucked around the open end. Taking care not to look at the substantial wound at the back of his head, she rolled him toward her onto his side. *Paydirt!* In the back pocket of his pants, she found a comb and a black leather wallet. She pulled the wallet out carefully, then flipped it open.
*Five hundred and forty-seven dollars ... in cash!* She whistled as she thumbed through the thick wad of bills, then glanced at the few slips of paper she found. The neat, precise script offered an address here, a name and a phone number there, but most of the jottings were too cryptic to mean anything except to their author, however, the carefully folded receipt for a T'ang Dynasty bowl whetted her curiosity. She lifted an eyebrow at the number of zeros in the handwritten price, but as intriguing as it was, it didn't identify the man lying before her.
The only photo - slightly faded and worn around the edges as though it was frequently handled - showed an attractive blonde woman standing next to a black T-bird. * Wife?* *Girlfriend?* Turning the wallet she finally found what she sought - a driver's license issued to one Duncan MacLeod.
As Sara compared the photo on the license with the face of the man, something nagged at her. She frowned. *What's wrong with this picture?* Then it came to her like the sun breaking through clouds - credit cards - that was it! The man had no credit cards. She checked again - not a one. In this day and age - a man with no credit cards. *Weird.* She sucked on her bottom lip, as she slipped the wallet into pocket of her vest. They could have been stolen - but why take the cards and leave the cash? It didn't make sense.
"So how do you rent a car with no credit cards, Duncan MacLeod," she asked, even though she knew he would never answer. Thinking of him as a person - a living breathing person - instead of a corpse, somehow made the task ahead of her less daunting.
*Now what?* She slumped back to sit on her bent legs, as she analyzed the situation. He had to be at least 6 feet tall - probably weighed close to 200 pounds. Though she worked hard to keep herself in shape, handling a body that big would stretch her strength to the limit.
She glanced up at the top of the cliff again. The owners of the other voices didn't appear to be searching for him - that was another fact begging for consideration, but she didn't want to ponder those implications. If he was a crime victim, she shouldn't disturb the scene, but this wasn't the city. Getting help, even calling the police would require a hike back to her cabin, and Sheriff Tanner rarely handled anything more complex than running a speed trap. By the time he rounded up his men and drove up here, the scavengers would have a feast. Her mind recoiled at the thought.
No, she couldn't leave him here. He probably had family or someone who cared about him - maybe the blonde woman in the photo. She wouldn't want one of her loved ones left to that kind of fate. She had to assume that his people wouldn't either.
She stood and looked down. It would take some doing, but since her kit always included extra climbing gear, she thought she could manage. She dug through the half dozen or so pockets in her vest, then dropped a handful of pitons and carbineers on the ground next to the blue nylon rope, and planned her descent.
****
Sara stopped paddling and left the rubber raft drift for a moment. She brushed a straying strand of blonde hair away from her eyes and exhaled slowly. Sighting a familiar rock formation on the right filled her with relief and a sense of satisfaction. *Home at last!* Dipping the paddle into the water again, she guided the raft to the edge of the stream.
Getting Duncan MacLeod off the ledge and into the inflatable raft - another item she always tucked in her backpack - had proved far more difficult than she had initially thought. Wearily, she slipped over the side of the raft and into the icy stream. It whispered as it swirled around her ankles, and it invited her to sink down into the cold water. It would feel great to just let the swift current ease her aching muscles for the next hour, but she still had much work ahead of her.
Rubber met sand with a rasp as she pulled the raft ashore, then she knelt down to splash cold water over her face. The water stung slightly as it hit the still tender skin of her palms. She turned her hands to examine them. They were red and raw from the rope slipping through them, but not as bad as she thought they would be. *If she hadn't been wearing good gloves.* She shuddered at the thought, then she gazed at the man slumped in the front of the raft.
"Good thing, you're dead, MacLeod," she said. "You would never have survived my rescue attempt."
She'd gotten him about half way down from the ledge when the muscles in her hands and arms rebelled against the effort. She just couldn't hold his weight any longer. The rope slipped through her hands, and he had fallen the last ten or twelve feet. She had rushed to his side, apologies bursting from her lips, then she stopped short, remembering that this was only a body. The man Duncan MacLeod had been was long gone, yet she still felt a twinge of remorse. The dead deserved respect. "Sorry about that, MacLeod," she had said. "But you got to admit it's better than waiting for the vultures."
She stood, pulled the raft further up onto the sand, then slipped her hands under his arms and wrestled him out of the boat. Sitting back to rest from her labors she looked down at his face. *Oh great, now my mind is playing tricks - what happened to the gash on his forehead?* Brushing his hair aside, she checked again, but except for a little dried blood, there was no trace of a cut. Something else struck her as odd, but she couldn't quite pin it down.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes bidding it to reveal itself. Then she opened her eyes wide as it hit her. *Rigor mortis!* The body had been limp as she pulled it from the raft, when it should have been stiff as a ... stiff. She grinned wryly at the pun her brain tossed out. "This isn't a joke," she scolded. But it was pretty weird.
She certainly didn't profess to be an expert, but Jake Anderson, the county medical examiner, loved sharing his knowledge with a best selling mystery writer in return for an acknowledgment at the front of her book. The lesson on rigor mortis had been among the first few, and she knew it set in soon after death.
Then she remembered the feel of his skin on her fingers as she brushed his hair back. Warm - it had been warm. It should have been cool. A rush of anxiety jolted her, sending tingling chills skittering along her nerves. She rubbed her hand over her f orehead. *What have I done? What if he's still alive?*
Remembering the pool of blood, remembering the angle of his body on the ledge, she shook her head. No, he had to be dead. He wasn't breathing and he didn't have a pulse. Definitely dead. Still she reached for his throat to check again. The warm flesh of his throat raised gooseflesh on her arms, but her fingers found no pulse. To be sure, she leaned over and pressed her ear to the blue chambray covering his chest. The heat of his body seeped through the fabric and touched her ear, yet his heart lay still.
She shuddered, stood, brushed the sand off her knees, then returned to the raft to retrieve her belongings. As she bent over to pick up her rifle, the strange popping sounds started again. Listening intently, she turned to locate the source. She'd heard them before as she paddled downstream, but she dismissed them, thinking they were just animal noises. Now they sounded like they were coming from the body.
She slung the rope and the backpack over her shoulder, tucked the rifle under her arm and grabbed the black nylon bag she'd found lying at the base of the cliff where she'd found MacLeod. She approached the body, cautiously, then listened again - nothing but the natural forest noises. "Girl, you're letting your imagination run rampant again." She shook her head and chuckled softly, "Jake's not gonna believe this one."
Dropping her burdens next to a large boulder, she then turned to survey her next obstacle. She'd been up and down this cliff more times than she could remember and she usually climbed it as easily as she mounted a staircase, but today it looked formidable. Today, she had a body to haul up with her, and just thinking about it left her exhausted. She sank down to sit in the sand next to the rock, then fished her water bottle out of the backpack. As she took a long swallow, every muscle in her body twitched from overexertion, and her head hurt. Leaning back against the rock, she closed her eyes, then drifted easily into the hazy fringe area between sleep and wakefulness.
A loud gasp, from somewhere close by, woke her with a start. Her heart hammered as she swept a glance over the small strip of sand. Except for the body, she was alone.
"Who's there?" she called. No one answered.
Instinctively, she extended her arm, seeking her rifle, but it had fallen out of reach. Still searching for signs of an intruder, she moved her hand to the hatchet that hung from a loop on her belt, then unsnapped the leather sheath.
Keeping her back to the rock, she scrambled to her feet and listened hard. The rapid thump of her heart beating against her chest nearly drowned out the natural sounds, but that was all she heard. She looked around again - more carefully this time, examining every rock and dead branch for signs of life. Her eyes narrowed as her search brought them to the man lying on his side a few feet away.
*Huh?* Sara frowned. *On his side?* She had left him lying on his back. She was sure of it.
"What the--" A groan chopped off the end of her oath. A groan that came from the body ... the dead body.
"No way, " she said, as she flattened herself against the rock. Quick reflexes lifted the hand holding the hatchet over her head.
Her blood coursed cold as the stream, and her eyes widened until her face hurt as she watched a dead man lift his hands to his head. He groaned again as he rolled to his knees.
"D-don't move another muscle," she cautioned, waving the hatchet for emphasis. Thoughts of garlic, silver crosses and wooden stakes flickered across her mind. She shook her head to banish them. "I think I've been reading too many Anne Rice novels ... besides it's daylight," she muttered to reassure herself. She blinked, but he was still there on his knees when she opened her eyes.
Despite her admonition, he leaned back on his heels, resting his hands on his thighs. Thick dark brows gave his soft brown eyes a hawkish expression as he glanced briefly at the hatchet, then back to her face. One corner of his mouth curved into a chagrined smile. "Hello," he said quietly.
"You ... you ... you're dead!" As hard as she tried, Sara couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice.
The man's grin widened. "Do I look dead?"
She had to admit he didn't, but not to him. "Two minutes ago, you did! Why, I've seen corpses in the morgue for a week that looked more alive than you did." An exaggeration to be sure, but hey - she was talking to a dead man.
He shrugged, wincing as he did. "If I'm dead, then who are you talking to?"
Sara narrowed her eyes as she studied him. *Who indeed?* "'A bit of underdone potato,'" she quoted Dickens. "The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Second Coming, Count Dracula ... I don't know." She paced in front of the rock as she thought, lowering the hatchet as she did.
A flicker of movement on the edge of her vision stopped her. She whirled around to face him, then brandished the hatchet as a warning. He heeded it. *Hmmm,* she thought, raising one eyebrow as she considered this. *Afraid of a little hatchet, are we? Now that's interesting.* "But you were dead."
"Maybe," he replied. Shifting his weight slowly, he pulled one leg out from under him, then eased back to sit in the sand. "But I'm not now."
Sara gaped at him, amazed at the complete lack of logic in that statement, but it was true. "Obviously," she said, injecting as much sarcasm as she could muster.
Like two cats meeting on neutral turf, they engaged in a staring contest. He lost, Sara decided, as he broke his stare to glance at the hatchet again.
"Why don't you put that down?" He indicated the hatchet with a nod of his head. "I won't hurt you."
"Uh-huh ... and Santa Claus makes annual visits. I think I'll hang on to it."
The man's shoulders lifted as he sighed, bringing on another wince. "You know," he spoke slowly as if speaking to a child or a metal patient. "If you want to defend yourself, don't you think the gun would be more effective."
Without taking her eyes off him, Sara hunched down and picked up the gun. She tucked it under her arm. "I'd forgotten it. Thanks for reminding me." She raised one eyebrow slightly, as she thought about it. *Kind of an odd thing for a man in your position to do.*
"You know, MacLeod ..." She watched his eyes widen as she called him by name. A rush of satisfaction warmed her - she was one up on him. "You are one very weird dude." She paused waiting for a response. He gave her none.
"You drop down from out of nowhere. You were dead when I found you - and you won't convince me otherwise. Now you're alive ... and tell me what kind of game do you hunt with a sword?"
His sharp inhalation cut her litany short. "A sword ... you found my sword?"
Apparently the sword was important. A man with no credit cards who carries a sword into the woods. *If I wrote this character into a novel, my editor would die laughing right after she threw me out of her office.* Sara glanced down and spotted it lying next to the black nylon bag, then she dropped the hatchet as she bent to pick it up. Holding it in one hand while she cradled the rifle in the other, she swung it back and forth in front of her. It affected MacLeod like a snake charmer's flute affects a cobra. He stared as if mesmerized, and his head shifted slightly in rhythm with her motion.
He blinked, then shook his head, breaking the spell. He lifted his hand and with one finger on the tip, he pushed it slowly to the side. "Be careful with that ... it's very sharp."
"I would expect it to be." She lifted it to study the blade. "It's a katana, isn't it?" She glanced at him for confirmation. He lifted one eyebrow, then he nodded. "And very old too, I would guess."
"You know about swords?" he asked, watching her with an expression she couldn't interpret.
"I'm a writer, " she answered. "I know about a lot of things." She moved the sword to point it at him again. He failed in his attempt to mask a flinch. Emboldened by his reaction, she took a step closer and held the sword under his chin. He sat frozen, only a muscle twitching near his jaw hinted at any emotion.
"Okay, MacLeod - time to start talking. Who are you? *What* are you? And at this point I'm more interested in the what, than the who." She moved the sword back a notch so he could talk without impaling himself.
He closed his eyes as he exhaled deeply. "I am Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod," he began.
"Yeah, yeah. I know all that," Sara said, letting her impatience show. "I found your wallet - I know your name. What I want to know is why you were dead, and now you're not. And don't try to tell me you weren't dead ... I've seen dead, and you were dead."
He studied her for a few minutes, then he sighed. "It's a long story."
Sara stepped back to lean against the rock. "I'm in no hurry." Since he seemed undaunted by it, she put the rifle down, then held the sword in both hands. "Start talking."
"Look," he said, shifting as though he intended to stand. Sara wiggled the sword at him and he sank back into the sand. "There's no time for explanations now. I've got to catch the men I was tracking - the ones who forced me off that cliff. They beat and stabbed a friend of mine, left him for dead, then kidnapped his wife and daughter. I think they were headed this way."
Sara frowned as she considered his story. *What if he was telling the truth?* She curled the edge of her mouth between her teeth, and bit into her lower lip. The pain was real. This was real. She wasn't dreaming. "If they're so dangerous, why are you chasing them yourself? Why didn't you call the police?"
"I did, but that idiot sheriff couldn't track a carrot if it was nailed to his nose. They were still trying to organize a search party when I set out on my own."
Sara pictured the Keystone Kops and smiled at the image. "Ah, so you've met our illustrious sheriff. Jed Tanner is the mayor's nephew," she explained.
"That figures," he said with a snort of disgust. "Look, I've lost a lot of time. Why don't you just give me back my sword. I'll go on my way and you can forget you ever saw me." He made a move to get up.
"Ah-ah-ah - not so fast!" She waggled the sword again. He sat back, but his clenched fists indicated growing impatience. If he rushed her, she knew he could easily overpower her, so what was he waiting for? And what was the deal with the sword? She still wanted answers - he owed her more of an explanation than he had given. Yet if he was telling the truth, innocent people might get hurt. Her head swam with mounting confusion.
"Okay, so you're a man with a mission. Give me the Reader's Digest version of why you're alive, when you should be dead, and I'll let you go. I'll even help, if you want."
Moving cautiously, he kept his eyes on the sword, then he passed a hand over his face. "You wouldn't believe it, if I told you."
"Like I said, I'm a writer, MacLeod, the boundaries of my disbelief are very flexible. Try me."
MacLeod studied her with those large brown eyes. His expression changed as he clearly debated with himself. He closed them for a moment, took a deep breath then let it out slowly. "I'm Immortal," he said.
"Immortal - as never die?"
"Something like that."
"But you were dead when I found you."
"Yes, but when Immortals die, it's just a temporary condition."
"Immortals - plural. There are more than just you?"
"Yes, many more."
Sara didn't know why, but she believed him. Believed that he thought he was immortal, anyway. She considered herself a fairly good judge of character, and he seemed sincere. The whole situation was so very bizarre, she didn't know what else to think.
"Okay MacLeod. Let's just say I accept your explanation ... for now. Come on," she said.
As she bent to pick up the pile of gear, she watched him get up. He moved slowly and seemed unsteady. He held his hands out for balance, then lifted one up to massage the back of his neck. "Are you all right?" she asked, allowing compassion to seep into her voice.
He smiled. Sara's knees weakened. "I'll live," he said.
"Apparently so," she replied, smiling back. Who ever he was, whatever he was, her body responded the same way it always did when confronted with a man as gorgeous as Duncan MacLeod. He'd looked good dead. Alive, he was spectacular.
"The only way out of here is up," she said pointing the sword at the top of the cliff. "Can you manage the climb?"
"No problem," he said, but he had turned to face the cliff, so she couldn't see his expression.
At base of the cliff, she dropped the gear again. Feeling the weight of his wallet in her vest pocket, she fished it out. "This belongs to you," she said, handing it over with the black nylon bag.
"So does that." He pointed to the sword she still clutched in her right hand.
She glanced from the sword to his face, then up at the cliff. One of them had to go first. If he did, she would be very vulnerable dangling from a rope halfway up, but she didn't want him trailing her with that sword in his hands either. There were limits to the amount of trust she would put in a stranger - especially one who could rise from the dead. "I think I'll hold onto it a bit longer," she said, watching his eyes. They revealed nothing as he stared a moment, then shrugged his resignation.
Pulling a bungee cord out of her backpack, she looped it around the hilt, then attached it so it wouldn't get in her way. "You can have it back when we get to the top," she said, slipping her arms through the straps of the backpack. She grabbed the rope, then turned to begin her ascent.
"Ah ... you have me at a slight disadvantage." he said.
She paused with one foot on the rock face, then turned her head. *And that's just the way I want it too.* She smiled.
"You have my sword," he continued, "And you know my name, but I don't know yours."
She set her foot back on the ground, then extended her hand. "Sara ... Sara Jane MacKensie."
He lifted one eyebrow, as he took and held her hand for a moment. "MacKensie is a Highlander's name. Are you a Highlander, Sara Jane MacKensie?"
She'd never considered this before. She had detected the trace of an accent in his deep voice, but she couldn't place it. Now she did. She shrugged. "I guess my Dad's family might have been, if you traced them back far enough," she replied. "But I don't know about me. I'm just a stray cat - the MacKensie's adopted me when I was an infant." With that she turned and began her climb.
They do not belong to me, and I'm borrowing them without permission. Because Highlander-The Series is my favorite TV show, and because this story has been written out of love with no hope of monetary gain - I hope they'll forgive the transgression.
This story is mine as are characters of Sara Jane MacKensie, Wolfgang Kroeger and various minor players - so please don't take them anywhere without letting me know.
*****************************
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep."
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost
Danny Chou sat perfectly still and concentrated on the sounds that filled the night. Crickets chirped. Katydids chattered. A slight breeze whispered through the leaves. His heart thumped against his breast bone. Something had snatched him from a sound sleep. Something he'd heard. Something he'd felt. He didn't know what had caused him to wake with such a start, but it left an uneasy residue.
Next to him, Mei Lin slept, curled on her side, breathing slow and steady. Love for his wife filled his heart and soothed his jangled nerves. He ran his hand over her long silken hair. She stirred, but continued to sleep. Once more, he tuned into the night sounds of the forest. Normal sounds, he supposed. Country sounds, alien to a city boy's ears. Bustling traffic, sirens wailing and garbage trucks whining their way through the streets at 5 a.m. - those were the sounds that usually lulled him to sleep. He chuckled, then he nestled down into his sleeping bag, again.
He had just slipped under the edge of sleep when rough hands dragged him from the tent. He barely had time to inhale when the first fist slammed into his face. The snap of his cheek bone breaking added nausea to the toxic brew of pain and confusion. More fists and a club pummeled his back, and he curled to protect himself from being kicked in the stomach.
"Stop ... please stop," he pleaded, gasping for air as one of several pairs of boots found a target at the base of his spine. *Mei Lin* ... *Kim*. He lifted his head to search for signs of his wife and daughter, but another blow brought it down. Screams of terror sliced into his heart. *I must protect them ... I must*. He fought for the strength to get up, but he couldn't move, and the men continued to beat him.
A harsh voice rasped close to his ear, "Filthy gook - you should have stayed where you belong." Then the sharp point of a knife pierced his side. And another ... And another.
The last thing Danny Chou remembered before the dark oblivion sucked him under was the searing agony of the knife wounds ... and screams fading into silence.
****
Sara's foot slipped off a wet rock and into the water. Tensing the muscles in her other leg, she flung her arms wide and held her balance. Only the good boots she wore prevented her from twisting her ankle. She glanced at her watch, and realized she'd been hiking for more than four hours - time for a break. Leaning against a large boulder near the edge of the stream, she took a long swallow from her water bottle, then closed her eyes.
The morning sun angled through the cover of fragrant pines to warm her face. Peace and rush of euphoria swirled around her like a warm mist as the soft chorus of the forest enveloped her. A slight breeze sighed its way through the leaves. The stream gurgled as clear water danced over rocks. Birds chattered and chirped as they went about their daily tasks. Then human voices broke through the murmur of the forest - angry voices coming from the top of the cliff behind her.
Sara opened her eyes and frowned. An unintelligible shout tinged with fear echoed over the valley, chilling her on this warm day. Branches snapped. Something heavy crashed through them as it cleared a path, then landed with a muffled, but sickening thump. The silence closed in, then the natural sounds of the forest resumed.
Fear gnawed at Sara's gut. For seconds that felt like centuries, she couldn't move. She held her breath until it threatened to burst her lungs. She strained her ears listening for more foreign sounds, but heard nothing except a faint rustling of the brush. Disturbed by human passage? Or just the wind? She couldn't tell. She moved cautiously away from the shelter of the boulder and looked up. Nothing.
Following the direction of the sounds, she edged carefully around an outcropping of rock to her right. She found no evidence of human activity here either. Picking her way among the rocks that littered the edge of the stream, she moved into the small clearing. She examined the band of sand that hemmed the rushing water, then the cliff itself with a critical glance. Something had fallen from the top. Something big enough to make quite a racket. It had to be here. Then she saw it. About a third of the way up, a ledge jutted out from the nearly sheer surface. An arm swathed in blue cloth dangled over the edge.
Like waves tossed upon the shore by an angry sea, questions sprang up to batter her brain. Male or female? Dead or alive? Accident or malicious action? Was she in danger?
Stunned, she stood motionless and listened again, then she swept another glance over the cliff. Her senses whispered that she was alone. She hoped they were right, then her instincts kicked in and spurred her to action.
A few steps across the sand brought her to the base of the cliff. There she shrugged off her backpack and dug out her climbing gear. A skilled climber, she reached the ledge in minutes. Pausing a moment with her hand on the edge, she took a deep breath to steel herself for the sight she was sure to face.
"Come on Sara," she scolded, speaking aloud to bolster her courage. "You've seen blood and gore before."
Images of other bodies flashed before her as she hauled herself up onto the ledge. Doing research at the hospital and in the morgue, she'd seen them all - accident victims, crime victims - mostly all dead or injured from something other than natural causes. The things a writer had to do to inject a little authenticity into her work.
The ledge was larger than it appeared from the ground, but the body left little maneuvering room. Seeing no other option, she swallowed the slight nausea that rose in her throat, then dragged herself over the lifeless form.
She knelt next to it as she slipped the extra rope from her shoulder. He was dead all right. No doubt about that. *Damn shame*, came a response from someplace deep within her - someplace a lot lower than her brain. She shook her head as she gazed down at what was still a handsome face despite a deep gash near the hairline, various other cuts and bruises too numerous to inventory.
A dark red stain crept over the rock beneath his head. She shifted her knee to avoid it. *Probably a broken skull.* She shuddered. And judging from the angle of the body, a broken back as well. Hoping her eyes were deceiving her, she reached for his throat to check for a pulse. Long dark hair tickled her fingers, but they found no life-sustaining throb.
Feeling like an intruder, she searched his pockets for some identification. She found nothing in the front pockets except three quarters, two nickels, a dime and half a roll of spearmint Lifesavers with green and silver foil smoothly tucked around the open end. Taking care not to look at the substantial wound at the back of his head, she rolled him toward her onto his side. *Paydirt!* In the back pocket of his pants, she found a comb and a black leather wallet. She pulled the wallet out carefully, then flipped it open.
*Five hundred and forty-seven dollars ... in cash!* She whistled as she thumbed through the thick wad of bills, then glanced at the few slips of paper she found. The neat, precise script offered an address here, a name and a phone number there, but most of the jottings were too cryptic to mean anything except to their author, however, the carefully folded receipt for a T'ang Dynasty bowl whetted her curiosity. She lifted an eyebrow at the number of zeros in the handwritten price, but as intriguing as it was, it didn't identify the man lying before her.
The only photo - slightly faded and worn around the edges as though it was frequently handled - showed an attractive blonde woman standing next to a black T-bird. * Wife?* *Girlfriend?* Turning the wallet she finally found what she sought - a driver's license issued to one Duncan MacLeod.
As Sara compared the photo on the license with the face of the man, something nagged at her. She frowned. *What's wrong with this picture?* Then it came to her like the sun breaking through clouds - credit cards - that was it! The man had no credit cards. She checked again - not a one. In this day and age - a man with no credit cards. *Weird.* She sucked on her bottom lip, as she slipped the wallet into pocket of her vest. They could have been stolen - but why take the cards and leave the cash? It didn't make sense.
"So how do you rent a car with no credit cards, Duncan MacLeod," she asked, even though she knew he would never answer. Thinking of him as a person - a living breathing person - instead of a corpse, somehow made the task ahead of her less daunting.
*Now what?* She slumped back to sit on her bent legs, as she analyzed the situation. He had to be at least 6 feet tall - probably weighed close to 200 pounds. Though she worked hard to keep herself in shape, handling a body that big would stretch her strength to the limit.
She glanced up at the top of the cliff again. The owners of the other voices didn't appear to be searching for him - that was another fact begging for consideration, but she didn't want to ponder those implications. If he was a crime victim, she shouldn't disturb the scene, but this wasn't the city. Getting help, even calling the police would require a hike back to her cabin, and Sheriff Tanner rarely handled anything more complex than running a speed trap. By the time he rounded up his men and drove up here, the scavengers would have a feast. Her mind recoiled at the thought.
No, she couldn't leave him here. He probably had family or someone who cared about him - maybe the blonde woman in the photo. She wouldn't want one of her loved ones left to that kind of fate. She had to assume that his people wouldn't either.
She stood and looked down. It would take some doing, but since her kit always included extra climbing gear, she thought she could manage. She dug through the half dozen or so pockets in her vest, then dropped a handful of pitons and carbineers on the ground next to the blue nylon rope, and planned her descent.
****
Sara stopped paddling and left the rubber raft drift for a moment. She brushed a straying strand of blonde hair away from her eyes and exhaled slowly. Sighting a familiar rock formation on the right filled her with relief and a sense of satisfaction. *Home at last!* Dipping the paddle into the water again, she guided the raft to the edge of the stream.
Getting Duncan MacLeod off the ledge and into the inflatable raft - another item she always tucked in her backpack - had proved far more difficult than she had initially thought. Wearily, she slipped over the side of the raft and into the icy stream. It whispered as it swirled around her ankles, and it invited her to sink down into the cold water. It would feel great to just let the swift current ease her aching muscles for the next hour, but she still had much work ahead of her.
Rubber met sand with a rasp as she pulled the raft ashore, then she knelt down to splash cold water over her face. The water stung slightly as it hit the still tender skin of her palms. She turned her hands to examine them. They were red and raw from the rope slipping through them, but not as bad as she thought they would be. *If she hadn't been wearing good gloves.* She shuddered at the thought, then she gazed at the man slumped in the front of the raft.
"Good thing, you're dead, MacLeod," she said. "You would never have survived my rescue attempt."
She'd gotten him about half way down from the ledge when the muscles in her hands and arms rebelled against the effort. She just couldn't hold his weight any longer. The rope slipped through her hands, and he had fallen the last ten or twelve feet. She had rushed to his side, apologies bursting from her lips, then she stopped short, remembering that this was only a body. The man Duncan MacLeod had been was long gone, yet she still felt a twinge of remorse. The dead deserved respect. "Sorry about that, MacLeod," she had said. "But you got to admit it's better than waiting for the vultures."
She stood, pulled the raft further up onto the sand, then slipped her hands under his arms and wrestled him out of the boat. Sitting back to rest from her labors she looked down at his face. *Oh great, now my mind is playing tricks - what happened to the gash on his forehead?* Brushing his hair aside, she checked again, but except for a little dried blood, there was no trace of a cut. Something else struck her as odd, but she couldn't quite pin it down.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes bidding it to reveal itself. Then she opened her eyes wide as it hit her. *Rigor mortis!* The body had been limp as she pulled it from the raft, when it should have been stiff as a ... stiff. She grinned wryly at the pun her brain tossed out. "This isn't a joke," she scolded. But it was pretty weird.
She certainly didn't profess to be an expert, but Jake Anderson, the county medical examiner, loved sharing his knowledge with a best selling mystery writer in return for an acknowledgment at the front of her book. The lesson on rigor mortis had been among the first few, and she knew it set in soon after death.
Then she remembered the feel of his skin on her fingers as she brushed his hair back. Warm - it had been warm. It should have been cool. A rush of anxiety jolted her, sending tingling chills skittering along her nerves. She rubbed her hand over her f orehead. *What have I done? What if he's still alive?*
Remembering the pool of blood, remembering the angle of his body on the ledge, she shook her head. No, he had to be dead. He wasn't breathing and he didn't have a pulse. Definitely dead. Still she reached for his throat to check again. The warm flesh of his throat raised gooseflesh on her arms, but her fingers found no pulse. To be sure, she leaned over and pressed her ear to the blue chambray covering his chest. The heat of his body seeped through the fabric and touched her ear, yet his heart lay still.
She shuddered, stood, brushed the sand off her knees, then returned to the raft to retrieve her belongings. As she bent over to pick up her rifle, the strange popping sounds started again. Listening intently, she turned to locate the source. She'd heard them before as she paddled downstream, but she dismissed them, thinking they were just animal noises. Now they sounded like they were coming from the body.
She slung the rope and the backpack over her shoulder, tucked the rifle under her arm and grabbed the black nylon bag she'd found lying at the base of the cliff where she'd found MacLeod. She approached the body, cautiously, then listened again - nothing but the natural forest noises. "Girl, you're letting your imagination run rampant again." She shook her head and chuckled softly, "Jake's not gonna believe this one."
Dropping her burdens next to a large boulder, she then turned to survey her next obstacle. She'd been up and down this cliff more times than she could remember and she usually climbed it as easily as she mounted a staircase, but today it looked formidable. Today, she had a body to haul up with her, and just thinking about it left her exhausted. She sank down to sit in the sand next to the rock, then fished her water bottle out of the backpack. As she took a long swallow, every muscle in her body twitched from overexertion, and her head hurt. Leaning back against the rock, she closed her eyes, then drifted easily into the hazy fringe area between sleep and wakefulness.
A loud gasp, from somewhere close by, woke her with a start. Her heart hammered as she swept a glance over the small strip of sand. Except for the body, she was alone.
"Who's there?" she called. No one answered.
Instinctively, she extended her arm, seeking her rifle, but it had fallen out of reach. Still searching for signs of an intruder, she moved her hand to the hatchet that hung from a loop on her belt, then unsnapped the leather sheath.
Keeping her back to the rock, she scrambled to her feet and listened hard. The rapid thump of her heart beating against her chest nearly drowned out the natural sounds, but that was all she heard. She looked around again - more carefully this time, examining every rock and dead branch for signs of life. Her eyes narrowed as her search brought them to the man lying on his side a few feet away.
*Huh?* Sara frowned. *On his side?* She had left him lying on his back. She was sure of it.
"What the--" A groan chopped off the end of her oath. A groan that came from the body ... the dead body.
"No way, " she said, as she flattened herself against the rock. Quick reflexes lifted the hand holding the hatchet over her head.
Her blood coursed cold as the stream, and her eyes widened until her face hurt as she watched a dead man lift his hands to his head. He groaned again as he rolled to his knees.
"D-don't move another muscle," she cautioned, waving the hatchet for emphasis. Thoughts of garlic, silver crosses and wooden stakes flickered across her mind. She shook her head to banish them. "I think I've been reading too many Anne Rice novels ... besides it's daylight," she muttered to reassure herself. She blinked, but he was still there on his knees when she opened her eyes.
Despite her admonition, he leaned back on his heels, resting his hands on his thighs. Thick dark brows gave his soft brown eyes a hawkish expression as he glanced briefly at the hatchet, then back to her face. One corner of his mouth curved into a chagrined smile. "Hello," he said quietly.
"You ... you ... you're dead!" As hard as she tried, Sara couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice.
The man's grin widened. "Do I look dead?"
She had to admit he didn't, but not to him. "Two minutes ago, you did! Why, I've seen corpses in the morgue for a week that looked more alive than you did." An exaggeration to be sure, but hey - she was talking to a dead man.
He shrugged, wincing as he did. "If I'm dead, then who are you talking to?"
Sara narrowed her eyes as she studied him. *Who indeed?* "'A bit of underdone potato,'" she quoted Dickens. "The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Second Coming, Count Dracula ... I don't know." She paced in front of the rock as she thought, lowering the hatchet as she did.
A flicker of movement on the edge of her vision stopped her. She whirled around to face him, then brandished the hatchet as a warning. He heeded it. *Hmmm,* she thought, raising one eyebrow as she considered this. *Afraid of a little hatchet, are we? Now that's interesting.* "But you were dead."
"Maybe," he replied. Shifting his weight slowly, he pulled one leg out from under him, then eased back to sit in the sand. "But I'm not now."
Sara gaped at him, amazed at the complete lack of logic in that statement, but it was true. "Obviously," she said, injecting as much sarcasm as she could muster.
Like two cats meeting on neutral turf, they engaged in a staring contest. He lost, Sara decided, as he broke his stare to glance at the hatchet again.
"Why don't you put that down?" He indicated the hatchet with a nod of his head. "I won't hurt you."
"Uh-huh ... and Santa Claus makes annual visits. I think I'll hang on to it."
The man's shoulders lifted as he sighed, bringing on another wince. "You know," he spoke slowly as if speaking to a child or a metal patient. "If you want to defend yourself, don't you think the gun would be more effective."
Without taking her eyes off him, Sara hunched down and picked up the gun. She tucked it under her arm. "I'd forgotten it. Thanks for reminding me." She raised one eyebrow slightly, as she thought about it. *Kind of an odd thing for a man in your position to do.*
"You know, MacLeod ..." She watched his eyes widen as she called him by name. A rush of satisfaction warmed her - she was one up on him. "You are one very weird dude." She paused waiting for a response. He gave her none.
"You drop down from out of nowhere. You were dead when I found you - and you won't convince me otherwise. Now you're alive ... and tell me what kind of game do you hunt with a sword?"
His sharp inhalation cut her litany short. "A sword ... you found my sword?"
Apparently the sword was important. A man with no credit cards who carries a sword into the woods. *If I wrote this character into a novel, my editor would die laughing right after she threw me out of her office.* Sara glanced down and spotted it lying next to the black nylon bag, then she dropped the hatchet as she bent to pick it up. Holding it in one hand while she cradled the rifle in the other, she swung it back and forth in front of her. It affected MacLeod like a snake charmer's flute affects a cobra. He stared as if mesmerized, and his head shifted slightly in rhythm with her motion.
He blinked, then shook his head, breaking the spell. He lifted his hand and with one finger on the tip, he pushed it slowly to the side. "Be careful with that ... it's very sharp."
"I would expect it to be." She lifted it to study the blade. "It's a katana, isn't it?" She glanced at him for confirmation. He lifted one eyebrow, then he nodded. "And very old too, I would guess."
"You know about swords?" he asked, watching her with an expression she couldn't interpret.
"I'm a writer, " she answered. "I know about a lot of things." She moved the sword to point it at him again. He failed in his attempt to mask a flinch. Emboldened by his reaction, she took a step closer and held the sword under his chin. He sat frozen, only a muscle twitching near his jaw hinted at any emotion.
"Okay, MacLeod - time to start talking. Who are you? *What* are you? And at this point I'm more interested in the what, than the who." She moved the sword back a notch so he could talk without impaling himself.
He closed his eyes as he exhaled deeply. "I am Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod," he began.
"Yeah, yeah. I know all that," Sara said, letting her impatience show. "I found your wallet - I know your name. What I want to know is why you were dead, and now you're not. And don't try to tell me you weren't dead ... I've seen dead, and you were dead."
He studied her for a few minutes, then he sighed. "It's a long story."
Sara stepped back to lean against the rock. "I'm in no hurry." Since he seemed undaunted by it, she put the rifle down, then held the sword in both hands. "Start talking."
"Look," he said, shifting as though he intended to stand. Sara wiggled the sword at him and he sank back into the sand. "There's no time for explanations now. I've got to catch the men I was tracking - the ones who forced me off that cliff. They beat and stabbed a friend of mine, left him for dead, then kidnapped his wife and daughter. I think they were headed this way."
Sara frowned as she considered his story. *What if he was telling the truth?* She curled the edge of her mouth between her teeth, and bit into her lower lip. The pain was real. This was real. She wasn't dreaming. "If they're so dangerous, why are you chasing them yourself? Why didn't you call the police?"
"I did, but that idiot sheriff couldn't track a carrot if it was nailed to his nose. They were still trying to organize a search party when I set out on my own."
Sara pictured the Keystone Kops and smiled at the image. "Ah, so you've met our illustrious sheriff. Jed Tanner is the mayor's nephew," she explained.
"That figures," he said with a snort of disgust. "Look, I've lost a lot of time. Why don't you just give me back my sword. I'll go on my way and you can forget you ever saw me." He made a move to get up.
"Ah-ah-ah - not so fast!" She waggled the sword again. He sat back, but his clenched fists indicated growing impatience. If he rushed her, she knew he could easily overpower her, so what was he waiting for? And what was the deal with the sword? She still wanted answers - he owed her more of an explanation than he had given. Yet if he was telling the truth, innocent people might get hurt. Her head swam with mounting confusion.
"Okay, so you're a man with a mission. Give me the Reader's Digest version of why you're alive, when you should be dead, and I'll let you go. I'll even help, if you want."
Moving cautiously, he kept his eyes on the sword, then he passed a hand over his face. "You wouldn't believe it, if I told you."
"Like I said, I'm a writer, MacLeod, the boundaries of my disbelief are very flexible. Try me."
MacLeod studied her with those large brown eyes. His expression changed as he clearly debated with himself. He closed them for a moment, took a deep breath then let it out slowly. "I'm Immortal," he said.
"Immortal - as never die?"
"Something like that."
"But you were dead when I found you."
"Yes, but when Immortals die, it's just a temporary condition."
"Immortals - plural. There are more than just you?"
"Yes, many more."
Sara didn't know why, but she believed him. Believed that he thought he was immortal, anyway. She considered herself a fairly good judge of character, and he seemed sincere. The whole situation was so very bizarre, she didn't know what else to think.
"Okay MacLeod. Let's just say I accept your explanation ... for now. Come on," she said.
As she bent to pick up the pile of gear, she watched him get up. He moved slowly and seemed unsteady. He held his hands out for balance, then lifted one up to massage the back of his neck. "Are you all right?" she asked, allowing compassion to seep into her voice.
He smiled. Sara's knees weakened. "I'll live," he said.
"Apparently so," she replied, smiling back. Who ever he was, whatever he was, her body responded the same way it always did when confronted with a man as gorgeous as Duncan MacLeod. He'd looked good dead. Alive, he was spectacular.
"The only way out of here is up," she said pointing the sword at the top of the cliff. "Can you manage the climb?"
"No problem," he said, but he had turned to face the cliff, so she couldn't see his expression.
At base of the cliff, she dropped the gear again. Feeling the weight of his wallet in her vest pocket, she fished it out. "This belongs to you," she said, handing it over with the black nylon bag.
"So does that." He pointed to the sword she still clutched in her right hand.
She glanced from the sword to his face, then up at the cliff. One of them had to go first. If he did, she would be very vulnerable dangling from a rope halfway up, but she didn't want him trailing her with that sword in his hands either. There were limits to the amount of trust she would put in a stranger - especially one who could rise from the dead. "I think I'll hold onto it a bit longer," she said, watching his eyes. They revealed nothing as he stared a moment, then shrugged his resignation.
Pulling a bungee cord out of her backpack, she looped it around the hilt, then attached it so it wouldn't get in her way. "You can have it back when we get to the top," she said, slipping her arms through the straps of the backpack. She grabbed the rope, then turned to begin her ascent.
"Ah ... you have me at a slight disadvantage." he said.
She paused with one foot on the rock face, then turned her head. *And that's just the way I want it too.* She smiled.
"You have my sword," he continued, "And you know my name, but I don't know yours."
She set her foot back on the ground, then extended her hand. "Sara ... Sara Jane MacKensie."
He lifted one eyebrow, as he took and held her hand for a moment. "MacKensie is a Highlander's name. Are you a Highlander, Sara Jane MacKensie?"
She'd never considered this before. She had detected the trace of an accent in his deep voice, but she couldn't place it. Now she did. She shrugged. "I guess my Dad's family might have been, if you traced them back far enough," she replied. "But I don't know about me. I'm just a stray cat - the MacKensie's adopted me when I was an infant." With that she turned and began her climb.
