Summer Solstice
Chapter one:
Gwen yawned as she pushed the wheelbarrow through the mud. The air was crisp and clear that morning, clean from yesterday's storm - though the ground had become a lake of mud. Gwen dumped her load of dirty stall bedding and headed back to the stable, hoping the trails hadn't become a sloppy mess. For the riders' safety, the lessons had been moved to the indoor arena but Gwen still had a trail ride to lead. Going about her work of feeding the horses and cleaning stalls, she visualized the trails she would need to take in order to avoid any potential accidents.
Gwen worked at the Sprague River Ranch in Chiloquin Oregon. Along with keeping the horses fed and clean, Gwen taught beginner's riding lessons and lead trail rides when the ranch was short-handed. She'd begun working there when she was twelve after moving there when her mother accepted a job offer from the Chiloquin Veterinary Clinic. Her mother worked with all the animals in the town including the horses from the ranch. Gwen's mother, Shandi, at first was not happy about Gwen working around the horses at such a young age. Gwen had argued that she was almost a teenager, it would keep her out of trouble, and after helping her mother at the clinic back in Klamath Falls, she was more than capable of working around horses without hurting herself. Shandi finally agreed and allowed Gwen to begin working there.
Now at the age of seventeen, Gwen was put in charge of keeping the herd of fifteen horses fed, stalls clean, and the occasional lessons. Today Gwen was leading a group of four through the ranch's area of forest, but first she had to make sure the trails were even safe to ride.
Placing her stall fork against the wall she poked her head into the arena where Collin, a Klamath native and owner of the ranch, was giving a lesson.
"Hey Collin!" she called.
"Let Max have his head Tom," Collin said to the rider before turning to Gwen. "Good morning Gwen! What can I do for you?"
"I'm gonna take J.D. out to the trails to make sure they're clear for the ride later today."
"Sounds like a great idea Gwen. But you be careful yourself. That was a heck of a storm we had….Ok Tom! Now bring Max through the center and change his lead."
Gwen smiled and said, "Thanks Collin!"
As she turned to leave Collin called out, "Hey Gwen! Just in case something happens, take the emergency bag with you…and the radio."
"You know I always bring them with me even on a hot, sunny day!" chuckled Gwen. "I promise to be extra careful."
"Good girl!...Tom! Bring Max to the center and we'll work on side passing."
Gwen smiled to herself and jogged to the equipment room to get her gear. The emergency bag was a saddle bag filled with a first-aid kit, flare gun, flint and steel wool, thin wool blanket and such in case of emergencies. Just as she'd told Collin, Gwen brought it with her everytime she was out on the trail no matter the weather. It was always good to be safe.
She then headed over to J.D.'s stall. J.D. was a bay Thoroughbred and a retired National jumper. He was Gwen's favorite. He'd just arrived at the ranch when Gwen and her mother moved to Chiloquin and they'd been inseparable since. J.D. was pretty much Gwen's horse and she was sure Collin would allow her to buy him once she turned eighteen.
Quickly brushing him down and checking his hooves, Gwen heaved the saddle blankets and saddle onto his back and latched on the saddle bag. Checking the breast-collar and scinches were in place, Gwen lead J.D. out the back when she swung herself onto his back and headed into the forest.
The temperature lowered slightly once she was under the trees causing her to shudder. Choosing the flatter paths and ignoring the uphill ones, Gwen picked out a safe path for her riders. The trails were muddy but not quite as bad as she thought them to be. An hour later, Gwen quickly looped back to the back of the stable where she started and checked her watch. She still has several hours before her riders were scheduled to show up and that would give the trail a small amount of time to begin drying. Gwen decided she had time to take a short trip to the falls. After radioing one of the guys' her plans and checking J.D.'s scinching again, Gwen turned J.D. around and started him at a trot down the trail.
At a quick trot, it only took Gwen half an hour to get to the falls. She tethered J.D. loosely to a low tree branch with enough head room to graze and walked to the rocky edge of the falls. The falls really weren't that big, not like you would think a normal fall to be anyway. The falls fell only roughly twenty feet into a small pond/lake that lead into a nearby stream. Gwen took a seat on the dry part of a boulder and looked around, enjoying the peace and quite of the forest. It was then that she noticed the tracks.
They weren't bear tracks – and there weren't bears around the area anyway – but took big to belong to a wolf. Wolves weren't common in the area either though; there'd been maybe one or two sightings of alone wolf in the past ten years and that was it. Gwen decided to follow the tracks a short ways to see if they lead anywhere, but first she grabbed the radio in case she found evidence of a pack nearby.
Gwen followed the tracks roughly two hundred feet when she noticed them taking on a strange shape. Within three or four strides, the way too big wolf tracks became human tracks. Gwen became nervous. Though she could no longer see any wolf tracks, she hoped that no one had been hurt. She continued to follow the tracks and a half minute later came upon a body.
A naked male body.
"Woah!" Gwen cried out and quickly covered her eyes.
Taking a deep breath and dearly hoping that the guy wasn't dead, Gwen uncovered her eyes. A brief scan from where she stood told her there seemed to be no obvious injuries. Telling herself quietly to toughen up, and just ignore his male extremities, Gwen moved forward to examine him. First she checked to see if he was breathing and had a pulse. A yes on both. Bleeding? No. Obvious broken bones? Nope. Temperature of the skin? Surprisingly warm for being naked in a wet, cool forest.
Gwen reached to her pocket and brought out the radio. "Hey Dom?"
"Yeah Gwen?"
"I'm out by the falls and I've found a person out here unconcious. He's breathing and has no injuries that I can see. Call an ambulance. Have them meet me at the trail head."
"Gottcha Gwen!"
Though Gwen had no idea how she was even going to get him to the trail head. He had to be over six feet and looked like a solid chunk of muscle. But she had an idea. Gwen ran back through the forest to J.D. where she untethered him and quickly lead him back to where the guy lay. Once there she dug out the thin wool blanket and covered him with it. Then using a trick Collin had taught her recently to get a horse to lay down, she got J.D. to lay down near the buy. Gwen then used all the strength she had to drag the guy's body to the horse and drap him over the saddle. She held her breath as she told J.D. to stand and tired to keep the body from falling off the saddle at the same time. Gwen was quite pleased with herself when J.D. stood there with the guy draped over the saddle, wrapped in the blanket.
Gwen stood on a nearby log and hoisted herself up behind the body as best she could and turned J.D. toward the trail, moving him into a quick trot, not wanting to unlodge the body with a canter. With one hand on the body to balance it, and the other on the reins, Gwen met Collin and Dom with the paramedics at the trail head.
"Can you tell me what happened?" one of the paramedics asked.
"Not a whole lot," said Gwen as she dismounted and watched the guys transfer the body to the strecher. "I was following some tracks and found him laying there. He has no injuries that I can see and his body is surprisingly warm for being out there with no protection." Gwen walked along side the stretcher s it was hurried to the ambulance. "Can I come as well, to make sure he's alright?"
Collin thought a moment then nodded. "I'll tell your mother where you are."
"Thanks a lot, Collin!" yelled Gwen, the ambulance doors closing and the siren wailing as the vehicle drove towards the hospital.
Gwen wasn't allowed into the ER when they wheeled him in, but she was told that she would be able to see him once the dotors ok'd it. Gwen sat glumly for several hours, flipping through old magazines and watching other strechers fly by before one of the doctors came out to address her.
"Miss Tahl?"
Gwen stood and faced the doctor. "Yeah? How is he?"
"The young man has no injuries aside from a very high fever that should very well have killed him. We're working to bring it down now."
"Can I see him?"
The doctor shook his head. "Not yet. We would like to observe him for a little while longer to assure the fever won't get any higher. We'll let you know in a few hours."
Gwen's shoulders slumped and she sighed, once more taking her seat. True to the doctor's word, three hours and a limp salad from the cafeteria later a nurse came out to take Gwen to the young man.
"The young man woke up for a few moments an hour ago," said the nurse as she lead Gwen around a corner. "He tried to leave the bed but the effort caused him to pass out. Maybe your presence there will help calm him. Are you his girlfriend?"
Gwen blushed. "Uh, no. I just met him." The nurse nodded and showed Gwen into a room.
The young man lay there in the hospital bed. She was expecting him to look sick and pitiful, but he was practically the opposite. His golden skin had a healthy glow to it, and his breathing was even. Gwen walked closer to the bed. Though he was huge and muscular with an angled jaw and high cheek bones, his face was soft and slightly boyish. His hair was an obsidian black and went to almost his shoulders. Gwen reached out and tenderly ran a finger along his jaw. She felt a sudden pull to him and felt more relaxed than when she walked in.
Gwen sat in a chair next to the bed, watching as his chest rose up and down with every breath. She wasn't sure how long she'd sat there watching him when he suddenly woke up and lept from the bed, knocking over the IV pole, his eyes open and wild.
"Hey, hey…it's ok," said Gwen, slowly standing up, her hand reaching out to him. "You're in a hospital, you're ok…"
"I can't be here!" he cried. But before he could run out of the room, Gwen grabbed his hand.
"It's ok!" she said again softly.
The young man froze and looked at her, his wide eyes moving down to where her hand wrapped around his wrist.
Gwen looked at her hand as well and let go quickly. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.
The young man's stance softened at her voice.
"Um, why don't you sit back down on the bed so the doctor's can look at you." Gwen gestured toward the bed. When the young man was sitting down Gwen reached out her hand in greeting. "My name is Gwen. What's your name?" she asked.
"Jacob," he said as a doctor and a nurse flew in from hearing the crash of the IV pole.
A/N: Well, that's another chapter down! Hope you all enjoyed!