DESERTED
Written by Ann Rivers
Summary: A missing scene from Steele's Gold – the first in a series of stories based on this episode.
Murphy is about to endure the longest morning of his life…
Spoilers: Steele's Gold
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these great characters – which is a shame, since I think poor Murphy is way overdue for either a good long hug or a decent pay rise ! I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Feedback: Yes please, it's always welcome !
Again he woke slowly, into daytime heat that contrasted sharply to the bitter night-time cold of before.
Brightness, too, seared its way through semi open eyelids, causing him to rapidly close them again.
Instinctively he tried to move, dazedly wondering why his arms and legs were positioned so oddly. Why were they refusing to co-operate…? Why wouldn't they move him from this relentless heat…? Groggy confusion rose into all out panic as those arms and legs remained locked in unyielding rope.
The more furiously he struggled, the more cruelly those ropes bit into bare, unprotected wrists.
Murphy Michaels didn't scare easily. But he was scared now. In fact he was utterly terrified.
That terror compelled him into another frantic, furious struggle. But still those ropes refused to yield.
He tried, instinctively, to yell for help. But the parching dryness of a desert wind had stolen his voice.
Panting with effort, Murphy rested his aching head back again, trying to force himself to think calmly.
The sledgehammer that seemed to be bursting clear out of his chest made that task difficult enough.
An unmistakeable rattling next to his left ankle made it close to impossible.
Murphy froze. Complete terror stilled him more effectively than anything he'd been told about snakes.
And if there was one thing this country boy knew about, it was snakes. His father had seen to that.
From the moment he could walk, Sean Michaels had taught his son all he knew about the countryside.
Shown him its many wonders, the beauty it had to offer – and the dangers that often lurked within.
By the time he'd started school, Murphy could identify every species of snake native to Montana – something which had saved the life of that overly curious six year old on several occasions.
But would it save his life now…? Montana was a long way from California. A hell of a long way.
And every state, California included, had their own unique, native species of rattler.
The first rule was the same, whichever state you were in. You stood, or sat, or lay, totally still.
For whatever reasons, by whatever parties, that first rule of avoiding snakebite was taken care of.
There was only one part of his body that Murphy Michaels could freely move. Dared to move.
Slowly he swivelled his eyes sideways and downwards, tracking down the left side of his body.
Sweat and sunlight blurred his vision. But Murphy still recognised enough for his blood to run cold.
It was a Mojave. An agitated Mojave – drawn in, no doubt, by the vibrations of his frantic struggles.
And if it became agitated enough to strike, if it chose to see a helpless human being as injured prey…
well, being tied down onto four wooden stakes in scorching mid morning sun would cease to matter.
Lying helplessly between those four stakes, Murphy could only pray that fuzzy blur didn't decide to…
… investigate that prey a little more closely…
Watching it slide, tortuously slowly, onto his ankle, it was all he could do not to try and kick it away.
The flimsy denim of his jeans would offer scant protection against the fangs of an angry rattlesnake.
By the time it settled to bask on the soft warmth of his stomach, Murphy was barely daring to breathe.
Another of his father's survival lessons struggled to surface through a mind now totally numb by terror.
Respect a rattler, son… or any of the good Lord's creatures… and they'll respect you…
Two sentient beings stared at each other – one in silent appraisal, the other in silent pleading.
Each had the same right to live. But one currently held the life of the other completely at its mercy.
In real time, this silent exchange lasted for only a few seconds – but to Murphy it felt like hours.
In those few seconds, though, a contract of understanding, a mutual respect, passed between them.
You leave me alone… respect my right to live… and I'll do the same for you…
As the rattler slid off his stomach, Murphy watched its leisurely retreat with still terror-wide eyes.
Then those eyes rolled shut, his entire body falling limp in a deep, instant, merciful faint.
Opening his eyes, something he'd done countless times, had suddenly become an exhausting challenge
Finally, though, Murphy forced leaden eyelids apart, raising his head to try and look around him.
Almost immediately he let it fall back again, screwing his eyes against an eruption of throbbing pain.
A soft moan escaped him as that sickening ache refused to subside. If anything, it was becoming worse
He was starting to feel nauseous, his body warning him that it was becoming dangerously overheated.
Exposed to the sun's full, relentless strength, his chest, stomach and arms were bearing the brunt.
He could actually feel his own skin burning, seared by the heat. Blistering painfully, layer by layer.
This wasn't how Murphy Michaels had imagined he would die. He'd thought about it, of course.
His chosen career, its frequent dangers, had made such 'forward planning' a practical necessity.
A love of sport, too, the more exhilarating the better, had only enhanced that forever logical nature.
He'd die in an accident. On the ski slopes, most likely, flying down the steepest one he could find.
He'd even prepared himself, as far as he could, for a more violent, senseless end to his life.
However and whenever it was fated to happen, Murphy had always wanted the end to come quickly –
either living the life he'd always enjoyed to its fullest, or protecting the woman he loved just as deeply
But to die like this… tied up and helpless, with no more dignity than an abandoned, unwanted dog…
Murphy screwed his eyes tighter, in anger and shame, against the tears he could feel welling beneath.
He was starting to remember now. Fragments of memory were beginning to sickeningly connect.
He'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book – one cruelly played on his strongest, yet weakest, trait.
Kitty had woken him in the early hours, tearfully convinced that she'd heard 'something' near her.
Still half asleep, seeing no reason to doubt her word, Murphy had gone unhesitantly to investigate –
only to have his gallantry painfully betrayed in a small clearing a short distance from their camp.
He'd found the rest of their oddball group waiting there… all of them looking distinctly nervous.
Their uneasiness had instantly aroused Murphy's suspicions that he'd been conned into an ambush.
He'd had no time to react, though. No chance to shout a warning to the still blissfully sleeping Laura.
No chance to react, either, to the pistol butt which had been slammed with brutal force against his neck
Stunned by the blow, he'd been powerless to fight back as a flurry of hands pinned him into the sand.
Those same hands had then roughly stripped him of his clothes – and, more devastatingly, his dignity.
By the time his senses cleared, it was all over. He'd woken a prisoner, alone and totally helpless.
He'd been too dazed to cry out for help. Instead he'd lain shivering in the bitter chill of a desert night – staring up into a starlit sky until shock, and bone-chilling cold, sent him back into a merciful void.
He was trembling again now, because of a failure that cut still deeper into an already terrified soul.
Laura.
She'd been relying on him to make their plan work. All he'd had to do was act out a simple deception.
Yet he couldn't manage even this straightforward task. He'd failed her. He'd let Laura down.
Blood that seemed to be boiling within him grew suddenly chilled by a single, truly awful thought.
If they'd seen through his ruse so easily, if they'd made the connection to her part within it…
Was that why they'd lured him out of the camp, so they could take revenge on a defenceless Laura…?
Why his albeit feeble pleas for help, his cries of her name, remained so chillingly unanswered…?
Even if Steele had tried to protect and defend her, he'd have been hopelessly outnumbered, and…
Steele.
Murphy liked to think that, with his friendly, easy going nature, he could get along with anyone.
He'd certainly been popular through school and college – the typical, sport-loving, all American boy.
Of course, that combination of height and boyish handsomeness had made him popular with girls too. And with those effortless manners, he'd been the potential son-in-law every mother dreamed to have.
This impostor, though… this smooth talking charmer who'd intruded, unbidden, into their lives –
well, he'd become the bane of Murphy's once happy, but now rather less settled life.
The only reason he'd agreed to stay at the agency was because of his fierce loyalty to Laura.
Now even that reason was becoming harder and harder for him to live with.
For the life of him, Murphy just couldn't understand why Laura tolerated Steele's many indiscretions.
Why she now chose to trust his word, however outrageous, rather than that of her closest friend.
It was as if she'd fallen under some kind of spell – compelled to believe, to do, whatever he told her.
If Steele said jump, Murphy reflected bitterly, you could bet Laura's first question would be how high.
Startled by its unexpectedness, it took him some moments to identify that bizarre, curious sound.
It was his own laughter, normally so strong and robust, now changed into spluttering, staccato bursts.
Jeez, the heat must really be getting to him now, for him to start giggling as inanely as this.
But then, who wouldn't giggle at the image of a bunny suited Laura, hopping to Steele's command…?
That laughter came at a cruelly painful cost, though, as already straining lungs struggled to cope –
this extra demand on them causing him to dissolve into splutters of uncontrollable coughing.
By the time that fit subsided, Murphy was barely conscious enough to appreciate its relief.
Still fighting for breath, his eyes were swimming – and not just from painfully stinging sweat.
Tears of anger, fear and frustration finally seeped out from beneath tightly squeezed eyelids.
Damn it, why hadn't they shot him with that gun, instead of just slugging him with it…?
At least he'd be dead now, spared from the brutal torment of being left to die like this –
alone, seemingly abandoned, tied onto these damn stakes… and utterly powerless to save himself.
Or maybe that rattler would come back, and grace him with that act of mercy instead.
Too stricken by heat and misery to know what he was doing, Murphy began to struggle once more – praying, in the utter despair of his mind, that he'd hear the telltale rattle of a most unlikely saviour.
Yet even this desperate hope was denied him as, exhausted by his efforts, he slumped back again.
He could hear the ragged, laboured gasps of his own breathing. The distant shriek of a buzzard.
But not the sound of an agitated rattlesnake, coming to deliver the mercifully transient pain of its bite.
Too weak to struggle any further, Murphy lay sobbing fresh tears of total frustration.
Never in his life had he felt so helpless, so completely and utterly helpless as he felt now.
Even when his parents had died, he'd refused to let the senselessness of their deaths break his spirit.
If anything, that doubly awful tragedy had only enhanced an already impressive strength of character.
A natural and gifted athlete, Murphy Michaels had never even contemplated becoming a detective.
A speeding car, a shaken college Dean's interruption of basketball practice, had changed all that –
his efforts to help the police find the driver responsible inspiring another pivotal moment in his life.
Instead of taking up that prized LA Cougars scholarship, he'd joined Havenhurst Detective Agency.
There he'd met another rookie, the girl of his proverbial dreams. The rest was proverbial history.
And how happy they'd been together, first as colleagues, then partners in their own thriving agency.
For one of them at least, there'd also been the dream of taking that happiness further, until…
Steele.
In the depths of a stricken mind, a familiar, niggling resentment returned to cruelly haunt him.
Damn it, he'd not gone through all that work, all that training at Havenhurst, to be treated like this.
A naturally gifted detective, a once trusted partner – now reduced to little more than office errand boy.
Murphy didn't know what hurt more, a silent hurt that pained him with each case they took –
this continual abuse of his abilities, or Laura's apparent reluctance to do anything to change it.
It was through Steele's highly dubious motives that they'd taken this latest case in the first place.
And Laura had, as usual, gone along with anything and everything he'd had to suggest –
including, no doubt, his role in a plan that now looked set to claim his life.
His senses were slipping away from him again, his body succumbing to its tormented exhaustion.
As Murphy lost consciousness, so those thoughts of anger and betrayal took firmer hold in his mind –
a mind too weakened now, too overwhelmed by pain and fear, to resist the paranoia they created.
He'd become a burden to them. A troublesome burden that, one way or another, had to be discarded.
And now, in the middle of a blistering desert, it seemed they were going to succeed…
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