– C H A P T E R I –
Kier Wintripp killed the motor and
let the wilderness quiet settle over him. Outside the warmth of
the truck, in the gray November dawn, the mountains were dressing
themselves for winter, the storm smoothing their wrinkles with
the white velvet of snow. Kier knew the mountains well, knew what
grew in each microclimate, when it bloomed, what you might eat
and what you would not, the resident birds and migratory visitors,
the mammals, the invertebrates, the tracks of all, the habits
of each, and their place in the order of things. As winter swept
the mountains, sap drew back into the ground, growing things began
a silent renewal, and wildlife went from fat to slim in sleep
or struggle as the forest awaited the plenty of spring.
The wind-driven snow covered his windshield
quickly, obscuring the white stucco medical clinic that might
have been snatched from a suburb of San Francisco and set on this
low-lying shoulder of Wintoon Mountain. Behind it, the wildness
of the mountain’s rocky pitches and forested slopes contrasted
sharply with the manicured grounds around the building.
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Kier was late, and he would have preferred
to avoid setting foot in the facility altogether. Although he
supposed it was becoming more common place all the time, surrogate
birthing of babies in exchange for a fee bothered him. That Tilok
women were doing it regularly troubled him even more. Still, he
knew his family needed him, so he stepped out of his pickup and
started down the breezeway that led into the sprawling complex
where his niece, Winona, was about to give birth. As Kier understood
the arrangement Winona supplied only the womb.
A gravely injured rottweiler, hit
by a tractor, had made Kier late. He was able to save the animal
but at some cost to the quality of its life. Using the latest
surgical techniques and stainless steel fastenings to hold the
bones in place, Kier had closed the many wounds with more dissolvable
sutures than he cared to count. He had left the grateful owner,
given his hands a quick scrub, and driven to Mountain Shadows
clinic as fast as conditions permitted.
The clinic was in fact a small hospital,
a surgicenter and a walk-in primary care facility all rolled into
one. It was touted as a charitable
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