[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind Read Free Page A

rather, not all of them. Ollie, Ben, and Harriet, in particular, had somehow decided that she would be chosen to chair this new entity, which in turn would leave them in the hands of someone else.
    Silly. They were dears, but they were silly. On all counts.
    A prickling, then, at the back of her neck, and she turned her chair around slowly. There was a thick, dark pine shelf attached to the wall beside the door. On it was a statuette just under a foot high —a grizzly half- risen, its great head cocked to one side, massive paws up to strike, its mouth open to reveal gleaming pin- needle teeth. Its name was Homer, the first satisfactory piece she had completed after arriving in Oxrun . A talisman he was, something to be patted wearily before bedtime, to be caressed cheerfully in the morning. Its doppleganger in flesh she had met at dusk in Montana, eight years ago on a trip she had made to cleanse the divorce from her dreams and her child's funeral from her nightmares.
    The creature had stood there watching her from the other side of a stream given color by October's early foliage. She had been too terrified to scream, too weak to run, and the grunts it had issued while it paced the grassy bank nailed her to the ground. Then it had reared in a single swift movement, and she had been positive it could have reached across the narrow band of water and swiped off her head with no trouble at all. But it had only watched her and had tested the cold air and had gestured as if were batting at insects. For a full five minutes before it had dropped to all fours and had lumbered into the woodland. She had not moved. She could hear it grunting for what seemed like hours, hear the thrashing of underbrush, hear its paws thunder the earth.
    She thought she had died, and had somehow been reprieved.
    Now the grizzly was reduced to a gleaming grey- white marble she had quarried herself, back in the hills that coddled the Station on three of its sides. The gleam came not from polishing; it was a quality of stone she had not seen in any other, and it gave the bear a translucence that at times gave it movement, when the lighting was right and she wasn't quite looking. And in its reduction —with eyes deliberately left blank in the ancient manner—it had become a partner, a friend, and a stubbornly silent confidant.
    "All right," she told it. "All right, so I'm stalling. Sue me."
    Homer simply stood there, testing the air.
    Another check of the clock, eight thirty-five and sweeping —and when the telephone rang she nearly dropped her cup. God, she thought as she scraped back the chair, get hold, woman, get hold. She plucked the receiver from its wall cradle and sat again, her right hand curling the cord once around her wrist.
    The voice was decidedly masculine: "Was it as good for you as it was for me?"
    She couldn't help it; she laughed. "Good morning, Greg."
    "Sorry to call so early, Pat, but I wanted to be sure you were ready for battle. After last night, I'm surprised you can still breathe without a machine."
    "I can breathe just fine, thank you very much." Her smile began to drift, one corner turning down. "I'm not so positive about the battle, though." She thought of telling him about the ride home, thought of what he would say and discarded the notion.
    "Sounds like a good dose of the nerves, huh?"
    She nodded, stuck her tongue out at Homer, then blinked and grunted.
    "Well, welcome to the club, Dr. Shavers. But listen, I was thinking, see, and the meeting's not until four- thirty, so why don't you and I have lunch or something? Maybe we can get Stephen and Janice to go with us. I mean, we could plan strategy in case the Trustees have shafted us. Like, we could create a minor diversion, like slitting Danvers' throat. That would really throw Constable off his stride, don't you think?"
    "I don't know, Greg. Don't you think that's a little drastic?"
    "Who for? Danvers? Hell, he'd never notice until he figured out he couldn't lick the dean's