When Totems Fall Read Free Page A

through an inked press four times and finished according to customer needs.
    While employment as an account rep might not be the best match for his training and skills, it did put food on the table and keep him out of trouble. Zeb logged ten to twelve hour days, not because he loved his work. Truth be told, he didn't have much else going on in his life and the thought of endless hours in front of the TV appealed to him far less than calling on an overzealous client rep, even one trying to squeeze him for ever-increasing product while paying as little as possible for it.
    Things had changed so much in the last number of years. The stark contrasts in Zeb's vocational and professional histories were, to say the least, intriguing. A near-decade in active-duty hot zones throughout the world. Life and death, comrades and enemies. Nowadays he sold printed paper products to mom and pop shops and medium-sized businesses. In comparison the present drill came off as dull, even numbing. Maybe in a good way. His life while donning the uniform had been a never-ending sequence of extreme stress and life-threatening circumstances. Now eight years on the outside, the closest he got to a danger-fed adrenaline rush was a customer signing off on a sales contract. In triplicate.
    So today's first step, the beginnings of another presumably mundane day, would be simply getting to his car three and a half blocks away.
     
    Zeb headed out, taking in the fresh morning air while navigating the sharply vertical orientation of his hometown. The seven hills of Seattle's urban core presented a calf-burning exercise for pedestrians and a clutch-burning dilemma for motorists with manual transmissions. At the moment, the first of these maladies was calling on his lower extremities.
    Though the overnight hours deposited a brief shower on the city—expected and ordinary—this budding spring day was starting out as clear and clean as they come in the Northwest. A nominal breeze moved in and among gleaming high-rise structures as a hint of the salted waterfront landed at Zeb's nose. Many mornings in this seaborne community the tang of brine overwhelmed. Today it smelled wonderful.
    Zeb's medium build brought no unwarranted attention as he strode on among the grumpy, early rising pedestrians. At slightly over five foot ten Zeb didn't come across as physically imposing, not by any means. A few pounds had been added along the way but at thirty-seven, keeping a burgeoning belt line from becoming the first thing people noticed when you walked into a room had to count for something.
    Dalton wore his hair longer than military-standard but still quite short. This was nothing new. Even in high school he had chosen a well-groomed cut over the predictably long and wild expressions of his classmates. Its color had held, even now a dark brown with only slight hints of gray. As far as physical attributes were concerned Dalton owned the middle ground in all things average, with a composite appearance rating somewhere between nondescript and lackluster. Except for his eyes. They were a different story altogether.
    Amber, warm, curious. Often probing, never revealing, sometimes unsettling. Unique, unexpected. You had the sense they were searching, seeking beyond mere appearances to something more on the level of depth, character, heart. Not in a judgmental way. More inquisitive than damning.
    Zeb's company didn't mandate business-wear, so khakis and a short-sleeved polo worked fine most days. It suited his casual style and BCPC's clientele seemed to prefer it as well. The presence of relaxed apparel somehow spoke "down-to-earth" to them, producing a vague perception of trustworthiness along with it.
    Probably one of those intuitions we lean on too readily as fact, Zeb thought at times. An assumption easily manipulated by the unscrupulous and unprincipled.
    This was true, so it was a good thing Zeb was neither.
    The last time he'd dressed up was for a New Year's Eve party the