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at sunset. Now alone, he should try to escape, were it not for the chain around his neck and the huge birch tree it was attached to and the woeful lack of rocks to bash the chains with. Braveheart had been quite thorough in following the order that warrior Bess had given him to: “Insure that the prisoner willnae leave our company.”
    Ian repeated the words, mocked the inflection, as he reached up and worked two of his fingers under the chain around his neck. Braveheart had made it good and bloody tight.
    “Damn,” he growled and dropped his hands back to his lap. He spit out some of the bile on his tongue and eyed the lake.
    On the opposite shore, to the west were the frowning silhouettes of stark mountains against a vivid, fiery orange sunset so like…
    “…The day I left reality.” Was that yesterday? He seemed to have completely lost track of time.
    He scooted forward avoiding the place where he had left his sick and leaned down to the water. He cupped both hands and dipped them in the water praying it was drinkable. It looked that way. There could be nuclear waste, agent orange, pesticides, anything in that water, but right now anything would be better than the nasty taste on his tongue. He scooped up a double handful of water and drank it greedily. He scooped up another and drank again. The water tasted remarkable. Like Poland Spring, Evian. He took another drink. Aye, definitely like Evian.
    For one moment since he came here, wherever here was, he felt oddly refreshed. He breathed deep, expanding his lungs. The air was so crisp, so clean. Crispness was all around him. The air had snap, like peppermint, and sweetness in its earthy perfume.
    “To your feet.”
    He looked over his shoulder. Bess stood above him, in one hand she held his chain and rope tether, in the other she held two dead rabbits by their hind legs.
    He said the first thing that entered his mind, “I thought you people were vegetarians.”
    She cocked her head toward him, and then narrowed her eyes. She pursed her soft, full lips together. “There are vegetables as well, roots and such, in the fire.”
    Ian rose to his feet. “Well, that’s good. I was beginning to think I had my stereotypes out of whack.”
    She tugged on the chain just a little. He took one big step forward until he was toe to toe with her. Musk radiated off of her, a scent of soil and green, like leaves and lush grass. Probably some scent she found in a trendy Rodeo Drive boutique where they mix perfume to suit your personality. Bess’s preferred scent was obviously “Earth Chick Gone A-Hunting”.
    He walked beside her, like a dog trained to heel, but quickly banished that image from his mind. If he wanted to he could lunge to the side and knock her flat to the mossy ground, into one of the many thick stands of pine they had to navigate to get to the fire. He could do this and get away. He could do this—
    “Ye cannae escape,” she said. “Unless ye wish to die.”
    “Reading minds as well as expert hunting, impressive. The psychic network and the NRA would love to have you as a spokes model. There’s plenty of work out there for a beautiful woman like you. Have you ever thought of auditioning for Survivor ? You might win a million.”
    “A million what?”
    “Dollars.”
    She shook her head. “What an odd man ye are.”
    Bess abruptly pointed to a small clearing in the wood, where a fire blazed in a small pit scooped from the moss and needle-covered ground.
    The horse Bess rode on while he had to walk behind, over hill and dale, to this place, stood to one side of the clearing chomping on ferns and fiddleheads. Ian glanced about at the ring of feathery pine trees, hoping against hope that he would find that rabbit hole he drove into and at the other end he would emerge into his L.A. home full of relics of his life and a stack of past-due notices. Even surrounded by that misery, he would not feel as lost and confused as he did in this place.
    Ian plopped down