I turned to Russ and Flynn.

"You're sure?"

Russ said, "Go. You're the best one to be with him right now."

I, Dell said, "The closest place you could take him would be my ranch. It's the first ranch past Clark. You're welcome to take him there."; Kimber yelled, "No! No place new. It will make it worse. Turn the:: music up. Drive, please, drive" I offered a sad smile to Dell before I climbed behind the wheel. I said, "Thanks for the offer. You need to finish telling Russ and Flynn the story and get the local sheriff involved. I'll get Kimber to town and try to calm him down."

PART Six

Welle Done

By the time Kimber and I descended from the edge of the blow-down and reached the town of Clark I figured that his panic attack had exceeded an hour in duration. As far as panic attacks go, sixty minutes is a long time. I asked Kimber if that was typical for him. In a voice as cold and sharp as an icicle he told me that it didn't matter, this time was different, he was sure he was dying.

I was starting to worry. Although panic attacks are terrifying for the victim and scary enough for anybody in the vicinity, they are usually, ultimately, harmless physically. But that isn't always the case. Occasionally the physiological stress that an attack places on the body can cause severe consequences-heart attack, stroke, even in rare instances, death.

Ten minutes farther down the hill toward Steamboat, Kimber sat up suddenly in the backseat and said, "Alan, I don't think I'm going to make it to town." I had to admit that he appeared ready for death. He was ghostly white and his respirations were rat-a-tatting like a machine gun. He looked out the window and asked, "Are we close to Welle's ranch?"

I was perplexed by the question. I replied, "Reasonably. A couple of more minutes."

"Go to the ranch, then. Please. The Silky Road. I liked it there today. I think maybe I'll feel safer there. Maybe I'll get better there. Please."

Although familiarity sometimes has an ameliorating effect on panic episodes, I wasn't convinced returning to the ranch was the wisest course of action.

"We're only fifteen or twenty minutes from town, Kimber."

"I don't think I can make it twenty minutes. My chest."

I started to argue that there was no one at the ranch who could let us through the gate. He told me he didn't care. We could break in. He'd explain it all later.

"I've lost feeling in my toes and fingers. Just try it." He was begging.

Remembering that this man had helped save my life only a couple of hours earlier, I drove to the gate of the Silky Road and hit the buzzer. While I was waiting for a response I checked my watch. It was almost dawn. The only thing that was keeping me awake was the adrenaline rush I was having in reaction to Kimber's panic attack. Sylvie finally answered my beckon after a minute or two.

She had obviously been awakened from a sound sleep. I couldn't imagine that she would grant us entry if I told her the truth, so I identified myself and said that Phil Barrett had asked me for a ride home from town and explained that he'd lost his keys and couldn't recall the security code for the gate.

She asked if Phil was drunk again.

I said he was.

She mumbled something profane and told me she'd go over and unlock the house for him. Give her five minutes to get dressed.

The gate eased open and I pulled inside and drove up the lane. I told Kimber to stay down in the backseat until I knew Sylvie was gone. I didn't want her to get a glance at Kimber. She wouldn't be fooled; Kimber looked nothing like Phil Barrett. Sylvie arrived at the front door a minute after I did and as she unlocked the door asked if I needed help getting Phil inside.

I said, "This isn't the first time, I take it."

"Hardly," she replied.

"Go back to bed. I'll get him in even if I have to use a wheelbarrow."

She laughed good-naturedly and climbed back into her car to return to her house.

"Kimber," I said as I leaned into the car, "we're here. Where exactly do you want to go?"

"The study. Same place I was today."

I supported him from the car and guided him to Raymond Welles study. I didn't know how I was going to explain this incursion to anybody. I'd already decided that the moment the panic attack abated I was going to pack Kimber back in the car and drive him down the hill to the bed-and-breakfast so I didn't have to explain the lie to anyone but Sylvie.

Once inside Welle's study Kimber knew exactly what he wanted to do. He plopped down on Ray Welle's big leather sofa, curled up in a ball, and pulled a blanket over his head. I asked him about chest pain. He waved at me from under the blanket. I asked him if he needed an ambulance. He said, "No." I flicked off the room lights and left him.

I succumbed to my fatigue the moment I was alone. I moved to the living room, kicked off my shoes, and sacked out on a couch. Within minutes I was almost asleep; in fact I was so close to sleep that I was certain the sounds I started hearing were a prelude to a dream.

A door closing gently. Water running. Someone shuffling feet on a hardwood floor. I opened my eyes. Damn. Kimber must have gotten up to use the bathroom.

Maybe, I hoped, he's feeling better already and we can go back to town. But I thought that the sounds that I'd heard had come from the other end of the house.

My heart started racing. I listened intently.

Who could be here? Sylvie was down the lane at her house. Phil Barrett was in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness with the trunk of a fir tree planted where his heart and lungs should be.

I tried to swallow but my throat was so dry that I coughed. I constricted my throat as tight as I could but I coughed again, not only failing to muffle the sound but also announcing my presence to whomever it was that I'd heard moving around the house. I stood up and moved closer to the central hallway. The clerestory skylights above my head were blue-black and the first soft gray light of dawn was filtering into the corridor. I saw no one lurking down the hall. I listened some more and heard no sounds coming from anywhere in the house. My heart began to slow.

It must have been Kimber that I'd heard. I stayed planted where I was for another long minute, heard nothing new, exhaled in a long sigh, and decided that I needed a bathroom before I fell asleep. From the forensic search the afternoon before I remembered that there was a powder room just a few steps farther down the main hallway toward the master bedroom. I went there and unzipped.

Midstream, seconds after I started to pee, I heard, "My, but this is convenient. God does answer prayers."

I tried to stop peeing but I couldn't. I was that frightened by the gun that was pointing at my head.

"After you've finished up there and tucked everything back in place, why don't you just put your hands behind your head?"

I zipped, and laced my fingers behind my neck.

Raymond Welle said, "That's right. Now come on out of there."

He marched me to the living room and sat me on a sofa directly across from him.

He was wearing a soft woolen robe over a pair of pajamas and the kind off step-in slippers that my father used to wear. He said, "So, who are you tonight?

Goldilocks? What? Were you planning on going from room to room trying to find which bed was juu-just right?" I didn't know how to respond. I said, "I can explain all this, Representative Welle."

"Save it. I don't care for your rationalization, Dr. Gregory. All I care about right at the moment is that I seem to have an intruder in my house in the middle of the night. I have a weapon in my hand. And I have the right under Colorado law to use that weapon to protect my property. That this particular intruder has proven to be one major pain in the ass for the past few weeks is just frosting on the cake."