After Joseph Long House refused to lead Grimstone into the Allegheny Mountains, the Englishman procured lodgings for he and his wife, leaving her there to rest while he went about Hawk's Run in search of a guide who was willing to lead him to the end of his quest. It was not long before he came to the rugged German named Odolf Rambert. Rambert's references from the townspeople were nowhere near as good as the old Indian's, but Grimstone felt that they were good enough and that the man would have to do.

By morning the next day, despite the cold and the impending blizzard conditions in the mountains, Grimstone was well provisioned and on his way. Having second thoughts, only where Neti was concerned, he asked her to remain behind in the town while he and Rambert went on with the pack mules, but she insisted upon going with him. Neti was not looking well to Grimstone most mornings, often throwing up and feeling lightheaded, but she assured him that it was merely due to the weather and food that she was not accustomed to and that in time she would adjust. Most times, as much as he loved his wife, Grimstone focussed so intensely upon his quest that he hardly noticed his wife's discomfort. Although a passionate couple by nature, because of the concentration of his passion upon his quest and her occasional illness, it had been many months since they had "known" one another in the biblical sense. However, the bond between them was strong and transcended the purely physical aspects and expressions of love.

Odolf Rambert was a hardy man, rugged as the archaeologist although not nearly as tall. His blond hair, once a bright golden hue, had turned nearly brown with grease and dirt. In fact, the German was nowhere near godliness, but of course that was not a requirement of the job he had been hired to do and often Grimstone encountered the same characteristic in many of the best guides all around the world. As they rode higher into the Allegheny Mountains the air grew colder and the stench of the filthy German seemed less noticeable.

Single file the three individuals, each mounted upon sturdy mules, the men each leading a pack mule behind them, made their way through the heavily forested mountains along passes that were often almost too narrow for the animals. "These are all Indian footpaths," Rambert explained from the front of the trail, "but not many of them are used these days. Most of the savages were either killed in battle or sent westward, some down south, before my father's father died. These pathways crisscross the entire country, although most of them cannot be used by a mounted man. They are useful though...but I haven't any use for them that made the paths. I can't imagine why you would want to go so far out of your way to look for these savages you call the Sun Hawk People."

Rambert turned back to look beyond Neti between them to glance at Grimstone in the rear while he made his last comment.

"My anthropological interest in the aboriginies indigenous to this area need not concern you, Mr. Rambert. Getting us as near to the village of the Sun Hawk People as possible and back again should be your only concern...if you wish to be paid."

Rambert grimmaced, turning eyes front again and grumbling to himself.

"Gott in Himmel...and I thought I understood the English language!"

Three days they travelled, always setting up camp before nightfall, before the clear crisp weather began to turn against them. The higher they rose the more cloud cover there seemed to be while the snowfall went from mere flurries to sporadic near blizzard conditions. On the fourth day it was difficult to determine exactly when morning turned to afternoon and afternoon into evening, so heavy and constant was the snowfall. This, of course, made travelling slow and dangerous for as the snow fell the trails seemed to disappear and the persistent gloom and decreased visibility did nothing to improve the situation. Still, Odolf Rambert insisted that he knew exactly where he was at all times, and Grimstone had more than enough to be concerned with as it was.

Neti, he had noticed, did not seem to be feeling very well. He was beginning to have his doubts that her illness was only a matter of weather and diet. Of late he had noticed a puffiness in her face and hands, a retention of water that was not usual for his wife. He could not, of course, fully assess the matter since it had been imprudent for them to disrobe fully while on their long journey out of doors. Had Grimstone even a tenth as much experience in the physiology of a woman as he had in both archaeology and Egyptology he might have come to a quick understanding of his wife's condition--a condition she was determined to hide from him so as not to interfere with his heart's desire, the quest that had taken them half way around the world.

By day six they were well up into the mountains where they found a deep cave in which to shelter themselves from the fierce blizzard that had raged continuously.

Although the interior of the great cave was bone-chilling cold, the fire around which they sat doing little to warm them, it at least kept out the wind which howled through the ice encrusted trees outside. Grimstone noticed that again Neti had eaten little, not that he blamed her considering their bland fare, but his concern for her health was increasing.

"Neti," Grimstone said, the flickering firelight making shadows dance over his face, "perhaps we should return. You do not look well."

"I am well enough," she smiled, with a touch of strain, "and having come this far it would be a shame not to continue on."

Of course she said nothing about the occasional sharp pains she had felt, and riding with her back to her husband it was easy for her to hide this--most times.

"Rambert, how far away from the village do you think we are?"

The German, holding a tin cup of steaming coffee in front of his face with both hands, wearing undergloves with the fingers cut out of them, seemed to take some time to consider the question before speaking.

"Of course you understand that I have never been to the village...if it even exists...but judging from what information I could drag out of the old redskin I'd say at least another week's journey."

"A week!" Grimstone glanced worryingly at his wife's beautiful but pale, drawn face.

"The weather," Rambert shrugged. "It slows our progress."

Melting snow in a tin cup, Grimstone made tea for his wife and after she had finished it and was bundled up and fast asleep the two men sat across from one another over the fire, drinking their last cups of coffee before turning in.

"Mr. Rambert," Grimstone said, looking up from his cup of strong, hot coffee, "I can rely upon you, can I not?"

The German guide grunted, a sarcastic smile upon his dirty face.

"You are asking me if I'll desert you and Frau Grimstone?"

"Yes. I suppose I am. You see, the more involved I have become in my search, the more irresponsible towards my wife I realize I have become." Grimstone took a sip of coffee, distractedly gazing into the fire. "I suppose...well...I suppose that this entire affair has obsessed me and made me feel...younger. I am afraid that I am not acting my age...that the nearer I get to proving my precious theories the more incautious I have become. Incautious and selfish, Mr. Rambert."

"Yah. In other words, Herr Grimstone, you have been acting like a normal human being and you have always thought that you were better than that."

Grimstone looked up into the man's face and smiled.

"Yes. I suppose you are right."

"Then for an undereducated man who smells bad, I am not such a terrible stupid person?"

Grimstone laughed, subduing his laughter so as not to awaken Neti.

"For a smelly undereducated man you are not bad, Mr. Rambert."

Odolf Rambert leaned forward over the fire and winked.

"I will tell you a secret. It is not because of bad habits that I smell this way, Herr Grimstone. I smell this way because the bear grease I have smeared my clothes with keeps away the wahrwolf!"

"Werwolf!" Grimstone exclaimed. "Surely you do not believe..."

"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. But there are plenty of wolves in these mountains, Herr Grimstone, and the smell keeps them away as well. When they are starving," Rambert shrugged, "the pack may take down a deer...or a man." He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire, causing a momentary cat's hiss. "But wolves do not worry me as much now as does this weather. And your wife...she is unwell."

The Englishman glanced over his shoulder to regard his wife, all bundled up and obviously not sleeping well.

"I am concerned as well...and I should have been concerned earlier. Maybe..."

"Maybe we should return?"

"Yes," Grimstone replied. "Maybe we should."

"Well...we can, of course...if she will let us. She is a strong woman, Herr Grimstone, and she does not want to come between you and your dream."

"I suppose that is one of the reasons I fell in love with her, Mr. Rambert."

"We could return...but I think the journey back would be as hard as the journey before us."

Grimstone seemed to consider this for a moment, swallowing the dregs of his coffee and then screwing his face up in a grimmace at the bitter taste of the gritty coffee grounds.

"Of course," the archaeologist thought aloud, "we know what is behind us while even you cannot guarantee what is ahead of us...if we will be well received by the Indians...if they even exist."

"It is true," Rambert agreed.

"Then perhaps we should return."

"We should go forward, my husband." Neti's quiet voice turned the men's heads in her direction. "We cannot give up now," the woman said, raising herself on an elbow.

"I thought you were fast asleep," Grimstone remarked.

"Men!" she said with an exasperated smile. "You think you are so quiet when your whispered voices are like the bellow of a bull. Please...I want to go on. I do not want to turn back after all we have gone through...after all you have gone through."

"Are you certain that you are well enough?" Grimstone asked.

"This way or that, the distance and weather is about the same. I'm sure that if we go foward we will find the people you have been searching for. Yes. I am well enough to go on." A shadow passed over her face.

"Well," Rambert said as he rose to his feet, extracting his well smoked pipe from some pocket amongst his wraps, "I think you should keep your wife warm while I smoke a pipe outside before turning in. Most likely the travelling tomorrow will be difficult, so you will need your rest."

"Sound advice," Grimstone agreed. "Good night, Mr. Rambert."

"Good night, Herr Grimstone...Frau Grimstone."

And with that Odolf Rambert stepped outside of the cave, disappearing into the darkness, protected against any "wahrwolf" that might lurk in the night.

Once during the night Grimstone was half awaken by a sound he could not identify, a kind of rumbling, but he was so fatigued that he quickly fell back into the arms of Somnus. The very first thing he noticed upon awakening, beside the cold, was the absence of his guide. Startled and ready to curse himself for a fool, he jerked to a sitting position and turned his gaze in the direction of Rambert's musket and other belongings. These things were still where the German had left them the night before, and surely he would not have abandoned the Grimstones without taking his musket with him. Perhaps, the Englishman thought, Rambert had awakened earlier. Maybe he was having a morning pipe outside before starting the day. But would he not have first awaken the fire to life?

Grimstone began to worry. He remembered the sound that had briefly awaken him in the night. His concerns multiplied and grew in strength.

The Englishman pulled himself out from under the blankets, surprised he had not already awaken his wife, deciding to let her sleep for as long as he could. There were Rambert's tracks to the mouth of the cave which he made the night before...but there were no returning tracks.

His concerns turned to fear and his fear was rapidly coming close to panic.

The world outside of the cave was a beautiful but bizzare landscape of white. The morning sun in the now crystal clear blue sky reflected dazzelingly off of the ice and snow and for a moment he was temporarily blinded by the sudden glare. After his vision cleared somewhat, while he continued to blink the spots away, the first thing Grimstone noticed was that there had been a landslide, an avalanch, and it had completely obliterated the path that they had come to the cave by. Their retreat was effectively blocked. That, he thought, solved the dilemma as to whether they should go on or turn back. There was no choice now but to go on, he realized.

The next thing he saw made the prospect of going forward seem as hopeless as retreat.

Grimstone rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision more quickly, hoping that what he thought he saw was only an optical illusion.

"Dear God..."

The Englishman, with great difficulty, made his way through the deep snow, down an embankment, there to find that which he thought he had seen to be all too real.

The frozen body of Odolf Rambert.

It was not difficult to see what had happened. Rambert had gotten caught in the avalanch. Something, perhaps a sharp rock, maybe even a mass of ice, had slammed into his head. It might have been that that blow was what had killed the German, but Grimstone suspected that the blow to his head had but knocked him unconscious, or perhaps only stunned him, for the expression on his face seemed to indicate that he had actually frozen to death--very slowly.

Looking into the frozen, staring eyes of the dead man, Grimstone thought about how he had just come to like the man the night before. It was a shame that he had protected himself from wolves but not from avalanches. Then he thought about Neti--and the fact that now they had to go forward, and his only knowledge of the terrain was what he could gather from crude maps he did not trust to be very accurate.

His thoughts were interrupted when Grimstone heard his wife calling for him. How would he explain their situation without worrying Neti? There was no way to do it. The only natural thing to do was to worry--and at that moment there was no man on earth more natural than Jonathan Ethan Grimstone.

Again Neti called out her husband's name, but this time Grimstone noticed a sharp accent to it. She was in pain!

The Englishman ran to his wife's side as best he could. The effort to run in thigh-deep snow, at that high altitude, sucking in the thin, frozen air, almost caused him to black out once he had gotten to the cave entrance.

"Neti?"

The woman, heavily bundled and partly covered by blankets, was holding her abdomen. The pain was subsiding and the expression on her face relaxing after the unexpected sensation.

"I suppose that I'll have to tell you now," she said, worry showing on her strained, ashen features.

"Tell me what?" Grimstone asked, kneeling by his wife's side.

The woman smiled, the corners of her beautiful mouth trembling, as she lifted her hand to touch gently the side of her husband's rugged face.

"You have been so intent upon your search, my husband, and I have been so foolish to hide it from you all this time." She threw the blankets aside and partially undid her clothing to reveal her midriff--not swollen as much as one might expect for a woman eight months pregnant, but enough to tell the whole story to her husband. "You were getting so close to your dream, my husband, that I did not want you to stop or worry about me."

"How could I be so bloody stupid!" Grimstone never thought to be angry with his wife, knowing that if she had been foolish she had at least had the best of intentions and her husband's desires in mind before her own considerations.

"Neti, we cannot return. An avalanche has cut off our retreat and I am afraid that I am not familiar enough with these mountains to search for another way down."

"Our guide?"

"Dead," Grimstone replied, lowering his head for a moment. "Caught in the avalanche while we slept."

Suddenly Neti experienced another sharp pain, venting it with her voice.

"We will have to go on," Grimstone said. "Perhaps the Sun Hawk People..."

Neti stopped his sentence before he could finish it by grasping her husband's forearm and gazing into his worried eyes.

"I'm afraid I will not be able to go on...just yet. Our child is over anxious to come into the world."

The Englishman was on the verge of panic. He had had many life-threatening adventures in his time, and yet he had never had an experience like this. He was not prepared for it. He did not know what to do. For so long he had thought only about proving his theories and little else. He was silently cursing himself for giving so little attention to the woman who was willing to sacrifice everything for him.

"I do not know what to do," he admitted with abysmal humbleness.

"We need a fire," Neti said. "It is cold. And..." her sentence was cut off by another contraction. "We...will need...it soon."

"Not now?"

"Yes. Now. You must boil some water for cleaning. And a knife purified by fire." Grimstone set about building a fire as his wife spoke. "I have a dress...the white linen dress you like so much...it is hidden in my things." Grimstone looked up into his wife's face as she smiled sweetly. "It was for when we had come to the end of the journey...to celebrate. I'm afraid we will have to tear it into pieces to wrap the baby in and to staunch the normal flow of blood." The idea that Neti was going to bleed threw a look of terror into Grimstone's bright blue eyes. "It's normal, my husband. There is always some bleeding at this time. Please do not worry so.

"We will also need something to tie the cord with." She thought about this for a moment. "Boot laces!" Grimstone's boots were not the pull-on variety one often encountered in that part of the world, and more often in the west. They were of a British design that required long laces to make them secure. Neti had made certain to have extra boot laces for her husband for the journey.

By the time the fire was blazing, Neti had experienced two more contractions. She was definitely in labour and rapidly reaching delivery time.

Grimstone had gone around another turn in the cave, which seemed to tunnel forever into the Allegheny Mountains, to retrieve their things, including the extra boot laces and the bulk of their food. Their packs had been left near where the mules had been tied. When he returned, head down, slumped forward and empty handed, Neti asked, "The animals?"

"The mules must have bolted during the avalanche. For some reason they went deeper into the cave. Perhaps there is an opening at the other end. I might be able to find them, although it is quite a maze in there, but I do not think I have the time for that now."

"No," Neti said with a grimmace, "I don't think so. Our things?"

"Gone. Except for what we have here. Of course we had taken the packs off of the mules for the night, but they were still secured to the rope we used to tie the animals up. They dragged the packs with them when they bolted." Grimstone grunted and reached into his coat to pull out the oil cloths that held the ancient Egyptian dagger. "And this is the only knife that I have."

The woman did her best to smile reassuringly.

"Perhaps it will bring us good fortune."

Grimstone tried to return her smile.

Neti's labour was very difficult, but blessedly brief. Fortunately the baby was in the proper position and the woman, best as she could, guided her husband through the entire procedure. Grimstone forced himself to remain calm, an old habit he had acquired during many dangerous situations in the course of his career, but he felt that at any moment his nerve would break and he would be completely useless to his wife. A fear that never materialized.

When the archaeologist saw the head of his child emerging from the woman's womb a feeling of elation and excitement swept away much of his fear. Gently he cupped his hands around the tiny head. He explained to his wife that a membrane covered the child's face. "A caul!" she screamed, laughed and cried. "How special will our child be!" Nevertheless, she told him to remove it quickly.

There was no problem with the cord and the infant's shoulders emerged, one after the other, with no need of assistance as Grimstone carefully raised the tiny head, fighting the urge to pull the child out to hasten the natural process. When the child was completely free of the womb he used his bandana, which he was glad he had just that night removed from their belongings, and cleaned the mucus and blood from the baby's mouth and face. There was no need to prompt the baby into breathing for it emerged screaming almost instantly--the war cry of a newborn warrior ready to attack life with the full force of his spirit.

"The boot laces," Neti gasped, laughing and crying simultaneously. "Has the cord stopped...stopped..."

"Pulsating? Yes."

"Good. You must tie the cord tightly in two places. About seven inches away from the baby and once more about two inches further. Then cut the cord between the laces."

Grimstone did as he had been told, having removed the laces from his boots and cleaning them as best he could, his wife for once calling the shots. He employed the sterilized, razor-sharp dagger and easily cut through the unbilical cord.

Grimstone wiped the baby's tiny body clean, tears flowing from his sapphire eyes, his heart pounding with excitement and joy.

"We have a son. A son!"

"Yes," Neti smiled, pale and trembling. "I think I've always known it."

The new father wrapped the baby in one of the blankets and gave him to his mother to hold.

"He is beautiful," she said, touching his face with her trembling fingertips, "and so much bigger than I expected for an early child who hid himself so well within my womb."

Grimstone's smile vanished when he glanced back down at his wife's body.

"You are still bleeding."

"It is normal," she replied. "It will stop. Here." She took his hand in hers and laid it on her abdomen. "Gently massage here until it begins to feel firm. This will help stop the bleeding."

But it never seemed to get firm and the bleeding increased. Grimstone tried everything he could to stop the bleeding, but it continued. Neither the man nor the woman had ever heard the term "postpartum hemorrhage", but that was what they were dealing with, the uterus failing to contract normally after their child's birth. Neti's mother had given birth several times after she herself had been born and never had she experienced difficulty, therefore Neti had expected no problem.

"I can't stop the bleeding! It just keeps getting worse!" Grimstone almost screamed, the crack in his thin façade of calm widening.

"He will be a great warrior," Neti said, gazing upon the face of her child. The baby stopped crying and appeared to be looking into his mother's grey eyes, his own being a deep, clear grey with blue fire in their depths. "He will be like his father," Neti continued, her voice growing weaker, "watched over by the Lord Horus."

"Neti! I can't... Neti? Neti!"

"I love you, my husband."

"Neti! Neti! Don't go. Please don't go!" Grimstone took his wife's beautiful face in his strong hands. "Please, Neti. Please. I need you. I love you."

She smiled--weakly. Her voice only a whisper now as her spirit began its journey to the halls of judgment and to the arms of Osiris.

"I...love..."

And she was gone.

After Neti died, the life seemed to also go out of Grimstone. His dream, he found, his precious theories, now meant nothing to him. He was crushed.

The sky that day did not stay clear for long and before noon a blizzard began which continued on into the evening while Grimstone sat by the side of his beloved Neti, now as cold as the driven snow. The fire he had kept burning until he ran out of fire wood, but that too was dying as he sat there cradling his newborn son in his arms, bundled to protect him from the biting winter air.

There were few rations left over from the night before and of course feeding the new baby would be more difficult than feeding himself. He was grateful for the tin of milk that he had. He could water it down with melted snow and very carefully spoon it into the infant's mouth. As for himself, there were some stale bisquits and jerky. He was not concerned about his own needs. He could endure. The baby, however, was another matter, and he was completely inexperienced in such matters.

And what would happen when the fire died down completely?

The blizzard made finding dry wood infeasible, and how could he leave the infant behind anyway to go in search of fire wood? Certainly he could not take the child with him into the storm.

Grimstone's situation seemed hopeless to him. He was more accustomed to deserts and jungles than he was a region and weather such as he had found in the Allegheny Mountains. Making matters worse, he was hardly thinking clearly after the death of his beloved wife. That alone made everything seem hopeless to the man who usually coped well with adversity.

Outside the cave the wind howled through the trees like a thousand banshees--like the lost souls that reputedly haunted the mountains, bemoaning their earthbound condition, perhaps feeling some sorrow for the man and his son.