9 Faith Experienced

Four Months Later

Anxiously I waited by the door looking out. Wyatt had not returned.

He was late.

He'd been late before.

He'd never been three days overdue before though.

Something was wrong.

He'd specifically forbidden me to ever come after him, but what did that matter when love said to do otherwise. I let my hand settle down over the gentle rounding of my abdomen that was the living evidence of life growing within my womb.

Not only did I need Wyatt, but so did our child. I turned back into the room decision made.

I was going out after him. He'd be angry, but he'd get over it.

I dressed appropriately in muted colors that would fit in with the greening up of the springtime environment outside. Going to a drawer, I pulled out my insurance policy.

The pistol gleamed dully in the dim light of the cave. It was a last-ditch occurrence only that would necessitate the use of the gun. Firing a gun in these perilous times could be more perilous for the attention the noise brought than for any benefit the bullet served.

I closed the door of the cave securely. I hoped to return to this little place of heaven that so many good things had occurred in, but the future was uncertain.

Was I doing the right thing? I didn't know.

Were pregnancy hormones addling my perceptions? There was only one way to know the truth of the matter. I sank to my knees and brokenly asked, "God am I doing the right thing? Is there any benefit to me going out or should I for the baby's sake stay here?"

I couldn't bring myself to ask if Wyatt was even alive for fear of what the answer might be. A breeze blew and I had a feeling course through me that accumulated into one felt emotion that echoed across my entire being, "Go!"

I got up and armed with hope I made my way down from our protected sanctuary and started running in the direction that I felt led to go. The running lasted for an hour and then I settled into walking even as I scanned about for evidence of any kind. I found none.

I searched the rest of the day and into the shadows of evening. I had come to the point of having to stop my quest for the night when I found something.

Kneeling in an area of wet ground I felt about in the mud at an impression made by a boot. It had recently been made. Very recently.

Wyatt had done a lot to teach me over the past several months and in the darkness I felt at the sharp crisp edges of the boot impression in the mud. The impression had been made by a new boot with full tread. That was not good. Not good at all.

The only men with boots like that were those who worked for the killers of society. Everything else in the world of survival had become aged and worn with use, but the hunters sent out to eliminate those few who had survived had only the best of everything with which to do their grisly task with.

I had seen a squad of them from a distance about a month back with Wyatt when we had been berry picking together. Since that occurrence, he'd made me stay in the cave. I left off feeling the boot imprint and following an urge of sudden caution I eased my way along the ground to the sheltering protection of some understory growth and there I silently waited listening.

It was a force of will, not to hold the gun with my finger on the trigger. I could afford no mistakes and giving away my position would be the worst one of all if I should pull the trigger by accident so I left the gun tucked into my waistband.

It was too dark to see much, but I heard movement at long last. The movement stopped then and a voice said, "Hey Ed?"

"Yeah?" Came the response from somewhere not very far behind me. If I'd been holding the gun as I'd wanted to I truly would've pulled the trigger out of sheer fright. Stuffing a hand over my mouth, I stilled any possible exclamation from occurring. I mustn't make a sound!

"Have you picked up anything with your scanner?"

"No, this mist rolling in ain't helping anything either."

"Yeah, I know. Did you get this area in between us or do I need to go over it?"

My heart stopped beating and my hand closed over the handle of the pistol. They had infrared scanners and night vision goggles no doubt. If they scanned where I was I'd light up like a Christmas tree in the dark. Relief shot through me though, as the other said, "Yeah, I already got it. The only place left is the ridge over there. Let's double up and get it scanned and then we can get back to camp. If he's not up there, then he's died in a hole somewhere, because that's the only other reason we haven't picked him up with these Chinese pieces of junk."

"Sounds good to me amigo." Responded the first voice and the two headed off together through the brush.

Tears were spilling off my face and in the dark I fought to stave off panic. The thought of my man dead or laying somewhere badly hurt was tearing a life sized hole through my heart.

"Please God! Please God!" I whispered over and over as I fought for control.

I had to think!

What would Wyatt do? He was wounded. He knew they had scanners. He couldn't run.

I gazed off towards the dark promontory of a ridge lifting up in the distance that was now highlighted by starlight. It made no sense that he would go in that direction and expend precious energy climbing.

Maybe, if he didn't have me to think of. Without me involved he very much might have climbed up to a likely spot and made a last stand, but no, he wouldn't have done that. He would work hard at surviving in order to return to me and the baby.

The ground was damp. There had to be flowing water nearby. Again he knew they had heat scanners.

He had to disguise his heat signature somehow. Surely they would have searched the water first for that very reason. It didn't matter, it was the best plausible solution I could come up with and I headed toward a low-lying area I suspected of having water.

Soon I heard water and then as a half-moon made its way up into the sky and glinted off the surface of the stream I followed it. How would I find him?

He could be anywhere. He could be dead.

I stopped and crying emotionally I looked up into the night sky and brokenly whispered, "Don't you care?" I looked down feeling instantly ashamed of myself and yet completely bereft of knowing what to do.

"Step out into faith daughter."

I glanced up and my emotions stilled for a moment. A faint glimmer of hope gleamed to life within my soul and wiping at my tears I did as asked and stepped forward.

It was hard going as I had sunk into some sandy mud that formed part of a sandbar that ran alongside the river. Pulling my foot free of the sucking mud I stepped forward again. I stepped on something!

Gasping, I stepped back and knelt down and dug away at the mud. A hand! His hand!

It was cold.

"Oh God, please, no!"

I tore at the sandy mud and uncovered more of his arm and then gingerly felt for his head. My fingers coasted over the surface and I found a stick poking up through the sand. It wasn't a stick, but in fact was a hollow reed!

Not wanting to, but having to I leaned close to the end of the reed. I felt nothing. Despair lit up within me and then a slight exhale of moistness against my cheek lit me back up with hope.

Working fast I dug around where his face would be and quickly uncovered it. Relying on instinct I followed its dictates as I leaned down over his nose and sucked as hard as I could. My mouth was filled with mud and I spit it out and sucked again.

Feeling at his cleared nostrils, I felt an exhalation of breath and that confirmed I pulled the hollow reed from between his lips. Everything of him I touched was cold and wet.

Going to the water I cupped my hands full of it and washed his face clean. The moon was brighter now and I saw the instant his eyes opened. I waited for him to be angry, but instead he whispered, "Thank God you came!"

Crying I leaned forward and with effort pulled him up out of his muddy self-imposed grave. He was mumbling something, "I told God if He would just let me see you again that I would believe. I do. I can go now its okay."

Pulling back, I looked him in the face and shaking him fiercely I said, "You're not going anywhere, but home! You have a child to raise and a woman to love! I didn't marry a quitter! I married a survivor now get up!"

Weakly, he tried to even as he mumbled out, "Yes, ma'am." The last four months of good food and steady daily exercise and erotic action had been good for me, but it was adrenaline more than anything else that gave me the strength to pull him up out of the mud and get him on his feet.

He leaned heavily upon me and I took the weight. I held on tight to the arm dangling over my one shoulder even as I wrapped my other one about his back. I started off slogging through the stream.

Oh God give me strength!

I was out of breath by the time I got him out of the stream basin and just about then it started to rain. He was moving better, but what little he was managing to do only echoed to how bad off he was.

Any other man would be dead, of that I was certain. I had to get him home!

The rain fell and I hurried as much as I was able to in the darkness as the rain beat down. Dimly, as I fought for breath, it registered to me that with this much rain the stream level would rise and it would wash away the disturbance in the sandbar. God was good, but why hadn't He made me stronger?

I was what I was though, and as bad as I wanted to quit I wasn't going to. We stumbled through the night as the rain poured down.

I wasn't sure if he was conscious or not, but his feet kept moving as proof of life and I kept fighting. I prayed that I wasn't hurting our baby as much as I prayed that my man wouldn't die.

Oh God, I couldn't stand to lose one let alone both!

I bumped into something and as dawn's gray light lit the rainy sky up I saw that it was the cliff face. The enormity of the impossibility of what lay before me had us both collapsing down to the ground.

Hurting inside I looked at the cliff and cried out openly in bitterness, "God, I can't do it!"

How had I not realized the impossibility of this moment the whole way here? What was the point of the struggle when God had known all along that this moment would come? I didn't understand!

In anger I screamed, "God!!!"

And then once more in utter despair, I moaned, "God?"

I sat crying in the rain as my man perished beside me and as my womb began to heave painfully. Completely inconsolable, I cried as the pain of my baby about to die tore through me with more aggression than 10,000 swords ever could have.

A hand formed over my hands clasped over my womb and warmth radiated throughout me and an instant feeling of healing occurred even as the pain of my miscarriage stopped. Shaken, I looked up into the face of what I knew to be an angel even though he appeared to me as a man.

He spoke, "Peace Tamara, your baby will not die."

I felt the truth of his words even then within me and crying out I reached forward and hugged him fiercely.

What was I doing? I didn't care.

He spoke warmly, "When you can't go on any farther, you have but to call out to the source of all creation, the Father. He knows His children and He watches over them night and day. Nothing is impossible for the Ancient Of All Days. No, not anything. You will not doubt that any longer Tamara."

I pulled back from my embrace of him and he stood up, only I wasn't at the foot of the cliff any longer. I was on the floor of the cave and my man was beside me and the fire was already lit in the fireplace before us. I watched as a second angel stepped away from Wyatt and whispering I said with all my heart, "Thank you!"

"Do not thank us for we are but emissaries of the Father's love poured out for you. It is His will that we do and His words are simple to you and they are these, 'Be still and know that I am God. Stay by your man, of which your faithful love of has helped to restore him to oneness with Me through My Son Jesus. In the days to come be fruitful and multiply and have dominion once more over the land now empty of inhabitants. Your enemies will soon be no more, but they will be as the hunted vermin of the earth and wholly detestable to every living creature.' These are the Father's words to you. His eyes are ever upon you, even as His Spirit resides strongly now within you both. Let there be peace in this house. Now attend to your man."

I looked to Wyatt and glanced back to the angels, only they weren't there any longer. Putting my hand over my heart, I whispered, glancing heavenward, "Your servant praises You Master! Thank you for the life of my child and that of my man! Glory be to You forever!"

Wiping at my tears I reached forward and did as the angel had said to do. I undid Wyatt's shirt and with a gasp took in the oozing bullet hole down low on his left side. Then, before my eyes the wound moved and something came out of it.

I reached down and picked up the smashed piece of lead from off the rug. I looked back to see that the wound had closed over and was gone from even being a wound. Still unconscious Wyatt's chest rose and fell strongly as he breathed in and out.

Crying with praises to God, I clutched onto the evidence of a miracle that I held in my hand and lay down to press my cheek against my mate's chest so I could listen to his heart beat. A heart that was now right with God!

"Thank you Jesus!" I whispered out as I fell asleep listening to the beat of life echo strongly within the man I loved.