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Have you ever felt uncomfortable in your own skin?

Maybe there's a reason...

I've been accused of being the sort of guy who "doesn't get out much." That's probably more true than even I'd like to admit, but I counter the argument with good humor. After all, when your home, your office, and your favorite eating places are all within a half dozen blocks of each other, it's a nice arrangement as far as I'm concerned. Take today, for instance: I was able to get Mrs. Lindenbaum's bill together, tidy up the office, snooze on my particularly comfortable sofa (it's the one piece of office furniture that I refused to compromise on), and still have time to change clothes at home before my dinner appointment with Moon Bear.

The trip to the apartment wasn't strictly necessary, but it gave me a chance to tend to a few chores, such as cleaning up the breakfast dishes before the remnants of egg, corned beef hash, Tabasco, and cheese became a permanent part of their personality. Most of my mail was delivered to the office, so emptying my home mail box is usually a simple matter of throwing it all into the trash without a second glance (which must, I'm sure, irritate people who pay good money for those weekly newspaper-like circulars). I stripped out of the lightly-starched button-down shirt, tossing it onto the pile to go to the cleaners, then allowed myself a few moments of water on the face as a substitute for proper ablutions. (Hey, give me a break - even Archie Goodwin used "ablutions.")

Getting a fresh polo-style shirt out of my dresser gave me the opportunity to glimpse a photo that I had no business keeping, much less glimpsing. Daffyd always enjoyed being "the different one," from the Welsh spelling of his name to the variety of t-shirts that he wore. In this picture, he sported one reading, "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is," and me latched onto his back wearing a dumb grin on my face. We were at the zoo on that beautiful spring day. He had the chutzpah to ask a complete stranger - a terminally straight-appearing woman with three young kids - to take the picture. And she did. She even smiled and wished us a lovely day. Even her kids waved goodbye at us. Daffyd had that affect on people, putting them at ease even when outside of their apparent boundaries. He certainly got around all of mine.

I looked at us in that photo - him, bearing the superior confidence of being two years older than me, and a handsome dishwater blond besides, and me seeming a little too young somehow, longer brown hair, clean-shaven, eyes with a touch too much wonder in them, all for being so in love with that guy. In the mirror, much more chastened dark hazel eyes took in a face that seemed to have aged a little too much for a guy in his early thirties. Having people disappear on you has that effect.

Back on the street, I walked the four blocks west to my favorite Chinese restaurant. It was a good time to think, weaving in and about the crowds, and because I didn't want to think about Daffyd, I went to thinking about Moon Bear. Teacher, mentor, friend, father figure, pick one or all. Edgard Moon Bear was that and more, so far as I was concerned. When I had no idea what I wanted to do after college, I bummed about in odd jobs for quite a while before Moon Bear found me. He was a P.I., and he needed a runner - messages mostly, or documents taken one place or another. Bit by bit, he showed me more of the business. I took over for a thrilling night of surveillance on a twenty-four-hour convenience store, making note of who went in or out; I barely stayed awake, but I got the job done. And once I realized that being a P.I. isn't nearly as glamorous as Magnum and Rockford and all those guys made it look, I was able to make a more informed choice about my career options.

How many job fields out there come with their own mentor? I wasn't entirely stupid - I knew that a chunk of the P.I. business really could be learned out of a book. Some of it was instinct, and I seemed to have my share of that, more so than the guy on the street anyway. Contrary to popular belief, you really don't have to be terribly gifted to do P.I. work. Sort of like the secret to out-running a dog that's chasing you: You don't have to be faster than the dog, you just have to be faster than the guy running next to you.

The other secrets, though - yeah, every job has secrets of one kind or another, "tricks of the trade" so to speak. That's where Moon Bear came in. I knew I'd save myself a lot of grief if I could cozy up to someone who actually knew the field, and there was no doubt that Moon Bear knew a lot. Even after all these years ... wait, how long has it been? Out of college at 20, then a few years bumming in Stillwater... okay, yeah, I met up with Moon Bear eleven years ago, after I got out of that Oklahoma college town and into a city big enough to keep me going, yet small enough to make it okay for me to be walking the streets like this.

The Really Good Chinese Restaurant and Grocery seems to have been here since before the dawn of the city. The joke, of course, is to say that they serve Really Good food; the truth is, it's not really good, it's flippin' excellent. You can even request the level of spice in the various dishes, from British Proper (not spiced at all, thanks all the same) to the equivalent of a nuclear holocaust in your gums. Only the brave and the suicidal have requested more than "three pepper."

Because of some city regulation that no one clearly understood, there are two doors from the street into the building, set side by side. There is no significant separation inside the premises between the grocery, on the right side of the building, and the restaurant to the left, except for a segment about halfway down the interior. The building code, however, insisted that there be "two doors" for entry to the two businesses. Welcome to Bureaucratic Heaven.

"Hello, bay-bee!" cooed a grinning, matronly-looking Chinese woman. "You okay tonight?"

I grinned and hugged her. "I'm just fine, Betty Lou," I told her. I could feel her chuckle against my embrace.

"I love you call me that!" she laughed. "The Bear already here, in the back. You want the usual, something special, what?" She patted my chest gently. "You have birthday soon, we fix something special for you. Chicken, beef, pork, shrimp?"

"A little of everything. Let's indulge!"

"House special, all yours!" She shooed me away. "Go! See your friend! Be out in ten minute."

She bustled off toward the kitchen, shouting out something that I couldn't begin to translate, answered by someone who said something like,whan kin choo fee sooloo pow tingting whatevah! Yeah, that whole "everybody knows your name" thing feels good for a reason.

Moon Bear sat in the corner, taking up most of it. He's not a fat man, as Nero Wolfe is described; it's quite possible that Moon Bear does weigh in at "a seventh of a ton," but you'll find that a huge percentage of it is muscle. There's not much about him that anyone would really want to mess with. If nothing else, as he always would say, he'd just sit on you.

"Hey, kid, good to see you." He'd already begun with some soup, and those lovely crispy noodle-like things that I liked to call "Chinese chips." I was certain that my own bowl of soup would show up within seconds.

_"Y'at'teh,"_I countered.

He frowned. "Why you always wanting to use that Navajo stuff on me all the time? Reading too much Tony Hillerman?"

"I just figured I should get a real Injun greeting out of you once in a while."

"Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, look who's here!"

"That'll do." I laughed and sat myself down. "But shouldn't that be fry bread instead of a biscuit?"

"Too much cholesterol."

True to my prediction, Betty Lou - I know her real name, but I couldn't begin to recreate the phonetic spelling of it and get anywhere close to right - brought out a bowl of "war wonton soup," as she called it."Xi xi," I said.

"Anytime, sailor!" she winked and bustled back to the kitchen.

"You young studs get all the gals," Moon Bear deadpanned. "Even if you don't want 'em."

"Blame my twin soul," I said, digging into my soup.

That should have gotten a chuckle out him, but for some reason, my mentor seemed a little less cheery than his usual self. "What topics should we start off with?" he asked.

"Business," I said, selecting a safe one. "Finished off the would-be husband cheating case. His money is going to bitches, but they all run on the same track."

"Dog races," Moon Bear nodded. "He winning or losing?"

"Who really wins? I figure the missus will bring him around to see the light. Case closed, check's in the mail."

"New client?"

"As if on cue," I said. The "war" of the war wanton soup was beginning to make itself known; there is some subtlety of spice that I can only call "the creeping burn," the sort that you don't notice very much until you've had half a dozen spoons full and it's far too late to do anything about it. I loved that stuff. "Man wants some surveillance work. I may need to tap some operatives, if he wants 24/7."

"He pays, we play. I know some fellahs we can put on shift if need be." Moon Bear paused. "What else in the headlines?"

I dodged the bullet for a little while longer, bringing up enough stuff to talk about until after my meal came. Betty Lou's kitchen had dreamed up an amazing treat, almost more Thai in flavor than Chinese, but I wasn't complaining. Generous portions of chicken, beef, shrimp, and pork, swimming through noodles and a sauce that somehow accentuated each type of meat. I reveled in every bite. Moon Bear raised an eyebrow at me as if he thought I was going to reenact the deli scene from_When Harry Met Sally._ It was a near thing.

After a little while, the big guy looked up from his own well-loaded dish and, sensing that the time was as right as it was going to get, asked me directly, "How are you holding up, Jeremiah?"

When he uses my name, it's probably time to get serious. I tried to hold back a sigh, almost succeeded. "My birthday is coming up. Need I say more?"

"That's a little bit on the superstitious side, wouldn't you think?"

"This from a guy who listens to the wind and tells stories from the clouds." I laughed, gently and without any malice. Moon Bear was as much a shaman as a shamus, and he taught me a lot about both realms. "I'm sorry, boss. Just seems that bad things always happen right around my birthday. From the very first one."

"You're not responsible for your parents. The authorities never really knew what happened."

"Just that they disappeared." I poked at my food a little. "I know it can't be my fault, but I keep feeling responsible somehow. Hard not to. Kids always have that, don't they, or am I the only idiot in the sandbox?"

"Idiot, no. Dreamer, maybe." Moon Bear looked at me through semi-lidded eyes. "There's a lot of the dreamer in you. A lot of the dreamtime. All the Injuns say that about you. We're never wrong, you know."

"I keep forgetting."

"I'll keep reminding you." He paused. "You really hate your birthday that much?"

"What's to like? Daffyd left me last year, just in time to stand me up for my birthday. That sort of put a damper on things."

"He was a good man. Good for you too. He just couldn't see. He got scared."

"Scared of what?"

Moon Bear didn't answer.

Betty Lou bustled over to the table. "You like?" she said, indicating the plate.

"Best ever, Betty Lou." I hugged her sideways from my sitting position. "Thank you. You always know how to make everything better."

"For you, easy. You like maneki neko, always good for business, good for heart." She put a plastic tray on the table, with a simple pale green ticket bearing her Chinese chicken-scratch symbols and some numbers. "I get this later."

"Hang on," I said. I checked my wallet and found a pair of singles cowering against the genuine authentic simulated imitation cow hide. Moon Bear flicked me a glance, and I shook my head. I handed the two bills to Betty Lou.

"Oh," she said, grinning like a schoolgirl. "He gonna do his trick tonight?"

Moon Bear grinned. "Let's see if he can."

Betty Lou trotted to the grocery store side of the business and in short order came back with a two-dollar lottery scratcher ticket. I took a quarter from my pocket, flipped it into the air, snapped my fingers and caught it again. I took the ticket from Betty Lou and let the coin do its work. Without a word, I handed it to her.

"Twenty dollar!" she said, laughing. "I never know how you do that."

"Neither do I," I smiled. "It's all yours."

She bowed her thanks happily, taking the tray with Moon Bear's twenty already on it. I turned back to my mentor and caught him with That Look on his face. It intimidates most people because they don't know what's behind it. A big man, black haired, black eyed, deep eyed, an expression that terrifies because there's nothing artificial in it. Most people can't stand to look that far into a soul, especially if they're afraid that they might fall into it and keep falling. Most people, when confronted with a true and open soul, will sacrifice their bodies before they'll chance losing their own souls. And that's how Moon Bear can get confessions out of people who haven't been afraid of anything else in their lives. That was the "bounty hunter" side of his private investigations, and he'd built quite a reputation on it.

When he used That Look on me, it wasn't to extract information against my will; it was to let me know that he was ready to listen to whatever was really important. The light-hearted banter was over, the daily banalities had been settled. He didn't need to say it, but he said it anyway. "What's been going on, Jeremiah?"

I wasn't going to hide from him. Didn't really want to. I can always use the help. "The dream is back."

"Same?"

"Mostly. The terrain is the same, the general feeling is the same. I think there may be a new element, though."

Moon Bear folded his arms across his chest. "How did it start this time?"

I cleared my mind, let myself into that part of myself that still scared me. "Running. There's always the running. I know something is coming after me... no, it's more like something_is going_ to come after me, and that even though it hasn't happened yet, I want to run away from it, just in case. I'm running, even though there's still time, in the dream, before... well, before something happens. That's what it feels like, like something is_going_ to happen."

"Details," he said softly. "Light or dark, green or black, city or country, clear or forested - where are you?"

"It's daylight, or at least it's sometime in the gloaming. There are shadows, made more particular by the idea that the sun is going down." Elbows on the table, I rubbed my temples slowly. "It's the edge of a forested area; I can see something like cleared fields off to my right, but something tells me that I need to stay in the shadows, in the trees. I'm looking for someplace to hide, to plan out what I'm going to do next. I have the feeling that whatever is going to come looking for me, I mustn't let it catch me in its own territory - neutral ground, or better yet, a place that it doesn't know how to find."

"Anything else in the dream? Animals, birds, plants that attract your attention, anything?"

"A stream. I stop to drink at a stream, at one point. I splash my face with water. I get some of the water into my eyes, I think; it burns a little, nothing bad. Makes me feel better. Vision seems sharper. I keep going."

"Are you aware of yourself?"

I blinked. "What?"

"Your body," he said. "Are you aware of your own body? Sometimes in dreams, we can become other people, or perhaps even find ourselves represented as animals. That can bring up more symbols for us to have a look at."

"Not really," I wondered aloud. "I have hands and a face - splashed my face with water... beyond that, I don't have much sense of myself except as - it's like those camera shots you see in movies, when someone is running through the jungle or whatever, and they run the camera through the scene as if you're seeing through their eyes. Plants whip across your face, you hear panicked breathing, that kind of thing."

"Is your breathing panicked?"

"Not to my recollection. And I don't think I had any witnesses." I shivered once and stared.

"Catch yourself lying?" Moon Bear asked.

"I hate it when that happens."

Moon Bear shrugged. "It's just your way of keeping yourself honest. What did you remember?"

"A fox," I said. "I saw a fox."

"That's not easy to do. Fox Medicine is camouflage. Coyote may be the Trickster, but Fox has more than one ace up his furry sleeve. What details can you remember about him? Or was it a vixen?"

"I didn't feel comfortable asking, since I hadn't formally introduced myself," I said drily. Moon Bear grinned. "But definitely a fox. Red fox. No, not the comedian." Eyes closed, I tilted my head slightly to one side. I have no idea why people think that helps them recall things, but damned if it doesn't often work. "Snow."

"That's new."

"A sense of snow. Some small patches on the ground in places, not much. Not actively snowing, so far as I remember." I looked at my mentor. "So what's the word, Consorts with White Men?"

"It hasn't snowed in your dream before," he said. "So the season is changing. You're moving forward in time, into that new season. The cold will sharpen your perception, but it also means that you need to look for shelter. Watch for the snow - even more than the ground, it will leave prints. The cold will help hide your scent, which is in your favor, but you still can be hunted by sight on clear days and clear nights, and by tracks if you're not careful about covering them." He looked into my eyes. "Was Fox your only visitor at this point?"

"So far as I could tell, yes. I could see the Fox, although I didn't get close. No sort of communication that I was aware of. He saw me, looked me over, and went away again."

"He knows you now. He can recognize you. Perhaps he is an ally."

"Why not an enemy?"

"Because you didn't fear him. We are always prescient to things that feel wrong; that which is part of nature doesn't really frighten us." He paused again. "Any sign of any other animals?"

"Not at this point. Is it important?"

"Dreams are always important. They tell us much."

"This one is telling me that I need to chill out."

"Sometimes we need to listen better."