"It is the best of us that will take us through the next millenium.

And watching over us will be those ancient tribal guardians, known as Sentinels."

Blair Sandburg.

Part I

     Pat's arrival in Cleave's Mills  hadn't been an easy transition for Johnny, who had been wondering ever since Pat had arrived there, about some of the things his niece had proven capable of.  He understood the martial arts skills that were due to  Walker's influence. But there were other things that had happened that weren't.  Pat had often said this was  inherited from her uncle Cordel and her Cherokee heritage. So  Johnny had no idea what this meant but had heard  Jimmy Trivett,  use that term, in connection with Walker.

  But Johnny sees it as something totally  beyond what he knew as Cherokee.  One night he and his niece were alone at his house. He had touched Pat's arm and was overwhelmed by the experience.  His physical senses seemed to spiral out of control.   Letting go he staggered to a chair. Pat was up and standing at his side, He coughed. "How can you live like that? How can any one handle so much all at once?"  Pat had no choice. The timing wasn't of her choosing but recently little had been.

 Letting her uncle recover as she sat across the room.   Trying to figure out  how to explain some thing even she hadn't found answers for.   He  looked up after a while  still holding half a glass of water. He moved to the couch and Pat knew it was time.

 "What happened Just now?" Johnny asked. 

 "Uh well..." Pat began as she came over to the couch and settled in next to him. "I don't  have a lot of information on what I can do, or how it works. I only have my personal experiences."

She looked at him tensely.  He arched an eyebrow at her. " O.k. The best place to start I guess is at the beginning. You know about the gang stuff that happened in Bruceville -Eddy. So we can skip all that.  This is what happened later. "

[Memory sequence] (Pat's words carry Johnny into her past)

"I had gone home to get the stuff I had hidden in the barn. On my parent's place .

 Before I took off for a meeting with the other members of the antigang team that had formed.  But I forgot about Dad's number one rule his son and only heir comes before anyone else. He had found who was responsible for Bill's arrest. and I was caught."    

 Two security  guards from her father's company drag Pat into her father's home office at Redtree Ranch. Pat stands defiantly facing her father.

   "You think that because I never noticed your good grades and your championships that I wouldn't notice this scam you're pulling?!"  Charles Riley bellowed like an angry bull.  Pat stood her ground.

  "I didn't do this for any scam! I did this because your son and heir was stealing and hurting people! you wouldn't listen!" 

Her father sneered at her.  "Liar!" He started to slap her, but seeing the lack of fear  He knew that  his daughter, refused to cower.  Feeling proud of her, he backed away.

 " Am I?, Or is it just that you're beginning to figure out who's really the liar!" She said as he walked away from her. "You sicken me!" He spat back.

 Pat knew he wouldn't let this go.

"You may have gotten him arrested, but it will never hold up in court, especailly without your lies!"

 The two men holding her dragged her out of the room.

"Dad knew he couldn't take the chance that my body would be found if he killed me.

so he sent me to the one place he could have me held, until he could get my brother and his gang off.  Pride Moore. But I used the one weapon I had left, despite being tied up. My mind and something I had seen on TV. "

  The goons stop off for a beer, and one leaves a very over stuffed gym bag in between the front seats.  Pat begins looking  at the contents of the van seeing a tire tool she gets it using her legs,  and with a lot of effort get's it into a useable position. Taking a hex nut, off of a bolt  and releasing the ring she was tied to.  She freed herself and taking the gym bag escapes. The goons come back two hours later, and find that Pat's gone! They can't call it in and they  don't have the money which they can't report stolen.

" I didn't know exactly where I was going but I knew I couldn't go home or I was dead. But I was determined to put that gang away.  So I went into the most inhospitable part of Texas, outside of the badlands  The Devil's back bone. It was here that I'd find out just how different I really was." 

 She finally reaches the top of a hill and looks out over the rugged landscape that is spread before her.  It was  the kind of place that no one wants to get stuck in. Rocky steep slopes, covered with brush  cedar, post oaks , and mesquite trees. Pat learned to live, on what the land provided.  How to hide from the men sent out to capture her, by her father.   She becomes agile and  able to move like the wind through the grass. 

"Two years went by and I had never really noticed  what was happening to me. Until one day I was fishing in a cove of the Pertinales. I head engines in the distance."

 Pat's head tilts in the direction of the sound, and she climbs a near by hill to look for the source.

she spots three quad runners  comming along the river. But  what's more she sees the Riley Enterprizes logo on one of the uniforms.  She runs leaving the goons behind. 

"I had never thought about it until that moment.  But at the time any advanced warning was time I had to escape. And from then on I never questioned,  when I heard or spotted something. When I caught a scent on the wind that wasn't natural. Or felt a fire pit and knew how long ago  that there had been a fire in it.  I had learned how to survive! "

 She ran wild through the hills living in the canyons, of the back bone easily avoiding those who wanted to catch her. Her senses honed themselves and she began to understand the circle that life represented. Everything was as alive as she was.  This place was no longer inhospitable. She had learned that everything she needed was there.

"Things changed, as did the people who came looking for me.  One day  Uncle Cordel, came to the hill country. There was a drought that summer and food was scarce.  I had been able to live on my own up until now and the need for food and water had me sick."

     Walker was gentle, caring. Johnny watched him as he left a plate of food and some water out for her near his camp. Pat  glad for anything by this time, beginning to trust him, and  when he left she went with him.

 She  wasn't  the easiest  person to get close to but  with time she began to accept Trivett, Alex, Cd, and the rest  it was the first time in a long while that she'd  had any thing close to family.

   "For the first little while Walker figured I should go to school. So I entered the alien world of civilized people. And it wasn't long before my peers made my life, as bad as it had been before.  Well two of the boys thought that no one would believe me if  they trapped me and took their turns.  For me that was the beginning of a whole new set of problems."

Johnny  could tell Pat had no idea what to make of people, at this point, and preffered the company of Walker's ranch  horses to humans  for the most part and after what happened he could see why.

 Pat was at home alone while Walker was at work. Two boys,  tried to sneak up to the house. As with the days she had spent in the hill country,  Pat was forewarned and they were trapped instead.  When Walker got home, they lied, saying  that  Pat had locked them in the shed, when they asked to use the phone. They spread the rumor at school  that Pat was a slut. And soon the parents were demanding that something be done.  Walker refused to put her into an institution, and  decided to home school her. CD and Trivett  often tutored  her and she began to join in the Kick Drugs out of America Program where she met Kim Sherridan and Angie Killgore. The three became friends, despite the in crowd kids, sharing a love of riding and a future plan of becoming like their vaunted mentors. 

Seeing Pat's two human friends Johnny had to smile he thought of them as a sort of  an odd mix but they made a good team. All three of them seemed to know what the others were thinking.

"I never  had to worry about my senses with Angie or Kim and it seemed that we three were able to do anything together. We gratuated high school and the academy together . But  I was the first to get my ranger's star. In fact I was the first ever Texas Ranger badged right out of the Academy."

 Pat's training seemed easy to her and the instructors all found her a tough indomitable spirit. She was  able to listen and did so readily.  Governor Richards, watched the young cadet with great interest.  Pat had was quick to think on her feet , using what ever she had on hand she could pull off some pretty  awesome tricks that made her completely unpredictable.  It was on the firing range where she really shone.  Consistently  putting  three bullets into the same hole in the target  without  variation of trajectory.

 [Sequence ends] 

Johnny finally interrupts her . " Hold on a second,  You've told me when you first began to notice this, but how 'd you get this way?"  Pat looks at him. She's thinking, but not really sure what to say. 

"Well there again I don't know. I haven't got a clue as to how or why I'm able to do this. But  at the time I really noticed any thing, it was a matter of survival and there wasn't time to ask questions." Pat replied. Johnny looked at her.   He wasn't sure that  he had any right to call her on this, as he wasn't exactly normal himself.  

 "Uncle John  I don't know how it works or Why Me, all I do know is that it's saved my life and a lot of others over the years. " Her uncle sees the numerous faces of people Pat's been able to help.

 " And I've taken lots of  guys off the streets that other wise would have gotten away." She looks into his eyes. " I 've never had to explain it to any one else,  but coupled with every thing I've learned it makes life that much better for me.  " Pat smiled. "It has it's down side, and I think you experienced that. And yes it can be very hard some times what you experienced is what happens when my senses get mmmm.... overloaded I guess. And I have sort of  gotten lost, by over extending one or more of my senses. Especially when I'm tired or emotionally stressed. But other than that and a few adverse reactions to genetically modified stuff,and an intolerance for artificial flavors, colors and such  . I handle it all pretty well."                      

   Johnny  thought about this for a few minutes. Pat hadn't hidden any thing from him and when she had seen him use his own abilities no matter how involuntarily.

 She never thought him weird. She  seemed to know when he was having a vision. But How?

  "Pat,  Have you been able to tell when I'm having a vision?"  Pat looked at him. She lowered her head. "There's a change in your heart rate and breathing." She replied.  "But there's also a sort of an electrical field, that wraps around you.  It's pretty intense." 

He looked at her for a second, then realized what Pat had told him. She was able to see no matter how limited it might be, into the infared spectrum.  This fascinated him.

 Johnny  realized that she was as afraid  of him rejecting her, as he was her rejecting him.  She was sitting there  waiting for  him to tell her to get lost, like the rest of her family had. 

 This was something he just couldn't do. He looked at Pat's glacier blue eyes, Then heard the soft rumble of a big cat. The Panther that had been there all week , now sat beside Pat's end of the couch.

Johnny  looked at the panther and then at his niece.  He had one more question. "Pat, what's  with the panther ? "

Pat looked right at the the big she - panther and for the first time Johnny realized she too could see it! "I don't know she came home with me from Mexico. I thought it was some kind of  hallucination, or something because no one else ever said anything about seeing it before, if they ever did.

But if it weren't for this girl here, I'd have been dead."

Pat told him. 

Johnny nodded.

  "I was wondering if maybe Old White Eagle  saw her.  But he never let on if he did. "

Pat saw this one comming, and headed him off. "White Eagle, is an old Cherokee medicine man, don't ask me how old he is  as far as I know the guy's a ghost. He's the only person on earth, who can sneak up on me. And believe me, that would take a ghost. Pat replied.  "There was one time, I was in  the barn mucking the stalls, at Uncle Cordell's place. I had just put a shovel full of manure, into the wheel barrow  turned around  turned back.  And there he was!  Scared the heck out of me! "Pat  told him.

Johnny had to smile.  He didn't need to be psychic, to know how that scene played out.

    He began to think about  Pat's abilities.  "Have you ever found out about any one else with this?" He asked.

Pat  sighed. "No, though there was a lot of buzz a couple of years ago, about a cop in Washington State. It was decried as a hoax later on. Though for a while, the Rumors and Whispers web site carried  the fraudulent doctorial thesis of one Blair Sandburg.  Which I downloaded  , but never really had time to read, until recently. But having found such information,from what I'd call a questionable source,  I put the six cdroms it took to down load it, into my

Reformat box. I just never got around to reformatting them." She said as she handed over the discs.

 Johnny  looked at the neatly numbered cases. Pat  had given him.  "Well let's just see how much of this was really a hoax." Johnny said as he took them.  Pat shook her head. "I guess some answers are better than none." she  said.

   After that, she went back to Silver Pines, leaving  her uncle with the discs.  Johnny looked at the stack of discs. Six cd roms,  that either held the answers Pat needed. Or were a dead end. He thought about what he should do.

 He thought about going to Purdy. He really didn't trust the Reverend. He supposedly had the Alliance's resources, but  what was he really getting out of it?  What answers had the Alliance given him, to help him cope with his own abilities. " He thought about Walt and Sarah but Walt, felt  threatened by Johnny. Dana was a reporter and he really didn't want to see his niece  going through what he was.  Bruce had enough to deal with. Like it or not, on this one he was on his own.

   Then he looked at his own situation.  He thought about his vision of the Indian at Painted Rock.  How at the end of that vision the Indian  walked out of the cave, and disappeared into the flames. That had always bothered him.  It haunted him. he had told Walt,  in the HighSmith Mine.  That he figured he was on bonus time.  Where had that come from? Was it just idle banter? He sat thinking thinking  things  through. "What happens if I die before I can help her?" He thought.

His  mind  seemed to be trying to reach for some memory,  that was just beyond his reach.  He slowly got up and picked up the discs, putting them in with his computer. He turned off the lights and went up the stairs to bed. 

"John, you and I need to talk." Walt began.

"Sure what's up Walt?" Johnny asked.

" Have you talked to your niece lately?" Walt asked.

 "She was here, just last night." Johnny replied.

 Suddenly feeling uncomfortable.  The Sheriff looked at him.

"Johnny have you noticed anything weird about her?" Walt asked.

 "Such as?" Johnny asked.

 Walt  shook his head. "She way too easily found evidence at a murder scene this morning."

 Walt held up a bag with two bullet casings in it.

 Johnny looked at them, then back at Walt.  Who was waiting for an answer.

" She's a Texas Ranger Walt,  Like you she's a trained investigator." Johnny stopped and thought for a second.

"Alright Walt, tell me what she did." He said as he took the bullet casings.

 Walt sighed. "Well I took her with me to a crime scene. A murder up in north county. While I was talkin' to the jogger who found the body, she and Roscoe were working the scene.  She went over to where the body had been found and knelt next to the spot. Then she  asked Roscoe a couple of questions about the wounds on the body, since he was the first officer on the scene before forensics got there. Roscoe told her,  she moved  to a different spot, and looked at the place where the body was found then up into the woods. She stepped over the marker, and walked in a straight line about five hundred yards from the body Marker, turned over a leaf, boom,  brings back those. Roscoe followed her the whole way, she didn't plant 'em. So  how the hell, did she find 'em when our own people missed 'em?"

Johnny smiled.

 "Sounds to me like this Ranger, would make you look good Walt." He took one of the bullet casings out of the bag. His abilities kick in and he sees himself as the shooter. He loads and lowers the high powered rifle, and fires his target falls but is only wounded. And tries to get up and escape. He curses, and reloads getting off the fatal shot.  

Cleaning up after himself, he smiles in satisfaction, and get's up to leave.  He panics when he drops the two bullet casings in the darkness, which during the night get covered by a fallen leaf. Johnny is himself again and looks at Walt. "The shooter had military training. He dropped the casings by accident, and couldn't find them in the dark. The leaf covered them during the night. " He looks up at Walt. "So that's it?" He asks." How did your niece find them?"  Walt asked again.

Johnny sighs."Walt, I don't know." He replies.

  "Have you touched her? Had any visions about her?" Bannerman pressed. 

Johnny sighed. "Walt, from what you described, Pat's a good cop. Perry and DPS, made a big mistake letting her go. I'd captialize on it." Johnny told him. " But don't start  thinking she's got some kind of special abilities, just because she's my niece!" Johnny told him.

"Well let me tell you  John. Your niece or not.  If she doesn't have something more than just good cop skills, I'm going to be very suprised."  Walt told him. 

Johnny looked at Walt , anger suddenly rising within him. Walt left, before he could reply. It was then, that Johnny realized that Pat could be in for trouble,  just because she is his niece. He looked sadly at the cupboard where he kept his lap top. 

"What am I going to do?" He said to himself.

_      The tabloid headline on the Inqusitor, grabbed Greg Stillson's attention as he came out of the deli across the street from his Campaign headquarters. "THE DARK RANGER AND PSYCHIC JOHHNY SMITH,  IS THERE A CONNECTION?" He bought the tabloid and was reading it in his office, as he ate his lunch. He found the  article very  interesting. Then he looked at the pictures of the two. There was no doubt in his mind that they were kin. But it meant nothing until he could establish the threat Pat Riley could pose to him. He  looked up the DPS website and looked up Pat's personnel file.

Seeing the name Cordell Walker, in association with hers and Johnny's caused minor upset.

Then he found her training record. She was very agile of mind as well as body. He looked at her firing range scores.

It was very interesting that she was  better than any of the most veteran sharp shooters.   Her forensics skills were above average, as she seemed to find the most minute objects at a crime scene. Things that a skilled tech would miss! He read  newspaper articles from the Ft Worth Star Telegram and The Dallas Morning news, on both Walker, and Pat. The one that stood out to him, was Pat's escape from the Mexican Drug Lords, that resulted in the arrests of six major figures in the Mexican drug trade.  He began to wonder if this Dark Ranger, was more than just a name some reporter in Dallas made up.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. "Yeah," He said absently. Sonny Elliman came in with a mousey man in his mid forties in tow.

"You wanted to see me Mr. Stillson?" The man asked.

 "Yeah Phil I did. What's this story you put out about this Dark Ranger and Johnny Smith?"

 Stillson watched as the Man looked back at Sonny, who smiled as the other man began to sweat.

 "Well the Dark Ranger is Cordel Walker's  ultimate warrior. Story is she was living wild out in the Texas Hill Country, when Walker brought her back and raised her. He taught her martail arts, and home schooled her.  She went to the DPS academy, right after high school,  was the first Texas Ranger, to  be badged, fresh out of the academy. Governor Ann Richards herself pinned the star on that kid. "  The man said.

  Stillson looked at him.  The man looked at Sonny, then back at Stillson. " This one hit man named Jesse Rhune, was in Dallas, to kill some diplomat  that was visiting there. Well he was  checking the crowd through his scope and saw  the Dark Ranger, it creeped him out because it seemed as if she were looking right back at him. He was on the eighth floor of this building, a block from his target.  Well he couldn't shake the feeling she had seen him, So he looked back at her, and saw her holding a S.W.A.T. guys rifle pointed right at him! She hit him in the shoulder! Actually hit him! "

 Stillson looked at Sonny.

"When I saw her here in town, talking to Johnny Smith, and how strong the family resemblence was. I went to county records and from there, traced the entire family via the internet."

Stillson looked at Sonny. Then at the reporter. He thought quickly for a moment, while Sonny led the tabloid reporter out. "John Smith and  the Dark Ranger Related? And why was Pat Riley here?" He looked up as Sonny Elliman returned. " I think we need to look more closely at  this situation."  He said. "From all information she could be very dangerous."  Sonny looked at him, and smiled. "Test this young Ranger Sonny  find out if the Dark Ranger is a myth, or a viable threat. "

  Elliman  leaves and Stillson settles back in his chair. Looking out the window he sees a dark cloud in the sky, shaped like a horse with a rider on it's back, the sun lighting it from behind.  He frowns as he hears thunder. "A storm is coming." He thinks to himself.  Turning to his desk, he  pulls a key from his pocket, and unlocks the one drawer, even Sonny  has never been allowed to open.  He pulls out a thick file folder, and begins to read the contents. A page falls to the floor beside the desk landing face up. In  typed capital letters in the middle of the page are the words "THE SENTINEL BY BLAIR SANDBURG. 

 ****************************************      

Part II

"I was fine with the prospect of becoming a number on some forgotten lab door, when I thought it was just me. But you are the one who told me this thing is genetic. It's not just me any more It's my family too." Jim Ellison In a late night Talk By :Dark Ranger 

{Ask for copy at paigekaile@ aol.com ] 

 

Neccessary Conversations

By: Paige Kaile 

 

Walt Bannerman looked at the file folders on his desk. He looked at the numerous news reports that featured the Dark Ranger. Pat had good press that was for sure. But it gave him very little information, about Pat's abilities. He read the file from her academy days. The Shooting range entries, were a window into one of the young rangers heightened senses her sense of sight! He looked at the first entry. The shooting range bosses were excited that Pat's shooting skills were so good.  

"She has consistently, placed three bullets through the same hole."  

Walt put down the file folder. Her simulation scores, were equally high. He found that Pat had been using scent and hearing. To locate the suspects, in the simulation of the hostage situation she took out the suspect! She had him distracted. He gave her an opening, She took it!  

"She's good alright." Walt sighed. 

He picked up the medical file. And found several entries where Pat had refused tests. These tests were insisted upon by the DPS, I.A. Department. He looked at the file and at how their newest family member and Walker responded to I.A.'s demands for these tests. The demands were dropped. After an officer in the Los Angeles PD. Refused such tests and went to court to make the department, back off. The DPS wanted no such publicity. They backed off and gave up.  

Johnny arrived and the two men began to work on the files.  

"Man will you look at this stuff." He asked. " What was going on? Why did she refuse these tests?"  

"Seems that it had something to do with some hoax perpetrated in Cascade Washinington." Walt replied. 

Johnny nodded as he looked at the file before him. "Maybe there was another reason involved." He said.

As he read the news clippings about the LA Cop. "What else was going on at the time?" Johnny asked.

He looked up at Walt. "There was that hoax in Cascade Washington. A Rainier university student, created quite a stir about Sentinels and one in particular a cop named James Ellison. " Came the reply. "It sparked a lot of interest in the possibility, of there being more than one."  

Walt said as he looked at the files he had before him. "Seems that Pat's father's side of the family was distantly related to Ellison. The kid who perpetrated the hoax, was one Blair Sandburg."  

Johnny Smith looked at the reports of an attack, on Pat at Los Colinas equestrian center. Pat survived  but her partner, and her mount were killed. He remembered the vision he had of that She and Corsair were coming in from a very well ridden round.

 "I saw this happen." He said. "It really hurt the kid." He said.  

Walt looked at the Crime scene photos. He sighed.  

"John maybe you should talk to Pat again." Walt said. "We have some questions that might give us something more to go on."  

Johnny nodded. "I had an Idea about calling Cordel, and finding Kim Sherridan."  

Walt looked up at him." Why?"  

"I just keep running into Kim, in a lot of these visions I've been having about Pat."  

Walt looked at him. "Hmmm, good idea." 

Greg Stillson looked at the file he had been keeping secreted. He kept it from Sonny and his father. He had been planning something. If he could get his hands on a couple of mating pairs, of Sentinels, He could have a special force. He was also seeking some one else like Johnny Smith. He was thinking about breeding him to another psychic.

He had decided after suing Johnny against Fisher, that he wouldn't kill him but that he would breed him. finding another like Johnny, to mate him to. So far both searches had been futile.

He looked up as Sonny Elliman came into the room. He put away the file and rose to met his security chief and companion. The man looked at him then at the file.  

"Here's the latest polls." He said putting the file before him. "Uh what about our Dark Ranger prodject." 

"It's going well." Stillson replied.  

"The thug population is avoiding me like the plague." Sonny replied. "So what's our next move?" 

"Recruiting her." Stillson replied. "Someone who's that good a shot should be on our security staff." 

"You've been having night mares again." Sonny said observantly.  

His boss looked tired twice his age. Stillson looked up at him. "What you been talking with one of my teddy bears again?" He chuckled ruefully.  

Sonny shook his head knowing that Greg was covering up his problems. "By tonight Smith will be locked up at Cedar Ridge. He won't be able to do anything." Elliman told Greg. 

Sonny began to formulate a plan of his own. He left the office, and made a phone call. The election was a few days away and he wasn't going to have Smith or this niece of his messing it up!  

_____________________________

Johnny was out at Silver Pines, when Pat returned. She was off loading hay that she had bought to restock her hay barn. Johnny wondered why Texans keep their hay in a seperate building from their horses? Though it had its advantages, there was a certain logic to using the hay loft to keep the hay. Pat had turned the haylofts of her stabling barns into a sort of recreation area for the riders. 

"Pat you said you never really noticed about your abilities until you were forewarned by them while fishing in the Pertinales River." He began. his niece nodded." So you used them on the job did it always work out?" He asked. 

Pat stopped winded by the chore she was doing. "Well actually it wasn't so easy to do sometimes." She sat down on a hay bale. (Memory Sequence) 

" It wasn't an easy case for any of us but Rafer Cobb wasn't the usual drug dealer. He was one of those demonic types. He'd kill a cop as soon as look at one." 

"Put the gun down and release the hostage.!"  

Pat faced Cobb ready to take him down, when something on her leg began to really hurt had she realized she was in the middle of fire ant central! and was being swarmed! She had to take her shot and pushed the pain aside. Cobb shot the cop confronting him. Pat took her shot and hit Cobb. The man didn't even seem to feel it.

Kim came around the van to see Pat's leg was black with Fire ants! She quickly grabbed a hose and began to wash the ants off her Partner who was feeling the effects of the venom. 

"I didn't know about Lucas Simms until a week later. It wasn't easy to see Walker with him, but the kid won me over too and pretty soon I was spending the night on the rug beside the Kids' bed. unaware that he had aids, We would ride together, and for some reason my abilities seemed to be easier to handle when the Kid was around." 

Pat was in the barn the night that the boy was carried in by Walker. Pat realized that something was very wrong.

"Good bye little Ranger, you be a good horse." Lucas told his horse. then Walker carried him out to his truck.  

"He was dead a few hours later and both Walker and I were hurt. Cobb was in huntsville because of his courage. But because of his aids no area cemetery would take Lucas. It hurt so much. So we buried hin in the one place he loved to be. By the river in the same canyon Corsair and I loved to hang out." 

Pat and Walker took leave time Kim and Trivett go along for moral support. Pat went back out to the hill country seeking solace, and her abilities go off the map! Kim can only sit and hope her Partner will recover then Kim does something She begins talking in a soft monotone that helps her partner recover control. Soon both return to

Dallas. There's some thing different about the relationship between her and Kim. Walker and Trivett begin to notice that the two seemed to be even stronger in their friendship. 

"I can't say what happened because I don't know exactly what was going on But ever since the day Corsair was killed at Los Colinas , Kim and I had been like one mind. I began to compete again, and to seek my own level.

It was like I had found something that was missing though I had no idea what that was."  

The next five years were a blur as Pat and Kim became the top riders in the THJA.

But watching from the vip box above them Rick Perry growled. As he crushed yet another glass. Pat's head tilted.

She heard him and scanned the crowd in the stands! Someone wasn't happy with the outcome of the state  title show. 

"This is not going to stand, I will not have my plans usurped by a no account Texas Ranger!"

"Well find me a way or resign!" The conversation ended. 

"The next thing I knew I.A. was looking at everything I had every trophy every horse I'd ever ridden.

Ten state titles and an exemplary record. I kinda hoped that as long as I was clean and they had no proof that something untoward was going on, I'd be alright. But the DarkStars used this chance to ruin my life."  

Pat's brother get's out of hunt'sville along with three buddies from the gang. They head straight to Dallas.

Once there they and other previously released members of the gang find that Pat's father provided generously for their comfort. He has taken over the town of Bruceville-Eddy. The Gang is welcomed, as long lost sons.

"My sister Pat Where is she?" He asks one of the other boys Who smiles at him.  

"She's a Texas Ranger but recently DPS I.A., has been looking into her past. The Governor, wants an excuse to fire her, over a horse show she won last year. " 

"She's doing her best to be little ms goodie goodie, and we could ruin it just by making something in her past look shady?" Devaan asked. 

"Yeah and all it would take is for one seed of suspicion to be planted in the right hands." Allen replied.  

 

"THey set up a plan that was going to fall through on them because they hadn't taken into account that the Waco Sheriff's deputy that was lead on the case, was My Uncle Cordel's partner! They made I.A. Look at the case and produced their falsified evidence but it was Trivett, who saved both me and Kim! He told the truth when it all came down to the I.A. hearings ." 

"So you were the lead officer in this case were you not Ranger Trivett?" The I.A. Officer asked. 

"I was." Trivett answered. "It was a gang situation. A gang calling themselves the Dark Stars had been stealing and

destroying Property in The Bruceville Eddy area for about ten years beginning with petty theft, and building into the usual gang problem. The parents, school officials and local law enforcement of the town, were denying that the gang even existed. but one day on a run for the Mc Clennan County Dare Program, I logged six more boxes than I took out. and I only had one school that day, the Gurley CO-OP school. It was there that Someone had placed six huge boxes of Videotapes showing the gang's meetings and a couple of lurid parties, that brought this problem to our attention. That was the first time I met Ranger Riley. She led me to the gang's hideout, where stolen property and money were found as well as proof that this gang had been stealing utilities, and cable premium services."

"What else did you find?" The I.A. Detective asked.  

"That there were four young women drugged and tied in a way as to make them available for sexual intercourse.

There were several thousand dollars in stolen property, used to refurbish the interior of the barn while maintaining the aged facade. there was a store room with a freezer, and refrigeration filled with stolen food, and drugs used in the capture of women, for sexual rewards to gang members for performance. They had communications equipment, and automatic weapons. These guns were from a armory robbery at ft hood, only the year before."  

"I see. so was there any proof of this supposed gang being set up?" the I.A. Officer asked  

"No, In fact the proof that this was a gang was over whelming." Trivett answered. 

" Then in your opinion, this was a gang?" One of the pannel asked. 

"There wasn't a doubt about it Constable Cody Goodwin even had reports from locals in the area about the gang's activities. The city of Bruceville Eddy, tried to cover up the fact that The gang existed. Because they wanted a major building boom to occur in that area." Trivett replied. "It never happened."  

"It cost my brother extra time in Huntsville and even put his gang up for another stint. IA had to hang it up.

Kim and I were pretty much in the clear after that."

(Sequence ends) 

Johnny nodded. "You said that Kim seemed to be able to help you. How?" 

Pat looked at him . "Well there again I don't exactly know the mechanics of the whole thing but Kim just seemed to know how to help on an instinctive level. It made us both a little uncomfortable at first. But then it just became a part of who we were."  

"So why isn't Kim here?" Johnny asked.  

"Perry figured that we were a couple, and the best way to get pay back at me for beating his daughter for ten years straight, was to split us up. I wish I knew where she was. Perry found that damned rule about personal safety. After that Kim tried to resign but Perry refused to accept her resignation. He banished me and any attempts to contact Kim have been futile. Even when Walker tried it." Pat sighed. "I came here, because I needed rest and answers. Uncle John I've got a bad problem and I'm scared that if I don't figure this out. I might not get another chance. My senses have been giving me a lot of trouble I was lucky the other day. I can't risk another overload, I'm not exactly sure why but if that happens..." 

Johnny had wondered why Pat had chosen to be here at Silver Pines. Then realized she was fighting to control her abilities.  

"I kinda figured that I needed to find a place where I had kin, because I didn't want to be alone." She confided. 

Johnny knew about the chaos of sensory overload, He had experienced it and it wasn't something he'd want to go through again. He wasn't sure what he could do if it did happen. But Pat had told him what she could. Pat looked out across the grassy patsures to where Skip was, She wondered what would happen to him should the worst happen.  

Johnny sighed as he watched her unsure of what else to ask he sat there the shock of what Pat had told him scared him.

_______________________________

Johnny called him, Walt arrived at the Smith house, and Johnny met him at the door.  

"Pat's in real trouble Walt." Johnny told him.  

"Ok. show me what You've got. " 

"After talking with Pat and doing some major web surfing I've found something, on her situation." 

He showed Walt what he had found on sentinels. The other man nodded as he went over the key points. 

"So this companion can't be just anyone?" Walt asked.  

"Seems not. They seem to share a sort of a bond ." Johnny said as he settled into a chair. 

"They're family." Walt told him. "That kind of a bond runs deep, despite a lot of mistakes. "  

Johnny looked at Walt. "We need to find Pat's former partner Ranger Kim Sherridan. Soon!" 

"What you have a vision about the kid?" Walt asked.  

"Yeah, and we need to find Kim while there's still time. If her abilities overload again, she'll die."

Johnny sighed. "She came here because she was scared Walt. She didn't want to be alone." 

The sheriff nodded. He closed the files Johnny had opened. and activated the internet service. He looked up at Johnny

" Just stand back and watch me work." He said. After locating The DPS website he opened the ambassadorial list. Picked Kim Sherridan's file. After an hour or so he had the Transfer coordinator. and worked out a permanent trade for Sherridan to Cleaves Mills. "Thanks Mark,.... I'm sure.... she's just the person I've been looking for. Yeah Bye." 

 

Johnny looked at him with a questioning look. Walt smiled as he got up.  

"That went well." He smiled as he settled back into the Chair. "Sherridan is in transit and will be rerouted at her next stop off point. Now I need to get our newest adddition into uniform and we're all set."