Dawn in Patagonia

By J.E. Leigh

Adventure traveler Aurora Night is drawn back into the web of danger she encountered in Patagonia a year before. Returning to bury the past, she instead finds herself in charge of a daring rescue. Will Aurora fight off the ghosts of the past and the villains of the present to defend what is truly important?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.E. Leigh
• Release date: Jul 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005919986

J.E. Leigh

J.E. Leigh became a mom at age 35 so the doctors called her "elderly gravida". She didn’t become a writer until this ‘late’ time of life, so she also considers herself "elderly writera". Leigh’s background is in Geography, Sense of Place, and Nature Interpretation. She writes a blog (seetravelmag.com) and has worked as a writer/editor for publications on parks, protected areas, and cultural sites. Her adventure novels are set in exotic places like Costa Rica, Patagonia, Hawaii, Germany, Slovenia, and New Mexico (yes, people think it’s a foreign country). She lives in Colorado with her husband, son and two dogs.

Book preview

Dawn in Patagonia

By J.E. Leigh

Copyright 2014 J.E. Leigh

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. All locales, businesses, characters, events, and dialogue depicted in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Moon Rider Preview

Titles in the See! Series

Introducing Keira Kent

About J.E. Leigh

Chapter 1

Aurora decided right then to go home.

She couldn’t fathom why she had come all that way . . . why she had emptied her savings account to buy a plane ticket, then left work with hardly an explanation — not a good move to make while still trying to prove herself in a new job — all because of an envelope that arrived on her desk without a return address.

The envelope’s contents could have been sent by anyone. Just because Aurora thought no one knew about the picture, didn’t mean it was true.

Now here she was, back in Patagonia, afraid to ask the one question that burned foremost in her mind.

She gathered up the few things she had unpacked since her arrival that morning and shoved them into her duffel. Swinging the heavy bag over her shoulder, she glanced around the cabin to see if she had forgotten anything, then went out the door, clicking it shut behind her. She paused on the porch, letting her gaze wander over the grounds.

Aurora really was eager to see more of the guide school. She had heard so much about it, but this was the first time she’d had a chance to visit the school herself. She had come here on false pretenses, phoning the receptionist a few days before, saying she intended to write a follow-up story. But the truth was . . . she was no longer in a position to do so.

She was here for purely personal reasons.

Aurora descended the steps and strode toward the main building. Her mind worked. A staff member had given her a ride to the school from the airport early that morning. The drive had taken nearly four hours. How would she get back? How long would it take for her to change her flight? She wasn’t due to leave for several more days. If she couldn’t change her ticket, what would she do until then?

She told herself it didn’t matter. As long as she got out.

Aurora pushed open the door to the main office. The receptionist was at her desk, speaking to a student in Spanish. When the student left, the receptionist switched effortlessly to English. Aurora envied people who could do that.

Is there a problem? the woman asked, eyeing the duffel on her shoulder.

No, I . . . Aurora stammered. What could she say? Yes, it’s work . . . She flushed. The lie was obvious. Her cell phone wouldn’t have worked in this area and she didn’t have a satellite phone.

The woman shook her head. That is the problem with wireless, she said. Work can follow you just about anywhere.

Wireless. Aurora glanced at the computer on the receptionist’s desk. Of course. The school had wireless. She spread out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. Yes, that’s it. Listen, I don’t want to be a bother, but does the school have a car I could rent? Perhaps someone can pick it up at the airport later? I know it’s a lot of trouble . . .

Well . . . The woman tapped her nails on her desk thoughtfully. It is possible. But there is a bus that comes through once a day. If you can wait a couple of hours, that is. There is a stop on the main road. I could have someone drive you up there if you come back in . . . She looked at the clock.

No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you. I remember the way. I can walk.

But you have that heavy bag . . .

It’s okay. I’ll manage. Thank you.

Aurora escaped before the woman could ask about the follow-up story she had promised to write. She would have to think of an excuse and call her back when she got home.

Nearly an hour later, Aurora trudged along a dusty dirt road. The sun ticked overhead into its afternoon position, moved into place by the hands of some unseen, cosmic clock. Soreness crept into Aurora’s shoulder and she swung her duffel to the ground. She had lugged the heavy bag at least two miles and believed she was about half way to the main road. But judging distance while riding in a car was always difficult and she could be entirely wrong. She slipped off the small pack she wore on her back. While unzipping it, she enjoyed the coolness of the breeze. The straps of the pack left her shoulders hot and sweaty. She pulled out a bottle of water and drank thirstily. Was she doing the right thing?

I’m away she insisted.

That’s what mattered.

Yet doubt nagged her. How foolish was it to come all this way at such an expense of money and time, and then turn tail and run without the answers to her questions?

The envelope had been postmarked from South America, and though there was no return address, one of the items in the envelope was a postcard from the guide school. The postcard was what led her to this place.

She capped the water bottle and shoved it into her pack, then zipped the bag and swung it back onto her shoulders. She bent down to pick up the duffel with her left hand to give her right arm a break. While she stooped, her ears caught the sound of voices carried on the breeze.

Drawing herself upright, she strained to hear the voices. Even at a distance, she could tell they belonged to men, at least two, and they were raised in anger. She took a step forward, toward the voices, then stopped. They stood between her and the bus stop at the end of the dirt road. She already doubted whether she would make it on time. Voices or not, she needed to keep going. Assuring herself that whatever they were arguing about, it couldn’t possibly concern her, she continued on, all the while trying to quell the sensation that she was walking into trouble.

Ahead, she spied a bend in the road. A stand of trees to the left obscured the direction the road took. To the right, the ground sloped gently away, the entire landscape painted in the bright, vivid green of summer. It was January, but the seasons were opposite those of the northern hemisphere.

Aurora had first come to Chile over a year ago with her father. She felt a sharp pain of loneliness and for an instant, wished her father had come with her. But they no longer worked together, and even if they did, she doubted he would approve of what she was doing now.

She could still hear the voices, but nothing moved in the stand of trees. The voices came from somewhere beyond.

Suddenly wary, Aurora left the road and moved into the dappled shadow of the trees. She pushed through the underbrush, wincing every time a branch scraped across the nylon of her pack or snapped under her weight. The leaves of the trees trembled overhead.

Then she spotted them.

Two men stood beside a beat-up truck that looked like it had once been red, but was now a faded rust color. The men had pale faces except for their cheeks, stubbly from a day or two without a shave. They wore grubby blue jeans and ratty concert T-shirts. The pictures on the shirts were cracked and peeling. The two men were arguing, although it seemed to Aurora to be the pseudo-friendly arguing of guys who had known each other a long time. A couple of beer bottles sat on the hood of the truck and the two men wrestled over something in their hands.

Aurora moved to the edge of the grove of trees as far as she dared. Straining her ears to listen, she realized they were speaking in English.

I’ll do it, one of them said.

No, I will. The second man wrested the object free and raised it with a shaky arm.

He was aiming a gun. Aurora turned her head in the direction the gun was pointing. She searched the landscape, sweeping her gaze from side to side. She examined the grass, the brush, the trees. Nothing.

Give me that! The first man snatched the gun away. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a bar.

"It’s barn, you idiot."

What?

"The expression is broad side of a barn."

Yeah, well . . . He lifted the gun with a far steadier and more menacing grip than his companion. I meant to say bar. His finger found the trigger.

Aurora’s eyes flew over the land. What was the man aiming at? Was someone in danger? The gun wasn’t pointing at her. They didn’t know she was there. If she didn’t move, she would probably remain invisible inside the shelter of trees. But what if they were threatening someone? She had to do something. But what? The two men were armed.

She was not.

The men continued to argue. Listen, one said. Forget it, will you? Someone will hear the shot.

There’s no one here for miles.

Yeah, well sound travels. Besides, it’s almost time. We’re going to be late.

"Will you relax? This will only take a minute. We’ll tend to him when the time comes."

Aurora snapped her eyes away from the two men and swept the land again. This time, her gaze fell on a large rock. She had passed over the rock before, dismissing it without really taking a look. But now a movement caught her eye.

Crouched against the rock, large but unmistakably thin, was a dog. Its coat was filthy and patchy and Aurora could see the animal’s ribs.

Shoot it!

The words made her jump.

Glancing back at the men, she saw one of them sight down the barrel of the gun. The dog looked miserable, but that didn’t mean it should die. Aurora tensed, clutching her hands around the straps of her duffel bag. Could she use it as a weapon? She immediately dismissed the idea. Maybe if she were standing closer to the men and had the element of surprise, it would work. But if she just charged out of the trees, they would have plenty of time to shoot her before she covered the distance.

But would they shoot? She was a person, after all. Not a dog. Probably they would be scared off and just jump in their truck and drive away. Then again, what were two guys like this doing out here with a gun? It wasn’t a rifle. It was a handgun. That meant they weren’t hunting.

At least not for game . . .

The controlled pressure of the man’s finger on the trigger seemed to alter the passage of time. Events happened in slow motion. The sun glinted off the barrel of the gun. The shadows wavered under the fluttering leaves. The dog trembled in the grass.

The only thing that moved at full speed was the tumble of Aurora’s thoughts.

How did I, Aurora Night, end up in this mess?

Her name flashed in her mind as if printed beneath the title of a magazine article. For so long, that was the only place her name had ever appeared. In the pages of her imagination. Then a few years ago — she could no longer remember how many . . . three, four? — she was hired by See! Magazine to do her dream job. Travel the world and write stories about her experiences. For a while her father had worked as her partner, a fact she had deeply resented until the moment it abruptly ended.

Her father had once explained the origin of Aurora’s name. He and her mother — when they were still happy, before they divorced — had chosen the name after a trip to Alaska. They named their first-born daughter after the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

The aurora borealis. Northern lights.

But the word aurora had another meaning, as she later discovered. It was the unexpected appearance of this version of the word on the back of a postcard that prompted her flight to Patagonia.

She couldn’t believe over a year had passed since she was last here. The fateful trip had marked an end to her international travel and soon after, her career as a travel writer. Her new position provided a little more pay and a lot more stability, but also a lot less adventure. Perhaps that was the real reason she had come back.

To enter once more into the dream.

Yet she had been in Patagonia less than half a day and already found adventure in spades. Was this really the sort of thing she wanted? Had she ever really wanted this? True . . . over the past year she had grown up in many ways. She was thirty now and somewhat wiser to the ways of the world. But was that all there was to it?

In a flash, she realized a shocking thing.

At some point, she had stopped letting people get close. Relationships were too impermanent. Parents didn’t stay together, best friends died, love interests flamed briefly and then disappeared in smoke. She supposed she had known this all along, but it was the first time she had admitted it to herself. This was why her career had been perfect. She could travel to a place for a week, get to know people just enough, and move on. For a long time, this lifestyle had suited her just fine. But then a year ago she had surprised herself. She had come to Patagonia with her usual shallow goals, not intending to let the people in this place get to her. But, quite unexpectedly, for a brief time, she had felt the touch of true understanding and the grace of pure friendship. Then, just as always had been her experience, everything was snatched away. And then, just as always had been her response, she buried her feelings and moved on.

I almost did it again. Aurora’s mind practically shouted the words, for she still wasn’t in a position to make a sound. If you get out of this . . . she mentally scolded herself. You’re going to march right back there and find out what is going on.

Someone had sent the envelope for a reason. Someone wanted a reaction.

Well, a reaction is what they’ll get. Her resolve newly solidified, Aurora steeled herself for action.

The man’s finger tugged at the trigger.

Aurora opened her mouth to call out a warning to the dog as she prepared to charge out of the trees.

Before she could move, the dog sprang away from the rock and bolted in her direction. The animal must not have seen her, for he ran straight at her. With her mouth still open to call out a warning, Aurora’s gaze flew to the men.

The gun had swung around and lined up on the place where she was standing.

The dog lunged into the underbrush and the gun fired. The loud report rang out into the still air, its shockwaves assaulting Aurora’s ears.

She was hit.

The impact on her chest knocked her back. She crashed backward into the underbrush. She felt a great weight upon her. She couldn’t breathe. Her hands tried to fly to her chest to feel where she was hit, but she couldn’t move her arms. Her confused mind tried to sort things out. Was she bleeding? Was she dying? Why couldn’t she move?

And then she understood . . .

The bullet hadn’t hit her. The dog had. She was pinned beneath his chest. That was why she couldn’t move, why she couldn’t breathe. She bucked her body and the dog tumbled