Cover of Night

by Linda Howard

  The weather wasn’t great for climbing, either; the wind was picking up, and the clouds were pressing lower and lower. If it started raining, they wouldn’t be able to go back down and wait for better weather; they’d have to press on, even though rain would make the rock more slippery. They’d just have to be extra careful. She thanked God this was what she would have considered an easy climb, back in the day. It was about a hundred yards, maybe a hundred and twenty, to the top—and it wasn’t vertical.

  Other climbers had been there before them; bolts and anchors were already hammered into the rock in various places. Some climbers removed them as they went, leaving the rock as they’d found it, others didn’t bother. Generally Cate didn’t like trusting a bolt she hadn’t set herself—or that Derek hadn’t set—but in the name of speed she was prepared to use some of the presets if they felt sturdy.

  Both of them were harnessed and securely roped together. Because she had the most experience, she was the lead rope; she set the way, and when she reached, literally, the end of their rope, she would stop and he’d follow. With the belay set, he would catch her if she fell. When she stopped, she became the belayer and would catch him if he fell.

  Part of her was exhilarated to be back on the rock, even an easy rock. It was the stretch and play of muscle, her strength and skill against the rock. At the same time, she knew deep down in her bones this would be her last climb—at least until her boys were grown—and the only reason she was doing it now was because of the severity of the circumstances. Because she knew this was the last time she’d experience this particular thrill, she paid attention to every second, every scrape and smell and sound, the whisper of the ropes, the wind in her face, the cool, rough rock beneath her fingertips. Every time she looked around and saw how high she’d climbed, she felt intense satisfaction.

  She gained a solid foothold, set a chock, and securely clipped herself to the rock. At her signal, Cal began climbing toward her, following her established route. She watched his every move, her brake hand ready on the rope in case he slipped. The boots he wore were even less suitable for climbing than her sneakers, so every move he made was risky. His upper-body strength compensated somewhat for his boots. Despite the chilly wind, he’d taken off his jacket and rolled it up before adding it to the supplies strapped to his back, so she could see the flex of muscle and tendon in his bare arms. A climber’s strength was sinewy and flexible, like a steel coil, not bulky in the way of bodybuilders’. Cal’s arms looked as if he’d been climbing all his life.

  A cold mist swept over them, and in a matter of seconds, visibility was down to about zero as the cloud engulfed the mountain.

  She knew he was still there, she could feel him on the rope, but she couldn’t see him. “Cal!”

  “I’m still here.”

  He sounded as calm as if they were out for a stroll. One day soon she needed to have a talk with him about this; it wasn’t natural. “I can’t see you, so talk to me, damn it. Tell me everything you do, every step. I have to be able to anticipate.”

  He obliged, talking steadily to her until the wind blew the mist away and he once more emerged into sight. That was the way it went for the next hour, with the mist blowing in and out as the low clouds engulfed them. At one point the mist was like a heavy fog, and they both stopped to put on thin, cheap ponchos that would at least keep most of their clothing dry. That was the rain gear they’d brought, because the ponchos weighed so little, but climbing was impossible with them on. So they simply waited for the mist to clear again. When they could take the ponchos off, they climbed.

  The weather slowed them considerably, and it was just after ten in the morning when they finally reached the top of the rock face, which was nowhere near as high as they needed to get ultimately. Stretching ahead of them was a thickly treed slope; the geography would take them due north instead of northwest, the direction they needed, but they had to follow the land and its restrictions.

  After sipping some water and eating more muesli, then stepping away from each other to answer nature calls in private, they carefully coiled the ropes, slung them over their shoulders, and set off again, this time with Cal in the lead. A light rain began to fall. They put the ponchos on again, and kept hiking.

  “Let’s talk!” Toxtel boomed out, cupping his hands around his mouth to make the sound carry.

  The hell of it, Goss thought, was that he didn’t know if anyone was within hearing distance. All those damn people had disappeared, dropping out of sight as if they’d never existed. Even the bodies were gone. When he and Toxtel had first noticed that this morning, they’d been a little unnerved, because Teague had put such faith in his fancy thermal scopes and now, somehow, the yokels had outsmarted him. It was time for the next step, before these people had a chance to come up with something else.

  Toxtel had been bellowing for a good fifteen minutes, and there hadn’t been so much as a flicker of movement on the other side. He might as well have been farting in the wind, for all the effect he was having.

  After half an hour, Toxtel’s voice was hoarse, but finally a hand waving a white piece of cloth appeared out the front door of the first house. Toxtel shouted again, then waved his own flag, and an old man shuffled out onto the porch.

  The old guy looked to be close to ninety, Goss thought in disbelief, watching as he laboriously made his way down the steps and tottered the hundred yards to the mangled wreckage of the bridge. Was this the best they had to send? But then again, why send the best? Why take that risk? Come to think of it, the old guy was a damn smart choice.

  “What do you want?” he demanded querulously, looking disgruntled at having to go to all this effort.

  Toxtel went right to the point. “The Nightingale woman has what we’re after. Tell her to hand it over, and we’ll pull out and leave.”

  The old guy stared across the ravine separating them, working his jaws as if he were chewing the idea over. Finally he said, “I’ll pass the message on,” and turned around, retracing his steps as if uninterested in anything else they might have to say. They carefully placed themselves behind cover, then watched until he was once more out of sight.

  “What the hell do you make of that?” Toxtel asked rhetorically.

  “They’re pissed” was Goss’s reply.

  28

  THE FIRST SNOWFLAKE DRIFTED DOWN JUST AFTER FIVE that afternoon. Cate stopped in her tracks, staring at it in consternation. Several more flakes followed the first one; then they all disappeared in a swirl of wind.

  “Did you see that?” she asked Cal.

  “Yep.”

  It was early in the season for snow, though not unheard of. With any luck, those few flakes didn’t have any buddies. Rain had started falling in earnest several hours ago. As cold as the temperature had gotten, though, falling steadily through the afternoon hours as they climbed higher and higher, they had to assume a real snowfall was possible.

  Snow wasn’t good for a couple of reasons, the biggest one of which was that they wouldn’t be able to continue. The footing was treacherous enough when they could see where they were stepping; if the way was covered with snow, they would be risking life and limb. Nor were they dressed for snow, or for weather this cold. They’d left the ponchos on as protection against the wind and rain, but they didn’t have the layers necessary to keep them warm. She’d been shivering for some time now, even though she’d put on her sweatshirt jacket and pulled up its hood as well as the hood of the poncho.

  Cal pulled out the rough map Roy Edward had drawn of the abandoned mines. “Are we close to one of them?” Cate asked, moving to his side to look at the piece of paper. She hoped so; they had to get out of this weather before nightfall, which was only a couple of hours away. They would freeze if they had to stay out in this all night.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He pointed to an X. “That’s the closest one, and by my reckoning we’re about here.” He indicated another spot. “If Roy Edward was anywhere near accurate with his
guess, we’re at least a mile from there, plus another five hundred or so feet in altitude. At the pace we’ve been traveling, we wouldn’t make it by dark. Even if we could, we need to stop now, and get dry and warm. Your shoes are soaked.”

  Unfortunately, he was right. Her feet were so cold and painful she was already hobbling. If getting anywhere required any climbing, she couldn’t do it. “What are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to get somewhere out of the wind and stay there while I scout around. Here’s where I earn my keep.”

  Since the wind was swirling from every direction, she didn’t know where that would be. But he found a big fir with branches so thick the ground beneath it was dry, and she sat down there, with her knees hugged up under the poncho to preserve her body heat. She looked up at him through the rain, seeing how reddened his face was from the cold and wind, and remembered that he wasn’t dressed any more warmly than she was. His only advantage was that his boots were waterproof, so his feet were still dry. “Be careful,” she said, because that was the only thing she could think of.

  “If I can’t find an overhang, I’ll make us a lean-to.” He began removing all of his climbing gear, putting it beside Cate and placing the coil of rope on top. He gently touched her cheek, then was gone. All he took with him was his trenching tool. She watched him stride off through the rain with as much energy as if he had steel springs inside his legs, while every muscle in her body was aching, not just from the rigorous exercise she’d given them that day but from shivering for so long.

  Tiredly she pulled the front of the poncho up over her nose so the air she was breathing would be warmer. Instantly she felt better able to endure the cold, though wind still whistled through the trees and rain dripped all around her. The sloping branches of the big fir created a natural runoff, like a living umbrella spread over her head.

  They had been gone from Trail Stop for twenty-four hours. What was going on there now? She and Cal hadn’t been able to talk, because they had spent the day either strung out across a rock face or hiking uphill, neither of which made conversation easy. They had stopped when they had to, then pressed on, always aware of time slipping away.

  Half an hour later, the rain became mixed with snow. Cate stared out at it, willing the white flakes away. She didn’t mind snow flurries, though she wished the weather had stayed as warm as it had been the day before; she just didn’t want snow on the ground. Down in the valley, they probably weren’t getting any snow at all.

  As the flakes became larger and the ground began taking on a white tint in the growing gloom, she wondered where Cal was, and what he was doing.

  Cal had picked up a broken limb as thick as his thumb and was using it to poke into any clump of undergrowth that looked as if it might harbor a small cave, an overhang, anything that would provide them sufficient shelter for the coming night. He was acutely aware that bears wouldn’t have gone into den yet—the season was still too early—so he’d hung the trenching tool back on his belt and instead unbuttoned the right pocket of his camouflage jacket, pulling out his holstered nine-millimeter automatic. Normally he would have worn the holster on his belt, or strapped to his thigh if he’d been on a mission, but while climbing rock, he hadn’t wanted to wear it where it could become snagged. Instead he had secured it in his coat and made certain the pocket was buttoned. When the jacket had been rolled and secured on his back, the automatic had been snugged against his body. The pistol wasn’t the best weapon for facing a bear, but it was a hundred times better than a trenching tool.

  He was allowing himself only so much time to find a rock shelter. There were plenty of overhangs, but they were either too shallow or the rock was cracked or the ground beneath them didn’t seem stable. Some of them had water running out of them; since one of his requirements was that their shelter be dry, that eliminated those possibilities. If he didn’t find one soon, he’d have to use the remaining light, poor as it was, to build a lean-to. Since the ground wasn’t exactly level, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Finally he saw something that had possibilities. A prow of granite jutted out at a slight upward angle, balanced on another giant slab. These weren’t going anywhere—they’d been there so long they were mostly buried, with mature trees growing on top of the prow. Another of those giant firs grew on the south side of the opening underneath, partially blocking it. Brushing aside the limbs that hung almost to the ground, he squatted and surveyed the interior. It was about ten feet long and shallow, no more than five feet deep, and the highest point in the opening was about the same. That was good, because small spaces were easier to warm than large ones.

  He’d brought a small flashlight, so he clicked it on and swept the light into every corner, looking for snakes, dead rats, live rats, anything with which he wouldn’t want to spend the night. There was debris, of course, and some insects that scurried away from the light. The fire would take care of them.

  He broke a small limb off the fir and used it to sweep out his chosen sanctuary, then used the trenching tool to gather more branches from the surrounding trees, not taking too many from any one tree, and laid the limbs in a crosshatch pattern on the floor of the opening. Not only would the evergreen freshen the musty smell, but the limber branches would provide something of a cushion for the sleep mat. He could sleep on the ground, rolled up in his blanket, but Cate would be more comfortable on the rough mattress.

  At least they could have a fire tonight. The slope they were on faced east, away from the shooters. The trees overhead would filter the smoke through their branches, breaking it up so it didn’t form a plume, and the weather would dissipate it anyway. A little light and a lot of warmth would go a long way toward making them more comfortable. Besides, he had to get Cate’s shoes dry.

  The rain had changed completely to snow, and it began swirling down fast enough that the ground began turning white despite being so wet. He didn’t like that, not just because of the snow, but because after dark the temperature would plummet and whatever was wet would develop a slick coating of ice. Their only hope was if this was a fast-moving front, with warmer rain behind it.

  He had other things to do, but he didn’t want to leave Cate sitting alone in the cold any longer than he had to. The sooner she got into their little shelter and he could get a fire started, the sooner she could pull off her wet shoes and socks and start warming her feet. He could finish securing the shelter afterward.

  There was about twenty minutes of light left by the time he could make his way back to her; the thin layer of snow was incredibly slippery. Several times he had to use the trenching tool to catch himself. The drops of water still on the tree branches were beginning to freeze, making a faintly clinking sound in the wind.

  “I have us a place,” he said, and she looked up from where she’d buried her face against her knees. The poncho was pulled up over her nose to warm the air she breathed, and her eyes were more alert; they had begun to take on the dullness of suffering, which had worried him a lot more than he’d let her see. “It’s dry, and we can build a fire.”

  “You said the magic word.” She crawled out from under the sheltering branches with more energy than she’d shown crawling under them. The rest had refreshed her. She would have been in much better shape if he’d insisted she wear boots, but he hadn’t expected rain and snow. He didn’t have arthritis to warn him of changing weather, and he hadn’t been able to watch the Weather Channel for the past couple of days. For all he knew, a record-breaking early-season blizzard had been predicted.

  “The rain has started freezing,” he said. “Getting back is going to be tough, because the ground is so slippery. Don’t take a step unless you’re holding on to something.”

  “Got it.” She pulled out her hammer and gripped it in her left hand as he loaded himself down with all the gear he’d earlier removed. He started out, moving as easily under the weight as he had without it, and she carefully followed.

  Cate’s feet were still miserably cold a
nd wet, but while she’d been resting, she had constantly flexed her toes to increase the blood flow in them, so she wasn’t as clumsy as she’d been before. Still, she hoped the shelter he’d found wasn’t far, because light was fading fast and the snow was getting heavier, filtering down through the trees in eerie silence.

  She hoped the valley was getting snow. She hoped the shooters staked out on the mountainside were getting ten feet of snow dumped on their asses. She hoped they’d been in the rain all day, and were now frozen into human Popsicles. The mountains often got snow when the valley didn’t, but she hoped this wasn’t one of those times.

  “We’ll have to turn back, won’t we?” she asked softly.

  “Probably.” He didn’t sugarcoat it. She was glad. She could deal better with reality than with rosy pictures that dealt more in wishes than fact. “Unless it’s so bad we have to wait it out.”

  He paused on a particularly slippery patch and used the trenching tool to hack a stepping place in the ground. With his poncho covering the supplies on his back, he looked like some misshapen monster, but she figured she looked the same.

  Physically she was as miserable as she could remember ever being. Steam puffed from her open mouth, and she made an effort to close it and breathe through her nose, which gave her a dragon effect. She distracted herself by thinking about how she could show this to the boys this winter. They would love playing dragon.

  “Here it is,” he finally said, sweeping aside the branches of a giant fir and using his flashlight to show her the interior of a slanted overhang. “I swept it out and laid down those fir limbs for a cushion. Crawl in and get comfy while I gather firewood.”