by Avery Flynn
Rising eight hundred feet from the prairie, it stood tall and proud, unbent by time or the weather. The damn thing reminded her of Sam. When she'd left him, he'd been hurt but alive. If she could keep Snips and Linc following her, they wouldn't be able to return to Dry Creek to torment Sam.
“You still out there you shithead, Snips?” she hollered in the direction of the abandoned house. “You better find me before I find you because one of us isn't coming out of here alive.”
Not that she had any weapons to back up that threat since she’d left the socket wrench in the cabin, but since when did bravado require a strong sense of reality? Warmed with defiance, she took off around the bluff, looking for a place to hide or a path to take. She crossed her arms and shoved her hands into her armpits as great shivers racked her body. The snow had begun to slow, but the temperature hadn't left the freezing zone. She had to find somewhere to hide out quick, or hypothermia would get her before Snips ever did.
The snow disguised any easy path up the bluff. She'd trudged past the four-foot high triangle-shaped boulder twice before its meaning connected with her foggy brain. Rebecca's map had shown a similar formation next to a path. At the moment she didn't give a damn about the treasure, but a place to bury Rebecca’s Bounty could make the perfect hiding place from the wind and the men chasing her.
Another blast of wind smacked against her body, burning her with cold. Damp hair stuck to her neck and forehead. Her ears ached with pinpricks of agony as her veins constricted in her extremities to retain heat in her core. Tears sprung to her eyes, not of sadness or fright but of pain. Snow had found its way into her boots during the run and melted, turning her socks to wet cloth.
She had to move. Now.
Her mind urged her body to scramble up the incline to the triangle bolder, but her legs were mired in molasses. The distance to the four-foot-high rock seemed miles. But she hadn't come this far to lie down and wait for Snips to do his worst.
One boot-clad foot clomped in front of the other as she made her way upward. With nothing to hold on to, she slipped on the wet snow a few times but managed to fight her way to the bolder. Climbing the two-foot incline zapped more of her energy than it should have and she leaned her back against Rebecca's landmark. Icy snow soaked through her T-shirt along her spine, from the small of her back to between her shoulder blades, and another set of shivers shook her.
She glanced around, hoping to find a nice little cabin with smoke billowing from the fireplace. No such luck. The only things she spotted were rocks and a few pine trees covered in white. A natural path had been worn in the stone bluff from centuries of people traveling across it, curving around into what she couldn't see. Well, she knew full well what kind of trouble followed behind her so she might as well go forward.
Josie marched on, too exhausted and cold to worry about the tracks she left in the snow. The path's slope grew steeper and she had to lean forward as she walked. Higher and higher she went, passing snow-covered rocks and trees, but not finding anything that would offer protection from the wind. At least the snow had stopped. Thank God for small favors.
By now, her body twitched with cold on an almost constant basis and she'd begun to lose hope of ever finding a safe spot to stop. The bluff's limestone walls went straight up on the right. On the left, the landscape dropped in a steep slope to a badlands of deep ravines. Looking out at the blanket of white as far as she could see, she couldn't help but remember Rebecca's words. There was a harsh beauty to this place. If it didn't turn you into a human Popsicle first.
Bringing her gaze back down to the snowy path, she forced herself to keep moving. Her pace had slowed to the speed of an eighty-year-old crossing the road, but she was making progress. As a bonus, the frosty temperature didn't bother the white tips on her fingers anymore.
A few minutes, hours or days later—really, she'd lost all ability to track time—she passed into a deep shadow. She blinked a few times in response to the light change and glanced up. A slab of rock crossed above the path, creating a land bridge from one part of the bluff to another.
A fuzzy picture formed in her mind. A sketch. Had she painted a similar formation? No. Rebecca. It was the third or fourth drawing on the map. Somehow, she'd stumbled upon it.
She pressed her back against the limestone wall and looked up at the rock, her entire body weary. With no destination in mind, would it really matter if she took a short rest? Her eyelids drooped. Just for a couple of minutes of shuteye and then she'd get moving again.
Darkness surrounded her and sank into her bones. Everything became heavy. She was going to die out here, only to be found by some hiker in the spring. What a fucking way to go. Maybe she should have taken her chances with Snips. Too late for second-guessing now.
Even the effort to stay upright proved too much and she slid down the hard limestone wall. Rocks shook loose behind her, showering her shoulders with chunks of the chalky limestone.
The wall crashed around her and Josie tumbled back into a small cave, landing flat on her back.
The impact knocked the breath out of her frozen lungs and jarred to the surface the pain that had been waiting just under the numbness. Agony pierced her skin and she curled into the fetal position in an instinctual attempt to block it all out.
Desperate to think about anything but the stabbing pain, she forced herself to take in her surroundings. If this qualified as a cave, it was the studio apartments of caves. It was so small she could reach out and touch both walls at the same time. It ended about eight feet back from the entrance, where the two walls came together to form a V.
Mercifully, the wind couldn't penetrate beyond the cave's mouth. Maybe if she was lucky, Snips would find her soon. Right about now, she'd pick him over freezing to death. She snorted, sending a puff of dust into the air. Well, if that right there doesn't tell you you're fucked, then nothing does.
Josie rolled over to her stomach. She half crawled, half slid to the back of the cave.
A small, intricately carved wood box the length of a business envelope lay nestled in the corner. An ornate R stood out on the lid.
Rebecca’s Bounty.
So many people had searched for the treasure and she'd found it. Now she'd die with it.
Resigned to her fate, she sat up, pulled her legs to her chest and curled her upper body downward, trapping her hands and Rebecca's Bounty between her thighs and boobs. The V of the walls coming together fit snug against her shoulders and she let herself loosen her tenuous hold on reality. If she was going to embark on that final adventure, she might as well go happy.
Relaxing into herself, she imagined it was Sam holding her tight, whispering her name into the nape of her neck. The blackness came again, eating at the edges of her vision. Too tired to fight it anymore, she closed her eyes and surrendered.
The howling wind became silent.
Her breathing slowed.
The beating in her chest grew soft.
Her fantasy lover warmed her with his strong arms and she pressed her icy cheek against his welcoming chest. God, he smelled of warm leather and old books. She wrapped her arms around his waist, tucking her hands into his waistband above his firm ass. Even in this in-between place, she couldn't let go of Sam.
Sam stared out at the white-covered fields as Hank's cruiser crawled down the highway toward the original McNerny boarding house, hampered by the fast-falling snow. All that was left was a historical marker, but there was an old farmhouse nearby. There was a good chance Snips had taken Josie there to wait out the storm. Whereever she was, they'd find her. They had to.
“Sheriff, the state patrol is closing down the Interstate,” a voice crackled on the police radio.
Hank cursed under his breath and grabbed the radio mic. “How many of our folks are still on the highways, Darlene?”
“All of them. Phillips just reported the southern sections of the county are getting hit hard. How is it up north where you are?”
“It's as white as a fri
dge out here.”
“Any luck tracking down our perps?”
“I haven't given up yet. Any reports from the others?”
“Negative.”
Sam slid a glance over at Hank. He held a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel with one hand, battling the slippery road. Sam's stomach clenched. He had to find Josie, but could he risk his brother's life to do so? McPherson's Bluff loomed a half mile away, like a nightmare Sam couldn't wake up from no matter how many times he pinched himself. He'd already lost one brother in the shadow of the bluff. He couldn't live with himself if he lost another.
“Hank, why don't you have one of your guys meet us out here? He can take you back and I'll continue the search.”
“We'll find her, Sam.”
“But you—”
“I said, we'll find her.” Hank said. “Darlene, tell the others to get back to Dry Creek. It's getting too dangerous out.”
“Ten-four. You on your way back?”
Hank shook his head. “No. We're checking out the old McNerny boarding house. I'll be in touch.”
“Yes sir.”
Neither man spoke as the wind whipped snow all around them and rocked the car from its straight-and-narrow path. Everything that needed to be said was being delivered by the invisible brother bond that didn't require words.
“What's that up there?” Hank nodded toward a black square on the horizon.
Sam squinted, trying to make it out. His gut twitched. “I think it's a car.”
The black spot grew in their windshield, until no doubt remained. Snips’ car sat parked by a grove of trees near a small farmhouse. Sam's heartbeat ratcheted up and he barely controlled the urge to leap from the still-moving cruiser to search for Josie.
The sedan’s tires spit white powder from the ground as it rolled out onto the highway, coming straight at them.
Hank steered the cruiser into the middle of the road. “Hold on.” He spun the steering wheel, whipping the car perpendicular to the highway, blocking the escape.
The other car bore down on them, never wavering from its dead-on trajectory.
The yards between them became feet in a blink of Sam's eye. In his next heartbeat, the other car plowed into the back passenger side of the cruiser, throwing him forward against the seatbelt. It tightened across his neck, cutting off his oxygen as blinding pain exploded in his right arm.
Everything whirled around him as the cruiser spun across the highway in a death spin. His lungs tightened, pushed back against his spine by the strength of the rotations. The cruiser sailed off the highway and into the snow-covered field. The revolutions slowed until the vehicle came to a stop, McPherson's Bluff towering above him.
A crash boomed in the distance, followed by a bright light that turned the milky sky orange.
Sam stumbled from the cruiser, his boots sinking in the powdery snow. Blood dripped from a deep gash in his biceps, falling in fat drops and staining the blanket of white at his feet.
Across the highway, Snips’ car had barreled through the copse of trees, mowed over the historical marker and burst into a fireball.
“Josie!” His anguished cry thundered across the prairie as he took off in a mad dash toward the bonfire of metal and the sickly scent of burning flesh.
A wall of heat stopped him from getting within ten feet of the burning wreckage. No one could make it out of there alive.
Sam dropped to his knees as true agony ripped his soul in half. He should have fought more. He should have stopped this. He should have been smarter about how to track her down. What kind of man couldn't save the woman he loved?
The kind who didn't deserve her.
“There's someone over here.” Hank called from the other side of the flames.
He bounded up from the road, sprinting to his brother's side.
Snips' mangled, bloody body lay in the snow.
The Vegas loan shark blinked up at the two men. “Help…me.”
A rage unlike anything he'd ever known overtook Sam. “You killed her, you bastard!”
He wrapped his hands around Snips' throat, channeling all of his fury into the act of squeezing the life out of the man who'd stolen the woman he loved. His fingers dug into the muscles of Snips' neck, pushing against the bones of his trachea.
Snips gasped and squirmed under the pressure, but Sam held on. If he couldn't save Josie, he sure as hell would avenge her.
“Stop!” Hank bellowed into his ear and pried him away from his prey.
Sam landed with a thump on his ass in the snow and bounded up immediately. Hank stood, palms facing outward, blocking his return. Enraged, Sam fought to get close enough to strangle the life out of Snips, but Hank ran interference, knocking him on his ass three times.
But he refused to give up; he'd failed her too many times already to mess up this one final thing.
The brothers grappled, elbows and fists flying. Sam hooked Hank into a headlock, holding firm, and leaned down to his ear. “She's burning up in that car because of him, Hank! I'm going to kill him. Just walk away.”
“Not…dead,” Snips croaked out from the ground. “She ran…to the bluff.”
“I'm not buying it, you lying sack of shit.”
Hank wriggled out of the headlock. “If she did, she had to have left tracks. Let's go look, you and me. This asshole isn't going anywhere.”
Calling a temporary truce, the brothers made their way across the road, searching for footprints, starting near where the cruiser had come to rest. Sam almost walked right on top of a size-ten boot print. He held his breath and closed his eyes, praying to God when he opened them that the indentation in the snow would still be there.
It was.
“I found it.”
“Let me call it in, we'll organize a search party.” Hank reached inside the cruiser for the police radio. “The snow has slowed so we have time.”
Sam glanced over at the cruiser's open door. He could see Josie's new winter coat sitting on the seat and fear flattened his chest. “No time. I'm going now.”
“Sam, wait!”
There wasn't any time to wait. Josie was out there.
Chapter Eighteen
Sam trailed Josie's tracks to the base of McPherson's Bluff. The snow had tapered off, leaving only the wind whacking at his body like an icy hand. He raised the zipper on his heavy coat to ward off Mother Nature's attack.
Scanning the bluff, he searched for her platinum hair and the all-black outfit she'd worn to break into his house, grateful her sense of drama would make her stand out in the all-white environment. Seeing nothing, he followed her footprints, noting how they grew closer together and in some spots they were broken where she must have fallen. A perfect handprint broke through the snow near a bolder. An image of her bare hand, red with cold, flashed in his mind.
It had to be five degrees out and she didn't have a coat or gloves. How long had she been wandering around the bluff and how much longer could she take the freezing temperatures? The question pierced him like a bull's horns, guilt-filled pain spreading outward. He pushed back the anxiety curling around his heart. Later, after he had her warm and in his arms, he'd deal with that. For now, he just had to find her.
Josie's tracks circled around in an aimless pattern the farther up the bluff he went. A large dent in the snowpack was evidence that she'd fallen at least one more time. Sirens blared in the distance. The sheriff's deputies, fire department and ambulance, no doubt. The cavalry had arrived too late.
Halfway up to the top of the bluff's eight-hundred-feet summit, the tracks disappeared near a steep drop-off. Blood rushed in his ears, drowning out the sirens, and he ran to the edge and looked into the abyss. Evergreen trees broke through the undisturbed white blanket like polka dots between the bluff and the badlands' deep ravines beyond, but no black clothing to give away Josie.
He whipped around, looking for more tracks. Nothing but a haphazard scattering of large rocks near a two-foot crack in the limestone wall broke up the perfect
blanket of white. Rockslide. Those were usually a problem in the spring, not the dead of winter. An animal must have—
Adrenaline electrified his body and he rushed to the opening. He couldn't see anything in the inky blackness, but part of him knew, just knew, she was in there.
“Josie, I'm coming for you.” His voice echoed back at him.
The cave was so narrow the walls brushed against both his shoulders in some areas, pointed rocks snagging the nylon of his coat and poking the gash in his upper arm. His eyes adjusted to the dim interior. A small mound of black was in the back corner. He couldn't make it out at first—then he noticed the blonde curls.
Sam rushed over and dropped to his knees beside her still form. Her already pale skin had turned ghostly white. He gathered her up in his arms, begging God for her life. A pulse, slow and erratic, beat against her neck.
“It's okay, I've got you. You're going to be okay. We'll get you warmed up and you'll be right as rain,” he babbled into her hair as he unzipped his coat. “You just have to hang on for me a little bit longer.”
He brought her frigid body against his chest, brought the edges of his coat around her back and wrapped his arms around her. She clutched a small box in her hands, unwilling to let go even in her unconscious state. She was so cold, her forehead burned his neck when she rested it against him. Sam scooped her up, a firebrand of pain searing through his injured arm. He flinched and backed out of the cave as carefully as possible.
The trip down McPherson's Bluff and across the field to the ambulance went by in a blur. Snips was already on the stretcher, but the paramedics rushed over to Sam.
The paramedic took her pulse and gave her a quick check. “She's probably got hypothermia; we need to get her to the hospital right away.”
“We can take her in the cruiser,” Hank said. “Sam, get in the back with her. Keep her warm.”
Sam laid Josie down in the back seat and ripped off his coat. He slid in beside her, pulled her cold body onto his lap and covered her with his coat like a blanket. Sam hadn't prayed since before Michael died, but for the second time that afternoon, he begged God to save Josie's life. She shivered in his arms and he continued to bargain and plead, offering everything he had so she could live.
