In the Bleak Midwinter

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  She could use some Florida heat right now. Her feet felt like they were being squeezed in an icy vise. She paused near an old hemlock, its trunk studded with dozens of branches starting only a few feet from the ground. She looked up, the snow pelting her eyelashes, blinking furiously. Time for her to locate an ambush site. The only way out of this forest now would be over the body of the man hunting her.

  She went up the tree hand over foot, showering down snow and the odd abandoned nest. Small branches broke against her arms, smearing her coat with gummy pine tar. She climbed as high as she could, until the tree trunk shivered beneath her weight, and bent back a heavily needled branch to take in the view.

  Through the murky underlight, too close for comfort, she could see the bobbing and twitching of a flashlight. Her St. Elmo’s Fire, heralding death and disaster. She shifted another branch, straining to see through the snow and the darkness. She needed to find high ground. Someplace she could lure him up to, bringing him to her, letting him tire himself out.

  To her right, at a distance impossible to judge in the gloom, a series of steep little hillocks rose from the general downward slope of the mountain. It would mean heading away from the road, which was a disadvantage, but there were thickets of evergreens mixed in with the birch and maples, perfect for what she had in mind. She clung to the hemlock trunk and swiveled around. If she were quick enough, she could backtrack to the small ridge she had stumbled over and make her trail from there, something big and obvious to lead him to the ambush. And her real route . . . she squinted, willing in that moment to trade a year’s pay for a single set of binoculars. The last hillock was cut by a darker gash. She followed it as far as she could with her eyes. It looked as if it might be part of the crevasse that had taken her car. Running water would explain the little hills, harder stone rising from the softer earth of the mountain, eroded away each spring.

  She bit her lip. The crevasse it would be. She descended from the hemlock gracelessly, crashing and dropping as fast as possible. If her assailant caught her out in the open, all the clever plans in the world wouldn’t amount to a snowball in hell. She retraced her trail to the spot beneath the lip of a ridge where she had stumbled and fallen. From the well-thrashed disturbance in the snow, she set out for her ambush site, trotting in a fast, low shuffle that left a clear path plowed through the snow. She took the most direct route possible, avoiding any cover, arrowing straight for the thickest clump of fir trees at the edge of the first small hill.

  It would look, she hoped, as if she had seen a potential hide and bolted. She turned and shuffled back the fifty yards or so to the ridge, more slowly, careful not to stray outside the path she had laid down. She was damp with sweat under her parka, her heart rattling the cage of her ribs from exertion and fear. Back at her starting point, she picked her way downhill, stepping on fallen branches as much as possible, swinging around tree trunks to conceal her footprints from her hunter’s view. She wanted him to see nothing but the dense clumps of evergreens, see that she would have picked it as a good hidey-hole, see there were more places to huddle unseen at the top of the hill, where a frightened woman could crouch and pray to be overlooked.

  From behind her, she heard a noise. She froze, crouching, her gloved hands folded against her mouth to still her breathing. It came again, a crackling. Then a scrape. She fought the urge to close her eyes like a little kid, hiding from the monsters’ sight by refusing to see. There was a rushing, a clap of air, and from the corner of her eye she saw a snowy owl take wing. Her lungs wrung every ounce of oxygen from her body. For a second, she couldn’t move while she tried to remember how to breathe.

  She headed downhill again, moving faster as she got farther away from her starting point at the ridge, risking obvious footprints in order to gain time.

  She hit the crevasse unexpectedly and nearly went headfirst to the bottom when she fell short of the rocky outcrop she had picked for her next foothold. She slid belly-down a few uncomfortable yards before hooking onto an exposed root, breaking her fall. She grimaced at the wide trail she had left. Just like her car. She would simply have to hope he wouldn’t track her this way, because she was committed now. No time to make alternative plans. She clambered down the remaining length of the crevasse, wincing at the feel of snow-dampened pants clinging to her legs.

  Balanced on a rock edging the black, rushing water, she hesitated for only a heartbeat. She might have been able to make it all the way to the hillocks hopping from stone to stone, never wetting her feet, if she had half an hour. But her time was measured in minutes and seconds now. She stepped in. The water was shallow, rising just over her ankles, but so cold, it brought tears to her eyes. She jogged downstream, slowly at first, picking up speed as she got her footing on the smooth cobbled stones lining the stream. It felt as if she had two great toothaches at the ends of her legs, and every joint in her body throbbed with sympathetic pain.

  She kept jogging, her teeth gritted hard against any sounds she might make, her arms held away from her body for balance. On and on she sloshed through the almost-freezing water, unable to think of anything except her misery. It wasn’t until she looked up and saw the darker outcropping of heavy stone that she realized she had reached the hillocks. She thrashed her way to the shore and leaped out of the stream, shaking and kicking each foot to expel as much water from her boots as possible.

  Between the water and the snow was a tumble of smooth stones, wet but still free of ice, varying in size from hail to small boulders. Clare bent over and picked one up. It hefted well, about five pounds, flat enough so she could hold its edge with one hand if necessary. It was as close as she was going to get to an offensive weapon, unless she could take the gun off the man in the snowmobile suit. She stowed it in one of the parka’s cargo pockets, where it banged against her thigh every time she drew her leg up to climb the hillside. The ascent was difficult. She couldn’t flex her feet enough to get toeholds, so she had to use the outside edge of her boots and hang on, hoping she wouldn’t topple back to the bottom of the crevasse.

  At the top of the hill she collapsed beneath the shelter of a pine tree. No light bobbing in the distance, yet. The rush of elation was enough to get her back on her feet. She looked at the hill she had just climbed. This way back would be her escape route if her ambush didn’t come off. She could roll down the crevasse within seconds and be headed in either direction quick enough to vanish. For awhile.

  She squelched through the snow, keeping to the far side of the slope, her head a handsbreadth above the crest of the hill. She wanted a clear view of that flashlight. She teetered down one hill and trudged up another, looking for the trees she had marked in her mind. Surprisingly, her feet didn’t feel so bad. They prickled a little, but she didn’t feel the cold as keenly as she had.

  By a cluster of tall firs, she went over the top, crawling on her elbows and knees to keep her profile low. The pines she had made a path to were a dozen yards away and almost directly below. He would step around them, careful to keep his gun between himself and the trees, and when he found she wasn’t there he would want to head up to the next obvious hidey-hole, the firs near the crest of the hill. On his left, he would see birch growing too thickly together to make an easy route up the hill. So he would go to the left of the firs. She hoped. With no time to create an obstacle to channel him toward her ambush, it would have to be nature or nothing.

  She reversed direction, up over the top, backtracking a half-dozen steps. From this spot, she walked, crouching low, taking long steps, leaving as little trace of herself as possible. A little more than halfway between the two clusters of evergreens she spotted what she wanted. A birch sapling, almost branchless, a couple feet taller than her head and slim enough to wrap her hand around. She yanked open the bow beneath her chin and pulled the long drawstring out of the parka’s hood. Reaching as high as she could along the sapling, she drew its slender length down, holding hard against its springy recoil. She looped one end of the drawstring arou
nd a pair of miniature branches near the top of the sapling’s trunk and tied off tightly.

  Scarcely two yards away lay the brown remains of a toppled fir, spiky, tangled branches and dead needles rising less than a foot out of the snow. Low cover, enough to keep her out of sight—barely—if she dug down and stayed flat. Low cover her hunter might overlook while he kept his gun and flashlight trained on better hiding places. Only problem was, the drawstring wouldn’t reach that far.

  In the distance, a light winked. Clare’s stomach squeezed. Time. No time. She abandoned the sapling, string dangling, for the nearest shaggy hemlock. She grabbed a flexible, living branch from low near the ground, pulled it taut, and smashed her heel over the juncture where it grew from the trunk. The branch snapped free. Clare teetered for balance. She had scarcely felt the blow with her foot. That had to be a bad sign.

  The light flashed again and again in the darkness. She retrieved the loose end of the drawstring and tied it with the feathery tip of the branch in a double knot. She pulled down on her string and branch. It held. She pulled farther, bringing the sapling over in an arch, retreating toward the desiccated corpse of the fir. The branch and the drawstring held. The birch sapling trembled, and Clare twisted the whip-thin fir branch several times around her fist, straining to bring the sapling closer and closer to the ground. One-handed, she tossed the heavy river stone beneath the dead fir and knelt, quickly pawing away some of the snow. She settled down flat on her belly, wiggling herself as far into the painfully sharp needles as she could go.

  She pulled on the birch with two hands now, the effort shaking her shoulders, the tension in the branch cutting into her gloves. The sapling was almost buried in the snow now, a few feet of its trunk bowed up into view. It looked, she hoped, like a large fallen branch. Something a tired and angry man wouldn’t think twice about stepping over. Or at least stepping near. She couldn’t see the light anymore from her hiding place, but he was out there. Close by. On her trail.

  She counted her own heartbeats, willing them to slow, disciplining her breath to a deep, even relaxation. She held perfectly still except for an involuntary twitch or shiver, letting herself be covered by a gentle layer of falling snow. The muscles in her arms and shoulders ached from the effort of keeping the springy sapling arched taut. Her feet seemed detached from her legs, which stung and burned from the cold radiating out of the frozen ground. Even the heavy parka wasn’t enough to keep her warm, lying motionless in a bed of snow.

  Below her, she heard a noise. A slight snagging sound, the liquid slide of nylon dragged over something sharp. She gripped the branch more tightly. Tilting her head a fraction of an inch, she saw the faint glow of the flashlight beam playing over the tops of the fir trees, as if someone were crouched low at the base of the hill, training his light up underneath the first cluster of trees. The light shifted, disappeared.

  Clare swallowed. Her heart felt as if it were trying to force sludge through her veins. The light reappeared, clearer now, sweeping across the hillside. It hit the birch trees, canted to the left, and then swung straight across toward her hiding place. She shut her eyes and held her breath. When she dared crack open an eyelid, the light had moved on. The flashlight was rocking, coming closer, the round brightness of it shockingly brilliant in the nighttime darkness. There was no sound of footsteps, no telltale crunch or snap or rustle. The thick, dry snow swallowed everything. He was nearing the kill zone. Cutting a zigzag path up the hill, pausing every few steps, shining his flashlight into the brush and evergreens.

  Clare’s jaw clenched, excitement and adrenaline warring with fear until her muscles shook. She could make him out behind the light, now, the padded outline of a man, larger than she had thought on the camp road, face concealed behind an enveloping ski mask. He held the flashlight high, over his head, where the reflected light would least impair his own vision. His other arm pointed down, away from his side. Keeping the gun muzzle away from his body. He was cocked and locked then, ready to roll as soon as he caught sight of her.

  A few more steps would bring him into range. His caution was the wariness of a hunter afraid of scaring off the game. Underestimating her. She was the hunter here. He had become the game the moment he stepped onto her hill. Everything except her awareness of him faded away, and she watched intently as he moved closer and closer toward the kill. Just a few more steps.

  The flashlight beam played over the trees at the top of the hill. He took a step. He took another. Clare squeezed her hands around the branch. Waiting for him to give himself up to her. He shifted the flashlight away from the crest of the hill and scanned the first group of trees again. He paused, searching slowly and carefully with the light. Clare’s lungs burned, reminding her to breathe. One. More. Step. One more. Step. One more step. His face still turned downhill, he walked into her trap.

  CHAPTER 24

  Clare let go the draw. She heard, rather than saw, the swish of the sapling, the snap of the draw whipping the air, the shower of displaced snow. She seized the river rock and was on her feet before the full force of the young tree caught her assailant across the shoulders and back. The gun went off with a deafening hammerclap. His yell of pain cut off abruptly as he crashed belly-first into the snow. She launched herself into the air, smashed full-length onto his back, levered herself to a straddle and raised the rock over the back of his wool-covered skull. He bucked hard as she clubbed downward. Her killing blow fell off-center with a sound like rotten wood breaking open. He gurgled and sagged limply beneath her thighs.

  She scrambled backwards, off his body, the rock banging and bruising her fingers as she staggered into a standing position. Crouching, she raised the rock again for the strike that would split his skull open. If you kill him while he’s unconscious, you’ll be a murderer. The thought seemed to come from outside herself. The rock trembled between her hands. If you aren’t gonna do him, at least make sure he’s not playin’ with you, the old warrant officer drawled in her ear. She drew back one ice-stiffened boot and kicked the sprawling form as hard as she could between his legs. No reaction. He was for sure either dead or unconscious.

  She dropped to her knees and shoved both hands underneath him, flipping him with a grunt. She tugged her gloves off with her teeth and unsnapped the big pockets on his thighs, digging frantically for keys to a car, a truck, a snowmobile. At his waist the pockets had zippers with freezing cold tangs that bit into her fingers as she yanked and wiggled and pried them open. Nothing. The zippers on his arms were the same way, sticking tight, either frozen shut or jammed. She gave up trying to open them, instead compressing and sliding the fabric between her fingertips, hoping for something small and metallic. One pocket held a pencil or pen inside that rolled under her thumb, the other was empty.

  Clare squatted back on unfeeling heels, her wet pants clinging to her thighs. Whatever he drove, the keys must still be in it. She pulled her gloves back on. She would have to make her way back to the junction of the camp and mountain roads. He had to have parked somewhere within walking distance of where he first assaulted her. He had to. She breathed deeply, striving for calm.

  She looked about for the gun. The flashlight was lighting up a snowbank halfway down the hill, but she didn’t see a weapon anywhere. She stood up and circled around her opponent, casting about for a hole in the snow that could hold a firearm. She bounded loosely down the hill, retrieved the flashlight, and played the light over the snow while she hiked back to the unconscious body. Nothing. She blew out a breath in frustration. She was zero for zero. No, that wasn’t true. She was awake, on her feet, and had the flashlight. That put her way on top, for the time being.

  She crouched at his head and tugged at the ski mask covering everything except his closed eyes. It was a long one, the dark wool disappearing into the zippered and snapped neck of his snowmobile suit. It stretched slightly, but stayed on. She tugged harder. It obscured his eyelids as it slid, then pulled up tight against her grasp. It was either caught in the zipper or f
astened inside somehow. Clare tugged again, harder, and his head tilted. He moaned.

  She leaped to her feet, raising the flashlight as if to club him senseless again. Except there was no way to ensure that hitting him on the head hard enough to put him out wouldn’t also kill him. She didn’t want to kill him. She didn’t have to kill him. He breathed out, a sigh. All she had to do was make sure she got to his vehicle before he did.

  She circled around him and crouched just below his feet. He wore leather and rubber hunting boots, the kind LL Bean made, tucked beneath the elastic opening of his snowmobile suit. Clare pushed the padded nylon up his calf. His boot was laced and knotted tightly to a good five inches above his ankle. She yanked her gloves off again, stuffed them into her pocket, and picked at the double-knotted bow on top. It fell apart under her fingers. She hurriedly unhooked the laces from the endless series of hooks on either side of the tongue, then undid another double-knotted bow. Cradling the heel and toe between her hands, she wrenched the boot off. She wrinkled her nose at the sour smell. He moaned. Louder than the first time.