Giving her time to digest that, he deliberately kept the left side of his face turned away. A quarter-inch-wide scar stretched from the corner of his left eye to the base of his jawbone. No facial hair grew along it, and the glaring pink tissue, the way the scar pulled down the edge of his eye, might flip her panic switch.
“You’re safe,” he said after a moment. He lifted her foot again.
She didn’t pull away this time, so he peeled off the boot and the wet sock. Holding her foot close to the tiny stove, he rubbed to stimulate circulation. He tried not to focus on the feel of smooth skin against his hands.
Tense and shivering, she let him minister to her. The baby rolled onto all fours and started to crawl off the sleeping bag. She made a clucking noise, pulled him close, and cuddled him.
Alex worked a thermal sock onto her foot. “What are you doing out here?”
“Our automobile got stuck.”
A faint trace of accent; not one he recognized. Mostly, it was her word choice and the precise way she articulated each syllable that made him guess English was not her mother tongue. Her features suggested some Native American or Asian ancestry.
A stalled car meant she’d been driving the shortcut to Silver Hill. It was the only road on this side of the Warrior River. “Mistake to leave your vehicle.” He pulled off her other boot and sock and began rubbing that foot. “The company helicopter won’t fly in this weather, so we’re stuck overnight.” He wrestled a dry sock onto her foot, then dug through his pack for the bottom half of spare thermal long johns. “You can’t sleep in those wet clothes.” He handed the garment to her and turned his back. “They’ll be way too big, but it’s just for sleeping. Your things should dry by morning.”
Though he heard nothing but the wind howling around their shelter and the youngster’s babbling, a stirring of the cold, heavy air told him she was moving. After a brief interval, he smelled damp wool and turned to find her kneeling on the sleeping bag, holding the pants out to him. She had rolled the legs of the thermal underwear up to her ankles.
He laid the pants aside, pulled his parka off her shoulders, and peeled away her coat, uttering assurances when she tensed. He unzipped the sleeping bag and held it open. “Go ahead.”
She hesitated another moment, staring at him. With a little nod, she slid between the folds and pulled the baby in beside her.
Alex zipped up the bag. It fit him like a body glove, but the woman and her child had room to spare. He draped her pants over his backpack, positioned it and her sodden boots and socks so the ultra-dry air would suck out the moisture overnight, and worked his way around the edges of their cramped shelter to adjust the stones that held the wind-stressed Mylar in place. Then he slipped back into his parka and relaxed next to the sleeping bag.
“How’d you get so far off the road?” he asked.
“I was trying—”
The baby apparently found the combination of snowsuit and sleeping bag too warm. He began fretting and twisting. The woman unzipped the bag partway and let him crawl out to sit on top. She pulled his pacifier from the diaper bag and slipped off brown suede gloves to warm it in her hands
Watching, Alex noted that she wore no wedding ring. He also noticed that her right thumb looked deformed. Its tip flared abnormally, and the first joint seemed fused.
The pacifier had a ludicrously large shield. When she stuck it in the baby’s mouth, it covered his chin and much of his cheeks. The bright green, perforated plastic reminded Alex of a hockey goalie’s mask.
“How’d you get so far off the road?” he asked again.
“I heard an automobile engine.” The woman kept her gaze on the baby. Her eyes seemed to drink him in, as if she couldn’t get enough of his image. “It did not sound far away.”
“Probably a snowplow on the highway. Wouldn’t be far if you were a bird, but it’s across the gorge. Anyone with you?”
“No.”
She’d hesitated; was she lying? Strange that she would leave her wallet and ID behind but remember to grab a diaper bag. Maybe mothers were wired that way. “You didn’t leave anyone in the car?”
“We were traveling alone. What are you doing up here all by yourself?”
“I’m a security guard.”
“Security amid this desolation? For whom?”
“Good question.”
The real answer was, no one. He’d gotten the assignment after clashing with his supervisor on the day he first reported to Colorado Land and Cattle with a letter of employment from the parent company. With Alex standing in front of his desk, Flanagan had studied a computer printout and sneered. “Nine years in the Army, most of it with Special Forces, and they kicked you out.” He dropped the printout onto his desk. “If the Army doesn’t want you, why should I?”
Never complain, never explain, Alex reminded himself. Poker-faced, he slouched in front of the supervisor’s desk. “That’s up to you.”
“If it was, you’d be on the street.” Flanagan looked as if he had just swallowed a dose of castor oil. “The head-shed put you on the payroll, so I’ll find you something to do.”
Something to do had become this patrol route that took Alex along the border of company-owned land, five days of solitary trekking on skis and snowshoes over terrain that was mostly too rugged for snowmobiles, and a day of rest before making the return trip. “Check for squatters,” Flanagan had retorted when Alex asked the purpose of the patrol.
But that was more information than his guest needed. “Nobody, usually,” he told her. “At the moment, some visiting bigwig.”
“Is this large wig a celebrity?”
“Not really.”
In Colorado, Maximillian Koenig’s celebrity was of the distinctly negative kind. His recent purchase of Colorado Land and Cattle Company, including the Silver Hill Ski Resort, had been on local television for months, resurfacing on every slow news day, and commentators were unhappy with the foreigner’s acquisition of a major local enterprise.
Compounding the unfavorable publicity, Koenig’s visit coincided with a flurry of speculation about his interest in newly discovered deposits of minerals called rare earth in his home country. Until the news hit, the only thing Alex had known about rare earth was that the minerals were expensive and had weirdly spelled, tongue-twisting names. He had since learned that they were essential ingredients in high-tech gadgetry from iPods to ICBMs and that China, with a lock on the supply outside of Peru, wielded the minerals as a weapon in international diplomacy. The discoveries in Peru promised to change that, but several of Koenig’s associates had partnered with a Chinese firm and made a tender offer on the land that held the deposits. Pundits claimed that the associates were proxies for Koenig. That made him, and his purchase of Colorado Land and Cattle Company, scandalous across the state.
If the woman had been in Colorado for a few days, she probably knew all this. And she wouldn’t be happy to learn that her temporary caretaker was on Koenig’s payroll. Alex didn’t know why he cared that she might think poorly of him because of his employer, but he did.
“The guy’s just a businessman,” he said. “Your kid eat solid food?”
“If it is soft.”
“Dried venison is anything but soft. You’ll have to chew it and pass it on. Not real appetizing, but it’s all I’ve got.” He pointed to the little camp stove. Its flame, reflecting off the Mylar curtain, pasted a blue halo on the gray-rock rear wall of their shelter. “Fire’s good for another hour. Half that if we want fuel for morning coffee.”
She would be wondering why he didn’t offer to contact someone and let them know she was okay. Just telling her he couldn’t get a signal wouldn’t work. He’d have to show her. He pulled the phone from his backpack and flipped open its cover. “You’d better call someone, so they don’t send out a search team.”
“There is nobody.” The suggestion of a frown crinkled the woman’s forehead. “Not until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I was su
pposed to drive to Silver Hill Ski Resort in the morning. I decided to come early but did not tell anyone.”
Alex grunted his disapproval and pushed the phone back into his pack. “Probably couldn’t get a signal among these rocks anyway. When the wind eases off, I’ll hike up on the ridge and make a call.”
“I am sorry to have caused trouble for you, but I thank you for this shelter. My name is Pia Ulmer.” She caressed the baby’s head. “My son is Frederico.”
“I’m Alex Bryson.” He shifted to a more comfortable position, still careful to keep the scarred side of his face turned away. “Your accent—where’re you from?”
“I am from Colombia.”
“Long way from home.” He waited for her to volunteer something more. She didn’t, so he nodded toward the baby, who sat on the sleeping bag, sucking his pacifier and playing with the rattle she had given him. “His dad gonna worry?”
“We are not together.”
Alex thought again about Flanagan’s warning but dismissed it. How could a young mother, unarmed and lost in a snowstorm with her child and with no means of communication, pose a threat? He pulled his spare shirt and thermal undershirt from his backpack, stuffed the shirt inside the undershirt, and rolled it tightly. “Pillow,” he said, and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” She settled down in the sleeping bag, cuddled the baby in beside her, and began to nurse him. The bag covered her, but the certain knowledge that she had bared a breast for the baby sent embarrassment flooding through Alex. He concentrated on dislodging snow that had caked between cleats on his boots. Then he pretended to look for something in his backpack, keeping himself occupied until he felt more awkward deliberately facing away than watching.
“How about you?” he asked. “Hungry?”
“A little.”
He pulled slender strips of dried venison from his backpack and passed one to her. “You break off bits and worry them around in your mouth ’til they get soft enough to chew.”
“Thank you.”
“What brings you to the U.S.?”
Another momentary hesitation. “I am with my employer.”
She was on a job assignment and dragged her kid along? It seemed strange, but a boss willing to fly her up from South America would probably spring for babysitting when she needed it.
She shifted the baby to her other breast and began working on a bite of the leather-like venison jerky. After a few minutes, she reached for the diaper bag and pulled out the jar of strained pears. “Do you have a spoon?”
“Yeah, let me see that.” Alex twisted the lid off the jar and handed it back along with his aluminum spoon. “You said you’re headed for Silver Hill. Meeting this employer there?”
She separated the baby from her breast, hefted him to a sitting position, and straightened her clothing under the cover of the sleeping bag. “I was trying to . . . yes, he will be there.” Propping herself up on an elbow, she began spooning strained pears into the baby’s mouth.
She and the kid’s daddy were not together, the weekend was coming up, and she was meeting her boss at a resort. Not Alex’s business, but it explained a lot. “The wind will ease off by morning. Our helicopter can drop you in the lodge’s parking lot.”
She wiped pear-streaked spittle off the baby’s chin and, with a deep sigh, settled back on the makeshift pillow to cuddle him. Within minutes, she fell asleep. The kid squirmed for another minute and also drifted off.
As added protection against the overnight chill, Alex pulled on his spare trousers and a second pair of thermal socks, cinched his parka’s hood so only his face was exposed, and slipped the thermal shells on over his gloves. Before extinguishing the little camp stove, he gave himself another minute to admire Pia’s face.
Slender, and at most a couple of inches over five feet tall, she was enticingly feminine. Not a classic beauty, but pretty, with prominent cheekbones, full lips, and a complexion that needed no cosmetics.
But it wasn’t just her appearance. Something about—she shifted in her sleep, and her thigh bumped his. Her proximity and her fragrance made his body tingle.
From Colombia, she’d said. While in Peru with Army Special Forces hunting guerillas near the Colombian border, Alex had learned that well over half of that country’s population was mixed Spanish and Native American. That accounted for Pia’s dark eyes and hair and her maple-sugar complexion, but not for her name.
He snuffed the stove’s flame and stretched out on the Mylar floor to wait for sleep. Instead of shutting down, however, his mind focused on the woman. His eyes grew heavy, but sleep took a long time coming. When it did, his dream put him on a barren, snow-covered hill swathed in daytime fog that reduced visibility to the length of a late-afternoon shadow. An injured animal’s plaintive whine came to him from somewhere in the fog. Without snowshoes or skis, he trudged knee-deep through snowdrifts, plowing his way toward it.
A canine form materialized: a she-wolf. Near starved, she stood with an injured front paw curled under. A pup reared on its hind legs under her belly, worrying a nipple that Alex sensed delivered no milk. The wolf tensed and snarled. She refused to give ground as Alex worked his way toward her. Her eyes, human-shaped and too big for her face, held him entranced. He fished the last of his venison jerky from his backpack, laid the dried meat in the snow, and backed away.
Snarling all the while, the wolf advanced without taking her eyes off him. She ate the jerky with a delicacy that surprised him. When it was gone, she stared at him as if waiting to see what would happen next.
He squatted in the snow and held out both hands. “That’s all I have, girl. We’ll both have to go without.”
Still dragging the pup, which refused to relinquish the nipple, the wolf eased closer. Alternately snarling and sniffing, she advanced until her nose brushed his face. She licked, and ecstasy weakened him so that he could barely maintain his footing in the snow.
He awakened and realized he had ejaculated. He dug fresh underwear from his backpack and changed hurriedly to minimize exposure to the cold.
* * *
The Mylar curtain that sheltered Alex and his overnight charges also filtered out much of the morning light. Accustomed to being roused by the sun, he slept late. When he awoke, Pia and her baby were still asleep.
Snow had drifted against the Mylar. He burrowed through and stood to stretch sleep-cramped muscles. The wind had stilled, but frigid air made the scar tissue on his cheek itch. Brilliant sunlight reflecting off an unbroken blanket of white hurt his eyes.
With a cloudless sky and calm air, he would have no trouble getting Pia and her kid airlifted out. A good thing; as much as he enjoyed their company, he didn’t need the distraction. Being booted from the Army had left him broke and homeless until the ex-commander of his old Special Forces company pulled strings to land him this job. Self-pitying and pissed off at the world, he’d gotten off to a bad start. He didn’t want to let Captain Faust down by getting himself canned.
Maximillian Koenig was visiting Silver Hill, surveying his domain. Alex wondered if Faust, who had left the Army and was now Variant Corporation’s director of security and intelligence, would be with him. Probably not. Though Koenig undoubtedly traveled with a personal security force, he wouldn’t drag along his corporate top cop.
Shrugging away the speculation, Alex crunched several feet through the snow and relieved himself against a rock. He crawled back into the shelter and found Pia diapering her baby. She once again wore her lightweight pants. The borrowed thermal underwear lay neatly folded on his sleeping bag. She asked him to watch the baby and wriggled through the snowy tunnel to the outside.
During his early teens, Alex had earned pocket money as a sitter for a neighbor’s kid, so he was comfortable with his temporary assignment. He knelt on the sleeping bag where the baby sat. “Get a load of this, Freddy.” He pulled back his sleeve to expose his wristwatch and tripped its chimes. The baby seemed fascinated, so Alex triggered the chimes over and over until Pia r
eturned, shivering and hugging her thin coat about her.
Alex slipped off his down-filled parka. “Your clothes are way too light.” He wrapped the parka around her.
“Thank you.” Another shiver wracked her. “I believe I shall never be warm again.” She sat on the sleeping bag and pulled the baby onto her lap. By tickling the kid’s chin, she coaxed a grin from him.
Alex lit the remnant of the portable stove’s fuel. “Have us some coffee in a few minutes.” He heated water in the big aluminum cup that clipped onto his canteen holder and served as a multipurpose cooking, drinking, and eating utensil. “Hate to see you guys leave,” he said as he worked. “You’re good company.”
Pia smiled. “I also regret that our acquaintance must be brief.”
He liked what the smile did to her face. Still careful to keep his damaged left profile turned away from her, and feeling stupid about the implied vanity, he passed her a strip of dried venison jerky.
The Descent From Truth Page 2
