by V. J. Banis
They had been traveling better than four months, and with each passing day their progress grew slower. At first the snow that fell was light and often followed by rain that turned the snow hard and made it easy to ride over, but gradually the snow became dry and powdery and ceased to melt away between snowfalls. It lay a yard deep and more on the trail, and there were drifts higher than a man’s head.
Still the snow fell. They had been riding gradually upward into the mountains, following where the easiest trail took them so long as it was south and west. Now, faced with what was taking on the appearance of a blizzard, they worked their way downhill to the lower slopes of the mountains, but to little avail. They could no longer see more than a few feet in any direction. The snow became so deep that to move forward the horses had to rear on their hind legs and then leap forward to breast the snow, disappearing into the white powder up to their heads.
Tragedy was inevitable. It would have been difficult terrain in the best of weather; in the violent storm now raging about them, it was impossible. The pinto mare on which Claire was riding was having a hard time keeping up with the two bigger, stronger horses. It lost its footing, and Claire was thrown into the snow.
Summers was there in a moment, dragging her to her feet, but the horse had broken a leg. Claire’s tears froze to her cheeks as Summers shot the unfortunate beast.
“We’ll have to find some shelter!” he shouted over the howling wind.
“Better if we all walk,” Morton said.
They set out on foot, leading the two remaining horses. By this time the snow was neck deep on the men. Summers led the way with Morton bringing up the rear and Claire between them, following as best she could the opening made in the snow by Summers and the horse he was leading.
For the first time she understood why the two men had regarded the mountains as impassable. There was nothing but a nightmare patch of white through which she struggled, trying not to lose sight of the shadowy forms before her. Once she lost her footing and plunged for a second time into the powdery snow. So poor was the visibility that neither of the men saw her fall. She was saved by Morton’s tripping over her as he struggled blindly forward. How easily she might have been lost to the others; and once out of sight, impossible for them to find until the storm had ended, when it would have been too late.
Half-frozen, she trudged forward, more careful than ever now to keep Summers in sight. He was faring little better. Twice he had walked into obstacles, and once he took a fall in a snow-filled gully. He had hoped to find some sort of shelter, perhaps a cave in the hillsides, but now he faced the hard fact that they might pass within a few feet of a cave and not be able to see it.
He saw a dead pine that had broken off halfway up its considerable length. It lay at a sharp angle in the snow. He got the pine, which was filled with pitch, burning, and the three of them and the two remaining horses huddled gratefully about its warmth.
It was twilight, and despite her insistence to the contrary, Claire was clearly too exhausted to push on. They ate gathered about the fire. It was impossible to set up the tipis in the storm, but they could cover themselves with the skins, which would keep them dry, and by the time these had in turn been covered with an insulating blanket of snow, they were surprisingly warm.
Numb with fatigue, Claire slept while the two men, their animosity laid aside temporarily, sat and discussed their best hope for survival in the unexpectedly bitter storm.
Summers offered to walk and let the other two ride the remaining animals, but Morton, who had had some experience with bad winters, pointed out that the horses were now burdened with the supplies that had been strapped to the sides of Claire’s pony. They’d all have to walk.
Summers would like to have argued, at least insofar as Claire was concerned, but he knew that Morton was right. They had come to a point when it was no longer a question of comfort, but survival.
Summers had slept no more than an hour when he woke to a sense of danger. The snow had turned to sleet, with the result that the fire they had left burning had been all but extinguished. As Claire slept soundly at his side, Summers turned his head to and fro, his senses straining at the darkness about them. He had earlier heard a distant chorus of wolves. Had they picked up the human scent?
The snow muffled any sounds of approach. He peered into the darkness and saw something dart through the shadows beyond the glowing embers of the fire. Cautiously he slid from beneath the blanket and began to load his rifle. Nearby Morton said in a hoarse whisper, “It’s wolves, must be eight, nine of them out there.”
Summers got to his feet and went to the fire, gathering up two or three branches that had fallen aside and tossing them onto the fire. They hissed and crackled, and after a moment began to burn.
“Cover me,” he said to the other man as he walked beyond the fire toward the encircling darkness.
* * * * * * *
It was so good to feel warm, after the long trek through the falling snow. For a long time Claire fought against the threatening wakefulness, but an instinctive voice kept nagging at her, urging her back from the deep sleep into which she had fallen.
She turned and reached for the warmth of Summers’ body beside hers and was instantly awake. Summers was gone. Even in sleep she had known when he had come to lie beside her earlier. Without thinking she reached for the revolver beside her. Her fingers curling around it, she turned her head to the side and saw Morton, out of his bed, crouched on one knee with his rifle to his shoulder.
She moved just her eyes, following the direction of his rifle barrel; and saw Summers standing just beyond the barely burning fire.
Morton was going to kill him! Fear shot like an arrow through her heart. As slowly as she dared, she inched the revolver free of the blankets until it was aimed at Morton. She sighted along its barrel, then, squeezing the trigger ever so carefully, she fired.
* * * * * * *
The cold and exhaustion had dulled Summers’ senses. He stood for a long moment staring into the darkness, seeing nothing. He had just turned, meaning to return to the fire, when he caught a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye and whirled in time to see three low gray shapes dart from the shelter of the trees and race toward him. The wolves ran low to the ground, their fangs dripping, their eyes gleaming yellow in the reflected glow of the fire.
No time to aim. He lifted the rifle and fired point blank, hearing Morton’s gun explode behind him and, inexplicably, a revolver fire at almost exactly the same moment.
He hit one of them, the animal flip-flopping into the air to fall thrashing on the snow. Morton’s bullet must have caught a second one in the shoulder, because it fell snout first; but the third, snarling, leapt for his throat. Eighty pounds of flying muscle caught Summers in mid-chest, knocking him backward to the ground. As he fell he saw two more of the beasts dashing forward to join the fray.
Claire’s attention had been on Morton. Not until her bullet had felled him did she hear the ugly snarls and turn to see Summers set upon by wolves. She saw him go down and screamed, but it was impossible to shoot at this distance without risking hitting him.
She jumped up, running forward and cursing herself for a fool. She had killed Morton at the very time when they needed him most. She snatched up a piece of burning wood from the fire and ran to where Summers was slashing with his knife at the wolf atop him. His knife sliced open the wolf’s belly, steam rising as the blood spilled onto the icy snow, but the other two were upon him now.
Claire struck out at them with the burning torch, the smell of burning hair and scorched skin filling her nostrils. The beasts retreated from the dread flames. One of them crouched a yard or two away to spring at her, but she fired the revolver, catching it between the eyes.
There were others out there. She could hear them crashing through the snow.
“The rifle,” Summers gasped, holding one torn and bleeding wrist in his good hand. “Reload the rifle, quick.”
She had just g
otten the rifle loaded again when she heard another of those hideous snarls and looked to see a gray shape charging toward her. The wolf leapt as she fired. She felt claws tearing at her as the beast’s weight crushed her back into the snow. As she waited for the fangs to tear open her throat, she realized that the animal had been dead when it had hit her.
She struggled free of the lifeless weight, shuddering at the sight of the horrible fangs that by now might have been ripping open her throat or feasting on her flesh.
They had killed four of the wolves. The others had retreated, disappearing into the darkness from which they had come.
“They’re gone now,” Summers said, getting to his knees. “You all right?”
“Yes, I—I’ve killed Morton.”
His eyes widened with shock. “Why?”
“I thought he was going to kill you,” she said.
He started to rise, then sank to his knees again. “You’re going to have to help me,” he said. “I’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“My God,” she said, getting a good look at him for the first time since the attack. His left forearm had been mangled by the wolves’ fangs, and one shoulder had been laid open as well. His normally swarthy skin had taken on a pale, yellowish pallor.
With her help he was able to get to his feet and make it back to the fire, but the last few steps she was all but carrying him, staggering under his considerable weight. He sank to the ground, tried to say something, and passed out.
She knelt over him, staring in horror at his mutilated arm and shoulder and the feeble rising and falling of his chest.
God in Heaven, what have I done, she thought in rising panic. Morton was dead by her hand, and Summers seemed to be no more than a heartbeat or two away from death. Something snapped behind her and she screamed aloud in terror, but it was only the fire, burning low.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Summers stirred on the ground, reminding her that she could not afford to sit wringing her hands. She began melting snow to wash out the ugly wounds, tearing up one of her undergarments to make a bandage.
He regained consciousness while she was working over him, wincing with pain as she probed the torn flesh. “Whisky,” he muttered in a hoarse voice. “Morton carries some in his pack. Pour it on the wounds. But give me a shot of it first.”
She rummaged through Morton’s things and found the whisky, bringing it back to where Summers was sitting. At his direction she held the bottle to his lips and he drank deeply. Then he nodded for her to take care of the wounds. She saw his body go rigid as she poured the raw whisky on the open wounds, but his face, though pale, was composed.
When she had bandaged him as well as possible, she began looking about for more wood to add to the nearly dead fire, but Summers forestalled her.
“No good,” he said. “Too much blood, it’ll bring the wolves back, or worse. We’ll have to find some place to hole up.”
“But you can’t travel like that!” she cried.
“Have to. What about him?” He jerked his head in Morton’s direction.
“I think I killed him.”
“Let’s see.”
With her help he managed to make it across the campsite to the figure sprawled in the snow. He knelt over him, putting an ear to his chest and prying open an eyelid. Finally he tore open the other man’s shirt and examined a dark wound in his back.
“He’s alive, but just barely. The bullet went through his back muscles to lodge in his chest,” he said finally. “We’ll have to tie him on one of the horses.”
They had been too exhausted when they’d camped to unpack most of their gear so that breaking camp was relatively simple. Even so, it took an hour or more to get their bedding stowed on the horses, and that long again, pausing often to rest, before the two of them together were able to hoist Morton’s bulky body over the back of the larger horse.
In the gray light of dawn they set out again. The snow was still falling, but more gently now so that they could at least manage to see where they were going.
It soon became clear, however, that for all his determination, Summers was in no condition to travel on foot. When he stumbled and sank to his knees in the snow for the second time, Claire insisted that he mount the second horse.
“Can’t ride and leave you to walk,” he murmured, struggling for breath.
“Please,” she begged. “I don’t want to be left out in these woods with two corpses.”
He tried to laugh but he was too weak even for that. She was right, he knew, and though it galled him to do so, he let her help him onto the mare’s back. Claire took the animal’s reins and trudged forward in the snow, the horse bearing Morton’s unconscious form trailing after them.
It seemed an eternity later when Summers called her name and she looked back to see him pointing up a hillside. At first she saw nothing, but as the snow thinned for a moment she made out the opening of a cave.
Though the opening was small, the cavern itself proved to be roomy and surprisingly warm. A fissure in the ceiling let in a trickle of snow but served as well for the smoke from the fire that she built first thing.
Despite their newfound shelter, she was frightened for Summers’ sake. He looked ghastly, but despite her insistence, he would not rest until he had again examined Morton’s wound.
“That bullet’s lodged against one of his ribs,” he said, grim-faced. “It’s going to have to come out of there.”
“But how?”
“You’ll have to cut it out,” he said.
“Me?” She was horrified. “But I—I can’t, I’m not a surgeon. I’d kill him.”
“He’s just about dead anyway. Will be for sure if we don’t get that bullet out. And I can’t.” He held up his mutilated hand.
“But I wouldn’t even know what to do!” she cried.
“I’ll help you. Take my knife and lay it on the fire, get the blade good and hot.”
He spoke matter-of-factly, as if the decision had already been made. And no doubt, she thought, moving finally to do as he instructed, it had. Having brought about Morton’s condition, she could hardly fail to do everything in her power to attempt to save him.
“Get the whisky and the bandages,” Summers said, tearing off Morton’s shirt to bare his upper torso. “That knife ought to be purified by now.”
The leather-wrapped handle protected her hand, but she could see that the knife blade was nearly red hot. “Won’t it burn him badly?” she asked.
“Help to sterilize the wound. Bring it here,” he said. “Now it’s a pretty neat hole, bullet went straight in, lodged down here. All you got to do is cut straight down and pry it out with the tip.”
“That’s all?” she said dryly.
“Only be careful not to go too far, that’s his heart just the other side of that rib.”
She had been about to put the tip of the knife against the wound, but at this remark her hand jerked back and began to tremble.
“I—I can’t!” she cried, turning her face away from the sight of the dark hole in his chest.
“You got to.”
“Please, no....”
“Damnit, that’s what’s wrong with a woman, they always fall apart just when you need them the most,” he snapped, snatching the knife out of her hand. Grimacing with pain, he pulled himself up to a kneeling position over Morton.
It was obvious, though, that with one wounded shoulder and the other arm and hand swathed in bandages he would be lucky not to cut the man’s heart out entire. Claire watched him try to get a firm grip on the knife and knew that it would be impossible for him to do what had to be done.
“No, I’ll do it,” she said, holding out her hand for the knife.
He breathed a sigh of relief and managed a faint grin. “Just take it easy,” he said. “It’s the only metal in there, ought to be easy to find.”
Her own hands were trembling. She tried to will them to be steady, with only slight success. At first the flesh seemed to resist the blade, but it
was only because in her fear she was putting no pressure on the knife.
“You got to cut,” Summers said. “Just push it in, slow now.”
The flesh parted before the blade. For a horrible moment she thought she was going to be ill and had to look away.
“For Christ’s sake, watch what you’re doing.”
She forced her eyes back to the knife. She remembered something she’d heard once about students fainting in medical school at their first incision. She well believed it, for she felt as if she might faint any moment. The cave seemed to tilt and sway about her, and there was the taste of bile in her mouth.
“That’s it, straight down toward the bone.” Summers encouraged her.
She bit down hard on her lip, drawing blood, and, holding the knife in both hands, cut down into Morton’s chest. The unconscious man, perhaps reacting to the heat of the knife or its advance into his body, suddenly gave a loud gasp. She nearly dropped the knife. Summers put a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Steady. You’re doing great,” he said. “You ought to just about be there.”
The tip of the knife scraped something hard. She jerked it back, widening the wound she had laid open. “I—I hit something,” she said. Her face had gone a sickly yellow-white.
“Bone or steel?”
“Bone, I think.” She probed tentatively along one rib. “Yes, bone.” After a moment she glanced in wide-eyed fear at Summers. “I can’t find it,” she said, her voice revealing a rising panic.
“Goddamn! It’s got to be there, right along the rib.”
“It isn’t! Oh, Jesus....” Tears were forming in her eyes, threatening to blind her. She knew she could not go on; her hands had begun to shake like leaves.
Something shifted before the knife’s tip. She caught her breath, holding it even after her lungs began to ache, and felt tentatively along the bone. There, just below the rib—metal on metal....
“I’ve got it,” she whispered, beginning to cry without even knowing it. “I’ve found it.”
