by Leona Karr
“I would like to help but—”
“Good,” he said before she could finish.
“I didn’t say I’d come.”
“But you will, won’t you? And you’d better leave right away. The roads are blowing over and you’ll want to get here before dark. Thanks a million.” He hung up before she could say a word.
Fuming, Jill stared at the phone. She’d never been treated in such a high-handed manner. Who did he think he was? And why did he get under her skin so readily? What was there about the man that threw her off balance.
She’d been asking herself that question every time she saw him riding his cream-colored dappled horse or swinging down from the saddle with masculine ease. For some paradoxical reason, she resented it when he ignored her while she was waiting for Randy, but she was equally furious when he noticed her in some casual way that left her confused. She wasn’t used to being completely dismissed by members of the opposite sex. Her usual challenge was keeping male admirers at arm’s length.
“What did he say to get your dander up?” Zeb asked, looking at the high color in her cheeks.
Randy frowned. “What did Hal want, Mom?”
She took a deep breath to settle her indignation. “There’s a couple stranded at the ranch. The young woman’s expecting a baby and needs somebody with her.” Then she repeated Haverly’s request—no, insistence—that she come and stay with the pregnant woman until the storm blew over.
“Are ya going?” Zeb asked.
“No, of course not. I’m needed here.”
Zeb raised a bushy eyebrow and didn’t answer. Randy opened his mouth to say something, then shut it as if he’d had second thoughts.
Jill squirmed under their scrutiny. “Well, why are you two looking at me like that?” she demanded curtly.
Neither of them answered.
“Zeb?” She made the older man look at her. “You don’t think I ought to go, do you?”
He shrugged. “Guess you ought to be making up your own mind.”
In spite of herself, Jill began to consider what would be involved. No dangerous rescue or anything like that. Even though she’d spent several rigorous weekends participating in new volunteer training, she wasn’t anywhere near ready to assume full responsibility as a rescue volunteer. Maybe assisting in a limited situation wasn’t all that much beyond her. At the very least, she’d have the satisfaction of doing something besides just telephone referrals. Her mind raced on, leveling objections like pins in a bowling alley. Both Zeb and Randy were capable of handling the phones. Plenty of times they’d both relieved her when she had to take care of other matters. Certainly keeping a frightened mother-to-be company—which was all it would probably entail given she was three weeks away from her due date—until the storm lifted wasn’t any great challenge. After all, being a mother herself, she could ease the young woman’s fears.
“Ya really want to go, don’t ya?” Zeb asked as if he’d read her thoughts.
“Well, maybe I should,” she hedged. Despite her resistance to Hal Haverly’s smooth manipulation, she wanted to help out if she could. She would have hated to be in the young woman’s shoes, expecting a baby, stranded at a ranch with a bunch of men. Jill remembered her own apprehension as her delivery date drew nearer. The young woman’s anxiety had to be even worse. Every kick of the baby was a possible alarm clock. The sense of total isolation. Yes, the mother-to-be needed someone to allay her fears as much as possible. Jill took a deep breath, “Yes, I think I ought to go.”
“I’ll go with you,” Randy volunteered eagerly.
“No,” she firmly told her son.
“Bummer,” he muttered under his breath.
“You can be more help here. Someone has to refer all the calls to the sheriff’s office. And if any of our volunteers come in, have them check with the sheriff or highway patrol for their next assignment.”
Randy visibly puffed up. “Sure, Mom, we’ll handle things. Don’t worry. Piece of cake. I’ve done it before.”
Zeb put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Looks like we’re going to have a tale of our own to tell about this here storm.”
Jill gave Zeb a grateful look. He was making an adventure out of what was sure to be tedious labor, and she knew Randy would be in good hands while she was gone.
“Don’t be worrying about us. We’ll be just fine. You’d better get a leg on ‘fore the storm gets any worse.”
“I’ll handle the phone,” Randy said with exaggerated importance. “I’ve done it plenty of times.”
“There’s food in the office fridge, and you can bed down in the back room until I get back,” she told them.
The exterior of Slade’s Adventures’ headquarters looked like a rustic mountain lodge, but the interior of the two-story, log-sided structure was as modern as the satellite dish affixed to the roof. Behind the offices, rooms set aside for rescue volunteers included a sleeping room with bunks, a small kitchen and a storage room. Each volunteer had his own locker for personal belongings, and all of the regular volunteers made sure they had the proper clothing and gear before they went out on a call.
Hurrying down the hall to the lockers, Jill quickly stuffed a backpack with extra clothing—a pair of flannel pajamas with a short matching robe, a cardigan sweater, a pair of faded jeans—plus a few personal items that she always kept ready for marathon stretches while handling the telephone. She decided she wouldn’t need any outdoor equipment, nor much of anything else, but she did add a small first-aid kit to her gear. She slipped a knitted sweater over her high-necked pullover and tucked her stretch pants into fur-lined boots. Randy had given her a pretty plaid woolen scarf for Christmas, and her new blue quilted down jacket had a hood that tied under her chin. After she’d zippered the jacket and slipped her hands into snug leather gloves, she felt like a bulky Eskimo.
Zeb came in the back room, nodded his approval and then said, “Mr. Slade just radioed in.”
Her boss had taken a small group of skiers up to a peak in the Never Summer Range at the first light of dawn. “He’s coming in then?”
“Cutting it close,” Zeb said. “With the storm settling in like this.”
“They’ll make it in okay, won’t they?”
“Slade can handle the rescue with the best of them.”
She nodded, knowing it was true. “Well, I guess I’m ready.” Nervous excitement added to the warmth radiating through her body as they returned to the office.
“You be careful, now. Take it slow,” Zeb lectured. “Don’t be spinning your wheels with too much gas. And if you have to brake, tap the pedal, don’t slam it down all at once.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’ll remember everything you’ve told me.” The old man had given her the same lecture about driving on icy, snow-covered mountain roads every time there was a snowflake in the air. Even on clear days, he viewed her driving with suspicion. She knew he’d never believe she’d left her city driving behind.
She hugged her son and gave him some last-minute instructions, which she was sure Randy only half heard, but he was a good kid and she knew what a help he’d been in the office before. “Love ya,” she said, much to his chagrin.
Looking at his precious face, she entertained second thoughts about leaving. She’d moved them to a small town, thinking it was safer than the big city they’d come from, but bad things happened in Rampart, too. She couldn’t believe the ordeal that another rescue volunteer, Grant Richardson, and his wife, Susan, had gone through with the recent kidnapping of their small son. Would Randy be safe with just an elderly man looking after him?
“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Randy said as she hesitated.
“Don’t you worry none. I’ll see to it this young fellow is fine as rain,” Zeb assured her.
She hugged Randy once more and started to repeat all the instructions but caught herself. She knew that they exchanged amused looks behind her back as she left the office.
Her car was parked in an attached garage
behind the building. When she’d bought the five-year-old Jeep, the eager seller had assured her that it performed well on icy roads, but she hadn’t yet put the four-wheeler to any real test. Driving back and forth to work was all the mileage she’d put on it. Putting on chains and driving over mountain passes and slipping and skidding on narrow roads was not her idea of recreation. She’d thoroughly enjoyed the Colorado summer and fall weather, but the verdict on winter was still out.
Jill’s gloved hands were rigid on the steering wheel as she drove out of Rampart on a snow-packed two-lane road that ran through a mountain valley, cupped on both sides by vaulting rock cliffs and thick drifts of evergreens.
She left the outskirts of the mountain town behind. Leaning tensely forward, she reduced her speed. The distance between Rampart and the Haverly Ranch had taken less than thirty minutes when she’d driven there before, but that had been early September. She’d enjoyed the drive and the fall colors of flaming red oak and golden aspen. Now there was no color anywhere, just a pristine white that sucked her car into a whirling cauldron of snow.
With every passing minute, the wind quickened, sending snow whipping across the road and obscuring her vision. Nothing in her experience in sunny California had prepared her for this alien world of assaulting wind and snow. Trees and rocks on both sides of the road were already masked by layers of thickening white, and she could barely make out the edges of the pavement as she fought against the mesmerizing effect of snow swirling into the feeble radius of her headlights.
Turn around. Go back. She might have heeded the inner voice if there’d been any opportunity to turn the Jeep around, but the road was narrowing with every mile. She couldn’t tell where the pavement ended and the dirt shoulder began.
Was hers the only car on the road? There was no sign of lights ahead or behind her. Maybe worsening conditions had already closed the roads from the nearby ski resorts, where most of the through traffic originated. She looked at her odometer, trying to judge how close she was to the dirt road that turned off to the Haverly Ranch, hoping she wouldn’t miss the cattle guard and the rock pillars on either side of the entrance and drive by the turnoff without seeing it. Nothing looked the same in the whiteout and her rapidly moving windshield wipers couldn’t keep the glass cleared for more than a few seconds.
No wonder she didn’t see the parked car in the road.
Like a black wall, it suddenly rose in front of her headlights without warning. Frantically she braked, but too late. The impact sent both of the vehicles sliding on the slick, snow-packed highway.
As her Jeep turned sideways, its back wheels went off the road, then lost traction with the pavement and sank at a pitched angle into a mounting snowdrift. For a terrifying moment, she sat stunned in the tipped vehicle. Then blessed relief swept over her. She wasn’t hurt, not even jarred.
Thank heavens she’d been driving slowly. As the windshield wipers fought the accumulating snow, she peered out at the car she’d hit From what she could tell it was a dark sedan that had spun sideways onto the shoulder of the road when she hit it. She half expected the driver to get out to see who had rammed into him, but no one appeared. Had the car been abandoned? Had someone left it in the middle of the road, or were they stranded inside the vehicle the way she was? She was positive the car’s taillights had not been on or she would have seen them before she hit.
All right, don’t panic.
Swallowing hard, she forced herself to analyze the situation. The Jeep’s engine was still running. Even though the back of the Jeep was lower than the front end, she reasoned that if she shifted into the lowest gear, and the back wheels had any traction at all, she might be able to drive up onto the road again. She wondered what kind of advice Zeb would give her in this situation.
Easy. Easy. Don’t gun it. Cautiously, she pressed on the accelerator. To her horror, instead of the vehicle moving forward, the opposite happened.
“Oh, no!” she gasped as the momentum of the spinning wheels jarred the Jeep and it slid even farther down into a snow-filled culvert.
She fought paralyzing panic. What should she do? The wheels had no traction at all. Now, almost half of the vehicle was buried in the snow. She remembered something about the danger of a blocked exhaust pipe sending lethal gas fumes into a car, so she quickly turned off the engine.
She sat there with her gloved hands stiffly clutching the steering wheel, not believing the horrible reality. She worried that if she didn’t get out of the Jeep right away, the blowing snow would soon pack the front doors too tightly for her to open them.
Should she stay in the car? Let herself be buried inside? At any minute the Jeep might slip farther down the embankment. She knew then she’d never be able to climb back up to the road.
Peering through a thin coating of snow collecting on the windshield, she could still see a vague outline of the dark sedan. At least it had stayed on the gravel shoulder and was close enough to offer safer shelter than her nearly buried vehicle. The terrifying vision of being trapped in the Jeep drove her to a quick decision.
She grabbed her backpack on the seat beside her. Making sure her hood was tight around her face, she shoved the car door open and braced herself against the onslaught of driving wind and snow. Her lined hood gave her face some protection. But still her eyelashes were instantly heavy with clinging snowflakes. Since the back end of the car was lower than the front, she had to fight her way up the snowy bank to the edge of the pavement.
As she trudged forward across the road, she brushed at her face, keeping her focus on the dark car. When she reached it, she saw that the windows of the late-model Buick were covered by snow, making it impossible to see inside. The car must have been stalled for some time, she reasoned as she stumbled around to the driver’s side and cleared the window of snow.
She peered inside.
The driver, a man, was sitting there, but he didn’t turn to look at her.
“Hello. Hello.” She pounded on the window. On some detached level, she noticed the young man’s bad complexion and sideburns.
Still no response. Was he deaf? Or was something else wrong with him? Had the impact of her Jeep hitting his car knocked him out? This possibility made her try the door. It was unlocked.
She jerked it open. “Are you hurt?”
No reaction.
She touched his husky shoulder. His body was stiff and rigid, as if he’d frozen to death. She knew then that he was dead. As her gaze fell from his face to his chest, she put her hand to her mouth and screamed. Blood stained his clothes from a gaping wound that looked like a bullet hole.
All rational thought left her. She panicked. Some sensible inner voice told her to get in the car with the dead man. She’d have shelter there…but she couldn’t do it. As if the horror before her eyes threatened to reach out and engulf her, she slammed the door shut.
The Jeep. Go back to the Jeep.
Stumbling in the deep snow and gulping painfully cold air into her lungs, she lurched away from the Buick. The road was fast disappearing in a moving wave of whiteness. Brushing away clinging snow from her face, she peered through the enveloping snowfall.
Where was the Jeep?
She’d lost all sense of direction. Stumbling forward, she couldn’t even see where she’d come across the road to the sedan. Now she didn’t know if she was going toward the buried Jeep or away from it. With rising panic, she realized that she was completely disoriented.
Then, above the whisper of sweeping snow, she heard a sound like a motor. Another car! Someone was coming. She began waving her arms even though she couldn’t see anything. After several long, anxious moments, she realized that her ears had been playing tricks on her. Only the hushed sound of sweeping snow filled the suspended silence. She’d been hallucinating.
Her clothes were layered with snow. Every step was labored. She couldn’t see where she was going. The thickening flakes swirled around her, blinding her in near zero visibility. She had no choice but to go back a
nd get in the dead man’s car. There was no room for squeamishness. Every decision she made now was a matter of survival.
She squinted through veils of snowflakes, dancing and swirling around her in a mad frenzy, and brushed at her face and snow-laden eyelashes.
But where was the dark sedan?
Slowly she turned around, searching, straining to see something, anything that would give her some bearings. Every inch of her body was growing heavier with the passing minutes as the light fluffy snow began to weigh her down and sap her energy.
Keep moving!
She stumbled in one direction and then another, walking like a blind man with her hands in front of her. She knew that the snowfall was so thick that she might walk smack into the sedan before seeing it.
When her gloved hands brushed against something solid, she gave a silent gasp of joy. Then her relief faded. The surface was not metal but rough. Rounded. Like a post. One of her gloves snagged on barbed wire.
She tried to move away from the fence, but after a few wavering steps, her path was blocked again, this time by a pile of waist-high boulders. As she tried to move around then, the ground suddenly dropped out from under her feet.
She cried out as she fell. Not a harsh fall. A gentle, sinking downward, into the betraying soft warmth of an enveloping snowbank.
Get up! Get up!
She tried, but her numbed limbs wouldn’t obey. They seemed detached as fatigue captured every muscle and sapped her will. Some remote part of her mind noted the absence of urgency. Her inner commanding voice grew silent. A strange contentment flowed into her body. She was about to give in to a lethargic warmth creeping through her, when she was rudely jerked out of the enveloping cocoon.
An anxious voice jarred her as firm hands dragged her from the snowbank. “My God, what happened?”
His hot breath bathed her face and as he brushed away the snow from her eyelashes, she recognized him under the brim of his western hat. His name moved thickly on her frozen lips. “Haverly.”
His anxious face bent over her. “Are you all right? Where’s your Jeep?”
