by Powers, Jade
An uneasy sleep claimed Kendra, dreams of snow chasing her down a mountain. The wailing cry of an animal woke Kendra She thought a dog, then decided it was part of her dream.
Awake, Kendra listened to the night. The faint yelp of a dog echoed on the mountain, followed by a series of whines. Some poor creature was in trouble.
Kendra scrambled out of bed and grabbed her flashlight. She dressed quickly, concerned by the desperation in those whines. The sounds came from somewhere down the mountain, behind the cabin, thankfully in the opposite direction from the avalanche.
By the time she stepped out of her door, Scott was already pulling on his snow gear. Kendra grabbed her snow pants, tugging them on over her jeans.
“You don’t need to come out. Sound carries out here. The dog might be miles away.”
Kendra hustled into her coat, not willing to be left behind. Scott had almost finished with his hat and gloves. She said, “Did you grab the flashlight? I suppose we should leave a note in case rescuers find the cabin first.”
“I didn’t think of a note. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious,” Scott said. He pulled on his snow hat. The sound of the distressed dog faded for a few minutes, but followed with a low whine. Since Kendra was still pulling on her gear, Scott found a pen and pad of paper in the front room and left a quickly scribbled note. He was anxious to find that dog before it was too late.
Kendra was just tugging on snow shoes when Scott returned. He was still in his stocking feet, but stepped into his shoes readily enough. Kendra asked, “Ready to go?”
“Let’s hope it’s not a long journey, or we’ll be sleeping until noon,” Scott said.
Somehow it seemed intimate to mention sleep, and Scott hesitated, his words stumbling as he said the last bit. Kendra didn’t seem to notice. She had already turned on her flashlight and was holding the cabin door open.
The sky was clear but for a few clouds that skittered across the sky. The moon was at three quarters and gave the world a soft glow that felt romantic. While Kendra could appreciate that feeling, her greater concern was for the animal yelping and barking in the distance.
She and Scott set out across the snow. It was not at all easy on sore legs. Kendra hadn’t realized how far they’d traveled the day before or how weary she would feel.
“It’s not too late to head back,” Scott joked.
Kendra thought of the queen bed with some regret. As much as she might long to stretch her sore muscles out on a nice comfy bed, she couldn’t leave a creature to cry in pain.
“And miss the chance to walk across a mountain in the freezing cold? You must be kidding,” Kendra said deadpan. She took two steps to Scott’s one. The day’s events had taken a toll. The longer they traveled across the snow, the more Kendra longed to turn back. After practically demanding to be included, she didn’t feel right about slowing Scott down, so she doubled her pace and kept her mouth shut. One thing Kendra had always known was how to keep up.
They moved in silence for nearly a half hour before Scott spoke again, “The sounds are weaker. I hope we get there soon.”
Kendra had forgotten to listen for the dog. The first cries had been so desperate, so demanding, and then the following whines held her attention, but in her drive to keep up with Scott she had tuned them out, unable to think about anything but keeping up.
“How far do you think we are?” Kendra asked. Even a mile would sound too far. She didn’t dare think about the fact that they were traveling downhill. Getting back to the cabin once they found the dog would be a lesson in determination.
Scott didn’t answer at first. He listened and gauged with each step. Then he shrugged, “Could be a mile. Could be ten.”
Kendra gritted her teeth and soldiered on. It had been far too many years since basic, but she remembered tough. She remembered how to walk when you felt like sitting, how to push when you felt like stopping. Discipline was just a matter of decision. Once you decided that you were going to finish the three miles or fifty sit-ups or whatever, you did. It was the moment of decision that mattered. Kendra sometimes wished she didn’t hang around so many determined people.
Everyone seemed to have loftier goals and better will power than she did. Scott was a case in point. Plenty of men would have given up. They would have decided to turn back and convince themselves it was better to look in the morning. Kendra wouldn’t have turned back, not even if Scott suggested it, so it was just as well he didn’t. It was just that she was never stronger than anyone else. There was nobody to whom she could say, “Let’s press on.” because they were always pressing on with her to begin with.
The walk down the mountain seemed an interminable length of time, but it did end. The piteous whines came from what seemed a hole in the snow. As they approached, Kendra cautioned, “Be careful. If the dog fell in, you might, too.”
He rolled his eyes at her, something she would have seen in the daylight, but fortunately, the more subtle expressions were lost in moonlight. Scott felt lucky that Kendra couldn’t see his expression. He grunted, which in man-speak meant, “I got this covered.”
While Scott edged forward, Kendra stepped back. She didn’t like the way the snow had collapsed around the hole. It could be anything. Scott unstrapped and stepped out of his snow shoes, carefully setting them aside. He took another step forward. The snow under his feet gave out and he found himself skidding down. A pine bough broke his fall.
At least with snow pants he could take a little sledding on his butt, even though gone right into the hole. He held onto his flashlight. He flashed the light into a circle, the beams falling on the distressed body of a golden retriever. The dog whined and lifted his head to acknowledge the arrival of a potential savior.
From somewhere above, Kendra called down, “Scott, are you okay?”
“Fine. I found the dog. I just have to figure out how to get him loose,” The hole was structural to some degree with rotten and wet wooden sides that were not tall enough to be a real house. Maybe kids built a play house or hunters a blind. Whatever the reason for it, the snow had weakened the roof, and the golden retriever had fallen through the hole.
The terrain in that hole was not at all even. The bracken poked at Scott’s hands as he made his way to the dog. The dog’s foreleg was broken. Scott could see that in the beam as he carefully made his way forward. Scott wished he had some kind of sedative. An injury like that would drive wildness into a dog with the calmest temperament.
The dog whined again. From the surrounding prints, it looked like the dog tried to leap back out a few times, landing on his broken paw until he gave up. “Hey, boy. Rough day?”
Scott had never met a dog he didn’t like. He slid in next to the dog, and gently examined the dog’s body, removing his gloves and carefully running his hands over the retriever’s coat to see if there were more injuries. The dog’s fur was frosted frozen with snow. It was a shame the poor thing was a full sized female, because Scott had no idea how he was going to carry her back up the mountain, if he managed to get her out of the hole. Pulling his gloves back on, Scott was determined that he would do so.
The dog yelped when Scott lifted its body into his arms. It was a sign of the dog’s temperament that it didn’t snap its teeth on Scott. It rested its head against his shoulder and whined.
The air was cold and sharp in his lungs. He heard the sound of a snowmobile in the distance and thought of the rescuers who must be searching the avalanche for them. His focus was to get this dog back to the cabin.
Picking his way to the pile of debris that had built up, Scott carefully tested his weight until he found a step that would hold him. Bit by bit, he made his way to the side of the opening with the smallest climb.
“Kendra?” Scott asked. He needed help if he was going to get the dog out. The smattering of stars across the opening, and the beautiful cast of the snow in the light gave him hope. Somehow it seemed a crime for the dog to die on a night like tonight. Scott couldn’t keep calling him the dog eit
her. This fellow needed a name.
“I’m here.”
Kendra peered over the rim, having belly crawled to the edge, her face a bare foot from where he held the dog. “Can you help me pull her up? I can’t crawl out with her.”
Holding out her arms, Kendra said, “I think so. Where is she hurt?”
“Broken paw for sure. Lacerations on her side and belly,” Scott said. In the moonlight, his teeth and eyes seemed to glisten out of the dark, that warm smile so encouraging that Kendra felt her spirits lift, even in the face of certain failure.
“With a broken paw, the vet will put him to sleep,” Kendra held her arms out in rebellious hope against her own words.
“Not if I can help it,” Scott said, gently thrusting the dog up and into Kendra’s arms.
The dog was so cold it was criminal to think of him alone on that mountain. Both rescuers felt their hearts constrict when the dog scrabbled his paws in a struggle against moving cried out in such pain that both Scott and Kendra felt it pierce their hearts to the depths.
Kendra pulled the dog back, unable to keep her grip with the dog writhing and squirming and now biting her arm. Brave Kendra recognized the bite for what it was. The poor dog had tried to use that front paw against the snow in distress when it felt the insecurity of being transferred from Scott to Kendra.
To be fair, the dog stopped biting as soon as Kendra’s arms had regained purchase and pulled him up the snow bank. Her arm was bruised. Kendra sniffed, pushing back tears. Her arm hurt.
“Take the dog to the cabin and start a fire. I’ll work my way out and join you later,” Scott said.
“I pride myself on being a tough woman, but this dog is at least thirty pounds and injured. If I wait for you, we can take turns carrying her. Right my little Snowflake?” Kendra asked the dog.
“Ah, hell no.” Scott said and then when he heard Kendra’s sharp intake of breath backpedaled. He said, “I’m not complaining about you waiting. It’s the name Snowflake. Just give me a minute.” Scott had suggested Kendra go ahead because he didn’t want her to see his awkward attempts at getting out of that hole. After her earlier warning, he didn’t need her to see that he was trapped.
“She’s covered in frost. It was just a diminutive,” Kendra said. Her arms ached even in the short amount of time she’d carried the dog. It didn’t help that one of her arms was still numb from the dog bite. The air was crisp and cold. Her nose was running, and Kendra felt like a school kid when she had to wipe it on her arm without letting go of Snowflake.
“It’s an insult to an animal like that. She needs a strong name.” Scott wedged his boot against the highest point of the side of the hole, only to slide back. He said, “I think you’re going to have to take the dog back to the house without me...and maybe bring a rope once you’ve got her settled and warm in front of the fire.”
“You can’t get out.” Kendra said.
At least Kendra was matter-of-fact and not taunting him when she said it. The more Scott spent time with Kendra, the more he liked her, but he couldn’t abide being taunted and wouldn’t date a woman who couldn’t respect him.
And here he was stuck in a hole while a terribly injured dog waited for help, and here he was worried about whether he was going to ask Kendra out or not. Scott would have taunted himself for that if it would have done any good. Instead, he said, “No, Ma’am, at least not easily. You’d be to the cabin by the time I do manage it on my own.”
“Okay, be careful.”
Kendra readjusted Snowflake which only caused the dog to whine.
As if he heard her thoughts, Scott called out, “Storm. That’s her name.”
“Well, Stormy, here we go. It feels like a long way, but really it’s just up the mountainside,” Kendra said, taking her first steps away. She couldn’t carry a flashlight with the dog in her arms, so she had to rely on the moonlight and stars to direct her course.
She had not taken more than three steps when Scott called out from the darkness, “Storm, not Stormy.”
Kendra ignored his point and said, “I’ll be back.”
The whole cross country ski trip had been one problem after another. Kendra would think she was cursed, except she was alive, and that was a huge thing. Given the circumstances, maybe she was blessed. If they had left a few hours earlier, if they had rested along the trail...too many possibilities could have ended badly.
The dog was too close to her face, and dog fur was all Kendra could smell when she walked back up that mountain, following the trail they had made. She worried about Scott, but her legs were tired, and now she felt as if her arms were going to give out before she reached the cabin. She didn’t dare put the dog down and rest. The minute she did that, she wasn’t sure she would be able to continue on. She wasn’t sure that Stormy would allow Kendra to pick her up again. One step at a time.
Chapter 4
SCOTT WAITED UNTIL he could no longer hear Kendra’s snow shoes crunching on the snow. He was lucky Kendra had come with him or he’d be stuck in the hole with the dog. With a self-serving chuckle, Scott said, I’m still stuck in the hole. Only now without company.
He had to get himself out. The alternative was having Kendra say that she told him so. And she had given plenty of warning to be careful around that hole, which he passed off as overly cautious advice. He had been in plenty of dangerous situations. It was always the hot shots who died in flames. That wasn’t a pretty thought, and Scott might have felt guilty if he’d ever said it aloud. He’d been in situations before with the gung-ho hotshots, and they always took additional risks and many times those risks put them face to face with their own mortality. When playing the odds, eventually the gambler loses. One reason Drake taught his men not to gamble their lives.
And now Scott had to admit that he had taken a risk and it hadn’t turned out. Somehow in his head, he’d dragged that dog up the mountain to the cabin and started a fire and saved her life. And Kendra had praised his skills, his woodsmanship. God, he was stuck in a hole because of a woman. No. Strike that. He was stuck in a hole because of his own stupidity about a woman.
To stay in the hole would be admitting defeat. That was not Scott Belfore’s way. He surveyed the wall of ice at eye level. He had plenty of sticks. He could pile them up, dig foot holds, and climb out. Maybe catch up to Kendra. That would be ideal.
The hole was dark. Damn dark. He could rig his flashlight to shine on the wall of snow so that he could at least see what he was digging. That was his first accomplishment, to get the flashlight in a position to shed light on that wall of snow.
“Well, Storm, you’ve really put me in it. I hope you find your nice warm bed. As for me, I’m going to get out of his hole.” Scott didn’t always talk to himself, never when there were others present. And technically he was day-dreaming a conversation with an absent dog.
Storm would be a great fit for Dread. Scott tore more snow out of his foot-hold with a stick while he considered Dread’s reaction. Would his dog welcome a friend? Would they fight? Scott dug deeper into the side of the snow wall. He was going to bring Storm home.
“Get out of the damn hole before you rearrange your life, Scott.” He said aloud to nobody in particular as he grabbed a pine bough and dragged it from one corner of the hole to the other. He would build up the debris under the lowest part of the roof, create the foot holds, and then climb out.
Easy.
An hour later, Scott was hot under his coat, slick with sweat, and while he had a fine pile of branches, it didn’t seem nearly tall enough to match even the lowest side of the hole. But Kendra had gotten Storm out, so surely with a hand up, she would help Scott out, too.
Not that he would wait for rescue. But it helped to think that someone knew he was out here...just in case.
His self-talk was working against him right now. He was covered in sweat. Once that sweat went cold, Scott would have his own refrigerator. Sweat was the cooling function he didn’t need right now. The pile of branches was as h
igh as Scott could manage. He stepped carefully to the top with a thick, long stick and started chipping away at the snow that had formed an icy ledge above the edge of the roof.
As he finished the second hand hold, Scott realized that his flash light was dimming. He kept going. The flash light flickered out, plunging the world into darkness. Only the small patch of sky above the hole provided light, and that wasn’t much.
He had the handholds. Scott closed his eyes and lifted his foot into the first ledge, then the next. He set his hands. He pulled himself up, swinging one leg to the ice shelf on the right and using it as leverage to push up. Snow scattered down into the hole and for a second Scott thought he would fall with it, but he managed to inch his way further. It was with utter relief that he stood on firm ground.
Scott could barely walk to his snow shoes. He was that tired. The cabin seemed a continent away. It was such a vast distance, even if he had traversed ten times that much earlier in the day. Stumbling up the slope, Scott fell once. He couldn’t believe how tired he was.
He heard a helicopter on the mountain while he stepped up the slope. The search parties must be out in force. He hoped that no one else had crossed that slope. He and Kendra had enjoyed being away from everybody. For sure he hadn’t seen anyone skiing at the same time, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
KENDRA’S LAST STEPS to the cabin were almost stumbles. Storm was still alive but in bad shape. The dog stopped whining, even when Kendra accidentally jostled his broken paw. It was such a relief to arrive at the cabin. Kendra settled the dog on the rug in front of the fireplace. Hopefully Drake would understand why his beautiful pristine blue carpet sported dog hairs. Kendra knew Drake had never brought a pet inside. He also knew that he was a man of compassion.
It was a shame the cabin was rustic. Right now, that dog needed a tub of warm water. She restarted the fire first, knowing that the dog was cold beyond shivering. As soon as fire crackled with warmth, Kendra sought out bedding and towels. Drake had stocked the cabin with higher ticket items. Who needed Egyptian cotton in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? Drake, apparently, and Storm. Because that was where this fluffy towel was going.
