When she came to, a fork in the trail, she hesitated for a moment. The right-hand path wound back to the lake, coming out just in front of the cascade where she had overheard Stan and Rafe arguing. The left-hand path skirted the worst of the rock jumble that caused the cascade.
Alana adjusted the backpack and turned onto the left fork of the trail. Once past the fork, the trail began the long climb to the top of Broken Mountain.
The first part of the climb consisted of long switchbacks looping through the forest. Before Alana had gone half a mile, she wished she had Sid to do the work for her. But taking the horse would have been too great a risk. Sid would have spent the first mile neighing to the horses hobbled in the meadow behind the main cabin. Short of a siren, nothing carried better in the high mountains than the neigh of a lonely horse.
Sunlight quivered among aspen leaves and fell silently through evergreen boughs. The air was crisp, fragrant with resin, motionless but for the occasional stirring of wind off the lake. The cascade’s distant mutter filtered through the forest, telling Alana that she was approaching one of the open, rocky sections of the trail. She would have to be careful not to be spotted by the fishermen below.
The forest dwindled, then vanished as the trail crawled over a steep talus slope. Broken stone of all sizes littered the ridge. The thunder of the cascade came clearly across the rocks. To the right of the trail the land fell away abruptly, ending in the sapphire depths of the lake.
Alana took one look, then did not look again. Fixing her eyes on the rugged ground just in front of her feet, she picked her way across the talus. For the first hundred yards her breath came shallowly, erratically. Then she regained control of her breathing. Slowly her fear of heights diminished, giving strength back to her legs.
Just before Alana dropped out of sight over a fold of Broken Mountain, she turned and looked down at the lake. Wisps of brilliant white cloud trailed iridescent shadows over the water, emphasizing the clarity and depth of both lake and air.
Alana’s heart beat faster and her palms felt clammy, but she forced herself to look at the north shore. There were three specks, dark against the gray granite of the shoreline.
Three fishermen.
No one had spotted Alana and run after her to bring her back. With luck, no one would even notice that she was gone until dinnertime. And then it would be too late to come after her.
No one rode or walked high mountain trails at night unless a life was at risk.
Besides, even when Bob discovered that Alana wasn’t at the lodge, he wouldn’t know where she was. The last place he would expect to find her was farther up Broken Mountain, all the way up to the first and highest lake, up to the lip of the cliff where water leaped into darkness, standing in the exact spot where Jack had died and she had lost her mind.
Surely there, if anywhere, I’ll remember, Alana told herself. Surely there, where conditions most exactly match the environment of my nightmare. . . .
There she would rise from the bleak, safe pool of amnesia into the transparent light of reality. There, if anywhere on earth.
If Alana didn’t remember right away, she would simply stay until she did, sleeping on a rock by the lake if she had to. She would do whatever she must to remember. Then she would accept whatever came.
In truth, now there was little at stake. That was why she finally had come to Broken Mountain.
She had nothing left to lose.
Alana climbed steadily through the morning. Though the second lake was less than two miles from the cabins, it took Alana three hours to make the climb. Part of the problem was the altitude. Another part was the roughness of the trail.
The hardest part was her own fear. Every step closer to the first lake was like a pebble added to her backpack, weighing her down.
By the time she scrambled up the saddle of land that concealed the second lake, Alana was sweating freely and felt almost dizzy. She stood and looked down on the tiny, marshy stretch of water. More pond than true lake, during the driest years the second lake existed only on maps. This year, though, the winter had been thick with snow and the summer ripe with storms. The water was a rich wealth of silver against the dense green of meadow and marsh plants.
The lake had been full the last time Alana was there. Clouds seething and wind bending the aspens, wind shaking the elegant spruce trees, storm winds moaning down the slopes.
It hadn’t rained, though. Not then. Just clouds and a few huge water drops hurled from the heights by the wind.
Thunder had been distant, erratic. The peak next to Broken Mountain had been mantled in blue-black mist and lightning. But not Broken Mountain. Not then. Thunder hadn’t come to Broken Mountain until the next night.
Seeing nothing but the past, Alana stared blindly at the ribbon of water nestled in a green hollow between folds of granite.
Remembering.
They had rested the horses there. She had gone to the edge of the small meadow and leaned against a tree, listening to the distant song of water over rock.
Jack had come up behind her, and she had wanted to put her hands over her ears, shutting him out. But she hadn’t been able to then.
She was remembering now, Jack and the argument and the mountain rising cold and hard . . .
“Jilly, don’t be stupid about this. We won’t be famous forever. A few more years, that’s all I ask.”
She wanted to scream with frustration. Jack simply wouldn’t accept that she couldn’t go on with the farce of Country’s Perfect Couple.
She had to be free.
“Jilly, you better listen.”
“I’m listening,” she said flatly. “I’m just not agreeing.”
“Then you don’t understand,” he said confidently. “As soon as you understand, you’ll agree.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. You’re not getting your way this time, Jack. You shouldn’t have demanded that I marry you in the first place. I shouldn’t have given in.”
Not looking at Jack, she ran her hand down the long black braids that fell between her breasts.
“It was a mistake,” she said finally. “A very bad mistake. It’s time we faced it.”
“You’re wrong. Think about it, Jilly. You’re wrong.”
“I’ve thought of nothing else for several years. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Then you’ll just have to change it.”
She had turned suddenly, catching the black look he gave her. Then Jack had shrugged and smiled charmingly.
“Aw, c’mon, Jilly. Let’s stop arguing and enjoy ourselves for a change. That’s why we’re here, remember?”
Yes, Alana was remembering.
Too late. Rafe was gone. She was remembering.
And she was afraid.
Alana shuddered and shifted the weight of her backpack, letting echoes and memories of the past gather around her as she climbed.
At first she remembered small things, a little bit at a time, minutes slowly building into whole memories. The closer she came, the higher she climbed on Broken Mountain, the thinner the veil of amnesia became—and the greater her mind’s rebellion at what she was demanding of herself.
Alana no longer told herself that her rapid heartbeat and dragging breaths came from altitude or exertion. She was struggling against fear, just as she had struggled against Jack’s stubborn refusal to face the reality of her decision to leave him.
Suddenly Alana realized that she had stopped walking. She was braced against a rock, shaking, her eyes fixed on the last, steep ascent to the highest lake.
Broken Mountain rose behind the lake, granite thrusting into the sky. It waited for her, the cliff and the talus where wind howled and water fell into blackness and exploded far below on unyielding stone.
It waited for her, and she was terrified.
“Pull up your socks and get going, Alana Jillian,” she said between gritted teeth. “Like Dad always said, you can’t keep the mountain waiting. Besides, what do you have to los
e that you haven’t already lost?”
Nothing.
Not one damned thing.
Alana fastened her eyes on the trail just in front of her feet and began walking. She didn’t look up, didn’t stop, didn’t think.
One by one, memories came, wisps of cloud gathering over the blank pool of amnesia, clouds and memories condensing into columns of white seething over the mountaintops, over her.
She stood at the edge of the tiny, hanging valley where the first lake lay beneath the sullen sky. Thunder rumbled distantly, forerunner of the storm to come.
But not yet. The clouds hadn’t met and wrapped around each other and the peaks. Only then would the storm begin, bringing darkness in the midst of day, black rain and white ice and thunder like mountains torn apart.
But not yet. She had a breathing space in the shelter of the stunted trees that grew in the lee of the mountain looming raggedly against the sky.
Broken Mountain.
At the base of the shattered gray peak lay the lake, mercury-colored water lapping at the very lip of the valley. Alana looked away from the white water leaping over the valley’s edge, water falling and bouncing from rock to boulder, water exploding like thunder.
Jack flying out, turning and falling, white water and screams.
Alana slipped out of her backpack and went like a sleepwalker to the end of the trail.
Was it here Jack fell? she asked herself.
She looked over the edge, suffered a wave of dizziness and forced herself to look again.
No, it hadn’t happened here.
Where, then? she asked herself impatiently.
The trail turned to the right, keeping to the trees. To the left was the end of the lake and the beginning of the waterfall, lake and rock and land falling away from the lip of the hanging valley.
Nausea turned in Alana, and a fear so great that it hammered her, to her knees.
The lake. The lake lapping at the edge of space, water churning, thunder bounding and rebounding, darkness and screams. She was screaming.
No, it was the wind that screamed. The wind had come up at dawn and she shivered until Jack came to her. . . .
“Change your mind yet, Jilly?”
She closed her eyes and said nothing, did nothing, helpless, tied to stone.
“That’s okay, babe. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Untie m-me.” Her voice came at a distance, a stranger’s voice, harsh as stone scraping over stone.
“You going to listen to me if I do?”
“Y-Yes.”
“You going to stop crying for that bastard Winter?”
Silence.
“I heard you, Jilly. Last night. Lots of nights. I’m going to break you of loving Winter, babe. I’m going to break you, period. When we get down off this mountain, you’ll come to heel and stay there.”
Alana listened, all tears gone.
She listened, and knew that Jack was crazy.
She listened, and knew that she would die on Broken Mountain unless she stopped crying and started using her head.
Her mind worked with eerie speed and clarity, time slowing down as she sorted through probabilities and possibilities, certainties and hopes.
And then came understanding, a single brilliant fact: She must get Jack to untie her. Then the second fact: Jack’s only weakness was his career; he needed her.
“If you l-leave me on this rock any longer, I’ll, be too s-sick to sing.”
Jack put his hand on Alana’s arm. It was cold enough to shock him. He frowned and fiddled with the zipper on his jacket.
“Are you going to listen to me?” he demanded.
“Y-Yes.”
Jack untied her, but Alana was too stiff, too weak to move. He hauled her off the rock and set her on her feet.
She fell and stayed down, helpless, tied by a kind of pain that made her dizzy and nauseated. Finally feeling began to come back to her strained joints and limbs. Then she cried out hoarsely, never having known such agony.
Jack half dragged, half carried Alana to the camp, jerking her along, her braids wound around his hand. He dropped her casually by the fire. She lay there without moving, her mind spinning with pain. Eventually the worst of it passed and she could think.
She concealed the fact of her returning strength, afraid that Jack would tie her up again. When he spoke to her, she tried pretending that she was too dazed to answer. He hit her with the back of his hand, knocking her away from the fire. She lay motionless, cold and aching and afraid.
“You listen to me, Jilly. I need you, but there are other ways, other women who can sing. I’ve been sleeping with one of them. You can sing circles around her, but she comes to heel a hell of a lot better than you do. Don’t be more trouble than you’re worth.”
Alana shuddered and said nothing.
It seemed hours before the moment came that she had been waiting for. Jack went to get more wood. She came up off the ground in a stumbling rush, running in the opposite direction, seeking the cover of the forest and the mountainside.
That was the beginning of a deadly game of hide-and-seek. Jack called to her, threats and endearments, both equally obscene to Alana’s ears as she dodged from tree to thicket to boulder, her heart as loud as thunder.
Storm clouds opened, drenching the land with icy water mixed with sleet. Weakened by cold, her mind fading in and out of touch with reality, Alana knew she was running out of time and possibilities.
Her only chance was to flee down the mountain. She had begun working toward that from the first moment, leading Jack around the lake until he was no longer, between her and escape.
Now only the margin of the lake itself lay between her and the trail down Broken Mountain, the lake where water lapped over boulders and then fell down, down, to the rocks below. There was no shelter there. No place to hide from Jack.
Lightning and thunder shattered the world into black and white shards. Ice sleeted down, freezing her.
And then a rock rattled behind her, Jack coming, reaching for her.
Water rushing down, cold, and darkness waiting, lined with rocks, ice and darkness closing around, clouds seething overhead, lightning lancing down, soundless thunder.
Fear.
It was too cold, no warmth anywhere, only fear hammering on her, leaving her weak.
She tried to run, but her feet weighed as much as the mountains and were as deeply rooted in the earth. Each step took an eternity. Try harder, move faster, or get caught.
She must run!
But she could not.
Something had caught her braids, jerking her backward with stunning force.
Jack loomed above her, anger twisting his face, her braids wrapped around his fist. Jack cursing her, grabbing her, hitting her, and the storm breaking, trees bending and snapping like glass beneath the wind.
Like her. She wasn’t strong enough. She would break and the pieces would be scattered over the cold rocks.
Jack slipped on the rocks where white pebbles of sleet gathered and turned beneath his boots. He let go of Alana’s braids, breaking his fall with his hands.
Running. Scrambling.
Breath like a knife in her side.
Throat on fire with screams and the storm chasing her, catching her, yanking her backward while rocks like fists hit her. She was broken and bleeding, screaming down the night, running.
Caught. Her braids caught again in Jack’s fist, ice sliding beneath her feet, wind tearing at her, Jack lifting her as she screamed, lifting her high and when he let go she would fall as the water fell, down and down over the lip of the valley, exploding whitely on rocks far below.
Clawing and fighting. But she was swept up, lifted high, helpless, nothing beneath her feet, earth falling away and her body twisting, weightless, she was falling, falling, black rushing up to meet her and when it did she would be torn from life like an aspen leaf from its stem, spinning away helplessly over the void.
She called to Rafe th
en.
Knowing that she was dead, she cried Rafe’s name and her undying love for him into the teeth of the waiting mountain.
And Rafe answered.
He came out of the storm and darkness like an avenging angel, his hands tearing her from Jack’s deadly grasp.
At the last instant Rafe spun aside from the drop-off, balanced on the brink of falling. With certain death in front of him and Alana at his feet, Rafe whirled and launched himself in a low tackle that carried Jack away from Alana, helpless at the edge of the cliff.
The two men grappled in the darkness, pale sleet rolling beneath their feet, their struggles bringing them closer to the brink with each second.
Rafe kicked away, freeing himself and coming to his feet in a poised, muscular rush. Jack staggered upright, his hair shining palely with each flash of lightning, his face dark with hatred. He leaped blindly for Rafe.
But Rafe wasn’t there. He slipped the attack with a supple, disciplined movement of his body, leaving nothing but night between Jack and the lip of the cliff.
Jack had an instant of surprise, a scream of fury and disbelief, and then he was falling, turning over slowly, screaming and falling into night.
Silence came, and then the sound of Alana’s tearing screams.
“It’s all right, wildflower. I’ve come to take you home.”
Alana shuddered, giving her mind and her body to the cold and blackness. . . .
Alana stirred and slowly surfaced from memories. She was surprised to find that it was day rather than evening, fair rather than stormy, and she was huddled on her knees rather than unconscious in Rafe’s arms.
She shook her head, hardly able to believe that she wasn’t still dreaming. Rafe’s words had sounded so real, so close.
She opened her eyes and saw that she had walked to the treacherous margin of rock and water and cliff. With a shudder, she turned away from the edge—and then she saw a man silhouetted against the sun.
She froze, fear squeezing her heart.
Rafe’s face tightened into a mask of pain when he saw Alana’s fear.
She had remembered and he had lost her.
“Stan was right,” Rafe said, pain roughening his voice. “You were running from me, too. You didn’t want to believe that the man you loved was a killer.”
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