From out of the clouds that covered the peak, a moving wall of white was sweeping down. He remembered the stories that he’d heard in Skagway of the great disaster at Chilkoot. Had it happened so quickly there, too? A day cold but dry, and then death coming from above, so sudden?
Hugh grabbed his arm and hurried him away. The dog raced ahead. Though they were in no danger so far below, still it was best to be off the slope.
They slipped and slid their way toward the lake. The whole of the time, the cannon sound rolled on. Hugh fell, landing on his bottom. Danny helped him to his feet. As he did, he chanced a look back. The mass of snow had reached the tree line. It would be stopped there, Danny thought.
But on this side of the lake the trees were sparse. The ground—the rocky ground that had given up its treasure to them—was not hospitable to growth.
“Sweet Jaysus,” Danny said, as the white wave crashed on. It uprooted trees, sweeping them along. Then it came to the edge of the rocky slope, dislodging boulders, sending them careening downward.
There were times when Danny thought that Mother Kelly still watched over her changeling child. This was one of them. It was only by the merest fraction that he and Hugh missed being buried beneath the mingled rock and snow. Knocked from their feet they were, and tumbled about. But the bulk of the terrible slide swept by them, down upon the camp below.
The cheechakos did not know how lucky they were. But Sam did. The rockslide had taken the tents and one of the sheds. It was the one where they kept the gold-hunting tools and the fresher stores of food.
A sled and four of the dogs who had been staked out, because they could not be trusted to roam free, had also been caught. Sam felt that loss the most. But the second shed, with the store of blankets and the food supplies that they had brought with them, had been spared.
And it was in this shed that they had kept the gold. So that, too, was spared. Though Sam would have gladly traded a pouch or two for more meat.
Sam would not have wished this thing to happen. And he took no joy in it. But it did put an end to the crazy plan of leaving the Irishman behind. It had surprised Sam greatly that the Scotsman had agreed to it. He knew that when the snows melted, they would have returned to find the young fool’s body frozen where it lay. He told the Scotsman this. But it had not seemed to concern him. Sam thought that strange.
Now it did not matter. There was no more of such talk. They must all leave, and leave at once. The fort was many miles distant. Much time had been wasted.
His fault, his responsibility. He had been distracted by his grief. And his burden of worry—had they waited too long?
This he had not told the Scotsman.
Sam stood in the dying light of day at the waters edge. He spoke a word to the spirit of the bear, asking it to guard the valley, until the time when he and the three white men might once more walk by the lake.
Tomorrow, before the dawn, they would be gone. And when the snows came, Sam knew, it would be as though they had never been there.
Chapter 8
We left the valley in the first week of December, Duncan thought to himself, composing his next Argonaut’s report as the two sleds raced through the snow-covered emptiness. He had the team led by Vixen. She was full of energy today, leaping through the fresh powder, pulling the other dogs along in her wake. They’d been running beside Sam and his sled, but now they had drawn ahead.
We were fortunate, he continued, to find that the passes were not yet blocked. We made excellent time through the mountains. We are now well on our way north and a bit west toward Fort McPherson.
He whistled and pulled on the traces. Ahead, the ground sloped slightly. At the bottom of the slope lay the frozen surface of a narrow river. The smooth ice was dusted with snow.
Duncan guided the sled to the place where the snow was disturbed by the tracks of several deerlike animals. Vixen barely slowed her pace as they skimmed across.
He was just calculating that they might well reach McPherson by December 25, when he heard a terrible chilling sound. Thunder, muted rolling thunder, mixed with a sharp snap/crack. It was ice breaking, he knew. Yet it sounded like wood in the fireplace, green wood popping and sparking as it burned.
He braked the sled, pulling the dogs to a stop. But they were still moving as Danny threw himself off to the side, and rolled clumsily to his feet. He gave a strangled cry as he rose.
“Hugh! Sweet Jaysus, Hugh!”
As he turned and began running through the snow, back toward the river they had just crossed, Duncan had a fleeting thought that he had never heard the young Immortal swear before.
Danny was flailing in the deeper snow, but Duncan kept to the path just broken by the sled’s passage. Without snowshoes, it was a heavy task, but he had no time to strap them on.
The white world was full of other sounds now: Danny behind him screaming Fitzcairn’s name over and over; the yelps of the dogs that had been pulling the second sled, as they struggled vainly to break free of their traces; Sam’s guttural voice, crying for help in a mixture of Siwash and English.
He did not hear the familiar tones of the man he had known for three centuries, the still-detectable British accent that grew more clipped in times of excitement.
As Duncan got closer, he slowed. If you examined the seemingly solid expanse of ice closely, you could just tell where the water ended and the land began. The sled had fallen through a good fifteen feet out, the ice beneath breaking up like spun glass. The flailing of dogs and men had widened the hole, and the rushing torrent of water beneath could now be seen clearly. And heard.
Cracks extended out in all directions. Even as Duncan watched, another ragged chunk of ice broke off and was swept away, sucked under the surface and borne downstream.
The ice held for the deer, he thought. It held for me. It’s December. The rivers should be frozen solid.
But this river most certainly was not. And by a stroke of ill fate, the ice had not held for the second sled.
He saw one dog disappear. He saw Sam clinging to the sled. He did not see Fitz.
Danny caught up to him then. He didn’t stop, but stumbled on toward the frozen river.
“Danny.” Duncan grabbed him by the arm. “No. Wait.”
The young Immortal struggled to pull free.
“Wait? Are you daft? Look there, MacLeod.” He gestured wildly toward the still-widening hole in the ice. “Where is Hugh?”
“You look.” With some difficulty, Duncan held him back. Fitz had told him truly—Danny was strong. “The ice is breaking up all over. We must go carefully or we’ll all be lost.”
Duncan kept his grip, until he could see the young man calming himself. Only then did he release his hold. Danny stood statue-still.
“Hugh does not swim well, you know,” he said in a hollow tone. “What shall we do then, MacLeod? How shall we reach them?”
Duncan looked around. There was no time to go back to the sled for the rope that was in the gear. And no place near to the river bank to anchor it, even if it were to hand.
But they had their belts. And the whip, which had been frozen to Duncan’s glove, had dropped just a few paces back. Danny fetched it. Then the two men unfastened layers of fur and thick wool to reach the wide strips of leather around their waists.
As quickly as his fingers, made clumsy by the heavy gloves he dare not remove, would work, Duncan joined the two belts together.
Sam’s cries were becoming more feeble, and the yelping of the dogs was abruptly cut off. “Another poor beast has just gone under,” Danny said flatly.
Duncan knelt in front of Danny, and attached one end of the joined belts to his ankle. “Danny. Listen to me. You’re lighter than I am so you must go out first. Take the whip and lie down flat. Spread out as much as you can.” He measured the distance to the hole with his eyes. “Here.” He handed the whip to Danny. “I’ll hold on to the belts. You get as close as you can—if Sam can get a grip on the whip, I can pull you back and him
out.”
The young Immortal took a deep breath and turned toward the river. Two of the dogs that had been harnessed to the lost sled had somehow gotten free of their traces and pulled themselves out onto the ice. They’d crawled a few feet away, where they lay, whimpering and twitching. Duncan did not want to give a thought to how cold the water must be.
Danny knelt then, and slowly, so slowly, inched his way toward the Indian. Duncan stretched out behind him.
They did not speak of Fitzcairn.
Often before, in situations of great danger, Duncan had noted how time ran differently. He had fought in battles that were over in an eyeblink or went on for hours, though by the clock both had lasted the same number of seconds. He had faced other Immortals, had crossed swords for what had to be many minutes but felt like a few heartbeats.
The sled had gone through the ice perhaps five minutes ago. Now, as Danny crawled across the ice, lifetimes were passing.
“Softly, that’s it. A bit more.” Duncan murmured encouragement. A sharp cracking sound, and Danny went still. But no more ice broke, and he was able to get near enough to extend the whip to Sam.
The Indian grasped it. He was very weak, Duncan could tell. But he was also wiser than any of them in the ways of survival in this land. So he wound the whip around his wrist and held on with both hands.
Duncan pulled back, slowly, steadily, hand over hand, backing up himself, until he had solid ground beneath him. There he rose to his knees. He closed his mind to everything else—the churn of the water, the cries of the dying dogs, Sam’s grunts of pain as he was hauled across the ice. There was a thing to be done here, and he would do it.
And then they would talk of Fitzcairn.
There was one bad moment when another foot of ice gave way, and Sam and Danny both nearly went into the frigid water. But Duncan struggled to his feet and tugged sharply. He reached down and grabbed Danny, nearly lifting him and Sam, who still had a devil’s grip on the whip, into the air.
The three men lay then, in the brittle snow on the bank of the treacherous river. Danny was panting as though he had run a long, difficult race. Every muscle that Duncan could feel was a knot of tension. Yet they knew they could not rest.
“Scotsman,” Siwash Sam said. His voice was a harsh whisper. “You must build fire. Big fire. Warm me. Dry me. Or I freeze.” He coughed. “And leg—right leg. It is broken, I think. It is hard to tell.”
“Yes. All right then.” Duncan rose, stumbling upright. The sled was where they had left it, more or less. The dogs had simply dropped down in their traces. “Danny, bring the sled. We’ll head—that’s a stand of trees up ahead. There.” He pointed, as the young Immortal slowly got to his feet. Sam grunted. Duncan took it for assent.
Danny faced Duncan. His face was white and set, his blue eyes dangerous. “Are you not forgetting something, Highlander?”
Duncan glanced at Sam. The Indian’s eyes were closed, and he seemed only half-conscious. “Fitzcairn will survive this, Danny. You know that. But if we don’t tend to him immediately, Sam won’t.”
“Englishman dead.” Siwash Sam spoke without opening his eyes. “No chance he survive.” He coughed again. A bit of blood clotted his lips.
Danny glared at Duncan a moment and went to get the sled.
Fitz will survive, Duncan thought as he watched the sled itself finally vanish, swept into the river. But at what cost? For a moment, his vision blurred and dimmed. But it was too cold for his tears to fall.
Drowning. Why did it always have to be drowning? As the sled crashed through the ice, Fitz, who had been riding, was thrown off. Almost at once, he was trapped underneath.
He fought to get free, but the tangle of panicky dogs, Sam’s flailing legs, and the spilled contents of the sled confounded him. In a short time he gave up.
Icy water filled his lungs. His body was carried by the current beneath the ice, banging from rock to rock. Once, as he rolled on his back, he could see up through a clear patch. The sky was white, too, he thought, like everything else in this blasted land.
It was his last thought for a while.
When he choked back to life, he found that he was no longer in motion. He’d become wedged between two rocks, faceup, his head pointed downstream. He held his breath for as long as he could and tried to push upward to break through from beneath.
Bloody freezing, bloody water, chunks of ice hitting his face, bloody cold, bloody—
He drowned, again.
The next time he revived, it was dark. He sputtered, coughed, and began to feel the first faint stirrings of worry. What was the possibility that Duncan or Danny could find him in the dark? None.
It was going to be a long, cold night. Already, it felt as though every spark of warmth he had ever had in his life had been damped out and then whatever was left chilled to crystal. As he lay in the water, drifting back and forth between life and death, he tried to kindle some heat with memories of past loves.
There was Arianna, the “virgin” daughter of the duke of Verona. She’d taught him a thing or two as they rolled about on sweaty sheets, beneath a satin-covered, down-filled duvet. Until MacLeod had come to save her honor.
That memory made him laugh. Icy water burned inside his nose. Forget the Highlander, Hugh Fitzcairn, he chided himself. There are far lovelier thoughts to think.
Remember Ashley, brown-haired, brown-eyed Ashley. They’d dallied a hot summer away. She’d been a fiery-tempered wench, and brighter by far than any woman should be.
And pretty Nan, a blue-eyed blond, with a sunny smile that could light up the day and night. She’d giggled when he kissed her soft neck as she sat at his feet while he smoked his pipe.
Ah, the glow of that smoldering tobacco!
He thought of jolly Kath, who rolled with him in the new grass of a secret spring meadow, while the sun poured down on them like warm honey.
When London was burning in 1666, he’d been in bed with Mrs. Mitchell, the king’s current favorite. He’d risked his head for her since Charles was sometimes a jealous lover, but she had been worth it!
So it went through the long, long night. When dawn came, Fitz was revived once more by a sight he’d wager no man had ever seen from a position such as his.
From under the ice, he watched the sky shade from pale lavender to soft amethyst to petal pink as the distant sun climbed in the sky. This time he held his breath not just for the sake of the few minutes of life, but in awe.
His last thought as he drowned again, was that if worse came to worst, the ice would thaw in spring. Now wasn’t it good that he’d had so many fine memories to entertain him until then?
“How bad is it, then?” Danny asked as he handed Duncan the second of the slender tree branches. Duncan positioned it and tied the splint securely in three places with leather cut from extra traces.
Siwash Sam was conscious through it all but, even at the worst points, he barely groaned.
“It’s bad,” Duncan replied. He didn’t lower his voice. The Indian knew better than he, probably, the nature of his injury. “The big bone in his thigh shattered and came out through the skin. The wound—it’s an ugly one. And,” he hesitated, “I don’t know—the freezing water and the cold—how it will affect the healing.”
Danny shook his head. “Not the leg. I’ve seen far worse, after the fighting.” He regarded Sam with a curious detachment. “Most times the doctors were quick to take the limb.”
Sam stared at the young man. Duncan narrowed his eyes. “Well, this isn’t war, and I’m no battlefield surgeon. The wound was clean at least, and I used sulfa powder under the dressing. We’ll keep him warm and—”
“What I meant, MacLeod,” Danny interrupted, “is how bad is it for us, do you think?”
Duncan considered. They’d lost the sled, all the supplies and gear on it, and four of the five dogs. The fifth, Sam’s lead dog Rip, was one of the two that had gotten clear of the river. He was not in the best of shape. But they had wrapped him in a fu
r robe and moved him close to the fire, away from the second team. Through his own pain, Sam had directed them to do so. The injured dog, he explained, was at risk from the healthy. They were running on short rations—the dogs were hungry. They might well turn on the weakened one and tear him apart.
“I’ve no good answer, Danny.” Duncan replied. “We can’t stay here long. These trees aren’t much of a shelter. And the weather could change in a moment. Sam has said that all along.” Duncan rearranged the blankets covering the Indian. “A night, no more. Then we lash him to the sled and go on.” He paused, rose to his feet, and walked a short distance away. Danny followed. They both stood looking back at the frozen river.
“If the dog can pull, we’ll harness him. If not, we’ll have to leave him. We’ve got over half the gear and food left and we’ll be moving at a slower pace. You and I will be walking for the most part.” He stared around at the unbroken stretch of white that never seemed to meet the sky no matter how far distant you looked.
“And Hugh.” Danny said in a low tone. “We leave him like the poor dog?”
“Danny, we’ve been over this. Fitzcairn will be all right. He’ll come up through another hole in the ice, or be carried downstream to a larger river.” Duncan turned to face the young Immortal. “In fact, he might even reach a place of safety before us. There are cabins built by these rivers. And,” he added with a twisted smile, “his head is safe. The Game is not meant to be played in a land where a man’s breath freezes in his beard.”
“That had best be true,” Danny said, bleakly, “for his sword was on the sled.”
Duncan was silent. Fitz had carried that bright blade since before they had met. A cavalier’s sword, with a well-polished guard and a keen edge. It was not fancy, but it suited him and had served him well for centuries. Still, though a swordless Immortal could usually be judged an Immortal at great risk, Duncan thought that, at this moment, in this hostile place, it was not any of their kind that Fitzcairn need fear.
“Consider this,” Danny continued, “might Hugh not be just around the bend there”—he gestured downstream—“freezing to his death, waiting for his old friend to come to his aid?”
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