Duncan inspected the immediate surroundings. He found a nearly empty woodpile, sheltered from the snow by a slanting roof, behind the cabin. Loading his arms, he carried the wood inside. Then he checked the two square holes cut in the front wall that served as windows. They were covered in heavy canvas, tied down by thick rope looped through iron rings driven into the wall.
He looked around. Everything, even the sled, had been brought inside. They could wait out the storm here, and be back on the trail by tomorrow.
The tension in his shoulders began to ease. He crossed the room to help Fitz and Danny stow the supplies out of reach of the dogs, on the high shelves by the table.
As he did, the first blast of wind-whipped snow rattled against the heavy canvas over the windows.
The snow stung his face, icy pins and needles, stitching a pattern of pain on his cheeks and forehead.
Around him, the cannon thundered, bright flashes of red, fire against the white, blood against the white.
Then a man came out of the whiteness. He felt him before he saw him, a black-robed figure, like Death itself, walking the battlefield.
But this man was not death, oh no—quite the opposite. He was life and hope. And he spoke to Duncan in a low voice, asking him questions, telling him things that would change his life forever.
Duncan reached out his hand to call Darius back—and the hand that held his was soft and delicate. The face before him was golden in the light of the low fire.
Outside the tent, the wind howled on. Gently he touched her face, then slowly unwrapped her from her layers of fur.
He was her student no longer, he was now just a man and she a woman. And the battle that they fought, naked body to naked body, was one that had no loser.
He kissed her then, and whispered good-bye May-ling, as the snow caught on her lashes, melting on her cheeks like icy tears. She opened her mouth, threw back her head and growled deep in her throat—
He opened his eyes, just as the guttural growls turned to furious barking.
In the darkest corner of the cabin, he could barely see two of the dogs, facing one another.
He rolled to his feet. Fitz had already found the lantern. He lit it and brightness filled the room.
The dogs were too intent on one another to notice. They had fallen silent. Heads lowered, they stood only feet apart, each waiting for the right moment to attack.
“Bloody damn brute!” Fitz muttered. “Vixen!” He spoke sharply to the brown-and-white bitch who stood by him, growling softly. “Stay!”
The dog obeyed him, Duncan was glad to see. It was going to be hard enough to keep Rip and Klute apart without having a third animal to deal with. Bigfoot—well, Bigfoot was cowering under the table, whimpering.
The three Immortals approached warily. Rip seemed to take notice of them but Klute did not. Seeing that his adversary was distracted, he sprang at the other dog, all teeth and fury. But a sharp blow from the butt of Danny’s rifle threw him to one side.
Fitz quickly grabbed Rip and dragged the dog across the cabin. Duncan and Danny turned their attention to Klute, who was back on his feet. He slunk into the corner and faced the two men, snarling defiantly.
“Should I not shoot the devil here and now, and be done with it?” Danny said as he raised the rifle to his shoulder.
“No.” Duncan grabbed the barrel. He looked toward the iron cot where Sam lay in a desperately deep sleep.
“He’s strong still, maybe even stronger than Rip. We’ll need him when the storm is over.”
For a long moment, Danny stood, rifle still aimed at the dog. Then he gave a small shrug. “What, then?” he asked.
Duncan considered. There was the whip. What had Sam said? If the dogs were hungry enough, they’d lose the fear of the whip and of the men.
If he tried the whip and it failed, there would be no answer other than Danny’s.
Instead of the whip then, he’d use the hunger.
“Fetch me a bit of the dried fish, and a length of rope,” he instructed Danny. “And my gloves,” he added, as the dog lowered his head, teeth bared.
Danny and Fitz kept back as Duncan crouched down. He extended the food with his left hand. Klute sniffed suspiciously, then came forward slowly. He was still growling, but the fur on his neck lay smooth.
As the dog reached out to take the fish, Duncan quickly slipped the rope over his head. Klute jerked back, then lunged at Duncan, biting viciously, tearing through the glove to the flesh beneath.
Fitz grabbed the rope, pulling the dog off Duncan. The animal raged on, but it was done. They tied him to one of the iron rings that held down the canvas over the windows. As a precaution, Rip, too, was tied, to the leg of the bed.
By the lanternlight, Duncan examined his hand. The bite wasn’t deep—the glove had taken the worst of it. There would be no sign of it by morning. He glanced at Sam. Best he had slept through it all. He would have noticed the hand healing, just as he had noticed how quickly Danny’s snow blindness passed. He hadn’t spoken of it, but Duncan knew.
“Do you need anything, laddie?” Fitzcairn asked.
“No,” Duncan replied, blowing out the lantern.
As he was drifting back to sleep, he heard Fitz’s voice in the darkness imploring all the saints and angels to stop the bloody howling of the bloody wind.
“How bloody long has it been?” Fitz asked.
“Three days,” MacLeod replied.
“So says the heathen,” Danny said. “How are we to know for a fact? We’ve not seen a thing but these four walls since this storm began.”
“We can’t know for certain,” MacLeod answered. “But Sam—”
“The Indian’s guess is as good as yours or mine,” Fitz interrupted. “But if we don’t get out of here in the very near future, we’re all going to die from the stench.” He took a deep breath, then blew it out.
“Or at least we may wish we were dead.”
Four men, four dogs, three or four days—and no open windows. The Highlander had tried—once only—to open a flap of the canvas and empty the chamber pot.
The result had not been pleasant. Years from now, he would no doubt remind MacLeod of it relentlessly. At the moment, the humor in the situation was elusive.
For adding to the problem was the foul smell rising from the Indian’s leg. MacLeod was deeply concerned about it, and rightly so.
Once or twice, Fitz helped him change the dressing on the wound. An infection had set in. It wasn’t gangrene. All of them, Danny included, had seen that horror.
But it was serious enough. Pus seeped from the edges of the tear in the skin where the broken bone had protruded. Even if the bone itself was knitting, the wound would not heal.
They still had some sulfa powder left in the medical kit, and MacLeod used it carefully. He applied hot compresses, which seemed to ease the swelling somewhat. And he brewed a tea from what looked to Fitz like bits of twigs and bark that helped the pain.
Yet the wound wept still, and the Indian grew feverish. His moans filled the cabin, louder sometimes than the incessant sound of the storm that still raged outside.
Fitz sighed, lighting his pipe from a firebrand. Small blessing, that. Within these four walls, he could at least have his tobacco. And for a brief time, the aromatic smoke rising in the still air would mask the stronger scents of human and animal frailty.
Danny sat at the three-legged table, polishing his sword. Sure and there was no more need for him to keep his weapon out of sight, by his figuring. Hadn’t the Highlander drawn his fancy sword more than a time or two in front of the heathen?
The man was dying, anyway. It was plain to see.
More gold for the three of them, then.
Daaa—
A whisper, under the wind.
Daa-nee
He looked around sharply. Hugh sat smoking by the fire. MacLeod was slumped on the floor by the bed, dozing.
Daaa-neeeee
Louder now, more of a scream. But not a o
ne of the dogs even pricked up an ear.
Danny swallowed. His heart was racing, his hands shaking.
Danny-boy.
A voice, a clear voice. He turned his head, and caught a glimpse of white, fading like the sun sparking on the snow.
We’re here, Danny-boy
“No! Bloody hell, no!” Fitz’s face was flushed with anger. He stood toe-to-toe with Duncan in the center of the room.
Duncan glanced over at Sam. The Indian watched him impassively.
“The food was measured out when we left the valley, Fitz. For a certain number of days. We’re past that time already. The storm may be over, but we’re not going to be able to go on for a while. Have you looked outside? There’s four feet or more of fresh snow out there. And it’s still coming down.”
“And we’re to turn these poor beasties who have served us so well out into it, to die?” Fitz raged. “So that we can eat their few bits of fish for ourselves? No, I say! I went along with using that poor little bitch for dog food. But I’ll not agree to this.” He shook his head furiously. “We might as well just carve them up for stew and be done with it!”
Which was, in fact, exactly what Sam had first proposed to Duncan. The Indian was a practical man. If his dog had to die so that the men might live, he would bear it.
Duncan had once been forced to eat the horse that had been shot out from under him. Still, though he might have been tempted to throttle the dog Klute with his bare hands, he found the idea of actually eating him afterward unpleasant. And he knew that there was no possibility that Hugh Fitzcairn would agree to any such notion.
But he had recognized the truth of what Sam had said about the food. So he had proposed instead that the animals be set free to fend for themselves—a suggestion that was no more acceptable to Fitz.
How far could he push his friend? What price would he pay for a few bits of fish?
Then help came from an unexpected source.
“It not sure they die,” Sam said.
Fitz turned toward him. “This was your idea?” he asked sharply.
“No. I say we eat dogs. Scotsman not agree.”
Fitz looked back at Duncan, who shrugged helplessly.
“Rip, Vixen—I know long time. Klute, I watch. Like dog that run away in the valley—the wild calls to them.”
“And you will, of course, share with us exactly what that means?” Fitz said.
“Set them free. They go. They hunt. They maybe run with wolves.” He stopped, catching his breath. “They not die for sure.”
“And Bigfoot?” Duncan asked, curious.
The Indian did not reply.
Fitz looked around the cabin. Rip lay by the bed, alert as always. Bigfoot was sound asleep by the fire. Klute, still tied up, was on his feet, growling at nothing.
And Vixen sat by the table, her head cocked as though she were following the discussion.
“It’s fond of the brown dog you are, Hugh,” Danny said. “But would you be having us starve to death because of her?”
Reluctantly, Fitz gave in. But he would not be a part of it. So Duncan and Danny gathered the dogs together. The door was opened, then closed.
And in time the sound of the wind drowned out Bigfoot’s cries, as he whined to be let back in.
There were three then. The singer, the silent one, and the one who whispered. On and on, she whispered, ’til he could hardly hear MacLeod giving him orders or Hugh questioning him or the heathen dying in the bed.
He could still not see them clearly, but he had no doubt they were here in the cabin, with him all the while.
They’d followed him back from the woods, from the red-stained killing ground where he’d found what was left of the yellow dog.
The nasty gray brute had probably done him in, the heathen said.
Hugh had turned away at that.
Should have shot him when you had the chance, Danny-boy.
That was the brown-eyed one, whispering.
They’d come back with him because he’d finally, alone in the woods with no one to hear, spoken aloud to them.
If angels you are, he’d said, then help us. We can’t go on. We can’t stay back. We need to find food. We need the cold to break. We need the snow to stop.
Oh, we’ll be here, in sunshine, in shadow, the singer sang.
That was no good answer. But it was all they had to give him, save laughter that shimmered like crystal in the air.
The green-eyed silent one had led him from the forest, shyly peering back over a cloudlike wing, melting through the cabin wall.
He’d found her inside, hovering above the crooked table. They’d been there since, all three of them.
Blasted snowshoes! An abomination, that’s what they were. Webbed feet were the proper state of ducks or geese. Not Englishmen.
Fitz lay spread-eagled, flat on his back in five feet of snow.
The thought of resting there for a while gazing at the clear blue of the sky was mightily tempting. It had stopped snowing at long last. The weak sun was shining, and the air was crisp and still.
But his hat had come off when he fell, and quite a bit of snow had worked its way down his neck. It was wet. And cold.
He sighed.
Duty, in the form of the hand ax and the surrounding trees, called.
He rolled over awkwardly. The well-worn piece of fur lay on the snow, just out of reach.
As he flailed toward the hat, a brown-and-white shape darted out of the woods and snatched it up.
Fitz laughed. Vixen backed up, wagging her tail.
“Well now, beastie. Tag, I’m it, then?” He lunged at the dog, who narrowly avoided him.
Siwash Sam had been right—again. Fitz was glad of it.
Vixen seemed to be faring well on her own. She came around at least once a day, and he slipped her bits of food. But he had no sense that she was in dire need of it.
MacLeod had seen Rip once or twice. Klute had vanished, after apparently making a meal of poor Bigfoot.
Good riddance, there.
Blasted snowshoes! He struggled to his feet and dived once more at the dog. This time, she allowed herself to be caught.
Man and dog wrestled in the snow over the prize of the fur hat.
“To the victor,” Fitz shouted, as he pried the soggy fur from her jaws, “go the spoils!” She barked and butted him with her head, nosing at his pocket.
He thumped her soundly on her side, then took out a sliver of dried meat.
Vixen ate it delicately, gave a muffled woof, and bounded away. He stood watching her.
“Take care, beastie,” he murmured. The notion that the dog Klute might still be about weighed on his mind.
Then he turned back to the task at hand.
There now—off to the right. A tree, already downed. It was but a few minutes’ work to cut it into manageable lengths. Leaving the ax behind, he loaded his arms with wood, and started back to the cabin.
A few steps, and he stumbled. Something under the snow held his right leg fast. He pitched forward. The wood went flying, as he landed full on his face.
Had there ever been a time when he had thought snow pleasing to the eye? He remembered a sunset on Salisbury Plain, after a snowfall that left the great henge iced with white. It had been glorious.
So young. So foolish, he thought, as freezing water dripped from the end of his nose.
He attempted to pull himself to his knees—and felt the whole of his right boot, snowshoe and all, come off.
Fitz lay absolutely still for a moment. Then he sat up and tried to pry the boot free. To no avail.
“Bloody hell.”
He frowned. To shout or not to shout?
Oh well, he wasn’t that far from the cabin. It wouldn’t be an easy go with only one snowshoe, but he’d make the best of it. And he could always raise the alarm when he got closer.
After they’d peeled off the three layers of heavy wool socks, caked with ice, Duncan had gently held Fitzcairn’s right foot up s
o that Sam could see it.
The foot was black, from the toes to the ankle. It looked as if Fitzcairn had been walking in soot.
“Frostbite?” Duncan asked.
Sam nodded.
“It doesn’t hurt, you know,” Fitzcairn said. “It’s—numb.”
“It will,” Sam said. “Bad.”
Fitz made a face.
“I need to restore the circulation,” Duncan said. He touched the foot. It was like marble.
“No rub,” Sam said, sharply.
Duncan, who had been about to do just that, stopped.
“Toes break off,” Sam explained.
“Oh, well—what’s a toe here or there?” Fitz said, his voice high. “I can always grow new ones.”
“I don’t think so, Fitz,” Duncan said.
“It’s not possible then?” Danny handed Fitzcairn a cup of hot tea, laced with the very last of the brandy. “I’d thought maybe—”
“Danny,” Duncan said sharply. Danny frowned, but he held his tongue.
“What does Siwash Sam say I should do?” Duncan asked the Indian.
“Best heat is heat of body. Skin to skin.”
Duncan contemplated the foot. If Sam were not there, he would have been inclined to wait. Fitz was an Immortal. The frostbite would heal, eventually. He’d had no experience with the problem, so how long it would take was open to question. But like a wound or broken bone, it would heal and leave no trace.
However, Sam was awake. He had seen. So what had to be done had to be done.
“Fitzcairn, the next time you decide to take a barefoot stroll in the snow—don’t.”
“I wasn’t barefoot,” Fitzcairn replied, as Duncan loosened his shirt and drew the foot under his armpit. “Do you think me a complete fool?”
Duncan didn’t reply. And in a short while, as the feeling came back to the frozen foot, anything he might have had to say could not have been heard over the sound of Fitzcairn’s screams.
It was freezing in the room. That little minx Arianna had wrapped herself in the satin-and-goosedown coverlet, leaving him bare-naked. He rolled to his feet—
And Gina was there, running a warm hand over the cold flesh of his buttock.
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