by Jake Logan
The madman’s last remark reminded him of Ginny Garfield and her room service meals. Concentrate, Slocum, he told himself.
“Delbert, the only thing over that ridge up there”—Slocum jerked his chin skyward without taking his eyes off Calkins—“is more mountains. You are about as far from California as you could hope to be. We are in the Canadian Rockies. Far north of the U.S. border, and even farther north of the Northern California border. You are in a world of snow and ice, kid. Give up this foolishness and come back down with me. We can both get a warm meal by a fire, maybe scare up some whiskey. Just look up, Delbert.”
Even though Calkins didn’t rise to the bait, Slocum was sure Calkins knew what was up there—and what it could do. All that snow up there perched like a big curl, like an outthrust lip of defiance, hanging hundreds of feet up on all three sides of the dead-end canyon pass.
“You’re lying, damn your hide!” Calkins’s voice reached a raw, full-throated bellow, spiraling upward into the gray sky, and was answered with a sound like far-off thunder.
Slocum winced involuntarily.
“That scare you, bounty hunter?”
Slocum forced a smile. “Not hardly, kid.” But it had, and he didn’t like where this entire conversation was going—nowhere and fast.
“Then how about this!” Delbert jerked the pistol free of his holster.
Still, Slocum did not pull the trigger, couldn’t risk it.
“What’s the matter with you, bounty hunter?” Calkins screamed it at him. “Bring me that coat! Bring it now!”
Slocum shook his head. “No sir. You want it, you come get it.” Maybe Slocum could lure Calkins over closer, then jam the rifle into his head, knock him out cold.
Just then the building thunder from high above became louder. “Delbert, don’t move,” Slocum whispered at him. “Just don’t say a thing. Let’s get out of here. We can argue later. Come on!”
“That ain’t nothing but thunder, you idiot,” said Calkins, smiling as though he were looking at a defenseless beef animal about to be slaughtered.
“Thunder?” whispered Slocum. “In the middle of winter? On a mountaintop? You damn fool, it’s an avalanche! We need to get out of here!” The entire time he spoke, he backed away from Calkins. “Now shut your mouth and follow me. Otherwise you’ll get us killed.” But the kid didn’t move. Slocum shook his head. “Don’t fire that gun, Delbert.”
Delbert thought for a moment, then smiled. “To hell with you.” He threw his head back, but kept his eyes on Slocum, “You hear me?” he roared. “To hell with you all! There is a way through, bounty hunter. I’ll get there, you wait and see!”
Then he cranked back on the hammer.
Slocum had no choice—even as he yelled, “Nooo,” he dropped to his left side and rolled, touching off the trigger and hoping like hell he hadn’t taken the bullet that sizzled out of Calkins’s gun just before his.
22
Sound like nothing Slocum had ever heard before blotted out everything. At the same time, it was more than sound. It was massive and raw and full and it pushed down on him. When he threw himself to his side, he landed on Delbert Calkins’s coat. Now he snatched it up even as he struggled to get back to his feet. He jammed the rifle barrel forward, leaned on it, straightening the snowshoes from underneath himself.
He knew he was shouting, but he heard only an incredible whooshing filling his ears. He looked for Delbert but couldn’t see a thing but spumes of white. Even the gray cliffs had vanished. His face felt hot and sounds like the hoofbeats of giant horses thundered closer.
Slocum lunged forward, heading down the trail, and for a few seconds he thought he might make it, just might outrun the wall of snow that sounded as big as the whole world.
And then something shoved him square in the back, as if a giant’s fist had punched him between the shoulder blades. He felt himself rise off solid ground and whip, end over end, through the air. Something hard slammed against his head but it hardly mattered. If this was the end, he knew there were worse ways to go. But there were better ones, too.
Smothering under so many feet of hard-packed snow wasn’t something he looked forward to. Still he kept rolling and tumbling, his knees hitting hardness—the ground?—before he was lifted up again and shoved farther along. One last time his legs slammed against something unyielding and then he was pushed forward, facedown. The world turned instantly from a pure white wall of infinite sounds to a pure black and silent thing.
How long he lay that way, Slocum had no way of knowing. But he heard a voice, a familiar voice, telling him to get up, to not forget his inner spirit, the fire that had kept him alive so many other times. It sounded like the chief. But that would be impossible—the man had died. Hadn’t he? Maybe he had only been sleeping, maybe he had faked death so that Slocum had to go on . . . to do what?
And then he remembered—Delbert Calkins. The man had gone crazy right before his eyes, had abandoned all logic and given himself over completely to the foolish notion that he was just a short climb to the sunshine and green meadows of California.
Slocum became aware of needing something, something . . . breath. He was running out of air, had to breathe. He tried but felt only hard pressure on his back, on his front. He was buried in snow. That damned Calkins had shouted and screamed and brought the very heavens down on them both. Slocum remembered running, then not running, but being pushed. It had been the snow, carrying him along. How far had it taken him? How deep was he buried?
Buried! The thought of dying this way knotted his gut deep inside and he fought to push himself upward with his arms, the arms that were jammed beneath him. And inch by inch it worked. He was able to move his hands, then his feet, then his knees, and soon his elbows worked back and forth and his head up and down.
He pushed at the snow with his chin, tried to empty his mouth of the stuff, but still he could not breathe. His body ached for air, his chest felt as though it were flattening, his head ready to collapse. In the last burst of energy and effort he knew he would ever have, he pushed with that damned inner fire and . . . light, bright and blinding, flooded his eyes.
He coughed, gagged, and spat what felt like an entire body full of snow from his mouth, blew it from his nose, and at the same time gulped greedily of the stuff he needed more than anything, felt that if he didn’t get it soon, he would exhale for the last time, black out, and never again wake up. His lungs ached and he didn’t care.
As long as he pulled in air and pushed it out again, he was alive. He did it again and again, his eyes flooding with tears, his nose and mouth gagging and spitting and breathing.
When he was once again able to focus his vision and breathe without thinking about it, Slocum looked about himself. He didn’t recognize much, but he thought he might be facing downslope, along the trail he’d walked up. He didn’t really care. The sun on his bare head felt good. His arms were still beneath him; only his head poked out of the snow. He heard his voice then, laughing, a hoarse, gasping sound, and it was one of the best sounds he’d ever heard.
Slowly, slowly he dug himself out, working his hands back and forth, back and forth until they swam to the surface. The snow was loose and granular, and moved easier than if it were melted and hardened into itself. His arms felt unbroken, but sore. He rested that way, his arms stretched out before him as if he were about to dive into a pond. He felt as though he might be standing upright, and had not been facedown as he’d thought before.
He moved his legs in a kicking motion. At least he thought they were moving. It was difficult to know. When he felt he’d gained sufficient wind, he stretched his arms out to the sides and pushed down with them.
It took long minutes, but he eventually felt himself rising upward, inch by inch. As he lifted, the loose snow filled in underneath his boots, giving him something to push against. Soon he was able to work his legs back and forth and help
his arms by pushing upward. And then he was free.
With a mighty last effort, he flopped out of the hole—he had been standing upright, though leaning forward slightly. He lay there for long minutes, gasping and moaning and wanting to whoop for joy that he was alive. But he didn’t have the damned strength to do much more than breathe. So he contented himself with that fine task. He also noticed that he didn’t have his snowshoes—the force of the avalanche must have ripped them right off his boots. He wasn’t about to dig for them. The thought made him smile.
He must have dozed off and begun dreaming, because the next thing he knew, he heard voices shouting. Over and over, he heard the voices shouting his name and other words, words he did not know. He raised his head and tried to look around, but everything was so bright he had a hard time seeing anything but sunlight bouncing off snow in every direction all at once.
“John! John Slocum!”
It was a woman’s voice and it was close. Dream or not, he figured it couldn’t hurt to answer. “Here . . . here I am!” He tried to shout, but it came out ragged and croaky.
“There you are!” and someone was there, beside him, lifting his head, blocking out the bright light. He looked up and into Sigrid’s smiling face.
“Sigrid . . . are you okay?”
“Of course, silly man. It is not I who survived an avalanche.”
“Help me up.”
She did, and he sat leaning against her. Other voices drew close, saying things in a foreign tongue—the Cree, he recognized them now. The chief. He was dead, he must tell them. But wait, he’d heard his voice, hadn’t he?
“The chief, Sigrid. He’s . . .”
“We know, John. We found him. It was what he wanted. Why he came with you in the first place.”
“What?”
“Yes, we all knew it. This place, it was something he talked of often. We thought that since you were so determined to come up here, he should be the one to guide you, even though we all knew we probably would not see him again. And it is so.”
Then three Cree warriors came closer, leaned down over him. One of them reached down and tugged on something sticking up from the snow—Slocum’s rifle. The three men were smiling and patting him hard on the shoulders and head.
“But . . . the chief. Aren’t they bothered that he’s dead?”
“No,” she smiled. “They are happy for him. It is honorable. It is as he wished it to be. And he has helped you, has he not?”
Slocum pushed away from her, sat up straight. “What? How did you know that?”
Her face grew serious. “Chief Mis-it Ha was a most interesting man. He was my father’s best friend, and a good friend to me as well. And a fine leader for his small band of Cree.”
She hadn’t really answered his question, but Slocum figured that was as it should be. Best not to think about it too much or pick at it, else it might come apart and mean less than it should.
“The man you sought . . . is he . . .”
Slocum nodded. “He tried to beat the mountain, but this was one game he couldn’t win.”
The mention of Delbert reminded him of the man’s coat. It must have held his valuables; perhaps he’d find some of the stolen goods in its pockets. Then just as quickly as the thought occurred to him, it vanished. He would surely have lost his grip on it in the avalanche. Still, he looked down into the slumped snow-filled hole he’d pulled himself out of and saw a ragged edge of cloth. Could it be?
He reached down, grasped it in his hand, and pulled. But it was stuck, jammed under too much snow. The three warriors all lent a hand and pulled the thing free in seconds. They held it up and it was indeed Delbert Calkins’s wool mackinaw.
Seeing it made Slocum almost wish he hadn’t tracked the man so relentlessly. Calkins might still have died, but at least not goaded on by him. Then again, maybe he would not have gotten so confused and headed so far north into the mountains.
Maybe he would have gone on to some other city and fleeced and murdered his way through a lifetime of Ginny Garfields. Maybe Slocum had done a good thing in pursuing him so hard. He would have to believe that; otherwise he would doubt himself about it for the rest of his days. And if he kept on living like he had the past few weeks, those days would be short ones, indeed.
He turned to Sigrid. “Let’s go home.”
She smiled at him and helped him to his feet with her one good arm. The five of them tramped down the snowed-in trail.
Before they rounded the last curve that blocked the view of the great gray walls from below, Slocum noticed that the dead-end pass had filled with enough snow that a man could probably climb right up it and over the top. And as he turned back to the trail, he couldn’t help laughing.
23
They lay sprawled before the fireplace, exhausted after running the dogs and exercising the horses. It had been another long day out of weeks of long days filled with hard work, but it had been a good day. And with the promise of a sauna later. Darkness had crept up on them, however, so Slocum and Sigrid satisfied themselves with a quick wash and now delicious stew smells filled the air in the cottage.
Each of them was half-clad. He’d long since grown accustomed to seeing Sigrid walk around the place without a shirt, or with a shirt unbuttoned. It was her custom, and since she felt no self-consciousness about it, why should he? Slocum didn’t think he needed to do anything more than enjoy seeing the sight of a beautiful woman who was so comfortable being herself she didn’t mind if he admired her. And if he guessed right, she seemed to like it, too.
As if in response to his thoughts, she half lay atop him, her breasts squashed against his chest. “John?”
“Yes,” he said, opening his eyes.
“I would like to make love right now.”
He raised his head and looked at her. It was rare enough thing to hear from a woman that he thought she might be toying with him. But her face, her liquid eyes, and her grasping hands all told him otherwise.
Soon they were gripping each other in a tight embrace, their lips found each other’s, and they stayed that way for long minutes. She reached down and he felt her long, strong fingers unbuttoning his denims. The whole time she probed his mouth with her tongue. He gave as good as he got, and reveled in the notion that this woman, no matter how much hard work she underwent that day, would always have time for this . . .
She raised herself up a bit off his chest and he sought her perfect breasts as they hung before his face, luscious, low-hanging fruit ready and ripe for the plucking. He reached for them with his mouth while his hands slid along her hips, slipping off the loosened skirt down beyond the curves of her fulsome backside.
She squirmed, helping him, and he pushed the skirt as far down as far as he could reach, then trailed a hand back up between her thighs, tickling her. He felt the heat from her push against him. He kissed and gently teased her pert nipples, then worked his way up between her breasts, trailing a line with his tongue tip up to her throat, her head thrown back as she ground herself against him.
Soon it became too much for either of them, and in mutual agreement she reached for his long, thick member and teased herself with it for just a moment. Then she raised herself up slightly, and slid down on it, all the way to the bottom.
Sigrid’s breath came out in a quiet stutter that ended in a gasp as Slocum teased her breasts, one with a finger and thumb, the other in his mouth. She smiled, but didn’t open her eyes. In the dim light from the fire in the grate behind them, her face took on a rainbow of earthy hues. It was as if the sun were setting all over her face, her long wild hair that hung about him, as if he were walking through a dense, hot jungle.
Soon she sped up her motion, at times raising only her hips, at other times working her entire body, each person matching the other’s movements with an equal counterrhythm that drove the other to greater heights of pleasure.
A tingle deep within each of them grew more demanding, crowding out all other sensations, tightening until they gripped each other. Their mutual bucking locked them together in a taut, unmoving embrace. They spasmed once, twice, three times, and slowly relaxed into each other.
With Sigrid there was no screaming, no howling as he’d known with other women. Just an intense, quiet whole-body tingle and tremor that seemed to linger nicely for long minutes after they had collapsed in a sweating, heavy-breathed tangle of arms, legs, hair, and lazy kisses. She lay to the side, so that they faced each other, but were still connected in the most intimate way, and each stared at the other, not speaking, but watching the light from the fireplace dance in each other’s eyes.
“Shhh, do you hear that?”
Slocum reflexively reached for his pistol, but Sigrid stopped him, and shook her head. “It’s no cause for alarm.”
“What is it then?” he said, easing back against the rug.
“It is the sound of spring.”
He listened and heard it, too, the quiet but steady drip-drip-drip of snow melting from the eaves. He smiled, looked at her, but her smile had faded. “What’s wrong?”
“That means you will leave soon.”
“Well . . .”
“No, John. It is the way it must be. You said so yourself once we got back from . . . that unfortunate occurrence in the mountains above the village.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry we’ve been socked in with those blizzards. I can’t think of a nicer place to be than here with you.”
“You are good to say that, but now you must return to the States. You must ease that girl’s mind about the man who murdered her brother.”
“Yes. And I have a pretty blue stone I have to give back to a certain old mountain man. I think he’ll be tickled to see it again.”
She smiled. “You are a good man, John Slocum.”
“No, Sigrid. You are the good one.”
24
Almost two weeks later to the day, greening grass showed in patches throughout the open space before the house. Beyond the trees they heard the mighty rush of the river as spring runoff from the high peaks raced south to the sea.