Chapter 8
This is how people died in Alaska. Not in some dramatic plunge off a cliff or from a bear attack, but in the simple, brutal mathematics of time versus temperature. The body could only fight the cold for so long before it started shutting down, system by system.
Harley pressed closer to Orlando, not far from the cliff, watching from her perch under a tree.
Her job was to hold on to the antsy dog.
Frankly, she just wanted his solid warmth against her aching ribs.
The wind had teeth now, found every gap in her coat, hat, scarf, and thermal pants. She fought a shiver.
She had questions about the man Sunni had been chasing. According to her, she’d gotten off the plane and seen someone on the ridge.
So that was comforting.
But it begged the question, What was Sunni doing out here in the first place?
They’d worry about that later. After everyone lived.
C’mon, JB. He and Sunni hung over the edge of the cliff, tethered by an ascender to a rope secured at the top and manned by Winter and Topher.
“I got you, keep coming!” Topher’s voice barely carried over the storm. He stood, braced at the anchor line, his usually casual demeanor replaced by a ferocious focus. The climbing rope ran through his belay device and held Jericho as the man climbed up the cliff.
Harley had glimpsed over the edge earlier. Twenty feet down, Jericho had been working his way up the snowy rock face, Sunni secured to his back in a rescue harness. Even from there, Harley had seen the strain in Jericho’s shoulders, the careful way he tested each hold before committing his weight.
“You got this, Jer.” Winter crouched at the cliff, leaning over, ready to grab him when he got close enough.
Snow drove sideways now, cutting visibility to barely an arm’s length. The spruce trees creaked and swayed, dropping loads of white with dull whoomphs. Orlando pressed closer, his coat already frosted over.
“Almost there.” Topher took in more rope. “Sunni, you doing okay?”
“Been better.” Pain tightened her voice. “Pretty sure my ankle isn’t supposed to bend this way.”
“Just hold on.” Jericho’s words came out clipped, concentrated. “Winter, can you reach us?”
“Not quite yet.”
And Harley simply couldn’t sit by and do nothing. Even if Jericho had asked her to keep track of his dog. She headed over to Winter and put her hands on the safety line. “I got it.”
Harley’s hands ached with cold as she held the line so Winter could lay down and grab Sunni. Jericho’s head appeared over the edge, snow coating his dark hair. Sunni’s arm wrapped his neck in a death grip.
No wonder he looked winded, his cheeks reddened from the cold.
And she saw it, right then. The rescuer in him. Strength. Courage. Determination. It reached in like a fist and grabbed hold of her, sent heat through her. Aw . . . danger, danger!
“You okay, Sunni?” Topher asked, as Jericho hung on to the edge.
“Barely.”
“We’ll get you to the cabin and get warm.” Jericho’s voice was so terribly reassuring, terribly calm, that even Harley felt the tension wheedle out of her.
And now he made her feel safe too.
Oh, she was clearly a mess.
Focus.
They worked together to pull the duo up onto solid ground. Sunni’s face was gray with pain and cold, but she managed a wan smile as Topher helped unfasten the harness. She looked at Jericho. “My hero.”
“All part of the service.” Jericho had crawled over to his pack, breathing hard, but he started digging into it, his hands trembling with fatigue. He fitted on a headlamp, the beam cutting through the gathering gloom. “Let’s get to shelter.”
The wind howled through the trees, drowning out whatever he said next. The storm roiled on the horizon, the ceiling falling, darkness settling fast. So, yeah, the cabin seemed their bivouac for the night.
Jericho pulled another headlamp from his pack and reached for Harley. His fingers shook a little from the cold as he settled the band in place.
“You know these woods better than anyone.” The beam illuminated his face in harsh shadows, but his eyes held warmth.
No, no—
“Lead the way.”
Right. Okay then. She hadn’t been here in years. But Orlando was already alert beside her, waiting. And Jericho was looking at her like he actually believed she’d lead them to safety. Not into trouble.
Huh.
“The cabin’s not far.” She clicked on the headlamp, its beam cutting a path through the white darkness. “Stay tight, this storm’s only getting worse.”
Jericho leaned down, and Topher helped Sunni climb onto Jericho’s back. “Toph, you go behind me. Winter, stay on Harley’s tail. Harley . . .”
She’d already started through the snow, Orlando beside her. The wind tried to steal her words, but she called back anyway. “Don’t lose me!”
The snow crunched under her boots, Orlando’s bell cutting through the deep moan of the storm in the distance. Darkness seeped through the forest, deepening.
Please, please let her remember the way . . .
The beam of her headlamp caught snowflakes like falling stars, each crystalline moment of brightness swallowed by the dark. The world narrowed to the small circle of light, the efforts of the team behind her, the rasp of her own breathing.
A quiet, almost lethal hush fell over the forest.
Her ribs had started to ache with her efforts. Oops. She groaned, braced herself against a tree a little longer than she should have.
“You okay?” Jericho’s voice, strained but close. She glanced over her shoulder. He’d come up behind her. Snow fell upon his eyelashes, his jacket. He looked like some crazed mountain man.
“I’m fine.”
“You were shot.”
“You’ve mentioned that. More than a few times.”
“Yesterday.”
She gave him a withering look. Winter’s eyes widened.
Harley held up a hand. “Just calm down. I’m fine. The cabin isn’t far.” She turned back to him. “You’re a walking worrywart.”
He raised an eyebrow, but she cut her light away from him.
“Should be just past this ridge.” Except, it seemed they’d walked a lot farther than a hundred yards . . .
Orlando had forged ahead, breaking trail, his bell tinkling in the darkness. The drifts turned to waves, the wind driving snow into swells that rose past their knees. Her feet turned to ice, her entire body a fist, frozen.
Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have fought quite so hard to come on this rescue—“Wait.” A darker shadow against the white. “There’s the cabin.”
Except she’d lost the sound of Orlando’s bell. “Orlando!” The storm grabbed her voice, swallowed it.
The cabin slowly took shape as they approached—massive logs stacked and chinked with mud and moss against the brutal winters, a steep metal roof already buried in white. Two windows glowed faintly with reflected snow, dark eyes watching their approach.
The ring of the bear bell rose, and she glanced in the direction of the woodshed.
There the dog was, snow covered, his entire body wagging, as if he might be proud of himself.
“Key’s in the woodshed,” she said, but wind grabbed her voice, tossed it. She raised it, fighting. “Behind the—”
“Got it.” Winter had already surged forward, returning with the key on a leather cord. “Found it on the old moose horn.”
Harley didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because suddenly she was remembering other nights here. Other storms. Weekends at the getaway, Gabe’s laugh as they’d run in from the cold.
Wow, she’d thought she’d buried those memories so deep they could never haunt her.
The key worked easily, and Winter pushed the door open.
The place seemed frozen in time. The old sofa still covered with her mother’s orange crocheted afghan, the picture of the cabin from the air hanging over the stone fireplace.
The scent of woodsmoke and cedar emanated from the room, smelling much more recent than it should since tourist season ended months ago.
“Generator’s in the back,” she told Topher, who turned on his phone light and headed through the house to the utility room. Jericho set Sunni on the sofa while Harley found the oil lamp on the table.
Her hands shook—probably from the cold, but the familiar ritual of lighting it steadied her. They were safe. Just fine, see?
The lights flickered on, humming to life. Topher came out of the utility room. “Full tank. We’ve got power for a while at least.”
She stood at the table, surveying the room.
The guide service kept it almost unchanged from the years her family used it.
The main room held a log-built sofa, homemade cushions, and a matching chair, worn but solid.
A potbelly stove squatted in one corner, and the small kitchen’s open shelving still held stores—coffee, cans of food, a few packaged dehydrated meals.
A narrow hallway led to two bedrooms, and a ladder climbed to the loft where she used to lie awake listening to the sounds of the forest or the laughter of her parents as they played Dutch Blitz.
She shouldn’t be here.
“I’ll get the fire started,” Topher said. “ And I can bring in wood before it’s completely buried.”
Jericho’s voice emerged from the small bathroom. “Harley, did your mom keep medical supplies—never mind.” He came out of the bathroom holding a first aid kit.
Something felt wrong. Off.
Maybe it was the way the wind screamed down the chimney and stirred ash—fresh ash, it seemed—from the hearth. Why wasn’t the flue closed? Or was it that the smell of coffee seemed more fragrant than it should? Or maybe . . .
“Harley.” Jericho’s voice was low, close to her ear, and she jumped.
“Stop!”
“Sorry.” He stepped away from her. “When was the last time anyone was up here?”
There he went, reading her mind. “You feel it too?” She turned to look at him, saw her own unease reflected in his eyes.
“The cabin isn’t musty,” he said quietly. “It’s not cold like it should be after months of disuse.”
She nodded. “Someone has been here. Recently. Maybe a hunting party?”
“It’s not hunting season.”
There was that.
The wind rattled the windows like something trying to get in. Outside, darkness pressed against the glass.